The Berlin Connection (32 page)

Now I would die.

And even if I did not die right away it would be the beginning of another attack. If I did not have the injection then I would die. It was unreahstic to think otherwise. I staggered to the drawing room, crushed the glass I had dropped underfoot.

From the moment I opened the door it seems to me now that I went through the pangs of temporary insanity, of dreadful fear—and a desperate compulsion.

Huge Kostasch. In my way. Tiny Jerome. Disappears. Carpet sways. Walls slope. Open mouth.

".. . with you?"

"Back ... a moment..."

"Peter boy ..."

"Doctor..."

"Air ... let me go ..."

Door open. Hall. Elevator.

No. No elevator!

Race down the stairs. The fist, rising. Dying. Foyer, street deserted. Sunday. Only car mine. The yellow box with green spot. Trunk compartment. Seize it. Only one person can give me that injection now.

Drive. Drive madly. Can't drive. Kill people. Must drive. Screeching tires. No people. Sky, air, houses, all black. Go faster. Why don't I die? Must live. Borrow Ufe through an injection.

Natasha. Faster. EBt the curb. Hard braking. Engine stalls.

Yellow box in hand. Stagger. Fall. Sticky. Blood on my cheek.

Door. Jacket tears. Door open. Stairs. Steps, second floor.

Fall. Pain between eyes.

"Hel—"

Cry for help. No sound. Crawl. Third floor. Crawl on all fours. Dying animal. Gasping. Kneel. Ring bell. Again. Again.

Nothing. No answer.

Gone out. Futile. All for nothing. Fist opens. Closes around heart. Closes.

I fell forward and dove into a red flaming eternity. I died a second death. It was not to be the last one.

Rome, April twenty-fourth.

In his laboratory Professor Pontevivo lectured. "The human brain, as well as the body, develops until its twenty-fifth year. After that a gradual degeneration begins."

Bianca, once more recovered, was permitted to run free in the laboratory. She was drinking pure milk again and her fur was becoming smoother.

"I would like to familiarize you with the mind," said the professor. "The subject is much too complex. So, I will deal only with its simplest factors: those two parts which are interdependent; tJie conscious and the subconscious mind."

Bianca jumped on my knees and licked my hands. When I stroked her she curled up in my lap. I felt glad that she had come to me.

"Everything you have experienced since earliest childhood leaves a memory trace, reinforced when it is connected with an emotion. Whatever makes you happy or unhappy, scares, depresses, or tortures you is stored in the archives of your mind. The conscious and the subconscious are constantly interacting. Your conception of father, mother, wealth, poverty, disease, travel, profession, love and so on has left a trace, an engram which has been stored in a subjective archive. Subjective since engrams represent memory traces of experiences you have had from birth to about your twenty-fifth year. Each engram therefore has a definite emotional value—either pleasant or unpleasant."

Bianca suddenly jumped from my lap.

"You feel sad because Bianca left you?" The professor inquired.

"Yes, I do."

"You like cats."

"I always have. My mother did too. Even when we were very poor we had a cat." i

"Thank you for your help, Bianca," the professor bowed to the little animal.

"Help?"

"I was just about to say: Each situation which involves your emotions is checked against what has already been stored from a similar previous experience. The subcon-

scious impulses travel in fractions of a millionth of a second. You have loved cats. You loved your mother. So now you are sad because Bianca deserted you. Do you understand everything I have been explaining?"

"Yes."

"On the basis of past experiences, even long-forgotten ones, a person reacts to each situation with either negative or positive feelings. An alcoholic has had negative experiences which, as soon as checked, again torture and depress him. It is easy to see what he will do,"

"Continue to drink."

"Exactly. Alcohol blocks the connection between the memory center and the mind. Alcohol can chemically change negative feelings into—^"

"Positive ones?"

"At least for a period of time. It removes inhibitions, prejudices, tension, shyness, fear. It creates a situation an alcoholic can master. Initially it does something positive. The ideal medicine—at first. Then it becomes poisonous. Given time it destroys the mind."

