Into That Fire

by M. J. Cates

  One day on his trip back from the water station he was forced by enemy fire to circle around an old slag heap. Behind it he discovered a pool of water. Twenty minutes later he crept back with his soap and shaving kit and bathed himself thoroughly. The difference to his mood was so marked he was tempted to keep the pool his own little secret but hadn’t the heart. He told the others in his platoon and down they went, two by two, and came back shiny, slick, and chatty.

  “Worth taking the place off the Hun for that alone,” Lieutenant Pegram remarked. “Well done, Goodchild.”

  Another of his battle-honed instincts kicked in later that afternoon. The shelling started up again, and while the enemy ordnance seemed mostly targeting the Red Line, he suddenly discerned the rising whine of a shell coming his way. Really his way. He leapt from the firing step and ran.

  He had two seconds, maybe less, not enough time to reach the dugout and open the flap. He made for the next bay, the shell screaming closer. Even in his terror, he sensed that he must bear more than a passing resemblance to Charlie Chaplin—running like hell, the whites of his eyes vivid, reaching the turn in the trench and clutching at a sandbag to swing himself around the corner. He had an image of Imogen, her smile, her thoughtful eyes, her soft voice, as they talked about Chaplin after a night at the movies. Image of Imogen. The phrase was in his mind as the shell exploded. His feet flew out from under him and he was lifted into the air, hoisted as if by a giant hand. He was flailing this way and that, and the giant had now apparently been joined by others. Each had taken hold of a limb, or his head, and they all pulled in opposite directions.

  An Elizabethan execution, he thought. They attached your limbs to four horses with ropes or chains and then commanded the horses to pull in their separate directions. You were literally torn apart. The blast had sucked all the air from the trench, had sucked the air out of his lungs, and none was coming back. He had a ridiculous image of being sewn back together, of continuing life as a rag doll. But being deprived of breath, he knew, was something you didn’t survive.

  4

  I mogen arrived early for her first appointment with Professor Ganz and had to spend twenty minutes in an anteroom guarded by a secretary with a grave moustache. She later learned his name was Penn—an ideal name for a secretary—and that despite the melancholy moustache, he had a sweet disposition. At exactly eleven o’clock, Mr. Penn set aside a stack of papers, rose from his desk, rapped smartly on the inner door, and opened it. “Dr. Lang is here.”

  A voice from within: “Excellent. Show her in.”

  Mr. Penn swung open the door, and Imogen entered, a little unsteadily—partly owing to nerves, and partly to being encumbered with the two buckets.

  Professor Ganz snatched a tiny pair of spectacles from his face and stood up with Mittel-European alacrity. “Jonas Ganz,” he said with a smart little bow. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Dr. Lang.”

  “I’m honoured to be here, sir.”

  “You are a woman of unique achievements.”

  “Well, I am a woman with three brains.”

  “Oh, please. Forgive me.” Professor Ganz rushed around from his desk and took the buckets from her. He was a small man; Imogen towered over him like a giantess in a storybook.

  “They’re from Dean Dodson,” she said. “One is for you and one for a Professor Welch.”

  “Please be seated,” Ganz said, nodding toward the chairs arranged in a semicircle facing his desk. He set the buckets down behind his desk, detached the envelope, and sat down himself. He put on his spectacles again and slit the envelope with a letter opener, extracted the contents, and then perused them.

  Imogen no longer felt so peculiar about delivering human organs to the esteemed director of the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic. Ganz’s office, while of a luxurious size and appointments, more closely resembled a pathologist’s lab than an administrative office. Shelves crowded with specimen jars covered most of the walls. Brain sections marinated behind amber-coloured glass, and in larger, horizontal cases, four or five human spines reposed like musical instruments. She had come to exactly the right place—a place where she would not only be learning the latest theories and methods of patient care, but also be at the forefront of scientific research. Imagine helping to make some breakthrough, find some key that would turn the lock of psychosis and open up the mysteries of madness.

