Wrecked

“See you soon, you nut jobs.”

Neither of them answers. That’s the way it is when the routine is so well rehearsed.

I drive to my therapist’s office in another section of town. I go three times a week for an hour-long session—though an hour to a therapist is fifty minutes in normal human time, no more, no less. I go there to work out my everyday life, and I think I’d have died many times over without my therapist. She has often saved my life—psychologically speaking. In my daughter Liza’s mind, it’s just Mama going to see her weird doctor. She’s not interested in what I do there. I hope she waits a long time to ask, too, because the older she is the better I’ll be able to explain to her what it is. “Mama goes there so she doesn’t get on your nerves, my child, and so she doesn’t weigh you down with her own issues. That way you can live more freely.”

The drive is usually a pain. But my therapist, Frau Drescher, says that’s part of the therapy, too. I complain to myself about a therapy that includes such an array of annoyances even before you get there. Because I know the car accident plays a big role in her mind, I feel as if I don’t even have to go to her office: hey, I’m doing great—what’s the point? I think up all sorts of reasons why I shouldn’t drive, and once I’m in the car I convince myself that Frau Drescher is a bad therapist—that she overestimates the value of her couch and psychoanalysis. What the hell is analysis anyway? I do it, but I still have no idea what it’s about. Will I get some kind of certificate at the end? Like the report you get after a blood test? A psychological report? That would be useful—I could give it to my husband as a sort of instruction manual, and later my daughter could read it, too. It would make all of our lives easier. I’ll ask Frau Drescher. She thinks that my assessments and criticisms of her as I drive to her office are also part of the therapy. Great, that really puts me at ease. I feel better already.

I try to follow every rule of the road—I have to avoid an accident at any cost. Not necessarily because I don’t want to die—in fact sometimes I feel like an old woman who thinks it would be nice to have peace and quiet, the ultimate peace and quiet—but because I have a child. That gives me added worth. I can’t do that to my daughter. Cannot get killed or injured. Which is why I’m such a careful driver. I let everyone in, but especially women. It’s a chance to contradict any accusations of cattiness, even in traffic. I drive very defensively and leave plenty of space between me and the car in front of me. I avoid all mistakes and keep all the things I learned in driving school at age eighteen in the front of my mind—all in order to survive and to avoid killing anyone else. Because of my past, even just driving across town to my therapy session is a life-and-death scenario.

I get out of the car in the parking lot. I take all my valuables with me because, oddly enough, my therapist has her office in a bad part of town. And her office is on the eleventh floor. Which for me is a catastrophe. I’ve told her a million times that I don’t like it. She needs to get a new ground-floor office somewhere else. That would be much nicer. She laughs at me and says, “You’ll have to get over it, Frau Kiehl, because the practice is staying put.”

And then she wants to sit peacefully and discuss my fear of heights and of elevators, my fear of fire and smoke. I’m also afraid that such a tall building might collapse while I’m in it. When I walk into the high-rise I talk to myself. “I can’t believe I have to get on this elevator because of Frau Drescher. I just can’t believe it.” I usually smell smoke or gas in the lobby. That’s a funny old habit of mine—it’s because my mother found her own mother in front of the oven with the gas on. She had taken sleeping tablets and also drugged her young son, whom she wanted to take with her. But not my mother, who was also just a kid at the time. Who knows why? That was the big drama in our family—at least until the car accident overwhelmed everything else. So I sniff my way around the lobby like an animal, searching for the source of the dangerous odor. For most other people, hearing is the sense that most frequently sets off their alarm bells. In my case, it’s my sense of smell. Because I just know that my family will be snuffed out by fire, smoke, or gas. That’s probably also the reason I avoid smokers like the plague. They trigger a flight instinct in me. Whenever I smell a lit cigarette I think something is on fire and cringe with fear. Just for a second, of course, but it’s still enough to make my heart jump and cause a jolt of adrenaline. Very unpleasant.

