“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m very sorry. I liked Simon.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Mr. Pearlstein said. “I’ve read articles about what you people do with your patients—”
“Shush,” Mrs. Pearlstein said. “She’s a nice young woman. She helped Simon. Look around to see the proof. He needed help and she was there.”
“With her hand out.”
“Max is too upset to notice anything except revenge,” Mrs. Pearlstein said to Jane. “The first time Simon got into bad trouble—when he had spiders crawling over him and tried to kill his brother—Max was the one who calmed him down, got him to go to the hospital before he hurt anybody. Sometimes I think Max loved him more than I did.”
“I won’t argue with you, Norma,” Mr. Pearlstein said. “It’s not the time.”
“How?” Simon’s mother asked. “How did he do all this?”
“I gave him money on the side.”
Mrs. Pearlstein kissed her husband. “I’m sorry I yelled at you when we were short on cash. I love you.”
Jane smiled.
“I don’t need your condescending looks, young lady. You know when my son changed? When he stopped taking the pills you gave him. Because they were poison. If it was up to you people, you would have stuck a funnel in his mouth like for a goose and poured pills down him forever.” Mr. Pearlstein nodded to the officer. “Officer, do your duty.”
Jane almost laughed, even as the officer moved forward.
“Hi!”
Everybody turned toward the living room.
“I’m Tom Hoffman, a friend of Dr. Fogarty. And this is our lawyer, Emlyn Schiff.” Tom moved through the room as if he were a politician working a crowd.
Emlyn Schiff and Samuel Axelrod shook hands. Jane kissed Tom on the cheek. “My hero,” Jane whispered.
“She’s sick,” Mr. Pearlstein said. “Didn’t I tell you? Our son—her patient—is dead, and in his bedroom she makes jokes.”
Jane started forward. The police officer put up his hand, as if at a school crossing. Emlyn Schiff whispered to Samuel Axelrod. Samuel Axelrod whispered to Mr. Pearlstein.
“Okay. Let her go for now,” Mr. Pearlstein said. “But we haven’t finished, believe me—not by a long shot.”
Jane tied the case, showed the officer that it had her name on it.
Tom was asleep. Jane slipped into his T-shirt, sat at her desk, sipped wine, began reading through Simon’s poems. Tom had saved the day and had done so, it seemed, simply because he was worried about what she might be getting into. He wished, he said, she would act as im
pulsively and instinctively toward him as she did toward her patients. Though she had laughed with Tom about the scene—how crazy, pathetic, and comic it was—she felt now as if it were all a dream. She smiled. Of course. It was a dream—Simon’s dream come true—and she was living in it.
“What are you reading?”
“His poems.”
“May I?”
He kissed her neck, and she reached up, stroked his cheek, his hair. He lifted a page.
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
“That’s good,” Tom said. “He had a gift, didn’t he?”
“That’s Auden,” she said. “Not Simon. Here’s Simon: In the prism of his daze / Teach the free man how to craze. Simon did that sometimes, to see if—”
She broke off, saw again the dazed expression on Mrs. Pearlstein’s face.
“I like you, Tom. I like you a lot.” She turned and rubbed her forehead against his stomach, wanting to burrow into him as far as she could. “I’m trying. Really.”
“I know. You’re very trying.”
She stood, pushed him out of the way. “Don’t make jokes,” she snapped.
Jane looked around the table: five doctors, three aides, two social workers, three nurses. Only one of the doctors—Feinstein, fast asleep to her left—could speak English with any fluency. Two of the aides routinely beat up their patients. One of the nurses, she knew, was on morphine. Another drank heavily…
She had called her travel agent in the morning, had inquired about flights, cruises, tour packages.
What does an Irishman do on his vacation?
He sits on somebody else’s stoop.
