by Robert Hough
Silence passed between us. Dimitri was reconsidering, I could tell, and he might've put the thing away had I not been so infernally curious. "Show me," I said, tugging his arm. "Give me a look." Finally he took a deep breath and rotated the sepia so I could see what'd been photographed. Which was: a woman, perhaps beautiful, perhaps not, wearing French stockings and a string of pearls, bare backed, kneeling before a nude man.
I couldn't move, couldn't say a thing, forgot to breathe, even; I could only look at that browny-bronze image and wonder what on earth possessed that woman to do what she was doing. Extreme thirst, was the only thing came to mind. In fact, I was so stunned it took a few seconds for it to sink in why Dimitri might've been showing it to me. Now this was a terrible moment, for all along I'd thought I'd been putting up with his nightly rutting so we could have a baby. And while I couldn't so much as summon a name for what that woman was doing, I knew for damn sure a baby wasn't going to come of it.
I suppose it was hurt and frustration that came geysering up, for the next thing I knew I was hitting him and slapping him and calling him a horny old goat born in hell, Dimitri having to throw me on my back and pin my hands over my head to defend himself. He was trying to calm me by apologizing and saying he loved me and promising to get rid of the photograph forthwith and heretofore. Had someone been listening in the next apartment (which someone probably was, the walls being thin as onion peels) they would've heard words like "Oh my precious petal" being yelled over words like "Let go my hands, you sweaty Greek son of a bitch!" Finally, he had no choice but to leap off the bed and race across the room to grab the Chinaman bottle. By the time he got back, the fight had pretty much gone out of me, and he didn't so much have to force the oozing brown contents down my throat as tip the bottle for me while I drank.
The next day, when it was clear I wasn't planning on getting out of bed anytime soon, Georgina came. She eased the door open and crept toward my bed, where I lay feeling low as an earthworm. Meanwhile she was crying and crossing herself and saying, "Oh my baby, this happen, this happen, is so difficult to adjust to early days of marriage. Is so difficult." Then she propped me up and wrapped her warm, yeast-scented arms around me, squeezing me and saying over and over how everything was going to be okay, just to wait and see, just to wait and see.
Georgina tended me over the next few days, bringing me cups of sasparilla and hot ox-tail broth, placing cool compresses on my forehead and cheering me up by telling me how normal this all was, despite it clearly being anything but. Still, if I hadn't felt so putrid I might've actually enjoyed my convalescence, for it was the first time since my parents died I didn't feel like I had to be somewhere, making up for who I was. I'd collapsed, and that was the person I was: someone who'd hit the floor and wasn't about to do anything but stay there. As for Dimitri, I had no idea where he'd gone to and was too tired to ask. All I knew was we were no longer sharing our marital bed, something that should've been a relief but, given my state, wasn't.
On day four Dr. Michaels came. He took my temperature, felt for my pulse, placed the back of his hand on my forehead and then turned me over and unbuttoned my nightie and thumped my back like it was one of Georgina's eggplants.
"Hmmmmmm," he said to Georgina, "looks to me like this is nothing too serious. An enervated system, due to mild nervous distress. I understand she's an orphan? That she's just married? Not surprising, then. Not surprising at all. I think we can treat this here."
He gave her a jar of Carter's Little Nerve Pills and told her to see to it I took one every twelve hours on the hour. He then said he had other patients to see, though before he left he also handed her a black box about the size of a squared-off bread loaf, with a winding handle on the front and two long black thin cords leading from the sides. These wires connected to a pair of dangling black pads, each one shaped like a shoe sole. Georgina held it a little nervously, tipping it from left to right as if to examine it.
Seeing this, the doctor said, "I take it you haven't seen one before?"
Georgina put a hand to her mouth and turned the thing right the way upside down, inspecting its underside. Her eyes were big as spring potatoes.
