Entwined (11 page)

He paused, and Franks knew the baron had just remembered something; he could see it in the way the baron frowned, then hesitated, as if recalling the moment and then dismissing it. Franks leaned forward. "Yes? What is it?"

The baron shrugged. "It was in the late seventies; this episode had no connection to any of the children. We were in New York. We were at my apartment, reading
The New York Times
. She was reading the real estate section, while I had the rest of it. Suddenly she snatched the paper from my hands; as she did, it fell onto the table and the coffee pot tipped over me. I don't think she intended to spill the coffee, though I believed she had taken my paper for some perverse reason—perhaps because I wasn't paying enough attention to her. I don't know. Sometimes she is incredibly childish. I suppose I was silly too, because I insisted she give me back the paper. She refused. We had an argument, not a very pleasant one, and…"

The baron shrugged his shoulders, as if he suddenly felt the episode not worth pursuing. Franks pressed him. "Go on…she took the rest of the paper, and then what?"

"Well, as I recall, I went into my bathroom, showered, and was dressing when the maid said there seemed to be some fracas in the foyer. Next door to the building is a small newsstand. My wife, still in her dressing gown, was, so I was told, in the foyer, her arms full of newspapers. When I went down I found her sitting on the foyer floor, ripping the newspapers apart, throwing pages aside. She was on her hands and knees, scouring each page, but to this day, I have no idea what she was looking for. All I know is it was very embarrassing, and it took a great deal of cajoling to get her to return to the apartment."

Franks waited, expecting more, but the baron gestured with his hands. "That's it, really."

"Did you ever ask her why she wanted the papers?"

"Of course."

"Did she give you an explanation?"

"No, she actually didn't speak for over a week. She seemed very elated, slightly hysterical at that time, but I couldn't get a word out of her as to why she was behaving in such a way, or what on earth had sparked the breakdown."

"Breakdown?"

"Well, that is what the therapist called it. Vebekka calmed down eventually, and even seemed to forget the entire incident."

"Did you ever check through the papers, find anything that provided a reason for her behavior?"

The baron shook his head. "I took it to be just another of her—problems."

Franks remained silent for a moment before asking if the baron could get his contact in the United States to obtain copies of the newspapers from that day. The baron looked to Helen Masters with an exasperated shrug of his shoulders, but he agreed to try.

Franks fell silent, closing his eyes in concentration, and then asked, softly, when the baron said his wife behaved childishly, whether this meant she also spoke like a child.

"I meant it in a manner of speaking. Her act was childish. She didn't, as far as I recall, speak in a childlike voice."

Franks noted again a fleeting look of guilt, or recall, passing over the baron's face. "Yes?…You've remembered something else?"

The baron stared at the wall. "Last night I was wakened by her crying. I was confused because it sounded—dear God I've never thought of it before—like a child…so much so that for a moment, in my half-sleep, I thought it was one of the children, before I remembered they were in Paris."

Franks waited. After a long pause the baron continued.

"I went into her room and she was sitting up in bed. There was a shadow on the wall from the drapes. She was sobbing, pointing to the wall. She said, oh yes, she said the drapes were a…no, they were a 'Black Angel.' Then she said over and over, 'It wasn't true! It wasn't true.' I have no idea what she meant, but when I closed the drapes tightly and there was no more shadow she went back to sleep. But her voice…"

The baron looked to Helen, helpless.

"It was like a little girl, the way she shook her shoulders, and…that hiccup, you know, the way children do? It was as if she were a child having a nightmare."

Franks clapped his hands. "Now we are getting somewhere, and I think some tea would go down well. For you Baron? And you, Helen?"

Before either had time to reply Franks had scuttled out, but he did not close the door. He returned in a moment, after barking to some unseen assistant that he wanted tea, and produced a children's picture book. He held it like a piece of evidence, as if in a court of law.

"Your wife slipped into her handbag a similar book yesterday while she was waiting in reception. Interesting?"

