Кейт Браверман - A Good Day for Seppuku

And Patty became all women who walk chestnut lined boulevards and city parks. She was a synthesis of all women eating oranges imported from Portugal who sit in meadows beside statues of composers, princes and poets.

Hummingbirds came — so many the air churned with propellers and tiny buzz saws. Cardinals and enormous iridescent blue jays resembling dwarf peacocks appeared. He was professor of the air and he conducted the elements.

He meant to say birds churned the air, but instead he wrote churched in his journal. And hadn’t they been, if not happy, some version so close as to be nearly identical?

Patricia McCarty remembers that particular summer as a relentless fragrant ache. Its extravagance, its garlands of gold-hued embellishments flaunted themselves and made her dizzy. Possibilities for both absolution and ravishment rose on their own accord. Her body was awkward and shuttered. She was a fever of mutually exclusive impulses. She had found her own inland sea. She knew herself as a solitary, but she was afraid to be alone. The mewling of red fox woke her and the autumn moon was an unadulterated silver that burned.

That summer she was pregnant. She didn’t tell her husband. In early autumn, she took a bus to Pittsburgh alone and aborted it.

Patricia recognized her urge to escape and disappear. There must be schematics with details of the necessary phrases and gestures, and anecdotal accounts and stories in small print at the end of newspapers. She suspected it was a process. Each year, at CON PA or a neighboring college, St. Joseph’s, Allegheny Tech or even Penn State, a young woman inexplicably vanished during spring or Christmas break.

Lydia Kepler, 21, an attractive brunette from Baltimore, went to the campus library and inexplicably vanished. She was a nursing student with a graduate school fiancée and an affection for cats. She was on the tennis team and twice weekly volunteered at the animal shelter. She had no record of delinquent or promiscuous behaviors.

Denise Kaplan, 19, went to the Pittsburgh Macy’s to purchase winter boots and didn’t exit the building. Her boyfriend, Ricky, was waiting for her in his car. He waited until the store closed and then called the police. Her sorority sisters were shocked and her desperate parents posted a reward for information. Denise, a popular sophomore, was a member of the chorus and the Sierra Club. She was an avid skier. The Pittsburgh police were “mystified.”

Ruby Marie Johnson, 22, a senior pre-med student from Philadelphia, was last seen walking to her part-time job at Brenda’s Bakery. She was the oldest of six siblings and an honor student with a full scholarship. She planned to work with disabled children in the inner city. She tutored biology students, and had the role of Miss Hannigan in the campus Theater Arts Society’s production of Annie. The production was cancelled and detectives described her disappearance as “disturbing and inexplicable.”

Patricia wondered where the lost women were. Perhaps they were under the ground, speaking in a language with fluid syllables of rain and creeks and damp chimes. It was a local dialect of tinny trinkets and rumors. It was said there was an ocean to the east, vast, implausible gray, pre-human and incontrovertible. The vanished women don’t believe this. They can select their beliefs and devise their own hierarchies of necessity. They’re a-historical and immune.

Patricia kept a scrapbook of stories about missing women. She also collected obituaries of the murdered ones. When her scrapbook was full, she threw it into the Genesee near Hamilton Bridge.

Patricia wasn’t convinced that all the unaccounted for women were kidnapped or trafficked runaways. They weren’t abducted by extraterrestrials. They didn’t have amnesia. Some women chose absence, and Patricia suspected shedding an identity was liberating.

That fall she makes an appointment with the psychologist in Wood’s End. Dr. Hernandez has a suspicious reputation including allegations of statutory rape and numerous suspensions. But he’s the only psychologist in the county. Dr. Greg Hernandez is a handsome man, forty, with an auburn beard and striking sea-blue eyes that don’t quite focus. He wears dark tinted glasses and chainsmokes.

“I want a divorce,” Patricia begins. It’s the first sentence she speaks.

“Do you have sole and separate assets?” he asks, reaching for his lighter. “Bank accounts and credit cards in your name only?”

She shakes her head no.

“How will you buy a plane ticket? Or hire a lawyer in Philadelphia? What are your skills? How will you earn a living? Can you type and use computers?” Dr. Hernandez inquires. “And where will you go?”

Patricia stares at him. Then she looks down and examines her shoes.

“Has your husband physically abused you?” he asks. “Broke a bone? Sent you to ER?”

Patricia shakes her head no.

“Does Professor McCarty hurt you?” the psychologist tries. It’s a simplified version of his previous question. He thinks she is stupid. Patricia is tempted to explain that the mere existence of her husband is intolerable. She doesn’t.

Then Dr. Hernandez asks insipid questions from a notebook. Where and when was she born? She names the month of her birth; he smiles, encouragingly.

“I’m winter born, too,” he tells her.

Does she have siblings? What are their names and occupations? Is she a conservative or progressive? What’s her opinion of politicians and capital punishment? Does she go to church and vote? Does she have a pet? A hobby? A child? Insomnia, nightmares, and eating disorders? Does she believe in damnation and redemption?

Is he proselyting? Is he taking a poll? Is he a census taker? Will he recommend her for jury duty? His questions are designed to induce sleep. She realizes he’s trying to hypnotize her. Patricia considers leaving the office, going home and getting in bed. He’s just another passing snake oil salesman and she has all the right answers. Still, one must veer on the side of caution. Diminutives and mediocrities can stumble on a rare inspired intuition. It can happen by accident.

Dr. Hernandez holds a pen, makes a brief notation in a notebook, and offers her another smile. Patricia notices his teeth are white and even. He enjoys showing them off.

“When were you last arrested?” he asks, looking at his pen.

“Arrested?” Patricia repeats. She laughs. She has good teeth, too. “Why ask me such a question?”

“You look guilty,” Dr. Hernandez replies. “Tell me about your lover.”

Patricia is startled. “You think I’m unfaithful?”

“It’s possible,” he says.

“I’ve been married nineteen years,” Patricia informs him.

“But not successfully. You want a divorce,” Dr. Hernandez reminds her.

“Yes,” Patricia replies. “I do.”

“Why are you angry?” the psychologist wonders.

“I’m not angry,” Patricia replies. She feels completely composed.

“I think you’re hostile,” the psychologist decides.

They sit in silence. The leather on her last pair of black high heels is worn and shabby. She needs to go to Pittsburgh and buy a new pair. If she lived in Florida, she wouldn’t have to bother with boots and the cedar winter closet with its stacks of gray cashmere sweaters, down jackets, scarves and gloves and all the tedious rest. She’d just wear sandals.

“I suspect you have a secret,” Dr. Hernandez says. “Tell me. You’ll feel better.”

Patricia assesses the condition of her shoes. She’ll replace this pair and buy another and then red stiletto heels.

He stands up abruptly and walks from his desk toward her. He takes long aggressive strides and positions himself above her. “What’s your other name?” he suddenly demands, his voice raised, forceful and direct.