Separate Hours

Nine The Movie of Their Lives

An overhead shot of Brooklyn Heights at dusk. We see the Brooklyn Bridge, the setting sun glancing off it like veils of light. The camera moves through the various rooms of an elegantly furnished Brooklyn Heights brownstone, stopping to rest in an upstairs bedroom, where we catch a man and woman (in their early forties) in the act of making love, the door slightly ajar, a child’s eye at the open slit. The eye recedes as we approach it, disappears altogether. You never say anything, the woman whispers. How do I know what you feel?

An immaculately dressed, dour man, wearing turned down hat and dark glasses, studies the two brass plaques on a front wall of the same brownstone. The camera moves in by degrees on the signs: Yuri A. Tipton, Psychotherapist, and under the first, Adrienne French-Tipton, Psychotherapist. The man looks behind him before entering the building, wary of being observed.

A phone is ringing inside the house. Adrienne and Yuri answer virtually at the same time on different extensions. The call is from the assistant producer of a midnight television talk show, inviting them to appear on a program dealing with the issue of highly successful husbands and wives in the same profession. Adrienne says maybe, she needs to think it over. A decision is deferred. Yuri is adamant, says he is opposed to cheapening their professional lives by making them the occasion of situation comedy. They get into a heated argument disguised as civilized discussion. The debate ends without resolution, with Adrienne going downstairs to see a patient. The camera watches her descent as if it were a trip into a nether world.

The patient is the man we saw outside the building, a Long Island real estate developer named Brian Carroway. Carroway, as he calls himself, has come through the referral of a colleague, and although Adrienne’s time is already oversubscribed, she has agreed to this preliminary interview out of professional courtesy. Carroway has a disarmingly open manner. His style is to insinuate intimacy, to presume on an implicit understanding between himself and his listener. He and his wife, he tells Adrienne, have an open marriage in which each is free to explore the sensual life so long as the integrity of their marriage is not otherwise violated. His most recent affair has been with a eighteen year old McCrory’s sales girl, who chews gum during the sexual act, which Carroway says has been a near-religious experience for him.

His problem is that his wife, Anna Marie, has stopped confiding her experiences to him. As a consequence, he has become jealous and has begun to spy on his wife. He suspects, he says, that Anna Marie actually prefers one of her lovers to him, though he is yet to discover which one. While he makes his confession, almost as a form of punctuation, Carroway flirts with Adrienne.

We see at the same time (on split screen) Adrienne talking to Carroway and Adrienne talking to Yuri about her session with Carroway. Composing herself, Adrienne says to Carroway that maybe he ought to explore the need to share the details of various loveless sexual encounters.

Yuri advises Adrienne not to take on Carroway as a patient. Before Carroway leaves, he praises Adrienne for her perceptiveness, claiming that he feels, on the basis of this first session, already greatly improved. He’s asexual exhibitionist, says Yuri, which is why he wants a woman therapist. Adrienne says the problem has a certain case study quality that interests her, and that she intends to have another exploratory session with Carroway.

Yuri tell Adrienne that he has been having problems with a young woman who, in a transference reaction, has confided that she is in love with him. Is she a temptation? Adrienne asks, half jokingly. To which Yuri says in a deadpan, It’s all I can do to resist her.

We cut to Yuri sitting opposite his doting patient, Margo Goldhart, in the same office in which we had seen Adrienne and Carroway. Margo says it is difficult for her to say but the fact is she is disappointed with her therapist, glancing at Yuri slyly to see what impact her remark has made. “When Yuri doesn’t respond, she escalates the terms of her attack. Let me say, Yuri says, that I don’t think either of us believes I’m the real cause of your anger. How awful you must think I am? she whispers. Their session has the quality of a lovers’ quarrel.

