I often sense when talking to Dr. Krakauer that he somehow feels Sandy, David, and I are evil. He’s never come out and said so in as many words, but a man who insists we committed rape would have to believe we’re evil unless he also believes rape is just another innocent American pastime. I won’t go into the long session (it seemed long) that Crackers and I had just before my departure for Semanee, but he said during that interminable fifty minutes that whatever the three of us shared was unhealthy at best and evil at worst. He didn’t say evil exactly. But he certainly intimated it. (Or perhaps not. Analysts aren’t supposed to make value judgments.) But he did say a lot about narcissism and about being able to excuse whatever ternary acts we performed because we enjoyed, in effect, the approval of the peer group, which peer group wasn’t that at all but merely a three-way reflecting mirror so that in reality we were enjoying only self-approval. He went on to say (dig this) that our relationship was a form of non-relating, and that we clung to each other so desperately because we were incapable of relating to anyone, least of all ourselves. In other words (and I repeat all this bullshit only to make a point about Mary Margaret), the highly personal relationship we thought we shared was really entirely impersonal.
But if Crackers really did believe we were evil, how did he account for the fact that none of us felt an iota of guilt about what we had done together with Rhoda? (Spare me a lengthy dissertation about the psychopathic personality, okay, Doc?) The truth was we did not feel guilty, we had done nothing to feel guilty about. Mary Margaret, on the other hand, had wept all the way from the hospital, and what were her tears if not an open admission that she had done something terrible, something unspeakably horrible, something in fact evil? She was crying because she felt guilty. And she felt guilty because not only was she a bigot, she was an evil bigot to boot.
Or (and this was the third and darkest possibility of all) perhaps she had broken Foderman’s leg in a misguided effort to please us. The three of us. Sandy, David, and me. I realized, even as I thought of it, that if I ever mentioned the idea to Crackers he would use it as evidence against me. He would say I was only trying to glorify the friendship by setting it above and apart from the puny, meaningless relationships other humans shared, thereby isolating us further from the peasants and enabling us to withdraw more completely into ourselves — which of course meant withdrawing more completely into a single self, narcissism again, ho-hum.
But wasn’t it a possibility? Mary Margaret had mistakenly believed from the very start that we were actively engaged in trying to break Foderman’s leg. Admiring our style, desirous of getting into our closed circle, wasn’t it entirely possible she had broken Foderman’s leg in an attempt to ingratiate herself with us? Like a cat bringing home dead chipmunks and laying them on the doormat? Had breaking Foderman’s leg been her way of meeting initiation requirements? Had she erroneously and crazily assumed we would applaud such a terrible deed?
The idea amused me.
It also frightened me.
It frightened me that it amused me.
Was I, in fact (and this was what annoyed me most about analysis), pleased that Mary Margaret had gone to such lengths to engage our attention, court our approval, and be accepted into our tight society? Was I really shocked and angry, or was I secretly delighted? Jesus, I thought. If I’m glad she broke his leg, then maybe we intended to break it all along. (“Vun, two, tree, testing,” Bittner said again.)
No.
We were not culpable. It was all right to consider Mary Margaret an amoral bitch, but it was all wrong to believe we had in any way encouraged her behavior. We simply had not. Sandy had told her frankly, bluntly, and perhaps cruelly, that we considered her a sadistic Jew-hater. We had made it plain we did not like her, we had told her we did not want to ski with her, and we had accompanied her this morning only to make certain she would not try to harm Foderman. Yes, Mary Margaret was the death, all right, Mary Margaret was that hairy stinking thing Foderman had described. But we were not about to be accepted as the fever, thank you. We were not about to think of ourselves as motivating forces, begging forgiveness as the lesser of two evils. Our temperature was 98.6, quite normal.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Bittner said, “we are so happy tonight to make the awards from our instructors for those skiers who have achieved according to their merits the most advanced in their classes on the slopes this week.”
“Mind if we join you?” Penn Trate asked.
“All the tables seem to be full,” Mrs. Trate said.
“Sure, sit down,” David said unenthusiastically.
“And, at the end, when we are finally giving out all the pins,” Bittner said, “we will have the extreme honor of presenting to the winners of the race this morning for the slalom, the honor of the Semanee bronze, silver, and gold medals.”
“I don’t believe we’ve formally met,” Trate said. “I’m John Hennings, and this is my wife Matilda.”
“Tish,” she said, and smiled.
“Her nickname,” Trate said, and smiled.
“Sandy.”
“David.”
“Peter,” I said.
“I understand your, friend had an accident,” Trate said. “Honey, do you want something to drink?”
“Yes, a little crème de menthe, please,” Tish said.
“Racked himself up pretty bad, from what I hear,” Trate said.
“Johnny, let’s not talk about ski accidents,” Tish said. “I get very nervous.”
“Tish is a beginner,” Trate said.
“He’ll be in traction for eight weeks,” Sandy said.
“So now,” Bittner said into the microphone, and winced as feedback pierced the air. Moving away from the mike, he said, “What the hell is that, huh?” and smiled at the audience. Max fiddled with the amplifier, and then Bittner came back to the mike and said again, “So now... ahhh, that’s better... so now, without further announcement, we will have presenting the awards for the Beginners’ classes, that’s groups 6A and 6B, Mr. Martin Hirsch, who you perhaps all know as the Silver Streak. Martin?”
Accompanied by a flourish from the band, Hirsch, grayhaired and suntanned, came up to the microphone and joylessly read off the names of the bronze and silver pin recipients. The skiers approached the bandstand like winners of the Academy Award, beaming at their friends, waving to well-wishers in the crowd. I fully expected them to make acceptance speeches in which they thanked their agents, their acting coaches, their hairdressers, and their trusty police dogs. Instead, clutching their coveted prizes, they walked proudly back to their tables, while the band played another brief flourish and the ski instructors stood and grinned along the wall.
“Hello, folks, would you care for something to drink?” Alice asked.
“Yes, a crème de menthe, please,” Trate said, “and I’ll...”
“On the rocks or straight up?”
“Straight up,” Tish said, and I could tell from the faint flush on her cheeks that she considered this somehow suggestive.
“And you, sir?” Alice asked. “Hi, Peter.”
“Hi, Alice.”
“I’ll have a Martini, very dry, with Beefeater’s gin and a twist of lemon,” Trate said.