Three Women in a Mirror (24 page)

“Almost.”

Her enigmatic reply echoed for a long time between then. Braindor wondered how one could ‘almost' pray.

“Let us go under the linden tree. Tell me about it.”

Without dillydallying, gesturing to her to follow him, he went to the tree and settled in among the protruding roots.

“Well?”

She joined him.

“I lie on the earth to breathe its power. In the beginning I cannot feel anything, but then if I concentrate, I can sense all the movement rising to the surface, growing, swarming, hissing, until at last I feel the earth's unique strength. And then I fill myself with it. As if I were warming myself in the sun. It helps me to be strong. It restores my smile. Oh, I am not a thief, because each time, I ask the earth for permission.”

Braindor was stunned.

 

That night, on his prickly straw mattress, both enthusiastic and disconcerted, he turned his thoughts over and over. On the one hand, God did not appear in Anne's words; on the other hand, she was describing a mystical wonderment brought on more by nature than by the holy books.

Was there a distance between what she felt and Christianity?

Braindor got up, unsettled by the answer: no, there was no distance. Anne was the envoy of messages she did not understand, receiving her illumination from the carpenter of Nazareth. Had she not spontaneously reinvented prostration in the shape of a cross? Was this not proof she was directly inspired by Jesus Christ?

In the morning, Braindor concluded that his unease the night before was the result of confusion: Anne did not have the vocabulary. Because she had never listened to the friars or read the Bible, she had difficulty finding the right words to express her experiences. Just as the pure are sometimes pure through knowledge, Anne was ignorant of what she was doing, but she did it all the same.

The monk Braindor decided that his mission would be to inform Anne of what was happening to her body and her mind.

June 9, 1906

 

Dear Gretchen,
Have you ever noticed this extraordinary thing? For years you can be completely unaware of a word, then once you pay attention to it, you hear it everywhere, all the time.

This is what has happened to me with the word “psychoanalysis.” In my last letter, I told you about my expedition to Dr. Calgari's office and my subsequent flight; at the time, I thought the word was pretentious—far too highbrow to be honest—and that it must imply a fraud. Vienna has already been known to run after Mesmer and his magnetic baths, why not after the magus Freud and his healing couches?

Now, two months later, I wish I could travel back in time and take back my letter and destroy it, for since then, whether at a dinner party or in a conversation, I have not stopped hearing about this unusual method, discussing it, and—will you believe it?—becoming interested in it.

How did this change of heart come about?

Fate knows how to deal with stubborn minds like mine.

As usual, I went blundering onward.

First of all, there was the episode of the hidden paperweights. With regard to this painful issue, I will struggle against my shame, and to you and you alone I will tell the truth.

One morning I was informed that the banker Schönderfer was at the door. I sent the message that Franz was absent, but he claimed it was me he wanted to see.

Since my parents left me a fortune upon their untimely death, and because I knew I had this fortune, I was quite indifferent to the way in which it was managed. What is the point of having millions if one spends all one's time looking after them? When you are rich, it is so you can stop caring about money, isn't it? For me a banker is like a governess, a maître d'hôtel, or a cook: he is there to look after things without bothering his masters. So I prepared to send Schönderfer away.

The man bowed, thanked me for receiving him, then cleared his throat several times, intimidated.

“Do hurry up, Herr Schönderfer, tell me the purpose of your visit.”

“Ordinarily, I would speak directly to Herr von Waldberg, for it is generally the man who is in charge in such matters. However, it is your portfolio, Frau von Waldberg, the inheritance you received from your parents. I . . . I . . . I am concerned.”

“Whatever for, dear Lord?”

“Your expenses, Madam. I am referring to your personal account, not what you have placed jointly with your husband.”

“Well?”

“Naturally, this is none of my business. However, as I am aware that you do not like to keep records, I have been doing the bookkeeping in your place . . . ”

“Very well.”

