Praying for Sleep

18

One who loves flowers and literature can’t doubt the existence of God. The lesson He’s got for us, though, probably isn’t so hot. We see miracles daily, that’s true. On the other hand God’s got the universe to mind and doesn’t have much time for passengers on colliding trains, kids dragged to death behind buses, and dear friends murdered by a madman in a state park.

“That,” Lis explained to Richard Kohler, “was the thought I just couldn’t get out of my mind. For months after the murder I repeated it to practically everyone I met. I’m sure they thought I was totally mad.”

Kohler nodded her bit of theology politely aside and frowned sympathetically. “You lost two friends at the same time. How terrible. I didn’t know about the girl’s death.”

Lis was silent for a long moment. Finally she said, “No, it wasn’t featured in the news about the trial. Her death was considered accidental.”

“May I ask…?”

Lis glanced at him inquiringly.

“Did you hear anyone call for help?”

“How do you mean?”

“Claire, I’m thinking of. Before you saw Michael and ran into the cave, did you hear her scream?”

When Lis didn’t respond, Kohler added, “It just seems that with Michael chasing her down the path… I mean, he was chasing her, wasn’t he?”

Lis couldn’t guess the purpose of his questions. After a moment she said, “I didn’t hear anything. There weren’t any screams.”

“Why would she go into the cave in the first place?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s curious, isn’t it? You’d think with Michael after her, she’d continue running down the canyon. A cave is the last place I’d want to be with Michael chasing me.”

She was testy. “I can’t speak for her. Obviously.”

“I’m just wondering. Later, did you think about it? A young girl, being chased by a huge man like Michael. I would’ve thought she’d scream at some point.”

“Maybe she did. Maybe I didn’t hear her. I don’t really-”

“It was close to where you were looking for her though, wasn’t it?” Kohler persisted. “From the way you described it, I-”

“It was close to where I was, yes, but…” She felt cross-examined and forced herself to be calm. “I don’t know. Maybe I blocked it out. Maybe she did scream, and I don’t remember it. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Oh, sure. Post-trauma stress. Very possible.”

“Well, then.”

Kohler said something, perhaps by way of apology, but Lis didn’t hear. She was thinking: Claire. My poor Claire. And pictured the girl’s pale eyes, the hair that tumbled over her shoulders like water, the white mouth that needed lipstick the girl was too bashful to apply.

She had grieved for Robert, yes, but it was the girl’s death that hurt her the deepest. She hadn’t known that she could be so attached to a youngster. Lis had always felt a certain uneasiness around children, even her students. She rarely put it that way and tended to think of her and Owen’s childlessness as circumstance. But the truth was, she just hadn’t wanted a son or daughter. She couldn’t picture the Atcheson family on a picnic, austere Owen cradling an infant Andy, she herself dropping a line of formula onto her wrist to test the temperature. Baby showers. Strollers. PTA meetings. Embarrassing conversations about the facts of life…

But about Claire Lis felt differently. Claire she’d sought out. Lis viewed the girl through a rare crack in the wall of distant time and saw in the student’s eyes and halting manners the effigy of another thin, shy girl from years before. A child whose father was both intimate and hating, and whose mother dared to be truly present only when her man was not. Lis could not refuse the covert pleas for help-like the times the girl stayed after class to ask intelligent if calculated questions about Jacobean drama, or happened-too coincidentally-to find herself walking beside her teacher on the deserted riverside behind the school.

Lis was again picturing Claire’s face when she realized that the psychiatrist was asking her a question. He wanted to know about the trial.

“The trial?” she repeated softly. “Well, I got to the courthouse early…”

“Just you?”

“I refused to let Owen come with me. It’s hard to explain but I wanted to keep what happened at Indian Leap as separate as possible from my home. Owen spent the day with Dorothy. After all, she was the widow. She needed comforting more than I.”

Inside the courtroom, when Lis first saw Hrubek-it’d been five and a half weeks since the murder-he looked smaller than she recalled. He was pale, sickly. He squinted at her and his mouth twisted into an eerie smile. As she walked down the aisle Lis tried to keep her eyes on the prosecutor, a young woman with a mass of flyaway hair. She’d been prepping Lis all week for the court appearance. Lis sat behind her but in full view of Hrubek. His hands were manacled in front of him and he lifted them as far as he could then simply stared at her, his lips moving compulsively.

“God, it was eerie.”

“That’s just dyskinesia,” Kohler explained. “It’s a condition caused by antipsychotic drugs.”

“Whatever, it was scary as hell. When he spoke he almost gave me a heart attack. He jumped up and said, ‘Conspiracy!’ And ‘Revenge,’ or something. I don’t remember exactly.”

