by Theo Rion
“Stop it, John.” Kurt sighed and took off his glasses.
“Struck a chord, did I?” John grinned. “So, maybe you’re just in love with me? Came to my house without an invitation to sneak in on me? I have caught such glances before and not only from you.”
Kurt returned from his thoughts and looked at John. In his head, suddenly a clear picture of his salon appeared, where the woman in red was sitting at the counter. There was a table in the center where John was sitting, and Kurt was waxing floors, leaning on a mop. John, not Kurt, was the host here. When had it all changed?
“Do you want me to be in love with you?”
“It would be fun, don’t you think? A man falling in love with another man.” John chuckled. “Attention of the ladies, you know, I’ve had enough. And then what a surprise! Just like that fellow…” John clicked his fingers. “…Archie! I’ve never seen such fidelity before!”
“So, you know he loves you?”
“Kurt, come on, stop pretending like you know nothing. Maybe you’re not as good as me, but this fellow has it written all over his face!”
“And what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” John said. “Small fry. Let him frolic while he can. But you…” John approached him and leaned forward, looking into his eyes. “…are different.”
From this vicinity, Kurt gasped. For the umpteenth time, Kurt tried to keep up with his emotions. And now he realized how much it would be apparent to John, who—with undisguised pleasure—watched Kurt’s vain attempts to suppress his excitement.
“Or maybe it’s the other way around, John?” Kurt breathed out quietly. “Maybe it’s you who are interested in me, and I don’t show interest in you, don’t come to your reception to your personal invitation. Maybe it’s bothering you?”
John changed his face and pulled away. Kurt sighed calmly. Pursing his lips, as if lost in deep thought, John sat on the couch.
“It would be amusing.” John suddenly smiled predatorily. “But what can you offer me?”
“Nothing,” Kurt smiled. “I’m not a trader and not a buffoon.”
“I told you, it’s boring.”
“Nevertheless, you’re here,” Kurt retorted. It seemed to him that the air began to quiver. He didn’t realize it fully; he had teased John, summoning him to a verbal duel, and Kurt wasn’t entirely sure he could win.
John laughed, and Kurt was discouraged.
“I don’t know how you do it, but you always know how to make me laugh. And I don’t even have to gibbet you—not yet—but you’re completely clear, Kurt. This is your whole world. This couch, frames and heads of patients with the same problems. How have you not yet died of boredom?”
“Why do you think I’m bored? Not everyone needs a big feast every week and a crowd of creeping suitors to know that he’s worth something.” As he spoke, Kurt had to admit that he was a little nervous. John’s actions weren’t predictable.
“If you weren’t bored, you would never have come to see me. You’re sickeningly wise! And I bet, my brother already told you what a monster I am!”
“Why did you decide that I’m familiar with your brother?”
“Kurt, stop. These antics and questions…I know and that’s that.”
“Yes, you’re right, I know your brother. We met at your portrait in Danee’s gallery.” At this point, catching the expression in John’s eyes, Kurt bitterly regretted he’d said that.
“And your brother indeed tried to warn me about you.”
“Yet you still came. Was it from a sense of curiosity or leaping excitement? And it reaffirms I’m right—your life is boring.”
“But yours is, too,” said Kurt. John looked expectantly at him. “I’m not afraid to be alone with my thoughts or feelings. I’m not trying to surround myself with something that will distract me all the time. You, on the contrary, behave as if you’re afraid to death of being alone. Your festivals are like a weekly dose of medicine, which you can’t live without.”
“So, save me from this!” John facetiously exclaimed, leaning back on the couch.
“Find a company that you like or, even better, look inside yourself and try to identify what is fretting you. Have the courage to face your fear, then the need to fill your inner emptiness with ostentatious glamor will disappear.”
John gave him a bored look.
“And this you advise to your patients? Look inside yourself? Isn’t that your work?”
