Date Rape New York (11 page)

Chapter 15

Cindy’s office was in a modern glass office building set among the lovely old homes circling the park at Stuyvesant Square. Grazia followed the shoveled pathway that wound through the snow-filled park, then brushed the snow off a bench and sat down. She was almost late for her appointment with Cindy but she needed a moment to organize her thoughts. She still felt confused by meeting Raoul and upset by Detective Cargill’s harsh lecture. She watched some shrieking children hurl snowballs at each other. Her usual longing for a baby filled her heart. Her ex-husband had kept putting off having children. First, he wanted a second car, then a larger apartment, then a beach house so that their child could love the sea. With their combined salaries, they could afford these luxuries, but then he wanted vacations in Europe, then another new car. Desperate, Grazia stuck a pin through the condoms, but that didn’t work. Ultimately, she told her husband it was a baby or a divorce. He chose divorce.

The marriage hadn’t been going well anyway. He refused to attend her mother’s Sunday dinners and spent weekends at their beach house. After they split, she set out to find a man who wanted children, but ended up having an affair with her sixty-year-old boss who said he was too old to start a new family. Now that she had been raped, could she have a child? Would there be a physical problem? And would a man ever want her—raped, defiled, unclean? Her shoulders sagged under her thoughts.

Her smartphone alarm rang, reminding her she was late. Having lost faith in her memory, she had resorted to setting the alarm. She turned her thoughts toward the counseling session. This was her habit, to sit alone before meetings with clients and review what she anticipated, consider any agendas that might arise, and decide what she wanted to achieve.

Today, her feelings were mixed. She was desperate for Cindy’s help in stopping these panic attacks, but another part of her rebelled at having a stranger probe her private thoughts.

“Talk out your emotions,” Cindy had said in the ER. “Talking releases fear.” The trouble was, Grazia didn’t know how. Her parents had shown little interest in listening to a sensitive child talk about her feelings, so she had learned early to hold them inside. Although outwardly very social, Grazia kept her own counsel and never confided in anyone. As one of few women in a high-powered, male-dominated, fiercely competitive law firm where she specialized in construction contract law, she had grown skilled at concealing her feelings behind a smile and easy banter. This brought success but also strengthened the walls around her emotions until at times she wondered if she had any feelings at all.

Now, she realized with foreboding, the emotions that she had walled in had burst from their enclosures. She was drowning in them! But who to trust with her confidences? As much as she respected Cindy’s expertise and felt grateful for her support during those nerve-fraying hours in the ER, Grazia wasn’t sure she could tear down her emotional walls for a stranger just yet.

Grazia sighed. Her grandmother would be praying for a miracle from a saint. But that was the Italian way, and she was in New York. Looking at the glass-fronted office building where Cindy was waiting, Grazia realized that if there were a miracle that would cure her emotional and psychological mess, the miracle worker would have to be human. She got to her feet.

A smiling security guard pointed to the elevator, and in a few moments Grazia was stepping out to a small lobby where Cindy and the receptionist greeted her with friendly smiles. Do Americans never stop smiling, Grazia wondered, feeling inadequate in the face of such cheer.

She followed Cindy stiffly into her office and sat guardedly in a soft armchair. She refused the chrysanthemum tea and the homemade ginger cookies, feeling as though eating them would put her under Cindy’s control. “Don’t reveal your weakness,” warned her voice inside her head. “Don’t let her know you can’t handle this situation.”

“Have you called your mother yet?” Cindy began.

Grazia broke down on the spot. She put her hands over her face and sobbed. “She’s in shock. She cries on the phone. She says she can’t tell my grandmother, that she’ll never sleep again. Cindy, I used to be brave. Now I can’t go home because I can’t face my mother. I’m so ashamed.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Cindy said gently.

“In my country, the police say that it is the woman’s fault! That she should know better than to expect a man to behave differently than men behave.”

“You did nothing to cause a man to drug you and rape you.” 

“How do I know that!” Grazia blurted, revealing her deepest fear. “Maybe I did invite him to my hotel room. I can’t remember! Ten days ago I sat across a negotiating table from high-powered lawyers and contractors, all of them yelling at me, and I smiled and negotiated a multi-million-dollar contract. The stress made me feel alive. This morning I cried in a restaurant.”

Cindy nodded as if she had heard this before. “You felt intense fear when you were attacked, even though you don’t remember feeling it. Your body is releasing the emotional tension by weeping.”

