The White Hotel (24 page)

Reading your beautifully written and wise case study has moved me more than I can say. But I don’t think I need to say it. It has been like reading the life story of a young sister who is dead—in whom I can see a family resemblance yet also great differences: characteristics and actions that could never have applied to me. I don’t mean that to seem critical, you saw what I allowed you to see, no—far more than that, penetrating far more deeply into me than anyone else has ever done. It was not your fault that I seemed to be incapable of telling the truth, or facing it. I can do so now, mainly thanks to you
.

To answer your request straightaway: of course I can have no possible objection to your publishing the case study. I should be honoured. As for my shameful—or is it shameless?—writings…well, if you think they are necessary? My face was scarlet on rereading them. I had believed and hoped they were destroyed long since. Surely they cannot be published? But I suppose they have to be included to make sense of the case study? Such obscene ramblings—how could I have written them? I did not tell you that at Gastein I was in a fever of physical desire. Yes, sick though I was—or perhaps because I was sick. A very young impertinent waiter, passing me on the stairs, touched me intimately, and then gave me a look of cool effrontery as if it had not happened. He reminded me in appearance of your son
(
the one in the photograph
).
Anyway, for the rest of my stay I phantasized most dreadfully about the young waiter. I don’t know how he fits in with my homosexuality, but you know I never accepted that view
.

I have to confess that I actually wrote the verses—“doggerel” as you so rightly say—while I was at Gastein. The weather was atrocious, and for three days we couldn’t set foot outside because of a snowstorm. There was nothing to do but eat
(
which I did compulsively
),
read, observe our fellow guests, and phantasize about the young man. The English major gave me the idea of writing some poetry. He showed me one day a poem he’d just written, about his school days, lying during the summer holidays with a sweetheart
(
of doubtful gender
)
in an English garden under a plum tree. It was sentimental and terrible. I thought I could hardly do any worse, and I’ve always enjoyed trying my hand at poetry. Never successfully, of course. I wanted it to be shocking, or rather, I wanted it to be honest to my complicated feelings about sex, and I also wanted my aunt to know what I was really like. I left it lying around and she read it. You can imagine how horrified she was
.

Well, when you suggested I write something, I thought I’d try you with the verses. So I copied them out in my score of Don Giovanni. I don’t know why I did that. It shows I was crazy. When you asked for an interpretation I thought I’d turn it into the third person to see if that would help me make more sense of it. But it didn’t. It needed you to do that, and I think it is remarkable the way your understanding of it seems to have deepened in the intervening years. Your analysis
(
the mother’s womb, and so on
)
strikes me as profoundly true, though much too charitable towards its grossness
.

The corset as hypocrisy—yes! But also the restraints of manners, traditions, morality, art. In my indecent revelations I feel as though I were standing before you uncorseted, and I blush
.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I’d already written
“Don Giovanni.”
I don’t imagine it’s important. But there are other deceptions which were, and I’ve decided I ought to tell you about them, for you may feel that your case study needs changing—or even abandoning. I shan’t blame you if you hate me for all the lies and half-truths I told
.

You were right about my memory of the summer-house being a screen for something else
. (
Though the summer-house incident also happened
.)
On one occasion in my childhood I wandered on to Father’s yacht when I wasn’t supposed to, and I found my mother, and my aunt and uncle, there all together, naked. It was such a shock, I thought I was seeing my mother’s
(
or perhaps my aunt’s
)
face reflected in a mirror, but no, they were both there. I thought my mother
(
or perhaps my aunt
)
was kneeling in prayer, my uncle kneeling behind her. Quite clearly it was intercourse a tergo. You can be sure I didn’t stay to inquire…. Apparently I was three when that happened
.

