The Tenuous Line of Sanity by Frank Siegrist - HTML preview

Jack nodded.

« What are your symptoms? »

Jack looked a bit surprised. What a strange way to start a consultation! Wasn’t it up to the doctor to discover the symptoms?

« Like what? » he asked back, looking clueless just as Joe would have looked clueless if you had asked him such a question this bluntly.

« What is your problem? » asked the psychiatrist. « Why do you have an invalid’s pension? »

« Oh, well… » said Jack, « when I finished school and looked for a job, things didn’t go too well for me… »

Jack remembered Joe had once tried working in a nursing home for old people. And he had been thrown out before the end of the trial period. Jack now remembered his own experience at his first practical training course in a hospital before the end of his second year of medical school. He remembered the ever chewing-gum-chewing head-nurse with the short boyish haircut and how she had told him he didn’t seem motivated or interested. And when he had asked her what she meant exactly, she had told him he never asked any questions. After that he had kept asking questions - why this patient received this pill or that pill, this treatment or that treatment… - only annoying the nurses more. So obviously it hadn’t been the lack of questions that had been the problem, but rather his « attitude ». But nobody could ever explain to him what exactly was wrong with his attitude. He did whatever was asked of him, wiped the patients’ asses after bringing them to the toilet, washed them from head to toe when that’s what he was told to do… And yet the nurses still always felt he lacked « motivation » and « interest », whatever that meant in practice.

That’s what Jack explained to the psychiatrist, changing the hospital into a nursing home so that it would pass off as Joe’s experience.

Then he remembered that Joe had once tried to train as a bus-driver, and he had been thrown out from there too before even finishing his training…

There were family stories about how Joe kept losing the trolleys in the middle of crossings, because he hadn’t set the switch points in the overhead cables right. The bus went one way as the trolleys went the other, till they slipped off the cables and started swinging loosely and crazily above the street, which also immobilized the bus, of course. Then the driving instructor made Joe get out of the bus amidst the honking cars to set the trolleys right again, and it wasn’t always easy to get them back onto the two cables, especially when you were nervous because of blocking the traffic in all directions with angry cars crowding on you from all sides…

But that was Joe’s story. Jack couldn’t convincingly tell it as his own, having never had any experience quite like that.

But now he remembered how it was when he had taken his own driving test. That had been just for cars, of course, not busses, but who cares? His experience at the car-driving exam would do nicely as a standin for the bus-driving experience Joe must have had. He explained how the expert had yelled at him that this isn’t how you hold a steering-wheel! So, after that Jack had paid attention to hold it exactly like the expert had said. Except that he also had to control the car at the same time. And doing both at the same time had somehow been too much for him. He looked at his hands, and at the same time these hands were also meant to control the car (well, not the car but rather the bus in the story as Jack was telling it now) and somehow this super-conscious way of looking at his own hands had made him doubt that they were really his and that he could really control them…

« It’s very hard to explain… » he added for the benefit of the psychiatrist. But the psychiatrist seemed to understand him perfectly, nodding vigorously. Of course, Jack thought to himself, he was giving a picture-book description of a depersonalization experience!

« Do you hear voices in your head? » the psychiatrist now asked.

« No… » answered Jack, looking puzzled like Joe would have done. Why would his experience with a nasty head-nurse and a yelling car-driving expert make this psychiatrist think he heard voices in his head?

« Well, » he relented, « I heard some kind of snicker once. I was on night-watch at the nursing home, it was very late, I was very tired, and I heard snickering in the corridor… When I went to see, there was nobody there… »

The psychiatrist seemed satisfied by this. « I see, I see… » he said, nodding.

He said he would need to see Joe a second time, and he also needed to see Joe’s files from the invalid’s pension. He would write a letter to this effect and Joe would need to sign it, authorizing him to receive Joe’s files.

Jack was a bit taken aback by this, and before he could stop himself he asked : « Is this really necessary? I mean, you’ve seen me in person now. Can’t you come to your own conclusions? »

To his surprise, the psychiatrist himself looked uncomfortable now and said: « Hm, well…, I don’t want to make a diagnosis that doesn’t stick with the previous one… That could cause problems… »

Aha, thought Jack, that was okay then. After all, he definitely didn’t want any problems either!

When he met the psychiatrist the next time about a week later, he had a whole folder about Jack (or rather Joe) on his desk. He looked up from this folder and said: « I understand your problems much better now! »

Then he went on to explain that he could of course just fulfill his role as an expert, but that he was also trained to be a therapist, and he thought he could really help Jack.

Jack looked up mildly interested. What would the psychiatrist suggest now?

« I think a small dose of antipsychotics would really help you, and we could raise the dose later depending on how it makes you feel… »

But Jack didn’t let him finish: « How could a pill help me? Didn’t you listen to me? People keep seeing me as something I am not, accusing me of not being interested or motivated. It’s obvious they expect something from me and I don’t know what it is. It’s like there’s something I don’t understand about their expectations. It’s like I don’t speak their language! It’s something I’ve somehow never learned. And yes, maybe I would have expected a psychiatrist to help me, but you are just like the last one I saw years ago! You just want to give me pills! How could you learn a language by just taking a pill? This is absurd! Is there a language in pill-form? How could a pill help me? »

The psychiatrist looked at him with a mixture of pity and regret - he obviously regretted that this patient had to be so stubborn. « Believe me, » he said, « I have many years of professional experience. I KNOW this pill would help you. All I’m asking is that you try it! »

« Well, » said Jack, looking at the psychiatrist darkly, challenging him to look back at him, « if you’re so sure, then EXPLAIN to me why and how it would help me! »

The psychiatrist just shook his head, pitying him. « It’s my professional experience. Can’t you trust my professional experience? »

« You’re just like everybody else! » Jack now half shouted. « You refuse to explain anything and then you blame my attitude! Just like that head-nurse in the nursing home who never managed to properly explain what I was doing wrong either! You see, that’s why I don’t have a regular attending physician! Because you’re bloody useless, the whole lot of you psychiatrists! »

« Do you actually know your diagnosis? » the psychiatrist asked calmly.

« No, » admitted Jack, quite truthfully.

« Don’t you even care to know what’s wrong with you? » asked the psychiatrist, as if he were speaking to a naughty boy who refused to better himself.

« Well, then, if I should know, just tell me! » said Jack in a challenging and slightly mocking tone.

« Not like that, I can’t… » said the psychiatrist, as if he suddenly thought better of it.

« As you wish, » said Jack as if he couldn’t care less.

« At least you should realize, » said the psychiatrist, his eyes brimming with pity, « that your problem is an extremely serious one. Maybe you don’t realize. And I could really help you if only you trusted me! »

« You mean that if I took that pill, all of a sudden I would be able to get a job, found a family, and so on and so on? »

The psychiatrist made a calming movement with his hand. « I didn’t say that, » he explained. « But it would help you feel better. And wouldn’t that be a start? »

« But who the hell said I didn’t feel well? » Jack asked, getting angrier and angrier. « How can you just jump to conclusions like that? »

« It’s an inflexibility of the mind… » said the psychiatrist.

« So now I’m being inflexible as well? » asked Jack. « Don’t you realize you’re actually being insulting? »

He stood up and added: « Look, I think we’ll leave it at that. You fill out the papers for the invalid’s pension, and I’ll go back to my inflexible life with my inflexible mind, and everybody will be happy, okay? »

The psychiatrist shook his head some more, mumbling: « If you could just trust me… »

« How could I trust you if you don’t explain anything? You’re just like all the others! » said Jack and stretched out his hand to say goodbye. The psychiatrist really took it and really said goodbye.

And just before leaving the practice, Jack turned around one last time and said : « You know, if you really think a simple pill could fix my problems, I think you haven’t understood anything. That diagnosis you made must be wrong! »

And with that he left the psychiatrist’s practice.

He was actually really angry. He hadn’t been play-acting at all! That psychiatrist was really a fucking arrogant asshole!

All the things Jack had told him had been true. Well, except for the snicker he had supposedly heard in the corridor… - he had just invented that on the spot because he couldn’t say he heard voices in his head. But all the rest had been true (well, maybe he had also exaggerated a bit when he had described what had happened to his hands on the steering-wheel). Anyway, all the rest had been true (at least sort of), except that he had transposed it all into Joe’s life. So he felt he had opened up towards that psychiatrist, told him unpleasant things about his life he had probably never even told anyone else. And all the psychiatrist had to say to this was that he should take a fucking pill!

But then it suddenly occurred to him that maybe the psychiatrist was right and he was really sick, had always been sick and had just never admitted it to himself? Maybe all his life had been some kind of pretence? After all it was true that even though Jack had finished his medicine studies, had opened up his own practice and earned a good living, he had never been satisfied with any of that… He had worked as a psychiatrist for years, but as his brother Joe had pointed out, he had done it without really believing in any of it. He had gotten married and he had a son, but he had been estranged from his wife and son…

So maybe the psychiatrist was right! He was sick, had always been sick, and that seemingly normal life he had led all those years had just been an empty pretence!

And probably Joe was sick in exactly the same way too, except that he at least had been honest enough to admit it! Up till recently, that is - he wasn’t admitting it anymore now, since he was playing the successful psychiatrist now, with a nice practice, nice house, nice wife and nice son!

Although this couldn’t be right either, Jack now thought to himself - this whole line of reasoning still didn’t make sense! You couldn’t be that successful for that long when all it took was a half-an-hour chat with a psychiatrist so that he would realize you were in reality totally sick! The psychiatrist was the one who was wrong, it had to be like that! Jack, a former colleague, had just tricked him, that’s all! And before that, Joe had tricked another doctor too.

The funny thing was that Jack didn’t feel he had tricked him. He rather felt tricked himself. He had opened up to someone only to be told that he was bloody sick! And he knew he wasn’t bloody sick! He knew he could compensate for his faults and flaws, since that’s what he had done so successfully for so long! Okay, then he had gotten sick of it and had swapped lives with Joe. But still, he wasn’t completely incapable! And neither was Joe, since Joe was playing the successful academic now (without having ever finished any course of studies), and that was working too!

So the joke was on that psychiatrist Jack had just seen! He was the one who had been made a fool of, not Jack! So why had Jack become so angry?

Jack now wondered how Joe had felt, years ago, when he had seen a psychiatrist, seeking help, only to be told he was bloody sick and needed an invalid’s pension… No wonder Joe had never spoken of it in too much detail! It must have been a humiliating experience…

Although Joe surely hadn’t been quite truthful either, just like Jack. He probably wanted that pension, knew he wasn’t really sick enough for that and had played a role just like Jack had.

Had he blown his top at the psychiatrist then too, just like Jack had now? Maybe…

Actually it wasn’t a bad tactic to blow your top like this. If the psychiatrist wasn’t already convinced that you were bloody sick, this would add the final shine of credibility to his theory about you! Total distrust in the diagnosis (and the pill the doctor wanted to prescribe) - as if the doctor wanted to harm you rather than help you - would fit in nicely with a diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder. It also fits into the diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder, since suspiciousness and paranoia are definitely part of that too.

And since it fits so perfectly into the diagnosis criteria, the chances are good that the psychiatrist will write it down in his notes. So if you ever get exposed as a fraudster, you can truthfully say you ALWAYS said the diagnosis was wrong! It was the psychiatrist who wouldn’t believe you! He’s the one who got it wrong and you’re innocent!

So, all in all Jack had done a very good job - he had totally convinced the psychiatrist that he was totally sick while at the same time protecting himself against any future accusation of being a fraudster.

And yet he was still angry.

What if someone less brilliant than Joe or Jack went to see that psychiatrist, truly looking for help? What if, for whatever reason, that psychiatrist just settled on « schizotypal personality disorder »? What if he didn’t even explain the meaning of this to you, nor of the pills he prescribed, and you trustingly started taking those pills, only to feel ever worse? And if you finally read up on the matter and realized he was wrong, refused the pills and got angry, this would just be seen as further proof that you really had « schizotypal personality disorder »?

And since the disorder « fluctuates in intensity », you can never prove that you don’t have it! If you seem clear-headed for once, that’s just because you’re in a good phase for a while…

Could it be that something like this had happened to Joe all those years ago when he had gotten his invalid’s pension? Could it be he was sincerely looking for help, not for a pension, and the pension was all he got?

Actually it could be worse than that - if you ever start taking antipsychotics just to satisfy the psychiatrist (since he will have told you that you should at least ‘give them a try’), it will be very hard to stop taking them again. That’s because antipsychotics block dopamine receptors. The cells receiving less dopamine because of this will start compensating by making more receptors (this is called up-regulation). This won’t be enough to cancel out the effect of the antipsychotics, of course, but still… When you stop taking the antipsychotics - which frees the blocked receptors again - you will now have too many receptors on those cells. The risk is that they will react too strongly to dopamine, causing hallucinations - at least until the down-regulation sets in. But in the meantime the psychiatrist will say: you see, I always said you were at risk of having hallucinations! Better take those antipsychotics again straight away!

