'Excuse me, are you the brain surgeon?'
The man seated opposite me looked middle-aged- bald and slightly overweight. I smiled at him and replied-
'Yes.'
'I've heard of you- you were in the papers about that transplant. Oh, you're from India, aren't you?'
My smile broadened- I was used to having my ethnicity arouse more interest than my work, sometimes even in my colleagues. I nodded and turned to my book, trying to find my page.
**********
On the inter-city, the journey from Oslo to Bergen is a little less than six hours, and it was well past seven o'clock when we reached our station. I climbed down onto the platform, smarting in the chill of the evening air. Like every other platform in the country it was both deserted and uncovered. Glancing up at the murky sky I felt suddenly cold at the thought of the Norwegian winter, when the snow piles high on the railway platforms and the Scandinavians stand shivering in their woollens, priding themselves on their hardiness. There is no such thing as bad weather, they say to each other here, only bad clothing. Come to New Delhi in June, I smiled to myself, feeling instantly warmer at the thought of home.
From the station I made my way on foot through the city, to the funicular. Bergen is famous for its funicular- the cable railway that cuts its way through to the top of the mountain, from where one can see the whole city along with its magnificent harbour. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Bergen had been the political and economic capital of Norway, and it still remained the most important port on its west coast. But the cities of Norway sleep early and I walked quickly along empty cobbled streets past closed shop doors and drawn shutters until I reached the entrance to the funicular. An eager crowd had gathered at the bottom to watch the car inch slowly towards its resting place, the tension in the cables relaxing as it halted. When its doors were opened I pushed my way through to the back, where a thick sheet of glass afforded an excellent view of the receding mountainside. As the vehicle gathered speed the cold wind rushed in through the windows at the side and we hurtled upwards faster and faster till I could see the drop of the tunnel almost directly below where I stood. For several minutes after the climb the exhilaration of ascent still lingered.
The railway ended alongside a grassy esplanade on the mountaintop that looked over the city. Standing there I could see the inlet of V'gen dotted with trading ships from the south, and the ruins of a twelfth century castle jutting out from the northern edge of the harbour. Further north, Bergen's oldest church-bells struck eight, and as the sound cut through the heavy summer evening I felt a sudden thrill. My eyes wandered to the thickly forested mountain walls that stood rooted in the city below and stretched forebodingly upwards. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
'I am sorry to have kept you waiting.'
I turned to see the doctor. He looked exactly as he did in his photographs- tall and gaunt, with a prominent forehead and deep-set blue eyes that now looked steadily into mine.
'It was no trouble, Dr. Saks. I am honoured to receive your invitation.'
'The pleasure is mine. We will have to travel on foot from here- I hope you are not too tired.' His voice carried genuine concern.
'Not at all', I lied.
**********
He led the way along a narrow path through the forested hillside.
'It is not wide enough for a vehicle.' The doctor sounded apologetic.
I made a motion to indicate that it did not matter. It was darker now; the twilight sun was obstructed by the canopy overhead. We walked in silence for close to half an hour until I spotted the white walls of the asylum in the distance, incongruous amid the thick woods that closed in all around them.
'I have asked for dinner to be kept ready.'
My pace quickened at the prospect of a hot meal. Soon we were close enough to see the building whole. It was an imposing structure of considerable dimensions and severe angles, built in the strict functionalist fashion. I knew, although we had not yet entered, that very few of the higher storeys were ever used, and that the lowest levels of the building- where all the most dangerous patients were housed- were all underground. The asylum's renown stemmed in large measure from that of its patients. They had flown in from all over the world- Francis, the cobbler from Toulouse who would slip scorpions into the shoes of his clientele for fun, Jerome, the Tennessee banker who had stabbed his invalid wife to avoid having to look after her, Kurtz, the German cannibal who had successfully advertised on the Internet for a victim, and the Ngaio sisters from Tanzania, who had managed to smother an infant a week for two months before being caught. The humanity of the law meant that it could not touch those it deemed insane, so the better connected among them were sent to the mountains of Bergen, where under the supervision of Dr. Saks they were tended to in the hope that they might be cured. It was not clear that the doctor's treatment was effective, but it was not an evident failure, and those subjected to it had given no further cause for complaint. But more than this it was Saks' own name-there was none bigger in his field- that had built the reputation of the asylum. He was widely regarded as the man who, though still young, had single-handedly rescued psychotherapy from the limbo of pseudo-science and given it the principles and tools it needed to be both respectable and successful. In spite of my recent triumphs therefore, I had been more than pleasantly surprised to find myself asked to visit the doctor here in Bergen, and not even the mysterious absence of a reason for his invitation had dissuaded me from accepting it.
