He scoffs, then resumes sketching her. ‘I could never make art that looks like that!’
‘I understand you paint scenes to sell to tourists, but I hope that at some point you may decide to really test yourself as an artist, explore your own soul including the dark crevices you deny are there.’
‘I must think about that.’
‘You should. And if you can’t find a way to express your deep feelings in a pictorial way, then perhaps there’s some other mode of expression in which you can.’
‘Such as?’
‘I can’t answer that. You must discover it on your own. All you need is a strong idea.’
Taking this in, he sketches in silence for a while, then finally raises his head.
‘There is something I must tell you. I promised not to follow you. That was the condition you set for further meetings and I agreed to it. I don’t mind telling you how difficult that was.’
‘Was it a compulsion?’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘Did you feel you had to follow me?’
‘Perhaps. Yes, I believe I did, as you say, feel compelled.’
‘Can you explain why?’ She’s very attentive to him now, eager to understand why he’s attracted to her and by so doing to better understand the concept of transference Freud emphasizes when discussing analytic technique. ‘Do I remind you of someone in your life, perhaps someone in your family?’
He shakes his head. ‘I suppose I could say it was your connection to Nietzsche that attracted me. But I think it was really that photograph that haunted me, the one you don’t like to talk about.’
Hearing this she feels disconcerted, but tries not to show it.
The young man resumes sketching. ‘In the picture you harness Nietzsche and the other man together, make them pull your cart like animals.’
‘The picture was a joke. It was totally Nietzsche’s idea. He conceived it, found some props lying around the studio, put them together then staged the scene. Then he stepped into the frame, and, flash! The photographer took the shot.’
‘But why?’
‘I have written about this. It was a special occasion. We were celebrating what we thought would be our life together, the three of us studying, writing, energizing one another’s minds. We had made a compact to live like this, in this “scandalous” manner, and Fritz wanted to celebrate the moment. So he dragged us up to that studio to be photographed.’
‘That strikes me as bizarre.’
Lou smiles. ‘Believe me, you’re not the only one who’s called it that. I’m asked about that image all the time: “What were we thinking?” “What does it mean?” “What does it say about the relationships between the three of you?” Fritz’s sister despises me for many reasons, not the least for that photograph, which she thinks I set up and then showed around so people would think I had her brother in my power. That’s so stupid! At the time I was all of twenty-one years old. I may have held a few illusions back then, but nothing so grandiose! The truth is that when I showed it to people it was just to make them smile. “Look at this silly picture,” I’d tell them. Then they’d laugh and we’d go on to talk of something else. But later those same people who pretended to be amused would gossip about it and draw nasty conclusions. So please, if you don’t mind, explain to me why that silly little picture would have such a powerful effect upon you that it would drive you to follow me around Vienna, if I understand correctly, almost against your will?’
The young man strokes his chin. ‘You say the picture was meant as a joke, but for me it possesses a haunting power.’ Throughout this exchange he has peered past Lou, but now he meets her eyes. ‘I’ve heard it said that the break-up of your relationship with Nietzsche was the inspiration for Thus Spake Zarathustra. Is that true?’
‘I have no idea. But if in some small way I inspired Nietzsche to create his masterpiece, then of course I would feel greatly honored.’
He looks down at his sketch, then lays his sketchbook face-down on the table.
‘I want to make a full confession. I kept my word about not following you. But you never told me not to follow people you associate with.’
‘Did you?’ she asks, appalled.
He nods. ‘Some nights by chance I find my way to the Alsergrund, the district where you’re staying and where I gather you spend much of your time. One night, quite late, I happened to be passing Professor Freud’s house on Berggasse. I’ve passed by there many times. That night I happened to see the two of you emerge together. It must have been after one a.m. To assure your safety, I decided to follow you. Actually not you since you had ordered me not to, but the professor who at the time just happened to be with you. I followed him as he escorted you back to your hotel, and then continued to follow him as he walked back alone to his residence.’
‘So you did follow me?’ She feels herself becoming angry.
‘No! I kept my promise. I was following the professor!’