"When did she do that?" asked Helen Masters.

"When she was here, sitting with Maja. Maja saw her. Odd, don't you think? Especially since it's in German. Do you know whether this book exists also in French, or in English?"

The baron was standing with his back to the room, staring out the window, his hands deep in his trouser pockets. "How would I know?"

"Has your wife ever been involved in shoplifting?"

"No, never, my wife is not a thief!" the baron snapped.

Helen took the tea tray from Maja at the door and carried it to the desk. Franks joked that kleptomania was about the only thing the baroness had not been diagnosed for! His attempt at humor failed, and Helen quickly passed the teacups around, then sat on a hard-backed chair.

Franks seemed unaware of the atmosphere in the small room. He munched one biscuit after another until the plate was cleared.

"Would you say your wife suffered from agoraphobia?"

The baron replied curtly that his wife was not agoraphobic, or claustrophobic, turning to Helen as if for confirmation. She wouldn't meet his eyes.

Franks brushed the biscuit crumbs from his cardigan. "But she is obsessive, tell me more about her obsessions."

"What woman isn't!" the baron retorted, and then he apologized. "I'm sorry—that was a stupid reply, under the circumstances. Forgive me, but I find this constant barrage of questions disturbing, perhaps because I am searching for the correct answers, and I am afraid that everything I say, when placed under the microscope as it were, makes me appear as if I have not been caring enough, when, I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth."

The room was silent. The baron had cupped his chin in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Helen Masters focused on a small flower-shaped stain on the wall directly in front of her. Franks looked from one to the other.

"Maybe we should take a break now!"

Helen picked up the files, as Franks gave her a tiny wink. She went ahead to the waiting car, and was about to step inside when Louis announced he had to return to the doctor's office. "I won't be a moment, wait for me here!"

♦ ♦ ♦

Dr. Franks looked up in surprise as the baron knocked on his open door and entered, but he did not ask if the baron had forgotten something. He knew the baron wished to speak to him alone. He cleared his throat. "You know if you would prefer to have these sessions with me alone, Helen is a very understanding woman, perhaps more than you realize. She is, after all, a very good doctor herself."

"Yes I know, of course I know. I have tremendous respect for her. I wanted to talk to you privately, though."

The baron could not meet Franks's eyes.

"I'd like to tell you something concerning my wife." He smiled, and Franks was struck anew by the man's handsomeness.

The baron moved to the office window, stood with his back to the room. "I have had many women, I suppose you might call me a promiscuous man, but I did love my wife—I say did, because over the years her illness had gradually made me hate her. I have, may God forgive me, wished her dead more often than I care to admit, and yet, when she attempts to kill herself my remorse, my dread of her dying and leaving me is very genuine, and my relief when she recovers, very real."

The baron rested his head against the glass.

"She was, Doctor, the most beautiful creature, I wanted to possess her the moment I laid eyes on her. She simply took my breath away. She was sweetness itself, she was naive, she was nervous, like an exquisite exotic bird. Her fragility made me almost afraid of her, as though if I held her too tightly, kissed her too deeply, she would be crushed. The more I got to know her, the more delightful she became, but in those days my fear of…"

He hesitated as if searching for the right word, then he turned to face Franks. "I had a fear of breaking her. She soon assured me I could not, and during our courtship she became more vibrant, even more outgoing. She was very amusing, with a wicked sense of humor. She was a great tease. She was, Doctor, everything I had ever dreamed of. I married her against tremendous opposition from my family, especially my mother. Perhaps Mama had some insight into Vebekka, but I would hear none of it. The first few months of marriage, I don't think I have ever known such happiness, such total commitment. I had never loved like that, or felt so loved, or been so satisfied."

The baron took two steps from the window, then turned back. His voice was hardly audible. "I had my first sexual encounter when I was fourteen. I had countless women, from society women to prostitutes. I was a normal, healthy man, obviously eligible, and known to be wealthy. I very rarely, if ever, had to court a woman. Perhaps that was why I wanted Vebekka so much, because she was, to begin with, unobtainable and completely disinterested in me. We did not sleep together until after we were married. I know it may sound laughable but I presumed she was a virgin."

