Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly

by John Franklin Bardin

  ‘I’m going home today, Mary,’ she said, knowing it was superfluous, but wanting to say the words aloud again just to hear their wonderful sound, as she might hum a tune of Mozart over and over to herself because to hear it made her happy.

  The nurse nodded briskly, but the lines about her eyes crinkled, and Ellen could see that she was relaxed, that for once, at least, Mary stood before her, if not as a friend, as a neutral person. ‘We are going to miss you, Mrs Purcell,’ she said, and as she said this she really smiled. ‘You are our favourite patient, you know.’

  Ellen tried the oatmeal with her spoon, looked down at the tray to keep the attendant from seeing how pleased she was to hear her say that. ‘Am I?’ she said, not that she doubted it, but, childishly, to coax more praise. ‘I did not know.’

  ‘That’s what Dr Danzer says.’

  Ellen let the spoon drop on the plate with a clatter and turned around to see who had spoken. It was Martha, who stood in the doorway – she was smiling, too; but, then, Martha always smiled.

  The two attendants were very different types: Martha, tall, young and blonde, with a lovely face which she made-up carefully and the kind of long-limbed grace to her movements that is more common to a model or an actress than an attendant; Mary, short and heavy-set, but firmly-fleshed, older than Martha but not yet old, quick and machine-like in her habits, grave and ever-watchful. Still, in them, it was not their differences that were remarkable, but their similarities. They seemed always to be present, always alert, always wary – even when Ellen had not seen them, she had known that they were lurking somewhere. They were always looking at you when they were with you, their eyes were upon you no matter what they were doing, they kept you under surveillance. Ellen had at one time resented their vigilance and had complained bitterly to herself about it. She had felt isolated by it as a prisoner under armed guard must feel isolated from the rest of humanity. Even this morning, when she knew that there was no reason for them to regard her in any way other than a friendly one, she looked for indications of their wariness, was relieved to find it absent, but kept seeking it again, as if expecting it to return.

  Martha had come into the room and had walked over to the table. If she would only turn her back to me! Ellen thought, then I would be sure that she means what she says. She looked down at her plate again and picked up her spoon, this time actually scooping some of the oatmeal into her mouth, swallowing the warm, gluey mess. Martha was still talking, her voice casual and pleasant, confiding, ‘Yes, Dr Danzer was telling us just the other day that you are his triumph. That he had never had a patient who responded to treatment as well as you – who effected such a complete adjustment.’ The second attendant had an emphatic manner of speaking that Ellen had often found annoying. She accented words not because of their position in the phrase, the clause, the sentence, as Ellen liked to do herself, but to underscore their meaning. Martha talked to one as she might to a child. Even when she did not repeat what she said, the effect of her words was that of repetition, of deliberation, of instruction. And beneath this emphasis Ellen detected the ring of authority, the hint of command.

  She looked up from her food at both of them, tall and short, standing beside her. ‘It’s kind of you to say that,’ she said. ‘But how could anyone keep from getting well with such good care?’ She had thought this out and sensed that this was what she should say: it was a statement that showed poise and equanimity and assurance – all the qualities that once she had not had. But, in some subtle fashion, it was also a lie, an untruth that she found troublesome. Mary and Martha, she liked them well enough, and they had never been unkind to her – but it was also true that she was glad that she was never going to see them again; that their personalities, their watchfulness, formed as much a part of the life she was escaping as the lattice-work on the window.

  ‘Some don’t—’ said Mary, and then shut her mouth on the rest that she had been about to say. And, as a member of a team helps a mate to recover a fumble, Martha stepped into the gap of silence that followed, saying:

  ‘Dr Danzer tells us that you are going to take up your music again – that you are going to play in concert. Will you send us tickets to your first recital?’

  ‘I shall – I promise,’ Ellen said, eating several spoonsful of the oatmeal; ‘the very first concert I give. But I warn you that you may not like it – my fingers are so stiff. I’m afraid I may have lost the knack.’ And while she talked she was thinking. What had Mary meant by ‘some don’t—’? Had she meant that some don’t recover completely ever? Of course, this was true, and she knew it. Or had the older nurse started to say, and then stopped because of tact, that some seemed to recover, but relapsed, that some did not stay adjusted, that the old fears returned and with them the old malady?

