Secret Dreams (6 page)

And she was embarrassed at the title,- for she had been Fräulein Doktor only such a little while. He took her hand, covering it in both of his. “At last,” he said. “We know each other's face.”

But what of his face, then? The portraits taken in the early 1900s were stiff, dead things. He posed for them as though he were sitting for an oil: regal, motionless, dignified. Posing as he wished the world to view him, posing for a public of strangers. But in real life his face fairly rumbled,- his eyes roving over you, though without making you feel exposed. He led her up a flight of well-worn stairs, countless feet having rubbed the steps smooth. Climbing one-two-three! Arriving in the parlor out of breath.

A rug filled the room, a Persian carpet, colored tiger rose, with cobalt tracery in the pattern of a battlement, with spearheads bristling behind as though hidden men waited for an assault. And then within the battlement, the white crescent moon of Allah and his white scimitar, repeated endlessly like soldiers of the faith. And yet deeper inside the fortress of this Persian carpet there came a line of flowers, blue irises and yellow daffodils: a garden kept inviolate behind the wall of spears and swords. The innermost panel of the carpet was laid out like a royal garden, with tracery walks and azure pools, green grass, more daffodils and fountains. The flowers were very human, for the daffodils' little faces thrust out of the stiff collar of white petals and they half pranced on the twining paths, tipping their heads this way and that like the court princesses of Suleiman the Magnificent, out for a dainty stroll. Making young Fräulein Doktor think suddenly,
Is this where they keep their women? In a garden
_r
safe behind swords and spears?

“You're wondering what kind of men would keep their women behind battlements and swords,” he said. I am.

Yes, what kind of men?

If Allah kept his women behind battlements, perhaps God and his Prophet knew better than to trust their men with women. Or perhaps the women were a kind of luscious bait to lure infidels on to a futile assault upon his walls. Enemies of the faith martyred on the altar of their sisters and mothers. Was this why Allah's people cherished the story of a flying carpet — a carpet ready to fly them from the prison of their passions, over the walls of a garden forever under attack?

A beautiful bas-relief hung on the wall of his study: a Roman copy of a Greek temple carving. Small, intricate, perhaps made of yellow stone, not plaster — for in places it was polished smooth and pitted with age. The frieze showed a man riding a chariot, the rider whipping the horses to a gallop.

“Look at the galloping man,” he said. And with those words, her host's real name no longer rang the same again. No longer was he Herr Professor Freud of 19 Berggasse,- no, no longer just a signature at the end of a handwritten letter, or the coda of the strangely familiar hand that led her up the carpeted parlor stairs. In that moment she found her own name for him. A private name, only for him. Like the taboo names of the South Sea Islanders, which they tell to no one. Only now could young Fräulein Doktor claim a shred of his soul for her very own, like the lock of hair one treasures for a keepsake. For when her host said, “Look at the galloping man,” and not, “Look at the galloping horse,” he said it as a child might say it, knowing the frieze in its overwhelming entirety. Binding the man and the horse, the chariot and the speed, as one. For it was only dull adult minds that saw things in their separate logical parts, squeezing out the life in crushing correctness, Herr Kinderweise. Herr Child-wise.

“Look at the galloping man,” he said, “how they both have the speed and the power. He is the horse, and the horse is him. The chariot spokes are his bones, and the horse his muscle. They are the rush of air, the clatter of hooves, a harsh cry on a dusty road. They are the crack of the whip and the sting of a pebble as it shoots from under the screaming wheels. An earthquake. A tempest. A swirling cloud flattening everything in its path. He is the Horse God. And the beast — the God of Horses. Riders of the mighty wind!”

Herr Kinderweise. Herr Childwise. She never spoke that name for him out loud, fearing it might slip off her tongue and lose its magic forever. Yet for the rest of her life, it was carved and pitted in her brain, like the yellowing stone of the man and the horse.

Her interns were moving sluggishly like marine plants, sea anemones swaying gently in deep ocean currents. Yet she felt an invisible wall of glass between herself and everyone else, dividing them in time and place, As in the vastness of space, where the movements of the stars, coming from such great distances, had long since ceased to occur. An ash from Madame's cigarette took many seconds to fall to the floor. Max had risen to close the living room door, which had yawned open, but he walked like a slow drunkard. Petra crossed her legs, but temptingly, luxurious and sexy — not at all what she intended.

