by Ann Gosslin
‘Duly noted.’ Gessen placed the photo back in the folder. ‘But did you ever attend any social events? Surely, you had friends who studied there?’
‘Student parties were not my thing.’
‘What about the boy in this picture, do you recognise him?’ Gessen passed him another photo, a grainy blow-up, the resolution poor. A vein pulsed in Vidor’s neck as he studied the blurred features of a boy with shaggy brown hair and sallow cheeks. Where was Gessen going with this line of questioning? What began as the gentle probing of past memories had turned into an interrogation.
‘I haven’t the slightest idea who this is.’
Gessen had moved to a writing desk a few paces away and was looking down at something. He glanced up at Vidor, then down again, squinting. Vidor craned his neck to see what was so fascinating. It appeared to be another photo of the shaggy-haired boy. He was desperate to get back to his room. It was too hot by the fire and perspiration broke out on his neck. He reached up absently and flicked his ear. When would Gessen announce he was free to go home?
But no such announcement came. Instead, Gessen was staring at him, pinning him to the chair with his eyes. Then he launched into a rambling soliloquy, about his own student days at the Sorbonne, and how exciting it was. The libraries, his teachers, the intellectual challenges. How he’d started out studying mathematics and philosophy before switching to medicine. Such heady days, those years of his youth when the fervour to scale the towers of learning was like a drug.
Vidor nodded along, rigid with irritation, wondering if Gessen hadn’t completely lost the plot. Perhaps he should check himself into his own clinic. The idea made him smile.
‘I see my memories have brought you back to your own student days at Cambridge. In our next session, we’ll explore that time in your life,’ Gessen said. ‘It will make an excellent starting point.’
A starting point? Vidor rubbed a painful spot at the back of his neck. ‘But I thought…’
‘That you were going home today?’
He squeezed his eyes shut, like a sullen child.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ Gessen’s smile seemed to have morphed into a monstrous grin. ‘But we have quite a long way to go yet.’
35
San Luis Obispo, California
6 December 2008
Dear Dr Gessen,
How strange to arrive home, after several weeks away, to find your letter waiting in the stack of mail gathering dust. As if travelling through decades of space and time, my brother’s name fairly jumped off the page.
That you might have known my brother brings me great joy. Though I must correct you right away about his full name. Hungarian names can be confusing to outsiders, so allow me to explain: our family name (my father’s surname) is Sovàny, not Kiraly. My brother Vidor’s full name was Vidor Tadeas Kiraly Sovàny. Kiraly was my mother’s maiden name. It was common, in those days, to give the mother’s maiden name as a third name, in a nod to the maternal line.
Since you were somewhat cryptic about the nature of your inquiry, you should also know that just after he graduated from the lycée in Paris, my brother disappeared without a trace. There was an inquiry, but he was never found, and as time went on, our poor Vidor was presumed dead. Evidence pointed to a drowning in the Seine. No foul play was suggested, but there were no witnesses – or at least none that came forward. He had just earned his baccalaureate and had gone out to celebrate with friends. My family could only assume that he’d had too much to drink, and fell into the river and drowned.
A terrible shock. Our poor mother took to her bed for months. With no way to properly grieve, she found it impossible to live without knowing what happened. For a time, she was convinced he was still alive, and would spend all day wandering the streets, or standing at the window waiting for him to come home. At one point, we thought she might have to be institutionalised. She never believed he was dead. Though the other option, that he was alive and had run off, was even worse, I felt. Better dead than drive a stake through your own mother’s heart.
Vida was our own dear boy – he was always Vida at home, never Vidor – the only boy in a household of women and much loved and petted. Though we couldn’t make up for the absence of our father. We were refugees from the 1956 Hungarian uprising, and after helping us get to the Austrian border, my father turned back to join the resistance fighters in the capital. It was a terrible blow to all of us, but the unexpected abandonment affected Vida most of all. For months, he couldn’t be consoled.
When Vida disappeared, I was the only child still living at home. My three elder sisters were either married or out of the house by then and had lives of their own.
