A Deadly Affection (40 page)

Leaning toward the professor, I asked, “Do you think we could get Elizabeth to speak with us?”

He frowned and shook his head. “If she isn't aware of the others' existence, it could be very confusing for her,” he murmured. “Possibly even harmful. Better to wait until a later session when we've had a chance to lay the groundwork.” He turned back to his subject. “Now, Eliza, I'm going to count from ten to one. When I reach one your eyes will open, and you will be fully awake.”

She was very tired when she came around, which the professor assured us both was a normal reaction. He confirmed for Eliza, when she asked, that she had achieved the trance state, then gave her a draught of opium and henbane and told her she should sleep for a while, promising that we would review the session with her when she woke up. I helped her off the sofa and guided her into her bedroom down the hall. The windowless room looked different to me now, no longer an ordinary bedchamber, but instead, a trap for a helpless young girl. Tamping down my revulsion, I turned on the bedside lamp to soften the gloom and folded down the coverlet.

She removed her shoes and lay on her side, fully clothed, on the bed. “Mother will be upset if I don't finish adding up the accounts,” she said drowsily, tucking an arm under her pillow. “I promised I'd get it done today.”

Once again, in my mind's eye, I saw again the image of Mrs. Braun locking herself into her bedroom, so blinded by self-righteous anger over her husband's drinking that she couldn't see what was happening to her daughter on the other side of the door.

“Don't worry,” I said to Eliza. “You just get some rest. Leave your mother to me.”

The professor was sitting at the kitchen table, writing on my pad when I emerged. Looking over his shoulder I saw the words
Multiple Successive, Partially Mutually Cognizant, One-Way Amnestic??
scrawled across the top.

“You believe it, then,” I said, dropping into the chair next to him.

“Of course I do. Don't you?”

I sighed. “I suppose I'm just finding it all a little hard to digest.”

He laid down his pen. “Which part—the paternal rape, or the existence of a multiple consciousness?”

“Both.” I shook my head. “I can't believe a father could use his own daughter so abominably.”

“Fathers are just human beings like the rest of us. And just as capable, unfortunately, of falling prey to their baser instincts.”

“It must have been because of the disease,” I insisted. “It must have destroyed his moral judgment.”

“Possibly, but I wouldn't assume it. Many men without mental defect have been guilty of the same transgression.”

I supposed that if Mr. Braun had been sufficiently intact physically to carry out the rape, it was likely he'd also still had enough willpower to restrain himself if he'd been so inclined. I couldn't excuse him so easily.

“It was a tragic breach of trust, to be sure,” the professor was saying, “but perhaps we can turn it to some good, by using the case to shed light on the effects of such trauma on the mind. You and I have been given a rare opportunity, Doctor, to contribute a new case analysis to the multiple consciousness literature.”

I was unable to respond with any enthusiasm, still coming to grips with the fact that the woman I'd thought I'd known so well was actually an amalgam of unfamiliar parts.

“I suppose you consider multiple consciousness a freakish event,” he said, gazing at me over the tops of his spectacles.

“Isn't it?”

“I believe it's much closer to the norm than people realize. We're all made up of many parts, after all. Our need to get along in society may require our logical, reasoning self to dominate, but there's far more to us than that. We also have our creative selves, our intuitive selves, our dreaming selves. These are the parts that enlarge and enrich us. Who's to say they're any less valid than the authoritarian self we regularly present to the world?”

“They may be valid,” I protested, “but they don't take on a life of their own. When we have a creative thought, we don't lose contact with our everyday reality.”

“Don't we? What about the poet in his moment of inspiration, or the inventor achieving his breakthrough? What about any of us when we're ‘lost' in thought, or just doing one thing while thinking about another? The only difference between you and me and that woman in there is that our selves are synthesized, while hers have broken apart.”

“And you think the rape caused the break?”

“It could have been the rape, or the smaller, repeated assaults that led up to it, or even some earlier trauma from her childhood. You say her mother remarked that she's always been ‘strange,' which suggests the initial split may have occurred when she was younger, with additional personalities emerging to handle the later crisis. As best as we've been able to determine, any physical blow or strong negative emotion can cause the disintegration to occur, if the neural constellations are so predisposed. The effect is similar to the cerebral shock induced in experiments on localization, where the frontal lobes are cut.”

