by Ann Gosslin
Jumpy from the gunfire, his nerves refused to settle until several minutes had passed. In the quiet hour after lunch they were supposed to turn their thoughts inward. A time for meditating or writing in their journals, as if they were adherents of a religious order, where talking was frowned upon and silence king.
Through half-closed lids, he caught sight of that rather odd, older woman, keeping a tight hold on her handbag as she lurked near the sculpture of two entwined fish at the edge of the Zen garden. He closed his eyes, hoping she would go away, but at the sounds of rustling foliage, he peeked through narrowed lids to see her making a beeline in his direction. The clasp of the quilted black bag slung over her arm winked in a shaft of sunlight. He feigned sleep, but she stealthily advanced, a cat stalking its prey. Oh, dear God. Apparently, she was about to speak.
Annoyed at being driven from his chosen spot, he gathered his things. In spite of being held here against his will, he’d grown fond of this corner of the Zen garden. So charming and harmonious in its carefully wrought perfection, it might have been airlifted straight from Kyoto. As he made his escape, she called out. ‘Excusez-moi, jeune homme.’ Her tone was imperious.
‘I beg your pardon, madam.’ He suppressed a sigh. ‘Do you wish to speak to me?’
She cast him an odd look. ‘Well, I’m not addressing the elves now, am I?’ She perched on a nearby bench and patted the space beside her. ‘You interest me.’ She glanced at the ring on his left hand. ‘Does your wife know you’ve got a roving eye? I’ve seen the way you look at that pretty young doctor. Passes herself off as Swedish, but take it from me, she’s a Swiss girl, born and bred. The youngest daughter of an excellent family.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Though, entre nous, I happen to know she was once a patient here.’
Vidor took a step backwards, anxious to put some distance between himself and the woman he’d seen before from afar, but never spoken to. With a distinctively mad look in her eyes, she might just qualify as the looniest of the patients so far. For a brief moment, he wondered how she would fare as a test subject in his lab. Did she perceive the world in the same way as a normal person? Was her idea of green and purple identical to his? In those lacquered and heavily bejewelled fingers, did a rose petal feel rough or smooth? If only he could pop her into a functional MRI machine and get a peek at her brain.
‘I’m afraid I have an urgent appointment,’ he said, ‘so I’ll wish you a bonne journée, madam.’
‘Wait.’ Her hand snaked out and grabbed his wrist. ‘I’ve been longing to have a conversation with you. You seem halfway intelligent, unlike most of the feeble-minded fools who end up here.’ She snorted. ‘Top-notch accommodation, five-star ambience. That’s what it says in the brochure, doesn’t it? But this place doesn’t hold a candle to the Beau Rivage. At least, not how it was in my day.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know it.’ He tried to extricate his arm, but she had a grip like a raptor.
‘The Imperial Suite.’ She winked. ‘That’s where my husband, Maximillian, and I would spend our summers until his health failed.’ She placed a hand on her breastbone and sighed. ‘May he rest in peace.’
Even in the bright afternoon sun, Vidor could scarcely detect a line on her face, though she must be in her late sixties. She probably had regular injections of one of those chemical polymers that provided the illusion of youth. But nothing could disguise the prominent veins and liver spots on her hands. And where was the sense in trying to turn back time? She wasn’t fooling anyone. But what did he know? It was harder for women, he supposed, to relinquish the glow of youth.
As a young lad, still in his teens, he remembered surprising his mother in the entry hall of their flat in Paris. She had just celebrated her fifty-second birthday and was standing in front of the big gilt mirror, pulling at the skin by her eyes. When she caught him staring, she smiled sadly. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’ she’d said. ‘When we have so much to be thankful for, but a woman’s vanity…’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not easy to let go. We’re born, we age, we die. It all happens so fast.’ She clasped him by the shoulders and kissed his forehead. ‘My dear boy, you will take care of me when I’m old, won’t you?’
