Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

My unexpected remark interrupted her intention to sit down. She released the chair and looked back at me over her shoulder, long shimmering black hair draping her jacket. This gave me her profile, a single eye staring with what seemed to be a flash of anger. Makeup can cover a great deal, but I was sure at that moment it was not covering grief. “What?” she said and gave up on sitting. She faced me.

“I thought you might prefer to talk somewhere else,” I said.

“Doctor—” she tossed her head slightly, as if her hair were in her eyes, although it wasn’t. “Are you a doctor?”

“Yes, I’m a psychiatrist.”

“Excuse me, but I don’t know who you are.” She laughed. Not really a laugh; she released a burst of air, a kind of snort of feeling. I can’t describe it easily. Although the noise seemed a mixture of several emotions — scorn, astonishment, amusement, resignation — they weren’t truncated. Each of these feelings was somehow fully expressed, their contradictions resolved, confusion expelled. She took a deep breath and looked away as if, with that said, I and the mystery of me, no longer interested her.

“I’m sorry. Let me explain.”

She nodded, but her eyes didn’t acknowledge me. With her hands on the back of the chair she stood in perfect tranquility, waiting without anticipation.

“I treated Gene Kenny for many years. He first came to me as a teenager. And I saw him again for a few years just before you both met. Unfortunately, he stopped seeing me during the past year, and I’m …” I paused, thinking how to be honest without revealing too much. I didn’t want to pollute what she might say about Gene.

“You’re guilty,” she finished for me in a private tone, as if she were alone in the room.

She’s managing me, I noticed. Listening carefully and reacting self-consciously. “Well, I’m certainly concerned. Gene didn’t seem to me to be suicidal—”

She made another sound, a different chord of feeling — disgust, sadness, amusement, and a hint of relaxation. She touched the back of the chair, lightly pushing it toward the table. “You were sure wrong about that.” She walked in my direction, but there was no eye contact; she was moving to the door. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said without strain, the words neither a rejection or a rebuke, merely a fact. Her small left hand reached for the doorknob. I noticed she wore a big old-fashioned men’s watch, square-shaped, divided into two small clocks set to different times. She opened the door, ignoring me. “I’m leaving,” she said as she passed through to the hall.

“Why?” I called in a very loud voice. I hoped to stop her determined progress with a provocation.

“I don’t want to talk about Gene with you,” she answered back, not slowing or stopping. There was another expulsion of feeling — this time astonishment, regret, and irritation mixing with triumph — as she turned the corner and disappeared into the main lobby.

I stood alone in the room for a minute or two. Reviewing the encounter, she did seem, in fact, to be grieving. Gene told me she had been heartsick at the death of her brother. She claimed not to have unburdened herself until she met Gene, who listened sympathetically. Even if that was a flattering exaggeration, it still meant she was reluctant to express loss. Also, she immediately assumed I felt guilty, an obvious projection. Nevertheless, my instinct told me otherwise. Anger at me was perfectly natural, perhaps justified. But the utter lack of curiosity, the quickness to avoid even the pleasure of attacking me, was too cool and rational for a head clouded by sorrow.

A guard appeared. This one was bald and overweight. He told me it was time to go and gestured toward the lobby. I was amused. I must have smiled, because he frowned and said harshly, “Come on,” as if I had shown resistance.

The redheaded guard raised the gate for me before I reached his booth, hurrying my exit. He glared at me as I drove past. It was too late to return to Baltimore. I took the Saw Mill to the city and considered during the drive whether my desire to break through this wall Halley had thrown up was anything more than stubbornness. What right did I have to intrude on her or her father? None, of course. Once I reached the Fourteenth Street turnoff from the West Side Highway, I had to admit there was nothing but willfulness behind my decision to go on.

I asked Susan and Harry to put me up for the night. I lied to her, saying I was in town to get some of my files from the clinic. I was sorry to give her a glimmer of hope that Diane and I were reconciling. I realized, while we opened her couch into a bed, that I was reincarnated as the boy Rafe: alone, keeper of secrets, on a mission whose goal I could not quite define. From a clinical point of view, I would have had trouble arguing with a professional judgment that I was displaying symptoms of a nervous breakdown.

In the morning I phoned my lawyer, Brian Stoppard, the high-priced talent I had inherited from Uncle Bernie. He knew I could no longer pay him four hundred an hour, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking my calls.

“Do you know anything about a man named Theodore Copley?” I asked.

“Copley. Sounds familiar. I can’t place him. Who is he?”

“He’s the — I think he’s the CEO of a small- or medium-sized computer company called Minotaur.”

Brian let out a Bronx cheer. “Not small, Rafe. Now I remember him. Minotaur used to be medium-sized, but he just bought out Haipan’s American division and he took over some Frog company too. He’s backed by somebody you know — Edgar Levin, Irving’s son.”

I was thrilled. Irving Levin was a crony of my uncle’s, a real estate baron nearly as rich as Bernie in the sixties. He had two sons. Edgar expanded his father’s holdings and now owned varied chunks of the city, from cable television to a slice of the Mets. Alex, the younger son, went west to Hollywood and produced several hits. He and Julie were friends and colleagues, or at least they were five years ago, the last time I spoke to her. So I had at least two avenues of approach.

Stoppard continued talking while I celebrated privately. “In fact, one of our partners, Molly Gray, handled Edgar’s investment in Minotaur. And you probably know Molly’s husband. Stefan Weinstein? He’s a shrink too.”

“Of course. Brilliant man. But I’ve never met him.”

“He’s brilliant even when you meet him. Talk with Molly. She probably knows more about Cowley’s financing than he does.”

“Copley,” I corrected him.

“Cowley, Copley, what’s the difference? All those high WASPs are the same. Give them a sailboat and a gin and tonic and they think they’ve seen God.”

“You’re a racist, Brian.”

“WASPs aren’t a race, they’re a club. I should know. I’m a member now. What’s up? I hope you’re raising money to open a new clinic. Do you want me to get Molly on the line?”

“No thanks. I assume Edgar will know my name—”

“Are you kidding? He still talks about how you psyched him out in some golf tournament—”

“Junior tennis. He remembers? That was twenty-five years ago.”

“Yeah, well, it was probably the last time he lost anything to anybody. Except for him, everybody in New York is losing their shirt. Communism is collapsing and they’re taking us down with them. Even your cousin is in trouble. Of course, we should all have his troubles. Poor guy might actually have to live on ten million a year—”

“Enough, Brian. I’m sorry your life is so difficult.”

“Yeah, look who I’m complaining to. St. Francis himself.”

“Vaya con Dios, Brian.”

“Bye, Rafe. Let me know if you want to talk to Molly. Jesus,” he said with a despairing sigh to someone in the background as he hung up, “he told me to go with God.” Perhaps everyone is having a breakdown, I thought.