Pilgrim

by Timothy Findley

Jung gave a gentle nudge with his shoe.

  “Mister Pilgrim?”

  He knelt down.

  Even as he did so, he made a mental note that he had blundered in his assessment of Pilgrim’s state of mind—that he had lost him as a consequence of pride. His confidence that he knew better, that Pilgrim had no real desire to further harm himself had overridden common sense. A man who really wants to die will try and try and try again…as this man already has.

  All this went through his mind as he descended to his knees. And furthermore…

  His knees struck the floor.

  Pain.

  Tiles.

  Bruising hard and freezing cold.

  He caught his breath and reached out with both his hands, sliding them palm down across what felt like the wind-blown ice of his childhood—the nightmare ice of Lake Constance.

  His fingers caught hold of a sleeve.

  Tweed.

  Rough.

  Empty.

  He pulled the jacket towards him.

  Then a shirt with its collar torn off.

  He raced his fingers over every pocket on his body.

  Matches. Matches. Where?

  He was wearing a white smock and under it, his jacket, waistcoat and shirt. Pockets. Pockets. Too many pockets…

  There, you idiot!

  Of course.

  Lower left waistcoat pocket, exactly where you left them.

  It took three unsuccessful attempts before, at last, the fourth match flared.

  By its light Jung saw that he was adrift in a pool of discarded clothing—trousers—necktie—underwear—shoes—socks—jacket—shirt…

  Oh God—where is he?

  The match burned down to Jung’s fingertips. Throwing it into a corner, he struck another and struggled to his feet.

  The light switch was on the light above the sink.

  Wonder of wonders! Ingenious! A light switch on a light! Idiot!

  He pulled its chain.

  In the recording part of his brain, he made a note to have The Universal Designer of Bathrooms brought before the Universal Court of Safety Precautions. Light switches dangling over water taps in a mental institution. Insanity!

  Pilgrim.

  Jung could see him in the mirror. Or, at least, a part of him. The top of his head. A shoulder.

  He was lying naked in the bathtub.

  Jung stood frozen.

  He knew that he had to call the others but his mouth would not open.

  In seconds that felt like hours, he had bruised his knees yet again and was kneeling down by Pilgrim’s side.

  The bottom of the tub was scarlet.

  Oh dear God—he’s succeeded.

  But he had not.

  Even as Jung reached out for Pilgrim’s wrists, the body convulsed and almost sat up.

  It waved its hands in the air and dropped them back to its sides, where they began a frantic search under sodden thighs and buttocks. At last, the right hand rose exultant.

  In it, there was a spoon. A small spoon with serrated edges.

  The words half a grapefruit for breakfast raced through Jung’s mind. Half a grapefruit eaten with a serrated spoon.

  With his left hand, Pilgrim grasped Jung’s lapels and drew him down towards his face.

  His mouth opened.

  He held out the spoon.

  His eyes were filled with anguish.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Please,” he said and thrust the pathetic spoon in Jung’s direction. “Kill me.”

  Jung undid the fingers on his lapel and stood up.

  He collected some towels and draped them over Pilgrim’s body, putting still more in the sink, into which he had already begun to run cold water.

  Placing the spoon in his pocket, he went over to the door and opened it.

  Before turning back towards the bathtub, Jung looked out into the other room, which was ablaze with sunlight, and said to his colleagues: “you may come in, now. He has spoken.”

  11

  It was Menken and Kessler who accompanied Pilgrim to the surgery, where the wounds on his wrists were dealt with. Even though a great deal of blood had flowed, the damage was not as severe as it would have been had Pilgrim used a knife. But knives deployed on the trays that went to patients who ate in their rooms were always of the sort with blunt ends and dull edges—knives with which no harm could be done at all.

  After the others had departed, Furtwängler gave a sigh and raised his arms in a helpless gesture. “Well then,” he said—sinking onto Pilgrim’s bed, “what am I to do with you?”

  “With me?” Jung asked. “Why me?”

  “We might have prevented all this, if you hadn’t interfered.”

