Strangers

Page 31

Now, walking through the twilight, Faye tried to keep Ernie's mind off the descending darkness by telling him about the late author, John Cheever, winner of the National Book Award, who'd been gephyrophobic. Cheever had suffered from a crippling fear of crossing high bridges.
Ernie listened with fascination, but he was no less aware of the onset of nightfall. As the shadows lengthened across the snow, his hand steadily tightened on her arm until it would have been painful if she had not been wearing a thick sweater and heavy coat.
By the time they had gone seven blocks, they were too far from the house to have any hope of returning to it before full darkness settled on the land. Twothirds of the sky was black already, and the other third was deep purple. The shadows had spread like spilt ink.
The streetlamps had come on. Faye halted Ernie in a cone of light, giving him a brief reprieve. His eyes had a wild look, and his steaming exhalations rushed from him at a rate that indicated incipient panic.
“Remember to control your breathing,” Faye said.
He nodded and began at once to take deeper, slower breaths.
When all the light in the sky had been extinguished, she said, "Ready to go back?"
“Ready,” he said hollowly.
They stepped out of the glow of the streetlamp, into darkness, heading back toward the house, and Ernie hissed between clenched teeth.
What they were engaged upon, for the third time, was a dramatic therapeutic technique called “flooding,” in which the phobic was encouraged to confront the thing he feared and to endure it long enough to break its hold on him. Flooding is based on the fact that panic attacks are selflimiting. The human body cannot sustain a very high level of panic indefinitely, cannot produce endless adrenaline, so the mind must adapt to, and make peaceor at least a trucewith what it fears. Unmodified flooding can be a cruel, barbaric method of cracking a phobia, for it puts the patient at risk of a breakdown. Dr. Fontelaine preferred a modified version of the technique involving three stages of confrontation with the source of fear.
The first stage, in Ernie's case, was to put himself in darkness for fifteen minutes, but with Faye at his side for support and with lighted areas easily accessible. Now, each time they arrived at the lighted sidewalk beneath a streetlamp, they paused to let him gather his courage, then went on into the next patch of darkness.
The second stage, which they would try in another week or two, after more sessions with the doctor, would involve driving to a place where there were no streetlamps, no easily reached lighted areas. There, they would walk together arm in arm across an unrelieved vista of darkness until Ernie could tolerate no more, at which time Faye would switch on a flashlight and give him a moment's respite.
In the third stage of treatment, Ernie would go for a stroll alone in a completely dark area. After a few outings like that, he would almost certainly be cured.
But he was not cured yet, and by the time they covered six blocks of the sevenblock return journey to the house, Ernie was breathing like a wellrun racehorse, and he bolted for the safety of the light inside. Not bad, thoughsix blocks. Better than before. At this rate, he would be cured in no time.
As Faye followed him into the house, where Lucy was already helping him out of his coat, she tried to feel good about his progress to date. If this pace held, he would complete the third and final stage weeksmaybe even a couple of monthsahead of schedule. That was what worried Faye. His rapid improvement was amazing; it seemed too rapid and too amazing to be real. She wanted to believe the nightmare would be put behind them quickly, but the pace of his recuperation made her wonder if it was lasting. Striving always to think positive, Faye Block was nevertheless plagued by the instinctive and unnerving feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Inevitably, given his exotic background as a godson of Picasso and a oncefamous European stage performer, Pablo Jackson was a star in Boston social circles. Furthermore, during World War II, he had been a liaison between British Intelligence and the French Resistance forces, and his recent work as a hypnotist with police agencies had only added to his mystique. He never lacked invitations.
On the evening of Christmas Day, Pablo attended a blacktie dinner party for twentytwo at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ira Hergensheimer in Brookline. The house was a splendid brick Georgian Colonial, as elegant and warmly welcoming as the Hergensheimers themselves, who had made their money in real estate during the 1950s. A bartender was on duty in the library, and whitejacketed waiters circulated through the enormous drawing room with champagne and canapes, and in the foyer a string quartet played just loudly enough to provide pleasant background music.
