And Who Will You Be?

Glowing images of dancing girls revolved slowly above the tables. They were no bigger than a palm. One threw back her head in laughter; her full skirt fell apart into petals, revealing bare thighs. The man sitting beneath her raised his glass, as though offering her a drink. His neighbour did not even break off his conversation.

The air smelt of tobacco, sweet perfume and hot wax. The music sounded very close now; Bonnie could feel its rhythm in the soles of her feet. She turned her eyes to the stage. The feathers parted, a long leg in a black stocking appeared, a buckle gleamed—and everything was hidden again before Bonnie had time to take it in.

She wanted to say something to Madeleine, but Madeleine was already looking elsewhere. Bonnie followed her gaze and saw another platform between the columns. She wanted to take Madeleine’s hand. Instead, she put her hands in her pockets and moved closer to her.

Chapter 5. Preliminary Trials

Felix had drunk half a cup before he realised they had brought him wine.

It was milky white and cool, and smelled of rice and something floral. The small jug was round, with a short spout and no handle. Felix wrapped his hand round it and poured himself some more: they had filled his cup less than halfway, as though afraid their guest might drown.

At the next table, a young man in a short jacket was feeding a girl with a spoon. The girl laughed, covered her mouth with her hand, and ate it all the same. Their table held the same little jugs, only with a green glaze. A noisy party sat along the wall; they were arguing about what exactly they had been served in the guise of quails’ eggs, and would not let the waitress answer.

Felix looked at the menu again. The wines covered both sides of a narrow sheet. The food fitted at the bottom, under the heading “With Wine”.

This was where Severin had suggested meeting.

A folder of drawings lay on the next chair. Felix rested a hand on it, then took it away. He had brought good drawings and prepared his case thoroughly; that made it all the more irritating to sit among people who did not have to justify their presence in order to enjoy an evening.

The window looked out on the lane behind Market Square. An office, closed for the day. A narrow passage. A tall, dark door with a brass knocker.

He did not recognise it at once: yesterday he had approached from the other direction.

Madeleine must have received his letter by now. If she had, she was hardly going to wait until tomorrow. She would come today, discover that women were not admitted, and start demanding to know whose idea that was. They would explain. She would demand to speak to the person who had thought of it first.

Felix took a sip of wine.

He had offered to go with her. Had written quite clearly when he was free. She might at least have answered.

“Doctor, forgive me! I can see you, but I can’t seem to reach you.”

Severin stood by the entrance, holding the chair of an unfamiliar young woman who had got up to let him past. There was little room between the tables; on the way over, he managed to exchange a few words with the waitress, make way for a tray, and pick up a dropped glove. He was smiling by the time he reached Felix, but sat down carefully, bracing one hand on the edge of the table.

“What do you think of it here? I’ve been meaning to look in. My wife says everywhere now serves you something you haven’t ordered, and that’s precisely what they charge you for. I thought I’d see.”

“So far they’ve brought me wine in a cream jug.”

“Then they haven’t cheated you of the main thing.”

They shook hands. Severin started to reach for the jug, noticed there was only one cup, and called the waitress over.

“Another of these for us, please. And something to eat. What do you have that’s substantial?”

“I can offer you stones with a cheese cream, and tomatoes.”

Severin waited for her to continue.

“And anything hot?”

“Warm stones.”

Felix lowered the menu.

“Bring them,” Severin decided. “Just tell us which bits to bite and which to leave for you.”

When she had gone, he took off his gloves and folded them beside him. One was inside the other. Severin shook it out, folded them again, and finally looked at the folder.

“Well, show me. Your letter intrigued me. This is the first time a psychiatrist has sent me a proposal for a country holiday resort. They usually want money for a roof.”

“I want to create a place people will come to for adventures. And pay enough for them that I won’t have to ask for more money every year.”

“Better already.”

Felix moved his cup aside, untied the ribbons, and took out the top sheet.

Severin bent over the drawing. Huts with high roofs stood on a lakeshore; wooden walkways ran between the trees, and an enormous bonfire blazed in the middle of a clearing. The people round it were scantily clad. In one corner, Felix had drawn an example of ceremonial headgear: feathers, horns, long pendants.

Severin lingered over it.

“Is that for wearing?”

“For one of the ceremonies. Though the details can still be changed.”

“I’ve no objection. I’m just working out how high the doors need to be.”

Felix pushed a second sheet towards him.

“Imagine several days when no one expects you to be yourself. No official positions. No visits, obligatory conversations, people who absolutely must have your decision. You choose a role. A hunter, a wanderer, a builder. You needn’t choose anything at all; you can watch first. We’ll have enough good performers to keep the adventure going without your participation.”

“Performers?”

“Real people. Actors. Someone has to guide the game, notice when a guest is at a loss, change the course of events. Beautiful images alone can’t do that. The Interpreters will help us create a place unlike anywhere else.”

“And people will go and live in huts for that?”

“That’s why they go hunting already. Only afterwards they sit round the table in order of seniority again and tell one another the same stories. I’m proposing to spare them that necessity for at least a few days.”

The tomatoes arrived. Small and glossy, with little green stalks, they lay on a black tile sprinkled with coarse salt. Severin put one in his mouth and stopped chewing.

“Strawberries,” the waitress explained. “And the white is sugar with basil.”

“Good thing I didn’t have time to ask for pepper.”

He finished it, took a second, and pushed the dish towards Felix.

“Try them. Very good indeed. But this is why I’m asking about the huts. A man has a bath at home, a cook, a soft bed. He’ll be delighted to be a hunter right up to the moment he wants a wash. What will you do with him then?”

“Let him wash.”

“Where?”

Felix unfolded the third sheet. Severin looked at it, then at him, and laughed for the first time.

