Mortal Mischief

her voice.

'No,' said Liebermann firmly, 'she can't. There is a part of her mind – the unconscious part – which can move her arm. But that is not the part of her mind that corresponds with her daily thoughts, emotions, and perceptions.'

'Oh, it all sounds so . . . so . . .' Clara waved a chunk of apple on the end of her pastry fork.

'Complicated?' said Liebermann.

'Yes.'

'Well, I suppose it is.'

Clara smirked and offered Liebermann the piece of impaled apple. Glancing around to ensure that no one was looking, he thrust his head forward and took the glistening fruit into his mouth. His indecorous behaviour seemed to make Clara absurdly happy. She beamed like a naughty child who had just escaped punishment.

'And how is Doctor Kanner now?'

'Oh, Stefan is in excellent health.'

'Is he still pursuing that singer – what's her name?'

'Cora. No.'

Clara lowered her head and looked up with doleful supplicatory eyes.

'She was very pretty . . .'

Liebermann knew that a diplomatic response was required, and suppressing the urge to laugh replied in an offhand manner: 'I did not find her especially attractive.'

His words had the desired effect. Clara's face beamed again and she promptly offered him another chunk of apple. This time he declined.

The rain continued to patter against the window with patient determination. A tram rattled by, arcing around the phantom horseman.

'She's English, you say?'

'Who?'

'This patient of yours.'

'Yes.'

'They're rather odd, don't you think, the English?'

'In what way?'

'Lacking in warmth.'

'Sometimes . . . but when you get to know them they're much the same as us. I made some very good friends while I was staying in London.'

'Frau Frischmuth employed an English nursemaid last year . . .'

'And?'

'They didn't get on at all.'

Liebermann shrugged.

At the far end of an adjacent road, the ornate green dome of the Karlskirche shimmered in the distance like a fairy-tale palace. The pianist, who had previously been playing some unsophisticated waltzes, began a rendition of Schumann's Traumerei. It was delightful: innocent, wistful, almost veering into sadness but somehow resisting at the last moment as each inventive chord melted into the next. The music floated in the air like incense, wafting and lulling the mind into an opiate languor. Liebermann's fingers automatically shadowed the melody on the marble table top.

Surfacing from his reverie, Liebermann became aware that Clara was pressing her knee against his. He looked at her, and for a moment her confidence stalled. She blushed and looked away, but then, recovering her sense of purpose, allowed his leg to slip between hers. They maintained contact for a few seconds, and then simultaneously disengaged.

'Do you know what this is?' asked Liebermann, smiling.

'Yes,' said Clara. 'It's the piece about dreaming . . . by Robert Schumann.'

'And what are you dreaming of?'

'Can't you guess, Maxim?'

The look she gave him was little short of indecent.

18

'So,'

SAID PROFESSOR FREUD. 'Two Jews meet outside the bathhouse.

Have you taken a bath already? asks one.

How come? says the other.

Is one missing?'

Liebermann laughed, although more at Professor Freud's delivery than at the joke itself. Freud had adopted a pronounced Yiddisher accent and had chosen to end the joke with a fixed gesture, hands raised, a grotesque parody of the mannerisms of Eastern Jewry.

'Let me tell you another,' said Freud. 'A young man goes to the matchmaker, and the matchmaker asks: What kind of bride do you want?

The young man replies: She must be beautiful, she must be rich, and she must be clever.

Fine, says the matchmaker. But I make that three wives.'

Freud stubbed out his cigar, and was unsuccessful in his attempt to stop a reticent smile from turning into a wheezy chuckle that continued for some time. He was looking very well, Liebermann thought. Indeed, Freud had been much happier since February – when, finally, after many years of unjustified delay he had been distinguished with the all-important title of Professor Extraordinarius. It was odd that a man whose advancement had been obstructed because of anti-Semitism should be so fond of Jewish jokes, many of which portrayed Jews in a less than flattering light. But then, Professor Freud was a complex man, and Liebermann was disinclined to analyse the father of psychoanalysis. There was only one individual equipped to embark on such a daunting enterprise, and that was Freud himself.

As Freud's chuckling petered out, he raised a finger.

'One more. Then I'll stop.'

'As you wish,' replied Liebermann.

'How do we know that Jesus was Jewish?' asked Freud.

'I don't know,' said Liebermann. 'How do we know that Jesus was Jewish?'

'He lived at home until he was thirty, he went into his father's business, and his mother thought he was God!'

This time Liebermann burst out into genuine laughter. 'Why have you started collecting jokes?' he asked.

'I haven't started. I've been collecting them for years. I'm thinking of writing a book about them.'

'Jokes?'

'Yes. Jokes. It is my belief that jokes, like dreams and slips of the tongue, reveal the operation of the unconscious.'

The professor lit another cigar. It was his third since Liebermann had arrived, and the study was thick with smoke. Some hung like a dense fog around the feet of the ancient figurines on Freud's desk. From Liebermann's point of view, Freud's collection looked like a mythic army emerging from a primal swamp.

'Are you sure I can't interest you in another?' asked Freud, pushing the box of cigars across the desktop. 'They're very good, you know. Cuban.'

'Thank you, Herr Professor. But one was quite enough.'

Freud looked at Liebermann as though his reluctance to take another cigar was completely beyond comprehension.

'My boy,' said Freud, 'I consider smoking to be one of the greatest – and cheapest – enjoyments in life.' He