Intensive Therapy Part 34

"Well, can you blame me? I didn't exactly expect Marta to come out swinging."

Stan broke into a wide grin. "She's like that. All women are, don't you think? Do something that threatens their children, as they see it, and you might as well be facing a firing squad."

"So you've been on the receiving end yourself, Stan?" Jonas smiled. "You should have seen your daughter in action."

"She comes by it honestly, that's for sure. You weren't around to see Marta and Jennie go at it when Jennie was Gracie's age."

"Good Lord. That must have been something!" Jonas looked at Stan's cigar. "Pa.s.s me one of those things, so I can think better," he said. Both men laughed, but the truth dawned on Jonas; it was getting late in the game for Stan. Who else besides Marta could he confide in? Jonas borrowed one of Stan's favorite therapy lines and said, "I can tell there's more you want to say about that."

"Correction, my son. There's more I want to say about that to you."

The late afternoon sun had turned the South Atlantic into a dappled orange reflecting pool, reminding Jonas of Fridays on Dr. Fowler's couch. If the guard were going to be changed, this was as beautiful a spot as any.

Stan took a big swig of his drink. "To understand Jennie, you have to understand Marta and me. How much has Jennie told you about us?"

"Not much. Just that the two of you were crazy about each other right from the beginning and moved heaven and earth to be together."

"That's the party line. Has she said anything else?"

Jonas said, "No."

"Which means Marta never told her."

"Never told her what?"

"Understand, Jonas," Stan said. "What I'm about to tell you goes no further; maybe Jennie, that's up to you. And Marta doesn't need to know I told you. Agreed?"

"Sure, Stan. Sure." This certainly wasn't the grilling Jonas had antic.i.p.ated.

"When Marta and I met," Stan began, "neither of us were prepared for what happened. My father was a rabbi; Marta's father was a Eucharistic minister. No one would have picked us for each other. No one. But what we felt for each other was so strong, there were no words for it. We were young for our age, so nave. It wasn't anything like the era in which you and Jennie came of age. Back then, young people couldn't live by themselves and experiment relations.h.i.+p-wise without seeming loose."

Jonas moved closer.

"You know, we met at the airport during a snowstorm. I was going to a wedding in Kentucky. Marta was going home, but that's not the whole story by a long shot." Stan took off his Panama hat to swat some fruit flies. "After finis.h.i.+ng in Lexington, I met up with Marta in Louisville. Marta told her family she needed to return to Switzerland early to prepare for exams. She and I snuck off to the Brown Hotel in Louisville. I remember the place like it was yesterday. The lobby reeked of so much booze and cigarette smoke, it felt like a gin mill. Once we were alone, we couldn't keep our hands off each other. It felt like being possessed.

"Since both of our families were religious, we were sure they'd be furious, but neither of us was prepared to break with our families. They meant too much.

"After Louisville, we flew to New York, and I saw Marta off on her return to school in Switzerland. She didn't have enough money to come back to the States anytime soon, and I was in a.n.a.lytic training and barely supporting myself. So, we weren't sure when we'd see each other again.

"We wrote constantly. There was a trunk line her hospital maintained for international calls, so we managed to hear each other's voices, but only for a few minutes at a time. Then, I got a call at six o'clock in the morning one Sat.u.r.day. She was hysterical."

Jonas knew exactly what had happened. "Oh, no," he whispered. "Not that." He maneuvered his chair to face Stan head on. He wished he'd taken Stan up on the drink offer.

"You have to understand, Jonas. To Marta, abortion meant murder, end of story."

Seeing beads of perspiration forming on Stan's forehead, Jonas offered him the napkin from under his drink.

"There we were," Stan continued. "Two kids; we barely knew each other. All alone in the world."

"Jesus, Stan. What did you do?"

"We decided we'd be better off away from home, where no one could bother us. That Monday morning, I called the director of my psychoa.n.a.lytic inst.i.tute to ask about suspending my training while I attended to important family business overseas. I told no one other than my training a.n.a.lyst.

"The plan was for me to go there and we'd get married discreetly in some nondenominational chapel. Married! Can you imagine that? We hardly knew each other. I begged and borrowed enough for the airfare. Marta found us an apartment next door to one of her friends. We had no plan. Except for the rent money Marta earned teaching at a girls' finis.h.i.+ng school, we had no income. I had no working papers. We had nothing."

Stan continued, "Marta had two close friends: Jausienne Moriellion, a nurse at the university hospital-she lived with her parents in a chalet with an in-law suite; that's where we lived-and Anne DePaquier, a fellow medical student who was married and had young twins.

"Anne and Marta persuaded Professor Christian Mueller, the equivalent of the Dean of Students at Marta's medical school, to find me a part-time job as a lab a.s.sistant earning five Swiss francs an hour, which was a lot of money back then. Mueller introduced me to Professor Georges Van Claire, the chief of psychiatry at l'Hpital de Cery and the head of the Lacanian psychoa.n.a.lytic inst.i.tute in Lausanne. I'll never forget Van Claire, so stocky and inscrutable. He looked more like a ski instructor than a psychiatry professor.

