Secret Dreams (21 page)

And why thirteen? That seemed to ring a faint bell. He tried to recall if the parents said anything about the number thirteen…. Yes! He remembered now, a strange stroke of fortune. A few slips of paper had arrived at his desk from Accounting downstairs. The Schanderein bills. Bills they left without paying, which had been forwarded by their hotel to the hospital for collection. They ran to a hundred francs or so — a few nights on the town. Two expensive meals at the Storken Restaurant and a liquor bill” from a well-known establishment, Der Geschmeichelte Kater —The Flattered Cat, a brothel. The establishment was located at number 13 Drosselmeierstrasse. But the girl couldn't know that. Just a coincidence. Yet the number 13 brought the parents to mind once more. How odd, really —- Herr Schanderein had paid his daughters bill three months in advance, but then this: the dun knocking on the door for a handful of coins….

Forget them, then. Forget them. His struggle was not with the parents' erratic behavior but with the girl. With the girl's struggle.

So what of her creations? The hooded faceless shit babies.
Kotkindgeister. 
The Ghost Children of Excrement. Her creations were faceless fecal infants in their swaddling clothes, made of the stuff of her own body. But whoever said they were dead? Her creations might represent anything: a childhood playmate who went away, a character from a story, a make-believe sibling — even something she had seen in a museum. Ask the smug Herr Doktor Nekken, and he would tell you the creations were the product of a demented mind, that they didn't represent anything.

The haunting thing about them wasn't the effort she lavished on their making, or the scaled precision of their shape — but the macabre effect of the cowl How cleverly it revealed a shadowy void where the face should be. She could just as easily have chosen to fill it in, with a wad of paper or a button…. Why omit the face?

Some personal taboo?

He didn't pretend to know.

It reminded him of savages: How they hid a thing too sacred to be seen. How they forbade the speaking of a holy name. How their gods were often eyeless, mouthless, a smoothed-over blank cipher. For if you knew a god's face, then you owned him with your eyes. If you spoke his name, you possessed his soul. Greater the unseen power: as when the Hebrews forbade the making of a graven image. Not locked under a temple roof that might be set afire, or residing in the body of a statue, prey to thieves and vandals. But Unseen. Unconquerable. Forbidden even the writing of His name. For Yahweh meant nothing — comprising only the letters on either side of the ones that
made up
his name. The name of God invoked, a gap left in the alphabet where His Letters were removed. His was the void. His the hidden coils of sacred purpose. The untouchable likeness of soul:
I am that I am
, …

Herr Doktor stared silently at the faceless papoose babies on the plates. In a way, it all fit with the patient. She herself, wrapped and mummified — and so the images were wrapped. She herself, hiding her face — and so the Ghost Children had no face. Had she made a minuscule treasure of herself? How long had she been at the hospital? About seven weeks … God, how much longer it seemed — months and years almost. What was the girl trying to say? I am an infant. I am faceless. I am shit.

You're running in circles.

At his side, Orderly Zeik remarked sheepishly, “I think they're very well done,” as if afraid he might be overheard having an opinion. Orderlies didn't have opinions.

“They
are
well done.”

“Pity we have to throw them out.”

He hadn't thought of this. They were made of feces,- everyone would expect them to be disposed of. In his guts he knew this was wrong. The girl wouldn't want them thrown away.

“Zeik, get me a shoe box, some packing paper, and some string.”

The orderly went, looking profoundly doubtful. But even if Herr Doktor didn't know what the Ghost Children meant, he did know what was proper and fitting to do. The orderly himself had been closer to the truth: they
were
well-made gifts. Not meant to be discarded. That she had only the contents of her room and herself to work with — remarkable! The Ghost Children were not to be thrown out.

At last Orderly Zeik returned with shoe box, packing paper, and string. Quite sure now, Herr Doktor planned to keep the things after all…. Not to disappoint him, the junior physician wrapped each one in a fold of packing paper and put it in the shoe box. Then the cover went on and the string was tied tightly around. Last of all, Herr Doktor labeled the box boldly with a pen:

Fräulein Schanderein Rm. 401

Gift to Herr Doktor C. G. Jung Personal

Afterward, he stood facing the patient's door, box in hand. Orderly Zeik, next to him, held the stack of plates like a waiter.

