The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (5 page)

"And," the doctor finally said, "you say she's hasn't been able to
conceive?"

"No, Doctor."

"Hmmmmmmmm. Well, there's only one way to know for
sure...."

With that, Dr. Michaels pulled down the covers and in a second
smooth motion yanked up my nightie. Dimitri, who'd never actually
looked at what was on display, turned away as though it was something
meant to terrify. The doctor then directed my knees up and apart while
he took a tube of goo from his black bag and smeared it all over the first
and second fingers of his right hand. "Now take a deep breath," he
said, and a second later he was inside me, rooting around like a man
looking for lost change in a sofa. While it didn't hurt that much, it was
cold and humiliating and I wanted to grab his hand and tell him to put
it where it belonged. Throughout, he stared up and away, puzzling.
After a half-minute or so, he pulled out his hand and stood. He was
silent for a moment. Then he backed away and nodded solemnly at
Dimitri, who'd sort of half turned, only his shoulder in clear view. The
doctor's voice was low and sombre, and for a moment I thought he was
going to tell Dimitri I had something that might kill me.

Instead, he murmured, "I'm sorry Dimitri ... it's just what I was
afraid of.... There's definitely some displacement there. It's no wonder
she's been acting the way she's been."

He left, taking his turn-handled Faradizer with him, which worried me for it suggested I was beyond the help a Faradizer could offer. Dimitri then did something I've thought about for the rest of my life.
He came over, fell on his knees and buried his face in my neck. "I never
let you go, my little girl, never, never, never."

This reassured me, though later that day he must've changed his
mind, for he went ahead and signed the committal papers anyway.

Next morning my few things were packed and Dimitri took me all the
way to the hospital in a wagon borrowed from one of the grocers. The
trip took four hours, and by the time we got there I was hot and
smelling of horse and dust. After a long, tearful embrace (the tears
were his, as I was stunned and stiff and feeling unaffectionate), he got
in the wagon and drove off. I looked around. The lawns were thick and
green and the flowerbeds blooming and the fruit trees commencing to
bud. Strange, how beautiful everything was-seemed purposeful, as
though designed to make you lower your guard. I mounted a flight of
marble steps and passed between columns until I arrived at a high
wooden door. There I used a lion's-head knocker as heavy as a bag
filled with kittens to announce my arrival. When the door swung open,
I found myself looking into the eyes of a nurse dressed exactly as I'd
dressed at St. Mary's: nun-like, with a black skirt reaching all the way
to the floor and a collar so high it chafed the underside of her chin.

"Yes?" she said, though she must've known why I was there as I
had my little suitcase in front of me, hands clasped so tight on the handle my knuckles had gone white.

"Name's Aganosticus," I peeped. "Mary Aganosticus."

"Well, come in," she said with an enormous smile. "Please come
in-you must be exhausted."

She took my suitcase from me and placed it next to the receptionist's desk. Then she had me sit in a waiting room, where she
brought me a cup of tea with lemon. I was alone and frightened, though
not as frightened as I'd been earlier, for I'd expected straitjackets and
big men in white suits and the sounds of people screaming, and there was none of that. After a few minutes, I looked over and noticed my
suitcase had disappeared. This triggered a disquiet inside me, the kind
that won't stop until you do something about it, so I went and told the
receptionist my bag had up and walked away. She looked up and offered
me the same smile she'd used five minutes earlier. Then she told me
everything was perfectly fine and I should wait and relax and she'd get
me another cup of tea. This she did, and as I sipped the weak-tasting
liquid I kept my worries focused and therefore small by concentrating
on the square of floor space where my bag had been, telling myself so
long as I got it back, then, yes, everything would be just like she said.

Everything would be just fine.

AFTER FIFTEEN MINUTES OF NOT BEING ABLE TO CONJURE MY
bag out of thin air another nurse came up and smiled and
shook my hand and said, "Hello, Mrs. Aganosticus-I hear you've
joined us for a little rest?"

I said I had, if that's what you wanted to call it, though mostly I put
a lid on my natural tendency toward mouthiness. She told me her name
was Miss Galt and asked me to follow her. I did, the whole time generating as much dignity as is possible when you're not exactly sure if you'll
see the light of day ever again. (Was I terrified? Was my stomach doing
somersaults? Was I hoping to God all this was some sort of dream I'd
wake from sweating and whimpering and gripping at bedsheets? Course.
If I stop to describe exactly how scared I was every time something scary
happens, we'll be here for the next ten years. So do me a favour. At parts
like this imagine how you'd've felt, and we'll both do fine.)

We walked through a set of doors and entered one of the hallways radiating from the front foyer. It was completely empty and for this reason foreboding: the only thing I could hear was Miss Galt's feet
and my feet, our heels clacking against the floor. To keep from shaking
with fear I invented a game, which was to make my feet go in step with
her feet. Our clacking joined up. Was one sound where two belonged.
After a bit she noticed, turned and smiled, though it was the smile you
give a child who's just learned to use a spoon.

As we neared the end of this long, long hallway, I started to hear
a low murmur, like voices well off in the distance. It grew louder-not
loud, exactly, but louder-sounding more and more like the hubbub of
voices you get in a theatre before the play starts. We reached another
set of swinging doors, which were exactly like the first set we went
through, only they were thicker and rimmed with rubber strips. Miss
Galt stopped and placed a hand against one of the doors. "This is the
ward for incurables. Now it's a little unruly in there. But don't worry.
You won't be staying there. Is it all right if I call you Mary?"

I nodded, she pushed, and, oh, the noise.

