“We educate our assistants,” Dr. Madden said seriously at Ari’s hiring interview. “They are far more than just robust individuals who can hold reluctant bathers underwater. If we decide to hire you, monsieur, you will undertake a course that will enable you to understand the range and effect of the treatments, and to engage with our patients with poise and propriety. You will likewise learn enough English to provide the necessary instructions and understand the most common phrases of politeness. Do you know how to swim?”
Ari said yes. It was actually a dog paddle from his childhood, but he thought that would be fully sufficient for the purpose.
The hardest thing about the job, it turned out, was neither the English phrases nor the detailed charts that had to be memorized. He actually enjoyed the language classes and quickly discovered he had a certain talent for it, and he had always had a good memory. Nor was it the many hours he had to stand in the cold water, summer as well as winter, though his legs would grow entirely numb and senseless toward the end of the workday, prior to burning like the fires of hell when they came back to life.
No, the most difficult thing was, without question, Alice.
Alice was actually called Miss Anderson, and it was in fact wrong of him to think of her as anything else. That was part of the problem.
She—Miss Anderson—had hair of a particular cinnamon shade somewhere between blond and brown. It was so smooth that one might think she ironed it as other women iron shirts. Her mouth—which he ought not to notice at all—was small but with plump lips, so that the word “rosebud” had a tendency to force its way into his thoughts when he saw her. She was, like most of the English, very fair skinned and had to constantly shield herself from the sun because even the tiniest exposure resulted in a scalded blush.
Her petite, slender form emitted, it seemed to him, a quivering nervous energy, and it was in fact weak nerves and constant headaches that brought her and her mother to Hyères that winter.
“Last year, we were in Menton,” explained Mrs. Anderson helpfully to Dr. Griffin. “But poor Alice could not sleep at all, it was that awful wind, what is it they call it—the monsoon?”
“The mistral,” Dr. Griffin corrected her kindly.
“Yes. That one . . . Everything rattled. I myself had trouble sleeping, though I am luckily much more robust than poor Alice.”
It seemed as if Mrs. Anderson never used her daughter’s first name without apposing the word “poor.”
“I hope, Mrs. Anderson, that both you and your daughter will have a more peaceful stay here. Unfortunately, the mistral blows everywhere, but we are somewhat better sheltered here. In addition, the sea baths have a wonderful effect on the nervous system, so I am sure that poor”—the doctor corrected himself at the last minute—“that the young lady will soon experience an improvement. I feel confident in giving you my medical guarantee.”
“Ohhh, the sea baths, yes. If you say so, but . . . poor Alice is terribly afraid of water.”
“I can assure you that it is completely safe. Aristide here is one of our most experienced bathing assistants.”
Mrs. Anderson considered Ari doubtfully, as he automatically straightened up and attempted to inspire confidence.
“He is a man,” Mrs. Anderson pointed out.
“Most of our assistants are,” said Dr. Griffin. “Some of our weakest patients need the support that only the more rugged strength of the male physique can provide, and that is often true for the more anxious as well. But if you and your daughter wish, I will of course find a female assistant for you.”
“No,” said Mrs. Anderson. “If you think that this is the right choice . . .”
It was a golden and blue October day, and the light fell with a creamy golden mildness on the beach and the bathers, both the ones using the machines and those who—more boldly—waded into the waves without assistance. Miss Anderson’s bathing costume was navy blue, with blue and white ruffles that somehow made her look even younger and childish, perhaps because it was vaguely reminiscent of a sailor’s suit. She stood on the wagon’s uppermost step and looked, as her mother had predicted, entirely petrified.
“Please descend,” said Ari with one of his carefully memorized phrases. “There is no need to be alarmed.”
She turned toward him and looked straight into his eyes.
“I am going to die,” she said. “I know it.” And the fear of death did indeed shine from her velvet brown eyes.
“No,” he said. “I will not let you die. You have my word.”
The protocol prescribed other vaguer assurances: “There is absolutely no risk,” “You will be entirely safe,” and “The sea is completely calm today. There is no reason for fear.” But he sensed instinctively that she needed him to conjure up the spectacle of death and, all in the same sentence, dispel it with his words.
She grabbed hold of him, not his outstretched hand but his arm. Her fingers dug clawlike into his biceps, quite painfully, but he did not let it show. She took the first shaky step down the stairs and then the next one. He could both see and feel the trembling that went through her when the water clasped her legs and lower body.
“Ohhhh . . .” A drawn-out, plaintive gasp.
“Do come, mademoiselle. I will not let go.”
And then she was down. Her bare feet touched the bottom just like his. Her pupils expanded abruptly so that her hazel eyes looked almost black. She clung to both his arms, and at first he could not get her to hang on to only one, so he could support her back with the other.
“All the way?” she said with a shaking voice. “Must I really go all the way under the water?”
“Yes, mademoiselle. But only for a few seconds. And only three times, at least today.”
