《玫瑰花园》Longley

3、3

　　For a time—how long by Earth's reckoning Deborah didnot know—it was peaceful.The world made few demandsso that it seemed once more as if it had been the world'spressures that had caused so much of the agony in Yr.Sometimes she was able to see"reality"from Yr as if thepartition between them were only gauze.On such occasionsher name became Januce,because she felt like two-facedJanus—with a face on each world.It had been her lettingslip this name which had caused the first trouble in school.She had been living by the Secret Calendar(Yr did notmeasure time as the world did)and had returned to theHeavy Calendar in the middle of the day,and having thenthat wonderful and omniscient feeling of changing,she hadheaded a class paper:Now JANUCE.The teacher had said,"Deborah,what is this mark on your paper?What is thisword,Januce?”
　　And,as the teacher stood by her desk,some nightmareterror coming to life had risen in the day-sane schoolroom.Deborah had looked about and found that she could not seeexcept in outlines,gray against gray,and with no depth,but flatly,like a picture.The mark on the paper was the emblemof coming from Yr's time to Earth's,but,being caught whilestill in transition,she had to answer for both of them.Suchan answer would have been the unveiling of a horror—ahorror from which she would not have awakened rationally;and so she had lied and dissembled,with her heart chokingher.Such a danger must no more be allowed aloud,and sothat night the whole Great Collect had come crowding intothe Midworld:gods and demons from Yr and shades fromEarth,and they had set up over their kingdoms a Censor tostand between Deborah's speech and actions and to guardthe secret of Yr's existence.
　　Over the years the power of the Censor had grown greaterand greater,and it was he who had lately thrust himself intoboth worlds,so that sometimes no speech and no actionescaped him.One whisper of a secret name,one sign written,one slip of light could break into the hidden place anddestroy her and both the worlds forever.
　　On Earth the life of the hospital moved on.Deborahworked in the craft shop,grateful that the world also offeredits hiding places.She learned to do basketwork,acceptingthe instruction in her acerbic and impatient way.She knewthat none of the workers liked her.People never had.On theward a large girl had asked her to play tennis and the shockhad sounded down to the last level of Yr.She saw the pencil-doctor a few more times and learned that he was“wardadministrator”and the one who gave permission for"privi-leges"—steps in similitude to the normal world—to get upand go out on the ward,to go to dinner,on the grounds,then out of the hospital itself to the movie or store.Eachwas a privilege and had a certain connotation of approvalthat seemed to be expressed in distances.To Deborah hegave permission to walk unrestricted on the grounds,butnot outside.Deborah said to the large girl,whose name wasCarla,“Well,I'm a hundred square yards sane.”If therewere such things as man-hours and light-years,surely therewas foot-sanity.
　　Carla said,“Don't worry.You'll get more privileges soon.If you work hard with your doctor,they ease up a little.Ijust wonder how long I'll have to stay here.It's been threemonths already.”They both thought of the women at thefar end of the ward.All of them had been in the hospitalfor over two years.
　　“Does anyone ever leave?”Deborah asked."I mean bewell and leave?”
　　“I don't know,”said Carla.They asked a nurse.
　　"I don't know,"she said,"I haven't been here that long."There was a groan from Lactamaeon,the black god,anda derisive laugh from the Collect,which were the massedimages of all of the teachers and relatives and schoolmatesstanding eternally in secret judgment and giving theirendless curses.
　　Forever,crazy girl!Forever,lazy girl!
　　Later,one of the little student nurses came to whereDeborah was lying,looking at the ceiling.
　　"It's time to get up now,"she said in the wavering andfrightened voice of her inexperience.There was a new groupof these students working out their psychiatric training inthis place.Deborah sighed and got up dutifully,thinking:She is astounded at the haze of craziness with which I filla room.
　　“Come on now,"the student said.“The doctor is goingto see you.She's one of the heads here and a very famousdoctor,too,so we must hurry,Miss Blau.”
　　"If she's that good,I'll wear my shoes,"Deborah replied,watching the young woman's expression widen with surpriseand her face fight with its look of disapproval.She musthave been told not to show anything so strong as anger orfear or amusement.
　　“You really should be grateful,"the student said.“You'revery lucky to get to see her at all."
　　"Known and loved by madmen the world over,"Deborahsaid.“Let's go.”
　　The nurse unlocked the ward door and then the stairwaydoor,and they went down to the lower floor,which wasopen,and out of the back of the building.The nurse pointedto a green-shuttered white house—a small-town,oak-lined-streets type of white house—standing incongruously justinside the hospital grounds.They went to the front doorand rang.After a while a tiny,gray-haired,plump littlewoman answered the door."We're from Admissions.Hereshe is,"the nurse said.
　　“Can you come back for her in an hour?”the little womansaid to the student.
　　“I'm supposed to wait.”“Very well.”
　　As Deborah stepped through the door,the Censor beganto thrum his warnings:Where is the doctor?Is she watch-ing from behind a door somewhere?The little housekeepermotioned toward a room.
　　“Where is the doctor?”Deborah said,trying to stop therapid juxtaposition of walls and doors.
　　“I am the doctor,"the woman said."I thought you knew.Iam Dr.Fried.”
　　Anterrabae laughed,falling and falling in his darkness.What a disguise!And the Censor growled,Take care ...take care.
