Pilgrim (25 page)
I thank you for all you have done and for all you have yet to do in Mister Pilgrim’s behalf.
I remain most sincerely,
Sybil Quartermaine
P.S. The enclosed cheque should cover the expenses for some time to come.
S.Q.
This cheque was for a great deal of money, made out not to Jung, but to the Burghölzli Clinic. Still, he was leery of accepting it.
He turned to the messenger, who by now was reading the titles of the books on Jung’s shelves and had reached the works of Goethe.
“If you will wait one moment, I shall give you a letter to Lady Quartermaine…”
It was his intention to return the cheque.
But the messenger said: “I have been instructed by Her Ladyship not to accept a reply.”
“How very odd.”
“She was ad’mint, sir. That was her word for it:
ad’mint.
”
“I see. Well. Thank you.”
Jung gave the young man a modest tip for his trouble and sent him on his way.
There were six packets, each presumably containing a single volume of Pilgrim’s journal. Each was numbered. Jung spread them out in order on the library table and looked at them in much the same way one might regard a windfall of Christmas gifts from strangers.
What could be inside…?
“One at a time,” he said out loud. “Only one.”
Of course, who would know the difference if he were to open them all at once?
I would know—that’s who would know.
Yes. I thought it wouldn’t be long before you chimed in.
It’s my job.
What—to drive me mad?
Possibly.
Jung made a stack of the journals and carried them over to his desk, where he locked them—all but
Number One
—in the bottom drawer and pocketed the key.
He then went to the window and gazed out at his garden.
The first daffodil—the one he had photographed—was fading now, and turning dry and crisp. A wind in the night might carry it away. But others—a host of others—were pushing into the light.
His mind drifted back to Lady Quartermaine’s letter. How sad it was—and odd.
In the wilderness I found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD
…
And I have made my sacrifice accordingly.
He decided she must be unwell. After all, more than a week ago he had thought how poorly she looked.
Distressed. Sleepless, perhaps. Certainly anguished. If only he had kept his appointment with her for tea on the previous afternoon. But fate, in its lunar manifestation, had intervened in the form of an episode with Countess Blavinskeya, and the meeting with Lady Quartermaine had completely slipped his mind.
Well.
He would not think about it now. There was wine to be drunk and dinner to be had and all of Emma’s research regarding Savonarola to discuss. And the children—and the dogs—and what to do with the garden furniture now that spring was here.
In the morning, he would read.
In the morning. In the morning.
And then, the sun went down.
On the morning of Tuesday, the 14th of May, at about the time Otto Mohr was assisting Sybil Quartermaine into the rear of the silver Daimler, Kessler was assisting Pilgrim into the lift on the third floor of the Burghölzli Clinic.
Sybil’s blue-and-violet cashmere afghan, received from Otto Mohr’s arm, was spread across her knees—while over Kessler’s arm hung two large sheets in which to wrap his patient once the baths were achieved. Envelopes.
While Sybil sat back and admired the view of various bridges, cobbled streets and water, Pilgrim sat rigid in front of Kessler and counted the floors as they fell away above him. One. Two. Three. Four.
Otto Mohr turned left and shifted gears.
When they arrived at the basement, the operator—dead-eyed as ever, unfolded the gate.
“You see?” said Kessler. “There’s nothing to fear.”
Sybil, in the Daimler, reached for the hand-bar, noting it was made of wine-coloured marble. Against it, her grey kid glove had the look of a water-coloured hand, its fingers drawn in black-ink stitches.
I am insubstantial as a blot on someone’s page,
she thought.
And then:
how curious, to feel so intangible and yet so alive…
Pilgrim’s chair rolled free of the cage and stopped on the carpet laid along the marble floor.
We are in a mausoleum
, he thought.
Someone has died.
The air was filled with salted mist. He could taste it.
As they began to gain the heights, Sybil turned to see the Zürichsee.
How beautiful it is,
she thought,
with all its trees along the shore and all its flowers on show. Just as Doctor Jung said it would be.
