by A. B. Decker
Ellen stood in the lounge after dinner, contemplating the cheerless ambience of the erotic painting on the wall. And wondered how long her own cheerless situation would continue.
“Do you like the painting?” Dr Zellweger asked. Ellen jumped. She had not heard him follow her into the lounge. And she spun round with a faintly embarrassed smile. It seemed a provocative question, and she was not sure how to respond.
“I find it quite sad.”
“My wife doesn’t like the picture either. But she tolerates it. She thinks the lounge is not the place for such a picture and believes I hang it here just for the thrill. Simply to shock.”
“And do you?” asked Ellen.
“It was painted by an old schoolfriend,” he explained, ignoring Ellen’s question.
He paused and gazed thoughtfully into the painting with the inquisitive expression of the psychiatrist that he was. He appeared to be carefully mulling over his next words, visibly conscious that his explanation so far was no explanation at all.
“We had lost touch a long time ago. Then a few years back he appeared at the clinic with his wife. A poor soul. She has been in and out of the clinic with depression ever since. I’m not sure why he gave me the painting. He said it was his way of thanking me for looking after his wife. But I’m not so sure. It did not seem quite appropriate at the time, and I didn’t want to accept at first. But eventually I agreed because it makes me think of Jack and his wife. Their story. And so it hangs here to remind me not only of them, but of all my patients and the stories they struggle with each day.”
He turned his gaze from the painting to look at Ellen, as if considering her own story. And Ellen could not escape the telling concern in his expression. Fortunately, her growing discomfort was interrupted by the intrusion of his wife.
“Is he trying to persuade you of the deeper significance about that picture?”
Like two synchronised swimmers, Dr Zellweger and Ellen turned their heads to see Marthe enter the room behind them.
“I was simply explaining the provenance of the painting to Mrs Goss,” said Marthe’s husband.
“Urs, why do you still insist on being so formal? I’m sure Ellen would prefer to be addressed by her first name.”
Ellen smiled. But said nothing.
“You forget that Mrs Goss’s husband is still my patient,” Dr Zellweger reminded Marthe. “As long as that remains the case, I think it best that we respect the normal formalities.”
“But that shouldn’t stop her joining us tomorrow,” Marthe insisted.
“Tomorrow?” Ellen asked, and cast a probing look first at Marthe then at her husband.
“Urs has a protégé out in the country and tries to visit on Saturdays whenever possible.”
Dr Zellweger did not enjoy his private affairs being placed on display. The smile on his lips betrayed a slight unease. But his words gave nothing away.
“We will be taking a short drive up into the hills,” he explained, turning to Ellen. “And of course, if you would like to join us tomorrow, Mrs Goss, you would be very welcome.”
Marthe gave Ellen a conspiratorial smile.
“Do you have some sturdy shoes with you?” she asked.
Ellen gave a quizzical shake of the head.
“Never mind. It looks as if we wear the same size, so I can let you have a pair of mine.”
The next morning brought patches of blue to a sky that had been relentlessly grey ever since Ellen’s arrival a week before.
“The perfect day for a trip to the country,” said Marthe, pulling the door of the BMW shut as she climbed into the passenger seat and cast a glance at Ellen behind her.
Driving drove out of the city on that chilly Saturday morning, Ellen was struck by the number of houses that had their windows wide open and bedding draped over the window sills. Even in the depths of winter. They greeted Ellen like welcoming flags, as she rode through the outlying villages and into the rolling forested hills of the Jura. The moment she saw the fields begin to open up around her on either side of the car, Ellen felt her sense of heaviness start to lift. It was as though the city that held Frank somewhere in its oppressive grip had released her for a momentary reprieve.
As if to underscore this feeling of release, Marthe stretched forward to switch on the radio and filled the car with a familiar sound. ‘Lola’ by the Kinks. Ellen sensed an uncontrollable smile unfold across her face. The song put her in mind of Putney Bridge, walking arm in arm with Frank, her head on his shoulder, drinking the sweet smell of his body.
