Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“Not to me,” I said and thought it was a lie.

Julie nodded to herself and insisted, “They really got to you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m sorry!” she said louder, topping me. To get away, she walked over Bernie’s grave.

I stayed for only a short time at my uncle’s old house, merely a polite appearance of sitting shiva, instead of the all-night visit I had intended. I expected Julie to be hurt or angry. If so, she didn’t show it. She squeezed me tight, kissed me on both cheeks, on my lips, and finally on the tip of my nose. She said, “Call me.”

I turned to leave. She resumed a conversation with Jerry about the Rabinowitz plot becoming crowded. I reached the double-height foyer, with its long sweeping staircase, and paused on the spot where Julie had tried to defend me from my angry mother the night I found the Afikomen. I heard Julie say loudly, “What we all need is an exorcist.” The room laughed.

My early departure meant I was back at the sublet in time to go to Halley’s for our regular session. I had told her I wouldn’t be able to. Perhaps a surprise appearance would make it all the more effective and I would at last hear grief when I deserted her.

Was effectiveness what I sought? Or consummation?

Probably the reader will be amused that this was when I realized my new method might be impractical. Unless psychiatrists were willing to give up their personal lives how could they imitate it? The obvious to an outsider became clear to me: I was as much on a personal mission as I was engaged in a scientific quest.

At nine-thirty, an hour before I usually appeared to announce myself to Halley’s doorman, I tried to make notes, read, watch television. I microwaved and then rapidly ate a whole bag of Paul Newman’s popcorn, hoping the deafening crunch in my head would silence my nagging desire. I had the night off. I could be myself. So — who was I?

Nothing could distract me. I couldn’t divert my mind from the new questions I planned to ask as I slipped a hand under her pale pink sheets. Who was more addicted, Halley or me? Was her cure fatal to me?

Ten-thirty. Time for me to go, if I was going.

Accept the worst hypothesis, I decided. That was Joseph’s technique, I had learned from Amy Glickstein’s chapters. Presume that I could cure Halley only by infecting myself. With luck I might escape — but accept the worst as inevitable. Was neutralizing her worth it?

That August night was clear. As I walked, a bright new moon peeked out from behind the tall buildings. Between the squat brownstones it seemed to be a friendly lamppost.

“Goodnight, moon,” I said aloud as I turned the corner to Halley’s building. “Goodnight air,” I mumbled to the amber streetlights. And to a wailing ambulance, as the doorman opened the way for me, I whispered, “Goodnight noises, everywhere.”

BY LABOR DAY I WAS SO DEEPLY INVOLVED WITH HALLEY THAT I DARED not test how important she was to me. I had her complete trust — she confided everything, no matter how ugly or trivial. That was as thrilling as the convulsions of her narcissistic ecstasies. Every day, I learned more about her self-murder and the temptress she had created to live.

And I had cornered Stick. The once separated and distrustful units of Hyperion were communicating without clearing everything through him; their feeling of independence grew unhindered while he was busy probing for a way to hurt me. I was fully committed to my enterprise, prepared either to cure them or lose myself in their whirlpool of illness. I faced this truth on August 30th, thanks to the banal need to find another place to stay in New York. Susan helped me there. An old friend in the Village, a writer, got a teaching job in the Midwest. I agreed to a six-month sublet at eight hundred a month and moved my few possessions down to a studio apartment on 33 East Ninth Street. More than two weeks later, on September 17th, I left for Vermont the night before Stick and the others to prepare for the retreat. My intention, because of the intense level of the countertransference, was to provoke a crisis, in the hope we could achieve a breakthrough.

The Green Mountain resort had no mountain in view. Instead, the five-story stone hotel overlooked a golf course. Behind it were six tennis courts, a heated swimming pool, and, about a quarter mile away, a large cabin for the “encounter sessions.” The cabin was set on the western border of a man-made pond. The pond and its immediate environs existed solely for use by retreaters. Rowboats were available. They could cross to the sandy beach on its northern shore where a swimming area was marked off by a string of red and white striped buoys. In its center floated a wood platform and an eight-foot diving board. The pond was stocked. The east shore was set aside for fishing with the understanding that every catch must be thrown back. Also, there was a camping area, with two discreet outhouses, in a meadow ringed by pines and cedars hidden away off the east shore, if retreaters decided that a night under the stars would be helpful.

Ten rooms in the stone building were booked for me, Stick, Halley, Andy Chen, Jack Truman, Tim Gallent, Jonathan Stivik, the operating system programmer, two regional sales managers — Carl Hanson and Joe Gould — and the only other woman besides Halley, Martha Klein. Martha worked under Halley as the market researcher for Centaur and the rest of the new PC line.

I shooed away Green Mountain’s retreat leaders, declined their offers of foam bats (to strike people with as a “playful acting out of aggression”), their New Age music tapes for meditating nude (“Body awareness can strip away hierarchical stereotypes and build self-esteem,” I was told), and also their “cooperative tasks,” basically scavenger hunts designed to require team effort for success. However, I did accept exclusive use of the cabin, the pond and its amenities.

At eleven o’clock Friday morning, I lingered over room service breakfast. The others were due in the late afternoon. The room was pleasantly furnished, as if it were a rustic inn, with a four-poster bed and plain pine furniture. I mulled over how to make use of the encounter meetings since I had rejected their gimmicks. I had the television tuned to ESPN, listening with one ear to their college football forecast show for Saturday’s games. After a long silence, Albert had gotten a message to me and we had talked by phone for over an hour. He was excited. His college coach had been tough on him, he said, especially about his fitness. (The coach didn’t really mean fitness, he meant his bulk. He wanted Albert — at seventeen, already six foot three and two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle — to get even bigger.) Nevertheless, Albert would be starting tomorrow at middle linebacker, a great honor for a freshman. “It’s happening for me, Rafe. It’s happening,” Albert said, the thrill in his voice obviously exciting me too, since I was now watching a mind-numbing hour-long sports show on the off-chance I would hear Albert’s name mentioned. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to attend the game, or see it for that matter, since I would be busy with the group all day Saturday.

There was a knock at the door. I assumed the maid wanted to clean. I shut off the television and answered it. Halley walked into my arms, on tiptoe, mouth puckered, reaching for my lips.

Gently, but firmly, I pulled on her long shimmering hair to keep her off. Since July 4th, I had, of course, not permitted embraces or kisses. A chubby teenage chambermaid, pushing a service cart out of the room across the hall, looked at us. I smiled at her, put my cheek against Halley’s and whispered, “Stop this right now or I’ll throw you out.”