Wrecked

“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, I know. But it helps me get further away from my mother and closer to my husband. It’s proven, Frau Drescher, an empirical fact, and you can’t change my mind about it. Maybe most of your patients don’t pursue a healthy marriage that way, but I remain convinced these brothel visits are good for us. The same way that every time I make pancakes for the kids, I can feel my father sitting on my shoulder and watching. Everything has to be perfect, for Papa, so he’ll love his daughter. Everything takes effort. And just like when my mother sits on my other shoulder when I’m giving my husband a blowjob. She hates men. She hates cocks. When I was a child, she constantly told me that men were only good for procreation and that sex was never the slightest bit enjoyable for her. Unfortunately that lesson didn’t take. From that perspective, I’m definitely cheating if I go to the brothel with Georg tomorrow. And just thinking about it gives me diarrhea.”

“Would you like to go here? I’m happy to wait.”

“No, thanks. You know the story. I can’t go number two anywhere but at home.”

“We need to work on that some more, Frau Kiehl. You must obviously know there’s nothing wrong with using the toilet here. It’s human to leave odors behind.”

“Yeah, well, then I guess I don’t want to be human. Let’s not talk about it anymore—it’ll just make the situation worse. And no matter how bad it gets, I’m not going to use the toilet here. Except to pee. Anything else is out of the question.”

“How long have you been with me? Eight years. And still so little trust in the surroundings. The other patients go here.”

“That’s great, but the last thing I want to hear about is the toilet habits of your other patients. Yuck. It’s disgusting of you to even bring it up. Seriously, I’m going to be sick just thinking about it.”

“All I can do is invite you to use the facilities here and reiterate that you are very welcome to do so.”

My intestines make a horrible noise.

“That’s your fault, for talking about this. Let’s change the topic. You and your strange invitations. So, where were we? The important things!”

My intestines make more ugly noises. I attempt the ­impossible—to ignore them.

“Ah, yes, right, we were talking about the fact that I think it’s good to do a favor for my husband and in the process to betray my mother. I always feel free, relaxed, and happy when I do the opposite of what I was brought up to do. She was completely off the mark with her hatred for men. And as a result, I had to come see you for eight years before I realized that men weren’t the enemy. Or at least definitely not the only enemy. In my case, unfortunately, Mother is the enemy. My husband is a much bigger feminist than my mother.”

“Yes, I think you’re right.”

She laughs. I sometimes think that’s my job—to get my therapist to laugh. Even the most awful things I try to express in a funny way—that way she has fun working with me. I want so badly to be unique and to stand out from the other patients. The smartest, the funniest, the bravest, the favorite. I want to be the patient who lets my therapist in the fastest and furthest so she can have the most success with me. With me! I push myself hard, too. I reveal to her all the most disgusting parts of my personality—the bad, the evil, everything has to be aired so she has plenty to work with. In therapy, protecting yourself is completely wrongheaded. She’s on my side and only wants to help. So, everything out. I don’t bother hemming and hawing and vacillating. I don’t think, Should I tell her this or that? Get it out, speed up the healing process. And learn as much as possible from her about the process, so I can take over and always be a good wife for my husband and a good mother for Liza.

During this hour we talk for the hundredth time about the connection between sex and parents. How you have to do everything well so your parents love you and how upset I still am about all the crap my parents planted in my head. I tell her about the outing planned for tomorrow and how proud I am that I can suck cock better than any hooker. I explain to Frau Drescher how we choose our prostitutes. Georg and I are actually too polite for the red-light district. We’ve often slept with unattractive women because we can’t bring ourselves to say, No, she’s not for us. We’re too gentle for that. We’d rather sleep with an ugly woman and pay her a ton of money—about three hundred and fifty an hour, because she has to service two clients at the same time—than to tell her she doesn’t appeal to us. I’m tougher than my husband. He gets disgusted afterward and spends ages in the shower trying to wash the images of the fat woman from his mind. I always have to laugh, thinking what a couple of idiots we are for being too shy to just say what we want, like every other customer.

