Where Madness Lies

by Sylvia True

  Arnold and Rigmor returned from their morning walk an hour later. Rigmor’s cheeks were rosy with health. Her hair was thick and luxurious. But most importantly, she was not too thin. Rigmor approached her sister and hugged her.

  “What a wonderful surprise.”

  “We thought we could take you out for lunch. Perhaps in Dresden,” Inga said.

  Rigmor glanced at Arnold. “Without the proper paperwork,” he explained, “it will be impossible for Rigmor to leave the grounds.”

  “But you were just on a long walk,” Inga said. “Surely there are myriad ways to get out of this place.”

  Rigmor bit her bottom lip.

  Arnold stood between the two sisters. “There are fences along the property line. The only way out is across the river, and the current here is extremely strong.”

  “Well then,” Inga said, glancing at Fred. “We will just get into our car and drive. I’m sure if we explain that we are only leaving for an hour or two, the guards will not stop us.”

  “They will stop you,” Arnold replied. “They are very thorough.”

  “Fred is rather a genius with these types of matters.” Inga reached for Fred’s hand. “Aren’t you, darling?”

  “I wouldn’t use the word genius. But I do know how to ply a guard or two.”

  “I’d prefer to eat here,” Rigmor said.

  “But my dear,” Inga said. “You need a change of scenery. It will be good for you.”

  Rigmor’s face drained of color. “I don’t want to be stopped at the gate.”

  “Arnold can help,” Inga said. “He’s a doctor here. Surely the guards will see that it’s all right if he’s in the car.”

  Arnold shook his head. “I’m afraid I have no special authority when it comes to allowing patients off grounds. Without the proper documents, it will likely be hopeless.”

  Inga took a few steps back and motioned for Arnold to follow. “You were the one who said we should get her out.”

  “Yes, but to come here and think you can just drive away.” He tugged at his collar. “It is a bit naïve.”

  They lunched at the dining hall. Rigmor barely touched her food, and then claimed she needed to rest. Inga accompanied her sister and sat on the chair next to the bed.

  “What is it?” Inga asked.

  Rigmor covered her face with her hands. “You will hate me.”

  “I could never hate you.”

  “I don’t want to leave this place. I have friends. I have Arnold. I paint. I even teach patients how to draw.” Her voice trembled. “I don’t want to live on the outside. And I don’t want you and mother to race around trying to fix me. When I have an episode, it feels terrible, but I have the comfort of being surrounded by people who understand.” She paused. “Here one doesn’t have to try to pretend to be fine. I have everything I could want, and as long as you keep visiting me, what is the harm in my staying here?”

  Inga held Rigmor’s hand. “I understand. And maybe for the time being, these walls will protect you. But I do not trust the Nazi Party, and I do not know that you will always be safe here.”

  “When the time comes, you will know. Fred will know. And then I will do whatever it is you wish.”

  Inga kissed Rigmor’s hand. “I do love you so.”

  * * *

  Arnold discovered a small glen. The sun poked through the space in the trees where wildflowers grew. A brook trickled through and an old log, curved in the center, as if nature had carved a seat, rested next to the stream. He and Rigmor often brought books, a picnic basket and a blanket. In late September, as the leaves all but dripped with color, Rigmor appeared to be at peace with her life.

  * * *

  A year passed. Inga continued to visit, although she claimed that moving across the border was becoming more difficult. Her papers were checked thoroughly, and she was questioned as to why she wanted to come back into the country. She told the guards she had a husband in Frankfurt, which, legally speaking, was true.

  Frieda wrote to Rigmor, claiming she missed her terribly, but could not return to German soil. Each letter ended the same way. Soon, mein liebschon, we will be reunited.

  Arnold and Rigmor were not lovers in any conventional sense, but he had never felt love as deeply and as precisely as he felt it with her. He could read even the slightest change of expression on her face. Her eyes, which changed from the color of thunderclouds to that of a docile sea, expressed a thousand emotions, more than he even knew existed, more than he could put words to. He knew when she was thinking of her home in Frankfurt. He knew when she was daydreaming about dancing in a field of flowers. He knew when she worried about Frieda, when she wanted to feel the breeze on her face, when she needed to hold his hand.

