The Empire of the Senses (35 page)

He leaned back into his chair, smoking thoughtfully. The desk clock indicated a few minutes still remained. But not enough time, Josephine thought, for the word association game, which had unsettled her last time. He’d barked a series of unrelated words, and after each one, she had to respond with a word she found similar in meaning, as a pathway into her subconscious mind.

He languorously folded one leg over the other. “Your anger toward Vicki is misguided. That helpless girl on the balcony, blamed for merely defending herself, is angry.”

Josephine nodded, doubting if this was true. She had been angry with Vicki but not necessarily because of any girlhood trauma. She had been angry simply because the haircut was an act of defiance, and it seemed as if Vicki no longer wanted a mother, as if she could dispense with her as easily as discarding a pair of torn stockings. Old stockings thrown out in the trash.

She heard the waiting room door open and close. The doctor wrote down a few perfunctory notes in his notebook. Josephine watched him, wondering what he wrote. She suppressed a smile, imagining him jotting down a grocery list instead of an assessment of her psychological condition. With studied seriousness, he could be scribbling:
wine, cheese, black tea, endive, olives
. At least that’s what she thought he ate, living the
bachelor’s life without anyone to cook for him properly, although she had heard his mother visited quite often.

She sat up, rubbing her forehead.

“We have a few more minutes. Is there anything else you would like to discuss today?”

The clock read five minutes to one. The sounds of lunchtime traffic filtered through the half-open window, jostling her out of this dim cocoon. A tram rattled past. A line of horses trotted down the street, headed for the park. Rearranging the pillows, even though Dührkoop told her not to bother, Josephine thought of something she could say to fill the last five minutes.

“I still think of my mother all the time. Sometimes, I feel as if she’s lingering here, observing me, trying to make contact.”

“I see.”

“Do you think that’s a strange thing to say?”

He scratched his clean-shaven face. “Not necessarily.” He then produced a cream-colored card embossed with the name
BALTHAZAR WEHDANNER, THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF ST. JOHN
. He handed the card to Josephine. “His awakening meetings have a tendency toward fanaticism, but I do think he’s a gifted spiritualist. A number of my patients have found him quite extraordinary.”

She slipped the card into her purse, snapping the clasp shut. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Please,” he said, walking her to the door. She enjoyed, for a brief moment, the feeling of his hand on her back. The lightness of his fingertips made her pliable, loose-limbed, off balance.

He opened the door. “Do feel free to call on me any time, outside of our regular sessions.” He always said this at the end, but today, the timbre of his voice was different, as if he really wanted her to call.

“Of course, Doctor. Thank you.” She still felt his hand on her back as she walked through the waiting room, past an elderly woman clutching a parasol. Down the hall, down the staircase, through the marble atrium, outside under the glass-plated portico, the bright sunlight hitting her face, she felt his hand there still, burning through her chiffon blouse.

That night, Franz came late to dinner. Josephine hovered over the pea soup on the stove, thinking how again Marthe had added too much cream. “Marthe,” she sighed, “add more broth to the soup, please.”

Marthe arranged red mullet fillets over pats of butter in a skillet. “I apologize, Frau Perlmutter—should I prepare the fish now?” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Or would you prefer to wait until Franz arrives?”

“We’ll wait.”

“Also to serve the soup?”

Josephine sighed again. “Yes. I don’t like to start without him.”

At the dinner table, Lev complained he was hungry. Vicki sat next to him, playing with her silverware in a distracted manner. Her hair, Josephine mused, wasn’t entirely bad. It accentuated her long neck. And she’d fastened a pretty clip to her hair, one with rhinestones.

Josephine dabbed her forehead with a lavender-scented handkerchief, relieved it had finally cooled after such a ferociously warm day. “What did you do today, Vicki?”

She looked up from the table. “Oh, nothing really.”

Josephine raised her eyebrows. “Nothing?”

She shrugged. “Nothing of any note. I went to the library.”

“That gloomy building,” Lev said.

“Yes,” Vicki replied, suppressing a smile. “It is gloomy. I felt like a prisoner locked away in there with it so beautiful and warm out.”

Josephine stared out the window. Still no sign of Franz.

Lev poured himself a glass of red wine from the decanter. “I’m sure there were other prisoners, as you say, at the library.”

