Pihkal

by Alexander Shulgin

  Frankenstein's castle.

  At the far end of the room was a stone fireplace; firewood was piled to one side and, next to it, some neatly stacked cardboard boxes. On the other side was an old-fashioned, glass-fronted bookcase, filled with labeled bottles of all sizes; high over the fireplace were shelves carrying more bottles, most of them small. Metal pipes, glass beakers and rubber tubing were everywhere.

  I laughed again, "Oh, dear ever-loving God!"

  "Is this what you expected, too?"

  "No," I shook my head, "No -1 certainly didn't expect this!"

  "It's a working lab," said Shura, "A true working lab should look like an artist's studio, not a sterile room with immaculate benches and wall-to-wall carpeting like they show in television commercials."

  There was a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

  "I never thought of a chemistry lab as being comparable to an artist's studio; it's an interesting way to look at it. But it does make sense, when you think about it."

  "A lot of work gets done here," said Shura, "And a lot of magic has happened in this place, over the years."

  He loves it; he really loves this room and what he does in it. I can actually feel it in the air here.

  "I think it's wonderful," I said, "Strange and weird and it looks just like a mad scientist's lab in the movies, as I'm sure you realize."

  "I never saw a mad scientist movie," said Shura. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Frankenstein?"

  He shook his head and shrugged, "Just culturally deprived, I guess."

  "Oh, my, you certainly are. I'll have to drag you to some of them, if they ever play in a theater again. Maybe you can catch them on television. They usually have old movies on Friday nights, sometimes Saturdays."

  "I'm afraid I hardly ever watch television. There's one in the house, but I don't know when I last turned it on."

  "Never mind," I smiled, "Never mind. This is better than anything they show in the movies anyway."

  There was a sharp knock on the roof, and I looked up, startled.

  Shura said, "Probably a pine cone; they're always falling off the big trees."

  I asked him, "What's in the big boxes near the fireplace?"

  "Oh, those. Mostly evidence from court cases."

  "Court cases?"

  "I thought I told you that I'm what is known as an expert witness, in cases involving drugs -

  illegal drugs - and sometimes the police deliver the evidence in boxes like those, and when I'm through analyzing what I'm asked to analyze, I notify them that I'm finished, and they're supposed to pick the stuff up, but sometimes it just sits there and nobody comes for it.

  Possibly the case got thrown out of court, or something else happened that made everyone lose interest. I never know why, and I don't have the time or inclination to track down the reasons, so the boxes just sit there, year after year."

  "I see. And I guess you don't really dare throw that sort of thing out - not for a long time anyway? Just in case?"

  "Oh, I don't think anyone's going to pick them up now. To tell the truth, they've been there so long, I don't even notice them anymore. I suppose I really should go through them one of these days and toss out the prehistoric ones."

  As we turned to leave I saw, pinned to the wall next to the door, some pieces of paper with official-looking borders. When I reached up to touch one, Shura said, "That's the license which allows me to work with scheduled drugs; that means drugs listed in the five DBA schedules.

  Schedule I drugs are the ones like LSD and marijuana and heroin; they're forbidden, illegal, and you can't touch them, even for research, without half a dozen government agencies looking over your shoulder."

  To the right of the door was a large cabinet with leaded glass windows, a larger relative of the one near the fireplace. On its shelves I could see more rows of bottles, stacked three deep, some freshly labeled, others with labels so faded, I couldn't make out any writing at all. One of the legible ones said, "Parsley." I went closer to the glass and peered in, seeing "Dill,"

  "Safrole," and a clear glass bottle with "Asarone" scrawled on its side in thick black letters.

  I shook my head, not quite believing it all, official licenses, leaves and spiderwebs, the big stone laundry-room sink, the shelves holding clean flasks (one of the shelves curved gently downward in the middle as if it had born years of weight and was finally giving out). It was intimate and personal, a place for alchemy.

