Forever Yours (13 page)

Bianca: “Exactly! Basti's like, he can wait until kingdom come, squares seven and eight on the fourth floor never light up. That's what he observed. Interesting, eh? So what this means is that Hannes doesn't turn on any lights when he goes into his flat, and he doesn't turn them on later, either. You see, he never turns them on. He's practically in the dark the whole time. Fascinating, eh?” Judith: “Indeed.” Bianca: “'Cause he does turn on the stairwell lights. So he's not afraid of the light, only in his own flat, he keeps that nice and dark. Do you understand that, Judith?” “No,” Judith replied, although she neglected to say that she didn't want to understand either, and if she did, then the solution was bound to be awfully banal: maybe the bulbs had gone in Hannes' flat.

“I take my hat off to Basti, his detective work is excellent,” she said. “But let's stop now and leave Hannes in peace, O.K.?” “O.K.,” Bianca said. “Pity, though, 'cause I'm sure there are more secrets to uncover. But if you're not afraid of him anymore and he's not bothering you anymore, then of course it's pointless.”

After two weeks they said she could leave the clinic because in theory her episode ought to have long passed, and in practice it was the medicines which mattered most. In truth they probably needed to free up beds for new psychos; traditionally it got pretty crowded on the acute wards around All Saints' Day. Judith wanted to lodge a protest against her eviction with Jessica Reimann, but she had gone to a psychiatry conference in the Alps. It wasn't just the patients who needed the occasional dose of mountain air.

Judith was allowed to enjoy institutional board and lodging over the weekend until Monday, when Mum came to take her home. Hadn't there once been an American girl who tried to justify a killing spree by saying she didn't like Mondays? Fortunately, the strong pills – including a new white one for depression – were so effective that they blunted and fogged the experience of her mother, muffling the tone of suffering and pity.

Back home, in these anything-but-homely rooms with their nests of voices and noises, Judith crept straight under the throw on the sofa. Mum spent a while vacuuming, wiping and churning up dust, brought her daughter a cup of unsweetened herbal tea – as a signal to Judith of just what a bad state she was in – and then posed the entirely valid question of what was going to happen now. Judith: “No idea, Mum. I'm just very tired.” Mum: “There's no way you can be left alone in this state.” Judith: “Yes, I can, it's O.K., I just want to sleep.” Mum: “I'm going to move in with you.” Judith: “Don't say things like that. You know how mentally fragile I am.” Mum: “I'll stay tonight and we'll talk about it again tomorrow.” Judith: “O.K., Mum, goodnight!” Mum: “But it's four o'clock in the afternoon!”

Work was out of the question for the next few weeks. In fact, pretty much everything was out of the question. Thanks to her friends who stood in as carers, Mum, Western medicine, and herself a little bit too, all Judith had to do was take her psychotropic drugs. She got into the habit of taking more of the white pills than prescribed, first because they really were tiny, and second because they made her flabby brain cells feel as if they were cooling in a mountain stream on a day of forty-degree heat.

This sensible spell of inactivity at home included three hours a week with Arthur Schweighofer, an extremely likeable, quite good-looking, casually dressed and, moreover,
single
psychotherapist, who Gerd had found for her. The patience he displayed in talking about everything, not only about her and her problems, which nobody could quite get to the bottom of anyway, was impressive. If the knot in her head were ever to loosen, or even untangle altogether – a fairly unlikely prospect – how she would love to embark on a little circumnavigation of the globe with Arthur! One could tell from listening to him that he was a true adventurer. And listening was what she liked doing best, often for hours on end.

So that she could survive staying at home, someone had to be there with her by dusk at the latest. To begin with her friends took turns. Tuesdays were good for Lara, for example, because that was Valentin's bowling night. She couldn't stand the stench of schnapps-infused beer-breath in bed after midnight, so she'd sleep at Judith's, watching over her voices, without knowing it, of course.

Mum was there throughout the weekends, which triggered an automatic increase in Judith's consumption of the tiny white pills. Although Mum tried to make out as if every day spent with her beloved daughter was like a holiday, the contortions of her mouth and the exclamation mark furrowed on her brow suggested an admission that she'd failed in her bringing up of Judith, and bitter regret that instead of enjoying a well-deserved retirement she now had to look after a desolate lighting shop and a crazy adult daughter.

Only for a few minutes each day did Judith succeed in putting her brain into gear and addressing her situation. She fixed on Jessica Reimann's instruction to get to the root of her trouble; to undo the knot she had to find the beginning of the cord. But she rapidly became entangled in a web of childhood memories and flashbacks from her adolescence, and when the search caused her brain cells to overheat, she'd take another dip in the mountain stream.

