by Lori Lebow
“It has been developing for a long time, Professor,” Edith’s mother answered. “Edith was always a quiet child, but as she grew she became increasingly silent. Her father and I tried to encourage her to converse, but she just withdrew more and more. We tried joining Toast Masters, and took her to sports events, but nothing helped. Now, she is getting to an age where she needs to meet people and it is hard to start a relationship when she can’t even start a conversation.”
“Is this true, Edith?” Professor Charlton asked.
Edith raised her eyes to meet his, and her mother replied: “Of course it’s true. Do you think I invented this? We wouldn’t be here if Edith didn’t have a serious problem.”
Professor Charlton nodded and consulted his watch. “Perhaps you should see a therapy class, in session. If you would like to follow me, you can observe the class through the one-way mirrors of our monitoring unit.” He led the two women into an adjoining darkened room with a glass wall, and recording instruments making audio and video documents of the session. The room opposite the glass was a spacious open plan. The floors were covered with gymnastics mats, and over the mats a dozen people of various ages were crawling and making noises like barking dogs. There were dog food and water dishes along the walls, and even a few real dogs roaming amongst the patients. As soon as the Avrams entered the monitoring unit, a large Alsatian came up to the glass and pressed his nose against it in front of Edith, whose eyes widened.
“It’s alright, Edith. He can’t see you,” her mother said.
“I don’t know how Fang does it,” Professor Charlton shook his head. “Every time a new patient comes in here, he seems to sense it.”
“Smells,” said Edith.
Mrs Avram gasped. “Edith spoke! The therapy is already working!”
A young man with curly hair pawed at the glass and made barking sounds. “He is just imitating the dog,” Professor Charlton explained.
“What is his problem?” Mrs Avram asked.
“Fear of heights,” Professor Charlton’s eyebrows rose as he added, “but he is making remarkable progress. Last week he went on a bushwalk to the top of Mount Kosciusko and next week he will be dining in a revolving restaurant in the Sydney Tower. He is planning to go skydiving over the holidays.” A stocky woman in a trailing skirt crawled past. Professor Charlton told the Avrams: “That is Dawn, a kleptomaniac. She has been arrested for shoplifting seven times and has come to us to try to cure her uncontrollable desire to pinch things. She has made good progress, too, but it is early days in her therapy. Still, last week she was able to go to a market in Paddington and come back with only two items she hadn’t paid for.”
“Wonderful!” Mrs Avram said. A man with a blond crew cut and thick glasses suddenly launched himself at a St Bernard. They struggled for a short time, with growls and squeals until the man cowered and the St Bernard licked his face. “Is his problem aggression?”
“Correct,” the Professor replied. “But Wilfred, too, is learning how to be kinder and more cooperative. The Canine Therapy is like a wonder drug. It can cure almost any psychological aberration.”
“Would you like to go in?” Mrs Avram asked her daughter. Edith nodded her consent.
“All you have to do is act like a dog. Crawl on all fours and bark. Can you do that?” Edith nodded. “Then your problems will be solved.” Professor Charlton led Edith into the room. Some of the other patients came up to sniff. The crew cut man, Wilfred, put his hands on her shoulders and barked, but then dropped down on all fours and sat gazing at her with an adoring grin.
“You’re cute,” Mrs Avram heard Edith say over the monitor.
“She’s already speaking!”
Professor Charlton shrugged and thrust his hands into his lab coat pockets. “Canine Therapy will help her. It helps everyone. You see, Mrs Avram, a therapy works because any therapy works if the patient believes it can. Crawling around on hands and knees and barking like a dog is irrelevant. But if the patients believe it can change their behaviour then it will.”
“Wilfred, you need to be more considerate of other people’s feelings if you want to have fun,” Edith was heard to say in a stentorian voice as she confronted him face to face. He whimpered and then rubbed his head on her arm in an affectionate gesture. “And I would love to go to the film night with you if you can behave in a civil manner.”
Mrs Avram had to sit down. “I can’t believe the change!” she whispered.
“Perhaps you would like to try a session,” Professor Charlton suggested. “It might help you suppress your tendency to be an anally retentive control freak.”
§ § §
Heart Transfusion
Dana’s depression had drained her of all desire. She needed help, and drastic measures were in order. That is why she signed up for Chad Baldwin’s revolutionary and controversial Heart Transfusion treatments. She had read advertisements and testimonials in the popular journals, in the Sunday papers, and in the personal columns which described the successful results realised by sufferers who had tried the transfusion treatments as a last resort. Their glowing praise convinced Dana that she would be no worse off if the treatments failed, and she just might regain a sense of purpose and even enjoyment. When she paid her admission fees for the program, the clerk who made out her receipt commented, “Have a good time.” Dana wondered: what could possibly be good about getting treatment for severe clinical depression? But perhaps the clerk was making a joke. Dana had forgotten how to laugh.
Before the first session, Dana met Chad Baldwin at his office in the Psychological Rehabilitation Centre. He was a handsome young man with red hair and thick glasses, a ready smile and an athletic build. He looked healthy and behaved with graceful professional style. Dana felt encouraged by his manner, but she was too down to take any of the preliminaries seriously.
