The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone

by George C. Chesbro

  “Garth understands what you’re saying, Mongo, but you don’t seem to be able—or want—to understand what Garth is saying. You don’t even seem to want to hear it. When Garth was telling you about the ocean, you interrupted him to talk about unimportant things.”

  “I’m sorry, Garth,” I said, feeling as if I were talking to a child. “Go ahead and tell me about the ocean.”

  ‘It’s thousands of feet deep, filled with needless pain, cruelty, stupidity, waste. It’s the ocean Siegmund Loge showed us. All his life, he lived under that ocean, Mongo. All his life. He took the two of us down for only sixteen hours, and the experience almost shattered us. He’d lived there all his life, feeling all that pain, and yet he continued to function. And he functioned brilliantly. Siegmund Loge was a very great man, Mongo.”

  “Yeah; a real prince, that one. I seem to remember a time—not all that long ago—when you weren’t quite so impressed with his character. It was about the time you were growing fur and I was growing scales. You remember beastie time, Garth? You remember our nephew’s funeral?”

  “Garth hasn’t forgotten what Loge did to us and others, Mongo, but that isn’t the point. He’s trying to explain something to you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The music brought him back to the surface of that ocean.”

  “But the music just served to remind you of all the misery in the world.”

  “You still don’t understand. He didn’t need to be reminded of the misery; it was all sitting on top of him, crushing him. It was the music that reached down into the ocean and allowed him to deal with the misery, bit by bit. Do you understand what he’s saying?”

  “I understand that I made a serious mistake—a criminal mistake—in bringing you Der Ring des Nibelungen,” I said quietly, guilt and grief swelling in me and making it difficult to breathe. “Slycke was right; I had absolutely no business doing anything like that, and I damn well wish it could be undone. If I was going to bring you music, it should have been something you could associate with joy and hope, not despair.”

  Garth shook his head. “It wouldn’t have worked, Mongo. Joy and hope are illusions, and that kind of music could never have reached him; joy and hope would have dissolved on the surface of the ocean, and he would still be lying in that bed. The Ring was like a lifeline he could climb back to the surface precisely because it reminded him of someone who not only had survived at those great depths, but had at least done something to try to drain the ocean.”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re talking about Siegmund Loge again.”

  “Yes. Everything must always come back to Siegmund Loge. He was our teacher, remember? He taught us what the world is really like, for the vast majority of people. But of course you remember; it’s why you brought the Ring to Garth. You remembered the incredible power of that lesson, and you thought it might bring Garth back. You were right … and now you seem to want to deny the power of the lesson.”

  “Loge was crazy, Garth! You know Loge was crazy!”

  “Yes. And now Garth is crazy. Like Loge.”

  “No, damn it, not like Loge! You don’t want to destroy the world!”

  “Siegmund Loge didn’t want to destroy the world, Mongo, only change it so that we would not destroy ourselves. It was an impossible task. We can’t change the world; we can only live in it until the end finally comes. And the best we can hope to accomplish as individuals is to drain just a little bit of that ocean off, or at least not make it deeper, while we’re waiting for the end.”

  “You sound like a Goddamn street-corner evangelist, Garth, the only difference being that at least the evangelist tells people they can be saved if they repent.”

  “You know that nobody will be saved, Mongo.”

  “I don’t know any such damn thing. Nobody’s ever been able to get those human extinction numbers out of the Triage Parabola but Loge, and we both agree that Loge was crazy.”

  “Despair drives people crazy, Mongo. You may think you understand that, but you don’t. For example, what do you smell here?”

  “Roast beef.”

  “Despair. It’s very, very thick in this place.”

  “You’re telling me you can smell despair?”

  “Garth can; and he can see it. And it’s not only here; despair is all around us. It’s suffocating the world.”

  “But there’s also hope, Garth. Hope is the antidote to despair.”

  “Hope is an illusion.”

  “Hope is no more an illusion than despair; both are feelings. Feelings affect attitude, and attitude affects behavior.”

  “Hope is for strong people like you, Mongo.”

  “Garth, you don’t have any hope?!”

  “No. Only need.”

  “But for what?!”

  “Garth has told you that he doesn’t know yet. It’s like a hunger for some food with a name he can’t recall. Eventually, he’ll know what he needs.”

  “What about love? Love is also a pretty good antidote for despair.”

  Garth slowly shook his head. “Mongo, Garth remembers the word, ‘love,’ but he can’t remember what it feels like.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Garth,” I said, my voice breaking. “That’s so sad.”

  “Garth doesn’t want you to feel bad because of him,” my brother said soothingly. “Garth doesn’t feel bad about himself.”

  “You don’t, huh? Funny, I’d have sworn you sounded depressed.”

  “No. Depression is something which a person who has hope feels when that hope temporarily wanes. You’re depressed.”

  “All right,” I said, fighting back tears. “I’ll try real hard not to feel bad about you.”

  “Good. That would only add depth to the ocean.”

  “Garth, there’s a kid over in the children’s hospital who’s totally convinced that he’s Jesus. I told him he’d be a whole hell of a lot better off if only he’d stop going around telling people he was Jesus. He explained to me that he couldn’t do that; it seems God insists that he witness to the fact that he’s Jesus. You remind me of him.”

