Love and Treasure (35 page)

For a moment Miss S. did not reply, but then, grudgingly, she said, “Very.”

“Wouldn’t you like it to be less so?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then perhaps I can help you. Here is what I suggest. Let us meet a few times to explore this pain of yours, to consider if it might have a genesis in psychic trauma rather than physical. If we are successful in ameliorating it, then that will be wonderful. If not, then what will we have lost but a few hours of time, time spent in one another’s surely not-unpleasant company?”

She frowned and said, “I won’t be hypnotized.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t wish to be.”

“Well, then I shall not hypnotize you. Though I must say, by precluding hypnosis you do remove one of the analyst’s most artful tools. Perhaps you’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“There are many other means to our mutual end of relieving your pain. Conversation, exploration, massage.”

“Massage?”

“Dr. Sigmund Freud has had marvelous results with gentle massage in the treatment of hysteria. This is something we might explore together. Again, only if you are willing.”

She was silent for a few moments, weighing, I imagined, the unpleasantness of her monthly pain against the indignity of ceding to her father’s insistence on treatment.

Finally, she said, “Dr. Zobel, there is one thing I ask of you.”

“What is that, my dear?”

“I ask only that if you determine that there is no psychical remedy for my symptoms, but that they are purely physical and normal, in short, if you find me to be sane, you tell this to my father.”

“Of course. It is my obligation as your physician to inform your father of my diagnosis. I would do nothing else.”

“Good.”

“Earlier you mentioned that you believe your father to fear that you suffer from dementia praecox. Why, do you think, does he anticipate that diagnosis?”

“My father is a great reader.”

“Is he? He has this trait in common with his brother, then. Your uncle and I have often shared books with one another.”

“Recently he received a book by someone named Alexander Pilcz.”

“Ah, yes. Pilcz. He is a member of the department of psychiatry at the University of Vienna, where your uncle and I were students.”

“Do you know this man?”

“I am familiar with his work.”

A number of years before, Pilcz had published a study of comparative-race psychiatry that was at the time considered among the seminal works in the field. I myself have not found his various charts and graphs of the predisposition of different races to certain psychiatric ailments to be useful, though perhaps this is due to my discomfort, as a member of the Israelite race, with his conclusions. It is, after all, hardly pleasant to be told that by virtue of one’s race one is much more likely to be insane and feebleminded. In 1906, when Pilcz’s work was first published, I drafted a letter to the
Journal of the Vienna Medical Faculty
, questioning the doctor’s conclusions about Jewish predisposition to psychoses of the hereditary-degenerative
type and especially to youthful imbecility. Upon consultation with my wife, however, I thought better of the letter (which did, as she said, sound more heated than analytic). The fields of psychiatry and psychoanalysis are far too rife with discord and disagreement, and I have found over the years that it is best to do what one can to avoid feuding with one’s colleagues. This is, dare I say, especially important for a physician of the Israelite race, as our Gentile colleagues are sometimes too ready to accuse us of unseemly competitiveness. At any rate, nowadays, the benign anti-Semitism in the work of Pilcz seems positively quaint, and were I to busy myself with writing letters of opposition to everyone who besmirched the reputation of my religion, I would have no time to eat or sleep, let alone work.

Miss S. said, “Pilcz’s book has convinced Papa that I, like so many Jewish women, am doomed to fall ill with dementia praecox and spend my life wound up in restraining sheets in an insane asylum, screaming obscenities and tearing out my eyelashes.”

I laughed at the hyperbole of her image, and she graced me with a small smile. I was delighted to see Miss S. adopting my own playful attitude. Despite herself, the young lady was enjoying our conversation. Though modesty usually prevents me from saying so, I would be remiss in not alerting the reader to my facility with this kind of patient. Young women flourish under my care because I am comfortable with them. Having daughters of my own, I have a natural affinity for the young of the gentler sex, and they for me.

“Would you like to know what evidence he has for this?” she continued.

“I would.”

She ticked them off on her fingers. “Number one, that I insist on studying medicine, a sure sign of pending insanity, don’t you think? Number two, and this is an even greater offense in his mind, that I refuse to consider marrying the boy he and my mother chose for me when I was still in swaddling clothes.”

