The Death Instinct

Chapter Thirteen

After a day at sea, an ocean liner steaming out of New York becomes its own and only point of human reference. No other vessels interrupt the vast waters. Under a cloudless morning sky, Colette and Younger strolled the upper deck, the swell unsteady enough to make her accept his arm. The ship's engines set up a dull, churning roar behind them.

'What did they want with me?' she asked.

'The redheads or the kidnappers?'

'All of them.'

'The more I think about it,' said Younger, 'the more I think the note we got at the hotel — the note from Amelia — was a trap. Bait. We thought Amelia never came back to the hotel the next morning. But perhaps she did, with the kidnappers.'

'Why?'

'Maybe it's their business — kidnapping girls, selling them.'

'Selling them?'

'We have a term for it: white slavery. Perhaps they were going to lure you somewhere; Amelia would prey on your compassion, telling you she needed your help. They expected you to be alone. Instead I was with you. So they changed plans. They followed us to Wall Street. Amelia was caught in the bombing. But her friends kept watch, and when you went back to the hotel, they took you.'

'Why me?'

'Because you're a foreigner. No family in America, no connections. Young and beautiful would be further qualifications.'

'I am not beautiful. How would they know I was a foreigner with no family?'

'How did they know you lived in New Haven? Or that you were going to Hamburg? One thing is certain: they have money. Enough to investigate people.'

Unexpectedly, she rested her head on his shoulder. 'At least we're safe on this ship. I can feel it. I wish we never had to reach Europe.'

Younger had made inquiries with the ship's bursar, from whom he learned that he'd been the last one to buy tickets. Colette, it seemed, was right. The ship was safe; no one had followed them aboard. 'We don't have to get off when the ship gets to Bremen,' he suggested. 'We could stay on for the return voyage. At New York, we could stay on again. Go back and forth forever.'

'Don't say anything else,' she answered, closing her eyes. 'I'm going to dream about that.'

He looked at her lovely face: 'Yes, if I were running a white slavery ring, you'd be at the top of my list.'

Later that morning, Younger emptied onto the deck the contents of a large sack he'd brought along with his luggage. There was a baseball, a bat, a jumble of wooden pegs and metal plates, and assembly instructions. A half-hour later, he had constructed a batting tee — a freestanding pedestal for holding a baseball in place, about waist high, so that a batter can practice his swings at it. Younger then fashioned a bag of netting around the baseball, tying off this bag with a long cord of rope borrowed from a seaman. The other end of the rope Younger secured to a winch. He then set the bagged ball atop the tee and gave Luc a lesson in hitting. After each swing, they retrieved the baseball, soaking, by reeling in the rope.

Soon a good number of male passengers wanted a go, doffing their hats and undressing to their shirtsleeves to take their cracks. Naturally, the handful of other boys on the voyage were eager to try as well. Younger made them ask permission first from Luc, who solemnly granted it, and who for the rest of the journey thereby became an indispensable member of the little gang of boys, despite his muteness.

Of all the men and boys who had a go at the batter's tee that day, Younger hit the most towering drives. But the next morning several of the ship's seamen joined in. One of these was a muscular swab who had played for the Brooklyn Robins during the war and who, taking his shirt off altogether, packed so Ruthian a wallop into his first swing that the rope was not long enough. The netting broke; the ball was lost. Younger tried several substitutes — an orange, a globe of wood cut by the ship's carpenter, a golf ball lent to them by another passenger — but there's nothing quite like a baseball, and that was the end of that.

As the days of oceangoing passed one to the next, Younger found he couldn't make any further headway with Colette. His relations with her were intimate enough, but only in a friendly way. She was affectionate, but distant. And she became more so as they drew nearer to Europe.

Sometimes he would catch her staring out to sea into a future he couldn't penetrate. Or was it a past — a memory of falling in love with a devout, ailing soldier in Paris, to whom she had given her heart, and whom she hadn't seen for more than two years?

You're his hero, you know,' she said to him one day, coming out of such a reverie.

'Whose?'

'Luc's.'

'Am I?' said Younger. 'Who's yours?'

'I have two: Madame Curie and my father. I'm lucky that way. The Germans killed my father when he was still a hero to me — fearless, strong, noble in every way. Even the Germans couldn't take that from me. But Luc barely remembers him. I used to try to remind him about Mother and Father — tell him stories of Father's strength and bravery.

