Freud's Mistress Read online

  Minna sat on the edge of the bed, picked up the fashion magazine La Vie Parisienne, and absently thumbed though the pages, all the while thinking of Martha’s scathing assessment of her husband’s research. During their courtship, she had shown at least a passing interest in Freud’s work. At what point, Minna wondered, had it deteriorated into no interest and then not-so-veiled hostility?

  She thought back, as she had so many times, to when Martha was engaged to Freud. And then the four-year-long engagement during which the couple hardly saw each other. Martha and Minna had moved with their widowed mother to a village outside Hamburg, while Freud stayed in Vienna, finishing his studies. As a medical student, living on loans, he was rarely able to visit. And he couldn’t marry Martha in poverty. Out of the question! What would they do? Live in a garret, drink cheap red wine, and eat kugel for dinner every night? He was constantly beleaguered by his situation, calling himself “a poor young human being. . . . a scrounger and a schnorrer, tormented by burning wishes.”

  With the years of hardship and separation, it was no wonder that both Martha and Freud had built up illusions of what it would be like when they finally were together. He wooed her in his letters with a fierce, single-minded passion. She was his “Darling Angel,” “Dearest Treasure,” “Fair Mistress, Sweet Love,” filled with radiance and goodness, and he was her prince, her “Blissful Lover, Sigmund.”

  Martha shared these letters with Minna, as well as with all her friends, who would marvel at Freud’s ardent pursuit. On the rare occasion when he did come to visit, the two sisters would sit with him in the parlor, listening to stories about his university, “a great institution of higher learning, attracting students from all over the world,” his professors “luminaries in their fields, scientists like Ernst von Brücke and Josef Breuer,” his ranking “at the top of my class.”

  Martha was charming and sweet, sitting across from Freud with her hands folded neatly in her lap, but his achievements failed to capture her interest. Not that she wasn’t happy for him. But Minna could tell, more often than not, that she would get antsy, feign enthusiasm, and then fuss with the cushions and twirl her hair. Then she’d stand up, leave the room, and return with a tray of coffee and strudel, or biscuits and hot tea, swooping in and out of their conversations, more than willing to have her sister actually listen to the preening young doctor.

  A loud, slamming door and then the sound of feet running down the hall jolted Martha awake and pulled Minna reluctantly away from a fascinating article announcing the demise of the huge leg-o’-mutton sleeve.

  “Mother! I can’t bear to spend another night with Sophie!” Mathilde said, crashing into the room. “She’s disgusting, her bed smells, and I think she’s had another accident.”

  Martha raised her head from the pillow, considered her daughter a moment, and rubbed her eyes.

  “My dear, there is nowhere else to stay,” she pronounced.

  “Now there’s nowhere else to stay,” Mathilde said, pointedly looking at Minna.

  “Calm down, dear,” Martha said, sinking back into the bed.

  “Why don’t you call Edna to clean up? Try to be patient with your sister,” Minna added.

  “‘Try to be patient with your sister,’” Mathilde repeated in a singsong voice. “Easy for you to say. Why don’t you try sleeping with her?” she snapped as she banged out the door.

  “Minna, go after her and give her a piece of my mind,” Martha murmured.

  “She’s just high-spirited,” Minna said. “And I did take her room. I can understand her anger. Perhaps I’ll take her with me the next time I go to the café. Get her an Apfelstrudel. What do you think?”

  Martha lay motionless in the dark, airless room, nestled in a cocoon of down, one hand on her breastbone, the other clutching her now quiet crochet hook. Minna sat a few more minutes by Martha’s bedside, watching her sister’s face relax into a sweet, intoxicated half smile. Then she straightened the sheets, walked to the windows, and opened the heavy curtains a crack, letting in a few wisps of sunlight. She lingered there, gazing at the skyline. There would be no help from Martha today, she thought. She watched her sister rally for a final time and swallow another dose of the cinnamon-scented syrup, licking the spoon like a cat lapping up milk.

