“Will you calm down. You need to take something to make you relax. Ever since your poet got picked up for playing with little boys—”
“What’s my name?” I shouted again.
“Angelique.”
“That’s not my name, you fucking whore.”
I shouted at her and I cried. One of us knocked over the lamp. At some stage she started crying, and somewhere in all of it the neighbors started banging on the walls to get us to shut up.
I asked her where she got the toughness. She pretended she didn’t understand. Maybe she didn’t at first, or maybe she had forgotten that to do the things she was prepared to do, to have them done to her, took enormous toughness, more than most people had. She said you just had to keep working on yourself until you didn’t feel what they wanted you to feel, or anything else. By seven o’clock she had fallen asleep in my arms having said that she loved me and that she knew I was going through hell. She breathed like a little girl.
She slept and I held her. If she had not passed out when she did she might have caught a glimpse of how alone she really was, that is, had all that she had done over the years not dulled her sense of it, perhaps permanently. I have learned what hell is because I am not able to dull the sense of what I have done. Hell is the special pain that dwells in that loss which you yourself have caused. Exhausted, I fell asleep and when I awoke everything seemed so much clearer. It all seemed so simple. The solution was obvious, and now I wonder how I could have missed it. Everything is going to be all right. In rescuing Simon I will have bought myself a second chance.
Kelly knew the way. The trick was to keep working on yourself till you didn’t feel what they wanted you to feel. No fuss. I feel strangely calm now.
I’m looking out the window. It’s a little chilly up here but it’s very pretty, so many birds. He’s playing my Billie Holiday CD. I brought it with me. I don’t have to worry about getting the thirty thousand dollars anymore. Simon could be out on Monday, Wednesday at the latest. I understand there are documents that need to be filed. The pancakes don’t smell too bad. He’s even brought his own yogurt.
part
four
1. “Picture a flat gray field in a wilderness somewhere, anywhere, on an overcast day. Where once there was vegetation, lengths of brightly colored cloth attached vertically and horizontally to wooden poles to form crude but eye-catchingly vivid shelters now flap in the wind. Some of the people who struggle to live around there have been told about the colorful tents in the field and they tell the others until, before long, everyone has come to see what has grown inexplicably out of the dust that barely feeds them most months of most of their years. As the wind howls, the doors to the tents dance this way and that, inviting the people to hide from the dust that blows in their faces and to delight in all the fun of the fair.
“Two men, A and B, for a small sum each, are permitted to compete against each other in a game of ball. They each have to get the ball into a hole. The first to do it six times wins. Call it palla . . .”
“Why palla?”
“It’s Italian for ball.”
“Are they Italian? Why do they speak Italian?”
“I’m getting to that. I thought you weren’t supposed to interrupt.”
“I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“The first one to win six rounds wins the game and a prize. But the game is stopped prematurely. Somebody’s crops are on fire, and A and B are needed to help put it out. By the time they get back to the fair and to their game, the tents are being disassembled. The fair is moving to the next town. At the time the game was stopped A had won five rounds and B had won three.
“They want to continue the game, but the fairground attendant won’t let them. He’s got to pack up and keep moving. If he falls behind, he’s no longer part of the fair. He’s just a man with sticks, colored fabric, and some balls. But A and B, and even the people who had been watching them play in the tent before the fire, are outraged. They feel somehow that they’ve been cheated.
“Well, the fairground attendant, as is the wont of all good fairground attendants, can see where this is heading. In order to escape with his life, liberty, posts, flapping colored strips, and balls, he gives the two of them the prize money, which the first to have won six rounds would have been entitled to had the game continued without interruption.
“They look at the money and complain to the fairground attendant, ‘That’s the prize for only one of us,’ whereupon the fairground attendant tells them they are fortunate to get even that, which you might say they were. Remember, neither of them had actually won. It was only through a not-so-veiled threat that they got anything at all. ‘Whose fault is it that there was a fire, anyway?’ the fairground attendant asked.
“Well, it was probably a mistake asking these questions because it led the assembled folk to consider for the first time who it might be that was indeed responsible for the fire. They thought back to the way they had been distracted from their work by these strangers who had come from some far-off place to take their money and who they could see hastily packing up and preparing to move off as soon as the fire had been put out. ‘Here’s your money,’ said the fairground attendant. ‘You divide it between the two of you. Make sure you do it fairly, according to who you think was going to win. Don’t go fighting among yourselves.’ And with that he was gone, leaving them to determine how the winnings should be divided.”
“Why do you give the game an Italian name?”
“Because the question of how to divide the stakes in an uncompleted game, the whole matter of the quantification of probability, was first taken seriously by an Italian. In the fifteenth century the Franciscan monk and mathematician, Luca Paccioli, posed this problem of predicting the probable result of a game of ball played by A and B, first to win six rounds wins the game, if the game is stopped prematurely when A has won five rounds and B three. Paccioli was a friend and contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci. Some say he helped Leonardo with perspective. Everybody needs help with perspective from time to time, right? Is that what you were going to say?”
