Pilgrim (6 page)

“The draught,” she said, and smiled. “Isn’t it wonderful, the way it speaks to one.”

“Speaks to one?”

“Just an expression. Does nothing speak to you, Doctor? Out of nature, I mean. The wind? A fall of rain? A passing animal?”

“No. I fear not. My sense of perception must be rather dull.”

“Not necessarily. It’s a gift, I suppose. Like music.
Some people have it—others do not. I doubt it’s a serious offence.”

She was still smiling. Best to be graceful. Why antagonize him? At that moment, Doctor Furt-wängler was all she had.

“What might the draught have said to you, Lady Quartermaine? I’m curious.”

“Someone of importance has just arrived. That’s what it said. There was an air of decisiveness—of purpose. I don’t know quite how to phrase it. Whatever the source, it was quite refreshing.”

“Indeed.” Doctor Furtwängler fumbled his watch into view and, having seen the time, appeared to despair.

“I have a patient waiting for me, Lady Quartermaine. I must ask you to excuse me.”

“Certainly.”

He stood up, adjusting his waistcoat and jacket.

“Shall I see you this afternoon?” he asked.

“Is there any point? If, as you explained, Mister Pilgrim is disinclined to see me now, is he apt to see me then?”

“Perhaps if you come in the neighbourhood of teatime. He might be in a more receptive frame of mind.”

“In that case, I shall come at half past four.”

“Nonetheless, I suggest you be prepared for more rejection. Mister Pilgrim is in a precarious position at the moment. I believe he feels endangered. Possibly from within, possibly from without. He still has not spoken.”

“I see.”

Furtwängler nodded and turned towards the door.

“May I tell you something, Doctor, before you go?”

“Of course.” He turned again and waited.

“When he speaks, he will tell you of things—of circumstances—that may seem to verge on the impossible. In fact, there will be incidents…” she looked away “…which
are
impossible. Nonetheless…” She threw her cigarette into the fire. “I urge you to believe him, if only briefly, for his sake.”

“You think he is mad?”

“I think nothing. I am merely urging you not to destroy his beliefs. He has nothing else to fall back on.”

“Thank you, Lady Quartermaine. I will take your advice into consideration. Until this afternoon?”

She nodded. “Yes. Until this afternoon.”

“Good day to you.”

“Good day.”

In the entrance hall, Doctor Furtwängler spoke to Old Konstantine, the concierge. Sybil heard him speak her own name, but neither her ears nor her German were up to making a translation of precisely what was said.

She stood up.

She was tired.

She had not slept.

Warming her hands at the fire, she turned her wrists and saw the birthmark.

She gazed at it ruefully.

“Damn you,” she whispered. “Damn you. Damn you. Damn.”

8

Furtwängler did not, in fact, have an appointment with a patient. Instead, returning to his office, he found Doctor Jung and Doctor Menken waiting for him, as requested.

It had been Jung’s arrival in the front hall that had prompted Lady Quartermaine’s remarks about impressive draughts. Knowing this, Furtwängler had been somewhat miffed. Jung, it seemed, had a knack for impressing others, even when making an offstage entrance.

Menken was new at the Clinic, having come from America where he had been one of William James’s last pupils at Harvard. He was relatively young—thirty-two—and bright but extremely serious. Jung had made it his mission to produce a daily smile on Menken’s lips, but so far he had failed. If James had still been alive, Jung would have written him to complain:
can it not be that one may smile and smile and be a pragmatist?

Carl Gustav Jung was in his late thirties and breathless with enthusiasms that seemed to have no bounds. He had already begun to gain a name for himself with the publication, in 1907, of
The Psychology of Dementia Praecox.
A study of schizophrenia, it had broken new ground and was also instrumental in drawing Jung to Sigmund Freud’s attention—which, in time, would prove disastrous.

As a psychiatric clinic, the Burghölzli had no rival—certainly not in Europe. A research centre of
psychiatric studies and practice since 1860, it had gained international stature under the directorship of Auguste Forel, who took it over in 1879. On Forel’s retirement, the current director, Eugen Bleuler, had been appointed.

