THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO

by Wafa Faith Hallam

  She had never been one to date strangers met in bars, and certainly not one to take marriage lightly. Yet they were both convinced they’d found true love and determined to tie the knot without delay and against all advice of prudence and patience. They could hardly wait the mandatory thirty days.

  On a beautiful fall morning, October 6, 1989, my mother, then fifty years old and newly grandmother, dressed in an off-white, below-the-knee wedding dress, white flowers in her hair and small bouquet in her hand, married-for love alone-the elegant Chester in town hall. She looked positively radiant.

  Over the summer, Robbie and I had decided to buy a larger, sponsor-owned, two-bedroom apartment in the same building to accommodate our growing family. We’d acquired our second mortgage from the coop-sponsor, and original owner, and offered my mother, whose one-year-lease was expiring, the option of renting our one-bedroom. She was living alone and still grieving over her brothers’ tragedy, and I had felt it would be good for her to be as close to me and her grandchild as possible. As it turned out, when she moved in to my building, she and Chester had been married for a week.

  For Christmas that year, Robbie’s parents, who had retired a year earlier, invited us to their new pensionados’ retreat in Costa Rica. They had bought a little coffee finca with a cozy house, and they were eager to meet their grand-daughter for the first time. In our absence, my mother gave a Christmas dinner for the rest of the family. That night, she had her first public argument with Chester because of his drinking and jealousy. On the surface, she displayed a happy face; behind it, the demoralizing reality had begun to peek through.

  Shortly thereafter, in early 1990, some seven months after his brother Hak’s death, Uncle Latif, in turn, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. So desperate was his condition, the Belgian penal authorities sent him home to spend his final weeks. The news dealt the knock-out blow that caused my mother to lose her mind and sink into the depths of madness. The perfect storm had gathered and finally broke loose, tearing right through the tight fabric of my family.

  It is safe to say that my mother always was the central figure in my life. Her happiness was more important to me than mine, and, in my heart, there could be no joy without the certainty that hers was assured. Of course, during my juvenile struggle with insecurity I had taken it all out on her. Still, I forever took care of her and put her needs first.

  Since she moved to America, we’d had our share of disagreements, even heated quarrels, and we’d pushed each other’s buttons on many occasions. Yet we always made up and went on sharing a lot of happy moments. By the time she moved to New Jersey, we’d become even closer and regularly went to the gym and shopping together. Not owning a car, she relied on me for most of her errands. She often cooked delicious meals and called all of us to share them with her, teasing that if it weren’t for her food she would never see us.

  When she married Chester, I had been particularly busy with my baby and I had also been taking real estate courses in New York with the intention of getting a license and make a living on a more flexible schedule. I’d actually felt relieved that she now had someone in her life to help her take care of things. For years, there had been mounting pressure for both my sister and I to be constantly there to keep her company and help with her bills, doctors’ appointments, and other undertakings requiring a modicum of literacy.

  By the first week of March 1990, I acquired my real estate agent certification and had not seen Mom for a while, even though she lived only a few floors up.

  Until she called me one morning:

  “Wafa,” barked Mom as soon as I picked up. “I need you to take me for a few errands. I have so many things to do; I need to start right now.”

  She sounded impatient, irritated, mixing French with Arabic.

  “Sorry, Mom, but I can’t today. I have to take Sophie to the pediatrician and then—”

  “C’est très important, I need you now,” she interrupted in a commanding tone.

  “Come on, Mom, what’s so urgent? You can’t call me like this, without warning, and expect me to jump. Why don’t you ask Chester? I’m already running late. I’ve gotta go, okay? I’ll call you back later.”

  I hung up, grabbed my baby, and run out the door.

  When I returned, I found the tirade she had left on my answering machine:

  How dare you hang up on me like that? I’m sick and tired of you treating me like a kid, telling me what to do all the time, controlling my life. I’ve had it with you, do you hear me? From now on, I’m not your mother. I want you to leave me alone, you little ingrate. Mind your own business. I don’t need you… All your bullshit.