She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the mercy of God. He could actually see the inner prayer move her lips.
“Now,” she said. “While I dare.”
He wrested one arm free of her grip.
“You should hold on here,” he said, and more or less established the correct submerging position. When he began to tilt her backward, she panicked, and she fought against him with all her might. But he placed one hand over her nose and mouth to protect her against the insistent water and forced her down under the surface for the prescribed ten seconds. A few cramp-like jerks passed through her body. Her one knee hammered repeatedly against his thigh, and he would later note that she had made ten precise blue marks on his forearm.
Then he brought her back to the surface.
“There you are,” he said with an unfamiliar hoarseness in his voice. “It is not the least bit dangerous.”
She slowly opened her eyes. A deep blush spread across her neck and face, until now gray with terror, and she looked around as if he had re-created the whole world for her and brought her back from the dead.
“Ohhh,” she said. “Oh. I did not know . . . Dear God, I did not know . . .”
“Should we try again?” he asked. “If you close your mouth yourself and hold your nose, then I will not need to.”
She shook her head. “I dare not. It must . . . You must . . . please do it exactly like the first time.”
So he held her in the same way, with his right hand over her nose and mouth and his left around her waist, when he dunked her the second and third time.
Later, after they were married and had learned to make love, he occasionally saw precisely the same expression in her eyes when she tilted her neck back and opened her mouth in the involuntary silent scream that was her climax. This helpless and transported gaze, I want and yet do not want, as in the duet from Don Giovanni that she loved so much, “Vorrei e non vorrei.” He never understood the darkness in her, no matter how familiar everything else became.
“There you are,” he said again, when the third dunking had been carried out. “You survived.”
“Barely,” she said, her pupils still huge and dark. “Only barely . . .”
But the next day, Mrs. Anderson looked at him with
greater confidence and reported that Poor Alice had eaten a substantial dinner and had slept like a log all night.
The physiologist is no ordinary man. He is a learned man, a man possessed and absorbed by a scientific idea. He does not hear the animals’ cries of pain. He is blind to the blood that flows. He sees nothing but his idea, and organisms which conceal from him the secrets he is resolved to discover.
—CLAUDE BERNARD, INTRODUCTION À L’ÉTUDE DE LA MÉDECINE EXPÉRIMENTALE, 1865
August 16, 1894
Early in the morning, Sante Geronimo Caserio was executed outside the prison in Lyon. According to the Varbourg Gazette, which had replaced Varonne Soir on the salon table now that we no longer subscribed to that offending publication, the blade of the guillotine had fallen at precisely five o’clock, a few seconds after Caserio had yelled his last words: “Coraggio, cugini! Evviva l’anarchia!”
I have to admit that I was personally less occupied with the fate of that young man and the political situation than I perhaps ought to have been, because this day—the day Caserio did not live to experience—was my first day as a student at the University of Varbourg.
It had rained during the night and in the early hours, but now the sun was shining again, and in Réunion Square the air was full of rain-drenched scents—wet dirt, wet chestnut leaves, the sweetness from ripe peaches and grapes of the fruit stalls and, it must be admitted, the penetrating smell of formerly dried-up horse dung that had now been resoftened by the rain.
Mindful of Professor Künzli’s concerns, I had tried to dress in as undistracting a manner as possible, so as not to unduly disturb the flower of Varbourg’s youth. My high-necked white blouse had only modest trimming across the chest, which served more to veil than to emphasize, sleeves and cuffs hid both wrists, the skirt was light brown and without frills, and Elise had helped me let down the hem a few centimeters so it did not, when I sat down, slide up to the point where one might glimpse my ankles. I wore pale thin gloves, and my hat was extremely plain, a small flat boater with a ribbon in the same light brown color as the skirt. Proper and serious, that was the impression I wished to make.
There were more gendarmes in the street than usual, I noted, and they appeared more alert. No taking a moment to smoke a pipe in the shelter of the side streets or stopping to exchange a few words with the stall keepers. Those who were supposed to keep guard kept guard—especially in front of the new government building that housed Varonne’s chamber of commerce—and the ones who were on patrol, patrolled. It was feared that the execution would stoke the anger of other anarchists, as had happened in several other European countries during similar events.
I was exceedingly prompt this time, so instead of changing to the No. 7 streetcar, I decided to walk the last bit. It would most likely take me less than ten minutes, and perhaps it would have a beneficial effect on my nerve endings, the excited state of which had made it impossible for me to eat breakfast.
The last hundred meters, I found myself walking behind a somewhat familiar-looking young man. He was tall, broad shouldered, and very blond, and there was a cockiness about his stride that reminded me of someone. Perhaps it was one of the young medical students my father occasionally took under his wing? He strode up the impressive steps with an assuredness as if they had been built just for him. I myself had to reduce my speed considerably, and I lost sight of him somewhere among the pillars of the colonnade and did not give it any further thought, being rather more preoccupied with finding the correct lecture hall.
