Lisa, Bright and Dark

by John Neufeld

  “For heaven’s sake,” M.N. said. “That’s ridiculous! We can’t let her do this kind of thing whenever she wants to. It’s dangerous. She could have killed you.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said slowly. “No, she wouldn’t. Mary Nell, let it go. Just forget it, will you, please?”

  “But Elizabeth—”

  “Mary Nell! I said forget it!”

  M.N. shut up.

  Suddenly I thought I knew. Elizabeth had been through this before! That had to be it. How could she just take the awful beating Lisa gave her and then want to make excuses for it? She hadn’t even fought back. She hadn’t cried out. She had taken it, and waited, somehow certain Lisa would wear herself out and stop of her own accord. It was gutsy. And it could only have come from one source. Somewhere before, Elizabeth Frazer had been through it all.

  And Lisa must have known. Some sign, some signal must have been exchanged between them at the very beginning, long before Lisa had gotten violent. Before any of us, even, knew what was happening to her, Lisa must have known and somehow Elizabeth had let her know she knew, too.

  Suddenly, all I wanted to do was go home, to sit down and just be near my father, watching TV or reading or talking about anything in the world except this.

  And so I did.

  17

  Miraculously, the next day in school Elizabeth looked as though little or nothing had happened. She had put makeup on her eye, and the cut on her lip was camouflaged with lipstick. She wore a long-sleeved blouse that covered her arms, and the only way you could tell her elbows had been hurt was by noting she never sat at her desk with them on it She held her arms in close to her sides, as though she were holding some sort of extra pain in. I wondered if maybe Lisa had broken a couple of her ribs as well. But I didn’t say anything.

  From that day on, M.N. and I never left Lisa’s side. We ate lunch with her. We walked her to school. We took her home with us. On weekends, one of us was always “on call” and could be free in five minutes if Lisa felt she needed us. Elizabeth had withdrawn, not because of Lisa’s attack, but more to think things through.

  “We have to decide what to do next,” she told me. “I have to work this thing out.”

  “All right,” I had said. “Whatever you think is best.”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth.

  For some reason, I knew Lisa was relying on Elizabeth to solve her problem—not the madness, but the aloneness, the agony, the fear she felt. Because by now, Lisa was terrified of what she might do next.

  “You have to promise me something,” she said once to me.

  “Sure,” I said. “What?”

  “That the next time, when I go—nuts, you won’t try to handle it by yourselves. Neither you nor M.N. nor Elizabeth. I want you to call the police.”

  “The police! But that’s awful. They won’t give you the help you need.”

  “I know that. But they might give the news to my parents. They might be able to convince them where we can’t. You have to promise me you’ll call them, Betsy. Promise me.”

  “All right,” I said. “I give you my word.”

  “Good,” Lisa said, and then the light went out and she fell silent again which, by then, had become her usual state.

  I told Mr. Bernstein what Lisa wanted. “She’s right, I think,” he said. He put his fingers together and began his little swinging motion. “You see,” he went on, “she knows. That Shilling’s a very smart girl. She sees what’s happening, and she doesn’t want it to. That is really very good. It means she’s fighting herself herself, if you know what I mean. She still knows her from her, her old self from the new one.”

  “But knowing that doesn’t get us anywhere. Every day she gets worse. Even Mr. Milne said he would have to keep her out of class if she couldn’t stop interrupting. Naturally, she can’t.”

  “Well,” Mr. Bernstein said, “we have something like three weeks left. Perhaps she can hold on. Then she’ll have the time she needs to rest, and the responsibility will be her family’s, as it should be.”

  “But she won’t have help! She won’t have us, or you, or even Mr. Milne!”

  “That could be a good thing. Her parents will have to open their eyes.”

  “Oh, I hope so. How we all hope so!”

  But really I wasn’t hopeful. So far, the Shillings had never seen Lisa in one of her moods. She was always able, somehow, to seem more or less normal around them.

