Pilgrim (52 page)

There.

Shall I go on?

Literature. Will it put an end to war?
War and Peace
itself is nothing better than enticement to create new battlefields. The Russians are all such blundering fools, their only ally in defeating Napoleon was
winter. Will someone attempt to repeat the exercise? Of course they will—the dreadful book is an open invitation. Tolstoy himself was a soldier at Sevastopol and gloried in it—then he pretends to hate it—after which he ends his life as a mad proponent of world peace, for God’s sake, while he drives his wife away from his death bed. And I am crazy? Me?

Yes.
So they tell me.

Someone knocked at the door.

Pilgrim set aside his pen.

Kessler came out from the bedroom, where he had been cleaning Pilgrim’s boots, and opened the way to the vestibule. Pilgrim could barely hear the voice that greeted him.
Cage…pigeons…grain…Fowler…

When the orderly returned, he carried the birds. The young assistant, who was Italian-Swiss, followed with the beribboned sack of grain.

“Just here?”

“Just there. And thank you.”

“Is money required?” Pilgrim asked.

“No, sir. The young man works for wages.”

The Italian lad retreated. A door closed—then another.

Pilgrim had risen to inspect the sack of grain.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Am I to feed on this?”

“I think not, sir. I suspect it is for the birds in this cage.”

“Birds?” said Pilgrim.

“Birds,” said Kessler. “As if we needed
birds
.”
Having said this, he retreated to the bedroom and his boot-blacking.

Pilgrim undid the ribbon and rummaged in the sack to see what sort of grain it was. Corn, millet, rye and oats. And a note.

Pilgrim tore it open and read:

To a fellow fancier:

Sir:

These are homing pigeons and can be the bearers of messages. You will see my present likeness in the enclosed photographs. I trust you will approve.

It has been some time since we met and it has occurred to me you might wish to abandon your current quarters. If this is true, some instruction would be useful. I know nothing of your surroundings. A diagram would be helpful—a map or some such description.

A motor car is available.

I am nearby at the Hôtel Baur au Lac.

I shall await communication.

I am watching.

Every day, I can see you.

Faithfully yours,

H. Fowler

Besides the photographs there was a small velvet pouch which contained several metal capsules with clips, appropriate for attaching to the pigeons’ legs.

Pilgrim placed the letter, the velvet pouch and the photographs in his pocket and drew the cover from the cage.

It seemed as if the pigeons knew him. They began at once to croon and to display their feathers. Greys—bricks—purples—whites—the combinations of colours on every bird were perfectly balanced and entrancing.

“Bring them into the light,” Pilgrim said to Kessler. “Take them into the light.”

Kessler, boot in hand, came and carried the cage into the bedroom. Pilgrim lingered long enough in the sitting-room to fold his letter and place it in the desk, where he turned and pocketed the key.

He then drew the photographs from their envelope and glanced at them one by one. Right side—left side—full face. Moustache—bowler hat—neat, trim figure, standing somewhere in the sunlight.

H. Fowler.

Undoubtedly, someone he knew.

But equally, someone he did not—or had forgotten.

H.

That could be Howard, Henry, Herbert or Harry.

A fowler is one who hunts birds, sells birds, keeps birds…

An image rose in Pilgrim’s mind of a dovecote.

We used to keep birds—someone and I together—in a garden somewhere…

Cheyne Walk.

Pilgrim placed his fingers over the moustache in the full-faced view of Fowler.

What were their names—those people at Cheyne Walk?

There was a woman—Mrs Something—and a boy named Fred. Not Fred—no. Alfred.
Alfred.

Pilgrim looked out the window towards the mountains.

Mountains.

Perhaps the woman’s name was Matterhorn.

No. Not Matterhorn. Matter-something-else.

Matheson.

Mrs Matheson. Alfred. And a dog named Aggie. Agga. Agamemnon!

Yes. Yes. Yes. And a man called Fowler.

Pilgrim stood up and went to the window to achieve more light.

Howard Harry Henry Herbert Fowler.

“Henry?” he said aloud.

He gazed again at the photograph, masking the man’s moustache.

He squinted.

“Forster,” he said.

Everything fell into place. Somewhere out there, a man was waiting to help him. Henry Forster, who would come and rescue him. There would be an end to prison.

No more prisons—ever.

He placed the photographs in his pocket.

10

At seven-thirty on the morning of Wednesday, June 19th, Emma came and stood in the bedroom doorway.

“Carl Gustav?”

He turned to her out of sleep.

She came and hovered beside his bed.

“Let go of your pillows,” she said—and reached for his hands. “You have already ruined your pyjamas. You have torn away your buttons. Here—you must allow me…”

She reached for his fingers and forced them open. “This is not the
Titanic
,” she told him. “You are not drowning. Wake up.”

Not only were his hands, arms and shoulders rigid, but also his legs and toes.

“I can’t breathe,” he said.

“You are breathing. All is well.”

“What happened?”

“How am I to know? I am no longer your comrade. You must have dreamt. You cried aloud.”

Jung sat up. He looked at his wife.

“Are you going to leave me?” he said all at once, not knowing it was there to be said.

“Never, Carl Gustav,” said Emma. “I am bound to you for life. But you, I have now discovered, live only for your own life and in no way for mine.”

She sat at the foot of the bed and drew her robe about her. She had been sleeping in the guest room—pleasant
enough, but usually reserved for her mother’s visits. Frau Rauschenbach was overly fond of flowers and the wallpaper, drapes and bedspread were like indoor gardens, ablaze with roses, irises and peonies. This could be tiring on the eyes, but Emma kept a minimum of lamps alight and the effect was not so overwhelming.

