by Vincent Lam
She says, “Ah, the fine, young Dr. Sri. How did the night treat you?”
At this question, it is always possible to answer with respect to the events of the night, or the responses to them, or neither. Sri says, “It was long. Shall I review the calls with you?” Sri summarizes the calls, describes them the way one writes captions for cartoons. Dr. Miniadis nods absently. She asks occasional, leisurely, clarifying questions in the manner of the well rested. Once they are finished, Sri hands over the records for Dr. Miniadis to leaf through and sign. He says, “There was a text message with no phone number. Winston—the first-break psychosis. I tried to call this morning, but no answer.”
“The poisoning, seductive neighbour, et cetera,” says Dr. Miniadis.
“I did a med-line search last night, tried to find any case reports of such a toxidrome. I wondered, maybe a new rave drug?”
“And?”
“No such description.” He feels satisfied that he looked, and that he did not find what he had looked for.
“Tell me, Dr. Sri, if you woke up one day and saw a purple bird in your room, what would you think?”
“Excuse me?”
“A purple bird. Even a little one. We won’t say a parrot or a vulture, but just a tiny purple bird sitting and chirping at your bedside. What would you think?”
“I would wonder how it got there.”
“And how might it have gotten there?”
“I would check the windows, the doors, and anywhere else a bird could have flown in.”
“What if you called someone to help you with the bird—to remove it—but then it was gone. What would they think?”
“That would depend on their sense of humour.”
“There are no purple birds native to Toronto,” says Dr. Miniadis. “But despite that, you would be left with the spectre of a flying, tweeting creature having appeared in your room. Do you think this will happen to you today? You will go home to sleep, yes? Will you wake to find a bird?”
“I sleep with the windows closed,” says Sri. “Even if a bird escaped from a pet shop, or the zoo, it couldn’t get in.” He imagines Dr. Miniadis creeping outside his window, birdcage in hand. “At least, I don’t think it could.”
“What if one morning, despite your fastidious window-closing, despite the lack of such creatures in the city of Toronto, you woke up and there was a purple bird? At the very least, you would check the window, perhaps buy a birdwatcher’s guide. It doesn’t make sense, but your mind would want it to, might even contort in order to explain it.” She stirs her coffee. “Right now, it’s still early in the morning. Perhaps your Winston is asleep.”
“He was having difficulty sleeping.”
“There you go, an explanation. You see how the mind needs to make sense of things.”
Sri thinks of Dr. Miniadis outside his bedroom, propping up the window, releasing the bird into his dreams.
He says, “Shall I call Winston again?”
Winston writes.
November 7, day break
Didn’t sleep. Talking all night, my mother especially won’t shut up. More frightening to hear. Wish I couldn’t. Adrienne woke. Heard the bath. Claude drove off this morning, like he always does. At least it looked like he did. A trick. He might be upstairs. I didn’t hear the decision, whether they will murder me or whether I will have to help kill Claude. Scared of blood. Phone rings. I know not to pick it up. Out of cigarettes, should have got two packs.
Sri tries to phone Winston again before leaving the clinic, wishing to erase the jitteriness of unfinished business. No answer. He goes home and calls Winston from there. Today he is off, because he was on call last night. In the steam of the shower, Sri tells himself that this is clearly a psychosis. His gut whispers, Zebras do exist. But he is a physician, he tells himself sternly, who should deal not in gut feelings but in facts.
The facts:
Fact 1: an upstairs neighbour.
Fact 2: a sleep-deprived man.
What else does he know? And why does he care? No, stick to the first question: what are the facts?
Fact 3: tension and fog can appear between neighbours.
Fact 4: the presumption of physicians.
Fact 5: recreational chemists are constant innovators.
When Sri steps out of the shower, his face suddenly feels cool, clear, and alarmed. Is he now inventing so-called facts? He pushes away this possible slip. Sri calls Winston before going to sleep. Ringing, ringing, more ringing. Sri goes to bed—the grateful sleep of having the pager turned off. He falls asleep nervous that he might dream of birds, but it is a dreamless blank sleep.
