Other people

by Sol Stein

  "When I was away from home for the first time."

  "When you didn't have Mommy or Daddy to pull you out of the water."

  "It sounds ridiculous."

  "All of our recurrent nightmares are ridiculous in one sense, and revealing in another. I am so happy."

  "Happy?"

  "For you. Now that this has come out, it should be better at night. You have let the genie out of the bottle. Sometimes the shock of something else, what happened to you today, helps open the gate of memories. Your insomnia was for a purpose, in the curious logic of the unconscious, it was for your safety so you would not drown."

  "There's a difference," I said.

  "About what?"

  "I didn't drown. I was just afraid of it. I was raped. I didn't imagine it"

  "You will not have insomnia about rape."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because it is not a source of severe anxiety for you. While rape can be very traumatic for some, for you, well, you are strong."

  I am not strong.

  "May I say how I think you should think about it?"

  I know how I think about it.

  "Why do you seem upset now? You should be relieved."

  I am furious.

  "I know how you feel about it. Awful. Terrible. Those are just large canvases of feeling. You must think about it like an unpleasant sex experience that must be brushed out of the mind."

  I could kill that man. "You don't understand!" I was sweating all over again.

  "Oh I do, I do. All this past year I have felt your strength grow, your security, I think now is perhaps the time for us to begin, gently, slowly, discussing something I have wanted to explore with you before this came up."

  Stick to the subject. You are supposed to be helping me.

  "I want you to relax. Here, sit up. That's it. Look at your knuckles. Open your hands."

  He took one of my hands and opened my fingers. Don't do that. I don't want to be forced to do anything.

  "Now," said Dr. Koch, giving me back my hand, "you have reached a turning point. Your talking about the flood, it will be a catharsis for the insomnia. You can turn from the demons of the night to the opportunities of the day. You see, my dear, I have long thought that if you were an artist, say, or a dancer, something like that, a person trying to release a talent from your soul, you would know what vocation is."

  What the hell are you talking about?

  "If you had a special talent with your hands even, you would know what a craft is. You would feel driven."

  I feel driven to claw your face right now.

  "You would know the meaning of work in the highest sense given to man. But alas, because of circumstances, you lack even an economic stimulus. Your family is well-to-do, work is a hobby for you. Neither money nor talent drive you toward a vocation."

  I deliberately picked up the fragile ashtray and slammed it to the floor.

  He pretended not to notice! He just said to me, "What are you thinking?"

  "I'm thinking you are one first class son of a bitch. I came here for help. What does all that garbage have to do with the way I feel?"

  "Everything." He stooped to pick up the pieces of ashtray.

  "I'll pay for it," I said.

  He dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

  "What happened today," he said, "is a transitory matter. A wound that will heal."

  I felt as if I were dissolving. "I haven't even told you what that man did to me today."

  "Please tell me," he said.

  I bit my lip. Suddenly I didn't want to talk.

  "Please," he said. "You must talk it out."

  I shook my head.

  "I'm trying to help you."

  You're not helping me.

  "Say it."

  "You're not helping me."

  "Tell me what happened. How did it start?"

  "A knock on the door." My voice sounded like an automaton to me.

  "Then?"

  I told him about the cup of sugar. About the broom, for banging on the ceiling. Then about when Koslak exposed himself.

  "What did you think about that?" asked Koch.

  I didn't want to hear my automaton voice. I didn't want to talk any more.

  "What did you think?"

  I forced my dry throat to speak. "He wanted me to be frightened. I knew that."

  "Were you frightened?"

  "Of course I was."

  I exhausted myself in the telling of the rest of it. Finally, he said, "Do you feel better now?"

  "I don't know."

  "You will feel better when you come to grips with one thing. Your rootless brilliance."

  What the fuck was wrong with this man? "Are you talking about my job again?"

  "I thought tonight it might distract you. We can talk about it some other time."

  You started it, finish it. "Talk about it now."

  Koch sighed. "You are young."

  You are old.

  "There is time. A job," he said, "is not a vocation. A vocation is like an engine that burns out only when you burn out. You desperately need roots for your brilliance. And the handicap you have is that you are a second generation vocational foundling."

  "Now what does that horseshit mean."

  Koch stared in surprise.

  "You said I could talk as uninhibited as I wanted to in these sessions. I said horseshit because that's what it is. I don't understand what you're talking about."

  "Don't get so worked up. Your father is a vocational foundling."

  "He's a lawyer."

  "He has no vocation as a lawyer. He is filling a role out of strange reasons. I have heard him. He has the same problem as you have."

  I was standing now. "I was raped today."

  "Yes."

  "Rape is a crime. It's my body was violated. I was tied up. I could have been killed."

  He did not get up. It was as if by remaining seated, he was forcing me to sit back down.

  "But you were not killed. You must deal with reality."

  "I am! For Christ's sake, I went to the hospital, I went to the police, I thought at least here I would find some sympathy, some understanding."

  "Please sit down."

  "I feel like I'm in enemy territory. Just like in the police station. Don't any of you men understand?"

  "What have you against men?"

