“My dear, what you have told me about the police interrogations would frighten anyone,” Dr. Zampone said. “In a few days, the experience will recede. All this stress is feeding on itself, increasing in a geometric progression, making you more anxious, to the point where you believe you have seen or heard something—like the footsteps, the baby crying, or that cart coming after you, always at night.”
“What?”
“Add to that the unfamiliar setting, the reflections on the water, the dancing lights, echoes in the shadows. . . . Everything can confuse.”
No way, Anna thought. “This all happened to me.” How much experience did Zampone have anyway? Maybe he was a brilliant thinker, but a dud as a practitioner.
“Did you report anything to the police when you nearly drowned?”
“They’d never believe me.”
“Did you seek medical attention?”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Why would anyone attack you?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
He reached over and gave her a reassuring pat on the arm, annoying her.
“Anna, you are at midlife. The psychology of Jung is concentrated in this period. It is where i sentieri, the paths of the past and the future, collide. Sometimes the old ways no longer serve. This is where we may have the famous midlife crisis. Integration of the parts, the opposites within us, must take place to feel wholeness. In your case, your keenly analytical mind must merge with your deeply buried feelings.”
He scrutinized her. “Have you cried, mourned out loud, shouted to the sky?” he asked gently. “Have you expressed your feelings over the loss of your parents, your grandparents, your marriage, your baby, giving voice to your despair? Or have you silenced and repressed these emotions?”
“I . . . I try not to think about them,” Anna admitted. “It hurts me too much. If I start, I’m afraid I’ll lose myself.”
Dr. Zampone crouched in front of Anna so their faces almost touched.
“Or find yourself,” he whispered. “You see, you must free these emotions. Embrace them in a safe place, like here. Better yet, with Dr. Levine, close to home. No more sweeping them under a giant rug. There is no escape from them, you know. I tell you, if your conscious mind ignores those feelings, they only become stronger in the unconscious. Eventually, they crash through. It can be overwhelming.”
How could he possibly be right? “What would that be like, Doctor?”
“A vision. A daydream.”
“How does it matter?” She wrinkled her nose.
“It hijacks reality. It can turn you against others.” He scowled. “It is dangerous for you and for those around you. Do as I say, and things will be fine.”
He rose and made a note. “At least you have not lost consciousness.”
Anna swallowed. “Just once, yesterday.”
“Accidenti,” Dr. Zampone muttered. “You did not mention this. It is important! Years ago, a patient of mine, not unlike you, woke up one day with his wife’s blood on his hands and no idea what had happened. He had killed her.” His voice grew clinical and cold. “I think you need to go back to California right away and see Dr. Levine.”
Anna felt her chest tightening. “I can’t—Biondi is holding my passport. You’re scaring me. And when I fainted, it was something different. I was very upset, and I had been drinking wine during the day, with friends, and not much water. As soon as I sipped some water, I was fine.”
He cocked his head. “If this ever happens again, call me subito, immediately. You have my card with my private number.” He made another entry in his notebook.
Anna wondered what damning conclusions he was reaching.
“Insomma, my dear, someone following you, pushing the cart, the voices . . . all may be surges from the unconscious mind, trying to bore into reality and dominate. We must remember that for every act, there is a consequence. Not exactly like in physics—Fermi would not have agreed—but not random either. Effects can be delayed, but they will come nonetheless. Sometimes they hide for years, waiting in the shadows, gathering strength, until we deal with them. Or else they deal with us. You need to be on guard against these hallucinations.”
She crossed her arms and placed one hand over her mouth. It had been hard for her to sit there and listen to his sometimes degrading, off-the-wall interpretations. Even now, getting up and leaving his office would give her immense satisfaction. But then she’d sacrifice the opportunity that had just occurred to her. It was time to face down her demons.
“Doctor, I need to find something out that has been troubling me for a long time,” Anna said. “I have an irrational fear of dark water. Sometimes I shiver just thinking about it. When I jumped into the canal to escape the cart, I froze. It was as if I had never learned to swim.”
“Many would find the black water frightening, not knowing what lurks underneath.” He tapped his thigh. “Did you almost drown as a child?”
Anna described the December afternoon when she and Nonno were strolling along the boardwalk of Captree Island. The wind was whipping as she tripped over a pile of rope. Nonno had jumped in and saved her as she had thrashed in the water.
“This incident could be the genesis of your fear.”
She scoured her brain. “I feel there’s something else, earlier. Another memory, or even a dream, I don’t know.”
“There is a way to attack that kind of phobia: hypnosis. I am fully licensed to conduct hypnotherapy. I would call such a procedure a tall order for you, though, my dear.”
“Why is that?”
“We have not worked together before. There is much unknown. Una cosa seria,” he added in a low voice.
Anna doubted that was the entire reason. She worked up a smile. “Dr. Levine told me you were very talented, or she wouldn’t have referred me.” Anna wondered if she should panic. Was she so desperate she’d put herself in his hands when he probably had just diagnosed her as a paranoid schizophrenic? But if he had, why was he willing to go ahead with hypnosis?
