A Curable Romantic (5 page)

Instead, I hoped she might contrive to make an appearance each week during the Tarock game on some sweetened pretext, such as bringing
refreshments down from the kitchen in the company of Frau Freud or her sister, Minna, or her sister-in-law Rosa. However, as the women and children had been warned away from Dr. Freud’s medical domain during the week — and rightly so: his patients relied upon his discretion — they continued to respect its territorial exclusion from their lives when, on Saturday night, he converted it into a private men’s club. (Also, as I was later to learn, it was only in Dr. Königstein’s absence that the games were even held at Dr. Freud’s. The friends typically met at the Königsteins’, and the family spent these evenings no differently than it did when its paterfamilias was out, all but unaware of his presence in the rooms beneath them.)

And so, I continued to slush my way through the snow or ride the trolley to Dr. Freud’s home, no longer making the mistake of knocking on the first floor, but heading directly to the ground floor where I was heralded by a now-familiar chorus of masculine ribaldry and subjected to an endless iteration of Tarock hands that stretched to fill the hours until the very hours seemed to stretch.

I must admit, there were times when I doubted Dr. Freud’s sincerity and was convinced he dangled Fräulein Eckstein over my head only because he saw in me a suitably incompetent replacement for Königstein, known to be the worst of the Four Cardsmen of the Apocalypse (as the quartet had fashioned itself).

“She’s unwell,” he told me on that second Saturday; and on the third, he said, “She’s worse.” On the fourth, he could only shake his head. “Of course, I’m not at liberty to discuss her case, but perhaps I can tell you this much as a colleague — although your interest in her isn’t really collegial, is it? However, as her condition is highly unstable, an introduction to her at this time, I’m afraid, is absolutely out of the question.”

“Gentlemen,” he roared at the end of that final game. “A toast!” he said, pouring out four glasses and raising his own. “As we all know, Königstein will be returned to us next Saturday, Mother Königstein having made, I’m told, a remarkable recovery in the interim. Leopold will be back in his regular chair and our little malavah malkahs will convene, as is our custom, in his rooms henceforth. Your sitting in for him, Dr. Sammelsohn — let
me say it now, lest I forget to do so later — has been richly appreciated by all.”

“Bah!” Dr. Rosenberg bleated with ill-natured good humor.

“We’ve warmed to your company. A real affection has grown up between us, and I daresay I speak not only for myself but for all of us when I say, Salut! We shall miss you.”

Either Dr. Rie or Dr. Rosenberg began a round of applause before thinking better of it. I downed my drink in the silence that followed that aborted eruption. I understood I was being dismissed from their company and that it was unlikely I would ever see any of them again.

I BEGAN FOLLOWING
him. Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit this, but sometime after that, I’d noticed him through the windows of the Guglhupf, the coffee house I preferred. In those days, I was quite regular in my habits, and so apparently was he, for exactly at the same hour each afternoon, he rounded the curve of the Schottenring out for a daily walk or, I presumed, visiting patients. Fearful he might recognize me, I turned from the window and watched him in the large mirror along the café’s back wall; and only when he’d passed did I drop a florin on the table and take up my coat.

I’m not by nature a sneak, and trailing Dr. Freud was anything but easy. Despite his constant smoking and what I then considered his advanced age (he was thirty-nine; I, merely twenty-one), he was a vigorous walker. Small in stature, he nevertheless carried himself with a martial stride, his chest thrust out, his shoulders back, using his stick, as a punter might an oar, to thrash through the milling crowds — the women in their complicated hats, the men in their fur coats, the students walking five abreast. He reminded me of a locomotive engine, with great puffs of cigar smoke steaming out from beneath the brim of his felt hat, and my inclination to drop back to avoid being seen by him gave way to a very real need to keep up. I struggled to hold him in my sights, as the clusters of people that broke apart for him made no such scattering concessions for me.

