A Cure for Suicide (12 page)

—I will tell you, she continued, that a person like you, a good, solid person who knows what to do and when, can live where he likes. We can find good work for you, and a place to live. You will soon have all the skills of a normal human being, and you will have the scope of a normal human being. You can even decide whether you want to live in the villages, or whether you would like to leave. Either is fine. I, for instance, would be perfectly proud of you whatever you chose.

The claimant felt something wide and empty, like anticipation, but weakened. It was not false, but it did not sound out like a bell.

—For now, let’s think about the things that you do well and the things you like to do. We’ll practice your interactions and we’ll talk about what frustrates you and what you fear. I have many new exercises for you, and when we have gone through them, we will be at the next step. Are you ready to begin? Remember, too, Henry. You can fail again and again as much as you like. What is the way to proceed?

—Desperately and cautiously, he said. First cautiously, then desperately.

THE CLAIMANT was sitting in the study. These days he often liked to come there. He would sit in the study and move things around on the desk. The book was there, and the reports. He could read them, finally. He hadn’t even really known they were there, but now he knew and he could read them.

The truth was, though, that he did not read them. He had no desire to. Somehow, that they were available to him was enough. If they said one thing or another—he was sure it would be just about the same. There was a voice in him that rebelled at this, a voice that shrieked, screaming to him over broad distances to pore over the book, to read the reports, to glean everything that he could. But since Hilda had gone, that voice had grown weak, and he could scarcely hear it.

Now, he rode high on all the praise that he was receiving. Daily, he was moving forward with his good nature and he found that he could speak to people and accomplish things in the world in the most startling ways.

The examiner would say to him something like,

Tomorrow, you are to go to the restaurant in the town. The restaurant will be full of people. It will appear that there are no more tables. The situation will be: you cannot eat at the restaurant, as there is nowhere to sit. A young man will be there also, waiting. You will hear him being told, you cannot eat here now, as the restaurant is full.

But, you will approach the host and you will ask if there is a table, and the host will smile and incline his head. He will shout something over his shoulder and a table will be brought out and set up. The young man will be watching you and wondering who you are that such a thing could happen, and you will invite him to sit and eat with you as if it is the most natural thing in the world.

Then you will sit, and he will ask you many questions about your life, none of which you will be able to answer. The reason is this: you do not remember the events of your life. Such is your plight. But, you will not lie. You will merely explain that you were ill but you are grown better, and that you are working now on a paper to present.

When the young man leaves, he will invite you to meet him again, but you will decline, and if he asks why, you will say that you are very busy. You will feel a flush from the wine that you have had, and it will be difficult to decline this invitation, as the young man is very charming and his company is a great pleasure, but you will do so.

Why will you do it? You will do it because it is a part of life also that you must train for—to have a strong will, and to be able to turn down good things. That is the exercise for tomorrow.

And then it would happen that on the following day, Henry would go down to a restaurant, and he would do so not because he remembered to, but because he was hungry, and he had begun to eat at the restaurant sometimes. And at the restaurant, when arriving, he would notice that the tables were all full, and he would feel a vague worry that he could not be sat at a table. And as he approached the host, he would notice a young man being turned away. And the host would notice him standing there, would notice Henry, and the host would say, Henry Caul, our distinguished guest. Henry Caul, Henry Caul. The name would burnish and shine with a sort of proud energy. Then Henry would be shown to a table that had not been there a minute before. The table would actually be carried over the heads of many other guests, and tables would be pushed aside to accommodate it. Candles and the like, fancy silver, fine porcelain all would be placed upon the table, and the whole matter would unfold like a fan. And while this was happening and everyone was standing mesmerized watching it, Henry would say to the young man, your name, sir, and the young man would say, my name is Sasha, and Henry would say, come and sit with me, why not. Then the two would sit and they would not even need to order. The waiters would attend them who do not need to be told what is wanted; they merely bring what is best, and take away any number of unwanted things without rancor. And Henry would speak with Sasha, and Sasha would ask questions, he would say, Henry, if you don’t mind my asking, where are you from? What is that accent? And Henry would say, I do not know. That is the type of fact with which I am unacquainted, and the reason is this: I remember very little of the past. You see, I have been convalescing and am just now returning to life. At the moment, I am working on a paper for an upcoming conference.

Then, Sasha would ask about the paper, and Henry would say, I am not in the business of talking about papers that are not complete.

And someone would come to the table with a letter and present it to Henry, saying, Professor Caul, here is a letter for you, just arrived. And Henry would put it into a pocket in his coat. He would not even look at it.

When the dinner was through and they were standing before the restaurant, when the lights of the restaurant were practically turned off, and Henry had heard all about Sasha’s childhood, his current work, his fascination with sandpipers, they would bid each other goodbye, and Sasha would ask to meet again and be denied, and this denial would touch Henry less than he had thought it would, for he would be prepared, completely prepared for this, just as he was now becoming completely prepared for all things. Then he would walk home along the avenues, and the examiner would be waiting for him on the porch and she would clap her hands twice and smile, and he would smile back.

Or the examiner would say, tomorrow you will be walking down the street. A man will trip and fall and his knee will be injured. He will be bleeding just a little. You will be carrying your jacket over one arm, and you will use it to staunch his bleeding. It will not be a serious wound. All the same, you will staunch it, and help the man up. You will give him your arm and accompany him to his house, and when he invites you in, you will join him for a glass of wine. When his wife gets home, they will ask you to stay for dinner. They will insist upon it, but you will say that you have work to do. In this case, you will demur even from saying your name. You will say this sentence, for the time being I would like to be an unnamed guest, and if you do it right, they will respect your wishes.