  “Dementia praecox,” Ganz said, putting aside the letter, “though since it’s neither dementia nor precocious I prefer the term schizophrenia.” He removed his spectacles and stared across the desk at her. His eyes, almost black, were unnerving. The irises were completely clear of both upper and lower eyelids, giving them the look of twin gun barrels. A sharp goatee lengthened his chin, and his eyebrows, black deltas, would have suited a stage mesmerist.

  He stared at Imogen. “Do you have any opinions on the terminology?”

  Something of a trap, that question, since it was Ganz who had introduced the term schizophrenic reaction into the American lexicon.

  “I’ve read of cases,” Imogen said, “where the first attack of psychosis did not occur until the patient was in his forties, so I suppose one couldn’t really call that praecox.”

  “Just so, Dr. Lang. Just so.” His tone was amiable, but his eyes remained black pits. If he had known her long enough for it to be possible, Imogen would have been certain that he hated her. But surely no man could be that sensitive about his height.

  The junior physicians’ rooms were on the fourth floor and looked out over stately elms and a circular drive. “Staff rooms face north so the patients get the southern light all day,” Donna Artemis told her. “Sunshine can make a huge difference to a depressed patient.”

  Donna had been assigned to show her around the clinic. They would not be roommates, exactly, but they shared a bathroom, as did the other two interns. “Male, unfortunately,” Donna said. “Men are the inferior sex—I hope we’re in agreement on that.”

  “Oh, completely,” Imogen said. Donna was also twenty-two, but she had a tomboyish charm, and a kind of juvenile, bouncy energy. She talked at hyper speed, which Imogen ascribed to nervousness, at first, and then to confidence. Imogen’s own nervousness made her ponderous and dull, but Donna’s chatter precluded any lags in the conversation.

  Donna showed her the features of her room. “Not much closet space, I’m afraid. And nowhere to eat or keep food. Breakfast is in the day room on the second or third floor, depending which ward you’re working on. Over breakfast we talk to the patients about what’s in the morning papers—give them a kind of bridge to reality to start their day. All our other meals are in the dining room on the third floor. Private patients have their own dining room.”

  Imogen couldn’t get over the furnishings. She plunked herself down in a Morris chair, and adjusted it to an almost reclining position. “I could sleep in this.”

  “And you will, unless you already know German.”

  “Far from it, unfortunately.”

  “I can read French, Spanish, and Italian. I don’t see why all the brilliant psychiatrists have to be Austrian. It’s very annoying of them.”

  Donna was touching her toes—up, down, up, down—as she talked, as if she were warming up for a track meet.

  “When did you get here?” Imogen asked.

  “A week ago. But I did my MD at Hopkins, so it wasn’t exactly far to come—maybe three hundred yards? I also did a third-year rotation in the outpatient department. All the med students here have to do that. Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the place.”

  And so, chattering the whole way, Donna led her through the building, which was more beautiful than any hospital Imogen had ever set foot in. Marble and oak everywhere, and even the elevators were pretty with their brass filigree.

  They started at the fifth floor.

  “East wing is men, west is women. Wards are referred to by floor and wing: West One, West Two, et cetera. Obviously I can’t show you the men’s wards. Here we
are. Voilà.”

  They were standing in an indoor roof garden.

  “It’s beautiful,” Imogen said.

  “We’ve got it all to ourselves at the moment. Everyone’s at lunch.”

  Donna led her to the outdoor garden, on a wooden deck that overlooked the clinic’s courtyard and patio.

  “Access to this is restricted,” Donna said. “Don’t want any jumpers.”

  Donna showed her the auditorium with its gleaming Steinway and a church organ that was powerful enough, according to her, to levitate the entire building. “Dr. Ganz does not like to hear anyone banging around on it—or the piano—unless they can really play. Ist verboten.”

  They took the stairs down to the fourth floor. “End rooms—suites, I should say—belong to the first assistant and the senior resident. Three times the size of ours, at least.”

  “Male?”

