The Beggar's Garden (3 page)

Now here I was, back at the hospital, and even though I'd packed a bag, I had to remind myself I wasn't here to stay this time.

Hours passed and the ambulances grew more frequent. The injuries migrated steadily from those self-inflicted to those inflicted by others. The television programs, in turn, became more violent and I wondered if there was a connection.

A drunk man in a tank top that said Ask Me If I Care held a diaper to his caved cheekbone and sought for nearly an hour to convince his girlfriend to call his mother because it was her birthday.

Here, I'm dialling, he said, waving his phone with his free hand as she cupped her ears and shook her head, while saying over and over that this was his shit.

A worn-looking woman with a shelf of sparkly cleavage stared unflinchingly up at the television. She clicked her furry heeled boots on the waxed floor and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She didn't flinch when the nurse finally called her, once out loud, then over the intercom. She jumped when the nurse's silver-bangled hand met her shoulder.

I investigated each person called before me to the examination rooms for signs of illness. Most of them didn't seem that bad off, but of course neither did I. It's hard to see that someone wants to end their life just by looking at them, so I trusted in their greater need for medical attention and didn't get frustrated.

Finally, the nurse called me and I gave one last look to the empty ambulance area and followed the blue line as instructed, walking it like a tightrope.

There was no tissue paper on the green vinyl bed so I spooled some out and sat down. I studied the tools for looking into people's different holes. They were attached to a little box with curly headphone cords, all hung up like a celebrity kitchen. People like
hanging tools on the walls because it helps them remember they can handle any kind of situation.

Put this on, a cheery nurse with a lip problem said, handing me a gown. Then she zipped shut the curtain with a grating metal-on-metal sound.

I set the gown on the paper, took out a tongue depressor and depressed my tongue, but it almost made me puke so I stuck it back in the jar. I didn't put the gown on because my problem was in my mind not my body so there would be no need for an examination. I waited, listening for the sound of the paramedic's voice from outside the curtain.

The curtain zipped again. Hi Maya, I'm Doctor Gerwer, said a white-coated man. He had hair that seemed too blond for his face and steel, efficient-looking glasses.

I understand you are having some trouble, he said, that you've been experiencing some troubling thoughts.

Oh, they aren't too bad, I said. I have nice ones too so they balance out.

Well, it says here you've been feeling like you may harm yourself?

Everyone wants to impress their doctor and I'm no different. I pronounce clearly and try to present him with symptoms he'll find remarkable. I want to thrill him with the story of the greatest disease in the history of diseases, a disease that has chosen me only because it knows I and I alone am worthy enough to endure it. I want to lead him to a diagnosis that's so clear-cut, all he has to do is sign off on it, then we can go for drinks and chat about how brilliant I am for diagnosing myself with no formal training,
and about how hopelessly out of touch most people are with their own bodies. But unfortunately, I didn't want to kill myself at all anymore, and being away from the ambulances made me antsy, so I stamped out my storytelling urges. Yeah, but I'm fine now.

He took a slow breath and seemed like he was thinking. I scribbled a mental note that the pausing-equals-thinking trick really did work.

Do you think it's possible to force yourself to stop breathing?

Oh, no, I said.

But this is what you told the paramedics? Correct? I made a remembering face. I guess so, I said, then shrugged as breezily as I could manage. He made some notes.

Well, Maya, I think it would be best for us to have you as our guest here a few days to see if we can get you all sorted out.

I really don't want to stay, I said. I'm feeling better.

I'm afraid it's something that we strongly suggest.

I couldn't believe I was turning down a free visit to the hospital, even if I'd be in the psych ward where the nurses weren't as nice and definitely didn't fluff pillows, but that's the kind of sacrifice you have to be willing to make for love. I knew I needed to distract the doctor and the best way was to give him something he could feel good about.

What I
have
been having is a pain in my guts.

He scrunched his face. Let's see, he said, putting his hand to my belly, testing me like a steak.

Is the pain here? he said, pressing deep with the two fingers you use to take a pulse.

My guts didn't really hurt but his pressing could have hurt if he had done it even just a little harder so I said yes.

Hmmm, he said. Have you felt this kind of pain before?

No, I said, I don't think—Oh! You know what? I did eat some chicken today that had been in my fridge for a while.

Oh sure, he said, chicken can grow all kinds of nasty bacteria. What I do is label food I put in the fridge with a date, so I know how long it's been there.

That must be it, I said. I'll be sure to do that smart labelling thing, thanks, Doc, this pain is already feeling better, thanks so much for your help. I stood, clapped my hands and started gathering up my things. I was sure my plan had worked, but he just looked at me, puzzled.

Why don't you wait here and I'll have someone walk you over to the psychiatric unit, where you'll be more comfortable, he said, and left the room.

It felt like something had rolled down a steep hill inside me and struck something valuable. Convinced I would never find my paramedic, my body became heavy with real, actual despair, not the kind that makes you kill yourself, but the kind that makes you give up on something you desperately want and just go home.

When I was in the hospital with my broken arms there was a lady in the gift shop who gave me penny-candy fish or bookmarks with funny sayings. She didn't have to be nice to me, but was anyway. When I was older I returned to the hospital and a different lady was behind the counter. She said the other lady had died. I asked her for some free penny candy and she scowled.

Nobody does something kind for someone else if they don't love them, even a little. I'm not stupid, though, I knew my
paramedic was supposed to come to my apartment to help me, that it was his job, and people do jobs for money not because they want to. But people choose careers in health care because they love caring for people. The problem was my paramedic and I wouldn't be given the chances other couples were, happening into each other on the street, or joining the same life-drawing class. He'd chosen to find my nightgown interesting, which means he must have loved at least some little part in me, and I couldn't let that slip away.

