Alter Ego

— J. Chr. de Vries

It took about ten months before Hedy Pogélosç and I were able to arrange to meet again. Every time we tried, it fell through, because either she was in the Netherlands, or I was. But on 14 February 2025 we finally met. She was spending the spring half-term at her house in Paunat. As most restaurants are closed at this time of year, we were obliged to make do with dinner on Valentine’s Day. We certainly had no romantic intentions, but the restaurant, Les Gourmandises des Saison, was open specially for that evening. When we entered at around eight o’clock, all twelve tables were occupied. I had booked in advance, just to be safe. Our last meeting had left behind a faint butterfly feeling in my stomach. Evidently there were still a few loose ends.^*)

*) See also The Finder and The Visionary.

“Why did we break up back then? There’s a gap in my memory. A sensitive gap, to be honest.”

“Well then, why did we actually begin in the first place?” Hedy riposted, after taking a sip of her Kir.

“You don’t begin falling in love; it happens to you. It is really a kind of calling.”

“Divine madness — that’s what Socrates once called it: manikē.”

“Ah, so you know your classics,” I said.

“Plato and Tintin, I need very little else.” She stuck out her tongue.

“Pange lingua, sing of the tongue,” I said with the most pious face I could muster. “Incidentally…” I continued, now with my most scholarly expression, “in this connection Socrates added a sneering remark, saying that his contemporaries had out of ignorance added a ‘t’ to the word: mantikē, which means something like ‘the art of prophecy’.”

“Well, there is something in that,” Hedy conceded, “the manic does, in a sense, utter oracles.”
Meanwhile the waitress served our amuse-bouches.

I took a sip of my white wine. “Ugh, tannin!” I quickly put the glass back on the table, beckoned the waitress, and asked whether she had another white wine without that taste. She returned with an alternative: a Pinot Gris. Unfortunately they had no Sauvignon. In response to Hedy’s questioning look, I said that for the past fifteen years or so I had no longer been able to tolerate tannin. It is present in almost all red wines, but fortunately in white wines it is rare.

“Perhaps that’s why you could no longer tolerate me,” Hedy sneered. “I’m riddled with tannin.” That tongue again.

“Shall our tongues be permitted to touch one another?”

“I should think not!”

“I’m working on a story in which I’m trying to unravel this riddle.”

“That story is not about me, I hope,” she asked anxiously. “I’m not waiting for that.” She seemed angry.

“Yes, yes, calm down,” I tried to reassure her. “Someone once told me a lovely anecdote about Maurice Ravel. A friend had come to visit him at his house in Montfort-l’Amaury, just outside Paris. Ravel proudly showed him his collection of Chinese porcelain. ‘All fake,’ he said triumphantly. Art is fiction, you see. Neither your name nor mine will be mentioned; I use alter egos.”

“Oh, so you write art — that is a great relief.” She still looked angry. “I want to read it before you publish.”

“I’ll tell you about it in a moment, and whether I publish it I still don’t know. But that is not for you to decide.”

— § —

I — Devine Madness

I waited until the starter had been served before beginning to tell her about the story. The story is called Divine Madness.

“The protagonist is called Leo Tragther. He tells the story of his beloved Beatriz Firel, and he does so in the first person.”

“Beatriz?! Really?” Hedy looked at me sarcastically.

“I couldn’t resist.” I grinned.

Hedy shook her head. “Go on.”

“Leo and Beatriz met at a masked ball given by Leo’s friend Stefan at his castle somewhere in the Veluwe. Stefan came from an aristocratic family, a jonkheer. He had inherited the castle, but without the accompanying fortune, with the result that over the years it had fallen badly into disrepair. But this did not trouble him; he lived from day to day.

“Leo and Beatriz struck up a conversation. It was love at first sight, as people say, but Leo did not understand exactly how that could be. After all, he could not see her face, nor did he have any proper view of her eyes; her mask made that impossible. Her mouth, however, was clearly visible, and he stared continuously, utterly enchanted, at the rhythm of her full lips as she spoke. Her voice had a deep timbre; he grew dizzy with every word that escaped it. Yet Beatriz, too, could not take her eyes off him, although she could no more see his face than he could hers — only his mouth.

“They spoke for a long time, paying no attention whatsoever to the other guests at the party, and even forgetting to refill their drinks. They had enough in the sound of each other’s voices, and, let us hope, in the substance of their stories as well.

“Stefan saw it all happening. From time to time he walked over to them, but the two lovebirds did not deign to spare him a glance. That did not please him. He went over to the stereo and turned the volume up. The other guests loved it and began dancing ever more wildly, but Stefan saw that the besotted little couple remained unfazed; they merely moved their heads closer together so as to keep hearing one another. In exasperation he turned the music down again.

“Leo wanted to remove his mask. He said, ‘I want finally to be able to look you in the eyes.’ But Beatriz laid her hand on his arm. ‘No, if we take off our masks, the magic will vanish.’ Her voice sounded firm, and Leo did not dare argue. Beatriz sensed his uncertainty. She kept her hand on his arm and tried to reassure him. ‘Let us be patient; let us cherish what we have now. Time is on our side.’ She stood up and said she was going to fetch more drinks. This was the moment Stefan saw his chance. He quickly walked over to Leo and sat down beside him. ‘She doesn’t want to take off her mask,’ he said. His voice sounded understanding. ‘I can quite see why. She has good reason to keep her face hidden.’

“Beatriz returned with a bottle of wine. Stefan got up and waved goodbye to them. ‘What did he want with you?’ Beatriz asked.

“‘Oh, nothing important,’ Leo replied.

“Beatriz filled their glasses. For a while they remained sitting opposite one another in silence, sipping from their glasses. ‘Come on,’ Beatriz said brightly, ‘let’s pick up the thread again.’

“Gradually they fell under each other’s spell once more. Leo had made his peace with the fact that they had to keep their masks on, although Stefan’s final sentence continued to trouble him for some time. What was that ‘good reason’ he had meant? But through the passionate exchange of thoughts, ideas, jokes, and fantasies — and perhaps a few glasses of wine — he forgot Stefan’s insinuation.

“After the bottle had been polished off, Leo thought it was his turn to fetch a new one. At the bar Stefan intercepted him. ‘Don’t you want to know why she wants to keep her mask on?’ he asked.

“Leo hesitated. In truth he did not want to know, but it had nevertheless begun to gnaw at him. Stefan saw it and bluntly told him that she had a terrible scar on her face as the result of a serious car accident. Leo recoiled. ‘Perhaps you should have a look first,’ Stefan added. Then he walked away.

“Leo was seized by doubt. What was he to do? Then he decided to do something he would regret for the rest of his life. He returned to the little table where Beatriz was sitting with the new bottle of wine, pretended to stumble, grabbed Beatriz’s mask, and let himself fall. There was no scar at all. He was stunned by the beauty of her face; he drowned in her eyes. But not for long. Beatriz stood up and walked away without saying a word, leaving Leo behind in a wave of despair. He looked towards the bar, where Stefan was watching him with an innocent grin. Leo stormed over and seized him. ‘It was only a joke,’ said Stefan.”

Hedy looked at him pityingly. “Is that your analysis of our relationship?” she asked.

“No, of course not, it’s an allegory.”

“I realise that, but to what extent does this touch on what happened between us? What is the deeper meaning of those masks? Why must something remain hidden? And I understand the reference to Eros and Psyche too, except that you’ve reversed the roles: apparently I am Eros, and you Psyche. Very modern!” She kept her tongue to herself.

“Those masks are not there to conceal something, but rather to reveal something,” I explained.
“And that is the metaphor for what may have gone wrong between us. If that last word even applies. At least for you — for me it does. I think. Good Lord, what do I know. Divine madness never lasts. Perhaps we knew no better.”

“So those masks show the retreat of the gods,” Hedy said thoughtfully. “Hmm, I’m not sure. Could be. But your story makes me think of something else, another strange coincidence in fact. I have a story for you too.”

Meanwhile the waitress removed the dishes from the starter, though we had to keep the cutlery.

“Odd,” Hedy remarked.

I explained that in some restaurants this was customary, though I agreed with her: I too would have preferred fresh cutlery for the next course. I wiped mine clean with a paper napkin. With a sigh, Hedy followed my example.

A few minutes later, after the main course had been served and our glasses refilled, Hedy launched into her story.

