A Curable Romantic (35 page)

Dr. Freud blew another choking plume of smoke into my face.

“I’ll send the telegram first thing,” I said, coughing.

He didn’t quite laugh at me, but a subtle smirk destroyed the handsome symmetry of his face. “Do,” he said, amused.

Quietly, he opened Fräulein Eckstein’s door and peered in. Standing on tiptoe, I looked over his shoulder and saw that Fräulein Eckstein had returned to her previous stuporose state: limbs rigid, mouth opened, tongue protruding.

“We’ve done enough for one evening, I think,” Dr. Freud said. “I’ll only just slip in and give her a posthypnotic suggestion that upon awakening tomorrow, she will remember nothing of what she has told us. You should get some sleep, Doktor. You look done in. And besides, it’s nearly day.”

He was correct. The once darkened windows of the hallway were beginning to glimmer with light.

CHAPTER 17

I was as good as my word. After a few hours’ sleep, I ventured out, freshly shaven, to the telegraph office, and by late morning, I’d received a reply from my sisters, confirming everything Ita had told us the night before:

SZIBOTYA, 5 MARCH 1895

DARLING BROTHER, IT IS WITH GREAT SORROW THAT WE INFORM YOU BELATEDLY OF THE DEATH OF YOUR GOOD WIFE ITA MAY GOD FORGIVE HER BY HER OWN HAND FOLLOWING YOUR WEDDING. BLESSED BE EVEN NOW THE TRUE JUDGE. FATHER HAS FORGIVEN NO ONE IN THE MATTER INCLUDING HIMSELF. WITH LOVING REGARD, YOUR SISTERS, GITL, GOLDE, RUKHL, REYZL, FEYGE, KHAYKE, & SORE DVORE

I presented the telegram to Dr. Freud at Landtmann’s that evening, where he’d invited me to dine. “I was prepared to follow your advice,” I said, “but as it turns out, a get will not be necessary.”

“No? And why is that?” he said, digging with his fork into his Spätzle.

I could almost not pronounce the words. “Because Ita is dead, I’m afraid, and by her own hand — just as Fräulein Eckstein’s dybbuk claimed — hours after our wedding. As you can see, this telegram” — I nearly waved the thing in his face — “which I received not more than a few hours ago, confirms her story in its every detail.”

Dr. Freud took the telegram and said nothing. Having read through it, he seemed to forget that it was in his hands, until, finding it there, he read it again. Finally he spoke. “Dr. Sammelsohn,” he said, a shrewd look bruising his face, “I feel confident in ruling out a practical joke on your part, but can I be as confident in doing so on the part of your sisters?”

I was appalled. “I assure you they are not people inclined towards such cruel humor.”

He was pensive. “One cannot, I suppose, in good conscience suspect the telegraph operators of such an elaborate ruse.”

“No,” I said, reaching out to retrieve the telegram — the document, one of the rare communiqués I’d received from my family in the years since I’d left Szibotya, was precious to me — but Dr. Freud ignored my hand.

“How much pleasure the retreat from reason gives us,” he said, shaking his head. “How happily we surrender to the allurements of sheer nonsense.” He gazed into the middle distance before focusing his eyes on me. “Do you realize how long this occultish business has been going on? Why, since the days of the Bible! No, only listen to this!” He shifted through the pages of his little notebook. “Both Kings Saul and Ahab were said to be possessed by evil spirits, and the Gospels several times refer to the casting out of the same. First-century Galilee seemed to have witnessed a pandemic of demonical possession. Even Josephus describes an account of a Rabbi Eleazar withdrawing the spirit of a dead sinner through the unfortunate victim’s nostrils by applying a ring that contained a magical herb to his nose.”

“He took the dybbuk out through the victim’s nostrils?”

“Yes, I wrote to Wilhelm immediately, of course.” Dr. Freud breathed on the lenses of his glasses, befogging them and wiping them clean. “Don’t be taken in, Dr. Sammelsohn. Everywhere, these stories are the same, the symptoms exactly as we find them in hysteria: frenzy, contortions, trembling; the revelations of dark crimes and scandalous tales; the exposure of local secrets. A rabbi or a healer is called in, and finally the spirit, supposedly homesick for the divine realms, agrees to depart and undergo her rightful punishments, and when she does — ah, and here is the essential thing, Dr. Sammelsohn, the essential thing that gives away the entire game — when she does, the route of her departure must be strictly negotiated, lest it wreak havoc upon the body of its captive.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How does that give the game away?”