It wasn't talking I'd heard coming through that soundproof door
but wailing and shrieking and haggard bent-over women braying like
donkeys and calling the words "Oh God oh God oh God." Every last
one was dressed in a long grey gown, their hair gone straggly and wild,
with scratches on their faces and forearms from where they'd dragged
their fingernails. Those not up and walking and babbling incoherently
were either strapped to their beds or unconscious. A few were banging
their foreheads against cement walls or bed railings. There were no
windows and the smells were awful and bugs were crawling up and
down the walls. Rats, too-you could see them scurrying along the
outer walls, awful rat jowls filled with heisted rat food. As I followed
after Miss Gait, taking quick little steps, I kept seeing things that'd form
foul little snapshots in my mind's eye and then refuse to go away: a
woman, spaces between her teeth, spotting me and lifting her gown,
showing me her privates. Another woman, young like me, but with
blood pumping from a nostril and when she spotted me she smiled broadly, her smile against all that blood making bumps come up on my
forearms. Or: an old woman, frail and the colour of fireplace ash,
crouched between two beds, concentrating hard on pulling shit out of
herself and using it to write a message on the wall, but because her shit
was so crumbly the word wouldn't come out so she tried harder and
harder and finally started shrieking in frustration, her hands crooked
and covered with it. I took in all this in the time it took to snap my head
away. Amazing, the way fear bends time around to squeeze things in.

We headed straight through, Miss Galt yelling over her shoulder
that only God's mercy would help those poor souls. We passed through
another short hallway, and through another ward like the first though
muted somewhat, and without the scenes of absolute lunacy. Finally,
we entered a ward far quieter than the first two, the occupants mostly
sleeping or reading or lying on beds staring at the ceiling or chatting in
small groups. There were fourteen beds, seven on either side of the
aisle. None of the beds had restraints, which relieved me to no end,
though I noticed there were locks on the doors at both ends of the
ward. Basically, my eyes were moving like a ferret's, inspecting everything, too scared to settle on one spot. Miss Galt led me to the last bed
on the left side of the room. A grey robe sat folded on the blanket. She
asked me to put it on, and as she did she gave a funny little gesture with
her right hand, as though her forefinger was stirring milk into tea. I hesitated, wondering if she really meant I should strip right there in front
of everyone, though it soon became obvious that was exactly what she
had in mind. After a few seconds' delay, her smile weakened, the corners
of her mouth trembling and then turning downward slightly.

I turned my back and undressed and slipped into the robe.

"Good," she said, holding out her arms to take my clothes.

I was left sitting on the bed, all by my lonesome. I took a deep
breath and tested the mattress by placing my palms flat against it and
pushing. For some reason, I looked under my pillow, feeling disappointed that nothing was there but bedding. Mostly I was sitting there and fretting and wondering what it was exactly I was supposed to do
when two women came over. One was about forty-five, the other
maybe thirty, and we only had to lock eyes for me to know their stories
weren't far off mine.

I pushed myself to the top of the bed to make room. They sat on
either side near the bottom. We didn't bother with niceties or introductions, though later I learned the older one was Joan and the younger
one Linda.

"How," I said in a loud whisper, "do I get outta here?"

Linda answered, also in a loud whisper: "First thing you have to
understand is you can get out of here. You can. Simple as that. So many
husbands are booking in their wives these days they have to let some of
us out some time or another. Inspectors come around and make the
decision. It might take a month, but you will get out."

"Yes," Joan echoed, "you will get out."

"So believe me, the trouble isn't getting out. It's getting out
without being operated on."

"Yes," said Joan, "the operation."

"So just do what they tell you. Act pleasant. Make your purses.
Don't go scrambling on walk days. Don't talk back or be ornery. And
whatever you do, don't hit anyone or you'll go to the violent ward
where they chain people to walls. There are padded cells down there
too and orderlies with the self-control of goats. So toe the line is my
advice, and you'll get out in one piece."

We talked for maybe an hour. After chatting about our husbands
(bastards, all three) they filled me in on ways to get by: which nurses
not to mess with and which inmates were dangerous and how to stay on
the good side of the cafeteria servers, who'd starve you if they decided
they didn't like the look of you.

"One other thing," Linda said. "There's a doctor here who's better than the others. Younger, with newer ideas. His name's Levine. Dr.
Levine. Get close to him if you can."

I repeated the name five times quickly to myself so I wouldn't
forget. See, my mind was spinning, as a mind'l! do when desperate to
land on anything it might mould a plan out of. That was how I first saw
him-by taking a look at the picture in my head. What I saw was
young. New ideas. Soft-spoken. Perhaps handsome, perhaps not.
Probably a do-gooder, out to change the world, desperate for someone
to prove his way of thinking.

With any luck, likes blond curls.

For the next two weeks, I took my walks and sewed my purses and ate
my rubbery overcooked pancakes (no butter or syrup, only blocks of salt
you chipped off with a thumbnail) and generally fought the urge to sock
Dimitri in the mouth when he came around looking for his weekly
forgivenesses. Wasn't easy, I tell you.

On the morning of day fifteen, Miss Galt fetched me. She led me
to an examination room down the hall from the top end of our ward.
Then she gave the little finger waggle that meant I was supposed to take
off my clothes, something I'd by now gotten used to doing in front of
others.

I sat naked on a table, covered with a white sheet. It was a little
cold in the room, though not quite enough to raise goosebumps. I
chewed my bottom lip and wrapped my arms around myself. After a
few minutes a man wearing a white doctor's coat came in. He was middle-aged and homely, with plump twisted lips that looked a little like
Jewish bread.