Human Traces

  Sonia tried to work some lighter English dishes into the repertoire. For every pike with anchovies, she would counter with boiled beef, and fresh carrots from the garden; after liver dumplings and trout in aspic jelly, she would propose gammon hock and sauce infused with parsley that grew in the sunny beds beneath the scullery windows. Frau Egger was in command, but Sonia felt she had established her right to contribute when her other duties left her time to spare.

  One day, she was working on the accounts in the office next to the waiting room, where a mother and her teenage daughter sat anxiously awaiting their appointment, when she heard the front-door bell being vigorously pulled. Since she heard no responding footsteps on the stone flags of the hall, she went herself to open it.

  A grey-haired man, bearded, travel-weary, dressed in a cape was standing on the step. ‘Forgive me, Madame,’ he said in French. ‘I believe this is the famous sanatorium of Dr Midwinter and his partner?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Good. I remember the building, though I see you have done a considerable amount of work to it. You do not know who I am, do you? I visited you briefly in the summer that you opened. Pierre Valade.’

  He held out his hand and Sonia shook it. ‘Yes, I do remember,’ she said. ‘You have . . . You havelost a little weight, I think. And the beard. That is why I did not recognise you at first. Please excuse me.’

  ‘Not at all. You, Madame, on the contrary, are as lovely as ever. Scandal that an ugly villain like Midwinter should have such a beautiful sister.’

  Colouring a little, despite the obvious insincerity of Valade’s bluster, Sonia invited him in. ‘Perhaps you would care to sit in the garden untilThomas has finished his consultation.’

  ‘That would be splendid. Shall I ask your man to bring in my trunk? He is awaiting instructions.’

  ‘Yes . . . I mean, yes, I expect we can find a room. We are full up, but . . . Daisy! Ask one of the girls to make up the green bedroom at the front, will you? Thank you. This way Monsieur. I shall bring Thomas out to you as soon as he is finished.’

  Valade sat in the main courtyard on a bench near the fountain, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar until Thomas appeared at the end of the cloister and strode over the grass to greet him.

  ‘Good heavens,’ he said. ‘What on earth has brought you here?’

  ‘My health of course,’ said Valade. ‘Why else would a man go to a sanatorium? It is not for the company, I assure you.’ He nodded his head towards one of the patients referred from the public hospital, who was tracing a pattern of steps on the cobbles at the edge of the grass and talking animatedly to someone invisible.

  ‘Yes,’ said Thomas, ‘He is not strictly speaking meant to be in this courtyard. Never mind. You had better come and join us for lunch. How is Nadine?’

  ‘Vast.’

  ‘And Gérard?’

  ‘A little better, thank you, Doctor. He is quite mobile.’

  As they entered the cloister, Thomas said, ‘I dare hardly enquire about Madame Valade . . .’

  ‘Sophie has left me,’ said Valade. ‘She said that she was lonely.’

  ‘Lonely? But surely—’

  ‘I know,’ said Valade. ‘A husband, two children at home, friends to visit every day. She said there is nothing so lonely as being unable to communicate.’

  ‘But surely she has no difficulty with—’

  ‘Apparently she does. I did not listen. I was too self-absorbed. She felt like a prisoner, she told me. Now she has gone to live with a Russian financier in St Petersburg, though not as his wife, since he is already married. The children spend six months with her and six with me. At the moment I am unencumbered.’

  Valade invited himself to stay at the schloss, insisting that it be as a patient. ‘Melancholy’was his self-diagnosis, though there was little sign of it in his behaviour, and he resisted Thomas’s offer of a consultation.

  ‘Perhaps you should see my colleague, Dr Rebière, if you would find it awkward to speak to me.’

  ‘I have no desire to talk about my private thoughts to a man I barely know,’ said Valade. ‘To tell a stranger my inner feelings! It is a barbaric idea. I ask only to be allowed the peace and quiet of the sanatorium and to feed myself on its excellent cooking.’

