What It Takes to Be Human

by Marilyn Bowering

  I try to follow the thread of this idea to its conclusion, but I can’t. Instead I see a face—it’s Karl! My former roommate and mentor who was taken from me! But it’s not Karl as I knew him. This is a different man: This one speaks to me in winks and nods and baby words: Da-da. Ma-ma. Wa-ter. What does this mean? I’ve been here for weeks and months, nearly three months. I’ve been rescued, more or less, I’ll be all right; but what about Karl, what’s happened to him? What have they done? What is it that I’ve forgotten?

  I can’t help it—I turn on my stomach, jam my face into the pillow and sob.

  In the morning, when Don comes in with bread and tea, I ask him: “Don, I don’t suppose you know my story?”

  “Some of it, Sandy.” He bustles about, strips the bed, hands me a blue suit of clothing not unlike the pyjamas I’ve been wearing.

  “I was accused of something I didn’t do.”

  “Oh, yes,” he says, carting the bundle of laundry to the door which he’s left, casually, open.

  “Well, did they find out who did do it?” I’m expecting, I’m hoping, that he’ll say, “Pete Cooper.”

  “It was another one of the inmates—Winchell—he confessed.”

  “Not Winchell!”

  “Apparently promises were made, assurances given.”

  “Who promised, what did they say?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Sandy.” Don purses his lips and the tap of gossip is shut off. He busies and bustles some more.

  It is all too much. It is one thing to be betrayed by an enemy, quite another to be betrayed by a friend. But then I remember Winchell’s face as he spoke of the rape and murder of nuns by the Republicans in Spain. The glee in it. My heart hardens against him. Yes, he is capable of it, yes.

  “Are you coming?”

  It’s only then that I realize I’m expected to follow. By the clothes I’ve been given I know I’m not being set free, but there is certainly going to be a change. I feel happier at the prospect, and stumble along after Don, still buttoning my shirt. All I have for shoes are paper slippers, so my progress is more of a shuffle than a walk. As I slough down the hall, I feel the others in the cells watching, envying me, but I don’t look at them. I can’t. I won’t.

  “What’s happened to Winchell?” I ask Don when we stop at a steel door. He takes the keys from his belt to open it.

  “You can probably ask him yourself in five minutes.” I follow after him again. We descend stairs and then climb another set, go through doors and stop. Don pulls back a slot in a fortified door and peers through an opening. He gives a signal and the door is opened from the inside by another guard. This man is fat and slatternly, his shirt untucked and with grease stains on it. He grins at me.

  “Abandon hope!” he says cheerfully. I turn to say goodbye to Don but he’s on the other side of the locked door and I’m in a room of madmen.

  I look quickly around for Winchell, but as far as I can tell, he’s not there. I am relieved. What could I say to him? He’ll know how he’s wronged me. And now that I’ve remembered Karl, I recall that life is a story and it is full of turning points. Something happens and you’re shunted off in a new direction. There is no bad or good, there is only how well the story is told.

  In The Storehouse of Thought and Expression—I’ll ask Georgina if she can get the book to me—I’ve read that whatever our circumstance, we have a choice as to whether to take the narrow, the broad, the short, the long or the deep view. The narrow view sees only one face of the cube. All inferences about the cube must be tentative. As I think this, I see the pages of the book in my mind, and find I can turn them at will. This is surprising—is it the “other side” of my loss of memory?

  In any case (the slovenly guard has returned to the papers on his desk near the door), as I make my way to a chair stationed against the wall, I tell myself that I must be careful not to make up my mind or take decisions, before examining the broad view. I must consider not only myself and my business, but the whole community and even the entire human race.

  I look up. The unkempt attendant stands in front of me. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Sandy, but I had to get our order finished.” He waves a sheaf of papers. “You wouldn’t believe how many needles and catheters we go through. And the wrist supports! Tsk, tsk!”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say.

