by Brian Friel
A reddish blob in front of my face; rotating; liquefying; pulsating. Keep calm. Concentrate.
‘Can you see my hand, Molly?’
‘I think so … I’m not sure …’
‘Now I’m moving my hand slowly.’
‘Yes … yes …’
‘Do you see my hand moving?’
‘Yes …’
‘What way is it moving?’
‘Yes … I do see it … up and down … up and down … Yes! I see it! I do! Yes! Moving up and down! Yes-yes-yes!’
‘Splendid!’ he said. ‘Absolutely splendid! You are a clever lady!’
And there was such delight in his voice. And my head was suddenly giddy. And I thought for a moment – for a moment I thought I was going to faint.
Frank There was some mix-up about what time the bandages were to be removed. At least I was confused. For some reason I got it into my head that they were to be taken off at eight in the morning, October 8, the day after the operation. A Wednesday, I remember, because I was doing a crash-course in speed-reading and I had to switch from the morning to the afternoon class for that day.
So; eight o’clock sharp; there I was sitting in the hospital, all dickied up – the good suit, the shoes polished, the clean shirt, the new tie, and with my bunch of flowers, waiting to be summoned to Molly’s ward.
The call finally did come – at a quarter to twelve. Ward 10. Room 17. And of course by then I knew the operation was a disaster.
Knocked. Went in. Rice was there. And a staff nurse, a tiny little woman. And an Indian man – the anaesthetist, I think. The moment I entered he rushed out without saying a word.
And Molly. Sitting very straight in a white chair beside her bed. Her hair pulled away back from her face and piled up just here. Wearing a lime-green dressing-gown that Rita Cairns had lent her and the blue slippers I got her for her last birthday.
There was a small bruise mark below her right eye.
I thought: How young she looks, and so beautiful, so very beautiful.
‘There she is,’ said Rice. ‘How does she look?’
‘She looks well.’
‘Well? She looks wonderful! And why not? Everything went brilliantly! A complete success! A dream!’
He was so excited, there was no trace of the posh accent. And he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. And he took my hand and shook it as if he were congratulating me. And the tiny staff nurse laughed and said ‘Brilliant! Brilliant!’ and in her excitement knocked the chart off the end of the bed and then laughed even more.
‘Speak to her!’ said Rice. ‘Say something!’
‘How are you?’ I said to Molly.
‘How do I look?’
‘You look great.’
‘Do you like my black eye?’
‘I didn’t notice it,’ I said.
‘I’m feeling great,’ she said. ‘Really. But what about you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you manage all right on your own last night?’
I suppose at that moment and in those circumstances it did sound a bit funny.
Anyhow Rice laughed out loud and of course the staff nurse; and then Molly and I had to laugh, too. In relief, I suppose, really …
Then Rice said to me,
‘Aren’t you going to give the lady her flowers?’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I got Rita to choose them. She said they’re your favourite.’
Could she see them? I didn’t know what to do. Should I take her hand and put the flowers into it?
I held them in front of her. She reached out confidently and took them from me.
‘They’re lovely,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Lovely.’
And she held them at arm’s length, directly in front of her face, and turned them round. Suddenly Rice said,
‘What colour are they, Molly?’
She didn’t hesitate at all.
‘They’re blue,’ she said. ‘Aren’t they blue?’
‘They certainly are! And the paper?’ Rice asked. ‘What colour is the wrapping paper?’
‘Is it … yellow?’
‘Yes! So you know some colours! Excellent! Really excellent!’
And the staff nurse clapped with delight.
‘Now – a really hard question, and I’m not sure I know the answer to it myself. What sort of flowers are they?’
She brought them right up to her face. She turned them upside down. She held them at arm’s length again. She stared at them – peered at them really – for what seemed an age. I knew how anxious she was by the way her mouth was working.
‘Well, Molly? Do you know what they are?’
