Orpheus and the Pearl & Nevermore (2 page)

He nodded and frowned slightly. “Yes, I was
afraid you would say that. Afraid, because it is by following that
line of reasoning that I have reached this current impasse. I
alleviated what most people agree is a very great affliction,
perhaps the greatest evil of all, only to find that the cure
brought a host of other pains and sorrows. And that is why I have
called you, for these new forms of pain are not purely physical,
and therefore they are far outside my expertise.”

“
They are of a mental
nature then, doctor?”

“
Yes,
though I believe you sell your expertise short, doctor. I asked you
to come here because you have studied psychology, especially
psychoanalysis and the new theories and practices of Dr. Freud,
theories with which I am unfamiliar, for illnesses far different
than I am prepared to cure or even acknowledge. I can repair most
any injury to the nerves or the brain, and therefore, so far as we
know, most any damage to the
mind
. A stroke, paralysis, memory
loss, epilepsy, seizures – I’ve cured all of them, even the most
severe cases, with surgery and drugs. No, Dr. MacGuire, I fear the
problems I now face are matters of the
soul
, and your science claims, after
all, to heal the soul. Unless you think that too extravagant a
claim? Do you not believe in the soul?”

The conversation had now
gone from being odder than Catherine had imagined it might be, all
the way to being odder than Catherine
could
imagine a conversation being.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, doctor. If you have a patient who
requires psychoanalysis, I will do everything I can to help that
person. I am quite sure, however, that matters of religion or
belief have no place in this discussion or in the treatment of
disease.”

Dr. Wallston smiled ever so slightly at her,
those beautiful, sad eyes still fixed on hers, and she felt the
tickling on the back of her neck that one gets at such approval and
interest when they are welcomed and mutual. “Well, there was a time
when I surely would’ve agreed with you on religion’s irrelevance,
but now I am not so sure.” He paused, then slid a sheaf of papers
across the desk toward her and handed her a Waterman pen.
“Regardless of religion’s relevance, however, I am afraid that the
relevance of the merely human law is beyond debate or discussion.
This is your contract for your services here. I think you will find
it generous, and, despite the necessary legal language, fairly
straightforward.”

Catherine picked up the papers and skimmed
them as quickly as she could. As the doctor had said, it was fairly
straightforward, in that the stipulations were few and clearly
stated. The content of those stipulations, however, surprised her.
The main point seemed to be that she was never, under pain of law,
to divulge or discuss what she saw or did at the estate. She didn’t
know what to make of this, but she didn’t know how to ask about it,
either. And the far greater surprise was the matter of payment. She
looked up at the doctor from behind the papers. “Doctor, there must
be some mistake with the contracted payment. Perhaps a simple
matter of an extra zero?”

He smiled a little more broadly at her. “No,
Dr. MacGuire. If you can, in fact, help me with this patient, then
that will be a small enough sum, weighed against the nearly
priceless benefit you will have brought to me.” After she signed,
he took back the papers and stood. “It is, however, late in the
afternoon, and I have several other things to which I must attend.
Romwald will show you to your room in the west wing and bring you
dinner later. Please feel free to go about the grounds in front of
the house, but I must ask you not to enter the gardens behind the
house, nor the main building, until tomorrow morning after nine
o’clock.” He walked over to the door and opened it for her. “Thank
you again for coming, Dr. MacGuire.”

Romwald wordlessly showed her to
the west wing of the house, which was separated from the main
building by a breezeway. The separate wing consisted of two small
bedrooms, a bathroom, and a sitting room. All the rooms were open
and her bags were in the sitting room, as though she were free to
choose either or both of the bedrooms for her stay. The arrangement
soothed her somewhat frayed nerves after the odd interview, for it
would make the living arrangements much less awkward and
scandalous, as she would have a good deal of privacy. And if she
were going to practice psychoanalysis on someone, she would
probably be
here for quite some time.
Despite most people’s
imagination that one
simply lay down and talked about one’s mother for a few minutes,
then walked out a new person, the reality was a much longer,
messier, and more ambiguous process. She wondered if even Dr.
Wallston, as knowledgeable as he was, knew how much it would
entail.

