Remembrance (49 page)

“I'm sorry. That's crazy. It's just… I can't explain it…I feel as though I've seen that man somewhere before, and it's bothering me.” Teddy said nothing and she shrugged. “Hell, he's been married six times, maybe he has some kind of hypnotic power over women. Looking at that picture was like going into a trance.” Teddy almost shuddered. After all those years here it finally was. But she seemed to have cast the mood off. She poured his second cup of coffee and went on reading the paper, but he saw a few minutes later that she had turned back to Vasili's picture again. It was interesting also that they didn't say whom he had murdered. He was grateful for mat. That would have been a terrible shock for her. This way her own memory had to do the work, but it was like trying to stir Rip Van Winkle.

Teddy watched her closely that morning, but when he left for work, she seemed herself. He took the paper with him, just as a precaution, so she wouldn't fixate on it while she was alone. He was nervous about all of that coming to the surface when she was by herself somewhere. And after twenty minutes of trying to concentrate on his patients at his office, he gave up and called Vanessa's last psychiatrist, but it had been eight years since she'd seen him. It turned out that he had retired, and a woman had taken over his practice. Teddy explained the case, and she went to get the file. She was back on the line a moment later, pensive as she glanced through it.

“What do you think? Do you think I should tell her now?” He sounded very nervous, and the woman was annoyingly calm when she answered.

“Why not let her work through it? She'll only remember as much as she can handle. That's the whole point of that kind of repression. It's the mind's way of protecting itself. As long as she couldn't handle it, she didn't remember. When she can, if she can, it'll come back to her. Probably in little pieces, and as she digests each one the next one will come to her.”

“It sounds like a long process.” Also depressing, he thought.

“Not necessarily. The whole thing could be over in a day, or it may take weeks, or months, or even years.”

“Terrific. And I just sit there watching her ruminate, is that it?”

“That's right, Doctor. You asked me. So I told you.”

“Thanks.” Her name was Linda Evans and he wasn't sure he liked her.

“You know, there's another thing you might want to be aware of, Doctor. She may have nightmares. That would be fairly normal, while things push their way up to the surface.”

“What do I do?”

“Be there for her. Talk to her if she wants to talk. It may come out very quickly that way.” And then she thought about it for a minute. “If you need me, Doctor, call me. I'll leave word with my service. This is kind of a special case. I'd be happy to come over, no matter what time.”

“Thank you.” It was the first really nice thing she had said. “I appreciate that.” And then he chuckled. “And if you ever need your spleen removed, I'd be happy to take care of that for you too.” She laughed, amused at the bad joke. Doctors seemed to be famous for them, but he had a nice voice, and she felt genuinely sorry for his niece. Besides, it was a case that had always intrigued her. She remembered studying the file when she'd taken over the practice.

They hung up and Teddy went back to work, not feeling greatly encouraged, but when he went home that night, Vanessa was busy in the darkroom again and seemed in good spirits. The maid had left them a pot roast and they ate dinner at home, they both talked about work, she went back to the darkroom for a while, and he went to bed early. And when he awoke with a start, he saw from the clock on his night table that it was two thirty in the morning. He knew instantly that it was Vanessa who had woken him. In the distance he could hear her screaming. He jumped out of his bed and ran to her bedroom. And he found her sitting there, staring into space, muttering darkly. She was still asleep, and it was obvious that she had been crying. He sat beside her for the next hour, and she muttered and whimpered and cried softly for a while, but she never woke up, and she didn't scream again. He called Dr. Evans back in the morning and reported to her. She urged him to relax and just see what happened, and the same thing happened again the next night, and the night after that. It went on for weeks, but nothing really surfaced. In the daytime Vanessa was cheerful and busy and entirely herself, and at night she lay in bed and moaned and cried softly. It was as though deep down some part of her knew, but the rest of her didn't want her to know it. It was agonizing watching her that way every night, and at the end of three weeks he went to see Dr. Evans.

