The Little Book (20 page)

“You seem to know an awful lot about me.”

Wheeler looked away for a long moment, deciding. “Look, Dilly,” he said abruptly. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.” Dilly was silent, waiting, and Wheeler looked over at him. Their eyes met, and Wheeler knew he was going to have to go all the way. “My name isn’t Truman,” he said quickly. “It’s Burden, like you.” Then he paused and let it soak in. “Stan Burden.”

Dilly paused now for a long while, examining Wheeler’s face. “How could that be?” he said curiously, without much clarity, still trying to grasp what he had just been told.

“Because I’m your son,” Wheeler said. “I’m Stan Burden, your son.”

Dilly could only stare. “Stan, my son?” he said in something like a mumble. Then he shook his head, poised between disbelief and acceptance. “Well, I’ll be switched,” he said slowly, letting his eyes run over the man across from him. “Well, I’ll be.” Suddenly, he looked as if he might cry. “You’ll have to pardon me,” he said. “I have been having a hard time with my emotions lately.” He looked at Wheeler and both men’s eyes filled with tears.

“That’s what I kept hoping for,” he said after a long moment, wiping his eyes. “This is an awful lot to absorb.” He shook his head again to clear the cobwebs. “I kept thinking about Vienna and your mother and you.” Then he smiled and gave Wheeler a long appraising look. “Only when I saw you last it was just a few weeks ago.” He stopped and gave Wheeler a long satisfied once-over. “And you were three years old.”

20

Handsome Karl

It should come as no surprise that Dilly had taken to the café scene in Vienna with relish, as if he had been born to it. He and Wheeler had found themselves alone at a table and they were talking together quietly, going over the details of their miraculous arrivals here in this mythical city, comparing notes and becoming acquainted. Dilly, adjusting with remarkable alacrity to the presence of his son twenty years his elder, was clearly stimulated by the environment of the famous Café Central. “Isn’t this capital,” he said with the broadest and most satisfied of grins, looking around at the marbled floors, the partially filled tables, the attentive waiters, and the racks of newspapers. “Absolutely capital.” He took in a deep pleasurable breath, savoring the unique aroma of baked goods and coffee, recalling as Wheeler had the elaborate descriptions of their great mentor, the Venerable Haze. They sat and talked.

Soon the
Jung Wien
table began to form, and inevitably the two Americans were invited to join. “I am Herbert Hoover,” Dilly said with gusto to the group, without even a twinge of hesitation or self-consciousness.

“We are happy to meet you, Mr. Hoover,” Kleist said, with the patented good-natured acceptance Wheeler had come to expect. “A few days ago we knew no Americans except your famous Mark Twain. Now we know three. I hope you will join us in our discussion.”

“Splendid,” Dilly exuded. “We will do our best to keep up. I hear there is a robustness to these conversations.”

Karl Claus, the writer, let out a burst of laughter. “I don’t know that the word
robustness
has ever been used on us before.”

“How then would you describe our deliberations?” said Schluessler, the scientist.

“Candid and honest,” added von Tscharner, the architect. “We simply express our opinions in a candid and honest fashion.”

“And the results,” Kleist said, completing the circle, “just happen to be
robustness
.”

“So there you have it,” Claus said. “We have now been categorized, and we must live up to it. Does anyone have anything especially robust to begin with?”

“The Language Ordinance riots,” Dilly said quickly. “Let’s start there. My friend and I were just in the middle of them and nearly got our skulls bashed in. What are we to make of these?”

“Oh my,” Claus said acerbically. “Now you are asking us to notice the current political realities of our little empire. Don’t you know that the first lesson of denial is to stay in the café here, head in the sand, and not notice anything in the street outside?”