  At dinner that night, he placed himself at the only spare place, which was at a table with two neurasthenic young women, Fräulein Fuchs and Fräulein Wolf, and an elderly German lawyer, Herr Hassler, who suffered bouts of mania in which he believed himself to be the king of Prussia.

  ‘Boy!’called Valade to the startled Hans, who was helping as a waiter. ‘Bring me a bottle of the best red burgundy in the house. Ladies, will you do me the honour of taking wine with me?’

  Valade spoke an inelegant, accented German, quite comprehensible, if hard on the ear. The two girls laughed uncertainly. They were known to Thomas as Miss Fox and Miss Wolf, and he had taken some pleasure in arranging for them to share a table, regretting only the departure – though not the cure – of Miss Hare, Fräulein Haas, the previous month.

  ‘Thank you,’ said FräuleinWolf, ‘I still have a little Riesling left from last night.’

  ‘Please do not trifle with me. A half of a half-bottle of German grape cordial is not going to restore you to health, Fräulein. You need red wine from France. Bring a second bottle, young man, and put it on my bill.’

  Hans had anticipated Valade’s needs and had brought up a number of bottles from the cellar. Valade took the first one from him and emptied it into the four glasses on the table. ‘Ladies and gentleman, to your renewed good health.’

  Fräulein Fuchs, who seldom drank wine, raised the brimming glass nervously to her lips and inclined her head in thanks.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Valade, draining his glass, ‘though it could do with another year or two. I understand that Dr Midwinter plans to convert the wine cellar into a laboratory, but I suspect he will find more meaning in the bottom of a glass of Nuits St Georges than beneath the lens of his wretched microscope. Ladies, would you now like to propose a toast of your own? More wine please, boy.’

  Fräulein Wolf, who had enjoyedher first glass of burgundy, said, ‘To our kind benefactor. Your good health, Monsieur.’

  ‘Thank you. And you, Fräulein?’

  Emboldened, Fräulein Fuchs said, ‘To the good doctors and the wonderful cooks.’

  In French, Valade replied, ‘And which of you two ladies will eat me up for dinner? Miss Wolf or Miss Fox?’

  The women, both of whom understood Valade’s French, laughed, as though the coincidence of their surnames had not occurred to them; and it had certainly never been referred to in such a way. ‘And Herr Hassler,’ said Fräulein Fuchs. ‘To what will you drink?’

  ‘To Germany,’ said Herr Hassler. ‘United and strong.’

  Valade’s merriment faltered for a moment, but he managed to drain his glass another time. ‘To Germany. United and strong,’ he said. ‘And on this side of the Rhine.’

  Sonia, Jacques and Thomas dined at a separate table, to which they usually invited one of the women patients, but Valade spoke so loudly that all the room was included in his conversation, whether they liked it or not. After some breaded carp with cucumber sauce, the waitresses brought in plates of Tyrolean liver, fried with onions and sour cream, with sage dumplings and a lettuce salad, the sight of which encouraged Valade to venture further into the schloss’s cellar.

  ‘I think we need something more broad-shouldered to carry the weight of this dish,’ he said. ‘A Châteauneuf du Pape, perhaps.’ Hans obliged with two bottles, and Valade poured for other patients what his own table could not manage.

  ‘Doctor Midwinter,’ he called across the room, ‘I would like to congratulate you on your cellar, your kitchen and your altogether excellent establishment. I have only one suggestion. You need to move into the mountains. Who ever heard of a sanatorium in the valley?’

  There was a murmur of embarrassment among the patients, who were accust
omed to a degree of formality at dinner. Although the public patients ate in the North Hall and those on the rest cure stayed in their rooms, there were still enough in the dining room to give it the feeling of a medium-sized, and respectable, hotel.

  Thomas was not put out by Valade, however. ‘We are not quite in the valley, we are on a hill. But I do agree with you. There is a mountain, my dear friend, called the Wilhelmskogel, whose summit is about one thousand metres above sea level,’ he said, projecting his voice a little so that it would reach Valade’s table. ‘It is a short distance from here and commands a wonderful view. It is popular with visitors and has a number of tracks for climbers and mules. At present there is a refuge at the top and some unused houses. I have long thought that we should move there when the lease on this place expires, but one cannot ask sick people to undertake such a climb, even on horseback.’

