Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:06:10 +0100 From: jerryfell@hushmail.com Subject: boy-at-the-wedding-13 Alexander Steel left Zurich airport with his driver pushing his bags and skis ahead of him. Outside, the chill air greeted him with a flurry of snow. The low hills of Zurich and the city itself were white. "Good weather for skiing, no?" The driver offered in a heavy Swiss accent. "Indeed.... Promising." Then he was in the warm leather comfort of the Mercedes, being driven carefully along the gritted roads past quiet affluent suburbs on the road to Obersaxen. Before long the road began to twist and turn as it ascended the mountain range, the snow chains on the tires keeping their speed low as they pushed through tiny mountain villages with steep pitched roofs and picture postcard Roccoco churches. The road climbed steeply. With the sky heavy with snow clouds and the blanket of white from horizon to horizon, the lake far below was the only patch of colour. Its mottled grey-green from time to time being caught by sunlight through the clouds in a brilliant sparkle. Obersaxen was a busy little village. Skiers in bright colored jackets trudged towards a ski-lift at one end of the main street, skis and poles wagging. Comfortable hotels lined the street, their ornate log frontages suggesting open fires and spiced wine inside. The Mercedes came to a stop in front of one of the most imposing and the hotel porter emerged in a fine red cape to collect bags and stow the skis. Thanking the driver, Alexander made his way inside. There was indeed an impressive log fire in a lounge beside the reception. A Christmas tree winked at him from the firelight in gold and red. His room looked out across a dramatic landscape. To the right the village ski-lift dotted the mountainside as it made a dizzying ascent up sheer cliffs and crags. To the left, the mountain plunged almost vertically into the lake below. High up, he could see the lower slopes of the ski runs but above that a low cloud hid the peaks from view. He changed out of his traveling clothes into a thick sweater and salopette. He pulled on heavy, comfortable boots. He looked at his watch. There was time to eat before his appointment. ------- Henry was at Brussels Airport to meet his son. The boy emerged through customs lugging a heavy case. "There you are, old fruit! How the hell are you?!" His boy smiled and green eyes glittered under his shaggy hair. "My God you've grown! And since when did your wretched school allow you to wear your hair so long? Come on sport. I'm parked in a disabled bay." ------- Alexander left the hotel and turned right. A small street turned off the main thoroughfare lined with expensive jewelry and craft shops dressed for the season, teeming with people hunting for Christmas gifts. He walked on, following the street for two hundred yards to the end, where high iron-wrought gates framed a view of an imposing Baroque house set in acres of snowy grounds. A brass plate to one side of the gates announced: "Schloss Kritingen." A steel buzzer, complete with a fish-lens camera eye, looked out of place against the ancient brickwork. He pressed the button and a red dot appeared above the camera. "Guten tag." "Er, hello. My name is Mr. Steel." "Ah, hello Mr. Steel. You are expected. Please come to the reception by following the path to the right." A buzz told him that the gate was now open and he slipped inside. The house was quiet but busy. The receptionist smiled at him, asking him to sign in and then take a seat in the library. She showed him through to an impressive room lined with antique leather- bound books in subdued greens and browns. An iron spiral staircase gave access to an upper gallery, also lined with bookshelves. At one end an impressive globe stood in the middle of a faded persian rug, surrounded by old leather sofas. Other armchairs were strategically placed in the nooks and corners of the library. He counted five other guests who were obviously waiting. No one spoke. Once he was settled he noticed the ticking of a clock. His palms were sweating. He tried to resist counting down the five minutes to the ticking of the clock. He pulled a book from the bookshelf. It was in German. He put it back. The door opened and the receptionist was at his elbow. "Dr. Krauss will see you now. Please follow." In a large ground floor office Dr. Krauss rose to greet him. "Mr. Steel, I hope your journey was not too tiring." "Not at all. This fresh air is doing me good already." "That's good. Please. Take a seat." Dr. Krauss' office was oak-lined. An imposing desk stood in front of french windows that gave access onto the frosty garden and views of the mountain behind. But Dr. Krauss was inviting him to sit in a comfortable deep chair that faced another across a low table beside a flickering fireplace. "Tea?" "Thank you." The receptionist left them to fetch their order, closing the heavy door behind her. Dr. Krauss was smiling at him over half-rim glasses. His grey hair framed a round face. Alex guessed he was in his mid sixties. He was short. Stout rather than fat. His tweed jacket and open necked shirt gave the impression that he was relaxed. Comfortable. In charge. He spoke again in perfect English but with the soft German accent that every mad professor ought to have. "You have come a long way to sit here in this room, Alexander. Do you want to tell me why you are here?" He stared at Dr. Krauss. He was suddenly unable to speak. Yes he wanted to tell him. Yes he wanted to unlock a flood of words. Yes he wanted to let the whole painful mess pour out of him. But nothing would come. There was so much to say that nothing could be said. So much hidden that none of it could come to light. So many stories but not a single one that could be told, even here by a fireside a million miles from consequence. Alex felt tears starting to well behind his eyes. He blinked them away. He bit his lip and