Von Tscharner, the pragmatist, jumped in. “Mr. Hoover is asking for an interpretation, Karl, not your gloomy message that we are all dancing on the edge of the precipice. This is an interesting time to be in Vienna, but it deserves thoughtful interpreting observation and not raw cynicism. ”

“All right,” Claus said, too quickly to register any offense. “I’ll give our guests something thoughtful. We are living in the capital city of an empire that is looking very much like one on its last legs. Our emperor is a tired old man, an anachronism. Our Parliament is cacophonous and disruptive beyond repair. Our army, in spite of its grandly colorful uniforms, has not won a battle, let alone a war, in this century. Our borders keep shrinking. We have built a splendid boulevard of gaudy marble façades, but we cannot house or care for our lower classes. We have huge uncontrolled debt, and no one with a clue how to reduce it. All the nationalities, our dear Slavic countrymen, are dangerously restive, clamoring for attention and independence. And all we Viennese want to do is drink our coffee
mitt schlagg
, listen to operettas, meet our sweet girls, and waltz ourselves silly to the strains of Strauss the younger. Let us not call it ‘dancing on the precipice,’ heavens no, that would be cynical. Let us look at the rosy hues only.”

“There is much to be done. I grant you that,” von Tscharner cut in. “And we are the group to do it, or haven’t you been noticing that either, Karl? We are Secessionists.”

“Ah, the Secession,” said Claus. “That is going to quiet the political chaos and right the ship of state.”

“The Secession is the movement we are all part of,” Kleist said, looking at Dilly and Wheeler, as if they needed explanation, but Dilly nodded to let him know he was following. Truth be told, Dilly knew exactly what they were talking about, and was loving this. “It is a group of artists who are fighting against the establishment and blazing a new trail. Very exciting. ” And again Dilly nodded his understanding, the Secession and the creation of the modernist movement in fin-de-siècle Vienna being one of the Haze’s favorite subjects.

“We have the power to do something, to redesign politics, art, and the buildings of the city,” von Tscharner said.

“You and our mayor Handsome Karl,” Schluessler said. “There is a brighter tomorrow.”

“Mayor Lueger, he means,” Kleist interrupted again, helping his American guests, and again Dilly nodded.

“Handsome Karl is fine,” Claus chipped in, his lip curling his contempt as he spoke. “If you don’t happen to be Jewish.”

“I think you Jews can take care of yourselves,” Schluessler said. “Last time I looked you were running everything. Jews dominate Vienna’s public life, the banks, the press, theater, literature, social events. Everything is in the hands of the Jews.”

“I will have to agree with Herr Schluessler there. Just look around,” said Kleist good-naturedly. “In the famous Viennese arts, it is the Jews who are the real audience. Without them we’d all perish: they fill the theaters and concerts, they buy the books and pictures, visit the exhibitions. Being newcomers to aesthetics, they have a more flexible way of looking at things, less burdened by tradition. That is why they have become everywhere the champions and sponsors of everything that is new.”

“And that is also why the anti-Semitism,” Schluessler said.

“You are saying the anti-Semitism is justified?” Kleist said.

“Not justified,” Schluessler said matter-of-factly. “But not harmful either. Handsome Karl knows what he is doing. He is using certain anxieties and resentments among the working people to solidify his supporters. He’s a natural leader.”

“Certain resentments?” Claus snarled. “And those certain resentments just happen to be virulent anti-Semitism.”

“It is a popular cause,” said Schluessler. “Lueger is a demagogue. He knows the one issue that brings the working classes together.”

“And that is denigration of the Jews?” said Claus.

“That is how he has gotten himself elected all these times,” added von Tscharner, ever the pragmatist. “And all in all the unity is a good thing for the city, and for the empire. The method is unfortunate, but it works. It has its limits as a useful tool, for sure, but it will go no further. He can rein it in anytime. I honestly don’t think your Jews are going to stop owning the banks or controlling the industries.”

“So it is because of us Jews that there were riots in the street and people killed?” said Claus. “That is how we began this conversation.”

“No, the riots were because of the pan-Germans,” Schluessler added. “Those noble Austrians who love Bismarck and that cretin Kaiser Wilhelm. They think of themselves as Germans, they would love to be part of Germany, and they don’t like the Czechs.”

“And the Czechs don’t like the Hungarians,” Claus quipped.

“Or the Jews,” von Tscharner said.

“Nobody likes the Jews,” Schluessler said.

“Nobody likes anybody,” Kleist said.