  On impulse, with false bravery, more to test herself and the strength of her will than out of any inner necessity, Ellen said, ‘Martha, now, before I leave’ – she stopped and laughed to make it like a joke – ‘I want you to do me a favour. I want you to turn your back on me, I want both of you to turn your backs on me – both you, Martha, and you, Mary – and keep them turned for more than a minute!’

  Martha smiled and said nothing. Mary did not smile. They both looked at her in silence, not for long, although it seemed long to her, while she took another spoonful of the oatmeal. She lowered her eyes, thinking that they might want to look at each other, to gauge the other’s thoughts to see if they both thought it wise. But as soon as she looked down, she forced herself to look up again – if they had regarded each other, it had been only a flick of a glance, yet she felt that somehow they had managed it, for Martha was smiling again. But then, Martha always smiled.

  ‘Why, of course, if you want,’ said Mary. ‘But I don’t see why?’ And then, after having said she would, she did not, and neither did Martha. But they both stood there looking at her, awaiting an explanation, smiling. And Ellen knew that once more she would have to explain.

  ‘It’s silly of me, I know,’ she said, ‘but all the time I’ve been here I’ve been aware that whenever either of you come into my room you never turn your back on me. I know why it is, too, and don’t think I blame you for it. But now – well, you see,’ and she spread her hands, arched her fingers, splayed them to reach an octave, knowing that the gestures showed her nervousness but helpless to prevent it – ‘what I mean is that I’d just feel better now that I’m going home if you both did that.’

  She glanced up as she finished speaking, and this time she did see them exchange a look. Then Martha laughed and smiled. ‘Well, I do think it’s a little silly, but if you insist.’ And she started to turn, then hesitated. And Mary said, ‘Why, of course, we can if you want—’ She started to turn, too, and stopped. Ellen saw that, for some reason, her request was too queer, that the very fact she had made it had broken their friendliness, that now, even though they knew they did not have to, they were thinking of her again the way they thought of the other patients, that the watchfulness was returning, not all at once, but by degrees, to their manner.

  So she laughed again, more nervously than before, and said, ‘No, don’t. I don’t want you to. It was silly of me – just a notion of mine. You don’t have to really.’

  And Martha said, ‘But we can, if you want us to.’ And Mary looked at her watch and said, ‘It’s getting late and I have all those other diets. Martha, you must help me!’ And Ellen laughed again and watched them leave the room, but she did not eat any more oatmeal.

  After she had drunk her coffee, she wanted a cigarette, and went to her purse for the pack, took one out of it and put it in her mouth before she realized that she still had no matches. None of the patients was allowed matches, even on the day they went home. She could ring for the nurse, who would bring her a match, and who would stay close by until the cigarette was smoked and safely extinguished, but this she did not want to do. Instead, she walked to the window, stood in front of it and a few paces away from it, so she coul
d see through the lattice-work, looked down on the rolling lawn, the curving path to the gate, the elms. The sky she could see was the deep, clear blue of mid-summer, the leafage of the elms had darkened in the sun’s heat, the clipped grass was spoiled with bare brown patches; although it was only late July, the season already had sown the seeds of its own destruction. The warmth of the day had begun to seep into the room; she felt flushed, and when she passed her hand over her forehead it came away damp. She went to the washstand and held a washcloth under the tap, then pressed its cold wetness to her face. She put on fresh powder and a little rouge, new lipstick, bending over the basin and putting her head close to the mirror as she made a new mouth. Her hair, she saw, still passed muster; her eyes were still the same transparent blue; there were very few wrinkles. Her lips were quiet, her chin forthright, her neck was not too long, her skin smooth. But what can I tell of the way I look? she asked herself – if there is change it goes on from day to day, I grow used to it, and although in months and years my face matures, coarsens, mocks its youth, the tiny advance age makes each day I never see, I never know. Thinking this, she picked up her toilet articles, which she had forgotten before, and carried them to one of the travelling-cases, unlocked it, put them inside and slammed it shut again. But when she had done this she was more than ever aware that it was just seven-thirty, that the nurse had said the doctor would be late, that even if Basil arrived early he would not be allowed to come up for her until she had seen the doctor and he had signed her discharge, that it would be more than an hour before she could go home.

