Big Swiss(28)

FEW:?The pain was intense, yes. The driver dropped me off at the ER, and I went directly to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The whites of my eyes were bloodred. My ears looked like they were bleeding, and my neck was already beginning to bruise. My nose was clearly broken, and my left cheekbone. There was blood in my hair. Mostly, there was a lot of swelling. My face was gigantic. I looked like the villain from The Spy Who Loved Me. Oddly enough, it was one of the few films I’d seen as a kid.

OM:?Is that with Sean Connery or Roger Moore?



“Jesus Christ,” Greta sighed.


FEW:?I’m not sure. The villain’s name is Jaws, though, and when the doctors examined me, they said my jaw was broken in two places. They wired it shut and scheduled me for surgery. I ended up with steel plates on both sides of my jaw, and steel rods in my chin.



Greta hit pause again and stared at the blinking cursor on her screen. Perhaps Big Swiss was not the blond supermodel she’d been imagining, but rather permanently disfigured, and that was why Om behaved so strangely around her. She probably turned heads in the supermarket because her face looked like an Easter ham.


OM:?Did they call the police?

FEW:?I told them I’d been mugged.

OM:?Why?

FEW:?He had my purse, so he knew where I lived. I still believed he was going to kill me, or have someone else kill me. Also, I was embarrassed.

OM:?Embarrassed?

FEW:?For going to his house.

OM:?But you were nearly beaten to death. For absolutely no reason.

FEW:?I thought I was better than him. Superior.

OM:?Honey, you were! You are!

FEW:?I ridiculed him in my mind and to his face. I’m not saying I deserved any of it, but I accept some responsibility. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if he’d snatched me off the street, but he didn’t. I wasn’t kidnapped. I wasn’t drugged or tied up. I went to his house of my own volition. I climbed the stairs, I stepped into his room. I ignored all my instincts. I thought I had the upper hand, and I didn’t.

OM:?How was he caught?

FEW:?I quit my job. I didn’t leave my apartment for over a week, except to go to the hospital. When I realized he wasn’t coming after me, I went to the police. Luckily, a nurse at the hospital had taken pictures of my face.

OM:?Where were your parents?

FEW:?Switzerland.

OM:?Did you get counseling?

FEW:?Yeah, plenty. I had to testify in front of a grand jury, so I had lots of therapy leading up to it.

OM:?Have you ever practiced kundalini?



“No,” Greta said.


FEW:?[PAUSE] I haven’t, but I know what it is.

OM:?I wonder if you’d be interested in doing some chanting with me.



“Dear god in heaven,” Greta said.


FEW:?What sort of chanting?

OM:?I was thinking we could chant the word “Har,” which is another word for God.

FEW:?You’re joking, right?



“You wish,” Greta said.


OM:?“Har” is an ancient mantra for prosperity and good health.

FEW:?We’ll be repeating the word “Har”? As in, “har, har, har”?

OM:?You’ll be surprised how you feel afterward.



“You’ll feel homicidal,” Greta said.


OM:?I can start us off, and you can join in if the spirit moves you.

FEW:?Okay.

OM:?I’ll put on some music.

[CHANTING MUSIC]

OM:?Raise your arms above your head at about sixty degrees, palms facing out. Good. Curl your fingers toward your palms, but leave your thumbs free. That’s right, like that.

[HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR]



The chanting went on for three excruciating minutes, during which Greta strained to hear Big Swiss, but of course Om drowned her out, as he was practically shouting.


OM:?How do you feel?

FEW:?How am I supposed to feel?

OM:?Well, I feel totally cleansed of mental chatter. What about you?

FEW:?Vaguely angry.



“Told you,” Greta said.


OM:?Anger can be cleansing, too, just in a different way. Perhaps this is a topic for next time, but I’m wondering if you’ve ignored your instincts in any significant way since your assault.

FEW:?You mean, have I continued doing dumb shit?

OM:?I’m just wondering what you do with red flags when you come across them.

FEW:?Well, I’m married. I work at a women’s clinic. I don’t meet many strange men in my daily life.

[ALARM]

OM:?My next appointment is here.

FEW:?Do you think I could get a copy of this transcript at some point?

OM:?Sure, of course.

FEW:?I had a transcript of my grand jury testimony, but it was destroyed in a flood.

OM:?Was it something you looked at often?

FEW:?Never. But I liked having it in a drawer.

[END OF RECORDING]



Greta might have liked having it in a drawer, as well. She switched on the printer. As she watched the pages collect in the tray, her chest swelled with something wholly unfamiliar, something other than dread. She’d heard plenty of extreme stories, but she’d never known anyone who’d taken such a beating, not even a man, without luxuriating in self-pity. Big Swiss didn’t possess the impulse to please, to match anyone’s needs or desires. Her only need, seemingly, was to satisfy her own curiosity. That’s what drove her into the house and up the stairs. Granted, curiosity killed the cat, or, in this case, broke its jaw in two places. Of course, no one should get their face pummeled for climbing the wrong stairs or rejecting the wrong person, but, given the ridiculous number of red flags—the kidnapping, the prison time, the dumpy house, the super-sad dog—Big Swiss had not only courted disaster, she’d practically bought it a boutonnière.