  She’d gone on with a long outburst of insults and accusations delivered with so much venom that I turned off the message and deleted it right then. The emotional attack I had just been dealt was inexplicable.

  Then, nothing for days. It was surprising not to hear from her at all, though not too worrisome. After all, I was hurt and she had her husband, not to mention I was in over my head already—until March 20, when I got a spine-chilling phone call from the cops informing me they had taken my mother to the emergency room.

  Apparently, they’d been able to gather some vital information from her in spite of her “condition,” which they refused to elaborate on over the phone.

  The call left me in a state of panic. My first instinct was to rush to my mother’s apartment on the fifteenth floor, hoping against hope to find her there.

  The cops must be mistaken, I kept repeating in my head, they’ve got the wrong person.

  I found the apartment unlocked and the place in total pandemonium. Scattered on top of the kitchen counter were half-eaten lamb chops, bread crumbs, and other food scraps. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink. The terrace door was open and swaying in the wind. I ran to check the promenade below, praying she had not thrown herself over.

  A glance at her bedroom, and I was struck by the chaos. Clothes were off the racks and out of the drawers, scattered over the bed and floor. Had she tried to rearrange her closet, armoire? Was she meaning to pack? And where was Chester? Had anything happened between them? I called Robbie and my sister at work, asked them to meet me at the hospital. I Left Sophia with Nadia, my Moroccan au-pair, and rushed to the emergency room. During the short drive to the hospital, my mind kept rewinding and replaying her message. I wished I hadn’t erased it. I needed to understand what was going on and, perhaps, most devastating of all, make sense of the vitriol she’d directed at me.

  I found her stretched on her back, strapped down at the ankles and wrists to a gurney, in a cold and dreary hallway of the emergency room. Two police officers were still standing by her side. I could hardly recognize her. The lump in my throat was suffocating me, my belly aching in a warped grip, my mind refusing to acknowledge the reality of what my eyes were witnessing.

  Her hair, grayer than I remembered, was sticking out, dirty and unkempt; her face pasty and drained, her eyes full of frenzy and ire, stared back at me briefly. She was saying something in Arabic, mumbled, fast, and barely comprehensible.

  “Here you are! Where have you been all this time? Why am I here? You must get me out of here. These people don’t know who they’re dealing with.” She made a scratchy noise with her throat. It sounded like a repressed cough.

  “Mommy! Oh, my god, what’s going on? What happened?”

  I looked up at the policemen, tears clouding my eyes, “What’s this, officer?” I asked. “Why is my mother tied down? What’s going on?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Are you her daughter?” began the younger one visibly contrite.

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “We picked up your mother on the street,” he said. “Near your building, in the middle of traffic. She was clearly disoriented. She could’ve been killed.”

  “But why is she tied? Why is she treated like this?”

  I tried to fight back sobs of indignation.

  “She resisted every effort to take her off the roa
d, started fighting and screaming. We had no choice. The two of us got her here.”

  He nodded toward the other officer, a bold skinny man holding his cap in his hand.

  “We called you.”

  “Don’t listen to them. Morons! They hurt the shit out of me, pushed me around real hard. But they don’t know who I am. I know things. Everything is gonna change soon, you’ll see.”

  My mother was seething with righteous anger, ranting in Arabic mostly.

  “They don’t know who I am. Where were you? Now, get me out of here,” she yelled at me, pulling furiously at her restraints.

  I touched her shoulder lightly, hesitantly. I was loath to admit she frightened the hell out of me. Didn’t occur to me to hug or kiss her—she looked menacing, her body shaking. Was she scared, too? This made no sense at all.

  “Is there someone I could talk to?” I protested.

  I turned to the nurse, a somber-looking, sturdy black woman.

  “The doctor gave her a shot of antipsychotic medication. It takes a little while to take effect. We also have to clean and treat her leg,” explained the nurse in a monotone.