Jack doubted Joe had ever taken antipsychotics. He probably got angry at the psychiatrist (as Jack had) and refused them. There was only one way to find out, namely ask Joe. But Jack felt strangely reluctant to do that. Joe had never talked much about how he had gotten his pension. There had definitely been something uncomfortable somewhere in the whole thing. It was probably better to let him concentrate on his new role as Jack now and let sleeping dogs lie.

So Jack decided not to discuss this whole matter of the invalid’s pension’s review with Joe at all. His identity as Joe and his pension were safe, the psychiatrist he had seen was an asshole, and that was it! It was better not to bother Joe with any of this.

In the meantime Joe, in his role as Jack, got a new patient. She was a young woman of the “artistic” kind, or that's what Joe thought anyway, judging by her plaited skirt which looked home-made and the obviously hand-crafted jewelry she wore. She was doing an apprenticeship at a kind of esoteric kindergarten Joe had vaguely heard about before. She was growing impatient of Joe's preliminary questions, because she obviously had a story to tell!
Joe used to think a psychiatrist's job was to listen, as this young woman obviously thought too. Now, through Jack, he had learned that a psychiatrist's job was mostly justifying the therapies to the health insurance. Talk therapy is expensive. If the patients wanted more of it than the health insurance was willing to pay for, they would have to go and see a psychologist and pay him or her out of their own pocket.
But this was just the first hour with this young woman, Vera. Joe needed at least two just to make a diagnosis, so he would worry about justifying the therapy later if there was really going to be a therapy. In other words, for now he just let Vera talk.
She surprised him by asking if he knew about Will Carter. At first he didn't know whom she was talking about, but then he remembered it was this rich guy who had allegedly murdered his adoptive mother under sordid circumstances and about whom all the papers kept writing, because new details kept turning up.
“I was his girlfriend,” said Vera.
Joe didn't remember having ever read about this guy having any girlfriend. He seemed to remember having read about an ex-wife, though.
For a second he wondered whether Vera had just invented this to make herself interesting, but then he thought he would just let her tell her story, which she was so intent on doing anyway. He would see later how much of it he was willing to believe.
She said she wasn't with Will anymore, and that she realized she could be criticized for not being at his side during these difficult times, but that things had become complicated between them already before, which was what she wanted to explain now. And so she started telling what at first seemed like Will's biography.
Will was born in the seventies in India. He didn't know much about his biological parents, and he had never taken much interest in his adoption dossier. All he knew was that he belonged to the caste of the untouchables and that his ear had been pierced according to tradition.
He grew up in an Indian orphanage led by German nuns and monks till the age of nine or so. He never talked much about this time of his life, except to say that the nuns were “nice” and the monks weren't (but without ever elaborating on it). The atmosphere in the orphanage was very bad, he had commented on occasion, but once again he wouldn't ever explain.
Joe wondered if he should interrupt Vera. She wasn't supposed to be telling the story of her ex-partner like this. She reminded him of Daniel who had done the same for hours too. She was supposed to talk about herself! Nevertheless, just like in Daniel's case, Joe let her talk. After all, it was interesting, and to hell with how he would justify this to the health insurance!
“The only anecdote he told me about this time of his life,” Vera continued, “was how they injured wild birds so that they could nurse them afterwards.”
This, Joe had to admit, sounded rather sick...
“But he still has an old friend from those days,” said the young woman, and she explained how Will had stayed in touch with this friend who had also been adopted by a family in Switzerland, just like Will. Nevertheless she had never seen this friend, knew nothing about him, and perhaps it was just Will's adoptive mother, Beth, who had more or less “forced” him to keep in touch with this companion in misfortune. Will himself probably didn't really care about him all that much and maybe didn't even really consider him a friend at all.
Anyway, Will had arrived in Switzerland at the age of nine, and he had been promised that he would get “anything he wanted” in Switzerland. Even now, in his forties, he was still bitter about this promise that had never, according to him, been fulfilled. Nevertheless he also had a strong feeling of being indebted towards his adoptive parents who had saved him from the orphanage.
He apparently (according to Vera) described his adoptive family like this: the father ordered around the mother, the mother ordered around the sister who in turn ordered around the brother, and so on. For Will, there was just the dog left, so Will ordered around the dog...
His adoptive sister, Jenny, was a medicine student at that time and still lived with her parents. Will remembered that Jenny often parked him in front of the TV so that she could study in peace, and that's how he was conditioned to spend many hours watching all kinds of series for days on end. Maybe it also helped him to learn the new language, French. Nowadays he said he didn't remember his original mother tongue anymore at all.
His new adoptive parents were already in their fifties when Will came into their family, but it had been said already then that his adoptive sister, Jenny, would fill in for the mother in case it was necessary.
Will was sent to an exclusive and expensive private school of the Lemanic Riviera where he was quite happy, except that he was never allowed to spend time with his classmates after the classes because his parents always came to pick him up in their limousine. He spent the weekends gardening with his father rather than going out with friends.
Later, when he was a student in his twenties, his mother always set him a precise time to be home in accordance with his timetable. He unsuccessfully tried law, then medicine, and finally trained as a male nurse.
His father, Bill, was a businessman who worked a lot. Beth was a home-maker and Will liked her cooking. Bill had had a lucky hand with some business transactions, and that's how the family had become very rich. They provided each of their children with everything they might need to become independent, namely a doctor's practice for Jenny, a side-branch in the father's business for the brother to manage, and for Will it was thought that he would be provided with his very own nursing home to manage, since he had trained as a nurse.
Nevertheless things didn't turn out as fine as they should have: Bill and his natural son fell out, and Bill eventually died of diabetes or a heart attack or whatever, and his son then slowly drank himself to death, leaving behind a wife and some children, but there was hardly any contact between them and the rest of the family anymore. Will's adoptive brother's death was disguised as natural because of a life insurance, Will once claimed, but in actual fact it had been suicide, according to Will.
“That's just to give you the background of the family,” said Vera, “or at least what I gathered about it from Will.”
Joe was relieved. Maybe she would finally talk a bit about herself as well!
Which she did. She described how she had met Will while cleaning the porch of her parents' house. Apparently her parents had a house not too far from Will's mansion, and he had passed by and stopped to ask if she needed some help or what. It was his idea to lift the gate out of its hinges which would make cleaning underneath it that much easier. After that they had chatted a bit about gardening, exchanged their mobile phone numbers because of some extra bushes in Vera's parents' garden that were taking up too much space and that maybe Will could plant in his own garden.
And then they had kept in touch and a flirt had gradually ensued.
At that point Will had still seemed like a perfectly normal guy to Vera, Vera said. Things got strange later when Vera was on a holiday with some girlfriends of hers. At some point Will called her on her mobile phone and just wouldn't hang up anymore. It seemed to stress him no end that she was away and that he had no idea what exactly she was doing.
“At that point, I had a foreboding of things to come,” said Vera. “It was a bad feeling.”
When Vera returned from that holiday, Will welcomed her back like the love of his life, and shortly afterwards their relationship really became more intimate.
Later, when they were going on their first holiday together, planning to join a couple of friends in Barcelona, Will suddenly found it necessary to introduce Vera to his mother and sister who expected them at a restaurant for lunch, while actually they had planned to drive off on their holiday before midday. In the end, after lunch and dessert and all that, they could only drive off in the late afternoon.
Will's mother and sister were both charming, actually, and were happily telling stories about old times when they used to travel through Europe on camping trips with the whole family. They also reminisced about their trips to India (before the time of Will's adoption) when “dad” made films with the bulky camera he used to have in those days...
Later Will admitted to Vera that he had been saddened by the fact that they mostly spoke of the good old times before he had been adopted, as if later times didn't count the same.
“My friends in Barcelona were charmed by Will, my new boyfriend, and we had a really good time together, all four of us,” said Vera. “They even invited us again for next spring.”
During those holidays, Will phoned his mother and sister practically every day, and sometimes he held the phone over to Vera so that the two ladies could again and again wish her a happy holiday too.
When they got back from that holiday, it turned out that Will's mother had fallen ill because of her son being so far away. After that, Will even planned to take his mother to his place for good, as was her wish, so that he could always be near her if she needed anything. Indeed, she was very much against having outside help for her intimate care, if such intimate care should ever prove necessary. It would be much nicer to have a member of her own family take care of her, and her son Will was a trained nurse, after all.
Joe looked at Vera to see what she thought of this herself, and he was relieved to see that Vera seemed to find this just as strange as he did himself. For some things, outside help is just preferable. Someone neutral. Wiping your own mother’s bum, that just doesn’t seem right. Especially if there’s plenty enough money around to pay outside help for this.
Shortly after his father's death, Will had promised his mother that he would always be there for her and take care of her till the end. He hadn't been present at his father's death, which he regretted, and he would make sure that he wouldn't abandon his mother the same way.
“I wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea that the three of us would eventually share a home,” said Vera, “and I told Will that it might still be better for an elderly person if she could stay in her own home for as long as possible, and that she only lived ten minutes away anyway. I tried to be diplomatic, you see?”
But, Vera now admitted, she hadn't really grasped the true nature of the relationship between Will and his adoptive mother. She wasn't sure she had grasped it even now (and perhaps it was Joe's opinion about it that she was actually after, Joe now thought).
Will had once warned her that there was always a problem with the daughters-in-law in their family. Will had warned Vera about this really early on in their relationship and begged her not to take sides. Vera had still been far from imagining the practical details of a serious relationship with Will, so it had seemed an incongruous warning at the time.
Later Will explained that his mother and sister hampered his marital life. Once again, at that point in their relationship Vera hadn't been able to imagine what Will was talking about.
Vera remembered an occasion later on when Will's mother and sister came for a visit and took a stroll through the large garden, admiring all the animals (alpacas and dwarf-goats and ponies and of course the three big dogs) who were all “adorable” according to Will's mother. On the same occasion they also discussed the tenant who lived on the upper floor of Will's mansion and how he would have to be given notice soon. Will, his mother and sister all completely agreed about this. As for Vera, she didn't quite understand what the problem with this tenant might be on this enormous property. Will had more than enough space for himself, and there was even an additional unoccupied flat in the house. When Vera admitted she was surprised, they explained to her that this tenant kept making the dogs bark when he came home in the evening (which Vera couldn't confirm, since the dogs barked quite often anyway, which had never seemed to bother Will before).
Later Will told Vera that his mother was very enthusiastic about their relationship and that she was already thinking about the wedding!
Will himself seemed in quite a hurry too. He wanted to have a baby as soon as possible, among other reasons so that his mother would still see the child before dying!
“Hm...” said Joe, and Vera was happy to see that Joe found the whole thing a bit strange too!
Will often complained that his mother and sister were living together in a kind of isolation from the rest of the world. Vera once answered back that Jenny, Will’s sister, was still a good-looking woman for her age and that she could certainly still enjoy life if she wished to. Will agreed and complained that she dressed drably, never went out and didn't have any friends outside of the family. In particular, there wasn't any man in her life. Vera suggested taking her to some friends of hers. This seemed like a good way to reach out to her potential sister-in-law as well as perhaps offering a scheme to help her open up a bit more. But Will was very much against it, arguing that he had already tried everything and that there was no point in it. So Vera hadn't insisted anymore.
Then there was that whole affair about some boxes from Vera's old flat that she temporarily wanted to store at her parents' place. Vera had to go on a short trip for her studies and her father had offered to get the boxes from her old flat and then hand over the flat's keys to the landlord. Will spontaneously offered to help with the boxes, and he said it was simpler to put them in his place where there was plenty of space. Vera, getting this suggestion on the phone one evening, didn't manage to say no, finding no arguments against it. But she felt uncomfortable with the idea already then. With good reason, as it turned out! When she came back from her trip, her things were already in Will's house and for him it was clear that now she was living with him!
He had known that Vera wasn't ready for this and that she intended to have a flat of her own again, closer to her occupation so that she wouldn't need to keep a car. But no matter – the boxes were already at his place, and it would take an additional effort to get them out of there again! Vera felt tricked!
So for a while Vera really lived with him. But a few weeks later she went on a trip again, to Finland this time, together with some friends that Will knew (Vera had introduced him to practically all her friends by then). This trip had been planned months before, long before Vera had known Will. Nevertheless he was quite vexed that she intended to go without him, so Vera of course offered that he could come too. But Will claimed that this was quite impossible. He couldn't go on another trip yet again, considering how badly his mother had taken the last one...
Vera had warned Will that she wouldn't call him every single day. She made sure to send him an SMS daily at least, or even several times a day, except when there was no mobile phone network, like on the ship crossing of the Baltic sea. When he didn't get any messages he was angry in spite of Vera's perfect excuse (no network connection on the sea), and he expressed his anger freely the next time they could talk on the phone again. And when she asked him to please not make a scene while her friends were next to her, he just got even angrier. Then he made her repeat the excuse about there not being any network connection on the sea over and over again, till he somehow managed to calm down a bit.
He made other similar scenes later on too (apparently Vera was in very much danger in this far-off country, or so Will seemed to think, and there was also always the fear that she might start a flirt with someone else).
In the end Vera offered that she would come back earlier to set things straight with him, but he didn't want that either, because (or at least so he said) he didn't want her to take the ship all alone.
When Vera eventually came back from that trip, Will was his old self again and excused himself for the scenes he had made. It had just been hard for him, that's all, he said by way of an explanation.
But Vera was beginning to have serious doubts about this relationship, not just because of these scenes, but for all kinds of other reasons as well.
Will criticized various habits of Vera's, like for example the use she made of her mobile phone, turning away from him when she spoke on it, or writing SMS's without showing them to him or sharing them with him.
He wanted her to accept him as he was, with all his doubts and fears, but he didn't seem to be accepting of Vera's particularities in return.
Once, early in the morning, he claimed he really needed to work on himself, but later the same day he said he had become resigned to his doubts and fears, and then he just continued taking his medication against the heartburn he regularly got from them.
He was looking for absolute certainty and actually couldn't accept doubts. He wasn't prepared to work on his relationship with Vera.
“Yes,” said Joe.
“What do you mean by <<yes>>?” asked Vera.
“Working on the relationship would have meant questioning it on some level. He wasn't prepared to do that.”
“What do you mean?” asked Vera.
“Well,” said Joe, “working on something, building something, means not being satisfied with what's already there, doesn't it? It means calling into question what already exists. That can be very scary for some people...”
“You're right!” exclaimed Vera looking straight at Joe. “Once he even said this: <<What I can't be sure of, I destroy!>>. For him, our relationship was supposed to be perfect right from the start or not to exist at all! Any kind of doubts were poison to him!”
Will was indeed of the jealous kind. He was always very suspicious, looking out for Vera when it was time for her to get home and questioning her when it got a bit later than usual. When she brought the car to the mechanic's and spent a while there chatting, he suspected her of trying to seduce the mechanic.
He still always excused himself for these false accusations later on, but they kept happening again nevertheless. Will obviously couldn't help it.
There were times when Will was perfectly capable of joking pleasantly about some of his little habits, but other times just seeing Vera touch one or the other of his things made him feel defensive and hurt. According to him, Vera had hurt his feelings about his family, but Vera still couldn't fathom how she might have done that. On the contrary, she always defended his sister, for example, when he criticized her and complained about her.
He seemed paranoid about other things too. For example, it was very important to him that Vera would not favour one of the dogs over the others. Being fair towards them seemed quite reasonable, of course, but if you had to run over to the two sleeping dogs to wake them up and feed them some tidbits just because the third one had gotten some too – because he had been in the kitchen with you while you were cooking - seemed a bit excessive...
Will had all kinds of bibelots hanging around the house. Some of them were quite pretty, but there were also some Vera didn't like, in particular a garish ceremonial plate hanging on the wall in the kitchen, and she asked Will if he could perhaps put those away. Will reacted hurt because, so he said, they were souvenirs of his old grandmother whom he had unfortunately never known. Well, it hadn't been obvious to Vera that these bibelots had any special meaning, since they had obviously been collecting dust for ages without ever getting a dusting. A few weeks later Will had still put them away.
The next time Vera brought up her plan to move to a place of her own (which had been her plan all along), Will got very angry again and accused her of having completely stood his place on its head without even intending to stay - while in reality it had been about nothing more than a couple of bibelots.
There were many such occasions when Will reacted very upset about minor occurrences that Vera didn't consider of any consequence at all. But on one occasion at least it was the reverse - Vera was upset when it was Will who had done something he considered completely normal and she didn’t.
It was about a massage oil Vera had offered Will for special occasions and which had somehow disappeared. It turned out Will had used it on his mother who had apparently suffered from muscle soreness. Vera wasn't happy about Will using this special oil for this purpose, especially since there were many other types of oil in his bathroom cabinet he could have used.
Will didn't understand why Vera was upset and accused her of being “materialistic”. He said this gesture had been completely natural for him, because he only wanted what's best for his mother. To explain how she felt, Vera asked him how he would feel if he offered her a ring and then saw it on her sister's finger. Will had to admit, in the end, that this would feel strange, so he promised he would buy the exact same bottle of oil again. But for Vera this didn't really address the root of the problem...
Apart from massages, Will's mother also appreciated it when her son laid his hands on her cheeks. She claimed he had a magical touch and that this calmed her clenched jaws when she was nervous.
Will often went over to the neighbouring mansion - where his mother and sister lived - for lunch. Lunch obviously took long because he sometimes only came back from there at five or so in the afternoon. When he returned from those visits he was often in a dark mood, wouldn't talk and just sat down in front of the TV.
When he did eventually say something, he complained that his sister was depressed and didn't remember things that had been agreed on earlier, and that his mother needed lengthy explanations about everything, however simple and straightforward it was. Among other things this was mainly about the various conditions of the succession to be settled. Apparently old family-stories came up again regularly, which annoyed Will deeply since most of them stemmed from a time when he wasn't even part of the family yet. On the other hand, they also had a plan to go on a holiday to Hawaii together when everything would be settled at last.
Of course, in the end it never came to that holiday.

