Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“Hello,” I said in a croak.

“Jello,” he said, alarmed now, waking up. “Who’s calling?”

Hearing his old, sad voice, I was scared to talk to him. I cleared my throat of all the cowardly obstructions. “Is Jacinta there?” I asked, my intonations odd, either deeper or higher than normal, fluctuating wildly on the scale.

“What?”

“Is Jacinta Neruda there?” I asked in a grave voice.

There was silence. A long, strange silence. Finally, he said in a suspicious tone, “Who is this?” The words were separated. They reminded me of an actor I had seen playing Hamlet’s Ghost. He spoke all his lines as slowly and morosely as a death march.

“Remember me,” came into my head.

“I’m a friend.” I could think of nothing better. I put my finger on one of the white buttons, ready to cut the line.

“A friend?”

“Yes. May I speak with her?”

Another strange silence. I had a wild thought: maybe he was tracing the call. That was so absurd I wondered if I were really a lunatic.

“I’m her husband,” my grandfather said at last. “Do you know me?” he asked. He was up to something. He wasn’t skilled enough to prevent me from hearing the calculation in each response and question, but I couldn’t imagine what was the point of fencing with me. Why not just put her on? I didn’t consider telling him my name. I was sure he would hang up on me. I should have called during the daytime. Probably he would have been out.

“No, sir. I only need a moment of her time. It’s not an emergency. I have some information for her.”

“You better tell it to me.” He coughed. “I’m her husband. You can tell me.”

“This is — uh,” I was stuck. I couldn’t believe he was being so difficult. “I can’t.”

“I’m sorry.” He coughed again. “My wife …”

I put my finger on the button. I would call during the day tomorrow and get her.

“… my wife,” he continued softly, embarrassed, “passed away last year.”

I cut the line. I held the dead receiver to my ear and pressed the button down firmly, as if erasing what he had said. But no matter how long I pressed, keeping the white button hidden in its black hole, she was still gone, gone without my noticing.

ON APRIL 23RD, 1968, THREE MONTHS INTO MY THERAPY WITH DR. Halston, I had almost finished my suicide note. I was stuck on the last paragraph, my farewell to Julie. I wanted to apologize to her, reassure her that she had done all she could, and yet also prevent anyone from concluding my judgment of the world was wrong. I found the right words during lunch period and finished my written farewell. I would have my last session with Halston, my last meal alone, and take the pills after Richard and Kate were in bed. They would find me in the morning, certainly beyond any chance of rescue.

The car my uncle sent to take me to Dr. Halston was waiting at four. The driver was excited. He was listening to WINS, an all-news radio station, and immediately told me the news. Columbia radicals, black and white, had seized Hamilton Hall and were holding at least one administrator hostage, demanding the university sever all research and recruiting programs tied to the military and the Vietnam War and that plans for the infamous gym be canceled. There was, as always, a lot of confusion about who was doing what and an expectation of immediate violence. There were reports that some students were also being held hostage — totally false — and I used those rumors to get the driver to take me to Manhattan. He insisted he check with his dispatcher. I told him to explain that my cousin was probably caught in the middle of this situation and that my uncle would want me to come to the city and help him make sure our people were okay. The dispatcher, excited by the melodramatic picture I painted of a captured relative, agreed to the change in destination.

We reached Columbia around five. I had no plan. I was drawn to the site as if it held a promise of something great. I was rewarded. The staid building was alive. Students jammed the windows above colorful and outrageous banners they had draped over the grave stone facade. And facing them were not police, but more students, and adults too, a few arguing, but most encouraging them. I saw two middle-aged women put supplies into buckets that the radicals pulled up while the crowd cheered. The spectacle delighted me.

I spotted Sandy in a third-floor window. I called to her. She shouted back, “Join us!” The others with her at the window misunderstood slightly, thought she was referring to everyone, and took up her phrase, chanting to the crowd on the street, “Join us! Join us!”

I didn’t move. Not frightened; thinking I didn’t deserve to. From somewhere to my left came a negative answer. I looked that way. There was a trio who were obviously — given their white shirts, ties and blazers — from the “Majority Coalition,” the conservative students. They shouted back, something about the right to go to class. They couldn’t manage to make that thought into a chant; without rhythm and unity their words were lost on the air.

Sandy and her buddies answered: “Join us! Join us!”

Below her, on the second floor, a window was jammed with five blacks. They harmonized with another chant in between each “Join us!” I knew its correct spelling from the earlier demonstration. “No Gym Crow! No Gym Crow!”

All along the street the chants were taken up, drowning out the “Majority Coalition.” Exhilarated, I crossed toward the rather forbidding pair of black students who seemed to be guarding the main doors to Hamilton Hall.

From above and behind, my approach was greeted with applause and cheers.

I noticed a pair of Columbia Security cops to my right. They stared at me as I passed. I reached the entrance. The taller of the blacks said to me, “Hey, brother,” and opened the door to me. I felt a surge of relief, a feeling that, at last, I was home.

For about seven hours, life was vivid, fascinating, dangerous and fun. There were meetings, votes, discussions, tomfoolery on every floor, in every room. They aren’t pertinent to my narrow, self-absorbed narrative except to say they delighted me, that all thoughts of self-destruction were forgotten.

Votes were taken on whether marijuana or liquor should be allowed. Both lost for obvious reasons of security and publicity. (However, I shared a joint with a black freshman, Billy MacFarland, in a broom closet — outlaws hiding from the outlaws.) Most of the discussions were preoccupied by the desire of the blacks to be alone in the occupation of Hamilton Hall. There were all sorts of abstract arguments brought to bear on this, but the most compelling, including for me, was the notion that they shouldn’t seem to be acting under the leadership of white radicals, shouldn’t allow the situation to appear as if they were merely followers. Of course, it hurt the feelings of the whites. (Especially mine; that transporting moment of being ushered in by a black who called me brother was spoiled.)

Around midnight, Sandy told me she was going to the apartment to get supplies. She kissed me, working her way to my ear, and whispered, “We don’t have to rush back.” I said no, mumbling I had promised somebody to help them watch the rear doors for a shift. That was an obvious lie, but Sandy didn’t challenge it. She asked Julie to go with her instead. Probably that had some significance; I didn’t think about it.

Half an hour later, I was on my haunches in a corner of the dean’s office listening to the white and black leaders debate tactics when Gus called me to the phone. “It’s Julie,” he said, with a puzzled look. “She wants to talk to you.”