by Ann Gosslin
She glanced at the monitor above his bed. ‘Your fever’s down.’ Her fingers were cool on his wrist as she checked his pulse. He tried to get a look at her watch, but the angle was wrong. As she handed him a glass of water, her smile was kind as she waited for him to drink. Dark hair, dark eyes. A quizzical tilt to the head, reminiscent of a flamenco dancer who’d once caught his gaze on the streets of Seville. But he’d never seen this woman before. Was he really back at the clinic or was this all part of a massive game of deception? Pulling levers and twisting dials, to entice him into believing their version of reality.
‘Dr Gessen will be in shortly to see how you’re getting on.’
He watched her go and closed his eyes. So, it was true. He was back where he’d started. Would he never escape the hell he’d stumbled into? Behind his closed eyes appeared the outline of a face. Dark hair, agate eyes, a cruel smile. That man in the village… He explored the painful bump on his head. He was the victim here. The man had attacked him first. Anything Vidor might have done afterwards was self-defence.
Those eyes. Staring out from a face altered by time, but the same cold and calculating eyes he’d known all his life. The furious glare and curled lip, studying his infant son with a clinical gaze. As if observing a particularly strange and disturbing insect. Staring, wondering, waiting. ‘He’s not mine.’ The man’s voice vibrated with rage. In the background, a woman wept. ‘Whore! Did you really think you could pass off this pathetic worm as mine?’
‘Vidor?’
A face, colourless as the moon. Dark holes for eyes. ‘Vidor, can you hear me?’ Fingers snapped in front of his face. Go away. So tired. They must have given him something to dull his nerves and muzzle his thoughts.
After passing through a vast dreamscape of shifting terrain and monstrous shadows, it was still dark when he once again opened his eyes. The blinds were drawn across the window and he lay in bed, stiff and sore, hardly daring to breathe, wondering what new tortures they had in store for him. When he raised his hands to his face, he saw that his ring was gone. His mother’s ring. A keepsake all his life, and now they’d stolen it from him. A rustling sound in the corner, like dried stalks of grass. The stale air of exhaled breath. He stiffened. ‘Who’s there?’
A shadow detached itself from the wall and moved towards him.
‘Vidor?’
His heart thumped. Gessen. The blasted man was everywhere. All-seeing, all-knowing. Even now, sharpening his scalpel, itching to slice into Vidor’s cerebrum, to burrow into the limbic system and pluck out his memories, one at a time. Tell me about your father. He groaned and turned away.
‘How are you feeling?’ He pulled up a chair and sat at the foot of the bed. ‘Do you remember what happened?’
Vidor stared at the ceiling. ‘I want to go home. Haven’t you tortured me enough?’
Gessen switched on the bedside lamp. His eyes, obsidian in the dim light, shone with a keen intensity. Vidor squeezed his own eyes shut.
‘If you’re not ready to talk about it, would you mind, then, if I told you a story? We’re never too old for stories, are we? And the best ones often have the power to change our lives.’
Vidor’s leg ached, and he yearned to pull the bedsheet over his head. Never in his life had he so desperately wished to be alone.
‘A long time ago,’ Gessen began, ‘there was a young boy who lived with his loving parents in a vibrant and beautiful city. He was the longed-for son, and from the time of his birth, he knew nothing but happiness. Spoiled and coddled by his parents and much older sisters, he thrived in the protective warmth of his family’s love. Spending his days in the dappled sunlight of a courtyard garden, and his nights tucked up in bed by his mother, while listening to the classical music his father loved.
‘A few weeks before his sixth birthday, he was awakened with great urgency and pulled from his bed in the middle of the night. Hurried into a black automobile and forced to huddle under a blanket, his heart beating wildly, as the car drove at great speed along the dark and treacherous roads through the mountains. It was one of the boy’s starkest memories. Cowering under a blanket as the vehicle bumped and rattled through the blackness. The moonless night and hushed voices, the sharp, crystalline air.