  “Nothing would have prevented it,” said Jung. “I mean—imagine! A man tries to kill himself with a spoon. Sounds like fair desperation to me. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You curried favour with him. The minute you held the jacket for him he knew he had you in the palm of his hand. I despair. You did this with Blavinskeya. You raved about the wonders of the Moon. You did it with the Dog-man. You allowed his minder to walk him on a chain. You told the Man-with-the-imaginary-pen you thought he had created the most beautiful writing you had ever read! I swear you don’t want to bring them back. You want to leave them stranded in their dreams!”

  Jung turned towards the bureau and fingered a photograph there in a silver frame. It showed a woman who appeared to be in mourning—eyes cast down, chin lowered, black beads and dress.

  “It isn’t true,” he said, “that I want to abandon them to their dreams. But someone has to tell them their dreams are real.” Then he added: “and their nightmares.”

  “They aren’t real. They’re what they are—the manifestations of madness.”

  “The Moon is real,” Jung said. “A dog’s life is real. The imagined word is real. If they believe these things, then so must we…at least until we have learned to talk their language and hear their voices.”

  “Oh, yes.” Furtwängler sighed again. “I know all that. But you take it too far. When Pilgrim spoke, what did he say to you? Kill me. He would not have said that to me. Or to Menken. Or to Bleuler. He would not have said that to any other physician in this institution. Not to one of us—only to you. And only to you because you always pretend to be an ally—a coconspirator with the patient.”

  “I am the patient’s ally. That’s why I’m here. It’s why we’re all here, Josef.”

  “No. Not to be allies. Not to be co-conspirators. Friends, yes. And with sympathy—yes. But not with connivance—not accepting that only they can set the rules. We set the rules. Reality sets the rules. Not them. Not madmen…crazy people…”

  “I thought we had agreed never to use those words,” said Jung. “We never say mad and we never say crazy. It was agreed.”

  “Well, I say mad and I say crazy when mad and crazy pertain. And right now, I think you are mad.” Furtwängler stood up. “Good God,” he said. “We have him here only two days and he tries to kill himself again.”

  “It’s in the nature of his nature,” said Jung. “Apparently.”

  “There you go again! Apparently!’ What does apparently mean in Pilgrim’s case. You’ve barely met him.”

  “I take what I’m given,” said Jung. “I take what they have to offer. He offered slit wrists. So?”

  “So leave him alone and leave him to me.”

  “Then why did you ask me here? And Archie Menken. Why did you ask us here?”

  Furtwängler wanted to kick himself and say: because I’m stupid—but instead, he said: “I don’t know. I suppose for the old-fashioned reason that another physician’s opinion might be useful. I should have known better. Especially given my experience over time with you.”

  “I wish you didn’t feel that way.”

  “I have to, don’t I. You’ve given me no choice, Carl Gustav.”

  “And so?”

  “And so I shall have to ask you not to have contact with M
ister Pilgrim until further notice.”

  Having said this, Furtwängler turned away and went to the door between the two rooms, where he lingered briefly and then said over his shoulder: “good morning to you,” after which he left.

  “Good morning,” Jung replied—but only in a whisper. When he heard the outer doors shut, he turned back towards the windows. Then he sat down and looked at his hands. I have the hands of a peasant, he thought. A peasant’s hands—and a peasant’s blundering ways.

  Less than a minute later, Kessler returned and told him that Mister Pilgrim would be kept in the infirmary for the rest of the day.

  “Any serious damage done?” Jung asked.

  “Not of any permanent nature, though it seems he cut fairly deep for a man with nothing but a spoon. It’s mostly they want to keep an eye on him. I met Doctor Furtwängler in the hall just now and he said he was going to check on him.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, then,” said Kessler, “I’ll do a bit of cleaning up in the bathroom.”

  “Of course.”

  Jung remained in Pilgrim’s bedroom, wandering with apparent aimlessness from bed to bureau to desk—inspecting the surfaces with a careless finger, as if checking for the presence or absence of dust. At the bureau, he paused long enough to open and close the drawers one by one, leafing through the handkerchiefs, the shirts, the underclothes, the neatly folded cravats and foulards.

