A Psychiatrist, Screams

by Simon Parke

  Of course, transference was one of Freud’s most significant discoveries. When he started out on the talk therapy path, he never anticipated he’d become emotionally important to his patients. He imagined himself a detailed observer, handling the new science of the mind with some detachment. In the early days of psychoanalysis, it wasn’t about transference, but about tracing the patient’s psychosexual development. The patient’s relationship with the therapist was regarded as secondary... the patient was an individual on a singular journey. So Freud was surprised, very surprised, when patients started expressing both love and hatred towards him. It was a problem, and one he referred to, initially at least, as ‘a curse’.

  These days, however, it was different. Transference was regarded as an essential tool of psychoanalytic treatment and offered rare common ground between the fighting followers of Jung and Freud.

  So that was the theory: transference isn’t personal. But tonight beneath the cold moon, walking down the drive alone, professional manuals be damned, because the spears of hostility felt lodged deep within, rusting in his veins, unyielding and highly personal - a curse indeed! He felt again the cold distance of Kate Karter; the restless aggression of Virgil Bannaford; the divine judgement of Ezekiel St Paul and the dismissive cunning of Martin Channing. And what had Channing meant when he said ‘I see what Frances means’? What had she said about him? What was the relationship between the two of them? And perhaps one day he would accept Bella’s appointment, made behind his back, but it hadn’t happened yet.

  He pushed the letter through the post box, heard it fall into the empty metal cage and then turned back through the large stone gates. He walked for a while, gazing only at the dark ground. When he looked up, he saw Henry House waiting, like someone angry, an angry parent, as if he shouldn’t have left, shouldn’t have posted that letter, shouldn’t have written what he’d written, shouldn’t have felt he could ever escape.

  Thirty Three

  And a little later that night, on that eve of Halloween, a strange dream for Barnabus in his Elizabethan holding; for in his dream, he heard partying downstairs, lute and madrigal, pig on the spit merriment, hearty guffaws, shouts and the drinking of ale. And then voices raised, no music now, madrigal crushed, angry sounds, rage, clamour and suddenly the hallway filled, a surging ale-fuelled crowd, a struggle on the stairs, a victim manhandled, a rope prepared, hasty work outside his door in the gallery, a struggling figure, a harlequin in Irish green, a baying crowd below, the harlequin noosed, pushed forward and thrown over the rails, the crowd cheering, a twisting body, fighting to save itself, how he fought! And Barnabus disturbed, out of bed, he must save him, free him from the noose, running through the corridor to the gallery, but... no one there, stillness, just a dream, a mad dream, an empty hall below and Jung the budgie covered and quiet. He stood panting in the darkness and felt someone pass him, a shadow of silk, that’s how it felt. He looked round, but there was no one there.

  He returned to his room, heart beating hard, and then his phone rang. Who could be ringing at this time of night?

  Thirty Four

  ‘You must go now,’ said Hafiz.

  He looked at the small bag of provisions made ready for the escape.

  ‘But I haven’t finished.’

  ‘Then you must go unfinished, Behrouz, take what you have, for you have much and much is enough, there’s no time for more.’

  The words are firm but sad.

  ‘Just give me a few more hours.’

  ‘Our hours have run out. They will be here today, Behrouz, any moment! I know this court, I can read the signs. And if they find you here - well, a great deal is lost, my friend. I have lost my wife, I have lost my son - and I do not want to lose these children as well.’

  His poems were his children, conceived in love and pain, but must now be given away.

  ‘I have worked as fast as I could.’

  ‘And you have worked wonders, believe me. You have the fastest and finest hands in Persia - and I want you to keep them.’

  ‘There were more amputations last Friday.’ Hafiz did not want to dwell on the amputations.

  ‘You must head west, Behrouz, make for the deserts of Egypt. They will be safe there.’

  ‘Egypt?’

  ‘We need distance between these words and the competing empires which surround us.’

  There was a banging on the door.

  ‘We’re too late!’ said Behrouz.