The scene dissolves into one in which Adrienne and Carroway are facing each other in the same office. Carroway tells Adrienne that he has put together a dossier of his wife’s deceptions, neglecting his business and his health in the process. He has learned, he says, that Anna Marie is having a serious affair with either a politician or a psychologist. Carroway picks up his reflection in an ornamental mirror on the wall. He watches himself cry. I hate my life, he says. It’s a strain to keep up pretenses. You know what I’m saying?

Adrienne nods. If the way you live gives you pain, Carroway, it might make sense to try something else, she says. No?

It’s important for me to hear that, Carroway says. You’re good for me, Dr. Tipton.

“When he leaves, Adrienne remains in her seat, staring at the vacated chair.

We notice Carroway hanging around the Tiptons’ brownstone after his session is over. Yuri passes him; the men take each other’s measure.

The camera picks up Adrienne and Yuri having dinner together in their formal dining room. Yuri is saying if Adrienne wants to do it, he’ll do the television show with her. Adrienne says she still hasn’t made up her mind on the issue. Their 11 year old daughter, Rebecca, comes in, wanting to know if her parents have any objection to her smoking grass, just a little to see what it’s like, with her best friend Dora. Absolutely no, honey, Adrienne says. Yuri says he thinks it would be a good idea if Rebecca waited until she was a little older. How much older? Rebecca asks. Thirty years older, says Yuri. After Rebecca has gone, Yuri says maybe they ought to take her out of the progressive private school she’s in and put her in a more traditional place where they don’t start smoking marijuana until they’re twelve. Adrienne says she trusts Rebecca to make the wise choice. I think she’s wonderful too, Yuri says.

When Yuri asks if Carroway has gotten easier to deal with, we cut to Anna Marie and Carroway at a more elaborate table in another dining room, sniffing cocaine. Carroway kisses the palm of his wife’s hand as she studiously inhales, Anna Marie looking off with sultry indifference into the distance. What’s going on? he asks. When she doesn’t answer, he bends back one of her fingers. Don’t, she says.

We cut back to Yuri and Adrienne, their images superimposed over Carroway and Anna Marie. Carroway is one of the most open people I’ve ever met, Adrienne is saying. It’s a deceptive mode, Yuri says. The man’s manipulative.

Through the use of montage, we see Yuri meet with a succession of patients, repeating himself, striking similar attitudes again and again. At some point there is a changing of the guard, Adrienne descending the steps to the office as Yuri goes upstairs to the apartment. He stops to give her a hug. What’s this? she says.

Walking to his car, Yuri is approached by Anna Marie, who apparently has been waiting outside the building for him. Are you Dr. Tipton? she asks him. He asks her which Dr. Tipton she wants. Whichever one you are, she says.

We see Anna Marie sitting next to Yuri as they ride along in his silver nondescript Japanese car. Anna Marie does the talking while Yuri listens or gives the illusion of listening. Anna Marie tells him some “facts” about Carroway she thinks he ought to know. Carroway has worked for the diplomatic corps and the CIA — she calls it by a code name — has sold arms and smuggled drugs, has beaten her. She opens her blouse to show him a bruise on the side of a breast. She insists that her husband, though appearing to be gentle, is a violent and dangerous man. We notice that someone in a red sports car appears to be following them.

What has Carroway told you about me? she asks.

Not a thing, says Yuri. What has he told you about me?

He doesn’t admit to seeing a psychiatrist, she says. I found your name in his address book. I came to see you so you wouldn’t get the wrong idea about me. I’m probably what you would call an abused homemaker.

That’s not a phrase in my vocabulary, says Yuri.

As a result of Carroway’s abuse, she reports, she has developed a heart-shaped rash in the vaginal area. The presence of this rash, for which she feels no personal responsibility, embarrasses her.

Yuri declines her offer to witness the embarrassing rash with his own eyes.

We cut to Anna Marie sitting in Yuri’s class while he delivers a lecture on “The Problem of Transference in the Therapeutic Process.” Afterwards, they have a drink together at a local bar called The Class Act. What’s going on between us? Yuri asks.

I’ve come to see you about my husband’s therapy, she says, wide-eyed. Is there something wrong with that?

