Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil (71 page)

In the background I heard a little boy ask, “Dad! Come on! You said you were going to play.”

“Just a minute.” Although Phil’s words were harassed, his tone was friendly. “I’m talking to somebody for a minute, that’s all. Then we’ll finish the game. Now go outside and wait for me, okay?” He lowered his voice to explain to me, “I’m being shot with laser guns.”

“Hope it doesn’t hurt,” I said. Sam Donaldson had given way to a young woman in a string bikini, her buttocks undulating as she carried two six packs of beer across a pink beach heading for turquoise water. A young man who would not need Sam’s toupee for quite a while joined her and, in an unlikely action, seemed more interested in holding the beer than her.

“That’s the great thing about laser guns,” Phil said. “They make a lot of noise, but when they blow a hole in you, there’s no blood.”

“We must issue them to all the armies of the world.”

“Listen, Rafe,” he said, “this study is going to rock you. I’m sure you’ll be tempted to reject it out of hand, that’s why I hope you’ll look at the video. We used your techniques. You’ll see that. But it made no difference. Almost half the kids made up stuff about what the doctor did to them. Incredible stuff—sticking stethoscopes in their vaginas, ramming their anus with tongue depressors. One boy said the doctor swallowed his penis and wouldn’t give it back until he touched the doctor’s penis. Well, you’ll see. They had no trouble fantasizing without verbal cues. In terms of proving that children under six are reliable witnesses, it’s a disaster. I’m delivering the paper at the Arizona Children’s Forum in two weeks. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to recommend that psychologists refuse to assist child abuse prosecutions when the alleged victims are this young. God only knows how many innocent people we’ve ruined.”

I turned off the TV. “Phil,” I heard myself chuckle. In fact, my mouth was dry and my vision compressed, so that my lap and the carpet under my bare feet seemed to be all that was left of the universe. My voice, however, was as smug and self-assured as Sam Donaldson’s. “You’re being a little melodramatic, aren’t you?”

“Look at the study, Rafe. I’m not saying when there’s physical proof we should ignore the children’s claims. Obviously, if there’s evidence of an STD or bruises, that’s a different story. But even then, you can’t put a kid under six on the stand and have any confidence that the details will be accurate. And if there’s no physical corroboration, forget it. They just don’t know the seriousness of what they’re saying. They make it up out of the garbage that’s in all of us about sexuality and they have no clue—how could they?—that it’s going to destroy people.”

“Do you make reference to me in the study?”

“Of course not. And not to your techniques, but Rafe, come on, people in the profession will know these are your guidelines, this is your procedure at the clinic.”

“But you tested other techniques, also, right?”

A pause. Far, far in the background, I heard the whoop of children chasing each other and faint sounds of toy sirens.

“Phil?” I called.

“Rafe, your techniques are the purest, the least polluted by adult prompting. No verbal cues, all dolls, no pressure, everything videotaped. There was no reason to use other techniques. If yours don’t work, the others would only be worse.”

It was some time before I got up from the couch. I took a shower and I shaved, although earlier I had planned to indulge and leave the stubble until Monday. I went back and forth on the question of whether to broach the subject with Diane. I could tell her about Phil’s call without confessing the mistake of my broken promise. But I had to admit to myself that giving Phil the tape of her sessions with the Peterson girls was an error, at least in tactics, if not principle. Now, when I read his study, if I found it to be flawed, and wished to attack the findings, Phil’s reply would be more persuasive, and devastating to me personally, should he choose to reveal the origin of the techniques he tested. And I had no doubt he would betray me and reveal his source. He could do so and believe himself to be not only honorable, but noble, a scientist saving the innocent from persecution.

On Monday I followed my routine. I concluded there was no point in taking action or speculating until I had seen the data. Phil’s packet arrived by Federal Express on Tuesday. I read most of his paper during my lunch hour, enough to know the extent of the damage. I decided then that further delay in telling Diane was unconscionable; besides, the objective situation was urgent. At two o’clock, fifteen minutes before I was due to lead a group session, just as I packed Phil’s study and video in my bag to show Diane at home, Sally buzzed me to say that Gene Kenny was on the line.