Will started claiming his sister treated their mother badly. By and by, what had just been a reproach at first became more and more like an accusation – supposedly Jenny was confining and mistreating their mother. Yet the only such <<abuse>> Vera ever got to know about concretely was that Jenny had once refused to take her mother to the hairdresser's after an argument...
But supposedly she also stopped her mother from talking on the phone.
Once Vera saw Will in tears (which wasn’t something habitual in his case) after a tumultuous phone-conversation with Jenny, but he didn't say what it had been about and Vera didn't ask since she didn't want to be indiscreet.
Will, his mother and his sister had planned a two-week holiday in the mountains, but somehow they couldn't seem to make up their minds about the exact dates until Vera understood at last that it depended on her! Indeed, Will expected her to accompany them. Vera didn't want to bother them with her presence and suggested that she would just visit them there for a weekend or two in their rented chalet, but not stay there the whole time. In the meantime, Vera's friends in Barcelona invited her once again, which Vera found quite convenient since Will would be away too, in the mountains with his mother and sister. But a week before that trip, Will suddenly told Vera that his mother and sister were still not going to the mountains – apparently they weren't feeling well enough – so he would be able to accompany Vera to Barcelona after all.
The evening before the trip, Vera packed her bags and put them in the car to be ready to go in the morning. Will, seeing this, accused Vera of wanting to sneak away without him! This seemed doubly absurd considering that - just a few days before - they had spent a pleasant evening with other friends who would come with them. If Vera had planned to sneak off, would she have taken Will to spend an evening with those friends?
After long and difficult discussions, Will finally accepted that Vera had had no plan to double-cross him and had just packed the car in advance to be ready sooner in the morning. But he maintained that it was nevertheless a very abnormal move and that luckily the neighbours hadn't seen it...
During the stay in Barcelona, Will never called his mother, which - considering the multiple phone-calls on their previous trip - seemed really strange to Vera. On the way back from Barcelona, there were three aunts (three spinster sisters living together) they could visit in the North of France. Vera knew that Will, his mother and his sister would have gone to visit them if their trip to the mountains hadn't been canceled. It seemed logical to drop in on them, and they even bought some presents for the old ladies in Barcelona. Vera was surprised that Will didn't want to announce their visit. When the surprise-visit finally took place, it lasted little longer than five minutes, and Will seemed in a hurry to move on. The three sisters were surprised that his mother and sister weren't with them, because apparently nobody had told them the trip to the mountains had been canceled.
Much later, when Vera heard that Will's mother had been killed and that his sister had disappeared, she even for a moment wondered if it had already happened back then...
After the trip, Will brought a lawnmowing tractor to the mansion of his mother and sister, but he did it at four o'clock in the morning. So they wouldn't see him, he said.
It was around this time that Will admitted to Vera that his sister had taken a lawyer against him. The succession was going to be split rather than managed in common, or so Will claimed.
“I must say,” said Vera, “If I had been Will's sister, I wouldn't have considered managing something in common with him either!” Indeed, Will had a huge office taking up at least half a floor of his mansion, but it was so full of papers and documents lying around everywhere that you couldn't even find a free table-corner to write a note. Seeing this mess, Vera started doubting some of Will's plans for his future – like founding and managing his own nursing home. Will also didn't seem to be aware of the time he spent every day feeding and looking after all his animals. It was hard to imagine how he would ever manage to combine all that activity with a full-time job.
Will rarely mentioned his wife even though they weren't divorced yet. Nevertheless he had a lengthy phone-conversation with his sister-in-law in Iceland after getting a message from his wife that she got cancer because of him. Later Will claimed that his wife and his sister had <<betrayed>> him, but he never explained what this <<betrayal>> consisted of exactly.
Some time later, Will gave some spare keys of his house to Vera. But he never told Vera exactly who else had keys to that house. Vera never really lived in that house, except for those few weeks before she got a new flat of her own, and she never felt at home there, even though she had left some of her things there for a while.
The tenant living above Will was finally sent away, supposedly because of renovations that had to be undertaken. Or maybe Will was just afraid that Vera didn't lock up the cellar rooms properly in which some of her boxes were still stored. Vera herself didn't quite see how her boxes could possibly be of any interest to the tenant living on the upper floor. These fears of Will's were bordering on superstition.
Later on Will even considered sending away the tenants living in the outhouse further away (but still belonging to the property). Here too, all he had were very unconvincing excuses, namely that it was too much fuss having to clear away the snow up to their door every winter, and that they intended to move out anyway (according to Will). Vera thought he just wanted to be alone on his property. At some point he even sort of admitted that.
Eventually Vera had a new flat waiting for her and was ready to move in there, but Will hated the idea very much and insisted that she stay with him. He even threatened her, saying he wouldn't wait for her and would find another girlfriend. Vera was quite stunned by Will's behaviour. She just wasn't ready to move in with him for good, but for him this seemed to be a reason for breaking up!
In the end Vera postponed the move to her new flat till the end of her internship, since it seemed to upset him so much (and thus her too). But at the end of that internship, she really moved into her new flat at last, and on her first evening there she got an SMS from Will that he wanted to break up with her, although he changed his mind again a few hours later.
Vera got a sense of freedom from having her own place again at last. She invited her friends over whenever she liked, always letting Will know that he was welcome to come and join them too, of course. The point wasn't not having Will around, but rather being in her own place and doing as she pleased!
Will found this new life hard to tolerate, though. He accused Vera of leading a single life within a couple life, which he considered very wrong. Fearing his questions or insinuations, Vera told him less and less of what she was doing, whom she was meeting, how her day-to-day life was going...
Several times excursions with friends were planned for the weekend, and Will was of course always invited too, but he often desisted in the last minute with various excuses.
On one particular evening, when he was invited to come and see Vera in a play with her theatre-group, he couldn't come because he was knocking down a wall in his mansion with a jack-hammer!
“In the evening?” asked Joe.
“Yes,” said Vera, “that whole evening when he could have come to see me in the play, he preferred to work in his house with the jack-hammer!”
Apparently he hadn't even thought of covering up the furniture. There was even a laundry-basket full of fresh laundry that he hadn't had time to put away, since he had obviously been in such a hurry to start up the jack-hammer. The fresh laundry was thus covered with concrete dust...
The next day Vera came to his place since they had agreed to go for a walk together. But Will was busy vacuum cleaning. He wasn't vacuum cleaning only the floor, but also the top of the furniture that had been exposed to the concrete dust the night before. Vera tried to tell him that cleaning the furniture with a moist rag would be more efficient and less damaging for the furniture, but Will was too absorbed in his task to hear Vera.
Vera also thought it would be time for the dogs to get a walk, and besides the weather was really beautiful. But Will didn't hear her over the vacuum cleaner.
The relationship between Will and Vera just got worse from then on. Will seemed depressed and started neglecting all kinds of things. He didn't bother walking or even just letting out his dogs anymore, to the point of sometimes forcing them to relieve themselves inside the house... He explained it was because of Vera's absence and that he didn't feel like going out all alone. Vera didn't really understand this, since he had been perfectly capable of walking his dogs on his own before she appeared in his life.
When Vera was there for a visit and decided to take the dogs out on her own since Will always seemed to have something else to do, Will wasn't happy about that either. He complained that she was badly dressed and that it would reflect badly on them if she left his property like that. So, in order not to upset him, Vera would just take a stroll in the park surrounding the mansion.
It was around this time that Vera once saw Will drink champagne directly from the bottle.
In the first few weeks of December, Vera just barely kept in touch with Will. Their relationship was badly compromised, but Vera still hoped it might just be a crisis that would eventually blow over.
In mid-December he excused himself for not having called earlier, explaining his phone-line had been cut off because he had forgotten to pay the bill. Vera wanted to clarify with him whether he would come to her Christmas party at her flat and whether they would also go to see his mother and sister around Christmas as they had discussed earlier. Will said he couldn't talk to his mother anymore because his sister didn't let him, and besides he didn't get his allowance anymore.
Vera suggested they should go and see his mother together and clarify things. She couldn't really believe that Will's sister could literally stop him from talking to his mother. She didn't see how Jenny could possibly do that.
Will had another idea – he said he might go and see his mother's hairdresser to whom she was going that day, since it was the day of her weekly hairdresser appointment.
Not knowing what to think or say about this idea, Vera just suggested meeting him afterwards, but Will wasn't yet sure he would really go there. So Vera suggested that he should rather come and see her the next day when she was going to bake Christmas cookies with her nephews. Will accepted this invitation.
In the evening, Vera went to have supper with some friends. Will called her on her mobile phone and heard the animated discussions around her and was immediately offended at not having been invited. Soon after hanging up, he wrote her an SMS saying that it was all over between them and that he wouldn't be coming the next day as had been agreed earlier. A bit later she got a second SMS from him in which he expressed certainty that she would of course spend the night with her friends. When Vera was back home, she called Will from her home number, just so that he would see she wasn't spending the night with her friends after all, and to discuss his SMS's with him. The discussion was mostly turning in circles, nevertheless he finally promised he might still come the next day to make Christmas cookies with Vera and her nephews. In the end he really came, played and joked with Vera's nephews and showed himself from his best side. When Vera managed to exchange a few personal words with him while the nephews were busy washing up, she asked him if he had really seen his mother's hairdresser and how that had gone. He said he had indeed, and that the hairdresser really deserved flowers for playing the role of the conciliator, but somehow he wouldn't give more details, making Vera wonder what had really happened if indeed anything had happened at all...
Some time later, when Vera asked Will if they would go and see his mother and sister around Christmas, he said that was out of the question. To Vera's suggestion that they could at least send them a bouquet or something, he answered that they would just throw it out of the window.
Vera was beginning to wonder how she would spend Christmas, because she really had no idea anymore where she stood with Will. A friend of hers told her to just break up with him, because there was no hope that this would ever work anyway, but Vera was reluctant to carry out this breakup – which she knew wouldn't be easy – in the midst of the general pre-Christmas atmosphere surrounding her. She decided to try to give him one more chance, but she nevertheless wanted to make sure she had all her things safely back in her flat before the end of the year. Will promised her to help her move all the remaining boxes with the van he used for the animal fodder, but this van had had a breakdown some weeks before and somehow Will wasn't in any hurry to get it fixed...
On the afternoon of Christmas Eve (when, as it turned out later, Will's mother was probably dead already), Vera saw that Will had a big scratch on his forehead. Vera asked him where it came from, and he launched into a lengthy explanation about how one of the dogs had jumped up at him and scratched him. Will even reenacted the scene for Vera, as if it were really important to convince her, which Vera found a bit strange, since she believed him anyway (one of the dogs was indeed in the habit of jumping up at people to greet them). Will also seemed to have put an exaggerated amount of ointment on the scratch.
Vera and Will spent Christmas with Vera's sister. Considering the difficult times they had had lately, it went quite well in Vera's opinion, although Will still seemed a bit absentminded somehow, wiping the table helpfully at the end of the meal but forgetting big pieces of orange skin in the middle, for example. But he had been pleasantly joking on the way there (about the bowls of fruit-salad that mustn't be spilled), and he had also pleasantly chatted with Vera's sister during the meal.
After the Christmas party, Vera spent the night at Will's place. The next morning, the mood was strange, and Will soon declared he had some moving to do in the outhouse and left Vera to her own devices. But in the afternoon they watched some TV together and then even went for a walk with the dogs. But during that walk some difficult topics came up again (namely that Vera had a flat of her own even though Will's mansion was plenty big enough for both of them), and this ended in an uncomfortable argument once again. At some point Will came up to Vera, almost glued his face to hers and claimed she just wanted to chase away his wife. After Vera pushed him away, he relented that maybe she was just preparing their marriage. This conclusion, which he reached all by himself without a word from Vera, seemed to calm him down again. It had been the first time that Will's attitude had been physically menacing towards Vera.
After this, Vera went to pack her car, but Will came after her and asked her if she wouldn't rather go out for a meal instead of driving home straight away. She didn't much feel like it, but in the end she relented and after that stayed one more night with Will.
Will seemed to make a conscious effort to be pleasant, and in the next few days he even helped Vera move her last few boxes to her flat at last. Trying to have a good time together, they took the steam-boat across the lake to Evian. Will managed to stay pleasant and relaxed for practically the whole crossing, but when the boat started maneuvering towards the pier, he couldn't hold himself back anymore and started discussing their relationship once again and why she wouldn't live with him permanently. The rest of their excursion together was promptly spoiled by the argument that followed.
It was agreed that they would spend New Year's Eve with some friends of Vera's, but Will became uncomfortable with this idea and Vera could tell it would lead to another crisis if she went without him, so she canceled it.
Not having any plans for New Year's Eve anymore, Vera asked Will what he usually did on New Year's Eve. He answered that he always spent it with his mother and sister, so Vera suggested to go and see them, then. He could go without her, if he liked. She would be fine on her own too. But Will just answered: “You know it isn't possible.”
In the end, Vera took Will to see her own parents who were spending New Year's Eve on their own at home and happy to welcome their daughter and her friend. But Will became a bit too affectionate towards Vera in front of Vera's parents, even more so than they had been in private lately. Vera was a bit embarrassed and asked Will later why he had done that. Will just answered that Vera's parents were obviously old-fashioned if such things caused her “embarrassment” in front of them.
Vera asked Will how he would have behaved in front of his own parents, and he finally relented and accepted that she was right.
On the last day Vera and Will spent together, Vera asked him once again if they shouldn't go and see his mother, just to make sure she was all right. Will didn't react much, just shook his head and left the room. Vera went to say goodbye to him a bit later (he was sitting in front of the TV) and then drove home.
She hadn't seen him anymore since then, because shortly afterwards his mother was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in her house (next to her dog that had obviously died of starvation), his sister had disappeared, and he was arrested as the prime suspect.
She next heard about him when she was called and interrogated by the police. Later she received one or two letters from Will from prison, but so far she hadn't answered.

