The Best Book in the World

CHAPTER 19

White Coat


Titus is sitting on the exercise bicycle at the gym. The sweat is running down the inside of his old bleached T-shirt with the Einstürzende Neubauten print that he bought in Berlin in 1983.

He has started to appreciate these two-hour breaks all the more. When Astra had turned up with a gym membership card, he had just snorted at her. But she evidently knew what she was doing. Titus has a feeling that she always knows what she is doing. An alpha woman. Young, attractive, clever, independent and with just the right amount of pushiness. He couldn’t have a better editor. He has been lucky in that respect.

Titus likes his new life. It’s been going on a few weeks now. Not since his teens has he had such a long period without any alcohol at all. Sure, he pulls out his reward image now and then, but it’s more to keep it alive than because he really needs it. Like an amusing joke, a pleasant memory. For the time being, another form of energy keeps him away from spirits and cigarettes.

The book.

Writing gives him energy. He’s rattling along and he knows it’s going to be good. The book is easily accessible in its style, but heavy as lead in its themes. He throws in so many references that critics will be kept busy for decades trying to analyse his intentions. The characters around H?kan Rink are built up in such a deliberately slow and refined manner that the reader should feel obliged to read on. The breakthrough and unexpected turning points are planned down to the tiniest detail. At the same time, Titus is careful not to reveal too much to readers. That would be an insult to their intelligence. Too many details are for nerds and bores. My readers are here making history with me, Titus thinks. It is my readers who will fill the characters with flesh and blood. It is my readers who will create the details in the room. It is they who will get involved, who will let themselves be amused and worried. My readers are the cleverest and the best, he says to himself, and pedals away for all he is worth on the exercise bike.

Titus doesn’t like the suburbs. He has lived all his life in the centre of the city and likes crowds and asphalt. The few times he has been on holiday abroad, it has only been to other big cities. There, he never runs the risk of suddenly finding himself without a bar within easy reach.

Of course, he has been in the countryside – but only in the safe context of a boozy midsummer party or similar event. Titus has always felt that nature shows off a bit, that as soon as he comes along it spruces itself up to an incredible degree and tries to seduce him with its birdsong and its smells, although what it really wants to do is entice him into the mud in a dirty forest pond. And suddenly he has been conned. He sinks slowly under the surface while the pixies scornfully laugh at him with the blue midsummer night sky in the background. No, the countryside is hell. Out there, you must be on your guard. Or very drunk.

The suburbs are not the slightest improvement on the countryside. People in the suburbs are farmers. Instead of tractors, they drive around in enormous estate cars. All they talk about is the weather, sports news and lotteries. The only difference from real farmers is that the suburban people have cheap blue suits instead of cheap blue overalls.

Now, Titus is forced to visit the suburbs. Well, forced is perhaps not strictly accurate. He has been given a chance to learn about therapy for free. It would be an abuse of his professional responsibility not to profit from the chances that pass his way.

FF, as H?kan Rink would have labelled it. Follow the Flow.

When Titus gets off the bus he is on the very edge of Stockholm. Beyond the roundabouts and viaducts he can just make out the thousands of detached houses, terraced houses, the blocks of flats, the playing fields with artificial grass, and the shopping centres. He shudders and thanks his lucky stars that he only had to go as far as no-man’s land and not the whole way, deep into suburban hell. Valhallav?gen 1 and the roundabout at Roslagstull are without doubt Stockholm’s precipice – another couple of metres and he would have risked falling over the edge and that would be the end of it.


Instead he presses the bell down by the entrance. It just says Dr Rolf. Strange that there isn’t any surname. What sort of doctor only has a first name? Has he come to a children’s hospital?

‘Yes, hello!’ a voice shouts over the intercom, loud enough to drown the roar from the roundabout which catapults the big silver-coloured suburban cars northwards.

‘Yes, hello!’ Titus shouts back into the microphone. ‘I have a free appointment for multi-therapy at 10 o’clock!’

‘Come inside, I’ve nothing to hide! Fifth floor. There’s a lift on the left!’