“Thus, you will note that at this rate, very soon your account will be empty.”

“Pardon?”

“I have written it all down. Given your expenses, I have drawn up a forecast. It is . . . a cause for concern.”

I grabbed the paper from his hand and read it, quickly enough to realize I understood nothing, slowly enough to reach the conclusion: in less than two years I would be ruined.

Seeing me begin to digest the shock, he hastened to reassure me, “Naturally, you have other capital invested in real estate. These are merely your liquid assets. Yet I fear that in the short term you may be obliged to sell your real estate if you continue at this rate . . . ”

I was silent for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts, but I found it difficult: a number of doors opened in my head, but they did not lead anywhere.

“Perhaps you would care to go over your expenses? I could help you distinguish those which are indispensable from those—”

I stiffened, cold with rage, and told him to leave.

Although he protested with an elegance that was not lacking in humility, I remained inflexible: “I do not have to justify myself to you, sir. Do not confuse your roles: it is you, as my bank, who are accountable to me, not the reverse. We will leave it there, if you please.”

He went away. I collapsed in a fit of tears in the boudoir where I had received him. I felt . . . how to put it . . . violated; his attempt to intrude into my life had left me feeling torn, confused, regretting elements of my past, worrying about the future, distressed by upsetting thoughts.

To be sure, I also had some initial ideas as to how to respond to Schönderfer's questions. But it was the rational side of things that I rejected. My life did not need to be well-behaved, or cautious, or reasonable. It was already sufficiently so in other respects. Why did everything have to be restricted?

Was it my tears, or my stuffy nose? For a moment I thought I was suffocating.

 

Franz knew nothing about this visit. For three days I watched his expression for the slightest change that might have signaled a meeting with the banker. But there were no shadows on our mutual understanding.

Four days later, however, Aunt Vivi came at teatime.

“My darling, why do we so rarely go shopping together? I love going to the bootmaker's, the tailor's, or the milliner's together with a friend. Next time, take me with you, let us be frivolous.”

Her oval face was an irresistible pleading pout, the one she used on her lovers to wrangle lovely gifts from them.

I naïvely failed to grasp her intention and replied, clumsily, “With pleasure. But you know, Aunt Vivi, I'm not that interested in my appearance. Franz has to insist for me to order anything fashionable. I am dressing Frau von Waldberg, not myself, Hanna.”

“And so I have thought. Therefore, my sweet, I do not understand: I happened to run into Schönderfer, and he told me you were living in style.”

I went pale. How dare he!

“Oh, I do hate those bankers,” continued Aunt Vivi, to forestall my outrage. “They are worse than the most indiscreet chambermaid, and the only difference is that they cannot be dismissed. They dig through our pockets, our drawers, our jewelry boxes, they try to find out how we actually spend our time, there is no mystery, no obscurity, they want to know where every thaler has come from and where it will go. It's unbearable! Many of us just let them get on with it . . . Or worse: some people are afraid of their banker. Particularly the middle class. Whatever next.”

Did she know, when she embarked on this diatribe, how I had treated Schönderfer? Was she trying to flatter me?

Once again she distracted me in my thoughts: “Do you give presents to Franz?”

“No. Never.”

She sighed, relieved.

“Well that's good to know. It means you're not unfaithful to him.”

I took a closer look at this astonishing woman, renowned for her many lovers, who was now pleased that I had none. Did she have two moral codes, one for herself and one for everyone else? Or was it because she always favored her nephew? No doubt in her eyes I was not a whole woman, just “Franz's wife.” And Franz, therefore, must not be deceived.

I decided to attack in turn: “Are adulterous women generous with their husbands?”

“If they do not want to end up divorced, naturally.”

“Are they as calculating as all that?”

“A guilty conscience . . . When a mind is tortured by guilt, kindness comes spontaneously, and is used to butter one up.”

