It wasn’t the fault of the hospital, or of any of the hospitals scattered around the world; the problem of readjustment was exactly the same everywhere. Just as prison never corrects the prisoner—it only teaches him to commit more crimes—so hospitals merely got patients used to a completely unreal world, where everything was allowed and where no one had to take responsibility for their actions.
There was only one way out: to discover a cure for insanity. And Dr. Igor has engaged his heart and soul in just that, developing a thesis that would revolutionize the psychiatric world. In mental hospitals, temporary patients who lived alongside incurable patients began a process of social degeneration that, once started, was impossible to stop. Zedka Mendel would come back to the hospital eventually, this time of her own volition, complaining of nonexistent ailments simply in order to be close to people who seemed to understand her better than those in the outside world.
If, however, he could find a way of combatting vitriol, the poison which Dr. Igor believed to be the cause of insanity, his name would go down in history and people would finally know where Slovenia was. That week, he had been given a heaven-sent opportunity in the shape of a would-be suicide; he was not going to lose this opportunity for all the money in the world.
Dr. Igor felt happy. Although he was obliged for economic reasons to accept treatments, like insulin shock for example, that had long ago been condemned by the medical profession, the same economic reasons lay behind Villete’s instigation of a new psychiatric treatment. As well as having the time and the staff to carry out his researches into vitriol, he also had the owners’ permission to allow the group calling itself the Fraternity to remain in the hospital. The shareholders in the institution tolerated—note that word well, not “encouraged,” but “tolerated”—a longer period of internment than was strictly necessary. They argued that, for humanitarian reasons, they should give the recently cured the option of deciding for themselves when would be the best moment for them to rejoin the world, and that had led to a group of people deciding to stay in Villete, as if at a select hotel or a club for those with similar interests and views. Thus Dr. Igor managed to keep the insane and the sane in the same place, allowing the latter to have a positive influence on the former. To prevent things from degenerating and to stop the insane having a negative effect on those who had been cured, every member of the Fraternity had to leave the hospital at least once a day.
Dr. Igor knew that the reasons given by the shareholders for allowing the presence of healthy people in the hospital—“humanitarian reasons” they said—were just an excuse. They were afraid that Ljubljana, Slovenia’s small but charming capital, did not have a sufficient number of wealthy crazy people to sustain this expensive, modern building. Besides, the public health system ran a number of first-class mental hospitals of its own, and that left Villete at a disadvantage in the mental health market.
When the shareholders had converted the old barracks into a hospital, their target market had been the men and women likely to be affected by the war with Yugoslavia. The war, however, had been brief. The shareholders had felt certain that war would return, but it didn’t.
Moreover, recent research had shown that while wars did have their psychological victims, they were far fewer than, say, the victims of stress, tedium, congenital illness, loneliness, and rejection. When a community had a major problem to face—for example, war, hyperinflation, or plague—there was a slight increase in the number of suicides but a marked decline in cases of depression, paranoia, and psychosis. These returned to their normal levels as soon as that problem had been overcome, indicating, or so Dr. Igor thought, that people only allow themselves the luxury of being insane when they are in a position to do so.
He had before him another recent survey, this time from Canada, the country an American newspaper had recently voted to have the highest standard of living. Dr. Igor read:
According to Statistics Canada, 40% of people between 15 and 34, 33% of people between 35 and 54 and 20% of people between 55 and 64 have already had some kind of mental illness. It is thought that one in every five individuals suffers some form of psychiatric disorder and one in every eight Canadians will be hospitalised at least once in their lifetime because of mental disturbances.
They’ve got a bigger market there than we have, he thought. The happier people can be, the unhappier they are.
Dr. Igor analyzed a few more cases, thinking carefully about those he should share with the council and those he should resolve alone. By the time he had finished, day had broken, and he turned off the light.
He immediately ordered his first appointment to be shown in: the mother of the patient who had tried to commit suicide.
“I’m Veronika’s mother. How is my daughter?”
Dr. Igor wondered if he should tell her the truth and save her any unpleasant surprises—after all, he had a daughter with the same name—but he decided it was best to say nothing.
“We don’t know yet,” he lied. “We need another week.”
“I’ve no idea why Veronika did it,” said the woman tearfully. “We’ve always been loving parents, we sacrificed everything to give her the best possible upbringing. Although my husband and I have had our ups and downs, we’ve kept the family together, as an example of perseverance in adversity. She’s got a good job, she’s nice-looking, and yet…”
“…and yet she tried to kill herself,” said Dr. Igor. “There’s no reason to be surprised; that’s the way it is. People just can’t cope with happiness. If you like, I could show you the statistics for Canada.”
“Canada?”
The woman seemed startled. Dr. Igor saw that he had managed to distract her and went on.
“Look, you haven’t come here to find out how your daughter is, but to apologize for the fact that she tried to commit suicide. How old is she?”
“Twenty-four.”
“So she’s a mature, experienced woman who knows what she wants and is perfectly capable of making her own choices. What has that got to do with your marriage or with the sacrifices that you and your husband made? How long has she lived on her own?”
“Six years.”
“You see? She’s fundamentally independent. But, because of what a certain Austrian doctor—Dr. Sigmund Freud, I’m sure you’ve heard of him—wrote about unhealthy relationships between parents and children, people today still blame themselves for everything. Do you imagine that Indians believe that the son-turned-murderer is a victim of his parents’ upbringing? Tell me.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” replied the woman, who couldn’t get over her bewilderment at the doctor’s behavior. Perhaps he was influenced by his patients.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Dr. Igor. “The Indians believe the murderer to be guilty, not society, not his parents, not his ancestors. Do the Japanese commit suicide because a son of theirs decides to take drugs and go out and shoot people? The reply is the same: no! And, as we all know, the Japanese will commit suicide at the drop of a hat. The other day I read that a young Japanese man killed himself because he had failed his university entrance exams.”
“Do you think I could talk to my daughter?” asked the woman, who was not interested in the Japanese, the Indians, or the Canadians.
“Yes, yes, in a moment,” said Dr. Igor, slightly annoyed by the interruption. “But first, I want you to understand one thing: apart from certain grave pathological cases, people only go insane when they try to escape from routine. Do you understand?”