Jesse Ball: A Cure for Suicide

The claimant held the pen and looked down at the notebook. He looked up at her and down again.

— Do you need some help? she asked.

— I just, he said, I am having trouble remembering about…

— About…

— About what is what.

— Well, the first dream we worked on for you, the first of my dreams that you were to have — and this was only because you were having such trouble remembering your dreams at all — the first dream was of a thing called a train station.

— A train station?

— A place with large machinery that runs on wheels. Large boats with wheels that travel along metal rails. They carry people in and out.

— I remember, he said. I remember it.

— You see, she said, you were successful — you had the dream when we decided you should.

— I was sitting on a bench, he said. I was waiting for someone.

— The dream, she said, is one that I often had as a child. You see, I was in boarding school some of the time, and so I would wait for my parents at the large station. It felt like it was always winter, and I was always in a coat, I was always sneezing. I had a cold, I believe.

— Yes, he said, in the dream, I also had a cold!

— Sometimes it was me, and sometimes it was a child who sat next to me.

— Do you remember the other dreams that we worked on?

— No, said the claimant. I can’t seem to remember.

— There was one, a dark and difficult dream. It is of my mother. I told you about her. She died of a fever when I was seventeen. She was still very young then. That dream is just a single image, just her in a bed, lying with her eyes closed. But all around her there flutters the life of my family, and the world that we lost when she died. Don’t you remember, said the examiner crossly. Don’t you remember at all? This was the first success that we had — on Tuesday. You managed to have this dream exactly — only for you it was a young woman, not a mother, and you managed to invent a feeling of longing and sadness.

They sat quietly in the room.

The claimant looked as though he might cry.

— I can’t remember it properly, he said to himself.

— That feeling of longing and sadness, continued the examiner, is important. It is part of life’s balance, to give things their proper worth. If a person was loved, and a person has died, we want to bring them with us while we still live, but we cannot allow their memory to ruin all new things. So, we must accord them a space of solemnity and reverence, and spontaneous joy in recollection. That is the exercise that we are trying to do with this dream. We are making a case for you to put your effort into. I want you to invent some memories that you might have had with this young woman and be lighthearted about it. She is, after all, not real. Since she is not real, you can play a bit. You can imagine that there were wonderful times, and that she has died, and that it was a tragedy the likes of which you could scarcely bear, but then — because it wasn’t real, you can use it as a test case. You can be strong, and delight in all the fine things that you invent — all the fine things you did together. And you can imagine how a person might use this process to get over a difficult grief, and live a happy life.

— I remember, he said. I remember now that we talked about this. I think I do. I can remember thinking about her a lot, and I remember also, I remember…

— For now, said the examiner, let us think about another of the dreams I had that I gave to you. Do you remember the one where you worked in an antiques store — and you were always forgetting to lock the door. You were always leaving without locking the door?

— Yes, I remember that one.

— Well, do you remember that I did work in an antiques store, that I did forget to lock the door? And do you remember what happened?

— You were fired? You lost your position?

— No, nothing of the sort. I just went back in the middle of the night and locked the door. No one ever found out — not until I told you about it.

The claimant leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath.

— You want me to try to write this down?

— I know you can, said the examiner. Even if you haven’t written before, or if you wrote once long ago, but have forgotten how. I’m sure you can do it.

The claimant leaned over the paper and began to write.

He wrote:

++

I am in a train station. I am wearing a coat because it is winter. There are birds everywhere, and I am crying.

++

— Very good, said the examiner. Very good! You see, you can write! And your handwriting is very clean and even. I am going to go out onto the porch so you can write in peace. Come out when you are ready.

The claimant sat and wrote, and it felt very good to him to write. He felt he could see them so clearly, the things he had dreamed, and that writing made them firm. The examiner was so kind to him. He tried to imagine her face as the face of the young woman. He tried to imagine her face looking out of a train window. He wrote and wrote, and when he went out on the porch and showed her, the examiner smiled and touched him on the arm and he sat beside her. In the night there had been a storm and part of the fence was down. He said, the fence has fallen down, and she said, if part of it has fallen down, it isn’t a fence any longer. Then she said she was sorry, that that was a joke. And he thought about it as a joke, and soon they were sitting in the dusk.

— WHAT IS IT LIKE to be an examiner?

— It is difficult at first. One has to be so careful, always afraid of saying the wrong thing. It begins that you work with people who were not sick, who are not recovering. Everything else is the same, but the people you are working with are actors.

— Actors?

— People who are playing a part, who are pretending to be something they are not. And still others are watching the whole thing and keeping track. They grade you on your performance, and if you do well enough, you may be offered a position as an examiner. Of course, one is only an examiner D at that point.

— D?

— There are several ranks — D, C, B, A, and G. They have different levels of responsibility and autonomy.

— Teresa, what are you now?

— Examiners are not supposed to talk about this sort of thing.

— Oh, please!

— Examiner A.

— That is so wonderful!

He shook her arm with both his hands.

— I am so happy for you, he said. What a great thing to have done.

The examiner was taken aback. A pleased smile flashed on her features and was dispelled.

— Oh, it was nothing, she said. I just do my work and try as hard as I can.

— But still, he said. But still. Just imagine — me, getting an examiner A to help me! What a great thing.

— Anders, she said. A person always gets an examiner A at first — that’s what they are for.

— But still, he said. I am sure that you are different from the other examiners. Don’t you think you are? Don’t you do things a bit differently? Are all examiners women?

— Yes, she said. They are all women.

— And are all gardeners men?

She laughed.

— Not at all. They can be either. And there are many men who work with examiners. It is only that — it has been found that women are better at this task.

— Could I become an examiner?

— You, an examiner? There are things like examiners — you could take a position like that, within this system. Indeed, many who come to us as claimants end up working in our ranks once they have recovered completely. It is a matter of how well your recovery proceeds. There are many things we do not know, many questions unanswered. We shall see what you are best suited for.