The woman gestured for Gelsey to follow her into the office. Even as Gelsey complied she felt like fleeing. There was something about the woman's presence that filled her with dread.
Dr. Bernstein took Dr. Z's chair. "Please sit down, Gelsey," she said.
"We would have called you, but there was no phone number for you in the files." Gelsey stared at the masks on the opposite wall. The faces were taut, frozen, filled with foreboding.
"Something happened to him?"
Dr. Bernstein peered at her, as if measuring her ability to withstand a piece of devastating news.
"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, Gelsey. Dr. Zimmerman had a heart attack over the weekend." The woman paused, then continued quietly. "Monday night he passed away."
No!
Even as Gelsey took in these terrible words, she choked on her denial.
NO!!
For a moment she wanted to grasp this strange woman's hands, tell her that what she'd said simply couldn't be true. But their chairs were too far apart, angled slightly from each other the way Dr. Zimmerman liked.
And then Gelsey felt a rush of panic as she grasped the enormity of her loss.
Dr. Z, who had tried so hard to help her, was now gone forever from her life. She would never again hear his soothing voice. Staring at his masks, she felt as if she were standing on a tightrope, safety line suddenly gone, precariously balanced above a great, dark, terrifying abyss.
"… we were close colleagues."
Dr. Bernstein was speaking. Gelsey, caught in a spiral of sorrow, tried hard to follow her words. he spoke often of you, Gelsey. He was fond of you, as I'm sure you know.
Sy Zimmerman was not a man to hide his feelings. With that magnificent man, you always knew where you stood."
Dr. Bernstein shook her head. Her grief was evident.
"All the patients are in great distress. He was such a gifted analyst.
I've been trying to meet as many of you as I can, to help you begin the important process of healing. If we mourn properly, we can mend ourselves and go on.
Sy would want that." She smiled. "I can just imagine him saying: ' on, Rebecca! Eat up that sorrow! Hurry, finish. Now… you're ready for your happiness, your dessert!" Dr. Bernstein paused. "The funeral, of course, couldn't wait. But there will be a memorial service later in the month. If you give me your address, I'll make certain you're notified.
All of Sy's patients are extremely welcome..
.." She peered at Gelsey. "It's hitting you now, isn't it?"
Gelsey realized she was weeping; she hadn't noticed before.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," she blurted. "We were going to talk about something so important today."
I ', Sy is gone, but he hasn't left you alone. There're several of us, close colleagues, ready to step in and help as best we can. I don't claim to be as gifted as Sy. He was my supervising analyst when I started out. The man gave to everyone-wife, children, students, patients. Now we must do what he would have wanted most-use what he gave us to grow stronger and continue our struggle with this marvelous, difficult process called life."
Gelsey liked Rebecca Bernstein. She was warm, perhaps even wise. But she could not imagine telling her the secrets she had shared with Dr. Z.
Nor could she imagine Dr. Bernstein imparting the same quality of solace. Sy (how strange now to recall him by a first name she had never used) had been ready to explore with her the secrets of the maze.
Looking closely now into Dr. Bernstein's friendly eyes, Gelsey asked herself. How could I even begin to explain?
But then she did begin. Suddenly the words began to tumble out. She wasn't aware at first of how fast she was speaking or how intimate was her torrent. It was all a jumble, the story of her life, fractured into pieces and then rearranged like the shards of broken mirrors she now applied to the surfaces of her paintings:
Her father, handsome, the charmer, the maze-maker, hitting the road with his tacky trailer, his funky fun-house mirror-maze-on-wheels. Traveling the carnival circuit, then returning to work on his great creation, his private labyrinth, secret work of art.
Her mother, depressed carnival worker, eyes wet, skin damp, sitting forlorn in the window, waiting, waiting… for her husband to return.
The world of mirrors. Mirror-madness times. Reflections that don't show you who you are. A dream-sister in mirror space. Mirrorworld. The mockery of mirrors. Their cruelty. Infinite corridors. Galleries of images. Slices of her face, body, soul. Crooked crazy-house mirrors in the Corridor of Distortion. The sinuous, diabolical Fragmentation Serpent with its body-breaking mirrors and parabolic mouth that flips you upside down. The untouchable, unreachable attractions in the Chamber of Unobtainable Ecstasy. The Great Hall of Infinite Deceptions with its seductive multimirrored walls. Disassociations. Shadow-work.
