By Blood (37 page)

My dear patient drove home through the foggy lanes, again going around and around her lost circuit, this time returning perpetually to the Lodge at Pebble Beach rather than the Inn at Spanish Bay. The repeating sight of the stone driveway, valets leaping at the head of it, made her neck sweat. For each circuit gave her another opportunity to decide whether or not to see her father; and each time she had to remind herself that he would be in the bar by the last hole, whatever they called it here, the Nineteenth Hole or the Hole in One or the Caddy Shack or the Driver or the Mulligan or the Cheap Shot Inn—she had visited him in all of them. Her father’s hale-thee-well greeting. The back-slapping men. The introductions to Jims and Joes she would never see again. Once more she would tell herself, Why bother? And then she would try to leave the place, only to keep finding it again and again.

Dr. Schussler tried to soften the effect of the visit. She told the patient that she was right to wonder if her mother did indeed love her. Because her mother did love her, as best she could; which was to say not very deeply or very well.

Do you think your sister basks in the glow of adoring love? she asked the patient. Could your mother truly see a daughter, any daughter, without also seeing someone to serve her, adorn her life, reassure her that she was beautiful and lovely and loved?

You’re right, replied the patient. But it makes me feel monstrous.

Monstrous? But how?

Not being able to feel love. What sort of monster doesn’t love her mother?

You could never, ever fulfill her, replied the therapist. You know that.

There was a long pause.

You know that, repeated the doctor.

Yes, the patient said in a whisper. Yes. I do.

And at that the session closed.

The therapist was taking an extended holiday. And so fourteen days of the Thanksgiving break stood before me, each a stake in a high fence (for so I envisioned it) over which I had to leap if I were to survive without my dear patient. Despite believing myself bettered by my association with her, I knew I could not rest. Long experience had taught me the wiliness of my demons, the strength of my crepuscular self, and how swiftly it might return to claim me.

For the holidays fell upon me as they had a long year ago: the smiling cardboard Indians and Pilgrims taped to store windows everywhere; the disgustingly cheerful music; the twinkling lights on streetlamps; the empty lobby wherein vacant elevators continued to ride up and down, up and down, ogled by the cherubs; the building’s long, silent corridors where dusk gathered at the far ends. And Thanksgiving Day itself dawned as unpleasantly as it had the year before: cold with intermittent rain. Once more the streets were filled with haunted men who smelled of terrible things.

I feared I might not sustain myself through the day. Yet I did not fall. I was not fine, but I did not fall. And during the immediately following days—the panic of post-Thanksgiving shopping, the frothed atmosphere as Christmas approached—I seemed to hover just at the margin. Some current, some sort of magnetic field, hummed below me, like a net stretched above the dark zones, into which I did not tumble.

Yet, come the Friday before the patient’s Wednesday return, my supports threatened to desert me. It might have been the rain, which fell with deluvian determination; or the ceaseless wind; or the ocean’s roar outside my cottage, which kept grating upon my ears like an amputating saw cutting through bone. Adding to it all, a report that braved the static of my radio: an atomic submarine that had released radioactive waste onto the beaches of Guam, fifty times the supposedly safe dosage, which spoke to me of a despaired world where we human beings were doomed to destroy ourselves, and everything else along with us.

Whatever the cause, single or joint, I suddenly looked around my cottage and was startled by the condition in which I found it. All about: the litter of tasks started and abandoned. Ironing board open, iron radiating heat, forgotten. Water boiled away on the stove for tea that had not gotten made. Hangers and shirts, obviously waiting to be joined and hung, lay strewn across the bed. A sandwich prepared—how long ago?—tomato leaking through the bread, its red stain spreading outward from the center. A scissors lying on the kitchen table, legs open, blades ashine: to cut what? And a slow fear grew in me. Was I regressing? If so, how far would I fall? For I had not engaged in such behavior since Dr. Schussler’s “lesson” on how to release obsessive thoughts.

In this state, I heard the mail fall through the door slot. The usual junk lay scattered upon the floor. Then came an odd sound—a scrape, another scrape, then another—and I saw, coming through the slot, section by section, a thick manila envelope. The postman continued to stuff it through, a few inches at a time, until the whole legal-sized mass of it fell to the floor with a thud.