looked at Krauss and shrugged like a child. "There is no rush, Alex. Let us wait for our tea." And while they waited Dr. Krauss told the story of the house. The baronial owners and the medieval politics that had seen their fall from grace. The thinkers and poets who had sat in the library. The religious wars that had left their mark. But once the tea had been delivered and cups poured and they were alone once more, Dr. Krauss sat back, smiled, and said: "So, shall we try again? Are you ready?" Alex nodded and stared into his tea cup. "Can you heal me doctor?" "No." Alex looked up, lost. "Alexander, there is no cure for what you have." "But..." "Does that shock you? Really? Don't you know in your heart of hearts that there is no cure?" Alex was staring at Krauss. Mouth open. "I.... I hoped there was." A pause hung between them. Alex continued: "That's why I came here." "This is not like the flu, Alexander." Silence. A log crackled in the fire. "So why does this clinic exist? To tell people they can't be cured?" Alexander was feeling anger rising. "That could be the most important thing we do, yes." Alex was flabbergasted. "That's absurd." "You're angry." "I'm getting there.... Is this some sort of mind game?" "What are you angry about?" "What do you mean, what am I fucking angry about? This is typical psychobabble bullshit!" Even Alexander was surprised at the strength of emotion that had gripped him. Dr. Krauss was looking at him intently, but was not being drawn. Alexander was steaming. "I have spent a fortune getting here, on this place. I have given up most of my holiday to sort this out and you sit there over a cup of tea...." "What are you angry about?" "I'm angry at you!" "Why are you angry at me?" "Because...." Silence. "Because...." Silence. "Because I want there to be a fucking cure!" "And why does it make you angry that there isn't?" "Because I hoped there would be. I hoped. There must be." "What does false hope do to people, Alex?" "I don't know...." He was subsiding. "Maybe it makes them do stupid things." "Perhaps it is like a man going to an abandoned railway station, where there are flowers growing over the rusty tracks, no one else around, completely abandoned, but waiting there for the train to arrive day after day. Would it not be better for the man to understand that there is no train coming and so to start his journey on foot?" "So there is a journey then?" "Of course. If there was no journey THEN you would be right to be angry with me and this clinic. More tea?" "Thanks. Why is there no cure?" "Why would you say?" "I don't know." Alex sipped his tea and looked at Krauss. "Because it's a part of me?" "Go on." "Sexuality?" "Go on." "I am attracted to boys. That's like being attracted to women or men. It is sexuality." "Is it?" "Fucked up sexuality." "Is that how it feels?" "Yes! No.... Both." "How does it feel?" "What?" "Having sex with a boy?" Suddenly he was back at the wedding with Seb. On the boat with Niels. Entering the cabin containing the huddled shape of Richard. "It feels wrong." "So why do you do it?" "Why did I do it?..." He corrected him. "I don't know." "Really?" "Yes, really. I don't know. If I did know I probably wouldn't be here." A silence hung in the air again. "Do you think I can help you Alexander?" "Yes." "Why do you think that?" "Because you are one of the world's leading experts." "And do you think that if I was to put you in one of my classes as a student, and pour all the books I have read into your brain, and put you through a hundred lectures... do you think that would help you?" "Yes." "Really?" "Yes." "Well then, I am afraid there are two false hopes we have to rid you of, Alex. First: there is no cure. Second: there is not an expert in the world that can help you." Alex laughed. "God you would be a nightmare to work for if my company was running your PR campaign!" "Why do you think I say that, Alexander, that no expert can help you?" "Because you love an argument." "Are we arguing?" "God, you're frustrating. Okay. Well.... You are saying that because this problem isn't about lack of knowledge. It's about what happens in your testicles." "That's not a bad way to put it." Krauss stood up and fetched a pipe from the mantel. He thumbed tobacco from a worn pouch into the bowl, pressing down. A match flared and the flame was sucked down into the pipe. Alexander had forgotten the last time he had seen someone smoke in a public place. Krauss continued, oblivious: "Sigmund Freud had a good way of describing it. He suggested that infants grow up looking to a parent for guidance and protection. But that one day the child develops their own internal parent, so to speak. From that moment it is now that internal voice that protects and guides. Recent modern Darwinists think that we developed this ability because it made us more likely to survive if the leader of a group was killed. With this internal voice, each member of the tribe was its own leader. Now, in your situation, Alexander, if this internal parent is allowing you to have sex with boys, our experience shows that external parent-figures, like experts, have very limited impact. I am afraid that your internal voice drowns out all others." "That's how it feels too. I mean no matter how many times I think about the police, or what my friends would think, or how immoral it is in the eyes of society - that seems to have next to no importance. It's as if my brakes have failed." Dr. Krauss smiled. "Exactly! Very well put. Your brakes have failed." He leaned forward. "I think we are ready to start. Would you like to start?" "I thought we had...." "Tell me about when your brakes failed. For the first time." ------ Dr. Krauss allowed Alexander to finish his story about the tennis court. "Is this moment, on the grass with Sebastian, when you first felt your brakes fail?" "I think so." "Think hard. Try to remember." Alexander thought back. "Oh.... No there was an earlier moment." "When