Woman on the Edge of Time

by Marge Piercy

  “We’ll be video-taping occasionally over the next two months,” Redding said to Dr. Hodges. “Advantages: on-the-spot record of procedures and patient responses. Able to be edited into a film we can use for funding and education. No special lights needed.”

  “The light in here is borderline,” one of the crew said. “When we get on the ward in NYNPI we’ll get you better tape.”

  “Don’t turn that camera on me!” Alice yanked away from the nurse and flailed in the bed.

  “I can, of course, calm her at any point, but I’d prefer to proceed as we’ve programmed it,” Redding said.

  Dr. Hodges made him a little bow, indicating he should continue. “Doctor, it’s her head,” Mrs. Valente said apologetically. “We’ve shaved it. She’s bald. You know, it makes her be embarrassed? To be photographed bald?”

  They looked at Valente blankly. Connie felt embarrassed herself. She had disliked Valente on sight, because of her burliness and her speech impediment. But Valente actually saw them as people; saw Alice as a woman who should not be publicly shamed. Valente went on, mumbling badly. “Could maybe get wigs?”

  “Patty.” Dr. Redding nodded to the ever-hovering secretary. “Get an assortment of wigs for the women, for use while their hair grows out.”

  “How soon do you want them, Doctor?” Patty looked dubious. She was a slender woman, always in a mint green or cherry red pants suit, with short blond hair and big round bluetinted glasses sliding on her nose.

  “Alice is just a demonstration. We won’t start on the others till we’re at the institute. Two weeks, say.”

  So they were going to do it to all of them. They were going to do it to her—whatever it was. Her too.

  “Charlie, if I may be so bold,” Dr. Argent said, “why not begin with her kicking around? After all, irrational violence is what we’re about.”

  “Right you are.” Redding chuckled, looking upstaged. “Certainly. Let’s go. Roll ’em.”

  “One minute, Doc. We’re working on the miking. Just keep her going and we’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”

  Alice did keep going. She succeeded in heaving herself out of the bed and it took both attendants and the nurse to force her flat again. As the struggle proceeded, the crew started filming, a mike dangling over the bed, while the impassive gum-chewing cameraman edged Patty out of the way to get a good angle.

  “Welcome to the monkey house at the zoo!” Sybil yelled. All the patients were active now, some talking loudly to themselves or the air, Miss Green lying prone with the pillow pushed over her head, Tina Ortiz watching in a knot of fury. The men were crowding the door to stare in. Alvin made a dash down the ward to bang on the outer door with both fists. Fats grabbed him under the armpits and walked him back to his bed. Alvin did not appear again; probably they snowed him with heavy tranks.

  Redding, wearing a small mike around his neck like a pendant, lectured steadily on amperage and voltage. “We will be stimulating points one through ten of the left amygdala with point nine milliamps, one hundred, point two microseconds pulse duration, bidirectional square waves for five seconds.” He sounded like a repairman from the telephone company calling in to report on a job. Alice breathed in snorts, letting go a tirade of curses. One of the crew shut off her mike. The two attendants braced themselves, holding her down. Dr. Argent stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his lips pursed as if he might start whistling a tune, watching the whole scene with bright interested gaze. Occasionally he rocked to and fro on the balls of his feet. Dr. Hodges stood farther back, stealing a glance at his watch. Finally he sent Patty for a chair.

  “The focal brain dysfunction we see in this patient has resulted in episodic dyscontrol. We believe this kind of hardcore senseless aggression can be controlled—even cured. In layman’s language, something is wrong in the electrical circuitry—some wires are crossed in the switchboard of the amygdala. When these circuits ‘short out,’ as it were, irrational violence is triggered in the patient.”

  Dr. Argent winced, seemed as if he would speak, muttered to himself. Finally he said softly, “Perhaps we should leave analogies to the poets, Charlie.”

  “Acker, ready? Morgan? Moynihan? Let’s go.” Redding turned to the camera crew. “You can film the computer stuff at the institute. Here we’re just jerry-rigged.”