But he wouldn't listen. He isn't even curious. That's what he really needs — a father.'

'And you're doing your best to find him one?'

She didn't answer.

'Do you really think he loves you?' Younger went on. 'Heinrich, I mean.'

'Hans.'

'Heinrich hasn't written you a single letter in two years. That doesn't sound like love to me.'

'It doesn't matter whether he's written me.'

'You mean you love him regardless? You don't. I'm sorry, but you don't. If you loved him, you'd be thinking of one thing only: how he'll react when he sees you. You'd be in a panic to know whether he still cares for you. You'd be looking in mirrors. You also wouldn't concede that he hasn't written you. You'd tell yourself that he wrote to the hospital in Paris, but that you never received the letters. Instead you say it doesn't matter.'

She didn't answer.

'Is he that handsome?' asked Younger. 'Or did you give yourself to him, and now you think you have to marry him on that account?'

Colette looked away: 'Don't talk about him anymore. Please.'

'What do you owe him? You nursed the man when he was sick, but you act like he was the one who saved you. As if you owed him your life.'

'You can't understand what I owe him,' she said. She looked at him: 'Do you want me to say I love you more than him? That I'll give him up for you? I won't. I'm sorry. You shouldn't love me. You should just — leave me alone.' She got up and went to her cabin and didn't return.

On the last night of their voyage, as he contemplated the unfathomable force drawing Colette to her soldier from thousands of miles away, Younger tried to decide which was the greater illusion — the false motion of the stars, which seemed over the course of a night slowly to cross the sky, or the false motionlessness of the earth, which was in reality soaring around the sun at unthinkable speed.

How could it be that a young man whom Colette had known for only a few months exerted such power over her, or that this French girl exerted such power over him — Younger — against his will, against his reason, against his judgment? He seemed to be in orbit around her, circling her, closing on her, then falling away, always with some final, unbridgeable distance between them. Does the earth find its orbit a cause of unending torment?

The Amityville Sanitarium on Long Island was spotless and white and healthful, but Edwin Fischer, its newest resident, did not seem content. Gone was the gregarious good cheer so conspicuous when he was taken into custody in New York City a month earlier.

'How are they treating you, Fischer?' asked Littlemore, taking a seat in the visiting room.

'The Popes have always been against me,' replied Fischer. 'Are you Roman Catholic, Officer?'

'Catholic? My wife is.'

'None of the Popes has ever been a true Catholic. They pretend, of course, but it's always been a lie. They are using their powers against me. Why did you come here?'

'Funny — I'm asking myself that same question right now.'

'Shall I tell you the reason the Popes wish to keep me confined?'

'Because you're crazy?'

'They don't believe I'm an agent of the United States Secret Service.'

'You're not.'

'Why do you say that?' Fischer looked genuinely hurt. 'I resent that very much. Are you a Secret Serviceman?'

'No.'

'Are you the Secretary of the Treasury?'

'Why?' asked Littlemore.

'If you were, you'd be in charge of the Secret Service.'

'I don't think so.'

'You don't think you're the Secretary of the Treasury?' replied Fischer. 'Most people are sure, one way or the other.'

'I happen to work for the Secretary of the Treasury, and I don't think he's in charge of the Secret Service.'

'Then he's an impostor. I know why you're here.'

'Is that right?'

'You're here to get me out of this place.'

'No, I'm not.'

'Yes, you are. And to ask me when I first received my premonition of the Wall Street bombing.'

Littlemore sat up.

'I'm correct?' asked Fischer.

'Son of a gun. How'd you know that?'

'Were you at the train station when the police brought me from Canada, Captain?'

'No. So when was it — your first premonition?'

'I love train stations. Whenever I go to a new city, I wander around the station for hours. It makes me feel at home. Grand Central Terminal is like a second home to me.'

'Great. When was your first premonition?'

'You'll do something about the Popes?'

'I'll do what I can.'

'The end of July, I think. I know it was before the East-West matches. It was right after I decided not to go to Washington. You must know I'm an adviser to Mr Wilson?'

'That would be President Wilson, I'm guessing.'

