“You’re not going to do that. In reality you don’t want to die, Frau Kiehl. You just feel overwhelmed occasionally.”
“Yeah, yeah, I don’t give a shit whether or not I die. It’s just that I can’t die because I have a fucking kid. That’s it. It’s not practical to have a child when you want to rid the world of evil and end up six feet under. Maybe when she’s eighteen. Maybe then.”
“No, you’ll still have your husband.”
“Yeah, great. But he can look after himself. And besides, he’d be proud of me. At least I think he would. New topic. I think it’s terrible that my husband is still afraid of me—afraid of the me I used to be, before your help. Isn’t it possible that I want to cheat on him because I like the idea of a fresh start? With someone I could show a different side to—the person I am now? That’s it. That’s my great desire, I think. To be fucked by somebody who has never seen me throw a tantrum, someone whose life I haven’t made a living hell because of something embarrassing like having sperm in his sock. To have sex with someone you haven’t already weighed down with a ton of relationship baggage.”
“It’s certainly possible that’s the source of your desire. But I think you would feel differently afterward than you imagine you would feel. You’d be plagued by guilt. If you did it behind
his back, he’d be able to read it in your body language. Your husband would sense it. That kind of thing changes the way people interact with each other. And you know what I think about the idea of going down that road.”
“I know, I know. But we could manage it. I firmly believe that allowing each other to be with other people would work. We’ll make it happen at some stage. I’m totally convinced it’s just a matter of adjusting your way of thinking. Georg isn’t there yet. But I’ll get him there some day. Do we still have time?”
“Yes, we still have more time.”
“Good. I wanted to talk to you about something stupid. I’ve wanted to bring it up for ages. But I haven’t gotten up the nerve. Out with it, eh?”
“Of course. Out with it. You know everything stays within these four walls. Nothing is ever mentioned elsewhere. Confidentiality—you know all of this.”
“Yeah, okay, so we were on our way home from some family celebration when I was young. I was right at the age when the glandular tissue starts to grow beneath your nipples. Twelve or thirteen, I guess. I was sitting unsuspectingly next to my uncle and he drunkenly put his arm around me like always. Up to that point everything’s fine. But then his hand wandered down from my shoulder, down to my breast. And he pinched my developing little milk gland between his big pointer finger and his big thumb and rubbed it back and forth between them. As if he were trying to squeeze a big zit. At first I thought it was just accidental that his hand landed there. But I quickly realized that what was happening was definitely not right. He shouldn’t be doing it, and the fact that he was gave me a bad feeling. I never told anyone, not my mother, not my siblings, not my husband. You are the first.
“And, you know, another incident just occurred to me, something that happened on the playground. The boys all wanted to kiss the girls. And it was somehow understood that if they wanted to kiss a girl they had to pay. The currency of the playground was little individually wrapped chocolates. One chocolate, one kiss. But a long kiss. Is that prostitution? Is that preparation for marriage?
“I can imagine that the only reason my stepmother stays with my father is for financial security. I can imagine a lot of marriages last only because of that. But that’s nothing more than prostitution, is it? And dirt-cheap prostitution, if I can say so, not paid by the hour and not paid in cash, but in food and cleaning materials. If she’s really lucky she’ll get some inheritance and be free. But let me go back to my own situation. I mean, first and foremost I want a husband who can take care of me. No matter how much I earn, he needs to have more. How feminist is that? Not at all. I always find myself trying to picture what others are thinking—our neighbors, friends. And I imagine that they all think I’m only with my husband because of money. I can’t even bring myself to challenge that notion. It’s possible that I’m letting myself be fucked for the money. But also for life experience. Whoa, wait! If it’s still better than ever between us in bed, maybe it’s not about the money? Money is just a stand-in for potency. And potency in bed is definitely an advantage in a man. As you can see with us—seven years, for God’s sake. It’s incredible. My whore of a mother never managed that. Just yesterday I had the hottest sex in the world. She didn’t manage that either, I’m sure. But now I’ve strayed far from the original topic of abuse.”
“Yes, and it says a lot, Frau Kiehl.”
