Sibel spat her chewing gum into a tissue and got up quickly to throw it away. She glanced at me shyly and said, “I’m ready, doctor.”
Slowly I led them into a trance, evoking the image of a wet wooden staircase down which I was leading them. A familiar special energy began to flow among us, a unique warmth we all shared. My own voice, clear and articulated at first, began to register as a series of mesmerizing, calming sounds that guided the patients. I seemed to be watching through someone else’s eyes as their bodies settled more heavily into their chairs and their features flattened and relaxed, assuming the coarse, open expression shared by those under hypnosis.
I moved behind them, gently touching their shoulders, guiding them individually all the time, counting backward, step by step.
“Continue down the staircase,” I said quietly.
I hadn’t told the board that the hypnotist also becomes immersed in a kind of parallel trance as he puts his patients under. In my opinion this was both unavoidable and a good thing. My own trance always took place underwater. I didn’t understand why, but I liked the image of water; it was clear and pleasant, and I had developed a way of using it as a visual and tactile metaphor to help me understand and interpret the course of events during sessions.
My patients were each seeing something completely different, of course; all drifting down into memories, into the past, ending up in the rooms of their childhood, the places where they had spent their youth; returning to their parents’ summer cottages, or the garage of the little girl who lived next door. They didn’t know that for me they were deep underwater at the same time, slowly floating down past an enormous coral formation, a deep-sea plinth, the rough wall of a continental rift, all of us sinking together through gently bubbling water.
This time I wanted to try to take them all with me into a deeper hypnosis. My voice kept on counting, speaking of pleasant relaxation as the water roared in my ears. I watched them.
Jussi hissed something to himself.
Marek’s mouth was open, and a trickle of saliva ran out.
Pierre looked thinner and weaker than ever.
Lydia’s hands hung loosely over the arms of her chair.
“I want you to go even deeper, even farther,” I said. “Continue moving downward, but more slowly now, more slowly. Soon you will stop, very gently coming to rest… a little deeper, just a little more, and now we are stopping.”
The whole group stood facing me in a semicircle on a sandy seabed, level and wide like a gigantic floor. The water was pale and slightly green. The sand beneath our feet moved in small, regular waves. Shimmering pink jellyfish floated above us. From time to time, a flatfish whirled up a little cloud of sand, then darted away.
“We are all deep down now,” I said.
They opened their eyes and looked straight at me.
“Charlotte, it’s your turn to begin,” I went on. “What can you see? Where are you?”
Her mouth moved silently.
“There’s nothing here that is dangerous,” I reminded her. “We’re right behind you all the time.”
“I know,” she said in a monotone.
Her eyes peered at me like those of a sleepwalker, empty and distant.
“You’re standing outside the door,” I said. “Would you like to go in?”
She nodded, and her hair moved with the currents of water.
“Let’s go through the door now,” I said.
“Yes.”
“What do you see?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you gone inside?” I asked, feeling distantly that I was rushing things.
“Yes.”
“Can you see anything?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Is it something strange?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Tell me what you see,” I said quickly.
She shook her head. Small air bubbles were released from her hair and rose towards the surface, glittering. The nagging sense that I was doing the wrong thing seemed closer now, more insistent, warning me that I wasn’t listening, that I wasn’t helping lead her forward but, instead, was pushing her. Still, I couldn’t help saying, “You’re in your grandfather’s house.”
“Yes,” she replied, her voice subdued.
“You’re inside the door, and you’re moving forward.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Just take one step.”
“Maybe not right now,” she whispered.
“Raise your head and look.”
“I don’t want to.” Her lower lip was trembling.
“Can you see anything strange?” I persisted. “Anything that shouldn’t be there?”
A deep furrow appeared in her forehead, and I suddenly realized that she would very soon let go and simply be ripped out of her hypnotic state. This could be dangerous; she could end up in a deep depression if it happened too quickly. Large bubbles were floating out of her mouth like a shining chain. Her face shimmered, and blue-green lines played across her brow.
“You don’t have to look, Charlotte,” I said reassuringly. “You can open the French doors and go out to the garden if you like.”
But her body was shaking, and I realized it was too late.
“We are completely calm now,” I whispered, reaching out to pat her gently.
Her lips were white, her eyes wide open.
“Charlotte, we are going to return to the surface together, very slowly,” I said.
Her feet kicked up a dense cloud of sand as she floated upward.
“Wait,” I said faintly.
Marek was looking at me, trying to shout something.
“We are already on our way up, and I am going to count to ten,” I continued, as we moved quickly toward s the surface. “And when I have counted to ten you will open your eyes and you will feel fine.”
Charlotte was gasping for breath as she got unsteadily to her feet. She adjusted her clothing and looked at me entreatingly.
“Let’s take a short break,” I said.
Sibel got up slowly and went out for a smoke. Pierre followed her. Jussi remained where he was, heavy and inert. None of them was completely awake. The ascent had been too steep, too quick. I remained seated; I rubbed my face and was taking some notes when Marek sauntered over.
“Well done,” he said, with a wry grimace.
“It didn’t quite go as planned,” I replied, without looking up.
“I thought it was funny,” he said.
“What?” I asked. “What was funny?” I met his eyes, which burned with an obscure hostility.
Lydia was on her way over, jewellery rattling. Her henna-dyed hair glowed like threads of copper as she walked through a sunbeam.
“The way you put that upper-class whore in her place,” Marek said.
“What did you say?” asked Lydia.
“I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about- ”
“You’re not to call Charlotte a whore, because it isn’t true,” Lydia said softly. “Right, Marek?”
“Fine, whatever.”
I moved away, looking at my notes, but kept on listening to their conversation.
“Do you have issues with women?” she continued.
“Things happened in the haunted house,” he said quietly. “If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t understand.”
