The Dark Frontier

by A. B. Decker

  With a vaguely sardonic smile that nourished Ellen’s growing impatience, Professor Abegg opened the right-hand top drawer of his desk, took out what she instantly recognised as Frank’s worn passport and put it on the desk in front of her.

  “Perhaps it was stolen.” She was struggling to control her patience. “Do you think I could see him now?”

  “In good time, Mrs Goss.” The professor put down the pen and flicked open a thin file on the desk in front of him. He sifted through the papers in the file for what seemed to Ellen like an eternity.

  “Have you been having problems in your marriage?” he asked, without looking up from the file.

  Ellen sensed her irritation was on the verge of tipping into rage.

  “Look, I know these are the kinds of questions you doctors like to ask. But our marriage is just fine. We have a great sex life. And zero problems.”

  “And your mother-in-law?” he asked, fiddling with the pen again as he looked up at Ellen.

  “What?”

  “Your husband’s mother. Do you and she get along?”

  “No,” Ellen replied bluntly. She was tired of thisinterrogation.

  Professor Abegg leaned back slightly in his chair, his left hand still resting on the open file. He seemed a shade reassured, as if he felt he was finally getting somewhere.

  “Tension between a wife and her mother-in-law is quite normal,” he said, as if to put her mind at rest.

  “Of course,” said Ellen. “And it could get quite bad at times. But there was probably far more tension between my husband and his mother than me and his mother.”

  “Really?” Ellen’s words had piqued the psychiatrist’s curiosity. “Why was that?” he asked, and instantly stopped fiddling with the pen.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “They never seemed to have a good relationship. Frank always felt a sense of alienation from his parents. He often used to say that he thought he must have been adopted at a young age, that they couldn’t possibly be his parents as they seemed to walk on different planets.

  “His mother told me he’d always been a difficult child. Always saying strange things, talking about imaginary places and people. Having nightmares. One story she recalled in particular was about a zoo where people gawped at enclosures full of Black people. Caged like animals. I think she found it quite hard to take. The day we married, she took me to one side and said: ‘You take care young lady. I do hope you haven’t bitten off more than you can chew.’”

  “Interesting,” Professor Abegg said, finally laying the pen to rest on the desk. “So there has never been any real tension between you? Over the dog, for example? You don’t argue about the dog?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Ellen was mystified by this odd change of direction. “Yes, all right, I hate dogs. And she loved the little beasts. But fortunately she never owned one when I knew her. So it’s not something we ever argued about.”

  The professor hesitated. Ellen’s words plainly concerned him in a way he had not expected. But she could see that he was also quite intrigued. Her words had stopped him in his tracks. Ellen wondered whether he was simply not as confident in English as he appeared. Or did he suspect that he might be about to find himself unravelling something more sinister than a difficult psychiatric case?

  “You speak in the past, Mrs Goss,” he said at last.

  “My mother-in-law is dead.”

  Just like that it came out. Right to the point. No beating about the bush. He must think I’m a real bitch, she told herself. But she was past caring what he thought.

  “She died three weeks ago,” Ellen added. “A heart attack.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He paused again and fiddled with the papers in the folder, as if considering where to go next.

  “Only three weeks ago?” he repeated. “Did you know she had a heart condition?”

  The professor was becoming increasingly pensive. His expression of condolence was rather less than half-hearted, and his questions betrayed a vaguely accusing tone. But they seemed to be becoming steadily less confident.

  “And you say she never had a dog?” he asked.

  “I said she never had one when I knew her. A cat yes, but not a dog.” It was all Ellen could do not to laugh at this line of questioning.

  Ellen felt intimidated by the almost accusing tone of his questions and the pondering hesitation. This only reinforced her anger all the more. She felt the heat begin to rise and a sense of panic start to grow, when suddenly he asked: “Do you know someone called Achim?”

  Ellen shook her head. “Should I?”

  “He seems to play an important part in your husband’s distress,” the professor said. “And it puzzles me. It puzzles me very much. Because the pieces of the puzzle don’t appear to fit with the picture I have of your husband.”

  “What do you mean? What picture do you have of Frank?”

  “A fragmented picture. Very fragmented. My assistant, Dr Zellweger, was on duty when your husband was admitted. And he picked up the fragments that we have. But this is very little. The picture remains a puzzle full of holes.”

  At that moment, with all the talk of a dog, someone called Achim and her husband speaking a local dialect, scepticism and disbelief began edging back into Ellen’s mind. She became convinced that Professor Abegg could not be talking about Frank. That the person admitted to this clinic had probably stolen Frank’s passport or found it somewhere. A warm sense of relief began to grow inside her.

  “Your husband wrote this,” the professor said, taking a piece of paper from the folder and laying it on the desk in front of Ellen. “And ever since he wrote it, he has remained silent. He has not said another word. It is as if he has nothing more to say.”

  She stared at the messy scrawl. The handwriting looked familiar, but more erratic and untidier than usual. With a mixture of trepidation and curiosity, she took it in her hand and read the text to herself. Over and over again.