Over time we’ve developed a signal to use if one of us finds the woman or her body repulsive. We say, “Wow, it’s warm in here.” Because I don’t think we are particularly attractive, it doesn’t really bother me if someone isn’t good-looking. In the book of life—where I mentally record all the extraordinary experiences I have—it’s good to have slept with a fat woman or, accidentally, with one with huge fake silicone breasts. But Georg can’t roll with the punches as well as I can.

We also never pick young prostitutes. They are too insecure. And so twitchy with their hands. The women we choose for threesomes need to be at least twenty-eight or so. But we’re happy if they are a lot older than that. Up to fifty works for us. A lot of customers seek out extra-young women to fuck. They think the youth will rub off on their cocks. It doesn’t.

Does it make me a lesbian if I’m always messing around with women? Even if it’s my husband’s wish rather than mine? It’s not always easy to unravel the difference when people are in love and together. Drawing a line between what he wants and what I want is difficult. But in any event, my husband doesn’t want to touch another man, which is a shame, because then we could change our sexual adventures around. A woman here, a man there, and always me and my husband in bed with them. But if I ever do something in bed with a male prostitute—if we could ever find one who didn’t look too gay—Georg would never participate. He might watch, but I find that idea strange.

I also talk to Frau Drescher for the hundredth time about how proud I am to send my husband to the brothel alone sometimes, and how it absolutely sparks my desire for him. It’s crazy the effect it can have. Sending your husband off to another woman. I’m always trying to be less of a control freak, trying to get beyond my normal urge to be like that, which is strong. And when I loosen up enough to send him off to a brothel alone, it makes me feel so good. My husband is still afraid of the fits of jealousy I used to have—or, let’s be honest, had until recently—because of my fear of losing him. Million-dollar question: I wonder how long Frau Drescher thinks it will take—how long must I behave well before he’s no longer afraid of me? How long—how many years do I have to spend proving to him that, with her help, I’ve cut out many of the evil, aggressive, ugly parts of my personality—before the good outweighs the bad in his eyes?

Every once in a while I ask whether we still have time. She answers, “Yes, we have a few more minutes.”

Then I start on another topic. I ask her how long it will be before I stop thinking about my mother while giving blowjobs, how long it will be before I stop hearing her whisper that I’m debasing myself. Which isn’t true. He goes down on me just as often as I go down on him.

And then at some point Frau Drescher answers my question about the remaining time with “Now the time is up.”

I lift myself and sit upright, take a deep breath, then start to fold up the blanket. Frau Drescher always says, “You can leave that, I’ll take care of it.”

That’s part of the ritual she has for preparing for her next patient. Folding the blanket and putting it over the chair as if I had never been there. Hopefully she likes me the way I like her.

I say good-bye, survive the elevator ride down, as always, and then listen to loud music in the car on the way back home to Liza and Georg. I’m a good mother and wife. I try to clean up my messy psyche for the sake of a healthy future together, as a family and as a couple.

I drive along the ugly street toward home. There’s a patch of grass and a few trees at one point along the way, and I always look for a rabbit or squirrel. Sometimes there are a few there. At night I’ve even spotted a fox. The happiest moments of my life are when I catch a glimpse of a wild animal. In my case, it’s usually normal woodland creatures because I never go very far away. I’m against traveling to distant places. When I see a squirrel I’m even happier than after I have sex with Georg. I don’t know why we don’t live out in the country somewhere, near some woods where I’d have the chance to see more wildlife. The feeling I get when I see a deer or squirrel is overwhelming. I’m no longer myself, and that feels great to me. Time stands still. I hold my breath and smile. Like a hunter, I’ve developed a good eye. I notice every movement in the bushes. On the highway I keep one eye on the road, to preserve my family’s life, but the other one is on the fields and woods along the side of the road. I always see the most deer. Then, for an instant, my life has purpose. I try to convey my enthusiasm to our kids, but it just doesn’t work. “Yeah, yeah, Mama, a deer, great.” I can’t explain why I don’t try to create more of these moments of happiness by going for walks in the woods or even training to become a forester. I’m a big believer in happiness through scarcity. It’s precisely because you see wild animals so rarely that it makes you so happy. I’ve noticed that it seems to be the same way with other adults. I know a lot of adults who are happy to report that they’ve seen a squirrel in their backyard. And if it comes back often, they convince themselves it wants to be near them.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing to see today in the strip of green grass. Too bad. Maybe next time. Happy moments really are rare in my life. But before I can let my mind wander too far down this depressing path, I’m home.