Vicki studied her nails. “Do we have to wait all night for Franz? I’m famished.”

Josephine’s chest tightened at Vicki’s demanding tone. Always so sharp, so quick to turn on her at a moment’s notice.

Vicki continued, “If I were the one late, you’d all be on the third course by now.”

“And if I were late,” Lev chimed in, “you’d be drinking coffee in the library by now.” Josephine flashed Lev a look. He was always
encouraging Vicki to be cheekier, more insolent than she already was. About to disagree, she thought of Dr. Dührkoop’s calm peaceful face, the way her name rolled off his tongue, as if he’d known her all his life. He had worn an ice-blue tie today offset by a starched white shirt. She wondered if a woman had bought him the tie. A lover.

She heard the front door open and immediately she got up. Passing the kitchen, she motioned for Marthe to start serving the soup, but Marthe wasn’t there.

“Franz,” she called, moving swiftly down the hallway. The mounting anxiety she’d felt—fantasies of a crushed bicycle, a car running him over, a tram accident, one moment of distraction turning fatal—slowly melted away when she saw his face. A bit winded, he waved. Marthe took his coat. They were whispering, and this annoyed Josephine. “Franz,” she repeated, balling up a linen napkin in her palm, a napkin she didn’t realize until now she’d taken along from the dining table. “Where were you?”

He appeared oddly disheveled. His shirt wrinkled and hair tousled as if a woman had just run her fingers through it. She took his arm. He said he needed to wash up first, but she had so many questions:
What did you eat for luncheon? How was your mathematics examination? Did you meet with Professor Schiller?
And all she could muster was “Are you all right?”

Lev hollered something from the dining room, probably complaining about the soup. She squeezed Franz’s arm. “You’re winded.”

“I’ll just wash up first, Mother.” Then he said something about rush hour and stenographers on the tram and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. She stood there, staring at the door, the smooth wood, the blond fibers. The toilet flushed, followed by the turn of the faucets, then running water. The momentary pause as he regarded himself in the mirror above the sink. His beautiful face. She wanted to speak with him privately before dinner, but he lingered in there. Lev called again. Touching the doorknob for a moment, she felt him tensing on the other side of the door. He didn’t want to talk to her tonight. He’d probably been with a girl.

At dinner, she watched him pick at his fish. Worried he would go to bed hungry, she resolved to leave out bread and jam where he could easily
find it so he wouldn’t rummage through the larder in the middle of the night. Lev clapped at something Vicki said, but all Josephine heard was the proud defiance in her voice and his approving laughter. Then they started waltzing around the table, debating whether or not it was boring to waltz. Always debating. Those two could never sit calmly and discuss a topic in a civilized manner. Franz found it distasteful as well. He sat across from her, staring down at his plate.

She went over to him. “Are you feeling ill? You barely ate.”

He patted her hand. “I’m fine.”

She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Are you upset over a girl? Is that why you were late this evening?”

His jaw tightened.

Lev commented on how Franz studied too hard and occupied himself with various clubs; he didn’t have time for girls. After inserting a baby potato into his mouth, he stated, “It’s none of our business anyway. Leave the poor man alone.”

Josephine stared questioningly at Franz, but he refused to look at her, concentrating on his water glass. For a moment, the image of Franz lying on the chaise lounge, telling Dr. Dührkoop his innermost thoughts, comforted her. But he would never agree to go. She ran her fingers through his hair. He tilted his head toward her. They didn’t have to speak anyway. She more or less knew how he felt just by looking at him. But tonight, he’d erected a barrier she couldn’t cross. That’s how it is with children, she thought, stroking his head. One minute they need you, and the next, they want nothing to do with you. Lev had been trying to impress this upon her, joking that she shouldn’t have breastfed Franz when he was a baby. It had made her overly dependent on him, creating an untenable bond. Whereas with Vicki she’d hired a wet nurse.

Franz suddenly excused himself, and she felt a pang of worry. Of course Lev remained wholly unconcerned. She was always the one who worried, and he never did. Infuriating. Watching Franz walk away, she admired his broad shoulders and slim waist. He’d inherited her father’s build.

