He waited for Emma to nod.
‘So you can at least empathize with the sufferings of others. Most of us become inured to being confronted by terrible sights day after day. We no longer notice the beggar shivering in the street, we avert our eyes from the woman burbling unintelligibly to herself on the Underground, and we no longer cover our eyes after the umpteenth horror film.’ He paused. ‘Most people become desensitized. But Benny is different.’
Emma looked out of the window. Benny was endeavouring to light a cigarette. His hair fluttered in the wind as he shielded the flame of his lighter by turning to face the trees in front of the veranda.
Haberland, too, looked out of the window. ‘Benny can’t suppress his feelings,’ he went on. ‘For him, everything gets worse and worse. If he drives past a hospital he wonders how many people are dying inside. If he shuts his eyes he pictures all the terrible things that are happening at this moment – events of which we’ll read in tomorrow’s papers. He sees the baby shaken into a coma, the soldier whose torturers are crushing his genitals, the horse dying of thirst on its way to a Tunisian slaughterhouse. He can never forget anything he has seen, heard or sensed.’ Haberland gazed at Marc intently. ‘Just like you, am I right?’
The room was growing darker, the sky more overcast.
‘No, it isn’t quite as bad with me. Benny has always been the more sensitive one. Perhaps that’s why I’ve managed to offset my helper syndrome by doing the work I do.’
Unlike his brother, Marc had succeeded in suppressing even his worst mental images as time went by. The best proof of that was that he’d given up chasing after Benny in the end. He had made many attempts to contact him and rescue him from Valka’s clutches, but in vain. Benny’s self-embargo was so complete that it had been months before Marc learned of his first suicide attempt. After that he’d even gone to court to see if Benny could be taken into care or made to undergo psychiatric treatment, only to be informed that, as long as his brother represented no threat to other people, he could do what he liked with his life. Marc had nonetheless felt guilty afterwards, suspecting that he might have given up too soon for reasons of personal convenience. In those days, life with Sandra was so infinitely less complicated than what would have awaited him with Benny at his side.
His train of thought was interrupted by a bird call. When he looked at the window his brother had disappeared.
‘Okay,’ Emma said belligerently, ‘so how come such an allegedly peace-loving person tried to kill me?’
Marc shook his head. ‘Benny hasn’t a violent bone in his body.’
‘What! He nearly blew my ear off and he forced me to drive out here at gunpoint.’
‘That shot was accidental, I’m sure,’ Marc protested. ‘He never meant to hurt you. He’d be incapable of it.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not entirely true,’ Haberland amended, raising his hand again. ‘That’s why he spent so long in a secure unit. Like any unstable personality, Benny suffers from extreme mood swings that threaten to tear him apart. It’s the same with bipolar disorder. The switch can be tripped from one moment to the next, and all that your brother has suffered over the years – all that has been gnawing away at him – bursts forth. One little thing – that’s all it takes to unleash his pent-up capacity for violence, either on himself or on others.’
‘What did I tell you!’ Emma said triumphantly. She took out her mobile, which Benny must have returned to her. She’d clearly had enough of this conversation and preferred to dictate the latest information to her voicemail.
Marc ignored his aching head and neck and struggled to his feet. To his surprise he succeeded at the first attempt.
‘Okay, Professor,’ he said, rolling his sleeve down. ‘I’ve no idea what kind of injection you gave me – maybe I don’t even want to know. It was very kind of you to minister to us, but now I must go. I’m afraid I don’t have time to discuss our family’s psychological problems.’
Haberland looked at him searchingly. There was a sudden hint of melancholy in his expression. ‘Perhaps it would be wiser of you to find the time,’ he said softly.
The lattice window trembled in a gust of wind. Although no one had opened a door this time, Marc felt the temperature drop again. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, your brother brought you to me because he wanted me to look at your head wound…’
‘But?’
‘But I’m not a general practitioner,’ said Haberland. ‘I’m a psychiatrist.’ He looked years older all of a sudden. ‘Perhaps I can help you to discover what’s been happening to you.’
He went to the tea trolley beside his desk, picked up the quilted woollen jacket draped over it, and put it on.
‘Come,’ he said to Marc as if Emma wasn’t there any more. ‘Let’s go for a stroll.’
54
The lake formed a horseshoe around the little cabin in the forest. A bird of prey was circling above its choppy surface just as they left the back door and emerged into the open air. Several ducks and a swan were flustered at first by the old dog, which lolloped down to the lakeshore and dabbled its forepaws in the water. They quacked and flapped their wings in a frenzy, then decided that the newcomers presented no threat and calmed down again.
‘Easy, Tarzan!’ Haberland called. Pale brown with a white muzzle, the animal had been lying so quietly in its basket that Marc hadn’t noticed it until it jumped up, yawning, and accompanied him and its master on their walk.
‘People always make the mistake of feeding wild animals,’ said the professor, staring at the water. They had left Emma on her own in the living room, which Marc found slightly surprising. Haberland didn’t seem the sort of man to trust strangers in a hurry. At the same time, there was a look in his eye that conveyed long experience of worse horrors than any to be expected from an injured woman and a former patient.
‘It disrupts the food chain,’ Haberland went on. ‘They become habituated to us, and that’s wrong.’
‘People do it because they’re animal lovers,’ said Marc, who had often tossed stale breadcrumbs to the swans on the Wannsee with Sandra.
‘Yes, but it’s a mistake all the same.’ Haberland pulled up the zip of his quilted jacket, which ended well short of the hem of his sports coat. ‘And it can never be right to do the wrong thing.’
They walked further along the shore. Marc wondered if they were really still talking about wildlife. Until recently his life had been governed by the principle that the end always justifies the means. Haberland must surely know about the false statement that had ultimately consigned Benny to a secure unit.
‘You seem very unsure of yourself,’ said Haberland, coming to the point at last.
The lakeside path, which now ran gently uphill, was separated from the water by a largish expanse of reeds.
‘I am.’ Marc inhaled the moist, aromatic scent of the forest flanking the path to their right. ‘I no longer trust my memories.’
He gave the professor a brief account of what had happened to him up till then, ending with his most recent experiences in the cellar of his former home. ‘Well, what do you think? Have I gone mad?’
Haberland paused to look back at his dog. Tarzan was making repeated attempts to forge a path through the reeds to the lake, only to give up when they pricked his muzzle.
‘You’re questioning your own existence. The mentally ill don’t do that as a rule. They try to justify their confused state of mind by advancing flimsy theories. Like Emma, for example.’
Marc turned to face him. Their clouds of breath met and mingled.
‘You think she’s sick?’
‘Only a charlatan would reach a diagnosis so quickly. Nevertheless, unlike you, she fails to ask herself the crucial question.’
‘“Have I gone mad?”, you mean?’