The Kugelmass Episode

By Woody Allen

(From Side Effects, 1980)

   Kugelmass, a professor of humanities at City College, was unhappily married for the second time. Daphne Kugelmass was an oaf. He also had two dull sons by his first wife, Flo, and was up to his neck in alimony and child support.

   ‘Did I know it would turn out so badly?’ Kugelmass whined to his analyst one day. ‘Daphne had promise. Who suspected she’d let herself go and swell up like a beach ball? Plus she had a few bucks, which is not in itself a healthy reason to marry a person, but it doesn’t hurt, with the kind of operating nut I have. You see my point?’

   Kugelmass was bald and as hairy as a bear, but he had soul.

   ‘I need to meet a new woman,’ he went on. ‘I need to have an affair. I may not look the part, but I’m a man who needs romance. I need softness, I need flirtation. I’m not getting any younger, so before it’s too late I want to make love in Venice, trade quips at “21,” and exchange coy glances over red wine and candlelight. You see what I’m saying?’

   Dr. Mandel shifted in his chair and said, ‘An affair will solve nothing. You’re so unrealistic. Your problem runs much deeper.’

   ‘And also this affair must be discreet,’ Kugelmass continued. ‘I can’t afford a second divorce. Daphne would really sock it to me.’

   ‘Mr. Kugelmass—’

   ‘But it can’t be anyone at City College, because Daphne also works there. Not that anyone on the faculty at C.C.N.Y. is any great shakes, but some of those coeds…’

   ‘Mr. Kugelmass—’

   ‘Help me. I had a dream last night. I was skipping through a meadow holding a picnic basket and the basket was marked “Options.” And then I saw there was a hole in the basket.’

   ‘Mr. Kugelmass, the worst thing you could do is act out. You must simply express your feelings here, and together we’ll analyze them. You have been in treatment long enough to know there is no overnight cure. After all, I’m an analyst, not a magician.’

   ‘Then perhaps what I need is a magician,’ Kugelmass said, rising from his chair. And with that he terminated his therapy.

   A couple of weeks later, while Kugelmass and Daphne were moping around in their apartment one night like two pieces of old furniture, the phone rang.

   ‘I’ll get it,’ Kugelmass said. ‘Hello.’

   ‘Kugelmass?’ a voice said. ‘Kugelmass, this is Persky.’

   ‘Who?’

   ‘Persky. Or should I say The Great Persky?’

    ‘Pardon me?’

   ‘I hear you’re looking all over town for a magician to bring a little exotica into your life? Yes or no?’

   ‘Sh-h-h,’ Kugelmass whispered. ‘Don’t hang up. Where are you calling from, Persky?’

   Early the following afternoon, Kugelmass climbed three flights of stairs in a broken-down apartment house in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Peering through the darkness of the hall, he found the door he was looking for and pressed the bell. I’m going to regret this, the thought to himself.

   Seconds later, he was greeted by a short, thin, waxy-looking man.

   ‘You’re Persky the Great?’ Kugelmass said.

   ‘The Great Persky. You want a tea?’

   ‘No, I want romance. I want music. I want love and beauty.’

   ‘But not tea, eh? Amazing. O.K., sit down.’

   Persky went to the back of the room, and Kugelmass heard the sounds of boxes and furniture being moved around. Persky reappeared, pushing before him a large object on squeaky roller-skate wheels. He removed some old silk handkerchiefs that were lying on its top and blew away a bit of dust. It was a cheap-looking Chinese cabinet, badly lacquered.

   ‘Persky,’ Kugelmass said, ‘what’s your scam?’

   ‘Pay attention,’ Persky said. ‘This is some beautiful effect. I developed it for a Knights of Pythias date last year, but the booking fell through. Get into the cabinet.’

   ‘Why, so you can stick it full of swords or something?’

   ‘You see any swords?’

   Kugelmass made a face and, grunting, climbed into the cabinet. He couldn’t help noticing a couple of ugly rhinestones glued onto raw plywood just in front of his face. ‘If this is a joke,’ he said.

   ‘Some joke. Now, here’s the point. If I throw any novel into this cabinet with you, shout the doors, and tap it three times, you will find yourself projected into that book.’

   Kugelmass made grimace of disbelief.

   ‘It’s the emess,’ Persky said. ‘My hand to God. Not just a novel either. A short story, a play, a poem. You can meet any of the women created by the world’s best writers. Whoever you dreamed of. You could carry on all you like with a real winner. Then when you’ve had enough you give a yell, and I’ll see you’re back here in a split second.’