She saw her mother’s mouth, heard her mother howling with laughter. Her mother’s head was way back, her mouth so enormous Jane imagined it could catch whole fish, the fish pouring down from barrels, the barrels at the edge of the tenement’s roof. She and Simon were children, on the roof, tipping the barrels over, raining the pickled water down on the grown-ups. Her mother laughed harder, repeating her old jokes—about the stoop, about the priest and the chorus girl—and when her mother stopped, to get her breath, Jane heard Schiff’s voice, advising her to settle out of court, fifty-fifty. Yes, they probably could prove that Simon was in his right mind when he made out the will. But that didn’t matter: one did not have to be mentally stable to purchase life insurance. Yes, he would take her case, and yes, he was confident they would, in the end, prevail. But the end might be a long way off. Axelrod was very smart and very persistent. He would delay, appeal, drag the case through the courts interminably. He would claim undue influence, would try to prove that Simon had been particularly susceptible to Jane’s charms. The Pearlsteins would sue the hospital, would use the newspapers, would move for a change of venue due to the publicity, would get the insurance money put into escrow on suspicion of fraud. Jane would be attacked publicly, professionally, personally. The hospital might think itself within its rights to suspend her temporarily…
Mental Patient Leaves Fortune to Female Shrink. Bereaved Family Claims Alienation of Affections. She thought of Simon’s Crazy Jane poems, considered supplying him with new titles: Crazy Jane at a Staff Meeting, Crazy Jane and the Pearlsteins. Men come, men go, she recited to herself: all things remain in God. And what, Schiff assured her Axelrod would ask, had she really been doing in Simon’s apartment? Had she been there before? How much would it cost, after all, to get the janitor to testify that she often spent the night there?
I had wild Simon for a lover, she mused, though, like a road that men pass over, my body makes no moan but sings on: all things remain in escrow.
Who paid for the apartment? Who encouraged him to fly to Ireland? Why did he write love poems to his psychiatrist?
Across from her, Dr. Kandrak was whispering to Dr. Ramanujian. She didn’t know if the language they used was Pakistani, Indian, or a regional dialect.
How, Simon had asked, could doctors help crazy people get well when they couldn’t even talk with them in the same language? Wouldn’t Dr. Fogarty agree that communication was a moderately important part of a true healing process?
With great gentleness, she had asked why he asked her about the doctors of other patients.
Because I’m afraid to talk to you, to tell you what I feel.
Yes. But try, Simon. Try if you can.
I am trying, he said. Can’t you tell? Why don’t you trust me when I tell you I’m afraid? Why do you always want to criticize me?
Do you really think that?
Yes. No. But I think you like me. You’re very beautiful when you smile. Sometimes. Sometimes.
Sometimes I think you like me. You’re always beautiful. I like you, Simon. I like you very much. But try not to be afraid of telling me what you feel.
You’re not out to get me then?
What do you think?
No. But–
But what?
But I feel you are. I’m sorry.
She had seen the tears come to his eyes then, noticed the way he turned his wrists, as if he were shaking down a batch of silver bracelets. She thought of his bones, on a beach, bleached and hollow like the bones of gulls. Had Simon reached for her hand—she suspected he wanted to, though she was not sure he knew it—she would have given it. Instead, he made a fist, chose that moment to tell her he was going to take out the insurance policy
before his trip.
I know it’s a nutty idea, he said, but you said not to hide anything so I’m telling you what I was thinking of doing if I ever get well enough to be on my own. I want to go to England and Ireland, to visit their homes. I want to be one upon whom nothing is lost. I want to meet them at close of day. But I don’t know if I can.
Can what?
Can go to Ireland and take out an insurance policy in your name. So what do you think?
About what?
About how you’ll feel if I die, damn it! Let’s say I get well enough to really go—let us go then, you and I, right?—and I’m not etherized on anything other than those dolphin-torn seas and far from dives on 52nd Street and you think: if I hadn’t helped him get well, then he wouldn’t ever have made the trip and he would still be alive.
Yes?
I want both. I want both lives. I want all the lives I can have! I want everything!
Good.
Good?
The others were standing, gathering papers. Dr. Feinstein lit a cigar, whispered to her that he was the Red Auerbach of the state mental health system. “I think we’re going to win,” he said, his Viennese accent thick. Feinstein had known Freud, Rank, Abraham, Jones, Ferenczi. He claimed to have been analyzed by Eitcngon. Eitengon had not, of course, worked for the KGB, as was now claimed, though who knew, despite his small stature and plain looks, what might have passed between him and the actress Plevitskaya…
“Win?”