A short buzz signals that the door can be pushed open. Titus enters and approaches the lift. When the door shuts behind him, he finds himself in total silence. The feeling of being in the suburbs soon fades. This is going to be exciting, he thinks, and overcomes his aversion to lifts.

When he reaches the fifth floor, the door to one of the flats is already open. He sees a hall that could well belong to a therapy clinic.

‘Next!’

A large and jovial man in a white coat suddenly appears from nowhere. He stretches his hand out towards Titus.

‘Hahaha! Titus Jensen, I presume.’

‘Quite right.’

‘I am Doctor Rolf. Ralf Rolf.’

‘Ralf Rolf?’ wonders Titus, who thinks that Ralf Rolf sounds more like a dog barking than a name.

‘Exactly! Ralf Rolf. But you can call me Ralf. Doctor Ralf Rolf or just Ralf, that’s me. Welcome!’

Titus looks around in the waiting room. Along one wall there are open empty chests full of theatre clothes and strange props all jumbled up together. Police uniforms, loose noses, wigs, dresses, coats of mail, theatre masks, fake boobs, and enormous Tyrolean short trousers. In the corner next to the chests is a room divider with an arrow and sign that says: Get changed here.

On the walls, Titus sees enormous framed poster-like images with black one-liners against a white background:



Hmm, thinks Titus, what a good idea. One-liners are philosophy in a concentrated form. An idea what won’t fit in a one-liner can never be understood by the masses. Naturally, The Best Book in the World must have the best one-liners in the world. He has already touched on that subconsciously, but can throw in even more into H?kan Rink’s dialogue. Ingenious abbreviations and one-liners, that’ll be what characterises the chief inspector’s language. A person who talks with abbreviations and one-liners wins Respect with a capital R.

And a capital R is something that is always on H?kan Rink’s mind.

‘Do you like them? I found them on Internet. On my own homepage, hahaha!’ chuckles Doctor Rolf with loud joviality, and puts his arm around Titus. He leads him into the consulting room.

‘Take a seat! But don’t take it home with you, haha!’

Titus finds them rather trying, people who are implacably jolly. It is as if they have a monopoly on good cheer. They smother everybody else’s attempt to be cheerful. Doctor Rolf is most certainly one of those people who starts a party by reeling off four or five funny stories, Titus thinks. It is so damned twentieth century to tell funny stories. And without a doubt he’ll be an expert on dirty stories too. Dirty stories are the worst sort of all funny stories.

Doctor Rolf sits down behind his large desk that is full of folders, prescription blocks, pens and a keyboard that looks a bit sticky. A plate with a half-eaten Danish pastry explains that. Doctor Rolf is one of those people who munches away and makes a mess while surfing or working. Since all his attention is directed towards the screen, he doesn’t notice when he spills something on the keyboard.

Titus sits in the visitor’s chair on the other side of the desk. It is a bit low in relation to the desk top, and Titus feels small. Besides, the armrest is too high. And the armrests are too close to each other for it to be comfortable to have your arms inside them. It’s too cramped; he feels like a fatty in a doll’s chair. So he puts his arms on the armrests even though it makes his shoulders almost shoot up towards his ears. His fingers turn white as he firmly grasps the front of the armrests.

He does not feel at all comfortable with this visit. Doctor Rolf doesn’t seem a hundred per cent serious. Rather the opposite, in fact.

‘Yes, well indeed. Welcome, one might well say.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Right, you wanted to know a little about multi-therapy, is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much do you know?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Oh, I see,’ says Doctor Rolf, and indicates his serious intentions by pulling a little on the collar of his white coat.

‘Let me start from scratch. What is your problem? I mean, why were you curious about coming here?’

‘I don’t have any problems. I came because I got curious after a telephone salesman phoned me,’ said Titus, in a friendly tone.

‘Excellent! That is a good basic attitude. “I don’t have any problems.” One might think so. It is not entirely correct, but I won’t say that it is entirely wrong.’

‘No?’

