(1961) The Chapman Report (17 page)

She tried to fasten on any single thing that Dr. Chapman had said. She could not recollect one. Was it that she was so damn bored with talk of sex? More and more, she had become impatient with men who ran off at the mouth about sex. That tiresome verbal seduction, that forensic love play. Christ, there-was only one thing to say about sex: do you want to or don’t you?

She sat erect, her breasts tightening, and stared ahead. The art of attention. That was part of pursuing normal activity. She must learn to listen. Grimly, she listened.

“Perhaps it will put your minds at ease,” said Dr. Chapman, “to know the exact procedure you will face, if you volunteer. It is really quite simple and painless. As you leave this auditorium, you will find four tables in the foyer. You will go to the one bearing the initial of your surname, and sign your name and address to a volunteer pledge. By Monday morning, you will receive a post card stating the hour and date of your interview. At the appointed time, you will come to this building and go to the upstairs corridor. There, my secretary, Miss Selby, will be waiting for you. She will lead you to one of three private offices upstairs. In the office, you will find a comfortable chair and a large screen dividing the room. Behind the screen, seated at a table, equipped only with pencil, questionnaire, and a knowledge of Solresol, will be one of the members of our team. You will not be able to see him, and he will not be able to see you.

“After you are settled down, the interviewer will ask your age, something of your background, and something of your marital situation. Then, he will ask you a series of questions. As I have already told you, these questions fall into three distinct categories. I will explain these categories to you now.

“The first category concerns only your sex performance and history. You might be asked, ‘What is the frequency of your love-making with your husband at the present time?’ or ‘What was it when you were married?’ Or you might be asked, ‘When do you usually have intercourse with your husband, at night, in the morning, in the afternoon, in early evening?’

“The second category of questions concerns your psychological attitudes toward marital sex. You might be asked, ‘If you learned tonight that your marriage was invalid because of a technicality, that you were legally free, would you want to legalize your marriage at once or to leave your spouse permanently?’ Or you might be asked, ‘Before your wedding, did you hope your husband would be a virgin, an experienced lover, or didn’t you care?’

“The third category of questions concerns your reaction to sexual stimuli. At the proper time during the interview, you will be directed to open a leather box beside your chair, the SE box, we call it-Special Exhibits box. From it, you will be requested to remove certain artistic objects and study them. Then, you will be asked questions about your reactions to these visual stimuli. You may find yourself looking at a photograph of a nudist colony or the reproduction of an unsheathed male statue by Praxiteles and be asked, ‘Are you erotically aroused by what you see, and to what extent?’ Or you might find yourself reading a marked passage from an unexpurgated edition of D. H. Lawrence’s classic Lady Chatterley’s Lover and be asked, ‘Does the passage you have just read excite you in any way and, if so, to what degree?’

“You may answer these three categories of questions as rapidly, as slowly, as fully, as briefly, as you desire. There may be 150 questions. Rarely more. The interview will probably take about an hour and fifteen minutes. When it is terminated, you will be told so. You will then leave as you came-knowing that what you have revealed is part of a vast mass of data that will soon be fed into our STC machine, and that the total results will shed light into an area too long too dark. The entire operation is as uncomplicated as that. Neither more nor less will happen. I sincerely hope that you will volunteer for this good work-in full realization that your life, and the lives of generations to follow, will be healthier, wiser, happier, thanks to your moment of truth. You have been very kind to hear me out, and I thank you.”

While joining her hands to the noisy applause all about, Naomi thought, Brother, you got me, if it’ll make me healthier, wiser, happier, like hell it will. But why all that corny false modesty? Screen, dead language, safes, machines, secrecy? I’ve done nothing

I’m ashamed of; I’m a woman, and I need it and I like it, and I bet there’s thousands like me. How long did he say it would take? An hour and fifteen minutes? Brother, I could bend your fat little ear for twenty-four hours and fifteen minutes, nonstop.

“Naomi.”

She turned quickly, and found Mary McManus standing over her, and realized that she alone was still seated.

“Lunch still on?” Mary asked.

“Oh, yes.” Naomi hurriedly got to her feet and followed Kathleen and Ursula into the crowded aisle.

Mary was waiting, as Naomi shuffled with the throng to the next row. Mary’s eyes were bright. “Wasn’t it exciting?”

