They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

97 September 2017

The soundtrack to the start of our Wednesday session was the beep-parp... beep-parp of the sirens of a succession of emergency vehicles, six floors below, racing along Widenmayerstrasse. Although it was chilly outside, it was stuffily warm in Dr Eberstark’s consulting room, and the window was open a few inches, to let some air in — but it came with the traffic noise.

‘Are you intending to tell him you are actually alive?’ he asked.

I was feeling very distracted today. He keeps coming with the questions. I answer them as best I can. To this one, a no.

‘So you are a dead person?’

Er, no. ‘Sandy Grace is a dead person. That doesn’t make me a dead person.’

‘Legally you are.’

No again! ‘Legally I am Frau Lohmann.’

‘You told me that you got your German citizenship by paying someone. Was that lawful?’

‘No one died in the process.’ My tone was sharp, I was annoyed by his sudden prurience. And I was annoyed that the estate agent had not yet come back to me on my raised offer on Monday. I mean, surely that was a knock-out offer, a slam-dunk?

We talk about right and wrong, about what my disappearance might have done to Roy, but really what choice did I have? Yes, I did think about Roy and what it would do to him, but I was being chased down by madman Albazi, who no doubt still wants to kill me, and it really was better for Roy and me that I left.

‘It was the best of a bad set of options. In my view,’ I say.

‘And that is still your view, isn’t it?’

‘I’ve made a mess of my life. I guess that’s why I’m here. People don’t come to a shrink because they’re happy, do they? Do you have patients who are happy?’

‘Let’s just focus on you.’

‘I’m a train wreck, aren’t I?’

‘I would not say that, not just yet. But you are heading towards becoming one, in my opinion, if you go ahead and buy that house.’

I looked at him. And had the sense of staring into Nietzsche’s abyss. That thing about the abyss staring back at you.