You know of course, he says, that Carroway’s in therapy with my wife and not with me.

Adrienne is in her office, writing something in a notebook. A knock at the door startles her and she closes the book and puts it back in a drawer. Carroway comes in and takes his seat without a word of acknowledgement. He is on this occasion even more morose than usual. Adrienne studies him. The camera focuses on Carroway’s impassive face, his expression masked by dark glasses.

What is it, Carroway? she asks.

Your husband doesn’t want you to be my therapist, he says.

I make my decisions independent of my husband, she says. And you have no way of knowing what my husband thinks.

I have my sources, he says.

Later in the hour, Carroway says that Anna Marie confided to him that Yuri is one of her lovers.

You told me another time that she makes things up, Adrienne says. Why do you believe her now?

I’ve seen them together, Carroway says.

I don’t believe you, Adrienne says.

When Carroway leaves, the camera follows him out the door to a red sports car parked in front of the building.

We cut to Adrienne going through the drawers of Yuri’s desk. In one she finds a matchbook from a restaurant she has never been to. She sits in the patient’s chair, staring into space as if consulting her other self.

We cut to Anna Marie presenting herself at the receptionist’s desk at a hospital clinic as Yuri’s wife. Yuri is annoyed when he discovers her in his office waiting for him, says the clinic is for patients who can’t afford to see him in his private practice.

I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important, she says in her breathless way. Carroway thinks he knows something about us. He’s been making a lot of wild threats.

I assume you told him there was nothing between us, he says.

She shakes her head. If you deny something to Carroway, she says, it has the effect of making him believe it more. The best thing to do is ignore him when he gets into his jealous rages. Besides, he may know something, if you get my drift, that we don’t know.

I have no intention of giving your husband cause to worry, Yuri says. I am a man who happens to believe in marital fidelity.

They are kissing when a black teenager, Yuri’s next patient, walks in on them.

Leaving the clinic, Yuri hears what sounds to him like a gun shot and throws himself to the ground. He is helped to his feet by two older women, both a little potted, who advise him to go home and sleep it off.

We cut to Adrienne concluding a call from the kitchen phone to a former therapist. I feel I’m in some kind of trouble, she is saying. Yuri is whistling to himself as he comes in on her. Tuesday is fine, she says and hangs up the phone.

Happy about something? she says to Yuri, her anger only thinly disguised.

As a matter of fact, I’m feeling fairly down, babe, Yuri says.

Adrienne shakes her head in ironic wonder. It’s usual to whistle, I suppose, when you feel down. Of course, when you feel happy what you do is cry, right?

It takes two to make an argument, Yuri says, walking away.

Adrienne shouts after him, Don’t you just know everything.

We see Adrienne talking to her daughter Rebecca, who is sprawled out on the living room floor, doing her homework. There’s something I feel I have to tell you, she says. Rebecca puts her hands over her ears. What is it? she asks.

Yuri and I are having some problems, she says. It’s nothing really. I just want you to understand where the tension you feel comes from. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.

I hate it when you and daddy are having problems, Rebecca says. I hate problems. I hate the word problems. Adrienne hugs Rebecca. The camera holds them in embrace then fades to black.

Yuri and Adrienne, facing forward as if posing for separate pictures, are riding in an elevator. They stand a foot or so apart, avoid looking in the other’s direction, are almost synchronized in their isolation. They come into the large high-ceilinged apartment of their friends, Peter and Barbara Cohen. A largish party is in progress. We discover, by overhearing conversations, that all the guests are therapists or companions of therapists. Shop talk abounds.

After embracing Yuri and Adrienne, Peter says that he heard they were about to become television celebrities, that they were going to tell the world how they handle their feelings of rivalry and competition. Joking aside, Adrienne says, Yuri and I are supportive of one another. When Peter asks if they’re actually going to do the TV show, Yuri says most likely; Adrienne says absolutely not. Their audience laughs. Yuri and Adrienne stare at each other in mute anger.