So Vera had finished her story at last. Maybe Joe would find out now what she actually expected him to do about it. She had come to see him with the need to talk. And she had talked at length. What now?
She seemed just as much at a loss about how to continue as he was.
At least he encouraged her to formulate some kind of conclusion to her story, which she did:
“I don't have any reason to believe that Will is the murderer of his mother and his sister. But because of all the strange occurrences I described to you (concerning Will himself as well as the family constellation in which he lived), and also because of the mark on his forehead before Christmas which I can't get out of my mind, I cannot affirm with wholehearted conviction that he is innocent.”
Joe wrote all this down. He had gotten into the habit of taking some notes while talking with his patients, but what Vera was saying now seemed important enough to write down word for word. He finished his scribble and gave her a sign to go on.
“I hope with all my heart,” she said, “that a genuine proof of his innocence will eventually

be found so that I can be freed of my doubts, in particular because I was his friend in the strong sense and still have feelings for him.”

Jack and Joe were sitting in Jack's living-room (which was Joe's living-room now) sipping some fine white wine that had grown nearby on the sunny slopes leading down to the lake. Blanca wasn't there. She had gone to spend the evening with some girlfriends of hers for what they called a “baby-shower” (whatever that was supposed to be – some Latino girl-thing, no doubt...).
“So, what about Daniel and his Katalin,” asked Jack. “Have you seen some more of Daniel?”
“Yes,” said Joe, “they're getting divorced.”
“I hope Daniel and his daughter are prepared to lose each other, then.” said Jack.
“Why would they lose each other?” asked Joe. “Daniel is the one who's looked after her from the very beginning and he has countless witnesses to prove that!”
“Yeah,” said Jack, “but he's a man. Small kids aren't given to a man. They're given to a woman.”
“Come on!” said Joe. “I'm sure you're right in most cases, because in most cases it's really a woman looking after a small child. But when it's obvious that it was the other way around, the court is bound to take it into consideration. After all, men and women are equal by law.”
“Sure, sure...” said Jack, sipping his wine.
“What do you mean?” asked Joe, getting annoyed now. “If it says so in the law, the judges can't just decide whatever they please, can they?”
“They don't decide whatever they please,” said Jack. “They decide whatever is acceptable to society. And taking away a small kid from her mother is not acceptable to society.”
“Exactly!” said Joe. “And in this case, the father took on the mother's role, anybody can see that. As I said, he has plenty of witnesses! So the kid can't be taken away from him!”
“Yes it can, and it will. Just wait and see!” said Jack. “You should have told Daniel to avoid divorce at all cost, at least till the kid is a teenager!”
“I said the guy has witnesses! The judge can't just ignore the witnesses!”
“The witnesses don't count,” said Jack. “What counts is the opinion of the Youth Protection Agency. And their job is to find an excuse to still give the kid to the mother, as it is usually done. Courts hate doing anything unusual.”
“Unusual or not, they have to do what's right,” said Joe.
“You still believe that, do you?” asked Jack.
“Well,” said Joe, “it clearly says in the law that men and women are equal and that the child should stay with the parent who was the main parent previously.”
“Which in this case is the father,” insisted Joe, since Jack didn't answer.
“That's a matter of interpretation,” said Jack.
“No it fucking isn't! He has countless witnesses!”
“Okay,” said Jack, “he has witnesses that he was the main parent. But it's sick for a man to be the main parent of a small child. They will say that it's sick, that the child urgently needs to be taken away from him and given to the mother, you'll see.”
“But how on Earth could they do that?” asked Joe.
“Well,” said Jack, “they'll say that the relationship between Daniel and his daughter is too absorbing for the child, too symbiotic, and that it stops the child from developing in a natural way.”
“Come on!” said Joe, “you know that's not true!”
“It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. The court will twist the facts that way, you'll see.”
“But why would they do that?” asked Joe.
Jack didn't answer at first. He wasn't trying to be smug, though. What he was trying to explain to Joe was really quite depressing, actually.
“Do you know the joke about judges?” he asked, finally.
“Which one?” said Joe.
“Well, the one about the surgeons discussing among each other which kinds of patients they prefer. One of them says he likes electricians best, because all their organs are colour-coded. Another one claims he likes librarians best, because all their organs are arranged alphabetically...”
“And the third one claims he likes judges best,” said Joe, “right?”
“Right,” said Jack. “The third one like judges best, because...”
“Because what?” asked Joe.
“Because they have neither heart, nor guts, nor balls, so they're quite easy to operate on, and besides you can happily mix up their front and rear ends and nobody will notice any difference either way.”
“I heard the same joke, except that it was about politicians,” said Joe.
“Well, it works with judges too,” said Jack. “Judges don't take risks, they don't have the guts and balls for that. They don't care about what's just, in spite of the word <<just>> in <<justice>>. They just care about what's socially acceptable so that nobody would blame them for anything if things go wrong. They don't have hearts either, because they fucking don't mind destroying a kid's life just so that their decision would be socially acceptable.”
“How can it be socially acceptable if it isn't just?” asked Joe.
“You really are naive, aren't you?” Jack asked back.
“Just explain it to me,” said Joe.
“Okay,” said Jack. “Now imagine you were a judge and you wanted to hand over this child to her father instead of her mother as would be usual. Now suppose you were wrong and the father killed the child, or abused her or whatever. What would everybody say?”
Since Joe didn't answer, Jack answered the question himself: “Everybody would say you were irresponsible to give that child to that man.”
Joe said: “Well, and what about you give that child to her mother and she drowns her in the bathtub? Mothers have been known to do such things!”
“Exactly!” said Jack. “Mothers have been known to do such things. It can happen. It isn't the fault of the judge!”
“While if it's the man, it's the fault of the judge?”
“Yes,” said Jack. “If it's the man killing his kid or abusing her or whatever, then everybody will say the judge was crazy to hand over this child to such a man. Because it's unusual to hand over a child to a man. While if he hands over the child to the mother, which is the usual thing to do, nobody will blame the judge if things go wrong.”
“Are you sure?” asked Joe.
“Of course I'm sure,” answered Jack. “Have you ever read about a mother drowning her kids in the bathtub and the journalist wondering where the father was, and why he wasn't the one looking after those kids?”
“No...” admitted Joe.
“Now imagine it's the father killing the kids. What will everybody say in that case?”
“They will wonder where the mother was,” answered Joe.
“Exactly,” said Jack. “That's why the judges judge as they do. It has nothing to do with justice. They always find a plausible-sounding justification to justify their decision, however many witnesses the father may have in his favour.”
“If that's really true, it's fucking depressing!” said Joe.
“Of course it is,” said Jack. “That's why you MUST tell Daniel to make peace with his wife, to swallow every kind of shit from her, however bad it is, for his daughter's sake!”
“I'm afraid it's already too late for that...” said Joe before falling silent.

