Save Johanna! (12 page)

It was a marriage of more than thirty-five years, and Roseanne Fowler, a poor, minimumly educated girl from the Bronx who had come to the marriage early and grateful for the privilege of marrying a young lawyer from good professional people, had, after two children and years of running a house and doing charity work for church and PTA, found she was a natural leader with a greater control over other people’s lives than she had ever imagined. Starting with her husband. Then moving on to her two daughters. The older one, now married with two young children, after a difficult puberty came into line in her late teenage years, and by that time she was well along into studies leading to a career in special education. Fortunately for Lisa, she never was put to the test because Allen came along. She dropped out in her senior year when the marriage date was set, and from there on Roseanne had nothing but ease of mind with Lisa.

But Pinky was different. Born almost twelve years later, she was unconventional from the start. Not openly difficult or hostile, just very individual. A threat to all the values Roseanne held dear. And also George’s favorite. Pinky was deeply religious and that seemed to hold her in check, but it wasn’t the kind of religiosity Roseanne knew from her own youth or even from her church groups. Pinky’s was more mystical and aloof. But Roseanne didn’t worry because the Church had a tight grasp on her younger daughter, and she could trust Catholicism to keep her out of trouble.

At fifteen, Pinky left the church over a moral issue. Roseanne had never known anyone personally who would actually take such an enormous step over a matter of personal value. She couldn’t even understand the issue. It was a part of religion she normally left to the clerics, but now her own daughter was excommunicating herself and moving further and further away from all the normal and accepted life-styles she knew and approved of. It frightened Roseanne. She reacted badly, and that, of course, exacerbated the situation. Roseanne didn’t ever think in psychological terms, but she instinctively knew that something about Pinky’s actions was directed against her. She felt unspeakable thoughts; the worst was that Pinky didn’t love her, and, though she would never admit it to herself, she didn’t love her youngest daughter either.

But that didn’t look good. Not loving your own child. So she did the next best thing. She overwhelmed her with attention, advice, instructions, and criticism. It worked perfectly for a number of years, and then one day Pinky unexpectedly left home. She left a note for her father, asking him to understand and saying that she loved him and would be in touch sometime in the future when she had found the strength and peace she was looking for.

There was no mention of her mother. George, who wasn’t always the quickest to spot nuances in human relations, knew enough to tear up the note before Roseanne saw it. Since that day George hadn’t had one moment of peace. Roseanne was obsessed with finding Pinky, her lost baby, and reclaiming her. That’s where the Franklins came in. He, Ken Franklin, was well known for the work he had done with Korean War prisoners and some spectacular cases of young people caught up in the Moony sect. There were still lawsuits pending on the latter, but both Franklins were dedicated, and nothing as secular as a lawsuit was going to stand in the way of saving human beings from the bondage of mind control. Deprogramming was Ken’s specialty. He never ceased to respond to the challenge. Pinky Fowler was only a marginal test. A young girl, barely out of the nest four months and not even involved with one of the strong, organized cults, just some ex-con with charisma. Under a week was his guess and then a generous donation from the parents to the Franklin Foundation, a feature story in one of the New York newspapers, and for the Franklins, personally, another notch on the barrel aimed at those who would steal others’ minds, personalities, their very souls.

“Pinky,” Ken asked gently, “are you still hungry?”

But Pinky wouldn’t answer. She didn’t look at him. With her head lowered, she catechized to herself, moving her lips but making no sounds.

“Remember what is ours,” Avrum had always said to them. “Now and forever.”

These people, the Franklins, were her enemies. They would try to steal Avrum from her, but she had buried him deep within her spiritual being and would hold him there forever. As long as she could do that, she would be safe.

Pinky kept out all voices but her own as she repeated over and over again to herself, “I am one with Avrum. He is my breath and my body. He is my beginning, my ego, and my love. He is the whole of me.”

Rena asked if she was praying, but she wouldn’t answer.

For the next few hours Ken and Rena took turns talking to her in soft, calm voices, ignoring her long silences.

As the time passed Pinky grew tired and her defenses weakened, and more and more of their words broke through to her.

They seemed to be assuring her in a most nonthreatening manner that she was not to blame, that she had been brainwashed, and that they would help her reclaim her lost freedom.

Did they take her for a fool, Pinky thought, promising her freedom and then locking the doors? She would never be stupid enough to believe them. These were the enemies Avrum had told her about. They were bent on destroying him, he said, because he was the prophet of truth and they were the Antichrists. Never would she betray Avrum. Never!

