“Perhaps. Though it is often the case that reactions this visceral are indications of latent trauma.”
“You and your traumas, Doctor!”
“Haven’t we discovered together the sexual trauma at the root of your menstrual pain?”
“I don’t know. It depends what you mean by ‘discover.’ There was no lost or submerged memory that you helped me to recall. I’ve never forgotten that man at the stream. It was ugly and unpleasant, but no matter how I try I can’t think of it as so dramatic that it is sufficient to explain a lifetime of painful cramping.”
“Our unconscious minds are difficult to understand. They function very differently from our waking selves. I once had a patient who was unable to tolerate the taste of dairy products, merely because years before she witnessed a cat lapping milk from a bowl, an incident that caused her no more than minor disgust at the time. Once she recalled the incident, the symptom disappeared, and she was again able to enjoy her coffee with cream.”
“Well, it remains to be seen whether or not my symptoms disappear.”
“When do you expect your menstrual period?”
“In a couple of weeks.”
“I have high hopes.”
“You’re a very optimistic man, Doctor.”
“Perhaps I am. Can I encourage you to indulge my optimism for a while?”
“Why not?”
“Consider again the question of your father’s relationship with the servants. Are you sure there wasn’t an incident, perhaps one long forgotten, that caused this morning’s lecture to be particularly interesting to you?”
Nina frowned. “Well,” she said after a few moments’ consideration. “I suppose it reminded me of a story I heard a few years ago. One of the reasons I became determined to study medicine.”
I leaned forward in my chair, hoping that we might again be reaching a point of breakthrough. “Indeed?”
“Yes. It’s nothing I witnessed myself, or, rather, the incident itself is one I only heard about secondhand. What I witnessed was the distress it caused.”
“Go on!” It is at times so difficult to maintain a proper physician’s pose of disinterested equilibrium.
“It was not long after I began my studies at the gymnasium. I woke up one morning late for my morning classes, because our maid, Etel, didn’t wake me. I scrambled into my clothes and rushed into the kitchen. I was very worried about being late, and I shouted at Etel for having forgotten me. I found her sitting with Riza, the cook, and they were both crying. They didn’t want to tell me what happened, but I forced them to. I was a very willful child, and they were used to doing as I said.”
“I can imagine.”
She arched one of her well-formed eyebrows but continued, “A girl they knew, the maid of one of our neighbors, had died. Riza said the girl had been forced to go to an ‘Angel Maker,’ but then in the end it was she who became the angel. She was a nice girl, from the same village as Etel. Etel and Riza were both beside themselves. The police arrested the midwife who performed the procedure, and later on I found out that she was given a year in prison for the crime. A year for killing a young girl. But you know what was worse?”
“What could be worse than that sad tale?”
“The seducer was the eldest son of the poor girl’s employer, a young man I’ve known for years and years, ever since his family moved into one of the upper-level apartments of our building. He was forced to pay a one-hundred-kronen fine to the court. Nothing more. He served not a single day in jail.”
“Terrible,” I said. I was surprised that the young man had faced any punishment at all. His seduction of the young maid must have been unusually blatant for his identity even to have been discovered. “Though I’m not sure I understand how this inspired you to consider a career in medicine.”
“It was an outrage, Dr. Zobel!” Nina said, her voice rising. “I defy you to find a woman on earth who would not be outraged by such a thing.”
“I will grant you that. But why medicine, Nina? Why not law, in order to prosecute such miscreants?”
“Surely you know the answer to that question.”
“I assure you I don’t.”
“Because women are not permitted to study law in Budapest. The faculty will not admit women, and my father would sooner bury me alive than send me to Zurich or Vienna to read law. Anyway, my mind is inclined more to the scientific and to the practical. I want to roll up my sleeves and help women like that poor little maid.”
“You would become an abortionist?” I asked, aghast.
“Why not?”
I sat in stunned silence.