— § —

II — The Untouchable

“During one of the rare occasions on which I visited the market in Saint-Cyprien, I met the Flemish writer Vere Drijsch. She was sitting behind a small table with several stacks of books. When I asked, ‘Are these your books — are you the writer?’, she gave me a dirty look and snapped, ‘Writer, if you please!’ I raised my hands apologetically, whereupon she continued curtly, ‘Writer is a function, and that does not tolerate gender marking.’ I leafed through a few of the books on display and saw that most of them were collections of psychological stories, though there were a few novels among them as well. ‘Are you a psychologist?’ I asked, assuming that this too was a function. She gave a brief nod, with a look of pity. It was certainly not love at first sight.

“When, half an hour later, I passed her table again, I asked whether I might offer her something to drink, ‘to make amends’. To my surprise she thawed, and we agreed to meet an hour later on the terrace of a café farther down the street. I had just chosen a small table beside a fountain when she came walking up.

“We both ordered an espresso and a glass of mineral water. ‘Apparently women, too, can be guilty of mansplaining,’ I began by way of apology.

“That did not go down well. ‘What do you mean — that I correct you over whether or not a function has a feminine form?’ Naturally that was not what I meant at all, I tried to explain, but I feared the conversation would be laborious, and already regretted having made the suggestion. I was there for peace and quiet, not to practise my profession.

“Fortunately she softened after that, and after a while we were actually having a real conversation. Once she understood that I was a psychotherapist, we clicked. She told me that she used her stories and novels to gain deeper insight into the human psyche through fiction. And that brings me to the coincidence I was just speaking of.
“She has in fact written a story that overlaps with yours — more than overlaps, I should say; there are certain similarities that defy any notion of coincidence. There is, for instance, the name of the protagonist, Theo Terlage, which strongly resembles your Leo. He too had a love experience that went awry. Theo had met Elvira Brieze on a beach near Knokke — or rather, in the sea. Theo had just dived into a high wave when, as he came back up, he found himself staring into the mirrored sunglasses of a beautiful woman who had likewise emerged from the wave beside him. Her glasses were fastened tightly round her head with a cord. While wondering in amazement why anyone would plunge into the waves wearing spectacles, he saw her wading towards the beach. Mesmerised, he followed her. Her things turned out to be lying only a few metres from his own. After drying himself, he walked over to her and introduced himself.

“In this story too the two young people fall madly in love. They talk without pause; time seems to stand still, as though Athena favours them by making the sun-chariot of Helios move in slow motion. But at last the sun-chariot continues on its way.

“And in this story too the boy wants to look the girl in the eyes. Through those sunglasses with their metallic coating, he is all the while looking at himself. But he is no Narcissus, nor is he Pygmalion; he is Eros. Or is he, as in your story, Psyche? At a certain moment he can bear it no longer. He asks Elvira whether she will take off her glasses, for the sun is setting, and he longs to be able to look her straight in the eyes. But Elvira refuses to remove them, even once the sun has disappeared.‘Never ask me that again,’ she says implacably.

“You can already guess it: in this story too the boy devises a ruse in order, through a supposed accident, to knock the glasses from her head, and here too the girl departs resolutely without another word, leaving Theo behind in bewilderment.

“The reason she did not want to remove her glasses is of a different nature from that of the masks in your story. It turned out that Elvira was blind. She did not want Theo to realise that they would never see one another.”

“That still sounds rather like Pygmalion,” I said. “Elvira, like Galatea, was untouchable — only through the eyes. That is comparable.”

“In both cases the enchantment is broken; kairos is evidently an unstable state,” Hedy said. “Although,” she corrected herself, “perhaps ‘state’ is the wrong term. Time does not stand still, but moves in a kind of extreme retardation. Time comes to a halt.”

The waitress came to clear away our plates. Time for dessert: Crème Brûlée for Hedy, and Les Fromages for me.

— § —

III — The End of the World

After the Crème had been set alight at our table and the flames had eventually died down, I suggested that we share the rest of the stories.

“The two young men, of course, could not simply resign themselves to the sudden departure of their beloveds. We shall have to face that drama. You first — or would you rather I begin?”

“You begin,” Hedy replied, “then we’ll take turns, like a relay.” She took a spoonful of her Crème.

“As you will understand, suicide is the next item on the programme. Or should I say self-killing, in Drijsch’s terminology?”

“As a therapist I always speak of self-killing; that is the correct term. But in the pub I call it suicide. I think that distinction matters — that the terminology matters, since it depends on the context,” said Hedy.

