The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [154]
As we stared at those rocks, the Doctor took in a deep breath, then let it out in what seemed to me a peculiar combination of relief and consternation. “This is a strange case, Stevie,” he murmured. “Strange and disorienting. The human mind does not readily accept such events and possibilities.” Continuing to look out at the Palisades, he held up a hand. “And do you know, I cannot help but think of my own mother, when considering it. Is that odd, do you think?”
“I—don’t really know,” I answered. “Depends on what brings her to mind, I guess.”
‘“A simple realization, really. I have always been unable to understand why, when things between my father and myself were at their worst, my mother never intervened. Even when I was only three or four years old, and utterly unable to defend myself, she never involved herself.” His eyes seemed to be questioning the water, forest, and rocks before us, as if they might offer him some clue to the matter he was contemplating. There wasn’t any sense of self-pity in the look, for the Doctor despised and avoided such tendencies. It was just a kind of honest, sad questioning—and he was entitled to wonder.
From the time Dr. Kreizler’d arrived on this earth, it seemed, the people closest to him had been either a vexation or a heartache, and sometimes both. His father, a rich German publisher who’d come to America after the European revolutions of 1848 went bust, had had it in for his son right from the start. Though in society circles the old man was a popular and admired character, at home he was a boozy tyrant, who treated his Hungarian wife and his two kids (for the Doctor had a sister who currently lived in England) to the backs as well as the fronts of his hands—fists, too. I didn’t know just what had made the Doctor bring the subject up that day, but I was grateful to think and talk about anything other than Kat.
“Maybe she didn’t know what was happening,” I said with a shrug. “Or maybe she was afraid he’d lay into her even worse than usual if she did anything.”
The Doctor’s face filled with a look that said he’d considered such suggestions many times. “As to her not knowing,” he said, “that seems unlikely, if not impossible, given her own violent relationship with the man. And as to her not wishing to incur his wrath—she did so deliberately far too often for me to accept that proposition. I have always known that his violence toward her gratified some perverse part of her psyche. But the violence toward my sister and myself? I don’t think she relished that.” He squinted a bit, and seemed to be struggling with an idea. “No, since we began this case, another possibility has presented itself to me—the thought that, although my mother cared for her children, their welfare was simply not her first priority. And the real question is not why that should have been so, but why it should have been such a difficult theory to either formulate or accept—why, indeed, it should have taken a murder case to make me think of it. After all, a man who makes his children of secondary or even minor importance, though he may be criticized by some, is hardly held to be unusual. Why should we believe any differently of a woman?”
“Well,” I found myself saying, simply and automatically, “because … she’s your mother. It’s only natural.”
The Doctor chuckled. “That answer from you, Stevie?”
I realized the stupidity of what I’d said, and tried to cheat my way out of it: “Well—it’s not like we’re talking about my mother—”
“No. In such discussions we never seem to be talking about anyone’s mother. We seem to be talking about what Sara would call an abstract—a myth.” The Doctor took out his cigarette case. “Have I ever told you about Frances Blake?”
“The woman you almost married when you were at Harvard?” I asked.
“The very same. She would have surprised you. Wealthy, a gadabout—fairly intelligent, but too personally ambitious to take the time to develop her insights. Just ask Moore. He quite disliked her.” Lighting his cigarette, the Doctor chuckled.