by John Tan
‘You mention wild parties, did you or she ever smoked pot or hashish or do hard drugs?’
‘Never, we were naïve but not stupid, like some of the other kids were. We would booze up on cheap vodka and gin with very little tonic, and try to do a little necking with a boy we like at a party. Different boys! We were used to boys trying to make a pass at us, not being born yesterday, you know?’
‘The guilt which you must have felt at her sudden passing was so severe that you developed brain fever a week after she passed away? Is that true?’
‘Yes, I could not blame anyone but myself! I was the very culprit responsible for her death, you know? They operated on her, but she just refused to live. And that was why, she died.’
‘And why is it that she refused to live?’
‘Because she believed she couldn’t have the boy. That is why she gave up on her life, without even trying to live, don’t you see? Were it not for my selfishness, she wouldn’t have died.’
‘I see. Of course, I know something about your story already, or a great part of it, but I like to hear it from your own mouth anyway. But I had to know, Miss; was he sanguine to your hopes, was he more forthcoming with you?’
‘Yes—I think so—I think he was.’
‘What about now?’
‘I think you are better informed about that than myself, Doctor Cranston. He wrote to you, I know, and he has never written to me at all –all this while, I am here, and if I do learn anything of him, it has been from you.’
‘Tt-tt! That is true, Miss! Perhaps, for the time being, that is best, for the sake of both of you, you know?’
‘You got your information from him—our mutual friend, isn’t it? Does he know from you what I am doing in Hamplock House, and how well I have been doing? Is there no hope—for me—for us? You know, don’t you, sir, I could change; I really could, you know?’
‘That is for you to tell him—later on—if he chooses to hear it. If there are plentiful of meaningful things to discuss between you both, I mean! I think he cares for you. That will do, for now; we can talk about this affair and the circumstances of your breakdown from your own lips later, if there is more to tell, but, as it is, you have been very obliging today, and so I thank you. I know, it must be very hard for you.’
‘I want to go now, Doctor Cranston. I am feeling tired. Bushed indeed!’
‘Just a minute—since you are now here—there is one little thing I mean to ask you, personally.’
‘What is it?’
‘Didn’t I hear from some staff members that your father had come up here to Hamplock House to visit you?’
‘Yes, he did; two days ago. He made the more than hundred-mile round trip and stayed for five minutes.’
‘Did he talk—as a parent talks to a daughter?’
‘Said he finally admitted to himself he needed to seek treatment for his alcoholism. He talked about intending to check into a rehabilitation center in about a month or so from now. The shithead said nothing else to me that I can remember.’
‘How pathetic! He came all the way here just to tell you something that can be conveyed over the phone and I can pass to you, eh?’
‘He didn’t look pleased, either. My sister, Clara Amelia and my mother have one thing in common that I always remember. They both loved smoothies.’
‘Could have made more of his round trip,’ I agreed. ‘Pity, he didn’t! Apparently, he has nothing much to say for himself.’
‘I guess he saw at once I still harbor bad feelings against him—that I was still furious with him, for letting my mom down, because I am still upset with him over my mother’s death last year in July, you know?’
‘Well, well, maybe, that was why he couldn’t talk to you, and just passed you some news he’d thought you’d be glad enough to hear, because he had finally decided to do something positive for himself: something that, maybe, he should have done a long time ago. At any rate, he thought it was important enough to let you know, that it warranted his coming here himself to do it. Do not be too hard on him, Miss! It could be a sort of preamble of his, you know, how older men are, of breaking the ice after all this while, you know?’
‘I know.’
‘And, I suppose, you know, hatred is a damnable and a most destructive emotion, of course? I should advise you to cool down in regard to the past as concerns your father, and not stirred up any of your residue of bitterness next time should he attempt to reconcile with you. And you know, you can’t reconcile with your sister in the flesh anymore! Think about that! You will listen to Doctor Cranston, won’t you, Miss, there’s a good girl! See if you can keep it together, and don’t get over emotional, about your sister, him or your dad: won’t you—anyway, you can see that you do your best.’
She nodded her assent tacitly and then, I bowed her out of my office, with an expression as I hoped to convey, of mingled hope and mildness—the avuncular sort, that was, of course. She slipped out quietly without ceremony, and did not remember to thank me at all; but perhaps, this was unnecessary.
