Enduring

by Donald Harington

  “You leave my baby alone, you,” Latha said.

  “She’s not your baby!” Mandy shrieked.

  Latha said nothing more. She said nothing more at all, not at all, for the days and weeks following. She said not a word to either of them. She did not even talk to her baby.

  Nearly two weeks went by before it dawned on Mandy and Vaughn that Latha had not been saying anything.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Mandy asked one day.

  Latha did not reply.

  “She’s just being high and mighty,” Vaughn explained. “Just stuck up.”

  “Say something, sister,” Mandy urged her.

  Latha did not.

  “See if I care, then,” Mandy said. “Button your lip for the rest of your life, for all I care. Who’d want to listen to you anyhow?”

  But Latha’s continued silence began to fray their nerves.

  “Want a nice piece of custard pie?” Mandy would ask, and wait for Latha to respond. She did not.

  Vaughn would sneak up on her and yell “BOO!” at the top of his lungs but she would not even flinch.

  “Would you like to go for a ride today, honey?” Mandy would ask, and wait, and wait.

  Once when Latha was in the bathtub (and the lock had never been replaced on the door) Vaughn came in and sat on the edge of the tub and gazed at her. “Caint tell me to get out, can you?” he taunted her. “Caint even open your damn mouth long enough to say ‘Get out,’ can you?” She just glared at him. “All righty,” he said, “I’ll just sit right here and feast my eyes until you’re finished.”

  It was not that Latha was deliberately holding herself incommunicado. She was not consciously refusing to speak to them. It was simply (maybe not so simply) that she was unable to speak to them. Occasionally, there were times she wanted something, like a particular medicine for some distress, but she was unable to open her mouth and ask them for it.

  They ceased trying to get her to speak. They began to pretend she was not there, and to talk about her in her presence.

  “She don’t really want that baby.”

  “Of course she don’t. She’s ashamed of it, I bet.”

  “She won’t even talk to her own baby. What kind of mother is that? Pore little Fannie Mae, she needs somebody to sweet-talk her and baby-talk her.”

  “She’s so stubborn and standoffish she won’t even talk to her own baby.”

  “What kind of mother is that?”

  “She don’t really want it.”

  “’Course she don’t.”

  “She’d be a lot happier without it.”

  “Sure she would.”

  “Maybe it would be happier too, if she weren’t around.”

  “More’n likely.”

  But still they would occasionally stare at Latha and study her face and bite their lips or chew their thumbnails.

  One day they took her and put her in the car and said they were going for a ride.

  They drove her out to a park, and through the park to a group of large red-brick buildings on a hill. They took her into one of these buildings. In a room was a desk with a man in a white jacket sitting behind it and they tried to get Latha to sit down at the desk. Wordlessly, she broke and ran. Mandy and Vaughn took her arms and brought her back. She shook her head and shook her head and shook her head.

  “Please sit down,” the man said, and came around from behind his desk and pushed down on Latha’s shoulder to make her sit. Then he returned to his seat behind the desk and looked at the papers in front of him. “You can talk to me,” he said. “Will you tell me your name?”

  She would not.

  “I told you her name,” Mandy said. “It’s Latha Bourne.”

  The man frowned at her. “Will you two leave the room, please?”

  When they were gone, he said, “Now, I already know your name. You can talk to me, I know. Will you tell me your age?”

  Latha spoke. “Almost twenty-one.”

  “Good,” he said and wrote something on the paper. “Now, do you know why your sister and brother-in-law have brought you here?”

  She shook your head.

  “Now, now,” he chided. “I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you think it’s because they’re trying to get rid of you. Am I right?”

  “Are they?” she asked, puzzled. “I don’t know. Are they?”

  “No,” he said. “They are not. Why do you think they have brought you here?”

  “I really don’t know,” she said.

  “Oh come now, Miss Bourne. Really. Do you know what place this is?”

  “A hospital?” she said.

  “Do you know what kind of hospital?”

  She shook her head.

  “Really now,” he said. “If you don’t know what kind of hospital it is, why did you break loose and try to run away when you were brought in?”

  “I…I was frightened,” she said.