‘You’re splitting hairs. I find that devious. Who else have you followed whom you associate with me?’
He looks down. ‘Just one other person, the man I’ve seen you dining with at the Alte Elster. I can see you’re angry hearing this, so let me assure you I noticed you there with him before you instructed me to stop following you, and that after that, if I saw you two together, it was completely by chance.’ He looks into her eyes. ‘I believe his name is Dr Tausk.’
Lou raises her hand. ‘Stop! I mean it! That is really unsupportable!’
‘I’m sorry you see it that way. But I did keep my promise.’
‘You deliberately narrowed the meaning of your promise to suit your convenience. I find that slippery, very slippery.’ She rises to leave.
‘Please! You’re not going? I must finish my sketch.’
‘You’ll have to finish it without me now.’
‘Please don’t leave like this, Frau Lou. There’re so many things I want to say.’
‘You had your chance. I hope our meetings have been helpful to you. This will be the last one. I wish you luck in life. Goodbye.’
And at that she summons the waiter, hands him money, unfurls her umbrella, and walks out into the rain without looking back.
EIGHT
Chantal’s books: my first impression is that I’ve acquired the library of a well-educated person with numerous connected interests. I’m also impressed by the depth of her explorations. She didn’t own just a half-dozen books about the Third Reich, admittedly a fascinating period. She had over fifty.
Among them I find numerous biographies of Hitler and other Third Reich personalities; books on the SS; the Gestapo; Nazi occultism, theater, cinema, music, art, architecture, and sculpture; and, oddly, two books devoted to Hitler as artist and watercolorist, illustrated with drawings and paintings he produced in Vienna before World War I.
There’re also numerous books about Vienna, understandable since I know from Lynx that Chantal apprenticed there. Some of these are quite old, including a Baedeker’s guide published in 1910. Inside I find a folded map of the city with routes highlighted in different colors. It’s as if Chantal were tracing walks she’d taken during her residency.
There are books about early twentieth-century Austrian art, particularly the work of Klimt, Schiele, and Kokoschka; biographies of Freud and his circle with a special emphasis on the heroic early days of psychoanalysis; a psycho-biography of Friedrich Nietzsche; and a host of volumes about Lou Andreas-Salomé, the source of the archway quote, biographies as well as translations of her books.
I start looking through the books, searching for letters filed between pages. Most are of little interest: correspondence with rare-book dealers; postcards from vacationing friends; a neatly folded cloth swastika armband. Others are fascinating, such as two rambling letters signed ‘X’, evidently from one of Chantal’s clients. In them he expresses gratitude for ‘highly enjoyable and instructive sessions’ and makes coded references to fetish interests he hopes to pursue next
time they meet.
I also find seven handwritten in German. I don’t read the language but am able to make out the scrawled signature, ‘Eva’, or sometimes just the letter ‘E’. These, I decide, were likely from Chantal’s mentor, Gräfin Eva, the Vienna-based dominatrix mentioned by Lynx. Alas, Jerry Hunsecker is the only person I know fluent in German. Can I ask him to translate them for me? I’ll have to give some thought to that.
There are numerous newspaper clippings stored between pages. One in particular catches my interest: a yellowed article from The Washington Post, datelined Montevideo, Uruguay, about the exposure, arrest, and deportation back to Germany of a former SS officer who’d been practicing for years as psychoanalyst with a phony Jewish name and forged diplomas and credentials.
Making a quick inventory of Chantal’s marginalia, I find these treasures:
On a page in a book about the relationship between Hitler and Wagner: ‘To achieve the proper gravitas, play Wagner during sessions!’
In a biography of Hitler, beside a passage about Martin Bormann’s supervision of the construction of Hitler’s Alpine teahouse, The Eagle’s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus), Chantal has written: ‘Seems Bormann had a hand in most everything!’
On a page in a book about the Holocaust: ‘I keep hearing from Jewish men who want to reenact the humiliation of camp internees. Please send me some fascists who want to play at being slave to a Jewess!’
On a page in the psycho-biography of Nietzsche: ‘Pain seemed to fuel him. It flowed like a river through his life!’
