by Sylvia True
Tanner zipped the snowsuit. “We should have left before.”
“I’m walking out with you,” Sabine said. “They can’t stop me.”
The door opened and a woman, who introduced herself as Nurse Nancy walked in.
“I’m leaving with my husband and baby,” Sabine told her.
“If you try to leave we will have to restrain you,” Nurse Nancy said too perkily, before locking her eyes on Sabine’s. “You don’t want to be in a straitjacket.”
Sabine glared at Tanner, who looked at the door, ready to bolt. It was her fault she was stuck here. She’d found Dr. Lincoln’s name in the Yellow Pages that morning. She’d asked Tanner to take her, she’d pressed the red buzzer—and signed the form. But that was before she knew they would take Mia.
“I’ll accompany you to the door where you can say goodbye,” Nancy said.
Sabine walked alongside Tanner, clutching Mia’s mittened hand.
The man who had let them in opened the steel door and stood in front of Sabine. A dull static pulsed through her. How many years had she feared a place like this? How many nightmares had she had about it? How many warnings?
She remembered the orange tabby she had killed. It had attacked her in her college dorm room, flying through the air with its claws aimed at her chest. It gripped her T-shirt and hissed. Just as it was about to sink its fangs into her face, she ripped it off by the scruff of its neck and slammed its body against the wall. When the tabby whimpered, she felt a pang of remorse and loosened her grip. The cat lunged. She slammed it harder. There was a high-pitched wail and then a moan of defeat. Its limp body, a large clump of fur, was stained red.
The tabby had befriended her, slipping in at night, and nuzzling on her pillow. She never really understood how he got in, and she didn’t think about it much, because when he curled up next to her, the feeling that she wanted to tear off her skin subsided.
The night she killed him, as she stood paralyzed in the middle of the room, holding his bloody body at arm’s length, someone knocked.
“Come in,” she called.
It was the RA, Cindy, a passionate rule-follower. “You were screaming.”
Sabine held up the cat. Only there wasn’t a cat. And Sabine could see the confusion on Cindy’s face.
“Just a bad dream.” Sabine turned to face the window. Of course, there had never been a cat.
Her slips into delusion happened infrequently, after bouts of sleeplessness and panic. They only happened at night. When she was alone. A blessing. A relief not to have to explain. Not to get thrown in some institution that would lock her up.
Yet here she was. Inevitably.
Now she stood in a locked ward, feeling paralyzed once again as she watched her daughter’s purple hood descend through the wire-mesh window.
* * *
Arlesheim, Switzerland 1984
Inga pressed her fingers on the envelope, enjoying its plumpness. Yes, there would be parts of this long letter from her daughter that rambled, but that didn’t matter much. She would read Lisbet’s letter at least three times. It would take half the morning, which would make the rest of the day breeze by. The drab, vague emptiness would be lifted today.
She used her silver letter opener and began reading, skimming the weather report that filled the first two pages. Next came stories about Lisbet’s skating students, then something interesting about Inga’s grandson, about how the bank he was working for insisted on paying him a higher salary. Page six had a sweet account of a bunny in the garden, and then suddenly, Inga read a sentence that didn’t belong. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and tried again. But the words didn’t change.
She put the letter down and held onto the edge of the desk. The room seemed to darken, and the fir outside the window appeared almost black rather than green. She remembered herself as a young woman, kneeling next to a hospital bed. Vials of medicine littered the floor. A metal bowl with traces of yellow stomach fluid sat next to her.
After a minute or two, she felt more settled. She wiped her brow with a handkerchief, made tea, and checked all of the clocks in the house, even though she’d already set them all hours earlier. Each clock had a certain tone, a bell, a cuckoo, or a chime, and she liked them all to ring at exactly the same time. It was fastidious, but it was also a task that kept her busy. Distractions, she had learned decades ago, helped one move forward, kept time plotting at a bearable pace.
By the time she returned to her desk, the tree was once again its handsome forest green, and she was once again herself. She reached for the miniature painting that sat on the top shelf. In it, her sister Rigmor wore a red gown that showed off her slender shoulders and porcelain skin. But it was her stance, deferential and poised, that revealed her soul.
Forty-nine years ago, when Inga and her mother left Germany (she did not like the word fled), the large portrait of Rigmor that hung in the main drawing room had stayed behind. She had taken the miniature, the test-sample that the artist had painted.
Rigmor had been Inga’s better half. Yes, the phrase was used for spouses, but it was better suited, in Inga’s case, for a sister. Interesting, how in the past few days, even before the letter had arrived, she had been drawn to the portrait.
She straightened her spine and picked up the letter once more. In the ten pages Lisbet had written, there was only that one line, a deathblow of a sentence, nested in trivialities.
Sabine has been admitted to an asylum with the name of McLean.
Inga went to the kitchen, where she put three jars of her homemade jam in a basket. Then she slipped on her tweed coat, put the letter in her handbag, and set out to visit Arnold.
A year ago, she had not been entirely pleased when he reentered her life, but she had come to look forward to visiting him, to reading him the correspondences from her daughter. Their conversations brought comfort to her, perhaps because he’d known her in her prime. He’d seen her at her best…and her worst.
