← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
Problems without Solutions
00:58:26
This week on SELECTED SHORTS, host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about problems without solutions. In Elif Batuman’s “The Board,” read by Cindy Cheung, the protagonist has found the perfect apartment, but he has to satisfy a Kafka-esque co-op committee. Jesse Eisenberg imagines an irritating sibling with problems of global proportions in ““My Little Sister Texts Me with Her Problems,” read by real-life sisters Lacey Lamar and Amber Ruffin. And a patient is drawn to her therapist—but is this a bad thing? in Esther Freud’s “Transference,” read by Claire Danes.
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- [00:02]
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- [01:09]
Meg Wolitzer
This week on selected shorts, stories to which we can all relate about problems without solutions. Dream apartments and nightmarish co op boards. Lovable siblings with an aptitude for disaster? Charismatic therapists? Or is that just a projection? Stay with me, Meg Wolitzer, and we'll at least look at some fictional solutions. Look up problem solving on Google and you'll get an array of definitions from sources ranging from your friendly bot to the Harvard Business Review. All agree that the process involves identifying the problem and then proceeding to the solution in neat stages. You probably first encountered the concept in a school math class. The yucky piles of numbers suddenly made sense because, as your teacher explained, there was a step by step approach that would yield a satisfying solution. But that's because math has rules. Life, not so much. So problems in the real world can often seem just maddening. On a practical level, why can't you assemble the desk which has an actual name, Tonstad, that you bought at Ikea? Or insurmountable? On an existential level, you're going to need a bigger psyche. And sometimes, of course, there simply aren't good solutions at all, only choices that lead to different kinds of trouble. Where trouble goes, fiction follows. And on this program we've gathered together three intriguing works in three completely different fantastical, satirical, and lyrical. Each offers up a juicy problem, but you'll hear why we think of them as unsolvable in the first story, Finding the perfect apartment if you're Franz Kafka. In the second, how do you solve a problem like your disaster prone sister? And in the third, therapy may turn out to be the problem and not the solution. Our first story is the Board by Elif Batuman. Batuman, a staff writer for the New Yorker, has authored two novels, the Idiot and a sequel, either or and the memoir the Possessed. Reader. Cindy Chung can be seen on television in many shows, including New Amsterdam and Homeland, and on stage in classics like Antigone and in her solo show, Speak Up, Connie. Now here she is speaking up in the Board by Elif Batuman.
- [03:41]
Narrator/Reader
The Board.
- [03:44]
Cindy Chung
The broker hadn't arrived yet When I arrived at the address of the listing, a cold, fine rain was falling. Glancing up and down the street, I took in a series of garbage cans and recycling bins. The recycling bins also had garbage in them, two ailing trees surrounded by weeds. Clothes grew in front of the building alongside some kind of malformed bush. As I paused to examine the bush, which appeared to be planted directly into the sidewalk, it turned to face me and I realized with astonishment that it was in fact the broker, A young and emaciated man in a textured shrubbery colored coat. The seller will meet us downstairs, said the broker in a low voice, and turned to enter the building. I followed him up the front stairs, sidestepping a heap of dirty carpets, which shifted as we passed to disclose the figure of a sleeping man who, disturbed by our approach, leapt to his feet and began cursing at the top of his lungs. Something in the broker's posture as he brushed past the shouting man made me suspect that the two were not meeting for the first time. Abruptly ceasing his shouting, the man turned to me. You have to help me, he said in a hoarse, pleading voice. You have to help me with the board. His desperation was so striking that I stopped in my tracks, pausing to face him. But as I was trying to read the expression in his ravaged face, I heard the broker clear his throat. The seller, he said, is waiting. Despite the broker's youth, I knew him to be one of the most sought after men in his profession. It was something of a mystery that he had even agreed to meet with me, as I hardly had the wherewithal to make a large purchase, and his commission was unlikely to be a spectacular one. It was possible that in securing this appointment I had benefited from the advocacy of some person of influence whose favor I had found for one reason or another, and who had intervened on my behalf. Whether or not this was the case, he was a figure I could hardly afford to alienate. You must forgive me, I told the man. I'm not able to help. As I hurried after the broker into the building, I heard the unfortunate fellow resuming his curses behind me. Circumnavigating an expensive looking stroller that had been left in the foyer, the broker began to climb the stairs. I thought it was a basement unit, I said. Every building is different, the broker said, especially pre war buildings. Surely the custom of putting the basement on the bottom floor has a venerable even in ancient history, I said, attempting a note of levity. But the back of the broker's head betrayed no sign of amusement and we resumed our climb in silence, finally taking a key from the pocket of his overcoat, which in the windowless stairwell bore more resemblance than ever to a coniferous shrub. The broker unlocked one of two doors on the fourth floor landing and we passed into a spacious living room with south facing windows, wooden ceiling beams, and hardwood floors. I paused to inspect the chimney of what appeared to be a working fireplace, but the broker, with scarce regard for the custom stonework, strode through the room and into the hallway, proceeding past a master bedroom and a home office that could easily have accommodated a twin or perhaps even full size bed. We arrived at a newly remodeled bathroom, but the broker showed no interest in either the rainforest shower or the reclaimed bronze fixtures. Instead, he opened the linen closet and began removing stacks of plush towels, placing them with care on the vanity. When he had emptied the shelves, he pressed a panel in the back of the closet, which