Lilith

by J. R. Salamanca

  She paused to nod toward a middle-aged man with stiff gray hair, hoeing furiously in a small kitchen garden at the end of the narrow lane down which we had walked behind the shop. “That’s Mr. Levitz,” she said, smiling. “He is one of my favorite patients. He supplies us with fresh corn and lettuce all summer and writes epic poetry on brown paper bags. He’s very kind and dignified and will tell you that the only way to keep really healthy is to drink a glassful of human blood every morning.”

  I was perhaps a bit disconcerted by the traditional gentle wryness of her tone in referring to these eccentricities of a “crazy” person, but it was belied by the sympathy and experience out of which it was spoken and was, as I came to learn, a common manner of workers at the Lodge—a kind of mild, unmalicious, professional license against oversolemnity. As if to distinguish this attitude from the one of patronization against which she had just enjoined me, she smiled and said, “On the other hand, you mustn’t ever lose your sense of humor. You probably need it more here than anywhere in the world.”

  The grounds of the Lodge, I saw as Bea escorted me about them, were far more extensive than I had ever realized in looking in at the old mansion from the street. Behind it they ran on to include several acres of the fields of the surrounding countryside, a huge old farmhouse in which several of the resident doctors lived, a dormitory for nurses and attendants, and, in the near distance, half a mile beyond the slope of an interceding hill, a large modern brick building, which she called Hillcrest.

  “That’s where our old people stay,” she said. “We have a few senile patients here who only receive custodial care. It’s very different from the Lodge. Also, the clinic and hospital are over there, where Lodge patients are taken when they’re ill. Do you see the water beyond?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the pond. It has a dock and a rowboat. Patients with ground privileges can swim and go boating there, as long as there’s an attendant on duty. We own that old barn on the other side of it, too. The fields are planted every year with market crops. Patients who want to can work in them, and they’re paid a percentage of the profits for their work. We had a wonderful yield of wheat last year, which they raised and harvested almost entirely by themselves. I want to just show you Field House now, and then we can have some lunch.”

  This was an old brick cottage on the main grounds, a few hundred feet to the rear of the mansion and lying adjacent to the tennis courts and playing greens. It had a large screened porch, furnished with more of the wicker furniture and a ping-pong table, and a huge old-fashioned sunlit living room with a grand piano in one corner, overstuffed furniture, glass-paned bookcases lined with leather-bound classics, a phonograph and a record library. There was a kitchen, as well, on the ground floor, and the upper story had been divided into separate rooms to accommodate seven patients. The door of one of these was open, and, glancing into it, I saw an unmade bed, its sheets trailing on the floor, and a bedside table littered with fragments of a broken mirror, an empty paper cup and scattered pencils, coins and wads of crumpled foil. Above the bed was a print of Delacroix’s “Hamlet,” which had been disfigured by a bold encirclement, in red ink, of the prince’s head.

  “This is Warren Evshevsky’s room,” Bea said. “The boy we saw outside just now.” She frowned at the disorder and closed the door gently. “He isn’t doing awfully well lately; it’s that business with Lilith Arthur.” She stood brooding privately for a moment, her hand on the doorknob, and then said more matter-of-factly, “Field House is a sort of weaning place. When patients have had ground privileges for a while and have been able to manage them responsibly, they’re transferred over here from the main building. They live here entirely without supervision, as if they were in a small guest home. There’s an attendant on duty in the kitchen, but he is there really only in case of emergency. The patients look after themselves, cook simple meals if they like, and do their own housekeeping. They play chess and bridge together, read, organize parties, listen to music, and gradually adjust themselves to a community life. It’s a difficult period for them; very often they aren’t up to it and have to be returned to the main lodge. But if they do well here for a few months, then they’re given town privileges, which means that they can take a room in Stonemont, even do part-time work occasionally, and report to the Lodge only for treatment and conferences. For some of them it’s the last stage before final rehabilitation; they spend less and less time here, become gradually independent, and finally ask to be discharged. Field House is really the first big step in their social recovery, and it’s very exciting to see them transferred over here—they’re always so proud and happy, and rather frightened at the same time. It gives us a feeling of real personal triumph when someone we’re particularly interested in is moved over here; and it’s always a very sad day if they have to be moved back again.”