I walked over to it; did not touch it; only looked down. And once more I was forced to consider the existence of Providence, some unknown intervening force come to distract me from one trail of obsession and set me upon another. For I saw the return address: the university’s Office of the Provost.

I had been expecting something, some action, some decision, since receiving the letter telling me that my “case,” as it had been put, was to come up before the committee in October. And it was only because of the patient, and my engagement in her mother’s story—how much I owed them!—that I had not spent the time worrying over the proceedings; had not perseverated (as I was so wont to do), playing scenes over and over in my mind, refining the torture, each scenario darker and more damning than the last, until I imposed upon myself a judgment impossibly more harsh than any verdict to come. Death. I should die.

So this, finally, was the end, I thought, taking the heavy envelope into my hands. Surely it was filled with legal papers I had to sign, where, in dense language, I offered up my resignation; wherein I attested to the fact that I was voluntarily unbinding the university from the contract of my tenure. They would crush me otherwise. My quiet going-away might at least secure for me the possibility of teaching somewhere, at a junior college, some night courses; might at least save me from destitution (or worse, I tried not to think: from jail).

I spent several minutes simply holding the envelope, as if procrastination could fool fate.

The very weight of it seemed damning.

Over my shoulder waited the abandoned tasks.

There was no recourse, nowhere else to go.

On the kitchen table: the ready, spread-legged scissors.

Atop a deep stack of paper was a cover letter typed on university stationery. It contained a single paragraph:

I noticed that the typewriter’s letter P was missing its descender. Otherwise there was nothing else to see on the page but the stamped signature of the university provost.

The heft of the transcripts loomed behind it, a stack thick enough to strain my hands, which began to shake. So much? I thought. Had they done all this because of me?

I flipped through and saw that within the stack were groups of pages stapled together, each stapled group comprising one transcript. In the top left-hand corner, in bold, handwritten letters, was the name of the “conversant.” So it was that I could flip through the stack and, like one of those children’s cartoon books that create a little movie if one flips through quickly, I could see a sort of documentary of my life. Everyone I had known, everyone with whom I had come in contact, student, faculty, and staff, popped up in alphabetical order as if standing before me: to remind me of who I might be to them, how they might have seen me, what I did or did not do; what I said or left unsaid; to him, to her, to him, to him, to him, to her, to her, to her.

Her! Her! Her!

Out flew the crows, as I feared they might. For in those pages was my darker self, laid bare to some, still invisible to others; and did I want to know which I was, and to whom?

I put the whole mass of pages in the dirty, unused oven, and shut the door, thinking that I would wait, wait and see until the patient’s return, when I might be stronger. Yet as the hours advanced, it was as if something were banging against the grime-smeared glass of the oven door, and I knew I could not hide from those hundreds of pages, from those thousands of words.

I read through the night, forcing myself to go on and on, no matter what, not allowing myself to mark any pages or scream back with any defenses; only reading, transcript after transcript, until light glowed at the corners of the window shades and the last page was turned. And yet I still could not decipher who I was, what I was. Some saw me as a decent man; a few as an ogre. Who was right? The committee would have to decide.

The next day, for sustenance, I went to the office. I asked the help of the friends who had taken me thus far: the hardworking gargoyles, the lobby in its purity, the empty reception podium, where my providential protector once had stood guard over me, the cherubs floating above the elevators, the steadfast marble sentries who lined the hall.

I came to our dear eighth floor. I touched the golden letters that spelled out Dr. Schussler’s name on her door. I rubbed my hands over the doorposts of my own. For I felt—as I once had, a long year and three months ago—that it had not been guilt and despair that had sent me here. I had not fled the university pursued by the ever-vengeful Furies. I had been led here by Athena’s Eumenides—the kindly ones, the gracious ones—who had brought me to this building, this office with its lucky number 807; to the thin door that adjoined my room to the one next door, through which I had become adjoined to my dear patient.

Then the days advanced toward the patient’s return.

Yet the weight of the transcripts hung upon me. And I had to ask myself: Was I altogether innocent? Could I say with utter certainty there had been nothing of love in my feelings for the boy? Was it only a metaphysical love; only the charged feelings between mentor and apprentice? Was I not always on the brink of transgression, taunted by my foes, my darker nature, just as I had been with the patient?

