Innocence Revisited

by Cathy Kezelman

  When I can’t sit straight any longer I sprawl out across a few of the chairs and fall asleep. I awake to the doctor’s hand stroking my arm.

  ‘Come on, Catherine, there’s the girl. Come with me.’

  I reach across and tug on my mother’s arm.

  Even at fourteen years’ old I was scared of going anywhere new by myself.

  ‘Let Mum have a rest, eh? There’s a good girl.’

  ‘Go on Bubs! Off you go!’ Once my mother waves me off I have no choice but to go with him, alone.

  I look around the doctor’s office. It’s messy and I don’t like the look of the instruments strewn over his desk. I don’t know what they’re for.

  ‘Come on Catherine. Lie down over here, there’s a good girl.’ The doctor pats the top of a hard looking couch draped with off-white butcher’s paper.

  ‘Now lift up your arms, there’s a good girl.’ The doctor eases my shirt off over my head.

  ‘Now, sit forward. I’m just going to listen to your chest.’ The cold metal rim of the chest-thingy makes me shiver. The doctor lifts it off the back of my chest and places it on the front.

  ‘Sit up again and say, ‘Ah’.

  I gag as the cold shoehorn thingy squashes my tongue.

  ‘Good girl. Now lie down again, will you? I’m just going to have a bit of a feel.’ The doctor pulls my shorts down, feels my tummy and whisks my panties off. I don’t say a word. I can’t. His fingers push into my skin, move on and push again. They venture down to the skin between my legs and feel around. Minutes pass; I still can’t speak. They feel some more.

  ‘All done! Get dressed now Catherine and, ah tell your mother that there’s nothing much wrong.’

  I scurry back to my mother with tears in my eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong Baba, come on now! Out with it!’

  ‘Mum, I’m sorry. Please don’t be angry!’ My mother is angry already; I can feel it.

  ‘Well it’s just that Monty touched me. He touched me, in… in bad places where, where he shouldn’t and… and it felt bad.’

  ‘Oh Baba, don’t be silly. Don’t take any notice at all. Monty’s always doing that sort of thing. He’s a bit funny like that. If it happens again just tell him to stop being silly!’

  I was a sick, shy and recently bereaved fourteen-year old and my mother had spoken. There was little I could do other than try to forget, and move on as best I could. And forget I did, although that particular episode was not repressed as others were. I pushed any memory of it to the back of my mind and stopped thinking about it.

  Seeing the doctor’s photo made me face that incident, but doing so, I was badly affected. Before long I was cycling through the downward spiral I’d worked so hard to avoid. Restless, agitated, alone and depressed I struggled to feel safe, even with Kate. But this time the sleeplessness of my nights heralded a new era of terror.

  I hadn’t dreamt for years and if I had, I didn’t remember any of my dreams. That soon changed.

  When I had my first nightmare I didn’t know what it was.

  It felt so real. I’d only ever been on a raft once, and the one in my nightmare didn’t resemble that one at all. The raft in my nightmare was shoddily-built and its flimsy ties strained to hold the roughly hewn logs together against the turmoil of the rapids.

  The raft strikes a boulder on the bottom of the river, shudders and sighs but stays in one piece. I’m drenched, and incredulous that I’ve survived. There’s little time to celebrate before the current shoots the raft off downstream. It rips along but then gets caught in an eddy and stays trapped for several minutes as another raft sweeps past.

  I recognise the other raft; it’s the one my daughter took when we set off, but she’s no longer on it. My raft jolts away; the momentum hurls me backwards. I manage to hold on, but within minutes, the raft gets wedged again. Stuck still, I catch sight of my daughter’s body in the water upstream and watch helplessly as the water sucks her under, and her head disappears. And hold my breath as her head pops back up, and disappears once more. I see nothing until her body tumbles towards me in the current. I reach out my hand to grab her and manage to touch the tips of her fingers, but can’t grab hold of them. Then she’s gone.

