The Interview by Daniel Frears

1.

The day had been long and pleasant and I was dozing off in the early evening to the sound of leaves rustling. The wind would come around the side of the house and blow through the karaka trees which had grown from the garden below and up past the elevated deck, skirting the house. Through the window I could see only the blue sky and one or two clouds that inched across it, as well as the streaks and stains on the glass that I was forever meaning to clean, but maybe next week. My weary thoughts were drawn to what waited for me tomorrow: the interview.

“I don’t know how you can rest so easily, Claude.” Diana was my constant advocate, always without judgement of my flaws and ready to uplift me at the merest of chances.

Unconditional love, or at least unconditional acceptance – it was a funny thing that I hadn’t experienced before and I doubted very much whether I was worthy of something so utterly devotional.

I reached my hand across and onto her stomach, feeling the soft warmth coming from it whilst I thought about arriving at the facility, meeting with the interviewer, and what the room might look like. I wouldn’t share any of these thoughts with her.

“Do you want me to come with you tomorrow?”

I didn’t want to look at her as it would take me out of the dream.

“I don’t think that you should come. I want you there, but I don’t know what’s going to happen and I wouldn’t want you to have to see something…bad.”

I ran my fingers over her stomach and she placed her hand across my arm, stroking it, each of us moving in a different time. I was confident that I had told her a truth of sorts, as you could never know when something bad might happen.

“OK, if you think that’s best.”

The fact is I didn’t have a clue what was best, but I’d said it now so I stuck with it.

The few clouds that were moving past the window had been stretched and pulled apart to make long and faint wisps, looking more like indistinct brushstrokes than clouds now.

“Do you trust me? When you ask me a question like that and I give you an answer, do you trust my judgement? Do you even trust that I’m giving you a true and genuine answer?”

I pressed down lightly on Diana’s stomach and then returned to running my fingertips across it, moving in swirls around her belly button, finding her hips and then returning to the centre.

“Things have been going well. Don’t ask questions like that.”

Diana sighed and I felt her middle shrink, my hand splayed across it trying to grab her entirety with one hand.

2.

The building I’d been instructed to go to was a grey concrete shell with reflective dark windows. The entrance opened automatically to a security gate that had two large men standing either side of it, both looking sternly in my direction.

“Morning. I’m here to see Doctor Kemmenoe.”

Neither said a word to me, but one grabbed a handset at his chest and spoke quietly into it, whilst the other scanned a card above the gate which duly opened. In lieu of any words he pointed across to a sparse waiting area. Now I was glad that Diana hadn’t come with me, as she would have been worried by these strange behaviours. I felt vindicated. The seat I took was low and well-padded and I sat back into it with relish. A form was brought over to me by a silent nurse, or what I presumed was a nurse. They wore a one-piece outfit of a pale blue colour and tapped the top of the page before passing me the form, complete with clipboard and pen. I wondered when clipboards would become redundant. The top of the form said, “Read All Sections Thoroughly Before Completing.”

The entire space was silent. The nurse’s footsteps receded into silence. The security guards – or doormen – stood in silence too, looking towards the entrance. The form had the usual fields you’d expect, requesting personal details, means of contact, any experience that pertained to this type of environment, and then a disclaimer which was to be signed by the “patient.”

I understand that my taking part in this interview is entirely of my own volition. No pressures have been applied to induce my participation. I am aware that there may be unexpected effects arising from the interview process and I agree to accept responsibility for these, regardless of their form. I shall not share the details or processes of the interview with any parties, other than those permitted by the interviewer. I am liable for any and all outcomes deemed to be adverse.

It was made painstakingly clear that there were risks involved and they would hold no accountability. I signed my name next to the statement – Claude Rosler.

The silent nurse was upon me before the ink was dry and they held their porcelain-white hand out, beckoning for the form. I passed the clipboard over but the pen, which had been resting on my thigh, fell, the thin metallic tube rolling from my unsuspecting leg and clanging on the hard floor, with neither the nurse nor the doormen paying it any attention. At a slight gesture of the nurse’s fingers I followed them soundlessly away from the seating area. Away from the entrance.

3.

The nurse had me sit outside of a grey door with the words “Interview Room” inscribed on it in a corridor devoid of any other furniture. My thoughts drifted to Diana at home in our beautiful house, sitting in the sun maybe, or lying on the bed looking out of the window. I wondered whether she had noticed the marks on the glass. The door before me opened slowly and a retiring man poked his head out of it, scanning left and right before looking at me. Did he expect to see something more?