Yuri is in the coat room — the master bedroom — looking at a painting on the wall when Barbara comes up from behind and asks him what he thinks. He kisses Barbara on the cheek. You’re looking very sexy tonight, he says. You look a little like what’s her name, the movie actress who’s been rediscovered. I’m thinking of…He closes his eyes. My memory is failing me. Louise Brooks.

Barbara, blushing, gives Yuri a hug. That’s very nice, she says, though I don’t really know who Louise Brooks is.

In the next room, we spot Adrienne talking with great animation to a man with prematurely white hair. I read in “The New York Review,” she is saying, that we are living in a time of post- civilization. I just figured out what that really means. It means we live in a time when a divorce lawyer makes twice as much as a therapist.

Maybe he’s providing a better therapeutic service, he says.

Only a lawyer would say that, she says.

We see Adrienne edging through the crowd, her nervous smile like a flickering light.

We cut to Rebecca’s bedroom, see her writhing in her sleep. She lets out a cry, bolts into sitting position. Her eyes still closed, she brushes an imaginary bug from her face. A teenaged baby-sitter (her boyfriend a step behind her) rushes into the room. They are both disheveled, partially undressed. Rebecca opens her eyes, squirms. You’re having a bad dream, the sitter says.

Adrienne comes out of the bathroom in her nightgown. We follow her into the bedroom where Yuri is sitting up in bed waiting for her. I’m really tired, she says. Can we hold off this talk you’ve been pushing on me until tomorrow?

You were the sexiest woman at the party, Yuri says. When I saw you from across the room, I said to myself that’s the woman I should have married.

Adrienne gets under the covers, pretends to drift into sleep. Yuri lies stiffly on his back, eyes closed, eyes open, eyes closed again, hours of discontent pressed into a minute. Adrienne, who is not sleeping after all, turns on her side toward him. Will you hold me? she asks in a child’s voice. I don’t want sex. I just want to be held.

Yuri says okay under his breath.

Yes? she asks.

You can always lie with me, he says. Fade to black.

Carroway is in therapy session with Adrienne. If we met under other circumstances, he says, at a party or something, would you have found me attractive?

I don’t see any use in taking this any further, she says.

If you really want to help me, says Carroway slyly, why stop short of doing the very thing that might help me the most?

Adrienne laughs at that, says, Since when has sex solved anything in your life?

It’s the final solution, he says.

Later in the session, Adrienne says, I can see this is not going to work out. I could give you the names of some other therapists, people I’d be willing to recommend.

That’s exactly it, Carroway says, getting out of his chair. Do you see what the bitch is doing to us?

We cut to Yuri getting out of his car at the hospital parking lot. Noticing Anna Marie waiting for him at the main entrance, Yuri goes around the block and into a side door. When he gets to his office, she is waiting for him in the anteroom.

She lifts her hair and shows Yuri a bruise on the side of her face. If Carroway did that, Yuri says, leave him. She says she wants to move out but is afraid to take the step, that Carroway has threatened her. He has also threatened to hurt Yuri, she says, if he finds them together. Yuri says he’ll talk to her later.

Leaving the hospital, Yuri discovers Anna Marie leaning against his car as if posing for a fashion photograph. She pleads with him to go with her to get her things — she wants to move out — and though Yuri says he doesn’t have time, we see him driving her to her house in Port Washington.

I’m sure Carroway’s not home, she says. Today’s his day at his studio.

We see Yuri accompany Anna Marie to the door of her designer suburban house. As she unlatches the door, Carroway emerges from the other side of the house and invites Yuri in at gun point.

Yuri says he has to get back to his office to see patients.

Think of this as a house call, says Carroway.

In the interview that follows — Carroway and Yuri face each other in a parody of the therapeutic situation — Carroway alternates between insinuating geniality and righteous anger. Anna Marie sits in a neutral corner reading a magazine apparently unconcerned with the discussion. What Carroway wants, it becomes apparent, is to watch Yuri and Anna Marie make love so as to validate his suspicions. Yuri deflects the offer by pretending not to understand it, tries to cajole Carroway into giving up his gun.

