great sexual pleasure. He recalled as a child surprising his parents’ housekeeper, a woman of loose morals, in the act of kissing some watercress, which he found erotic. As a teen-ager he was punished for varnishing his brother’s head, although his father, a house painter by trade, was more upset over the fact he gave the boy only one coat.

“V. attacked his first woman at eighteen, and thereafter raped half a dozen per week for years. The best I was able to do with him in therapy was to substitute a more socially acceptable habit to replace his aggressive tendencies; and thereafter when he chanced upon an unsuspecting female, instead of assaulting her, he would produce a large halibut from his jacket and show it to her. While the sight of it caused consternation in some, the women were spared any violence and some even confessed their lives were immeasurably enriched by the experience.”

April 12: This time Helmholtz was not feeling too well. He had gotten lost in a meadow the previous day and fallen down on some pears. He was confined to bed, but sat upright and even laughed when I told him I had an abscess.

We discussed his theory of reverse-psychology, which came to him shortly after Freud’s death. (Freud’s death, according to Ernest Jones, was the event that caused the final break between Helmholtz and Freud, and the two rarely spoke afterwards.)

At the time, Helmholtz had developed an experiment where he would ring a bell and a team of white mice would escort Mrs. Helmholtz out the door and deposit her on the curb. He did many such behavioristic experiments and only stopped when a dog trained to salivate on cue refused to let him in the house for the holidays. He is, incidentally, still credited with the classic paper on “Unmotivated Giggling in Caribou.”

“Yes, I founded the school of reverse psychology. Quite by accident, in fact. My wife and I were both comfortably tucked in bed when I suddenly desired a drink of water. Too lazy to get it myself, I asked Mrs. Helmholtz to get it for me. She refused, saying she was exhausted from lifting chick peas. We argued over who should get it. Finally, I said, ‘I don’t really want a glass of water anyhow. In fact, a glass of water is the last thing in the world I want.’ At that, the woman sprang up and said, ‘Oh, you don’t want water, eh? That’s too bad.’ And she quickly left bed and got me some. I tried to discuss the incident with Freud at the analysts’ outing in Berlin, but he and Jung were partners in the three-legged race and were too wrapped up in the festivities to listen.

“Only years later did I find a way to utilize this principle in the treatment of depression, and was able to cure the great opera singer, J, of the morbid apprehension he would one day wind up in a hamper.”

April 18: Arrived to find Helmholtz trimming some rose bushes. He was quite eloquent on the beauty of flowers, which he loves because “they’re not always borrowing money.”

We talked about contemporary psychoanalysis, which Helmholtz regards as a myth kept alive by the couch industry.

“These modern analysts! They charge so much. In my day, for five marks Freud himself would treat you. For ten marks, he would treat you and press your pants. For fifteen marks, Freud would let you treat him, and that included a choice of any two vegetables. Thirty dollars an hour! Fifty dollars an hour! The Kaiser only got twelve and a quarter for being Kaiser! And he had to walk to work! And the length of treatment! Two years! Five years! If one of us couldn’t cure a patient in six months we would refund his money, take him to any musical revue and he would receive either a mahogany fruit bowl or a set of stainless steel carving knives. I remember you could always tell the patients Jung failed with, as he would give them large stuffed pandas.”

We strolled along the garden path and Helmholtz turned to other subjects of interest. He was a veritable spate of insights and I managed to preserve some by jotting them down.

On the human condition: “If man were immortal, do you realize what his meat bills would be?”

On religion: “I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.”

On literature: “All literature is a footnote to Faust. I have no idea what I mean by that.”

I am convinced Helmholtz is a very great man.

Viva Vargas!

Excerpts from the Diary of a Revolutionary

June 3: Viva Vargas! Today we took to the hills. Outraged and disgusted at the exploitation of our little country by the corrupt Arroyo regime, we sent Julio to the palace with a list of our grievances and demands, none hastily arrived at nor, in my opinion, excessive. As it turned out, Arroyo’s busy schedule did not include taking time away from being fanned to meet with our beloved rebel emissary, and instead he referred the entire matter to his minister, who said he would give our petitions his full consideration, but first he just wanted to see how long Julio could smile with his head under molten lava.

Because of many indignations such as this one, we have at last, behind the inspired leadership of Emilio Molina Vargas, decided to take matters into our own hands. If this be treason, we yelled on street corners, let us make the most of it.

I was, unfortunately, lolling in a hot tub when word arrived that the police would be by shortly to hang me. Bounding from my bath with understandable alacrity, I stepped on a wet bar of soap and cascaded off the front patio, luckily breaking the fall with my teeth, which skidded around the ground like loose Chiclets. Though naked and bruised, survival dictated I act quickly, and mounting El Diablo, my stallion, I gave the rebel yell! The horse reared and I slid down his back to the ground, fracturing certain small bones.

Were all this not devastating enough, I scarcely got twenty feet by foot when I remembered my printing press, and not wanting to leave behind such a potent political weapon or piece of evidence, I doubled back to retrieve it. As luck would have it, the thing weighed more than it looked, and lifting it was a job more suited to a derrick than a hundred-and-ten-pound college student. When the police arrived, my hand was caught in the machinery as it roared uncontrollably, reprinting large passages of Marx down my bare back. Don’t ask me how I managed to tear loose and vault out a back window. Luckily I eluded the police and made my way to safety in Vargas’ camp.

June 4: How peaceful it is here in the hills. Living out under the stars. A group of dedicated men all working toward a common goal. Although I had anticipated a say in the actual planning of the campaigns, Vargas felt my services might better be employed as company cook. This is not an easy job with foodstuffs scarce, but somebody has to do it and, all things considered, my first meal was a big hit. True, not all the men are terribly partial to Gila monster but we can’t be choosy, and apart from some picayune eaters who are prejudiced against any reptile, dinner came off without incident.

I overheard Vargas today and he is quite sanguine about our prospects. He feels we will gain control of the capital sometime in December. His brother, Luis, on the other hand, an introspective man by nature, feels it is only a question of time before we starve to death. The Vargas brothers constantly bicker over military strategy and political philosophy, and it is hard to imagine that these two great rebel chieftains were only last week a couple of men’s room attendants at the local Hilton. Meanwhile, we wait.

June 10: Spent the day drilling. How miraculously we are being changed from a scruffy band of guerrillas to a hard-core army. This morning Hernandez and I practiced using machetes, our razor-sharp sugar-cane knives, and due to a burst of overzealousness by my partner, I found out I had type-O blood. The worst thing is the waiting. Arturo has a guitar but can only play “Cielito Lindo,” and while

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