Thousands of thoughts and questions whirled around in my mind. I wanted to find out about her and Herman, and especially her relationship with Alfred. I wanted to uncover her fantasy process, see if her unconscious association could give me a clue to the likelihood that she killed by poisoning. What did poisoning mean to her? It was a subtle and sly means of murder, one that barely left a trace. If an individual did not confess their crime outright, their unconscious often found a way to discharge the dreaded information. Like an ocean that had endless depths, the unconscious could be mined, for hints, secrets, subliminal patterns that would make a person likely to kill..

  “I’ve been punished enough. I’m innocent.”

  We looked at each other intensely. For a long while, I said nothing. I wanted to throw her off guard, shake her confidence, see what might surface.

  “I heard you went to the hospital.”

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “They have to give me a record of all inquiries about me. Did you realize, that, doctor?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I thought maybe you did it to free me, or maybe you were sneaking around behind my back.”

  “I spoke with people at the hospital,” I said quietly, “in order to be of more help.”

  She thought it over. “Farbin, I bet.” She laughed.

  “Yes.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. “He’s crazy about me. Knows a good thing when he sees it.” She seemed to have no idea that I had spoken to Herman as well.

  The clock ticked loudly as we stared at each other.

  “You went because you cared about me?”

  “Why else would I take THE extra time?”

  “Maybe because you were scared I could kill you too.”

  “You can’t kill me,” I said methodically.

  Obsessed with the question of whether she’s a murderer, and whether others see her that way. Could be partially due to the upcoming trial, partially due to the enormity of her aggression.

  She looked up and her eyes glinted. “You think you’re invulnerable?”

  It was a ploy, a tactic to manipulate me and I wasn’t going to let it work.

  “I have no fear of you, Andromeda.”

  “Really? Then let’s get out of here and go for a walk in the park. We’ll pass your fancy friends and wave at them as we go by.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “I didn’t think you could, doctor,” she almost spat on the floor.

  I wondered what triggered this outburst, then suddenly realized it was the hope of my being on her side, the fear of closeness between us, the terror of finally being accepted by someone. She had to test it to the limits, undo it, if she could.

  Persistently involved in a power struggle. A compulsion to plunge into the depths of misery. Addiction to horror, fascination with pain. A libidinous conversion of pain to pleasure. Receiving enormous sadistic pleasure from keeping me in doubt. If she did actually kill her mother, her need to get this kind of pleasure, this kind of revenge would be eliminated. This points to the possibility that Andromeda may not have committed the crime.

  I had made two columns on each paper, one filled with psychological dynamics that would lead to her committing the murder, the other with dynamics that would not.

  “I must have said something important,” she whined as I wrote compulsively. “You’ve never written for that long. Are you writing American History?” She scratched her legs with both hands, running them up and down her nylon stockings.

  Her grotesque, ungainly appearance, I continued to write, is a mockery of her mother’s beauty, and of what her mother wanted from her. A source of continual revenge. Therefore, it’s possible she did not have a need to actually kill.

  Fear of being loved brings up rage. Reminds her of all the times love was refused. She retaliates. Suddenly, I saw the pattern. The danger for her is not hatred, but love.

  I became excited - I’d found the key! I wanted to test this further. I had to know the truth. If this was so, a time of kindness and acceptance by her mother could have released this hatred and pain. It could have been all it took. Perhaps her mother had relented. Perhaps that happened with Alfred as well? Perhaps Andromeda took some strange power from it?

  “Put your fucking pad down,” she demanded, as if sensing I had discovered something. “You stop what you’re doing and pay attention to only me. If someone calls me and reports the stranding of a whale, I stop everything and put out the alarm. I don't sit there, looking at my clock..”

  “Do you feel stranded, Andromeda?”

  “I said the stranding of a Whale!”

  “Were you stranded by your mother, Andromeda?”

  “She hated my guts from the day I was born. Said they must have switched babies in the nursery. All her boyfriends thought she was beautiful, but underneath her silk dresses and jewels, she was rotten, through and through. No one had any idea. either, except the one who finally killed her. He began to realize who she was. She was cheating on him, doctor. She cheated on everyone. And blamed me for everything.”

  This was the first time Andromeda actually accused another. I realized that this kind of story would stand up well in court. The jury would feel sorry for her.

  “You were heard threatening to kill her many times.” I sat forward in my chair. I wanted the truth and I wanted it immediately. These games were making me feel unwell.

  “Sure, I threatened her, doctor. She threatened me too. Words only, they meant nothing. One day I dared her, I said “‘Do It Finally, Bitch. Kill me. Live by your word, for once in your life. But she was too frightened. She lived on the thin edge of reality, doctor - just like you.”

  To my surprise, that last statement got me. “You don’t know anything about how I live.”

  “Oh no? Don’t I? I’ve seen plenty like you before. You’re a dime a dozen, right from a mold. You’re caught up in trying to find out if I did it. All right, I’ll confess. I did it doctor.”

  She enjoyed playing with my head.

