Dr Maude smiles when I tell her I spent the night with Scarpaci.
‘It was pretty fucking terrific too if you want to know,’ I tell her.
‘Glad to hear it. We all need good sex in our lives.’ She settles back. ‘Two sessions ago you told me you sometimes felt lost. Still feel that way?’
I shrug. ‘Internalizing so many characters makes it hard for me to see myself. I do a Vertigo for Rex and suddenly I’m reveling in being submissive. Then I see photos of Chantal wielding a whip and I want to try my hand at dominance.’
‘Our minds are theaters, Tess, where we construct dramas out of our conflicts. I think you’re suffering from a problem many performers face, confusing the roles you play on stage with your roles in your internal dramas. I think that’s why you’re asking yourself who you are.’
‘Actually I’m asking you.’
‘Oh, Tess, only you can figure that out. We grow and change. We take on one persona and then another. Think of Lou Salomé, the many roles she played – muse, author, psychoanalyst. You’re an actress. For you these transformations are frequent, intense, and often extreme. But I believe you have a strong core. By playing all these roles – the connoisseur of perversity, the aesthete in pursuit of decadence – you never have to show the world your true self. But someone astute, say an experienced shrink,’ she smiles, ‘or an experienced detective can see the fine courageous woman behind the mask.’
‘So am I a fraud?’
She shakes her head vigorously. ‘Not at all! You’re a wearer of disguises. Your father was a fraud.’
I’m in the ring at San Pablo Martial Arts. Rosita is coming after me. She’s so quick I can’t block her strikes. Her blows connect and they hurt. She’s not coming on full force, rather toying with me, trying to show me up. I retreat, glance quickly at Kurt. He meets my eyes with a blank stare.
I drop my gloves. ‘I’m done.’ Rosita nods, drops hers, glances at Kurt, bumps gloves with me, and climbs out of the ring.
I go over to Kurt. ‘What’re you trying to do? See me get pummeled? You know I’m not ready for her.’
‘I wanted to see if you really had fighting spirit. Watching you today I’m not so sure.’
‘I’m not so sure either. Overmatching – what kind of training is that?’
‘If you’re not happy here don’t train here. There’re plenty of other gyms.’
‘You’re saying you want me to go?’
‘Up to you,’ he says.
I stare hard at him. ‘Is this because I know about you and Chantal?’
‘You know nothing about that. Anyway Chantal’s dead.’
‘I notice you don’t call her Marie anymore.’
‘A detective’s been around asking questions. Are you his mole?’
‘Do you know how absurd that is?’ I gaze at him, but he doesn’t respond. I shake my head. ‘OK, I get it. You don’t want me here. Fine. I’ll clean out my locker.’
He shrugs and turns away.
Back out on the street, I phone Scarpaci, tell him what just happened and how incredibly pissed I am.
‘I never mentioned you,’ he tells me. ‘But since that’s what he thinks, you’re probably better off training someplace else. There’re lots of martial-arts gyms.’
‘Sure, but it hurts to get kicked out. Is Kurt a person of interest?’
‘He owned up to having been Chantal’s client. Said he liked working out with her at his gym and also at hers. Kinda strange way to define her sessions, but, bottom line, I don’t think he frightened or harmed her.’
Inspiration: it came upon me suddenly this afternoon, and now, hours later, I’m still at work, deep into the flow, hitting the computer keys, writing and organizing my notes, thinking up scenes then sketching them out, working out different ways to tell the story of myself and Chantal Desforges, the strange woman whose loft I now occupy and whose personality and obsessions take up so much space in my head.
I photocopy the best of the many images of the Luzern photograph from Chantal’s books, place it beside my computer so I can stare at it as I work.
Gazing at it now I ask myself: what did Chantal see in this strange image that would explain her many efforts to decipher it? What was she trying to say when she went to so much trouble to reenact it? Was her obsession with Lou Salomé a form of madness? Was it connected in some way to her own violent death? These are the issues I want to explore.
I’m certain this new piece won’t be like any other I’ve created. I don’t envision it as a monologue, rather as a grand theatrical experience, a full-length play with other actors beside myself performing a multitude of roles. It will be about three women whose lives are interwoven: Tess Berenson, seeker/performer; Chantal Desforges, dominatrix/victim; and Lou Salomé, writer/psychoanalyst/role-model.