After settling her
possessions into one of the bedrooms, Catherine walked out through
the breezeway.
Taking two steps towards
the back of the house, she saw Romwald walking out from the back of
the house into the garden, carrying a tray with tea service, so she
retreated toward the front of the house, as per the doctor’s
warning. She went back down the drive to the bottom of the hill
then followed a small stream there, through sycamores somewhat
smaller than those at the gate. She sat under one of them and
enjoyed the freedom and beauty of this strange, almost otherworldly
place into which she had so suddenly and unexpectedly
landed.

A while later she made her way back to the
house and found dinner waiting for her in the sitting room. Since
Romwald was the only servant she had seen or even heard mentioned
at the estate, she supposed he had prepared it as well as brought
it, and she judged him an exceptional cook. The fish chowder, pork
chops with rosemary, and glazed carrots were some of the most
savory things Catherine had tasted in ages, though living alone was
not conducive to doing much in the way of creative cooking, and she
certainly didn’t have the money to dine out. She thought it rather
rude to leave the tray and dishes there in the sitting room, but
again she heeded the doctor’s warning not to enter the main
building. After some ablutions in the bathroom she changed into
nightclothes.

Returning to the sitting
room, she saw that the tray and dishes had disappeared,
another example of Romwald’s stealth. She went
back to the hall and tried the outside door, but found it locked.
She had half-expected it to be so, given the general tenor of her
visit so far. Well, if the building caught on fire during the
night, she could always go out the window, she supposed, so there
seemed no real harm. But she still felt rather like a prisoner,
even if she now knew that she would be one of the most handsomely
paid prisoners of all time.

Catherine was exhausted,
but too restless to sleep, so she drew all the curtains and settled
herself in the sitting room, reading one of the books there. The
selection in this room was somewhat unexpected in a medical
doctor’s home, as it seemed to be all literature. She picked a copy
of
Jane Eyre
, a
story she remembered loving as a girl.
After a while, when it must’ve been quite late, she heard
voices in the main house, then a door opening. She heard scratching
on the outside door to the west wing, and what sounded like the
doctor’s voice saying, “No, dear, not there, no. Come away to bed.
You’re tired. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” The scratching
continued, then there was some unidentifiable growling, and finally
Catherine jumped and sat bolt upright at the sound of a very high,
loud, and sustained shriek. There was the sound of scuffling, more
growling, and the door to the main house slamming shut. Then
Catherine was left sitting there for several minutes
that seemed so very much longer – eyes wide,
heart
pounding, breathing through her nose
in short and silent huffs, her fingers gripping the arms of the
chair as tightly as she could, until she darted to her bedroom and
locked the door.

After those nocturnal
events, Catherine quite understandably did not sleep well, but she
roused herself
early, dressed, and went to
the sitting room where breakfast had appeared as surreptitiously as
dinner had. She ate, then puttered about the room until the little
clock on the mantle there finally chimed nine o’clock. At that
point, she dared to try the outside door, which was now unlocked.
She found the door to the main building similarly unfastened, and
she entered. Not having been instructed where to go at nine, she
went to the only room she knew, the doctor’s study, and knocked on
the door.

It was almost immediately opened, and there
again was Dr. Wallston. “Good morning, Dr. MacGuire,” he said as he
stepped aside and motioned for her to enter the study. “I hope you
are rested and ready to begin your work this morning.”

Catherine felt enough
toadying had been done
yesterday, and she
needed to know a bit more of the goings on here if she were ever to
survive and not go mad from lack of sleep, never mind be able to
conduct her treatment effectively. “My nighttime rest did suffer
from some unusual noises, doctor.”

He frowned slightly. “Yes, I’m sorry about
that. I had certainly hoped you were asleep by then. It was, as I’m
sure you guessed, the patient. Sleep is perhaps the most difficult
of her daily routines, for the medicines she is taking leave her
exhausted, but also agitated, so she is both too tired, yet unable
to fall asleep. But she is resting and recuperating physically
right now and we will see her shortly.”

