Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder

McClellan was correct: she was in a pitiable state. She had been crying hard; her face was horribly red and swollen from it. Her long blond hair was loose and matted. She looked up at us with the largest, most fearful eyes I have ever seen — fearful and distrustful.

'We've been at it every which way,' McClellan declared. 'She is able to tell us, by writing, everything that happened before and after. But as to the — ah — incident itself, she remembers nothing.' Next to the girl were sheets of paper and a pen.

The mayor introduced us. The girl's name was Nora. He explained that we were special doctors who, he hoped, would be able to help her recover her voice and her memory. He spoke to her as if she were a child of seven, perhaps confusing her speaking difficulty with a difficulty in understanding, although one could tell instantly from her eyes that she had no impairment on that score. Predictably, the entrance of three more strange new men had the effect of overwhelming the girl. Tears came to her eyes, but she held them back. She actually wrote an apology to us, as if she were at fault for her amnesia.

'Please proceed, gentlemen,' said McClellan.

Freud wanted first to rule out a physiological basis for her symptoms. 'Miss Acton,' he said, 'I would like to be sure you have not suffered an injury to your head. Will you permit me?' The girl nodded. After making a thorough inspection, Freud concluded, 'There is no cranial injury of any kind.'

'Damage to the larynx could cause aphonia,' I remarked, referring to the girl's loss of voice.

Freud nodded and invited me, by gesture, to examine the girl myself.

Approaching Miss Acton, I felt inexplicably nervous. I could not identify the source of this anxiety; I seemed to be afraid that I would appear to Freud as inexperienced, yet I had performed examinations infinitely more complicated — and these in front of my professors at Harvard — without any such unease. I explained to Miss Acton that it was important to determine whether a physical injury might be causing her inability to speak. I asked if she would take my hand and place it on her neck in such a way as to minimize her own discomfort. I held my hand out, two fingers extended. Reluctantly, she conducted it toward her throat, placing my fingers, however, on her collarbone. I asked her to lift her head. She complied, and as I ran my fingers up her throat to the larynx, I noticed, despite her injuries, the soft, perfect lines of her neck and chin, which might have been carved in marble by Bernini. When I applied pressure to various points, she squinted but did not draw back. 'There is no evidence of laryngeal trauma,' I reported.

Miss Acton looked even more mistrustful now than when we first came in. I didn't blame her. It can be more upsetting for a person to find out there isn't anything physically wrong with her than to find out there is. At the same time, she was without her family, surrounded by strange men. She seemed to be assessing us all, one by one.

'My dear,' Freud said to her, 'you are anxious about the loss of your memory and your voice. You need not be.

Amnesia after such an incident is not uncommon, and I have seen loss of speech many times. Where there is no permanent physical injury — and you have none — I have always succeeded in eliminating both conditions. Now: I am going to ask you some questions, but none about what happened to you today. I want you to tell me only how you are at this moment. Would you care for something to drink?' She nodded gratefully; McClellan sent out one of the officers, who returned shortly with a cup of tea. In the meantime, Freud engaged the girl in conversation — he speaking, she writing — but only on the most general of facts, such as, for example, that she was to be a freshwoman at Barnard starting next month. In the end, she wrote that she was sorry she could not answer the policemen's questions, and she wanted to go home.

Freud indicated that he wished to speak with us outside the girl's hearing. This prompted a grave trooping of men

Freud, Mayor McClellan, Ferenczi, Dr Higginson, and I to the far corner of the spacious office, where Freud asked, in a very low voice, 'Was she violated?'

'No, thank God,' whispered McClellan.

'But her wounds,' said Higginson, 'are conspicuously concentrated around her — private parts.' He cleared his throat. 'Apart from her back, it seems she was whipped repeatedly about her buttocks and — ah — pelvis. In addition, she was cut once on each of her thighs with a sharp knife or razor.'

'What kind of monster does such a thing?' McClellan asked.

'The question is why it doesn't happen more often,' replied Freud quietly. 'Satisfying a savage instinct is incomparably more pleasurable than satisfying a civilized one. In any event, the best course of action tonight is certainly inaction. I am not convinced her amnesia is hysterical. Severe asphyxiation could bring about the same effect. On the other hand, she is plainly suffering from some deep self- reproach. She should sleep. She may wake up asymptomatic. If her symptoms persist, analysis will be in order.'

'Self-reproach?' asked McClellan.

'Guilt,' said Ferenczi. 'The girl is suffering not only from attack but from guilt she feels in connection with it.'

'Why on earth would she feel guilt?' asked the mayor.

'There are many possible reasons,' said Freud. 'But an element of self-reproach is almost invariable in cases of sexual assault on the young. She has already twice apologized to us for her memory loss. Her voice loss is more puzzling.'

'Sodomized, perhaps?' asked Ferenczi in a whisper. ' Per os '

'Great God,' McClellan interjected, also whispering. 'Is that possible?'

'It is possible,' Freud answered, 'but not likely. If an oral penetration were the source of her symptoms, her inability to use her mouth would be expected to extend to taking in. But you will notice she drank her tea without difficulty. Indeed, that is why I asked if she was thirsty.'

We contemplated this momentarily. McClellan spoke again, no longer whispering. 'Dr Freud, forgive my ignorance, but does her memory of the event still exist, or has it been, so to speak, wiped out?'

'Assuming hysterical amnesia, the memory certainly exists,' Freud answered. 'It is the cause.'

'The memory is the cause of the amnesia?' McClellan asked.

'The memory of the attack — along with the deeper recollections rekindled by it — is unacceptable. Therefore she has repressed it, producing the appearance of an amnesia.'

'Deeper recollections?' repeated the mayor. 'I don't follow you.'

'An episode of the kind this girl has undergone,' said Freud, 'however brutal, however terrible, will not at her age ordinarily cause amnesia. The victim remembers, provided she is otherwise healthy. But where the victim has suffered another, — earlier traumatic episode — so traumatic the memory of it had to be wholly suppressed from consciousness — an attack can bring about amnesia, because the fresh attack cannot be remembered without also triggering recollections of the older episode, which her consciousness cannot allow.'

'Good Lord,' said the mayor.

'What is to be done?' asked Higginson.

'Can you cure her?' the mayor cut in. 'She is the only one who can give us a description of her assailant.'

'Hypnosis?' Ferenczi suggested.

'I advise strongly against it,' said Freud. 'It would not help her, and memories yielded under hypnosis are not reliable.'

'What of this — this analysis, as you call it?' the mayor asked.

'We could begin as early as tomorrow,' Freud replied. 'But I should warn you: psychoanalysis is an intensive treatment. The patient must be seen daily, for at least an hour each day.'

'I see no difficulty there,' declared McClellan. 'The question is what to do with Miss Acton tonight.' The girl's parents, summering at their house in the Berkshire country, could not be reached. Higginson suggested calling on some friends of the family, but the mayor said it wouldn't do. 'Acton will not want word of the episode to get out. People might believe the girl has been permanently injured.'