Kathleen Spivack - Unspeakable Things

“Hush,” said Adeline, patting the younger boy. “I’ll come up and say good night before we go out.”

“I want you to stay with me,” protested the child, clinging to his mother even more forcefully.

“Come, Michael,” exhorted David. “We’ll play with the soldiers.” At the thought of being allowed to touch David’s precious toy soldier collection, Michael disengaged himself in a hurry.

“I’ll come soon, my darling,” Adeline said regally to Michael as David scurried upstairs behind his brother. She dismissed them, though David continued to follow his mother’s beauty with a pleading glance.

“Good night, boys.” Herbert watched them approvingly. Adeline smoothed her skirt. From the rooms upstairs Herbert could hear the treble exclamations of the younger boy, and, from time to time, the lower notes of David’s voice, calming him. Herbert turned his attention away from them. He was waiting for something else.

“Papageno, Papageno, Papageno!” sang the figure onstage. A waiting body leaped forward onto the apron of the stage and danced to the edge. A glance passed between the figure onstage and Herbert, who watched from the second row of the orchestra seats of the Opera. How had the setting changed so fast? The music was satisfying, harmonious. The figure shook its headdress of tatters and bells and danced away. Herbert could no longer see him in the crowd of figures that swirled onto the stage now, singing as they danced. They carried trees aloft, peeping through the leaves at the conductor. The dancing figure of Papageno reappeared, casting one backward glance at Herbert as he was once more lost in the swirl of the opera production.

With a start, Herbert recalled himself and reached for Adeline’s hand. But all he grasped was the rough wool of the blanket that covered him where he lay on a narrow cot in his son’s cold-water flat in New York. “Adeline!” Painfully, Herbert remembered where he had left her. He coughed. His lungs hurt, his body, too. Carefully, so as not to wake the children, the Rat, and Ilse, David’s overworked wife, he shifted position on the cot. The gray light of dawn was coming in beyond his clothesline partition. It was bleak, and the chill in the room was a dirty one.

Herbert closed his eyes once more and tried to remember Herr Mahler. And Adeline’s wild passion for him — a passion that had made her sob each afternoon alone in her dressing room, her hair in disarray, eyes glittering. A passion he, Herbert, had pretended not to notice, even when, at the end of each day, he entered the silenced house, a house shuttered against the mourning animal upstairs. Herbert had pretended he did not see Mahler’s rejection of his lovely wife, even while he comforted her through it. “Shh, my darling.” And while he held her, her hot face against his waistcoat and asked, “Why are you crying so?” He made a sign behind her back to Papageno. “Leave us for the moment.” Papageno obeyed, and with a small answering gesture of the hand, almost imperceptible, he disappeared.

Herbert dressed quickly in the half-light, trying not to cough as he pulled on the garments, stiff with cold.

“My dearest Herr Professor,” Mahler had written long ago. “It is only you who can help us now. My wife and I implore you on this most urgent matter. The situation can only get worse, as you, of course, do not need to be told. If you could only be so kind? I realize, of course, that a man in your position…I would be so grateful….”

Maria’s head was pierced by a knife so intense, it felt like white heat. A noise, a sound like a sizzle, then a violet explosion. Her eardrum burst; she fell downward into cool absence of everything. “Stop that!” cried her mother.

Maria turned in the bed, cried out, her hand to her ear. Anna froze as she tried to move over and lie still, to make room for the girl. But her lower body had a mind of its own. It flung itself about and, arching, shuddered uncontrollably, flailing upward to meet the demon passion. “Oh.” Anna bit her lip. She was hot, open, wanting to be filled. She tried not to make a sound. She tried to push the images away. But the wave started again, a dark pulsation. Obsessive memory and her reaction. And once again she gave herself up to it; she had no choice.

When inner feelings, long buried, start to surface, what can a woman do? She can go quietly crazy, or she can dance. Anna could not sleep; she danced inside instead. She lay twitching while the little girl slept fitfully beside her. “Unspeakable things.” Anna gazed at the ceiling. The memories burned into her. Subterranean. Darkly moving, they cried within her for a way out.

There were only two choices. A woman could go deeper into self-paralysis, reclining, mute for years beside the kindly, bearded, prurient Doktor Freud. More and more aroused, squeezing their legs tightly against each other, Viennese women caged their wild desires, forcing them so far inside that not even speech was possible. This was, of course, the best way. Freud preferred his women masochistic, paralyzed, and mute. That way, he could “help.” Explicit sexual implications rose from their supine bodies, wreathed both doctor and patient in delicious undertones of what was hidden: that bud between their legs, the will to control its throbbing, to squeeze down even harder; the involuntary, soundless cry. Helpless, lovely, trapped-in-headlights women lay on couches, pretending to maintain stillness as a secret perfumed shudder moved along their bodies. Only their Doktor knew.

For the Rat, stillness was not possible. Her only choice was to dance, to dance horribly in a caricature of music as something stirred within her, itched and crazed. She had traveled too far along the path of depravity. Now temporarily in safety, she stared at the ceiling and the memories took over. She twitched and juddered. Her limbs would not be still. Her God would not forgive her. Her memories of violation overtook her every time. Each night she talked and talked, as if to stave them off. She was exhausted by an orgasm of endless talking. And each time when finally she tried to stop talking, the thrill of repetitive climax and the unstoppable fascination overtook her. She was exhausted, but her racked body would not let her rest. One seism after another. The hunchback stared at the darkness, running her hands along her misshapen body, trembling with the force of her memories. She willed herself to lie quietly. She could not. The memories enveloped her. Her body vibrated and quivered around them, contorting her small body while her closed eyes rolled back in her head. The demon stroked and squeezed and forced her open again and again, thick-fingered, relentless.

And when this had exhausted her, it began again. She shook with the force of it, craved it, cried for it, wanted it and wanted it to stop, but still she wanted more. She put her hands on her body carefully to quiet her wild desires. But they sprang up, consuming as wildfire.

As she whimpered with suppression, Maria whimpered also. The child was hot, writhing, as if sensing the torment of the woman next to her. Anna carefully felt Maria’s forehead. “A fever,” she thought, worried. “Sleep, my child,” she whispered to the restless girl as she caressed her cheek. With great effort, she pulled her twisted nightgown down around her legs and slid out of bed. It was nearly morning.

“Penance,” thought Anna. There was no other way. She crossed the room. The doors to the large, looming wardrobe were ajar. Carefully, Anna pried one open and slipped inside. She eased herself into the cavernous closet. The stale air enveloped her, a cocoon, muffling everything else. The wardrobe was dark, enfolding, heavy with the thick smell of Herbert’s tweed jackets and the extra army blankets and mothballs and winter woolens for the family. Anna took a hot breath and eased herself onto the lower shelf, closing the door behind her. She would sit there, out of the way. She would neither eat nor drink. She would pray a whole day and a night, longer if necessary, starving the demon out of her. Only then could she take her place again in the household. A hair shirt, she thought. I will suffer and pray and drive the demons out.