Earlier today, while I was practising the piano, a doctor arrived from Berlin, a psychiatrist called Kirsch. He said you had suffered a breakdown, but he also said you had been attacked in the woods, which made me suspicious. He said you had amnesia, but that you remembered me, which was the one thing I felt I could believe. It made me happy for a while, because – I admit it – for a long time I thought you had forgotten me. I even feared that you might have decided to go to America, alone. If only I could see you again, I could make everything clear. I fear that without my guidance, you have been overcome with doubt.
The doctor from Berlin asked all kinds of questions. Mostly he wanted to know why you went there, which is just what I would expect from a private detective, if a private detective had been hired. He would want to know what you know and how you know it, if you could prove your claims and what the dangers are that there will be a scandal. When I see my father I am resolved to tell him about you, though it will not be easy. These are things I am still not supposed to speak about. Besides, his mind is all on the quantum question, those seeds of madness he has unleashed on the world and now wishes to lock away again, as Mr Rochester locked away his poor, mad wife. But I will find a way to do it for your sake; so that you may be free, at least, from the fears that haunt you.
I wonder if this Dr Kirsch is really treating you, as he says. Is he really a psychiatrist? He has the look of a haunted man and his hands shake, although he tries to hide it. It cannot be that he is afraid of me, but he is afraid of something. He is desperate to know the truth about you, as if his own life depended on it. I have never before seen a doctor so devoted to his case, so anxious to learn rather than to pronounce and prescribe. For a doctor he knew a certain amount about physics, which is not the usual way of things.
For all my doubts, I did enjoy talking with him. I didn’t feel so much like the ‘bad seed’ in his presence – perhaps he is a ‘bad seed’, too. I sensed something of the kind. For sure, he is not like the doctors here. When he asks a question it is because he wants to know your opinion and not merely so that he may judge you – I mean, the state of your mind and the degree or character of your derangement. He seemed content to argue with me as an equal, which made it difficult for me to guard my answers. It was tempting to tell him everything, but of course I did not do that. I have a feeling I will see him again. He knows there is more to learn about you and me.
I think of you often, Lieserl. When I open my eyes first thing in the morning, it is your face I have before me. So I know I have been dreaming of you even if the dream itself has slipped away. I imagine you travelling through the great city, your face lit by shop windows and the passing glare of street lamps. I imagine you reading by a window, reading the manuscript I gave you perhaps – no doubt frowning at the untidy prose and the strangeness of the story, which to those locked up in the prison of commonplace perceptions will probably make very little sense. I imagine you liking it, of course, or at least feeling the need to finish it. Because if you do not finish, you will never fully understand what it is you have read. And remember, I am still counting on you for a title.
I long for your return to Zürich, though I wonder now if it will ever come about. If not, I urge you to burn what I gave you, rather than let it fall into the hands of those who would silence me once and for all.
I must go now or I may be discovered.
Yours always,
Eduard
Thirty-two
Einstein’s family and friends had taken a vow, so it seemed to Kirsch. Enquiries about the physicist’s private life, like his whereabouts, were greeted with silence or evasion. Those who knew the most said the least. Those who knew next to nothing – newspapers, politicians, clerics – felt free to pronounce on the innermost working of his mind and the content of his soul. Eduard Einstein still offered the best hope of establishing the facts. Illness and isolation might have weakened his resolve and his loyalty. He might reveal what he knew he shouldn’t. But could his account be trusted? His grasp of the world was unconventional and unsettling, coloured with thoughts of persecution and paranoia, concealed beneath a veneer of scholarly objectivity. He might say anything it suited him to say.
Kirsch went through the proper channels, disguising the real nature of his interest. He wrote letters to the director of the Burghölzli, Hans-Wolfgang Maier, and to Dr Jakob Schuler, asking for their help with his study of diagnostics. He didn’t mention Eduard Einstein. He was afraid they might not agree to discuss his case, given that he was a first-class patient and the son of such a famous man.
