PulpLit.net

The Brain Doctor

"Let's interview Jean-Pascal Dovet first," said Hunter, once all the arrangements had been made and the professors were secure in a faculty lounge. "His comment about Inspector Maigret caught my attention."

"Who's Maigret? A famous French detective?" asked Weems.

"Very famous, but also very imaginary. He's a creation of a French... no, I think it's a Belgian writer, named Simenon. Simenon was incredibly prolific. Some say he was a hack. They say he could write a mystery in two weeks. He must have written two hundred of them. Maybe more. He also claims that he slept with ten thousand different women, including, its rumored, his own daughter."

"So this Dovet is a wise-guy," said Weems. "Making jokes at our expense."

"Some people can't resist. It may be their way of dealing with anxiety and stress. I read an article in The Chronicle by some shrink who made that point. Humor in cases like that is a defense mechanism. It helps ward off depression and helps with all kinds of other problems."

Weems stuck his head out into the hall, and asked an officer to bring in Professor Dovet.

Several minutes later there was a light knock on the door. Jean-Pascal Dovet entered and sat down in a chair that had been prepared for him.

"I am first," he said. "But I trust, in this case, first will not be last," he added, smiling.

"This murder doesn't seem to have dampened your mood," said Hunter. "You seem in excellent spirits and are even joking around a bit. I found it interesting that you would make a joke about Maigret just a short while after your colleague, Azriel Moshe, was murdered."

Dovet stroked his beard, and paused before speaking.

"Yes," he replied. "That's true. But that's because I am somewhat of a fatalist, you see. I am a physician and have seen countless people die in my work in the hospitals. Some of them have been my patients, of whom I was quite fond. After a while you learn to accept death---to face it, to put it behind you, and to get on with your life. I'm not the kind of person who gets melancholy about death. God makes the decisions and we carry on as best we can, hoping that he has written us into the book of life and not the book of death. Can you understand that?"

"Yes," said Hunter. "I probably feel somewhat the same way you do about death. It's part of my job. Now, what can you tell me about this team of scholars that Professor Moshe assembled? What were you doing on the team?"

"Azriel Moshe was a brilliant psychiatrist," replied Dovet. "He was educated in Boston, where he was born, and came to the University of California Medical School a number of years ago to teach and conduct research. He comes from a very Orthodox Jewish family---I imagine that's why he was named Azriel. He was interested in Jewish mysticism and was trying to find out whether there was any connection between people who studied the Kabbalah and health, both mental and physical. His theory was that mystics, of all kinds, might have gained some psychological and perhaps even physical benefits from having a belief structure that sustained them. He chose the Kabbalah because of his fascination with it. You know that it has been in vogue, lately. Some Hollywood stars have become involved with it, you know. Like Madonna and even Britney Spears."

"Yes," replied Hunter. "I've read about them in the papers. What exactly is Kabbalah? I don't know much about it except that I understand it's a kind of Jewish mysticism."

"It's hard to know where to begin," replied Dovet. "And hard to explain, because there are so many different things to know and there are so many mystical allusions. The term Kabbalah means, in general terms, 'the reception' or 'that which has been received.' It developed in medieval times. What has been received is a kind of ancient and holy arcane knowledge, what might be described as secret teachings. This mystical knowledge is found in a holy book, the Zohar, the book of radiance. Kabbalists generally believe in Ein Sof, which literally means 'endless,' and is also the term they use for the Creator, which can be described as the first cause or the cause of all causes. That means we can find Ein Sof present in all things in the actual world. On the other hand, all things are present in it potentially. Ein Sof, Kabbalists suggest, emanated ten Sefirot or 'vessels,' through which its actions are manifested. These Sefirot are conduits for the actions deriving from Ein Sof, and its existence is spread through them."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," said Weems.

"I can understand," said Dovet. "You have to be deeply immersed in it before Kabbalah starts making sense."

"Don't be put off by Weems," said Hunter. "He doesn't have a mind for abstractions. But I can follow you, so please, keep talking."

