The Interpretation Of Murder (11 page)

    The old woman let me in to Miss
Acton's suite, calling out, 'Young doctor's here!'

    The girl was perched on a sofa under
the window, one leg tucked beneath her, reading what appeared to be a
mathematics textbook. She looked up but did not greet me - understandable,
since she could not speak. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, its teardrop
crystals trembling slightly, perhaps an effect of the underground trains
rumbling far below us.

    Miss Acton was simply attired in a
white dress with blue trim. She wore no jewelry. Around her neck, just above a
delicate clavicle, was a scarf the color of the sky. Given the summer heat,
there could be only one explanation for the scarf: the bruises on her throat
would still have been visible, and she wished to conceal them.

    Her appearance was so different from
the night before that I might have failed to recognize her. Her long hair, a tangle
last night, was now perfectly smooth and shining, gathered in a long braid.
Shivering uncontrollably yesterday, she was today a picture of grace, her chin
held high over her long neck. Only her lips remained slightly swollen where she
had been struck.

    From my black bag I removed several
notebooks, along with a variety of pens and inks. These were not for myself but
for Miss Acton, so she could communicate with me by writing. Following Freud's
advice, I never took notes during an analytic session but transcribed the
conversation from memory afterward.

    'Good morning, Miss Acton,' I said.
'These are for you.'

    'Thank you,' she said. 'Which one
shall I use?'

    'Whichever is - ' I began, before the
obvious fact took hold. 'You can speak.'

    'Mrs Biggs,' she said, 'will you pour
the doctor some tea?'

    I declined the tea. To the annoyance
I felt at having been taken by surprise was now added the realization that I
was a doctor capable of resenting a patient for improving without my
assistance. 'Have you also recovered your memory?' I asked.

    'No. But your friend, the old doctor,
said it would all come back naturally, didn't he?'

    'Dr Freud said your
voice
was
likely to come back naturally, Miss Acton, not your memory.' This was a strange
thing for me to say, given that I wasn't at all sure I had it right.

    'I hate Shakespeare,' she replied.

    She kept her eyes on mine, but I saw
what had prompted this inconsequent remark. My copy of
Hamlet
was poking
out of the stack of notebooks I had offered her. I retrieved the play, putting
it back in my bag. I was tempted to ask why she hated Shakespeare but thought
better of it. 'Shall we begin your treatment, Miss Acton?'

    Sighing like a patient who had seen
too many doctors, she turned and looked out the window, offering her back to
me. Evidently the girl thought I was going to use my stethoscope on her or
perhaps examine her wounds. I informed her that we were only going to talk.

    She exchanged a skeptical glance with
Mrs Biggs. 'What sort of treatment is that, Doctor?' she asked.

    'It is called psychoanalysis. It's
very simple. I must ask your servant to excuse us. Then, if you will be so good
as to lie down, Miss Acton, I will ask you questions. You need only say
whatever comes into your mind in response. Please don't be concerned if what
occurs to you seems irrelevant or unresponsive or even impolite. Just say the
first thing that comes to mind, whatever it is.'

    She blinked at me. 'You are joking.'

    'Not at all.' It took several minutes
to overcome the girl's hesitation - and then several more to overcome her
servant's declaration that she had never heard of such a thing - but at last
Mrs Biggs was persuaded to go and Miss Acton to recline on her sofa. She
adjusted her scarf, straightened the skirt of her dress, and looked
appropriately uncomfortable. I asked if the injuries to her back troubled her;
she said no. Positioning myself on a chair out of her sight, I began. 'Can you
tell me what you dreamt last night?'

    'I beg your pardon?'

    'I am sure you heard me, Miss Acton.'

    'I don't see what my dreams have to
do with it.'

    'Our dreams,' I explained, 'are
composed of fragments from the previous day's experiences. Any dream you recall
may help us recover your memory.'

    'What if I don't want to?' she asked.

    'You had a dream you would prefer not
to describe?'

    'I didn't say that,' she said. 'What
if I don't want to remember? You all assume I want to remember.'

    'I assume you
don't
want to
remember. If you wanted to remember, you would.'

    'What is that supposed to mean?' She
sat up, glaring at me with undisguised hostility. As a rule, I am not often
hated by people I have only recently met; this case appeared to be an
exception. 'You think I am pretending?'

    'Not pretending, Miss Acton.
Sometimes we don't want to remember events because they are too painful. So we
shut them out, especially childhood memories.'

    'I am not a child.'

    'I know that,' I said. 'I meant you
may have memories from years ago that you are keeping out of your
consciousness.'

    'What are you talking about? I was
attacked yesterday, not years ago.'

