The Schrödinger Girl

by Laurel Brett

“What I am asking,” she continued, “is that you tell him about us. Maybe because he was my therapist I don’t like keeping secrets from him, but I don’t want to call him either. It just feels too professional.”

  There was no denying the fact that there was now an us. Sometimes it happens like that. From just one night, we were a couple. We both knew it, so there was no reason to pretend otherwise.

  “Sure, I’ll call him,” I assured her. And we finished our lunch.

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  Caroline and I held hands as we walked through the cavernous lobby of the museum and lingered on its long flight of stone steps leading down to Fifth Avenue. Hippies, in colored bandannas and tie-dyed T-shirts that copied the style that was coming out of San Francisco, sat around in groups, playing guitars and laughing.

  I was tempted to ask her if she wanted to return to her apartment to spend the afternoon in bed, but she mentioned she had some errands to run on her one day off. I spontaneously decided to visit Jerry to tell him about Caroline and me.

  I turned and studied the imposing building behind us, with its huge banners announcing current exhibitions: In the Presence of Kings: Treasures from the Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Russian Scenes and Costume Design for Ballet, Opera, and Theater. Caroline noticed my wistful expression, squeezed my hand, and said, “We’ll come back,” and then scampered away down the stairs.

  Before she reached the bottom, she turned and called up to me: “Garrett, I have a strange feeling. Just be careful with this Daphne business. Don’t fall down the rabbit-

  hole.” She paused, waiting for my response, so I nodded, and she walked south on Fifth Avenue.

  I lingered, remembering days spent with my mother at the museum during the war. We were both acutely aware of my father’s absence, and we found some solace in these great works of art, especially the statues from antiquity with their solid presence. But that was a long time ago. At the foot of the stairs I tossed some coins into the open violin case of a young guy playing Vivaldi. Then I walked to a pay phone to call Jerry.

  He offered his usual greeting. “Hi, bubbeleh.” He added, “In town?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Come on over. Today is the kind of afternoon when patients cancel. They just can’t bear to be inside. They even pay for the session for the chance to play hooky.”

  I made my usual comment: “Ah, you guys have it made. You get paid for not working.”

  Jerry had a large apartment in a brownstone on West 89th Street, just off Central Park West. He lived on one of those streets that let you think you were in Paris. When I buzzed he came to the door immediately.

  “Hi, kiddo. Follow me.”

  I followed him into his consulting room. He had furnished it like Freud’s: big desk, bookshelves and shelves with statuary, a large comfortable chair, a second small chair, and a daybed covered by an Oriental rug, just like Freud had on his couch. Jerry took psychoanalysis literally. He also had a large wooden desk with a beautiful silver-and-glass decanter, and two little shot glasses. I was sure Freud didn’t have a decanter on his desk, but then again, Jerry didn’t have Freud’s cigars. I should have remembered the bottle of Scotch I always brought when I visited him. The rare times he visited me in New Paltz, he brought a six-pack of Heineken.

  I felt like a patient in this setting. Why had Jerry brought me in here? I found out immediately. He seated himself in the comfortable large, black leather chair. I took the small chair covered in green velvet. “So, Garrett. I’ve been worried about you. I haven’t heard from you since our odd conversation after lunch at Katz’s.” He waited, expecting me to say something, but I waited too. All of this felt uncomfortable. Finally he said, “Still having those unusual thoughts? Still fixated on that girl? Daphne, isn’t it?”

  His question put me in a quandary. If I answered him honestly, he would see me as a patient and turn our meeting into a therapy session. But if I lied, I would be worried that there really was something wrong with me, necessitating deception. I tried to straddle the question.

  “I think about her sometimes. I’ve seen her again . . . but fixated? No. I am definitely not fixated.” Too bad he wasn’t into cigars because it would ease the tension if he lit one up.

  “Hm. And what does ‘I think about her sometimes’ mean?”

  “It means I think about her sometimes. Jerry, I came to talk about something quite different. Let’s go into the living room. This chair is not comfortable, and I feel at a disadvantage.”