The oft-mentioned leap in her relationship with Hannes had finally taken place. Now he was unequivocally on her side. He'd made a few timid approaches via text message, offering help. And no, Judith didn't object to his paying regular visits. She basically didn't object to anything these days, but more importantly he preferred coming at weekends when Mum was there, and he was brilliant at neutralising her. But most importantly of all, like a form of alternative medicine his presence did her the world of good.

She didn't understand much about homeopathy, but wasn't it about making you better with small doses of exactly what had made you ill? Hannes was equipped with the same voice as that surreal night-time apparition which had repeatedly driven Judith to madness. Whenever she heard the real Hannes talking to Mum in the kitchen about spatial planning, statics, construction materials and the design of coffee machines, Judith's ghosts were expelled and to some extent things slotted back into their rightful order. What's more, the real Hannes had a richer vocabulary than his ghostlike counterpart, which had only ever hammered three or four phrases into her mind.

Of all her friends and visitors, Hannes was by far the most adroit and easy-going in his dealings with her, the patient. He was in a consistently good mood and could effortlessly adapt himself to her complicated psyche, the erratic shifts between highs and lows, lethargy and alertness. His voice never resonated with the slightest hint of reproach, no matter how miserable the state she was in, how hard it was to get close to her, or how little she gave of herself.

While Gerd and the others struggled to hide their despair at Judith's apathy, and often failed to do so, for Hannes it seemed the most natural thing in the world. He took Judith as she was – how could she be anything other than “herself”? She wasn't ashamed of her illness in his presence, nor did she have a bad conscience about being reliant on someone else's help. When he was there she gradually became reconciled to her lot; in fact, she was warming to it by the day.

Soon he started showing up at her flat more frequently, on weekdays too. He would offer to stand in for friends who began to announce they were tied up with other things; already in mid-November they were citing pre-Christmas stress as an excuse for their less regular visits. In all likelihood they were disappointed, even irritated that Judith's mind wasn't showing any inclination to become more lucid, that they couldn't have a conversation with her anymore, and that she'd often spend hours staring at the walls without so much as opening her mouth. But what should she talk to them about? She was living out empty days and vacant nights. None of them could imagine what a strain that was. And she was supposed to talk about it as well?

Hannes was different. He didn't demand anything of her, but went about his own business. He decorated tables and rearranged shelves, cleaned the kitchen (especially when it was already clean), listened to music, whistled earworms which she recognised from her schooldays, surfed T.V. channels looking for serious news programmes, leafed through books or – more often – her photograph albums, made notes and sketches, drew up small designs. All this without letting Judith out of his sight. He always stayed in close proximity, giving her endless winks of encouragement, forever smiling at her. But, and this is where he differed so gratifyingly from all the others, he rarely said a word, thus also sparing her the burden of having to reply to
that
question of how she was feeling. He clearly knew better than she did herself.

When he stayed the night, she didn't notice. Presumably he slept on the sofa. At any rate, he was always up before her, the smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen. All traces of his overnight presence had vanished.

*

Things only got out of control on one of those November nights when her mind was shrouded in thick fog. She may have forgotten to take one of her medicines the night before, or swallowed a double dose by mistake. Perhaps Judith had drifted into a nightmare, which had wrenched her from her cotton-wool half-consciousness and awakened in her the old fears that she was being persecuted and driven out onto the street by voices and noises. She thought she could already hear the peculiar resonance of the metal sheets and the strange jangling of the crystals on her Spanish chandelier. But before the voice that imitated Hannes could say “Such a scrum”, the noises fell silent. The bedside light went on. Judith felt a large, cool hand touch her feverishly hot forehead. Then he bent over her and whispered: “Calm down, Darling. Everything's O.K. I'm here. Nothing's going to happen to you.” “Did you hear it too?” she asked, shaking with fear. “No,” he replied. “I didn't hear anything. You probably had a bad dream.” Judith: “Will you stay here with me until it gets light?” Hannes: “Is that what you'd like?” Judith: “Yes, please stay. Just till the sun comes up.”

Her next appointment with Jessica Reimann, which she'd been anticipating with some trepidation, took place at the end of November. Mum went with her, but even that couldn't make the situation any worse. Judith had packed a wash bag, cosmetics, a few nighties and some T-shirts. She reckoned she'd be admitted into hospital on the spot. In any event she had no desire to appear better than she was, even if Reimann deserved to see a more improved picture than the one that was on offer.

“Hello, how are things?” the doctor asked. “I'm mentally ill, thank you,” Judith replied. Reimann laughed, but this time she was only feigning amusement. She noticed that Judith was trembling and asked what she was afraid of. Judith: “Right now, of you.” Reimann: “I can see why, my dear. You're really letting yourself go!” Judith: “I know, but there's nothing I can do about it. Best would be if you sent me straight back to the clinic.” Reimann: “No, no, no. That's going to get us nowhere. I suggest we get down to business!”

