IN THE SLUMBER room tonight, the women breathing in and out don’t pull me down to sleep.
I’m too excited about Mary and her secret in the next bed. When the night nurse sneaks off with her cigarettes, I whisper, “Mary. Mary.” But Mary doesn’t open her eyes. So I lean closer. “I know you’re awake.”
Mary’s eyes flick open. “Shhhh!”
“Thanks for saving me.”
She’s frowning. “If I’d known you could still speak, I might not have … You need to keep your mouth shut. If they find out, it’s dangerous for both of us.”
“Why’re you faking?” I ask.
“The less you know, the better. They’re already suspicious. So stop talking. Go back to sleep.”
“You’re good at it. Faking,” I say.
“You’re still talking.”
“Your stare. So real.”
Mary leans close, looks at me. “Sherman’s just about got you fully cooked, hasn’t he? Just a few more days till you reach full regression, ready for reshaping. Do you even understand what I’m saying?”
She thinks I’m the gork. Pot, kettle, black. Can’t let her think I’m the gork. “Yeah, and I’m getting better. Gonna see Paul soon—”
She laughs. “Not sure I’d put too much stock in Paul. Sure sounded like you had your doubts.”
“Doubts?” I ask.
“Forget I mentioned it, which you will. All part of making you better, right? You’ll forget all you’ve seen and heard come that first treatment Monday. Just need to keep quiet till then,” she says, and closes her eyes.
“Tell me about Paul,” I say, but she doesn’t. “Tell!”
“Shhhh! If I do, you’ll go back to sleep?” I nod. “The other day, for some reason they let you upstairs to see a visitor.”
Now I remember. “Officer Worthy.”
Mary nods. “Same sheriff’s deputy who delivered me here. Local boy. Earnest, chock-full of integrity and principles.” I shut my eyes tight, try to remember the officer’s visit, but there’s nothing. “When Wallace brought you back down here, you were yelling,” Mary continues, “rattled about something the deputy told you about your husband. And, boy, were you desperate not to forget it.”
“What?”
“That Paul lied to get you into the Unit.”
“No. No, he wouldn’t,” I say.
Mary shrugs. “All I know is what I heard from my chair. You wouldn’t say exactly what the lie was. When Gibbs heard the commotion and came into the dayroom, you begged her, of all people, to convince Sherman and Wallace to hold off on your next shock treatment till you could confront your husband, demand he get them to stop the protocol, transfer you out of here and into a regular ward. