And it didn’t have a face. Just like the shadow in the hospital.
Next, I heard an aural sound: the alarm blaring in the AMC’s west wing. Hurried footsteps in the corridor. Panicked voices. The quickened beeping of the electrocardiograph of the patient whose calvarium we had just opened. My pager beeping too. And finally, that deep, subterranean rumbling of something big coming closer.
It was awful. I can’t even write about it—I don’t want to experience it all over again. Maybe later, when I can take a more detached perspective.
When I finally emerged from the washrooms, the back of my left hand was purple and swollen. I must have hit it against the sink. Bruised, I presume, hopefully not broken. There was also a graze on my right arm, but I could cover that with my sleeve. With my left hand hidden in my right, I stumbled straight to the doors—not in a million years was I going to stay here and attend the interment—and avoided the gazes of most of the attendees, but at least ten of them must have seen my tousled hair and my sweat-soaked, disheveled clothes.
On the drive home, I did what I hadn’t done during the funeral: I cried. When I hit the overpass where Dr. Stein had driven to her death, the ring road seemed to drop away before my very eyes, and I screamed. I really screamed. There comes a point when it overwhelms you, and then it all just comes falling out.
Oh, it’s back! I really thought it was over. That it was some kind of posttraumatic cocktail, a reaction to the August 18 tragedy, a delayed stage of mourning. No sugar rim, no umbrella. But now I know I was wrong.
Dr. Stein is dead, and I keep thinking about what she hinted at during our conversation.
About Edgar.
(later)
Julian and Naomi are in bed, and I had an argument with Sue. I don’t blame her for not believing everything I told her just like that. No one in their right mind would. I’m not saying that Sue thinks I’m lying, but she does think I’m imagining things. I know all too well that I have lost all semblance of reasonability by anthropomorphizing what she calls my “delusions.” She and her well-intended advice! On WeChat, all the way from Beijing, with no idea what’s going on with me. At some point you just explode!
And okay, I’ll be honest. I’ve had four glasses of wine, and that’s three more than is good for me. The wine makes it easier to accept that I’m thinking of things that are not only diametrically opposed to the principles of neuropsychology but to everything that can be scientifically substantiated. But it didn’t do my temper any good!
In any case, I shall write down my suspicions about what Dr. Claire Stein told me before I change my mind.
Nine days ago today, she walked up to me after our Pilates class. I heard later that she was already on sick leave and had referred all her patients to other doctors, and I’m quite certain that her sole reason for coming to the gym that morning was to talk to me. As I was on my way to the main building, she stopped me and said, trying to sound as offhand as possible, “Say, I understand you were there that night, on the eighteenth.”
“That’s right,” I answered, immediately on my guard. So many journalists are still circling the AMC like moths around a streetlamp—some of whom have, in all their subtlety, dubbed the tragedy the “August Fright Night.”
Yet it was obvious to me right away that Claire Stein had different motives. She was clearly ill at ease, and she was wearing a thick sweater and a scarf, despite it being a pleasant early autumn day. That struck me as strange right off the bat.
“I wanted to discuss something with you. It’s a rather strange story. And it’s maybe related to what happened that night.”
“Oh? Maybe it’s better to take it to Inspection, then.”
But Dr. Stein said she wanted to talk to someone who had actually been there, and despite everything, she had my interest. We all share our sense of curiosity, don’t we? Sometimes too much.
“But I’m not sure if I can give you the information you’re looking for, Claire. You’re probably aware that we’re not allowed to talk to the media or anyone. We all had to sign an NDA.”
Dr. Stein said that she had absolutely no intention of getting me in trouble, and then she came to the point. She told me she was treating a patient who’d been facially disfigured last summer in a violent assault while mountaineering in the Swiss Alps. One of those young outdoor types, she called him Edgar for convenience’s sake. She said his climbing partner was most probably the culprit. Besides his slow recuperation, Edgar suffers from severe psychological trauma as a result of the incident, but at least he survived. His climbing partner was never found. I asked the obvious question of whether she believed Edgar had something to do with his disappearance.
“I can’t rule it out,” Claire said. “Edgar claims that his partner had fallen into a crevasse during the incident. The Swiss police, however, say it was an accident and don’t mention violence at all in their report. It’s all very unusual. But that’s not what this is about. Edgar claims that he is possessed by the mountain where it all happened.”
Paranoia is not uncommon among patients suffering from severe trauma. When the brain’s metabolism is disrupted, its functions undergo a quick transformation, which can lead to the illusion that the loss of control is caused by an external presence. Part of me knows that my own hallucinations are illusions too, but there are obscure areas in the human psyche in which illusions can sometimes seep through reality like a caustic acid. I know of a case in which a Dutch patient with severe schizophrenia suddenly started speaking fluent Swedish (which, according to his family, he had never done), in an old woman’s voice. In older days, he would undoubtedly have been assumed to be possessed by the devil. Nowadays, we know that mental disorders are capable of stretching the spectrum of what we consider to be normal human behavior practically without limit. That idea is actually much more haunting. Because we, in fact, still understand so little about it.
Claire was silent for a moment, then said, “Two weeks ago, I had a clash with Edgar. He was so ashamed of how he looked that, even after his recovery, he would still wrap his face up with bandages. I tried to get him to confront his mutilation and asked him to remove them. But I didn’t do it for his sake, Emily. I did it for mine. I was afraid of him. There was something entirely wrong with him. I don’t have any other way of describing it. And when he did . . .” She shivered all over. “Something happened. And, since then, something has changed.”
“What was it, Claire?”
“He showed me something. Something I wish I hadn’t seen.” Her hand trembling, she took off her sunglasses. Only now did I see how bad she looked. “And since, I’ve been having seizures,” she said.
“What kind of seizures?”