**********
One section of the ground level of the asylum had been converted into living space for the doctor, while the rest of the staff lived in rooms adjoining the main building. We passed from the reception and medical wards through white-walled corridors into a small, plush room, carpeted in red. A wooden bookshelf in the corner overlooked a low table laden with food. Over dinner, I initiated conversation.
'Now you must tell me, Dr. Saks', I spoke easily in the comfort of his quarters, 'to what do I owe this honour?'
As I spoke, I noticed for the first time that the doctor did not look well. His eyes were bloodshot from an evident lack of sleep and the thin lines of his mouth were turned downwards, accentuating the hollow of his cheeks. He replied in a low voice-
'It is a very personal matter. It will take some time to explain.'
I said nothing. When he spoke again a remarkable change had come over him. He leant forward, eyes shining with a strange urgency and devoid of any trace of fatigue-
'A year ago I realized that my work here was a failure.'
He continued without a pause, speaking quickly but distinctly.
'All along I had been convinced that madness was a creature of circumstance- that some deep-rooted impulse in these unfortunate souls', he waved in the direction of the basement, 'impelled them to the things they did. So I took it upon myself to discover the source of that impulse. I spent hours and hours with each of them, probing, questioning, interrogating them with every technique of my science. And at first I imagined it was working. But I was wrong.'
For a brief moment his eyes fixed on mine with an odd intensity. Then he continued-
'More than once something happened that ought not to have- some brief but inexplicable outburst of insanity. Word did not get out, of course, but I knew then that this illness was not psychological, and that my therapy was useless before it. I was shattered; you will understand, my life's work was wrecked. But I resolved to tackle the problem afresh. I studied it for several months. Then, only last month, I had the answer.'
He stopped here, and I felt he expected me to speak.
'What was it?'
The doctor smiled slowly, as one savouring a deep secret-
'The solution lies in your line of expertise. The madness I deal with is an inability to tell right from wrong. I know that it has often been conjectured that such madness is a defect of the brain, and I also know that much tomfoolery has gone into trying to prove that hypothesis. But now I have succeeded, and for this I must thank you.'
'Why is that?'
'Because it was your work on the Penfield map that led me to the answer.'
This struck me as curious. The Penfield map- named after its Canadian discoverer, Wilder Penfield- is one of neuroscience's most fascinating discoveries. It refers to the 'map' of the body that is carried in the brain, such that when any part of the body is stimulated the sensation is transmitted to the area of the brain where it is mapped. The map is fascinating because in it the hand is next to the face, the feet near the genitals, the ears adjacent to the breasts- nothing is as one would expect it to be. My own work in this field, which had dragged my name out of obscurity, was to explain some of the oddities I had encountered while studying my patients. One of them had had his left hand amputated, yet swore that when I touched his nose he felt the sensation in his absent thumb. Another, who had lost his right leg in a car accident, claimed that his orgasm now extended to his missing limb. I had shown that in these patients the parts of the brain that normally received sensations from the hands and the feet now somehow overheard signals from their neighbours, the face and genitals. But the Penfield map itself had nothing to do with human reason, or emotion, or insanity, and I said as much to the doctor.
'Of course the map itself is irrelevant,' he responded impatiently, 'but your work on it has wider implications than you perhaps imagine. You see, it is not just some areas of the brain that are capable of responding to the signals sent to those close by - it is every single one of them.'
