by Keith Korman
He had been waiting for his imperial appointment to professorship back then. And he might have gone on waiting forever if he hadn’t luckily cured a woman with connections to the ministry. After interminable years and mysterious delays, she pressed his case down avenues of her own: the appointment came through in a month. Now hearing the title Professor always gave him a tinge of pleasure followed by a lick of hate.
God, how he and Fliess had stroked each other up and down, like a couple of lonely cats wrapping themselves around any available table leg for comfort. What a bleak, desolate time: when the Nose Doktor of Berlin had been the very first to hear every cracked theory, every half-baked notion. And Fliess responding with even wilder fantasies of his own. Theories about an immutable twenty-eight-day rhythm cycle in every condition or affliction — whether you were male or female or a dog or a duck. Ideas about how the human body’s whole nervous structure was somehow guided through the nose — oh, God! While Herr Doktor Sex Quack — so insecure — tested every bit of gibberish. Forcing him to read all the available literature on cycles: immutable, pathological, seasonal — and nasal. Months during which his own work floated aimlessly in a sea of doubt. It embarrassed him now just to think of it.
Then once in a blue moon one of his holier-than-thou esteemed colleagues deigned to send him some scrap of human flesh for a second opinion. Invariably he found nothing to work on,- and so inevitably returned the human scrap to its point of origin with many thanks. Herr Professor had long ago given up on second opinions. And now this, the elegant Burghölzli envelope. A ray of hope, that maybe this time it would all be different…
For the gray envelope meant only one thing.
That Herr Doktor Whosis had consulted every jackass in his own hospital, sought out every second opinion, third, and fourth —- and still came away empty-handed. So he might as well give the Vienna Sex Quack Method a try. Well, well, well! Young man Jung. I like you already!
He scanned the pages for that nutty thing the girl had croaked. Ah, yes! “Queen of Sparta with a hot rear end.” Hah! And then what had she purred after they murdered the pillow? “Come to the Queen … She wants you….You can have her now. Come and take her.” First you kill a pillow, and then she begs you to take her on the floor. What’s stopping you, Herr Whosis? Propriety? Let me tell you the story of the foxes.
The she-fox fleeing. And the he=fox chasing her. The scent of her body dragging him madly onward. He saw them dashing through a birch wood, in and out of snowy hillocks and white trunks, flashes of red fur across the snow. Their breath shooting steam, but still they kept on, panting, gasping, never resting — and still they ran. Their pawprints fleeing back behind them, over hill and dale across the cold white ground.
Why did he chase her? And why did she run?
The red-tailed he-fox had to be the perfect beast. To snarl off all the other males who wanted her. Then chase her down himself, right to ground. And then — and only then — have enough guts left over to take her in the snow.
But why did she run? So only the best one got her. Her match in strength, in drive, in will. And cunning. For even in the end she might squirm out from under him, biting and scratching, denying IT to the last.
“Find a little mouse for me,” she’d taunt, “and then I might consider.” So, tired, hungry, still aroused, he’d trot off looking for a mouse. Spend two days starving to catch one peeping out of the snow. Denying himself the pleasure of gobbling it there and then. Keeping it clamped between his teeth, still alive. Trotting back over the miles to where she waited for him — to set it at her feet.
For you. I caught it for you.
And for the little foxes to come.
While she, going hungry, and waiting in the birch saplings while her mate hunted for a mouse, wondering whether he would ever return to do the thing he was born to do. The deep animal satisfaction of being caught at last. And in the end, when he had brought the mouse and she had eaten a dainty bite of it, she would smile a gleaming, foxy smile at him. Turning her hindquarters for him at last, lifting her soft red tail, inviting him into the cloud of her hot scent once more. And him, to smile a foxy smile back. Frisk his tail. And take her in the snow.
That was sex!
Call it what you wanted: it didn’t change a thing. Say, Oh, we’re human, we’re different, we’re above all that — you were wrong. The cunning primitive mind lurked in the overheated genitals. The he-fox chasing her up steep hills while he took shortcuts, forcing her to wade across the stream while he stepped over the stones, driving her through the brush while he dodged the roughs, cunningly saving his strength for the end. The mad drive to defeat her. The lust to mate. To seize her. The rage to kill anyone who stood in his way, between him and the scent coming from the crack between her legs — and the glorious moment when he plunged in his hot thing, her yelp of protest vanishing into the trees!