Sri wakes into a light that has the melon colour of afternoon. He is somewhat fresher for a few hours’ rest, but he did not have the dense post-call sleep that sometimes permits a new day to begin. He realizes that what underlies his fitful rest is the situation both having an uncertain reality and now being out of control. Either of these alone would be acceptable, almost normal, but the combination bothers him. Winston is not admitted, not observed, not reliably medicated, and not answering the phone. The situation has slipped out of his grasp, and Sri decides to place his hands on it, to find out what is real and what is not. This would help, whatever the facts may be. He is awake in the clear-eyed yellow light. There is no purple bird, he notes.
Sri calls the clinic and asks about Winston’s drug screen, which the receptionist locates and says has come back clean. So it’s clean. Sri asks for Winston’s address. Crawford Street is not far, a short sunny walk. Sri pulls on a jacket, goes out. The trees are angular frames, and some of the fallen leaves press like mortar into the corners between buildings and sidewalks. The alert bite of the breeze signifies that first snow will come soon. Most of the leaves have faded to grey, although some still show bursts of yellow and orange when blown suddenly across the road. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, will come the snow but today the sky is the pure, amazing blue that is the colour of promises. Sri follows the numbers, finds the house just north of Queen.
Just before walking up the steps, he wonders why he is here. Well, no point thinking about that now, he decides, and goes up to the porch.
Three buzzers, three mailboxes. The house is tall and narrow as if it had stood on tiptoes and then turned sideways. Sri rings the middle buzzer, the second floor. He hears it sound, he thinks, upstairs. It could be a different button. Sometimes the wiring and the buttons are not what one would expect. Sri looks up at the windows, at the two colours of brick, the lighter brick in modest geometrical patterns around the tall windows and the skinny door. He rings again and backs up, shields his eyes against the glare on the windows. Sri sees a shiver of the window shade and waves. Was it Winston? Did the shade actually move? Now, its fabric looks still. Certainly there is no face. Maybe the suggestion of movement was a trick of light on glass.
Counter-transference, thinks Sri. That’s the word that’s been tickling at him. They have been taught to beware of counter-transference, the emotions a physician has in reaction to the patient. No, not to beware. They are taught to be aware. He can almost hear Dr. Miniadis saying, It cannot be avoided, but must be channelled.
The top buzzer. There is the third floor, the alleged poisoners. Sri presses the top button. It is a fine day on Crawford Street, which opens into Trinity Bellwoods Park, a park that has its quiet heart low down, tucked into a ravine. Sri decides that if no one answers the door, he shall not magnify his concern, but will urge himself to feel relief, and will walk down the pathway toward the ravine, stirring leaves with his feet. He will have the freedom of having followed his uneasy feelings about Winston, of having tried every reasonable method to return the numberless page, and of having completely discharged his duties without any answer at the phone or the home. Sri tells himself, with a firmness to counter his sense of worry, that if no one answers, he will not pursue Winston any further than this doorstep, and he will simply wait for the situation to come to him again, if it does.
He
is about to turn when he sees a woman’s face at the door. She hesitates. The door makes a hollow sound as it opens.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m Dr. Sri,” he says. In such situations, it is important to use the title. “Winston’s doctor.”
“Come in.” But she doesn’t move. She leans forward to Sri and whispers, “He’s been talking to himself all day.”
“You are his…”
“Upstairs neighbour. Adrienne. These old houses, you can hear everything. Did Winston call?”
“In a way.” So there’s an Adrienne.
Still whispering, “Winston keeps to himself. Past few days, he’s acting strange. What’s wrong with him?”
“It’s hard for me to say.”
“What do you think?”
Sri whispers, “I can’t tell you. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”
Adrienne looks slightly offended, and then unsure whether she herself has given offence.
