Mesmerised (23 page)

The organ music grows louder. I walk off for I can stand no more, but on second thoughts turn around. The organist strikes one long irritating chord then the music suddenly stops.
Ipsen and I stand there locking horns. I wait for the sound to dissipate.

‘You miserable bastard, you saw and heard everything,’ I call out.

My words resound off the walls. The mourner stands up, and looks at me accusingly. Ipsen raises his chin. The angry sounding footsteps heading for the door are my own.

I refuse to let Doctor Ipsen provoke a bad humour inside me, but I have lost all power to remain calm and collected. There is tension in every cell of my body and bile rises up into my oesophagus like the fire of a terrible dragon. I take large strides then break into a run. Feeling awkward, because my work clothes are not suited to this exercise, I push myself to run faster on legs that would rather collapse beneath me. I run, panting, lungs strained and bruising. I run with a stitch in my diaphragm and blisters swelling on the pads of my toes. I run to the river that has been whipped by the wind into a crocodile skin. Along the embankment, past the Louvre, through the Tuileries, left at Place Concorde, across Pont Neuf to Quai d’Orsey, I run behind the Palais de Justice, through the winding streets to her. I run to Blanche. I arrive puffed out, but have only half-exhausted my anger. She opens the door.

‘Come on, we’re going out,’ I say.

I don’t know what she sees but she does not question the command. Silently she goes to get her coat. I wait, huffing, one hand on the doorframe.

‘Where are we going?’ she asks, shutting the door.

‘We’re going to celebrate the efficacy of homeopathy,’ I say.

She takes my arm. I am already feeling better. ‘I can’t even begin to tell you what it was like,’ I say. My strides are wide and fast, so that I am sweeping her along. ‘Bella was like a different person. All that manic behaviour was completely gone. She was rational. But it was more than that. She’d worked it all out for herself
: all the emotions that she couldn’t face before. She said, “I’ve always been my mother’s little princess whatever happened to me, whatever I have done,” I wanted to get up and dance.

‘
Of course, I should be celebrating with my medical colleagues, but who wants to celebrate with a bunch of beaurocratic dinosaurs anyway, especially when I can buy you champagne and watch as it wets your lips?’ We have stopped in the middle of the street. I smile but she stares at me with concern.

‘I worry for you,’ she says.

I look up to the sky. ‘I know.’I bunch her fist in mine and we cross the river and walk towards Tortini’s and every few moments Blanche glances in my direction. There is a false bounce in my stride as she glides along beside me.

‘
Doctor Gachet’ is a whisper on the wind – a ghost in the air – words in my head.

I turn around.

A blast of cold air punches me in the face.

‘What is it?’ Blanche asks.

‘Oh, nothing,’ I answer.

We turn down a street lined with clothiers, a chemist, and a wine shop.

‘Let’s go in here,’ she says, as we look at our reflections imposed in the window, behind it a display of bottles with expensive price tags.

‘Why?’

‘They sell very fine champagne.’

‘I want to take you
… .’

‘H
ome and besides I’m uncomfortable in these clothes.’

I wanted to feed her potent bubbles on a spoon. I wanted to hear her laughter and make love to her as a celebratory rite. Instead, we have abandoned the bedroom. She wears a shirt of mine, sits with her feet up by the fire and listens to my wrath.

‘How can Ipsen do this? And why, Blanche, why? Why would he want to pretend that there has not been a significant change in Bella? Do you think it is personal? Do you think it’s less about homeopathy and more about having taken a dislike to me? That’s perfectly possible I suppose, but why deny humanity a beneficial medicine? Surely he’s above that, don’t you think?’

Blanche looks up at me
, sipping from her glass as I pace.

‘Look, it’s not conclusive, I agree. One patient doesn’t prove anything, not really, but it should pave the way for more test cases, more investigation. I just can’t believe that he has taken this attitude. And where does this leave me?’
I look to my glass and the wine going flat. ‘I need a plan.’

I wake up with a start, on the floor, with my head on the sofa, next to a sleeping Blanche. There is an empty champagne bottle on the table, the sharp odour of alcohol on her breath. I stroke her arm, put my ear to her mouth to check her breathing, then go to sit on a chair facing the window. Silk veils of clouds sail across a darkening sky.