'In 1916, I advised Mr Wilson that if he didn't stop the war, many would die. That's how I got to be a Secret Service agent. He wished to meet with me, but his aides wouldn't permit it. Doubtless he regrets that decision profoundly today.'

'Sure he does. So who do you think was behind the bombing, Fischer? Who did it?'

'Anarchists, of course. Bolsheviks.'

'Are you positive?'

'Absolutely.'

'How do you know?'

'I read it in the papers.'

A nurse interrupted them, to take Mr Fischer back to his room.

Their train slipped with a satisfied shriek into Vienna's Westbahnhof on a mid-October evening. The Austrian trains, once the pride of an empire, were shells of their former selves. They ran on half rations of coal — the other half having been sold off by corrupt officials and needy conductors. Chandeliers and decorated paneling had been ripped away, evidently by thieves.

A single cab was waiting outside the station under a bright half- moon — an elegant two-horse carriage. Although Younger sat next to Colette, she kept her distance, facing away from him and looking out at Vienna. Luc sat across from them, one suitcase under his legs and another beside him. It was a lovely, old-world night. In the distance, over the roofs of handsome buildings, the electric lights of the Riesenrad the giant Ferris wheel of the Prater, Vienna's famous amusement park — described a high slow arc in the air. The wind carried strains of a faraway waltz and merry laughter.

'Vienna is gay,' said Colette — wistfully, Younger thought.

Colette had spoken in French. The coachman answered in the same language: 'Yes, we are gay, Mademoiselle. It is our nature. Even during the war we were gay. And unlike the last time you were here, we are no longer eating our dogs.'

The driver presented his card to them. He was the very same nobleman — Oktavian Ferdinand Graf Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau — who had taken them to their hotel on their first stay in Vienna. But on his card, the words Graf and von, indications of his illustrious birth, had been crossed out.

'Titles of nobility have been abolished,' he explained. 'We're not allowed them even on our cards. Yes, things are improving. Things are certainly improving.'

They heard a far-off keening behind them, followed by a thunderous crash.

'What was that?' asked Colette, starting almost out of her seat.

'It's nothing, Mademoiselle,' replied the coachman. 'It comes from the Wienerwald, the Vienna woods, the loveliest woods in the world. They are chopping down its trees.'

'At this hour?' said Younger. 'Who?'

'Everyone, Monsieur. It's illegal, but people have no choice. There is no more coal to burn. Only wood. They go at night to avoid arrest. When winter comes, many will have no heat at all. You've come from Paris?'

'New York,' said Younger.

'Is Monsieur American?'

Younger allowed that he was.

'I beg your pardon; I thought you were French. Then you must accept this ride with my compliments. Austria owes you its deepest thanks.'

Younger was surprised at this offer and said so.

'A defeated country does not ordinarily express gratitude toward its foe?' asked the coachman. 'It's our children I'm thanking you for. Your relief packages are still their chief source of food. Do you know Mr Stockton — your charge d'affaires? I drove him to the station last month. He had just received a letter from the Chief Justice of our Supreme Court, asking if the judges could have a relief package too.'

'What will happen,' asked Colette, 'to the children if they have no heat this winter?'

'They'll die, I imagine, many of them. Here we are — 19 Berggasse. I hope Dr Freud is well.'

Younger, letting himself out and extending his hand to Colette, raised an eyebrow at their exceedingly knowledgeable coachman.

'When foreigners visit the Berggasse,' explained the driver, 'there can be only one reason.'

Younger asked if he would be so kind as to wait for them while they called on the Freuds. Oktavian said he would be most willing.

It was Freud's wife's sister, Minna Bernays, who answered the door to the second-floor apartment. Although they were expected, Miss Bernays wouldn't let them in, explaining that Dr Freud and his wife, Martha, had retired early. She was asking if they could come back tomorrow when a deep male voice intervened, declaring his retirement to be much exaggerated.

Their greetings were cordial. Much was made of Luc being a full head taller. 'Well, Minna,' observed Freud, 'Martha was mistaken, as I predicted she would be.' To Younger and Colette, he explained: 'My wife was certain the two of you would be married before the year was out.'

'The year's not over yet,' said Younger.

'She meant 1919,' Freud replied drily.

'Then tell her there is still hope for 1920,' said Younger.

