Three Women in a Mirror (21 page)

And indeed, Dr. Calgari's office was located on the second floor.

A woman opened the door—I assumed it was his secretary—and led me into a sinister little room furnished only with chairs, the “waiting room,” as she pompously referred to it—in other words a cell where all one was allowed to do was sit and gaze at threadbare tapestries with faded colors representing two episodes from Roman history,
The Rape of the Sabine Women
and
The Return of the Sabines
.

I languished for five minutes on the edge of my chair, ready to leave again if I had to wait another minute. I had been abandoned in the silent apartment. Now that I am writing this letter, I suspect that this whole episode was staged in order to make me feel vulnerable and lend a heroic air to the doctor when he came in to rescue me.

And indeed, Dr. Calgari opened the double doors and appeared, liberating me from my boredom.

I must admit he was a handsome man, very slender, with fine features and a well-groomed beard and shiny dark hair.

After a few words of apology—I did not believe a word of his allegations—he invited me to follow him into his office.

In front of a wall of books, he sat behind his desk, which was covered with Egyptian statuettes, and gestured for me to sit down.

“How did you hear about psychoanalysis?”

This barbarian word was used to designate the method developed by Freud the Jewish magus. I told him about my Aunt Vivi's suggestion. Visibly my explanation was not to his liking, because he winced. That hardly discouraged me, and I explained my problem in a few sentences.

“I do not want this to happen again, Doctor. Next time I want to be well and truly pregnant.”

That is when he began to behave oddly. First of all, he told me I must not call him Doctor, because, he explained, he was not a doctor, even if his aim was to make me recover—I should have suspected something the moment he made this disconcerting confession. Then he explained that we would meet for at least one session a week, if not two.

“For how long?”

“That will depend on you.”

“I beg your pardon? You do not know how long the treatment will last?”

This lack of precision should have put me on my guard as well, but he preached most eloquently. He began with a series of completely nonsensical explanations, then lingered on the most alarming of them all: I was the one who would speak during our appointments, and he would do no more than listen to me.

“Do you follow?” he said. “
You
will carry out the task of elucidating, not
me
. You are the patient, and you alone can treat your own self.”

In all my life I had never heard anything more inept. My education forbade me from replying. He merely continued, “Your desire to recover will determine the effectiveness of the analysis. The cure is in your hands.”

Although I was alarmed, I did allow myself a touch of humor: “Tell me how much I shall earn?”

“One hundred thalers per session. Payable in advance, naturally.”

Oh dear, this was obviously turning into a swindle . . . I decided to continue in an abrasive mode: “How flattering. I did not know my skills were worth so much.”

Without a smile—the dreary fellow has no wit—he explained vehemently that this monetary contract was a necessary condition of the treatment. It must cost me to go to him, and the fee for my session of “psychoanalysis” must represent a sacrifice.

When he had finished, convinced he had persuaded me, he asked me what I thought. I spoke my mind: “I hope that with the money you earn you will be able to replace those two horrible tapestries in your waiting room.”

“Horrible? In what way?”

“The quality of the work, but above all the motif. I hate that story.”

“Why?”

“The rape of the Sabine women? An obscene abduction. The Roman men had a shortage of women so they went abduct the wives of their neighbors the Sabines. A shining example!”

“Would you have preferred for them to practice incest?”

Shocked by his remark, I ignored it and went on, “And the second picture,
The Return of the Sabines,
is even worse
.
Several years later they went to look for their women and found them with their abductors, whom they had ended up caring for.”

“And why is that worse, in your opinion?”

I have never met anyone more obtuse. On top of that, he leaned over his desk toward me, his eyes open wide, as if he truly wanted to understand. What an ass! I politely put him in his place: “Look, I did not come here to discuss tapestries, I came here for myself.”

“You are speaking about yourself when you interpret these pictures, Frau von Waldberg, you are telling me not their story, but yours.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. You are conveying what you think about violence and intolerable events.”

