The World Is Made of Glass

by Morris West

  At ten I called Basil Zaharoff. His manservant told me he was sleeping and could not be disturbed. He had become ill during the night and his doctor had only just left. I told the servant that I, too, had been ill. He was instantly in panic. Mr. Zaharoff had suspected a bad oyster at last night’s meal. Now there could be no doubt. Please would I stay in the hotel? Mr. Zaharoff himself would most certainly telephone as soon as he was recuperated. Meantime, please dear lady, the greatest care! I am sending immediately for the physician!

  He came like a heavenly visitor, so that I gaped in wonderment. This was Giancarlo di Malvasia, colleague of my student days in Padua and intern service in Vienna. He was in his mid-forties now, but still as handsome as Lucifer, still the same fastidious Florentine who had once declared his ambition to be the greatest diagnostician in the world and then be co-opted as a noble celibate with the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta.

  We had always been amiable colleagues, but somehow the chemistry of sex had never worked between us. I was too much the tomboy for him. He was too much the Tuscan snob to trust with my outlandish history. But somehow we had succeeded in a cautious friendship and a professional respect. We had worked together on ward rounds, in anatomy classes, in occasional correspondence on difficult cases. Then, when I gave up medicine we had lost contact. I understood from Papa that Giancarlo was building a lucrative practice among the internationals who made the annual European circuit. I hoped that he was not too closely acquainted with my raffish reputation.

  He was discreetly delighted to see me – still that damned Florentine condescension! – and politely interested in my association with Basil Zaharoff. He examined me thoroughly, then relaxed enough to pay me a barbed compliment.

  “My dear Magda, you look ten years younger than you have any right to do. My compliments.”

  “And mine to you, Gianni. Clearly you’ve realised all your ambitions.”

  “Not all.” He shrugged and made a small grimace of distaste. “I am no longer a candidate for the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta.”

  “Does that worry you?”

  “My marriage worries me more. It is a childless union, neither loving nor convenient.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Please!” He held up a deprecating hand. “One learns to accommodate to the inevitable. And how are things with you? I know you’re a widow and that you have a varied and diverting life. This – er – affair with Zaharoff, is it new?”

  “This ‘affair’, as you call it, my dear Gianni, has been limited to one dinner with bad oysters. Zaharoff has made certain proposals which at this moment I view with great reserve.”

  “I hope you can keep matters like that.” Giancarlo frowned and fidgeted uncomfortably. “He’s a dangerous man. I’m his personal physician and he pays me like a prince; but he would as quickly have my head if I crossed him. However, I mustn’t meddle in your affairs. Stay in bed today. Take only lemon tea and dry toast. You won’t be able to face oysters again for a long time.”

  He made as though to take his leave. I begged him to stay awhile and talk with me. I told him I was in desperate need of advice – clinical advice under the Hippocratic oath. He gave me a long searching look, and then asked dubiously:

  “Are you sure that’s wise? I’m not your regular physician. I know nothing of your medical history. Besides I’ve never specialised in gynaecology. I could recommend you to a good man . . .”

  “Let’s decide that when you’ve heard what I have to say. Please, Gianni! I need a sound opinion, but I don’t want to discuss this with a complete stranger.”

  “Very well then.” He settled himself on the edge of the bed and took my hand between his own. “Tell me!”

  Then it was a question of the words, and suddenly I was struck dumb. I burst into tears and finally managed to stammer out:

  “Gianni, I’m a mess! My whole life’s a mess! I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Neither do I, until you explain the mess!” He gave me his pocket handkerchief to dry my eyes. “Now that you’ve had your cry, let’s try to be professional, shall we?”

  I fumbled again for the words and finally found them.

  “Vienna, Professor Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Remember him? Remember his book Sexual Psycho-pathology and the big debates we all used to have about it?”

  “I remember. So?”