“Claude. Come in,” he said with a mild measure of warmth, opening the door and standing up straight, gesturing me inside. He was much taller than I’d first thought and as I walked past him I made acquaintance with his chest.

“I’m Doctor Kemmenoe and I’ll be conducting your interview today.” He did not extend his hand in greeting.

We entered another waiting area, though smaller this time, and directly in front of us was a large rectangular pane of glass which took up nearly the entire wall and looked into the interview room.

“We can go straight in,” the doctor said, pulling open the door to the room and again holding it for me to enter.

I instinctively took a seat at the closer of the two chairs that faced each other. Unfortunately this chair appeared to be the less comfortable-looking of them and I admonished myself slightly for the hasty choice. Doctor Kemmenoe closed the door behind him, rounded the desk, and took his seat.

“I don’t think that there’s any need for formalities. I’d like to just do a short round of call-and-response, in which you’ll tell me what comes to mind when I provide you with a phrase or collection of words. Do you understand?”

I understood the concept but felt irate at instantly worrying about how my responses would be perceived.

“Yes, I understand.”

The doctor nodded and pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer in the desk, smoothing it on the table and then picking it up to read from.

“When you hear the words, So be it.”

“Disciple.”

“At the end of the day.”

“Collapse.”

“Happily ever after.”

“Why after?”

Following a few more rounds, Doctor Kemmenoe replaced the sheet of paper in the drawer and pulled one out of the other side of the desk.

“Now we can move on to the interview itself. To clarify, do you know what the purpose of this interview is?”

He spoke in such a formal and straightforward manner that I felt obliged to mimic the style.

“Correct.”

“Could you explain your understanding to me?” He sat back and knitted his fingers across his midriff in what I assumed was anticipation.

4.

Two years ago I’d travelled abroad with Diana to meet her parents. The two of us had lived together for three years by then and we’d long spoken of visiting them, so eventually we undertook the rituals of booking time off from work, trying to cut back on spending, and speculating on the things we’d do whilst away. I hadn’t been overseas for a long time and the prospect left me with a type of anticipatory unease. But I loved her and would subject myself to much more fraught uncertainties to see her happy. When the day came we travelled to the airport and took the eleven-hour flight with a light and airy feel about us. My fondness for Diana always grew when we were able to step away from the humdrum, owing as much to my increased receptiveness as to her visible shows of freedom at being untethered from the daily norms. Our love grew as we sat closely on the plane, magnifying many times as we spent our first night alone in the balmy air and unfamiliar sounds that wrapped us up tightly. I was hers completely, more than ever before. Diana wasn’t transformed, rather she was in the right place to embody her full self, and I could see how much more she was than I’d previously known. She spoke with such warmth to her compatriots that I could only look on in amazement at her radiating outwards and in turn soaking in all of the history and life she had known as a younger woman. After two days we travelled to her family home and I was introduced to her parents. Her mother and father were a picture of elderly contentment. They were well-to-do without having any trappings of excess wealth and embraced me as if I were a fond companion. The detached villa in which we were to stay was simple but spacious and within days I was at home, truly. We would walk through the pastoral town on bright mornings and return to the house of her parents to be greeted by simple and delicious breakfasts. Diana’s father spoke well and on quiet afternoons we were able to delve into each other’s lives without obstacle as he poured us strong local liquors or wines, sitting beneath the shade of their many fruit trees. Two weeks passed in this rhythm of days without time, embracing the morning heat to then shy away as midday beat down above us.