   ‘Persky, are you some kind of outpatient?’

   ‘I’m telling you it’s on the level,’ Persky said.

   Kugelmass remained skeptical. ‘What are you telling me—that this cheesy homemade box can take me on a ride like you’re describing?’

   ‘For a double sawbuck.’

   Kugelmass reached for his wallet. ‘I’ll believe this when I see it,’ he said.

   Persky tucked the bills in his pants pocket and turned towards his bookcase. ‘So who do you want to meet? Sister Carrie? Hester Prynne? Orphelia? Maybe someone by Saul Bellow? Hey, what about Temple Drake? Although for a man your age she’d be a workout.’

   ‘French. I want to have an affair with a French lover.’

   ‘Nana?’

   ‘I don’t want to have to pay for it.’

   ‘What about Natasha in War and Peace?’

   ‘I said French. I know! What about Emma Bovary? That sounds to me perfect.’

   ‘You got it, Kugelmass. Give me a holler when you’ve had enough.’ Persky tossed in a paperback copy of Flaubert’s novel.

   ‘You sure this is safe?’ Kugelmass asked as Persky began shutting the cabinet doors.

   ‘Safe. Is anything safe in this crazy world?’ Persky rapped three times on the cabinet and then flung open the doors.

   Kugelmass was gone. At the same moment, he appeared in the bedroom of Charles and Emma Bovary’s house at Yonville. Before him was a beautiful woman, standing alone with her back turned to him as she folded some linen. I can’t believe this, thought Kugelmass, staring at the doctor’s ravishing wife. This is uncanny. I’m here. It’s her.

   Emma turned in surprise. ‘Goodness, you startled me,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’ She spoke in the same fine English translation as the paperback.

   It’s simply devastating, he thought. Then, realizing that it was he whom she had addressed, he said, ‘Excuse me. I’m Sidney Kugelmass. I’m from City College. A professor of humanities. C.C.N.Y.? Uptown. I—oh, boy!’

   Emma Bovary smiled flirtatiously and said, ‘Would you like a drink? A glass of wine, perhaps?’

   She is beautiful, Kugelmass thought. What a contrast with the troglodyte who shared his bed! He felt a sudden impulse to take this vision into his arms and tell her she was the kind of woman he had dreamed of all his life.

   ‘Yes, some wine,’ he said hoarsely. ‘White. No, red. No, white. Make it white.’

   ‘Charles is out for the day,’ Emma said, her voice full of playful implications.

   After the wine, they went for a stroll in the lovely French countryside. ‘I’ve always dreamed that some mysterious stranger would appear and rescue me from the monotony of this crass rural existence,’ Emma said, clasping his hand. They passed a small church. ‘I love what you have on,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it around here. It’s so . . . modern.’

   ‘It’s called a leisure suit,’ he said romantically. ‘It was marked down.’ Suddenly he kissed her. For the next hour they reclined under a tree and whispered together and told each other deeply meaningful things with their eyes. Then Kugelmass sat up. He had just remembered he had to meet Daphne at Bloomingdale’s. ‘I must go,’ he told her. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll be back.’

   ‘I hope so,’ Emma said.

   He embraced her passionately, and the two walked back to the house. He held Emma’s face cupped in his palms, kissed her again, and yelled, ‘O.K., Persky! I got to be at Bloomingdale’s by three-thirty.’

   There was an audible pop, and Kugelmass was back in Brooklyn.

   ‘So? Did I lie?’ Persky asked triumphantly.

   ‘Look, Persky, I’m right now late to meet the ball and chain at Lexington Avenue, but when can I go again? Tomorrow?’

   ‘My pleasure. Just bring a twenty. And don’t mention this to anybody.’

   ‘Yeah. I’m going to call Rupert Murdoch.’

   Kugelmass hailed a cab and sped off to the city. His heart danced on point. I am in love, he thought, I am the possessor of a wonderful secret. What he didn’t realize was that at this moment students in various classrooms across the country were saying to their teachers, ‘Who is this character on page 100? A bald Jew is kissing Madame Bovary?’ A teacher in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, sighed and thought, Jesus, these kids, with their pot and acid. What goes through their minds!

   Daphne Kugelmass was in the bathroom-accessories department at Bloomingdale’s when Kugelmass arrived breathlessly. ‘Where’ve you been?’ she snapped. ‘It’s four-thirty.’