Frau Direktor heard the young woman ask, “What — is — the — matter —- with — you?”

She tried to touch her own face. The fingers seemed to take an age to move. Finally, after a great effort, her leaden palm came off the chair. What was happening? Was this Newton's world of ordered rules — or was their hollow room but a shabby cardboard box in time, the people stuck within like porcelain dolls, expressions painted on their faces?

No, like stones … Like the carefully nurtured stones in a Japanese rock garden, Their bodies weighing them down: planted stones. Silent, Immovable. Stable for a lifetime. Forever, compared to the lightning flash of the mind. There in the garden they sat: the weathered, craggy stone in a smooth sea of raked sand, a scrap of moss quietly thriving in the shade, and nearby a miniature shrub of pine, standing in repose. Fifty years it took the gardener to arrange this garden of stone, as all the while the air around it was vibrating and alive. While rain came and snows. And sun again. An irreverent butterfly lands on a stone pinnacle of their little rock and then flits off into eternity A wisp of thought on its own wings: gone in a sky of blue and gold …

Maximilian had finally managed to reach the door and close it. A new length of ash was beginning to grow on Madame's Balkan cigarette. Petra finished crossing her legs, laying her hands in her lap like dead fish. Everyone moved slower and slower, as though wading through a pool of mire — and Frau Direktor began to feel the heat of their thoughts glowing in their brains: little flickers of flame behind their eyes…. Their minds lay open for her.

Inside Maximilian a curl of resentment rose like a tidal wave: what a waste, the clinic, the effort, the children. Did anyone really believe a silly letter to Mister Jung in Zurich would change anything? Then a weak, diabolical stab: what if he, Maximilian, could save the clinic? Just find the right levers of power. The proper official in control. If you just found him and reasoned with him — that would fix it. After all, Maximilian wasn't “political.” He could take all the children into his own care and start afresh. It was the
others
who were condemning them to ruin. Frau Direktor obviously had not been in touch with the proper authorities. A series of waxy faces drifted across his mind, colleagues at the Hermitage Hospital, surgeons, administrators, research scientists: they'd vouch for him all right — they'd know the proper steps to take, they'd know the real official in charge!

Then all at once this silliness collapsed with the flat slap of despair. There was no help for it, no mysterious official with the proper levers of influence. Max's silver ball clattered around the roulette wheel, hopping back and forth over the green double zero. As the croupier with the pencil-thin mustache called out, Messieurs
et mesdames, les jeux sont faits! Les jeux sont faits!
What rubbish, him thinking he wasn't part of it. So how the hell were they going to get out?

A hot cinder burned in young Petras head. Ex-chambermaid! Ex-housekeeper! No more beds, no more laundry, She preened inside….
Intern
Petra. She'd flee the country with Marie. Then a sharp twinge. Alone? With who, then? That old badger, Madame? Ugh. Or the other? The man. Why did his Houdini eyes seem so terribly a part of everything now? She imagined her fingers touching his dark hair while he slept upright on a steamer trunk in the baggage coach of a train. She saw herself brush the locks from his forehead, touching the faded purple scar, whispering, Don't leave me, stay and sleep, darling, stay with your Petra and sleep, … Then a bitter swallow as she suppressed the whole thing. What the devil was the man to her? She could get on without him. As well as anybody. And with the children too …

Madame Le Boyau's mind was the smoky glow of a wick after the candle had been blown out. She had long ago dismissed the idea of fleeing as absurd. She felt too old to go begging at the doors of famous strangers. She would wait with Frau Direktor until the end. Let them take her brittle bones. Better to die dignified, sitting in an old dining room chair, than tremble in a cold, muddy ditch with ice at the bottom, while the whole countryside was out searching high and low, … Better to sit it out and wait.

