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.
I looked at her, not comprehending:
"You mean burglars? Squatters? Who are these strangers? Why don't you call the Police to evict them? It could be dangerous, you know!"
She waved away my concerned pleas impatiently:
"I can't call the police to evict them because they have assumed the bodies of my family members."
When she saw the bafflement in my eyes, she reiterated slowly, as if aiming to get through to a slow-witted, yet cherished, interlocutor:
"These invaders - they look like my husband and my son. But they are not. They are doubles. They are somehow wrong, fake, ersatz, if you know what I mean."
I didn't.
"I love my real relatives but not the current occupants of their corporeal remains. I keep my door locked at night!"
She made it sound like an unprecedented event.
"Isabel, sit down, please." - I said and she did, white-jointed hands clenched and venous. I decided not to confront her illogic but rather to leverage it to expose the absurdity of her assertions.
"Why would these body-snatchers go to all this trouble?"
"Don't be silly!" - She snapped - "Money, of course! They are after my fortune! These look-alikes are planning to murder me and abscond with my considerable fortune. They are all in my will, you see, and they know it! But they can't wait their turn, they are anxious to lay their dirty paws on my checkbook! They are afraid that I will change my mind!"
"You sound like you are referring to your true relatives." - I pointed out.
She recoiled:
"These criminals that took over my family, I want them gone! I want my husband back and my son!'
"Then why don't you simply alter your will and let them know about it? Announce the changes in a family gathering! That way they will lose all interest in you and move on to their next victim! That way, all incentives to murder you will be removed, you see."
She glanced at me dumbfounded:
"That's a wonderful idea, dear! You are so clever, you are so astute when you put your mind to it! Thank you! You can't imagine what a relief it is to strike upon the solution to such an impossible situation!"
She sprang from the creaky armchair and extended her hand to fondle my cheek:
"Thank you, honey. You made me proud."
I felt like a million dollars.