collapsed to reveal a pitch dark air shaft climbing up the two lower shelves, the broker deftly maneuvered his body into the air shaft. This is an original detail, He said, indicating what I saw to be an iron ladder descending into the gloom. The way down the ladder felt significantly longer than the four stories we had climbed to reach it, and my hands were soon smarting from gripping the iron bars. I congratulated myself on the decision to wear running shoes rather than the medium heel Chelsea boots I had been considering, as I was wondering how much farther we had to go and how far we had already descended. Six floors? Seven. The latter came to an end, leaving me with no choice but to drop several feet to the polished concrete floor. The broker, he was wearing glossy oxblood loafers, had clearly sustained some slight injury to his ankle, which he was doing his best to conceal. Looking around, I perceived that we were in a moderately sized studio with Bosch appliances and an exposed brick wall. It's actually a junior one bedroom, said the broker, pulling a sliding door from the wall blocking off the alcove that contained a Murphy bed. Looking around, I understood how the young broker had earned his reputation, how many of his colleagues would have failed to identify. What I now realized was, despite some slight peculiarities, which were, in any case, hardly shocking given the price, a charming and centrally located apartment. There were, of course, no windows, but the recessed wall lighting gave the living room a homey glow. As I cast an eye over the low divan heaped with colorful cushions, I felt myself shaking off the mood of anxiety left by the long climb down the air shaft. One corner of the room remained in shadow and contained a plush dog bed on which a cashmere blanket had been elegantly tossed. The five years in my childhood, during which my family had had the means to keep a standard poodle, have been preserved in my memory as the happiest time of my life, and this evidence of a similarly sized creature in residence struck me as an auspicious, suspicious omen. In the next moment it occurred to me to wonder how the dog customarily entered and left the apartment, since it could hardly be expected to climb a six story ladder. So tell me about this ladder, I said to the broker. Is that the only way to get in and out? This building is pretty strict with its fire code, replied the broker, somewhat cryptically to my mind. But how, I asked, do they walk the dog? The dog? I gestured toward the dog bed. There is no dog, said the broker, and I realized with a start that what I had taken to be a cashmere blanket was actually the emaciated figure of an aged man with a long beard. Here we are, the broker told the man in the dog bed, raising his voice. Ah, said the man, slightly moving his head. This is the cellar, the broker told me. How fantastic to meet you, I said, extending my hand. In my eagerness to hide my discomfiture, I had perhaps adopted a tone of excessive heartiness. The man looked at my hand, or near it, and briefly seemed about to speak, but did not, in the end do so. I love your apartment, I continued. It's just what I've been looking for. I've really given up hope of finding anything like it. At these words, the man, seeming to exert superhuman effort, raised his eyes to meet mine. I was surprised by the keenness of his gaze. The broker, seeming to recognize some signal, stepped forward with alacrity and, inclining his body toward the dog bed and positioning his ear close to the seller's face. Having listened in silence for some moments, the broker stood and faced me, and when he spoke. It was with a newly belligerent note in his voice. Listen, he said. The seller agreed to this viewing for one reason. Because we were told you're not a tire kicker. I see, I said, suddenly adrift in a sea of speculations. They had been told. By whom? So someone powerful had been pulling strings on my behalf. Are you a serious buyer? Aren't you? Barked the broker. I took a deep breath, recognizing that the crucial moment had arrived, and demanded swift action. It occurred to me, as I considered my options, to ask whether the seller had plans to move out and, if so, whether his physical strength was adequate to their execution. As I was choosing my words, a series of images flickered before my eyes, most of them concerning the circumstances that had made my property search so imperative. I saw the disappointed faces of my family should I prove unable to remain in this city on which so many of our hopes depended. Finally, I saw the face of Eveline, our standard poodle. I saw her customary hopeful expression of ready intelligence. I saw her eyes, full of pleading, as they had been at our last encounter. How much worse than even the loss of Eveline if I were forced now to leave the city. By comparison, I felt, the seller presented a relatively unobjectionable figure, unlikely to cause any disturbance, for example, through loud noises or sudden actions. It was, moreover, a poignant but inarguable fact that whatever inconvenience might be created by his presence was unlikely to be of a long duration. I'm a serious buyer, I said. The broker nodded briskly. The board will consider your application, he said, and approaching the bed alcove, he opened a closet I had already admired for the number of suits, shirts, and coats it accommodated. Pushing his garments aside, he revealed a narrow passageway into which he disappeared. The assembled board members were seated around an oak table in a room with leather panels. By some curious effect, the flickering light from the wall fixtures resembled torchlight. As there were no unoccupied chairs, I remained standing. Have you ever been a homeowner? Shouted a man with a weathered face and excessively straight posture. A murmur passed around the table when I admitted that I had not. At your age, you're hardly young, remarked a woman with pleasantly unkempt salt and pepper hair. She wore wooden earrings and a batik dress. The pointedness of her observation was mitigated by a kindly, soothing tone, which I strove to replicate in my reply. The time for a new undertaking may come at any age, I said, smiling. The woman continued to look at me now with an expression of serious concern. I cannot agree she said. No, I cannot agree at all. One does not start new undertakings at any age. To attempt to do so is not just unrealistic but tragic. A certain sign of some tragedy in the past, if not the future. At any rate. Put in a clean shaven man in a suit with a hint of a Central European