Sri says, “I understand you had a party.” He tries to say it casually, socially, the way one says, Oh, a party—how nice! but it feels unfair to ask a question after saying that he can give no answers.
“Yes, there was a big party.”
So there was a party.
She says, “I’ve been out of town.”
“Halloween?”
“I was in Montreal. But I think the first-floor apartment had some people over. The recycling bin was full.”
“May I come up?” Was there a harem girl? he wants to ask.
Up the stairs, dark inside. Both of them stand at the second-floor landing. Sri knocks.
He says, “Winston? Winston?”
Behind the door, silence.
Adrienne says, “It’s the doctor. Your nice doctor here to see you.”
Sri says, “I got your page, but I couldn’t call you back because I didn’t have the phone number. I tried to call, but you didn’t pick up. And I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought I’d drop in.” Sri feels obligated to fill in this picture, to justify the steps by which he has arrived at this second-floor landing with Winston’s upstairs neighbour. “Good news. Your drug tests are negative.”
Winston says through the door, “Why did you decide to kill me, Adrienne?”
Adrienne’s expression is completely unchanged—the way that someone who is really shocked often does not have it within their repertoire to actually twist even the smallest facial muscle, or is it the way that someone who is not surprised is simply not surprised?
Should he ask how she went to Montreal? Car? Train? Maybe catch her out. That’s going too far, Sri decides.
Sri says, “No one wants to kill you, Winston.”
“You’re in on it, doc. I thought you would pick me, Adrienne. Didn’t want to murder Claude, but if that’s what you want, I’d do it. Really would do it. But why do you have to kill me? Forget the whole thing. I’m sorry for listening. Honestly very sorry.”
“Are you taking those pills, Winston?” asks Sri.
“Oh, very nice. Your poison. The blue-drink poison, and the tea poison, and the pill poison. You think you’ll get me somehow.”
“Can we come in?” says Sri.
“Stay away!” he screams.
“Who’s Claude?” whispers Adrienne.
“Claude isn’t your husband?”
“I have a roommate, Claudia. I barely see her, I work nights.”
Does she have a harem girl costume? Or maybe is she sort of…masculine? Sri wants to ask, but stops himself. The facts are shadows of themselves. Behind the door, Winston is howling.
Sri says to the door, “You paged me, and usually when people page me, that means they need help.”
They hear scraping, and a thump against the door. Scrape, thump.
Sri whispers, “He’s barricading the door.”
Adrienne says, “Don’t do that, Winston. If you scratch the floor, Mrs. Brooks will make you pay. You know how picky she is.”
“We could have had something together, but then the poison. Did you think I’d trust you after the poison?”
Sri asks Adrienne, “Can I use your phone?”
Sri tells the police that his patient is psychotic and has been having thoughts of murder. He is aware that Adrienne hears him, and it only seems fair that she know something about the situation. They will send a squad car, they say. Sri calls Dr. Miniadis, who seems unsurprised to hear that her resident is calling from the upstairs apartment of the alleged poisoners of their psychotic patient.
Adrienne appears with a tray. “Tea?”
“No thanks.”
“Freshly steeped.”
“I’m good, really.”
She pours tea for herself. A little cream, three sugars. There is an empty cup. Crashes and howls shake upward through the floor.
Adrienne says, “You like being a doctor?”
“It’s great.”
Teacups and saucers sound so dry, clicking on each other.
“I can make herbal if you prefer. Mint, rosehip, or camomile.”
“Really, I’m fine. I had a cup just earlier,” he lies.
They sit in the sunny front room, which is all plants and books and light. No siren, no slam of car door or chatter of police scanner. It is a beautiful and quiet day, except that Winston has begun to scream,
“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” pierces the house.