Naturally, he’d said yes, and he would have, but the chance never came. Five years after he’d seen her at the mirror, she was diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer and dead within the year. In a strange way, it might have been a mixed blessing. A celebrated beauty in her youth, she had dreaded the idea of growing old, and turning into one of the wrinkled crones who’d stalked the folktales of her childhood. In sympathy with his mother, a flash of pity for this woman, who’d accosted him in the garden, or any woman who’d been cast aside when her looks started to go, softened his heart.
The woman glanced to her right and left before opening the clasp of her bag. She reached in as if to retrieve something from its depths, a pen perhaps or a lipstick, but her hand stayed inside, and she leaned close to whisper something he couldn’t hear. What the devil did she have in there? A kitten, a mouse? Or perhaps it was a doll she took for a real child, similar to a case he’d read in the newspaper once about a distraught woman in Cornwall.
A cloud blocked the sun, and as he looked at the dark peaks, jutting into the air like dragon’s teeth, an inexplicable terror squeezed his throat.
And this, the naked countenance of earth, on which I gaze, even these primeval mountains teach the adverting mind.
The glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, slow rolling on; there, many a precipice…
‘Are you talking to me?’ Her eyes, yellow-flecked like tourmaline, latched onto his.
Had he spoken aloud? He shifted his legs. ‘I was merely reciting a few lines of Shelley.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Shirley?’ A shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds and danced off her rings, ruby and emerald solitaires, big as robin’s eggs. He wondered why she’d been allowed to keep them.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met properly. My name is Vidor Kir—, uh, just Vidor, and you are?’
‘Madame du Chevalier. Enchantée.’ She extended her hand to be kissed. ‘Though that isn’t the name I was born with,’ she said with a sly wink. ‘I acquired it when I went on the stage. But there’s no need for us to be formal. You may call me Hélène.’
The stage? He stifled the urge to laugh.
‘I can see you’re intrigued, so I will tell you. I was a dancer.’ Her flirtatious smile lit up her face. ‘Trained with Balanchine, you know. Though after I tired of the ballet, I did a stint in musical theatre in London’s West End before moving abroad. Though you can’t tell in these trousers,’ she winked again, ‘I have a great set of gams.’
He smiled to be polite, but his puzzlement grew. He’d had the idea she was French, but her accent had a slight English intonation. Or was it American? Is that how she’d acquired it, during her time abroad? Or was this merely a flight of fancy, the product of a diseased brain, where each day she donned a new role. Perhaps, when he saw her again, she would introduce herself as the reincarnated daughter of Isis.
She turned her back to whisper into the bag again. He hoped whatever was in there was not actually alive, or anything that slithered. A shiver coursed through his chest. Ever since finding a poisonous snake curled on his bed as a child, he’d had a morbid fear of them. Let Freud have a field day with the sexual connotations, but snakes were vile and terrifying creatures, that’s all there was to it.
He shifted to the left, preparing to make his exit, when a shadow fell across the lawn. Vidor flinched. He’d thought they were alone, but the Emirati Prince loomed close and slunk past without acknowledgment. As he skirted the bench, he turned his face away from the valley and the mountains beyond. Being from a flat, desert country, navigating such vertiginous heights must be nerve-wracking. Two acrophobics in the Swiss Alps. Who’d have thought they’d have something in common?
As the boy passed behind them, he leaned in close, and Vidor caught
a whiff of his aftershave. ‘Salaam alaikum, Saidi.’
Vidor jerked away. ‘What’s that?’
‘You heard me.’ He glanced at Hélène before bending close to Vidor’s ear. ‘Arak lahiqaan.’ A breathy whisper, the flash of white teeth.
Good day, sir… See you later. The words rose like a bubble from the murk. How did he know what they meant?
‘You talk in your sleep, my friend.’ The boy laughed and slipped away.
