Freud's Mistress Read online

  She changed the child into her stiff white nightgown, washed her face and hands, and tucked her into bed. Then she blew out the candle on the dresser and pulled the covers up to her neck. But as Minna bent over to kiss her good night, Sophie put her soft arms around Minna and pulled her down toward her.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered.

  “But, Sophie dear, I’m so tired. I have to go back to my room.”

  “Don’t go,” she whispered again, her brow creased with worry. “Can’t you sthay with me, Tante Minna? I’m sthcared.”

  Minna could feel the child’s sweet, warm breath on her cheek. She relit the candle and sat down on the side of the bed. She would often read Sophie stories until she fell asleep. Her favorites were Catherine Sinclair’s tales about giants and fairies and elves, especially the fairy Do-nothing. She relit the candle next to the bed.

  “I’ll tell you a story about a beautiful fairy,” said Minna, “whose cheeks were rouged to the very eyes, her teeth set in gold, and her hair of a most brilliant purple.”

  • • •

  The next morning, Martha slept late. Minna heard Sigmund leave for the university at his usual early hour, but Martha didn’t stir until after eleven. She came down to the parlor in her dressing gown, nursing her cup of coffee and looking for Minna.

  “How was the opera?” Minna asked halfheartedly.

  “Well,” Martha said, eager to share the events of the evening, “our seats were right behind the royal boxes, and you wouldn’t believe the furs—sable, ermine, chinchilla . . . all paws and heads and tails. Tout Vienna was there.”

  “How nice.”

  “Then the royals made a grand entrance, their entourage sat right in front of us. They never stopped talking, you know, through the entire performance. Sigmund was so annoyed. I had to keep him from saying something. By the way, you remember the Rosenthals, don’t you? They brought their daughter, who even in her lace décolletage, looked just like her father, poor thing. I heard she was in love with an Italian but couldn’t marry him because he’s a Christian. In fact, the father went on a hunger strike until the girl signed a document that she would never see the boy again.”

  “And the music?”

  “Marvelous. That new tenor from Frankfurt was a sensation—standing ovations at the end of each aria. And, of course, Lilli Lehmann was perfection. She’s returning to the Met, I hear. Anyway, I’m simply exhausted. The performance lasted until after midnight, and we didn’t get to the Zelinskys until one. Sigi was so hungry by then, he stuffed himself. Everyone thought he hadn’t eaten for days.”

  Minna strained to keep her face from falling as her sister went on and on, describing the gowns, the opulent furnishings, and how much Sigmund had enjoyed himself. It crossed her mind, briefly, that perhaps Martha was doing this on purpose. And it was working. Minna was totally deflated. But the fact was, if she was to continue this duplicitous arrangement, she was just going to have to swallow her resentment, her pride, and learn to live with the fact that Martha was, and always would be, the wife.

  35

  Where was he?

  Minna stood by the open window of the pension, breathing in the hot air. September had brought some relief, but today was brutal. She could feel the sweat evaporating on her skin, and her palms were wet and sticky. She had even left the door ajar, hoping a breeze would flow through the room. But nothing helped. She heard that some of the better hotels had electric fans on the ceiling and machines that blew air over a bucket of ice. The rich always managed to stay cool.

  When they first returned from Switzerland, Minna sat in her room most nights, awaiting Freud’s call like a courtesan, eager for one of their late-night discussions. But in the past month, he had summoned her to his study only once, and Minna found herself alone, just like today, waiting for him. But even worse, the last few weeks when he passed her in the hall, there was just a slight change of expression. It seemed as if he purposely wasn’t looking over at her. Perhaps he was just being careful, or was distracted by his work, she thought. She still expected him to seek her out after his long hours in the study, to give her a sign, a look, anything that would bring back the sensation of his touch. But he was oddly absent and sometimes, even with six children and Martha in the house, the place seemed deserted.

  • • •

  Minna couldn’t imagine what was taking him so long to get here. The pension was just a few minutes’ walk from the university. She stared at the door a little longer. Then she slowly stood up, gathered her belongings, and walked down the claustrophobic stairway to the lobby. She fumbled in her purse for some kronen. . . . Oh, no. Not enough to pay for the room.

  The proprietor’s small office was just inside the entrance, and Minna approached the young girl sitting behind the desk. She was wrapped in a shawl, even in this heat, and her head was buried in a magazine.

  “I won’t be needing the room any longer,” Minna began, her voice strained. “May I send you payment in the morning?”

  There was an exasperated sigh.

  “We require payment upon checkout,” the girl said, without looking up. It was apparent she had said these exact words many times before.

  “I was only here two hours,” Minna said brusquely, placing a few kronen on the desk and walking out the door. Let her get off her rump and try to stop me, she thought. What a little guttersnipe.

  She paused on the street for a moment, checking to make sure she had everything, her purse, coat, and hat. Yes, she had all her belongings, thank God, because she certainly didn’t want to go back in there.

  It was now almost rush hour, and she crossed the street and dodged the traffic. The circuitous streets around the train station were unknown to her, filled with factory workers holding lunch boxes, and businessmen in dark suits and hats. A swarm of commuters heading home.