  Actually, she wasn’t at all able to seem one way or another at home. There was something inside her that was being held back, that the “English” side of her hid and wouldn’t set free when her parents were around. It was a joke of a mean, desperate, evil kind, and it depressed all of us. God knows what it did to Lisa.

  So when she was at home, Lisa ate dinner alone and then went up to her room to “do her homework.” It was when she was alone that anything happened, if it did. No one else knew or saw or detected a strangeness.

  Lisa’s little sister Tracy, though, did call M.N. once to ask if she thought there was anything funny about the way Lisa was behaving.

  “Why?” asked M.N.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Tracy said. “I just remember that one dinner we had, when you were there. And it seems sometimes she’s not there, you know? I mean, she hardly ever says anything to me, just looks clear through me when we’re together. It’s scary, is all. I thought maybe something was bothering her I didn’t know about.”

  “What do your parents say?” M.N. asked hopefully.

  “Nothing. They think everything’s fine,” Tracy answered.

  “Oh,” M.N. said. “Then I guess everything is. But Tracy—”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing. Never mind. It was just an idea was all. Bye.”

  “What were you going to say?” I asked M.N. later.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought about asking her to come over some time when Lisa was with us.”

  “Well, why didn’t you? Maybe she could persuade her parents.”

  “I guess because she’s only twelve. It seems awful to let her see her sister like that.”

  “She’ll have to know some time,” I said. “So will her family.”

  “Well let them find out by themselves,” M.N. said and went back to reading Modern Clinical Psychology.

  And I envied her. M.N., I mean. Because she was always poring over journals and magazines, and those dreadful looking books with double columns in tiny print, looking for answers. I guess M.N. thought she had found some. I hadn’t. I was more confused every day.

  Because I kept thinking about Lisa and Elizabeth at the fireplace. I couldn’t understand why, if Lisa counted on Elizabeth to help her, she attacked her. If Elizabeth really had been through something like Lisa’s sickness before, and if Lisa wanted help, why strike out at the one person who better than anyone else might save her? It was a strange way to go about getting help.

  I finally had to settle my own mind as best I could, and all I could think was that maybe that was plain and simple what madness was: doing just the opposite of what you wanted to do, and having no control over any of it. It was a poor explanation, but I still believed that Lisa wanted our help, and I still wanted to give it

  Things were quiet for a while then. Lisa said nothing and caused no one any trouble. And a couple of times I saw her fall asleep in class, just as she had said. It was groovy!

  You could hardly tell when it happened, except that her hands relaxed. She sat up straight, her eyes wide open. But her hands would sort of release themselves, and the pencil she ordinarily clutched like a talisman would slip out of her grip and roll into her lap. And that was that. She could sit that way for what seemed like hours, awakening without a start when the bell rang to change classes. It was the neatest way to go through school I’d ever seen.

  Meanwhile, I was memorizing the telephone numbers of the police emergency squad, and the fire department, and an ambulance service. I figured I might as well be prepared for
the worst.

  But while I had promised Lisa I’d call the police if ever she went berserk again, I didn’t want to. I kept hoping that when it came, if it came, it would be no worse than before. Something we could handle ourselves. For though I agreed that the police might be an answer to our problem, I hated the thought of showing Lisa off to outsiders. It seemed cruel and mean, and the very idea made me depressed. Still, when it did come, there was nothing else to do but use a special number. I just had to.

  18

  Our therapy sessions with Lisa by this time had taken on definite form. There was no therapy offered at all, except our own presence when Lisa wanted it. She had stopped trying to explain what was happening in her head. She no longer told about her fears or about her wonderment when the “thing” came on her. She wouldn’t even talk about how important it was for her parents to know and admit she was ill.

  M.N. informed us that Lisa was in a precatatonic stage. This meant that she had become emotionless, with neither the desire to live or speak normally. That all we could expect from here on in was silence, immobility, a zombie, in fact. (I used that word once and M.N. nearly killed me. Not because it sounded unkind toward Lisa, but because it wasn’t scientific.)

