January 2016
Berlin, Germany
Carrie and Gerhardt, along with some others from work, emerged from the pub. It was 5:30, half an hour past her usual time to arrive home. She had called Anna and asked for extra time, but she didn't want to push it too far. At this stage of her life, one drink was enough.
"Danke," she called. "Bis Morgen." The group had their work happy-hour on Thursday, such as it was. On Friday, everyone hurried home to be with their family. Or their cat. Or their pet goldfish, she thought. Carrie had Franny, and Skyped with Maggie at least once a week. She stayed in better contact with her sister now, than when she was in Pakistan and Franny lived with Maggie. She sighed. How things change. You had to get with a new program, or spend the rest of your life swept along by what you called fate, cursing it all the way. She didn't want to be like that. Not for herself, not around her daughter. It could be different. She was finding her way.
She hustled through the cold and dark to her station on the U2 line of the U-bahn, grabbing the first subway to the Deutsche Oper stop. She had chosen the Grunewald in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf for her long-term flat, based on a visit there one afternoon with Franny, and had spoken to some work friends about it.
"Oh, ja, Carrie. You could live there. It can be kostspielig. But nice, very nice."
She had looked around, and they were right. It could be expensive. But she had found a very pretty, if small, flat off the Goethestrasse, right near Lietzensee. It was central, and very safe. She could put Franny in the jogging stroller, get some exercise and fresh air. It had a new kitchen, beautiful parquet floors, and a small balcony. She could picture herself and Franny cocooning themselves in this small space. And it was within their means. She leased it.
She had deployed some of Frank's furniture, and some new things she bought at the enormous XXXLutz, and the ever-present IKEA. Anna had brought a crocheted throw, and Carrie had warmed up the bedroom with a quilt she found at a car boot sale at the neighboring church. It had started to feel cozy, and they were both feeling settled in their routine. She had never expected to feel anything but trapped by motherhood – but had surprised herself by looking forward to their evenings. First just a bit, and finally, a lot. While she was at work, she missed the kid, Carrie admitted to Maggie one day. "Of course you do," Maggie said. "That's normal."
Normal. She hurried down her quiet residential street, nodding at other commuters in their neighborhood, all of them hustling to get home to warm meals and family. Suddenly, she couldn't wait to see Franny.
She took the last set of stairs to her walk-up two at a time, puffing as she unlocked the door of the fourth-floor flat. She burst into the room, smiling, to see Franny cruising on the piano keys, clinking away. Franny gave an excited squawk, let go of the piano, sat down on the ruffled butt of her diaper cover – Mrs. Baumann overdressed the kid, in her opinion, but it was not something she wanted to argue about – and started crawling toward Carrie. She stooped and held out her arms. "I'm home, baby girl. How was your day?"
Anna smiled indulgently at her from the small kitchen table, where she turned the pages of a recipe book. On the stovetop, something that smelled delicious – if a little overly caloric – was bubbling away. Carrie hoped she still had some salad makings in the fridge. "A gut day, ja. She is walking two steps."
Carrie picked up the toddler and gave her a hug. Franny hugged her back, digging baby hands into her hair. "Are you really walking? Good job, honey. Come on, let's wash up for dinner." As the tiny arms tightened around her neck, Carrie closed her eyes and smiled.
Later that night, Carrie looked through the glass doors out onto the balcony. No snow, but it was bitterly cold. Too cold to even consider sitting outside. Carrie turned out all the lights, but left a single candle burning, and wrapping up in the crocheted throw, she sat back down on the couch with her iPad. A tough time of night for her, just before bed. She remembered recent visits with her wonderful counselor, and held her words close for strength.
"It's hard for me to sleep," she had admitted.
"Can you say why?" Dr. von Haller had asked.
"Too many ghosts," Carrie said. Dr. von Haller nodded wisely, and waited for Carrie to elaborate. She already understood.
It was so hard to sleep in the beginning, she had related, that she had to take an Ambien, "or two," she admitted, and drink a glass of wine to go to sleep. She hadn't wanted to hit the hard liquor, but she had done that a few times too, just to turn off the nightmare of Brody's death, and escape her guilt over abandoning her child. During the day, she was as ruthless and efficient as it was possible to be, she was as emotionless as the drones she directed. But at night, it was different. She had to wear a nightguard, she said, because she had been grinding her teeth at night. She had awakened some mornings in Islamabad, and in the US, with her pillow wet, as if she had been crying in her sleep. But she couldn't remember any dreams.
Nothing she said could shock Dr. Johanna. "You will start to remember them, eventually. And when you do, it will get easier to sort things out for you."
