by Gay Courter
“But, Edwin, the boys should have their father with them,” I said amid the boxes and bundles stacked in the corridor.
“I shall see them daily and be available whenever they require me. I expect they will also visit me here. In fact, having me in a familiar environment should ease their confusion.”
“No, it will confound them further. They must know they will be making their home at the new house and are not just visiting Grandmama.”
“As far as I am concerned, they can remain with me here or go with Zilpah, but you cannot transport me along with the furnishings and the servants.” He sat down on a crate and leaned back against the wall with studied nonchalance.
“This argument is not about houses—it is about opium!” I challenged forthrightly. “You want your privacy so you may indulge to your heart's content.” I clenched my fist at him. He did not flinch.
“Exactly,” he replied in the bitter tone that I had come to know well in the past few weeks. “The moment you leave, I will convert the house into a den of iniquity. I shall stop going to Clive Street and spend my days, as well as my nights, lost in a miasma of woeful Oriental dreams. As De Quincey said, 'Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!' “
“Don't forget that De Quincey not only wrote The Pleasures of Opium, but The Pains of Opium as well.”
“Pity I did not marry an ignorant woman. Or did I? Education does not necessarily breed common sense. Why can't you understand that I am not affected adversely by a few puffs from a pipe? Until you discovered me, you did not suspect that I had ever inhaled a whiff.” He stood and stretched languidly. “Besides, what difference should it make to you? If I were dissolute, if I had left your bed, if I had failed at my work, you might have some cause for complaint.”
“That is not the point. Who knows how your body is being poisoned? Who knows when the pleasure will turn to pain? What if you begin to see 'crocodiles with leering eyes' and other 'unutterable monsters' like De Quincey?” I began to sob with anxiety. “What I want is to have the man I dearly love back in my arms again!”
“Nonsense.” He moved farther away from me. “The man you love smoked before he met you, and at times throughout your marriage. In truth, you have never loved a man who did not smoke opium. If I stopped, you might find me a hateful creature. Perhaps it is the opium itself that made me so desirable to you.”
“No!” I gasped.
“Why won't you look at the facts instead of some imagined horror?” he concluded before shutting himself off in his study.
There was no middle ground where we could meet to discuss his habit rationally. Edwin believed we could be reconciled if I accepted him as he was. This I could never do. If he truly loved the children and me, he would see that giving up this minor yet dangerous pleasure was the way to give us peace. I began to hope that while I was away, he might miss me so dreadfully he would be willing to undertake the sacrifice. Yet I also worried that he might find the solitary life satisfactory, and I would return to find he had left us forever.
What choices did I have? Someone had to go to China. And anyway, arguing was not bringing our estrangement to an end. There was one more option. Even though it involved a risk to our reputation, I had to take it.
Before I set sail, I went to see Dr. Hyam to acquire antimalaria tablets and to be inoculated against the plague. As I lay down on my stomach on the examining table, the doctor's assistant lifted my skirt and pulled down my undergarments. The doctor approached me from the front and prepared the treatment while I watched.
“To think of the lives this vial of serum has saved.” Dr. Hyam held up the syrupy substance reverently. “I suppose you know the connection between it and your esteemed family.”
“No . . .” A more serious matter on my mind distracted me.
“Come now, you must recall that Waldemar Haffkine, a Russian Jew who studied with Pasteur, discovered the serum. First he worked on a cure for cholera, and then the British ambassador in Paris encouraged him to extend his studies in India to find a serum for plague. After the last terrible outbreak, your family was one of the first to accept his newest vaccine. I am surprised you did not get one then.”
“I was in Travancore when the plague struck.”
“How fortunate that you were protected by distance. Now you will have a more secure shield.” He injected the stinging dose into my buttock.
I winced, then said, “So our family inspired others to be protected.”
“They did more than that. When Haffkine was working in Bombay, the government gave him a bungalow on Malabar Hill for his use as a laboratory. That’s how the doctor came to know his neighbor and your distant relation, Flora Sassoon.” With a clink the doctor dropped the syringe in a dish and told me to press the spot where he had stabbed me.
“Really?” Suddenly I was intrigued. Ever since I had taken charge at Clive Street, there had been mumblings that I was going to turn into Calcutta's Flora Sassoon, the grande dame of the Bombay clan who managed their cotton mills and other aspects of the family's business after the death of her husband.
“Such a devout man, and so humble,” Dr. Hyam prattled on. “Without her encouragement, some say Haffkine might never have made the breakthrough.”
“Dr. Hyam, I . . .” Long ago I had trusted this old friend with the embarrassing problems Edwin and I had confronted on our honeymoon. Desperate again, I had to confide in him.
“Yes?” he asked as he washed his hands. When he turned around, he went on as though I hadn't spoken. “To think Haffkine caused himself to be inoculated with his own preparation to prove its harmlessness. What courage! What vision!”
“Vision.” I embraced the word. “That's another matter I wanted to speak with you about.” I sat up and straightened my skirts.
