Pilgrim (7 page)
Kessler stepped back.
“Well now,” he said. “Another first.”
Pilgrim finished the knot and twisted it to one side.
Furtwängler moved across the carpet.
“Mister Pilgrim,” he said—his smile as perfect as practice could make it. “I have brought my colleagues to meet you: Doctor Jung and Doctor Menken.”
Pilgrim, who was pulling down the wings of his collar, turned away towards the mirror above the bureau.
“Mister Pilgrim…” Furtwängler put out his hand as if to take the patient’s arm.
“No. Don’t,” said Jung, stepping forward. “Let him be.”
Pilgrim’s arms fell to his sides.
Kessler moved towards him, holding a Harris tweed jacket.
Jung put his finger to his lips and took the garment in hand. Kessler moved away and waited with the others.
Jung said: “here is your jacket, Mister Pilgrim.”
Pilgrim turned only slightly—not enough to look into Jung’s eyes—and slipped his arms into the satin-lined sleeves.
“I know who you are,” said Jung.
Pilgrim attempted to do up his buttons.
“My name is Carl Jung and I have read your book about Leonardo da Vinci. Splendid, I thought it was. Splendid. And…”
Pilgrim suddenly turned and, passing the others, walked into the bathroom, where he shut the door.
“Is there a key?” Jung asked.
“No, sir,” said Kessler. “All the keys are in my pocket.”
“Is there a razor?”
“No. I’ve removed it. Shaved him myself this morning.”
“What was his reaction to that? To being shaved.”
“He knocked the razor out of my hand at one point. Same as he did with the tie, just now.”
“Did he try to pick it up?”
“No. He let me do that. Then I finished the shave and there was no more fuss.”
“What’s his opinion of you?” said Jung. “Does he resent you?”
“He doesn’t speak. I’ve caught him staring at me once or twice, but without expression. He seems to know who I am and that I’m here to help him, but aside from that, I hardly get a flicker.”
“Has he done this before—close himself in the bathroom?”
“Only when he’s used the toilet. I was in there with him when he bathed. I never leave a patient alone when he bathes. Not ever.”
“Good. It’s just as well. Even when there’s no intention to harm himself, there can still be accidents. And he hasn’t said a word?”
“No, sir. Not one.”
“Did he eat his breakfast?”
“Yes. Half a grapefruit. A piece of buttered toast and a cup of coffee.”
“That was all?”
“That was all.”
Jung regarded the bathroom door and turned to Furtwängler, who—after all—was Pilgrim’s physician.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
Furtwängler tried not to sound curt. “What are you thinking of doing?” he asked.
“Joining him. And if it seems to be appropriate, I shall close the door behind me. With your permission?”
Furtwängler raised an eyebrow at Menken. “I appear to be losing another patient,” he muttered. And then to Jung: “just remember he is mine, Carl Gustav.”
“Of course,” said Jung. “I merely want to make contact.”
“Very well, then. If you must—go ahead,” Furt-wängler looked again at Menken, who turned away towards the windows. “We shall wait here.”
“Thank you.” Jung gave a diffident bow and went over to the bathroom door. Slowly and gently, he knocked three times and went in.
There was no light. The room was in darkness.
Not knowing its geography, Jung hung back by the door, his left hand still on its handle.
“Would you prefer it if I did not turn on the light, Mister Pilgrim?” he asked.
There was no reply.
Jung waited, motionless.
He listened for Pilgrim’s breathing, but there was none.
“The dark has always been of interest to me,” he said. “When I was a child, I was afraid of it, of course—the way most children are. My father was a minister—a pastor of the Swiss Reform church. I often saw him in the local graveyard performing the service for the dead—and, being impressionable, I dreamt quite often of the image of him standing there, but in my dreams there was never light. It was always gloomy, murky—dark. I suppose it was the graves that frightened me as much as anything else about the service for the dead.
They put you in the dark and then they leave you there.
That sort of thing. Perhaps you might have had such dreams yourself when you were a child. Or very like. Most children do have them.”
Jung waited.
“Mister Pilgrim?”
There was still no reply, and still no sound except for the faintest echo of water running somewhere else in the building.
Jung let go of the doorknob and took a step forward.
Nothing.
He then took another step and waited again.
And again, nothing.
“Later in my life, perhaps around the advent of puberty, the dark took on new meaning for me. I no longer feared it, but welcomed it. No more graves. In fact, I rarely dream of graves any more. I may well in
future, of course—growing older. But for the time being, the grave has been replaced by the cradle—you might say:
the life force.
After all, the dark most often is where we procreate…”
At a distance, someone flushed a toilet. The water pipes began to sing.
“I have never conducted an interview in the dark before,” Jung said. “It amuses me. Perhaps it amuses you.”
Nothing.
“Mister Pilgrim?”
Jung took a third step forward.
“Why do you insist on silence?” he said. “Is there really nothing you would say?”
Apparently not.
“If I thought it was really of interest to you, I would continue my dissertation on the subject of darkness, but I suspect…”
There was a knock at the door.
“Go away,” Jung said.
“But…”
“Go away. Be patient. Wait.”
Jung could hear conversation beyond the door but made out no words.
How long had he been in here?
He could not tell.
If only he knew where the light switch was.
He felt along the wall behind him.
They usually put it near the entrance,
he thought—but there was nothing there.
“If you could assist me, Mister Pilgrim, I need to
know where the light switch is because I require the toilet…”
This was, of course, a ruse, but he thought it might work. Anything might work. Perhaps he should shout for help. Or give a cry of:
FIRE
!
This thought made him laugh out loud.
“I am thinking the strangest, most ridiculous things, Mister Pilgrim,” he said. “I was thinking I might cry
fire
in order to trick you into responding—but, of course, if there was a fire you would see it…”
Matches.
How damnably slow I am!
As he searched his pockets—finding everything but his matches—he began to have the curious thought that somehow Pilgrim had escaped him and that, all this time, he had been talking to himself.
He stumbled forward—and stopped. Sickened.
His toe had caught at the edge of what might be an arm or a leg.
“Mister Pilgrim?
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.”
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.”
