Chapter 4

By the time I reached home my mind had managed to sort through most of today's happenings. Karla was still an enigma to me, her entire make-up a jumble of good, bad and the worst. From her reactions to my questions and suggestions it had become clear that she indeed had tried to manipulate her husband. Pushing, pulling, spurring him along on his way to success. She had not admitted it, but I suspected that withholding sexual favours was an often-used weapon. I had to speak to Alfred.

"Alfred, I do need some advice, please."

"Yes, Bert, I suspected as much. Your session took you most of the day. Have you gained much insight into your patient's problems?"

"First of all, I treated all of her physical ills. Most of them relatively minor, apart from the abuse to her genitals and anus. I suspect there might have been some cancerous cells in her breast, may have to treat her once more.

"Earning her trust enough to make her open up was much more difficult. She is a mess. A repressed youth, backwards parents and a church stiff with tradition and without common sense, useless, conceited parsons. The bio-feedback works beautifully. She needs to sort herself out first but doesn't want to see it that way.

"Alfred, I am plain scared now. What his problems are I cannot even guess, although I think that it's mostly sheer frustration which threw him off course. Her tricks would work very well with somebody who is, or used to be in love with her. But I did not bargain for all this psycho stuff. The wish to protect her daughters swayed me, she should be able to take care of herself. Now I find that her husband might need protection too. From her. The poor sucker must be desperate. And I haven't even met the girls.

"I cannot take sides, yet I still want to help. All of them, dammit. Got any sage advice for me, my friend, before I flip my mind? Should I carry on or break it off, leave them all to their fate? Perhaps I should just give Child Welfare a push and forget the rest?"

Alfred took a long time in answering. When he did come 'online' again, he was quite adamant that I carry on with my rescue mission.

"Bert, you cannot break off now. Sorry, but you got yourself involved and are stuck with the task. Jake warned you about just that, remember? The right way to go about this would be to connect with the guy first, plant your Heavy Matter and listen to him. You know how to stop his wayward actions immediately. Getting to really know his side of the story may be more difficult and will take a lot of patience. Avoid direct contact with the children at this stage. Use a different time-phase to get into the house, plant your Heavy Matter on them and confine yourself to listening. Perhaps you can get the woman – Karla, isn't it? – to invite you to their house spontaneously. Like a long-lost friend. She will have to decide whether this will work. More I can't tell you at this stage. You to decide if my advice is of any help at all.

"Lexa sends her love to you and Elise. You will have to come visiting once this adventure is behind you. She wants to show off again. Little Bert has grown tremendously. She hasn't said anything yet, but I suspect that she is pregnant again. You have been warned. Go carefully. It is very dangerous ground you are treading on."

"Thanks, Alfred, you have done well. I shall keep you informed. Give my love to Lexa and the crowd. Visiting will be a pleasure!"

With Elise I had to use more restraint while telling her about my day. Doctor and patient rules had to apply. But she realised very quickly how difficult my task would be and reminded me of my role.

"You will have to don your full Dr. Eisenbart cloak once more, Berthold. Just be very mindful of all the people involved at all times. And make sure that none of them even suspect that you are using the Heavy Matter to invade their privacy. You do know that this is in fact a criminal act which could get you, all of us, into deep trouble?"

She was right, of course, but so was Alfred. I could not stop the treatment. Making Elise an accomplice bothered me very much. However, I resolved to be open with her about any problems which were bound to crop up. And I would rely constantly on Alfred to keep my actions straight.

It was quite easy to get close to Helmut, Karla's husband. I knew where to find the offices of his company and just made an appointment with him. An interested prospective homeowner calling. That should perk him up.

I arrived on time, he was ready to see me. Going through my spiel was easy. Friends had recommended his company. A house was needed for two elderly people, one level only, but with spare rooms to put up guests quite often. A couple of spacious bathrooms. Level throughout, as I did not want to climb stairs more than absolutely necessary. Full basement of course, one does need to store things, doesn't one? And so on.

Helmut fitted Karla's description well. A tall man with huge hands, wrists like branches of oak. Long years of hard labour in his youth would do that. Heavy-set, with a developing paunch. Full, dark-blond hair. Grey eyes. Well-built, but nothing spectacular to look at, and certainly no hint of cruelty about him, as I had come to expect.

His questions were very astute and to the point. He said his company had a wide range of pre-planned houses built to a common grid system, which allowed for easy and economical adaptation to individual needs as well as the lay of the land. He would be happy to show me.

I had preset my little gadget to give me a small switch in time, fifteen seconds only, when I pressed the button. As he was caught in that position, pointing out some detail on a plan, bending forward, all I had to do was to bend over myself and apply my disc of Heavy Matter behind his ear. Straightened up once more, and switched back to our phase. Child's play, really. He did not notice it and continued with his explanations unperturbed.

Feeling like a proper cheat I asked him for three of the larger plans they had. I would show them to my wife and come back to him. Smiling, he told me that they did not work that way. Too dodgy, the drawings were their intellectual property. I should rather bring my wife with me to select and plan what we needed. He assured me that I had come to the right people for my house. Quality and prices were the best. I agreed to make another appointment soon. This was a good, polite man, competent on every level.

I sat a few moments in my car to get used to this new stream of bio-feedback. I needed to switch it off when driving but wanted to tune in to his first impressions of me. Damn him, he was sharp. He had picked up on my insincere babblings and felt certain I had tried to get some cheap drawings off him. My smart plan was shot down at the outset. There was no way I could play the long-lost friend at his house.

Elise found my story rather amusing. "You know, Berthold, that there is only one avenue open to you? You will have to buy a house! Think about it. You are right, those stairs are bothersome. Alfred and Jake made us rich, we can afford to build. We should stay in this village though, but perhaps up on the hill. The views will be beautiful, if we can find a decent plot, that is."

The idea of moving house did not appeal to me at all, but we had talked about this same subject many a time. We both loathed our present site, if not the house. It was on a very narrow street, close to council housing with loud and often unsavoury people.

So that's what we did. We looked our small village over and, up on the hill, found a very nice tract with a derelict house on it. The grounds were relatively large with almost 180 degrees of unbroken view. I knew that we should be able to see the Alps in the far distance whenever the foehn blew and cleaned the air. And, surprise, the lot was up for sale. Elise was enchanted immediately. I just sighed and swore to never indulge my healing fetish ever again. Still, I first had to finish my present effort!

Helmut seemed to be startled and pleased to hear from me again. An appointment was set up and we went to meet with him.

I had engaged the bio-feedback and was much surprised by my readings. Apparently he had had misgivings not only about my first visit but also over his interactions with his family. Could it be that he too was sensitive enough to receive feedback from me? Even if I had only 'acted' on his mind in a very minor, low-key way? He was, however, sufficiently professional to concentrate on the purpose of our visit. We told him that we had made an offer to buy a plot, showed it on a map.