By Fr. Peter Kwak

Scottie loved Midge dishonestly. When she said that he was the only man in the world for her, he blamed her for calling off their engagement during ‘good old college days’ and declared himself to be still available. Although he said this playfully, it was a lie – a cruel one, given Midge’s obvious attachment to him. He enjoyed her company but not in the way she enjoyed his. He pretended to be oblivious to how she felt toward him, as long as he got what he wanted from her, namely, loyalty. He loved her dishonestly. But he was not the only one. She did it to him too.

What really happened between them? They were both unwilling to talk about it truthfully. Why did Midge stay in a relationship which would never bring her what she really wanted? She herself said to him, ‘You don’t even know I am here, do you?’ In the end, she was not courageous enough to face the truth and move wisely on, preferring instead to settle for the rather humiliating role of keeping him company whenever he was “available”, that is, not busy with other women. The heartache of unrequited love which she suffered quietly was the foolish price she was willing to pay, for the meagre pleasure of bestowing upon him a tolerable amount of motherly affection.

Midge suffered the vertigo of dishonest love when she painted herself into the mysterious portrait. It was possibly the best thing that she could have done for a self-deluded friend. But that was not the only reason why she did it. The painting also betrayed her secret desire to become the object of his infatuation. To her horror, the unwavering way that Scottie walked out on her brought to the fore the hurtful truth that she had not the faintest hope. So, in a moment of vertigo, she beat herself over it and called herself ‘idiot, stupid…’

Madeleine loved Scottie dishonestly. She knew this herself. It was just business, albeit a horrendous one that involved murder. But he did it to her too, or rather, he did it to himself. Right from the start, the idea of a ghost possessing Madeleine struck him as being most absurd. But he was miraculously cured of his unbelief as soon as he saw how seductively beautiful she was. As he fell deeper into the sin of lust in the process of stalking her, he became only too happy to believe just about anything, especially if it helped him to think that he was saving her rather than committing adultery with her. He deluded himself into thinking that lust was love, adultery an enchanting romance. It was no wonder that this particular vertigo landed him in a mental hospital.

Finally, Scottie loved Judy dishonestly. He maintained that he wanted to be with her, when, in fact, he was merely using her as Madeleine’s substitute. Fortunately, he made some recovery toward the end, by relentlessly going after truth. The simple truth was that he loved neither Madeleine nor Judy, not really. He could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if he had realised this sooner. But did Judy really end up falling in love with him, in spite of how masterfully she had duped him? Yes, but she fell into a pool of dishonest love, mixed with money (after all, Scottie was a man of ‘independent means’), lies, blood and a lot of guilt. She had a chance to clear the water by adding in a potion of honesty, but she lost courage. Gone was the brilliant actress. What remained was a humiliated woman who felt totally insecure without a man, even if that man was only using her. She foolishly hoped that, one day, he might come to love her for who she was. But did she herself know who she was anymore? Her desperate actions only drove her further away from the possibility of fulfilling her deepest desire. When she finally looked up (or down), the vertigo was simply too much this time.

So, when it comes to love, don’t do it dishonestly. If you do, you will suffer a vertigo. You will feel dizzy, fall and hurt yourself, sometimes even mortally.