The Birth of Love (4 page)

‘Do not speak of that man,’ he entreated, with all the trembling desperation of before. In the wolf-light, Herr Meyer loomed large, like a monster conjured from the darkest reaches of the human soul, and I apologised for my thoughtlessness. I had no desire to torment this poor man. Yet he had quickly recovered, and was saying, in a neutral tone, ‘My surname then begins with S, perhaps. I wonder what it could be?’

‘You really do not remember?’

‘I am afraid I do not.’

He had lost himself. The man had lost his very name, and a man without a name – well, he is indeed in limbo. The nameless man has symbolically reverted to the time before we are named, when we are residing in the womb or perhaps drifting in the spirit world, waiting to be summoned to earth. You are a scientific man, Professor Wilson, and will think all this nonsense, I suspect. It is just my way of alluding to mysteries which might otherwise be inexpressible. Herr S had his own theory, and he was saying, ‘I have no name because I am a malefactor. I should have a number, not a name. Because of the crimes I have committed. We should all be stripped of our names.’

I was preparing another question, when he suddenly said, ‘Klein.’

Thinking he was merely using the adjective, I said, ‘What do you mean by this word?’

‘I mean it is a name,’ he said. And he had begun rubbing his forehead, his motions once more frenzied. ‘It is not mine. It is the name of a man. An enemy. I cannot remember my own name, but I remember his. Johann, that is it. Johann Klein.’

‘You believe he is your enemy?’

‘I believe he is my darkest foe. And I believe he visited me last night, and gloated over my ruin.’

‘I do not think he visited you in body, but perhaps you dreamed of him,’ I said.

‘He has been here. He spoke of the quality of the air, and how that had caused it all, and how unfortunate it was that I had not accepted his theory, and then he left.’

‘And you remember nothing more of him?’

‘I do not. It is only because he was here yesterday that I remember him at all.’

While speaking of this man, Herr S’s appearance changed altogether. Before, he had been slumped in his chair, wringing his hands in his habitual way and staring at the floor. Now he straightened his back and looked directly at me. His face darkened. For a moment I thought he would try to rise, and certainly he writhed in his chair. Yet he did not rise, though as he spoke it became clear he was furious; he spat out his words.

‘It makes me very – that man – you must tell me who he is.’

‘I am afraid I do not know. I can make enquiries, how-ever.’

‘I am sure – it is he who has killed them all.’

We stared at each other for a moment. Something was beginning to clear. Herr S was still rattling his chains and grimacing towards me but now it seemed as if there was content to his rage, a tangible argument we might draw out. Before I had been merely trying to understand the particulars of his state and I had considered it largely a matter of the intimate and mysterious workings of the mind, but now
I had a further sense there might be facts involved and, perhaps, even individuals. I said, ‘You are accusing this man Klein of murder?’

‘Yes. I believe he is among the worst of them.’

‘The worst of whom?’

‘Of the murderers. He presided over the greatest massacre of all. It is – in my deadened brain, something is sparking – if I can only – if you will help me. You must tell me something else about this man – anything, his appearance, the details of his dress, how he spoke, any detail which may … help my memory …’

‘I am afraid I do not know anything about him.’

‘Ah, I could gouge a hole in my skull, if it would release the truth …’ And he was tearing at the skin on his forehead, so frantically that he scratched himself and released a thin trickle of blood. I said, ‘Herr S, you must calm yourself. I am trying to help you but …’

‘I cannot be calm. There has been a massacre, you must understand. And every day it continues …’

I was about to explain to him that this massacre he perceived might well be suggestive of something else, that the question might not be whether to ‘prove’ it but rather to understand the significance this concept held for him, but I must confess that I was now uncertain of my own theory, and I feared suddenly that Herr S might hold the key to a genuine crime, a real series of murders. Before I could speak again he slammed his fists together, and he struggled to break out of his chains. He hammered on the chair, screaming, ‘You must help me you must help me to stop it.’ And then he seemed to entertain a vision, an awful, dark vision, because he began wailing in terror, and he stretched out an arm and said, ‘But you must forgive me, you must! I beg forgiveness.’
He whispered something which sounded like ‘Mea culpa’, and then slumped down in exhaustion.