  When I awoke from my nightmare I was sitting bolt upright, with one hand stretched out over the side of the bed. The air touching my finger tips felt frosty and I was shaking like a leaf. I tried to calm myself down. After all it wasn’t real, I reasoned. It was only a nightmare.

  chapter 12

  After my first nightmare I endeavoured to reclaim my equilibrium, but it didn’t happen. Logic couldn’t quell my constant anxiety and before long nightmares, like the first one, became a recurring event.

  There’s a fire consuming the forty-storey office block where I work. Fumes are choking all of the exits. As I clamber across the roof looking for a way out, the flames catch up with me. The smoke weighs heavily on my chest. I gasp for air, but can’t get enough. I pray that someone will come to help me but no-one does. The smoke and flames close in.

  I awoke from my second nightmare with a splutter and so too, with the third and the fourth. In fact over the weeks that followed all of my nightmares saw me trapped, alone and fighting for my life, with little hope of being saved. Although I experienced a variety of nightmares, one in particular recurred frequently.

  I am a child, ten at the most, and I’m running through the jungle alone. A soldier in full combat gear is thundering at my heels. His machine gun is pointed mere metres from my temple. The twisted branches and vines whip against me as I hurdle over them. When my foot gets caught in the roots of the jungle floor I stumble and right myself, only to stumble again and crash to the ground. I pick myself up and take flight but the soldier gains ground. My pace slackens and my legs begin to buckle. I look up and see the vegetation thinning, muster all my strength and with one final burst, I trample through the undergrowth and out into the light on the riverbank.

  There’s a bamboo wharf jutting out into the stream. A small dugout canoe is just leaving it. I recognise my mother in the back of the canoe, reclining while a native fans her with a giant palm frond.

  The palm frond cuts through the mist. Someone inside the canoe points me out. My mother sits up and shouts. ‘Sorry Baba. It’s too late.

  I can’t come back for you now.’

  No matter how many times this scene played out in my head, I was flattened. I couldn’t interpret it, but realised that my mental state had something to do with the doctor. Desperate to understand more I returned to my mother’s place to see what other clues I could find. I took my mother’s handbag out of her wardrobe and read the sympathy card and the note that the doctor had written. I then went downstairs to review the photo.

  I couldn’t fall asleep that night and tossed till the light of dawn delivered a modicum of safety. I finally nodded off as the sun rose, only to be jolted awake by my cries soon after.

  I’m strapped to a plank which is being fed into the blade of a circular saw. The blade is spinning furiously. As my body is forced closer, the whirring intensifies and I hear a high-pitched squeal. The teeth of the blade puncture my skin and sink deep into the heart of my pubic bone.

  When I woke I was sweating all over. I looked around and couldn’t see any saws, or blades, or timber mills. I was in bed at home and my husband was snoring beside me. I’d had a nightmare, nothing more, but my perspiration was real and my panic, palpable and I didn’t stop panicking then. I could get neither the nightmare, nor the disquiet it aroused in me out of my head. I recounted the nightmare in therapy and asked Kate for her opinion.

  Whenever I requested that she interpret my dreams, she always asked what I thought they meant first. Not getting a straight answer frustrated me, but on this occasion I could have strangled her. I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t prepared to divulge what they were. In the weeks that followed I did my best to push those thoughts away; they seemed too far-fetched for words.

  Then came the session,
several weeks later in which I marched into Kate’s office and stated it; ‘I was raped.’

  It was curious, because by the time I could articulate the words, I could announce them confidently. Somehow I was sure of the fact, even though I couldn’t remember a definite incident. I recounted the nightmare of the blade piercing my pubic area and asked Kate if it indicated that I’d been raped. I suspected so, but needed to hear her opinion.

  ‘It might mean that you were penetrated, either with his fingers or with his penis.’

  It’s hard to describe how I felt hearing those words.

  On the one hand I’d been waiting for them, but on the other, they cut me to the quick.

  ‘Oh my God, I knew it. I just knew it. But how’s it possible? How can I not remember?’ I pleaded.

  ‘But Cathy, you know how much you’ve remembered already. Just give yourself time.’