Sri thinks that he should have emphasized the unpredictable nature of his patient, the possibility of sudden calamity, the need for the immediate appearance of officers. Despite the screaming and smashing from below, Sri feels much better now that he has decided that Winston is psychotic, and at least Winston is still alive and has done no one else any harm. Sri wishes to go for a walk in the park, and then feels guilty at this thought, which competes for mental space with his feeling badly for his patient. Adrienne pours herself another cup.
“Are you sure?” She gestures at the empty teacup, saying, “It’s not poisoned, you know.” This is meant as a joke, and Sri smiles as if complicit. Then he feels that his poor reciprocity of humour makes the subsequent silence, and the dull clinking of the spoon in her cup, more acute. She pours tea in front of Sri. He can see why Winston finds her attractive.
A cup of tea would be ideal on this afternoon before the onset of snow. No, better not. He reminds himself that if he believes it to be truly not poisoned, and he feels like having tea, why should he not take a sip? Can he not see that Winston is psychotic?
The teacup handle is warm, and the porcelain body of the cup scalding. A steaming sip, perfect. It is at this moment that he sees it. Very briefly, but long enough to make a definite impression on his retina. It is outside the window, and pauses for a moment on the brick ledge, pecks at a strand of ivy, seems to hunch (if birds actually hunch), then darts upward into the air. Adrienne sips with the self-consciousness of a host to strangers.
Sri says, “Um…was that a purple bird? Just out the window.”
“I didn’t see it.”
Are there purple birds? Here? Maybe a nest. He has never heard of a purple bird. Maybe from a pet store. That happens all the time, tropical creatures escaping and living in sewers and eating cats. Sri reminds himself that birds do not live in sewers or eat cats. Downstairs, there is screaming and the creak of wood breaking, thud thud thud as Winston thrashes.
“I was just imagining things. A strange light.” Sri smiles hesitantly, offers a pleading grin as if they should both be accomplices in this little joke. He tells himself, firmly, that there are no purple birds in Toronto. The tea has a wonderful aroma but he resolves to ignore the scent, and places the cup delicately but securely on the saucer.
ELI
THE POLICE HAD THE MAN IN CUFFS. WRISTS BEHIND his back, arms twisted high between his shoulder blades. He cursed them.
“Behave,” said the female officer.
Blood ran down his face. Thick, opaque over his neck, it soaked his shirt collar.
“Hey doc, how long?” called out
the male officer. They were in the hallway, waiting to have their prisoner registered at the front desk.
“Lot of people here. Up to the triage nurse,” I said, not breaking stride. Wait your turn, I thought.
The officers, one short man, one tall woman, were speaking to the emergency triage nurse. I knew what they would be saying: We’re short staffed tonight, we’re stretched thin, tons of calls, help us get this done. The nurse would be saying: We’ve got chest pains, belly pains that have been waiting for hours. The police wanted to get in quick. In and out. Feet are built to move and standing is more tiring.
Volumes were rising at this time just after dinner, a few hours before midnight. We speak of volume as numbers of patients, the way they fill our fixed space. It is also the volume of noise that we actually hear. The crying of the child, the belligerence of drunkenness, the thin whine of a failed suicide. The noise and presence fills the waiting room, a condensation of the city’s private screaming made public.
Several minutes later the triage nurse asked me, “Doctor Fitzgerald, can you see this patient?”
“The one with the cops? You want me to see him first?”
“He’ll be a quickie,” she said. “He’s in the quiet room.”
The quiet room—our euphemism for the screaming, struggling, calm-down-or-we-tie-you-down room; also the actual name of the room.
The two police were standing outside the wired safety glass door, which could be locked and unlocked from a control at the central desk. Inside that room was a panic button on the wall that triggered a silent alarm.
“Got a live one for you, doc,” said the male officer, badge 1483.
“Glad he’s alive,” I said. Through the glass, I could see the man twisting on the stretcher. “This your prisoner? You got him in quick.”
“Thanks for seeing us fast,” said the male officer. “We only got three cars on the road.”