Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“It’s selfish.”

“Is that evil?”

“It ain’t good.”

I laughed. “And I was supposed to let him go on with his illusions? He was miserable. His wife was miserable. They weren’t having sex, they were hardly talking. Was that …?” I stopped.

“What?”

“I’m a fool. At least they were alive. I seem to have lost all common sense. Of course they were better off.”

“All right!” Susan dropped her knife onto her plate. It clattered angrily. “That’s enough. I’ll tell you my opinion. I know you won’t like it. I know you’ll reject it, but this is the simple truth: Gene was weak. He came to you, over and over, no matter how many times you tried to discourage him, and he asked you: help me be strong, help me be a man. Each time you did, he got scared. And finally, you left him no choice. Nowhere to hide. That’s what you did with the dream and later, with the prostitute, right?”

“The prostitute was a distraction.”

“Yes, I would — most therapists — would have spent a year, maybe two just on that diversion. He asked you to do the impossible and you did it. That was your mistake.” Susan leaned back with triumph.

“Doing my job was a mistake?” I asked, incredulous.

“No! He was the mistake. You cured his neurosis against his will. He didn’t want to be cured. He wanted to be comforted. He wanted you to fail and he wanted to blame you and go on living miserably, but you were too clever. You fixed something he didn’t want fixed.”

“Then I did kill him.”

The elevator landed on their floor. Its locks tumbled.

“He was a schmuck, Rafe! Sooner or later he would have killed himself. He needed backbone, not insight. He was like the princess and the pea.”

The door opened. A volleyball rolled out, dribbling softly across the dark living room.

“Harry?” Susan called. She got to her feet, anxious. “Is it your back, Harry?” She whispered to herself, “He’s too old for this nonsense.” She moved toward the open door. As she neared it, Harry leapt out, pretending to be a ballerina, his thin arms aloft, dancing on the tiptoes of his dirty sneakers, his ample belly trembling underneath a T-shirt darkened by perspiration.

“I’m beautiful,” he sang tunelessly. He stopped and looked at me. “Am I a role model? No, I’m just the greatest volleyball player in North America. Parents are role models.”

Susan shut the door with a bang. “Meshuga,” she said, tried to frown, but it expanded to a smile. Harry attempted another pirouette, stumbling into the couch; she laughed with delight.

Harry gathered himself and strode over to her. He pecked her on the lips. “And here is my groupie, willing to perform whatever sexual service I want.”

Susan backed away from him. “Take a shower. Then I’ll be your groupie.”

“The hell with that. I’m eating.” Harry walked to the table, grabbing a bagel and a knife before he settled in a chair. “Well, what’s the verdict?” he asked me, still standing.

“You’re telling me she didn’t tell you?” I said.

“I’m telling you she didn’t tell me,” he answered. He sat at last, reached for the cream cheese and paused, outraged. “You ate all the cream cheese,” he accused Susan.

“There’s plenty.”

He showed me the container. Three-quarters was gone. “This is enough for … what? Half a bagel?”

“I got another,” Susan said, disappearing into the kitchen.

Harry fixed his bagel and whispered, “She told me you did good work.”

“That’s not what she just told me,” I said, as Susan returned with another box of low-fat cream cheese.

“What did you tell him?” Harry said. He grabbed the container away from her. “This is mine. You’ve had enough.”

“Maybe Rafe wants more.”

“What did you tell him?” Harry insisted.

“I told him he went too fast.” Susan sat, brushing her wild hair back. “That’s the only mistake I can see,” she said to me. “Maybe if you were fooled a little, and it all went slower, maybe he wouldn’t have been so shocked to discover he was living in a real world, with real troubles, and real pain.”

“You’re right. I rushed. I was competing with Joseph. I had Prozac envy.”

“Prozac envy,” Harry said and chuckled. He had made himself a towering bagel, using up all that remained of the Nova. “Well, we all make mistakes. Right?” Harry took a bite. His cheeks puffed. Susan and I watched his mouth work. He looked at me, eyebrows up, asking me to agree. He shifted his eyes to Susan and then frowned. He swallowed. “I mean,” he had to pause to swallow again. “We can’t succeed with every patient.”

“You don’t understand,” I explained. “It’s not that I couldn’t succeed with this patient. A year ago, I told him he was fine. I said, ‘You’re cured. Go and live your life.’ Well his life ended pretty quickly. Obviously, I made a mistake.”

“You didn’t make a mistake!” Susan shouted.

Harry dropped his bagel. “What is your problem? What is so terrible about making mistakes?”

“He didn’t,” Susan pulled her wild hair back and pushed her face at me until she was only inches away, her eyes lit by the sun, intent and earnest. “You mustn’t fall for that. This was not your failure. It was Gene’s.”

“You’re just softening it,” I mumbled.

“When did I ever soften things for you! Listen to me. Of course you weren’t perfect. Nobody’s perfect. But for every time you rushed or missed something, there are a dozen times you got it just right. That wasn’t the problem. Gene was the problem. He was weak. Right from the beginning and all the way through — he was always weak. Nothing terrible ever happened to him. He walked in on his parents screwing. His father was an opportunist. His mother was a silly passive woman. So what? Think of your kid patients. Think of what they survived. Think of you.” Susan touched my arm. She whispered, “Everybody isn’t created equal, no matter what the Constitution says.”

“Excuse me,” Harry said.

I was staring into the comfort of her forgiving eyes, wanting never to look away.

But Susan looked away. She cleared her throat. “What is it, Harry?”

“Rafe,” he said. “Can I ask you a question?” I gave him my attention. “Do you always take it this hard when you lose a patient?”

Susan stared at the table.

I smiled at him. “Yes,” I said. “I guess it’s narcissistic. I apologize.”

“I got somebody going down the drain on me once a month.” He shrugged. “I guess this guy was special.”

“No,” I said.

“No?” He was amazed. “Jesus, what happens to you when it’s someone you really care about?”

“Harry, go take a shower,” Susan said.

“What?” Harry sniffed his armpits. “You can smell me all the way over there?”

I mumbled, “Leave him alone.”

Susan banged the table with the end of her knife to emphasize each word: “I won’t let you add this to your list of sins.”

“I’m not saying he sinned!” Harry complained. “I was just saying sometimes you do your best and it’s not good enough. You know, like a team foul. The therapy didn’t work, but no one’s to blame. That’s happened to you before, right? I mean this isn’t the first time a patient went bozo on you, right? All I wanted to know—” Harry stopped talking. I was watching him so I didn’t see the face Susan made that shut him up. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked her.

Susan waved the knife at him. Its blade was coated white from the cream cheese. “He’s never lost a patient,” Susan said. “This is the first time for him. Okay? Now go take a shower. Everybody loves you, Harry, and you don’t stink, but go take a shower anyway. Rafe and I have some more things to discuss, then we’ll all go for a walk on this beautiful day.”