“Food doesn’t taste right,” Grazia continued, mopping her tears with a handful of Cindy’s tissues. “You said no caffeine, so I feel half asleep. The prophylactic AIDS medication that I’m taking sometimes makes me feel nauseated and tired. Worse,” and Grazia groped for words, trying to be logical while feeling she was standing at the edge of an abyss, “when I walk down the street, anxiety floats around me like a cobweb. But worst of all, is this terror that comes out of nowhere. I can’t move; I can’t even breathe.”

“These are normal feelings of fight-or-flight that help you survive. Your body is telling you that the world is a terrifying place and you need to fight or run. Fear is a normal reaction to trauma. It’s physical. Some women feel like they are floating. Other women’s fingers go numb, or they feel breathless, or their hearts pound so hard the floor seems to move. These sensations will slowly pass when you talk about your feelings and work through the trauma. There are techniques I can teach you to control the powerful emotions that are leading to your panic.”

“I don’t want techniques,” burst out Grazia, angrily. “I need to know who this man is. When I know that, I won’t be afraid. He knows everything about my body, and I don’t even know his face! He’s following me, and I can’t stop him because I don’t know what he looks like. Knowledge is control, Cindy. As a lawyer, when I control the facts, I control a case.”

“Knowing who this man is will not give you control over him, and it won’t erase your panic. Many women who come to me for counseling know their attackers’ names, their faces, where these men live. Some women are taking legal action. But these women still have panic attacks and can’t sleep at night. They’re afraid to walk down the street alone. They cry at the drop of a hat.”

“So what do I do?” groaned Grazia. “I can’t keep having panic attacks! Monday afternoon I have a job interview and I need that job.”

“Accept that the trauma you experienced is more shocking than anything that has ever happened to you. You’re alone in a difficult city with no mother, no boyfriend, and no friend to comfort and protect you. Adrenalin is pouring into your blood, speeding up your heart. Your muscles are tensed, keeping you awake to protect yourself. One day you will again be the brave, in-control Grazia. But don’t expect that today. Today, your survivor brain is keeping you hyper-alert and hypersensitive to everything around you.”

“Detective Cargill says that I can’t remember the man’s face because I’m afraid of him. And he says I can’t remember Saturday night because I’m afraid to experience the assault again mentally.”

Cindy sipped her tea. “Detective Cargill has been a cop for thirty years. It’s a dangerous job, and he has learned to stay detached from the emotional side of his work. But his wife had kidney disease and last year she died. He took off six months to be with her. He returned to work a few days after the funeral and started having anger problems. He got suspended a few times. I suspect he said those harsh things to you because he needs to find this perpetrator to keep his job. Your lack of memory is preventing him from doing that.”

Grazia lifted her hands hopelessly. “I wish I could help Detective Cargill, but I can’t even be sure how I got to the Brazilian Bar or who I was talking to before I was drugged.”

“Some of that is dissociative amnesia.
It happens when something so terrifying happens to a person that their brain blocks out everything surrounding the event. Some people get their memories back, but some never do. Your memories may return after you feel safe—maybe after time, when you’re back in Italy. In the meantime, I’ll give you some tools to get through your day.”

Cindy slid a paper across the table. At the top was written “My Healthy Alarm System.”

“You know how smelling smoke makes you stop everything and look for a fire? Smoke is a ‘trigger.’ It alerts you to fire. We all have triggers that set off feelings of anxiety, fear, even panic. These triggers come from what we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Or our thoughts.”

“My panic attacks come from nowhere.”

“Every emotion is triggered by something. Identify the trigger, and you are on the way to managing your emotions. One of my clients panics in a crowd. She was robbed in a crowded subway. Now when she is in a subway and feels panic, she knows her panic is caused by people pressing against her. She gets out and moves to a less crowded car or she stands near the station master booth where she feels safe. She waits until she feels calm and gets back on a train. Learning what triggers your emotions teaches you about yourself and how you relate to your world.”

“Cindy, I’m not me any more. My name doesn’t feel like my name. If I tell you I’m a lawyer in Naples, I feel like I’m not talking about me.”

“Women who are raped feel like their whole world has changed. They lose trust in themselves to cope with life. Trust is the first thing that date rape destroys. Recovering from rape involves learning to trust again. Many women discover that what they thought was trust in a man was actually a need for security. They take a hard look at their relationships. They spend time with people they want to be like. They find new jobs. Grazia, you will find yourself again, even though you will have changed. You will trust yourself again. But this takes time. Typically a woman who has been raped goes to a counselor for a year.”

“I don’t have a year,” Grazia said flatly. “I have five days. I leave for Italy Friday morning. Monday afternoon I have a job interview. I have to be in control of my emotions or I won’t get the job.”