I was very close to my brother and his sudden disappearance from our lives was a terrible shock. My sisters left home within months of each other, not long before Vida’s disappearance, and in our diminished household my mother was truly bereft. We’d had a student lodger for a time, but he’d moved out by then. So it was just my mother and me, drowning in our grief.
I’m not sure what else I can tell you about my brother, but my sister Katerina still lives in Paris, and she may be of more use to you. A sweet boy, he was, and we had such hopes for his future. A glorious one, I’m sure, if not sadly cut short.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Renata Sovàny Thompson
Gessen folded the letter and added it to Vidor’s file. So there it was at last, the massive lie at the heart of Vidor’s story: that his father had lived in Paris with the family, after leading them all to safety. When in fact, he’d abandoned his wife and children at the border, obliging them to make their way alone. This unexpected betrayal was likely the long-festering psychic wound Gessen had been trying so hard to uncover.
Would it be impertinent, considering the family’s tragic loss, to ask her to send him a photo? At least the portrait of the Sovàny family was coming into focus. But if his Vidor Kiraly turned out to be Renata Thompson’s long-lost brother, Vidor Sovàny, it would be a fantastic coincidence. Even if it were true, why would Vidor have changed his surname to his mother’s maiden name, and when? Before or after his disappearance? It seemed horribly cruel to let his family believe he had died.
In his years as a psychiatrist, Gessen had come across many people who had spurned their families to make a new start. But if that were Vidor’s intention, why relinquish the name of the man he claimed to hold dearly in his heart? To escape detection and start a new life in England, free from the mother and sisters who professed to love him? Or perhaps Vidor unconsciously blamed his father for the betrayal at the border. To a six-year-old, it would have seemed a monstrous act to leave the family to fend for themselves.
He closed his eyes, calling up the image of Vidor raging at the man in Copenhagen. Though he’d been largely incoherent, a witness was able to identify two words in the stream of invective: monster and dead. Perhaps Vidor, in a break with reality, had confused a strange man with his father. And the voice spewing forth was that of a grieving and terrified young boy, shouting at the man who’d abandoned his family in their time of need. With Vidor blocking any attempt to uncover facets of his psyche, Gessen would have to get the information some other way. At least he had a lead on Vidor’s original surname. If – and it was a very big ‘if’ – this woman’s brother was the same Vidor who’d landed in his clinic.
That Renata Thompson’s brother had vanished without a trace lent another twist to the story. If he’d intentionally dropped off the radar, the name change would cover his tracks. Armed with a new lead, Gessen could track down others who’d known Vidor Sovàny in Paris. Teachers, friends, neighbours.
But there was still the puzzle of the boy from the Sorbonne. Had Vidor stayed on in Paris after his disappearance? Living under the very noses of his family, after adopting a new name and foreign accent to throw everyone off the scent? While Vidor was looking at the boy in the Sorbonne photo, Gessen was sure he’d seen a flicker about the eyes, a certain tension. Faint,
but it was there. The shape of Vidor’s mouth, and the flare of his nostrils, were similar to those of the boy in the photo. And that funny tic with his ear. He’d noticed it happened when Vidor grew nervous or upset. Perhaps if he took the photos to Madame Joubert and questioned her again about the Sovàny family, she might shed more light on the mystery.
* * *
Ensconced in the plush armchair in his suite, blissfully quiet now that Ismail was no longer on the other side of the wall, Vidor gazed idly at the shifting clouds. His other housemate, the OCD chap, must be out, and he relished the feeling of being truly alone. Through the window he spotted Gessen hurrying through the main gate, a black travel bag slung over his shoulder. Off on another mysterious errand, or perhaps he was in search of a patient to fill the vacancy left by the boy’s death. Egyptian, apparently, though Vidor would always think of him as a princeling from one of the oil-rich countries in the Gulf, where an accident of time and nature had bestowed the bewildered nomads with oceans of cash.
