《玫瑰花园》Longley

4、4

　　4.
　　Suzy Blau took the story of the convalescent school quitewell,and when Esther told her own parents she tried toshade the hospital into a rest home.But they wereundeceived and furious.
　　"There's nothing the matter with her brains!That girlhas a good wit,"Pop said.(It was his highest compliment.)“It's just that the brains in this family skipped a generationand fell on her.She is me,my own flesh.The hell with all ofyou!”He walked out of the room.
　　In the following days Esther pleaded for their support inher decision,but only when Claude,her elder brother,andNatalie,her sister—the favorites of the family—admittedto Mom and Pop that there could be a need,did the old manrelent a little,for Deborah was his favorite grandchild.
　　At home Jacob was silent but not at peace with what heand Esther had done.They went to see Dr.Lister twice,and Jacob listened,trying to be comforted by the belief thatthey had done the right thing.Confronted with direct ques-tions,he had to agree,and all the facts were trying to makehim say“yes,”but he had only to submit to his feelings for the smallest moment and his whole world rang with mis-givings.When he and Esther quarreled,the crucial thingremained unspoken,leaving an atmosphere of wordlessrancor and accusation.
　　At the end of the first month a letter arrived from thehospital relating Deborah's activities in very general terms.She had made"a good adjustment"to the routine and staff,had begun therapy,and was able to walk about the grounds.From this noncommittal letter Esther extracted every par-ticle of hope,going over and over the words,magnifyingeach positive sign,turning the remarks this way and thatfor the facets of brightest reflection.
　　She also struggled to sway the feelings of Jacob and Pop,practicing her arguments with her image in the mirror.Popknew in himself somewhere,she believed,that the decisionwas not wrong,that his anger at Deborah's hospitalizationwas only an expression of his injured pride.Esther saw thather dominating,quick,restless,and brilliant immigrantfather now showed certain signs of mellowing;only hislanguage was as brusque as ever.Sometimes it even seemedto her that with Deborah's illness coming to a head,thewhole thrust and purpose of their lives was forced underscrutiny.One night she asked Jacob abruptly,“How didwe share in the thing?What awful wrongs did we do?"
　　“Do I know?”he answered.“If I knew would I have donethem?It seemed like a good life—a very good life she had.Now they say it wasn't.We gave love and we gave comfort.She was never threatened with cold or hunger..."
　　And Esther remembered then that Jacob,too,had had animmigrant past;had been cold,wet,hungry,and foreign.How he must have sworn to keep those wolves from hischildren!Her hand went up to his arm,protectively,but atthe gesture he turned a bit.
　　“Is there more,Esther?Is there more?”
　　She could not answer,but the next day she wrote a letterto the hospital asking when they might visit and see thedoctor.
　　Jacob was glad for the letter and waited,going over themail every day for the answer,but Pop only snorted,"Whatare they going to do—tell you it's a mistake?The world isfull of jackasses.Why shouid that place be immune?"
　　“Nonsense!”Jacob said,more angrily than he had everspoken to his father-in-law.“Doctors have ethics to live up to.If they find out it's a mistake,they'll let us take her homeright away."
　　Esther realized that he was still waiting for the diagnosisto be reversed,the miracle to happen,the locked doors toswing wide,the film of the last year of living to be run back-ward,and everyone to be able to laugh at the ludicrous waylife worked—backward,backward until it was all unlivedand erased.She pitied Jacob suddenly,but she could notlet him go on thinking that she wanted to visit the hospitalfor that reason.“I wanted to tell the doctors—to ask them—well,our lives have changed ...and there are things thatDeborah may not even know that made us do what we did.There are reasons for so much of it that all our good willcould not change.”
　　“We lived simple lives.We lived good lives.We lived indignity."He said it believing it utterly,and Esther sawthat some of what she had said reflected on him and on herrelationship with him,both before she was married andafter,when she should have changed allegiances and hadn't.She couldn't bear to hurt him now.It was pointless anyway;so much of the struggle was past.For everyone but Deborahit was a dead issue,and who could know what it was to her?
　　And sometimes,in the first months,there were periods ofcalmness,even of happiness.Suzy,alone in the house,beganto come into her own,and Jacob realized even as he deniedit,that before Deborah had gone he had been tiptoeing,deferring,frightened of something nameless for a long time.
　　One day a group of Suzy's school friends trooped in,laughing and joking,and Esther asked them all to dinner onthe spur of the moment.Suzy shone,and when they hadgone,Jacob said good-naturedly,"Those stupid kids.Werewe ever that stupid?The little one with that cap!”Helaughed,and catching himself in the real enjoyment,said,“My god—I laughed so much tonight.When before did Ihave so much fun!"And then:"Has it really been that long?Years?”
　　“Yes,”she said,"it has been that long."
　　“Then maybe it's true that she was ...unhappy,”hesaid,thinking of Deborah.
　　“Sick,”Esther said.
　　“Unhappy!”Jacob shouted and left the room.He cameback a few minutes later.“Just unhappy!”he said.
　　“Your parents write that they wish to make a visit,”Dr.Fried said.She sat on the other side of the heavy twelfth-century iron portcullis that Deborah occasionally foundseparating them.The portcullis had been raised this time,invisible,but when the doctor had mentioned parents anda visit,Deborah heard the sudden heavy rasp,and downit clanged between them.
