Dante's Dilemma (13 page)

So it was no surprise to her that, while the talk was going on, she noticed Gunther Westlake's eyes straying several times in her direction, particularly after he had drawn another round of enthusiastic applause with his skillful lampooning of the feckless liberals who dared to imagine that the former Soviet Union was dead and over with. She felt as though she was being singled out for special recognition, invited to share in his well-deserved triumph. Westlake's specialty was sociology, but he seemed as intimately versed in European history as any of the professors she had studied under at Smith. Indeed, there didn't appear to be any academic subject he wasn't conversant with. His scholarship and rhetorical mastery dazzled her. Added to that, she liked his looks. Shorter and slenderer than average, bespectacled, and with the slightly comical halo of hair that would later be caricatured in publications like
The New Republic
, he seemed both physically unthreatening and a bit like her father, whom Lazarus had worshipped when she was a child.

In short, she was ready to be swept off her feet.

“You stayed around after the lecture?” I said.

“Yes. I was hoping to get his autograph. He offered to buy me dinner. I thought he was just being kind, so I made an excuse. But he wouldn't take no for an answer. I was . . . flattered.”

“So you went out with him that night?”

“And many nights afterward.”

“He—that is, Westlake—was married at the time?”

“Yes, but in the process of getting a divorce. His first wife had left him six months before. She also taught at the university, and Gunther said she was jealous of his success. I wish now . . .”

“Yes?” I prompted.

“I wish I had talked to her, found out more about him before we got so involved. But she had already taken another teaching position across the country and, well, I couldn't very well approach her, a complete stranger. Besides, I had no reason to think Gunther was being dishonest with me.”

“Did he pressure you into having sex?”

“No. I wanted it, though I knew it was tricky. This was the early nineties. The university didn't yet have a formal rule banning relationships between professors and students, but it was frowned upon. I didn't care. By that time I was already having doubts about getting my PhD. Gunther thought it was a waste of time, given that there were so few tenure-track positions in history.”

The clandestine affair continued into the following spring, when it was discovered by university officials. Westlake was mildly rebuked but fought back: since he taught in a completely different department, any objection was specious. It was only the rabid feminists who thought asymmetrical power relationships were a form of sexual harassment. A private person, Lazarus hated being the subject of campus gossip and sought to put the brakes on the relationship, but Westlake would have none of it. He showered her with gifts and flowers and followed her home every day from her classes. Eventually Lazarus gave in to the pressure, though she was beginning to see a less agreeable, controlling side to his personality.

Then Lazarus discovered she was pregnant.

“I wasn't on the pill. It made me sick. I had a diaphragm, but it failed. I didn't realize until it was too late for an abortion, and I would have kept the baby anyway. I told Gunther, and he proposed. By that time, his divorce had been finalized so there was no obstacle to us marrying.”

And marry they did, in a quiet ceremony at a Jamaican resort with only witnesses in attendance.

The months that followed were difficult for Lazarus. The baby was large and she suffered from allergies and back pain. Living with Westlake was also a far cry from dating him. He too had many rules, ranging from the proper temperature of his morning coffee to how his laundry should be folded and put away. Initially, she wasn't troubled. She considered herself a traditionalist, and most of her husband's demands struck her as quaint, like the vests and bow ties he affected as a fashion statement. Westlake was brilliant, a genius. Like all great men, he was entitled to a few idiosyncrasies. Besides, being a newlywed always involved a period of adjustment to someone else's wishes and habits.

Or so she told herself.

Though Lazarus did her best to please him, it wasn't long before Westlake was finding fault with everything she did. The house they moved into after the marriage—a turn-of-the century Tudor on South Woodlawn—wasn't being kept tidy enough. Unless he made them himself, meals were late or overcooked. Lazarus's presence distracted him from his work. Even her appearance failed to satisfy. She had gained too much weight. Her maternity clothes were ill-fitting. Her makeup made her look cheap. Once again, Lazarus felt like she was living in a dream. Except that in this dream she wasn't an apprentice at an elite academy. She was more like one of the scullery maids.

Worn down by the pregnancy, her teaching load, and her husband's incessant hectoring, Lazarus fell behind in her doctoral work, which now seemed more than ever like a selfish and frivolous pursuit. At the end of the fall quarter, she bowed to Westlake's demand and quit. Her work-study grant was canceled, and she was left without financial resources of her own. Westlake applauded the decision, telling her she had always been a borderline PhD candidate to begin with. In her exhausted frame of mind, Lazarus was all too ready to agree with him. What was a degree anyway? A silly piece of paper that would distract her from the more important roles of being a good mother to her child and the supportive wife of a distinguished man.

It was only after Olivia was born that the beatings began.

“He didn't physically threaten you before then?”

“No. Not while I was still pregnant. He was excited about the child. He was expecting it to be a boy and extremely intelligent—just like him. The baby's safety mattered more than putting me in my place.”

“Tell me about the first time.”

“Olivia was two months old. I couldn't stop her from crying. I was never any good at comforting her. I was walking around the house, bouncing her. He took her from my arms. I thought he meant to bounce her a little himself. Instead, he brought her upstairs to her crib. And then he came back and slapped me. Hard, across the face. I was shocked. By the suddenness of it and . . . the look in his eyes. And then I remembered: it was the same look my mother used to have.”

“What happened then?”

“Gunther raised his hand again—and then he stopped and shook his head. He seemed almost as surprised as I was. He apologized at once and said it wouldn't happen again. I believed him. We were both tired from the baby and ready to snap.”

“But it didn't stop.”

“No.”

