The Reflection (2 page)

A tide of people flowed onto the sidewalks now as rush hour suddenly picked up and I found myself surrounded, alone. For a minute or two a young couple—early twenties—were walking beside me, and then just in front of me. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the dynamic was clear: the man handsome yet timid, unsure of himself; the woman beautiful and outgoing, a little older, the dominant one. I had the impression of watching myself and Abby, as we were a decade ago, just before she’d left me. I even fought an urge to approach the couple, as if to warn them of what was in store. A sensation of the unreality of the city and its people hit me. Momentarily, the world felt like nothing more than a collective illusion.

I’d been heading toward Central Park without realizing it. Now I wandered through its gates. Without consciously intending to, I ended up sitting by the stone bridge over the Pond, watching the geese as they glided effortlessly across the water. The sky had cleared; the sun sat low in the sky. The scene before me was like a stage set for my epiphany after the shock of Abby’s death. I was waiting for some sort of catharsis, but nothing came.

As I sat there, I forced myself to mentally step back, take stock of things. My ex-wife had just died. Since the end of my marriage, I’d been living in a kind of stasis. Yes, there’d been girlfriends, love affairs, although not recently, and never for long. They’d occasionally disturbed a life that inevitably drifted back to its point of equilibrium. As for my career, I’d worked hard for my degree, but had then chosen to work outside the medical hierarchy, setting up on my own. I’d ended up in psychiatry, a peculiarly unsatisfactory field, where patients rarely became better and often became worse. I worked on papers that were usually turned down by the medical journals for being too “speculative.” After the failure of my marriage, I’d waited for the moment when the pieces would fit together, when I’d know what to make of my life and how to go on. Somehow, that moment had never arrived.

On the way back to my office, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following me. I’d had it earlier in the day as well, but had been too absorbed in my thoughts to let it distract me. Objectively, medically, I could put it down to the mild paranoia that sometimes accompanies shock, although that didn’t make the feeling any less real. I even caught myself looking over my shoulder at one point, just to be sure. And as I did, I thought I glimpsed a man dive into a doorway, as if to hide. I almost went back to investigate, before telling myself I was being ridiculous.

Rush hour was winding down. I didn’t even know why I was returning to my office, since my secretary would have left by now. In the elevator up, the operator was uncharacteristically silent. He stared at me until I caught his eye and he glanced away awkwardly. Perhaps I looked disheveled or something, after my afternoon’s drinking, my long ramble across Manhattan. Here, in this well-heeled Park Avenue building—plush doctors’ rooms on the lower floors, opulent
apartments above—I was an impostor. There’d been a time, years ago, when I’d thought the address would help my career. Now I was wondering why I still kept up the facade, which I could barely afford by skimping on everything else. Somewhere downtown would cost four times less, and serve just as well. Not only was I done with my apartment, I realized, I was done with my office as well.

I was at my office door again, momentarily transfixed by a tiny brown mark underneath the doorknob. It had been there for years, surviving the weekly attentions of cleaning ladies and even a repainting last spring. I turned the doorknob and was surprised to find the door unlocked. Inside, evening rays filtered through the Venetian blind, illuminating the dust particles. In the gray twilight, the room gave me a similar sensation to the bar I’d been in—a disorientating blend of familiarity and strangeness.

“Hello, David.”

I’d been looking toward the receptionist’s desk; now I spun around. A man was sitting in the waiting area, deep in the shadows.

“Good God. You gave me a shock. What are you doing here?”

“Got a job for you. Afraid it can’t wait. Your secretary let me in. Gave me the keys when she left. Told me to give them back to the doorman if you didn’t show up.”

“You pick your moments. I’m dead tired. What’s it about? Where is it?”

“Not far. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”

“Seriously. I’ve had a hell of a day. Can’t you find someone else?”

“David. Please. I promise, it won’t take long.”

“Why are you sitting in the dark?”

I snapped the light on. D’Angelo was fidgeting with the
police cap in his lap. The top button of his uniform was undone as if it were too hot in the room.

“All right then. Fill me in.”