“You’ve got a whole bathhouse there! And I was wondering why savages needed such a long building.”

“They aren’t savages. They’re guests playing a game. I have no intention of testing their character by depriving them of hot water.”

“Quite right. A warm privy will keep you more customers than all the horns put together.”

He moved the jug away from the drawings so as not to knock it, and turned the plan to a better angle.

Felix loosened his tie a little.

“What matters to me is something else. Sometimes people spend years forbidding themselves things that would harm no one. Laughing loudly. Being the first to speak to a stranger. Asking someone to look after them. To them, that seems almost more indecent than anger. Anger is still allowed: a respectable person is displeased. But jumping over a stream because you feel like it—that’s shameful.”

“I jumped over streams without your village. These days I just think of my knees.”

“Which is why I’m discussing a business with you, rather than diagnosing you.”

Severin nodded, as though that was precisely what he had been waiting for.

“Go on.”

“In role work, one can sometimes get round that prohibition. Not persuade a person that he has the right—he can repeat that perfectly well already. Give him a chance to try. Someone can’t make a simple request in his own name, but speaks freely for an invented person. Sometimes afterwards he can do it as himself too. Sometimes he can’t. He played his part wonderfully, enjoyed himself, and then went home and said nothing again.”

“Then what’s the point of it all?”

“Because the second doesn’t cancel out the first. But I wouldn’t call him cured.”

Severin chewed the last tomato. Felix could see the answer had not disappointed him; he went back to the plan and ran a finger along a drawn path.

“Suppose so. Only your man who can’t ask for things will still be carrying everyone’s firewood in the forest. And the others will be delighted. It won’t even occur to them that you’re treating anything.”

“That’s why we need people there who can see beyond an armful of firewood.”

“That’s more than actors, then.”

“Yes. And I’m not going to declare every visitor a patient. The adventure is worth paying for in itself. The chance to work with particular people outside the consulting room interests me separately.”

“Then cost it separately,” said Severin. “Otherwise you’ll end up with a clinic advertised as a holiday, and a holiday the doctor won’t let anyone bill for.”

Felix wanted to object, but Severin was already searching his pocket for a pencil.

* * *

The stones turned out to be thin, crisp shells. Severin bit into the first too firmly. Warm cheese spilled onto his cuff, but he was already bending over the drawing of the clearing.

“The forest I understand,” he said. “I think better in the fresh air myself. But these dances of yours round the bonfire… You were serious when you drew them?”

“Quite serious. Though the bonfire will be smaller. In the drawing it came out more dramatic than it should have.”

“People pay to come, undress, and stamp their feet?”

“You’ve just paid to be fed a stone.”

Severin took another stone from the dish.

“By the way, bring us some more,” he asked the passing waitress. “The same again. And wine.”

“There’s something interesting in accounts of group experiments,” Felix continued when she had gone. “People do something very simple together. Move to the same rhythm, sing. Afterwards they find it easier to cooperate, even in something completely different. They don’t have to grow fond of one another first.”

“Marching, for instance.”

“For instance. Which is why I wouldn’t claim that a shared rhythm is exclusively beneficial. It can be easier to obey together too.”

“So singing is fine, but we should be more careful about appointing a chief.”

“Especially for life.”

Severin smiled with one corner of his mouth and finally found the pencil—in the very pocket he had checked first.

“And the forest?”

“There are medical observations on walking and working in natural surroundings. People do feel better sometimes. But try to work out exactly why: the walks, a week of proper sleep, the company, or getting away from their own family. I don’t want to sell the forest as a cure for everything.”

“People will be keener to buy a forest as medicine.”

“I know.”

Felix said it so drily that Severin looked up.

“All right, Doctor. I’m not suggesting you lie. I need to understand what you want to build. So far you have everything at once: a theatre, a hotel, baths, therapeutic work. And then this fellow with the fish. What’s he doing?”

“In the drawing? Taking it away.”

“From whom?”

“Another participant. A contest.”

“And will they both get supper?”

“Of course.”

“Write that down, then. I was beginning to feel sorry for the other one.”

Felix turned over a sheet with his expenses written on the back. Severin stopped smiling.

He read for a long time. Twice he returned to one line, then put a question mark beside it.

“Have you counted only wages here?”

“Yes.”

“What about staff accommodation? Transport? The laundry? You won’t send forty people home from the forest every evening.”

“I don’t yet know how many we’ll need.”

“That’s what you need to work out first. Not the price of horns.”

The pencil moved swiftly over the paper, leaving thick marks. Felix wanted to take the sheet back: his neat columns were disappearing under arrows. He restrained himself.

“We don’t have to build everything at once,” said Severin. “We’ll take a plot with a house on it already. Use the first guests to see where you’ve miscalculated. We might discover, for example, that after supper your hunters don’t want a ritual, but more supper.”

“Have you found a plot already?”

“No. But I know how to look. Do you know people who can do everything you’ve drawn?”

Felix shook his head.

“Some. I’ll have to talk to the others.”

“Talk to them first, then. And get rid of this path. You can’t bring supplies along it; it cuts straight through your guests.”

“It’s the initiation path.”

“All the more reason. A man goes to be initiated and meets a cartload of laundry coming the other way.”

Felix pictured his drawing: torches, long shadows, a figure in a horned headdress appearing out of the darkness. A cart between them really would be out of place.

“The service road could go here.”

He drew the sheet towards him. Severin held the corner.

“There’s a slope there. Since the lake’s lower down, there’s no need to take everything over the hill. Move over, I’ll show you.”

Severin moved to the next chair. The folder that had lain between them was now open before them both. The waitress brought a second jug and asked where to put it. They answered at the same time, each pointing at the other’s cup.