And as for the technicians!
Up till the very last minute he’d been sceptical, but in the end they’d been proved right: in truth the picture on an ultra-HD television was no longer distinguishable from reality.
Time and again during the experiment he’d caught himself gazing pensively out of the window until he remembered that the ‘view’ from his office was just an ultra-HD film processed with a new playback technology that allowed the perspective to change according to the position of the viewer.
‘We can’t be certain, of course, but there’s a very good chance that Emma Stein’s treatment has been a success.’
Dr Roth appeared to be trying to encourage Konrad with a broad smile as well as his words. The exhausted lawyer let the psychiatrist’s praise bounce off him. He’d listened to Emma for almost four hours, trying all the while to follow the doctor’s instructions. It might not be obvious from looking at him – he couldn’t afford to show any weakness in public – but in truth Konrad’s head was droning in the wake of this marathon session, and the last thing he fancied now was an analytical conversation with the senior doctor who looked far too young, but whose reputation was legendary in professional circles. Ten years ago Dr Martin Roth had apparently succeeded in treating a schizophrenic patient by using his own hallucinations, thereby laying the foundation for his reputation. He sometimes attempted unusual therapies to help out his patients.
Such as the one today.
To make the hoped-for breakthrough with Emma Stein, Dr Roth had ordered a full-scale replica of Konrad’s office to be built in the clinic’s small gym, where the physiotherapists did their rehabilitation exercises.
Such an effort was necessary because they hadn’t been able to get legal authorisation for an interview outside the clinic, while Emma had refused any contact within the institution.
‘I need a beer first,’ Konrad said, pulling over a folding chair. Here, right behind the scenery walls, which from Emma’s side created the perfect illusion of his office in Zehlendorf, it looked like a building site.
Large posts prevented chipboard panels from toppling over. The wires for the hidden microphones and miniature cameras (almost all of which were on the bookshelves) ran across the lino of the gym floor like threads of yarn.
In fact the whole place looked very much like a film set. On a camping table were juices, pretzels and pre-packaged sandwiches: the catering for the Konrad & Emma Show. Dr Roth had no doubt made himself comfortable while observing his patient from here.
‘A cold beer and a cigar,’ Konrad extended his request.
‘You’ve earned both,’ Roth said, pulling a radio from the belt pocket of his white jeans. ‘Now, there’s a strict smoking and alcohol ban here in the Park Clinic, but as its head I’m sure I can make an exception today.’
He pressed a button and relayed the order, presumably to his bow-legged assistant who Konrad had spoken to regularly on the phone over the past few days to finalise the details. The woman was tediousness and slowness personified. If she organised the beer and cigar with the same speed she’d arranged for the furniture to be moved here from his practice, he’d be taking his first puff tomorrow morning and first sip next week.
‘They’ll be here in five minutes.’
Hmm. Who’d have thought?
After Roth had scribbled a few notes on a clipboard, he also fetched himself a folding chair and sat opposite Konrad, his back to the monitor.
‘I thought it was all over when Emma knocked over the cup and wanted to clean up the mess,’ he said, smiling.
Konrad agreed. ‘Yes, she was this close to visiting the non-existent loo.’
For plumbing reasons this detail of the mock-up office hadn’t been possible. A replica loo would have been okay, but a functioning WC with flush and running water? The premises hadn’t permitted such an installation. If Emma had shaken the fake door that led to a non-existent lavatory, the entire illusion would have been dispelled. In actual fact this had been part of the plan, to open Emma’s eyes to the situation, just not so early, but as a dramatic climax and as close to the end of the session as possible.
‘So how do you feel now?’ Dr Roth asked, with emphasis on the now, for to begin with Konrad had been very much opposed to the psychiatrist’s treatment methods.
‘I still don’t feel comfortable that I had to lie to Emma and make her believe in a pretend world. But I have to admit that your unusual idea did have the desired outcome.’
The fact that Emma had refused any visit on her ward had presented her helpers with an almost insoluble problem. She hadn’t made a statement, nothing that a decent defence team could work with. The public prosecutor, on the other hand, was in possession of a video that showed Emma slitting her husband’s throat in the cellar of her house after she’d hurled totally crazed, partly babbled accusations at him.
Roth hadn’t made any progress with his therapy either until it dawned on him how they could kill two birds with one stone – have Emma give a testimony and engage in conversation therapy at the same time. He figured that Emma was a person who opened up to very few people, and to nobody more than her paternal friend.
But this on its own wasn’t enough. To ensure a truthful statement she also needed familiar surroundings.
If the patient won’t come to the mountain, the mountain must be moved, he’d said to Konrad ten days ago on a damp, cold Friday afternoon, by which time Emma hadn’t been under his supervision for even two weeks. Konrad recalled wanting to take a closer examination of Dr Roth’s mental state too, when the latter laid out his plan in detail:
‘Let’s assume that Frau Stein trusts you. She’s going to find it extremely difficult to dish up lies to her closest confidant, especially in an environment where she’s always felt secure. There are still many things we can’t explain. Whether Frau Stein was really attacked in a hotel room or whether she gave herself those injuries somewhere else. Or how exactly she came to kill the two men. Was it intentional or carelessness? If you, Professor Luft, were to undertake a lawyer’s consultation that we might be able to observe, it would give us the priceless opportunity to analyse Emma Stein’s testimony from a psychiatric perspective.’