  “In the city, gentlemen,” Miss Moynihan said to the crew, “we can show you the complete procedures. We have the best equipment.”

  “Listen, there aren’t many state hospitals in the country where you could get this far,” Dr. Hodges said testily.

  “Chip, come on in the picture,” Redding pleaded, and together they moved toward the bedside. “Turn on her mike. Alice, how are you feeling today?”

  “Motherfucker, you let me up! I ain’t no guinea pig!”

  “Can you bleep some of that out? Okay.” He signaled, like a conductor to his orchestra. “Alice, now how do you feel?”

  Alice relaxed suddenly. A look of surprise came over her face. She didn’t reply. Her mouth remained open, then she shut it.

  “Release her,” Redding said to the attendants.

  They looked uncomfortable and did not let go. Fats whined, “Doctor, she strikes out fast, like a rattlesnake. She can take you by surprise.”

  “O ye of little faith,” Redding said with a faint smile. “Let her go. Stand back.”

  Gingerly the two attendants backed away from Alice. She continued to lie still.

  “Now how are you feeling, Alice?”

  Alice turned her head from side to side. She began to smile. “I feel good. I feel so good.”

  “Tell us what you’re experiencing, Alice.”

  “I like you, baby. Come here. Come close to Alice. That feel so good. You good to me now.”

  Redding chuckled. “See? Like taking candy from a baby. Righto. Okay, attendants, hold her down.”

  Exchanging looks of confusion, the attendants took hold of Alice, who giggled and writhed.

  “I mean hold her. I mean carefully!” Redding barked.

  A moment later Alice’s face broke into a snarl and she jerked upright and lashed out at Fats. The nurse had to pile on to wrestle her.

  “Now once again let her go.”

  “Doctor! We can’t.”

  But Alice collapsed and began to giggle.

  “You see, we can electrically trigger almost every mood and emotion—the fight-or-flight reaction, euphoria, calm, pleasure, pain, terror! We can monitor and induce reactions through the microminiaturized radio under the skull. We believe through this procedure we can control Alice’s violent attacks and maintain her in a balanced mental state. The radio will be feeding information and telemetry straight into the computer once we’re in the institute, and Alice will be able to walk around the ward freely. That concludes our little preview demonstration.”

  The cameraman said, as they began packing up, “That’s pretty impressive, Doc. Can you turn her on and off like that every time?”

  “Does the light go on when you press the switch?”

  As the video tape crew left, Redding turned to his audience. “Well, Sam, Chip, what do you say? Find that interesting?”

  Dr. Argent gave him a wry smile, hand on his shoulder. “Showmanship. Got to control that grandstanding urge. Reminds me of Delgado with his bull. You know, he has a bull charge him in full view of a crowd and then he stops it dead.”

  “Sometimes you have to show something baldly before people accept it as possible. There’s no trickery involved. We can control the violent.”

  “I also think you might consider using the electrodes to produce calm, sleepiness. We aren’t making blue movies, Charlie!”

  Dr. Hodges cleared his throat, rising stiffly. “It was interesting, sure. But it’s not cost-effective. The computer time. The hardware. A sufficient dose of psychoactive drugs would stop her violence as quickly.”

  “Sam, listen—with a computer the size of a DEC PDP-10 here you could monitor the outputs
from every patient in this whole zoo! You have to administer tranquilizers several times a day. But this way, eventually patients will be cleared out, back to their families, back to keeping house, back to work, out into nursing homes. The state’s short of money and they put a lot of pressure on you to get them out through the revolving door. But then you get that fuss in the papers about patients being turned loose. Here’s your answer. After the initial outlay, Sam, the cost is more than competitive. Now you know, Sam, with the best wish in the world and all the hard work your staff puts in, you can’t cure that many. But with these new techniques, you can turn out real cures. Instead of a warehouse for the socially dysfunctional, you’ll be running a hospital. That’s why the legislature bought this project, Sam. That’s why you’ll buy it when the time comes.”