When I step into the elevator to go up to my therapist’s office, it really does smell like smoke. Some nicotine-addicted asshole must have lit up on the way down for a cigarette break. Most smokers just can’t wait. I stand there and think something’s on fire. And before I realize it’s just the remains of cigarette smoke I get so scared that I feel like I’ve aged several years. That’s why I hate all smokers—they spread the smell of death. It clings to their hair and their clothes and hangs in the air wherever they go.

When I look at the digital number panel in the elevator, I can see what floor it’s come down from. It sends another shiver of fear down my spine. The building is that high? The eleventh floor is not even the top floor. Often the elevator has come from much higher up than that. And I wonder, Do I really want to do this to myself? All the things that can happen on the way up. It could get stuck and catch on fire, and I’d be trapped, burning up in this tin can. The floor would get too hot to stand on, so I’d sit down; but the skin and flesh of my ass would burn, so I’d stand up again and that’s when I’d see the smoke snaking into the elevator carriage. I scream for as long as I can still get air, the smoke stings my throat, burns my vocal chords. I’m coughing and my voice gets thinner. I push the emergency button over and over. Nothing happens. In a mortal panic, I climb onto the top of the elevator carriage to try to get some air—but everything is shrouded in dark smoke. I’m in a smokehouse, unable to escape. Nobody is going to save me, and I can’t even scream any longer. I cry, and then lay myself down to die atop the glowing elevator. I think of my daughter and don’t want to die. Then I black out.

That’s the way it plays out in my head every time I have to ride up those eleven floors to see my fucking therapist, who insists on having her practice all the way up there. And I stare the whole time at the sign in the elevator that represents all my fears: in case of fire, do not use elevator. I can definitely agree to that. But what happens if a fire breaks out when I’m already using the elevator? Didn’t anybody think of that? Of course not. When I reach the eleventh floor and, miracle of miracles, the doors open normally, I march out like a survivor. A passerby might think from my demeanor that I’m relaxed and happy. But then comes the next problem. Someone on her floor smokes in his apartment. We’re eleven floors above the earth and he’s playing with our lives! The building seems to sway. I tell my therapist all the time that the foundations aren’t solid. You can tell when it’s windy. When it’s windy I can feel the way we’re all swaying inside the building.

Once in a while I encounter someone in the hallway on the eleventh floor. When that happens I’m immediately diverted from the frightening images swirling in my head. Because I suddenly think, So that’s what my therapist’s patients look like? Though of course there’s no guarantee that the person has come from her office. I get upset that she even has other patients. I read in a biography of Brian Wilson that he had his therapist live with him. What a good idea! That would be my dream—to have Frau Drescher at home, all to myself!

I’m totally convinced that I simply couldn’t live without her. But I want to be her only patient. I know only monotheism—from my mother, of course. She never taught me anything else. It’s always mother’s fault. I’m sure someday my child will think I’m to blame for everything, too. That’s just the way it works.

I try to glean as much information as possible in the few seconds during which I can actually see my therapist. She shrouds herself in a mysterious cloud of noninformation. She says I should know as little as possible about her. All I know about her is what I can see. And what little she divulges. Which is next to fucking nothing. Particularly in comparison to what I divulge about myself. It’s not fair. But I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be with therapy. I’m not meant to understand—I don’t have a degree in it, after all.

My soon-to-be-former best friend also briefly went to a therapist—though naturally she didn’t do it very intensively or for very long because otherwise she would actually have had to do some soul-searching. But she went to a therapist that every one of her friends—except me—also went to. What a sick idea. My therapist thinks so, too. You can’t talk openly in a situation like that. What if you had a problem with one of your friends? The whole idea behind therapy is that the therapist doesn’t know the people you are talking about. That way the therapist can’t have an opinion about them independent of yours—her information is limited to what the patient says. If you’re insanely jealous about all your therapist’s other patients, just imagine what it would be like if you constantly ran into your friends coming out of her office. “Oh, hi, I was just talking to your therapist about your abortion! Oh, sorry, you hadn’t told her yet? That explains a lot!”

Aha, I think to myself in the hallway, looking at a person who must be another patient, she takes on boring-looking patients, too, eh? She does it with any old person! Hopefully that person’s psychological issues are more interesting than his clothes! The patient doesn’t make eye contact with me. How uncool. Hey, we’re all fucked in the head, don’t worry about it. But you’ve got to be able to meet my gaze when I say a friendly hello.

