Lying on the Couch (55 page)

Marshal buried his face in his handkerchief. Carol reached over and squeezed his hand. "The tears are for your father? He still alive?"

"No, he died young, encoffined forever by that grocery store. Too much running. Too many three-cent deals. Whenever I think about making money, or losing money, or squandering money, I have a vision of my dear father dressed in his white apron blotched with chicken blood, flying down that grubby alley, wind in his face, black hair flowing, gasping for breath, triumphantly holding aloft, like some Olympic baton, a pair of twelve-cent work gloves."

"And you, Marshal, your place in that vision?"

"That vision is the cradle of my passions. Perhaps the critical defining incident of my life."

"It shaped the future course of your attitudes to money?" Carol asked. "In other words, make enough money and the bones of your father will stop clattering up and down the alleyway."

Marshal was startled. He looked up at his attorney with new respect. Her tailored mauve dress offsetting her gleaming complexion made him a little self-conscious about his unshaven face and grubby jogging suit. "That comment . . . takes my breath away. Need to think about clattering bones."

Then a long silence. Carol prodded, "Where do your thoughts go

now

"To that back door. The glove story is not only about money; it's also about back doors."

"The back door to your father's store?"

"Yeah. And the pretense that the door opened onto another large storeroom rather than onto the alley—that's a metaphor for my whole life. I pretend that I contain other rooms; yet, deep in my heart, I know I have no storeroom, no hidden wares. I enter and exit through alleys and back doors."

"Ah, the Pacific Union Club," said Carol.

"Exactly. You can imagine what it meant, finally, finally, to enter through the front door. Macondo used the irresistible lure: the insider lure. All day long I treat wealthy patients. We're close, we share intimate moments, I am indispensable to them. Yet I know my place. I know if it weren't for my profession, if I had met them in any other context, they wouldn't give me the time of day. I'm like the parish priest from the poor family who ends up taking confession from the upper class. But the P.U. Club— that was the symbol of arrival. Out of the Fifth and R grocery store, up the marble stairs, banging the big brass knocker, marching through open doors into the inner, red-velvet chambers. I had aimed toward that goal all my life."

"And inside waited Macondo—a man more corrupt than any who entered your father's store."

Marshal nodded. "Truth is, I remember my father's customers with great fondness. You remember I told you about that patient who maneuvered me a few weeks ago into going to Avocado Joe's.'' I've never been in a place quite that . . . that low. Yet, you want to know the truth? I liked it there. No pretense—I felt at home, more comfortable than at the P.U. Club. I belonged there. It was like being with my father's customers in the 5th and R store. But I hate liking it; I don't like sinking to that level—there's something alarming in being so thoroughly programmed by early life events. I'm capable of better things. All my life I've said to myself: I'm kicking the grocery store sawdust from my feet; 'I'm rising above all this.'"

"My grandfather was born in Naples," said Carol. "I don't remember much about him except that he taught me to play chess, and every time we finished and we were putting away the pieces he would say the same thing—I can hear his gentle voice now: 'You see, Carol, chess is like life: when the game is over, all the pieces—the pawns and the kings and the queens—all go back into the same box.'

"It's a good lesson for you, too, to meditate upon. Marshal: pawns and kings and queens all go back into the same box at the end of the game. See you tomorrow. Same time."

Every day since his return from New York, Marshal had met with Carol. For the first two meetings she had visited him at home, then he began dragging himself to her office and now, a week later, he had begun to emerge from his depressive stupor and was making an effort to understand his role in what had happened to him. Her

362. -^ Lying on the Couch

associates noted the daily regularity of her meeting with Marshal and, more than once, inquired about the case. But Carol always responded, "Complex case. Can't say more—delicate issues of confidentiality."

All the while Carol continued to obtain consultation from Ernest. She used his observations and advice with good effect: almost every suggestion worked like a charm.

One day when Marshal seemed stuck, she decided to try Ernest's tombstone exercise.