The hours moved on, and still they talked. They asked her questions about Avrum and said they would answer any questions she might have, but she remained silent.

At midnight Rena suggested they go to bed and led her into a small bedroom at the end of the apartment. The room had twin beds that looked freshly made.

“Would you like the bed near the window?” Rena asked.

Pinky shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t care.

“Take it,” Rena said. “It’ll be cooler.”

But Pinky shook her head. She wouldn’t be indebted to either of them and instead sat down on the bed farthest from the window.

Rena smiled, undisturbed, and sat down on the other bed and began to remove her shoes.

Pinky sat fully clothed until long after Rena had gotten into bed and turned out the lights.

Sometime later exhaustion overcame her, and Pinky lay back on top of the blankets and fell asleep.
 

The next morning over breakfast the Franklins resumed their steady stream of talk, most of it concerning Avrum’s background, of which they were very knowledgeable, and all of it discrediting him as a fraud and a psychopath.

Ken asked her what Avrum had done to benefit anyone but himself. “How has he shared that great love he talks about?”

At first Pinky ignored them, but later she spoke in an attempt to quiet their criticisms. “He has reached out and given love to those who had none,” she said.

“And in return,” Rena said, “has demanded blind obedience.”

“That is a small price to pay for something so precious,” Pinky replied.

“No, Pinky,” Rena corrected her. “Giving up your mind and your soul is the greatest price a human being could ever pay. Nothing of true value would demand such a sacrifice.”

Pinky said, “That is only ego speaking,” and turned away.

All through the day Ken and Rena spoke to Pinky. They talked about the value of freedom, the right of a human being to think for himself, to make decisions, to lead his own life.

After some days Pinky began to respond to their questions, at first only in monosyllables; then the answers grew, and the Franklins knew they were making progress.

Pinky felt herself thinking and acting as she hadn’t in months. And she was surprised and bothered to realize that, against her will—Avrum’s will—she was changing.

The Franklins made a point of telling her that she looked different when she used her mind. It registered on her face and filled her eyes, they said. The next time she went to the bathroom Pinky looked in the mirror, and she thought she saw a difference.

Day after day the Franklins worked relentlessly at releasing Pinky from the bonds of Avrum.

Progress was slow, but the Franklins were patient people. Painstakingly they worked at making Pinky see that she had been hypnotized by Avrum’s charisma, that she had been possessed, and that the only way to free herself was to allow her brain to function on its own.

Little by little she began to react to them more openly, first with hostility, then, as that cooled, with hints of trust.

As the grip of Avrum loosened, a different Pinky began to emerge. This one looked to be neither fish nor fowl, but someone so strangely enervated and compliant that it almost seemed as if she had merely exchanged masters—the Franklins for Maheely.

Ken hadn’t expected as much resistance as he had encountered, but he hadn’t wanted such complete capitulation either. Sometimes a mind could be overtampered with.

Perhaps in her own home, with time and love from her family, that might change. The Franklins didn’t consider their work with Pinky a failure, but it couldn’t be counted a complete success either.

Ken was disappointed, but Rena, ever the pragmatist, thought quite possibly the Fowlers might like it better this way.

“We’re considering living apart for a while.”

Mary Gail waits for my reaction. It’s Friday afternoon, and she’s terribly upset. Her hands are shaking as she lights what must be her fifth cigarette since she arrived twenty minutes ago.

“Is this Larry’s idea?” I ask.

Her lighter won’t work. She looks around desperately for a match, as if she can’t answer my question without a cigarette. I don’t smoke anymore so there are none around. I have some in the kitchen and practically race out of the room to get them. Emergency. At a crucial moment a cigarette can be that way. I still remember.

Still hurrying, I take a matchbook from the drawer next to the stove. And then stop. My dearest friend Mary Gail, sweet, wonderful, generous person to whom I can turn at any time for anything, is out there in my living room suffering the catastrophe of her life, and all I can think of is, why does this have to happen right now in the middle of my own work? It’s not that I don’t care about her. I do. Deeply. But as a writer I know I have to fortify the barriers around myself because there are too many demands out there, too many interests all wanting bits and pieces of me. But I can’t spare them this time. I need them all for myself.