Perhaps he’s more ashamed than I am that he has to go to therapy? That’s annoying, too. Once he’s walked away, I can ring the doorbell. There’s a sort of agreement among all the patients that there should never be more than one in the office at a time. Not like at a normal doctor’s office, where all the patients sit in a waiting room together. When I’m in her office, I can be sure that the only other person there is Frau Drescher.

She’s furnished the place oddly. I hope it doesn’t reflect her true taste. I hope she’s furnished the place this way just to meet patients’ expectations and make them comfortable opening up. If not—if this is how she actually wants it to look—it would be really tragic.

I ring the bell now that the other lunatic is gone. A buzzer lets me in. As usual, she is hiding in her office, a room I’ve never seen. Through the frosted glass I can see only that she’s sitting at a desk in there. It’s very fuzzy, but there’s a large desk, and I can make out the shape of a person dressed in pastel clothing. She likes to wear pastel-colored sweaters, often cable-knit. I can also vaguely make out her blonde head of hair. She looks very feminine and friendly. She’s got a 1970s kind of sexiness to her. Sometimes I worry that she’s a lesbian, but I’ll never find out. I wouldn’t like it if she were a lesbian. I want her to have all the same difficulties in life that I have: husband, child, the whole shebang.

I have to wait until she’s ready. She always needs ten minutes between patients to clear her head and cleanse her soul—which, of course, does not exist. I have no idea what she does for those ten minutes. I suspect she looks over her notes, because it doesn’t seem possible that she could remember all the mothers-in-law and ex-husbands and children’s and pets’ names that people jabber on about all day. In eight years with her, she’s never made a single mistake about things like that with me. I keep waiting for her to refer to my husband as Oliver or whatever. Or to say “your son” instead of “your daughter.” That’s why I think she hoards notes about all of us loons behind that frosted glass—notes she quickly updates after each hour with the various new names that have come up. I imagine her partner—hopefully a man—quizzing her about all the names of her patients’ family members.

I have my choice of sitting on a chair in the hall or going into the room where she hosts group sessions. There are probably a dozen chairs in that room. It’s where the group marriage counseling takes place. Back when we went to marriage counseling to save our relationship, my husband and I chose to do it privately, just us two, rather than with a group. My husband is very much opposed to groups—whether it’s tai chi, therapy, or whatever. Only when it comes to sex is he not opposed to groups.

There are pictures on the walls that I think Frau Drescher painted herself. They depict naked people in the Garden of Eden. Snakes are wrapped around the bodies. There are brightly colored flowers all over the place. The people aren’t fully visible—they’re more like silhouettes. In the group room is a well-stocked bookcase, which I find reassuring. It’s proof that she did study the stuff she uses to fiddle around with my head. It shows she’s clever, and if she doesn’t manage to make progress on something she can consult her books. When I arrive much too early, I grab a random book off the shelf, open it to a random page, and try to understand what’s written. But it never works. It’s insanely complicated stuff.

At the top of the hour she quietly emerges from her office and comes to look for me. I hear her footsteps, always following the same route: first she looks in the hall, then she comes down to the group room. She stands in the doorway and says, “Right.” She smiles encouragingly.

I stand up, go confidently toward her, look her in the eyes—as my parents taught me to do—shake her hand, and say, “Guten Tag.”

I find it uncomfortable making physical contact with her. But it’s part of being a member of society. Still, I’d rather not touch her. Not because I find her disgusting, but because I feel as if we should have a strictly mental connection, and physical contact of any kind disturbs that. Disturbs me, anyway. I’ve never talked about it with her. Maybe I should sometime. Then perhaps we could forgo the handshake. A lot of what I think I want to talk about vanishes from my mind once I’ve had to use the elevator or see Frau Drescher. Things usually go in a completely different direction than I anticipated.

“Guten Tag,” she replies, and we release each other’s hands from the handshake. It’s all rather embarrassing.

