ABSTRACT
To make up for lost time, I crammed at college. I read in bed, standing over the kitchen stove and while the children had their various lessons—from assigned texts to child psychology, from Freud to Nietzsche. But how would I learn about love? I knew enough not to get involved with guys I found boring. Still, did I think them tiresome because I was fearful of commitment? I identified with Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo, and dreamt of true love and sexual fulfillment. It’s what I talked about endlessly to my therapist. I had a casual affair with a married physician, and soon realized that clandestine relations were not for me. My new friend, Hannah Kurzweil, the wife of my music professor, Frederic Kurzweil, pronounced, “You have to get around.” We had met, after I brought Vivien to Fred for piano lessons: Vivien was a would-be Clara Schumann, as well as a ballerina. While waiting for her lessons to end, Ronnie and their son, Ray, also hit it off, and I soon found myself chauffeuring them for swimming lessons at the YMCA in Jamaica. Moreover, there was a Viennese connection: Hannah’s father and my aunt, Helene, had been good friends, how good we do not know. Under the circumstances, it was almost a given that Hannah and I would become confidantes.
