Case of Lucy Bending (51 page)

"I am not wrong," Levin said stubbornly, "and I am not going to lose a patient. I've twiddled around with this thing long enough. What we're doing is an art, not a science; you know that. Well, I've got to follow my instincts on this."

"Good luck," she said.

He listened to the tape recording of his last session with Grace Bending. He listened to it again. It seemed to him that if he had been harder, more demanding, he might have uncovered the truth. She had been close to breaking, but he had let her off. This time he was determined not to let her escape.

He sensed her hostility the moment she strode into his office. Her shoulders were back, spine stiff. And she had reverted to her former mode of dress: man-tailored suit, blouse buttoned to the neck, hair drawn back tightly and wound into a chignon.

Her manner was definitely chilly. Her smile was a ghost. She answered his polite greetings with monosyllables. She assumed a ladylike position in the armchair: knees together and turned to one side, ankles crossed, her white-gloved hands clasped in her lap.

But, peering at her closely through his thick glasses, Dr. Levin thought he detected signs of tension. Chin held rigidly lifted. A slight tremor in those clasped hands. She met his stare briefly, then her eyes slid away.

"Mrs. Bending," he began gently, "I need your help." He paused, but when she made no comment, he continued. "We are now at a stage in Lucy's therapy where absolute honesty from all concerned is not only desirable but essential if we are to discover the cause of Lucy's behavior. And once having established the cause, her adjustment becomes surer and swifter.

"I have always been honest with you, doctor," she said in an iron voice.

He combed his beard with his fingers and looked down, surprised, as flakes of cigar ash fell onto his lapels.

"I think," he said, "that there are things you feel I have no need to know. Yes, I believe you have been honest—but only up to a point. You have not revealed to me certain information because you felt it was not germane to Lucy's problem."

Again he waited, but again she made no reply.

"What you have done, Mrs. Bending, is to follow your own judgment as to what is relevant, rather than trusting mine. As a result, I have not been given all the pertinent, uh, background that might enable me to help Lucy the way she should be helped."

"I don't know what you mean," she said, looking down at her white gloves.

"Oh, I think you do," he said. "You have withheld things from me, not from any conscious desire to prolong Lucy's therapy, but because they concerned matters too painful to reveal. Too painful to
you."

"I've answered all your questions," she said defiantly.

"True," he said, nodding. "But I did not ask the right questions. You could have overcome my lapse by volunteering information, which you did not."

"I don't know what you're getting at," she said tensely.

"I shall inform you," he said pontifically. "But first I want to assure you that I am not here to judge. Still less to condemn. I ask you to be as open with me as you possibly can. I realize that I am asking a great deal. Confession can frequently be an agonizing, a traumatic experience. It can also be a catharsis that may aid you as much as it helps Lucy."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He sighed. "Mrs. Bending, do you remember a party you and your husband had at your home about four years ago? A sit-down dinner for about twenty people?"

"My goodness, we've had a lot of parties over the years."

"This was a special occasion. Your husband had just won a large contract and you decided to celebrate. You had the dinner catered, and even hired a trio to provide music for dancing."

She mimed deep thought: brows knitted, forehead wrinkled. "I seem to recall something like that, but it's very hazy."

"Is it? Lucy remembers it very well. She wore a new dress. A white dress with pink ribbons. It was the first time she was allowed to come downstairs and dine at the same table with the grown-ups. The first time she danced with her father. And the first time she was allowed to stay up an hour past her usual bedtime."

"Well, I suppose a child would remember things like that. It must have seemed very important and exciting to her."

"Lucy remembers, but you do not—is that it?"

"That's correct."

He sat back and regarded her gravely. There were three possibilities: (1) she actually didn't remember; (2) the memory was there but blocked by the self-protective mechanism of the psyche; (3) she was deliberately lying.

Actually, he realized, (2) and (3) were probably one: she was lying because she was blocking. Admission would be too devastating; it would tear her apart. So she thought. Dr. Levin was willing to risk it.

