Kissing the Wind Read online

  “No!” I exploded as I popped up from the bench, frightening an elderly couple passing by. “No!” I recalled Dr. Brevoro telling me this was all just my brain rebelling against my injured eye. I repeated it aloud. “It’s just my brain!” I threw my coat over my shoulder, loosened my collar, and headed for the West Side exit by way of Turtle Pond.

  chapter six

  It was Violet’s thirty-sixth birthday and Daddy Dixon was giving her a posh party at Table 49, a highly touted Chinese restaurant in Columbus Circle that featured ostentatious Asian fusion cuisine and extravagant tabs. The décor was starkly modern interrupted with touches of Ming dynasty objets. Not really the proper setting for announcing my impending departure, but it had to be done. I had to totally simplify my life if I was going to be able to accommodate the bizarre Bonnet people and events that were to fill it from now on.

  I did regret having to be so abrupt and final with Violet. She really was a very thoughtful and beautiful woman, witty and outgoing, but the fact was we had never struck any sparks and I should have admitted it long ago. Besides, how would I ever accommodate her obeisance to her father—or my own?

  The birthday table was in a desirable alcove of the restaurant facing the likeness of Christopher Columbus in the circle below. I was seated next to Violet, Papa Dixon on the other side of her. There were ten people at the table: the Dixons, a couple of relatives, Violet’s friends, and me. Wine was being poured, but I noticed there were several of those damn pine sprigs in my glass. I knew the sprigs couldn’t be seen by anyone but me, but I passed on the wine and ordered a double vodka martini to fuel my resolve. Exotic hors d’oeuvres were being passed and the table was coming to life. Birthday toasts were being offered and Violet was responding happily. My resolve to make this night my getaway began to weaken: Maybe not on her birthday, maybe I should wait until tomorrow. I took a liberal pull of my martini and, to my amazement, saw a long file of people coming into our alcove. There were beautifully costumed dancers, four women who waved their lavender scarves like birds above their heads, young people in festive dress who crowded around me, and some men whose clothes looked European. None of them were talking or singing or making any noise whatsoever. I tried to wave away some of those pushing in on me but I couldn’t make contact, and when I tried to look them in the face they turned their heads away. I mumbled something at them, at the same time trying to hear Dr. Brevoro’s It’s just your brain, but it did no good. The oppression around this room full of arriving celebrants was so real it overwhelmed me, and even though Violet was alarmed by my behavior, I couldn’t control myself.

  I realized Violet was pulling at my sleeve to stop me from waving my shooing hand at the interlopers, whom, of course, she couldn’t see.

  “What’s happening, what’s wrong?” she kept saying.

  A group of six identical dancers waving fans was moving around me.

  Dixon got up and came over. The whole table was now aware of my antics. Dixon leaned over me. “What in the devil’s going on?” he said.

  “All right, listen,” I said, knowing that my time had come, “please sit down, Mr. Dixon. I have something to explain about myself. I’m sorry it comes on your birthday, Violet.”

  Two waiters entered pushing carts that contained an assortment of the restaurant’s signature dishes.

  A quiet hum had descended over the table. Dixon returned to his seat without commenting. The waiters distributed their dishes.

  “Okay, Chet,” Dixon said as soon as they departed. “Let’s hear your sob story.”

  I gave him a hard look. “Well, it begins with you, Mr. Dixon,” I said, “that time you socked me with a tennis ball and it left me blind in my right eye.”

  Dixon pounded his fist on the table, making the plates jump. “It was an ordinary overhead you should have avoided!”