There are no corners on the Ringstrasse, of course, and yet each day I managed somehow to lose him. What did I imagine anyway? That I
could follow him to the Ecksteins and simply barge in behind him and force him to introduce me to their daughter? It was idiocy to think so, and at such moments I could only compare myself to him unfavorably. A man of impeccable habit, he arranged his daily labors with the precision of a military campaign: up at seven, with patients by eight, at table with his family at noon, followed by a walk and further patients and dinner at seven. Then cards with Minna and another walk (more locally, in the neighborhood, this time), and he was at his writing desk by ten, working into the small hours, whereas I was the sort of man who might leave his clinic for a coffee at noon and still be loose upon the streets two hours later, his patients wondering what has become of their doctor, the nurses uncertain where to look, and all because he’s allowed himself to become fascinated to the point of lunacy by a woman to whom he has yet to address a solitary word and whose face, despite the magnification of his opera glasses, he has gazed upon from a distance of no fewer than one hundred meters.

Determined to return to my practice with as much dignity as I could, I strolled at a gentlemanly pace towards the cabstand until, after about five days of this nonsense, I caught sight of him entering Landtmann’s Coffee House.

HE’D SEATED HIMSELF
at a table away from the kitchens. I chose a seat in the adjoining room and ordered a Kaffee mit Schlag from an old waiter with a full mustache and the turned-out feet that mark a member of his trade. I pulled a newspaper from the rack and glanced up from it periodically, as a man will, without seeming to see anything, peering about the room and hoping in this way, were Dr. Freud to glance up at precisely the same instant, to meet his gaze. Dr. Freud, however, never lifted his eyes from his work, and so I said, “Ah-ha!” to no one in particular, as though delighted to have spotted a friend. I summoned a waiter and gave him my card and watched as he ferried it across the threshold into the adjoining room. Dr. Freud picked it up and read it and sighed exasperatedly through his nose. Peering around the waiter, he acknowledged me with a scowling nod.

“Ah, Dr. Freud,” I said, approaching his table. “I trust I’m not disturbing your work.”

“Dr. Sammelsohn.”

I bowed timidly, the annoyed tones in his voice giving me pause.

“Imagine running into you here,” he said.

“A pleasant coincidence.”

“Is it?”

“Pleasant?”

“A coincidence.”

“But of course it is!”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“No, I don’t believe I am,” I said, although pronouncing this inanity only made me blush harder.

Dr. Freud drew on his cigar. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Dr. Sammelsohn, but this isn’t your regular coffee house.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Nor is it near your apartments.”

“That is correct.”

“In fact, before today you’ve never been here.”

“In this coffee house, you mean?”

“And yet today of all days …”

“Voilà!”

“Suddenly you are here.”

“Yes” — I made a great show of scrutinizing my watch — “and due back momentarily at the clinic. Seeing you from the other room, I merely wished to extend my hand to you in friendship and to wish you a pleasant afternoon. That’s all. Good day.”

Dr. Freud blew an orchid of cigar smoke into the air above his head, where it bloomed and withered.

“It’s far from here, isn’t it?”

“Far, Dr. Freud?”

“The Allgemeines Krankenhaus?”

“Yes, quite far.” I had no choice but to confirm this fact: Dr. Freud knew the local geography better than I.

“And so your being here makes no sense.”

I pretended not to understand him.

“As an alibi, an excuse, a story, a ruse!” he said.

“No, as matter of fact, it doesn’t,” I admitted.

Dr. Freud glanced about the room. He sighed. “Well, you might as well have a seat, then.”

“No, no, I really must be getting back,” I said.

Nevertheless, I pulled out a chair and joined him. Through the wide doorway, I could see the old waiter with the mustache and the turned-out feet arriving at my table and searching for the gentleman who, only a moment before, had ordered the Kaffee mit Schlag he was balancing on his tray. I attempted to draw his attention to me.

“Ah … ah … a-ha!” I said, half-rising.

“I shouldn’t worry about it,” Dr. Freud said as the fellow returned to the kitchen. “They’ve nothing but cups of coffee here.”

As though proving his point, the old waiter was presently at our table, handing Dr. Freud his own cup and his mail, which, in those days, one could have delivered directly to one’s table.

“Kaffee mit Schlag,” I said, “bitte.”

The waiter’s eyes narrowed. He looked at me and then over his shoulder at my former table before snorting contemptuously and walking off.

“Ah! At last!” Dr. Freud said, kissing a blue envelope and — it was an odd gesture — placing it against his forehead. “A word from Berlin!” He tore the letter open. “Ah, it’s better than I’d hoped,” he said, still reading. “He’s actually coming!”