   ‘I got held up in traffic,’ Kugelmass said.

   Kugelmass visited Persky the next day, and in a few minutes was again passed magically to Yonville. Emma couldn’t hide her excitement at seeing him. The two spent hours together, laughing and talking about their different backgrounds. Before Kugelmass left, they made love. ‘My God, I’m doing it with Madame Bovary!’ Kugelmass whispered to himself. ‘Me, who failed freshman English.’

   As the months passed, Kugelmass saw Persky many times and developed a close and passionate relationship with Emma Bovary. ‘Make sure and always get me into the book before page 120,’ Kugelmass said to the magician one day. ‘I always have to meet her before she hooks up with this Rodolphe character.’

   ‘Why?’ Persky asked. ‘You can’t beat his time?’

   ‘Beat his time. He’s landed gentry. Those guys have nothing better to do than flirt and ride horses. To me, he’s one of those faces you see in the pages of Women’s Wear Daily. With the Helmut Berger hairdo. But to her he’s hot stuff.’

   ‘And her husband suspects nothing?’

   ‘He’s out of his depth. He’s a lacklustre little paramedic who’s thrown in his lot with a jitterbug. He’s ready to go to sleep by ten, and she’s putting on her dancing shoes. Oh, well . . . See you later.’

   And once again Kugelmass entered the cabinet and passed instantly to the Bovary estate at Yonville. ‘How you doing cupcake?’ he said to Emma.

   ‘Oh, Kugelmass,’ Emma sighed. ‘What I have to put up with. Last night at dinner, Mr. Personality dropped off to sleep in the middle of the dessert course. I’m pouring my heart out about Maxim’s and the ballet, and out of the blue I hear snoring.’

   ‘It’s O.K., darling. I’m here now.’ Kugelmass said, embracing her. I’ve earned this, he thought, smelling Emma’s French perfume and burying his nose in her hair. I’ve suffered enough. I’ve paid enough analysts. I’ve searched till I’m weary. She’s young and nubile, and I’m here a few pages after Leon and just before Rodolphe. By showing up during the correct chapters, I’ve got the situation knocked.

   Emma, to be sure, was just as happy as Kugelmass. She had been starved for excitement, and his tales of Broadway life, of fast cars and Hollywood and TV stars, enthralled the young French beauty.

   ‘Tell me again about O.J. Simpson,’ she implored that evening, as she and Kugelmass strolled past Abbé Bournisien’s church.

   ‘What can I say? The man is great. He sets all kinds of rushing records. Such moves. They can’t touch him.’

   ‘And the Academy Awards?’ Emma said wistfully. ‘I’d give anything to win one.’

   ‘First you’ve got to be nominated.’

   ‘I know. You explained it. But I’m convinced I can act. Of course, I’d want to take a class or two. With Strasberg maybe. Then, if I had the right agent—’

   We’ll see, we’ll see. I’ll speak to Persky.’

   That night, safely returned to Persky’s flat, Kugelmass brought up the idea of having Emma visit him in the big city.

   ‘Let me think about it,’ Persky said. ‘maybe I could work it. Stranger things have happened.’ Of course, neither of them could think of one.

   ‘Where the hell do you go all the time?’ Daphne Kugelmass barked at her husband as he returned home late that evening. ‘You got a chippie stashed somewhere?’

   ‘Yeah, sure, I’m just the type,’ Kugelmass said wearily. ‘I was with Leonard Popkin. We were discussing Socialist agriculture in Poland. You know Popkin. He’s a freak on the subject.’

   ‘Well, you’ve been very odd lately,’ Daphne said. ‘Distant. Just don’t forget about my father’s birthday. On Saturday?’

   ‘Oh, sure, sure,’ Kugelmass said, heading for the bathroom.

   ‘My whole family will be there. We can see the twins. And cousin Hamish. You should be more polite to Cousin Hamish—he likes you.’

   ‘Right, the twins,’ Kugelmass said, closing the bathroom door and shutting out the sound of his wife’s voice. He leaned against it and took a deep breath. In a few hours he told himself, he would be back in Yonville again, with his beloved. And this time, if all went well, he would bring Emma back with him.