  We had left Field House and were approaching the main lodge from the rear. Looking up at it, I saw for the first time that the entire back of the building had been fitted with a three-tiered structure of concrete porches, each entirely enclosed by the heavy diagonal steel wire which barred all of the Lodge windows, set one upon another, like a stack of cages. On the first of these, a floor above the ground, a grinning dark-haired girl in a torn yellow dress stood clutching the wire with curled fingers and calling down to us in a foolish mechanical voice, as if reciting by rote a list of memorized civilities, “Hi, Miss Brice. Are you going to have lunch now? It’s a nice day, isn’t it, Miss Brice? I hope you have a nice lunch, Miss Brice. You have a very nice-looking friend. It certainly is a nice day, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a lovely day,” Bea said, smiling up at her. “How are you today, Miss Glassman?” She unlocked a large metal door at the rear of the building which opened directly into a self-operated elevator, and as we entered it the endless mild torrent of inanities still floated down from the girl above. We rode the elevator down one level to the basement and walked along a tiled corridor to the staff dining room, a bright and noisy cafeteria, full of the pleasant clatter of steel cutlery and thick commercial china and the cheerful garrulous chatter of the diners, who, after the tension of their work, appeared to relieve themselves with a particularly informal, even boisterous, behavior at luncheon. We sat apart at a small table and Bea smiled at me over a salad of cottage cheese. I felt quite inexplicably happy.

  “I don’t think I’ll take you up to the floors today,” she said. “I have a pretty busy afternoon, and I think you’ve had quite a session for one day already. What do you think of it?”

  “I think it’s extremely interesting. I’d like to work here very much.”

  “Really? You don’t feel there’s anything . . . depressing or frightening about it?”

  “No. It appeals to me very much. As a matter of fact, it seems like the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do.”

  “Well, think about it this evening. Then, if you like, you can come back in the morning and I’ll take you up on the floors.”

  “What do you think about me?” I asked after a moment. “Do you think I could do the work all right?”

  “Yes. I think you might make a very good O. T. I’d like you to start, if you feel quite sure about it.”

  “I do. Very sure.”

  “All right. Then I’ll expect you in the morning. The O. T. staff meets at eight-thirty every morning in the craft shop, and we make up a schedule for the day. I’ll assign you to one of the other workers tomorrow, and you can accompany him for a week or so, until you get to know your way. Can you plan to spend the whole day tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll talk about it in the evening. We meet again every night at five o’clock to go over the whole day and make out reports.”

  “All right, fine.” I lifted my glass of water and could not help smiling into it.

  “You seem quite pleased,” Bea said.

  “Yes. It means a good deal to me. I’m very anxious to do well at it.”

 
; “Yes, I can see that,” she said.

  I left the Lodge full of a strangely agitated and yet pacific feeling which I find it impossible to remember accurately, much less to describe. For how is one to describe that wholesome sense of merriment and gravity uniquely merged which is fulfillment? Perhaps as the sudden illumination and warming of cold, sealed cellars of the spirit by the delightful opening of doors. I clutched a handful of leaves from a privet hedge as I passed and lifted them to my nostrils, blowing them from my hand in a little glittering shower of green. The streets and houses of the village where I had been born seemed to possess, as I felt myself to possess, a new dimension. The town seemed more beautiful to me, for I was to serve it and to see it whole. I was to participate, at last, in one of its mysteries.

  I believe my grandfather was disappointed at my news, although he pretended not to be, and offered me, by way of congratulation, a small glass of apple brandy. My grandmother smiled and said softly when I kissed her temple before I went upstairs to bed, “Your poor mother would be very happy, Sonny.”