"The Kabbalists thought that if they lived a holy life and followed the teachings of the Zohar, the Messiah would arrive and his coming would lead to the redemption of the Jews. A great deal of Judaism is involved with the Messiah, you have to realize that. According to the Kabbalists, this mysterious Ein Sof withdrew its presence from the world. The first divine action, we are told, was this withdrawal, which created a vacuum and this emptiness enabled the world to be created. Ein Sof then sent a ray of light into this vacuum, which was channeled through the Sefirot, the vessels. But the light was so powerful that some of the vessels shattered into pieces and then returned to Ein Sof, their original source. But some became sparks that were trapped in what can be described as material existence. What Kabbalists want to do is free these sparks and return them to their original source and restore them to their divinity. They do this by living a life of holiness and by the process known as Tikkun, which means repair or mending."

"Now, if you assume that all existence is connected to the divine, everything we do, no matter how mundane, can be used as a means to discover God. Everything, no matter how small and seemingly trivial, contains the essence of divinity. Ein Sof, Kabbalists believe, exists in everything. Some Kabbalists suggest that our entire world is actually the body of God. The secret teachings revealed in the Zohar and other mystical writings, Kabbalists believe, are very powerful and potentially dangerous, so people must be protected from them. That's why some Kabbalists argued that people shouldn't be allowed to study the Kabbalah until they are forty years old."

"I still don't understand," said Weems.

"Let me try another way to explain things," Dovet added. "At the beginning, Kabbalists argue, everything was contained in Ein Sof and part of it. Later, Ein Sof emanated a point from itself---an emanation known as Keter, or the Crown, and from Keter, there was a second emanation, Hokhmah or Wisdom, which represented the start of revelation. This, in turn, led to a third emanation, Binah or understanding, which reveals what exists. After these three emanations, six more Sefirot appeared, representing the six different dimensions of providence---namely Gevurah or strength, Chesed or loving kindness, Tiferet or beauty, Hod or empathy, Netsah or eternity, and Yesod or foundation. Along with these six emanations, there was one more of the Sefirot that emanated, Malkhut or sovereignty. The lower Sefirot draw their power from the ones above them and they all need Ein Sof, but it doesn't need any of them."

"I'm not sure, from what you said, where these Sefirot come in," said Hunter. "If everything is part of God, why do they have a special status?"

"An excellent question," replied Dovet. "According to some Kabbalists, in the beginning, Ein Sof emanated these ten vessels or Sefirot, which were still part of Ein Sof, since everything is. Some of them have their own colors, based on their function. But the emanation from Ein Sof had no color at all, much like sunlight shining through a stained-glass window. The sunlight doesn't change its color but the viewer sees light of different colors."

"So this Ein Sof is an all-powerful presence, so it seems," said Hunter, "that manifests itself in everything. For Kabbalists, then, if I follow you correctly, everything in the world is part of God and, as such, is a means toward knowing God. Is that right?"

"Very good," said Dovet. "I've tried to make a very complicated and esoteric belief system understandable to you and, quite naturally, have left a great deal out. The other people you interview may provide more insights that will help you understand Kabbalah. All of Kabbalah can't be understood in one brief chat."

"That makes sense," replied Hunter. "So where do you fit into this research team?"

"We were just getting started, so we hadn't actually conducted any research. I'm a neurologist and Azriel wanted to find out whether the study of Kabbalah had any effect on people's brains and nervous systems. We planned on taking brain scans---that is, images of individuals before they studied Kabbalah, while they were studying Kabbalah, and after they had studied it, to see whether studying Kabbalah had any impact on various regions of the brain and whether it might have some benefits for people who had suffered minor seizures. We also hoped to take scans of students who were not studying Kabbalah as a control group to see whether we could find anything interesting.

"By understanding what's happening in the brain, we hope to learn a lot about total body health. All of medicine is a sub-specialty of neurology, which is really the master discipline. It's like the Ein Sof, except instead of Sefirot we have various medical specialties, from dermatology to oncology, from proctology to surgery. The doctors who practice these specialties all think their specialties are central, the pivot around which all medicine revolves, while we neurologists know our specialty is of central importance. If you don't have those electrical circuits in the brain firing away, you aren't good for very much, are you? Azriel may have had an ulterior motive for inviting me to join his team. He suffers from narcolepsy and, at any moment, can fall into a deep sleep. He had spoken to me about it, though, of course, at the University of California medical center here, they have many world-class neurologists."

"How, exactly, did you become a member of this team?" asked Hunter.