  “There was a phrase he used to use in his lectures on the forensic aspects of sexuality. ‘Il faut toujours avoir pitié de ceux qui ont le diable au corps. One must always have pity on those who have the devil in their bodies.’ Well, I’m one of those, Gianni. I’ve seen everything, done everything – but nothing puts out the fire. I’m known to the police and the professionals on the underground circuits. That’s why Zaharoff wants me to work for him. He wants me to run his European brothel circuit. If I accept, I get protection and make a fortune. If I refuse, I’m left with the devil who lives in my skin! Before you walked in this morning I was ready to end it all. Where do I turn, Gianni? Who helps people like me? Don’t despise me, please!”

  I despised myself. I was abject, grovelling to a man I hadn’t seen for years, crying maudlin tears into his silk handkerchief. He did not answer me. He got up abruptly, strode to the window and stood a long time looking out at the flowers on the sunlit terrace. When he turned back to me his face was in shadow. He asked me an oddly irrelevant question.

  “Are you a believer? Do you belong to any communion – Catholic, Lutheran, Waldensian?”

  “No. Sometimes I’ve thought I’d like to be a croyante – I’ve never had the real urge or the aptitude for religion. Why do you ask?”

  “If you have a faith, it can sometimes help. It helped me. In fact I’m sure I could never have endured without it.”

  “Endured what?”

  He sat down and took my hands again. He was smiling now, a wintry ironic smile that transfigured those pinched aristocratic features with an extraordinary pathos.

  “You used to call me a snob. I wasn’t really. I was trying to create an identity for myself. I would be a Renaissance man, one of those young gallants from the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The fact is I am incurably homosexual. My mother nagged me into marriage. My wife’s parents urged her into a union with a wealthy and noble family. It was a ghastly mistake for both of us. We’re trying to have it annul led by the Roman Rota, but it’s a tedious business and ruinously expensive. Meantime my wife has taken a lover – for which I don’t blame her. And I . . .”

  He broke off. I waited out a longish silence and then prompted him.

  “I’ve made my peace with God. I’ve gone back to the Church and joined the Third Order of Saint Francis. I dedicate part of my time to charitable work among the poor.”

  He announced it so simply that it took my breath away. It was the first time in my life I had heard a profession of faith and I was not sure whether to smile or weep. I asked cautiously:

  “And you find that changes things for you?”

  “It doesn’t change them. I am still drawn to men rather than to women. But I do live celibate and I believe there’s merit and purpose in the sacrifice. I find I think less about my own problems and more about other people’s. When the desperate days come – and believe me, my dear Magda, I do have many of those – I pray and I feel I am not alone.”

  “You’re lucky. I don’t have a talent for piety!”

  He shook his head. His face was sombre again.

  “It isn’t a talent. It’s a grace, a gift. Why God gives it to some and withholds it from others is a mystery – perhaps the most troubling mystery of all.”

  “That doesn’t help me, does it? And, forgive me, it doesn’t say much for your God either!”

  “That’s what faith is about – living with paradox. I understand your scepticism, but I wonder if you would not at least take some religious counsel. For people like us, my dear Magda, the doctrine of forgiveness, of new beginnings, holds much consolation. Instea
d of seeing ourselves as freaks and oddities we perceive ourselves as in some sense the chosen, bearing a heavier cross, to fulfil a greater destiny. I know I sound like a village missionary, but I, too, was very near to despair. Then an old priest, who used to be chaplain to our family, persuaded me to make a retreat with the Camaldoli, who have a big monastery near Florence. Outside it is a grim place, but inside I found so much serenity, so much compassion for the afflicted. . . I wish I could share it with you, explain it in better words than I have.”

  He was so solemn about it all, I thought I would burst out laughing. I remembered myself mooning around him in the lecture halls, wondering why I couldn’t raise a spark of sexual response! All those wonderful looks wasted on a finocchio! Then I had the crazy impulse to drag him into bed and play wild games and teach him how to enjoy himself. A retreat with the Camaldoli, prayers to cure the Venus itch? Dear God! I was glad Papa wasn’t there to listen to such claptrap. Fortunately I was able to control myself. I sat modestly in bed, eyes downcast, hands folded in my lap, waiting for this aristocratic sobersides to finish his little sermon. His next question surprised me.

