Freud nods. ‘I feel certain a great war is coming and that it will be extremely brutal, perhaps a breaking point in history. It will grind up many young men, and those who fight and survive will be changed for ever. I’m worried for my sons.’ He glances at the portfolio. ‘Have you opened it?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, let’s have a look,’ he says.
She nods, unfastens the ribbon, opens the portfolio and extracts a drawing. She examines it then hands it to Freud.
‘I can’t believe he drew this. I’m shocked!’
‘Ah, I see.’ Freud nods. ‘He parodies the famous photograph!’
As Freud studies it, Lou is tempted to bring up the Wednesday evening meeting described to her by Tausk at which she and the photo were discussed. She decides to restrain herself. After all, she thinks, this is my last day, and I have no wish to embarrass my teacher.
Freud is still peering at the drawing. ‘It seems he’s reproduced the photograph then redrawn it. Redrawn you more or less as you are today, no longer the grinning twenty-one-year-old but the fine middle-aged woman you’ve become. And the furs! They’re certainly yours. And he’s replaced that silly whip made from a vine with a very serious whip indeed.’ Freud shakes his head. ‘This is straight out of Krafft-Ebing. Your young artist has turned you into Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs. Or perhaps some sort of powerful Wagnerian woman to show how greatly he venerates you. I see this as a seduction picture. He believes this is the kind of relationship you would enjoy having with him and so he draws it to seduce you, or, at the very least, to make himself memorable.’
‘But that’s not all,’ Lou tells him, still recovering from the impact of the drawing. ‘He’s stripped Nietzsche of his frockcoat and shirt, then placed his own head on Nietzsche’s half-naked body.’
‘He sees himself as Nietzsche! Astounding! Especially considering your well-known role in his life.’
‘I’m stunned,’ Lou tells him. ‘I urged him to express himself, to stop painting the surfaces of things and expose his deepest fantasies. But this is impossible! He’s gone too far! The nerve of him! I’m insulted!’
‘You mustn’t be.’ Freud speaks kindly to her. ‘He took your advice to heart. Clearly he sees you as an archetype of female power and himself as a beast of burden pulling you about in a cart, half-naked and cowering under the threat of your lash. That he’s drawn a parody of the famous photograph of you, Nietzsche, and Rée – I find that quite interesting. He’s revealing himself shamelessly here.’ Freud turns the drawing over. ‘Look, he’s written on the back: “This Is The Dream I Have Of Us”, then his initials and the date. I would take this as a kind of love letter, Lou, an expression of passion. In analytic terms it’s an almost perfect visual expression of a transference relationship. This tells me you reached this young artist on a very deep level.’ Freud smiles warmly. ‘I always believed you’d make an excellent analyst. Now, seeing this, I’m certain of it!’
Lou takes the drawing, turns it over, observes the inscription, then turns it again to study the image closely.
‘I very much appreciate what you’re saying. But don’t you agree this is pathological?’
‘He’s a troubled young man with a rich fantasy life originally fueled by that old photograph then reenergized when he met you in person. I sense a good deal of pain here and a great reluctance to express it. The drawing strikes me as something willed, not something that came easily to him. And there’s something else in it I find interesting.’
‘His treatment of Paul Rée?’
‘Precisely. He blacks out Rée, turning him into a silhouette. Thus he transforms his rival into a shadow figure.’ Freud nods. ‘There’s much to interpret here. If he were my patient I’d devote several sessions to probing the many levels he’s trying to express.’
Lou replaces the drawing in the portfolio, shuts it, reties the ribbon, then lays it on the floor. She and Freud go on to speak of other matters, particularly the differences between incurable abnormalities and treatable neuroses, how the two cannot be approached the same way, that the best one can do for a patient suffering from a deep-seated perversion such as sadomasochism is to assist him to find a way to live peacefully with his abnormality, while a neurotic patient, in the hands of a first-rate analyst, can be restored to a near-unconflicted state, then go on to lead a fulfilled productive life.
Lou listens closely to her mentor, taking notes on the many ideas he throws out at her, and, at the end of their meeting, happily accepting his warm embrace and gift of a bouquet of roses.