Or am I fooling myself, making excuses for not caring enough? Is it Avrum again, claiming bigger and bigger chunks of me? This is an especially difficult interruption because it’s not something I can deal with quickly and lightly. I have to involve myself with Mary Gail, and I’m already so deeply involved in the book. And I’m tired. I don’t want to sink into somebody else’s emotional morass.

Right now, though, I can’t see that I have a choice, so I arrange the proper concern on my face and go back to Mary Gail.

She takes the match from me, lights it, and says nothing. The rhythm has been interrupted, and we must start again. I don’t want to, and that makes me feel despicably selfish.

“Does Larry want this separation?” I force myself to ask the question.

She studies me for a moment, perhaps sensing less than full interest. But her need is so great the floodgates open anyway.

“We both do. At least that’s what I thought. Now I don’t know. I think I’ve been fooled.”

“How?”

“I feel I was manipulated into thinking it was a shared decision, when it’s really Laurence looking for a comfortable way out. I think he needs me to be part of it, to share the blame, to soothe his own guilt. I don’t know. He’s a coward.” She pauses, and her face tightens and she looks away from me. “Besides, I think there’s someone else.”

Though I don’t know of any other woman, I find with Larry I’m not surprised. “Do you want him to leave?”

“No.”

“Then don’t help him. Fight it. Let him struggle through with all the guilt or blame or whatever he’s so afraid of.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? If that’s your ammunition and you want to win, why can’t you use it?”

She shakes her head. “I have to give him a chance to be happy. I owe him that because I never loved him enough.”

I look at Mary Gail, a woman who has infinite quantities of love that wash over all of us, especially Laurence, and wonder how it couldn’t be enough. Tears well up in those enormous, gentle eyes and run down her flushed cheeks. “From the start I knew it wasn’t complete. There was more to give, but I couldn’t. I don’t think he ever knew.”

“Then how did it hurt him?”

“I cheated him,” she says. “He could have had more. We don’t always have to know what we’re suffering from to suffer. That love might have filled out his life, brought him to another level. I owe him that chance to find completeness.”

“Do you think you feel that kind of love for him now?”

“Yes.”

“Then can’t you give it to him? Why let someone else have the chance.”

“This is the natural result, the flow of our lives,” she says sadly. “I’ve caused it, and now I have to wait it out.”

“No, you don’t.” I have to control a quick irritation. It’s an impatience I have, maybe a lack of understanding toward people who don’t take a firm hand in directing their own lives. I suppose it’s natural to the character of someone like Mary Gail, and quite possibly something else balances it out, but watching such meek surrender strains my tolerance. I suppose I show it because she gives me a small, indulgent smile that seems to say she forgives me for not being able to understand.

Which I find a tiny bit offensive, and my irritation rises above my normal concern and love for her. “Look how miserable it’s making you,” I snap. “Forget about his needs. What about your own? This is the moment. You’re still fresh in his life. Do something strong and decisive now before she takes over. Confront the woman. Do you know who it is?”

“I think so. I’m not sure. Anyway, I don’t want to cause him any more unhappiness than I already have.”

I don’t scream, but I want to. Instead I just give up. “Then why come to me? You’re going to do it your way, anyway.” I’m sharper than I should be.

“I guess I just wanted to say the words and . . .”

She starts to say something. I wait, but she changes her mind and instead picks up her cigarettes and puts them into her pocket, carefully leaving the matches. I’ve hurt her, and I feel sick.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I truly am.”

“Don’t be. It was honest advice, and I appreciate it.” She starts to rise.

“Wait. Sit for a minute. Let’s talk more. You were going to tell me something.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Please, Mary Gail, I want to help you. Let me try again.”

Reluctantly she sits down. I can see she’s very uncomfortable.

“Can I do something?” I ask.

“Well . . .”

“Tell me.”

“I wanted to get away for a few days. . . .”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“But I didn’t want to be alone.”

Of all the things she could have asked me, that’s surely the most impossible. I can’t just pack up and leave my work to spend three or four days hanging in limbo. I can’t do that.

“I’m sorry, Mary Gail, but I’m so piled up on my work I couldn’t possibly leave now. I know that sounds terrible, but I have a deadline. What can I do?”

“I understand perfectly. I didn’t expect you to stop working, I just thought maybe we could go up to Claudia’s place in Vermont. It’s empty now, and you could take your work with you.”

“No. Absolutely not.” We’re both sort of surprised at my strong reaction. And then embarrassed.

