Chapter 8: Psychological Transference

I snuck out about 2:00 am and covered the four miles to the village in little more than an hour. I kept expecting the gendarmes to find me and detain me and I was trying to decide how I would respond. But the gendarmes never came. To avoid detection, I skirted the small village to the west, until I came upon the railroad tracks. Then I simply followed them to the station.

Once there, I found a mail hamper and turned it upside down, then squeezed under it.

It was the sound of the air brakes that woke me. I had no Idea what time it was, but I could hear the tiny station bustling with people. I was trapped. I had no way to board the train. I didn’t have any money, and no way to get any. I had no food or water. And I was afraid of being discovered any minute and carted off to some filthy jail with no understanding of the language and no one to help me.

This was a dangerous emotion spiral and while I knew it, I could not stop it. And as my thirst increased with my depression, I started imagining I was hearing voices.

American voices.

Speaking English.

My sister’s voices.

Calling to me.

Suddenly, I stood up. I had to see my sisters!

“THERE HE IS!” she screamed. “MOM! He’s here!”

Mischa reached me about thirty seconds before her mom and hugged me tightly as she whispered soothing words in my ear. Carina wrapped her arms around both of us and squeezed. The Gendarme stood silently by for a moment as he watched our reunion. Finally, he said, “If there’s nothing else, Madam,” then he tipped his cap and walked away.

“Daniel? Are you okay?” Carina asked.

“Water...” I rasped through very dry lips.

Carina went to buy water while Mischa helped me to a nearby bench. After downing both of the bottles of water, they helped me to her car, carefully avoiding any questions about why I ran away.

Later that night, Carina sat on the edge of my bed while Roland occupied the room’s only chair on the other side.

“Can you tell us what you were thinking, Daniel?” Roland asked.

I looked at Carina but couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

Roland, vigilant as ever, didn’t need words to figure it out. He could read my eyes.

After a long silence, he asked, “Do you love her?”

Again, I almost couldn’t speak, but somehow, the words came.

“I don’t know,” I told him as Carina looked on in stunned silence. “I’m not really sure what love is.”

“Do you care for her?” he asked. “Deeply. Like your mother? Or your sisters?”

“Roland! Don’t do this!” Carina pleaded with her husband.

“Or is it like a woman?” he continued. “A woman whom you desire to touch and to hold and to kiss?

When he asked that, I looked up at Carina. Her face was passive. Calm. But her eyes held fear.

“What is she afraid of?” I wondered.

“Daniel, for the last three weeks, I have not offered you any opinions. However, I’d like to tell you now, as your psychiatrist, what my professional opinion is. Okay?”

I just nodded my head slightly.

“Getting hit by lightning changed you. It changed your body, and it changed your mind. It probably even changed your soul, the very core of your being. Then you were forced to leave your home and go to a strange land and live with a strange family and try to face all these changes within yourself without the benefit of your normal support group. So, you find yourself, through a series of events, not of your making, facing the unknown with only a single source of comfort. Of security.”