I found that the snow was not cold, but red hot in temperature, even though it was perfectly white in my dreams. I cried in agony and jerked my hands away and waited helplessly as the snow imperceptibly built up around my body. It touched my hands and then my face and I screamed as the hot, hot snow closed about me burning, burning, burning …
I woke up covered in sweat in that anonymous hotel room and wished I could have a jolt of Mac’s fine Islay whisky.
The first thing I can ever remember in my life is pain. It is not given to many men to experience their birth-pangs and I don’t recommend it. Not that any commendation of mine, for or against, can have any effect – none of us chooses to be born and the manner of our birth is beyond our control.
I felt the pain as a deep-seated agony all over my body. It became worse as time passed by, a red-hot fire consuming me. I fought against it with all my heart and seemed to prevail, though they tell me that the damping of the pain was due to the use of drugs. The pain went away and I became unconscious.
At the time of my birth I was twenty-three years old, or so I am reliably informed.
I am also told that I spent the next few weeks in a coma, hovering on that thin marginal line between life and death. I am inclined to think of this as a mercy because if I had been conscious enough to undergo the pain I doubt if I would have lived and my life would indeed have been short.
When I recovered consciousness again the pain, though still crouched in my body, had eased considerably and I found it bearable. Less bearable was the predicament in which I found myself. I was spreadeagled – tied by ankles and wrists – lying on my back and apparently immersed in liquid. I had very little to go on because when I tried to open my eyes I found that I couldn’t. There was a tightness about my face and I became very much afraid and began to struggle.
A voice said urgently, ‘You must be quiet. You must not move. You must not move.’
It was a good voice, soft and kind, so I relaxed and descended into that merciful coma again.
A number of weeks passed during which time I was conscious more frequently. I don’t remember much of this period except that the pain became less obtrusive and I became stronger. They began to feed me through a tube pushed between my lips, and I sucked in the soups and the fruit juices and became even stronger. Three times I was aware that I had been taken to an operating theatre; I learned this not from my own knowledge but by listening to the chatter of nurses. But for the most part I was in a happy state of thoughtlessness. It never occurred to me to wonder what I was doing there or how I had got there, any more than a newborn baby in a cot thinks of those things. As a baby, I was content to let things go their own way so long as I was comfortable and comforted.
The time came when they cut the bandage from my face and eyes. A voice, a man’s voice I had heard before, said, ‘Now, take it easy. Keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them.’
Obediently I closed my eyes tightly and heard the snip of the scissors as they clipped through the gauze. Fingers touched my eyelids and there was a whispered, ‘Seems to be all right.’ Someone was breathing into my face. The voice said, ‘All right; you can open them now.’
I opened my eyes to a darkened room. In front of me was the dim outline of a man. He said, ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’
A white object swam into vision. I said, ‘Two.’
‘And how many now?’
‘Four.’
He gave a long, gusty sigh. ‘It looks as though you are going to have unimpaired vision after all. You’re a very lucky young man, Mr Grant.’
‘Grant?’
The man paused. ‘Your name is Grant, isn’t it?’
I thought about it for a long time and the man assumed I wasn’t going to answer him. He said, ‘Come now; if you are not Grant, then who are you?’
It is then they tell me that I screamed and they had to administer more drugs. I don’t remember screaming. All I remember is the awful blank feeling when I realized that I didn’t know who I was.
I have given the story of my rebirth in some detail. It is really astonishing that I lived those many weeks, conscious for a large part of the time, without ever worrying about my personal identity. But all that was explained afterwards by Susskind.
Dr Matthews, the skin specialist, was one of the team which was cobbling me together, and he was the first to realize that there was something more wrong with me than mere physical disability, so Susskind was added to the team. I never called him anything other than Susskind – that’s how he introduced himself – and he was never anything else than a good friend. I guess that’s what makes a good psychiatrist. When I was on my feet and moving around outside hospitals we used to go out and drink beer together. I don’t know if that’s a normal form of psychiatric treatment – I thought head-shrinkers stuck pretty firmly to the little padded seat at the head of the couch – but Susskind had his own ways and he turned out to be a good friend.
He came into the darkened room and looked at me. ‘I’m Susskind,’ he said abruptly. He looked about the room. ‘Dr Matthews says you can have more light. I think it’s a good idea.’ He walked to the window and drew the curtains. ‘Darkness is bad for the soul.’
He came back to the bed and stood looking down at me. He had a strong face with a firm jaw and a beak of a nose, but his eyes were incongruously soft and brown, like those of an intelligent ape. He made a curiously disarming gesture, and said, ‘Mind if I sit down?’
I shook my head so he hooked his foot on a chair and drew it closer. He sat down in a casual manner, his left ankle resting on his right knee, showing a large expanse of sock patterned jazzily and two inches of hairy leg. ‘How are you feeling?’
I shook my head.
‘What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?’ When I made no answer he said, ‘Look, boy, you seem to be in trouble. Now, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.’
I’d had a bad night, the worst in my life. For hours I had struggled with the problem – who am I? – and I was no nearer to finding out than when I started. I was worn out and frightened and in no mood to talk to anyone.
Susskind began to talk in a soft voice. I don’t remember everything he said that first time but he returned to the theme many times afterwards. It went something like this:
‘Everyone comes up against this problem some time in his life; he asks himself the fundamentally awkward question: ‘Who am I?’ There are many related questions, too, such as, ‘Why am I?’ and ‘Why am I here?’ To the uncaring the questioning comes late, perhaps only on the death-bed. To the thinking man this self-questioning comes sooner and has to be resolved in the agony of personal mental sweat.
‘Out of such self-questioning have come a lot of good things – and some not so good. Some of the people who have asked these questions of themselves have gone mad, others have become saints, but most of us come to a compromise. Out of these questions have arisen great religions. Philosophers have written too many