accent. We are hardly looking for a waitress. I understand your concerns, I said. And I assure you you cannot understand, pronounced an old man at the head of the table, presumably the director of the board. Why not, when the concerns are so natural? But you see, it is not only that you yourself have never served on a board, but that you are so far from having been able to do so that, as you yourself have just admitted, you have never owned property anywhere, let alone in our city, said the man in the suit. What then can you understand? I glanced at the broker, who was standing some feet behind me, but his total engrossment with his cell phone made it clear that whatever his stake in its outcome, I could not rely upon his assistance in the interview. Ladies and gentlemen, I began, friends, if I may, in truth I detected no sign of friendliness on any of the faces turned toward me, so that this form of address was dictated more by wishful thinking than by any aim towards accuracy. It is true that I have not owned property, and that at my stage of life this may be viewed as a form of negligence. Hear, hear, put in a man with ferociously orange hair. At this outburst, the old man at the head of the table directed at him a look of such unconcealed contempt that the orange haired man fell to co. Nonetheless, I continued, I have been proud to call this city my home for 11 years. You will agree that it is not every newcomer who lasts 11 years here. I could hardly have accomplished so much without a keen awareness of the challenges faced by the people of this city, as well as the impossibility of being too scrupulous in choosing one's neighbors. The director fixed me with a gaze of profound weariness. You say you are aware, he said, yet you are no more aware than a blind man is aware of the viper coiled in darkness, silently poised for the strike. Somewhat taken aback, I assured him that I did not doubt that this was so, and that since on this, as on all other points, his knowledge was greater than my own, the most efficient way forward might be for the board to tell me its concerns. Insofar, I added humbly, as someone like myself was qualified to address them so that I might attempt to lay them to rest. So you're Starting to get it, Piped a gaunt woman in a designer tracksuit. You're starting to get that you're not qualified. But I haven't yet presented my qualifications.
- [19:04]
Amber Ruffin
Qualifications?
- [19:05]
Cindy Chung
Snarled the orange haired man. Qualifications when before us we see those shoes. My shoes. The director closed his eyes. These shoes, These sneakers. He began, but the task was too much for him and he lapsed into silence. This footwear indicates not just a lack of concern for formal protocols, but a level of physical activity that we cannot view as favorable. Picked up the man in the suit. I admitted that I had been apartment searching for some time, an activity that often involved a great deal of walking. Walking at all hours of the day and night, I suppose. Indoors and out, snapped the woman in the tracksuit without a thought for those around you. I do always wear slippers when I'm at home, I said. Shoes, slippers, pop. She waved her hand. It's the walking, the weight on the floors, the vibration, the potential damage to the internal structures. But with a basement unit with the ground floor. How can you know what's under the ground floor? Demanded the man with a weathered face.
- [20:21]
Amber Ruffin
Ignorant.
- [20:22]
Cindy Chung
Shouted the orange haired man, a negligent ignorance typical of the unpropertied. I felt a flicker of impatience. How can I overcome that ignorance if it's a ground for my not being able to buy an apartment? This is a place of residence, not an educational institution. A tragedy in the past. A foundational trauma, the woman in the batik dress said sadly. A curtain seemed to fall before my eyes, and for some time I heard nothing of what was being spoken.
- [20:57]
Narrator/Reader
In.
- [20:57]
Cindy Chung
View, the director was saying, of your incomplete application. My application, I echoed. On the one hand I felt that I had hardly had time to submit an application, since I had only just seen the apartment for the first time. On the other hand, I felt that the director was right, that I had submitted an application, and that its faults were all that he said them to be missing, all the most essential elements. What are we to understand of your financial history, your job security, your likelihood of suffering serious illness requiring perhaps round the clock medical care, causing inconvenience to the others in the building? Asked the man with a weathered face. What you do not seem to understand, began the director, closing his eyes with effort, would take you 10 lifetimes to learn, put in the woman in the tracksuit. What you do not seem to understand is our responsibility. The responsibility of the board. The weightiness of the board's responsibility. As he spoke, the director's head drooped forward as if under the weight of which he spoke, there is no decision more serious than whom to admit to live here. To live, after all, is a weighty matter. There is none. Wait here. To live or not to live? Not to live, I echoed precisely. Not to live here. And what is life? Where is life? Where is it sustainable? To allow life where life cannot be sustained is an irresponsibility. And so our responsibility, the responsibility of the board, is not just to the tenants but to the city itself. Friends, I said several hours later, I must thank you for helping me to understand more clearly the limitations of my knowledge of my qualifications to live. I will trouble you no further. As I turn to leave, the broker didn't look up from his phone screen, on which I saw he was manipulating rows of rapidly accumulating brightly colored jewels. From the boardroom, I proceeded by means of the passage back to the studio, entering from behind the suits in the closet. The seller, from his place in the dog bed, fixed me with an avaricious gaze. Ignoring him, I made my way to the ladder. It was positioned so close to the ceiling that I had to jump as high as I could to even brush the bottom rung with my hand. Casting my eye around the room, I noticed a footstool under the counter. By dragging it under the ladder and climbing on top of it, I was able to grip the bottom rung with both hands. My feet hung an inch or two above the footstool. I did not, at that point, feel capable of letting go with one hand to reach the next rung. So I simply hung there for some moments, contemplating my next move.
