by Helen Wells
“There, young fellow, we’re all done!” Dr. Watson said. “You’re lucky this is a simple break, without swelling. No traction for you! We’ll put this leg of yours in a lightweight cast, so you can be up on crutches before you know it.”
The young man broke into a sweat. Dr. Watson was too hearty, too noisy; Cherry dropped her own voice to a whisper. A plaster of Paris cast was put on the patient’s leg. His badly blistered foot was not enclosed in the cast, but left exposed so Cherry could treat it to prevent infection. Then another X ray was taken to make sure that the alignment of the bones had not been disturbed when the cast was applied.
Cherry accompanied Bob Smith while an orderly wheeled him back to the private room just off Men’s Orthopedics. The head nurse looked in and offered a few words of welcome. But the young man was too exhausted and dazed to notice her.
Cherry instructed George, their ward orderly, who had changed Bob Smith into a hospital gown, to keep his ragged garments here until tomorrow. She wanted a chance to examine them carefully for any clue to his identity. For now, Cherry encouraged him to eat and to nap. Her efforts were useless. At three, when Cherry was scheduled to go off duty, she went to the head nurse.
“Mrs. Peters, I’d like to stay with Bob Smith. At least until he relaxes enough to eat or sleep. I could stay on duty straight through the evening.”
“I know you’re concerned for this patient, Miss Ames, but Dr. Watson says we’ll give him medication to help him sleep. No, you’d better go home and get some rest.”
Cherry wondered about her patient as she changed from white uniform into street clothes. Who was he? Where was his home? Where was his family, if any? What tragic happening had caused such distress that his memory was a blank? How could he be restored to the present?
Cherry went home and for the first time in her life did not say a word about her day’s nursing work. Her parents and twin brother, Charlie, were astonished.
“Something special is happening,” Cherry apologized.
That evening she took out her textbooks and looked up amnesia. “Functional amnesia is a purposeful forgetting of things too painful to remember. It is generally not due to any brain injury or disease, but is a memory disturbance. It is not faking or pretended illness; it is as definite and actual an illness as pneumonia.”
Cherry closed her textbook. How did one cure a lost person who remembered nothing at all of his past? How did one solve a mystery with no clues?
CHAPTER II
Dr. Hope
CHERRY ARRIVED ON THE WARD AHEAD OF TIME THE next morning. Looking into Bob’s room, she saw a big, blond man sitting with him. He was Dr. Hope, the head nurse said.
“He’s been here for half an hour. Your Bob Smith seems to be talking to him.”
“What’s Dr. Hope like?” Cherry asked. She had never worked with a psychiatrist, and might not have a chance to do so now. She remembered that psychiatrist, literally, meant a doctor of the soul. “I should think he’d have to have a great deal of sympathy and imagination.”
“Well, my friends the Websters live next door to the Hopes,” the head nurse said in her practical way, “and they report that Dr. Hope and his two small sons are crackerjack tennis players and that the doctor groans like anyone else when it’s his turn to mow the lawn.”
Dr. Ray Watson came into the ward, said good morning to the nurses, and waited as anxiously as Cherry. It seemed like a long time until Dr. Hope came out of Bob’s room. He looked very thoughtful, but he smiled when he saw Dr. Watson.
“It’s not so bad, Ray. The boy is depressed, but he isn’t so ill that he can’t stay here. I’ll recommend that. Of course I’ll have our team of psychiatrists come over and examine him—today if they can make it. Personally, I feel hopeful for him.”
“That’s good, Harry. Glad to hear it.”
“Not that we’ll have an easy time. There’s no guarantee we can help him recover his memory,” Dr. Hope said. “But there’s a good chance. Now, which is the nurse he talked to?”
Dr. Watson introduced the head nurse and Cherry, and Ruth Dale who was just coming in. Dr. Harry Hope shook hands with all of them and said to Mrs. Peters:
“Can you arrange for Miss Ames to spend extra time with this patient?”
“I’ll get an extra nurse’s aide, so that she can, Doctor.”