“This way, please.”
Kessler nodded at the Duty Nurse, who sat unsmiling at her desk. With his back, he pushed against the heavy glass door which was hers to defend against invaders. And escapees. Judging from her expression, the latter would be lucky to survive.
Kessler turned the Bath chair and began to push it forward.
Doors, doors and more doors. Cubicles—curtains—lounges—the dead laid out in bathrobes, or so it seemed. Steam and the sound of falling water everywhere.
Blavinskeya’s mezzo was singing at a distance.
The water is wide,
I cannot cross o’er
And neither have I wings
To fly…
Sybil leaned forward. There was a dog on the road.
He has come to greet me,
she thought.
Someone somewhere is kind and has unchained him…
“Where are we now?” she asked.
“On the other side of the lake, my Lady, you will see the village of Küsnacht. Soon, we will come to the forest.”
“Is that dog all right?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Please blow your horn to warn him. He doesn’t seem to be going to move.”
“He will move, Madam. I assure you,” said Otto.
It was perhaps a Saint Bernard. Sybil had never seen a dog so large. And, sure enough, it padded aside as the Daimler passed. Sybil turned to watch it staring after them, its tail a flag, its head atilt as if to catch their departing scent.
Something prompted her to raise her hand in greeting—and farewell—and as she did, the dog raised its head and barked.
How curious and felicitous. How thoughtful of someone, to set him free and in our path.
Looking back again, she saw that the dog had disappeared. And, turning forward, she saw that they were entering a wood of varied trees—of aspen and poplars, of shadow pines with candelabrum arms and the tannenbaum of childhood. There were asphodel in bloom. It had to be impossible—yet there they were. And a nightingale, it seemed, was singing.
Build me a boat
That will carry two
And both shall row,
My love and I.
What on earth could have made her think of that?
I must be drifting again,
she thought. And settled back
to enjoy the view of slanted light and latticed trees whose branches reached out on either side. Barely stirring, she lifted her hand as if to welcome them.
The water is wide,
I cannot cross o’er…
And I forget the rest.
She almost slept.
In the baths, Kessler removed Pilgrim’s robe and watched him rise and approach the waters.
His attenuated body might have been a cadaver, activated by clockwork. Each step was laid before the last as if some childhood game was being recalled.
Did we play it thus—or did we play it so?
Thus and so. Thus and so.
Pilgrim raised his arms.
Walking the tightrope,
Kessler decided.
That’s what he’s up to. Up on the high wire miles above us all.
“You want some help, Mister Pilgrim?”
The arms descended.
His skin was almost blue, it was so pale. The colour of mother of pearl. And where it was stretched across his ribs, it was translucent. He might have pulled on stockings and sleeves and gloves of skin, with seams of violet veins and pure white toe- and fingernails like buttons. And yet his muscles were trim and his buttocks firm, for all their lack of flesh.
Between his shoulder blades, the butterfly had stretched its wings and the rope burns on his neck and throat were turning to scabs that one would soon be able to peel away like a chrysalis.
“You want me to help you, Mister Pilgrim? Mind you don’t slip.”
Pilgrim was poised now on the marble rim of the bath, his toes curled down to grip the edge.
“Nice hot water. You’ll like it. Very relaxing. Soothing, you might say, just like a warm massage.”
Sister Dora drifted past with Countess Blavinskeya on her arm.
A proper twosome
, Kessler thought—and smiled. In the steam, they looked as though their feet had left the ground—and the way the Countess danced along, they might have.
Pilgrim, watching them pass, made a gesture of modesty to cover his genitals, even though neither woman had looked in his direction.
At last, he descended into the water. All around him, the ghosts of beings who must have been human once went to and fro, some lost and others merely distracted. All were wrapped in winding sheets.
Pilgrim closed his eyes and spread his arms and legs. Sitting upon the sunken step, he let the water envelop him, exploring every plane and crevice—the prairie of his belly and the foothills of his breasts, the mountains of his shoulders.