- [24:18]
Meg Wolitzer
Cindy Chong Read the Board by Elif Batuman I'm Meg Wolitzer. The board might be considered an existential comedy. It was performed at a live Selected Shorts evening on the theme of Classics with a twist, and it clearly evokes Kafka, except that it probably in some form represents the experience of anyone who has ever faced a co op board or a plausible real estate agent with just the apartment for you. The story reminded me that there are generic dreams people have. The one about being on stage naked or having your teeth fall out. There's also the dream that I've had frequently in which I discover a whole new wing behind a door in my New York City apartment and and then I wake up and open that door only to find a closet. Real estate in this city and elsewhere can be traumatizing. Elif Batuman knows this. She's taken an untenable real world situation and made it, well, not surreal, because New York real estate already is surreal. But let's say she has created a piece of unhinged fiction that many people might identify with. Our second story is by the prolific Jesse Eisenberg, the actor, filmmaker, writer behind works like A Real Pain and his short story collection, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, which is where we found this gem, the title of which prepares you for what is to come. My little sister Texts Me with Her Problems. And we got two real life sisters to read it. Actor Amber Ruffin, whose many credits include Late Night with Seth Meyers and the Amber Ruffin show, and Lacey Lamar, author with Ruffin of you'll Never Believe what Happened to Crazy Stories of Racism. Here they are in Jesse Eisenberg's My Little Sister Texts Me with Her Problems.
- [26:07]
Narrator/Reader
Hey, you up? It's four in the morning. Yeah. Are you okay?
- [26:12]
Lacey Lamar
No.
- [26:13]
Narrator/Reader
Why?
- [26:13]
Amber Ruffin
Micah's being a total dick.
- [26:15]
Narrator/Reader
Did he hurt you? What?
- [26:17]
Amber Ruffin
No. He's just being a dick.
- [26:19]
Narrator/Reader
Oh, so we can talk about this in the morning.
- [26:21]
Amber Ruffin
Can you stop attacking me?
- [26:23]
Narrator/Reader
I'm not attacking you. So, what happened?
- [26:25]
Amber Ruffin
We were supposed to just stay in tonight because Wednesday is our quiet night, and he invited Jared over, who's a pothead, but, like, the selfish kind, and the two of them were just making dumb jokes the whole night, and I felt totally invisible.
- [26:37]
Narrator/Reader
Do you want me to talk to him? Who? Micah.
- [26:40]
Amber Ruffin
What?
- [26:41]
Cindy Chung
No.
- [26:41]
Lacey Lamar
Why?
- [26:42]
Narrator/Reader
To tell him to be nicer or something.
- [26:44]
Meg Wolitzer
What?
- [26:45]
Narrator/Reader
I don't know. Is he there with you?
- [26:47]
Amber Ruffin
Yeah, he's sleeping. So sweet.
- [26:50]
Narrator/Reader
So everything's okay between you two?
- [26:53]
Amber Ruffin
Yes. Stop it. Okay.
- [26:55]
Narrator/Reader
I'm going back to sleep.
- [26:56]
Amber Ruffin
Fine.
- [26:57]
Narrator/Reader
Night, honey.
- [26:58]
Amber Ruffin
I love you. Call me sometime. I miss you.
- [27:04]
Lacey Lamar
Hey, you up? I am now.
- [27:06]
Amber Ruffin
Have you bought Mom a birthday thing yet?
- [27:08]
Narrator/Reader
A birthday thing?
- [27:09]
Amber Ruffin
Like a present?
- [27:11]
Narrator/Reader
Oh, yeah, I did.
- [27:12]
Amber Ruffin
What?
- [27:12]
Narrator/Reader
Why? Cause it's her birthday. Can we talk about this in the morning?
- [27:16]
Meg Wolitzer
No.
- [27:17]
Amber Ruffin
Dad's being a total dick. He's like, your mother's not turning 60 again. Do you think she wants to remember this as the birthday? You didn't get her a present?
- [27:26]
Narrator/Reader
Well, why didn't you get her anything?
- [27:28]
Amber Ruffin
Because I've been busy. Can you please not attack me right now?
- [27:33]
Narrator/Reader
I'm not attacking you.
- [27:34]
Amber Ruffin
What did you get her?
- [27:35]
Narrator/Reader
I got her a small giraffe statue, like the one she liked from the antique place in New Hope.
- [27:39]
Amber Ruffin
Can you say it's from both of us?
- [27:44]
Narrator/Reader
Okay. Do you want to split it?
- [27:45]
Amber Ruffin
Well, how much money was it?
