Ruth
Here, Ruth turned the page and saw, rather than the continuation of the narrative, a page written in German.
“Oh,” she said out loud, a single disappointed syllable that hung in the air like the dust motes dancing in the slanting autumn light before settling onto the scratched oak floor.
The journal’s sudden return from English to German had thrown her out of the trance in which she’d spent the last hour. Not only the switch in language, but also topic. Now she read about an unnamed patient with trouble breathing, another with ringing in his ears.
She turned the next page. The handwriting was the same, but the tone impersonal and the details dull.
Ruth read about a third patient with respiratory troubles. And fourth with sinus headaches, just as her own headache was coming on, because the handwriting took considerable time to decipher, the unfamiliar words refusing to give up their secrets as easily due to the additional barriers of a second language and medical terminology.
“Too bad,” she whispered. She didn’t even have a cat with whom to share the frustrating news.
Her phone dinged. She picked it up, hoping—what, exactly? It wasn’t like Scott had texted in ages. But it was Reece, barely home and already bothering her. For the moment, she ignored him.
Ruth closed the journal and rose from the couch, went to the bathroom, walked to the kitchen and filled a glass of water. She was in such a distracted state, she couldn’t remember if she’d just taken two ibuprofen in the bathroom as she’d intended.
There is a sense of acceleration again, of the oncoming train or the past rushing up to swallow the present, in that moment before everything speeds up, in that moment before things hurt.
Ruth thought of her own accident, that moment that had seemed to last forever: careening toward the car in front of her, then swinging away as she braked. The certainty that her car would crash through the barrier and slide off the bridge—and then everything speeding up again, all too fast. Sirens and faces. The rescuers, the bystanders. None of them knowing what she had experienced, what had run through her mind just when she thought she was about to die: out of nowhere, an image of Scott, injured and bleeding. All this time later, she’d told only her two therapists. Scott had never found out.
Ruth walked back to the bathroom and opened the bottom left drawer of the apothecary cabinet, the first piece of furniture she had ever bought herself after she’d moved back into her mother’s house, as an unsuccessful attempt to add her own adult personality to a home that would never truly be hers. The tightly fitted drawers had to be tugged in order to open. Surely she would remember having done that if she’d already taken the ibuprofen?
Ruth found herself staring at the cabinet with its five rows of drawers, remembering what she’d first loved about it: how it kept everything separate, taming the random items inside. Every pill bottle, memento or extra key had its own small dark wood-scented space.
You like old shit, Kennidy would have said.
You simply appreciate pretty things, Scott would have said.
Compartmentalization, her grad-school buddy Joe Grandlouis would have said—would still say, if Ruth ever called him, something she’d been meaning to do for ages.
What’s wrong with that?
Nothing—until it can’t be done anymore.
Ruth’s mom, Gwen, wouldn’t have said anything at all. She didn’t notice when new things entered the house, when her daughters were troubled, or even when her youngest daughter, prone to substance abuse, had gone into her bedroom and not come out for nearly twenty-four hours.
“All of you are right,” said Ruth as she twisted off the bottle’s lid and shook two orange caplets into her hand. She stared at them. Had she just taken these, or had she only been thinking of taking them? Luckily, they weren’t Vicodin or Xanax or any of the stronger medications off which she’d mostly weaned herself. More important now was the question: How could we expect to remember what had happened in our lives two or even twenty years ago when we weren’t sure what had happened a minute ago?
“A few more can’t hurt, in any case.”
She swallowed the pills.
Memory was fickle, but this journal was clearly not just about memories, not just about trauma, though that was how a Viennese psychoanalyst would see it, of course. It was about clairvoyance, maybe more.
Back in the living room, Ruth continued reviewing what she’d read, thinking of Annie’s train crash, her own car accident and what Annie had disclosed to the man taking notes.
Ruth thought about the birth of psychoanalysis. Had that been in the 1890s? No, 1880s, she was fairly certain.
She tried to picture Annie Oakley, just under five feet tall, reclining on a couch in her long skirt and black boots, waist pinched by a severe corset, long brown hair fanned out on some fussy little bolster or pillow. She was thinking about Annie’s various trips to Austria and Germany—where she had supposedly shot the end of a cigarette held by the German Crown Prince Wilhelm II, at his request—and whether the sharpshooter had mentioned anything about scientists or cures of any sort. It was highly improbable, but not impossible.
In his email, Nieman, as he called himself, had presented the journal as “Annie Oakley’s true account, in her own words.” If he’d asked for money, Ruth would’ve been suspicious. Instead, he expected answers and insights, quid pro quo, claiming urgency. He was willing to share materials no scholar had ever seen, but only because he needed her help ascertaining their authenticity. He didn’t mention why he’d chosen Ruth for this task or how he had gotten her contact information, though of course it wasn’t hard to track anyone down these days.
His instructions had been: Read it first. I don’t want to color your impression in any way. Then email me and I will send you my questions. Answer the questions and I may be able to provide you with more documents—a letter collection, which I haven’t properly seen and can only obtain after a significant investment, which I won’t make unless your answers suggest it is worthwhile.
Ruth wanted more pages, the continuation of Annie’s therapy sessions, if that was what these were.
Annie, what next? Where did you go?