Don’t answer it, a primitive voice warned. I knew then that I was in bad shape mentally. An unhappy, dangerous Rafe had been given a voice again: “He’s bad news,” it said. “And you’re not fit to treat anybody.”

I picked up. “Gene?”

“Oh hi,” he sounded relieved. “I’m sorry to call.”

“Why?”

“I mean, I know you’re busy. I just—I’m a little upset, that’s all. And I didn’t know who else to talk to.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know where to start.” I explained I had only fifteen minutes, but I could see him tomorrow morning. (Was I reaching for distractions? I wondered and then cursed Phil. What had he done to me? Was I going to doubt my every move? That isn’t fair, I decided. Phil didn’t invent my insecurities.)

“No, I can’t tomorrow. Maybe next week. I just need to talk for a few minutes, that’s all.” And he did, saying he left Cathy some six or seven months before; two weeks ago they completed negotiations and signed a divorce agreement. He ended the marriage because he wanted to be with Halley all the time. It was terrible to do this to Pete, but living with a woman he didn’t love was making him a bad Daddy too, he felt. He was distracted with his son, quick to anger, and eager to avoid being at home. By divorcing Cathy at least he would get to spend quality time with Pete—quality time was Gene’s phrase. In fact, a number of artificial phrases had crept into his speech. I associated them with marketing. He said at one point, “And I needed to get my energy focused on the future, not a dead-end relationship. I need to create opportunities and maximize my potential,” explaining why he also believed that living with Cathy was holding him back at work.

“But the real reason is that you wanted to be with Halley, is that right?”

“Yes,” Gene said solemnly. And a natural tone returned. The harried executive was replaced by a vulnerable man. “I love her. I’ve never felt like this about anybody. I get sick to my stomach thinking about losing her.”

“Why do you worry about losing her?”

“I
am
losing her,” he said and his voice broke.

He reported they had been virtually living together for a couple of months, not openly because of the ongoing divorce talks, but they were free to do so now, even to plan marriage, which is what he wanted. Halley was resisting, however. She felt they shouldn’t rush into marriage, that Gene couldn’t be sure he wanted to make that commitment right after his divorce, and that probably moving in was premature. After all, she pointed out, they were together almost every night anyway. “Let’s keep things the way they are for a while,” she said.

“That’s sounds reasonable,” I commented.

“She’s letting me down easy,” Gene said, desperate and convinced.

“She’s not breaking up with you. She’s not refusing to see you.”

“She doesn’t have to. She’s going to be away anyway. We’ve bought a French company—I mean, Stick, you know, he’s CEO now, and the majority owner. He was part of a leveraged buyout of Minotaur and then we took over—well, I’m sure you read about it.”

I told him I hadn’t and that it didn’t matter for the moment. I asked him how long Halley was going to be traveling.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Gene mumbled. “I mean she’s supposed to help set up this liaison office in Paris. She’ll be going back and forth and there’s talk about maybe, I mean now that the Soviet Union is open to us, that maybe she’ll take some trips there—”

Sally buzzed me. My group was ready. I urged Gene to make an appointment. He said he wasn’t sure about his schedule. He would call tomorrow. “Just tell me, what do you think? Am I exaggerating?”

“Maybe you’re scaring her. She might be right. Perhaps you’re so eager to get married because you’re anxious about the divorce from Cathy becoming final. But let’s meet,” I urged him. “I’m more interested in why you feel so strongly about Halley—”

“I love her! I can’t live without her,” Gene said with such conviction I was startled. It was rare, surprisingly rare, to hear. Of course my patients were adolescents and children, nevertheless I had treated adults at Susan’s clinic and I worked with parents or other caretakers. I was nonplussed. I wanted to say, “But that’s absurd.” Instead, I mumbled, “I see.” After we hung up, I caught myself wondering: how do you know it’s absurd?

[My vanity doesn’t wish to leave the reader with an impression of intellectual naiveté. Naturally, as a professional, I would hear any patient’s assertion that he or she can’t live without someone not as an expression of true love, but some other disturbance. I confess this random thought, or feeling rather, to show the depth of my confusion at the time.]

Our conversation influenced me. I decided to make a clean breast to Diane. That was a struggle. Diane and I were supposed to go out to dinner with friends. I canceled the date. She found out before I had a chance to inform her. She confronted me in the clinic’s parking lot when we met to drive home together.

