By Blood (14 page)

I had coughed! A sudden, explosive cough had escaped my chest!

All that while I had been poised there, sweating in my outerwear, afraid to move a muscle, standing equally on each foot, so as not to creak a floorboard …

All that while, I had controlled my breathing, because I stood so close to our common door, and my labored breath might give me away …

All during that half hour I had allowed the sweat to roll uninhibited down my body, for fear even the rustle of my overcoat would be heard …

Only to be betrayed by my own chest! A tremendous cough! Which erupted out of me and barked once into the night like a tethered dog.

It was loud! said the patient. What was it?

My God, I don’t know, answered the therapist.

It sounded like it was right in this room, said the patient.

Why, yes it did, said Dr. Schussler.

They shifted in their seats.

Well, I don’t see anything, said the therapist.

(I shivered, my sweat ice-cold.)

And I don’t hear anything now, said the patient.

But it was odd, said the doctor. It did seem to be coming from right there.

(I could feel them looking at our thin door. I all but saw the doctor’s hand stretched out in my direction, her finger pointed at me.)

Seconds passed. Horns played in the street below.

(I must be quiet! I must stay hidden!)

The doctor sighed. In any case, she went on, shifting back around in her chair, I hope you understand the reasons for the hatred—the self-hatred—you have expressed.

Yes, said the patient. And then again no, I don’t.

(But still she stared at the door. I could feel her eyes on me. Oh, how I wanted her gaze! All the same, I begged her inside myself, Turn around, my dear patient. Forget I exist!)

But I still haven’t told you the worst thing, she went on, shifting back in her seat (at last).

She laughed.

Charlotte’s breaking up with me.

Mein Gott!
said the therapist. Why did you not say?

I think I want to pretend it isn’t happening.

The patient sighed, and sat back.

Charlotte got me a surprise Christmas gift, she said.

Yes? said the therapist.

Yes, right. Not like her at all. Charlotte and her fear of being “bourgeois,” which seems to include anything with a bow. So, yes, very unexpected. She’d written “Merry Christmas!” and “Happy Birthday!” on an envelope—scrawled, in smudged pencil, but still, a gift. I opened it.

She laughed.

It was a confirmation for a one-week stay at this Russian River resort, she went on. Some cabins under the pines. A famous place for
wim-min
and
wim-mine
, spelled
W-O-M-Y-N
. Granola lesbians, whose greatest goal in life is to have a piece of land, a goat, and goat cheese. It’s all wim-
min
, wim-
mine
, and baby dykes—and just the sort of place Charlotte knows I hate.

(I stood holding my scarf over my mouth, to stifle any sound, and listened, fascinated, despite the patient’s distress. How interesting that a category as seemingly solid as “lesbian” could contain all these various admixtures! The “old-style girls” the patient had admired at the bar called A Little More: high heels, red lipstick, “breasts out to here,” she’d said. The “politicos”: politically active, short hair, flannel shirts, “stomping boots.” And now these new types, these “granola lesbians” with their goats; and what did she mean by “baby” dykes?)

Asked the doctor: And where would you like to go on holiday?

Somewhere warm, the patient replied. Charlotte knows this. I think it was the first thing I told her about myself. That I love swimming in the sea, tennis, golf, cocktails under the stars, my girlfriend and I naked under our silky dresses. The patient gave off a cynical laugh. Why in the world did she take up with me? Charlotte ridiculed me. You want to go to a
third-world
country, she said, where poor people in waiter’s jackets serve you piña coladas. You’re nothing but a Dinah Shore lesbian! she shouted at me.

(Yet another type! This one, she went on to explain, described a well-to-do lesbian who looks “straight,” has her nails done, and drives to the Dinah Shore Open women’s golf tournament in a Cadillac.)

Finally the doctor said: But let us return to the point. The question is not why she took up with you. The question is, Why did you take up with
her
?

The patient did not answer for some seconds. The sounds of the street filled the pause: the blare of car horns, the roar of a truck’s engine, the machine-gun rhythm of a jackhammer from some far sidewalk.