I passed the nurses' station and none of them looked up from their computers or cups of microwavable soup. I came across a pair of orderlies striding the blue line in the direction I'd come from and ducked my head.

Then came the thrilling moment in the lobby when I saw him, wheeling a guy on a stretcher through automatically parting doors. I called to him but my words were outstripped by what he and the other paramedics and nurses were yelling to one another about colours and codes.

I'd prepared for complications like this by accustoming myself to the thought of him caring for other patients, so I wasn't anywhere near jealous. His job was important to him, he was career oriented, that's why I liked him, and trust is something that must be unconditional.

They were moving quickly toward the No Entry doors so I had to trot to catch him, even though at that moment I was finding it difficult to breathe.

Hi, I said, tapping him on the shoulder.

He turned and I saw that our time apart had infused his face with an even greater surplus of beauty. He began to speak but I
accidentally interrupted him by blurting, Your card! horrified that I must have left my bag in the examination room.

Wait here! I said, and thanked the god that I don't believe in for the blue line that I was able to trace back, because otherwise I would have got lost because people do silly things in the throes of passion with their guards down.

I whipped open a few wrong curtains, saying sorry to the different sick people, some of whom I recognized from the lobby, until I found my old examination room, where there was now an old man laying on his stomach, his withered butt peeking through his gown. I found my bag tucked under a little stool and the old man didn't stir. So even though it wasn't nighttime, I changed into my interesting nightgown because I was worried my paramedic hadn't remembered me without it to trigger his memory. It crossed my mind that the next person to undo each of its five neck buttons that were shaped like mini-seashells might not be me, and my heart felt like four different hearts who were all best friends, pumping away in unison for a good and noble cause.

When I got back my paramedic was gone. I pushed through the No Entry doors and spotted him and some others down a hallway. They had stopped beside an elevator, waiting for something or someone.

Hi, I said when I caught up to him. He was holding some bags of fluid up in the air and his armpits were sweaty, but not too sweaty, a good, healthy amount.

Hi? he said, glancing down at my nightgown and I could tell he still found it profoundly interesting.

You can't be in here, said a bearded security guard, his hand on my back.

It's okay, the paramedic said to him, which he didn't have to do, and this warmed my heart and proved that I and I alone remained his favourite patient. His eyes were so blue that I bet on a clear day, looking up at him from underneath with his hands planted in the grass on each side of your face, they would look like holes bored all the way through his head.

Can I help you? he said.

Here, I said, holding out his card, this is for you.

He didn't reach for it and I prayed I'd spelled
Paramedic
right because he was regarding the envelope with a funny expression.

He laughed. Sorry, we don't really accept gifts, he said.

He was trying to be professional, but I couldn't help but take this personally, especially because my card was nothing if not personal. If only I could tell him what was inside the envelope, then he would know why he actually wanted to accept it as a gift, but that would ruin the whole surprise effect that is so great about card-giving.

You should open it. You'll like it, I said, winking, with a feeling that I was already giving too much of the card away.

He said he couldn't right now because he was in the middle of an emergency. I looked down at the unconscious man on the stretcher whose legs were both wrapped with large pads of bloody gauze, and he seemed pretty content to me.

The elevator chimed and the medical people started pushing the man through the doors.
Do you want to grab a coffee after work? I asked, with no other choice than to ruin the most exciting part of the card completely.

He mustered a strange expression, the bewildered kind people give when they've just heard something that is so absolutely impossible that they can't even consider it. Did he think he was too good for me? For my card?

Sorry, he said, and walked into the elevator and I saw now that he was just as heartless as Sideburns or any other guyfriend I'd ever loved—perhaps more so—and that he was probably just accidentally horny the day he came over and found me so interesting. I yearned now to prove him wrong, to wound him and show him how much he did in fact care for me, deep inside him, on frequencies that his heart couldn't detect, with a tenderness and compassion crafted only for me, and during this contemplation I found myself warming again to the whole killing-myself business. I wondered how many people had actually killed themselves because of the callousness of others, or even just so they didn't have to feel like a liar anymore, and I figured it was probably all of them.

I took the deepest breath I could and locked it away in my chest. I felt my eyes bulge and my lungs began to chip away at the air. Miniature crystal bells tolled in my ears and it was as if I was pressing my stomach to a brick wall, peering through a window, and then I knew I was envisioning our future, his and mine. I watched the paramedic and I on a queen-sized bed, spending entire days entwined, our arms going to sleep from constant embracing, breaking only for one of us to make toast while wearing the rumpled clothes of the other, settling for the lightest toast
setting because the longer toasting time seemed like a painful eternity to be apart.

How much do you love me right now? I would say, returning with fresh toast slices on our last clean dish.

I love you this much, he'd say, stretching his arms past the edges of the bed, as wide as was physically possible for him.

Only that much? I'd say.

Then I love you as far from here to Neptune.

Do you love me more than you did yesterday?

He'd think a minute, and here I mean really think.

Yes, I do, he'd say.

Then you didn't really love me yesterday, I'd say, not really. But I didn't know yesterday that I could've loved you more today.

What if you love me more tomorrow?

Oh stop this, he'd say, kissing me in rapid fire. And then he would say that he didn't care, he just loved me today and tomorrow and forever and I would believe him and we would have sex with each other's bodies as well as our minds because the mind is the largest erogenous zone and we would live with no need for greeting cards because we would speak in our own voices without fear and each day would be the day before the day he would leave me.

Then my imagining stalled because by this point my lungs were crawling, like two lobsters having a death match in my chest, and I was on the floor. My paramedic was feeling my neck and talking at the others saying the word
seizure.
It was a beautiful word, as pure as lightning. Maybe I
was
having a seizure, I thought, grand mal, probably, which is French for really bad, and that seemed apt for the way my paramedic was abandoning me with such cruelty.