This only came back to me about five years ago, after a very emotional discussion with Aunt Magda. I heard from my brother Yury
(
in Detroit
)
that my father had died. He’d lost his business and his house, of course, and had been living a lonely life in one room. I didn’t exactly grieve for his death, but the news affected me, and I was determined to have it all out with my aunt. Poor thing, she was devastated with remorse. She obviously wanted, deep down, to make a clean breast of the only wicked thing she’s ever done. She confessed that two or three times in Odessa she and my mother had gone to bed with my uncle. She could only explain her allowing it to happen by saying that a wife will do many things to please her husband, and I can understand that. It seems that my mother and father had had a white marriage for a long time. My uncle persuaded Aunt Magda it would be harmless and even kind…. Well, anyway, it happened, but she was thoroughly miserable about it, and when I toddled blithely in, that time, it was the perfect excuse for saying, No more. They all hoped I was too young to understand
.

After that, my aunt thought they had all come to their senses. She made her confession
(
I suppose
),
and hoped the whole shameful business was in the past. She had no idea they continued to see each other—going to extraordinary lengths to meet, during the winter months, and that it must have been, not just a physical attraction, but a genuine love affair. She only found out when a policeman knocked on her door, hoping to find a son or daughter—because, according to the hotel register in Budapest, both she and my uncle were dead…. I was right, by the way—Uncle Franz was at a pedagogical conference!…The bodies were burnt beyond recognition. It wasn’t until they showed my aunt some jewellery belonging to the dead woman that she recognized her sister’s things. And had to send a telegram to my father. You can imagine that…. If I hadn’t already forgiven my aunt for the sordid events at my home, I should have had to forgive her when I learnt what a nightmare she had been through. Another thought tormenting her was that maybe their “trio” was not the beginning, that perhaps they were laughing at her. That’s something we’ll never know

My aunt is convinced she’ll go to Hell for her part in the tragedy, though I’ve tried my best to persuade her we all do dreadful things but can be forgiven. Of course, when my father died, and all this came out, she also felt dreadful guilt at the way the three of them had deceived him. I too have my own “amends” to make to my father. I was not at all fair to him in my analysis. If there was a bad relationship between us, a lot of it was my fault. You see, I think I knew even then
(
don’t ask me how
)
that my mother’s death had something to do with the scene on the yacht I’d stumbled into, and I’m sure—in the illogical way of childhood—I blamed him for not having been there. I blamed him for mother’s death. And it’s true to the extent that, if he’d been with us more, none of it might have happened. It wasn’t only his business affairs, by the way, he was also involved in the Bund, the Jewish democratic party. He had a lot on his mind. I should have been more tolerant
.

I plead guilty also to slandering Alexei
(
A
).
That weekend on the yacht in the Gulf of Finland—it was a beautiful weekend, except for some talk of violence. It was the first occasion on which we slept together, and for me at least it was wonderful. I hallucinated a little—the “fire”—but nothing to compare with the joy of being completely at one with the man whom I loved. The incident I described didn’t take place. Alexei was very correct, even puritanical, where sex was concerned. He was quite capable of shooting people and blowing them up—and obviously has done so since—many times—but not of making love to another girl in my presence. He was very wary of letting emotions get in the way of the cause, in fact, to be honest, we should have been lovers much earlier if it had depended on me. I’m sure it hurt him to abandon me, but he saw marriage and a child as threatening to destroy his mission in life. The young woman with whom he left Petersburg was more a comrade, I think, than anything else. She probably suited him—I was too emotional, too frivolous, to be the comrade of a revolutionary
.

But to return to the yachting weekend…After we had made love, I believe I woke up, in the middle of the night
(
but it was still quite light in our cabin
),
and I caught sight of my face in the wardrobe mirror. I believe I must have recollected then that childhood scene of my uncle with the twin sisters. Probably, when you asked me about intercourse a tergo, I remembered remembering, and confused the two yachts. That’s the only way I can explain, or excuse, my gross lies. I’m not even sure if I knew I was lying. I was so angry with Alexei for throwing away all we had, I wanted to accuse him of some grossness. I’m sorry. As I said, I think I was incapable of telling the truth. I could easily let myself get carried away in a phantasy. I’m sure I enjoyed the idea of me swimming away from the yacht
.