Carrie nodded. She didn't feel "fixed", really. She didn't think she felt better. She had just done a lot of talking, was all. She was on the same regular dose of her meds, though, and she hadn't had a manic flare, and little by little, she noticed she was sleeping better. One night, she forgot to take an Ambien, had nothing to drink, and she still slept like a baby, waking only when Franny called out for her at 6:30 – like a clock, that kid was. Or a Marine, she thought sadly. So much for sleeping in.
She related the night of good sleep to Dr. Johanna, who smiled like the Madonna. "We are getting there," said the doctor. "It takes time."
It certainly did. Carrie had been to 2 visits a week at first, then 1 visit a week, and in the preceding several months had laid out the history of her life for the doctor: her family, her abandonment by her mother. Her love for and grief over her father. The relationship with Brody, how it had blossomed despite impossible odds, sustained against all hope, and then been snuffed out when he was executed in Iran while she was pregnant.
"That loss, all by itself," Dr. von Haller suggested, "would be enough to give most people PTSD. Carrie, in many ways, you are a survivor of torture. It sounds like this is the first time in your life that you've allowed yourself the safety to feel, to tinker with your feelings, fine-tune them, if you will. And to craft the world around you. Carrie, you can have a relationship. You can pick the things and people that make you content - things will no longer 'just happen' to you. You will choose them. You can fine-tune your situations, and not be a victim of your condition. You cannot be tortured, unless that is your choice."
"I don't want to be tortured," Carrie said. "I want to choose something better. Something real."
"You can choose love, too." Dr. von Haller suggested.
Carrie gaped. She hadn't thought of it that way. Since the conversation with her mother had come so late, she'd not given thought to a relationship since… since her father died. And when she moved to Germany, she was determined to start over. But the picture had not included a partner, another person to share her life and her bed with. Maybe it should.
The following week, Carrie had a dream that she could remember. She had stopped taking Ambien, had left the bottle in the cabinet, but no longer felt she needed it. She woke from the dream feeling curiously refreshed, and jotted down a note or two, so she wouldn't forget the details for Dr. von Haller.
"Well, how was this week?" asked Dr. von Haller when Carrie arrived, offering her the usual cup of strong, scalding, Viennese coffee. Johanna was the only person Carrie had ever encountered who liked coffee stronger than she did.
"I had a dream," she offered immediately. The doctor's eyebrows went up.
"I want to hear it all," she said, and seated herself in the brocade wingback chair, adjusting her sensible wool skirt over her knees. "Leave nothing out."
"I was going to go swimming. I was near the water, a lot of water. A big lake or the ocean. It was a hot day, and I couldn't wait to get into it."
"Go on."
"I was about to stick my toes in, and then I heard someone crying. I looked around, and there was a kid there. A teenager, really. She was crying. Someone had done something horrible to her. She couldn't stop them. I don't know what, but she cried and cried."
Johanna said nothing, but nodded.
"I went to her, put my towel around her shoulders. I sat with her until the ambulance came. She looked into my eyes as they loaded her into it. She said, "don't let them take me," but I said, "They won't hurt you, they're going to help you." She said, "I can't do it by myself." And so I left the water. I didn't go swimming like I wanted to, but went with the girl."
Johanna nodded. She was silent for a moment, to see if Carrie would come up with any other details.
"So, the water looked good. It would have been pleasurable, yes?"
"It looked great."
"And, the girl was needy. She wanted your attention, but she was keeping you from the pleasure, yes?"
"It seems like it. I couldn't leave her. Are you already interpreting my dream?" Despite herself, Carrie was fascinated. The Jungian had some very interesting ideas.
"In the end, it will be up to you to interpret the dream. So you must tell me, what do you think it means? I would hear your ideas first."
"Um," Carrie started uncertainly. "Is the girl Franny? Am I just worried about my daughter?"
"I am sure you're worried about your daughter every day, even if there is no emergency. I think this dream might show you something closer to home." But what could that be?
Johanna took a deep breath, and leaned back in the chair, setting her coffee cup to one side. "We Jungians believe that dreams reveal aspects of ourselves. In time, I think we could get to recognize aspects of ourselves in all the people that populate our dreams – and even some of the objects. From my point of view, the girl is your diseased self. The part of you that is so needy that you do not get the pleasure. Water often represents the subconscious, and that it looked pleasant to you is a good sign. You wanted to dip into it, which means you wanted to explore your own mind and know yourself better. It didn't feel like a chore. But you felt you had to serve your diseased self, because fear of failing that part of yourself is so great. You couldn't leave it be, you had to continue to minister to it, like a needy infant."
