In the Basement of the Psychoanalysis Museum
Patrick Keppel
Continued
M. stared at me for a long moment, then slowly turned toward the doctors. They wouldn't mind; I'd often acted as his temporary escort to the real world. Then at last he just shrugged, by now very much accustomed to following orders. But of course he was supposed to be assertive too. "I should finish this," he said, lightly brushing the paper with the tip of his pencil.
I sighed and nodded. He was only about halfway through. "Just hurry a little bit," I said and checked the antechamber, which was now suddenly cleared of scientists--a bad sign. I stared at the opening; at any second the head of my hideous double would slide through the crack, first one murderous green eye and then the other. What on earth is taking him so long? I thought. He has to know I'm here, there's nowhere else! Meanwhile, M. was laboring, pondering. He probably couldn't find his way out either. It was hot, I began to feel faint--trapped! Then I looked all around and for the first time noticed another door slightly ajar leading to a small blue room, apparently a chapel of some kind. God only knows what kind of debased tricks they played in there! I braced myself, planted my feet; if the monster appeared I'd run into the chapel and close the door. M. was rubbing his brow in weary concentration. Question six, Question seven . . . Page Two.
That second page hidden beneath the first, my head all in a darkening whirl, Victor's ghastly cackling, those beastly killers in black pursuing me with their relentless Kyri-e Ele-i-son--these are the last waking sensations I can recall from the Basement of the Psychoanalysis Museum, though I certainly remained a prisoner there for at least seven more hours. I must have left M. at once, dashed into the blue room perhaps, or else back into the cafeteria and the ten thousand other rooms adjacent. It is impossible to say; the rest of what I remember is all hallucination, or dream, though at the time of course I was as convinced of its reality as I am right now of the pen in my hand.
Here is what happened: I opened my eyes. I was sitting in a chair in a hotel room. M.'s brother D. was there with his wife A., talking and laughing with Elizabeth, who was busy at a counter along a far wall, preparing a meal, I thought, chopping vegetables. All was peaceful, happy; a warm breeze drifted in from an open window somewhere. They didn't seem entirely aware of me, and suddenly I understood that it was because I was just now waking, not merely from a nap but from a deep catatonia, which had probably lasted months, maybe years, no doubt the result of my trauma in the Basement of the Psychoanalysis Museum.
Of course, I was thrilled to be once more among the living and was anxious to speak my first words. Oh, I could already hear their joyful shouts, feel their embraces, their wet tears; I was so grateful for their loyal care, for not abandoning me all this time, I almost wept my way back into their world. But I held my tongue, choked back my tears; for a while I just wanted to watch them, to celebrate every mundane detail that makes life worth living, despite its pain. I remember looking, absorbing, thinking . . . Cradle? Yes, there was one there in the corner, an old wooden thing on rockers I'd seen many times under a blanket of black dust in my parents' attic, the painted silver moons at its foot absorbed into the grain. And then to my astonishment I saw for the first time what my wife was really doing there at the counter, not cooking as I'd thought, but holding a baby, a naked, raw, blotched-red infant. I gasped inwardly--the baby was ours!
How can I begin to describe my feelings at that moment? Imagine waking up to your wildest dream, your most perfect conception of peace and contentment. I was overjoyed, blissful, warm--it was paradise! Anxiously I began to search my mind for the pieces with which I could fill in the wide gap in my memory, probably spanning a year, but I groped in total darkness. At times I saw a flicker of light as from a shard of blue glass, or an object, the brass doorknob to our bedroom--a whole world trying to burst through the seams of the opaque fabric obscuring them. It was frustrating not to be able to retrieve these objects, these memories, to hold them endearingly in my mind, walk around them as at a museum, touch them, feel their solid weight, their remarkable composition; but at least I knew they were there. I felt certain it would all come back in time, each found fragment of the mosaic, no matter how insignificant, a cause for renewed celebration.
Oh, if only it had all stopped there, if only I could have sustained that vision I'd never have wanted to wake further. But too much had happened in the past for me not to doubt it, and the very moment I did so, my pleasant hallucination turned into the grotesque nightmare for which I'll never forgive the cruel proprietors of the Basement of the Psychoanalysis Museum.
Unable to retrieve any tangible pieces of my past, I abandoned my search for the time being and sat enjoying the scene before me one last time before I would at last break the spell with a single phrase, hopefully something very clever. It was almost funny, this little domestic scene in which I'd played a key role without even knowing it. Evidently I'd done something right, I laughed to myself, and considered saying precisely this as I re-entered the drama. In fact, I was poised to take my first step on stage when suddenly I stopped, paralyzed with the dreadful suspicion that I was misreading this scene entirely. How could I be sure that this child . . .