‘Many years later, he would learn the details of that night. How he had been taken from his home, under cover of darkness, to travel with his mother, ostensibly for a holiday, by ship and train and bus to the other side of the world. Their final destination was a village in Switzerland, across the Rhine from Baden-Württemberg. The boy was assured his father would join them later, but he never did. No matter how long he waited or how many times he asked, “When will he come?” His father never appeared on the doorstep, laden with gifts and wreathed in smiles as was his wont, and the boy was heartbroken. How could he feel otherwise, when his father was a kind and loving man who doted on his only son?
‘Not long after the boy and his mother were settled in their new home, and he was enrolled in the local school, she failed to return from a trip to the market in the next town. He’d sat by the window until long after dark waiting for her to come. The two strangers, though friends of his mother’s, apparently, who’d taken them in, looked upon him with pity. When he asked where his mother was, they said he was not to worry, and that he would see her soon.
‘But the boy never saw her again. Nor his father, and it was understood he was not to speak of them. The people who raised the boy were not unkind, but having no children of their own, they often seem puzzled by what to make of him. When they left their home by the river and moved to another village, deep in the mountains, the boy wondered how his parents would find him so far away from where they had left him. At school, he used the surname of the people who’d taken him in. As the years passed, he could scarcely remember what his real name was, or the people who used to be his mother and father. All that remained was a photo, taken not long after he was born. His mother’s thick dark hair falling across her cheek as she gazed at the child in her arms. His father’s hand on her shoulder, looking straight into the camera, beaming with pride, as if to say, See what we have made.’
Gessen stood and pulled back the curtains. The moon was nearly full, and the ghostly light glazed the ever-deepening snow on the mountains. Beautiful but deadly.
‘As the boy grew older,’ Gessen continued, his eyes fixed on the highest peak, ‘he looked for his parents everywhere. He was sure he spotted his father boarding a streetcar in Zurich or seated in the back of a passing taxi. And wasn’t that his mother amongst the throngs of Saturday shoppers in the Bahnhofstrasse, pausing to look at shoes or handbags or bed linens in the plate-glass windows of the shops? With no proof of their deaths, how was he to know they weren’t still alive? The trick was to stay alert, and to look for them everywhere. Harness the power of filial love to align the planets, until they reached the exact point in space and time when their paths would intersect.’
He returned to the chair by the bed.
In Vidor’s drowsy state, the rhythm of Gessen’s words had taken on the cadence of a well-rehearsed chant. In that strange state between waking and sleep, Vidor’s mind left his body and floated towards the ceiling. A tranquil hideaway, under the eaves, where he might remain, suspended between the pull of the earth and the vacuum of space. Nothing in that liminal gap to disturb the peace and tenor of his mind.
‘Even now,’ Gessen said, the fading voice reaching Vidor from the other side of a distant shore, ‘long after the boy grew up and learned what kind of man his father was. When he wants nothing more than to strip their shared DNA from his tissue and bones, he thinks he sees him at times, or someone who looks like him. Turning the corner of a crowded street. Boarding a train. The scorched head and fiery-eyed gaze of a man burning in hell.’
A hush settled over the room. The only sound was Gessen’s breath, synched in time to Vidor’s own. ‘The ties of blood and bone are not easily broken. Even in death.’
A long stillness followe
d. Was there a moral to this particular tale? Vidor turned his head away, trying to slow the urgent ticking of his heart.
‘What I’m trying to say, Vidor, is that it might be helpful if you’d open your mind to the possibility you’re being haunted by the shadow of another life. By someone, long hidden, who now wishes to make himself known.’
As Gessen’s long monologue came to an end, Vidor could feel his mind, still unmoored from his body, being carried along on a deep current. Drifting above the ocean floor, wafting with the seagrass above the shifting sands. A shaft of sunlight pierced the murky water above his head. With little desire to swim towards the light, he clung to the seabed, feeling no sense of danger. Instead, a warm embrace and quiet murmur buoyed his spirits, as he felt the touch of a woman’s hand. He drifted and dreamed, content to float for all eternity, until a vague threat, like a dark stain, blocked out the sun. A boy with a face like a hatchet emerged from the depths to taunt him. You’re not supposed to be here. You should have died.