"Marshal, so much of your life has been centered on material success, on making money and the objects money procures—your status, your art collections—that money seems to define who you are and what your whole life has meant. Will you want that to be your final insignia, the final summing up of your life? Tell me, have you ever thought what you would like to have inscribed on your tombstone? Would it be these attributes—the climbing, the accumulating, the money?"

Marshal blinked as a drop of sweat rolled into one of his eyes. "That's a tough question, Carol."

"Aren't I supposed to ask tough questions? Humor me—spend a couple of minutes on it. Say anything that comes into your mind."

"The first thing that comes to mind is what that New York detective said about me—that I was prideful, blinded by greed and blinded by revenge."

^''That's what you want on your tombstone?"

"That's what I don't want on my tombstone. My worst horror. But maybe I deserve those words—maybe my whole life's been rolling toward that epitaph."

"You don't want that tombstone? Then," Carol said, checking her watch, "your future course is clear: you've got to change the way you're living. Our time's up for today, Marshal."

Marshal nodded as he picked up his jacket from the floor, slowly put it on, and prepared to leave. "Suddenly cold . . . I'm shivering . . . that tombstone question. That's a shocking question—devastating. Gotta be careful with heavy artillery like that, Carol. You know who I'm reminded of? Remember that therapist you asked me about once for your friend? Ernest Lash—my ex-supervisee. That's the kind of thing he would be likely to ask. I'd always be reining him in from those questions. He referred to them as existential shock therapy."

Carol had already half risen, but her curiosity got the best of her.

"Then you think it's bad therapy? You were pretty critical about Lash."

"No, I didn't say that it was bad therapy for me. On the contrary, it's excellent therapy. A good wake-up call. And as for Ernest Lash— I shouldn't have been so hard on him. I want to take back some of the things I said."

"How come you were so hard.'"

"My arrogance. It's just what we were discussing all last week. I was intolerant of him: I was so convinced that my way was the only way. I wasn't a good supervisor. And I didn't learn from him. I don't learn from anyone."

"So, the truth about Ernest Lash?" Carol asked.

"Ernest's all right. No, better than all right. Truth is—he's a good therapist. I used to kid him that he needed to eat so much because he gave too much to patients—gets overinvolved, lets himself be sucked dry. But if I had to see a therapist, I'd choose one now who erred on the side of giving too much of himself. If I don't climb out of this pit soon and have to refer out some of my patients, I'd consider sending some of them to Ernest."

Marshal rose to leave. "Past time. Thanks for running over for me today, Carol."

Session after session passed without Carol's bringing up the topic of Marshal's marriage. Perhaps she hesitated because of her own marital wasteland. Finally, one day, in response to one of Marshal's repeated statements that Carol was the only person in the world with whom he could speak honestly, she took the plunge and asked why he could not talk to his wife. Marshal's responses made it clear that he had not told Shirley about the New York swindle. Nor about the extent of his distress. Nor that he needed help.

The reason he hadn't spoken to Shirley, Marshal said, was that he didn't want to interrupt her month-long meditation retreat at Tas-sajara. Carol knew that was a rationalization: Marshal's actions were motivated less by consideration than by indifference and shame. Marshal acknowledged that he hardly ever thought about Shirley, that he was too preoccupied with his internal state, that he and Shirley now lived in different worlds. Emboldened by Ernest's advice, Carol persisted.

"Marshal, tell me, what happens if one of your patients repeat-

edly dismisses his relationship with his wife of twenty-four years so casually? How do you respond?"

As Ernest had predicted, Marshal bridled at that question.

"Your office is the one place where I don't have to be the therapist. Be consistent. The other day you confront me with how I don't let myself be cared for, and now you're trying to make me be the therapist even here."

"But, Marshal, wouldn't it be foolish of us not to take advantage of all the resources at our disposal, including your own extensive therapeutic knowledge and skill?"

"I'm paying you for your expert help. I'm not interested in self-analysis."

"You call me an expert and yet you reject my expert advice to use your own expertise."

"Sophistry."