No! It was mine, I assured myself, it had to be mine. And then all at once, I received conclusive proof of the fact--to my unspeakable horror! All along my wife had been happily cleaning the child, powdering his thighs, his genitals, but suddenly I noticed that the latter were not those of an infant at all, but of an adult male. The penis stuck out absurdly straight from its small scrub of tangled brown hair like a cigar, white bumps at its base, a mysterious black spot on its side. I will resist the temptation to omit one further shocking detail concerning this organ, though no one would blame me if I did. Observe what a monstrous place this museum was: The boy's penis was mine, not as a matter of genetics, but actually, physically mine. And suddenly I realized that my wife was not merely cleaning the boy, but preparing him for something, an operation or a ceremony, though apparently not circumcision.
At once I sprang out of my chair and rushed to the child, sweeping him off the counter and into my arms. Contrary to my expectations, no one even blinked at my sudden waking. My friend D. beamed with delight; as a new father himself, he evidently took great pleasure in watching me deal with this wriggling thing, which despite my attempts to secure a grip kept shrinking in my arms. At last it was the size and shape of this one stuffed toy my wife had carried with her since she was two--a worn, brownish red animal, some strange hybrid of bear, pig, human, and badger by the name of Cupid, who was the first voice and brightest star in our domestic pantheon, having played all the leads in our nightly readings from Levin to Felix Krull. Or at least I recognize it as such now. At the time I was merely horrified that I was somehow harming the child. I wanted to do everything right, especially since I had so boldly "rescued" him from my wife, who oddly enough seemed to think nothing at all of my rash action; she was still busy at the counter with something, and chatting with A. In a way it was as though I hadn't done anything--as though I weren't really there!
Finally in a kind of desperation I plopped the child on one of a set of twin beds which were placed very close together and remarkably similar to the ones my brother and I had slept on as children, right down to the checkered pattern of the bedspreads. I shrugged and made some off-hand remark about this coincidence to D., who was reclining on the other bed and still smiling at my clumsy handling of the baby. But then as I babbled on and on about the beds he began directing concerned glances toward the child, who was now wobbling about on the very edge of the bed. Finally D.'s eyes widened in alarm, and he reached out an arm, but it was too late. The baby had fallen between the beds head first and was now stuck, his stubby feet dangling stiffly in the air. I laughed nervously and made a few awkward attempts at extraction, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to get him out without damaging his large soft head. Oddly enough the baby wasn't at all crying, and evidently this eerie silence compelled the more experienced D. to take command of the situation. He made a move to assist me, but I waved him off. "It's all right!" I said firmly, "He's balanced on part of the mattress--See there? It's all right!"
I remember nothing more, except feeling a sudden hard pull on my veins and arteries which constricted my heart into a tight knot--a side-effect of the drug, I imagine. Oh, I don't doubt that my total collapse greatly alarmed the museum's dastardly proprietors, made them fear reprisals from the authorities, lawsuits, etc. I can well imagine their hurried, whispered discussions as to what they would do with me; perhaps at least one of them took one look at me lying there in a quivering heap and thought it best to dispose of the evidence entirely. But he or she was overruled by the behaviorists, who agreed that they should make me swallow a sedative, rifle my body for identification and keys, and spirit me away to my address. Then when I awoke the next day in the relative safety of my familiar surroundings, I'd have to conclude it had all been a terrible nightmare.
Torturers! I remembered it all, every detail! I awoke earlier than they expected, around two in the morning on November the second, dumped on the floor like a beaten prisoner (no doubt a concession to the sadists in the group). Still shaking with terror, I phoned the police and demanded they go down there and arrest the lot of them. Then I quickly called my wife. When she answered sleepily, I gave her a chance to explain; after all perhaps she too had been trapped in the place, pursued by her hideous double. Perhaps they'd purposely separated us so as to confuse us, or told her I'd left long ago in search of her. Instead, to my infinite dismay (but not really to my surprise) she acted as though nothing had happened. She merely apologized for not having called in a while, she'd been so busy lately, her building and all. Then she laughed, fully awake now. She was glad I called, something funny had happened the other day. . . .
But I couldn't take it any more. "Where's your shame?" I cut in bitterly. "Can you be so heartless? What have I ever done to be treated like this?"
There was a long pause. "What did I do?" she said quietly, already in tears. "Besides the obvious."
"The obvious?!" I shouted. "You brought me to that awful place under false pretenses and then just . . . left me there!"
"What place? What place?" she said quickly, but I wasn't about to listen to her denials; they'd probably instructed her exactly what to say to try and confuse me. I slammed the phone down, for the last time as far as I was concerned.
I stayed up the rest of the night, pacing about near the phone, smoking. Just before dawn Victor cackled himself awake, and impatient, I phoned the police once more. Oh sure, they'd checked out the place, but they'd drawn a blank. There was a haunted house, a bunch of black cats, and some women with pointy hats flying around on brooms, but no Psychology museum, no sir. Public servants! No wonder the world is in such a dreadful state. Radio, television, the newspapers--no matter what I said or did to prove my respectability, they all just smiled and nodded at my amusing little tale, gave me a cup of coffee, told me they'd be on the lookout, and in the meantime why didn't I just get a good night's sleep?