Bleuler’s expertise was schizophrenia—a word he himself had coined to describe
dementia praecox.
His theory was simple. Men and women who suffered from
dementia praecox
had been considered incurable. Those who suffered from schizophrenia—literally, split personalities—could at least be helped, if not cured, by bringing them back into contact with the real world and away from the fantasy world in which they tended to hide themselves and live out their lives.

Unmarried, Bleuler made the Clinic his residence and spent every waking hour either with his patients or with his staff—and, for the latter, his constant presence had become something of a burden. “I sometimes think he keeps a daily record of the number of times we use the toilet,” Jung had said.

Both Forel and Bleuler were strict teetotallers.
Alcoholism cannot be treated by doctors who are not themselves abstainers,
ran one of Forel’s dictums. “And if a patient suffers from priapism—must the doctor who treats him give up sex?” Jung had asked.

Now, in his sunlit office, Furtwängler greeted his two colleagues with a wave of his hand.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “be seated.” Going to his cabinet, he unlocked it to reveal a bottle of brandy and several tumblers. Such items could not, of course, be
openly displayed. All the Burghölzli doctors had recently received a curt directive from the office of the Director:
Rumours are circulating that some members of the Medical Staff consider it appropriate—even necessary—to maintain a stock of alcoholic beverages in their offices. I trust that such rumours have no basis in fact, since I have already expressed my opinion on such deplorable habits.
Signed:
Bleuler.

Though humourless and rather dull company, Doctor Bleuler was nonetheless respected. On the other hand, he was not respected enough to force one’s taste for alcohol out the door. Every doctor’s office had its cache.

Menken sat, but Jung remained on his feet.

“You look perplexed, Carl Gustav,” said Furt-wängler.

“I am,” said Jung. “Tatiana Blavinskeya has had a serious set-back and I’m torn between anger and disappointment. Something—I don’t yet know what—has forced or persuaded her to give up speech. She is now semi-catatonic—a great, great distraction to me because she was making such excellent progress. Is either one of you aware of any possible cause for this?”

Menken said
no
and accepted his brandy—which was, by coincidence, the very colour of the checked suit he had chosen to wear that day.

Furtwängler crossed the room and handed a tumbler to Jung, who stood by the central window. “Yes,” he said. “It is possible I am able to offer an explanation. But…” He returned to his desk and sat.

“But…?” Jung asked impatiently. “But—but…?”

“What I will tell you is pure speculation.” Furtwängler drank.

Jung busied himself nervously searching his pockets for a cheroot which, found, he lighted—throwing the burnt-out match on the floor.

“Do you mind?” said Furtwängler testily. “Please, no matches on the floor. And use an ashtray. You leave a trail of ashes everywhere you go.”

Jung took up an ashtray and, drink in hand, teeth clamped on his cheroot, hissed: “procee-eed.”

Furtwängler said: “Blavinskeya believes she has been sent a messenger from the Moon.”

“Oh?” Jung leaned forward.

“Yes. But of course she has not.”

“If she believes she has, she
has
,” said Jung. He was adamant. “Constantly challenging what the Countess believes is no help at all. Who was this messenger? Did anyone else see him? Him—her? Was it a man or a woman? Did she say? What? What? What did she say?”

“It was a man,” said Furtwängler. “I saw him myself.”

“Ah-hah!”

“Don’t go saying
ah-hah
just yet. The fellow is a new patient. Suite 306—down the corridor from Blavinskeya. Apparently they had an encounter.”

“This is wonderful. Wonderful. Are you telling me they recognized one another?”

“Only that she claimed to recognize him.”

“And…? Is he from the Moon?”

“Carl Gustav, please.”

“You know what I mean—does he claim to have descended from the Moon?”

“No. He makes no claim whatsoever. He is mute.”

“Moon-mutes! Two of them!” said Jung. “Perhaps there will be a convention!”

Menken almost smiled, but did not.

“When did he arrive, this messenger?” Jung asked.

“Yesterday afternoon. And he is not a messenger. He has come—he was brought from England.”

“Some people claim that England might as well be the Moon,” said Jung—and winked at Menken.

Menken sat stony-faced and silent. He felt like a referee at a tennis game. During such meetings this seemed to be his enduring role: a little less than participant, a little more than spectator. His, however, would be the most impeccable notes of their present encounter, taking no side and giving none.

