/*1. The Sinking*/
My marriage aborted, my private practice stillborn, I packed stale
possessions in two flabby suitcases and bade my sterile apartment a
tearless goodbye. On the spur of the moment, I had applied a fortnight
before to a government post and, to my consternation, had won it
handily. I was probably the only applicant.
It was an odd sort of job. The state authorities had just finished
submerging 4 towns, 6 cemeteries, and numerous farms under the still,
black waters of a new dammed reservoir of drinking water. The process
was drawn out and traumatic. Tight-knit communities unraveled, families
scattered, businesses ruined. The government undertook to provide the
former inhabitants with psychological support: an on-site therapist
(that's me), social workers, even a suicide line.
I had to relocate, hence my haphazard departure. I took the bus to the
nearest big city and hitchhiked from there. The fare just about
amortized my travel allowance for the entire week. I had to trudge in
mud the last two or three kilometers only to find myself in a
disorienting, nightmarish landscape: isled rooftops and church spires
puncturing the abnormally still surface of a giant man-made lake. I
waded ashore, amidst discarded furniture and toys and contemplated the
buried devastation.
My clinic, I discovered, was a ramshackle barrack, replete with a
derelict tiny lawn, strewn with rusting hulks of household goods. I was
shown by a surly superintendent into a tiny enclosure: my flat. Crammed
into a cubicle were a folding metal bed, military-issue blankets, and a
depleted pillow. Still, I slept like a baby and woke up refreshed.
The first thing that struck me was the silence, punctuated by a
revving-thrumming engine now and then: not a twitter, not a hum, not a
human voice. There was no hot water, so I merely washed my armpits, my
face and hands and feet and combed my hair the best I could, which
wasn't much by anyone's standards. I was plunged into the maelstrom
straightaway. My first patients, an elderly couple, their disintegrating
marriage and crumbling health mirrored by the withering of their habitat.
The days passed, consumed by endless processions of juvenile
delinquents, losers, the old, the sickly, the orphaned, the unemployed,
and the abandoned, the detritus of human settlements now made to vanish
at the bottom of a lake. It was a veritable makeshift refugee camp and I
found myself immersed in the woes and complaints of misfits who lost
their sense of community and means of livelihood and sought meaning in
their cruel individual tragedies, but in vain.
On the Tuesday of the second week of what was fast becoming a
surrealistic quagmire, I met Isabel. She was the very last in a long
list of appointments and I kept praying that she would not keep hers, as
many of them were wont to do. But she did and punctually so. I was
struck by her regal bearing, her poise, her coiffed hair, and her
dazzling but tasteful jewelry. Her equine face and aquiline nose meshed
well with just a hint of the oriental slant and cheekbones to render her
exotic.
She sat unbidden and watched me intently, benignly ignoring my
rhetorical question:
"You are Isabel Kidlington, aren't you?"
Of course she was. Three centuries ago, her family established an
eponymous town, now sunken beneath the calm surface of the lake.
Our first meeting ended frostily and unproductively but, in the fullness
of time, as she opened up to me, I found myself looking forward to our
encounters. I always scheduled her last, so that I could exceed the 45
minutes straightjacket of the classic therapy session. She was the first
person in a long time - who am I kidding? the first person ever - who
really listened to what I had to say. She rarely spoke, but, when she
did, it was with the twin authority of age and wisdom. I guess I grew to
love and respect her.
I wasn't sure why Isabel sought my meager services. She possessed enough
common sense and fortitude to put to shame any therapist I knew. She
never asked for my advice or shared her problems with me. She just made
an appearance at the appointed time and sat there, back erect, hands
resting in her lap, her best ear forward, the better to capture my
whining litany and to commiserate.
One day, though, she entered my crude office and remained standing.
"Isabel," - I enquired - "is everything alright?"
"You know that I have been provided with a residence on Elm Street, now
that my family home is underwater."
The "residence" was an imposing mansion, with an enormous driveway, an
English, sculpted garden, and a series of working fountains. Isabel
rented the place from a British-Canadian mogul of sorts, as she
disdainfully informed me a while back.
"It's been invaded by strangers." - She made a dramatic announcement.