The Death Instinct (30 page)

    '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 fiancé, 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 fiancé'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.'

Chapter Fourteen

    Among the grander edifices on Vienna's Ringstrasse was a five-story, pink-and-white confection of an apartment building, the first floor of which housed the elegant Café Landtmann. In the main salon of that coffeehouse, below a receding boulevard of crystal chandeliers, Younger met Freud at eleven the next morning. The head waiter had greeted Freud as if he knew him personally and guided them to a table at a window with elaborate drapery, through which they could see the magnificent state theater across the street.

    'So,' said Freud, taking a seat, 'do you know what I want to discuss with you?'

    'The Oedipus complex?' asked Younger.

    'Miss Rousseau.'

    'Why?'

    'Tell me first,' said Freud, 'what you thought of my old friend Jauregg,: the neurologist.'

    Younger, Colette, and Luc had visited Dr Julius Wagner-Jauregg in his university office earlier that morning. 'His treatment for war neurosis is electrocution,' said Younger.

    'Yes. His team reports considerable success. Was he surprised I had sent you?'

    'Very. He said you testified against him at a trial of some kind last week.'

    'On the contrary, I testified for him. There was an allegation that he had essentially tortured our soldiers into returning to the front. The government commissioned me to investigate. I reported that his use of electrotherapy had been perfectly ethical. I explained, of course, that only psychoanalysis could uncover the roots of shell shock and cure it, but that this was not yet known in 1914. My friend - and his many supporters - spent the rest of the hearing attempting to destroy the reputation of every psychoanalyst in Vienna.' A waiter brought them two small gold- rimmed demitasses of coffee and a basket of pastries. 'Foolish of me. I'd somehow forgotten how intense a hostility we still provoke. But never mind. Did he persuade you to attempt electrocution on the boy?'

    'He made a case for a single treatment at low voltage. He believes shell shock is a kind of short circuit inside the brain - and that a brief convulsive charge can clear the circuitry.'

    'I know. And since you disbelieve in psychology, you should be favorably inclined.'

    Younger pictured the confused and harrowed expressions he had seen in the faces of shell-shocked soldiers. The scientist in him knew that the cause of their suffering could indeed have been a cross-firing in their neural circuitry. But something in him rebelled at this diagnosis or at least at the treatment. At last he said, 'I don't believe there's anything wrong with the boy's brain.'

    'Ah - you think the problem is in his larynx?'

    'I doubt it,' said Younger.

    'Well, at least you have one thing right. What was Miss Rousseau's opinion? No, let me guess. She was distracted and had no firm opinion. She wanted you to decide.'

    'How did you know that?'

    'Would you say she is self-destructive?' asked Freud.

    'Not at all.'

    'Really? My impression was that you had a taste for such women.'

    'I make exceptions,' said Younger.

    'She's not attracted to abusive men?'

    'If you mean me, her attraction to abusive men is regrettably weak.'

    'I don't mean you,' said Freud.

    'Her fiancé - Gruber?'

    'The man is a convicted criminal.'

    Younger looked out the window. 'She only remembers a sweet, injured, devout soldier she knew in a hospital.'

    'A maternal affection? Not likely.' Freud stirred his coffee. A scowl came to his already deeply furrowed brow. 'Was I too severe with her last night?'

    'She can take it. Why were you severe?'

    Freud removed his glasses and wiped them clean with a handkerchief, lingering on each lens. 'She reminds me of my Sophie, my second-to-youngest,' he said. 'Beautiful, headstrong. Sophie became engaged at the age of nineteen. To a thirty-year-old photographer. It was as if she couldn't get out of the house fast enough. I believe I was taking out on Miss Rousseau an anger I harbor against Sophie for leaving us so soon.'

    'Sophie - she's the one who lives in Germany?'

    'She's the one who is dead.'

    Freud's spoon tapped the rim of his glass, repeatedly, unevenly.

    'I didn't know,' said Younger.

    'It happened last January. The flu. She was living in Berlin, she and her two little boys and her husband, whom I never treated as well as I should have. When we received word she was ill, there were no trains running - not even for an emergency. The next we heard, she was gone.' He took a deep breath. 'After that, fundamentally everything lost its meaning for me. To an unbeliever like myself, there can be no rationalizations in such circumstances. No justifications. Only mute submission. Blunt necessity. For several months, my own children - my other children - and their children -' Freud stopped, gathering himself - 'I could no longer bear the sight of them.'

    Outside, the Ring was in its full daytime bloom. Cars and streetcars rolled by. A charming carriage trotted past. A governess strolled with a perambulator.

    'Well, the intention that man be happy was never part of his creation,' said Freud. 'You will say it's superstition, but I have a foreboding about Miss Rousseau. What is her goal in coming to Vienna?'

    'You guessed it last night. This Gruber fellow was just released from prison.'

    'Come - you can't have forgotten all your psychology. What is her object?'

    'To see if he still loves her, I suppose. Or perhaps if she still loves him. She made a promise. She feels she has to keep it.'

    'Nonsense. I don't trust her motivation. Neither should you. Do you know what specifically her soldier was imprisoned for?'

    'No.'

    'I do. She told me herself - in tears, the day after you left Vienna last year. He beat up an old man. So at least the police say. I advised her that a ruffian who marches with the Anti-Semitic League was not a fit husband for her. I counseled her not to see him again. I thought she took my advice.'

    'Evidently she reconsidered,' said Younger.

    'There is a condition into which many young women fall. They attach themselves to violent men. They forgive any mistreatment. They think it love; it isn't. What they really want is to be punished for their sins, real and imagined - or for someone else's. There's something wrong with Miss Rousseau's attachment to this Gruber. I sense it. My advice to you is not to let her out of your sight. She's throwing herself into the arms of a criminal.'

