The Birth of Love (2 page)

‘You are not Viennese by birth, I assume.’ I said this because the man’s German, though impeccable, was Magyar in inflection and emphasis. I meant it to be a benign enquiry, yet the question seemed to anger him, because he stared suddenly towards me, and clenched his fists.

‘Forgive me, but I believe you come from the Hungarian Lands?’ I persisted.

‘I do not know. If you say so, perhaps it is true.’

‘You do not remember this either?’

‘I think I do not. It is as if … there is a barrier standing between me and the past. A wall. A forbidding wall – grown over with ivy. I see the wall, and I note that it is high and I cannot scale it. Beyond that, I am confined.’ He stopped and rubbed his forehead, frenetically. He continued this action for some minutes, until I thought I must distract him. So I said, ‘Do you have any idea why you were brought here?’

‘I believe I am an inconvenience to someone,’ he said. ‘Someone has finally tired of me. I am not sure who that is. There are many who might have grown tired of me by now.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because of what I have said. Because of the charges I bring against them.’

‘Against whom?’

‘Oh, countless numbers of them. Murderers, all of them,’ he said. And he leaned towards me and said, ‘Because of this I have my suspicions they are trying to destroy me. They are watching me and trying to destroy me.’

In my years of studying the mad, or this category of humans we refer to thus, I have become quite accustomed to such expressions, and indeed there is a constant pattern in the pronouncements of certain sorts of more intelligent lunatics, a tendency to fashion repeated accusations against a general ‘they’, a gang of conspirators, assumed to be plotting against the insane individual. Frequently these accusations lack any foundation in reality; they are more symbolically representative of a sense of being cast out, or of feeling oneself beleaguered by events and powerless to control them. Naturally, were we all to dwell on the inscrutable workings of the universe, we might easily slip into this state – we are here, in an uncertain realm of death and destruction, and there is no possible way we can predict our futures, and at any moment everything we love may be taken from us, by disease, or war, or calamity of some other sort. Might we not quite reasonably propose that there is someone plotting our demise? Indeed is this not the central tenet of many of our religions, when they proclaim that there is a deity observing our every movement, listening in to our every thought, and constantly assessing us, for glory or punishment? Are not such religious men as Job repeatedly cast down by their creator, precisely to test their endurance? By the teachings of the Old Testament, Job would have been perfectly sensible in believing that a ‘someone’ was conspiring against him; God was indeed
doing this, for His own great and all-knowing purpose, no doubt, but it was conspiracy all the same. Many such parables do not even offer glory – they entreat the believer to aim at nothing higher than the avoidance of punishment, to petition only for mercy. As our religions derive from the deepest yearnings of the human spirit, such beliefs must express an innate hope that our actions matter to someone, that some meaningful process of judgement is being applied to our lives. In childhood, we resist our parents, while needing them to observe us all the same, praise us for our good works and censure us for our bad. And once we have passed beyond the sight of our parents, we summon our divinities, to observe and assess us once more. For life without a committed observer is aimless indeed: we are alone, and no one minds what actions we take.

This is merely a theory of mine, Professor Wilson; I expect you will disagree. Nonetheless Herr S evinced a firm and – I thought at the time – generic sense that somebody was plotting his downfall, and he looked antic indeed as he informed me of his suspicions, widening his eyes and wringing his hands, as if he must cleanse them.

‘These people you describe, whom have they murdered?’ I said.

There was a long pause, which I allowed to develop. He sat there, hanging his head, and finally, after some minutes, he said, ‘We are murderers, all of us. I am the worst of all. But they are steeped in blood too. I have murdered thousands. And they also. The difference is I admit it. I accuse myself,’ and now he became a little excited, and raised his voice. ‘I accuse myself of murder. Thousands of souls. I have killed thousands. Mothers and wives, laid waste.’

‘The victims were all women?’

‘Oh yes, the massacre was only of women. I have dreams in which I – well, it is best not to speak of them.’

‘I would be most interested to hear of your dreams, if you are able to relay them,’ I said. ‘I believe that dreams may offer an oblique portrait of our fears and desires, because when we dream we enter a realm of ambiguity and ellipsis, and thereby much that is lost in everyday speech may be regained.’

‘My dreams are all of blood.’