After two days, he changed rooms to one overlooking the street. He read the newspaper and watched the procession of pedestrians and motor cars, the regular circuits of the trams, the punctual opening and closing of shops marked at the hour and the half-hour by the chorus of bells. He imagined the young Einstein looking down from the Polytechnic, observing these conventions of time and imagining different ones: a universe perhaps in which time was not strictly linear, but moved like a pendulum, accelerating, decelerating, then reversing altogether, running backwards to the point where it began, the laws of physics running backwards with it. Or a universe in which the pace of time corresponded to the beat of the human heart, the seconds compressing during excitement or exertion and stretching during rest – finally stretching to infinity with the last heartbeat of all.
Or a universe in which the rotation and orbit of individual planets was irregular, like the motion of sub-atomic particles. The length of each day and night would have been unpredictable; likewise the procession of tides and seasons. Sundials would have been useless. Clocks would never have been invented, because it would have been impossible to synchronise them. Instead of watches, people would have carried astrolabes or sextants, so as to be able to measure the elevation of the sun and stars. The rhythm and structure of life would have been tied not to the abstract and the notional, but to what was tangible and real.
And when we’re back again, we can argue about the non-existence of time.
That was what Max had said that last day on the lake, anticipating an argument with his unenlightened brother. It was almost the last thing Kirsch could remember him saying. For years it had bothered him the way this fragment of chat – trivial and impersonal – stuck in his mind. What if it was true, that time had no real existence? What if it were only a useful convention mistakenly elevated to the status of absolute? The world was full of tenuous abstractions, dressed up as absolutes. Civilisation was not built on relativity, let alone quantum mechanics. It was built on faith. A man had to believe in something, wasn’t that what everyone always said? You had to nail your colours to one mast or another. If not, where was loyalty, duty, sacrifice? Where was morality? Where was love?
Looking at Zürich through his hotel window, Kirsch rehearsed this notional argument for the hundredth time. Along with Einstein’s book, it had been Max’s parting gift. And, like the book, when he immersed himself in it, it brought Max back: a living, animated presence only just out of sight.
* * *
By night his dreams were stark and lucid. He dreamed he was back at the front, guns rumbling in the distance, wounded coming in on stretchers. He dreamed he had no instruments to operate with. He’d mislaid them, an offence meriting court martial, like a private soldier losing his rifle. He dreamed that Karl Bonhoeffer had died, leaving Dr Mehring in charge at the Charité; and that Mehring wanted his patients for a new experimental treatment involving electricity applied to the brain. More often he dreamed of Mariya. He saw her at the Tanguero, dancing with a tall, handsome man, who he only realised on waking was Eduard Einstein. She was wearing the blue dress and stockings from Karstadt’s. Everything was back the way it was. But when he asked her what had happened, he couldn’t hear her answer over the noise of the band. Then they were running for a train to Potsdam, where she made him jealous taking a boat out alone with Max, drifting into the mist so that all Kirsch could hear was the faint echo of their laughter.
And he wondered at himself for having made such a naïve mistake, it being obvious that Max was a far better match for Mariya than he was. But when the boat came back to the shore, he saw that Mariya was no longer on board, and instead of Max there was just an old man with a face so badly disfigured, he could hardly bear to look at him.
It was possible such visions would soon invade his waking hours, the way they had during the war. The important thing was to be prepared. He could still function with an overactive imagination. For the present at least, there was no reason why anyone else had to know.
One morning on his way down to breakfast, the bellboy handed him a telegram. It was from Dr Bonhoeffer’s secretary, Frau Rosenberg.