  ‘Then you must build a railway,’ said Valade. ‘Or a cable-car. A funicular, perhaps, the system of weights and pulleys that has become popular. There are any number of ways that such a thing can be done.’

  ‘I am sure it could be done, but the expense would prohibit it.’

  ‘Then you must find outside investment. “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” So our Lord told the multitude on the Mount. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”’

  ‘It is a thrilling idea,’ said Thomas. ‘From tomorrow I shall start to organise the investment.’

  ‘Begin with the mayor,’ said Valade. ‘Explain that it would help his city. Boy! We need champagne to go with the dessert.’

  Valade asked Hans to deliver champagne to all the tables in the dining room, to go with the black cherry cake and apricot Ischl tarts that the girls were bringing in from the kitchen. After dinner, he persuaded FräuleinWolf to play the piano in the hall, while he commanded Hans to bring more champagne for those who stayed to listen. The party went on till midnight, when Sonia was persuaded to play ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’ and Jacques sang a song in French: ‘There was a little ship . . .’

  The next day, Valade cornered Thomas as he was smoking a cigar in the courtyard between consultations.

  ‘I hope the patients were not disturbed last night,’ he said.

  ‘Not in the least,’ said Thomas. ‘It is good for them to have their routine broken a little. They enjoyed themselves.’

  Valade looked down at the ground. ‘I was thinking of Sophie,’ he said. ‘The woman drove me mad with her incessant chatter. Yet without her, I feel . . . Bereft.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘One’s own company,’ said Valade, ‘is pretty thin stuff.’

  ‘You have friends in Paris. And here, of course.’

  ‘Yes, but I live my days in my own head. I no longer live through the eyes and thoughts of another. When I was a child I was certain that I was unique. Then as a young man I became convinced that I was, if not unique, then of a complexity and fascination previously unknown.’ Valade levered a loose cobble up with the toe of his boot. ‘But over the years I came to understand about half of the paradoxes that made up my complexity. The remainder, it transpired, were either insoluble by me, or, more likely, had no solution. They were simply dead ends of no significance. So you see, Doctor,’ he said, replacing the cobble and firming it back in place with his foot, ‘that at the age of fifty-five I have essentially ceased to be of interest to myself.’

  Thomas smiled. He never knew how serious Valade was being, because he wore the same quizzical, slightly bad-tempered face for humour and solemnity.

  ‘I suppose you still have your painting,’ Thomas said. ‘Presumably that provides some consolation.’

  ‘I did not turn to art for consolation,’ said Valade fiercely. ‘I turned to it in the hope that I could use it to push back the edges of experience. I hoped that I could use it to reset reality.’

  ‘That was ambitious.’

  ‘It was. But I could see no other point in it.’

  ‘And did you come close?’

  ‘I came close in my head. In my head, I even succeeded. But as soon as the wretched hand was involved, I became trapped by the poverty of my talent. Each brushstroke was a smear, a defacement. Each time I touched the canvas, a shadow fell across the purity of the idea and took it further from what I had envisaged. Every painting ended up as an advertisement of my limitations. Only I could see through it to the glorious thing that it was meant to be.’

  ‘They looked pretty good to me.’

  ‘Pretty good is what they were, Doctor. I aimed for transcendence and I ended with some “pretty good” paintings.’

  They walked over the courtyard to the North Hall, which was being prepared for a lecture that evening by a visiting speaker from Vienna.

  ‘Ah, Sophie, Sophie . . . And, Doctor, have you never thought of marrying?’

  ‘I have thought of it. I am not against it. But I would feel sorry for the woman in question. I am still in love with the work I do. I still have great ambitions for it.’

  ‘Did you have many loves as a young man?’

  ‘I was in love with someone I met years ago in Heidelberg. She was a nurse at the hospital. She was a very mysterious young woman and in the end I ran away from her rather than be ensnared.’

