Twisted: The Collected Stories - 1 Page 6

  *

  At her next session Patsy looked worse than she had the week before. Her clothes weren't pressed. Her hair was matted and hadn't been shampooed for days, it seemed. Her white blouse was streaked with dirt and the collar was torn, as was her skirt. There were runs in her stockings. Only her makeup was carefully done.

  "Hello, Doctor," she said in a soft voice. She sounded timid.

  "Hi, Patsy, come on in... No, not the couch today. Sit across from me."

  She hesitated. "Why?"

  "I think we'll postpone our usual work and deal with this crisis. About the voices. I'd like to see you face-to-face."

  "Crisis," she repeated the word warily as she sat in the comfortable armchair across from his desk. She crossed her arms, looked out the window -- these were all body-language messages that Harry recognized well. They meant she was nervous and defensive.

  "Now, what's been happening since I saw you last?" he asked.

  She told him. There'd been more voices -- her husband kept pretending to be the ghost of her father, whispering terrible things to her. What, Harry asked, had the ghost said? She answered: what a bad daughter she'd been, what a terrible wife she was now, what a shallow friend. Why didn't she just kill herself and quit bringing pain to everyone's life?

  Harry jotted a note. "Did it sound like your father's voice? The tone, I mean?"

  "Not my father," she said, her voice cracking with anger. "It was my husband, pretending to be my father. I told you that."

  "I know. But the sound? The timbre?"

  She thought. "Maybe. But my husband had met him. And there are videos of dad. Peter must've heard them and impersonated him."

  "Where was Peter when you heard him?"

  She studied a bookshelf. "He wasn't exactly home."

  "He wasn't?"

  "No. He went out for cigarettes. But I figured out how he did it. He must've rigged up some kind of a speaker and tape recorder. Or maybe one of those walkie-talkie things." Her voice faded.

  "Peter's also a good mimic. You know, doing impersonations. So he could do all the voices."

  "All of them?"

  She cleared her throat. "There were more ghosts this time." Her voice rising again, manically. "My grandfather. My mother. Others. I don't even know who." Patsy stared at him for a moment then looked down. She clicked her purse latch compulsively, then looked inside, took out her compact and lipstick. She stared at the makeup, put it away. Her hands were shaking.

  Harry waited a long moment. "Patsy... I want to ask you something."

  "You can ask me anything, Doctor."

  "Just assume -- for the sake of argument -- that Peter wasn't pretending to be the ghosts. Where else could they be coming from?"

  She snapped, "You don't believe a word of this, do you?"

  The most difficult part of being a therapist is making sure your patients know you're on their side, while you continue pursuing the truth. He said evenly, "It's certainly possible -- what you're saying about your husband. But let's put that aside and consider that there's another reason for the voices."

  "Which is?"

  "That you did hear something -- maybe your husband on the phone, maybe the TV, maybe the radio but whatever it was had nothing to do with ghosts. You projected your own thoughts onto what you heard."

  "You're saying it's all in my head."

  "I'm saying that maybe the words themselves are originating in your subconscious. What do you think about that?"

  She considered this for a moment. "I don't know... It could be. I suppose that makes some sense."

  Harry smiled. "That's good, Patsy. That's a good first step, admitting that."

  She seemed pleased, a student who'd been given a gold star by a teacher.

  Then the psychiatrist grew serious. "Now, one thing: When the voices talk about your hurting yourself... you're not going to listen to them, are you?"

  "No, I won't." She offered a brave smile. "Of course not."

  "Good." He glanced at the clock. "I see our time's just about up, Patsy. I want you to do something. I want you to keep a diary of what the voices say to you."

  "A diary? All right."

  "Write down everything they say and we'll go through it together."

  She rose. Turned to him. "Maybe I should just ask one of the ghosts to come along to a session... but then you'd have to charge me double, wouldn't you?"

  He laughed. "See you next week."

  *

  At three a.m. the next morning Harry was wakened by a phone call.

  "Dr. Bernstein?"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm Officer Kavanaugh with the police department."

  Sitting up, trying to shake off his drowsiness, he thought immediately of Herb, a patient at the clinic in Brooklyn. The poor man, a mild schizophrenic who was completely harmless, was forever getting beat up because of his gruff, threatening manner.

  But that wasn't the reason for the call.

  "You're Mrs. Patricia Randolphs psychiatrist. Is that correct?"

  His heart thudded hard. "Yes, I am. Is she all right?"

  "We've had a call... We found her on the street outside her apartment. No one's hurt but she's a bit hysterical."

  "I'll be right there."

  *

  When he arrived at the Randolphs' apartment building, ten blocks away, Harry found Patsy and her husband in the front lobby. A uniformed policeman stood next to them.

  Harry knew that the Randolphs were wealthy but the building was much nicer than he'd expected. It was one of the luxurious high-rises that Donald Trump had built in the eighties. There were penthouse triplexes selling for $20 million, Harry had read in the Times.

  "Doctor," Patsy cried when she saw Harry. She ran to him. Harry was careful about physical contact with his patients. He knew all about transference and countertransference -- the perfectly normal attraction between patients and their therapists -- but contact had to be handled carefully. Harry took Patsy by the shoulders so that she couldn't hug him and led her back to the lobby couch.

  "Mr. Randolph?" Harry asked, turning to her husband.

  "That's right."

  "I'm Harry Bernstein."

  The men shook hands. Peter Randolph was very much what Harry was expecting. He was a trim, athletic man of about forty. Handsome. His eyes were angry and bewildered and looked victimized. He reminded Harry of a patient he'd treated briefly -- a man whose sole complaint was that he was having trouble maintaining a life with a wife and two mistresses. Peter wore a burgundy silk bathrobe and supple leather slippers.

  "Would you mind if I spoke to Patsy alone?" Harry asked him.

  "No. I'll be upstairs if you need me." He said this to both Harry and the police officer.

  Harry too glanced at the cop, who also stepped away and let the doctor talk to his patient.

  "What happened?" Harry asked Patsy.

  "The bird," she said, choking back tears.

  "One of the ceramic birds?"

  "Yes," she whispered. "He broke it."

  Harry studied her carefully. She was in bad shape tonight. Hair stringy, robe filthy, fingernails unclean. As in her session the other day, only her makeup was normal.

  "Tell me about what happened."

  "I was asleep and then I heard this voice say, 'Run! You have to get out. They're almost here. They're going to hurt you.' And I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room and there -- there was a Boehm bird. The robin. It was shattered and scattered all over the floor. I started screaming -- because I knew they were after me." Her voice rose. "The ghosts... They... I mean, Peter was after me. I just threw on my robe and escaped."

  "And what did Peter do?"

  "He ran after me."

  "But he didn't hurt you?"

  She hesitated. "No." She looked around the cold, marble lobby with paranoid eyes. "Well, what he did was he called the police... But don't you see? Peter didn't have any choice. He had to call the police. Isn't that what somebody would normally do if their wife
ran out of the apartment, screaming? Not calling them would have been suspicious..." Her voice faded.

  Harry looked for signs of overmedication or drinking. He could see none. She looked around the lobby once more.

  "Are you feeling better now?"

  She nodded. "I'm sorry," she said. "Making you come all the way over here tonight."

  "That's what I'm here for... Tell me: You don't hear any voices now, do you?"

  "No."

  "And the bird? Could it have been an accident?"

  She thought about this for a moment. "Well, Peter was asleep... Maybe I was looking at it earlier and left it on the edge of the table." She sounded perfectly reasonable. "Maybe the housekeeper did. I might've bumped it."

  The policeman looked at his watch and then ambled over. He asked, "Can I talk to you, Doctor?"

  They stepped into a corner of the lobby.

  "I'm thinking I oughta take her downtown," the cop said in a Queens drawl. "She was pretty outta control before. But it's your call. You think she's ED?"

  Emotionally disturbed -- the trigger diagnosis for involuntary commitment. If he said, yes, Patsy would be taken off and hospitalized.

  This was the critical moment. Harry debated.

  I can help you and you can help me...

  He said to the cop, "Give me a minute."

  He returned to Patsy, sat down next to her. "We have a problem. The police want to take you to a hospital. And if you claim that Peter's trying to drive you crazy or hurt you, the fact is the judge just isn't going to believe you."

  "Me? I'm not doing anything! It's the voices! It's them... I mean, it's Peter."

  "But they're not going to believe you. That's just the way it is. Now, you can go back upstairs and carry on with your life or they can take you downtown to the city hospital. And you don't want that. Believe me. Can you stay in control?"

  She lowered her head to her hands. Finally she said, "Yes, Doctor, I can."

  "Good... Patsy, I want to ask you something else. I want to see your husband alone. Can I call him, have him come in?"

  "Why?" she asked, her face dark with suspicion.

  "Because I'm your doctor and I want to get to the bottom of what's bothering you."

  She glanced at the cop. Gave him a dark look. Then she said to Harry, "Sure."

  "Good."

  After Patsy'd disappeared into the elevator car the cop said, "I don't know, Doctor. She seems like a nut case to me. Things like this... they can get real ugly. I've seen it a million times."

  "She's got some problems but she's not dangerous."

  "You're willing to take that chance?"

  After a moment he said, "Yes, I'm willing to take that chance."

  *

  "How was she last night, after I left?" Harry asked Peter Randolph the next morning. The two men sat in Harry's office.

  "She seemed all right. Calmer." Peter sipped the coffee that Miriam had brought him. "What exactly is going on with her?"

  "I'm sorry," Harry said. "I can't discuss the specifics of your wife's condition with you. Confidentiality."

  Peter's eyes flared angrily for a moment. "Then why did you ask me here?"

  "Because I need you to help me treat her. You do want her to get better, don't you?"

  "Of course I do. I love her very much." He sat forward in the chair. "But I don't understand what's going on. She was fine until a couple of months ago -- when she started seeing you, if you have to know the truth. Then things started to go bad."

  "When people see therapists they sometimes confront issues they've never had to deal with. I think that was Patsy's situation. She's getting close to some important issues. And that can be very disorienting."

  "She claims I'm pretending to be a ghost," Peter said sarcastically. "That seems a little worse than just disoriented."

  "She's in a downward spiral. I can pull her out of it... but it'll be hard. And I'll need your help."

  Peter shrugged. "What can I do?"

  Harry explained, "First of all, you can be honest with me."

  "Of course."

  "For some reason she's come to associate you with her father. She has a lot of resentment toward him and she's projecting that onto you. Do you know why she's mad at you?"

  There was silence for a moment.

  "Go on, tell me. Anything you say here is confidential -- just between you and me."

  "She might have this stupid idea that I've cheated on her."

  "Have you?"

  "Where the hell do you get off, asking a question like that?"

  Harry said reasonably, "I'm just trying to get to the truth."

  Randolph calmed down. "No, I haven't cheated on her. She's paranoid."

  "And you haven't said or done anything that might trouble her deeply or affect her sense of reality?"

  "No," Peter said.

  "How much is she worth?" Harry asked bluntly.

  Peter blinked. "You mean, her portfolio?"

  "Net worth."

  "I don't know exactly. About eleven million."

  Harry nodded. "And the moneys all hers, isn't it?"

  A frown crossed Peter Randolph's face. "What're you asking?

  "I'm asking, if Patsy were to go insane or to kill herself would you get her money?"

  "Go to hell!" Randolph shouted, standing up quickly. For a moment Harry thought the man was going to hit him. But he pulled his wallet from his hip pocket and took out a card. Tossed it onto Harry's desk. "That's our lawyer. Call him and ask him about the prenuptial agreement. If Patricia's declared insane or if she were to die the money goes into a trust. I don't get a penny."

  Harry pushed the card back. "That won't be necessary... I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings," he said. "My patient's care comes before everything else. I had to know there's no motive for harming her."