VACANCY POSITION DEPUTY DIRECTOR STOP
RETURN BERLIN SOONEST STOP
Kirsch sat at a table by the window and counted the words. Perhaps the telegraph office charged in blocks of ten these days, or five. Either way, the wordage was inadequate: two sentences juxtaposed, the connection between them left open to any number of interpretations. Dr Mehring’s position had apparently fallen vacant; and he was expected to cut short his stay in Switzerland and return to Berlin. Was it to cover for the deputy director until a replacement could be found? Was the vacancy permanent, or had Dr Mehring merely taken a temporary leave of absence? If so, six words would have been enough:
MEHRING ILL STOP RETURN BERLIN STOP
Outside, it was snowing again, light flurries descending from a misty sky. He brought his coffee cup to his mouth, the lip rattling gently against his teeth. Perhaps Frau Rosenberg thought it improper to broadcast Dr Mehring’s condition across the telegraph network. Perhaps she considered it a medium unsuitable for private information, whether personal or professional.
MEHRING PILES STOP RETURN BERLIN STOP
He let out a nervous laugh. Better than illness, a resignation squared with Mehring’s volte-face over the Nurse Ritter incident. If he had been lining up a new position for himself at another clinic, he might have wanted to tie up loose ends at the Charité, rather than leave the whole messy business unresolved. Of one thing Kirsch was certain: he wasn’t being invited to step into the deputy director’s shoes. Among the staff were other clinicians with more experience and more seniority than him.
He didn’t want to leave Zürich yet. There was still too much to learn, information that might secure Mariya’s future. But what choice did he have? As things stood, he was the one who made the decisions concerning Mariya and her treatment. But if the staff changed, that might change too. Heinrich Mehring was not the only psychiatrist eager to try out new treatments aimed at pacifying the insane.
* * *
Immediately after breakfast he telephoned the Burghölzli and asked for Dr Schuler.
‘I’d hoped to call on you before my return to Berlin.’
Schuler was apologetic. If he had received the letter, the contents had slipped his mind. He seemed flustered by the possibility that he had shown professional discourtesy, and invited Kirsch up to the hospital that same afternoon. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to assist you,’ he said. ‘I’m a great admirer of your Dr Bonhoeffer. He’s done so much for the profession over the years.’
Kirsch set off on foot. He took a small hipflask of brandy to keep out the cold, and struck out along the eastern shore of the Zürichsee. The journey took him longer than expected, and the light was fading by the time he reached the outer suburbs, the sun’s last rays falling on snow-capped mountains far to the south. On an empty, wooded road he stopped to catch his breath. Down below, the lake had turned a mineral blue.
He took a swig of brandy and stood listening to the silence, a silence broken only by the sound of his own breathing. He listened intently for some other sign of life, but there was none. He felt suddenly hot. The hair on the nape of his neck was damp.
He reached for a handkerchief. The effort of searching his pockets left him breathless. His sight clouded over, swirling red-black masses masking the road and the sky. He had to steady himself against a telegraph pole. The thought occurred to him that he was dreaming again, still lying in his bed at the hotel. The city below him was a dream city, occupied only by ghosts and memories. He had dreamed his way into the hinterland of Professor Einstein’s life, to a place where his presence still echoed among the narrow cobbled streets, where those he had touched now lived as if trapped in the amber of those precious days.
He took a deep breath. Darts of light swam in a river of blood. He wasn’t dreaming. Exertion and alcohol were responsible. Perhaps a touch of fever. He straightened up, his vision clearing. The sweat at the nape of his neck had turned cold.
A locomotive’s whistle echoed across the valley. He was in danger of being late. He carried on up the road, picking up the pace. He had just gone around a bend when he became aware of movement to his right: a man, also walking, keeping pace with him at a distance of perhaps fifty yards. Kirsch could make out his slender form quite distinctly out of the corner of his eye: a young man silhouetted against the distant patches of light. But when he turned to look, he saw nothing but trees.
A flock of birds swooped by, their wings scything the air. He hunched his shoulders and walked on. The man was still there. He moved silently from shadow to shadow, disturbing nothing, like a hunter stalking prey. He wasn’t trying to hide, though. He wanted Kirsch to know he was there.