“Guy in his thirties. A veteran. Hasn’t worked since he came back. He was having some kind of psychotic turn. His wife called us in. She’s a little beat up. I’ve got a car outside. Just let me call the station, see if they’ve taken him in, or whether he’s still at the apartment.”

It was my sideline work. I was on call for incidents like this, when the police needed a psychiatrist’s signature to get someone temporarily committed. In return, I was paid a monthly retainer. Not strenuous work; not pleasant either. But it was money I needed, and no matter how tired I was, I didn’t want to rebuff D’Angelo. In any case, it was an excuse to delay facing my own apartment.

Minutes later we were in his police car. For a moment, as we swept down the dark avenue, I thought of telling D’Angelo about Abby. I had this idea it would give me some perspective, make Abby’s death feel more real. But D’Angelo seemed preoccupied, disinclined to talk. For form’s sake, I asked after his wife Maureen, then stumbled when I couldn’t remember the name of his kid. Small talk stuttered to a halt.

In the silence—punctuated by the staccato of the police radio—I thought about D’Angelo. We’d been in high school out on the Island together, and for a while we’d been close. We’d both hovered on the edge of the same social group, without ever plunging in: that was how we’d found each other, as two outsiders. The following few months we’d been inseparable. And yet, under the surface, we’d had little in common. My interests had been cerebral; his more practical. I’d wanted to go to college; he hadn’t. I’d been brought up alone by an uncle and aunt, to whom I was not particularly close; he’d been raised in a tight-knit family with many siblings. After high
school we’d inevitably drifted apart, but through a series of chance encounters had just about kept in touch. Once, Abby and I had bumped into him in the Park, and he’d joined our picnic. Another time, we’d arranged to meet for a drink in a midtown bar. But it had been a strained affair, full of awkward silences and forced laughter, and after that, I hadn’t really expected to hear from him again.

Then one morning D’Angelo had turned up at my office, unwashed and unkempt. It had been just as I was starting out, not long after Abby had left me. I’d had to keep him waiting, as I’d had patients until lunch. When I was finally free, I’d taken him down to a coffee place behind the avenue. He’d spun me a sob story, then hit me for a loan. We’d walked to my bank nearby; I’d withdrawn a generous sum for him. When I’d handed over the money, he’d broken down crying. “Please, please,” I’d pleaded. I didn’t care about the money, even if I could hardly afford it, but I couldn’t take a scene. Perhaps he’d realized that: he’d straightened up, shaken my hand, and strode off. About six months later, he’d sent me a check in the mail. I never banked it, though; I hadn’t wanted any further embarrassment in case it bounced.

Years after that episode, I’d received a call from him. He’d changed, utterly. He’d gotten himself back on track; he was a police officer now. On the phone he’d sounded assured, businesslike. He needed a psychiatrist to advise on the mental state of a man they’d detained. The usual police doctor wasn’t available, could I step in? And so he’d put me onto this sideline work. Our relationship had been placed on a professional footing, which somehow allowed us to be easy with each other again. The incident of the loan and the uncashed check had never come up, and I doubted it ever would. It was a silent bond between us, of undetermined importance. Sitting in the car beside him now, watching him as he drove, it
occurred to me that there was, after all, one thing we had in common. Although we didn’t look alike, we both had evenly featured, everyman kind of faces. The sort that could simply dissolve into a street crowd.

The blocks flashed by in a streetlight blur. I thought about the job at hand. I’d been involved in dozens of these on-the-spot committals, but this wasn’t the way they usually worked. Normally, D’Angelo or another officer would phone, and I’d go down to the station. I’d examine the detained person, if possible, and ask a few questions. Then I’d give an opinion, sign the papers. If I was busy, I’d always assumed other doctors were on call. D’Angelo had never before turned up out of the blue at my office.

“It’s here.”

We pulled into a poorly lit downtown street I didn’t recognize, and parked on a corner. Rows of tenements stretched out endlessly into the blackness. Crossing the street, we made our way up the garbage-strewn stairway of a rundown building to a third-floor apartment, its front door slightly ajar. Inside, a room with peeling walls, a table and two chairs, a sofa, a formulaic painting of a seaside scene hanging opposite a tiny window. It felt like a hurried approximation of a living room, rather than an actual one. On one of the chairs sat a stocky, square-jawed man, thirties, plain dark suit, coolly smoking, legs splayed defiantly. A young woman leaned against the wall, the bare lightbulb above bleaching the color out of her face.

