Orpheus and the Pearl & Nevermore (6 page)

“
For a
while, she’d make him dismiss just the one he’d been familiar with,
but after a while, she made them all go away, once and for all. And
it was father’s turn to be less frolicsome and more severe. Not
that mother’s mood really improved. No, we were just all very dull
and quiet and severe, the three of us together, after that. Oh, and
we did a lot of housework. And I mean a
lot
of housework. So, no, we didn’t
have any servants.” She attempted a very sarcastic and extremely
ugly half-smile that didn’t get all the way to a smirk, but stayed
stuck at a snarl. “Does that answer your
question?”

Catherine’s next question was as predictable
as it was necessary. “How did that make you feel?”

There was little pause this time. “Angry. So
very, very angry. Angry at mother for making us all so miserable.
And I didn’t understand why she did it, of course, and later when I
did, I was angry at all those women who had been so nice to me,
because they weren’t nice, were they? They were nasty and vicious
and they ruined our lives. But do you know what? I still wanted to
hold on to how they’d been nice to me, so I tried to remember just
the way they smelled, because I felt that was something between us
as women, all the smells we’d experienced in the kitchen and the
field and the garden, all the smells that stuck to us and made us
who we were, the bark and grass and lavender and leeks and nutmeg.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose this time
and smiled. Then her eyes snapped back open and she frowned again.
“But I didn’t want to remember their laughs, because now I could
see how they’d tricked and hurt us with their nasty little
tittering, being happy when they were making mother and me so
sad.”

Mrs. Wallston stood and walked slowly over
to Catherine, enjoying the drama and control that came with
revealing something that would be considered shocking and shameful,
but which Mrs. Wallston knew was also powerful and captivating.

“
And their necks, where
I’d seen father slavering like a beast, I really couldn’t stomach
remembering those lovely, soft necks. Have you ever really looked
at another woman’s neck, doctor?” She dragged the cold fingers of
her right hand along Catherine’s neck for effect. It was worse than
being touched by a snake, for there wasn’t the solid, rubbery mass
of scales backed by powerful muscle—reassuring and alive in its own
way—but rather the eerie tickling of the softest skin and the
scratch of sharp nails.

Every part of the caress
was evacuated of all animal vitality and filled instead with the
cold pain of the poor woman’s intellect and memory. “A woman can be
too fat or too skinny, eyes too small or too close together, nose
too long or too flat or crooked, lips too thin or too thick, hips
too big or legs too short. But her neck always seems to have an
exquisite, unearthly beauty, as though it were carved by the
greatest artist of all, which I suppose it was.” She came around
and leaned in very close to the right side of Catherine’s neck. “I
remembered all those necks, so variously lovely, and I
hated
them.” She
over-aspirated her words, expelling them with a pent-up passion,
but the breath that seeped over and gripped Catherine’s neck was as
cold and dry as the exhalation of a tomb. “I
hated
them and I wanted to rip them
open, with a knife, or even with my teeth. With my teeth,
doctor.”

Never mind the horrible and violent words,
the sensation of the dead breath on Catherine’s neck was even more
confused and overwhelming than the cold touch. Catherine remained
outwardly impassive, but she knew with a seldom-achieved clarity
and certainty that, whatever else she might ever do or experience
in her life, this would be the most exquisitely repulsive and
erotic moment she would ever endure, rapturous and oppressive in
equal and intense measure. She also realized how right Dr. Wallston
had been, that the mock-divine knowledge he had uncovered did not
make the real divine obsolete, but only made one realize how the
primal forces of life could at any moment utterly overwhelm the
paltry reason and science of man. “Are you quite sure you’re not
afraid of me, doctor?” Victoria rasped in Catherine’s ear, her
teeth all but grazing her earlobe.