* * *
With mild alarm, Gessen observed through his high-powered binoculars Vidor and Hélène chatting together in the Zen garden. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, of course, but he could tell by the sly look on her face that she was up to her old mischief. Hélène liked to indulge in a bit of harmless fun, but he might need to have a stern word with her if he thought she was crossing the line. Vidor’s case was too delicate for anyone to interfere in his recovery. With an hour to go until their next session, he still had time to clear his desk of the towering pile of mail, financial reports, and forms requiring his signature.
As he sifted through the stack, an envelope postmarked from the UK, and addressed in carefully rounded letters, caught his eye.
Dear Dr Gessen,
You asked me to write if I think of anything that might be useful to you in helping Professor Kiraly return to health. During our short time together, I was not comfortable to reveal certain things. I do not have anything to hide, but some things are private, even shameful, and I could not say them to you while we drank tea together at Professor Kiraly’s kitchen table. So, I am writing now, and hope it will help you in some way.
For as long as I have been working for Professor Kiraly (eight years this December), he has suffered with strange headaches and sometimes sleepwalking. Once or twice I see him staring out the window for several minutes. When I tried to get his attention, it was like he wasn’t there. When under much stress, he will talk in his sleep in a strange language that I think must be Hungarian, though I do not know a single word of that tongue myself.
Perhaps you are wondering how I know these things about my employer? This is the part I was not able to say to your face, but the truth is that Professor Kiraly and I have another relationship besides housekeeper and employer. I have never given this other relationship a name, so I am not sure what to call myself. Not a mistress, I do not think, since Professor Kiraly is not married, and we do not hurt anyone. ‘Girlfriend’ or ‘love interest’ are also not good for a woman of my age, and I cannot claim that love is involved. Perhaps ‘lady friend’ is the best way to label me, if you feel a need to do that. I will explain now, and you can decide.
Every Saturday evening, unless he is travelling, Professor Kiraly arrives at my flat at six o’clock and rings the bell. When I open the door, a kind of… play acting begins. He is my gentleman caller and I am his… lady friend. He calls me Maggie and I call him Vida (his childhood nickname). We eat the dinner I make and drink a bottle of wine and then we climb the stairs to my bedroom, where we undress and have… I blush to tell you, but a smart man like you will know what I mean.
Afterwards, he likes me to sing or read to him. Sometimes, after he falls asleep, he says things in his language, sometimes shouting. Maybe nonsense, who knows? One or maybe two times he has shouted something that sounded like ‘Abby’. Perhaps a sister’s name, or an old lover? I do not think he has ever married. One time I wake in the night to find him gone, poof! But he’d left his shoes behind. Another time, I find him stumbling around the front garden, and I must lead him back to bed. Poor man was sobbing like a child. Sunday mornings, he is early riser and leaves the flat before I go downstairs.
When I next see him at his home, I am again his housekeeper, Mrs Bartosz and he is Professor Kiraly. I have never told anyone about this before. The first time he suggested we have dinner at my flat, I did not know what would happen. But I am not a girl, or a dimwit either, so I do not think he is interested only in my pierogi, or my conversation. It is maybe not nice for his privacy to write this, but you seem like a nice man, so I tell you.
When Professor Kiraly is at my home on Saturday evening, he is like a different man, not Professor Kiraly at all. Sometimes he is sad and scared. Almost like a child. I know not much about his life, only that he and his family flee the troubles in Hungary and settle in Paris. I hope it is not wrong for me to write to you. I am very fond of Professor Kiraly and wish you good luck in helping him to feel better soon.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs Magdalena Bartosz
Gessen swivelled in the chair to face the mountains as he digested this not insignificant addition to the meagre storehouse of what he knew about Vidor. Though he hadn’t expected to receive the letter, Mrs Bartosz’s confession wasn’t a complete surprise. During his visit to Vidor’s home, it was clear she was holding something back. Perhaps out of loyalty to her employer. Or an immigrant’s fear of being ousted from the country.
That she was his mistress, in addition to his housekeeper, while a titillating detail, wasn’t as interesting as the bit about his behaviour: sleepwalking, sobbing in the garden, nocturnal shouting, possible trance states. Not to mention the headaches. Symptoms that could point to a neurological disorder, such as temporal or frontal lobe epilepsy, possibly exacerbated by repressed childhood trauma. Both disorders were associated with psychosis and defensive aggression in the face of a threat.
