wondering: Who was it that Michal recognized right away? Who is it that I look like? Who?
The next day, as she was about to leave the hotel, it occurred to her that she was unlikely ever to visit her birth mother again, that she should record whatever it was that Michal was going to tell her. The hotel deskman told her there were many places selling inexpensive cassette recorders and directed her to the nearest one. There she bought a nine-by-six-inch portable with a leather shoulder strap.
Then I went back to Michal’s house, the patient told Dr. Schussler. Once again, Gerda led me into the dark room with that slash of light. To the two upholstered chairs set at right angles, Michal in the same seat as yesterday. Everything the same as if nothing had happened between this time and the last.
But before I could ask—demand!—all I wanted to know, Michal turned to me with that open, sympathetic face. Her skin glowed. Her eyes were kind and soft, full of light. And she said: I spent all night wondering over you. Wondering who you have become. You are a grown-up woman with a life. Almost thirty, yes? So tell me, for instance, what do you do? I mean as your profession.
Suddenly, again, I wanted to please her, the patient told the therapist. How damnedly deep is this desire to make your mother love you! Love me, love me, love me. Tell me what I must do to win your love. So I succumbed. I told her I was an economics analyst, to make it simple, since who knows what a “quant” is?
And she immediately replied:
You are not an artist?
Hardly, I said. Was I supposed to be?
On my side, she said, we were all artists and writers and art dealers. But, oh! There was my uncle on my mother’s side, the architect, and his son, the engineer. Is economic analysis anything like architecture or engineering?
I felt I was auditioning for the role of daughter, the patient said to her doctor. For the role of the daughter she had imagined. Even though—through no fault of my own—I’d become an American. Even though—through no fault of my own—I’d failed to become an artist, still: I would have her see me as creative, interesting, worthy.
I told her that what I did was a lot like architecture. Architects imagine and analyze space, engineers turn that into numbers. I told her that I envision and analyze money, which is a completely imaginary space.
The patient went on to give a witty, detailed description of her work (which I found utterly fascinating, as it clarified many points that had confused me as I had sat listening to her sessions).
I’m not sure how much of it Michal understood, the patient said to Dr. Schussler. I tried my best to make it all clear to her, a “civilian,” as we call them. I wanted her to see my work as stimulating, inventive. I didn’t want to find another Charlotte, who would wave me away as being on the wrong side of life. I didn’t want to be rejected because I wasn’t an “artist.”
I played the role of “creative quant,” if there can be such a thing.
It’s all an elaborate belief structure, I told her, a structure based on reputation, in which the players must trust one another. In other words, a house of cards. My job is to try to understand the stresses—yes, like architectural engineering—to try to prevent the house from falling down.
And I got my “bravo!”
How marvelous! Michal cried out. How intelligent you must be to do such work! I am utterly delighted!
I looked hard at Michal. She was beaming. Pleased. Admiring. My God! I thought. Finally a mother who approves of me.
But then came the next question, the inevitable question, the one that always sends me into hiding.
She asked: And are you married? Or perhaps “with” someone?
I answered: I just broke up with someone.
Normally I would have gone on in the usual gender-indistinct way. You know, saying “this person” and “someone.” Or always sticking with the plural. But here I was with my birth mother. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I came out and said:
The person I broke up with was a woman. A beautiful woman. But she was a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Lesbian-Separatist bicycle messenger, and I am an economic analyst with a Wall Street brokerage.
Michal burst out laughing. So you’re a lesbian! she said. Isn’t that just wonderful! My sister, my older sister Gisella, was a