Her double-delusion mirror-fantasy incest-secret. The forbidden mysteries hidden in the concealed chambers of angled silvered glass.
Mirror sex. A Leering Man with a devil's grin. "You bitch! You slut!"
Kisses that branded her pale, pale skin. How she knew all about men, their fantasies, their weaknesses, how she could turn them on at will.
How she liked to tell them stories about her father's abuse, then watch how her stories titillated their desire. How she thought: If I seduced him, I can seduce them all If I was his love slave, I can make them mine.
Mirror-art: The mirrors guard her. She gathers energy from them. They taunt her. Sometimes she believes she is a mirror!
Down in the maze. Down there. In the labyrinth. Among the mirrors.
Nothing is real. We are only reflections, illusions, shadows on the glass.
Mirror-crime: Picking up marks, slipping them KO drops, putting them to sleep.
Looking beyond a mirror. What is she looking for? Down there. Deep within a mirror, behind its surface? Mirror-ache. Mirror-pain. Down there. Something hiding. A creature. Down there. Dark, malevolent, sexual. Down there. The secret of mirror sex! Down there. The Minotaur.
"Hmmm, yes, I see… " Gelsey looked up. Rebecca Bernstein was staring at her. "While I was waiting for you, I read your file. Sy was concerned. He felt you were close to a breakthrough, a turning point in the analysis. I'd like to work with you, Gelsey. As I said before, I don't pretend to be as talented as Sy, but perhaps I can offer a few good insights. Perhaps, too, you could profit from working with a female analyst." She paused. "You must think about it. I don't want to press you. You have been open with me today. Thank you for that." She spread her hands. "We've all suffered a terrible loss.
Perhaps together we can find a way to work through our suffering. Here's my card. Please call me… anytime."
A minute later Gelsey found herself standing alone in the little waiting room, wondering what to do. Through the doorway she could hear Dr.
Bernstein's muffled voice as she spoke to someone on the office phone. A kind woman, a good listener, but Gelsey knew she would not return. A good, kind, wise woman was not enough. She needed, and now had lost, a brilliant man.
She looked around the pathetic waiting room. Shabby chairs. Ragged magazines. The tawdry dime-store mirror on the wall. She had always despised that mirror. Now she found it touching.
She reached up, lifted it off its hook, held it tightly to her chest.
She knew what she would do. She would steal the mirror to keep as a memento of Dr. Z. She would keep it and stare into it and perhaps one day she would see his face.
Back on Broadway, she hurried toward the health club. When she reached it, she paused outside. In the front window a muscular male mannequin, bare but for a pair of gym shorts, held hands with a muscular female mannequin dressed in shorts and a haltered sports bra. Smiles were painted on their faces. Mirrors revealed their attractive posteriors.
The message was that if one joined this gym, one would find attractive objects of one's desire.
Oh, where are you, Dr. Z?
Thinking of Tracy, yet knowing it would be unwis
e to go in, she crossed the street to the supermarket, entered, pushed her way through the crowds to the community bulletin board posted beside the salad bar.
The board was crowded with slips of paper offering apartments for share, rides to the Hamptons, a male "inaid" who promised to "bust your dust."
There were numerous other notices offering items and services. Finally, in the upper right corner, Gelsey found an offering of newborn kittens.
She untacked it, turned it over, found Tracy's message on the other side: "CALL DIANA! URGENT!"
She thought about whether she should call. By the time she reached her car, she had decided not to. But then, driving downtown, she changed her mind. When she reached the Village, she pulled into a metered parking space on Seventh, walked a block to an Italian coffee house on Greenwich Avenue, entered, ordered an espresso, then proceeded to the rest-room area, where she found a quiet pay phone.