“Who?” I said, but Dr. Freud, rereading the letter, apparently didn’t hear me.

“Well,” I said, “I have an appointment, and so I’m afraid …”

Dr. Freud glanced up from his mail. “You do have a curious relationship to the truth,” he said.

“Do I? Well, nevertheless, I must go.”

I rose from the table, but Dr. Freud gripped me by my arm. “Listen to me, Dr. Sammelsohn,” he said. “Men of science, such as ourselves, cannot afford to lie. Even in our private lives, we must ally ourselves so completely with the truth that nothing will ever turn us from it. A man
who fears what his neighbor thinks will achieve nothing in this life. Now promise me you’ll discipline yourself in this way.”

I nodded but said, “I just happened to be on this side of town, and so, of course, I thought I’d drop in for a coffee, as I’d never been here before, and when I saw you, naturally, I thought …”

Dr. Freud looked as though a consumptive had coughed in his face. “Very well then,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say. I stood before him, my hat covering my crotch, an Adam on the point of being expelled from Eden (and he, I suppose, the addlepated deity who had neglected to supply me with an Eve!).

“The truth?” I said, feeling suddenly invigorated by his admonition. “Very well then: here is the truth, Dr. Freud! Yes, I intentionally followed you here.”

“Yes, I thought as much.”

“I saw you on the street a few days ago, and I’ve been following you ever since. All week, in fact, if not longer.”

“But why, Dr. Sammelsohn?”

“It’s because of the Fräulein, naturally!”

“The Fräulein?” Dr. Freud shook his head.

“Fräulein Eckstein!” I reminded him.

He scowled. “Oh, but Dr. Sammelsohn, you know she isn’t well. In fact, her behavior at the moment is highly unpredictable, erratic even. The excitement of a suitor, even one as ineffectual as a Sammelsohn, could prove the worst thing for her, although one never knows with hysterics.” Hearing himself pronounce this diagnosis aloud, he said, “Although perhaps I’ve said too much.”

“Nevertheless,” I couldn’t help pressing the matter, “I was hoping you would arrange a meeting with the young woman, as you promised me you would.”

“What do you mean? I promised you no such thing.”

“Well, then certainly you led me to believe that such a promise had been made.”

“By whom?”

“By you, of course!”

“Then forgive me, Dr. Sammelsohn.”

“I know, I know, you’re busy, and the Fräulein isn’t well.”

“No, you needn’t forgive me for delaying but for promising something I have no power to deliver and no intention of ever delivering, if indeed I did.” Dr. Freud’s upper lip curled in an expression of disgust. “A woman is not an object one simply hands over to another man, like a girl in a harem! Besides, on your salary, you’d be mad to think of marrying. Wait until you’ve established your own practice and even then, believe me, it’ll be a stretch. I’m speaking from bitterest experience.”

“But you mentioned to me that the Fräulein had expressed a desire to make my acquaintance as well.”

“Did I?”

“Yes!”

“And did she?”

“Or so you told me. And on your word, I’ve been waiting all these weeks.”

“But why didn’t you say something to me about this earlier?”

“I was under the impression you were aware of the situation.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what I might have said or done to have given you such an impression. Arranging these sorts of things is more in my wife’s line of interest. You should have spoken not to me, but to Marty, although of course, I would have forbidden you from doing so. The girl is ill, Dr. Sammelsohn. I have no choice in the matter.”

And with that, the subject was closed. It was as though he’d slashed the word
Finis!
across the bottom of one of his manuscript pages.

BUT THEN, OF
course, he relented.

“Oh, what the deuce!” he cried. “Weren’t we all young and in love once? Plus, and I tell you this in strictest confidence: the poor girl’s developed too strong a dependence upon me. A suitor might be a healthy distraction, although one never knows with this sort of thing. Also, you’ll get to meet Wilhelm, and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?”

“Wilhelm?”

“Wilhelm Fliess! He’s coming in from Berlin especially for the Christmas party. Oh, he’s an extraordinary fellow, Dr. Sammelsohn, a first-rate mind, and you really must meet him!”

Clipping the nib off a fresh Reina Cubanas, Dr. Freud added, “On Sunday evening, we’re having a group of friends over, the Ecksteins among them. You’ll come as well, and we’ll put this whole messy business behind us once and for all, eh?”