Cherry was encouraged to have Dr. Hope accept her, even temporarily, as Bob’s nurse. Dr. Ray Watson went with them to a staff office on this floor. There Dr. Hope began a briefing on how they all might best take care of the doubly ill patient.
“First, I think it will be easier for Bob Smith, or whatever his true name is, to have the same nurse—a nurse he already trusts—working along with both his medical doctor and with me.… Yes, here, Ray.… You can count on me to come to Hilton Hospital daily to treat him. He’ll make better progress, I think, in your normal hospital surroundings than among our patients who are more seriously disturbed than he is.”
Dr. Hope looked with penetration at Cherry. “What did you do to get him to talk?”
“Nothing, Doctor. I spoke softly to him—bathed his feet—that’s all.”
“Well, you did the right things. He wasn’t very willing to talk to me.”
“Could it be,” Cherry suggested respectfully, “that he finds it harder to talk to a man than a woman—for some key reason?”
Dr. Hope grinned in pleasure and Dr. Watson said, “See, I told you she catches on fast.”
Cherry felt pleased and embarrassed, and later fascinated by what Dr. Hope went on to say.
An amnesic like Bob Smith had thousands of fellow wanderers. Mental health authorities in all states were doing everything possible to help them and send them home. In past centuries they, and those with more serious mental illness, had been ignorantly regarded as willfully dangerous or evil, and thrown into dungeons and chained as criminals. This practice dated back to the Middle Ages when people believed that “demons” had “taken possession” of these unhappy persons. Now, Dr. Hope said, although the medical profession and the law recognized that a few psychotics might do dangerous or criminal acts, and must be restrained, the mentally ill were treated as any other sick persons and given medical care. He added that their suffering was bewildering and intense, perhaps harder to bear than the pain of physical illness. Nowadays, though, with good care, very many became well and happy and sound citizens again.
“About Bob Smith—”
Dr. Hope said that he was—unconsciously—forgetting certain carefully selected things in his past, things which he found impossible to face. These were the very things that he must be helped to remember, and to face and deal with. Dr. Hope’s job would be a sort of detective work, to find these forgotten facts in Bob’s clouded memory. To do this, he would use various uncovering techniques.
Dr. Ray Watson asked loudly the same thing Cherry was thinking. “Talking about detective work, why don’t we call on the Hilton police force and see if they can help us? Of course they already know about the motorist’s report, and they know we have an unidentified man here as a fracture case. But we haven’t yet told the police this is an amnesia victim.”
Dr. Hope hesitated. “Asking police help doesn’t always work out. These amnesia cases can be surprisingly difficult. The clues and secrets are locked away inside the person. Making them ill, you see. However, we’ll give the police a try, Ray.”
“Bob probably will be able to remember unimportant things,” Dr. Hope said. “It will be a start, at least. Miss Ames, I wish you’d carefully examine his clothes or belongings for any—what would the police call it, Ray?”
“Any identifying feature, I guess.”
“Yes, I will, Dr. Hope,” said Cherry.
She returned to Orthopedics, tiptoed into Bob Smith’s room, and softly closed the door behind her. Her patient was dozing. Bob must have slept off his first exhaustion, for his thin face was a more normal color than it had been yesterday. But his breathing was rapid and shallow,
and his hands twitched in his sleep, and he frowned.
“Nervous and upset even in his sleep,” Cherry thought. She glanced at the chart and the night nurse’s report: temperature normal, pulse 90 per minute, complained of headache; his movements were abnormally slow, a symptom of depressed feelings. Well, on his breakfast tray the teacup and plate were emptied; that was one good thing.
In the closet Cherry found Bob Smith’s shabby garments and systematically searched them. No labels, no dry cleaner’s tags, nothing in the trousers pockets. No leads, in short. In a jacket pocket, she found a small calendar for this year. Its pages were torn off up to April.
“April! This is September. Did time stop for Bob in April? Was it April when his memory blacked out? If so, where had he been in the six months since that date?”