We waited. Another long silence. Then suddenly she closed her eyes shut tight. She brought the flowers right up against her face and inhaled in quick gulps and at the same time, with her free hand, swiftly, deftly felt the stems and the leaves and the blossoms. Then with her eyes still shut tight she called out desperately, defiantly,
‘They’re cornflowers! That’s what they are! Cornflowers! Blue cornflowers! Centaurea!’
Then for maybe half-a-minute she cried. Sobbed really.
The staff nurse looked uneasily at Rice. He held up his hand.
‘Cornflowers, indeed. Splendid,’ he said very softly. ‘Excellent. It has been a heady day. But we’re really on our way now, aren’t we?’
I went back to the hospital again that night after my class. She was in buoyant form. I never saw her so animated.
‘I can see, Frank!’ she kept saying. ‘Do you hear me? – I can see!’ Mr Rice was a genius! Wasn’t it all wonderful? The nurses were angels! Wasn’t I thrilled? She loved my red tie – it was red, wasn’t it? And everybody was so kind. Dorothy and Joyce brought those chocolates during their lunch-break. And old Mr O’Neill sent that Get Well card – there – look – on the window-sill. And didn’t the flowers look beautiful in that pink vase? She would have the operation on the left eye just as soon as Mr Rice would agree. And then, Frank, and then and then and then and then – oh, God, what then!
I was so happy, so happy for her. Couldn’t have been happier for God’s sake.
But just as on that first morning in Rice’s bungalow when the only thing my mind could focus on was the smell of fresh whiskey off his breath, now all I could think of was some – some – some absurd scrap of information a Norwegian fisherman told me about the eyes of whales.
Whales for God’s sake!
Stupid information. Useless, off-beat information. Stupid, useless, quirky mind …
Molly was still in full flight when a nurse came in and said that visiting time was long over and that Mrs Sweeney needed all her strength to face tomorrow.
‘How do I look?’
‘Great,’ I said.
‘Really, Frank?’
‘Honestly. Wonderful.’
‘Black eye and all?’
‘You wouldn’t notice it,’ I said.
She caught my hand.
‘Do you think …?’
‘Do I think what?’
‘Do you think I look pretty, Frank?’
‘You look beautiful,’ I said. ‘Just beautiful.’
‘Thank you.’
I kissed her on the forehead and, as I said good night to her, she gazed intently at my face as if she were trying to read it. Her eyes were bright; unnaturally bright; burnished. And her expression was open and joyous. But as I said good night I had a feeling she wasn’t as joyous as she looked.
Mr Rice When I look back over my working life I suppose I must have done thousands of operations. Sorry – performed. Bloomstein always corrected me on that: ‘Come on, you bloody bogman! We’re not mechanics. We’re artists. We perform.’ (He shrugs his shoulders in dismissal.)
And of those thousands I wonder how many I’ll remember.
I’ll remember Dubai. An Arab gentleman whose left eye had been almost pecked out by one of his peregrines and who sent his private jet to New York for Hans Girder and myself. The eye
was saved, really because Girder was a magician. And we spent a week in a palace of marble and gold and played poker with the crew of the jet and lost every penny of the ransom we had just earned.
And I’ll remember a city called Frankfort in Kentucky; and an elderly lady called Busty Butterfly who had been blinded in a gas explosion. Hiroko Matoba and I ‘performed’ that operation. A tricky one, but he and I always worked well together. And Busty Butterfly was so grateful that she wanted me to have her best racehorse and little Hiroko to marry her.
And I’ll remember Ballybeg. Of course I’ll remember Ballybeg. And the courageous Molly Sweeney. And I’ll remember it not because of the operation – the operation wasn’t all that complex; nor because the circumstances were special; nor indeed because a woman who had been blind for over forty years got her sight back. Yes, yes, yes, I’ll remember it for all those reasons. Of course I will. But the core, the very heart, of the memory will be something different, something altogether different.
