“Please sit down,” she said calmly.
“This woman, she thinks she’s living out a cycle of stories from at least as old as the Middle Ages, probably older. She thinks she’s Isolde!”
“Why don’t you just answer a few of my questions,” she said, smiling, “and then we can talk about what just happened up here.”
“Nothing happened.” I could feel my ire mounting. “There may be nothing on this earth so maddening as not being believed when you know the truth.”
“So you know the truth?” she asked. “You’re the only one?”
“I’m Copernicus in a flat-world universe.”
“But, see, the problem with the truth,” she said, dropping into a little of her hypno-tone, “is that it’s subject to so many interpretations. For every Copernicus who knows the orbit of the earth, there are a hundred madmen who know that Satan lives in their hair follicles. You understand that, right?”
“This isn’t an abstract construct, doctor,” I snapped. “I’m telling you what’s going on with this woman. And if you’d take a second and hear me out, you’d be dying to figure out why she thinks what she thinks. I mean, don’t you want to figure out what makes a person that crazy? Really?”
She looked away, and then sat back a little. “I had a call once, this was awhile back, about a person, a Russian Orthodox priest, actually, who kept taking his clothes off in the streets. He was a bit older, and it was assumed he was succumbing to dementia or Alzheimer’s, but I discovered that it only happened on a certain street.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a case I had a number of years ago,” she went on, her face betraying deep concern of some sort. “So I followed the guy. I stayed with him. He was completely all right until he hit the corner of something and something else—don’t remember the names. Then, slowly, he began to speak in a different voice, walk a different way, and eventually strip down to his underpants.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I demanded to know.
“Don’t you want to know why he did it? Don’t you want to hear what a brilliant psychiatrist I am?”
“Ceri, I’m trying to tell you about a very immediate situation,” I began.
“About the fifth or sixth time he did it, when I was following him,” she went on, “I saw him moving in a pattern that I’d seen before, a kind of ritual dance. I had to consult a guy from the anthropology department, but it was confirmed that this Russian Orthodox priest was performing a food and fishing dance from certain tribes found only in South Pacific islands. There’s absolutely no telling where he’d seen it, but when I knew that’s what he was doing, I began to ask him questions about the dance, and the work he thought he was doing, and what do you think I found out?”
I shook my head. “What?”
“This scrawny, pale, priest—he thought he was Queequeg, from Moby-Dick. He thought it was his job to harpoon the white whale. He wanted to kill God. He wanted revenge.”
“Jesus.” I sat down. “How did you figure that out?”
“I’m good,” she said easily, “and I’m lucky.”
“I see the connection now. That’s a hell of a case.”
“No kidding,” she agreed.
“Why did that one street corner trigger his transformation? What was the street name?”
“No idea. Turned the case over to someone else.”
“What?” I glared. “Why?”
“Something more interesting, and more pressing came up.”
“What could possibly have been more interesting than that guy?” I asked.
“You.” That’s all she said, but her single syllable lingered in the room for a moment, not quite an echo.
“You started— what, you started working on my case, or whatever, two years ago?” I couldn’t believe it.
“That’s when Lucinda first called me,” she confirmed. “She told me enough about what had happened to you since you’d come back to Blue Mountain, the kind of things you’d done for the sheriff, and for the town, and the sort of strangeness that you’ve attracted. It was a hundred times more interesting than some crazy old guy who was mad at his parents for making him be a priest. Then you had your post-coma episodes, and I kind of stepped up the work. Plus, you and I? We’re very much alike, I’m afraid. We have a lot in common.”
“We do?”
“Which is why I would very much like to ask you several questions now,” she said, shifting her weight, “and I would like for you to answer quickly so that we can dismiss the possibility that you’re having another episode and move on to your theory about this woman, however nutty it might be. Got it?”
I had to let all of that sink in. “Oh. Okay.”
“Good,” she said, looking deeply into my eyes once again. “First, breathe in through your nose and tell me what you smell.”
I think I blinked or twitched or something, but her gaze didn’t waver, so I closed my eyes and did what she’d asked me to do.
“Dust, cold air, wood smoke, apple brandy, and rosemary that I think is probably from your shampoo,” I reported after I’d exhaled.
“Wow,” she said. “Okay. I did, in fact, have another little sip or two of that apple brandy after you went upstairs, and my shampoo does have rosemary in it. Nice.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Sometimes people who are having an irrational moment,” she told me, “say that they subsequently smell vanilla or almonds. But your senses seem to be hyper-observant, so that’s impressive.”
“Next question.” I settled back. “I’m anxious to tell you about Iseult.”
“Which is it,” she asked, “Isolde or Iseult?”
“Iseult is the Irish name,” I answered, “Isolde is from Wagner’s opera, mainly.”
“Fine. Question two: do you see any bright jagged edges out of the corners of your eyes?”
“No.”
“Good. That sometimes happens before migraines and after some hallucinations. What’s your middle name?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Your name’s not really Fever.”
“Yes, sadly, it is.”
“What was wrong with your mother?”