‘Studying with you,’ she tells him at the door, ‘has been a turning point in my life.’
‘Coming to know you,’ he tells her, ‘has been a high point in mine.’
Walking back to Hotel Zita, the portfolio under her arm, Lou thinks back upon her meetings with the young man and the extraordinary gift he has bestowed upon her. In many ways she is repulsed by his drawing. It makes her uncomfortable that she has played a role in his fantasies, and she resents the fact that he has parodied and perverted a key image from her early life.
It’s as if he’s implicated me in his personal pathology, she thinks.
Then she remembers Freud instructing her and others in his seminars that an analyst must not take such things personally but simply use them as tools to help a suffering patient.
She thinks: I asked him to look deeply into himself and then to draw what he saw. By his gift he shows me he has done just that.
TWELVE
It takes me two days to recover from Vertigo. The walk through the party of sneering guests seems more like a nightmare than a lived experience. I doubt it lasted three minutes, but in my memory it seems to go on and on. It was everything I dread and fear and thus I welcome it into the mental space where I store extreme experiences for later use in performance.
Searching out Clarence in his office, I find him at his desk wearing a tank top. The walls are covered with his collection of California wine labels. I gather he lives in an adjoining windowless basement apartment.
He looks up at me with a grin. ‘Hey, Tess, how’s it goin’?’ And before I can answer: ‘Come in, sit down. What’s your gripe?’ This is what he always asks, his way of saying he’ll be happy to fix whatever needs fixing.
I ask him about the detectives who brought the news about Chantal. I tell him I’ve heard they weren’t nice.
‘Ramos, the Hispanic one, seemed like a hardass. But Scarpaci, the one with the sad eyes, struck me as sweet. They play the old good cop/bad cop routine, like anyone still falls for that.’
He passes me their business cards. I can copy down the info, then go back upstairs, phone Scarpaci, and introduce myself.
‘You’re a what?’ he asks.
‘Performance artist.’
‘Call me stupid, but what’s that?’ As I start to explain, he interrupts. ‘So you perform monologues?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Tell stories?’
‘Yep.’
‘So you’re a storyteller.’
‘There’s a French word for it: diseuse.’
‘I like that! Why not just say so instead of spouting this performance artist jive?’
‘Excuse me?’
He guffaws. ‘Sorry. Don’t mean to give you a hard time. Just seems like everyone’s called an artist these days. Robbers are rip-off artists. Pickpockets practice the art of the lift. Bottom line – are you a femdom? I ask because I hear they call themselves artists too.’
‘I told you, I’m an actress.’
‘And they’re not actresses?’
‘All I’m saying—’
‘Yeah, I get it, you’re a real actress, a thespian.’ He pronounces the word carefully. ‘OK, we got that settled, what can I do for you, Ms Berenson?’
I tell him I’m now living in Chantal Desforges’s old loft and as a result I’ve gotten interested in her lifestyle and very sad end.
‘You’re a journalist?’
�
��No.’
‘Did you know her?’
‘Slightly.’
‘Kinda monosyllabic, aren’t we?’ He pauses. ‘Why so interested?’
‘I’m thinking I might construct a piece about her. Haven’t decided yet.’
‘So what can I do for you?’
‘I’m hoping you’ll give me an update on your investigation.’
‘Why would I wanna do a dumb thing like that?’
An excellent question which I decide to answer with a dare.
‘Because you want to solve this murder, and I might know a few things that could help.’
‘Do I understand you’re proposing some kind of trade?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Hmm. Interesting.’
‘So, you won’t mind updating me?’
He laughs. ‘You’re a clever one!’
I tell him that if he wants to see just how clever, he’ll meet me for coffee. ‘We’re both curious so let’s meet and see if we can satisfy all this free-floating curiosity.’
‘Sounds good. I’ll check with my partner and get back to you.’
‘I’d rather meet you alone.’
‘Got a problem with Detective Ramos?’
‘I hear he was kinda cold about Chantal, like he thought she brought what happened upon herself.’
‘Don’t recall him saying that, but, yeah, he can be an asshole.’
