LITMIR.BIZ

      The plot of this novel and all characters in it are fictitious. Any resemblance with real events and people, dead or alive, is purely coincidental.

      Copyright © 2015 Ideos Publications Ltd. All rights reserved.

      Published by Ideos Publication in Zurich, London and Hong Kong.

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      ISBN (Hardback): 978-3-9524052-8-4

      ISBN (eBook): 978-0-9927818-7-3

       THE CONTRACT

      Dedicated to all who love life and clear reasoning

      On the day before the interview, five weeks after her escape, Vivien was lying in her bed in a large, bright room in the University Hospital. Only authorized personnel were allowed to enter her room. Professor Frederic decided who was authorized and who was not. He was the leading authority in the field of psychology at the leading university in the country. He was a tall, slim gentleman in his fifties. He grew a Menjou moustache and he was always perfectly shaven. He had blue eyes and very thick, completely grey, almost white hair. Although he was very short-sighted he did not want to wear spectacles or lenses. He used a monocle instead, which he wore fixed to an almost invisible cord round his neck. That made him a perfect lady-killer and the greatest idol of the middle-aged, uneducated, well-off ladies in the town, whose greatest dream was to have such a husband. Whatever he did was for them an inexhaustible topic of conversation.

      The only people authorized to enter Vivien’s room were Professor Frederic himself and Ms Simple, a nurse appointed by him. She was a lady in her forties and she was absolutely loyal to her boss. She was short and stocky, very diligent, very reliable and thoroughly devoted to her work. In her little purse she kept a photo taken years before, on the very day when Professor Frederic was officially appointed Head of the Department of Psychology. The photo showed Professor Frederic and her standing on the beautiful lawn in front of the University Hospital. Beside Ms Simple, Professor Frederic appeared even taller and even more imposing; his left arm was resting in a patronizingly sheltering manner on her left shoulder, and her face was radiant with happiness. Since the first day the photo had had an inestimable value for her. She had it magnified as well as copied and put in beautiful gilt frames. Now there was a copy of it in her kitchen, in her living-room and, of course, in her bedroom. The round table in the kitchen was designed for four persons; however, there were only two chairs, because Ms Simple despised other people poking their nose into her highly personal affairs. The photo showing Professor Frederic and her was always on the table opposite to her. During meals it stood beside a beautiful white plate and a set of silver cutlery neatly arranged on an impeccably white napkin. She always laid the table for two. When she did the dishes afterwards always washed both plates and both sets of cutlery because she liked everything to be in perfect order when she served the next meal for two.

      There is a large space between the two doors that separated Vivien from the outer world. The nurse locked the external door each time she came in or wet out. Each time she did it very gently and produced hardly any noise, because Professor Frederic had ordered so.

      Vivien’s parents had tried to speak to her, but the nurse told them that Vivien didn’t want to see them.

      The University Hospital is a very massive and quite a tall building. Vivien’s room was probably on one of the upper floors, for when she looked through the pane of her window she saw the roofs of the houses below. The large window, which comprised almost one whole side of her room, offered a magnificent view of the venerable old country capital situated on the banks of a very famous river, and on the slopes of the hills covered with woods that bore the same name as the town itself. Because lots of famous musicians spent the most active part of their life there, the town used to be – and sometimes still is – called ‘town of music’.

      Vivien’s story was a particular one. The people from the press and the TV say that it was worth millions. Professor Frederic knew very well that Vivien’s case was a goldmine, however that was not why he was so interested in it. Vivien’s case was of paramount importance to him because it offered him an excellent opportunity to make his mark and, at the same time, to solve his greatest personal problem. However, he tried hard to be seen only as a committed scientist and helper. For shielding Vivien from the curious public he claimed to have only altruistic and if, in addition, any other, then exclusively scientific motives. In order to be more convincing and disperse even the slightest suspicion that his motives might, in spite of all, be of a selfish nature, he had appointed an assistant. It was Professor Bourgh, a colleague of his, who was a scientist and a doctor of medicine as well as a psychologist. Besides being one of the country’s best medical experts, Professor Bourgh was also keenly interested in all sorts of poisons. Every weekend he roamed the local forests and each time he came back he brought a basket full of fungus and herbs. He knew better than any housewife how to preserve mushrooms and fruit in jars. From time to time he gave his boss a jar of his excellent preserved mushrooms.

      Professor Frederic appreciated his assistant’s preserved mushrooms very much and thought that they were better than any of those bought in shops. As his country’s leading psychologist he spent lots of time at scientific meetings. There he never failed to tell his colleagues about the marvellous mushrooms his assistants preserved for him. His exciting mushroom-story was the main part of his contribution to the grave scientific discussion he had with his colleagues at such meetings of top experts in psychology and psychiatry. Because of his mushroom-story he was well-known in scientific circles as mushroom-man. Professor Frederic never mentioned his assistant’s name. He always spoke of his assistants. Thus in scientific circles Professor Bourgh had to remain just one of Professor Frederic’s anonymous assistants.

      Professor Bourgh was only a little younger than Professor Frederic. His arms and legs were as long as Professor Frederic’s; however, unlike Professor Frederic he was not tall. That was the consequence of an accident he had in his childhood. Due to that accident his back remained deformed and much shorter than it should have been and every greater physical effort caused him pain and disturbed his sleep at night. Professor Frederic was well acquainted with his colleague’s physical condition. Among lots of things Professor Bourgh did not like there was one he hated. It was the humiliating and patronizing way his boss greeted him when he came to work – at least an hour later than anybody else – every morning. He tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he had had a good sleep the night before. Professor Frederic asked him in the way young tactless chaps do when they speak to an old man, trying to sound friendly by looking at him in a compassionate manner because of his weakness and old age. Professor Bourgh could allow himself no unfriendly reaction, because Professor Frederic was his boss.

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