The Shadow Of The Mole

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Denis and Marie did not look at each other. They averted their gaze into the trees, the stars, their hands.

Blankets around their shoulders.

For the first time since Denis was wounded, they felt again a bond between them. But it was unclear what it represented, and they both had cautious and sensitive characters.

So instead, they talked about The Mole. They were young, so they tried to sound like professionals. They uttered the words ‘trauma’, ‘psychotic’, ‘maybe epileptic in nature, but not the Grand Mal version’, and ‘catatonia’. They mentioned Freud and Charcot; they talked about the very diverse symptoms of ‘hysterical neurasthenia’.

“Organic lesions in the brain, perhaps?” Marie suggested.

It wasn’t the first time that Denis was surprised by her knowledge of new currents in psychiatry. He had mentioned that before. She had answered that, as the daughter of a rich wine merchant, she had had all the time to buy books and read whatever interested her, while her older brother had been raised to take over the family business.

“Just before I had to interrupt my studies, one of our professors told us that they were experimenting with hypnosis for cases of psychoneurosis,” Denis said. “But, ironically enough, the influence of German psychiatry was so overwhelming that we were more obsessed with the nosology of psychic diseases – we developed a classification but fundamentally didn’t learn much about treatment.” He realized that he sounded pompous. Too late. The veiled subtext was undisguised: When the war broke out, I was in the last months before my final exams in psychiatry, and you’re just a nurse.

“Isn’t it the case that the nature of the delusion must be analysed before a treatment can be suggested?” she said. She had understood his unspoken message: I’m wounded and my ego hurts, give me the chance to distinguish myself.

He didn’t answer. They were silent for a while.

“I’m under the impression he’s doing some self-analysis,” Denis said. ”He’s writing in the grey notebook I gave him.”

“Writing?”

“He insisted that his story must be told. He mentioned it in a peculiar way – it has to be chronicled. I reckon he’ll write some far-fetched fantasy. That he’s in fact a king whose birthright has been stolen. Or a magician who’ll stop the war if he finds his magic wand.”

“That would make him a ‘normal’ lunatic.”

“I don’t know. He has a certain flair with words. ‘The world is an illusionist’s trick,’ he said. Sounded poetical to me. And not untrue, if you think about it. The world certainly feels that way sometimes.”

She laughed. The look in her eyes was usually rather stern, he thought, but when she laughed she narrowed her eyes into slits like horses do when they’re petted.

He took a book out of his pocket, thumbed through it until he reached the page he had marked and read aloud in English. “Page 32: Delusions are sometimes elaborated into an extraordinarily complicated system. Every fact of the patient’s experience is distorted until it is capable of taking its place in the delusional scheme.”

He handed her the book. She looked at the cover. Bernard Hart, The Psychology of Insanity, Cambridge, 1914.

“Your English sounds nice,” she said. “Now would you please translate it for me, Michel?”

You are nice too, he wanted to answer. Instead, he did as she had asked.

She tapped her index finger on the cover. “You’re very up to date.” For an instant, he wanted to say something about her use of an English expression, but he only nodded his thanks.

“I learned English because my father did business in England and I went with him on holidays.”

“Business as a promoter of polyglots,” she said, a little ironically. She didn’t ask him what kind of business his father did. He had noticed before that she didn’t seem to be interested in his family.

“You don’t like business?”

She avoided his eyes. “My father is a man of figures.” Her tone was curt; he decided to change the subject.

“My father told me once – I must have been eight or so – that one of our servants had gone mad and was taking advice from a voice that barked like a dog,” he said. “Afterwards, every time my beloved collie Laila barked, I told myself I understood what she said. That gave me great satisfaction. It took a long time – and Laila’s death – for me to stop believing that she barked at me that she would always love me.”

It came as an impulse, a reaction he couldn’t control.

He barked at her.

He saw the sudden fright in her eyes, then the barely withheld tears. He wanted to say he was sorry, but the echo of his barking seemed trapped between the trees.

She turned her back to him.

“I’m sure she still does,” she murmured.