Other people

Thirteen Koch

I think about this name Thomassy. Never have I heard a name like that exactly. George could be anything, Georg, Georgio, Jorge, Georges, the English had kings named George. Everywhere the Tigris and Euphrates fertilize, the land is rich with Georges. In the thirties, if this Thomassy was to be an actor, the movie people would call him what? George Thomas? Now they keep their names. George Segal. They put foreign flags on their bumpers. My forebears came from somewhere else, make something of it, a challenge to the Wasp world whose daughters run loose among Greeks, Italians, Jews, whatnot, seeking interesting genes. Almighty, You are manipulating us for some plan that will give us again a Jewbaby hidden in the bulrushes by a shiksa of high station. In the Sistine Chapel the fingers still almost touch. Scientists bring their children to look up at God and Adam. Do they laugh? Do they say it is a good painting period? They do not? They are in awe. Gunther, Marta would say were she still alive, you are about to declare yourself a failure. You still think of yourself the way your mother thought of you: Go out into the world and make a name for yourself, meaning that if your mind leads you to interesting speculations, put them down, make an article, a book even, pass them on. Success she demanded, meaning the name that she gave you will be recognized. Gunther, Marta would say, it is permitted to be a dilettante if that pleases you, it is not a failure to depart the world leaving no grandchildren and no books. Passing through is okay, Marta, my heart cries, it would be a comfort to believe you! It is not my mother who is nagging me now, it is myself telling me that I am sixty and there is not much time to leave a mark.

I was meandering in thoughts like these when the doorbell rang and I went to greet this Thomassy. We shook hands. I do not want him in the study where I see my patients. I show him to a comfortable chair in my living room. He looks at me, I look at him, two animals of similar but different species inhabiting the same forest and meeting for the first time.

I would say he is in his middle forties. No accent, therefore probably American born or arrived before the age of twelve. Perhaps Greek-looking, but taller by far than Greeks, and in his movement strength, in his face I see what I envy, a man the world will not abuse easily. I wish I had a Rorschach of him!

"How much time have we got?" he says.

"You have twenty-five years, I have ten."

It takes him only a second to see that I am subtracting from three score and ten, and he laughs.

"You have a good laugh," I tell him.

"As distinguished from?"

"A bad laugh is a form of manipulation. I laugh to show I despise what you have said or what you are. I put you down. A good laugh is a quick, uncontrolled reaction, finding amusement or joy. Yours was a good laugh."

"Thank you," Thomassy said. "I suppose we get to think of analysts in terms of fifty minutes. We may need more. I have quite a few questions."

"Take all the time you need. Have you ever been to an analyst yourself?"

"No."

"Forgive me," I said, "I didn't mean to intrude on your private life. It's just I wanted to know if I may use the terms of reference we have. You are familiar with them?"

"Oh yes," he said. "Even the uneducated witness in the box now recognizes his unconscious slips have meaning."

I nodded. "Before we begin," I said, "I wonder if you would satisfy a small point of curiosity. I have not heard the name Thomassy before."

"It's Armenian, Thomassian. I shortened it."

"Why?"

"To keep people guessing. Koch is German?"

"I am a Jew," I said.

"I knew someone once who spent months trying to find a Gentile psychoanalyst."

"An anti-Semite looking to avoid a transference?"

"I guess he thought a Christian would be more forgiving."

I could not help laughing.

"I guess that was a good laugh," said Thomassy.

I was liking the man, which surprised me. I expect lawyers to be like lawyers the way the inexperienced expect Jews to be like Jews.

"Armenians suffered a great deal," I said.

"Most people don't know they exist."

"They were the first Christians. They carried their cross into the twentieth century."

"My father left his at Ellis Island."

"Too much was left at Ellis Island. We are beginning to reclaim it." I sighed. "The Turks were as bad as the Nazis."

"No," said Thomassy. "They weren't hypocrites. No Beethovens, Kants, no claims of high civilization. They hated us, they wanted us all dead. Straightforward. Anyway, I'm not here to right the wrongs of the world, doctor. I just want to see if I can be of some help to…"

"The Widmer woman, of course."

"Francine."

