The Interpretation Of Murder (9 page)

    In the open-roofed car, rattling down
Broadway, Ferenczi asked me if it was normal in America to eat a melange of
apples, nuts, celery, and mayonnaise. Rose Brill had evidently served her
guests a Waldorf salad.

    Freud had fallen silent. He appeared
to be brooding. I wondered if Brill's comments were troubling him; I myself had
begun to think something might be wrong with Jung. I also wondered what Freud
meant when he said that Jung was more important than the rest of us put
together.

    'Brill is a paranoiac,' Ferenczi said
abruptly, addressing Freud. 'It is nothing.'

    'The paranoid is never entirely
mistaken,' Freud replied. 'Did you hear Jung's slip?'

    'What slip?' said Ferenczi.

    'His slip of the tongue,' answered
Freud. 'He said, "America will ban you" - not
us
but
you.'

    Freud relapsed into silence. We took
Broadway all the way down to Union Square, then Fourth Avenue to the Bowery
Road through the Lower East Side. As we passed the closed stalls of the Hester
Street market, we had to slow down. Although it was nearly eleven, Jewish men
crowded the streets, wearing their long beards and peculiar outfits, black from
head to foot. Perhaps it was too hot to sleep in the airless, crammed tenements
in which so many of the city's immigrants lived. The Jews walked arm in arm or
gathered in small circles, with much gesturing and loud disputation. The sound
of their mongrel low German, which the Hebrews call Yiddish, was everywhere.

    'So this is the New World,' Freud
observed from the front seat, not favorably. 'Why on earth would they come so
far, only to recreate what they left behind?'

    I hazarded a question: 'Are you not a
religious man, Dr Freud?'

    It was infelicitous. At first I thought
he hadn't heard me. Ferenczi answered instead: 'It depends on what is meant by
religious.
If, for example, religious means believing God is gigantic illusion inspired by
collective Oedipal complex, Freud is very religious.'

    Freud now fixed on me for the first
time the piercing gaze I had seen on the quay. 'I will tell you your thought
process in asking me that,' he said. 'I asked why these Jews had come here. It
occurred to you to say
They came for religious freedom,
but you
reconsidered, because it seemed too obvious. You then reflected that if I, a
Jew, could not see that they came for religious freedom, it must be that
religion does not signify much for me - indeed, so little that I failed to see
how important it is for them. Hence your question. Do I have it right'

    'Completely,' I replied.

    'Not to worry,' interposed Ferenczi.
'He does this to everyone.'

    'So. You ask me a direct question,'
said Freud; 'I will give you a direct answer. I am the deepest of unbelievers. Every
neurosis is a religion to its owner, and religion is the universal neurosis of
mankind. This much is beyond doubt: the characteristics we attribute to God
reflect the fears and wishes we first feel as infants and then as small
children. Anyone who does not see that much cannot have understood the first
thing about human psychology. If it is religion you are looking for, do not
follow me.'

    'Freud, you are being unfair,' said
Ferenczi. 'Younger did not say he was looking for religion.'

    'The boy has taken an interest in my
ideas; he may as well know their implications.' Freud scrutinized me. All at
once, the severity disappeared, and he gave me an almost fatherly look. 'And as
I may possibly take an interest in
his,
I return the question: are you a
religious man, Younger?'

    To my embarrassment, I did not know
how to respond. 'My father was,' I said.

    'You answer a question,' Ferenczi
replied, 'different from the one that was put.'

    'But I understand him,' said Freud.
'He means: because his father believed, he is inclined to doubt.'

    'That's true,' I said.

    'But he also wonders,' Freud added,
'whether a doubt so founded is a good doubt. Which inclines him to believe.'

    I could only stare. Ferenczi asked my
question. 'How can you possibly know that?'

    'It all follows,' answered Freud,
'from what he told us last night: that going into medicine was his father's
wish, not his own. And besides,' he added, taking a satisfied pull at his
cigar, 'I felt the same way when I was younger.'

    With its grand marble facade, Greek
pediments, and fantastic dome, softly lit by streedamps, the new police
headquarters at 240 Centre Street looked more like a palace than a municipal
building. Passing through a pair of massive oak doors, we found a uniformed man
behind a semicircular desk raised up to chest level. Electrical lights cast a
yellow glow around him. He cranked up a telephonic device, and soon enough we
were greeted by Mayor McClellan, together with an older, worried-looking,
potbellied gentleman named Higginson, who turned out to be the Actons' family
doctor.

    Shaking each of us by the hand,
McClellan apologized to Freud profusely for causing him so dreadful an
inconvenience. 'Younger tells me you are also an expert on ancient Rome. I will
give you my book on Venice. But I must take you upstairs. Miss Acton is in the
most lamentable condition.'