    'Yes, and that is why I have asked
you about your dreams last night.'

    She looked at me suspiciously, but
with considerable cajoling I induced her to lie down again. Gazing at the
ceiling, she said, 'Do you ask your other female patients to describe their
dreams, Doctor?'

    'Yes.'

    'How entertaining that must be,' she
remarked. 'But what if their dreams are very dull? Do they invent more
interesting ones?'

    'Please don't be concerned about
that.'

    'About what?'

    'About your dreams being dull,' I
answered.

    'I didn't have any dreams. You must
adore Ophelia.'

    'I'm sorry?'

    'For her docility. All of Shakespeare's
women are fools, but Ophelia is the worst.'

    This took me aback. I suppose I
always have adored Ophelia. In fact, everything I know of women, I feel I
learned from Shakespeare. Miss Acton was obviously changing the subject, and
while one can of course be waylaid, it is sometimes useful in analysis to play
along with these evasions, since they often lead back to the crux of the
matter. 'What is your objection to Ophelia?' I asked.

    'She kills herself because her father
died - her stupid, pointless father. Would you kill yourself if your father
died?'

    'My father did die.'

    Her hand shot to her mouth. 'Forgive
me.'

    'And I did kill myself,' I added. 'I
don't see what's so unusual about it.'

    She smiled.

    'When you think about yesterday's
events, Miss Acton, what comes to mind?'

    'Nothing comes to mind,' she said. 'I
believe that's what it means to have amnesia.'

    The girl's resistance did not
surprise me. The one piece of advice Freud had given me was not to be put off too
easily. In hysterical amnesia, some deeply forbidden and long-forgotten episode
from the patient's past, stirred into life by a recent event, presses at her
consciousness, which in turn fights back with all its strength to keep out the
inadmissible memory. Psychoanalysis takes the side of memory against the forces
of suppression; it therefore provokes immediate and sometimes intense
hostility.

    'There is never nothing in one's
mind,' I said. 'What is in yours, at this moment?'

    'Right now?'

    'Yes: don't reflect; just speak it.'

    'All right. Your father didn't die.
He committed suicide.'

    There was a momentary silence. 'How
did you know that?'

    'Clara Banwell told me.'

    'Who?'

    'George Banwell's wife,' she said.
'Do you know Mr Banwell?'

    'No.'

    'He is a friend of my father's. Clara
took me to the horse show last year. We saw you there. Were you at Mrs Fish's
ball last night?'

    I acknowledged the fact.

    'You are wondering if my family was
invited,' she said, 'but you are afraid to ask, for fear that we were not.'

    'No, Miss Acton. I was wondering how
Mrs Banwell knew the circumstances of my father's death.'

    'Is it awkward when people know?'

    'Are you trying to make things
awkward?'

    'Clara says all the girls find it
fascinating - your having a father who killed himself. They think it gives you
soul. The answer is that we
were
invited, but that I would never go to
one of your balls in a thousand years.'

    'Really?'

    'Yes, really. They are sickening.'

    'Why?'

    'Because they are so - so tiresome.'

    'They are sickeningly tiresome?'

    'Do you know what a debutante is made
to do, Doctor? First, together with her mother, she must call on all her
mother's acquaintance - perhaps a hundred houses. I doubt you can imagine how
excruciating that is. In every house, the women invariably comment on how
"grown up" you look, by which they mean something - quite disgusting.
When the grand day arrives, you are exhibited like a talking animal on whom conversational
open season has been declared. Then you are forced to endure a cotillion at
which every man believes he has a right to make love to you, no matter who he
is, no matter how old, no matter how bad his breath. And I haven't even gotten
to having to dance with them. I'm starting college this month; I will never
come out.'

    I chose not to respond to this
disquisition, which on the whole seemed quite persuasive. Instead I said, 'Tell
me what happens when you try to remember.'

    'What do you mean, "what happens"?'

    'I want you to tell me whatever
thought or image or feeling comes to you when you try to remember what happened
yesterday.'

    She took a deep breath. 'Where the
memory should be, there is a darkness instead. I don't know how else to
describe it:

    'Are you there, in the darkness?'

    'Am I there?' Her voice quieted. 'I
think so.'

    'Is anything else there?'

    'A presence.' She shuddered. 'A man.'

    'What does the man make you think
of?'

    'I don't know. It makes my heart beat
faster.'

    'As if you had something to fear?'

    She swallowed. 'To fear? Let me
think. I have been attacked in my own house. The man who attacked me has not
been caught. They do not even know who it was. They believe he may yet be
watching my house, planning to kill me if I return. And your penetrating
question is whether I have something to fear?'