5
The powdery snow had stopped coming down handsomely two weeks ago—since the evening of Valentine’s Day, but the icy wind from the mountains to the north and west was still chiding Upper New York with it freezing billows, and, for many miles around--inside large welts of our State, New Yorkers were experiencing extraordinarily low temperatures because a cold front was moving slowly, stealthily and steadily down—which had been formed last week, to the country’s west. Hamplock House and the hospital demesne was also gripped by this inclement weather—and in its lounge rooms, all eyes were glued to the Tee-vee set, for the latest weather report updates, amid the sounds of hacking coughs and sniffles, huffing and puffing, and the smells of different types of vaporizing ointment pervading every recreation room from end to end. Complaints flew fast and free, when it was announced by the NBC weatherman that the latest weather conditions that had the State, and parts of New Jersey in its thrall, would be prolonged, and expected to continue until next week. The bureaucrats in charge of old Hamplock ordered the cooks and kitchen staff to serve the residents there better and more wholesome, steaming fare and in sufficient quantities, so that no one would sicken due to lack of good food. Tempers of New Yorkers were cooking elsewhere, and work got careless—because people were sick and tired of the incessant cold, and there were reports of traffic accidents in Fifth Avenue, and a policeman was shot dead in Madison Square during some bungled robbery attempt.-- It was thus, in an apathetic mood today that I drove up to Hamplock House at eight-thirty AM and dreaded my long hours there to take care of my fractious patients and to commute back at nine o’clock, each night, hating very much the slippery conditions of the country highways and the all-obscuring fog—a severe distance of twenty-five miles, I had had to drive. Even at that hour, it was still quite dark at this latitude, and I was cheered when I saw the sun, a light paper-thin wafery thing in the eastern sky, while I was on my way down; and raising my eyes by tilting my clean-shaven chin that I had stropped before breakfasting today, I felt the golden rays piercing right through the windshield, invigorating me, so that, I lost my listlessness--if only for a moment. Then, the ubiquitous, dank fog swirled up again, and I had to lean forward in my driver’s seat and peering ahead just to see the roads. I didn’t know what the wheels of my Ford were going over, for sure. I could see but little of the road I was driving along on, it being covered with a white smeary layer, like some tenacious clinging cotton-wool. I only drove on; trusting myself to God with a heartfelt prayer.
When I had parked my car in the Hamplock House parking-lot I felt I could breathe easy again; I looked up at the House before me, its concrete was so grey it seemed made of thick iron plates, and the roof appeared very black as covered with the most revolting-looking pitch or blackening; I saw drifts the old snow had cut and made, here and there, and it appeared to me that the trees on both sides of the building, bending concavely, seemed as if to hold, or grasp, the House in the ce
nter. Indeed, as the wind blew in blustery fits and stirred the tops of the bare elms and naked birchen wood, it seems that Hamplock House had fitted into a kind of runnel, over which the tunneling wind shrieked uproariously, or lisped, to end up as curlicues in the unearthly light; or as if it was enclosed within a glass ball, where the liquid inside was spinning vortexes! The bare limbs of the trees seemed to clutch at the building I am going into; as though they were sentient beings, jealously protective, with its gnarled arms, like a mother, stretching out her outspreading hands to protect her helpless child. What is the meaning of this, I thought!
Crystal James, our House Warden, was waiting for me outside my office. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor Cranston, bad weather all over Manhattan, sir? And, too bad, it’s likely to continue!’ she said, as if it were her fault that she wasn’t able to control circumstances that sometimes inconvenienced the Half-way House’s staff, especially the doctors.
‘How’s our charges today—nothing too urgent to report, I hope?’ I said, shaking my head, and hanging up my coat on a hook.
‘I think everybody is fine down here, nobody had died while in our care last night, and I think you are going to have a quiet run today. I just came in myself, and nearly had an accident going over a rampart across one of the frozen rivers near the Old Mill; and I shall brief you at once if there is anything new going in this place! Phew, I’m glad I just made it here in one piece today, Doctor Cranston!’
Her bosom shook, and she steadied herself, by gulping down her cup of aromatic tea of which I caught no whiff of, very quickly; then, her tint changed to become a more forthcoming glow, and she broke into a short, fat laugh, ‘My, my, of all my born days!’ She rocked her waist and did a shuffle.
‘My nose feels blocked,’ I said, ‘awfully so: ask Marion to send in the first person on her list who has an appointment to see me; I don’t have to make my rounds in the west wing today, do I?’
‘That’s scheduled for tomorrow, which is a Wednesday. I had a glance at Marion’s list just five minutes ago, and it looks like you have only to see two patients before lunchtime.’
When I was done with my morning appointment, Marion, the old nurse, put her head around my door and said, ‘Glad to see you, you are still in your office. Toasting your big feet by the electric heater, eh, sir? The young lady from room no: 44 is standing outside and she said she wanted to see you.’
‘Don’t be so surprised by my seemingly self-demeaning act, Mrs. Wells, thousands, even millions, of people in the State right now are sitting by their electric fireplaces, toasting their bunion-ed toes silly—doing nothing but only just this! Even up and down the hallowed halls of great Commercial Houses in Downtown Manhattan, I’m very positive! At the prices of that utility service today, I would like to get my money’s worth, and warm my whole body all through whenever I wanted it!’