  But he wasn’t letting go of the reins. “Why is that, kid?”

  “Jerry, stop playing Freud. We’re friends.”

  But he still didn’t move. I wondered if he was genuinely worried about me. “Have you ever had any other strange experiences?”

  I don’t know what made me let down my guard, perhaps there was something magical about the setting, but I told him about the visitation from my dad. I had never told anyone else. “One night during the war my father came and sat on my bed. He was wearing his pilot’s uniform, including the cap. He was so happy to see me, and of course I was thrilled to see him. I missed him so much. ‘You’re a big boy now,’ he said. ‘Remember the things I taught you. Remember that it’s okay to lose and that character is everything. Never be afraid to be yourself. And take care of your mom.’ The next day when we got the telegram from the war office we found out that when I saw him sitting on my bed he was already dead.”

  I could see Jerry processing my story, at a loss about what to say. Then he said, “I don’t want to be dismissive, but you know that this was probably a dream.” To his credit his voice was even and nonjudgmental.

  “And the timing?” I asked.

  “Probably coincidence.”

  I nodded. I was sure I’d seen my father—that his spirit had come to say goodbye—but I wasn’t going to tell Jerry that. Talking to Jerry, I realized that I had most likely become a behaviorist in response to this mystifying experience that had created questions I wanted to avoid.

  Then I volunteered, “I came to tell you that I’m seeing Caroline. I think she might be it for me. She wanted you to know.”

  He grinned. “Great news, bubbeleh. I thought you two would hit it off. I couldn’t understand what happened last time.”

  “I guess I wasn’t ready.”

  Before I left, I walked over to his shelves and lifted up a creamy marble reproduction. I held the Bernini rendering of Apollo and Daphne. Their two faces were achingly beautiful. The god stood just behind her as her outstretched arms ended in leafy clusters. “Great statue,” I said.

  “The image of transformation,” he replied. “What we’re after here.”

  “What about the fact that she’s a tree?”

  “Yeah. There is that,” he laughed. “Norman O. Brown thinks it’s the image of neurosis. Yeats thinks stability. There’s a lot to work with.”

  So he does like myth, I thought.

  Caroline’s discussion of Galen’s portrait of Daphne made me long to see it again, and long to see the girl who’d inspired it. Driving up the Bronx River Parkway, I decided to stop by Bronxville; I had to drive by there on my way home. Impulsively, I stopped in front of Galen’s stone house and parked my car on the street. I turned off the ignition but didn’t get out. I was nervous. I had no plan for what to say, no index cards, and no conversation to continue. I had no way to explain my visit, but I climbed out anyway and shut the door.

  A young woman in khakis and a sweatshirt answered my knock. “I’m a friend of Daphne’s,” I said. “And Galen’s,” I added, though it wasn’t true.

  “I’m house sitting,” she explained. “They’re in England for a show. I’m a painting student at the college.”

  I thought I might have seen her at the morning painting class where I’d found Daphne posing. This girl was cute and chubby, with honey-brown hair in a pixie cut and some freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. She had tied a batik clo
th in bright blue around her head so the ends hung down. I could see that her sweatshirt bore remains of painting sessions. Judging by the stains, I deduced that she liked a bright palette.

  “And you are . . . ?” I inquired.

  “Jane.”

  “Jane, I’m Garrett. I don’t suppose Galen hung a portrait of Daphne at home, did he? I saw it at the Forester Gallery, and I’d love to see it again, as long as I’m here.”

  “Sure. I can show you that. You hungry? I just made some chili. I would love someone to eat with.”

  We went into the kitchen, which was like an old farm kitchen with butcher-block counters and wainscotted cabinets. She set the table with heavy crockery dishes decorated with roosters, the icon of Provence. She put two bottles of Coke on the table. Her chili was delicious, and we ate in a companionable silence until we’d almost finished, and we got to gossiping.

  “So, you know Daphne and Galen?”

  “I know Daphne,” I said.