“I have prayed for your death,” she told Jung in a grey voice. “I thought you should know. I have prayed for your death and dreamt of a life you will never know: the life of a loving parent and a caring companion. I simply thought you should know. I see that you are in trouble. I watch and listen to you. I want to help, but you won’t let me. So be it. I only thought you should know. I love you still, but I no longer like you. Do what you will, I shall watch over you—but come what may, there will be no more love. Take your illness to your patients. Apply it there. Let it spread. I no longer care. You have lost your dancer. Blavinskeya is dead. Your doing, Carl Gustav. Yours. I retract what I said before. I have been thinking—and now I realize that she was abandoned by Carl Gustav Jung precisely as I was abandoned—and his children—because he had interests elsewhere.”

“Emma…”

“No, Carl Gustav. No. Go your own way. The rest of us will survive without you.”

Emma rose and left the room.

Jung fell back against the pillows.

Seven forty-five. Birdsong. Blowing curtains.

A new day. A new life. But was it a life he wanted?

Jung arrived at Suite 306 at 10 a.m. as promised.

“Well, and how are we this morning?” he asked.

“Please,” Pilgrim said, “do not call me
we
.”

“It’s only a figure of speech.” Jung smiled.

“It may well be,” Pilgrim said testily, “but
I
am not a figure of speech. My name is Pilgrim.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“It’s bad enough that Kessler refers to
we
and to
us
with sickening regularity, but you of all people should know better. Kessler at least has the excuse of stupidity. You do not.”

“I am sorry.”

“I will believe you when you address me by name.”

“Mister Pilgrim,” Jung said, and gave a curt bow.

They were both standing.

“Will you sit down?” Pilgrim said, and seated himself. He was wearing a dark suit, neither black nor blue but a woven combination of the two. His cravat was yellow. There was also a matching yellow handkerchief in his breast pocket, looking somewhat like a mangled flower. Pilgrim delighted in such things—in flaunting his distaste of good taste while managing never to be less than impeccable.
The art of presenting oneself
, he had once told Sybil
, lies in creating an immediate shock which is countered by a slow retreat into custom. People never quite recover from my cravats, but they will never find the equal of my tailor. To be memorable is all, when it comes to dress.

Jung, in his tweeds and white smock, seemed perversely sombre by contrast. And the fact that he had slept so badly had left him looking grey and worn.
Nonetheless, he attempted to raise some energy and give the appearance at least of being up to the session that lay before them.

“Kessler tells me you have received a gift of pigeons.”

“That is correct.”

“May I ask from whom?”

“From a fowler.”

“I’m afraid you have struck a word I do not know. A
fowler?
”

“A fowler hunts, sells or keeps birds.”

“I see. So this would be an anonymous fellow?”

“Yes. Anonymous. Just a fowler.”

“Can you explain why he might have sent them?”

“No. Perhaps he had heard of my predicament.”

“Which is?”

“My imprisonment. After all, even when caged, birds are a symbol of freedom.”

“And how do you suppose this anonymous fowler person might have heard of your predicament, Mister Pilgrim?”

“It is obvious. I am no longer in the world.”

Jung said: “you do not consider this the world?”

“Do you?”

“Of course. It is where I spend more than half my life.”

“And the other half? Where?”

“At home.”

“I think what you mean is
at large
, Doctor. If this is where you spend more than half your life, please remember it is where I spend the whole of mine.”

“And you resent that, of course.”

“I won’t even comment.”

“Why do you speak of imprisonment?”

“Am I free to go?”

“When you are well, yes. Of course.”

“And when will I be well? When
I
say so—or when
you
say so?”

“When I say so—which is as it should be. I am a better judge of your mental health than you are at this moment.”

“What on earth is
mental health?
It sounds like a disease.”

Jung laughed. “I suppose, in the case of some people, it is,” he said.

“Who, for instance?”

“People whose lives are excessively dull because they have no imagination.”

“And?”

“And what?” Jung asked.

“And when you speak of my
mental health
, whose mental health will you match it with? These people who lead excessively dull lives? I trust not.”

“I will match it with your own potential to be fulfilled.”

“I have no potential to be fulfilled—and could not care less. Except in one instance. I would be happy if I could die.”

“In that case, you are not well.”

Pilgrim looked away.

“Are you never weary, Doctor?” he said. “Are you never tired?”

“I have my moments. Of course.”

“I have no
moments
. It is constant. I have tried to indicate to you by every means at my disposal that I have lived forever—and you don’t—you will not believe me. That in itself is overwhelmingly weary-making…”

Jung stood up and went to look from the windows.

“Why,” he said, “when you have such talents and such potential for greatness, do you not want to live?”

“I have no potential for any such thing.”

“You do, you know.”

“Once, maybe. Not now. Not any longer. And I do not care for it. My only ambition is death.”

“And you say you have lived forever.”

“I have.”

“But how can you possibly believe such a thing?”

“It is not a question of believing. It is a question of knowing.”

Jung sighed. “Then tell me this,” he said, and turned back to Pilgrim. “If your immortality has taken the form of living many different lives—which is what you have said on previous occasions—why do you think that ending
this
life will end the whole parade of other lives? Will you not simply reappear as someone else? Or is it that you wish only to end
this
life?”

Pilgrim’s gaze was fixed on his hands. At first, he said nothing. Then: “for some time, all I have been able to do is to hope. To hope and to pray that one death might be the final death. The absolute. The end. Now, I have more than hope. I have reason to believe that a true ending may be possible.”

“What reason?”

Pilgrim looked up at Jung. “I am sure you would not have given me Sybil’s letter if you, yourself, had not read it. And if you have read it, you will know that she has been recalled.”

“Recalled?”

“Summoned. Called back. The Envoys came to deliver the message. Her mission is over.”