"It's called a Faradizer. Sit the patient on the side of the bed, put her feet on the pads and give the handle a half-dozen good turns. Simple as that. I'd say one half-hour, three times a day, until she's feeling better. Understand?"
Georgina said yes, though as she did her lips trembled slightly.
"Good. I'll take my leave, then. Good day."
As soon as Dr. Michaels left, Georgina said, "All right, Mary, you hear the doctor." With that, she yanked on my hands till I was in a sitting position. Then she swung my legs around, heels landing on the floor. A few seconds later, the black pads were in place and buzzing away, jiggling the soles of my feet. This was relaxing, and I admit I didn't mind my Faradization sessions in the least, except afterwards my legs from the knee on down were tingly and unco-operative.
The nerve pills were another matter as I swore not to take them, having decided I'd had it with any sort of bottled remedy. Whenever Georgina gave me one-eight in the morning and eight at night, like clockwork, even if it meant waking me-I'd hide it in the back of my mouth, between teeth and cheek. When she left, I'd spit it out and push it into the soil of one of the pepper plants growing on our bedroom windowsill. Course, this could've been the reason all that bedrest and Faradization wasn't taking, for I was still interested in doing nothing but sleeping and having the occasional bawl; all I knew was I hadn't rested up when I should've five years earlier and that the tiredness had piled up inside me, forming layer upon layer, until I had no choice but to snooze my way through them, all of which would've been fine except this was 1906 and a dangerous time to take a long nap if you were a woman. Half-asleep, I'd hear them, gathered outside my room, discussing my condition. They'd keep their voices down, certain words jumping out in the low carrying rumble of voices gone deep with concern. Hysteria. Neurasthenia. Daementia Praecox. Paraphrenia Hebetica. Undifferentiated Psychosis. Always they were spoken as though followed by question marks. Meanwhile, Georgina would be crying away in the background.
How long was I laid up? Hard to say, though given the injustices being thought up in the other room I'd say it had to be a while, for you don't cook up that kind of spitefulness overnight. Call it two weeks. Maybe a little more. One day the door opened and in came Dr. Michaels, though this time he was followed by Dimitri, who couldn't look at me. Given the grave executioner's look on both their faces, I knew my goose was good as cooked. The only question in my head was how.
Dr. Michaels pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed. Dimitri hung back, staying near the door. As the good doctor went through the usual battery of tests-pulse, temperature, back thumping, saying aaaaaaaaaah-he directed a steady train of questions at Dimitri.
"She's been neurasthenic this whole time?"
"Yes, Doctor."
"And the treatment hasn't helped?"
"No, Doctor, I am afraid no."
"And you say she attacked you? She struck you with her hands and feet."
"It was terrible, Doctor."
"Hmmmmmmm."
(A long pause, Dr. Michaels sitting and thinking, Dimitri taking little shuffling steps near the doorway, me lying there trying to convince myself this was just one of the dreams I'd been having lately.)
"And," the doctor finally said, "you say she's hasn't been able to conceive?"
"No, Doctor."
"Hmmmmmmmm. Well, there's only one way to know for sure...."
With that, Dr. Michaels pulled down the covers and in a second smooth motion yanked up my nightie. Dimitri, who'd never actually looked at what was on display, turned away as though it was something meant to terrify. The doctor then directed my knees up and apart while he took a tube of goo from his black bag and smeared it all over the first and second fingers of his right hand. "Now take a deep breath," he said, and a second later he was inside me, rooting around like a man
looking for lost change in a sofa. While it didn't hurt that much, it was cold and humiliating and I wanted to grab his hand and tell him to put it where it belonged. Throughout, he stared up and away, puzzling. After a half-minute or so, he pulled out his hand and stood. He was silent for a moment. Then he backed away and nodded solemnly at Dimitri, who'd sort of half turned, only his shoulder in clear view. The doctor's voice was low and sombre, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell Dimitri I had something that might kill me.