Oh, Dr. Z… Again she hesitated. She hadn't spoken to Diana since the night she'd walked out. But when she lifted the receiver and inserted a quarter, the number flew back into her head. She was sorry she remembered it.
"Hello. May I help you?" It was Kim, with her mechanical singsong, who painted Diana's toenails and slavishly handwashed her underwear.
"It's Gelsey. Is Diana there?"
"One moment, please." Not: "How are you, Gelsey?" or "How're you doing" or "Good to hear your voice again." Just that distant, mechanical response that brought back the strange alienated feeling that had filled her during her time as one of Diana's girls. "Is it really you?" The oh-so-unctuous voice of Herself. "None other!" Gelsey tried to sound cheerful. "Tracy gave you my message?" Beware! A trap! "No. But I ran into a mutual friend who'd seen her and passed it on." A giggle. "Still mysterious. How long has it been?"
"About a year and a half."
"That long?" This is boring. Time to get curt. "What can I do for you, Diana?"
"It's more like what I can do for you, my pet."
"I'm doing just fine, thanks."
"With the police looking for you?"
"I can take care of myself."
"I don't doubt that!"
Diana giggled again. "Still," she said after a pause, "we may have a mutual interest."
"I can't imagine how."
"Let bygones be bygones, what do you say?" Then, in an unusual pleading tone: "I do wish you'd come back."
"I don't think so. Sorry."
"We made a lot of money together. We could make so very much more." It was just what Erica Hawkins had told her. She thought: Better to make money with art than marks. "Look, Diana-"
"What happened between you and the gentleman downtown was not good for business, not at all."
There it was, the reproach that always undercut the sweetness.
"It's your business, not mine."
"Oh, yes, I forgot! You do it for fun."
"What do you want?"
"To help you. You're a wanted woman. I can fix that. Have Thatcher get you out of this mess. Help you leave town, hide out, whatever. I'm still very fond of you, you know. I admit I was upset when you left.
I'm well over that."
What could she say? That she didn't believe her, not for a minute, a second? That she never wanted to see her again, or sleazy Thatcher either? That Diana's proffered fondness was not reciprocated a single bit? That she didn't need any help hiding out because she always hid out-hiding out was what her life was about? Isn't that right, Dr. Z?
"Why don't we have tea, talk things over?" Diana crooned. "Why not just leave things as they are?"
"You're not being very friendly, Gelsey. Considering the circumstances."
Gelsey felt her stomach tighten. "I don't know what circumstances you mean."
"The gentleman, the one you took down at the Savoy I understand he was carrying something… unusual."
Her stomach went hard. "Where'd you hear that?" "Around." Diana paused.
Gelsey had a feeling that when she spoke again, her tone would be a good deal less ingratiating. "Listen to me.
You killed a mark. That's not good for business." "So you said. But I didn't kill him."
A haughty laugh. "I certainly don't expect you to admit it!" ' ' to the point. "
"The point, my pet, is that I want what you took off Dietz. Not his money or his watch. The other thing."
"Assuming I have it, why should I give it to you?"
"Because I know how to market it." Another pause. "You do have it, don't you?"
"Tell me what it is and I'll tell you if I do." Gelsey smiled the moment she said that, pleased by her shrewdness, for it occurred to her that although Diana seemed to know she had taken something, she had not yet said what she thought it was.
"All right"-Diana was now all business-"you have an item and I have a buyer for it. That's got the makings of a fifty-fifty deal."
"After you take fifty percent off the top?"
Silence. "Are you mocking me, dear?"
"I wouldn't dare."
Diana laughed. "You'd dare do anything you felt like doing. I know you better than you think." Gelsey kept silent. "You won't deal-is that it?"
Gelsey smiled. She had Diana on the mats. "You know I don't care about money." And we both know you care about nothing else.
"So you always said. I never believed you."
"Sorry, Diana. No sale. But if it'll make you feel better, I won't be playing the KO game for a while. It's suddenly gotten too dangerous-if you know what I mean?"
"Stupid, insolent girl!"
Gelsey hung up, delighted she'd shattered Diana's poise. She returned to her table and sipped her espresso. In the interval it had grown cold.
Why? Why, Dr. Z?
