Libertionne

All of a sudden, the fragments of the mosaic came together to form a picture. Only one person could have called the police to a place where there was no network coverage. Only one person could be so blind and self-assured as to go alone and without a bodyguard into Pankrationne. A person who was so close to Laura as to show her his face. Tiberius broke out laughing. “The Emperor! And what was the poor guy doing there? He wanted to be closer to the people? But right now it would be better to worry about his own fate.”

Tiberius looked at his reflection in the mirror, when suddenly… He froze. Slowly, afraid to believe his own eyes, he turned. On the wall behind him hung a huge poster in a chrome frame, of a kitten in a huge fuchsia-colored ribbon, with empty, sad eyes that were round as tea saucers. Next to it was a bigger poster; on it two gigantic kittens were rolling a strange ball made of wool yarn. Tiberius pushed the security alarm button so hard that he almost broke it.

“What is this?” he asked hoarsely when the guard walked in, pointing his finger behind his back. He had no desire to turn around. The feeling was as if an ancient Slav who had gone searching in the night for a flowering fern. From all sides the monsters from the darkness were looking with their terrifying eyes; they were only ghosts, but as soon as you turned around, they’d become flesh.

The guard was a little surprised. Then, in a mentoring tone, exactly like a governess whose mischievous charges had found an anatomical atlas and demanded an explanation, answered:

“Kittens, sir.”

“I can see that myself. But why?”

“According to psychological data, sir, kittens are the most pleasant image for a person – they, so to speak, create a feeling of psychological comfort. They are the top choice on internet surveys,” and, seeing the terror and confusion in the eyes of the inmate, he condescendingly explained:

“In prison, a person is so degraded by the lack of freedom, that in all other areas his rights must not be infringed; a positive psychological environment must be created for him.

“But what if I don’t want to see these beasts?”

“I’m very sorry for you, sir.”

“But they are infringing my rights! This can be fully equated with torture.”

The discussion was cut short by another guard who brought in a tray with a steaming cup of coffee, toast and golden fried camembert with lingonberry jam. Tiberius managed to sit in such a way that the kittens were not visible, even in the reflection in the mirrored wall. When he had finished with breakfast, and the tray taken away obligingly, the guard announced,

“You have a visitor.”

At that second, cold metal handcuffed snapped onto his wrists. The guards separated, walked to the sides of the door and froze, taking on a surprising resemblance to guards at an Egyptian tomb, promising any unlucky looters that “horror, flying on the wings of night” would find them without fail. And before Tiberius could ask a question, the door opened and in walked Laura at a hurried pace, resembling a German Valkyrie, tossing her locks of blond hair, her eyes darkening with fury. He got up to greet her and nearly fell back from the force with which she struck him in the face. The two examples of “terror flying on the wings of night” came to life and timidly approached Laura, who evidently was not impressed and bestowed another face-slap upon Tiberius, after which he tasted blood.

“Mister Darnley…” they bleated.

Laura slowly turned her head and the brave guards backed away.

“Get the hell out of here.”

She said it very slowly and quietly, but the guys immediately retreated behind the door. Laura turned to Tiberius.

“How could you dare…” she hissed, raising her arm for a third blow.

But Tiberius caught her rising palm with his handcuffed hands, and, looking her straight in the eye, and pressed the back of her hand to his bloody lips. He smiled, seeing the bottomless wells widen in the irises of her multicolored eyes. She immediately pulled her hand away, but he heard her breathing get faster, and saw her tightly closed lips start to open. She lowered her gaze, not being able to stand the calm, tender way he was looking at her. And another picture presented itself to him: a girl with linen hair, standing on the roof of a huge building. Under her feet was a roaring abyss of sidewalks, people, cars. And she, looking down, was slowly leaning, bending over the parapet, lower and lower over that cold emptiness…

He was only a few meters away, standing behind the overhang of the wall, but how long those meters seemed! And when his hands managed to grab her as she fell, she turned to him with a detached expression, as if dreaming, and asked, “Why?”

“You don’t have the right,” he answered, gasping from the wind that was blowing in his face, and from the scare he had just lived through. “You are needed.” And the same words now emanated from her lips. He felt guilty. In fact, she had done so much for him, bringing his dream to life, and how had he repaid her?

