I Confess (3 page)

"And why poor idiot?"

"I didn't want to call it quits. I thought perhap**! could persuade you to end it—^with your wife."

I didn't close the door behind me. I wenf ofut into the foyer where I had left my hat. In the mirror beside the front door I saw Yolanda once more. She was standing still in the middle of the room, examining her nails. Then I went down the stairs and out into the street. It was still raining. My temples felt swollen. Every step I took hurt my eyes. I had never felt so ill. I was afraid I wouldn't reach my car.

The altercation with Yolanda had exhausted me more than I cared to admit. It was not the first of its kind. But it was going to be the last. Yes, I thought—the last! It was all too debilitating. I had to finish my script, then away to another city. Perhaps I could find another woman. Perhaps not. At the moment I didn't even find the thought of another woman attractive. When I got through, I'd take time off. Perhaps go fishing. Alone. I hke to fish. Something ran down my cheek. I was crying. I stopped and blew my nose. Nerves. During our quarrel I had grown terribly hot, and now I couldn't stop the tears. A httle girl was sitting on the stone path of the small garden in front of the house. She looked at me curiously.

"Don't you feel well, Mister?"

"I'm aU right."

''But you're crying." The little girl got up and looked at me delightedly. "Does anything hurt?"

"No."

"Then why are you crying?'*

"Something flew in my eye."

My car stood at the curb. I needed approximately twenty steps to reach it.

"Please let me pass," I told the little girl. "I'm in a hurry."

She stepped aside, then ran behmd me. "Mister . . . Mister . . .** I stopped* "Yes?"

"I feel sorry for you," she said. "Here's a present for you."

She took a dirty little paper bag out of the pocket of her apron and with her dirty little fingers fished out a dirty piece of hard candy. "It's filled," she said.

"Thank you."

"Put it in your mouth/*

"Later."

"No. Now. I want to see you do it."

I put the sucker in my mouth. It felt sticky on my tongue. My stomach revolted. I tried to swallow. And with that a huge black arrow shot toward my eyes, split in front of my face and hit me squarely in both pupils. I screamed. I fell. The black arrow exploded into a blinding light. I could feel my head strike stone and the Uttle girl crying out in fear.

And I hadn't called Hellweg, was all I could think before tumbling down the ever widening shaft of a deep faint.

I had never fainted before in my life.

I had often let the protagonists in my films—^preferably the heroines—^faint at an appropriately effective moment, but for me personally it was an absolutely new and fascinating experience. More than that—it was the most beautiful experience of my entire life. The period during which I was unconscious cannot be compared in perfection, in serenity and weightless detachment, with any other condition ever experienced. I was in paradise—if there is such a thing—and if death should turn out to be anywhere

nearly as wonderful, then my last hours should be the happiest of my life and hopefully anticipated.

I didn't dream. I saw no faces. I experienced no important impressions of the past as in a film flashback. I heard no voices, no music. I had no nightmares, no sense of oppression. / was at peace. The perfect beatific peace that I believe is mentioned frequently in the Bible as a promise. Perhaps this is the feeling drug addicts seek, the condition they prize and hoard like a secret treasure. If so, I understand them, all those who forge prescriptions and become thieves, who leave their families and go down into dirty cellars to soil and humihate themselves. I can understand all of them, if it is the longing for this condition of peace, this blessed salvation, that drives them. Since my faint I have become their brother. I feel as they do and I long to return to this moment of my most extreme enfeeblement, just as I yearn for the bliss of a happy childhood, gone under and forgotten long ago. I have no idea if all faints are so miraculous. Mine was. And I therefore wait for death almost impatiently, hoping that in some small way it will be similar. Because just before I came to I had the briefest feeling that death had caught up with me, that I ^ was in its realm. But I was wrong. Almost at once consciousness returned and with it the gates of paradise closed behind me. I had only been a guest.

I was lying in a white bed in a big white room. Everything in the room was white—the walls, the furniture, the curtains, the doors. Even the man sitting at my bedside,

watching me as I opened my eyes was white. He wore a white coat and had white hair.

I looked at him for quite some time in silence. Then I looked across the room, to the window. The sun was shining. It hurt my eyes and I turned away.