  He knew when she thought about their baby and how she privately mourned the loss.

  Sometimes she asked him to brush her hair. Once she even tried to teach him how to make plaits, but his fingers were too clumsy and the result was two crooked lumpy twists. They laughed. He knew how her hair curled differently as the weather changed, but how she always had one small coil, a stubborn thing that fell right in the center of her forehead.

  She had a wireless in her room. They listened to symphonies. Sometimes the broadcast would be interrupted by one of Hitler’s rabid speeches. When his voice came on, Rigmor immediately shut it off.

  Rigmor painted. At first, watercolors of fruit, flowers and landscapes, but soon she began to paint faces—first of nameless children, then of patients in the hospital. More people came to her for drawing lessons, and her pictures were hung in the wards. It was even rumored that Bohm had one of her paintings in his office.

  Still she suffered. Two good weeks were often followed by days of crying spells, paranoia, a lack of appetite, bouts of dizziness, and sleepless nights. In time, the fits would pass, and interestingly, when Rigmor recovered from her disoriented states, her mental acuity seemed heightened, as did her artistic ability.

  There were moments when Arnold felt as though he were living in some sort of fantasy world in which they were a wealthy English couple, overseeing their estate, making sure their tenants were happy and well cared for.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Day Pass

  Framingham, Massachusetts 1984

  On Christmas morning, Sabine sat with Helen, Keith and Frank in the festive dining area, with the little fir trees, and baskets of biscuits, fruit and chocolates that Omama had ordered.

  Tanner would arrive in an hour; Keith’s parents were taking him for the day; Helen and Frank would be left alone.

  “I can stay here with you,” Sabine told Helen as they drank coffee.

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “Mia needs to spend her first Christmas with her mother and her family.”

  It felt wrong to Sabine that Helen had no one. Her brother wasn’t allowed to visit, and her mother refused to come.

  Tanner had dressed Mia in a red velvet dress with white lace around the collar. They joined the group, and Keith picked up one of the fir trees and showed Mia the different colored bulbs.

  After some chitchat, a middle-aged couple approached and Keith’s arms clamped to his sides. Keith’s parents, Barbara and Jim, introduced themselves, and then Barbara thanked Sabine for taking Keith under her wing. Her bob haircut hit at chin level and thin lines framed her eyes. She wore a camel coat and a pained smile. Jim gave Keith a quick pat on the back.

  “We’ve decided we’re going to Aunt Jane’s today,” Barbara told Keith.

  He nodded, showing no emotion. Sabine guessed that wherever their destination, Keith would find it difficult.

  A few minutes after Keith left, Sabine said goodbye to Helen, and walked out with Tanner and Mia. But a mile from the hospital, her heart began to race, and she felt dizzy and nauseated. She wished she could talk to Dr. Lincoln, but he was away for four days. When he first told her he would be out of town, she threw a tantrum, accusing him of abandoning her. She understood that the reaction was part of tran
sference, but it still embarrassed her.

  Tanner and Sabine barely spoke on the drive to his parents’ house. Watching the snow hit the windshield, she told herself to get it together, to show some grit. She wanted this day to be uneventful. But she felt as if she was in one of those dreams where she wasn’t prepared for the exam.

  Holidays accentuated the voids in her life. Sabine had no presents to give anyone, even Mia. She didn’t feel bubbly or joyful. She missed her own family, and her brothers, and especially her mother. She missed Omama too.

  Tanner’s parents had always treated Sabine well, if in a distant sort of way. She never quite fit into their clan. She wasn’t from the east coast, she didn’t vacation on the Cape or in Maine. She wasn’t familiar with Filene’s Basement. She didn’t have a Boston accent or know anything about the Red Sox or the Patriots.