  “She deserved it, too,” Andromeda said, matter-of-factly. “Let me tell you, I'm always glad to see people get what they deserve. It gives me a sense of fair play, doctor. That's part of what karma means. You get what's coming. My mother didn't deserve to live.”

  That grabbed my attention. “We all deserve to live.”

  “Not really. Some of us need help to die. That's the greatest kindness.”

  Suddenly the room felt hot and stuffy. I felt confined. I wanted to drink fresh water, comb my hair and take long breaths of clear air. In lieu of that, I spoke to her as I would to a very young child.

  “It's obvious she hurt you very much.”

  She looked me over from top to toe. As she did it I felt like a figure patched together with powder and paint.

  “Wrong,” she pouted.

  “You wouldn't say your mother deserved to die, if she hadn't hurt you very much,” I insisted. I held my direction, as a quote from the Art of War flew into my head, “Victory lies in the commander's superior strategy and strength”. Maybe she had superior strength, but I had strategy. I was going to find out what really happened, who Andromeda really was.

  Part of me wanted to hear that she’d committed the crime, another part dreaded it. If I found she was guilty, what would happen then? I didn’t want her discarded. I wanted to help pull her out of this web.

  “When I used to visit my mother at the hospital and see her lying there, sometimes she looked so white and peaceful, the way I always wanted her to be. But it was only because she was sick, doctor. I’d had enough of it. It was my turn to live now.”

  “Your turn?”

  Her odd comment caught me. She believed only one of them could live. If her mother was well, she had to be destroyed. Killing her mother could have been her only chance at life? Perhaps Andromeda even believed her conflicting stories? It was not unusual for psychotic individuals to believe they had actually committed crimes they only wanted to perform.

  “Are you a virgin, Andromeda?” I then asked, to shift her focus, take her off guard, gear the discussion to her relationship with Herman.

  “Disgusting question. It’s none of your business.”

  “It is.”

  “You get off on things like this, doctor?”

  “Has there ever been anyone? Is there anyone now?”

  “You think I’m a pig like my mother?”

  “Maybe?” I could play her game as well.

  She grinned. “You’re right. I’m a pig and you are too. I know all about you and Curd.”

  My heart pounded. “There’s nothing to know.”

  “Oh isn’t there? He’s a cute guy, doctor. So what if you’re married? These things don’t count in your world.”

  My hands began trembling very softly.

  “Andromeda, do you know Herman Gracow?”

  She stared at me a long time.

  “The inmate?”

  “Yes?”

  “What about him? He’s a nutty, little guy who makes up stories. Why do you mention him?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

  I felt shaken. Perhaps it was all his delusion, perhaps I was misjudging, was in way over my head. I thought of how to respond, but before I could she began again.

  “But I have someone now, doc. And he stays with me at the Ansonia Hotel, when I come into town.”

  She was trying agitate me, and she succeeded.

  “You can’t imagine it’s true. You don’t believe any man could want me, but there’s always been someone for me. Before my mother died, it was my stepfather, the one who killed her, finally.”

  My head began spinning. “You and your stepfather?”

  “Yeah, the one she made me sleep with, so I could know what it meant to be a woman.”

  Her story was repulsive and crazy, but underneath it felt as though there were a vestige of truth. We looked at each other sharply. Neither of us moved or blinked. Suddenly we became fair opponents, sizing each other up. Herman’s comments rumbled within me, making me more uncertain about what was going on. Andromeda had been diagnosed as paranoid-schizophrenic, time and again. If it were accurate, if I agreed with the diagnosis, I would discount any possibility of believing her. For a sharp moment I wondered if being crazy was simply a role she’d adopted to defend against the shame and degradation she’d been through?

  How best to handle this? I would not allow the confusion she was creating to drown me in its web. I knew she enjoyed seeing me squirm. She was trying to see if I could take all the horrors she could conjure up. These horrors could be nothing more than a smoke screen, hiding the truth.

  Immediately, I picked up my yellow pad and scrawled across it in large letters on top of the page, I will not enter her world of degradation.

  “Whenever you are frightened, doctor, I notice you run for your pad. I never saw such a frightened doctor, and I've lived in mental hospitals for years.”

  “I'm not frightened. You are, Andromeda.”

  Where did she stop and I begin? The distinction between us was beginning to blur. In my mind, too, clouds were forming.

  “Stop this writing, please,” she moaned.”Please, please listen to me.”

  For a flashing moment I wanted to stand up and say, you are too much for me, Andromeda. Nothing ever prepared me to meet you. This case is pulling me apart. But I didn’t, I couldn’t. I had no idea of my own limitations.

  “So, there was nobody else? No one at the hospital?”

  “No there was not.”

  “Funny, I thought there was someone at the hospital?”

  “Why would you think that?” Her back arched strangely.

  She lies, she lies, she lies, I wrote. It’s possible she did it - poisoned Alfred and slept with Herman in the hospital. The real possibility stilled me completely. All these stories of her and her stepfather could have been screens to hide what really happened. Her involvement with these sexual details and fantasies pointed to the fact that Herman’s story could have been true.

