by L. E. Waters
“Enough?” I want to jump back into the safety of my clothes immediately.
She walks up to inspect my pile of clothing. She shifts through my underwear, checks the underwire of my brassiere, and pats down my dress. “Bend over and cough, please.”
“Excuse me?” I hug myself closer.
“Or I could always check you internally with my fingers?” She flashes two sharp fingers at me.
I bend over and lose all dignity as she examines my backside. I give a few weak coughs.
“Do you know you have a little freckle down there?” She snickers. “Or has someone already told you that?” Her slimy grin causes goose bumps to erupt up my spine.
I straighten as she picks her teeth with the pencil in her hand.
“May I get dressed now?” I stare at my clothes on the bed.
She squints with her head cocked. “Have you been here before?”
How I would love to tell her what scum she’s been in her other lives.
“No.”
“I never forget a face. I’ve seen you somewhere before. I’ll figure it out soon enough.”
I smile at the thought, and that only makes her more suspicious.
She walks to the door as I rush to hold my clothes up to cover my body, but she holds the door open as women pass by and peer in at me. I wait a moment to see if she’s going to shut the door so I can get dressed, but she taps her foot. “Hurry it up. You can’t stay in here.”
I turn around, exposing my backside, and slip on my undergarments and throw my dress on. I pray that Dr. Evert has in fact left and that none of the other doctors pass by. I’m still buttoning up when she barks, “Now!”
I go out into the hallway with five buttons still to fasten.
“You’ll stay out here until dinner.”
The hall empties into a large room. I search around for something to read or do, but there are only benches nailed down to the floor and empty tables. No books, no games, nothing to do but pace the floors or gaze out the window like a fish in a bowl. As soon as Bathilda walks away, the other patients descend upon me, led by a blonde-haired woman. She might have been beautiful at one time, but the lack of fresh air and sunshine casts a shadow over the many lines on her face and robs her amber eyes of any glimmer.
Savannah.
She stands right in front of me. “So what’s wrong with you?” She reads my tag and laughs. “Oh goody, a delusional. They’re so interesting.”
“She looks very clean, Verena.” A young woman with a strong widow’s peak follows close behind her. “They don’t usually come in so clean. But they better bathe her anyway. You never know what she’s bringing in to us.” She holds her sleeve up to her nose, and the blue of her dress matches her ice-blue eyes.
Viv.
Verena repeats, “So, Annelie, what did you do? Why are you here?”
“Because I need help.” I want to sit down on the bench, but when six other women flock around me, I’ll feel too surrounded sitting. I try to square my shoulders to hold my space.
She snorts. “Obviously.” She lifts up her ID tag. “I’m a manic-depressive. Juliane here is an obsessive-compulsive schizoid.” She pats the shoulders of an olive-eyed woman to her right. “Ursel is a hallucinatory schizoid.”
Ursel breaks out in a strange, braying laugh, far too loud for the moment, and says, “Bathilda’s horrible. She even scares the ghosts away.” Ursel’s eyes dart over her shoulder at nothing.
Beth.
Verena taps the next girl on her head, the girl with a birthmark on her eyelid.
Baby Violet.
Oh, that sweet little birthmark. The last thing I remember from the other life. I want to hold her right away.
“Gitta’s an epileptic and Elfi’s a paranoid.” Elfi looks around nervously. I can’t tell yet who she was.
“Minna, well, you can tell why she’s here.” Minna pinches her shoulders up with a sweet smile and I can tell she’s a mongoloid. Splotches start to appear on her face out of embarrassment.
Ole Clem.
Looks like the gang’s all here. They all wait for me to speak.
“I’m not really delusional.”
“Of course not. Everyone else is just crazy, right?” Verena’s eyes roll back in her head and she points to a woman with a heavy flush on her cheeks who’s lying on a bench near the other side of the room.
Lottie.
“Just like Sibylle. She always thinks she’s dying.”