I interrupted. “You are betrothed?”

“No, I am certainly not betrothed. It is only that Mama and one of her cousins have been scheming since we were babies for their children to marry, and Papa is, if anything, even more eager for the alliance.”

“Do I know this young man?”

“Probably. It’s Ignác E.”

“The son of Baron Móric E.?”

“No. The son of Jenő and Berta E. of Nagyvárad. A lesser cousin of the baron’s. Though they are wealthy enough, as my mother never tires of telling me. Shall I continue presenting my father’s evidence for my dementia, or has my refusal of the proposal of a member of the illustrious E. family, no matter how minor a branch from how minor a distant city, convinced you that my father is right?”

I could sympathize with her father’s frustration at his daughter’s refusal to acquiesce to the match. The object of my Erzsébet’s pending betrothal, while a fine young man from a family in good standing in the community, was nowhere near as illustrious as Nina’s potential husband, yet were Erzsébet to take against him, I would be most annoyed. Still, dementia praecox? Hardly.

“I will reserve judgment on the suitability of the young E.,” I told her. “Pray continue.”

“The third evidence of my supposed insanity is that I refuse to lace my corsets so tightly that my eyes bug out from my head, like other girls my age. The fourth is that I spend my own allowance to subscribe to the journal
Women and Society
. The fifth, that I not only attended a lecture by Mrs. Rózsa Schwimmer but dared to suggest to my father that he might consider joining the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage …”

At this I could not restrain a bellow of laughter. The idea of the pontifical fogy Marcus S., vice president of the Israelite Congregation of Pest, a man ever attired in sober black, never plaid, morning coats, who’d sooner wear a boot on his head than replace his top hat with a stylish bowler, petitioning the king to give the women of Austria and Hungary the vote was, perhaps, the most amusing idea I’d heard in months.

“And finally,” Miss S. said, acknowledging my laughter with a raised eyebrow, “number six, that I have befriended Gizella Weisz, who is not merely a feminist and disciple of Mrs. Rózsa Schwimmer but also a dwarf.”

“A dwarf?”

“Yes, a dwarf. And what of it? Half of my father’s own friends are certified imbeciles, so why should he view my friendship with a dwarf as a sure sign of insanity?”

“You’re being a bit harsh on your parents’ society, are you not? Though not a friend, I consider your father a fond acquaintance. Perhaps I am an imbecile, too?”

“Perhaps you are, Dr. Zobel. I’m afraid I don’t know you well enough to say yet.”

The clock in the hall chimed. “And I’m afraid our time together is up,” I said. “But we shall continue this discussion tomorrow, yes? Shall we say ten o’clock?”

She sprang to her feet. “All right. Yes. We can meet again. But I have an appointment with my tutor to prepare for my
matura
in the morning, so it must be in the afternoon.”

How well I remembered the strain I underwent during my own final examinations from gymnasium. No fewer than three young boys in my class attempted suicide in the days immediately prior. Given that she was in the midst of this arduous preparation, Miss S. struck me as remarkably composed. And though I knew neurosis to be an expert masquerader, still for a moment I could not help but think that the girl, though probably neurasthenic, was as sane as I.

“Of course,” I said. “I will have to adjust my calendar, but I shall send word first thing in the morning.” Though my afternoon clients, women of leisure, would not object overmuch to being shuffled around, I would refrain from telling them that it was for the sake of a busy young girl studying for her final exams. That they might not have tolerated so willingly.

Miss S. extended her hand, and I kissed it.

“Thank you, Herr Dr. Zobel,” she said. “This was not as miserable an experience as I had expected it would be.”

“My dear, Nina …” I waited for a moment to gauge whether she would take insult at the familiar use of her given name. As she appeared unoffended, I continued, “If we accomplish nothing more than alleviating such unpleasant expectations, then I will consider our time together to be well spent.”