They were down to five now. How the clinic stayed in the black with so few patients was anyone’s guess. The sight of Gessen leaving the grounds brought with it a sense of relief. Who knew how long he would be gone, but even if it were just a day or two, it meant a welcome break from the man’s odious probing. Yesterday, at dinner, he’d found his schedule for today in an envelope on the table. A two-hour session with Dr Lindstrom in the morning, followed by another round of art therapy with Frau Olaru, or Isabelle, as she insisted he call her.
Why a man with a medical degree would promote such nonsense, he couldn’t imagine. The idea of art therapy was patently absurd. Despite the surprising painting of a desert he’d made during his first session, he didn’t believe that messing about with finger-paints like a preliterate child would reveal anything useful about the mysteries of the mind.
At least the art session with Frau Olaru would be amusing. Quirky and unconventional was not usually his thing, but he’d enjoyed his time with her. Besides, he needed a favour: to post a letter for him in the village. He suspected that his first letter, the one he’d sent to Magda, had been intercepted and opened. This new request for Magda’s help was meant for her eyes only, and he didn’t want to take any chances.
36
When he entered the breakfast room, Vidor was pleased to see Libby sitting alone at a table by the window. ‘May I join you?’
She gave him a blank look. ‘If you like.’
It wasn’t until he started in on his plate of eggs and buttered toast that he realised she was particularly distraught. Pale and wan, with tear-stained cheeks. He hoped she wasn’t crying over the Egyptian boy, though he’d long suspected the two of them had a special connection. Early birds, like himself, he’d come in to breakfast on a number of occasions to see them sitting at a corner table, their heads bent in conversation. Was she in love with him? Her eyes were definitely pink and puffy.
He should be upset, like everyone else, he supposed, even though the boy had harboured a malicious streak. After years spent in the thicket of undergraduates at the college, he could spot the bounders a mile away. It was a pity the boy had died, of course. Very sad for the family, indeed. But he was not sorry that Ismail was gone from the clinic. Vidor slept more easily at night now that the room next to him was empty. He hadn’t been able to rest properly knowing the erstwhile Emirati Prince lay inches from his own bed, or had his ear pressed against the wall.
He lifted the pot of coffee. ‘Shall I refresh your cup?’
‘No, thanks.’ She dabbed her nose with a linen napkin.
‘Poor you.’ He dared to pat her arm. He was old enough to be her father, so what harm could it do? He added a spoonful of sugar to his coffee and spread strawberry jam on a bread roll studded with poppy seeds, remembering, too late, he was trying to cut down on sweets.
‘How are you holding up?’ He gave her a sideways glance.
‘How do you mean?’
‘That poor boy’s death.’ He buttered another roll and sipped the coffee. Delicious as usual, though he suspected it lacked the full complement of caffeine. ‘I could tell you had feelings for him.’
‘I did not.’ Her face flushed red. ‘We were friends. Besides, Ismail was gay. Didn’t you know? He was madly in love with a man back home.’
Vidor’s hand jerked at the shock of this pronouncement. He stared at the splotch of coffee he’d spilled on the white linen. Not that it mattered, but he hadn’t the slightest inkling. ‘Back home. You mean in Egypt?’
‘No, England. What made you think he lived in Egypt?’
Flustered, Vidor added more sugar to his coffee. ‘I heard he was from there.’
She cut her gaze away. ‘Why do you care all of a sudden? Ismail said you loathed him.’
Loathed? He’d found the boy annoying, but other than that, he certainly wasn’t worth fussing about. He chalked up Libby’s overheated emotions to the excesses of the young. But her words floated between them like a noxious cloud. Best to change the subject.
‘I thought I’d take a swim today, work off some of this food.’ He patted his belly. ‘Have you used the fitness facilities? I hear the pool is very nice.’
She scraped back her hair. ‘Better than those idiotic Movement & Meditation classes they make us do. What’s that all about? Do they think we’re stupid? Why not just call it Group Therapy and be done with it?’
In commiseration, he smiled at the frustration that so neatly mirrored his own. ‘But would you go to something called Group Therapy? I’d avoid it like the plague.’