   At three-fifteen the following afternoon, Persky worked his wizardry again. The two spent a few hours at Yonville with Binet and then remounted the Bovary carriage. Following Persky’s instructions, they held each other tightly, closed their eyes, and counted to ten. When they opened them, the carriage was just drawing up at the side door of the Plaza Hotel, where Kugelmass had optimistically reserved a suite earlier in the day.

   ‘I love it! It’s everything I dreamed it would be,’ Emma said as she swirled joyously around the bedroom, surveying the city from their window. ‘There’s F.A.O. Schwarz. And there’s Central Park, and the Sherry is which one? Oh, there—I see. It’s too divine.’

   On the bed there were boxes from Halston and Saint Laurent. Emma unwrapped a package and held up a pair of black velvet pants against her perfect body.

   ‘The slacks suit is by Ralph Lauren,’ Kugelmass said. ‘You’ll look like a million bucks in it. Come on, sugar, give us a kiss.’

    ‘I’ve never been so happy!’ Emma squealed as she stood before the mirror. ‘Let’s go out on the town. I want to see Chorus Line and the Guggenheim and this Jack Nicholson character you always talk about. Are there any of his flicks showing?’

    ‘I cannot get my mind around this,’ a Stanford professor said. ‘First a strange character named Kugelmass, and now she’s gone from the book. Well, I guess the mark of a classic is that you can reread it a thousand times and always find something new.’

   The lovers passed a blissful weekend. Kugelmass had told Daphne he would be away at a Symposium in Boston and would return Monday. Savoring each moment, he and Emma went to the movies, had dinner in Chinatown, passed two hours at a discothèque, and went to bed with a TV movie. They slept till noon on Sunday, visited SoHo, and ogled celebrities at Elaine’s. They had caviar and champagne in their suite on Sunday night and talked until dawn. That morning, in the cab taking them to Persky’s apartment, Kugelmass thought, it was hectic, but worth it. I can’t bring her here too often, but now and then it will be a charming contrast with Yonville.

   At Persky’s Emma climbed into the cabinet, arranged her new boxes of clothes neatly around her and kissed Kugelmass fondly. ‘My place next time,’ she said with a wink. Persky rapped three times on the cabinet. Nothing happened.

   ‘Hmm,’ Persky said, scratching his head. He rapped again, but still no magic. ‘Something must be wrong,’ he mumbled.

   ‘Persky, you’re joking!’ Kugelmass cried. ‘How can it not work?’

   ‘Relax, relax. Are you still in the box, Emma?’

    ‘Yes.’

   Persky rapped again—harder this time.

   ‘I’m still here, Persky.’

   ‘I know, darling. Sit tight.’

   ‘Persky, we have to get her back,’ Kugelmass whispered. ‘I’m a married man, and I have a class in three hours. I’m not prepared for anything more than a cautious affair at this point.’

    ‘I can’t understand it,’ Persky muttered. ‘It’s such a reliable little trick.’

   But he could do nothing. ‘It’s going to take a little while,’ he said to Kugelmass. ‘I’m going to have to strip it down. I’ll call you later.’

   Kugelmass bundled Emma into a cab and took her back to the plaza. He barely made it to his class on time. He was on the phone all day, to Persky and to his mistress. The magician told him it might be several days before he got to the bottom of the trouble.

   ‘How was the symposium?’ Daphne asked him that night.

    ‘Fine, fine,’ he said, lighting the filter end of a cigarette.

   ‘What’s wrong? You’re as tense as a cat.’

   ‘Me? Ha, that’s a laugh. I’m as calm as a summer night. I’m just going to take a walk.’ He eased out the door, hailed a cab, and flew to the Plaza.

   ‘This is no good,’ Emma said. ‘Charles will miss me.’

   ‘Bear with me sugar,’ Kugelmass said. He was pale and sweaty. He kissed her again, raced to the elevators, yelled at Persky over a pay phone in the Plaza lobby, and just made it home before midnight.

   ‘According to Popkin, barley prices in Kraków have not been this stable since 1971,’ he said to Daphne, and smiled wanly as he climbed into bed.

   The whole week went like that.

   On Friday night, Kugelmass told Daphne there was another symposium he had to catch, this one in Syracuse. He hurried back to the Plaza, but the second weekend there was nothing like the first. ‘Get me back into the novel or marry me,’ Emma told Kugelmass. ‘Meanwhile, I want to get a job or go to class, because watching TV all day is the pits.’

   ‘Fine. We can use the money,’ Kugelmass said. ‘you consume twice your weight in room service.’