  10

  The outline of a crescent moon was still visible over the city’s jumble of rooftops as Minna left Martha’s bedside. She felt a mounting pressure to get things done before the midday meal, and wondered, just briefly, if Sigmund had a full calendar this morning. She knew he routinely consulted with patients in his office at around eight, right after his barber’s daily visit, and rarely came back upstairs until dinner at one. Still, sometimes there were gaps in his schedule. Minna went back to her room to finish her toilette, rouge her cheeks, pin up her hair, and make the bed, then headed downstairs, where she encountered Edna, carrying a load of Sophie’s soiled, wet bed linens.

  “The washerwoman don’t come till tomorrow. . . . I’ll have to soak these in lime,” she grumbled.

  “Oh, Edna, I’m sorry. Please hang them outside. Otherwise they’ll drip in the kitchen for days,” said Minna.

  “Someone should speak to the girl . . . such a nuisance!”

  “No. No. Don’t say a word. I’ll talk to her.”

  Poor Sophie, Minna thought. It’s not as if the child committed a cardinal sin. Perhaps I’ll get her up a few times during the night, take her to the WC more often.

  Minna proceeded down the hall and peeked into Sophie and Mathilde’s empty room. Sophie’s mattress had been stripped, and the air had the faint, urine-tinged odor of a dark alley. She opened the windows and then started downstairs. No time for coffee, it was already past eight. Martha usually did the marketing early and picked up her weekly bouquet of flowers before the stalls got too crowded, so Minna could manage only a few chores before she left, watering the limp, unhappy plants (alas, it wasn’t eleven, but the plants didn’t seem to mind), greeting the equally unhappy governess, and airing out the parlor, which reeked from a noxious mixture of last night’s cigars and bratwurst. Everything smelled, Minna thought. Maybe it was her consumption of too much wine, she concluded once again.

  It was a lovely, breezy November morning as Minna headed outside. As she reached the landing, Freud’s waiting room door was ajar, and she could see him walking toward her through the tobacco fog. He had obviously caught sight of her as she was going down the stairs, and came to the door, smiling widely. She was still a bit confused about the night before but decided to act as if all was perfectly normal. He leaned against the wall, running his slender hand through his hair and looking for a moment like a man who had nothing better to do than to talk to the first person he happened to meet.

  “My God, how can you smoke so early?” she said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Just the thought of it . . . Doesn’t it ever make you ill?”

  “No. Never. Unfortunately. Where are you going?”

  “I’m off to run some errands. Martha isn’t well.”

  “Come in. Just for a minute. I have something to show you.”

  She peeked into the empty waiting room and paused for a moment.

  “Don’t worry. I haven’t a patient for another half hour. You’ll appreciate this. Sit down.”

  She settled herself on the edge of a chair and watched him disappear into his study and then return carrying a small antiquity.

  “It’s my magical amulet,” he said with pride. “The owner of this was supposedly endowed with supernatural powers.” He went on to say that this particular “beauty” was from ancient Egypt. And then he held it up to the light so that she could see the sun glinting off the bronze.

  “Magnificent, isn’t it? My dealer moved heaven and earth to get it. Don’t tell Martha. It cost a fortune,” he said, gingerly handing it to her as if it were a jewel-encrusted Fabergé egg.

  “It�
��s beautiful. But what does this mean?” she asked, running her fingers over the invocations carved on the edges.

  “This one depicts the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, who had the power to destroy the enemies of the sun god. I actually have a dozen or so of these, all different, from Egypt, Rome, Etruria. Would you like to see them? No. Never mind, we don’t have time. My favorite is the eye of Horus, son of Osiris, which heals as well as protects. They’re all mythological—that’s why I’m drawn to them. I’ve found that the mythological view of the world is nothing but psychology projected into the external world.”

  “As in Oedipus?” she said, standing up and handing the amulet back to him. “Martha was just telling me of your theory. . . .” Minna paused for a moment and decided not to mention that her sister found it obscene. “I remember you touched upon it years ago in your correspondence. I had no idea you were still working on it.”

