by Ann Gosslin
In the English Fens there were often strong winds, but little in the way of snow. With the storm upon them, Vidor felt a surge of pleasure in the full force of the elements. As long as he was somewhere warm and dry, let it snow. Let the blizzards obliterate the landscape in crystalline fury. Surely, the clinic was equipped with a backup generator, though he could imagine the mayhem that might ensue should they be plunged into darkness and left to freeze like carcasses of beef.
His eye followed the path, nearly obliterated by the thickly falling snow, leading to the sculpture garden and out the other side. He’d never walked that far. Never felt the desire to explore the boundaries of the clinic. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere one could go. At some point he would come up against the boundary line, where there was a chest-high wooden fence. Easy to breach if he was of a mind to escape the clinic’s confines, though he’d been told upon arrival that such an attempt would set off an alarm. The day Ismail disappeared Vidor had seen the boy, looking furtive as he headed towards the entrance to the grove. He’d followed Ismail part way into the copse of dark firs before turning back, having lost interest in whatever intrigue might be at play. Possibly, he’d had an assignation with the English girl. Later, when questioned, he hadn’t mentioned it, as it seemed of little account.
Perhaps, if Vidor had ventured a bit further, Ismail might still be alive. He could have shouted something, Stay back! Save him from that seductive force, l’appel du vide, that he knew only too well. It’s why he chose to keep well inside the clinic’s inner boundary, safe on solid ground. Once, as a cocky young lad, he’d vowed to climb to the very top of the Eiffel Tower, only to be paralysed by the height and the force of the wind buffeting the struts. Far below, the city called out to him. How easy it would have been to launch himself into that space, and to feel – for one glorious moment – the joy of Icarus aiming for the sun, before the loss of his wings and the final plunge to earth.
Hunching his shoulders against the wind and the sting of snow on his face, Vidor turned in the direction of his chalet. It would be quieter now with Ismail gone. The two officers must still be on the property, waiting out the storm. He could have told them he’d seen Ismail head into the dark copse of fir trees, but it seemed of no consequence now.
The boy was dead, and all the questioning in the world wouldn’t bring him back.
32
Paris, France
November 1968
From the opposite side of the street, he studies the five-storey limestone building that matches the address a lady at the housing office scribbled on a piece of paper. He’s been trying to move out of his student digs for weeks and this looks like as good a place as any. When he saw the notice of a room for rent tacked to a corkboard, his spirits lifted. Not only is he paying far too much for his tiny quarters in student housing, a cloud of depression hangs over him like a fog every time he enters the windowless room, no bigger than a monk’s cell. At times he thinks he might die in there. His body rotting for months before being discovered.
This neighbourhood, on the other side of the Jardin du Luxembourg, is one of his favourite haunts. A new start after a rocky beginning. In the mornings, he could take the Métro to Odéon to attend his lectures and then walk back through the avenues of towering lindens and chestnut trees in the park, stripped of their leaves with the approach of winter, but in the spring, in dappled sunshine, it would be a delight to stroll beneath the rustling boughs.
He rings the bell and waits on the pavement until he is buzzed in. A woman with a tarnished brooch pinned to the lace collar of her black dress stands in the doorway of the anteroom. When he shows her the paper from the Sorbonne housing office, she gives him a suspicious look, but allows him to proceed to the back stairs, craning her neck to observe him as he makes his way to the second floor.
Before he can knock, the door swings open and a woman in a dark green dress and flowered apron greets him with a smile. ‘Are you the boy from the Sorbonne, the one looking for a room?’ He nods, and she beckons him inside. ‘It’s at the back of the flat.’ She leads him through the front room where two girls are bent over their schoolbooks. Another, older girl is in the kitchen, stirring something in a pot with a long-handled spoon. ‘These are three of my daughters,’ the woman says, nodding at the girls. ‘My two youngest daughters are very studious.’ She smiles. ‘Always with their noses in a book.’