I had barely crossed the threshold before a sarcastic voice hit me from behind. “Well, well, Fräulein. So we meet again.”
He spoke French with a considerable German accent, which in itself was a useful clue. But when I turned around and saw him face-to-face, I recognized him instantly in any case. The straw blond hair and fair beard, the muscular neck, the gaze that was as blue and chilly as ice crystals on a windowpane.
I did not know his name. August and I had spoken of him only once, that day in April when I agreed to our engagement.
He was my future husband’s previous lover. And thus more or less the last person I wanted to meet here.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted, even though it might not have been the wisest way of handling the situation.
“What am I doing here?” he asked, eyebrows sarcastically raised. “I am a student. This is an institute of higher learning. There is nothing odd about my presence. I ought rather to ask you. What do you think you are doing here, Fräulein?”
The room fell silent around us. The chatter that had filled the room before I entered had been instantly silenced. Without looking around, I sensed the presence of at least thirty young men, standing or perched on benches and tables around us, with their attention focused on one sole person: me.
“The same as you, I imagine,” I said as neutrally as possible. “I am a student.”
He fired off a short burst of vulgar laughter.
“Really? Listen, Fräulein, I have not been in Varbourg for long, but I have learned one thing: Étudienne is just another word for whore.”
I stood stock-still and felt my jaw stiffen so that for a few seconds it was entirely impossible for me to close my mouth. At first, I was not sure I had heard him correctly, but from several loud gasps around me I understood that there was nothing wrong with my hearing.
“Come, come . . . ,” said one of the others, clearly embarrassed. “You are speaking to a lady.”
“Am I?” drawled the young German. “Then I don’t know what a lady is. But if she insists on remaining, I shall leave. And I suggest every honorable man here should do the same.”
One or two took a few hesitant steps—whether it was to follow him never became clear because at that moment Dr. Althauser came into the room. How little or how much he had heard I did not know. My cheeks burned at the thought that he might have heard it all. He did not look at me but at my adversary.
“Herr Falchenberg? How have you hit upon the idea that it is up to you to decide who is to be taught here?”
The young Falchenberg looked surprised for a brief moment.
“Herr Docent—” he began.
Althauser interrupted him. “If you do not wish to attend the lecture, then that is naturally your choice. But I would appreciate it if you did not otherwise interfere with the composition of this class.”
Falchenberg said no more but disappeared into the hall with a respectful bow that was so tightly executed that he managed to signal contempt at the same time. He did not look excessively guilt ridden.
Althauser ignored both him and me and continued to the front of the room, and in his wake the rest of the students settled in a long, chair-scraping wave. I myself fell into the closest seat on offer.
Throughout the roll call I sat with flaming cheeks and tried to fight back my anger and humiliation so that neither would be allowed to turn into tears. The worst thing was that Falchenberg was right, linguistically speaking—the ladies of loose morals with whom some students kept company were colloquially called étudiennes, student girls. And there was no other word for female students.
Not yet, I whispered to myself. But one day . . . soon. When reality changed, surely language had to follow?
Unfortunately, Falchenberg had achieved one thing with his harassment. Though he had left the room, he had made me so agitated that for the next fifteen minutes I barely took in a word of what was being said at my life’s first official university lecture.
In the course of the next hours, my wounded vanity began to heal, and my intellect stirred. While Althauser skillfully introduced his field of study, I wrote furiously in my newly purchased notebook, and somewhere between “methodology” and “practical exercises,” a footnote snuck in that did not have much to do with physiology: “Falchenberg: Why?”
It was hard to believe that it was a coincidence. In spite of the department’s excellent new building, it had to be admitted that Heidelberg far exceeded Varbourg i
n terms of facilities, faculty, and reputation. There was unlikely to be anything here that Falchenberg could not learn better and more quickly where he came from.
The thought that he might have come to Varbourg because of me—or rather because of August and me—was cause for concern. It might have been naïve of me, but I had imagined that the engagement settled the matter. Whatever Falchenberg and August had done together, it was the past now that he and I were getting married. I was sure that August was of the same opinion, and I had not thought any further than that. Would I have reacted differently if the relationship August had ended for my sake had been with a woman?
I had tried to read about the subject in my father’s copy of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis: Eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie. Krafft-Ebing was of the opinion that any type of sexuality directed at the same sex instead of at the opposite was a biological aberration that occurred in the womb—a sort of brain damage that resulted in “sexual inversion.” I found it difficult to regard August as brain damaged, but the fact remained that the fetus could be damaged or infected with illnesses in the womb—pox, typhoid, tuberculosis, and syphilis, for example. My father was similarly of the opinion that a mother who drank heavily during her pregnancy could harm the fetus or even kill it, and he attempted—mostly without luck—to convince the women he cared for at Saint Bernardine to stop drinking while they were carrying an innocent child.