  “How long is it since you gave up medical practice?”

  “Oh, more than a dozen years. My husband died of cancer. I treated him during his illness. That was my last case.”

  “Have you kept up with your reading – the latest journals, the new texts?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve been following the psychoanalytic work of Freud and Jung and their associates. I went two years ago to their conference in Weimar. The papers they presented were of high quality and full of new insights into psychotic and neurotic disorders. Their analyses of dreams, their examination of familial and ancestral relationships – these I found most valuable in coping with my own problems and treating those of my patients. But of course I’m not trained and not skilled enough to go into full-time analytic practice. One day perhaps. However, my dear Magda, it occurs to me that you might do worse than consult with one of the experts in this field. Analysis doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, but it does reduce it to human size. It is no longer a giant shadow cast on the wall.”

  “How has it helped you?” I still wanted to tease him. “It can’t be more potent than God – although it might be more tolerable than a month’s solitary confinement in a monastery.”

  For the first time he laughed and there was a ring of genuine amusement in the sound.

  “I know! You still think I’m a stuffy Florentine snob tied to his mother’s rosary beads. But I’ve made my own journey through hell – and by a singular mercy I’ve survived it. The same staff that served me won’t necessarily support you. But, like Dante, you need a guide, someone to talk to in the wild country Otherwise you’ll really go crazy.”

  Suddenly I was ashamed of myself. I was a self-destructive bitch mocking a good man because he probed too close to the truth. I offered an awkward apology. He waved it away with a grin.

  “Let’s consider which of these people could help you most. Freud is the most obvious choice. He is the most daring and illuminating exponent of human sexuality in all its aspects. Where Krafft-Ebing dealt with symptoms and manifestations, Freud deals with origins and determinant factors. On the other hand I, personally, developed a certain antipathy to the man. He is Jewish of course – and I admit to a historic prejudice against the race. He is brilliant, but inclined to arrogance.” Giancarlo had the grace to blush as he said it. “I know! I’m arrogant, too! But one thing does bother me about Freud. He excludes altogether any religious concept of man, any belief in God or divine intervention in human affairs. That to me is a very drastic negative to his system. Jung on the other hand is exploring the historic symbols which recur in our conscious and unconscious life. He embraces the religious experience even though he does not always define it in orthodox terms. Then there are people like Bleuler, a very experienced clinician, the Americans Putnam and Brill and a young disciple of Freud’s, very ardent and very clever, called Jones. However, on balance I would recommend Jung. He’s in Zurich, quite close, and I do know that he takes private patients. In fact they all do. Psychoanalysis is much talked about as a new science, but it’s not yet as profitable as normal medicine.” He reached out and tilted my chin up so that I was forced to face him. “Don’t take this too lightly. Menopause is a bad time anyway. You’ll need help if you’re going to get through yours without some nasty traumas. What do you say? Would you like me to drop a note to Jung and ask him to see you?”

  “Let me think about it, Gianni. If I decide to go, I’ll write to him myself. If I don’t, maybe you can find me a nice comfortable convent in Tuscany.”

  “I could find you a dozen. They’d all welcome a rich penitent!” He added a grim little afterthought: “You’d certainly be safer in a convent than with Basil Zaharoff.”

  “I know. Perhaps you can help me handle him.”

  “How?”

  “He knows you’re visiting me. You could tell him I’m recovered from the oysters, but demonstrating acute hysterical symptoms.”

  “Take my advice, Magda. Deal with Zaharoff simply and bluntly. Believe me, he won’t want to reason about it. That isn’t his way. If you reject this offer the matter will be closed – but pray God you never have to turn to him for help in the future!” He bent and kissed me lightly on the forehead, told me to call him if I had any recurrence of the nausea, then left without further ceremony. I lay a long time staring at the painted nymphs on the ceiling and wishing there were a man or woman to share my solitude.

