I looked away, however; I was sure now that Irene had read Freud very closely. The children picking yellow flowers in a meadow had appeared in a dream of his that he’d discussed in a well-known, semi-autobiographical article called ‘Screen Memories’. She was placing her own experiences into the framework of her readings on psychiatry. Whether on purpose or unconsciously, I had no way of knowing, but in either case I suspected that she intended for me to return to Freud’s discussion of Katharina and extrapolate that they faced the same problem. In a sense, she was telling me in coded language, where to look for the origins of her troubles, without directly revealing any of her family’s secrets – and in a way she could be sure I would come to understand.
‘Can you see the face of the man in the hat?’ I asked her.
‘No.’
‘Would you close your eyes and try to picture him?’
‘Of course.’ She did as I asked, but after a few seconds she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Cohen, but I can’t tell you who he might be. I want to, but I can’t.’
She used the words
I was convinced by now that she’d used Freud’s dream because she’d read his interpretation that a girl handing flowers to a man was symbolic of her losing her virginity. I suspected she’d had sex for the first time recently, and possibly with her stepfather. In that case, her guilt – at betraying her mother and threatening to destroy her family’s happiness – had brought on her self-destructive behaviour. She wanted to murder herself, but she’d transposed those violent feelings to an unidentified killer.
‘Do you know the children with you in the meadow?’ I asked, thinking they might have been other girls her stepfather had seduced.
‘No,’ she replied.
‘How old are they?’
‘They’re young – maybe ten or twelve. Like me.’
‘So you’re only ten or twelve in the dream?’
She looked inside herself again. ‘I think so,’ she said hesitantly, ‘but I’m not sure.’
Was it possible that her stepfather had violated her years earlier and had started again more recently?
‘Are the children boys or girls?’ I asked.
‘Both, I think. I’m not sure. They’re wearing yellow, so I don’t know.’
‘They’re wearing yellow?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘No, I meant that the flowers are yellow. Now I’m confused. You’re confusing me!’
‘I’m sorry. Can you identify the bigger man at the cottage who receives the flowers?’
‘No.’
‘Are he and the man in the hat Poles or Germans? Or maybe from Switzerland?’
She frowned nastily at me. Was I coming too close to unmasking her tormentor?
‘I think they’re Germans,’ she told me, ‘but I don’t know for sure. In any case, I don’t see why it matters.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t. How many times have you had the dream?’
‘A few times – I’m not sure.’
‘And how do you feel now – remembering it, I mean?’
She shrugged.
‘Well, are you glad you told it to me?’
‘Am I supposed to be?’ she snapped.
Her touchy replies made me realize that it would be best to stop now – I’d scared her with my probing and she’d tell me little more today. I downed my coffee and looked at my watch. It was eleven minutes past three.
‘Irene, for now, I only have one last question.’
‘But you’ll come back and see me?’ she asked in a tiptoeing voice. ‘You’re not angry with me?’
‘No, I’m not at all angry. And I’ll try to come back. I’ll speak to your mother about that as soon as I leave your room. But listen, Irene, I need you to promise me something or we won’t be able to talk again.’
‘What?’ she asked anxiously.
‘You must not try to take your own life while we’re working together. We must trust each other, and I won’t be able to work with you if I’m worried you might kill yourself if I say the wrong thing.’
‘Do you sometimes say the wrong thing?’
‘Of course,’ I told her, smiling at her naivety. ‘Everyone does. Though I shall try my best not to.’
I’d never admitted my failings to a patient so readily before. It seemed a change for the better, and I realized – astonished – that if I survived the ghetto, I’d be a gentler and more effective psychiatrist. Was that reason enough to go on living?
‘So do we have an agreement?’ I asked her.
‘Yes, I promise,’ she replied, and she showed me a relieved smile that convinced me she’d been waiting for me to take away her worst option from the beginning.
I stood up. ‘I’ll need your pills – the ones you took to try to end your life.’
‘Mama has them.’
‘Good.’
‘So what’s your last question, Dr Cohen?’
‘Imagine that you could tell the man in the hat something, what would it be?’
She gazed down. ‘I think I’d ask him to give me back my flowers.’
As I was leaving her room, Irene called to me. ‘Dr Cohen, I’m very sorry about what happened to your nephew. Forgive me for not saying so earlier.’
Stunned, I stammered a reply, ‘But how… how did you… I mean, who told you what happened to my nephew?’
‘Your former patient Jaśmin Makinska,’ Irene replied.
‘You know Jaśmin?’ I asked.