"Headache?" asked the man.

"Yes."

"Eyes too?"

"Yes."

"Hm," he said, then he smUed. "Mr. Chandler?"

"Yes."

"My name is Eulenglas."

"Pleased to meet you," I said. Then at last T remembered what I had wanted to ask right away. "Where am I?"

"In the Golden Cross."

"In a ho ... ho .. . ho ...," I stopped, horrified. I wanted to say 'hospital,' but the word wouldn't come.

Eulenglas sat motionless, watching me. "I beg your pardon?"

"In a ho ... ho ... ho ...," I was sweating, my temples were throbbing, I was on the verge of tears. There I lay, a babbling idiot who couldn't say the word hospital. What in God's name had happened to me?

"You can't say the word?" said Eulenglas, and I hated him for the stupidity of the question.

I shook my head.

"But you know what you want to say?"

I nodded.

"Try again."

I tried again. It was ghastly. The tears shot to my eyes. "So help me, for God's sake!" I screamed.

"In a hospital, Mr. Chandler," said Eulenglas amiably.

And now I could say the word too, and it was a blessing I felt physically. "In a hospital!"

"There you are," said Eulenglas.

"What does it mean?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What is it that prevents me from saying certain words?"

"It will pass, Mr. Chandler."

"I want to know what it is."

"It is called hteral paraphasia," he replied at once. He had recognized me as an intellectual. An intellectual always has to have everything explained to him. When he thinks he understands, he feels better. "Your brain is irritated. A certain muscle in your speech center is provoked and isn't functioning properly. It will right itself. That's all, Mr. Chandler."

"Aha," I said. I thought I understood and at once felt better. Now I could see his face more clearly. My eyes, which at first had seemed streaked and veiled, now suddenly functioned properly. Eulenglas was wearing thick glasses and had a small, tanned scholarly head.

"You had a minor accident. They brought you here, to Professor Vogt. I am his assistant."

"Vogt?" Dimly the name registered. "The surgeon?"

"Yes."

"And what does that mean?" I sat up. "Why am I here?"

"For an examination." He pushed me gently back onto my pillow.

"Who brought me here?"

"Your wife^ Mr. Chandler."

"Oh," I said. Then I was silent for a while, trying to think. But my memor>^ was still blotted out.

"You were taken to emergency first," said Eulenglas. "Then your wife was notified and she wanted you brought here."

"When was that?"

"Yesterday."

Suddenly, like a gigantic wave, I could feel the whole misery and onus of life descending upon me again. I closed my eyes.

"What day is it?"

"Monday."

"And what's the time?"

"Qose to noon."

"But that isn't possible. I can remember exactly...." then I stopped. I couldn't remember a thing.

"You were brought to emergency yesterday afternoon at about five o'clock. You were unconscious, Mr. Chandler. For a considerable length of time."

"How long?"

"Until about midnight."

"And then?"

"We gave you something to sleep and to facilitate your removal to the clinic."

Suddenly—a spark of memory. "Yo ... Yo ..; Yo ..." I began. There it was again. I couldn't even say her name. My God, I thought. My God!

"I beg your pardon?" Eulenglas was looking at me inquiringly.

"Nothing. Where did they find me?"

"In front of 127 Romanstrasse," he said. "I take it you were there on business."

"Yes," I said. "My secretary lives there. I'm working on a script." I considered for a moment, then added, "I had to dictate two new scenes."

"She has been here," ^aid Eulenglas.

"Who?"

"Miss Yolanda Caspari," he replied. "That's your secretary's name, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "When was she here?"

"This morning. She brought those flowers." He pointed to a small table beside my bed. A telephone stood on it, and beside the phone, two vases of flowers—red gladiolas in one, heUotrope in the other.

"The gladiolas are from your wife," he said, looking at me again. I had the feeling that he was amused.

"Why are you smiling?" I asked. My tone was sharp.

He looked slightly baffled. "I'm sorry, Mr. Chandler."

"I asked why you were smiling. What's so funny?"

"You are unnerved, Mr. Chandler. I wasn't smiling."

