Jesse Ball - A Cure for Suicide

As for the claimant, it is necessary he be under constant supervision. For that task, I recommend examiner 2387. She is connected with the case already, and can be reintegrated without trouble. Indeed, there is every reason to think he will look forward to her company.

At or before the year’s end, then, I will conclude this case, and leave village E6.

I look forward to the group analysis of this case.

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TIME PASSED. After some number of days, one particular day arrived, and in the midst of that day, it was midday. The sun was shining so brightly overhead it seemed that every blade of grass could be made out, each from the others. It was a sort of harmony — nothing could be hidden, nothing at all beneath the sky.

Up and down the streets of the village, people went, and where they went it was about their meager business. There was just enough business for them to do. Just enough, and they were glad. The water flowed in the streams. The water stood still in the lake.

Here and there, a person would pause, and meet the eye of another person. There would be recognition and a glimmer of pleasure. Here and there, a person would enter a house, and shut the door, and the door would shut well. It would close with a dark and solid sound.

Likewise, windows were being thrown open. Other windows were closing. Here and there, a person was lying down for a nap, or pulling out a chair to sit at a table. The village was full of objects and things and they were all in use. It was a merry contraption, an intricate and many-faceted thing. From its center to its edges, it was complete in itself. If there were things it did not admit, and there must always be, then there is no room to speak of them now.

THE EXAMINER set a brass plate on the gate at the front of the house. On it was the name Henry Caul. Come and have a look, she told him.

She called him down out of the house, and he came hurrying, just as always. As always, he did, and when he did, they stood there and something marvelous happened. He was standing there and thinking about the brass plate. He was thinking about the name Henry Caul. He was thinking about the gate and the house and the street. And the examiner said out loud, out loud she said to him—

— Henry Caul is now your real name. Go for a walk and return to the house, and see how your name is here on this brass plate.

Then Henry went down the street, and every house that he passed had a person in the yard, and every person called out to him, good evening, Henry, or Mr. Caul, how nice to see you. He knew them all, every one. He knew them, and they knew him.

He went down one street and another. He looped back, and all the glimmering, shining faces fluttered together, all saying, Henry, Henry, Henry.

AND AS HE WALKED up the front steps of the house, he heard voices. Voices within his house! Two people were talking. The examiner was in the dining room with someone. Who could it be?

The examiner, his good friend, Dahlia, the person he had known and lived with for so long, she who had just put out the brass plate with his name, she who was so pleased with him, she came out into the hall and took his arm, and led him, not into the dining room, but into the parlor. They sat. He looked back in the direction of the dining room, but the examiner caught his eye and held it.

— I know that it has been difficult for you, Henry, to deal with the failure that happened last year, that happened in the last village. Indeed, it was not a failure. You did very well, but it was a failure of the village. Things with the woman called Hilda did not go well. She was very ill, and it hurt you to have to do the right thing. It hurt you because she was so persuasive, and because you were still vulnerable to her way of thinking. You are a loyal and good person, and you wanted it to be true that there was another kind of help you could have given her, but in the end your instincts won out and you found that there was only the one sort of help. You gave her that one sort of help. Yet even now you think about it and it troubles you. The world is a difficult place. It puts us in difficult situations. And now you have learned how to deal with all of these situations.

The examiner took a deep breath.

— I want to introduce you to someone, she said. This person has come to see us. She has come to live in this village for a while. Her name is Nancy. Nancy Throtten. You will see, see that there is a reason she came here.

— Nancy, said the examiner. Nancy, come in.

She leaned in, and whispered in the claimant’s ear.

— She remembers nothing about what happened, so don’t confuse her by talking about it. I think she will remember you a little, though, perhaps a little at first. So, be kind. If I remember right, you enjoyed spending time with her. Perhaps you will again?

There were footsteps in the hall, and then,

The young woman who came into the room was wearing a lovely periwinkle dress with thin straps, and bright yellow stockings. She was very pretty, so he thought, and when she saw him, she turned her head slightly to the left and smiled.

It was Hilda. Hilda!

— Dahlia has been telling me all about you, said Hilda-Nancy. I am looking forward to getting to know you.

The examiner left the room and the two young people sat together on a small couch.

— I feel, said Hilda-Nancy. I feel almost as though I had known you for a very long while. But, that’s silly.

She laughed, a bright wistful laugh.

— I have only just met you. We have all of that before us. Henry, she said. Henry, it is such a good name. I do love names. Don’t you?

— Nancy is a good name, too, said Henry. I think it fits you very well.

And as he stared at her, he felt in himself the past receding. He remembered, as clear as day, that he had lived in another place, and that he had known someone named Hilda, but that and other things like it seemed not to matter at all. Here was Nancy, here he lived in a place where certain things were. They were. That was enough. There was no need to think back to other things, or to let them rise up in the mind. His face assumed a studied posture — from without he appeared to be a person thinking deeply, but in fact, he was merely sitting there, calmly waiting for something to happen. Nancy’s face bore the same beatific expression. They were holding hands, and anyone who looked into the room would suppose that they were the two happiest people in the world.

On the other side of the wall, the examiner stood quietly, her eyes shut. She clapped her hands once, and then again, but so softly that no one could hear.

IT WAS A MAZE of hallways, a plain building with a maze of hallways. Most of the offices were empty. The doors were unmarked. No one waited before them.

Yet, on one door, there was printed a simple title. It was simple, but puzzling. It read:

INTERLOCUTOR

In the hall opposite, there was a bench. A man, a petitioner, had been sitting on the bench for the better part of an hour. His face and clothing were worn and thin and lined as though he hadn’t slept. His hand was shaking, and he was holding it in his other hand. Perhaps both were shaking. He stared mutely at the floor, and the light over his head flickered fitfully.

Finally, the door opened. A man with lustrous white hair, an old man, wearing a black suit, was looking out. He inclined his arm, and the petitioner stood, walked into the room, and shut the door.