Quartet for the End of Time (62 page)

Let's go back, the analyst says. And with that—as though no time has passed between this visit and the last—they begin where their previous session left off.

You were saying, the analyst says, that … this certain photograph; that the man pictured was immediately recognizable to you. Did there ever enter into your mind any … doubt? At any time, did you consider the possibility that the man who appeared to you might in fact
be
the man he, and everyone else in the position to have an opinion on the matter, affirmed?

No, Alden says. There was never any doubt.

The analyst nods, and glances down at his notes, which are open before him. It seems very odd, he says slowly, scratching his head and seeming to genuinely puzzle over whatever he has found on the page. Does it not indeed, he says, looking up again, and leaning forward in his chair, seem odd that a man convicted of a crime in 1932, sentenced to a five-year prison term, but released
the very next year
, might show up
eleven
years later disguised as a dead British officer whose records are all perfectly intact?

Yes, says Alden, returning the analyst's gaze. It strikes me as very odd, indeed.

Again the analyst nods. He says nothing for a little while. He only continues to regard Alden. Watching, as he can only suppose, for any signs that might indicate—what, exactly?

Alden tries very hard not to blink, and he wonders, given the harsh glare of the fluorescent light overhead and the overlong time to which he has now been exposed to it, if his pupils are retracting slightly, and if they are, if that might be read as a sign. But there is no way of knowing this. As hard as he tries, he cannot detect any manner in which to be certain if his pupil is expanding or retracting, and he only tries to remain calm and still, and not to blink, for as long as he can.

Finally, the analyst drops his gaze and leans back in his chair.

You see, he says, the curious thing is that your own report of your activities during 1932 through to the present day does not always correspond with the official record. He glances down again at his file, and shuffles through a few pages before returning his gaze.

You see, there are records here of your employment with the
Washington Post
, then of a short stint at Internal Affairs—but there is nothing to indicate the sort of
extracurricular
involvement to which you allude. I can assure you the government has a vested interest in keeping track of such involvement, and is able to do so with an accuracy that may surprise even you. I am not saying, the analyst continues carefully, that your recollections are … false, exactly. It is only pertinent to consider—given the emerging pattern that can be observed in your account—that you do have a certain … history … of experiencing events somewhat sideways to their—

But this is all simply ridiculous—Alden can't help but put in, a little
more hastily than he would have liked. He tries, whenever possible, to keep his responses and reactions to a controlled minimum. Need I remind you that my
extracurricular
, as you say, dealings with the Communist Party were kept under strict confidence for the express purpose of their remaining strictly
off the record
?

The analyst strokes his heavy jaw and shifts in his chair.

Does it not strike you, he says, in an altered tone—his voice suddenly deep, almost conspiratorial—as somewhat
odd
that it is only now, when the charges that have been brought against you are so much greater than they ever would have been had you actually been brought to task for your earlier involvement in the party's business and the—he waves his hand— the Bonus Army affair—that these phantoms from the past should suddenly appear? And that it is precisely on the basis of these phantoms that you are presently seeking to exonerate yourself from the
current
charge?

Now this is simply outrageous! Alden cries. I am not, he says—tempering his tone, and employing everything in his power to keep his voice steady and controlled—attempting to exonerate myself in any way! It is—he hesitates, but only slightly—just the opposite. I am most guilty, he says. Only not of the crime of which I'm accused.

The analyst nods and nods. Then he bends to his file and writes something down. For several minutes all Alden can hear is his pen scratching away at the page—it is an irritating sound. That, and the electric whirr of the light overhead.

Finally, the analyst lays his pen aside.

It is clear to me, he says—his tone apologetic now—that regardless of your personal culpability in the previous affair, real or imagined, what we are faced with
today
is a simple confusion between events of the future and events of the past. You see, the analyst continues, the mistake most analysts make in these sorts of cases—and which I am not prepared to make in yours—is to fail to realize that for certain patients, such as yourself, Mr. Kelly, with what we might call an
improperly elongated
sense of time, the past and future can seem to occur as if simultaneously. It is possible, you see—that is to say, it
does
happen—that things become in a patient's mind, especially after difficult periods of stress, so confused that the boundaries
that would normally separate different experiences or events are erased. Two things—something heard, or imagined, or seen—become overlaid in the mind with another, in this case earlier, episode.

Think of a dream—the analyst says, becoming suddenly animated— where a single person may represent two or more people at the same time, or two disparate events of the day—each one in itself quite solid— can recombine to engender the strangest of fictions. When it comes to
interpretation
, we find ourselves, just as with a dream, in very tricky territory indeed. The dream imagination, you see, almost always prefers a different image than the object to which it corresponds—
as long as
, that is, it is capable of expressing some particular
aspect
of the object the imagination would like to represent.

It may be that the fixed form in which objects or events appear to us in the waking world is too simplistic—that the dream imagination attempts to express them more truly by deconstructing and rearranging the images it experiences and the information it receives. The problem lies in the fact that what results from this effort most often appears to us, in our waking life, as utter nonsense!

To make matters worse, the dreamer very rarely paints any picture in an exhaustive or methodical manner. Instead, he will offer only the broadest strokes, and we are never privy to a finished image but instead only to brief glimpses into an ongoing act of free association. Not only that (and here we may come to the root of the thing), the images (even as they remain incomplete) are not content to
remain
images. The dreamer is almost certainly compelled to interact with them, to turn them from mere information—lines drawn cursorily on the canvas of his mind— into some sort of dramatic act or deed. If a dreamer, for example, encounters a lake, he is liable to enter it. He will at least wet his feet, if he does not go any farther—the water may even threaten to drown him. Or perhaps a boat will appear. If it does, he will certainly board it. Finally, the compulsion of the dream to conjure up what has been systematically repressed by the dreamer runs directly counter to the dream's compulsion to repress any disturbing impulses that might interrupt the dream and thus disturb the dreamer, further complicating things.

