Pilgrim

by Timothy Findley

  “I have good reason. I shall be leaving you soon.”

  “I think not.”

  “We shall see.”

  “Go back to stained glass. What proof have you that you were there at Chartres and took part in its creation?” Jung prepared to write in his notebook.

  “I cut my initials into one of the panes. It was blue, in the window now known as Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière.”

  “Our Lady of the Beautiful Glass.”

  “The Virgin. And the Christ Child in her lap.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Yes. Of course,” Pilgrim mimicked Jung’s accented delivery. “Yes. Of course, Herr Doktor Dimwit. Who else could it be? I’m sure you pray to her every day. Or do you have some other patron saint?”

  “I have no saints.”

  “One is tempted to say that you did have, once, but they deserted you. In time, the gods desert us all. They depart—and the skies are empty.”

  Jung sat down on the windowsill.

  “What might your initials have been, Mister Pilgrim, at that time?” His pen was poised.

  “S.l.J. Simon le Jeune. I was twenty-two. My father was one of the greatest glass-cutters in France. And a magician with colour. Nobody—to this day—nobody knows how he achieved the blue in that window. It is matchless.”

  Doubtless, the names were true. Simon—and his son, his namesake. Jung was thinking: he’s an art historian. Of course he knows these things. His whole life has been devoted to scholarship—everything he says and knows has been impeccably researched—impeccably imagined.

  Then he thought: he doesn’t seem to realize I’ve had access to his journals—in spite of that unfortunate accident with La Gioconda’s letter. Strange that he has never even mentioned her. I wonder…

  Aloud, Jung asked: “All these lives, Mister Pilgrim. By what means do you—in one lifetime—come to know about your past lifetimes?”

  “The memories come in exactly the same way as the prophecies—in dreams. Dreams that begin around the age of eighteen, with each new personage. And gradually, the dreams become memories…”

  “Surely, you can’t remember everything about every life. Or can you?”

  “Of course not—no more than you can remember everything about your own life. But I remember who I’ve been just as you or anyone else remembers who you’ve known over time. And gradually, the memories of past lives begin to cloud the early years of the present life. As it happens, I remember very little about the boy I was—by which I mean the boy, Pilgrim.”

  Jung decided to take yet another tack.

  “This quest for immortality,” he said. “What prompted you to begin it?”

  Pilgrim stared at Jung, incredulous.

  “Nothing prompted me,” he said. “DO YOU NEVER LISTEN!”

  Pilgrim stood up, and stared around the room, as if in search of something.

  “No wonder we are all mad here,” he said. “No wonder we are all insane. Our doctors refuse to hear us!”

  Jung said nothing.

  Pilgrim went into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water. He raised it to his lips, tilted his head back and drained the glass dry, after which he flung it to the floor.

  Jung did not move.

  Pilgrim said: “you saw me drink that water. You saw me. But the glass which contained it is shattered. YES? The truth—my story—is the water. It is in me. The broken glass is your reaction to it. Also sprach Zarathustra!”

  Pilgrim sat back down in his chair and wiped his lips with the yellow handkerchief, folding it into a ball in his hand.

  Finally, Jung said: “tell me who Lady Quartermaine was.”

  It was such an absolute non sequitur, Pilgrim paused. Then he said: “all you have to do is think of her name.”

  “Sybil?”

  “Sybil.”

  “A Sybil, Herr Doktor Blockhead, is an oracle—as at Delphi. She was appointed by Apollo to speak in his voice. Some called them priestesses—others, sayers. In modern times, we call them mediums.”

  “I know all this,” Jung said. “I merely wanted to know it was not a coincidental choice of name.”

  “Not a coincidental choice. Never. It was given her by the gods. The same gods, doubtless, who called her home.”

  “I see.”

  Quite mad.

  They sat then, silent—Jung on the windowsill, Pilgrim in his chair, his yellow handkerchief still clutched in his hand.

  “She is dead, Mister Pilgrim. She was human and she died.”

  “So you say.”

