therapist. The sort of sex you imagined, wanted, then found. And with a woman like yourself: accomplished, in business, feminine, with no boundaries to her sexuality and lovemaking. So I would think it is not strange that you would take the leap to another longed-for hope.
A real mother, said the patient.
No, said the therapist. Your adoptive mother is real enough. What I meant was, to belong somewhere, to feel you belong, to someone you want, who also wants you.
48.
She did not want you! I wanted to scream. Your birth mother did not want you! If she had wanted you, you would be with her today!
What was Dr. Schussler thinking? She was leading the patient to disaster! The doctor’s family story had compromised her; she should have recused herself, no matter the temporary setback for the patient. In a few months, a new, better analyst would take the patient across this bridge; would guide her away from this dangerous search for “blood.” Or, if the patient shunned therapy—a superior option!—she would find a new lover, someone like the stunning Dorotea, whose lovemaking would be so overwhelming, so physical and delightful, so “animal” (as she had put it), that the patient could not possibly see it as a metaphor for her perfect, lost mother. Given such sex, “mother” would be the last word that would come to mind!
But now … the die was cast, was set in stone … all the expressions of regretful permanence whispered themselves in my ear. In the weeks that followed, I was forced to listen as the patient imagined the path to her birth mother, wondered over its possibility, the method of finding her, who might have the records, and who, having the information, would indeed reveal it.
I trembled at her determination. But then, to my relief, I saw that the patient’s research skills were undeveloped. This brilliant woman who could tease meaning from masses of financial data: utterly at sea in the face of archives. Oh, these poor latter-day graduates who have never read Greek or Latin; who look up dumbly if you mention a Latin root in English; who read the corrections in the margins of their papers but still cannot fathom the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs—never mind their total ignorance of the delicious subtleties awaiting them in the subjunctive mood! With such a poverty of language, how can they reap the riches of the library? One surely must pity these deprived Masters of Business Administration, sent out into the world without an understanding of card catalogues.
The patient’s first effort was sorrowfully naïve: a call to the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. Please could someone tell me who can answer my questions about adoptions of baptized Jewish children after the war?—as if they would possibly reveal their nefarious plan, if indeed anyone there even knew about the plot. Did she think someone would contact her to say, Yes, dear, we have a list right here of the Jewish children stolen from their parents? She called four times, on each occasion being directed elsewhere. She wrote several letters. There were no replies but one: “I am not certain where you heard about such events,” said the letter writer, one Father Joseph, “but they have no basis in fact.”
This written denial led her to question the story her mother had told her, which in turn led to several anguished sessions during which she related painful phone conversations, her mother at first helpful, reiterating details she had previously relayed, adding only inconsequential elaborations: the color of her father’s suit on the day her mother had uncovered the file, an elaborate seal on the birth document with the letters H.S. But then a cold curtain fell. “Mother” reverted to the woman who, confronted with the unpleasant topic of her daughter’s homosexuality, had slammed down her teacup to say, We will not discuss this! We will say nothing more about the adoption. I have told you all I know. And I expect you will not put this matter before me again!
Oddly, the patient obeyed. She stopped calling her mother for information. Odder still, she complied with her mother’s demand that “You will not tell Father!” She wrote letters to every Catholic adoption agency still extant in the Chicago area but did not call her mother and father to learn more about her origins. It was as if she had severed her emotional connection with her adoptive parents. My poor patient! She was cut adrift. Her parents were no longer