What is wrong? asked the therapist.

Charlotte gave me an ultimatum.

And? asked the therapist.

She said, either come with her or consider our relationship over.

There was a moment of silence, then:

How terrible of her! said Dr. Schussler.

You think she’s being terrible, too, don’t you?

Of course I do. I think it is very selfish of Charlotte not to consider your needs, after what you have been through emotionally.

That’s what I thought. How could she do this to me? Now, when she knows what happened with my family … now … no sympathy for me … called me anti-Semitic! When she knows how much I need … oh, God, a holiday … enjoy Christmas … as a Jew? And with all my work … she makes fun of that, too … all the hours … I’m so tired … Oh, God, how I need a rest.

And she succumbed to tears.

They were drunken cries at first, bleary and whiny, but still: At last she had found her way to her tears.

Dr. Schussler let her patient cry without interruption. In any case, there was no reversing the flow of those tears. All that the patient had kept bound up inside her: now pouring forth in uncontrollable wails and sobs. It was an awful sound to hear, like the roar of a deadly swollen river. So much loss and helplessness. Loneliness so much like my own. I imagined her cries resounding in the corridor, through the halls, down the elevator shaft, to the cherubs with their black, startled eyes.

I glanced at my watch; only ten minutes of the session remained. Dr. Schussler must not lose control of the clock again, I thought. She was performing rather well; her consultation with Dr. Gurevitch seemed to have had some good effect (against all my expectations). Yet she again seemed unable to manage the hour; her patient was sobbing uncontrollably—and she must not let the patient walk out into the cold of Christmas alone, raw. I could barely stand still. Perhaps I should move, I thought, make noise—cough—somehow shift the therapist’s attention, even at the risk of losing my position as a silent audience, even at the risk of losing the patient, my life’s blood. I loved her so much that I would do anything.

The therapist sat without moving; the patient wept quietly now. And then came our savior: With only minutes remaining, the church carillon played the three-quarter hour.

Dr. Schussler stood; walked over to the patient.

Here you are, she said. Here are more tissues.

The patient laughed. Thank you, she said, beginning to blow her nose, cough, inhale deeply—all the things people do to try to bring their endless sobbing to a temporary end.

What do you think I should do? the patient asked between gasps and hiccups. I mean about the vacation. Why do you think she’s doing this? I don’t understand.

The doctor sat quietly for a moment. I could hear the words she was not saying: Charlotte wanted to break up but was making the patient do it for her. The patient was not ready to hear this; how good of the doctor to keep this to herself.

Finally the doctor laughed. Well, she said, I can tell you without any hesitation that I do not believe you should go to that granola resort.

Ah, sighed the patient. Thank you.

You did not need my permission.

No, said the patient between ebbing sobs. But I need your help.

The therapist inhaled, exhaled. Do you want to stay home? she asked finally.

Home? the patient echoed.

A sob stabbed her.

Home?
You mean that place where I’ll be eating breakfast alone under Charlotte’s Holly Near posters? Where you can’t open the cupboards without getting buried in an avalanche of saved yogurt containers? And all the avocado pits. No avocado eaten in our house ever escaped the fate of getting speared all around with toothpicks and hung in jars like prisoners. In every windowsill: empty Hain’s sesame-butter jars breeding ugly, scraggly roots.

The therapist laughed. All right, what are Andie and Clarissa doing?

Going to Puerto Vallarta, the patient said between lingering gasps and sniffles.

Can you join them?

Andie’s college friend was supposed to go with them, but now she has the flu. Andie says I can have her room.

Perfect! said the therapist.

You think I should go with them?

It is a nice resort, yes?

Yes. Fancy. Balconies overlooking the ocean, pools with swim-up bars. She laughed. Poor people in white jackets serving piña coladas.

Then she began to weep gently again. But Charlotte …

Charlotte, said the therapist.

This means I’m leaving Charlotte, said the patient.

Perhaps yes, perhaps no. She may or may not mean what she said. You can find out after the holidays. The doctor was quiet for a moment. Then she said: But you must do what is best for you. I believe you need rest and the support of good friends like Andie and Clarissa.