“You mean my mind does that on purpose? Quickly changes the subject, changes direction? Fine, then let’s go back to it. Something else occurs to me: I protect my child against her father and stepfather. Against the potential threat of sexual abuse. I was raised not to trust anyone when it comes to pedophilia. The greatest danger for children is from their own family. Forget the few strangers in the park who kidnap children—that’s as rare as winning the lottery. Except the other way around. You’d have to have bad luck of the same magnitude for that to happen to your family. Much more probable are the threats within your own family and immediate circle. Which is something people still don’t understand. Usually it’s men, just as it is with murders committed in a jealous rage—always men. Men make the family a dangerous place for women and children. Though it’s rare for women to be the abusers, in our family it’s the other way around. In our family the female is definitely the most dangerous—especially for the stepson. And when sexual abuse takes place within a family, even the mothers look away and don’t want to admit the truth, don’t want to admit their husband or some other male relative is abusing a child. That won’t happen to my child. I always creep silently around the apartment. When my husband and daughter have arranged to do something together, I act as if I have something I need to do at the other end of the apartment. Then I sneak as silently as an Indian into the room where they are to catch them in the act. Trust is good, but when it comes to abuse, it’s worth checking up. Even though I am totally sure my husband would never do anything to my child. Lots of other mothers have thought that, too, and fallen into the trap. That will not happen to us.
“Up to now, for the first seven years of our relationship, nothing objectionable has ever happened. But it’s possible that Liza could still develop into something that would create a pedophilic streak in him, causing him to strike. As my daughter’s protector, I must always be on the lookout and always be ready to sacrifice my relationship for the good of the child.
“So there’s that on top of it all. Like a sentry, always ready to sound the alarm. I inherited all of that from my mother, probably because she had some shit of her own she never worked through. Fuck. New topic, okay? Liza is going to her grandfather’s next weekend.”
“To your father’s?”
“He is no longer my father. I prefer to say ‘her grandfather.’ But he’s already forgotten a lot of her birthdays, too. And she hasn’t even been around that long!”
“And Liza has yet to notice the problem?”
“No, she hasn’t noticed at all. She keeps asking, ‘When am I going to Grandpa’s house?’ We answer nicely, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. We only talk nicely about those idiots. Oh, yes, that’s so nice, you’re looking forward to seeing your grandfather, my little dear?’ I always think afterward that my tongue’s going to fall out from all the lying. But I am still a thousand times happier to hand her over to her grandfather than to her grandmother.”
“Which is to say your mother.” She laughs. Her mild laughter. I love her. I’m so thankful for her. She wouldn’t believe it.
“Yes, of course, Frau Drescher. You want me to say ‘my mother,’ but I’m not going to. All right. Anyway, when Liza is at her grandmother’s I’m deathly afraid for my child. I think the whole time that she won’t bring Liza back. Anytime the phone
rings I think it’s the police calling to tell me about a terrible accident. To my mind she drove my brothers to their death, and I worry constantly that she will do the same with my daughter. It’s horrible that because of you—well, okay, also because of my daughter—I have to let her go to her grandmother’s at all. Fuck therapy. Fuck all these demands.
“The only reason I put up with it is so my daughter can have a grandmother. Because you say that’s the way it should be. It’s really tough for me. I keep thinking that she’s so angry with me because I have a child, a little child, and all of hers are dead, that she’s going to get revenge by killing herself and taking my daughter with her. That happened once in my family—that a mother took a child with her. Or tried to. It’s something that’s still in our bones. The great family drama that’s buried in our genes, you might say.
“As far as I’m concerned, you can’t put any craziness past the women in our family. Actually I’d like to make my dreams into reality, too. It just seems right to me. But my head is probably fucked up. Almost certainly, in fact. Do we still have more time?”
“Yes, we have a few more minutes.”
“Don’t you think it’s incredible that my husband has a vacation home right where the accident took place? Of all the places in the world. And that I have to drive the exact stretch where my brothers died? Me at the wheel and my entire family in the car. It’s fucking weird. Of all the men I could have fallen in love with, I fall for one who owns a vacation home there. Fucking hell. Is it a sign? And if it is, then for what, and from whom? I keep forgetting that I’m an atheist!