“Sorry about all the paperwork,” Chad told her as he leafed though her files. “It is all necessary to ensure that your Heart Transfusion is administered to meet your special needs.” After he glanced at some pages of handwritten material, he said, “So your depression was caused by work-related stress and anxiety?” Dana nodded sadly. “You are an English teacher? What exactly happened?”
“It is such a long story,” Dana sighed. “I used to love my work, literature, sharing narratives, analysing text, writing and reading. I enjoyed working with young people and encouraging them to live life to the fullest, to think about big issues and to explore ideas in the great novels and poetry.”
“So what do you think changed your feeling?” Chad met her eyes with genuine compassion.
“My department head and principal persecuted me. They accused me of being lazy, of failing to prepare my students for their exams, of telling too many stories about my pets. Students in my classes complained, apparently. I was never told who or what the complaints were, nor was I ever given a chance to defend myself. Yet my classes often performed well and achieved high results on the exams that all classes were taking in common. There were no grounds for these baseless accusations, but after countless attacks, the spirit wears down.”
“Teaching is a tough job these days,” Chad commiserated.
“Hard enough when students are apathetic or hostile, when parents are telling teachers what to do, and when principals ignore procedures to harass and bully their co-workers. My heart is broken,” Dana said simply.
“Then you have come to the right place,” Chad assured her. He tapped her chest and then listened to various spots with his stethoscope, finally settling the little device over her heart. His face was solemn as he concentrated.
Dana could bear the suspense no longer. “Is it bad?”
“Oh, I’ve known many far worse,” Chad decided. He listened again with the stethoscope. “It sounds like the heart muscle is strong — seems to be beating out a twelve-bar-blues bass line. Still within total recovery parameters if we act quickly. Let’s start your Heart Transfusions immediately.”
“What is the Hea
rt Transfusion, exactly?”
“I’ll explain as we walk out to the Operating Theatre.” Chad held the door and they strode through passages that seemed like the boarding gates of an air terminal. In some departure lounges there were people reading, listening to iPods, or chatting. “Many people have lost their zest for life, as you have, because their working conditions are so oppressive. In your case, as in many others, the people you serve (your students) and the people who administer (your principal) are not only unappreciative, they are hostile and aggressive. They do not want to co-operate with you nor support you. Everyone loses, and their poor attitudes destroy whatever good may have been derived because they attack you. Of course you despair. You are trying to sell an unwanted product to disinterested customers, and the boss finds it easier to attack you for alleged or imagined shortcomings than to address the real issue which is the attitude and behaviour of the students. But the Heart Transfusion will correct all that. Your healthy enthusiasm for life will be restored, and even your students’ apathy and boss’s hostility can be converted into positive regard through Heart Transfusions.”
“Will it be bloody?” Dana shuddered?
“No blood at all,” Chad smiled. “Heart is a metaphor or symbol for passion, feeling, sentiment, emotion. Your heart needs to be re-invigorated, and the hearts of your students and bosses need to be either created fresh from scratch because they don’t have any to speak of, or have to be reconstructed from the remains that have atrophied through lack of use. The means of these miraculous emotional renovations is: music.”
Dana shrugged. “How?”
” ‘If music be the food of love, play on,’” Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night. How right he was! Music creates the emotional vocabulary that speaks directly to the heart. Even the most encrusted brute of a boss or callous juvenile delinquent can respond to music if the transfusion is carefully calibrated. For example, some absolute criminal psychopaths who started with small doses of the most minimalist rap tracks gradually accepted melody, harmony and eventually lyrics as their systems became more responsive. One serial felon actually got paroled after undergoing some intensive heart transfusion treatments by listening to twelve hours of continuous Perry Como Christmas songs.”
By this time, Dana and Chad had reached the entrance to a long building that looked very much like a 747 Aircraft. In fact, it was a 747 Aircraft, converted into a field hospital where Heart Transfusions were conducted twenty-four hours each day. In the cockpit, the disc jockeys fed music into the four-hundred channels available in the transfusion centre, so each patient could receive an individualised program of emotional growth material. Chad followed Dana into the hospital where a uniformed technician greeted them. There was a smorgasbord banquet table laden with delicacies set up next to a bar. The barman and a uniformed attendant were helping themselves to the hors d’oeuvres and chatting. Chad and Dana walked in single file past a dozen coffins in the front cabin of the plane. Dana shuddered as she glanced at the features of one corpse visible through a little window on the top of the box. “Is he dead?”
“Not quite,” Chad laughed. “This is first class. Each of these patients is getting an individualized program of music played into their sound chambers. Instead of wearing headphones, the music is piped into each sound proof chamber.”
“Why are they all together? It seems a costly way to separate them,” Dana said.
“Oh, people are gregarious by nature,” Chad replied. “These people are wealthy and so can afford to be in their little soundproof units, but still be together with others. Sort of like group therapy without group contact. They are big business executives, corporate high-fliers, international financiers, politicians, multinational developers, big-time entertainers. Most of them are crooks.”