Apparently these outbursts had happened before, because everyone, including the judge, ignored him. As she walked past he grew very calm and asked her in a conversational tone if she knew where he was on the night of April 14 at 10:30 p.m.

“April 14?”

“That’s right.”

“And the murder was May 1, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Did April 14 mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. A small notation went into Kohler’s book. “Please go on.”

“Hrubek said, ‘I was murdering somebody…’ I’m not quoting exactly. Something like, ‘I was murdering somebody. The moon rose blood red and ever since that day I have been the victim of a conspiracy-’ ”

“ Lincoln ’s assassination!” Kohler looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“I’m sorry?”

“Didn’t it happen in mid-April?”

“I think it was around then, yes.”

Another notation.

With disdain Lis observed the brief smile that crossed Kohler’s lips then she continued, “He was saying, ‘I’ve been implanted with tracking and listening devices. I’ve been tortured.’ Sometimes he was incoherent, sometimes he sounded like a doctor or lawyer.”

Lis was the main prosecution witness. She swore her oath then settled in a huge wooden chair. On its seat was a crocheted cushion and she wondered if it had been made by the wife of the grizzled, slouching judge. “The prosecutor asked me to tell the court what happened that day. And I did.”

Her testimony seemed to take an eternity. She later learned she was in the spotlight for all of eight minutes.

She was dreading cross-examination by the defense attorney. But she wasn’t called. Hrubek’s lawyer said simply, “No questions,” and she spent the next several hours in the gallery.

“All I could do was stare at the plastic bags that contained the rock stained with Robert’s blood, and the kitchen knife. I sat in the back of the courtroom with Tad…” Kohler lifted an inquiring eyebrow. “He’s a former student of mine. He does work for me around the yard and greenhouse. I told everybody I knew not to attend the trial. But Tad ignored me. He was there all day long, cheerful and smiling. We sat together.”

Before she testified, the young man found her in the corridor outside and handed her a paper bag. Inside was a yellow rose. He’d trimmed the thorns and cut the stem back, wrapped it in wet paper towels. Lis had cried and kissed him on the cheek.

“Was it a long trial?” Kohler asked.

Not really, she explained. The defense lawyer didn’t dispute the fact that Hrubek had killed Robert. He relied on the insanity defense-Hrubek lacked the mental state to understand that his acts were criminal. Under the M’Naghten rule, Lis relayed to Kohler what she’d learned during the jury instruction, the death becomes an act of God. The lawyer didn’t even put Hrubek on the stand. He offered medical reports and depositions, which were read out loud by a clerk. This all had to do with Hrubek’s inability to appreciate the consequences of his actions.

All that time the madman had sat at the defense table, hunched over, twining his dirty hair between blunt fingers, laughing and muttering, filling sheet after sheet of foolscap with tiny frantic characters and lines. She hadn’t paid any attention to these doodlings then but understood later that he hadn’t been as crazy as it appeared-this was undoubtedly how he’d recorded her name and address.

A verdict of not guilty by reason of diminished capacity was entered. Under Section 403 of the Mental Health Law, Hrubek would be classified as dangerously insane and would be incarcerated indefinitely in a state hospital, to be reevaluated annually.

“I left the courthouse. Then-”

“And what about the incident,” Kohler asked, palms meeting as if he were clapping in slow motion, “with the chair?”

“Chair?”

“He jumped up on a chair or table.”

Ah, yes. That.

The courtroom began to empty. Suddenly a huge voice rose over the murmuring of the spectators and press. Michael Hrubek was shouting. He threw a bailiff to the ground and climbed onto his chair. The manacles clanked and he lifted his arms over his head. He began screaming. His eyes met Lis’s for a moment and she froze. Guards subdued Hrubek, and a bailiff hustled her out of the courtroom.

“What did he say?”

“Say?”

“When he was on the chair. Did he shout anything?”

“I think he was just howling. Like an animal.”

“The article said he shouted, ‘You’re the Eve of betrayal. ’ ”

“Could be.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. I don’t.”

Kohler was shaking his head. “Michael had therapy sessions with me. Three times a week. During one he said, ‘Betrayal, betrayal. Oh, she’s courting disaster. She sat in that court, and now she’s courting disaster. All that betrayal. Eve’s the one.’ When I asked him what he meant, he became agitated. As if he’d let an important secret slip. He wouldn’t talk about it. He’s mentioned betrayal several times since then. You have any thoughts on what it might mean?”

“No. I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“And afterwards?”

“After the trial?” Lis sipped the strong coffee. “Well, I took a trip to hell.”