“I love this song,” Marthe grinned over the back of her seat to Ellen, abruptly breaking up those precious memories.
Ellen was taken aback by the glee in her voice. She had seen Marthe as a woman with a taste for Debussy or Mahler. Something classical at least. It seemed to Ellen strangely out of place, this music that conjured images of London life from Muswell Hill to Soho now blaring out over the quiet, sweeping hills that ran along the border with France. It made her feel oddly uncomfortable. But perhaps this came more from the sense of tension she picked up between Marthe and her husband, when Dr Zellweger reached out his right hand and turned down the volume. Ellen could not see the expression on his face, but she felt that it was one of disapproval.
After some twenty minutes and a winding climb into the hills, they turned into the spacious elongated square of a village. Dr Zellweger brought the car to a halt in the centre of the square opposite a long, low-roofed farmhouse. And Ellen sensed a sigh of relief in the driver’s seat when the radio went silent.
The near end of the square, on the left, was dominated by a large three-storey building with late nineteenth-century flair. The words Hotel Jura were emblazoned over the door. Looming over the far end of the square, to their right, stood the gleaming white, neoclassical façade of what was plainly a place of worship. Dropped here amid the forested hills, it seemed oddly out of place and took Ellen by surprise.
Marthe climbed out of the car, exchanging a few words with her husband that Ellen was unable to understand.
“We get out here,” Marthe said. “And take a walk while Urs goes to see his protégé.”
Ellen dutifully followed and closed the car door behind her. Dr Zellweger gave a smile and waved, before motoring off to see his mysterious protégé.
“Would you like to see the basilica first?” Marthe asked and then, without waiting for an answer: “Afterwards we can take a walk over to the next village and maybe have lunch.”
Ellen simply nodded.
“This is a very special place. La Notre Dame de la Pierre,” Marthe said, extending an arm in what seemed a demonstrative expression of pride. “It was built originally to mark a miracle that is supposed to have happened here hundreds of years ago. There’s a beautiful grotto under the church that was carved out of the rockface to mark the spot where it occurred.”
“Who’s this protégé of your husband’s?” Ellen asked. She felt disinclined to go along with Marthe’s attempts to play the travel guide. It irritated her intensely while Frank remained missing somewhere along their sightseeing trail. But she tried not to let it show, and added politely:
“Or would that be an indiscreet question? I have the impression that he doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“In a sense perhaps the protégé is as much a patient as anything else,” said Marthe. “So his silence is probably more a case of professional confidentiality.”
There was a long pause as they continued towards the basilica, before Marthe added:
“Patient is not quite the right word either. A few years ago, Urs worked at a clinic in the east of the country. There was a Yenish boy there called Stefan. And Urs took him under his wing.”
“Yenish?” Ellen gave Marthe a searching look.
“They’re like Roma people. Travellers. There are quite a lot in the east of the country, where Urs comes from. A small town close to Lake Constance. While he was qualifying as a psychiatrist, he gathered a lot of practical expe
rience at a clinic there. That’s where he first met Stefan. He found him extremely subdued and apathetic. Over time, he learned more about the boy’s background. He had apparently been taken into care for some reason that was not clear. It happened with a lot of Yenish children at the time. Still does occasionally. I don’t know the full story. But Urs says the family where he was placed treated him very badly. They worked him extremely hard. And like any boy in that kind of situation, Stefan rebelled. He became difficult to handle. So the family complained, and he was admitted to the clinic for what they called conduct disorder.
“The more he came into contact with Stefan, the more he realised that the boy probably had no place in the clinic at all. He also suspected that his colleagues were using Stefan and other patients to test a new drug. But he was a junior and had no access to any evidence. Later on, Urs moved to the clinic here. But he never forgot Stefan, and often returned at weekends to visit him. Eventually, he became so concerned about the boy that he suggested they stop his treatment and let my husband bring him back here, where he knows a good family that would look after him. So Urs comes out here as often as possible to check and make sure everything is all right.”
