The Last Nail

The moment he laid his eyes on the umbrella, he felt a little uneasy in the stomach. It was a ladies’ umbrella, small and printed, Japanese or Chinese, yellowish on the outside with small crimson dots, and it opened with a single click. The hand that was holding it was naked and lonely, but he hardly paid any attention. He was enamored, charmed, smitten by the umbrella, by the self-assuring ease, with which it blossomed into its dotted fullness. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and thought of his analyst’s face. He had an appointment today, which he couldn’t afford to miss. He stared at his watch. He had time.

The analyst was a lively man in his forties. Unusually jovial for his profession. Like every time, he welcomed him with a bloated smile. He sat on the couch, the doctor on a chair next to it. The doctor spoke first.

“Is it still raining outside?”

He nodded affirmative. The analyst continued.

“That’s a nice looking umbrella. Can I see it? Where did you get this?”

“From the streets.”

His reply was curt and ambiguous. The doctor didn’t seem to bother though. He was ogling the umbrella from various angles.  

“You know, I have always thought about buying stuff off the streets. But who has time?”

The man looked at his watch once again. Another gift from the streets. The analyst, being a professional, read the sign wrong.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to charge you for the chit-chat.”

He was relieved. The doctor was as clueless as the butcher’s favorite cow. He lay on the couch and closed his eyes. The doctor put the umbrella on a table behind him and set the time on his watch. The session started. 

“So how are you feeling lately?”

“Not bad.”

“Please elaborate.”

“There is nothing to elaborate.”

“Okay. Let me rephrase. How are you feeling about your condition?”

He didn’t reply immediately. Should he tell him now? A couple of minutes passed by. The room patiently waited for an answer.

“I have something to confess,” he said at last, his voice all dry and humorless.

“I am listening.”

“The umbrella, I picked it up at the grocer’s.”

“They sell it at the grocer’s now?”

“I didn’t buy it.”

“Is this the grocer’s umbrella?”

“No. It belonged to a girl.”

The analyst wasn’t taken aback by this confession. He was extraordinarily composed, perhaps a little bored. It was fairly routine for him to hear such tales and feign interest. He clipped his nails while the patient with closed eyes narrated his story.

“I saw her on the bus. She was holding the umbrella like a proud mother. The rain had started already. We got down from the bus. She opened it and started walking. I couldn’t resist following her, given my condition. She stopped at the grocer’s to buy some colored pencils. She might be an artist, I conjectured. She was paying the grocer and they had a fight over the changes. I just took the advantage of her carelessness.”

“Nobody saw you taking the umbrella?”

“I don’t give them any chance.”

The doctor was finished with his clipping. He put the clipper on the table and blew the remains of the nails off his shirt.

“To tell you the truth, I can understand why you were so moved by the umbrella. It’s exquisite. Having said that, I must remind you that it was wrong to take somebody else’s property without telling her. You must return it.”

“But I don’t have her address.”

The analyst was not entirely happy with the shape of his nails. He was thinking about having another go with the clipper. He casually proposed a suggestion.

“Perhaps it’s written on the umbrella.”   

“Written on the umbrella?” The man opened his eyes, so the analyst had to stop fidgeting with the clipper. “Who writes his address on the umbrella? That’s stupid.”

“Stupidity is not something to be underestimated,” the doctor remarked with an air of self-consciousness. He was a little embarrassed. The patient might have noticed his preoccupation with his fingertips. So he took recourse to the triteness of roundabout wisdom, “Stupidity is like a blunt pillar. You don’t like it when you see it, but it gives your house a strength of character.”

“Stupidity gives my house a strength of character?”

“Not stupidity. The blunt pillar. Never mind. Let’s focus on your condition. Are you taking those pills that I gave you?”

“Yes, about that,” the man closed his eyes again and the doctor reached for his clipper, “I don’t think they suit me.”

“Really? What happened?”

“They gave me headache.”

“Okay. Alright. The doses may be wrong. We shall see to that. What about your dreams?”

“What about them?”

“Do you have them?”

The analyst never had any problem with his left fingernails. He was a righty himself; his right hand moved like a recently oiled machine. He got his left nails beautifully clipped, round and shapely, with a pink glow underneath – a sign of health and post-marital bliss. What he really couldn’t manage were the right ones. They always looked hectic and underdone. But then, it was not very wise to go over the top with a zeal for perfection and start bleeding.  

“Who doesn’t?”

“Sorry? What did you say?”

“Everybody has dreams.”

“Right. What’s yours?”

The man closed his eyes even more tightly. He was trying to remember something, or maybe, his eyes were twitching.

“I dreamt a hairpin the other night.”

“What kind of hairpin?”

“What kind of…I don’t know. How many kinds are there? Never got a chance to see that many.”

“What about the ones your mother used?”