  Antipsychotic medication? That’s what my mother was? Crazy, psychotic? I wasn’t clear about what that meant. These things only happened to other people.

  My heart hammered in my chest threatening to burst out. The knots in my stomach were tighter than ever. Fear had gotten hold of me, refused to let go, a growing, gnawing, mind-numbing sort of terror. My mom was psychotic. She was mad, schizophrenic. How could that be? She had never showed any sign; there had been no visible descent into insanity that I could think of, detect, prevent.

  “What’s wrong with her leg?” I asked a tremor in my voice.

  “She’s been burnt badly, it seems; probably scalding liquid. It needs to be taken care of before an infection sets in.”

  The nurse lifted the sheet off Mom’s right leg. It looked bright red, almost charred in spots, and blistery all over the front.

  “Ah, it’s nothing. Hot coffee is all,” Mom grumbled, in French this time. “I’m telling you, it’s nothing, just let me out of here. I’ve got things to do.”

  She looked around her, annoyed.

  “Mom, your burn needs treatment. You’re not well. You will be taken care of here.” I was speaking to her in the same language, trying hard to reach the woman I knew, the rational being.

  Incensed, she shouted back at me in Arabic, “Nooo, I tell you. Damn, you never listen. I know what’s going on. God spoke to me. You don’t know who I am, you don’t understand, I’m a prophet!”

  Gnashing her teeth, she tried to sit up on the gurney but was kept down by the straps. “Tell them to untie me… You want this, don’t you? But wait, wait you see what happens, I know everything.”

  Strangely, at that moment, I was relieved she could not be understood. She, who usually paid so much attention to her appearance, would be so embarrassed by herself, I thought.

  Finally the psychiatric resident arrived, a young Indian man with polite manners, who shook my hand sympathetically.

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” he said. “I gave her a shot of Haldol. She is delusional and quite paranoid at this point.”

  “What’s wrong with her? I don’t understand how this could happen. She’s always been normal,” I blurted.

  “She’s suffering from psychosis,” he explained. “It’s a psychiatric disorder like schizophrenia or mania. She’s experiencing distorted perceptions of reality, maybe even hallucinations.” He paused. “She’s never been sick like this before, shown any manic behavior, obsession, or deep depression?” he asked.

  “No, never. Well, she’s been down of course, maybe even mildly depressed at times, but no, she was never crazy.”

  I frowned, searched my memory for instances that could have signaled something, anything. I shook my head: nothing that I could think of.

  “Has there been any particularly stressful event, any great shock lately, like the death of a loved one or a divorce?” the resident insisted.

  Then it hit me.

  “Uh, as a matter a fact, she lost a close brother last summer. Another one was arrested earlier and is now terminally ill, and also, she married a complete stranger on the spur of the moment, and the marriage shows strains already.”

  Suddenly it all made sense. Those were the triggering events, the shocks that had pushed her mind to the brink and broken her down.

  The young resident nodded quietly.

  “Unfortunately, it is very possible that all these things are responsible for her snapping. Do you have any close family member with mental disorders?” he inquired.

  “Now that you’re asking, yes, one of my mother’s sisters, Aunt Aisha, was known to break down after she lost two of her young daughters. In the family, she’s considered a kind of harmless mystic. She hears and sees things, often religious manifestations. I don’t know really, I’m not entirely sure. Why? Is this inherited?”

  My mind was racing. I thought of the way Nezha had spoken of Uncle Latif’s odd conduct in Paris.

  “It’s possible,” he said. “These things are never entirely understood. There are indications that this type of mental illness often runs in families.”

  I glanced at my mother. The nurse had pushed the stretcher behind a curtain, transferred her to a bed, and was attending to her burned leg. The drug was taking hold.

  “What should we do? Can she be treated? Can you take care of her?” I asked.

  “I think you should have your mother admitted,” he said. “But I can’t keep her here—we don’t have the facility. Check with St. Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken.”