On Sundays it was customary to drive to the nearby market. At the suggestion of Diana’s father I drove the family car and revelled in the winding, hilly roads whilst convivial chatter bounced around me. The market was as I’d imagined it, with dozens of tightly packed stalls sat in grids below the watchful eye of the local church tower, the coloured awnings covering them static in the flat heat, the only breeze coming from the fanning of the meat to keep it free of flies. We made our way around methodically, following the lead of Diana’s parents as they clearly had a preferred order to buy things and also knew which were the best stalls to go to, sharing friendly conversations with many of the owners. As we were making our way back to the car they bumped into a man they knew, although I didn’t catch his name from Diana in the midst of the animated exchanges. It turned out that he had been a friend of the family for many years, but for one reason or another they hadn’t seen each other for a long time. The hugging and shoulder patting and words of affection were generously shared and eventually the man asked whether we would like to go out for a short trip on his boat, to enjoy the beautiful late morning before returning for lunch. Diana’s parents were visibly tired and they gave their utmost thanks but declined the offer, insisting that I and Diana go with him and that he come back to the house to eat with us. Diana looked at me questioningly but I wanted to go, to see the water and feel the breeze that being on a boat would offer. She looked at me with a thin smile and shrugged her shoulders, accepting the man’s offer. Duly we set off in his ragged old jeep and after a short drive arrived at a small blue lake, truly the picture of an oasis in the midst of the parched landscape. He must have been a similar age to Diana’s parents but he yanked his boat from the shore into the water with total ease, his thick legs and still-muscular arms making light work of it, before beckoning the two of us with a smile. We clambered in and he set the motor running. He and Diana spoke fervently and during breaks in conversation she told me that he had known her since her birth, actually taking her and her friends out on the same boat for some of her formative birthdays. Their bond was steeped in history and it permeated the whole scene with a serene mood. I had no idea of the time nor how much had elapsed, but he was obviously well-versed in this Sunday ritual, and as he pulled us back against the sandy lakeside he smiled at me, then pointed to the swollen sun above. Only now that we’d stopped moving did I feel the heat bearing down on us. We helped him drag in the boat which he tied up and we jumped back into the jeep. The road back to the house was straight and flat and he waved out of the window more than once at people tending their gardens or sitting outside of their roadside shops, each of them calling out to him or offering a lazy wave back. Diana would later tell me that he was well-known throughout the local region as a man of great generosity and spirit, widely seen as an esteemed elder. As we pulled up to the house Diana looked back at me with a strange expression and I regarded her quizzically. The driveway was empty. The three of us entered the house and there was no call from the kitchen or smell of something delicious filling the air, and at first I didn’t realise the significance of these rather innocuous signs, assuming there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for her parents not being there. Diana broke into a frenzy almost immediately and I tried to calm her, insisting that maybe they had stopped somewhere along the way for a walk, or else they had driven to the shop for something that they’d forgotten to buy at the market, but she was completely resolved that something was wrong. She was adamant that they would have come straight back after the market and there was nowhere else that they should be other than here, cooking. The two of them called anyone that they could think of in the area to see whether they knew of her parents’ whereabouts but with no luck. We rushed back out to the jeep and sped along the road towards the market and within five minutes we had reached a twisting section of road that had a line of cars backed up around a corner. My stomach contorted and then folded itself in half as the jeep slowed to a halt. Diana was already running around the corner by the time I had removed my seatbelt and opened the door. I bolted after her, past the line of stationary cars and befuddled drivers, knowing what I was about to find. I flew around the corner and Diana stood stock-still, as if turned to stone. Roughly five metres ahead was the family car looking like something you’d find at the wreckers, around half the size it should have been and with far too many sharp edges to be housing anything living. Ironically, it turned out that it was an elderly man and wife driving to the market that had hit them and the best guess of the police was that they had lost control of the vehicle coming around the corner and slid into the opposite lane, ending the lives of Diana’s parents. Mercilessly, the eighty-two-year-old driver of the offending car lived, with only minor injuries.

5.

“The interview is being conducted to ascertain whether or not I knew that Diana’s parents were going to die. Using my own knowledge and comprehension, there is no doubt that it was an accident I could never have predicted or anticipated, but the interview is designed to uncover any information to the contrary.”

Doctor Kemmenoe remained reclined.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s pretty much the top and bottom of it. I would also like to say that dealing with one’s own honesty is always a tricky business. There is no such thing as just one truth and even the most simple of situations can become convoluted under scrutiny. There are many dimensions to the human psyche and in turn many forms of truthfulness, deception, awareness, and that which is completely inaccessible.”

I had nothing to say in response and waited for the doctor to proceed.

6.

The interview was rigorous. The questions weren’t numbered but there must have been in excess of a hundred, ranging from benign surface-level queries to very detailed inquiries into the day of the accident, as well as the events before and after it. Doctor Kemmenoe was calm in his probing, methodically asking me the questions and then prompting me if he felt that my answers were not full enough, or well enough considered. He remained almost slumped into his chair for the entirety, and his body language simultaneously put me at ease and infuriated me with what seemed to be a lack of gravitas for the matter at hand. Once he had thanked me for attending I was told that we were finished and I was to return tomorrow for the results. It all seemed a little informal, but I had been assured that he was an eminent professional in this field, so I didn’t ask questions. I left by the same route that I’d entered and nodded at the doormen, which elicited no response.