  Clearly, Pilgrim was a man of wealth. He also had discerning standards—quality making up for quantity. As with most who are born to a world where grace and wealth go hand in hand, the concept of having more than one needed was vulgar—if not indecent. Laid out beneath Jung’s inquiring fingers were shirts that would last for ten or fifteen years, so long as the owner’s girth did not increase. Their collars would be a different story, and handkerchiefs, of course, could not be expected to last so long, nor stockings. Simple and serviceable underclothes such as he found could last perhaps three or four years. Ties are for forever.

  Forever. Why had this word occurred and recurred in his mind this day? Forever. Forever. Not last week. Not yesterday. But only today: forever.

  Well…

  He gazed again at the woman’s face in the silver frame. She had the look of another age and style—of twenty, even thirty years ago, before the century turned. And who was she in mourning for—a dead child—her husband? Perhaps herself?

  In the bathroom, Kessler was collecting Pilgrim’s discarded clothing and preparing it for the laundry.

  “Funny,” he said to Jung as he came out to the bed and began to sort through the pile, “how the clothes thrown off by a suicide seem somehow to be soiled. I dressed him this morning and I know that every bit of this was freshly laundered when he put it on. While my fingers know it is clean, some instinct tells me it is not.”

  “That’s what you call an atavistic reaction, Kessler,” Jung said. “Same as any child—even a baby—would know a viper is dangerous. But Mister Pilgrim has not committed suicide. He is still alive.”

  “Yes, well…” said Kessler. “Them as tries and fails will try again. That’s my experience of it, anyway. Yours, too, Doctor—I should think.”

  “Yes. I admit it. Mister Pilgrim will more than likely try again.”

  Kessler held Pilgrim’s discarded shirt in front of him, stretching its cream-coloured arms to the limit. Wings.

  “Not a small man, is he.”

  “No. He certainly towers over me. Let me see that, would you.”

  Jung put his hand out and Kessler passed him the shirt. “It is what they call Egyptian cotton,” he said. “Soft as a baby’s kiss.”

  Jung held it up to his nose.

  Kessler said: “if I might say so, sir, that seems a funny sort of thing to do. To smell another man’s shirt.”

  “Lemons,” said Jung. “It smells of lemons. Lemons and something else…”

  He threw the shirt back to Kessler, who tested its scent and said: “lemons. Yes. He wears a sort of toilet water. Pats it on his cheeks when I’ve shaved him. You’ll find it in the bathroom.”

  Jung went through the door and found the bottle above the sink on a marble shelf. It had a round glass stopper. Its label was grey and written in English.

  Penhaligon’s of London, he read. By Appointment to His Majesty, King Edward VII, Perfumers.

  And underneath, in scroll-like print, he deciphered: Blenheim Bouquet.

  Jung removed the stopper and sniffed. Lemons. Oranges. Limes and moss. And perhaps a touch of rosemary…

  “There was a woman here this morning,” he said. “In the reception room with Doctor Furtwängler…” He tipped the bottle and wet his finger end with the contents. “Would you happen to know who she was?”

  “That would be Lady Quartermaine,” said Kessler. “I recognized her motor car. She brought Mister Pilgrim from London yesterday.”

  Jung reappeared in the doorway.

  Kessler was standing beside the armoire, hanging up the tweed jacket. There was a clothes brush in his hand.

  “Quartermaine, you say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then she must wear it, too—this scent. I could smell it on Doctor Furtwängler when he came into the hall.”

  Kessler turned from the armoire with a shocked expression on his face. “I don’t know what you’re saying, sir. The notion is inconceivable.” He gave the jacket a final swipe with the brush and closed the door.

  “No, no, no,” said Jung, and laughed. “I’m not suggesting they embraced. Nothing of the kind. It is just that I have the nose of a bloodhound. Lady Quarter-maine must have shaken Furtwängler’s hand. I could smell it on his fingers.”

  “Well. That certainly is a talent, sir. I’m amazed.”

  “Do you know where Lady Quartermaine might be staying?”

