Alex Michaelides - The Silent Patient

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For my parents

But why does she not speak?

EURIPIDES, Alcestis

Alicia Berensons Diary

JULY 14

I dont know why Im writing this.

Thats not true. Maybe I do know and just dont want to admit it to myself

I dont even know what to call itthis thing Im writing. It feels a little pretentious to call it a diary. Its not like I have anything to say. Anne Frank kept a diarynot someone like me. Calling it a journal sounds too academic, somehow. As if I should write in it every day, and I dont want toif it becomes a chore, Ill never keep it up.

Maybe Ill call it nothing. An unnamed something that I occasionally write in. I like that better. Once you name something, it stops you seeing the whole of it, or why it matters. You focus on the word, which is just the tiniest part, really, the tip of an iceberg. Ive never been that comfortable with wordsI always think in pictures, express myself with imagesso Id never have started writing this if it werent for Gabriel.

Ive been feeling depressed lately, about a few things. I thought I was doing a good job of hiding it, but he noticedof course he did, he notices everything. He asked how the painting was goingI said it wasnt. He got me a glass of wine, and I sat at the kitchen table while he cooked.

I like watching Gabriel move around the kitchen. Hes a graceful cookelegant, balletic, organized. Unlike me. I just make a mess.

Talk to me, he said.

Theres nothing to say. I just get so stuck in my head sometimes. I feel like Im wading through mud.

Why dont you try writing things down? Keeping some kind of record? That might help.

Yes, I suppose so. Ill try it.

Dont just say it, darling. Do it.

I will.

He kept nagging me, but I did nothing about it. And then a few days later he presented me with this little book to write in. It has a black leather cover and thick white blank pages. I ran my hand across the first page, feeling its smoothnessthen sharpened my pencil and began.

He was right, of course. I feel better alreadywriting this down is providing a kind of release, an outlet, a space to express myself. A bit like therapy, I suppose.

Gabriel didnt say it, but I could tell hes concerned about me. And if Im going to be honestand I may as well bethe real reason I agreed to keep this diary was to reassure himprove that Im okay. I cant bear the thought of him worrying about me. I dont ever want to cause him any distress or make him unhappy or cause him pain. I love Gabriel so much. He is without doubt the love of my life. I love him so totally, completely, sometimes it threatens to overwhelm me. Sometimes I think

No. I wont write about that.

This is going to be a joyful record of ideas and images that inspire me artistically, things that make a creative impact on me. Im only going to write positive, happy, normal thoughts.

No crazy thoughts allowed.

He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may

convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret.

If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips;

betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.

SIGMUND FREUD, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

ALICIA BERENSON WAS THIRTY-THREE YEARS OLD when she killed her husband.

They had been married for seven years. They were both artistsAlicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer. He had a distinctive style, shooting semi-starved, semi-naked women in strange, unflattering angles. Since his death, the price of his photographs has increased astronomically. I find his stuff rather slick and shallow, to be honest. It has none of the visceral quality of Alicias best work. I dont know enough about art to say whether Alicia Berenson will stand the test of time as a painter. Her talent will always be overshadowed by her notoriety, so its hard to be objective. And you might well accuse me of being biased. All I can offer is my opinion, for what its worth. And to me, Alicia was a kind of genius. Apart from her technical skill, her paintings have an uncanny ability to grab your attentionby the throat, almostand hold it in a viselike grip.

Gabriel Berenson was murdered six years ago. He was forty-four years old. He was killed on the twenty-fifth of Augustit was an unusually hot summer, you may remember, with some of the highest temperatures ever recorded. The day he died was the hottest of the year.

On the last day of his life, Gabriel rose early. A car collected him at 5:15 a.m. from the house he shared with Alicia in northwest London, on the edge of Hampstead Heath, and he was driven to a shoot in Shoreditch. He spent the day photographing models on a rooftop for Vogue.

Not much is known about Alicias movements. She had an upcoming exhibition and was behind with her work. Its likely she spent the day painting in the summerhouse at the end of the garden, which she had recently converted into a studio. In the end, Gabriels shoot ran late, and he wasnt driven home until eleven p.m.

Half an hour later, their neighbor, Barbie Hellmann, heard several gunshots. Barbie phoned the police, and a car was dispatched from the station on Haverstock Hill at 11:35 p.m. It arrived at the Berensons house in just under three minutes.

The front door was open. The house was in pitch-black darkness; none of the light switches worked. The officers made their way along the hallway and into the living room. They shone torches around the room, illuminating it in intermittent beams of light. Alicia was discovered standing by the fireplace. Her white dress glowed ghostlike in the torchlight. Alicia seemed oblivious to the presence of the police. She was immobilized, frozena statue carved from icewith a strange, frightened look on her face, as if confronting some unseen terror.

A gun was on the floor. Next to it, in the shadows, Gabriel was seated, motionless, bound to a chair with wire wrapped around his ankles and wrists. At first the officers thought he was alive. His head lolled slightly to one side, as if he were unconscious. Then a beam of light revealed Gabriel had been shot several times in the face. His handsome features were gone forever, leaving a charred, blackened, bloody mess. The wall behind him was sprayed with fragments of skull, brains, hairand blood.

Blood was everywheresplashed on the walls, running in dark rivulets along the floor, along the grain of the wooden floorboards. The officers assumed it was Gabriels blood. But there was too much of it. And then something glinted in the torchlighta knife was on the floor by Alicias feet. Another beam of light revealed the blood spattered on Alicias white dress. An officer grabbed her arms and held them up to the light. There were deep cuts across the veins in her wristsfresh cuts, bleeding hard.

Alicia fought off the attempts to save her life; it took three officers to restrain her. She was taken to the Royal Free Hospital, only a few minutes away. She collapsed and lost consciousness on the way there. She had lost a lot of blood, but she survived.

The following day, she lay in bed in a private room at the hospital. The police questioned her in the presence of her lawyer. Alicia remained silent throughout the interview. Her lips were pale, bloodless; they fluttered occasionally but formed no words, made no sounds. She answered no questions. She could not, would not, speak. Nor did she speak when charged with Gabriels murder. She remained silent when she was placed under arrest, refusing to deny her guilt or confess it.