The Most Beautiful Night of the Soul

by Sandor Jaszberenyi

  “Then you were already hallucinating.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember?”

  “No.”

  “How did you finally manage to sleep?”

  “With Xanax and opium. Depends.”

  “Do you use them nowadays?”

  “No.”

  “But you still don’t have dreams.”

  “No. But maybe I just don’t remember them.”

  “How much are you able to sleep a day?”

  “I’ll do with four hours.”

  The woman stood up.

  “Look, I’m not here to pick on you.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’d like to help and I propose a deal. You’ll get a suitable assessment from me and you’ll be able to go to Iraq, if you check into a sleep clinic for three days. You’ll be subjected to nothing other than an assessment of when you sleep. After three days you’ll be free to go.”

  “There won’t be electroshock therapy or that sort of thing?”

  “No. It will be about simple examinations aimed at understanding your condition.”

  “And regardless of your results, you’ll sign the papers?”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  “And if I don’t go?”

  “Then I’ll write in my evaluation that you’re antisocial, have drug problems, and are suffering serious PTSD.”

  “Do you have a beau, doctor?”

  “I’m the one asking questions here.”

  She took her tablet from the desk drawer and began searching it.

  “Will tomorrow morning do for you?”

  “Yes.”

  She wrote something on a square slip of paper and handed it to me.

  “Dr. Patrick Mitchells, somnologist, clinical psychiatrist, Early Bird Hospital,” read the note, along with his institution’s address in central England.

  “I’ll call Dr. Mitchells and arrange for them to admit you. The company is covering the costs of the examination. Are you able to travel north?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll be there for three days.”

  I stood up and left the room. I walked down the hallway and out the front door. It was a gray afternoon in London, 5 PM. Men in dark suits were passing through the park in front of the clinic and old people sitting on benches were feeding the pigeons on the wet grass. I lit a cigarette. I walked back to the tube station and from there to my hotel.

  I shuddered at the thought of having to travel to the provinces, but I was not about go looking for a new job, either. At 9 PM I went to the Irish pub beside the hotel and had supper. I ordered chicken wings and washed them down with four whiskeys and three mugs of beer so I could get to sleep. I woke up at 4:30 AM.

  The entrance to the grounds of Early Bird Hospital comprised an arched, wrought-iron gate. No sooner did I step in front of its electronic sensor than it opened wide. A wide, gravel path led to the two-storey building, which had perhaps been some aristocratic family’s manor house a century or more earlier. Beside the front door was a small flower garden, which was clearly tended to daily. The grounds on each side of the building, lined with long rows of bushes, sprawled out in the wet darkness.

  A short flight of steps led to the door. Inside the reception booth just inside was a black man in a white, orderly’s outfit, who smiled on seeing me.

  “My name is Daniel Marosh,” I said, and put my backpack on the soft-hued tile floor.

  “Yes, the chief physician has been waiting for you,” said the man, who emerged from the booth and headed down the hallway.

  “Do follow me.”

  The chief physician’s office was at the end of the hall. We went past a common room in which men in pajamas were sitting about and a TV was on. The receptionist knocked on the door.

  “Do come in,” said the chief physician.

  The office was furnished in colonial style, with a large, leather couch and two armchairs, and paintings on the wall. Three people were sitting inside, each of them in a white coat. When I stepped in, everyone turned to me.

  “Hello, I’m looking for Dr. Patrick Mitchells.”

  “That’s me,” replied a fortyish man with red hair and glasses.

  “I am Daniel Marosh.”

  “The photographer Suzie told me about. Greetings.”

  He shook my hand.

  “In a moment I’ll ask one of the orderlies to show you your room.”

  “I can be here for three days in all.”

  “Then we’d best get going, no?” asked Mitchells, giving me a jovial fake punch on the side. He seemed like a good-natured fellow. I would have preferred to sock it to him right then and there.

  “Meet the team. This woman here is Dr. Maggie Evans, our psychotherapist, and the gentleman is Dr. Bartlet, our somnologist.”

  “Hello.”

  I shook hands with the two doctors. The woman seemed in her early forties and was seriously overweight, and the man looked to be about my age.

  “You came to the best possible place,” said Dr. Evans. “We here understand those with conditions like yours.”

  “Insomniacs?”

  “Yes,” she boomed meaningfully. “Here, you can feel free to open up. Our institution is founded on trust. We build trust between patient and doctor.”

  “Why, that’s terrific.”

  “Make yourself at home in your room,” said Dr. Mitchells. “Get changed. Since we really don’t have much time, we’ll already attach you to the machine tonight in the sleep lab.”

  “A polysomnogram,” Dr. Bartlet interjected on catching my eye. “It follows your pulse and your rate of breathing during sleep.”

  Dr. Mitchells picked up the phone and pressed a key.

  “John,” he said into the receiver, “would you come in and show the new patient his room?”

  Within a few seconds the orderly came in, and led me up some stairs to the second floor, where the patients’ rooms were. First, of course, he took away my phone. “This is a mobile-phone–free institution,” said John.

  My room comprised a bed and a closet. The furnishings did not exactly conjure up a hospital. As in the office downstairs, they too were colonial in style, and a watercolor painting hung on the wall. I unpacked my backpack. On a hanger in the closet I found a bathrobe with the institution’s initials. That’s what I got on over my boxers and T-shirt. Having tied it at the waist, I went off in search of the doctor.

  Dr. Bartlet’s office was right beside the common room. I had to ask one of the orderlies where to find him.

  The “sleep observation room” included a bed and, beside it, a machine from which hung various electrodes and a mask. It was not nearly as frightening as I’d imagined. Dr. Bartlet happened to be adjusting something on it when I stepped in.

  “Ah,” he said, “the photographer. I wanted to ask you a couple of things.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What is your weight?”

  “Two hundred pounds.”

  Dr. Bartlet set the machine.

  “Are you sleepy?”

  “Not really.”

  “When do you usually fall asleep?”

  “It varies.”

  “Did you use any stimulants today?”

  “Nothing other than coffee and cigarettes.”

  I looked at my watch. It was almost 9:30 PM.

  “Make yourself comfortable. First I will attach these to you.”

  I lay down on the bed. I had to pull up my T-shirt so he could attach the electrodes to my chest. He attached the oxygen mask to my mouth.

  Once we were set with that, Dr. Bartlet left the room.

  I lay there in complete darkness.

  How much time had passed, I’m not sure, but my mouth felt parched. I wanted to light a cigarette. I sat up in bed.

  “Can we have a five-minute cigarette break?”

  No one answered. I began removing the patches from myself. After finishing that I managed to find the door handle in the dark, and stepped out of
the room. The light in the hallway bothered my eyes, and I kept squinting until I got used to it. The wall clock read 4 AM.

  I smelled cigarette smoke in the air. I went in its direction. That led me toward the dining room. A man in his late fifties sat at a table, in his pajamas. He was using a plastic cup as an ashtray. His skin was mottled with liver spots and was eerily white, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Good evening,” I said, took a cigarette from the pocket of my gown, sat down, and lit up.

  “Who are you?” asked the man in a grating voice.

  “Daniel Marosh,” I said.

  “Yeah. You’re one of those kids, too, who killed, and now can’t sleep.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “So you think. And you’re not telling me nothing blew up beside you, that you didn’t get shot at, and that your ego can’t deal with being afraid of death? Poor little boy, you can’t understand why anyone would have wanted to kill you, and now you’re full of dread.”

  “You don’t know shit about me, you fag.”

  “I’m not a fag.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I don’t have any problem with fags. I have a problem with pricks.”

  The old fellow laughed.

  “Then would you tell me, Daniel Marosh, just what you’re doing in this institution?”

  “A London psychiatrist said my evaluation depends on getting myself examined.”

  “And do they know your problem already, Daniel Marosh?”

  “I got here only today.”

  “Do you know your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem. I don’t sleep much. I’m not the first such person in history.”

  “Why don’t you sleep much, Daniel Marosh?”

  “I figure it comes with the work.”

  “You really think so, Daniel Marosh?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you know. A man knows full well why he can’t sleep.”

  I took a drag on my cigarette.

  “The clock is ticking,” I said. “I don’t have time.”

  “So you see, Daniel Marosh. Now that’s an answer.”

  “Fuck that. Bigger pricks than me sleep through the night.”

  “Too bad that doesn’t really help you. Do you envy them?”

  “Fuck them. Fuck everything.”

  “Do you have a cigarette?”

  The old fellow got up from the table and stretched out. He picked up the plastic cup and then put it back on the table. I reached into my pocket and offered him a cigarette.

  “Do you believe in the soul, Daniel Marosh?” the old fellow asked, taking a drag on the cigarette.

  “Not really.”

  “With that, you’re already on the same page as Dr. Mitchells. He, too, thinks people are made up of biochemical processes, consciousness, and a nervous system.”

  “Yes. That’s also what I think.”

  “Then there’s nothing to fret about. You’ll be cured.”

  “And if I don’t want to be cured?”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to be cured? People don’t like being sick.”

  “My not sleeping much is not an illness.”

  I offered the old fellow another cigarette, and then we each lit up yet again. I stood up and stepped to the drink machine at the side of the dining room. It had only tea. I searched the pocket of my gown for quite a while before realizing I had no money on me. The old fellow stood, came over to me, and poured change into the machine. I took out two teas and put one of them beside him. For a while we sat there in silence, sipping the warm, lemony instant tea.

  “You know what ‘keeping vigil’ means?” he finally asked.

  “Some old custom.”

  “That’s right. In the old days folks used to keep vigil for the dead. It was a ritual of penitence. Jesus Christ kept vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane before he was crucified. The word originally meant to ‘watch over’.”

  “Aha,” I said, downing the rest of my tea. “I’m an atheist. Are you the camp chaplain here?”

  “Are you keeping vigil for something, Daniel Marosh?”

  “Then at least all this would mean something, huh?”

  “You’re keeping vigil for nothing.”

  The old fellow spoke that last sentence not so much to me, but just mumbled it to himself while staring out the window.

