Undone (25 page)

Jasper began slowly to move his lips, but soundlessly.

“Take your time,” Dez said.

“I—” Jasper said, then stopped. He felt an overwhelming urge to disburden himself. But could he reveal his terrible secret to this man? This stranger?

He could. Of course he could. Geld had come expressly to lay bare such subterranean drives and desires, to root them out and destroy them, not just in Chloe but in the rest of the family! If Jasper did not speak up
now
, when would he ever speak up?

“Yes,” he said at length. “Yes—and the feeling of counter … counter …?”

“Countertransference,” Dez said.

“Those reactions have not been subtle. I’ve had horrible, monstrous feelings. It has been overwhelming. I hope you can help us!”

“I am here,” Dez said, “to help you.”

“I’ve bottled it up,” Jasper said. “Trying to master myself.
Trying to get it out of my system by writing it down. By—if I may be completely honest—by abusing myself. Mercilessly. Repeatedly. Nothing—nothing helps.”

“I must commend you for your wonderful, and quite rare, honesty,” Dez said. “With many fathers, it takes far, far longer to hear the truth. But the truth is critical. Freud taught us that we must confront our demons and thus exorcise them. And make no mistake, Mr. Ulrickson, what I have heard and seen here today from your daughter—and now yourself—convinces me that this is a much more advanced case than I had feared. I see in both of you signs of acute neurosis.”

“I haven’t been sleeping,” Jasper admitted. “And I cannot eat.
Working
has been out of the question.”

“Yes,” Dez said gravely. “A very advanced case. We cannot rule out the possibility that one or the other of you will do yourself harm, if the syndrome is allowed to advance unchecked.”

Suicide
, Jasper thought. The doctor was talking about suicide. He flashed on thoughts that had plagued him in recent weeks: images of himself stepping in front of a speeding Amtrak train, or washing down a bottle of painkillers with vodka. Never before had he indulged such thoughts, not when his parents died, not when Pauline had her stroke. But the shame and humiliation of his incestuous lust had been so terrible, death had seemed a welcome respite.

“
Have
you had suicidal thoughts?” Dez asked.

Jasper silently nodded.

“Yes …” Dez muttered. “And I heard clear evidence of suicidal ideation from the girl.”

“Oh God,” Jasper cried. “Is there anything you can do to help us?”

“I?” said Dez. “Mr. Ulrickson, I’m sure you’re aware of the joke which asks: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the bulb
really
has to want to change. That is, you and your daughter must do the work. You must both cease to blame yourselves for desires that society deems beyond the pale, but which psychoanalysis tells us are quite natural and even necessary. Freud often scoffed at society’s pious restrictions against such perfectly normal Id-cravings. In his divine
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
, the Master, speaking to a learned audience of fellow mental healers about parent-child sexual intercourse, referred to the ‘horror that is felt, or at least professed, in human society at such intercourse.’
Or at least professed!
Could he have been plainer? What hypocrisy it is to feign disgust at the powerful erotic attractions between parent and child, Freud tells us! For this delicate dance of family love is one played out in every household on Earth, where parents and children find themselves. ‘The
nicest
father is but an anagram for the
incest
father,’ as my training analyst in Zurich used to quip.

“But we get ahead of ourselves. We must take a proper history of the case. How have you behaved toward your daughter? Since recognizing these impulses?”

“I pulled away,” Jasper said. “Physically. Emotionally. I retreated to my office. But I haven’t been able to write my novel for weeks. Not since she arrived. Thank goodness she goes off to the club during the day, or sees friends. But still, she haunts me. We all have dinner together. I listen when she tells me about her
doings; I ask appropriate questions. But I minimize contact. For her own good! I’m horrified to think that she might catch even the slightest hint of the—the
urges
I am having.”

“Rest assured,” Dez said, “that there is nothing about your instinct for retreat that is surprising. But it is precisely the
wrong
reaction—the most damaging you could have. You must not be standoffish, rejecting, shunning. Mr. Ulrickson, we are talking about a girl deprived of a father-daughter relationship while growing up! A girl who now, at barely eighteen, is regressing and enacting all the stages of earliest infancy. Just when she is yearning for contact and connection, you stand back, you treat her coldly like the distanced, disapproving father of Victorian stereotype. I shudder to think what damage may already have been done with such a program of rejection.

