Freud's Trip to Orvieto by Nicholas Fox Weber

Author:Nicholas Fox Weber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942658276
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Published: 2017-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

MOM’S STORY INSTANTLY BROUGHT TO MIND A MOMENT when she and Dad had been visiting me at Camp Killooleet in Vermont, a place where I spent five mostly wonderful summers from 1956 to 1960 when I was aged eight to twelve. This great progressive summer camp, run by Pete Seeger’s brother John and John’s wife, Ellie, was, I learned well after the fact, said to be for “red-diaper babies.” When I was ten, and my parents were there for visiting weekend, everything was going perfectly—they watched me play softball and do archery, and we had had a great picnic lunch together on the advanced swimmers’ deck, which was off-limits without a lifeguard—when, suddenly, once we were back where the camp buildings were, I saw my mother’s face turn ashen. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I had no idea what it was.

Having been totally attentive to me, Mom now seemed completely unaware that I was even there. She simply looked at Dad and said, “Saul, do you see who that is?” My father turned toward the Main House—we were standing outside Bunk VI (I can smell the wooden siding as I write this)—which was the direction my mother was glaring in. His face immediately assumed a look one very rarely saw: that of utter consternation.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked.

Still neither of my parents appeared to notice that I was standing there, let alone that I expected them to focus only on me. Mom simply looked at Dad and confirmed what they both knew. “Yes, it’s Elia Kazan.”

“You mean Judy Kazan’s father?” I asked, trying to get included in the conversation. Judy was a camp counselor.

My father, recognizing that I was feeling like an outsider, asked in a distracted way if I knew Judy, but I could see that he was completely in another world. I asked my parents what the big deal was. Mother, provocative as ever, simply said, “He gave names.” At the time, she refused to tell me anything more, even though this time I begged for an explanation.

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