the others? Where are they?”
I shrug. “Wherever.”
He’s not having it, and he gets right to the point. We don’t exist and never will. “Where do you go, Victoria, when you’re not in control and not watching?”
“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? And I apologize for not having an answer, except to say we don’t relate well to clock time. It seems to me that I exist at every moment, but I know that can’t be strictly accurate.”
“And why is that?”
“Because there are periods of time I can’t account for, long periods of time. But, then again, where does your anger go, Doctor, when you’re not angry? Your laughter, your hunger, your thirst?”
I watch his eyes narrow. My feeble challenge has annoyed him and he’ll try to put me in my place. To prove the point, he asks a question I think he was saving for later on.
“Describe the incident that brought you here. Or better yet, perhaps you can summon the identity who precipitated your encounter with the police.”
“That would be Eleni. She’s not around, and I have no way to reach her. As for summoning?” I pause long enough to smile. In the movies, split personality types call their various identities into consciousness at will. If only that were true, our lives would be a lot easier. “The truth, Doctor, is that we have no central identity to do the summoning. If Eleni were observing, there’s a chance she would appear spontaneously. But she’s in hiding, in disgrace, hopefully repenting for the monumental screwup that put us in this position.”
“That’s fine, Victoria. Just tell me what you know. Eleni and I will meet later on.”
Do I detect the beginnings of a leer? Because we could live with the sexual interest, a natural consequence of a childhood passed in bondage to a sexual sadist who liked to entertain his friends. Eleni, especially, would be eager to accept the challenge, assuming there’s a deal in the offing.
“All right, I’ll describe the events as best I can. Eleni? Well, she has a theory. Bodies have needs. There are the obvious, of course, to eat, drink, breathe, and sleep. But there are others as well, including sex. Eleni has decided—”
“On her own? Against your will?”
“Very much against my will.”
Suddenly, Eleni’s mocking laughter—maybe she’s been listening all along—rolls through my brain. I’m a virgin, by inclination and necessity, and Eleni never loses an opportunity to remind me.
“Go on, please.”
“Eleni has chosen to provide for this need.”
“Does she have a lover?”
Should I tell him the truth? Do I have a choice? Halberstam’s surely read the police report. Like any good lawyer, he knew the answer to his question before he posed it. For all Eleni’s pretense, she’s a reckless fool who’s never met a risk she didn’t want to take. Her preference, over the last few years, has been for drug-fueled hookups, often with multiple partners. More than once I’ve reclaimed our body only to find it bruised and battered.
“Eleni is promiscuous, Doctor. Six days ago, she traveled from our Brooklyn apartment to an area on the waterfront notorious for street prostitution.” I take a breath, utterly humiliated. Just words, I tell myself, just words.
“Go on.”
“Well, she propositioned a man standing outside a bodega who turned out to be an undercover cop working a prostitution sting. I don’t know what she said, but as she never asked for money, she couldn’t be charged with a crime. Still, something in her manner, in her words, in her dress activated the cop’s radar, and he decided that he was dealing with an EDP.”
“An emotionally disturbed person?”
“Exactly.”
A red light flashes on the intercom to the left of Halberstam’s notes. He glances at it for a moment, then turns back to me. “I’m afraid our time is almost up, but please describe what came next.”
“We were taken to Kings County Hospital for observation.” By then, Eleni had fled the scene, leaving me to handle the inconvenience. Wearing, of course, the slutty outfit she’d chosen for her excursion. “Prior to our mandatory hearing three days later, we were poked and prodded by psychiatrists and psychologists in one-on-one and group sessions. We were tested as well, with objective tests, projective tests, attitude tests. We even took what the examiner called an EPES test, an Erotic Preferences Examination Scheme.”
I don’t have to state the purpose of all this testing because the issue was and remains simple. Are we fit to live independently? Or does the danger we present to ourselves or to the public justify indefinite confinement—accompanied by a regimen of psychoactive drugs, many of which have a sedating effect that leaves our body’s multiple personalities with no personality at all.
Psychiatric hospitals are not prisons. So it’s said, especially by the politicians and medical personnel who run them. They just look and function like prisons. The doors are locked, and you exercise, sleep, and eat on a schedule you play no part in creating. True, the women on your ward usually aren’t criminals. Instead, three-quarters are either schizophrenic or bipolar. Despite the sedating medications, they howl, scream, bawl, and beg at every hour of the day and night. Patient-on-patient attacks are commonplace.
When I finally walked our body out of the psych ward at Kings County Hospital four days ago, I felt like I’d escaped death itself.
If so, that escape was tenuous. Our court-appointed attorney, Mark Vernon, had pulled no punches when he spelled it out only a few days before: “This is not a trial, Ms. Grand. It’s a medical hearing and many of the protections afforded defendants at trial are unavailable. Do you need to be protected from yourself? Doctors will examine you and doctors will ultimately decide. It’s a rare judge who’ll override a recommendation from the medical community.”
“May I sum up?” Halberstam asks, yanking me away from my thoughts.
“Certainly.”
“You’ve been granted a conditional release dependent on your entering into therapy. I’ve been assigned the task of conducting that therapy. You know this, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
I watch his eyes narrow slightly, a shift mirrored by his small, thin mouth. He’s about to assert his rightful authority as he leans forward to place his palms on his desk, as he tucks in his chin, as he peers over his glasses.
“I know your therapy has been forced on you. I know that you’re probably resentful and not without reason. But while I’m not a fan of coercive therapy, we are stuck with each other, which means in essence that only a short time from now I will be required to submit a recommendation to the court. I must choose, at that point, between three possibilities: return you to your ordinary life, continue your therapy, or recommend that you be confined. I’m hoping to make an informed choice and not an educated guess, which I cannot do unless I become acquainted with each of your identities.”
There’s nothing to be said here except: “I understand.”
“That’s good,
