The Rhythm of Memory (10 page)

He had gone through psychoanalysis in school, where the roles were reversed and he was forced to be the patient. At first, he could not detach himself from the doctor within. He could hear himself
answering the questions in a way that would reveal little of himself, as he was afraid that he might say something that might flag him as a poor candidate for the psychiatry residency. But after a few sessions his analyst told him that it was in his best interest to be honest with himself. “Every student believes he can outsmart his shrink,” he told Samuel through a thick Baltimore accent. “But believe me, if you are truly interested in psychiatry, you will reach down and reflect on your own life and the reasons behind all of your choices. In the end, it will make you a better doctor, I assure you.”

At first, it was hard for Samuel to talk about his childhood. There were events that he had pushed out of his memory, such as the time when he was nine and had returned home hungry from school. Having been unable to find one of the maids, he went in search of his mother only to find her slicing small lacerations into her wrists.

The family villa in Miraflores was not particularly large. Its grandest feature was the spiral stairwell that began in the modest vestibule and wrapped to the second-floor landing, where the family bedchambers were hidden behind heavy teak doors. Down the long corridor to the left was Samuel’s parents’ room; he had walked there quietly, thinking that perhaps his mother, who often slept during the afternoon, was asleep.

He remembered that he found the door ajar, that he pushed it open quietly, careful not to disturb his mother’s slumber. But he did not find her in her tall, canopied bed as he imagined, but rather at her dressing stand. Her robe carelessly off one shoulder, her back bent like an archer’s bow over a pair of frail, shaking hands.

In his memory, he sees her in profile. She, in front of her rosewood vanity, the three-paneled mirror reflecting her in a
kaleidoscope of angles. Her black hair, now lined with silver, piled behind a pink scarf that is wrapped tightly around her small, delicate head.

He realizes now, as he withdraws into his memory, that he has always believed that his mother was the most beautiful creature. That he could accept her mental deterioration far more easily than the waning of her physical charms. She would always be that beautiful Frenchwoman in his mind, with perfect lipstick—the one with the black velvet suit and the white satin cuffs. Not the one dependent on sleeping pills, not the one who now wore oversize housecoats. The one of Paris, long ago.

But now, the memory of his standing at the threshold and seeing his mother’s spine twisting beneath the satin robe like the brittle branch of an ancient oak tree, her perfume bottles scattered over the tabletop and the drawers in disarray, returned.

“What did you see?” the therapist asks Samuel.

“I didn’t see anything until she turned around and looked at me. Her face was all streaked with running makeup, her breast only barely covered by the quilted collar of her robe. In one hand, I saw Father’s razor blade. In the other, I saw a small river of blood running from her wrist.

“I don’t believe she was trying to kill herself, I think she was only trying to release her pain.”

Samuel winced. “I remember that when the doctor came, he bandaged Mother up and sedated her. I overheard him speaking with Father, telling him that the family was lucky this time, that she was trying to signal for help.”

“And did she receive help?”

Samuel was quiet for a few moments. The vinyl sofa was beginning to feel sticky beneath him. The therapy was exhausting him.

“No.” He paused and let out a deep sigh. “Father believed
that this kind of ‘help’ was better kept between the family and the servants. He was afraid of the stigma it might bring upon the family.”

The doctor wiggled his pencil in the air. “How does your father feel about your decision to go into psychiatric medicine?”

“He’s indifferent, I suppose.”

“Indifferent?”

“Well, our relationship has been strained since my mother passed away. Since I didn’t join my two brothers in the family business back in Peru, I think he feels there is little he can talk to me about.

“I don’t want to make textiles and worry about whether a shipment is going to arrive on time or production costs are on schedule,” Samuel said as he readjusted himself on the couch. “I find that tedious and boring. I want to help people. It’s as simple as that.”

“Simple?” his analyst questioned him, trying to evoke some self-reflection in this young psychiatry resident. “I think the reason that you are interested in helping people, especially considering your family background, is anything but simple.”

