Enduring (27 page)

“But it’s Christmastime!”

“Let’s hurry.”

“No, we’d better just take her back where she belongs.”

“Imogene, you are a heartless wretch!”

“Where’s your sense of propriety?”

“Where’s your sense of kindness?”

The whole group of ladies stood there in the freezing breeze arguing about whether or not to take Latha with them. Latha kept herself warm by figmenting in detail the scenario of being taken to live in a fine mansion in Little Rock, meeting and falling in love with the handsome son, becoming his bride and bedmate and lover, lover, lover. His name was Ronald. She called him Ronny. The debating ladies were almost equally divided between those who wanted Latha to live happily ever after and meet Ronald, and those who wanted to return her to D Ward. One of the latter said, “Let me remind you that we undertook this mission with the clear understanding that we would not intermingle with the lunatics or become involved with them.” By her dress and demeanor Latha determined that she was probably the president of the club.

Ronny died in an automobile accident, and in her grief Latha was committed to the state asylum, where she languished in D Ward.

Her bad case of sniffles she attributed to her mourning for poor Ronny, or poor Rachel, or both, but as it turned out her sniffles were the result of being exposed to subfreezing wind during her brief spell of freedom in the company of the Civic Club ladies. The sniffles developed into a fever, which Nurse Auel reluctantly took with a thermometer and gleefully declared that her temperature was 108° and that she had better go to the infirmary. Latha had not been aware that there was an infirmary when she was in B and C Wards. It was a huge room occupying nearly an entire floor, and every bed was filled. Latha had to wait a whole day until one of the patients died and was carted off before she could have a bed. And then she waited another day before a nurse came and took her temperature and declared it was 109° and another day after that before a doctor finally looked at her and listened to her chest with a stethoscope and declared that she had a severe case of pneumonia. He didn’t hold out much hope for her, but gave her some pills to take, and told her to stay in her bed until she died or got better, whichever came first. Her fellow patients, the hundreds of them, were too physically sick to be mentally sick, so there wasn’t a lot of howling, moaning, screeching, or cursing. Latha reflected that they might be crazy but they were smart enough to figure out that by being committed to the infirmary you escaped commitment to the nuthouse.

The assistants to the nurses were imbeciles, who brought the patients their food twice a day and emptied their bedpans once a day, and bathed them once a week. Latha discovered that the imbecile assigned to her was able to talk, and her name was Susie. She reminded Latha of Rindy, not the grown-up Rindy who had eloped to Pettigrew with that Tuttle boy but the Rindy she’d known in the first grade, very pretty and smiley but dumb as a post. Latha told Susie the story of finding the kitten she’d called “Cutie-Pie Face” in C Ward, and Susie was delighted. “I had a kitty when I was…when I was…when I was…” Susie tried to say, but Latha never learned when she was what.

Whenever Susie brought her food on a tray or came to empty the bedpan, she would hang around, and sometimes sit on the floor beside Latha’s bed. Susie was twenty-eight, some years older than Latha, but she had never been to school, and she really didn’t know much. Latha told her stories, not ghost stories because those greatly distressed her, but tall tales from the Ozarks, and fables, and simple yarns. Latha’s temperature had steadily gone back to normal, and after a couple of weeks she was feeling fine, but nobody said anything about sending her back to the D dormitory, and even the food was better in the infirmary than in D’s dining hall, so Latha made the best of it, and enjoyed the daily visits from Susie.

But one thing troubled Latha, and one day she said to Susie, “Pinch me.” She had to repeat it and try to explain to Susie that she needed to find out if Susie was “real,” and that was the only way she could think of to accomplish such. So Susie very timidly took Latha’s arm between her thumb and forefinger and gave a squeeze. It was a gentle pinch, but it was palpable enough to convince Latha that Susie wasn’t a figment. Latha realized that if she just wanted to figment her, she would have figmented someone with enough brains to describe her dreams and hopes, if any.

She was telling Susie a bedtime fairy tale one night when Dr. Kaplan showed up. “They told me you were here,” he said. He put his hand on her brow. “How’re you feeling?”

Latha whispered to Susie, “Tell him I’ve been better.”

Susie said to the doctor, “She’s been better.”

Dr. Kaplan laughed. “Do you mean you were better a year ago, or that you’re better now than you were a year ago?”

Susie said, “She was better before she came here.”

“Susie, I’m not talking to you,” Dr. Kaplan said. “Why don’t you run along?”