He follows her down a narrow hallway that leads to the back of the flat. The room is modest in size, with a single bed and small chest of drawers. But it’s the window that catches his attention. An amber light slants through the glass, and he steps closer to see that it looks over a courtyard. The branches of two lindens, with soft gold leaves going brown at the edges, almost touch the glass. It will be nice to wake to the sound of birds. He tells the woman it’s perfect and that he can move in straight away. As they discuss the particulars, the slamming of a door is followed by someone clomping into the flat. ‘My son,’ the woman says, ‘late as always. So, now you can meet him. He’s in his last year at the lycée. So busy, we hardly see him these days.’
A handsome boy with light brown hair and clear grey eyes pokes his head through the doorway. ‘Szia, mama.’ He frowns. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Our new lodger. He’s a first-year student at the Sorbonne.’
‘Lodger?’ His face darkens, and he turns abruptly on his heel.
‘I’ll be just a minute,’ she says, and follows her son. The flat is small enough that he can hear everything they say.
‘I don’t want some stranger living here.’
‘We talked about this,’ the woman says. ‘We need the money.’
‘What about Katerina, where will she sleep?’
‘With Rennie, of course. She’s perfectly fine with it. And what does it matter? You’re hardly at home these days. You’ll never see him.’
Angry stomping, followed by a door banging shut. The woman bustles into the room. ‘Sorry to leave you.’ Her smile looks strained. ‘There’s a lovely light in here at this time of day, isn’t there? If you think it will suit, you can move in tomorrow.’
33
Clinique Les Hirondelles
Saint-Odile, Switzerland
5 December 2008
A cold wind sliced through his skin as Gessen stepped onto the back terrace and scanned the sky for a break in the clouds. More snow had fallen in the night, and he gulped down his coffee, trying to shake off the frightening dreams that had plagued his sleep and left him flushed and feverish. His joints ached and his eyes felt hot and dry. If he were coming down with the flu, he would be no use to anyone.
Returning to the warmth of his kitchen, he punched Ursula’s number into the phone and asked her to take over his patients for the day. Even if it wasn’t the flu, he was in no shape to see anyone today. It was unconscionable that a patient had died under his care. That it was a promising young man with a bright future ahead of him was a tragedy.
Fernanda, always sensitive to his moods, crossed the floor to lean against his knee, and he reached down to stroke her silky ears. When he’d first dreamed of starting his own clinic, more than fifteen years ago, he would jot down notes, in the idle moments between patients, on his vision of an ideal psychiatric care setting. In those heady days of his relative youth, he’d imagined a high-class facility for healing the mind and spirit that lacked the look or feel of a typical clinic. No stark furnishings or clinically sterile patient rooms, and no visible barriers of any kind.
The place he imagined would reflect the beauty of its mountain setting. Natural materials and soft lighting. Gardens and landscaped grounds for the patients to stroll in. No locked doors or high fences. But in the aftermath of Ismail’s death, he would have to reconsider his entire philosophy. Today, he would meet with his head of Security to discuss alternative means of securing the boundary.
An email from one of the house attendants popped up on his computer screen, informing Gessen of his resignation, effective immedia
tely. Apparently, the man’s mother had suddenly taken ill, and there was no one else at home to care for her. Home was a village in Slovenia, if Gessen recalled correctly. That the attendant was assigned to Ismail’s chalet was mildly disconcerting. Was there a connection? Perhaps he felt responsible in some way, or was it something else? He had already been questioned by the police, so there was no reason to suspect anything was amiss. Gessen signed off on the request, and wrote a brief note wishing the man well, before sticking it in the outgoing admin tray for Mathilde to handle.
On the top of a stack of mail, a thick envelope from a law firm in Geneva stopped him cold. No need to guess what that might be. In a follow-up phone call from Ismail’s father, after their initial heartbreaking conversation when he’d told the man his son was dead, Mr Mahmoud, deranged with grief, had bellowed into Gessen’s ear, cursing him with a lifetime of torment and torture. Vowing to sue and shut down the clinic. He would follow Gessen to the ends of the earth, not stopping to rest until the man responsible for his son’s death was behind bars.