  “I know she would, Grandma,” I said.

  I BEGAN keeping a journal on the first day that I went to work at Poplar Lodge. I do not know what prompted me to do this, unless it was a simple manifestation of pride—the desire to record this deed, this achievement, to which I had so long aspired. It was fortunate that I did, however, for from this point on my story can be fortified by the daily transcription of its events, fresh and exact in circumstance and feeling, whereas it might otherwise easily have been distorted by the imperfections of my memory and by the subtle temptation (which I have been aware of already, in recounting it this far) to modify its details ever so slightly, ever so ingeniously, with ever such an air of innocence, to my own advantage. But I cannot doubt the innocence of my journal. Much of it, indeed, is so painfully candid that I am almost unwilling to set it down here; yet, to preserve the sincerity with which I am determined to tell this story, and to restore those portions of it which have been lost or deformed by the curious processes of my memory, I shall copy down here whatever passages I feel to be significant. It is a large old-fashioned ledger bound in green cloth, which I bought at the stationer’s on my way home from the Lodge after my first full day of work. I sat up after my grandparents had gone to bed with the lamp on at my table, the windows open and pale moths bumping softly against the screens in the spring darkness, writing carefully, in my neat, overdelicate handwriting, this first entry:

  THURS., APRIL 16:

  My first day of work at the Lodge. I woke up at six o’clock with excitement and went down to the kitchen. It is pleasant to be up ina house while the others are still sleeping. I wonder what it is that makes certain moments so splendid and permanent? I think I shall always remember that half hour, sitting in the quiet kitchen, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee, smiling to myself with happiness. I don’t think I have ever been so happy since before my mother died.

  We met at eight-thirty in the craft shop, and Bea introduced me to the staff. They are all very pleasant (one possible exception here), and I am sure I shall like them. There are five permanent workers and four students from Antioch. I liked best Greta Pearlman, who is in charge of Recreation, a stocky, dark-haired woman of about thirty-five with a plain, humorous face; Carl Lindquist, the shop attendant, whom I met yesterday; and Iola and Robert Clayfield, a newly married couple who are attending Antioch and training together. Bob is studying on the G. I. Bill, and is about my age, or perhaps a year or two older. I will write about the rest of them as I get to know them better.

  The staff is divided into two categories: Recreation and Shop. The Shop workers instruct patients in crafts, and the Recreation group take them walking, supervise them at athletics, etc. I am in the latter group, although I hope I shall be able to learn the shop procedures too, as I am sure I would enjoy it greatly. I love lumber, leather, raffia, clay and everything that you can work with your hands.

  At the morning meetings Bea outlines a schedule for the day. Attendants are assigned to certain floors, and try to divide their time as fairly as possible among the unprivileged patients on their floor. It was easy to guess, from the degree of enthusiasm with which assignments were accepted, which floors are the most popular. Fourth Floor is the least so. It is for very disturbed female patients who have to be watched closely, kept from using dangerous tools, and to have their poor concentration and coordination constantly stimulated and corrected. Some of them, apparently, have particularly formidable reputations—one woman, whom they call “The Duchess,” seems to be held especially in dread. I hope I will be spared her company for a while.

  Third Floor is for disturbed male patients, who, strangely enough, seem to provoke less apprehension than the women. Second Floor is divided into both male and female quarters for patients in relatively good contact. Many of these have ground privileges and do not need to be attended. Field House inmates can come and go at will, without supervision.

  Bea has assigned me to Bob Clayfield. I am to accompany him everywhere for a week, observing the way he deals with patients, learning Lodge rules and procedures, and becoming generally orientated to the hospital. At the end of that time, or perhaps of an additional week, I will be issued a set of keys and allowed to escort patients on my own. I must confess this prospect seems none too distant at the moment, for after visiting the floors with Bea this morning I have developed a set of nervous misgivings as to my own capabilities, although she assured me that this is always an unsettling experience to new attendants.

