Nipkow's Ghost (continued)
Disk 8
DISK 8
—Bad Night with Dulcinea /Outing to the Diamond and Fashion Districts/Clothing for Nathan (JS)
Dulcinea was in her usual ebullient mood. Where she had been and what she had been up to for the last two days was a complete mystery to me. Something was bothering her. She seemed to be slightly dissociated. What worried me was that it seemed that her own internal dialogue would overwhelm the conversation she was having with me producing these odd disjointed exchanges. She would also go into little fugues, a kind of mental escapade that would enrapture her and send her off someplace. Where that place was could only be gleaned from the look on her face and her expressions, which cycled through a multitude of states. But that night was more intense than usual. She had said that she was going to leave early and pick up her girlfriend Veronica Bischoffenheim, a European relative of hers and from the same elevated banking and industrial elite she came from. She told me that her family were hoffaktors in European courts for hundreds of years. I didn't really know what that meant but I would read more about it, subsequently. In any case, she said she was leaving early to pick her up and she would meet me on 5th Avenue at 10 AM. So off to bed I went. It was not later than 11 PM that I began to hear Dulcinea sobbing as she often would, quietly, when looking through old photographs and mementos belonging to her mother and family that she hid in the big couch, the keepsakes that I earlier discovered, originally alerting me to her presence.
So the sobbing grew increasingly louder and more emotive and high–strung, terrible grief-like inconsolable crying. I knocked on her door a couple of times to no avail. It was almost impossible to take. It was even painful to overhear. It would take me years to understand a fraction of the pain and trauma that Dulcinea went through. It was a harrowing travail of delusional terror and what I would call profound parental abuse by her mother. But that is not how Dulcinea saw things. I pried out small snippets of information over time. These fragments that she revealed to me would accumulate over twenty-five years. I had a general semblance, a picture of some of the psychological scars that she incurred. Dulcinea knew deep down that her life would always be lived in a kind of shadowland, a realm disconnected from normalcy and even reality.
She probably wanted to have a normal existence, to have children whom she loved dearly, but her frightful childhood and her family's destruction had ended any possibility of that. From what I could gather, her family, her mother and father were from families of tremendous wealth, from the little German town of Laupheim. Huge industries were owned by them. They controlled one of the largest chemical combines and one of the largest German car manufacturers. They lived not just a charmed life but almost a fairy tale existence, particularly her mother, whose family lived in a castle, and had multiple country homes. Her mother was educated by tutors and Dulcinea and her many siblings had their own theater in which they wrote and performed shows, their own little orchestra where every family member played multiple instruments. And they had their own tutors. Some of the most talented writers and scientists taught them languages, writing and everything to do with nature and art. They had an observatory on one of their properties where they watched the stars. In their gardens and greenhouses, they cultivated a rich variety of plants from around the world. Everyone had interests and hobbies and collections. They all did good work and contributed to the public welfare. They did not even think of themselves as Jews. They celebrated Yuletide with a large pine tree. Many members of the family had been baptized but not Dulcinea's immediate family. This entire fairy tale of privilege and wealth which had a kind of permanence and substance to it would vanish in the political nightmare and hellish creation of Hitler and Nazism.
Her mother and her entire family were largely unaware of what was going on. Dulcinea’s whole family was suddenly arrested and sent to a concentration camp and then a death camp, with barking dogs, extreme violence, death, beatings, torture and the annihilation of almost all of her loved ones. I don't know how long her mother was in these camps, or how she got released, or who paid what to whom, but apparently a very large gold transaction took place in Switzerland and her mother was sent on a train out of Auschwitz and from there to Portugal and on to New York. She was the lone survivor of her family apart from the few who had left to America and Argentina and Switzerland before the war. Everyone else was murdered. Dulcinea's mother at some point, possibly in Auschwitz, had a psychotic collapse that left her in a delusional and psychopathic state from which she never recovered. It was not that she felt that the war had never ended and that the Nazis were everywhere hunting for her and Dulcinea, but that they had to keep running and hiding, and that they were only one step ahead of their executioners.
This was not the most shocking part of it, however. The most shocking part of it all was that her mother had made a death pact with Dulcinea so if they were to ever be caught by the Nazis or turned in by collaborators, who were everywhere basically, that she would kill Dulcinea and then immediately commit suicide. Any intrusion, any strange knock at the door, any new stranger making inquiries, every police siren or ambulance call, would result in her mother immediately drawing a razor-sharp knife that she put to Dulcinea's neck. Although she wore a leather studded collar around her neck constantly, I had seen many years later, when she took it off, the dozens of cut marks all over her neck, one of which looked like a very deep and possibly fatal cut; wounds and injuries sustained from the many times when her mother felt that they were about to be exposed or arrested or captured.