“No, I was going to ask whether Paccioli was able to solve the problem he’d posed.”
“No, not even Cardano could do that.”
“Who was Cardano?”
“He was a slightly later, sixteenth-century Italian mathematician. His Ars Magna is one of the classics of Renaissance mathematics.”
“What makes you interested in these people?”
“I had a teacher when I was about fifteen who told me about these men. It was he who was responsible for my interest in probability. He used to humanize mathematics for us. I haven’t thought about him for years. He died before I finished school. Anyway, Cardano attempted what was possibly the first systematic study of probability. He was a gambler. He was a gambler’s gambler. He gambled every day—dice, cards, chess, anything. He recommended it for the relief of anxiety and grief even though he concluded, somewhat paradoxically, I would say, that the greatest advantage from gambling comes from not playing at all.”
“Is that why you’ve come to see me? Is it about your gambling?”
“I came to see you . . . for many reasons . . .”
“You needed someone to talk to?”
“Yes, that’s undoubtedly true, and you were recommended to me. A woman recommended you. I probably wouldn’t have listened to her, I wouldn’t necessarily have taken her advice on something like mental health, but then . . .”
“But then?”
“Then I realized where I’d heard of you. I realized the psychiatrist she was recommending was the one who had campaigned so vigorously and publicly against managed care and I thought, What are the chances of that?”
2. “Why do you say you’re here? Dennis . . . Dennis? Why do you think you have come to see me?”
“Why have I come to see you or do you mean why have I come, at this time in my life, to see a psychiatrist?”
“Well, I’d be interested in your
answers to both questions, but let’s start with the general and work our way in to the particular.”
“I like to be called Dennis.”
“What do you mean? It’s your name, isn’t it? The message you left said Dennis Mitchell.”
“No, you’re right. It’s my name but . . .”
“Yes?”
“I don’t hear it much. I haven’t heard it regularly for a long time. At work . . . Actually, it was this way at school too, and even my wife—”
“You’re married?”
“People who don’t know me well . . . People who want to give the impression of knowing me well . . . I’m just thinking out loud, as I go.”
“That’s a good start.”
“Please don’t patronize me, Dr. Klima.”
“I wasn’t, and you can call me Alex, if you prefer.”
“Fine . . . Alex. You can call me Dennis.”
“What were you called at school and then at work by people who wanted to give the impression of knowing you well?”
“Although I have never, at least as far as I can remember, invited anyone to call me that . . .”
“What?”
“Mitch. People have always called me Mitch.”
“They abbreviate Mitchell.”
“Yes, and in doing so they give the impression to an objective observer of some kind of real intimacy.”
“And you’re saying that it’s been a long time since that intimacy was genuine?”
“Yes. I am saying that. And it’s been a long time since there was an objective observer.”
“Is that why you’re here? Is that why you’ve come to a psychiatrist?”
“I’m here, Alex . . . I’m here, I think, because I’ve been crying. Recently I’ve been crying in a manner and with a frequency that is not consistent with being a functioning adult male.”
“And how have you arrived at your measure of how much a functioning adult male ought to cry?”
“Alex, I’m really not here to see how smart you think you are. Maybe you can help me and maybe you can’t. Maybe it was a big mistake to listen to her. I’ll admit that I asked her. She’s one of the few things I don’t feel bad about. Nothing ever happened anyway.”
“That’s none of my business.”
“Isn’t it up to me to tell you what’s your business?”
“I meant, Dennis, that I’m not here to make moral judgments.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“What if you thought I was about to commit a crime?”
“Then I’d have to contact the police but that’s for legal reasons, not for moral ones.”
“Or do you not judge me because you’re one of her clients? No, wait, you can get out of the whole thing by insinuating that she’s a patient and then refusing to confirm or deny it.”
“I can tell you, Dennis, that that’s none of your business.”
“Brilliant answer. That’s what I would say in your position. But in your position I wouldn’t be able to resist moral judgments.”
“Well, you’ll have to trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“To an extent.”
“Alex, I’m not very trusting these days. You’ll forgive me.”
“Is that why you’re here? Do you want someone to forgive you?”
“How many people would I have to have harmed before you would . . . before you couldn’t help but judge me?”
“Are you about to confess to a crime, Dennis? Sex with a prostitute is not a crime.”
“I told you, I didn’t end up doing anything with her.”
“Why do you think that’s my business?”
“Dr. Klima, do you have any idea at all who I am?”
“Barely. You seem to know more about me so far.”
“Are you in touch with her?”
“I’m really not at liberty to discuss her.”
“You wrote those letters, you spearheaded the campaign to warn the public against the dangers of managed care.”
“Yes. Is that why you’re here?”
“I worked to promote it. That was part of my job. I looked to promote my own personal interest through a complicated scheme that required the widespread implementation of managed care.”
“I see.”