"Actually," I said, "then everybody should drink. It seems impossible that there are people who have no en-grams of an unpleasant nature."

"There are no such human beings. People are of stable or unstable personaUty. Artists are generally considered to belong to the latter group. Some people are broken by conflicts which others handle easUy."

"And, I assume, there are many such conflicts."

"No," said Pontevivo. "There are only a few. According to the known mental diseases there are only about four or five basic types. Each one of us believes himself to be unique, different from others. But that is an erroneous idea. All of us are similar in our reaction and in our conduct."

"What are some of the conflicts?"

"Politics. Money. Work. Disease. The desire to dominate. Relating to the opposite sex ... I could name a few. Not many."

"That is why you want me to talk about my life. You hope to find the conflict I cannot master and which made me an alcoholic."

"That's right, Mr. Jordan."

"Have you found it?"

"On one of your tapes you once mentioned a girl. You said your stepdaughter bore a great resemblance to her."

"Once I mentioned her! Only once!"

"Precisely. And I believe you will not yet talk about her—or will you?"

Wanda.

Wanda. Wanda. Wanda.

I felt great admiration for the professor.

Wanda. I shook my head.

"Take your time."

Bianca jumped back onto my knee. "You see, now she returned to you."

"Professor, you said the human mind develops until its twenty-fifth year..." "

"That's right. Up to that time the prognosis for recovery is very good. Cures can be effected through psychotherapy by the use of electric shock, medications, or possibly group therapy."

"Professor," I was afraid to ask the question, "I am thirty-seven years old. I have been drinking for almost twenty years. Don't you think—"

"That your brain cells have been destroyed? No. You need not worry about that."

"But is there still a treatment which would help me? Or is it too late ..."

"There is a way to help you. But I think it is a little too early to tell you about it. You must learn more about the mind and, for my part, I must know a little more about you. You think it is a little too soon to talk about this obscure Wanda. We both need more time. And patience. We must not be hasty. All I am going to say is: there is a

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method, an absolute effective method to cure you of your alcoholism—if you are prepared to help."

"I am."

"Good," said Pontevivo. "This was our third lecture. Just look at that cat! She really seems to be very attracted to you. Would you like to take Bianca to your room sometimes?"

"I'd enjoy that It would remind me of my youth. It would—" I broke off. "That's why you suggested it, didn't you, Professor?"

He smiled and nodded. He appeared to "be very satisfied.

6

The first thing I heard when I awakened from my second death were faint, light, chiming bells. I was lying on a wide couch in an antique furnished room. Dark woods, blue candles in silver candelabras, an icon near the window, a small triangular, carved cupboard beneath it. On it stood an old clock which had just chimed six.

I got up and took a deep breath. I felt relaxed, strong, confident, fearless. I did not have to look at my turned-up sleeve and the small patch on my arm to know I had received the injection I needed. From the adjacent room came Russian, melancholy music.

Natasha's furniture had arrived and the apartment was now comfortable. I felt at home in this room, its walls lined with Russian, French, German and English books. Asters in an old samovar. Several pipes and ornate chma containers for tobacco on a shelf.

A door opened. Natasha, in black, silk, gold-embroidered lounging pajamas entered. Her beautiful face was serene and friendly as always.

"You are on your feet again," said Natasha.

"I thank you," I said. "I was afraid you would not be at home, I rang and no one opened."

"Misha and I were listening to records."

"But he can't hear the music!"

"He feels the vibrations when he places a hand on the record player. By the way, it was Misha who heard you first."

"Heard me?"

"Sensed then. He sensed you at the door and drew my attention to it. I opened the door. There you were."

"Unconscious?"

"Yes. You are rather heavy, Mr. Jordan."

"Whisky and water. Twenty pounds of edema." It was not a very wise remark; she turned away from me.

"Your box with ampoules is over there," she said.

"You want me to leave."

"Yes."

"I would not have come here. I could not reach the man who is treating me."

"The man who is treating you is a criminal."

"Natasha, I must finish that movie! Then I'll go to a clinic right away."

"If you are still alive then."