I fell silent on hearing these words. Does one have the right to act in such a superficial manner? A general conversation about subjects I do not like is supposed to cure me? Let's be serious.

On seeing my skeptical expression, Dr. Calgari once again began describing the psychoanalytic treatment—ah! His mouth was overflowing with the word!—and then he began to say things that aroused my attention once and for all.

“There will be days, Frau von Waldberg, when you say nothing, but it will still count as a working session. There will be days when you weep, and that will be progress. Some days you will hate me. However, at other times, you will like me, too much even, you will become passionate. That is the moment of transference. We can already predict that you will feel as if you are in love with me.”

I immediately joined up the threads of the absurd gibberish he had been spouting for over an hour, and the situation became clear: he was informing me that we would have an affair. The sycophant was courting me by claiming—such a boor!—that I would make the first move. And he went about it with perfect calm, just as if he were writing up a prescription.

With a gesture to support his words, he pointed to a couch covered with a kilim: “Go and lie down on the couch.”

I stood up, and in a biting tone I turned on my heels and said, “You are much mistaken, sir, I'm not that type of woman.”

And I left him there.

The disgusting fellow had the shamelessness to run after me in the stairway of his building—such a lack of manners! Fortunately, I could no longer hear what he was saying.

I rushed out into the street and ran straight to Aunt Vivi's carriage, and once I was inside I told her, “You have been deceived, Aunt Vivi. Not only is he a crook, but he also behaves improperly toward women.”

Oh, my dear Gretchen, the world is inhabited by wild beasts and fools. Sometimes the wildcat looks like a fool, like Dr. Calgari, sometimes the wildcat turns out to be an enormous fool, like Aunt Vivi. How could she ever believe even for a second that this charlatan who goes around with his ridiculous title, “ psychoanalyst”—why not the Grand Mamamouchi, like the fake Turks in Molière's play—could possibly offer me comfort in any way?

I'm going to try to soothe my anger by stroking my paperweights. If you do not mind listening to me in this state, I send you my kisses.

 

Your Hanna

The car swerved onto the shoulder, found the pavement just in time, and then, without slowing, continued energetically along the road, which curved to the right. Under the pressure of contrary forces the convertible seemed to hunch down, tense, and flex its muscles.

The tires squealed like joyful warriors preparing to charge.

Anny encouraged them with a shout.

Such exhilaration! Her bare feet caressed the pedals. Going full speed, in full possession of her faculties, she felt as if she were melting into the car: the sound of the engine was replacing her breathing, and the metal was an extension of her body, so much so that they weighed the same, and the movement of her left shoulder could shift a ton of iron to one side. Anny drove the way she lived—at breakneck speed.

Her face tilted up, her hair loose, she bit into the air that whipped her cheeks like a slap—yes, a constant succession of slaps, that is what the air was inflicting on her, that was how it treated her! And yet she liked it, she wasn't angry with it, no, she could resist, she could make her way through it, slicing, carving the air, and she would always win.

Speed released her from her sorrows, brought her back to what was essential: feeling alive, intensely alive, because at a hundred and twenty miles an hour death is just waiting for you in the ditch.

There came the sound of a siren.

“Fucking country! You can't move a finger anymore.”

Her adrenaline was flowing stronger than ever, making her all the more furious, but she pulled over and waited for the policeman.

He stopped his motorcycle in front of her, climbed off, full of majesty, then walked over, his legs spread around the virtual motorcycle between his thighs.

Anny burst out laughing.

“It's funny, don't you think?”

The policeman made a face, ready to reply, but then preferred to abstain and bring out the usual formulas: “Miss, did you know you're going a hundred and twenty miles an hour?”

“I should hope so. Not just anyone can drive that fast. The slightest mistake could be fatal. Did you enjoy it, too?”