“Thrilling,” said Naomi. “Like a first pajama party.”

Backstage, Dr. Chapman stood beside the water cooler, mopped his warm brow, then reached across for a paper cup and poured himself a drink. “Well, Emil,” he said to Emil Ackerman, “how did I do?”

“I’m all primed to volunteer,” said Ackerman, grinning. “It was even better than the speech you gave to the men a couple years ago.”

Dr. Chapman smiled. “That’s because this was about women. And you’re a man.”

“I guess I still am,” agreed Ackerman.

‘Well, if you think you’ve worked up an appetite by now-“

“I sure have,” said Ackerman. “Only not for what you think.”

He laughed an evil schoolboy laugh. Dr. Chapman acknowledged the joke with a slight curl of his lips, his eyes shifting quickly to observe if anyone nearby had overheard them. He did not like to be caught in situations where the pure scientist might seem mere mortal.

“Well, a good charred steak should settle you down,” he said to Ackerman. Then, taking the fat man’s arm, he hastily propelled him toward the stage door.

When Kathleen Ballard reached the foyer, she saw that long lines had already formed at each of the four tables. Emerging from the auditorium, she had allowed herself to be separated from Ursula, Naomi, and Mary. Now the nearest door was no farther than the tables. She felt sure that she could reach the door unnoticed.

She had begun to make her way through the press of the crowd

when she heard her name called loudly. She froze, then turned. Grace Waterton was elbowing toward her.

“Kathleen, you weren’t leaving?”

Kathleen swallowed. She felt dozens of eyes upon her and the heat on her cheeks. “No, I-well, yes, for a moment-there’s such a line, and I have so much to do; I thought I’d come back in a half hour-“

“Nonsense! You come right along with me.” Grace had her hand and was tugging her toward the table at the extreme left, the one marked “A to G.” There were at least twenty women in the line, and more gathering quickly at the far end. “If you have things to do, the others will understand,” continued Grace in her brass voice. “Oh, Sarah-“

Sarah Goldsmith, lighting a cigarette, was at the head of the line, waiting for the stout woman ahead of her, who was bent over the table signing her name and address. Now Sarah looked up.

“Sarah, be a sport. Kathleen here has a rush appointment. Would you let her squeeze in ahead?”

Sarah Goldsmith waved her cigarette. “Hello, Kathleen. Of course; go ahead.”

“I really don’t like to do this,” said Kathleen apologetically. She turned to protest to Grace, but Grace was already yards off, breaking into clusters of women, herding them into line. Sarah had stepped back, waiting. Kathleen moved in front of her. “I was coming back,” she said lamely.

“Next,” called Miss Selby from the table.

Kathleen faced the table, smiled uncertainly, accepted the proffered pen, and hastily signed her name and address to the long sheet.

“Did you enjoy the lecture?” asked Miss Selby.

“Yes,” said Kathleen. She felt dull and a living lie. “It was very instructive.”

She quickly returned the pen, stepped away, then remembered Sarah.

“Thanks, Sarah. How’s the family?”

“Status quo. Nothing fatal this week, knock wood.”

“We must have lunch. I’ll call you soon.”

“I wish you would.”

Free at last, yet less free than before (sentenced to some future terror with her name and address committed to the long sheet), Kathleen went quickly to the door and then through it.

Outside, on the sidewalk, she stood in the sun a moment, trying to remember where she had parked, and then remembering. The street ahead was happily still empty. She neither wanted to see anyone nor discuss the lecture with anyone. Slowly, she started down Romola Place.

From the second-story window of The Briars’ Women’s Association building, Paul Radford gazed into Romola Place. There was a lone woman directly below, walking slowly down the hill. He could not see her face, but her glossy hair was dark and short, and it seemed to shine in the orange sunlight. The beige sweater and skirt appeared expensive. Paul wished he could see her face.

He shifted his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, drawing steadily, blowing out the blue-gray smoke, and never taking his eyes off the lone woman. She was off the sidewalk now, crossing between cars, opening the door of a Mercedes. Holding the door ajar, she settled into the front seat, one leg in and one leg out. The skirt was drawn high over the long, slender, exposed leg, and from this distance, it looked good. Then the leg was withdrawn. The door slammed.