•
33
•

NINA ARRIVED AT OUR
second session dressed for an outing. In contrast to the dull gown she’d worn the day before, today she looked beautiful, had even adopted the tight lacing that she had claimed to find so objectionable. I am the son of a dry-goods merchant and the grandson of a simple tailor—a not-uncommon heritage for a Jewish physician of comfortable means in those halcyon days of Israelite assimilation into Magyar society—and so I know women’s clothing well, and this gown of Nina’s cost at least five hundred kronen. Her trim figure was shown off to great advantage by the white accordion crêpe de chine of her blouse waist, and there was an amusing bit of suspended spangle ornamentation hanging from the girdle of gilt soutache and black braid that cinched her waist in the wedding-ring style. I could not help but think of my own darlings Erzsébet and Lili, desperately strapping themselves into their corsets, lacing the wretched things so tightly I feared permanent constriction of their bowels, and achieving nothing close to even twice Nina’s tiny waist. Nor was this the only reason that I hoped that Erzsébet and Lili had not caught sight of my young patient as she passed through the apartment to my consulting room. My daughters had for weeks now been engaged in a no-holds-barred millinery campaign on behalf of a poke bonnet decorated with Numidi feathers, and I, their cruel and vicious opponent in this battle, had refused to accede to anything beyond vulture aigrettes. Nina’s hat, an adorable and daringly small tam-o’-shanter of sky-blue taffeta silk, was trimmed with an ostentatious quantity of Numidi plumes. Were my daughters to see it, I feared they’d be fortified in their energies for months of warfare.

Sadly, Nina’s mood failed to match her gay attire. She was, if anything, more gloomy and dark tempered than she had been at the beginning of our interview the day before, and I feared all the good work I’d done ingratiating myself had been for naught.

“Something troubles you,” I said, once she settled herself in the chair, eschewing again the analysand’s couch. “Do you regret your decision to continue our conversation?”

“No,” she said. She opened her reticule, a tiny silk thing festooned with azure beading, and removed from it a silver case, from which, to my astonishment, she took out a cigarillo. She screwed the cigarillo into an ivory holder and placed it between her lovely lips. Leaning forward, she asked, “Have you a match?”

“Nina!” I said. “Surely you don’t smoke.” She was not, of course, the first lady I’d seen smoking, though I doubted that any who took up the habit deserved the honorific.

Abashed, she returned the cigarette to its case. “Many women smoke.”

“Many? Indeed?”

“Some.”

“Is this a new fad in your feminist circles?”

“It’s hardly new. And anyway, Doctor. It’s not like I’m in public, on the street or in a coffeehouse. No one can see me.”

“And do you frequent coffeehouses, Nina?” My doubts about her father were fast disappearing. What yesterday appeared to be overreaction to a young woman’s normal small rebellions seemed suddenly to be a reasonable assessment of her state of mind. Smoking! In coffeehouses!

“I certainly don’t usually frequent the Café Lloyd, though I was there today, forcing down a disgusting
dobos
torte.” Disdain for the Lloyd dripped from her lips like chocolate buttercream from between the layers of the dessert.

“You are not fond of that coffeehouse?”

“It’s just so predictable. A lawyer at the Lloyd. It’s about as original as a sculptor at the Japan.”

“Where would you have preferred to have gone?”

She hesitated, then laughed. At herself, it turned out. “The Japan Coffee House. With the artists and writers. Or the New York!”

“But you went instead to the Lloyd. With whom?”

“This afternoon I was in the company of Mr. Ignác E. Chaperoned by my mother, of course, because she would hardly have let me eat cake alone with a man. Who knows what might happen?”

“I thought Mr. E. lived in Nagyvárad?”

“His parents are originally from that city. But they have lived in Budapest for some time. Probably to take advantage of the family connection to the baron.”

“That doesn’t seem to be very generous a presumption. Surely there are other reasons to remain in the capital.”

“I suppose,” she said, crossing and recrossing her pretty ankles in
their patent strapped shoes. Her heel was higher than any I would have allowed my daughters.

“Would you like to lie down on the couch?” I asked. “It’s very comfortable. My own dear wife embroidered the pillow slip, and the Turkish rug is very soft.”

“No,” Nina said, though she sounded a bit less sure than the last time she’d refused my offer.

“So you met Mr. E. for cake,” I said. “Did you enjoy yourself?”