Trial of Passion (49 page)

I spend a few minutes with the doctor edifying the jury as to the various sources of amnesia — the most common of which is my old
friend, substance intoxication: “which may have played a significant role here.” But the core factor was “emotional trauma memory loss syndrome” — more simply, traumatic amnesia.

“The mind does not wish to know. The victim blocks the pain, which is buried beneath memory's surface.”

“And do you hold an opinion as to whether Miss Martin is amnesic about events related to this trial?”

“I hold that opinion.”

“Please take one of these chairs, doctor.” I turn to SheriffWillit. “Be so kind as to lower the lights and escort Miss Martin in.”

The lights slowly go down as Kimberley enters and cruises up the aisle, legs swishing beneath her tight vermilion sheathe: Diana the huntress, goddess of the moon, ghostlike in the growing gloom. An oblique peek in Jonathan's direction, a tentative smile for me, and she claims her chair, crossing her legs, hitching down her skirt.

Dr. Kropinski turns to me. “We shall proceed, yes?”

“Please,” I say. The room is in near blackness now, but for the soft glow of lamps on Wally's bench and the court reporter's table.

“Kimberley, you are aware fully what we are trying to do,” Dr. Kropinski begins.

“Yes, I am,” she says in a soft, unwavering voice.

“You are in a courtroom with many people.”

“I understand that. I am only going to look at you.”

“You will hear only me?”

“Yes.”

“You are relaxed, comfortable?”

“Sure. Under the circumstances.”

After receiving a few more assurances of her preparedness, this gentle doctor of the mind commences a seductive, lulling mantra, a soft cloud of words that causes Kimberley's body to go visibly slack and seems to make my own eyelids heavy. He tells his patient that at the count of ten she will fall asleep — yet a part of her will be awake, observant solely to his voice.

“… Nine . . . ten.”

Silence.

“Kimberley?”

“Yes.” The word floats from her lips.

“You can open your eyes now.”

They seem to slide languorously open; a peculiar softness is in them.

“Where are we?”

“I believe we are in a courtroom. “The sluggish voice of one just aroused from slumber.

“Please only listen to my voice. Only talk to me.” “I am doing that.”

“In this trial, we are talking about something that happened last year, yes?”

“Yes.”

“After a dance.”

“Yes.”

“Let us go back to that time. Will you go there with me?”

“All right.”

“It is the night of November twenty-seventh. After the dance there is a party, and later you are at a house with some friends, yes?”.

“Professor O'Donnell's house.”

“It is late at night, yes?”

“I don't know what time it is.”

“Around three o'clock —”

She interrupts. “Oh, my God, Remy will think I'm lying somewhere in an alley.” Her voice has abruptly altered in rhythm and tone, sprightly now, a slight slurring of consonants. “Gosh, I think I'm a little drunk. Woo, I don't norm'lly drink this much.”

“You and the others have been reading from a play —”

Again she cuts him off, spreading her arms theatrically, lamenting: ” ‘If only I could hear the larks in the sunshine, the blessed, blessed church bells that send my angels' voices floating on the wind.' Shaw's
such an ol' curmudgeon, but he can be poetic when he wants. What happened to my glass? Glass? It's like drinking from a vase. I have to sit down. I'm spinning. Shouldn't've done that toot, Remy would
not
approve, the ol' sourpuss. He'll be fast asleep now. I should call him. Where's the phone? Not in here. There was one by Jonathan's bed. I wonder if this is his favourite brown suit. I'm afraid to ask him where he got the tie — in a joke shop? His father's a scream, no wonder he hid that picture under his socks. Choking a pheasant!”

She is wandering aimlessly over the windswept moors, free-associating, clearly out of anyone's control, including Dr. Kropinski's. He seems a little confounded at having set free this talkative genie.

“How come the inquisitor gets all the long speeches in this scene? Am I feeling ridiculous in this suit, or what? I better go up and change, get on my way. Hi, Remy, I spent all my money and had to walk home. That won't do. I don' wanna know the time.”

Dr. Kropinski seems to have decided not to cork this gushing pour of words.

“Charles, you're
so
pathetic. All night sucking up to the inquisitor, grabbing the seat right beside him — you're totally ignoring your date, you ass. I don't think she likes me, thinks I'm some kinda prima donna. Oh, why don't they just all go home? What's going on with me anyway? Feeling so glazed over. Hot flashes. On fire. Too much firewater. Why did I do that coke, I
never
. . . Oh, God, Remy will have a fucking
bird…
.”