  20

  Tricks of her Mind

  “That’s horrible, no way,” cried my sister when she heard the resident’s recommendation. “We can care for her at home, we can get a doctor to follow her on an outpatient basis,” she insisted.

  “I cannot take care of her, Nezha, you know that, not with a baby,” I replied. “I know what you’re saying. Believe me, I too feel terrible at the thought of having her institutionalized, but I see no other way.”

  We’d agonized all through the night, waiting around in the cold hospital sitting room, endlessly debating, ignorant of what to do or expect next. Nezha was adamantly opposed to the idea of a psychiatric hospital. Eventually, the resident’s firmness broke her resistance, and she relented.

  Around mid-morning, Mom appeared calmer and seemed to have regained a semblance of her senses. I checked her out of Palisades and, since she was still clearly resentful of me, Nezha and Hisham agreed to take her to Hoboken.

  In the gloomy St. Mary’s psychiatric ward, the three of them sat waiting for a doctor to see them. The longer they waited, the more hesitant Nezha became. The sight of the dazed patients was disheartening to her. She was getting cold feet when she looked at Mom, holding her hand.

  “Do you think I should tell the doctor that I am a prophet?” Mom whispered.

  “Non, maman, non. Don’t say a word about that,” Nezha exclaimed, hit by the dilemma before her, yet shaken by the frightening reality she glimpsed at.

  “You’re not going to leave me here with these crazy people, are you, honey?” Mom beseeched her. She seemed so lost, so afraid, Nezha panicked. The thought of abandoning her in that place was more than she could bear.

  “No,” she said. “We’re not leaving you here. Come on, Hisham, let’s go home.”

  “Sorry, Wafa, I couldn’t do it,” she’d told me before I asked. “That place looked awful; there are some scary people in there. Mom doesn’t belong there. I couldn’t leave her. You’d have done the same.”

  She helped Mom lay down on her bed. “There must be a more appropriate place for her.”

  That was easier said than done. For one thing, none of us had health insurance. To legalize her status, I had sponsored Mom as soon as I had been sworn in as a naturalized citizen and she’d been a legal resident since, but that didn’t make any difference. A
few months after Sophia was born, I had lost my own health coverage from Café des Artistes—and the ensuing Cobra plan had expired. Mom had always worked as a free lance service provider and could never afford any type of coverage. Hence medical cost was a big factor in our delay in hospitalizing her.

  When Nezha and Hisham offered to stay with her to see her through her first night at home, I rushed to the nearest bookstore, bought half a dozen books on manic-depression and bipolar disorder, and spent the night reading. The need to learn, to understand her illness, was overwhelming. As usual, only books—and their valuable knowledge—could provide me with dependable answers, calm my fears, put me back in charge of a situation that had gone amok. Her case seemed to mirror the typical text-book mania degenerating into full psychosis. I was made painfully aware of the urgency of providing her with sound psychiatric care.

  For days after that I called friends, and friends of friends, for referrals. I also called psychiatrists right out of the phone book, begging them to see her without delay. Their answer was invariably the same: She had to be admitted first; once the psychosis was over, then they could follow her. Our problem was compounded with the fact that she had never been diagnosed with even a depression and had no doctor following her who could help with hospital admission.

  For the next few days, we took turn keeping watch over her at home, acquiescing to all her utterances, making sure not to let her out. That alone was no easy feat. Walls, it seemed, could not contain her; every room felt confined, claustrophobic. She had an irresistible need to be outdoors, physically run out the streets, be free, closer to nature, even as, or perhaps because, her mind remained caged in madness.

  None of us slept much, if at all, mostly because she didn’t seem to doze off more than a few minutes at a time. She constantly got up and rambled around in the dark, muttering to herself, looking around for food in the fridge, fumbling for unspecified items in her drawers. I was terrified, always guarded, could not let myself snooze. What if she decided to go out anyway—how could I stop her? What if she hurt me? Was she not furious at me for all my tribulations over the years?