I work late into the night. Whenever I get stuck I simply gaze at the Luzern photograph and a new stream of ideas cascades through my brain. So many notions, so many scenes – I can barely keep up with them. Some I like; many I reject. My focus narrows. I lose track of time. When the phone rings a little after eleven it jolts me as if from a reverie.
It’s Scarpaci. He just got home after a long day. He wouldn’t call so late, he says, if I hadn’t told him I rarely go to bed before midnight.
‘How’s the writing going?’
‘It’s flowing.’
‘Good. Listen, Tess, I’ve been thinking about your little show-down with Kurt. Once he realized you knew about his barter relationship with Chantal, he couldn’t bear having you around. He probably thought, knowing about his submissive side, you wouldn’t respect him. Isn’t respect what martial arts is all about, the disciple’s respect for the sensei?’
Scarpaci’s probably right. That could explain what happened. But, I tell him, understanding why Kurt dismissed me doesn’t make it any easier to forgive him.
‘Let it go. He’s not that important to you.’ He pauses. ‘Josh came by this afternoon to give me his drawing of the other guy. He seemed a lot more relaxed than the other day. When I asked him why Chantal matched them up, he said he thought it was because they were the same height and had the same build. He also said he’d never seen her so controlling as she was the afternoon she set up that shot.’
Jerry calls. He wants to take me to lunch at Chez Panisse.
‘I want to be clear,’ he says. ‘I’m not trying to woo you back. You were brave to leave. I got pretty nasty about it and lashed out. You left because you felt over-powered. I get that.’
‘More like over-controlled,’ I correct him.
‘Fine. I’m difficult. I admit it. But seeing you the other night I realized how talented you are. As for those cracks I made about your Hollis grant – that was unforgiveable. Please consider my request that we have lunch a prelude to a sincere apology. I don’t want you to despise me.’
I give in. We make a date for Friday. He offers to fetch me, but I tell him I’ll meet him at the restaurant. I don’t want him asking to see my loft and going pouty on me when I refuse.
Over dinner at a small family-owned Sicilian place in Temescal, Scarpaci proposes that whenever we spend the night together we do so at his place instead of mine.
‘It wouldn’t be good if Josh spotted us. He’s still very much a person of interest. He knew Chantal well. He monitored her sessions. He was conveniently away when she moved out. Beyond all that he’s a forger, which tells me he’s a habitual liar.’
As the waitress sets down our pasta dishes, Scarpaci accesses an image on his phone then hands it to me: Josh’s drawing of the second man in Chantal’s strange chariot photograph.
‘Hey, I know this guy!’ Scarpaci, surprised, puts down his fork. ‘His name’s Carl Draper. He rang my buzzer a few weeks ago. I met him for coffee, then we had lunch. He’s an architect from New York. Told me he was one of Chantal’s regulars. When he found her phone disconnected and her website down, he came over to the Buckley to see if she was still there.’
I describe our meeting and how after lunch he asked to come upstairs.
‘Claimed he wanted to see the loft again because he’d had such intense experiences there. “For old times’ sake,” he said. I was kind of spooked by that. His request didn’t make sense. Needless to say I didn’t let him in.’
‘You wouldn’t know how to reach him?’
‘He gave me his business card. It’s somewhere in the loft.’
Scarpaci digs into his pasta norma. ‘If you don’t mind, Tess, we’ll drive back there after dinner. If you find his card tomorrow I’ll track him down.’
Later, at his apartment, Scarpaci shows me photos of his family, parents, brothers, sisters. I notice an old-world formality. There isn’t one image in which anyone cracks a smile.
‘You all look so grave,’ I tell him. ‘Like you didn’t have much fun.’
‘We were a gloomy family. I think there’s still some of that gloom in me.’
Later, in bed, after we make love, I tell him again that it was his aura of rue I first found attractive.
‘Oh damn, I thought it was my body!’ he says.
He turns serious, asks if he can share a dream. ‘Don’t know where this came from,’ he begins. ‘We were together in Sicily. Not one of the tourist places like Taormina, but in a hill town in the middle of the island, the kind of town my grandparents came from. We were staying at an inn. It was off season and we were the only guests. We took long hikes in the forest. I could feel the stony ground beneath my feet, could smell the soil and the aroma of wild thyme. The innkeeper hunted game birds. His wife roasted them. We feasted on them after sunset in the deserted dining room accompanied by a dark local wine. Later we made love with moonlight pouring in through the window. It was an idyll, as different from the streets of East Oakland as any place on earth. Like I said, I don’t know where that dream came from but I think it means I’m falling for you, Tess.’