7.

On the drive home I thought of Diana, of course. I thought of her parents and the self-reproach I had felt since that day, how it would magnify to a white-hot point at times but more typically reside at the back of my mind, taking up a small pocket of space so as not to be forgotten. In the immediate aftermath I felt like I had killed them with my own hands, as if somehow the crushing impact on the car was dealt by me. I was supposed to drive. I would have driven slower, or faster, or I might have been able to react sooner. Every possibility played back and I focused endlessly on my distinct part in each of these. I had killed them and Diana had forgiven me. I didn’t understand how these two facts could coexist. In the days and weeks following she was mostly despondent, and I didn’t try to affect her grief in any way. Not once during this time did she condemn me, whether with words themselves or anything so delicate as a look or an undertone. Once she had returned to some level of normality her grief seemed to have been completely spent with no trace of it remaining, and this absence of pain, the lack of an indelible mark was more than I could stand. I subsequently laid out all of my guilt: that I was the one who had put them in the position to drive back home, that I had wanted to veer from the proper path despite her reluctance, that my actions were tantamount to extinguishing her parents myself, and I begged for her to acknowledge these things, to show her indignation at having to continue living with her parents’ destroyer. Diana was at ease. Regarding me in her usual way she was more saintly than ever, devoid of judgement or sentence, full of empathy and abounding tenderness; she told me that I was innocent. Her embraces never belied this stance and her abundant warmth towards me caused no end of vexation. I resented myself, and I resented her for being able to absolve me so completely.

8.

The house was silent when I arrived. I quietly unpacked the few things I’d taken with me and ascended the stairs to the bedroom. Diana was asleep on our bed. A cloth and bottle of glass cleaner stood on the windowsill. I leant over Diana, kissed her on the cheek, and lay down next to her.

9.

The next day I arrived at the facility – which I’d taken to calling “the bunker” – around fifteen minutes before my appointment time and went through the exact same series of steps as last time: the same unsmiling security, the same expressionless nurse, the same waiting rooms, and right on cue Doctor Kemmenoe poking his head out of the door and welcoming me inside.

“Morning, Claude.”

“Morning, Doctor.”

This time he led me through a different door that opened into what I presumed was his office. It was still rather bare and lacking in many warming effects, but it provided a modicum of comfort, unlike the interview room. I sat down in front of his desk and looked around the space once more, noticing a certificate of some sort on the left-hand wall and a monochrome print on the other. The image depicted was of a black circle set off-centre on a white background and it seemed that the doctor must have seen me eying it.

“What do you think?” he asked in the most conversational tone I had heard since meeting him.

“It’s simple. I like it.”

“It’s called Black Circle and was painted by a Russian, Kazimir Malevich, in the early twentieth century. He intended to make works that were globally understandable. There was no obscurity intended, just a focus on uncomplicated imagery.”

“So, nothing like what we’re dealing with,” I said wryly.

The doctor chuckled and the sound brought me back to the room and to him, seated in front of me.

“Yes, you could say that.” He composed himself and swept straight back into his professional tone.

“OK, Claude. It appears that you did have a preexisting knowledge of the event that took place. Every one of us has an unconscious mind, and this is the part of our personality, or psyche, that is not available to us on command, however that which lives in the unconscious mind can and does affect our conscious life: our actions and behaviours, et cetera. You may be familiar with some of this, but I’ll continue. The popularised view is that the materials contained in the unconscious mind are solely those that have been repressed due to a sensitive nature or those that could bring an individual shame or personal conflict, but the fact is that there is much collected, stored, perceived, and known in the unconscious mind that goes beyond these niggly sexual desires or controversial beliefs. In your case, and indeed in many of the cases that I deal with, there is distinct and identifiable intelligence of future happenings – some kind of predictive ability which until very recently would’ve been considered pure fiction.”

The doctor took a moment to readjust in his chair at this point and peered up at the Black Circle, as if looking for clues as to his continuing statement.