  “So I say.” And then: “like you, had she lived forever?” Jung’s voice was almost without intonation. He spoke as a priest might have spoken to a penitent—matter-of-factly and without emotion.

  Pilgrim picked at the wicker arm of his chair.

  “Not for so long,” he said.

  “And her death? You see meaning in the fact that she has died?”

  Pilgrim leaned forward.

  “I pray,” he said, “that it means my days are finally numbered. Perhaps it is true that, at long last, the gods are deserting us and their final gift is death.”

  Jung blinked. He looked away.

  The man’s pain was real enough. In fact, it was unbearable.

  Jung found himself thinking: to have waited so long…

  Then he frowned, and closed his notebook.

  He stood up.

  “Are you leaving?” Pilgrim asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I cannot say I’m sorry.”

  Jung walked to the door, pausing to collect the music bag and place his notebook inside it.

  “Mister Pilgrim,” he said, “I must tell you that I wish with all my heart I could help you. But—at the moment—I cannot.”

  Pilgrim said nothing.

  With his hand on the doorknob, Jung turned back and looked at the figure sitting in the sunlight.

  “I had a dream last night,” he said. “Not a dream—a nightmare. I dreamt the whole world was on fire and that no one could prevent the flames from spreading…”

  Pilgrim stared at the hand that held his handkerchief. And if you understood the prophetic nature of your dream, he thought, nobody would believe you, either…

  Jung said: “it was more horrifying than I can say, and I thought it would never end. It was the inferno itself. But I did find a way to make it stop.”

  “Oh?” said Pilgrim, placing the handkerchief in his pocket. “And how was that?”

  “I woke up,” said Jung. “Which is what I am hoping you will do.”

  When Jung had gone, Pilgrim sat motionless.

  I am an animal, he thought. I am an animal without hunters. I have no predators. If only someone would come with a gun. If only some beast not yet named would emerge from the forest and devour me. If only the gods who continue to protect me would turn away and focus on someone—anyone—else. If only the rivers would rise to drown me or the mountains fall to bury me. If only life were not so tenacious. If only life would let go.

  11

  Early in the evening of the 19th of June, Pilgrim sent his second message to Forster.

  His first message had read: HAVE RECEIVED NEWS YOU ARE PREPARING EVACUATION OF PRESENT SITE. GET MAPS: SWITZ., FRANCE. ALSO £500 TO ZÜR. BANK. P.

  His second message read: DAILY EXERCISE WALLED GARDEN REAR CLINIC. BEWARE GLASS. SUGGEST ROPE LADDER WITH PADDING. WILL ADVISE DATE, HOUR NEXT TWO DAYS. EXTRA FUEL FOR M’CAR. LONG JOURNEY. P.

  There were two pigeons left in the cage.

  The following day, Thursday, the 20th of June, Pilgrim—wearing his white suit and carrying his black shade—it was extremely hot—descended by elevator to the ground level and allowed himself to be escorted to the “prison yard.”

  Kessler was prattling on about angels.

  “Have you heard of the nine levels of celestial hierarchy, Mister Pilgrim? Most intriguing. There are seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, virtues, archangels and angels.
It is my belief that you have the power to be of the ninth order. I saw your wings when you arrived.”

  “You did, did you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And where might my wings be now?”

  “I cannot answer that. In my mind, I suppose. I know they weren’t real—but the thing is, they seemed real, and I wanted them to be real. Haven’t you ever wanted something to be real that wasn’t—even when you knew it couldn’t be made real? Like beautiful places in dreams—or angels…”

  “Yes. I have wanted much that is not real to be real. Much.”

  “There you are, then. That’s what I say.”

  Pilgrim smiled. Kessler’s simplicity was charming.

  In the yard there were many others, some of whom Pilgrim recognized, many of whom he did not. The man who thought he was a dog was there and the man who claimed he had eaten his children. Also, the woman who had tried to kill her keeper and was now so heavily sedated she would barely move. And the woman who looked as if she had run an English brothel.