This morning on my way through the lobby, Clarence beckons to me from the concierge’s podium.
‘There’s this guy lingering around. I’ve spotted him across the street. I think he may be stalking you, Tess.’ He describes a tall white guy wearing a green hoodie. ‘Like he’s trying to conceal his face,’ he says.
‘Jake the homeless guy on Fourteenth muttered something about “beware the man in green”.’
‘Must be the same guy. Keep an eye out. There’re some weird characters around.’
He’s right, most of them potheads hanging around the marijuana dispensaries. But is someone in a green hoodie really stalking me?
I’m annoyed as I climb the stairs to the second-floor café at Chez Panisse, certain Jerry will be late, employing one of the passive-aggressive moves which, I remind myself, I no longer need endure. But when I enter I spot him waiting for me at a small window table overlooking Shattuck Avenue.
He rises as I approach, then acts disappointed when I sit without allowing him to buzz my cheek.
An unpropitious start, I think, as we scan the menu, order, then stare at one another in silence.
I speak first. ‘Don’t you hate the whole meeting-with-the-ex-over-lunch concept?’ I ask. ‘Not over drinks or a quick coffee. It’s always fucking lunch!’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Lunch works because it’s a narrow timeframe. And sometimes when it goes well it can lead to an amorous post-affair matinee.’
‘And if it goes poorly, one party or the other can throw in her napkin and walk.’ I meet his eyes. ‘I’m going to make this easy for you, Jerry. I have no interest in seeing you grovel. Your apology is accepted. Which is not to say that what you said that awful day didn’t hurt. If I think about it, it still does. So I don’t think about it.’
‘I appreciate that, Tess.’ He clears his throat. ‘I told you how much I loved Recital. You left your heart on the field of battle. You totally commanded the room.’
‘Thanks. What made you decide to lead the applause?’
‘I felt the power of what you’d done and wanted to acknowledge it. I was also afraid some of the ninnies there would start to boo.’
‘That would’ve been OK, another form of acknowledgment.’
‘I thought you deserved better.’
When the food comes and we start to eat, he asks me what I’m working on. He smiles as I describe my project.
‘Why the grin, Jerry?’
‘I brought you something that may help.’ He extracts an envelope from his jacket, passes it across the table. ‘I translated those letters for you.’
I open the envelope. Each of Eva’s letters is stapled to a translation. ‘This is great. And I’m surprised. You said you didn’t have time to write them out.’
‘I figured these letters were important to you or you wouldn’t have asked me for help. Think of it as my small way to show good will.’
‘Thanks again.’
Our eyes engage. This time he’s the first to speak. ‘I recognized several of your friends in the back row the other night. Rex and a few others. But there were some I never saw before. The older lady in the sloppy muumuu – was that the famous Dr Maude?’ I nod. ‘I noticed her checking me out, probably wondering whether I’m as monstrous as described.’ I laugh. ‘There were also two guys who weren’t exactly dressed to kill.’ He crinkles his nose. ‘One of them was wearing a watch cap.’
‘Don’t be a snob, Jerry. That was Josh. He’s a painter.’
‘And the observant one with the lean and hungry look – he was definitely taking you in.’
‘He’s a cop.’
‘I won’t ask if you’re dating one of them.’
‘I wouldn’t tell you if you did. And I’m not going to ask about your personal life.’
He looks closely at me as we finish dessert. ‘It was so good at first, wasn’t it? And the sex was really great. We started out so well then it went bad.’ He shakes his head. Do I detect moisture in his eyes?
‘Just the way things go, Jerry. Think of it as entropy.’
‘Entropy – yeah, kinda the story of my life,’ he says as he hands his credit card to the waiter.
The letters from Gräfin Eva to Chantal are more passionate than Jerry led me to believe. I feel a deep longing in them, nostalgia for a shared past. They’re filled with memories of extensive explorations on foot in Vienna as she and Chantal sought to retrace the daily routes of famous long-deceased city residents. There are references to L, F, and H. Knowing Chantal’s interests I have no trouble identifying these as Lou, Freud, and Hitler.
I bring out the map with marked routes folded into Chantal’s old Baedeker guide. The same three letters in different colored inks mark various locations in the city. Clearly these were places where the three characters once lived and worked. Did Chantal and Eva spend their free time roaming Vienna in search of intersecting paths?