Dr. Freud lowered his voice and made certain no one was listening to our conversation. “Well,” he said quietly, “according to all this nonsense, a spirit will often insist upon leaving via the route that causes the greatest damage to the organs: through the eye, resulting in blindness; through
the mouth, with a great shattering of teeth; through the ear, deafness; or even through the throat. Often, a plate or a window will break, as proof that the spirit is departing.”

“Yes? And? So?”

“But surely you’re not so naïve! How can one read a fairy tale of this sort as anything other than a transparent attempt on the part of the pious to cover up the violence wreaked upon the poor hysteric by her so-called healers? My impression is that they raised the stakes against her, taking sexual advantage or otherwise physically harming her, until she was forced to feign a cure simply to save her own skin.”

“And the proof of that is?”

“Why, the clues are everywhere.”

“For example?”

“For example: while it’s apparently demeaning for the soul to leave through the anus — and you’re perfectly aware of the biblical prohibitions regarding anal intercourse, which would perhaps have given even our abusers pause — it’s said to be unclear whether the genitals are suitable for that purpose. In one purported case, a spirit exiting in this regard created a monstrous hemorrhage. Here, clearly, the patient was violently raped. There’s no other explanation for it. Another declared its intention of leaving the body of its captive only on the wedding night during the nuptial cohabitation. Here, the patient was obviously coerced into a marriage she herself did not want or seek. And often enough, though the cure is reported to be successful, the patient fails to survive it.”

“And so you’re suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting nothing, Dr. Sammelsohn. As a scientist, I’m stating unequivocally that these so-called dybbuk possessions were nothing but the last cry of outrage on the part of the victim against her abusers after a long history of misuse, and it’s now well known that such treatment is often the
cause
of psychopathology.”

“And has Fräulein Eckstein been subjected to such misuse?”

“Of that, I cannot speak to you.”

“No, of course not,” I said.

I was silent for a moment. Dr. Freud gave me a severe look. “May I be blunt with you, Dr. Sammelsohn?”

“Go on,” I said.

He leaned in towards me. “No, it’s only that I’m wondering if there isn’t some reason that you might prefer it if Fräulein Eckstein’s case were not one of hysteria, but indeed rather one of demonical possession.”

“On the contrary!” I sputtered. “I have every reason to hope otherwise!”

“Yes, I understand that, and yet you appear constantly to be advocating against that very hope.”

“Well …” I said to no purpose.

“When one would imagine, given the circumstances, that you’d be clutching at any of the many scientific straws I’m constantly providing you.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “it’s … mysterious … quite, even to myself.”

“I can only speculate, of course,” Dr. Freud said, “but I imagine, if we probed deeply, we’d find buried beneath this refusal of yours to submit to reason a long-cherished childhood wish. When reason becomes an impediment to pleasure, I think you’ll find that it’s the first thing a man throws overboard.”

He paid the check and began gathering up his notes.

“In any case,” he said, “I hope to make an end of this wretched case tonight.”

AT THE SANATORIUM,
following her bran bath, Dr. Freud pressed his hand against Fräulein Eckstein’s forehead and, hypnotizing her, commanded Ita to speak. “Frau Sammelsohn,” he summoned her. Though I’d resolved, out of scientific scruple, to banish my belief in the authenticity of Fräulein Eckstein’s condition seconde, Dr. Freud’s addressing her by this name continued to embarrass me, reminding me, as it did, of the many ways in which I’d harmed Ita while she was yet alive. Amid a rippling of neuralgic facial tics, Ita swam to the surface of the pond, so to speak, animating Fräulein Eckstein’s face. She looked like a sleeper waking, uncertain where she was. Seeing Dr. Freud, she scowled however, and things took an ugly turn.

“Oh, Yankl,” she cried, “what does this horrid man want from me now?”

“Good evening, madam,” Dr. Freud said.

She placed a hand distractedly upon her forehead. “I can barely remember half of what we talked about last night! He’s making me forget things! He’s forcing me to forget you, Yankl!”

“He only wishes to aid you, Ita. His motives are charitable, I assure you.”

“But he’s an unbeliever!”

“Rather a freethinker, madam,” Dr. Freud corrected her, “my thoughts free to go either way.”