“Forgive me,” Tiberius said for the first time in his life. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to get out of here before Wednesday. You’ll have to find someone else to go with the students.”

“And if they were to declare you crazy,” Laura sighed and added sarcastically, “which is funny because it’s true. Then it would have been possible to get you out of here today.”

“To a psychiatric hospital? Where…”

“Where it would be exactly the place for you. But the main thing is that Michael Storm is in charge of everything, which means the worst is that you’d have to go to a psychologist for a preachy lecture.

“I’d rather sit in jail,” snorted Tiberius, but when he saw her knitted brow, he bowed his head in conciliation. “OK, OK. You’re right, of course.”

“Yes,” sighed Laura. But I have no idea how to arrange this.”

Very slowly, like a tiger pursuing a happy-go-lucky little deer and afraid to spook it, Tiberius took a step forward. Knowing that every move was being followed by a camera, and every word of theirs was being recorded, just like in an ordinary apartment, he appeared to casually lean toward Laura.

“If you agree to help me…”

“Of course,” she answered, not understanding.

“Forgive me,” Tiberius whispered to her, and before she could collect herself, he took a step forward, throwing his handcuffed arms behind her back, thus holding her in an embrace.

Gasping, Laura jerked sharply, trying to free herself, but he grabbed her around the waist and threw her on the bed, rolling around on top of her with his whole body. He found her mouth, half-open in a silent scream, and kissed her greedily. Her lips tried to close, but unexpectedly began to twitch in a half-hearted attempt to respond. He impatiently spread her legs with his hips, lowered himself onto the hollow of her stomach, for the first time feeling under him the firm softness of a woman’s body. It was so new, so strong and clear that he didn’t hear the cries of the guards and barely felt the jolt of the electric shocker before he plunged into darkness.

The Aesculapian of souls

The formalities were settled as soon as possible, and it was only three in the afternoon when Tiberius walked into the psychologist’s office. The doctor wasn’t there – clearly no visitors were expected. Tiberius lowered himself into a soft, light-gray chair. It was too soft. The chair adjusted itself to the slightest curves of the body; it was so ergonometric and virtually unnoticeable that it seemed like being gently hugged by the tentacles of a huge, velvet jellyfish. Finding a comfortable position, he looked around. Muted light, an abstract painting on the wall with soothing, pale spots on an obscure background, windows hidden by light-gray screens, and a soft, light-gray rug. The arrangement was infused with peace and tranquility, with an inexorable sense of doom. One wanted to either doze off or commit suicide. But then the door silently opened, and in walked a girl who could easily be called a beauty, if not for the all-knowing expression on her face. Sitting down at the table, she immediately stared at the monitor, barely glancing at her patient.

“Hello.” She looked again at the screen, apparently having trouble with his highly atypical name – Tiberius. What an unusual name.

She raised her eyebrows questioningly, gazing at him with her large, slightly bulging gray eyes.

He answered with his usual tongue-twister:

“I took advantage of the third amendment to the law ‘On names’: every Libertionnian has the right, upon reaching the age of sixteen, to change their name to…”

“I know about this amendment,” the psychologist dryly interrupted. “I’m interested why you chose this one specifically. I believe it was some sort of cruel Roman emperor?”

“You have an unusually deep knowledge of history,” Tiberius smiled, unsuccessfully trying to hide his scorn with a compliment. “Yes, that is true. Actually, Tiberius was considered cruel by his high-born subordinates, who were unhappy with his fight against corruption and the introduction of a luxury tax. One of my female classmates teased me in a similar way…”

His memory conjured up a slender, laughing face framed by golden curls. And summer, far away, hot, smelling of sagebrush and dust, walks along the stone-paved streets of Eden, the azure July sky overhead, the air ringing with the piercing cries of swifts. Two years later they were caught and relocated together with the pigeons, crows and other unkempt members of society who did not respect the inviability of the public order and who did not know to use public toilets.

“… I’m used to being called by that name, do you understand?” he mockingly glanced at the doctor, who was frozen solid in her chair; her figure could have been used for the creation of a new character type – “Virtue Offended.”

She did not understand, but she refrained from comment out of a sense of professional ethics.

