NINE
Memory of Pain II
Memories exist whole in the mind; to put them down in words demands sequence, a sense of time and space, of then and now. But when one remembers an event that belongs to the far past and relates it to another happening that belongs to yesterday, these memories exist together simultaneously–they are both, for a moment, now, not then. And so it had been with me when I stretched out on the bed in my small room, shut my eyes and with the blotting out of sight closed down upon the present, let the lost past seize me and hold me fast. I saw it whole, lived it all again – not in an hour, or even in several minutes, but in a single, incalculable instant…
A softly lighted room, the dusk blue against the windows, the sweet voice of a violin, a faint scent of perfume – I was alone in the room; but someone had just left it, someone a moment before had turned on the radio, someone was returning now – I could hear the steps in the hall. I fought the heavy weight of lethargy that smothered me. A pricking sensation existed on the edge of my consciousness – was it a previous feeling remembered or was I feeling it now? It did not matter and it was all-important (it seemed logical that it should be both at the same time). Everything loomed so very large: my head, the room, the beating of my heart, the intense harmonies of the violin. I could see the waves of sound, feel them breaking over me, threatening to engulf me. The wide windows darkened deeply into night; the footsteps grew nearer and nearer, their sound accumulating into a muffled loudness. It seemed as if whoever the person was who was approaching, he was taking an eternity to get to the door, to open it, to come into the rom…an unbearable eternity. Then I heard a decisive sound, a metallic liquidness, a key turned gently in the lock. The person came in (I had been listening for so long, for forever), and I was terrified.
Now I could see who it was. It was Nan. This was her apartment. This was her living room. (I had been in this room how many days?) And I knew why she was here. It was time again for my “treatment.”
She sat down beside me on the couch where I lay, reached out and took my hand. I turned my head away. The scent of perfume was no longer faint, it enveloped me. From the radio the thread of sweet sound was now joined by strings and woodwinds and what had been a sibilance began to swell to crescendo. It was almost dark and the outlines of the furniture blended into the long shadows thrown by the darkening window. I felt myself slipping away…falling.
“Won’t you tell me? He can keep this up forever, you know. Neither Tony nor I want to do it, but we can’t help ourselves. Why don’t you tell us? Then you would never have to go again.”
I gritted my teeth and said nothing.
“I promised you that you would never have to go again. As soon as you were strong enough you could leave, go home. All you have to do is to tell us where Jacob is. Nothing more. No one would ever need know you told. You can believe me, no one would ever need know you told.”
I could feel her fingernails biting into the back of my hand. I could feel her breath warm on my cheek. She was sitting close to me, talking quietly, earnestly. I said nothing.
“Think of how I feel. Do you think I like to take you to the doctor every night? Do you think Tony likes it? We are not murderers! Do you think we like to stand by and watch you suffer? What good does it do for you to be a hero? Why can’t you tell us what we need to know, say a few little words, tell us where Jacob is? Then it would all be over.”
She waited for me to speak. She waited a long time until the room grew black dark. She turned on a light, then stood in front of me. I would not look up at her, but I could not help seeing her legs, the bottom of her skirt, the belt of her dress.
Suddenly, she knelt in front of me. Her eyes were wet. She had been biting her lip and it was bleeding. Her hair was disarrayed. Her coat was flung over her shoulders, she wore a hat. She was ready to go, to take me with her…
“Please, Dr Matthews…”
I turned my face away.
She cried quietly for a few minutes, then she went to the closet for my coat, the sunglasses, the bandage. She wrapped the yards of bandage around my face, loosely so I could breathe, leaving holes sol could see. She put the smoked glasses over the bandage and handed me the cane, helped me into my coat. Tony was waiting for us in the hall, nervously smoothing his slick black hair. The three of us went down in the elevator together. As usual, the taxi was waiting outside.
I am not a brave man. At times, when I have read of the tortures men have undergone in Spain, at Dachau and Buchenwald, I have laid down the book that told of this martyrdom. What ideal could be worth that agony? Would it not be better to tell them what they wanted to know – even if you were killed for it afterwards? Then, at least, death would come quickly.
You don’t feel that way when it happens to you.
There were differences in my case, of course. I was not in Germany or Spain; I was in New York. What happened to me should not have happened. But it did.
I could not have told had I wanted to. I did not know Jacob Blunt’s whereabouts. I had seen him once for a few hours. All I knew about him was what he had told me himself.
But Nan, Tony and the “doctor” thought differently. They were certain I knew where Jacob was. And “he” thought I knew where Jacob was. Many times Nan made it clear that “he” gave the orders. They all feared “him” and obeyed “him.” I never saw “him” – during all those weeks I never met my persecutor.
(I remembered it all now. It was all there. It took no effort to recall any part of it: the coming back to consciousness on the subway platform, Nan’s solicitous questions, Tony’s arm around my shoulders, the lift and pull of them both as they helped me to the taxi, the long drive to Nan’s apartment on Central Park South, the falling asleep, the blackness returning as soon as I touched the sofa, the being awakened for the first of the daily catechisms…
“Dr Matthews! Dr Matthews! Wake up! It’s Nan!”