"You don't remember," he repeated. "Odd. Your husband can recall that party as clearly as Lucy. A great deal of drinking going on. Dancing. The smoking of marijuana cigarettes."

She shrugged. "That could have been any party."

"It happened four years ago. You were drinking at that time?"

"I suppose."

"You smoked a joint?"

"I may have."

"Things got looser and looser, did they not? Couples began to pair off, to disappear into the darkness. Not husbands and wives, but—"

"Will you stop it?" Grace Bending said in a loud voice. "Will you just stop it? I find this all very vulgar and, uh, disgusting."

"No, I will not stop it," Levin said stonily. "I shall continue. At this party, men and women, swapping mates, left for periods of time for the beach, the bushes, parked cars. And they—"

"I'm leaving this office," she declared, looking about wildly. '
⁴
I refuse to sit here and listen to—"

"Your husband amongst others," he went on inexorably. "Just disappeared. But you were aware of his absence. And, perhaps, looking around to see which women were gone, you could guess who it was he—"

"Stop it!" she screamed at him. "Stop it this instant!" "Was it revenge, Mrs. Bending? Or just the drinking, the joints, the sexual excitement of that night? Maybe you didn't give a damn where your husband was; he had been unfaithful so often before. Maybe you just decided what was sauce for the goose . . . and so forth. Your motives aren't important. I don't care about your motives. But you—" "I didn't!" she yelled. "I swear I didn't!" "You did!" he said, slamming a heavy palm onto his desk top. "I know you did. Everyone else was doing it; why not you? Lucy had gone up to sleep a long time before. So you thought it was safe to take this man—"

"Oh you bastard!" Mrs. Bending spat at him. "You fucking bastard!"

⁴
'Would you like me to repeat the dialogue?" he said cruelly. "I can even do that. You said, 'I don't care. I just don't care.' And the man said, 'Are you sure we're alone?' And then he touched you under your dress, and you said, 'Hurry. Hurry.'"

He saw Grace Bending begin to rock, bobbing back and forth in the armchair. Her arms hung limply, white gloves dangling. She seemed to be choking for breath, face suffused, eyes swollen and tongue protruding.

⁴⁴
I made the mistake of thinking Lucy saw your husband," Levin went on. "But now I see it can only have been you and another man. Your husband would never have said, 'Are you sure we're alone?' to a woman he had brought up to your bedroom. But another man would say it, to you. And Lucy, next door, still awake after the excitement of the party, heard the voices. Did she come toddling out, Mrs. Bending? Did you neglect to lock your bedroom door? Did Lucy open the door, stand there in her little white nightgown perhaps, rubbing her eyes and watching what—"

"Motherfucker!" Mrs. Bending shrieked. "You cock-sucker! Oh, you piece of shit! You're like all the rest, you filthy, rotten man. I hate you, you slimy, crawling thing. Vile! You stinking . . . You call yourself a doctor. You lousy son of a bitch. I hate you, you goddamned . . . You disgusting . . .I'd like to cut off your prick and balls, you sickening monster. I'd like to kill you, yes, rip your filthy heart out by the roots and let you bleed to—"

He let her rave, watching her hysteria with clinical detachment. Noting the white spittle gathering in the corners of her lips. Bulging eyes. Distended cords in her neck. Complexion flushed. Limbs in uncontrollable quiver. He saw her head go back, mouth in ugly rictus.

"Oooh!" she howled. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I did! I did! It's all my fault. The first time. Oh God! The first time. And he . . . But I . . . Jesus, forgive me. Jesus, I have sinned, I have sinned grievously. Oh, pardon my sins, Lord Jesus. Wash me clean, Lord Jesus. Give me your strength. Give me your love. It's all my fault. Lord Jesus, I confess. Yes, yes, everything. Take this burden from my heart. Cleanse me of filth and wickedness. Oooh, oooh . . . It's all my fault."