Franks leaned back in his chair, waiting, but eventually he had to ask as the baron's silence continued.

"Was she? A virgin?"

The baron drew out a chair and sat down. "No she was not, she was very experienced. I was a little—no, more than a little—I was shocked. My bride was sexually aggressive, demanding, explicit, and insatiable. As I have said, the first few months with her—I have never known anything so totally consuming, I never experienced such peaks of emotion, such sexual gratification, and then, then she became pregnant."

Franks made a steeple with his fingers, waiting. After a moment the baron continued, but was obviously very uncomfortable, running his index finger around the collar of his shirt, as if it constricted him in some way.

"A few months after she became pregnant, she changed. She would not allow me to touch her, allow me anywhere near her, she was terrified she would lose the baby if we had sex. And then, this illness, whatever we want to call it, began. She broke my heart, Doctor. It was as if I had never known her. She behaved as if she hated me, and even when I was told that it was because she was ill, all I felt was her rejection."

Franks placed his hands flat on the desk.

"But after the birth, she was herself again? Did you resume your old sexual relationship?"

"No, she continued to reject me as a husband for a long time, at least ten months. Then all of a sudden it was as if it had never happened. I returned home one evening and she was my Vebekka again. But I could not be turned on and off like a faucet."

"So you rejected her?"

The baron laughed, a gentle, self-mocking laugh. "My wife was a very persuasive woman. For two months it was like a second honeymoon, and then as quickly as it had begun, it was over—she was pregnant again."

The baron explained that after his second son was born he attempted to persuade his wife to use birth control, but she adamantly refused. So the pattern had repeated itself yet again, but after that third time, when she had been ill for six months, he had no desire to be reunited with her.

"So you stopped loving her, after your third child?"

"I realized she was sick, knew by then that she did not really know what she was doing during these periods. So I simply arranged my life around her."

The baron's face flushed with guilt. He blamed himself. He had not been at home as often as he should have been. Then the guilty expression in the baron's eyes was replaced by an icy coldness. When he spoke, his voice grew quieter, almost vicious.

"My wife had taken to leaving the house late in the evening. She never took the car, always hired a taxi, and on many occasions did not return home until the following morning. I began to have her followed, for her own good, you understand."

"Were you considering a divorce?"

The baron dismissed the question with a shake of his head. He spoke quickly, not disguising his disgust. "She was picking up men, truck drivers, cab drivers, wandering around the red light district. As soon as I discovered this, I confronted her with it. She denied she had ever left the house, but she continued her midnight crawls, even when I was threatened with blackmail, she denied she was—virtually soliciting."

"You mean she was paying for sex?"

"Occasionally, or she was paid. It was a terrible time, and I was at my wits' end. I have never considered a divorce. She is my wife and the mother of my children, we are a Catholic family. It was out of the question."

"Was? Have you changed your mind?"

The baron picked up his coat, gave a distant smile. "Just a slip of the tongue."

His arrogance returned. He was again distant, icy cold.

"If you can't help her, then I am—and I assure you I have never considered this before—but I am prepared to have my wife certified."

The control slipped again. The baron leaned over Franks's desk. "I don't understand myself, you see, I just don't understand, after everything I have been through!"

Franks slowly stubbed out his cigar. ''Understand what, exactly?"

"That I can…last night, I felt attracted to my wife. I did not believe myself capable of wanting her again. I must not allow her to manipulate me. I am tired, worn out by her. You are my last chance, perhaps hers. I ask you not just to help my wife, but me. Help me!"

Franks nodded. It was time for dinner, his stomach rumbled. He hoped the baron would leave. At that moment, Maja knocked on the door and popped her head in.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but Miss Masters said to tell you the car's still waiting, but not to worry; she has taken a taxi back to the hotel."