  Minna walked on, the cobblestones burning and sticky underfoot, her blouse drenched in sweat. Her skirts and petticoat got heavier and damper. How could he have forgotten? Hadn’t they arranged this last week? Or was it two weeks before? She couldn’t remember. Perhaps she should have reminded him this morning. But when? With Martha in the same room, hovering over him? Lately, it had been so hard to catch him alone. When was the last time they had had an actual conversation?

  The other morning, she had innocently come upon him in the hall and given him a cheerful good day. He responded, in an irritated tone, that his barber was ill and had sent an inept replacement who shaved him horribly, leaving his Adam’s apple all “bristly and cutting me under the nose.” Not one word of affection.

  Minna fumed just thinking about it. She walked to the corner and absently stepped off the curb. There was a shout and the sound of wooden carriage wheels grinding against cobblestones.

  “My God, woman! Watch out!”

  The carriage driver yanked his mares away from her, his curses ringing through the air. Minna leapt back on the curb as the horses streaked by, so close she could touch the sweat streaming down their flanks. Goose bumps covered her arms and neck.

  “I didn’t even see him,” she said to a woman standing nearby. Minna shook her head, now furious at Freud for almost getting her killed. Then she hurried to the next omnibus stop and waited for the ride. She had just enough change to get home.

  She arrived at the house before supper. Even before she reached the study, she heard the sound of deep male voices. The door was open, giving Minna an unobstructed view from the hallway. Sigmund was holding a glass of wine in one hand and a cigar in the other. The bastard. Across from him on the couch, staring out through the semi-dark haze of smoke, sat the young doctor from Berlin, Wilhelm Fliess.

  Fliess was dark-haired with narrowed brown eyes and a meticulous mustache. Minna had already decided that she disliked the man and his bizarre theories, and it didn’t help that Freud was now posting letters to him almost every day. He had once told her t
hat he saw Fliess as a fellow scientific pioneer, someone willing to risk it all for the sake of discovery. But the fact of the matter was, when one is enamored, one is willing to believe anything.

  Minna stood silently in the doorway, waiting for a smile from Freud’s lips, a wave, or something resembling an apology. She saw the two men look at each other with affection and felt a pull of disappointment in her stomach. It was dispiriting to watch him give Fliess the same all-encompassing focus he had previously bestowed on her. How could he do this? Perhaps they were in the middle of a serious scientific discussion, and he couldn’t get away.

  But wait. She watched Freud set down his glass of wine and his cigar. He held the familiar blue vial in his hand. A cocainization of his left nostril. And then his right. He handed the vial to Fliess and looked up, turning his face in her direction. He looked infuriatingly indifferent.

  “Minna. My dear friend Wilhelm is visiting,” he said, not noticing the bright anger in her cheeks.

  “Apparently,” she said, with a stiff smile.

  “Fräulein,” Fliess said, kissing her hand, “so nice to see you again. I was just telling Sigmund of my latest findings. . . .”

  “I should like to hear it,” Minna said, sitting down uninvited.

  “And I should like to tell you. I know Sigmund values your opinion,” Fliess said. “If you start with the theory that both women and men have monthly cycles and that these are intimately connected to planetary movements . . . then, take your birthday, multiply it by a factor of five, add the days of your menstrual cycle and, voilà, a diagnosis and prediction of future health issues.”

  Minna thought that this lunatic’s numerology made astrology seem like an orthodox science. She nodded as if all this made perfect sense.

  “Impressive,” she said, thinking, Yes, impressive for a quack. What a pretentious ass, and here was Sigmund fussing all over him.

  Fliess stayed for supper and then a late snack. At midnight, he followed Freud back into his study, where they were ensconced until dawn.

  The next day, Fliess arrived before noon, and the two men launched, yet again, into feverish discourse, Freud sweeping him into his study as if he were a visiting head of state. He returned the following day, and the days after, arriving early in the morning, loitering in the parlor, trailing the scent of his Maria Mancini cigars and lilac shaving cream, thumbing through newspapers, helping himself to tinned biscuits and candied fruits from the pantry. He’d become a fixture in the household, exchanging little pleasantries with the help. Minna found herself standing behind corners and doors, straining to hear what they were saying, registering a cool expression when she happened to run into them.

  They discussed Plato, Dante, Stendhal’s musings on passion (even bringing up the indelicate fact that the man dropped dead of syphilis on the streets of Paris).

  “‘Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.’ Horace, first book of Odes, number four,” recited Fliess at dinner one day, while all the Freud children sat there unnoticed and completely bored.

  “‘Life’s brief total forbids us cling too long off hope,’” translated Freud, “But don’t you feel the earlier parts of the book merit equal adoration? ‘Quodsi me lyricis vatibus inseres, sublimi feriam sidera vertice.’”

  Minna had heard enough. She went upstairs and walked to the dresser, where her books were piled up in a messy heap. Ah, there it was, the copy of Homer she had borrowed from Sigmund last month. Childish game, tossing around quotes in Latin. She could toss quotes, if she wanted to. She threw the book on the floor. There! She had tossed quotes.

  Oh, dear. She picked up Homer and placed him back on the dresser. It wasn’t his fault.