    The mayor led us up a marble
staircase. Dr Higginson talked a good deal about the measures he had taken -
none of which sounded harmful, so we had some luck there. We entered a large
office in the classic style, with leather chairs, a good deal of brass, and an
imposing desk. Behind this desk, looking much too small for it, a girl was
seated, wrapped in a light blanket, with a policeman on either side of her.

    McClellan was correct: she was in a
pitiable state. She had been crying hard; her face was horribly red and swollen
from it. Her long blond hair was loose and matted. She looked up at us with the
largest, most fearful eyes I have ever seen - fearful and distrustful.

    'We've been at it every which way,'
McClellan declared. 'She is able to tell us, by writing, everything that
happened before and after. But as to the - ah - incident itself, she remembers
nothing.' Next to the girl were sheets of paper and a pen.

    The mayor introduced us. The girl's
name was Nora. He explained that we were special doctors who, he hoped, would
be able to help her recover her voice and her memory. He spoke to her as if she
were a child of seven, perhaps confusing her speaking difficulty with a
difficulty in understanding, although one could tell instantly from her eyes
that she had no impairment on that score. Predictably, the entrance of three
more strange new men had the effect of overwhelming the girl. Tears came to her
eyes, but she held them back. She actually wrote an apology to us, as if she
were at fault for her amnesia.

    'Please proceed, gentlemen,' said
McClellan.

    Freud wanted first to rule out a
physiological basis for her symptoms. 'Miss Acton,' he said, 'I would like to
be sure you have not suffered an injury to your head. Will you permit me?' The
girl nodded. After making a thorough inspection, Freud concluded, 'There is no
cranial injury of any kind.'

    'Damage to the larynx could cause
aphonia,' I remarked, referring to the girl's loss of voice.

    Freud nodded and invited me, by
gesture, to examine the girl myself.

    Approaching Miss Acton, I felt
inexplicably nervous. I could not identify the source of this anxiety; I seemed
to be afraid that I would appear to Freud as inexperienced, yet I had performed
examinations infinitely more complicated - and these in front of my professors
at Harvard - without any such unease. I explained to Miss Acton that it was
important to determine whether a physical injury might be causing her inability
to speak. I asked if she would take my hand and place it on her neck in such a
way as to minimize her own discomfort. I held my hand out, two fingers
extended. Reluctantly, she conducted it toward her throat, placing my fingers,
however, on her collarbone. I asked her to lift her head. She complied, and as
I ran my fingers up her throat to the larynx, I noticed, despite her injuries,
the soft, perfect lines of her neck and chin, which might have been carved in
marble by Bernini. When I applied pressure to various points, she squinted but
did not draw back. 'There is no evidence of laryngeal trauma,' I reported.

    Miss Acton looked even more
mistrustful now than when we first came in. I didn't blame her. It can be more
upsetting for a person to find out there isn't anything physically wrong with
her than to find out there is. At the same time, she was without her family,
surrounded by strange men. She seemed to be assessing us all, one by one.

    'My dear,' Freud said to her, 'you
are anxious about the loss of your memory and your voice. You need not be.

    Amnesia after such an incident is not
uncommon, and I have seen loss of speech many times. Where there is no
permanent physical injury - and you have none - I have always succeeded in
eliminating both conditions. Now: I am going to ask you some questions, but
none about what happened to you today. I want you to tell me only how you are
at this moment. Would you care for something to drink?' She nodded gratefully;
McClellan sent out one of the officers, who returned shortly with a cup of tea.
In the meantime, Freud engaged the girl in conversation - he speaking, she
writing - but only on the most general of facts, such as, for example, that she
was to be a freshwoman at Barnard starting next month. In the end, she wrote
that she was sorry she could not answer the policemen's questions, and she
wanted to go home.

    Freud indicated that he wished to
speak with us outside the girl's hearing. This prompted a grave trooping of men

    Freud, Mayor McClellan, Ferenczi, Dr
Higginson, and I

    to the far corner of the spacious
office, where Freud asked, in a very low voice, 'Was she violated?'

    'No, thank God,' whispered McClellan.

    'But her wounds,' said Higginson,
'are conspicuously concentrated around her - private parts.' He cleared his
throat. 'Apart from her back, it seems she was whipped repeatedly about her
buttocks and - ah - pelvis. In addition, she was cut once on each of her thighs
with a sharp knife or razor.'

    'What kind of monster does such a
thing?' McClellan asked.

    'The question is why it doesn't
happen more often,' replied Freud quietly. 'Satisfying a savage instinct is
incomparably more pleasurable than satisfying a civilized one. In any event,
the best course of action tonight is certainly inaction. I am not convinced her
amnesia is hysterical. Severe asphyxiation could bring about the same effect.
On the other hand, she is plainly suffering from some deep self- reproach. She
should sleep. She may wake up asymptomatic. If her symptoms persist, analysis
will be in order.'

