Cafe Babanussa (26 page)

Ruby took one look down the hall and then ran out the door in her bare feet. She had to find Luna. She hoped that the front door would be locked already but there was no guarantee. She crossed the courtyard in the dark; the front doors were wide open. She ran around the courtyard calling, “Luna, Luna,” but didn't see her anywhere. She took off through the front doors with no idea which way to turn. She jogged south, calling out the cat's name. Someone had undoubtedly tried to kidnap her kitty. That's it, they were going to send her up in space—Luna, the moon cat. To her she represented the night, the moon, the galaxy. Others must see it, too. Ruby stepped
through the open doors of a bar and asked if anyone had seen a white and grey cat.

“Sind Sie wohl verrückt?” Are you crazy?
They looked with disdain at the wild-eyed, barefoot creature standing before them. Ruby moved on. She continued huffing and puffing along another street, carried away by her thoughts, wondering what would be done to her cat. They might shoot her up in a shuttle all by herself. She stooped to look under a car or two.

Ruby saw red lights flashing. A police car was coming slowly down the road. Ruby slammed herself up against a building. The cruiser stopped in front of her and the officer rolled down the window and offered to help her.
“Können wir Ihnen helfen, meine Dame?”

“No, I'm sorry, I'm just looking for my cat.”

“Ma'am, it's barely ten degrees outside and you're running around in your bare feet. Get in the car and we'll drive you home.”

Ruby didn't like the looks on their faces. They must be part of the conspiracy. They were probably going to take her away and she would never see Luna again.

“No, no, it's okay.”

“Ma'am, we've had complaints about you yelling your head off throughout the neighbourhood.”

It was a one-way street. The cops were facing south. Ruby took off and ran north as fast as she could. She ducked into another street and ran hard until she had made her way home. What about Luna? Once in the courtyard Ruby was out of breath and stopped to stretch. She got down on her
knees in a child's pose and prayed to the gods of the earth to set her Luna free. She turned to the north, the south, then to the east, stopping to pray each time. When she came to the west she found herself facing the garbage cans. She slipped into a cat's pose and began meowing. Sure enough before long a fluffy little head poked its pink nose around the corner. “Luna,” Ruby whispered, not wanting to scare her. She crawled over to the cat, who rubbed up against her as if nothing had gone wrong. Ruby picked her up and said, “Luna, you can moon-watch from the window. No more going outside for you.”

Issam arrived home in the middle of the night and found Ruby sitting up in bed staring at the ceiling, which was stuccoed. The cat was resting in her lap. “The flourishes are like a circus,” she told him, “the trapeze, the trampoline, and the animals all swirling around.”

“Ruby, please, you need to get some sleep. Come lie down with me.” He reached over to rub her head.

She pulled back. “Issam, have you been meeting with people about me? I know you have. There's a conspiracy. People want to take my cat. And they want to study my brain.”

“Ruby, I wish I could say that I had met with people about you—with a bunch of psychiatrists, that is. I never much believed in them before, but you need help.”

“Aha! You see, psychiatrists. They want to use my brain—study it, dissect it.”

“Why, Ruby? Why would they?” Issam almost yelled at
her. “Tomorrow's another day. You'll see the doctor. I'll give your shoulders a massage. Maybe that will help you relax.”

Ruby gave in and tried to enjoy the massage while she looked at the ceiling, swirling just like her mind.

Emma took her to her doctor the next morning. Ruby was tired and in no state to cope with all the people on the subway, so they took a cab. Her doctor took one look at her and said he was giving her an injection of Haldol. If she wasn't better in one week, he said, he would try to get her into hospital again. In the meantime he was going to refer her to a psychiatrist, who might have a better handle on how to manage these bouts over the long term. He suggested she stay quiet, and not go out alone anywhere until he saw her the following week. Ruby tried to bring up the issue of what she had seen and felt the day before, but the doctor gently dismissed it, saying it was likely just another one of her delusions and that there was no point in trying to analyze it further because she needed to focus on the present.

When Ruby got home, Issam saw to it that she had something to eat and then she propped herself up in bed. She was thinking about Abena when she heard a sharp rap at the door. Issam opened up and Werner pushed his way in.

“I want to see Ruby,” he said.

“Ruby's not feeling too well. This is not a good time to come by.”

“Don't try to stop me, you monkey,” he said as he shoved past Issam and strode down the hall.

Ruby was stunned to see Werner. She rolled on her side and turned her back to him.

Werner came around to face her. “Ruby, what are you doing? What's wrong? Are you sick again?”

“Werner, not now. Go away.”

“Ruby, I know how to look after you. Are you sick? Maybe you need to go to the hospital again.”

Issam stepped up to Werner and said, “Listen, she's been to the doctor, she's being treated. She doesn't want you here.”