Cherry tried the jacket’s other pockets.… Empty … another empty … wait, there was something in the inside pocket. She pulled out a piece of thin white paper. A letter. There was no envelope, hence no postmark, and the letter bore no date. It was in a feminine handwriting, without a salutation, and was signed “S.” It read:
“It was good of you to tell me what you did last evening. At the moment I didn’t understand you. I hadn’t realized that he’s under such a handicap. Now I do and I will make allowances. So don’t worry. S.”
Cherry read the note again. It hinted at more than it said. Who was “S” and who was “he”? She suddenly felt Bob Smith looking at her. She was startled but maintained her calm.
“Hello. How do you feel this morning?”
Didn’t he recognize her? He seemed to be in a hazy, dreamy state.
“Bob, I’m looking in your pockets for something to identify you. We’re trying here at the hospital to help you.”
He said weakly, “I know.”
Good! He did recognize her! He did understand. Cherry thought of things to say to him—about bringing him back to the present, about sending him home. Better not. Maybe Bob Smith did not want to go home—or maybe he had no home. She could stir up a storm of emotions in him with a few wrong words. Talking, or forcing Bob to talk, could be as disastrous as giving a patient the wrong medicine. Better wait for Dr. Hope to lead the way.
“Bob, may I keep this note and the calendar?”
No answer. She took his silence for assent.
During the morning, Cherry made Bob comfortable, and applied cold compresses for his headache. Presently Miss Bond, a new employee in the Admitting Office, came in. She carried a ledger. She had been advised, evidently, to conduct the interview with Bob Smith through the nurse. He listened but would not speak.
“Can you give me the usual information?” Miss Bond asked crisply. “Name, age, address, occupation, names of any relatives?”
“I—I don’t think that’s available at the moment. Bob?” Cherry glanced at him. He looked away, dazed. Cherry shook her head at Miss Bond.
“Can you tell me,” Miss Bond continued, “how and where the patient got hurt? Any previous illnesses? Shall we list him temporarily as John Doe?”
Cherry saw tears well up in her patient’s eyes. He pulled the covers around him as if trying to hide. Cherry went to sit beside him and said:
“Miss Bond, will you excuse us now? We’ll send the information to the Admitting Office as soon as we can.”
“Well, it’s most unusual—Oh, I see. Yes, surely, Nurse.” Miss Bond left, red in the face with embarrassment.
For a few minutes Cherry held Bob Smith’s hand in silence. Then he turned his head so that he could look at her.
“I’m sorry. All mixed up. I’m so ashamed.”
“Don’t be. It’s all right.”
“I can’t even remember my own name. It’s terrifying.”
“S-sh, now. You’ll remember.”
Cherry waited. His breathing grew less agitated, more regular.
“Nurse? Miss—Miss Cherry?”
“That’s right.”
“I think I’ve been using the name of Bob Smith. I made it up. It sounded like a real name to me.”
Cherry nodded and kept silent. His hand in hers relaxed, and then he fell asleep. She felt immensely sorry for this young man. Never had she seen anyone so lost and alone.
At lunchtime Mrs. Ball, who headed the hospital’s Social Service Department, rapped and asked Cherry whether it would be advisable for her to see Bob Smith. Cherry hesitated about another interview. But she knew Leona Ball to be perceptive and kind, so Cherry said:
“Well, Mrs. Ball, come in but just say hello.”
Mrs. Ball took a long look at the dazed man.
“No, I see I’d better not. Let me know what I can do for him—perhaps I could contact public or private agencies, or send out inquiries about him?”
“That would be a great help.”
One further, long interview did take place that afternoon. The team of psychiatrists came, as Dr. Hope had promised, to give Bob a further examination, and see to what extent they agreed with Dr. Hope’s first findings. Cherry was not present; she did her regular work on Orthopedics. After three o’clock, when the psychiatric team had gone, Dr. Hope called her into the staff office. He talked to Cherry privately.
“Well, it’s agreed Bob is to stay at Hilton Hospital. Sit down, Miss Ames. Here’s what happened in consultation this afternoon, so you’ll have a clearer picture of our patient, and what you and I are going to do for Bob.”
Cherry sat down, all attention. She watched this big, vigorous man pace around the office, stand still to think, pace, and then grin at her.