Herr Meyer had warned me that self-accusation formed the main theme of Herr S’s conversation, and I perceived that it was inappropriate to dismiss his concerns. I find it is best in these circumstances to treat such pronouncements as fundamentally symbolic, suggestive of a state of being rather than revelatory of criminal actions, and so I felt the best course would be to allow Herr S to talk, to rail, rather, and to write down his words. With this in mind, I drew out my notebook, and this action made him all the more excited. He pointed at it and said, ‘Oh yes, mark it down. Mark it down and set it all before the judge. I deserve judgement, and I will be judged if not in this life then in the next, if there is such a place.’

‘I am not writing it down so that you may be judged,’ I said. ‘I merely want to hear what you have to say.’

‘Who has sent you?’ he said, suddenly, his mood changing again. He flashed a furtive glance towards me, as if I too posed a threat to his safety. ‘Why do you want to know these things?’

‘I am a scholar, of sorts. That is, without an attachment to a university, I make researches into those we regard as
insane. This has been my interest for many years. I have published various books on the subject, and though my opinions are not at all fashionable there are some who are kind enough to consider them of importance.’

‘You are a doctor?’ he said. Something in his face changed. The light was so precarious, it was tantalisingly difficult to read his expressions, but I thought I discerned something more focused in his aspect. He was sporadically animated, as I said, but this was a more intent and questioning focus, as if he were truly attending to my words.

I said that I was not a doctor, merely a man of independent means who liked to conduct researches. But he was not listening at this point.

‘Do you work at the hospital?’ he said.

‘Which hospital are you thinking of?’

‘I do not know. Where is it? Nearby I think.’

‘The General Hospital, here in Vienna?’

‘Yes, I think so. I think that is what I mean.’

‘I do not work there. I am not a doctor, as I explained before. I work mostly from home. I read and write in my study, and then I visit asylums and avail myself of any opportunity to speak with the patients. I visit this asylum roughly every two weeks. I must have made my last visit shortly before your arrival.’

‘My arrival?’

‘Yes, you came here two weeks ago.’

‘I have been in this cell for two weeks?’

I reaffirmed that he had.

‘Did you bring me here?’

‘No, I did not.’

‘Why am I here?’ Now he was inflamed, seeking to rise from his chair, though it seemed he was too weak to move,
and, though he was perhaps unaware of them at that moment, his hands and feet were anyway in chains.

‘I am not certain,’ I said, when he had calmed himself a little. ‘We were recently discussing it and you could not remember. You said you came on a train. There was a friend of yours there.’

‘A friend? I did not think I had any friends left.’

‘You said he was an old friend. You were pleased to see him.’

‘Why are you telling me these things?’

I explained again who I was.

‘Why do you keep talking about the insane? I am in prison, am I not? Surely I have been convicted, finally, of murder?’ he said.

‘You are not in prison,’ I said. ‘You have been brought to a place where you will be treated for what is perceived as your condition. I fear this treatment will do you no good at all.’

‘I do not need treatment,’ he said, angrily. ‘I need to be punished.’

‘Sadly this is indeed a punishment, nonetheless.’

‘What do they propose to do to me?’

‘I do not know the precise nature of your treatment. I am not an insider here. I am permitted access simply because of various friendships I have developed. I have no medical status at all.’

‘But where, where did I come from? I cannot remember. My mind is full of darkness,’ he said.

As we fell silent I heard – I imagine he did too – the cries of a man in a neighbouring cell. ‘God God God,’ the man was crying, over and over again, so it pained me to hear his
incessant delivery of this word. ‘
GOD GOD GOD
.’ This poor man, entreating a deity who had either forsaken him or had allocated him a life of suffering. For it was certain this neighbour was suffering, mired in despair and begging his God to help him to comprehend it, to endure it. In the silence of the cell, this word echoed around us, and I thought that even had Herr S been entirely lucid when he arrived in this place then merely a day of this would have delivered him into another state of being. When I looked again, he was staring into space, having assumed once more an expression of dull defeat.

‘You were interested in the General Hospital. Why is that, I wonder?’ I said.

‘I am not sure. The thought of it frightens me. I see it as a place of suffering and death.’

‘It is common to feel like this about hospitals.’

‘Perhaps I was there once. Perhaps I was ill.’

‘Herr S, you are an educated man. Earlier you discussed internal bleeding with confidence. Perhaps you have worked at the hospital?’

‘I am not sure.’ Now he began rubbing his forehead again. I could not tell what the man might have looked like in a happier era. Perhaps in his youth he was stout and fair, though he would even then, I imagine, have been balding and with a tendency to corpulence. I could see he might once have responded passionately to elements around him – his work, or a beloved girl, or his friends. His moods shifted constantly, and this might in youth have made him restless, precocious perhaps. I was uncertain how old he might be now. He was bent and wrinkled, and his remaining hair was white. But his voice was firm; his movements unen
cumbered by decrepitude. I suspected he was a prematurely grizzled man of fifty or so; that he had perhaps suffered from a traumatic experience which had etched lines upon his face.