“Actually, she has called me ‘gifted.’” Then his voice grew subdued. “We want to make progress, of course. You might fall back, you might crumble. And you’re so far from home. Let me concentrate for a moment. Devo pensare, devo proprio pensare,” he said to himself. He clicked his pen, eyes fixed in the distance like an athlete on a high diving board, mentally rehearsing before springing into action.
Anna worried that it would be better to wait until she’d see Dr. Levine. She trusted her. With Dr. Zampone, it was trust, once removed. Why was he so reluctant? Was it beyond his abilities? Maybe doing this would be dangerous and she wouldn’t wake up. Or she’d lose her mind and become a zombie. But then, how could she stand another odd imagining, another day of uncertainty and fear? She started to silently count to one hundred in Italian.
At venti, Dr. Zampone exhaled noisily.
“Very well, I will perform the induction. But I must tell you first some things. This is not science. We are a pair of archaeologists digging through layers of memory, finding only dirt-covered potsherds, puzzle pieces, hypothesizing how the original looked. The truth may be most unwelcome. We may smash forever a cherished memory of yours with our clumsy instruments. The truth may not wish to be found, or we find a false memory instead. We may see just what your unconscious mind has thrown together, like gazing through a broken kaleidoscope and getting lost within it, never reaching the place you want, Anna. But clearly, something is prompting your hunger to know.”
Anna hoped Dr. Zampone would stop deliberating and act before she lost her nerve. When he grew silent, she chewed her lip.
“Allora, considering what I said, do you still wish to proceed?”
She nodded.
“Then we will see where the journey takes us. If it will make you more comfortable, take your shoes off and stretch out on the couch.”
Anna slipped off her pumps and reclined on the couch, her head on a silken pillow, her gaze on the chandel
ier overhead.
“We will go back to a time when you were a little girl.”
L’orologio, The Watch
Thursday, late afternoon
Dr. Zampone seized a gold pocket watch on a long chain from a velvet box on his desk.
“Look at me and not at the ceiling, Anna.” He moved his chair closer to the couch. “I will start by swinging this watch,” he said, dangling it in front of her. “When I say ‘Sleep,’ you will close your eyes and find your way back through time to that place—that other place—where you almost drowned. When I say ‘Wake up’ and touch you like this,” he leaned forward and pressed her right earlobe, “you will come back to the present and open your eyes. You will remember all what you say to me. But before then, if the memory becomes too painful and you want me to stop, you must raise your right hand. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Now, please, eyes on the orologio da tasca.”
The watch on its gold chain became a blur as Dr. Zampone began swinging it from side to side in a gleaming arc.
“Go ahead and sleep, my dear. Tell me about that day long ago, the day when you were in the water, struggling to breathe. Start at the beginning.” The doctor’s calm voice faded until it sounded as if it were coming from another room.
Anna closed her eyes.
“Yes, that’s right,” Dr. Zampone said. “What do you see?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. I can’t—wait.” Anna felt herself drifting through a thick mist. She saw a clearing ahead, and as she got closer, a scene started to unroll, as if in a movie. “I’m in a little boat. The waves are lapping at the sides. It’s morning, cool and just starting to get light.”
“Are you all alone?”
“Someone is rowing. Everyone is behind me. I hear my mother, Elena, talking.”
“What can you see?”
“Boxes are piled high in the boat.”
“You say boxes, scatole?”
“Yes. Now the boat is turning into a bay. The waves are bigger here.”
“Where is this, Anna?”
“I don’t know. All the buildings are gray. I hear arguing. My mother is yelling. I look back at her, and her face is scarlet. It frightens me, so I turn and face forward again.”
“Why is she angry?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happens next?”
“She throws one box after another into the water. They splash, and I get wet. The boxes float for a few seconds before they sink. I wonder what’s inside. We are getting close to land again, but we’re hit.”
Anna took a sharp breath.
“By what, by whom?”
“I can’t tell. But I fall overboard. I hear splashing, screaming, then grunts and gurgling sounds.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. Bubbles are streaming past me as I start sinking to the bottom of the sea, like the boxes did. Now someone is pushing me up through the water and back into the boat. My eyes are burning from the salt. No, no!” Anna screamed. “I want Mamma! Don’t you touch me. Don’t touch me.” Trembling, Anna tried to raise her right hand, but it barely moved. “Nonno, it’s you!”
“Wake up, wake up,” Dr. Zampone ordered as he squeezed her earlobe. “Come back. Anna. Anna?”
“No, no!”
“Wake up, wake up, I said.”
Anna struggled to open her eyes, dazed, and slowly focused them.
“Are you all right?”
“Doctor?”
“I am Dr. Zampone, here in Venice, Italy. You are safe. You experienced a troubling memory.” He grabbed his pen and started to write. “How do you feel?”
“Afraid and confused.”
“That is to be expected. This was hard on you. Rest now. Take ten breaths.”
Anna followed his instructions, then said, “I need to know what to make of it.”
“Come see me tomorrow when you are less upset. Even then, all the terror you feel may not hold the answer you seek.”