  Her books were packed, and so was her music – there was not even a newspaper she could read. If she sat and did nothing she would begin to remember all the incidents of her illness, she would become morose. As it was, her happiness had not left her, she was only sensing its peril. Of course, she could open the suitcase, unpack a book – in fact, that was the sensible thing to do. But the packing of those cases had marked a significant moment, had stood for the end of her life in this room; she had not even liked opening one long enough to put her cosmetics into it. No, she would not read; but she knew what she would do; she would pay Ella a visit; she would say good-bye.

  She went to the door and put her hand on the knob, turned it – half-expecting that it would not turn although she knew that they had not locked her in for months – heard the quiet click and swung open the heavy door. After she walked into the corridor she pushed it wide and pressed down the plunger that would hold it open, for this was a rule. Then she went down the long, green-walled, tiled-floor hall to Ella’s room. Its door was open, too, and she walked in without knocking.

  Ella was sitting up in her chair by the window, her face turned toward the sun, her great body limp and sagging, while an orderly fed her breakfast. Ellen stopped just across the threshold, waited for the orderly to nod his head before she walked to the window and the huge, ageing woman. Ella held a fascination for her, an attraction that could not be explained wholly in terms of the similarity of their names, as Dr Danzer had once tried to explain it, although she admitted that a part of the compulsion had originated in that. Last winter, when the other patient had been admitted to the hospital, she had heard the nurses and the orderlies talking about ‘Ella’, about her violent intervals, her generally disturbed condition. And when she had first heard the name she had thought it her own, ‘Ellen’, and had been frightened. For days she had hidden her fear from Dr Danzer, although he could detect its effects in her personality and kept giving her word-associations and took a renewed interest in her dreams – she could smile at her panic now, but then she had thought that Ella’s symptoms, which she overheard them talking about, were her own; she had thought that she was having violent episodes and then forgetting them. She had finally confided her fears to Dr Danzer and, to quiet them, he had taken her to see Ella, as he said, ‘to show you that when we say “Ella” we do not mean “Ellen”.’

  As she walked across the room she remembered that first time she had seen Ella: the large form collapsed on the bed under an upheaval of covers, the twisting and turning of that mountainous body, the heaving breaths and the remarkably placid face that surmounted this disorder, the grey lumps of cheeks, the broad, fat lips, the open, staring, watery grey eyes. Her first reaction had been revulsion, and then relief, and then pity. Dr Danzer had told her something about Ella’s history – how she had been a successful business-woman with many friends, convivial, a sport; how liquor had first been a pleasure for her, and then a passion, and now a mania. She had taken ‘the cure’ several times at less reputable institutions, but the last time she had gone on a binge it had been far worse than before – there had been some other complication; degeneration had occurred. ‘She had never had a Wassermann,’ the doctor had said, ‘until a friend brought her here. She is under treatment now; but, of course, although we can arrest the disease we cannot hope to restore what has been destroyed.’

  She had fallen into the habit of visiting Ella’s room a few times each week, of sitting beside her bed or her chair by the window, of watching her placid face. Now she was rarely violent and she spent most of her day by the window – why she enjoyed this Ellen did not know, although she had noticed that the older woman’s eyes sought and found the sun, followed it, and only on days when it was sunny did her expression change and something that seemed more like a smile than not inhabited her features. The great woman rarely made a sound, and on those occasions when she did it was a whimpering, and not an attempt at speech. But her face, for Ellen, held as many mysteries as the sea; its mask-like placidity, she was sure, was but the uppermost surface of a deep, many-levelled world of turmoil. To sit and watch those immobile planes and curves, those empty eyes, that gaping mouth, and then to return and search her mirror, inspect her own sentience as revealed by her own solid flesh, her changing mien, was to restore her faith in her own intelligence. So she always went to Ella’s room when she doubted herself, when she was afraid.