If not for the boy’s running off … If not for his disappearance … If I had come to San Francisco earlier … Let us say I had found him that night in the Castro … If it had been his eyes that looked back at me in the bar’s flashing blue light … If we had encountered each other there and then … what?

Such was my unmoored state as the long Thanksgiving hiatus came to an end. Perhaps it was asking too much to hope that the patient’s return, of itself, would restore me to equanimity. Yet in no way could I have anticipated the next turn of events.

For no sooner did the patient take her seat in Dr. Schussler’s office than she said:

I went back to Tel Aviv.

(God, no! I wanted to cry out. We have already dispensed with this mother!)

I’m surprised, said Dr. Schussler (repressing her own shock, as one could tell from the creaks of her leather chair).

I believe, the doctor went on, that you had come to the conclusion that your life and Michal’s did not intersect.

(Exactly! Good work, Dr. Schussler. Remind her of her freedom!)

A silence of several seconds spread itself out between client and doctor into which car horns blared and radiators spat their steam.

Finally Dr. Schussler said:

It is because of what happened in Pebble Beach, yes?

Further silence from the patient.

Is that what propelled you to return?

Yeah. Sure. At Pebble Beach, it was clearer than ever that big-M Mother is no mother. And Michal, what kind of mother is she? What kind of mother throws out her own flesh and blood? Yeah. Going back. My last try. Last try to get myself a mother.

And did you? asked the doctor.

No.

No?

But I found someone else.

Someone else

I’m related to.

Oh! said Dr. Schussler. Wonderful!

The patient did not immediately reply.

Wonderful, repeated the doctor. Yes?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I took a last-minute flight, said the patient, standby. I let the taxi driver suggest some hotel—it was fine. I dropped off my bag, and went directly to Michal’s house.

I found the door open. A crack. I gave it a little push. It fell open all the way.

I yelled out, Hello? Anyone there? I waited. No one answered.

I walked halfway down the hall and yelled again, Hello, hello.

Finally someone in the kitchen—from the direction of the kitchen—called back: Here. I am in here.

The kitchen. I stopped at the threshold. There was a woman in an army uniform standing with her back to me. There was a rifle slung over her shoulder. I saw groceries on the table—milk, bread, apples. She took off the gun. Put it in the corner.

Hello, I said again.

And the woman turned around.

She looked like me.

Exactly like me
.

I was on instant recognition. But I should check, came to me. To be sure. Each feature. Eyes, mouth, chin, cheekbones, shape of the head—the same, the same, the same, the same. Hair dark brown, little halo of frizz—the same.

Gott!
whispered Dr. Schussler.

(A sister! How did I not know there was a sister?)

Then I felt tricked. My eyes playing tricks on me. Seeing what I wanted to see. Another look. Army uniform, rifle over the shoulder, strange expression on her face: Suspicion? Disdain? Not me, not me, not me.

All this is happening in—what? A second? Two? And I’m thinking, How do I know what I really look like? In the mirror. A pose. Preferred angle. Flattering expression. Maybe someone would say we don’t look alike at all.

We were just standing there. Not moving. Then in some heavy accent the woman said, Who are you.

It wasn’t a question. Her tone was flat, dead flat.

I’m Michal’s daughter, I said. From America.

My sister—she had to be my sister—tipped back her head and squinted at me. Then she said in that same dead flat voice:

I am also Michal’s daughter.

We kept standing there, just looking at each other. She scanned my face, features, body. Like I did with her. She inventoried me—that’s what it felt like, being inventoried. Probably that’s what she saw in me. When I was checking. To be sure.

We are similar in appearance, she said.

I think more than similar.

Yes, more than similar.

I look like someone
.

My head went light. Balloon light. I don’t know what expression Leni saw on my face. Leni—she told me later her name was Leni—I don’t know what she saw. My face felt inert. Like my whole body. Inert. My breathing, gasps for air—maybe she understood from my breathing.

But I saw something in her. Her expression was the same as when she first saw me. Head back. Squinting. Then her mouth slowly turned down.

She said: How did you come to be here?

I came to find my birth mother. Last summer. I’m adopted. Michal—she is my birth mother.