“With all that money,” Dana shook her head, “I would have expected them to have the means to be happy.”
“Money can’t buy happiness,” Chad grinned. “Besides, these people became rich because they had no heart. They cared more for money than anything important, so their lack of feeling and compassion doomed them to be miserable. That is why they are here, trying to create the emotional source of happiness that their own greed destroyed.”
“Will music save them?”
“Many of them are pretty far gone,” Chad admitted. “But sometimes the music creates magic. Besides, they have lots of money. They can afford lots of treatment.”
“What happens if the transfusion doesn’t work?” Dana shuddered as she looked at the icy features in one of the coffins.
“There really isn’t any cause for concern,” Chad reassured her. “When the transfusions are terminated, if no improvement is found, these folks are already prepared for their next appointment. The hearse will take them directly to the undertaker. They don’t even have to go through the arrival gates.”
In the next cabin the business class patients were wearing padded headphones and they were reclining in comfy seats. They had food and drink tables within easy reach, and pillows under their heads. The attendants were distributing alpaca blankets, little heated towels, socks to put on in place of shoes, and eye-covers for those who found the lights disturbing. They were also offered glossy magazines. “These patients are mostly successful business people or white-collar criminals.” Chad explained.
He showed Dana to her seat in the economy class section. It was near the end of the plane, next to a window. The seats were small, could not be reclined, and the tray-tables had a paper cup with water and some saltine crackers in a plastic wrapper. On the trays were medical clipboards with the patient’s records. Dana found that her armrest was broken, and the air vent could not be directed. The headphones were little balls that fit into each ear. Dana discovered that in her set only the right channel worked. Still, she put on the headset and listened to what sounded like Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto played by a virtuoso. She started to feel better immediately.
“I’ll leave you,” Chad smiled.
“Pardon me,” Dana called, pulling off the headset.
“See you after the transfusion,” Chad replied. “I’m not called ‘Baldwin the Re-builder’ for nothing. Your heart will be as good as new in no time.”
Dana nodded her farewell and put the headset back in place. She closed her eyes and allowed the right channel of the music to pour into her. Her right ventricle seemed to be directly connected to the music. It was drinking up the poignant notes like a thirsty landscape in a spring shower. Dana opened her eyes as she realised the music was actually making her smile. She could read her medical report: “…Heart condition: strong, badly damaged; recovery prospects: High.” She glanced at the gentleman on the aisle seat just across from her. Even though a mask covered his eyes, she recognised her boss and shuddered. She could read his chart, too: “Heart condition: no organ discovered in pericardium cavity; recovery prospects: Unlikely.” There was an additional handwritten note which Dana had to lean over to read. It said: “Good cash flow so proceed with treatment.”
As she listened to the inspiring main theme of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Dana thought, “He probably stole the eye-cover from business class.” And then she laughed out loud. How could such a loser possibly defeat her?
§ § §
“You’ll never guess what I just heard!” Catriona announced when she met Brendon and Jerry who were impatient to leave.
“What took you so long?” Brendon was fuming. The three walked briskly into the late afternoon sun toward Jerry’s car.
“I was listening to two women describing stories they had read from Marcel’s book. Apparently he came to the wedding.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Who is Marcel?” Jerry asked. “Do I know him?” Brendon held the door for Catriona while Jerry started the engine.
“Nobody knows him!” Brendon snapped. “He just keeps following us.”
“I wonder if he will be at the dinner?” Brendon stiffened in horror. “I’m teasing,” Catriona squ
eezed his arm. “He won’t be at the dinner. Only invited guests will be there. You have to have an invitation.”
“He might gate crash.”
“There will be bouncers,” Catriona laughed, although she doubted the truthfulness of this conjecture. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
“This freak has been stalking us all day!” Brendon offered by way of explanation.
Jerry was puzzled and curious. “So what is he after? Your body?”
“He wants people to read his book.”
“Tell him you’ll buy a copy and mail him your comments.”
“There is only one copy: His.”
“Then tell the crackpot to nick off!” Jerry turned into a tree-lined street and parked in front of a two-storey Victorian house in immaculate condition amidst manicured gardens and lawns. “Here we are. The dining-room is in the back, but we enter through the front.”
“Are you sure this is the right place? I don’t see any other cars.”
“There is a parking area behind the house, but maybe if we leave the car here we can make a getaway in case Marcel shows up,” Brendon sounded relieved. “Good work, Jerry.”
The evening air was still and cool as they made their way to the wedding dinner. Guests were gathered in small groups, and some were lined to greet the parents of the happy couple who were standing in an arc along the path and gardens. A chamber string quartet was playing nearby, and two photographers were weaving amongst the party with their cameras. There were cocktail waiters moving between groups with champagne and other beverages on silver trays. Finger foods were also being served. Spirits were high, and the party atmosphere could not have been more conducive to having a good time in good company. But despite all of this, Brendon felt uneasy. He cast his glance around the area in search of the bearded man. Catriona knew what Brendon was doing, so she tried to dispel his anxiety.