‘I think perhaps I have been ill for some time,’ he was saying, as he rubbed his forehead in his desperate way. ‘I am not sure. I have such scenes in my brain … I cannot …’

‘What sort of scenes?’

‘It is as if everything happened a very long time ago. Something dreadful occurred. I have a sense of a terrible crime. I think I committed it, but there were many accomplices. I wonder if I have committed it and hidden the evidence, and this is why I am here. They will interrogate me, will they not? They seek to unearth my secret, I trust?’

At that, his dull eyes turned towards me.

‘You are in an asylum,’ I said, again. ‘There are many inmates here who do not deserve the epithet “mad”. Indeed perhaps all of you. Yet your keepers are woefully uninterested in your inner thoughts. They seek merely to suppress you.’

‘You are not being honest,’ he said. ‘I know I am to be tortured, and you are lying to me.’ He was preparing to rage but then I said very quietly and calmly, ‘I assure you, I will not lie to you. Essentially I do not know anything about you. I am merely telling you what I think is the case. If you disagree with me that is perfectly understandable, but I am not lying. Because I am not an insider, they will not tell me anything about you. Herr Meyer is a corrupt man, but he does not like me. So he has not told me your name, and he will not inform me of any of the particulars of your case.’

At this, he stopped rubbing his forehead and placed his
hands on his lap. Then he looked down at his hands.

‘All you are saying in your … pretty words … is that you have no power and they will torture me anyway.’

‘With respect, I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I should like to talk to you, that I seek to understand you, if you will permit me to stay here a little while.’

‘You will understand me!’ he said, scornfully. ‘I do not think you would like that very much. There is something within me – I have a dim recollection of it, and it makes me shudder with fear … I am not sure I want to remember the rest … I long to sleep, but it is so uncomfortable. I long to sleep and be oblivious … But it seems I am always awake, and always there is this sense … of something …’

‘Do you think you have fallen into your present condition as a response to a particular event, to something dreadful that has occurred?’

That seemed to irritate him once more. He snapped back at me, ‘I do not know, how should I know? I am in darkness, and you ask me what I think?’

‘I am sorry if my questions seem inappropriate to you. I do not want to upset you.’

‘You have no power to upset me at all. Your voice is very faint, very distant. There is a roaring in my head, I can barely hear you beneath the roaring. I am adrift on a … poisonous … boiling ocean. I cannot see the shore. I have been cast off, sent to drift until I drown …’

Professor Wilson, do you not think this conversation was relatively cogent, if you will permit a qualified use of the word? I have had many a discussion with the inmates of asylums, and it is rare that they speak in this manner. By this I mean that they are usually far less self-aware, far
more deeply ensconced in the private or other world to which they have gained access. They have nearly forgotten the language of their former lives, the cadences of conventional speech. But Herr S was still quite fluent in such everyday modes. He was aware of his condition, to a notable degree. Naturally, he railed and lapsed into symbolical utterance at times, when the moon was working its mischief within him; he was moving constantly between worlds, the lunar and the solar: he was neither of one nor the other. I wrote down some notes, trying to express some of this and also to record my immediate impressions of the man, and all the while Herr S was sitting thoughtfully in his chains. The only consistent sign of distress was the repetitive movement he made with his hands. This was a horrible motion, as if all his suppressed energies were finding an outlet through his hands. Yet in many ways he was surpris- ingly measured. When I asked him a question, he often thought about his answer before he spoke. He was struggling to use his addled brain, though it was clear that organ had indeed suffered a form of injury – whether before or after his arrival in the asylum I could not ascertain – that it was not functioning correctly. I suspect that he knew his so-called reason had deserted him, or been terribly compromised. Most inmates of these institutions have no more notion of reason, and what it is to be in a ‘reasonable’ state, than you or I have of what it means to have fallen into unreason. If one accepts that it is in dreams that we encounter our inner madness, these ordinarily fettered forces of misrule, then the inmates I meet are living in the world of dreams, and cannot return to the daytime realm. Nonetheless Herr S was in a lucid dream, aware that he was dreaming, and sometimes, briefly, he woke altogether.
He woke and stared around, recognised familiar objects, then he slipped into his dream state again. This must have been most distressing for him, and I think this was the cause of his sudden rages. Yet I am not sure.