"Marta had terrible morning sickness, but she never missed a cla.s.s. She spent her evenings with me studying; I spent the evenings emptying the plastic bowl we used to catch her vomit. Even though the fetus was only eight weeks old, she bonded with it as if it were one of her vital organs."

Stan's eyes drifted toward the wall of flowering bushes beyond which the waves were breaking against a craggy jetty.

"We barely slept," Stan continued. "Marta woke up night after night, breathless from panic attacks, but except for being there for her, there was nothing I could do. My parents called day after day, wondering what was going on. Eventually, I stopped answering the phone.

"Then one afternoon, my older sister Sharon showed up at the chalet. From the way I embraced her, she must have thought I was desperate.

"When she saw us together, Marta a.s.sumed my family sent her to get me to come home, but once Sharon saw Marta heading for the barf bowl, it took all of fifteen seconds to figure out what was going on. She immediately took Marta into her arms like a sister. Marta couldn't stop sobbing. I thought about calling Monsieur Van Claire that night, but Marta didn't want anyone knowing our business."

Stan's drink was disappearing rapidly.

"In the middle of the night, I heard panting and soft moans, and the toilet flus.h.i.+ng. At first, I thought Marta was having another anxiety attack from all the emotional upheaval she'd been through."

"Did you realize what was happening?" Jonas said.

"Not at first," said Stan, covering his eyes like he wanted to blot out the memory. "Marta pointed at some red-stained mucus in the toilet bowl. Then, she started pacing. It went on that way for a while, me rubbing her back and neck like I always did, when all of a sudden, she doubled over and started howling like she'd been disemboweled. Sharon woke up, and when the two of us carried Marta back to bed, all I could see was bright red blood staining her nightgown."

Stan began rubbing his hands agitatedly. "I pounded on the Moriellions' door.

"'O est ta femme? Maintenant. Venez vite. Si vite que possible,' I said to Monsieur Moriellion in the best French I could manage. Out came Madame Moriellion in her nightgown. I told her, 'Prenez votre voiture. Venez. Ma fiancee Marta est l-dedans. J'ai peur qu'elle mort'

"I'm sorry. I remember it in French. Did I lose you?"

"Absolutely not," Jonas said. "I'm right there inside the chalet with you. You told them you were afraid Marta was dying."

"The next ten minutes are a blur. Madame Moriellion, Sharon, and I dragged Marta into the cold night and laid her in the back of Monsieur Moriellion's pickup truck. He sped through the windy streets like a grand-prix driver. At every traffic signal the road split into two or three directions. It's amazing the things you remember. The street to the Salle Des Urgences was named Rue de Bugnon. 'Au secours. Au secours,' Madame Moriellion yelled the moment we arrived."

Jonas had become so engrossed in Stan's story that he could barely breathe. With the late afternoon wind dying down, the only things moving were two egrets diving from the sky like a pair of fighter jets.

"Marta had bled out six pints. An arterial-venous malformation in her uterus had ruptured. She was in shock. They said she'd have died if we'd gotten there ten minutes later. The doctors operated immediately to see if they could save her from needing a hysterectomy, and that's how things stood when Marta came to. We were so relieved that she had survived that all we could do was hug each other.

"But when Marta saw us celebrating, she threw a fit. 'Where is our baby? What happened to our baby?' she wailed on and on. The doctors hadn't told her yet about the damaged uterus. She was thras.h.i.+ng around so much it took all four of us to keep her from disconnecting her IVs. I remember the gla.s.s bottles of blood-that's what they used in those days-swinging back and forth.

"Someone summoned Professor Van Claire, who dismissed us summarily. He didn't leave Marta's bedside for the next two hours. Then, he said he wanted to speak with me. Alone. By then, it was late morning, and I could see Evian and Mont Blanc in the distance. 'French or English?' Van Claire asked sternly. The look on his face told me everything. I was in for it. 'Anglais, s'il vous plat,' I said.

"'Do you understand what just happened, young man?' he asked gravely.

"I told him yes. He asked again. I told him yes. He asked a third time, irately. 'I love her,' I told him. 'I love her with all my heart.'"

"'You love her?' What do you know about love? You run off to some shabby hotel like a pair of rabbits and call that love? You didn't even use protection. What sort of man does that? Do you have any idea what kind of woman Marta Koetter is? What it meant to her to be pregnant? What it'll mean if she can't bear children? You-ready to run back to Mommy and Daddy and leave us to clean up your mess.' Monsieur Van Claire glared at me like I was sc.u.m."

Stan's shoulders shot back to attention. "I saw red. 'a.s.sai!' Enough, I told him. 'Pas un autre mt.' Not another word. 'You know nothing about me. I'm the son of a rabbi. A man of faith. I would never run away from my responsibilities.'

"I wanted to grab the man by his neck and pin him against the wall, but he apologized for talking to me that way. It must have dawned on him that I might be as grief-stricken about the baby as Marta was.

"'Marta Koetter is a simple girl,' he said. 'She's devoted to family. She'll stay with you forever. It's in her nature. But she deserves better than someone who stays with her out of obligation.'