Without looking up from her magazine, Anna Marie says, Why not give the asshole what he wants and get it over with.

When Yuri moves toward the door, Carroway fires a shot just over his head.

I want to get this straight, Yuri says, taking a seat. Am I to understand that you would kill a man for not going to bed with your wife?

Carroway says, I have no problem with that. Yuri says that he needs privacy for sex, that it wouldn’t work for him with Carroway watching them.

Pointing the gun at Yuri’s head, Carroway says that no Long Island jury would convict a man for killing an intruder in his own house.

Anna Marie comes over and sits down on Yuri’s lap. There is a mix of rage and fascination on Carroway’s face.

Why don’t you make love to Anna Marie while I watch? Yuri says.

The idea intrigues Carroway momentarily, but then he rejects it, shaking his head regretfully. She’d rather make it with you, he says.

Yuri asks Anna Marie if what her husband says is true. It’s best to play along with him when he’s like this, she whispers. She puts her arms around Yuri’s neck and kisses him open-mouthed. Punctuated by a groan of rage, Carroway picks up a ceramic ashtray and flings it against the wall, missing Anna Marie and Yuri by no more than a foot. Anna Marie gets up and rushes into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

That concludes our session for today, Carroway says, putting the gun away in his jacket pocket. I’ll tell you I feel a whole lot better now.

Before Yuri leaves, Carroway gives him a bottle of champagne as a token of apology. No hard feelings? he asks. Yuri reluctantly shakes his hand. Have a drink with me, Carroway says.

Yuri says he has to get back, has appointments to keep.

In the manner of a host escorting a friend, Carroway walks Yuri to his car. He apologizes again, is profuse in his regrets. Drive carefully, he says.

As Yuri drives away, the camera peers through a side window of the Carroways’ house. The room seems empty at first, then we discover Carroway and Anna Marie locked in sexual embrace under the piano.

Adrienne has completed clinic and is walking toward the subway when she sees Carroway coming toward her.

What are you doing here? she asks.

He looks around him as if wary of being observed. I have a loft space a few blocks from here where I make sculpture, he says.

Adrienne nods, starts to move on, stops herself. I don’t believe you, she says. I think you were waiting for me.

Carroway offers to bet her ten dollars that he is telling the truth, offers her ten to one odds.

We see them walking through the local streets, arriving at a seemingly deserted industrial building. Adrienne nervously follows him up three flights of stairs, stands behind him, fascinated, as he unlocks the door.

We see the disbelief on Adrienne’s face as they enter the loft space. There are sculptures around the room in various media — pop art assemblages of a marginally competent if imitative sort. The room is sparsely furnished: acouch, alove seat, two wooden chairs, a plexiglass table. “We see the scene through Adrienne’s eyes. On the single upper level, there is an elegant spiral staircase leading to an open room with a kingsize bed.

All right, she says, you have the key to this place, but how do I know you’ve done these sculptures.

In the next scene, we see them at the table, drinking wine out of the same glass. And then we see her following Carroway up the spiral stairs to the bedroom.

I don’t know what’s going on, Adrienne says, sitting down on the bed. I really don’t know why I’m here.

You wanted to see for yourself, Carroway says. And you want to get even with your husband.

We match dissolve to Yuri and Adrienne sitting opposite each other in their living room, each with a glass of white wine in hand. They have been discussing their problems for several hours and seem to have run out of things to say.

A robbery is going on in a house direcdy across the street. We cut away from Yuri and Adrienne’s conversation to the scurrying of figures on a roof. Two police cars drive up and double park in front of the Tiptons’ house. The two policemen in the first car get out and, after some apparent confusion as to where to go, head toward Yuri and Adrienne’s door.