Instead, he murmured, "I'm sorry Dimitri ... it's just what I was afraid of.... There's definitely some displacement there. It's no wonder she's been acting the way she's been."
He left, taking his turn-handled Faradizer with him, which worried me for it suggested I was beyond the help a Faradizer could offer. Dimitri then did something I've thought about for the rest of my life. He came over, fell on his knees and buried his face in my neck. "I never let you go, my little girl, never, never, never."
This reassured me, though later that day he must've changed his mind, for he went ahead and signed the committal papers anyway.
Next morning my few things were packed and Dimitri took me all the way to the hospital in a wagon borrowed from one of the grocers. The trip took four hours, and by the time we got there I was hot and smelling of horse and dust. After a long, tearful embrace (the tears were his, as I was stunned and stiff and feeling unaffectionate), he got in the wagon and drove off. I looked around. The lawns were thick and green and the flowerbeds blooming and the fruit trees commencing to bud. Strange, how beautiful everything was-seemed purposeful, as though designed to make you lower your guard. I mounted a flight of marble steps and passed between columns until I arrived at a high wooden door. There I used a lion's-head knocker as heavy as a bag filled with kittens to announce my arrival. When the door swung open, I found myself looking into the eyes of a nurse dressed exactly as I'd dressed at St. Mary's: nun-like, with a black skirt reaching all the way to the floor and a collar so high it chafed the underside of her chin.
"Yes?" she said, though she must've known why I was there as I had my little suitcase in front of me, hands clasped so tight on the handle my knuckles had gone white.
"Name's Aganosticus," I peeped. "Mary Aganosticus."
"Well, come in," she said with an enormous smile. "Please come in-you must be exhausted."
She took my suitcase from me and placed it next to the receptionist's desk. Then she had me sit in a waiting room, where she brought me a cup of tea with lemon. I was alone and frightened, though not as frightened as I'd been earlier, for I'd expected straitjackets and big men in white suits and the sounds of people screaming, and there was none of that. After a few minutes, I looked over and noticed my suitcase had disappeared. This triggered a disquiet inside me, the kind that won't stop until you do something about it, so I went and told the receptionist my bag had up and walked away. She looked up and offered me the same smile she'd used five minutes earlier. Then she told me everything was perfectly fine and I should wait and relax and she'd get me another cup of tea. This she did, and as I sipped the weak-tasting liquid I kept my worries focused and therefore small by concentrating on the square of floor space where my bag had been, telling myself so long as I got it back, then, yes, everything would be just like she said.
Everything would be just fine.
CHAPTER 2
THE YOUNG PSYCHIATRIST
AFTER FIFTEEN MINUTES OF NOT BEING ABLE TO CONJURE MY bag out of thin air another nurse came up and smiled and shook my hand and said, "Hello, Mrs. Aganosticus-I hear you've joined us for a little rest?"
I said I had, if that's what you wanted to call it, though mostly I put a lid on my natural tendency toward mouthiness. She told me her name was Miss Galt and asked me to follow her. I did, the whole time generating as much dignity as is possible when you're not exactly sure if you'll see the light of day ever again. (Was I terrified? Was my stomach doing somersaults? Was I hoping to God all this was some sort of dream I'd wake from sweating and whimpering and gripping at bedsheets? Course. If I stop to describe exactly how scared I was every time something scary happens, we'll be here for the next ten years. So do me a favour. At parts like this imagine how you'd've felt, and we'll both do fine.)
We walked through a set of doors and entered one of the hallways radiating from the front foyer. It was completely empty and for this reason foreboding: the only thing I could hear was Miss Galt's feet and my feet, our heels clacking against the floor. To keep from shaking with fear I invented a game, which was to make my feet go in step with her feet. Our clacking joined up. Was one sound where two belonged. After a bit she noticed, turned and smiled, though it was the smile you give a child who's just learned to use a spoon.