  I dozed through the afternoon until, at six o’clock, Basil Zaharoff was announced. He looked a little washed out, but elegant as ever. He came, he said, to make honourable amends for any discomfort and for the incredible carelessness of his kitchen staff. The “amends” took the shape of a bracelet of antique gold with a clasp of diamonds and rubies. I protested that I could not accept the gift.

  Zaharoff was adamant. He put the bracelet on my wrist and locked the safety clasp. It was only then that he permitted me to speak. I told him my decision. I could not accept his offer. I hurried into my explanation, humbling myself to appease the vanity of the caliph who hid behind the mask of the gentleman.

  “I was flattered and tempted by your offer. It would solve a lot of problems for me, but it might also create many for you. You’re the kind of man I admire very much. Your esteem and your patronage would mean much to me, but I have to be very honest. I am not sure I can count on my stability. Things are happening inside myself that I don’t yet understand. I’m a physician. I recognise the signs of stress, the erosion of self-control. I am not yet in menopause, but that could prove to be a bad time for me. You will be involved in great affairs. You need a more reliable consort than I.”

  I found myself tearful again, from sheer relief that the words were out. Zaharoff was sedulous to comfort me.

  “Please, dear lady! Don’t cry, I beg you. I regret the loss of your talents of course, but I value your honesty and I trust we may remain good friends.”

  “I do want that, believe me.”

  He took me in his arms. He told me I was beautiful and desirable. He reminded me of my promise. What better time than now to divert ourselves together? What better time indeed? If I wanted to get off the tiger, I had first to make sure that the beast was drowsy and friendly.

  This may be the only testimony that will ever be given in defence of Basil Zaharoff, boy-pimp from Tatavla, who peddled death around Europe and never saw a spot of blood on his own hands. He was a skilful lover and, for his age, surprisingly vigorous.

  He paid me a compliment too. He was dressing to go home and I was helping to adjust his silk cravat. He cupped my face in his smooth old hands and said, with smiling regret, “My dear Magda, I wish you’d reconsider my offer. If you turned professional you’d be the greatest in the game!”

  That night I had again the nightmare of the glass ball. This time, however, it was not the eye of the sun
which mocked me. It was Basil Zaharoff. He was turning the ball over and over with the tip of his cane, tapping on the glass shell until great cracks appeared, like the cracks on the face of Humpty Dumpty. I huddled naked inside, a foetus-woman, wondering in what monster form I would come to birth, when the shell burst open and spilled me on the blood-red sand.

  JUNG

  Zurich

  As I re-read the material I have written in this private journal I am surprised at its simplicity and directness. In my published work I am often prolix, always self-conscious, overly literate, as if everything I say is loaded with Delphic mystery. Here I write as I feel, in the blunt fashion of a countryman.

  In public, in the company of my peers, I conform to the ritual, use the magic language, rattle my beads and baubles a little louder to prove how potent a shaman I really am. I lie, too, when it serves my purposes; but then we all lie in one fashion or another, because we are not scientists always; we are soothsayers – dealing with arcane symbols and the stuff of dreams.

  I had a new dream last night; I want to set it down in outline before Toni comes. I want to study it before we analyse it together. I must not be caught unaware as I was by her dream of the seagull.

  I was on a train. I knew that I was coming back to Switzerland from somewhere in the North. Suddenly I looked out of the window and saw that all the land, as far as the eye could see, was under water. It was not still water, but a vast yellow wave rolling southward towards the Alps, which reared themselves up like a wall against the torrent. Then I saw that the wave was full of debris: trees, animals, fragments of houses, clothing and human corpses, thousands and thousands of them. Even as I watched, the colour of the flood changed. It was red . . . blood-red. Next I began to distinguish, among the dead, people I knew. Freud was there and Honegger and Emma and the children and my own father. I was oppressed with fear and shame because they were dead and I was alive and I did not want to leave the warm carriage and risk being drowned.