By Blood (24 page)

I was shocked, the patient told Dr. Schussler.

(I, too, was shocked, and nearly gave myself away by starting in my chair.)

I mean, there she was in Israel, the Jewish State, the patient went on. Why wouldn’t she want me to be Jewish? But when I asked, she only laughed and said, That would take more than a teatime to explain, my dear!

Then Michal turned to me with that tender look again and said, So tell me. What is your name?

And I told her. After which she sat thoughtfully for a moment, then said, Very nice. Very good. I am very happy for you—she gave a nod with each “very.”

(Why did you not say your name aloud to the therapist! I wanted to cry out from behind my wall.)

I realized right at that moment that I might have had another name, said the patient. So I asked her.

Her face went through those changes again, memories running over her features—more like lightning strikes this time. Finally her eyes went cold, and she said, No. Never. After which she sat back in her chair,
stone-faced
, and looked away from me.

Somewhere in the house a clock was ticking. Children were playing in the courtyard; I could hear their squeals of delight. I knew she was lying, that I did have another name, one she gave me, or intended to, a name she carried around in her mind all these years—or one she wanted to forget. In any case, I was angry. I felt my names belonged to me, and that I should have them, know them. I couldn’t stand being a person dealt out in little pieces, different people owning parts of me, different ideas of me. Michal’s abandoned infant. My grandfather’s rejected Jew-baby. My parents’ unsuitable daughter. I wanted to gather up all the pieces and own myself. Does that make sense to you? That I wanted to own myself?

Yes, of course, said the therapist. That is why you were doing all that. Why you went there in the first place.

(Yes! I thought with joy as I listened in my room. Own yourself!)

So I confronted her, said the patient.

I am sure it was difficult, said Dr. Schussler.

Oh, God, yes, said the patient.

But I am sorry, said the therapist, I am afraid you will have to tell me about it next time.

Oh, God, said the patient. We’re done, aren’t we? I wasted time. All that crap about the city and the beach. I wasted the hour.

You did what you needed to, said the doctor gently. But let me propose something. I have an opening on Monday nights. Nine o’clock. It will be temporary, a few months. But I would like to offer it to you, so for a while you may come twice a week.

The patient hummed. I don’t know, she said. Monday night. Let me think about it.

Yes. Think about it. Call me, and let me know. I will keep the hour open for you.

Monday night could not come quickly enough. How I hoped the patient had indeed accepted the hour. Joy: I would be with her twice a week.

I sat in the office on Monday listening to the hiss of the sound machine and the screech of brakes in the street, and I thought the earth had somehow stopped revolving. Would the sun never set! Would dark never come!

At last Dr. Schussler’s eight o’clock patient left. The doctor moved about her office, then turned off the sound machine, as she normally did when her workday was at an end—and as she did before the patient’s arrival. The silence, therefore, could indicate either condition. Yet I had to calm myself, remain exquisitely still, for at that late hour the building was quiet, the only sound being the low hum that seemed to emanate from the core of the place, from the basement, or the elevators, or the roof, or perhaps was the life-thrum of the building itself.

When suddenly something shrilled through the silence.

The doctor’s phone.

She jumped up before it could ring again.

Yes, she said into the phone. Good evening, Dr. Gurevitch. Thank you so much for returning my call.

(So she was still in “consultation” with this Gurevitch.)

Dr. Schussler occasionally murmured “yes” and “I see” as she listened, finally saying: I am relieved that you agree with my assessment. It does seem the most efficacious method of proceeding.

(What were they talking about! What method? By the glow of my watch, I could see that we were fast approaching the top of the hour. Was the patient coming or not?)

I concur, she said at last. Yes. Her cynicism is key. Cynicism and
self-punishment
.

(This had to be about the patient.)

And I must, if possible, guide her toward reconciliation with her adoptive family.

(No! Help her leave them!)

Otherwise she will have no base, no home. However, it may be that such reconciliation impossible, given the mother’s schizoid personality and the father’s emotional distance.

(Footsteps were coming down the hall.)

And therefore—

(There were knocks on the door. Yes! She was here!)

Ah, but there she is now. I must ring off.

(The knocking continued.)

Just a minute! the doctor called out. Then said softly into the phone, Thank you, Dr. Gurevitch.

She hung up the phone and walked to the door.

Come in, she said to the patient.

This building is really strange at night, the patient said. The hallways are so long and dark.