Susie said, “But she’s telling me a story.”

“She can finish it tomorrow,” Dr. Kaplan said. “Be a good little girl, and let me have a chat with Latha.”

Susie pouted but got off the floor and went away. Dr. Kaplan gave Latha a pad of paper and a pencil. Latha wrote, “Is she real enough to suit you?”

“Oh, yes,” Dr. Kaplan said. “We’re all very fond of Susie McGrew.”

“So you’ll let me keep her?” Latha wrote.

Dr. Kaplan laughed again. “I wouldn’t become too attached to her, because it’s time you left the infirmary and went back to your ward. We have matters to discuss.”

“I like it here better,” Latha wrote.

“So does everyone else,” Dr. Kaplan said. “That’s why it’s so crowded in here. It’s unhealthy. The air is full of contagious germs.”

“Well, I have to finish the story,” she wrote.

It took him a moment to realize what story she was talking about. Then he said, “Very well, but I’m ordering your discharge next week. I want you to come to my office as soon as you’re able.”

She stayed a few more days in the infirmary, finishing the story she had been telling Susie, and telling her several others besides. After telling her one of her favorites, “The Good Girl and the Ornery Girl,” which Susie seemed to appreciate very much, Latha said, “They’re making me leave, so I’ll have to say goodbye.”

Susie yelped, “No!” and gave Latha a hug and wouldn’t let go. A nurse and one of the other imbeciles had to pry Susie off of Latha before she could leave. Susie was screaming when Latha made her departure, and Latha’s own mouth was choked with sobs.

Not too long after that, during one of her visits to Dr. Kaplan, he informed her that Susie had caught a disease in the infirmary—“Not from you,” he said—and after a week of confinement had died.

Latha greatly grieved, but wondered which was worse, to lose a wonderful bright friend like Rachel who was just your imagination, or to lose a devoted imbecile who was very real. She pondered this dichotomy for a very long time. A hideously long time. She decided finally she would just have to flip a coin. But she had no coins, and nobody else did either. She had the great nagging sense of guilt that we all feel when there is something we should have done which we did not do. She decided to resort to a superstition: she went to one of the barred windows and looked out at the landscape. If the first bird she saw was a red bird, then the worse thing is to lose someone you’ve figmented. If the first bird she saw was a blue bird, then the worse thing is to lose someone who was flesh and blood. The red bird would be Rachel, the blue bird would be Susie. She waited and waited, noticing a number of brown birds, black birds, gray birds, and pigeons. But she saw no red bird or blue bird. The day nurse who had replaced Nurse Richter and whose name was Nurse Bertram came and took her by the arm and returned her to her cot. The next day she returned to the window and stood there until Nurse Bertram came and returned her to her cot. And the next day. And the next. One day Nurse Bertram asked, “Who are you watching for?”

Because Nurse Bertram was nice, unlike Nurse Auel, Latha was able to speak. “A red bird or a blue bird,” Latha said.

“A cardinal or a bluejay?” Nurse Bertram asked, and Latha nodded. Nurse Bertram stepped to the window and looked out, and just stood there looking out for a long time. “That’s odd,” she said. “There’s usually some cardinals or some bluejays flying around, but I don’t see any. Why do you need them?”

Latha attempted to explain the superstition, but Nurse Bertram, although she was nice, was not terribly smart, and couldn’t grasp the idea of why Latha needed to know whether it is worse to lose a truly good imaginary friend or to lose a defective real friend.

Dr. Kaplan said to her, “Superstition is the harmless but invalid attempt of the individual to cope with unknowns and intangibles and the factors in fate and environment over which one has no control. Superstitions vanish as the person becomes more civilized and develops more sense of control over one’s fate and environment.”

He waited for her to write something in response to that, but she could not. Not only could she not speak to him but she could no longer write to him. He waited and waited. Finally he said, “I am thinking that you would be better suited to dwell in E Ward.”

There was nothing she could say or write to that.

