Hunger's Brides (170 page)

H
ARLEQUIN
: S
URFACING
        

A
PART FROM ITS LOCATION
near the hospital, this struck me as the most thoroughly improbable meeting place. A steak house catering to the insatiate college-age carnivore. It was hard to square the choice with the alphabet soup of letters behind Dr. Elsa Aspen's name. I waited inside the entrance as a congenitally chirpy hostess bobbed up in a tight rugby shirt. The corporation's costume designer had evidently forgotten that rugby players claim to eat their dead.

“I believe a Dr. Aspen is expecting me.”

“You bet.” She smiled deeply into my eyes, then after the briefest instant lowered hers to scan the reservation book. “No problem—44.” Another brilliant smile. “Right this way, sir.”

She led me deeper into the narrow-gauge train wreck of lapsed styles so perfectly emblematic of Western low-brow chic. Sallow pools of light from low-slung tiffany lamps lent the room a muddled air of obscurantist mystery. Unplaned planks and high-backed booths evoked the homely cattle car. The salad bar feed trough under the EXIT sign extended a hearty invitation to fill one's boots, as we say, on the way out. Over the whole business hung a ‘faint whiff of bear grease.'
¹³

Dr. Aspen slid out of the booth and stood to greet me. She was fully my height, almost six feet. Firm handshake. I took up position across from her.

“Thanks for coming,” she began, resuming her seat.“The cloak and dagger's for me, mostly. It would have been awkward to bump into her family at the hospital.”

“Nice spot.”

“I was fairly sure I wouldn't see anyone here I knew.”

“No, but
I
might.”

“Students. I suppose that's true,” she said with what I first took for indifference.

“Yes, I suppose it
is
.”
And so the battle for the high ground begins
. Of course her real work, her true work was not here but
out there
, out in the wards, in the streets, among the multitudes, out on the great plains of Ur-consciousness….

“Actually it's pretty dark in here,” she added, sounding concerned now,“and as you can see, not exactly packed on a Saturday afternoon.”

“Not exactly, no,” I said, forcing a smile. “Let's start over.”

“I would have thought after what the media has put you through over the last few days, being spotted here would be the least of your worries.”

“It is.”

“Drink?” she asked, hoisting hers, nearly empty, as the waiter pulled up.

“Scotch, rocks.”

“Would you mind bringing him a scotch and me another vodka grapefruit, tall?” With a wry look she polished off the drink for the waiter to take. “It's supposed to be my day off, after all.”

I felt myself relaxing under the spell of that contralto voice. Warm, clear, lying in the ear like liquor under the tongue. I reminded myself that this voice belonged to the Chief of Psychiatry of a major metropolitan hospital. She would be coolly aware of it, her instrument of healing.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked without reaching for the packet. There was one butt in the ashtray already.

“Be my guest.”

My companion, as I was about to learn, smoked incessantly with a quiet contemplative air and drank noisily with a great swirling and crunching of ice. With what afterwards seemed a startling willingness, I let her lead me on a long detour of agreeably aimless talk. I was aware that this was her art. But, anything to hear that voice, the rich chalice of her throat welling now with humour and warmth as she put her glass down.“I'm afraid I'm becoming a drunk. My husband says I see too much.”

“Men always feel that about their wives,” I offered. She smiled gratefully, somehow making me now
her
host. Quite remarkable. A lush, a chainsmoker—a virtuoso. She gave off the impression of a very clear mind and—this phrase, is it from Beulah's notes somewhere?—
a complicit heart
.

We were already on a first-name basis. My trust at this point was implicit. Where was the cross-examination I'd prepared?

It was only after the waiter had set down our third round of drinks, her fourth at least, that I noticed he was having trouble taking his eyes off her. Hearing that she was married had made no impression whatever on me. But I now looked at her more closely.

In this low light her complexion was somehow the voice's complement—that creamy translucence of skin tone favoured by the Dutch masters. Looking younger, she must nevertheless be at least in her mid-forties. Hair cut in a coppery pageboy, bangs slightly jagged as though she'd trimmed them herself. An air not particularly feminine, yet of an incongruous delicacy for a woman her size—athletically built, with the proportions of a speedskater. Mrs. Hans Brinker. Her face was oval, her mouth small, lips a pale rose, slightly pursed, as if in faint concern rather than disapproval. Light, china-blue eyes.

The Dutch rustics of Vermeer's time would have thought her face too frail, sickly. What I now saw, thanks to the waiter, was a casual and undeniable beauty. Is it, I wondered, that I am henceforth to be surrounded, on my happy hunting ground, only by beautiful women? Or is it that all women shall now be revealed as beautiful to me?

A further revelation was that I stood in serious danger of getting sloshed. But this glimmer of alarm too quickly faded. “What's your denomination?” I burbled, warmly. “Reichian, Jungian …?”

She cocked a reproving brow.

I waited.

“The latter. Though as a team, we're pretty ecumenical.”

“I'd hoped the former.” As the words left my lips I had a brief sense of delivering a little bundle of emotional junk mail of the kind some women are all too weary of receiving: Dear Occupant of Beautiful Lodgings…. I felt my face flush. I always let the woman lead.

“Her family has been unhelpful,” she said gently. The transition was sudden without feeling brusque. She could easily have chosen to intensify my discomfort. “In fact the father's been a problem. Or may be….”

“I'm not surprised.”

“Dr. Gregory—”

“Don.”

“Don, I'm asking you for help.”

“Yes.”

“You understand I'm taking a risk.”

