Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“Phil Samuel?”

“Yeah. Jonas says it’s not true he’s impartial. He’s done some work for the defense in that, uh, Seattle case — the MacPherson Day Care?”

“He couldn’t have. He’s refused to testify about the mouse results for anybody.”

“That’s right, Jonas said he won’t testify. But he does consult for them. He drills the lawyers in how to take psychologists apart on the stand.”

I had stalled Phil about sending tapes of Diane’s interviews of the Peterson case. He knew about them because I let slip we had interviews of children in the target age group before talking with Diane and then had to backtrack when I decided to respect her reservations. Instead, I sent along our guidelines for a course Ben Tomlinson teaches at John Jay University to police psychologists, detailing how to use dolls and minimize prompting, especially the silent encouragement of body language and vocal cues. Samuel called the day before, asking for the Peterson tapes again. I said I needed to discuss it with the therapist involved, then promptly, and conveniently, forgot to ask Diane.

Asking her now was unlikely to meet with a favorable reception. We were stopped at the light on Seventy-ninth. I didn’t say anything until it had turned green and we were crossing Riverside, heading east.

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

“Jonas wouldn’t make it up.”

“The person who told Jonas might be mistaken.”

“Samuel told Jonas himself!” Diane smiled. She was pleased, I suspected, because, in her mind, this relegated the mouse study to the enemy camp. “He bragged about it at a conference,” Diane continued. “He told Jonas he knew the MacPherson case was crap and he wanted to help the defense.”

“I’ll call Phil tomorrow and ask.”

“Why bother? If I were you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

“Because I want to know for myself.” I took a breath before taking this leap, “And because I still want to send him the Peterson tapes.”

Surprised, Diane turned to stare at me. She forgot she was driving, I guess, because she went through a red light; immediately there were screeching brakes, horns honking. She stopped short and we were stuck in the middle of the intersection, surrounded by bumpers and furious drivers. It took a minute to untangle the mess. No one had collided with us. We ignored the various raised middle fingers and shouting faces. Diane turned onto West End and pulled over next to a hydrant. She was breathing fast, frightened by the near collisions.

“You okay?” I asked.

She put a hand on her chest and took a deep breath. “You’re not serious,” she said after a while.

“Serious?”

“About sending the tapes?”

“I’ll talk to Phil. If it’s true that he’s taking sides now, I won’t send them, but if not, then I want him to have the Peterson tapes. I reviewed them—”

“You reviewed them!” Diane said, shocked.

“Yes. I looked at them and your technique was flawless. I’m proud of it, and if he’s going to imitate anyone’s procedures, I’d like it to be yours.”

“My God,” she whispered. Diane shook her head, removed her glasses, shut her eyes, rubbed them with her fingers, and finally put the wire-rimmed frames back on. She looked at me as if she might have something new to see. When it was still me, she shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

“What?” I asked.

“I can’t get over how naive you are. It’s — well, there’s something charming about it. I guess it’s part of why I love you, but, at the same time, I’m appalled. And a little scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“I think it’s dangerous to our work.”

“Do you want me to drive?” I asked. “Excuse me?”

“Well, if we’re going to meet Joe and Harlan for dinner at seven, we’d better get moving. It could take half an hour to find a parking spot.”

“We’ll park in a lot. Okay?” Her irritation was escalating to anger.

“Okay.” She sighed again, again shrugged her shoulders, and again shook her head in disapproval. I waited a moment, trying to sort out my feelings. Finally I said, “I don’t think I’m naive. And, to be honest with you, I’d rather you didn’t mix praise with insults.”

“Huh?” Diane shifted to face me. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t tell me I’m appallingly naive and that’s part of my charm, but it’s dangerous. If you’re going to attack, at least have the guts to attack openly.”

“You think I’m attacking you?” She was open-mouthed with shock. “What I just said, you consider an attack?”

“I apologize. My mistake. But you called me naive about a professional matter and that is, at the very least, a disparaging remark.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. You’re not naive. But I think you’re crossing a line. You’re definitely not respecting me as a professional.”

“How?”

“It’s my work. I don’t want you to send tapes of my work to be used in any research.”

“Even if that research is impartial?”

“I don’t believe there’s any way you can know that. And even if you find out he’s open-minded right now, I don’t believe there’s any way you can predict how Samuel will eventually use those tapes. He might not be impartial six months from now. And also,” she raised a finger to indicate this last item was crucial, “I don’t believe any study of the fantasizing of normal children says a thing about the veracity of abused children. You know perfectly well we don’t investigate charges of abuse without some sort of corroboration, either physical or emotional. We’d have ruled out all those kids in the mouse study after observing that their behavior was otherwise normal. And you also know—” she pointed at me as if I were a misbehaving toddler, “you, of all people, know that abused children fantasize in the opposite direction, not imagining worse abuse, but imagining love.”

I looked at her scolding finger and waited until she noticed and lowered it. “Diane,” I said quietly, “if you review what you just said carefully, I really believe you’ll see a contradiction. If healthy children are shown to fantasize abuse easily then any accusation is suspect. The distinction you just drew actually makes Phil’s study more urgent, not less so. Also, if he can prove that children easily fantasize non-sexual events, but can’t so easily fantasize sexual abuse, then he’ll strengthen the credibility of abused kids when they testify. You’re also ignoring the fact that he will go forward with the pediatrician study whether we cooperate or not. Pretending he doesn’t exist won’t make him go away.”

“You’re not listening to me!”

During my long speech I allowed my eyes to drift away from her, watching the evening bustle of pedestrians on West End: going home with briefcases or groceries; children in disheveled school clothes, lugging backpacks; exhausted joggers returning from the park; the homeless standing at each corner, cups out, like toll booths. When I looked back to Diane at the noise of her distress, I was surprised to see just how upset she was. She scrunched up her freckled nose, lifting her glasses above the eyebrows, squinting at me, her mouth in a grimace of pain.

“What’s wrong?” I said, meaning the pain.

“You’re not listening to me,” she pointed at her chest. “You’re acting as if I’m some kind of employee, like I’m your graduate student. That’s my work, goddammit! You have no right to make decisions about it. You have no right to give it away without my consent.”

I hadn’t looked at it in this light. Mostly because I didn’t think of the tapes as belonging to either of us; rather, they belonged to the clinic, to our work; they should serve our colleagues, to help them help the children.