“Fräulein Schanderein,” Herr Doktor called out. “I want to thank you for these …” For a second his mind went completely blank. These what? What should he call them? Just these, that's all.

“I can see you went to a lot of trouble to make
these
, and I want you to know I think them very fine. I've put them in a box for safekeeping and thought perhaps you might want to see how well they've been wrapped. If you don't object, I'll open the door and show you.”

He waited several moments for a shriek of protest. Then hesitantly, gently laid his palm on the doorknob. The first time in a month … His hand was sweating. He twisted the knob and heard the latch slide free. He paused there, breathing long and deeply, waiting to see if Fräulein S would scream. The door eased open a crack, just wide enough for him to fit the shoe box through. He thrust his arm quietly into the patient's room without even trying to peek in the crack.

The box felt awkward and leaden, and soon his arm began to ache.

‘There's a label on the box, which says they're a gift from you to me. If that's not right, I'll change it.” He thought he heard the girl breathe. Her breath coming fast — but perhaps that was only himself. His arm grew weak. "I've also labeled it Personal, so no one will open this. I hope that's agreeable to you….”

Again, nothing. It didn't matter — his arm was
in
the room. At last he withdrew the box and closed the door. He was shaking and half laughing to himself.

“Not a peep!” Zeik exclaimed, now totally in awe of Herr Doktor. Then, with a hint of suspicion, “She might have been sleeping, you know.”

The words went through him like a dagger. “Ach, don't ruin it for me.” The girl wasn't sleeping, he'd heard her quick breathing, hadn't he? He'd spoken loud enough to wake her, hadn't he?
Hadn't be?

Tomorrow he would try to enter her room.

He would fry.

Herr Doktor and Orderly Zeik marched down into the depths of the hospital, making directly for the meat locker behind the kitchen pantry, Zeik carrying the stack of plates thirteen high and Herr Doktor holding his precious shoe box with both hands. In unspoken agreement they didn't even stop to drop off the dirty dishes in the slop sink. But the meat locker was locked against them.

Herr Doktor went almost frantic. “You have a key, don't you?”

Now came Zeik's turn to show his supreme mastery of the ways of the place. His eyes clouded over with a bureaucratic glaze of obfuscation. Quietly muttering to himself, he put down the plates and jangled a ring of a dozen keys between his fingers. “Ah, Herr Doktor, you know the rules, ja?” He picked through the keys one by one. “The rules say only Herr Meister Küchenchef Prunk has the key to the meat locker. You know the staff are all thieves! Yes, believe me — they'd sell their mother for a slice of ham at two in the morning. Truly a shame no one can be trusted these days, ja?”

“Well, do you have the key or don't you?”

The meat locker door stood open. Herr Doktor nodded to the orderly and entered, going back to the coldest part of the refrigerator. There, on a high shelf, behind a stack of frozen meat patties, he placed the shoe box. He would give instructions in the morning for the box never to be touched. For a moment he stared up at the shelf, feeling the coldness of the wood-lined ice room sink into his limbs.

His breath came as smoke. He heard the ice blocks near the door dripping drop after drop through the open cedar slats at his feet. He read the label he had written:

Gift to Herr Doktor C. G. Jung Personal

How many months would her gifts sit on the shelf before he understood what they meant?

Behind him, in the less frigid reaches of the refrigerator, Orderly Zeik was happily paring slices of lamb from an immense joint. Zeik offered him a slice, but he shook his head. Herr Doktor wanted the last detail of this strange procedure perfect. He picked up the heavy stack of plates and went to dump them in the slop sink. They made a cheerful clatter, as if saying, So there!

“In my opinion,” Zeik said with his mouth full, “Herr Meister Küchenchef Prunk makes a better side of ham. But I am forgetting the other important rule around here: Everything must be cooked precisely the same.” Zeik finished his slice of the joint and pulled out his keys to secure the locker again. “But the first rule is really more important,” he said as he locked the refrigerator and put the keys away. “Since no one in this hospital can be trusted around the supplies.” And they both laughed.