  “However did you guess? But the dispensary chief is a woman—Lila Quinn. You’ll be impressed with Quinn, though some surgeon performed a radical humorectomy on her. Honestly, why would you go into psychiatry if you have no sense of humour?”

  “He seems to hire quite a few women, then, Dr. Ganz.”

  “It’s the war, sweetheart. A lot of men have enlisted, even if old Woodrow is refusing to send them anywhere. And let’s face it, psychiatry ain’t exactly high up the ladder.”

  “Oh, dear. And I actually suspected myself of having some merit.”

  “You do, doctor! You do!” Donna grabbed her elbow and shook it, an astonishing liberty. “Because I will tell you right now that I’m brilliant, and if you’re here at the Phipps you’re brilliant too.”

  “I thought all alienists were supposed to be crazy, not brilliant.”

  “I hide it well, don’t you think?”

  “Actually, I thought you were a patient.”

  Donna smiled. “I think I’m beginning to like you.”

  She pointed to a heavy oak door. “The corridor on the other side leads to the private patients. They each have a private or semi-private room. Some of them even bring their own nurses—don’t you adore it?—as if they’re domestics. Well, I suppose they are. Anyway, we have eight women on West Four, eight men on East Four. They’re all personal patients of Dr. Ganz’s or the assistant director, Dr. Mackenzie. You’ll like Mackenzie—he’s Scottish, which means he’s unintentionally funny. So’s the second assistant. Have you noticed? Every psychiatrist who isn’t Austrian is Scottish.”

  The third floor housed the quiet wards. “I won’t show you just now. You’ll see them soon enough. They’re small—only eight beds to a floor. East Three’s the nicest. The quiet ward? Works as an incentive for them, I guess. As your behaviour becomes more normal you literally rise in society—Phipps society anyway.” Donna pointed to the end of the hall. “Far end, histology lab.”

  “Do we get to do much lab work?”

  “Oh, Ganz is all for lab work. Not crazy about it myself.” She pointed again. “This end is the psychology lab—you know who runs that, right?”

  “Robert Taunton, isn’t it? The behaviour man.”

  “That’s him. He even helped design the labs—right down to the wiring. We can pop in and say hello if you promise not to be stunned by how good-looking he is.” She pushed open a heavy door and they went in.

  A man was seated at a desk washed in the light of a huge bay window, pecking at a typewriter. He kept typing even as they stopped just a few feet behind him.

  “Apparently,” Donna said, “this peculiar behaviour of poking at a machine was rewarded at some time in his past and he keeps at it, poor thing.”

  When Taunton swivelled around in his chair, Imogen found herself looking at the handsomest man she’d ever seen. He looked her up and down and said, “Who are you?”

  “This is Dr. Imogen Lang. Dr. Lang, this is Mr. Taunton, head of psychology.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Imogen said.

  “You shouldn’t be,” Taunton said, not bothering to stand up.

  Imogen didn’t even have a gauge to measure how rude that was.

  “I’m going to make you obsolete,” he said. “I already have. You just don’t know it yet.”

  “Mr. Taunton teaches courses in modesty and social grace,” Donna said.

  “Neither of which is required,” Taunton said. “You’ll soon notice, if you’ve a brain in your head, that my laboratory is the only place in this clinic where actual science takes place. Observations are made, theories are tested, truth revealed.”

  “He means assertions,” Donna said.

  “None that I can’t demonstrate,” Taunton said. “Unlike your Viennese voodoo. Now if you don’t mind I’d like to get back to changing the world.”

  “Taunton is actually quite fun,” Donna said when they were out in the hall again, “and he really is changing the world, unfortunately. I find his looks quite unnerving.”

  Imogen had nothing to say about that.

  Donna showed her the lower wards, the lecture hall, and the gorgeous library on the second floor, the biochem lab on the first, and the occupational therapy rooms and outpatient department on the basement level. Afterwards they sat on a bench in a cloister that overlooked a walled garden with a terrace and pond. The tranquility was marred by a man’s voice yelling for strawberries and cream.

