Wrecked. Charlotte Roche
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with useless stuff. A steel turtle sculpture with evil eyes, some sort of ashtray filled with black sand, a beanbag gecko. I guess Agnetha came of age style-wise in the 1980s. In fact I’m sure of it. But what do I know? Funny thing. I’ve never thought about how old she is. She’s definitely older than I am. Definitely. I read somewhere that psychologists and psychiatrists—what’s the difference between them again?—try to trick their patients by decorating their offices completely differently from their homes. The patient should have something to get annoyed with. The decor in Frau Drescher’s office functions extremely effectively that way for me. When she moves or takes down a painting, I’m thrown into crisis. I walk in, immediately notice the change, and ask her, completely dumbfounded, what the story is. Why do people always have to change things around? Where’s the painting gone? When is it coming back? The way she looks at me, I can tell that five other patients have already reacted exactly the same way. So much for my wonderful individuality.
Then we begin.
“First I need to apologize to you, Frau Drescher, just in case you can smell anything. It’s best if I just tell you directly, rather than spend the entire hour wondering whether you’ve noticed anything.”
“That’s right, Frau Kiehl, it’s better just to say it. You don’t want anything to distract you or weigh you down here. Let’s just get everything out in the open right from the start. What is it that I might have noticed?”
“I just had—shortly before I came here—sex. So there you go, now it’s out. And I only washed up quickly afterward. You always say I don’t need to be perfect when I come to see you.”
“Nice. With whom?”
“Haha. Are you making fun of me? With whom? With Georg, of course.”
“Yes, of course. I was just asking because of the sexual fantasies you’ve talked about recently.”
“I know, I know.”
“Do you feel good as a result?”
“Ha, of course! What do you think? I always feel good after having sex with Georg. I’m kind of amazed that we still have sex, since we’ve been together for so long. In previous relationships, I lost any interest in sex after about three years. This time it’s still going after seven years. Pretty amazing. But I worry that it will end soon. You know how it is: once the sex is gone it’s just a question of time before the love withers and dies, too.”
“Really? You think that’s how it works?”
“Yes, I do. That’s what happened in every single one of my relationships since I was thirteen. That’s exactly how it works. I keep trying to figure out why it’s stayed so good with Georg for this long. And I’ll tell you this, Frau Drescher: I think I’m letting myself be fucked by his money. That’s what I think. The reason it’s worked for so long is because he’s the first guy I’ve been with who’s had more money than me—as a result I still find him sexy. I don’t mean sexy in the sense that he looks so good, but in the sense that I want to fuck him. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason.”
“You’ve told me this theory of yours before. Aren’t you underestimating the love you feel for your husband? You reduce it all to money and sex. I would posit that you’re doing this as a defense mechanism—to shield yourself from your deeper feelings in case things do eventually go bad, or he dies.”
“And I’ve heard that theory from you before, too. We’re not going to get anywhere talking about this topic. Today in town, I thought for a second that I saw my father.”
“What did you do?”
“I just kept walking. I wouldn’t say hello to him. You know that I hope I never see him again. So I couldn’t just say hi to him on the street. The same shit would just start right back up again with his fucking wife—my evil stepmother. You put it so well last time. What was it you said again? That I’d let myself remain passively at the mercy of my parents for long enough and that now I had decided to be proactive, to actively break away from them, even if it was difficult to do so. But that way they could no longer hurt me. That’s it. Exactly. And you said, ‘You can only put physical distance between you and your parents; inside they will always remain with you, because they are your parents.’ Horrible.”
“But you understand that now, don’t you, Frau Kiehl? That you can only get away from them physically, right?”
“Of course. But I still think it’s best to try to cut them off once and for all, forever. I know you don’t like the word ‘forever,’ but I’m allowed to use it because I mean it—even if you don’t like my saying it, and even if you think I can never get rid of them on the inside, like a fucking virus. One that doesn’t just go away. AIDS in parent form. And even if I do still suffer inside, I think cutting them out of my life is the right thing to do. Because I’m doing something, taking action. I’m sick of being a fucking adult and still wondering every year on my birthday whether or not my father has remembered it. He still manages to mess up my birthdays, and I still think about how he always forgot me when I was a child. Okay, sure, he didn’t forget me—like you always say, he only forgot my birthday. Sure, sure, but when you’re a child that feels as if he has completely forgotten about you.”
“Don’t you associate anything good with him?”
“I’d rather not.”
“I’m sure something good will occur to you.”
“Yeah, well, if it’s mandatory. He taught me and my dead brother to make pancakes. The whole process. One egg per person, a little seltzer in the batter to make them fluffy, how to flip them up in the air—though a lot of the time they never landed back in the frying pan. We would sit at the counter and watch him in amazement. They were our favorite thing to eat, his pancakes. Typical kids of divorce. The parent who isn’t there is a wonder, while the parent you end up living with you take for granted. Our favorite foods were the few things our father made—pancakes and curries—instead of any of the thousands of dishes our mother made. She was a much, much better cook. And the curries were really something he showed us for later in life. We wouldn’t eat just pancakes for our entire lives, he said. So he taught us how to make curry from scratch, using whole spices—not just some mix out of a jar. No, we measured out turmeric and coriander, made garam masala mixtures, everything. It was way too spicy for kids. He wanted to show us what a hard-ass he was. Although it occurs to me now how crazy that was. Showing kids he was tough—by eating spicy food! Ridiculous!”
“Still, I’m pleased you were able to say something positive. When people decide to shut someone out of their lives, they tend to limit themselves to seeing the negative aspects of that person. Like you and your best friend. It’s as if you feel bad for thinking you should quit the friendship, so you convince yourself, in retrospect, that there wasn’t a good side to it. But it couldn’t have been all bad, or else you wouldn’t have been friends in the first place.”
“I still only see the negatives.”
“That’s the way you rationalize ending the friendship. You are afraid of the vengeance of the person who is being abandoned. Because you’re actually afraid to leave anyone, no matter who.”
“Right. That’s why I have you. You help me get away from the people in my life who are bad for me.”
“If you say so. But it’s interesting nonetheless that you need help to leave people.”
“That’s the way it is. Without you I wouldn’t have left my parents, and I wouldn’t be about ready to finally get rid of my best friend.”
“I would like to point out that I did not encourage you to take such steps.”
“I know. You say that every time. I know. I know. I’m here with you but I come up with the ideas myself. Obviously you never say, ‘Do this or that.’ Tomorrow is another push-Elizabeth-to-the-limits day, by the way.”
“You’re going to a brothel with your husband again? You already know what I think of that.”
“Yes,