  There were two others who caught Pilgrim’s attention—neither of whom he had seen before. One was a man who was collecting a pile of sand on a tabletop and was busily counting the number of grains. “Neun-tausend-zwei-und-fünfzig,” he muttered, “neun-tausend-drei-und-fünfzig…” The pile seemed barely diminished.

  The other stranger was a woman who had the appearance of a child actress. She was perhaps not quite five feet tall, with loosely brushed hair tied with a large pink bow. She wore a dress that might have been suitable for a twelve-year-old girl, white stockings and a pair of bright red slippers. She was in the charge of Schwester Dora, who was still very much in mourning for the Countess Blavinskeya. Pilgrim noted the black ribbon pinned to the breast of her uniform. They made, these two, a rather despondent pair as they walked arm in arm beneath the shade of a Japanese paper parasol.

  What a curious collection we are, Pilgrim thought as he took up his place in the parade. Dogs, infanticides, would-be murderers, sand obsessives, brothel owners and child-pretenders. All to say nothing of angels, if Kessler had his way.

  Wings would certainly be welcome, he thought. I could play Icarus and, knowing better, not fly too close to the sun. At least it would get me out of here.

  Freedom.

  Whatever that meant. The other side of the wall—a wilderness of unknown possibilities.

  This was at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  At two-thirty, Doctors Bleuler, Furtwängler, Menken, Raddi and Jung came and stood in an open window overlooking the yard.

  This visit was prior to one of their regular meetings in the Director’s office, where Bleuler received the others’ reports on their progress with patients and assessed them.

  Seeing the figures at the window, Pilgrim was made nervous. Pray God none of them—nor anyone—should come to a window during his escape attempt. The wall was all too visible from such a vantage point—possibly even its other side.

  Bleuler said: “we have so many in the yard. Are we falling behind?”

  Jung looked away. He thought, the last thing any of us needs is a disparaging remark like that. Not now. Not ever. How can a man of such stature be so insensitive? WE’RE TRYING! he wanted to yell.

  Furtwängler, ever ready to explain, told Doctor Bleuler that he thought the reason there were so many patients in the yard of confinement, as he called it, was that too many doctors were interfering in one another’s work. He mentioned no names.

  “A patient is a patient,” Furtwängler said, “and each patient has his own doctor—one and one only. But of late, there has been interference…” giving the word a curious twist—“…and as a result, we have not only more patients in the yard of confinement, but a dead patient, also.”

  “I presume you mean the Countess Blavinskeya,” said Bleuler.

  “I do,” said Furtwängler. “Unless, of course, we have recently lost another and I am unaware of it.”

  No one spoke.

  Then Jung said: “I am quite prepared to withdraw if Doctor Furtwängler persists in his charges…”

  Furtwängler said: “no names were mentioned, Carl Gustav. Not one name.”

  Toady, Jung thought. Courtier. Arse-kisser.

  Aloud, he said: “it was I who failed the Countess Blavinskeya. I failed her because I failed to rescue her in time from Josef Furtwängler’s machinations.” He turned to Furtwängler, who had himself turned pale, and said directly: “you killed her. You killed her spirit and her will to live. You destroyed her capacity for survival. And,” he was now blazing to such a degree that some of the patients in the yard halted their parade and turned to look up at the window, “and—four of those people down there are yours!”

  There was a brief silence and then Bleuler said: “is this true?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Raddi, who was in charge of the violent ward. “Unfortunately, it is so.”

  “Which patients might they be?” Bleuler asked coolly.

  Doctor Raddi named “the infanticide,” “the would-be murderer,” “the brothel owner” and the “sandman.”

  Bleuler nodded and then said: “and the rest?”

  “The man-who-has-lived-forever is mine,” Jung confessed.

  And Archie Menken said: “the woman-who-thinks-she’s-a-child is mine.”

  Bleuler said: “and why have you failed them—these last two? How have you failed them?”

  Archie looked at Jung and said: “I think we have a common problem. Neither of these patients seems to have any concept of the real world. It is not a place they avoid, as is true with the others, but a place they do not acknowledge.”