Perhaps I should explain that after that high summer of my thirty-second year – that episode in Cairo – the dinner party for Maria – Bloomstein’s phone-call – all that tawdry drama – my life no longer … cohered. I withdrew from medicine, from friendships, from all the consolations of work and the familiar; and for seven years and seven months – sounds like a fairy tale I used to read to Aisling – I subsided into a terrible darkness …
But I was talking of Molly’s operation and my memory of that. And the core of that memory is this. That for seventy-five minutes in the theatre on that blustery October morning, the darkness miraculously lifted, and I performed – I watched myself do it – I performed so assuredly and with such skill, so elegantly, so efficiently, so economically – yes, yes, yes, of course it sounds vain – vanity has nothing to do with it – but suddenly, miraculously, all the gifts, all the gifts were mine again, abundantly mine, joyously mine; and on that blustery October morning I had such a feeling of mastery and – how can I put it? – such a sense of playfulness for God’s sake that I knew I was restored. No, no, no, not fully restored. Never fully restored. But a sense that a practical restoration, perhaps a restoration to something truer – that was possible. Yes, maybe that was possible …
Yes, I’ll remember Ballybeg. And when I left that dreary little place, that’s the memory I took away with me. The place where I restored her sight to Molly Sweeney. Where the terrible darkness lifted. Where the shaft of light glanced off me again.
Molly Mr Rice said he couldn’t have been more pleased with my progress. He called me his Miracle Molly. I liked him a lot more as the weeks passed.
And as usual Rita was wonderful. She let me off work early every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And I’d dress up in this new coat I’d bought – a mad splurge to keep the spirits up – brilliant scarlet with a matching beret – Rita said I could be seen from miles away, like a distress signal – anyhow in all my new style I’d walk to the hospital on those three afternoons – without my cane! – and sometimes that was scary, I can tell you. And Mr Rice would examine me and say, ‘Splendid, Molly! Splendid!’ And then he’d pass me on to a psychotherapist, Mrs Wallace, a beautiful looking young woman according to Frank, and I’d do all sorts of tests with her. And then she’d pass me on to George, her husband, for more tests – he was a behavioural psychologist, if you don’t mind, a real genius apparently – the pair of them were writing a book on me. And then I’d go back to Mr Rice again and he’d say ‘Splendid!’ again. And then I’d walk home – still no cane! – and have Frank’s tea waiting for him when he’d get back from the library.
I can’t tell you how kind Frank was to me, how patient he was. As soon as tea was over, he’d sit at the top of the table and he’d put me at the bottom and he’d begin my lesson.
He’d put something in front of me – maybe a bowl of fruit – and he’d say,
‘What have I got in my hand?’
‘A piece of fruit.’
‘What sort of fruit?’
‘An orange, Frank. I know the colour, don’t I?’
‘Very clever. Now, what’s this?’
‘It’s a pear.’
‘You’re guessing.’
‘Let me touch it.’
‘Not allowed. You already have your tactical engrams. We’ve got to build up a repertory of visual engrams to connect with them.’
And I’d say, ‘For God’s sake stop showing off your posh new words, Frank. It’s a banana.’
‘Sorry. Try again.’
‘It’s a peach. Right?’
‘Splendid!’ he’d say in Mr Rice’s accent. ‘It certainly is a peach. Now, what’s this?’
And he’d move on to knives and forks, or shoes and slippers, or all the bits and pieces on the mantelpiece for maybe another hour or more. Every night. Seven nights a week.
Oh, yes, Frank couldn’t have been kinder to me.
Rita, too. Even kinder. Even more patient.
And all my customers at the health club, the ones who had massages regularly, they sent me a huge bouquet of pink-and-white tulips. And the club I used to swim with, they sent me a beautiful gardening book. God knows what they thought – that I’d now be able to pick it up and read it? But everyone was great, just great.
Oh, yes, I lived in a very exciting world for those first weeks after the operation. Not at all like that silly world I wanted to visit and devour – none of that nonsense.
No, the world that I now saw – half-saw, peered at really – it was a world of wonder and surprise and delight. Oh, yes; wonderful, surprising, delightful. And joy – such joy, small unexpected joys that came in such profusion and passed so quickly that there was never enough time to savour them.