‘Multi-therapy is based on an ancient philosophy. Everything that you understand as life and “the world” consists of events that are processed by your brain. Your brain is unique, so your picture of the world is unique too. What you perceive as green may be seen as red by somebody else. What you see as right is wrong for another person. When you think “nemas problemas”, your fellow man may regard the situation as terrible.’

‘Mmm, yes…’

‘Experiences are nothing more than chemical reactions. Take what people call love, for example. Falling in love is about a bundle of hormones rushing around inside your body. There is no rational explanation for why a certain person attracts another. But what we do know is that we can influence the selection processes through conscious acts. By, for example, following norms and changes of fashion, our ability to attract increases. Adaptation is considered attractive because the opposite party understands that we have enough imagination to manage to support our offspring. Thus: our actions affect our hormones. A pair of modern jeans on a perfectly ordinary bottom gets more hormones going than does a pair of old-fashioned jeans on the same bottom. The act sets off a chemical reaction that creates the experience of love. It isn’t the bottom that gets the hormones going, it is the act. The choice of the correct pair of jeans, that is. The act itself is everything. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, I think so…’

‘Well, life is chemistry. You are a chemistry set. I am another.’

Doctor Rolf leans back and looks at Titus. Titus wonders where they are going. Doctor Rolf puts one hand on the back of his head and slowly pushes it through his hair down towards his brow. His fingers drip slowly down his forehead. The hand stops when it reaches his eyebrows. It rests there a while. Then he tugs a little at the skin of his forehead. His eyebrows go up and down, up and down. Then he suddenly lets go of his own head and continues:

‘You say that you don’t have any problems, don’t you?’

‘Yes…’

‘That is an interesting attitude. Most people who come here think they have problems. Serious ones, even. I usually tell them that they do not. But now the opposite would seem to be the case. Here is somebody who says he is without any problems.’

When Doctor Rolf says ‘without any problems’, he makes it sound like the exact opposite, like a condition that is very serious, indeed mortal. Doctor Rolf closes his eyes and emits a short snoring sound. Titus gives a start and tries to seem like an ordinary person.

‘Yes, well, without any problems – what does it mean: without any problems? I do of course struggle with some problems. Or have done in the past, one might say. But I don’t have any mental afflictions, if that is what you mean.’

‘No, of course not. I understand. “No mental afflictions.”’ Doctor Rolf pronounces his diagnosis slowly. Then he quickly gets up from his chair.

‘Yes, Titus. In that case, there is nothing I can do for you. Regrettably.’

‘Are we already finished?’ wonders Titus.

‘No, by no means! But if you don’t have any problems, I will then have to exhibit some of mine. You wanted to find out more about multi-therapy and so you will.’

‘Thank you, but I don’t know if that is necessary…’

‘Oh, but yes. Don’t be silly,’ says Doctor Rolf and turns on his best lecturer voice. ‘First, I shall tell you what it is about. Then I shall demonstrate how it can work. Thus: life is chemistry. Everything you perceive depends upon your chemical make-up. Everything you perceive wrongly also depends upon your chemical make-up. All qualities or singularities you have that can be interpreted as abnormal in the eyes of others can be altered with the help of chemical reactions. It is, for example, quite common that people take medicines containing chemicals if they feel excessively persecuted. People who are too happy may take medicine made from the chemical element lithium to deal with that affliction. And people who feel extremely unhappy may also take lithium. With enough lithium in your body, we will all feel good and be like each other. That is what they want. Or what their relatives want. Be that as it may: chemicals are far too clumsy according to us multi-therapists.’


Titus nods cautiously. He is of course curious as to what Doctor Rolf has to say. At the same time, he has a feeling that one shouldn’t stimulate him too much with one’s interest. Doctor Rolf rolls all the time between apathy and frenzy. One moment, he looks as if he is falling asleep. The next, there is lightning in his eyes.

‘Adding chemicals from outside can create more imbalances. Multi-therapy sees it all from the other side. We ensure that the body starts to produce the chemicals it needs. Since everything you experience depends on the chemistry in your brain, all your life is in a sense imagined. It follows from this that your illnesses and problems are imagined too. They are quite simply figments of your imagination concocted by the chemistry in your brain!’