She seems to have utterly exposed herself to us, naked of mind, candid almost beyond belief. But where is her discursive patter taking us? Now she giggles.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Oh, back when we were dancing, he . . . he had a kind of hard on. I bumped into it, had to pretend I didn't notice.”

Is this good, bad, indifferent? Wally, craning down at her, seems to stiffen, too. I can almost feel the heat behind me from Jonathan's embarrassment.

Dr. Kropinski says, “Excuse me for a second, my dear,” then approaches me in whispered conference.

“This is, I fear, unusual. She becomes her former self with a vivid personal reliving one rarely sees. But her discourse is scattered. I think it is the setting, too many people — she senses their energy; it confuses her. Do I carry on, yes?”

“Your patient is not in harm?”

“I think she is strong enough for this.”

“Please proceed.”

But a gremlin of worry is teasing me. What if she is affecting this garrulous hypnotic state? Is this talented female lead, with all her vivid reliving, seeking to salvage honour and marriage, seizing on this chance to make final credible proof of her complaint? Has she mentally armed herself against falling under the hypnotizer's spell in a ruse to seduce Ms. Foreperson and her crew with a siren's song?

And in her gusto to take up my challenge to restore her memory is she also beguiling me? The Commander, unlike Ulysses, is not tied to the mast as he seeks passage between the rocks of doom. Is it gullible Beauchamp who has been mesmerized today? But surely my fears are telling me false. I have never encountered a witness so open and gregarious, so generous with her feelings. . . .

But now a change comes over her, a sadness. Her eyes close; her voice begins to falter.

“You said they wouldn't torture me . . . you lied. . . .” A long silence follows. A strangled cough from a juror, then the court is silent as death.

“Where are you now, dear?”

“At his house . . . I think.”

“Who said they wouldn't torture you?”

“The holy church . . .” She opens her eyes wide, and suddenly her contralto becomes a child soprano, stubborn, frightened. “I
won't
go to Sunday school. Please don't make me. I'm a good girl, Mother, I'm a good girl.”

Dr. Kropinski tries to get her attention. “Kimberley —”

But she is jumping around, lost in a childhood time warp. “I just wanna see the bunnies. Please, don't. “The pleading of a terrified girl. “Don't, oh, please,
please. That
hurts! Help me! Oh, help me!”

“Kimberley, you are with me. You are a woman of twenty-three. You are fine now.” I sense her immediate relief at hearing her therapist's voice. She relaxes, offers a weak smile.

“You are fine?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I can't bear to look at the jury, to assess their reaction. My eyes are glued to the witness. Is this an act? It cannot be. I dare not believe she could effect such brilliant disguise. If so, I will prostrate myself at her feet in admiration.

“Come back with me to Jonathan's house. Did you fall asleep?”

“I think I did.”

“What is happening when you wake up?”

Now her eyes close again, and her deeper woman's voice interrupts. “I'm on his bed ” Suddenly she is wailing, “I'm tied up! He's hurting me! Blood! Blood! I'm bleeding!” She is struggling in her chair, shaking, now working feverishly with invisible bonds. “He's going to drown me!” She begins to heave herself from the chair and then abruptly stops, suspends herself, seems to float, then slowly subsides back, breathing heavily, staring into space. Dr. Kropinski looks quickly at me, with concern, as a deep silence falls heavy upon the room, time slowly flowing, Kimberley breathing more gently now.

“Where are you?” asks the doctor.

“I am in the courtroom,” she says dully. “I want to end this now. Please.”

Dr. Kropinski looks at Wally, who nods, giving assent. I am fearful of objecting, of making some hazardous intrusion into her trance, but I want to cry out: No, no, we must not end this. What have we accomplished? An entire room of memories remains unfurnished.

“I will count to three, yes —”

I hear my voice, low, urgent: “Not yet. Take her back. Back to Jonathan's parlour.”

Though her eyes are open now, they are looking only at Dr. Kropinski. “I don't want to go back . . . I don't want to know.”

Wally appears about to intervene, and I am half on my feet, palms flat on the table. “She
needs
to know,” I say.

The doctor raises a hand to still me. “Do you not want to remember, Kimberley?” he asks her.

