I work at the computer for more than three hours and come out with four workable pages. They’re pretty good pages, and the satisfaction and exhaustion allow a drowsiness to roll over me, and when I shut down the computer and crawl into bed I know I’ll be asleep in minutes.
Avrum has invaded my dreams again. This time with Pinky. They’re together in a dark place reminiscent of that dinky bar from last night. Pinky is naked, her skin almost a luminescent white, and her silky yellow hair has been braided. Avrum stands close to her, wearing a thick black sweater which he holds open and wraps around her. She almost disappears inside. All that shows are her bare feet, and they look so small, almost like a child’s. I’m the only other person there, and I ask him very nicely to please open his sweater because she won’t be able to breathe, but he pays no attention. I want to pull the sweater away because I know she’s suffocating, but I’m too frightened.
That’s when I wake up. I try to hide in more sleep, but it’s impossible. My mind is alive and aching with too many tortuous thoughts. I bury myself deeper into the guilt, but it doesn’t help. And then the doorbell rings. It’s Saturday; who’s ringing my bell at, my God, it’s three in the afternoon! Please don’t let it be David. I can’t face that.
It’s a struggle to get out of bed. My entire body is stiff and sore. A long, red-purple blotch runs down the entire side of one leg from the thigh to the calf. That must have come when I fell against the curb. I didn’t even know I’d hurt myself until now. The soreness slows me down, and whoever it is ringing the doorbell becomes more insistent. I can’t find my robe so I wrap myself in a blanket, Indian-style, and slowly make my way down the hallway to the front door. Maybe it’s the superintendent looking for the eternal leak. That’s about all I can deal with today.
I look through the peephole. It’s Louis. I’m tempted to pretend I’m not home, but he looks so concerned, I can’t ignore him. There may be something wrong. Again he leans on the bell, this time with such urgency I’m alarmed and pull the door open immediately. He looks stunned.
“Johanna! My God, are you all right?” He steps in and quickly closes the door behind him.
I look down at myself. The blanket is funny-looking but certainly not enough to cause that kind of alarm. And there’s no way he can see my legs.
“I’m OK, Louis. Why are you so upset?”
“Let’s go sit down. I have to talk to you.”
“Of course.” And we both go into the living room and sit down on the couch. I can see he’s having trouble starting, so I ask him, “Did something happen with Mickey?”
“No, he’s fine. Johanna, I had to go out for a church meeting this morning, and I just got back a few minutes ago. . . .”
“Yes?”
“Charlie’s on the door now, and he said that Walter was on last night . . . Johanna, what happened?”
“This is such a goddamn small building. Sometimes I hate it.”
“He only mentioned it to me because he was concerned, and he knows we’re good friends.”
“Don’t kid yourself. This is bonanza Saturday. By now they’re dancing to it in the lobby.”
“He’s not that kind of person. But that’s not important anyway. Johanna, we’ve been good, good friends for a long time now. When I need someone I can pour my soul out to I come to you. I thought the relationship was mutual. But lately I’ve seen you suffering, and, though I’ve been aching to help, I sensed you don’t want me to. So I’ve stayed back. But now I think it’s gotten so far out of control that you could be in danger, and I’m not going to sit around waiting to be called. I can help you, and I insist you let me.”
“You can’t help me.”
“Let me try. Start by telling me what happened last night.”
“It’s simple. I was stupid and allowed myself to fall into a bad situation and . . .” I have to pause for a moment because it’s hard to say the words without choking up. “. . . I was almost raped.”
“Jesus! Were you hurt?”
“I got pushed down and my leg is a mess, but other than a very terrible fright, I’m OK.”
“Thank God.”
“God didn’t help me at all. A very brave, wonderful cabdriver saved me.” And I tell Louis the story, the superficial story, and as I’m telling it I realize there’s no way to make any sense out of it unless I tell some of the truth. For some reason I feel Louis might be able to understand it better than David, possibly because of the nature of our relationship. It’s clean of the complications of a sexual relationship. Undercurrents of possessiveness and jealousy simply aren’t there. Things are taken at face value and dealt with that way.
For these reasons and because I so desperately need someone to trust, I tell Louis almost everything. When I try to describe the jumble of fears that terrorized me last night and has made so many nights of my life sleepless and painful, I lose control of my emotions and weep. But I come no closer to understanding. Louis is sympathetic and comforting, but he asks me questions I can’t possibly answer. He wants to know why I won’t hear Sephra out and at least try to learn what’s making me so frightened.
I feel his questions close in on me, and I find myself moving away, twisting and turning to hide I don’t know what. I’m beginning to regret my impetuous candor.
“I didn’t say Sephra knew anything,” I tell him. “She just thinks I’m having problems and wants to mother me. But I’m not in the habit of being mothered. It’s been much too long.”
“In all the years I’ve known you, Johanna, you’ve only spoken of your background once, and that was in the briefest of terms. It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to know that there’s something unresolved way back there, and it’s still causing you pain. What is it? And why does it trouble you now? Those are the things that you have to find out.”
