‘We’ve found horticulture to be excellent therapy for many types of patient,’ he said, lifting a weeping fig from the seat of a chair and indicating that Kirsch should sit down, ‘so long as they can see the fruits of their labours. But a late frost causes untold distress.’
‘You don’t by any chance grow cactuses?’ Kirsch asked, looking around at the masses of yellowing foliage.
‘Cactuses? Oh dear, no. The conditions are quite wrong, even in the conservatory.’ Schuler found a place for the weeping fig on his desk, where it only partially obscured his face. ‘Although there’s a patient here with a couple of very fine specimens. His father brought them back from America. Why do you ask?’
‘I think I saw them. If you’re talking about Eduard Einstein.’
‘I am indeed. How did you …?’
‘I came to visit him last week. In a semi-private capacity.’
In the broadest terms, Kirsch explained his professional interest in the Draganović case, without mentioning Mariya by name. ‘Since I was here already, I thought I might as well find out what Herr Einstein recalled of her, since they were acquainted. I should have contacted Dr Maier first, but I didn’t want to burden him with anything so trivial.’
Schuler sniffed, the one indication that he was discomforted by Kirsch’s professional corner-cutting. ‘And did you find Herr Einstein cooperative?’
‘Up to point. Some of his remarks were puzzling, though. I’m still not sure what to believe.’
Schuler sighed. ‘Well. Dr Zimmermann is overseeing that case for the time being. I suppose you should talk to him.’
Schuler picked up the telephone and made several calls around the building. A few minutes later, Dr Zimmermann walked into the room clutching a cardboard folder. He was twenty years younger than Schuler, small in stature, clean shaven and gaunt, with spectacles and a heavy thatch of dark hair set in waves across his head. His left earlobe was bandaged.
He shook Kirsch’s hand eagerly. ‘I hear you’ve just come from Berlin,’ he said, imparting significance to the remark by raising his eyebrows.
‘A few days ago, yes.’
Zimmermann nodded gravely. ‘How is it?’
No doubt he had seen the same newsreels and newspaper reports as Kirsch had: Hindenburg appointing Adolf Hitler as Chancellor, the crowds and the torchlight parades, events that Kirsch himself had missed. The lack of an accent suggested Zimmermann was German by birth.
‘Dr Kirsch hasn’t come here to talk politics,’ Schuler said. ‘He wants to know about our resident Einstein.’
‘Herr Einstein, well …’ Zimmermann looked around in vain for an unoccupied chair. ‘He’s certainly an interesting case. Clear psychiatric disturbance combined with remarkable intelligence and knowledge. His writing was highly accomplished, according to his academic reports. And he’s the best pianist we’ve had for years.’
In the ensuing discussion it became apparent that Dr Schuler and Dr Zimmermann disagreed as to the precise nature of Eduard’s condition, just as Eduard had implied. But if this was a source of animosity between them, they kept that animosity in check, at least for his benefit.
‘Eduard studied at medical school for several years,’ Zimmermann said. By now he was perching on the end of a table between a rubber plant and a dwarf acacia. ‘It makes diagnosis much more difficult. He knows all the various symptoms and can present them at will.’
‘He does it to amuse himself,’ Schuler said. ‘There’s a manipulative side to his personality: passive but effective. Not unlike a woman’s.’
‘He has an ambivalent attitude to the whole idea of psychiatry, as with so many things,’ Zimmermann said. ‘He’s clearly very interested in the subject, but at the same time he likes to adopt a sceptical attitude, as if the entire field is unsound.’
Kirsch nodded. ‘I sensed exactly that when I saw him.’
‘It’s an attitude he gets from his father,’ Zimmermann went on, ‘which I suspect is the heart of the matter. Whatever his father won’t accept, he can’t bring himself to accept either, not completely. Unfortunately for Eduard, his talents and inclinations lie in areas his father has no time for, music being the one exception. You can see how this presents him with a dilemma.’
At first, Kirsch did not see. The presence of Eduard in Mariya’s life was increasingly a source of confusion. Einstein’s son had knowledge, but also imagination; and, he sensed, a mischievous side, perhaps even a malicious one.