“Tant mieux.” I took a sip of my Pinot Gris and continued my story.

“Leo had been so shaken by the dramatic turn in his scarcely begun love affair that he began to think about the future of his life. It was not only Beatriz’s sudden departure that had struck him deeply, but also Stefan’s suggestive remark. Where had that come from? And why had it been, as he said, ‘only a joke’? Was it really nothing more than clumsiness on his part, or was there something else behind it, something malicious? Leo could get no grip on it. His capacity for analysis, reflection, and relativisation failed him completely, and he sank into a state of apathy. He could think of only one thing: stopping everything.

“His conclusion was inevitable: he would go to the end of the world, and there stop everything — eating and drinking above all, the rest would then follow of its own accord. But this did lead to a problem, for where, or what, was ‘the end of the world’? The summit of Mount Everest? The North Pole, or the South Pole? Or should this point lie somewhere on the equator? He could not decide. There were too many practical objections as well: in the state he was in, he would never be able to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and the same went for both Poles — far too cold. He considered the equator for a while longer, but then suddenly had a luminous idea: the end of the world was not a specific, objectively existing point; it could be any place he wanted! He himself would determine that point.

“With his last reserves of strength, he studied the map of the world on his laptop, and in a flash saw the name it had to be: Timbuktu. There was an airport just outside the city. He booked a one-way ticket and set off. From the airport he walked into the desert. How far he had walked he did not know. Suddenly he collapsed, crawled towards a sand dune, drew a line in the sand, and said, ‘Thus far and no further.’ He wrapped a towel round his head to protect himself from the sun. And so he waited for the inevitable death. He had no idea how long it would take, but it did not matter to him. Without food, it would soon be over.

“He had lost all sense of time. He did not know how long he had been lying by that dune when suddenly the sky darkened, a gust of wind rose from the west, swelling into a storm. He felt himself flung into the air, the sand lashed his face, and then he lost consciousness.

“When he came to, he was lying in a bed, with a drip in his arm. He was evidently in a hospital. A nurse came towards him, but he could not understand what she was saying. Nor could he understand the doctor who later came to his bedside. He felt himself slipping back into a black void.

“The days passed. Gradually he recovered his strength. Then one day a man was standing by his bed, saying that he worked at the Dutch embassy in Bamako, the capital of Mali. This man arranged for him to be flown back to the Netherlands. His GP had him compulsorily admitted to a psychiatric institution. He did not resist the prescribed medication; none of it mattered to him any longer.”
“Does the story go on?” Hedy asked. “I mean, is there still a conclusion to come?”

“I’m making it up in front of you.”

“So your story isn’t finished?”

“No, I’m still working on it. For that, I first had to see you again.”

“Aha, so it is about me after all, however hard you try to hide behind your artistic preoccupations.”

I looked at her with a grin. “Let’s order a digestif, then we can bring your story to its conclusion. Curious to hear how it ends…”

— § —

IV — The End of Time

“As you will expect, there are a good many similarities between Vere’s story and yours. But there are differences too.

“The conclusion, for instance, is different. Or rather, that is precisely what is not missing there.” She took a sip of her cognac.

“Theo too searched for a special place in which to take his own life, but this place had to do not with space, but with time. The way in which he wanted to end his life was the same as Leo’s — to stop eating and drinking — but he wanted to do so in a place where time itself would stand still. That could only be in one place: on the 180th meridian, where the day jumps forward. There is one place where this is possible, on one of the Fiji islands: Taveuni. The meridian runs straight across it. He sought out a deserted spot on the northern side of the island, and lay down there exactly on the meridian, to wait, like your Leo, for the end.

“And in Theo’s case too the gods of nature intervened. Unexpectedly a tidal wave came surging in — the meteorologists later could not understand where it had come from — and Theo was dragged into the sea by the wave. He found himself in the midst of a tremendous thunderstorm and was struck by lightning. He was picked up by the crew of a fishing boat, who took him to a hospital in the capital, Suva. There it emerged that the lightning had cost him his sight. An employee of the Dutch embassy in Wellington, New Zealand, eventually arranged for his repatriation to the Netherlands. There he was admitted to the eye hospital in Rotterdam.