“My work starts from the moment when one agrees to look inside, to admit that something is bothering him, and then my task is to help him find the cause and eliminate it. But I can’t help a person who is happy with everything,” Kurt said and smiled.
“You can send the bill to my house.” John got up from the couch, smiled and walked out.
* * * *
“Mr. Danee is here,” Eliza said, putting a cup of tea on Kurt’s desk. Kurt looked up at Eliza, noticing her rosy cheeks and bright eyes made her look happy.
“Thank you, Eliza. Please, ask him to wait in the living room; I’ll be right down.”
Kurt looked at the papers spread out on the desk and shook his head. For the umpteenth time, he couldn’t concentrate on work. He didn’t mind Philip’s company, in fact he found it quite pleasant. Sipping from a cup of tea, Kurt stood up and went into the living room.
Philip was sitting in the armchair with a very thoughtful face. Kurt felt himself tensing up, understanding that Philip’s visit was dictated by something more serious than small talk.
“Good afternoon, Philip! Glad to see you!” said Kurt as he sat down in the nearby armchair.
“Good day,” Philip said absently. “I hope my visit isn’t inconvenient?”
“No, of course not,” Kurt said genially. They were silent for a while. Meanwhile, Eliza filled their tea cups, though Philip didn’t even touch his. He looked depressed, and Kurt’s instinct told him that Philip wanted to share his unrest, but for some reason he couldn’t, so Kurt didn’t insist.
“Maybe you want to play…chess, for example?” Kurt suggested, wanting to cheer his guest up somehow.
“Why not?” responded Philip. Obviously, he was glad to lose weight from the soul.
Kurt took out a chessboard, and they started the game.
“I haven’t played for a long time,” Philip said, smiling. “But, I remember well how I played with my father. Actually, he was the only one I played with. Father didn’t like chess and played with me only under force.” Philip smiled sadly. “But…” He paused while Kurt silently watched him. “…there was a funny moment. Father was given a chessboard. It was beautiful and expensive, with carved figures—just an amazing work of art. I couldn’t persuade him to play with me more than once a month. The board stood with the figures set in place, as if waiting for players. Once I saw one white pawn wasn’t in its place, as if someone had made a move. Out of curiosity, I made a move too. The next day I noticed that white again had made a move. Overall, I lost that game.” Philip smiled and put a pawn ahead. “And then it started again and lasted for almost ten years, until my father’s death. I still don’t know who I was playing. Maybe it was father or one of the servants, but for me, for the child—I was eight years old back then—it seemed interesting, like I had an invisible friend. Silly, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” Kurt said thoughtfully. “In childhood, there’s always a place for a miracle. After all, you still keep that memory, it’s dear to you, and this is definitely not silly.” Kurt made his move.
Philip smiled. “I’ve never even tried to find out who played with me. I wanted it to remain a secret even from me. But judging by the fact that after father’s death everything stopped, this friend was him.”
“You and your father had a good relationship?”
“Yes, I think so. He was often busy and sometimes glum, but in a good mood, he always spent time with family. He taught me everything he knew. I liked to talk with my father, even though he and I were very different.
Sometimes it hurt him that I was more interested in the affairs of mother’s gallery than in his business.”
“Was he close with John?”
Philip sighed and pursed his lips. Kurt was ready to hear a polite refusal to continue this theme, but Philip started to speak.
“He tried, but through his life, John has been bearing some burning resentment toward father. I think it was the source of his antics. He constantly made father hopping mad and enjoyed it. John wasn’t afraid of being flogged and endured his punishment, as if he were a hero in the enemy’s rear. No kindness of my mother, nor her care softened John’s heart. But I think, the most difficult thing for my father was that John was remarkably like him. I saw the portraits of father in his youth; John is almost a carbonic copy. In spite of this similarity, John hated him with all his heart, and father suffered from it unbearably. I think this suffering eventually brought him to the grave. It is such a sad story, Kurt.”
“I understand that remembering this is difficult for you.”
Philip nodded.
