by Andrew Potok
“No, Sta,” I objected. “Absolutely not.”
“Andy, darling,” said Edith, “it will give him so much pleasure.” She had a German accent, but spoke a more fluent English than my uncle. They worked in the same accounting firm, Edith as an assistant to one of the owners, and Sta, who had been a lawyer in Poland, was now the only older man in a room of some twenty accountants, young Englishmen and colonials on their way up.
I knew that Sta and Edith were perplexed by Charlotte, an American woman who, they feared, would exercise that bewildering American independence and allow me to fend for myself. “Charlotte and I want to go together,” I said. “I’m touched by your worry, but you must stop, for soon I’ll be going by myself.”
“Let them go, Sta dear,” Edith said. “They are no longer children, and now we can go back to work, yes?”
Walking to Chalk Farm, I held Charlotte’s arm just above the elbow and was thus protected from the rawness of collisions. Slight movements of her arm and the pace of her walk warned me of narrow passages, approaching stairs and curbs, crowds of frantic commuters. Moving along a dark corridor inside the station, she brought her arm tight against her body, signaling me to stay close, and she hesitated for an instant as we came to the head of a staircase.
We changed trains at Euston for Victoria, where we boarded a British Rail train bound for the south of England. It crossed the ashen Thames and picked up speed as the sprawl of London thinned into short rushes of country. The blurred but restful rhythm of dark and light, pines and fields, exploded suddenly and often into platforms, crossings, piles of brick, and flashing glass.
Even on the 2:05 bound for Brighton, Helga Barnes was in the air. I chatted with a pink-faced rotund fellow opposite us who said, “Yes, yes, dear boy. I have heard of her. Bees, was it? Yes, of course. Stay with her and she will surely cure you.” I felt transparent, like a novitiate flushed with the shameless glow of faith. Daydreaming as the train slowed, I imagined a swarm of bees hovering above me, following me everywhere, like St. Francis and his birds.
We disembarked in East Croydon, a large busy city, still half an hour from Beckenham, which we finally reached by bus. Following Helga’s instructions, Charlotte waited in the local tea shop while I walked the last block alone.
The day before, I would have expected an elegant house crawling with servants, a circle of stone beehives in back, guarded by painted aborigines imported from Australia. But as I walked along rows of neo-Georgian, neo-Tudor, and California Mission Colonial houses, each with a scrap of garden, my grandiose expectations shrank. I turned at a large waist-high sign announcing Altyre Close, and though I had no prayer of seeing a house number, I did see a white-coated figure standing in front of an imitation-Tudor semi-detached. It was Helga Barnes looking like a missionary doctor making do with native housing. I walked toward her along a flagstone path through a small rose garden. She stood stiffly, her arms tight against her body, with a barely extended welcoming hand. The feel of her hand again struck me as incongruous. Its warmth and softness belied the coarseness of this feisty old warrior. I thought I saw a reserved smile on her thin lips, and her glasses reflected the day’s hazy light like flashing semaphores.
“Yes, yes, let us have a good look at you,” she said inside the house. “In that door and have a sit-you-down.”
I walked in gingerly. Wearing my own doctor suit and shoes, I wanted her to know that she was dealing with a serious person, someone she could trust. For a fleeting moment I thought I would bow and kiss her hand, as the men in my family used to do; but I resisted the impulse. I wanted to charm her, but there were limits.
The room I entered, with Helga right behind me, was commonplace. The couch and armchairs were fitted with flowered covers, knickknacks were crowded into shelves, and sheer curtains hung in the windows, diffusing the outside light. Two wooden straight-backed chairs stood in the center of the room, and she motioned me into one of them. A fusty smell of rented rooms mingled with the unmistakable rancid odor of decomposing fat. She had probably been cooking with old sausage grease, which did not fit my image of healers. My eyes were attracted by a spot of bright orange glowing from an electric heater on top of which lay several saucers, each with a pile of little black beads, or strands of nubby wool, or blackberries. She bent over them and took her tweezers from her pocket. It finally got through to me—for who has ever seen bees lying in dishes?—that this was my medicine.
