Splinter

2

The professor made his way along the passage to the living room. Marc followed close behind with the gun levelled at his back, but he was glad the old man didn’t turn round and see how close to passing out he was. He’d felt faint as soon as he entered the house. The headache, the nausea, the sweating – all the symptoms intensified by his mental ordeal of the last few hours had suddenly returned. He was almost tempted to cling to Haberland’s shoulders and let himself be towed along. He was tired, unbearably tired, and the passage seemed infinitely longer than it had on his first visit.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ Haberland repeated as they entered the living room, whose most conspicuous feature was an open fireplace with a log fire slowly expiring on the hearth. His tone was calm, almost compassionate. ‘I really wish you’d come sooner. Time’s running out.’

Haberland’s eyes were completely expressionless. If he was frightened, he managed to conceal it as effectively as the old dog asleep in a little wicker basket by the window. The buff-coloured ball of fur hadn’t even raised its head when they came in.

Marc moved to the middle of the room and looked around irresolutely. ‘What do you mean, time’s running out?’

‘Just look at yourself. You’re in a worse state than this place of mine.’

Marc returned Haberland’s smile, and even that hurt him. The decor of the house was as odd as its location in the forest. Not one piece of furniture matched any other. A grossly overloaded Ikea bookcase rubbed shoulders with an elegant Biedermeier chest of drawers. The floor was almost entirely covered with carpets, one of them readily identifiable as a bathroom runner whose colour alone clashed with that of the hand-woven silk Chinese carpet beside it. Marc was involuntarily reminded of a box room, yet nothing in this ensemble seemed to be there by chance. Every last object, from the gramophone on the tea trolley to the leather sofa, from the wing chair to the linen curtains, suggested a souvenir of times gone by. It was as if the professor feared he would lose a reminder of some crucial phase in his existence if he rid himself of any pieces of furniture. The ubiquitous medical textbooks and journals lying not only on the shelves and desk, but also on the window sills, the floor, and even in the log basket beside the hearth, seemed to function as a link between the heterogeneous junk.

‘Do sit down,’ said Haberland. He spoke as if Marc were still the welcome visitor he’d been that morning, when they deposited his unconscious form on the comfortable sofa whose plump cushions threatened to smother him. Now, though, he would sooner have sat right in front of the fire. He was feeling cold – colder than he had ever felt in his life.

‘Shall I put some more wood on?’ asked Haberland, who seemed to have read his thoughts.

Without waiting for an answer he went over to the basket of logs, extracted one and tossed it on to the embers. It caught at once, and Marc felt an almost irresistible urge to drive the cold from his body by plunging his hands into the flames.

‘What happened to you?’

‘I’m sorry?’ It took him a moment to tear his eyes away from the fireplace and concentrate on Haberland once more.

The professor looked him up and down. ‘Your injuries,’ he said, ‘who caused them?’

‘I did.’

To Marc’s surprise, the old psychiatrist merely nodded. ‘I thought as much.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re wondering if you exist at all.’

The truth seemed literally to pin Marc back against the cushions. That was just his problem. This morning the professor had confined himself to vague allusions, but now he wanted absolute clarity. That was why he back on this squashy sofa.

‘You want to know if you’re real, that’s another reason why you injured yourself. You wanted to make sure you were still capable of sensation.’

‘How do you know?’

Haberland made a dismissive gesture. ‘Experience. I myself was once in a similar situation.’

He glanced at his wristwatch. Marc wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected some scars around the strap. They looked more like old burns than cuts.

‘I may not practise officially any more, but my analytical flair hasn’t deserted me. Far from it. May I ask what you’re feeling at this moment?’

‘Cold.’

‘No pain?’

‘It’s bearable. I think I’m still too much in shock.’

‘But don’t you think you’d be better off in A and E? I haven’t even an aspirin in the house.’

Marc shook his head. ‘I don’t want any pills. All I want is certainty.’

He put the pistol on the coffee table, with the muzzle pointing at Haberland, who was still standing in front of him.

‘Prove that I really exist.’

The professor scratched the back of his head, where his grey hair was punctuated by a bald patch about the size of a beer mat. ‘Do you know what is generally held to constitute the difference between man and beast?’ He indicated the dog in the basket, which was restlessly whimpering in its sleep. ‘Self-awareness. We reflect on why we exist, when we’ll die and what happens after death, whereas an animal wastes no thought on whether it’s on earth at all.’

Haberland had gone over to his dog while speaking. He knelt down and affectionately cupped its shaggy head in his hands.

‘Tarzan here can’t even recognize himself in a mirror.’

Marc rubbed some dried blood off his eyebrow. His gaze strayed to the window. For one brief moment he thought he’d glimpsed a light in the darkness outside. Then he realized it was only the reflection of the flickering firelight. It must have started raining again, because the outside of the window pane was spattered with droplets. After a while he discerned his own reflection far out in the darkness above the lake.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can still see my reflection, but how can I be sure it isn’t an illusion?’

‘What leads you to assume you’re suffering from hallucinations?’ Haberland rejoined.

Marc concentrated once more on the droplets on the pane. His reflection seemed to be dissolving.

Well, how about high-rise buildings that vanish into thin air just after I’ve left them? How about a man imprisoned in my cellar with a film script that describes what will happen to me in a few seconds’ time? Oh yes, and how about the dead suddenly resurrecting themselves?

‘It’s because there’s no logical explanation for all that happened to me today,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Oh yes, there is.’

Marc spun round. ‘What is it? Please tell me.’

‘I’m afraid we don’t have time for that.’ Haberland glanced at his watch again. ‘It won’t be long before you have to leave here once and for all.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Marc took the gun from the coffee table and stood up. ‘Are you another of them? Are you in this too?’ He aimed the automatic at the psychiatrist’s head.

Haberland put out his hands in a defensive gesture.

‘It’s not the way you think.’

‘Really? How do you know?’

The professor shook his head sympathetically.

‘Come on, out with it!’ Marc shouted the words so loudly, the veins in his neck bulged. ‘How much do you know about me?’

The answer took his breath away.

‘Everything.’

The fire flared up. Marc had to avert his eyes, unable to endure the sudden glare.

‘I know everything, Marc. And so do you. You refuse to believe it, that’s all.’

‘Then, then…’ Marc’s eyes started to water. ‘Then tell me, I beg you. What’s happening to me?’

‘No, no, no.’ Haberland clasped his hands together in entreaty. ‘It doesn’t work like that, believe me. Any realization is worthless unless it comes from within.’

‘That’s crap!’ Marc yelled. He shut his eyes for a moment, the better to concentrate on the pain in his shoulder. Before going on he swallowed the blood that had collected in his mouth. ‘Tell me right now what your game is, or I swear to God I’ll kill you.’

He was no longer aiming at the professor’s head, but straight at his liver. The bullet would destroy some vital organs even if he missed, and out here any medical assistance would arrive too late.

Haberland was unmoved.

‘Very well,’ he said eventually, after they had stared at each other in silence for a while. ‘You want to know the truth?’

‘Yes.’

Haberland slowly subsided into the wing chair and looked down at the fire, which was burning more and more brightly. His voice sank to an almost inaudible whisper. ‘Have you ever listened to a story and wished you hadn’t heard the ending?’

He turned to Marc with a compassionate expression.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’