By now the analyst was convinced that some people would never have the aesthetic privilege – the sense of fulfillment – of having perfectly shaped right fingernails. Some people were born with asthma, some with a grand piano to play on, and some with poorly working left hands, nervous and shaky while flipping a coin or unhooking a bra.

“My mother had short hair. She never used them.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

The doctor had finally resigned: to hell with fingernails, to hell with analysis. The time was running out, but not as fast as to his liking. He never liked this man. He never liked anybody. Why did he get into this profession anyway? Did his mother have short hair too?

“There is nothing to be sorry about.”

“What was your childhood like?”

“Haven’t I told you already?”

“Yes, you have. But some experiences must be shared repetitively.”

The doctor didn’t conceal his yawn. The patient’s eyes were still closed.

“Look, my childhood wasn’t much different from yours, or from anybody else’s. That I have turned into a kleptomaniac is a shock to my family.”

“Perhaps the shock had come before you turned into…well, I think we should not use the k-word…before you kind of  acquired this condition.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something happened. Something so terrible that you want to forget it. But you can’t. So you give up everything associated with it. Things that belong to you. And you take away things that belong to others. You substitute your things by those that are not yours. The desire to substitute is a very strong emotion.”

The man wanted to open his eyes and sit up. Instead he thought of photosynthesis. All food he ever ate came from the trees. The thought irritated him, for no apparent reason.

“What do you think?” The analyst asked, looking at the top of his left shoe. There was some mud on it. Dry mud.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”

“Were you always interested in umbrellas?”

“What’s there to be interested about?”

“Still you lifted one of those today, didn’t you? There must be something. Try to remember.”

“I’m sorry. Nothing comes to mind.”

“How many umbrellas have you lost?”

“I could never…”

The man took a pause to remember. He was trying very hard. He almost pictured himself in despair; despair that falls upon all mortal souls; the hopelessness of leaving something behind, something of importance, something dear and precious; the despair of losing that something; forgetting.

But ultimately he couldn’t, “…lose an umbrella.”

“Are you kidding? Everybody loses them. They are meant to be lost.”

“I never had any.”

“You never had any umbrella? And you live in a tropical country!”

“What can I say? I didn’t have to.”

“I think we are getting somewhere with this. Why didn’t you have to?”

“I had a raincoat.”

The weather outside must have calmed down, the doctor thought to himself. His face remained dispassionate, but he was fuming within. He was not exactly offended by the casual, almost jocular, reply to his seemingly earnest enquiry. He was not angry at anyone in particular. His rage, cold and serpentine, rational yet capable of any damage internal, was directed towards an idea. The whole idea of childhood: its memories, smells, and grudges; its benign criminality; its customary pettiness; its lack of solitude; its cruel sense of justice.

“You had a raincoat since you were a child?”

“Yes, I did.”

“So it was a pretty normal childhood.”

“I told you.”

“Do you know how my childhood was?”

“No, I don’t.”

“It was normal too.”

Both the doctor and the patient realized they were standing in front of a mirror, standing in front of each other.

“Tell me about the girl.”

“Which girl?”

“The girl with the umbrella.”

“I haven’t noticed her properly. I was looking at the umbrella.”

“Is there any difference?”

Suddenly, the alarm in the analyst’s watch went off. The time was up. The man opened his eyes finally, and sat up. The doctor had come back to his natural grinning self. He reclined on his chair, lit a cigarette, and puffed out a lot of smoke. Half his face was clouded in it. The other half was mildly sweating. His voice too bore a tinge of fatigue.        

“Sorry I didn’t offer you one.”

“It’s okay. I rarely smoke. Anyway, I should go now.”

“What do you think of today’s session?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”   

“I think it went well. You are coming out of your shell. That’s good.”  

“Is that so?”

“Oh yes. You are almost ready to probe deeper into the causes of your condition.”

The analyst butted the half-burnt cigarette in an empty coffee mug. The mug had something written on it: perhaps a quote from a poem; not a brilliant one, of course. The man now stood up, all set to leave the room. He picked up the umbrella from the table and motioned towards the door.

“Are you taking the umbrella with you?”

The man turned to the quizzing face of the analyst, “Shouldn’t I?”

“What do you want to do with it?”

“I guess I’ll try to return it.”

“Why don’t you leave it here? I’ll do it myself.”

“How? You don’t know the girl.”

“Neither do you.”  

It sounded like a game of tennis. Words bounced over the net of distrust and dropped on the ground of manipulation. Both players abided by the rules of the game, which did not permit hostility or impatience. They didn’t move from their respective positions, the doctor from his chair, still reclining, and the man from his direction towards the door, although now frozen in a moment of contemplation.

“But I have seen her,” he said at last. What else could he have said? 

“That hardly qualifies.”

“Why not?”

“You said you hadn’t noticed her properly. You were looking at the umbrella.”

“And you said there wasn’t any difference.”

“I didn’t say that. I just asked a question.”

Suddenly the patient was overwhelmed by a strange feeling, a combination of serenity and restlessness, serenity of ignorance and restlessness of knowledge, a feeling he was once familiar with, especially when he was preparing for his law exam some ten-fifteen years back. The feeling left him all of a sudden, although he didn’t sit for the test. It left him for good and never came back until this very moment. He smiled at the doctor, first time today, first time ever, and decided to end the matter once and for all.

“Okay. You may keep it.”

“What?”

“The umbrella. You are right. You should keep the umbrella.”

“What shall I do with it?”

“I don’t know. Give it to her.”

“Whom? Give it to whom?”

“To whom it belongs.”

“How shall I know?”

“Oh, you will. You will.”

When he came out of the clinic, the rain had actually stopped. The air was heavy with moisture and tropical glum. He gazed at the public, people passing by, all in a hurry, anonymous, eternally bored. His steps, cautious and little, didn’t match theirs. They were going home, he a police station.      

He was sitting face to face with the inspector, a bald, efficient man in his forties. The inspector was rolling a cigarette. He coughed to draw his attention.

“What?”

 “How long do I have to wait?”

“I’m rolling a cigarette, can’t you see?”

“Why are you doing that? It’s useless.”

“I’m trying to quit.”

“Come on.”

“No, seriously. It takes a lot of time and labor to roll these buggers. I just hope one day I’ll get bored and quit.”

“That’s a lot of optimism.”

“Optimism is the essence of life.”

“Optimism is an excuse for denial. Now let’s talk.”

“Yeah, let me light this first,” the inspector took out a lighter from his pocket and clicked it. It didn’t work. He clicked it again. Nothing happened. Not even a flicker.

“Do you have a light?”

“I rarely smoke and I have very little time to waste.”

“Okay, okay. So how did it go?”

“Splendid.”

“Did you get it?”

“Yes, I did.”

 “That’s wonderful. That’s great. He didn’t suspect, did he?”

“I don’t give them a chance.”

“That’s right. You are great at what you do. Congratulations. But why are you looking so depressed? Is there any problem?”

“Problem? No. Not really.”

“You look a little off today. Let me tell you, you have done a great job. Really.”

“I have lost something.”

The inspector couldn’t speak for a while. He looked pale; his face lost almost all the colors; his breathing became irregular. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out at first. And when he started talking, he could barely form a sentence.

“That’s…how could you…I mean…you have already lost it?”

“What? No. That’s not what I have lost. In fact, I didn’t lose it. I gave it away.”

“Well then, what did you give away?”

The man waved his hand, “Doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about the case. Do you think this will help?”

“Are you kidding? This is the most definitive evidence we have against him. The murder weapon. What else do you need?”

“I thought the case might not be that strong.”

“That was before. Now we have the thing. Can I see it now?”

The man smiled, second time today, this time with a little shyness of an amateur magician performing for the first time not before a mirror, but an expert audience. He slowly put his hand in his pocket and paused for a moment, and then brought out a small object, a slender piece of steel, whose sharpness could be perceived from across the table.

“Nice blade, huh? Who would have thought it could be used to kill people?”

“One person did, evidently.”

“It’s not a laughing matter. He killed five women with this. Can you believe that? He is a total psycho, that bastard.”

“Yes. He is a psychiatrist.”

“Can I have a look? Oh my god, look at this. So small but so effective. A nail clipper. A fucking nail clipper.” 

The policeman held the clipper up in the air like a miniature sword. It shined menacingly in the dim light of the tungsten bulb hanging over their heads.

 “So how are things going at the lab?” The man asked, looking away from the clipper.

“Nothing new. I told you about the piece of nail we got on the body of the last victim. There must be some remnants, some nail dust or something on this clipper. If they match – I’m sure they will – we have our case.”

“The doctor is obsessed with nails. He was constantly clipping his nails when I was lying on the couch.”

“Oh yes, your session. I’m sorry. You have to find another shrink now.”

“I better be going. I have another appointment.”

“What? With a lady friend?”

“I don’t divulge personal information to policemen.”

“Okay, Mr. Detective. Hope to see you soon. We may have another favor to ask.”

“Anytime. See you.”

“Wait,” the inspector stood up from his chair, “don’t you have an umbrella? The rain has started once again.”

“I don’t like umbrellas. I’m more of a raincoat guy.”

He left the police station in a hurry. The streets were almost empty and nice to walk on, without bumping into strangers and having to apologize. He was happy. Even the rain could not kill his spirit. He felt like having a smoke after a long day’s work. He went under a shade and lit a cigarette with the inspector’s lighter.

It worked perfectly.