“That’s very noble. My Frank says a lot of very caring, humanitarian things. But it’s all talk really. He just sits on the fence most of the time. I’m sure he would never give up so much of his free time for such a noble cause.”
“It’s just how things work in this country. They try to instil a strong sense of solidarity into you from an early age,” Marthe explained with a carping edge to her voice when she added: “But not everyone absorbs these things quite as completely as Urs. He’s always so absolutely thorough and precise in everything he does.”
“What’s Stefan like?” Ellen asked, ignoring this hint of censure.
“I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never met him.”
By now, they were walking through a long tunnel of a corridor that led down and under the basilica. The lighting was subdued. And the ambience of the corridor perfumed with frankincense began to claw at Ellen’s throat. When they reached the top of a steep and seemingly endless flight of a narrow enclosed wooden staircase down the side of the craggy rock face, she became instantly giddy, sensed her legs begin to give way beneath her. And she reached for the railings to steady herself.
It put her in mind of her Catholic boarding school and the steps leading down to the basement. The punishment room where the nuns would relish doing God’s work and locking girls in isolation for twenty-four hours without food or drink. Even the slightest deviation from their bizarre rules was deemed worthy of this torture.
“Marthe,” she said, “do you think we could leave this out? I have a real problem with places of religious devotion.”
Marthe held her by the arm. A look of concern in her eyes.
“Of course. Let’s get some fresh air,” she said. Then added with a teasing air of mystery: “As a godless woman, you probably just sensed the spirit of the prayer crusaders.”
She was plainly expecting the puzzlement - though perhaps not the slightly wounded look - which etched itself into Ellen’s face and, after the briefest of pauses for dramatic effect, she explained:
“Basel was a melting pot of socialists, communists and freethinkers around the turn of the century. And for a long time after. The Catholic Church believed their atheism was such a danger that some of the more conservative priests here decided to fight it with a ‘prayer crusade’. So, every first Wednesday of the month, thousands made the pilgrimage here to pray against what they called the ‘godless movement’ in the city.
“And it’s now a tradition,” Marthe added. “They still do it today.”
“I’m not an atheist,” Ellen insisted, as they left the basilica and walked out onto the square. “I just don’t like the Catholic Church.”
“That’s all right,” Marthe said, touching Ellen’s arm in a gesture of reassurance. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me.”
Walking out of the village, Ellen was entranced by the way the surrounding fields were peppered every so often with patches of sunlight as gaps opened up in the scudding cloud. When they reached the top of the hill and Ellen looked back down on the village, her heart leapt at the majestic sight of the basilica against the dull, grey-brown winter background. For all her aversion to the devotional spirit that religion imbues in its followers, she felt quite uplifted by the gleaming whiteness of the church’s neoclassical façade. It stamped its presence on the landscape with such beautiful confidence. Ellen sensed a tingling warmth course through her veins at the very sight of it, which surprised her.
“Are you feeling better now?” Marthe asked.
“I’m fine,” Ellen replied, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. “It’s so beautiful lying there beneath us in the valley. Churches can be so impressive from a distance. As long as I don’t get too close.”
Marthe smiled. Ellen was not sure whether this was out of understanding or simply tolerance. And the chiaroscuro effect of the light on her face, clouding the expression in her eyes and the definition of her lips, lent an added layer of mystery to the smile that was compounded by the tantalising way in which Marthe stretched out a hand with the words:
“Come on. We’re now crossing the border.”
Ellen obediently turned and followed.
“Into France,” Marthe added.
On the crest of the hill across the border, the ancient ruins of a castle were silhouetted against the sky. A handful of houses sprawled at the foot of the hill beneath the ruins. It was a ten-minute walk down to these dwellings. As they approached, Ellen could see no sign welcoming them to the hamlet with anything that resembled a name. And the street showed no sign of life. The anonymity perversely put her in mind of Frank and underlined her own sense of emptiness. On the packed streets of the city it was possible to imagine that she might bump into Frank at any moment. That he could not be far away. But here, the solitary emptiness of the street merely accentuated his absence. Ellen felt a shudder through her entire body.