"I thought Monsieur Van Claire was finished. He opened the door as if to dismiss me; then turned back and said, 'So do you.'

"'Je reste ici,' I told him. 'Je m'appartiens avec elle.' I'm staying here with her; where I belong.

"Monsieur Van Claire and I made peace. He saw how devoted I was to Marta and that I would never desert her. Later on, he recommended me to the Lausanne psychoa.n.a.lytic inst.i.tute and found me work at l'Hpital de Cery. He became Jennie's G.o.dfather."

Stan collapsed into his chaise lounge. "Does any of this sound familiar?"

Jonas nodded. "Yes, but about Marta ...?"

"We were lucky. Her uterus healed enough for her to conceive Jennie, but Marta spent the entire pregnancy in bed. That was all we were prepared to risk. We thought about adopting but never pursued it. Not until a certain someone showed up in our foyer one Thanksgiving with two bottles of Swiss wine."

"It must have been devastating to Marta when Jennie couldn't have children," Jonas said.

"Not really. There had always been tension between Marta and Jennie. Marta is and always was a farm girl. That's what I loved about her, but Jennie wanted a gentrified sophisticate for a mother. That's the real reason she took up with that fool from Hollywood. It wasn't solely that Peter snowed her with the lifestyles of the rich and famous; Jennie bought into it because she thought she'd become the woman her mother never was. G.o.d knows exactly what happened-I have my suspicions-and I know Jennie landed hard, but it was the making of her."

"Ironic, isn't it?" Jonas said. "Life sends Marta two kids from the farm for grandchildren. You know, I always believed Gracie and Gil came from somewhere in the Midwest."

"You don't think that was an accident, do you?"

"What?" Jonas said.

"Marta turned the whole Koetter clan onto the fact that 'a couple she knew well and trusted'-that's how she phrased it-wanted to adopt. Koetter was one of the most respected names in southern Indiana; they put out the word to every diocese within fifty miles."

"Did Marta know the birth families?"

"No. And she didn't want to. That whole episode with Jennie's cancer scare and the adoptions gave Marta and Jennie a second chance to bond, which they did. That's all I wanted to tell you."

"That's all?" Jonas chuckled. "It's going to take a while to process this. I feel like I just discovered that Beethoven was a plagiarist. What about Jennie? Should I tell her?"

"I trust your judgment. Other than that, I don't have much to say."

Both men laughed. Jonas broke the silence. "I'm glad you told me."

"You're the first person I've ever told the full story. I'm glad you're here for me to tell it to," Stan said as if he had read his last will and testament.

"Let's hope it stays that way for a long time," Jonas said.

Off to their left, the sinking sun backlit the stratus clouds above like the corner of Gracie's photograph.

63.

After dinner and an uneventful hour in the casino, Jonas and Jennie returned to their room. Jennie wore a flowing negligee that made her feel plush and satiny. She initiated the lovemaking that night, which Jonas knew was her attempt at reconciliation. He tried hard to accept her apology, but the sting of feeling betrayed lingered, like the ache after a muscle spasm that heals in its own time; he knew his anger at Jennie would fade away soon. Jonas turned face up promptly after they finished and said, "That was nice. Good night, Jen. I love you," after which Jennie burrowed close to his chest and fell asleep quickly.

Jonas slipped out of bed and threw on some clothes; he headed out the sliding doors toward the ocean. With the palm trees swaying, the full moon cast eerily bright shadows, the evening breeze echoing the sounds of the surf. Jonas sank onto a wooden bench, his mind swirling. Stan's story reminded him of his own vigil after Gregory's surgery. He thought about Jennie's breast cancer and infertility, and Marta's miscarriage-how women face death to bring life into the world.

Moments later, he heard footsteps, and caught a whiff of cigar smoke mingling with the scent of the tropical blossoms. Jonas said, "Stan? What are you doing up so late?"

"It's me," said Eddie, emerging from the bushes.

"Since when do you smoke those things?" Jonas said.

"Stan gave it to me. Mind it I sit down?"

"It's a free country."

Eddie sat down as far from Jonas as he could get. "Am I disturbing you?" Eddie said.

Neither man spoke for a moment. Then Jonas said, "Yes, to be honest, but don't take it the wrong way. It's been a long day. I just wanted to unwind."

"Peaceful, isn't it? Not like holidays in the city." Eddie turned to face Jonas. "Whatever happened Thanksgiving night is still affecting you. Everyone's noticed."

"Evidently it's open season on my psyche," Jonas said.

"You told me you tell Jennie everything. Just exactly how much does Jennie know about her?"

"So, we're back to that again?"

"That's how Dad wanted it."

"What!"

"You heard me."

"What does our father have to do with this?"

"The year you went to college, he made me swear I would always look out for you. Maybe he had a premonition he would die young."

"This is looking out for me? Harping on me because of something you don't understand?"

"You've had this thing for her forever. Admit it."

"So, we're back to cross-examination. Leave it at work, Eddie. I'm on vacation."