“But she never does.” Ursel gives another braying laugh. “Even though the vampires and goblins come knocking around here every night.”
Elfi’s eyes open wide. “I knew I heard something last night. Do they ever get in?”
“Enough about the vampires, Ursel.” Verena turns to me. “Your doctor is Fridric?”
“No, Dr. Evert.”
She giggles devilishly. “I call him Fridric.”
“They don’t let you see him anymore, Verena. Not since you did what you shouldn’t have done.” Elfi squares her shoulders.
“He just couldn’t trust himself around me anymore. He told me so.” Verena fluffs her hair up and pulls the hem of her dress up to expose the coffee-stain mark on her knee.
“He is so handsome,” Juliane gushes. “He uses a lavender soap, I can tell. I used to have lavender soap before they left me here.”
“Verena’s been through five doctors.” Ursel snickers.
“I can’t help it if they’re all prudes.” Verena lifts her chin in the air. “No one’s any fun around here.”
A woman starts crying in the corner. We all turn to see a thin woman hunched over her knees, sobbing.
“That’s just Odelia.” Verena throws a hand in her direction. “She’s always crying.”
Gitta leaves to go and sit beside Odelia, but it doesn’t stop her crying.
“It’s because she knows that they’re all just trying to kill us here.” Elfi’s eyes fill with fear. “They pretend to help us, but they only put us here to exterminate us.”
Juliane says, “It’s the filth in here. They never clean, and it’s making us all sick.”
Verena lets out a moan and puts a heavy arm over my shoulder. “Forget all their nonsense. Evert’s not clean. I can tell he’s a dirty, dirty boy. He’s just too afraid to give in to it.”
“Patients can’t date their doctors, Verena.” Ursel crosses her arms in front of her awkwardly.
“I wasn’t going to date him.” Verena erupts in devilish giggles, causing her crew to join in for the laugh.
I walk away to sit at an empty table. Elfi and Ursel sit on either side of me. They just stare at me, waiting for me to do something.
“What do you see that we don’t see?”
“I don’t see anything.”
They seem let down.
Ursel says, “I can see a whole world that others don’t see. There are people and creatures that no one knows about, all walking around us and whispering in our ears.”
“I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. They come to hurt us.” Elfi nods, completely convinced.
“Not all the time, Elfi. The fairies are harmless.”
Elfi crosses her thin arms. “No, they’re all bad. They’ve put me here.”
“That is true. They keep bothering us until we look crazy. But everyone else is crazy since they can’t see what’s happening around them.”
“Do you hear them at all?” Elfi looks hopeful.
“I don’t see or hear the creatures, but I do know something that no one else knows,” I say, and Elfi and Ursel glow with anticipation. “I know that we’ve lived before.”
It feels good to simply tell people, and these seem like the few people that just might believe me.
Ursel pulls back to give Elfi a suspicious look.
I continue, “Many times before, and I remember them all.”
Ursel spurts in laughter and Elfi withdraws from me.
<
br /> “You’re cracked for sure,” Ursel says. “We’ve lived before.” The annoying bray stings my ears.
Elfi asks, “Did the doctors drill into your brain? You know that’s what they do here. You’re fine when you come in, but they drill your brain and implant a device in your head so you look crazy and can never be normal again. Is that what they did to you?” She reaches over and grabs hold of my head. I try to pull away, but she shifts my hair around until she’s satisfied. “I don’t see any scars, but they probably went in through your ears. That’s how they get away with it.”
I decide to switch the subject. “Why do they call you Elfi?”
Ursel pulls the hair back on both sides of the other woman’s head, revealing two very pointed ears. Ursel brays, but Elfi touches the points self-consciously.
Little Timmie.
I get up and stand in front of the window, watching everyone but patients walk in the courtyard.
Bathilda calls out, “Go wash up for supper.”