Thirty-three
Dr Jakob Schuler was a slight, dapper man with gold rings on his fingers, a salt-and-pepper moustache and tidy, thinning hair. A pair of close-fitting spectacles lent him an appearance of owl-like wisdom, which must have impressed his patients greatly. He was senior enough – just shy of sixty – not only to have worked alongside the previous director, the renowned Eugen Bleuler, but to have openly disagreed with him as well.
‘He wasted too much time on Freud.’ He spoke rapidly, his voice clipped but loud. ‘Always trying to appease the fellow, telling him how important he was: the Copernicus of the mind and that sort of nonsense.’
They were walking down a long corridor, Schuler levering himself along with the aid of a stick, his white coat unbuttoned.
‘Bleuler was fundamentally insecure, an incorrigible fence-sitter. He was afraid of being cast into the outer darkness, among the unbelievers. You know how it is with Freud.’
‘You mean, you’re with him or against him?’
‘Correct.’
This part of the building was brightly lit and noisy with the constant coming and going of staff. The second- and third-class patients were having supper in the refectory, providing an opportunity for the wards and other areas to be cleaned and searched – the regime being strict about the prohibition of alcohol, tobacco and other stimulants, except by permission of the doctors. Despite the antiseptic appearance of the place, there was a faecal taint to the air, not completely covered by a more powerful aroma of bleach.
‘That particular brand of belief is all very well,’ Schuler said, ‘when your clients are paying fifty francs an hour, but in a place like this it’s nothing but trouble. People don’t take kindly to enquiries about their sexual impulses, especially when their mothers are brought into it.’ We stepped around an orderly who was on his knees, sponging a dark spattered stain from the wall. ‘I have no objection to the basic approach. The emphasis on childhood is quite persuasive. But his sexualised model of family relations is doctrinaire.’
Karl Bonhoeffer had a similar view of Freud’s theories. Perhaps this had predisposed Schuler to cooperate with Kirsch’s researches, once it had been established that the identity of his patients would be properly concealed.
‘The degree of subjectivity in these diagnoses is a constant source of friction,’ he said. ‘And by looking at family histories you may also shed some light on the hereditary question. I’m always reading that mental instability is passed from generation to generation, but it would be good to see some data.’
‘My aim is to focus only upon diagnostic criteria,’ Kirsch said. ‘I want to e
stablish if they’re consistent; and if the current classification of mental illness is scientific.’
Schuler frowned, the rubber tip of his stick making sharp contrapuntal squeaks as he limped along. ‘And what happens if you find it isn’t scientific? Are we supposed to give up psychiatric medicine altogether?’
‘Why should we?’
Schuler look surprised. ‘Well, Dr Kirsch, it seems to me our claim to be doctors, to be working in a branch of medicine, rests upon our ability to identify discrete illnesses. If we can’t say what people are suffering from, what else are we good for?’
Kirsch remembered what Dr Fischer had said when they first met: Status. It’s the Achilles heel of the whole profession.
Schuler fished out a key from his pocket. ‘Until we started calling insanity an illness, and as such susceptible to medical treatment – at least potentially – most sufferers were simply locked away like guilty secrets. Bad seed, and all that. Illness carries less in the way of stigma. Medicine, however rudimentary, at least offers hope.’
‘A little more consistency in diagnostic methods is all I’m looking for. To arrive at an objective frame of reference.’
‘I see,’ Schuler said. ‘An objective frame of reference. Well, we could all do with one of those.’
The Burghölzli’s older records were kept in a musty basement, along with stacks of disused institutional furniture: benches, a blackboard and several iron desks of the kind Kirsch hadn’t seen since his schooldays. After a brief tour and an explanation of the indexing system, they adjourned to Schuler’s office, a capacious room with scores of potted plants lined up around the walls. Schuler explained that the hospital not only enjoyed extensive gardens, but boasted a conservatory where tropical plants were cultivated. Unfortunately, several panes had been broken by one of the patients throwing things out of an upstairs window, and in order to preserve the more delicate botanical specimens it had been necessary to house them indoors until the repairs were complete.
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