"It was Azriel, of course," replied Dovet. "I had written some papers that dealt obliquely with Magnetic Resonance Imagery and religious belief and a book on Kabbalah, NeuroKabbalah. Azriel read some of my writings and the book and got in touch with me about joining this team. I wanted to get away from Paris and had visited San Francisco a number of times and liked the city. So I accepted Azriel's offer and came here. I have a year's appointment at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco as a visiting professor. Our team has had meetings most mornings for the past couple of months while we plan our research. It's very interesting. Or was, before Azriel's unfortunate and untimely death."

"What was he like?" asked Hunter.

"Azriel was a brilliant physician and strategic researcher. He was a psychiatrist and had done important research on stress and anxiety. He was, for a time, at Cornell Medical Center in New York City. He got a grant and spent some time in Israel where he did some pathbreaking work on how Israelis deal with stress. You can imagine how difficult it is for most Israelis, living in a country where they are constantly under attack by suicide bomber-murderers. He did pioneering work on how Israelis function in such circumstances. He was a scholar and more interested in conducting research than in having a medical practice, though, as I understand it, he did see some patients in his earlier years here at the medical school. Researchers are animated by the notion that their contributions, their discoveries, help other doctors improve their work."

"He was invited to join the faculty at the University of California Medical School and came here a number of years ago. He obtained a large grant from some foundation to investigate the Kabbalah and how its study affected people. There's a rumor that the money originally came from Madonna. Can you imagine that? He put the team together because, in part, he was interested in Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah and in part because he thought it would be a way to deal with mysticism in general."

"Yes, but what was he like?" asked Weems. "You've not said anything about his personality. It strikes me that his murder was probably connected more to his relationships with others on the team than his interest in this Kabbalah stuff."

"One should not speak ill of the dead," replied Dovet.

"Indulge us," Hunter said.

Dovet sighed, and shrugged his shoulders in resignation.

"How should I put this?" said Dovet. "Azriel was a complicated person. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and was very witty, but he wasn't the nicest human being in the world. That's often the case with humorous types. They've a lot of hostility and aggression in them that finds its expression in their humor. That was Freud's theory---that humor involves masked aggression. Azriel wasn't easy to get along with. He was brilliant and imaginative, but he also tended to be somewhat arrogant. When he was in a bad mood he could get quite nasty and insulting. And he liked to have his own way. He was the director of the interdisciplinary team that he assembled and, though he wasn't open about it, he always wanted things to go his way. All the time."

"If that were the case, why didn't people resign?" asked Hunter.

"It isn't easy to come to San Francisco and get established, as the other members of the team did, and then suddenly leave. After you leave, what do you do? If you've had any experience with professors, you realize that Azriel wasn't very different from most other academics. I could have resigned, since I have a position at a medical school. But the others were on leaves of absences and soft money and if they left, they'd have no income. So we all gritted our teeth for the past two months and waited for the research to begin. Then we wouldn't have these terrible meetings, that dragged on endlessly, while we worked out our research program."

"Did the other members of your team feel the same way as you did?" asked Hunter.

"I believe so," replied Dovet, "though nobody fought with Azriel at the meetings we had. But from chatting with the others, I got that feeling. Lately, he became, for some reason I can't put my finger on, hostile toward Svetalana, the Russian historian on the team. There's a rumor that she dumped him for someone else, though there are also rumors to the effect that they maintained a relationship on the sly. I think he induced her to join the team because he wanted to sleep with her. He had met her when he gave a lecture at the University of Tartu in Russia the year before. There's some question about who she really likes. She probably led Azriel along to get out of Russia. She wouldn't be the first woman to do that kind of thing to a man."

"She's the redhead, right?" said Weems.

"Yes," said Dovet. "The redhead. A very beautiful and fascinating woman, but also very difficult..." He paused for a moment. "I... I'm recently divorced and not interested in getting involved with any woman now. But if I were interested in having a relationship with a woman, I could easily be attracted to her. Very easily. In Kabbalistic thought, red represents Binah or judgment. Ironically, getting involved with Svetlana would represent a serious lack of judgment. Or maybe, and perhaps this is a better term, a lack of Chochma, wisdom."

"So you weren't---how I should I put it---'interested' 'in Svetlana?" replied Hunter.

"Not at all," said Dovet. His blinked at Hunter impassively.

"What about the other woman---the blonde?" asked Hunter.

"Krista. She's a medical sociologist from Italy. A lovely woman. Brilliant, warm, full of brio. But also a bit driven and not my type. You sense an enormous amount of energy and passion in her."