Herr Professor broke off his reverie.
The various truths concerning men, women, and foxes were not the issue here, but Herr Doktor Whosis and his Fräulein. Come to the Queen. Come and take her. You can have her now. How direct and to the point. How like a crazy person to say something frank and candid when you least expected. So unlike all the “normal” people he knew in everyday life, who always talked in euphemisms, in secret code. In his dream book, in the passage dealing with Flowery Language, he had analyzed a dream filled with hidden sexual ideas, in which one of his patients was climbing down from a great height carrying a BIG BRANCH in her hand, thickly studded with RED FLOWERS that looked like OPEN CAMELLIAS….To someone familiar with his method of interpreting dreams and their concealed thoughts, the sexual imagery was obvious. The camellia was a showy, hot-colored, open-petaled flower. Though perhaps a lily or a gladiola might have represented this woman’s vagina better by virtue of having a deeper crevice, but then there would not have been even the shred of a disguise. And a good disguise on a thought let you bring it out into the open. With this girl’s odd fantasy, however, there seemed little or none. No, that couldn’t be right. There’s always a disguise. Some secret hidden behind the clever tale. Fräulein S told this particular story in order to hide an even stranger one….
Years ago, when his publisher sent the five-hundred=odd copies of the dream book to the secondhand stalls, Herr Professor looked over the shoulder of his life and realized he had lived simply to discover the Method. Like a castaway coming upon a lost island in the ocean. And by combing the washed pebbles along a deserted beach, he had found the long-sought-for philosopher’s stone, hidden among the worthless wrack and crushed shells. Holding up the long-sought-for rock, what had he seen? Hidden passions? Secret dreams? The glowing caverns of the heart?
Only chaos, lust, and terror. His own inadequacy staring him in the face at every turn. How many times a day did he say one thing when he really meant the opposite? How many times had he smiled when he really wanted to cry? And laughed when he wanted to murder? All in the name of getting along, making do, getting by.
Was forgetting someone’s name really so innocent? Arriving late or early really so accidental? Wasn’t there meaning in every little act? A convenient correctness in our errors, as when you missed a streetcar but suddenly recalled the burning gaslight in your empty office? A hidden achievement in your faults — avoiding a stop at the delicatessen but finding yourself at the jeweler’s on your wedding anniversary.
How to explain to Herr Junior Physician of the Burghölzli that in the beginning, the very beginning, he spent his days dissecting layers of dead brain tissue in a bleak, cold laboratory, staring at the lifeless cells through a greasy microscope, inhaling the funeral-parlor smells of alcohol and formaldehyde. Before a Method existed at all.
And then the awkward, clumsy years of those first sessions, when early patients stumbled over some minutia or couldn’t recall a simple fact from the day before. Driving him half insane with eagerness to know, to discover what or why or how — leaping from his chair to place his hands on their head and p
ress their temples. Yes, actually squeeze their skull, pleading, imploring them to:
“Think! Think! You can remember. Just try. Try!”
Years it took to abandon the dissection of dead brain tissue, cold baths, hypnotizing, shouting, and squeezing heads in his hands. Years to discover the simple innocuous question:
“What does that remind you of?”
And then let the talk ramble out until all the evasions and lies, all the wishes and fears, had been exposed. Revealing a person’s hidden rooms, seeing all the gross injustices of childhood papered over with pleasant recollections. Smiling strangers. Gruesome parents. A promised gift. A failed grade in school, a second helping of dessert, a good-night kiss, just one more chance …
Subconscious. Unconscious. Censorship. Distortion.
Stilted words like that only got in the way.
He crawled case by case. And circumstance by circumstance.
What method was there in any of that?
As for the “analytic” part, it lay in paying attention to what people said and recalling what they overlooked the day before. A misrepresentation. A little fib. And by examining these “oversights/’ penetrating the disguise to reveal a truer thought. A finer perception. Deeper sympathy Cowardice. Or hate.
