“I really feel persecuted, professor. In fact, I am being persecuted. Everybody seems to be against me, the US Justice Department, the sports clubs – except my own, the newspapers- except my own, the banks – except my own. Everybody. And they all want to know where I got my money from, some suggesting I’m laundering Mafia money, that I’m mixed up with Colombian drug runners or that I’m a front man for a sinister syndicate of financiers and politicians aiming to take control of the country. If it goes on any longer I really think I’ll go crazy.”
“Now, now, Mr Biscottas. It can’t be as bad as all that. Remember, nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Also, nobody’s pinned anything on you yet and if there is no truth in all these hints and innuendoes, then you have nothing to fear except fear itself. By the way, I’ve often wondered myself, where did you get your money from?”
“E tu, Brute? If I could tell you, I’d tell everybody else and all my troubles Would be over. That’s the crux of my problem, professor. I can’t say where my money comes from because nobody will believe me.”
The professor decided to try another tack.
“Very well. We won’t talk about your money. Why don’t you start from the beginning? I believe you went to the States as a young boy. Let’s take it from there.”
The plump young man on the couch told the psychoanalyst how his family had emigrated to the United States during the years of the dictatorship to make a new beginning and how, being of a religious nature, he had become an altar boy at the Church of Ayios Dimitrios on 31st Street in Astoria, New York.
As he droned on the psychoanalyst was gratified to see that the original agitation had subsided and was then somewhat surprised to realize his patient had entered a self-induced trance and was babbling on as uninhibitedly as if he had received a dose of sodium pentathol.
“One day, as I was cleaning out the basement of the church, I came across an old brass censer that looked as if it hadn’t been used for a long time. I picked it up and · turned it over. There seemed to be nothing wrong with it so I thought I’d clean it and polish it and put it with the other censers we used in the church.
“But just as I began to give it a shine it jumped out of my hands and fell to the floor with something like a small whirlwind coming out of it, getting bigger and bigger until it became a huge priest in black robes and stovepipe hat.
“I was terrified. I wanted to run up the stairs and get out of that basement as fast as I could, but I couldn’t move a muscle. Then this giant spoke to me and said: ‘Don’t be scared of me little boy. I won’t harm you. I am Pater Pnevmatikos, the Spirit of the Thurible and you have summoned me by rubbing it, which is the usual way of summoning me from nine to five every day except Saturdays and Sundays. What can I do for you?”‘
“I calmed down a bit when he said this but I was still frightened by his huge size. ‘Wh-wh-at d-do you mean, d-do for me? What can you do?’ I asked.”
“‘I can do anything you ask me to except violate any of the Ten Commandments or the precepts of the Holy Orthodox Church. But since you are an altar boy and presumably a good boy, I know you wouldn’t want me to do anything wicked for you.”‘
“I gulped. I was still afraid and I didn’t know what to say.”
“‘If you don’t want anything right now, I will understand. Think it over and if there’s anything you may want tomorrow or the day after, just give the censer a little rub and I’ll be there. Meanwhile, we don’t want this summons to go wasted so here’s a little candy for you.”‘
“Then he disappeared with a whoosh and all that was left on the floor was the censer and a small heap of Hershey bars.”
“When I went home that day I kept quiet about the censer and Father Pnevmatikos. I began wondering how I would ever explain it if I asked him for a lot of money and he produced it for me.”
“That night, some of my father’s friends came to the house and from their talk, I gathered that some of them wanted to retire and go back to Greece and live off their social security pensions, but that either their papers weren’t in order or they didn’t qualify for a pension.”
“So next morning, I went to the church basement a little after nine and rubbed the censer. Sure enough, Father Pnevmatikos appeared again. I put the problem to him and before you could say Ayios Dimitrios he had produced all the necessary papers for my father’s friends to get their pensions. Word got around and I was on to a good deal. Over the years I made a tidy pile in this way until the Justice Department caught up with me and I decided I’d take the censer with me and go back to Greece.”
“I found things were so free and easy here that I abandoned my usual caution and began asking for larger and larger sums of money which Pater Pnevmatikos produced on the dot. I bought a bank and a football club and I built up a newspaper empire- I don’t have to tell you more; you know it all. But I guess I overdid it and soon enough, people began wondering where all my money was coming from and asking awkward questions and now I’m in trouble and I don’t know what to do.”
Biscottas’s narrative came to an end and Kefalosystolakis realized his patient had come out of his self-hypnotic trance He pressed the tips of his fingers together and thought for a while.
Then he said: “You know, Mr Biscottas, if you really believe everything you’ve just told me, your problem is much more serious than you think.”
“What d’you mean?” Biscottas asked.
Kefalosystolakis made a wry grimace and replied:
“Well, censers and genies and all that. I’d say you are suffering from deep delusions which could get worse and worse until you lose all touch with reality.”
“You think I’m lying? You think everything I said about the censer and Father Pnevmatikos is a lot of crap?”
“Well , I wouldn’t put it as crudely as that, but that’s the gist of it.”
“Then, doctor, if you don’t believe me I’m afraid we can’t go on with this analysis. There’ll be no trust between us and it just wouldn’t work,” Biscottas said with annoyance.
Kefalosystolakis shrugged. “As you wish,” he said.
“How much do I owe you?” Biscottas asked, walking over to his briefcase.
“Twenty thousand drachmas,” the psycholanalyst replied, then watched in surprise as Biscottas pulled out an old censer and rubbed it.
With a sound like a whirlwind the room was suddenly filled with the presence of a giant priest who said: “Yes, my son?”
“Pay the man twenty thousand drachmas,” Biscottas snapped as Kefalosystolakis collapsed in his chair to be admitted . later that day to his own psychiatric clinic in a state of catatonia.