Her right hip nagged with arthritis as she climbed the hill that led to the nursing home, called, of all things, The Sonnen Heim. The Sun Home. It was absurd that institutions used the word sun in their name, as if they were trying to mask the darkness inside their walls.
At the door, Inga composed herself and pressed the bell.
“Frau Sommer,” the matron exclaimed. “I don’t believe we were expecting you this morning.” Inga noted a slight disapproval.
“I have come for an informal visit and was hoping Arnold would be available.”
“Of course.” The matron gave a small, almost imperceptible bow. “Will you wait in the green room?”
Inga placed her basket on a chair in the foyer. Invited or not, she never arrived empty-handed.
The green room, a small lounge that looked onto the gardens, was furnished with a beige couch and two burgundy colored armchairs. Inga sat on the smaller chair and perched her handbag on her lap, gripping the thin leather strap. The room had the advantage of good light, and the disadvantage of harboring one of the worst paintings of the Matterhorn that Inga had ever seen.
A nurse wheeled Arnold in. As he met Inga’s gaze, he did not hide his concern. His brow furrowed, and the right side of his mouth, the working side, curved downward.
The moment the nurse was gone, he asked, “What has happened?”
“Are they feeding you well?” she replied.
“My dear Inga. That is not why you are here.”
She pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of her starched blouse and kneaded it. He waited. His eyes misty from cataracts, looked a bit like marbles covered with thin white tissue.
She undid the clasp on her handbag, took out the letter, and handed him the relevant page.
“The third sentence in the second paragraph,” she said. “It is underlined.”
As she watched Arnold read, she thought of the day, almost a year ago, that he knocked on the door of her chalet, wearing a three-piece suit and holding a cane. She’d recognized him imme
diately, though it had been forty-eight years since she’d last seen him. He still had all of his hair; it had turned completely white. She had no idea what to say. They had promised each other there would be absolutely no contact. No letters, telegrams, or phone calls. He had honored the agreement until that point.
He said he had come to see her one last time, for a final truce. Truce seemed the wrong word—they had never battled, after all. She agreed to meet him for dinner later in Basel, but only with the promise that he would not speak of their time together before the war.
The evening had been more pleasant than she expected. She enjoyed his stories about his work in the States, and was pleased that he’d found love. A month later he telephoned from a hospital. He’d had a stroke after their dinner, and his left side was paralyzed.
He had no one left. Inga found a nursing home in her village, and took meticulous care of the logistics in getting him placed there. She even helped with some of the expenses. She knew she owed him nothing, but it saddened her to imagine him alone.
“Well?” Inga asked now.
“Tell me again, how old is Sabine?”
“Twenty-six,” she replied.
“And there were no signs?”
“Some melancholy as a child perhaps.” Inga thought of how Sabine had sometimes been withdrawn. “Certainly nothing recent that I was told of.” But Lisbet had often kept Inga on the outside, viewing her as meddling and even controlling, regardless of Inga’s good intentions.
“She just had a baby, did she not?” Arnold asked.
Inga nodded. “Three months ago.”
“Post-partum depression, perhaps?”
From where Inga sat, she could see the words: Sabine has been admitted. Inga thought of Lisbet, of how she would not be able to manage this, how she would put her head in the sand. Inga loved her daughter, though she did not always understand her.
“I doubt you really believe that,” she said and snatched the letter from Arnold’s lap. Tears stung her eyes. The thought of Sabine in some institution, forlorn and in distress, pained Inga. She fought to regain her composure as she stared down at the Oriental carpet.
“Inga,” Arnold said gently. “You must not jump to conclusions. There is not enough information, yet, to assume something terrible.”
The air felt close, the room hot. She folded the letter and fanned herself with it. “Then I suppose it will be up to me to get the information. I will go there myself.”
“Surely Lisbet will go; she can tell you what you need to know.” He took a breath. The stroke made it difficult for him to talk sometimes. “I think it’s unwise to rush.”
“I am not rushing, and Lisbet will not go.” Lisbet was likely fretting and rubbing an eyebrow. Such a handsome, kind woman, but with the disposition of a nervous mouse. “Sabine, could be on a ward with truly mad people, or be given the wrong diagnosis.”
“Things are different now. Very different. Medicine has come a long way. There are some excellent drugs.” He put a hand on the arm of her chair. “You mustn’t worry.”
She felt as if she had a piece of coal inside of her chest, black carbon that had been inert for many years, and had just now begun to smolder again. “Yes, of course I know times are different.” She pressed a hand on her heart. “But I cannot just sit in Arlesheim and wait for a letter that may or may not come and may or may not have any useful information. I cannot do nothing.”
“You could make some phone calls,” he said.
She shook her head. “It is always best to have conversations face-to-face, especially when there is difficulty, and the chance of misunderstandings.”
“Your hip is bad. You are not young. I worry this will be difficult for you.”
She held up her chin. “My granddaughter is ill, and she will need me.”
“Inga.” He sighed. “I fear a journey like this could put you in a precarious situation.”
“Nonsense,” she told him.
They sat in silence. She gazed at the dappled window pane and thought that this felt familiar, the two of them together in disagreement.