  I wasn’t quite ready to give Lisa up yet. Mostly because I didn’t feel the same way Mary Nell did about her silences. They could be broken when she wanted to break them.

  One night after school we were all at my house. My parents had gone out to an early dinner, and my brother was messing around somewhere up the street, so we had the house to ourselves. Which wasn’t that exciting since all we did was sit around. Elizabeth and I would talk about this or that, and M.N. had a book open on her lap from which she would read when the talk wasn’t as exciting as she liked.

  Lisa was in her usual spot, sitting on the floor, cross-legged, hunched over, listening or not as the mood took her. She was, by that time, several pounds thinner than she had ever been. And you could tell that when she was at home, sleep wasn’t anything that interested her any more than food. Her eyes had dark circles under them and her face was drawn tight against the outside world.

  Once in a while, Elizabeth or I would ask Lisa a question, hoping to break through to find out that she could still talk. But she ignored us, never even raising her head when we spoke. Sometimes she would nod yes or no, but not in answer to what we were saying. It seemed there was someone inside her who was carrying on a very serious, very long and detailed conversation with her, and these nods were her way of speaking whole volumes with the least possible effort. Whoever it was inside apparently understood.

  So there we were—Fickett, Frazer, Goodman, and Shilling—one night after school. We had made peanut-butter sandwiches (dietetic peanut butter, naturally) and had some warm consommé, and were trying to decide what to watch on television. There was a fairly good movie on (Rally ’Round the Flag, Boys! with my baby Paul), but we decided against it because it would have kept us all up later than we wanted. There wasn’t much else on except some educational stuff and a game show, which we all hate.

  Suddenly, the door from the hallway opened and there was my father, back much too early from dinner. “Hi, girls,” he said, walking straight into the room.

  I may have forgotten to mention that outside of M.N.’s father, none of our parents knew about Lisa. It was sort of stupid, maybe, but we decided that if Mr. Fickett had struck out so easily, my father probably wouldn’t do that much better and Elizabeth’s father was in Europe too often to even try.

  Anyway, there was my father, walking right in. I guess there was no reason for him not to, considering it was his house, too. Both Elizabeth and I stood up and moved in front of Lisa as M.N. began talking to him, hoping somehow to be polite and yet tell him to go away.

  “Hi, Mr. Goodman,” M.N. said. “Where’s Mrs. Goodman?”

  “I think she’s in the kitchen, Mary Nell. Is there something you want?”

  “Oh no, not really,” M.N. answered. “I just thought I heard her calling you, is all.”

  “You did?” Father said.

  “Probably just my imagination,” M.N. admitted.

  “Probably,” Father agreed.

  “Hello, Mr. Goodman,” Lisa said.

  Elizabeth and I whirled around. Lisa was sitting up straight and smiling!

  “Well, hello, Lisa,” Father said, peering over the couch past M.N. to speak to her. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Lisa said, standing up. She was still smiling.

  Father looked at her a moment, but she didn’t say anything more. “Well,” he said, “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Yes,” Lisa said for no reason.

  Then she turned around, toward the wall of glass that looked out on to our backyard. Still smiling, she went toward the windows. We could see her reflection from head to foot, and she must have seen it, too, for it was dark outside then and you couldn’t possibly mistake the glass for no glass, if you know what I mean.

  But that’s what Lisa did. Or that’s the way it seemed, anyway. She stepped up to the wall of glass and walked right through it. Her right foot went through first with an unearthly shattering sound, and then her whole right leg. Then her body pushed the break, head down, and she was through! “Lisa!” M.N. screamed. “Good God!” cried Father, running after her.

  But Lisa just kept walking. She stopped, finally, and turned to face us. Her head was streaming blood and her leg had a line of blood streaking down and running out into the grass. She was still smiling.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” she said. Then she fainted.