‘A dilemma,’ he repeated. ‘What do you mean?’
Zimmermann pushed his spectacles up his nose. ‘Eduard either sets himself up in opposition to his father – which is a hopeless cause, his father being an intellectual colossus without parallel – or he submits to the dismissal of almost everything that might establish his own place in the world – one might even say his own identity.’ He opened up the folder and produced a sheaf of papers, loosely bound with a length of blue ribbon. ‘Here’s something Eduard wrote: philosophical aphorisms, he calls them. He sends them out in letters periodically, but fortunately he’s vain enough to keep copies.’
He handed Kirsch the papers. They were covered in neat handwriting, like something laboriously copied out. One sentence had been underlined: Nothing is worse for a man than to encounter someone beside whom his existence and all his efforts are worthless. Kirsch turned over a page and found another sentence given the same treatment: The worst destiny is to have no destiny, and also to be the destiny of no one else.
‘Touching or maudlin,’ Schuler said, ‘depending on your taste.’
Zimmermann put the papers back in their folder. ‘There’s a book too. Several hundred pages long.’
Schuler frowned, as if Zimmermann had said something he wasn’t supposed to say.
‘What kind of book?’ Kirsch asked.
‘A work of fiction, apparently. We heard him say he was working on it a couple of times, but we never believed it actually existed. Then one of the nurses found him wrapping up a manuscript. Unfortunately, by the time we went to see for ourselves, it had vanished. We think he must have given it to someone. It’s most frustrating.’
Kirsch could hardly believe his ears. Several hundred pages of imaginative outpouring, however disorganised, might have offered a level of insight that years of analysis couldn’t match. The book had been right under their noses, but they hadn’t seen it, simply because they didn’t believe it was there.
‘Have you any idea what it was about?’
‘It’s set in a psychiatric hospital,’ Schuler said. ‘And the hero’s a psychiatrist. That’s all we know.’
Given Eduard’s interest in psychiatry, the choice was not surprising. Perhaps in fiction he could make choices he didn’t dare make in life.
‘Are you saying Eduard’s relationship with his father is actually the root cause of his condition?’ Kirsch asked.
Zimmermann nodded.
‘And Professor Einstein is aware of this?’
Schuler shrugged. ‘We send reports to Eduard’s mother. We assume they’re passed on, but …’
Zimmermann and Schuler looked at each other. Zimmermann touched at the bandage on his ear. ‘We’ve seen no evidence of … interest. Of course, the professor is a busy man.’
‘There’s no doubt Eduard feels abandoned,’ Schuler said. ‘Judged unfit and cast aside. That’s why he detests his father. Just as he worships him. Such a conflict of feelings isn’t healthy, especially not for a sensitive young man.’
‘It’s destroying his mind,’ Zimmermann added. ‘The worst part is, I think he knows it.’
The analysis made sense, with or without recourse to the strict tenets of Freudian psychoanalysis. It was an observable fact that children frequently blamed themselves for a parent’s absence or neglect, however irrational that might be. Add to the mix a father who cast a shadow longer than any man living, an irreproachable being beloved by millions, and it was easy to see how feelings of guilt or inadequacy might become deeply rooted. But
as far as treatment was concerned, the only approach with a hope of success was to change the nature of the relationship. A bond had to be recreated between father and son that was nurturing instead of destructive, before the damage became irreparable. It was an approach that demanded devotion and time.
‘The sense we get is that Professor Einstein doesn’t agree with any of our assessments,’ Schuler went on. ‘He believes his son’s mental illness has nothing to do with him. It’s inherited, like congenital syphilis, only less susceptible to treatment. According to Eduard’s mother, the professor has a great fear of inherited insanity – an irrational fear, one might say. When his other son, Hans Albert, got engaged to an older woman a few years ago, he had her investigated by a private detective. And when it turned out she’d undergone a brief spell of psychiatric treatment, he opposed the marriage tooth and nail.’
‘I’m sure he had his reasons,’ Kirsch said.
‘Apparently he believes the Marić family have insanity in their blood too. So marrying into a family with the same curse –’
‘Couldn’t he be right?’
