“Analysis could help you, Bowen. If you really wanted to be helped.”
“How?”
“By helping you to understand your neurotic problems. Find out who it is you’re revenging yourself on, and for what. Who it is you fear and hate. Then you could give up killing people and get back to work.”
“Killing people. You’re not getting touchy, are you doctor? It was you who urged me to speak my mind——”
“I’m merely trying to point out to you that behind your carefully modulated behavior, Bowen, you’re actually a very aggressive man. Would it be news to you to know that you spend about fifty-nine minutes out of every hour you’re here, killing me?”
“Would it be news to you to know that you kill me too, Doctor—though not in the way you mean?”
“Bowen, you’re a man of talent, imagination, sensibility, conscience. And you’re engaged almost twenty-four hours a day in violating your deepest impulses. Because you’re a neurotic and there are drives in which you don’t understand. You’re a writer. You know the power of words, to wound, to nullify, to destroy. When you take away my validity as a doctor, an analyst, in effect you’re killing me.”
“I see. The figure-of-speech murders. Very gruesome.”
“There aren’t two kinds of murder, Bowen. It’s always the same impulse, whatever form it takes. Are you sleepy?”
“Don’t mind me, Doctor. I always yawn when I’m fascinated.”
“Well, we’ll have to stop now….”
“Good. I can’t wait to get home and stab me a grape.”
“I’d stay away from grapes for now, particularly fermented ones. Also rye, corn, and barley….”
It was always the same with these doctors. Quit drinking, they’d say, pouring themselves a little Scotch over ice. And better give up smoking too, bad for you, have you got a light.
All the same, he was through drinking. There’d been no real reason for him to stop before, he always had the stuff under control. But when you started blacking out it was time to quit. He’d done it, with smoking, ten years back, just to prove he could do it. And he could do it with alcohol overnight. From now on his drinking would be confined to beer, or maybe a light wine at dinner.
There was only one thing he really regretted about the decision. Emily would be sure it was a victory for her patience and understanding. The holy light in her eyes would be too much to be borne.
* * *
—
What was it they’d quarreled about before she left. Was it about his quitting the analysis? He seemed to recall saying, “One analysis in the family is enough. I’ll get mine by osmosis.” If he hadn’t said that he should have. Anyway, they’d had words about something, he was certain of that. At least he’d had words, Emily having lately assumed the role of one of Psychoanalysis’s Early Martyrs who understood all and forgave all. He could remember being vastly annoyed with her—was it something about his shirts? Yes, it was coming back now—he’d ploughed through his entire chest of drawers without being able to find a single dress shirt without pleats. Clara was gone, Emily had stupidly let her and Malcolm leave for the week end without consulting him, and there was no possible way for him to get a fresh shirt for the evening except to iron it himself.
He’d told Emily what he thought of the way she handled servants and the household in general, with a few additional notes on the nature of her involvement with the foster children of Mittel Euremia, in whom she was taking such a motherly interest lately. Then he’d gone into the bar and fixed himself a pearl onion with a Martini around it. He’d really intended to have just the one drink. He remembered that clearly. He’d decided to cut down and lose some weight. Lila had been twitting him about it lately. “Jowly,” she called it, and she’d taken to resurrecting some old snapshots from that summer in Stockton when he was still a “promising” writer, and she was still a “promising” actress. “You looked so boyish and intense,” she said wistfully, “every time I look at one of these I fall head over heels in lust with you all over again.” That was Lila’s subtle way, he supposed, of taking him down. Lila was not infrequently wistful about him these days.
Well, he’d meant to settle down with his drink and the Sunday paper, turn on the symphony at three and to hell with Emily, and Lila too for that matter. He had thought that he might not even go into town that night. She could fall in lust with the doorman. One day he’d be through with them, altogether, all the blonde and brunette jailers with the soft hands, and the keys that jingled like music and the rawhide whips they called, mellifluously, I-love-you. Put them all together they spelled Mother, somehow.
There must have been, of course, a miscarriage of his original plan about one drink. He’d always had a fatal weakness for those little pearl onions, and he could recall now some very fuzzy. Brahms on the radio. He’d even thought vaguely, he remembered, about new condensers. But Emily’s condensers had been fine. She’d been in excellent voice. Lord, how that soft-spoken girl he’d once called his white Iseult could make the Connecticut welkin ring with her plaints. (As a matter of fact, it was at Tanglewood they’d first met, the Berkshire festival, and he’d missed a natural opportunity, he realized now, one of those that only come once in a lifetime. He should have called her Pandora. Or Medusa….)
* * *
—
Medusa. The lady with the purple hair. Purple like snakes. Purple like grapes. Was that it? Could he ever, in some dim recess of his mind, have thought of using that as a title? It had a kind of misty relevance with the title of his novel. The Vintners. And Dr. Baume was always probing for hidden significances in these relationships, no matter how far-fetched or idiotic they seemed. When was it they’d first talked about the book?
“I read your novel the other night, Bowen.”