But it was a very foreign world, too. And disquieting; even alarming. Every shape an apparition, a spectre that appeared suddenly from nowhere and challenged you. And all that movement – nothing ever still – everything in motion all the time; and every movement unexpected, somehow threatening. Even the sudden sparrows in the garden, they seemed aggressive, dangerous.
So that after a time the mind could absorb no more sensation. Just one more colour – light – movement – ghostly shape – and suddenly the head imploded and the hands shook and the heart melted with panic. And the only escape – the only way to live – was to sit absolutely still; and shut the eyes tight; and immerse yourself in darkness; and wait. Then when the hands were still and the heart quiet, slowly open the eyes again. And emerge. And try to find the courage to face it all once more.
I tried to explain to Frank once how – I suppose how terrifying it all was. But naturally, naturally he was far more concerned with teaching me practical things. And one day when I mentioned to Mr Rice that I didn’t think I’d find things as unnerving as I did, he said in a very icy voice,
‘And what sort of world did you expect, Mrs Sweeney?’
Yes, it was a strange time. An exciting time, too – oh, yes, exciting. But so strange. And during those weeks after the operation I found myself thinking more and more about my mother and father, but especially about my mother and what it must have been like for her living in that huge, echoing house.
Mr Rice I operated on the second eye, the left eye, six weeks after the first operation. I had hoped it might have been a healthier eye. But when the cataract was removed, we found a retina much the same as in the right: traces of pigmentosa, scarred macula, areas atrophied. However, with both eyes functioning to some degree, her visual field was larger and she fixated better. She could now see from a medical point of view. From a psychological point of view she was still blind. In other words she now had to learn to see.
Frank As we got closer to the end of that year, it was quite clear that Molly was changing – had changed. And one of the most fascinating insights into the state of her mind at that time was given to me by Jean Wallace, the psychotherapist; very interesting woman; brilliant actually; married to George, a behavioural psychologist, a second-rater if you ask me; and what a b
ore – what a bore! Do you know what that man did? Lectured me one day for over an hour on cheese-making if you don’t mind! Anyhow – anyhow – the two of them – the Wallaces – they were doing this book on Molly; a sort of documentation of her ‘case-history’ from early sight to life-long blindness to sight restored to … whatever. And the way Jean explained Molly’s condition to me was this.
All of us live on a swing, she said. And the swing normally moves smoothly and evenly across a narrow range of the usual emotions. Then we have a crisis in our life; so that instead of moving evenly from, say, feeling sort of happy to feeling sort of miserable, we now swing from elation to despair, from unimaginable delight to utter wretchedness.
The word she used was ‘delivered’ to show how passive we are in this terrifying game: We are delivered into one emotional state – snatched away from it – delivered into the opposite emotional state. And we can’t help ourselves. We can’t escape. Until eventually we can endure no more abuse – become incapable of experiencing anything, feeling anything at all.
That’s how Jean Wallace explained Molly’s behaviour to me. Very interesting woman. Brilliant actually. And beautiful, too. Oh, yes, all the gifts. And what she said helped me to understand Molly’s extraordinary behaviour – difficult behaviour – yes, goddamit, very difficult behaviour over those weeks leading up to Christmas.
For example – for example. One day, out of the blue, a Friday evening in December, five o’clock, I’m about to go to the Hikers Club, and she says, ‘I feel like a swim, Frank. Let’s go for a swim now.’
At this stage I’m beginning to recognize the symptoms: the defiant smile, the excessive enthusiasm, some reckless, dangerous proposal. ‘Fine. Fine,’ I say. Even though it’s pitch dark and raining. So we’ll go to the swimming-pool? Oh, no. She wants to swim in the sea. And not only swim in the sea on a wet Friday night in December, but she wants to go out to the rocks at the far end of Tramore and she wants to climb up on top of Napoleon Rock as we call it locally – it’s the highest rock there, a cliff really – and I’m to tell her if the tide is in or out and how close are the small rocks in the sea below and how deep the water is because she’s going to dive – to dive for God’s sake – the eighty feet from the top of Napoleon down into the Atlantic ocean.