  "Oh shit, let's not start that kind of thing. Let's talk like normal human beings. If I'd been robbed, if I'd been burglarized, you'd be sympathetic!"

  "I am sympathetic."

  "Like hell you are. You started criticizing my whole way of life. Tonight. When I came for help."

  "I was trying to direct your attention to your deepest problem now that we have found the source of your insomnia. You will not have it again, I promise. Please sit down."

  "I'm not going to sit down. I'm going to get the hell out of here."

  "Please, please." He was standing now. "You've never done this before."

  "You've never been this obtuse and cruel before."

  "I think you should come back tomorrow when you are feeling calmer."

  "I hope—"

  "Yes?"

  "Something happens."

  "To me?"

  "Yes to you. So you'll understand what I feel like."

  "You mean I should be raped."

  "Something like that. Something that takes you out of this padded cell you live in."

  "I hurt you because I talked of you being a vocational foundling."

  "You hurt me because you are not helping me to understand what happened to me today!"

  "If you feel such injustice, perhaps you should see a lawyer."

  "I don't know any lawyers."

  "Your father might help you."

  "You said he wasn't a lawyer."

  "He might know somebody."

  "Thanks a lot."

  I tried very hard not to slam the front door.

  "Where to?" said Bill.

  "I'm not going ba
ck to my apartment. Not in that building. Not with that man still there."

  "Want to stay at my place?" Bill asked.

  "No," I said.

  "I'd sleep in the living room."

  I shook my head.

  "Where to?"

  "My parents' house."

  He released the parking brake, and we were off. In a moment we were on the West Side Highway, headed for the county to the north.

  Eight

  Widmer

  People refer to our home as the Widmer House, we've been in it so long. It's in the village of Briarcliff Manor in the western part of central Westchester. If you're driving up from the city on any of the parkways, you'll eventually end up on 9A, a four-lane, poorly engineered, twisting road that has been host to countless fatal accidents. Over the years, the State Department of Transportation, corrupted no more than most government bureaucracies, eventually responded to the clamor about fatalities by erecting median barriers here and there. When guests come up the first time, I suggest they take 9A in order to avoid getting lost, but until they arrive I feel that I have consigned them to danger and I worry until the doorbell rings.

  That night I was expecting no one. After dinner, Priscilla and I played cribbage in front of the living room fireplace, not that we needed its heat. As the winter season draws to a close, we know that soon the damper will be shut for half a year, and the logs will be carried back to the lean-to behind the garage where they are protected from the rain. The fireplace, when it splutters from green wood, has an aphrodisiac effect on Priscilla, and that evening I had mischievously put a branch from a recently fallen pine in with the seasoned hardwood. I had offered, and she had accepted, some port, and Priscilla won the first time around the cribbage board, all of which contributed to her confidence, and when she feels confident, she radiates the sexuality that had first attracted me to her many years ago.

  And so we were in the bedroom in each other's arms when I heard the clear sound of a car leaving Elm Road and heading up our driveway. It stopped far too soon. In the countryside you become attuned to interruptions of the familiar outdoor sounds, and when, distracted, I said to Priscilla I thought the engine of the car had been turned off, she and I both thought of the burglary at the Watsons just a week ago. We listened. I went to the window. I could see nothing in the driveway at the front of the house and the trees obscured the rest of it. Whatever car had come halfway up the drive no longer had its lights on. Were we now to wait for the tinkle of broken glass?

  I keep my rifle in the closet in the dressing room behind my row of suits. I put it against the foot of the bed and then put my dressing gown on. Priscilla got out of the opposite side of the bed. Her nakedness, which had held my attention just a minute earlier, seemed so inappropriate now. I was glad when she drew her robe around herself.

  When I opened the window a crack, I felt like an animal perking its ears to catch sounds humans do not ordinarily hear. Priscilla and I both heard a male voice. Quickly I went to the bedroom phone and dialed the police. The desk sergeant said he'd send a car right away, and I went down with the rifle, to sit on the last turn of the stairs from which vantage I had a view of the front windows and the door but would not be seen immediately by anyone who did not look up. I make it a rule to leave one small table lamp lit the night long, and this night I was grateful for it. Priscilla sat down just behind me.

  At that moment I heard the key in the lock. Immediately my thoughts were of housekeepers we had had in the past who might have copied the front door key for a friend or someone who paid a commission on his thefts.

  Naturally I was stunned when the knob turned and the door swung open.

  "Francine!"

  "Father. What are you doing with that rifle?"

  "Oh Francine," said Priscilla, coming around me and rushing down to her daughter.

  It was then we all heard the sound of more than one car, a screech of brakes, raised voices, and in a moment a patrolman was leading young Bill Acton up to the house.

  "He was backing his car down to Elm Road," said the officer. "Do you know him?"

  I had them both come in and shut the door behind them to cut off the night air.

  "I'm sorry," I said. It was at Francine I was directing my words. "We heard a car come part way up the drive and stop. The Watsons were burglarized just last week and I thought — why didn't you phone?"

  "It was late," said Francine.

  "You always phone," said Priscilla.

