The big problem with using insurance is that the bill is sent to the patient’s home. I pay in cash, close the door, and swear never to return to that place, either.
Finally, I go to the third appointment, another man in an office that must have cost a fortune to decorate. Unlike the first two, he listens to me attentively and seems to agree with me. I do indeed run the risk of killing my husband. I am a potential killer. I am losing control of a monster that I can’t put back into its cage.
Finally, with great care, he asks if I use drugs.
Just once, I reply.
He doesn’t believe me. He changes the subject. We talk a bit about the conflicts we’re all forced to deal with on a daily basis, and then he returns to the drugs.
“You need to trust me. No one uses drugs just once. We’re protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. I’ll lose my medical license if I mention anything about this. It’s better if we speak openly, before making your next appointment. Not only do you have to accept me as your doctor, but I also have to accept you as my patient. That’s the way it works.”
No, I insist. I don’t use drugs. I know the laws and I didn’t come here to lie. I just want to resolve this problem quickly, before I do any harm to people I love or who are close to me.
His pensive face is bearded and handsome. He nods before replying:
“You’ve spent years accumulating these tensions and now you want to get rid of them overnight. That does not exist in psychiatry or psychoanalysis. We’re not shamans who magically drive out evil spirits.”
Of course, he is being ironic, but he has just given me an excellent idea. My days of seeking psychiatric help are over.
POST Tenebras Lux. After darkness, light.
I am standing in front of the old city wall, a monument one hundred meters wide with towering statues of four men who are flanked by two smaller statues. One stands out from the rest. His head is covered, he has a long beard, and he holds in his hands what, in his time, was more powerful than a machine gun: the Bible.
While I wait, I think: If that man in the middle had been born today, everyone—especially Catholics, in France and around the world—would call him a terrorist. His tactics for implementing what he believed to be the ultimate truth remind me of the perverted mind of Osama bin Laden. Both men had the same goal: to install a theocratic state in which all who disobeyed what was understood to be the law of God should be punished.
And neither of the two hesitated to use terror to achieve their goals.
His name is John Calvin, and Geneva was his field of operations. Hundreds of people were sentenced to death and executed not far from here. Not only Catholics who dared to keep their faith, but also scientists who, in search of truth and the cures for diseases, challenged the literal interpretation of the Bible. The most famous case was that of Michael Servetus, who discovered pulmonary blood circulation and died at the stake because of it.
Whoever maintains that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and as guilty as they. There is no question here of man’s authority; it is God who speaks […]. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory.
The death and destruction were not limited to Geneva; Calvin’s apostles, likely represented by the monument’s smaller statues, spread his word and his intolerance throughout Europe. In 1566 several churches in the Netherlands were destroyed and “rebels”—in other words, people of a different faith—were murdered. An enormous amount of artwork was thrown in the fire on the pretext of “idolatry.” Part of the world’s historical and cultural heritage was destroyed and lost forever.
And today my children study Calvin at school as if he were a great Illuminist, a man with new ideas who “freed” us from the yoke of Catholicism. A revolutionary who deserves to be revered by future generations.
After the darkness, light.
What went on in that man’s head? I wonder. Did he lie awake at night knowing that families were being wiped out, that children were being separated from their parents, or that blood flooded the pavement? Or was he so convinced of his mission that there was no room for doubt?
Did he think everything he did could be justified in the name of love? Because that is what I doubt, and the crux of my current problems.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. People who knew him said that, in private, Calvin was a good man, capable of following the words of Jesus and making amazing gestures of humility. He was feared, but also loved—and could ignite crowds with that love.
As history is written by the victors, no one today remembers his atrocities. Now he is seen as the physician of souls, the great reformer, the one who saved us from Catholic heresy, with its angels, saints, virgins, gold, silver, indulgences, and corruption.
The man I’m waiting for arrives, interrupting my thoughts. He is a Cuban shaman. I explain that I convinced my editor to do a story on alternative ways of combating stress. The business world is full of people who behave with extreme generosity one moment and then take out their anger on those weaker. People are increasingly unpredictable.
Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts are booked solid and can no longer see every patient. And no one can wait months or years to treat depression.
The Cuban man listens to me without saying a word. I ask if we can continue our conversation in a café, since we’re standing outside and the temperature has dropped significantly.
“It’s the cloud,” he says, accepting my invitation.
The famous cloud hangs in the city skies until February or March and is driven away only occasionally by the mistral, which clears the sky but makes the temperature drop even more.
“How did you find me?”
A security guard from the newspaper told me about you. The editor-in-chief wanted me to interview psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists, but that’s been done a hundred times.
I need something original, and he might be just the right person.
“You can’t publish my name. What I do isn’t covered by national insurance.”
I suppose that what he is really trying to say is: “What I do is illegal.”
I talk for nearly twenty minutes, trying to put him at ease, but the Cuban man spends the whole time studying me. He has tanned skin and gray hair, and he’s short and wears a suit and tie. I never imagined a shaman dressed like that.
I explain that everything he tells me will be kept secret. We’re just interested in knowing if many people seek his services. From what I hear, he has healing powers.
“That’s not true. I can’t heal people. Only God can do that.”
Okay, we agree. But every day we meet someone whose behavior suddenly changes from one moment to the next. And we wonder: What happened to this person I thought I knew? Why is he acting so aggressively? Is it stress at work?
And then the next day the person is normal again. You’re relieved, but soon after the rug is pulled out from under you when you least expect it. And this time, instead of asking what’s wrong with this person, you wonder what you did wrong.
The shaman says nothing. He still doesn’t trust me.
Is it curable?
“There’s a cure, but it belongs to God.”
Yes, I know, but how does God cure it?
“It varies. Look into my eyes.”
I obey and fall into some sort of trance, unable to control where I’m going.
“In the name of the forces that guide my work, by the power given to me, I ask the spirits who protect me to destroy your life and that of your family if you decide to turn me over to the police or report me to the immigration authorities.”