The therapist laughed. Yes, it sometimes does feel that way.

Twenty seconds of silence followed, after which Dr. Schussler said:

Let us return to where we broke off last session. You were about to confront your birth mother.

No. Not my mother. Michal.

Let us please agree to call her your birth mother.

The patient exhaled her annoyance.

Since it is a fact, the therapist continued. If only to facilitate your ability to discuss the issue.

The patient stalled. One could hear her defiance through the wall: her body shifting in her chair, her feet dragging over the carpet.

No, she said at last. I’m not ready to. I’ll call her my birth mother when I’m good and ready to.

Do you really want to keep going back and forth to clarify which mother you are talking about?

The patient replied with no small amount of sarcasm: So. You mean something like big-M Mother versus birth mother.

Yes, said Dr. Schussler. I mean something like that.

But I need to call her Michal when I’m talking about her. I can’t keep saying
birth mother
. Takes too long.

Agreed, said the doctor. So you felt Michal was lying to you and would not reveal your name.

Right.

You felt divided, that your identity was divided among your birth mother, your grandfather, your parents. By the way, have you told your adoptive parents about finding Michal?

No.

No?

No. You know we’re hardly in contact. A call on Christmas. When someone’s died. So I don’t feel any need to go through all this with them.

But you will tell them eventually.

Yes. Eventually. Once I know how
I
feel about it.

Of course, said the therapist. This must go first. So let us return. You were angry at your birth mother. You confronted her. And then?

And then she was just like … big-M Mother, trying to warn me away.

We were still in the living room, said the patient, sitting in the
catty-corner
armchairs. Michal had just told me she didn’t want me to be a Jew. And I replied something like, I don’t get it, which made Michal laugh. It was my “I don’t get it,” which she repeated with an exaggerated American accent, making me feel stupid. Stupidly American.

Then she just sipped her tea and her whiskey, and didn’t say anything. A long time went by like that: Michal blowing across her tea, that clock ticking from somewhere, the children shouting and playing outside. Finally Michal stirred in her chair, put down her teacup, and suddenly cried out:

Oh! Why do you want to go into all this! Why must you? There was so much …
unhappiness
in that time.

When she said “unhappiness,” her face fell. Every feature was drawn down as if weights were hooked onto her eyelids, cheeks, mouth. And I immediately returned to the habits I’d developed with Mother, big-M Mother. That is, I didn’t want to inflict unhappiness on her, I wanted to protect her from all those sad feelings I aroused simply by existing.

And when I realized
that
—that I was doing it all over again, sacrificing myself for my mothers—something broke in me. I actually shook. I found myself jumping out of the chair, almost yelling: I don’t care if it makes you unhappy to remember! I don’t care! You have to tell me!

I kept yelling it over and over. You have to tell me! I have to know where I came from! It’s horrible to live without knowing. Like starting from a blank. You have to tell me!

I found myself crying—shaking, out of the blue—and I fell into the chair.

Michal stood slowly, with difficulty—I saw her in my peripheral vision. She came over to me, took my chin in her hand. And she lifted my face to her. And again I felt that I’d never seen such a look of warmth and caring in my life, such sympathy. And she said,

Oh, my poor dear. Is it so horrible not to know?

I told her yes. That there was this space that had … nothing in it. Like my whole being floated on … nothing.

Oh, my God, she said. I never meant to hurt you. I only meant for you to have a better life.

She sighed and turned to sit down. I stood and helped her. Then she said, Oh, all right. If you feel you need to know this, I will tell you the whole story.

She stopped and looked at me.

But you may not like what you learn. Do you understand that? Life was hard, almost inhuman, and people did what they had to do to survive. When you are humiliated until your humanness leaves you …

Oh! she sighed. All right. I will tell you the whole thing, the whole … ugliness of it. But not today. No. I am in shock. Let me recover. Come tomorrow, and we will begin.

My poor patient spent the night reviewing the waves of memories that had seemed to wash across Michal’s face. She could not sleep, only drifted off in tiny sips of the night, meanwhile wondering: Who was it that Michal recognized right away? Who is it that I look like?
Who?

The next day, as she was about to leave the hotel, it occurred to her that she was unlikely ever to visit her birth mother again, that she should record whatever it was that Michal was going to tell her. The hotel deskman told her there were many places selling inexpensive cassette recorders and directed her to the nearest one. There she bought a nine-by-six-inch portable with a leather shoulder strap.