“Goal-oriented women like you like deadlines. But deadlines won’t work with health. Your body heals at its own pace. Take away your time expectations. You will be amazed how quickly you recover.”

Soothed by Cindy’s calm acceptance that she would recover her emotional balance, and feeling stronger as she realized that other women had recovered from the same trauma, Grazia accepted a cup of chrysanthemum tea and started writing down the times and places she had felt panic in the last twenty-four hours. Writing was a familiar activity. It calmed her. Then she and Cindy talked about what might have triggered each episode.

Progress was slow. When Grazia described the terror she felt leaving her room or walking down the street alone, she had to take deep breaths. When she described the glint of Francisco’s diamond wedding band under the table lamp, or the flash of sunlight on Raoul’s watch in the café, or the eyes of young men on the street as they watched her pass, her voice grew hoarse. She felt as if she were floating. When she described her reaction to the young man at the Brazilian Bar putting his hand under her elbow, her hands tingled.

“Your bruises show that you were grabbed by the arms,” concluded Cindy. “Your pull-away reaction was normal. As time passes, you will learn to step back from your emotional response and remain calm. One day, a man will take your arm to help you and you will thank him.”

By the end of the hour, the cobwebs of anxiety still clung, but not so tightly. Grazia felt that now she could look a bit ahead. She could start to plan how to go after the man who had spun these cobwebs around her.

Chapter 16

Grazia left Cindy’s office feeling optimistic that she could eventually control her fear and panic by locating what triggered them. Now it was lunchtime, and Cindy had counseled her that regular, healthy meals would help her body expel the Rohypnol. At the same time, she thought, she was taking another powerful drug, the prophylactic AIDS drug. While one powerful drug was leaving her body, another was building up. One day, she thought with determination, she would find the man who raped her and learn if he had AIDS. If he didn’t, she could stop taking the prophylactic AIDS medication. She pushed all of that out of her mind and headed towards her breakfast café. The food was good and the waiters welcoming. It was a friendly island in a sea of strangers.

The morning snowstorm was over and a weak sun was emerging from behind gray clouds. Grazia drew the cold air deep into her lungs and walked briskly, vigorously swinging her arms, feeling energetic and confident. Grazia Conti was back! Suddenly, panic hit the pit of her stomach. Shocked, she spun around, heart pounding. “Find the trigger,” she said aloud. She was on the corner of Seventeenth and Irving Place, a few doors from the Brazilian Bar. Had something happened to her Saturday night on this corner? Or had she spotted someone connected to Saturday night?

A young man was walking toward her. His black wool overcoat and dark trousers made her arms tense. But when she saw his dark knit cap, her chest tightened. She pulled out her journal and scribbled, “Trigger: dark knit cap, dark wool coat, dark trousers.”

Knees weak, she nevertheless felt jubilant. Her emotions were pinpointing the characteristics of the man who had attacked her! She would recognize the man when she encountered him because her emotions would tell her!

She continued walking toward Fourteenth Street, proud of herself. Then all at once, her stomach tightened into a cold knot. Not another panic attack! Despair flooded her heart. How long would she have to suffer these? As she looked around for the trigger, the anxiety faded. She continued onward, her thoughts drifting to Francisco and the upcoming contract negotiations with Kourtis. Panic hit again like a stomach punch. Her thoughts were the trigger! If even a wandering thought could trigger panic, identifying the many triggers was going to be more complicated than she thought.

Seated at the corner window table in the cafe, back to the wall, she ordered vegetable soup, a veggie wrap, and herbal tea. A quick call to Janine verified that lab results showed the drug was Rohypnol. She felt a surge of satisfaction. This one fact was the beginning of many more. The final fact would be the perpetrator’s identity. She pulled out her journal and revised her plans for the day: 2 p.m. hypnotist; 3 p.m. return to hotel to search Internet for the names Sophia had given her; 5:30 p.m. Brazilian Bar to talk to Nick; 6 p.m. quiet take-out dinner in her room, early to bed. Her schedule created a sense of order and security. Tomorrow she would go out for a good American steak at lunch, maybe with Raoul.

She drew Raoul’s face up into her visual memory. No anxiety, no panic. Still, she wondered with a flash of disquiet, could she trust her emotional reactions to give her accurate information? She couldn’t trust her mental memory; how far could she trust her emotional memory?