  “Of what, Miss Bourne? Of what were you frightened?”

  “I…I don’t…really know….”

  “Was it perhaps you were frightened that we might keep you?”

  She lowered her head and nodded it.

  “Very good. So I’m sure you can tell me what place this is, can’t you? Try to tell me, Miss Bourne.”

  “Is it…is it an…an insane asylum?”

  “There!” he exclaimed, beaming broadly. “I knew you could tell me. Now, I’ll bet you think that there’s no reason why you should be here. Am I right?”

  “You are right.”

  “But I am told that you have not spoken a word to anybody for nearly two months. Why is that, Miss Bourne? Are you perhaps feeling angry at the world?”

  “Not the world. Just them.”

  “Why are you mad at them, Miss Bourne?”

  “They’re trying to take my baby away from me.”

  “Why would they want to do that?”

  “They want her.”

  “Don’t you think that it might be because they are concerned for the baby? Don’t you think that they might feel you are not in the best mental condition for taking care of the child?”

  “That’s not true!”

  “I understand that you don’t even communicate with your child, Miss Bourne. Do you think that’s good for the child?”

  “I try to talk to her! I just can’t talk to her when they’re around. Often at night when they’re asleep I talk to her.”

  “I understand that the child is illegitimate, Miss Bourne. Perhaps you feel some guilt for your error, and this guilt is being reflected in your conduct toward the child.”

  “I love her! I take very good care of her!”

  “A child needs a father, Miss Bourne.”

  “I’ll marry somebody!” she said.

  The man’s voice became cold. “I understand further, Miss Bourne, that when the child was still in your womb you pounded your fists upon your abdomen repeatedly, as if you were trying to kill the child.”

  “I didn’t want it then. But I want her now. Oh, I want her so!”

  The man signed his name at the bottom of a sheet of paper and said, “I am recommending, Miss Bourne, that you remain with us for observation.”

  “You can’t do this to me!” she protested. “You have no right to do this to me! I’m as sane as you are!”

  Chapter seventeen

  Two men in blue jackets took her by the arms and led her out of the main building and up a walkway to another building just like it. They took her down a hall to a stairway and up the stairs to a large room. Distantly she could hear women’s voices crying, babbling, and screaming. Only when they handed her over to a third man, a very large man, did she realize that the two men were not men but women, heavyset muscular women with short hair. For that matter, the third man, who would be in charge of Latha for the next several hours, or months for that matter, was also a woman but appeared even more masculine than the first two, with broad shoulders, meaty hands, and just the faintest suggestion of bulges in her bosom. She had a wattle
which reminded Latha of a turkey’s, so Latha would come to think of her as Miss Turnkey (she never introduced herself by name). She was much taller than Latha and about twice as heavy. The very sight of her discouraged any thought of escape or rebellion.

  “Aint you a purty one?” the woman said, putting her fingers under Latha’s chin and lifting her face. Miss Turnkey was not exactly ugly, but much too masculine for a female. “Most of your sisters is mud fences.” This was apparently meant to be funny, because Miss Turnkey laughed extravagantly, and drool ran down her chin. “Give me that,” she said, taking Latha’s purse and holding it upside down over a table, spilling out all the contents, which she sorted through. She counted up the money, $8.32, and put it in an envelope. “Any you don’t spend on candy you’ll get back when you leave. But I doubt you’ll ever leave.” She took Latha’s lipstick, rouge and compact and put them in a bag. “You can’t keep those. We don’t wear make-up around here.” Latha was permitted to keep her comb, but not the purse itself. “Now,” said Miss Turnkey, “strip down.” Latha had found herself once again unable to speak, so she couldn’t ask for an elaboration of this command. She removed all her clothes except for her undies and stood there clutching her comb. “All of it,” Miss Turnkey said. Latha handed her the comb, then removed her bra and panties. “My, but don’t you have the figure to match the face!” Miss Turnkey said. “Now, through that door there.” She took Latha into another room, where there was a row of eight cast iron bathtubs with white enamel interiors that had aged to various shades of rust, yellow, brown, and green. Miss Turnkey turned on the hot water and left it on, until the tub filled with scalding water. “Hop in,” she said. Latha was desperate to protest that the water was much too hot, but found that she could not speak. She could only whine and moan, which had no effect on Miss Turnkey.