  ‘Quick, hide.’

  ‘But they’ll find me.’

  ‘Behind the screen.’ Louder banging.

  ‘How will I not be found?’

  ‘Hide!’

  Behrouz moved awkwardly towards cover, made slow and dim by fear. He was a copyist not a bandit.

  ‘I am coming, I am coming!’ called out Hafiz. ‘You interrupt a man at prayer!’

  More banging.

  On opening the door, he faced two stone-faced guards and behind them, Dead-Eyes, son of Muhammed Attar.

  Thirty Five

  ‘We have orders from the Grand Council to search your apartment,’ said Dead-Eyes, holding up a piece of parchment, with the distinctive seal attached.

  ‘Which you are most welcome to do, of course,’ said Hafiz. ‘And if you find God in a cupboard, then dance a little but carry on. Less is more when it comes to worship and stupid devotions make him ill.’

  ‘Out of the way.’

  ‘And do you have a name?’ asked Hafiz, not moving.

  ‘Why would I give my name to a dog?’

  ‘Because the dog is your friend?’

  One of the guards moved forward but Hafiz stretched his arm across the opening, confidentially.

  ‘Just one thing.’

  ‘Move aside.’

  ‘This is Hafiz being kind, being very kind, a miracle I know. But I’m thinking of your heads’ - he pointed to them - ‘presently enjoying union with your necks.’

  ‘I won’t ask again.’

  ‘And here’s the kindness: to maintain this happy connection, I strongly advise you come back in an hour.’ Puzzled looks.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Shah’s son is about to arrive for his writing class.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Dead-Eyes was somewhere between belief and derision.

  ‘It’s quite so; there are some things even a poet cannot invent. Well, there probably aren’t, but he’s a fragile boy, nervous in the company of adults. It might be best if, on his arrival, you and the guards were not here - and that I was. He’s young and easily frightened.’

  He smiled as best he could, thinking only of Behrouz’s bag of provisions, surely in view behind him?

  ‘Of course, you could forget common sense,’ he continued cheerily. ‘I know I do! All the time! You could allow the Grand Council’s command to make you stupid, allow the blood-rush to your head, push your way in, you have the strength, of course you do.’

  He sensed them about to move.

  ‘But Shah Shuja is a family man, as I’m sure you know; upset one of his children and you tend to upset him.’

  There was a moment as the guards looked to Dead-Eyes for guidance, and Dead-Eyes stared straight through Hafiz. Surely he could see Behrouz, who was far from small?

  ‘Do you fear death?’ he asked. Definitely, thought Hafiz.

  ‘No,’ he replied, ‘for beauty has slayed me already. It slayed me once in a porch with some Barbari bread, again by the tomb of Baha Kuhi and has slayed me many times since. In fact, beauty keeps laying its sharp knife against my soft neck’ - he mimicked a knife against his neck - ‘so if you wish to murder this corpse again, you must wait your turn. Sadly, Hafiz has only one neck to offer - and there appears to be a queue of assassins.’

  Another pause.

  ‘We
will be back in an hour.’

  ‘The pleasure will be mine.’

  Hafiz watched their retreating shapes disappear down the corridor and through the colonnades. Only when they were quite out of sight did he close the door. He allowed himself brief relief and a quick dance of delight, before firmly pushing the bookcase across the entrance, should there be a change of mind.

  ‘Behrouz!’

  ‘Yes?’

  He appeared from behind the screen, still uncomfortable from crouching.

  ‘You must go, now!’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Take your provisions and the poems and leave by the garden window. That is an order.’

  Behrouz nodded, finally convinced of the need for speed. The conversation at the door had terrified him. Sweating behind the screen... he’d felt real fear for the first time in his life.

  ‘And here is money. You will need money. Travel with the tradesmen, you are a man in search of work.’

  ‘They are beautiful,’ says Behrouz. What is he talking about?

  ‘I’m sorry?’ says Hafiz.

  ‘They are beautiful.’

