He did as he was told and his mother sat back down on the sofa beside him.
“I'm sorry, Mother-really I am.” Rebecca Liebermann shrugged, made an ambiguous gesture with her hand, and picked a speck of fluff from her son's trousers. “How did you hear?”
“Jacob spoke to your father.”
“Ah…”
“He's furious. When I left Concordiaplatz, he was threatening to disown you.”
Liebermann swallowed. “Did Herr Weiss mention Clara?”
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
“They're sending her away with her Aunt Trudi for a while.”
“Where?”
“I don't know-just away.”
“I wanted to see her, but Herr Weiss forbade it.”
“Can you blame him?”
Liebermann shook his head. “All I wanted was to behave honorably-that's all.” Liebermann fingered a loose button on his jacket. “Months ago, you asked me whether she was really the onewhether I really loved her. I thought I did, but I was wrong. I don't love Clara-well, at least, not like I should. I didn't know that then, but I know it now. And if we had gone ahead with the marriage, it would have been a bad marriage. A marriage based on a lie. What possible good could have come of that? I wasn't only thinking of myself-I was thinking of Clara too.”
Rebecca stopped her son from worrying the button on his jacket. “Leave it alone-it'll come off.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed his long, elegant fingers. “I had my suspicions.”
“You did?”
“Mother's intuition. I know you think I'm a silly old fool when I say such things, but it exists, whether you like it or not.”
Liebermann looked into his mother's eyes. They were glinting, but there were no tears.
“What shall I do about Father?”
“Stay away from him-for a while. He's writing you a letter. Ignore it-he's upset, that's all. You know what he's like. And if you do respond, remember that he's your father. I'll do what I can.”
Rebecca tucked a stray strand of her son's hair behind his ear-one of her tics that Liebermann found most irritating (but which he was now content to forgive)-and stood up abruptly.
“I've got to go,” said Rebecca. “It's late. Your father didn't want me to come in the first place.”
“But we've hardly spoken-and you've been waiting here all evening.”
“It doesn't matter… I've seen you. That's enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“All that education, and sometimes you still don't understand anything.” On her way to the door she paused by the Bosendorfer. “I never get to hear you play these days. I used to love listening to you play.”
65
STEFAN KANNER AND PROFESSOR Pallenberg were standing in an attic room of the General Hospital. A rope, one end of which disappeared into an elaborate winching device, had been thrown over a central support beam. The exposed mechanism of the winch consisted of several large wooden cogs, a central drum, and a low crank handle. The other end of the rope formed a noose that had been pulled tightly around the feet of a middle- aged man who was now suspended upside down approximately five feet from the floor. He was wearing a restraining jacket of brown canvas. The flesh on his face had been redistributed by gravity, creating a unique expression that married the inscrutability of a Japanese Buddha with the comedic painted lineaments of a clown, and his hair hung straight down. The scene was lit by a thin pasty light that seeped apologetically through a narrow window.
“Well?” said Professor Pallenberg.
“I must confess that I am not familiar with this particular”Kanner hesitated, bit his lower lip, and finally forced out the word“treatment.”
“No,” said Pallenberg. “It is largely unknown to students of your generation.”
The patient rotated clockwise, slowing by degrees to a perfect standstill. After a moment of stillness, the rope began to unwind and the hanging man turned in the opposite direction. The restraining jacket gave him the appearance of a giant pupa.
“As you know,” Pallenberg went on, “Herr Auger has not responded to conservative treatments-particularly morphia and veronal-and I thought it time to try a different approach… something that I remembered from my student days in Paris.”
“Suspension is a French treatment?”
“Indeed. I am one of a select company of Viennese doctors who had the pleasure of studying under Charcot at the Salpetriere. Do you know Professor Freud?”
“Not personally.”
“He was another. A great man, Charcot. The Napoleon of the neuroses.”
“I have read some of Professor Freud's translations. But I have never come across this specific”-he found himself hesitating again“therapy.”
“Well, that isn't surprising. Charcot's pioneering work using hypnosis as a treatment for la grande hysterie has somewhat eclipsed his other contributions. In my estimation, iron-filing ingestion and suspension in harness are two original interventions that have been sadly neglected.”
“Might I ask,” said Kanner tentatively, “how suspension works?”
“Well,” Pallenberg replied, “Charcot proposed certain theories that-to be frank-are not compelling. But I always suspected that his work in this domain merited further consideration. I remember the case of an engineer who suffered from delusions of persecution and who benefited greatly from suspension. Then there was a sailor who believed that one of his legs had been amputated while he slept somewhere off the coast of Portugal… I have long since wondered whether certain forms of delusion-among which we must include the Cotard-are caused by an abnormality of circulation. Perhaps Charcot achieved these successes because suspension had some subtle effect on the course of arterial blood flow in the brain. It is my earnest hope that Herr Auger will be the beneficiary of such a process.”
“Could a similar effect not be achieved by encouraging Herr Auger to lie in bed with his feet raised on some pillows?”
Professor Pallenberg shook his head. “No, I doubt that very much.”
Kanner, accepting his role as the junior party in the exchange, stood corrected.
Professor Pallenberg approached his inverted patient. A dull creaking sound accompanied the periodic clockwise and anticlockwise rotations.
“Herr Auger,” said Pallenberg, addressing the reverse-horripilated head. “How are you feeling?”
“I do not exist,” came the gentle, resigned reply.
“That is self-evidently not true, Herr Auger,” Pallenberg responded somewhat tetchily. “Now, would you be so kind as to tell me how you feel?”
“I am not here.”
Kanner was relieved to hear Herr Auger's usual response. If the poor man did not believe in his own existence, then it seemed unlikely that he could be suffering very much.
Pallenberg shrugged and caught Kanner's eye. “One cannot expect very much progress at this very early stage. I would be most grateful, Doctor Kanner, if you could ensure that Herr Auger receives fifteen to twenty minutes of suspension daily. The winch is simple to operate but you will obviously need some assistance from the porters.”
“Very good, sir.”
Pallenberg nodded curtly. “Good afternoon, Herr Doctor.”
Recognizing that he had been dismissed, Kanner bowed, and left the room. He descended the stairs in an