By the time she reached home she was frantic. It seemed as if her world were falling apart. She was a murder suspect; the police were after her;
Diana was after her, too something to do with that computer chip she'd found on Dietz. But since she'd smashed it up and incorporated it into her painting, she couldn't make a deal with Diana even if she wanted to.
Meantime, Dr. Z was dead. And Tracy, her only friend, was afraid to see her anymore.
As she entered her loft, she felt desperate. She had no one to talk to now, no one to turn to for help. All she had left was her fortress and her prison, the mirror maze below.
She put water on the stove for pasta. Then, realizing she wasn't hungry, she turned it off. She poured herself a vodka, straight from the bottle she kept in her freezer. Then she stood by her window looking out as darkness crept up slowly on the industrial buildings around and the abandoned amusement park across the road.
She wished that it would rain, a soft, ripe, gentle rain that would wash her windows and skylight clean. Then she could go into the city and take down a mark. Except, of course, she could not. Employees at the bars and pubs would be on alert. The police were looking for a killer.
So, even if it did rain, she could only dream.
What was it about the rain? Why did it always fill her with a longing she did not know how to satisfy? Why did rain always make her want to enter mirror world, the magic country of reverse?
So many questions, so many things about herself she didn't understand.
Despite the numerous times she had discussed her fears with Dr. Z, she still had found no answers.
Why couldn't she break away from the mirrors? Would she ever be able to find her real self inside the glass?
Rebecca Bernstein had said something that afternoon that she had found a notation in Gelsey's file in which Dr. Z had spoken of a breakthrough.
She herself had hoped for that, but now the likelihood was remote. Could she make a breakthrough by herself? If not, then who would help her?
Later, when it was dark, and although there was still no sign of rain, she decided to go down to the maze. She had no idea what she hoped to find down there, what secret might be revealed. But she was drawn to it by a force she could not resist. It was as if she were compelled to re
visit the site of some particularly gruesome crime.
Climbing down the ladder to the catwalk, she began to tremble. She knew she was truly alone in the world. She switched on the lights, then slid down the thick white rope, aware that on the floor she would no longer be alone, that there she could lose herself among her friends, the mirrors.
She stripped off her clothes, stood naked, then entered the twisting corridor. This mirrored aisle, which led directly to the Great Hall, contained no points of reference. To walk through it was akin to roaming the middle of a forest of equally spaced and identical trees.
The mirrors, each seven feet by four feet, each framed by narrow pillars and angled at precisely 60 degrees, created a labyrinth of endless galleries. Gelsey knew her way through these galleries. She was not confused by the insertion at certain junctions of similarly sized and framed panels of clear glass. But if she closed her eyes and whirled around, she could cause herself to lose her bearings. Then she could become as lost as any first-time visitor.
She liked to do this. It was far more pleasureful to wander disoriented than to rush through the maze with mastery and purpose.
There was an ecstasy to be found in naked bewilderment, a rapture to be savored on account of being lost and confused. To lose oneself deliberately in the maze was to enter a trance-state equal to one induced by the most voluptuous of mind-altering drugs. Space and time became distorted. She was surrounded by flowing fractured visions of her body. Light danced across the silver. Reflections shimmered as she moved. And then, if she spun, a thousand self-replicas whirled, too. She was no longer alone. She was at the hub of a great turning wheel of flickering, sparkling clones.
Once in the Great Hall, the "deceptions" were indeed "infinite." It had been her father's conceit that the confusion of the labyrinthine corridor would give way to even greater perplexity as the maze-wanderer blundered in.
Here, her father foresaw, the images would truly explode.
Here the maze-wanderer would be confronted by a burst of illusions as he viewed himself in mirrors that were crooked, bent, waved and even creased. A person of great physical presence would be challenged by distorted doubles. A beautiful face would be deconstructed. A graceful figure would be cleaved or broken. "I will take them apart," he told Gelsey once, crouching over his workbench, painstakingly bending a sheet of glass. He broke many pieces while trying to create distorting mirrors. When he finally got one right, he would rush off with it to the factory that did his silvering.
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