There are tasteful references to love-making. Eva writes of missing the warmth of Chantal’s body against hers in the night.
There are also references to clients, some of whom, Eva writes, still ask for Chantal:
‘Remember that old Nazi from Berlin, the one who loved to scrub the kitchen floor to please his Jewish mistresses? How we made him think he’d fallen into a Mossad honeytrap? And the guy who made a fetish of polishing my Biedermeier daybed, the one I use for “psychoanalysis”?’
Eva, as if trying to evoke nostalgia in Chantal, conjures up images of the changing seasons in Vienna: leaves falling in autumn in the Prater, shrubs budding in spring in the Volksgarten. She remembers the glee with which the two of them played out the famous Ferris wheel scene from the movie The Third Man.
‘We were the only ones in the compartment. The Riesenrad turned. We giggled our way through the dialog, you as Holly Martins, me as Harry Lime. At the bottom you told me I made a fine Orson Welles. I told you your Joseph Cotten imitation could use some work!’
She writes of their visits to famous cemeteries: the Zentralfriedhof, where they placed a single lily on the grave of Hitler’s niece, Geli Raubal, and the Hietzinger, where they knelt in awe before the grave of Gustav Klimt.
‘I miss you so very much,’ Eva writes. ‘Will you come back to me one day? I often dream you have.’
I’m moved by Eva’s letters and struck by the fact that she chooses to write to Chantal on light blue paper in dark blue ink.
I go to my computer, access her website. The text is in German but there’s an English version accessible by clicking on a British flag icon.
On the HOME page she’s posted a quote from Nietzsche: ‘Without cruelty there is no festival.’
On the BIO page there she is, the Gräfin, a middle-aged woman staring out with a subtle expression of scorn. She looks to be quite the butch with her short iron-gray hair and no-nonsense eyes. There’s an alertness about her, a suggestion of serious intelligence.
On the SPECIALTIES page in addition to the usual list I find the following intriguing options: ‘Dominant Therapy in the Viennese Tradition’; ‘Freudian Fantasies Fulfilled’; ‘Nietzschean Psychodrama’; ‘German-Jewish Dynamics’; and my favorite: ‘Kneel before the Gräfin, confess, take your punishment, and be absolved.’
On the CONTACT page I find an email address. I draft a note to her, then redraft it several times. In case Eva isn’t aware Chantal was killed, I phrase this disturbing news with care.
Dear Gräfin Eva:
I hope this email doesn’t come as an intrusion. I’m an American performance artist who recently took over the loft in downtown Oakland previously occupied by Chantal Desforges. I only knew her slightly, but I have heard a lot about her from her former business partner, Lynx, whom you met when you visited here last year. Lynx told me you and Chantal were close friends.
I don’t know if you’ve heard the sad news concerning Chantal. In the event you haven’t, I am sorry that you are hearing this from a stranger. Chantal died some weeks back after hurriedly vacating her loft. It’s still unclear exactly what happened to her or why.
After I took over the loft, I learned a good deal about her from Lynx and also from the artist, Josh Garske, who painted her and who lives in the building. I was even able to find many books that belonged to her, and in several of them I found letters from you. I’d like to return these personal letters and also learn more about Chantal if you’re willing to share some of your memories.
This may seem odd coming from a person who didn’t know Chantal at all well during her lifetime, but I have become intrigued by her life, her work, and her interest in a number of matters reflected in her notes in books from her rather esoteric library. I have also been in touch with an Oakland police detective who’s investigating events surrounding her death. If there’s anything you’d care to tell me that might be relevant to his investigation, I would be happy to pass it on or put you into direct contact with him.
Please let me know if you are willing to talk about Chantal. If you are not, I will fully understand. I am hoping we might speak on the phone, or at least exchange emails. In the meantime please accept my condolences on the death of your friend.
Sincerely yours,
Tess Berenson
I send the email with trepidation. I believe that if I were in her position such an email would give me pause. Although I’m hopeful my careful phrasing will inspire confidence, I know it’s quite possible the Gräfin won’t respond.
‘Don’t look! Green man’s a block behind!’ Jake mutters through his teeth as I run past him on Harrison Street.