“He remained in hospital for several weeks, while an extensive investigation into his blindness was carried out. In the end the conclusion was that it was permanent. Then one day he heard a familiar voice: Elvira was standing at the foot of his bed. She told him that she had read in the newspaper what had happened to him; he had become, if only briefly, a celebrity. It had not been very difficult to discover in which hospital he was staying. She took him home with her, and their infatuation could now develop into a mature love relationship. She had even bought him a pair of mirrored sunglasses.”

Hedy took another sip of her cognac. “That is a conclusion: they were equals now. All’s well that ends well.”
“Well,” I said, “as you say…” I drained my cognac and ordered another. Hedy took things more slowly.

“You don’t think it’s a conclusion,” Hedy suggested.

“No, anything but,” I replied. “It is merely a tailor-made ending to a story, nothing more.”

“We learn nothing about what actually took place between the two lovers,” I went on, “nothing about the meaning of all that business with the blindness. It offers no analysis, no conception of infatuation in relation to what I would call ‘mature love’ — in short, the difference between eros and what the Greeks denote by the term pragma. That is what we are dealing with in our love relationships; that is what novels and operas are full of. My story no more does this, I admit, but I had already indicated that I am aware this is missing. I am curious about it.”

— § —

V — Illusion

We had decided to move the conversation to my house, only a three-minute drive from the restaurant. I lit several logs in the fire pit, a circle of boulders. I felt the need for a cigar; Hedy lit a cigarette. I had also opened a bottle of port. We were each seated on a chair piled with three cushions.

“So then, what do we actually have in the end?” Hedy took a drag on her cigarette and then answered her own question. “Infatuation means being blind. That in itself is nothing new. What is interesting about the two mirror stories is that in your story the blindness is a choice, whereas in Drijsch’s story it is a caprice of nature. Beatriz chooses blindness; in her view it is necessary in order to preserve the illusion of manikē, a way of manipulating time. In Elvira’s case, and then in Theo’s, there is no choice: blindness befalls them. Is there, in their case, still such a thing as illusion?”

“But what about that ‘choice’?” I said. “Is it really a choice when Beatriz decides she wants to keep the mask on? And was it a choice — right or wrong — on Leo’s part when he removes her mask by means of a ruse? Perhaps he was the victim of an enchantment. Beatriz chooses immediately to disappear from his life in response. You might call that fidelity to the illusion, and at the same time betrayal of the truth. It is always wrong, one way or the other.”

“Well then, you mean: does ‘free will’ exist?” Hedy mused. “Is that your ultimate question?”

“Out of what problem is that question born?”

“Good Lord, in your old age you are becoming poetic yet,” Hedy grinned. “But I’m not stupid; I understand perfectly well that the concept of ‘free will’ does not tolerate a definite article, and that it is a complex idea, one about which people think very differently. Nor do I know whether, in this connection, it is even a relevant point of departure for comparing the two stories.”

“No, I don’t think so either,” I admitted. “But I do think there are choices involved, quite apart from the question of how free they are. Beatriz chooses illusion, enchantment, and she wants to remain faithful to that. I do not know whether Leo consciously wants to abolish that illusion, but he does want more than mere fantasy; he experiences what is beginning to arise between them as a calling. He wants more than a static condition. That too is a choice, but one that runs directly counter to Beatriz’s. That is tragedy. The way in which he articulates his truth is of course open to challenge — a stupid trick is no way to serve truth. But why should that not be forgivable?”

“Do you mean that Beatriz ought to have explained the function of the mask?” Hedy asked. “That they ought first to have negotiated it thoroughly? But that would have meant the end of the illusion. You do not explain the punchline of a joke either. That is fatal. Here she had no choice; Leo ought to have sensed the function of the mask — I am not even saying ‘understood’ it. Or he should have trusted that she had good reason for it. Infatuation is a game.”

“I agree, which is why I call it tragic. Awkwardness so often plays a part in such matters.” I refilled our glasses. “As far as my story is concerned, I think we have reached a conclusion: it concerns a dramatic choice between ‘illusion’ and ‘truth’, in which one of the two principles has to be surrendered. But what about the story you told? Was there — anywhere — a choice? And was that choice comparably existential? The ‘blindness’ there was not a choice, but an imposed fate.”