“The prescription is for warmth, and expressed affection. You must break down the physical barriers you have erected, you must supply to her the touches, hugs, cuddles and kisses that she would have received from you when she was an infant, a babe in arms—what Freud and others have recognized as the sublimated sexual touching which, in fact, establishes the framework for later heterosexual responsiveness. Chloe missed all those stages with you, as infant, toddler and young child; hence her current neurosis—and your
own.
You must now make up for what was denied to her in her developmental stages. Mr. Ulrickson, you must feel no prohibition against physically expressed affection!”

“But she’s almost an adult now,” Jasper protested. “She’s no longer in that childhood phase when—”

“Mr. Ulrickson,” Dez interrupted. “Surely you, as a writer, know that this carapace of maturity that we all come cloaked in is merely that: a covering, a disguise—a shroud. Underneath, we remain frightened, needy children. Yes, your daughter has grown into a young woman. But this makes her no less a baby,
your
baby, who aches, with all her being, for your touch, for your caresses.”

“But,” Jasper persisted, “with all the feelings, the suppressed feelings, that we have for each other—”

“Do you suppose that pulling back, withdrawing,
withholding
is a better prescription for dispersing those yearnings?” Dez said. He smiled and dropped his voice. “Mr. Ulrickson, think of how you unhesitatingly soap up your younger daughter in the bathtub. Think of how you, without a worry in the world, take her onto your knee. Think of how you lie beside her in bed when she has a nightmare, how you stroke her hair and caress her cheeks, nuzzle her neck and kiss her bare belly. It is precisely such natural, loving touching with young Madeline that inoculates the two of you against future erotic acting out with each other! But you have missed that period of vaccination with Chloe; you have not been given that tiny bit of the disease that builds the antibodies against future illness, so to speak. You must vaccinate yourself, now, when there is still time, and before it is too late.”

Jasper could see the doctor’s reasoning. He could see why turning a cold shoulder to Chloe—”shunning” her, as the doctor put it—might have served only to exacerbate the problem, clouding the atmosphere with unspoken feelings that had
further curdled into perverse taboo desire. But the thought of adopting the kind of uninhibited displays of physical affection that the doctor was proposing struck Jasper dumb with terror—and for no better reason than that even the contemplation of such acts caused his mutinous body grotesquely to react.

“And of course,” Dez went on, “you will be aided in your program of physically expressed affection by Chloe, who will be making every effort to curtail her unconscious efforts to arouse you. We have spoken of the possibility that you have been experiencing a countertransferential erotic desire for her, so she is alert to the dangers.”

“I’m sorry,” Jasper said, not sure he had understood. “You’re saying that
Chloe
knows about my feelings for
her
?”

“I expressed to her the likelihood that she has stirred you to a symmetrical state of desire, yes. She came to the insightful conclusion that your standoffishness might reflect your efforts to deny incestuous urges. She is a sensitive child, quite alive to the undercurrents.”

“Good Lord,” Jasper said, mortified that she knew his horrendous secret. On the other hand, he now knew hers. Perhaps this state of mutual unmasking would serve to defuse the situation.

“Trust me,” Dez said as if reading Jasper’s mind, “it is far, far better to have things out in the open, to throw open the shutters, so to speak, on a house formerly cloaked in darkness. Sunlight, Mr. Ulrickson, is the best disinfectant! And I’m sure you will find that, by indulging in the very physicality that you fear will have an aphrodisiac effect, you have, paradoxically, neutralized that effect, robbed Eros of the strength it draws from secrecy
and hiding and denial, thus to enter that state of perfect asexual innocence enjoyed by middle-aged fathers and their budding teenaged daughters the world over!”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Jasper doubtfully.

“So you understand the prescription? Greater physical affection, greater expressed love. More cuddling, touching, kissing. Do you have any questions?”

“I do have a question,” Jasper said.

Dez started, grew alert. He had not been expecting this. “Please,” he said.