Werner looked at Issam and said, “Shh. Speak when you're spoken to.”

Ruby wrestled herself out of bed and stood up in front of Werner. She drew her hand back and smacked him as hard as she could across the face. “Don't you ever,
ever
talk to him like that again. Get out of here and don't come back, you little pseudo-anarchist.”

Werner's eyes were doing a crazy dance of anger. He leaned in to Ruby and said, “You'll learn to regret your words.”

Issam grabbed Werner's arm. “Do you want me to call the police?”

“Ha! Sure. That would be really good for you, now, wouldn't it? How about a free ticket back home? Okay, I'm going. But I'm not finished here.”

Ruby yelled out to him, “I've got Issam and Emma, and my sister's coming, too. I don't need a dickwad like you.”

Issam looked at her and asked, “What on earth did you see in a guy like that?”

Ruby shook her head. “I don't even know how to answer that anymore.”

An hour later Ruby tried calling Abena but got no answer. She was worried about her friend. She was hoping that she had found some determination and that it would carry her through this blackness and erase the storm clouds that brewed perpetually in her eyes. But Abena had told them, “I will not waste my time mincing words with someone who doesn't even know me and who would only put me on drugs. If I can't get better with the help of my friends then I won't carry on at all.”

The next morning the phone rang early. It was Kwame.

“Oh my god, oh my god, it's Abena.”

“Slow down, Kwame,” Ruby said. “What on earth is wrong?”

“Abena just tried to commit suicide. She sat in a bathtub full of water and slashed her wrists. We're all at the hospital now, but we don't know yet if she's going to make it.”

Ruby screamed, dropping the phone, and then she fell on the floor as hot tears streamed out of her. She called out Abena's name over and over. She grabbed on to Issam's feet as he entered the room and dragged him down, and he lay there with her while she rolled back and forth, gasping for breath, wailing and moaning. They stayed that way for a long while. Even Luna came out of hiding and came by to rub up against Ruby and sniff at her face. The cat crouched on the floor next to them.

Ruby knew that she was once again wrestling with the depths of her own madness and prayed that she would not be led down the same path as Abena. She had visited similar shores in her own life and knew how hard it was to dust off the soot of darkness and come out unscathed. She did not want
to judge, but only to hang on to the love that she felt for her friend.

The next day she decided to go to the hospital. She was too afraid to go alone, so Issam accompanied her. Their friend was in no mood for communication; in a drugged haze, she drifted in and out of consciousness. Ruby sat there for a while, simply holding Abena's hand and then putting a palm on her forehead. They didn't linger for too long, and Ruby planned to return in a few days when Abena would hopefully be better.

J
ESSIE ARRIVED THE NEXT DAY.
I
T WAS SPRING, AND
she wore a lemon-yellow jacket over tight black jeans.

“Jessie? Is that you?” Ruby yelled from down the hallway, her voice fully animated. The two sisters ran into each other's arms, hugging so hard that they had to stop to catch their breath.

“Jessie, you look wonderful,” Ruby said, admiring her sister's long, frizzy tresses. “You stopped cutting your hair.”

“Yes, now we really are opposites. I see you're keeping yours very short.”

“It's easier to manage,” said Ruby.

Issam gestured to both of them to come into the kitchen. “Coffee, tea?”

“Black tea would be great,” said Jessie as she looked with concern at her sister's worn features, especially the large, dark circles around her eyes. Her short hair was tangled and her clothes were wrinkled.

“Sis, have you been to a doctor yet?”

Ruby moaned quietly. “Yes, yes I have. I got an injection of Haldol. I hope it helps soon. I'm starting to feel numb. That's a sure sign that things are beginning to work.” She sighed. “I almost lost one of my closest friends the other day. She tried to commit suicide, but she wasn't successful. She's going to be okay. I went to see her yesterday, but she's not really present yet. It's been very stressful.”

“I'm so sorry. That's awful.”

“I'm tired. It's such a fight to maintain some kind of balance. I hope the meds will stop the thoughts from wrapping themselves around my brain and squeezing out all reality.”

“I never understood how you could be undergoing all this and still be able to talk to me. I mean, I'm not doubting you, and I've seen it before, but phew!”

“It's only because I'm not totally gone yet. I guess I managed to get help before the delusions completely took over my mind. But even now, Jessie, as I am talking to you I'm wondering where you fit in the conspiracy of meddlers who seem out to get me.”

“Who's in the conspiracy, Ruby?”

Issam was standing, tending to the tea and the soup. He listened attentively as the two sisters talked.

“Well, Mom and Dad—Mom's some kind of goddess who sits at a council where they make decisions about the world, including me. All the doctors I've ever been to are there—scientists want to use my brain for research. And the TV is part of it, too—on every show I watch, I think people are observing me and talking about me.”