  I pressed on. “I healed up and that should have been the end of it, just learning to get along with one eye, but I was terribly unlucky—only a limited number of people who are blind or half-blind contract what is known as Charles Bonnet syndrome, and I am one of these unlucky ones. The syndrome produces hallucinations that are more realistic than any other hallucinations, having fully dimensional people, animals, places—a whole world that only the affected person can see. Right now, in this room, all around us, are festive people in bright seductive clothing, closing in on me. I am trying to disperse them but they are not susceptible to touch or speech. They make no sound, they don’t speak or sing, but they can create and drive cars and trains. Strange birds will fly and weird animals will prowl; there might be women floating in the air and fish that can function on land, all kinds of animals à la Marc Chagall—a whole world created by your brain that you are hostage to. The worst of it is that there is no known cure or remedy or even a partial alleviation for this cruel affliction. Wherever you are, wherever you go, this syndrome can submerge you in its self-serving world and take you away from yours. I will try to carry on my profession to whatever extent I can, but I must give up any hope for a normal life, a family, children…any kind of commitment is not to be. This is a painful message that I have to give you, Violet, especially on your birthday, but I cannot be anything else than honest. When I go home tonight, I’ll probably be beset by strange and disturbing things the Bonnet has unleashed. That is my way of life now, and it is not a life into which I can bring anyone, especially someone I love.” The lie left my lips uneasily, but the confession itself had left me in a sweat, as had the Bonnet-built bodies still pressing in all around me, so hopefully it seemed only one more strangeness among the rest. “Goodbye to everyone. I hope you understand I must ride this one out alone.”

  Dixon jumped to his feet. “What is all this rubbish about hallucinations of the blind?” he thundered. “I don’t see any beauties prancing around with flying ribbons!”

  One of the guests held up his iPhone. “It’s in here, Dix,” he said, and he read: “ ‘Charles Bonnet syndrome is a type of psychophysical visual disturbance and the experience of complex visual hallucinations in a person with partial or severe blindness.’ ”

  “Lemme see that!” Dixon shouted, snatching the phone.

  I moved away from the table and headed toward the outer stairs. I could hardly move my frozen legs. As I started down, the Bonnet intruders began to disappear. I had just experienced the most harrowing moment of my life: the look on Violet’s face. I needed to collect myself. There was an Irish bar directly across the street from the restaurant. I stumbled in and settled at the bar with a double bourbon. There was anonymous music but thankfully no television. I became aware someone was slipping onto the stool next to mine. In the mirror behind the bar I saw Violet.

  “I want one of those,” she said, indicating my drink. I signaled the bartender. Violet and I clinked glasses.

  “You’ve got to understand I love you and it doesn’t matter to me if there are hallucinations or anything else. I will be there to take care of you.”

  I was surprised and touched by the depth of her devotion. In the past months, I’d felt Violet’s father’s passion more strongly than her own. But the honest truth of her feelings didn’t alter mine—or the lack thereof. Moreover, it could do nothing to change the circumstances.

  I sipped my drink and turned to look at her. “That is lovely to hear, but there is no way we could share a life. Children would not be possible. These creatures will affect every part of my existence. They are just getting started. No telling how far they will go. I don’t doubt that you love me but what will be happening to me will not be happening to you. They will be carrying me off but you will not be with me. Unable to do anything to rescue me. Now, difficult as it is, I am subject to a form of life imprisonment, and you must recognize that it is life imprisonment without visiting hours.”

  “But can’t we give it a try? Please?”

  “No. All I can do is try to survive this demonic o
rdeal. And I must put all of me into that.”

  “Yes, and I will help you.”

  “How? As a young widow?”

  I finished my drink and signaled for another.

  She was crying softly.

  “I was counting on you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “That we’d marry and I could get away from my father. He wrecked my first marriage but I thought you might have the guts to stand up to him.”

  It was shaming to think how little that had been the case. But it made me even surer that I had to focus on Violet’s feelings now, not my own. “Listen, Violet,” I told her, “listen: you are an attractive thirty-six-year-old woman and all you have to do is find a nice apartment, fix it up the way you like, and tell Daddy you’ll be leaving his employ because you’re going to be living and working on your own.”

  “Working on my own? Doing what?”

