Leaving the World

by Douglas Kennedy

  ‘She OK?’ Nurse Pepper asked.

  ‘I got her calmed down.’

  Nurse Rainier held up the syringe in front of me.

  ‘You think you need this, Jane?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You sure? I mean, it’s guaranteed to knock you out for the next twelve hours.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Have it your way.’

  The needle pricked my arm – and I went under.

  When I came to I was back in the gurney-bed, my arms again tied down, though somewhat looser than before. Everything still hurt – and my re-entry into consciousness was accompanied by the thick chemical fog that strong sedatives leave behind. I immediately felt the tubes and catheter back in place. Nurse Rainier was standing at my bedside, peering at me over her reading glasses.

  ‘With us again,’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘Language, Professor.’

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ I muttered, my lips still in agony.

  ‘Good. Very good. Shall we agree to deep-six everything that happened yesterday and start again?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Then I’ll get that catheter out of you and arrange for Ray to bring you back for that long-overdue bath. Trust me, Nurse Pepper won’t try to “save” you this time. She’ll just make certain you’re nice and clean.’

  It was exactly the same drill as yesterday. I rolled over on my side. I was told to hold my breath. The catheter was slipped out of me. Ray arrived, as silent and sullen as the last time – and as deft and gentle as before when it came to getting me into the wheelchair. Nurse Pepper was awaiting me in the bathroom, looking very nervous when I arrived.

  ‘So good to see you better,’ she whispered after Ray had deposited me with her. ‘And I’m so sorry if I upset you yesterday . . .’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Well, let’s get you into a nice hot bath.’

  It was quite an operation getting me into said bath. Nurse Pepper had to first wrap my cast in a waterproof casing – even though, as she explained, she would be keeping the leg suspended above the bath. Then she had to gently remove the bandages encasing my damaged eye so she could wash my hair.

  ‘Don’t worry about the eye being exposed to the light,’ she said while cutting the bandages and trying her best not to take too much hair off with them. ‘There’s a separate internal bandage covering the eye. But I won’t be able to wash your hair if I don’t get the big bandage off. And your hair really needs a good washing.’

  She ran the water in the bathtub, mentioning that she was putting in some salts to allow me a very good long soak. The bath was kitted out with a special clear-plastic seat that allowed the aged and the infirm to be electronically lowered into the water. Getting me into it took some work. So did taking off the sweat-and-urine-stained hospital gown, as the very act of raising my left arm upwards caused me immense pain in my midsection. Once she had me positioned in the seat she swung it around so I was directly over the bathtub. She wheeled a metal trolley over to the side of the bath. On it was a plastic sling, long enough to handle a leg. She winched the sling down so it was level with the bath. Then she gently lifted up my plastered leg and negotiated it into the sling.

  ‘OK now, the seat’s about to be lowered – so be prepared. And if the water’s too hot, do tell me.’

  But my attention was elsewhere. As I lay back in the bath seat – preparing for immersion like a Baptist convert – I caught sight of myself in a mirror on the right-hand wall of the room. For the first time I had full visual evidence of the damage done. The left eye wasn’t just bandaged, but was also grotesquely puffed up. My forehead remained so deeply bruised that it appeared to have been smudged with black ink. The same sort of bruising covered my midsection below my breasts, while my stitched-up lips looked as if they had been encased in bloodstained barbed wire.

  Nurse Pepper saw what I was seeing. She raced over and pulled a set of rolling hospital screens in front of the mirror.

  ‘You don’t need to be looking at that,’ she said. ‘And honestly, Jane, I know it all appears terrible now. But I’ve read your chart and I know that everything will heal just fine.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Everything won’t heal.’

  ‘You’ve just got to take every day—’

  ‘Stop,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. I just can’t . . .’

  Words vanished before I could get them out. I felt my eyes welling up again. Nurse Pepper put a steadying hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Truth be told I would have done what you did – even though my church calls it a sin. But what happened to you . . . it’s unspeakable.’