After lunch, Grazia headed down Irving Place toward the subway entrance on Twenty-third Street. Her fear of possible attack kept her vigilantly glancing over her shoulder or turning around to check behind her. Young men wearing dark wool coats and knit caps were everywhere—and all seemed to be looking at her. Forcing courage, she snapped photos with her smartphone. She would show Nick this afternoon. He could point to the features that looked familiar. Detective Cargill treated Nick as an un-convicted perpetrator. But Nick was a witness. She would decide for herself whether to trust him.

She started down the dark slippery steps of the subway entrance, and then scrambled back up. Huddled in a shop entrance, she struggled to identify what had triggered her panic. Was it the roar of trains coming into the station? Cindy had said that loud noises could set off panic in emotionally stressed women. More likely it was the young man in the dark coat and knitted cap who had followed her down the steps. A taxi slowed. The driver was wearing a turban. No anxiety. She climbed in.

A black-robed monk
was texting while crossing against the light. The taxi driver honked. Sweat broke out on her forehead. But what was the trigger—the monk or the honking? She recorded both in her journal.

A traffic cop whistled them through an intersection. The sidewalks were jammed with people buying halal food from pushcarts. She rolled down the window and inhaled the spicy aromas of kebab and souvlaki. A grinding cement mixer and a crane unloading steel girders made Grazia homesick for Naples. Even though Francisco excelled at diverting suits and fines with bribes or other inducements, he wanted Grazia to visit construction sites to monitor the contracts she had negotiated. Francisco trusted her quick eye for faulty cement, poorly laid electrical lines, or shoddy construction that could lead to a contract violation lawsuit or would bring the Building Safety Department down on their client’s neck.

Grazia’s mind turned to Monday afternoon’s job interview. Would the prospective employer expect her to be proficient at bribery because she had worked with Francisco? That thought led to Francisco’s call on Sunday evening. He had raged with fury about her draft of the terms for the Kourtis contract. She wondered if Francisco had yet contacted Kourtis.

Thinking about the Kourtis contract made her fists clench. She distracted herself by gazing at the new office buildings squaring off the blocks and dwarfing the graceful older structures. New Yorkers liked everything new—restaurants, fashions, and partners. Detective Cargill, on the other hand, wasn’t into the new, as witnessed by his faded green pullover sprung at the elbows, cheap haircut, and halfhearted attempts at shaving. Were his shoes ever polished? He had said the medical examiner would have results by tomorrow—Tuesday. Grazia would call him again after her hypnosis and tell him the memories that hypnosis had unlocked.

Evie’s hypnosis practice was on the fifth floor of a restored brick warehouse in SoHo on the corner of Spring and Wooster Streets. The display windows of the designer clothing shops on the ground floor featured clothing in theatrical shades of sequined black. Inside the tiny entry hall, Grazia took one look at the ancient elevator and climbed the steep metal steps. Her anxiety level balked at taking risks.

The hypnotist opened the door wearing an embroidered green caftan, a vivid blue wool scarf around her throat, and heavy purple slippers. Grazia shucked her snow boots onto a mat by the door and padded behind Evie over broad oriental rugs and through high-ceilinged yellow rooms on whose walls hung huge multicolored paintings. The hypnosis room was a small green refuge off the kitchen, probably once a pantry. Grazia sank into a soft armchair and raised the footrest, eager to get started. Evie took a straight-backed chair. Between them was a small table with a low lamp and a digital tape recorder. Evie picked up pen and paper. She took notes as Grazia described all that had happened.

“I want to know who he is,” concluded Grazia, closing her journal. She had been consulting it to insure she left out nothing. “For practical reasons, I have to know what he looks like so if I see him, I can protect myself. He’s following me and sending me anonymous threatening messages.” She read off the messages.

“Is self-protection the only reason you want to know his identity?”

“No.” Grazia had been thinking this over. “This happened when I was changing my life. I’ve left my boyfriend and I’m looking for a new job. I need to make good decisions. But now I don’t trust myself to choose the right job or find the right man. If you can help me find my past, I can see the mistakes I made that caused this man to assault me. Then I won’t make those mistakes again.”

“In other words, you think that your life is a story and that one decision led to another decision, and if you find where your story went wrong, you can start writing a better story.”

“Yes. I want to know why I trusted this man and didn’t cover my glass like Manuel warned me. I want to know my mistake of trust. Cindy says that I did nothing to cause this man to do this to me but I want to make sure.”

Evie nodded. “Many people come here asking me to lift the veil hiding their past. Like you, they believe that remembering the past clearly will allow them to see how they reached their present and enable them to create the future they want.”

“And you can help them?” asked Grazia, with hope.