Those days of sitting on the analyst’s couch were over, and finally Samuel found himself where he’d always wanted to be—with a practice that was devoted to helping victims of war. Most of his patients had come to Sweden from volatile political climates such as in Algeria and Czechoslovakia. Some of the older ones were Polish Jews who had spent the past twenty-five years speaking to no one, not even their children, of their time in the camps. Somewhere deep inside, he hoped he might meet a French Jew—someone who might know what had happened to his maternal
grandparents and his uncle’s family, as if this knowledge would somehow appease something deep within him. Something that he knew had quietly destroyed his mother.

But Samuel had no such luck. The immigrant community was small, and most of his patients were more recent survivors from countries he had never even visited.

He realized that one never gets used to hearing stories of torture. Yet, the strength of the human spirit continued to amaze him. He learned to trust his intuition and to guide his patients back into memories that had often been shut for years.

Just by looking at the face of a new patient, Samuel could often gauge the extent of his or her torture. Ironically, the women who looked the most placid, the most vacant, were usually his most troubled victims. They were the ones who held everything deep within, speaking not one word of their vicious torture, the rapes, they had kept secret for years. If he had stuck them with a needle, they wouldn’t have uttered a sound. That was how deep the pain was for them.

In a white-walled room, with a few small paintings of innocuous landscapes that were meant to calm, he sat and spoke with them. He spoke five languages, French, Spanish, English, German, and his Swedish, which, though not perfect, was getting better. Mostly, he was there to listen. But he was also there to steer them through their memories, so they could get on with their lives and learn to reconcile the atrocities of their past.

At first, he was skeptical about the position. He spoke limited Swedish and knew little of the customs or the land. But upon his arrival, and after his first few days on the job, Samuel realized that his foreignness was an advantage. When an immigrant walked into the room and saw that the doctor too was an outsider, he or she relaxed.

There was absolutely no way Samuel, a very Sephardic-looking
Jew, could be mistaken for a Swede. He had inherited his parents’ dark looks. His skin was olive, his hair black, and his thin, narrow face had a natural intensity to it.

In Peru, he blended in with the local coloring, although the natives’ features were far more Indian than typical Spanish. In Sweden, he felt like a shadow walking the streets, his curly hair bobbing in an ocean of blond. His prominent brow, his wide, dark eyes, and small, curved nose often making him feel self-conscious. The few weeks he had spent in Stockholm had been an entirely different experience for him. There, he discovered students from almost every country congregating in the streets, the cafés, the energy escalating, and the leftist philosophies floating through the air.

But in Göteborg, it was quiet. The cafés were filled with couples drinking tea and eating small cakes, the bars filled with businessmen and their sons. Samuel rarely went out after work, instead choosing to return home and drink his Nescafé in solitude.

One sunny afternoon, Samuel found himself noticing a beautiful young woman not far from the city park. He had brought with him one of his medical journals and a brown bag of seed to feed the birds. She was sitting quietly by herself, a slender girl wrapped in a blue velvet scarf.

Samuel sat down next to her. The bone-gray pigeons at his feet poked around his heavy brown shoes, the birdseed having clustered around the bench.

“You should have thrown the seeds farther,” she said as she turned to him.

Samuel stammered at the sight of the girl’s bright green eyes. “
Du har rätt
…” he tried to muster in his broken Swedish. “You are right, I should have.”

She giggled as she rearranged her scarf, bringing it down closer to her chin and revealing her white hair, her face red from the wind.

He noticed that she had a sketchbook nestled on her other side and he inquired if she was an artist.

“I’m a graduate student,” she said shyly. “I’m majoring in fine arts.”

He leaned over and tried to stretch his neck in the direction of her sketchpad, hoping that she would open it and show him what she was working on.

He could see her hands twitching in her lap, each finger gloved in soft wool.

“I often come here to draw. I sometimes stumble across an interesting face or an unusual posture that I couldn’t get with a model in class.” She pointed to a small child sitting a few feet from his mother, who was reclining in a folding chair. “I could never find a child playing so naturally unless I sat here.”