I turn the stove back on. As soon as it begins to sizzle, I take the pan off the burner and put it on the trivet on the table.

“Dinner is ready.”

I always have to say it three times before my husband gets up from his computer and comes to the table. My daughter and I are already sitting at the table. Nobody can start before all of us are seated. Everything is strictly regimented at our place. Manners, manners, manners. Perhaps they’ll come in handy one day.

“Guten Appetit.”

Liza goes first. Lately she also wants to serve us. That means that a lot of food gets dropped on the table. But it also means she learns a new skill, which is one of my goals as a good mother.

My husband and I discuss the plans for tomorrow, and my daughter complains that nobody is talking to her. That’s her latest thing, complaining that nobody is talking to her. I’ve learned over the last few years that everything comes and goes in phases. Whenever children start to do something incredibly annoying or terribly worrisome, they grow out of it—and it’s replaced with the next annoying or worrisome thing. Nothing lasts. Something new always comes along and displaces the old.

“Okay, how was your day at school?” my husband asks his stepdaughter.

“Great. Today we voted to decide what new clubs will be funded at school.”

“Oh yeah? What did you vote for—nose-picking and farting clubs?”

My daughter cracks up.

Anytime he makes her laugh, I feel happier than I was at my own wedding. I think it’s because he’s not even her father. I don’t laugh with them, though. It’s childish humor, and only children get it. I telegraph my feelings with a put-on frown. It makes it even funnier for the child when the mother distances herself from that type of humor.

All three of us eat very quickly. Too quickly. I’ve read that you should chew your food thirty times before swallowing. But when I’ve tried it, I find it disgusting. The food turns into a thin mush that no longer bears any relationship to whatever it was I originally shoveled into my mouth. So far nobody in our family has had any stomach trouble, despite us all wolfing our food down. I’ve tried a few times to teach the kids to chew their food thoroughly, but when I don’t do it myself there’s really no point. So I don’t bother anymore. I can’t do everything perfectly. Just nearly everything.

We hop up immediately after dinner and put everything in the dishwasher. I think it’s bad for the environment that we use it daily. But my husband and others have told me that even though the dishwasher uses electricity and water and pumps out soap, it’s actually better for the environment than washing dishes by hand. I just can’t get that through my head. But I go along with it anyway, even though I don’t believe it for a second.

Protecting the environment drives me insane. A lot of the things you’re supposed to do seem illogical. I’d really like to have everything explained in detail sometime, so I’d know how I—and how we—should act at home going forward. I definitely don’t want to be one of those people who does nothing just because nobody else is doing anything. And I don’t want to fool myself, either. There’s a tendency to convince yourself of all the things you’re doing for the environment when in reality—with the things that count—you’re making things worse. This thought is unbearable. For the most part, ways to help the environment are about limiting yourself, sacrificing—you just stop doing things that other people don’t think for a minute about doing. The point is not to take yourself or your luxurious lifestyle so seriously; instead you live more simply in some areas. But making these sacrifices takes an iron will, because nobody checks up on you. Unfortunately there’s no such thing as an environmental inspector who can come into your apartment and take the dryer away because it’s both pointless and terrible for the environment. Nope. Our dryer is sitting right there. We just can’t use it. Laundry has to be hung to dry or else we are wasting energy.

The dishwasher is loaded. After each item was placed in the dishwasher, Liza said, “Okay, finished.”

And we said, “No, you’re not finished. There’s this still, and that . . .”

With kids, there’s somehow never one big task that needs to be taken care of. Any big task is divided into lots of small tasks, and after each small task is accomplished they’re ready to call it quits. Parents have to keep pushing children so that later in life, when they have their own place, they won’t live like pigs.