She slumped, eyes closed. Her body went slack, threatened to slide from the chair. There was sudden paleness. Her breathing seemed weak. Necklaces of sweat beaded her brow and upper lip. Her head flopped to one side.

Dr. Theodore Levin had smelling salts in his desk, but he preferred to let her revive normally. The swoon lasted little more than a minute. She stirred, blinked, looked about dazedly. She slowly straightened in the chair.

He poured water from his desk carafe and pushed the glass across to her. She sipped gratefully.

"I'm sorry," she said in a quavery voice.

He wanted to tell her that the only thing she had to be sorry for was not telling him sooner. She had prolonged Lucy's therapy by her silence. But, he supposed, she realized that.

"Breathe deeply," he advised her. "Take a few minutes. If you still feel faint, bend over and put your head between your knees. And above all, know that the world hasn't come to an end." He gave her a crooked smile.

She breathed deeply. She plucked her clothing straight. She opened her purse to peer in the mirror. She poked at her hair. She dabbed at brow and neck with a tissue. Then she snapped her purse shut, resumed her ladylike posture. She looked everywhere except at Dr. Levin.

"I apologize," she said in a dead voice. "For my language."

He shrugged. "You didn't use any words that I haven't heard before."

"Lucy doesn't use language like that, does she?"

"No. Lucy, except for her aberrance, is a very well-behaved child."

"Thank you," she said faintly. Then: "I suppose that what I did, uh, I suppose that's why Lucy acts the way she does."

"Oh, Mrs. Bending," he said with a wave of his hand, "human behavior is such a tangle. A can of worms. I wish I could give you a definite answer. I wish I could say Yes, Lucy saw you making love to a strange man in a bedroom used only by you and her father, and that experience triggered her deviant conduct. It would be wonderful if life was that simple, if A led inevitably to B. But we are not neat, simple, logical beings. There is always C and D and E, and on through and beyond the alphabet. All I can say now is that witnessing the, ah, incident was undoubtedly a contributing factor to Lucy's problem. It might help if you told me a little more about it."

She looked at him, amazed. "I thought you knew. You described it so well. I thought Lucy had told you."

"Suppose
you
tell me."

She inhaled deeply. "Of course I remember that party. How can I ever forget it? It was like you said: drinking, dancing, smoking pot. I suppose things got a little out of hand. I don't know what it was. But some parties are like that. I know I was wild. I'm not going to blame it on the drinks or the grass; I knew what I was doing. It's all my fault."

"You knew your husband had left?"

"I didn't see him leave, but I knew he was gone, yes. And I guessed who he was with. So I thought—why not me? Why should I be left out?"

"Mrs. Bending, I don't want to know any names, but can you tell me this: Was the man you, ah, went upstairs with, was he the husband of the woman you suspected of being with your husband?"

"No. Do you mean did I do it to get back at Ronnie? Oh
ⁿ
°, it was nothing like that. I just did it to—to—I guess I did it because I wanted to prove I was still attractive to other men. I really don't know why I did it."

"And Lucy witnessed it?"

"Yes. Briefly. It happened pretty much as you said. We should have locked the door, I know, but we didn't. Too excited, I guess. Then I looked up, and Lucy was standing there. By the way, she was wearing pajamas, not a nightgown."

"Was the act, ah, consummated?"

She smiled wryly. "In the process. After I saw Lucy watching us, it was never, as you say, consummated."

"What happened after you saw her?"

"I think I screamed. I know I got off the bed. Lucy ran back to her own bedroom and slammed the door. I wanted to go to her, but the man I was with, he said maybe it would be best to leave her alone. He said maybe she'd fall asleep, and when she woke up in the morning, she wouldn't remember it. Or think it had been a bad dream. He said not to make a big deal out of it."

Levin couldn't have told her whether or not that was the wisest course. Who could predict what the child might or might not remember? Who could have said whether it might or might not affect her future behavior? Undoubtedly other young children had witnessed similar episodes with no lasting harm.