Therapy Read Online Free PDF Page B

back, Viktor decided that the signs were there from the beginning. Had he listened more carefully, he might have realized that something was wrong. Very wrong. But no amount of insight could have averted the disaster. It would only have brought things to a head.
    The fact was, Anna Glass had outmanoeuvred him. She had forced her way into his home and knocked him off guard. Her case was unusual; so unusual that for five carefree minutes he had forgotten about himself and his problems. He was glad of the respite, but his decision still stood: he had no desire to be her therapist. After a short but firm exchange, he convinced her to return to the mainland on the early morning ferry and make an appointment with Professor van Druisen.
    ‘I have my reasons,’ he said curtly when she demanded to know why. ‘For one thing, I haven't practised in over four years.’
    ‘I'm sure you'd still know how to treat me.’
    ‘It's not a question of knowledge; I just . . .’
    ‘You don't want to treat me.’
    Exactly , he thought. Something warned him against telling his visitor about Josy. If no one at the clinic hadtold her of the tragedy, he had no intention of volunteering the information himself.
    ‘In a case of your complexity, it would be irresponsible and unprofessional to offer analysis without researching your condition first. Especially without the facilities that a proper clinic would offer.’
    ‘Researching my condition? Dr Larenz, you're an expert! What's the first question you would have asked if I were in your practice in Berlin?’
    Viktor smiled at her clumsy attempt to waylay him. ‘I would have asked you when the hallucinations first started, but I . . .’
    ‘The episode in the hotel wasn't the first time,’ she broke in quickly. ‘It started much earlier than that. But I never experienced anything so . . .’ She paused for a moment, considering her words. ‘So realistic . So convincing. My previous hallucinations were vaguer and less tangible, but Julia was real. I saw her, I heard the gun go off, and the next moment, her brains were all over the lobby. She was the first character from one of my stories to come alive. Of course, like most schizophrenics, I had a history of mental illness.’
    ‘Such as?’ Viktor decided to give the woman another five minutes before he escorted her to the door.
    ‘It's hard to know where to begin. I'd say the symptoms started when I was a child.’
    He waited for her to continue and took a sip of his rapidly cooling Assam tea. It tasted bitter.
    ‘My father was a GI. He fought for the Allies and stayed in Berlin. He was a DJ on the American Forces Network for a while. Women loved him and he was a bit of a local hero. Anyway, he had a string of blonde dalliances in the back room of the military casino, and one of his many girlfriends fell pregnant. Her name was Laura, she was a Berliner, and the baby was me.’
    ‘I see. I notice you mentioned your father first?’
    ‘He died when I was eight. Professor Malzius says the accident was the first traumatic event of my childhood.’
    ‘What accident?’
    ‘My father died in a military hospital. It was a straightforward appendicectomy, but he developed a clot. He hadn't been given compression stockings. The thrombosis was fatal.’
    ‘How dreadful,’ said Viktor with feeling. He was always appalled by the damage caused by incompetent doctors. Their carelessness brought terrible suffering on patients and their families.
    ‘How did you cope with your father's death?’
    ‘Badly. We lived in an end-of-terrace house near Andrew Barracks in the American sector. We adopted a mongrel, a stray called Terry, who lived in our backyard. My father couldn't stand him and banned him from the house. Most of the time he was tied up on a lead by the door. I remember Mum telling me that the operation had gone wrong. As soon as she left the house, I fetched one of Dad's baseball bats – a heavy one made of metal –and went into