We set up a meet at Downtown Café, just three blocks from the Buckley.
As we sit down and engage in pleasantries, it’s clear each of us is trying to psych out the other.
‘You can call me Leo,’ Scarpaci says. ‘May I call you Tess?’ I nod. ‘OK, we interviewed some of Chantal’s domme friends, picked up a few crumbs, but most of ’em wouldn’t tell us squat. So I was kinda hoping you were a domme. A cooperative one. Hope that doesn’t offend you.’
I shake my head. Actually I’m pleased. ‘The idea you might take me for a domme gives me a little tingle.’
He laughs. ‘What’s your angle here, Tess? You mentioned something about working up a monologue.’ He searches my eyes. ‘That strikes me as, well, a pretext.’
Peering back at him, I find myself agreeing with Clarence’s assessment. I see sadness in Scarpaci’s eyes, a sadness I connect with numerous middle-aged, world-weary detectives I’ve seen in movies, a type I’ve always found attractive. He has a long face, sunken cheeks, prominent cheekbones, and there’re circles under his I’ve-seen-it-all eyes. He doesn’t wear the typical cop mustache or have a cop’s typical husky build. He’s tall, gaunt, and slightly bent over. I have a feeling he eats sparingly and there’s more sinew than muscle beneath his baggy suit.
I decide to come clean with him. As I tell him about meeting Chantal at kickboxing class, he raises his eyebrows as if in mock appreciation of my prowess. But he gets interested when I describe my decision to keep the artifacts Chantal left behind in the loft.
‘Like I said, I might work up a piece about her, or someone like her. Living where she lived, I’ve become fascinated by her. My shrink’s worried about me. She thinks I’m getting obsessed. She says I’m overidentifying with Chantal. She could be right.’
Scarpaci nods. ‘I used to see a shrink. Police contract shrink, actually. I was involved in a shooting couple years back. Drug case. There was an exchange of gunfire and the other guy, a mid-level dealer, got killed. When that happens they assume you’re suffering PTSD, so they send you to this lady doc and she decides whether you get your gun back and go back on the street, or get assigned a desk job in the Cold Case Division collating stuff stowed in smelly old evidence cartons. Some of my buddies who’d been through it told me how to game her – admit to stress, then describe how hard you’re struggling to deal with it. I told her my priest was helping me cope.’ He grins. ‘Truth is I didn’t have a priest, but a cousin of mine, who became one, backed me up. So here I am, working OPD Homicide. Pretty sorrowful gig, you wanna know. Times I think I’d be better off behind a desk.’
I like him. He’s open, and, best of all, seems real. I have a feeling he likes me too.
‘I hear Chantal had a brother in Vermont.’
Scarpaci nods. ‘I talked to him. He said all the right stuff, but didn’t seem like he was grieving much. Most folks ask questions – how was she killed? do you have any leads? who could have done such a terrible thing? He didn’t ask any of that. Seemed like he couldn’t wait to get off the phone. He said if I faxed him documents he’d sign authorization to release her body to a funeral home where a friend of hers would arrange for cremation. I faxed him the forms, he signed them, and we released her. The friend was the same one ID’d her body. Lives in your building. Maybe you know him. Some kind of commercial artist.’ Scarpaci shakes his head. ‘He wasn’t much help. Worse than her domme friends in a way. I can understand why they didn’t want to talk. They’re in a sketchy situation. But her friend – what’s he worried about?’
Josh ID’d Chantal! He never mentioned that, another of his omissions. I shouldn’t be surprised. Josh, it seems, has but the barest acquaintanceship with full disclosure.
Scarpaci peers at me like now it’s my turn to confide, so I mention I’ve been in contact with Lynx, one of Chantal’s close domme friends, who told me Chantal had a barter arrangement with the owner-sensei at San Pablo Martial Arts. I suggest that might be a lead worth following. I also offer to try and persuade Josh Garske to cooperate.
‘If you’re interested, that is.’
‘Oh, I’m interested. I have a heavy case load. Gang shootings mostly. A few domestic killings. But this case … something haunting about it. We talked to Lynx. She didn’t tell us much.’
