Every Good Boy Deserves Favor and Professional Foul (4 page)

DOCTOR:
Hello. Sit down please. Do you play a musical instrument?

ALEXANDER:
(
Taken aback
) Are you a patient?

DOCTOR:
(
Cheerfully
) No, I am a doctor.
You
are a patient. It's a distinction which we try to keep going here, though I'm told it's coming under scrutiny in more advanced circles of psychiatric medicine. (
He carefully puts his violin into its case
.) (
Sententiously
) Yes, if everybody in the world played a violin, I'd be out of a job.

ALEXANDER:
As a psychiatrist?

DOCTOR:
No, as a violinist. The psychiatric hospitals would be packed to the doors. You obviously don't know much about musicians. Welcome to the Third Civil Mental Hospital. What can I do for you?

ALEXANDER:
I have a complaint.

DOCTOR:
(
Opening file
) Yes, I know—pathological development of the personality with paranoid delusions.

ALEXANDER:
No, there's nothing the matter with me.

DOCTOR:
(
Closing file
) There you are, you see.

ALEXANDER:
My complaint is about the man in my cell.

DOCTOR:
Ward.

ALEXANDER:
He thinks he has an orchestra.

DOCTOR:
Yes, he has an identity problem. I forget his name.

ALEXANDER:
His behaviour is aggressive.

DOCTOR:
He complains about you, too. Apparently you cough during the diminuendos.

ALEXANDER:
Is there anything you can do?

DOCTOR:
Certainly. (
Producing a red pill box from the drawer
.) Suck one of these every four hours.

ALEXANDER:
But he's a raving lunatic.

DOCTOR:
Of course. The idea that all the people locked up in mental hospitals are sane while the people walking about outside are all mad is merely a literary conceit, put about by people who should be locked up. I assure you there's not much in it. Taken as a whole, the sane are out there and the sick are in here. For example,
you
are here because you have delusions, that sane people are put in mental hospitals.

ALEXANDER:
But I
am
in a mental hospital.

DOCTOR:
That's what I said. If you're not prepared to discuss your case rationally, we're going to go round in circles. Did you say you
didn't
play a musical instrument, by the way?

ALEXANDER:
No. Could I be put in a cell on my own?

DOCTOR:
Look, let's get this clear. This is what is called an
Ordinary
Psychiatric Hospital, that is to say a civil mental hospital coming under the Ministry of Heath, and we have
wards
. Cells is what they have in prisons, and also, possibly, in what are called
Special
Psychiatric Hospitals, which come under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and are for prisoners who represent a special danger to society. Or rather, patients. No, you didn't say, or no you don't play one?

ALEXANDER:
Could I be put in a ward on my own?

DOCTOR:
I'm afraid not. Colonel—or rather Doctor—Rozinsky, who has taken over your case, chose your cell- or rather ward-mate personally.

ALEXANDER:
He might kill me.

DOCTOR:
We have to assume that Rozinsky knows what's best for you; though in my opinion you need a psychiatrist.

ALEXANDER:
You mean he's not really a doctor?

DOCTOR:
Of course he's a doctor and he is proud to serve the State in any capacity, but he was not actually trained in psychiatry
as such
.

ALEXANDER:
What is his speciality?

DOCTOR:
Semantics. He's a Doctor of Philology, whatever that means. I'm told he's a genius.

ALEXANDER:
(
Angrily
) I won't see him.

DOCTOR:
It may not be necessary. It seems to me that the best answer is for you to go home. Would Thursday suit you?

ALEXANDER:
Thursday?

DOCTOR:
Why not? There is an Examining Commission on Wednesday. We shall aim at curing your schizophrenia by Tuesday night, if possible by seven o'clock because I have a concert. (
He produces a large blue pill box
.) Take one of these every four hours.

ALEXANDER:
What are they?

DOCTOR:
A mild laxative.

ALEXANDER:
For schizophrenia?

DOCTOR:
The layman often doesn't realize that medicine advances in a series of imaginative leaps.

ALEXANDER:
I see. Well, I suppose I'll have to read
War and Peace
some other time.

DOCTOR:
Yes. Incidentally, when you go before the Commission try not to make any remark which might confuse them. I shouldn't mention
War and Peace
unless they mention it first. The sort of thing I'd stick to is ‘Yes', if they ask you whether you agree you were mad; ‘No', if they ask you whether you intend to persist in your slanders; ‘Definitely', if they ask you whether your treatment has been satisfactory, and ‘Sorry', if they ask you how you feel about it all, or if you didn't catch the question.

ALEXANDER:
I was never mad, and my treatment was barbaric.

DOCTOR:
Stupidity is one thing I can't cure. I have to show that I have treated you. You have to recant and show gratitude for the treatment. We have to act together.

ALEXANDER:
The KGB broke my door and frightened my son and my mother-in-law. My madness consisted of writing to various people about a friend of mine who is in prison. This friend was twice put in mental hospitals for political reasons, and then they arrested him for saying that sane people were put in mental hospitals, and then they put him in prison because he was sane when he said this; and I said so, and
they put me in a mental hospital. And you are quite right—in the Arsenal'naya they have cells. There are bars on the windows, peepholes in the doors, and the lights burn all night. It is run just like a gaol, with warders and trusties, but the regime is more strict, and the male nurses are convicted criminals serving terms for theft and violent crimes, and they beat and humiliate the patients and steal their food, and are protected by the doctors, some of whom wear KGB uniforms under their white coats. For the politicals, punishment and medical treatment are intimately related. I was given injections of aminazin, sulfazin, triftazin, haloperidol and insulin, which caused swellings, cramps, headaches, trembling, fever and the loss of various abilities including the ability to read, write, sleep, sit, stand, and button my trousers. When all this failed to improve my condition, I was stripped and bound head to foot with lengths of wet canvas. As the canvas dried it became tighter and tighter until I lost consciousness. They did this to me for ten days in a row, and still my condition did not improve.
Then I went on hunger strike. And when they saw I intended to die they lost their nerve. And now you think I'm going to crawl out of here, thanking them for curing me of my delusions? Oh no. They lost. And they will have to see that it is so. They have forgotten their mortality. Losing might be their first touch of it for a long time.
(
DOCTOR
picks up his violin
.)