  Hafiz doesn’t understand, so the copyist pats the sheets of parchment in his bag.

  ‘Beautiful.’

  Tears well up in the poet’s eyes. Behrouz is not a man given to ecstasy; and Hafiz, not good at goodbyes.

  ‘They are my children,’ he says. ‘And I don’t want them burned, I want for them the best of lives and the freedom to make new friends.’

  ‘I will protect them, believe me, master.’

  ‘I know you will.’

  ‘I will find a Caliph to keep them safe.’

  Hafiz looks out the window, watching movements in the court yard. And suddenly something is clear.

  ‘No, find a monastery.’

  ‘A Christian monastery?’

  ‘You make it sound like a whorehouse.’

  ‘And aren’t they?’ Hafiz sighs.

  ‘There are plenty in the deserts of Middle Egypt, thanks to Father Anthony in the fourth century; and a monastery always has need of copyists and calligraphers, particularly one of distinction like yourself.’

  Hafiz senses discomfort, attempts further encouraging words:

  ‘And on your way through the Mamluk Sultanate, you may get to see the magnificent Koran of Sultan Baybar!’

  ‘Seven volumes written entirely in gold by master calligrapher Muhammed ibn al-Wahid,’ says Behrouz in a monotone.

  ‘In that cursive script, what’s it called?

  ‘Thuluth’.

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘I am familiar with the work.’

  ‘I thought you might be.’

  ‘And could have done it better.’

  ‘Of course, of course!’

  Behrouz is not for calming, but Hafiz will try once more.

  ‘And in Cairo you can visit Sultan Hassan’s new mosque. Mamluk architecture at its best, I’m told.’

  There’s an uneasy pause.

  ‘You would have me give these poems to Christian dogs?’ Hafiz laughs loudly.

  ‘So that is your problem?’

  ‘How can it not be a problem?’

  ‘It may have escaped your notice, Behrouz, but it’s a Muslim dog who’s trying to destroy them.’

  ‘Better the dog you know.’

  ‘No, Hafiz likes all dogs, believe me - but doesn’t trust any of them.’

  Behrouz ponders the Zagros Mountains, in whose generous arms the city of Shiraz was built. He was aware he’d not gaze on them for a while... if ever again. How hard it is to say goodbye to a view.

  ‘We must all camp somewhere, master.’

  ‘Maybe so, and you will place your tent where you choose, Behrouz. When it comes to religion, no one can place your tent for you.’

  ‘And where is your tent?’

  ‘I have not written for any particular camp’s shrivelled revelation, Behrouz - but towards a more charming and expansive light. A camp is temporary shelter for the desperate... we should never imagine it to be more.’

  ‘I will be gone, master.’

  ‘And no more “master”, please. Those days, like many days, lie in our past. From here on, your kindness, skill and bravery make you the master of me.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘And remember this, Behrouz.’

  He pulls his copyist closer, and looks deep into his eyes:

  ‘When the journey is hard and your spirits are low, remember this: a long time ago, I met an angel, a figure of fire.’

  ‘You have spoken of him before.’

  ‘Quite a meeting, yes, and I’m still recovering, still singed, still singing. The angel was magnificent! But know this: on my deathbed, or wherever I meet my end, I will thank God more profoundly for the day I met Behrouz, for the day I met you!’

  Two wet-eyed men hug and then one leaves by the window, watched by the other. He slips quietly into the crowd, a convenient melee of servants on their way to buy provisions from the market. Behrouz disappears wonderfully; a copyist by trade, but also a craftsman in the art of becoming unseen. The palace guards barely gave him a glance, and why would they?

  And so it was that Behrouz and his strange cargo slipped out of Shiraz and headed west... into the unknown.

  Thirty Six

  Barnabus woke first, in unfamiliar surroundings. He felt the deep comfort of the four-poster bed, set in the simple elegance of the master bedroom. He was at first confused, then guilty and then happier than he’d been in years. The room was a deep dark, thick velvet curtains keeping out the awakening sky. It was their first night together, and Barnabus hoped against hope - his name was suddenly true, perhaps for the first time in his life - that it wouldn’t be their last. Pat was a coming home.