“I’m getting close, and we need to continue,” Anna said stubbornly.
“In my professional opinion, waiting is better.”
“I insist.”
“As you wish.” He made another note. “Why did you try to raise your hand?”
“I was about to see something awful.”
“But you don’t know what it was, only the panicked feeling?”
“Yes.”
“Was your Nonno there all along?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Was he the one to ram your boat?”
“I can’t believe that.” Anna started sniffling.
“Too much,” Dr. Zampone said, handing her a tissue. “We must continue in another session. What you are experiencing may be too traumatic.”
“I have to take the chance. Please, we have to go on.” She dabbed her eyes. “I may never gather the courage to try again. Please.”
“Let me ask you. Do you have any other recollections? Perhaps where and when this took place?”
“Not more than what I told you. But it must be someplace near New York.”
“Think. Think hard.”
Anna stared at the floor, meditating on the blue swaths of terrazzo marble chips, rocking back and forth to clear her mind, struggling for any spark of illumination. She took a deep breath. “I can’t bring it up,” she said, her voice catching.
“I must question whether some things were not true, or you mixed up different times, different memories, maybe taking parts from a dream, and contaminating the original memory,” Dr. Zampone said, retreating behind his desk.
“What makes you say that?”
“The tale is too simple. Full of symbols with no details. No complete descriptions—where you were, what the buildings looked like, who was in the boat with you, who brought you up from the water. Your Nonno wasn’t there? The whole episode was a floating dream, or nightmare, in this case.”
“It felt real.”
“I do not doubt you, my dear. And we both know that at some point in your childhood you almost drowned. This could incorporate that. Some of it could be pastiches of what others have told you, like your Nonno and Nonna in bringing you up after your parents’ deaths—the kaleidoscope I spoke of earlier. Beyond this I cannot say.”
“You’ve only said what this isn’t, not what your opinion is,” Anna told him, hearing her voice rise. “Are you refusing to help me?”
“Basta, calm down, my dear.”
“Stop calling me ‘my dear.’”
“I meant nothing by it. What I want to say is that memories are not linear. You expect too much, too quickly. Therapy is not instant gratification, like your American fast food. I cannot say if anyone did anything to you at this point. That is all right. We got a peek at it. We can try again, or you can pursue it with Dr. Levine when you get home. I will write everything up. In any event, you can recover from this early incident even without fully knowing what happened in the distant past. After all, I must tell you, you may never know.”
“Never know?” Anna felt her face getting hot. “This is my life we’re talking about. I’m not just one of your file folders.” Anna squeezed the silk pillow.
“My patients are not file folders to me. They are living, breathing human beings.”
Anna just looked at him, challenging him.
Dr. Zampone jutted his chin out, refusing to get angry. “Okay then. I share with you my interpretation, though it is very early. And you will not like it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“These thoughts of drowning have come during your stay in this city of too much water, too many reflections. The watery nightmare is your unconscious mind, accusing your mother of squandering the past as she throws the boxes, containing her history and yours, into the water—a past you will never know, since the boxes sink into the sea. Your Nonno tries to rescue you from a rootless past. And clearly, you feel guilty. Guilty for being alive, guilty, perhaps, over the death of your unborn child. Yet you blame
your mother for dying, for leaving you, instead of raising you. But you have twisted it around so that instead she is mad at you. Blaming a poor dead woman is, at some level, overwhelming. So you are drowning in your own guilt. The hand of your own guilt is pushing you deeper in the water as your mother expires. Anna, it is your guilt that is the culprit here! Your guilt is destroying you.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. You’re saying it’s all my fault?”
“It is not personal.”
“The hell it’s not. I’m paying you the equivalent of one hundred dollars an hour to be insulted?”
A bronze clock on the desk made a soft chime.
“I will not charge you.” Dr. Zampone’s voice trembled. “Claudio Zampone will never be accused of cheating a patient. You must remember, this is not a commercial transaction or one of your equations. Today we start to touch something buried, dormant for decades. You think in one session we get to the bottom of the twists and turns of your life for the past forty years? Do things just happen to you or do you make choices? After your childhood, what were your decisions on marriage, children, friends, even coming here to Venice? Was it all drunk Jack’s fault, the unraveling of your marriage? It is well past the time of playing the victim. You must start taking the adult role, accepting your past, instead of looking for scapegoats or boogeymen.”
“What? Why you are attacking me?”
“Just my point. You will never get to the bottom of your issues this way.”
Anna stood up and stalked out, inwardly cursing Dr. Levine along with Dr. Zampone. She had been making progress, adjusting to life after leaving Jack. Today showed her that she should be done with shrinks, too, and save money and frustration while she was at it.
Still steaming when she got back to her pensione room, Anna envisioned relaxing on the count’s terrace with Margo later on, relishing the bird’s-eye view of the city and sipping an Amarone to dull the ache. She tried to pretend she could leave the past behind like an old, worn-out coat. But she sensed she had failed yet again by blaming Zampone, when it was her own life—her own bad decisions—that had doomed her.
Venetian Blood Page 20