“Mrs. Esterhazy, this is Dr. Manne. He’s going to talk to your husband.”

She looked up wordlessly. Her cotton floral dress—lightweight for the season—had a small tear across the shoulder; there was a dark mark under her left eye. The man in the chair said: “Speak to him. Say hello.”

“Good evening, Doctor.”

I nodded, turned to D’Angelo: “This is the man?”

“No no. This is Mr. … He’s a family friend. The man you need to see is through there.”

A door in the far wall opened onto an identically sized room, with only a chair, a mattress, and various bits of debris scattered over the floor. A man was lying on the mattress, rail thin, eyes half closed, thick hair plastered down with sweat. D’Angelo’s young partner, Franklin, was watching over him: “He’s calmed down now. Kinda drifting off I think.”

“Okay, give me the story.”

“We got the call and came down. This man, Esterhazy, was ranting away, all agitated. He had that broken bottle in his hand.” Franklin pointed to where it lay in the corner of the room. “He’d taken a swing at his wife …”

“Did you see that?”

“No. It’s what she said. Anyway, we restrained him. He eventually quieted down. Officer D’Angelo went out to find you.”

“You’ve been here all this time? You didn’t take him down to the station? Why do you think he’s a psychiatric case?”

“Well …”

D’Angelo, who had followed me through, now interrupted: “He was rambling and ranting, talking about people out to get him, he was seeing things. The whole paranoid act.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“According to his wife, he doesn’t drink.”

I crouched down: “Mr. Esterhazy, can I talk to you? Open your eyes, please. How many people can you see in the room, Mr. Esterhazy? Can you tell me?”

Franklin and I sat him up. He was staring at the wall, pupils dilated, a puzzled look on his face. A wave of tiredness hit me. I was having difficulty concentrating; everything
seemed bathed in a gray, unreal light. I rubbed my eyes, tried to shake it off. Eventually, the feeling passed. I kept talking to Esterhazy, until he snapped out of his daze. Now he looked frightened, vulnerable: “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“It’s all right. My name is Dr. Manne. I’m here to help you.”

“I … I want to talk to you alone.”

“These are police officers. You can talk in front of them.”

“No. They’re trying to put me in the madhouse. They’re saying I’m insane. I’m not insane.”

“Nobody’s saying anything. We’re just trying to work out what happened. These officers tell me you threatened them with a broken bottle. And you hit your wife. Is that true?”

Esterhazy laughed uncertainly. “This is crazy. I don’t have a wife. My wife is dead. We split up a long time ago. They’re trying to …”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No. They drugged me. It’s made me lose my … I’m confused. They’re trying to put me away.”

“Who drugged you?”

“Ask
them
 …” He gesticulated at D’Angelo and Franklin. D’Angelo looked at me and shrugged. I checked for needle marks on the man’s arm, but couldn’t see any.

“Why would anyone drug you?”

But Esterhazy was drifting off again: “It’s all mixed up … I’ve been brought here against my will …”

Under my breath, I said to D’Angelo: “Bring his wife in.”

I’d been at dozens of scenes like this. There was no commoner delusion than that the police, or the doctor, or the wife, or the family was trying to get the subject committed for nefarious reasons. The fear and confusion: they, too, were typical. And yet something didn’t feel right. But what with the tiredness, and the events of the day, I was no longer confident
of my own reactions. I glanced over to the bottle in the corner, its bottom neatly shorn off. I looked about for the bottom, or its shattered remains, but couldn’t see a single shard of glass.

Esterhazy’s wife had come into the room now. She looked away as I turned my attention toward her: “Here, let me see your cheek.”

“No, no, it’s all right.”

“Well … I’d go see a doctor in the morning. Check nothing’s broken.”

I hadn’t wanted to examine the bruise so much as get a better look at her face. It was hard to place: she was young, but that might have meant anywhere between eighteen and thirty. Her good looks, trim figure, tightly coiffed hair—it all had a flat, generic quality to it.

“Mr. Esterhazy, are you saying that this is not your wife?”