Freud's Mistress (26 page)

M
inna arrived at the Meran train station on a gloomy Tuesday morning. A man in livery who said he was from the Neue Meran Sanitarium introduced himself and asked for her baggage ticket. He collected her valise and escorted her to the carriage. Minna watched the rooftops of the village retreat as they climbed a narrow, mountainous road bounded on one side by dark, high rocks.

“How long are you staying?” he asked in a guttural accent.

“A few weeks,” she answered. In reality, she had no idea.

The therapeutic air, for all its ballyhooed magical powers, was damp and frigid, and she took an immediate dislike to the building as they pulled up to the entrance. She had seen structures of this type before, of the Viennese school led by rebellious “Die Jungen” architects. The unadorned, blocklike modern building, a combination of brick and concrete, was supposed to be sophisticated, avant-garde. But all it conveyed to her was cold isolation. Degenerate moderns.

She thought back to her conversation with Martha shortly before she left. Sigmund had told her sister that she had contracted a case of pulmonary apicitis and needed to stay at the sanitarium for a few weeks or, perhaps, even a few months. Martha immediately entered Minna's room, a worried look on her face.

“How could you get such a thing? You have no history of it.”

“I'm not sure.”

“In any event, my friend went to Meran for her lung ailment and came back thoroughly renewed. It's not a punishment, far from it. More like a holiday.”

A holiday, Minna thought. She wished it were true.

After she checked in, the young female attendant took one look at Minna's pale face and held her arm as she escorted her to the assigned room on the third floor, its balcony overlooking the property. The place had bright white walls and practical furniture, a simple metal bed, an iron table, a wooden wardrobe, and, outside, a lounge chair on the balcony, with a folded woolen blanket on the end. The perfect place to disappear.

“Your procedure isn't scheduled until Friday, but Dr. Schumann will see you tomorrow. If you need us, just ring the bell near your bed,” the girl offered, knowing well enough not to ask any personal questions concerning family, husband, and children.

Minna glanced at her small overnight bag filled with books, toiletries, nightclothes, and a few simple skirts and blouses. She thought about unpacking, but then lit a cigarette and went out on the balcony.

She exhaled a thread of smoke as she stood overlooking the enormous grounds. A woman was singing in the next room. And someone coughed a few rooms down. She thought about the procedure that would end her pregnancy in a few days' time, then collapsed on the bed and fell asleep fully clothed.

She did not emerge from her room until several hours later. She walked through the lobby into the elegant dining room and was seated between two women near the end of a long banquet table covered with a starched, white damask cloth. An attendant hovered nearby as Minna ordered clear bouillon and broiled chicken, followed by a plate of cheese.

“My dear. So lovely to meet you. Is this your first visit?” The fashionably dressed young woman laughed and took a sip of wine as if she were mingling at a cocktail party. “Ah, then we'll have to become friends instantly. You're the only person even close to my age. What are you? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

Her wavy, blond hair was coiffed in a large, elaborate chignon and her organdy dress had a collar that was faced with “white Tibetan goat,” a fact she confided to Minna as if they were already good friends. She introduced herself as Lady Justine Brenner, but Minna was skeptical about the “lady” part.

The exuberant display was in stark contrast to the rest of the other, frail-looking guests, quietly filing in from the veranda and talking softly among themselves about their symptoms, how the weather affected their symptoms, and what various treatments had been prescribed for their symptoms.

“I must take these shoes off. My feet are rubbed raw. So where would you think these were made?” Justine asked in a breathy voice, lifting one high-heeled patent boot, which peeked out from under a lilac silk petticoat.

She didn't wait for Minna to reply.

“Paris? Wrong. They're from New York. All the best shoes come from New York. These are trimmed in swans' down. My Felix buys me every color. That's part of his great charm,” she said as she carefully sipped her wine. “Although right now I'm extremely cross with him. He and his wife have gone to America and left me here all alone. Devilish man. But he did send me perfume from Berlin.” She smiled, revealing a hint of a dimple on the left side.

Minna nodded charitably, hardly knowing how to respond. Frankly, she wished the woman would be quiet. Just because they were around the same age didn't mean they had anything in common.

An older woman, a Frau Bergen, on the other side of Minna, nodded in Justine's direction.

“She acts like she just arrived from high season at Mayerling instead of a month of electrotherapy,” she said, throwing out this tidbit like birdseed.

Minna put down her spoon and gave the woman a puzzled look.

“Everyone knows,” she whispered. “Her married lover checked her in after she ‘accidentally' drank an entire bottle of laudanum.”

