Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

The routine was rigid. I telephoned her apartment at seven-thirty every morning, greeting her in a loving voice, “Hello, little one. How did you sleep?” The daily conversations, once she came to expect them so she picked up instead of her machine, lasted roughly half an hour. On weekends they sometimes continued for an hour or more. They allowed me to monitor the residue of my interference with the sexual and emotional dynamics of her relationship with her father; more importantly, however, I repeated the assurances her narcissism demanded. She’d rustle the sheets, groan sleepily, and ask plaintively, “Do you love me?”

“I love you,” I’d say.

“Then why aren’t you here?” she’d whine.

“Because yoü don’t love me,” I’d say.

“But I do!” she answered on the second week of these morning calls. The first week she tried teasing me with the reply, “Tough,” but I would only laugh at that.

“You don’t love anyone,” I said.

“Maybe I love you,” she said sweetly, playing the innocent music of a little girl. It was hard to remember that she was lying.

“If you love me,” I said, “then you’re going to have my babies and get fat. You’re going to be covered with spit-up and men won’t want you. If you give me a beautiful daughter, I won’t bother to look at you. If you give me a strong son, I won’t bother to talk to you.”

For a moment there was no reply. Then I heard a thump — I decided later it was her feet landing on the floor as she got out of bed. She said in an efficient tone, “That’s right,” and hung up with a bang.

The next morning she picked up and answered my, “Hello, little one. How did you sleep?” by saying, “I have a guest, I’ll call you later.”

She tried to make me jealous for two weeks, either by not picking up or answering only to say she had company and couldn’t talk. I ignored the taunts so thoroughly that (and maybe Stick proposed this or she intuited his desire) she appeared in the labs and invited Andy to lunch, using the ad campaign for Centaur as the excuse. She took him out twice more before giving up on him, probably when she figured out that Andy was gay. I half expected her male secretary to call him next, but evidently Halley was not a delegator — and besides, that would hardly have upset me.

During the jealousy resistance phase, one night she told the doorman not to allow me up for an incest session. That alarmed me, but it shouldn’t have. The physical craving for so complete a physical satisfaction — a narcissistic ecstasy that no one else could or would supply her — was addictive. The next morning she answered my greeting with a grumpy, “I didn’t sleep well.”

“Is that my fault?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“You missed your bedtime story,” I said.

“Come here now,” she insisted.

“No. Thursday night.”

“What’s your phone number? You know, it’s outrageous that no one can call you at home. If you won’t give me your number, I’ll get it from Laura.”

That was the first time she tried to bring her father in as a greater authority figure than me. “Stick doesn’t have this number. This isn’t my home,” I said. “And I don’t really work for your company. I’m doing research.”

“Come here,” she groaned. “I’ll read you a story,” she added brightly. “I’m a good lover, you know.”

“You’re a great lover — but you’re not sincere.”

She whispered, “Let me make you happy.”

“You don’t want to make me happy,” I said. “I’ll be there Thursday. The next time you don’t let me in will be the last time I’ll come to see you.” I hung up. There were no more cancellations.

Despite the unprecedented intimacy my daily feeding of her narcissism required, I was convinced that she was nothing more than a patient to me until an interruption in our work proved otherwise. In late August, Aunt Ceil, Julie’s mother, suffered another stroke and died. Since my family was told by the institute that they didn’t have my New York number, Edgar, of all people, informed me on their behalf and offered a ride in his limo to Great Neck. He had joint real estate investments with Jerry, Uncle Bernie’s son-in-law, and would be attending the funeral. This was another reinforcement to Copley of my dangerous connection to the larger business world. I made sure to tell Stick who was providing my ride when I canceled our Thursday meeting.

I also warned Halley that I wouldn’t be available to tuck her in and refused to discuss why although she was sure to learn the reason from Stick. When she said, “How about Friday?” I said softly, “No.”

I can imagine what Stick fantasized Edgar and I would say to each other during the ride to temple. In fact, we reminisced about Great Neck High, the old men who played gin at the country club, and the toughness of his father and my uncle in business. Edgar launched into an anecdote about Bernie to illustrate. “You know,” Edgar said, “when your uncle bought Home World he was having trouble with the Mafia hijacking trucks. Hijacking! The union drivers would pull over nicely at such and such a time in a rest stop and have a cup of coffee while goombahs would take their load. Then they’d call the cops. It was a regular thing, taking about ten percent off the top. That was fucking up his profit margin big-time. So supposedly Bernie goes to see the Godfather — who’s drooling in a wheelchair in his mansion. Somehow Bernie knows him—”

I explained, “When they were kids they used to lead gangs against each other in the Bronx.” I knew the story he was telling, but I was interested in his version.

“No kidding? That’s for real?”

“That part is real,” I assured him.

“So Bernie tells him …” Edgar started to laugh and he began again, “So Bernie, he brings this big hulking Jew with him,” Edgar laughed again so hard that he paused, swallowed and continued, “Bernie says, ‘This man here is on a leave from the Israeli Army. He needs work and he has lots of buddies from Tel Aviv who need work and if my trucks keep having trouble, they’ll be riding in every one for me as security men. You know about the Israeli Army,’ Bernie says. They’re used to fighting Arab terrorists so they don’t mind getting their hands dirty,’” Edgar smiled. “And that was why the Home World trucks made their rounds without losing any inventory. Now here’s the payoff. Supposedly the big hulking Jew was a cantor from a synagogue in Texas.” Edgar laughed. We were exiting the LIE, heading for Community Road. He looked through the smoked-glass window at a Mercedes flanking us. The driver was a jeweled woman with a deep tan. Beside her was an African-American nanny. In the back, a toddler sat beside an infant in a car seat. “God,” he said to their comfortable domesticity, “I wish that story was true.”

“It’s true,” I told him.

“Really? You’re shitting me.”

“I know it’s a true story.”

“Are you sure? You knew it? Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I’m sure. I didn’t stop you because I wanted to know if you had it right. And you don’t. The hulking Jew wasn’t a cantor. He was a colonel in the Mossad.”

“You’re shitting me,” Edgar said.

“No. Uncle was good at matching men with jobs they were qualified for.”

“Don’t be a bleeding heart.”

“Between the two of us, Edgar, you’re the sentimental one.” He was. He stayed beside me through our entrance at the temple and, despite gestures of invitation from men important to him in business, pulled me down the center aisle row after row. Twice I mumbled, “Here’s good.” Edgar insisted on our progress until we got to the front where Julie sat in a black dress, an arm around each of her children.