But he didn’t die. I did not die, he shouted, though no words came. I’m still here. He gasped for air as he moved upwards through the murk, struggling towards the light.
40
Vidor was relieved to see it wasn’t Gessen waiting for him, with his fangs concealed behind a false smile, but the welcome presence of Dr Lindstrom, dressed in a cream-coloured blouse and black skirt as if for a celebration. Had the Christmas holiday arrived, or was it already long past? While he’d been out, adrift in the liminal zone, time had lost all meaning.
She crossed the floor and handed him a glass of frothy liquid, the colour of a ripe peach. ‘Try it,’ she said. ‘It’s my favourite smoothie recipe. Loaded with vitamins.’
When he pronounced the drink delicious, she rewarded him with a smile. But as he settled into the chair her face creased with concern.
‘What a fright you had the other day in the village.’ She pulled her chair closer until their knees were practically touching.
‘I asked Dr Gessen if I could take over your session today.’
The concern in her eyes made it difficult for him to look away.
‘Just between you and me,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘he can be a bit of a badger, don’t you think? In light of your recent ordeal, I was able to convince him you might appreciate a more delicate touch.’
The scent of her cologne, reminiscent of a summer meadow, perfumed the air between them.
‘Where do you want me?’ he asked. ‘On the couch, or perhaps in this chair?’
‘The couch is better, don’t you think? More comfortable for you.’ She led him into the adjoining room and waited for him to stretch out, before covering him with a soft wool blanket. After lowering the lights, she settled in the chair behind his head.
‘Now, I’d like you to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Not in your chest but deep in your abdomen.’ She left the chair and placed her hand on his belly. ‘That’s right. Slow, deep breaths.’
When she moved her hand away, his heart lurched with a sense of inexplicable loss. How long had it been since he’d felt a woman’s touch? His weekly forays into Magda’s bed, always after dark, like a thief in the night, satisfied his physical urges to a degree, but did little to assuage his hunger for affection. But real affection required a vulnerability he was too ill-equipped to manage. Love offered, only to be withdrawn, would be the death of him.
‘After I heard about what happened in the village, I was worried about you,’ Dr Lindstrom said, her soft voice like music to his ears. ‘That man who frightened you…’
Was that a catch in her throat?
‘You’ve got to be careful with some of these mountain types. Living alone for months at a time. After what happened to Ismail, I sometimes wonder… well, never mind.’ Her voice fell away. ‘While you were in the medical bay, I was sick with worry.’
Behind him came the whisper of nylons as she crossed her legs.
‘It might help if you could tell me about it.’ Her breathing quickened. ‘That man who threatened you. I saw him in the village once and immediately crossed to the opposite side of the street. Something in his face frightened me.’
‘He was about to attack me, you know,’ Vidor said, warming to his role as victim. ‘He would have smashed my head on the floor like a pumpkin if I hadn’t defended myself.’
She sighed in sympathy. ‘I don’t know why they let him roam around the village. But these mountain men think they own the place. As if anyone from outside is an intruder – or a threat.’
As Vidor listened to her voice, his breathing slowed of its own accord, and his limbs grew heavy. Was he naturally tired, or had she put something in that juice she gave him? Never mind. The floating sensation was pleasant, and her voice a soothing whisper in his ear.
‘Tell me, did the man say anything to you? Had you ever seen him before?’
His lids fluttered, and he allowed them to close. ‘Something about the eyes. Something…’ As his mind drifted off, he struggled to stay awake. From a great height, he observed his own body stretched out on the couch, noting the shifting planes of his face and the laboured breath, as darkness descended like a veil.