“Yes.”
“You had an accident. You fell in the subway. But you’re going to be all right.”
“Where ami?”
“In my apartment. You said you did not want to go to the hospital. I brought you here.”
I wondered at the time why I should have requested not to be taken to a hospital. But my head hurt. I could think about that later.
“Do you feel well enough to talk?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to tell me where Jacob is.”
“Jacob? Why, isn’t he with you?”
“Not that Jacob. The real Jacob!”
“The last time I saw him was last night…with Eustace.” I did not want to talk. I was not thinking about what I was saying. I was answering her questions guilelessly.
“You haven’t seen him since last night?”
“Seen whom?”
“Jacob. The real Jacob.”
“Who was that in the cell? The man who came with us? Didn’t you call him Jacob, too?” I was beginning to remember, and I was becoming conscious – but too late.
“That wasn’t Jacob.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s here with us. You’ll see him. His name is Tony. But answer my question. Where is Jacob?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I really don’t know.”
Then she was silent for a long time. Then she went away.)
The doctor’s office was near the Third Avenue “El,” not more than a five minute drive from Central Park. Although I was taken there every night for I do not know how many nights, the bandages on my face and the dark glasses over my eyes prevented me from discovering the exact location. I know I had to walk up three steep flights of rickety stairs and I reasoned from this that the building was probably a tenement – once I brushed against a child’s tricycle; always there were smells of cooking in the corridors. But while all these details were vague, there were others that were etched into my recently rediscovered memory with disconcerting clarity.
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br /> The room in which I found myself when they removed the bandages was of average size, but with out windows. I suspected that the “doctor’s” office was part of a railroad flat. There were no chairs, no pictures–not even a framed diploma – on the dirty brown walls. Both doors were kept locked and bolted from the inside. The single piece of furniture was a chipped white enamel operating table, complete with straps. This was in the center of the room and over it a glaring naked electric bulb hung by its cord from the ceiling. An autoclave hissed in one corner of the room beside the wash basin. The “doctor” was always washing the stiff lather off his hands when I entered the room.
He was a thin man with small, brown, bloodshot eyes. His apron was usually slightly soiled. What was left of his hair was ginger-colored, but there was a large, circular bald spot on the top of his head — with kalsomine on his face he would have resembled a circus clown. I never heard him speak. He would look around at me, then point at the table. That meant that the “treatment” was about to begin. He never hurried his wash: he took his time about smoothing and rinsing the suds from his arms, working with an automatic coordination, methodically. When he had dried himself, he would walk briskly to the table where I was lying to inspect the straps. Sometimes he would tighten one, or loosen another…
The first night I lay down on the table of my own free will. The next few times I fought bitterly with Tony (of the slick black hair, the bristly mustache), but each time I lost. Finally, after several nights of futile struggle, I submitted to the “treatment” as inevitable – Tony was amazingly agile and strong and he overcame me easily. I feared and hated what happened next. I knew it for what it was and was aware that there were limits to the number of times they could do it to me without impairing my faculties, but it was useless to struggle. Even if I could break loose, where could I go? The doors were locked and there were no windows. Soon it would be over until the next time… the spasm only lasted a fraction of a second.
I’ll say this for the devil: he knew how to make an injection. I never felt the needle – it was on me with the quickness of lightning. I would be flat on my back, the brilliant light from the bulb overhead glowing dully in my brain despite my shut eyelids. There would be a wait while he went back to the sterilizer for the hypodermic. Then I would feel his hand steadying, probing my arm…The dull red of the light would spin and swell with maniacal celerity to a blinding vivid all-encompassing sheath of white heat. My spine would writhe, my neck arch… (I have seen patient after patient in “shock”…I have seen remarkable recoveries, too… but I shall never prescribe it again.) Then cool blackness would swim in.
I do not know whether I was given insulin or metrazol or one of the newer compounds. I do know that I was taken to the “doctor” every night for what seemed forever. I know that I always awakened back in Nan’s apartment, awakened only to fall asleep again. I know that during the last few nights and days I was under morphine a good part of the time, otherwise I might not have stood the strain. They questioned me each day, of course, but I told them nothing. There was nothing I could tell them.
They had devised a perfect form of torture. Shock treatments left no trace, if the patient were strapped properly and the dosage regulated with care. They knew I had been a psychiatrist and they knew that they could count on my experience of the special effects of metrazol or insulin on others to add to the normal dread of the “treatment.” They knew that I knew that if the “treatments” were continued long enough, something would break.
It was a precisely calculated means of extracting the information “he” thought I had. But the joke was on “him.” I did not know where Jacob was. I could not supply the desired information even if they killed me in the attempt to get it.
It was a grim joke.
Sometimes I questioned Nan about “him” and his motives. She would sit beside me in the afternoon, her head burnished by the slanting sun – the sun yellow in the large living room, her hair copper-gold, glinting.
“Why is Jacob so important to ‘him’?” I would ask.
She would look away. “I can’t answer that question, Dr Matthews.”
