Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘What does this show, what does it say?’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘It would seem to me that you are proving something by getting to work first?’

  ‘Proving that I am as good as the men, perhaps? Is that how you see it?’

  ‘I ask you how do you see it. What is it you are proving by working harder? Yes, perhaps. And more.’

  ‘What?’

  They had both fallen off the conversation.

  Silence. He wanted her to say something, whatever it was. Something did cross her mind fleetingly but she let it go. She shook her head. ‘Why can’t you take me at my word?’

  ‘We don’t take anyone at their word here, the African masks and me.’

  He was almost cruel.

  She glanced at the fierce eyes of the masks. She was growing tired of this conversational trickery.

  She sat, determined not to play anymore.

  He said, ‘Tell me, does it perhaps say this: “I may drink more than others but I work harder to make up for it?” ’

  She coloured. ‘I work harder because I am dedicated to my work.’

  He stared at her. ‘You are not working harder because of guilt about your drinking?’

  Guilt?

  Why should she be guilty?

  What an impertinent question.

  Still, he was the doctor.

  She should give him some credit perhaps. Concede something to keep his morale up. ‘Maybe. In a way. I don’t think I feel guilty. They should feel guilty for gossiping.’

  ‘What do you have “to make up for” by getting in early?’

  ‘I don’t follow?’

  ‘Going to cabarets, as you say, doesn’t mean that you take time off from your work, does it? You do not lose work time?’

  ‘No. Maybe the occasional longish lunch.’

  ‘You do not then have to work longer hours as a rule, to give back time taken away from your work?’

  ‘I work most days and many evenings. They owe me time.’

  ‘So getting to work earlier than all others is not required of you? You are not repaying any hours lost? Are you then saying: I am guilty about my drinking but it is all right because I punish myself by getting to work first? So I am to be excused? Is it guilt and punishment perhaps?’

  She didn’t like that formulation.

  She sat on it for a few seconds. ‘I don’t see it that way.’

  But yes, she did see it that way. Suddenly.

  She did see that. She wasn’t ready to say it. Yes. But it wasn’t everything. Being in at the office first was perhaps part of it all too. She couldn’t quite see it. But she felt it.

  Was perhaps the all of it. She coloured again. Why had she even mentioned this getting into the office first?

  ‘You are thoughtful. Silent. Did I touch a nerve?’

  ‘No.’ She felt herself closing up on him. ‘I have no reason to be guilty.’

  She was not ready to say it yet.

  ‘You may have no reason to feel guilty but still may feel guilt. That is more galling, is it not? To feel unreasonable guilt? To be made to feel guilty?’

  ‘Yes. But my being here isn’t about my drinking. It is about what people are saying about my drinking.’

  She liked that point.

  And then she found her way back: ‘I told you of my getting to work early to show that it doesn’t affect my work. That is, I am not getting to work late every day because I have a sore head from drinking.’

  There had been days. But they were rare. They didn’t count.

  She made it clear that she was losing patience with having to repeat it. ‘It’s about having something of a clean bill of health from you, of the health of my mind.’

  She was annoyed that he was not taking this down on a notepad. ‘You are not taking notes. Shouldn’t you take notes of what I am saying?’

  ‘That is part of the confidentiality. You and I talk—there is no other person. There is no record. It is sacred. And if I took notes, how could I listen closely? Tell me—why then do you drink?’

  The question pulled her up.

  ‘For the pleasure of it.’

  ‘What is the pleasure for you in drinking?’

  ‘It relaxes my nerves. It makes me jolly.’

  ‘Do you find that you need more alcohol than others do, to reach these relaxed states of mind?’

  ‘I think my crowd all drink the same.’

  ‘Not all people drink as your crowd do?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘And some in your line of work find they have no need for alcohol at all?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Why do you?’

  ‘Perhaps I am more strained in my position or because of just how I am.’ She sort of shrugged. ‘The way brandy is used in medicine. Maybe I use it as a medicine.’

  ‘You see it as medicine?’

  ‘Only now—in one sense. I really see it as a pleasure. It is a quick and easy pleasure—a bit of a break from work.’

  ‘If you saw it as medicine then it implies an illness?’

  ‘Touché. The illness I would see myself having is only the illness of the fully led life. The pain of being alive. Every day, through my work, I witness the afflictions of the world.’ She looked at him. ‘As you must.’

  She contemplated the difference. ‘Though you see single people and their personal problems, while I see the problems of people in large groups. That is the difference, I suppose, between us.’

  He nodded. Did his nods mean agreement? Of which part?

  He seemed to ease off his interrogation. ‘If I could give you this assessment of the health of your mind? How would it be of use to you?’

  She didn’t know. ‘I suppose that I feel that it would be good to be assessed, clinically, and cleared of the allegation, so as to speak. For my self-confidence. I could use it to scotch the rumours.’

  She couldn’t now see how she could use it.

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Something like that,’ she said. The idea now sounded hopeless.

  ‘As you know I treated Doctor Westwood a few years back.’

