Save the Last Bullet for God (5 page)

“I know. I’m on the board, and I’ve checked
your file. I’m happy that we have such intelligent and promising
young men like you still left after the war. What can I do for
you?”

“Actually, how can I say this? I came here to
talk about your patient, Maria Orsic.”

For the first time, the doctor made eye
contact with me. “And?”

“Well…is it possible that there’s a mistake
in her diagnosis and treatment? I mean, could someone possibly have
left something out? I…” I struggled to say what I wanted. My face
was red now, and I wrung my hands.

Dr. Hubert studied me for a long moment, and
took a deep breath.

“You’re very young, and you’re at the
beginning of your medical education. I appreciate your ambition and
your commitment to Ms. Orsic.”

“Thank you,” I said, nervous about what was
coming.

“What you learn in school is important, but
when you become a doctor and have the responsibility of caring for
a person, you’ll see that experience is even more important.
Although you’ll judge me and not understand what I’ll tell you now,
let me try to explain something. Your conclusions are limited by
your basic medical education and an observation of only five to six
days.”

“With all due respect, doctor, I’ve
experienced a lot. I served in the war and I’ve read a lot of
books,” I objected feebly.

“That is all valuable, but of no use in this
issue. It won’t help you reach the right conclusions. Although
you’ll successfully finish your schooling, you will need to
specialize in psychiatry, and that’s still not enough. You need to
work for years to gain the proper experience.”

The old man was trying to cover his mistake
by praising himself. He probably hadn’t even read the most recent
publications on schizophrenia. Who knew what kind of treatment he
used on the patients?

Dr. Hubert saw the disdain in my eyes and
continued.

“My point is you are not objective. Maria’s a
very beautiful girl. You interpret all the symptoms as different
from what they actually are. There are hundreds of patients in this
hospital, and, if you aren’t showing the same concern for one of
the old, worn-out patients to whom you haven’t even paid any
attention, then I’m sorry. I don’t trust your judgment.”

“How can you talk like that?” I protested.
“You don’t even know me, and I assure you, there’s nothing like
that going on.”

“Calm down, young man. This is something
between you and yourself, and it’s none of my business as long as
it doesn’t affect the orderly functioning of the hospital. I’ve
been aware of what you’ve been doing. I had to become aware because
you’ve begun to affect Ms. Orsic’s treatment in a negative way.
Just as we’ve advanced slightly toward having her accept that her
delusions don’t exist in the real world, your intervention and
talks with her have given her false hope and set her recovery
back.”

He was speaking louder now and glaring at
me.

“Do you know how many hospitals and doctors
this patient visited before coming here? If you saw the files, you
wouldn’t understand most of them. You don’t have my colleagues’
years of experience. You’re a young, clever man, but experience is
a must in such situations.” His voice was now more controlled, and
he seemed calmer, but there was still a glint of anger in his
eyes.

“But she probably has logical and reasonable
thoughts that she hasn’t shared with you,” I responded weakly.
“She’s scared, like everyone else.”

“The girl is 4A, which meets all the criteria
of schizophrenia. The only anomaly is that her illness has advanced
to this stage at a very young age. Do you know what 4A is?”

“The classification system; flattened affect
in schizophrenia…”

“Okay, don’t push it. I’m not giving you an
examination. Just do whatever I tell you to do without question. I
don’t want to see you around this girl again. Don’t talk to her or
try to get in touch with her. Not unless you want to be dismissed
from this hospital and have a letter of complaint sent to your
school.”

“Sir, won’t you even give me a chance
to—”

“End of discussion. If you want my advice . .
. go out and use your energy on another, healthier girl.”

I clenched my jaw.

“Can I leave, sir?”

“You can.”

…

Later in the evening I received a paper from
the chief of staff restricting my duties, and I was immediately
forced to hand in the keys to the women’s ward. It hurt so much to
know that she was in the same building as me, only a few walls
away. Crazy ideas ran through my head. The thought of not seeing
her ever again was miserable. But I wouldn’t give up.

