“I see you like art too.” Kristof is smiling as he looks at Maria. The painting above her fireplace is a copy of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. It seems an unusual choice for a therapist, this picture with a thousand mad cavorting figures. Maybe it is too insinuating for a room in which people are asked to recount their own stories.
Maria nods, possibly to agree that she likes art, or perhaps as an invitation for Kristof to carry on speaking. “Have you brought something?”
“I have,” and he bends forward to unzip a black sports bag on the floor in front of him. Out comes a plastic sleeve with a glinting disc. “I came with a CD player, but I see you have one yourself.” Kristof gets up and crosses the room, aware that his movements are quick and smooth. “Just a moment.” Maria’s sound system, the box and speakers tucked into her bookshelf, is dealt with swiftly: Kristof’s hands move over it, tapping, sliding, and then he returns to his chair as the machine whirrs, readying itself to play.
There is a subterranean roll of drums. A violin calls out, a series of long notes. In the far background, a kind of rattle. Everyone in the room listens to this assortment of mournful sounds, but with varying degrees of attention. Joan looks at Cyrus; each of them maintains a poker face. Luke seems to be incorporating the music into his mourning, a soundtrack for his sorrow – his eyes are downcast.
Maria appears to be waiting for a natural break in the music, but every pause is brief, soon interrupted by a drum roll, a gong or a chorus of high, wordless human voices. After a few minutes, speaking over a rattle, she asks Kristof what the music signifies for him.
“This is something I shared with Saskia,” he says. “Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel. Painting was her main artistic interest, not music, but she loved this. I wasn’t at all surprised, because she had – has, I should say – a truly soulful presence. And under these strange circumstances of her disappearance, the music takes on a new and frightening significance for me.”
Luke sighs, and the gas fire hisses. For the next half hour, Maria elicits further expressions from the philosophers about their feelings for Saskia and the meaning to them of her disappearance.
“How would you describe your emotional states since her disappearance?” Maria asks.
“I don’t think I’m much changed,” says Joan. “Sometimes slightly angry, maybe, irritable.” This is greeted with silence.
“I feel totally alert,” Cyrus remarks. “I get into bed at night and I lie waiting to get up, ready for the slightest change in air pressure. I’m not scared, just watchful. All the time.” He brushes the side of his shirt, though there is nothing on it.
Luke admits to feeling guilty and ineffectual. “What more could we do?” he asks. “We’ve been over everything – police, hospitals, morgue, newspapers . . .” He goes through the list, as he has clearly done before, many times. “But I feel we’re not doing what we can, there may be some clue that we’ve been too careless to notice.”
“That’s the job of the police,” says Joan.
“The police,” Luke says bitterly. “How much have they done?”
The conversation is rendered ominous, melancholic, by Kristof’s music. Maria is hesitant to ask him to switch it off, presumably – he reflects – because it has a special meaning to him. No one else in the department asks either. So, accompanied by bells, violins and rattles, the gathering goes on, and once the music draws to a dreadfully sad close, it seems to them all that the session is at an end.
“I would, of course, be happy to see you all again if you like,” Maria says.
“Thank you so much,” replies Luke. He looks deflated. “We’ll let you know. Meanwhile, we appreciate this session.”
Kristof removes his CD and then stands waiting as his colleagues leave. He has a relaxed manner, though only he is left in the room with Maria.
“Is there something else I can help with?” she asks.
“I know it’s a little unprofessional of me – we should stick to Saskia’s disappearance – but I couldn’t help noticing your picture,” says Kristof. “I love the Bosch, and I’m impressed that someone has taken the trouble to paint it. Quite a big copy too. Did you do it?”
Maria laughs. “If I tried, it wouldn’t look as good as that, I can tell you.”
“Who, then?”
A pause. “My mother.”
“A talented artist.”
“Yes. It was a long project for her. She had a huge book of Bosch reproductions that she kept open on the table as she painted.”
“She did a wonderful job. She’s captured how funny Bosch is, and how shocking. I’m intrigued by the blank space at the bottom.” He points to the lower right corner, where there is a patch of white canvas surrounded by images of naked men and women being tortured by demons in Hell. “She’s left out the satanic bird,” he says.
“I suppose she didn’t get a chance to finish the picture,” says Maria.
There is a silence. Kristof notes her reticence, and chooses a new topic. “I like your books too: psychology in the upper shelves, mysticism below.” He goes to the far end of the room, and peers at the bookcase. Lying on one of the upper shelves, hidden from Maria by his chest, is a blue ceramic gecko. “The titles are evocative.”
Maria doesn’t reply, but retains her smile.
Kristof shoulders his bag, ready to go. “May I use your bathroom?”
Kristof looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. Even to himself, his physical appearance seems a little foreign. Perhaps his black hair, cropped and soldierly, contributes to the impression. Or his green eyes – but maybe there has never been a period or location in which those eyes blended with their surroundings. He turns to urinate, raising his head as he does so, humming softly. As he flushes, he flips open the cupboard door above the washbasin. There is a white-painted shelf, empty except for some medicine bottles and a box of tissues at the back. Kristof removes the ceramic gecko from his pocket. He places it on the shelf, in the middle, as if it is an actor standing before an audience. Admiring the scene for a moment, he closes the cupboard door quietly, washes his hands and leaves.
“It was good to meet you,” he tells Maria before leaving. “I’ve never been to one of these sessions before, but I found it strangely cleansing.”
“Well,” says Maria, “please feel free to contact me if you’d like to speak further.”
There is ambiguity in her words. Is she referring to the whole group, or just to him?
“I certainly will,” says Kristof. Off he goes, sports bag over his shoulder.
Two
Taxis are zipping along Claremont Main Road, veering from side to side, treating the dividing line as a meaningless spill of paint. The air is filled with hooting and emission fumes. Pedestrians bob between the Saturday morning traffic. An old woman serenely follows her own Zen path straight across the road, ignoring the cars weaving around her; a bus bears down on a trio of sauntering young men, who respond with comic running gestures, swinging their arms without speeding up.
Kristof’s small white car passes down the road. He is humming a musical piece, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, imitating highlights from the various instruments. Nearing the finale, he takes a neat left turn into the underground parking lot of a shopping mall.
He runs up two flights of stairs and emerges next to a shop that sells occult books and computer games. Then he turns left and strides past a bowling alley fronted by twitching fluorescent lights and a brace of loitering, scowling