The conversation had continued. I opened the book and tried to read it, but the words made no sense to me; besides, I was too overcome to focus. So I closed it again, traced the outline of his face with my finger, traced his body, traced his hand. The cigar. His coat. His eyes.

The book went back on the shelf. A few times in the years that followed, I would pull it down in moments of particular despair and hold it to my chest. After a while it was enough to simply envision his face. Tantruming in my room, sobbing in a curl on my bed, I would picture his penetrating eyes and think, Freud would understand. My parents had shunned him, so in the moments they also shunned me, I imagined us a team. Freud and I. Once I discovered masturbation, that had become folded into my ritual: after I’d sobbed for a bit, I would reach down into my underwear. It was soothing; the orgasm would put the seal on the catharsis of the experience. It returned me to myself. I recalled at once the Freud of these childhood fantasies, him looking straight into my eyes with his powerful, intimate glare. Him reaching around my head, lacing his hands through my hair, tightening his fist. Or, sometimes, putting me over his knee, spanking me—bad girl—all the while wrenching my head around with his hand so we never broke eye contact. Freud, Freud, Freud, like a mantra, Freud would understand.

And now, behold: here he was. Or someone who looked exactly like him. The bartender had finished with the lemons and was sliding glasses into the rack above us, the bulk of them tinkling like a wind chime. When he turned away, I could see the hair at the nape of his neck curled into a little point, as if it had snuggled into the divot there to take a rest, like a newborn animal. And then he turned back toward the bar, back toward me. Those lips. Those eyes. It was uncanny. He’s not Freud, I told myself—but Yes he is, I thought at the same time. I watched him reach up, again and again, to lace the wine glasses on to the wooden rack, his large fingers delicate around the thin stems. I imagined him in that three-piece suit, the cigar in his hand—his hand in my hair—my body draped over his knee—

And then he looked at me, into me, and I went numb. Still, I stared back. It was excruciating, I could hardly stand it; it was thrilling, I couldn’t look away. He pursed his lips, like he was thinking something that he wouldn’t let himself say. I am Freud. He gave a sharp intake of breath, but no words followed.

“What?” I whispered.

“I saw you,” he replied in a low voice.

My body went rigid. I tried to take a casual sip of the drink but sucked in too much and it went down my wind-pipe. When I finished coughing he was still looking at me. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand.