Conscious that this conversation could well be part of the interview, I said, “I’m fully prepared for all of that. I’m confident it won’t be a problem.”
“Good. And you’re happy to proceed with the medical tests?”
“Of course.”
They then checked my blood pressure and pulse and asked me to spit into a small vial so they could test for allergies. I tried to draw them into conversation while we performed these tests.
“So, have you been to the Centre yourselves?”
“Oh yes, of course,” Susan said. “We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t. We found it very interesting.”
“From a scientific perspective,” Tim added.
“How does it work exactly?” I asked.
“It’s very complex. We’re still trying to understand it ourselves,” Susan said. “We’re going to write a paper about it one day.”
“Sue,” Tim warned.
“What? I said one day.”
Tim sighed and went back to examining the screen. Susan rolled her eyes, and we exchanged smiles.
“Management isn’t interested, you see, in anyone analyzing their process yet,” she explained. “But I think things are changing. A new woman’s been running the place, she’s been there three or four years now. I think she’ll let people in more.”
Tim, still looking at the screen, shook his head. It felt like this was a conversation they’d had before.
“Did you two go there together?” I asked.
“No, separately. We hadn’t met then. But the woman who runs the place, she learned that we were both doctors, took a liking to us, and offered us this job.”
“Extraordinary woman,” Tim said.
“It’s true,” Susan echoed. She walked over to Tim and placed her palm on his lower back, looking over his shoulder as he checked the notes that the printer was spitting out.
“Are you two … together?”
“We are, in fact,” she confirmed and showed me the golden band on her finger. “The wedding’s in three months.”
“Congratulations.”
“I suppose it helped, didn’t it, that we’d both had … that experience? Sharing something like that can be bonding. You’ll see. It’s quite profound.”
“I’m excited to experience it,” I said.
“At first, it can seem … different. And the body doesn’t always react well to difference, but eventually—”
“Did you write down the temperature variance?” Tim interrupted.
“I did, yes,” Susan confirmed, straightening herself back into a professional stance.
Tim uploaded my spit sample into some kind of device, and a stream of data appeared on the monitor.
“Does everything look okay?” I asked.
“Looks good,” he answered.
“So, you know when they say fluency in ten days?” I asked. “Is it like, fluent, fluent? Like, will I be able to read, I dunno, Freud and things?”
Tim turned from the screen toward me.
“By the end of your ten days,” he said, “you will be reading Freud and Hegel, Nietzsche and Marx, in the original with no problem. How much you absorb of these texts is, of course, a matter of intellect, but we generally find significant improvement in that department as well.”
The rest of the questions were so standard that I began to feel like the “interview” was actually just an excuse for the medical checkup. When, near the end, they asked me if I had any questions of my own, I asked again what the process would be like so I could prepare beforehand.
“You will find out about the specifics of the process once you get there. There’s not much required on your part but presence.”
“Which can be the most challenging thing, mind you,” Susan added.
“Do you think,” Tim probed, “that you can endure that kind of immersion into self?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think I can manage that.”
“Okay. Well,” Susan said, clapping her hands together after receiving a nod of confirmation from Tim, “I think we can wrap up then. Thank you. Do make sure to get your affairs in order beforehand.”
“You should, of course, inform people you’ll be away but without giving them any clues as to where you’ll be.”
“Where should I tell them I’m going?”
“That is up to you. Something befitting your career, I would suggest.”
“A language course is pretty befitting my career.”
“Best if you say something else. We value discretion above all.”
“And it really works? Like every single time?”
“If you follow the instructions, then yes, success guaranteed.”
As I was getting off the bed and putting on my coat, the two of them conferred to the side for a moment. Then Susan reapproached me. “I have one last question. But feel free to decline. This is outside the scope of the official interview.”
“What is it?”
“Do you mind if we measure your skull?”
“Funny.” I laughed. She looked at me blankly. “Heart of Darkness, right?”
They both blinked quizzically.
“Oh, I thought maybe you were quoting from the book? Like, testing me or something?” I explained.
“It’s absolutely optional,” Susan said. “Our own curiosity. The Centre doesn’t care about things like this. But we’re very interested, personally. In how it occurs.”
“Scientifically,” Tim added.
“Um, okay. If you like.”
Tim pulled out a pair of large metal calipers. He held the instrument above my head, and I heard it click open as he placed one cold jaw between my eyebrows, the other at the back of my skull. He called out a figure that Susan wrote down on her clipboard. Next, the prongs went on either temple, and finally, he placed one under my chin and its opposite on my crown. He moved quickly, and I closed my eyes, imagining an enormous, inquisitive spider crawling around my skull, trying to make sense of its surroundings.
“Conrad, you know, didn’t speak any English until well into his twenties,” Tim shared as he worked. I tried to look up at him, but the instrument’s grip held me firmly in place. The prongs dug deeper into my scalp, and I heard the metallic scrape of notches clicking into a tighter setting.
“Oh, really? No, I didn’t know that.”
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” he mused. “That level of absorption.”
He called out one final figure to Susan before releasing me from the contraption. Relieved, I got off the bed.
“Are you going to measure it again afterward?” I asked.
“Oh no. No need for that. The changes take place inside, you see.”
FOUR
Three weeks later, I was at Tunbridge Wells station with my suitcase. The Centre had given me the license plate number of the car that would be waiting for me there, and I found it straightaway. I noticed that the driver had a tasbeeh around his rearview mirror, so I wished him salaam as I scooted into my seat.
“Walaikum salam,” he said, and we got to talking. It turned out he was from a small town near Pindi and had been in England for about twenty years.