Free By Blood by Ellen Ullman Page A

that she left the room, calling out over her shoulder:
    You ought to pack, dear. Early flight tomorrow.

18.
     
     
    The bitch—she wouldn’t say another word about it, said the patient. Until the moment I got into the taxi, she wouldn’t even look me square in the face. So isn’t this great, just great. Look what I found out for all my troubles: Now I’m a goddamn Catholic!
    Not necessarily Catholic, said the therapist in a calming voice, just as your mother said. In any case, what would it matter?
    What would it matter? Matter! You know I was brought up hating Catholics! You know that. My father’s hatred is irrational, relentless. It’s not like a normal person’s prejudice. It’s a … racial hatred. My whole upbringing. All the times I told you about. When I couldn’t stay at Mary’s. And the summer with a “preponderance of them.” And the fight we had over the “papist cultists.”
    The patient continued in this light—the man named O’Reilly, the Irish mafia, the summer camp across the lake, that “Danny Boy” song—butterflying from one reference to the next. She and the doctor had evidently dissected these incidents many times before, so no clarifying information was forthcoming, and I therefore tried to listen as I had done in the past: letting the unexplained names and events go by without heed, allowing myself to be soothed by the sound of the patient’s voice.
    But as the references went on—that girl in school, the professor, the people on the next block, the wedding, the sweet-sixteen party, that shop lady—I grew increasingly annoyed at the cryptic turn this session was taking. The patient had gone away without explanation—tortured me with her absence—only to return and make it clear she had a life I could not comprehend. She owed me an explanation! How dare she simply run on—the summer in Utah, the couple at the hotel, my friend’s best friend—with all these trinkets, these little pebbles of life! I understood: Yes, her father hated Catholics. She has proven her point. Must she keep going on? Why wouldn’t Dr. Schussler stop her? What pettiness the patient was displaying! She was supposed to be my champion, my athlete in the arena, strong in her battle against the mere situation of birth. But she would not get far if she did not move on from this pitiful evidence-gathering !
    Then all at once I was frightened. How quickly I could come to hate her—she who was moments ago my icon of self-creation. I must be careful, I thought. I have traveled this path before. I must not go there. I therefore forced down my anger; sat still as my annoyance ebbed. It took all my self-control, but I succeeded, congratulating myself that I had changed, that I could be otherwise than I’d been. I tuned my ear to the lovely pitch of the patient’s voice, her beautiful whiskey alto, and once again let it play above me as music, staccato now, legato then,
piano
and
forte
. My dear patient, I thought, forgive me! And how my heart contracted when she suddenly sobbed and cried out:
    I don’t understand! How could they get me from a place they hate? How could they? I know it sounds crazy, but I feel I’m tainted. That Father looks at me and sees this mark: Catholic.
    But you are not changed, said the therapist. Your being, your self, is the same, whether you came from a reed basket, a Protestant church, or a Catholic agency.
    This has nothing to do with who I am! shouted the patient. It’s a mark on me
before
I was anyone. No matter what I am!
    She was breathing forcefully, and I thought she would finally cry. But she contained herself and fell silent.
    Seconds passed. Traffic noise rose as if to fill the gap.
    She was lying, of course, said the patient at last.
    Your mother, said the doctor.
    Yes. Mother. I could tell she knew a lot more than she was saying. But I couldn’t get anything more out of her. She just did her
dahling
thing and brushed me off—ha! Like the skirt.
    The patient