  “You’re a hell of a designer.”

  “But that was long ago…”

  A man in a black suit and tie came into the bar.

  “I’ll be right out, Tommy,” Violet said. She had stopped crying.

  She slid off her seat and I walked her out to the Cadillac at the curb. Tommy opened the door and she curled up in a corner of the backseat. The driver got behind the wheel and I watched the Dixon license plate disappear into the night.

  chapter seven

  I had spent the better part of a year trying to resolve the Tee lawsuit. One front was a case of libel-in-fiction, whereby Norgaard would have to prove that readers would understand the book to be a thinly veiled roman à clef with the main character, Dante Bragaard, as a stand-in for Norgaard, and that furthermore, unlike his literary counterpart, he did not have an affair with Celluci/Cespuglio. Tee was intensely private and reluctant to tell me, even in confidence under our attorney-client privilege, anything about the affair. I had pressed her to present evidence so that it would not merely be her word against Norgaard’s.

  Then there was the copyright infringement claim, where I would have to make a compelling argument that the use of Norgaard’s verse was justified under fair use or the First Amendment right to parody. While Tee’s defacing of “Cacio e Pepe” was quite funny, if a little juvenile, it was hard to argue that replacing “cacio e pepe” with “cacca e pipì” throughout the poem was protected artistic expression.

  Further complicating matters, Flakfizer and Tee were dead set against any offer of settlement, for different reasons. Tee refused to retreat from the literal as well as artistic truth behind her work. Flakfizer just didn’t want to pay any money if she could avoid it. Despite being wealthy beyond comprehension, she was a notorious tightwad—especially when it came to Dodecahedron. She wanted me to knock this case out on summary judgment, which meant I would have to convince a judge that scat parody is so artistic and transformative that no jury would disagree, as well as find some kind of evidence of an affair.

  Suffice it to say, the case seemed destined for a trial with an uncertain outcome, but not before a host of interminable depositions in cramped conference rooms. First up was Norgaard, who would be accompanied by his pit bull legal team, headed by law partners Tina Shore and Tim Manning of Shore & Manning. If I could get him to admit he’d stepped out on Penelope, it would be game over for at least half the lawsuit, as truth is an absolute defense to libel.

  Charlie had prepped me all week, pretending to be Norgaard so we could simulate my line of questioning. He was pretty good at it for someone whose only experience pretend-litigating was our Columbia Law School mock trial competition, which we would have won as partners if not for a tricky fact pattern involving the rule against perpetuities.

  I had not yet told Charlie about my syndrome. I wasn’t intending to keep it from him; I’d simply decided it would be better to tell him after, once I’d had a chance to prove I hadn’t lost my fastball. We took our seats in a small conference room at the Whittiker & Sheen office. Flanking Norgaard were Shore and three junior associates, a paralegal, and a summer intern whom one of the associates excoriated for not wearing a tie, out of, she seemed to assume, my earshot. The plaintiff’s team was total overkill, a show of force made comical by the fact that the conference room was practically the size of a walk-in closet. A court reporter sat at the short edge of the rectangular table after helping himself to a cucumber water and danish. I adjusted my chair next to Charlie’s and gave him a quiet “don’t worry, I got this” look. He gave me a thumbs-up back.

  The court reporter cracked each knuckle individually and asked for everyone to introduce themselves for the record and to give him their business card.

  “Chester Tremaine for the defendant, Penelope Tee.”

  As the others introduced themselves, the reporter’s nimble fingers pranced across a small dictation keyboard and I found myself getting lost in the gentle clattering sound. Suddenly I looked across the table and the room had grown even more crowded. Now Manning was there as well, plus five junior associates and three summer interns. Or maybe it was four junior associates and four summer interns? I was pretty sure the paralegal was the same. Rattled, I looked at the court reporter.

  “Excuse me…”

  “Yes, counselor?”

  “Would you please read that back to me?”

  “Read what back?”

