Shadows of Berlin полностью

“He thinks I should be shipped to the nearest insane asylum because I’m nuts.”

Aaron plunks down his spoon and puffs out a woeful sigh. “I just don’t get it. Why do you talk like that?”

“Why are you yelling?”

“I’m not yelling! I just don’t understand why we’re paying this gonif a ton and a half of money if he’s not helping you. That’s what’s nuts!”

This is the end of the discussion. When it’s a ton of money under discussion, Rachel knows it’s best to shut up and just let Aaron stew. In the following silence, he calms down, slurps at the soup, then stands. “Look, I gotta go.”

“But you’ve hardly touched your lunch.”

“You eat it. You’re getting too skinny,” he says and crosses the room to the hall tree. She watches him lug on his coat. “I just want you to get better,” he tells her wearily. “Ya know? That’s all. I just want you to get better and feel happy once in a while.”

“Like normal people,” Rachel answers to sting him. Not because she’s angry but because she’s ashamed of her “mental illness.” That’s what it’s called now, isn’t it? An illness. But it still feels like a shameful illness. Not like a decent disease. A well-­adjusted disease that a person can suffer under heroically. Like cancer or polio—­diseases that no one could confuse with wallowing in self-­pity.

She pours the soup into a Tupperware container and swathes the bread slices in Saran Wrap. The milk she pours back into the bottle, except for the portion she donates to the cat’s bowl for Kibbitz to lap up. The garbage pail is starting to smell, but she decides not to bother with it now, because she too is on her way out the door. As noted, she has an appointment with her shrink. She sets Aaron’s dishes in the sink and ties a wool scarf on her head before she slips into her coat. She is happy to be free of the apartment if nothing else. Free from the little chores that define the life of a wife. Also? Free from the demands of the empty canvas, that snow-­blinding cliffside sitting on the chair waiting for her to crash into it. But on her way out, she bumps into Daniela with the twins in the hallway. Daniela is moving slowly, her swollen belly leading the way, but she smiles warmly at Rachel as usual. “So how’s your work these days?” the woman wonders aloud.

“My work?”

“Yes. You know—­your artwork? Are you doing anything?” She sounds hopeful with this question. It surprises Rachel.

“Well, um. I’m thinking about it,” Rachel is willing to concede.

“Mmm.” Daniela nods. “I don’t know how a person does it. You artists,” she says. “Sitting down in front of a blank canvas and then having to fill it up with a picture out of your own head? I could never even imagine. It makes me jealous.” She smiles, making that sound like the sweetest compliment. “I could never draw a straight line.” The little girl is tugging on her mother’s hand.

“Mommy, I’m bored.”

“Leah, be patient please, darling. We’ve talked about how to be patient.”

“So.” Rachel looks up from the child, changing the subject. “Where are you off to? The playground?”

“The zoo,” Daniela answers, smiling down at her children, as if one of them had asked the question.

“The zoo!” Josh repeats victoriously.

“The little one picked up her daddy’s sniffles, so I thought it was better to call up Mrs. Bethel from downstairs and let her nap.” Instinctually Daniela seems to know never to bother Rachel with such a request. Watch my child while she naps? No. “So where are you off to?” Daniela asks her.

“Oh, nowhere. Nothing important. I’ve got an appointment with my shrink,” Rachel says. She doesn’t know why she admits to this so bluntly. So casually. So needlessly. How hard would it have been to say she was off to the store for a quart of milk? She’s certainly quite aware that it’s not the sort of thing Aaron likes her to broadcast, and yet? It comes out of her mouth. The tiniest flash of dismay brightens Daniela’s eyes, though she quickly blinks it away and digests the information with a gentle curiosity.

“Hmm,” she says. “You know I’ve always wondered. Why do they call psychiatrists shrinks?”

Rachel stands there, trapped now by this question. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe I should ask.”

And that’s it. That’s the end of words for both of them. They were in short supply to begin with. Daniela begins to cluck sweetly at the Kinder, and Rachel pretends to have forgotten her subway tokens in the apartment so that she can avoid accompanying Daniela and children down three flights of steps.

Sitting in the chair in Dr. Solomon’s office, Rachel announces, “My husband says you’re a quack.”

A small blink behind the doctor’s horn-­rimmed glasses. “I beg your pardon?”

“He called you a gonif.”

For an instant, the blank, fixed stare, and then with mild interest: “Did he?”

“Why is he paying you if I’m still insane?” she says. Then she asks the question: “So am I insane?”

“No,” the doctor answers matter-­of-­factly. “‘Insane’ is not a diagnosis.”