“When he believes the basketball game is, as you say, in the bag, he lights up a cigar.”
“Mimesis then,” Jane said. “Now I understand: you and Auerbach.”
Feinstein touched her hand, lovingly. “Ah, Jane, why are you here?”
“And you?”
“A different life. I’ve already been everywhere else, yes?”
She walked across the hospital lawn, thought of lying down, of blowing on the young spring grass as if it were hair along Tom’s forearm.
Don’t!
Don’t what?
Don’t betray me so soon when I’m scarce in the grave. Doesn’t anyone believe in grief anymore? I saw you last night, the things you did with him. You never touched my arm with your breath—never made the soft hairs sway, never let me lie emptied of my poetry.
Have a good trip, Simon.
That’s all? Have a good trip? I pour my heart out to you and you won’t even tell me how you feel about it? I mean, what if something goes wrong? What if the IRA bombs the pub I’m in?
You yourself told me they always telephone the pubs first, as warning.
But the phones never work in Irish pubs! That’s why—
Jane laughed. Oh Simon—you’re wonderful!
I am?
She did not reply.
But listen to me. What if it happens? What if they kidnap me? What if the plane blows up before the pub does? What if the trip is a mistake? What if my life is a mistake?
We’ll talk about it when you return.
We’ll talk-about-it-when-you-return, he mimicked. Maybe you’re the one who’s making the mistake. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe I should be back in the hospital. Maybe I shouldn’t have trusted you with my life. Goddamn it—stop smiling and say something—your smile’s driving me crazy! You’re just so damned beautiful and I’m just so damned scared, can’t you understand? Maybe if you were plain, this would be easier.
Have a wonderful trip.
Sure.
I’ll miss you, Simon.
He went to the door, opened it, turned.
Oh, he said quietly.
It was the last time she would ever see him. For her, she thought, it was his last afternoon as himself. He started to apologize for having become angry with her, but stopped himself. God! he said. I’m really doing it.
On the Long Island Expressway, traffic hardly moved. Jane passed three separate accidents, thought of getting off the Expressway in order to telephone that she would be late. But whom would she telephone? She had no secretary. In Manhattan, her patients would arrive at a locked door. Damn! She prided herself on always being on time. She agreed with Auden that tardiness—not lust—should be one of the seven deadly sins. Her patients had to be able to trust her fully, to know that she was, for them, no matter the world’s vagaries, dependable—that her commitment was unconditional.
Her engine coughed, died. She turned the key in the ignition; it ground noisily, metal on metal. The gas gauge showed empty. She got out of her car, slid sideways along the door, took a deep breath. It had occurred to her on the way to work several hours earlier to stop for gas, but she had forgotten to do so. She relaxed, made the association: she had forgotten because at that moment—knowing she might run dry-she had, instead, begun thinking of herself as the heroine in a ghost story, and she had begun doing that because the possibility of running dry had led her to think of Simon’s statement about being one upon whom nothing was lost. She had full recall of such trains of association, prided herself—the great dividend from her analysis—on being able to relax enough to trace any series of thoughts or feelings to their source.
Lying in Tom’s arms the night before, she had talked with him about how surprised she was not to be happier about her windfall. With some hesitancy she told him of her imaginary dialogues with Simon, of how uneasy they made her. Survivor guilt? Surely it was more complicated than that, yet she couldn’t get a handle on it—on why she felt so unsettled. Tom lifted her hair, ran his tongue along her neck, told her he was encouraged to learn that she did, in fact, have an active fantasy life. “I think it’s great that you and Simon are still having sessions. Even if there are no third-party payments,” he said. “It’s what saves us. The lack of imagination, as you’ve said before, is directly connected to the instinct for cruelty.” She said nothing. “If we didn’t imagine lives other than the one we have,” he went on, “we’d die.” He touched her gently. “Can’t you see that yet?”