  It may have been okay for Kate but it felt anything but okay for me. But then she wasn’t the one who’d been raped! And she wasn’t going crazy!

  ‘But it doesn’t make any sense? How could I forget something like that? How?’

  I found it hard to leave Kate’s office that day. I felt too exposed.

  I don’t remember getting into my car or driving home, or putting myself to bed, but I must have, because I remember trying to sleep. If I slept I wouldn’t have to think. I couldn’t sleep; however, because my mind was working overtime. I lay in bed agonising over what I believed and yet couldn’t explain.

  Eventually I got up and started scrubbing the walls. When the kids got back from school I was furiously wiping down banisters and polishing items which hadn’t been polished in years.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mama?’

  ‘Oh nothing, darling. Just doing some cleaning!’

  My kids had seen me switch into overdrive during the previous year and a half, and my words didn’t reassure them one bit!

  That night was tumultuous and when I saw Kate the next day I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth: ‘Yes, I was raped but it only happened once!’

  On weekends, my husband and I often take a walk. Like many modern couples, we jog through our weeks, frantically chasing our tails without properly touching base. This particular Saturday came at the end of the week’s revelations in therapy. The house was spotless and I hadn’t had much sleep. I was exhausted and Dan was concerned. Despite several attempts to prise me open, he still had no idea as to what was troubling me.

  I hadn’t opened up for several reasons. First and foremost I was confused. Given that I couldn’t remember any details, I was concerned that he wouldn’t believe me. What if he thought I was crazy? And if by some miracle he did believe me, what would that mean? I felt ashamed because in my mind, I had betrayed him. I may have been raped but it was still a betrayal. If he believed me then how would he ever be able to trust me again?

  We set off on one of our regular routes, a well-trodden cliff walk between Bondi and Bronte, but this was no ‘normal’ walk. I couldn’t chat about the petty details of my week; nor could I simply walk. I was holding too much in. I kicked at the ground and at several unsuspecting shrubs on route but that didn’t help; the tension continued to build up inside me. I soon conceded that I needed to tell him what was going on regardless of the consequences.

  We sat down on the grassy slope below Waverly Cemetery. On the path behind us, Saturday Waverly life continued unperturbed. Panting joggers puffed by, backpackers sauntered past and young lovers embraced.

  I started talking about the doctor’s photo and the nightmares I’d been having. Dan had suspected as much; he’d been woken by my screams on more than one occasion.

  ‘What did he do to you? Darling, please tell me! Whatever it is, it’ll be okay.’ My husband gently turned my face towards his.

  The waves rolled and crashed onto the rocks below, rolling and crashing …

  ‘Darling, come on. Please!’

  I got up, unable to speak. We walked on together, hand in hand. I stopped and tugged at a fence post. I didn’t want it there.

  ‘He raped you, didn’t he? Didn’t he? My God, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter to me.’

  I nodded and lowered my head onto his shoulder, pushing it in as far as it would go. I wanted to bury my shame so no-one could see.

  ‘Oh, my darling, my poor darling!’

  My husband wrapped his arms around me. More walkers pushed past.

  The pernicious secret was out, the cork eased from the vat of shame. Another stage of my journey had begun. I had started to tell.

  Within days I remembered more about that trip to Sydney. I remembered the cheap hotel, infused with sickly-smelling disinfectant, which broke up our journey. I remembered the doctor’s house and his surgery in the western suburbs, with three rooms to the surgery; a consulting room; waiting room, and a spare room. All three rooms were in an annexe which was separated from the house proper by a long corridor.

  Patients would register at the reception desk in the waiting room and take a seat before being ushered into the consulting room. The consulting room sported a desk, couch and several plastic chairs matching those in the waiting room, as well as a dresser with instruments. A door opened from the consulting room into the spare room. I was allocated the spare room for the duration of my stay. The room was drab and rather pokey and had nothing but the bare necessities: a three-quarter bed shoved up hard against the wall with a bedside table next to it. On the table stood a rickety lamp draped with a floral cotton hat. The room had only one window. It was tiny and sat high up on the wall over the bed. The little natural light which ventured inside the room was readily obliterated with a brisk tug on the Venetians. Each time I pulled on the Venetian, a cloud of dust floated down and settled over my sheets.