After dinner, she debated whether or not to knock on Franz’s door, knowing Lev waited for her in the bedroom. Oftentimes, he fell asleep before she retired, a relief from his pawing insistence that they make love. He knew it was often painful for her, but he still insisted, quoting from that Velde book how
the key to an enduring marriage lay in mutual ongoing sexual pleasure
and how a
hell of torment
could, with work,
become a state of unending bliss
. But if she never relented, how could she blame him for his dalliances? Even Dr. Dührkoop had stressed the importance of sexual pleasure, a topic she tried to avoid with him, but since the revelation about Herr K, he insisted they explore the vagaries of her sexuality. Dührkoop supported the notion of mutual orgasm and suggested that if a woman failed to reach orgasm, auto-therapeutic measures were better than none at all.

Josephine lightly rapped on Franz’s door. She heard him spring up from the bed. Opening the door, he said, “I knew you’d come.”

She touched his forehead with the back of her hand. “No fever.”

He motioned to the open window. “Herr Levenski is trimming the hedge again. I know you despise him.”

“He’s very territorial about his roses.” Sitting on the foot of the bed, where Mitzi had been, judging from the black dog hairs, she noticed how Franz had put fresh ferns in a vase next to the snapshot of Wolf. She tilted her head toward the photograph. “How is he?”

“Next weekend, we’re going on a nature retreat.”

Josephine nodded, brushing the black dog hairs away.

Franz sat on the windowsill, the window open behind him, which made her nervous. But he doesn’t need me to warn him, she thought.

He twisted around, staring into the darkness. “Of course when I’m sitting right here, he stops clipping.”

“Franz, careful!”

He smiled at her. “I won’t fall out.”

She sighed heavily. “Is everything else all right?”

He crossed his arms over his chest.

She held out her hand to him, but he remained seated on the windowsill. “Come. Tell me.”

“The Wandervogel, the particular club Wolf belongs to, doesn’t
accept Jewish members.” He stared at her with large unblinking eyes. Her heart contracted.

“We’re Aryan, Franz.”

He hung his head. They had been through this countless times, faithfully following the same script. To ease him out of his discouraged state, she went over to him, massaged his shoulders, and assured him that he came from celebrated Bavarian stock through the matrilineal line, which clearly had, judging from his physical appearance, withstood all genetic influence from Lev’s side of the family. She stroked his cheek, feeling the coolness of the air on his skin. “You’re an exact replica of Grandfather. It’s a comfort to see how he lives on in you.”

Expecting to find Lev waiting for her in bed, she drew a sigh of relief at the empty room. She sat down in front of her vanity mirror, slowly untwining her coiled braid, letting her mind drift. Possibly, Lev would stay downstairs, with his cigars and whiskey. Or he might venture out, scurrying off to one of his private clubs, a distasteful habit, she thought, as he always returned home late, smelling of liquor and complaining that he was famished. He would rouse the whole household, scouring the larder for cheese and jam to make a midnight sandwich. She couldn’t stop herself from springing out of bed at the sound of banging plates and knives echoing from the cavernous kitchen. Standing in her silk robe, arms crossed, she would watch him from the kitchen doorway as he hastily piled slices of cheese onto brown bread, after which he would shove it into his mouth. Upon seeing her, he would cheerfully wave, unaware of the late hour and that he had awoken her. After these nocturnal outings, he was always particularly insistent about lovemaking, which made Josephine wonder if, in fact, he did not keep a mistress but had remained faithful to her despite the many temptations he must encounter in the city at night. Listlessly brushing out her hair, the strands catching static in the warm room, she recalled Frau Blutcher’s tone today when she rang for Lev. She’d sounded confused and tentative, and when Josephine pressed her, she muttered something about a haircut, followed by, “I don’t really know.” When Josephine said, “Well, what
do
you know, Frau Blutcher?” her voice grew tight over the line, as
if she might have a nervous attack. Out of annoyance, Josephine hung up without wishing her good afternoon, something she rarely did. It was an embarrassment, to let a secretary get the better of her, when Josephine generally abided by the rule of not allowing employees to become privy to such emotions. Now, she could be sure, Frau Blutcher would triumphantly gossip that Frau Perlmutter suspected Herr Perlmutter of having an affair, and then she would weigh in, like an expert, when she didn’t know the first thing about the inner workings of this family.