“Urs will be meeting us in the village further down the hill,” Marthe said as they passed an unpretentious building on the left. “So we can have lunch in here on the way back before we meet.”
The only thing indicating to Ellen that it could be an eatery of any kind was a small, slightly shabby sign on the building with the words au chasseur. It told her game was likely to be on the menu.
“But first I want to show you the view from up there,” she added, pointing to the castle ruins. “But we must take care. It can be quite dangerous.”
The danger Marthe referred to lay in the loose stonework of the ruined walls and doorways. So they trod gingerly along the pathways towards what must once have been the keep. But for Ellen, a far greater sense of menace hit her when they climbed the stairs and, reaching the top, entered the central tower, where they were instantly plunged into pitch darkness. She could see nothing ahead of her.
“Take my hand,” said Marthe and stretched her right arm back behind her for Ellen to grasp her hand.
Ellen had never been good in the dark. As a child, she had always felt the need to sleep with a light on outside her bedroom, so that at least she would catch a glimmer of light if she woke in the night. But here there was nothing. A complete and absolute absence of any luminescence. Ellen was struck by a brief moment of panic – until she felt Marthe’s soft yet reassuring grip. As they moved through the passage, Ellen was totally dependent on the guiding hand of Marthe, who appeared to have some preternatural awareness of any obstacles ahead of them.
So evidently familiar was she with the terrain that she almost moved too fast for Ellen, who preferred to inch very slowly forward, feeling her way cautiously along the wall with her left hand as her right kept threatening to lose touch with Marthe’s hand. There was a damp mustiness in the air that clawed at her throat. And made the going even slower. It seemed like an eternity before eventually a faint glow emanated from s
omewhere on the right. Like the glimmer of light she had been so dependent on at night as a child. It revealed the vague outline of broken stones ahead, making progress easier for Ellen. As Marthe guided her closer to the light, she saw that it shone down a narrow stairway from above. Still holding Ellen by the hand, Marthe led her up these steps.
As they both followed the upward twists and turns of the stairway, the glimmer of light grew steadily brighter, making the steps ever simpler for Ellen to negotiate. And as she let go of Marthe’s hand, her companion suddenly leapt the last few steps ahead of her and out onto the very top of the castle ruins. Ellen quickly followed. And felt a staggering sense of release as she surveyed the magnificent vista and breathed in the fresh, clean air.
Behind her to the south, they remained nestled in the forested hills of the Jura, which continued their steep upward trajectory and blocked out any further view. It was plain that this castle must have once been an important defence against marauding hordes from the north, for there before her she had the world at her feet. A panorama that seemed to stretch to infinity.
“It’s quite cloudy today, but you can just make out the hills of the Vosges over there,” said Marthe, her guiding hand now become the needle of a compass pointing northwest. Then swinging forty-five degrees to the right: “And those dark hills rising behind the city are the Black Forest in Germany.”
Ellen paid little attention to the dark hills in the far distance and the grim shadow of cloud that swept over them like a menacing scythe. Her thoughts were on the city below. In the veiled haze, it was barely visible between the rolling hills of the foreground and the bulging highlands on the horizon. But somewhere lost beneath that veil was Frank. She found it so hard to get her head around this idea.
“I can hardly see the city,” she said. “It’s just swallowed up by the mist and the hills.”
“This is Switzerland, Ellen. We don’t build high. We carpet the cities with houses, squat apartment blocks, and tunnels,” Marthe added. “With all our mountains, we’re very good at tunnels. We like to stay close the ground. It’s all part of the safety-first mentality. Hundreds of years ago, the city was destroyed by an earthquake. Perhaps that also explains it a little.”