“Yes, indeed, and because of that there is a reversal. Where in the first story the initial choice — namely, refusing blindness — made love impossible, here fate itself (in this case the absence of choice), through imposed blindness, made that love possible.”

“So we may now conclude that Love Makes Blind. Together we have managed to produce a colossal cliché. Congratulations!” I grinned.

“Quite…” — once again Hedy’s tongue — “for you, after all, our relationship, whatever it may represent, was in the end a cliché.”

“In his incomparable How to Become a Writer Oneself, Gerard Reve makes a passionate argument about Cliché and Kitsch. The cliché, he argues, is not, as it is usually described, a ‘worn-out’ word or expression; it is not ‘threadbare’, but ‘coined’. Kitsch and cliché go hand in hand; no work of art can exist without both stylistic figures. Ravel’s music is the sublime example of this. The statement ‘In the lines of latitude and longitude, time and space come together’ is a cliché. Sticking out your tongue is likewise a cliché. Our entire conversation this evening is saturated with them. Is not ‘illusion’, in the end, an amalgam of cliché and kitsch?”

Hedy pressed her lips together for a moment, thought for a while, and said, “Hmm… let us begin with that ‘illusion’. Is everything in and about our lives then an illusion? Is nothing ‘real’, or ‘true’? Is everything understood solely within one context or another, which itself is then constructed as well? Would that not be a sublimated form of poverty?”

“Everything is an illusion: the time zones, daylight saving time and winter time, the lines of latitude and longitude — all of them constructions serving the illusion,” I replied.
“So the Greek thinker Hipparchus, who formulated that concept in the second century before our era, was himself also an illusion?”

“Illusions are grounded in facts. I am not saying that factual realities do not exist. If we lose our balance, we fall. But facts in themselves are still nothing; they acquire meaning through the relations we attach to them. ‘Illusions’ are constructions, with a scientific purpose, or for instruction and delight, but in any case invented. Or, to quote Reve: ‘Does not our entire life, that dress rehearsal which is never performed, consist of cliché and for the rest of, sometimes admittedly poor, kitsch?’”

“Then our relationship, whatever form it may have had, was an ‘illusion’.”

“Yes, in a certain sense it was.”

“Why then does it matter what that form was? It was what it was; it might have taken another form, but that idea too is then an illusion.” Hedy took a sip of her port. “So is this the final conclusion?”

“No, because surely we can say a little more about an ‘illusion’ than merely naming the fact that it is a construction.”

“I am not saying an illusion is without consequence; of course there is some sort of content involved,” said Hedy irritably.

“I didn’t know you were going to get angry,” I said with a grin.

Wisely, Hedy held her tongue.

“In both stories there is an illusion,” I said, trying to summarise the problem. “In mine it is broken by Leo, with the removal of the mask. In the story you told, the illusion is imposed by nature — by the gods, if you like. So the central question is: What do we do with that illusion? It seems to me that it can be used for good or ill. One must therefore be somewhat attentive: not afraid, but wary. And so we are back once more at my first question: Why did we break up back then?”

“If we proceed from what you have just concluded, we should try to determine whether the ending of that relationship was a choice, or whether it was forced upon us by those gods of yours.” She thought for a moment, then continued. “I think, if we follow your story, that I myself cast off the mask. I was not exactly eager to undergo that ‘pragmatic’ relationship which I suspected you had in mind. Masks are always temporary. Perhaps I was addicted to them. Not only because I find eros more agreeable than pragma, but also because I could make good use of the experience in my profession. Or my ‘calling’, as you would put it. It is not only writers who have a calling; therapists, doctors, and bakers do too.”

“Prime numbers too are an illusion — or so George Bruijsols, a legitimate blind friend of mine who lives nearby, claims. According to him, no formula will ever be found that can express the principle of those numbers. That is because the sequence devours itself. The number 2, the first prime, is also the only even number in the sequence. All the other even numbers are repetitions of it, merely in multiple. But the same applies to the next prime, 3. And then to 5. This goes on into infinity; in that sense the sequence is recursive, but in a negative way.”

“A cannibal, then,” Hedy concluded. “What a charming illusion!”

“Yes. Illusions come in all shapes and sizes: creative and destructive. And neutral.”
Hedy stared ahead thoughtfully. “Neutral? Is that possible? Give me an example… The law? Well… not exactly.”