My parents didn’t manage to make it stick with me. My own parents fucked up royally when it came to the most important things parents need to instill in their kids—understanding money and maintaining a clean home. I wonder how they would justify that now. I doubt they’d ever accept the blame for it. Of course, I can’t ask them at this point because I’ve cut them out of my life. I’ve decided my parents don’t deserve to have children. I’m thirty-three now, and I said good-bye to them at twenty-nine. I don’t mean literally. I never said, “Good-bye, I’m cutting you out of my life now.” I just broke off contact. Forever. That means I don’t go to see them on their birthdays, I don’t send cards. I won’t be at their funerals and I won’t visit if one of them gets testicular cancer. (I think my mother has balls, too.) I won’t visit their graves. I simply no longer have parents.

Even to me it seems like something of a taboo. I’m constantly plagued by feelings of guilt. We’re all brought up in a society where even hard-core atheists are taught that you should honor your parents and so on and so forth. But why should you honor your parents when everything they did to you was bad? I constantly try to convince myself that life without my parents is better and that they don’t deserve me as a daughter. At Christmas it’s just unbearable. Even as anti-Christian as I am, I get painfully sentimental and feel in my bones how bad it is to celebrate Christmas as though I have no larger family unit—that is, without the older generation. It seems so wrong that I often break into tears, but it’s still no reason to change anything. My decision is final: I will live without my parents. It’s my right. Anyone is allowed to leave anyone else if they find out that person is bad for them. I have to keep telling myself that to calm myself down. I learned it from my therapist. Otherwise I sit around thinking what I’m doing is monstrous. Especially when I think further and imagine the same thing happening between my daughter and me. Awful.

Frau Drescher has convinced me, however, that I can’t take my daughter’s grandparents away. Despite the fact that I’ve decided they were bad parents to me, they could still be good grandparents to her. I doubt it, but fine, if she says so. Family! I have only one, so I’m by no means an expert. So I listen to her. Against my will, I arrange meetings between my daughter and her grandparents, my ex-parents. Other people have to help with the exchange, because in my pigheadedness I’ve decided I never want to see them again until they die. And not even then.

They pick my daughter up at her father’s place. I won’t take her to her grandparents. Yeah, yeah, Frau Drescher. I get it. Life is tough.

At Christmastime I have to hide from my little family the fact that I really miss my parents. Not necessarily those parents, but parents in general. The parents of one of my friends always say to her, “Whoa, you got fat!” when she comes home for Christmas. I told her just to stop going, but she still heads home for her annual dose of humiliation. I can’t understand it. But it’s possible that in her case it has something to do with an inheritance. If my husband hadn’t popped into my life and made any inheritance unnecessary, I’d probably still see my parents regularly, too. I definitely think money keeps a lot of screwed-up families together, forcing children to humiliate themselves.

I was heavily indebted to my previous husband. The first thing my new husband did was pay off all my debts, and I’ve never been able to completely cast off the feeling that he bought me from my ex-husband like an old camel. I think it’s true, I let myself be bought—because I badly needed security. I was such a mess mentally from my trauma that I couldn’t have dealt with a life weighed down by debt. Georg was able not only to fill the financial role of the father but to fill the mental role of both parents. Naturally Frau Drescher thinks this is too much pressure to put on my new husband, and she’s probably right again. But I’m still working through that with her.

I get my daughter ready for bed. For seven years it’s been the same routine, like in prison: bathe, brush your teeth, go to the bathroom. For me, brushing your teeth is a matter of life and death. I think that only low-class scumbags ever have kids with bad teeth. Especially bad baby teeth. That’s just not acceptable. You have to drastically reduce their intake of sweets. And you have to make sure they brush their teeth at least once a day. For a good long time. I’ve developed some nasty tricks to ensure proper oral hygiene despite the natural opposition of my daughter. I use the same trick that people typically use to impose moral behavior—they invent a god and say that he sees everything, so you’d better be good.

When she was still little, I talked to my daughter constantly about the tooth trolls named Cavity and Bacteria. They are children’s book characters invented by the German government or something in order to get kids to stick to a good oral hygiene regimen. It’s pure scare tactics. The book explains that the tooth trolls feed on bits of food left in your mouth and that their excretions burn holes in your teeth. I told Liza over and over, “If you don’t brush, Cavity and Bacteria will come with their hammer and sickle and bludgeon holes in your teeth—and those holes will hurt, which will mean you’ll have to go to the dentist, who will have to drill into your teeth before he can fill in the holes.”