Slowly, I felt understanding dawn upon me in its familiar, gradual fashion. And yet, it seemed almost too fantastic.
'You mean, the frontal cortex-'
'Yes.' I could hear the triumph in his voice. 'The frontal cortex of the brain is the seat of our moral sense. For some reason it is not reached, not even by the most revolting experience, in those who cannot tell right from wrong. But if every part of the brain can be reached simply by stimulating the parts adjacent to it, then, in this manner, so can the frontal cortex.'
'By stimulating the parietal cortex?' But I already knew the answer.
'Yes. By stimulating the parietal cortex. And the parietal cortex, as you would know, responds most powerfully to that most animal of sensations- Fear.'
Neither of us spoke for several minutes. As the silence sounded through that little room I felt a sudden, powerful desire to leave it. I wanted to ride the funicular once more and to descend down the mountain onto the cobbled streets of the city below. The doctor spoke again, softly, as if sensing my discomfiture-
'Shall we go outside?'
We passed through the bleached corridors, back the way we had entered until we were outside in the cold mountain air and the forest surrounded us once more. Now the darkness hung heavy all around and though I looked I could not see the road leading away through the woods. The doctor motioned towards a small opening in the asylum wall near the ground-
'I am sure you cannot wait to see the results of my new treatment.'
**********
The lower levels of the asylum were its most ancient. Long ago a network of catacombs had been constructed at this site, for a purpose now forgotten, but the old labyrinth still provided a convenient if inhospitable home for the asylum's most famous names. There were sufficiently few patients for each of them to be housed in their own individual cells, which were situated- not packed close in rows one next to the other- but discretely, in separate parts of the underground complex.
I saw also that the stone walls of the aged labyrinth had been reinforced and many of the pathways blocked, so that the corridors now served not to mislead the ignorant visitor but to guide him. We had been walking for several minutes along one of the many long and narrow corridors that led east and deep towards the heart of the asylum building, when the doctor halted and motioned to my left.
'Look.'
I could sense the excitement in his voice even as I turned to follow his gesture. On my left and set deep into the wall was a large, bare room lit only by a single uncovered bulb hanging from its ceiling. The bulb swayed continually, sending strange shadows dancing across the room. In one corner was crouched the figure of a man, his features hidden in the gloom. I strained to look as the diffused glow of the light bulb settled upon his face. The man's cheeks were round and smooth. He had a squat nose and thick, shapeless lips, which I dimly recalled having seen photographed in the newspapers several months previously. But now I barely noticed the cheeks or the nose or the lips, for in the midst of these very unremarkable features were the man's eyes- staring out at me- large brown eyes that were opened wide in unmistakable, abject terror.
I spun around to see the doctor smiling at me.
'His cell is soundproof. And we are looking through a sheet of glass that is opaque on the other side.'
'But what is he looking at?' In my mind I could still see his mad, staring eyes.
'I don't know how to describe it best. He sees himself being hunted by supernatural things- ghouls, demons, wraiths. Perhaps you and I would think of them as childish fancies, but for him- for him, they are the things that he fears the most. You see, it is not a difficult matter for someone of my training to discover what it is that a man is most terrified of. And very often it is possible to create a simulation of that thing, an alternate world where only that fear, and nothing else, exists. And then to bind the senses to it, so that the retina perceives no other image, and the ear drums vibrate to no other sound. So that it is impossible to get away from.'
'Does he not know that it is not real?'
'He does not; that is the beauty of it. His every conscious hour is spent in the simulated world of his fears, so his brain can no longer tell what is real and what is illusion.'
'But what does this achieve?'
'It is perfectly simple, although, I admit, a trifle crude. It creates fear. It stimulates the parietal cortex of the brain, stimulates it powerfully and continually.' The doctor smiled a strange, lopsided smile- 'After all, if you want to wake a sleeping man it is not enough to whisper. And it has worked, do you not know', his voice rose, tremulous with the passion of triumph, 'the dead moral sense in these men and women has been awakened on more than one occasion- in time, I feel sure, it will awaken forever. I have seen these patients show revulsion- true moral revulsion- such as they would never have experienced before. Often they turn violent when that happens. At other times, they simply cry.'