　　“What is it?”the doctor said,not hearing the clang oflowering,but perceiving its effect.
　　"I can't really see you and I can't really hear you,"Deborah said.“You are behind the gate.”
　　“Your medieval gate again.You know,those things havedoors on them.Why don't you open a door?"
　　“The door is locked,too.”
　　The doctor looked at her ash tray.“Well,those gate-makers of yours must not be too smart or they would neverbuild their barriers with side doors and then not be able toopen them."
　　Deborah was annoyed when the doctor took her privatefacts and moved them and used them to her own ends.Thebars were thickening against the doctor.The soft,accentedvoice was closing and closing to silence behind the metalwall.The last words were:"Do you want them to come?"“I want Mother,"Deborah said,"but not him.I don'twant him to visit me."
　　Her words surprised her.She knew that she meant them,that they were somehow important,but she didn't knowwhy.For many years words had come out of her mouth forwhich her mind could not remember giving the order.Some-times only a feeling would sweep over her.The feelingwould be given voice,but the logic behind it,by which theworld might have been convinced,remained mute,and soshe lost faith in her own desires.It made her defend them allthe more blindly.Part of her present feeling,she knew,wasdelight in her power to reward and punish.Her father's lovefor her was her weapon against him,but she had a knowl-edge,however hard to express,that his pity and love weredangerous to her now.She knew that this hospital was goodfor her.She knew also that she could not defend her knowl-edge,that she could not express why this was really whereshe belonged.Considering her own muteness and the elo-quence of the locks and bars,Jacob might be overcome bythe horror and sadness she had seen in him when they had first brought her there.He might decide to end this“im-prisonment."The women on Disturbed were always howl-ing and shrieking.One of them might tip the balance thewrong way.Deborah knew all this,but she could not utterit.Also,there was her sense of power.
　　She saw the doctor's mouth moving,and imagined that itwas spewing questions and accusations.She began to fall,going with Anterrabae through his fire-fragmented darknessinto Yr.This time the fall was far.There was utter darknessfor a long time and then a grayness,seen only in bandsacross the eye.The place was familiar;it was the Pit.Inthis place gods and Collect moaned and shouted,but eventhey were unintelligible.Human sounds came,too,but theycame without meaning.The world intruded,but it was ashattered world and unrecognizable.
　　Once in the past,while in the Pit,she had been scalded,because although she had seen the stove and boiling water,its purpose and form had had no meaning.Meaning itselfbecame irrelevant.And,of course,there was no fear in thePit because fear had no meaning either.Sometimes she evenforgot the English language.
　　The horror of the Pit lay in the emergence from it,withthe return of her will,her caring,and her feeling of the needfor meaning before the return of meaning itself.There hadbeen one day(also in school)when she had risen from thePit while a teacher pointed to a word in her book,saying,“What is it ...this word?”She had tried desperately tomake intelligibility of white ground and black lines andcurves.Nothing.It had taken every bit of strength to re-member sufficient English to say,“what?”The teacher hadbeen angry.Was she trying to be a smart aleck?“What isthe word?"Nothing.She had been unable to extract a singlebit of reality from the lines and spots on the white ground.Someone tittered in the background and the teacher,ap-parently fearing compromise of her authority,left the muteDeborah and disappeared into the grayness.Presentbecame nothing;world,nothing.
　　Again in Dr.Fried's office,the terror of emergence hadnot yet begun.Deborah was still deep in the Pit and it wasyet unimportant whether there was language or meaningor even light.
　　Esther Blau tore open the letter eagerly and,as she read, was first puzzled and then angry."It says that she wants meto come,but she has told the doctor that she wants me alonethis time.”She was trying to make it easier for Jacob by notusing the words that were in the letter:"...will not see Mr.Blau.”
　　Jacob said,"Well,we'll drive down and see her for awhile,and then you two can have a nice visit if you want."
　　She edged the fact a little close."Well,Jacob,they thinkthat both of us would be too much just now.I can drivedown myself or take the train."
　　“Don't be silly,”he said.“Its nonsense.I will go.”“It isn't nonsense,"she said."Please,Jacob—
　　He took the letter from the table and read it,and theanger that came first was more for his wife,who had had totry to cover up for him and spare him,than for the wordsthemselves."Who does she think she is!"
　　"She's sick,Jacob—I told you—Dr.Lister told you."“All right!”he said.“All right.”
　　The hurt had now come to overwhelm the anger."Youcan't go alone.I'll drive you down and stay in thebackground.If she changes her mind,she can see me."
　　“Of course.”It was giving in again,Esther knew.Shewould be pulled from both sides all the way,but she had tolet Jacob do this for her.Maybe he could see the doctorthere and be reassured.She got up and took the letter from
　　him,hoping that the trip would dull the pain of theunequivocal words of denial.
　　When she went into their bedroom to put the letter away,she heard Suzy talking with a friend on the phone.She wassaying,“But I don't know...it's not just something youcan plan for....I told you.My sister Debbie is very sick.No....They get these reports every month.No...it's notthat.It's that if the next one is bad,they won't feel likehaving anything here....Sure.Well,I'll let you know ifit's all right.”
　　A sudden,helpless anger leaped into Esther's head,andher eyes burned with it for a moment.Deborah!Deborah—what has she done to us all!