  She could also scream when she felt the water touch the skin of her legs, and it seemed her very skin would be scalded away. She was reminded of the hot bath she’d taken in an effort to destroy Every’s sperm inside her. “Hot enough for you?” said Miss Turnkey. “This’ll kill all of whatever germs you’ve got.” She handed Latha a bar of soap, which had a chemical smell to it. “No wash rags,” Miss Turnkey explained. “See that coat hook up there? Last time we had wash rags, some ole gal wrapped one around her neck and hung herself from that coat hook.” Like the icy cold water in Latha’s waterfall-shower, the longer you’re in it the less terrible it feels, and Latha gradually began to tolerate the intolerably hot water. “Now’s a good time for you to start memorizing the rules,” Miss Turnkey said. “Number One. Repeat after me: Always eat whatever’s on your plate.” Miss Turnkey waited, and when Latha did not repeat it, because she could not, Miss Turnkey said, “You caint talk, huh? Well, you’ve already violated Rule number Two, which is: Always do whatever you’re told. Stick out your tongue.” Latha stuck out her tongue, and Miss Turnkey took a close look at it, then poked her fingers inside Latha’s mouth and probed around. “Well, you aint gonna have no problems with Rule number Three, which is: Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.” Miss Turnkey must have considered this hilarious, because she had a fit of laughter which turned into a ghastly hacking and wheezing.

  By the time Miss Turnkey let her out of the bath, her skin was all red and shriveled and puckery. Miss Turnkey gave her a small towel to dry off, and demanded it back before Latha was fully dry. Then she told her to sit in a wooden chair. Miss Turnkey took a key from a ring on her belt and unlocked a cabinet and brought forth a huge pair of scissors. “Them raven locks of yours has got to go,” she said, and began cutting Latha’s long hair. Latha jumped up, trying to make her voice work, but her voice refused to work. Miss Turnkey shoved her back into a sitting position, held her down with one hand, and clipped away at her hair with the scissors in her other hand. Soon most of Latha’s hair was in a pile around her feet, which Miss Turnkey swept into a burlap sack. “Get good money for this stuff,” she remarked. “You’ve violated the eighth rule: Always sit unless given permission to rise.”

  Rule Thirteen was interesting: Just because you’re a lunatic is no excuse for being contrary, but Latha was losing track of the rules. She lost track of the time. She lost track of herself. She was given a gray cotton gown to wear and then taken into a large room with many tables and many girls and women. “Suppertime,” Miss Turnkey said. “You line up over there. Whenever there’s something to wait for, you line up for it, which is the sixteenth rule.” If only Latha had the power of speech, she could have asked her, If I lined up to get out of here, would it work? It was some consolation to realize that even if she could speak, she had not asked any questions since she was a child.

  Standing in line, Latha noticed one of the major characteristics of all the inmates of this institution, apart from the fact that all of them had their hair cut short: they were completely self-absorbed. And it wasn’t just because those seated at the tables were concentrating on spooning their supper into their mouths. No one seemed to be aware that she was not alone. I guess I’m the same way, Latha realized. I’m too busy thinking about my own problems to give a fig for anyone else’s. Which, she sensed at once, was somewhat contradictory, because here she was, paying close attention to all the other inmates, if that is what they were called (“patients” would have implied they were being cared for), so she certainly wasn’t self-absorbed.

  The population was of all ages, from girls just past puberty to very old women, all dressed in gray gowns identical to Latha’s, and all with their hair cut short like hers, by amateur beauticians. There were no Negroes. Many of the inmates were making a variety of sounds despite the rule of silence: Latha could distinctly hear the slurping of the soup underneath a general racket of moaning, whining, sighing, squealing, hissing, and squawking. After ten minutes in line, Latha was given a bowl of soup and a spoon.