“How much time do you have?” I asked, “Because I don’t think you’re going to want to camp out on the sofa that long. And by the way: really? My mother? You’re going to keep on with that?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked, but she sounded as if I’d caught her shoplifting something.
“It’s just another useless tool in your ridiculous arsenal of clichés,” I insisted, shaking my head.
“You do talk about her a lot, though—your mother.”
“No I don’t,” I snapped—before I realized that snapping told her more than I’d wanted to reveal.
“And there we are,” she declared. “Freud wins again. It’s always something to do with the mother. God help all women, I say; save them from Jesus H. Freud.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I said, “but are we done? Can I tell you what I know about this woman, or not?”
“I still think you’re nuts,” she said, “and your bizarre theory that she’s living out some medieval story cycle is way too folklorey.”
“It’s not too— that’s not even a word, and I know what I’m talking about.”
“I am interested in hearing about it,” she went on, “but mostly because it will tell me something about you.”
“God!” I seethed as briefly as possible, and then soldiered on. “Let me lay out the facts. First, Issie is short for Iseult.”
“It is?”
“Yes. Second, Tristan, Mark, and Iseult are the central characters of the story cycle. Third, the longing for forgiveness, the love-philtre, the Cornwall setting, and the trip to Ireland in a boat—all motifs of the story.”
I sat back, well pleased with my presentation. Ceri was, alas, less than moved.
“Mark?” was all she asked.
&n
bsp; “Oh, right,” I stumbled, “you weren’t in the room when she was calling me Mark. She kept calling me Mark. And I think she’s called me that in your presence, hasn’t she?”
“I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” she began, “but if I played that back, all of what you’ve just said? If I played that back to you on a recording, you’d see just how weird it sounds. Really.”
I nodded. I gathered my thoughts. “Right. Missing steps.”
“What?”
“I’ve followed a very logical path, from A to Z, in my mind,” I explained, beginning to bite my lips and grind my teeth, “but I’ve left out several, or many, really important steps along the way as I’ve given my little presentation. So, let’s start at the very beginning.”
She drew back from me a bit, and suddenly acquired a completely inappropriate air of playfulness. “A very good place to start.”
“If you interrupt me, especially with The Sound of Music,” I snapped, “we’ll never get anywhere.”
“We’ll never climb every mountain.”
“Stop it,” I sighed.
“Or forge every stream.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?” I sneered.
“Okay, go.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“That. What you just did: quoting those song lyrics. It was just weird.”
She straightened her posture and took on a deliriously haughty mien. “I’m a serious, psychiatric professional,” she intoned. “Everything I do has a clinical purpose.”
“Really?” I chided. “Because it really has the appearance of— just … messing with me.”
“Well, yes, that, too,” she said, tossing a hand in the air. “It’s really fun to do.”
I started to say one thing, something about her lack of professionalism, I think, but that thought collided with this: “Actually? It is a little fun. Kind of fun. I’m really starting to enjoy— I don’t know. Being with you. Just a little.”
“Plus,” she said confidently, “you’ve started calling me by my first name most of the time now, have you noticed that?”
“No.”
“Well, you have.” She touched my elbow for a second. “It’s nice. So. How’re you feeling?”
“What?” I tilted my head. “How am I feeling?”
“Yes, how are you feeling?”
“I— wait.” I took in a breath. “I’m feeling all right, I’m feeling calmer. A little calmer and less frantic. And frankly, less frightened than I was a few seconds ago. How did you do that? You did that. With your magic voodoo voice and your stupid song quotes.”
She just smiled.
“So, about these missing steps.”
I resisted the temptation to go on about what she was doing and how she was doing it, and, instead, settled on my remarkable discovery about Issie—if that was her name at all.
“Issie Raynerd,” I began, “was a student of mine when I taught at the university, at least fifteen years ago. She took a class called world mythology, a survey course that usually had over a hundred students in it. I enjoyed teaching it, because I enjoyed the performance of it: I sang with a very loud voice, I told stories in a greatly animated fashion, and deliberately flirted with different people at different times during the semester. Even though she was an undergraduate and I was about to achieve my doctorate, we were about the same age.”
“Because you’re a braniac who started college at sixteen,” she supplied.
“Yes. And one especially popular story was about the love of Tristan and Iseult. It’s tangentially related to the Arthurian cycle. The Tristan stories, I think, are older than that. There are plenty of variants and declensions, but certain basic motifs run through every story.”
“And those are?”
“Well, it’s essentially about a love triangle.” I shifted comfortably in my chair. “Tristan is a great knight, and the nephew of King Mark of Cornwall. He is wounded in battle and is dying. Because he is so valiant and beloved, King Mark sends him to Ireland, to the castle of a renowned healer, Iseult’s mother, also named Iseult. There his life is saved, and he falls in love with Iseult, though he says nothing to her. When he is well enough to travel, he returns to the king, and begins to wax rapturously about Iseult. Before long, King Mark determines that Iseult should be his bride. Tristan can say nothing, of course, if the king wants a bride. So Mark sends Tristan to fetch Iseult, which he does, but in Ireland Tristan confesses his love for her, and she admits that she feels the same for him. Iseult’s mother chides the couple. They cannot thwart the king’s wishes. So the mother creates a love potion that Iseult will take, and give to Mark, on their wedding night. Tristan vows to abide by the marriage vows, though sick with love, and they begin the sea voyage back to Cornwall. All might have been well, might have ended there.”