It was harrowing and terrible. It was not just that her mother nurtured this delusional state, but that Dulcinea shared it with her completely. I would try to understand more of this and I even sought out a psychiatrist some years later to shed light on the condition. It was what he called ‘folie a deux,’ what they describe in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM, as a shared psychosis or a “shared delusional disorder.” Sometimes called the Lasègue-Falret syndrome after its discoverer, essentially, the delusion and the complete set of hallucinations can be transmitted to a close individual, usually between parents and children or between siblings or partners and lovers. The shared delusion arises when the so-called ‘dominant’ or the ‘induced’ passes it to the ‘secondary’ or the ‘acceptor.’ The delusion was shared so strongly between her mother and Dulcinea, that she told me that if something untoward occurred, if they were surprised in any way that she would run to get her mother the knife and that she would sometimes put it to her own neck and draw blood until her mother told her to stop.
Apparently, she went through these mock murder-suicide rituals on dozens of occasions. I have never heard of anything so terrifying. The effect of this on Dulcinea's psyche must have been profound. I asked her once whether she was ever scared of dying and she said of course not. I also asked her what look did her mother have in her eyes as she was drawing a knife to her jugular artery, and Dulcinea said the most surprising thing I've heard; she said her mother had a look of total and inexpressible love and the deepest love anyone could possibly experience and that nothing could match it. They went from one hiding place to another, often going without food for days. At one point while under the belief that they were being followed by Gestapo agents, Dulcinea and her mother retreated down into the underground subway and sewer systems where they lived in these filthy conditions. The threats to Dulcinea were observed by the criminal and drug addict gangs that lived down there. The thugs and criminals had apparently decided to take things into their own hands and had decided to kill Dulcinea's mother and to adopt Dulcinea into their gang.
Dulcinea apparently begged and pleaded with them to spare her mother even though Dulcinea was being cut almost daily and she was weakening and getting close to death herself from the abysmal conditions underground. Interestingly, according to many psychiatrists, the death or hospitalization of the dominant often leads to the sudden release of the delusion on the “secondary.” This is what I believe happened to Dulcinea when her mother was hospitalized and subsequently died. This is what saved her life. Her mother’s hospitalization is the only reason that Dulcinea did not die at her mother's hand. It is a very hard story and something that I have thought about ever since it was told to me. Did Dulcinea continue believing in any of this delusion? Of this, I’m skeptical, however, her opinion that the war never ended, that it only continued under a different guise and that the evil doers that killed her family remained to be punished and would be punished remained an active element in her life, I suspect. In fact, I know it did.
It was a long grueling night of fitful sleep, listening to Dulcinea's sobbing which ended suddenly at 4 AM. Not a long time for her or I to get some sleep given that she left the apartment no later than 7 AM. But there she was at 10 AM on the dot. And she was with her girlfriend who I had not previously met. Veronica Bischoffenheim was almost as tall as Dulcinea but with striking long red hair and a distinctive freckled complexion. Like Dulcinea, she was a sole survivor of some kind of European dynasty, they may have even been related to each other in some complicated way if memory serves me. She was an international fashionista, a runway model who traveled around the world and moved in what Dulcinea said was the "jet set", a term I had never heard before. They both looked sensational. An eye stopping stereo image. Walking with them together on that day was truly one of the great thrills of my life. The ripples of energy and excitement and the sparks flying from them was incredible. Their clothing was also just bursting with color and style. The names of the designers didn't mean much to me, but every fifty or sixty feet somebody would stop to ask them whose clothing they were wearing? What designers?
Dulcinea's outfit and shoes were by the hip London designer Vivienne Westwood, the girlfriend of the Sex Pistols manager who I would meet some years later; they were a punk rock group that had never crossed my radar but apparently were all the rage now. Her shoes were also Westwood exotics, spectacular, maybe five inches high allowing Dulcinea to tower over almost everyone. Veronica was wearing a tight shantung Pucci pair of pants and a silk blouse, a kaleidoscope of colors and patterns radiating outwards. That mid-70s style was something that I always think back on nostalgically with its incredible verve and energy. So we were off to shop, they said, for clothing. Dulcinea said she wanted to buy me not just a suit but an entire wardrobe. But the trip was by way of the Diamond District to raise some money; Dulcinea said she had some business to attend to as she always had to. So off we went to the Diamond District, that famous stretch between 5th and 6th Avenue along 47th Street. My only familiarity with that stretch was by way of the Gotham Book Mart where I would go with my father and look for book bargains. The enigmatic sign “Wise Men Fish Here” is still there I believe on top of what is now a Glatt Kosher Bukharian restaurant. Dulcinea wasn't there however to sample the Kosher eateries, or to pick up a book, she was there to do some serious business and she knew all of the vocabulary and all of the language as I would soon find out.