  ‘Yes. That is why I am here,’ she said impatiently, glad to be able to be impatient with him. She saw a tricky ambiguity in what she’d said. ‘In the sense that he recommended you, as a good doctor.’

  ‘He’s a man with personality contradictions, as you must know. I say this with his authority. He states in his letter that my knowledge of him must not be withheld from you.’

  ‘He is, yes, a man of contradiction within his personality. I have always known that.’

  ‘Do these contradictions persist?’

  Was he checking on the results of his work?

  She nodded, hoping that they were talking about the same things.

  ‘And how do these contradictions affect you?’

  Affect? She felt deep waters around her neck. ‘We get by. We are comfortable with the “contradictions”, as you put it. I prefer the word “predilections”.’

  ‘As lovers?’

  She bridled at this. This was a long way from the point.

  He pushed. ‘It must be strange for a woman?’

  ‘I am accustomed to his predilections … from the old days. I suppose I see it as part of life’s rich tapestry. Part of his rich tapestry.’

  ‘Is that all that it is?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Are you perhaps drawn to him because of these contradictions?’

  He was sticking to his word against hers.

  ‘I was drawn to him as a friend, firstly. His predilections came out later.’

  ‘Here you are, now years later, back together. Again. As lovers. Even though you know about his contradictions and predilections you are still drawn to him?’

  He had now conceded her word.

  ‘You think it discloses something about me?’ She felt she’d caught him up to something.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I th
ink I am a modern person, a free-thinking person.’

  ‘That is very generous.’

  ‘Do you think so? It is not seen by me as an act of generosity—it is more an act of affection.’

  ‘I meant generous to yourself.’

  Was he being cruel? ‘You are being critical of me?’

  ‘When we describe ourselves as being virtuous in some way, we sometimes conceal that it is also in our interests to be “generous”, as we put it. I am not here to hurt you. I am here to help you find the truth about your inner world. Nothing more, nothing less. I am not here to flatter you.’

  ‘Of course.’ She bristled. She found an escape along the path of curiosity, ‘Did you try to cure him of what you call his contradictions?’

  ‘Cure? I suppose we tried to interpret his condition. I don’t know if cure is the right word. Yes, it was an attempt to either eliminate the contradictions or … accommodate … them into the household of his personality. And into the realities of the world.’

  For the first time Doctor Vittoz seemed unsettled. He had wavered on the word ‘accommodate’.

  She had truly ‘accommodated’ them. Literally. She decided to say that. ‘I have accommodated him—and his foibles. Literally.’

  He genuinely did smile this time at her humour. ‘Yes, you have, it seems, literally “accommodated” him, in your household.’

  He laughed again, seeming to be pleased with her little witticism. ‘Into the household of your personality, as it were, also?’

  He didn’t let the word ‘foibles’ pass. ‘Foibles? How do these express themselves in your life as lovers?’

  ‘Am I required to answer that?’

  ‘Required? You must help me understand. I am interested also clinically, scientifically. As a student of human nature.’

  She didn’t answer.

  He seemed to let her off the hook. ‘Tell me, what does your husband think of Doctor Westwood living with you as a lover? Does he know of Doctor Westwood’s contradictions? Foibles?’

  She looked at him helplessly, ‘I told him about Ambrose before we married.’

  ‘That required some courage?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, with slight bitterness.

  ‘And you say you told him, more recently, about Doctor Westwood’s coming to live with you again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And when you told him—he replied?’

  ‘He didn’t mention Ambrose … Doctor Westwood.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She felt close to tears again.

  Oh, what did Robert think of her now? He’d always been free-thinking, but this may just have been too much. The idea of her living with a nancyboy. When Robert visited, he and Ambrose circled about each other in the apartment but remained perfectly civil and Ambrose always presented himself as a regular man. But it was perhaps all too much, too much, for Robert. Perhaps if he had not left her when they parted in Geneva, he had left her now.

  Perhaps something had happened in their marriage after her letter telling him that Ambrose had moved in. Although affectionate postcards still came. Lightly affectionate. And he still visited and took his rights as a husband.

  ‘You seem to be thinking?’

  ‘I don’t really know what my husband would think—about me living with a person such as Ambrose.’

  She was cold and tearful. She found she held the doctor’s handkerchief tightly in a ball in her fist.

  ‘Perhaps it will help if I say something about myself, at this point, in these matters,’ he said, breaking off his inquisition.

  He considered his words, and then spoke, ‘I am a professional correspondent with an institute in Berlin—the Hirschfeld Clinic—which is interested in these matters, matters of human sexuality—’

  She said rather eagerly, ‘I know of the Hirschfeld Clinic.’

  ‘Through Doctor Westwood?’

  ‘Yes. And they have informed the League of their work.’

  ‘As you would know then, the Clinic is interested in sexuality from a scientific point of view—not from any persecuting motive, which seems to be more common. As a way of knowing and perhaps accepting human sexuality. I correspond professionally also with the World League for Sexual Enlightenment in Stockholm. It’s run by Elise Ottesen-Jensen. You know of that also?’

  ‘Through the League, yes.’

  The doctor was telling her not to fear him. She relaxed, somewhat.

