She hesitates, considering the pristine, meticulously ironed square of white cloth in his hand, her own hand covered with blood. “Are you sure?” she asks.
“Yes, go ahead.”
She takes the handkerchief, gingerly presses it to her cheek.
“Where else did he hit you?”
“Everywhere.”
“Anything feel broken?”
“How does something feel when it’s broken?”
“It hurts like hell.”
“I do hurt like hell, but I don’t think anything’s broken. That bike cost four hundred dollars.”
“Where?”
“A shop on Third and...”
“I meant where do you hurt?”
“Oh. My face mostly. He hit me a lot in the face. I’ll look just great tonight, won’t I?”
“Anywhere else?”
“My chest.”
She takes the handkerchief from her cheek, glances at the bloodstains on it, shakes her head, rolls her eyes in apology, and then asks, “Is it still bleeding?”
“Just a little.”
She puts the handkerchief to her cheek again. With her free hand she begins probing her chest, gently pressing her fingertips here and there, searching for pain.
“Hurts here,” she says.
“The sternum,” he says.
“Whatever.”
He notices the sharp outline of her nipples against the thin sweaty fabric of the orange top. He turns away.
“Maybe we ought to get you to a hospital,” he says.
“No, I’ll go see my own doctor. God, I hope this doesn’t keep me out. How’s it look now?” she asks, taking the handkerchief from her cheek again.
He turns back to her.
“I think it’s stopped.”
“Look what I did to your hankie.”
“That’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll wash it and send it back to you.”
“No, no, don’t be...”
“I want to,” she says, and tucks the bloodstained handkerchief into the elastic waistband of the green shorts. Still sitting on the ground, ankles crossed, she bends over from the waist, clasps her ankle in both hands, and carefully studies her left leg. She is wearing Nike running shoes with white cotton Peds, a little cotton ball at the back of each sock. “I hit the ground kind of funny,” she says, “I hope I didn’t hurt my leg.”
He is still kneeling beside her. Dappled sunlight turns her eyes to glinting emeralds. Strands of golden-red hair drift across her face like fine threads in a silken curtain. The side-slit in the very short green nylon running shorts exposes a hint of white cotton panties beneath.
“It’s beginning to swell,” she says, probing the leg. “That’s just what I need.”
“We ought to report this, you know,” he says.
“I will. Soon as I get home.”
“You’d do better at a police station.”
“I want to see my doctor first.”
“You should go to the police.”
“Why? They won’t get it back, anyway,” she says, and shrugs. Narrow shoulders in the orange tank top shirt, delicate wings of her collarbone sheened with perspiration. “Four hundred bucks. I hope he enjoys it.”
“He’ll probably pawn it.”
“A junkie, right?”
“Maybe.”
“I prefer thinking he really wanted the damn bike. To ride, I mean. Could you help me up? I want to make sure I don’t fall right back down on my face.”
He gets to his feet and extends his hand to her. She takes it. Her palm is moist. Gently, he eases her off the ground, toward him. She lets go of his hand. Balances herself tentatively, testing.
“Everything feel all right?” he asks. “Nothing broken?”
“Are you an orthopedist?” she asks.
“I’m a psychiatrist.”
“Really? Do you know Dr. Hicks?”
“We’ve met.”
“I love her. Jacqueline Hicks.”
“She’s supposed to be very good.”
“Well, she really fixed my head.”
“Good.”
“What’s your name? In case I see her.”
“David Chapman,” he says.
“Dr. Chapman, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. David Chapman,” she says. “I’ll tell her you saved my life. If I see her.”
“Well, I think all he wanted was the bike, actually.”
“Thank God,” she says. “You have to give me your card. So I can mail you the handkerchief.”
“You really don’t have to...”
“Oh, but I do,” she says. “Your wife would kill me, otherwise.”
“She probably would,” he says, and reaches into his pocket for his wallet, and wonders how she knew... well, the wedding band, of course. “I always run out of them,” he says, “I hope I... yes, here we are.” He slips a card from its slot in his wallet and hands it to her.
“Right here on Ninety-sixth,” she says, studying the card, head bent, mottled sunlight setting her hair aglow again. “Your office.”
“Yes.”
“I live on Ninety-first,” she says.
“We’re neighbors,” he says.
“Practically.”
“Let me give you my home address, too,” he says, and retrieves the card and finds a pen in his jacket pocket and scribbles the Seventy-fourth Street address on the back of the card. He hands the card to her again. Caps the pen. Puts it back in his pocket. Looks at his watch. “Will you be all right?” he asks. “I’m sorry, but I have a...”
“Oh, yes, fine.”
“...patient coming in at one.”
“I’m okay, go ahead, really.”
“Let me know if you need me to testify or anything.”
“Oh, they’ll never catch him,” she says airily.
“Well, if they do.”
“Sure. Meanwhile, I’ll send you the handkerchief.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she says, and extends her hand.
They shake hands awkwardly.
“I really have to go,” he says.
“So go,” she says, and shrugs, smiling.
As he walks off, he hears her call behind him, “Hey! My name is Kate.”
The conversation in this office is privileged; that is to say, disclosure of anything said in this room cannot be forced on the witness stand. State statutes, case law, and federal rules of evidence label it “privileged communication,” this private and exclusive conversation between patient and doctor. But the privilege extends beyond legalities.
David has been granted the privilege of trust.
He does not accept this privilege lightly. He understands the gravity of it, knows that what his patients confide in him goes to the very core of their beings. They may be “Chairs” and “Couches” when he is separating them anonymously for Helen, but here in this deliberately neutral office they are the incontestable stars of the wrenching memories and dreams they relate, episodes past and present, revelations, admissions, confessions, which David sorts and re-sorts in an attempt at comprehension.
He is no longer shocked by anything a patient tells him. His notes — which he makes during each session in a spiral notebook with lined yellow pages — are linked to informal storyboards he himself sketches, the way a director would before filming, except that David’s illustrations are made during the act of creation; he is hearing the dialogue — a monologue in most instances — and visualizing the scene, while at the same time recording it on paper. His little drawings frequently resemble sketches for an Edvard Munch painting. A small boxed rectangle showing a cartoonlike figure of a screaming woman running from a racing locomotive will immediately recall for David the key episode or scene in a dream or a memory. Coupled with his scrawled interpretive note beneath it, the picture will instantly bring back the session and its essential matter. His sketches are quite good, actually. For a psychiatrist, anyway.