  My newfound stillness seemed to unnerve her.

  “What’s the matter with you, now?” she said. “Are you frightened by sex? You’re sicker than me, doctor.”

  I wondered what she would do if she found out what Herman told me? Would I would be next on her list? In a blinding moment I felt that she was choosing deception, wrapping it around her like a well spun coat. And I could choose to refuse it. She didn’t realize who she was up against.

  “I hate you,” she blurted.

  Andromeda suddenly looked larger than she did at the beginning of the hour. For

  a moment I wished I’d never met her. But there was nowhere I could run from her now. I

  summoned myself.

  “The hour is almost over,” I said.

  But she couldn’t let go. She didn’t budge. Three more minutes remained.

  “Sometimes I feel you care for me, doctor. Do you?”

  I could not speak.

  “Answer me straight. Don't play your analyst's games.”

  “I'm doing my job.”

  “Not your real job.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To learn to love me - as I am.”

  Outside, in the streets, an ambulance siren started calling. The mood in the room shifted abruptly. It was as if we'd climbed a hundred mountains.

  “I can't figure you out. You're not like the others. There's something else here. I can’t figure it out. It's confusing. It doesn't belong in an analyst's office.”

  Silence fell upon us then. I knew it was time for her to open the door and walk out of the office onto the streets. But I couldn’t end the session and neither could she.

  “You're not the only one whose looked into the darkness, Andromeda,” I said suddenly. “You're not alone.”

  That momentarily seemed to soothe her. Then her whole body sagged and looked deflated.

  She put her hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. “I'm tired, doc,” she murmured, “I've climbed a hundred mountains, and I don't know my way back.”

  Large tears began to fall down her face. As I watched them fall silently, I felt tears welling in my eyes as well.

  “Get well, Andromeda,” I whispered, “love is harder than hate. It’s better.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “There’s mercy in this universe.”

  She grew quiet for a moment.

  “I know. I trust God knows why I'm suffering. I trust that my suffering has a greater meaning.”

  This kind of response was common in certain kinds of psychotics.

  “And I trust that God brought me to you. Do you believe that too?” She was breathing heavily, almost gulping.

  I couldn’t answer.

  She sneered. “See that! I only come here because you need me, doctor. Without me, you're half dead. But you can turn any moment and live. And it can happen in a flash. Don't play dumb with me, you’re not just writing Paranoid Schizophrenic down on your paper. You're writing down that I’m beautiful, that I'm helping you come back to life.”

  “This is also how you felt about your other analysts. You told them all you were here to help them.”

  “They didn't believe me, though,” she cried out. “But you believe me. You know this suffering is going to make us both holy.”

  “This treatment is going to make us holy?” I repeated out loud. “That's quite an idea.”

  “This treatment will purify both of us.”

  I knew she was right, but also that she was crazy.

  “It's all in God's hands,” she turned away and started sobbing. “And God is tired of me now. I've used up my welcome.”

  “You're welcome here, “ I said in a small voice.

  She spun around and stared, her face wet and swollen. “Who are you to welcome me? Who in hell are you?”

  Then she wiped her arm across her face, raced to the door, yanked it open and fled, leaving a trail of sorrow behind.

  CHAPTER 13

  Andromeda’s words echoed inside me all afternoon. After I finished work they were still with me, not allowing me to rest, so I decided to take a long walk at the river.

  It was almost the middle of April now, the days lasted longer, a soft light hovering when I left the office. I turned and walked ten blocks towards the river which ran along the edge of the city. The weather was warm and it was soothing to walk on the streets, admist the throngs of people who were leaving their offices, taking buses, going into subways, or hailing taxis on their way home. I wondered about Andromeda. Was she really with someone at the Ansonia Hotel? What did she hope for in her life now? What could she truly expect?

  I arrived at the promenade along the river, climbed the steps, went to the rail at the water’s edge and breathed deeply. It was wonderful to be at the water. A few tug boats passed slowly. I thought of my father and grandfather as I stood watching the boats. Both had been gone for a long time by now, but suddenly I felt they were here with me.

  I smiled at my childishness and moved away from the river’s edge, walking evenly along the promenade, allowing the evening to fall quietly. Andromeda’s questions had no easy answers; still they could not be discounted. Her fate lay with these questions, exactly there and no other place.

  A few joggers passed me. They looked intent upon their activities, pleased with where they were going. They did not seem, like I, to be desperately searching the evening sky for answers that could not be found.

  After walking for an hour, I felt more at ease. I had no idea what I would say to Curd about Andromeda. I had no conclusions, only more questions. Perhaps I should say that as Andromeda became more human to me, I knew less about her, not more. She’d become larger, more of a mystery, couldn’t be summed up in formulations. The real answer to his question might be that she was both innocent and guilty at the same time.

  *

  Curd called about fifteen minutes after I got home. I heard soft jazz playing in the background and realized he was calling from home.

  “You saw her again today?”

  It was almost as if he were talking about an illicit relationship.

  “Yes, I did.”

  He waited for more and I said nothing.

 

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