“I choked them early this morning,” she said.
“You did what, Mrs. Barnes?”
“Choked, choked, silly boy. I squeezed my little angels behind their heads to prepare them for you poor people. They’re less spiteful that way.”
She walked behind me and stung me four times, once beside each ear and twice at the hairline on the back of my neck. A breathy moan escaped from between my teeth.
“Now, now, Mr. What-do-you-call-it, don’t whimper like a little girl. It’s not so bad. I sting myself all the time.”
“By accident?” I asked.
“Of course not. Just last night, I gave myself twenty stings around a bruised knee.”
“And how’s your knee today?” I asked.
“The bees started the fluids moving in my body, and, you see, today I’m as fit as a fiddle.”
The sting of the bee causes a poisoned wound that is both a physical and a chemical injury. A barbed stinger gradually penetrates the skin through the action of two spears sliding on each other down a hollow shaft. Sense organs at the end of this shaft tell the bee when it has made contact with the skin, and the piercing lancet is then driven down by more than twenty different muscles. Once this mechanism is in place, bee venom is forced into the wound, producing an excruciating burning sensation by the chemical action of this caustic substance, which progressively irritates new nerve filaments of the skin. The area around the sting becomes violently inflamed because of circulatory engorgement and a local destruction of tissue.
Even after the stinger and the attached poison sac have been torn from the bee’s abdomen, this fragment of the bee’s body continues to function as though it were still part of the living insect. The sac continues to pulsate rhythmically, forcing more and more poison down the shaft of the stinger. Helga left the sacs in place so as not to waste a speck of the precious venom.
After her bees were fully disemboweled and their stingers were pumping venom into my neck, she sank in her armchair and smiled a charming smile. I had now been fully initiated. We were in this together.
“You know, cherub,” she said, “I can’t believe that you’re an American.”
“I’m Polish originally. . . .”
“Yes, I knew it. You’re so polite. . . .”
“Have you treated Americans before?” I asked.
“What you think?” she snapped. “I have been doing this for forty-eight years. I have treated everyone.” She thought for a moment. “But those American doctors are the worst.”
As I sat there in dreadful pain, the back of my head feeling as if it were being pinched by hot pliers, she again unleashed a torrent of abuse at hypocritical doctors, ungrateful patients, and except for the few, a world peopled by a flawed humanity, hardly worth saving.
“What have those American doctors done to you?” she asked, interrupting her tirade.
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is what hard drugs did they fill you with— cortisone or steroids or tranquilizers?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Barnes, no drugs,” I said.
“It’s a good thing,” she assured me, “because I won’t treat anyone whose eyes they have destroyed with drugs. And don’t ever lie to me about that, for I can always find you out by your water.”
I wondered about pot. “You know all those kids who smoke marijuana? Could you treat them?” I asked.
“Those dirty sex maniacs!” she yelled. “The world is going straight to hell.” She wagged her finger. “Those disgusting wretches all end up in the streets, murdering and rapi
ng.” And that was that. My water would be fine. I merely had to worry about a life of crime. “And now let us have a look inside,” she said, lifting herself out of her chair and poking through a mess of papers for an ophthalmoscope.
Though I had felt none of the familiar blurring or light sensitivity from pupil dilation, Helga claimed that her bees had done the dilating job at the Grosvenor, and now she shone the instrument’s light into my eyes. “I have different bees for different purposes,” she said as she adjusted the ophthalmoscope. “Do you know”—she dropped her voice to a whisper—“I have bees for diabetes, provided those filthy doctors haven’t pumped the person full of insulin. Ah, yes,” she said, concentrating on me now, “anyone can see it. It certainly is retinitis pigmentosa.” I had passed; I felt proud.
“Did you notice the tiny cataracts, Mrs. Barnes?” I asked.
“What cataracts? There are no cataracts! There is only the thick fungus of retinitis pigmentosa. Cataracts! Is that what those money grubbers told you? Rubbish!”