Yes … but … I feel so alone.

And she softly wept.

The therapist spoke gently while her patient gently cried, counseling her patient to be careful, monitor her drinking, take no drugs, be mindful of whom she befriended.

I will be here for you, the doctor said in a firm voice. Any time, day or night, you may leave a telephone message for me. If it is an emergency, you must do so. Now you will promise—swear!—that you will call me if you come undone in any way.

The patient coughed, blew her nose, laughed. I swear, she said.

They stood. I heard the analyst walk over to the patient, then there was a rustle of fabric. Thank you again, the patient said, her voice slightly muffled, as if it came through whatever stuff covered the nook of Dr. Schussler’s shoulder.

I waited. Dr. Schussler did not turn on the sound machine. It seemed an eternity before she gathered her things, turned off the lights, and went home. I stood all that while in my overcoat, sweating under my many layers, finally tumbling into the street. I coughed my way toward Market Street.

Puerto Vallarta. A small travel agency down the block from our building had a sign in the window: a five-night package, airfare and hotel included, the “luxury hotel” shown on the poster boasting “all balconies facing the ocean.” It was just as the patient desired: balconies, breezes, her silk dress fluttering across the sun-browned skin of her body. I had never noticed the agency’s existence; there was no reason I should have. But now: Puerto Vallarta.

Although it was nearly nine o’clock, a light showed from within. I stepped into the shop.

Its atmosphere could not have been more unlike the posters of
bikini-clad
models that covered the walls. At a piled-high desk sat a woman of about my age smoking a long cigarette that dangled from her lips. She and her desk comprised the whole agency, a tiny space into each surface of which had seeped the grime of the street and the reek of age-old cigarette smoke.

Help you? asked the woman, the cigarette remaining in her lips as she spoke.

I stood by her desk—the side chair was piled as high as her desk—and inquired about the package in the window.

Which one? she asked without looking up. I got lotsa packages.

I indicated the trip to Puerto Vallarta, in particular the hotel shown in the poster in the window.

Too late, she said, her cigarette dropping ashes as it dangled. Sold out.

Before that moment, I was certain I did not actually want to go to Puerto Vallarta. I had merely been inquiring, I thought; only wished to feel closer to the patient, know more about the details of her trip, perhaps even what she would spend, what she could afford, therefore the style and conduct of her life. But upon learning that this agent could not help me, the sweat began to boil on my skin; coughs suddenly wracked my chest.
Her! Her! Her!
sounded in my head, growing ever louder, so that my coughs seemed to come from far away, from deep underwater. I could barely hear my own voice when I said:

That is very wrong! Why is your sign still in the window? You should not advertise what you cannot deliver!

She looked up.

Mister, she said, Christmas is around the corner. Everyone knows you have to book in advance. I can get you to Mazatlán, if you want.

How dare she! I thought. What was this Mazatlán? Who is this hag to thwart me?

I do not want to go to Mazatlán—wherever that is, I said with a shout. I want to go to Puerto Vallarta, you liar!

The woman put down her cigarette, stood, one hand on her desk drawer.

You got a problem, mister?

I imagined there was a gun in that drawer. Could she hear the crows calling in my head?

Forgive me, madam, I said, as politely as possible—the cawing still sounding—but I resisted now. Resisted.

It is only my deep disappointment, I said, meanwhile concentrating on making my voice higher, friendlier. Of course it is not your fault, madam.

And I fled the shop.

The N Judah was nearly empty. I sat under the bright fixtures and saw but a few passing lights and my own reflection in the window, the look of which horrified me: hollow-eyed, slack-cheeked—the face of someone who could harm an aging travel agent?

By ones and twos, the other passengers disembarked, until I was alone with my face in the window. Never had the patient seemed so far away. Was her good halo banished so quickly, within a mere slip of time, between nine o’clock and nine fifteen? I stepped down at the Ocean Beach terminus; the doors closed behind me; the streetcar rattled off.