  The woman in line behind Latha said, “Don’t lose that spoon. You have to hand it in to get out of here.” After Latha had found a place at a table, the same woman brought her bowl and sat beside Latha. She introduced herself, saying, “I’m Mary Jane Hines, formerly a schoolteacher here in Little Rock, and of course I’m not insane at all, which all of us claim not to be, although I’ve been diagnosed as cyclothymic. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds, it just means that like everybody else sometimes I’m happy and sometimes I’m sad.” There was a friendliness and warmth about the woman that gave Latha confidence that she might be able to talk.

  “I’ve lost my voice,” Latha said.

  “No, you haven’t. Listen to you. You don’t even have laryngitis. Why are you here?”

  Latha laughed, the first time she’d done so in several months. “I had a baby,” she said. “It was illegitimate, and my sister, whose husband paid the hospital bill, wanted the baby for her own, since she’s childless, but the only way she could get it away from me was to have me locked up in this bughouse.”

  “Now that is awful. Did you tell the doctors?”

  “I haven’t seen any doctors. Just the guy who admitted me, and he took my sister’s word for it that I wasn’t a fit mother.”

  The two of them ate their soup. It wasn’t inedible, just rather watery, but Latha was not able to identify any of the ingredients except possibly carrot.

  “You’ll probably see a doctor in the morning,” Mary Jane said. “And you can tell him your story.”

  “Do you think he might let me out?”

  Mary Jane’s happy face lost its smile. “Nobody ever gets out of this place.” Thereafter, until their soup was finished, Mary Jane was in one of her sad moods. Latha wanted to ask her several questions, until she remembered two things: She wasn’t supposed to be able to speak at all, and in her childhood she had taken a solemn vow never to ask anybody any questions. She wanted to know if there would be any dessert. She looked around, to see if anybody was getting any, but there wasn’t even a piece of flan.

  Miss Turnkey came and took Latha’s spoon and said, “I suppose I’ll
just have to ask you yes or no questions, and you can nod your head or shake it. Okay? Do you need to go pot-pot before bedtime?”

  Latha considered the question, and nodded. She needed to look in the lavatory’s mirror to see how badly her hair had been cut.

  But there were no mirrors in the lavatory. There were no mirrors anywhere, except in Latha’s compact, which had been taken from her. “I’ll just wait out here,” Miss Turnkey said at the door to the toilets. “Don’t be too long.”

  Latha immediately saw why Miss Turnkey did not want to go into the toilet-room with her. The place was vile, incredibly filthy and it stunk worse than any place Latha had ever smelled. Latha began coughing and couldn’t stop. The washstand not only had no mirror over it, it had no towel, no soap, nothing. The stools either did not flush or were not meant to and were filled with brown water. There was no toilet paper. Latha realized she needed to pee, but then she realized she needed even more to throw up. So she vomited her supper, all of the soup, into one of the stools. When she had quit heaving, she ran some water in the lavatory to rinse her mouth, but the water was brown too, so she let it go.

  She did desperately need a drink of water, so she pantomimed drinking to Miss Turnkey. “Yeah, I heard you puking in there,” Miss Turnkey misinterpreted her gesture. “Caint say I blame you, although it violates Rule Twenty-Six: Keep the contents of your stomach to yourself.”

  Miss Turnkey led her down a hallway to a very large room, bigger than the dining hall, which was filled with cots. Most of the cots already had women or girls lying in them or sitting on them. Miss Turnkey consulted her clipboard. “You’re in forty-seven,” she said. “That would be over there by that window.” She led Latha to the cot and concluded, “That’s all. Nurse Shedd will take over in the morning. See you again tomorrow evening. Sweet dreams.”

  Latha sat on her cot and took stock of the place. It was much too early for bed, although a number of the inmates were already asleep. Others were holding hands in a circle and singing songs. Others were dancing with each other to imaginary music, or to tunes they hummed. Others were just sitting on the edge of their cots, talking to themselves or making various meaningless sounds. Latha saw two women together in a cot, both with their gray gowns removed, one woman on top mimicking the motions of a man making love. Latha continued observing them until they had both gone over the mountain. Latha felt envious. She noticed a young girl watching them also and getting over the mountain with her hand.