Konrad had laughed and looked around for one of those cameras he and Emma had been filmed with for the last few hours.
‘You want to completely replicate my office? You’re having me on!’
‘Not at all, and if you care to do some research into me you’ll discover that I sometimes go down unconventional paths to—’
‘Wait a second, stop!’ Konrad had interrupted him, propping himself up on his desk with his elbows and looking down at Roth. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that I deceive my client? Breach my lawyer’s confidentiality?’
Roth had vigorously shaken his head.
‘We’re in this together. Your client is my patient. That means your client confidentiality overlaps with my patient confidentiality. Emma Stein is accused of the manslaughter of Anton Palandt and her husband. At the same time she appears to suffer from severe paranoia, perhaps even pathological lying.’
‘And with my help…’
‘We can kill two birds with one stone. We discover what really happened, and maybe we’ll come up with not just a defence strategy, but also a therapy plan. But this will only work with your help. It’s a “condition without which it wouldn’t be possible”. That’s a specialist legal term, isn’t it?’
‘A “condition sine qua non”,’ Konrad had confirmed.
‘Your lawyer–client interview would also be a psychotherapeutic analysis. It’s a means of both discovering the truth and making her better. And no third party would get wind of any of it. The two of us would be the only ones with access to the recordings. There are no cameramen, just fixed lenses.’
This was the chat that had finally persuaded Konrad, even though he asked for a weekend to think it over. But in fact he knew he’d give his consent when, just before leaving, he’d asked Dr Roth, ‘You w
ant to move my entire office?’
‘Just the furniture,’ the psychiatrist had said calmly, as if it were a perfectly normal procedure paid for by statutory health insurance. ‘We’ll build the rest of the office.’
And so Emma had been sedated in her room with the promise of seeing her old friend again, who might be able to save her from a prison sentence. When she awoke, having apparently been transported, she imagined herself to be in Konrad’s practice.
But was all the effort really worth it? Konrad wondered.
He heard a muffled knocking, which surprised him because the door to the gym they were sitting closest to was made out of glass. And nobody was behind it.
‘What was that?’ Konrad asked when the noise sounded again, only this time it sounded more like stamping. He turned to the monitor.
Emma.
She wasn’t on the hospital bed nor the sofa, but standing in the middle of the room, stamping her right foot. A rather clumsy nurse was trying to hold her arm, but Emma easily shook her off.
‘Sound!’ Konrad ordered with his authoritative, courtroom-trained voice, and the senior doctor picked up the remote control on the table. Emma’s voice grew louder.
‘Hello? Konrad?’ she said, several times over, turning in a circle. She’d realised, of course, that she was being filmed and listened to, but till now she’d had no idea where the microphones and cameras were.
‘Konrad, can you hear me?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, even though Roth had explained this morning that the mock-up office was so well soundproofed that you could have thrown a plate on the floor out here without anyone inside hearing anything of the smash.
‘Konrad?’ Emma asked, thick tears running down her cheeks. Her voice strained in the small speakers. ‘Please come back, Konrad. There’s something I’ve got to confess.’
49
Emma had a beautiful view from her room in the clinic. Not quite as glamorous as that from his office, but at least it wasn’t taped, Konrad thought.
If Emma were standing beside him at the window she’d be able to see a small family of hares hopping across the snowy lawn of the park and leaping two metres out of the beam of the spherical garden lanterns into the darkness, shortly afterwards to leave visible prints in the powdery whiteness once more.
She’d also be able to see his old Saab in which he sometimes used to drive her to university. But to see all of this Emma would have to get out of bed, and at the moment she was too weak. The convertible was covered in a thick layer of snow and stood in the small car park that was actually reserved for senior doctors. Roth had offered him his space.
‘Have you searched everything?’ he heard Emma ask from her bed. It was wider and more comfortable than the one on which she’d been pushed into the fake office a few hours earlier.
‘Yes,’ Konrad said.
At her request he’d combed the entire room for hidden cameras and microphones, searching very thoroughly even though Roth had assured him that up here on the ward nothing and nobody was wired up. He wouldn’t dare undertake such an intrusion into his patients’ privacy.
‘I’m sorry,’ Konrad said contritely, and that was the truth. In the text books of the future it would look good when people wrote of Dr Roth that he’d treated a supposed liar with a lie. But this didn’t alter the fact that Konrad had hoodwinked his best friend and ward.
‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry,’ Emma countered wearily. She sounded oblivious to everything around her; the skin around her eyes was sunken and crumpled, as if she hadn’t drunk anything in a long time.
‘Maybe it would be better if we spoke tomorrow. You look exhausted, darling.’
‘No.’
She patted the duvet beside her. ‘Please come and sit close to me.’