"Is it possible that she was involved with Azriel?" asked Hunter.

"You ask excellent questions," said Dovet. "As a matter of fact, there was gossip to the effect that Azriel had been sleeping with Krista and then, for some reason, abandoned her abruptly. She never said anything but I've heard that she was devastated. Why she got involved with him in the first place is difficult to say. I've heard talk that a number of years ago he prevented her from getting a chair at Yale, so you'd think she'd never have anything to do with him. In any case, it looks like he abandoned---I guess the word you Americans would use would be dumped---Krista unceremoniously a few weeks ago. He then turned his attentions toward Svetlana. But it would seem that she wasn't the least interested in him. Krista spent a lot of time with Leon Gerhard. They may have had a relationship, too. It's hard to say."

"Yes," replied Hunter. "It seems as complicated as the Kabbalah."

At this Dovet smiled.

"Nothing in the world is as complicated as the Kabbalah, or as simple, to those who are able to understand it," he replied.

"You mentioned Gerhard. What can you tell me about him... he is, I take it, the psychologist on the team?" asked Hunter.

"Leon Gerhard is an enigma to all of us. He always was cordial and pleasant, but I felt he was holding something back. He also has a good sense of humor. But still, something of a cold fish. From conversations we had, I had the notion---strange as it might seem---that although he's a rabbi, he doesn't believe in the existence of God. Yet, like so many people, he was fascinated by Kabbalah and by the complicated structures of thought that has been created in God's name. Some students of the Kabbalah argue that it's nothing but different names of God. Leon had a strange relationship with Azriel. He resented Azriel and claimed Azriel 'used' him, that he stole his ideas and didn't give him credit for them. But Leon also was, so the gossip goes, sexually attracted to him"

"You mean you think Leon is gay?"

"A closet homosexual," said Dovet. "But you didn't hear it from me." Dovet shook his head ruefully.

"One thing that is difficult for me to deal with as a Kabbalist," Dovet said, "is the fact that Ein Sof was present in the soul of the victim, but also is present in the soul of the murderer. The murderer had too much of what Kabbalists call Gevurah and not enough Chesed. That is, too much strength or passion and not enough loving kindness."

"I can understand that," added Hunter. "That's generally the case with premeditated murders. What did you do after your morning session broke up?" asked Hunter.

"I went to my office and searched for a book I wanted to look at," he said. "I got a phone call from Krista. In the middle of it she asked me to hold the line as somebody had come with whom she had to say a few words. I heard her talking to someone, then two or three minutes later she continued our conversation. It seems she had read an article about imaging and wanted to find out more about it. A short while later, during the middle of our conversation, there was some commotion and screaming. We hung up and I ran out into the corridor, where I discovered what had happened."

"Is there anything else you can think of that might be of interest to us?" Hunter asked.

Dovet paused for a moment, thinking things over.

"No, inspector. I've told you everything I know or that I can remember that in any way bears on this tragedy."

"I see," said Hunter. "Since we've covered things pretty well in this interview, you can go. We'll need a second one if we have more questions to ask, of course."

"Oh," said Dovet. "More than one interview? Or is interrogation a better term?"

"Whatever you wish to call it," said Hunter.

Weems poked his head out into the hall, and called down to Officer Abe Kook, one of the officers guarding the professors, "We're done with our first interview. Would you please escort Dr. Dovet back to the room with the other suspects and bring us Miss Pagetsky---the red-headed woman?"

"Suspects?" said Dovet. "We're all suspects? I find that word very disturbing, I must say."

"It happens to be the correct word," said Hunter. "There's been a murder and you and your colleagues were here when the murder took place. Unless we have reason to believe a total stranger or somebody we don't know about killed Dr. Moshe, I'm afraid you're all suspects."

At this Dovet got up. He had a grim look on his face.

"Are we done here?" Dovet said.

"Thank you," said Hunter. "We've learned a lot from this discussion." Dovet nodded tightly and left. Officer Kook escorted him back to the seminar room.

"What a messy murder this is turning out to be," said Weems. "It's hard to figure out what's going on---in Kabbalah or in the minds of the people on this team that Moshe assembled."

"Talcott---murders are always messy and complicated," said Hunter. "That's what makes them so interesting. But I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it all sooner or later."