A Curable Romantic

by Joseph Skibell

  I sighed and stood and looked out the window at the stand of snow-burdened trees that rose up behind the apartment’s stables. What had I gotten myself into? I had no idea. Although it was nearly 1895 and although Sigmund Freud was, of course, Sigmund Freud, the truth was that no one yet knew it, perhaps least of all Sigmund Freud. Though he’d crafted a dozen or so monographs on various aspects of neurology, his foundational work on neurosis, on the dream, on the unconscious, lay very much ahead of him. Even Studies on Hysteria, the book he’d authored with Dr. Breuer and whose five case histories would soon become the creation myths of our new century, was months from publication.

  As far as I knew, as far as anyone knew, Dr. S. Freud was a struggling neuropath, a nerve specialist, shocking his clientele — the hysterical daughters of Jewish Vienna — not with irrefutable evidence of their unconscious sexual crimes but with actual volts of electricity, electrotherapy being in those days very much in medical vogue. What no one knew, indeed what no one could possibly have known, was that having dispensed with galvanism and faradism in favor of hypnosis, free association, and a rudimentary form of the now-famous talking cure, Dr. Freud was preparing to shock an even more nervous clientele: the world at large!

  (Or so the Freudians would have us believe.)

  I HEARD VOICES from the foyer: the hearty, booming voices of men who share an affectionate regard for one another. Answering the door himself, Dr. Freud had taken their scarves and their winter cloaks and was carrying them bundled in his arms. With his cigar clenched between his teeth, he was urging the men into the sitting room.

  “Ah, mais oui, notre docteur Königstein a disparu!” the first fellow said upon seeing me there. “Yes, he mentioned something about that, didn’t he?” the second murmured before noticing me as well. I felt as though I were a riddle that suddenly needed solving. The two men stood frozen before me, one slightly ahead of the other, my unexpected presence forcing them to reconsider the informality of their poses. Though their backs stiffened, their faces retained their original gay expressions, and they resembled two schoolboys caught out in a prank.

  “Oskar Rie,” the first one finally said, his expression becoming more formal, his posture less so.

  “Jakob Sammelsohn,” I answered with a bow.

  “And this, I’m afraid, is my brother-in-law.”

  “Rosenberg,” Dr. Rosenberg said, reaching around Dr. Rie. Leaning his barreled chest forward, he awkwardly extended his hand.

  “Dr. Sammelsohn and I met the other evening at the theater,” Dr. Freud said, adjusting the green ceramic stove that stood in a corner of the room.

  “Ah, the theater!” Dr. Rosenberg boomed.

  “And he graciously allowed me to coerce him into sitting in for Königstein.”

  “Good man.”

  “A dreary play, wasn’t it?” asked Dr. Rie.

  Dr. Freud stood, wiping soot from his hands. “Did you think so?”

  “I didn’t see you there,” Dr. Rosenberg said.

  “Nor I you,” Dr. Freud said.

  “That’s because I wasn’t,” Dr. Rosenberg barked.

  (I shall let this remark stand as an example of Dr. Rosenberg’s notorious wit.)

  “Hennessy?” Dr. Freud said.

  “Make it two.”

  “And little Königstein?”

  “Ludwig, please!” Dr. Rie clucked his tongue.

  “Whatever everyone else is drinking,” I said.

  “Good, very good,” Dr. Freud said. “I’ll bring the bottle down.”

  THEY WERE BROTHERS-IN-LAW, Rosenberg and Rie, although whose sister had married whom, I can no longer recall. Perhaps they’d married women who were themselves sisters. There was nothing remarkable in that. Dr. Freud’s sister had married his wife’s brother, which made Dr. Freud’s wife his sister-in-law, and Dr. Freud his own brother-in-law, I suppose. As for Rosenberg and Rie, their close family ties and the fact that both men were pediatricians — Rie cared for Freud’s own growing brood — had turned them into affectionate rivals whom Dr. Freud compared to Inspector Bräsig and his friend Karl, the one quick-witted, the other deliberate and thorough.

  Dr. Freud’s consulting rooms were in the downstairs apartment, and he led us there now, carrying the bottle of brandy on a silver tray. Inside, we lifted our glasses and drank, without irony, to the emperor, and then to Frau Freud and her children.

  By the time we sank into the red velvet cushions of our chairs, I was pleasantly drunk.