“Who is ‘he’?” I would ask.
She would walk over and turn on the radio, fiddle with the dials until she got music, soft music: she did not seem to like the more martial allegros.
“Why are you helping him? If it is true that you would prefer to have nothing to do with this, why do you keep it up?”
Her face would go pasty, her lips would tremble. “I work for him.” She would come back and sit beside me. We would listen to Delius or Mozart or Schumann. Sometimes she would read. The sun would go down behind the high apartment buildings facing the Park. The sky would begin to darken. All this time I would be thinking of what was coming, planning ways of escaping, wild schemes, foolish daydreams. But they were better than the reality of the night.
One of them I tried. One night, when we reached the street, I broke and ran for it. I could see dimly and then only directly in front of me because of the bandages and the dark glasses (“he” was very clever – “he” had thought of everything). I ran desperately toward Fifth Avenue and heavy traffic. I could hear Tony running behind me, gaining on me. I saw a broad fellow in a Homburg hat in my path. He had some sort of a terrier on a leash; he must have been out walking the dog after dinner. I swerved to miss him, seeing for an instant his overfed countenance, his porcine eyes. Then I heard Tony yell behind me “Stop that man!” No reason given, only a peremptory command, yet the fat fool stretched out his arms. I tried to elude him, but there was too much of him to elude. I heard him gasp “O of!” as I hit him, yet, surprisingly, he held his ground. I suppose he thought he was being very brave – he probably related the incident to his bored wife later, exaggerating it proudly. The damn dog began to race around us excitedly, tangling my legs in his leash. Then Tony came up, thanked the man profusely, gripped my arm firmly and led me back to Nan and the waiting taxi.
That was on one of the first days. Later I did not have the energy or the hope.
I was never able to think effectively about my predicament. The “treatments” every night prevented that. My waking hours were dominated by the memory of past nights and the dread of those to come. After I had undergone many “treatments” – by that time the “doctor” listened carefully to my heart each night before he administered the drug – the lethargy that fell on me precluded anything but fugitive imaginings, vague dreams of surcease.
One thing I did do. I memorized the furnishings and descriptive details of Nan’s apartment. This was mainly an intellectual exercise, an automatic attempt to keep a disused member functioning, for I had little hope. I felt sure that eventually the “treatments” would be carried too far – one spasm would prove too rigorous – and I would die or suffer severe brain damage. But it is difficult to kill hope. While I despaired, I looked about me, memorizing.
It was a large room with a fireplace; wide French windows opened on a terrace that overlooked the Park. Above the fireplace was a circular mirror of blued glass, on either side of it stood two figurines — a man with his hands outstretched, reaching, a woman kneeling in the attitude of propitiation. The carpet was a neutral gray; the bookcases along two of the walls held brightly-jacketed novels. The large radio-phonograph was of blond wood…
I had no need to study the faces of my captors, Tony and Nan. I was confident that I would never be able to forget either of them (how misplaced my confidence was, since I was only now remembering). Tony’s clothes were of good cloth, but too severely cut, the patterns too distinct, the shoulders padded. For hours on end I watched his reflection in the fireplace mirror as he stood guard by the front door or lounged in one of the chairs in the entry hall. Regularly every few minutes he would smooth his slicked hair with the back of his hand, then run his fingers over his mustache. He seldom smoked; only infrequently did he exchange more than a few monosyllabic words with Nan. They seemed unwilling companions.
Nan was unhappy. She managed to keep busy, spending her time reading, listening to the radio, preparing our food. But there were periods in each day when she would stand by the windows and look out over the Park. She never ventured out on the terrace, nor did she ever comment on the weather. She would stand quite straight, her hands at her side, barely breathing. It occurred to me that she might well be as much a prisoner as I, and that Tony might guard her as well as myself. But when I tried to get her to confide in me, she repelled me with silence. Or “I work for him,” she would say. “He pays me well.”
And I would curse myself for being a sentimental fool.
My escape came entirely by accident. One night the taxi we were riding in – we were bound for the “doctor’s” office – collided with a truck. The door beside me was thrown open by the force of the collision. Tony, who had been sitting beside me on the collapsible seat, and I were thrown to the sidewalk violently. I fell on top of him; his body cushioned my fall. I was not hurt; but he was badly injured, I think. His head was twisted strangely around and his eyes were staring and glassy, although he was still breathing. I did not linger to examine him closely–the circumstances were such as to make me forget the Hippocratic oath; instead I staggered as fast as I could down the crowded street towards the river. I looked back only once. A crowd had gathered around the upset vehicles and a police car had already reached the scene. I thought I saw Nan waving at me, motioning to me to go on.
But I am not sure.
TEN
Total Recall
The sound of the door opening brought me back to the present. Sonia came into the room. She reached up for the cord that dangled from the ceiling and pulled on the light; it had grown dark without my knowing it. Now I felt Sonia’s body next to mine on the bed – her lips soothing my forehead – before my light-dazzled eyes could construe the outlines of her face, her soft, dark hair. I held her close to me.
The Deadly Percheron Page 12