“So, what has brought you here…” She delved deeper into his file, which, as he noticed with unease, was already rather thick.

The more she read, the gloomier the expression on her beautiful face became. Then the doctor plunged into the depths of her desk, and, after digging around for awhile, extracted a genuine sheet of paper and a vintage pencil, to Tiberius’s surprise.

“Draw me a picture of a mythical animal.”

“What?” At first, he thought he misheard her.

“An animal. Any animal. Maybe an imaginary one,” she said, her fingertips pushing the sheet of paper toward him, literally afraid to touch his hands.

For a second Tiberius didn’t know what to do, but then Normann’s face obediently popped into his mind, and, smiling, he quickly drew a fat pig with a turned-up snout and tail. He thought a bit, then for greater similarity he added coquettish bangs. Contemplating his work, and seeing that the result wasn’t so mythical as it was realistic, he added tiny, out-of-proportion wings to the pig. The psychotherapist took away the drawing and for a few minutes Tiberius her face becoming more and more tragic.

“Yes. Sad, very sad,” she sighed, placing the paper on the table.

“What, specifically?”

“Yes. Paranoid-depressive syndrome, deep neurasthenia, sexual deviations and complexes, repressed desires, sadistic tendencies… And this is far from everything.”

“And all this can be determined from my, um, pig?” Tiberius looked at his piggy with an almost respectful look.

“Of course.” The psychotherapist had already scribble the diagnosis, but deigned to explain. “Look, a turned-up little pig, this is unrealized libido, and the incompletely cloven hooves indicates a serious psychological trauma that you experienced in your childhood. No, just look at those hooves! This is a silent scream for help!”

“Really? I didn’t know that I was thinking about it so deeply. And why sadism?”

“Well, just look at her eyes?”

Here, perhaps, she was right. However limited Tiberius’s drawing ability was, he succeeded in conveying Normann’s look. As a result the pig had a resemblance to the worst, most deplorable representatives of humanity.

“Tell me about your last dream.”

“I don’t dream,” Tiberius lied, but after hearing the doctor mumble something to herself about “functional sleep disorder,” he corrected himself. “But wait, last night I had a dream.”

“Excellent. An erotic one?”

Tiberius nodded, deciding that it would be better to lie about decent, safe and neutral topics.

“Wonderful. Did you dream about a partner who was a stranger?”

“Ah… well, yes.”

“Which options did you use? Anal, oral?” She was clearly happy, discovering at last that her patient had at least some healthy mental reactions.

When is this mockery finally going to end, he thought. And I have to go through a whole series of sessions. Although… Laura said that afterwards his file would be ceremonially put to the flame, so why not end this nightmare and have some fun at the same time?

“Doctor,” he raised his tranquil gaze to the doctor, who was not expecting a disaster. “To be honest, my partner was a woman. And you know what we were doing?”

The hunt for the bluebird

“Tiberius. You are an amazing person!” Michael said, wiping away his tears of laughter, and Laura continued to sip her mint cocktail mournfully, sitting on the little couch in the large office of Doctor Storm. “Within 24 hours they tossed you not only out of jail, but out of a mental hospital!”

“What’s even more surprising,” Tiberius noted softly, “is that they still haven’t kicked me out of the only place – the university – where I, by the way, teach children.”

“This is specifically thanks to me,” said Laura gruffly. “If you continue acting like this, I’ll fire you.”

She turned away demonstratively and scratched Lancelot behind the ear. The bulldog sprawled imposingly on his master’s lap, and drooled on her perfectly ironed linen pants.

“Fire me,” said Tiberius, stretching out sweetly in the chair. “I will live like half of Libertionne – on unemployment benefits, which is more than my teaching salary.”

For the first time in 24 hours he was able to truly relax. Here, in his friend’s office was a veritable oasis in the desert of practicality, speed and progress. Not following the latest fashion trends, blind to external criticism, Michael decorated his office according to his own sense of style. The walls were covered with oak paneling halfway to the ceiling, with dark green wallpaper above it. An old fashioned wooden desk with various drawers and sections. Tiberius particularly liked the 19th-century bronze clock. One of the clock hands squeaked as it moved from section to section, no matter how much Michael oiled it, and the sound it made was rather charming.