My cataracts, still inoperable, were a familiar complication of RP. Her not seeing them bothered me, but perhaps it didn’t really matter. I was in the right place. She did see the RP and even asked whether there was more of it in my family besides Sarah. That, I thought, was a good question. At least she didn’t think you could get it off toilet seats.
“My grandmother had it, on my father’s side.”
“Yes, yes, it is clear. Look, Mr. Potok,” she said. “I have never failed yet with retinitis pigmentosa. I am going to treat you, and we will get rid of it. How sorry I feel for you poor people going blind from this terrible thing. You know, don’t you, that if it weren’t for me, no one could help you. No one in the world can do it, but I can do it! And I will cure your daughter too. With her it will be easy, two or three weeks, and I will charge nothing for it. As for you, it will be longer but just as good. How long is your wife staying in London?”
“Maybe two more weeks.”
“In two weeks there should be a significant improvement. So she will be here to see it. How she must have worried about her husband and daughter, poor soul.”
I was grinning from ear to ear.
“Ah, yes,” she said. “You may be glad, for you are lucky to have found me. Let them all doubt it if they like, but you will be back to normal again. Yes, my dear, it will all be so wonderful.” Still sitting beside me, she put her hand on my shoulder. “What is your painting like?” she asked.
“Oh, Mrs. Barnes, it has changed so much in the last few years. From still life to abstract collage to monumental sculpture . . .”
“Abstract, eh?” she snorted. “Promise me you won’t paint any more of that . . . that . . . abstract.”
“No more,” I said. “I promise.” She mimed sternness, wagged her finger again, and stood up.
“Before I let you go, I want to give you some letters from my patients for you and your wife to read. Also, copies of the Observer article to send to your friends.” I waited while she got the things upstairs. “Well, there you are, cherub. Out you go now. Come back tomorrow morning at nine sharp. And don’t be late!” she warned. “Cheerio!”
Clutching the pile of papers, I ran over to the tea shop, pushed the door open, and shouted into the space: “Charlotte, she will do it!” disregarding a room full of puzzled customers. She came over and brought me to her table. “I know she will,” I whispered loudly. “There’s no doubt in her mind at all.”
Returning to London on the express, Charlotte read the testimonial letters aloud. One consisted of answers to a homemade questionnaire.
NAME AND ADDRESS.
James McDole. Glasgow.
CAN ANY TRACE OF RETINITIS PIGMENTOSA BE FOUND IN YOUR FOREBEARS?
No.
AT WHAT AGE DID YOU DISCOVER THAT YOU HAD FAULTY VISION? 37.
WHAT WAS THE DOCTOR’S EXACT COMMENT?
That I had retinitis pigmentosa and that there was nothing he could do for me at all.
WAS IT A DOCTOR OR SPECIALIST?
The diagnosis was made by a specialist, the late Dr. MacAskill of Edinburgh, whom I consulted privately on the advice of my doctor.
AT WHAT AGE DID YOU SUFFER FROM NIGHT BLINDNESS?
I had always had difficulty, but specifically since age 20.
JUST BEFORE YOU CAME TO ME DID YOU FIND YOUR ALREADY POOR EYESIGHT FAST DETERIORATING?
Yes, a marked deterioration took place over the two years before I first consulted you. I could only write for a few minutes before my vision faded completely. I could not cross the street unaided. Unfamiliar and dimly lit surroundings were impossible for me. I could not read music without a magnifying glass. Negotiating steps and stairs was a dangerous hazard for me.
“Sounds like you,” Charlotte said. “And here comes the ‘after’ part.”
WHAT ARE YOUR PROSPECTS NOW IN YOUR PRESENT CONDITION?
I can confidently face the future in the knowledge that I can see well enough once more to carry out all the duties that are expected of me as the head of music in a large comprehensive school.
WHAT DO YOUR COLLEAGUES THINK OF YOUR IMPROVEMENT?
They find it difficult to believe that such a transformation could have been wrought and are astonished at my newfound visual acuity.
PLEASE STATE THE EXACT BENEFIT YOU HAVE GAINED BY MY TREATMENT.