Then I went back to Michal’s house, the patient told Dr. Schussler. Once again, Gerda led me into the dark room with that slash of light. To the two upholstered chairs set at right angles, Michal in the same seat as yesterday. Everything the same as if nothing had happened between this time and the last.

But before I could ask—demand!—all I wanted to know, Michal turned to me with that open, sympathetic face. Her skin glowed. Her eyes were kind and soft, full of light. And she said: I spent all night wondering over you. Wondering who you have become. You are a grown-up woman with a life. Almost thirty, yes? So tell me, for instance, what do you do? I mean as your profession.

Suddenly, again, I wanted to please her, the patient told the therapist. How damnedly deep is this desire to make your mother love you! Love me, love me, love me. Tell me what I must do to win your love. So I succumbed. I told her I was an economics analyst, to make it simple, since who knows what a “quant” is?

And she immediately replied:

You are not an artist?

Hardly, I said. Was I supposed to be?

On my side, she said, we were all artists and writers and art dealers. But, oh! There was my uncle on my mother’s side, the architect, and his son, the engineer. Is economic analysis anything like architecture or engineering?

I felt I was auditioning for the role of daughter, the patient said to her doctor. For the role of the daughter she had imagined. Even though—through no fault of my own—I’d become an American. Even though—through no fault of my own—I’d failed to become an artist, still: I would have her see me as creative, interesting, worthy.

I told her that what I did was a lot like architecture. Architects imagine and analyze space, engineers turn that into numbers. I told her that I envision and analyze money, which is a completely imaginary space.

The patient went on to give a witty, detailed description of her work (which I found utterly fascinating, as it clarified many points that had confused me as I had sat listening to her sessions).

I’m not sure how much of it Michal understood, the patient said to Dr. Schussler. I tried my best to make it all clear to her, a “civilian,” as we call them. I wanted her to see my work as stimulating, inventive. I didn’t want to find another Charlotte, who would wave me away as being on the wrong side of life. I didn’t want to be rejected because I wasn’t an “artist.”

I played the role of “creative quant,” if there can be such a thing.

It’s all an elaborate belief structure, I told her, a structure based on reputation, in which the players must trust one another. In other words, a house of cards. My job is to try to understand the stresses—yes, like architectural engineering—to try to prevent the house from falling down.

And I got my “bravo!”

How marvelous! Michal cried out. How intelligent you must be to do such work! I am utterly delighted!

I looked hard at Michal. She was beaming. Pleased. Admiring. My God! I thought. Finally a mother who approves of me.

But then came the next question, the inevitable question, the one that always sends me into hiding.

She asked: And are you married? Or perhaps “with” someone?

I answered: I just broke up with someone.

Normally I would have gone on in the usual gender-indistinct way. You know, saying “this person” and “someone.” Or always sticking with the plural. But here I was with my birth mother. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I came out and said:

The person I broke up with was a woman. A beautiful woman. But she was a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Lesbian-Separatist bicycle messenger, and I am an economic analyst with a Wall Street brokerage.

Michal burst out laughing. So you’re a lesbian! she said. Isn’t that just wonderful! My sister, my older sister Gisella, was a lesbian. She brought home the most marvelous, strange girls. We lived in Berlin—in a big, beautiful house. My mother was the most gracious and interesting hostess, and everyone wanted to visit us. And there was Gisella with her exotic creatures, one after another, each more beautiful than the last. I think half of our visitors came just to look at her conquests. I was so jealous that I did not have an attraction to women. It seemed by far the more interesting way to be.

She laughed again, then I laughed, both of us giddy to find we were really
related
to each other. And I … My God, it was the first time in my life I felt I had come from somewhere, where I was normal, not an alien. Then it came to me … Then I realized … That world didn’t exist anymore. The world of artists and writers, architects and lesbians and marvelous strange girls—my ideal life—gone.

I think the feeling of a lost life came to Michal at the same moment. We sat and didn’t say anything for a long while. Again I was aware of the clock ticking, the children playing in the courtyard. Reality seemed to press on us. We were undeniably in Israel, a long way from her house in Berlin.

Finally she said: You cannot understand what happened to me, to you, unless you understand my life in Berlin. Oh! she said with a gasp. It pains me even to remember it, the wonder of it. Could such a life disappear from the face of the earth?