  “You said you did a third-year rotation here,” Imogen said. “Dr. Ganz warned me I would be somewhat behind Hopkins graduates.”

  “Probably true. He’s managed to get psychiatry into the med school curriculum at every level. Normal psychology first year, history-taking second year, outpatient third year, and fourth year we got to sit in on staff conferences.”

  “Here at the Phipps.”

  “Here at the Phipps.”

  “Dear God,” Imogen said. “I’m going to be the class idiot.”

  “Quite possible,” Donna said, and gave Imogen’s elbow a gentle pinch. “I’m teasing you.”

  “Did you say you took a whole course in history-taking?”

  “Dr. Ganz is maniacal on the subject. When you do your asylum rotation you’ll see why.”

  Patients and nurses were beginning to file out into the garden—patients in their hospital-issue percale shifts, and nurses in white aprons and starched caps that were blinding in the sunlight. From somewhere nearby, the man was still yelling for strawberries and cream.

  “Come on,” Donna said, springing up from the bench. “Let’s see if there’s anything left for lunch—though apparently we’re suffering a shortage of strawberries.”

  * * *

  —

  That night, Donna tapped on her door and introduced her to one of the perverse pleasures of her new world: academic gossip. She brought with her a tin of digestive biscuits and as they shared them, Imogen remarked that she had never met anyone with the near-supernatural confidence of Robert Taunton.

  “Taunton,” Donna informed her in a highly confidential tone, “is a very special case. Ganz chose him sight unseen.”

  “Why on earth would he do that?”

  “Two reasons. First, he likes Taunton’s scientific attitude—some people think bringing weights and measures into psychology adds a certain sheen of rigour.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “He needed someone in a hurry. The clinic was about to open and his director of psychology was supposed to be Donald Lyme—he’d been at Hopkins for centuries, well respected, several books et cetera. Then one steamy night Lyme gets caught in a police raid on a brothel. Boom! Done for. Hopkins has an ironclad policy on that kind of thing.”

  “Not just Hopkins.”

  “This place, they want to know who you marry—and don’t even mention the word divorce. Were you thinking Taunton got the job because of his looks?”

  “I have no opinion about his looks.”

  “Of course not,” Donna said. “That would be improper.”

  * * *

  —

  The next day, Mr. Penn handed Imog
en a thick questionnaire entitled “Personality Investigation and Survey.” This, he informed her, was given to all new Phipps interns, and she was to fill it out as soon as possible.

  She took it to the library along with Hugo’s German Grammar and a Kraepelin text in the original. The prologue was ominous.

  What is the object of a personality study? It is an attempt to stimulate the student to take a serious look at the “ledger” of his daily functioning and see where his assets and liabilities are taking him. The survey is an approach to self-acquaintance, and it is personal to the nth degree when answered openly and frankly. It will be read only by the instructor.

  Someone had corrected the last sentence in ink, so that it read “only by Dr. Ganz.” Imogen no sooner resolved to be frank than she found herself stymied by the first section: (Autobiographic Record—Outline), subsection I (Family Background), Part A (Father). It began harmlessly enough, asking for pure facts—nationality, religion, schooling, occupation—then moved into more ticklish territory—nervous breakdowns, alcoholism—then became impossible: (Admirable traits, less admirable traits).

  Imogen flipped ahead and found much that she wanted to dodge.

  What emotional tendencies would you say run in the family?

  Age of talking?

  She supposed she could answer truthfully about having been tongue-tied and choosing to communicate by pencil until the age of seven. It was not, after all, like confessing to idiocy. But what was she to do with Do you consider your moods useful or wasteful? The honest answer was that she could waste whole months at a time in depression, that she had probably inherited this tendency from her mother, and that she considered it a major flaw.

  As to the questions about masturbation, well, she would simply not respond. Dr. Ganz was a man, he was her employer. Let him interpret her reticence however he might, Imogen considered the question completely inappropriate.

  But about her father. Her father was another matter entirely.