Schuler shrugged. ‘Eduard’s mother is prone to fits of depression – at least, Eduard says so. And his aunt, Zorka Marić, she spent two years here at the Burghölzli during the war. Alcoholism and a breakdown of some kind, although quite likely trauma-related, according to the case notes.’
‘Inherited or not,’ Zimmermann said, ‘it would be easier to address the patient’s difficulties if the sense of rejection could be reduced. Eduard’s behaviour became markedly more disturbed when he learned his father might be leaving Europe for good.’
Kirsch thought of Eduard, alone in his room, practising the piano every day in anticipation of his father’s visit – a visit that, so far, had not come.
‘Is he leaving for good?’
‘Very possibly,’ Zimmermann said. ‘Frau Einstein told us he’s been offered some highly lucrative positions in America. Apparently Eduard found out, though he wasn’t supposed to.’
‘He intercepted a letter from his father,’ Schuler said. ‘It turned out he’d been doing it for some time, going through his mother’s papers and such. She thinks some were stolen.’
Kirsch sat up. ‘Letters?’
‘We assume so. This was a few months ago. In any case, as far as Eduard is concerned, just the thought of his father abandoning Europe is profoundly disturbing. It seems to have affected relations with his mother at the same time.’
Out in the corridor an electric bell sounded. Schuler pulled a watch from his top pocket and got to his feet, explaining that he had a meeting to attend and would have to be excused.
‘Just let me know when you want to make a start on the archives and I’ll make sure you have access and a quiet place to work. In the meantime, do give Dr Bonhoeffer my warmest regards.’
Dr Zimmermann escorted Kirsch back through the building. The evening meal was at an end, the patients silently shuffling back to their quarters, some eyeing the stranger warily as he went by, most staring into space with a familiar mixture of hopelessness and bewilderment. At least the general mood was more sedate than at the Charité, but perhaps that was simply because the patients were more liberally sedated.
‘I hope we’ve been of some use,’ Zimmermann said. ‘You wanted to know if Herr Einstein is a reliable source of information, and I’m afraid the answer is probably not. There’s simply too much going on in his head.’
‘You’re obviously worried about him.’
Zimmermann nodded. ‘I worry this may end in self-destruction. It’s possible he already craves some form of martyrdom at the hands of his father.’
‘Perhaps that’s what he had in mind for his fictional psychiatrist,’ Kirsch suggested.
Zimmermann shrugged. ‘I fear we’ll never know.’
Again Kirsch pictured Eduard at the piano. He played so well, with such acuity, it was hard to believe he was other than completely sane. It was evidence of the degree to which the human mind was compartmentalised; one part performing at the highest level, another entirely dysfunctional. In which part lay his writing? Had the vanished manuscript been authored by Einstein the genius or Einstein the madman?
‘I do have one last question,’ he said. ‘If Eduard can present symptoms at will, how can you be sure his behaviour hasn’t been a charade from the start? Is it possible this is just an appeal for help? A way of getting his father’s attention.’
‘Anything’s possible, but it would be unique in my experience. You’ve only got to look at the deterioration in his handwriting to see that something’s amiss. Besides, some of his behaviour has been quite extreme.’
‘Such as?’
‘Rages, slamming doors, banging the piano with his fists for ten minutes at a time. And then he attacked his mother when she tried to restrain him. Tried to push her off the balcony.’
‘He told me he was just trying to scare her.’
‘That isn’t all. His mother tutors young women – maths and music and such. Eduard took to walking in on the lessons stark naked. His bedroom walls were covered in pornographic images. His mother didn’t dare let anyone in there, not even the maid.’
They had reached the main entrance. The bare space echoed with the sound of closing doors.
‘My patient in Berlin, she was one of Mileva Einstein’s pupils. But I’m still not clear how Eduard got to know her.’
Zimmermann frowned. ‘What’s your patient’s name?’
‘Mariya Draganović.’ Kirsch nodded towards the folder still tucked under Zimmermann’s arm. ‘Didn’t Eduard ever mention her?’