“So Eliza was twice cursed,” I summed up, “in her father's flawed character, and in the predisposition of her mind.”

“Although we could consider the dissociation a blessing in this case, don't you think?” he remarked. “It did, after all, give her a way to cope with unbearable conflict.”

To cope, perhaps, I thought, but not to conquer. The burden seemed merely to have been split three ways: between poor, suffering Bitty, consigned to bear the shame of the rape; and dreamy-eyed Eliza, charged with preserving some shred of filial affection along with her love for Joy; and sour, reclusive Elizabeth, driven to please others even as she tried to destroy herself. I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

“What's troubling you?” the professor asked.

“It's just that Eliza seems so normal. It's hard not to think of her as the ‘real' Mrs. Miner. She's so much more alive than Elizabeth, so tender and full of feeling.”

“You make a good point. It's not uncommon for a new personality to be livelier and more attractive than the original; the original has, after all, lost a large portion of consciousness, leaving it necessarily constricted. But you mustn't forget that the secondary self, while often more appealing in respects, is almost always unsuited to the practical purposes of life.”

This led me to a distressing thought. “Does that mean that Eliza will have to be…‘eliminated' for Mrs. Miner to be cured?”

He frowned. “First of all, you must understand that achieving a complete cure in these cases is difficult at best. Cures have been reported, of course—Boris Sidis's Hanna case, in particular, comes to mind—but just as often, all that can be achieved is a longer time between alternations, or perhaps elimination of the most troubling symptoms, regardless of the doctor's dedication. Even Professor James, despite his best efforts, was unable to unite the divided selves in the Ansel Bourne case.

“But to answer your question, where a cure
has
been effected, the selves have been able to merge and achieve a single, continuous memory that includes the experiences of each. This, I think, is what we must strive for in Mrs. Miner's case. Not the dominion of the personality you know as Eliza. Eliza, stripped of the defenses of skepticism and selfishness, would be helpless on her own.”

Although I could see the sense in what he was saying, it distressed me to think of losing Eliza as I knew her. It was hard to appreciate, moreover, what qualities the disagreeable Elizabeth would bring to a united identity. “What about the personality of Elizabeth?” I asked him. “Would you consider her helpless as well?”

He peered at me over his spectacles. “If you're asking me if I think she murdered the doctor and his daughter, I'm afraid I don't have the answer. We're in uncharted territory here, Doctor. But it is at least theoretically possible that she did without the others being aware.”

“And if so? Would that be grounds for sending them all to prison?”

“It's a fascinating question, isn't it? But you're getting ahead of yourself. Nothing I've heard so far indicates that any of the personalities is guilty of murder.”

Nothing he'd heard, perhaps, but he hadn't seen what I'd seen. “There's something I have to show you,” I said. “I'll be right back.” I returned to Eliza's bedroom to retrieve the sketchbook from the bedside table and brought it into the kitchen. “These are all Eliza's,” I told him, flipping the pages until I came to the charcoal figure. “Except this one. She claims not to know where it came from.”

He leaned over it, his eyes darting from one detail to another. “And you're concerned that this implicates Elizabeth in the murders,” he said after a moment.

“Well, look at it,” I said, thrusting my hand toward the bold line across the figure's neck.

He nodded thoughtfully. “It does strike me as something Elizabeth might have drawn, knowing what we do about her so far. But it doesn't necessarily depict someone else. It could just as well be a self-portrait. Remember, Elizabeth has no memory of what happened to her physical body during the rape, or of the pregnancy afterward. In a sense, her mental and physical lives have been severed. The line across the neck could be a subconscious recognition of that separation.”

“What about the eyes? They're completely blind, with no pupils at all. Couldn't that represent a denial of the crimes?”

“It could. Or it could symbolize a more general disconnection from the world. Especially when taken together with the practically absent feet and hands. The figure appears to exist in a vacuum, ungrounded and out of contact with the physical reality that surrounds her.”

I fervently hoped that he was right, but I didn't think we should count on it. “I suppose I ought to inform the police, if there's even a chance that Elizabeth is dangerous.”

“You ought to do nothing of the kind!” he said quickly. “The only way to get to the truth is to keep her here where we can work with her.”

I couldn't help wondering if his eagerness to take advantage of a rare scientific opportunity might be clouding his judgment. As long as Mrs. Miner remained under twenty-four-hour watch, however, with a guard right outside her door, I supposed it wouldn't hurt to remain silent just a little longer. “Do you really think we can? Get to the truth, I mean.”