  • • •

  And so it went. One day she found Fliess in the parlor, snacking on Sacher torte and holding up his coffee cup to Minna, blithely signaling a refill.

  A few days later, she was awakened by a violent downpour. A constant stream of water dripped, dripped, dripped on the floor near her bed, the sound of it amplifying as she placed a lead saucepan under the leak. She opened the wooden shutters, thinking the world looked oppressive—the skies, the trees, the river, all blending together in a dense blur of gray.

  She dressed mechanically and walked downstairs to supervise the children’s breakfast, getting as far as the parlor. And there was Fliess, sitting like Goldilocks in Freud’s chair, reading his newspaper and drinking coffee from a delicate cup and saucer belonging to Martha’s “good china,” a set that no one used.

  How odd to be jealous of a man. Just looking at Fliess made her sick. His beady little eyes, his Neanderthal forehead, and bushy tangled beard. His eyebrows joined in the middle. And his voice. How annoying and ironically nasal. Physician, heal thyself!

  She watched him take a sip of the coffee, sloshing the dark liquid into the saucer, then abstractedly placing the cup directly onto the antique side table. Before she could stop herself, she grabbed the cup and wiped off the table with her skirt.

  “You’ll leave a ring,” she said, her voice tightening. Then she heard a noise behind her and saw Freud standing in the doorway, his eyes dark and remote.

  “You can wipe up later,” he said brusquely, not even using her name.

  She was about to respond, but his expression had narrowed and hardened, so she plunked the cup back into the wet saucer and walked out of the room without saying a word.

  How dare he treat her like a fussy housekeeper. She went back upstairs to nurse her depleted spirits, but a creeping feeling of dread rose from her stomach and filled her head. To her astonishment, tears welled up in her eyes.

  36

  The next Sunday, like every other Sunday, Freud’s family gathered for an obligatory dinner at his parents’ apartment. At the appointed hour of noon, Minna, Martha, and the children climbed into the crowded omnibus, cramming together in the last two rows of the bus. It was a rainy morning, the weather had dramatically changed overnight, and the horses jog-trotted through the cobbled streets, snorting off jets of steam.

  It was Minna’s humble opinion that omnibus conductors were foremost in the ranks of thievery, extorting as much money as they could from their passengers. Before the rates were fixed, there were numerous squabbles on the corner as to how much the cads would charge from point A to point B. But finally the council set the rates, which made omnibus travel much more pleasant.

  Minna straightened her shawl and smoothed the front of her dress. The windows were beginning to fog and smear as a heavy, damp closeness hovered in the air. The children were in their Sunday best, hunched up, rubbing their eyes and sullenly staring out the grease-streaked windows.

  “I’m suffocating!” Martin said, as he leaned over and pulled down the glass-paneled window.

  “No. Thut it,” Sophie lisped. “I’m cold.”

  Oliver leaned over to close the window, just as a splash of muddy puddle water from a massive two-horse brewer’s dray hit the bus and sprayed brown droplets down the front of Oliver’s immaculate sailor suit.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” Martha said.

  “Not my fault,” Martin shouted.

  “Just sit there and be quiet,” Martha scolded, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief.

  “Why do I always get blamed?”

  “Because you do stupid things,” said Oliver, as Minna, who had a bilious headache, tried to change the subject. She was still angry at the way Sigmund had treated her the previous afternoon, but she had no choice but to come today. At any rate, she didn’t have the energy to start a scene with Martha about wanting to stay home. The children did enough of that as it was.

  “If you all look to your immediate right you can make out the spires of St. Stephen’s,” Minna said, even though no one was listening.

  “Couldn’t we arrive just once at your grandparents’ without a battle?” Martha sighed.

 
“Why do we even have to go?” Mathilde whined. “Father doesn’t like it, either.”

  “Of course your father likes it.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Then why isn’t he here?”

  “Because he’s meeting with Dr. Fliess,” Martha said. “Now, no more discussion.”

  The conductor suddenly veered off the wide expanse of the Ring, crossing the invisible boundary from the Sixth District to Leopoldstadt, the traditional Jewish section. Once an overcrowded ghetto, it was now a modest to middling neighborhood where Sigmund’s parents still lived in a slightly run-down but genteel apartment. The abrupt jog of the horses threw the group back into their seats and stilled the simmering argument. When they finally neared the building, Minna signaled the driver to stop. Amalia was standing in the doorway, as usual, waiting for Sigmund.

  Of all Amalia’s seven children, Freud was the obvious favorite. As Sigmund had told Minna in Switzerland, he knew he was privileged, even as a young child, and the household was organized accordingly. Any conflicts within the family were resolved unequivocally in Sigmund’s favor. Amalia treated him as gifted, as a prince, as someone who would bring the family great fame and fortune, and not one member of the family disputed Sigmund’s preferential treatment.

  Minna stepped from the omnibus, clasping the hem of her dress and pulling it over the tops of her high black boots. Wisps of hair fluttered from her hat, and her skirt billowed with the brusque wind. The children silently scrambled out after her and dutifully greeted their grandmother, who barely acknowledged them. Martha gave her mother-in-law a kiss on the cheek.