"Yes, let us call her Francine. She has asked you to pursue her assailant until he is punished for violating the one orifice that requires permission for its senses to be activated."

Thomassy seemed puzzled.

"The ears hear whatever sounds strike them," I explained. "The eyes, when open, see. The nose smells full time. The vagina requires an admission ticket."

"Dr. Koch, if you talk like that, I promise I'll never call you as a witness."

"Splendid. Already I have accomplished something."

"Francine feels she has been the victim of a serious crime some men don't understand."

I could not help sighing again. Francine had been working on him. "There are a thousand ways in which we rape each other, including ways that cause death sooner or later, yet there is only one form of rape that is categorized as a major crime. I think women have had greater influence on the law than they think."

"You think, doctor, that she is making too much of what happened to her?"

"No. But one must understand the woman to understand what this particular event meant. Can I get you some coffee?"

Thomassy said he preferred a scotch and soda. "I will join you," I said, "though I am not a drinker really." Then, settled once more, I said, "Francine is a zealot, which means she will try to pursue an idea till its end. She has courage, what we men chauvinistically refer to as 'balls.' "

"Would you explain?"

"It is my lifelong adventure to explain. It is my ego's flower. She has political interests, in the broad sense, as do many young women of this period. Where does she find employment? In the most conspicuous place where power does not work at all. In the enemy camp, in the United Nations. She is probably a disruptive force there, or could be. Do you find her disruptive?"

"Yes. I also find her attractive."

He too? "That can be a handicap with a client as with a patient."

"Yes," said Thomassy.

"What attracts you?"

"I don't want to bore you."

"No, no, go on."

"Spunk. What you said, balls."

"An aggressive quality normally associated with males. We analysts sometimes pay close attention to words. You know the other meaning of spunk?"

"Semen."

"Yes. Now how do you think I might help with this case of hers?"

Thomassy lit up his pipe, giving him a moment to formulate. I'm sure he does not enjoy this luxury in the courtroom. There would be other devices. Going to the counsel table for a pad. Pacing.

"Let me outline the problems I see," he said. "I will have a hard time convincing the District Attorney to press the case, even to the point of taking it before the Grand Jury."

"Why?"

"Because there is no external corroborating evidence. So many rape accusations come to nothing because rape is almost impossible to prove."

"Like love. Have you ever been in love?"

Koch, Koch, don't flirt with dangerous questions. "Go on," I said, "I didn't mean to interrupt."

Thomassy continued. "If you have property and someone takes it from you, if you can prove the property was yours, that you no longer have it, and that the accused now has it, and you say — even if there are no witnesses — that you did not give him permission to take it, then there is an easy basis for a juror agreeing."

"I see the problem with rape."

"I cannot take this case before a Grand Jury. I have to convince a district attorney to do so. And the prosecutor knows that if he gets the Grand Jury to see that there is sufficient evidence that a crime may have been committed, he will then have to face the choosing of twelve citizens who will decide. The prosecutor will want women on the jury because they share the fear of rape and they may be svmpathetic to Francine. But the defense counsel will want men, many of whom will have a touch or more of coercion in their past. The prosecutor will give in on men who have a daughter Francine's age. The defense counsel will try for the older, conservative male — preferably without daughters — who will automatically react adversely to the fact that Francine is physically attractive, and therefore tempting, that she does not wear a brassiere, which is a provocation, that she is not married yet at twenty-seven and the jury will get the idea she's been around. Under the new law, the defendant's lawyer can't cross-examine her about her sex life without risking a contempt citation, but so what? Her life style will be apparent, and that's enough to condemn her in a lot of eyes. For me, the most difficult aspect is that I will have to do whatever I can from backstage, as it were. It is the prosecutor and the defense counsel who will be adversaries in the arena, the people versus the defendant. As her lawyer I have no role except to shore up the reluctant prosecution as best I can. You see the problems?"

I nodded.

"I see the game plan as follows," Thomassy continued. "A minority of men," he looked at me, "are attracted to smart, even aggressively smart women."

"An equal combatant on the field of life."