  “Cat got your tongue, Sandy?” He peers at me closely. “Word is you don’t remember anything, that so?”

  I’ve an opportunity, I remind myself, to collect material for my story—however it is going to turn out. To be on my best behaviour. To act human.

  “So, special instructions for you, eh, Grey?” says the attendant. His breath stinks, his teeth are dirty. I don’t turn my head away.

  “Are there?”

  “Oh yes!” He cackles.

  “What are they?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know!” I’ve given up on him, on obtaining help of any nature from him. I’ve already turned my thoughts in a different direction but then he says, “We’ve a watching brief. See how you do.”

  “You’re watching for…?”

  “Signs!” he says and makes a quick and not unfriendly throat-cutting motion, and laughs heartily. He’s a fountain of jollity, he is. He’s a moron; but I’ve remembered what Georgina told me about my harming myself. Is this to what he refers? That I’m a suicide risk? Or they’re not certain about me but are willing to give me a chance since my selfdestructive behaviour was provoked by lies?

  I could do with a broader view, but I only know what I know. Which isn’t much. The short view highlights the aspect of a specific view: Its disadvantage is that it says nothing about yesterday or tomorrow; its advantage is that it takes the emotional temperature of “now.” “To become despondent over a zero or too highly elated over a perfect mark are both bad results of the short view.” That is in The Storehouse of Thought and Expression, and I believe it to be true.

  So. “Well…” I say, taking the Ron Signet approach to tricky conversations.

  “Well, well! Let’s get you settled, shall we? We’ll start by introducing you to your colleagues. On your feet, Sandy. We want you to feel at home.”

  What a funny man! Settled, but on my feet. In an insane asylum but at home. I can’t help but think he’s been here too long himself!

  He takes my arm. “One of the finest rooms in the whole building,” he says. “We’ve the most air, the most light!”

  I look around. Now that my blinkers of fear are off, I see a large rectangular room painted green. Windows there are, indeed, but these are very high up and small in walls that must be fifteen feet high. In one corner, on a platform reached by steps, sits a second guard or attendant.

  The scruffy overseer, noticing the direction of my gaze, says, “Oh, don’t mind him! He won’t bother us.”

  “What is your name?”

  “What’s that?”

  “What should I call you?”

  “Oh! Everybody calls me John.” He blinks his eyes coyly.

  “Should I know you?” I say. “Have I been here before?”

  “Oh, no!” he says, and titters. “This is your first time.”

  By now we’ve reached the north end—judging by the slant of the morning light. Here are two rows of men, six in each, sitting as if in a bus station, slumped over and waiting, each with a wide cloth band around his waist to hold him to his chair. “We won’t get much out of these ones,” John says. “They’re still waking up.”

  “Waking up?”

  “They were up early”—he giggles—“but then went back to sleep. I have to keep an eye on them. If there’s any trouble, I’ll give them glucose. Sometimes they stop breathing.”

  I nod. But there isn’t anything I particularly want to hear about insulin therapy. Pete Cooper used to frighten me with his accounts of it: those who scream in terror before reaching complete oblivion; those who never wake up. “When will I be able to talk to them?” />
  “After lunch,” John says. “Then we’ll see.”

  Now I hear what’s been bothering me. The room’s stillness. So many men, shadow figures against the wall, all quiet. The free limbs of several of the insulin patients jerk. “They’re all much better,” John says, “some of them were such grumblers! You wouldn’t believe! They kept such irregular hours!” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “The awakening is quite dramatic—and they don’t remember any of it! Then they doze away like babies….” He leads me away.

  “Over here we have our Russians.” We’re standing near a knot of crouching men who gaze straight ahead. I’m sure they’re looking at something—what could it be? A lost landscape? Snow? The towers of St. Petersburg? “No one can understand them, but it seems they want to go home. Of course, they’ve no idea of the conditions there these days!”

  “Why are they here?”