  Shura said, "Okay? Ready for lights out?" When I nodded, he reached up to the low ceiling and touched a switch, and we went through the door. Outside, pale winter sunlight shone on grass and tree leaves and a narrow brick stairway leading up to a level grassy shelf. We climbed the stair and Shura led me to the end of the green terrace. The hill dropped steeply away beneath us and I could see the valley spread below. Mount Diablo dominated the horizon, lavender blue in the haze from the valley floor. I let out a deep breath. It's so quiet, I thought. Shura named the towns below us and told me that the county seat, Martinez, lay out of sight to the far left. I said, "What an incredible view!"

  We stood in silence for a while, gazing out over the nearby sloping fields and the houses far below, listening to the birds, then he put his hand on my arm and led me back down the stairs.

  I was thinking, as I followed him back to the house, of how different all this seemed from Marin county, across the Bay. I'd never been to any of the towns in Contra Costa county. I couldn't remember even seeing Mount Diablo before, except on the local television news.

  I want to live here. With him.

  Shura poured glasses of wine, white for me and red for himself, and I sat down at the dining room table. He seemed to hesitate, then said, "Just a moment -1 want to show you something," and went into his study. He returned with a framed photograph which he put in front of me without comment. I was looking at a black and white picture of a young woman in her thirties, leaning back casually on what looked like a wooden bench, outdoors, smiling softly. Next to her was Shura, in a similar pose, obviously relaxed, wearing one of his half-smiles. There was a bank of ivy in the background. I have never studied a photograph more closely in my life.

  "Ursula?"

  "Yes."

  "She's very lovely. She looks sweet and intelligent."

  Finally, the enemy has a face.

  "She is."

  "And you're in love with her, yes."

  "I never knew what it meant to be in love, before Ursula. She changed everything about me."

  "In what way?"

  "I was - my closest friends will tell you, without hesitation -1 was a bitter, sarcastic person, very negative, impatient. Often hard to be around. They'll tell you, believe me, that I was not very nice and not particularly kind. In fact, my best friends will say they don't know how they put up with me for the past twenty years or so. And they'll also tell you that I've changed. I'm almost nice, now. At least, I'm a lot nicer than I was. And the reason is that Ursula opened me to feelings I'd never had before. I suppose you could say I learned what it meant to open the heart, being with her."

  His face was slightly flushed.

  Okay. We all owe Ursula thanks. Thank you, pretty woman who is probably everything I can't be. So what the hell am I doing here? Why has he invited me into his home like this - into his life?

  I said, "Thank you for showing me what she looks like. It's hard to deal with just a name."

  Shura rose and took the photograph back to the study. When he returned to the table, we clinked our wine glasses and drank from them. He leaned back in his chair and asked me, "Well, what would you like to do with the day? I'm at your disposal. My house, my cats and my weaving spiders are at your disposal."

  Thank heaven he hasn't suggested going to bed. Right now it would be unthinkable. Ursula would be in the room with us.

  I asked for what I wanted, since there seemed no reason not to, "I wonder, is there any possibility of my - of taking one of your materials? I just thought there might be something not to
o long-lasting that I could try?"

  The word "materials" is so much nicer. It's awful, how "drugs" sounds so - bad, dangerous, irresponsible. I guess I've been programmed pretty thoroughly, just like everyone else.

  Shura sat for a moment, looking at his glass. I held my breath. Then he leaned his elbows on the table and said, "Yes, there is something you might find interesting. I'll tell you a bit about it. First of all, it's not one of my materials. It was discovered a long time ago, in 1912, in Germany. Nobody paid any attention to it until a good friend of mine - a delightful, funny, slightly crazy girl who's also a very good chemist - called my attention to an old publication that mentioned several compounds, this one among them, and told me she thought it might be an interesting one to synthesize. It was simply intuition, on her part, some kind of extraordinary intuition -"

  "What's the name of it?"

  He grinned, his eyes teasing, "Methylenedioxymethamphetamine. MDMA for short."