“Calm yourself, Doctor. That’s not my ambition. What I want is to be a physician to whom women will come with all their various problems and pains, because I believe—no, I know—that women feel more comfortable sharing such intimacies with other women. I will be a good doctor not in spite of my sex, Dr. Zobel, but because of it.”
Though it was hardly in my interest, I couldn’t help but wonder if this might not be true. All medical men are aware of the struggles inherent in treating women, particularly older women whose modesty often precludes even the most general of examinations. How many times have I heard my gynecologist colleagues complain of the frustrations of trying to treat a woman who refuses to shuck her skirts, even in the presence of the most dispassionate of physicians? Some have even sought my assistance in figuring out ways to convince their patients that their doctor finds no sexual satisfaction in scrabbling about in ancient and malodorous vaginas.
But what about my own specialty? While there are even now, a full decade on from those months I shared with Nina S., only a small number of female practitioners of the art and science of psychoanalysis, might the argument not be made that a woman would feel more comfortable confiding her deepest secrets in a doctor of her own sex? I fear the answer to this question, and search for comfort in the hope that the crucial element of transference might be complicated by the fact of a female analyst. The gifted psychoanalyst becomes both a paternal figure and a love object. Without this transference, treatment is impossible. A maternal relationship is not at all similar and brings with it far more unpleasant attributes and possibilities.
• 37 •
IT HAS BECOME FASHIONABLE of late for some psychoanalysts to argue in favor of the maintenance of a distance between analyst and analysand outside the consulting room. I have even heard some suggest that an analyst should whenever possible refrain from analyzing his friends and intimates. As a follower of the great Sándor Ferenczi, I reject this. Intimacy with and love for our patients are the keys to effective treatment, and social consort is efficacious in creating that bond, not destructive of it.
Furthermore, I also reject maintenance of distance as quite simply impracticable. The Jewish populace of Budapest, as assimilated as it is, has still in many ways the flavor of a small community or even a large extended family. Yes, we are one million Jews in Hungary, but sometimes it feels as if we all know one another, as if we are all cousins three, four, or five times removed. Certainly this is true in my own medical profession, where nearly half of the physicians are my coreligionists, two-thirds of those in private practice like me.
The unique circumstances of Jewish Budapest (or Jew-dapest, as the mayor of Vienna snidely, though perhaps accurately, dubbed this magnificent city) make it impossible for an analyst to avoid having a social relationship with his patients. It was inevitable that my family and Nina’s would come across one another while out in company, especially when one considers that she was in my care at the instigation of her uncle, my acquaintance of many years. So it was that on the following Saturday, my dear wife, our two daughters, and I took our midday meal at the home of Dr. S., Nina’s uncle. Joining us were my sister Jolán, who was in the practice of dining with us on Saturdays; Nina; her parents and siblings; and the E.’s, Jenő, Berta, and Ignác, the young man to whom Nina’s parents wished her to be betrothed. Far from being concerned with a breach of (
I believe pointless and, in fact, destructive) psychoanalytic distance, I was eager to have the chance to observe Nina outside the consulting room. I wanted to study her interactions with her parents and siblings. I also wanted to see how she behaved toward the young man whose advances she found so loathsome.
Frankly, I was also relieved to take my wife and daughters out into company, where the topic of conversation would not involve Erzsébet’s own troubled marital prospects. My daughter had continued to express her objections to the match her mother and I had made for her, inventing one excuse after another. We were not for a few more days to discover that the real problem was that she had settled her affections on another young man.
Although we were the first to arrive—my wife’s devotion to the cause of punctuality makes her something of an anomaly among our Magyar compatriots—we did not have long to wait for our fellow guests. Dr. S.’s apartment is, like my own and like most who share our profession and station in life, on the étage noble, and Nina’s family’s progress up the single gracious flight of steps was boisterous, her younger siblings making no effort to temper their exuberance. Their mother berated them at top volume, shouting that they would disturb the neighbors and earn their uncle’s wrath. Mr. S. emitted no sound from his lips, but the force of his shoes on the marble steps set the solid old building atremble. Only Nina managed a dignified restraint. Nina and her friend, the adorable Miss Weisz.