- [27:47]
Narrator/Reader
Like 200? Okay, I'll say it's from both of us.
- [27:54]
Amber Ruffin
Thanks. And call me sometime. I feel like we never talk.
- [28:00]
Narrator/Reader
Hey, you up?
- [28:02]
Meg Wolitzer
No.
- [28:03]
Amber Ruffin
Having major Crisis.
- [28:05]
Narrator/Reader
Okay.
- [28:05]
Meg Wolitzer
What?
- [28:06]
Amber Ruffin
25 page paper, due in four hours. Professors being a total dick.
- [28:12]
Narrator/Reader
Do you need any help?
- [28:13]
Amber Ruffin
Do you know anything about Cameroonian separatists?
- [28:15]
Narrator/Reader
No.
- [28:16]
Amber Ruffin
Then no.
- [28:17]
Narrator/Reader
So can I go back to sleep?
- [28:19]
Amber Ruffin
No. I'm distraught.
- [28:21]
Narrator/Reader
Why?
- [28:22]
Amber Ruffin
They want to start their own government in the south, which is totally fine, but the Cameroonian loyalists don't want them to because it would include the oil rich Bakassi peninsula. So, so unfair.
- [28:32]
Narrator/Reader
Uh huh.
- [28:33]
Amber Ruffin
And the loyalists already admitted that it didn't belong to them. And it's just like, leave the Amazonia region already, right?
- [28:43]
Narrator/Reader
I'm really tired.
- [28:45]
Amber Ruffin
It's total domestic neocolonialism. And it's like, hello, Give them the political sovereignty they deserve. Unless you want another Rwanda on your hands.
- [28:56]
Lacey Lamar
Sure.
- [28:56]
Narrator/Reader
It's just kind of. I have a really big day tomorrow.
- [28:59]
Amber Ruffin
Okay, fine. Go to sleep.
- [29:00]
Narrator/Reader
Thanks. Good luck with your paper.
- [29:02]
Amber Ruffin
Don't patronize me.
- [29:03]
Narrator/Reader
I wasn't patronizing you. Hello? Hey, you up? Haven't heard from you in a few days. I know.
- [29:14]
Amber Ruffin
Sorry about that.
- [29:16]
Narrator/Reader
No, it's actually been good. I finally got some sleep, lol.
- [29:20]
Amber Ruffin
Can you please not joke now?
- [29:21]
Narrator/Reader
Oh, sorry.
- [29:22]
Amber Ruffin
Not in the mood.
- [29:24]
Narrator/Reader
Okay. Why?
- [29:25]
Amber Ruffin
I was taken hostage by the Cameroonian loyalists and just got cell service.
- [29:29]
Cindy Chung
What?
- [29:31]
Amber Ruffin
They read my paper.
- [29:32]
Narrator/Reader
Are you serious?
- [29:33]
Amber Ruffin
And Cameroonian Prime Minister Philemon Yunji Yang is being a total dick, telling me I can't leave until I take back what I wrote. It's like freedom of speech, you know?
- [29:44]
Narrator/Reader
Oh my God. Should I call the embassy?
- [29:46]
Cindy Chung
No.
- [29:46]
Amber Ruffin
They make such a big deal. And don't tell Mom. She always overreacts. Remember when I was vegan?
- [29:53]
Narrator/Reader
Are you in danger?
- [29:55]
Amber Ruffin
It's like, I'll eat whatever I want, Mom.
- [29:57]
Narrator/Reader
Okay, but are you sick?
- [29:59]
Amber Ruffin
Stop attacking me. Yes, I'm safe. I'm just pissed off.
- [30:03]
Narrator/Reader
Okay? So can we talk about this when you get back home?
- [30:06]
Amber Ruffin
Yeah. Can you pick me up from JFK when I'm released?
- [30:10]
Narrator/Reader
Sure. Send me your flight details.
- [30:12]
Amber Ruffin
And don't just drive around the terminal, actually park and come in and get me. Okay, thanks. Love you. Call me sometime.
- [30:23]
Cindy Chung
The end.
- [30:24]
Meg Wolitzer
Yay. Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar read Jesse Eisenberg's. My little sister texts me with her problems. I'm Meg Wallitzer. I hope you heard Ruffin and Lamar's hard work in evoking the fragmented prose and many, many capital letters in an aggrieved text message. When we return, Claire Danes on a journey of self discovery. You're listening to selected shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide.
- [30:59]
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- [32:21]
Meg Wolitzer
Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. On this week's program, we're exploring the idea of problem solving with stories that recognize that some problems can't be solved. However, if the problem is I need to hear more great fiction, then we've got you covered. On our website, selectedshorts.org, you'll find our current episode, past episodes, and information about our performances both at home at Symphony Space and on tour. See Problem solved. Our final story this hour is Transference by Esther Freud. Freud's published works include the novels I Couldn't Love youe More and More and My Sister and Other Lovers. She is also the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, and this story was featured as part of our live Evening on the Couch, which offered up stories that interrogated the process of therapy. Our reader is Claire Danes, best known for her powerful work on Showtime's Homeland and her award winning portrayal of Temple Grandin. And she's already garnered kudos for her most recent series, the Netflix thriller the Beast. In name.
