Pilgrim

by Timothy Findley

  “Yes, that’s what we call it, Doctor Jung,” Sybil said. “And how are you today?”

  Jung told Sybil he was well, adding that he had brought along his camera. “I photographed a daffodil at breakfast time,” he said. “The first I’ve seen this season. A sure sign spring is on its way. Any moment, we shall see them everywhere.”

  “I hope so,” Sybil said. “This endless snow is depressing. I don’t know how you stand it.”

  Jung looked up at Psyche.

  She was carved in marble, which suited her. Against the snow she was almost insubstantial—wraithlike, where she leaned above her frozen pond in a frame of slender birch trees. Her butterfly wings were sheathed in ice.

  “White, white, everything white,” Jung muttered.

  “Yes,” said Sybil. “White.” And then: “is there somewhere we could sit for a moment, Doctor? A bench, perhaps? I don’t know why, but I’m quite exhausted.”

  “There’s a bench beside Doctor Forel—just over here.” Jung led the way. “You know,” he said, “one reason you might have tired so easily has to do with the altitude. We’re quite high up, you know, which always makes a person lose his breath. Especially if you’ve come from the lowlands.”

  “Just so. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “We’re almost fourteen hundred feet above sea level here,” Jung told her. “Do be seated.”

  Sybil stood aside while Jung dusted the snow away from the bench with his handkerchief. He was not wearing gloves. The camera hung around his neck.

  It looks like a dead bird, Pilgrim thought.

  When all was ready, Sybil sat and Pilgrim sat beside her.

  Stepping back, Jung watched them both with a mixture of concern and pleasure. Clearly, Lady Quarter-maine was either unwell or deeply troubled—and Pilgrim’s pugnacious and insistent silence was beginning to irritate. On the other hand, they made a handsome couple—seated in a snowy garden with Psyche gazing at her frozen pool beyond them. Down below, Jung could see another figure heading towards the Clinic doors.

  Archie Menken, his American colleague.

  What would Archie make of Pilgrim’s journal? he wondered.

  Pah! he would more than likely say. The ramblings of a deranged mind, C.G. Stop trying to make sense of insanity.

  Jung turned his gaze once more to his companions and said: “would you mind if I took your photograph? You look rather splendid there, the two of you. And I’d like to record the memory of it. Purely privately, of course. Such a lovely day. The sun—the snow. Dare I say, a photograph of friends?”

  Sybil looked at Pilgrim.

  “Would you mind,” she asked him, “being photographed?”

  Pilgrim glanced aside, in the way of a child being told to behave.

  “Yes, please,” said Lady Quartermaine. “A photograph would be delightful. A memento for us all.”

  In his office, Archie Menken stood at the window and looked for a moment at the trio in the garden.

  Then he shook his head and crossed the room to his desk. There was plenty to do without worrying about old C.G. and his problems.

  Archie Menken was a disciple of William James. His studies with James at Harvard had left him almost powerless with devotion. Everything he thought and did—including everything he thought and did in behalf of his patients—was cast in the image of the Master’s precept that all there is, is what there is. There is nothing more.

  His view of the Countess Blavinskeya was: there is no human life on the Moon; come home. His view of Pilgrim was: you have achieved the silence you seek in death, while standing in a living stream of consciousness. Speak—and be done with it. Pilgrim’s reaction to this had been an enigmatic smile and the silent observation that the living stream of consciousness is freezing cold.

  As for Archie’s view of Jung, whose passion he admired, he nonetheless believed that C.G.’s passion could be put to more practical uses. Archie had no sense, being still so young, that his own “passion” was so entirely geared to his mentor’s precepts that he had no vocabulary of his own. His endless references—both in notes and in conversation—to James’s all there is, is what there is and the stream of consciousness showed his own inability to break free of the student he had been and to reach for the analyst he might yet become. James had been dead for two years, but for Menken he was still sitting in the next room, waiting to be consulted.

  Jung nearly drove Archie crazy with his endless willingness to accommodate the patient’s terms of capitulation.