She turned toward him then, unable to speak, but feeling an overwhelming tenderness for him. She kissed his collarbone, licked his chest, bit at his nipples, then suckled there. When he sighed with pleasure, she felt happy. “What I love about you, since you asked,” he said then, “why I feel each time we meet that I’m meeting you for the first time, all over again, as it were, is that, of all people, you seem the last to know the obvious about yourself: about your dreams, about how they work to keep you alive. Sometimes you seem hardly to know you have an imagination.”
Simon, she sensed from the beginning, like others she treated, had the capacity to get well—to heal himself with her help—precisely because he had the ability and willingness to imagine lives he never had, to have lives he never imagined. People who loved stories, she believed—who could think of their lives as stories—could learn to trust, no matter their childhoods, no matter the psychic and emotional devastation visited upon them.
She had been happy, then, in the morning, thinking of Simon. She had been happy thinking of the small miracle of his life, of what he had, finally, by his act—no matter his death—done. He had done something that was truly him. What followed because of it—the drama she and his family were now embroiled in—was nothing more or less than a story that he had begun and that they would finish.
Driving to work along the Expressway she had let herself imagine, word by word, how she might, for Simon, have summarized that story: A young woman who has never married or fallen deeply in love inherits a large sum of money due to the death of a young male patient of hers. The patient, on the point of setting out for the Continent, there to visit the homes of the poets he loves, has been dependent upon the woman and, cured by her of his profound malaise, has rewarded himself with the gift of this adventure. He has decided, after all, to live. Yet he dies, and the woman, suddenly wealthy, is now visited not only by the ghost of this young man, but, to her surprise, by ghosts from her own past that, for all her knowledge and dreams, she has never before acknowledged. Realizing that she has been giving
to others what she herself was never given—trust, love, and the will to risk all for life itself, with whatever pain and loss this risk may carry—what does she now do? Perhaps she sets forth for the Continent, to take up the very journey her young man has not taken. If so, what does she discover?
That she is out of gas.
Simon laughed.
Jane laughed with him and pulled herself up onto the hood of her car. She sat there, enjoying the warmth of the metal against her thighs. Well, this is a gas, isn’t it, Simon?
It’s lovely seeing you smile this way. I never saw you look so happy before. I never saw you let yourself lose control.
Jane’s car was stalled in the middle of three lanes. The heat rising from the engine was hotter than she had at first realized, and she wondered if it would, through her thin cotton skirt, burn her. The sun shone brightly on her even as she felt the rain hit her face.
It’s only a sun-shower, she said to Simon. It’ll be gone soon.
And then what?
Then I’ll call Tom and tell him I love him. I’d like to try that on for a while—see if it takes.
And then?
Then I’ll call Emlyn and tell him not to settle—that I’ll never settle. I want it all, Simon. The whole half-million.
The rain washed her hair onto her face. Her blouse and skirt stuck to her skin, and she imagined peeling the cloth away, wrapping herself in warm towels. The water ran crazily, in narrow rivers, over her ears, eyes, nose, mouth, down her neck, along her back, into her shoes. She heard horns, saw blurred faces staring at her from behind windshields. She thought she could hear the pleasant click and swish of wipers, and she had no desire to do anything but sit on her car’s hood and let the rain pour down upon her while she wondered if Simon could actually see her, while she wondered if she would ever be able to give herself what she had given so well to him.
What was that?
Her mouth was open now, as wide as it could go, so that her jaw ached with pleasure, and the sound that rose from deep inside her—as if fueled by the engine’s brutal fire, through cylinders, valves, cast iron, and tempered steel; through thighs, stomach, chest, and throat was, she knew, nothing else but her mother’s drunken howling. With the years, her mother had come to drink at least as much as her father had. As her mother had comforted her father, so she had come to comfort and care for her mother. But knowing that, what did she know? Their drinking was not them, after all; addiction did not explain their lives—it merely explained them away. To discover what it was that kept her from loving a man such as Tom, that kept her from fully enjoying her legacy from Simon—to accomplish such things she would have to do more than relive the ordinary pain that had come with loving her mother and father. She would have to do more than she felt capable of.
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