  Opposite the bed stood a narrow cupboard, in which I hung my sky blue velour dressing gown and, along from the bed, a sliding door opened onto the corridor. The heavily scuffed floor was full of strange swirls and squiggles; the flow of the pattern was interrupted by an oval shaped raffia mat, which was coming apart at the edges. Across the corridor through the sliding door was a toilet, wash basin and shower recess, where a flimsy plastic curtain hung with its mould trim.

  I was quarantined in the spare room with a diagnosis of Glandular Fever, an infirmity for which the doctor prescribed complete bed rest and daily penicillin injections. Everyone other than me, including my mother, slept in the main house. And my mother slept well on the barbiturates the doctor prescribed, washed down with a nightcap of brandy every night.

  ‘Now don’t worry your pretty little head, Lucy my dear. I’ll take good care of Catherine, I promise. You just relax and leave everything to me.’

  chapter 13

  Our marital bedroom is a private space which overlooks our backyard. For several months every night my husband and I would turn in, anticipating that memories about the doctor could assault us at any time. On some nights they did and on others, they didn’t. We could never predict which it would be.

  My husband generally falls asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. It’s an ability I’ve always envied, never more so than at that time. I’d lay beside him on full alert; listening out. Suddenly I’d sense that someone was coming and then I’d know it for sure. I’d wake my husband up so he’d be there to support me. When I did it though, it wasn’t his adult wife waking him, but a terrified fourteen-year-old.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he’d ask sleepily.

  I’d put my finger across his lips. I didn’t want him to speak. I needed to be sure that I could hear every sound. The first thing to hit was a sense that someone was coming and then I’d hear footsteps reverberating down the corridor, leading from the doctor’s house. As the tread of the steps became clearer, every muscle in my body would tense and my breathing would quicken. I’d throw my arms around my husband’s neck and the fourteen-year-old would cling to him for dear life. I would remember the doctor’s footsteps nearer, ever nearer, and
I would clamber over my husband’s body to escape. But there was no escape; my fate had been sealed decades earlier.

  I am the ideal prey: young, naive and freshly traumatised. I have a mother who chooses not to see or respond. She’s already dismissed me once, and in so doing, has removed any possibility of my approaching her a second time. The goings-on in the surgery have taken the stuffing out of me. Nervous at the best of times, I am now on tenterhooks.

  I have spent a fitful first night alone in the annexe and am awake now, in the morning, feeling very frightened. I haven’t seen my mother since yesterday, when she quashed my concerns. I force myself to get out of bed, do my ablutions in the bathroom across the hall and rifle through my bag for my favourite T-shirt, when I hear the doctor’s voice. I look up. My mother isn’t with him.

  ‘Good morning, Catherine. Now, tell me, my dear, how did you sleep?’

  The doctor walks into my room, slams the door shut with his foot and shoves me up against the wall.

  I don’t get to reply to the doctor’s social niceties. He slips his hand up under my singlet and starts doing embarrassing things to my nipples. As he keeps on doing it I can’t utter a word. The doctor touches me down below just like he had on the previous day. I try and wriggle free but I can’t; he’s too strong. He slides his hands freely over me, up and down, above and below. I want to scream but I can’t. My voice has disappeared. And I can’t move either; my muscles won’t work. My body, mind and soul freeze over and I stare in horror as the doctor unzips his trousers. He takes his thing out from inside his underpants and I watch it flop to one side. The doctor grabs my hands and takes them inside his. With his hands around mine he makes me hold his thing. And forces me to rub his thing with my hands and says, ‘This is special, just between you and me. Just you and me. Now be a good girl, you hear? And don’t tell that mother of yours! Don’t tell Lucy, or, or she’ll be angry, you know that, now don’t you?’