Ruby wanted to be honest with her sister now, when she was still in what she called the “middle phase” of her illness. She could still sort out her thoughts if she tried hard enough, and even if she sounded a little slow and stunned, she could hold down a conversation for a while as long as the other person kept actively engaging her. But she was sure no one could really understand what she was going through, not even Jessie.

“When it gets really bad, I think the whole place is bugged and they're all trying to get at me.”

“Why? Why do they want to get at you, Ruby?” asked Jessie.

“They want a piece of my brain. It's somehow special. Remember that ear operation I had as a baby? Well, that's when they first got in. Hell, they even want my
cat
! Anyway, talk about being a megalomaniac. It's beyond my control . . .”

“Oh Ruby, none of this makes any sense. Why on earth would they want your cat? I didn't even know that you had one.”

“Because she's a moon cat, she understands the moon. They want to send her up in space.”

“I'd like to see this cat,” said Jessie dryly, “the cat that's going to commandeer a spaceship. Do you think they have a spacesuit for her? Oh well, a dog's been up, why not a cat?” Jessie sighed. “Ruby, I think you need a rest and I know I do. I didn't sleep a wink on the flight. Why don't we both lie down for a little while?”

Ruby showed Jessie to her room and then went down the hall to her own bedroom. She tried to lie still and see if
she could go to another place of consciousness. Could she get below the voices, beyond their reach? She thought about the times when she was in hospital and would search for a quiet place in her head away from all the hustle and bustle. It was very hard to find, but she had managed it once or twice. She lay still, breathing deeply, and shut her eyes, trying to fall into nothingness. After a time of struggling and refocusing she heard a deep voice, male and pleasantly hushed, saying,
Let me take you there
. She thought she recognized the voice and searched in her mind for who it could be. But nothing came. She gave in to its whisper. Darkness came upon her and she felt like she was swaying. Chirrups and the sound of crickets filled her ears and she felt as if she were surrounded by loam, soft and spongy. All around her were the sounds of the inner earth. Ants scurried, worms dragged themselves quietly through the mud. A bee buzzed right before her nose and it twitched. Her head was filled only with the undulating music of this murky bog. A dragonfly fluttered to the right of her head. It was bright green and gold. Everything else was suffused with grey-brown tones. It smelled damp and fetid, and she was not uncomfortable, but rather tingly all over, sucking life in. The voice was present again.
Make your peace with the world
, it said.
You can stay here forever if you like
.

Ruby rested like this for about fifteen minutes and then the cat landed on her belly, jolting her out of her dream world. The cat nestled up against her chest. Ruby closed her eyes again and began drifting off when she heard a voice again.

Have you left me so suddenly? Come back in
. At first Ruby
thought it was the same voice, but as it continued it grew deeper and darker.
I've got you now, Ruby. I will tell your father what you did if you don't keep silent
. It was him again, her abuser. Ruby thrashed around in the bed, trying to escape. The cat went flying off her and scuttled off into a corner. Issam banged on the door and then opened it. “Ruby, are you okay?”

Ruby was crying. Jessie came in and wrapped her sister in her arms. “What's wrong, baby girl?”

Ruby shivered. She tried to explain what happened, but she felt as though she was talking nonsense. “I heard his voice again. I didn't tell you yet, Jessie, but a few days ago I had a delusion about being sexually abused. His voice sounded familiar to me, a lot like Daddy's friend Melvin Burns. Do you remember him?”

“Melvin Burns—get outta here! His wife and kids left him in the middle of the night many, many years ago. He was definitely a ladies' man. I always found him arrogant and more than a little unpleasant. But this—I don't know. You need to look into it. Maybe we can find out why his family left him.”

“Well, I don't know whether there's anything to it—I just had the vision a couple of days ago. Maybe I should talk about it with Mom.”

“Not just Mom. You should talk to Dad, too. And maybe you should get some professional help with this.”

“How can I get help for something when I don't even know if it really happened?” said Ruby.

“That's why—to figure out if it really happened! If you were abused as a child, it might just put some perspective on
all the bad choices you've made in men. Why you're such a floozy.”

“Is that what you think of me? That I'm a floozy? Really, Jessie, have some respect for me. Just because I've had a few more sexual partners than you doesn't make me a loose woman. A floozy! Who created that expression? Men. In the name of oppression. Hmmph!”

“Oh, here we go, out comes the feminist.” Jessie moved to her sister's bedside. “Ruby, why be so uptight? Everybody's bound to have some kind of illness at some time in their life.”

“Jess, it's not the same. There's not the same kind of stigma attached to having cancer or diabetes. The mentally ill are still treated as pariahs and outcasts, or at the very least as suspicious. Jessie, I'm so surprised at you—with our mother and all. Where's your compassion, your understanding of the issue?”