All night long, I struggled to prepare a file
with all the information I had along with my own ideas.

When dawn came, I shaved, put on clean,
proper clothes, and went to the campus. I found my way to the
private office of Dr. Freud, gathered all my courage, and passed
through the corridor where patients and their relatives were
waiting for him. I stopped at the secretary’s desk and asked about
an opening. She buried her head in the appointment book and we
shared a long silence.

Without lifting her head, she said finally,
“What about Wednesday next week? Is that okay for you?”

“I’m not a patient, I’m a doctor… I mean, I’m
going to be a doctor. I want to get some information about a
patient. I just need ten minutes.”

“We’re so busy. Appointments are made months
beforehand. There’s not even a single gap until the evening. Here,
you see?”

“
I’m a medical student, first year, and
I also work in a mental hospital. I’m here to talk to him about
something that’ll take only a short time,” I said, sounding ever
more urgent.

“Interesting, a medical student who wants to
talk to me,” I heard a familiar voice say.

“Dr. Freud,” the secretary said standing up.
I turned and saw a man with a gray beard and a penetrating look
smirking at us.

“If Gustav Jung heard about this, he’d jump
up and down in excitement trying to convince me what an impossible
coincidence this was,” he said smiling at me. Then he turned to the
secretary.

“Clarens, has Mrs. E. H. come for her
appointment?” he asked, now more interested in his work than in
me.

“Not yet, but she has three to four minutes,
and, as you know, she’s never been late before.”

“Professor,” I said, “If you let me…it’ll
just take five or ten minutes…”

“
Can you imagine?” he asked, turning
back to me. “Someone you’ve never met before comes to talk to you,
and the patient who doesn’t attend her meeting makes it possible.
What a big, magnificent coincidence. If Jung were here now, he’d
try to convince me of it. He’d even go on about his thesis that
events happening in the future affect us now.”

“Dr. Jung is a Swiss psychiatrist and
neuroscientist, isn’t he?” I asked, trying to get more involved in
the conversation now.

“What do you understand of the effects of the
future in the now, young man?”

“Well, when a man buys tomato seeds now, then
he can get a harvest from his tomato farm and make a profit from it
in the future. I haven’t thought about this issue much, but this is
the first thing that comes to mind.”

“A clever young man. Excellent.” He bypassed
me and walked toward his office door. I sheepishly followed as he
continued. “But you have missed the essence of the matter. The man
doesn’t plant tomatoes for money; he plants them to strengthen his
sexually determined status in society and to be in a position where
he can meet his sexual needs.”

“
So, events in the future affect our
sexuality now?”

He suddenly turned to me, as if he saw and
heard me for the first time. “That is a nice approach, son; it
needs to be examined.”

Meanwhile, a luxuriously clothed Mrs. E. H.
arrived with flushed cheeks and slightly out of breath.

“I’m sorry,” she panted. “I’ve almost missed
the appointment, right?”

Dr. Freud patted me on the shoulder.

“It seems Jung was wrong. Now, young man, I
need to get back to my work.”

“But…only five minutes…”

“You spent three minutes of that just now,
young man,” he laughed, and, from the pleasure of hearing and
liking his own joke, he laughed again.

Disappointed, I stepped to the side to make
way for Mrs E.H. Dr. Freud nodded to her as she entered his office,
then he turned again to address me.

“I’ll be at the Oppenheim café at 18:45, but
only for 20 minutes.” He then followed his patient into the
room.

. . .

I arrived at the cafe early and waited until
it emptied out before I settled into a quieter spot. As I sat
drinking my second beer, I saw Dr. Freud enter and stood up and
waved. He looked at me from the corner of his eye, then came over
with calm, confident steps. He signaled to the waiter, sat down,
and I watched enviously as before he’d even finished cutting the
end off his cigar, the waiter brought him “the usual.”

I watched him wet the cigar in his mouth
before lighting it. He took a puff, drew the cigar from his mouth,
and looked directly at me. “The time started when I walked through
the door, young man.”

I put the file I’d prepared in front of him
with shaking hands.