  The sun was rising. At first it only loomed faintly in the sky, but then the black sky turned dim, and the dim sky became daybreak. Finally the sun lit up the room.

  While taking my shower I wavered a bit: could I get through the next couple of days with a stone face? I concluded that I’d been in much shittier places in my life. On finishing, I returned to the dining room. The other patients were having breakfast at the tables—a bunch of twenty-something guys and a couple of middle-aged men. The old fellow was sitting alone in a corner. I took a tray—the breakfast was already on it—and sat down beside him.

  “Will you have your orange juice?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, and handed him the juice box. He stuck in the straw and slurped the juice down loudly. The same black orderly now stepped to our table who’d let me into the institution a day earlier.

  “Richard, I’ve already told you there’s no smoking in the building.”

  “Sue me, John.”

  “Don’t be smart with me, you old scoundrel, or else I won’t bring you more cigarettes. Besides, you shouldn’t be smoking in your condition.”

  He turned to me.

  “The chief doctor asked that I let you know to take part in the group therapy, and then you’ll have some respiratory stress tests. The doctor leading the group therapy will summon you.”

  “Fine.”

  I tried eating something but didn’t really have an appetite. Before long a rotund woman—this was Dr. Evans—billowed into the dining room.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. When you’re done with breakfast we will meet in Room A2 and have our tea during therapy. I’d ask the new arrivals to also join us.” She then left the room.

  Several people got up from the tables and followed her. I stuffed half a croissant down my throat, stood up, and headed after the others.

  Chairs were arranged in a semicircle in front of a table in Room A2. On the table was a red thermos, plastic cups, and a tray of biscuits. Dr. Evans was sitting beside the table with a smile. Four patients were in the room when I entered. I couldn’t stare about for long, since right after me the other two newcomers arrived.

  Once everyone had taken a seat, Dr. Evans began describing the aim of group therapy. I looked over the faces of the other patients. I would have bet my life that most of them were already under medication. I was surrounded by blank expressions.

  “Since we have new friends in the group, I’d ask everyone to introduce himself,” said Dr. Evans, not letting up on her smile for even a moment. “We’ll proceed counterclockwise.” I would be the sixth up.

  “Let’s begin,” said the doctor.

  First came a clean-shaven young man with black hair.

  “I’m John Lewis, and I have PTSD.”

  “Thank you, John,” said Dr. Evans. “I know you have your tea without sugar.” The doctor picked up a plastic cup, pressed a serving of tea into it from the thermos, and set the cup back on the table. John then got up, too, took the tea and a few biscuits, and sat back down.

  An older, fortyish character followed him.

  “I’m Mick Stanton. My family and I had an accident, and ever since I haven’t been able to sleep.”

  “You’re very brave to face up to the past, Mick. With two sugars, right?”

  From beside the table the doctor now produced a porcelain cup containing packs of sugar and plastic spoons. Mick leaned forward, and she handed him two packs of sugar and a spoon to go with his tea.

  Next came the third patient. A young, twentyish, blond kid with a frightened expression. He was anxiously rocking back and forth in his chair.

  “You’
re next,” said Dr. Evans. “What again is your name, young man?” The doctor raised the file folder that had been in her lap until now and opened it. “Jack.”

  “I saw the burnt-out city of madness. I walked its black streets.”

  “Well now, that is interesting indeed,” replied Dr. Evans, still smiling. “How will you have your tea?”

  “With two sugars.”

  “Do you want biscuits?”

  “Yes.”

  I got up from my chair to head out. Just as I reached the door I heard the rustle of papers in the doctor’s hands.

  “The therapy isn’t yet over, Mr. Marosh. You haven’t said a thing about yourself.”

  “I also have my tea with two sugars.”

  With quick steps I went down the hallway toward the exit. I took a cigarette and lighter from the pocket of my gown and told the receptionist that I was going out for a smoke. As I stepped out the door, the wind struck my face. I lit the cigarette.

  “I see that group therapy wasn’t quite to your liking,” came a voice to my right. Dr. Mitchells was sitting on a bench, smoking. This must have been the designated smoking place, since a large, freestanding ashtray stood by each end of the bench. I was mulling what to say in reply, but the chief doctor beat me to it.

  “No need to force it. It really does help lots of people, though. Won’t you sit down?”

  I sat down beside him on the bench.

  “John said you got to know Ronald.”

  “The crazy old fellow from the dining room.”

  “His condition really is getting worse, but I would not call him crazy.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “We don’t know exactly. Which is to say, we have our suspicions, but that hasn’t helped us much. Ronald appears to suffer from a rare illness called fatal familial insomnia. We’ve ruled out nearly everything else, and I myself am completely certain that that’s his illness. The symptoms include hallucinations and paranoia.”

  “Why isn’t it treated?”

  “There is no known cure for fatal familial insomnia, given that it is an inherited, prion disease. A protein has mutated in his brain, and it continuously stimulates the brain and prevents the theta waves of deep sleep, so Ronald gets no further even in sleep than the relaxed wakefulness characterized by alpha waves.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He can’t sleep. Ever. The disease is so rare that just a handful of people in history have been diagnosed with it. It is fatal in 100 percent of cases.”