“It concerns my wife,” Jasper said. “I’m accustomed to telling her about any and every momentous event in our lives. I was wondering if it would be appropriate for me to talk with her about what we’ve been dealing with here today? I’ve hated having secrets from her. Those secrets have caused me as much anguish almost as the feelings themselves. Now that everything’s out in the open between me and Chloe, I’d like very much to be able to explain to Pauline what’s going on. As you say, throwing open the shutters. Shouldn’t that apply for all the adults in the house?”

Now it was Dez’s turn to be blindsided. He had assumed that Ulrickson would do everything possible to keep his wife in the dark about the novel therapy he had been prescribed. But then, Dez had not accounted for the man’s almost crazed virtue and transparency. At first, he thought that this unexpected development might impede his plan. But on reflection, he sensed an opportunity.

“Why, yes,” he said at length. “I
do
think your wife should
be informed. And I was just about to suggest it. In situations like this, where a strong complex reigns, the whole family is drawn into the destructive dynamic, thus exacerbating it. Indeed, it would be my guess that Pauline has been less than accepting of Chloe? I would imagine that she has acted suspicious of her, rejecting—almost as if she believed Chloe not to be your legitimate daughter? Almost as if she believed the child were an impostor?”

“But that’s it
exactly
!” Jasper cried, stunned at the doctor’s perspicacity. He described Pauline’s strange reversal, from initial, ready acceptance to outright rejection of Chloe overnight. “Things have thawed a little lately because Chloe is simply so loving and affectionate and solicitous with Pauline. But tensions remain.”

“A classic case!” Dez cried. “Your wife recognizes the threat to her domain by the invasion of a competing daughter-figure. She has been pulled into the Electra dynamic. She
cuts off
the daughter—as she would an offending penis! She becomes the castrating mother and vies, as best she can in her state of paralysis, for ownership of your phallus. Your wife’s helplessness makes it impossible for her to hang on to the organ, so she spurns Chloe, who aches to receive it. An extraordinarily volatile situation. We must bring her into the equation.”

Jasper offered to go and fetch Pauline.

“Allow me,” said Dez. “It is important that you remain, both physically and psychologically, in the session.”

O
utside, in the corridor, Dez mastered an urge to crow in triumph, and instead proceeded at a sober, thoughtful pace down to the living room, where Chloe had resumed reading to the brat and the cripple.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he told her, “but I’m afraid I must borrow Mrs. Ulrickson for a few minutes. You may go on reading to the young one.”

“Borrow her?” Chloe said doubtfully. He had said nothing about bringing Pauline into this. She did not like the sound of it.

“Her
husband
wishes her to join the session,” Dez said, giving her a hard warning stare.

“Are—are you sure you need her?” Chloe said. She was determined that nothing be done to hurt Pauline. She was blameless.

Dez stepped behind the wheelchair and took the handles. “
Quite
sure,” he said. “Do you object?”

“I’m just not sure that—”

“Is everything all right?” said Deepti, sticking her head out of the kitchen door.

“Everything is fine,” Dez called out. “Mr. Ulrickson wishes for his wife to join the session. Young Chloe is not convinced that this is wise.”

“Chloe,” Deepti said in an admonishing tone. “Your mother is quite capable.” She pulled her head back into the kitchen.

Chloe shifted Maddy off her lap and stood. “Can I speak to you?” she said to Dez.

“Certainly.” He stepped out from behind the wheelchair and they retreated a few steps from the living area into the dining room. Dez left the wheelchair pointing toward the hallway, Pauline in profile to them, so that she could not watch their whispered colloquy.

“Why do you need her?” Chloe said.

“An inspired improvisation. She’s become crucial to the plan. To
stopping
Ulrickson.” He shot a glance into the living room at Maddy, who was now standing beside her mother, stroking her cheek. “Or have you forgotten?”

Chloe’s eyes lingered for a moment on the little girl. She turned back to Dez. “Okay,” she said. “But don’t hurt Pauline.
He’s
the one.”

“Of course,” Dez said soothingly. He started to move off, but Chloe grasped his forearm.