“I was planning to have lunch at the Ellington’s restaurant. Would you like to join me?” Kurt asked, when they finished the game. Eliza entered the room to take the cups, and she carefully placed them on the tray.
“Unfortunately, I can’t,” Philip said and shook his head. ‘We have a reception today in honor of my engagement.”
Kurt heard the clatter of glass. On the floor at the threshold lay a shattered cup; it had flown off the tray. Looking at Eliza’s pale face and the light that was fading from her eyes with every second, Kurt became increasingly convinced that it was the clatter of breaking hopes.
“Excuse me,” Eliza could hardly hold the tray in her trembling hands. Kurt was silent; he glanced at Philip, but the other man was looking at Eliza with sympathy. Kurt began to realize that this was the true cause of Philip’s depressed mood, but he had no time to think it through now.
“May I help you, Miss Eliza?” Philip inquired solicitously, and Kurt realized that now Eliza’s feelings would gush over the edge and run down her pale cheeks.
“Eliza, take the tray away. You can clean the splinters later,” he ordered quietly. Eliza nodded. Pursing her lips, she hurried to the kitchen. In Kurt’s head the elegant lady in a rich dress turned into a poor girl who wept over her silver medallion.
Chapter 5
Kurt preferred to visit Danee’s gallery when there weren’t many visitors. But right now, he wanted peace, tranquility and warmth, and such a rich set of emotions he could find only in one place. There he could plunge into them…live them and feel them.
Alas, today a surprisingly large number of people were in the gallery, and they filled all the corridors. There was pandemonium at each picture. Kurt moved to the next room, but it was no better. Disappointed, he wanted to leave, but suddenly he noticed John Fenririr maneuvering among the people toward the far corner of the gallery. Kurt followed him, keeping at a distance. Luckily, Kurt didn’t have to worry that John might suddenly disappear.
Stopping at the end of the gallery, John looked at the picture in front of him. Kurt didn’t have time to figure out which this was, when John suddenly tore the canvas from the wall, threw it to the floor and pounced on it like a wild beast. Before the other visitors noticed what he was doing and tried to stop him, John had managed to tear the picture into strips. Security guards grabbed John and led him from the gallery under the perturbed buzz of the visitors. Kurt hurried to the scene. The torn portrait of John Fenririr painted by Philip lay mutilated on the floor.
“Oh, God!” Catherine’s voice sounded upon Kurt’s ear. As he looked at her saddened face, she nodded to two workers beside her, and they took away what was left of the picture.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for what happened,” Catherine said politely and hurried after the workers. Kurt followed her. He needed to talk to her, but he realized now he would not succeed.
The security guards brought John to Catherine’s office on the second floor, where the entrance of other visitors was banned. Catherine went in there. Kurt stopped at the stairs. Not that he was listening, but, nevertheless, he was sorry he could not be there during this conversation.
Going out into the lobby, Kurt sat on the couch. In his head John’s portrait hung again, somehow fused together in a broken frame. Kurt looked into the portrait’s features.
“Why did he do it? His act was foolish, but did he do it out of desperation or arrogance—that is the question.”
Someone approached John’s portrait hanging in Kurt’s gallery. Again, it was John, and again he tore the painting to shreds. He did it in front of everyone, and he didn’t have any despair on his face. He wanted to do it, and the intentions he had were frankly evil. This had been spoken by the second, internal Kurt, but now he engaged his mental dialogue aloud. “Those who do something out of desperation don’t always have it written on their faces.”
Oh, really? The second Kurt factitiously threw up his hands. “Are you sure it’s not written? And here I thought we read faces.”
“That is not what I mean. Desperation may take a different form, such as anger or bitter resentment. The essence is pain, and it’s so strong you can’t deal with it. You want to express it in any way you can.”
And why is John in such pain?
“A feeling of guilt, perhaps…”
John? Ha ha ha!
