Excerpt
Word Count: 5249
Pages to Print: 24
File Format: PDF                  Price: $2.99

EXCERPTS

My Salieri Complex

University College, London, 1884
 
    “Awake, Samuel! Boarding with a genius will not transform you into one.”
     That was the voice of reason, which guided me through most of my career. Yet another voice, one of superstition and vanity, tried to persuade me of the opposite. How I wished to believe that a fraction of Jonathan Griffin’s brilliance could project onto me if I only spent enough time in his vicinity! I fancied our brains being like two communicating vessels, with grandiose theories and mysteries passing between them. Little by little, the toxic swamp of self-flattering fantasies sucked me in.
     Griffin, a native of Cardiff, was almost three years younger than me but only one year behind in his coursework. He transferred to University College in the autumn of 1883, allegedly to study medicine. I emphasize the word “allegedly”. From the very beginning I had serious doubts this man had any intention of treating patients for the rest of his life. As I learned later, medicine was the profession of his father’s choice. Griffin feigned compliance only to gain access to London’s best library and laboratory. He took most interest in optical density and refraction index, two topics which had very little to do with medicine.
        We enrolled in the same physics seminar led by Professor Handley, my intellectual father, who promised me an assistant’s position after my graduation as well as the hand of his daughter Elizabeth. Everyone in the department regarded me as Professor Handley’s heir, the future king of the laboratory. At least, such was the case until Griffin’s arrival. In one week this eighteen-year old boy with a Welsh accent toppled the hierarchy that had been in place since my first solo demonstration in 1881. When Griffin would enter the lecture hall, all the chatter would cease and then turn into a collective sigh of veneration.
       It happened so quickly, I did not even have enough time to grow suspicious, or indignant, or bitter. He snatched my invisible crown and placed it on his perfectly shaped head, atop a cloud of snow-white curls.
Griffin was the only albino I had ever encountered. At first he struck me as a member of an entirely different race, one which Darwin and Kingsley would declare as superior to their own, a race untainted by unnecessary pigment. As I discovered later, the condition carried its disadvantages. Griffin’s eyes, garnet-red, were extremely sensitive to the light, obliging him to wear tinted spectacles and a hat. Between those eyes a permanent crease was forming, growing deeper by the month. I studied that crease furtively, as if it were some hieroglyph, a clue to the mysteries of his mind.
 
 
****
 
         As a child I suffered from respiratory distress. Slightest physical exertion caused me to pant and wheeze, cutting me off from the games of my sturdier peers. No, they did not taunt me. They simply refused to acknowledge my existence. At the time I would have preferred open ridicule to utter indifference. I found consolation in corresponding with Robert Louis Stevenson, who had also had a “weak chest” and spent much of his childhood in sickbed. He had shared with me the early drafts of his novels and poems. I read “The Treasure Island” long before it was published. His bewildering adventures distracted me from my affliction, provided me with an opportunity to step out of my treacherous, uncooperative body. By the age of sixteen I had reconciled with the thought that I would have no companions save for the merry crew of the schooner Hispaniola.
         My position changed when I came to University College and discovered that in matters of intellect I surpassed most of my peers. Suddenly, my physical infirmities became inconsequential. A former outcast, I became the most sought-after individual in the entire medical department. My peers, who snubbed me during my adolescence, now fought for a chance to have me for a study partner. They rapped on the door of my flat, attempted subtle bribes, invited me to family outings. For once, I had the power of rejecting one companion in favor of another. I think back to the winter of 1881 and the succession of triumphs: my first public demonstration before the entire department, my first dinner at Professor Handley’s house, my first evening with Elizabeth without a chaperone.
        Gradually, I began outgrowing my malady. The symptoms did not vanish altogether, but they lessened considerably. This unexpected improvement in my condition prompted me to make a vow to God that I would devote my life to treating the ailments of the lungs.
        Then the white-haired Welshman barged into my kingdom, and my wheezing attacks returned, with doubled intensity. When I was near him, I lacked for air. Griffin was stealing oxygen from me. As slender as he was, as few personal possessions as he had, somehow he occupied most of the two-bedroom flat that we shared. Every corner bore the mark of his presence. Some elusive spirit reigned there, leaving very little space for me.
Griffin’s bedroom served as his personal laboratory where he would continue his experiments into the early hours. His arsenal included an assortment of glass tubes in which he would heat and mix various chemicals. I knew better than to pry into the nature of Griffin’s experiments, but I suspected it was the fume seeping from under the closed door of his bedroom that triggered my coughing attacks.
        Still, I had no grounds for complaints, as there was nothing criminal about Griffin’s behavior. Who can fault a science student for diligence? If his work stirred my old illness, it was my private ordeal. Remains of pride forbade me to vocalize my growing discontent. Most of all I feared being accused of having a Salieri complex. There was nothing left for me to do except drive my anger deep into my inflamed chest. When the tightness in the lungs became unbearable, I would simply go outside or wander the corridors of the residence hall.
        Nobody ever found out how many nights I spent on the cushions in the lounge. And nobody found out about the tempest inside my head. It was not my crown that I missed—it was my freedom. I learned what it meant to be a spiritual captive of another human being.
        I knew that when my schoolmates knocked on our door, it was most likely for Griffin, not me. Rarely would he deign to come out of his sanctuary and greet them. Usually he would remain behind the closed door upon which our schoolmates would throw furtive, longing glances. With the immediacy of small children they would elbow each other and whisper.
     “How long can he toy with explosives?”
     “I know: he’s making a bride for himself.”                      Back to My Salieri Complex