‘Shall I tell her, you shall see her?’ she said, her arms akimbo.
‘Tell her I will give her twenty minutes of my time.’
‘Bless me! Very well, sir!’
‘Good morning, Miss!’ I chirruped, as I signaled to Mrs. Marion Wells to leave us alone.
‘Good morning, Doctor Cranston!’ our inmate sang out in her brightest, ringing tones that echoed inside my ear.
‘Good morning, now--what do you want to speak to me about?’
‘I want you to tell me something about Hamplock House, if you can. I mean: its history and what kind of man Augustine Tecumseh Hamplock was, I mean his biographical details, and details of his family, what kind of business besides banking was he involved in, about his forebears and children, and the reason why he built Wicklow Mental Hospital and Hamplock House? I have heard he was famous for being a philanthropist, and what was it that had moved him to help the broken people in the world to rebuild their shattered lives—to alleviate so much suffering he saw in his fellow human beings and didn’t consider them worthless or his task to house these human rejects of a thriving, melting-pot society, maybe, so demeaning to a great man!’
‘Heigh-ho, Miss!’ I cried, ‘Hold your horses, and hold off piling on your platitudes! People in those far-off days were mostly ignorant of mental illness; and it was mostly out of fear of them as a threat to the wellbeing of society at large and to themselves that they are confined in an asylum and had to spend the rest of their lives there. Their treatment which they received from the medical establishment was crude and mostly based on ignorance. People might be well-meaning, but the threads of superstition and the still emerging science were still entwined and there were many abuses in the system, maltreatment and cruelty, perpetrated by some of the highest-minded, and the most religious of our leaders; those born to be numbered among the most prominent and the wisest sons our society had ever produced. It was a sad situation, but Hamplock House has evolved ever since those days.’
‘I have seen the picture outside the occupational therapist’s office. The features of the man who built the house are very unearthly.’
‘You think so, do you? Ideas are like fashion, and the man who painted the portrait saw something that few men saw. As they say, the world goes this way and that; but never mind, Miss! It is certainly a striking thing to look at—a kind of arresting blue wash over his broad face and a dab of white paint to denote the highlights! Here’s a bonbon from my salver, a present from my wife, you know; and—is there anything else you saw that interests you in the picture?’
‘Who painted it?’
‘A German artist by the name of R.N. Mahler—who was born in a county orphanage in Westphalia, and who rose to be with the wife’s family and painted all their portraits in the Continent. Her father, Hans Dietrich, hailed from the Rhone Valley, and became an even richer man than our Millionaire Hamplock ever was. The painter was an old man, by then; more than seventy-five years old or nearly eighty years old, when he did that portrait. Ever since it was put up where it stands, it had never been moved or disturbed for more than a hundred years, although it had been cleaned and dusted regularly.’
‘Was her father a Great Industrialist and dealt in iron and steel and coal?’
‘Yes, he migrated and became eventually an American citizen. But, my God!—how did you guess?’
‘Oh, it’s just a wild guess, that’s all! A chanced surmise! Because: I learnt about the history of men who made this country great from private readings in the school library, and from studying about Germany in our Geography lessons.’
‘Those two young ‘uns, I suppose, are the happy couple’s lovely children?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened to them? Did they grow up fine and did they grow up well and happy?’
‘All I know was that the boy, when he grew up to be a man, quarreled with his father and got disinherited for his trouble. I heard or read somewhere he was some kind of Unitarian Minister, and used to journey up and down the country, involved in some lecture circuit. I read he was a fine, God-fearing man.’
‘What about the sister?’
‘Denys Hamplock’s sister—about her, I don’t know much, but something shredded her up inside, and when she was in her late twenties, she was confined as a mental patient in Hamplock House. She seemed to have hated her father, Augustine Hamplock; he would come down and see her, but she would never speak to him. Her father built Hamplock House and the hospital because of her, because he wanted to make sure he could provide for her with all his abundant wealth, and see that she received the best care in the hands of the very best doctors in America and Austria whose paycheck he authorized the bureaucrats in charge of the place to sign on his behalf. The Millionaire was an influential and a very powerful man, a close friend of the then Governor W--, and all the accounts say that her daughter was happy here, and she was well taken care of—sleeping on pure velvet and dining out of golden platters under well-lighted chandeliers and all that—but she died a few short years later, when she was thirty-three years old. She was said to have been a great artist in lace-making, fine needlework, in doing
sepia pieces, wrote poetry and other scraps, of the short, dramatic kind, had a fine ear for music and sang arias; she could also cook a fine dish, and had sold pieces of pottery and fine watercolors at Open Day which fetched quite a substantial sum among the New York gentry. Yet, she was definitely mad. She loved Toulouse Lautrec, and the Can-can. Her hardly infallible father predicted in a short time she would get better and put her mental oddity behind her, but she died in one of the rooms in this place.’