Deadly Communion

43

Professor Freud took a panatella from the cigar box on his desk. He had already told Liebermann two jokes that he had heard while playing tarock on Saturday night with Professor Konigstein, and was about to tell a third.

‘The villagers went to the cattle market and there were two cows for sale. One from Moscow for two thousand roubles and one from Minsk for a thousand roubles. They bought the cow from Minsk. It produced lots of milk and the people were delighted with their purchase. So much so that they decided to get a bull to mate with the cow. If the calves born of this union were anything like their mother, the shtetl would never be short of milk again. They scraped together just enough money to buy a strong, handsome bull and they put it in the pasture with their prize cow. But things did not go to plan. Whenever the bull approached the cow she did not respond to his bovine ardour. The villagers were very upset and decided to consult their wise rabbi.’ The Professor lit his cigar before continuing. ‘Rabbi, they said. Whenever the bull approaches our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward. When he approaches her from the front, she moves backwards. An approach from the side, she edges off in the other direction. The rabbi thought about this for a minute or so and then and asked: Is this cow — by any chance — from Minsk? The villagers were dumbfounded, as they had never mentioned the provenance of their cow. You are truly a wise rabbi, they said. How did you know the cow is from Minsk? The rabbi looked at them all with a sorrowful expression, shrugged his shoulders and answered: My wife is from Minsk.’

Freud allowed himself a sly chuckle, and looked to his guest for approval. Liebermann had anticipated the punchline and was only mildly amused. Undeterred, Freud continued: ‘Jokes frequently contain a fundamental truth concerning human behaviour. Why is libido distributed unequally between the sexes? I have no ready answer. In the subject matter of jokes, we find a very worthy agenda for psychoanalytic inquiry.’

Ever since Erstweiler had told Liebermann about his beanstalk dream the young doctor had been reflecting on a particular passage in The Interpretation of Dreams. The passage, perhaps only four or five pages long, was concerned with the origin of the psychoneuroses and made many references to Sophocles’ great tragedy Oedipus Rex. Liebermann succeeded in steering the conversation away from jokes and towards theories of aetiology. Freud did not resist the transition. He seemed to welcome the opportunity to talk about this aspect of his work.

‘I had been thinking about this possibility many years before the publication of my dream book.’ He counted off the fingers of his left hand with the thumb of his right. ‘Since ’eighty-seven, to be precise. I can remember sharing my thoughts with Fliess and recounting an incident from my early years. I was two — or perhaps two and half — and travelling on a train with my mother from Leipzig to Vienna. An opportunity arose to see her,’ he paused, embarrassed, and ended his sentence in Latin, ‘nudam.’ Freud’s eyes glazed over with memories. He puffed on his cigar and the action seemed to pull him back into the present. ‘In the intervening years, since writing to Fliess, I have become increasingly confident that love of the mother and jealousy of the father are a general phenomenon of early childhood.’

‘General?’

‘Yes. That is why I introduced the notion in my chapter on “Typical Dreams”. It is remarkable how frequently the same themes emerge: for example, death of the parent who is of the same sex as the dreamer. Such dreams are very common among children aged approximately three years and over. They reveal — I believe — a wish to eliminate a rival. In Sophocles’ drama, King Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. The Greek myth seizes on a compulsion which everyone recognises because he has felt traces of it in himself. Every member of the audience was once a budding Oedipus in phantasy, and this dream-fulfilment played out in reality causes everyone to recoil in horror, with the full measure of repression which separates his infantile from his current state. Oedipus’ destiny moves us only because it might very easily have been ours — the oracle has laid the same curse upon us before our birth as it has upon him.’

‘Are you suggesting that, ultimately, there is no escape from neurotic illness?’

‘Allow me to clarify.’ Freud drew on his cigar again and stared through the dissipating cloud with penetrating eyes. ‘I am not suggesting that this general phenomenon of childhood is the cause of the neuroses. But rather it is the failure to resolve these issues of love and hate which can be pathogenic: if prohibited desire and rage linger in the adult unconscious, then mental equilibrium will be disturbed.’

Freud caressed one of the statuettes on his desk: a little bronze Venus admiring herself in a mirror. A diadem circled her head and her legs were covered by a hanging garment. Her shoulders were narrow, her torso long, and her breasts pert.

‘Most mothers would be horrified,’ Freud continued, ‘if they were made aware that their affectionate gestures were rousing a child’s sexual instinct and preparing it for its later intensity. A mother will regard what she does as innocent — carefully avoiding excitation of the child’s genitals; however, we now know that sexual instinct is not only aroused by direct excitation. What we call affection will unfailingly show its effects one day on the genital zones as well. Be that as it may, an enlightened mother — conversant with psychoanalysis — should never reproach herself. She is only fulfilling her task in teaching the child to love. After all, he is meant to grow up into a strong and capable person with vigorous sexual needs and to accomplish during his life all the things that human beings are urged to do by their instincts.’

Liebermann changed position and as he did so Freud pushed the cigar box towards him. The young doctor declined.

‘This Sophocles syndrome...’ said Liebermann tentatively. ‘When unresolved, does it always produce neurotic disturbances? Or do you think it might also be associated with more severe forms of mental illness, for example dementia praecox?’

‘It is impossible — as yet — to say.’

‘And how is the syndrome resolved?’

‘The process of resolution must require the detachment of sexual impulses from the mother and the forgetting of jealousy for the father. But how this is achieved and by what mechanism I cannot say. The dissolution of this syndrome presents us with complex problems, and our burgeoning science has yet to furnish us with a comprehensive answer.’

Liebermann smiled inwardly. The professor had exhibited a peculiarity of speech with which he, Liebermann, was now very familiar. Whenever Freud could not explain something he tended to blame psychoanalysis for the deficiency — never himself.

On his way home Liebermann thought deeply about his conversation with Professor Freud. Had he ever hated his father as a rival? Hate was too strong a word. No, he had never hated his father; however, he had to admit that their relationship had never been entirely satisfactory. He had always been a little uneasy in his father’s presence and this subtle underlying tension — which had no obvious cause — had persisted, taking different forms, throughout his entire life. Did this underlying tension have an Oedipal origin? Although Liebermann was prepared to accept Freud’s theory — at least provisionally — with respect to his father, he just couldn’t do the same with respect to his mother. He had never loved his mother in that way!

Suddenly, he was disturbed by a realisation that the converse might be true. His mother adored him, of that there could be little doubt …

The dramatis personae abruptly changed position, discovering — in the process of reconfiguration — a new way in which their emotions could be triangulated.

An uneasy question rose up into Liebermann’s mind.

What if his father, Mendel, secretly hated him for stealing his wife’s love? What if his father had an unresolved Cronos syndrome and, like the mighty Titan, wanted to kill his usurping child? If such a desire was lurking in his unconscious, was it any wonder that they had never been entirely comfortable in each others’ company?

A carriage passed and the curtain was drawn aside by a gloved hand. Liebermann glimpsed the face of a stunning young woman who was wearing a tiara. The vision of her beauty rescued him from the quagmire of his own self-inquiry.

He had never intended to consider the personal relevance of Freud’s theory. He had only wished to discuss the Sophocles syndrome with Freud for one reason. Liebermann had sensed that within the tortured family dynamics of the Greek drama was the key to understanding Norbert Erstweiler.