‘She doesn’t like cops. She told me there was a domme murdered in San Jose last year. She heard rumors the killer dug out the bullets. To her that spells cop.’
‘I wonder where she heard that. That’s not the kind of info that gets released.’
‘She told me dommes have cop clients. Maybe one of them mentioned it.’
‘Maybe. Anyway, thanks for the tip on the kickboxing coach. I’ll look into it.’
He grins at me. I like the way his expression shifts from dour to cheerful in a second.
‘Generally speaking, we don’t like civilians playing cop. But if you were to become a confidential informant … that’d be another story.’
Confidential informant – I like the sound of that.
‘Sure, why not,’ I tell him.
‘So, game on!’ He raises his coffee mug, gestures for me to raise mine, then we click. ‘To my new CI,’ he toasts.
I like his style. Like a good actor he knows how to play on people’s sympathies. I called him today thinking he might help me. Now I feel like I want to help him.
‘If I talk to Lynx again what in particular do you want me to find out?’
‘Anything about Chantal’s slaves, clients, whatever she called them. From what we hear, most guys into that scene don’t give real names and the dommes don’t ask questions for fear the client’ll be scared off.’ He pauses. ‘But one thing we did find out about Chantal. She had a specialty that attracted a particular type most dommes aren’t comfortable dealing with. So if Lynx knows anything that could identify these guys, that could be helpful.’
‘What type’re you talking about?’ I ask, thinking he means psychological domination. But then Scarpaci says something that catches me off guard.
‘We heard she dabbled in Nazi role-play.’
‘Huh?’
‘Yeah, “Huh?”. That’s what I wanted to know. So I asked around. Seems there’s this subset of pervs who want to submit to women who dress up in SS uniforms – boots, insignia, swastika armbands, all that, then prance around with a riding crop and give them a hard time. Sometimes a very hard time. They use a German accent and play old Nazi songs in the background. The more elaborate the props, the more convincing the scene. Or so I’m led to believe.’
German accent! I use one in my Weimar piece. Again, I�
��m struck by the parallels in our lives.
‘Chantal did that?’ But even as I express disbelief, I realize that what he’s described fits perfectly with many of her books and the swastika armband I found folded inside one.
‘Two sources told me so. Said when they had clients who expressed an interest in that kind of play, they passed them on to Chantal. In return Chantal paid them referral fees.’ Scarpaci scratches one of his sunken cheeks. ‘Seems it’s a specialty most dommes won’t touch. Too inflammatory, too much chance the guy’ll freak out.’ He peers at me. ‘You’re Jewish, right?’ I nod. ‘I figured that from your name. I ask because I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.’
‘You won’t,’ I assure him. ‘One of my monologues involves a proto-Nazi sex serial murder case. I’m kinda inured to German anti-Semitism, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
He searches my face. ‘I hesitated because there’s a really weird aspect to this. At least I thought so at first. Seems the guys these two women sent to Chantal were both Jewish. The men insisted that abuse by a Nazi female was an essential ingredient in their fantasies.’ He shakes his head. ‘As I said, this struck me as pretty sick, but after I thought about it, it started making sense. Like you’re going to be transgressive, why not go all the way? Say a Jewish guy wants to be abused. A domme acting the part of a sadistic female concentration-camp guard … well, I could see how that might work for him.’
I study Scarpaci. His expression’s thoughtful. He strikes me as a man who worked very hard to comprehend something totally foreign to his experience. I’m impressed by that. It’s probably that quality, I decide, that makes him a good detective.
What he says next confirms this. He looks up at me. ‘“Nothing human is alien to me” – the Roman playwright Terence wrote that.’
He quotes from Terence! This is one erudite cop!
‘Now my partner, Ramos – if I quoted that to him he wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Hector believes in pure evil. To him everything’s black and white. Me – I look for the grays. So if some Jewish guy wants to hire a woman to dress up like an SS guard and abuse him, it’s my job to understand where he’s coming from. Because maybe … just maybe … he’s the guy I’m looking for, the guy who did this woman in.’
The Luzern Photograph Page 12