On another occasion, Joe told Jack all about his new patient, Vera.
Jack listened to the whole story, amazed.
“So, what do you think?” asked Joe when he had finished.
“Why wasn't this Vera bothered by the police?” asked Jack.
“She was,” answered Joe. “For a while they even wondered if she might have taken part in the murder so that she could elope with Will and all the inherited money afterwards.”
“And why did they decide this wasn't the case?” asked Jack.
“I guess there was nothing connecting it to her,” said Joe. “I don't know the details either, of course. But it seems they decided, in the course of the investigation, that she was innocent.”
“Big mistake!” said Jack.
“You think she's guilty of something?” asked Joe, surprised.
“Well, of course,” said Jack. “If he really did it, she was the one who made him do it. I'm sure it was unintentional. But for crying out loud, this woman was even naiver than you are!”
“Explain,” said Joe.
“Well look,” said Jack, “in this whole story you just told me, the central theme is that he was fucking not normal, and she kept treating him as though he were. In the end he must have felt he had to choose between his mother and his girlfriend. So he did. He chose his girlfriend and got rid of his mother!”
“You think he killed his mother for HER?” asked Joe, horrified.
“It's obvious, isn't it?” said Jack. “He had already lost his first wife because of his mother's behaviour. He was well on the way to losing his second girlfriend too. He had tried to warn her in advance. He had begged her to keep out of it. But she fucking wouldn't listen.”

“But Will’s mother seemed to accept Vera,” said Joe.

“Sure,” said Jack, “on the surface she did. She accepted Will’s new girlfriend as long as that meant she could keep her own influence over him - call him over to her place for a massage whenever she needed one, for example.”

“But what exactly was Vera’s mistake, according to you?” asked Joe.

“She just went on treating Will as though he were normal,” said Jack
“So you think Will really wasn’t normal… What exactly do you think his problem was?” asked Joe.
“Well, he had an incestuous relationship with his mother.”
“You think he fucked his mother?” asked Joe, incredulous.
“No, I don't think he actually fucked her. But he massaged her with that massage-oil his girlfriend had offered him, didn't he? He laid his hands on her cheeks when her teeth hurt, didn't he? He ran over to her whenever she wanted him, didn't he?”
“That doesn't mean he fucked her,” said Joe. “So why do you say it was incestuous?”
“I just mean there was something sexual in it...” said Jack evasively.
“Just because he used the massage-oil on her?”
“Among other things, yeah....” said Jack. “You see, what I gather from that whole story is that she was probably in the midst of an empty nest syndrome when her husband brought back that pretty Indian boy for her so that she would have something to play with again...”
“Isn't that rather harsh?” asked Joe.
“Well yeah, but it's true!” answered Jack. “Didn't you yourself listen to the story you just told me? That boy was brought back from India to alleviate her empty nest syndrome. Then her husband died and that boy was all she had left.”
“And you think she abused him?” asked Joe.
“Definitely,” answered Jack. “Even if they didn't have actual sexual intercourse, she definitely abused him emotionally.”
“Well, shouldn't the court know about this?” asked Joe. “Shouldn't I tell this Vera to come forward with all this stuff?”
“Are you crazy?” asked Jack, horrified. “She's liable to become a suspect once again if she comes forward like that!”
“But you know,” said Joe, “From what you read in the papers, the whole court-case seems to be about nothing but money. Supposedly his mother cut off his allowances, so he killed her to get the inheritance. But his lawyer says he still had plenty of money and didn't need to kill her for that. That's what the whole court-case is about. But if in reality she abused him over decades...”
“That would be all the more reason for him to have killed her and thus to be condemned as the murderer!” said Jack.
“Or it could be a mitigating circumstance, couldn't it?” said Joe.
“Yeah, well it's true, according to the papers, that the prosecutor goes on and on about how murdering your own mother is the most horrific of sins...”
“But what if he gets off just because his lawyer can prove that he wasn't in need of money, while actually he killed her for another reason?”
“Then good on him!” answered Jack.
“You wouldn't mind that a murderer walked free?” asked Joe.
“Rather that than an innocent being locked-up!”
“But what if he killed again?” asked Joe.
“Well,” said Jack, “it took him decades of abuse to finally kill his step-mother. In his place, I would have killed her much earlier! I don't think that guy is a killer deep down...”
“Actually I don't think he did it!” said Joe.
“Why?” asked Jack.
“Because the killer let the dog starve in the house. That doesn't make sense. He loved animals! After killing his mother, he wouldn't have left the dog in the house. He would have let it out.”
“What if the dog wouldn't leave its master?”
“Well, then he would have chased it out! It doesn't make sense that he left it there to starve!”
“If you already killed your mother, do you think you would shy away from killing a dog?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” said Joe. “Particularly if he already felt a pang of guilt because of having killed her. After all, according to you, he was pathologically attached to her, so of course he would have felt a pang of guilt. He would have done anything to help himself feel less guilty about his deed. Saving the dog would have been the least he could do. But the dog wasn't saved, so it couldn't have been him!”
“Hmm...” said Jack. “There's something in that. But it's not an argument that would have any traction with the court, unfortunately...”
“The prosecutor makes him out to be this cold-blooded monster who kills his own mother just for money,” said Joe. “But we know that IF he really killed her, it certainly wasn't just about money but something much more complicated, so he wasn't a cold-blooded monster, so he couldn't have left the dog to starve in the house, so it couldn't have been him!”
“Yeah, I sort of agree...” said Jack. “But none of this would have any traction with the court. So don't tell this Vera to go to court. It wouldn't do any good. At most it would make his guilt even more probable, and what if it really wasn't him?”
“So I should just stop thinking about it?” asked Joe.
“Yeah, that's just about it,” said Jack. “All we can do is to be as gutless and ball-less and heartless as the judges in the joke and forget about the whole thing. There's nothing we can do that would do any good, I'm afraid...”
Being a psychiatrist really isn't a dream-job. Joe realized it more and more the longer he spent in Jack's shoes.

Katalin was waking up from a long, terrible nightmare, or so it seemed. At first, getting over her ex-husband's betrayal had seemed almost impossible to her. She still couldn't believe he could just sacrifice everything – their common life, their common daughter, their common hopes and dreams... - just because she didn't want him sexually anymore.
Her mother had always warned her that men are like this. Katalin had once thought Daniel was different, but of course he wasn't. Men are just men. Her father had already shown her that long ago, and she had just been slow on the uptake.
Katalin had been in a deep depression for a while. She had had almost hallucination-like paranoias... As instructed by her therapist, she had written everything down, only to find that her writings had somehow fallen into the hands of Daniel who promptly tried to use them against her. It really seemed like the nightmare would never end.
Luckily the courts hadn't been fooled by any of this. She trusted her lawyer completely. He was almost like a spiritual guide to her.
Now the nightmare was gradually lifting. She had moved to a new place with her daughter, far away from Daniel. Her daughter wasn't whining after her daddy so persistently anymore either. At last Katalin could build up a proper mother-daughter relationship with little Agi, now that Daniel was mercifully out of the way!
She had taken up dancing again, one of the many things she had completely dropped and forgotten, just because Daniel wouldn't dance...
Daniel had so completely managed her life! It was unbelievable! She was only now beginning to discover that she could think for herself, FEEL for herself! It was like spring after a long winter!
In the dancing class she had met a woman a bit older than herself, and immensely wise, or so it seemed to Katalin. This woman was so happy and free, with a sparkle in her eye and a springiness in her step that Katalin envied! She belonged to a religious group that had newly established itself in a proud old mansion close to Nyon, overlooking the highway and the lake of Geneva. The guru leading it originally came from India. He had already set up an ashram in Oregon in the States and was now setting one up here, in the old mansion close to Nyon!
Actually he didn't like to be called “guru”. He didn't like official titles, nor did he like official doctrines. He was an independent spirit. He just called himself “the Master”.
Katalin had always thought she had been vaccinated against all religious matters for life by her super-catholic grandmother. But she had to admit this “Master” - who had given her new friend Annie a sparkle in the eye and a springiness in her step – intrigued her!
She was eager to learn more about this “Master”!

Katalin had never thought of herself as a lesbian. But her body was hungry, oh so hungry!
And she couldn't imagine being with another man, or not yet, in any case. Daniel was still much too fresh on her mind.
All Annie had had to do was to brush Katalin's hair from her brow in a quick, casual move. All of Annie's moves were quick and casual. It was like magic! Nothing was forced, nothing was painstakingly thought-over as everything had always been with Daniel. Annie was a free spirit, a wisp of the Willows! Katalin felt so free with her!
Katalin's body immediately responded to Annie's touch, yearned for more, and then there really was more, easily, spontaneously... Annie had kissed her, kissed her face, kissed her lips, and at the electric spark going through Katalin's body, Annie's hand had straight away found Katalin's breasts, those breasts Katalin had thought were dead from the torture Daniel had put them through by forcing her to breastfeed the baby... Not something to remember now!
Annie gave them a little squeeze and a little tug, first through the sweat-shirt and then directly on the skin!
Then Annie's flicking tongue had found them too!
And that's not all it found!
Eventually Annie's flicking tongue had found Katalin's vagina, its swollen lips, and licked its way in and penetrated Katalin deeply! Or as deep, in any case, as a tongue could go... All the while nabbing the clitoris.
And then she had seen the fireworks! Yes, she had really seen them! It wasn't just a saying!
Now Katalin was lying on the wet sheets, heaving, with Annie's head resting on her tummy. A small head, a light head, a female's head, so much more delicate than Daniel's big, square head had been!
When the heaving had subsided, Annie had asked her: “Are you happy?”
“Yes!” Katalin had answered. “Yes! YOU make me happy! What is your secret?”
“The Master,” Annie had answered. “The Master is my secret.”
“Tell me about the Master,” Katalin had said. “Please tell me about Him!”
“The Master,” Annie had explained, “is a reincarnation of Jesus.”

Since Katalin looked very doubtful at first, Annie explained some more: “The Master speaks of the Christ, you know, but not of Christianity. Christ is rebellion, total rebellion! It isn’t an organisation like Christianity. You cannot organize rebellion, because if you do, it isn't rebellion anymore. Organizing rebellion just kills rebellion, which is what Christianity has done. Christianity is nothing but a corpse. The Master has nothing to do with this corpse. The Master wants to create a living religion! He wants to create chaos. Such a chaos that a new creation becomes possible! A rebirth!”
This idea appealed to Katalin. She could feel herself opening up, opening up completely to Annie and this Master of hers! She almost felt pity for poor Daniel and his stale organizing principles, his neurotic insistence on order, his permanent worrying about small daily matters...
Katalin was free at last! She was going to be reborn!

What came later, when Katalin was already a regular member at many of the meditation groups in the ashram, was a bit surprising and all the more inspiring!
She was called for a personal conversation with the Master Himself!
Before entering the private chamber of the Master, she had to undergo a quick search by a security guard. It was easy and quick, then the guard opened the wooden portal a crack and told her she could go in.
It was dark inside, and cool. The only light came from a big aquarium in which rare fish of the deep sea moved calmly in inky water. Coming from the summer-heat outside, the fresh air was pleasant at first, but after a few seconds Katalin felt almost shivering cold. Then she saw the flickering light of a fire-place at some distance beyond the aquarium, shining through the dark water and glass. Katalin quietly moved to the edge of the aquarium, went around it and crossed a heavy, deep-blue carpet to the fire-place. The Master was sitting there in an enormous armchair within which he looked almost frail.
Katalin had seen the Master only once before, in the great hall, towering on a podium before a microphone with several guards standing directly in front and below him. He had looked majestic then, but in this more intimate setting, Katalin saw him differently.
A small stool was waiting next to the huge armchair, close to the fire-place.
“Please sit down,” said the Master in a kindly voice, and Katalin obediently sat down, glad to feel the warmth of the fire against her back.
The Master watched the flickering flames for a dreamy moment. There was a big, heavy book on his lap. He gently shut it, caressing its cover, then turned to Katalin and beamed at her like a proud father!
Katalin felt warm now, and safe! The room was big, and cold, but the flickering fire and the beaming face with the Santa Claus beard felt warm and homely!
“Are you devoted, Katalin?” asked the Santa Claus.
“Yes,” said Katalin softly, but with utter conviction.
“You would do anything for me, wouldn't you?” asked the Santa Claus in a calm sing-song voice.
“Of course, Master!” answered Katalin, growing eager now.
“Your love for me is deep and wide and encompasses everything!” said the Master, his sing-song voice growing stronger and more intense!
“Anything at all, Master!” answered Katalin, her voice becoming hoarse and breathless with expectation.
“I have a plea for you,” said the Master, his voice becoming deeper. “There is this sannyasin, Morris is his name, and he needs you...”
“There is no <<me>> anymore,” aspirated Katalin. “There is only us, our community, our love...”
“Indeed,” said the Master kindly. “I am proud of you, my dear sannyasin! And that's why I ask you to love Morris. He needs your love, we all need your love, but he needs it more. He needs it in the flesh!”
At this moment, Katalin didn't remember whom the Master was talking about. She had no image of this Morris in front of her inner eye right now. But at the mention of “flesh”, she broke out in goose-bumps!
“Yes, Master,” she managed to say, overcome with emotion. “If that is your command, I will love him in the flesh!”
“It is not my command,” said the Master gently. “It is my plea!”
And he held out his hand to bless her.
Katalin immediately dropped from the stool to her knees, and as the Master's blessing came, her mind and her flesh burned with such a flash of love that it was almost painful!

