upright, supported by pillows against a metal backrest, lit as though by a single spot in a theatrical production. Spread about him on the sheets and spilling out into the shadows were books, pamphlets, a violin bow, a laptop, headphones, orange peel, sweet wrappers, a box of tissues, a sock, a notebook and many lined pages covered in writing. Ordinary teenage squalor, familiar to her from family visits.
It was a long thin face, ghoulishly pale, but beautiful, with crescents of bruised purple fading delicately to white under the eyes, and full lips that appeared purplish too in the intense light. The eyes themselves looked violet and were huge. There was a mole high on one cheek, as artificial-looking as a painted beauty spot. His build was frail; his arms protruded like poles from the hospital gown. He spoke breathlessly, earnestly, and in those first few seconds she caught nothing. Then, as the door swung closed behind her with a pneumatic sigh, she gathered he was telling her how strange it was, he had known all along that she would visit him, that he thought he had this knack, this feel for the future, that they had read a poem at school in religious studies which said that the future, present and past were all one, and this was what the Bible said too. His chemistry teacher said relativity proved that time was an illusion.And if God, poetry and science all said the same thing, it had to be true, didn’t she think?
He fell back against the pillows to catch his breath. She had been standing at the foot of his bed. Now she approached the side where there was a plastic chair and said her name and put out her hand. His was cold and damp. She sat down and waited for him to say more. But his head was tilted back and he was looking at the ceiling, still recovering and, she realized, expecting an answer. She became aware of the hiss of one of the machines at her back, as well as a muted rapid bleeping, at the audible threshold, or at least hers. The heart monitor, turned down for the patient’s comfort, was betraying his excitement.
She leaned forward and said she thought he was right. In her experience in court, if different witnesses who had never spoken to each other all said the same thing about an event, it was more likely to be true.
Then she added, “But it’s not always. There can be group delusions. People who don’t know each other can be gripped by the same false idea. That certainly happens in courts of law.”
“Like when?”
He was still catching his breath, and even these two words were an effort. His gaze remained upward, away from her, while she thought of an example.
“Some years ago in this country children were taken away from their parents by the authorities, and the parents were prosecuted for what was called satanic abuse, for doing terriblethings to their children in secret devil-worshipping rituals. Everyone piled in against the parents. Police, social workers, prosecutors, newspapers, even judges. But it turned out there was nothing. No secret rituals, no Satan, no abuse. Nothing had happened. It was a fantasy. All these experts and important people were sharing a delusion, a dream. Eventually, they all came to their senses and were very ashamed, or they should have been. And very slowly, the children were returned to their homes.”
Fiona talked as though she herself was in a dream. She felt pleasantly tranquil, even as she guessed that Marina, monitoring the conversation, would be baffled by her remarks. What was the judge doing, talking to the boy about child abuse, within minutes of meeting him? Was she wanting to suggest that religion, his religion, was a group delusion? Marina would have expected the significant opening remark, after some gentle small talk, to be along the lines of, I’m sure you know why I’m here. Instead, Fiona was free-associating, as though to a colleague, about a forgotten institutional scandal of the 1980s. But what Marina thought did not really trouble her.
It was a long thin face, ghoulishly pale, but beautiful, with crescents of bruised purple fading delicately to white under the eyes, and full lips that appeared purplish too in the intense light. The eyes themselves looked violet and were huge. There was a mole high on one cheek, as artificial-looking as a painted beauty spot. His build was frail; his arms protruded like poles from the hospital gown. He spoke breathlessly, earnestly, and in those first few seconds she caught nothing. Then, as the door swung closed behind her with a pneumatic sigh, she gathered he was telling her how strange it was, he had known all along that she would visit him, that he thought he had this knack, this feel for the future, that they had read a poem at school in religious studies which said that the future, present and past were all one, and this was what the Bible said too. His chemistry teacher said relativity proved that time was an illusion.And if God, poetry and science all said the same thing, it had to be true, didn’t she think?
He fell back against the pillows to catch his breath. She had been standing at the foot of his bed. Now she approached the side where there was a plastic chair and said her name and put out her hand. His was cold and damp. She sat down and waited for him to say more. But his head was tilted back and he was looking at the ceiling, still recovering and, she realized, expecting an answer. She became aware of the hiss of one of the machines at her back, as well as a muted rapid bleeping, at the audible threshold, or at least hers. The heart monitor, turned down for the patient’s comfort, was betraying his excitement.
She leaned forward and said she thought he was right. In her experience in court, if different witnesses who had never spoken to each other all said the same thing about an event, it was more likely to be true.
Then she added, “But it’s not always. There can be group delusions. People who don’t know each other can be gripped by the same false idea. That certainly happens in courts of law.”
“Like when?”
He was still catching his breath, and even these two words were an effort. His gaze remained upward, away from her, while she thought of an example.
“Some years ago in this country children were taken away from their parents by the authorities, and the parents were prosecuted for what was called satanic abuse, for doing terriblethings to their children in secret devil-worshipping rituals. Everyone piled in against the parents. Police, social workers, prosecutors, newspapers, even judges. But it turned out there was nothing. No secret rituals, no Satan, no abuse. Nothing had happened. It was a fantasy. All these experts and important people were sharing a delusion, a dream. Eventually, they all came to their senses and were very ashamed, or they should have been. And very slowly, the children were returned to their homes.”
Fiona talked as though she herself was in a dream. She felt pleasantly tranquil, even as she guessed that Marina, monitoring the conversation, would be baffled by her remarks. What was the judge doing, talking to the boy about child abuse, within minutes of meeting him? Was she wanting to suggest that religion, his religion, was a group delusion? Marina would have expected the significant opening remark, after some gentle small talk, to be along the lines of, I’m sure you know why I’m here. Instead, Fiona was free-associating, as though to a colleague, about a forgotten institutional scandal of the 1980s. But what Marina thought did not really trouble her.
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