  “At the Hôtel Baur au Lac, sir. I heard it being said.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jung was making for the corridor.

  “Doctor?”

  Jung turned.

  “Before you go, I think I should draw your attention…” Kessler seemed embarrassed. “There’s another little irregularity regarding Mister Pilgrim, sir. I mean—besides his not speaking and his trying to kill himself…”

  “What is that?”

  “There’s a mark on him, sir. On his backside…”

  “His buttocks, you mean?”

  “No, sir. Right between the shoulder blades.”

  “What sort of mark?”

  “Not unlike a tattoo. You’ve seen a tattoo, I suppose. I mention it, because the sight of it made me wonder, had Mister Pilgrim been to sea. You know how sailors are—drawings all over, some of them.”

  “What does it show, this tattoo?”

  “A butterfly, sir. And one other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “It is all one colour, Doctor. Red, you see. Most unusual. It has the look of pin pricks—just like someone had pricked it out on Mister Pilgrim’s back with a needle or a pin. Dot—dot. Dot—dot. Dot—dot—dot. You see? Very odd. Not your normal everyday naval tattoo. I just thought you should know. He tried to hide it. Tried to hurry into his shirt before I got to him. But I saw it, nevertheless, in the mirror plain as day. It made me wonder…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it made me wonder if maybe it was some kind of—I don’t know—insignia. Like he belonged to some kind of club or secret society. That sort of thing. A sign or a signal for others of his kind.”

  “Thank you, Kessler. All very interesting.”

  “Yes, sir. Same as a person might say that Mister Pilgrim himself is all very interesting. Not your average lunatic, so to speak. If you know what I mean.”

  “Yes. Indeed I do. Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Doctor.”

  When Jung had gone and shut the door behind him, Kessler went back to the bed and lifted up Pilgrim’s shirt—stretching its arms as he had before and holding it out to the sunlight str
eaming through the windows.

  So, angels smell of lemons, do they. Well, well, well. They smell of lemons—and where their wings are fixed, God marks it with a butterfly—right between the shoulder blades.

  Spreading the arms, he watched the wavering sunlight through their folds. And closed—and opened them. And closed—and opened them again—and then again—in angel flight.

  12

  Kessler, his mother and his sister Elvire lived in a tall narrow house halfway down the slope between the Clinic and the River Limmat. He was the only son in a family that otherwise boasted six daughters, five of whom had been successfully married. The sixth, Elvire, had been chosen to see her parents through to death—to keep house for them, to run their errands and to act, in his early years, as Johannes Kessler’s nursemaid.

  They were poor. Both parents had worked outside the home—Johannes, Senior, in the flour mill, Frau Eda as cook for a lawyer who happened to be a bachelor—a certain Herr Munster. His unmarried status posed no threat, however. Frau Eda would not have tolerated the most understated of advances. She had ambitions for her children and not a hint of scandal would touch them. They would achieve a place in the middle class, which her parents had spent their lives achieving before them.

  Her children’s greatest asset had been her own dowry—the house they lived in, a gift from her dying father. If not for the house, which sat at the centre of a middle-class district, they would have been forced to live at the furthest reaches of the city, where the poor were crowded in hovels and tenements packed in amongst the mills and factories. It was to this place that Johannes, Senior, had to make his way each day, and from which, each day, he returned.

  Young Kessler’s earliest memories were of his father seated alone of an evening, staring exhausted above a bowl of soup, seeing nothing, saying nothing, only lifting a spoon to his mouth and letting it descend until the bowl was empty. At which point Elvire would remove the spoon from his hand and put a fork in its place. Sausage, cabbage and potatoes followed—eaten blankly between mouthfuls of pale beer and sops of bread.

  Meanwhile, the child Johannes sat in his high-chair, moving his fingers over a plate of mash made up of whatever his father was given to eat each evening—whether sausage, cabbage and potato, or potato, sausage and cabbage. It was their only diet—though, to her credit, Elvire tried to vary the modes of cooking—sometimes broiling, sometimes baking, sometimes braising the food.