was it?" "When I shook his hand. When I met him for the first time. I remember it clearly. It felt like vertigo." "Vertigo. Like falling. Like your brakes slipping?" "Yes." "What do you remember about him?" "His eyes. Green. He was half naked." "Pause there. `Half naked'. Not he had his shirt off. You saw him immediately as naked." "Yes. Sweat on his chest." "In the act of sex he would sweat." "Yes. shaking his hand felt sexual." "Touching him immediately felt sexual. Even an act as innocent as shaking his hand." "Yes." "You had literally only just met the boy, but already you were highly charged." "Yes." "Let's keep to the brake metaphor. Your brakes were always going to fail weren't they. If not with him then another." "Yes. I guess so." "Why were your brakes so weak? When did they start to weaken?" Alexander went white. He did not want to go this way. "When I was a child." "Go on." ------- Alexander Steel sat back. Dr. Krauss poured another cup of tea as if to puncture the significance of the moment. "Do you like this sort of tea?" "I prefer Earl Grey." "I see." Alexander smiled. There was something about this serious little man that made even a question about tea-bags seem weighty. "I am afraid it is not a great story. It is hardly worth mentioning." Krauss stirred his tea then placed the apostle spoon beside the cup. "People do not say things that have no significance for them." "Ever?" "Ever." "I find that hard to believe. Anyway, here it is, for what it's worth...." He cleared his throat. "I let another boy touch me when I was ten and he was nine. There. That's it." "A complex story." Alexander laughed. "Hardly!" "I disagree. Let me write it down. did I hear correctly: `I let another boy touch me when I was ten and he was nine.' Is that what you said?" "Correct." "You let." "Yes." "People "let" people do things when they do not care about them. What didn't you care about?" Alexander was shocked. It was as if time rushed around him in a blur, dragging him back, rushing back. "I... er...." Krauss looked at him with a steady gaze. Then said gently. "What did you not care about any longer when you were ten years old? Was it something you should have cared about?" Alexander flinched. His hands gripped his thighs. His knuckles were white. A silence lengthened. Alexander could see tiny characters on the slopes of the mountain. "My parents?" "You were sent to boarding school weren't you?" "Yes, when I was eight." "But that's not it is it?" "I thought the answer is always your parents in psychotherapy." "It often is, but I ask again: what did you not care about at that moment?" Alexander looked confused. "To quote you: `I I let another boy touch me when I was ten and he was nine.'" "My body." "Go on." "I let him touch my body, because I didn't care about it any longer." Alexander was now dry-eyed. He was cold. "My body was useless to me." "Why?" "Because my mum didn't hold me any more." "You cared about your body when it belonged to your mother?" "Yes." "But now it was worth nothing to you. So when a nine year old asked to touch it, what did you say?" "He asked what I would do if he put his hand in my bed." "And you said?" "I said: `Nothing.'" "Pause there. He asked you what you would do, and you said `nothing'?" "Yes." "What did you mean." "I meant I would let him. That I wouldn't tell on him or fight him or something." "But that's not what you said." "It's what I meant." "It's not what you said." Alexander was shivering. Krauss noticed. "You are cold. Concentrating is hard work for the body. Let me stoke the fire." And with that the Doctor was on his knees with fire irons, his pipe clenched between his teeth. It took him a while to get the fire licking up the chimney. Alexander took the opportunity to think. His tea was cold. "Is that what you did? When he touched you?" "Yes. I lay there and he masturbated me." "Was he in bed with you?" "Not at first." "Did he get into bed with you?" "Yes." "What did you do then?" "Nothing." "Nothing?" "He lay on top of me." "Were you naked?" "Yes." "When did you get naked?" "Before it started." "Explain." "He asked me that question before lights-out. When there were other boys around and the master." "They didn't hear?" "No." "So he asked you, and you then had time to anticipate him following through." "Yes." "And your action was to strip. In anticipation." "Yes." "Interesting." Alexander found himself smiling again. "What's interesting about that?" "What do you think?" "So I didn't just `let him'. I wanted him to." "And what does that say about your body?" "I wanted it to matter again. I wanted it to be touched." "Does that fit with the emotion you remember from the time?" "Yes it does. I remember how I reacted.... Afterwards I cried for my mother, but couldn't wait for it to happen again." "You cried for her?" "For the loss." "And that little lad had given you something back, something you wanted very much." "Yes." "Sex with him was a good substitute." "Well, a substitute. I am not sure about a good one." "You wanted it to happen again." "Yes, I suppose so." "Did it?" "Yes. As often as we could." "Just with him?" "No with other boys. It was like a switch had been flicked. I started seeing other boys with new eyes." "And you still have those eyes. You still see boys as that opportunity to matter to yourself again." "I have never thought about it in this way before." "The simple stories are always the most revealing." "What can I do about it?" Dr. Krauss held up both his hands. "Mr. Steel, that is for tomorrow. Time's up." "Are you serious?" "Plenty for you to mull over between now and then. See you tomorrow. The receptionist will give you a time." And with that Alexander Steel was out in the chill afternoon air. The receptionist smiled and waved him off with the words: "You might still have a few hours on the slopes. There was fresh snowfall last night, Mr. Steel." ------ All comments appreciated. jerryfell@hushmail.com