The Inquisitor: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

however threadbare and static, had provided a numbing continuity, a sameness that masked the passing of time. Since Sara had left, it was his aloneness that informed him, daily, of his age and the potential for further deterioration. First came the shift to one percent milk instead of cream in his coffee. Next came Diet Coke instead of the real thing, trading flavor for the chemical aftertaste. Then Amstel Light, which required an act of self-delusion for him to believe he was drinking beer. Now this joyless sucking of thin smoke, waiting for the hop in his pulse that no longer came. Without the attendant pleasure, smoking was unmasked for what it was—an addiction perpetuated by a mind grown too indolent to explore itself with the diligence it brought to the terrain of others.
    Looking down to West Eighty-eighth Street, Corley saw Geiger come around the corner and approach the side door to his building. Geiger had called for an appointment eight months ago, after finding Corley’s name listed on a psychiatric website. At their first session, he revealed the reason for his presence: two months earlier he’d had a dream of epic intricacy and drama, followed by a massive migraine. Since then, Corley had learned, the dream had been playing every two or three weeks in slightly different versions on his mind’s stage, and in each case an excruciating migraine had provided the second act. In all their sessions, Geiger had been precise and devoid of guile, a provider of emotionless reportage. Corley found his new patient to be an intriguing contradiction, the equivalent of an intelligent stone.
    At the end of the first session, when Geiger had decided to continue the process, he’d voiced two requirements. First, he would talk only about the dream. He would not speak about his past, or his life outside the walls of Corley’s office. Second, he must be given a key to the building’s service entrance so that he wouldn’t have to walk through the lobby.
    Corley had sat back in his chair, scratching his white-streaked beard, and asked why.
    “Because I know what works best for me,” Geiger had answered.
    It was the first of countless times that Corley had been struck by a tone Geiger often summoned. Though equable and uninflected, it was anchored in a certainty that made further discussion seem unnecessary, even pointless. Geiger’s first rule, limiting all discussion to the events of a dream world, meant severely constricting the usual therapeutic borders, and his request for a key was far beyond the accepted rules—no patient had ever asked for one. But Corley had agreed to both. Geiger’s dream, proof of some radical turmoil the man was clearly incognizant of, had been gasoline poured on the pale embers of Corley’s passion. He had wanted Geiger to come back.
    From his terrace, Corley watched Geiger unlock the service entrance and go inside. After dropping his cigarette in a flowerless clay pot, Corley walked back into his office.
    *   *   *
     
    Corley stared at the notepad on his lap. He’d started taking notes during sessions only recently. In the past, he’d jot down a few notes in between patients and flesh them out at night. Then he began to notice a slight, nocturnal stutter in his memory, a minor lag in recalling details. He’d given ginkgo biloba a try, but stopped because he kept forgetting to take it.
    “So,” he said, “the web was finished, a moth was snared, and you put a flame to everything. What do you think that was about?”
    Geiger lay on the couch staring at the bookshelves on the wall. He knew the literary skyline by heart—every title, author, color, and font. In the center of the lower shelf was a framed photograph of a large, rambling house set on a rolling lawn amid majestic trees. Its strong lines and angled roof appealed to him. He’d asked Corley about the house in the past and received curt responses. All Geiger knew was that it was a hundred years old and located in Cold