  Garth raised his eyebrows slightly. “Why? Garth doesn’t even believe in God or gods.”

  “You used to.”

  “God is part of the ‘I,’ and it’s just another illusion—a very dangerous one. That illusion is a large part of the reason we’re all going to die.”

  “You still remind me of the kid.”

  “Have you ever heard Garth claim to be Jesus?”

  “Both you and that kid are irrational; you refuse to think in a way that’s in your best interests. You understand that you’ve been poisoned, and you understand that the poison has altered the way you think, the way you feel about yourself, and the way you perceive the world; yet, you seem quite willing to accept the changes as permanent.”

  “Garth accepts things the way they are, and you call that irrational. What you really mean is that you cannot accept Garth the way he is—without his ‘I.’”

  I started to say something, then turned in my seat when I heard a knock at the door. A male nurse I hadn’t seen before leaned in the open doorway.

  “Dr. Frederickson?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You told Tommy you wanted to speak with Dr. Slycke?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dr. Slycke can see you now, for a few minutes.”

  “Tell him I’ll be right with him,” I said, then turned back to Garth. My brother had put his earphones back on, turned on the player, and was staring out the window with a distant expression on his face. “If you haven’t already,” I continued quietly, “and if you feel up to it, you might call Mom and Dad. They’ve been just a little bit worried about you.”

  Garth didn’t respond. I rose from the chair and, feeling as if I were trudging along the bottom of my own ocean of sorrow, walked from the room.

  9.

  “What’s the matter with my brother, Doctor?”

  Dr. Charles Slycke sat half in and half out of a harsh pool of light ca
st by a gooseneck lamp set off to one side of his desk. The psychiatrist looked tired; there was thick, black stubble on his puffy cheeks, dark shadows around the dark, puffy bags beneath his eyes, and his gray hair stuck out from his head at odd angles. Perhaps because he was obviously near the point of exhaustion, I didn’t sense the usual hostility from him.

  “At this point, that’s difficult to say with any certainty, Frederickson.”

  “I’d appreciate your best guess,” I said quietly. “Also, I want to thank you for agreeing to see me now. I know you’re very tired, and I appreciate the fact that you’re tired because of the many hours you’ve spent with Garth.”

  “So have a lot of other people,” Slycke responded with a slight nod. “Physically, you can see that he’s made a remarkable recovery.”

  “To all outward appearances, yes. Do your tests confirm that?”

  “Yes. Physically, he appears no worse off than anyone who has spent a couple of weeks in bed. However, there are still traces of nitrophenylpentadienal in his tissues and in his urine, which means that the drug is still in his system. That tells us that NPPD metabolizes very slowly—but it does metabolize. We may also surmise from his behavior that the chemical transits the blood-brain barrier and forms chemical bonds with the molecules of the brain. There’s no indication that it’s addictive, but like heroin, alcohol, or any one of a number of other drugs that transit the blood-brain barrier and form chemical bonds, it apparently has a profound effect on mood, perceptions, and behavior.”

  “Doctor Slycke,” I said, leaning forward in my chair, “I love the man in the room back there, but that man isn’t anything like the brother I used to know. That man is a stranger to me.”

  Slycke passed a thick hand over his eyes. “Your brother is showing marked tendencies of having developed a schizoid personality as a result of the chemical bonding I mentioned. The tests don’t indicate any organic damage, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. He’s developed a number of bizarre fantasies.”

  “Like what?”

  “For one thing, he insists that he murdered the late secretary of state; he claims that he shot the man down in cold blood.”

  Terrific. I could feel muscle tighten across my chest like a band of steel. “That is a bizarre fantasy,” I said carefully. “When did he tell you all this?”

  “Early on. Once he decided to talk, he spoke quite freely.”

  “Why would he tell you such a thing? I mean, what was the context of the conversation?”

  Slycke shrugged his broad shoulders. “He believes very strongly that the human race is doomed to extinction, perhaps in the very near future, but certainly within four hundred years. This extinction fantasy involves Dr. Siegmund Loge, the triple Nobel laureate who disappeared some years ago and is presumed dead.”

  “Yeah. The name is familiar to me.”

  “Dr. Loge was awarded one of his Nobels for inventing the Triage Parabola, a mathematical model that is very effective in predicting which endangered species are inevitably doomed to extinction, and which could most benefit from human intervention. The Triage Parabola has been most useful to zoologists and conservationists in helping them to make decisions as to how best to allocate their limited resources in trying to preserve endangered species. Part of Garth’s fantasy is that Dr. Loge determined from his model that the human species itself is in imminent peril of extinction, and that he then embarked on some fantastic scheme to alter human DNA—not only in future generations, but in people now living. Of course, the human species is far too complex ever to be accurately measured by a mathematical model.”

  “Of course.”