Now, it would not surprise me, Mr. Kelly, the analyst says, eyeing Alden sharply over the width of the desk, if in your case we are faced with just this sort of situation, where the guilt and anxiety regarding your
current
situation (which cannot help but cast itself apprehensively forward, toward a far deeper anxiety—vis-à-vis the “ultimate punishment” with which you are now faced) has been absorbed, adapted, and finally expressed, through what we can only reasonably understand today as a “demonic” resurrection of the past. In short, Mr. Kelly, it is my recommendation that—as you are unfit at the present time to act as your own witness—

Alden has been drifting—for some time only half listening to what the analyst is saying—but now he is jarred to full attention.

Unfit?

Yes, Mr. Kelly, the analyst replies. I am sure you will agree—perhaps with some proper rest and treatment, you may once again regain the … perspective, and perhaps even more importantly the …
resilience of spirit
needed in order to undergo these sorts of procedures, which, as I am sure you must understand, can prove quite grueling.

I assure you, Alden says, I am quite fit.

Again, Mr. Kelly, the analyst insists, I must impress upon you—there's a certain procedural code with these sorts of measures, which you would be required to obey. They are quite adamant, of course, that every word that is spoken for the record is the truth and can be verified without—

I assure you, I am quite fit!

Perhaps—yes. After some rest. But for now, my recommendation will remain—

If it is a matter of the outcome, Alden says, I can assure you—it makes no difference to me. I am prepared simply to recount—so help me—the whole truth, and nothing but, and have the ax fall, so to speak, as it may!

The analyst clears his throat. He has already closed his file, and now has begun to rise.

This is not, he says, leaning over the table and extending his hand, about what you would feel prepared to do or not, but about what is advisable— and permissible—in the court of law. And now, if you'll excuse me, he
continues—then pauses. He drops his hand, which Alden has not taken in his own, and shakes it a little, as though he has touched something soiled.

But he has touched nothing.

Alden stares ahead—remaining as calm and still as he possibly can. He tries not even to blink.

Our time is up, the analyst says.

—

D
ESPITE THE ANALYST
'
S EFFORTS
,
HOWEVER
—
WHICH
,
ALL ALONG
,
AS
Alden could not fail to realize, have been thinly disguised as Sutton's own (it is she, in any case, who pays the hourly rate, and who, as Alden reflects to himself, can say what the cost is to take official leave of your senses these days?)—the trial is set to go forward as previously arranged. He can't help but feel a little smug when Sutton delivers the news.

So I'm “fit,” after all, he says. If not yet, perhaps, enough to have actually
committed
the crimes to which I've confessed, at least enough to account for the ones I have not.

There is—Sutton insists—still a fair chance; you must not think, she says, there is not. With the help of the analyst's recommendation we might manage (she pauses) to significantly
… lighten
the sentence. Yes, she tells him, still a reasonable chance.

He repeats this silently to himself. A reasonable chance. That he might, after all, live—like his mother—to a respectable middle age, gazing out on the Potomac River from a comfortable private room at St. Elizabeth's Hospital …

In as indifferent a tone as he can muster, he begs her not to press the issue.

And indeed, as the days and then the weeks begin to pass, Sutton mentions chance—along with almost everything else—less and less. It is now, as she also must be beginning to see, only a matter of time.

M
EAN WHILE
,
OUT OF IDLE
curiosity sometimes, Alden wonders what sort of price has been put on his head—but he has never inquired. He is
grateful to be allowed to remain at home, and supposes, in any case, their father must have left Sutton quite a sizable sum. It is some solace, at any rate, to think so. To have the assurance, at least, that after all of this is done,
she
, at least, can stay on at the house. Never have to marry, if she does not wish to. Even give up the “women's pages.” (Now that the men have returned, it is, as she often laments, the only thing open to her—just as it was before the war.) There is something pleasurable in the thought of it, though he feels a little guilty to go so far as to think it. To keep her—if only in his imagination—in this way separate, apart; to suppose that, after he is gone, she, too, may abstract herself from the world of other living women and men; that she, too, may desist, finally, in any attempt to stall the flow of time, and the changes it inevitably brings. May instead absorb herself—or be absorbed—only in its continuous flow.

Y
OU KNOW
,
SHE SAYS —
it is the evening before the trial. She is paused, in her usual way, with a dinner tray, by the door. I tried—I tried very hard—

This is not the usual, rehearsed script they perform nightly with each other. Alden does not want a scene—now, or the next day—but, still, he is interested in what she will say.

She continues. To find him, she says.

Who? he asks.

Arthur, she says.

Of course. Alden knows all of this—he does not feel as though they have to go over all of it again.

Listen—he says. Listen, Sutton. The thing is out of our hands.

She shakes her head. No, but you see—and now there is something in her voice that catches him. He trembles for a moment with it. What is it, he wonders, that she—that anyone—could have left to say?

I did manage—she continues—some time ago. To locate Douglas. I didn't tell you, I'm sorry. I don't know why.

Douglas, he says.

Yes, she says. And then she tells him all about how he survived the war. He was even made corporal, she says, after the Battle of Overloon. About how he lives in St. Louis now, married to a nurse whom he met
overseas—a student at the university. About how he had been working out in Arizona when he first heard the news, back in '36, that the Bonus Bill had finally passed. That he took his father's bonus, which he had kept all those years folded inside his shirt pocket, down to the local Veterans' Bureau, and filled out the form so that he might finally make good on it.