“But our mother
is
crazy. On that point I will agree.”

“You sound so callous when you say that.”

“Ruby, she damaged us with her behaviour, with her bouts of mania. She wasn't always there for us when we needed her.”

Ruby moved over on the mattress and gestured to her sister to sit down. “I don't feel damaged by her at all. She did the best she could. She worked when she could, she looked after us and Dad. In turn, can't she ask that we look after her when she needs it? She wasn't sick that often anyway.”

“I'm older and I can remember how strange her behaviour could be, even in between hospital admissions,” said Jessie. “It's hard to understand and therefore hard to forgive.”

“But it was never her fault. How can you not forgive her?”

“Maybe she should never have had children.”

“I can't believe what I'm hearing. Mom didn't even know she was manic-depressive when she had us.”

“I know, I know. I just wish she hadn't been so sick. You don't remember everything. I wish she had been there for us more.”

“Okay, I can accept that you might somehow feel shafted . . . but she did everything she was supposed to do. What's to blame?”

“Don't you feel any anger towards her for passing this on to you?”

“It's my lot in life. Sure, I'm frustrated. But I'm not angry at Mom. You gonna cry out again about not having children? That could be the beginning of eugenics. Do you really want that? Think about the history here. Think about the Nazis. I can't believe that you would echo that as we sit here in the capital of the former Reich.”

“Oh, Ruby, you're overdoing it. I just think it makes sense to plan before you have kids, and if you have some disease, then maybe you shouldn't have them. It's just like the prenatal screening they do to make sure your child won't have Down's syndrome or be autistic.”

“Yeah, and those things obviously don't always work. What do you do then?”

“I would probably give it up. And don't tell me you would keep it and things would be all rosy.”

“Rosy, who said rosy? I cannot even begin to fathom what it would be like to raise a child with a disability. But why
would I dismiss it outright? I know it sounds so hokey, but we really do need to share our love with all kinds. Everybody deserves a chance in this world.”

“You're such an idealist. I could never be like you, but I love you just the same, Sis.”

“Thanks, hon. I appreciate your support.”

“Ruby, don't take this the wrong way, but have you asked yourself lately what more can Berlin give you? What with your illness and all. You have to get on with fixing you so you don't keep breaking. And you can do that better at home, in my humble opinion.”

Ruby didn't want to start another argument, and it was true that she was overdue for a visit home, so she simply nodded her head.

“You need more rest. Tomorrow we're going to the Tiergarten with Emma, right?”

Ruby lay there thinking about the day and wondering about the murky bog. She decided not to try that pose again right now. There was another one she had practised in the hospital: the goddess pose. Both of these poses rendered her into a dreamlike state where she felt protected from the nurses and doctors and felt that her mind was temporarily safe from intruders. For the goddess pose she bent her arms and clasped her hands above her head. Her knees faced outward and the soles of her feet pushed together. But try as she might she could not find the release she was looking for. After ten minutes she gave up and curled herself into a ball much like the cat beside her. She slept fitfully and woke up when Issam came to
bed. He shushed her and rubbed her back for a minute before turning over and falling asleep.

The next morning, as Ruby dressed, she worried about how she'd manage the subway. There would be a lot of people and that was still scary for her. But she had gone with Issam when they went to see Abena. She had been nervous but okay, perhaps driven by adrenaline to see her friend and be sure that she was really alive. She had kept her head down the whole way there and back and was nervous, but she had managed. Still, she worried about today. Every day was different.

Being in close quarters with other people, especially strangers, made Ruby paranoid. She knew she would feel as if everyone was prying into her mind, as if everyone were giving her signals. It had taken her over a month to ride the subway again last time. She just hoped that being with Jessie and Emma would keep her calm.

Ruby had been kicking around in T-shirts and old jeans for several weeks now. In honour of their spring walk, she chose to wear her good black jeans with a bright yellow wool pullover. She put on a pair of gold earrings and a floppy yellow crocheted hat and felt better immediately. It reminded her of how awful it was to be without one's own clothes in the hospital.

Jessie knocked at her door. “Why, aren't you just the Easter bunny. Love that hat!”

Issam had already left the house to spend the day with Magdi. They locked up and skipped down the stairs. The subway was only a ten-minute walk away. Ruby put her arm
through Jessie's and kept her head down, to avoid making eye contact with people. She laughed bitterly to herself.
This is it
, she thought.
This is one of the pieces of how people become truly crazy—by always looking at the ground and avoiding the gaze of others
. She decided to be brave and try holding her head up instead and just making sure to look away when someone passed.

They rode the subway to Turmstrasse and waited on the platform for Emma, who appeared dressed in a black skirt and a black wool jacket that hung open. Underneath was an emerald-green mohair sweater that matched the beret that sat jauntily on her red curls.