He paused, and I asked 'Is this the treatment you give to all the other patients as well?
'Broadly, yes. But of course, no two people fear quite the same things to quite the same degree. So the stimulus we provide is catered to each individual.'
Then he beckoned to me- 'But come, I will show you; let us finish our tour.'
How many hours we spent in those dark catacombs I do not know. We passed from one cell to the next, and at each one we saw the inmates and their faces all alike, fearful and cowering in the face of unseen horrors. The doctor was like an eager child showing off a new toy as he led me through the maze of subterranean corridors. Finally it was over, and we were outside once again, where the perpetual Norwegian sun was now all but extinguished by the thick forest above. We stood in the darkness facing the asylum's main entrance.
He turned to me-
'Before I show you your room for the night, shall we share a bottle of wine?'
**********
In the warmth of the doctor's quarters I felt once more at ease. I complimented the doctor on his choice of wine- a truly excellent Lambruscio. I remarked favourably upon the arrangement of his room. I commended him on his administration of the asylum. Then something struck me.
'Dr. Saks, I understand that you benefited from my studies on the Penfield map, but did you not say that you wished to speak to me about a personal matter?'
He was looking at me keenly as I spoke. Now he nodded slowly-
'Yes, that is right. I desire a favour of you. It concerns me, but equally, it concerns you.'
'What do you mean?'
'I have followed your career with great interest. You have done some very notable work and achieved many excellent successes, although you are but a young man.'
'Thank you.'
'And yet', he spoke slower now, as if choosing his words with care 'you have also had your share of failures.'
'I certainly have. But as has every surgeon, I daresay', I laughed, but it sounded forced.
'Of course. But not quite like yours.'
'What do you mean?' I asked again, trying hard to affect a cool curiosity but unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
'Only that you take risks which others in your position might not. I wonder if you remember a certain patient of yours, a businessman in Bombay, six years ago?'
'Not precisely, but-'
'Or the artist from Cuttack, in the same year.'
'Why-'
'Or the Bangalore industrialist, two years ago. They all ended up more vegetable than human, didn't they? And of course, there was the transplant with the baby only last year. That was not an advisable procedure, was it?'
'It worked.' I spoke hotly, feeling waves of anger wash over me.
'Yes, it did that time. But not six months ago, when you tried it again.'
I tried to speak but could not, as if something was fastening itself around my throat. My fingers gripped the arms of my chair tightly, even as a tide of alarm and fear engulfed me. I felt myself struggling for breath, gasping for air. My eyes turned wildly to the empty wine glass by my side, and suddenly its image began to blur and grow dim.
The doctor leaned towards me, his deep blue eyes searching for something in mine.
'I have studied your career most closely. And I have long suspected that you are not a well man. But now, after today, I am certain of it.'
I looked at him numbly.
'You see, I watched you most closely as we visited each cell down below. You saw what we are doing to these wretched creatures, you heard me describe it, you witnessed it for yourself again and again and again. You were astonished, yes, but not once- you understand- not even once did you so much as flinch.'
I staggered to my feet and tried to move towards where the doctor sat just a few feet in front of me. But my legs gave way, and I felt myself fall heavily to the carpeted floor. I turned from where I lay until I could see the doctor's silhouette standing over me.
'A man who would experiment as you experiment, unthinkingly, upon those who depend upon him for assistance, a man who would continue to do so in spite of tragic and repeated failure- over and over- is a man who cannot tell right from wrong. An insane man.'
Now he knelt down close to me, and though I could no longer see anything but a faint movement in the blackness that surrounded me, yet I knew from the sensation of his hot breath on my face that he was very near. Then he spoke-
'I will treat you, and you will become well. You need my treatment.' He paused here; then continued, speaking very slowly now-
'But more than that, do you not understand, I need you to be my patient. For if I can cure you- then think, just think-I will know that there is still hope for me.'