Red Rainbow by G Johanson (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

the sound of it. The only point of intrigue was how often his parents took him to the doctors. The slightest sniffle or headache, they brought him in. The notes from varied doctors should have had them down as timewasters, hypochondriacs by proxy. But no, none of the doctors minded.

Gehring asked Friese why he referred him to Karlson. He looked down as he said, “Psychiatry is not my arena.”

“Why did you send him to a psychiatrist?”

“Karlson was a doctor of medicine and psychiatry and took over all aspects of César’s treatment.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to lose him as a patient,” Gehring sneered. A disease of the mind opened up new possibilities. The mirrored ceilings in César’s bedroom and bathroom suggested he loved himself as much as everyone else did – perhaps he wanted to be cured of this, his power less effective if he was a slave to it too. A pathological addiction to masturbation likely went hand in hand with this.

“I wanted what was best for him.”

You and everybody else. Karlson was a doctor. He didn’t make it through the war. Where were his notes? César had been seeing a doctor regularly during his engagement. Those records had to be somewhere – and if not, why not?

Five years earlier...

Dr Karlson was fascinated by medicine. His father was a surgeon, his grandfather a surgeon and professor. The tools of the trade had been in his family home all of his life, the calling stronger in him than his forbears. There was no other career path. To him, there was no other career of any real meaning. Yes, other jobs were necessary and useful, but that was not living. Medicine had riddles to solve, problem-solving on a daily basis with real stakes.

He had been practising medicine for 37 years when Dr Friese referred César Vadeboncoeur to him. He solicited unusual cases from his colleagues and further afield, the stranger, the better.

Vadeboncoeur’s case was not that strange on paper. It was a malady of the mind, Vadeboncoeur a narcissist with an inferiority complex. Karlson had theories before he met him. Depression seemed likely. Vadeboncoeur was a high achiever, a popular young man who was scared of being found out. He believed that everybody loved him and was compelled to do so by some powerful force but believed he was unworthy of it.

Their sessions were initially by telephone as per the patient’s request. Dr Karlson was able to reassure him that he did not love him after several of these sessions. That was apparently only because he had not seen him in person, of course. Karlson suggested they rectify this only for Vadeboncoeur to panic and ask for their therapy to continue by telephone. He respected that Karlson was not enamoured by him, polite enough while capable of being brutally blunt too.

Karlson pushed Vadeboncoeur to come to his office but played along with his delusions, for now... and only up to a point. A relative of a relative of Vadeboncoeur’s had been blinded in the Great War. As such, his aunt’s father proved immune to his power, treating him and his siblings equally whenever they met. Vadeboncoeur requested that Karlson wear a blindfold, an idea Karlson sharply dismissed. Why blind a doctor when a patient can be masked? Karlson arranged for paper masks to be provided by his nurse receptionist for each visit. She saw his face as did any other patients, visitors or colleagues. Vadeboncoeur was to place the mask on only before entering his private office. Vadeboncoeur felt self-conscious at first and commented on how odd he felt and surely looked. Karlson told him he could take the mask off at any time – but he would then have no faith in the impartiality of his treatment if his power was so strong that it would compromise his objectivity as a doctor.

Karlson had plans of getting Vadeboncoeur to remove the mask as their sessions progressed. It was a crutch to get him to the next stage, which would entail looking into the root of his problems. His parents were key to that, indulging him to the detriment of his siblings, at least in his version of events.

Those plans were discarded when the other staff began talking about him to Karlson. Did he want their help with this patient? What could he tell them about César? Professionalism out of the window. His nurse receptionist questioned why she made him of all patients wear a mask. Vadeboncoeur’s delusions began to make a little more sense as people fell over themselves to be near him and curry his favour. Was this some form of pheromone? But Karlson was immune to it, and he sat in close proximity to him for an hour at a time, longer than the other staff saw him. The difference was he didn’t see his face. He saw his hair and his hands (and chest at one point when Vadeboncoeur had a cough checked out) which was insufficient for him to consider him anything more than an interesting case. He had no desire to spend any time with him beyond doctor and patient, no need to impress him.

This development made him more interested in this case. Subject KVC17’s job paid him well, and he could easily afford to pay for his treatment. Karlson told him this was not necessary, insisting upon it as a condition of continuing to treat him. All of his treatment would now be free, with the understanding that Subject KVC17 came exclusively to him for all medical matters. Karlson would refer him as necessary to dentists and other areas outside his expertise, but he would control who saw him to ensure his notes were as thorough as possible regarding his new test subject.

Gehring tracked down Karlson’s closest colleague who had worked with him at his practice in the months preceding his death in September ’42. Dr Gaye was in his 60s, a contemporary of Karlson from way back. He agreed to meet Gehring at