The Syndrome Read online

  He waited for Nico beside the door, imagining the change in air pressure when he heard the elevator doors open with a swoosh on the sixth floor. And then he heard her footsteps on the tiles in the hall, a soft click-click-click that grew louder and louder until, suddenly, there was nothing. And then the doorbell rang, a single note, clear and round, as if from a xylophone. It reminded him of the public address system in department stores like Macy’s and Saks.

  Not that he went to department stores—or not often, anyway.

  Duran opened the door at the sound of the bell and, as he did, Nico stepped back, a little surprised by the absence of any delay.

  “Nico!”

  “Oooh!” she exclaimed. “God, Doc, you made me jump!” Then she smiled. Relaxed. And came in.

  “You’re looking great,” Duran told her, closing the door behind them. “Tanned and healthy. Though I guess ‘pale and healthy’ is the new paradigm.” He paused for a moment, and looked her up and down, trying not to be sexist about it—an impossible task, under the circumstances (the “circumstances” being high heels and a pink tube skirt about the size of a handkerchief.) “Where have you been?”

  She shrugged. “Just the beach.”

  “No kidding. Which one?”

  She shook her head. “One of the beaches. I forget what they call it.”

  Together, they walked through the living room to his office. “Is that new?” she asked. Paused and pointed.

  Duran followed her eyes to a bloodred Kirman that lay on the floor in front of the fireplace. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I just got it.”

  “You’ve been shopping?”

  Duran smiled ruefully, and shook his head. “It’s from a catalog.”

  “I thought so. You know, you ought to get out more, Doc. You’re pale as a ghost.”

  Duran shrugged. “I don’t have time. And, anyway, it’s like I said—a new paradigm.”

  The “office” was a lot like the living room, but with recessed lighting and windows hung with heavy drapes. Neutral colors dominated—the walls a buttery cream, the furniture slipcovered in beige linen. Watercolor landscapes hung from the walls in tortoiseshell frames.

  And so did Duran’s credentials. Like the oversized furniture and kilim-covered pillows on the couch, his bona fides were there to reassure his clients. There was a Bachelor’s degree from Brown, and a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wisconsin. Flanking the diplomas were certificates from the American Board of Psychological Hypnosis and the Society of Cognitive Therapists.

  “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?” Duran asked, as he sat down behind the desk. “I want to take a look at my notes—and we can start the tape.”

  “Do we have to tape?” Nico complained, tipping off her shoes as she flopped down on the couch.

  “Yeah,” Duran said with a chuckle. “We have to. We really do.” Inserting a cassette in the tape recorder, he hit the Record button and, turning to his computer, began to type. “It’s not my idea, y’know—it’s the insurance company’s.”

  “I’m not going to sue you, Doc.”

  “Riii-ight,” Duran replied. “That’s what they all say.”

  He had her in a light trance, reclining on her back with her limbs slack, eyes shut, expression neutral. Duran took her through the usual imagery-progression, his deep and soothing voice guiding her into and through an imaginary landscape.

  “You’re on a soft, dirt path beside a cool stream, and you pause for a bit to listen to the water splashing over the rocks,” he said. “You see a leaf, caught on the surface of the water—it’s like a tiny ship—and you follow its progress as it sails downstream, caught for an instant against a rock, and then spinning free into the current. You watch it until it disappears around a bend and then look at the water—its miraculous texture, so smooth and silky as it rolls over the pebbles of the streambed.”

  Nico frowned momentarily as he led her away from the stream, and winced slightly as she followed his instruction to crouch and duck under some “spiky” branches. Her brow furrowed with effort as she made her way through the “dense” vegetation. And then her faint and blissful smile returned as she crossed a meadow on a path that was “soft and spongy” under her feet.

  “There’s a light breeze on your cheeks. It lifts your hair and bends the grass…”

  As she was told, she opened a small white gate and walked down several flights of lichen-covered steps, descending through a dappled shade to a secluded pool. There, she sat on a fallen trunk of a moss-encrusted oak, watching the sunlight “sift through the trees and dance on the water.” Nico’s left hand rolled over the side of the couch, trailing against the rug, dipping into the cool water.

  She was in her “safe place,” where nothing and no one could hurt her. Duran watched her chest rise and fall as he began to regress her. “Let’s go back,” he said. “To when you were a girl.”

  “I am a girl.”

  “A little girl. Twelve… eleven… ten. Do you remember?”

  She shifted uncomfortably on the couch, and nodded. Duran was a few feet away, leaning forward in a wing chair, amazed at the way her face had changed, the wised-up and guarded neutrality giving way to a look of sweet and energetic innocence. She was a child again, and even her voice was childlike.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “South Carolina.”

  “At your foster parents’?”

  “Umm-hmmm. In our house. It’s a big white house, way out in the boonies.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You know.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Her brow furrowed. “It has columns. Big old white columns. Like rich people. Only the paint’s all peeling and you can see they’re not really solid—just slats of wood, glued together. And now they’re coming apart. So maybe—maybe it’s going to fall down.”

  “What is?” Duran asked.