  “The…names?”

  “Uh, sure, no problem.”

  The reporter dutifully recited the introductions offered by opposing counsel so I could determine whether Manning was actually there. I didn’t fret over the extra phantom associates because underlings don’t speak during depositions anyway.

  “What’s going on?” Charlie asked, close to my ear. Did he psychically intuit my unease, or did my flop sweat give it away? Either way, I missed whether the reporter said Manning’s name.

  I patted Charlie’s arm in indication that all was well. But it wasn’t. It had registered with me that this was a syndrome intrusion, but I was upset by the daring of this invasion. I tried to focus, starting in with the usual questions: name, occupation, professional history. Just as I turned the page to my outline, a kaleidoscope of butterflies leapt off my binder. I couldn’t make out the queries underneath. I did my best to recall my plan of attack, but it was all so overwhelming. I had to get to Norgaard’s romantic history.

  “Uh, would you consider yourself faithful?”

  Manning theatrically leapt out of his seat to object, waving his arms frantically.

  “Excuse me, a simple objection would suffice.”

  Norgaard asked, “Me? I haven’t even answered yet.”

  “No, your attorney.”

  Norgaard turned to a confused Shore, who said, “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Not you, uh, the other one.”

  I gestured toward Manning, but in his place was the paralegal.

  It was clear that I was jumping at shadows.

  “Can we go off the record for a moment?” Charlie interjected.

  “Off the record at ten fifty-two a.m.”

  “I don’t know about you all, but we’ve been at it for a while and I need a comfort break.” That’s lawyer code for going to the bathroom. “Can I get ten minutes?”

  “No problem,” Shore replied.

  “We’ll pick up at eleven oh two a.m.,” said the court reporter.

  Team Norgaard exchanged a couple confused looks, then filed out of the conference room to confer. It was like being on the inside of a clown car as the dozen faux associates and interns trailed out of the room. As soon as they were gone, Charlie pulled me into his office and asked me what had just happened.

  Hesitatingly—but aware of the time limit my past passivity had put on this conversation—I told him all about the syndrome, Dr. Brevoro’s bleak predictions, the divestment of the Dixons, the state of my life. When I was done, Charlie pinched h
is nose and took a heavy breath; I could sense his frustration—with the timing, the situation, or me, I was afraid to guess. But then he started talking and was immediately the devoted friend he had been all my life. He vowed to help me fight my way out of this terrible trap. The case seemed to be far from his first concern. “Lydia and I will make sure you have a social life,” Charlie promised. “No way I let you withdraw and cut off everything and everybody. You may think you’ve lost the human race, but listen, to me the only way you lose is if you give up. Fetal position in a dark corner. Remember how we were twenty-two points down to Swarthmore? Two minutes to go, the championship game, the trophy staring us in the face—”

  I interrupted him with a giant affectionate bear hug. “I’m not giving up, Charlie, believe me. But how do you win a fight if you don’t know who you’re fighting?”

  Still, I told him I didn’t want to give up my litigation work with him—that would be surrendering to the syndrome’s spooks.

  With Charlie’s encouragement, I did my best to muddle through the remainder of the deposition, but I couldn’t nail down any promising leads and Norgaard had been well coached to duck my jabs with a combination of circumspect answers and strategic forgetfulness. With all the distractions in the room, it was all I could do to hold it together without laughing or crying. And without the aid of my outline, which was still swarming with butterflies, my wild-stab questions were far too easy for Norgaard to parry. He eventually ran out the clock before I could make any headway. And that was the end of any prospects for a successful summary judgment motion—this thing was now trial or bust.

  chapter eight

  We were in a subdued mood when Lydia—lovely and amusing, the perfect wife for Charlie—joined us for dinner at Orso. She had recently shared the happy news of her pregnancy, so she didn’t partake in the wine with us. Meanwhile, I skipped having salad, so the pine sprigs only appeared in the bread basket.