  I repeated the initials under my breath. He continued, "I suppose I can take credit for step-fathering it, anyway, if not for inventing it. I made it in my lab and nibbled. It gave me a pleasant lightness of spirit. That's all. No psychedelic effects whatsoever. No moving walls or glowing colors; nothing of that sort. Just a distinct lightening of mood. And an inclination to get busy and do things that needed doing. So I concluded that it might be an anti-depressant of some kind, and I took some over to an old friend, Adam Fisher, a psychologist in his late sixties or early seventies who had told me he was getting ready to retire - beginning to phase out his practice. I knew that he was very experienced with psychedelics, had been for years.

  So I asked him if he'd like to sample this MDMA stuff and tell me what he thought."

  I sipped from my glass and realized, with a burst of warmth inside me, that I was very happy.

  Being here, listening to Shura telling the story, with sunlight glowing on the fruit in the bowl, I was content simply to exist in this moment and let everything else go.

  He was saying, "Adam tried it, and the result of that experience was -," he paused, chuckling, "Well, to put it briefly. Dr. Fisher came out of retirement. He changed his practice, and in some ways I suppose you could say MDMA completely altered the course of his life."

  "How did he change his practice?"

  "Well, since then - that was about seven years ago - he's spent his time training people, mostly therapists, in the use of MDMA. He's introduced probably several thousands of them across the country to this drug, teaching them how to use it properly, for themselves and their patients. At least, for those patients who are considered good candidates for the experience."

  "It was an anti-depressive, then, as you thought?"

  "Yes and no. It had that effect on me, in a mild sort of way, but it had a very much more important effect on Adam, and I gather on most other people who take it. They say it makes it possible for them to have remarkable insights into the way they're living, what they're doing with their lives. They see how they're making problems for themselves, or wasting what they have, what they are. It's a drug that seems to allow insight, but it lets them see and understand without being afraid. It doesn't threaten them with any loss of control."

  "Which is what most people are afraid of -," I nodded.

  "Yes. The fear of losing control, being helpless, seems to be almost universal, and it certainly comes up in people who've never taken a psychoactive drug before. MDMA allows you to be totally in control, while getting a really good look at yourself. Adam told me that it does away with what he calls the fear barrier, the fear people have of seeing what's going on inside them, who they are. Most people describe a feeling of acceptance inside which makes it all right to take a good look at themselves. It makes the insight relatively non-threatening." I asked/ "Has anyone had a bad experience with it?"

  "Oh, certainly. I've heard of a few really bad trips. In most of the ones I've been told about -

  by Adam, and by other therapists - the people were reluctant to undergo the whole MDMA thing in the first place; they'd been talked into it by a husband or wife, or the therapist, and they weren't really choosing to do it for their own sake. They went along with it because of pressure from someone else. The results were predictably negative. And the therapists involved learned a hard lesson."

  "Do you mean that taking this drug has to be something you really want for yourself, or things go wrong?"

  Shura leaned forward, "Not just this one; any psychoactive drug. That's why people almost always have what they call bad trips when some smart-ass has put a psychedelic drug in the punch, or it's been slipped to them in some way without their having been told. That's something I consider truly unforgivable - giving somebody a psychoactive drug of any kind without telling them and getting their consent. Personally, I don't think a doctor should do that even with a prescription drug; it should absolutely never be done with a psychedelic. Or with something like MDMA, which is not a psychedelic, but has a definite effect on a person's state of consciousness."

  His eyes had narrowed in anger.

  I nodded again and asked, "How long does the experience last?"

  His face cleared, and he looked at me, "Are you sure you want to give it a try? Today? Now?"

  "If you like the idea - if it's all right with you?"

  "The duration," he said, "Is about three hours or so, unless you take a supplement, which is usually about a third of the initial dose. If you take a supplement, at about the hour and a half point, the level of full effect will continue for one more hour before it begins to taper off."