  “The porch.”

  “Okay… what else?”

  “Trees.”

  “What trees?”

  “There are trees. Live oaks. The house is at the end of a little road—”

  “A long driveway,” he corrected.

  “‘A long driveway,’ with life oaks on both sides.”

  “Live oaks,” he corrected.

  “Right. That’s what they call them—except they don’t really look alive. They look old and dead. And everybody thinks they’re wonderful. Except me.”

  “You don’t like them?”

  “No. I’m scared of them!”

  “Why?”

  “Because…”

  “Because of what?”

  “They’re creepy.”

  “‘Creepy’? What do you mean, they’re creepy?”

  “On account of the cobwebs.”

  “You mean the Spanish moss,” Duran told her.

  “Unh-huh.”

  “And what else?” he asked.

  Nico’s brows furrowed as she thought about it. Finally, she shook her head.

  “Didn’t Deck do something with the moss?” Duran asked.

  Once again, she shifted on the couch. After a moment, she nodded. “Mmmm-hmmm.”

  “What did he do?”

  She turned her head toward the cushions. “He put it in his hair on the shadow-nights.”

  Duran nodded. “‘And it was like’—what was it like?”

  “Cobwebs.”

  He leaned closer to her. “Tell me about Deck,” he said.

  “I don’t like Deck,” she exclaimed. Suddenly, her eyes flew open, and she started to sit up. “But—you can’t tell him!”

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise!”

  “I will. I do. Now, lay back. Close your eyes. You’re safe here.” Duran could see that she was beginning to hyperventilate. “It’s just you and me, and the wind and the stream and… Okay?”

  She nodded.

  After a while, he returned to the subject. “Why don’t you like
Deck?”

  She was silent for upwards of a minute, her chest rising and falling. Duran waited patiently for the answer, his eyes on her lips. Finally, she blurted out the words: “Because of what he does!”

  “And what’s that?”

  Nico squirmed. “He pretends we’re going to church with our friends, but it isn’t a church that we go to—it’s just a tunnel under the basement—”

  “And what happens there?”

  Nico’s body became very still. Then she shook her head.

  “Didn’t you make movies, sometimes?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me about the movies,” Duran said.

  Nico frowned, then rolled over onto her side, so that she was facing away from Duran, with her eyes on the back of the couch. “I can’t,” she said.

  “You can’t?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?” Duran asked.

  “Because I just can’t.”

  “You can’t remember any of them?”

  Once again, she shook her head.

  “But… I remember one,” Duran told her. “Wasn’t there one where… where you got married?”

  Reluctantly, Nico nodded and, as she did, Duran saw her stubbornness dissolve into a mix of apprehension and unhappiness.

  “So let’s go back to that,” Duran suggested. “The wedding. Tell me about the wedding.”

  And so she did. Under Duran’s guidance, Nico recounted her older sister’s death in a pornographic film that starred the two of them, with a younger sister playing a supportive role. This was territory that Nico and Duran had visited often. It was the heart of the matter for Nico, and coming to grips with it was vital.

  “I’m all in white,” she said breathlessly. “Dressed as a bride with a long train, and a bouquet of flowers.”

  “What kind of flowers?”

  “Baby’s breath and red roses,” she answered without hesitation. “And ferns. Rosanna is the groom—which is silly, because she’s a girl.”

  “What’s she wearing?” Duran asked.

  “A black tuxedo with a red carnation. She looks so beautiful! Adrienne is the ring bearer.”

  “And how is Adrienne dressed?”

  “She’s not dressed. She has a garland of flowers in her hair, that’s all.”

  “And you walk down some kind of aisle?”

  “Ummmhmmmn.”

  “Are there candles?”

  “Yes. Candles and chanting. And then the minister stands before us, asking, ‘Do you take this man… ?’“ Her voice faded, and she seemed to lose concentration.

  Duran prompted her. “The minister asks, ‘Do you take this man’—and then what? As I recall, that was your cue—”

  “Right,” Nico said.

  “That was your cue to—what?”

  “Kneel down.”

  “And?”

  “Open my mouth.”

  Nico’s discomfort was palpable now, and Duran was worried that the discomfort would devolve into hysteria, as it had on some earlier occasions. So he changed tack. “Tell me about Rosanna,” he said. “Who is she?”

  “The groom.”

  Duran waved the answer away, as if it were a fruit fly. “Right. In the movie, she’s the groom. But… who was she—really?”

  “You mean, outside the movie?”

  “Unh-huh.”

  “She was my sister. Rosanna was my big sister, and then there’s Adrienne. Adrienne is my little sister.”

  “I see…”

  “Because when I was ten, Adrienne was only five. So that meant I was a lot older!”

  “You have two sisters, then.”

  Nico shook her head. “No,” she said. “Just Adrienne. I don’t have Rosanna anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “She died.”

  “Oh… I’m sorry,” Duran told her, and fell silent for a moment. Then: “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How did she die?”

  “She died in the movie!” Nico whispered.

  “Ohhh, that’s right,” Duran said. “She died in the movie! But it was just a movie.”

