When I crossed the lobby, I could see China sitting in the breakfast nook of one of the hotel’s restaurants, auspiciously named The New Yorker. I could see the back of the head of the older man she was talking to, and even though I had never studied phrenology, I was sure it was Schmucker. I was seized by a murderous jealousy that almost made it impossible for me to sit down and have a little breakfast of my own. I was afraid to look, afraid that the emotions of seeing Schmucker and China, who I now began to suspect were lovers, would provoke in me an impulse-control problem with grave repercussions. Still, I put one foot in front of the other and headed for a long table covered with bowls of stewed fruits, plates of pastries and croissants, and platters of cheese and cold cuts. Sitting down at a table, my legs shaking with agitation, I was surprised that I had the wherewithal to ask the beautiful, young waitress, who was wearing a nameplate on the breast pocket of her uniform that read “Tiffany,” if I might obtain an omelet to anchor my breakfast. Tiffany was playing with her skirt, and she picked it up enough to reveal the little pink fold that gave away the fact that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. I noticed a banana nestled in her apron pocket in a suggestive way that only Brazilian waitresses knew how to pull off. Even fruits had lost their innocence in this Garden of Eden. She pulled the banana out, rubbing it against her elegant neck and then rolling it across her lips.
“We have some very nice bananas,” she said. “They’re still green, but when you take them back to your room they get ripe.”
I was about to go into analysis, where it’s recommended that patients avoid any major life changes for at least the first year, which according to my calculations meant I shouldn’t start seeing any new Brazilian whores for at least another 3 hours and 12 minutes. Of course, who knew when that would be, seeing that I hadn’t talked to China or Schmucker about starting treatment. But how was I going to explain this to my beautiful bananawielding Tiffany? Clearly, a woman so charmingly unperturbed by the social conventions of underwear could hardly be expected to understand the exigencies of Lacanian analysis. If I told her I was going to have 3,600 one-minute sessions, translating into the equivalent of 19 years of therapy in the remaining 96 hours I was in Rio, she would undoubtedly think I was nuts. Long-term therapy has always been hard to explain in modern times, with our need for quick fixes and painless remedies, and Brazilian society is no exception. I wouldn’t have known where to begin when it came to explaining something like Lacanian analysis, in which a therapeutic interaction that only lasts a minute costs as much as a one-hour session.
The sole thing I was capable of blurting out was, “That banana really looks hard!” to which Tiffany replied with a tantalizing, “Ooooh,” shaking her bum at me as she sashayed over to the table occupied by China. Schmucker had signaled to the waitress for the bill in the impatient manner typical of New Yorkers. For a moment I mused on the differences between Brazilian waitresses and their counterparts in the States. To begin with, relatively few waitresses who work the dining rooms of luxury hotels in the States are hookers, although they might as well be, considering how they debase themselves for a good tip. Secondly, few waitresses I had met would have chosen to use a name like Tiffany during working hours (even if it was their given name), and fewer still would have stuck bananas in their uniform pockets in Tiffany’s suggestive manner.
I felt a moment of yearning, but I also realized that I had to seize an important opportunity to get the help I needed. Once the talk on erotomania started, both China and Schmucker would become absorbed in the presentation, and even though I might get into an academic discussion with them, it would be hard to shift the conversation to my personal sufferings. It was now or never.
I drifted over to the table where Schmucker and China were seated and was lurking behind Schmucker, hoping he wouldn’t notice me approaching. It was only when China slunk back into her seat and asked Schmucker, “How much do I owe you?” that she noticed me and exclaimed, “Dr. Cantor!”
For a moment I wasn’t going to say anything. After all, my mother had always wanted me to be a doctor. But I realized that with time being so short, it made no sense for my therapeutic progress to perpetuate a lie.
“I’m not an analyst. I’m not even a doctor. But I need one.” I tend to be a macho male when it comes to making myself vulnerable or expressing emotion. But all of a sudden I was overcome both with tears and a countervailing feeling of total humiliation. Walking around in my underwear might have been mildly embarrassing, but now I felt totally ashamed. At the same time, I was cognizant of the fact that I had been through a lot and that this was my way of asking for help. I felt China’s heart going out to me, as her eyes welled up in response to my emotionality, and her empathic response made me think that she would be the perfect analyst for me — at least for the duration of my stay in Rio. For some reason, I had the idea that she would empower me. I also thought that if she empathized so deeply with my desires, she might end up going to bed with me.
“Dr. Dentata,” I managed to stammer through my tears.
“Just call me China,” she said, reiterating what she’d said to me the first time we’d met.
“Oh, my experience is that most analysts like to be called Dr. and refer to their patients as Mr. or Ms.”
“Yes, but there has been a whole breakdown in the notion of analytic neutrality,” China explained. “Basically, the world has been turned upside down. Patients are becoming friends with their analysts, and in some cases even sleeping with them. The idea of the analyst as a distant figure who should be a tabula rasa, a vehicle for transference, has been disproven. It was becoming obvious that patients knew a lot about their analysts, and that to pretend otherwise was patently dishonest. Analysts who once watched their beautiful patients suggestively hike up their skirts in silence have become freer to express themselves. It’s like the Russian Revolution. Neutrality and professionalism are now looked on as Czarist, as forces of repression to be toppled. There was some precedent for this during the ’60s in the Sullivanian communes in New York, where doctors slept with their patients, exclusivity and possessiveness were frowned on and boundaries broken. But this is the first time we have seen this kind of change in analytic technique on such a mass scale.”
“So, can I make an appointment?” I ventured.
“Would you like to come back to my room?” Schmucker fixed his gaze on me when China posed this question, looking at me with a mixture of pity and beneficence, as if he were a priest bestowing forgiveness. At this point I can only say this: careful what you wish for. Here I was getting an invitation to analysis and what looked like a proposition for sex all in one shot. It was every patient’s dream come true, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that such serendipity would occur in a city that stood on the edge of the heart of darkness, with its primitive tribal history and huge Amazonian wilderness.
“I just want to make sure I don’t miss the lecture on erotomania,” China added wistfully.
China looked at me quizzically when I responded: “It would be great if you could fit me in.” I wanted to get into the brisk rhythm that I’d imagined for my analysis. In truth I was a bit taken aback by China’s willingness to have me come right up to her room. I have always wanted to enter my analysts’ inner sancta, but now that I was given access, I was apprehensive. I didn’t want to know China’s inner workings. I wanted to keep her at a distance as the idealized parent who would one day rescue me from myself. I was concerned that her analytic couch was in fact her bed. If we proceeded to undertake a full analysis, and simultaneously began an affair in keeping with the latest trends in analysis, where would I find the time to meet whores? I still hadn’t been to The Gringo.