  Randolph adjusted his cuffs and buttoned his jacket. "Accepted."

  Harry nodded and looked Peter Randolph over carefully. A prerequisite for being a therapist is the ability to judge character quickly. He now sized up this man and came to a decision. "I want to try something radical with Patsy and I want you to help me."

  "Radical? You mean commit her?"

  "No, that'd be the worst thing for her. When patients are going through times like this you can't coddle them. You have to be tough. And force them to be tough."

  "Meaning?"

  "Don't be antagonistic but force her to stay involved in life. She's going to want to withdraw -- to be pampered. But don't spoil her. If she says she's too upset to go shopping or go out to dinner, don't let her get away with it. Insist that she does what she's supposed to do."

  "You're sure that's best?"

  Sure? Harry asked himself. No, he wasn't the least bit sure.

  But he'd made his decision. He had to push Patsy hard. He told Peter, "We don't have any choice."

  But after the man left the office Harry happened to recall an expression one of his medical school professors had used frequently. He'd said you have to attack disease head-on. "You have to kill or cure."

  Harry hadn't thought of that expression in years. He wished he hadn't today.

  *

  The next day Patsy walked into his office without an appointment.

  In Brooklyn, at the clinic, this was standard procedure and nobody thought anything of it. But in a Park Avenue shrinks office impromptu sessions were taboo. Still, Harry could see from her face that she was very upset and he didn't make an issue of her unexpected appearance.

  She collapsed on the couch and hugged herself closely as he rose and closed the door.

  "Patsy, what's the matter?" he asked.

  He noticed that her clothes were more disheveled than he'd ever seen. They were stained and torn. Hair bedraggled. Fingernails dirty.

  "Everything was going so well," she sobbed, "then I was sitting in the den early this morning and I heard my father's ghost again. He said, 'They're almost here. You don't have much time left...' And I asked, 'What do you mean?'
And he said, 'Look in the living room.' And I did and there was another one of my birds! It was shattered!" She opened her purse and showed Harry the broken pieces of ceramic. "Now, there's only one left! I'm going to die when it breaks. I know I am. Peters going to break it tonight! And then he'll kill me."

  "He's not going to kill you, Patsy," Harry said calmly, patiently ignoring her hysteria.

  "I think I should go to the hospital for a while, Doctor."

  Harry got up and sat on the couch next to her. He took her hand. "No."

  "What?"

  "It would be a mistake," Harry said.

  "Why?" she cried.

  "Because you can't hide from these issues. You have to confront them."

  "I'd feel safer in a hospital. Nobody'd try to kill me in the hospital."

  "Nobody's going to kill you, Patsy. You have to believe me."

  "No! Peter --"

  "But Peter's never tried to hurt you, has he?"

  A pause. "No."

  "Okay, here's what I want you to do. Listen to me. Are you listening?"

  "Yes."

  "You know that whether Peter was pretending to say those words to you or you were imagining them they weren't real. Repeat that."

  "Repeat it!"

  "They weren't real."

  "Now say, 'There was no ghost. My father's dead.'"

  "There was no ghost. My father's dead."

  "Good!" Harry laughed. "Again."

  She repeated this mantra several times, calming each time. Finally a faint smile crossed her lips. Then she frowned. "But the bird..." She again opened her purse and took out the shattered ceramic, cradling the pieces in her trembling hand.

  "Whatever happened to the bird doesn't matter. It's only a piece of porcelain."

  "But..." She looked down at the broken shards.

  Harry leaned forward. "Listen to me, Patsy. Listen carefully." Passionately the doctor said, "I want you to go home, take that last bird and smash the hell out of it."

  "You want me to..."

  "Take a hammer and crush it."

  She started to protest but then she smiled. "Can I do that?"

  "You bet you can. Just give yourself permission to. Go home, have a nice glass of wine, find a hammer and smash it." He reached under his desk and picked up the wastebasket. He held it out for her. "They're just pieces of china, Patsy."

  After a moment she tossed the pieces of the statue into the container.