Those of our acquaintance who have described Mrs. S. as a shrew do a disservice not only to a fine and handsome woman, whose agitation and irritability are more neurotic than malignant, but to women of our faith more generally. One day I will write a monograph on the topic of the virulent anti-Semitism at the heart of the representation of contemporary Jewish women of the bourgeoisie as devoted to pomp and luxury, devoid of honor and deference to their husbands, quick witted but only in the service of their own interests. How much of this condemnation will we recognize if we switch the word “woman” for “Jew”? How many times have those who despised the Israelite race referred to us as shallow, venal, vain, feminine, weak, sexually predatory? All adjectives tossed in opprobrium also at the fairer sex. For the purposes of this case study of Nina S., however, I will acknowledge that her mother is a woman with a selfish, even narcissistic, personality, who nonetheless adores her children and is willing to oppose even her husband in support of their interests. Hence her simultaneous desire for Nina both to realize her dream of attending medical school and her worry that such an ambition would make her daughter “emancipated” and thus unable to achieve a marital match that would reflect well on her parents.
I grant to her detractors that Mrs. S. might be a wearying dinner companion to a person unable to muster sufficient interest in the topics of conversation most fascinating to her, notably, the history, tribulations, victories, and ambitions of the various members of the S. family. Luckily enough, I was most eager to converse with her on these topics, particularly on the subject of Nina. Like her daughter, Mrs. S. possesses a charming conversational vivacity, and it was with great detail and color that she recounted the tale of how it was that Gizella Weisz had come to join them at dinner that evening.
The family had been dressing for their outing when the maid announced Miss Weisz’s arrival. (I took this opportunity to compliment Mrs. S. on her gown, an elegant ensemble of broadcloth and chiffon, of a color my dear departed father used to refer to as “wisteria,” as distinct from the less-vibrant “lavender” or the darker and richer “aubergine.” She was most gracious in accepting this compliment, though we both understood it to be no more than her due.)
“We’re expected at your uncle’s in less than an hour,” Mrs. S. called to Nina as the girl put the finishing touches on her hair. “You must make your apologies to your friend and send her on her way.”
“I’ve invited Gizella to join us,” Nina said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve asked her along for dinner.”
“You can’t invite a friend to your uncle’s house. Really, have you lost all sense of decorum?”
“I telephoned Aunt Sophie, and she said Gizella is welcome. She said she was eager to meet her, in fact.”
Mrs. S. bustled into her daughter’s room, her dress still unbuttoned and two rolls of firm flesh spilling from her tight-laced corset. “First of all, you know you’re not to use the telephone without asking permission. And second, if your aunt expressed any eagerness to meet your friend, it’s only because Sophie has always liked the circus. Shame on you for turning a family dinner into a freak show.”
“And I’m the one with no sense of decorum?” Nina muttered under her breath.
“I heard that.”
“I don’t care. Aunt Sophie isn’t interested in Gizella because she’s a dwarf; she’s interested in her because she works for Rózsa Schwimmer. Mrs. Schwimmer spoke at a meeting of the steering committee of the Israelite Women’s Organization of Pest last month, and Aunt Sophie was very impressed. She’s even taken a subscription to Women and Society in order to read Mrs. Schwimmer’s articles.”
“Ridiculous!” Mrs. S. said, turning her back to Nina and indicating with a peremptory shrug of her shoulders that the girl attend to her mother’s buttons. “Sophie is no radical.”
Nina began doing up the long line of tiny bone buttons. “Mrs. Schwimmer writes many things that are hardly radical at all. I’m sure even you might find yourself agreeing with much of what she says.”
“Preposterous.”
“For example, you believe that girls should be educated, don’t you?”
“You know I do.”