“Really? You take your work very seriously, don’t you, Doctor.”
“Very. You see, I don’t expect to live twice. I don’t want to waste a moment of this one.”
“You know, Doctor—you strike me as something of an intellectual Rover Boy.”
“Perhaps that’s fortunate for you?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’re in rather a vulnerable situation right now. If I were an intellectual Jack the Ripper for example. I might choose to conk you on the head with a vase.”
“Ah,” (gleefully). “Is this the imperturbable Dr. Baume speaking?”
“Let’s get back to you. It’s an interesting title: The Vintners. Have you any notion why you chose it?”
“Oh…something about the master vintner, I suppose. Grapes of wrath and so on. I don’t remember really. ‘All that was in another country, and besides the wench is dead.’ ”
“I’ve also noticed that you identify quite often with The Waste Land. Have you any idea why?”
“Why does Eliot identify with it? Why does everyone who can see or feel? We’re all identified with The Waste Land, Doctor. Willy nilly.”
“Is that what you think your book is about?”
“Yes. What do you think it’s about?”
“Let’s pass that by far now.”
“Let’s not. I’d like to know what you think about the book. Come on, Doctor. I can take it.”
“Why do you want my opinion? Do you value it?”
“All right, skip it, if you’re going to be coy. I was merely curious.”
“I’m not qualified to judge the literary merit of your book, Bowen. You’ve had other opinions more to the point on that score. I understand the book made quite a stir.”
“Yes. A few bright people liked it, and a lot of fools were afraid to say they didn’t.”
“Speaking as an analyst, I found the book fascinating. I think I understand better now why you’re afraid to write another one.”
“Afraid?”
“That’s what I said, Bowen.”
“For the same reason that you’re afraid of analysis.”
“And just why am I afraid of analysis?”
“Because you’re afraid I’ll discover your secret.”
“Have I a secret, Doctor? How jolly. Are we going to discover it together?”
“I want you to discover it for yourself.”
“I doubt it’s there, Doctor. I never keep secrets from myself.”
“You’ve got to keep this one. Otherwise you’d have to throw away your teething rings and get to work.”
“Teething rings, Doctor. How quaint.”
“I’m talking about drinking, Bowen. And adultery. And self-indulgence.”
“Adultery! Oh, really, Doctor. You’ve got me all confused now. Are you an analyst or a preacher?”
“The history of man, Bowen, is a struggle toward light away from darkness. Religion is one phase of that journey. Psychoanalysis is another.”
“Very interesting. And in your mind I’m arrayed with the forces of darkness.”
“Not you. Your neurosis. You’re a sick man, Bowen.” Baume looked serious.
“Are we back on that again? It’s the world that’s sick, Doctor, not me.”
“The world is you, Bowen. The only world that matters. And I can’t help you, if you don’t want to be helped.”
“I’ve told you before. I’m one of the healthiest people you know. What you persist in calling my neurosis is plain old-fashioned disgust with what goes on.”
“Yes. You’re a man of conscience, too, Bowen, which is where your conflict arises, and the world’s. But why don’t you do something about that disgust? Why aren’t you writing?”
“Because I’ve lost faith in my kind. I know in my heart they’ll never change. They’re a murderous, ravening breed, and they’ll never give up murder as a way of life. They’ll never stop killing each other until they’re wiped off the face of the earth.”
“What about you?”
“What do you mean what about me?”
“Why aren’t you writing?”
“Oh, Lord, you’re as bad as Emily. I’ll tell you, Doctor. Let’s say the world is a garden filled with a thousand delights for the eye and ear, a thousand sweet tasks for the head and hand and heart. That’s why. I’m too busy to write.”
“There was a garden named Eden once. A man named Cain turned it into a charnel house.”
“I thought I said that just now.”
“You said it about the world.”
“That’s right.”
“Let me ask you something else. Why do you feel you must drink?”
“Here we go again. All right. I drink to forget. Is that what you want me to say? To forget that I’m a failure. That I’m living on Emily’s money. To forget that I’m alive. To forget that Emily’s alive. Okay?”
* * *
—
He put his head back against the now bearable ache in the back of his neck. It was murder, trying to fit things together like this with your stomach in a knot and your brain turning to cottage cheese. Murder. There was that word again. Well, it was murder. How could he tell whether what he seemed to remember now was really so, or whether it had happened some other time, or whether it had got scrambled up with something in the dream? Maybe he’d never know. It was a sickening thought.
He put his elbow on the desk, closed his eyes and hammered on his forehead with his clenched fist, as if he half expected a door to open and the truth to come walking out. Minerva from the forehead of Zeus. Zeus in a business suit….
“Bowen, you’ve been coming to me for six months now. You resist me at every turn, with every resource of a brilliant man, you deny my validity entirely, yet you keep coming back. Why?”
“It’s not complicated, Doctor. Emily wants me to continue. And I’ve got nothing better to do with this hour. Have you?”
“I’m afraid so. I’ve decided to give up your case.”