We argued for a while, proposing examples which we then repeatedly had to reject because some interest or stake was always attached to them. Water, for instance, seems neutral — until you are in danger of drowning in it. At a certain point we began to incline towards the conclusion that a neutral illusion does not exist, on the grounds that an illusion is partly created by our imaginative powers. But then I thought of the sequence of natural numbers. That is neutral, and yet also an illusion; after all, it is a construction, not a product of nature. One may attach all manner of creative or destructive acts to it, but the sequence itself is neutral.
“What exactly are we gaining from all this?” Hedy asked with a frown. “Life is an illusion. Relationships are illusions. So what?”

“Well…” I replied, “I think I now know how my story is going to end.” I drained my glass, as a kind of prelude, and began.

“We had left Leo admitted to a psychiatric institution, in a state of total apathy. He had chosen truth over illusion, but the way in which he brought truth into play was underhanded. And truth does not sit well with cunning.” I saw that Hedy wanted to respond, but I cut her off; I wanted first to finish my argument. “I know what you want to say, but I believe truth is always pure.”
Hedy made an indulgent gesture with her hand, and I went on.

“There are several possible options; I shall mention two. The first is rather too coincidental, though it does fit the line of your story. Beatriz turns out to work as a psychiatric nurse in the very institution where Leo is staying. To let some kind of sequel to their first love experience develop there would be a mistake. Then it simply becomes a variation on Drijsch’s story, the enforced illusion. But what could happen is that they confront Leo’s cunning — and perhaps Stefan’s as well — and that in doing so a new truth is discovered, namely one that breaks the illusion in a pure way. The truth which Leo had forced through a false trick had thereby itself become an illusion, namely the semblance of the ‘true’. Becoming conscious of this yields a new, different truth, one that is pure. I must admit that this is perhaps too dutiful an option, with too little venom.

“Then there is a second option. Leo gradually pulls himself together again because the medication works well. He has taken up sport, grown physically stronger, and begun to write down the story, thereby finding a new calling: he becomes a writer. Or who knows… perhaps he discovers that he already was one. He becomes successful, and at some point can afford a simple little house in France, where one day he suddenly finds himself face to face with Beatriz. They go out to dinner, and the stories begin to flow.”

Hedy shook her head with a faint smile. She did not find it particularly witty, and of course it was not.

“I have a third option,” she said after emptying her own glass, “the most interesting one, in my view.”

“Well then, let’s hear it,” I said obligingly.

“Good. With my option we are immediately rid of that loose end with Stefan.”

I grinned. “I think I know what your alternative option is, but you may tell it yourself. Je vous en prie.”

“Beatriz had persuaded Stefan to spin that story about the traffic accident for Leo. She wanted to put him under pressure. It certainly puts his truth-seeking to the test; you might say that she, at least indirectly, prompted him towards it. Naturally she could not know that he would remove her mask by means of that supposed accident, but she could know that he would make an extra effort to persuade her to take it off. That in fact reveals what the illusion ultimately meant to her. The mask was really nothing more than a — very temporary — game.”

— § —

Postscript

I dropped Hedy off at a small hotel nearby, for driving all the way to Paunat would, given the amount we had had to drink, have been irresponsible. The little hotel was only two kilometres from my house; I could manage that road in my sleep without coming to any harm.

As I sat in silence, enjoying a final cigar and a glass of sparkling water, a fourth option for the ending of my story occurred to me. I retained Hedy’s suggestion that Beatriz had managed to draw Stefan into her little scheme, but I added something to it. Leo had sensed that something was going on between them. He may not have known exactly what, but he did know that Beatriz was not being honest in her preoccupation with the mask. It was as though Beatriz, unconsciously — or at any rate in some ambiguous way — had seduced him into removing the mask from her. She wanted that. But why? Was it a refined game, like a cat when it has caught a mouse? Or was it fear, that the love-play between them was escalating too quickly? The conclusion was inescapable: the removal of the masks had been a decision of both Beatriz and Leo, albeit in a masked form. The ‘truth’ that thereby seemed to come to light proved in the end to be an illusion, because it was a false truth. More kindly put: a human, all too human misunderstanding.

A few months later Hedy put her house in Paunat up for sale. Half a year later she had sold it, exchanging it for a chalet in the Veluwe. The reason she gave was that she could no longer manage the journey to France.

— Bonnemort, 21 March 2025