And then, it would happen that Henry would go out walking and he would be passing along a crooked avenue where the pavement was a bit uncertain, and there he would witness a man falling to the ground. The man’s pant leg would be cut open and the skin of his leg would be broken, and there would be blood there, on the leg and on the ground. Without a second thought, Henry would wrap the leg and apply a good deal of pressure. He would speak in a gentle voice to the man, and he would lift the man to his feet—but only when the man was ready. At the man’s house, he would share a bottle of wine, and when asked about himself, he would obfuscate, and his obfuscation would be kindly met, for it would have been laid out in the gentlest and kindest way. Also, the supper would be avoided with the same light stratagem, and away Henry would go, across the village and back to his house.

It never occurred to him to wonder how there could be so many people, so many shifting groups that he only saw once in so small a village. No matter how many such scenes played out, he didn’t wonder—for Henry had become a very particular sort of person. He had been groomed to be a person who did not ask questions. He had not been told to be that way, but all the same he had been led to it, and now that he was there, he felt a great comfort.

Yes, those are the sorts of things that would happen. Not those things, exactly, of course, but things like them. Many things just like them.

—HOW IS IT that you know when you have accomplished a conversation with another person in a good manner? asked the examiner slowly. Or, I should say, how do you think other people judge these conversations?

They were eating supper, pea soup with thick, crusty brown bread. The claimant had a piece of bread torn in half on his plate. The brown bread tore well and it felt good to do it.

—I think it is a success if we can both go away feeling that we were right to begin with. That we were right about how it would go when we met and talked, and that it went the way it was supposed to go.

—Who determines how it is supposed to go?

—No one does. But, if it doesn’t go that way, everyone can see it.

—And would that embarrass you?

—No, I don’t think so.

The claimant thought for a minute.

—I don’t think about other people judging it.

—Why?

—Because, you said, you said once, that it is a failure to think of people as being separate from the village. The people are the village. If I speak to them about something, I’m just trying to preserve the sense that already exists in the village. I do that by having a sensible conversation, such a conversation as could happen in the village. That is the whole of it.

The examiner clapped her hands together.

—One more thing, she asked. I want to do an exercise. I want you to tell me what it is like to walk down into the town. Could you do that for me? Imagine the most beautiful day imaginable, a day such as you have longed for. You wake up, and go downstairs. You leave the house. You go out into the street. Take it from there.

—I GO OUT into the street, said the claimant. The gate shuts behind me. I’m surrounded by houses that I know, good houses, all the right dimensions, all painted the way that I like. The road goes by, and I go along it, I find the fence and I walk beside the fence. We are on a hill and at the bottom of the hill, there are other sorts of buildings. I think about the things that I will see, and then I see them. There are shops, and people in the shops. Often the same people are in the shops, the same people buying things, the same people selling things, the same things being bought and sold. There is a shop where clothes are mended, a cafe where an old man sits by himself in front of a chessboard, and another old man is sitting down to join him. He doesn’t sit down. He stands there next to it. They both look at the board. There are benches farther on, and the people who sit in the benches vary by the hour. When I am there, it is usually early or it is late. When it is early, there are people there who I know, people I recognize from one set of places. When it is late, there are people I recognize from another set of places. The people go elsewhere and are replaced. Then, we come to a little square, and…

—Very good, said the examiner. That is enough for now. Let’s finish our supper.

She raised her glass.

—This is how people toast, she said.

THEN, A DAY CAME when the examiner was not there. He looked about the house for her, but he could not find her. On the kitchen table, there was a note. The note said:

++

Gone for two days. You will be perfectly all right until I return.

++

Henry fell into a small confusion, but passed over it lightly. It should be no concern for her to go away. He was prepared for that. In fact, he spent most of his days now on solitary tasks. There was food in the house, and if he wanted to, he could go out to eat. If he wanted company, he could find it outside. He could visit the home of one of his acquaintances, for instance.

At that thought, though, he did become concerned. He was not sure which of them he would go to, and what it would mean to do so. He had better not go visiting.

Although, he supposed, it didn’t much matter whether it was one or another home that he visited. He could imagine what the visits would consist of, and it wasn’t like anything at all would come of them. He didn’t need to be afraid of consequences. Whatever he chose would be fine. Even if the examiner were here, he might not tell her where he was going. So, why should it matter?

Slowly, slowly, in this new place, a measure was taking its course. He was stiffening into a new resolve—a stolid manner was gripping him. He was not blunted so much as immobile.

Many things will be said to me, and I will say many things. Such was his thought in the morning, and in the night he might think, many things were said to me, and I said many things. But what those things were—they were unreachable. They were like mouths yawning open a brief second and then closing, yawning in succession.

If he had once thought life was different from this—then he no longer suspected it might ever have been the case.

AND THE NEXT TIME she went away, it was for a week, and then, every so often, she would simply be gone with no notice, and he became comfortable even with that.

It came to pass that the exercises the examiner presented him with ceased to be rehearsed. She would not tell him ahead of time how they would go. He would simply travel out into the village and things would happen and he would respond. Sometimes things would go well, and sometimes they would go badly, but either way, it was always all right. He would talk about how they had gone with the examiner. Or sometimes, he would not. Sometimes it was okay for things merely to have happened. As the examiner said, events are just events. Nothing is any more important than anything else.