After her pulse and heart-rate had been monitored and Reimann had shone a light under her eyelids, Judith had to describe her various states of dozing and semi-consciousness over the past few weeks. Not only that, but Reimann wanted her to break it down into mornings, afternoons, evenings and nights – a truly exhausting undertaking, for the only words that would do were those that had been missing from her vocabulary for ages. As a reward Reimann took her off two of the medicines there and then, and she reduced the dosage of the others, including her favourite white pill, by half.

“I miss your fighting spirit,” the psychiatrist said anxiously, squeezing her hand. “You need to resist this. Your health is purely a matter of mental discipline. You have to think and work with yourself, rather than suppressing it all. You need to get to the root of your problem.”

Judith: “I don't have a problem anymore; I
am
the problem!” She shouldn't have said that; Reimann was offended. “If patients like you give up, we might as well close down for good here. How can we possibly help those patients who are
seriously
ill?” “So you don't believe I'm seriously ill, then?” Judith asked. “All I can see is that's what you're determined to become, which means you're well on the way,” Reimann replied. “And having to watch it is making
me
ill!”

Judith tried to go two days without pills, attempting to fill the vacuum in her head with thoughts about the root of her problems. This must be how heroin addicts felt when in transition from withdrawal to the re-emergence of their identity crisis. Whenever she imagined she was not seriously ill, which now happened at ever shorter intervals, she instantly felt worse. This was linked to the sad prospect of being on her own again. No one would look after her anymore. Not even her mother would have the mandatory entitlement to be there and whine on at her.

She put a great deal of effort into her therapy sessions and told Arthur Schweighofer all about the night-time jangling of the Spanish crystal chandelier. Thanks to Sigmund Freud he was convinced that dramatic scenes in her childhood, of which she was not fully conscious, must have taken place in the lighting shop. They both thought about it for a while and engaged in an intense bout of brainstorming before Judith managed to steer the conversation back towards adventure holidays and sailing certificates.

For the first of the two sleepless nights, Mum had been looking after her – or vice versa: Judith had made sure that Mum didn't wake up and ask her why she wasn't sleeping. Hannes was supposed to come on the second evening. But that afternoon he rang to say that he'd be late. And at nine he cancelled. He was terribly sorry, he said, but one of his colleagues was off sick and he had to finish her project, due to be submitted the following morning.

Judith paced up and down her flat until midnight, switched on all the lights, turned on the radio and television and even the empty washing machine to drown out any potential unreal noises and voices, read Anna Gavalda's “Clic-Clac” out loud and hummed Christmas carols. Afterwards she was so far from sleep and so close to the abyss of her next serious anxiety attack that she had to ring either her mother or the emergency doctor straightaway, maybe even both. Or – and this was the option she eventually chose – she took her pills again, in the tried-and-tested dose, first the white ones to combat her deep sadness, then the rest to don her suit of armour, for the gift of tiredness and for the redemptive emptiness in her mind which would finally allow her to glide into sleep.

When she was woken by her bad conscience the following day, or the one after that, she heard apparently real voices coming from the kitchen. Mum and Hannes were discussing her future. “Would you really do that for us?” Mum said, deeply touched, like the mother-in-law in the closing scene of a schmaltzy film. “Of course. You know I love her and that I'd never leave her in the lurch,” Hannes replied, like a 1950s screen hero. There followed a succession of more technical and organisational details regarding the future care and nursing of the long-term patient, Judith, at home.

On the bedside table another assortment of pills was waiting for her beside a half-full carafe of water. Ordered appetisingly in rank and file, they were as inviting as the six bright dots of a dice throw promising victory.

The white pills were already on her tongue when her gaze, which had been roaming gloomily around the room, alighted on a bowl brimming with fruit that someone had put on the chest of drawers beside the door. Instinctively she took the pills out of her mouth and placed them on the duvet. She had the sudden feeling that something was beginning to work in her brain. On top of round, reddish fruits – apples, pears, plums – was a large yellow mass formed of at least eight elegantly curved bananas, which at first she took for grotesque aliens. Judith loathed bananas; she associated them with attacks of diarrhoea as an infant, after they had been mashed with cocoa powder to a squidgy brown mess and forced down her throat in large spoonfuls. The taste of it still stuck to her palate.

The longer she stared at them, the more clearly a picture formed in her head. It took her back to the supermarket, at Easter, when she appeared to have a totally normal life ahead of her, and when she noticed a man, a stranger she took for a husband and father, in whose trolley she'd seen an identical clump of bananas to those that had materialised on her chest of drawers. Real tears came to her eyes. Genuine, wet tears. They cleansed her vision, giving her sharper focus. Behind this yellow bunch of fruit hid a puzzle which she intended to solve. With as clear a head as possible.