Tea was served in thick porcelain cups the color of whipped cream. Even Laura warmed up a bit; she was not looking so angrily at Tiberius, and even smiled when Lancelot silently and unashamedly stole a cookie from the tray.

“Laura, my dear, don’t sulk,” Michael winked at her. “If you had seen the look on the therapist’s face when she called the police, and they refused to have anything to do with him, begging her to take him back!”

“It’s not funny.”

“Oh, go on! Just imagine, I’m sitting in my office, and there’s a scream and a noisy racket, then the announcement that a patient has caused a doctor to faint. What did you tell poor Cordeline? She’s asking for an unpaid leave of absence.”

“She’s a bit of a weakling.”

“They also tell me that this patient broke one orderly’s jaw, and another one’s arm. I recognized the style immediately. Only my beloved childhood friend, a shining star in the field of history and ethnology could, in a half hour, drive even a madhouse crazy. Tiberius, my dear, why did you beat up the orderlies?”

“Well… it was kind of an accident. A reflex or something. I’m sitting in a chair, talking with a nice girl about pleasant, insignificant things, when suddenly your guys fly in, pile on top of me, and gag me, by the way,” Tiberius said, becoming animated. “I got used to the handcuffs from today, but why a gag?”

“Come now, my dear,” Michael said, looking craftily but amiably at Tiberius. “Do I have to explain it to you? The tongue is the most fearsome of weapons. In short, where did all the problems in this world come from? That’s right. ‘In the beginning there was the word.’ Then what? The fall of man, war, various disasters. Or as another example, how did the serpent deceive Eve? Again, with words.”

“Of course I’m flattered by such a comparison,” Tiberius growled, “but if I knew how to lie like the abovementioned creepy-crawly, my life would be a lot simpler.”

Dr. Storm broke out laughing, and his entire friendly, rosy face brightened. Looking at him, Tiberius felt a combination of admiration and light envy. Dr. Storm was a rare type of person – passionately devoted to his work, and thus oblivious to what was happening around him. He reminded Tiberius of the French painter Jacques-Louis David, who painted wonderful paintings regardless of the regime that was ruling at the time. Being for the government what we now call a “brand manager,” he set fire to a three-meter straw figure symbolizing the monarchy, then the same straw figure of the revolution, not worrying about anything. Dr. Storm was able to not attend civic events, not have a hobby, and the main thing, not to have a private life. This is what Tiberius envied most of all. When asked how he managed this, Michael happily replied that in the eyes of society, the head of a psychiatric clinic was himself a bit of a nutcase, so why are you asking him?

“And who are your patients?” asked Tiberius, “losers who were ruthlessly cast aside by society, unstable types?”

“What? Of course not!” Michael replied, shaking his head. “They are all successful people, who have reached the top of the hill after years of climbing.”

“I don’t understand. Someone who has reached the top…”

“… ends up on a small patch, wind blowing from all sides, and, as a rule, all alone. You know, all of us from childhood are obsessed with the idea of what I call “chasing after the bluebird.” As a doctor, I believe the biggest tragedy in our society is the dictatorship of happiness. A person is forced to be happy; happiness is wished upon him with every step he takes, and others are constantly checking – are you happy? Doctors, social workers, our partners. They order us: be happy! And how to be sure that you are? And how should you act, if you know in the depths of your soul that you are not?

Tiberius was barely listening to his friend’s pontification as he stared intently at Laura’s half-opened, pale-pink lips. Having touched them only several hours earlier, he had in effect opened a Pandora’s box.

I wonder if her nipples are that color…

From far away came Michael’s voice:

“We deified the economy, gave it the role of a referee who determines the level of our happiness, and it no longer serves, but commands us. We have mixed up the concepts of comfort, well-being and happiness, and this is why we began to regard money with such reverence; we believed in its absolute power, that only money was the measure of success and the primary virtue. Like ants we climbed to the top, firmly believing that just a little more and we’ll buy a house, we’ll get a better job, and finally it – happiness – will arrive. For the sake of this dream, to catch the bluebird, we reject everything that might stand in its way. And now, the result has been achieved. And further? Instead of euphoria, disappointment and boredom. Depression, neurosis, psychosis, and…

Tiberius, as if spellbound, looked at the impertinent Lancelot, whose hind paw was slowly but steadily pushing Laura’s purse to the edge of the couch. If the purse were to fall, she was sure to lean down and pick it up.

