Chapter I, The Shrink

What miserable weather. Neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. Sky greyish-white, like a hospital blanket in the emergency room. Emergency room. A young male intern removing the tracheal tube from my windpipe, coldly, matter-of-factly, speaking loudly over his shoulder to his female colleague. Complaining about their mutual unreliable friend. Not acknowledging my presence in any way, just swiftly dragging the tube out, his movements visibly inexperienced. When asked to sit up and move into the wheelchair, I discover a huge red stain under me, my period in full flow, triggered by the internal muscles having been unusually relaxed all night.

This isn't like remembering an embarrassing episode during alcohol intoxication, or a mean boyfriend, or millions of painfully awkward moments we all have securely stored inside our head, ready to pop up anytime. This sort of memory is like seeing a wounded soldier lying on the floor nearby, with his front having been partially cut open by a shell splinter, a dark slaty lung expanding and contracting, exposed, in a somewhat different manner from how you expected a lung looks like in the working. This is the kind of thing that you will never stop wishing you could unsee. The kind of thing that makes your whole brain structure tremble for a second, threatening to collapse.

Lecter, Hannibal. I guess I should be honored. I guess I should be fucking honored that some highly respectable upper-class shrink is kind enough to find a gap in his schedule and invite me for a talk. Kind enough to sit there and pick at the crust of my deepest wounds. His expression impassive, professional, maintaining subordination; making you feel very early in the conversation that you are merely a collection of symptoms. Or perhaps a different strategy - friendly, endearing, slightly familiar even, surprising me now and again with rhetorical questions aimed at making me realize how delusional I really am, silly, silly little thing. At the beginning I'll feel awkward, sitting very still or otherwise fidgeting, unable or rather not wanting to maintain eye contact, fearful of silences. I'll probably want to appear interesting, too, and will be choosing my phrasing and selecting events from the past with the tentativeness of a painter.

I'm looking forward to being out of here.

This room where I'm seated listening to the soft sound of shuffling paper and pen clicking next to me (his secretary had politely offered tea) has been furnished and decorated with exceptional taste, as I find myself noticing, glancing around before lowering my eyes to the floor again. I suppose if you got the cash, the rest is not a problem.

The guy is doing this as a favor and this puts me into an awkward position right from the start. My father's company had been previously remodeling his townhouse, knocking down walls, expanding the kitchen and pretty much turning it into a chef's lair. Dinner parties. He must be this artsy-fartsy quasi-aristocrat type. Or maybe I'm simply gravely intimidated by all this glamour. He wanted a locking knife cabinet, to which dad muttered "We used to keep the knives under lock, too. Had to". The man didn't say anything and never questioned further until the last day of work. "You are very single-minded, aren't you, Mr. Richardson? And impatient. A disastrous combination for someone who obsessively looks up to you". My father got the hint, but pretty much dismissed it as a banal demonstration of skills. He was pleasantly surprised when the psychiatrist offered to see me, though. Pro bono.

I heard a door open somewhere at the end of –what was it, a small corridor? - I couldn't see, since the opening was located at the left corner of the waiting room and out of my field of vision. Footsteps followed and the patient that this Lecter guy had been preoccupied with for the last 15 minutes appeared, walking somewhat stiffly as if he had arthritis, dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt, just walking straight to the front door and leaving without saying a word, not even glancing at us. I immediately assumed he was subject to a severe disorder, not temporary anxiety, or feeling stressed, no, this had to be some pretty fucked-up major psychiatric illness, accompanied by all kinds of jolly experiences, hallucinations, voices; not just a fleeting virus in the system, but more like a permanently damaged hard drive. I don't really know where that assumption came from. I can very well be hugely mistaken. But I have developed a kind of intuition based on such people's movements, the condition of their clothes, hair and skin, more importantly - the facial expression, most importantly – the eyes. I wonder if they indeed have a unique smell, too.

My pulse quickened as it always does when I'm about to meet a stranger. I looked inquiringly at the secretary, wondering if I should go straight in there, or wait until he invites me in, or how does it work around here anyway? Her intercom beeped softly. "You may go in, Miss Richardson, straight down that corridor".

The corridor was dark, about ten feet long, a thick, solid oak door at the end. I opened it, stepped in, immediately hesitating since the room appeared to be empty. A desk on the far left, a couch in the middle, a long bookcase on the right, a big window with the dark curtains fully drawn, warm, reassuring light coming from a couple of wall lamps. Having established where all the main objects were (primal habit, I suppose, checking the surroundings for a crouching predator) and concluding that the room was elegant, clean and somehow really cosy, with a faint smell of something fresh and breathtaking like an apple orchard in the fall, I wondered where...

- Good evening.

I may have flinched a little, turning, looking for the owner of the cultured accentuated voice behind me. He stood at a smaller bookcase, a heavy volume resting on his right arm, his left hand holding a page. I hadn't felt a single indication of his presence.

- Um. "It is impossible to deny one's nature". Aesop. Please, Miss Richardson, have a seat.

I did. He moved to his desk (soundlessly, I might add, as if floating over the floor) and seated himself, asking in his strange, insinuating voice-

- Do you like fables?

- Out of those few I know, yes.

- Namely?

- "The Wolf and the Lamb", for example. I like Krylov's interpretation.

- Do you know it by heart?

- No. Except the last couple of lines… "But how am I at fault…"

He interrupted, finishing the verse for me, looking me straight in the eye, mockingly.

- "You are at fault that I am famished".

I smiled uneasily, wondering briefly if he was one of those psychiatrists who were in fact slightly crazy themselves. His eyes gave me that feeling.

Hannibal Lecter, M.D. My father told me he was a man in his forties, very well-mannered, very polite. That was the entire description. Sitting in front of him, glancing at him now and again before diverting my eyes to the side, I found him… for lack of a better word, eye-catchy. He was wearing a light cream shirt, no tie, dark trousers, a watch. Those things I barely registered, however; his eyes, face, voice, movements, mannerisms was what drew my attention immediately. They were remarkably unusual.

But I was in fact rather accustomed to psychiatrists being "unusual", and quirky, and creepy, and weird. This was often part of the trade, in my experience. And never guaranteed anything. More important things were beginning to bother me at that point. Namely the silence. It was growing uncomfortable, for me at least. It was almost like he chose to let it linger deliberately.

He broke it abruptly, saying in the kindest of tones:

- So tell me. How did it feel when they were dragging the tube out of your windpipe?