“You’re on the wrong track, Louis. I don’t talk about my childhood because I have so few memories. For me it ended when my parents died. After that there were just a lot of lonely years. Don’t misunderstand me, they weren’t cruel or terrifying. There were good people to take care of us, and then Sephra was wonderful to me. Certainly life was difficult, but not miserable. Possibly you would come closer if you related it to the present. What’s happening to me now to exacerbate my problems? Oh, Louis, it’s so hard to say, but it has to be David. David and my wedding.”
“Only partially true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s something else equally important happening to you now.”
“If you’re referring to my book, you’re wrong, and I’m offended that you think a writing project could compare in importance to David.”
“Please, Johanna, I’m aware how much you love David. And it’s a good, healthy, important love. I know that.”
“Then how could you compare the two?”
“Because I’ve been watching you these last couple of months, especially the past weeks, and I know that your love for David hasn’t diminished. But the hold this book has on you has grown far out of proportion.”
“That’s not true. It’s just a very demanding project and therefore taking up a great deal of my time.”
“You’re not being honest with yourself. It’s much deeper than that. It’s seeped into your very marrow. I can feel the weight of it when I’m with you.”
“I don’t like a conversation where you tell me how I feel.”
“OK, then I’ll tell you how I feel. I’m concerned.”
“You’ve said that.”
“All right. Let me say something else, then. I believe in God and religion. And I believe in the power of the devil.”
“Louis . . .”
“Not the one with horns, Johanna, but something even more potent. The true perversion of Christianity—a worship based on life from death. It seduces the disillusioned, the misfits, the outcasts by tunneling their anger and frustrations into antiestablishment defiance and at the same time encouraging a high degree of paranoia. The price is total obedi
ence and belief. Jones did it in Guyana, the Moonies did it, and in some less successful way Maheely is doing it.
“You see, Johanna, I agree with you. Maheely is not a simple murderer. He’s far more dangerous than that.”
“Everything you say is right except the unspoken insinuation that Maheely has some hold on me. In no way is that true. I abhor him deeply and completely, and to think otherwise is an insult to every shred of ethics, morality, and intelligence within me.”
“But emotions don’t always respect those qualities.”
“How can you talk that way to me, Louis? You of all people. I feel betrayed.”
“I would never betray you, Johanna. Your friendship is precious to me. But I know the enormous power of faith and belief. I know them from the inside out, and I know them to be the true primordial hungers, the clay everything else is molded from.”
“I have very little faith and almost no religious beliefs. You’re very wrong about me, Louis; that is not my hunger.”
“I think it’s everyone’s, and the power of a Maheely is his natural ability when the circumstances are right to tap that need.”
I get up from the couch, wrapping my blanket tightly around me. I feel outraged and make little attempt to hide it. “I don’t know if these are your own thoughts or if David has contributed to them or for that matter if it’s general opinion, but all I do know is that I’ve been put in a class with murderers, borderline defectives, and otherwise evil people. And you’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to listen to any more. I want you to leave.”
Louis gets up and starts coming toward me apologetically, but I back away.
“Johanna, please, you misunderstand. First of all, David has nothing to do with any of this. No one else has. It’s all me.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. I thought because the nature was spiritual we could have an understanding together. Johanna, there’s nothing evil about you. Forgive me if I made you think that’s what I was saying.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I feel I know what’s troubling me and how to handle it. It’s between David and me and no one else.”
“I’ve upset you, and I feel terrible.”
“Forget it. I guess I overreacted. And as for my problems with Sephra, it’s obvious. She’s associated with the greatest loss in my life; it’s certain to make our relationship difficult. Louis, I have a terrible headache. I’m going to go lie down. Let yourself out, will you?”
“I could kick myself for being so clumsy. Call me later when you get up, will you?”
“I’ll see.”
“Please.”
“OK.” And I walk down the hall toward the bedroom. I feel him watching me, and then I hear the door quietly close. I stop where I am and wait, feeling the safety of my home and of being alone. I sit down on a delicate, satin pull-up chair outside the bedroom. I never sit in the hallway, though, of course, I know it well; I’ve hung every picture and passed them thousands of times in the last eight years, but I rarely stop to look at them. Now I do, and it calms me and gives me a comfort of the familiar but still engages my interest enough to relax my mind.
I have no proof, it’s only intuition, but I feel that David may have asked Louis to speak to me. That’s even more disturbing than the things he said. The thought that I may no longer be able to trust my dearest friends puts me off balance. Somehow I’ve let too many seams show. Even to David. Especially to David. I will be more careful.
Once that decision is made I feel relieved. My body still hurts, and I feel tired. I don’t want to go back to my bed, so I go into the living room and fall asleep on the couch.
The phone wakes me. It’s Claudia.
“Joey, it’s gorgeous outside. Would you like to take a walk over? We can just poop around here for a while and then go for an early dinner in Chinatown. How about it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on, lazy.”