Annie had become quite good at impersonating the Master. The first time had been in the great hall, on a podium, in front of a microphone, with guards before her to protect her against over-zealous sannyasins if necessary. The second time had been a private hearing with this guy, Morris, who had shyly asked for some personal time with the Master. Annie had set herself up as the Master's personal secretary, so she was the one to grant such personal hearings or not. Morris had seemed harmless enough, so she had acquiesced. She set up the hearing with care – in the big dark room, heavily air-conditioned, with the fire as the only source of warmth close to the Master. It had gone fine! Morris was a young guy, a bit nerdish and locked up in himself (and all the more attracted to the Master's idea of “opening up”), and he would probably never have dared to approach any of the more dashing young women. But Katalin obviously wasn't as scary as the others, even though she was easily ten years older than him. They had meditated back to back and brow to brow in some group meditation sessions, and he had fallen madly in love with her!
He didn't know how to get closer to her. His passion for her was obsessing him! He asked the Master to intervene in his favour. After all, the master preached Universal Love and the death of the ego separating people from each other. The union of flesh is just another symbol for the union of souls, and it is a beautiful thing! Morris needed it so badly, with Katalin!
The Master had promised him that he would speak to Katalin, and so he had. And that had gone fine too. Annie should be happy!
But other things weren't going quite as well for Annie. There was Jenny, the middle-aged matron she had “freed” from her mother. Jenny had been ecstatic at first, but now she was consumed by guilt... Annie had done her best to separate her from the other sannyasins, but Jenny couldn't just be locked up in her room. She was bound to stray from her room at times and drop into a group meditation session or the lounge like a ghost. Luckily she didn't try to talk to anyone, but some sannyasin or other, with the sannyasins' typical openness, was bound to approach her and speak kindly to her, offer her Universal Love or whatever...
The worst was that Jenny was lost to Annie now. Annie needed someone, a friend, a partner. In spite of the Universal Love uniting all sannyasins, Annie was dreadfully lonesome with the huge burden on her shoulders that she carried all alone.
Then she had met Katalin. Katalin had been a lost soul, and Annie had straight away seen the opportunity and seized it!
But at the last weekend seminar, when Katalin had stayed at the ashram overnight, Annie had gone to her room just to be rebuked.
“I'm with Morris now!” Katalin had claimed, as though this were self-explanatory.
Annie could easily have told her that this was not in the spirit of Universal Love, this selfish, limited love with one single person. But she herself wanted such an exclusive love too, didn't she? She needed it because of the huge burden she was carrying. She wasn't like the other sannyasins, so light and free, bearing no responsibility...
So she had left Katalin without a word. And when she saw Katalin the next day, walking through the park, hand in hand with that stupid Morris, she was consumed by jealousy!
She knew she would have to act. After all, she had done it before, so she could do it again.

Jack and Joe were sitting together in Joe's living-room. Yes, it was Joe's living-room now. There was no way back anymore, but Jack didn't regret it.
They weren't overly careful that Blanca wouldn't hear their conversation. It wasn't secret. Jack had firmly grown into his role as Joe, and vis versa. There was no danger anymore that they would drop out of their roles when they were together.
“So, what's eating you?” asked Jack. “I can see you badly want to tell me something!”
“It's about Daniel and Katalin,” said Joe.
“I had warned you that things would turn out that way!” said Jack. “I had warned you that there was no way he could win custody of his daughter! He has to be grateful he got visiting rights at all!”
“Katalin was killed,” said Joe.
“Killed?” asked Jack, startled. “You mean Daniel killed her?”
“That's what he's accused of,” said Joe. “He was arrested several days ago. I didn't have a chance to tell you. But I'm sure you read all about it in the papers already, you just didn't know it was about Daniel and Katalin, since their names weren't mentioned...”
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Jack. “And you think he really killed her?”
“No...” said Joe.
“But who else might have done it?” asked Jack reasonably.
“I don't know,” said Joe.
“From what I remember,” said Jack, “Daniel always described Katalin as a rather plain woman, prone to sulking. Not the kind to easily mix with people, except with the likes of Daniel himself, of course...” Jack scratched his head. “So who could possibly want to kill her? Apart from Daniel, I mean.”
“I know,” said Joe, “it looks hopeless for Daniel!”
“What have they got on him?” asked Jack.
“Not much, really, according to his lawyer, except that his car was there in front of Katalin's place on the day it happened according to a witness. Daniel always parked the car right in front of the door when he picked up Agnes. This seemed to annoy a neighbour woman no end, even though he just stopped there to pick up his daughter and drove off again straight away. But on that day he just left the car standing there for hours. So he was there somewhere when it happened.”
“Where exactly did it happen? In her flat?” asked Jack.
“No, Katalin was obviously on her way back from somewhere. It happened on a Friday afternoon on a path through a small wooded area. Not really secluded, but obviously it had been quick. She was stabbed to death through her chest and right into her heart. According to the pathologist, the perpetrator had done it purposefully and without hesitation. And he must have been standing right in front of Katalin. There was no sign of any struggle or anything. The pathologist says this suggests Katalin probably knew the perpetrator and that they had been chatting peacefully without her suspecting what was going to happen.”
“And what was Daniel doing there?” asked Jack.
“Daniel had come to pick up his daughter for the weekend. Since nobody answered the bell, he left the car there in front of the house and went for a stroll towards little Agnes' school and the supermarket, trying to find his ex-wife.”
“If she was already dead by then, it would be quite plausible that she didn't answer the bell and that he didn't just drive away again without at least looking around, wouldn't it?” said Jack.
“Sure,” said Joe, “except that according to that nosy neighbour, he had already picked up his daughter the weekend before, so it couldn't have been his weekend with her.”
“And what does Daniel say about that?” asked Jack.
“He claims that Katalin had agreed to let him have his daughter on this weekend instead of the next because there was going to be a party on the next weekend when Agnes wouldn't be able to come,” said Joe.
“That should be easy to verify,” said Jack.
“Except that Katalin is dead and nobody can ask her anymore what party this was going to be. The police asked the parents of the other children at Agnes' daycare, but nobody knew anything about any party. Daniel himself doesn't seem to know what party was meant. He didn't communicate very well with his ex-wife, as you know...”
“So, just because of this, everything points at him?” asked Jack.
“That, and Katalin's diaries, of course,” said Joe.
“Her diaries? What diaries?” asked Jack.
“Oh, crazy stuff... That Katalin was raving mad! Stuff about how everything in her is broken. Wait, let me remember the words. It all started because of little Agi not obeying her. Little Agi refused to go out with her mother to the shop to buy milk and stuff, and Katalin found no way to force or entice her. Because of this, Katalin wrote some really poetic stuff – since she always sat down to write when she couldn't bear things anymore – about how she would explode into a million glass or ice-splinters, sharp and freezing-cold and hard. Lethal shards... Stuff like that.”
“Uh-huh...” said Jack. “You saw that diary, or what?”
“Sure I saw it,” said Joe. “Daniel showed me a copy.”
“How on Earth did Daniel get a copy?” asked Jack.
“Well, before Katalin had moved far away from Daniel, on an evening when she once again couldn't bear life anymore, she packed up her pile of diaries – she had filled piles and piles of notebooks, you see – and took her daughter, and went roaming through town rather aimlessly. When it was well past midnight, her daughter started whining that she was sleepy, and since her mother wouldn't go home, she finally begged her to take her to her daddy's, which Katalin did.”
“You mean Katalin brought Agnes to Daniel's place in the middle of the night?”
“Exactly,” said Joe. “She dumped Agnes at Daniel's place and forgot whatever else she had with her, namely all those diaries, and disappeared into the night again. Apparently she ended up in a psychiatric clinic for a while, and when she got out of there she went straight back to Daniel's to get back her daughter. There was nothing he could do about it.”
“But he had the diaries with the story of the freezing-cold, lethal shards?”
“There weren't just the freezing-cold, lethal shards,” said Joe. “The passage went on about how she would like to bash pillows or scream or cry or shout. Or smash mugs or eat herself numb. But then she concluded she didn't want any such displacement activity. No, she wanted to KILL. She wanted to KILL AGNES!”
“Didn't Daniel show this to the court?” asked Jack.
“Of course he did,” answered Joe. “But they decided she had just been depressed and that she was fine again, so nothing happened.”
“Well,” said Jack, “now something happened, though...”
“There was some other stuff in Katalin's diaries that Daniel had presented to the court. It starts with Katalin waking up because of noise in the basement and having this certainty in her mind that Daniel has a key to her flat and spies out everything! Then it goes on about how Daniel must have paid a magician to cast a spell on her, giving her all those visions of killing a child in her sleep...”
“You're scaring me,” said Jack. “This Katalin was really raving mad! And the court wasn't impressed by any of this?”
“Nope,” said Joe. “But now it seems they are. Because it shows how tremendously afraid Katalin was of Daniel. It makes it all the more believable that he really killed her.”
“They wouldn't look at it from the point of view of her being crazy, but now that she's dead they're happily looking at it as a proof that he must have killed her?” asked Jack.
“That's right,” said Joe.
“Why did that fucker Daniel ever marry a mad woman like that?” asked Jack.
“And even have a child with her?” Joe complemented.
“I guess she was sane enough before she fell into her post-natal depression,” said Jack. “Daniel couldn't have predicted that post-natal depression, although there were signs she was strange before...”
The two brothers fell silent for a while.
Finally Jack asked: “And where is little Agnes now?”
“She was put in a foster home for a short while,” said Joe, “then her grandmother from Budapest came to pick her up.”
“You mean Daniel's ex-mother-in-law, Katalin's mother?”
“Yes, that's the one,” answered Joe. “The one he described so colourfully. The child is with her now.”
“But for God's sake, why couldn't Daniel's parents take her? Little Agnes is much closer to her paternal grandparents than that crazy old bag in Budapest, so why send her there?”
“Well, they wouldn't let the parents of the alleged killer have her, would they?”
“Yeah, you're right...” admitted Jack. “So now she's with that old bag and the other, even older bag, both dutifully telling her that her daddy killed her mummy...”
“What did you expect?” asked Joe.
It was, of course, just a rhetoric question, so Jack didn't answer.
“Are the police still investigating,” Jack finally asked, “or are they so sure of holding the culprit that they've given up on that already?”
“They're still investigating,” said Joe. “But as you said yourself, Katalin was a plain woman of the sulking type. She didn't have a lot of friends or contacts. She went to a dancing club, and then she seemed to have joined some kind of New Age sect...”
“Well, that sounds interesting, doesn't it?”
“Not really,” answered Joe, “these New Age hippies are apparently perfectly harmless. They just chant and meditate together and stuff, so the police don't expect – according to Daniel's lawyer – to find any leads to another possible culprit there...”
“What about the weapon?” asked Jack.
“The weapon?” Joe asked back, clueless for a moment because his thoughts had been elsewhere.
“Well yes,” said Jack impatiently, “the knife or whatever was used for the stabbing! Have they found anything?”
“Well no,” said Joe, “it could have been anything, a big kitchen knife or whatever.”
After a little pause he added: “Though, according to Daniel's lawyer, the pathologist did say something interesting: apparently it seems most likely the knife or tool or whatever was curved at its end. It penetrated under the sternum, then up through the peritoneum into the heart, then came back out the same way.”
“So the murderer apparently knew exactly what he was doing...” mused Jack.
“Yes,” said Joe, “and the wound is most consistent with a CURVED knife or dagger or whatever it was that he used.”
“Did Daniel own such a dagger?” asked Jack.
“Who knows?” answered Joe. “In any case none was found anywhere, neither at Daniel's place nor in the bushes near the crime scene.”
“You know,” said Jack dreamily, “in Will Carter's case, the guy whose ex-girlfriend came to see you...”
“Yeah, yeah, I haven't forgotten his name, you know. So what about him?”
“Wasn't it mentioned somewhere that his mother was finished off with a curved dagger or something like that too?”
“Well,” said Joe, “Will Carter can't have killed Katalin, if that's what you mean, because he's in jail!”
“But what if it wasn't Will Carter who killed Will Carter's mother? What if it was the same guy who killed Katalin?” asked Jack.
“Just because both were killed with a curved dagger?” asked Joe.
“There are other similarities too,” said Jack. “In both cases there was a perfect alleged culprit just standing ready to be arrested!”
“Yeah?” said Joe, hardly convinced. “And what other similarities do you see?”
“Well, Will Carter's sister, her name was Jenny or something like that, wasn't it?”
“What about her?” asked Joe.
“Your patient Vera described this Jenny as a kind of middle-aged matron spending most of her time with her old mother, didn't she?”
“Vera never said anything about a <<middle-aged matron>>. That's just how you imagined her based on what I told you about what Vera had told me...”
“Anyway,” said Jack impatiently, “she was kind of plain and stuck with her old mother, just like Katalin had been for most of her life too!”
“And because of this they were both killed with a curved dagger?” asked Joe. Then he added: “Actually nobody knows what happened to Jenny. Will Carter's mother was found dead at the bottom of the stairs, but his sister had just disappeared and hasn't reappeared since. The police seem to think Will Carter buried her somewhere in the garden. He kept digging out new fish-ponds and stuff with his power-shovel, so it would have been easy for him to bury her somewhere on that large property. Unless you dig up the whole park, you'll never find her again.”
“Which doesn't make sense, by the way,” said Jack. “Because why would he so carefully bury Jenny and leave his mother at the foot of the stairs? Why not leave them both at the foot of the stairs?”