  “Bank robbery!” John lowers his voice. “That one”—he points to a muscular, clean-shaven man in his thirties—“asked to have his head cut off! Can you imagine! He said it would be more merciful than his sentence here!” John’s merry laugh rings out. In the silence immediately following I hear the Russian say, quite clearly, in English, “My wife!”

  “But now, Sandy, at last here we are.” He’s been dragging me with him. I’m aware of the awareness of our progress through the room—it’s a ripple in a big pond; the big fish are waking up. I can see them—the big fish—at the south end and I know that my guide has been saving them until last. They lift their heavy heads—they’re like bulls more than fish—and their red eyes are turned on me.

  But first, John stops at a “room-grouping”: a sofa and armchairs, a coffee table. A cluster of hunched-over men. On the table is a small tea urn and cups. “Elevenses, boys?” he says to the gathering. “I’ve brought you a friend.” He bends over the urn and opens the spigot. A reddish liquid dribbles into a cup. “There you are, Sandy, drink up!”

  There’s a knock at the door—“Oh, no, not again, just when I’m in the middle of…”

  John dashes off and I’m left standing holding the lukewarm cup. What goes on within this silence? Sleeping? Suffering? I raise the cup to my lips.

  “Don’t drink it, Sandy, it’s laced with saltpetre!”

  One of the hunchbacks has moved—it’s Karl! Not Karl quite as I used to know him, but neither is he the terrible figure of my dream.

  “Jesus, Karl, you’re all right!” The head is shaved revealing scars from his Pete Cooper–smashed skull; the hair on it is white instead of blond, his skin is the colour of old curtains, and the muscles of his eyes twitch, but it’s him! Him!

  “Be quiet, Sandy,” he says, but I’ve already noted the returning footsteps.

  “Found a friend?” John says. “I’d forgotten you already know some of the men. Karl, is it?” He moves close to Karl and I’m aware of a prickle on the back of my neck. A quick glance round confirms that the guard above is watching us closely.

  “I’ve ordered something special for you, Karl. Take a look.” John holds out one of the pages he’s continued carrying. I look, although Karl doesn’t. On the paper is a diagram of a black box. “Can’t be bothered? Too tired? Sandy will help you out, won’t you?” He makes me read aloud: “Electro Convulsant Therapy Unit featuring Glissando control: Many psychiatrists feel that the prevention of even a single fracture makes the B-24 a good investment.” John tucks it back in the pile.

  “Karl’s strong as an ox, isn’t he! That German physique! It doesn’t matter how much electricity you run through it! He’s been so well-behaved, haven’t you, Karl.” John reaches down, cups Karl’s chin and gives it a little tweak. He addresses me: “Most of them remember nothing, but our Karl—why he’s a regular encyclopedia—just listen to him.” He swivels his attention back to Karl: “Karl, why don’t you tell us all about—what was it the other day—opera? Ha ha!”

  Now I’ve got it. I’ve deciphered Karl’s cue. I must be quiet and low-key, draw John’s attention as little as possible. He delights in cruelty. But as long as I behave, as long as I don’t do anything…take the long view, which is to give myself enough time to see what things lead to…I can shape my course and make it mean something as a whole.

  “Shall we move on?” John says.

  We cross a small patch of sunlight on the linoleum floor. As I look up, a tiny paper airplane wings into view. It floats above me, then slowly, gently, settles to the floor. “They’re like children!” John says and steps on it. His crepe-soled shoe leaves a print, but I know, I know! I see myself with the wings that Karl and I built, soaring in the dark, cool air carrying me—and I remember that I flew—briefly, it’s true; but I did fly. I did.

  “What was done to me, John? What was my treatment?”

  “Why, Sandy, what makes you think I know?” He bats his eyes at me. There’s a gleam of malevolence.

  “You’re in charge, John. I’m sure you know everything.”

  “Not everything, Sandy, no, not that.” He’s flattered—good. He puffs out his cheeks and blows—puh. “You were given a little of this, a little of that—you were very upset, dear boy.” He glances over his shoulder at the far end of the hall where the big fish-bulls wait. There’s a glint in the bank of red eyes, and the sudden stink of feces.