  “Garth further fantasizes that the two of you became involved in a protracted struggle with Dr. Loge because you’d been injected with some deadly serum Loge had developed. From what I can tell, these beliefs compel Garth to witness to the danger to our species, and to unburden himself of guilt for crimes he imagines he has committed. It’s a remarkably rich fantasy—the one involving Dr. Loge—and it combines elements of classic Western mythology, as reflected in works like Wagner’s Ring, or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Obviously, your brother is very familiar with the Ring cycle, and its various motifs. Do you know if he’s read Tolkien?”

  “I’m sure he has. Garth’s quite a reader.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. Garth’s fantasy comes complete with a great quest, giants, fearsome creatures, sentient animals, death and destruction; there’s even a kind of magical sword—a knife, really—which he believes you found, and which you dubbed Whisper.”

  “Garth has a remarkable imagination,” I said dryly. “Now he seems to have turned it against himself.”

  “We know, of course, the stories the music conjures up. Do you know of any real incidents Garth experienced which could form the basis for this kind of fantasy?”

  “Which one? Killing Orville Madison, or doing battle with Siegmund Loge?”

  “Either.”

  “No,” I said in a flat voice. Garth had certainly been downright chatty with the doctors who’d examined him during the day, and he was blithely letting a lot of ugly cats out of a lot of ugly bags. These cats had poisonous fangs and claws, and letting them loose wasn’t going to do anyone any good. “What does the murder fantasy have to do with the end-of-the-world business?”

  “I’m not sure there is a connection. However, your brother insists that he shot Madison.”

  “Everyone knows that Orville Madison died in a hunting accident.”

  “Garth says that the hunting accident never happened, that it was a cover-up engineered by, among other people, no less than the president of the United States.”

  “Well, certainly no one can accuse Garth of not casting his fantasies with the biggest names in show business.”

  Slycke glanced up sharply at me. “Do you find this amusing, Dr. Frederickson?”

  “No, Dr. Slycke, I most certainly do not. I apologize if I sounded flippant. It’s just my way.”

  Slycke thought about it, apparently decided to accept my apology. “In Garth’s mind, the murder of the secretary of state is somehow tied in with a search for an angel. This aspect of the fantasy isn’t quite clear to me, and I’ll have to listen to the tapes when I’m more rested.”

  “What about his constant use of the third person when he’s referring to himself?”

  “A loss of identity—diminishment of ego and the persistent feeling that one is living in someone else’s body—isn’t all that rare in certain schizoid types.”

  “Didn’t Garth explain his angel fantasy to you?”

  “Not exactly. He simply said that the two of you—yes, you’re involved in this fantasy, also—were searching for an angel that the secretary of state wanted to kill. Garth had a lot of things to say about all sorts of incidents, but his method of telling them was … well, perfunctory. He seemed to have a need to talk about these fantasies, but not to explain them in any detail; once he had said something, no matter how bizarre, that seemed to be the end of the matter. He resisted answering questions—another reason why I have to listen carefully to the tapes. I was hoping you might be able to shed light on some of these matters. Wagner’s music is clearly connected to his quest fantasy, but it doesn’t seem to explain the murder and angel fantasies. There must be some basis in reality for these fantasies.”

  “I guess maybe I should listen to the tapes too, Doctor.”

  “Surely you understand that records of conversations between doctor and patient must be kept confidential.”

  “I’d just like to be helpful.” And find out just how much, about how many things, Garth had told these doctors—one of whom could be a K.G.B. informant. Mr. Lippitt was not going to be pleased.

  Slycke grunted noncommittally. “Garth has also developed a most intense empathic facet to his personality. Indeed, it’s the most powerful sense of empathy I’ve ever encountered. Most unusual.”

  “Meaning what, Doctor?”

  “Your brother is
obsessed with human suffering, virtually to the exclusion of everything else. Human misery is all he seems to think or really care about.”

  “Garth has always been a kind and sympathetic man.”

  “This is more than mere kindness and sympathy, Frederickson. This is empathy—almost total identification. Any decent individual is sensitive to the suffering of others, but with Garth this goes a step—or many steps—further. With Garth, it’s almost as if he not only imagines but actually experiences the suffering of others. This intense empathy clearly seems to be linked to the music of Richard Wagner—specifically, Der Ring des Nibelungen.”

  “Yes,” I said softly.

  “Yes?”

  “I can see that.”

  “Can you explain why this should be? Does that music have specific associations for him?”

  “What does Garth say?”

  “Nothing edifying, since it’s bound up in his quest fantasy. He claims that Siegmund Loge used that music to torture the two of you in some way.”

  “The Ring has always had a powerful effect on Garth.”

  “The anomalies in Garth’s blood which I mentioned previously: Do you suppose the same unique antibodies would show up in your blood, Frederickson?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your brother says that both of you were tortured and infected with this strange disease. If that were the case, you would also carry those same antibodies.”

  “Are you saying that you believe Garth’s stories may be true?”

  Slycke shook his head impatiently. “Of course not. The point is that he believes them to be true, and I’m trying to establish whether there may be some basis in reality for that belief. His fantasies are highly complex and structured, and he holds to them with remarkable consistency.”

  “Even if I did carry the same antibodies in my blood, it wouldn’t mean anything, would it? It would just indicate that I’d picked up whatever Garth had had, but it was such a mild case that I wasn’t even aware I had it.”