I knew it, said Leni. I knew something must have happened. Last summer. Something changed. So it was—

Me.

We didn’t know what to say after that. The clock ticked. I heard a car go by. Leni stopped scrutinizing me. Finally she said,

And how did you find her to be? I mean, what sort of reception did she give you?

Why do you ask?

She tipped her head to one side and laughed.

I am imagining she was not happy to see you.

Yes. Right. She sent me away.

So why did you come back?

I don’t know.

You should not have come back. You should leave.

I was startled, a little afraid. I didn’t know what to do. But just finding her—a sister, almost a twin—it never occurred to me to turn around and leave. I kept staring at her. And she stared back: Standing taller. Shoulders back. Chest high. A soldier. A soldier’s stance.

Leave? Do you really think I could leave now? I said. Just when I find a sister—we have to be sisters.

Yes. Sisters. What else could we be?

It was strange. We didn’t say more about how alike we were. As if it was too weird. Or something we couldn’t cope with right then, or wouldn’t, not knowing each other. Almost doubles—what it meant. In Leni: no sign of joy, tentative joy, or happiness, or relief. Something else.

We exchanged names. She told me then: Leni Gershon. We said what we did for a living—she’s an engineer, a civil engineer. We compared birth dates—she’s just a year and a half older than I am. We both said we didn’t know about the other’s existence.

So why do you think I shouldn’t have come back? I said finally.

You may not like what you find out. About Michal. About where you came from.

My body bent over into a sort of crouch. Being tired. Maybe to defend myself. I don’t know from what—yes, I knew, from her, something steely in her. How she towered over me.

And what did Michal tell you?

Everything.

Leni laughed. Well, not everything. You did not know about me. So you could not have come here looking for me. Then why are you here? What is it you hoped to gain by returning?

One thing, I said. The truth about why she gave me away. Why she never looked for me.

Heh. That is two questions.

I said nothing.

Are you sure you want to know? she asked.

Everyone has warned me off, I said to her, finding some bravery in myself. Mother—my adoptive mother. And a … a doctor that I see. And Michal. Everyone warning me. Thinking they’ll spare me something. But I’ve already heard some awful things—and I survived. See? I’m back. And if there’s more that’s bad, I can take it.

Then I suddenly lost my little surge of courage. I couldn’t go on. If I said, I don’t have a mother, I need a mother, I came back to find a real mother, I’d break down in front of her. I could tell she wasn’t a person who wanted to deal with sobs and tears. And I didn’t want to look weak in front of her.

But she must have seen it in my face. She let go of her stance. She went “at ease,” I suppose. Then she sighed and said:

Sit down. I will put the groceries away. Then we can talk.

She scraped back a chair for me, and I sat as the apples and milk went into the refrigerator. Bread, other things still in the bag, into cabinets and pantries. She picked up the rifle and put it in some other room. Then she came back, sat down in what had been Michal’s chair last time I’d come.

She put her arms out on the table, leaning on her elbows, hands together, a triangle.

First, she said, before I tell you anything, you need to know a little about who I am, who I am in relation to Michal.

Her daughter.

Wait, please. “Daughter” tells you nothing. When Michal brought me here, it was very bad for me. Very bad. I was angry, furious. I hated her. Nine years old and hating everyone and everything around me to my bones.

Brought you here? From where?

Later. I will get to that later.

But why—

Later.

From her tone, I knew better than to keep asking questions. So I only said,

But you’re still here.

Heh. Where else? Look. I had to come to terms with it. I am here, she is here. After all, she is my mother.

Mother, I said. Your mother. Maybe in time you forgave her for whatever happened. Maybe in time … you came to love her?

Leni laughed at me.

Are you still so sentimental about “mother”? Even after Michal sent you away? Between me and Michal, it is more like an armistice. We stopped fighting. We came to accept each other. Rely on each other. For day-to-day things. But love … Do you know what love is?

I was going to jump in and say of course. Then I thought of big-M Mother, drinking and disapproving. And about Michal, her face full of love—vanished in a moment. A few girlfriends, maybe, when it seemed like love in the beginning, the sex time. But … love?

I looked at Leni’s face. Almost a duplicate of mine. And so hard, defended. And I saw myself in that, too.

Not really, I said.