Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

While I absorbed the difference in our perceptions, Diane faced forward and added to the windshield, “And I’m pissed off that you looked at them without asking me. It’s like you opened my mail or something. Or read my diary. No.” she looked at me again. “It’s like you checked up on me. ‘I’m very proud of your work,’” she quoted my compliment as if it were an insult. “Like you’re my teacher giving me a grade.”

“Okay,” I said, more to myself than her. “Okay, I understand now. We’re really not getting each other. I’m sorry that’s the impression I gave you. Believe me, it’s the opposite. At first I assumed you’d have no objection. When I found out you did, I held them back. And if you don’t want me to send them, I won’t. I don’t think it’s your work, however, any more than the tapes of Albert are my work. Our tapes belong to all of us and they belong to our profession.”

“That’s naive, Rafe,” Diane said in a new tone. Solemn and blunt without an edge of hysteria and wounded feeling. “I know you’re not naive, but to expect people not to feel proprietary and protective of their work is naive. I’m willing to believe you would react differently if I gave away your tapes, but then you’re exceptional. Most people would feel what I’m feeling.”

“Okay,” I said. “All I want to say right now, what’s really important right now, is for you to understand that I have nothing but the greatest respect for you and the work you’ve done and that I will never release your work, or even my work for that matter, without your blessing.”

Diane smiled. “Now you’re going too far.” She leaned over and kissed me. “You can do what you like with your work.” She settled back, obviously relieved, pleased with me. “But I don’t think you should give anything to that snake. He’s a liar and you can’t trust him.”

“I’m going to talk to him,” I said. “Now, we’d better get going. We’re late.”

We arrived at a quarter after seven, fifteen minutes late. Joseph and Harlan weren’t there, although they had picked the place — a chic, expensive and loud restaurant called Cafe Luxembourg. By then Diane and I had made up. I still didn’t know what I should do about Phil. I was disturbed by the gossip Diane had told me and I was considering whether I ought to go to Webster University and talk to him face-to-face. If he had drifted into the child-can’t-be-believed camp, then I wanted to remonstrate: the mouse scenario was significant, but inconclusive; should he proceed to the pediatrician test prejudging it, that could pollute the results, just as a therapist’s prejudices might elicit false stories. At the same time, although I had resolved the misunderstanding between Diane and me, I was disturbed by an aspect of her behavior that I hadn’t yet challenged, mostly because I didn’t have the facts to do so. Since refusing to deal in any way with Samuel, she had been on the phone to others checking up on him. I worried this indicated that she had drifted into the child-must-be-believed camp. All accusations of child abuse can’t be true, any more than the reverse. Part of our work, unfortunately, was mixed up with the law’s tedious need to pretend there are immutable facts and just punishments. Diane, it seemed to me, was too defensive. No technique is perfect. As a scientist, her first reaction should have been more curiosity about Phil’s work and less energy for debasing him.

At seven forty-five, Diane and I were still waiting at the bar when Harlan rushed in, pushing roughly through the crush of people between us. But upon arrival he stared as if we were a disappointment. “He’s not here,” he said, not a question.

“Joseph?” Diane asked.

“Shit,” Harlan said. He had cut off his ponytail since we’d last seen him, and cut off most of his blond hair as well, so that it seemed to be a flat top, although it was too long to qualify in some places, and the sides were slicked down, not shortened. He wore his usual tight black jeans with no belt, a black silk shirt buttoned to the collar with no tie, and old-fashioned black high-top Converse sneakers — at least they had laces. He hadn’t shaved in several days, but I could tell he wasn’t starting a beard. His light blue eyes were so young and troubled they undercut the tough style of his outfit and grooming.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know where he is,” Harlan said, not angry, with resignation.

“You had a fight?” Diane asked.

Harlan looked around. “Is there a phone?” He made a move to push back toward the maitre d’.

I grabbed his arm. “What’s happened, Harlan? Tell me.”

“I don’t know.” He lowered his head as if shamed.

“You mean, you’re not supposed to say?”

“I don’t know!” he complained. “I gotta go. Gotta find him.” He pulled away, or tried to.

I held on to his arm. “Harlan, you know Joseph and I are old friends.”

“I’m sorry. Go ahead and have dinner. If I find him, we’ll—”

“Harlan, tell me what’s going on. I want to help.”

A woman beside us at the bar was listening. In those cramped quarters, she had little choice except to pretend deafness. Harlan glanced at her. Diane suggested we step outside.

The street was lively. We walked toward West End, into a warm September breeze blowing from the river. The strip of sky visible between its tall apartment buildings showed a brilliant sunset, the variety of color enhanced by the haze of pollution hanging over Jersey. Harlan told the story in a jumble, making it more complicated and longer than its simple facts. In June, he and Joseph had agreed to be tested for AIDS. Both had practiced safe sex for years, but they knew they were vulnerable anyway, given the long incubation period. Harlan kept his promise and his result was negative. Joseph, however, canceled his appointment and postponed several more. Harlan was amazed that a scientist could be so superstitious about knowledge when it came to his own body. “It’s not like the test is gonna give you AIDS,” Harlan argued. Finally, Harlan presented Joe with an unspecified ultimatum that succeeded. Joe had gone for the test three days ago. He was supposed to get the results that morning; he promised to call Harlan at home as soon as he heard. He hadn’t phoned. When Harlan tried to reach him, he discovered Joseph had canceled a lecture, failed to show at his office at Columbia, and hadn’t appeared in his lab all afternoon. He was supposed to come home to change to meet us for dinner and Joseph had failed to do that as well. Harlan took for granted that Joseph had been told he was HIV positive. That wasn’t his immediate concern. He was scared Joseph had killed himself. He said they knew two men who committed suicide within a short time of hearing the news; Joseph, contrary to Harlan and their gay friends, had approved of their action, at least in casual conversation. “It’s not suicide,” Harlan remembered Joseph saying. “It’s just a very effective painkiller.”

That sounded like my mad, rational friend.

I asked about the hours of each canceled event and when his office or lab would be empty. Once it was clear that Joseph couldn’t be alone in either place until now, I suggested Harlan call the office and lab again. He reached an answering machine at the office; no answer at the lab. He said a machine usually picked up at the lab.

“Can we get in?”

“Not if the door’s locked.”

“No, I mean the building.”

“The guard knows me.”

I said we should go there. Neither Harlan nor Diane questioned my choice. I told Diane she could go home. She said, “Are you crazy?”

She drove us to Columbia. Not to the scene of the demonstrations of the sixties (I was reminded of them anyway) but to an old building on Amsterdam and 118th. The floors aboveground were faculty housing, a normal apartment building. Through a side entrance, manned by a sleepy guard behind a folding bridge table, we took an elevator to three subterranean levels where there were laboratories and also, Harlan explained, the university’s furniture storage.