Carrie said nothing. It was astounding. Six months ago she would have said talk therapy was a load of malarkey, and this kind of thing a complete load of shit. But it made sense.
"So," Carrie said slowly, thinking. "What am I supposed to be learning?"
"You are already learning it. So you tell me." Dr. von Haller was big on independence, which could be annoying at times.
"It means, I am the only one holding myself back. I'm the only one thinking about my condition, about how it affects my life. I baby it, so I miss out on things." Boy, if that wasn't the truth. The intensity of Quinn's face that night by his truck flickered through her mind, his sincerity, his desire for her, his need for her. She forced it back down.
"That sounds very close to what I would have said, Carrie," said Dr. von Haller.
At the end of her session, she walked Carrie to the door. After Carrie put her coat on, Dr. von Haller surprised her by holding out her arms. Carrie walked into them for a reassuring hug.
"Your condition is well controlled on your medication. You can mother your daughter, and choose something else for yourself. The girl - she is ok, it is ok to send her in the ambulance. And go swimming in the water, Carrie. Try it."
Carrie stepped out into the frigid late afternoon, nevertheless, she moved slowly towards the subway entrance. She had a lot to think about . There was lingering pain around the thoughts of Quinn, and she gave herself a full ten minutes of reverie, turning over in her mind what she had felt for him. What she had hoped to feel for him, and how badly she wanted to find him. She remembered his kiss, his hands. Tried her best to recall exactly how it felt to be in his arms, and wanted more.
Then she resolutely shut the ambulance door on that one, and let it drive away. Wishing did not make things come true, but actions did. She could pick different actions. And who knew what was around the corner?
She hurried home to Franny.
"She's warm," Anna said worriedly. Anna had telephoned her at work, and asked her to come home and look at Franny. The child was flushed, lying on her back in light pajamas, eyes half closed, sucking her thumb. Carrie touched her forehead, her neck. The kid was hot as an oven door.
"And she pulls on die ohren, the ears." On cue, Franny reached up and fretfully pulled on her ears. "Mama," she said sadly.
"Thanks, Anna. I'll call the pediatrician."
"Ja, is best," Anna said. "Call me later, tell me how it is with the doctor?"
"I will," Carrie said, and started to dial Dr. Schmitt's office.
"Come in out of the cold," greeted the Maria, the front office girl at the doctor's office. Maria was German to the core, but had spent four years in the US with her husband. "Univeristy of Chicago," she said proudly. "I still miss eating at Charlie Trotter's." Carrie didn't have the heart to tell her it was closed.
"Poor Franny," Maria cooed. "I'll get Veronika to put you in an exam room immediately." Franny fussed and wiggled on Carrie's lap, miserable with her ear pain and simmering with fever.
"Oh," Maria said. "Frau Professor Doctor Schmitt got called to the hospital for an emergency perinatal visit. Her resident agreed to come and cover the office this afternoon. Do you have any objection to seeing a pediatric resident? He's very good. And Herr Professor Doctor Wagner would be overseen by our family practice doctor, Herr Professor Doctor Klein."
"Sure, fine," Carrie said, fed up with the ridiculous strings of honorifics that Germans used. She still thought it was ridiculous that she must refer to Dr. Schmitt as Frau Professor Doctor, but it was helpfully pointed out to Carrie by friend Gerhardt at work, that she must use the "Professor" part.
"It means she has a doctorate as well," he said. "If a woman marries a doctor, even if she has no education, she is called 'Frau Doctor,' so in a sense, that means nothing." Carrie had rolled her eyes. But Dr. Schmitt had solved the issue for Carrie the first time they met, by shaking her hand and insisting, "Call me Claudia."
Carrie followed nurse Veronika into the exam room where Franny suffered herself to be weighed, and her temperature taken. "38.5," said the nurse, clucking her tongue. "Poor liebchen. I'll let the doctor know you're ready."
Carrie had waited less than 5 minutes, when a tall, fit gentleman in his thirties knocked, then poked his head around the corner. His blue eyes were framed by glasses with gold frames, and the corners of his eyes crinkled cheerfully when he spoke. He wore a white shirt and tie with little DNA molecules twisting over it. Carrie smiled in spite of herself. When he opened his mouth to speak, Carrie was surprised to hear that his English was almost entirely without a German accent. His smile was warm, friendly. She could tell within the first 30 seconds, that he was kind.
"Frau Mathison? I'm Dr. Wagner. But you should call me Markus. Shall we have a look at your little one?"