  Dr. Argent sauntered toward the door, leaving the others to follow him. “Isn’t he persuasive, Sam? That’s how I found myself knee deep in this gadgetry.”

  “Nonsense,” Redding said, but softly. “Now that you’re retiring, you want in to the most exciting project to come down the pike in years. You always wanted to make history, Chip.”

  “Hmmm,” Dr. Argent said, and they all went out.

  Above the general uproar of the war Connie spoke to Sybil. “They’re going to put a machine in our heads?”

  “Poor Alice!” Sybil shook her head. “She must be humiliated! Imagine playing up to that fascist because he presses a button.”

  “I don’t want that done to me!” Connie’s voice scooted up with fear. She cleared her throat. “There must be a way to stop them. If only my niece would come!”

  Thursday evening she called for Luciente. She could not sleep and they weren’t allowed to talk after lights out. Nothing happened. She tried again. She pushed blindly in the direction of Luciente, wanting desperately to talk to her, to tell her what was happening. Maybe they’d know what this business of radios in the brain, needles and control, meant and how to fight it. For a moment she felt something, a sense of a person surprised, groggy and excited at once on some kind of drug, it felt like. For an instant she saw a plastic deck lit from below, under a clear dome with nothing outside but strange yellow fog. Women with their legs painted all over in what looked like layers and layers of enamel that shone and glittered as they very carefully moved, posed in awkward one-legged positions like storks, managing small hookahs and bright vials. Men in silver uniforms. All white faces. Panic. Theirs? Hers? Then she felt Luciente and she was back in her bed and reaching. She felt Luciente sluggishly respond and also somebody else.

  “Be guest,” said a throaty voice. It was not the presence of a moment ago. And she did still feel Luciente.

  “Connie, my rose,” Luciente said weakly, “I can’t handle you tonight. But I’m holding till Parra takes over. Open your mind to per. Parra will send tonight if you’d like to come through.”

  “Are you sick, Luciente?”

  “No, don’t worry. Let Parra send.”

  It took ten minutes and a nauseating time of drifting, while she had strong flashes of the stork women, before she stood in the meetinghouse. It felt like a different building. Ten people were sitting in a small room around a doughnut-shaped table, about half from Luciente’s family. She noticed Hawk, Barbarossa, Jackrabbit, and Sojourner. The person with the deep voice who had brought her through bumpily was a short, plump young woman. Although Parra looked strong enough to carry her up a flight of stairs, they were roughly the same size and complexion. Parra had short dark hair and a broad face. On her left arm she wore an armband with a rainbow worked of beads.

  Bolivar seemed tense, sitting with his head in his hands, staring from gray eyes that burned bloodshot. Luciente sat bunched tight across the circle from him. Her hands crouched on the table before her, the knuckles like miniature snowcapped mountains. Luciente flashed a tenuous smile at her and wiped her forehead.

  “I’m people’s judge for Mouth-of-Mattapoisett this year, and tonight I’m refereeing,” Parra said.

  “This is a game?”

  “No, we’re having a worming.” Parra turned to the table. “Do easercises while I explain. You look as if you could use relaxing.”

  Around the doughnut table all begun to murmur a sort of chant—making no effort to do it in unison—eyes shut, faces tilted slightly backward and then forward.

  “Luciente and Bolivar have not been communing. Meshing badly. Sparks and bumps. Tonight we try to comprend that hostility and see if we can defuse it.”

  “Aren’t people allowed to dislike each other?”

  “Not good when they’re in the same core. Jackrabbit is close to both. Such bumping strains per. They compete for Jackrabbit’s attent. They are picky toward each other’s ways. We have critted them for it before, but matters lift only briefly. When they crit each other, it does not hold up under scrutiny as honest—but self-serving.” Parra smiled wryly.

  “Suppose after a worming they still can’t stand each other?”