  “It is our job,” Archie once shouted at him, “to bring them into our company—not to lend our company to their fantasies! Stop all these lunar journeys, C.G.! Bring Blavinskeya back into the circle of life, where gravity prevails and lives are lived, not dreamt!”

  As for Pilgrim: “you enjoy his dilemma. You revel in it. You stole him from Josef, who might have begun to cure him by now, because you couldn’t bear the thought that someone else was going to receive the benefit of all that hidden Sturm und Drang that have driven Pilgrim to suicide and silence. You’re like a child who’s jealous of someone else’s talking doll. If it’s going to speak, it has to speak on your terms—not on its own and never in someone else’s purview! In some ways,” Archie had shouted, “you’re a monster, C.G.! Mine is your favourite word—and, Jesus God in Heaven, I swear you’d let a man die before you’d allow him to revive under Josef’s aegis—or mine—or anyone else’s!”

  These arguments had all been stated at the top of Archie’s voice. To Jung, this shouting was one of Archie’s most endearing qualities. The brash boy aspect, the excitable juvenile who always seems to be on the verge of an intellectual orgasm…

  By the 8th of May, the day on which Jung took his photographs of Sybil Quartermaine and Pilgrim, there was little left to be said between the two doctors. As for Josef Furtwängler, there was nothing left to be said. He had shut his door on Jung and that was the end of it.

  But Jung was deaf to silence. He simply did not admit it was there. For every “silent” hour he spent with Pilgrim, there were—in his view—as many conversations as he might have had with any discursive patient. He and Pilgrim had “discussed” in silence the state of Pilgrim’s being, the music he preferred to hear on the Victrola, his favoured views from the windows of the Clinic, his pleasure in wine and his abhorrence of various foods. Also, his preference in ties—his insistence on refusing anything with stripes. In Jung’s view, a man’s refusals and preferences, though stated only with a gesture, were a perfectly valid substitute for conversation of a verbal nature. As for nuance—a lowered glance, a shrug, a shifted stance were adjectives enough. Comment lay entirely in attitude—not in words. Jung felt it was as much his job to watch as it was to listen. Menken did not understand this.

  Jung was now fond of Pilgrim, for all the latter’s refusal to speak and his testy attitude to psychiatric inquiries. He would miss him, once he was well and had returned to England. If that should ever happen.

  If that should ever happen…

  What had made him think that?

  There it was. The ambuscade.

  Ambushed by despair.

  He won’t get well.

  There’s nothing you can do.

  No. Don’t say that. You mustn’t.

  All right. He will get well. He will. And all of us will go to live on the Moon. Bravo!

  Jesus.

  Jesus.

  What did this mean? Who was speaking? An unbidden voice had entered Jung’s mind—negative and snide, insinuating failure where he believed there could be none.

  Is it possible, this voice now said, that you might be one of them, not one of us, Carl Gustav? May I remind you of your mother? Think of your mother. All her sleepless nights—all her muttered imprecations—all those threats and warnings laid at every door, including yours. Her dreams—her nightmares—her shouts and whispers in the dark. She was one of them, not one of us, Carl Gustav. You’ve said so yourself—or you’ve thought it, haven’t you. H
aven’t you…

  Yes.

  So, why not you? There’s nothing to say a doctor can’t be ill.

  Jung rapped his forehead with an open hand. “Be quiet,” he whispered. “Be quiet in there. Go away.”

  I only want to help, said the voice. I only want to be helpful.

  You can be most helpful by shutting up.

  Very well. I shall be silent.

  There was the briefest pause.

  For the moment, the voice added. But I won’t go away. I’m here to stay, Carl Gustav. Here to stay.

  This remarkable “conversation”—Jung could call it nothing else—took place around eleven o’clock on the morning of the 8th of May—the same day on which Jung had shot his photographs of Pilgrim and Lady Quartermaine—and of the daffodil to which he had spoken in the garden.