On a page in a biography of Lou Andreas-Salomé: ‘Wary of intimacy, she arranged her personal life so she was always in a triangle with two men.’ And on another page in the same book: ‘L keeps telling the men in her life she’s not interested in an erotic relationship. So what was she interested in?’
One of Chantal’s recurring obsessive interests is a striking photograph of Lou Salomé with Nietzsche and another man named Paul Rée. This photo, I learn from accompanying texts, was taken by a studio photographer in 1882 in Luzern, Switzerland. It’s reproduced in nearly all the Salomé biographies and in many of Chantal’s books about Nietzsche. In it Salomé, holding a vine attached to a stick meant to resemble a whip, is sitting in a cart harnessed to Nietzsche and Rée. Even though the three are dressed in street clothes, there’s a mock-sadomasochistic undercurrent which, I learn, caused this image to be considered scandalous when it surfaced early in the twentieth century. Clearly Chantal was fascinated by it. Often when it’s reproduced she adds comments in the margins. A quick sampling:
‘What were they thinking? The poses are absurd!’
‘N looks nerdy, perhaps a bit insane. R appears bored. L grins fiendishly. She has no idea of the ruination to come.’
‘Lousy staging! My chariot would have been so much better! And that whip – really! L could have used some domme training with the Gräfin!’
‘Trinity? Triad? Troika? Troika is best since L was Russian.’
‘If I’d set this up, I’d have had the guys naked!’
‘In this frozen moment they pose to celebrate their pact of chastity while unwittingly revealing the seeds of its imminent dissolution!’
‘Time bomb. The image foreshadows everything … but they had no idea!’
‘Project: reenact this picture. Make it more explicit, more theatrical, more powerful!’
Chantal also seems interested in Nietzsche’s various opinions of Lou, as recorded in one of the biographies – opinions that swing back and forth from admiration to hatred depending on whether he’s in love with her or staggering from the blow of her rejection. Chantal has underlined the following from Nietzsche’s letters and diary entries:
‘She’s as shrewd as an eagle and as brave as a lion …’
‘She unites in herself all the human qualities I find most repulsive …’
‘Could Lou be an unrecognized angel? Could I be an unrecognized ass?’
‘She treated me like a twenty-year-old student. She told me she had no morality, and yet I thought she had, like myself, a more severe morality than anybody.’
‘Lou is by far the shrewdest human being I have known.’
‘Those two, Lou and Rée, aren’t worthy to lick my boots. Their behavior toward me was shady, slanderous, mendacious …’
I see these books as a passageway into her mind. I have much to do these next few days, prepping for Rex’s Vertigo and refining and rehearsing Recital, but I know I’ll be coming back often to these volumes to mine them for deeper insights.
Dr Maude, I can see, is not happy. ‘You’re really going to use her name as an alias?’
‘It’s not an alias,’ I correct her. ‘It’s a character name perfect for a high-priced escort. I’ll just be using it in the one skit.’
‘But surely, Tess, you understand what you’re doing?’ From her expression I can see she’s appalled. ‘You meet this woman casually at your martial-arts class, then coincidentally move into her loft. In a matter of weeks you become obsessed with her and buy up her library. And now for some reason that escapes me you’re going to use her name.’
She’s edgy today. ‘I’m worried about you, Tess. You’ve always struck me as well grounded. But since you moved into that loft, you’ve been skewing off-center. It’s like you think you’re strolling down an ordinary street, when really you’re stepping out on a tightrope.’
I search her eyes. ‘That bad?’
‘It’s as if you see Chantal as your mirror image.’
‘No,’ I correct her, ‘I see myself as her mirror image. Couple weeks after I move into her old loft, I hear she’s been murdered! Of course I’m all wrapped up in her. How can I not be? Especially with all the connections – kickboxing, performance art, a fascination with psychoanalysis, decadence, perversion.’ I pause so Dr Maude can feel my annoyance. ‘And, frankly, though I appreciate your saying so, I’m not sure I’ve ever been what anyone would call well grounded. If I were I doubt I’d have chosen the kind of work I do – inhabiting roles, trying, as any artist does, to turn my personal pain into something resembling art.’