  “Nunh-unh. It was real!”

  “What was?”

  “The movie!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It was real! They pulled back her hair and—”

  “Who?”

  “A man.”

  “What man?”

  “The man in the red hood. He was wearing a robe, and there was a hood on it.”

  “A robe?”

  “Everyone was wearing a robe—except me. And Rosanna. Adrienne and Deck.”

  “What was Deck wearing?”

  Nico frowned with childlike concentration. Finally, she said, “Straps.”

  “What?”

  “He was supposed to be the priest—a really important priest! But he wasn’t dressed like a priest.”

  “What was he dressed like?”

  “I don’t know,” Nico said. “He was just wearing straps. Leather straps. And the cobwebs.”

  “Okay,” Duran told her, “but… you said they pulled Rosanna’s hair back.”

  Nico nodded. “Unh-huh.”

  “And… when this happened—where was she?”

  “On the floor.”

  “What was she doing?”

  “She was just… on her hands and knees.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there was sex!”

  “She was having sex?”

  Another nod.

  “With who?” Duran asked.

  “Some men.”

  “But… wasn’t she very young?”

  Nico shrugged. “Twelve.”

  “Okay. She was having sex, and—then what?”

  “I told you. The man in the red hood pulled her hair back…”

  “And?”

  “He cut her.”

  “Where did he cut her?” Duran asked.

  She touched a finger to her throat. “There…”

  “And then?”

  Nico made a keening sound, and turned her face toward the cushions.

  “Don’t look away, Nico. You have to face it. Just tell me what happened.”

  “Rosanna’s eyes got so big—she was so scared! Because the blood was foaming out of her, and she couldn’t even say anything—she just made a noise—

  “And where were you when this was happening?”

  “Under Deck.”

  “Okay, but… if it was just a movie—if it was just pretend—”

  Nico shook her head, violently. “No,” she insisted, pushing up on her elbows, her voice swelling with panic. “It wasn’t ‘just pretend.’ It was real. It was really real! Deck kept the movie in a special box—with a lock. And, sometimes, he made me watch it with him, but—you couldn’t see Rosanna anymore—except in the movie. Because Rosanna was gone. Rosanna died in the tunnel, the tunnel they said was a church…”

  Duran tried to calm her, shushing softly. “Sshhhhhh… it’s okay. You’re here with me, now. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

  Slowly, the tension seeped out of her, and her head fell back on the cushions. Duran could see that she was exhausted.

  Talking quietly, he guided her slowly out of the trance, retracing the steps they’d taken through the imaginary terrain that was so familiar to them both. The path. The stream. The trailhead.

  “Take a deep breath,” he told her. “The air is delicious. So sweet and crisp and cool.”

  Her chest rose and fell. And rose again.

  “When I count to five,” he said, “you’ll wake up, and you’ll feel relaxed and refreshed, okay?” Without waiting for a reply, he began to count: “One… two… three…”

  Nico’s eyes fluttered and opened, revealing dark, unfocused pupils that dwindled in the light. Duran handed her a Kleenex.

  “You’ve done some really good work, Nico. I’m proud of you.”

  She blinked furiously at the light, until Duran came into focus. Then she swun
g her feet off the couch, sat up, and cleared her throat. Her face was flushed, but her eyes were shining and clear.

  “So it was okay?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Absolutely. And we’ll talk again on Friday.” With that, he helped her up, and showed her to the door, where she gave him a big smile, and a lingering kiss on the cheek.

  “You really make my day, Doc.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s why I’m here,” he joked. Then he got serious. “There’s one thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “Your lithium—take it, Nico.”

  She rolled her eyes, and looked away.

  “Promise me,” he repeated.

  Reluctantly, she nodded. “I hate it,” she said. “It makes me feel dead.”

  “It keeps you grounded. And you need that. You want to be on a roller-coaster all the time?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then take your medication.”

  When the door closed behind her, Duran went back to his desk and typed a brief summary of the afternoon’s session.

  October 16. Sullivan, Nicole, 30

  Hypnotherapy and guided imagery continue to elicit classic allegations of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), allegedly suffered as a child (8-10) in a South Carolina foster home. Sisters, Rosanna and Adrienne, similarly abused. Rosanna supposedly killed by foster father, Declan, while making pornographic film. Client’s narrative includes occasional references to politically prominent persons and celebrities, implicating them in the activities of the cult.

  Episodes of manic-depression and compulsive behavior currently managed by medication (Lithium salts), though client continues to encourage the manic phase by skipping doses…

  When he’d finished his summary, Duran attended to the tape recording that he’d made. Removing the cassette from the machine, he wrapped it in a length of bubble wrap, which he then secured with rubber bands. This done, he slid the package into a JetPak, and addressed it to the Mutual General Assurance Company in New York City.

  Then he sat back in his chair. The nearest mailbox was a block away, a long block away, at the corner of Porter and Connecticut. He’d have to take the elevator down, and—

  He didn’t like to leave the building.

  There it was. He didn’t like to leave the building. But of course, he had to.