Freud's Mistress Read online

  “Difficult but not different.”

  “So there are no exceptions?” she asked.

  “None that are noteworthy,” he said, leaning in closer to her. “Some might say I have a doctrinaire stance.”

  “Some might.”

  “And they would be . . . ?” he asked, playfully.

  “Unduly harsh, my dear . . .” she answered, flushing.

  “That would be the correct answer.”

  “I thought so,” she said, smiling, as she turned to leave.

  “Just a moment,” he said, staring at her curiously. She was expecting one additional point to bolster his argument, but instead he asked her whether she was available later that evening. She raised her eyebrows in momentary surprise and then remembered that this evening, as every Saturday evening after his lecture, Freud played in a regular tarock game with three of his colleagues from the hospital. But in an unusual turn of events, he said, one of his partners had taken ill at the last moment and sent his regrets. Evidently, it wasn’t just an annoying cough, but a full-blown bronchial infection.

  “Actually, my dear, it was Martha’s idea. She reminded me how clever you were with cards, and might it not be easier to let you fill in.”

  Minna remembered the card games in the café when they were all students.

  “That was so long ago. . . .”

  “But I recall you annihilating us one time.”

  “Just once?”

  “All right. More than once.”

  And so it was decided. Freud returned to a circle of waiting students and Minna headed home.

  A few weeks before, she had been in utter turmoil, leading a solitary life with stolen pleasures. She had worked at so many houses, developing furtive habits of hiding food or gin, reading purloined books, and putting up with domestics who were constantly nipping at her heels. Now she was free, living with family. As she crossed the Ringstrasse, she felt a surge of optimism. If not a permanent solution, this was a welcome, much-needed hiatus.

  8

  The card game was always the same—almost a ritual. At precisely seven o’clock, Dr. Eduard Silverstein rang the bell and was ushered into the parlor, where he clapped a fraternal arm around Freud’s shoulder and then headed straight toward the refreshment table. He could always be relied on to make himself at home in the cozy, domesticated room, and indeed he did, helping himself to a large Sacher torte on a silver tray, spilling the crumbs on the carpet.

  “And how are you, Sigmund?” he asked as he sank deeply into an armchair, stretched out his legs, and produced a slightly squashed, pale brown Maria Mancini cigar from his waistcoat. He stared at it in admiration, as if it were a woman.

  “It’s the genteel, slender body that I love,” he said, with a handsome smile, not waiting for his host’s reply. Then he lit up and inhaled with exaggerated pleasure.

  “Ah . . . moody, but pliable . . .” he added, flipping through one of Freud’s newspapers.

  Freud nodded with good humor at his only bachelor colleague, but professed loyalty to his stout, homely Trabuco. “It’s less flighty,” he volleyed, “less temperamental . . . with an even, reliable draw. You can keep the Marias of the world. . . . too much bother.”

  Dr. Ivan Skekel arrived next, removing his weather-beaten tweed coat and making the usual excuses for his tardiness—crowded omnibus, the “wife,” his swollen ankles. He smoothed his square-shaped beard and straightened his woolen waistcoat over his sizable paunch, as he too headed for the refreshments and uncorked a bottle of wine. He was about to light up the third cigar, adding to the thickening cloud of smoke, when the door to the parlor swung open and Minna walked in.

  She had changed into a white lace-trimmed blouse that was slightly open at the neck, her hair swept up in soft waves with a set of combs, and she was trailed by the scent of lavender-perfumed soap. For an instant, she hesitated, conscious of Freud’s gaze roaming her face. Did he see it in her? she wondered. Her tense shoulders, her flushed cheeks, and the care with which she had applied her makeup?

  He had noticeably transformed the moment she stepped into the room. His hard, bright eyes softened and his stiff demeanor relaxed. He had taken her hand, whispered a word of hello, and then given her another lingering glance. Minna wondered if this intimacy was merely her imagination but it gave her a peculiar sensation.

  Earlier, when she was getting dressed, her sister had been all ambrosial sweetness, like a mother sending her daughter off to a ball. Why then did Minna feel as if she were doing something behind Martha’s back? If there was nothing to hide, why did she feel guilty?

