Алекс Михаэлидес - The Silent Patient

Just like that, I was back where I had started, as if there had been no break. My addiction had been patiently waiting for me all this time, like a faithful dog. I didn’t tell Kathy what I had done, and I put it out of my mind. In fact I was waiting for an opportunity, and six weeks later, it presented itself. Kathy went to New York for a week, to visit Nicole. Without Kathy’s influence, lonely and bored, I gave in to temptation. I didn’t have a dealer anymore, so I did what I had done as a student—and made my way to Camden Town market.

As I left the station, I could smell marijuana in the air, mingled with the scent of incense and food stalls frying onions. I walked over to the bridge by Camden Lock. I stood there awkwardly, pushed and nudged by an endless stream of tourists and teenagers trudging back and forth across the bridge.

I scanned the crowd. There was no sign of any of the dealers who used to line the bridge, calling out to you as you passed. I spotted a couple of police officers, unmissable in their bright yellow jackets, patrolling the crowd. They walked away from the bridge, toward the station. Then I heard a low voice by my side:

“Want some green, mate?”

I looked down and there was a small man. I thought he was a child at first, he was so slight and slender. But his face was a road map of rugged terrain, lined and crossed, like a boy prematurely aged. He was missing his two front teeth, giving his words a slight whistle. “Green?” he repeated.

I nodded.

He jerked his head at me to follow him. He slipped through the crowd and went around the corner and along a backstreet. He entered an old pub and I followed. It was deserted inside, dingy and tattered, and stank of vomit and old cigarette smoke.

“Gissa beer,” he said, hovering at the bar. He was scarcely tall enough to see over it. I begrudgingly bought him half a pint. He took it to a table in the corner. I sat opposite him. He looked around furtively, then reached under the table and slipped me a small package wrapped in cellophane. I gave him some cash.

I went home and I opened the package, half expecting to have been ripped off, but a familiar pungent smell drifted to my nose. I saw the little green buds streaked with gold. My heart raced as though I had encountered a long-lost friend; which I suppose I had.

From then on, I would get high occasionally, whenever I found myself alone in the flat for a few hours, when I was sure Kathy would not be coming back anytime soon.

That night, when I came home, tired and frustrated, and found Kathy out at rehearsal, I quickly rolled a joint. I smoked it out of the bathroom window. But I smoked too much, too fast—it hit me hard, like a punch between the eyes. I was so stoned, even walking felt difficult, like wading through treacle. I went through my usual sanitizing ritual—air freshener, brushing my teeth, taking a shower—and I carefully maneuvered myself to the living room. I sank onto the sofa.

I looked for the TV remote but couldn’t see it. Then I located it, peeking out from behind Kathy’s open laptop on the coffee table. I reached for it, but was so stoned I knocked over the laptop. I propped the laptop up again—and the screen came to life. It was logged into her email account. For some reason, I kept staring at it. I was transfixed—her in-box stared at me like a gaping hole. I couldn’t look away. All kinds of things jumped out before I knew what I was reading: words such as “sexy” and “fuck” in the email headings—and repeated emails from BADBOY22.

If only I’d stopped there. If only I’d got up and walked away—but I didn’t.

I clicked on the most recent email and opened it:

Subject: Re: little miss fuck

From: Katerama_1

To: BADBOY22

I’m on the bus. So horny for you. I can smell you on me. I feel like a slut! Kxx

Sent from my iPhone

_______________________________________

Subject: Re: re: re: little miss fuck

From: BADBOY22

To: Katerama_1

U r a slut! Lol. C u later? After rehearsal?

_______________________________________

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: little miss fuck

From: BADBOY22

To: Katerama_1

Ok. Will see what time I can get away. I’ll text u.

_______________________________________

Subject: Re: re: re: re: little miss fuck

From: Katerama_1

To: BADBOY22

Ok. 830? 9? xx

Sent from my iPhone

_______________________________________

I pulled the laptop from the table. I sat with it on my lap, staring at it. I don’t know how long I sat like that. Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Half an hour? Maybe longer. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

I tried to process what I had just seen, but I was still so stoned, I wasn’t sure what I had seen. Was it real? Or some kind of misunderstanding—some joke I wasn’t getting because I was so high?

I forced myself to read another email.

And another.

I ended up going through all of Kathy’s emails to BADBOY22. Some were sexual, obscene even. Others were longer, more confessional, emotional, and she sounded drunk—perhaps they were written late at night, after I had gone to bed. I pictured myself in the bedroom, asleep, while Kathy was out here, writing intimate messages to this stranger. This stranger she was fucking.

Time caught up with itself with a jolt. Suddenly I was no longer stoned. I was horribly, painfully sober.

There was a wrenching pain in my stomach. I threw aside the laptop. I ran into the bathroom.

I fell to my knees in front of the toilet and threw up.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“THIS FEELS RATHER DIFFERENT from last time,” I said.

No response.

Alicia sat opposite me in the chair, head turned slightly toward the window. She sat perfectly still, her spine rigid and straight. She looked like a cellist. Or a soldier.

“I’m thinking of how the last session ended. When you physically attacked me and had to be restrained.”

No response. I hesitated.

“I wonder if you did it as some kind of test? To see what I’m made of? I think it’s important that you know I’m not easily intimidated. I can take whatever you throw at me.”

Alicia looked out the window at the gray sky beyond the bars. I waited a moment.

“There’s something I need to tell you, Alicia. That I’m on your side. Hopefully one day you’ll believe that. Of course, it takes time to build trust. My old therapist used to say intimacy requires the repeated experience of being responded to—and that doesn’t happen overnight.”

Alicia stared at me, unblinking, with an inscrutable gaze. The minutes passed. It felt more like an endurance test than a therapy session.

I wasn’t making progress in any direction, it seemed. Perhaps it was all hopeless. Christian had been right to point out that rats desert sinking ships. What the hell was I doing clambering upon this wreck, lashing myself to the mast, preparing to drown?

The answer was sitting in front of me. As Diomedes put it, Alicia was a silent siren, luring me to my doom.

I felt a sudden desperation. I wanted to scream at her, Say something. Anything. Just talk.

But I didn’t say that. Instead, I broke with therapeutic tradition. I stopped treading softly and got directly to the point:

“I’d like to talk about your silence. About what it means … what it feels like. And specifically why you stopped talking.”

Alicia didn’t look at me. Was she even listening?

“As I sit here with you, a picture keeps coming into my mind—an image of someone biting their fist, holding back a yell, swallowing a scream. I remember when I first started therapy, I found it very hard to cry. I feared I’d be carried away by the flood, overwhelmed. Perhaps that’s what it feels like for you. That’s why it’s important to take your time to feel safe and trust that you won’t be alone in this flood—that I’m treading water here with you.”