The room suddenly grew dim and Minna felt the color run from her cheeks. Sweat pooled under her arms and across her chest. Who were these people? She watched the room spin through a sickening red and green haze. Closing her eyes made it feel worse. This is what going mad must feel like, she thought.

“My poor dear. Are you ill? You look quite pale. Can I accompany you back to your room? Here, take my arm,” Justine said.

Minna stood up, painfully aware that the other guests were staring at her. She gratefully grasped Justine's arm and allowed herself to be led out of the dining room through the glass doors at the back.

They walked slowly through the lobby, past the game room and private consulting rooms, the purple haze of twilight refracting through the windows. Several attendants, leaning against the wall, whispered to each other as Minna passed in front of them. She heard the word “pregnant” hang in the air as they crossed over and ascended the white stone stairs.

I
t's impossible to keep this rosy countenance,” Justine said, stepping out of the pool, as an attendant wrapped her plush, voluptuous body in a thick Turkish towel. “Believe me, I've tried. But for the moment, isn't it transforming?”

Justine and Minna were “taking the waters” at Meran. Justine was explaining away her suicide attempt as a “slight miscalculation in dosage,” and Minna was attempting to forget about her upcoming procedure.

Minna sank into the warm water, half closed her eyes, and let herself float on top of the submerged marble bench. Miraculously, the pressure released from her temples—sacraments from the water gods. She lowered her head, the water covering her ears as Justine's voice faded away. All she could hear were soft waves lapping against the side of the bath and the whooshing of blood as it coursed through her aorta. It was all so effortless, like drifting off into a warm daydream.

Minna glanced around the room at the other female bathers, reclining in languid poses on benches and basking in the liquid light. They reminded her of the odalisques so favored by contemporary artists such as Cézanne, Gauguin, and Matisse. She remembered one work in particular by a young German named Kirchner who scandalously painted nude bathers at a beach on the Baltic Sea. It was said that the artist would go on outings with his mistresses to these secluded spots and paint them as they picnicked and sunbathed.

“Paradise, isn't it?” Justine said blissfully.

She would have the world believe she was perfectly happy being a mistress, living in an elegant pied-à-terre off the Ringstrasse and owning all the fine dresses and shoes she desired. She “relished” her independent existence. And, no, she said, she didn't have the obsession to get married, like other women her age.

Minna climbed out of the bath and sat down on a marble bench next to Justine. A few of the older women drying themselves across the room gaped at Justine as she threw off her towel and draped herself on a lounge. One of them inhaled sharply as if she were a spectator at a beheading.

“Let them stare. . . .” Justine whispered. “Old cows.”

“They're probably jealous.”

“Probably not. One of them actually tried to lecture me on the Sixth Commandment. . . .”

“Maybe the Seventh? I think the Sixth has something to do with murder.”

“Doesn't matter. God knows, none of them has ever done anything even the least bit adventurous. I have no illusions as to what they think of me,” she said, grinning.

“You must try the pine-needle baths in town,” she added, rolling over on her stomach, propping her chin up with her hands. “Dreadful greenish color, but smells delicious. All the country people do it. We should go. It'll be our little outing. . . .”

“We're allowed to leave the premises?”

“My dear, we're not in captivity,” she teased. “Just in disgrace.”

“So you've heard about me, then,” Minna said, flushing.

“Of course. This place is a hotbed of gossip. Really, what else is there to do here? No wonder they have this absurd nine o'clock bedtime.”

For a moment, Minna wished she were a bit more like Justine, at least the side of Justine she was seeing now—a free spirit who didn't seem to care what society thought of her. Minna was just over thirty, the age when some would say she was too old, and others would say she was at her most beautiful. Especially now, lush with child, her skin glistening in the dampness. And yet, there was a sadness clinging to her that grew inside her along with the baby she was carrying. And for maybe the first time, she wondered what it would be like to hold her own child in her arms.

•   •   •

I
t was a day that couldn't make up its mind, a lovely morning and then a gray afternoon as a spate of vile weather descended on the valley. Justine and Minna, having had enough of the deserted veranda, decided to take a walk. Dressed in almost identical black skirts, cloaks, and dark bonnets, they made their way along a dirt path fringed with pine trees, the wind whipping at their backs. In the eerie, misty light, they looked like two witches flying through the air.

“Cheery spot,” Justine said, her voice straining in the wind. “Oh, dear, here comes that dreadful woman, Frau Bergen. What should I tell her?”

