Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [50]
“Great God,” said Younger. “Don’t Jews object to this plaque?”
“Would one have to be a Jew?” replied Freud. They began walking again. “But the answer is no. Not outwardly. The Jews of Vienna strive with their every fiber to feel, to think, to be Austrian. Or German. I include myself. It’s a foolish and quite irrational lie we tell ourselves—that they will accept us if only we outdo them in being what they themselves want to be.”
Passing through an alley barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast, they presently entered the spacious Am Hof, where clothing, much of it secondhand, was in daylight sold from stalls beneath giant umbrellas. Now the stalls were empty, the umbrellas folded and bound.
“Repetition is the key,” added Freud.
“To self-deception?”
“To the war neuroses. Did you treat shell shock in the war?”
“No, but I saw it.”
“Did you encounter any cases in which the patient’s symptoms corresponded to a traumatic experience he had undergone?”
“Twice. We had a man with a convulsive wink; it turned out he had bayoneted a German in the eye. There was another whose hand was paralyzed. He’d accidentally thrown a grenade into his own platoon.”
“Yes—such cases are exceptional, of course, but illustrative. They undercut all my previous theories.”
“Undercut?” said Younger. “They’re proof of your theories.”
“That’s what everyone says. The whole world suddenly respects psychoanalysts because we alone can explain shell shock. Don’t mistake me: I’ll take the recognition. But it is certainly ironic—being finally accepted on account of the one thing that disproves you.”
“I don’t see it, I’m sorry,” said Younger. “If shell shock victims are acting out suppressed memories, surely that vindicates your theory of the unconscious.”
“Of course,” answered Freud, “but I’m talking about what’s in the unconscious. Shell shock defies my theories because there’s no pleasure in it. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
Younger reflected: “No sexuality?”
“I said you’d be glad to hear it. I don’t enjoy acknowledging error, but when the facts don’t fit one’s theories, one has no choice. The war neurotics behave like masochists—constantly conjuring up their own worst nightmares—except without any corresponding gain in sexual satisfaction. Perhaps they’re trying to relieve their fear. Or more likely to find a way to control it. If so, their strategy fails. I suspect there’s something else. I sense it in Miss Rousseau’s brother. I don’t know what it is yet. Pity he doesn’t speak. Something dark, almost uncanny. I can’t see it, but I can hear it. I hear its voice.”
Jimmy Littlemore bottomed his whiskey glass, but there was nothing in it. He tried to pour himself another; there was nothing left in the bottle either. Daylight had just begun to show in the windowpanes. “Okay,” he said slowly. “What happened next?”
“That’s all. I left the next day. Went to India.”
“India?”
“Stayed there almost a year.”
Littlemore looked at him: “Stuck on her, huh?”
Younger didn’t answer. India had repelled him—and fascinated him. He kept planning to leave, but stayed on for month after sweltering month, wondering at the snake-headed men of Benares, at the filth of the Ganges where natives washed themselves after bathing their family’s corpses, at the harmony of the great palaces and tombs. He knew he remained only because nothing in India reminded him of Colette, whereas in Europe or America everything would have. Eventually, however, Indian girls began reminding him of Colette too.
“Guess it’s time to switch to coffee,” said Littlemore. He went to the stove and, with his good arm, set up a percolator. “What happened to the Miss?”
“She wrote to me. There was a letter waiting when I got back to London. She’d sent it last Christmas. Apparently she’d left Vienna without even going to the prison to see her soldier fiancé. She’d had a conversation with Freud and changed her mind. She returned to Paris, worked at the Radium Institute