Years ago I devised a quick remedy for when tension ties my insides into knots. On my desk I keep three well-balanced English darts in a holder. When I open the closet door in my study, hanging on the back is the same dart board I have been using as long as I can remember. When you pick up the darts and take aim, your concentration is one thing only, moving the right arm forward with a snap to release the dart headed for as close to the bull's-eye as you can. And then there is the second and the third. You see your score, and in a moment you are plucking the darts out to show yourself that you can improve the result. Darts are addictive. You never throw just one. And before you know it, you have recreated yourself. And there is not, as with other recreations, a mess to clean up afterwards; just to close the closet door, and put the three darts back in the holder on the desk.
This evening my throwing of the darts is not entirely successful, because as I throw I cannot put completely out of my mind a petition to the absent Francine. I don't want her to continue her anger at me. Long after I have put away the darts, the phone rings again. It is the young man calling for her, I agree to see her though it is very late. It is in this moment of crisis that the cause of her insomnia comes surging into her memory. I am delighted, even though the cost of the revelation is this hideous thing. It is out in the open, and what do I do? I find myself lecturing instead of soothing her. Is this a form of attack because of her unfaithfulness to me, with the boy Bill and with the rapist?
In the silence after she leaves, I sit in my bathrobe into the night, trying to define my worthlessness this evening. I am not her father, her lover, I am her therapist, I must help her, I hope I do not love her, she has become a sexual affliction for me, I am afraid I adore her unreasonably, I must give her up as a patient, I cannot give her up, I must have the help of the Deity now in exchange for whatever promises will buy surcease.
Seven
Francine
All those wasted hours Koch the Coward sat behind my head listening, when he has to do something to help, he waddles out of it like a fat chicken, refusing me!
Oh I know what mother would have said, you need a best girl friend to turn to, as if I were a ten-year-old.
My best girl friend was a boy, the one sweet man who, even if he couldn't possibly understand what rape was like, would be a presence, a friend. I dialed Bill's number, still seeing Koch's fat face in my mind, wanting to pummel it with my fists. When Bill answered, my voice was quivering.
"What's the matter?" Bill said.
I told Bill what had happened. No details, just a man forced me.
"Oh nooo," he said. He sounded as if I had just told him his mother and father had died in a car crash.
"Are you all right?"
What does that mean?
"Are you hurt?"
How can I answer that?
"Please, Francine, say something!"
I became aware of my silence. I couldn't connect my rage and my voice.
"Are you there?!"
"I'm here," I managed to say, my voice a dry rasp defying me to control it.
"I'll be right over," he said.
I gentled the receiver back onto the cradle, not letting it go, then felt it shivering, ringing in my hand, and I picked it up again to hear Bill saying, "It'll take me nearly an hour driving fast."
"Don't drive fast. You'll get a ticket." There's no point getting killed coming to me.
When Bill walked in, he looked at me as if to see how I was different.
Don't look at me, I am a violated person.
"Are you hurt?"
He's not looking at me.
"Your cheek is very red."
I put my hand up to where Koslak's hand had slapped me hard. It hurt to the touch.
I turned my wrists up so Bill could see where the rope had burned in.
He was wondering about the rest of me. "I hurt inside," I said.
He was looking at me as if to define "inside."
"In my head," I said, "and everywhere else. Please drive me to the hospital."
When we arrived there. Bill double-parked — I was sure he'd get a ticket, I said — and accompanied me inside the double doors marked "Emergency." We went up to the nurse's desk.
Before I could speak, the nurse said, "Which one of you is the patient?"
My mouth felt too dry to talk. I pointed to myself. I wondered if my breath was bad.
"Are you her husband?" the nurse asked Bill.
He shook his head.
"Then step back behind the white line."
Bill blushed, moved back fifteen feet to the white line he had not noticed. I could feel him watching me.
"Name?"
"Francine Widmer."
"Spell it. Do you feel faint?"
"No." I spelled my name, gave my address, said I had Blue Cross coverage, signed the form the nurse pushed at me.
"What's the complaint?"
"I have an internal problem."
Bill, watching my lips, heard.
"What kind of internal problem?"
There were now two people in line behind Bill, impatient to get to the nurse.
"I don't know," I said.
"We can't admit you without a doctor's authorization and without a specific complaint."
"You mean I have to go away."
"Unless there's something specifically wrong."
"I'll go," I said, but in a second. Bill had crossed the line and was saying to the nurse, "She's not telling the truth. She was raped."
The nurse looked at Bill and then at me.
Into the silence Bill said inanely, "It wasn't me."
"Step back behind the white line," said the nurse.
"Why didn't you say so?" asked the nurse.
"I don't know," I said.
"Alleged rape," the nurse said slowly, out loud, as she wrote the words on the form.
"Go to the second floor east waiting room. Give this to the nurse. Next."
I took Bill's arm. "Thank you," I said.
"He has to wait down here," the nurse yelled at us.
Upstairs, the nurse on duty had a blank expression when she took the slip.
"When did this happen?"
"This evening."
"Have a seat over there. I'm going off duty in a minute. Another nurse will come out for you."
The wait seemed endless. Then I was ushered into a cubicle, told to remove my clothes from the waist down, to get on the examination table, put my feet in the stirrups. I did as I was instructed.
The doctor was a resident. My age. I felt hideous in that awkward position. He glanced at my cunt without a flicker. Then at my face. Then at the paper on his clipboard.
"What happened?" he said. He sounded as if he was in a hurry.
I showed him my wrists. The pink striations were less now than when I had shown them to Bill.
"Your hands were tied?"
"Behind my back."
I showed my left cheek. "From a slap," I said. "A hard slap."
The doctor handed his clipboard to the nurse.
"We'll do an internal," he said.