To my consternation, the sound of raging had caused Herr Meyer to return, and once he arrived Herr S retreated into his earlier catatonic state and would not look at me, and certainly not at Herr Meyer, though the vile man addressed him in his sneering way, demanding to know what he had ‘been doing’ and whether he had been ‘behaving himself ’. As if Herr S was a wicked child, to be punished with the rod! And poor Herr S was hunched over, surrendered to his impotence, occasionally muttering or wringing his hands. Sometimes he pressed his hands to his head, as if to protect himself from blows. It was sad indeed to see him there, cowering like a dog, and I turned in my anger to Herr Meyer and said, ‘Herr S is – to my mind – poised between the worlds of reason and lunacy. It is imperative that you are gentle with him. His condition is most precarious. If he degenerates further, you will be responsible.’

Naturally, Herr Meyer did not like that at all, and glared at me in his vicious way, as if he was sizing me up for a straitjacket, and then he said, ‘I do not require your opinions on how to treat my patients.’

‘You do not, if you perceive them as such. However I fear they are prisoners to your mind, malefactors, not patients at all.’

And Herr Meyer snorted and turned away from me.

It was futile to continue the interview, that much was plain, and so I informed Herr Meyer that I would return in the afternoon. I wondered if I should endeavour before my
return to find out more about the man Klein, simply because his name had caused Herr S such agitation, and had indeed precipitated his decline. I was curious, naturally, though I was not sure if I should indulge my curiosity, because Herr S seemed so fearful of being returned to the world of names, of categories and limitations. Yet how was he to be released, how could he escape this horrible prison, if he lacked any recollection of the real nature of his circumstances? Grappling with these notions – Herr S’s fear of knowing himself, my sense that it was wrong for him to remain in this squalid cell, my loathing of the viciousness of the asylum and my conviction that no man could live long in such a place and not degenerate entirely – I returned to my house. I was pensive throughout luncheon. I had various pieces of work to finish, and though I sat at my desk with my papers in front of me, I found I could not consider them. My thoughts turned constantly to that man trapped in his cell, his hands chained, and I wondered just what treatment Herr Meyer was administering to him now. I was thinking of Herr S’s patchy recall, his oscillations between ordinary lucidity and something more revelatory and perilous, something which might bring forth everything or nothing at all, and I recalled again the devastating effect upon him of the name ‘Klein’. My moral sense was confused. If the man genuinely wanted to remain undisturbed, then perhaps his wishes should be respected. If the man were a murderer, as he claimed, then he should be brought to trial. If his thoughts of blood and murder were – as I strongly suspected – symbolical, then it would surely assist his recovery to supply him with the means to dismiss these darker elements of his being. Besides, at one point, before he was afflicted by his terrors, he had clearly asked
me to find out who Johann Klein was.

I folded up my papers and placed them in a pile on my desk. It was early afternoon when I left my house again and walked through the crowded streets towards the hospital. I did not know precisely what I was doing. I merely remembered that Herr S had been agitated by the thought of the hospital, and that, along with the name Johann Klein, it was the only tangible clue I had unearthed from our conversation. I know of a man there – you know him too, perhaps – called Professor Zurbruck, and I wondered if he might be able to help me to ascertain the real identity of Herr S. It was a random hope, and I imagined it would prove fruitless. Yet I had no real idea of how else I might proceed, and so I went to the registrar’s office on the first floor, and asked if he had seen Professor Zurbruck that day.