  “Allow me to introduce my sister-in-law, Fräulein Minna Bernays,” Freud said, rising from his chair, taking her hand in his, and ushering her into the room. “She’ll be our fourth tonight. Eduard Silverstein and Ivan Skekel.”

  It was obvious to Minna that Sigmund had not discussed her joining the game, and his partners looked noticeably surprised. She calmly regarded the group with her hazel eyes and walked over to the sofa.

  “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  “Delighted,” Dr. Silverstein said, breaking the silence. He stood up, took her hand, and kissed it lightly. Then he poured a glass of wine from one of Martha’s good crystal decanters on the sideboard and handed her a glass.

  “How very kind,” Minna murmured.

  Minna knew very well who Eduard Silverstein was. Martha had mentioned him several times. He was on her list of eligible bachelors. The son of a successful doctor and an enthusiastic supporter of the arts, he took over the thriving family practice when his father retired. Minna thought he wore his hair a little too long to be stylish but, on the whole, he was handsome, with liquid brown eyes and a worldly air. And even though he seemed pleased to see her, he had to be wondering, along with Skekel, why Freud hadn’t called one of their other colleagues who usually filled in when someone was indisposed.

  Minna sipped the wine and settled herself on the sofa. She was still not quite at ease. Her feet felt prickly and ached from the day, the left boot pressing on her anklebone. She had left the children still awake, one of whom—was it Ernst? no, maybe Oliver—shouting something as she went downstairs.

  “Are you up to this, my dear?” Freud asked solicitously, as he sat down next to her and lightly touched her on the shoulder. “Second thoughts?”

  “Not at all,” she said, and smiled, laying her hand on the sofa arm, which was covered with several of Martha’s ubiquitous doilies.

  They sat together while Skekel and Silverstein drifted over to the fireplace, finishing their conversation. They were talking about what everyone was talking about, the recent election of Karl Lueger, the new mayor of Vienna, who was known to be rabidly anti-Semitic.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Skekel said. “The liberals are losing ground. It’s the Christian Social Party now, and they can’t wait to take away our rights. It’s like the Middle Ages.”

  “I wouldn’t go around saying too much in public, old boy,” Silverstein replied, draining his glass. “You might lose a few patients, as well as some of your imperial connections. Don’t you agree, Fräulein Bernays?” he said, abruptly turning to her.

  “Well, most certainly the emperor has no choice,” Minna said, going on to discuss the disastrous ramifications of imperial support of Lueger, especially for the Jews.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Silverstein said, smiling at Minna. “My word, Sigmund. A beautiful, intelligent woman living in your house. What good fortune . . .”

  “Let’s play,” Freud said, with sudden irritation.

  Freud took the cards out of the pack and shuffled deftly. He glanced at Minna seemingly in annoyance, which left her slightly rattled. Then he cut the deck and dealt counterclockwise, sixteen cards to each player, carefully placing the six tarock cards facedown in the center.

  As the bidding began, Minna
found herself in a slightly awkward situation, trying to join the conversation with the men, darting from one subject to another, while making a respectable impression with her card-playing skills.

  “I just canceled my subscription to La Libre,” said Skekel, referring to the newspaper La Libre Parole, Lueger’s political tool. “I couldn’t endure any more of their fanatic ravings.”

  “I agree, I just read the Neue,” Minna said, trying to keep her mind on the game. Follow suit if you can.

  “I had a nephew,” Skekel said, lowering his voice, “who changed his Jewish name to a Christian one . . . and then he went into the ‘arts.’ . . . Destroyed his mother.”

  If you can’t follow suit, play a tarock.

  “He can go to vespers twenty times a day, and they’ll still call him a Jew,” Freud added.

  No tarock, so I can play any card.

  The discussion carried on as Minna tried not to lead with a tarock until a tarock had been played or, heaven forbid, discard the wrong number of cards or, disaster, fail to beat the highest card. At one point, she thought, Perhaps I should just play the Fool. But then again, he never wins a trick. Finally, Silverstein got up to refill his glass, and the men decided to take a bit of a break.