    'Maybe he'll beat her, and she'll come to her senses.'

    Freud raised an eyebrow. Younger wondered if his own habit of doing so - raising a single brow - was copied from Freud. 'You feel,' said Freud, 'she's made her bed with this man, and you're inclined to let her sleep in it?'

    'I don't control where Miss Rousseau sleeps.'

    'You wish to see her punished - for choosing another man. You retaliate by letting her go.'

    'Letting her go? I crossed an ocean trying to change her mind.'

    'You can't change her mind. But you might be able to protect her.' 'From what?' asked Younger.

    'From this Gruber. From a decision she'll regret the rest of her life.'

    Younger, back at the Hotel Bristol, found a note waiting for him:

Dear Stratham:

I'm running to catch a train. I didn't go to the Radium Institute. I went to the prison, and they told me that Hans had left Vienna and gone to Braunau am Inn. I think it's his hometown. There's only one train a day for Braunau, and it leaves in half an hour. I expect to be back tomorrow. Luc is upstairs in my room. Please look after him. Some day I hope you'll understand.

Yours,

Colette

    Younger stared at the note a long time. He ran his hands through his hair. Then he had a messenger sent for Oktavian Kinsky, the aristocratic carriage driver.

    An hour later, Younger and Luc were waiting in the hotel lobby when Oktavian appeared, nattily dressed in the leather jacket and crisp cap customarily worn by chauffeurs of open-air automobiles. 'I know you wanted a motorcar, Monsieur,' said Oktavian, 'but this was the best I could do on short notice. Quite sufficient, however. I'll have you in Braunau in six hours.'

    He pointed outside, where, in front of the hotel, stood a gleaming motorcycle with polished chrome trim and an attached wood-paneled sidecar.

    'No good,' said Younger.

    Oktavian saw the problem: Luc was dressed for travel as well, and the sidecar would hold only one passenger. 'Is the young fellow coming? I didn't realize.'

    Younger walked outside. Oktavian and Luc followed him. 'The boy and I will go ourselves,' said Younger.

    'But the vehicle isn't mine,' Oktavian replied. 'I don't think-'

    'You'll have it back tomorrow. I guarantee it. I'll take this too, if you don't mind.' Younger relieved Oktavian of his leather jacket. 'And the cap.'

    'Oh, dear,' said Oktavian.

    The top of the sidecar had a hole in it for the passenger's torso. It opened into two leaves, revealing a cushioned seat and a small storage compartment. Younger fitted the leather jacket onto Luc, pulled the cap down over his ears, deposited him onto the seat, and closed the two leaves, locking them into place. Not long after, they were on the open road.

    As he drove, Younger taught Luc how to lean into the curves to increase their speed. The jacket and cap were comically oversized on the boy, but they kept him warm. Younger said nothing about the purpose behind their mission, and Luc didn't ask. All in all, it wasn't bad riding - until the rains came.

    The first crack of lightning split the sky in front of them without warning. A thunderclap rent the air immediately afterward, like a howitzer exploding directly over their heads. Luc seized Younger's arm in alarm. Younger momentarily lost control of the handlebar, the motorcycle swerving and nearly spinning out beneath him. When he'd straightened them out, Younger barked at the boy roughly. 'When you're scared,' he added, 'move slower, not faster.'

    The walled village of Braunau, on the river Inn, was quaint and utterly German in character, a mere stone's throw from Bavaria. Colorful pointed-roof houses adjoined one another in picturesque little town squares, all presided over by a high-steepled church. There was no railway station - just a platform and ticket booth.

    Younger pulled his motorcycle up to that platform in the gathering darkness. He wiped the grit from his eyes and the water from his forehead, wishing he'd had goggles. The trip hadn't taken six hours. It had taken ten - a combination of the rain slowing them down, the necessity of feeding Luc, and their getting lost on three different occasions. Younger opened the top of the sidecar and pulled Luc out; the interior was drenched, as was the boy.

    Younger asked the ticket agent if there were any blankets on hand. There were. Younger threw them to Luc, ordering him to take off his wet clothes and dry himself. 'The train from Vienna,' Younger said to the man. 'Has it come?'

    'Yes - two hours ago,' answered the agent.

    'Did you happen to see a girl, dark hair, traveling by herself, get off that train?'

    'French?' asked the agent.

    'Yes.'

    'Very beautiful?'

    'That's her.'

    'Nein.'

    Younger waited; no further information came. 'What do you mean,
nein
?' he asked.

    'I wasn't here when the Vienna train arrived, Mein Herr,' said the man. 'But your fraulein must have been on it. I sold her a ticket.'

    'A ticket where?'

    'She bought a one-way on the night train to Prague. No baggage. You only just missed her; the train left less than an hour ago. Most unusual. Imagine, a girl like that traveling at night by herself.'

    Younger ran his hands through his hair. 'I'm looking for a Hans Gruber. Do you know where he lives? Or his family?'

    Younger found the house the ticket agent had described to him - a small, fenced, rustic affair, clean but dilapidated. The roof looked like it might collapse at any moment. A thick-set, hard-eyed old woman answered the door.

    'Frau Gruber?' asked Younger.

    'Yes,' she said. 'What do you want?'

    'I'm a friend of Hans's.'

    'Liar.' The old woman's voice was both shrewish and shrewd. The sight of the blanket-wrapped boy at Younger's side did nothing to soften her. 'Go away. He's not here. He's in Vienna.'

    She tried to shut the door, but Younger stopped her. 'That's not what you told the girl,' he said. 'You told her Prague.'

    She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. The old yellow teeth broke into a nasty laugh. 'You think I don't know what he'll do with her? I know his tricks. He'll take the shirt from her back. He'll make her whore for him and throw her in the rubbish bin when she's used up. Just like all the others.'