Among that engaging company, the man of most interest to Pablo was Alexander Christophson, former Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, oneterm United States Senator from Massachusetts, later Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, now retired almost a decade, whom Pablo had known half a century. Now seventysix, Christophson was the second eldest guest, but old age had been nearly as kind to him as to Pablo. He was tall, distinguished, with remarkably few lines in his classic Bostonian face. His mind was as sharp as ever. The true length of his journey on the earth was betrayed only by a mild trace of Parkinson's disease which, in spite of medication, left him with a tremor in his right hand.
Half an hour before dinner, Pablo eased Alex away from the other guests and led him to Ira Hergensheimer's oakpaneled study, adjacent to the library, for a private conversation. The old magician closed the door behind them, and they carried their glasses of champagne to a pair of leather wingback chairs by the window. “Alex, I need your advice.”
“Well, as you know,” Alex said, "men our age find it especially satisfying to give advice. It compensates for no longer being able to set a bad example ourselves. But I can't imagine what advice I could give on any problem that you wouldn't already have thought of yourself."
“Yesterday,” Pablo said, "a young woman came to see me. She's an exceedingly lovely, charming, and intelligent woman who's accustomed to solving her own problems, but now she's bumped up against something very strange. She desperately needs help."
Alex raised his eyebrows. "Beautiful young women still come to you for help at eightyone? I am impressed, humbled, and envious, Pablo."
"This is not a coup defoudre, you filthyminded old lizard. Passion isn't involved." Without mentioning Ginger Weiss's name or occupation, Pablo discussed her problemthe bizarre and inexplicable fuguesand recounted the session of hypnotic regression that had ended with her frightening withdrawal. "She actually seemed about to retreat into a deep selfinduced coma, perhaps even into death, to avoid my questions. Naturally, I refused to put her in a trance again and risk another withdrawal of that severity. But I promised to do some research to see if any similar case was on record. I found myself poring through books most of last evening and this morning, searching for references to memory blocks with selfdestruction built into them. At last I found it ... in one of your books. Of course, you were writing about an imposed psychological condition as a result of brainwashing, and this woman's block is of her own creation; but the similarity is there."
Drawing on his experiences in the intelligence services during World War II and the subsequent cold war, Alex Christophson had written several books, including two that dealt with brainwashing. In one, Alex had described a technique he called the Azrael Block (naming it for one of the angels of death) that seemed uncannily like the barrier that surrounded Ginger Weiss's memory of some traumatic event in her past.
As distant string music came to them muffled by the closed study door, Alex put down his champagne glass because his hands trembled too violently. He said, "I don't suppose you'd drop this matter and forget all about it? Because I'm telling you that's the wisest course."
“Well,” Pablo said, a bit surprised by the ominous tone of his friend's voice, “I've promised her I'll try to help.”
"I've been retired eight years, and my instincts aren't what they once were. But I have a very bad feeling about this. Drop it, Pablo. Don't see her again. Don't try to help her any more."
“But, Alex, I've promised her.”
“I was afraid that'd be your position.” Alex folded his tremulous hands. "Okay. The Azrael Block ... It's not something that Western intelligence services use often, but
the Soviets find it invaluable. For example, let's imagine a topnotch Russian agent named Ivan, an operative with thirty years' service in the KGB. In Ivan's memory there'll be an incredible amount of highly sensitive information that, were it to fall into Western hands, would devastate Russian espionage networks. Ivan's superiors constantly worry that, on some foreign assignment, he'll be identified and interrogated."
"As I understand it, with current drugs and hypnotic techniques, no one can withhold information from a determined interrogator."
"Exactly. No matter how tough he is, Ivan will spill all he knows without being tortured. For that reason, his superiors would prefer to send younger agents who, if caught, would have less valuable information to reveal. But many situations require a seasoned man like Ivan, so the possibility of all his knowledge falling into enemy hands is a nightmare with which his superiors must live, whether they like it or not."
“The risk of doing business.”
"Exactly. However, let's imagine that, among all the sensitive knowledge in his head, Ivan knows two or three things that're especially sensitive, so explosive that their revelation could destroy his country. These particular memories, less than one percent of his knowledge about KGB operations, could be suppressed without affecting his performance in the field. We're talking here about the suppression of a very tiny portion of his memories. Then, if he fell into enemy hands, he'd still give up a great deal of valuable stuff during interrogationbut at least he would not be able to reveal those few most crucial memories."