  “Would you agree with that, Doctor Jung?” Bleuler asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you, Doctor Furtwängler?” Bleuler continued. “The infanticide, the would-be killer, the brothel owner and the sandman—have they any concept of reality?”

  Furtwängler gave one of his charming smiles.

  “But of course,” he said. “They live in it.”

  Bleuler looked down again into the yard.

  The parade was in progress. Faces were more or less obscured by the steep angle.

  If there was a treadmill, Jung was thinking, they could be drawing water from a well or turning millet into flour…

  “Let us go in,” Bleuler said.

  And they went.

  The “child actress” stumbled and fell. She screamed.

  Her knees were grazed and her stockings were torn.

  Schwester Dora lifted her up and carried her to a chair where no sooner was the woman seated than the brothel owner came to comfort her.

  “Ooh!” she said. “What a pretty child! And can you sing?”

  The child actress, sobbing, nonetheless managed—in that way that children have of weeping while dry-eyed—to choke out an answer.

  “I can sing Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

  “Then let’s,” said the brothel owner, and began. “Mary had a little lamb…Come on, luv, you sing, too! Its fleece was white as snow…”

  The child finally began to sing.

  “That’s it! Keep going…And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go…”

  The others paused to listen. The brothel owner’s voice was almost a baritone, but the child’s voice was sweet and delicate. They finished Mary and moved on to Bo-peep.

  “Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep, And doesn’t know where to find them…”

  Pilgrim, feeling in extremis, searched the walls.

  One must get out of here. One must…

  But if he could promote the sort of diversion offered by the singing, he could be gone in seconds and no one the wiser.

  12

  That evening, Jung invited Emma to dine with him at the Hôtel Baur au Lac.

  “One does not invite one’s wife,” she told him. “One takes one’s wife.”

  “In that case, I shall take you.”

  Jung wore a red bowtie. Emma wore a blue dress. Blue
, she reminded herself, is the colour of hope.

  She could not avoid speculating about why Carl Gustav might have chosen this particular evening to eat away from home. And with her. Was it the anniversary of some event—their meeting? Their marriage? The death of a parent? Of course not. She knew all these by heart. They had been married now for more than nine years and already the talisman dates were burned into memory. How romantic we once were, she thought, with a rueful smile. We were married on Saint Valentine’s Day in 1903 and I carried paper hearts in my bouquet…

  Carl Gustav must have something to say he did not wish to say in front of Lotte, or with Frau Emmenthal listening at the kitchen door. Or perhaps there was a surprise—something exciting—a journey or a visit—perhaps a proposal that they try again for another child—or the news that his affair with Antonia Wolff had come to an end. She is moving to America…Oh! Wouldn’t that be splendid! China, of course, would be better—but America would do. As long as there could be an ocean or a continent between them.

  But none of these things was the answer. It was, as Emma would later realize, simply one more step towards the disaster of Carl Gustav’s breakdown.

  They drove to Zürich in the motor car. There was a moon. Halfway there, Jung brought the Fiat to a stop and insisted that they get out and stand by the grass at the side of the road. Then he went to the boot of the car and returned with two glasses and a bottle of chilled champagne.

  When the champagne was opened and poured, Jung placed the bottle on the ground, secured between his feet. Emma was calm, but wondered what on earth was happening. She wore an evening wrap and carefully adjusted it before Carl Gustav handed her a filled glass. She felt cold, though in fact the evening was still and warm. Crickets chirped and frogs called out their locations. I am here! they sang. I am here! Where are you?

  “We have come to celebrate the ascent of a goddess,” Jung said—and raised his glass to the moon. “To the Countess Tatiana Sergeyevna Blavinskeya,” he said. “May the trumpets have sounded and the violins have sustained her flight.”

  They drank.

  Before they returned to the car, Jung withdrew a previously written label from his inner pocket and hung it around the neck of the champagne bottle, which had been recorked. Setting the bottle carefully on the verge of the road where it would be certain to be seen, he told Emma that he had written: for those who stop here this night, it is requested that you pause and toast the Moon.