Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [43]
“The demand that your life have a purpose, my boy, is something you acquired from your parents, probably your father—something to be analyzed.”
“To say that,” replied Younger, “is to concede that there is no purpose.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
Another pause.
“You’re not smoking,” said Freud, noticing that Younger’s cigar was out and offering him a light. “I’ve followed your career from afar. Brill has kept me informed. You’ve done well.”
“Thank you.”
“You fought?” asked Freud.
“Yes.”
“My sons too. Martin is still a prisoner, in Italy.” Freud drew on his cigar. “I was very sorry to hear about your wife’s death. A terrible thing. Do you treat women badly?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You never remarried. You have an exaggerated idea of female innocence, to judge by your reluctance to speak about sexuality in front of Miss Rousseau. I’m wondering if you habitually mistreat women.”
“Why would I mistreat women?”
“It’s a perfectly common reaction. A man who idealizes women not infrequently maintains a low opinion of them at the same time.”
“I don’t have a low opinion of women. I have a high opinion of them.”
“I’m only observing. It was after your wife died that you turned away from psychology. You turned away from the mind.”
“I studied the mind,” replied Younger. “Biologically.”
“That was how you turned away from it—probably a way of striking back.”
“At whom?”
“At your wife. At me, I suppose. At yourself.”
Younger said nothing.
“You abandoned psychoanalysis,” Freud continued, “and you mistreat women for the same reason: because of a sense of responsibility for your wife’s death.”
“That’s absurd. I wasn’t responsible for her death.”
“Absurdity is an offense to logic,” said Freud, “but in the mind logic is not master.”
Colette was no longer in the consulting room when the two men emerged from Freud’s study. Younger went outside, but didn’t find her on the street either. He walked down Berggasse toward the canal. He thought she might have taken a walk to see the Danube. She wasn’t there. Younger stared at the water a long time.
Back at the Hotel Bristol, Younger asked Luc if his sister had returned. The boy shook his head and showed Younger a picture he had drawn.
“Very accomplished,” said Younger. The boy had drawn a tree with many limbs. On several of those branches animals perched, each of them staring at the viewer with large, hungry eyes. “Are they dogs?”
Luc shook his head.
“Wolves?”
The boy nodded.
“You realize, little man,” said Younger, “we don’t even know if you can speak. Physically, that is.”
Luc looked interested, but disinterested, simultaneously.
“But you know if you can,” said Younger. “I know you know. And if you can’t speak, Luc, there’s no reason for you to go to Dr. Freud. He’s not that kind of doctor.”
The boy remained still.
“But if you can,” Younger continued, “you could get out of all this very easily. By talking. Get out of seeing the doctor. Get out of that school you’re in. Make your sister very happy.”
Luc stared at Younger a long while before turning his drawing over and writing a message on the back. It was only the second time he’d done so with Younger. The page bore two words: You’re wrong.
Watching the boy sit down in a corner with one of his books, Younger wondered on which point he’d been wrong. That Luc knew if he could speak? Or that his talking would make his sister happy?
Colette returned to the hotel an hour later.
“You disappeared,” said Younger.
“I went—” she began.
“To the Grubers’.”
“Yes. I walked. But the address wasn’t their house,” she replied. “It wasn’t a residence at all. I couldn’t find out anything. I’m not even sure what kind of place it was. A concert hall, maybe. Could you help me?”
Younger accompanied her back to the address to translate. It proved to be a music school. A secretary, kind enough to look in the school records, found that a student by the name