  Jung did not return to Küsnacht for his lunch, but stayed alone in his office, where he drank a small amount of brandy and smoked a cheroot and sat in an attitude of contemplation, as though he expected someone to speak.

  9

  At three o’clock that afternoon, Archie Menken had just returned to his office from a trying hour with a patient who could not and would not be silenced. Over the past weeks, countless sessions had been expended listening—countless others experimenting with ether, chloral hydrate, laudanum, the baths, restraints and other means of bringing the patient’s hysteria to a halt. But silence had not yet been forthcoming, only babble—albeit, babble that was intelligent enough. The history of the Danes—the streets of London in alphabetical order—the life of Queen Alexandra—and an explanation of why the guillotine had failed to silence the aristocracy. This latter subject Archie Menken found particularly tempting, given that his patient was the son of a royal duke. At five past three, while he poured himself an inch of illicit bourbon and lighted a cigarette, there was a knock at the door.

  “No,” he said, quickly hiding the bottle and glass—just in case the caller was Bleuler. “I can’t. I’m busy.”

  Nonetheless, the door opened.

  It was Jung.

  “Go away, C.G. I need to be alone,” Archie told him.

  Jung was ashen—breathless.

  In his hand was a clutch of photographs, newly printed.

  He came to the patient’s side of Archie’s desk and fell into the chair as though he had been running.

  “What in heaven’s name is the matter with you?” Archie asked. “I said I couldn’t see you. I need a moment alone.”

  “Go right ahead.” Jung waved his hand. “Take your time. I’ll just sit here.”

  “But you can’t just sit there. Dammit—alone means alone.”

  “Pretend I’m not here.”

  Archie retrieved his glass and drank.

  “What have you been doing—climbing mountains?” he asked. “Why are you so out of breath?”

  “I’ll explain when you’ve had your private moment. Just ignore me.”

  Archie sat back and sighed. He gave up.

  “Do you want a drink?” he asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Of course you do. Of course. It’s you.”

  Archie turned and took down another glass, poured two fingers of bourbon into it and passed it across the desk. He then topped up his own drink and set the bottle aside.

  Archie watched while Jung drank. He still had not let go of the pictures he carried. His lips moved. His knees shifted back and forth, touching and parting like the knees of an overanxious adolescent.

  “Well? Speak.”

  “You through being private?”

  “Don’t be so childish. Tell me why you came.”

  Jung fanned the snapshots like a hand of cards. “These,” he said. “I’d like you to take a look at them.”

  Menken leaned forward and took them—eight somewhat sticky photographs.

  “I took them this morning,” Jung said, “and brought them in to be developed by Vallabreque. I just got them back half an hour ago.”

  “Jürgen Vallabreque?”

  “How many Vallabreques you think we have working here? Eighty? Of course Jürgen, you…”

  “Say it, C.G. Get it out of your system.”

  “You idiot.”

  “Thank you. I’ve long thought you thought so.”

  “Oh—for God’s sake—look at the photographs!”

  Jung stood up, polished off his bourbon and went around the desk to pour more from the bottle. This placed him behind Archie Menken’s right shoulder.

  Archie drew the lamp closer and laid the photographs out on his blotter—four and four. For almost a minute he studied them, one by one.

  Three daffodils—three Lady-Quartermaine-Pilgrims—one Psyche—one motor car (a Daimler).

  Finally, Jung said: “notice anything?”

  “Well,” Archie said—and drifted. Then he said: “they’re really quite good.”

  “Not that. Anything unusual?”

  Archie looked at each of the images again.

  Jung said: “you got a magnifying glass?”

  “No.” And then: “Lady-What’s-her-name looks a bit sad. Is that what you mean? Not well?”

  “True—but not what I’m looking for.”

  Archie scanned each photograph, holding them one by one close under the light.

  Jung leaned in above him.

  “Well?”

  “Nothing in the daffodil pictures, I presume.”

  “No.”

  “All the same flower? They really are excellent. You could publish them. The snow—the shadows…”

  “Not the daffodil pictures.”