He waited in the waiting room for fifteen minutes, and then the nurse told him that she was ready to see him. He was expecting, he had decided, a short, heavyset, serious-looking woman with thick legs and glasses. What greeted him instead was a statuesque brunette, with a radiant smile, big green eyes, and her hair pulled back in a chignon like a ballet dancer. She was wearing a silk shirt and a pair of slacks, and she looked at the same time both relaxed and intelligent. As he walked into her office Teddy felt surprised as well as unnerved.

“Something wrong, Doctor?” He saw from a quick glance at the degree on her wall that she had gone to Harvard, and he calculated quickly that she had to be about thirty-nine, but she didn't look it.

“No …I … I'm sorry.” He smiled at her then and looked more himself. “You're not at all what I expected.”

“And what was that?” She was very much in control of the situation and he felt silly.

“Someone … well… different.…” He burst out laughing. “Hell, I thought you'd be ugly as sin and about two feet tall.”

“With a beard? Just like Freud? Right?” She laughed at him, and then blushed faintly. “You're not what I expected either.”

“Oh?” He looked amused.

“I thought you'd be very stuffy, Doctor. Pin-striped suit, horn-rimmed glasses”—she looked at the attractive blond mane —”no hair.”

“Why, thank you. As a matter of fact, I do usually wear pin-striped suits. But I took the afternoon off to come and see you. So I came in my civvies.” He smiled at her. He was wearing gray gabardine slacks and a blazer. And he looked very handsome. “May I make a suggestion? Could we possibly stop calling each other Doctor? It's an awful lot of Doctoring.” He grinned and she smiled and nodded agreement.

“Call me Linda.”

“I'm Teddy.”

“All right.” She sat back in her comfortable black leather chair and looked at him directly. “Tell me about your niece. In detail.” He told her everything that had been happening, and she nodded. And when he had finished his recital, she told him gently, “Do you remember? I told you it could take months, or even years. There was a possibility, with the initial shock, that she might have been jolted into remembering the whole story. What seems to be happening instead is that it's leaking slowly into her subconscious. It could take a very long time, or it may all subside again. It's unlikely that anything would happen to shock her again the way that photograph did. That was kind of a fluke.”

He agreed. “But it was amazing how it struck her. She stared at it for about half an hour.”

Linda Evans nodded slowly. “She must have some awful memories of that man. It's not surprising that the photograph haunted her.”

“You don't think we should just tell her and get it over with?”

“No, I don't.”

“Do you think she ought to come to you?”

Linda thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “On what grounds? Why would you be suggesting such a thing? You see, she has no idea what's happening yet. If she wakes up one day and wants to see a therapist, that's one thing, but if you suggest it, it may put her on edge. I think we just have to let her be for the moment.” Teddy nodded, chatted with Linda for a moment, and then shook her hand and departed. But a week later he was back to talk to her again, and eventually he became a regular visitor to her office. He no longer took the afternoon off to come to see her, he arranged it during his lunchtime instead.

“See, I told you. Pin-striped suits.” She laughed with him. There really wasn't that much to say about Vanessa, and after a month or two she began having fewer and fewer nightmares, but Teddy had come to enjoy talking to Linda Evans. They seemed to share a myriad common views and opinions, common interests and likings for many of the same things. Eventually he suggested that they spend the lunch hour in a restaurant instead of her office, and from there it was only a step to dinner. Normally she had stringent views about not going out with patients, but Teddy wasn't really a patient. He was the uncle of a patient she had never even met, but whose file she had inherited with the practice, and he was a fellow doctor. Besides, she was amazed at how much she enjoyed him. And Teddy was equally amazed at his feelings—lie wondered once or twice if, in speaking of Vanessa's past to Linda, he was somehow healing the ghosts of his own. For the first time in a long time he could speak of Serena without a stab of pain and it dawned on him slowly that he was falling in love with Linda. They went to dinner two or three times a week, occasionally went to the opera or the theater. He even took her to a hockey game with Vanessa, and was pleased at how well the two women got along. It also gave Linda her first look at Vanessa. She found her a delightful girl and saw no sign of inner torment.