"It's not that bad."

"It is. You could die any day. Any time."

"Something upsetting happened today. That's all."

"You must leave, Mr. Jordan. We agreed not to see each other any more."

Her eyes were artless, incapable of lies or pretense. Fleetingly I thought of Jerome, Kostasch, Shirley, Joan and the detectives in Los Angeles. A sudden, burning, agonizing longing overcame me to be with this woman, just to be near her. Always.

"Couldn't I stay just for a few minutes?"

"No."

"Do you despise me that much?"

"Don't say things like that."

"You don't despise me?"

"You know that you must go. You know as well as T."

"All I know is that I want to stay with you. Just for a little while."

"I don't want to see you. I cannot see you any more. I—" She averted her head and pushed back her glasses in a typical gesture. "Don't you understand me?"

I picked up my yellow box with the green spot and said, "Good-by Natasha." She did not reply. The door was flung open and Misha, in a red gym suit and stockinged feet, his blond hair dishevelled, ran to me. He threw his arms around my neck and kissed me. H& made hoarse, happy-sounding noises and 'talked' with his mother, it was as pathetic as it was touching. Finally Natasha said, "He asks you to stay."

"then I may?"

"Misha wants you to have tea with us and listen to some records. In his room. I told him that you had to leave. He asked for half an hour." Abruptly she said, "What we are doing is wrong and bad. It will have serious consequences."

"Thank you," I said to the little boy. "Thank you, Misha."

The record player was on the carpet of Misha's brieht, cheerfully furnished room. We drank tea and listened to melancholy Russian records.

It w^s growing late. Misha sat between us on the carpet and above his head Natasha's and my eyes met aeain and again. At last it grew so dark in the room her face was visible only as a pale patch.

The half hour had passed a long time ago. Kostasch and Wilson were surely looking for me. Shirley and Joan

probably too. After all, I had stumbled out of Wilson's suite like a madman ....

I did not care. The injection had freed me of worry and responsibility.

Misha held his left hand to the record player. He sat motionless, his eyes closed, his face serene.

Natasha pulled matches from her pocket. She was getting up but I took the matches and lighted the candles in a candelabra on Misha's bedside table. There were many beautiful candelabra in the apartment. In Misha's room alone were three. When I lighted the candles in the third candelabra Natasha quickly extinguished the third candle. She smiled apologetically.

"An old superstition."

"Three burning candles are bad luck?"

She nodded embarrassed. "Three in one room."

"Why?"

"In my country it is said that a loved one dies. Naturally that is nonsense. But if one has been brought up like that ..."

Schauberg would have said, "AU the nonsense in the world is perpetuated through the centuries." Schauberg! Right now I did not even care that he was still in jail.

Misha made some excited noises. Laughing silently, his hand still pressed to the record player, he pointed to the record.

"It's his favorite song," said Natasha. "Even though he can't hear the music he recognizes each song. This is called The Crimson Silk Scarf.' "

The candles flickered. The record circled. A woman sang a love song.

When the record had stopped spinning Natasha said firmly, "Good-by."

I bent down to Misha who embraced me again and left the room. He came running after me, a paper in his hand. His gestures made it plain: he had almost forgotten to give me his present.

It was the drawing he had promised me. A little boy holding the hands of a woman and a man in a red boat. There were many other boats. A black bag stood in front of the man and he held a glass in his hand. The man was much taller than the woman, larger than the entire boat. Misha, it was obvious to see, longed for his father who had gone on a long trip.

Misha pointed to the boy and then to himself, to the man with the glass and to me, and to the woman. He turned and I saw Natasha standing in the doorway of his room. He pointed to his mother. He was very serious now.

"Go away," said Natasha. "Go away quickly. And don't ever, ever come back."

8

They were waiting wide-eyed for me in my suite. Joan flanked by Kostasch and Jerome.

They were composed and I was out of breath after climbing six flights of stairs. I had a sense of the ridiculous. No doubt it was the effect of this damn, wonderful injection. The ampoules were once more in the green box in the trunk of my car with Misha's drawing.