With a sigh for all the women unmet, Paul turned back into the room. He watched Horace and Cass at the table sorting the questionnaires.

“Looks like the old man sold them,” Paul said at last. “The lecture’s over, but only a few came out.”

Horace continued to work silently. But Cass seemed hopeful. “Then this is the last stop,” he said. He rattled a questionnaire in his hand. “Dammit, I’m sick to the gut of these questions.”

‘We’re illuminating a dark area,” said Paul with a grin.

“Shove it,” said Cass. He glared at the questionnaire. He read aloud from it in a mocking tone. ” ‘Since you have engaged in an extramarital affair, or affairs, can you answer the following supplementary question: During the first occasion on which you had sexual intercourse with a male other than your husband, were you the aggressor, or were you seduced, or was the mating a mutual act?’” His eyes left the page, met Paul’s, and his eyes were filled with anger. “Bitches,” he said finally.

“Who?” asked Paul with a frown.

“Married women,” said Cass. “All of them.”

And he resumed sorting the questionnaires for the married women of The Briars.

VILLA NEAPOLIS was the kind of motel for which Petronius might have written the advertising pamphlet. Its architect had crossed the villas of early Rome and the modern Mediterranean, and the resulting hybrid structure of wood and stucco was arresting if not aesthetically commendable. The sixty apartments of Villa Neapolis, on two levels, sprawled indolently across the summit of a long hill. From an upper veranda, the view was spectacular-a patch of the blue ocean behind a moist gauze haze to the west, a woodland of green knolls rising before a university campus to the east, and, directly below, beyond the great cement circle of heated swimming pool and multicolored patio lounges, beyond the sharply descending gravel road lined with royal palms, the asphalt ribbon of Sunset Boulevard twisted through The Briars.

Emil Ackerman had made the reservations at the Villa Neapolis -a suite for Dr. Chapman, a double for Paul and Horace, a single for Cass, and a single for Miss Selby-because the motel was relatively new and patronized by passing celebrities, because the proprietor was beholden to Ackerman for some past favor and agreeable to a cut rate for two weeks, and because the location was but a mile east of The Village Green and Romola Place, where the Women’s Association building stood. Dr. Chapman, usually too preoccupied to appreciate or disapprove of any transient habitation, had been impressed with the Villa Neapolis and had been effusively grateful to his political patron.

Now it was early Sunday morning, and Dr. Chapman, in sport shirt and linen slacks, sat at a white metal table beneath the shade of a large striped umbrella eating breakfast with Horace and Cass. Dr. Chapman picked thoughtfully at his eggs and bacon; Horace worked steadily at his pancakes, and Cass ignored his French toast to watch an awkward sixteen-year-old blond girl pad from the cabanas to the diving board.

“Well,” said Dr. Chapman, cutting his bacon with a fork, “I’m glad we’re going to wind it up here.”

“I think you told me-but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten-how many volunteers did we get?” asked Horace.

“A most gratifying response,” said Dr. Chapman. “The Association has 286 members, of which 220 are eligible for our survey. Benita has the exact figures, but I believe 201 or 202 volunteered. Assuming that seven to ten per cent, for one reason or another, do not appear, we will still have enough. I’ve already sent a wire canceling our tentative visit to San Francisco.”

He returned to his bacon and eggs, Horace cleaned his sirupy plate with the last portion of pancake, and Cass continued to watch the sixteen-year-old blonde. She had knelt beside the pool to test the water, and then made her way to the edge of the diving board. Now she executed a graceful jack-knife, cleaving the water cleanly, and a moment later she burst to the surface. Her long stroking arms brought her quickly to the ladder of the pool. She climbed out, hair stringy wet, face and limbs dripping, yellow suit clinging to her small round breasts and hips. Hastily, avoiding Cass’s gaze, she tugged her skirt low.

As she trotted back to the board, Cass poked at Horace’s arm and nodded off. “Look at that behind,” he whispered.

Horace fished for a cigarette. “Jail bait,” he murmured. “I prefer them full grown.”

“Each to his own,” said Cass. His eyes followed the girl. “I suppose almost every girl under seventeen or sixteen is pretty. They won’t all be pretty in a few years, but they are now. Youth is beauty in itself. Every contour of the body is new. After that-” he turned back to the table and shook his head-“after that they all become used and worn. It’s too bad.”