Deadly Communion

22

LIEBERMANN LOOKED AT HIS supine patient. For once, though, Erstweiler was not agitated. Liebermann made no assumptions about his mental state. Sometimes the apparent calm of anxious patients was actually exhaustion, and as soon as they had recovered their strength the agitation returned.

After a prolonged silence, Liebermann inquired: ‘Did you sleep well?’

Erstweiler rolled his head from side to side.

‘No. I woke up several times … one of the other patients on the ward became distressed. He was shouting something about the Hungarians coming. I managed to get to sleep after he was removed, but woke again from a bad dream.’

‘Oh?’

‘I say bad, but that’s only how it felt at the time. Now that I think about it, the dream was really rather silly.’

‘Were you frightened by the dream?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it about?’

Erstweiler sighed.

‘When I was very young, my parents had an English friend, Frau Middleton, who used to tell my brother and me fairy stories. Some of them were already familiar to us, but others were unfamiliar. I suppose these latter stories must have been of English origin. One of them concerned a boy without any money and some magic beans — have you come across it?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Well, the dream I had was very much like this English fairy story — except I was the boy. The dream was quite confused, though, especially the beginning.’

Liebermann remained silent, hoping that this would be sufficient to make Erstweiler continue. The strategy was unsuccessful. Erstweiler reverted to his earlier concern. ‘What was wrong with that patient? The one who was taken off the ward? What did he mean by “the Hungarians are coming”?’

‘Your dream, Herr Erstweiler? What happened in your dream?’ Liebermann urged.

Erstweiler rotated his hand in the air for a few moments and then let it drop onto his chest.

‘There were trams and large buildings and a man with a cow, who I spoke to — he might have sold me the beans — and suddenly I was the boy in the story and the beans had grown into a huge beanstalk which rose up into the sky. I climbed the beanstalk and found myself on a cloud, and on the cloud was a huge castle. I entered the castle but was frightened by the sound of an ogre, stomping around and crying out that he could smell the blood of an intruder — my blood. In one of the rooms I discovered mountains of treasure and a goose laying golden eggs. Not eggs the colour of gold, you understand, but eggs made from gold. I picked the goose up and ran from the castle, pursued by the ogre. I slid down the beanstalk and the ogre followed, but he wasn’t as quick as me. When I got to the bottom I chopped the beanstalk down with an axe—’ Erstweiler suddenly broke off, his forehead glistening with perspiration.

‘Yes?’ Liebermann prompted.

‘And the ogre tumbled to the ground.’

‘Did he die?’

‘Yes, he …’ Erstweiler paused before completing his sentence with a stutter ‘… d-d-died.’

‘You escaped, then,’ said Liebermann. ‘And with the goose.’

Erstweiler showed no signs of relief.

‘Herr doctor, why are we talking about a ridiculous childish dream? Surely there are more important things to discuss. I had hoped you would be applying yourself to the task of convincing me that the appearance of my doppelgänger was nothing more than a hallucination. At least then I might allow myself a glimmer of hope, the prospect of peace.’

‘The two may be connected — the dream and the hallucination.’

‘Impossible!’ Erstweiler cried.

The anger invested in this explosive denial was sufficient to convince Liebermann that he was correct. After an extended hiatus Liebermann said: ‘I went to see Herr Polster, at The Chimney Sweep.’

‘Did you?’

Erstweiler twisted awkwardly on the rest bed in order to make eye contact with Liebermann.

‘Yes,’ said the young doctor. ‘He remembered the conversation you referred to. But he didn’t think he had spoken to your doppelgänger. He was confident that he had spoken to you.’

‘That’s hardly surprising, is it?’ said Erstweiler, sighing. ‘What did you think he would say?’