‘I saw him once before,’ he said, his voice straining against the weight on his chest. ‘In Paris. A long time ago. Cold wind slicing through my skin. Shivering in my thin jacket, feverish, ill. A man with a face like thunder stepped out of a cinema and frowned at the darkening sky. It was the man who’d been stalking my nightmares for years. He lit a cigarette and hurried away. I followed him. When he stopped at a kiosk to buy a newspaper, I caught a glimpse of his hands, and the familiar silver ring. I tried to call out, but no words came. Just before he stepped into a taxi, he looked up at me, but showed no sign of recognition. Only after he disappeared down the street did my voice return. I knew who he was and cried out. Masakh! Khayin! But it was too late. He was gone.’
* * *
Ten minutes into the video of Ursula’s session with Vidor, Gessen nearly leapt from his chair. For a few seconds, Vidor’s face and voice underwent a dramatic transformation. A brief spasm altered his urbane, middle-aged countenance into that of a terrified boy. A split-second change brought on while recalling the memory of a man stepping out of a cinema.
He would have to confirm with a translator, but he would bet anything that the words Vidor shouted were not Hungarian.
The question now was a matter of awareness. If a second identity lurked inside Vidor, did he suspect, on some level, that another persona, with a different name and history, shared his psyche? Had it been a conscious choice to reinvent himself as a Hungarian named Vidor Kiraly Sovàny, a boy who’d presumably died by drowning? Or was it an authentic case of dissociative identity? In his long career as a psychiatrist, Gessen had only come across one case of multiple personality disorder. A skittish young woman, badly abused by her mother as a child, had harboured four distinct personalities, or alters, one of whom was a middle-aged man named Roland with a craggy voice and dark sense of humour, who liked single malt whisky and unfiltered cigarettes.
His thoughts bounced from one possibility to another. But no matter how he labelled it, this glimmer of insight into Vidor’s strange behaviour provided the evidence he needed to move forward.
He stood and walked to the window, but there was nothing to see but a thick covering of mist, with the high mountains lost behind the clouds. Only the second week of December, but all signs pointed to a bitter winter to come. The local Mountain Rescue would be busy this season. In the weeks since Ismail’s unfortunate death, they had taken three other bodies off the mountains. Ismail’s remains had been flown to Egypt for burial, and the civil lawsuit was working its way through the courts. At some point, according to Gessen’s lawyer, he would be called to give a deposition, but he had no desire to think about that now.
He rang his assistant for coffee and jotted down a few notes, hoping to strengthen his case in favour of dissociative identity. Both judge and jury.
For the sake of argument, Gessen surmised, let’s say that two different men, the one in the village and the man at the awards ceremony, had triggered a painful childhood memory. Not in Vidor’s mind, but in the mind of his subconscious alter. Perhaps in the guise of the boy from the Sorbonne, who he could no longer think of as Milen. The name didn’t sound right, but for this speculative exercise he would call him ‘M’.
Those two strange men, under vastly different circumstances, had clearly triggered something in M. A memory so terrifying it manifested as a recurring trauma. But if Vidor’s core persona was M, when had the transformation to Vidor Kiraly occurred? The other option, a dissociative disorder, or perhaps an extended fugue state, could mean that Vidor had acquired an alter that had nothing to do with his own life. What terrible traumas might he have suffered to cause his personality to split?
Returning to his desk, Gessen rewound the video to study it again, frame by frame, hoping to catch the exact moment of transformation. As he advanced the frames, a convulsion marred Vidor’s features, followed by a flash of terror and a heart-rending cry. Just as quickly, the boy’s frightened face vanished, to be replaced, a millisecond later, by Vidor’s placid expression. As Ursula wrapped up the session, she looked straight into the camera and nodded. Vidor sat up and looked around him, befuddled, as if he’d returned from a long and complex journey through a barren landscape.
Who was he? Gessen had waited to open Bertrand’s letter until he’d watched the video of Ursula’s session with Vidor, but he reached for it now and slit open the envelope.
Chèr Anton,
I’ve held off writing to you until I had some news. It took some digging, as nothing is digitised from those years, and the archives are tucked away in a dusty annex. After calling around, I was able to get a copy of the registration forms for three students, one of whom could be your man. Fortunately, a photo is stapled to the forms and, though much faded, might help you find what you’re looking for.