Chapter twenty-two

I
f
D
is for Demented, then what is E for? Before they came and took her there, she became obsessed with possible meanings. Eccentric? Extreme? Eliminated? Egomaniac? Effaced? They came and took her there, a building of five floors like all the rest but with its windows iron-barred. As soon as she was taken inside, she became aware of what E means: the constant sound, high-pitched, screeching down every corridor: “
Eeeee! Eeeee! Eeeeeeee!
”

There was a major difference from the other wards: no dormitory, just individual cells. The day nurse, who assumed that because Latha was mute she was also deaf, shouted her name into Latha’s ear: “EDNA BREWER!” Nurse Brewer took her up to the third floor, whose halls were lined with doors, each with a barred window in it, each large enough to accommodate two people. “EVER HAD A ROOMMATE BEFORE?” Nurse Brewer yelled. Latha did not bother to shake her head. “WELL, WE FIGURE IF YOU CAN GET ALONG WITH A ROOMMATE YOU CAN GET ALONG WITH YOURSELF. SOME COMPLAIN IT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A PRISON, BUT MYSELF, I’D RATHER LIVE IN A ROOM WITH A ROOMMATE THAN IN THOSE DORMITORIES THEY HAVE IN A, B, C, AND D. CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Latha at least attempted to nod her head but found that she was totally unable to do so. “YOU OUGHT TO GET ALONG JUST FINE WITH YOUR ROOMMATE BECAUSE SHE’S DEAF AND DUMB TOO. MATTER A FACT, SHE’S ALSO DEAD. OR THAT’S WHAT SHE THINKS SHE IS. YOU GALS WILL HAVE A LOT OF FUN TRYING TO TALK TO EACH OTHER!” For some reason Nurse Brewer found this hilarious and broke down with laughter. Her laughter almost drowned out all the other sounds in the cell block, weird noises, yelps, squeals, obscene utterances, loud prayers, sobbing, and that constant screech of “E!” “AND HERE WE ARE, YOUR LUXURY ACCOMMODATIONS.” Nurse Brewer took a key ring from her belt, found the key she wanted, put it in the door lock, and opened the door. There was nothing in the room but two cots, one of them inhabited by a very old white-haired woman, whom Nurse Brewer yelled at in even higher volume than she had been hollering at Latha. “JESS, SAY HELLO TO YOUR NEW ROOMMATE. MISS JESSICA TOLIVER, MEET MISS LATHA BOURNE. DON’T YOU GALS STAY UP TOO LATE TALKING!” This too struck Nurse Brewer as hilarious, and she staggered against the wall with laughter, and then went away, locking the door behind her.

Jessica Toliver did not rise up from the cot on which she lay with her hands clasped over her stomach as if holding a white lily. Latha stared at her for a long time. In the light coming from the barred window at the end of the room, Jessica Toliver turned out to be not an old woman at all, but possibly the same age as Latha. Yet her hair was snow white, and so were her eyebrows, which were delicately arched over eyes which were pink. Latha had heard of people who had suffered a bad fright which caused their hair to turn gray, but this girl’s hair was completely colorless. Latha felt desperate to say something, but could not, so she simply sat on her cot and waited to see if Jessica Toliver would at least look at her, but she did not.

If only they were able to communicate, Latha would have liked to ask what had caused her hair to turn white. Latha would have liked to talk about Stay More and how she came to be an inmate of this asylum. She would be curious to know what mental problems Jessica had had. She would have liked to exchange impressions of the nurse, Edna Brewer. It would have been seemly if they could talk about the food, or the entertainment or lack thereof. Were they ever allowed out? Or to mingle with the other E-warders? There was a galvanized tin bucket in the corner meant to serve as a toilet stool, but there was no wash basin or water pitcher or anything else. Latha was very sad that she could not even open her mouth and say, “Hello.”

But the silence in the room was a fact of life, and there was nothing for Latha to do but accept the absence of words. For a few days she tried to divert her attention from her dead roommate by thinking thoughts of Stay More. She managed to remember, because it was impossible to forget, the town’s Fourth of July festivity held during the last year of the War, a kind of all-day feast with square dances, shooting matches, baseball games, and several booths and rides. People called it The Unforgettable Picnic, because they were still talking about it when Latha left Stay More. At the most popular of the booths, a canvas wagon cover was hung up with a hole slit in it; people took turns sticking their heads through the hole from one side while from the other side, fifty feet away, other people threw rotten eggs at them, three eggs for ten cents or to the highest bidder; people would gladly pay more for the privilege of throwing eggs at people they didn’t like, and it was understood that every person had to take his or her turn sticking his or her head through the canvas hole. When banker John Ingledew’s turn came, a man bid five dollars for three eggs, and hit John’s head with all three of them. When Latha’s turn came, Tearle “Tull” Ingledew, who had a secret crush on Latha since his brother Raymond had been declared missing in the War, outbid everybody else for the three eggs, so that he could deliberately miss her head with all three of the throws.