Vienna General Hospital is a vast edifice, the sort of place you might vanish into and never emerge from; a labyrinth, and I trod carefully, clutching my tenuous thread. The hospital was founded as a benevolent enterprise and I am sure a great deal of good work is performed within its confines. Yet there is something about it that nonetheless disturbs me, and, because of this, I have never spent much time there, except when there has been an interesting case on one of the wards, and I have sought an interview. I have a few acquaintances among the doctors there, but my connections are not strong. Professor Zurbruck I know simply because his brother was a friend of my brother when they studied at the university here in Vienna. We have met a few times, at gatherings and suppers, though I had never previously sought him out at the hospital. A young doctor directed me
towards Professor Zurbruck’s quarters, and I walked swiftly along the corridors, thinking that this really was the sort of place in which one might need a ball of twine yet all the while trying to keep my thoughts firmly on the matter in hand.

At Professor Zurbruck’s door, I knocked and waited for a response, but my knock sounded hollow and as if I summoned no one, and I perceived that I must wait. Indeed I was obliged to pace the corridors, avoiding the milling hordes of students, for a good hour before Professor Zurbruck returned. I had almost given up hope, when he emerged abruptly around a corner. Even then he was hurried and rather gruesome – he is like his brother a man of great height and unusual thinness, and yet while his brother is rather jovial and thereby reassuring, Professor Zurbruck lacks his sibling’s warmth. He extended a fleshless hand to me and suggested I explain my cause as succinctly as I could. He was polite but he emphasised – in his slow monotone – that he could only offer me a few minutes of his time, as he had an appointment very shortly.

In his room, as he busied himself finding materials for his next lecture, I laid out what I knew of the case of Herr S. I explained that he had been disturbed and transfixed by the notion of the General Hospital, and that he had also produced a single name, Johann Klein. I explained myself as precisely as I could yet it seemed to me that Professor Zurbruck was scarcely attending to my words. He was about to stand up, indeed, and announce that he must depart, when I mentioned that Herr S had accused himself and others of murder and had claimed there was a conspiracy to
silence him.

‘Ah,’ said Professor Zurbruck, with a slow nod of his head, as if something had just fallen into place.

‘You recognise something in this case?’

‘I may do. He talks of a massacre?’

‘Yes, oceans of blood, he says. The massacre of women.’

‘He accuses specific professionals of murder?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

His manner was curious, as if he knew the answers to his questions already, and was rather contemplating how much to reveal to me than seeking enlightenment. I began to grow most eager, and I said, ‘My dear professor, if there is anything you know of this case, I entreat you to inform me. Herr S is in a very grave position, and if you were to see how dreadful are the conditions of his confinement, you would pity him.’

‘I have no doubt I would pity him. I am simply wondering if he might be – there is a chance he might be Professor Semmelweis. You might ask him if he is. Perhaps this would prompt his memory.’

‘Who is Professor Semmelweis?’

‘I must emphasise that I do not want to slander a former colleague, by suggesting he must be this poor lunatic you describe. Yet it is possible. Certainly Professor Semmelweis had become eccentric in recent years, and there were fears for his health.’

‘On what were these fears based?’

‘He had written a very rambling book, justifying himself, explaining to everyone that he had been right when they had all been contemptible fools, essentially. Or so I heard, I
never read it. It is not my area of expertise. And when that was not received with the acclaim he thought it deserved, he took to haranguing his colleagues through personal letters, strewn with vicious accusations.’

‘What sort of accusations?’

‘This is why your remarks conjured the name Semmelweis. Because Professor Semmelweis has acquired a reputation for accusing his colleagues of murder, individually, in these letters, and in general in his book and other published works. And he claims, I believe, that there has been a massacre.’

‘Why does he claim this?’

‘He takes upon himself – and expects others to do the same – the burden of guilt for those women who die each year in our hospitals of childbed fever, or puerperal sepsis as it is known within the medical profession.’

‘He thinks he has killed them?’

‘Yes, I believe he claims that their deaths were caused by his actions, and by the actions of his colleagues. He calls childbed fever a global epidemic, spread by doctors. He suggests doctors are unclean, and the bearers of contagion, and this assertion has irritated many of his colleagues. Also, I believe he is not rigorous and therefore his theories have been queried. He does not enter into reasoned argument, he does not prove his case by amassing evidence through experimentation. He merely insults his opponents and slanders their reputations. In this way, he has lost his few supporters.’