(Roger hadn’t quite expected it. For just an instant he felt a flicker of emotion which passed off before he could identify it.) He said sardonically: “Can’t take it, eh, Doctor?”
“I’m one of those dull individuals who wants to earn his keep. I tell you frankly, Bowen, you’ve stopped me cold. At best an analysis takes a long time, years. In your case I’ve come to the conclusion that neither of us will live long enough.”
“I’m flattered.”
“From the beginning you’ve made this a contest. Well, you’ve won. I wish I could congratulate you on your victory against insight.”
“I’ll try to struggle along with the faint glimmer that now and again filters through my darkness. I’m sorry you feel we must give up these little sessions, though. I’ve found them not infrequently stimulating.”
“Slight case of murder, eh, Bowen?”
“There you go, using that nasty word again. Who are the fragile people I’ve been murdering, Doctor? Outside of yourself, of course.”
“All the women you’ve ever known, I imagine.”
“Indeed. They seem to thrive on it.”
“Do they? You’ve driven your wife to an analyst.”
“She’s driven me to one too, hasn’t she?”
“But she couldn’t make you drink.”
“Touché, Doctor. I’m going to miss you. And I’ve news for you. Emily’s having the time of her life. She’s only happy when she’s miserable.”
“How would you know? Have you ever tried making her happy instead of miserable?”
“Why doesn’t she leave me, if she’s miserable?”
“She’s in love with you, I imagine. A little device of the devil known as the dove-tailing neurosis. But I hear from my colleague that she’s making progress. She may surprise you one of these days, Bowen. Walk out on you.”
(Despite himself Roger had felt a twinge of annoyance with the doctor at this point. He hoped his tone hadn’t betrayed it.) “So much the better. I’ve other fish to fry.”
“An interesting phrase. You’re speaking of your current mistress, I presume.”
“There’s a fleur-de-lis in your voice when you say that word. Mistress. You’re really an antedeluvian character, Doctor. You charm me.”
“I wish I could return the compliment, Bowen. You frighten me. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen Miss Carmody in the theatre, and admired her very much. She was quite a successful actress when you met her, several years ago. What has happened to her since?”
“Why, don’t you know? I’ve murdered her.”
* * *
—
Roger reached for a cigarette, lit it with fingers that shook noticeably. You’d better pull yourself together old boy, he thought, or you’re really for the booby hatch….What had made him say such an idiotic thing, though? Of course the doctor was always bleating about it—murder, murder with adjectives. Murder by pronoun. To listen to him Roger ought to be in jail right now. A nice semantic jail with Funk and Wagmalls as his warders….How had he led up to that again?…
“Why is it necessary for you to have two women, Bowen?”
“Look. Doctor, are you an analyst or a preacher?” (No. That was another time. He knocked on his forehead with his knuckles. Oh, yes.) “Necessary, Doctor? I don’t know that it’s necessary. But it’s cozy.”
“You mean it makes it easier for you to hurt both of them.”
“Oh, look, do we have to go through that again? I told you. Lila and I met up in Stockton right after the war. I wrote a play for her. She’s a beautiful girl. We had something to give each other, apparently. It was strong, good. It made sense where there was no sense. It still does. Nobody’s going to tell me that’s criminal.”
“I’m not interested in the morals of your situation, Bowen. I’m a doctor.
I’m only concerned with your relationships as they affect, and are affected by your neurosis. Lila Carmody was a successful young actress when you met. She’s had nothing but failures since. Knowing your problem with women I find it difficult not to make a connection.”
“What is my problem with women, Doctor? No wait. Don’t tell me. I ought to know by now. Murder.” (That was it. That was how it had gone.) “I suppose I killed Lila’s talent. With my little dictionary. The critics had nothing to do with it.”
“I’m not your accuser, Bowen. I’m here to help you understand yourself. Don’t you feel that an unhappy love affair with you may have had something to do with Miss Carmody’s recent failures?”
“No. An unhappy love affair, if that’s what ours is, might have made her a great actress. It’s happened before. If you want to know, the trouble with Lila is she’s not an actress. She’s a personality. Her problem is like yours, Doctor, in reverse. She’s got to find the right vehicle for her personality. You’ve got to find the right personality for your vehicle. Otherwise, it doesn’t go. It just stands there, with the wheels going round and round.”
“Yes. Well, it’s time for me to get a new passenger and get moving again. I wish you luck with your neurosis, Bowen. I hope it doesn’t prove too much for you.”
“When I’m done in, Doctor, it won’t be by my neurosis. It’ll probably be by an atom bomb.”
“All the same, take my advice and stop drinking. You’ve got an atom bomb of your own locked up inside you. When you’re conscious your will keeps it under control. But alcohol is a solvent for the will. It dissolves the inhibitions. If you continue to drink you may find one day that your neurosis and your will have become indistinguishable. Those sharp little words you’ve used so tellingly all your life may turn to real daggers in hand.”
* * *
—
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 175