“When we are on the way to one of our monotonously similar vacations in Belgium and pass the spot where my
brothers supposedly died, I always look for charred patches on the road surface. I look for dented guardrails, crosses. Don’t see any. Never have. I look. Every time. I look in the woods, too. I look for naked, deranged survivors. The desire is always strong to grab the steering wheel and spare us all from continuing our long, strenuous lives. It’s the same feeling—though much stronger—that I get when I’m out on your balcony, Frau Drescher, looking into the depths, eleven stories below, and a voice inside me says,
Jump and you will finally have peace—even from Frau Drescher
. Interestingly enough, it’s the same feeling I suspect my mother of having when she’s driving my daughter someplace in her car. It’s the same as with my husband. I constantly suspect him of wanting to cheat on me—or used to, this was earlier in our relationship, these days I’d be fine with it—despite the fact that I actually want to cheat on him. I can admit this now after years of individual and couples therapy.”
When Georg and I got together, it was intense. He told me everything about his sexuality. He was merciless about it. I listened and looked and practically fell to pieces at first. It was particularly overwhelming when he showed me all the hard-core sex photos he’d collected from the Internet. I wanted to act as if I were cool with it all. I wanted him to think I was relaxed about it, and I also really wanted to be relaxed about it myself. But I’m not. It really got to me. All these shots of women and their inner labia. He didn’t want to have another relationship where he hid everything from his wife. I could understand that. It’s the same with going to prostitutes—he wants female absolution. He wants his sexuality to be guilt-free. That was difficult for me at first. A bit much for little Elizabeth.
“He’s often admitted that it was a major mistake to let me in on his fantasies. Over the years I’ve gotten used to knowing all about them. I think now I’m nearly at the point of confronting him with
my
true sexuality. For all these years I thought it was extraordinary that he knew exactly what he wanted. And I had no idea. But now I do know what I want, and there’s no way he can deny me. It’s comparable to all his porn flicks and prostitutes, right? My desire to sleep with other men. Lots of them. The only difference—and one that will hurt him—is that his fantasies always include me. He wants me to go with him to the brothels, for us to re-create scenes from porn movies, look at photos together. In my fantasies about other men, he has no role. It’s all about me. I notice this more and more—between my legs, obviously, but also in my head. Maybe the next seven years will turn out to be me overwhelming him with the discovery of my own wild sexuality?
“By the way, I made a secret appointment tomorrow with a notary. I’m going to write Cathrin out of my will, since I am going to cut her out of my life. Soon she will be my ex–best friend. What if something happens to me tomorrow morning? Or, hell, right now, in your damn elevator? A helicopter could fly into the building any second, too. And she’d still stand to inherit something from me. That no longer works for me. I want my ex-husband, my husband, my daughter, and my stepson to get everything. My parents will get nothing more than their statutory share, and my husband should make sure my sister gets something, too.”
“Yes, I know all about your will. I hope you have taken me out of it again? I am not permitted to inherit anything from you. We’ve already discussed that it’s not acceptable for a patient to leave anything to a therapist.”
“What about the other way around?”
“Very funny, Frau Kiehl. But that’s also not allowed. If you haven’t changed that yet, you can kill two birds with one stone when you go there.”
“I took care of that ages ago. What do you take me for? When you tell me to do something, I do it immediately. I constantly think that I’m going to die. So my will has to be ready. In any event, I have a secret appointment again tomorrow. Georg doesn’t know about it. You know my dream scenario for after I’m no longer around—that Liza will be raised together by her stepfather and father. That would be good. And I don’t mean that the way you probably think—that my husband wouldn’t get together with another woman. I’ve told him time and time again that I want him to find another woman as quickly as possible. I hate dead people who are so self-important that they forbid their widows or widowers to find someone else. Even from the grave they expect loyalty from their partners. I think that’s terrible. I’ve told my husband that he can bring someone new to my funeral if he wants. He’ll need to be consoled. Christians, go forth and fuck. The only people I know who get upset about people finding someone new after the death of their partners are Christians. They’re awful, Christians. Awful. I think people should find someone new fast. As soon as possible.”