and alligators from the corner of my eye. In my dreams, bears would dance with me, buggering me from behind. Live chickens would be stuffed down the back of my shirt.
I found one day, soon after beginning the job, that I was unable to walk; a spinal disc was perforated. I had an operation, shared a hospital ward with the limbless, and learned to walk again. Living even at the most basic level was becoming more arduous.
The oddest thing was, I felt my experiences were not taking place in the world but beyond it, in a void. There were no words for my suffering. Like the undead, the internal voices of hatred would knock on my door forever, seeking an impossible peace. If I was so ill, and getting worse, as I believed I was, how would I ever lead a useful life?
My friend said, “From our talks, I am aware that the art you like is modernism, the exploration of extreme mind states, of neurosis and psychosis. I, too, have spent my life with such books, but reading Kafka or Bruno Schulz can only take you so far. You will find in books characters who are like you. But you will never find yourself in a book unless you write it yourself. It is the wrong place to search. To switch metaphors, you can’t get out of a locked room without the right key.”
“What or where is the key?” I almost shouted. “Have you got it in your pocket? Open the door!”
He said the key might be this fellow Tahir Hussein.
The next day he obtained Hussein’s phone number for me, adding that he was much talked about. I said a lot of people were talking about me, but I was paranoid. I had no idea who was talking about Tahir Hussein. It was probably a small literary metropolitan elite, all of whom had been at university together. That was how it worked in England. But I was sane enough to realise that, without help, I would fall into a black hole. For weeks I didn’t call this man, continuing to believe I could survive alone and that my illness would disappear magically.
Another day: the morning, before work at the library. I am standing on the street. People are bent forward; they look like tables, running. Everyone had purpose, somewhere to go. When they arrived, they would have plenty to say to each other. Didn’t I, too, have plans? But—I almost said I had forgotten what they were. No. It was not that I had mislaid my plans in a far part of my mind. The future no longer had any force over me. I was too dizzy, with wild surges of mad feeling. My wish was to faint, to become unconscious. You cannot will a faint, I know that, any more than you can will a dream, a laugh or a fart. How I wanted some release from this suffering, to which even death seemed preferable. I wasn’t driven towards suicide. I wanted only to be rid of this swirling whirring.
At that moment I saw ahead of me a red London phone booth, with a gap or trench open before it, into which I waded. I came up in the booth; I was surprised to find it working; surprised to find I had change; surprised to find it ringing and answered by Tahir himself. I was particularly surprised to be invited to see him.
He had said he would take me on. I could see him the next day. He gave me his address and said simply, “Come tomorrow morning at eight and we will begin.”
If I’d had to wait more than a week, I wouldn’t have turned up. Waiting was another of my phobias. Surely I would die before the appointment? Also, I knew therapy would be expensive, exhausting most of my small income. But I couldn’t see what else to do, and having nothing didn’t hurt me; it was what I was worth.
But would I ever tell him the truth?
CHAPTER SEVEN
When I walked into that room where my life changed, although I’d studied some Freud at university and also when I was in Pakistan, I had little idea what an analysis involved, and there was no one I could ask.
In the lefty house where I lived, I kept Civilisation and Its Discontents under the bed, along with my favourite pornos, Game and Readers’
I found one day, soon after beginning the job, that I was unable to walk; a spinal disc was perforated. I had an operation, shared a hospital ward with the limbless, and learned to walk again. Living even at the most basic level was becoming more arduous.
The oddest thing was, I felt my experiences were not taking place in the world but beyond it, in a void. There were no words for my suffering. Like the undead, the internal voices of hatred would knock on my door forever, seeking an impossible peace. If I was so ill, and getting worse, as I believed I was, how would I ever lead a useful life?
My friend said, “From our talks, I am aware that the art you like is modernism, the exploration of extreme mind states, of neurosis and psychosis. I, too, have spent my life with such books, but reading Kafka or Bruno Schulz can only take you so far. You will find in books characters who are like you. But you will never find yourself in a book unless you write it yourself. It is the wrong place to search. To switch metaphors, you can’t get out of a locked room without the right key.”
“What or where is the key?” I almost shouted. “Have you got it in your pocket? Open the door!”
He said the key might be this fellow Tahir Hussein.
The next day he obtained Hussein’s phone number for me, adding that he was much talked about. I said a lot of people were talking about me, but I was paranoid. I had no idea who was talking about Tahir Hussein. It was probably a small literary metropolitan elite, all of whom had been at university together. That was how it worked in England. But I was sane enough to realise that, without help, I would fall into a black hole. For weeks I didn’t call this man, continuing to believe I could survive alone and that my illness would disappear magically.
Another day: the morning, before work at the library. I am standing on the street. People are bent forward; they look like tables, running. Everyone had purpose, somewhere to go. When they arrived, they would have plenty to say to each other. Didn’t I, too, have plans? But—I almost said I had forgotten what they were. No. It was not that I had mislaid my plans in a far part of my mind. The future no longer had any force over me. I was too dizzy, with wild surges of mad feeling. My wish was to faint, to become unconscious. You cannot will a faint, I know that, any more than you can will a dream, a laugh or a fart. How I wanted some release from this suffering, to which even death seemed preferable. I wasn’t driven towards suicide. I wanted only to be rid of this swirling whirring.
At that moment I saw ahead of me a red London phone booth, with a gap or trench open before it, into which I waded. I came up in the booth; I was surprised to find it working; surprised to find I had change; surprised to find it ringing and answered by Tahir himself. I was particularly surprised to be invited to see him.
He had said he would take me on. I could see him the next day. He gave me his address and said simply, “Come tomorrow morning at eight and we will begin.”
If I’d had to wait more than a week, I wouldn’t have turned up. Waiting was another of my phobias. Surely I would die before the appointment? Also, I knew therapy would be expensive, exhausting most of my small income. But I couldn’t see what else to do, and having nothing didn’t hurt me; it was what I was worth.
But would I ever tell him the truth?
CHAPTER SEVEN
When I walked into that room where my life changed, although I’d studied some Freud at university and also when I was in Pakistan, I had little idea what an analysis involved, and there was no one I could ask.
In the lefty house where I lived, I kept Civilisation and Its Discontents under the bed, along with my favourite pornos, Game and Readers’
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