  Today Ella was eating, was being fed, and she knew that her presence was a bother to the orderly. But he had nodded his head, so she crossed to the window and stood looking down at the seated giantess, watching the thin youth in the white coat spoon up the oatmeal and lift it into the open mouth, watching the broad, fleshy hands grip the arm of the chair and then relax, grip and then relax, as a baby clenches and unclenches his fist as he sucks at his mother’s breast. Yet in no other way was Ella childlike; rather her placidity seemed like the visible sign of superhuman maturity, expressing a god-like peace. In fact, her physical lineaments were not unlike Buddha’s; although she did not sit cross-legged, she was huge enough, mysterious enough. When she was calm it was as if she were petrified, her only movement the swivelling of her head as her vacant eyes followed the sun; but this motion was an encroachment, like the lengthening of a sundial’s shadow, like the slow progression of the smaller hand of a clock from one numeral to the next. They say Ella has no perception of reality any more, she thought, but if this is so why do her eyes follow the sun? Doesn’t this compulsion indicate a sensing of the passage of time, a knowledge of the continual, gradual destruction of life? Couldn’t it be that she does know, that she is still intelligent, but has just lost the power of speech together with all controls over most of her muscles except those of the head and eyes? If this is right, then to hold her head steady and to seek out the sun is her way of letting us know her great determination to live. And, it could be, her violence is but a great spasm of exasperation, of despair, a catastrophic assertion of her plight. And, if this is so, her imbecility is a tragedy to her, as well as to us.

  When the orderly finished giving the meal to his patient he wiped her face with brusque, masculine tenderness, picked up the tray and offered his chair to Ellen. She sat down in it, her back to the window, and stared at the woman’s blank face, trying to envisage it as it had been when she had been a success in business and had had many friends. Her face had always been large – that was certain from the out
set: you could tell by the shape of the skull and the structure of the bones. And she was inclined to believe that it had always possessed some of the mask-like qualities it had today. Not in the same degree, and with greater variety: there had been a jolly mask, a serious mask, and, perhaps, a pouting mask. But Ellen felt quite sure that her near namesake had never shown her true emotions; she had been too much of an actress for that, too much of a saleswoman – and had she not been convivial and had many friends? So what she saw when she looked at her today was not disintegration, but an accretion, an intensification. The conflict that had been there all along, which Dr Danzer was certain had been the initial cause of her break, and not alcohol, was as much hidden today as it had been then, and this conflict, Ellen felt intuitively, was the core of her personality. How could one plumb these placid depths and find it? Where was the clue, the key, the entering wedge? Ellen felt she knew that, too – it was there for everyone to see – the one eccentricity, the one vestige of character: the woman’s eyes and their habit of looking at the sun. Here is a person, she thought, who has found time out, for whom it holds no terrors, who is one with its destructive genius.

  Thinking this, she looked at her watch and saw it was after eight. She stood up to go, not wanting to be out of her room when the doctor came, looking once more at Ella, her taciturnity, her mystery. In some way knowing that Ella had given her strength, had built up her hope – she would remember this calm one, who could be so violent, fondly – she walked past the door and down the hall to her room. Dr Danzer was there, waiting for her.

  He stood by the window, his hand against one of the drapes, his body half-turned towards her, his eyes thoughtfully upon her. He was a small man, a slow man, a kind man. As she came into the room and walked up to him, she felt the same surprise that she had felt many times before on seeing him: she was taken aback once more by the slightness of his build, the smallness of his hands and head, the seeming immaturity of his features. His dark eyes behind shell-rimmed glasses had the intensity, the capacity for feeling pain, that one expects in adolescence; his mouth was impressionable, the way he held his lips conjectural, as if anything he might say was tentative and he was no more certain of his own mind than he was of others. But when he spoke, as he did now, this vagueness, this indecision, ceased. His words existed in their own right, were spoken deliberately and exactly, though quietly, implying the logic that had chosen them, the knowledge behind the logic, the intuition behind that knowledge. Ellen had always felt safe with this man, had liked him for himself as well as for the security he gave. And she liked him even more at this moment, all but cried aloud with joy when he said the words, her words, that meant so much to her. How he had known to say them she did not know, but that was not important; what was important was that he did say them, slowly and precisely, giving them to her as a symbol of her freedom.