The LeBaron Secret (27 page)

There are several explanations for this, of course. One could argue that he was required to tackle fatherhood when he was too young, only twenty-one, and was unprepared for its demands. Or you could say that, in a sense, it was because he was forced to marry Assaria, though forced is the wrong word, because he seemed eager to marry her at the time. But you could say that he was also too young for marriage, not ready for it. Even during their engagement and the early months of their marriage, Sari had begun to feel it, though at first she would not admit it, this sense of a shadow, of a distance, falling across what was supposed to be her love and his.

Having breakfast in their suite at the hotel in Saint Moritz that fall of 1926, waiting for Melissa to be born, he had been reading the Paris
Herald Tribune
, and she had said to him, “Are you happy, Peter?”

Outside, the day was bright, and the sun was shining on the lake and on the pine trees along the shore, and sparkling on the distant snow-capped alpine peaks, and from below there was the soft
plop … plop … plop
of balls being lobbed back and forth across the tennis courts.

“Happy?” he said without looking up from his paper. “Of course I'm happy, darling.”

“I want us to be happy,” she said. “I'm going to work so hard to make ours a happy marriage, and to be a good wife.”

“Why shouldn't we be happy? We're going to have everything in the world we want. Father is building us the house on Washington Street. You're going to have a staff of eleven servants at your beck and call.”

“Eleven servants! It's just that I don't know how good I'll be at becking and at calling.”

“Mother is selecting them, so you can be sure they'll be excellent.”

“It's just—it's just that I want us to have more than just material things, Peter. I want us to have experiences together, to see things and learn things together. I want us to travel. I'd like it if we could go to China. I want us to walk the Great Wall, visit the Forbidden City, see the Palace of the Great Mogul. And then I'd like us to learn some foreign language, and then visit some little villages in faraway countries, and see whether we could talk to them in their own language, and whether we could understand them, and learn about their lives, and—that's the sort of thing I mean.”

“We'll have everything in the world we want,” he said.

“Everything, except—except, Peter, I don't know how to say this, but sometimes I feel so mixed up. Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing. Did we do the right thing, Peter, getting married?”

He smiled. “A little late to ask that question now, isn't it?”

“That's not an answer, Peter.”

“Of course we did the right thing.”

“If you ever thought it wasn't the right thing, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?”

“Of course I would, but I'm sure I'll never need to.”

But what she couldn't tell him was that, despite his being her husband, she still felt that she was living with a stranger, that somehow, in agreeing to marry him, she had allowed herself to become a prisoner, a prisoner with a life sentence that could never be commuted, a permanent possession of the LeBaron family, like one of the pieces of heirloom silver that her mother-in-law had explained were to be passed on from generation to generation.

Lifting the coffeepot, he said, “More coffee, darling?”

“Thank you, Peter.”

He filled her cup. “Cream and sugar?”

“No,” she said, and laughed. “I know I shouldn't mind, I know a bride shouldn't mind that she's been married nearly three months, and her husband still doesn't remember that she takes her coffee black.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Now, can I get back to my paper?”

“And a bride shouldn't mind, I know that, if her husband wants to read the paper. All men read the paper in the morning over breakfast. No, I don't mind. But can I ask you just one more question, Peter?”

“Of course.”

“Do you love me, Peter?”

“Of course I love you. I love you very much.”

“And I love you,” she said.

Many years later, she asked Joanna about this. “You know, I think Peter loves me, Jo,” she said. “He's never treated me with anything but kindness. But it's just—how can I put it, Jo? It's just that, when I first met him, there was real ardor—real passion, I guess you'd call it, between us. A thrilling, passionate kind of loving we experienced together. Then, later, it wasn't there. If there were another woman, a mistress even, I would understand it. I could accept that. But there isn't any.”

Joanna gave her an odd, mischievous look. “Well,” she said. “who knows? There may be another woman.”

Having just said that she could accept it if there were another woman, it was hard for Sari to know what to say next, but she said it anyway. “Then who? Who could it be?”