“I’m just guessing. Guilt, self-hatred, pain. He destroys his own portrait, and he knows that he won’t get away with it. He does it openly, in front of all the visitors, and he doesn’t try to escape. He wanted to be punished. This is what others do when guilt eats them away, but they don’t realize it and instinctively look for how they can be punished to ease their pain.”
It sounds as logical as it is far-fetched.
The second Kurt yawned drearily and turned to the portrait. Kurt also peered again into the tears that, like scars, covered John’s face. And it seemed to Kurt this was his true face, the one he saw when he looked in a mirror.
Half an hour later, Catherine reappeared in the gallery. Kurt walked over to her.
“Mrs. Danee, I’m sorry about what happened.”
Catherine looked at him, a polite smile touching her lips.
“I can expect anything from John. Although…” she paused, thinking. “No, I didn’t expect that from him.”
“Would it be rude if I ask you, has John always been like that?”
“I don’t mind your question, Mr. Rhein,” Catherine smiled. “Yes, John has always been like that, as I remember him. I became his stepmother when he was seven years old. His mother had been dead for two years back then, but when she was alive, she wasn’t concerned about John’s upbringing. My late husband didn’t talk about this subject much. All I know is that John had been by himself since childhood. Sullivan worked very hard. John didn’t have enough attention and care. I can’t blame John for his vagaries when he was a child, but now he’s a grown man, and such antics…after Sullivan’s death, John became unmanageable, so we moved to another house. But obviously, that wasn’t enough for him.”
“Do you think he’s taking revenge on you?”
“What else can it be, Mr. Rhein? But not me. On Philip. He can’t accept the fact that the relationship between him and Sullivan was much better than John’s. But who’s to blame? Instead of squandering the inheritance of his father, Philip is doing something.”
Notes of clear perturbation sounded in Catherine’s voice. Kurt smiled slightly. It didn’t ruin Catherine’s noble image; on the contrary, her emotions and a sincere desire to protect her son made her seem alive, genuine.
“Excuse me, Mr. Rhein. It’s so hard to control myself right now. I need to go.” He nodded politely and she left.
Kurt thought to himself, Sullivan somehow wasn’t engaged in John’s education, and after his wife’s death he married again. And he had another son, one much more loyal than John. Philip told me Sullivan had loved to spend time with the f
amily. Why did John still grow up so cruel? Why did he wreak vengeance on Sullivan? And why does no one know anything about John’s mother?
* * * *
Kurt packed his belongings in a small carpetbag. He had been invited at a conference dedicated to new ideas in psychology. Not that Kurt was in a state of joyful anticipation of this trip. Dinners and dialogues with pundits, most of whom were two or three times older than Kurt, were usually pretty boring. In general, such conferences allowed the participants to shine with an elegant fifteen-minute speech to practice a little in wit and get a lot of information that really didn’t contain anything new. Kurt wasn’t ambitious; he didn’t crave the spotlight, even for fifteen minutes, and he preferred to receive information from primary sources, rather than someone’s distorted retelling. So, the only thing interesting in these conferences was a change of scene and the opportunity to meet with the really distinguished psychologists of the day, whose writings, Kurt was sure, were far ahead of the time. But they could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and they rarely attended such events.
Giving final instructions to Eliza, Kurt left. Having departed from the house, he felt a slight thrill, and this thrill was associated with John. Who knew what notion he might take into his head? He had destroyed his own portrait in Danee’s gallery; what next? Maybe he might decide to burn down Kurt’s house? But he hoped that John wasn’t so foolish as to commit such a heinous crime. At least not without good reason. And Kurt was sure that he hadn’t given John such reasons.
The journey was uneventful. In Cambridge, Kurt, as usual, stayed at The Ritz Hotel. His room was on the top (fifth) floor, with windows overlooking the park. Kurt left his bag in the room and hurried to take a walk in the park. The air, cool and fresh, invigorated him, and Kurt felt a sense of elation. Even the upcoming conference no longer seemed so boring.