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Chapters (63)
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  63. Acknowledgements

But no such announcement came. Instead, Gessen was staring at him, pinning him to the chair with his eyes. Then he launched into a rambling soliloquy, about his own student days at the Sorbonne, and how exciting it was. The libraries, his teachers, the intellectual challenges. How he’d started out studying mathematics and philosophy before switching to medicine. Such heady days, those years of his youth when the fervour to scale the towers of learning was like a drug.

Vidor nodded along, rigid with irritation, wondering if Gessen hadn’t completely lost the plot. Perhaps he should check himself into his own clinic. The idea made him smile.

‘I see my memories have brought you back to your own student days at Cambridge. In our next session, we’ll explore that time in your life,’ Gessen said. ‘It will make an excellent starting point.’

A starting point? Vidor rubbed a painful spot at the back of his neck. ‘But I thought…’

‘That you were going home today?’

He squeezed his eyes shut, like a sullen child.

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ Gessen’s smile seemed to have morphed into a monstrous grin. ‘But we have quite a long way to go yet.’

35

San Luis Obispo, California
6 December 2008

Dear Dr Gessen,
How strange to arrive home, after several weeks away, to find your letter waiting in the stack of mail gathering dust. As if travelling through decades of space and time, my brother’s name fairly jumped off the page.

That you might have known my brother brings me great joy. Though I must correct you right away about his full name. Hungarian names can be confusing to outsiders, so allow me to explain: our family name (my father’s surname) is Sovàny, not Kiraly. My brother Vidor’s full name was Vidor Tadeas Kiraly Sovàny. Kiraly was my mother’s maiden name. It was common, in those days, to give the mother’s maiden name as a third name, in a nod to the maternal line.

Since you were somewhat cryptic about the nature of your inquiry, you should also know that just after he graduated from the lycée in Paris, my brother disappeared without a trace. There was an inquiry, but he was never found, and as time went on, our poor Vidor was presumed dead. Evidence pointed to a drowning in the Seine. No foul play was suggested, but there were no witnesses – or at least none that came forward. He had just earned his baccalaureate and had gone out to celebrate with friends. My family could only assume that he’d had too much to drink, and fell into the river and drowned.