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Authors: Anne Roiphe
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for five years. He was out of the country, living under a different name, unable to call or write. He had done something ungodly, this son who went to a private school on the Upper West Side and had excellent grades, played tennis on the school team, went on to his second choice college which was fine enough in New England and was gifted, really gifted, Mike Wilson assured Dr. H., in math, and then he got a job with a firm downtown, a very prominent firm.
Ivan had a slight tic in his left eye, he had a love of jazz and he played the drums in a band he had formed with some friends. He was an ordinary boy, said Mike Wilson. He never took drugs or at least only the usual ones at parties. He didnât have a drinking problem, at least as far as we knew. He had a girlfriend from a rich family. They had a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue and a house in Sag Harbor, maybe that was it, the boats in the bay, he loved her boats.
Dr. H. was beginning to be able to guess the end of this tale. He said nothing.
It was in the New York Post . It was in The New York Times , at first just in the business section but then it moved on to the first page. Ivan was the youngest of those indicted. In telling the story Mike Wilson stopped himself from making the excuses he used with close friends, with Lourdes. It was the culture of greed, it was the opportunity that couldnât be resisted. Everyone was doing it. The excuses did not seem convincing in Dr. H.âs office. Ivan disappeared before the trial. He forfeited the bail his girlfriend had posted. In the following year Mike and Lourdes read that she was married to a prominent novelist and had moved to Wyoming.
Wherever he was, Mike said, he had missed his motherâs funeral. He probably didnât know she had died. He probably didnât know how much she had hoped he would appear in the last weeks by her bedside.
So, said Dr. H., you have had two losses, not just one.
Ivan is not dead, said Mike Wilson.
Dr. H. said nothing.
But he might as well be, said Mike Wilson into the room. His voice bitter, strong, not that of a grieving man but that of an aggrieved man, betrayed by his son and abandoned by his wife (through no fault of her own).
After the session, on his way home, he was not thinking of his own death. He was not the sort of man to kick a small animal but he considered it as a stray cat crossed in front of him and dashed under the wheels of a parked car. Filthy beast, he thought as he passed.
He thought he might write a memoir. He had been around a good many floods, some hurricanes and political campaigns, funerals of presidents, and there was the war in Lebanon and the Kuwait desert. He knew what it felt like to wake up every day smelling like mold and fungus, the aftertaste of spices and alcohol, headache, lice in the hair, excited, ready, as if he were in a movie and celluloid-immortal. There, over there, he was always close to someone, a fellow journalist, a subject giving an interview, a child sitting on the curbside, and the sound of tanks moving and something in the sky, always lurking, ready to kill. He liked it. And then there was the Austrian photographer, Hannah, who now possessed his sweatshirt, a very small chip of his heart, and continued to exist in his mind for erotic purposes, now especially when he had the entire bed to himself all night long. Now that he was guilt-free or as guilt-free as a civilized man can be.
Dr. H. had said, You donât cheat on the dead by living.
It was kind of him to say that, but of course it wasnât true.
Lourdes had complained, he hadnât wanted to come back, to take a promotion, to stay in the city and be safe. He had little interest in safety. He did it for her and for Jeff, his oldest son, and for Ivan, Ivan-the-lost and Ivan-the-guilty, the bond money gone, Ivan.
Dr. H. considered his patient, the father who had never had a conscious criminal thought in his head. He considered the mother who had
Ivan had a slight tic in his left eye, he had a love of jazz and he played the drums in a band he had formed with some friends. He was an ordinary boy, said Mike Wilson. He never took drugs or at least only the usual ones at parties. He didnât have a drinking problem, at least as far as we knew. He had a girlfriend from a rich family. They had a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue and a house in Sag Harbor, maybe that was it, the boats in the bay, he loved her boats.
Dr. H. was beginning to be able to guess the end of this tale. He said nothing.
It was in the New York Post . It was in The New York Times , at first just in the business section but then it moved on to the first page. Ivan was the youngest of those indicted. In telling the story Mike Wilson stopped himself from making the excuses he used with close friends, with Lourdes. It was the culture of greed, it was the opportunity that couldnât be resisted. Everyone was doing it. The excuses did not seem convincing in Dr. H.âs office. Ivan disappeared before the trial. He forfeited the bail his girlfriend had posted. In the following year Mike and Lourdes read that she was married to a prominent novelist and had moved to Wyoming.
Wherever he was, Mike said, he had missed his motherâs funeral. He probably didnât know she had died. He probably didnât know how much she had hoped he would appear in the last weeks by her bedside.
So, said Dr. H., you have had two losses, not just one.
Ivan is not dead, said Mike Wilson.
Dr. H. said nothing.
But he might as well be, said Mike Wilson into the room. His voice bitter, strong, not that of a grieving man but that of an aggrieved man, betrayed by his son and abandoned by his wife (through no fault of her own).
After the session, on his way home, he was not thinking of his own death. He was not the sort of man to kick a small animal but he considered it as a stray cat crossed in front of him and dashed under the wheels of a parked car. Filthy beast, he thought as he passed.
He thought he might write a memoir. He had been around a good many floods, some hurricanes and political campaigns, funerals of presidents, and there was the war in Lebanon and the Kuwait desert. He knew what it felt like to wake up every day smelling like mold and fungus, the aftertaste of spices and alcohol, headache, lice in the hair, excited, ready, as if he were in a movie and celluloid-immortal. There, over there, he was always close to someone, a fellow journalist, a subject giving an interview, a child sitting on the curbside, and the sound of tanks moving and something in the sky, always lurking, ready to kill. He liked it. And then there was the Austrian photographer, Hannah, who now possessed his sweatshirt, a very small chip of his heart, and continued to exist in his mind for erotic purposes, now especially when he had the entire bed to himself all night long. Now that he was guilt-free or as guilt-free as a civilized man can be.
Dr. H. had said, You donât cheat on the dead by living.
It was kind of him to say that, but of course it wasnât true.
Lourdes had complained, he hadnât wanted to come back, to take a promotion, to stay in the city and be safe. He had little interest in safety. He did it for her and for Jeff, his oldest son, and for Ivan, Ivan-the-lost and Ivan-the-guilty, the bond money gone, Ivan.
Dr. H. considered his patient, the father who had never had a conscious criminal thought in his head. He considered the mother who had
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