After the publicity faded and Hrubek was committed in Marsden, Lis resumed the life she’d led before the tragedy. At first her routine seemed largely unchanged-teaching summer school, spending Sundays at the country club with Owen, visiting friends, tending the garden. She was perhaps the last person to notice that her life was unraveling.

Occasionally she’d skip a shower. She’d forget the names of guests attending her own cocktail parties. She might happen to glance down as she walked through the corridors of the school and find that she was wearing mismatched shoes. She’d teach Dryden instead of the scheduled Pope and berate students for failing to read material she’d never assigned. Sometimes in lectures and in conversations she found herself gazing at embarrassed, perplexed faces and could only wonder what on earth she’d just uttered.

“It was as if I was sleepwalking.”

She withdrew into her greenhouse and mourned.

Owen, patient initially, grew tired of Lis’s torpor and absentmindedness and they began to fight. He spent more time on business trips. She stayed home more and more frequently, venturing outside only for her classes. Her sleep problems grew worse: it was not unusual for her to remain awake for twenty-four hours straight.

Adding to Lis’s difficulty was Dorothy, who stepped as brusquely into widowhood as she slipped into the front seat of her Mercedes SL. She was gaunt and pale and didn’t smile for two months. Yet she functioned, and functioned quite well. Owen several times held her out as an example of someone who took tragedy in stride. “Well, I’m not like her, Owen. I never have been. I’m sorry.”

When Dorothy sold her house and moved to the Jersey shore in July, it was not she but Lis who cried during their farewell lunch.

Lis’s life became school and her greenhouse, where she would snip plants and wander like a lost child over the slate path, her face occasionally damp as the leaves of a plantain lily.

But gradually she improved. She took Prozac for a time, which made her jaw quiver and fingers tremble and infused her dreams with spectacular effects. It also aggravated the insomnia. She switched to Pamelor, which was gentler.

And then, one day, she simply stopped taking the pills and hung up her housecoat.

“I can’t tell you what happened. Or when exactly. But I suddenly just knew it was time to get on with my life. And I did.”

“I’d had some clues that Michael’s delusion involves American history,” Kohler told her. “Particularly the Civil War… ‘Sic semper tyrannis’-that’s what Booth shouted after he shot Lincoln.”

“ ‘Thus ever to tyrants.’ ” Lis the schoolteacher added, “It’s also the state motto of Virginia.”

“And the April 14 reference. The assassination.”

“What does Lincoln have to do with anything?”

Kohler shook his head. “Michael’s been very reluctant to talk to me about his delusions. Only hints, cryptic phrases. He didn’t trust me.”

“Even you, his doctor?”

“Especially me, his doctor. That’s the nature of his illness. He’s paranoid. He’s always accusing me of trying to get information out of him for the FBI or Secret Service. He has a core delusion but I can’t get to the bottom of it. I suppose it centers on the Civil War, Lincoln ’s death, conspirators. Or some event he associates with the assassination. I don’t know.”

“Why’s his delusion so important?”

“Because it’s central to his illness. It explains to him why every day is so unbearably hard. A schizophrenic’s life,” Kohler lectured, “is a search for meaning.”

And whose isn’t? Lis wondered.

“It’s a very controversial matter right now,” the doctor said, adding that he himself was considered a bit of a renegade. She thought he was a little too smug with this characterization of himself. “Schizophrenia is a physical illness. Just like cancer or appendicitis. You have to treat it with drugs. No one disputes that. But I differ from most of my colleagues in thinking that you can also treat schizophrenic patients very effectively with psychotherapy.”

“I can’t really imagine Hrubek lying on a couch talking about his childhood.”

“Neither could Freud. He said schizophrenic patients shouldn’t be treated with psychoanalysis. Most psychiatrists agree. The current treatment is to get them on brain candy-that’s how the cynics among us refer to their medication-and force them to accept reality, teach them to order in restaurants and do their own laundry, then turn them loose. And it’s true-extended analysis, with the patient on the couch, that’s wrong for people like Michael. But certain types of psychotherapy work very well. Seriously ill patients can learn to function at a very high level.

“Most psychiatrists think that schizophrenic patients ramble incoherently, that their delusions are meaningless. I think that almost everything they say is meaning-full. The more we try to translate their words into our way of thinking, yes, the more pointless those words are. But if we try to grasp their metaphoric meaning, then doors open up. Take a Napoleon, okay? That’s the popular image of a schizophrenic. I won’t try to convince a patient that he isn’t Napoleon. And I wouldn’t just pat him on the head and say, “Bonjour,” when I pass him in the hall. I’d try to find out why he thinks he’s the emperor of France. Nine times out of ten there’s a reason. And once I know that, I can start to unlock doors. I’ve had remarkable results with patients-and some of them are a lot sicker than Michael.” He added bitterly, “I was just getting inside him, I was almost there… When this happened.”