  Edith said, ‘Not very popular at the League—not among the Latin countries, Catholicism and so on. Birth control is not discussed at the League. Ambrose has visited the Hirschfeld Clinic.’

  ‘My support for Hirschfeld is why your case interests me.’

  ‘Am I a case? I thought in these matters, Ambrose, Doctor Westwood, was the case?’

  He smiled rather condescendingly. ‘I use that expression from habit. I want to put you at ease. I am not shocked by human behaviour. I am not a persecutor. Indeed, not. Au contraire. The richness of human behaviour fascinates and pleases me.’

  Au contraire? It then came to Edith that Doctor Vittoz was perhaps a man who loved men. Or was he as Ambrose? Surely not? He was not in the Molly circle, Ambrose would have told her.

  This flustered her. Ambrose had not said anything about this. She couldn’t very well ask Vittoz. Did it make any difference? She thought it might.

  The flustering went away and then, oddly, she felt suddenly more able to talk with him.

  If he’d been a properly married man, as she’d first assumed, then he would have perhaps looked down on her as something of a married failure. A failed wife. Even, a failed woman. If he were not a properly married man, it would be a little easier to talk about it all.

  What tangled web was she flailing in now?

  He changed his voice back to that of the interrogator. ‘Isn’t it a little … disingenuous to say that it is his case, not yours? When you are his lover?’

  She looked at him. She was floundering.

  ‘Earlier you avoided my suggestion that you were perhaps drawn to him because of how he was. To be attracted the first time may have been a misunderstanding, but to be drawn to him once again must be illuminating of you too?’

  ‘I could like him despite the way he is. Isn’t that a possibility?’

  He looked at her quizzically. ‘You must tell me.’

  ‘I suppose Ambrose—Doctor Westwood—and the way he is, makes me feel calm. Tranquil.’

  She had a flash of recall of always feeling somewhat sweaty and tense with Robert at times of sex.

  Doctor Vittoz then broke the gaze. ‘Our time is up. Let us pursue that further next time.’

  Up?

  Next time?

  ‘We can make another appointment,’ he took out his appointment book. ‘We have much to talk about, it would seem.’

  Would it seem?

  She asserted herself. ‘I was hoping that we could more or less complete our arrangements, business … whatever … today.’

  ‘Tell me again,’ he said calmly but, she felt, tendentiously. ‘What is this business we are to complete?’

  ‘As I said …’ she was again exasperated by what she saw as his doctorly stratagems ‘… a statement by you, a letter from you, of some sort, that I might use …’ she tried her winning smile, ‘… attesting to my normality, but to my strain.’

  ‘Do you see yourself as normal?’

  ‘Why, yes, as normal as most.’

  ‘Yet you live with a man who is not your husband? Who has personality incongruities? You seem to have worries about your drinking habits or, more precisely, what others think of your drinking habits? You take the woes of the world on your shoulders? You choose to live away from your country of birth? Are they signs of the norm? Of the average?’

  ‘Not of the average—no … but I am not … monstrously abnormal.’

  She looked at him helplessly. ‘Am I?’

  ‘In one appointment, you wish to find out all?’ He said th
is in a kindly, comradely way and shook his head and smiled. ‘At our next meeting, I should perhaps explain my method of working. I will give also some physical tests. Of your blood and so on. But be reassured you are not insane. And I am sure a letter can be written—if you feel it would help you deal with your life.’

  He smiled. ‘You are not “monstrously abnormal”—but nor are you an average woman by any measure: and rest assured also, I admire your work—your mission.’

  ‘When I was at school all we wanted was to be average—I think that is an Australian wish: to be the same as the others.’

  ‘Or of all children. And again, please rest assured that I do not find your way of personal life a matter of censure. We must be sure that it is a way of life that you want, and not one that has been the result of a series of accidents.’

  ‘Aren’t all friendships an accident of meeting?’

  ‘As you probably know, in my profession we rarely concede that there are accidents.’

  ‘I am not really here for analysis.’

  ‘We could perhaps explore that as well, at the next appointment; examine, then, what is the best way to proceed.’

  Proceed? Proceed where?

  ‘How is the same time next week?’

  She nodded, but with resistance. ‘That would be possible.’

  ‘Good,’ he smiled at her.

  ‘Tell me, doctor—are you a married man?’

  ‘Oh, the details of my life are of no consequence here in this room, neither here nor there—the more I am just the neutral docteur the better. Just think of me as a docteur. But since you ask, no, I am not married.’

  He was standing up to show her out, holding out his hand. They shook hands across the desk and he came around to where she was and took her elbow.

  Before she knew it she was out in rue Mont Blanc feeling buffeted and distinctly chilly, awash in awkward recognitions and ill-shapen comprehensions about her frayed life.

  It was as if Doctor Vittoz had begun a charcoal sketch of her life which was only partially finished and slightly smudged. And it was as if, in the few stolen glances over his shoulder at the sketch, she did not really quite see herself in his sketch. Or that she saw that it was her but not quite the way she might have wished to be sketched.

  She stood stock still then in rue Mont Blanc.