I can read fluently again with reading specs, all save the smallest newsprint. Magnifiers not needed. I can write without trouble for as long as I need to and do not suffer from fading vision. I can cross busy streets unaided. I can get around with ease, no matter what surroundings or lighting. Steps and stairs give me no problem. My distance vision has improved tremendously. I can see and identify all the faces in my classroom when formerly I could only identify the front row. I can recognize people on the opposite side of the street when formerly I could not tell until people were virtually on top of me. I can read a car number plate at 12 yards instead of only 4 feet. I can now read and write music once again with accuracy and speed. Already I have regained my self-respect and no longer feel shut off from friends and colleagues. I am not treated as a “has-been” like I was before my treatment. Life is now more relaxed, and because of this I am feeling much fitter in my whole person.
COULD YOUR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES BELIEVE THAT THIS TRANSFORMATION WAS FROM MEDICATED BEE VENOM?
Some accepted the explanation readily, others had to be convinced, and none really doubted it at all. All my friends know that I can now see so very much better since I had my treatment, and so all must accept that the medicated bee venom was responsible.
My eyes were as glazed as a baby’s suckling at the breast. “It sounds real,” said Charlotte. “It’s remarkable.” The old skeptic was being seduced. Each time her resistance weakened just a little, I allowed myself an even deeper plunge into Helga’s world. The distance between the depth of Charlotte’s conversion and mine remained constant.
She read me two letters. One was from Dr. F. Singer, a Harley Street radiologist. He stated his delight with Helga’s “memorable results” in the treatment of asthma, arthritis, and retinitis pigmentosa. Another letter, in an almost illegible script, was from a patient, S. Dirkson. He said that his “eye’s” were “now very bright and clear,” and that he could drive his car “day or night.”
I was very happy to be going back to Helga Barnes the next day. She was not about to waste time, and that’s the way I wanted it, too. I wanted to be given no rest. I wanted her to spare nothing, to give me her fiercest bees and plenty of them. Enough time had been wasted already.
FIVE
VERY EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, I poked Charlotte, who was curled around me in Sta’s bachelor bed, to tell her that I was going to Helga’s alone. She mumbled some sleepy worried noises.
“Shh,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
The trip had taken us more than two hours the day before, so I allowed three, to be sure. With my folding white cane buried deep in my raincoat pocket, I stepp
ed out into the cold, gray morning. I had brought to London this cane rather than my long rigid one, because, difficult as it was for me to be on friendly terms with either, the folding cane could be made to vanish.
I had learned cane technique at St. Paul’s, where, three years earlier, on the safe, insular blind compound in Newton, Massachusetts, I had acquired a number of newly needed skills, blindness skills. Having just watched the last bits of a painting life trickle through my fingers, I craved successes of any kind. The cane and braille filled the need. When Linda, my mobility instructor, took me out for our daily lesson, I would have been content if she and I were to cruise along residential streets forever, me a half block ahead, earning points for my performance, she evaluating my progress, concerned with my safety. Because I normally walked fast, she had ordered a very long cane for me so that it could probe unknown terrain well in advance of my feet. When my cane arrived, I spent hours in the shop, grinding down its plastic tip and adjusting its cork handgrip. My cane, hanging with the fourteen others from the hat rack near the front door at St. Paul’s, was the longest and, I thought, the most distinctive in the group.
Leaving the grounds took courage. We were all blindfolded, whether partially sighted or totally blind. The very first time I passed through the gates onto the public pavement, I remember standing in dread for a moment to collect my wits and guts. The sudden loneliness seemed oceanic. A breeze whistled by me. I became ears and nose and one hand on the cane. I slowly gathered confidence and headed for Newton Center. It is like the first swerving, jerky bike trip, terror and freedom competing until you are upright and in control. My sluggish legs strengthened with each step as buildings, curbs, and open spaces began to etch a map in my mind. I heard the height and breadth of things, the openings of streets like cave mouths, to the left, to the right. I heard the rhythm of the trees. Linda was somewhere behind me, but I was flying solo now. I came back exhilarated.