  "Well never mind," I said. "Officer, we know this young man. He's brought our daughter here. I'm sorry to have called you out."

  "It's okay, Mr. Widmer. Better safe than sorry. Good night."

  "I'd better go," said Bill. "My car's blocking the end of the driveway."

  "We're not expecting any more visitors tonight," I said, trying to lighten the awkward tension we were all aware of.

  "I've got to talk to you," said Francine.

  "I'm going," said Bill.

  I saw Francine whisper thanks to him, and kiss him on the cheek, which seemed unnecessary to me at the time.

  As soon as Bill was gone, Francine and Priscilla and I went into the living room, and I turned on the lights. Francine noted our garb and said she was sorry to have gotten us out of bed.

  "I'm planning to stay the night," she said. "But I may want to stay a few days, would that be all right?"

  "Of course," I said.

  "It's just until, well, something is resolved."

  "You wanted to talk to us," Priscilla said.

  "Yes."

  I experienced the kind of preparatory silence during which, out of courtesy, one should not speak. Of course I knew Francine was distraught. She was breathing deeply in what I thought was a conscious effort to control her nerves.

  "I've been to Dr. Koch, the police, and the hospital this evening."

  "Are you sick?" asked Priscilla.

  "No. Yes. Not really. It's very hard to talk about."

  "Would you rather I left you with your mother?" I asked, thinking it might be some female trouble she wanted to discuss.

  "No. In fact the main reason I came was to get your advice, Dad. It was suggested I see a lawyer. You're the only lawyer I know."

  I didn't know quite how to interpret that.

  "I've been raped," she said.

  Priscilla's face went white. She stood up, her fingertips at her lips.

  "By whom?" I asked, standing. "By Bill?"

  "No, no, no, no, Dad, please sit down."

  I must admit that at that moment I was not thinking clearly at all. I felt anger to the point of outrage as if something of mine had been violated. That was so wrong. I should have felt instant sympathy for her. If she had been hit by a car or fallen from a kitchen chair while reaching for something, I would have thought only of her. Why did I feel as if something had been done to me?

  I found myself picking up the poker and stoking the embers in the fireplace.

  "Dad?"

  I looked directly at Francine, avoiding her breasts. It was as if I was steeling myself from looking further down, as if some great wound might show where her legs met. How absurd our thoughts are!

  "Please sit."

  I sat back down.

  "It was a man who lives in the apartment above me. A married man with kids. He came, pretending to want to borrow a cup of something."

  "You fought him?"

  "I tried to outsmart him. Then he tied my arms behind my back. There was nothing I could do."

  "Are you hurt?" Priscilla asked. "Anywhere."

  "My face smarted a lot for a while from a hard slap. My wrists hurt. Nothing serious."

  "Thank heaven," I said.

  She told us about the hospital, what happened at the police station, and then the strange experience with Dr. Koch. I couldn't believe a psychoanalyst could be so insensitive.

  "I'm going to fix up your bedroom," said Priscilla. "Won't be a minute."

  "Oh I'll do that, Mother."

  "W
e don't use the linen closet any more. We had a bad roof leak that kept getting everything damp in there. I'll be right back."

  When we were alone, Francine said, "Could I have a drink?"

  "Of course. What would you like?"

  I prepared a scotch and water.

  "Thank you. I'm afraid to go back to the apartment. He might try again. There must be some legal way of protecting me."

  I was thinking of ways that weren't legal. The poker that I still held in my hands. The rifle leaning against the stairs. I am not a violent man, yet I felt rage.

  Though drink late at night doesn't agree with me, I poured myself a stronger scotch than I had poured for her. I wanted to go over to Francine, take her hands, raise her to her feet, enfold her, restore her. Yet the truth is I was thinking she was soiled.

  When Priscilla came back down, I thought there might be something the women would want to talk about alone, so I excused myself and went upstairs to put the rifle away, hoping I could put my anger away with it. When I did, I knew I had come upstairs for another reason. It was a vicious thing to do. I felt governed by necessity when I reached among the few books I keep in the bedroom to the volume of outdated procedures that I knew Priscilla would never pick up, and from its pages I took the small envelope that was sealed and marked "private" in my own hand. I put it in the pocket of my dressing gown and returned downstairs.

  Francine seemed to have calmed somewhat, whether from the drink or the conversation with her mother I did not know.

  "Thomassy," I said. "That's the name of the lawyer who might be able to help you. I don't know how these things work, whose arm has to be twisted, but he'll know. I'll speak to him. I hope he can see you. Meanwhile, you must stay here."

  It'd been many years since I'd seen Priscilla kiss Francine good night.

  "I'll be right up," I said to Priscilla, but I knew I could never resume what the sound of the car had interrupted. Francine was about to follow her mother up when I said, "Could I have a word with you?"

  I sat two or three feet away from her so that I would not have to raise my voice.

  "Thomassy is a very busy man, mainly because he's the best we have in this county at his kind of work. I mean criminal law. You'll have to be very candid with him. Are you prepared for that?"

  "I was candid with the hospital and the police and it got me nowhere."