Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [42]
Younger was astounded. “There’s only one other man alive,” he said, “whom I constantly ask how he knows what he knows, and he happens to be listening to this story right now.”
You didn’t say that,” said Littlemore, his badly scuffed black shoes once again crossed on top of the kitchen table. “Don’t interrupt like that. It spoils the—uh—”
“Dramatic effect?”
“Yeah. You know, this Freud guy, he should have been a detective. But you mixed things up pretty good there, Doc. You made it sound like, according to your man Freud, Luc wants to sleep with Colette. And he wants to sleep with her because she’s been his mom all these years!”
Littlemore broke into a loud laugh. He stopped when he saw Younger’s unchanged expression. “He doesn’t think that,” said Littlemore.
Younger nodded.
“No, he doesn’t,” said Littlemore.
“That’s why I stopped practicing psychoanalysis,” answered Younger. “I told Freud ten years ago I didn’t believe in it. That’s how he knew what I was thinking.”
“So what did you say?”
Yes, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her that, Dr. Freud,” answered Younger. “She’ll believe it’s true.”
“Whereas you don’t.”
“No, sir.”
Freud smoked his cigar, nodding.
“I’m sorry,” Younger added, “but I can’t persuade myself that Luc’s difficulties have anything to do with a desire to sleep with his sister, his mother, or any member of his family. If he has a neurosis at all, it’s a sort of war neurosis. Not sexual at all.”
“Not sexual—a diagnosis you base on what evidence? You remind me of the government physicians who attended our conference in Budapest. ‘Yes, we have to hand it to Freud. Yes, the old man was right about the unconscious after all. Yes, the war neuroses are caused by unconscious memories, just as Freud always said. But that disgusting sexual business? Thank God it has nothing to do with shell shock.’ In fact not one case of war neurosis has yet been analyzed all the way down to its roots. We don’t know what connection it has to childhood wishes. That’s why I’m so interested in Miss Rousseau’s brother.”
“To see if you can find Oedipus beneath his symptoms?”
“If he’s there, why not find him? But don’t be so sure what I expect to find. Something else may be hiding in the boy. I’ve seen something new, Younger—dimly, but I’ve seen it. Perhaps another ghost in the cellar.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.” Freud tamped ash from his cigar. “But we haven’t gotten to what I wanted to say to you.”
“You want me to reconsider my rejection of the Oedipus complex.”
“I want you to practice psychoanalysis again. Why are you here?”
“Miss Rousseau—”
“Wanted her brother analyzed,” interrupted Freud, “and you’re in love with her, so you said yes to please her. Obviously. Apart from that.”
“Apart from that?”
“Assuming the boy can be analyzed at all, you could have done it yourself. There was no need to travel to Austria. Indeed coming here was illogical given that Miss Rousseau plans to return to Paris shortly; an analysis cannot be conducted in a week or two, as you well know. It follows that you had another reason for coming.”
“Which was?” asked Younger.
“You wanted to see me,” said Freud.
Younger reflected. There was a long pause before he finally answered: “That’s true.”
“Why?”
“I think to ask you something.”
Freud waited. There was a longer silence.
“I have no—” said Younger, looking for the right word, “no more faith.”
“The loss of religious faith,” replied Freud, “is the beginning of maturity.”
“Not religious faith,” said Younger.
Freud waited.
“The war,” said Younger. “Millions of men, millions upon millions of young men, killed for nothing. Meaningless slaughter. Countless more crippled and maimed.”
“Ah,” said Freud. “Yes. Such destruction as we have lived through is very hard to fathom. Everything I believed I knew about the mind falls short in the face of it. But that’s still not why you’re here.”
Younger didn’t reply.
“The war isn’t what you want to ask me about,” added Freud.
“I don’t see a point anymore,” said Younger. “I don’t