  She’d rung him late, very late, he’d been asleep, well, woken by a dream, or maybe dreaming he was awake, wandering fearfully in the gallery trying to save a man from hanging, a man who wasn’t there. Though someone was there, that’s how it had felt, at least. And then the phone call and Pat saying she was sorry it was so late, and how she’d understand if it wasn’t possible, but she needed to get out of the house.

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘Me?’ he’d said, ‘No, not at all! No, just a final check of the gallery before turning in.’

  It was almost true.

  She’d come round on her bike while he’d got dressed, and they’d talked in the kitchen, watched half a film on the small kitchen telly, before she suggested the four-poster. Yes, it had been her idea, not being the sort of thing Barnabus would suggest... nor Freud probably: ‘The great question that has never been answered,’ he once said, ‘and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is: ‘What does a woman want?’ Barnabus was equally unsure but Pat had known what she wanted, and as it turned out, Barnabus wanted it too.

  ‘I don’t understand why you don’t have this room anyway,’ she said, bleary-eyed in the morning dark.

  ‘Frances thinks we should keep it for VIPs.’

  ‘But you’re a VIP.’

  Delirious happiness passed briefly through him.

  ‘Not in Frances’s book.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘For her, I’m probably little more than an investment partner; and now the money’s safe, I’m not even that. In fact, I may be running out of uses.’

  ‘You’re a VIP to me, anyway.’

  They kissed.

  ‘And I’ve always wanted to wake up in a four-poster... particularly this one.’

  ‘Why this one?’

  ‘I’ve cleaned and dusted in here for the last six months. There comes a moment when the cleaner starts to dream.
’

  ‘I don’t think dreaming is part of the cleaning contract.’

  ‘I do it off-premises.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Dreaming on the job is a serious abuse of company time.’

  They laughed happily, snuggled up together and Barnabus wondered how this had happened.

  ***

  He’d met Pat at work, here in Henry House, met her without realising he was meeting her, the best sort of meeting in a way, nothing planned, nothing nervous, nothing ‘Oh my God, does she like me?’. Just Barnabus lifting his feet as Pat cleaned around him, and sometimes in the kitchen or on the stairs, some joke or other, or perhaps he’d perform an extravagant Elizabethan bow. And once they’d shared a lunch sitting at the outdoor table in the garden, curtains twitching no doubt. But they’d never shared a bed, until now.

  ‘You’re the happiest cleaner I know.’

  It was almost a reproof, as he lay gazing heavenwards from his pillow. Happy people could be a threat to therapists.

  ‘I am the singing cleaning woman in my elegant green rags!’

  For some reason, Frances had decided the cleaner at Henry House should wear a dowdy green outfit. And suddenly, Pat was out of bed, dancing naked and singing, pushing an imaginary broom. It was immediately arousing.

  ‘You must have something the rest of us don’t,’ he said, as she climbed back beneath the duvet.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, who’s happy as a cleaner, for God’s sake? Aren’t you supposed to be bettering yourself, ambitious for more?’

  ‘I’m a queen in God’s Kingdom.’

  ‘And that’s enough?’

  ‘It’s more happiness than you seem to know, in your very clever job.’

  Barnabus laughed, remembering his recent sessions:

  ‘I didn’t feel too clever yesterday, I can tell you.’

  And still Barnabus wondered how he had got here. They’d turned out the kitchen lights, he remembered that, walked through the dark corridor in to the hallway and then, hand in hand up the stairs, like many couples down the years. But had any of the men felt as lucky as Barnabus, with such beauty and vitality by his side? He doubted it. And on the stairs he’d kissed her hand and spoken things, said how he wanted to be alone with her, to walk the desert for a thousand years with her, to stand on the edge of the planet, beside her, inside her, neither of them afraid, stepping over the edge and free-falling together into God knows where.