“I think we stand an excellent chance. But we'll have to work more intensively than usual, in light of the circumstances. I'd suggest we meet back here this afternoon, after the sedative has worn off, to set up a schedule. We might even attempt another session then if she's amenable.”

“So soon?”

“Seize the day, Doctor!” he exclaimed, with all the zeal of Teddy Roosevelt on the charge up Kettle Hill. He tore his notes off the pad and folded them into his pocket. “I can't wait to give my publisher the news; there hasn't been anything like this since Prince's analysis of the Beauchamp case! We're going to be famous, Doctor! Why don't you join Mr. Altman and me for lunch, and we can go over our terms?”

“Thank you, but no, I'm going to stay here. I'd like a word with Mrs. Braun.”

“As you wish. I'll see you back here later then,” he said, starting for the door. “Shall we say four o'clock? I gave her a strong draught; I doubt we'll be able to rouse her before then. And remember, Doctor”—he pressed an index finger to his lips—“mum's the word!”

I let him out and closed the door behind him, listening to his cheerful whistle move down the stairs and out of the building. Then I returned to the front room and sat down, watching the hands on the cuckoo clock over the sofa and waiting for noon to arrive.

• • •

As soon as the clock announced the hour, I descended the stairs to the street and walked around to the shop entrance. Mrs. Braun was just hanging the CLOSED FOR LUNCH sign on the door. I gestured to her to let me in.

She cracked the door open. Her apron was heavily soiled, her face drawn with fatigue. “What is it?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I was just about to have my lunch.”

“I'm sorry, but this can't wait.”

“Why,” she asked wearily, “what's the matter now?”

“I need to talk to you about Eliza's illegitimate baby.”

She stiffened. “There's nothing to talk about. All that's in the past and best forgotten.”

“I disagree. I've just been upstairs with a colleague of mine, hypnotizing Eliza.”

“Hypnotizing her! What gives you the right to—”

“We discovered something very disturbing,” I continued, “that I think you ought to know about.”

She closed her mouth, searching my face as if trying to guess what new calamity I was about to heap on her. Finally, she stepped back and pulled the door open.

Once I'd entered, she locked the front door and led me through the counter hatch into the back. I took a seat at the table while she closed the inner door, hung her apron on the back, and sat down across from me.

“Have you ever wondered what became of the child?” I asked her.

“No,” she answered flatly. “I put it from my mind the day we were rid of it, and I told Elizabeth to do the same.”

“Yes, she told me you said that. Did it never occur to you that she could have used a little sympathy?”

“Sympathy! The girl had the devil in her, getting pregnant at fifteen. She put us all to shame.”

“The devil had nothing to do with it.”

“I raised her to be a decent, God-fearing girl, but the minute my back was turned she let a good-for-nothing delivery boy take advantage of her.”

“Eliza didn't have time for secret trysts with delivery boys. She was too busy helping you mind the shop.”

“Well, she managed it, didn't she?”

I leaned toward her over the table. “That isn't what happened. If you hadn't been so self-absorbed, you might have seen what was really going on. Maybe you could even have prevented it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Elizabeth didn't become pregnant as the result of some adolescent tryst. She was raped. By her own father. By your
husband
, Mrs. Braun.”

She stared at me, completely still.

“He used to go into her room after coming home late from the saloon and get into bed with her. And one night, when you had locked him out and were holed up feeling sorry for yourself, he raped her.” I didn't care if I caused her pain; in fact, I wanted to cause her pain. I wanted her to be the one to suffer for a change. “Your husband is the father of Elizabeth's illegitimate child.”

I waited for her gasp of horror, the blanching of her flaccid cheeks. But her stony gaze didn't flicker.

I sank back in my chair. “Oh my God…” I said slowly. “You knew.”

The corners of her mouth twitched.

“You knew what he was doing, and you didn't stop him!”

“There was nothing I could do,” she muttered.

“You could have reported him to the police!” I said, fairly gasping for air.

“There's no law against what he did. It would only have made him angry, if I went to them.”

“Well, you could have at least left him and taken Elizabeth with you.”

“Really? And how would we have survived? I put all my savings into the shop when we married. I had no money to start over.”

I gaped at her, chilled by her dry-eyed resignation. “So you just stood by and let it happen?”