I continue jogging down to Alice, then, breaking from my routine, cut across a parking lot to Thirteenth, continue down to Jackson, turn right, and head into Chinatown. When I get to Ninth Street I dodge into Madison Park. I feel safe here. There’re people around, moms with strollers, old men chatting in Chinese. I stop under a tree, turn, and wait.
Half a minute later I see him loping down Jackson looking both ways wondering where I am. I’m tempted to step out and yell, ‘Yoohoo!’ but decide I’ll do better taking him by surprise.
When he stops out of breath, bends, and places his hands on his knees, I rush up to him and stick my phone video camera in his face.
‘Hey you!’ I yell. ‘Why’re you tracking me?’
‘Huh?’ He pretends to look panicked.
‘Pull down the hood and show yourself,’ I demand, still shooting him. Then before he can answer: ‘Hey, I know you! You’re what’s-his-name, Dick—’
‘Mike,’ he corrects.
‘Yeah, Mike from the Vertigo.’ I gaze hard at him. ‘Stalking me? I don’t like that.’
‘Sorry … sorry …’ he mumbles, trying to turn away from my camera-phone. He’s clearly embarrassed, but not, I think, embarrassed enough.
‘How’d you find me?’
He lowers his eyes. ‘Private detective,’ he mutters.
‘You didn’t get it that my little seduction number was just a paid performance?’
‘I just thought … if you got to know me a little you might consider …’
‘Going out with you? No way, Mike! Rex told you that.’
‘I know … I know … I just couldn’t get you out of my head.’
‘I suppose I should take that as a validation of my acting skills, but frankly I’m damn annoyed. You hired a private detective to find out my name and address, and then started following me. I’d think a high-tech whiz would have better things to do.’
‘Please … I didn’t mean …’
‘I think you did. So here’s the deal. If I see you following me again, I’ll introduce you to a real detective I know. Believe me, you won’t like that. I’ll also file a civil harassment suit. Hearing me, Mike?’
‘I’m hearing you,’ he says meekly.
‘Good! ’Cause this is the last conversation we’re going to have.’
I wait till he scurries away, then head back to the Buckley, wondering where I got the nerve to come at him so strong.
Scarpaci calls. ‘The box address on the business card’s been cancelled,’ he says. ‘Most likely the name’s fake. But the San Francisco phone number’s active. I wonder if you’d—’
Even before he explains I know what he wants me to do. ‘Sure, I’ll call him, see if I can lure him back to the East Bay.’
We plan the lure together. I’ll call the number on the card, tell Carl I’d like to see him again. I’ll explain I’m working on a performance piece about Chantal (true) and that I’d like his advice on a scene (false). If he hesitates I’ll imply I might let him come up to the loft for a look around (not a chance!). We’ll meet at the same café. At some point, after I’ve gotten all I can out of him, I’ll tell him the detective working Chantal’s murder wants to talk to him too.
‘At this point he’ll probably be pissed,’ Scarpaci says, ‘so after introductions you’ll excuse yourself. I’ll keep it civilized, explain I’m working hard on the case and need his help. If he balks I’ll tell him that whoever he is, I doubt he’ll want it known he was the client of a murdered dominatrix.’
‘You play rough, Scarpaci.’
‘Only when I have to,’ he says.
In the morning, when I turn on my computer, I find the Gräfin’s reply. It’s written in perfect English.
Dear Tess Berenson:
Thank you for your kind message. Thanks to Chantal’s brother, I was aware of what happened, but the details are vague and I’m hopeful you can tell me more.
I am still in shock over this. I’m also hesitant to talk on the phone about my friend. However I will be coming to New York on business in a couple of weeks. If you want to meet up that would be the place to do it.
Thank you for offering to return my intimate letters. Please destroy them. My philosophy is never to brood upon the past, but to process it and move on. That is what I am trying to do now in regard to the loss of my dear Chantal. As difficult as this is, I am doing my best.
With kind regards,
Gräfin Eva
I’m thrilled. A face-to-face meeting in New York would be perfect. As for her request that I destroy her letters, I can’t bring myself to do it.
I run into Josh in the lobby. We step into the elevator together.
‘Your floor, madame?’ he asks, acting the part of elevator man.
‘Isn’t it early in the year to be groveling for tips?’
‘I’m intrigued by your use of the word groveling,’ he says.
‘I like that word. In fact, I used it just the other day.’
‘What was the occasion?’
‘Lunch with my ex.’