  ‘I did not have you marked down as a coward.’

  ‘She would have derailed my life. She had already awoken in me emotions I did not wish to see through.’

  ‘I have heard many reports of the morality of young nurses. Something about their daily closeness to death makes them eager to seize the minute.’

  Thomas laughed. ‘The study was exhausting. I dare say that for some there were consolations.’

  ‘It would suit you to have a wife now, would it not?’

  ‘Perhaps. I seldom think of it. Young women come and go here all the time. Some of them are my patients. Many of them are insane. So in either case, I remain detached.’

  Thomas felt Valade looking at him curiously.

  ‘And are you happy here, Doctor?’

  Thomas loved the Schloss Seeblick and he loved his work there. At the age of thirty-three, he had become, he supposed, a rather serious man, aware through the lives of those he treated how capricious – to put it no more strongly – human life could be, and unwilling to risk his own contentment. He looked at Sonia and how she had blossomed in the Carinthian air, at Daisy and Mary, his cuttings from foreign rootstock, who were unrecognisable as the sad creatures he had first encountered in the asylum. He had reason to be pleased with them and with the way the schloss was going. At the same time as watching over them and treating his patients, he worked hard to develop his own concerns, aware that his interests were diverging from Jacques’s and anxious that he himself seemed so far from being able to produce anything original or worth publishing.

  He was stuck with the alienist’s perennial problem: human mind-sickness was impossible to understand. They converted the cellars into laboratories with overhead electric light (keeping back one room for wine) and hired a third psychiatrist to help them with the growing number of patients. He was a young man from the local district called Franz Bernthaler, whose intellect had made him precociously famous as a prize-winning student. He had recently returned from studying at the asylum in Frankfurt, where he had been taught new ways of looking at cell layers of the cerebral cortex by two eccentrically industrious men, Franz Nissl and Alois Alzheimer. Sections of brain tissue were taken from patients who had died or were brought in from local hospitals; Franz instructed Thomas in the newest histology and staining techniques and together they bent over the microscope until their backs and eyes ached, when Thomas would go through to the end room of the cellar to select a bottle, over which they then discussed what they had seen.

  Thomas liked Franz, though he felt a little daunted by the younger man’s expertise at the microscope. ‘I am not at root a scientist, you see, Franz,’ he sa
id one evening, sipping a glass of hock. ‘My first interest was in poetry and drama and I have this weakness that makes me always want to see things in large human terms rather than through a magnifying lens. I want great theories and connections, though I know perfectly well that that is not how real scientific progress is made.’

  ‘I think that is a preference you may share with Dr Rebière, if I may say so,’ said Franz. He was sometimes critical of his employers, but always spoke respectfully, aware that they had dealt with far more patients than he had.

  ‘Oh, no, Jacques is a proper scientist,’ said Thomas. ‘The gentlemen of the Salpêtrière rose to applaud him. He is entitled now to talk in larger abstract terms because he has mastered the chemistry. I began with . . . Oh God, I can barely remember where I began. With some poetic abstract. Humanity. Hope. Some such thing.’

  ‘Did you see the obituary of Professor Charcot in the newspaper?’

  ‘Yes, I did. It was very florid, I thought. It had little understanding of his important early work. It was all about his later fame.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Franz, removing his spectacles and holding them up to the electric light to polish them. ‘It will be interesting to see what happens to his disciples now that the master is dead.’

  ‘I count myself a disciple,’ said Thomas. ‘His legacy is secure, I would have thought. Though I suppose you mean the way in which others have developed his work.’

  ‘Yes. In Vienna,’ said Franz. ‘And Dr Rebière himself.’

  ‘The evil that men do . . .’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think that Charcot’s best work may be overlooked, “interrèd with his bones”, as Shakespeare might have said. I have doubts about his legacy. I think perhaps it is as well that he died when he did and I suspect that after a respectful pause, some of the avenues he opened will be . . . I have lost my figure of speech here . . . Abandoned. I am not sure they lead anywhere.’