The Diamond District consisted almost entirely of ultra-Orthodox Jews with a small smattering of foreigners, mostly Gujarati Indians and a few Syrians. It was bursting with people; everywhere there were hustlers, people taking out their loops right on the sidewalks. “Are you buying or selling?” was the question that was thrown about. Thousands of businesses and billions of dollars of deals were done on these streets every month and all with a handshake and the famous parting words “mazal und brucha,” meaning “good luck and a blessing.” Mazal is an acronym for Mokum (Place), Zman (Time) and Limmud (Learning). With Dulcinea explaining to me that it means that you need to be at the right time, and at the right place and you need to be smart--that's Mazal. As we talked through the district, Dulcinea was quickly shoving off various buyers or sellers with some choice language. He is schnorrer, that one is a shleper and that one is a shtinker. Various people would flash diamonds to her which she would readily dismiss as gornisht, meaning ‘nothing’ or one envelope of diamonds as a “parcel of Khazeray.”
She knew the stones as well as any dealer, all of the particulars, the color, clarity, cut, carat, weight, inclusions, and symmetry. She could instantly value and make an appraisal. After much kibitizing, with Dulcinea telling more than one man to go and “kush meyn tokhes,” 'and referring to another fellow as as “a shtick fleish mit tzvei eigen,” (a piece of meat with two eyes) and telling one seller to “gai feifen ahfen yam,” (go peddle your fish elsewhere), she finally reached her destination, a tiny shop with tens of millions of dollars of diamonds and jewelry in the storefront window. We were examined by a video camera and immediately granted entrance. Some niceties were exchanged in Yiddish and Dulcinea reached under her jacket and pulled out a pouch from which she took an envelope which she called a cachet, and inside the cachet a little folded square of paper, called a brivke within which was enclosed the diamonds. She opened the brivke, dropping a stone, which she quickly brought to her lips and kissed and said the word beshert (ordained and also her middle name). In the brivke there were ten or twelve stones. Dulcinea said the stones were “mame-zitser” (mother sitters). And the dealer replied, “Are you looking for a kir-kantike?” (a deal that can be done). Dulcinea nodded her head yes and it in a few moments, after examining the stones with his the loop, the dealer folded the brivke backup, put it in the cachet and wrote a number on the envelope using a recognized cipher that is only used in the New York Diamond District and in Yiddish said, “nem di gelt” (take the money). Dulcinea simply nodded her head yes and with that a cashier counted out what must have been thirty thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills. And with a quick “mazal und brucha,” it was done. Not more than ten minutes transpired from the beginning to the end of the transaction as Veronika and I stood there silently observing the whole thing. The amount of money was staggering to me. My father made less than ten thousand dollars in a year and Dulcinea had three times his total annual earnings in her pocket. I had no idea that she was about to spend a third of this sum on clothing for me. So off we went to the fashion district having obtained our spending money.
The fashion district which no longer really exists anymore was a place like no other, perhaps like no other place in the world. From 34th to 42nd Street and between 5th and 9th Avenues, was housed one the largest industrial industries in North America, larger than the auto industry in its heyday. A teeming throng of activity, with armies of workers pushing rolling racks of dresses and suits. Our destination was BONDS Men's Clothing Emporium. The store was announced by what was probably the largest neon sign in North America. The store was the so-called “cathedral of clothing,” with the sign announcing in ticker style electronic script, “every hour 3,490 people…” The sign itself was gargantuan, fifty feet high and two hundred feet long. The "O" of the word BOND held a huge clock; the massive sign also incorporated an actual waterfall that would slush back and forth with 50,000 gallons of water. There were huge male and female statues on either side that towered five stories high. The range of suits and clothing in the store and the number of salesmen and just the sheer variety of merchandise was overwhelming. But here I was with two supermodels to help with my clothing decisions.
Dulcinea wasted no time taking me to the most exclusive section of the men's clothing department. We were greeted a bit coolly as we entered. That attitude evaporated, however, as Dulcinea exposed her money clip with a three inch stack of hundreds. It must have been four or five hours before we figured everything out but what a wardrobe it was. Ten suits, one for each day of the week plus a dress suit and a tuxedo. Two dozen shirts, a few pairs of dress pants, a half a dozen sports jackets, a trench coat, a winter wool overcoat. A dozen ties. A few belts, five pairs of shoes. Some gloves and hats. Some fine undershirts and shorts. By the time the entire bill was added up, we were running close to ten thousand dollars. It was a monumental sum of money for me. More than anything it was a vote of confidence in me by Dulcinea and she joked that with this clothing inventory, I could work anywhere I wanted to. It's the clothing that makes the man she averred with a big smile. I had seen Dulcinea save every dollar she ever earned, picking up change on the street, never spending, saving for the always expected rainy day. But here she was dropping ten thousand dollars without thinking twice. The clothing indeed would change how I thought about myself and how I felt about myself. It was a morale booster just when I needed it. I will always remember this act of generosity. It is never to be forgotten.