And yet part of her wondered how in heaven she would manage cigarettes in the days and weeks following her arrest. She quickly began to scheme this way and that — which merchant she might pay for an extended period of credit, which jailer she might corrupt to smuggle in her Balkan brand. How to achieve it — seduction or bribery? Ah, you flatter yourself,
ma chère
, Inevitably she'd lose a percentage off the top. From the merchant to the guards, they would all cheat ruthlessly. And what if they sent her to a camp? There must be all kinds of contraband floating about, plenty of thieves and racketeers. What had she to offer any rascal in exchange for the simple creature comforts? Therapy?

The three of them had become transparent. Had Frau Direktor become transparent too … ? And they to each other? When the policemen came to take their bodies away, would their minds return to the dilapidated living room, the familiar hallways of the clinic? Where was Herr Kinderweise right this very moment? And what of her remote Herr Doktor in Zurich? Was either of them alone? Reading in his study? Listening to a patient? Or with his wife? No, she sensed Herr Kinderweise's thoughts turned elsewhere. And her precious Herr Doktor had long ago managed to banish her out of mind.

There came a sinking, the air barely reaching down her trachea. The asthma very bad. She heard the labor of her breathing.

Maximilian, she thought, said, “What's the matter? Can we get you something? Look out!”

The room turned on its side. Max's face peered at her, upside down. He was saying, “Someone, quick! Get me a pillow for her head!”

The slowness of everything made her think of dandelion puffs floating through the air, lazy specks drifting aimlessly across a summer field. The wall of glass between herself and the others had become thicker and thicker. But now blurring, glazed over as if with frost. Maximilian's head tilted gently from side to side,- he looked concerned and puzzled, like a troubled dog who can't understand laughter or tears. Madame Le Boyau flickered through the cigarette smoke. “I'll prepare the bed,” she said, and was gone.

She guessed they were planning to carry her upstairs. Why so soon? There was so much left to do, so much to discuss and decide. Frau Direktor wanted to stop them, saying, “Never mind me, let's get on with it,” but moving her mouth was such a great effort, her tongue as thick as leather. Her body felt impossibly heavy, arms and thighs like sacks of meal. “Check her pulse,” a voice said. Then, “Loosen her clothes!” A harsh light glared into her eyes; Max was holding up an eyelid. His thumb seemed as large as a brick. Get your damn thumb out of my eye! But her tongue was too thick for it. They lifted her, Max on one side, good thorough Petra on the other.

“Can you walk?” Max asked. “Come along now, try to walk. We'll go to bed. You're just tired, that's all. Too much housekeeping.”

She tried to smile into Max's face. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. They stumbled up a long flight of stairs that went on endlessly into darkness, one weary step after the next. But all the while Max's face stayed right beside her own, the sweat running down his shaven cheek. She felt like telling him what a nice fellow he was to keep her company this way. Just say, You're a nice fellow, Max —- but she was simply too tired to make the words come out…. Besides, her tongue felt so awfully thick. Lungs all choked. Tubes blocked. Just no extra breath for it.

They carried Frau Direktor into her tiny room. A small electric lamp stood on a nightstand by the bed. It burned, shedding a pale white light.

Did she faint? she wondered stupidly….

Petras voice now: “Look, look at her hand! It's twitching. Stop it! I can't stand to see it twitch like that!”

Twitching, she called it? No, that was wrong. They used to call it by another word. Twitting. Twiggling. No, wrong. Twiddling. Yes,
twiddling!
What a funny word. Try to tell Petra. Try to say it out loud for her: twid-twid-twid. Oh, Petra, listen carefully and you'll hear it on my breath: twid-twid-twid …

The ring of faces around the bed had grown blurry. “She's barely breathing. Is this asthma?” Madame asked. “I've never seen it this bad. Will it go away?”

No answer …

After a moment Max said, “There now, Frau Direktors sleeping.” But he was wrong. She was looking straight up at the cracked ceiling through half-shut eyes. She tried to focus on his face, but she saw only a round blur like a rising moon…. One by one the faces floating about the bed drew off. Everyone was leaving. Madame, last of all, shuffled stiffly to the door. She tried one last time to call out for her to stop, but she kept on shuffling. Barely picking up her feet, the dry steps fading out the door. Please come back, don't go. Wait for me! I'm coming! Wait!