« Maybe he wanted the police to believe she had done it and then disappeared, » said Joe.

« But if he did it to get the inheritance, he would have wanted her dead rather than missing, wouldn’t he? And besides, a random burglar killing both women and then disappearing would have been more believable than his sister killing his mother and then disappearing… »
“That may be as it may,” said Joe, “but to me none of this really links the two cases!”
“I know,” said Jack, “I was just speculating. It's true that just because Daniel and Vera were both your patients and both were mixed up with murders involving a curved dagger, that doesn't mean anything. If the police thought this way, all murders all over the world would somehow end up seeming linked to each other...”
“On the other hand,” said Joe, “if there really WAS a link, would you trust the police to find it?”
“Maybe they need some help,” said Jack.
“What kind of help? What are you talking about?” asked Joe.
“Well,” said Jack, “with the investigation. Since you're so convinced it wasn't Daniel, let's help the police find out who it really was, to save Daniel!”
“You the nihilist suddenly want to help an old patient, just like that?”
“We could at least try,” said Jack.
“But how?” asked Joe. “What can we do better than the police?”
“Well, we could look into that sect, for a start,” said Jack.
“And how would we justify asking questions around there?” asked Joe.
“My girlfriend Linda always dreamed of being a private investigator, you know...” said Jack.
“Linda? THE Linda?”
“Yes, her! As you probably know, she has a boring office job with the police. Something involving traffic offences. But before working for the police, she was dreaming of becoming a private investigator. I guess she had seen too many films as a girl...”
“You mean a private detective?”
“Exactly, like Sherlock Holmes!”
“A girl dreaming of becoming like Sherlock Holmes?”
“Sure,” said Jack, “that's what she was dreaming of as a girl!”
“Don't girls rather dream of becoming ballet-dancers or something like that rather than private detectives?”
“Mostly, yes, but Linda was different, you see?”
“So you want to ask her to go and check out this sect, do you?” asked Joe. “Why don't you do that yourself?”
“I wouldn't know where to start,” said Jack truthfully. “But Linda would have some ideas. Before joining the police, she even did a course for would-be private investigators.”
“Really? She never told me any of this!”
“It took a while till she told me,” said Jack. “As you said, it's not a typical girl-thing, so maybe she was reluctant to talk about it.”
“But how would she go about it?” asked Joe. “She doesn't have any kind of license or whatever you need for that, just as little as you do!”
“Well,” said Jack, “she has some kind of police badge, you know. She could whip that into someone's face, and they might tell her something!”
“Couldn't she get in trouble for meddling with an investigation that isn't hers?” asked Joe.
“Look,” said Jack, “let me ask her. Maybe she would be interested in giving it a try!”
“And who'll pay her for her services?” asked Joe.
“Well, you will, of course! You're the rich psychiatrist now! If she actually wants to get paid at all, that is...”
“Why else would she do it?” asked Joe.
“Well, out of interest...,” said Jack, “to see if there was something to her childhood dream after all...”
“Okay,” said Joe, “then let's try it! And whatever info we get, we give it to Daniel's lawyer. He will decide whether it's worth something, right?”
“Exactly,” said Jack. “Since you're on friendly terms with him.”
“Well,” said Joe, “I don't know if we're really on FRIENDLY terms... He wants me to write a report about Daniel explaining that he was psychologically sick. It would be a mitigating circumstance, you see...”
“Don't do that,” warned Jack, “you're liable to get yourself in trouble for not having gotten him locked up before he could act out his sick fantasies!”
“Of course I won't do it,” said Joe. “I want to show that he's innocent, not that he's sick!”
“Yeah,” said Jack, “let's work on that!”
“But why are you suddenly so interested in doing something for this Daniel? You were always the cynical one, and I was the naive dreamer. What happened to you?”
“Well, we swapped lives, didn't we?” answered Jack. “You're the great psychiatrist now having to deal with the <<real world>> and its harsh realities. Me, I'm just an invalid living with his dog.”
Jack noticed the change in Joe's expression too late. The next thing he realized was that Blanca was standing right behind him.
“What's that about swapping lives?” she asked quizzically, as the full horror of the very real possibility that it was meant literally suddenly hit her mind.
There was a dreadful moment of silence, finally broken by Jack who came to his senses first: “Well, you know, when we were kids, I was the one who wanted to become a psychiatrist. It was MY dream originally. But then it was Jack who managed the medicine studies and realized that dream, not me...”
Blanca turned to Joe (who was Jack to her) and said: “You never told me that, Jack! You actually stole your brother's dream!”
Joe just shrugged, helplessly, still speechless because of their narrow escape. Once again it was Jack who had saved the day. He knew the best lies were the ones kept simple. And he was proved right again and again.

Linda first went to Katalin's dancing school and flashed her police badge to get some answers. She wanted to know with whom Katalin had been closer at this dancing school. She was told it was Annie, the woman who had come over from the States with the sect whose members called themselves “sannyasins”.
Then Linda started showing interest in the sect without using her police badge this time. The sannyasins were very open and always eager to welcome new potential members. Annie wasn't difficult to find – she was a sort of private secretary of the guru, or “Master” as he preferred to be called.
The Master himself was hardly ever seen, although he theoretically lived in the mansion he and his secretary had bought and which they called an “ashram”. All sannyasins were free to roam around in that mansion, as was Linda as soon as she had attended a few meditation classes and was thus already almost considered one of them. Obviously these sannyasins really didn't have anything to hide, and they were all very friendly and open...
Linda began to think that probably she really wasn't going to find out anything interesting among them about how Katalin had been killed. Probably it had really been her ex-husband who had done it, and it had nothing to do with this “ashram” and its sannyasins.
But Linda still found it strange that the Master, who lived here somewhere (or so she was told), was hardly ever seen and only ever appeared escorted by bodyguards. Where was he the rest of the time? Just locked up somewhere?
To make an appointment with him, she would need to talk to Annie, she was told, and so she sought out Annie for a chat. Besides, Annie was the one who had been closest to Katalin at the dancing-school, so she was the one to talk to anyway. Linda just wasn't sure how she would bring up Katalin. She decided to go on playing the interested would-be-sannyasin and to see where that would lead her. So when she met Annie, she just let Annie do most of the talking while listening with what she hoped looked like the rapt attention Annie was used to getting from potential future sannyasins.
“The Master is a successor of Jesus, you could even say a reincarnation of Jesus,” Annie explained, watching Linda intently, gouging her reaction. “But He is not a Christian, you know. Far from it. He speaks of Christ, but not of Christianity. Christ is pure rebellion. You cannot organize rebellion, else it becomes a new establishment and isn't rebellion anymore. Organizing it just kills it, and that's what Christianity has done. Christianity is nothing but a corpse. The Master has nothing to do with that corpse. The Master doesn't want to establish a dead religion. He wants religion to be alive!”
Linda had to admit there was some strange appeal in these ideas. At first she had been put off by the statement that this “Master” was supposedly a reincarnation of Jesus. But now she saw it wasn't meant quite as literally as she had feared...
“The Master wants to create a chaotic state within us. Once our inner order is destroyed, we are open and ready for change!”
“What kind of change?” asked Linda.
“The Laws of Moses are just like the rules of a game, you know,” said Annie. “Christianity transforms Christ into similar rules. This gives us morality, but it contains no life...”
“But no society functions without rules!” exclaimed Linda, unable to hold herself back.
“Jesus doesn't want us not to kill just because it's forbidden,” said Annie. “He wants us to feel something. He wants us to feel compassion, and that should be the reason for not killing...”
Linda once again had to admit there was something attractive in such ideas.
“Christianity is order,” continued Annie, “and order contains no life, it's frozen solid, unmovable, dead. It's the ego of each one of us that does all this ordering – its stale idea of fairness, its unwillingness to give anything for free. We should rebel against this ego!”
“Well,” said Linda, “what is this ego?”
“The ego is the organizing principle. It organizes everything, kills spontaneity, dominates rational thought, quashes all feelings, until you are finally convinced that your ego is YOU!”
Linda just looked at Annie, waiting for more.
“You know,” said Annie more gently now, “rational thought is just a tool. The ego claims it for itself, but it needn't be that way. If you kill your ego, you will still be able to think rationally. You will still be able to speak intelligently. But you will speak in the name of something higher and bigger than your pitiful little ego, and that's the goal. The ego must die!”
Linda didn't know what to make of this, so she just asked: “How do you go about killing the ego?”
“You need to trust someone. Really trust him and let yourself go. Devote yourself fully to the Master, and the ego will disappear. It will die. Then God will take His rightful place inside you, sit on the throne within your soul, and you will be blessed!”
“But what exactly is this ego?” asked Linda shyly, as if she were afraid of being reprehended for interrupting with such a stupid question.
“The ego,” said Annie, “is the element inside you that defines the barriers between yourself and the rest of the world. Once the ego falls, you open up at last and God fills you with bliss!”
“Aren't there barriers between me and the rest of the world anyway?” asked Linda, afraid to seem too argumentative.
Annie didn't at all seem to mind Linda's questions or arguments. These sannyasins were absolutely tolerant, Linda admitted to herself. So far she really hadn't met any narrow-mindedness among them yet.
“Not necessarily,” answered Annie. “There needn't be any barriers between you and the rest of the world. You are a part of this world, made of this world. You are stardust, arranged into an interesting shape by the energy of the sun!”
Linda had never looked at it like this before.
“You are the world,” continued Annie, “Not the whole world, but a part of it. The world is you, not only you, but you among others. Your sense of self has difficulties accepting this. It barricades itself behind tons of rational thoughts, creating a kind of inner fortress which we call the ego.”
“Don't we need a sense of self?” asked Linda innocently.
“There is nothing wrong with having a sense of self,” said Annie, “but the ego must die. It is a parasite. When your heart beats, you tend to forget that it's you beating. Your heart is part of you, but it is not part of your ego. You cannot control your heart through rational thought, which is the tool the ego appropriated. The ego has no power over your heart-rate. That's because the ego is not YOU. By devoting yourself to the Master, your ego will have to die. Then you become open, and you become all, and all becomes you.”
“Wouldn't that just be the end of me?” asked Linda breathlessly. “Wouldn't I just collapse?”
“No,” said Annie, “the Master holds you up. He doesn't let you collapse. It's a long process. It takes a long time and requires absolute trust. But in the end you'll be like Him – you will still think rationally when rational thought is necessary, but it won't be a wall shutting you out of the rest of the world anymore. You will be able to turn off your thoughts completely when they aren't needed. Your thinking will work that much better when it's really needed!”
“Is the Master really like that?” asked Linda doubtfully.
“He is,” said Annie.
“Could I have the privilege of meeting him?” asked Linda.
“Of course,” said Annie. “But He is a very busy man. Apart from public appearances, He only meets sannyasins personally once they've reached a certain level. You need to continue with the meditation, and when you're ready, I will arrange for you to meet the Master!”
For the time being, it was clear this conversation was over.