  Pneuma, silent susurrus, whispers

  ancient legends of what might have been:

  tristan in tintagel, for example,

  roc healed by holy water

  isolde’s dark enigma

  cascading within

  inches of a quiet

  arrest

  Eine nicht ganz tastbare Gegenwart

  ist längst vorbei;

  es bleibt nur noch ein Hauch der Legende übrig,

  während unser Leben zum langsamen Drift

  durch die Dardanellen wird.

  Es war doch immer so,

  nur die Legende war anders.

  Nun wollen wir eine eigene Legende schaffen,

  einen eigenen Hauch ausatmen,

  um den Spiegel anzufeuchten und die Geschichte

  mit dem Finger an dem Glas umschreiben.1

  But the legend will always speak for itself before it crumbles into the brick dust of Babel.

  Und unter den Ruinen

  flüstert wortlos der Wind

  über die beiden ersten Blätter einer Eiche,

  die sich aus den Trümmern schon entfalten.2

  Ellen was engrossed and bewildered. The writing was so familiar, and the words so incredibly strange.

  “That is your husband’s handwriting?” the professor eventually asked.

  “Well, it could be.” She was still uncertain. “It’s very much like his writing. But it seems different.” She paused, silenced by a sense of accelerating despair. Close to tears. But too distraught and confused to cry. And all the while she felt the professor watching her with his psychiatrist’s eyes.

  “But…” Ellen struggled to find the words she needed. “I don’t understand. What’s this all about?”

  “Would you like me to translate the German for you?”

  “No. That’s not what I meant. The English is just as incomprehensible to me as the German. Look, I just want to know what’s happening. I’m completely lost.”

  Professor Abegg sat impassivel
y on the other side of the desk, his expression somewhere between concern and fascination.

  “Doctor, I need to see the man you say is my husband,” Ellen insisted. And at last he had the hint of a smile for her. Only a hint. But this at least restored a little of the sympathy and understanding she detected in him when she first entered his office.

  “Under the circumstances, Mrs Goss, I think that is a very good idea.” He rose from his desk and went over to the door, turning to Ellen as he opened it:

  “Please wait here for a moment. I will ask Maria to bring you a cup of coffee.” He hesitated. “Or would you prefer tea?” he asked.

  “Yes, tea please,” said Ellen.

  Professor Abegg nodded and closed the door behind him.

  ***

  It was the soreness in the ribs that woke him. A soreness that escalated to a stabbing pain with every breath he took. Frank eased open his eyes. And the brightness of the room instantly closed them down again.

  He heard the door open and what sounded like the short, soft steps of a woman approach his bed.

  “Mr Goss,” the voice whispered.

  He felt the gentle touch of her fingers on his cheek. A balm for the soreness of his wounds. And when he opened his eyes again, he now found the brightness of the room replaced by a vision of such sweet angelic beauty he believed himself to be in heaven. A soft, fair face perfectly proportioned with deep blue eyes that sang of the sea. A crown of golden blonde curls arranged around her face like a halo. And a smile that would have melted even the coldest of hearts. He thought for a moment it was Ellen come to see him. And was momentarily confused because she called him Mr Goss and not Frank. Then she spoke again:

  “I’m Nurse Esther,” she said.

  The name flashed up in Frank’s mind. Stabbed at him like a dysfunctional neon display on some deserted seafront – just for an instant – as he struggled to recall the events of last night.

  “I have some lunch for you, Mr Goss,” the nurse added. She pointed to a table on the other side of the room. “Would you like to sit at the table? Or shall I bring it to your bed?”

  Frank pushed himself up on his elbows, winced at the pain in his ribs, and slowly eased his legs out of the bed.

  “The table?” she asked, taking his right arm to steady him.

  “When you have finished your lunch, you take one of these,” the nurse said after guiding him to his seat at the table. She placed a small plastic beaker containing a tablet down on the table. Frank took the beaker and tipped the tablet into the palm of his hand. A small blue pill with the number 10 and the name Roche imprinted on it.

  “You can take that after you have eaten,” the nurse repeated.

  “What is it?” Frank wanted to know.

  “Valium. To relax you. Later you can sit in the lounge if you wish. You have a nice view of the garden there. And Dr Zellweger will be back to see you later this afternoon.”

  Frank had no idea where he was or what this woman was talking about. But her manner and the soft cadence of her voice had the effect of water rippling over the pebbles of a stream on a warm spring day. It gave him all the relaxation he needed.

  “Would you like me to bring you to the lounge after lunch?” The question came with that same heart-warming smile that greeted him when he woke.

  “That would be nice.”

  Frank watched as she made her exit – enthralled by the divine warmth of her figure, her every movement as she turned, glided towards the door and closed it quietly behind her.

  The lounge was a light, expansive place. It was populated by a handful of people, standing or sitting in discrete isolation. Almost like grey shadows in the mist. No one spoke.

  One side of the room consisted almost entirely of large windows that extended practically from floor to ceiling. They gave onto a dense garden of birch trees and shrubs around a pond that seemed to cry out for attention. But the benches on the path around the pond remained vacant. Deaf to its cries. It was a garden that gave a depressingly desolate impression in its state of winter undress. An effect underscored by the forbidding white palisade of birch trees. Yet it managed to hold the silent grey shadows around the room in its thrall as they contemplated the scene in a solemn kind of communion. It was not the kind of view that would give Frank any comfort. But submissively he settled into the armchair to which the nurse had guided him.