Indeed, Catherine was
quite sure she
was
afraid. But, as consumed with the voluptuousness of self-pity
and hate as Mrs. Wallston was at that moment, and as seductive and
sensuous as her witness to her own wretchedness was, Catherine was
still, at some level, in control. It was finally neither eroticism
nor repugnance that filled her heart, but love and compassion for
another person, especially a patient she had sworn to protect and
heal. She took hold of Victoria’s shoulders and turned her, with
all the grace and care one would a sleeping child, and gently
embraced her from behind, with her right arm across the front of
the dead woman’s shoulders, and her cold back pressed lightly
against Catherine’s warm chest and beating heart. It was as erotic
as Mrs. Wallston’s lewd and vicious touch had just been, but also
loving and maternal. And the words she whispered—with her lips
actually touching the cold, dead flesh of the other woman’s
ear—were loving, even as they were stern. “I’m not afraid, because
we both know that I’m not the real object of your rage, and neither
are those women. If you could tell me I’m wrong, only then might I
be afraid. So tell me what you really feel.”

Catherine could feel her
patient’s body relax slightly, then felt the cold body shake three
times, noiselessly, and she held her tighter. They hung in that
embrace for what seemed a very long time, before Mrs. Wallston
extricated herself and took a few steps away, turning to face her
doctor again. “It’s funny, really, the things you miss when you’re
dead. I never knew until just now how painful it would be not to
have tears anymore. Isn’t that funny? I should have cried more when
I could, but anger was so much easier.” She bowed her head
slightly, then lifted it. “But now, doctor, I’m afraid I don’t know
how to proceed. You have lifted a heavy burden from me, but it was
also in a way my
raison
d’être
. What would you have me do
now?”

“
Now you must heal. Now
you must allow yourself to be angry at the right
object.”

Mrs. Wallston was capable of a smirk, and
one that looked much less bestial and threatening than her
expressions had up until then. “My father? He’s very old and lives
in Providence. I hardly think I’m in any condition to travel, and I
think the sight of his angry, dead daughter come to accuse him of
all his sexual misdeeds might do him in once and for all. You’d
give me more guilt than satisfaction or healing, doctor.”

“
There are ultimate causes
for most everything we feel, and often those causes are far beyond
our reach, but there are also proximate causes.” Catherine could
smirk too, and she felt more genial than she had in weeks. “I don’t
believe any travel will be necessary.”

Catherine took her patient to Dr. Wallston’s
study. Mrs. Wallston knocked and opened the door herself, and he
was understandably surprised to see them both. Both of them looked
to Catherine for some guidance or orchestration of the event, but
in reality, it really wasn’t a situation for which she had trained.
“Dr. Wallston,” she began. “I believe we have made real progress
and can now address the fundamental conflicts with which you both
have been struggling.”

“
Splendid. Capital. When
do we begin?” He stood and looked back and forth between the two of
them, without a clue what was to come. Catherine had supposed he
wouldn’t guess what was going on, but it did make the whole thing
even more awkward.

“
Dr. Wallston, as I’m sure
you know, much of psychoanalysis involves very delicate and
unpleasant aspects of sexuality.”

“
Yes, I had read about it.
Deep-seated complexes from childhood.”

“
No, not all of them, even
if they are related to childhood dynamics and trauma.”

“
Not deep-seated? Well
what, then?”

“
Impulses related to
present relationships. Issues of trust. And intimacy. And
betrayal.”

“
Oh.” Dr. Wallston now
fidgeted. He looked sideways at his wife. “I haven’t, Victoria, not
once, not since early last year, before you were sick.”

She looked out the window
and spoke very softly. “But you
did,
Percy. And often.”

“
How long did you
know?”

“
I’ve always known, Percy.
I can’t say for certain I knew the first time, but I’m quite sure
that I knew within days of the event that I had lost you. It is one
of the endearing things about you, that you lack a certain
deceitfulness and stealth. On the other hand, those qualities might
have made our situation easier. I really don’t know.”

Now he turned to face her, and stepped
toward her, though she remained aloof, staring out the window.
“Lost me? You never lost me, Victoria, you never could. I lost my
way from you. I knew I was being a beast… a horrible, lecherous
beast who didn’t deserve you. But I never, ever thought that you
knew and that it was hurting you.”

“
If you did, that would be
true, horrible malice, wouldn’t it? As it was, it was just apathy.
That, or contempt, that you thought me so absurdly stupid and
unobservant. I’m not sure which is worse.”