“Miss—”

“Now hold on. Why did you join the police force if it wasn't so you could speed legally? You didn't become a biker to go after old granddads on tractors. Fortunately for you, from time to time there are nut cases like me who give you a chance to go flat out.”

Disconcerted, he stood there gaping. While she was talking, he recognized her.

“You're that movie star, aren't you.”

“Anny Lee, yes.”

He felt as if he'd gone through the screen. Was it possible? This creature who normally appeared before him with her face measuring fifteen feet by nine, enormous, imposing, now sat just a few inches away and had just spoken to him gracefully and naturally.

She gave him a smile, pleased with the effect she was having.

“Are you pleased with your motorcycle?”

“Well—”

“Did you choose it or not?”

Although he would have been more than happy to go on with the conversation, he had a job to do. But she jumped in ahead of him: “And how did your family react? I'm sure your mother didn't like to see you going off on a big motorcycle, but now that you're in uniform she's not afraid anymore, right?”

There was a flash of amusement in the cop's eyes.

“I should join the police force,” concluded Anny. “It's the only way to go on speeding without getting a ticket or being sent to court. What do you think?”

The cop burst out laughing.

Anny looked at him, eyes round, and she pulled a long face, like a little girl about to be punished.

The cop had been won over. He was flattered that she was going to the trouble to perform for him, and he said, “All right. I'll look the other way. Promise me that from now on you'll drive at a normal speed.”

She nodded. But they both knew she was lying. He sighed, already sorry to be leaving the young woman behind.

“Where you going?”

“To the location for my next movie.”

“What's it called?”

“
The Girl with the Red Glasses.
”

“I'll go and see it, Anny Lee, like I did all your other ones. Why are you driving? I thought the studios gave you chauffeured limousines.”

“Hey, what limo driver can give me this kind of rush? If you know of one, please get him out of jail and introduce him to me. Until then, I have to do the driving myself.”

He smiled, enchanted by Anny's nerve.

She turned the key in the ignition, then, pulling away at a snail's pace, gave him a charming wave. He almost responded before he remembered he had to behave like a policeman.

She drove slowly for a mile while he escorted her. Then he passed her, headed down another road and pulled away, and he was sure that once he was out of sight Anny would put her foot down on the gas pedal.

 

She pulled up at the shooting location, where the crew had already set up a few outdoor scenes, and after handing her car keys to an intern she hurried over to her trailer.

The atmosphere on set was beginning to feel like open warfare.

For a start, the star was showing up luxuriously late, due to the late hour she had gone to bed—four o'clock in the morning, when she got back from the club—and she was half asleep due to her hangover, and coming down from the drugs she'd taken. Moreover, screwing up the schedule was a way of asserting her supremacy: she was a star, and they would wait for her the way you wait for a star. Ever since she had slept with Zac, Anny was no longer afraid of him; on the contrary, all she had to do was remember him naked, to think of his hairy body, in order to find him grotesque. He no longer had any power over her, either to make her show up on time or to stop her imitating him when she commented on the way he gave directions. She had called him a jerk at least three times in front of everyone.

As for David, his hypocrisy was becoming obvious. While Anny may have been the first one to spot it, now everyone else could see it, including David himself, because when he acted all lovey-dovey around Anny or shot her an amorous look, his eyes betrayed a split second of panic, a sign that deep down he was afraid he was no longer credible.

Anny couldn't care less. In fact, it reassured her. She breathed more easily when she could see other people's flaws. It simplified her relations not only with them, but also with herself: she felt less guilty. A nonentity in a country of nonentities, the only kind of person she feared was an exceptional one.

As for Ethan . . .

Ethan didn't go along with her avoidance tactics. He had tried to get through to her to prevent her from sinking back into old habits. Ever since the day she had taken opium, she was continually running into him, outside her house, outside the studio, but she pretended not to see him. He didn't give up. One morning he ran up to her, shouting at her; she kept walking, as if he belonged to a world she had nothing more to do with, as if he were a ghost trying to call out to a living person.