  With that she pushed a button and I descended into the warm, lavender-scented water. I shuddered again as my skin was submerged. But the water was balming – and I felt so grubby, so toxic, that I gave in to its aromatic pleasures. After ascertaining I was comfortable – or as comfortable as I could be with a leg suspended above me and a battered body – she let me soak for almost a half-hour, sitting away from me in a corner of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts – all of which were blacker than black.

  Let them get me better. Let them help mend all the reminders of my botched suicide. Let them tell me I have to cope, that I have to be strong, that I must not let this destroy me – all the same platitudinous shit I heard in the weeks afterwards. Let them get me back on my feet – and let them check me out of here. As soon as I am out of their grasp I will check into the nearest hotel and do the job cleanly this time.

  ‘Would you mind if I soaped you up now?’ Nurse Pepper asked.

  ‘I’d like that.’

  Still wearing the surgical gloves she had on while lowering me into the bath, she took a bar of soap and gently worked her way across my skin, handing me the bar at one point and asking if I wouldn’t mind soaping up ‘down there’. Once my genitals and bottom were clean she used a shower hose to wet my hair and then lathered it up using Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. The very sight of the curved bottle with its traditional yellow label provoked another long-suppressed sob. It was the shampoo I used to wash Emily’s hair. Nurse Pepper gauged my reaction and again put a forceful hand on my left shoulder while continuing to massage my scalp with her free fingers.

  She rinsed off all the soap and used the electronic machinery to raise me up out of the now-scummy water. Then she disengaged my leg from the sling and sat me up and dried me off. After fitting me into a fresh hospital gown she spent a good ten minutes brushing out my hair.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said when she had finally finished.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I really do hope I haven’t in any way upset you.’

  ‘You’ve been very kind,’ I said.

  ‘And you will get better. Trust me.’

  I was wheeled back to the ward. Nurse Rainier was there to greet me.

  ‘Well, look at you,’ she said. ‘Almost human.’

  As soon as I was settled back into bed again, Nurse Rainier said: ‘Now we can chain you down again and hook you up to a feed bag. Or we can agree that you are going to play ball with us, and we can avoid the restraints and actually offer you something solid to eat. What’s it going to be?’

  ‘The latter, please.’

  ‘You got it – but before we feed you, I’m afraid you’ve got to spend a couple minutes with one of our administrators. He’s got a bunch of paperwork he needs to fill out.’

  The administrator was a short, flinty little man with a name tag on his gray suit jacket that let it be known his last name was Spender.

  ‘Miss Howard,’ he said, greeting me with a curt nod, then introduced himself as the accounts officer for the hospital.

  ‘This will only take a few minutes,’ he said. ‘I just have some basic questions, if it’s all right to talk now.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘When you were admitted we didn’t have a chance to get some pertinent information on you, due to your . . . u
hm . . . medical state. So, to begin with, we need your home address. Is it the same as found on your Massachusetts driver’s license?’

  ‘I don’t live there anymore,’ I said.

  ‘So what is your new home address?’

  ‘I’m in the process of finding one.’

  ‘We need a definitive mailing address, Miss Howard.’

  ‘Use the one on the license then.’

  ‘Fine. Now . . . marital status?’

  ‘Single.’

  ‘Dependents?’

  I shut my one good eye. I felt myself seizing up again.

  ‘None,’ I finally said.

  ‘Profession?’

  ‘I was a professor.’

  ‘Was.’

  ‘I left my job.’

  ‘But New England State University informed me—’

  ‘If you’ve been talking to my employers, why do you have to ask me what I do . . . did?’

  ‘It’s just the way the procedure works.’

  ‘Procedure? This is a procedure?’

  Spender was visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m certain this is not an easy time for you, Miss Howard. But I would appreciate it if—’

  ‘Yes, I’m a professor at New England State University.’