  It would have been less harrowing, I think, if we had begun on the second floor and worked our way up through the progressive levels of disorder; but Bea took me directly to the fourth floor. I was prepared to be shocked, or repelled perhaps, and was fiercely determined to survive my first impressions, however forbidding they might be, so important has it become to me to succeed at this work. But the sight of so much tormented, derelict humanity, crowded together in such oppressive, desolate conditions—however necessary—without comfort, privacy or a single grace to dignify their lives, is overwhelmingly sad.

  The floor is divided by a wide corridor running down its center, from which the patients’ rooms, five on each side, open off. These rooms have no doors and are completely unfurnished except for a wooden bed and a locked wardrobe. Each has a single uncurtained window, barred with steel wire. At the end of the hall are the heavy metal doors of two isolation rooms, each with a small observation window at its top. Immediately beside the elevator door there is a small cubicle which serves as office for the floor attendants, furnished with a desk, a drug cabinet, a steel sink and a small gas burner. On either side of it are the grilled metal doors of two bathrooms. The south end of the corridor opens onto the wire-barred concrete porch with which each floor is fitted.

  Sitting on their heels, crouching or wandering about these bleak surroundings were eight or ten women patients, most of them quite young and many of them barefooted, with unkempt hair and torn, stained clothing. One girl ran softly on her toes in little darting steps, humming to herself and picking daintily at a rip in her dress. Another, with tangled black hair, leaned against the wall, beating it hopelessly, spasmodically with her palm while she sobbed with despair. A young woman whose face I could not see sat on the floor staring down into her lap, her forehead resting on her knees, completely motionless for the whole time we were there. A stout, sly-looking woman of thirty with a flushed and haughty face spit at us and smiled sardonically. From within the rooms came the sounds of quiet moaning, excited chatter or sudden hysterical laughter. The whole floor was permeated with a faint sour smell of sweat and urine, like that of a locker room. Spaced here and there along the walls of the corridor were white-coated attendants, watchful and impassive. They lifted their hands sometimes to disengage gently the fingers of patients who wandered close to them and clutched at their clothing, peering and giggling.

  Bea introduced me to the nurse in charge, a strong, sober-lookin
g woman in her forties with a broad freckled face, who sat on a tall stool in the tiny office, brewing a pot of tea. I can’t remember her name, but I remember Bea telling me that she has been at the Lodge for six years and is one of the finest psychiatric nurses in the country.

  I was silent as we went down in the elevator to the next floor, and Bea said only, “It’s rather shocking, isn’t it, the first time you see it?”

  “Yes,” I said and asked her suddenly a question which, although it was quite spontaneous and sincere, must have sounded very strange: “Why do you work here?”

  She did not seem to be aware—as I was almost instantly—of the foolishness and possible impertinence of the question, but smiled and nodded as if it were not only relevant and logical but anticipated.

  “That’s something that all of us who work here have to ask ourselves,” she said. “And we’re better off if we answer it as honestly and thoroughly as we can. I hope you will, too.” Although impressed by this answer, I could not help being aware of its obliquity.

  The third floor, although it was very much like the fourth with the exception that these were male patients, I found less depressing. Perhaps this is because I was better prepared for what I would see there, but I don’t think this is the entire reason. It seems to me that insanity is much less disturbing—I am not sure, here, of the exact word that I want to use—less sinister, perhaps, in a man than in a woman. It may be that violence is more compatible with a masculine nature, or that derangement is manifested in less subtle, less elaborate ways in men. There was something eerie, something witchlike and profound about those women above that I cannot forget and which I did not feel about the men. I had the impression that the strangeness, the faint alarm they made me feel, was invoked not by the loss of their powers but by their added powers. Perhaps this has something to do with my attitude toward women, which has never been very real. [The line which follows has been blacked out vigorously with ink, but I remember it imperishably: I kept thinking about Mother.]