  “More wine, my dear?” Silverstein asked.

  “Why, yes, thank you.”

  He walked over with the decanter and began to fill her glass.

  “So when do you get a free day, Minna?” he asked. “Do they ever let you out of here?”

  “She’s not a domestic,” Freud said, glaring at him. “She’s my sister-in-law.”

  “Don’t get so testy, Sigmund,” Silverstein said, with an amused smile that was not returned.

  There was an uncomfortable silence, and Silverstein wisely decided to change the subject. “I suppose you’ve read about Oscar Wilde?” he asked.

  “How could one not? It’s been in all the papers,” Freud snapped back.

  “He should have fled to France, but his mother advised him to stay and ‘fight like a man,’” Silverstein said.

  “That’s what you get when you listen to your mother,” Freud replied.

  “He only has himself to blame, his behavior was reckless and indiscreet,” Skekel added.

  “And his play The Importance of Being Earnest, such a hit in America,” Minna said.

  “Well he’s finished now . . . two years’ hard labor, the maximum for gross indecency and sodomy—” said Freud.

  “Gentlemen, I don’t think this is an appropriate subject . . .” interrupted Skekel, nodding at Minna.

  “I’m perfectly capable of discussing the Wilde case,” Minna said, brushing off the man’s patronizing, if well-meaning, concerns. “In my opinion, if he hadn’t sued the Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel, he wouldn’t have been in this fix. A private prosecution at the height of his success. What a tragedy. And the salacious details of the poor man’s life plastered all over the news.”

  “Bravo,” Silverstein said, breaking into a proprietary grin.

  “My dear, perhaps you don’t understand . . .” Skekel explained patiently. “Mr. Wilde enjoyed the company of young . . . men. . . . These were ho-mo-sexual acts,” he said, slowly enunciating each syllable of the word as if she were a complete idiot.

  “I understand what the word homosexual means, Dr. Skekel,” Minna said, clearly vexed. “In fact, some say homosexuality is just a passing phase. I hear university boys experiment with it all the time.”

  “Well, I went to university, and I can tell you we experimented with a lot of things, but we didn’t do that. Maybe in the medical school . . .” Silverstein said, laughing and nodding at Freud.

  “There’s so much ignorance on the topic,” Freud replied, ignoring Silverstein’s attempts at humor. “My research has shown that homoerotic tendencies stem from a primitive oral phase, followed by an anal one and then a phallic one.”

  The word phallic hung in the air as everyone quieted down.

  “Very interesting, but that wouldn’t have helped poor Mr. Wilde in court,” Minna said, without hesitation.

  “Ah, but what if I could prove that everyone has these tendencies?” Freud said, looking at Silverstein.

  “Sigmund!” said Skekel. “It is highly inappropriate to be discussing these things in mixed company.”

  “Nonsense. Minna wasn’t put off by it . . . were you?” Freud asked.

  “Not in the least.”

  “There. You see? Not in the least,” he repeated, pleased.

  “More wine, my dear?” Silverstein offered.

  “Why, yes, thank you.”

  The game and the conversation went on into the night, with Skekel uncorking bottle after bottle of wine. At this point, Minna had lost count of how many glasses of alcohol she had consumed and watched with amusement as Skekel launched into an inebriated monologue on the state of the world.

  “Things are going to hell here. . . . Every day, another demonstration in town, people shouting anti-Semitic rhetoric . . . and the monarchy—completely ineffective. God knows, the military can’t deal with it. And it’s spreading. Why, I read just the other day that we’re a ‘proving ground for destruction.’ . . .”

  “Don’t believe everything you read, my man,” said Silverstein, looking at Minna with an openly flirtatious smile. “Things aren’t that catastrophic.”

  “Yes, they are. Even the suicide rate is up. . . .”

  “Just a lot of bored aristocrats who amuse themselves by jumping off bridges,” Silverstein said irreverently. Minna laughed, but didn’t know why, as Silverstein stood up, squeezed her shoulder, ambled to the piano, and proceeded to pound out a dreadful but enthusiastic rendition of Müller’s “The Fair Miller Maid.”