Yuri, looking burnt out, is bent forward on the couch, his hands pressed together. Adrienne, he says, you’re so goddamned involved in the minute vibrations of your soul, that you never see anything as it really is.

Yuri, if you saw a movie of our life, Adrienne says — I thought about this this morning at breakfast — you would find me the more sympathetic character.

Yuri thinks about this, seems to envision such a movie, admits that Adrienne might be right. If that were so, he says, it would only go to prove the deceptiveness of cinematic illusion.

Two policemen emerge from the house across the street with a young black man between them, his hands in cuffs. A handful of onlookers applaud. This is a terrible mistake, the prisoner says. I was the one being robbed.

We cut to Yuri and Adrienne getting dressed to appear “live” on the Norman Safflower midnight talk show. Adrienne changes her clothes several times, unable to decide what she wants to wear. She asks Yuri which of two outfits he prefers. He chooses the more conventional one, and Adrienne decides to wear the other. That was my real choice, Yuri says.

In a taxi going to the television studio, Yuri takes Adrienne’s hand. He kisses her. Is this a terrible mistake we’re making, baby? she asks. We’ll do fine, he says. We see Adrienne and Yuri, in makeup, waiting backstage at the television studio for their entrance. The make-up transforms them; they look as if actors are impersonating them. An obsequious woman briefs them on the format of the show. Wives and husbands will be separated for the first part of the program, and interviewed independently. In the second part, they get to discuss each others “input” face to face. Yuri objects, says that no one told them they would be required to answer questions apart from each other.

I refuse to go through with this, Adrienne says.

We cut to Carroway and Anna Marie watching the Norman Safflower show on a large color television. Safflower, a distinguished looking white-haired man with an unusually resonant voice, is on screen introducing his guests. The guests (a pair of tennis pros, a brace of lawyers, and Yuri and Adrienne) seem barely visible next to the charismatic presence of the host. What we are dealing with tonight, Safflower intones, is the innate competitiveness of the male animal and the female animal. The camera pans the faces of each of the subjects (as Safflower calls them), the women first, Adrienne averting her eyes. From a long shot, we discover that husbands and wives are seated on opposite sides of a revolving stage.

The women are interviewed first. The silken-tongued Safflower wants to know how they would compare their own competence in their respective fields to that of their husband’s.

The camera is on Adrienne, who seems frozen momentarily, unable to get out a word. She smiles nervously, opens her mouth without sound. Safflower repeats the question, says not to worry she is among friends. Looking away, Adrienne says that she and Yuri are equally competent, that their strengths lie in different areas, that she’s a better technician but that his intuitive gifts are greater.

But you do feel you’re the better technician? Safflower asks. Do you think your husband would agree to that judgment?

We get the gist of the program through a succession of brief takes. Prodded by Safflower, Yuri says at one point, I have no intention of deprecating Adrienne’s abilities, which are considerable, but much of what she knows she’s learned from me.

The show turns into a nightmare for the participants, though they pretend for the most part — Yuri and Adrienne the exception — to be amused by the conflict the moderator generates.

In the second half of the show, husbands and wives face each other across a table. The hostility has become almost tangible. The male lawyer says, as if a joke, that his wife has the sense of high purpose of a Madame de Farge. When she picks up her knitting, I confess I get a little nervous.

Well, she says, looking at her husband — the camera moving between them — I don’t wittingly defend violators of the public trust. And I won’t sacrifice the truth as I know it just to get a client off.

Adrienne says at one point — He may have taught me everything he knows, but I’ve already forgotten whatever that was.

In the taxi going home from the television studio, Yuri and Adrienne are so furious with each other they can barely speak. This was your idea, Adrienne says.

They bump shoulders going into the house and face each other like lifelong enemies.

I’ve known all along that there are other women, she says.

You don’t even know who you are, he says.

When Yuri returns after taking home the sitter, Adrienne has his suitcase packed and waiting for him. He goes up to the bedroom, ignores Adrienne who is pretending to sleep, and repacks in a white heat, throwing the clothes his wife had given him across the room. Before leaving the house, Yuri goes into Rebecca’s bedroom and lingers, sitting on his suitcase next to the bed.

