Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

‘Is it really necessary?’

‘The doctor will tell you, Monsieur. We’re responsible for Madame …’

The psychiatrist’s apartment was reached by a spiral staircase that ended in a door with double locks. The doctor himself opened it, in shirtsleeves, a man in his fifties whose Freud-like goatee beard failed to conceal the innate cheerfulness of a face whose eyes sparkled with amused curiosity. He wore dark lenses whenever there was a pessimistic diagnosis to be delivered to a patient’s relations. Yet, as we have noted, this man was not fond of external contacts, of anything in fact that disturbed his closed universe in the nursing home, and considered the explanations he was obliged to supply in order to keep his patients there as a distasteful chore.

‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting you twice, and to be honest, though I know many things about Madame Chaminadze I know nothing about you. Forgive me for asking you up here. I should have come down to my consulting room to meet you there, but it’s Sunday — I deserve a little rest too, and I thought an informal meeting in my apartment would be more pleasant and relaxed, that you’d find my curiosity less oppressive and that we might even have a drink together, though my drinks cabinet is very modest: a brandy and water as Mr Pickwick preferred it, or a bootleg pastis the way Marius liked it. What’s your choice?’

‘Nothing,’ Jean said. ‘I’m listening.’

He did not like to be talked to, by an intelligent man, in language that indicated he was thought to be an idiot, unable to work out the most elementary aspects of life. Dr Bertrand annoyed him, and Palfy had taught him how to cut short such false chumminess.

‘Oh, well … you’ll allow me not to follow your example.’

He poured himself a cognac and water. Jean relaxed: there was nothing sinister about this Freud lookalike, he was simply cultivating an attitude, as shown by his evident awkwardness when he was not addressing a mental patient, or perhaps he had got into the habit of considering all his interlocutors as grown-up retarded children, to whom it was necessary to explain the most ordinary facts.

‘I know how concerned you are by Madame Chaminadze’s condition …’

He had sat down at his desk, piled with documents and files, a sheet of paper half covered in handwriting in front of him. The shelves on the walls were sagging under the weight of books. A voice rose from the garden.

‘Monsieur Draguignan, can I remind you that there are lavatories on the ground floor. If you don’t mind …’

The doctor smiled.

‘She’s a dragon, I know, but without her the patients would do exactly as they pleased. She’s especially interested in your relation’s case, you know …’

‘She’s not my relation; she’s the woman I love.’

‘Oh, I know, I know, but we are sometimes obliged to maintain a certain fiction. Where the mentally ill are concerned the family are all-powerful and can forbid the visit of someone who isn’t a family member.’

‘I don’t really see how Claude’s mother could forbid me to see her daughter. Putting it rather vulgarly, Doctor, I buy the right to see her by paying your monthly bills.’

‘I know, I know …’

His embarrassment was growing. He swallowed a mouthful of brandy and put the glass down in front of him. A mad thought crossed Jean’s mind: a plan had been hatched against him, and they were going to prevent him from seeing Claude. He was gripped by a terrible anxiety and the thought that he still loved her as much as before, even in her present condition. If he had doubted it in recent months, the threat he faced reminded him of his attachment.

‘I’d be happy to have a brandy and water like you, Doctor.’

‘Ah, now we’re being sensible … Good sense always wins out.’

As delighted as if he had just won a personal victory and made a wayward patient see reason, Dr Bertrand put on his glasses and fetched the bottle of cognac.

‘It’s not easy to lay your hands on good cognac at the moment,’ he said. ‘I had some put by, but it quickly ran out. Fortunately I have relations in Charente. Do you know Charente, Monsieur Arnaud?’

‘No, I don’t know Charente. War and defeat haven’t really favoured my appetite for travel.’

‘Fancy that! But I hear you often go abroad.’

‘I’ve been to Portugal three times since the beginning of the year, but not for tourism, for business.’

‘You’re a very young businessman.’

‘I have a feeling it’s a profession I’ll do well not to grow old in.’

Anna Petrovna was the only person who could have told the doctor, and even she could only have known of his journeys via Cyrille, who Jean had answered carelessly about one of his absences. He began thoroughly to detest Claude’s mother, who had clearly mounted an undeclared war against him. Dr Bertrand sat down at his desk.

‘Yes,’ he said, as though resuming after a digression a train of thought interrupted by small talk, ‘yes, I get the impression that your visits, despite the desire she expresses for them, are upsetting Madame Chaminadze. You know that she is suffering from an obsession triggered by physical mistreatment, the nature of which I don’t need to elaborate on. She used to be, I believe, according to what you and her family have told me, a balanced person, very much in control of herself. Is that correct?’

Jean, resolved not to come to his aid, nodded in confirmation. Dr Bertrand compressed his lips purposefully. Once more he had let himself get carried away by long phrases that reassured him of his own subtle understanding of psychology, but this laconic interlocutor whose irritated gaze he felt settling on him, this boy whom Anna Petrovna had claimed was involved in shady business dealings, disconcerted him.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he went on, ‘that you should space out your visits … Just an experiment, you understand, a simple experiment, but we need to try everything in the case of a sensitive patient such as this, in which science only has formulas to offer, when what we really need are intuition and psychology.’

‘If you’d talk to me openly, Doctor, we’d understand each other, and I’d answer you.’

The doctor again compressed his lips, which were full and sensual in his round, happy face. It was a tic that had been commented on sarcastically at his oral examination and he thought he had succeeded in suppressing it, but the slightest difficulty made it reappear. It embarrassed him horribly.

‘Nothing is ever quite as “open” as you think, my dear Monsieur. The psychology of a human being who’s been disturbed by a violent event is a delicate mechanism that in reality we don’t know how to repair, because we know nothing about the brain, the brain being, of course, the vulgar term that scientists use to speak of the soul.’

Jean emptied his glass and got to his feet.

‘Thank you very much, Doctor, goodbye.’

Dr Bertrand paled. He could get angry too. He felt wounded by this young man’s disrespectful behaviour. He stood up, his two fists on the table, leaning forward.

‘I regret to inform you, Monsieur Arnaud, that Madame Chaminadze’s mother and uncle wish you to desist from further visits to see your girlfriend.’

‘Ah, so Claude has an uncle now? That’s news to me.’

‘The family, which was decent and united before your arrival, did not judge it necessary to include you …’

Jean had sworn to himself that he would stay calm. He took a moment to collect himself, glimpsed a possible way out and, deciding to pursue it, smiled.

‘Doctor, I respect your profession too much not to consent to your experiment. I agree to abstain from further visits for the necessary period. Nevertheless, if you have any humanity you will understand that that comes at a price. I therefore wish to discuss it with Claude. Perhaps not today. Tomorrow or the day after. Give me some time to think, to weigh my words so as not to disappoint her. I’ll confess it to you again: I love Claude. And she loves me. No one is going to separate us: not a foolish mother nor a brother who lives from gambling nor an unknown uncle, nor even you, who knows exactly what I’m talking about.’