With Dr. Nissensen, November 7, 1972:
In my session today I told Dr. Nissensen that two nights back, Elizabeth, after setting out books on the beach, had said, “Sam, I’m up to page two hundred five,” which meant that she was continuing to work on her dissertation.
“I see,” Dr. Nissensen said. “Where do you imagine she does her writing? Perhaps she’s taken a room near Port Medway.”
“Perhaps she has. And your tone just now — go fuck yourself. I feel like leaving.”
“I meant it as an inquisitive tone, Mr. Lattimore. We’re still learning what not to take too personally in here, aren’t we.”
“I take everything personally. Why else would I want to talk with you?”
“My apologies. I promise to be more aware of my tone.”
“I take the weather personally. I take that Van Gogh drawing on your wall personally.”
“I understand,” Nissensen said. I tried to decipher what he wrote in his notebook; it might’ve been just the word “personally.”
The title Elizabeth chose for her dissertation was The Preoccupations of Marghanita Laski. She had tried out a lot of subtitles, but finally decided each one rationalized rather than clarified. For example, one evening she set down her pencil (she wrote her first draft in longhand in blue exam notebooks) and said, “How about ‘Metaphor as Passion in The Victorian Chaise-Longue’? No, see what I mean? That’s shit. If a title’s good, it doesn’t need a subtitle, right?” Elizabeth wanted eventually to teach in university. “Cardiff University or Swansea, those are my first choices, but I’d also love for us to try living in Edinburgh — someday, I mean. But that’s all in the future.”
Elizabeth was twenty-nine years old when Alfonse Padgett murdered her. So young. It tears me up how young she was. This evening as I looked at her on the beach, I ached for lack of touching her. A palpable ache. For her rich auburn hair that fell thickly to her shoulders; she often had it bobby-pinned up like veritable cascades at the ready. She confessed early in our courtship that while Myrna Loy was her favorite actress, in matters of hairstyle she took instruction from any number of movie stars from the thirties and forties. “Mainly Veronica Lake,” she said. Elizabeth was emphatic in her assertion that this was not masquerade or nostalgia for a time she did not live in, but rather that she was exhibiting a kind of scholarship in the form of hairstyles. “You can ask me about who this or that particular style is based on, which exact movie,” she said, “and I can tell you — go ahead, test me on it. I’m going to get an A-plus every time.” In fact, as I sat in our kitchen, maybe six months before she died, Elizabeth had walked in, fluffed up her hair with her hands, and said, “Who do you think?”
“I can’t even guess,” I said.
She said, “Veronica Lake in This Gun for Hire. With Alan Ladd.”
Tonight on the beach, as usual, Elizabeth had lined up eleven books, about two or three inches apart. She sat five or six meters behind them, clutching her knees, staring, as if one book or all of them would suddenly pick up and move on their own volition. I have learned to calibrate with some accuracy how close I can approach Elizabeth before she turns and says something. Her first words determine our distance. I can tell what she’s comfortable with in this respect. Between ten and fifteen meters’ distance, generally speaking. I realize my descriptions contain a lot of measurements; I think that is because I need literally to take a measure of this kind of reality I am experiencing, though that is more Dr. Nissensen’s way of thinking than mine. Anyway, Elizabeth talked a little while, recalling some funny things Marie Ligget had told her, then spoke about her dissertation on The Victorian Chaise-Longue. I wrote as much as I could in my notebook. After Elizabeth left the beach, I turned to see Philip and Cynthia standing on their back porch, watching me. They turned and went back inside.
Prayer Should Be Ecstasy
With Dr. Nissensen, November 21, 1972:
I thought the office was slightly overheated, but didn’t comment.
“I see you’ve brought your notebook, Sam.” Nissensen said.
“I’d like to read Elizabeth’s and my conversation. Which occurred last night.”
“I take it you drove in early this morning, then.”
“Yes, I checked into my hotel at about two A.M.”
“The Haliburton House Inn has a night clerk?”
“They leave a key. Honor system.”
“Please continue.”
I read from the notebook: “‘Sam, I’m on page two hundred five now. I’m writing about one of my favorite passages. It has to do with prayer. Let me recite it. “But prayer should be ecstasy…’” She repeated ‘But prayer should be ecstasy’ over and over again, like a broken record, except it had a variable and extended melody to it, so it wasn’t really like a broken record…”
Dr. Nissensen said, “The sentence certainly is taken out of context for me, considering that I haven’t read The Victorian Chaise-Longue—you asked me not to. I took it as a reasonable request, though it limits my potential understanding of certain conversations you say that you and Elizabeth are having.”
“‘You say you are having’? I say it because I’m having them.”
“That put you off. I’m sorry. All right, let’s stay with the passage you quoted. I’m interested in the idea of prayer. Is it possible that your seeing and hearing Elizabeth is a kind of answered prayer? That you have raised it to that level, almost theological? Let me ask it more directly: do you pray to see Elizabeth, and in turn consider seeing her your prayer being answered?”
“No, I just walk down to the beach and there she is.”
Then arrived the longest silence I had yet experienced in Dr. Nissensen’s office, or at least it felt like the longest. “Because, Mr. Lattimore—” At this point in our sessions, sometimes it was “Sam,” sometimes it was “Mr. Lattimore.” He closed his eyes, opened them, and took a sip of water from the glass next to his chair. “Because, according to the transcript of the court proceedings — remember, you asked me to read the transcript. You acquired this transcript — didn’t you tell me the house detective at the hotel got it for you? I assume you read it. According to his testimony, the last thing Alfonse Padgett said to Elizabeth was ‘If you pray, pray now.’”
“I tried not to read it. Then I read it. Why are you quoting from it?”
“Just that one item.”
“‘If you pray, pray now.’ The most hideous, godless, cynical, arrogant, violent nightmare words a human being can say.”
“I could not agree more,” Nissensen said.
“I hope someone uses the handle of a shovel to fuck him to death in prison.”
Silence a moment.
“You and I can discuss whatever you think we should discuss,” I said. “Prayer, if you want. I’m fine with that. But you want to know how I feel about the passage Elizabeth recited? To me, it’s simple. She was telling me she was on page two hundred five, which made me so happy, because she wanted me to know she was continuing to work on her dissertation.”
“Our time is almost up. Where do you think Elizabeth might be storing the pages of the dissertation she is writing, as they accrue?”
“I have no idea. But here’s a promise. I’ll give you a copy when it’s finally finished. I’ll hand it to you in person. I’ll give you permission to read it.”
“Not like the film director, Istvakson. You didn’t allow him to read the manuscript, as far as Elizabeth had progressed in it, right? I’m relieved to know I have a different status in your life than Istvakson does.”