She’s usually wearing a pantsuit. Or a masculine blouse with a V-neck sweater over it. She likes pastel colors. Pink, lilac, salmon, light blue, mint green. She has long blonde hair. And breasts. Big ones. A nice body—not too thin, not too chunky. She looks very healthy. Thank goodness—I want her to live a long time. Did I mention her breasts? She has breasts. And breasts are a major theme of my therapy. My breast complex runs my life. I complain to her regularly about women with big breasts and blonde hair. And she has big breasts—at least from my perspective, as a tadpole in the breast department—and platinum blonde hair. Sometimes I feel funny saying what I want to about it. I ask her if I’m not going too far for her. But she’s totally supportive. It’s not about her feelings or sensitivities. She’s a doctor. She stays above the fray. I have to be able to say anything in therapy without thinking about how she will feel about my breast comments.

She’s also a lot bigger than I am, which I like. She wears a lot of mascara, jet-black, and light blue eye shadow. It works perfectly with her dark blue eyes. Her whole face reminds me of Agnetha from ABBA. She always smiles at me so knowingly and kindly. She’s on my side. It’s nice. That’s the way it works with therapy—the therapist is on the patient’s side. She puts a lot of effort into understanding me.

She lets me enter the sacred space of the consultation room ahead of her. There’s the couch where I’ve already spent so many hours. The room has been nicely aired out so it doesn’t smell like another patient. We wouldn’t want that. The idea is to pretend that other patients do not exist. But I don’t let myself be fooled. Not even by Frau Drescher. She closes the window, and I wrap myself in the fleece blanket with the strange pattern on it—to protect myself from all the forces of nature about to be released upon me. Then I lie down. She always puts a freshly washed light blue cloth on the pillow where I put my head. Sometimes, when I show up with freshly washed hair, I get it all wet. She says it’s no big deal—that each patient gets a new one anyway. A thin piece of cotton prevents any direct contact between the oils of the various patients’ hair. Where Frau Drescher stores these cloths is still a riddle to me. At the foot end of the black leather couch is the type of mat you would usually place just outside the door of your apartment. It has hard bristles. Frau Drescher knows that it scratches me and she’s said I can remove it from the couch. But I never do. I want to get right down to business. So for the entire hour I just hide the fact that the mat bugs me. Especially in summer, when my legs are bare.

Once I’m lying there, I wait for her to close the door and sit down behind me. The door is soundproofed, which, being paranoid, I like. I lie there in my usual funereal position, with my arms outside the fleece blanket—don’t want anyone to think I’m secretly playing with myself. I put my hands together and interlock my fingers the way people do when they’re praying. Despite the fact that I’m totally against prayer. I look up at the ceiling: white wood chip. And at the wall to my left: white wood chip.

When I look past my feet, there is a huge painting leaning against the wall. No idea why it’s propped against the wall instead of hanging from it. What is Agnetha—as I like to think of her—trying to signal to me with that? I always think she’s trying to tell me something. But in the case of the painting, I have no idea what. Maybe it’s something like, Hey, check it out, dear patient, I’m human, too, and don’t always follow through on everything.

The poorly painted image is of a colossal devil figure. He’s a naked man, and he’s squatting on the ground. I keep looking at his crotch, but his balls aren’t hanging down. A bunch of kitschy little birds are flying around his head. As I’m talking about my latest problems, I keep racking my brain for a reason she might have for putting this image right at the feet of her patients. She’s probably crazy herself. Anyway, I’ve stared at that painting for hours upon hours. I’ve seen it blurry, at times when I’ve been crying. And I’ve seen it shaking, when I’ve had a panic attack. I’ve had to look at that image of the devil with little birds flying around his head in every imaginable emotional state. What is she trying to tell me?

