Russian nobility and society. Intellectuals. Professors. Not once did the question of our being Jews have any part of these evenings—oh, yes, there was one time.
Ludwig Meidner was drunk, said Michal. Meidner, the painter. He held forth one night, excoriating Max Liebermann for having altered his scandalous portrait of Jesus in the temple. It was an old painting, from 1879 or 1880, but it remained controversial among the artists in the drawing room. In it, Max originally showed a twelve-year-old Jesus talking to the elders. One elder wore a Jewish prayer shawl. But the real problem—for the crown prince of Bavaria, among others—was that Jesus was portrayed as Semitic, swarthy. How brave! How new! It was maybe Max’s best painting, because so much of his work was derivative of Corot and Manet. Too many Münchner Biergärten and Bäuerinnen. And in the middle of all that work was this daring painting: Jesus as a Jew. Of course, what else could Jesus have been—a Hindu?
Max wasn’t there that night. This took place in about … Let’s see. I was twelve. Max was an old man by then, and he had retreated to his country house on the Wannsee. Huh! The house on the Wannsee. Expropriated later, of course. Only to become the site of the Wannsee Conference. You know the Wannsee Conference?
Where the final solution was planned, said the patient.
Ah! said her mother. This you know.
There came the sound of clicking silverware, someone shifting in her chair, sighs.
But I am getting ahead of myself again, said the patient’s mother. Let me go back …
A long pause followed, the tape hissing.
So everyone was there that night, in the drawing room, Michal went on, her voice striving but just failing to reach its former energy. And drunken Meidner was shouting and swinging his glass about, she said. He was in his late thirties, a madman; his paintings were challenging, dark, angry. He began railing about how Liebermann had repainted the picture. The coward! No painter with respect for himself and the craft would do such a thing! Repainting the finished canvas—what kind of coward does such a thing? Repainted Jesus, turned him into a little blond darling. A blond boy! To satisfy the fine German sensibilities—Jesus had to be a Münchner, German, Aryan. Why not just put a Bier stein in his hand?
Everyone was yelling. Why go into this now? Aren’t things bad enough for Jews? Meidner was a Jew. Max Liebermann was a Jew, but only as the Rothmans were: just barely.
Every good memory leads to the bad, Michal went on, her voice almost a whisper. It is impossible to keep “before” and “after” separate in one’s mind. Weren’t things bad enough for the Jews? Ah! If only that had been the worst. One looks back and sees that there were fissures through which we might have seen the future, but of course one lives drenched in the past, that wet cloak that weighs around one’s shoulders.
The patient stopped the tape.
Michal shuddered, she told Dr. Schussler. Just as if a cold wet cloak had actually dropped on her. Then she called for Gerda to come and take away the tray and told me, You have to leave now. I’ll tell you the whole story, but it must come slowly. Come tomorrow at the same time and we’ll resume.
I rose without question and walked toward the far end of the room. Obeying, allowing myself to be sent away. Then—maybe because I had put some distance between us—before I left the room, it came to me that I still did not have an answer to the one question I’d been determined to ask. So I walked back and stood over her.
But I have to ask you, I said. You must tell me … When I walked in here, you knew me right away. I know you’re tired. But you can’t understand what it’s like to live not looking like anyone. Not related to anyone. Please: You knew me immediately. So who is it? Who do I look like?
Her face went blank for a moment, and I was afraid she would shout and wave me away again. But then she smiled, very slowly, very sadly. My sister, she said finally. You have her face exactly. Her figure. Her grace. Your pointed chin, the haze of hair around your face. It was as if my sister had come back from the grave and stood before me.
Nothing of my father?
Her face hardened. She snorted. Ha! Whoever that might