Now, what shocked me are the costs of such rescue trips, between four thousand and six thousand dollars per dog. This gave me an idea. True, unfortunately Romania is not occupied by American soldiers. But why shouldn’t we take action ourselves and, under the slogan “Exportation, not extermination” (I imagine this could catch media attention), offer our dogs for adoption abroad? I’m sure that there are people willing to take them; costs would be one third of the American costs, if not less. Remember how Westerners were crazy about adopting our children from orphanages? Not that dogs are as popular as white orphans, but one could at least try. For example, what if adoption included a free long weekend in Bucharest with your future pet? Of course, someone is bound to label this “dog tourism,” but I think it is better and more decent than, for example, sex tourism. The more I think about the idea, the more I like it. But being an old and experienced dog, I suspect that Romanians would rather do real business by selling dogs to the Koreans as meat! In fact, I’m surprised that no one has already had that idea. The state would probably subsidize it, and some smart-ass with good connections would get rich over our dead bodies. And then he’d launch himself head-on into politics, including in his program the defense of animal rights! None of that would surprise me — especially because I heard rumors that something similar happened in the Chinatown of Budapest. But what’s that you say? I see your face; you’re smiling and shrugging your shoulders. You must think I’m mad.
Hey, relax. After all, I’m only a dog!
VIII. THE UNUSUAL CASE OF THE PSYCHOTIC RAVEN
Look, I have here a notebook from my mother. She died last week, and I came to Tirana to attend her funeral. I found it among a few possessions my mother took to the hospital with her. I am now bringing her notebook to you because you are my old friend and publisher. I would like you to tell me what to do with it, if anything. Is it perhaps worthwhile publishing it — maybe not in this form, but as a contribution to a book about Communism in Albania? No, no, let me try again: What I want to say is that her notes should be published if you were to find them interesting. I don’t know if this is the time to do it either — you know better than I what it means. I have been living in America for such a long time, fifteen years now, that I don’t really know how things work in Albania any longer. I only remember that, when I studied here in the nineties, I often heard “it’s not the time yet” for mentioning or publishing this or that. So, who am I to say?
Leafing through this handwritten notebook both out of a daughter’s sentimentality and curiosity, I discovered something interesting. Apart from notes about books she had read of late, thoughts for articles she intended to write, and quite lucid observations about her own illness, I found a kind of short diary from December 1981. Well, not a diary exactly, but notes about just one very particular case she had to deal with as a psychiatrist at the Tirana Psychiatric Hospital. As you can see for yourself, this slim, older volume was carefully glued into another notebook. Not only that, it was written with a pencil rather than a pen. I imagine she did it on purpose, so that she could erase certain details in case of an emergency. I mean, it is now 2009, and yet Mother took these notes to the hospital with her. Why? What was she hiding? Of whom was she afraid, even today?
As I started to read it, I soon discovered that she had good reason not to want to part with it, even on her deathbed. In it, she describes a meeting so peculiar that at first I was not sure whether I should believe it ever really happened.
The first entry is dated December 18, 1981:
This afternoon a raven flew into my doctor’s office through an open window. I was alone. My nurse had gone out on an errand, and perhaps that was the moment he had been waiting for. Nevertheless, I offered him a seat, but he preferred to stand during this first, brief, conversation. To an ordinary person he probably looked just frightened. But I immediately saw that he was in a state of a shock. He was shaking violently, could not concentrate, and had difficulty speaking — all the symptoms of severe distress were there. My first reaction was to give him an injection of a tranquilizer, which he refused. I was worried that he might experience a heart attack in such a state. He clearly was confused, disoriented, and delusional. Possibly a temporary psychosis?
After a while, he managed to tell me that he had come to ask if it would be possible to see me in private. Normally, if I had been on-call, I would have given him an injection and admitted him to our acute psychiatric ward. I would then have reported the case at our morning meeting the next day, whereupon the head of the psychiatric unit would have decided what kind of treatment he would get. If, after a few days of observation I had been put in charge of writing the report, he would have been diagnosed as not a very severe case and would have been injected with some more tranquilizers. Unfortunately, we do not have much choice in our methods of dealing with such patients. If, on the other hand, he had been diagnosed as a severely ill patient — well, then he would have been subjected to the more drastic so-called standard procedure. I happen to disagree with it, but I cannot say it so openly.
When Comrade Raven asked me to see him privately, I was taken by surprise. Who could have possibly told him about my interest in individual therapy (not to mention psychoanalysis, a word that I barely dare to write down)? Now it was my turn to get agitated: Such a visit could mean the end of my career. But I tried not to show him how much his question had startled me. My interest in different practices within psychiatry was not really a secret, because I had written academic articles about it. However, they were only about theory — presenting the ways in which colleagues in other countries dealt with particular kinds of psychosis. That was considered daring enough. But I had gone even further, and only a couple of close friends and colleagues know that I am actually treating a few patients privately (without payment, of course). Therefore, Comrade Raven’s presence in my office and his request could have meant only one of two things: that someone from our small circle of doctors had sent him to me for help — in which case I should have been informed. Or that my secret was out and Comrade Raven was here to arrest me. My “sin” was punishable in the same way as witchcraft. For a split second I had doubts as to which of the two was the case. But his state could not have been faked easily, so I decided that it really did not matter who he was, because Comrade Raven needed my immediate help.
I calmed him down and tried to find out what had happened to him. But my usual questions made Comrade Raven still more agitated, even frightened. I saw that there was no other way to soothe him than to promise that I would see him later that evening.