Linda didn't know if Jesus was the same kind of proponent of « killing the ego » as the “Master” was, but in any case she got to know a whole new side of him during her time among the sannyasins, although she remained just as far from solving Katalin's murder-case as she had been at the beginning...
Perhaps Jesus really was all for killing the ego, actually, just like the “Master”. After all, when a rich man asked him what he must do to enter eternal life, Jesus first just told him to keep the commandments, namely not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal, to honour his mother and father and to love his neighbour as much as himself, and so on. When this wasn't enough for the rich man, Jesus told him to sell all his possessions, distribute the money among the poor and follow him.
This meant letting go of the ego, didn't it?
Linda also discovered that Jesus really was an inveterate rebel, just like Annie had said. He kept saying completely off-the-wall things like: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again!”
As one can imagine, the ruling class of the Pharisees were probably angered by such statements. Jesus dared to claim he would rebuild the whole temple, which was their pride and joy, in three days? Surely they understood the true meaning of Jesus’ claim (much better than today's Christians anyway), namely that he considered the temple in itself to be meaningless - the rocks it was made of just as much as all the dogmas it stood for - because true meaning can be found everywhere and anywhere and can be built up in just three days...
The Pharisees were angered, but when they finally brought Jesus to justice, they made exactly the same mistake as they had already made with their temple of rocks – mistaking an inert object for true meaning, in this case mistaking the physical body of the author of an idea for the idea itself. Yes, they could kill Jesus, but they couldn't kill his ideas. Just as Jesus had said, these ideas were back in three days, stronger than ever. A true resurrection if ever there was one!
But no parable illustrates Jesus' inveterate rebelliousness better than the parable of the “Good Samaritan”. It's the story of a man left for dead at the side of a road by some robbers. When a priest comes by, he doesn't try to help the wounded man (because as a priest he must remain clean). But when a Samaritan comes by – who doesn't belong to the priesthood and isn't even a proper Jew at all and thus doesn't care about cleanliness - he does the most natural thing that comes to him, namely take care of the wounded man. Which one of these two men accomplished the will of God? The one letting the wounded man die, or the one saving him?
Once again, one can assume that the priests of the time understood the meaning of this parable very well, and in particular that it wasn't exactly a compliment for them...
But the greatest provocation offered by Jesus was when he claimed to be the “Son of God”. He even claimed that he was the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father but through him.
Of course, anybody could claim that. It’s just a claim and there is no proof. But that someone would dare to make that claim, THAT was the part too hard for the pharisees to swallow!
It was clear that the pharisees couldn't tolerate this. If they let this pass, soon anybody would dare to say the same thing about themselves too and nobody would listen to the priests anymore!
And, as Linda now began to understand, this might exactly have been the point Jesus was making – anybody can say that, and maybe everybody should, provided they don't do it egoistically! Thus nobody needs the pharisees and nobody needs any priests. Each one of us is the one-and-only daughter or son of God, and thus we don't need any intermediates.
Though we still need the “Master”, or so the Master said. Wasn't this a contradiction?
No, perhaps not. We don't specifically need THIS “Master”. ANY “Master” will do, as long as he isn't full of ego. Anyone can say: “I am the way and no one comes to the Father except through me.” Anyone can say that. The important thing is to believe it when someone without an ego says it to you at the right moment so that you can put to rest your own ego too and be saved by this master, whoever he or she might be. If you’re in the middle of a desert without water, then whoever has water and is willing to share it with you is « the way, the truth and the life », it’s as simple as that!
But isn't that just the same as following lousy priests all over again, then?
No, priests are based on a big organization owning big, heavy temples made of big, heavy rocks and representing big, heavy dogmas. All that is full of ego. As Jesus had said, let us destroy it all, and he would build it up again in just three days (or in any case whatever had been really meaningful in it).
Follow Jesus, or any one of his many incarnations like the “Master”, but let go of the priests who wouldn't even stop to help a wounded man at the roadside!

Jesus, Linda was told, isn't just Jesus, the man. He is Jesus Christ. Christ is a function. Instead of Dr. Jesus, or professor Jesus, where “Doctor” and “Professor” are functions, he is Jesus Christ, where “Christ” is a function too. A function shared by many people - it’s not just a single person.
When do you become Christ? It depends on the circumstances. If, on the way through the desert, you come across a man dying of thirst, and you lift up his head and give him water, then you are, at that very moment, “Christ” for that man, because you represent, at that very moment, this deeply human principle of helping one another. This principle which is the way, the truth and the life without which none of us can live...
Jesus was Christ for his disciples, and when he told them to stop fidgeting and doubting, because He was the way, the truth and the life, he was speaking as Christ. Christ is the way, the truth and the life. And we may all be Christ for some fellow human being at one time or other in our lives...
Now, of course, Linda was supposed to believe that the Master was Christ for her and would save her too. Why was this “Master” especially qualified to have this role in her life? Because he had no ego?
But did he really have no ego? What about all the riches he amassed? What about his private Jet or the thirty Rolls Royces he had left in Oregon?
“Ah,” said the sannyasins, “ he didn't really amass all that, it was just given to him!”
Then they brought up the story of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus. The pharisees who were with him were shocked that he would let such a sinner touch him, but Jesus said this immense show of affection was due to her many sins being forgiven. He told the woman that her faith had saved her and that she could go in peace.
Linda didn't understand at first what kind of point they were trying to make, but they explained it some more: Jesus accepted gifts. So did the Master. The Rolls Royces were gifts from grateful sannyasins. Who was he to refuse such gifts? He didn't demand such gifts. There was no ego in accepting them either. Indeed, if this had been the work of his ego, wouldn't he have invested that money more smartly than keeping thirty Rolls Royces? After all, what can you really do with thirty Rolls Royces? You can't drive them all at once, and they're too similar to each other to fulfill different wishes. This is proof that the thirty Rolls Royces in themselves were nothing to the Master. Their meaning was symbolical – they represented the devotion of the sannyasins.
“Well,” said Linda, “what about rather selling them and distributing that money to the poor?”
There would have been more ego in that, the sannyasins explained. Giving money to the poor, having the satisfaction of helping the poor and gaining respect for that, all that is fodder for the ego! No, the Master wasn't like that. You mustn't give away gifts like that. Once you've reached the Master's level, what you do with gifts is to accept them humbly, be they an expensive perfume that a sinner woman is wasting on your feet, or be they thirty Rolls Royces!
The outrageousness of owning thirty Rolls Royces was exactly what distinguished the Master from an ordinary person full of ego. While an ordinary person would have sold those cars to invest the money in a smarter way, the Master just accepted them humbly.
Linda was only partly convinced.

Aside from the question whether the Master possessed an ego or not, Linda still wasn't convinced that not having an ego was actually desirable in the first place.
If you don't have an ego, who or what inside you is making the decisions? Who's the boss?
Rational thought runs a simulation of the consequences of various actions, and our feelings then choose the most desirable outcome and select the course of action accordingly, explained the sannyasins.
“Well,” said Linda, “I don't think rational thought just leaves it to our feelings to choose the most desirable outcome. Momentary feelings are not a good guide for what is desirable on the long term, so rational thought needs to be involved in evaluating that too!”
“It's still the feelings that tell us what is desirable on the long term. Rational thought is just a tool for running simulations. The feelings watch these simulations and they are the ones that ultimately choose what they want!” said the sannyasins.
“I can't imagine it to be that simple,” said Linda for argument's sake. “As I said, momentary feelings are not a good guide to what is desirable on the long term. Undoubtedly rational thought learns this by experience and takes into account feelings that we don't feel at the moment, but that are bound to come up later.”
“How would rational thought manage that?” asked the sannyasins. “Rational thought is rational by definition. It doesn't include feelings.”
“Rational thought may not have feelings of its own, else it wouldn't be rational thought. But it can anticipate feelings using some rule-of-thumb learned through experience. Rational thought can definitely make use of rules!”
“So what would that rule-of-thumb be?” asked the sannyasins.
“Moral rules, for example,” said Linda. “Rational thought guides our actions using moral rules to stop us from doing things that might feel good on the short term but that would make us feel bad on the long term.”
“Okay,” said the sannyasins. “Some moral rules are okay as long as they don't stifle us completely. Jesus had them too. Everybody has them. Just because you have some moral rules doesn't mean you have an ego!”
“Yes it does,” said Linda, suddenly feeling stronger, “If you have some kind of inner ruler with which to measure the morality of various courses of actions, then you are bound to measure your own history with it. You are bound to assign a value, measured with this ruler, to your own life.”
She saw that she had lost them, but she continued nevertheless: “This value you assign yourself, it's like an image of yourself. It's like a persona only approximately corresponding to whom you really are...”
The sannyasins were lost.
Linda continued unperturbed: “This persona, I guess that's the ego.”
Since the sannyasins didn't understand, Linda explained her idea some more: “When we measure our own worth according to some inner ruler that is supposedly completely rational and objective, we are bound to try to cheat in any possible way to give ourselves a higher value than we deserve. We ascribe our faults to external factors, so that what is left would be perfect and pure. And this perfect and pure kernel, which is admittedly surely just a fiction, is the ego. We spend our lives polishing it.”
One of the sannyasins seemed to have understood what Linda meant: “So you think the ego is a side-effect of having an inner ruler to measure the moral value of our actions?”
“Something like that...” admitted Linda, feeling less sure of herself already.
“Then maybe this inner ruler should be gotten rid of, just like the ego,” said the sannyasin. “Dogmatic rules are just dead-weight. They are barricades that stop you from opening up and letting God's bliss flood you!”
“But they are necessary when you live in a complex society,” said Linda.
“Why not trust your feelings?” asked the sannyasin. “Your feelings tell you what is right! They told the Samaritan to take care of the wounded man at the roadside! The priest, on the other hand, just following dogmatic rules, left the wounded man lying there!”
“Feelings don't tell you which side of the road is the right one to drive on,” said Linda. “You need rules for that. Either side could be the right side – it depends on the culture you live in. The English and the Japanese drive on the left, Americans and continental Europeans drive on the right. Both ways work. But they only work if everybody in the same place does it the same way, else there would be crashes!”
“Yes, you need some rules,” said the sannyasin, “but the rule in your example is hardly a MORAL rule! It's just a traffic rule!”
“We need some moral rules too,” said Linda. “For the same reason as we need traffic rules – just so that everybody would know what they can count on.”
“You don't need rules of such complexity that they force you to construct yourself an ego!” said the sannyasin. “You can just open up and trust your feelings, and that will be your best guide.”
“Your feelings might tell you what is right for yourself,” said Linda, “but they don't necessarily tell you what is right for someone else.”
“They do, if you have enough love for others!” claimed the sannyasin.
“Where would such universal love come from?” asked Linda.
The sannyasin just shook his head. It was so hard to explain such things to someone who hadn't seen the light yet!
But he tried nevertheless: “The Master comes from a small oasis in the endless desert. It is a very beautiful place. Wherever he went, he saw blooming flowers, chanting people, nothing but happiness. This is how he grew up. It is his natural environment. Of course he learned to love it. Of course he wants to recreate it wherever he goes. That is why he waters his flowers and baptizes his disciples, the sannyasins...”
Linda could tell that there was only one way to get further than this, namely by seeing this Master in person!

What preoccupied Linda in the next few hours wasn’t so much what the sannyasins thought about the ego, but rather what she thought about it herself.

First of all, she tried to get a clear idea in her mind what the ego is. The ego, she had decided, was a kind of perfect version of the self. A version of the self that perfectly fits into society so that nobody would be able to criticize it. There are two ways in which the ego achieves this.

The first way is to somehow exclude all weaknesses of the self from the ego. Whatever is due to your genetic makeup, for example, is « not your fault », since it is due to genes you inherited from your parents without having had a choice in the matter. Whatever is due to your education is « not your fault » either, since you received your education from whomever gave it to you, parents and teachers, that you didn’t choose either…

Joe would of course claim that these two things, genetic makeup and education, are all you really are. All the parts that make up « YOU » are either inborn (which essentially means the genetic makeup) or acquired (which essentially means your education) or indeed a complex mixture of the two, and that’s all there is. Linda wasn’t sure about this, because maybe there was some kind of immortal soul as well which somehow transcended these more down-to-earth aspects of your personality.

What she did agree with, though, was that your genetic makeup and your education form an integral part of yourself, and just claiming that they are « not your fault », and thus excluding them from your ego whenever you like, is a trick of the ego to exclude from itself whatever it wants, namely weaknesses…

The other trick of the ego to make itself perfect, apart from excluding weaknesses from itself, is to be « ego »-centric by glorifying itself. Maybe the rule that everybody should get the same share of the cake applies to others, but not to superior members of society like yourself. Maybe (in case you’re a man) you’re very happy that rape is forbidden when it comes to your mother, wife, sisters and daughters, but when it comes to yourself, there is a special exception, because you are so special and superior that it’s actually an honour to be raped by you…

When it comes to greed, sexual or otherwise, you could see it as a weakness, which of course is « not your fault », since it is entirely due to some gene you inherited or to some aspect of your education that went wrong…, or you could also avoid seeing it as a weakness by considering yourself especially entitled to satisfy it.

Those are the two tricks of the ego to protect itself from weaknesses - either they are not even part of the ego, since they are due to exterior factors outside of your control (which gives you a nice excuse to indulge, since they are not at all « your fault »), or you have some special entitlement which means they aren’t even weaknesses at all!