I decide to create a document
, a scientific paper worthy of appearing in a medical journal: ‘The case of Bella Laffaire’. Copies will be sent to every medical society across the globe. It shall contain Ipsen’s diagnosis of the patient, my hypothesis and conclusion, all the detailed case-notes with my observations, a long explanation as to the homeopathic process and how I came to my prescription. A well-scripted accompanying letter will be proofread by my father. I’m sure he will oblige. I will use the most professional approach to present the evidence. I can see myself in the future, lecturing in medical schools all over the world.

I sit down on the floor to meditate for as long as it takes.
When she wakes, I want Blanche to see me tranquil. I need her to know that I can work it out – for both of us – and that she doesn’t really ever have to worry about me.

The Pinch of the Game

November 23rd

Tell me, do you think I’m going mad? I sometimes wonder, you know … .’

Paul
Cézanne

I have my own ideas about why Ipsen denies the efficacy of Bella’s treatment but do not wish to assume anything. So, I have taken to following him. In the evenings he returns home to a buxom wife and three well-built children, which is surprising because he is so thin. Perhaps it’s his conscience disallowing him to put on weight.

He employs
two liveried coachmen, owns two ornate carriages, and always makes sure that he is dropped outside the hospital gates so that he can walk into work. He lives by the park in l’avenue Hoche.

He accompanies his wife to the Opera, to dinner parties in well-to-do parts of town, to gown shops on a Saturday, and
at least three times a week in the early hours he frequents a bordello in Place de Clichy. He takes coffee in Café Filou, a small establishment opposite the Seine.

I visit Charcot. His office at La
Sâlpètriere overlooks the sincere beauty of a natural landscape – a grass plain of some acreage, scattered trees and a barely diminished horizon, here on the outskirts of urbanized Paris.

‘Come in Gachet, come in,’ he says, with one arm casually draped over my shoulder and guiding me towards a chair
. ‘Sit down’.

Such a welcome far from pacifies but instead makes me slightly overcome and I at once forget what I have come to say.
‘Bella Laffaire,’ is all I manage to get out before he speaks again.

‘I know.’ He stands next to his desk
, his arms behind his back ‘I want you to know that personally speaking, I have the greatest respect for you and homeopathy. I mean it must be an intellectually stimulating pursuit to have at first attracted and then seduced a man like you.’

He takes a breath.

‘Doctor Charcot, do you believe that a case of manic insanity can be cured without any medical intervention?’

‘Actually, Gachet, I don’t believe that mania or insanity can be helped at all, as with all nervous disorders at this point in time, they are incurable. An insane moment might pass, but the predisposition to insanity? No, that remains to overwhelm the patient at any time.’

‘If I said that there is some reason to suspect that underlying emotional issues are being addressed in the case of Bella Laffaire, would I have your interest?’

‘My personal interest, yes
. But I don’t make the rules.’

‘
Doctor Charcot, with the Faculty’s permission, Catherine Morrisot and myself have meticulously written up the case of Bella Laffaire for only one reason: to demonstrate the effectiveness of her treatment. I need to have the opportunity to present it to someone who does make the rules.’

Charcot
bites his bottom lip. He comes to stand beside me with one hand on the back of my chair.

‘Come to my house on Sunday for lunch. It is in the best interests of everyone concerned that this matter is
resolved quickly. Do you prefer partridge or goose?’

I stand outside Charcot’s front door eying the varnished heavy oak panelling and signal my arrival using the brass lion-head knocker. A tall, slim, grey-haired woman, dressed in black comes to the front door and although she smiles, her face betrays a bad smell in the air.

‘Good afternoon,’ I say, taking off my cap.

I try to hand over a small cardboard box tied up with ribbon but she does not take it from me.

‘And you are?’ she asks.

‘I’m Paul, Doctor Paul Gachet.’

‘I see,’ she says, grabbing a piece of paper from the top of the sideboard. ‘Yes, I have you. Jean-Pierre is serving aperitifs in the sitting room. You know the way?’

