Splinter

53

Marc felt the room temperature take a sudden dive as his brother opened the door behind him and fresh air came streaming in. The icy blast suggested that they were well outside Berlin. It was just after eleven according to the digital clock on the desk, but the temperature could not have been above zero.

Haberland waited until Benny had gone out on the veranda and shut the door. Then he motioned Emma into a chair beside him. He did not begin to speak until she’d sat down, with an air of reluctance.

‘Benjamin is a patient of mine,’ he said, looking at Marc. ‘That’s probably why he brought you to me instead of taking you to a hospital. In the short time I was able to examine him at the clinic as an outside consultant, I became something of a friend of his. I don’t set much store by publicity, which is why I live out here in the forest, away from the rest of the world.’ He smiled, massaging his wrists.

‘I remember reading your report,’ said Marc. ‘You were against discharging him, weren’t you?’

Haberland raised one hand in a conciliatory gesture, causing the sleeve of his jacket to ride up. Marc wasn’t sure, but before the professor tweaked it back over his wrist, he thought he spotted some raised scar tissue.

‘It wasn’t my job to decide whether or not your brother should be discharged. I merely diagnosed a disorder that had always been previously overlooked – one that renders it almost impossible for him to lead a normal life. It makes certain over-reactions, for instance suicidal tendencies, appear more understandable.’

Haberland turned to Emma. ‘Likewise, the question of why he followed you. Benjamin suffers from what is commonly termed the “helper syndrome”. He’s an HSP.’

Emma raised her eyebrows enquiringly.

‘A highly sensitive person. If you went outside now and gave him your hand, he could sense your state of mind. Worse still, he would experience your mental state himself. Benny lives other people’s lives. That’s why he has to help them whether he wants to or not.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Marc said firmly. Haberland’s few words had struck home. The professor was describing him as well as Benny. Marc had known exactly what was going on inside his younger brother when the band split up. That was why, after the first flush of his affair with Sandra, he had tried to re-establish contact with him. By then, however, Benny was refusing to come home. He not only ignored all Marc’s calls but dropped out of school rather than stay in touch with him.

Haberland continued to address his remarks to Emma, trying to explain the complex medical problems as simply as possible. ‘It sounds a little hard to believe, I know, but I’m sure that you yourself have covered your eyes because you didn’t want to watch some overly horrific scene in a film, for instance.’

He waited for Emma to nod.

‘So you can at least empathize with the sufferings of others. Most of us become inured to being confronted by terrible sights day after day. We no longer notice the beggar shivering in the street, we avert our eyes from the woman burbling unintelligibly to herself on the Underground, and we no longer cover our eyes after the umpteenth horror film.’ He paused. ‘Most people become desensitized. But Benny is different.’

Emma looked out of the window. Benny was endeavouring to light a cigarette. His hair fluttered in the wind as he shielded the flame of his lighter by turning to face the trees in front of the veranda.

Haberland, too, looked out of the window. ‘Benny can’t suppress his feelings,’ he went on. ‘For him, everything gets worse and worse. If he drives past a hospital he wonders how many people are dying inside. If he shuts his eyes he pictures all the terrible things that are happening at this moment – events of which we’ll read in tomorrow’s papers. He sees the baby shaken into a coma, the soldier whose torturers are crushing his genitals, the horse dying of thirst on its way to a Tunisian slaughterhouse. He can never forget anything he has seen, heard or sensed.’ Haberland gazed at Marc intently. ‘Just like you, am I right?’

The room was growing darker, the sky more overcast.

‘No, it isn’t quite as bad with me. Benny has always been the more sensitive one. Perhaps that’s why I’ve managed to offset my helper syndrome by doing the work I do.’

Unlike his brother, Marc had succeeded in suppressing even his worst mental images as time went by. The best proof of that was that he’d given up chasing after Benny in the end. He had made many attempts to contact him and rescue him from Valka’s clutches, but in vain. Benny’s self-embargo was so complete that it had been months before Marc learned of his first suicide attempt. After that he’d even gone to court to see if Benny could be taken into care or made to undergo psychiatric treatment, only to be informed that, as long as his brother represented no threat to other people, he could do what he liked with his life. Marc had nonetheless felt guilty afterwards, suspecting that he might have given up too soon for reasons of personal convenience. In those days, life with Sandra was so infinitely less complicated than what would have awaited him with Benny at his side.

His train of thought was interrupted by a bird call. When he looked at the window his brother had disappeared.

‘Okay,’ Emma said belligerently, ‘so how come such an allegedly peace-loving person tried to kill me?’

Marc shook his head. ‘Benny hasn’t a violent bone in his body.’

‘What! He nearly blew my ear off and he forced me to drive out here at gunpoint.’

‘That shot was accidental, I’m sure,’ Marc protested. ‘He never meant to hurt you. He’d be incapable of it.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not entirely true,’ Haberland amended, raising his hand again. ‘That’s why he spent so long in a secure unit. Like any unstable personality, Benny suffers from extreme mood swings that threaten to tear him apart. It’s the same with bipolar disorder. The switch can be tripped from one moment to the next, and all that your brother has suffered over the years – all that has been gnawing away at him – bursts forth. One little thing – that’s all it takes to unleash his pent-up capacity for violence, either on himself or on others.’

‘What did I tell you!’ Emma said triumphantly. She took out her mobile, which Benny must have returned to her. She’d clearly had enough of this conversation and preferred to dictate the latest information to her voicemail.

Marc ignored his aching head and neck and struggled to his feet. To his surprise he succeeded at the first attempt.

‘Okay, Professor,’ he said, rolling his sleeve down. ‘I’ve no idea what kind of injection you gave me – maybe I don’t even want to know. It was very kind of you to minister to us, but now I must go. I’m afraid I don’t have time to discuss our family’s psychological problems.’

Haberland looked at him searchingly. There was a sudden hint of melancholy in his expression. ‘Perhaps it would be wiser of you to find the time,’ he said softly.

The lattice window trembled in a gust of wind. Although no one had opened a door this time, Marc felt the temperature drop again. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, your brother brought you to me because he wanted me to look at your head wound…’

‘But?’

‘But I’m not a general practitioner,’ said Haberland. ‘I’m a psychiatrist.’ He looked years older all of a sudden. ‘Perhaps I can help you to discover what’s been happening to you.’

He went to the tea trolley beside his desk, picked up the quilted woollen jacket draped over it, and put it on.

‘Come,’ he said to Marc as if Emma wasn’t there any more. ‘Let’s go for a stroll.’