  Dr. Freud reached behind him for a letter box, which he placed in the center of the table. Wrapping his knuckles against its lid, he intoned the word “Ispaklaria!” When the box was opened, I half-expected to see a djinn rising from its velvety interior. Instead, Dr. Freud removed a well-creased deck of Tarot cards. “Don’t worry, Dr. Sammelsohn,” he murmured, shuffling, “I shan’t be telling your fortune tonight.” He plopped the deck down with a thump near Dr. Rosenberg’s hand. Dr. Rosenberg lifted the top cards and tucked them beneath those on the deck’s bottom. Dr. Rie removed a pen and an abacus from a side drawer and opened a scorebook. Without knowing precisely what I was doing, I raised my cards and hid my face behind their fan. Swords, wands, cups, pentacles swam before my eyes. I was uncertain whether I should admit outright that Tarock was a game I’d never played or whether the whole thing would prove simple enough for me to glean its rules from a round or two. Perhaps, I thought, the pleasure of trouncing me would distract my opponents from the fact that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Regrettably, however, the first thing I discovered about Tarock is that one plays it partnered, in my case, to Dr. Rosenberg, who, true to his name, sat across the table from me like a big red mountain. There would be no pleasure in my trouncing from his corner, only, I assumed, more abrasive comparisons to the absent Königstein.

  I blushed. I was here under false pretenses and soon everyone would know it. In truth, I cared little for the hirsute pleasures of masculine society (whiskey, smoke, and cards) and was hoping merely to be delivered through it onto the receptive breast of its feminine counterpart. At every creak of the floor boards over our heads, I imagined Dr. Freud’s wife, his daughters, his sister Rosa, and the Ecksteins, their guests, preparing to burst in upon us and insisting, as ladies will, that we surrender our cards and join them instead.

  “Oskar,” Dr. Rosenberg said gently.

  Dr. Rie looked up from his hand. “Hm? Sorry. I suppose I’m a little — ”

  “You’re sitting right of the dealer.”

  “ — distracted.” He nodded. “I know. However, I’ve just come from an unfortunate case.”

  “Oskar works with children,” Dr. Freud explained to me quietly.

  “Ah,” I said.

  “Heartbreaking …” Dr. Rie shook his head.

  “Another dram of Hennessy?” offered Dr. Freud.

  “Gratefully,” Dr. Rosenberg answered for his brother-in-law, and Dr. Rie moved his glass an inch nearer to Dr. Freud. With a sigh, he opened the play.

  “Anyone see the papers?” Dr. Rosenberg asked, as a way, I assumed, of changing the subject.

  “Another article on Dreyfus, I take it.”

  “Poor devil.”

  “Still maintaining his innocence?”

  “They’ve shipped him off, haven’t they?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? He is.”

  “Innocent?”

  “Of course he is! I was up all night, thinking about that poor wretch pacing that damned island.” His face increasingly florid, Dr. Rosenberg downed another drink. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew in the French army, had been convicted of espionage against the state. The French had sent him to Devil’s Island, and the newspapers were choking with the story.

  “Perhaps we should immigrate to Palestine ourselves before they ship us all off to Devil’s Island?” Dr. Rie suggested tartly.

  Dr. Rosenberg made a sour face. “As long as Dr. Herzl makes me ambassador to Vienna, I’ll consider it.”

  “To your cards, gen
tlemen, to your cards,” Dr. Freud said. “We’ve centuries yet to speak of our redemption.”

  I coughed and brought my fist to my lips, clearing my throat.

  “Ah, what’s this? What’s this?” said Dr. Rie.

  “Königstein’s replacement seems to be on the point of speaking,” Dr. Rosenberg said.

  “I’m afraid it’s been a while since I last played,” I said.

  “Has it been?” Dr. Freud eyed me sharply.

  “And I was wondering if someone might perhaps remind me of the rules.”

  “Ah, when exactly was the last time you played, little Königstein?”

  “Never,” I admitted.

  “Ha! I’d thought not!” Dr. Freud roared.

  “So I assumed.”

  “Yes, and I was wondering when you’d confess it.”