Of course, she still didn’t know if it was the real Annie Oakley, whose name had never once been used. But the other details pointed all too obviously: sharpshooting, feather-filled balls, the train accident, Frank, and—though they weren’t explicitly named—the Wolves.
When I was in an unpleasant situation, as a child. Removing myself, as I believe many people have done, in situations of discomfort or shame.
The unnamed analyst had put his finger on the sensitive spot: a “spontaneous neurosis.” A “fixation” that preceded the traumatic neurosis of the train accident, by many years.
This either was someone meant to be Annie, or it was Annie.
Therefore, to make things simple: Annie.
But only for about seven pages.
Then, no more.
Ruth wanted to read the journal from the beginning again, to look for more clues to the analyst’s identity that she might have overlooked. But first, quickly, she texted Reece, just to be polite and perhaps slow the arrival of the next slew of messages. His most recent had been: I looked up Uncanny. Commonly used in AO’s time. Not a red flag after all.
Now she texted back: Good job. How’d you figure that out?
Google Ngram.
Good. Did high-schoolers use that? It wasn’t flawless for establishing word popularity over time, but it would do.
You don’t think it’s a reporter’s account, but given she’s describing accident and you said Wild West show sued the train company, maybe written up by lawyer? Testimony?
Better than the reporter theory. Ruth smiled and replied, Not impossible, based on the part we read together.
Ruth hadn’t yet decided how much she’d share with Reece, but already, her inclination was shifting. She hadn’t written anything in a year; she’d been out of teaching for twice as long. Since her breakup with Scott, she’d had no one who would walk in the door, ready to hear about her latest discovery. And besides, the kid was desperate in the same way she’d once been desperate. To be a part of something. And perhaps to get away from something else.
Ruth texted, The rest makes it clear. He’s an early psychoanalyst.
OK! So. Freud?
Not Freud, I don’t think, but will investigate all options.
A minute passed before Reece replied. Wiki says AO was a famous hysteric written about by Freud. Is this her?
Let’s not go calling anyone a hysteric, thought Ruth. But she wasn’t going to thumb-type a lecture on the misdiagnosis of women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Different AO, she texted. That’s a code name for Bertha somebody.
Reece had the answer quickly. Pappenheim. From Vienna. Never mind about Freud. Wasn’t her therapist. But . . . AO, not Annie Oakley?
Coincidence. This journal calls her ZN. A code. One letter back. Bertha P became Anna O. This Annie Oakley became ZN. If it’s real.
Easy code.
No one guessed who Bertha was for decades as I recall, so OK code evidently. Not our problem.
Weird coincidence, two Annas.
Not so weird, Ruth replied. Many women named Ann/Annie/Anna in this period.
But two AOs?
Let’s not get stuck on that.
It was something that Scott might have said to her, or even Dr. Susan, except that Ruth’s psychotherapist would have used the term “apophenia,” the false perception of connections and meaning in the presence of unrelated phenomena. One was supposed to ignore that little echo in one’s head, or the tingle, or the voice that said, This! Pay attention to this! Fortunately or unfortunately for Ruth, historians were pattern seekers. Yet it was equally important to remember: a pattern was only a tool for discovering truth, not truth itself.
Reece texted, When can I read the rest?
More to find out first. Which wasn’t an answer. Bye.
She pulled her laptop closer and composed a quick, neutral greeting to Nieman, thanking him again for entrusting her with the journal. Then she got to the point.
You mentioned the seller allowed you to see one letter from the collection you’re thinking of buying. I presume it is a letter from “ZN” to the doctor, to continue their relationship by correspondence, as he suggested. Do you intend to include it? Is the analyst not named or addressed? Do you have anything else that connects Annie Oakley directly to this journal? I wouldn’t want to waste your time by offering an uninformed opinion if you have another document that will answer the question or at least narrow down the options. With the letter as opposed to the journal (if I am correct in my hypothesis regarding its presented authorship), we would at least have known handwriting to examine and compare.
Ruth hadn’t been sure about the last line, which was really just a cheap bid for him to cough up the letter so she could see it firsthand. Just as she’d told Reece, handwriting analysis was an ever-weaker tool in the digital age.
It seemed ridiculous to push forward with more research until Nieman got back to her. Was he testing Ruth by withholding the letter, or was he intentionally hobbling her efforts?
He was hiding something, she decided. But who didn’t hide their most treasured secrets? The woman in the journal, “ZN,” hadn’t seemed forthright; the analyst wasn’t either. He hadn’t told his anxious new client that he believed her experiences to be pure hallucination.
And Ruth? In the depths of her illness, she had lied on a regular basis.
Ruth put on the kettle, selected an Earl Grey tea bag and stood with the spoon in her hand, staring at the sugar bowl on the counter, still wondering why she’d been chosen to receive this journal. Why had it shown up today, not two years ago, when Ruth had needed it most? Why in the presence of this young stranger as stubborn and argumentative as Kennidy, her own kid sister, had been?
Perseverating was often associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, especially with certain types of brain injury. She had talked through strategies with Dr. Susan Joy Hovsepian—or Dr. Susan, as Scott and Ruth had always called her—such as setting a firm time limit for thinking about any given topic or image. By which I don’t mean dwelling on something for a week, Ruth. I mean ten minutes. Use a timer.