“Isn’t my presence here proof enough of the unseen world?”

“I admit you’re highly convincing,” Dr. Freud said. He was a well-oiled flatterer when he wanted to be. Clasping his hands together, eager to be done with her, he next said, “However, the hour grows late, and if we’re of like minds, perhaps you’ll permit me to proceed with the cure.”

“The cure! Your precious cure! That’s all you care about, isn’t it?”

“But surely you have no wish to remain in your current state?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Doktor?
I am not ill!”

“Not ill, madam, no, but it’s abnormal for you to remain here, not only for Fräulein Eckstein, about whose welfare I’m certain you’re concerned, but for yourself as well.”

“I’m happy where I am, thank you very much.”

“And these paralyzing attacks from these so-called angels of destruction — they don’t concern you?”

“There’s nothing you can do to alleviate them.”

“Are you so certain?”

“Is the doctor Moses that he speaks directly to God?”

“Not Moses, no, but a humble neuropath, and yet I know a thing or two.”

“Oh God, Yankl! Get rid of this horse’s ass! There are things I need to discuss with you in privacy.”

I felt compelled to rise from my chair each time Ita addressed me, like a prisoner in the docks, a murderer finally caught and captured and tried. “There’s nothing you can’t tell me in the presence of Dr. Freud, Ita,” I said. “He’s here with no design other than the restoration of proportional health to everyone involved in the affair.”

I sat.

“What are you paying him?” she asked.

I rose again. “The Ecksteins are seeing to his fees.”

“Oh God, why do they waste their money! Can’t you see he’s a complete quack!”

“Don’t insult him, Ita.”

She pointed with both hands to her chest. “
She
may be ill, but there’s nothing wrong with me.”

Dr. Freud seemed to laugh and sigh at the same time. He looked at me wryly as though to say,
Why on earth did you marry such a shrew?
But then, of course, he remembered why, and nothing less than complete sympathy showed upon his face. And then, of course, he remembered that the patient lying in bed before us was not, in fact, the shrew I had married, that I had, in fact, never married a shrew. I had been married to the village idiot, a docile, inarticulate unfortunate who had nothing in common with the impersonation of her Fräulein Eckstein had thought, in her illness, to contrive.

“Madam,” Dr. Freud said, “though I am, as I say, a freethinker, I am not without an appreciation for the exigencies of the soul. It can’t be easy for you to resist the gravitational pull of Heaven.”

“What do you even know about it?” Ita said glumly.

“These myriads of destructive angels, though terrifying and grave, are nothing, I’d wager, compared to your own inner wish to relent, to surrender to divine justice, and to finally do what’s right according to divine will.”

Ita laughed. She crossed her arms. “Never!” she said.

“And why not?”

“Let’s just say I want what’s owed me.”

“And what is that, madam, exactly?”

“And what
is
that, madam, exactly?” she sneered.

I didn’t know how Dr. Freud withstood the hatred directed towards his person, projected, as it were, upon the screen of Fräulein Eckstein’s lovely face. Many times during these sessions, I was reminded of the high esteem, indeed the admiration and the amorous affection, Dr. Freud was accustomed to meeting in Fräulein Eckstein’s glance. How hard it must
have been for him to see this same face pressed into the service of such hateful sneers.

(“As you know only too well, Dr. Sammelsohn,” Dr. Freud explained to me when I mentioned these concerns to him later, “no Jew manages to reach the age of maturity without having hardened himself to the derision he meets with from all sides in this world. Such is my lowly state that I expect no better from the Jewish dead in the next.”)

“And what exactly is owed you?” Dr. Freud reiterated, pressing forward. “You yourself have implied that the universe adheres to a strict form of justice, stricter than any that can be petitioned for on this side of the veil. Make plain your demands and if indeed something is owed you, I will not cease from my advocacy on your part until these just demands are met.”

Ita raised an eyebrow and pinned Dr. Freud with a tart and saucy look. “You have a daughter, I believe,” she said.

“Three,” Dr. Freud said, the proud paterfamilias, “the youngest not yet a year.”

“And I’m certain you harbor, Dr. Freud, as any father would, great hopes for their futures.”

“Great hopes, madam, indeed.”

“Should one of them die young — and I regret to inform you that I have heard it whispered from behind the divine curtain that such is the fate of your … Sophie — ”