“My dear, I haven't the slightest idea.”

“Is love important, Jo? Is it important to be in love?”

Joanna smiled. “In my lusty youth, I used to think so. Now I think the answer is hard work.”

How does one tell another woman, even one's best friend, that in fourteen years of marriage to a man, there has been no sex in the marriage, no sex at all? Though there was sex before. Now it is only endearments: “I love you, Peter.” “I love you, too, Sari.”

And so, for her, the answer had been the same—work, hard work, out in the vineyards on her hands and knees alongside her husband and the Chinks and the wetbacks and the Okies from the Dust Bowl, planting and transplanting vines, chip-budding the new stalks by hand with a grafting knife, and slowly getting rich again. (“How rich are we, Grandma?” Kimmie had asked just yesterday. “It seems that all Mother and Daddy talk about is money anymore.” “Rich enough so that your Grandpa Tillinghast thinks he'd like to take over our company,” she had answered.)

Then, in 1941, when Melissa turned fifteen, Sari made a discovery that cut like a knife through her heart, that night when she and Peter and Joanna were dining at the Mural Room.

About the same time, another disturbing event had taken place. Thomas had reported it to her. “I must speak to you right away, Madam,” he had said.

“Certainly, Thomas.”

“I went down to open up the pool enclosure,” he said. “It's such a nice day that I thought Madam might enjoy her swim in the fresh air.”

“Yes …”

“As I came to the glass door, I saw that Miss Melissa was sitting on the diving board. With Mr. Lance. They were both in a state of undress, Madam.”

“Yes.”

“And it was quite clear to me what was happening, Madam. Miss Melissa was instructing her cousin on how to perform the sexual act.”

“A boy of twelve …”

“He had an erection, Madam, if Madam will pardon the expression.”

“I see. And then what happened?”

“I made a very large noise opening the glass door, and they saw me, and they grabbed their towels and ran into the dressing rooms.”

“Into the same room?”

“He ran into the gentlemen's, and she into the ladies'. I came immediately here.”

“I see. Well, thank you, Thomas. I'll handle this.”

She decided, for reasons of her own, not to apprise Joanna of this episode. Instead, she immediately sent for Dr. Obermark.

Dr. Obermark's face was very grave. “I would recommend two procedures, in light of what you've told me,” he said. “With her history of hysteria and intractability, and her refusal to accept any form of discipline or to conform to normal patterns of restraint, I can only see this latest symptom as a warning to us that she is about to embark upon a career of compulsive promiscuity. I recommend, therefore, that her uterus be surgically removed for her own protection. I would also recommend that she be immediately examined, and treated, by a clinical psychologist. I have an excellent woman in mind.”

Melissa was told that her appendix was inflamed, and would have to be removed. The same story, incidentally, was told to Melissa's father. On the domestic front, Sari handled things by tactfully suggesting to Joanna that, now that things were looking up financially for Baronet, it might be appropriate for Joanna and Lance to find another house or apartment in the city.

But somehow, someone—a nurse, perhaps?—told Melissa what had happened. Or, just as likely, she simply guessed.

A few months after her operation, she said, “Was I a difficult birth, Mother?”

“You were a darling baby.”

“But I'll never know what birth is like, will I.”

“Don't be silly, darling.”

“Then why don't I menstruate anymore, Mother?”

“Not all girls do, Melissa.”

“That's a lie! All girls my age menstruate!”

“Most girls would think it a blessing not to have to menstruate—not to have to get the curse. I know I would.”

“Why do you want me to be a monster, Mother? Why do you want me to be more of a monster than I am already?”

The clinical psychologist whom Dr. Obermark recommended had the unlikely name of Dr. Lilias de Falange. She submitted Melissa to a battery of tests, followed by lengthy interviews, and at the end of that summer she sent out the following typewritten report:

Subject is an attractive, intelligent, well-dressed Caucasian female, with a tendency to underweight, age 15 yrs., 7 mos.