  “Oh, my, not again. I thought we were finished with that.” I track his glance and discover one of the men down there in the deep shadows smearing shit onto the wall. His hands move as if he is writing. “Come, Sandy,” John says and we go to him. John claps his hands and clears a path through the others who move slowly out of our way.

  Now that I’m near, I see they’re fat, most of them. Not bulls but cows.

  The man in the corner takes his hands from the wall as John approaches. “Why do you do this, Philip, why?”

  “I have money,” the man says. “What I do is my business.” He notices me. “Thank you!” he says.

  “Why do you thank me?”

  “Thank you.” He tidies his clothing. “Thank you.”

  “The pail, Sandy, in the cupboard over there, go and get it.”

  I go and return with cleaning supplies and begin to wash the wall. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Philip continues.

  “You’re welcome,” I say. John is occupied at the intercom near the door.

  “I was not born, I was put together at the age of two by the Natural Power,” Philip tells me. “I was sewn together.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see Hitler,” Philip says. I follow the direction of his gaze. It’s on John who is coming back to us, smiling, chatting with some of the men on his way.

  “Yes.”

  “Why is everyone so fat?” I ask Philip as I finish with the cloth and disinfectant. Nothing has been done about Philip’s clothes, also heavily smeared with shit.

  Philip lifts his fingers and makes a motion with them as if with scissors.

  “Quite right,” John says from behind us. “You had a close call yourself, Sandy. Snip, snip.” He too makes the scissors sign. “All of them, every one”—he gestures to the lump of men, from whom I feel waves of antipathy—snip, snip, snip!

  “What’s wrong with them, John?”

  “Murderers, rapists, nancy boys.”

  “Yes, but what’s wrong!”

  “It’s not a punishment, Sandy, oh, no! It’s for their own good!”

  “What did they do to them?”

  “Cut their balls off.”

  It’s more than this, but I’m afraid to ask. “I want to see Dr. Love.”

  “Oh, I don’t think Dr. Love wants to be bothered just now.”

  I gaze upwards. The guard on the platform watches over me. “I want to see Dr. Love!” I shout.

  And then, after a few minutes and rather to my surprise—I do.

  “You’re on trial here, Sandy,” he says to me. He’s come bustling, energy shooting from him, into the room. “You’re fortunate I was in the building and got the call. I’m not usual
ly.”

  “I know, sir, and I’m grateful, I am, truly.”

  “You have to show signs of normal socialization if you’re to have any hope…”

  I swallow all I might say and thank God for the watching attendant who’d called in my request over John’s objections.

  “Please try to understand, Dr. Love. I feel absolutely fine, but I’m remembering things and I have no context for them.”

  “Ah,” he says.

  “If you could let me see my treatment sheet, then I’d know.”

  “Know what, Sandy?”

  “What was real, what I’m imagining.”

  “Are you imagining?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Hot water. Cold water. Out of a hose. It pushed me back and forth in a room. I couldn’t breathe.”

  “Hydrotherapy,” he says.

  “I’m an Egyptian mummy. I can’t move. The cloth I’m wrapped in is wet. I’m sorry, sir, it makes no sense.”

  “You were wrapped in wet sheets. You went into shock.”

  “I’m in a room full of men in suits. No—there was a woman, too.”

  “The Board.”

  “The Board?”

  His foot taps with impatience to be gone. “Nothing came of it, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me. What I know I can put behind me. What I don’t…”

  “It was the Lobotomy Board. Fortunately for you, because of the intervention of Mrs. Jones-Murray, Dr. Frank, and me, we put an end to it.”

  Lobotomy. Brain surgery. After which things are never the same again. The other shoe drops and I realize what I saw in the red-eyed men and what scared me. Nothing but the animal brain at work, nothing human. “You spoke up for me?”