BENSIMON: So, what seems to be the nature of the problem?
LYSANDER: It’s . . . It’s a sexual problem.
BENSIMON: Yes. It usually is. At root.
LYSANDER: When I engage in lustful activity . . . That’s to say, during amatory congress –
BENSIMON: Please don’t search for euphemisms, Mr Rief. Plain speaking – it’s the only way. Be as blunt and as coarse as you like. Use the language of the street – nothing can offend me.
LYSANDER: Right. When I’m fucking, I can’t do it.
BENSIMON: You can’t get an erection?
LYSANDER: I have no problem with an erection. On the contrary – all very satisfactory there. My problem is to do with . . . with emission.
BENSIMON: Ah. Incredibly common. You ejaculate too soon.
Ejaculatio praecox
.
LYSANDER: No. I don’t ejaculate at all.
Lysander strolled down the gentle slope of Berggasse. Dr Freud’s rooms were here, somewhere – perhaps he should have tried for him? What was that French expression? ‘Why speak to the apostles when you can go to God himself?’ But there was the problem of language: Bensimon was English, which was a huge advantage – a boon, even – not to be gainsaid. Lysander recalled the long silence after he had told Bensimon the curious nature of his sexual malfunction.
BENSIMON: So – you’re engaged in the sex-act but there is no orgasm.
LYSANDER: Precisely.
BENSIMON: What happens?
LYSANDER: Well, I can go on for a good time but the realization that nothing will happen makes me, eventually, slacken off, as it were.
BENSIMON: Detumescence.
LYSANDER: Eventually.
BENSIMON: I’m going to have to think about this. Most unusual. Anorgasmia – you’re the first I’ve seen. Fascinating.
LYSANDER: Anorgasmia?
BENSIMON: That’s what’s wrong with you. That’s what your problem’s called.
And that was that, except for one further piece of advice. Bensimon asked him if he kept a journal, a diary, or a commonplace book. Lysander said he didn’t. He did write poetry, he said, fairly regularly, some of which had been published in newspapers and magazines, but – he shrugged modestly – he was an amateur poet, he enjoyed trying his hand at verse and made no claims at all for the lines that ensued – and, no, and he didn’t keep a journal.
‘I want you to start writing things down,’ Bensimon had said. ‘Dreams you have, fleeting thoughts, things you see and hear that intrigue you. Anything and everything. Stimulations of every kind – sexual or olfactory, auditory, sensual – anything at all. Bring these notes along to our consultations and read them out to me. Hold nothing back, however shocking, however banal. It’ll give me a direct insight into your personality and nature – into your unconscious mind.’
‘My “id”, you mean.’
‘I see you’ve done your homework, Mr Rief. I’m impressed.’
Bensimon had told him to jot these impressions and observations down as close as possible to the time they occurred and not to alter or edit them in any way. Furthermore, they were not to be written down on scraps of paper. Lysander should purchase a proper notebook – leather-bound, fine paper – and make it a true personal document, something that was contained and enduring, not just a collection of random scribblings.
‘And give it a title,’ Bensimon had suggested. ‘You know – “My Inner Life”, or ‘Personal Reflections’. Formalize the thing, in other words. Your dream diary, your journal of yourself – your Seelenjournal – it should be something you’ll treasure and value in the fullness of time. A record of your mind during these coming weeks, conscious and unconscious.’
At least, Lysander thought, crossing the street to the artists’ supplies shop that Bensimon had recommended – the Wiener Kunstmaterialien – at least it would be something concrete, a kind of permanent chronicle of his stay. All this talking – and all the talking he was bound to do – were simply words lost in the air. He was warming to the idea as he pushed through the swing doors into the shop, Bensimon was right, perhaps it would help him after all.
WKM was large and well lit – clusters of electric bulbs hung from the ceiling in modern, aluminium-spoked chandeliers, the gleaming coronas reflected in the shiny tan linoleum floor below them. The smell of turpentine, oil paint, untreated wood and canvas made Lysander feel welcome. He loved these kinds of emporium – alleyways of stacked artistic materials, like a cultural cornucopia, ran here and there: shelves of layered paper types, jars filled with sharp pencils, a small copse of easels, large and small, raked rows of tubes of oil paint laid out in chromatic sequence, fat gleaming bottles of linseed oil and paint thinner, canvas aprons, folding stools, stacked palettes, cobbled tins of watercolours, flat boxes of pastels, their lids open, displaying their bright contents like so many multi-coloured cigarillos. Whenever he came into shops like this he always resolved to take up sketching as a serious hobby, or watercolouring or lino-cutting – anything to give him a chance to buy some of this toothsome equipment.
He turned an aisle corner to find a small library of cartridge paper pads and notebooks. He browsed a while and picked up one with hundreds of pages, like a dictionary. No, no – too daunting, something more modest was required that could be realistically filled. He selected a pliable black leather-covered notebook, fine paper, unlined, 150 leaves. He liked its weight in his hand and it would fit in a coat pocket, like a guidebook – a guidebook to his psyche. Perfect. A title came into his head: ‘Autobiographical Investigations by Lysander Rief’ . . . Now, that sounded exactly what Bensimon –
‘We meet again.’
Lysander turned to see Miss Bull standing there. A friendly, smiling Miss Bull.
‘You’re buying your notebook, aren’t you?’ she said knowingly. ‘Bensimon should have a commission in here.’
‘Are you doing the same?’
‘No. I gave mine up after a couple of weeks. Trouble is I’m not really verbal, you see. I visualize – see things in images, not words. I’d rather draw than write.’ She held up what she was purchasing – a small cluster of dull oddly shaped knives, some tapered sharply, some with triangular ends, like miniature trowels.
‘You can’t draw with those,’ Lysander said.
‘I sculpt,’ she explained. ‘I’m just ordering more clay and plaster. WKM’s the best place in town.’
‘A sculptress – how interesting.’
‘No. A sculptor.’
Lysander inclined his head, apologetically. ‘Of course.’
Miss Bull stepped closer and lowered her voice.
‘I’d really like to apologize for my behaviour earlier this morning –’
‘Couldn’t matter less –’
‘I was a bit . . . overwrought. I’d run out of my medicine, don’t you see. That’s why I had to get to Dr Bensimon – for my medicine.’
‘Right. Dr Bensimon dispenses medicines as well?’
‘Well, no. Sort of. But he gave me an injection. And more supplies.’ She patted her handbag. ‘It’s marvellous stuff – you should try it if you’re ever a bit low.’
She certainly seemed different as a result of Dr Bensimon’s medicine, Lysander thought, looking at her, much more assured and self-confident. Somehow more in command of every –
‘You’ve a most interesting face,’ Miss Bull said.
‘Thank you.’
‘I’d love to sculpt you.’
‘Well, I’m a bit –’
‘No hurry.’ She rummaged in her bag and came up with her card. Lysander read it: ‘Miss Esther Bull, artist and sculptor. Lessons provided.’ There was an address in Bayswater, in London.
‘Bit out of date,’ she said. ‘I’ve been in Vienna for two years, now – my telephone number’s on the back. We’ve just got a telephone installed.’ She looked at him challengingly. Lysander hadn’t missed the second person plural. ‘I live with Udo Hoff,’ she said.