Her smile, though sad, felt like a vindication of his poor attempt at humour. Over the rim of his coffee cup he made note of the slump of her shoulders and the blue smudges under her eyes. Impossible to imagine how such a girl, with everything going for her, ended up here. What existential tragedies could she have possibly suffered in her young life? Though it could be something organic, like anorexia. She was terribly thin, and her skin so delicate he could see a tiny blue vein beating in her temple. As far as he could make out, the only thing she’d had for breakfast was black coffee and two bites of toast. Wasn’t anyone monitoring her food intake?
A shadow blocked the light. He looked up to see the German woman, Babette, making a beeline for the buffet. He hoped she wasn’t planning to join them, but after she filled her plate, he was relieved to see her retreat to a corner table where she began to fork thick slices of sausage into her mouth. She was getting fatter and more choleric by the hour. It was an effort to drag his eyes away as she viciously tore into a hunk of rye bread. Gessen’s patients were falling apart right in front of him, so where was he?
‘I know we’re not supposed to ask,’ Vidor said, turning away from Babette, ‘but since you know my story… it only seems natural.’ Her eyes grew wary as if she guessed what was coming. ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’ He nearly reached out to pat her hand but stopped himself in time. Since arriving at the clinic, so many of his thoughts and actions seemed out of step, as if in constant struggle with a more enlightened version of himself. Perhaps all this probing into his early life had caused him to regress into a childish state.
She pushed her chair back, her eyes focused elsewhere. ‘I have to go.’
‘Shall we meet up later for a swim?’
Tears leaked from her eyes as she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t…’ She gulped back a sob and bolted from the room.
Poor girl. He hoped he hadn’t stuck his foot in it. The sound of that woman’s monstrous chewing was driving him mad. What he needed was air. More than air. His desperation for a change of scene had reached a fever pitch. If he begged, perhaps Dr Lindstrom would agree to give him a pass to the village. It was the least she could do after thoroughly rebuffing his earlier and desperate plea to arrange for his discharge.
It would be his first outing from the clinic, and he’d been captive here for, what, nearly six weeks? Surely, he had earned the privilege by now. If he had to bring
along a minder, so be it. Gessen had left them to their own devices. And while the cat was away, it was a given that the mice in his charge would get up to a little mischief.
37
Gessen emerged from the Métro to a sodden sky and rain-spattered streets. He’d packed his folding umbrella at the bottom of his bag and by the time he dashed across the boulevard to shelter in a doorway, his shoes and jacket were soaked. Madame Chabon was expecting him at two, and he was already late. Not a good start to what would likely be an awkward meeting. Forty years had passed since her brother Vidor disappeared without a trace, but the pain of such a shock never truly went away. The heart yearned for answers, or some sense of closure. But in this case, there was neither.
A tiny, birdlike woman in a dark red wool dress and high-heeled shoes opened the door to the fourth-floor flat. A cloud of fine white hair was swept back from her forehead, and her eyes, bright as pebbles, took his measure before she invited him inside. As he dripped on the parquet in her entry hall, he apologised for his lateness and the state of his clothes, but she waved it away.
‘You are my guest, monsieur,’ she said, showing him where he could hang his coat. She disappeared and returned with a bright turquoise hand towel to dry his hair. Awash with a pearly light, the high-ceilinged main room was plainly furnished. The dominant feature, a grand piano, in the far corner by the window, gleamed with polish. The faint whoosh of traffic filtered in from the street. On a bookshelf, a brass carriage clock ticked the minutes. Otherwise, it was silent, and the air filled with the weight of expectation.
She disappeared into the back of the flat and returned with a silver pot of coffee on a tray and a plate of oval buttery biscuits, the kind sold in those little shops in Brittany. He remembered them from the time he’d fled Paris and travelled to the Finistère, not long after he’d broken things off with Sophie. Since then, Gessen had never returned to that part of France. Even the smell of the biscuits brought back the familiar nausea, but he took one to be polite and placed it on the edge of his plate.