If I were to look to the right—which I never do—I’d see a room stuffed full of tasteless objects. Two fake trees, a black vase out of the 1980s that must be three feet tall, on top of which she’s put a huge polished purple stone. The entire windowsill is crammed with useless stuff. A steel turtle sculpture with evil eyes, some sort of ashtray filled with black sand, a beanbag gecko. I guess Agnetha came of age style-wise in the 1980s. In fact I’m sure of it. But what do I know? Funny thing. I’ve never thought about how old she is. She’s definitely older than I am. Definitely. I read somewhere that psychologists and psychiatrists—what’s the difference between them again?—try to trick their patients by decorating their offices completely differently from their homes. The patient should have something to get annoyed with. The decor in Frau Drescher’s office functions extremely effectively that way for me. When she moves or takes down a painting, I’m thrown into crisis. I walk in, immediately notice the change, and ask her, completely dumbfounded, what the story is. Why do people always have to change things around? Where’s the painting gone? When is it coming back? The way she looks at me, I can tell that five other patients have already reacted exactly the same way. So much for my wonderful individuality.

Then we begin.

“First I need to apologize to you, Frau Drescher, just in case you can smell anything. It’s best if I just tell you directly, rather than spend the entire hour wondering whether you’ve noticed anything.”

“That’s right, Frau Kiehl, it’s better just to say it. You don’t want anything to distract you or weigh you down here. Let’s just get everything out in the open right from the start. What is it that I might have noticed?”

“I just had—shortly before I came here—sex. So there you go, now it’s out. And I only washed up quickly afterward. You always say I don’t need to be perfect when I come to see you.”

“Nice. With whom?”

“Haha. Are you making fun of me? With whom? With Georg, of course.”

“Yes, of course. I was just asking because of the sexual fantasies you’ve talked about recently.”

“I know, I know.”

“Do you feel good as a result?”

“Ha, of course! What do you think? I always feel good after having sex with Georg. I’m kind of amazed that we still have sex, since we’ve been together for so long. In previous relationships, I lost any interest in sex after about three years. This time it’s still going after seven years. Pretty amazing. But I worry that it will end soon. You know how it is: once the sex is gone it’s just a question of time before the love withers and dies, too.”

“Really? You think that’s how it works?”

“Yes, I do. That’s what happened in every single one of my relationships since I was thirteen. That’s exactly how it works. I keep trying to figure out why it’s stayed so good with Georg for this long. And I’ll tell you this, Frau Drescher: I think I’m letting myself be fucked by his money. That’s what I think. The reason it’s worked for so long is because he’s the first guy I’ve been with who’s had more money than me—as a result I still find him sexy. I don’t mean sexy in the sense that he looks so good, but in the sense that I want to fuck him. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason.”

“You’ve told me this theory of yours before. Aren’t you underestimating the love you feel for your husband? You reduce it all to money and sex. I would posit that you’re doing this as a defense mechanism—to shield yourself from your deeper feelings in case things do eventually go bad, or he dies.”

“And I’ve heard that theory from you before, too. We’re not going to get anywhere talking about this topic. Today in town, I thought for a second that I saw my father.”

“What did you do?”

“I just kept walking. I wouldn’t say hello to him. You know that I hope I never see him again. So I couldn’t just say hi to him on the street. The same shit would just start right back up again with his fucking wife—my evil stepmother. You put it so well last time. What was it you said again? That I’d let myself remain passively at the mercy of my parents for long enough and that now I had decided to be proactive, to actively break away from them, even if it was difficult to do so. But that way they could no longer hurt me. That’s it. Exactly. And you said, ‘You can only put physical distance between you and your parents; inside they will always remain with you, because they are your parents.’ Horrible.”

“But you understand that now, don’t you, Frau Kiehl? That you can only get away from them physically, right?”

“Of course. But I still think it’s best to try to cut them off once and for all, forever. I know you don’t like the word ‘forever,’ but I’m allowed to use it because I mean it—even if you don’t like my saying it, and even if you think I can never get rid of them on the inside, like a fucking virus. One that doesn’t just go away. AIDS in parent form. And even if I do still suffer inside, I think cutting them out of my life is the right thing to do. Because I’m doing something, taking action. I’m sick of being a fucking adult and still wondering every year on my birthday whether or not my father has remembered it. He still manages to mess up my birthdays, and I still think about how he always forgot me when I was a child. Okay, sure, he didn’t forget me—like you always say, he only forgot my birthday. Sure, sure, but when you’re a child that feels as if he has completely forgotten about you.”