The violence in the Westlake home didn't end with the first incident and soon settled into a predictable pattern: physical assaults followed by rapid apologies and promises of reform until the next confrontation started the cycle all over again. Westlake may have been a wealthy man and an intellectual giant, but as a spouse he was no better than the lowest criminal, driven to take out his frustrations on a weaker and increasingly isolated wife. But unlike his less well-off counterparts, Westlake had a reputation to protect. He never attacked Lazarus with anything but his hands and kept the noise to a minimum, carrying out his beatings with a ruthless efficiency that terrified her all the more. The two times Lazarus had called the police to their home resulted in the usual skepticism. With a famous professor for a husband and no one to corroborate her account, Lazarus was easily dissuaded from pressing charges.

Throughout the interview, Lazarus spoke in the same low, uninflected voice she had used from the start, never rising, falling, or changing speed. It was as if life had carved such a huge hole in her heart, she had no room left for emotion.

“Were you ever afraid for your life?”

“Yes. Once we were in the kitchen and he took one of those chef's knives he liked so much and held it to my throat. But not enough to draw blood. I thought about calling the police, but what good would it do? It was my word against his.”

“I think you mentioned he also pushed you down the stairs.”

“Yes.”

“More than once?”

“Yes.”

“I'm sorry to have to ask this, but did he also rape you?”

Lazarus didn't answer immediately. Eventually she said, “He forced himself on me, if that's what you're asking.”

“Did you ever think of leaving him?”

“Not for very long. I was ashamed and didn't want anyone to know. And I was afraid of what would become of us—Olivia and me. I had no skills, hadn't worked at anything but odd jobs during school breaks. How would I ever support us? I knew Gunther would make divorce as difficult as possible, cut off as much support as he could get away with. I wanted Olivia to grow up in a comfortable home. It . . . the abuse seemed a small price to pay for her well-being.”

“You told Dr. Stephens that your daughter had a good relationship with her father. She wasn't negatively affected by the violence?”

“As I said, Gunther was always careful about not being discovered. He usually saved his anger until she'd gone to bed or was sleeping at a friend's. And I did my best to shield her, explaining it was all my fault. I didn't . . . didn't want her to think ill of her father. Then, when she was older, she began to side with him. I think she was ashamed of me.”

“Did she say that to you?”

“Not in so many words. But I could tell from the way she treated me. Toward the end—just before I moved out—it became another kind of game for Gunther, encouraging her to join in his ridicule. That and the fact that she was no longer living at home were finally enough for me. A friend from my PhD days offered me a job as an administrative assistant, and the income was enough for me to pay for my own apartment.”

“And your relationship with Olivia. What's it like now?”

“What do you think?” Lazarus said. “She hates me. Almost as much as I hate myself. We haven't spoken since . . .”

For the first time, Lazarus seemed on the verge of breaking down, causing Hallie to jump in. “Rachel, you don't need to continue if it's too difficult.” I could only imagine the disgusted look she was throwing me.

Lazarus took a few minutes to compose herself. Then she let off another wet cough and said, “No, it's all right. It's just that I sometimes can't believe I did what they say I did.”

I flipped the crystal on my watch and felt for the dial. I had used up three quarters of my time.

“Tell me what you remember about that night.”

“Very little. I was watching
House Hunters
on television. The show was about a young couple searching for an apartment in DUMBO. It reminded me of a book I liked when I was a girl.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
.”

The disclosure struck me as highly significant. Though usually considered a girl's book, I had read
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
avidly as a youngster, along with everything else the Catholic Church considered sufficiently salacious to ban. If I remembered the book correctly, it might explain something.

Rachel added in evident embarrassment, “I may have forgotten to mention that to Dr. Stephens.”

“That's all right,” I said. “I'm glad you brought it up now. What happened next?”

“I thought I had a copy somewhere and went looking for it. But it wasn't anywhere in my apartment. I remembered then where I had last seen it—in Gunther's library, along with some other old favorites of mine I had almost forgotten about. I think . . . I think I must have gone back there to get them.”

“But you have no memory of leaving your apartment or arriving at your former home?”

“None.”

“Was this the first time you experienced a blackout like that?”

“No. Once, when I saw a woman slap her child on the street. I was driving and blanked out for a few seconds. It almost caused an accident. After that, I tried to drive as little as possible. Another time, one of my new neighbors found me standing outside our apartment building in the freezing rain and I couldn't remember how I got there. There were other times too, when I would lose myself for a few minutes, or feel disconnected from everything around me.”

“Did you have nightmares as well?”

“I don't remember what it's like to have a normal night's sleep.”

“After the blackouts, did you seek medical attention of any kind?”

“I visited a neurologist. But the scans he took were all normal. He suggested I see a psychiatrist and gave me a card. But I never did get around to calling.”

“What's the next thing you remember—after
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
?”

“Standing over Gunther with the poker in my hand and . . . and . . .” Lazarus went through another fit of coughing. “And realizing he was dead.”

“What were you feeling then?”

“Nothing really. It was so odd, like I was watching the scene from far away. On a movie or television screen. The only thing I felt was surprise. I remember thinking that Gunther looked surprised, too.”

“You don't remember hitting him?”

“Not really.”

“Or anything else that happened previously?”

“No. Though we must have been fighting or I wouldn't have struck him. It's funny, isn't it? I'd never fought back before.”

“And after you realized he was dead—?”

“The memory is hazy—my thoughts were all jumbled up at the time—but I remember wrapping his body in a blanket and finding the wheelbarrow and putting him in it.”

“What about the knife. Do you remember anything about it?”

“The one they say that I used to—no. Except later on, throwing it in the dumpster.”

“Two more minutes,” Hallie warned.

“Just a few more questions, Ms. Lazarus. How you are feeling today?”