- [33:39]
Lacey Lamar
Transference. Nothing's going to happen, he said, standing and striding towards the door. At least that's how I pictured it when I thought it over later. But it couldn't have been that way, because the next time he spoke, he was sitting in his chair. It's not as if we're going to jump into bed together. He was under the window then, so close our knees were almost touching, although in reality he can't have moved because a moment later he was still there, facing into the room, the low glass table between us. I'd gone to him for help with my obsessive thinking. I was fixated on my boyfriend, his coldness, his resistance to getting married, and the discovery, still fresh, of his unfaithfulness. Why don't I just leave? I sobbed through my first session, but instead of leaving, I spent hours running over past events, bewailing my passivity, recasting myself as the fiery, outspoken woman I wished I was. I'd sit at my desk, my work neglected, and reenact how it might have been standing up to him, storming out, throwing my possessions into the car and driving off, how powerful I felt when I was speaking the truth. But that was inside my head. On the outside nothing had changed. It's a torment, I told him, like being in some kind of trap. He says he loves me. But I cried and gulped water, tissues and tumblers helpfully lined up while he looked at me in a sympathetic way and waited. It didn't take long before I started up again, listing the endless cycle of events that made up that week's sorrows, stopping only to blow my nose and swat away new tears. I'm so embarrassed, I said, eventually, rising up for air. This isn't. This isn't who I want to be. That's the first time I sensed he'd come closer, although of course he hadn't moved. I don't mind, he said. I know you don't mind. It's me that minds. I'm embarrassed for myself. But I didn't say these things because that's why I was there. I didn't, Couldn't say. Each week I dragged myself to see him crossing London from west to north, walking through terraced streets, compiling lists of things we might discuss, longing, regret, forgiveness, marriage. But as soon as I was in his room, had removed my coat, and then, with some embarrassment, another layer, for it was always hot, I forgot about the lists. Instead I started on the story. It was as if I had to get it out, the poison silting up in me on and on. If only I could stop, or at least fall silent for long enough to give him a moment to respond. But the next week there was always more. I'm just going to have to tell you everything, and then I promise I'll pause for breath, and I'd start each event in order what I'd said, how my boyfriend had reacted, my threats, his promises, all recreated with my exquisite memory. And then one day I finally stopped and I looked at him and smiled. I was smiling at him and he at me, and we held the look for what felt like an indecently long time. That was a beautiful moment, he said. I nodded. He didn't look the type to use the word beautiful, not that I'd ever really looked at him, just accepted his presence, moving as it did around the room so that when I remembered things he'd said, questions he'd raised, he seemed always to be in a different position. Like sex, I thought, and I packed that thought away. That was the week I had the dream. I woke from it. A light lit up inside me. We'd been sitting in a train carriage, our feet touching across a cushioned seat, our backs against the panels of the walls. There was a current of love running around us, a visible light that formed a circle, and as if for the first time, I could see him, his hair, the green that seems through copper, the flecks of gray, the close shave of his face, and something I had never noticed, his top lip, which disappeared when he smiled. I leaned across and kissed him. All day the light stayed on in me, and all that night I was kinder to my boyfriend, thought only once or twice of the hurt of his transgressions. I hummed and turned a crazy pirouette in the middle of the kitchen, and although I ate my meals as usual, my body felt buoyant. On the day of my next session I was stricken with nerves. This is ridiculous, I told myself. Last week I would have been hard pressed to describe him to a strange and now, even before he appeared in the doorway, his image was electric. I sat down and he sat down. He looked reserved, his eyes guarded, his face tired, his hair savagely cut. I started tentatively how I'd been wondering what my relationship was based on, whether I even wanted to get married at all. I've been thinking a lot about love, I told him, keeping the dream to myself, what love really means. I've been thinking a lot about you, he said, and he moved his hand to his heart. Or did he? And the terrible thing is I'll never know, or what he might have said next, because I interrupted him when I said I'd been thinking a lot about love, I was surprised to find that I was angry. I meant the love in this room, and I drew a circle with my hand to encompass all the places we had been. What happened then is still unclear I give a lot to switch it with all the things I forensically remember. But I must have looked stricken because he asked, why are you so challenged? Why, of course I'm challenged. My therapist is confessing he's in love with me. Or is he? I was too cowardly to ask, and anyway, what would be the least disturbing answer? Yes or no? I had to dig deep, and when I spoke, I used words I didn't even know I knew. The way you look at me, the empathy with which you listen to my troubles, the thread of light between us, that's what I want in my life, and that's what I can't imagine I'll ever have. He nodded wisely, sagely, as if he was, after all, a therapist and not a man. We talked about empathy, about love, about what was possible between two people. And then I asked what happened. It didn't used to be like this in here. He smiled that beautiful lip disappearing smile. You started to glow, he said, And I saw you and I wanted you to know that you're loved. I might have moaned or put my head in my hands, but I did neither. He saw me anyway. It's all right. And that's when he said it. Nothing's gonna happen. It's not as if we're gonna jump into bed together.
- [42:53]
Narrator/Reader
Whoa.