  We all sprang into action. Father rushed out into the yard, taking off his jacket and slipping it under her head. Elizabeth took off her blouse (guts, that girl!) and followed, tearing it into strips to stop the flow of blood. I grabbed the telephone and dialed a number I had memorized.

  M.N. dashed into the kitchen for some toweling and was back in a flash at Lisa’s side, cleaning the wounds.

  “Betsy!” called my father. “Call the Shillings. Get them over here.”

  “O.K., Dad,” I said and turned back to the phone, trembling. This would be it. Lisa had an adult witness now and her parents couldn’t help but see her now as we did.

  “Hello, Mrs. Shilling? Is your husband home? Oh. Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, “then I guess you had better get over here. Where? The Goodman’s house,” I said. “This is Betsy Goodman.”

  Naturally she wanted to know why, since her husband was out of town. “There’s been a sort of accident, Mrs. Shilling,” I said. “Lisa is pretty bloody.” I loved telling her that! She gasped and said she was on her way. At least that much had gotten through to her.

  By that time Lisa was bandaged as well as she could be and covered with one of Father’s coats. Elizabeth and M.N. stayed at her side as my father walked back in.

  “The ambulance should be here in a minute,” I told him.

  “She knew exactly what she was doing,” Father said shaking his head. “What the hell is the matter with her?”

  “She’s very sick, Dad,” I said. “Really. In her mind.”

  “Mr. Goodman!” M.N. called from the backyard. Father turned around and ran out. I followed and we looked down at Lisa whose eyes were flickering. She opened them fully and looked up at Father. She smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said. Then she sank back into her unconsciousness.

  Father stood there shaking his head, puzzled. Elizabeth stood up. “Mr. Goodman,” she said, “you may have saved Lisa’s life.”

  “I don’t understand,” Father said. “I don’t understand at all.”

  “Lisa needed you,” Elizabeth told him, not even thinking about the cold or the night or the fact that she had no blouse on. “Her own family has never seen she needs help. Now you have.”

  “What does she want from me?” asked Father.

  “You have to tell Mrs. Shilling, Dad,” I said. “She wouldn’t listen to any of us, but she will to you.”

/>   “After all,” M.N. added, “what kind of girl would purposely walk through a wall of glass? It’s suicide.”

  “Someone who badly needed help, I guess,” Father admitted and turned back into the house as he heard the ambulance siren.

  Within seconds, four white-coated doctors and attendants were in the backyard, administering to Lisa. They covered her up nearly to her head and lifted her on to a stretcher so gently that you couldn’t believe it. They were carrying her through the house when Mrs. Shilling walked in.

  “What happened!” she shouted. “Where are you taking her?”

  “To Mount Cedar,” one of the attendants said. “She’ll be all right. Do you want to ride in the ambulance with her?”

  Mrs. Shilling turned white. “No!” she said. “No, I’ll drive myself.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the man said. They carried Lisa out to the car and loaded her into the back of it The siren sounded before the car moved and then they all took off, red lights and siren and speed all blurring into the night

  “Will someone please tell me what exactly happened here?” Mrs. Shilling said through her teeth, staring at Elizabeth as an afterthought.

  “Come in and rest a minute,” said Father, taking her arm and leading her into the game room. “I’m sure Lisa will be fine. This,” he said pointing to the nonexistent window, “is what happened.”

  “What? Did someone push her?”

  “No,” Father said. “She walked through it.”

  “What!” Mrs. Shilling gasped. “She walked through it?”

  “Yep,” M.N. said. “Just ducked her head and dove through.”

  “But there must have been a reason. What was happening? What were you doing to her?” Mrs. Shilling wanted to know.

  “Mrs. Shilling,” Father said, “sit down, won’t you, for just a moment.”

  She did, but she wasn’t happy. “Well?”

  “Well,” said Father, “it seems you have a very sick girl on your hands.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure, really,” Father admitted. “I guess she’s upset, and feels she needs help from someone.”