  NO WOMEN APPEARED that evening. In fact, we saw no one from the Freud family at all. As the hours grew smaller and the floorboards above our heads ceased their creaking, I could only assume the household had turned in for the night and that we were the only ones still awake in the building. Detachable cuffs and collars littered the tabletop. Cigars burned unattended at our wrists. I had no idea what time it was: the nicotine, the alcohol, the late hour had blunted my senses. Dr. Rosenberg drowsed between turns. The whole thing seemed like a dream and, indeed, at one point, Dr. Rie spoke so quietly to Dr. Freud, in intonations that were so intimate that although I was sitting no more than three feet from either man, I felt I was listening to a foreign language.

  “You’ve seen … ?” Dr. Rie asked Dr. Freud gently, raising his eyebrows.

  Dr. Freud lowered his cards and squinted at Dr. Rie.

  “… our friend?” Dr. Rie completed his thought.

  “Oh, you mean … ?”

  “The Fräulein,” he confirmed.

  “Oh, yes, that.” Dr. Freud nodded. “Sad, a sad case.”

  “Pity.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And you saw her …”

  Dr. Freud shook his head. “At the theater.”

  “When?”

  “Oh.”

  “The other … ?”

  “Evening, yes.”

  Dr. Rie emptied his chest of air. “All the Ninth District must have …”

  “Must have been in attendance, quite so.” Dr. Freud coughed. “And the mother as well.”

  The two shared a warm and liquid laugh. “Ho,” said Dr. Rie, more softly still.

  Dr. Freud drew upon his cigar. “Barely got away with my life!” Beneath its eagle’s lid, his brown eye suddenly turned on me. Caught out eavesdropping, I pretended to arrange my cards, immersing myself in the fantastical images printed on each: the Fool, the Magus, the Lovers, the Wheel. Reassured that he was speaking privately, Dr. Freud continued, in a murmur, to Dr. Rie: “In any case, she’s agreed to see me again, and I met with her for the week. The mother …”

  “Coerced her?”

  “Only in part, no, only in …”

  “And can you …”

  “Help her?”

  Dr. Freud studied his cards.

  “I remind you, Sigmund: ‘Primum non nocere.’ ”

  “Yes, and so I thought I’d have my …”

  “Not Berlin!”

  A low tone moved inside Dr. Freud’s throat.

  “Is that wise?” Dr. Rie said.

  “We’ve discussed this before, Oskar.”

  “And I’ve expressed my concerns to you before.”

  “Your dislike of Wilhelm is …”

  “Entirely personal? Admittedly. Nonetheless.”

  “Enough.”

  Dr. Rie sighed. “Well, at least I’ve said my piece.”

  (I’d understood not one word the two men spoke to each other. However, everything I needed to know about the Fräulein, I realized later, was hidden in their words, concealed as though in plain sight, though I was too foolish to know it at the time.)

  Dr. Freud busied himself with the cards, the scorebook, the abacus. He looked at me again, but this time I was too hypnotized by fatigue to look away. “Oi-yoi-yoi,” he said, stretching. He spat something into his kerchief. “It’s early. It’s late.” He rubbed his face. He took his pulse and stood. “Well,” he said.

  “Am-um-uh-er-whaz?” Dr. Rosenberg muttered, flustered, waking.

  “Time to go, Ludwig.” Dr. Rie tapped him on the wrist. “Come on, old man. You’ve lost a fortune.”

  Dr. Rosenberg blinked into the room with a fearful uncertainty, squinting against the lamplight. “I … I was on Devil’s Island,” he said. “We all were!”

  “No, no, you only dreamt it.”

  “Yes? And?” Dr. Freud said.

  “Not good.” Dr. Rosenberg gave him a frank look. “Not good at all.”

  Dr. Rosenberg pushed back his chair. Each man gathered his cuffs and his collar and stuffed them into the pockets of his coat. At the top of the stairs, the brothers-in-law exchanged fraternal kisses with their host. I stepped aside to wrap my scarf about my neck. It was then that Dr. Freud turned towards me and took my hand.

  “Tonight was impossible, I’m afraid.”

  “The Fräulein?” I asked, peering into his face, hoping I’d understood him.

  “But soon, soon, I promise,” he said.