  ‘Thank you. And do you have any next of kin who need to be contacted now?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  A pause. Then: ‘Now we did find the Blue Cross/Blue Shield card in your wallet – and we did discover that you are part of the New England State University health plan. However, under the terms of the HMO, your hospitalization for a psychologically related accident is limited to twenty-eight days maximum, and does require the patient to pay for the first two thousand dollars in costs. As I’m certain you can appreciate, the nature of your injuries required extensive medical treatment – including ophthalmological surgery. So the two thousand deductible has long been surpassed. Now I noticed you have a Fleet Boston MasterCard and an American Express card in your wallet. Which card should I debit for the deductible?’

  Welcome back to the United States of There Is No Free Lunch. But what does it matter, considering that I will be dead in less than a month?

  ‘Either will work,’ I said.

  ‘I now need you to sign a few consent forms. I also know that a Professor Sanders from New England State was trying to get in touch with you, as well as a Mr Alkan who informed me he was your lawyer.’

  ‘I’m not obliged to talk to them, am I?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Can I ask that no outside calls are put through to me?’

  Again Mr Spender wasn’t happy about this – and his disapproving look made it known that he had sized me up as a liability.

  ‘Wouldn’t you want the people who care about you to know that you are OK?’

  ‘No,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  Another awkward silence.

  ‘Anything else?’ I asked.

  ‘Just your signature on all the lines I’ve marked.’

  I didn’t even bother looking at the documents even though – the thought struck me – I could be inadvertently signing a document committing myself to the local loony bin. But that would cost the state of Montana money – and as they had probably assessed I was only a liability to myself . . .

  Keep her for another twenty-six days, then: hasta la vista, baby . . .

  After signing the documents I handed them all back to Spender.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I honestly do hope you get better soon.’

  After he had gone, Nurse Rainier returned with a breakfast tray – a watery omelette, toast, tea.

  ‘So Moneybags Spender tells me you’re playing Greta Garbo – saying you want to be all by yourself and won’t talk to anybody.’

  I looked away, the way Emily would look away if I reproached her for anything. That thought made me shudder again. Nurse Rainier took that in.

  ‘It always hits you,’ she said quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It. The event which cannot be discussed – because if you start to talk about it, you will fall apart. Believe me, I know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘My son, Jack, wrapped his motorcycle around a tree when he was eighteen. That was twenty-four years ago. My only child.’

  Her voice was steady, firm – a reporting of the facts, devoid of evident emotion. I took this in.

  ‘How do you get over it?’ I asked.

  She stared at me straight on – a gaze I had no choice but to meet. Finally she said: ‘You don’t.’

  Two

  THEY KEPT ME in the hospital for exactly twenty-six more days. During that time I remained the only resident of the psych ward. Business – as Nurse Rainier kept noting – was indeed slow. I had daily physiotherapy. After the orthopedic resident discovered, during one of my weekly MRIs, that the fractured tibia had quickly healed, it was time for me to try to start walking on it again.

  This was around fourteen days into my stay, by which time I had gotten to know the full range of Mountain Falls Regional’s residents. The orthopedist was named Dr Hill. The ophthalmological surgeon, Dr Menzel. And the resident shrink, Dr Ireland.

  Dr Menzel was a man in his late fifties. He told me he had emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Canada in the mid-seventies, and still had a considerable Eastern European accent. But he had gone native by wearing a string tie and cowboy boots. He was reasonably chatty, saying that he’d worked in Calgary for a decade, but drove down to Montana for a vacation in 1989 and was immediately smitten with the space, the light, the emptiness, the sheer epic grandeur of the place.

  ‘Will I be able to eventually see Montana with my left eye?’ I asked him.

  ‘It will take at least four to six months to fully heal. We did have to do intensive micro-surgery after you were admitted, but we managed to remove absolutely all shards. Now it is simply a matter of time. The eye is a most regenerative organ. I am reasonably confident that you will regain eighty percent of its use, if not one hundred percent. Doctors have to be cautious. We can never promise miracles. But in your case, eighty percent retention of vision is a miracle.’