She took a stub of charcoal out from her pencil case and sketched the outline of the crouching boy. In a few abbreviated lines she had captured the arc of his back, the extension of his hand as he grasped a few blades of grass.

“Perhaps I could buy you a cup of coffee after you’re finished sketching?” Samuel asked.

She agreed on the condition that afterward he would allow her to draw his portrait.

Over coffee, she withdrew her sketchpad and showed him its contents.

Samuel studied each page carefully. There were sketches executed entirely in vine charcoal, and there were detailed, labor-intensive
drawings that were done in pencil. But his favorite was her self-portrait.

It was undoubtedly her. He could see the face as clearly as she was there sitting across from him. She had re-created the shape of her face perfectly, the high cheekbones, the sharp, intense eyes. But what he found particularly intriguing was how she had portrayed herself. She had clearly given herself the physical attributes of a woman, but she had contrasted those qualities with accessories that seemed meant for a child. For one thing, the coat she drew herself in was the kind a young girl might wear: the small notched collar, the four round buttons—two in each row—and the flared bottom. And instead of her clutching a handbag or a purse, she had drawn herself with a small, old-fashioned suitcase. One that was too small for an adult. And over the pencil shading, she had colored the suitcase completely in red.

Samuel touched the corner of the drawing and looked back at the slender woman sitting across from him.

“This one is my favorite,” he said as he tapped his finger against the page.

She seemed to stiffen as he spoke of the drawing, as if by speaking of the portrait he was touching something inside her that she didn’t want to be disturbed.

After several seconds of silence between them, she took the pad from him and closed it. “You have a sensitive eye; no one has ever commented on that drawing before. Not even my adviser.”

“I’m drawn to things that have stories behind them.”

She fidgeted. Trying to change the subject to something less personal, she took out her pencil case and placed it on the table.

“You promised that if I had coffee with you, you’d sit for me.”

“Well, I have every intention of keeping my promise. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do.” Samuel paused. “And, of course, you’ll need to tell me your name.”

“I’m Kaija Sorenson.” She extended her hand to him.

“I’m honored to meet you, Kaija. I’m Samuel Rudin.”

She smiled at him sweetly. “Well, Samuel, I need you to stay perfectly still.”

Samuel laughed. “You might find a better model in that child over there.” He turned and pointed to a young baby sleeping in a carriage near the entrance to the café.

“No, I intend to draw you,” she said as she withdrew her pencil from her small aluminum case.

She traced him in outline at first. Choosing to portray him in profile, his chin slightly bowed.

Nearly half an hour later, she folded her arms against her chest and shook her head. “It’s not right.” She tore the page from her pad and crumpled it into a ball. “I’ll need to start over again.”

Samuel stretched his back for a second. “This modeling isn’t easy work, you know. You’ll have to promise me that you’ll join me for dinner before I sit for another session.”

Kaija giggled. “Very well. But this time, let’s try it with you sitting directly across from me.”

Samuel readjusted his chair.

“Yes, exactly, this way I can see your features more clearly.”

In this position Samuel could stare at Kaija without difficulty. “I could get used to this,” he flirted.

She looked up from above the edge of her sketchbook and smiled. And he imagined her as a young girl in that notch-collared coat, the tiny leather suitcase resting against her knees, and wondered what sort of stories this beautiful young woman might have packed tightly within.

G
ÕTEBORG
, S
WEDEN

A
PRIL
1969

Finally, Samuel had someone to share his free moments with. His first winter in Sweden was beginning to give way to spring and he rejoiced at the sight of the budding tulips. Since their initial meeting in the park, Kaija and he had begun to spend nearly all their free time with each other.

Before meeting her, Samuel hadn’t realized how lonely he had been. Now, with her, he felt like a man reborn. He planned decadent evenings to counterbalance his difficult workdays. He made reservations at expensive restaurants that he would never have thought of eating at before. He took her stargazing and he made love to her on his balcony, not caring if the neighbors saw them or were awakened by the noise.