“What’s his name, this man?” Jung asked.

“Pilgrim.”

“Pilgrim…Interesting. I wonder…”

“You wonder?”

“What do you know about him? Besides the fact that Tatiana Blavinskeya thinks he’s a lunar citizen like herself? Is there any chance he comes from the world of art and artists?”

“Good heavens. Yes,” said Furtwängler. “You’ve heard of him?”

“What’s his first name?”

“Doesn’t have one. Known only as
Pilgrim.
”

“That’s how he signs himself. I’ve read him. Art
historian. Brilliant. Wrote the definitive work on Leonardo da Vinci. Dazzling fellow. So—what’s his problem? What’s his condition?”

“He’s a potential suicide?”

“Oh, me. How sad. Has he tried it yet?”

“Yes. Several times. This last attempt, by hanging. The circumstances are—believe me—quite extraordinary. The man should be dead.”

Furtwängler outlined the medical reports from Greene and Hammond which Sybil Quartermaine had left for him to peruse.

“I’d like to see him,” said Jung. “I’d like very much to see him. May I do that?”

“Of course. That’s why I’ve asked you both here.”

“And you say he should have died but did not on account of some extraordinary circumstance?” Menken asked.

“Well, it certainly seems so,” said Furtwängler. “Both the examining physicians had already signed his death certificate and departed when—all at once, five, six, seven hours after the hanging—he came back to life.”

“Could be he really didn’t want to die…” said Menken.

“But you say he’d tried it before. Other suicide attempts?” Jung asked.

“Yes.”

“By hanging?”

“No. Other ways. Drowning. Poison. The usual.”

“Well. Extraordinary. Unless, of course, Menken is right and he really never tried hard enough.”

“I would have said that being apparently dead for seven hours was trying hard enough,” said Furtwängler.

“And now Blavinskeya thinks he’s come to her from the Moon.”

“Yes. Alas…” Blavinskeya was not Furtwängler’s favourite patient.

Jung sat back and slapped his knee decisively. “Well!” he said, “when can we see him?”

“Now, if you like.”

“I like it very much. Come along. Drink up. We shall all go together. To the Moon, gentlemen!” Jung raised his glass and emptied it. “To the Moon—posthaste!”

Furtwängler’s hand closed tighter on his tumbler as he drank. Mister Pilgrim was his patient, by prior arrangement with Lady Quartermaine—and with Bleuler’s implicit approval. And yet, as he set his glass aside and rose to join the others, he felt a momentary sense of foreboding. He had lost other patients to Jung in the past—most notably the Countess Blavinskeya—which was why he now resented the lack of progress in her recovery. Jung’s sometimes overwhelming enthusiasm could pull down the entire structure of another analyst’s treatment if he was not carefully monitored.

As they left, Furtwängler turned the key in the door and thought:
one day, I might find a way to have him out of the Clinic altogether.

9

Pilgrim was standing childlike in the middle of the floor while Kessler attached a collar to his shirt. Kessler himself was sweating rather profusely.

Furtwängler was the first to speak. “Is he not able to do that himself?”

Kessler had only just managed to insert a recalcitrant stud and was somewhat breathless with frustration. “He fights it, sir,” he said. “I think he would prefer to dress himself, but there’s three other studs down there on the floor somewhere, the result of his having dropped them. I’ll just do his tie, if you don’t mind.”

The orderly had already selected a splendid blue silk cravat, which was draped across his shoulder. He nodded at the two other doctors who stood, white-coated and silent, near the door. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. And then, referring with a glance to Pilgrim, he went on. “We have been for our walk and are waiting for our lunch.” He put the tie around Pilgrim’s neck and began to form a knot. “We did not sleep well, but stood a long while over there by the windows staring out at the sky. At six o’clock, an hour before sunrise, we sat down and turned our back on the room with our knees pressed tight against the wall. At seven-fifteen we acknowledged the need to use the toilet, did so and returned to the window. When the sun appeared yonder, we raised our hand in greeting. Most extraordinary. Makes no other gestures. Hands
to the sides most times, and clumsy in the use, as witness the three lost studs.”

Kessler drew the knot as if to tighten it, but Pilgrim threw up his hands to prevent him.