Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“How can you be sure?” I asked her. I was sitting on our bed with my legs crossed under me. She had just taken a bath, in a vain attempt to calm down, and looked tiny in a big white terry cloth robe and somewhat blind too, since her glasses were off. The robe opened slightly as she paced, arguing. I could see her white thighs and the shadow of her sex. I felt regret, but no remorse. I was tired; not because it was past three in the morning; I was tired of uncertainty.

“I’m sure!” She walked up to me. She was small, but from my position on the mattress she looked big. “Are you telling me, are you really saying to me, that you’re not sure? Do you think there’s any chance Grandpa Peterson was innocent?”

This was our real fight. I bowed my head and said it. “Yes.”

“No,” she said, pleading really. “You’re not serious.”

“Yes. I think this means there was a chance we were wrong. I’m not blaming you …”

“Of course you are!” She pushed her hair up on both sides, forming a curly pile on top. Her neck was white and her ears small, perfectly formed. “I can’t believe it. Fuck you, Rafe.” There were no tears now. She glared at me while holding her head. She cocked it at me. “Why?” she asked and let go of her hair. She looked utterly bewildered, shrinking in the robe. “Why do you want to destroy us?”

No logic can answer such a question. For Diane, there was no significant distinction between this intellectual disagreement and the harmony of our relations. I had apologized over and over for lying to her about the tape, but, in the end, that wasn’t what had hurt her. I was betraying her beliefs, her work, and worst of all, I had betrayed something she felt she had earned many times over: my faith in her.

“Don’t you see what these bastards are doing?” she yelled after I didn’t respond. “They don’t give a fuck about this so-called truth you’re always talking about! He’s just trying to make a name for himself.”

“His motives don’t matter,” I mumbled.

“What kind of shrink are you? ‘His motives don’t matter!’” she mocked me. “And your motives don’t matter either, huh? You’re punishing yourself, that’s what this is all about. You’re letting your father beat you up.”

“That’s specious,” I said with utter contempt.

“That’s specious?” Diane arched her back and squinted at the ceiling. She was breathing hard, as if running to catch up to the meaning of our fight. “You’re right,” she said softly in a panted whisper. “I’m just a second-rate shrink. You must be so tired of living with an inferior mind.” With her eyes still raised, she opened her robe. Her skin was pink from the bath, her nipples dark and hard, the black hairs of her pubis matted and damp. “This is what I’m good for.” She lowered her eyes to me. The grief I saw in the car was now rage. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.” She came over to the bed and grabbed my hair. She pulled my head to her fragrant belly and pushed it down to her sex. “You want to be your Daddy, don’t you? I’m supposed to die for your fucking principles.” She lifted my head and came close to my face, her mouth opening. I thought for a moment she was going to spit. “You’re right. I’m so stupid. I keep letting you get away with being the bad bad boy with his bad bad secrets. Well no more, Doctor. From now on, I’m gonna be the Mommy you deserve.” She released her grip. “You’re gonna feel sorry about me too. Very sorry.”

From there, if possible, things got uglier. Despite my desire to make this a full account of the complicated interrelationship between my life and my treatment of Gene Kenny, I don’t feel I need to go step by step through the degeneration of the longest sustained love affair of my life. The position I took was straightforward: the clinic would no longer participate in investigations or I could no longer work at the clinic. Nor would I help to rebut Phil’s study until I had a response I believed in; Diane’s criticisms were unconvincing or beside the point.

Yes, I agreed with her that Phil’s study was part of a deep need in America to deny the dysfunction and abuse inherent in our society, a culture that permits, in some ways encourages, the systematic destruction of family life among the poor, especially poor urban minorities. From the popularity of biochemical determinism to the widespread use of Ritalin (ninety percent of its prescriptions written for black male children), from the disproportionate attention paid by the media to legal maneuvers that use child abuse as a means of getting profitable clients off to the cynicism about taxation for social services, all symbolized to me, as they did to Diane, that middle-class America wants to believe it is entitled to live only for its own satisfactions, that altruism is not only useless, but actually immoral. She was right about the motivation for Phil’s study and the use it would be put to. But, for me, as it had been my whole life, ideology is not an answer to an issue of fact. If our techniques were flawed, nothing could justify continuing their use.

I don’t mean to disparage the good intentions in Diane’s position. Her defense of her own beliefs, her willingness to blind herself to the possibility of error, may well be the only way to function effectively in our society. My problem was that I wasn’t sure I wanted to function effectively anymore. Out of respect for her sincerity, I put up no resistance to her demand that I turn over management and all the assets of the clinic to her. My lawyer howled at my sudden impoverishment — the buildings and grounds were worth millions and they were all I had left of my inheritance. I knew, however, that Diane had no intention of cashing in: she was going to continue the fight and I felt, right or wrong, she deserved to be armed.

As to her perception of my motive, I have no satisfactory answer. Perhaps I was beating myself up, or acting out my parents’ drama, or one of the other psychological dysfunctions she taunted me with that night. Perhaps ideas had nothing to do with my leaving the clinic and ending our relationship. I am certainly aware of the basis for such a conclusion. I was not convinced.

In the tumultuous weeks of bitter argument that followed, I lost track of Gene. He called twice. I missed the first and forgot to return it. The second time he reached me.

“She’s dumped me,” he said with hardly any introduction. His voice was enervated. “She says there’s no one else, but I don’t believe it. She’s fucking some guy in Paris. But that’s the least of my worries.”

It was late April by then. In deference to Diane, I said publicly that I was taking a sabbatical, rather than talk about my real situation: not only did I wish to sever my connection to the clinic, as the new boss, Diane didn’t want me to continue in any capacity. I repeatedly refused to respond in the press to Phil’s study. Diane, cleverly I thought, went on the offensive right away, denouncing Samuel for using our technique improperly. In so doing she neutralized his ability to make an impression with the revelation that the techniques he tested were ours. In fact, the study wasn’t causing as much of a fuss as I had feared. Diane’s side of the argument was as well-organized and funded as Phil’s. They called each other frauds and scoundrels in polite scientific terms and the predictable groups chose up sides. Whatever the outcome, this fight was going to be long and bloody. Diane was barely speaking to me by this time. She told me in our last extended conversation that she couldn’t stand my holier-than-thou attitude; that I was worse than Phil: at least he had the courage to fight for what he believed. I was cleaning out my desk the day I spoke to Gene, preparing to leave the next morning for the Prager Institute in Baltimore. They had offered a year’s grant for me to do any work I chose. At first, I planned to edit Amy Glickstein’s first four chapters on Joseph’s work, as well as check the final galleys for my book on our in-house therapy for the severely abused.