She had certainly spilled the beans, Mrs Bartosz, as everything she wrote contradicted Vidor’s earlier claim that he was a sound sleeper and in excellent health.
‘Thank you, Mrs Bartosz,’ he said aloud, sending her a note of gratitude through the airwaves, before folding up the letter and locking it in his desk drawer. At long last, he was getting somewhere.
16
Through the window, Gessen studied the heavy clouds massing above the high peaks. So far, they’d only had a few flurries, but it wouldn’t be long before the first heavy snowfall of the year arrived in a fury of white, each storm bringing with it the threat – or promise, depending on one’s mood – of being cut off from the world.
He had arranged a meeting with Ursula and took the seat across from her at the table in his office. An exemplary clinical psychologist, she had joined his staff seven years ago, following her doctoral studies in Bern. They made a good team, perfectly in sync with each other’s approach to patient care. But last Monday, after arriving at the clinic from her flat in Spiez, where she lived at the weekends when not on call, he’d noticed a ring on her left hand. A band of white gold adorned with three square-cut diamonds. His heart sank when he saw it. She looked radiant, and he was happy for her, of course. But any day now, he expected Ursula to announce she was leaving.
He poured out two coffees and handed her a cup. ‘How did he seem while I was away?’
‘Vidor Kiraly?’ She dropped her pen and focused on the wall behind his head.
He could practically hear the gears of her finely tuned mind clicking into place.
‘Watchful and alert are the words that come to mind.’ Her eyes met his. ‘He was curious about where you were and what I might have in store for him, as if the two of us, you and I, that is,’ she said, ‘were laying some kind of trap.’
He wouldn’t be wrong there. The weaving of psychological snares, so subtle as to be undetectable, was Ursula’s speciality. Gessen smiled. ‘Did you catch anything?’
‘Possibly.’ She flipped open her notebook. ‘There was an odd moment during the word association exercise when his eyes glazed over, as if he’d gone into a trance. Then he pointed at the painting on the wall and cried out.’ She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. ‘I can show you the tape, if you’d like.’
‘A trance?’ He made a note.
‘First time I’ve seen anything like it,’ Ursula said, ‘though it could be he dozed off and had a few seconds of REM sleep before waking again.’
This was a new development. Had Vidor accessed a repressed memory during the exercise?
It wouldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes. Not enough time to reach REM sleep – the realm of dreams and out-of-body sensations – though it was possible. ‘I’ll have a look at the tape.’ He stood. ‘And thank you again for holding the fort while I was gone. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.’ He avoided looking at her ring. If she was planning on resigning, he would hear about it soon enough.
After Ursula left his office, he spent a few moments in silent meditation before returning to his desk to cast an eye over the logbook to see how his other patients had fared in his absence. It wasn’t often that he was away from the clinic, but on the few occasions he’d had to travel to a medical conference or provide a consultation in Zurich or Basel or Bern, he’d always felt comfortable leaving things in Ursula’s capable hands.
While Gessen was nosing around Cambridge, Vidor, according to the log, had passed an unremarkable two days. Mornings were spent in his room, afternoons in the Zen garden. In the session with Ursula on the first day of his absence, exactly the time he was poking around Vidor’s study, Vidor had apparently undergone some kind of transient attack. Perhaps he had sensed Gessen rifling through his things and experienced something akin to a telepathic seizure at the very moment Gessen discovered the photo of the small boy stuck behind the bookcase. There was no way to ask Vidor about the photo, though, without revealing that he’d gone through his personal things. A breach of privacy that would shatter any trust he’d managed to build so far.
He bent his head over the logbook. On the second day of Gessen’s absence, Vidor had headed over to the front gate, where he remained for nearly twenty minutes. Doing what, it was impossible to say. Looking for a way out? Or checking to see if his doctor had returned from wherever he’d gone?