“I won’t bore you with the technical details, but simply put, we are able to scan, in isolation, different areas of the brain and with the results of these scans we can identify specific pieces of information, what they pertain to and also, very importantly, the exact time at which they have originated and taken residence in your brain. It’s quite remarkable, really. Of course, it doesn’t make situations such as yours any easier, and in fact this knowledge may be something that is very much unwelcome in a lot of cases, but do know that we are getting closer and closer to being able to understand these mechanisms and, in turn, hopefully, being able to make them accessible to patients and eventually the wider public alike. It could lead to the saving of many lives, and avoidance of potentially harmful outcomes. At this point we’re unable to pinpoint how these bits of information come into existence, and of course this is an area in which we’re investing a lot of time and effort, but the progress is currently rather slow.”

He stopped again and rubbed his chin, sitting back into his chair. This gesture seemed to signal the end of the explanation.

“So, you’re unable to tell me how or why I happened to acquire this knowledge, and also why it wouldn’t have made itself available to my conscious self. Is that right?”

“Correct.”

Cruelty was the only word that I could conjure to this response. The word cruelty bounded around my head like the famed bouncing DVD logo.

“And in other people you’ve scanned, does it look the same as mine? Have they had similar types of information that they’ve kept from themselves? Have they also had to endure people dying because of their fucking unconscious mind deciding to play dumb?”

A pool of rage had been sitting inside of me and I felt it rising to the surface.

“Yes, Claude. Others have had people close to them die.”

“Wonderful. That’s just great. So you’re telling me that I’ve effectively picked up a psychic power to predict the future, but wait a minute, my own brain is keeping the information from me, for no good reason?”

“Well, that’s a simplified version, but in essence, yes.”

“Here’s a question for you, Doctor. Can you see how fucking many pieces are hidden in there? How many fucking disasters are waiting to happen whilst I sit here like a stupid fucking lemon?”

Doctor Kemmenoe’s eyes lit up at this point. He leant forward from the back of his chair and placed his elbows onto the desk in some mild show of excitement.

“Now that’s a very good question Claude, and the answer is yes, we can see all of the individual bits of information, if there are multiple.”

I was a moment too slow with my next question.

“And before you ask,” he continued, “it’s a very curious thing, but you only had this one singular detail. Every other patient that we’ve ever worked with has had anywhere between a few dozen and hundreds – most of which are benign by the way, it’s very rare that they carry the importance of yours – but yes, you are the only person we’ve had with just the one piece of information in your unconscious mind.”

10.

I returned home and sat for a while, silently.

A queer feeling started to swell and I looked from my present seat at the kitchen table towards the doorway. Diana had one hand pressed against the doorframe, leaning in my direction with a slight smile on her face.

“What did the doctor say?” She didn’t enter the room.

“He said that I knew it was going to happen.”

She nodded as if hearing something patently obvious.

“He said that I wouldn’t necessarily have been aware of it, or have acted in a certain way based on that knowledge, but yes, at my core I guess, I knew.”

She walked into the kitchen and sat opposite me at the table, reaching for my hand and holding it in hers.

“I’ve been telling you for the last year that it doesn’t matter to me what this interview says. You’re still the same person that I love and that I share my life with every day, and that doesn’t change because of this.”

Her hands were full of reassurance and kindness and, as ever, I knew that she meant what she was saying.

“But, I did this, I did this so that you could have some certainty that I am who you want me to be. I did this so that I could feel the same way that I felt before. So that I could find a way to believe that you could still love me. I did this because I believed we both needed it, even though you said you didn’t. Don’t you see? Now that we know the truth, how are we supposed to carry on?”

Diana continued to stroke my hand lovingly.

11.

I was lying down on the bed, looking out of the window. The cloth and the bottle were gone and so were the marks on the glass that I’d grown so used to. The sky today was perfectly clear: icy blue fading to indigo and not a patch of cloud to blemish it. Every now and then a bird would flit by, drawing my eye until it disappeared and my gaze settled back onto the interminable stillness. I had tried to convey to her the depth of my wretchedness from which I felt there was no means of escape. Her hands were like those of the most virtuous saint, made solely to offer deliverance, whilst mine were those of the leper, stained and tarnished beyond salvation, dripping in the blood of the people she had loved the most. I couldn’t abide her forgiveness and I couldn’t bear to see that she still held the same affection for me, blind to my transgression. I meant to leave the next day, but that night we were mad for each other.

DANIEL FREARS is a musician and writer living in beautiful Aotearoa. His poetry and prose have appeared in Salient, Shabby Doll House, and miniMAG. Find him on Instagram @drearsfortears.

Featured image by Annie Spratt, courtesy of Unsplash.