By spring Teddy and Linda saw each other almost every night, and Vanessa had begun to tease them. Linda was becoming a regular visitor at the apartment, and Vanessa teased that if she was going to hang around as much as she was, she was going to have to start taking a shift for breakfast. It was also beginning to occur to Vanessa that she needed her own apartment. She didn't want to hurt Teddy's feelings, but she was twenty-three years old, she wanted to combine a studio with living quarters of her own, and it was obvious that he was crazy about Linda Evans.

“Why the hell don't you ask her to marry you, Teddy?”

“Don't be crazy!” he growled at her over one of her breakfasts. “Besides, your eggs were lousy today.” But the thought of marriage had already crossed his mind and he didn't want to tell her.

“That's it!” She pounded a hand on the table and he jumped. “I'm moving out!”

“Will you stop that!” She was making him very nervous, but suddenly he saw something gentle and sad in her eyes. She had been teasing at first but now she meant what she was saying and he knew it.

“I kind of mean it, Uncle Teddy.” She looked just like a little girl as she said it, and he felt his insides turn over.

“Why?” He looked very upset. “Because of Linda? I thought you liked her.” He looked so disappointed that she hugged him.

“I do, silly. I'm just turning into a big kid now, and I want to get a studio to work in, and … well… a place of my own.” It felt like such a betrayal, she felt like a monster.

“Have you started looking yet.'“

“No, I thought I'd start in the next few weeks.”

“Already?” He looked pale, and then retreated behind his paper, and when he left for his office, he looked shaken. He called Linda half an hour later. “Vanessa wants to move out.” He sounded as though his wife had said she was divorcing him, and at her end of the phone Linda grinned, but when she spoke to him, her voice was gentle.

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn't really, I was too upset. She's too young, and … what if she starts having nightmares again, if it all comes back to her?”

“Then, she'll call you. Besides it may never happen. You said that she had settled down again.”

“But she might see something.” He sounded frantic and Linda was smiling.

“Sweetheart, she's a big girl now. Your baby is leaving the nest. You're going to have to face it.”

He groaned softly. “You know, I feel like a complete jerk, but it just about turned my insides upside down.” He was smiling now too, and he felt comforted by the sound of Linda's voice. Suddenly he needed her more than ever. For years Vanessa had filled an enormous void in his life, a void that had been left by Serena. But now little by little Linda was moving into that space and he was letting her do it.

“You're not alone. This happens to all parents. It's especially hard on fathers to see their daughters grow up, and very hard on mothers to have their children leave the nest. You're a mother and father rolled into one, so it's hitting you doubly hard. Guess what, Doctor? It's normal.”

“You know, I almost cried.”

“Sure. Who wouldn't?” She had such a nice way of making him feel that everything was all right and he wasn't crazy.

“You know something? You're terrific. How about lunch today?”

She glanced at her calendar. “Sounds delightful.” And then she had an idea. “Want to meet me at my place?”

He chuckled in his office. “Now, that is a splendid idea, Doctor Evans. A consultation?”

“Of course.” They both laughed and hung up, and at noon they met in her apartment and made love until two thirty. With Linda, Teddy was feeling a passion that he hadn't felt in years. And for the first time in years, after they made love, he didn't feel empty or guilty. The ghost of Serena was finally fading.

“You know,” he said, looking at her pensively as he drew a lazy finger around her breasts, “I used to think it was all over.”

“What?”

“Oh, I don't know …” he sighed. “I haven't been in love in so long, Linda.” He looked at her sadly for a moment. “I was so much in love with Vanessa's mother that I never really wanted anyone else.”

“It must have been very traumatic for you when she was killed.”

His eyes were bright with tears as he looked at Linda. “I wanted to kill the son of a bitch myself. I'll never understand how he could do it … and they let him out of the country.”

“He must have had an awful lot of pull.”

“He did. His family was very influential. Anyway, I don't know. After that I poured out everything I had on Vanessa. There was never much left for anyone else. I think maybe I was numb.” He smiled at the beautiful woman lying at his side, and she touched him gently.

“You certainly aren't numb anymore.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” He kissed her and a moment later he felt desire surge within him again. They made love one last time, and parted regretfully afterward to go back to work, even though they were meeting again for dinner that night.