“Now isn’t it reasonable for me to be disappointed that we can’t interview Bob Smith’s relatives? Relatives could fill in his life history, and tell us all sorts of relevant things. We always talk to the family first thing on admitting a patient—but with Bob, we don’t even know if he’s got a family. But we did take certain tests, and we’ll do more.”
The team of psychiatrists had given Bob, so far as his illness permitted today, a psychometric test that measured intelligence and the Rorschach “ink blot” test. The latter helped bring out ideas that troubled him, but only in a very general way. Later on, the team might take an encephalogram or brain-wave photograph. So far, the psychiatrists were satisfied that “Bob Smith” had sustained no brain injury or disease, had better than average intelligence, and had lost his memory because of some severe psychological upset. Exactly what had happened to Bob to cause this, and exactly how to treat Bob, was up to Dr. Hope to discover.
“We’ll have to feel our way, at first,” Dr. Hope said.
“We, Doctor?”
“Certainly. You’re Bob’s nurse and my assistant.”
“But I’m not especially trained for this kind of case, you know,” said Cherry. “I had one course at nursing school, of course—”
“The patient trusts you. You have imagination. That could be enough. At least I’m going to try you out.”
Dr. Hope bent down and peered at Cherry.
“What’s that worried look about? See here, better than fifty-five percent of so-called mental cases are temporary. After we help them analyze their problems and give them a few days’ ‘first aid,’ they come to themselves and can go home.” He laughed. “One man was brought in to our Mental Hygiene Clinic because he was standing on a street corner distributing dollar bills. Well, he was celebrating winning the sweepstakes, and he was always a generous man.”
Cherry smiled, too. “I guess a sense of humor is going to come in handy.”
“Not that Bob Smith is as mild a case as these. Yes, we’ll need humor, and kindness, and a hopeful outlook. We must listen compassionately to whatever Bob says, and not pass judgment on him but try to understand. You and I will have to do our very best for him. We’re the only people he has to help him.”
“And he has me. I care about him, too.” Dr. Ray Watson stood in the doorway. “Hope, do you intend to work at the University Hospital or at this hospital—or both?”
“Both,” Dr. Hope said
cheerfully. “This young nurse is going to do double duty, too.”
Dr. Watson mumbled something about “Hard work and idealism never hurt anybody—only way to cure the patients.” Then he said:
“By the way, I asked Leona Ball to telephone the police department. They’re sending one of their detectives. Name of Hal Treadway. He’ll be here tomorrow to talk to our mystery patient.”
“Well, Miss Cherry,” said Dr. Hope, “when you see the right moment, you’d better tell Bob that a visitor is coming to help him. Prepare him.”
“I’ll try, Dr. Hope.”
CHAPTER III
First Steps
THE DETECTIVE’S FORMAL QUESTIONING ON FRIDAY distressed Bob Smith and yielded no information. That was not the detective’s fault. Hal Treadway was an unobtrusive little man in sports clothes, perfectly agreeable to have Cherry and Dr. Hope in the room while he asked his questions. But Bob grew irritable. He broke out into a sweat and stammered:
“I don’t know where I got the money to leave my hometown. Or anything! If I could remember I’d tell you.”
“Take it easy, son,” said the detective. “Try and think where your folks are. Where’s your mother? Can you tell me her name?”
“I don’t know! I mean, I haven’t any family.” Bob pulled himself up by the hand straps and sat bolt upright in bed. He was shaky and indignant. “If I had a family, wouldn’t they be looking for me?”
“Not necessarily,” the detective muttered, but Dr. Hope stood up to put an end to the interview.
“Sorry, Mr. Treadway, the patient can’t tolerate any more direct questioning. We can’t press him. Will you come into the hall with me? Nurse—” Dr. Hope indicated the enamel tray with its plain tepid water and sponge. “Take care of Bob, then join us, please.”
“Yes, Dr. Hope.”
Left alone with her patient, Cherry gently put cold applications on his burning forehead. She gave Bob another healing dose of silence and he quieted down. His eyes followed her as she lowered the window shades, then came back to the bed and turned his pillows over to the cool, fresher side.