All the women except Odelia and Sibylle hurry to the only bathroom on the floor. I follow them in last to watch them rinse their hands quickly and use the only towel provided for them. No doubt that it began as a white towel, but now it is grey. Juliane holds up the last two women before me by soaping up and then rinsing, only to soap up all over again. Verena shouts for Bathilda, who comes and pulls Juliane from the sink.
“I’m almost done. Just one more rinse. I’m still dirty. I can’t eat until my hands are clean!”
“If you don’t shut up and get in line, I’m going to stick your hands in the trash. Then you’ll really be dirty.”
Juliane holds her hands to her chest as Bathilda drags her out into the hall. “No, not again. I’ll be quiet.”
I rinse quickly, but decide to wipe my hands on my dress instead of the grungy towel. I make it back out in line as Bathilda kicks Sibylle on the bench. “Get up.”
“I can’t. I’m too tired. I tell you, I’m not feeling well.”
“You don’t have a choice. All patients have to go eat.”
“Can’t you call the infirmary to come and get me? I feel feverish. I’m not hungry at all.”
“We keep calling the infirmary, but the problem is they never find anything wrong with you. Get up now!” She pulls her off the bench and Sibylle screams in pain as soon as she hits the hard floor.
Bathilda spins her head to catch Odelia still sitting. “Do I have to kick you too?”
Odelia slowly rises and shuffles to the end of our line. We don’t start through the gates until Sibylle drags herself into line. Verena takes the opportunity to flirt with one of the male sentries as she passes by. She pulls her dress down deep on her shoulders, exposing the crack of her doughy cleavage, and winks at him. He stiffens but watches her skip down the stairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sentries are replaced often as well.
We wait in line far too long, and I can’t see any reason why. The last patients left half an hour ago, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s cleaning up. The last thing I had to eat was a Danish we bought outside the train station this morning. Finally, we’re allowed in and I sit beside Gitta and Odelia. I want to get to know Gitta better, not being able to get to know her at all as baby Violet. A heavyset patient with a sour face, whose name I don’t know, sits across from us. Orderlies bring around tea first, and no one offers milk or sugar. I take it to my lips and find it room temperature. It probably has been sitting out for that half hour we were waiting out in the hall. By the way they all guzzle the tea down, I realize that this must be the norm. I’m going to miss the wonderful coffee Mother made at home. I pick up the only utensil left for us at each place setting: a shallow spoon. I deduce that knives and forks are far too dangerous. How can you use a spoon for everything?
A slice of wheat bread, in no way resembling fresh baked, is plunked on a plate before me. The dough is flavorless, with a gritty texture. By the unusually dark color of the butter, I decide to taste it before using it, and I’m very glad I did. I would have ruined the barely palatable bread with rancid butter. I’m so hungry that I tear the bread into little pieces and swallow it down with tea. Gitta also avoids the butter and chews on her bread carefully, as if to save her teeth. Odelia only drinks her tea; the bread lies there on her plate. The many freckles on her face tell me it’s Gracie. No wonder Gitta is taking such good care of her.
The heavy woman across from us snatches Odelia’s bread as soon as the orderly walks away, and Odelia doesn’t even protest. I can’t believe she could move so fast given the hindrance of her size, but she leaps on it in a flash of flab. The woman proceeds to steal all of our butters without so much as a smile. I lose almost all my appetite as she spoons up each spoiled glob of butter with her dirty finger and sucks it up in her wet mouth. I turn away as she licks each finger.
If this is the state of the bread and butter, I’m afraid of what they will serve for the main course. Except for the heavyset woman who graces our table, I notice how terribly thin everyone is. Each woman lacks the softness and glow that most free women have.
The orderly places a shallow bowl of broth in front of me. I dig around in the golden liquid in search of any solids and find only a few slivers of celery and carrot. No noodles, no rice, no meat. I sip up the lukewarm soup to find it lacking salt. There is enough of a hint of chicken to swallow it down, but gallons must have been made from only one chicken for it to have so little sustenance. Gitta tries to protect Odelia’s soup from the fat woman, but since Odelia has no desire to eat, the thief wins out and gets ahold of her bowl.