“And this is where the Azrael Block comes in,” Pablo said. "Ivan's own people use drugs and hypnosis to seal off certain parts of his past before sending him overseas on his next assignment."
Alex nodded. "For example . . . say that years ago Ivan was one of the agents involved in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. With a memory block in place, his awareness of that involvement could be locked in his subconscious, beyond the reach of potential interrogators, without affecting his work on new assignments. But not just any block will do. If Ivan's interrogators discover a standard memory block, they'll work diligently to unlock it, because they'll know that what lies behind it is of enormous importance. So the barrier must be one that cannot be tampered with. The Azrael Block is perfect. When the subject is questioned about the forbidden topic, he's programmed to retreat into a deep coma where he cannot hear the inquisitioner's voiceand even into death. In fact, it should more accurately be called the Azrael Trigger. because if the interrogator probes into the blocked memories, he pulls that trigger, shooting Ivan into a coma, and if he continues to pull the trigger he may eventually kill the subject."
Fascinated, Pablo said, "But isn't the survival instinct strong enough to overcome the block? When it comes to the point that Ivan must either remember and reveal what he has forgotten or die . . . well, surely the repressed memory would surface."
“No.” Even in the warm amber light of the floorlamp beside his chair, Alex's face appeared to have gone gray. "Not with the drugs and hypnotic techniques we have these days. Mind control is a frighteningly advanced science. The survival instinct is the strongest we've got, but even that can be overridden. Ivan can be programmed to selfdestruct."
Pablo found his champagne glass empty. "My young ladyfriend seems to have invented a sort of Azrael Block of her own to hide from herself some extraordinarily distressing event
in her past."
“No,” Alex said, “she didn't form the block herself.”
"She must have. She's in a bad state, Alex. She just ... slips away when I try to question her. So, as you know this field, I thought you might have a few ideas about how I can deal with it."
“You still don't understand why I warned you to drop this whole thing,” Alex said. He pushed up from his chair, moved to the nearby window, shoved his trembling hands in his pockets, and stared out at the snowcovered lawn. "A selfimposed, naturally generated Azrael Block? Such a thing isn't possible. The human mind will not, of its own volition, put itself at risk of death merely to conceal something from itself. An Azrael Block is always an externally applied control. If you've encountered such a barrier, then someone planted it in her mind."
“You're saying she's been brainwashed? Ridiculous. She's no spy.”
“I'm sure she's not.”
"She's no Russian. So why would she've been brainwashed? Ordinary citizens don't become targets for that sort of thing."
Alex turned from the window and faced Pablo. "This is just an educated guess . . . but perhaps she accidentally saw something she was not supposed to see. Something extremely important, secret. Subsequently, she was subjected to a sophisticated process of memory repression, to make sure she never told anyone about it."
Pablo stared at him, astonished. "But what could she possibly have seen to've made such extreme measures necessary?"
Alex shrugged.
“And who could've tampered with her mind?”
Alex said, "The Russians, the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, Britain's MI6-any organization with the knowledge of how such things are done." ..
“I don't think she's traveled outside the U S., which leaves the CIA.”
"Not necessarily. All the others operate in this country for their own purposes. Besides, intelligence organizations are not the only groups whore familiar with mindcontrol techniques. So are some crackpot religious cults, fanatical political fringe groups . . . others. Knowledge spreads fast, and evil knowledge spreads faster. If people like that want her to forget something, you sure don't want to help her remember. It wouldn't be healthy for either you or her, Pablo."
“I can't believe-”
“Believe,” Alex said somberly.
"But these fugues, these sudden fears of black gloves and helmets . . . these would seem to indicate that her memory block is cracking. Yet the people you've mentioned wouldn't have done a halfbaked job, would they? If they'd implanted a block, it would be perfect."
Alex returned to his chair, sat, leaned forward, fixing Pablo with an intense gaze, obviously striving to impress him with the gravity of the situation. "That's what worries me most, old friend. Ordinarily, such a firmly implanted mental barrier would never weaken on its own. The people capable of doing this to your ladyfriend are absolutely expert at it. They wouldn't screw up. So her recent problems, her deteriorating psychological condition, can mean only one thing."