“Johanna, it’s all right. It was just an idea. It’s not really important. . . .”

I try to recover. “It’s the project. It’s very difficult and consuming, and I must be here—home—alone to do it. I can’t help it. It’s so intensely personal . . .”

“Personal?”

She looks confused. I regret the description and tell her that what I really meant was private. “It’s extremely demanding work,” I explain, “and any kind of distraction would be disaster.”

“Of course you can’t. I shouldn’t have even suggested it. I think for a moment I just lost my perspective on things.”

Mary Gail is standing behind her chair, looking at me. There’s a hint of a smile on her face, but it’s too private to be meant for me. “On some level it seemed crucial to be understood,” she says, and I’m feeling more and more depressed at how I let her down. “But that’s a personal indulgence I have no right to expect from anyone,” she continues. “Especially on demand. I’m sorry to have done that to you. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“Please, Mary Gail, it’s my fault.”

“No. You should be able to say anything to a close friend. It was my failure, not yours.”

But it’s too late because with her very sensitive antennae I think she’s picked up something closer to the truth. Kindly, she tries to make it easier for me by dipping into one of her vague abstractions that seems to mean that being alone is necessary and valuable. Somehow I come in for some unearned gratitude for pointing that up.

But it doesn’t really help erase my guilt. I wasn’t willing to make the commitment necessary to help her. It would have demanded too much of my creativity, and that would have threatened my own project.

I’ve always known about Mary Gail’s vulnerability and innocence. The very things that made me snap at her today are what have touched me most deeply in the past. It’s the same with Louis and Claudia, both people I care about, except that lately I seem to care less. It worries me; excuses aside, I know I’m avoiding them. Even David’s presence in my life seems more difficult, demanding that extra effort I often feel too drained to give.

Mary Gail has gathered up her things and is at the front door saying good-bye when she stops and looks at me with concern. “You know, I didn’t notice before, but you look exhausted. Are you OK?”

My God, now she’s going to comfort me. I can’t let her.

“I’m fine,” I say, cutting off any further discussion.

Mary Gail accepts it. As she leaves, she asks me not to say anything about what she told me. “No one else knows.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Are you coming to Louis’ tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Larry, too?”

“He said he was.”

“Are you sure you won’t change your mind and stay awhile? How about a drink? Or some tea?”

But she shakes her head. “I’ll see you tonight,” she says. And leaves.

I’m relieved that she’s gone. But it’s left a bitter taste. Friends are many things, and obligation is an important element in friendship. When everything is going smoothly, one’s responsibility to another is scarcely noticeable. But when somehow the relationship is thrown out of balance, as it is now, the sense of obligation seems to become paramount. I feel downright leaned on. By all of them. Tonight’s poker game at Louis’ is a perfect example. I said no last week, but I couldn’t say no again tonight because they needed me. David is in Philadelphia, and Roger is sick. For a while it looked as if there wouldn’t be enough people for the game. In fact, Louis asked me if I knew anyone to call, and I said no, even though I could have tried a couple of people. I was hoping it would fall through. With David away, I found myself savoring the night alone. The work I could accomplish. Possibly even finish the chapter I’ve been struggling with for almost two weeks. But Louis finally came up with someone, and the game is on.

Part of the anxiety I’ve been feeling lately is justified, brought about by David’s intensely negative reaction to my book. It disturbs me greatly that I’ve been made to feel so defensive about my own work, something I chose with great excitement, which in my best professional judgment has the potential to be a winner. Because of David I’ve had to conceal my normal enthusiasm, leaving me with a strong residue of resentment. I can’t help it. It’s not as if I have to share this project with everyone. It’s just that they’ve forced me to bury it deep inside my life. And I don’t like that.

I think I said that out loud. Here I am, still on the couch, sitting in the same place as when Mary Gail left, in an empty room getting angrier by the minute. These resentments have been building up inside me, but this is the first time I’ve given them any voice. And they’re turning rancid and hurting my work. I can’t seem to immerse myself with any ease. I must always keep a part of my mind alert to any assault from the outside world. No more. The first move I’m going to make is to cut them all off effectively from my work. No more discussions about Avrum or anything else connected to the book. Not with any of them—with the possible exception of David. But only if he controls his hostility. As for tonight, I intend to leave as early as is suitably possible.

Damn it. They have no right to put me in this position.