  Archie set them aside.

  “Psyche?”

  “Partly.”

  “She’s in four of them—three with Lady What’s-it and Pilgrim—one solo.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well—her wings are covered with ice. That’s clear. And…”

  “Look at Pilgrim.”

  Archie laid the three photographs of What’s-her-name and Pilgrim directly beneath the lamp, stood and bent over them.

  “Anything?” Jung asked.

  “No.”

  And then: “well…”

  And then: “in this one…”

  Archie picked up the centre photograph and held it closer—crossing to the windows where the light was natural—winter white, less yellow.

  “Well…” he said at last, “in this one, there’s something on Pilgrim’s shoulder that isn’t in the others.”

  “Thank God,” Jung said, and suddenly sat down in Archie’s chair.

  “Why thank God?”

  “Because it means I’m not crazy.”

  Archie laughed. “Not crazy because there’s something on Pilgrim’s shoulder?”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  “I can’t. It’s too faint.”

  “Look again. Look again.”

  “Really, C.G., this is ridiculous.”

  “LOOK AGAIN!”

  Archie, stunned by Jung’s sudden vehemence, said nothing and turned back to the window with the photograph.

  Then he said: “it looks…like a butterfly. Of course, it can’t be. Probably snow—but it looks like a butterfly.”

  Jung closed his eyes and clapped his hands together, locking them in place against his lips.

  Archie brought the picture back to the desk and laid it down amongst the others.

  “So?” he said. “What is it?”

  Jung said nothing.

  He stood up, unclasped his hands and gathered the photographs, placed them in his pocket, finished his bourbon, made his way to the door, waved and said: “thank you, Mister Menken.”

  Then he left.

  Archie sat down.

  “It can’t be a butterfly,” he said out loud. “It can’t be.”

  But it was.

  The following day, at noon, Jung did return to Küsnacht for his lunch.

  “Psyche:” Emma read from the textbook beside her soup plate, “personification of a so
ul filled with the passion of love, and as such conceived in the form of a small winged maiden, or at other times, a butterfly.”

  Emma looked towards the window, where Jung stood gazing out at his daffodil. “There,” she said. “Is that what you wanted?”

  “Thank you. Yes.”

  His voice was barely more than a whisper.

  Then he said: “tell me you see it there, as I do.”

  Emma glanced at the contentious photograph, raising a magnifying glass to bring it more clearly into focus. “Yes,” she said. “I see it.”

  “Archie thinks it’s just a bit of snow.”

  “I thought that myself at first,” Emma told him. “After all, it is frigid out there. How could a butterfly survive? Don’t they hibernate or something when it’s cold. They’re immobilized. Where can it possibly have come from?”

  “Psyche.”

  Emma almost smiled. She closed the book and took up her soup spoon. Carl Gustav’s back all at once looked rather touching. Sad.

  Surely he can’t really believe this, she thought. And then: but he does. He believes—or wants to believe—that Psyche’s statue somehow generated the butterfly on Mister Pilgrim’s shoulder. Which, of course, is nonsense and quite impossible.

  “Come and eat,” she said. “Have you any more patients today?”

  “Yes. One.”

  “I see. Well, eat. It will build you up.”

  Jung sat down and opened his napkin, tucking it into his collar the way a child might do. Or a peasant.

  “Leveritch and his bears,” he said.

  “Dear me. Mister Leveritch is so energetic. Are you sure you’re up to it? You look tired.”

  “I am tired. But I’m up to it. I have to be. So long as he doesn’t sic his dogs on me.”

  “I thought you said he’d given that up.”

  “Depends how paranoid he is. For a week, now, yes—there have been no dogs.”

  Otto Leveritch believed that he lived in a bear pit. It was probable the image came from the fact he was raised in Berne. Legend had it that, when Berne was founded in the twelfth century, the founder had declared it would be named after the first creature killed in the next hunt. Thus, the city’s coat of arms displays a bear.