  “This was found in the pocket of your jacket when you had your accident,” Nurse Esther said, placing his notebook and pen on the table beside his chair. “We thought you might want to have it while you sit here.”

  Frank stared blankly at the objects on the table, struggling to recall their significance. He opened the notebook. Save for some incoherent scribbles and a few unfamiliar names on the first page, it was empty.

  As the nurse faded out of sight, Frank picked up the pen. In two minds about the puzzling scribble, he let the pen hover over the page for some minutes. Then tore the page out altogether.

  “I know that feeling,” said a brittle voice.

  Immersed in the silence of the room, Frank was startled by the sudden trespass on his thoughts. He was not expecting conversation. Nor seeking it. He looked to his right and found a woman two chairs along watching his every move. She had the anxious eyes of quarry. They peered out from under a luxuriant head of dark shoulder-length hair that hung over her face like a curtain of concealment from any predators. But she had the confidence to smile.

  “Are you a writer as well?” she asked. Her hands fidgeted with what looked like a cigarette lighter as she spoke. The smile took the brittle edge from her voice for Frank. He was surprised, too, by the Englishness of her accent.

  “Are you English as well?” he asked, mimicking her turn of phrase.

  “No. Are you?” Her smile gave way to an expression that Frank found hard to fathom. She appeared to sense his fluster and smiled again, but this time with a curious resignation in her voice. “My husband’s mother is Irish. She’s been living here for years, but she’s still not mastered the language. So we speak in English.”

  She turned her head and looked out into the winter garden, contemplating its emptiness.

  “My name is Anna,” she said, turning back to Frank. “I’m a writer as well.”

  “I’m a journalist. I report things,” he replied.

  “We all report things in our own way.” The quarried expression in Anna’s eyes turned back onto the garden. “Do you see those trees?”

  Frank watched as she dropped the cigarette lighter on the tray, raised both arms, with hands and fingers outstretched, then slowly lowered them again and let each finger jiggle down in a trickling motion as if to trace the outline of every single birch.

  “They plant them there like that especially for us, you know. A perfect scaffold to keep us in our place. Like the bars of a cage. But I love them nonetheless. Especially in winter. There’s an honesty about them in the winter. None of the airs and graces of the spring or summer, when they’re shrouded in green. And none of the pretentious ways of autumn either.”

  For the first time, Frank caught the hint of an Irish lilt in Anna’s voice that she must have picked up from her mother-in-law. It lent a pleasing warmth to the brittle voice. And while Anna’s expression was hidden from Frank beneath the dark curtain of her hair, he sensed a satisfaction in her as she sat now contemplating the garden outside, fidgeting again with the lighter.

  Her silent engrossment in the winter scene outside lingered for so long that it became clear to Frank her mind had wandered off along another path altogether. Thankful for this release, he turned his thoughts back to Ellen. Looked again at his notepad and took pen to paper.

  He recalled an early spring day together on the north coast of Cornwall. The trees, like these outside now, showed no signs yet of dressing for the spring. But unlike the naked birches, they were at least invested with a little life by the gentle breeze that blew in off the sea. A breeze that whispered its way quietly through their branch
es – a near-silent susurrus almost drowned out by the surf that swept over the rocks far below them. And he recalled how later in the evening, in the cool night of the cottage they had rented, Ellen breathed on a window pane, then drew a heart in the mist and the letters F and P on either side. Then they watched together as the mist faded.

  “But the message never really fades,” she said. Frank recalled how captivated he was by the innocent lightness of her voice. “You just have to breathe it back to life,” she reassured him. Then she breathed on the pane again and let out a warm chuckle of girlish delight as they watched the heart and letters reappear.

  No, that’s not right, Frank told himself. The letters are wrong. I’m getting everything mixed up. He threw the pen down on the pad in frustration and ran both hands through his mop of hair.

  “It makes you wonder what you’re doing here, doesn’t it? Who you really are?”

  That brittle edge had returned to Anna’s voice. It dragged Frank back from his entangled memories. He peered across at her. A look of sad anxiety had returned to her eyes.

  “I like to write,” she continued. “I like to paint as well. But I’m not allowed to.”

  “What do you mean you’re not allowed to?”

  “There’s only room for one artist in a man’s world. But at least I can write when I’m allowed the time,” she said. Then added with a curious tightening of the lips: “What are you on?”

  The mystified expression on Frank’s face was unable to penetrate the curtain of hair over Anna’s eyes.

  “Do you know they invented LSD just down the road from here?” she continued. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they tested it in this clinic.”

  Frank smiled. “You don’t need to worry. I’m only on Valium.”

  “You may be. Or maybe not. They don’t say what they’re giving me. They just keep telling me it’s new.” Anna chuckled to herself, before adding, “So I suppose it can’t be LSD.”

  “So what prevents you from painting?” Frank asked, guiding Anna back to the original question. She prevaricated.