  “How do you know her?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She accepted that. “Galen is a great painting teacher, you know. I can’t imagine learning from anyone else. But it was really surprising to us when he brought such a young woman home. It felt kind of nineteenth century, to tell you the truth, like Renoir with his last model. Of course, we all had a crush on Galen. He told us to call him that. There aren’t any boys here at Sarah Lawrence, so I guess we thought this girl, Daphne, was poaching.”

  This surprised me. He was a burly man in his fifties with a clubfoot and a limp. I didn’t think he’d be such a prize to girls. But what did I know of the desires of young women? I had been completely flummoxed when Daphne had propositioned me. “So, he’s a good guy?” I asked.

  “Most of the time. Sometimes he just asks us to do the impossible and bristles with impatience when we can’t. He’s not the kind of guy you describe as kind. But he’s fair. And he wants us to succeed. That’s what you really want in a teacher. He seems nice to Daphne, if that’s what you mean. Though he can be impatient with her too, I’ve noticed.”

  “Daphne. Do you like her?” Now that I was gossiping, I couldn’t stop.

  “She’s young. She pretty. She’s his muse. We all want to be her, I suppose.” Jane laughed. “She’s okay. She’s nice enough to me. A friend of mine is in an art history class with her, and she says that Daphne is really smart. At least that’s something. But I shouldn’t say bad things about her. She lives here.”

  “Are they a couple?” I asked.

  “Yes. No. Maybe so? How would I know? But we probably shouldn’t be gossiping about them either.”

  I admitted that she was right because I saw that she really couldn’t answer my question. She smoked a cigarette as she finished her Coke and announced that it was time to visit the painting.

  The studio was a one-story addition at the back of the house. Green had built it with a vaulted ceiling and skylights to maximize the light. Finished and half-finished canvases filled a lot of the space, and we carefully threaded our way between them, as they stood at least three deep against the walls, a drawing table, and the chairs. She knew just where in the room the Daphne paintings were. Green had done many studies of her—some nude, some clothed—that explored different moments of the myth. I thought of Caroline, who would have loved to see them. She was right in saying the rest of the series were more explicitly about the Ovid myth than the painting Ur-Daphne and I had seen at the Forester Gallery. In one, the young girl had actually become a tree, trailing telltale strands of beautiful auburn hair intertwined with leaves. Then I saw the painting I’d seen in the gallery. Yes, I could appreciate what Caroline had said, that even in this abstract, less literal canvas, Galen Green was interpreting the myth of Apollo and Daphne. In this rendering, Daphne hadn’t become a tree, but she sat oddly still within the scene that included the startlingly green plates and beans. The swift nymph, Daphne, had grown still among the dishes. Perhaps the same thing had occurred in the Russian Tea Room when Daphne had joined Galen eating salmon and green beans.

  I glanced away from the painting and asked Jane, “Does Galen talk to you about what he’s doing with myth in his work?”

  “Yeah, sometimes. He’s very big on myth and on Joseph Campbell, who teaches at Sarah Lawrence too, and on Jung as a way to get to our subconscious associations. He loves Mark Rothko, who uses myth. And Jackson Pollock. Galen says that myth is just part of abstract expressionism. Of course, Galen’s work isn’t that abstract. He borrows from other painters. Cézanne and Matisse, to name two. In his work the figurative elements are fading into abstract expressionism. Do you know what I mean? Are you a painter?”

  I laughed. “No, I’m a psych professor at New Paltz, but there sure has been a lot of art in my life lately. I do understand what you mean. Do you like these paintings?”

  “I think they’re breathtaking, and they’ve influenced me. I am neorealistic, which as you can imagine isn’t very popular. No one wants to see realistic paintings. But Galen has shown me how to give them a mythic quality. He said I could use his studio. Over there is a painting I’ve been working on.” She pointed to the opposite corner, and we carefully stepped between the canvases on the floor to get to it. She had painted a simplified white horse with a phantom rider. The bridle was red and blue, and the rider wore a bright blue skirt, maybe denim, with a scarlet blouse. Her skin was translucent, which gave her a phantom appearance. Jane had used a stencil to write, THE IMPERIAL ANIMAL, in striking red block letters. And in fact there was a strangely mythic quality to the work.