Overwhelmed by a feeling of doom, he sliced open the envelope with a penknife. On behalf of Bélanger, Lacroix, and Moreaux, we are writing to inform you that… It was indeed what he’d expected. He was being sued for gross negligence and wrongful death. Gessen dropped the letter on the desk and slumped in his chair.
A discreet knock, and Mathilde peeked through the half-open door. The alarm in her eyes spoke volumes. He must look a wreck.
‘Sorry to disturb,’ she said, ‘but I found this in a stack of paperwork. It must have got lost in the shuffle, what with all the… ’ Her voice faltered and she placed an envelope on his desk. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Nothing, thank you. Except, perhaps a pot of coffee, if it’s no trouble. I haven’t slept since he went missing, you know.’
She ducked out and returned in minutes with the coffee and a plate of almond pastries. The single cup on the tray looked lonely, and he considered asking her to join him, though it wasn’t company he wanted, so much as a reassuring pat on the hand. Someone to tell him all would be well.
‘Do you need anything else?’
He shook his head and waited until he was alone before reading the lawyer’s letter again. With less than an hour before his session with Vidor, he would have to wait until later to plan his next move. His lawyers would take care of the legal side of things, but they could do nothing to heal the blow to the clinic’s exemplary record. Tainted with a reputation for negligence, who in their vulnerable state would entrust him with their care?
He poured himself a coffee and picked up the envelope Mathilde had left on his desk. The return address in Paris meant nothing to him at first, but then it came to him: the lady with the toads. He’d forgotten all about her. That he had been away from the clinic, chasing after ghosts, while Ismail hurtled towards his death, was a cross he would bear for the rest of his life.
He pulled out the letter and scanned the page… a boy who lived with the Sovànys… no idea what he was called… student at the Sorbonne, I believe… Odd that Madame Sovàny would accept a strange boy, nearly a man, as a lodger, with her young daughters in the flat… Some kind of foreigner, though he spoke French well.
Tucked inside the letter he found three postcards from the Parc Zoologique, adorned with pictures of brightly coloured tree frogs, and other crawly things. I thought of you when I saw these… aren’t they gorgeous? He shuddered and dropped the postcards in the bin. Such a remarkable woman, but he was afraid he’d opened up a can of worms, so to speak. For the rest of his days – or hers – he might become the hapless recipient of frequent mementos of her reptilian friends.
Gessen folded the letter and tucked it in a drawer. A male lodger with the Hungarian family downstairs. A foreign boy studying at the Sorbonne. The pieces seemed to slot together. All but one. If Vidor was the son of this family, when – and why – did he change his name to Kiraly? Had there been a family rupture of some kind? And the lodger. Was this Gessen’s mystery boy from the Sorbonne? If Vidor and the lodger were friends, Gessen might have seen them together at a student cafe, and later confused one for the other.
What he didn’t have was proof. He would need photos of the two boys, and evidence of a name change. A single, unbroken line that stretched back from Vidor Kiraly to Vidor Sovàny. Or another that split off at an angle, leading to the mystery boy with no name.
34
Vidor moved close to the hearth to warm his hands. The heavy damask curtains were drawn, shutting out the darkening sky and raging storm. With its walnut bookshelves, glass table lamps, and leather Chesterfields, the room could have been lifted, wainscoting and all, straight from a country house in Hertfordshire. On the low table by the fire, a silver tray of coffee and cakes beckoned.
They had met in this room only a couple of times before. Perhaps, with this latest invitation to have coffee together in the sumptuous atmosphere of the sitting room, the good doctor was finally prepared to treat Vidor as his equal. After all, he was a celebrated scientist and Cambridge don, not some slavering creature grubbing through the rubbish bins in a dark alley. The man captured on that odious video in Copenhagen, shouting and frothing at the mouth, was an unrecognisable lunatic, an aberration, that had nothing to do with him. Nothing could convince him that the video was anything other than a fake. A transparent ploy to frighten him into admitting he was ill. Hypoglycaemia and exhaustion were known risk factors for temporary psychosis. Gessen surely knew that. Chastened no doubt at having lost a patient due to his own carelessness, he might finally have come to his senses.
