"What are you thinking now?" he finally said.
"If I am awake…"
"Yes?"
"If I am awake, I cannot drown."
"To be asleep is dangerous to life."
"Yes," I said.
"Hence insomnia."
I remembered my mother singing me to sleep that first night after the flood at Uncle Jim's house. I remembered desperately not wanting to go to sleep.
"That is a terrible fright for a child," he said.
"For anyone," I said. "My mother talked about it for years."
"That didn't help. Yet think of when your insomnia came on badly."
"When I was away from home for the first time."
"When you didn't have Mommy or Daddy to pull you out of the water."
"It sounds ridiculous."
"All of our recurrent nightmares are ridiculous in one sense, and revealing in another. I am so happy."
"Happy?"
"For you. Now that this has come out, it should be better at night. You have let the genie out of the bottle. Sometimes the shock of something else, what happened to you today, helps open the gate of memories. Your insomnia was for a purpose, in the curious logic of the unconscious, it was for your safety so you would not drown."
"There's a difference," I said.
"About what?"
"I didn't drown. I was just afraid of it. I was raped. I didn't imagine it"
"You will not have insomnia about rape."
"How do you know?"
"Because it is not a source of severe anxiety for you. While rape can be very traumatic for some, for you, well, you are strong."
I am not strong.
"May I say how I think you should think about it?"
I know how I think about it.
"Why do you seem upset now? You should be relieved."
I am furious.
"I know how you feel about it. Awful. Terrible. Those are just large canvases of feeling. You must think about it like an unpleasant sex experience that must be brushed out of the mind."
I could kill that man. "You don't understand!" I was sweating all over again.
"Oh I do, I do. All this past year I have felt your strength grow, your security, I think now is perhaps the time for us to begin, gently, slowly, discussing something I have wanted to explore with you before this came up."
Stick to the subject. You are supposed to be helping me.
"I want you to relax. Here, sit up. That's it. Look at your knuckles. Open your hands."
He took one of my hands and opened my fingers. Don't do that. I don't want to be forced to do anything.
"Now," said Dr. Koch, giving me back my hand, "you have reached a turning point. Your talking about the flood, it will be a catharsis for the insomnia. You can turn from the demons of the night to the opportunities of the day. You see, my dear, I have long thought that if you were an artist, say, or a dancer, something like that, a person trying to release a talent from your soul, you would know what vocation is."
What the hell are you talking about?
"If you had a special talent with your hands even, you would know what a craft is. You would feel driven."
I feel driven to claw your face right now.
"You would know the meaning of work in the highest sense given to man. But alas, because of circumstances, you lack even an economic stimulus. Your family is well-to-do, work is a hobby for you. Neither money nor talent drive you toward a vocation."
I deliberately picked up the fragile ashtray and slammed it to the floor.
He pretended not to notice! He just said to me, "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking you are one first class son of a bitch. I came here for help. What does all that garbage have to do with the way I feel?"
"Everything." He stooped to pick up the pieces of ashtray.
"I'll pay for it," I said.
He dismissed that with a wave of his hand.
"What happened today," he said, "is a transitory matter. A wound that will heal."
I felt as if I were dissolving. "I haven't even told you what that man did to me today."
"Please tell me," he said.
I bit my lip. Suddenly I didn't want to talk.
"Please," he said. "You must talk it out."
I shook my head.
"I'm trying to help you."
You're not helping me.
"Say it."
"You're not helping me."
"Tell me what happened. How did it start?"
"A knock on the door." My voice sounded like an automaton to me.
"Then?"
I told him about the cup of sugar. About the broom, for banging on the ceiling. Then about when Koslak exposed himself.
"What did you think about that?" asked Koch.
I didn't want to hear my automaton voice. I didn't want to talk any more.
"What did you think?"
I forced my dry throat to speak. "He wanted me to be frightened. I knew that."
"Were you frightened?"
"Of course I was."
I exhausted myself in the telling of the rest of it. Finally, he said, "Do you feel better now?"
"I don't know."
"You will feel better when you come to grips with one thing. Your rootless brilliance."
What the fuck was wrong with this man? "Are you talking about my job again?"
"I thought tonight it might distract you. We can talk about it some other time."
You started it, finish it. "Talk about it now."
Koch sighed. "You are young."
You are old.
"There is time. A job," he said, "is not a vocation. A vocation is like an engine that burns out only when you burn out. You desperately need roots for your brilliance. And the handicap you have is that you are a second generation vocational foundling."
"Now what does that horseshit mean."
Koch stared in surprise.
"You said I could talk as uninhibited as I wanted to in these sessions. I said horseshit because that's what it is. I don't understand what you're talking about."
"Don't get so worked up. Your father is a vocational foundling."
"He's a lawyer."
"He has no vocation as a lawyer. He is filling a role out of strange reasons. I have heard him. He has the same problem as you have."
I was standing now. "I was raped today."
"Yes."
"Rape is a crime. It's my body was violated. I was tied up. I could have been killed."
He did not get up. It was as if by remaining seated, he was forcing me to sit back down.
"But you were not killed. You must deal with reality."
"I am! For Christ's sake, I went to the hospital, I went to the police, I thought at least here I would find some sympathy, some understanding."
"Please sit down."
"I feel like I'm in enemy territory. Just like in the police station. Don't any of you men understand?"
"What have you against men?"
"Oh shit, let's not start that kind of thing. Let's talk like normal human beings. If I'd been robbed, if I'd been burglarized, you'd be sympathetic!"
"I am sympathetic."
"Like hell you are. You started criticizing my whole way of life. Tonight. When I came for help."
"I was trying to direct your attention to your deepest problem now that we have found the source of your insomnia. You will not have it again, I promise. Please sit down."
"I'm not going to sit down. I'm going to get the hell out of here."
"Please, please." He was standing now. "You've never done this before."
"You've never been this obtuse and cruel before."
"I think you should come back tomorrow when you are feeling calmer."
"I hope—"
"Yes?"
"Something happens."
"To me?"
"Yes to you. So you'll understand what I feel like."