“As I said before, sir, I’ve been working as
an assistant staff member for a year. I met this young woman, a
young patient at the hospital, and I’ve been thinking, from what
she’s told me and what I’ve observed, that there’s something wrong
with her diagnosis. She’s receiving the wrong treatment and it’s
harming her. I’d like to consult with you, hear your thoughts, and
then help in her treatment if possible…”

My speech had gone beyond giving information
and had moved toward buttering him up.

He dismissed my compliments with a careless
hand gesture while his eyes scanned the file. “Is she beautiful?”
he asked.

“Who? Well . . . yes, very beautiful…and very
intelligent. Even . . .” My words were interrupted again by the
now-familiar hand gesture.

“Where did you grow up? Where did you spend
your childhood?”

“In the northwest region of Austria. I lived
in a farmhouse in a mountain village that’s now been captured by
the Russians…” I stopped when I saw his hand.

He looked through the file, and, after
turning over some pages, he emitted some dense smoke. “Your
mother?” He looked at me with questioning eyes.

“She died when I was twelve. She committed
suicide…it was an accident… but like a suicide. . . .”

Without saying anything, he buried his head
in the file again, then, carelessly threw the file onto the middle
of the table. He looked first at me, then at my reflection on the
window, and then at me again.

“It’s not a challenging nor unusual case, and
I think it can be overcome in a few sessions in careful hands as
long as our patient is intelligent and maintains open senses.”

“Yes, she’s very intelligent and rational. Is
there any need for medication?”

“No, it hasn’t progressed enough for
medication.”

“I knew it. I knew they were wrong,” I
murmured in joy, feeling myself relax.

“At a very early age, probably right after
the oral period, a sexually triggered awareness occurred. The
patient directed his incorrectly understood and wrongly orientated
sexual feelings onto his parent of the opposite sex in an obsessive
manner.”

He began speaking in a measured tone, almost
to himself.

“When the patient’s sexual feelings were at
their height during puberty, he reacted against the apparent
opponent in order to not share his obsessive sexual orientation
with his parent of the same sex. The consequences turned the
condition, which could have remained stable, into a trauma, and the
feeling of guilt has continued up to now, increasing daily.
Moreover, the patient’s efforts to save ones who resemble his
mother and to whom he attaches himself in order to overcome his
guilt have been, in part, straining his ties with normal life.”

I opened my eyes wide. “Resembling her
mother? You mean Maria’s sexually obsessed with her mother, and,
due to a feeling of guilt, she’s been suffering this?”

“Maria? Who’s Maria?”

“The patient in the file. Who have you been
talking about?”

“You, of course. Usually, my patients from
the medical field come with the excuse of asking help for a patient
when really they are asking for help with their own problems. I
made it easy for you and dealt with your problems directly... Is
there really a patient called Maria?”

“Yes, and I…I mean, my mother…My mother was
only my mother, and I never experienced something like that. I
don’t have any problems, and…”

“Whatever you say, young man. Your time is
almost over, anyway. You can think about it when you’re on your
own, okay?”

“It’s not me, really. Maria is the patient.
Maria really exists, and I’m trying to help her. It’s not about
guilt—I just don’t want her to be hurt because of the wrong
treatment.”

“My young friend, if this file is real, and
there’s a patient with these symptoms, I can definitely say that
she’s schizophrenic—a paranoid schizophrenic, to be exact. There’s
no one, including me, who can treat her. She can be kept alive,
but…”

I didn’t hear the rest. I was dizzy and stood
up with difficulty. I wanted to escape and began to move toward the
door. Then, suddenly, I stopped, turned back, and took the file
from the table. I left the place without looking at the old man and
once out of the door, I ran away.

I walked aimlessly among the people on the
darkened street. No matter how much I walked, I couldn’t get rid of
the memories inside my head.

A little child at the age of five hiding in
the corner of the barn covering his eyes with his hands trying not
to look at the naked bodies of the gardener and the cook. Their
voices ringing in the child’s ears as he tries not to listen.