He guffaws. The elevator stops at five. He turns to me. ‘I finished Queen of Cups. Want to look?’
I see it the moment we enter his studio. It’s prominently displayed on an easel facing the bank of windows. It’s an excellent painting, I think, as good as and yet very different from his Queen of Swords. I like the way he’s depicted me, face open, vulnerable, as I stare out of the canvas. His painting of Chantal holding a sword exuded power and mystery. His painting of me holding a coffee cup makes Queen of Cups look friendly and accessible.
He steps into his galley kitchen to prepare tea.
‘Talked to that detective friend of yours again. Like I said, he’s quite the character.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly call him my friend.’
‘Really?’ He turns to me after he puts his kettle on the fire. ‘I got the impression … well, never mind. Cozying up to him makes sense.’
‘Don’t know what you mean by cozying. He’s a source. I wish you were as open. You hold your cards pretty close.’
He pours hot water into the teapot, sets it along with cups and saucers on a tray.
‘Why don’t you ask me outright what you want to know?’ he says as I follow him into the living area.
‘How can I do that, Josh, when I don’t know what to ask about?’
‘Give it a shot.’
I thump my forehead. There’re too many metaphors in play – cozying up, holding cards, taking shots. Time to stop the nonsense, give Josh a serious push.
We sit on the couch. I turn to him soon as we’re settled.
‘You monitored her sessions, so you know what she was into. If it wouldn’t embarrass you I’d love to hear descriptions.’
He exhales. ‘It wouldn’t embarrass me. But I think the most interesting things about Chantal didn’t have to do with her sessions. They had to do with the weird things that intrigued her. Like that photograph I posed for. What was that all about? And her obsession with Hitler. When I’d ask her about that, she’d show me her guarded smile and change the subject. She had some kind of bug up her butt about him. She showed me pictures of his crappy paintings. She seemed to think he could be understood through his artwork. I told her artists often use their art as a way to conceal rather than reveal, and in my opinion he was more an illustrator than an artist.’ He shrugs. ‘It was like she had this closely guarded inner life she kept locked away. That’s what I think is interesting about her.’
‘Do you think this guarded side may have led to her getting killed?’
‘I’ve wondered about that. But since she never revealed what it was …’ He shrugs again. ‘I thought of her as a friend, but I understood our friendship only went so far. She compartmentalized. She didn’t want you to know who she was. She liked being a cipher. She once told me she liked hiding inside the dominatrix archetype. When I painted her I tried to work in the idea that there was a lot more to this Queen than just a mighty lady holding a sword.’
‘You did that, Josh,’ I tell him. ‘Your Queen of Swords is powerful and enigmatic. I love having it on loan. When I get stuck writing I turn to it for inspiration.’
As I work on what I’m now calling the Chantal Project, I remember Rex’s admonition that every major character in a drama should possess a secret, something she holds back from the audience and other characters, something that underlies everything she says and does.
What, I ask myself, are the secrets I can assign to my three principals? What drives them toward an intersection? I realize that if I knew that my drama would write itself.
One thing I do know: what intrigues me most about Chantal is the hall of mirrors effect – that the more I discover about her the more distant and complex she seems to be.
Often when I’m working, I pause and peer around the loft. I gaze at Queen of Swords and then think of the role-playing that was enacted inside these walls and the strange pleasures that were felt by the role-players.
At other times, when my writing’s going well, I feel as if Chantal is guiding my hand.
This is what she wants me to say, I think. This is how she wants to be seen and understood.
Today Dr Maude wants to talk about Lou Salomé. She tells me she’s been reading up on her. She tells me she wanted to know more about this person I keep talking about, and also because Lou was a serious committed shrink.
‘She wasn’t a key figure in the history of psychoanalysis,’ she tells me, ‘but still she was important. From the time she and Freud met they became lifelong friends. Yet for the most part their correspondence is formal. She addresses him as “dear Professor”. After a few years he writes her back as “dearest Lou”. Once he addresses her as “My dear indomitable friend!” Each held the other in very high regard. Early on she asks him to send her his picture. He agrees on condition that she send him one of herself. When he receives it, he places it on the bookshelf behind his desk. Today if you go to the Freud Museum in Hampstead you’ll see it there just where he kept it.’
As always, near the end of session, Dr Maude attempts to link things up.
‘I know you identify with Chantal. I think you’re wrong when you say you’re her mirror image. I believe you see things in her you find lacking in yourself.’