  Tanner parked in the driveway of the light-blue Cape. A pine wreath decorated with cranberries hung on the white door. As soon as they walked in, Sabine smelled the ham. Tanner’s older brother, Rick, whose plaid shirt blended in with the plaid couch, stood to greet them. The tinseled Christmas tree was set up in the corner.

  Rick, who like his father had become a plumber, asked if anyone wanted a beer. Tanner raised his hand.

  Tanner’s mother, Martha, stood at the edge of the kitchen wearing a flowered apron. She was so different from Sabine’s mother, who would have greeted them with her arms waving as she exclaimed exuberantly how beautiful the baby was. She would have scooped Mia up and praised her to the point of absurdity. Yes, she might be too frightened to visit McLean, but if she’d had the opportunity to have Mia at her house, she would have been ecstatic.

  On the other hand, Martha waited. Finally, when her husband, Will, brought Mia to her, she smiled, and Sabine took a deep breath. Mia would be the center of attention today, and the pressure would be off of Sabine. Tanner’s parents wouldn’t think about the fact that their son had married someone who got locked up in a mental hospital—someone who had always been a bit of a stranger, with parents from Europe, and a father who was physicist.

  Martha served dinner and Sabine sat squashed between Tanner and Rick, who were both unnervingly fast eaters. Her throat was tight. She couldn’t shake the fear that her hands were about to start trembling.

  But she made it through dinner, then changed Mia, and helped Martha with the dishes. She was finding her rhythm, and by the time she sat in the living room, she was sure she had made it through the hardest part of the holiday.

  Tanner napped on the couch with Mia resting on his chest. A commercial for Denny’s build-a-breakfast-for-$1.99 came on, and Tanner’s father looked at Sabine. She expected him to say something pleasant, that it was nice to see her, or maybe that she was looking better.

  “Places like the one you’re in, they make people worse,” he said in a low rumble. His eyes were round like Tanner’s.

  She tried to smile, but her lips barely moved. “I’m getting better,” she said, even though at that moment, panic stirred in her chest.

  Leave, she heard. She didn’t move, didn’t turn, didn’t want anyone to have an inkling that she was hearing things.

  “It would be better if you got out,” Will said.

  “Got out?” Sabine said, only half-paying attention, distracted by the voice.

  “Of McLean. Pretend like it didn’t happen, and do normal things. I knew this guy once who couldn’t get a job after he was in there.”

  She thought of a teacher on her ward who suffered from severe migraines and depression. She stayed in her room most of the day with the lights off. The rumor was that she had been fired.

  Will tapped his head. “It’s mind over matter. Ignore the problem and it will go away. That’s what I do. You stay in a place like you’re in, you’re just feeding your worst fears.” He turned back to the TV.

  The room was stuffy, the man announcing the football game shouted, and the smell from a beer on the coffee table sat in Sabine’s stomach like curdled milk. She stood, woke up Tanner and told him she needed to go.

  “But we haven’t had dessert,” he said, groggy. “And there are presents for Mia.”

  “I don’t feel well,” she said, looking forward to the Xanax waiting for her at the ward. She hurried Mia into her snowsuit and rushed out the front door.

  “Why the quick exit?” Tanner asked, after they were all buckled in.

  “Your father thinks McLean makes people worse.” “Sabine,” Tanner said slowly. “You gotta relax. You take him way too seriously.” They turned at the end of the street. The wipers squeaked.

  “He said people can’t get jobs if they’ve been in mental hospitals.”

  “He wasn’t talking about people like you.” Tanner rested a hand on her knee. She wanted to move it, but he was trying to be nice. “He means people like Frank. Besides, my dad does sort of have a point. You can’t stay there forever.”

  She pushed Tanner’s hand away. “I love Frank.”

  “You’re getting way too worked up. My dad probably won’t even remember saying any of that stuff to you. He doesn’t mean it. Let it go.”

  Sabine thought of her own father, of how he yelled and how she would always defend him even when he was wrong. That was the nature of childhood. Parents love, parents try, and parents make mistakes, big and small, and children stand by them. Tanner was going to stand by Will, and Sabine could not fault him for that.