He didn’t even singe my hair with his cigar. I saw the flash of your match, over my shoulder, and remembered my hair sizzling, but it wasn’t on the yacht with Alexei, it was earlier in Odessa when I was “captured” by the sailors. That was more vile and frightening than I let you believe. They weren’t sailors from the
Potemkin
as I think I said, but from a merchant ship that carried grain for my father. They recognized me in the street as his daughter and forced me to go back to the ship with them. They had been burning and looting and drinking, and were altogether in a frenzy. I believed they were going to kill me. From the deck, I could see the burning waterfront across the water
(
I think that’s the burning hotel
).
They didn’t say anything about my mother being loose—as you wisely surmised, I made that up. No, they reviled me for being Jewish. Until then, I hadn’t realized there was something bad about being Jewish. There was a lot of anti-Semitism in Russia at that time, as well as revolutionary feeling. There was even a disgusting organization advocating the extermination of the Jews as a race. My father gave me one of their pamphlets to read, as part of my “education” in being a member of a persecuted clan. But I only learnt of such things later, after my baptism on the ship. The sailors saw my father as a filthy exploiter
(
perhaps I was
),
and didn’t even know he was politically on their side. They spat on me, threatened to burn my breasts with their cigarettes, used vile language I’d never heard. They forced me to commit acts of oral sex with them, saying all I was good for, as a dirty Jewess, was to—But you’ll guess the expression they used
.

Eventually they let me go. But from that time I haven’t found it easy to admit to my Jewish blood. I’ve gone out of my way to hide it, and I think that may have something to do with my evasiveness and lies generally—earlier in my life, and particularly with you, Professor. Because I knew you were Jewish, of course, and it seemed shameful to be ashamed. I think that was the most important thing I kept back from you. I tried to give you hints in the “journal
.”

My father was very good to me, after that episode, but again he was to blame, in my eyes, for being Jewish. What upset me, what I found unbearable—and I still don’t understand it: perhaps you can help—was that on looking back at those fearful events I found them
arousing.
You say I responded to all questions about masturbation as if I was the Virgin. Well, you were quite right to suspect I wasn’t telling the truth. I certainly didn’t act as the Virgin would have, not, at least, after the affair on the ship—I honestly can’t recall anything earlier in my life. I would lie in bed and repeat to myself the words they had used, re-enacting in my imagination what they had forced me to do. To a “pure” girl such as I was, taught by my Polish Catholic nurse that the flesh was sinful, my reaction was more horrible than the event itself. Perhaps that’s why I developed “asthma” not long after. I think I recall reading in one of your case histories that symptoms of throat infection, etc., stem from guilt about such acts
.

I poured my complicated feelings and phantasies—even then !—into terribly bad poems and a private diary. One day I caught our Japanese chambermaid reading my diary. I don’t know which of us was the more embarrassed. Actually it led to our lying on the bed together, kissing. Ah! you will think, it’s just as I always said! She admits it! But isn’t adolescence a time of experimentation? It was all very innocent, and never happened again, with her or anyone. We were both lonely and craving affection. I think also—on the basis of what you’ve taught me—I was trying to move closer to my father, by means of an intermediary. You see, it was fairly clear
(
in fact she admitted it
)
that one of her functions was to see to my father’s physical needs occasionally. She wasn’t alone in this respect. I think almost everyone, from the housekeeper down, had had their “call.” He was charming and handsome, and of course wielded absolute power. Sonia, my governess, went away for a while in very suspicious circumstances, and I’m sure he’d arranged for her to have an abortion. But the very pretty Japanese girl was his favourite at that period
. (
She left for home, shortly before I went off to Petersburg
.)
By getting her to kiss me, that one time, I must unconsciously have been both “touching” him and also paying him out for his neglect of me
.