Vienna Blood

71

AT FIRST, LIEBERMANN HAD been uncertain about the legitimacy of the professor's interpretation. Freud's growing tendency to postulate a sexual origin for all forms of psychopathology had not gone unnoticed. Indeed, Liebermann had once overheard a visiting professor describing Freud as suffering from an incipient sexual monomania. Still, the more Liebermann considered Freud's interpretation, the more he found it easier to entertain. Did it require such a leap of imagination to connect a disturbance in the faculty of love with a repressed sexual trauma?

“Do you think dreams have meaning, Herr Beiber?”

“I'm sure they do. Particularly when they are associated with strong feelings.”

“Like your wolf dream.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“In which case, what do you think your wolf dream means?”

“I don't know. But, as I have already suggested, it may have been influenced by a supernatural presence.”

“You say that because you heard the breathing, the panting on other occasions?”

“Yes.”

Liebermann leaned forward and scrutinized his supine patient.

“What if this dream was a memory?”

Herr Beiber frowned.

“There are mechanisms in the mind,” Liebermann continued, “that function to keep distressing memories out of awareness. Subsequently, these memories are pushed down, or repressed. But they do not thereby become inactive-they are merely dormant. When we sleep, the repressive mechanism weakens and they can rise up again. It is supposed that there is a censor in the mind that struggles to distort these memories in order to make them less distressing so that sleep may continue. Sometimes the censor works, sometimes it is partially successful, and sometimes it fails. The fact that you were awakened by your dream suggests that it represents a particularly traumatic memory. The kind of memory that would overwhelm the mind of a young child.”

Liebermann paused, allowing Herr Beiber to consider his account. He could see that his patient was thinking. The clerk's bushy ginger-yellow eyebrows were still knotted together.

“Go on,” said Herr Beiber.

“You were a sickly child. Consequently, you slept in your parents’ bedroom beyond infancy. It is possible that you saw things…”

With great care and sensitivity, Liebermann presented Freud's interpretation of the wolf dream to his patient. When he had finished, a long silence prevailed. Herr Beiber's index finger tapped the gelatinous mass of his stomach, producing a continuous ripple of flesh beneath the cotton gown.

“A memory, you say… a traumatic memory.” Herr Beiber spoke the words softly.

“To a child, much of the behavior of adults must appear strange and disconcerting… but what you witnessed must have been terrifying. Nevertheless, you have made the transition to adulthood yourself now-you have nothing to fear anymore.”

Beiber's finger stopped tapping.

“If you were to form a relationship,” Liebermann continued, “with a woman-an ordinary woman: a typist in your office, a shopgirl, a seamstress, who knows?-but a woman whom you might one day realistically marry, then I suspect that your feelings for Archduchesss Marie-Valerie would soon diminish.”

Herr Beiber bit his lip.

“The process of psychoanalysis is one of reclamation,” Liebermann continued. “Once we have insight, we can recover the life that we have lost. What was previously jealously guarded by the unconscious mind becomes conscious-the irrational is superseded by the rational. Should you choose, one day, to enter the conjugal bedroom, remember that you will do so as a man-not as a confused, frightened child.”

For the first time since the beginning of Herr Beiber's analysis, the accountancy clerk was subdued. There were no chirpy retorts or flights of fancy. No florid proclamations of undying, transcendent love. It was as though Liebermann had planted a seed that had already begun to take root. He was reminded of the common sight of a sapling emerging from a cracked paving stone. It was remarkable how something so fragile, so delicate, could eventually pry heavy slabs apart. Yet this was exactly how psychoanalysis worked: the small seed of insight growing, developing, acquiring strength, and, in due course, shattering the rigid carapace of psychopathology.

Outside, a church bell struck the hour.

“Herr Beiber.” Their time together had expired, but Liebermann could not let his patient leave before asking him one more question. “In a previous session, you mentioned an incident involving a cellist. You tried to get him to play an aubade outside the Schonbrunn Palace. Do you remember?”

“Yes. What of it?” Beiber's response was rather tetchy, as if he resented having his thoughts disturbed.

“You said,” continued Liebermann, “that he was an odd fellow. You said that there was… something about him.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. What did you mean?”

Herr Beiber was still distracted. “A traumatic memory,” he whispered.

“Herr Beiber?” Liebermann raised his voice. “The cellist. You said he was odd-there was something about him. What did you mean?”

The accountancy clerk disengaged from his thoughts and his brow relaxed. “His face, I suppose.”

“What about it?”

“Well… This may seem uncharitable, and I recognize that I am far from perfect myself, but this poor chap-why, he looked like a frog!”

At that precise moment someone rapped on the door.

“Come in,” Liebermann called out.

Kanner's head appeared around the door frame. “Max?”

Liebermann rose and went over to his friend. “What is it?”

Kanner lowered his voice. “A young man from the security office has just arrived-by the name of Haussmann? He says it's a matter of some urgency. Something about having found Salieri? One of your Italian patients, perhaps?”