Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

"Mucking?"

"That too. There are moments in life when you either do it or you miss it. Cherokee missed it. You're giving me another chance. Tomorrow at noon. The children will be at school. I'll make a light lunch."

So, I thought, struggling to take off his boots without smearing horseshit all over me, it's not what's said, it's what is. The word is not the thing. The description is not the described.

The next day, seeing the two women together, I was astonished at how alike they looked! Each was tall and slender, with the same shade of light brown hair cut in the same short style.

Their eyes were the same light green and their noses were the same shape, that delicate straight line that must have provoked in Schlomo, given his ugly honker, "nose envy." As they took in the fact of their resemblance-not only in physical appearance but in culture and background-I could almost sense their feelings, as the memories of the abuse freshened. It was as if Schlomo's perversion were on view, as if I were seeing his victims through his eyes, as if he were saying, "This is the kind of girl that turns me on. When one of these dolls comes to me to find her a therapist, I keep her for myself."

"The hardest thing for me," Zoe said, "is finding out that there is another victim."

"For me too," Lily said. "And knowing that there must be others."

"Yeah."

"Which, for me," Lily went on, "is the purpose of our meeting?"

"One of the purposes," Zoe said, "yeah."

They began to compare notes. Schlomo's pattern was almost exactly the same with each of them, though it had been going on much longer with Lily. Each had thought that his words to her were unique, and it turned out that his words were almost exactly the same, as if he had practiced and perfected his seduction technique. They started to get into the details, and then stopped. Lily asked me, "Would you mind greatly if we talk alone?"

"Of course not," I said, and left, thinking it might be half an hour.

Three hours later Lily woke me up. Zoe was standing beside her. Their arms were around each other's waist. Like mother and daughter. Their eyes were puffy with crying, their faces flushed with relief.

"We've decided to take action," Lily said.

"Together," Zoe said. "And with your help."

"Great"

"We've composed a letter."

Schlomo Dove:

You have sexually abused both of us in psychotherapy. Our testimony and that of Dr. Roy G. Basch, who witnessed an episode of sexual abuse with one of us

(Zoe), will stand as powerful evidence in a court of law. You have done much damage, and we are repairing Ms, in our own ways.

At this point, for the sake of ourselves and our families, we are not making our abuse public. We demand that you give up your medical license, resign from the Freudian Institute and Mount Misery staff, and stop seeing patients. We also ask that you meet with us, either individually or together, to try to heal the wounds.

Stop voluntarily, or we will take action in the press and courts to stop you.

'Terrific," I said, "except for one thing."

"Yes?" Lily asked.

"If Schlomo's lawyers find out that you two know each other and have talked, they can discredit your testimony. You have to write him separately. Different letters."

"Fine," Lily said.

"And this meeting between the three of us," I went on, "never took place."

"Like what meeting, Doc?" Zoe said. "I don't see any meeting."

SCHLOMO REPLIED IMMEDIATELY. He sent each of the women the same letter:

Professor Schlomo Dove is shocked and deeply hurt at your fantasies of what went on in his consulting chamber. This is an erotic transference-a psychotic erotic transference. You are crazy.

Schlomo Dove knows, as do you, that nothing of the kind ever happened. You are out of touch with reality. Schlomo never touched you physically, except for an occasional handshake on Christmas or the 4th of July.

Schlomo Dove will fight tooth and nail in any arena including a court of law to protect his professional honor against this smear campaign. When Schlomo Dove's word is put up against your word-a borderline woman with a history of psychopathology and hospitalization whose detailed record Schlomo has on file, and the word

of a first-year psychiatric resident who is known to be unstable and a troublemaker-you don't stand a chance.

Drop this, or Schlomo Dove will sue you to the wall, Nash Michaels, Counsel to Misery, has been retained, and Dr. Lloyal von Nott alerted.

The mature approach would have been to schedule sessions with Dr. Schlomo Dove to work through your psychotic-erotic-borderline-transference. Now it is too late. Schlomo Dove will no longer be available as your therapist, though he will refer you to a skilled psychoanalyst to work through your psychosis.

The doctor will not be humiliated by his patient.

Enclosed is a final bill. Prompt payment is expected. Have a nice life.

More in sadness than anger, Schlomo Dove, M.D., F.R.A.P.S.

"What do we do now?" Zoe asked the next day in my office, with Lily on the speakerphone from her house.

"We get a lawyer," Lily said. "Do you know any women lawyers, Roy?"

I did. Henry and I had gotten in touch with Hannah in Wyoming, and she too had returned, to finish out the year and to try to help us deal with Schlomo. Hannah had been transformed, her hair and eyebrows back to their natural black, her figure back to full, and her mind back to a healthy remembrance of her first analyst, her eye roll-ups a comfort to her, and, in a funny way, to us. She had started therapy in Jackson Hole, with a showy Jungian rodeo gal who focused on the analysis of shadows and who had recently had a piece in People magazine on her "Inner Child of Your Past Lives" approach. The most significant piece of Hannah's transformation was Gilda Plotkin. At Hannah's side when she showed up, Gilda was her former college roommate, who had played great viola to Hannah's prodigal cello in their string quartet. Gilda had gone on to Yale Law School, and after almost a decade in law had bought a ranch out West and continued part-time lawyering, both criminal and civil, in Denver and Jackson Hole. Gilda was a large, robust woman with big hands and a wide-open, wind-burnished face glowing with health, with bright dark eyes and pink cheeks and a nose broken in the past

and big strong lips and a prizefighter's chin. She was a cowgirl without a trace of the blues, a brilliant, funny, rough-tough advocate, who seemed unafraid of anything, and was madly in love with Hannah. The two old friends were making beautiful music together as lovers.

Gilda was getting bored, back East. She might welcome the chance to skewer an abuser like Schlomo. So I said to Lily and Zoe, "I sure do. We'll need separate lawyers for each of you."

"Is it all right if I go first, Zoe?" Lily asked. Zoe nodded. "Arrange a meeting as soon as possible, Roy, will you?"

"With pleasure."

MALIK WORKED THE program intensely, and worked with his sponsor George and with me and Solini. Henry would hardly let Malik out of his sight.

The night before Malik's discharge, we went with him to the Misery Loves Company meeting in the Farben. They handed out key chains stamped with various lengths of time of sobriety. They called out, "Anybody with one week?" and Malik walked slowly to the front. As people recognized him, he who had up until recently been a pillar of their community, there was a hush. "Go, Malik!" someone shouted. Others took it up. Soon all were clapping. Malik took his key chain and raised it over his head. Then he doubled up coughing. Another hush. He walked back through the pall and sat between George and Henry.

The next day his insurance ran out. He was going back to Bronia.

"I couldn't live with her," he'd said, "but maybe I can die with her."