Doktor Messerli arrived at an immediate interpretation. “It’s a sign of stagnancy. The movie’s being made and you’re not in it. This is why the girls do not survive. The girls are you. You are the girls. You do not survive. You are ill with inaction, a patron sitting passively in a dark theater.”
Anna’s passivity. The hub from which the greater part of her psychology radiated. Everything came down to a nod, an acquiescence, a Yes, dear. Anna was aware of this. It was a trait she’d never bothered to question or revise, which, through the lens of a certain desiccated poignancy, seemed to be its proof. Anna was a swinging door, a body gone limp in the arms of another body carrying it. An oarless ocean rowboat. Am I as assailable as that? Yes, it sometimes seemed. I have no knack for volition. My backbone’s in a brace. It’s the story of my life. And it was. The very view from her kitchen window looked out upon it. Triangulated by the street and the apple trees and the path that led up the hill an invisible marquee flashed over a secret door that led into that same dark theater she dreamed of. Anna didn’t need to see it to know it was there. The titles changed but the films were all of a sort. One week it was You Could Speak Up, Have Your Say!, the next it was You’re No Victim, You’re an Accomplice. And Not Choosing Is Still a Choice was held over for years.
Then there were the children. Anna hadn’t longed to be a mother. She didn’t yearn for it that way other women do. It terrified her. I’m to be responsible for another person? A tiny, helpless, needy person? Still, Anna got pregnant. And then again and then again. It seemed to just happen. She never said Let’s do this and she never said Let’s not. Anna didn’t say anything at all. (Nor in this case, did Bruno. That discussion regarding future progeny? It never happened.)
But it wasn’t as terrible as she’d feared and for the most part and for most of the time, Anna was glad to be someone’s mother. Anna loved her children. She loved all her children. Those beautiful Swiss children that a firmer-footed Anna would never have known. So Anna’s passivity had merit. It was useful. It made for relative peace at the house on Rosenweg. Allowing Bruno to make decisions on her behalf absolved her of responsibility. She didn’t need to think. She followed along. She rode a bus that someone else drove. And Bruno liked driving it. Order upon order. Rule upon rule. Where the wind blew, she went. This was Anna’s natural inclination. And like playing tennis or dancing a foxtrot, or speaking a foreign language, it grew even easier with practice. If Anna suspected there was more to her pathology, then that was a secret she kept very close.
“WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN passivity and neutrality?”
“Passivity is deference. To be passive is to relinquish your will. Neutrality is nonpartisan. The Swiss are neutral, not passive. We do not choose a side. We are scales in perfect balance.” Doktor Messerli spoke with something that might have been pride in her voice.
“Not choosing. Is that still a choice?”
Doktor Messerli opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind.
ANNA SAT AT THE dining table for almost a half hour fumbling through homework before Bruno emerged from his office like a marmot from a burrow. He came to the table, yawned, and rubbed his eyes. Anna saw their sons in that gesture. “How’s the class?” Bruno asked. Anna couldn’t recall the last time Bruno asked after her. She surged with a momentary affection for him and reached around his waist with her arms and tried to draw him closer into her. But Bruno—impervious or obstinate—did not respond in kind. He reached down and rifled through her papers. Anna dropped her arms.
Bruno picked up a page of exercises and gleaned it for accuracy. “Du hast hier einen Fehler,” he said in a voice he intended to be helpful, but one that Anna interpreted as condescending. She had made a mistake. “This verb goes at the end,” Bruno said. He was right. In both the future and the past tense, the action comes at the end. It is only in the present tense that the verb is joined to the noun that enacts it. Bruno returned her work absently. “I’m going to bed.” He didn’t bend to kiss her. Bruno shut the bedroom door behind him and went to sleep.
Anna lost all interest in her exercises.
She checked the wall clock. It was after eleven but she wasn’t tired.
“A DREAM IS A psychic statement,” Doktor Messerli explained. “The more frightening the dream, the more pressing the need to look at that part of yourself. Its purpose is not to destroy you. It simply fulfills its compulsory task in a highly unpleasant manner.” And then she added, “The less attention you pay, the more terrifying the nightmares become.”
“And if you ignore them?”
Doktor Messerli’s face took on a cast of gravity. “Psyche will be heard. She demands it. And there are other, more threatening ways of capturing your attention.”
Anna didn’t ask what those were.