Veronika Decides to Die (On the Seventh Day 2)

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 youn

g 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?"

"I do," she replied. "And if you think that I won't be capable of looking after her, you can rest assured, I've never tried to change my life."

"Good." Dr. Igor seemed relieved. "Can you imagine a world in which, for example, we were not obliged to repeat the same thing every day of our lives? If, for example, we all decided to eat only when we were hungry, what would housewives and restaurants do?"

It would be more normal to eat only when we were hungry, thought the woman, but she said nothing, afraid that he might not let her speak to Veronika.

"Well, it would cause tremendous confusion," she said at last. "I'm a housewife myself, and I know what I'm talking about."

"So we have breakfast, lunch, and supper. We have to wake up at a certain hour every day and rest once a week. Christmas exists so that we can give each other presents, Easter so that we can spend a few days at the lake. How would you like it if your husband were gripped by a sudden, passionate impulse and decided he wanted to make love in the living room?"

The woman thought: What is the man talking about? I came here to see my daughter.

"I would find it very sad," she said, carefully, hoping she was giving the right answer.

"Excellent," roared Dr. Igor. "The bedroom is the correct place for making love. To make love anywhere else would set a bad example and promote the spread of anarchy."

"Can I see my daughter?" said the woman.

Dr. Igor gave up. This peasant would never understand what he was talking about; she wasn't interested in discussing insanity from a philosophical point of view, even though she knew her daughter had made a serious suicide attempt and had been in a coma.

He rang the bell and his secretary appeared.

"Call the young woman who tried to commit suicide," he said. "The one who wrote the letter to the newspapers, saying that she was killing herself in order to put Slovenia on the map."

"I don't want to see her. I've cut all my links with the outside world."

IT HAD been hard to say that in the lounge, with everyone else there. But the nurse hadn't been exactly discreet either, and had announced in a loud voice that her mother was waiting to see her, as if it were a matter of general interest.

She didn't want to see her mother; it would only upset both of them. It was best that her mother should think of her as dead. Veronika had always hated good-byes.

The man disappeared whence he had come, and she went back to looking at the mountains. After a week the sun had finally returned, something she had known would happen the previous night, because the moon had told her while she was playing the piano.

No, that's crazy, I'm losing my grip. Planets don't talk, or only to self-styled astrologers. If the moon spoke to anyone, it was to that schizophrenic.

The very moment she thought this, she noticed a sharp pain in her chest, and her arm went numb. Veronika felt her head spinning. A heart attack!

She entered a kind of euphoric state, as if death had freed her from the fear of dying. So it was all over. She might still experience some pain, but what were five minutes of agony in exchange for an eternity of peace? The only possible response was to close her eyes: In films the thing she most hated to see were dead people with staring eyes.