I ponder her analysis. ‘I face people and address them. She got down and dirty with her clients. I act things out. She lived them.’
‘Do you envy that?’
‘No, I’d be afraid to go so far. We still don’t know why she was killed, but Scarpaci is certain it had to do with her work.’
‘What about her obsession with Lou Salomé? Any new thoughts about that?’
‘The whip imagery in the Luzern photograph – I have a feeling Chantal fixated on that, which is why she decided to re-enact it with herself playing the Lou role. I also believe she identified with Lou in the sense that like Lou she recognized she was very neurotic. In Lou’s case that recognition led to her becoming a shrink, in Chantal’s to becoming a dominatrix. Each, I believe, genuinely wanted to help people, but ultimately each was seeking to understand herself.’
Dr Maude smiles. ‘The quest to understand ourselves draws many of us to this profession. But don’t undervalue our desire to relieve others of pain.’
I tell her I don’t undervalue that, but that understanding this about Lou helps me to understand things about Chantal such as her belief in ‘the pain that obliterates pain,’ the corporeal pain that can relieve the awful psychic pain deep inside. I tell her I think both women believed that, and that I do too.
‘I think that’s what drives me to stand up in front of an audience and tell my stories.’
I remind her of my Black Mirrors piece, during which I stood by a pole in the center of an octagon constructed of eight panes of one-way glass, then degraded myself by stripping and pole-dancing while talking dirty with the knowledge that behind each dark mirror sat a lustful man jerking off in a private booth.
Dr Maude nods. ‘The other day you seemed to doubt knowing who you are. I think you understand yourself very well, Tess, and why you’re so intrigued with both these women.’
I leave the session perplexed. Is Dr Maude right? Are Chantal and I more different than I first thought? And, more to the point, can I use our differences in my play to define my quest to know and understand her?
Late today I make a major decision. In this drama I will not present the interactions between Lou, Chantal, and myself in a real-time sequence, but will intercut them, moving back and forth in time, forcing the audience to piece the story together.
But what is the story? And what, I ask myself, is my role in it? Prober? Investigator? Snoop? One thing for certain: I can’t be an uninvolved bystander. The story, I remind myself, has to be as much about me as about Chantal and Lou.
Again I wake up in the middle of the night sweating and trembling. I have dreamt again of having sex with Chantal, but this time our love-making isn’t so tender. This time there’s a dominance/submission aspect: Chantal giving me instructions in a throaty whisper as to how she wants to be pleasured, and me, face buried between her legs, obeying her every command. She moans and writhes, pressing me harder between her thighs. When she comes in spasms, I raise my head to peer at her. A smile of contentment curls her lips. ‘Good girl,’ she whispers.
I wake up, hot and wet, knowing I’m trapped now deeper than ever inside her web.
Responding to Eva, I make no mention of her request that I destroy her letters. I tell her I would like very much to meet her in New York and am prepared to travel there once her plans are set. I also refer her to my website and tell her a little about my work. I mention that although my performance pieces are fiction, they’re always based in part on fact, and I admit that the little I’ve discovered about Chantal has inspired me to develop a piece based on aspects of her life, in particular her fascination with the extraordinary Lou Salomé. I write that I hope this does not seem exploitative. I also promise that when I see her I will fill her in on everything I know about the police investigation … my hope, of course, being that this will make her all the more eager to confide in me.
Carl peers at me anxiously waiting for me to explain myself. Does he suspect this summons is a set-up?
We’re sitting mid-morning in Downtown Café, sipping from lattes.
‘I read about you on The Chronicle’s society page,’ he tells me. ‘You gave some kind of recital in a mansion in Presidio Heights. I gathered some people thought it was pretty mean.’
‘Is that why you’re looking at me this way?’
‘I’m curious why you wanted to see me again.’
I meet his eyes. ‘I’m curious about something too. Exactly what was your relationship with Chantal?’
‘I told you all about that.’
‘Everything?’ He peers nervously at me. ‘Frankly I don’t buy the reason you gave for wanting to come up to the loft. You know – “for old times’ sake”. Really?’
He lowers his eyes. ‘I was totally obsessed with her,’ he whispers.
‘Did she know you were?’
‘I told her I wanted to be full-time under her control. She didn’t take that well. She said it wasn’t her I was obsessed with, it was an archetype. She said I had no idea of what she was really like. She reminded me I was a client with whom she had a fee-for-services relationship. She also said she had a strict policy regarding boundaries.’