She shakes her head in sadness.

Dr. Kropinski sighs. Clearly, he now intends to bring her out of her fugue state.

I speak to her directly now. “Be brave, Kimberley. Remember, you are Saint Joan.”

Unexpectedly, she responds with a chipper voice. “I am, you know. I feel like Joan sometimes. Leader of men.” She laughs. “Poor things, bewildered by a woman. Jonathan, too, he keeps looking funny at me, like he doesn't understand. . . . God, when are those characters going to
leave? “

Dr. Kropinski seems encouraged to proceed. “Why do you want them to leave?”

“I just want to be alone with him, just for a minute….we wouldn't actually, I wouldn't stay long. . . .” Her voice grows weary.

“Kimberley?”

“Yes.”

“Don't sleep. You are on a sofa. Tell me what is happening before you fall asleep.”

Kimberley closes her eyes and frowns in concentration. “Do I sleep?” she says softly. “I don't think so . . . I hear voices. They are whispering to me: Stay, fly away, stay, fly away. Two minutes alone with him . . . we'll just talk. That's time enough, that's an eternity. A never-to-be-repeated kiss at the door, telling him that I . . . so he will know what might have been. They
are
going, goodbye, goodbye, the taxi is here. Go with them. Fly away, fly away. I . . . Jonathan . . .” And
abruptly her memories short-circuit again, and she wails, “He's gonna kill Mummy and Daddy, Dr. Kropinski!”

In despair, I fully expect he will now free her from her transfixed state — she is in much difficulty again, crying. But I am startled by a curt change in this sage healer's bedside manner. He seems determined now to break through the barriers that block her memory, speaks as to a fussing child. “Stop crying. Be strong. You are a healthy, vigorous woman. What happens now as the others leave Jonathan's house?”

A silence. Then in a husky voice, Kimberley says, “I know you are there, Jonathan. You think I am asleep, but I can smell you, I can hear you breathing.” Now she whimpers, “Don't . . . oh, don't . . . Please.”

Are her sparks about to jump the gap again? Dr. Kropinski has clearly decided he cannot leave her in trauma's limbo and orders, “Stay with Jonathan! What is he doing?”

“Please, I can't . . .”

Dr. Kropinski's tone is flat and insistent. “What does Jonathan do to you, Kimberley?”

“Fly away, fly away,” she whispers.

“Kimberley, please —”

Plaintively, “I can't remember!”

A shocked stillness. Then a voice from behind me, Jonathan's, rasping and choked. “I kiss you, Kimberley. I kiss your lips.”

The courtroom, silent until this moment, shuffles with whisper and movement.

Kimberley's eyes grow wide in astonishment. “Yes. Yes. Jonathan . . .” Her eyes close again, tight. “You kiss me . . . yes, a kiss, and a kiss again, and now our night can never end, we have it forever. Jonathan, kiss me, kiss me.” She hugs her arms to her chest. “God, I want you, I want you. Oh,
damn,
I want you.”

Augustina whispers, “Timber.” Finally I dare a glance at the jury. They are riveted, their mouths gaping. Wally, too, is welded to his chair.

“Touch me, touch me . . . Stop. No, don't stop. Oh, God. Stop. Don't. Not yet.” Now a playful tone: “Bad timing, Jonathan. The end of November is the middle of the month.” She giggles — then a sudden hot peal of laughter as she mimes undressing. “This stupid suit. Where did you get this tie anyway? I'm not going to make it up those stairs, I can hardly
walk.
Oh, kiss me first.” Huskier: “Oh, that feels

If Dr. Kropinski can't stem the flow of this erotic haemorrhag-ing, he will vault beyond it. “Kimberley, you are upstairs in the bedroom now. You have had sex, yes? Next, what is happening?”

She jumps ahead and pours forth a gallimaufry of naked revelry and Shavian theatre: “You said you wouldn't torture me! You said . . . Oh, God, Jonathan, I think this is almost too weird. No, do it. Tie me to the stake. ‘Light your fire: do you think I dread it as much as the life of a rat in a hole?' Light
my
fire. Your line, and pass the wine. ‘Perpetual imprisonment! Am I not to be set free?' Ouch, Jonathan, there's something scraping . . . Softer, softer, that's better. Oh, God, Jonathan, what are you . . . Oh, God, don't. Not with the mouth. That's not fair, I can't move, I can't I can't