I shake my head and then as an afterthought she says, ‘I am Madame Chanterel of ‘Le Delicieux’. My waitresses will be serving you lunch.’

Doctor
Charcot’s apartment is probably the same size as Madame Manet’s but with a very different décor. The carpet is plush, the colour of fresh blood. A cast-iron dog sits upon the floor. The walls are wood panelled. A number of pen and ink drawings in black frames hang here and there. I lean over to inspect Charcot’s taste in art: a Paris street, La Notre Dame, La Sâlpètriere. All unremarkable and unsigned.

‘Doctor,’ Madame
Chanterel says.

‘I’m sorry, yes, please lead the way.’

The sitting room could be an extension of Charcot’s office but for its heavy velvet drapes drawn against the day. Every light is lit but all are shaded with frosted glass that hardly brightens the atmosphere at all. The fire is paltry: two skeletal logs and a single flame like a tongue between them.

Doctors
Ipsen and Quackenetre sit at either end of a sofa smoking cigars. Doctor Charcot comes forward from his stance in front of the fire.

‘I bought chocolates for your wife,’ I say, handing him the small cardboard box.

‘She’s taken the children over to friends. But thank you, I’m sure she’ll enjoy them,’ he says, placing the box on top of the mantel.

A
middle aged man in a tuxedo approaches me from out of nowhere.

‘Sir,’ he says. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

‘We’re all having Pernod,’ says Charcot.

‘Then I will too,’
I tell the man and turn towards Charcot. ‘The chocolates will melt if you leave them there.’

He takes them away and puts them on an occasional table barely two feet from the fire
. Ipsen squirms slightly and with one finger pushes his glasses further up his nose. Quackenetre leans forwards, eyes twinkling with anticipation, as if he is about to witness a horse race or a duel. I place myself in the leather-studded armchair opposite the fire. An interesting painting of a ship in a very stormy sea is badly lit on the wall in front of me. It looks like a reproduction of one of Edouard’s earlier works and I find myself wanting to take a closer look.

‘I was just saying that you would be bringing your notes on the case of Bella
Laffaire.’

Ipsen
and I exchange a brief glance.

‘Yes,’ I say, reaching down to the floor to pick up my portfolio.

‘I would like to take a look at that,’ says Doctor Quackenetre, reaching out towards me with one hand.

‘Of course,’ I say, passing him my work.

He puts his cigar down on an ashtray and opens the folder. The first page is an index. He seems to read it with some attention. Then he whips the air with it as if to shake the paper free of creases, and deposits the sheet on the floor by his feet. Everyone looks at him as he thumbs through the rest of the papers, closes the cover and replaces the ribbon.

‘I suggest,’ he says, holding it out towards me
. ‘That you do away with this.’

‘Did I hear you correctly?’ I ask,
taking it from him.

‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘You absolutely did.’

I look at Charcot who is in his usual lecturer’s pose, hands behind his back, and Ipsen who intently stares at nothing. The Pernod arrives as green as I perceive my face to be. I wait until the waiter walks out of the room.

‘
Doctor Charcot, what is going on here?’ I ask.

Quackenetre
says, ‘Doctor Ipsen has changed his mind about Bella Laffaire’s diagnosis. He thinks we have all been a bit too brash in labelling this patient manic, or deluded or even needing help. You see, a relative of hers has come to claim her. A rather forceful and somewhat powerful man whom the police have advised us to placate … .’

‘I can’t believe this,’ I s
ay to no one in particular. Combing my hand through my hair, I start to pace.

‘He claims that Bella has always been a little highly
strung. In fact he called her “my darling little shrew” a number of times.’

‘I know who he is. That man is a pimp,’ I say.

‘Come now, Gachet,’ Quackenetre says forcefully, coming to stand.

‘
Doctor Ipsen are you sure? Are you really sure that you will lie like this to appease a pompous cunt who thinks he is above the law?’

‘Thank goodness your wife and children are not here Jean-Martin,’
Quackentre again. ‘Doctor Gachet, this is totally unnecessary, this obscene language from a doctor, my God!’