    ‘I met an Off Broadway producer in Central Park yesterday, and he told me I might be right for a project he’s doing,’ Emma said.

   ‘Who is this clown?’ Kugelmass asked.

   ‘He’s not a clown. He’s sensitive and kind and cute. His name’s Jeff Something-or-Other, and he’s up for a Tony.’

   Later that afternoon, Kugelmass showed up at Persky’s drunk.

   ‘Relax,’ Persky told him. ‘You’ll get a coronary.’

   ‘Relax. The man says relax. I’ve got a fictional character stashed in a hotel room, and I think my wife is having me tailed by a private shamus.’

   ‘O.K., O.K. We know there’s a problem.’ Persky crawled under the cabinet and starting banging on something with a large wrench.

    ‘I’m like a wild animal,’ Kugelmass went on. ‘I’m sneaking around town, and Emma and I have had it up to here with each other. Not to mention a hotel tab that reads like a defense budget.’

   ‘So what should I do? This is the world of magic,’ Persky said. ‘It’s all nuance.’

   ‘Nuance, my foot. I’m pouring Dom Pérignon and black eggs into this little mouse, plus her wardrobe, plus she’s enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse and suddenly needs professional photos. Also, Persky, Professor Fivish Kopkind, who teaches Comp Lit and who has always been jealous of me, has identified me as the sporadically appearing character in the Flaubert book. He’s threatened to go to Daphne. I see ruin and alimony; jail. For adultery with Madame Bovary, my wife will reduce me to beggary.’

   ‘What do you want me to say? I’m working on it night and day. As far as your personal anxiety goes, that I can’t help you with. I’m a magician, not an analyst.’

   By Sunday afternoon, Emma had locked herself in the bathroom and refused to respond to Kugelmass’s entreaties. Kugelmass stared out the window at the Wollman Rink and contemplated suicide. Too bad this is a low floor, he thought, or I’d do it right now. Maybe if I ran away to europe and started life over… maybe I could sell the International Herald Tribune, like those young girls used to.

    The phone rang. Kugelmass lifted it to his ear mechanically.

   ‘Bring her over,’ Persky said. ‘I think I got the bugs out of it.’

   Kugelmass’s heart leaped. ‘You’re serious?’ he said. ‘You got it licked?’

   ‘It was something in the transmission. Go figure.’

   ‘Persky, you’re a genius. We’ll be there in a minute. Less than a minute.’

   Again the lovers hurried to the magician’s apartment, and again Emma Bovary climbed into the cabinet with her boxes. This time there was no kiss. Persky shut the doors, took a deep breath, and tapped the box three times. There was the reassuring popping noise, and when Persky peered inside, the box was empty. Madame Bovary was back in her novel. Kugelmass heaved a great sigh of relief and pumped the magician’s hand.

    ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘I learned my lesson. I’ll never cheat again, I swear it.’ He pumped Persky’s hand again and made a mental note to send him a necktie.

   Three weeks later, at the end of a beautiful spring afternoon, Persky answered his doorbell. It was Kugelmass, with a sheepish expression on his face.

   ‘O.K., Kugelmass,’ the magician said. ‘Where to this time?’

   ‘It’s just this once,’ Kugelmass said. ‘The weather is so lovely, and I’m not getting any younger. Listen, you’ve read Portnoy’s Complaint? Remember The Monkey?’

   ‘The price is now twenty-five dollars, because the cost of living is up, but I’ll start you off with one freebie, due to all the trouble I caused you.’

   ‘You’re good people,’ Kugelmass said, combing his few remaining hairs as he climbed into the cabinet again. ‘This’ll work all right?’

   ‘I hope. But I haven’t tried it much since all that unpleasantness.’

   ‘Sex and romance,’ Kugelmass said from inside the box. ‘What we go through for a pretty face.’

   Persky tossed in a copy of Portnoy’s Complaint and rapped three times on the box. This time, instead of a popping noise there was a dull explosion, followed by a series of crackling noises and a shower of sparks. Persky leaped back, was seized by a heart attack, and dropped dead. the cabinet burst into flames, and eventually the entire house burned down.

   Kugelmass, unaware of this catastrophe, had his own problems. He had not been thrust into Portnoy’s Complaint, or into any other novel for that matter. He had been projected into an old textbook, Remedial Spanish, and was running for his life over a barren, rocky terrain as the word tener (‘to have’)—a large and hairy irregular verb—raced after him on its spindly legs.