- [42:56]
Lacey Lamar
My heels were digging in. You're so ahead of me. A few days ago you were no more human to me than a stuffed bear, and now we're talking about sex and dismissing it. Although I dismissed the dismissing part one step at a time. That day on my way home, I missed my tube connection, and when it was my stop, I failed to get off. The light from my dream was blazing, turned up to full, and my head, my heart, the blood that ran through each and every vein, were roaring. My boyfriend was out. He'd gone away on a work trip, and later, after I twisted and turned and failed to sleep, I was grateful for that. The next day, I wasn't glowing. I looked at myself in the mirror. What the and unable to concentrate on work, I took the bus to Hampstead Heath and set off on a walk. Sometimes it seems most people in North London are therapists or training to be therapists, and it wasn't long before I bumped into a friend from university, meandering along after her dog who had, in the years since, I'd seen her retrained as a couples counselor. I asked her how her work was going. And then, as if it meant nothing to me about the relationship she had with her, what did she call Them patients. What are the boundaries? I asked. Are you allowed to say that you've been thinking about someone outside of the session? And I told her how some weeks before, I'd sighed and said I didn't want the session to end, and he leaned his then quite ordinary head towards me and said, no, neither do I. A look of alarm flashed over her face. She was wrestling, I could see it, with her dual role in as therapist and friend. It sounds unorthodox, for sure. I tried her with some more and her eyebrows shot up quickly. I stepped in to defend him. Maybe he's just very skilled, I offered. For the first time in years, I'm thinking about things that make me happy. For the first time in God knows how long, I feel attractive. Yes. She wasn't sure, and later that day she emailed me guidelines on sexual boundaries in the therapeutic workplace. I didn't read them. I hate instructions, and I didn't want to discover anything that might make me cancel my next session. But as the days passed I became increasingly disturbed, the two of us in that room, meshing, moving so that I had to remind myself of the photograph he kept in my eyeline, a portrait of his children, a perfect boy and girl, and the references he'd made in earlier, less glowy times to his wife. I could hardly sleep, was struggling to eat. I felt responsible. If I wasn't strong enough to go back and see him, he'd know he'd gone too far. I must relax, I told myself, for him, and I booked myself a massage.
- [46:26]
Tyler Reddick
Your pulses.
- [46:28]
Lacey Lamar
The masseuse kept her fingers on my wrist. They're jumping all over the place. So I told her the whole story. I couldn't help myself, although I reassured her too, that nothing obviously was going to happen. Not necessarily. She waited while I kicked off my shoes, and when I'd lain down on the low bed, she confided how her own father, an analyst himself, had ditched her mother for a woman who'd come to him for help. To be fair, she sighed, she was an awful lot younger, richer, and really, if I'm honest, nicer than my mother. I would have laughed as she did, but she had hold of my neck and she was stretching it. They stayed together for 10 years, and then when he retired, it was as if the scales fell from her eyes and she accused him of taking advantage. Her feelings for him were surely transference and should have stayed that way. Ouch, I protested as she pressed her thumbs into the tightness of my jaw. Eventually she sought advice. They both did from a senior rabbi. But it wasn't long before she'd run off with the rabbi, and six months later they were married. Turn over now and I'll see what's up with your poor shoulders. When I got home, reeling and uncoiled, I looked up transference. Transference is a common aspect of the therapeutic process. It's a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another and under most circumstances should be discussed and examined and moved through with the therapist. Unless, for instance, you have a phobia of spiders and this particular person reminds you so much of an ex lover that you're in danger of setting off for a dangerous trip into the rainforest, untreated, in which case, change therapists. My boyfriend called while I was reading, and guiltily, I closed my laptop and listened to his news. He was in Berlin, had secured the contract he'd been chasing, although in order to be certain of it he'd have to stay on for one more week. He loved me, he said, and missed me, and for the first time in a long while the little voice inside my head didn't add any bitter or cynical remarks. That night I had supper with a friend. She had married early and now had teenage children about whom, just for tonight, she was eager to forget white wine. She flagged down a waiter and ordered a bottle. She had a lot to tell. Her husband was being transferred to Seattle, and although she was worried about leaving her house, children's school, her dearest friends, she was excited too. And you? She looked at me with pity. The last time I'd seen her, I was raw with the wounds of my discovery, a text message, white on the black screen of my boyfriend's phone, its yearning, sexually explicit tone impossible to ignore. I'm well, I told her, and I couldn't help myself. I blushed. Oh my God. Her eyes widened. You're fucking someone new. No, no, I protested, and I waited while our glasses were filled, although I knew I'd have to tell her about the dream, the kiss, the glowing words of love. Obviously, I ended, nothing is gonna happen. But she laughed. Why not? She was alive with it. Who cares about ethics? It may be destiny, the way you two were supposed to meet. No, no. I tried to interrupt her, to tell her about the stoop of his shoulders, the soft slope of his paunch, his wife. She was having none of it. Maybe I'll run away together. Her eyes were bright with the vicariousness of my living, and I for one will be delighted. After seven years with she stopped herself. You deserve to be happy, in love. She poured us both more wine, and as she did, I thought of her husband. Boring, older, let's face it, practically bald, and how content she'd always seemed with him. Had I been blinded by my boyfriend's easy charm, his energy? Had I been struggling all these years along the wrong path? I do think about him 90% of the time. I gave her what she wanted, and she raised her arm and signaled for more wine. As we drank, chattering our way into the future, I thought of the therapist and how his face changed as he looked at me, a soft look, a sort of melting, and my heart flipped over like a fish. There were flowers in the room when I next entered. Had there ever been flowers before? And beside the flowers there was a photograph of his wife. So how are you? He asked when after some long minutes, I still hadn't spoken. I'm not sure where to start. I felt a cold sweat collecting, the eyes of his wife resting on me, amused, and it occurred to me all I had done was swap one object of obsession for another. My work's going well, I tried. I'd hardly mentioned my work to him, but it was true. Through all of the recent turmoil, new commissions had been flooding in. He smiled his encouragement and glad to feel him closer, I told him about my new designs. I'm branching into wallpaper. I've created a line with hearts and wheels. And I stopped then because I saw how this creation had been inspired by my dream. Yes, he was waiting. Transference. I swallowed. I looked it up. His smile remained. And what did you find? Well, I tried to tell him about the spiders and the rainforest, in the hope that he would laugh. Transference and countertransference happen all the time, he said. Romantic. Erotic. I shook my head. Therapy is all about the relationship. I told him then about the train, the circle of light, how our feet were touching. Everything, in fact, except the kiss. He withdrew a little, as people do when you admit to having encountered them in dreams, and I braced myself, expecting him to get up and move away. But he stayed in his chair. It's the strangest thing. I was talking to myself now. Last winter, when I discovered that text, it felt as if my heart was broken. But now, and I saw it had been true for some time, it feels as if my heart has broken open. His lip disappeared, his smile was so wide, and my insides melted with the strength of what was possible. Thank you, I said, and to steady myself, I glanced up at his wife. That night my boyfriend returned from his trip. I missed you, he twined his arms around my waist, and without taking off his coat, he lifted me up and carried me through to the bedroom. No, I said quietly when he put me down. I'm sorry. Just I'm sorry, he interrupted, and when I dared to look at him, to look into his face, I saw that he was scared. I want you to know. His voice was very low, his face pale. If you want me, I'm yours. Is this a proposal? I bit my lip. I've changed, he said, and I thought how much, how often I'd wanted to hear those words. Thank you. I took his hand. I'll have to think about it. But I didn't tell him, not yet, anyway, that it was me who'd changed. The next session I had almost nothing to say. I listened while the therapist talked, and I smiled at him. The mistake we make, the masseuse had told me once my pulses had eventually stilled, is to think that love must be about possession. You can love someone in a pure way. You can hold them in your heart, and nothing has to happen.
- [56:07]
Meg Wolitzer
Blair Danes performed Transference by Esther Freud I'm Meg Wolitzer. We spoke backstage to Danes about her oppression to this nuanced story.
- [56:16]
Lacey Lamar
I think she's working through something. I think she has an active mind and she's stuck in a loop and she finds her way out of it. A number of the stories seem to have that premise that there's something about therapy itself which is a little cynical. Yes. I think that's just the construction of life. I think she does find herself in a healthy relationship, or the therapist has in fact successfully modeled a healthy relationship, and she also just vomits the neurosis out and finds some peace, but also finds some recognition and release. Is it also partly exploring the idea that she arrives at at the end, which is that there isn't just one kind of love?
- [57:05]
Meg Wolitzer
Yes.
- [57:06]
Lacey Lamar
And that love is available within herself. You know, that she's not strictly dependent on another person to feel a sense of worthiness. I found this piece really, really moving. I'm not entirely sure why it was as provocative for me as it was, but I think her despair is real and her effort to find a way through it is equally real. And she's valiant. And, you know, this idea that pure, unadulterated love is the source of calm, I don't know. I found very moving.
- [57:52]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Claire Danes backstage at Symphony Space. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Sigmund Freud is supposed to have both anticipated and disapproved of transference. The implication is that a patient fixated on her doctor has created an insoluble problem that defeats the ends of therapy. And Esther Freud's story, wonderfully rendered by Danes, pulls us right into the narrator's tangle of mixed emotions and longing. This story is terrific, though. The only thing missing is a companion piece called Countertransference, in which the therapist weighs in on the situation from his side. I'd pay good money to read that, maybe even $200 if I've already met my annual deductible. So three stories in which characters face challenging problems for which there are no easy solutions. Even though Elif Batuman and Jesse Eisenberg are exploring the limits imposed by their chosen styles, existentialism and texting both leave limited options for for dealing with the real world, there are underlying truths, and Esther Freud draws on the difficult truth about her grandfather's discipline in analysis. The only solution is you. And perhaps also on the work of her father, the painter Lucian Freud, whose unflinching portraits reinforce the idea of the self as the problem that is most unsolvable. Maybe Google and the Harvard Business Review were right. First identify the issue, then approach it in stages. In my world, we call that writing. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me for Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Robleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles are recorded by Phil Richards. Our mix engineer for this episode was Joe Plourd. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the the Arts, with the support of governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.
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