Once again the diabolical Vivi had managed to throw me off. While it had been my intention to goad her on her outrageous behavior, she made the first move: she depicted herself as a lucid, penitent sinner.

“We must be perspicacious,” she said, “compensation does not procure redemption.”

I did not want to follow her onto such shaky ground. As she had guessed as much, she changed tack: “Tell me, my dear, how do you spend your money?”

“Must I really reply, Aunt Vivi?”

“No, you can keep quiet. But there is someone who soon enough will no longer keep quiet, and that is that horrible Schönderfer. He has not told Franz anything for the time being, he merely consulted me. However, if I don't give him some sort of answer soon, he will no longer be patient.”

I stood up and paced nervously across the room. The scene I dreaded would surely come: Franz would discover what a failure he had married. It was bad enough that I could not get pregnant . . .

I instantly resolved to confide in Aunt Vivi.

The more I explained to her, the easier I felt. I confessed that my passion for paperweights had driven me to dizzying expense: yes, I had agreed to pay ever increasing amounts for the pieces I bought, and so the antique dealers took advantage of this; since I could not leave Vienna, I sent several representatives all over Europe, to France, England, Russia, Italy, and Turkey, in order to complete my collection. I was supporting five or six major dealers, who traveled, and stayed in grand hotels, and dined with other trinket dealers to convince them to sell their treasures—all at my expense. To be sure, I was full of illusions as to their honesty, I was well aware that they must inflate the prices, but when they came back, and I stood ready to chide them for the expense, they would unwrap an original millefiori that reduced me to silence.

Then I made the most difficult confession of all: since I knew I could not exhibit my collection at home, first of all because it would have drawn attention to my obsession, and second because I had no more room, I had secretly bought a house. The renovation of the villa to make it worthy of my little marvels, to transform it into a fortress with armored doors and locking shutters and hired guards, had all put a further strain on my budget.

After this deluge of confessions, I displayed my latest acquisitions, hoping that Aunt Vivi would understand and condone my passion.

Instead she only gave them a cold fleeting glance. She grabbed my hands and forced me to look her in the eye.

“My little Hanna, do you have any idea how . . . exceptional your behavior is?”

“Yes, someday my collection will be truly exceptional.”

“No, no, my child, I'm talking about you. Spending recklessly on hunks of glass.”

“Works of art,” I exclaimed indignantly.

She tried to correct me: “Works of craft.”

Furious, I got to my feet and began to insult her. I won't tell you what I said, first of all because I only wish I could forget it, and then because the words that do come back to me cause my cheeks to burn. In short, I screamed at her that no one understood me, that I was surrounded by brutes, philistines, and barbarians. In the end I added that I would surely have died a hundred times over had I not found consolation in my collection.

Aunt Vivi was wise enough to let me vent my poison until the end. Without interfering. And I expect without listening, either. She was thinking.

We stood facing one another for a long time, me catching my breath, while she was pensive.

Finally she stood up straight and went to fetch her things to leave.

“What a pity you did not get along with Dr. Calgari. I heard he recently treated a woman who collected clocks. Her mania was endangering her family. A bit like you: debts, a bewildered husband, the estrangement of friends and loved ones who failed to understand . . . ”

“I haven't reached that stage yet, Aunt Vivi.”

“Not yet. But you will. Such a pity . . . ”

“I wonder how Dr. Calgari would go about convincing me that my paperweights are not beautiful and do not deserve all my care.”

“Oh, from what I understand, he would not say that. He would show you that your paperweights are not merely paperweights, that they represent something else, something so disturbing that you yourself do not want to be aware of it. That is what he did with that woman's clocks.”

“Oh yes? What did the clocks symbolize?”

“Oh, it's a complicated business. The ticking underlined the menstrual cycle. This woman was so afraid of menopause that she believed she was prolonging her fertility by increasing the number of time keepers she had. Paradoxically, she was collecting clocks in order to struggle against time.”

“That's absurd,” I said. “Absolutely irrational!”