the words for city—buildings—houses—people.
Men and women?
Perhaps.
There were other patients—one or two in tall-backed wheelchairs, others leaning against the wall or by the windows. They seemed to Pilgrim not unlike the figures on a chessboard.
Chessboard.
Has the game commenced?
Game.
This is a game. Someone will move me. A hand will descend.
Fingers.
I will be brooded over.
Someone will cough.
The fingers will touch me. Almost lift me. But not.
They will decide I am safer where I am.
Pilgrim looked about him at the others.
Three pawns, one Bishop, two Knights, a King and Queen.
The King and Queen were separated, the Queen alone and vulnerable, the King protected by his troops, who formed a wall. White.
White King, White pawns, White Queen.
Where were all the black pieces? None was visible—all were white. And when would his opponent make the next move?
Doctor Jung came and stood behind him, lifting his finger to his lips so that Kessler would not speak.
Kessler nodded and stepped aside.
Jung came forward on the diagonal, moving to Pilgrim’s right, nodding and mouthing words of greeting at various familiar attendants who were standing near their patients.
It was four o’clock.
The sun was moving towards its final position before descending behind the mountains. A low,winter sun, with a curious, almost midsummer redness to it. Orange.
There’s an orange out there, Pilgrim thought. Perhaps it’s part of the game. A player. Or a manipulator. God.
A god.
That was it.
God was a ball of fire in the…
What? What? What? Oh, what is it called?
Jung could now see Pilgrim fully in profile. He said nothing. He watched.
Pilgrim shifted his hands. His wrists had stiffened.
They’d been frozen in the snow.
They will die.
Part of me will die.
How wonderful…
Jung took note of the fact that Pilgrim’s lips had parted, but saw no words being formed.
Twilight. The best of times. The time between.
Jung thought this in Pilgrim’s behalf, remembering what Lady Quartermaine had said about the permanent twilight of his first eighteen years.
Perhaps there had been no thoughts of suicide then. It seemed, from what Jung had gleaned from his long study of schizophrenia, that its onslaught most often took place at the age of seventeen or eighteen. Nineteen, perhaps, or twenty.
Had Pilgrim lived so long in the shadow of this disease? It seemed impossible—no one could survive that long without detection. He must now be fifty or fifty-one years old. No. The onslaught—if, indeed, therehad been one—must have come later—and if so, then it was most unusual, given the norm.
But something certainly had happened when Pilgrim was eighteen. A trauma of some kind—an accident—a sudden death—a disease—the violent breaking of a relationship. Something. And that trauma, whatever it was, had been the progenitor of his present loss of self-possession. And the loss of self-possession, whatever else it was—whether an illness or not—was certainly a condition.
There it was again—Lady Quartermaine’s bête noire —the unacceptable suggestion that Mister Pilgrim was ill.
But he was.
Jung knew that for a certainty.
The man in the Bath chair now under scrutiny could not be anything less than ill. No mere momentary depression or despair had thrown him into this state. His posture alone belied that possibility, given his rigid back and neck, given his motionless feet that might just as well have been shackled—and the stiff, automatonic movements of his hands.
Jung made his way towards the windows, where he stood with his back to the light and was thus unrecognizable. The light, however, was streaming over Pilgrim in his chair. He might have been the stone-carved figure of a king. His hawk’s nose, his wide staring eyes, the shock of his hair where it touched his brow and the mouth with its lips so eager to speak and yet, unable.
Jung nodded at Kessler, giving the signal that Pilgrim should
Men and women?
Perhaps.
There were other patients—one or two in tall-backed wheelchairs, others leaning against the wall or by the windows. They seemed to Pilgrim not unlike the figures on a chessboard.
Chessboard.
Has the game commenced?
Game.
This is a game. Someone will move me. A hand will descend.
Fingers.
I will be brooded over.
Someone will cough.
The fingers will touch me. Almost lift me. But not.
They will decide I am safer where I am.
Pilgrim looked about him at the others.
Three pawns, one Bishop, two Knights, a King and Queen.
The King and Queen were separated, the Queen alone and vulnerable, the King protected by his troops, who formed a wall. White.
White King, White pawns, White Queen.
Where were all the black pieces? None was visible—all were white. And when would his opponent make the next move?
Doctor Jung came and stood behind him, lifting his finger to his lips so that Kessler would not speak.
Kessler nodded and stepped aside.
Jung came forward on the diagonal, moving to Pilgrim’s right, nodding and mouthing words of greeting at various familiar attendants who were standing near their patients.
It was four o’clock.
The sun was moving towards its final position before descending behind the mountains. A low,winter sun, with a curious, almost midsummer redness to it. Orange.
There’s an orange out there, Pilgrim thought. Perhaps it’s part of the game. A player. Or a manipulator. God.
A god.
That was it.
God was a ball of fire in the…
What? What? What? Oh, what is it called?
Jung could now see Pilgrim fully in profile. He said nothing. He watched.
Pilgrim shifted his hands. His wrists had stiffened.
They’d been frozen in the snow.
They will die.
Part of me will die.
How wonderful…
Jung took note of the fact that Pilgrim’s lips had parted, but saw no words being formed.
Twilight. The best of times. The time between.
Jung thought this in Pilgrim’s behalf, remembering what Lady Quartermaine had said about the permanent twilight of his first eighteen years.
Perhaps there had been no thoughts of suicide then. It seemed, from what Jung had gleaned from his long study of schizophrenia, that its onslaught most often took place at the age of seventeen or eighteen. Nineteen, perhaps, or twenty.
Had Pilgrim lived so long in the shadow of this disease? It seemed impossible—no one could survive that long without detection. He must now be fifty or fifty-one years old. No. The onslaught—if, indeed, therehad been one—must have come later—and if so, then it was most unusual, given the norm.
But something certainly had happened when Pilgrim was eighteen. A trauma of some kind—an accident—a sudden death—a disease—the violent breaking of a relationship. Something. And that trauma, whatever it was, had been the progenitor of his present loss of self-possession. And the loss of self-possession, whatever else it was—whether an illness or not—was certainly a condition.
There it was again—Lady Quartermaine’s bête noire —the unacceptable suggestion that Mister Pilgrim was ill.
But he was.
Jung knew that for a certainty.
The man in the Bath chair now under scrutiny could not be anything less than ill. No mere momentary depression or despair had thrown him into this state. His posture alone belied that possibility, given his rigid back and neck, given his motionless feet that might just as well have been shackled—and the stiff, automatonic movements of his hands.
Jung made his way towards the windows, where he stood with his back to the light and was thus unrecognizable. The light, however, was streaming over Pilgrim in his chair. He might have been the stone-carved figure of a king. His hawk’s nose, his wide staring eyes, the shock of his hair where it touched his brow and the mouth with its lips so eager to speak and yet, unable.
Jung nodded at Kessler, giving the signal that Pilgrim should
Similar Books