We see Yuri leave the house with his suitcase, walk into a local upscale bar, and order a Scotch with water. A woman comes over and sits down next to him; she introduces herself as a former patient.

We cut to Adrienne getting undressed — she has been under the covers in her clothes — in a kind of dazed slow motion. She is lying in bed with the lights on, dozing, when the phone rings. You woke me up, damn you, she says to whoever it is. A woman’s voice asks to speak to the other Dr. Tipton.

Yuri’s not here, Adrienne says. Who the hell is this?

Anna Marie identifies herself, says she has left Carroway and needs someone to talk to.

You’re not thinking of doing something desperate? Adrienne asks.

I don’t understand what you’re asking, Anna Marie says. What do you mean by something desperate?

We next see Adrienne in the bathroom taking a couple of valium, and then curled up on the living room couch reading a magazine.

Adrienne is just beginning to doze off on the couch when the doorbell rings. At first she is afraid to answer, then she picks up a poker from the fireplace and goes to the door.

Anna Marie appears and identifies herself. Adrienne steps aside and lets her in. She looks for a place to put the poker she has been holding behind her back.

Some time has passed. The two women are sitting on the couch, talking with a certain ease.

Carroway gets off on women who are smarter than he is, says Anna Marie. He thinks of sex as an educational experience.

We cut to Yuri sitting on a couch in Peter and Barbara Cohen’s living room. Barbara sits across from him in an oversized bathrobe.

I’m writing a novel, she says, about my own tattered marriage in the disguise of Adrienne’s and your marriage. You’re the first person I told this to. I hope you feel privileged. If you want to go to sleep just say so and I’ll go away.

I’ll take a hotel room tomorrow, Yuri says. I don’t think I’ll get to sleep tonight. Look, don’t feel you have to entertain me, Barbara.

I’m going to fix myself one more drink and then go to sleep, she says. An hour later they are still talking.

We cut to a shadowy figure standing sideways at the entrance to the Tiptons’ house. He knocks twice. We hear Adrienne’s voice asking who’s there.

It’s me, Carroway says.

Adrienne opens the door just enough to make herself heard. What do you think you’re doing here? she says.

We hear Anna Marie in the background saying, Don’t let him in.

Adrienne, I want you to know there’s nothing to be frightened of, he says.

Whenever someone says something like that to her, Adrienne says, she wants to run for her life.

Carroway tries to charm his way by her, promises that he will only stay a few minutes.

Do you have any idea what time it is? Adrienne asks and starts to close the door. Carroway forces his way in.

Adrienne blocks his way, says that ifhe tries to go by her, she’ll call the police. Carroway clamps his hand over mouth. I thought you liked me, he says. He presses her up against the wall and tries to kiss her. She kicks him in the leg.

I want you to leave, she says. I mean it.

Your husband’s not here, is he? he says in an insinuating voice. Do you know why he’s not here? I think you know without my spelling it out.

He decides to leave and does.

When Adrienne returns inside, Anna Marie is no longer there. Adrienne goes down the steps to her office. The outside entrance to the office is unlocked and it seems evident that Anna Marie has gone. Adrienne bolts the door and curls up on the therapeutic couch. She hears footsteps and jumps to her feet. Go away, she says. Rebecca comes into the room. She is crying. Where is everyone? she says. Mother and daughter cuddle together on the couch, arms around each other.

We cut to Yuri who wakes with a start. He is on a couch in the Cohen’s living room. It takes him awhile to determine where he is. He climbs over Barbara, who is asleep on the rug, buttons his shirt, searches the living room floor for his shoes. We next see him riding down alone in the elevator, combing his hair with his hand.

Yuri is crossing a street when a red sports car appears from nowhere and almost runs him down.