He stood next to her. “Victoria, when you
became ill, all I wanted to do was cure you, so that I could be
better to you, so that I could make it up to you, so that I could
be as good as you are, and as good as you deserve. I have to have
that chance, Victoria, or I can’t live with myself. All I wanted
was to be your Orpheus, only I wouldn’t doubt, I wouldn’t fear, I
wouldn’t look back. I’ve never looked back at my wretched past
since I resolved to serve you and only you.”

She turned slightly, and
her colorless lips curled just slightly. “A literary allusion,
Percy? Now that took real sacrifice.” She looked back out the
window. “But really, how can I ever feel secure or joyful with you?
You found me inadequate when I was as young and beautiful as I ever
will be. Now look at me!” She held her arms out, palms up, then
turned them over. “I’m hideous! I imagine a ghost would be
preferable, all airy and ethereal. But as it is, all your
horrible,
physical
science has animated only the grossest, densest, ugliest
parts of me. If I couldn’t satisfy you before, I certainly will
always fall far short now.”

He slid his hand into hers and took it up
and kissed it. “You never fell short, and you won’t now, for it is
your soul that is alive now. Your beautiful, fragile, pure soul.
And as for your body, you are still beautiful to me, more than
ever, and you will always look as you do today. It is I who will
grow old and feeble, while you remain a young and strong and
beautiful woman. Let me win you back. Let me always be by your
side. Please. I’ll do anything.” He bowed his head as his voice
trailed off, and Catherine had to look away. It had been
voyeuristic enough, watching as long as she had. It would be
downright indecent to watch him actually cry.

“
No need, no need,” she
could hear Mrs. Wallston whisper behind her, as Catherine silently
slipped from the room.

A few days later, as Romwald loaded
Catherine’s bags into the car, she walked out to the beautiful
gardens behind the house. There was a fountain there that spilled
out into a little stream that ran down the hillside to the lake
below. Dr. and Mrs. Wallston were sitting on a bench by the
fountain, surrounded by flowers. Drooping over them were roses as
big as cabbages, while around their legs grew daisies whose blooms
were as wide across as a saucer. Catherine walked over to them. In
the days since their most painful and successful session, she had
been helping Mrs. Wallston practice laughing, and as Catherine
walked up, she could hear that she almost had it down.

They stood as she approached. Catherine
smiled. “I take it some of the revivification compound needs to be
disposed of, after it’s been used? Is that quite safe, doctor,
letting it spill out here?”

He smiled back at her as he shook her hand.
“It goes through several filters and treatments first, but it does
seem to have some rather pleasant effects here, doesn’t it?”

Catherine watched a normal-sized bee
disappear into the cavernous folds of one of the roses. “So long as
I don’t see any bees the size of pigeons, Dr. Wallston.”

He laughed. “No, I’ve been watching quite
closely. Just the plants right here are affected. Nothing that
feeds from them, and not the plants further downstream, so the
monstrosities should all be of an enjoyable nature. I also made
some calls, Dr. MacGuire, and I believe when you get back to
Boston, you should have much less trouble with other, less
enjoyable monstrosities that live in the city, especially in the
university.”

“
Thank you very much, Dr.
Wallston. I will look forward to it.”

“
You’re quite welcome. But
it is I who must thank you. It was I who was the wretch when you
arrived, not my dear wife.”

“
Not a wretch, doctor, but
certainly wretched. You needed to see what were the ‘incidentals’
of life, and what was essential. So did I, for that matter, and I
could not have imagined before how beautiful and complicated they
were.”

“
Quite so.” He looked at
Mrs. Wallston, whose dead eyes returned the loving gaze as best
they could – imperfectly, but steadfastly and unhesitatingly. If
she had been like a pearl that afternoon in the sitting room, today
she looked more like one of the small, white flowers on a gnarled
old dogwood, after many cold and deadly winters. “As beautiful and
complicated as my wife’s soul.” He turned to Catherine. “Goodbye,
doctor. I do believe Romwald needs some help, so I’ll leave you two
alone.”