“Do you still want to treat me? Are you able to treat me dispassionately?” “Why not? As long as you are human, I am licensed to treat you.”
“Please. Alex . . . Dr. Klima. I’m serious.”
“So am I. There are various religions and political ideologies out there for people who can’t help but judge before they understand. Psychiatry is neither a religion nor an ideology.”
3. “Are you a Catholic, Dennis?”
“I was brought up in a Catholic family, but I’m not a practicing Catholic, no. Why? Is this some sort of fancy detective work on your part or do you have a problem with Catholics? What are you? What kind of a name is Klima?”
“I’m a Czech Jew. Does that matter to you?”
“No. I’ve no problem with Jews.”
“Yet you tell me you have no problem with Jews and say nothing about Czechs.”
“I don’t have a problem with Czechs or Jews.”
“What I mean is, I tell you I’m a Czech Jew and you focus on the Jew and ignore the Czech.”
“Is this the way it’s going to be all the time, semantic posturing dressed up as therapy? You described yourself as a Czech Jew, not as a Jewish Czechoslovakian. The Czech qualified the Jew, not the other way around. Your choice of words.”
“That’s a very good answer. It’s intelligent, and it places the responsibility back in my court.”
“Responsibility for what? Why are you grading my answer?”
“Responsibility for your anger.”
“My anger?”
“The anger you direct at me. You said you want to talk to someone, and I think that’s right. But you also want to confess.”
“Is that why you ask me if I’m a Catholic?”
“That’s not the only reason I ask.”
“You heard of Vatican Two? We don’t have a problem with Jews anymore.”
“The pope doesn’t.”
“Oh, and I do?”
“You’ve got a problem with this one, but I’m not saying it’s because I’m Jewish.”
“So why do I have a problem with you?”
“I don’t know yet, Dennis.”
“What makes you say I do?”
“Because you’re angry with me, and I haven’t earned that yet.”
“Yet?”
“We’re still at an early stage in your treatment. You seem uncomfortable confiding your vulnerability to me, but you persist. You are compelled to press on. You feel you need some kind of absolution, but it’s not for weeping like a child. That’s just your ticket in here. Is it perhaps for seeing a prostitute?”
“We didn’t do anything, for God’s sake! Is this some kind of liberal revenge for promoting managed care or working in the market? If you’ll just give me a chance to talk and take a break from your constant need to impress yourself with your own sophistry, you might learn something. You don’t need to punish me for managed care. I’ve been punished already. It’s been taken care of.”
“Are you angry with me, Dennis?”
“Yes, I’m angry. I wanted to talk to somebody because I thought it would help me, and your idea of helping me—maybe this is all psychology is—is to look at my random choice of words and simplistically, pathetically, categorize me or my feelings and dispose of them with clichés. I didn’t know and don’t care that you’re Jewish. I’m not hung up about sex. But I am highly skeptical of the value of psychiatry, the talking part anyway. It’s a fraud, not a science. Maybe you could just prescribe something.”
“For what, exactly?”
“For the crying, you bastard. You have to keep making me say it. I wasn’t always like this.”
“It’s all right, Dennis.”
 
; “Jesus! I’m . . . I’m so embarrassed. I’m forty-four years old. I haven’t cried in front of someone, in front of another man, since I was a kid.”
“Tell me about your life as a child. Were you born in Melbourne?”
“Yes, and I finished school here. When my father was laid off, my parents moved to Mildura. I didn’t go with them. I stayed in Melbourne and went to university.”
“What did your father do for a living?”
“He was a painter. I said he was laid off. That’s not strictly right. He used to do contract work almost exclusively for Carlton and United Breweries. He painted their pubs. He got older and slower, and they got someone younger to be him.”
“Did your mother work?”
“No.”
“Why do you smile at that?”
“She didn’t work while my father was painting. But when they let him go and my parents moved from Melbourne to Mildura, it was my mother who found work for both of them.”
“What did she find for them?”
“Together they managed a trailer park.”
“You said you went to university here?”
“Yes.”
“What did you study?”
“I got a degree in science and then went on to do a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. I was seduced by the elegance of physics, by its generality and its economy of assumption. Stupidly, I also thought it would make me eminently employable.”
“What was your Ph.D. dissertation on?”
“It was on photon fission in the electric field of a heavy atomic nucleus.”
“That sounds very impressive.”
“It’s not really. Quantum electrodynamics allows you to calculate the extent to which light can scatter light, that is, the extent to which photons can scatter photons, and related to that, the extent to which an electric field can cause photons to split or to fuse. They’re what are called fourth-order effects and are very small. Anyway, such calculations are fair grist for the theoretical physics Ph.D. mill.”
“What did you do after that?”
“I looked for a job in academic physics. I looked for over a year. In Melbourne, in other parts of Australia, overseas. I couldn’t get one. The world was in recession, and theoretical physicists were not wanted. Eventually, feeling utterly defeated, I went to stay with my parents for a while.