We see Yuri letting himself into the office entrance of his brownstone. He is just in time for his appointment with Margo Goldhart. We see the therapy session in brief, Yuri dozing during one of the patient’s monologues. You don’t think I’m attractive, do you? she says. He asks her if there’s some way he can prove to her he finds her attractive. When Margo leaves, Yuri falls asleep in his chair. Adrienne comes in and stands by the door, waiting for him to notice her.

I’m a bit vague this morning, he says. Is it your turn to use the office? She shakes her head. We should have separate offices, he says.

Adrienne sits down in the patient’s chair, facing Yuri. What are your plans? she asks.

We cut to the front of the building where we see Carroway studying the entrance, undecided as to what to do. When we cut back to Adrienne and Yuri, she is sitting on his lap.

This doesn’t mean I forgive you, she says. It represents a failure of imagination on my part. I can’t imagine the rest of my life without you around. When she kisses him the chair goes over backwards. At that moment, Carroway comes in the door, a look of outrage on his face.

So this is how you behave when I’m not around to watch you, he says.

This man’s my husband, says Adrienne.

Don’t make a fool out of me, he says. It’s a mistake to make an enemy out of me.

Go away, Carroway, says Yuri.

I won’t forget this, Carroway says. I’m the figure hiding in the closet in your worst dreams. We see him leave and get into his red sports car which is double-parked in front of the house. We cut back to Yuri and Adrienne sitting on the floor, back to back. They are laughing so hard tears come to their eyes.

It is the next day. We see Yuri parking his car around the corner from his house. He gets out — he has his suitcase in hand — is whistling to himself. Going up the steps, he has a premonition and turns abruptly as if he expected someone to be coming up behind him.

Yuri double locks the door when he gets inside the house, calls to Adrienne. He gets no answer and calls her name again. He calls his daughter’s name.

He goes through his mail, checks for messages, then takes his suitcase up to the bedroom, somewhat surprised to find the door shut. He hesitates, listens at the door for sounds, before throwing the door open.

This is what he sees: his wife and daughter in bed next to each other, lying motionless. At first he thinks they’re asleep and he lets out a sigh of relief or pleasure (who knows what else he might have imagined). He smiles at the spectacle. When he gets closer he sees that there is blood on the cover of the bed, that they have been shot, that they are both dead.

Yuri is too shocked to respond. There is a hiatus of perhaps a second between his mouth opening and the scream that breaks loose. The camera freezes at this moment of his grief and horror, the scream fading then returning from a distance like an echo. When the camera releases Yuri he collapses against the wall. There is no sound, though Yuri continues to scream.

The End.

(Alternative Ending)

Adrienne is kissing Yuri when Carroway comes in the door, a look of outrage on his face.

So this is how you behave when I’m not around to watch you, he says to Adrienne.

This man’s my husband, she says.

It doesn’t matter. I take everything as a personal betrayal. Get out of here, Carroway, says Yuri.

I’m giving notice, says Carroway. I see this as the conclusion of my therapy. We see him leave and get into his red sports car, which is double-parked in front of the house. Anna Marie is waiting for him in the passenger seat.

It is the next day. We see Yuri emerging from his car, suitcase in hand. Going up the steps of his house, whistling to himself, he has a premonition and turns abruptly as if he expected someone to be coming up behind him. We follow his glance to a red sports car that resembles Carroway’s; the car is parked across the street (in a No Parking zone) and toward the far corner. Yuri double locks the door when he gets inside, calls to his wife and daughter.

Yuri checks the therapy schedule on the bulletin board and discovers that Adrienne is downstairs with a patient. She has left a note for him.

Yuri,

Rebecca is at Dora’s house. We need coffee.

Love you.

A.

Yuri carries his suitcase up to the bedroom and is surprised to find the door shut. He hesitates before opening the door, then thrusts it open. What he sees is this: in his marital bed, Carroway and Anna Marie are in the throes of the sexual act. Yuri watches in fascination, unable to avert his eyes. Carroway and Anna Marie. Anna Marie and Carroway. The image freezes.