“But something happened on the crossing,” Ceri guessed.
“It did indeed,” I went on. “The sea crossing was rough, and the couple drank wine to steady their nerves. But Iseult’s handmaiden, Brangaine, confused the potion with the wine, or deliberately put the potion in the wine, because she had no wish to see true love foiled. Tristan and Iseult drank the love elixir and were instantly and forever smitten, incapable of loving anyone or anything else but each other.”
“But there’s still the matter of King Mark,” she said.
“Exactly. The lovers are now impossibly locked, but cannot run away. Unable to bear the idea of sleeping with the king, Iseult persuades Brangaine to give Mark another potion to make him drowsy, and further persuades the handmaiden to take her place in the nuptial bed.”
“The maid slept with the king?”
“Yes,” I went on, “and Mark was never the wiser. Tristan and Iseult slipped away whenever they could to be alone. Including finding a cave where their trysts would be hidden. Whenever Tristan was free, he would send an apple bough floating down the tiny stream past the place where Iseult pined, close to her castle. She would see the bough, and rush upstream and into his arms. And again, all might have been well, might have ended there.”
“No it couldn’t have,” she disagreed. “Guilt, jealousy, betrayal—that’s always a part of the love triangle, the deceit of love.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Often Mark suspected, and just as often Tristan and Iseult denied their love. But eventually the lovers’ hiding place, their cave, was discovered by a dwarf, whose name was also Tristan, and he was loyal to the king.”
“A lot of double names,” she interrupted.
“Just wait,” I told her, “there’s more of that. The dwarf Tristan told Mark where the cave was, and the king at last discovered the lovers in carnal embrace. Tristan was banished to Ireland. Brangaine was sent away. Iseult resigned herself to a loveless marriage. Mark lived out his days in misery, separated from his beloved knight by the Irish Sea, and from his wife by a wider gulf: her indifference. And once again, it might have ended there.”
“There’s more?”
“Tristan roamed, inconsolable, through the cold and bitter winter of Ireland’s Christmastide until he came upon a castle whose chief occupant was a pale, wan girl also named Iseult. Though she was nothing like his beloved, Tristan married her simply because she had the same name. But he pined and his health declined until he was near death. The pale Iseult, hopelessly in love with her husband, could not bear the idea that he would die, and sent, against her better judgment, for the true Iseult, the only person in the world who might cure Tristan. The true Iseult agreed instantly and set out for Ireland. But when the pale Iseult told Tristan that his beloved was coming to save his life, he was so overjoyed that the pale Iseult became jealous. In the end she lied to her husband and told him that the true Iseult had refused to come. Tristan turned his face to the wall, sobbing and moaning, and there he died. Alas, that very instant, the ship carrying the true Iseult landed near the castle. The true Iseult ran up the lee, tore through the gates
and up the stairs, only to find her love dead and the pale Iseult unconscious from grief, and lying in a corner. The true Iseult came to her love, put her hand on his brow, settled in beside him in his coffin-bed, and there she expired too. Still, in spite of death, their bodies glowed with golden warmth simply from the mutual touching of their skin.”
Ceri was silent for quite some time.
Finally she said, softly, “Yeah. Jesus. There’s a certain kind of girl in this world who would give anything to live in that story. And who wouldn’t fall in love with the person who told it to her?”
“I would have put it all together sooner, as I was saying,” I said, sidestepping her question, “except for the misdirection—the classic magic technique trick that I actually played on myself—of the name Tristan. All I could think about was Tristan Newcomb, the man who owned the Ten Show.”
“The man for whom your parents worked,” she added, “and the man who might have been your father. I can see why he might have been on your mind instead of a medieval story.”
“He wasn’t my father,” I said, only a little sullenly. “I thought I told you that.”
“All right,” she answered, in a very unconvincing manner. “So, about the story: you’ve said it was only tangentially related to the Arthurian cycle, but to me, what you’ve just said—Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere are just slightly more Christian versions of Mark, Tristan, and Iseult. It’s the same love triangle, exactly.”
I nodded. “Yes. It is.”
“So why does she think you’re King Mark?” she asked clinically.
“Because I was the authority figure, the king,” I answered, because it seemed obvious to me. “I was the person who told her the story, I was the one in charge of the class, I was the professor, she was the student. Right?”
“So what now?” she asked, sidestepping my question.
“What now?” I stood again. “We have to find her. Don’t you want to know why she’s gone around the bend about this? Isn’t this at least as interesting as your Father Queequeg story?”
“It is,” she assented reluctantly, “but mostly, once again, as it relates to you.”
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