Then how did you cure people afflicted with hysteria? Nobody knew. Anything else was a lie. But none of that mattered anymore. Only the young man’s question. The wise man’s answer.
He had gone in to lunch/ a plate of steamed noodles and goulash sat before him at the kitchen table. The paprika scent in the meaty gravy rose into his face, but he sensed another smell inside his head, more delicious than the plate of goulash, sweeter than the orange tea he drank. The scent of victory.
Because he knew how to cure this sick girl for young Whosis.
Indeed, he did.
The pungent steam from his plate curled into the nothingness of air. The kitchen seemed far away. He hoped that if he went for a brief trip, no one would notice his absence. Just go on with their meal without him. He glanced back and saw them still engrossed in their food.
Ah, all was well, then….
Around him the dark wound like an eyeless shroud. Church bells tolled the midnight hour, and he heard the distant whistle of a train moaning to silence on the outskirts of town. Herr Professor found himself standing in the street. A curved cobblestone carriageway led to a tall, iron-spiked gate. Lights burned behind the blue glass of the lanterns. The iron gates swung silently open, and he passed inside. Before him the fortress of the Burghölzli towered, floor upon floor, window upon window. He remarked the absolute murkiness of the night itself: no moon, no stars … impenetrable.
By chance he glanced at his own hands. They gave off a luminescence, a faint radiance, as when you cupped a candle flame. But this glow came from within himself, without any outside source. He was the candle. He the flame. Glowing into the dark of the lifeless hospital.
Then he went inside. The clean marble halls glided by He drifted past doctors and interns sitting in their offices, reading or writing, never bothering to look up or wonder at the puff of air at his passing…. Then the hallways slid away, and he stood in a huge glass-enclosed room swarming with crazy people talking and howling, whispering and laughing. Ah … the solarium where they kept the Incurables. A horse-faced chap wearing a homemade reverend’s collar stood by himself, braying, ‘‘We stuck it in! We twirled it round! She took it all! Right on the ground!” While off in one corner a mad barber shaved a catatonic man’s genitals with a cardboard razor. Curled on the floor, a huge woman licked her fingers and toes like a cat, pausing every so often to mew. Two pinheads with silly Chinese eyes swam into his vision, their heads bobbing on rubber necks. Herr Professor felt himself slowly sinking. A gleeful dwarf darted out of a musty corner, masturbating furiously —
He saw the pulsing glow of his inner light dying. The dwarf babbled at him. “So you think you can cure her, eh, my good man? We’d like to see that. Indeed, we would. But can you cure this, eh? How about this?” The little shrimp was flicking his tiny slug right in Herr Professor’s face. “Let’s see you cure it right now!”
“No! No!” he cried. “I can’t help any of you! It’s the others I want. The curable Incurables!”
Fräulein and Herr Junior Whosis! Find them and never mind the mentals. No man could save them. They were too far gone. Just like himself. Why, look now! Look at him crawl on the floor.
Walking like a dog.
Ja, just like the children’s red corgi, Hansel, back home. Crawling between everyone’s legs. If they’re crazy, he barked, I’m crazy. If they are, me too! He scratched himself behind his ear, sniffing the ground for somewhere good to pee. Now barking. He gripped somebody’s leg between his paws, just like Hansel back home. Oh, what a fine, attractive leg! He gripped it more firmly and began humping it with great ardor and affection. Just as the children made Hansi do when guests were in the house. Oh, what a beautiful leg!
After a few minutes of fruitless humping, the great overpowering affection for the leg began to wilt. His humping ebbed. A bottomless remorse took him. Please don’t let this fine leg belong to Herr Junior Physician Jung. But as he looked warily along the leg, he knew he’d prayed in vain. Just as bad as he imagined. Worse, in fact. For the leg he’d been humping with so much love belonged to none other than Herr Direktor Bleuten
What a terrible first impression.