Doctor
Ipsen remains sitting. His eyes harden, magnified behind myopic lenses. He looks at me and says, ‘Doctor Gachet, Bella’s relative is circumstantial, but after the fiasco of your last consultation, I can’t let your little homeopathy experiment go on. I feel morally compelled to render it null and void. You are lucky that I am not hauling you up in front of all the directors of the Faculty for a hearing. And I don’t believe I’ve lied, I have simply changed my mind.’

‘Good day, gentlemen,’ I
say. I pick up my portfolio and walk out into the hall.

Charcot comes after me
. He grabs my arm.

‘Gachet,’ he whispers, ‘I have always liked you
, and in some ways respected you, but don’t you care? Can’t you see it? Are you really such a fool? Think quickly man, what good will it do and what will it prove if you walk out now? They have talked about it and they will rescind your membership of the Faculty. You won’t be able to practice medicine officially and the scandal will be humiliatingly written up in all the newspapers. Do you really want that?’

A lump of bile rises in my throat. I feel like I’d just been sick all over the man’s shoes. I wipe my mouth as if I had just done so and follow him back into the room.

The scene is quite surreal. At least it is in the way that I experience it. They say the effects of absinthe can come back to haunt you during stressful times. Maybe that is what’s happening to me now.

We are in the dining room
: an oval space with an oval table and a glass domed roof. The walls are the colour of a mossy pond. Doctor Ipsen and I sit in the middle of the table, facing each other. Doctors Quackenetre and Charcot are at either end. There is stilted conversation and much silence interrupted by the scratching and chink of cutlery against china. At first I thought I’d get drunk, but in truth, the wine is not worth risking a headache. So I watch them when they do speak, each of them in turn, attempting politeness, asking for salt to be passed or if nurse Morrisot has been employed a long time. They seem to be strangely comforted that I actually came back to eat with them. Do they really think I’m obliged to take on their politics without further ado?

‘
Doctor Ipsen is travelling to America on Monday. He will be there for three months on Faculty business. With his special interest in medicinal drugs, he is the best to perform the link between us doctors and pharmacology. We’re lucky we have someone so accomplished. So, on Friday he’ll be winding things up for the Faculty in Salpiêtrière,’ Quackenetre says.

I have a chimera
: I stand up, walk over to Quackenetre, lift his plate full of food and crash it over his head, then swipe my fist upward beneath his jaw. I then turn around and walk casually to the other end of the table. ‘The paintings on these putrid walls are pure crap,’ I say to Charcot.

Back in reality
: ‘That’s fine,’ Charcot agrees with a forkful of food midway between his mouth and his plate.

I smile to myself.

‘It’s a real shame about homeopathy, Gachet. We were all rooting for it even if we did already know that it couldn’t possibly work.’ This is Ipsen.

In a fancy again:
Ipsen’s on the floor, his chair fallen over behind him. I’m straddling his body and repeatedly pummelling his bloody face with my fist.

Then reality seeps in. The door opens behind him. A very elegant
young woman enters. She has two small children, a girl who is trying to keep her balance in her mother’s wake and a boy, a little older, buttoned to his chin in a thick woollen coat.

‘Jean-Martin, I’m sorry to disturb your lun
ch, I’ve had to come home early, Genevieve is not well. She is burning up a fever. I thought, perhaps, you might attend to her right away.’

‘Genevieve is our baby. Excuse me gentlemen.’ Charcot says, and leaves the room accompanied by his family.

Neither Quackenetre nor Ipsen speak, although both have clearly finished their food. Waitresses bustle in and remove our plates, so efficiently I barely have time to thank them. Moments later Charcot bursts back into the room. ‘Doctor Ipsen, we need an anti-pyretic,’ he says.

‘Willow bark, of course.
If you don’t have any here we can hail a hansom to the nearest hospital.’

‘Her age makes her too delicate. I saw abdominal haemorrhage time and time again at the Hospital for Sick Children after giving willow bark,’ I say.

Ipsen does not reply but purses his mouth and drums his fingers on the table. The waitresses bring our ice cream.

Madame
Chanterel asks, ‘Is everything all right with the catering?’