I would warn that used without discretion, the treatment could destroy the memory of the patient. But with support and guidance, the patient may know a new reality. A new self. Treatment of the violent may become cure in the most extreme case. Erase the past and give them a new future, build a new life, and become stronger as result.
The letter, a two page draft written to the editor of an academic journal, muses on a recent breakthrough treatment in psychotherapy that has come out of Italy and is sweeping the field. It acknowledges the flaws in the treatment, most notably it's propensity towards leaving the patient with a case of retrograde amnesia, but proposes it's possible uses in the treatment of the most violent and destructive patients. If you erase the past, you can create a new future where the person would be unaware of their previous indiscretions.
It was written in 1939 by Eli Buchman.
The letter sits on the table between James and I but it might as well have taken up the entire room. I feel a cold sick in my stomach, and I know I should say something comforting to him, but I don't have any words for this and all it implies.
"He didn't know what he was doing," I manage to say in a voice that is too fucking weak because I'm exhausted and drained and wish this was a dream and that I would wake up.
James stays silent, not fuming, but his face is slack and his eyes toil with an emotion that makes me aware of how much I have underestimated his ability to snap.
"Say something, please," I press. He looks me in the eyes and I shut my mouth.
"He knew exactly what he was doing," he spits out at me in a low voice. "He probably directed them, told them what to do. Told them how to get in there and play games with my mind."
I start to shake my head, begging him to stop.
"That's not possible," I crack.
"Oh, really? And you know this because you knew him so well."
"That's not fair," I snap. "You told me yourself they took him out of the concentration camp, gave him the choice-"
"That's what he told me. But how many times over the last few weeks have you felt everything shift because what you've been told your whole life was not the truth. He knew what he was doing. That's the truth."
I don't want to believe him, that what we thought about someone who appeared to help but rather was hurting on a level I couldn't even fathom. Someone who was my family, a part of me, it makes me want to throw up.
"I don't believe you," I whisper.
"Fine," he says and flips his hands in the air. "Think what you want. But in light of this new information, forgive me if I don't follow your lead."
I feel angry now, a hot sick rage at his dismissiveness.
"How can you turn your back on it," I push at him. "On everything that we've been working on. Just throw it away because you think that it was his idea. You forget what kind of people were twisting his actions, who he had to work for."
"You think I don't remember?" he leans forward over the table and I move away from him, truly afraid of the menacing look in his eye for the first time. "You think I don't have nightmares, too? And I'll bet mine are a hell of a lot more intense than yours."
He presses his hands against his temples and threads his fingers in his hair, the grimace on his face and his eyes closed tightly against the raging noise in his head push me into a corner in an effort to escape him.
"How can I trust any of this?" He shouts, throwing his hands at the wall with the cards on it. "Is that even real? How do I know what's real and what's not?"
"You can trust this," I plead with him, I'm pressing my palm against my sternum, telling him he can still believe in me. "Trust me and trust us. Whatever it is you feel deep down, you can trust that."
He's looking at me like I'm the last thing he wants to see right now, and I know it's because I remind him of him. Those eyes, that I have seen paralyzed by fear and seeking answers from the fog, that have held me in their gaze for moments that were stolen over our sessions and that I know will haunt me for the rest of my life are looking at me with such disdain and it is unbearable. Inside my chest, right where my heart is, a tiny crack opens up and begins to swallow me. I have truly failed him and it's breaking my heart.
James turns away from me and moves slowly towards the door. I am frozen at my place along the wall and can't do anything to stop him from leaving. I watch as he does, in some kind of horrible slow-motion that leaves me in a daze as he disappears from the room and leaves me.
He just abandons me.
I want to cry, but there's nothing left. This is the last flaking away of pieces of me that I could take into my new life, but with him leaving, there is nothing. I feel empty. I feel broken, shredded apart by a machine that I still don't fully understand and dumped by the wayside to wither and die. That's all that's left to do, is to waste away with just myself for company.
I move through the daze, pack my bag and shuffle back to my own studio. The air feels so heavy and when I get back to my place, I sink into the bed and feel like if I could I would melt all the way to the floor. I'm alone now, nothing left to do but wait until I am moved to my new life, wherever the fuck that will be, and then to fade away. The rain continues through the day, making little rivulets down my window and I watch them for awhile, then flip through the notebooks, laughing at myself for thinking they would help. I don't understand anything new about my grandfather or the life he had led. It was tantalizing at the time, but it was a fool's effort. I lose track of time, and end up sitting on my window seat watching the city move about it's business completely oblivious to me.
The gentle knock brings me out of the daze, yanks me up like a fish suddenly hooked from above. I breathe in sharply and it's like tasting the fresh oxygen for the first time. But I don't move, I watch the door and wait to see if the sound was just a figment of my imagination, a hopeful brain trying to comfort the grieving woman.
But there it is again, more insistent this time, and then my door knob begins to turn slowly. I should have locked it but didn't care enough to, and my body stiffens as the door swings open on silent hinges and James stands in the doorway, hesitating, then steps over the threshold. He closes the door behind himself and looks around and finally moves to the bed where he sits down and puts his head in his hands.
I don't know how he found me, how he knew where to go, and I don't care. I just care that he's here and that it feels like I have been pulled out of that dark place in the lake where I was drowning.
"I don't know what to do," he says, defeated. "Every memory is unsure, everything I've been taught is wrong, or maybe it's right, but it's still wrong in the context of the world. And I barely have anything to hold on to that will ground me. I don't want you to go, I don't want to lose what hold on myself I have because I have no one to help me."
I unfold myself from my seat and go to him, stopping just in front of where he sits. He reaches out and puts a hand on my waist, pulling me closer to him until I am standing between his legs. He rests his head on my middle and slides his hands around me until he's holding me again. I run my fingers through his hair, it's wet and he smells like rain, making me wonder where he's been. The water from his hair seeps through my shirt and my belly starts to feel cold but I won't leave him.
"I've done terrible things," he says, his words reverberate against the spot of my skin where his mouth is closest. "I am a bad person."
"Maybe," I say. "But everyone has things to atone for. You are not alone in that regard."
He looks up at me and smiles, and there are tears on his cheeks. I wipe one of them away with my thumb and he moves to bring me closer down to him, sinking into the warmth of his hold and I am so close to him, to the strength of him that I fear and admire all at once. He seems uncertain, waits for me, and I move carefully in and press my forehead to his. Our breaths collide and we hang suspended on the possibility until he leans in and catches my lips with his.
It's technically wrong, but so many things in this world are and I am beyond caring. I kiss him back, and together we tumble into the madness.