I am a continent of possibilities,
he thought,
waisted by the Equator, divided by the Tropics, drawn and quartered by longitudes and latitudes, floating my islands—fingers, penis, toes and testicles—and if I draw myself into a ball, I am the very model of the earth itself…
He smiled.
What a pity,
he thought,
that I have sunk so low.
Waisted by the Equator, indeed! Divided by the Tropics. Drawn and quartered by longitudes and
latitudes…
Am I Dante Gabriel Rossetti? I pray not! Have I also lilies in my hand and stars in my hair?
“Mister Pilgrim?”
Kessler came and stooped beside him, reaching out and holding him more or less upright by placing his hands on Pilgrim’s shoulders.
“You mustn’t put your head underwater, Mister Pilgrim. That’s a rule. You’re here to relax, not play at being a fish.”
Pilgrim sat again on the submerged step and laid his arms along the rim of the tub.
“That’s better,” Kessler smiled. “We don’t want you drowned.”
At the crest of the Albis Pass, there is a brief plateau from which a spectacular view of the world above and below may be had.
Sybil Quartermaine, having asked Otto to stop the motor car, wrapped her afghan around her shoulders and, telling him she wanted to stand outside, waited for him to open the door and offer his hand.
Tilting her head, she took a draught of air.
“Oh,” she said, closing her eyes, “what a lovely scented wind. Can you smell the trees? It’s perfect heaven!”
“Yes, Madam. Perfect heaven.”
“Take me to the edge. I want to look.”
Otto proffered his arm and escorted her to the verge. All the Zürichsee was spread out before them—and far below, a river and a road. Otto pointed into the distance at the misted, floating image of the Jungfrau—a majestic grey mirage, unattached, adrift.
Sybil clutched at her afghan.
“The wind,” she said. “The wind…”
“It is called
der Föhn,
Madam. It comes out of Italy and causes troubles.”
“Troubles?”
“Rains and storms and sometimes an avalanche.”
Sybil adjusted the afghan, took a last look at the view and returned to the Daimler.
“Let us move on,” she said.
These were her final words.
All at once, Pilgrim felt cold.
He stood up.
Unaccountably, he reached for Kessler’s hand and held it as he might have held a lifeline thrown into the sea.
Is there a dog? There must be a dog
, he was thinking.
Kessler assisted his patient from the bath and drew a sheet around his shoulders. It did not make sense that Pilgrim should be so cold while Kessler sweated in the steam, but plainly the man was shivering.
“You want to go now, sir? Return to your room?”
No, no, no. I want to find the dog.
Pilgrim moved forward into the mist.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t. Not now. You mustn’t. Don’t.”
Kessler felt a thrill pass over his back.
Pilgrim had spoken.
Words. Not just sounds—but words.
Had spoken—and now had disappeared.
Kessler followed as best he could—checking each
steam-shrouded figure he encountered—until at last he found his patient seated on one hip, his right hand against the tiles. Beside him, a bald and naked man, whose minder had him tied at the wrist with a cotton leash, was staring blank-eyed and open-mouthed at the ceiling.
Pilgrim was pale as the mist itself.
“Did this one fall?” Kessler asked the minder, an intern whose name was Fröelich.
“No. I just found him sitting here,” Fröelich said. “My patient tripped on him and tried to bite his hand. Is he yours?”
“Yes. His name is Pilgrim.”
Kessler hunkered down and said: “come along, sir. Up we get.”
He reached for Pilgrim’s left hand and found it bloodied.
“He’s bleeding,” he told Fröelich. “You shouldn’t bring that man down here. He’s dangerous.”
“I won’t again,” Fröelich said, “but Doctor Furtwängler believed it would be good for him. Frankly,” Fröelich grinned and giggled and leaned in close to Kessler’s ear, “this man thinks he’s a dog and sometimes I have to put his dinner plate on the floor before he’ll eat.”