"Oh," I said, slightly dashed. Perhaps he hadn't smiled. I was unnerved. "I apologize."

"That's quite all right, Mr. Chandler. You speak excellent German."

"My grandparents were German. In my family German was the second language."

"I see." Now he really was smiling, but it was a friendly-doctor smile. "Both ladies are coming back," he explained. "Your wife just as soon as we notify her that you are conscious; Miss Caspari this afternoon."

"Thank you," I mumbled. Then, suddenly, my head was perfectly clear. Even the pain was gone. I sat up and noticed that I was wearing pajamas that didn't belong to me and began to make a fuss.

"So," I said, "now that I seem to have come to my senses again, would you mind telling me what's wrong with me and why I have to undergo an examination? I really must get back to my work. My company must be looking for me everywhere."

"Your company was notified last night. Mr. Clayton," he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and read off the name of the American producer for whom I was working, "will be coming to see you at about five. If you like, you can call him at his office. He said to wish you all the best and to beg you not to worry. Everything is in order."

A pretty blonde nurse came into the room. She brought me a glass filled with an amber hquid and greeted me in a friendly fashion. "Drink it," said Eulenglas. "It tastes good."

I drank. It really did taste good. It was cold, refreshing and felt prickly to the tongue.

"What would you like for lunch, Mr. Chandler?" the pretty nurse asked.

"Good heavens," I said, "I seem to have landed in a hotel."

"You could caU it that, Mr. Chandler. This is a private

hospital. We want to make your stay as pleasant as pos-' sible."

"Are you hungry?" asked Eulenglas.

I thought it over for a while. "Very," I said then.

"Good," said the doctor.

"What have you got to offer?"

The blonde nurse told me and I ordered an enormous lunch.

"So?" I asked, after she had closed the door behind her. I had already fallen into Yolanda's technique of the interrupted conversation, but Eulenglas proved equal to it.

"We don't know yet what's wrong with you, Mr. Chandler. A first superficial examination revealed the symptoms of a typical nervous breakdown with all the side effects. Your wife says you have been working very hard recently."

"True."

"So there you are! However, over and beyond that..."

He was silent, raising his hand in a vague gesture.

"Over and beyond that—^what?'^

He started to speak, seemed to think better of it, and what he finally said was undoubtedly not what he had intended to say first. "These headaches, Mr. Chandler. Could you describe them precisely?"

I did so.

"Hm," he said. "I understand you have already consulted several doctors in the United States."

"Yes. And all of them came to the same conclusion."

"Namely?"

"Nothing. They diagnosed it as an anxiety neurosis."

"Aha." He smiled. "And that's what it will probably turn out to be. You take only pills for the pain?"

"That's aU."

"What do you take?"

I told him. He nodded again. "Mr. Chandler, did they ever x-ray you? I mean your head?"

"No. Never." I looked at him, alarmed. "Why? Do you think "

"We don't think anything, Mr. Chandler. It's much too

early to think anything." He hesitated, then, smiling gently, '*I want to be candid with you."

"Please."

**Your wife is very upset. She seems to have heard that symptoms like yours may, under certain circumstances—I repeat—^under certain circumstances, indicate serious changes in the—^hm—^brain, which is why she begged us to give you a thorough examination."

"Changes? What sort of changes?"

"It doesn't have to be, Mr. Chandler, I assure you. In most cases the examination shows the absolute harmless-ness of the symptoms."

"Yes, yes, yes," I said. "What changes?"

"And even if things turn out to be not so harmless, modern surgery makes it simple. . . ."

"Dear God in heaven— what changesT^

"A growth," said Dr. Eulenglas.

"You mean—a tumor?"

He nodded. "Yes, Mr. Chandler, that's what I mean.**

For a while it was quiet in the room. Eulenglas was watching me closely. "You wanted to know, Mr. Chandler," he said at last, "and I have told you. I want to say again—it could be; it doesn't have to be. In most cases of this kind . .."

"All right, all right...."

"It really is nothing but a precautionary measure," he went on, as if I hadn't interrupted him, "// you agree to the examination, a matter of personal assurance.'*

"Yes, yes," I said.