“No.” I’m sure Louis must have called her. “I’m just not hungry,” I say. “Thanks, anyway.”
“Is David there?”
I knew it. Louis did call her.
“No,” I say, “why?”
“Why? Why not? He’s there all the time, isn’t he?” She manages to sound puzzled, but then she’s a good actress.
“Well, he’s not here now, and I don’t expect him today.”
“Is something wrong?”
Incredible, their interference. “Not a thing,” I say, doing some of my own acting. “Everything is terrific. But I worked late last night, and I’m going to get to bed early tonight.”
“You mean you worked after the game?”
“Right.”
“Joey, what’s up? Come on, I can tell something’s wrong.”
“Claudia, if it is, I’ll fix it myself, OK?”
“Wow, sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to be so short, but I think we all have to be responsible for ourselves. It’s really better that way.”
“Sometimes we need help.”
“I’ll call you if I do.”
“OK, Johanna, but don’t forget—call me if you do.”
We say good-bye, and I feel a tinge of guilt. I know she really cares about me, and I was very curt with her—but it’s all David’s fault. God knows what he’s been telling them.
I go into the kitchen to make myself some tea and take a couple of Valium when the phone rings again. This time it’s David. No surprise. Claudia surely got to him. He wants to come over. He says we should talk. I really don’t want to, but there’s no putting him off.
He says he’s leaving right away so I race into the shower. The hot water stings my bruises, but it seems to pull my body together and puts some nice healthy-looking pink in my cheeks. I put on jeans to cover my legs and a long-sleeved sweat shirt.
There couldn’t have been any traffic because inside of fifteen minutes he’s ringing my downstairs buzzer. He always likes to give me a little warning by ringing from the lobby, but when he gets to my front door, he uses his own keys.
Until recently David and I rarely had important disagreements and certainly no shouting matches like last night’s, so when he comes in we’re both very embarrassed and terribly uncomfortable. We head for the kitchen where we can at least hide in the business of making tea or cutting fruit. Or mixing a bloody mary, which we both need. Now we sit across the table from each other, searching our minds for some analgesic to end the pain.
When two people love each other fully, the slightest hint—it can be as little as a nod or as subtle as a look—can trigger the reconciliation and unloosen a torrent of apologies and forgiveness strong enough to wipe out all the bitter thoughts of recrimination and resentment. Trust and confidence flow back.
That fullness is the way David and I love each other, and inside of minutes we’re in each other’s arms, and I wonder how I could have thought anything mattered more than this. But, he says, we must talk.
And we do. But our love is so overwhelming at this moment that whatever we say seems petty.
Except the one last thing I bring up.
“I want to be married to you.” We’re holding hands across the kitchen table. “I want to wake up with you every morning and do all the things we’ve planned and talked about for the last four years. I don’t have one shred of doubt that that’s the way I want to spend the rest of my life, but I don’t want it to start now.”
“Why, Johanna? I have to know the truth. Please be open with me, no matter what.”
“Because I’m afraid. I feel that the work I’m doing now could contaminate us, leave a lasting damage we might never completely repair. Why take the chance when we could wait just a few months and be certain to give it the best start possible?”
“Dear Johanna, there’ll always be threats from the outside, but we can only get stronger if we’re together. Apart, we’re vulnerable. I know I am, but with you I feel invincible.”
“I don
’t know . . .”
“Trust me.”
At this moment, in the warmth of my kitchen with so many reminders of our joy together around us, I feel I’d be a fool not to trust him. And if not him, then whom?
Chapter Seventeen
David stayed with me for the rest of the weekend. It was lovely, just like it used to be, wandering around the city, doing nothing much. Early Sunday morning we took an especially long but very pleasant walk down Twelfth Avenue along the Hudson River. We rarely have reason to go there so it remains unfamiliar territory and full of discoveries. We found old, wooden piers that reach far enough out into the water to make you think you’re on an ocean liner; and neglected railroad terminals, their skeletons holding up hundreds of smashed windows; all reminders of the thriving port city of an earlier time. Twelfth Avenue, being relatively unpopulated and therefore quiet and free of the garbage that litters the rest of the city, has an empty look that’s very restful. It’s not exactly a weekend in the country, but it is far enough removed from the interior city to give you a view of the skyline.
And then, just as we used to, we went to a double feature, two wonderful old movies at the Angelika.
After a horrible beginning the weekend turned out to be sublime. I didn’t go near the computer once and talk about the book was kept brief and peripheral. The only reminder of any difficulty comes when David suggests that it might be helpful for me to see his friend Wyn Kaplan, a psychiatrist. Though I’ve never gone for therapy many of my friends have, and it’s helped some enormously so I’m certainly not against analysis. But I’ve learned enough about it to know it’s a very hard, painful process, and I tell him that I don’t feel I can handle it at the moment. There are too many other demands on me that can’t wait.
“Actually, David, it might be a very good idea, and as soon as I finish the book I’ll look into it. Wyn’s a very nice guy. I think I might be able to work with him.”
Save Johanna! Page 17
