Free City Of Fire Trilogy 1 - Dreamland by Kevin Baker

alone in his study, a sudden, loud noise had burst from his bookcase. Freud thought one of the supports had broken, burdened as it was by his massive works of science. Everything stood undisturbed, precisely as it had been, but Jung had jumped up, breathless with excitement.
    “There! I knew that would happen!” he proclaimed, pointing at the offending bookcase. “My chest felt like it was made of molten iron—and then, voila! A perfect example of a catalytic exteriorization phenomenon! There is a poltergeist in your bookcase.”
    “Come now,” Freud had blurted out. “You must know that is sheer bosh.”
    “It is not. You are mistaken, Herr Professor,” Jung had huffed. “In fact, I predict there will be another such noise in a moment!”
    As luck would have it, of course, there was another such noise—Freud leaping to his feet this time, though more out of fear that the whole bookcase was about to come tumbling down on their heads than of any poltergeist. Jung looked at him triumphantly—and after that there had been no convincing him the noises were not somehow linked to their relationship.
    To his extreme annoyance, Freud found himself listening to his bookcases over the next few weeks. The noises recurred, randomly, the result of the books or the house settling. He had written about it to Jung, gently chiding his “dear son” and attributing it all to the cooperation of chance.
    “Whatever you do, don’t let them drag my theories down into the black mud of occultism,” he had begged him, but there was no reply.
     
    Alcohol never agreed with him, and the grand reception in the Prater was no different. On the night train up to Bremen he tried a little more beer to settle himself but it had only made things worse. He was up half the night, padding back and forth to a filthy public toilet. There he clung for dear life to a side handle, while the train rocked and whistled through the Bavarian countryside.
    Finally, he sank into a restless dream. It was part of an old dream, a dream he’d had before under similar circumstances; the primary dream of his greatest work, the Traumdeutung—
     
    In the dream he was in the Aula, the great ceremonial hall of the university, in Vienna. It was filled, now, with all the great scientists who would be at Clark. He felt nervous but prepared, stepping up to the lectern with his notes in hand.
    But then, just as he got there, he realized that he had an overwhelming need to urinate. He muttered an excuse and stepped away, trying the doors behind the lectern, looking for a toilet. Behind him he could hear a growing murmur from the assembled scientists, a sound of indignation, but he couldn’t help it, he knew that if he waited any longer he would wet his pants right in front of them.
    He found a door, and went through it. It led through a long series of rooms, all of them beautifully appointed apartments, or majestic offices of the imperial ministries—-but not one of them, a toilet.
    Then the scene changed, and he was out of the Aula altogether. He was standing on a platform of the Stadtbahn, the suburban railway and holding a glass urinal—a sort of glass bedpan, with a long, penile stem in his hand—but he no longer had to pee. He was holding the urinal, instead, for an old, sick man, blind in one eye, whom he was accompanying.
    It felt better, being out in the open air, but he still had a great feeling of anxiety. A conductor was moving down the platform, he realized, and neither he nor his charge, the old, half-blind man, had a ticket. Hastily, he handed the one-eyed man the urinal—then put up a disguise, a mask in front of the man’s face, to fool the conductor. A mask that was the face of the idol, the African totem he had been given the night before—
     
    After that, the old dream faded, but he still did not sleep well. He was happier than usual to see Ferenczi’s boyish, homey face when the train pulled into Bremen the next morning. The man had already