Free Entanglement by Zygmunt Miloszewski Page B

of the others would get up and stick a skewer in his eye. Then a mark the shape of a racing car would appear on his cheek.
    Telak: Maybe someone else should have their turn now?
    Rudzki: We drew lots. But please say if you’re not ready.
    A long silence.
    Telak: All right, I’ll give it a go.
    Rudzki: OK. First we’ll arrange the family background. Mrs Jarczyk will be your mother, and Mr Kaim your father. Please arrange them.
    Telak takes Mrs Jarczyk by the hand and leads her to the far end of the room. He shows her to a spot right next to the wall, where she stands facing it. Then he positions Kaim next to her, also with his face to the wall. Telak himself stands in the middle of the room, looking at their backs.

    Rudzki: All set?
    Telak: Yes.
    Rudzki: Mrs Jarczyk, please tell us how you’re feeling.
    Jarczyk: I’m sad, I wish I could see my son. I miss him.
    Rudzki: And what about you?
    Kaim: Not good. I can feel him staring at my back. I want to turn round. Or get away. I can feel pressure on my neck, just as if someone were holding me on a leash.
    Jarczyk: Yes, I feel the same way. Or like I’ve been put in the corner as a punishment. I feel bad. I feel guilty.
    Telak: I’d like to go up to them.
    Kaim: May I turn round?
    Rudzki: Not yet. (To Telak) Please go up to your parents and stand behind them.
    Telak stands just behind Kaim and Jarczyk.
    Rudzki (to Telak): How do you feel now?
    Telak: Better, much better. This is how I wanted it.
    Kaim (with an effort): But I find this unbearable. I’ve got the wall in front of me and my son behind me. I don’t know why he came here, but I don’t want him here. Christ, I can hardly keep upright. I’m suffocating. Please let me move away, or get him out of here.
    Rudzki: Just a little longer.
     
    The therapist stopped the tape. The image of Telak standing behind his “parents” froze on the screen. Szacki looked at him in amazement.
    “Is it a sort of theatre?” he asked. “Have they been given a script in advance telling them how to behave?”
    Rudzki shook his head.
    “No, and what’s more they hardly know a thing about Mr Telak. They don’t know that he ran away from home, they don’t know that his parents died in a tragic accident and that
he never got the chance to say goodbye to them. Nothing. You see, essentially this form of therapy is extremely simple, if we compare it for example with psychoanalysis, which to my mind is usually totally ineffective in any case.”
    Szacki gestured to interrupt him.
    “Please, one thing at a time,” he said.
    “All right. You apply for Family Constellation Therapy because you’re having a tough time, things are really bad and difficult, but you don’t know why. You tell a few facts about yourself - your parents, siblings, wife, children, first wife, father’s first wife, etc. All the people in your family are important, alive or dead. And then you arrange them spatially. You take each of them by the hand, lead them to the right spot and show them which way to face. You’ll be surprised to hear it, but people often see what’s wrong right at that very moment, and why they feel so bad. For example, because their wife is standing where their mother ought to be. Or because their child is keeping them apart from their wife. In short, because the right order has been disturbed. You only have to arrange them correctly and the patient comes out of the therapy a different person. In just five minutes.”
    “Why does Kaim say he’s suffocating and about to faint?”
    “Because the representatives can feel the emotions of the people they’re replacing.”
    “But Telak’s parents died years ago.”
    “Including the dead.”
    “I see. And I suppose at the end you have to dance naked round a bonfire wearing a wooden mask?”
    Rudzki fell silent, plainly offended by the prosecutor’s comment. Szacki noticed and apologized.
    “I can understand your attitude a bit - I was very sceptical at first too,” said Rudzki in