At last, a little shamefacedly, he discovered his hands and feet and brushed himself off with as dignified an air as possible. What could he say? He tried to think of some gracious remark to show Herr Direktor that being a dog was really all in a day’s work…. But nothing suitable came to mind. Except:
“Herr Direktor, I presume.”
And then:
“Would you be so kind as to introduce me to Herr junior Physician Jung?”
Direktor Bleuler tugged doubtfully on his thick beard for some time, as though deciding whether to answer. Perhaps they wouldn’t let him see Herr Junior Physician after all! Perhaps they’d misdirect him, or pretend the fellow had left the hospital. He almost dashed off, calling, Jung! Doktor Jung! When Direktor Bleuler cleared his throat and said in a bleating voice:
“Ah yes, Judas, we’ve been expecting you. Why don’t you look for your new friend over there.” Bleuler waved a vague hand in no particular direction.
He saw the shadow of a man and woman in silhouette, heads bent together in private conversation. All at once he felt the pulse of life return to his limbs. He held his hands out and they glowed with a golden light. He thrust his warm fingers into the gloom, touching the huddled figures’ wrists. Watching his own warmth flow into them …
“Come,” he beckoned. “Let me lead you out.”
They followed his touch, fluttering after him. He drew them through the crowded solarium, weaving among the tangle of madness. Even as he tried to save them, droves of Incurables gathered about to block their escape. Yet each time he shone his outstretched palm to the mob of deformed faces, some shielded their eyes and shrank away,- while others, as if transformed by magic, shed their madness, becoming whole again. The cured ones following in a line, their thread growing longer …
Once safely beyond the dayroom, in the hospital garden, the shadowy cloak fell from young Jung and the girl like rags. Their faces were lit by the dawn sun coming over the garden trees. Herr Junior Physician bowed gravely to him. And then Fräulein Schanderein dipped her knees in a curtsy. Oh, so demure, such a lady, so obviously touched by her cure — but too thankful and smitten for words.
A few paces off, the entire staff of the Burghölzli stood in ascending rows as though gathered for a formal photograph. Worshiping him, enthralled, in awe of such a sacred being. And now Herr Direktor Bleuler walked across the gravel path to greet the Blessed One.
To offer his supreme respect.
To make the most wonderful gesture.
Bleuler turned to face the assembled staff and raised his arms like t
he conductor of a great orchestra. The chirping of the garden birds ceased one by one — so too the rustling leaves in the trees, until the very air stilled. Then, as the man’s hands dropped slowly to his sides, the staff of the Burghölzli knelt silently to the ground, prostrating themselves for the Blessed One, like the shepherds at the manger. Kneeling to him, one and all.
And to Mankind’s Second Dawn!
“Your Method is a gift to us all …,” Bleuler whispered gravely. “How can we ever repay you, my dear Freud?”
And for a happy, breathless moment, his mind went totally blank. The thralls had finally bowed to him.
What was there to repay?
The plate of goulash had been devoured and pushed aside. A hunk of bread lay beside drops of the fragrant reddish sauce. The life of the kitchen bubbled around him. Across the table, Donna the maid dipped her spoon into a small bowl of stew. She smiled briefly and then turned her attention back to the bowl. Near the sink, one of the boys scrubbed the goulash pot with great mounds of suds that seemed to crawl into his hair, while the other boy was clanging two rinsed pot lids like cymbals. Through the racket, Herr Professor’s daughter had been trying to ask him a question. “Are they going to marry?” she asked him. When he did not answer immediately, she insisted, “Well, is he going to marry her? Yes — or no?”
“Is he what?” Herr Professor yelled over the din. “Who?” “Those papers!” she retorted, completely exasperated. He had brought the gray envelope to the table. The pages were spread about and splattered with goulash drops, He had been eating as he went over Herr Whosiss crazy case again. “You’ve been ruffling them and shuffling them and mumbling, Young man and a girl. young man and a girl. And so I asked: is he going to marry her?”
“No, I don’t think so,” he said over the noise, “He’s probably married already. To somebody else.”
“Married to somebody else!” His daughter rocked back in her chair, completely scandalized, then crossly blurted out, “Well, he’d better stop fooling around, then, and make up his mind.”