What I understood was how much I was suddenly looking forward to talking about this with someone even slightly sympathetic. She would know this, of course. There flashed through my mind the wry notion that Beulah had gone to rather extravagant lengths to get me into therapy.

“Risk?” I said. “Yes, I imagine you are.”

“If a cabinet minister or a CEO has a heart attack within a thousand miles of here, Jonas Limosneros is one of two or three surgeons with a police escort to the nearest helipad. He's also on a first-name basis with every major contributor on the hospital's donor list.”

“And this is a problem….”

“A treatment history like hers indicates family issues. Yet the parents have been obstructively vague about the day-to-day of their daughter's life. The mother, I think I understand.”

“Champagne brunches start at 10. Seven days a week.”

“He has his secretary call me twice a day for updates.”

“He wants progress,” I suggested.

“What I think he really wants is to send her to a private facility.”

“Where the doctors follow orders.”

She nodded.“And prescribe a good deal of medication.”

“Preferably somewhere distant.”

“I have my own little fan club, but if I'm going to stand up to him I need to know what's going on.”

“What's going on, I suspect, is the good doctor's scared shitless. It has been my lawyer's pleasure to explain to me that the media machine has made Beulah into Sleeping Beauty. When she wakes she's going to be surrounded by microphones.”

“Don, I know you'd rather not … and I know you've already gone through a lot to protect her privacy, but I need background here.”

“How will you be treating her?”

“Do you have her diaries?”

“How,” I repeated.

She sighed. “We'll take a multi-disciplinary approach. Obviously the neurological issues are primary at the moment—”

“So why put a Jungian in charge?” I'd known all along it would have to come to this, but I'd been so enjoying the ride.

“I'm the one who decides the composition of each treatment team.”

“And keeps the interesting cases for herself….”

“Our group sees some very difficult cognitive work ahead, yes.”

“Oh?”
They had no idea
.

“Anytime someone tries to stage their own vivisection….”

I sat for a moment over my scotch.“Is that what you think?”

“Or C-section, or whatever—I just want to help her, Don. You tell
me.”

“How is she?”

Elsa Aspen's eyes narrowed, then her expression softened.“Coma triggers some pretty concrete connotations. It's actually quite complex and fluid. I wouldn't make too much of it. We prefer the term ‘brain trauma.' Scientific shorthand for ‘we don't really understand this.' Certainly no two cases are alike.”

“And this case?”

“No major physical trauma. A concussion is about all. That's a good sign. Truth is, we can't even be sure what caused this, there are so many possibilities.”

“Like?”

“Maybe some combination of contributing factors—endocrine imbalances, ileus, uremia, dehydration. Blood loss, shock. Also some kind of drug cocktail, probably ingested with wine. Trace amounts—the paramedics induced vomiting on the way—phenobarbs, Librium, lithium. Digitalis—what may have been foxglove. Peyote.”

“You're not serious.”

“And GHB, which is mainly why the police considered foul play.”

“GHB …?”

“Date rapists use it. Something fairly new. Even on its own it can cause more or less permanent brain trauma. It's been all over the papers. Any idea where she might have gotten it?”

“You don't think this is … permanent.”

“Opinions vary. Until a few days ago, all the signs were hopeful. Often there's a surfacing pattern. The first four or five days she progressed steadily to the point of flinching at sudden loud noises. But not much new since.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Next they often open their eyes. But then remain in an unresponsive state.”

“At first.”

“At first, yes. Sometimes forever. Are you going to help us?”

Was I supposed to just cave in now? “Why the diaries?”

“Why? Because these people wake fresh, frail, like newborns. Even before they surface they can be terribly vulnerable. Staff and family have to be coached to speak only in the most hopeful terms. Patients often quote back whole reams of what was being said around them. They find any negatives devastating. The loneliness is appalling.

They're still highly suggestible when they wake. They take soundings. But the chrysalis hardens quickly. Sometimes into catalepsis, catatonia …”

“You need to understand.”

“Don't we both? I want her to wake to hopeful signs. I need to know how to reach her.”

Still I hesitated.

“If you've been following this in the press, then you know the family has her diaries. You're not suggesting I try to persuade them—”

“I need you to get real with me,” she said, her voice rich and reedy—timbre of an English horn. “You've safeguarded her papers this far—you won't have handed them over without making copies.” She waited for me to deny it. “Show me anything, Don. I never judge.” She looked down at her empty glass.“I'm told it's a gift.”

I believed her. I looked into those eyes, I listened to the voice. I let myself be convinced.

“It's in the car.”

Outside we stood in the strip mall parking lot. The air was bright. The wind lifted the copper bangs away from her face. We stood before the open trunk like traffickers in stolen radios. I had made a copy of everything for her in the event she could convince me, everything, including my notes to that point.

I placed the box in her hands but was slow to release it.“Beulah was interested in Jung.”

“Really,” she responded, patiently now. “She had an interest in psychotherapy?”

“No. In insanity.”

Dr. Elsa Aspen took up the box's weight. Distracted, she seemed about to turn away. I held onto the box an instant longer. “Maybe you'll be able to tell me if she's crazy.”

She stared at me across the width of a file box, then around us at the strip mall.“You know, it seems to me, a little more with each passing day, we're all completely wacko.” I let go. Reached up a hand to shut the trunk lid.“My job, Don, is the ones who can't get themselves through that day.”

During the drive back to the cabin I asked myself for about the hundredth time. Was she insane? No. I do not think so. But then my judgement has proved unreliable.