  “Jackrabbit may choose to see neither for some time. Both may be sent into temporary wandering. We may impose invisibility. We resort to that after bad quarreling. Or sometimes when people cease to be sweet friends, one feels bitterness.” Parra looked into her face with eyes that reminded her of Luciente’s. In old earth she’d have thought them related. She felt a brief glimmer of hope that such a resemblance might make Parra sympathetic to Luciente. “We put a mother-in-law taboo on—drawn from old-time practice? Persons aren’t allowed to speak for two months to or about each other. Such a time often releases bumping. Besides, it’s such a nuisance, frequently each longs to be done with it and speak to the other again. It becomes silly. That too helps.”

  Connie grimaced. “Don’t you people have nothing to worry about besides personal stuff? Why should you care if Luciente and Bolivar like each other? What a big waste of those resources you all like to go on about!”

  “First, they need not like each other to behave civilly. Second, we believe many actions fail because of inner tensions. To get revenge against someone an individual thinks wronged per, individuals have offered up nations to conquest. Individuals have devoted whole lives to pursuing vengeance. People have chosen defeat sooner than victory, with credit going to an enemy. The social fabric means a lot to us. In childhood we all learn a story about how an anthropologist asked a Pawnee to define bravery. Person said that White Cloud was the bravest individual person had ever known because when Laughing Bear slandered per, White Cloud had given Laughing Bear a horse. How is that brave? asked the anthropologist. The Pawnee said, But it was White Cloud’s only horse.”

  Around the table everyone was stretching, sitting back.

  “The community is precious. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Just so.” Parra nodded, grinning.

  “You’re a judge? Can you hang a sentence on them?”

  “Tonight I’m referee. Here to make sure the group crits each justly. I can point out injustice. Watch for other tensions that may surface, clouding the issues, weighting the reaction. Someone not from this village must play referee.”

  She frowned at this short, plump woman who called herself a judge. Younger than her and no more imposing, surely. “Is that what you mean by a judge? A referee?”

  “No. We act in cases of injury.”

  “Suppose I stole something?”

  “We don’t have much private property. Likely I’d give you what you asked. But if you did take something, everyone would give you presents. We’d think you were speaking to us of neglect and feelings of poverty. We’d try to make you feel good—wanted.”

  “Suppose I hurt someone? What about rape and murder and beating somebody up?”

  “We’re trained in self-defense. We’re trained to respect each other. I’ve never actually known of a case of rape, although I’ve read about it. It seems … particularly horrible to us. Disgusting. Like cannibalism. I know it occurs and has occurred in the past, but it seems unbelievable.”

 
She imagined herself taking a walk at night under the stars. She imagined herself ambling down a country road and feeling only mild curiosity when she saw three men coming toward her. She imagined hitching a ride with anyone willing to give her a ride. She imagined answering the door without fear, to see if anyone needed help. “Nobody ever takes a knife to anyone? No lovers’ quarrels? No jealousy? Don’t hand me that.” Her voice was brassy with skepticism.

  “Assault, murder we still have. Not as common as they say it was in your time. But it happens. People still get angry and strike out.”

  “So what do you do? Do you put them in jail?”

  “First off, we ask if person acted intentionally or not—if person wants to take responsibility for the act.”

  “Suppose I say, ‘No, I didn’t know what I was doing, judge’?”

  “Then we work on healing. We try to help so that never again will person do a thing person doesn’t mean to do.”

  “Suppose I say I’m not sick. I punched him in the face because he had it coming, and I’m glad.”

  “Then you work out a sentence. Maybe exile, remote labor. Sheepherding. Life on shipboard. Space service. Sometimes crossers cook good ideas about how to atone. You could put in for an experiment or something dangerous.”

  She stared. “You’re telling me that when I smashed Geraldo’s face, I’d tell you what I should do to … atone?”

  “How not?” Parra stared back. “You, your victim, and your judge work it out. If you killed, then the family of your victim would choose a mem to negotiate.”

  “If I killed a bunch of people, then I’d just sign on as a sailor or herd sheep?”

  “You mean a second time? No. Second time someone uses violence, we give up. We don’t want to watch each other or to imprison each other. We aren’t willing to live with people who choose to use violence. We execute them.”