  “Absolutely. It’s become an integral part of my research. Martha doesn’t understand it at all. I’m sorry I ever mentioned it to her.”

  “You can’t really blame her, Sigmund. This goes beyond anything one would mention in polite society.”

  “It doesn’t bother you, obviously.”

  “No. Actually, I find it fascinating,” Minna said. She could tell by his expression that her comment pleased him.

  “Everyone thinks Oedipus is a tragedy of destiny,” he went on, encouraged by her attention. “But it’s much more than that. It represents the primal dream of mankind. From the day we’re born, our first sexual impulse is toward our mother. And our first murderous wishes are against our father. The legend of King Oedipus is merely the fulfillment of our childhood wishes.”

  “Do you honestly think this is what Sophocles meant?”

  “In a way. His play was about the vain attempts of mankind to escape their fate. But it can also be interpreted as a moral and intellectual question. His characters represent impulses that are suppressed but still found in our psyche. The fear and guilt from this situation could be the cause of all adult neurosis—a new universal law.”

  “Extraordinary,” she said, understanding for the first time the importance of this theory. Her sister’s reaction had been emotional and superficial.

  “Being totally honest with oneself is never easy, but all little boys fall in love with their mothers and then become afraid of their fathers, fearing they will be punished or, even worse, castrated. The blinding of Oedipus is symbolic of the shock and disgust men feel when they realize they want their mother. . . .”

  With Sigmund, nothing was what it seemed. He consistently upended all that she had been taught. She had errands but she could stay here and listen to him for hours.

  He stood there, his eyes fixed on hers, surveying her face in a most personal way. She suddenly felt uncomfortable and worried he might touch her or take her hand, and was relieved when instead she heard footsteps behind her as a patient approached.

  “I should go, Sigmund. This has been so . . .”

  “Illuminating, I hope.”

  “Yes. Illuminating,” she said as she walked briskly out the door.

  The street sweepers had finished their work and the pavement was brushed clean for the moment, free of horse manure, brown leaves, and trash thrown from uncivilized wretches in passing vehicles. She glided along the cobblestones, with the kind of speed reserved for a young girl. She hardly heard the heavy, labored sound of hooves until they were just behind her. She hastily stepped out of the way and narrowly missed the spray of birdseed flung from a child in the open carriage. All the exhaustion she had suffered at the baroness’s house was gone. She thought back to Sigmund’s soft smiles, their conversation. She had been dead these past few years. Feeling a wave of warmth, she cast off her jacket and swung it over her arm.

  She walked past a stand of immense chestnut trees, then crossed the Ringstrasse, passing grand residences, gated courtyards, bronze fountains sporting dancing nymphs, and attractive shops built into the remnants of the ancient city wall.

  A breeze lifted the curls off her neck and, after she picked up Martha’s flowers, she made an impulsive decision to cut through the Prader, passing a crowd of pedestrians, all milling around and clutching hot chocolate, pastries, and parcels tied up in string. The park was alive with activity—street vendors hawking hot rolls and live rabbits in cages, and farther down the crowded footpaths there were mime artists, students handing out flyers, pipers, fire-eaters, and puppeteers. And then the ladies, swanning through the lanes with high-necked costumes and extravagant hats trimmed with feathers, hummingbirds, beetles, and butterflies. But Minna wasn’t inclined to admire them. She kept thinking about him.

  • • •

  Why, Minna, the flowers are beautiful,” Martha said. Then she sat down at the dining room table, ignoring the brief ruckus between Oliver and Martin regarding who had left the marbles on the steps and where were they now.

  “How much?” Freud asked, raising an eyebrow in the general direction of the vase.

  “Yes, how much?” Martin echoed.

  Martha scowled at Martin and gave no reply.

  “We don’t need flowers every day,” Freud said sourly. “You could perhaps be more frugal.”

  Martha’s cheeks tinged red as her husband went on about the rising cost of beef, candles, pastries, and the children’s medical expenses.

  “And you could perhaps consume chicken instead of beef,” Martha interrupted, her voice raised by an octave. “In addition, you could perhaps skip the antiquities dealers and the cigar store.”