Of course, it was essential that I speak to M. before the Weber doctors had managed to expunge all traces of the contemptible place from his memory. When I finally got through to him that afternoon and told him the story, I could tell that they'd already begun the job. Think hard, I urged him. M. did as I'd asked, paused in silence for at least thirty seconds, but then at last sighed and said he was sorry. It sounded sort of familiar; they had indeed gone on some kind of field trip yesterday, a job seminar he thought it was, where he did fill out a bunch of forms, but to be honest he just couldn't be sure. However, there were a few hours he couldn't account for. Unfortunately toward the end of the trip he'd had a few "incidents," as they called his compulsions, and so the end of the day was sort of a blur. But I was relentless; I had to be in order to break through the dark fabric of lies with which they'd blanketed his memory. Once more I described the place, this time more slowly and in even greater detail--the exhibits emerging gradually out of the haze, the rigid tour guide, the pitch black, the dim cafeteria, the littered classroom, the questions, the doctors murmuring suspiciously in the next room. . . .
"It could be," he said suddenly. I told him to keep thinking about it, and then an hour later went to see him at Weber. As soon as we stepped outside onto the hospital grounds, he leaned closer and tapped me lightly on the shoulder. "I was there," he whispered.
My mouth dropped. Perhaps deep down I was hoping that it hadn't really happened, because now I needed proof. Was he sure? He told me he was, there was no question about it. After he'd spoken to me, he'd thought more and more about the place and finally decided to see what Dr. Mays, his therapist, would say about it. He told her the whole story exactly as I'd related it to him, and when he was done the faintest hint of a smile played at the edge of her lips. When he asked her what she was thinking--he was proud of this, he'd never done that before--she seemed "a little nervous," then finally shrugged and muttered something about a book she was working on. "I mean it has occurred to me too that the mind is very much like a museum," she said matter-of-factly, "The way it tries to preserve the past by dividing it up into floors and rooms."
M. and I gazed at one another for a long moment, and then mirrored each other's smile. There was no need to have him describe the woman; no doubt she looked entirely different from the way she had under the bluish white lights of the Basement of the Psychoanalysis Museum--her hair released from its knot, her tour guide's costume stashed away in a closet somewhere. But how brazen of her, how vain, not even to disguise her voice!
M.'s been working undercover ever since; any chance he gets he brings up the museum in therapy, gauges Dr. Mays' response, then reports his findings to me. It's a longshot, I know, but don't underestimate M.; as one removed from society he is not only freer of its preconceptions, but freer too to exploit its weaknesses. Perhaps someday Dr. Mays will crack or slip--certainly she feels some pangs of guilt for what she's done--and then we'll have our woman.
In the meantime I've told my story to everyone I know, and in the process have brought those friendships which had been teetering on the edge to a crisis they aren't likely to recover from. One night soon after the crime, my wife called in great agitation. She said she'd heard my story through mutual "friends" and was worried about me; maybe it was time I talked to someone--a psychiatrist! I still don't quite know what her role in all of this was, but needless to say this was the last conversation we ever had. A few like D. and A. are doing their best to remain loyal and sympathetic. When I told them what had happened they drove all the way into town and convinced me that despite my terror of the place we should scour the scene of the crime for clues. We spent hours driving up and down Brian Street and through all the alleys intersecting it--I could barely stand it and would not even leave the car--but except possibly for an old bathroom sink leaning against a dumpster, the museum had vanished without a trace. D. stopped a number of passersby or shopkeepers, but of course they'd never heard of such a thing. I can't say I was disappointed; it was at least possible (if not in my view likely) that the rest of the museum's cowardly, degenerate proprietors had fled town for good.
Anyway, though D. and A. have never once questioned the veracity of my story, I can tell they have their doubts. To tell the truth, I don't blame them. Despite M.'s corroboration, at times even I have wondered (as I was supposed to) if it was all just a dream. But then all memories in time take on that hazy quality, even those from my very real marriage. What's more, a few times since then I've had nightmares in which once again I find myself trapped in the Basement of the Psychoanalysis Museum, wandering desperately through a few more of its terrifying exhibits, thus distorting the actual experience even more.
For this reason I'm glad I've finally written it all out; now at least it's clear and permanent, as fixed in my mind as it is in print. Practically speaking, it's my last resort, a way of taking matters into my own hands. I plan to post hundreds of copies all over town wherever lonely or desperate bodies tend to wash up--silent, murky bars and cafes, dirty laundramats, airless, oily underground stations. PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! If I cannot succeed in closing this vicious trap down for good, I pray I can prevent others from falling into it. It grieves me to know I will fail to catch the vast majority of you in time. I see an endless procession, a long line snaking around the block. I see hard, bluish faces bowed to the cold wind and mist, teeth meshed and chattering; I see arms folded tightly over breasts, wet feet scuffling along the pavement an inch at a time as though chained. Day and night I shudder with clairvoyant certainty that at that very instant some innocent soul is descending into the Basement of the Psychoanalysis Museum seeking a moment's shelter and warmth, only to find countless doors opening to his worst fears, a hall of mirrors reflecting the infinite facets of his deepest shame, but no exit.
Fiction from Web del Sol