“So does Mrs. Schwimmer. And you despise the fashion for large hats.”
“There is nothing as foolish as a woman sailing through the streets with a dirigible attached to her head, forcing anyone who passes to duck into traffic to keep from being decapitated.”
“Mrs. Schwimmer published an editorial against bizarrely large hats in last month’s paper, saying the only reason women wear them is to make other women envious.”
“They wear them because they’re fools who wouldn’t recognize fashion if the entire city of Paris were to drop on their dirigible-clad heads.”
“There,” Nina said, straightening out her mother’s chiffon collar. “You’re buttoned up. And now I must go greet my friend. Be nice, Mother.”
Mr. S. was even more startled by Gizella’s presence than was his wife, but he limited himself to a scowl and to stalking down Andrássy Avenue ahead of his family, forcing them to trot to keep up. The brothers S. lived in nearly identical buildings a few blocks apart on the boulevard. I have had the privilege only of being welcomed into the public rooms of these apartments—the parlors, dining and morning rooms, and to Dr. S.’s study—but they are sufficiently similar to my own that I know what remains behind closed doors. Like my own apartment, each of theirs includes the kitchen, the bathroom, at least two and perhaps three bedrooms for the family, and rooms on the very top floor, where the servants from all the building’s apartments live together cozily and at sufficient distance from their employers.
It was less than a decade previous that my wife and I had acquired an apartment like those of the S. brothers, complete with heavy oak furniture, clocks and other ornaments, the ubiquitous oil portraits of ancestors actual or assumed, each room decorated in a different style, the parlor Empire, the dining room Biedermeier, the morning room modern, the better to show off my dear wife’s sophisticated grasp of fashion and decor. Before we graduated to this relative opulence, we lived in the same building where we now reside, but one floor up, in a smaller, less-gracious apartment, with ceilings that, though high, failed entirely to soar. And before that we were in a building on a less-desirable street, though still in the Lipótváros district, where my poor wife had to climb no fewer than three flights of stairs, even when she was heavy with our Erzsébet and Lili and burdened with packages. How many times did I come across her resting against the railing on her way up
to the third story, never once complaining but always eyeing with undisguised longing the more commodious lodgings on the lower floors?
Dr. S. was a collector of art of the Jugendstil movement and had, in pride of place above the intricately carved mantel in his formal parlor, one particularly striking painting. A satyr or goblin, covered in orange-and-black-striped fur, holding in his arms a pale tree fairy with hair of rose petals. A garment of leaves barely covered her naked body. Where the fairy’s arms embraced the goblin’s, they turned to long white tree branches. His butterfly wings artfully concealed the cleft between her legs. The painting was erotic, not merely because of the prominent pink nipples of the fine-featured fairy, but because of the contrast of her delicacy with his fur-clad brutality. My daughters were mesmerized by it, though not so much as Nina, who, though she had surely seen it hundreds of times, could not at first seem to break away her gaze.
As a psychoanalyst I am comfortable with the unconscious erotic life of girls, especially hysterical girls. To be compelled in a small way by the erotic is normal; to be in its thrall is evidence of gynephilic disturbance, a kind of masculine jealousy and even bisexuality caused, as we know, by the deleterious effects of masturbation. Watching Nina’s fascination with the painting, I determined that we would, at our next meeting, no longer refrain from discussing this delicate issue.
I greeted Nina with a kiss on her hand. When I bent to the task of reaching her friend Gizella’s plump infant’s fingers with my lips, my back creaked, and both girls smiled.
“Alas, I am old for such gallantry,” I said.
“You, Dr. Zobel?” Gizella said, batting her heavily lashed eyes. “I refuse to believe you’re a day over forty.”
“A day, a decade. What’s the difference?” I said. “A man is only as old as the women who assent to his company.”
“Well, then it’s settled,” Gizella said. “You’re twenty-one. Like me.”
“Not nineteen, like our charming Nina?” I said.
Love and Treasure Page 32