“Looking at how you live,” Laura smiled, “it’s obvious you are completely uninterested in money. That, I assume, is a real Boucher hanging to the left of the desk? And if that’s the case, humanity has always craved money.”

Lancelot, just a little more, come on…

“Of course, but people used to say that life was difficult and filled with sorrow. That difficulties were presented to us in order to test us and make us stronger. Nowadays a person regards the slightest difficulty as a personal insult. How can this be – such difficulties are not planned! From all sides a person is given assurances that he is worthy of better, that he should believe in himself, and if he only thinks positively, then positive things will materialize…

Yes!

Lancelot lazily stretched his leg, kicking the purse with his paw; not only did it fall, but the contents were strewn all over the floor.

Oh Lancelot, you are the best among beasts. What a wise decision I made when I bumped into you at the pet store. And I even hesitated, wondering whether I should give you to her as a Christmas present, or the usual pieces of electronic junk?

“I don’t know about that,” Laura said, gently moving the bulldog to the couch, and leaning down toward the fallen purse. “We live in a free empire.” You could have speculated about the universe in public five hundred years ago. In our modern society we are given all rights…”

She leaned down low, and her hair, which was in a pony tail, fell down, revealing a slender neck with soft, golden curls of hair. Her blouse was pulled up, showing a section of her lightly suntanned back. Tiberius suddenly felt hot, his tie was uncomfortable, and he mechanically loosened the silk knot.

“Except for the right to be unhappy,” Michael retorted.

“I understand what you mean,” said Laura, trying to retrieve her lipstick, which had rolled under the couch, got down on all fours, with her back to Tiberius and Michael, “that a modern person… There’s no way I can reach it. I mean, a modern person will react to any obstacle on the path to the top as a tragedy of cosmic proportions. Darn it, what the…

She extended her hand as far as possible, trying to grab the smooth golden cylinder, which upon contact with her fingers rolled even further away. Her breasts almost touching the floor, Laura bent even lower, and the thin fabric of her pants tightly hugged her well-proportioned hips and widely spread legs.

Tiberius closed his eyes and clenched his teeth so hard that they made a scraping sound. And then it wasn’t only his tie that felt tight.

Calm down, you pervert.

There, I almost got it,” Laura said, arching like a cat, and finally reached the cursed lipstick with the tips of her fingers. When she straightened up, the top button of her blouse, not being able to handle what the experiment required of it, came unbuttoned.

“Tiberius, you just broke my favorite obsidian pen,” Michael observed.

“Really?” he said, returning to reality with great effort. Tiberius looked down and saw that his palm was crushing in two a black quill pen. “Please, forgive me. I didn’t even notice that I had grabbed it.”

At that, Laura finally started paying attention:

“What’s the matter with you? You’re a little pale, your eyes are glazed.”

“He’s just a little lost in thought,” said Michael, good-naturedly calming her down. “You know these academics, their heads are always stuffed with some kind of high-minded philosophical exploration. Tiberius, my dear, is there something you need in order to be happy, something you don’t have?

Tiberius flinched, and at that moment the bronze clock chimed, its rich sound resonating loudly.

“Probably a clock like that one,” he said, the first thing that came into his head, a bit slyly. Laura raised her eyebrows, but Michael nodded in understanding.

“I understand what you mean. You are talking about the right to some capricious luxury, about deviating from the established norm.

“Yes, yes,” Tiberius nodded hurriedly. “That’s exactly it.”

“By the way,” Michael said, bringing the teacup to his lips and glancing at Lancelot with amused curiosity, “our restless friend – why here? I don’t mind, I’m just interested.”

Laura sighed.

“Martha is worried that I making her into a housewife, and so she refused to watch him today.”

“It’s rather strange, as she’s never worked, and almost never leaves the house.”

“But she says that I can’t see her personality,” Laura said with an irritated wave of her hand. “I had to take Lance with me to a meeting of the trustees. Now there’s one trustee less. You see, he didn’t like the fact that Lance made passionate love to his briefcase. What a bore…”