Zimmermann pondered the question. ‘You know, I don’t think he did, as a matter of fact, although of course –’
‘She’s a Serb, from the same region as his mother.’
‘Yes, I know. I remember her quite clearly.’
Kirsch wasn’t sure if he had understood. ‘I’m sorry? You don’t mean you’ve actually met her?’
‘Well, yes, of course. She was a patient here for a while. In the first-class section. You didn’t know?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘Eduard was here at the time,’ Zimmermann said. ‘So I expect this is where they met.’
Thirty-four
Mariya had been a psychiatric patient before she ever set foot in Berlin. The proof was right there in her file. She had been at the Burghölzli for two weeks. And who was to say she hadn’t been a patient before that, elsewhere? It seemed Inspector Hagen had been right all along: it was pointless trying to unravel Mariya’s purpose in Germany, or the events leading up to her discovery. It was pointless trying to reconstruct cause and effect as you would in the investigation of a crime. There had been no crime, no rationale, no purpose. Only delusion.
Kirsch read the file in Dr Zimmermann’s office, while Zimmermann himself shuffled about, trying to look busy. It was a slender dossier, but complete. The facts of the case – dates, times, observations, procedures – were all faithfully recorded and signed. Hard information. Data. Objective fact. Exactly what he had come for: insight into Mariya’s state of mind, solid foundations for a new beginning. But it was not the new beginning he had been banking on.
She had presented herself at the hospital in September. In the notes there was no mention of a referral or of anyone accompanying her. She had arrived, it seemed, entirely under her own steam. She had claimed to be suffering from insomnia, sleepwalking, bouts of panic and intervals of memory loss that left her disorientated for several minutes at a time. A Dr Vogt had conducted a preliminary examination. Since there was no evidence of head trauma, his first concern had been that she might be suffering from a brain tumour, but memory loss aside, the normal symptoms associated with that diagnosis were absent: Mariya suffered no headaches, no drowsiness, no sickness – a fact about which she was emphatic. He noted that the patient seemed agitated, although outwardly determined to appear calm. The next hypothesis was that she had suffered a nervous attack, brought on by e
motional stress, the best treatment for which was complete rest in a tranquil environment. At Dr Vogt’s suggestion, she had booked herself into the first-class section a few days later.
Memory loss. It was there in black and white. Had the problem continued? Had the intervals become longer, culminating in the continuous state of amnesia Kirsch had observed in Berlin?
He read on. Mariya’s stay at the hospital had been uneventful. Besides rest and various forms of sedate recreation, she had begun a course of hydrotherapy, a fashionable new treatment for which the Burghölzli had recently been equipped. As Kirsch understood it, patients were wrapped tightly in wet sheets before being immersed in water at different temperatures. Zimmermann said the process had been found to lessen anxiety and delusions in paranoid and schizophrenic patients and to induce periods of tranquillity without the use of drugs. Kirsch could believe in the relaxing properties of prolonged immersion in water. The experience of partial weightlessness was certainly beneficial. But he found it hard to accept that it amounted to a lasting treatment. In any case, Mariya’s course had been cut short after the first session. The notes didn’t say much about why. They stated only that she had become ‘uncooperative’ and ‘vocal’, and had shown signs of distress.
The last note, written by Dr Vogt, said only: After improvement, the patient once again exhibits disquiet and a lessening in powers of concentration. Recommend a thorough psychiatric evaluation commencing early next week. But by that time, Mariya had paid her bill in cash and discharged herself from the hospital. She left no forwarding address.
Vogt had never challenged Mariya’s claim that she was ill. But neither had he observed any concrete symptoms for himself. The evidence of a disorder was patchy and second-hand.
It was not unusual for people to check themselves into a psychiatric establishment for a period of discreet recuperation. Rest cures were common in moneyed circles, although the Burghölzli wouldn’t have been a fashionable choice, there being too many genuine lunatics on the premises. It could have been coincidental that Mariya had followed Eduard into the hospital a couple of weeks after his return. But if it was not a coincidence, what was it? The pursuit of some strange fascination? Or something more calculating? Perhaps Mariya had sensed the same exploitable weakness that Kirsch had: a back door to the truth.
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