As we neared the end of this long, long hallway, I started to hear a low murmur, like voices well off in the distance. It grew louder-not loud, exactly, but louder-sounding more and more like the hubbub of voices you get in a theatre before the play starts. We reached another set of swinging doors, which were exactly like the first set we went through, only they were thicker and rimmed with rubber strips. Miss Galt stopped and placed a hand against one of the doors. "This is the ward for incurables. Now it's a little unruly in there. But don't worry. You won't be staying there. Is it all right if I call you Mary?"
I nodded, she pushed, and, oh, the noise.
It wasn't talking I'd heard coming through that soundproof door but wailing and shrieking and haggard bent-over women braying like donkeys and calling the words "Oh God oh God oh God." Every last one was dressed in a long grey gown, their hair gone straggly and wild, with scratches on their faces and forearms from where they'd dragged their fingernails. Those not up and walking and babbling incoherently were either strapped to their beds or unconscious. A few were banging their foreheads against cement walls or bed railings. There were no windows and the smells were awful and bugs were crawling up and down the walls. Rats, too-you could see them scurrying along the outer walls, awful rat jowls filled with heisted rat food. As I followed after Miss Gait, taking quick little steps, I kept seeing things that'd form foul little snapshots in my mind's eye and then refuse to go away: a woman, spaces between her teeth, spotting me and lifting her gown, showing me her privates. Another woman, young like me, but with blood pumping from a nostril and when she spotted me she smiled broadly, her smile against all that blood making bumps come up on my forearms. Or: an old woman, frail and the colour of fireplace ash, crouched between two beds, concentrating hard on pulling shit out of herself and using it to write a message on the wall, but because her shit was so crumbly the word wouldn't come out so she tried harder and harder and finally started shrieking in frustration, her hands crooked and covered with it. I took in all this in the time it took to snap my head away. Amazing, the way fear bends time around to squeeze things in.
We headed straight through, Miss Galt yelling over her shoulder that only God's mercy would help those poor souls. We passed through another short hallway, and through another ward like the first though muted somewhat, and without the scenes of absolute lunacy. Finally, we entered a ward far quieter than the first two, the occupants mostly sleeping or reading or lying on beds staring at the ceiling or chatting in small groups. There were fourteen beds, seven on either side of the aisle. None of the beds had restraints, which relieved me to no end, though I noticed there were locks on the doors at both ends of the ward. Basically, my eyes were moving like a ferret's, inspecting everything, too scared to settle on one spot. Miss Galt led me to the last bed on the left side of the room. A grey robe sat folded on the blanket. She asked me to put it on, and as she did she gave a funny little gesture with her right hand, as though her forefinger was stirring milk into tea. I hesitated, wondering if she really meant I should strip right there in front of everyone, though it soon became obvious that was exactly what she had in mind. After a few seconds' delay, her smile weakened, the corners of her mouth trembling and then turning downward slightly.
I turned my back and undressed and slipped into the robe.
"Good," she said, holding out her arms to take my clothes.
I was left sitting on the bed, all by my lonesome. I took a deep breath and tested the mattress by placing my palms flat against it and pushing. For some reason, I looked under my pillow, feeling disappointed that nothing was there but bedding. Mostly I was sitting there and fretting and wondering what it was exactly I was supposed to do when two women came over. One was about forty-five, the other maybe thirty, and we only had to lock eyes for me to know their stories weren't far off mine.
I pushed myself to the top of the bed to make room. They sat on either side near the bottom. We didn't bother with niceties or introductions, though later I learned the older one was Joan and the younger one Linda.
"How," I said in a loud whisper, "do I get outta here?"
Linda answered, also in a loud whisper: "First thing you have to understand is you can get out of here. You can. Simple as that. So many husbands are booking in their wives these days they have to let some of us out some time or another. Inspectors come around and make the decision. It might take a month, but you will get out."
"Yes," Joan echoed, "you will get out."
"So believe me, the trouble isn't getting out. It's getting out without being operated on."