  “All I’m saying is that you might find a way to cut our expenses.”

  “I do cut our expenses and you still find a way to buy your antiquities. There’s always extra money, isn’t there, if you look for it.”

  Minna sat quietly, consumed with guilt about the damn flowers. She felt like stomping on them. In fact, she was a bit appalled at the whole conversation. Her mother had always considered the discussion of money vulgar. She never talked about it, even though their life revolved around it. And if it was discussed, it was only in reference to other poor souls “in unfortunate circumstances.” But Minna was finding that in this house, money was an open topic of discussion. And Sigmund was not the same man as this afternoon or even last night. He was dour and impatient. As opposed to charismatic and romantic . . . no . . . not romantic, why did she even think of that? Scholarly was what she was thinking.

  “Tante Minna, when’s your birthday?” asked Oliver out of the blue. Thank goodness for Oliver, unpredictable, eccentric little Oliver. His off-the-wall conversation stoppers were most endearing to her now.

  “June eighteenth.”

  “So you’re a Gemini?”

  “I suppose so. When did you learn the signs?” asked Minna.

  “Oh, I know all about them. Astrological planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, lunar nodes . . . Frau Steinholt told me.”

  Freud sighed heavily upon hearing the name of a former governess whom they had dismissed several months before.

  “You don’t believe these things, do you, Oliver?” he asked.

  “You know, Sigmund,” Martha interjected, “astrology has become quite popular. One of my friends has recently consulted with a well-known astrologer in Munich. The Bavarian aristocracy is quite taken with her.”

  “Well, she must be an authority, then,” he answered wryly.

  “Exactly. Quite extraordinary,” Martha chattered on, oblivious to the slight. “It seemed she prophesied my friend would die of crayfish poisoning, so now she’s being very careful with her food intake.”

  “Does it make sense, Martha,” he asked slowly, his voice haughty and contemptuous, “that so detailed an event as falling ill from crayfish poisoning could be inferred from the date of someone’s birth?”

  “I understand she’s quite accurate,” Martha answered, digging in h
er heels.

  “Is that credible? Predicting someone’s future based on the day they were born? These people are nothing more than Gypsy fortune-tellers.”

  Martha, silenced, began mashing her cabbage into mush. She hadn’t touched the oxtail soup, waved away the beef, and now, God help her, it looked as though her arm was going limp.

  “Did you know, Sigmund,” Minna smoothly interjected, “that in the sixteenth century, Galileo and Nostradamus were both practicing astrologists? And that astrology is one of the most ancient philosophies—even Plato used it. I must admit it took a downturn when Galileo used a telescope, but even so—” She broke off, eyeing Martha. “In those days it was impossible to tell the difference between astrology and astronomy.”

  “In those days, perhaps. But that was hundreds of years ago,” he said.

  “No one knows for certain about this,” Minna said. “You can’t be certain. Astrology has had many famous followers. Augustus, Constantine, popes, military heroes . . . even doctors.”

  “I’m not one of them.”

  “Well, Martha has a point . . . . ”

  “Oh, never mind. . . It’s of no consequence. . . .” said Martha as she gingerly pushed her plate aside.

  “That’s for certain,” said Freud.

  “Wait a minute,” Minna said. “Martha is not alone here. I for one have followed the teachings of the modern French poet Jean Louis from Kragenhof, who happened to be obsessed with astrology. In fact, it was the cornerstone of his literary career. In his famous exit discourse, Discours de la Sortie, he confirmed that it was the purest of sciences, the only way to understand the secrets of time and the soul.”

  “The secrets of time and the soul?” Freud repeated, tilting back in his chair and studying her. He crossed his legs and, for the first time, looked as if he might actually linger at the table. It bothered Minna that he looked so impeccably put together, his suit pressed, his shirt starched, and his beard neatly trimmed, while her sister looked so disheveled. Martha had changed from her dressing gown to a day costume, but it looked as though she hadn’t bothered to brush her hair or fix her face.