He moved away from the window bench and was beside her in a couple of steps. He loved being close to her. Now that he no longer had to affect a professional distance, Emma wasn’t his client, but his little darling protégée once more.
She whispered as he pushed the bedside table slightly aside so he could sit on the mattress.
‘I wanted to speak to you up here. In my cell.’
‘In your clinic room, you mean.’
She smiled as if he’d cracked a joke.
Roth had immediately agreed to let Emma return to her room. The mock-up lawyer’s practice had done its job. When Emma discovered the HD television was a fake window she realised that humans can lose the capacity to distinguish between fiction and reality. Konrad couldn’t judge the psychiatric benefit of this awareness, but he agreed with the head of the clinic that Emma was better off in her hospital bed than down in the gymnasium.
‘I didn’t want to tell you down there. Not in front of all those cameras. And microphones.’
Konrad nodded.
He took her hand. It was dry and as light as a piece of paper.
‘Nobody should hear us,’ she said and it sounded as if she had a hot potato in her mouth. Her tongue was heavy. Roth had given her another tranquiliser, which seemed to work slowly, and then left them, saying that he’d wait in the corridor.
‘Relax,’ Konrad said, squeezing her hand affectionately.
‘What I’ve got to say is for your ears only,’ she said.
Konrad felt a pang in his heart, as he always did when someone close to him was in a bad way and he didn’t know how to help. On the battlefield of articles and clauses he always had the right weapons to hand. But when it came to personal problems he was often clueless. Especially with Emma.
‘What’s troubling you?’ he asked.
‘Do you know what? As time goes by I’m less and less sure that I was in that hotel.’
He gave her his gentlest smile. ‘Well done, Emma. Well done for saying it. And believe me, nobody’s going to blame you. We’re going to do all we can now to cure you.’
‘There’s no cure in psychotherapy,’ she objected.
‘But there is help.’
‘I don’t want help.’
‘No? What do you want then?’
‘To die!’
50
Konrad’s emotional reaction was forceful.
His hand tensed painfully around Emma’s and from his quivering lip she could see how he was struggling to retain his composure.
‘You’re joking.’
‘No, I’m being serious.’
‘But why?’
‘Lots of reasons. Because of my paranoia I killed Philipp and Palandt. And prevented Sylvia’s life from being saved.’
‘None of it intentional,’ Konrad countered vigorously. ‘None of it your fault.’
Emma shook her head, her eyes were red, but clear. She wasn’t crying any more.
‘Philipp…’ she said. ‘Without Philipp there’s no point to my life. I loved him. I don’t care what a shit he was. I’m nothing without him.’
‘You’re so much more without that cheat,’ Konrad said in a surprisingly loud voice. ‘If there’s anybody who’s to blame for your misery, then it’s your adulterous, self-absorbed husband. It’s bad enough that he was unfaithful and neglected you while he was alive. But even after his death he’s plunging you into deep despair.’ Konrad then tempered his grip and tone, which was a visible effort for him. ‘You’re not to blame, Emma. It was self-defence.’
She sighed. ‘Even if you were to convince the judges, I still don’t want to go on living. Not like this. You have to understand that, Konrad. I’m a psychiatrist. I know the darkest psychological abysses. I could barely cope with looking into them. And now I’m at the very nadir myself.’
‘Emma…’
‘Shh… Listen to me, please, Konrad. I don’t know what to think any more. I was so convinced that I’d been raped. And now? What sort of life is it if you can’t distinguish between madness and reality? Not a life for me. I have to end it. But I can’t do this without your help. I’m sure you know somebody who can get me the medication I’m going to write down for you.’
; ‘But you’re…’
‘Mad. Precisely.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant.’
Konrad shook his head. She’d never seen him look so sad and helpless before.
‘Yes, it’s true. I’m off my trolley…’
‘Just a vivid imagination, darling. And stress. Lots of stress.’
‘Others have that too, but they don’t hallucinate about being raped in imaginary hotel rooms.’
‘But they don’t have your power of imagination, Emma. Look. That evening you had a difficult lecture, colleagues were openly hostile and you had to defend yourself. It’s only understandable that you lost control in an extreme psychological situation. I suspect you saw a television report about the Hairdresser and your febrile imagination turned you into one of his victims. It’s going to take a long time, but together with Dr Roth I’m sure we’ll find out the truth.’
‘I don’t want that.’
Konrad squeezed her hand again as if it were a pump to force new vitality into Emma.
‘Emma, just think. You were helped once before. Back when you were a girl, when your imagination was also turning somersaults.’
Arthur.
Gripped by an unexpected melancholy, Emma couldn’t help thinking of the imaginary childhood friend, of whom she’d been so frightened to begin with. Much of her memory was a blur. Only the motorbike helmet and the syringe in Arthur’s hand had stayed with her, even years after her therapy which – it now seemed – can’t have been that successful after all.
Emma’s eyes closed and she no longer fought against the tiredness that brought forth more scraps of memory as harbingers of her dreams.
The Package Page 20