  “Gentlemen, it’s late,” Freud said, grimacing as he listened to the off-key notes. Skekel downed the last of his wine and slowly began to close the keyboard cover on Silverstein’s fingers.

  “Let’s go, Eduard. I’ll get a cab.”

  Silverstein swayed a bit as he stood up.

  “Might I perhaps call on you sometime?” he asked as he kissed Minna’s hand, lingering a bit too long. “It’s a pleasure to find a woman who possesses such considerable knowledge of the world. . . . Magnificent,” he added.

  “How kind of you,” she responded in a noncommittal way, as Freud escorted the two men out of the parlor and into the hallway. She could hear them arguing on the stairs and then Eduard’s slurred voice.

  “So she’s forbidden fruit, is she?”

  “You’re drunk, Eduard. Go home.”

  Freud shut the front door a little too hard and then climbed back up the stairs.

  “I wouldn’t advise encouraging Eduard,” he said, throwing a pillow aside and sitting down on the couch. He sulked as Minna gathered up the dirty glasses and bottles, and then he followed her into the kitchen.

  “I wasn’t encouraging him.”

  “One could interpret it that way.”

  “Are you asking me something or telling me something?”

  “Both. In any event, I know him well. While an amusing companion for me, he’s very much a ladies’ man.”

  “I think my mother would like him,” Minna said, teasing. “A nice Jewish doctor.”

  “Well, she didn’t like me. And he couldn’t cure a ham.”

  “Sigmund.” Minna laughed. “I don’t find him particularly appealing.”

  “Who do you find appealing?” he asked, following her back into the parlor.

  “Ah, there’s the question. Martha has been asking me that for years.”

  Minna fell silent and gathered up the last of the glasses, as a wave of fatigue hit her.

  “Forget about those. Come here, my dear,” he said, patting the space on the sofa next to him. She sat down, feeling the warmth of the smoldering logs and sharing on
e last glass of wine. He leaned back, stretched out his legs, and let out a sigh.

  “Tired?” she asked.

  “Exhausted. One of my patients isn’t responding to treatment and another informed me that she isn’t coming back—that talking to me was just ‘too upsetting.’”

  “And why is that?”

  “Some of their perversions are extreme. And the reasons even more so. It might shock you.”

  “You know me better than that,” she said.

  He watched her press the wineglass to her lips and swirl the burgundy around her tongue, and he began to speak.

  “I have a patient, a Russian aristocrat named Sergei . . . well, the name isn’t important. He’s extremely depressed, suicidal, a hypochondriac. Filled with obsessions, unable to function. He’s also plagued with recurring nightmares—a pack of vicious wolves hovering outside his bedroom window, waiting to attack.”

  “How odd. Has he ever actually come into contact with wolves?”

  “I don’t think so. Although he’s an artist and has drawn them with matted fur and bloody fangs. The sources of these compulsions are complex, but we’ve made tremendous progress with infantile neurosis. Just last week, near the end of our session, the man recalled his earliest sexual memories, and there it was . . . the presexual sexual shock. He confessed that when he was a child, he witnessed his parents having sex ‘a tergo.’”

  “‘A tergo’?” Minna asked.

  “You know. From behind.”

  Minna refused to look shocked. It was as if she were listening to tales of the supernatural peppered with incest, masturbation, sodomy, and so forth. He went on in such detail that, at one point, she thought he might be toying with her. She tried to keep her expression impassive, maintaining the fiction that her interests were purely scientific.

  “Their genitals were in full view,” he said quietly. “I’m confident that this exposure to his parents’ lovemaking has affected his sexual appetites and made him voracious in a variety of erotic ways.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, he has compulsive desires for women with large buttocks—preferably prostitutes and servant girls. He told me every time he sees his housemaid kneeling down, scrubbing the floor, he’s instantly aroused. The image of her rear in the air is overwhelming to him and all he can think about is taking her right there.”