“My point exactly,” said Claus, looking triumphant. “The whole thing is coming unraveled. The whole thing is teetering on the abyss. We are indeed dancing on the precipice.”

“Bravo,” Dilly exploded. The whole time he had been sitting on the edge of his chair, looking absolutely ebullient. “Now that is what I would call a robust discussion,” he said.

21

A Highly Complex Delusion

From the frequency and content of their meetings, all recorded in detail in Wheeler’s journal, and from what we already know about Sigmund Freud, we can arrive at a few conclusions. First, the great doctor would have been fascinated by his strange visitor, and second, he would have been absolutely certain that the man’s story of time dislocation was a delusion, a highly complex, intriguing, and unusual one, but definitely a delusion. And third, that delusion was about to command the doctor’s full attention. It was, as with so many of his intriguing cases, shrouded in mystery. And it was that mystery, more than anything else, that would intrigue the young doctor and keep him in conversation with his brash American visitor much longer than would have been his usual practice. In short, Sigmund Freud was hooked.

Ever the clinician, Freud would have believed emphatically from the very outset that a grand delusion, such as the fascinating Herr Burden’s, occurred because of hysteria. It was really quite simple: some traumatic experiences of the past—most likely from childhood—had their normal outlet blocked, and these “strangulated” effects were causing abnormal symptoms. These symptoms could be stiffened limbs, chronic pain, debilitating nightmares, or even—as in this case—imagined realities, an elaborate time-dislocation fantasy. Not unlike the sense of being Napoleon, in which the patient immersed himself totally in the life and identity of a famous historical figure, this illusion remained as a permanent burden (hence the invented name).
Intriguing
, the great Sigmund Freud must have said to himself.

And this we know about Wheeler Burden: no matter how he tried, no matter how he knew that he must be careful with what he said or how he interacted with people in this world of his past, he was not good at self-control. If for this difficult assignment the requirements were to be extremely careful with what one said and did, the process had selected the wrong person. But, of course, in the beginning Wheeler would be trying, maybe even successfully, to control himself.

Freud, of course, would have noticed that effort from the outset. This man was trying hard. He really believed that he was from the next century, and like so many of the delusional patients Freud had seen, his unconscious processes had constructed a highly specific bundle of imagined details, a complex and elaborate alternate reality. And the doctor could see the dilemma. The visitor had to remain very protective of specific information, wishing not to influence in even the slightest way anyone’s present decisions, lest they disrupt the future he would need to be born into. And yet, the built-in excitations made such withholding difficult or nearly impossible.
Fascinating
.

Realizing the delicate situation, the ever-patient doctor would have been highly respectful, never pushing for specific information that was not forthcoming, as tempting as that might be. He was always confident that the patient’s unconscious mind would eventually divulge the pathway to the original precipitating causes, those painful experiences of the remote past that triggered the condition. Thus with this man who called himself Truman, then Burden, both highly symbolic names, the great doctor would have been certain that the creation of an elaborate future world, and hence the sensation of having traveled backward from it, allowed an elaborate escape from some deeply hidden, repressed memories. And if what was repressed was brought back again into the conscious mind, through talking, the patient would eventually become cured.

Freud could see that the man wanted to talk, and that is why he dispensed with the usual use of the couch, and encouraged what appeared to be the normal upright intellectual conversations of two very intelligent men. The doctor would listen and wait, following his own rules, letting the patient’s associations drift, and eventually the invented details would reveal the all-important origins of the illness. It was a process of converging, getting closer and closer with each talking session to the traumatic causal events in the patient’s deep unconscious memory. But what it would not have taken Freud long to realize in this case with Herr Burden was that things were not converging, but diverging, and dangerously so. But we shall get to that.

You must know how much Wheeler’s mother would have enjoyed listening in on this conversation. She had first become enamored of Sigmund Freud’s ideas while a medical student in London, and the discovery of his writing led her to realize very quickly that she was more interested in where those writings led than in the biology and anatomy of conventional medicine. By the time she learned that the great doctor would be moving to London she was a full-fledged disciple and insinuated herself into the group that was arranging for his move.