‘So you mean that paranoid schizophrenia, for example, is purely a figment of someone’s imagination?’

‘Exactly!’ shouts Doctor Rolf. ‘That is indeed the case! Split personality is an idée fixe and there are some excellent therapies to deal with that. It is simply a question of tailoring a therapy that works specially for you. That is multi-therapy in a nutshell. If there is a problem – there is a therapy!’

‘It sounds extremely simple…’

‘Simple! On the contrary, it can be incredibly difficult to find the right therapy. Imaginary illnesses are often very deeply embedded in people’s brains. You might have to test hundreds of placebo therapies before one works.’

‘Placebo therapies!’ says Titus, who is having a hard time keeping up.

‘Like sugar-coated pills! The patient thinks that the medicine works and is healed because of that. Even though the only active ingredient is sugar. That is exactly how it is with multi-therapy. As long as you think you are being healed, it will work. When you finally realise that your have an imaginary illness, you will search high and low for an imaginary therapy that works. You will stop seeing yourself as a victim of unfortunate circumstances, genes, childhood environment, or whatever it is you blame. When you get your willpower back, you will blow the whistle and the factory starts working again. Your brain and body will suddenly start producing the chemicals that are needed for you to function properly again. Thus: when you want to be cured – you will be cured. That’s how it is! Now I think you have twigged how it all works, yes?’

‘What I regard as my life, you can actually govern with this placebo therapy?’

‘Ha! You are clever!’

‘Umm, I wonder if I believe this,’ says Titus doubtfully. ‘Can you give me some examples? What can you cure?’

‘Everything! I can cure anything at all. Everything, everything, everything! Paranoia, schizophrenia, agoraphobia, snake phobias, fear of flying. You name it! The whole caboodle! From Münchausen by proxy to Tourette’s syndrome.’

Then something clicks inside Titus’ head. He thinks about Lenny.

‘What, can you cure Tourette’s?’

‘Yes indeed! Yep. Tourette’s is straightforward imagination. A malicious trick of the brain, pure and simple. There is no good reason why people should go around twitching and saying stupid things. No, they do it purely because their brains think they must. For imaginary illness there is only one remedy. And that is…’ puffs Doctor Rolf and moves his hand in a circle so that Titus finishes for him.

‘…imaginary therapy.’

‘Bravo, Titus! Imaginary therapy, placebo therapy, multi-therapy. We have many names for what we love.’

‘But how do you go about it, then? I mean, how can you cure somebody with Tourette’s, for example?’

‘Hard to generalise. But it is almost always a matter of going to extremes. Of going beyond every possible boundary. And then taking one more step, over the precipice. It is about putting people in a context that is so ridiculously exaggerated that they realise their own behaviour is trivial and of no consequence in a larger context. Then one continues to reduce and reduce their problems until they disappear completely. For a Tourette’s patient, for example, it might involve forcing the person to be extremely spasmodic and shout out dirty words for hours at a time during each therapy session. Perhaps dressed up as a clown, or something similar. It can be extremely tough going for all involved. My theory is that Tourette’s cases have a certain number of spasms inside them. If they try to curb their excesses, the effect is simply that they keep the larder well stocked with terrible things. In the worst cases, the larder will keep them supplied all their lives. No, it is better to hunt down the Tourette’s like mad dogs, and force all the shit out of them in a short period. Ride them in like wild horses at a rodeo. In the end, they tire of all the nonsense. We quite simply empty them of their spasms and expletives. But it can take three months. Years in the worst cases.’

‘Oh, stop it. That sounds sick. Don’t you think it is an extremely degrading approach?’

‘So it might seem. And that is why it takes place within sealed rooms at an authorised multi-therapist’s. We have signed an oath of confidentiality,’ says Doctor Rolf, and smothers a yawn.

How can he be tired now, wonders Titus. He was going on overdrive just thirty seconds ago, when he described Tourette’s sufferers as mad dogs.

‘If it’s as good as you say, then how come multi-therapy isn’t better known?’ snorts Titus.