He went home exhausted and took four hours' sleep. Toward the end of the night he had a ridiculous dream, in which he and Zeik were eating together in the cafeteria while Herr Meister Küchenchef Prunk served them portions of the patient's Ghost Children. The carving knife cut smoothly through one of the little wrapped infants, like slicing a salami. Already Zeik and he had eaten several of the relics, and they were delicious. But suddenly he wondered what the head tasted like.- after all, it was void and empty. And how had Meister Küchenchef Prunk managed to cut a slice off this void? Zeik must have eaten that slice, he decided. Well, Zeik was empty-headed enough that eating a slice off the void wouldn't trouble him very much.

He should really lodge a protest, make Küchenchef Prunk understand that this was a gift, that they ought not to be eating it. Now the master chef managed to cut a very tender morsel from the hooded, shadowy void of the cowled head and offered it to him…. He woke up, saying, “No, thank you, I've really had plenty.”

Behind the closed bathroom door he heard the shower running,- his bedclothes felt damp and rumpled. He wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew he wouldn't. Too late now for easy sleep. As he dressed, he became more and more annoyed, irritably mumbling to himself, “No, I don't want to interpret it,” as if to someone in the room,

He pictured the dusty dream book he had once offered the Schandereins as they sat in his office. It was nothing but an offering to himself: afraid that if he took on the girl, he'd need it before long. The success of the early-morning breakthrough meant nothing now. He had his arm inside the girl's room, but he no longer cared. All the pent-up misery of the past weeks churned in his stomach: the thought of the ten reports he had already written, the smirking orderlies, the happy pig Nurse Bosch, the smug condolences of Herr Senior Physician Nekken, the wordless, reproachful looks from Herr Direktor Bleuler every time he overslept and missed morning rounds. So! He had stuck his arm into the crazy girl's room without her tearing it off! Who noticed?

Who cared? Nobody! Nobody!

A printed page from the dream book stood out clearly in his mind. Chapter II, “Analysis of a Specimen Dream.” So. nobody cared.

Except the man who had recorded that specimen dream in his book. That man would appreciate the significance of the early-morning breakthrough. He'd understand why Herr Doktor saved the ghost dolls in a cardboard box. And the meaning of his Eating Dream. And why he had to take the time to write it down.

Ach, but what a dismal dream. If he wrote it down now, he'd miss morning rounds again, with new “rumors” springing up: Did you hear, Wolfi? Herr Doktor caught an infection from the Victim in 401 by standing outside her door all night. Sleeping sickness. He's home in bed….

Herr Doktor tried getting dressed. He tried tying his tie in the mirror but gave up on the fourth attempt, his face ashen, and slumped into an armchair. To think, an Eating Dream devouring him skin and bone. Yes, he'd probably miss rounds with Bleuler and company this morning. Already he had found a notepad and a pen.

* * *

He and Zeik were eating together
.

For weeks he had been seeing to stupid tasks: cleaning chamber pots, running and fetching, bowing and scraping. So if Zeik and he were eating together, his dream had distilled reality down to the thought “You are what you eat.” He was eating with an orderly. He was eating like an orderly. He was an orderly.

They were eating the Ghost Children
,

Children. Plural. Wasn't it only one ghost child that truly concerned him? And how many problems neatly solved if Fräulein herself were nothing but a ghost? If dead and gone, she no longer suffered from nervous hysteria. And he no longer obliged to cure her. If dead, the girl would be free at last of her crudest affliction — the painful condition of life.

He wondered what the head tasted like; after all, it was void and empty
.

If only he could steal a taste from inside the girl's head. Know what she knew. Feel what she felt. If only …

How had Meister Küchenchef Prunk managed to cut a slice off the void?

How indeed! And who was the master chef anyway? The eminent Hofrats and pompous Herr Dozents of the university? The fine surgeons who lost every other patient on the table? The knowledgeable specialists, prescribing the same potion for every complaint? The bumbling Herr Direktor Bleuler? The goose-stepping Senior Physician Nekken?

He wanted to laugh and cry.

Because of course he knew one. There was always one. Not invited to the right soirees. Resigned from all the influential committees. Professionally ignored. Outcast.