Once again Carol applied Ernest's words.

"Isn't it true that you're not interested simply in getting nurtured? Isn't your real goal autonomy? Learning to nurture yourself? Becoming your own mother and father?"

Marshal shook his head in wonder at Carol's power. He had no choice but to feed himself the questions vital to his own recovery.

"All right. All right. The main question is what has happened to my love for Shirley? After all, we'd been wonderful friends and lovers since the tenth grade. So when and how did things deteriorate?"

Marshal tried to answer his own questions. "Things began to go sour a few years ago. About the time our children entered adolescence, Shirley grew restless. Common phenomenon. Over and over she talked about feeling unfulfilled, about my being so absorbed with my work. I thought the ideal solution would be for her to become a therapist and go into practice with me. But my plan backfired. In graduate school she grew critical of psychoanalysis. She chose to get involved with the very approaches I felt most critical of: the flaky alternative, spiritually oriented approaches, especially those based on Eastern meditative approaches. I'm sure she did this deliberately."

"Keep going," Carol urged. "Identify other important questions I should pose to you."

Marshal grudgingly spit out several: "Why does Shirley make such little effort to learn about psychoanalytic treatment from me? Why does she so deliberately defy me? Tassajara is only three hours

away—I guess I could drive up there, tell her how I feel, and ask her to talk about her choice of therapy schools."

"Even so, that's not what I'm getting at. Those are questions of her," Carol said. "How about questions of yourself.-*"

Marshal nodded, as though to indicate to Carol that her approach was sound.

"Why have I talked so little to her about her interests? Why have I made such little effort—no effort at all—to understand her.^"

"In other words," Carol asked, "why are you so much more willing to understand your patients than your wife?"

Marshal nodded again. "You might put it that way."

"Might?" Carol asked.

"You definitely could put it that way," Marshal acquiesced.

"Other questions you might ask a patient in your situation?"

"I'd ask my patient some sexual questions. I'd ask about what has happened to his sexual self. And to his wife's. I'd ask whether he wants this unsatisfying situation to endure permanently. If not, why hasn't he pursued marital therapy? Does he want to divorce? Or is it just pride and arrogance—just waiting for his wife to come groveling?"

"Good work. Marshal. Shall we dig into some answers?"

Answers came tumbling out. Marshal's feelings toward Shirley were not unlike those he had toward Ernest, he said. Both had wounded him by rejecting his professional ideology. Yes, there was no doubt that he felt injured and unloved. And there was no doubt also that he was waiting to be soothed, waiting for some form of massive apology and reparation.

No sooner had he said these words than Marshal shook his head and added, "That's what my heart and my wounded vanity says. My intellect says something different."

"Says what?"

"Says that I shouldn't consider a student's proclivity for independent thought as a personal attack. Shirley must be free to develop her own interests. Ernest, too."

"And must be free from your control?" Carol asked.

"That, too. I remember my analyst telling me that I play life like I played football. Relentless pushing, blocking, moving forward, imposing my will on my opponent. That's how Shirley must have felt about me. Yet it wasn't just that she rejected psychoanalysis. That would have been bad enough, but I could have lived with it.

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What I couldn't live with was her choosing the flakiest possible wing of the field, the most harebrained Marin County idiotic approach to therapy. Obviously she was deliberately and publicly mocking me."

"So, because she chooses a different approach, you assume she mocks you. And, consequently, you mock her in return."

"My mocking is not retaliatory; it's substantive. Can you imagine treating patients through flower arranging? It's hard to exaggerate the ridiculousness of this idea. Be honest with me, Carol—is this or is this not ridiculous?"

"I don't think I can give you what you want. Marshal. I don't know much about it, but my boyfriend is an ikebana aficionado. He's been studying ikebana for years and tells me he has profited in many ways from the practice."

"What do you mean, profited^'

"He's had a lot of therapy over the years, including analysis, which he says has helped him, but he says that he has gained as much from ikebana."

"You're still not saying how it helps."