I turn to Gitta. “How long has Odelia been here?”
“Only a week.” She tries to hand the other woman a piece of her bread, but Odelia only holds it between two fingers and stares out the window. “She only drinks her tea. I haven’t seen her eat anything.”
“Maybe if the food wasn’t so horrible.” I swallow another miserable spoonful. “Has anyone complained?”
“If you complain, they don’t give you anything.” Gitta’s eyes widen. “Even if you ask for more, they punish you.”
The fat woman reaches her grubby hand out to try to snatch the rest of my bread, but I slap her hand away. She starts to scream like I chopped it off. The orderly comes to investigate as everyone at the table claps.
Verena hollers down, “Serves you right, Zelda.”
“What is the problem?”
I wait to see if the pig says anything, but she only sucks on the hand that I slapped.
I say quickly, “No problem, sir. She just started screaming for no reason.”
He looks at her with all the extra plates and butter dishes before her and decides to leave it all be. He doesn’t seem to want to have more issues today.
Gitta smiles. “Zelda always sits by Odelia because she knows she can take her food.” Gitta gives her a look. “Maybe she won’t dare to do it now that you’re here.”
“Next time, I won’t be so gentle.” I give her a stern stare and she slinks farther down the table.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
My stomach is only half full from the meager dinner, and I can only hope that breakfast will be a larger meal. We’re given another hour to wander the empty halls and large room. Gitta approaches me with a hairbrush and a smile. “Would you like me to braid your hair?”
She must be only fifteen or sixteen years old.
“That would be nice.” I turn my back to her and pull my long hair behind my shoulders.
I close my eyes and she gently brushes my hair like I always imagined my child doing.
“You have such beautiful hair. I wish mine would grow this long.”
With the horrible food she’s been fed lately, it’s a wonder she even has any hair left at all.
“How long have you been here?”
“I’ve been at the hospital since I was thirteen, but they moved me to this ward a few months ago. I liked it better with the other child
ren, but they say this is where I belong.”
I can’t imagine being here for so long. So sad that such a normal person could be put away here for life.
“Do they have any programs here to keep us busy?”
“Some. You can be picked to sew clothes needed by the hospital or to do the laundry. I never get picked, though, because of my episodes.”
“Do you have them a lot?”
She makes a few strokes in my hair before answering. “The seizures where I just freeze I have a lot, but I don’t have the really bad ones that often, and I can usually tell when they’re coming.”
“How can you tell?”
“I sometimes see colors around things.” She starts to braid the plait. “I know to go lie down somewhere.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Thankfully, I don’t remember a thing. I just come to and people tell me I had one, or I wake up in my bed with bruises.”
“Will they go away someday?”
Silence. Her hands stop braiding. I wait a moment in case she is going to answer, and then I worry that I’ve offended her. I turn around and my braid slips out of her frozen hands. Gitta’s pretty face has turned to stone and her eyes blink at super speed. The hairbrush drops to the ground with a loud clank. Odelia comes to her aid. She wraps her arms around her and says calmly in her ear, “Everything’s just fine, Gitta. You’ll be just fine.”
It’s the first time I’ve heard Odelia speak. Her subtle freckles match her auburn hair. Suddenly she has life.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“She’ll be fine. They only last a few minutes. It’s good to keep her from falling over or walking into things.”
I sit beside them as Odelia holds her the way I wished I could, and then, just as quickly as it starts, it’s over.
“Odelia?” She slowly pulls away from her and then looks at her empty hands. Her eyes droop as she sees the half-undone braid. I pick up the hairbrush and place it back in her hands.
“You just had a little one.” Odelia gives her another hug.
I offer, “You can still finish the braid, if you want.”
“That’s okay. I think I’m going to go get ready for bed. It’s almost time.”