DOCTOR:
What about your son? He is turning into a delinquent.
(
DOCTOR
plucks the violin EGBDF
.)
He's a good boy. He deserves a father.
(
DOCTOR
plucks the violin
…)

SCHOOL

TEACHER:
Things have changed since the bad old days. When I was a girl there were terrible excesses. A man accused like your father might well have been blameless. Now things are different. The Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, of assembly, of worship, and many other freedoms. The Soviet Constitution
has always been the most liberal in the world, ever since the first Constitution was written after the Revolution.

SACHA:
Who wrote it?

TEACHER:
(
Hesitates
) His name was Nikolai Bukharin.

SACHA:
Can we ask Nikolai Bukharin about papa?

TEACHER:
Unfortunately he was shot soon after he wrote the Constitution. Everything was different in those days. Terrible things happened.

CELL

ALEXANDER
has just started to read ‘War and Peace' and
IVANOV
looks over his shoulder
.

IVANOV:
‘Well, prince, Genoa and Lucca are no more than the private estates of the Bonaparte family.'
(
ALEXANDER
is nervous, and
IVANOV
becomes hysterical but still reading
.)
‘If you dare deny that this means war—'
(
ALEXANDER
jumps up slamming the book shut and the orchestra jumps into a few bars of the ‘1812'
.
IVANOV
holds
ALEXANDER
by the shoulders and there is a moment of suspense and imminent violence, then
IVANOV
kisses
ALEXANDER
on both cheeks
.)
Courage, mon brave!
Every member of the orchestra carries a baton in his knapsack! Your turn will come.

OFFICE

DOCTOR:
Next!
(
ALEXANDER
goes into the
OFFICE.
)
Your behaviour is causing alarm. I'm beginning to think you're off your head. Quite apart from being a paranoid schizophrenic. I have to consider seriously whether an Ordinary Hospital can deal with your symptoms.

ALEXANDER:
I have no symptoms, I have opinions.

DOCTOR:
Your opinions are your symptoms. Your disease is dissent. Your kind of schizophrenia does not presuppose changes of personality noticeable to others. I might compare your case to that of Pyotr Grigorenko of whom it has been stated by our leading psychiatrists at the Serbsky Institute,
that his outwardly well adjusted behaviour and formally coherent utterances were indicative of a pathological development of the personality. Are you getting the message? I can't help you. And furthermore your breath stinks of aeroplane glue or something—what have you been eating?

ALEXANDER:
Nothing.

DOCTOR:
And that's something else—we have never had a hunger strike here, except once and that was in protest against the food, which is psychologically coherent and it did wonders for the patients' morale, though not for the food….
(
Pause
.)
You can choose your own drugs.
You don't even have to take them.
Just say you took them.
(
Pause
.)
Well, what do you
want
?

ALEXANDER:
(
Flatly, not poetically
)
I want to get back to the bad old times when a man got a sentence appropriate to his crimes—ten years' hard for a word out of place, twenty-five years if they didn't like your face, and no one pretended that you were off your head. In the good old Archipelago you're either well or
   dead—
And the—

DOCTOR:
Stop it!
My God, how long can you go on like that?

ALEXANDER:
In the Arsenal'naya I was not allowed writing materials, on medical grounds. If you want to remember things it helps if they rhyme.

DOCTOR:
You gave me a dreadful shock. I thought I had discovered an entirely new form of mental disturbance. Immortality smiled upon me, one quick smile, and was gone.

ALEXANDER:
Your name may not be entirely lost to history.

DOCTOR:
What do you mean?—it's not
me
! I'm told what to do.
Look, if you'll eat something I'll send for your son.

ALEXANDER:
I don't want him to come here.

DOCTOR:
If you don't eat something I'll send for your son.
(
Pause
.)
You mustn't be so rigid.
(
ALEXANDER
starts to leave.
Pause
.)
Did the pills help at all?

ALEXANDER:
I don't know.

DOCTOR:
Do you believe that sane people are put in mental hospitals?

ALEXANDER:
Yes.

DOCTOR:
They didn't help.

ALEXANDER:
I gave them to Ivanov.
His
name is also Ivanov.

DOCTOR:
So it is. That's why Colonel or rather Doctor Rozinsky insisted you shared his cell, or rather ward.

ALEXANDER:
Because we have the same name?

DOCTOR:
The man is a genius. The layman often doesn't realize that medicine advances in—

ALEXANDER:
I know. I have been giving Ivanov my rations. He needed a laxative. I gave him my pills.
(
ALEXANDER
leaves
.)

DOCTOR:
Next!
(
IVANOV
enters immediately, with his triangle, almost crossing
ALEXANDER.
IVANOV
is transformed, triumphant, awe-struck
.)
Hello, Ivanov. Did the pills help at all?
(
IVANOV
strikes his triangle
.)

IVANOV:
I have no orchestra!
(
Silence
.)
IVANOV
indicates the silence with a raised finger. He strikes his triangle again
.)