“The weather is miserable,” she said.
He gave his lopsided smile. “Is that what you’d like to talk about?”
“My decision is firm.” She opened her handbag and placed the letter inside.
“May I ask something?” he began.
She nodded.
“What do you think Sabine might in fact need?”
Inga felt as if there was a large, invisible hand on her back, pushing her forward. Saving, she thought. Although that sounded lofty and pretentious. She only said, “Sabine will need someone.”
Arnold tugged at the faded collar of his shirt. “You are strong.
But…” He hesitated. “But on the inside, we are all vulnerable.”
Of course she was vulnerable. More now than when she’d first told him of the letter. Exactly the opposite of what she’d hoped for. It might have been nice for him to have shown some faith in her.
“I will not be talked out of going,” she said, gripping the strap of her handbag.
He bent his head, relenting. “I know of the hospital mentioned in the letter. An old colleague of mine has a top position there. It’s not a lot, but it’s all I can offer.”
“Very kind of you,” she said, sounding colder than she intended.
“You may very well help Sabine. But please, you must also look after yourself. Don’t only stay at the hospital. Go for a walk or out to a nice dinner.” He paused. “And if it gets to be too much, and you can’t manage, call me.”
Although the surface of his eyes had been altered by age, the essence of them, the kindness, hadn’t changed from the first time she’d met him in her family home in Frankfurt. He had come to them recommended, eager and naïve, perhaps too ordinary a man to take on what lay ahead.
The walk home was more difficult than Inga had expected. The damp weather had seeped into her hip, which ached sharply. And though nothing Arnold said would deter her, the apprehension she’d been feeling earlier was now doubled.
But she simply had to go. She owed it to Sabine, to Lisbet, and to Rigmor.
Chapter Two
A Parasite
Frankfurt am Main, Germany 1934
At twenty-seven, Inga was young enough to believe her actions could change the course of fate, and mature enough to set about doing so, starting with the household. The grandfather clock had not yet struck eight, and Inga had already instructed the cook to boil the eggs for three minutes and fifteen seconds, not three minutes. She had written thank-you notes to two acquaintances, and had given them to the butler to be delivered. Now, as she sat in the great room, she looked at the portrait of Rigmor, admiring her sister’s wide-set eyes, and how the morning light wove threads of gold through her dark hair. Rigmor’s episodes might have worsened since the painting was completed a few years ago, but Rigmor was as beautiful then as she was now.
The day promised to be bright, and the room was certainly not cold, yet Inga felt a chill. A cardigan was called for. At the landing of the staircase she watched her mother descend with heavy footfalls, and a stone-like expression. In her black dress, Frieda seemed more like a recent widow than a divorcee of fifteen years.
She was a study in contradiction—a stoic matriarch who held firm political views, and yet also believed women, other women (not herself), should always carry an air of subservience.
“What is it?” Inga asked. It would be just like Frieda to walk past, without acknowledgement.
Frieda stopped and looked at the paring knife in her hand, its tip red. “She has hurt herself.”
Inga raced up the stairs and burst into Rigmor’s room.
The heavy ivory drapes were closed, something Inga had advised against. The room smelled of camphor, another of Frieda’s prescriptions. And there were no open windows to let in fresh air.
Rigmor was sitting on the bed, in her white nightdress, with her arms wrapped around her knees as she r
ocked back and forth. Her hair, which naturally formed perfect ringlets, looked as if a flock of birds had flown through it. Likely she’d spent much of the night tugging at it.
“Trouble with sleep,” Inga began, and walked toward the bed. She sat next to her sister so she could look into her eyes.
“Mother took away my knife,” Rigmor whispered. “Will you get me another?”
“Are you preparing an apple tart?” Inga asked.
Rigmor smiled, and Inga felt relieved that her sister was lucid enough to understand the small joke.
“So tell me,” Inga said. “Why does a woman need a paring knife in her bedroom?”
Rigmor lifted her head. Her gray eyes seemed confused. “It’s the botfly larvae,” she answered.
“But it is much too cold for them to survive in the winter. They live in South America,” Inga replied, playing along.
The botfly larvae crawled under people’s skin and grew into a boil until it was ready to escape and pupate. It was a deliciously squeamish topic that the sisters had laughed about as children.
Rigmor extended one of her thin arms, revealing a small wound next to her wrist.
“Can you tell me why you did this?” Inga asked, gently.
“Last night I put hot compresses on the larvae, thinking that would kill it. But it only moved from the heat. I needed to cut it out.”
“And so you went to the kitchen to get a knife?”
Inga had mentioned to Frieda that it might be good to have a nurse sit outside Rigmor’s room during the night. But Frieda resisted, insisting that Rigmor did not need a child minder. Had Inga and Frieda agreed just a bit more about Rigmor, Inga might have suggested she and her husband move to another home. But she needed to keep an eye on her sister. And there was also the recent appearance of Fred. To move away with her husband would make things more difficult with her lover.
Inga took Rigmor’s hand and studied the cut, a square laceration about two centimeters in length and width. Most often when Rigmor’s imagination took such dark turns, it happened in the middle of the night, when she was unable to sleep.
