realized the time, which was so close to the top of the hour and the start of the patient’s session. I had to reach my office immediately! At last one angel eyed the large L of the lobby; finally the elevator opened its doors, disgorged its passengers, and waited to be filled again.
I entered first; a few others followed me; the doors began to roll closed. Then one hand after another poked through, forcing the doors to roll back again. Hand by hand, passenger by passenger—the cab filled so slowly I thought I might scream. I was pushed to the back wall; bodies pressed in all around me. Finally it seemed we would leave when—there was but a three-inch slit to go—a slender hand knifed through.
I had but a moment to see her face—a delicate young woman, brown-haired, brow sweated, cheeks flushed—but a shock went through me. For reasons that made no sense, I was instantly certain she was my dear patient. Now, as the elevator swept up the shaft, I had to think quickly. Was that hair an ordinary brown or the “dirty blond” of my patient? Was she the right age? Did she seem to match the alto voice that flowed through the adjoining door? If only she would speak! Say “getting off” or “excuse me.” And if she were indeed the patient, my problem was more acute, I realized. What would I do? Follow her out of the cab, then try to disappear down a hallway as she turned toward Room 804? If so, I would not be able to get into my office unheard—I would miss the session and never know what happened at her visit home for Thanksgiving!
The elevator stopped at the mezzanine. The young woman (my patient?) stepped out to let others leave, then deftly stepped back in, performing this little dance as we stopped floor by floor, each time giving me a momentary view of her profile, which was nearly hidden behind an unruly shock of hair. Did the patient ever speak of having curly hair? I could not remember. And I still did not have a plan of action as we rose and the woman remained with me, the back of her head now right before my eyes, so that a scent of something floral—camellias—rose from her. But I could not recall my patient ever giving off a strong scent! Surely I would have noticed a scent so sensual—nearly the scent of my Indonesian girl! Was this an olfactory mirage, the very air mocking me? We came to floor five, then six, and the young woman remained with me yet, my heart racing all the while, in panic or excitement—I could not tell which.
There were but four of us left in the cab. We came to floor seven. The elevator seemed to float, taking minutes to find its stopping place. At last the doors rolled open—and my young woman stepped out.
I leapt out of the elevator at floor eight and moved swiftly down the corridor. The sound machine still played! I had time, then, to perform the careful legerdemain of keys and plastic card that allowed me to enter Room 807 unheard.
My heart had barely stilled itself when, taking my customary chair, I realized the woman’s exit on the seventh floor meant nothing. She might indeed be my patient. She might simply be visiting the ladies’ room—available on seven but not on eight—before coming to her session. And so it was that, as the sound machine was silenced, and the patient did arrive at last, I could not concentrate on the opening words of the session.
For a sudden double-mindedness came over me. Two images of my dear patient began to war in my mind: first the rather ordinary face of the young woman in the elevator (a flushed cheek, a sweaty brow), then the vague yet delicate and lovely place in my imagination in which my dear patient had always lived. First one image then the other vied for ownership of the creamy sound penetrating our wall, the images alternating with great frequency, back and forth, the mundane to the heavenly, until it seemed the effort of holding in my mind one, then the other, would cause me to disintegrate.
I made a decision: The young woman on the elevator was not my patient! Such plainness could never be attached to the whiskey voice that filled my ears with pleasure. No scent of camellias—this was the evidence that fed my certainty. All at