‘How’d that make you feel?’ I ask, enjoying my role as amateur shrink.
‘Bad. I tried to persuade her, but she was adamant. The more I begged, the sterner she became. Finally she told me we should take a break. I knew what that meant. Banishment. After that she wouldn’t take my calls. I was devastated.’
My heart goes out to him even as I realize he’d become dangerously obsessed with Chantal, and that she was right to cut him off.
‘Your name isn’t Carl Draper, is it?’ He shakes his head. ‘You knew Chantal was murdered when you came by last time?’ He nods, then looks down at his coffee. ‘You weren’t honest with me. Fine, we didn’t know each other. But what gets me is that you made a big pretense of being open.’
‘I’m sorry, Tess. You make me feel ashamed.’
‘That’s how you should feel. And I hope it’s not just because I found you out. It’s time to come clean, Carl. The detective who’s working the case wants to talk to you. His name’s Scarpaci. He’s sitting now at a table just outside. I think you should talk to him.’
‘That’s why you called me, isn’t it?’ His expression tells me he’s resigned.
‘Want me to introduce you?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘No, not really,’ I tell him.
Scarpaci calls me late this afternoon.
‘His real name’s Carl Hughes. He’s a curator at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum. He’s married, has two kids, owns a house in the Marina. He saw Chantal once a month for nearly two years. He was, in his own words, addicted to her. He was also into a rare fetish, a control game called “consensual blackmail”. In this game the sub wants the domme to accumulate embarrassing documentation about him then threaten to expose him as a pervert to his family, friends, colleagues, and employer unless he pays or performs further humiliating acts. Chantal refused to play this with him. She told him it was against everything she stood for. He begged, she continued to refuse, he continued to beg, until finally she told him she couldn’t see him anymore.’
‘So he wasn’t really in thrall to her. He just wanted her to threaten him with ruin.’
‘Yeah, but this is where his story takes a strange turn. One day he receives an envelope at his office. There’re photos inside, a series of shots taken during the photo session Chantal did with him and Josh. They show him wearing the fabric hood that exposed his features. According to Josh, Chantal trashed those images. But maybe not. Hughes says his features were clear in the pictures and that anyone who knew him would recognize him. He wasn’t frightened or upset. On the contrary, he was thrilled. He figured her earlier refusals were part of some devious power play and that now the blackmail game he’d asked her for was on. He was looking forward to the psychological struggle. Now that he’d received the photos he expected her to contact him and make harsh demands. But when he didn’t receive any follow-up he started calling and emailing her again. Finally she called him back. According to him they had an angry exchange. She denied she had anything to do with sending him photos. When he described them to her, she reminded him the first set had been destroyed, so he couldn’t possibly have received such images. She told him again she regretted having to cut him off, but that his insistence on a blackmail relationship had made further contact impossible. According to Hughes this was their last contact. He also says there was never a follow-up to the mailing.’
‘Wow! What do you think?’
‘I think he’s one sick pup. Or else he’s worked up a slick story. I asked if he still has the photos. He swore he destroyed them. No way, of course, to verify that, but in the end I believed him because his story’s so detailed and self-harming. He may have wanted Chantal to tighten her control by threatening to expose and embarrass him, but he certainly doesn’t want me or anyone else to tell his wife about their sessions or their relationship.’
‘So is he a person of interest?’
‘For now. But if he’s telling the truth, the big question is who sent him those pictures?’
‘You’re thinking it was Josh?’
‘He’s at the top of the list.’
This morning I receive a second email from Gräfin Eva.
Dear Tess Berenson:
Since our last exchange I visited your website and was impressed by your work. Congratulations on receiving the Hollis Grant. You appear to be a serious artist. I’m sure Chantal would be appreciative of your interest, and would not consider your project exploitative before hearing more details.
I am open to helping you providing you can convince me of your sincerity and that you have a positive attitude toward my dear friend. This is not to say that I plan to ask for any control over what you do, only that I must be convinced of your good intentions. As I’m sure you understand, mutual trust is essential. I believe the best way to build such trust is to meet in person.
I will be visiting New York for approximately six days beginning on July 20. I hope this suits your schedule. I look forward to meeting you and hearing more details concerning your project, as well as any progress you can report on the police investigation.
With kind regards,
Eva Foigel