She’s silent for a time. When she speaks again, I recognize a tone she uses when a session’s about to end.
‘I want us to explore this professed love you have for the transgressive, the perverse – where that comes from. I believe when we figure that out, we’ll better understand your fascination with Chantal.’
Great idea! Let’s definitely explore it. That’s why I came to you in the first place, Dr Maude, the core issue behind everything we discuss. It’s all connected to my new-found ‘obsession’ with Chantal. Don’t you see that, dear Dr M? Don’t you see that it can’t be separated out?
The session did not go well, I think as I exit on to San Pablo, then head up the avenue to kickboxing. It was like a tug of war in which she and I were pulling so hard on opposite ends of a rope it burned both our hands.
And the rope? My soul, I suppose, perhaps even my sanity, which, in opposing ways, Dr Maude and I are struggling to save.
But is my sanity really at risk because I purchased Chantal’s books and am going to use her name in Rex’s Vertigo? Seems to me Dr Maude has exaggerated the harm. Or am I in denial, as she seems to think, and am now precariously poised on a tightrope?
After kickboxing, feeling the time has come to clarify things with Josh, I don’t bother to shower but go straight home in my workout clothes, buzz his studio from the street, and, when he answers, announce myself.
‘We need to talk,’ I tell him, speaking into the intercom.
‘I’m painting. Can’t this wait?’
‘No, it really can’t.’
When I step off the elevator on the fifth floor I find his door partially open. I knock anyway.
‘Enter,’ he yells. ‘I’m cleaning up. You sure picked an inconvenient time.’
‘Well, so sorry!’ I yell back. ‘Real life isn’t always convenient!’
He walks toward me drying his hands
. ‘You’re in a great mood! Slick too. Why so sweaty?’
I ignore his comment. ‘You fibbed to me, Josh. I want to know why?’
He blinks. ‘That’s what’s urgent?’ Then he asks if I’d like a cool glass of water.
‘Fuck that! I came here to get a few things straight. You weren’t truthful when you told me you didn’t know Chantal very well and that you didn’t know anything about her clients or what she did with them. Now I find out you were monitoring her security cameras. You’re quite the voyeur, from what I hear. And by the way, I’ve blocked off the cameras and snipped off the mikes. But you probably already know that, seeing as how you were using them to spy on me.’
‘Not true!’ he says, angrily.
‘How can I believe you,’ I demand, ‘after you lied to me about everything else?’
‘Did we know each other so well that fibbing was off the table? Did we make a compact we’d only tell each other the truth?’
I shrug. ‘I like to take people at their word. I suppose that makes me naive. I can’t imagine why you’d lie to me about your relationship with Chantal when I was certain to hear about it from Lynx. I don’t get it, I don’t like deception, and I don’t appreciate being punked in whatever devious game you’re playing with me.’
‘OK,’ he says, ‘let’s take up your issues. One, I’m not playing any kind of game. Two, I had no idea you blocked the cameras and snipped the mikes because the only way they could be monitored was when Chantal relayed the feed to me through her computer. She only did that when she was in session, and not always then. Only when she thought there might be problems.’
‘You didn’t record any of these sessions?’
‘Absolutely not!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Chantal forbade it.’
Forbade – that’s a strange word to use. Is he saying she gave him orders?
‘Are there any more cameras or mikes beside the two in the ceiling?’
‘Not that I know of. And I would know since I’m the one who installed them.’
‘Why fib about how well you knew her?’
‘Because I didn’t feel like talking about that to you or to anyone else, including that pair of asshole detectives who came sniffing around. Chantal ran off without telling me, then turned up dead. That was devastating. And there you were, a beautiful stranger, with your insatiable curiosity, prying into our relationship. I barely knew you. Did I owe you full disclosure? Is that what you expect from people on short acquaintance? I didn’t think I owed you anything, so I fibbed or side-stepped. Call that lying if you want. I think of it as self-protection.’
The Luzern Photograph Page 9