The doctor took my wrist in his hand. “Are you feeling lightheaded?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Now you must sit awhile to make certain there are no ill effects.” He turned to make a note on his chart. With his back to me, he added, “Is there anything else?”
I took a deep breath and blurted, “Is it possible for someone to smoke opium in moderation with no ill effects?”
“What brought this about?”
Echoing in my mind were my father's words of explanation in that Patna field long ago: “This is Papaver somniferum, the most prized flower in the world . . .”
“Yes?” the doctor prompted.
I wiped my brow with the handkerchief crumpled in my hand. “My father used to say the poppy eliminated pain and cured diseases.”
“And so it does. You see the black balls that are shipped to China, but I see a compendium of morphine, narcotine, codeine, narcine, thebaine, opianine, meconine, pseudomorphine, porphyoxine, papavarine, and meconic acid—a total of eleven useful organic compounds available in every ounce of opium. From them we compound morphine tablets, ointments, solutions, tinctures, suspensions, and clysters. Asthmatics clear their lungs with it, racking coughs are quelled, stomach cramps are ended, and people with pain—pain so hideous you would prefer to put them out of their misery rather than see them suffer another second—can function between doses.”
I had not expected the doctor would make me almost as defensive as Edwin had. “I realize opium for medicinal purposes might be essential, but he also told me it made men happy. What do you think about people who use opium purely for pleasure?” I asked as I fought to control my voice's timbre.
“The quantity consumed by the masses is immense, as you well know, and yet in the end, we doctors find it does not do irreparable harm to the majority who use it. There is no disease directly caused by moderate use, and although some physicians say the course of one's life is shortened, how can this be proved?”
I wondered whether my perspiring forehead was a symptom of my emotional anguish at the thought of Edwin's perpetual dependence or from the new drug inside my body. “So you would argue that o
pium is a harmless substance.”
“My own conviction is that if someone chooses to take a stimulant, the juice of the poppy is as benign as any other artificial source of excitement. At least it never makes a man foolish, it never casts him into a ditch or under the table, it never deprives him of his wits or his limbs. Frankly, opium permits a man to be a gentleman.”
I tried again. “The visions . . .”
“Yes, it may give him visions, but these visions create no noise, no riots. They deal no blows to himself or to his fellows. To a man who is despondent, if offers an unoffending relief to his miseries.”
“What if a man is not miserable and takes it only out of habit?”
Dr. Hyam wheeled around. “Why this sudden interest? Anything to do with your voyage abroad?”
“Not exactly.”
I accepted his outstretched hand and stepped down from the table. “Would you prefer to continue this discussion in my office?”
“Yes, I would.” My bottom was aching, but I did not care as I took the hard seat in the Lower Chitpur Road clinic office. This is where so much of what I am today began, I thought as I looked around the familiar room where I had first tried my hand at keeping account books.
“Now, what is this about?” the doctor asked in a genial yet probing manner.
Anger overcame my reticence. “This is about my husband,” I replied. “Edwin has been smoking for years and years and refuses to give it up.”
Dr. Hyam shook his head with disbelief. “How long have you known this?”
“I discovered it quite recently.”
“How many years?”
“Since before we married. Somehow he hid it from me the whole time. How could I have been so blind?”
“Don't berate yourself. Didn't I mention earlier the opium user does not display the disgusting habits of the imbiber? He smokes a pipe, is that right?”
“Yes, I saw him myself.”
“Perhaps it will alleviate some of your distress to know that opium smokers, unlike opium eaters, have the mildest form of dependence.”
“Why are you defending Edwin?” I jumped up and started for the door.
“Dinah, please . . .” The rotund man came around to my side of the desk and took my hands in his plump ones. “You must not leave for an hour, in case you have a reaction to the vaccine. In any case, we have not arranged your medicines for the journey.” He took the seat next to mine and waited until I seemed calmer. “I gather you have asked your husband to abandon this habit and he has refused.”
“Yes, he thinks the only obstacle is my objection.”
“Edwin does not even think he has a problem. He wonders why you have bothered to excite yourself over the matter.”
The doctor's accuracy alarmed me. “Have you spoken to Edwin about this already?”
“No, this is experience speaking. For your part, you cannot understand why, if he loves you and the children, he will not refrain from what is, after all, a useless vice.”
Deflated, I sighed. “I want him to be healthy.”
“In my opinion, there seem to be other reasons you object. You do not want him to be a slave to another mistress. You do not want him pursuing an activity that you perceive is out of your sphere of control.”
Was I so monstrous? My shoulders sagged and my chin dropped as though a weight were pressing me from all around. I stared at my feet.
“Even before you came into the Luddy fortune or had to confront the Lanyados, you were a determined young lady. That is not meant as criticism, rather as a compliment.” He leaned away from me, his bald head tilting backward. “I remember you after the death of your poor mother, and I recall myself thinking: This is the strongest child I have ever known. I wonder, though, if that strength has not made it impossible for you to bend.”
“I cannot see how I could be at fault—” I choked. “Edwin began smoking when he was a boy. Also, if this habit is innocuous, why did he hide it from me?”
