Jesse Ball: A Cure for Suicide

— I think that I might like it, he said. Sometimes I feel that we are a bit alike.

— It is good to feel that, she said. That is the feeling we talked about — empathy. It is what humans can feel for other humans. It is very natural.

— But I think we are alike, he said.

— We may be, she said. But feeling that we might be — that is what is most important.

THEY WERE STANDING before the pictures again. One was a painting of a farm scene. Another was a photograph of a hill with a hole in it.

— How many times, said the examiner, we have stood looking at these pictures.

— There is someone in the cave, I think.

— Why do you think that, Anders?

— Because there is a line here, and here and here. I believe that someone must have walked there, up the hill, again and again and again until a path was worn down. If that is true, then maybe the person is inside of the hill, in the cave, in this photograph. I have often thought this when we have stood here, but I wasn’t ready to speak about it until now.

— Do you put someone there?

— What do you mean?

— Anders, do you put someone there, in the cave? Is there someone you imagine to be there, when you imagine a person in there?

He shifted his weight and the floor creaked slightly.

— I put you in there. It’s you that is in there.

— That’s all right. That’s okay.

She patted him reassuringly.

— I am the only person you know. Of course, you would put me in there. Who else would you put?

— It isn’t for good, he said. I pictured you coming out, also.

She narrowed her eyes.

— Did you really?

— No. But, I can.

— Anders, she said. Just so you know, you can’t say that something is inside the hill. A hill is a solid object. If a tunnel is bored through it, or a cave is there, the cave replaces the inside of the hill. Then, a person who is in a cave is in a cave that goes into a hill. They are not in a hill. In the same way, a tunnel that goes through a hill has no part that is in the hill, unless, of course, the tunnel collapses. Then, the person that was in the tunnel when it collapsed could be said to be inside the hill.

— I like this one less and less, said the claimant, pointing to the painting.

— Why is that?

— I think that it doesn’t reflect how things are very well. I am concerned about it never having happened.

— So you prefer real things?

— I think so, I think. No, that’s not it.

— There are many imagined things that are good, said the examiner, and many that I know you like.

— I think maybe it is false. There isn’t any hope in it.

— It looks cheerful enough to me, said the examiner quietly.

— But, ah, mmm…

— You are right, you know, said the examiner. It is a bad piece of art, and that is because it is an imposture. The artist was elsewhere when it was made. It would be good to take it down or to throw it away, but I think,

She tilted her head.

— I think it will be good for it to stay as a reminder to you of this moment. Good work.

ONE DAY, SHE SAT DOWN with him on the porch steps outside the house. It was a very gray day. The clouds were low over their heads, and there was hardly any sun. In fact, the town looked different beneath this sky. The claimant said this to the examiner,

— How different the weather makes things. You almost wouldn’t know the street to look at it.

— That reminds me, she said, of an exercise. It might be hard for you, on a day like today, to think of the way things usually are, and remember them, but I want you to. I want you to close your eyes, and give me an account of what you see as you leave the house and go down into the town.

— THE FIRST THING, the claimant said, is that I shut the gate. As soon as I’ve done that, I’m standing in the road. The road goes in two directions. I always go to the left. There is a house opposite, and it is the same as our house. There is a house to the left of that, and opposite it, a house to the right of our house. There are, on our street, nineteen houses on each side, as we go down into the town. At the base of the hill, there is a depression where water sometimes gathers. That’s on the right side of the street. There is a shop with a chessboard set up in the window. The pieces are not set up properly. The board has been turned ninety degrees. The queens are not on their color. As you…

— That is enough for now, said the examiner quietly. You are doing so well. You see so much, I would never have guessed.

— The next thing, said the claimant, is a shop with a sewing machine. The same dress is always in the machine, as if it is about to mended, but it never is. It is always waiting to be mended.

ANOTHER DAY, and they went down the road in the other direction. For the first time, they turned right. They walked for a good long while. For this good while there were houses on both sides, and then there were just houses on one side, and then none — just fields and woods. They had a picnic with them, and when they came upon a large rock that was pleasantly placed beneath the shade of a tree, they decided to sit and eat.

— Do you remember what I said to you last night? That I said, today we will practice how it would be to meet a person? Are you ready to try?

— A real person?

The claimant looked about him to see if there was someone approaching, or any sign of anyone nearby, but there was none. It was just a beautiful autumn afternoon, with leaves falling, and birds passing now and then through the air and through the trees.

— This is practice. We would be practicing. Shall we try?

— All right.

— I’m going to go around that bend there. When I come back over, I will be a different person, someone you have never met. I want you to speak to me as if you don’t know me, and as if you are simply a human being like any other, meeting someone for the first time. You might contrive some reason to speak to me. Or, perhaps, I will have a reason to speak to you. That is how it is in the world. Ready?

— I am.

The examiner jumped down from the rock and walked away. His eyes followed her as she walked with a certain light grace between the roots of trees and the tall grasses. Soon she was out of sight. A sudden shyness and fear rose in him. He gathered himself.

— WHY, HELLO.

The claimant looked at her. She was wearing some kind of coat over her clothes and a different hat. Her eyes were painted.

He thought about this, and tried to remember what she had looked like before. Had she been wearing those same clothes before…

She was saying something to him. He was supposed to be speaking to a new person, and she looked like a new person. She was saying,

— Do you know the way to Calistor Avenue?

— I haven’t been there, he said.

And then he was thinking that he had been there. It was the one by the lake, not around the lake, but you passed it there, he thought. He had remembered looking at the sign, seeing the name, and not trying to pronounce it. But when you pronounced it, that’s how it came out. Calistor. When he looked up, the woman was gone.

Oh, dear. How had he done?

THE EXAMINER came back around the corner, looking just as she had at the outset.

— Anders, she said. Anders, Anders, Anders. That won’t do at all.

He looked at the ground near his feet.

— You were very convincing, he said. I really felt that you didn’t know me.

— It is hard, isn’t it, said the examiner, to have someone look at you as if they don’t know you — when you feel they do or should.