Her list of place names had made me long for home. Southend-on-Sea. Harrow-on-the-Hill. Salford, to which I’d never been. London. I followed the road along the canal, which I felt sure must lead back to the river, and had Heimweh for England. Not only the England of warm beer and cricket whites and spinsters riding through the mist to Sunday communion. The England of cultures clashing, democratic chaos, of the next musical fad, the ageing punks around World’s End, pimpled youths on the tube, the wordless Pakistani grocer fingering out your change. The England of rain, of burnt-out summer piers, of the Chelsea mob baying their way through Soho, the politely lethal policemen hemming them in. I passed a demonstration in a square, of young girls in coloured balaclavas bouncing behind a mass of riot police, a bellowing group of youths outside them, punching the air, it seemed, all in time to a booming music track. And I felt that Heimweh again.
So tell me, I said to Istvan, when I entered the office, about the coloured balaclava.
What about it? he asked.
I passed some kind of demonstration.
Kind of pirate copy of pussy riot that can be reproduced at will. I blame the internet. Any bunch of pissed-off kids can put on the coloured balaclavas, get boombox and dance around municipal buildings, and what do you know? there is another.
Another what?
Another riot. Police come in with batons and whips, there is overreaction, demonstrations, for and against. The balaclava is a virus, a riot virus.
The gun had not made its reappearance. He was cleaning his sunglasses now.
I can see from your expression, he said to me, that it was a wild-boar chase.
Goose, I corrected him. Wild-goose chase. And yes, there was no Petra. There was a madam, who was quite the anglophile.
Anglophile?
A lover of England, and its peculiar place names. There was a girl called Anya, who seemed in need of an intervention.
She has a drug habit, I elaborated, to his raised eyebrows. If you could persuade the forces of law and order to raid the place, maybe someone could help her.
Is she our concern? he asked me.
She should be somebody’s.
There are junkie hookers on every street corner. And at least this one has a room. Is it a small room that she cannot leave?
It didn’t seem to be.
So, I keep looking? For another hidden brothel in the twelfth?
If you would.
How English of me, I thought. And I checked my diary and saw I had an appointment.
There were no coloured balaclavas on the boulevard, no whip-wielding Cossacks, just the unrelenting heat and the stalled traffic, and the sound of some fracas way beyond it. So when I made it to his office I was drenched in sweat and Sarah was already on her perch by the half-open window.
You’re late, she said.
Sorry, I said, to both of you. I got caught up.
And where were we? the Viennese said, though calling him Viennese is disingenuous, but I’ll keep doing so, if I may.
You mentioned the word contempt.
Did I? he asked, and raised his eyebrows and for the first time I observed how outrageously luxuriant they were.
You had detected a certain residual affection between us, which might be enough to save the marriage. And residual affection, you observed, was better than contempt.
I don’t remember that word, said Sarah.
Because, darling, you had already left.
You remember everything, observed the therapist.
Yes, I said. It’s part of my job. I remember every errant phrase, every crumpled receipt, every gesture of contempt or affection. I remember things, I brood upon them, I pick them apart, I look for signs and symbols in what I remember. I consider memory the cousin of jealousy and I am, sadly, a jealous man.
And I remember that word, she said. Darling.
Yes, I said. So English, isn’t it? It can act like a kiss or a slap in the face. One is never sure which. Do you miss England, Sarah?
Do I miss what, exactly, in England, dear?
The rain? The rationality?
I miss umbrellas, she said, inconsequentially.
Wellington boots.
Bicycles.
It was fun, talking as if the Viennese wasn’t there. His enormous eyebrows shifted back and forwards, from me to her.
Harrow-on-the-Hill.
Is it on a hill? asked Sarah.
Apparently.
Always hated Harrow, she said. Pinner. The Metropolitan line.
I understand, he said. The eyebrows nodded. You talk as if I am not here. Good.
You approve? asked Sarah.
My purpose, he said, is to make myself irrelevant.
I understood your purpose to be different, Sarah muttered.
Your understanding of my purpose is?
If I may quote, the conversion of hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness.
Bravo, Sarah.
Thank you, Jonathan.
I think the phrase was ‘neurotic misery’, he said.
Neurotic misery then, Sarah said. Let’s get back to that.
So soon? I asked.
We are paying, Sarah said and tried to hide her smile.
And I felt he was offended, so brought the conversation back to what seemed was the subject. Misery.
Is there a difference, I asked him, between neurotic and hysterical misery?
Hysteria was a term Freud associates with women, he said.
Hysteria, Sarah said. Womb. Hysterectomy.
Pussy Riot.
My behaviour, therefore, Sarah said, he would have termed hysterical.
The conversation has moved on since then, the doctor said.
I missed him, Sarah said. He was away and I missed him more. I befriended his friend to talk about him. And I end up missing him entirely.
Which is why we are here?
Is that a statement or a question?
Both, I suppose. And his eyebrows were at rest for once.
The thing about England that I miss, said Sarah, is Englishness.
And there is such a thing?
Well, she said, and tapped a coloured nail off one of her teeth, if there were, it would be to do with what’s missing in this room.
And what is that?
Understatement, she said. Certain things can be understood, and not necessarily . . .
She raised her head. She examined her beautiful nail.
Talked about.
Can we understand what happens without talking about it?
I can, she said. The question is, can he?