  “I call the series ‘Mythic Americana.’ I use red, white, and blue in all of them.”

  “What are they about?” I asked, though I suspected her answer.

  “Colonialism. The Vietnam War. How fucked up the US is.”

  “I really like this piece, Jane. It’s powerful.”

  “That’s what Galen says. I’m glad you like it. How about we go out and you buy me a beer?” I must have appeared skeptical because she said, “Don’t worry. I’m way over eighteen.”

  She directed me to a bar in Yonkers because she pronounced all the local bars in Bronxville too snooty and expensive. The bar was kind of a dive, but it redeemed itself with a large pool table. We got two glasses of the beer on tap and started a game. I didn’t embarrass myself because Jerry and I had spent many disreputable hours unwinding from our studies in bars with pool tables. As it happened, Jane was pretty good too.

  While playing, our attentions were diverted by some unpleasantness at the bar. Two large long-haired guys were harassing a kid in uniform, hurling the usual taunts at him. “How does it feel to kill babies?” they asked. “What do you do to the women? You like killing?”

  Despite his youth, the kid had a weary air, as if he’d heard it all before. “I’m on leave from Fort Lee,” he patiently explained. “I haven’t even been over there yet. Man, I got drafted. You guys might get drafted too. I think the war is shit.”

  But that didn’t stop them. Finally, the bartender asked the hecklers to leave. We bought the kid a beer.

  “I flunked out of New Paltz,” he said. “I had a 1.4 GPA and they wouldn’t let me stay. Mostly, I just couldn’t make it to class. So here I am.”

  I thought it best to keep the fact that I taught at New Paltz to myself. I knew I would remember him the next time I assigned my grades. He watched as we finished our game. It was a squeaker, but I won. Then the soldier challenged Jane to a game and promised to drive her home, so I left. I still had an hour-and-a-half trip ahead of me. The last thing I heard as I walked out was Jane’s voice saying, “I hate the war too, man. Sorry you have to go.”

  * * *

  When I got home, the late hour didn’t keep me from my study. I felt like I’d returned to a different universe than the one I’d left. In two days my life had transformed, but one thing hadn’t changed: I was still committed to solving the Daphne mystery that remained for me as compelling as ever, even with Caroline
in my life now. I’d left the markers on the desk near the time line. Freehand, I added the visit to Galen’s house with the date, and I added a bit of Jane’s description of Daphne.

  I absentmindedly reached into the pocket of my sport jacket, which I’d carried in from the car, and found the Klimt postcard that Caroline had surreptitiously left for me. She had also left me a postcard of the Bernini. I wondered if she remembered the statue from Jerry’s office. The photograph did not diminish its beauty. I taped the two postcards above the time line and jotted down all the information to date. I was as puzzled as ever.

  I was inspired to go find the Schrödinger book I’d left on the night table by my bed. I had a pair of scissors in the desk drawer and I cut out the two cats from its cover and taped them next to our first meeting at the bookstore. Art, myth, and science presided over the mystery together. Are they really different?

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  Caroline and I were forced to wait ten days to see each other again. She worked six days a week, so she had to use days from two different weeks to come up and see me in New Paltz. I would have been happy to meet her in the city, but she insisted on visiting my home. That left me ten days to think about Daphne. Being an academic by both profession and temperament, research in a library promised solutions to me.

  When I wanted to spend time in a library I would cross the small bridge that spanned the Hudson between New Paltz and Poughkeepsie and work from books at the Vassar library. It had twice as many volumes, and its library had Gothic architecture, wood everywhere, and stained-glass windows. I felt like I was worshipping in a cathedral.

  I sat in a carrel that I had piled with books from the stacks. I wanted to discover everything that science had to say about my Schrödinger girls. I was surprised to learn that as early as 1957 there were ideas in physics about the multiverse, also called the Many-Worlds Interpretation. However, from the articles I read, there was no hint that any scientists were walking around meeting their own Daphnes. I couldn’t find any mention of someone prismatically splitting into multiple, yet simultaneous incarnations.