  Dr Menzel arranged to see me twice a week. I was wheeled down to his office, the bandage was removed, and I put my head into a vise-like structure as he peered into the depths of my left eye to survey the impairments I had wrought on it. He was always chatty and didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t do much to maintain the conversation. So I heard all about the small ranch he had near Mountain Falls. And how he was breeding stallions as a pastime. And how his second wife used to be one of his nurses at the hospital, but now had a flourishing massage therapy business. And how their daughter was a freshman at Stanford, and was considered such a math genius that she had been given a full scholarship. And how he himself was a part-time painter – ‘mainly abstracts, very derivative of Rothko, but I sense you might like Rothko . . .’

  Why? Because he too tried to kill himself . . . but actually managed to succeed?

  ‘Once you feel up to it, perhaps you might like to come out to our ranch one evening for dinner. I must tell you, Professor, that we get few Harvard Ph.D.s in these parts, let alone published authors.’

  ‘It was an academic book that nobody read.’

  ‘You do yourself a disservice. It was a book. It appeared between hard covers. It was reviewed in serious academic journals. This is nothing to be modest about. It is a fantastic achievement. You should be proud of it.’

  Again I said nothing. Dr Menzel looked deeper into my eye. And asked: ‘Who, Professor, is the greatest Czech writer?’

  ‘Living or dead?’

  ‘Let’s say dead . . . as Kundera would win the “living” award.’

  ‘Kafka, I suppose.’

  ‘Kafka! Exactly! But try not to blink when you talk.’

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t talk.’

  ‘O
h, you can talk . . . but you cannot move your mouth as that simultaneously contorts the eye. Language, you see, is inextricably linked to sight. That which is seen is expressed. That which is expressed is also seen.’

  ‘Unless the person is blind.’

  ‘But the blind also see with . . . how did Shakespeare put it . . . ?’

  ‘The mind’s eye?’

  ‘Exactly. The mind’s eye sees everything, even if it cannot see everything. What is actually perceived through the act of seeing – and what is seen through the act of perception – well, therein lies a great human conundrum, would you not agree?’

  ‘Everything is perception.’

  ‘True – but who can actually ever see the internal workings of another human being? I look deep into your damaged cornea and what do I see?’

  ‘Damage?’

  ‘Scarring. Bad scarring . . . and the gradual development of scar tissue. The eye will adjust to this residue of harm. However, the fact remains that the lens itself has been inexorably changed by the damage done to it. It can never perceive the world in the same way again. Because the source of perception – the source of vision itself – has been completely altered by what has been inflicted on it.’

  ‘And how does this relate to Kafka?’

  ‘Well, what’s the most quoted sentence of Kafka?’

  ‘“One morning Gregor Samsor woke up to find himself transformed into a giant roach”?’

  Dr Menzel laughed.

  ‘How about the second-most quoted line of Kafka?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘“When we look at each other, do we even begin to see the pain we both carry?”’

  Ouch. I bit down on my lip.

  ‘So . . . when you look into this damaged eye,’ I asked, ‘is the pain visible?’

  ‘Absolutely. The “accident” came about because of pain. Desperate, terrible pain. That sort of damage . . . it will always be there. The scar tissue may mask it, may make it eventually tolerable. But still, trauma like that . . . well, how can you expect it to ever fully heal? All is changed afterward. The sense of perception is irrevocably altered. The world is a new and desperate place: implacable, random, pitiless. And we can never trust it again.’

  It was the one and only time that Dr Menzel spoke to me this way. Afterwards, sensing my reticence on this subject, he restricted our conversations to my general ocular health and his increasing optimism that the bandages would come off soon. He understood that I no longer wanted to talk about what had happened – let alone explore its attendant metaphors. So he became strictly business, for which I was grateful.