Sunshine and Schmucker were like an argumentative married couple. Over the remainder of my stay in Rio, I would frequently find them sniping at each other in the halls, and in one case overheard a furious battle in which Sunshine actually brought up the naming of Schmucker’s institute, telling Schmucker in a petulant voice that could be heard throughout the hotel lobby, “You’re behaving like you just got off the boat. You’re behaving just like a schmuck!” Indeed, I learned from Wikipedia that Schmucker’s parents had been humble German immigrants, and that Schmucker had grown up in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. Schmucker’s parents had occupied a tenement on 86th Street above the Old Heidelberg restaurant. But the old German neighborhood was in the same district as the silk-stocking PS 6 (which I would attend years later) and Schmucker was able to get an education that allowed him to rise out of his immigrant roots, attend medical school at NYU, and eventually become a prominent psychoanalyst.
China had been close-lipped when Sunshine had come up in our conversation, but she spoke with great reverence about Schmucker, whom she plainly regarded as one of the gods of Olympus. It was clear from her attitude that Sunshine had become a mere footnote in the arc of Schmucker’s career.
I returned to the lobby to look for Victor the concierge. He hadn’t been much help, but it has always been my philosophy that it’s good to do the same thing again and again even if it fails to produce results. I remember my analyst telling me that there are people who in fact unconsciously want to bring about the outcomes they so often complain about. There is even a word for it in the psychoanalytic literature: parapraxis.
I was thrown into a tailspin when I arrived at the concierge desk to find that Victor wasn’t there. In his place was a small, dark, unshaven man with the face of a rodent. I immediately dubbed him Rat Man, after Freud’s famous patient. His nametag read, “Adolphe.” When I asked when Victor was coming back, Adolphe was evasive. He pulled the language card, pretending he didn’t understand what I was saying. As far as Adolphe was concerned, he was the concierge now and Victor didn’t exist anymore. I felt very much the way I did years before when my analyst got sick and set me up with a dentist named Dr. Klein, a good friend of his who had had analytic training, but for some reason had chosen to become a dentist instead. For months I went to Klein’s office on 57th Street, using his dental chair as an analytic couch. As then, I dreaded having to tell my story all over again, especially to someone like Adolphe, who didn’t seem to be the kind of person with whom I could be comfortable expressing my desires. In the middle of this awkwardness, Schmucker appeared. He seemed already to know Adolphe well.
“Ah yes, Dr. Schmucker, the patient is waiting in your room.” There was something oddly unsubtle about Adolphe. The way he addressed Schmucker made it apparent that the word “patient” was a euphemism for what in all likelihood was a Tiffany.
I have always been a kind of groupie when it comes to mental health professionals, so I impulsively put out my hand as Schmucker turned in my direction. When I said, “I’m Kenny Cantor from New York and I’ve really been enjoying your conference—especially the films,” he gave me a withering look that communicated exactly how irrelevant I was to him. I could see he was perspiring profusely, so I figured he was already somewhat worked up about the “patient” who was waiting for him in his room.
“So, Adolphe, give me the real run-down on what happened to Victor,” I said, after Schmucker had hustled off to his assignation. “Did they can him?”
“All major canning companies in Brazil are in the São Paulo area.”
“No, can is an American expression that means fire. You ‘fire’ someone when you remove him from his job and tell him he can’t work for you anymore. You can also say a senhora has a nice ‘can.’ ”
Adolphe responded with an expression that was equal parts confusion and bemusement. I pointed to a cream-colored Tiffany who looked like she was just coming on for her evening shift and seemed to have a condition, more common in Africa than Brazil, called steatopygia, which is a distended rear end. It was a deformity, but it illustrated my point.
“For instance that senhora with the tight pants has quite a can,” I said.
“One hundred dollars American,” Adolphe shot back.
“I admire her extension, which reminds me of a guest house attached to a larger estate. But I’m looking for your normal sexy Brazilian whore with a nice butt. I’m all for helping people with their troubles, but one thing I learned in my years of therapy is that you don’t have sex with someone because you feel sorry for them. Anyway, it’s a big world out there and there is always going to be some john who likes the chick with overly large this or that or none at all. I once heard of a prostitute who had a vagina with no hole, and she had plenty of customers, believe it or not. She’d had some kind of industrial accident before she became a working girl, and all her orifices had to be put in different places. I think she peed from her belly button and went to a gynecologist when she had a toothache. I know it sounds totally unbelievable, but apparently there was a harmonious logic to her whole body. So, Adolphe, tell me, where are all the good Tiffanys?”
I leaned over conspiratorially. Adolphe looked in both directions to see if anyone was listening and whispered, “Victor is now the bartender at The Café Gringo. It’s very dark in there, but he will get you nice girls.”
I was so happy that Victor had found gainful employment that I stopped feeling horny and frustrated for a moment, although when I thought of Herbert Schmucker making passionate love to a Tiffany in his room, I was filled with penis envy.
I was sure I saw the face of an Asian woman in a crowd of people waiting for the elevators at the end of the lobby, and my heart skipped a beat thinking it might be China. It was at that point that I understood something that neuroscientists have known for years: our emotions are often ahead of our thoughts. I was more involved with China than I could have possibly realized, and was already feeling troubled by the prospective complexities we would face. I have looked into the eyes of dogs and cats, and I know there is a tendency to anthropomorphize them, to believe that somehow they are thinking about you. China almost had the opposite effect on me. When I’d looked into her eyes I saw a hungry animal with only a veneer of culture, consciousness, and sensibility. I had the urge to dart across the lobby, if only to stand next to her in the elevator, if only to feel the warmth of her body close to mine. I seethed with jealousy when I imagined that the patient waiting for Schmucker in his room was not a Tiffany at all, but China Dentata. As it happened, the Asian woman I had spotted across the lobby was indeed China—en route, I assumed in my jealous delirium, to Schmucker’s room. Analysis was just like every other profession—good-looking women routinely fucked their way to the top.
But I stopped myself before I could go any further. If China and Schmucker were an item, standing next to her in the elevator and wishing her a nice afternoon would get me nowhere, unless I had some chloroform and a pair of handcuffs. Having neither, I elected to continue with my original plan and head off to The Gringo to consult with Victor. There was no sense in chasing windmills. I realized I was coming deathly close to having my seven days in Rio turn into nothing more than my other 358 days in New York, where all my interactions with Tiffanys were fraught with anxiety.
My heart was in my throat as the doors opening onto the Copa swished open. It was