Interpretation of Rorschach session follows:

Considering this child's response to Card V, we clearly have a situation of sexual obsession, as evidenced by fixation on Dd 22, the noted appendage of butterfly, which patient described as a “pulsating toothpick.” That this response is sexual, no one can doubt, but more importantly it demonstrates her conviction that penile insertion is dependent upon emaciation, and thus this shows her own bodily concerns are intimately linked to frigidity in sexual development.

Not only is this patient potentially frigid, she also has evidence of lacunae in affective responses generally noticed in absence of color remarks to cards VIII and IX. What seems to be occurring is a fear of loss of vital fluids. (Could she conceivably be frightened of the onset of menses?) But, more importantly, she seems to be showing a marked void in emotional reciprocity, resulting in a forced, rigid approach to the world, more commonly expressed as a masculine, sadistic front. In short, this child's feelings are truncated.

Patient shows a remarkably similar developmental pattern to that of Dr. Edward Lahniers' pioneering treatise on “vagabond youngsters,” published last year in
Psychological Disturbances of Youth
. In that study he noted the forward progression of a syndrome in which supposedly “loved” children became antagonistic and disorderly towards those authority figures who were responsible for them. Why, he asked, does not affection beget affection? The answer, he found, lay in misaligned allegiances. The child identifies with or takes the part of (either positively or negatively) the parent who has secrets to hide from the other parent. In other words, the child develops symptoms which prevent the parents from recognizing or working out marital problems. The result is emotional mayhem, because so long as the child was serving as a “secret agent,” chaos ruled in the home, but the chaos at least neutralized the child's basic fear of disintegration of the family unit.

Clearly this child is trying to protect secrets. Either she learns to stop being the victim, or she succumbs to chronic hypochondria, insanity, or suicide.

Attached to the report was a bill for five thousand dollars.

Looking back, were the measures Dr. Obermark recommended too harsh, too Draconian? Or does it matter, now that it's too late and the effects were irreversible? Looking back, does any of this matter? Does it matter that, five years later, Dr. Obermark was the same Dr. Otto Obermark, the prominent pediatrician you may have read about, who was arrested for sexually molesting an eight-year-old boy in the underground parking garage below Union Square, and was sent for two years to San Quentin? Does it matter that Dr. Lilias de Falange later ran off with a rodeo performer, moved with him to Albuquerque, and briefly made the papers when their month-old baby strangled itself in its crib, while Dr. de Falange was drinking in a saloon downstairs? Does any of this matter?

It was all years and years ago.

“Mr. Philip Dougherty is calling, Madam, from the
New York Times
.”

“Good Lord, has the
Times
gotten wind of Eric's shenanigans already?” Sari says. “I only had Eric's letter yesterday!”

“I believe this is about the other matter, Madam—LeBaron and Murdock resigning the Baronet account. Mr. Dougherty writes the advertising column.”

“Oh. Well, tell him I'll have a prepared statement for him in half an hour.”

Sari has known that some sort of statement will have to be forthcoming from her end of things. It was only a matter of time. At first, she has considered some sort of angrily worded statement, repudiating Joanna and her agency. “My sister-in-law has obviously gone soft in the head,” she has thought of saying. Or, “LeBaron and Murdock didn't resign us. We fired them for gross incompetence.” And yet, now, considering what Eric is proposing, and the fact that this, too, will eventually come to the attention of the press, the wiser tactic would be to diffuse any impression that a family feud might be brewing. One can sometimes accomplish more with honey than with vinegar, as they say. A more gently worded statement from Baronet's president seems to be in order. In five minutes, she has composed it.

It is with genuine regret that Baronet Vineyards, Inc., announces its departure from LeBaron & Murdock, its agency for more than thirty years. “As evidence of the deep respect in which we continue to hold LeBaron & Murdock, what more powerful evidence can we hold up than the fact that, since 1952, when we first came to the agency, Baronet's sales have risen from 150,000 cases a year to over 3,000,000 cases a year,” a Baronet spokesperson said today. “The parting of the ways comes as a result of small but persistent differences in merchandising philosophies.”