Thomassy liked that. "However," he said, "the chance of getting more than one or two such men on the jury is poor. On the contrary, there will be some men — the defense counsel will fight like hell to get them on — who are working class, or middle class with a working-class orientation. Men who feel safe with women who are in every respect, and not just in bed, beneath them."

"Yes," I said, "but such men are not psychopathic rapists. This Kos-lak man is a clear type. He must defend his ego by forcing a superior-seeming woman. It is as old as the world. If I put my penis in the queen, she is no longer my queen but an equal. I have raised myself by putting her down."

"If I were prosecuting the case myself — and I wish to hell that were possible instead of relying on whatever jerk is going to be assigned this — I'd have to try to make the jury feel repulsed by Koslak's act."

"The fact is," I said, "that they will be intrigued by it. As we are,"

Thomassy had not expected that. "Come," I said, "in the privacy of our conversation, we have to be precise. Koslak's penis has been where yours and mine would like to go. It has to intrigue us that this strong-arm idiot made his way, while we are inhibited by all the things we think make us civilized. Including affection."

He was silent, so I offered to refresh his drink. He shrugged it off.

Finally he said, "I have a reputation for liking difficult cases."

"One does not like to play chess against checker players. You see the conflict? One wants strong opponents, and one wants to win against them, so that we will think of ourselves as even stronger."

"Do you usually win, Dr. Koch?"

"At chess?"

"With patients."

"I am in the curing business. There is nothing to win."

"Do you always cure?"

"No, one always hopes."

"I don't like to depend on hope."

"Do you always win, Mr. Thomassy?"

I noted that he did not answer me. Then I said, "May I give you a word of hope then? Let us reflect a moment on Francine's psychology. We have no proof that she did or did not want relations with this Koslak man. Why would she want to have intercourse with a man like that?"

"She wouldn't."

"Ah, but some intelligent, educated, strong women at every time have sought out the gamekeeper. They are fed up by our civilities, our circumlocutions, our gentleness even."

"I don't think that's true of Francine," he said.

"Ah," I said, "that is the point. If we can prove somehow convincingly that this particular individual, Francine Widmer by name, would not want to have sex with such an individual as Koslak, and if he admits to having sex with her, then you have proven rape."

"The world I function in demands hard evidence."

"If you don't think psychological fact is hard evidence, you have come to the wrong place."

"I'm listening. Go on."

"Can she, on the witness stand, be asked questions that make it evident she would not have interest in a brute like Koslak?"

"I don't know how much of that a judge would allow."

"The judge cannot have a Polaroid photo of the act."

Thomassy laughed. "Wouldn't help. It would have to show her resisting."

"She says she did. For a while."

"She says, that's the problem. Her word against his."

"Surely she would make the better witness."

"It depends on whether his lawyer is better than the prosecutor."

"Not the facts of the case?"

"Not usually. And in this matter, there are pitifully few objectively verifiable facts."

It seemed time for me to say what I had planned to. "Mr. Thomassy, you have an option not to pursue the matter any further."

He was without response, so I said, "I do not have that option. She is a patient of mine. She was before the event, she continues — I hope she continues — after the event. My role with her will be very difficult if she is to spend her emotions in rage that justice could not be had. Both of us are dependent on you."

It was at that moment that the telephone rang. Service should answer, but they did not. It rang again and again, and so I excused myself, and went into my study to find that it was service calling.

Thomassy rose from his chair when he saw the color of my face.

"Service took a call from Francine Widmer."

"Saying?"

"She had to cancel. But she didn't have an appointment this evening."

"She knew we had."

"She said she was having a repeat of her problem. She said she needed au secours urgently. Help."

"She's gone back to her apartment."

"And what's-his-name is after her again."

Thomassy went for the phone. He flipped through his wallet for a card of numbers, dialed. To me he said, "Get me her address." As I looked, I could hear him identify himself and say there was a crime in progress. He spelled Francine Widmer. I gave him the address from my records. He was like a man on fire when he hung up. "I'm driving up there now. Will you come?"

"Yes," I said.

When I was in Thomassy's car, racing like a maniac eighty miles an hour up the West Side Highway, I said only one thing to him. "You didn't tell the police it was a rape."

"You're damn right," he said.