Catherine nodded, but also frowned. At least
she knew the patient’s gender, but she would need much more
information. And how could the doctor have a female patient here
alone in his home? Perhaps she was a relative, an unfortunate
sister or niece.

“
Doctor, I’m sure you know enough
of psychoanalysis to understand that I must have a great deal of
the patient’s history and the exact nature of the disorder before I
can even begin to proceed. I will need that before I see her this
morning.”

“
Of course, yes, I
understand. I’m afraid, however, that it is quite complicated, to
say the least, for she suffers both physical and mental disorders.
Much of her condition will have to be shown to you, in order for
you to appreciate it fully, rather than simply explained. But I
know that I must do everything I can to give you the information
you require, as difficult as it may be for me.” He still had not
sat, nor offered her a seat, which seemed strange, but the stress
of explaining the situation seemed to be distracting him from the
basics of propriety or even simple practicality, so there they
stood as he continued to describe the situation. “I am sure you
know that my wife died late last year. Christmas Day, to be
exact.”

“
Yes, doctor, I had heard.
Everyone in the medical community was greatly saddened by your
loss.”

“
She was much younger than
I, even a little younger than you, so it just wasn’t fair. I took
it upon myself to right that injustice, Dr. MacGuire. What no one
outside of this house knows is that I was able to revive her that
Christmas Day.”

Catherine tried to fit the statement into
the accepted categories of medical phenomena and physical laws of
biology. “Revived? You mean, she was only unconscious and she
awakened? Or was she briefly in a coma?”

Dr. Wallston shook his head very slowly and
again did not take his eyes off her, nor she off him. “No,
definitely not a coma. All respiration and heartbeat had stopped.
Physical death by any definition we know.”

Catherine could feel her eyes widening, but
she was still trying to understand what the doctor was saying or
implying, and she was still not willing or able to step beyond the
boundaries of logic or reason. She blinked and tried to will her
eyes into a calm and controlled expression, even as she felt them
not cooperating. “Then I don’t understand what you’re saying,
doctor.”

“
That’s why I had so much
trouble broaching this with you. When my wife fell ill, I greatly
accelerated the experiments I had been performing on stimulation of
the brain and nervous system. I barely slept for months, not just
proceeding along the paths I had already charted, but constantly
trying new methods, elixirs, or chemical compounds, even those from
unorthodox sources. Chinese and African folk medicine, leaves
chewed by South American warriors before going into battle that
supposedly give them superhuman strength and bravery, reports of
trance-like states induced in people in the Caribbean or in
charismatic Christian sects, even speculations about the volcanic
gases that might have seeped up into the Temple at Delphi to
‘inspire’ the oracle there. I investigated practically any
heightened mental state that had ever been reported, to see if I
could reproduce any part of it. I, of course, did not want just the
sleep or stupor that so many plants and drugs induce. If I were to
find something that might help my wife, then I needed to know what
causes the frenzy, the ecstasy, the whirling dervish, the
rapid-fire glossolalia, all the phenomena where people seem to go
outside themselves and beyond their normal consciousness, not just
sink down into it, as in sleep or death.”

He paused to shake his head again. “But of
course, my experiments on animals showed me how little the body
could tolerate such extreme forces. Our little garden is the
graveyard for hundreds of animal corpses that have broken backs,
burst blood vessels, compound fractures from their mad convulsions,
paws bitten off as they ravaged themselves, faces torn off by their
own frenzied claws. When my poor Victoria finally died of fever, I
had developed a chemical compound so potent and yet so precisely
calibrated to her size and weight that I thought it might be able
to excite and stimulate the nervous system even of a corpse…
without, I prayed, destroying the subject in the process. Once she
passed, I had to work very fast, of course, before there was brain
damage, but she had already been packed in ice to try to quell the
raging fever. It gave me the time I needed to administer the
elixir. And, in short, it worked. My Victoria awoke, stood up,
walked, and spoke. She was back with us. I was overjoyed.” There
was a faint smile at the recollection of a moment that must have
been the happiest and proudest of his life.