    'Self-reproach?' asked McClellan.

    'Guilt,' said Ferenczi. 'The girl is
suffering not only from attack but from guilt she feels in connection with it.'

    'Why on earth would she feel guilt?'
asked the mayor.

    'There are many possible reasons,'
said Freud. 'But an element of self-reproach is almost invariable in cases of
sexual assault on the young. She has already twice apologized to us for her
memory loss. Her voice loss is more puzzling.'

    'Sodomized, perhaps?' asked Ferenczi
in a whisper. '
Per os
'

    'Great God,' McClellan interjected,
also whispering. 'Is that possible?'

    'It is possible,' Freud answered,
'but not likely. If an oral penetration were the source of her symptoms, her
inability to use her mouth would be expected to extend to taking
in.
But
you will notice she drank her tea without difficulty. Indeed, that is why I
asked if she was thirsty.'

    We contemplated this momentarily.
McClellan spoke again, no longer whispering. 'Dr Freud, forgive my ignorance,
but does her memory of the event still exist, or has it been, so to speak,
wiped out?'

    'Assuming hysterical amnesia, the
memory certainly exists,' Freud answered. 'It is the cause.'

    'The memory is the cause of the
amnesia?' McClellan asked.

    'The memory of the attack - along
with the deeper recollections rekindled by it - is unacceptable. Therefore she
has repressed it, producing the appearance of an amnesia.'

    'Deeper recollections?' repeated the
mayor. 'I don't follow you.'

    'An episode of the kind this girl has
undergone,' said Freud, 'however brutal, however terrible, will not at her age
ordinarily cause amnesia. The victim remembers, provided she is otherwise
healthy. But where the victim has suffered another,- earlier traumatic episode
- so traumatic the memory of it had to be wholly suppressed from consciousness
- an attack can bring about amnesia, because the fresh attack cannot be remembered
without also triggering recollections of the older episode, which her
consciousness cannot allow.'

    'Good Lord,' said the mayor.

    'What is to be done?' asked
Higginson.

    'Can you cure her?' the mayor cut in.
'She is the only one who can give us a description of her assailant.'

    'Hypnosis?' Ferenczi suggested.

    'I advise strongly against it,' said
Freud. 'It would not help her, and memories yielded under hypnosis are not
reliable.'

    'What of this - this
analysis,
as you call it?' the mayor asked.

    'We could begin as early as
tomorrow,' Freud replied. 'But I should warn you: psychoanalysis is an
intensive treatment. The patient must be seen daily, for at least an hour each
day.'

    'I see no difficulty there,' declared
McClellan. 'The question is what to do with Miss Acton tonight.' The girl's
parents, summering at their house in the Berkshire country, could not be
reached. Higginson suggested calling on some friends of the family, but the
mayor said it wouldn't do. 'Acton will not want word of the episode to get out.
People might believe the girl has been permanently injured.'

    Miss Acton almost certainly overheard
the last comment. I saw her now writing a new note for us. I went to her and
received it;
I want to go home,
it said.
Now.

    McClellan immediately told the girl
he could not allow it. Criminals had been known, he warned her, to return to
the scene of their crime. The assailant might be keeping watch over her house
even now. Fearing that she could identify him, he might believe his only hope
of escaping justice was to take her life. Returning to Gramercy Park was
therefore out of the question, at least until her father was back in town to
assure her safety. At this, Miss Acton's face changed again and she made a
gesture with her hands, expressing an emotion I could not identify.

    'I have it,' McClellan announced.
Miss Acton, he said, would be taken to the Hotel Manhattan, where we were
staying. The mayor himself would pay for her rooms. She would be settled there
along with Mrs Biggs, the old housekeeper, who could see to it that proper
attire and other necessaries were sent up from Gramercy Park. Miss Acton would
stay at the hotel until her parents returned from the country. This arrangement
would be not only the safest but the most convenient for purposes of commencing
her treatment.

    'There is a further difficulty,' said
Freud. 'Psychoanalysis requires from the doctor a substantial commitment of
time. Obviously I cannot make such a commitment. Neither can my colleague Dr
Ferenczi. What about you, Younger? Will you take her on?'

    Freud saw by my hesitation that I
wished to respond privately to him. He drew me aside.

    'It should be Brill,' I said, 'not
me.'

    Freud fixed me again with the look that
could bore into rock. He replied quietly, 'I have no doubt of your abilities,
my boy; your case history proves them. I want you to take her on.'

    It was simultaneously an order I
could not disobey and an expression of confidence whose effect on me I cannot
describe. I agreed.

    'Good,' he said aloud. 'She is yours.
I will supervise as long as I remain in America, but Dr Younger will perform
the analysis. Assuming, of course,' he added, turning toward Miss Acton, 'that
our patient is as willing as we are.'