He thinks the whole thing sounds like a joke. It is too simple. Genuine traumas must be deeper than simply dressing like an idiot and exaggerating your problems to make them disappear. It would be like trying to lose weight by binge eating.

‘Better known?’ Doctor Rolf continues to rant. ‘It comes with the territory. Who wants to be an ambassador for us multi-therapists, do you think? A person with paranoia that we have forced to go around spying on people 24/7, wearing a trench coat and sunglasses? A schizophrenic who is forced to live in dozens of identities, although he only feels at home in two? Some poor guy who is afraid of pigeons and who has to spend the entire summer in the Piazza San Marco in Venice? The thing is, once they have been cured we never see a trace of them again. By then, we have completely tired them out. When they think about what we have put them through, they feel ashamed like cats that have had a drenching. In a way, I can understand them. Granted, these treatments can be really hard going, but that is roughly as far as the science of placebo treatment has come. Anyway, who complains about brutal chemotherapy as long as it knocks out the cancer? The main point is that the treatment saves lives. And there are a lot of people out there who have us multi-therapists to thank for their being able to function in society, I promise you. Or, as we like to say: wherever in the world you may go, you will see lots of friends of placebo!’

‘Oh, right…’

‘Besides, it’s an extremely tough profession being a multi-therapist. It wears you down.’

‘Oh, yes…?’

‘Yes, you see. We must test all therapies before we try them out clinically on people. That is one of our ethical rules. There are a lot of therapies. Just as many as there are people, or so sometimes feels.’

‘Oh, right…’

‘Take somnambulism, for example. That has affected my life fundamentally. I have cured hundreds of patients who have walked in their sleep and not been able to distinguish between dreams and being awake. A sleepwalker can fall asleep anywhere. When they dream, they think that what is happening in the dream is taking place in reality. They have no idea what is a dream and what is for real. You might think that sounds unbelievably ridiculous and silly, but in fact it is very difficult to cure. For them, an effective placebo therapy is like the sleep-and-food alarm clock that the absent-minded professor has to have in the children’s cartoon story. I am convinced that the professor is actually a somnambulist and that he has found a method of setting limits for himself. His sleep-and-food clock tells him when he should eat, when he should go to bed, when he should wake up. Damn it, it tells him when he should shit and piss too. So I give all my waking-dream patients a little bell. Every time they are going to do something, they must give the bell a ding-a-ling and say aloud what they are going to do. The slightest thing, and they must give a ding-a-ling. ‘Now I must yawn, ding-a-ling.’ ‘Now I want to talk, ding-a-ling.’ Everything they do must be preceded by a ding-a-ling of the bell. Everything, every single thing. And they can only go ding-a-ling when they are awake, can’t they? The sound becomes a conditioned reflex. Ding-a-ling means that they are awake. Silence means reward and sleep. Eventually, they can take the bell away and just pretend to go Ding-a-ling. They keep track of themselves. The Ding-a-ling becomes a cognitive brake in their life.’

‘Does it really work?’

‘Oh yes, indeed it does! Look at this!’

Doctor Rolf stretches across the desk and digs out a little bell from among his papers.

‘Somnambulist, indeed! Now I want to sleep!’

He goes ding-a-ling with the bell. Then he flops down with a crash in a heap over his desk. He isn’t a doctor any longer. How he just looks like a big heavy sack of flour. He is, however, still breathing, deeply and slowly. Doctor Rolf sleeps like a newly felled fir tree in the forest. A tiny sliver of saliva-like resin runs out of the corner of his mouth and down onto the sticky computer keyboard.


Titus leans over Doctor Rolf and gives him a little careful shake. He tries a ‘Hello?’ and a ‘Doctor Rolf?’ but the only answer is a deep wheeze.

Jesus, that was one hell of a chemistry set, Titus thinks, and sneaks out of Doctor Rolf’s consulting room, never to return.

Research can be a pain. The more you dig, the bigger the hole. And how should you judge your discoveries?

What is stupid today can be gospel tomorrow.