“You make him sound innocent.”

“He is innocent. That’s the perfect word for him.”

She thought angrily, Oh, isn’t the good doctor used to people buying his bill of goods? The malleable patients who nod their damaged heads and shuffle off to obey. The sorrowful families pecking through his pompous words for comfort like birds for seed. Young, terrified interns and nurses. “How on earth,” she asked, “can you romanticize him? He’s just a set of muscles free to do whatever he wants. He’s a machine run amok.”

“Not at all. Michael’s tormented by the inability to achieve what he thinks he can become. That conflict shows itself as what we call madness. To him, his delusions are merciful explanations for why he can’t be like the rest of the world.”

“You seem to be saying his disease isn’t anybody’s fault.” She waved her arm at the clouds speeding past. “Well, neither are tornadoes but we’d stop them if we could. We should stop Hrubek. Somebody should… lock him up and throw away the key.” She’d come a split second away from saying, track him down and shoot him. “He’s just a psychopath!”

“No, he isn’t. That’s a very different diagnosis from schizophrenia. Psychopaths adapt well to society. They seem normal-they have jobs and families-but they’re completely detached from morality and emotion. They’re evil. A psychopath would kill you because you took his parking place or wouldn’t give him ten dollars. And he wouldn’t think twice about it. Michael would only kill for the same reasons you would-self-defense, for instance.”

“Please, Doctor. Michael’s harmless? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“No, of course not. But…” Kohler’s voice faded. “I’m sorry. I’ve upset you.”

After a moment Lis said, “No. We see things differently, that’s all.” But she said it quite coolly.

“It’s late. I’ve used up my twenty minutes.” He rose and walked toward the kitchen. When they approached the back door, he asked, “One thing I’m still curious about. Why would he associate you with betrayal? ‘The Eve of betrayal.’ ‘Revenge.’ ‘Forever.’ Why?”

“Well, I suppose because I testified against him.” She lifted her palms at the simplicity of this deduction.

“You think that’s it?”

“I suppose. I really don’t know.”

Kohler nodded and fell silent. A moment later his mind made another of its odd leaps, punctuated by a stab at his pale scalp with a nervous finger. “There’s a car lot outside of town, isn’t there?”

She thought she’d misheard him. “A car lot? What did you say?”

“Cars. A dealership.”

“Well, yes. But…”

“I’m thinking of the big one. All lit up. A Ford dealership.”

“Klepperman’s Ford, that’s right.”

“Where is it exactly?”

“Half mile outside of town. On Route 236. Just over the hills east of town. Why?”

“Just curious.”

She waited for an explanation but none came and it was clear that the interview, or interrogation, or whatever it had been, was over. Kohler cleared his throat and thanked her. She was grateful he was leaving; the visit had angered her. But she was confused too. What had he learned that was so helpful?

And what had he not told her?

Outside, walking to his car, they both looked up at the thick clouds. The wind was fierce now and whipped her hair in an irritating way, flinging it into her face.

“Doctor?” Lis stopped him, touching his bony upper arm. “Tell me, what are the odds that he’s on his way here?”

Kohler continued to gaze at the clouds. “The odds? The odds are that they’ll find him soon, and even if not, that he’d never make it this far alone. But if you want my opinion I think you should go to that hotel you mentioned.”

He glanced at her for a moment then it was clear that his thoughts were elsewhere, maybe wandering with his terrified, mad patient through brush and forests, lost on highways, sitting in a deserted cabin somewhere. As she watched him walk to his car, she pushed aside her anger for a moment and saw Kohler for the ambitious young physician that he was, and tough and devoted. And undoubtedly damn smart too. But she sensed something else about him and was unable for a few moments to fathom exactly what that might be. His car had disappeared down the long driveway before she understood. Dr. Richard Kohler, Lis decided, was a very worried man.

The ambulance and the police car arrived simultaneously, their urgent lights painting the underside of the trees with peculiar metallic illumination. The brakes squealed and the yard was filled with uniformed men and women, equipment, stretchers, electric boxes dotted with lights and buttons. The medics trotted toward the large colonial house. The police too, holstering their long flashlights as they ran.

Owen Atcheson sat on the back steps beside the kitchen door, which was still open. His head was in his hands as he watched the medics run toward the doorway. One said to him, “You called nine-one-one? Reported a woman was attacked?”

He nodded.

“Where is she?”

“In the kitchen,” Owen said, exhaustion and discouragement thick in his voice. “But you can take your time.”

“How’s that?”

“I said there’s no rush. The only place she’s going tonight is the morgue.”