  "Would it be possible for us to take it together? Does that appeal to you? Please tell me if you'd rather not - for any reason."

  "I would be most honored, as a matter of fact," said Shura.

  "Do you always call it MD-whatever it is. Sorry." I did the remorse bit, hitting the side of my head with an open palm.

  "MA," finished Shura.

  "MDMA. Thank you."

  "Methylenedioxymethamphetamine," he reminded me, grinning. I stuck out my tongue.

  "Easy for YOU to say!"

  He got up from the table, "Wander around, if you'd like. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

  I stayed where I was, looking at the books in the bookcase against one wall, reading the spines. The Art of India, The Lascaux Caves, The Voices of Silence by Malraux, The Law (in two volumes), Boswell in Holland, Chaplin, Bernard Shaw, Limericks and a collection of erotic art (Ah, yes!). I saw Sophie's Choice and a copy of The Wisdom of China and India, by Lin Yutang.

  I remembered having read a book by Lin Yutang that deeply impressed me, years and years ago, but couldn't recall the title. Two entire shelves were filled with the works of Aldous Huxley, a few of them in duplicate.

  Of course, he'd like Huxley.

  Shura returned, carrying four small glass vials with white tops. He went into the kitchen and I followed, watching as he opened a cupboard and brought out two wine glasses, which he placed on the tile surface near the sink. The tiles were a pale, faded blue, probably as old as the floor, I thought, but at least you can keep tiles clean. Shura opened two of the vials and emptied one container of white powder into each glass, then added a small amount of hot tap water and swirled the contents gently before handing one to me. He stood straight, almost formally, clinked his glass with mine, and said, "Blessings."

  I downed the fluid and immediately clapped a hand to my mouth, almost gagging. The taste was bitter, nasty. I said so.

  Shura said, "I believe in knowing what it tastes like, before you find out what it does. I should have warned you; most people don't enjoy the taste, I have to admit. Next time, you can add juice, if you'd like."

  Thank you for that "next time," darling man.

  I peered at him suspiciously, "Don't tell me you really like that taste!"

  He said airily, "I think it's rather nice! A perfectly honest, straightforward taste. A taste with character, I'd say. A taste with personality!"

  "You
're out of your ever-loving mind!" I opened the refrigerator, found a bottle of grapefruit juice and poured out enough to wash this particular character and personality out of my mouth. Shura chuckled at my grimace, which was only slightly exaggerated.

  All right, Ursula, go. This is my day now, and Ire's mine, for just a little while.

  Shura led me out of the kitchen, back into the warm living room. I dropped my purse onto the coffee table and joined him at the large windows. He asked, "Do you know Diablo? Have you ever been on it?"

  "I don't think I've ever seen it before, in person. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've been in this county before. I got as far as Berkeley a few times, but never came through the tunnel to this side."

  "By the way," said Shura, still gazing at the mountain, "You should know that I gave us each a very low amount of MDMA, 100 milligrams, to be exact. Just enough to let you feel the full effects, but not enough to be overwhelming in any way, this first time. Unless you turn out to be extremely sensitive to the compound, of course. That's always a possibility which has to be taken into account when trying a drug that's new to you."

  "How soon should I be feeling something?"

  "Oh, probably between 30 and 35 minutes. Usually, people taking it for the first time are aware of a rather strange feeling - a sensation that's unfamiliar to them - in about half an hour. If you can just relax and let it be, the strangeness is over with in about 20 more minutes, then you'll find yourself on the plateau, which is where you'll remain for about an hour. Then, if you like where you are and want to remain there for another hour before you begin dropping, I'll give you a supplement, an additional 40 milligrams."

  "And that keeps the plateau going for a while, but doesn't do anything else?"

  "That's right. You won't feel any change in intensity; it just lets you stay where you are a bit longer than you would otherwise."

  Looking out the window, I remembered the question I wanted to ask him, when I first drove in from the highway. "By the way," I asked, "How did you manage to get the name Borodin on the street where you live?"