such comedy—I’m happy I’m crying! Now I’m miserable that I’m too happy to cry!—there came a knock on the therapist’s door. Then another, and a series of impatient raps. I could not hear the doctor’s response—the sound machine still played—but several seconds later I heard the door open. There was a discussion at the door—the machine blew fog through their voices—and all I could distinguish was something about drinks and a party. Were they talking about an office party? Was that the patient’s excuse for coming late?
I was not to know, for that horrid Dora Schussler, forgetting her client’s wishes, let the sound machine play on after she had closed the door behind the patient. All I yearned to hear was reduced to sibilance and dentalization, the tongue and teeth of the therapist piercing the whir, and the occasional bass hum, like the sound of a television heard late at night through a hotel wall. And beyond all that was my dear patient! Her needs, her fears, her emotional preparations for the family visit—all was smothered by the machine.
When suddenly came silence.
Then the therapist’s Germanic voice:
We must end early, she said.
Yes, I remember, said the patient.
Then more silence; then a faint sound of breathing, growing stronger; then:
Oh, why did I waste this session! the patient cried out. I needed to figure out what I’m doing. What I’ll say, if I’ll say anything. Oh, God! I wasted it.
She said no more, only kept breathing deeply without coming to tears.
I am so sorry, dear, said the doctor. We have to stop now.
Yes.
You have the emergency number. If you are overwhelmed, please call. You know you can always call.
I know.
I will be here for you, said Dr. Schussler.
The therapist stood, then the patient.
Oh, God! exclaimed the patient. Why did I blow this session? What am I going to do?
There was a rustle of fabric.
Please don’t try to hug me, said the patient. I don’t want to be touched right now.
21.
Again the patient circled the vestibule, awaiting the elevator. As before, her breathing came toward me and faded away—toward me and away—her breaths still laden with unshed tears. Oh, how I longed to stroke those sorrowing shoulders that did not wish to be touched; how I wished she could find the way to her tears.
Suddenly the impulse to follow her took hold of me. It was as if my flock of crows—my large, fat, shiny crows, the sort that look like small vultures—as if they had flapped up from a dense tree to cut crazy angles around me and shout, Her! Her! Her! (So did the desire present itself to my imagination, which, as I have said, was morbid and afflicted at the time.) Her! Her! Her! All the many psychologists, counselors, therapists, and psychiatrists who had plied their trades upon me would have trembled to learn what had become of their charge, the ruinous uses to which their work had been put. Her. Her. Her.
The elevator was a conspirator; still it did not arrive; still the patient paced the hall; there was yet time for damage to be done.
I struggled against the impulse. I thought of the day I had first entered the building, the flash of white, the lobby as immaculate as my desire for normalcy; the cherubs who floated above, their circling eyes watching over all the inhabitants; the sheets of marble lining the corridor in procession; beyond all, the cool inner breath of the place, which sighed, It will be all right here.
And at last I was freed; finally came the twin whispers that signaled my release: the shush of the elevator doors closing, the suspirations of the sound machine come on once again.
22.
The horrors of the holiday lay before me. Turkeys, Pilgrims with muskets, smiling Indians, cornucopia, families at table—images taped to every shop window; disgustingly cheerful music spilling from every door. I found no relief at the office. The management had installed some sort of loudspeaker through which treacled an endless round of holiday songs—chestnuts roasting, no place like home, to grandmother’s house, laughing all the way. The lobby was empty, yet the music played on, and the black eyes of the elevators’ cherubim circled without cease, while empty cars rode up and down, up and down (the call buttons pressed by whom?), trolling for passengers who did not exist. Even a sane man, I thought, would consider suicide in such a situation, if only for the pleasure of never again hearing “Jingle Bells.”
Thanksgiving Day itself dawned gray