فصل هفدهم

17

DR. J. RUFIN PRACTICED in a townhouse with a tiny garden. The discreet sign beside the gate bore his name and his titles: DOCTEUR EN MÉDECINE, PH.D., PSYCHIATRE.

Count Lecter and Lady Murasaki sat in straight chairs in the waiting room amid Dr. Rufin’s patients, some of whom had difficulty sitting still.

The doctor’s inner office was heavy Victorian, with two armchairs on opposite sides of the fireplace, a chaise longue with a fringed throw and, nearer the windows, an examining table and stainless-steel sterilizer.

Dr. Rufin, bearded and middle aged, and Hannibal sat in the armchairs, the doctor speaking to him in a low and pleasant voice.

“Hannibal, as you watch the metronome swinging, swinging, and listen to the sound of my voice, you will enter a state we call wakeful sleep. I won’t ask you to speak, but I want you to try to make a vocal sound to indicate yes or no. You have a sense of peace, of drifting.” Between them on a table, the pendulum of a ticking metronome wagged back and forth. A clock painted with zodiac signs and cherubs ticked on the mantle. As Dr. Rufin talked, Hannibal counted the beats of the metronome against those of the clock. They went in and out of phase. Hannibal wondered if, counting the intervals in and out of phase, and measuring the wagging pendulum of the metronome, he could calculate the length of the unseen pendulum inside the clock. He decided yes, Dr. Rufin talking all the while.

“A sound with your mouth, Hannibal, any sound will do.”

Hannibal, his eyes fixed dutifully on the metronome, made a low-pitched farting sound by flubbering air between his tongue and lower lip.

“That’s very good,” Dr. Rufin said. “You remain calm in the state of wakeful sleep. And what sound might we use for no? No, Hannibal. No.” Hannibal made a high farting sound by taking his lower lip between his teeth and expelling air from his cheek past his upper gum.

“This is communicating, Hannibal, and you can do it. Do you think we can work forward now, you and I together?” Hannibal’s affirmative was loud enough to be audible in the waiting room, where patients exchanged anxious looks. Count Lecter went so far as to cross his legs and clear his throat and Lady Murasaki’s lovely eyes rolled slowly toward the ceiling.

A squirrelly-looking man said, “That wasn’t me.”

“Hannibal, I know that your sleep is often disturbed,” Dr. Rufin said. “Remaining calm now in the state of wakeful sleep, can you tell me some of the things you see in dreams?” Hannibal, counting ticks, gave Dr. Rufin a reflective flubber.

The clock used the Roman IV on its face, rather than IIII, for symmetry with the VIII on the other side. Hannibal wondered if that meant it had Roman striking—two chimes, one meaning “five” and another meaning “one.” The doctor handed him a pad. “Could you write down perhaps some of the things you see? You call out your sister’s name, do you see your sister?” Hannibal nodded.

In Lecter Castle some of the clocks had Roman striking and some did not, but all those that did have Roman striking had the IV rather than IIII. When Mr. Jakov opened a clock and explained the escapement, he told about Knibb and his early clocks with Roman striking—it would be good to visit in his mind the Hall of Clocks to examine the escapement. He considered going there right now, but it would be a long shout for Dr. Rufin.

“Hannibal. Hannibal. When you think about the last time you saw your sister, would you write down what you see? Would you write down what you imagine you see?” Hannibal wrote without looking at the pad, counting both the beats of the metronome and those of the clock at the same time.

Looking at the pad Dr. Rufin appeared encouraged. “You see her baby teeth? Only her baby teeth? Where do you see them, Hannibal?” Hannibal reached out and stopped the pendulum, regarded its length, and the position of the weight against a scale on the metronome. He wrote on the pad: In a stool pit, Doctor. May I open the back of the clock?

Hannibal waited outside with the other patients.

“It was you, it wasn’t me,” the squirrelly patient offered. “You might as well admit it. Do you have any gum?” “I tried to ask him further about his sister, but he closed down,” Dr. Rufin said. The count stood behind Lady Murasaki’s chair in the examining room. “To be frank, he is perfectly opaque to me. I have examined him and physically he is sound. I find scars on his scalp but no evidence of a depressed fracture. But I would guess the hemispheres of his brain may be acting independently, as they do in some cases of head trauma, when communication between the hemispheres is compromised. He follows several trains of thought at once, without distraction from any, and one of the trains is always for his own amusement.

“The scar on his neck is the mark of a chain frozen to the skin. I have seen others like it, just after the war when the camps were opened. He will not say what happened to his sister. I think he knows, whether he realizes it or not, and here is the danger: The mind remembers what it can afford to remember and at its own speed. He will remember when he can stand it.

“I would not push him, and it’s futile to try to hypnotize him. If he remembers too soon, he could freeze inside forever to get away from the pain. You will keep him in your home?” “Yes,” they both said quickly.

Rufin nodded. “Involve him in your family as much as you can. As he emerges, he will become more attached to you than you can imagine.”