“Tell her we're looking for Heathcliff.”

Justine started laughing.

“You've read it, then,” Minna asked.

“Don't be so surprised. Mistresses read. We have to fill those empty days with something. Come with me . . . hurry.”

She grabbed Minna's arm and dragged her off the path through a clump of straggling hedges. The sanitarium loomed behind them as they ran through a stand of trees to a clearing and collapsed breathless on a small bench.

Maybe it was Justine's offhand laugh. Or the fact that they were huddled together, the two of them against the world. Or maybe it was Justine's unflinching dignity and composure after all she'd been through. But something made Minna decide to confide in her, first telling about the affair, even revealing that it was with her brother-in-law, and then about his cooling off when they returned home from Switzerland.

“At first, I tried to persuade myself that a love affair, like marriage, couldn't be maintained at the same level of passion. But then I realized—”

“You realized that you were superfluous to him. He went on with his life as if nothing had happened. And you were left living with a ghost.”

Minna was relieved at Justine's lack of shock throughout the whole galvanic confession, which helped temper Minna's shame and self-pity.

“And when he learned you were pregnant, he reacted like any other married man,” Justine said, moving closer and hooking her arm into Minna's. “How could you expect anything else?”

“I thought he was different. He's a scientist, you see. I thought that he knew what women wanted, what they needed. But his theories about women and their emotions are completely misguided.”

“I've found that most men's obsession with sex has to do with them not getting enough at home. But a baby. That changes everything. It's inconvenient, embarrassing . . . expensive—”

“But not impossible,” Minna interrupted.

“Well, my dear, it depends on your definition of impossible.”

“What I mean is, some women
do
have children out of wedlock.”

“Yes, an occupational hazard, but I wouldn't recommend it.”

“I want to keep this child,” Minna confessed, and hearing herself say it made it clear. Justine looked at her with sympathy.

“And what would you do? Where would you go?”

“I don't know.”

“You wouldn't go back to your family, then?”

“No. I couldn't do that. I'd find someplace else. Someplace where people wouldn't judge us. Where we could live quietly and I could raise the child in peace.”

“No place like that exists. But if you happen to find it, I'll go with you,” Justine said.

She turned to Minna, her eyes serious. “He promised to marry me, you know. I didn't think he'd ever go through with it, of course, but it was nice hearing him say it.”

•   •   •

A
fter dinner that night, Minna thought about her options. She decided to stay at the sanitarium a few more days, then make arrangements to move to America. She could live with her brother and his wife until the child was born, and then she'd figure something out. Sigmund would object, of course. He'd have a thousand reasons why she shouldn't do this. But she wouldn't listen to any of them. No. This was the best solution. No one would be hurt this way.

On her way back to her room, she stopped at the front desk to leave a message for the doctor, telling him she was canceling the procedure on Friday. As she walked away, the receptionist called her back, handing her a letter that had been delivered in the day's post.

Vienna, November 1896

My dearest Minna,

I was on my way to visit you when my father fell mortally ill, and of course I couldn't leave. Please understand, if I could tear myself away, I would. I'd travel there and bring you home, but that's impossible now. The old man's illness came on suddenly—meningeal hemorrhages, soporous attacks with unexplained fever, hyperesthesia, and spasms. He's been tormented mercilessly, and I can do little but sit by and watch him die.

As you know, in the past few months, I've been consumed by my research, working myself to the bone and facing incredibly bleak moments. I've never experienced such a high degree of preoccupation, and I worry, will anything ever come of it? My book is still not developed enough for publication, but I press on.

My dear Minna, how difficult this whole business must be for you. I'm sorry if I haven't been as attentive as I might. All my thoughts at the moment are filled with self-reproach. I'm losing my father. I don't want to lose you, too.

At any rate, my darling Minna, I hope you'll agree that you can't go anywhere else—your future is here with us. I'll always take care of you. What else can I say?

I've talked to Martha about arranging your return, and you should hear from her as soon as she has worked out all the details. She has been as worried as I about you and is eager to have you home. I kiss you, my dear sweetheart, and I'm impatient to see you. Be well.

Yours,

Sigm.

Sigmund's letter threw Minna into a state of confusion. Here were the words she'd been longing to hear ever since they'd returned from Switzerland. Now he wanted her back. He was, it seemed, in a weakened state, distraught about his father and in need of a sympathetic ear. And he was struggling with his work, as always. She wondered if he would be writing this if he had any idea that she had canceled the procedure. But she already knew the answer.