Evie lifted her hands. “I’ve heard so many life stories that I’m not convinced that our lives are a story of one decision after another. I suspect people come to me so they can reconstruct a past that makes sense. I don’t know if that’s possible. There’s so much we will never know. To me, what is important is to build a healthy life and go forward with it, regardless of what happened before. However, that’s only my opinion. You came to me because I’m a hypnotist, and I will do what I can to unblock your memories of Saturday night. But I cannot promise that what happened will make sense. I also cannot promise that you will understand how your trust failed you and how you can avoid making a mistake of trust in a future that doesn’t yet exist. Futures cannot be so easily planned.”

“Just find me that man’s face,” said Grazia impatiently.

“Let me warn you,” Evie persisted. “If we succeed in opening your memory, what you see will be frightening and troubling. It may not even be accurate. From what I know of Rohypnol, it takes days to leave your body. Your brain is still affected. During hypnotic trance, you might see a nightmare version of what happened. Can’t you wait a few days to let the drug leave your body?”

“No. I leave on Friday and I want to remember enough before then to help the detective find this man.”

Evie was unconvinced. “Sexual assault takes a long recovery time, physically, psychologically and emotionally. It would be better for you all the way around to trace this man’s identity by other means. Can you hire a private detective?”

Grazia shook her head. “I want to do this myself, Evie. I’m a lawyer. I have to get inside my clients’ heads to figure out what they aren’t telling me or what they don’t know how to explain. Then I can I properly advise them. Now I have to get inside my own head so I can properly advise myself.”

“Even if hypnosis does open some blocked memories,” argued Evie, “what you remember depends on factors like where you were when you saw this man’s face. Maybe you didn’t see him clearly. Maybe you were so afraid that you couldn’t focus.”

“Just try,” Grazia said impatiently. “Rohypnol blocked my brain from forming memories. But I should remember what happened before I swallowed the drug. And I don’t! The crisis counselor says it’s dissociative amnesia caused by fear. Help me get past this fear, Evie. Somewhere in my brain are memories that will lead me to this man.”

Evie flipped through the notes she had been taking while Grazia talked. “This flash of gold that you saw at the end of your nightmare may be the fragment of an important clue. In fact, the whole nightmare very likely has the seeds of vital memories,” she commented. She switched on the digital recorder and quiet music. “Close your eyes,” she began in a gentle, calm voice. “Your right arm is heavy. Your left arm is heavy. Your neck and shoulders are heavy. Waves of relaxation are flowing over you.”

Under the flow of Evie’s smooth words, Grazia began to detach from the panic that had been floating around her since she woke up Sunday morning. She began to feel that some other woman was seated in this comfortable chair, a calm woman whose mind Grazia could enter. 

“You are dressing to go to the Brazilian Bar,” prompted Evie in a quiet, factual tone. “You are happy. You have just completed a long and difficult task and it is out of your hands. And you are free of Francisco. What are you doing?”

“I’m putting on my new green lace underpants and bra. Tonight I may just have a good time. Or maybe I will find a real partner, someone who wants marriage and babies—something Francisco never wanted.”

“You are talking to Manuel in the lobby.”

“Manuel wants to go back to Naples. My mother can help him find a job. He is giving me his email and phone.”

Evie’s voice led her onward. “It’s snowing.”

“Jacky is licking my fingers. A monk is stepping into the street. A taxi is honking.”

“You are opening the door to the Brazilian Bar.”

“So loud! Laura is talking to some Italians. Email. Job interview! Laura is giving me champagne. Gold bracelet.” She gagged. “Sick. Vomit.”

“You are outside now.”

Grazia’s voice grew hoarse. She spoke in jerks. “Let me go!” she gasped and began shouting in Italian. Her hand closed around a car door handle. A face loomed before her.

Evie’s voice came in her ear, clear and loud. “When I snap my fingers, you will awaken. You will feel calm and refreshed. You will remember all you need to remember.”

Grazia slowly opened her eyes. She took a deep breath, then yawned and stretched. She felt relaxed and at ease. So why was her face covered with sweat?

“Was I really hypnotized? I could hear myself talking. People were speaking Italian. I saw a face.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“It was too dark.”

Evie handed her a glass of water and watched Grazia drink it. Then she played back the tape. Grazia listened in amazement at the information that hypnosis had revealed. She translated the Italian: “I said, ‘This taxi is for me. Get away. Jacky. Help me.’” More began dropping into her mind. “When Manuel told me to go to the Brazilian Bar, we planned to meet Sunday evening after his shift. He wants to go back to Italy. My mother could get him a hotel job. He gave me his phone and email.” She pulled out her smartphone and stared at the entry.