“Lilly told me you canceled tonight. Something about an emergency.”

“Did I say emergency?” I managed to summon a smile. “I guess I am panicked.” I lifted my briefcase and said, “I’ve got Phil Samuels’s new study.”

Diane frowned. “Fuck him,” she said. Her pert nose wrinkled. “It’s so bad we can’t eat dinner?” I noticed the few hours we spent out in the sun down in Tampa had already manufactured many new freckles. It wasn’t anatomically possible for her to appear threatening. I knew I was in trouble with her, and that did frighten me, but I couldn’t be scared of her.

“It’s so bad we may have to give up breakfast too. Anyway, this isn’t the place to talk about it.” I got into the car. She stayed outside, still frowning. Her short bobbed black hair trembled faintly as she tilted her head. Her right index finger made a circle around her temple, and then she pointed at me. One of our teenage patients, who was playing basketball on the half court adjoining the lot, saw her do it. He let the ball dribble away while he laughed uproariously, clapping slowly as he doubled over. Diane blew him a kiss and got in.

“So what does this motherfucker’s brilliant new study say?” she asked in a mock English accent, as if she were a duchess.

“I’d rather talk about this at home,” I said.

“No chance, bub. You canceled dinner, so number one, you’re cooking and number two, you’re explaining yourself right away.”

I tried a distraction. “You’re in a good mood.”

It worked. “I had a great day,” Diane told me and went on to explain that she’d had a breakthrough with a seven-year-old girl who, a year ago, had been found by the police locked in a closet, her legs scalded by immersion in a tub full of hot water. She talked enthusiastically about her patient’s progress for a while. Diane was saying, “She actually made a joke about her burns,” when she caught herself and figured it out. “Wait a minute. Nice try. Tell me about Phil. Or at least give me the study to read.”

“Now?” I asked, merging onto the Henry Hudson Parkway.

“Cut it out,” she said as sternly as she could. “Quit stalling.”

“Remember the construct? Kids six and under were brought in for a routine physical examination by a pediatrician. Everything is videotaped, of course. The doctor does a few unorthodox things: listens to their feet with a stethoscope, puts a paper cup on their stomach. Clothes are never removed. Then they were interviewed by therapists, as if there had been a charge of sexual molestation. Almost half the kids made up outrageous things about what the pediatrician did. Vaginal penetration, anal penetration, foundling of the genitals, the works.”

“In how many interrogations?”

“Most of the kids who made up stuff did it by the second session.”

There was a silence. I didn’t look over at her. It was a lovely end to a mild spring day. To our left, the West Side of New York stood guard over the broad river on our right. The brown, silver, and white buildings were aged by grime and neglect; yet they were standing, to my eyes, as timeless as the flat shimmering water.

When Diane spoke, her light tone had darkened. “What aren’t you telling me about this, Rafe?”

I waited. I swung around one of the highway’s sharp curves, made narrower by a lane closed thanks to perpetual construction. Litter flew up from the car in front of me and slapped the side window. We were near our exit, near our home. I was apprehensive as I let the secret out, but I have to admit to a little excitement also, a feeling that at last I would learn something I might otherwise never have known for sure about our relationship. “Remember when Phil came to town almost a year ago?”

“Un huh,” Diane said with such emphasis that I was convinced she had already guessed what I was going to say.

“I gave him the tapes of your sessions with the Peterson girls. He copied our technique.”

“Jesus,” she said quietly, but distinctly, making two widely separated syllables of His name.

“I haven’t looked at the video,” I continued. “I don’t know how carefully—”

“It doesn’t matter—” she began.

I talked over her, “And he doesn’t identify the source of the technique.”

“Oh, swell! Isn’t that just grand? What a wonderful generous guy.”

There was a long silence. I kept my eyes on the road. Perhaps a minute or two passed while I exited the highway, turning onto Riverside. Our garage was only a block away. I had to stop at a light. Then I looked at her. I was surprised, very surprised, and, at last, frightened by what I saw.

Diane’s youthful face was turned to me. There were her girlish freckles, without frowns or wrinkles. Her features were calm and settled. But behind the round wire-rimmed glasses, her eyes were full of tears.