“He was ashamed. He did not want to appear weak, which he would have, at least in comparison with you. 'Admiration' is the word I would use as regards your husband, my dear. The loss of the ship might have shattered a lesser man. He swallowed his pride and got on with it. And now look where he is, where you both are, today. You two are the most esteemed couple in Calcutta.”
“That is not true,” I objected.
“Rarely do we see ourselves as others see us.”
“Then you don't think he should discontinue the vice.”
“To my mind, there is but one difficulty with smoking opium: the loss of free will. Alas, my dear, your husband cannot throw his pipe out the window any more than you can agree to go without food.”
“That is an unfair comparison. Food is a requirement for life.”
“Is it?” The doctor tilted his head. “What if I were to offer you a tablet that contained everything you needed to sustain yourself each day. Wouldn't you continue to crave food? Wouldn't delicious odors tempt you? Could you resist your favorite sweets, which are certainly unnecessary? You see, my dear, there are two reasons that people take opium: either to restore themselves to the condition they regard as normal, such as to take away pains or symptoms or disease, or to liberate themselves from normality—to change their mood, to make them feel more excited or more relaxed, actually to alter their perceptions of normalcy. If, as you say, Edwin has been taking the pipe for many years, normalcy to him includes the opiate in his bloodstream.”
“He doesn't think about it like that.”
“Not in his conscious mind perhaps, yet his body sends powerful signals to his brain warning him not to tamper with the status quo.”
“Could he stop if he really wanted to?”
“I would guess he may have tried on his own—most sensible people do at one time or another—and knows the unpleasant sequelae that follow.”
“Would he get very sick?”
“Yes, for a short time. At least that is the case with most smokers. He would have respiratory problems. His eyes would discharge tears and mucus. He would have ringing in his ears and severe intestinal colic. There would be vomiting, purging, chills followed by flashes of heat—much like the terrors of malaria—tearing pains in the legs, the loins, between the shoulders. He would find no relief in sleep for months. Frankly, most people who try to break themselves seldom carry the struggle to a successful conclusion.”
“Couldn't you assist him?”
“If he wished it. There are ways to manage the distress. One treatment consists of the use of capsicum, digitalis, and cannabis Indica tincture in large doses. If there is much reflex nervous trouble, potassium and sodium may be given. There are also several methods that diminish the effect of the drug slowly.”
“If only he would try it!”
“I could offer him the treatment, but it is more complicated than I have made it sound. Dozens of medicines must be employed to counteract the various symptoms: catechu in large doses for the diarrhea, chloride of gold and soda for the pains in the limbs, oxide of zinc for the profuse perspiration, and more. He would have to submit to my regimen religiously and be watched and restrained for at least two weeks. From what you have said, I doubt he would be willing.”
My moment of exhilaration was crushed. “You are right. There is no hope.”
“Don't say that. There are further possibilities. Unless you have been a brilliant actress, I believe you have been a very happy wife. Why not go on as you were?”
“That is impossible.”
Dr. Hyam shook his gleaming head. “I fear you are also suffering from an addiction—the addiction of having your own way.” There was no rancor in his voice, but the spike that continued to lodge in my heart was driven deeper.
“Perhaps if I am away, I will appreciate what I have,” I said as tears blurred my view of the doctor's concerned face. “The discovery of the pipe was a shock. Everything since the earthquake has been a shock.” I sobbed openly. “How has everything gone so wrong?”
“I agree that you both might benefit from perspective. How long have you been together?”
“Almost seven years.”
“Often a time when men and women tire of each other.”
“I haven't tired of Edwin! Not for a second! If it weren't for the opium, everything would be perfect.”
“If it weren't for the opium, you might be paupers.”
“I know,” I replied soberly, “and that is a matter I will confront after the journey,” I said, standing.
“No ill effects from the vaccine. Good.”
“If Edwin would make the attempt . . .” My mind cleared. “Yes, if Edwin tried to shake the habit—even if he failed—I would agree to turn the other way. It's the attempt that matters to me. If his constitution does not allow him to relinquish the drug, then I will bow to the inevitable. Does that sound reasonable?” My voice was as childish as my desire for the doctor's acceptance.
“Very. Why don't you tell him how you feel?”
“I can't. He won't listen. Not any longer. I surrendered my chance when I reacted violently. Besides, he has lost his common sense.”
“You both are armored by anger. Do you know the prime disadvantage of armor?” He smiled benevolently. “When you fall down, you cannot stand again without assistance.”
“Would you . . . ?”
“I'll see what I can do. After you have gone, I will make it a point to speak with him. I will say you left the matter in my hands.”
“That will infuriate him.”
“I think not. My prodding will hardly persuade him, but his love for you might.”
“If any love remains.”
“While I am not a physician of the heart, I can assure you this rift could not shake the foundations of a marriage as rooted in compatibility as yours.”
Heading back to Theatre Road, I tried fervently to believe the doctor was right, but my own doubts crowded out his parting words. Whatever Edwin decided, whatever happened with his cure, the shell of perfection had shattered. Mended, we might continue, but the flawlessness we had shared in the past was gone forever.