"Something happened to him?"
Dr. Bernstein peered at her, as if measuring her ability to withstand a piece of devastating news.
"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, Gelsey. Dr. Zimmerman had a heart attack over the weekend." The woman paused, then continued quietly. "Monday night he passed away."
No!
Even as Gelsey took in these terrible words, she choked on her denial.
NO!!
For a moment she wanted to grasp this strange woman's hands, tell her that what she'd said simply couldn't be true. But their chairs were too far apart, angled slightly from each other the way Dr. Zimmerman liked.
And then Gelsey felt a rush of panic as she grasped the enormity of her loss.
Dr. Z, who had tried so hard to help her, was now gone forever from her life. She would never again hear his soothing voice. Staring at his masks, she felt as if she were standing on a tightrope, safety line suddenly gone, precariously balanced above a great, dark, terrifying abyss.
"… we were close colleagues."
Dr. Bernstein was speaking. Gelsey, caught in a spiral of sorrow, tried hard to follow her words. he spoke often of you, Gelsey. He was fond of you, as I'm sure you know.
Sy Zimmerman was not a man to hide his feelings. With that magnificent man, you always knew where you stood."
Dr. Bernstein shook her head. Her grief was evident.
"All the patients are in great distress. He was such a gifted analyst.
I've been trying to meet as many of you as I can, to help you begin the important process of healing. If we mourn properly, we can mend ourselves and go on.
Sy would want that." She smiled. "I can just imagine him saying: ' on, Rebecca! Eat up that sorrow! Hurry, finish. Now… you're ready for your happiness, your dessert!" Dr. Bernstein paused. "The funeral, of course, couldn't wait. But there will be a memorial service later in the month. If you give me your address, I'll make certain you're notified.
All of Sy's patients are extremely welcome..
.." She peered at Gelsey. "It's hitting you now, isn't it?"
Gelsey realized she was weeping; she hadn't noticed before.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," she blurted. "We were going to talk about something so important today."
I ', Sy is gone, but he hasn't left you alone. There're several of us, close colleagues, ready to step in and help as best we can. I don't claim to be as gifted as Sy. He was my supervising analyst when I started out. The man gave to everyone-wife, children, students, patients. Now we must do what he would have wanted most-use what he gave us to grow stronger and continue our struggle with this marvelous, difficult process called life."
Gelsey liked Rebecca Bernstein. She was warm, perhaps even wise. But she could not imagine telling her the secrets she had shared with Dr. Z.
Nor could she imagine Dr. Bernstein imparting the same quality of solace. Sy (how strange now to recall him by a first name she had never used) had been ready to explore with her the secrets of the maze.
Looking closely now into Dr. Bernstein's friendly eyes, Gelsey asked herself. How could I even begin to explain?
But then she did begin. Suddenly the words began to tumble out. She wasn't aware at first of how fast she was speaking or how intimate was her torrent. It was all a jumble, the story of her life, fractured into pieces and then rearranged like the shards of broken mirrors she now applied to the surfaces of her paintings:
Her father, handsome, the charmer, the maze-maker, hitting the road with his tacky trailer, his funky fun-house mirror-maze-on-wheels. Traveling the carnival circuit, then returning to work on his great creation, his private labyrinth, secret work of art.
Her mother, depressed carnival worker, eyes wet, skin damp, sitting forlorn in the window, waiting, waiting… for her husband to return.
The world of mirrors. Mirror-madness times. Reflections that don't show you who you are. A dream-sister in mirror space. Mirrorworld. The mockery of mirrors. Their cruelty. Infinite corridors. Galleries of images. Slices of her face, body, soul. Crooked crazy-house mirrors in the Corridor of Distortion. The sinuous, diabolical Fragmentation Serpent with its body-breaking mirrors and parabolic mouth that flips you upside down. The untouchable, unreachable attractions in the Chamber of Unobtainable Ecstasy. The Great Hall of Infinite Deceptions with its seductive multimirrored walls. Disassociations. Shadow-work.
Her double-delusion mirror-fantasy incest-secret. The forbidden mysteries hidden in the concealed chambers of angled silvered glass.
Mirror sex. A Leering Man with a devil's grin. "You bitch! You slut!"
Kisses that branded her pale, pale skin. How she knew all about men, their fantasies, their weaknesses, how she could turn them on at will.
How she liked to tell them stories about her father's abuse, then watch how her stories titillated their desire. How she thought: If I seduced him, I can seduce them all If I was his love slave, I can make them mine.
Mirror-art: The mirrors guard her. She gathers energy from them. They taunt her. Sometimes she believes she is a mirror!
Down in the maze. Down there. In the labyrinth. Among the mirrors.
Nothing is real. We are only reflections, illusions, shadows on the glass.
Mirror-crime: Picking up marks, slipping them KO drops, putting them to sleep.
Looking beyond a mirror. What is she looking for? Down there. Deep within a mirror, behind its surface? Mirror-ache. Mirror-pain. Down there. Something hiding. A creature. Down there. Dark, malevolent, sexual. Down there. The secret of mirror sex! Down there. The Minotaur.
"Hmmm, yes, I see… " Gelsey looked up. Rebecca Bernstein was staring at her. "While I was waiting for you, I read your file. Sy was concerned. He felt you were close to a breakthrough, a turning point in the analysis. I'd like to work with you, Gelsey. As I said before, I don't pretend to be as talented as Sy, but perhaps I can offer a few good insights. Perhaps, too, you could profit from working with a female analyst." She paused. "You must think about it. I don't want to press you. You have been open with me today. Thank you for that." She spread her hands. "We've all suffered a terrible loss.
Perhaps together we can find a way to work through our suffering. Here's my card. Please call me… anytime."
A minute later Gelsey found herself standing alone in the little waiting room, wondering what to do. Through the doorway she could hear Dr.
Bernstein's muffled voice as she spoke to someone on the office phone. A kind woman, a good listener, but Gelsey knew she would not return. A good, kind, wise woman was not enough. She needed, and now had lost, a brilliant man.
She looked around the pathetic waiting room. Shabby chairs. Ragged magazines. The tawdry dime-store mirror on the wall. She had always despised that mirror. Now she found it touching.
She reached up, lifted it off its hook, held it tightly to her chest.
She knew what she would do. She would steal the mirror to keep as a memento of Dr. Z. She would keep it and stare into it and perhaps one day she would see his face.
Back on Broadway, she hurried toward the health club. When she reached it, she paused outside. In the front window a muscular male mannequin, bare but for a pair of gym shorts, held hands with a muscular female mannequin dressed in shorts and a haltered sports bra. Smiles were painted on their faces. Mirrors revealed their attractive posteriors.
The message was that if one joined this gym, one would find attractive objects of one's desire.
Oh, where are you, Dr. Z?
Thinking of Tracy, yet knowing it would be unwise to go in, she crossed the street to the supermarket, entered, pushed her way through the crowds to the community bulletin board posted beside the salad bar.
The board was crowded with slips of paper offering apartments for share, rides to the Hamptons, a male "inaid" who promised to "bust your dust."