  CHAPTER 3

  For the month that Dr. Königstein was away, tending to his mother’s ill health, I lived on that promise, but like everything else Dr. Freud told me, it proved to be a lie. During this time, I never saw Dr. Freud during the week. On Friday afternoons, he either phoned me at the clinic or sent a telegram to my apartment, summoning me to the game. In truth, I dreaded these games of Tarock, mostly because the powers of observation that made Dr. Freud a master psychologist turned him into something of a cardsharp as well. He seemed able to anticipate my every move, and consequently, he and Dr. Rie took the lion’s share of the winnings, a circumstance that allowed Dr. Rosenberg to blame his own lackluster playing, absent his traditional partner, on me.

  To make matters worse, I now owed them a considerable amount of money!

  Still, these men were cultivated fellows, accomplished in the medical arts. Their company was stimulating, their conversation invigorating and quick, and their acquaintanceship, I knew, could only help me, the youngest colleague at the table, in a professional way. Yet, even had I cared nothing for such things, I couldn’t have refused Dr. Freud’s summons, as doing so meant forfeiting all hope of gaining the Fräulein. My attempt to meet her on my own had utterly failed. Though I’d discovered the location of her parents’ apartment and had traversed the length of the streets adjoining it to Dr. Freud’s consultancy — the only destination of hers I knew for certain — hoping to meet her along the way, the time I could devote to such skulkings was limited, during the day, by my hours at the clinic, and during the night, by my fear that with the streets deserted and my person lurking too ardently in the shadows, I might be remarked upon and a policeman summoned.

  Instead, I hoped she might contrive to make an appearance each week during the Tarock game on some sweetened pretext, such as bringing refreshments down from the kitchen in the company of Frau Freud or her sister, Minna, or her sister-in-law Rosa. However, as the women and children had been warned away from Dr. Freud’s medical domain during the week — and rightly so: his patients relied upon his discretion — they continued to respect its territorial exclusion from their lives when, on Saturday night, he converted it into a private men’s club. (Also, as I was later to learn, it was only in Dr. Königstein’s absence that the games were even held at Dr. Freud’s. The friends typically met at the Königsteins’, and the family spent these evenings no differently than it did when its paterfamilias was out, all but unaware of his presence in the rooms beneath them.)

  And so, I continued to slush my way through the snow or ride the trolley to Dr. Freud’s home, no longer making the mistake of knocking on the first floor, but heading directly to the ground floor where I was heralded by a now-familiar c
horus of masculine ribaldry and subjected to an endless iteration of Tarock hands that stretched to fill the hours until the very hours seemed to stretch.

  I must admit, there were times when I doubted Dr. Freud’s sincerity and was convinced he dangled Fräulein Eckstein over my head only because he saw in me a suitably incompetent replacement for Königstein, known to be the worst of the Four Cardsmen of the Apocalypse (as the quartet had fashioned itself).

  “She’s unwell,” he told me on that second Saturday; and on the third, he said, “She’s worse.” On the fourth, he could only shake his head. “Of course, I’m not at liberty to discuss her case, but perhaps I can tell you this much as a colleague — although your interest in her isn’t really collegial, is it? However, as her condition is highly unstable, an introduction to her at this time, I’m afraid, is absolutely out of the question.”

  “Gentlemen,” he roared at the end of that final game. “A toast!” he said, pouring out four glasses and raising his own. “As we all know, Königstein will be returned to us next Saturday, Mother Königstein having made, I’m told, a remarkable recovery in the interim. Leopold will be back in his regular chair and our little malavah malkahs will convene, as is our custom, in his rooms henceforth. Your sitting in for him, Dr. Sammelsohn — let me say it now, lest I forget to do so later — has been richly appreciated by all.”

  “Bah!” Dr. Rosenberg bleated with ill-natured good humor.

  “We’ve warmed to your company. A real affection has grown up between us, and I daresay I speak not only for myself but for all of us when I say, Salut! We shall miss you.”

  Either Dr. Rie or Dr. Rosenberg began a round of applause before thinking better of it. I downed my drink in the silence that followed that aborted eruption. I understood I was being dismissed from their company and that it was unlikely I would ever see any of them again.

  I BEGAN FOLLOWING him. Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit this, but sometime after that, I’d noticed him through the windows of the Guglhupf, the coffee house I preferred. In those days, I was quite regular in my habits, and so apparently was he, for exactly at the same hour each afternoon, he rounded the curve of the Schottenring out for a daily walk or, I presumed, visiting patients. Fearful he might recognize me, I turned from the window and watched him in the large mirror along the café’s back wall; and only when he’d passed did I drop a florin on the table and take up my coat.