　　They went into a sunny room and the Housekeeper-Famous-Doctor turned,saying,“Sit down.Make yourselfcomfortable.”There came a great exhaustion and when thedoctor said,"Is there anything you want to tell me?"a greatgust of anger,so that Deborah stood up quickly and said toher and to Yr and to the Collect and to the Censor,"Allright—you'll ask me questions and I'll answer them—you'llclear up my 'symptoms'and send me home ...and whatwill I have then?”
　　The doctor said quietly,"If you did not really want togive them up,you wouldn't tell me."A rope of fear pulledits noose about Deborah.“Come,sit down.You will nothave to give up anything until you are ready,and then therewill be something to take its place."
　　Deborah sat down,while the Censor said in Yri:Listen,Bird-one;there are too many little tables in here.The tableshave no defense against your clumsiness.
　　“Do you know why you are here?”the doctor said.
　　“Clumsiness.Clumsiness is first and then we have a list:lazy,wayward,headstrong,self-centerd,fat,ugly,mean,tactless,and cruel.Also a liar.That category includes subheads:(a)False blindness,imaginary pains causing realdoubling-up,untrue lapses of hearing,lying leg injuries,fake dizziness,and unproved and malicious malingerings;
　　(b)Being a bad sport.Did I leave out unfriendliness?...Also unfriendliness."
　　In the silence where the dust motes fell through the sunshaft,Deborah thought that she had perhaps spoken hertrue feelings for the first time.If these things were so,so be it,and she would leave this office at least having stated hertiredness and disgust at the whole dark and anguish-runningworld.
　　The doctor said simply,"Well,that seems to be quite alist.Some of these,I think,are not so,but we have a job cutout for us."
　　“To make me friendly and sweet and agreeable and happyin the lies I tell.”
　　“To help you to get well.”“To shut up the complaints.”
　　“To end them,where they are the products of anupheaval in your feelings."
　　The rope tightened.Fear was flowing wildly in Deborah'shead,turning her vision gray."You're saying what they allsay—phony complaints about nonexistent sicknesses.”
　　"It seems to me that I said that you are very sick,indeed."“Like the rest of them here?”It was as near as she daredgo,already much too near the black places of terror.
　　“Do you mean to ask me if I think you belong here,ifyours is what is called a mental illness?Then the answer isyes.I think you are sick in this way,but with your very hardwork here and with a doctor's working hard with you,Ithink you can get better."
　　As bald as that.Yet with the terror connected with thehedged-about,circled-around word"crazy,"the unspokenword that Deborah was thinking about now,there was alight coming from the doctor's spoken words,a kind of lightthat shone back on many rooms of the past.The home andthe school and all of the doctors'offices ringing with thejoyful accusation:There Is Nothing The Matter With You.Deborah had known for years and years that there was morethan a little the matter—something deeply and gravely thematter,more even than the times of blindness,intense pain,lameness,terror,and the inability to remember anythingat all might indicate.They had always said,"There is noth-ing the matter with you,if you would only..."Here atlast was a vindication of all the angers in those offices.
　　The doctor said,“What are you thinking about?I seeyour face relax a little.”
　　“I am thinking about the difference between a mis-demeanor and a felony.”
　　“How so?”"The pionat plads giltto the thrzge ot not having acute something-itis and accepts the verdict of guilty ofbeing nuts in the first degree.”
　　“Perhaps in the second degree,”the doctor said,smilinga little.“Not entirely voluntary nor entirely with forethought.”
　　Deborah suddenly recalled the picture of her parentsstanding very single and yet together on the other sideof the shatter-proof locked door.Not aforethought,thisthing,but more than a little with malice.
　　Deborah became aware of the nurse moving about in theother room as if to let them know that the time was up.
　　The doctor said,"If it's all right with you,we will makeanother appointment and begin our talks,because I believethat you and I,if we work like the devil together,can beatthis thing.First,I want to tell you again that I will not pullaway symptoms or sickness from you against your will."
　　Deborah shied away from the commitment,but she al-lowed her face a very guarded"yes,"and the doctor saw it.They walked from the office with Deborah sf-iving as-siduously to act as if she were somewhere else,elaboratelyunconcerned with this present place and person.
　　"Tomorrow at the same time,"the doctor told the nurseand the patient.
　　“She can't understand you,”Deborah said.“Charonspoke in Greek.
　　Dr.Fried laughed a little and then her face turned grave.“Someday I hope to help you see this world as other than aStygian hell."
　　They turned and left,and Charon,in white cap andstriped uniform,guided the removed spirit toward thelocked ward.Dr.Fried watched them waiking back to thelarge building and thought:Somewhere in that precocityand bitterness and somewhere in the illness,whose limitsshe could not yet define,lay a hidden strength.It was thereand working;it had sounded in the glimmer of relief whenthe fact of the sickness was made plain,and most of all inthe“suicide attempt,”the cry of a mute for help,and thestatement,bold and dramatic as adolescents and the still-fighting sick must always make it,that the game was overand the disguising ended.The fact of this mental illness wasin the open now,but the disease itself had roots still as deeplyhidden as the white core of a volcano whose slopes are camouflaged in wooded green.Somewhere,even under the volcano itself,was the buried seed of will and strength.Dr.Fried sighed and went back to her work.
　　"This time ...this time can I only call it forth!"she sighed,lapsing into the grammar of her native tongue.