  “You’re right. It’s no big deal.” She leaned her head against the window, looking forward to returning to McLean, debriefing and analyzing the day with Helen.

  “Hey,” Tanner said. “I have an idea that will take your mind off of everything.”

  She knew what he was talking about, and it was the last thing she felt like doing. But she hated to be so ungenerous on Christmas. And to give him what he wanted might make going back home feel easier.

  “We have Mia,” she said.

  “She’s asleep.”

  “You’re driving,” she told him.

  “I can pull over. Just a little blow job.”

  Her stomach knotted. She thought about swimming in the ocean. If you went in slowly, let your feet get numb, then your knees, then your thighs, you got used to it. Maybe if she began slowly with sex, she could handle it.

  They parked at the end of a small street behind a corrugated steel barrier. A yellow street lamp blinked on and off. He pulled down his pants.

  She told herself she could do this. It would be good for her. She leaned over and tried, but she gagged and her head went black.

  She sat up, covered her mouth, and turned away from Tanner. “I feel sick,” she said.

  “Sick like as in you’re getting a cold, or sick like as in doing this makes you sick?”

  “Just sick.”

  “Want me to do you? Would that help?”

  She did not want to be done, but she wanted to give it another try, to prove to herself she could do this. There were nights in college, and after, when she did want to have sex, and there were nights when she didn’t, but she always managed to give Tanner what he wanted, and she was proud of that, proud that she wasn’t a prude.

  This time she counted, but she only made it to ten. “I can’t.” She held a hand over her stomach.

  Tanner tousled her hair. “No worries,” he said. “You don’t mind if I step out for a minute. You know. And finish off?”

  “Go.”

  Sabine stared off in the other direction. She focused on one green pine needle holding a perfect pearl of ice. Tanner wasn’t going to take this well, even if he pretended otherwise. There would be marks against her on their scoreboard. But worse, soon they would be sharing the same bed, and his H and H self would be waking her up in the middle of the night wanting to do things she simply couldn’t do anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mercy

  Brandenburg, Germany 1939

  In the summer of 1939, rumblings of war were impossible to ignore. Yet inside the boundarie
s of Sonnenstein, life remained, for the most part, placid.

  One evening when Rigmor had fallen asleep rather early, Arnold decided to visit the library. He found a small alcove with a cushioned armchair. There he read The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel he hadn’t read since he was seventeen. Back then, he was convinced he was a facsimile of Werther—despondent, hopeless, and destined for a life of unrequited love. But now, he realized that he had overcome Werther’s self-pity. Arnold, stronger than Werther, had learned that romantic love was the weakest of the loves, and that his relationship with Rigmor consisted of much more.

  Arnold heard footsteps and was surprised to see Dieter approaching. For the most part, Arnold was left alone by the staff. His purpose was to attend to Rigmor, and remain obscure, although on occasion Dieter had expressed interest in Rigmor. He had published a paper on the benefits of art in treating the mentally ill.

  “I have been asked to visit Brandenburg,” Dieter said, taking a seat across from Arnold, who gave a slight nod.

  “They have built some new sort of facility,” he continued. “I am to give my opinion on it.”

  “Good,” Arnold said.

  “You must come with me,” Dieter said with a burst of emotion.

  Arnold smiled, feeling a bit like an old uncle who had resigned himself to a peaceful, unambitious life. “I think it’s probably better to have someone who might be more interested.”

  “No, you must come. You will be objective and wise. I would appreciate your opinion above anyone’s.”

  “That is kind of you to say.” Also surprising, Arnold thought. “But I’m not terribly involved in new treatments.”

  “I was given two invitations. I think your opinion would be valuable.”

  “Do you know anything about the facility?” Arnold asked, perplexed by Dieter’s insistence.

  “It is modern and will change the course of psychiatry.”

  “When do you plan on taking this journey?”

  “Three days from now. We will have a private car.”

  Very curious, Arnold thought. It was not often the hospital splurged on such things. “I suppose if you really think I can help.”