'I've given you no reason to hope, Stratham,' Colette rebuked him. 'Not for any year.'

Younger, stung, resolved to make light of it: 'In that case I'll schedule the wedding for midnight December thirty-first,' he said, 'which doesn't belong to any year.'

Colette turned to Minna Bernays and said, 'He's hopeless.'

'First she chides you for hoping,' Freud replied to Younger, 'then for being hopeless. Women — what do they want?'

Sigmund Freud looked his age, sunk deep in an armchair in his study. A furrow knit his white brows into a scowl. His usually frenetic chow, Jofi, curled sympathetically at the master's feet. They had talked of the Wall Street bombing, the kidnapping, and the collapse of the finances of the psychoanalytic association. Freud's son Martin had finally been released from prison. 'His first act of freedom,' Freud said, 'was to relinquish it. He got married.'

Colette thanked Freud for agreeing to treat her brother.

'I haven't agreed to treat him,' answered Freud. 'I wrote you, Fraulein, stipulating my one condition. You didn't answer.'

Colette made no reply.

'I'm too old and too busy for half measures,' said Freud. 'I take very few new patients now; I only have time to train others to do so. Every new hour I take on is an hour lost for my own work. Psychoanalysis, Miss Rousseau, is not accomplished in a few days. You must be prepared to stay in Vienna for a very substantial period.'

'But I — have no means, no work,' said Colette.

'That's your concern,' answered Freud, his sharpness surprising Younger. 'If I'm to treat your brother, I must have your word that you will remain in Vienna this time as long as it takes.'

'I'm sorry,' said Colette. 'I don't know.'

Freud rose slowly, went to the window, opened it. A fresh night breeze tousled his white hair. From the little courtyard below, where Count Oktavian's carriage waited, came the stamping and neighing of horses. Freud took a deep breath. 'So,' he said, his back to Younger and Colette. 'Have you ever dreamt, Fraulein, of a child being beaten?'

'I beg your pardon?' said Colette.

'Have you?'

Colette hesitated. 'How did you know that?'

'Sometimes without knowing who is doing the beating?'

'Yes,' said Colette.

'It is a surprisingly common dream in women who feel they should be punished for something,' said Freud. 'Well, it's clear you didn't come to Vienna specifically to have your brother see me. It follows you have some other business. Based on your remark to Younger in the foyer, I can only conclude that you are here to find and marry your fiancй, the one who was in jail the last time you were here. That would explain your uncertainty about whether or how long you will be in Vienna. You don't know where he lives now — perhaps not in Austria at all — is that it?'

Colette was astonished.

'It's all right,' Younger said to her. 'He does this sort of thing all the time.'

'The real mystery,' said Freud, 'is how you managed to persuade Younger, your fiancй's rival, to join you on such a journey. I must say I find that impressive — and puzzling.'

'You're not the only one,' said Younger.

'Well, none of this affects my position,' said Freud. 'In case, Fraulein, you decide you are serious about finding employment here, I'll give you the address of Vienna's Radium Institute. I'm told it is excellent, and they hire women without compunction. I'm also going to give you the name and address of an old friend, a neurologist.' A smile, brief and not cheerful, passed over Freud's face as he wrote them a note. 'He has a treatment for war neuroses far more expeditious than mine. I can't vouch for what he does, but many believe in it, and since you seem interested in attempting a quick cure for your brother, Miss Rousseau, it would be remiss on my part not to mention him. As for you, Younger, it's high time we settled our unfinished business. I have an hour free at eleven tomorrow morning. I'll see you then.'

'I told you he could be brusque,' said Younger as their carriage clopped down the cobblestoned Berggasse toward the Danube canal.

'He's so very sad,' answered Colette.

'Freud? Tired, I think,' replied Younger. 'And angry — I'm not sure why.'

'Pragmatic, I would have said,' reflected Oktavian, their coachman. 'Professional.'

'I've never seen such sad eyes,' said Colette.

'I didn't find them sad at all,' replied Younger.

'Ah, there, you must take me out of it,' declared Oktavian. 'I could hear him from the window, but I couldn't see his eyes.'

'That's because you never know what other people are feeling,' Colette said to Younger. 'It's a good thing you gave up psychology. You're like a blind man.'