After the coffee was poured, Vidor waited for Gessen to announce that he was fit as a fiddle and free to resume his position as chair of the Neurobiology department at St Catharine’s. His heart skipped with joy. Surely, four weeks of playing by Gessen’s rules was enough for him to admit the game was up.
‘The cream comes from a local farm,’ Gessen said, pointing to the silver pitcher, ‘famous for its cheese and butter.’
Churned by elves, no doubt, Vidor thought. While the mountain folk clung to their outmoded ways, the twenty-first century nipped at their heels like an insistent terrier. He smiled at his own nonsense. The hope of being sprung from this penal colony at last was making him giddy. The fire crackled. The coffee was perfectly brewed. Vidor had settled into a soporific calm when Gessen’s voice broke through his thoughts. Something about his teenage years in Paris.
A spasm of annoyance spoiled his mood. Had they circled back, once again, to the Paris of forty years ago? How many more hurdles did Gessen expect him to leap over before he was discharged? He gritted his teeth. ‘I’ve told you everything I remember from those days.’
‘Have you?’ Gessen raised his cup to his lips. ‘We’ve talked about your early days in Paris, when you were a schoolboy. We’ve never talked about your time as a pupil at the lycée, or about your decision to attend university in England.’
Vidor stood and walked to the window. He felt claustrophobic with the curtains shut, and pushed them aside to look out at the steadily falling snow. A winter landscape, gloomy, foreboding. In the distance he could just make out the Zen garden with its snow-covered topiary and the lamps lit against the gloom. A shadowy figure, lurking near the entrance, turned his face towards him before slipping inside the gardens. Ismail. He was alive.
It all made sense now. Part of the plot to force him to admit he was mad. I’m onto you now. As Vidor pressed his face to the glass, the boy caught sight of him and hurried away. Should he say something to Gessen? No. Better to keep it quiet and go along with whatever game the doctor was playing.
He returned to his chair and topped up his coffee. How to proceed? Tell Gessen the boring truth, or spice things up a bit to keep the man guessing?
‘What’s there to say? I went to school, did my homework, ran errands for my mother. When I was sixteen, I took a job at a grocer’s, stacking shelves.’ He smeared strawberry jam on a gipfeli and bit off
a chunk of the flaky pastry. Lately, he’d developed a nearly uncontrollable craving for anything sweet. Must be the mountain air, Vidor mused. At home in Cambridge, he hardly ever indulged, but now he couldn’t seem to get enough. ‘I was never arrested, never tardy to class. An excellent student.’ He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and gave Gessen a look of unrestrained exasperation. ‘I had the most boring adolescence imaginable.’
‘What about girls?’
‘What about them?’
‘Did you have girlfriends?’
Vidor snorted. ‘I was too shy to have a girlfriend. No social graces at all. I didn’t even kiss a girl until I got to Cambridge. And she was as shy as I was. Coke-bottle glasses, springy red hair. Valerie, her name was. One of only three girls in my advanced calculus class. And if you’re planning to ask me about my sexual life, let’s just say I’m a normal, red-blooded male. Everything in that department is perfectly functional.’
Gessen stood and poked the logs in the hearth, sending up a shower of sparks. When he returned to his chair, he opened a manila folder and extracted a glossy printout. ‘Do you recognise anyone in this photo?’
Vidor barely glanced at the sea of faces before handing it back. ‘No.’
‘Take your time,’ Gessen said, placing the photo on the table. ‘No one looks familiar?’ So, this was an ambush. The coffee and pastries, the chat by the fireside. A ruse to lull him into participating in his own demise. He pretended to scan the faces one row at a time. ‘I don’t recognise any of these people.’ Gessen didn’t blink. ‘Though it might help,’ Vidor said, ‘if you provided some context.’
‘It’s a photo of the first-year international students at the Sorbonne, taken in 1968.’
Vidor tossed the photo on the table. ‘I didn’t attend the Sorbonne.’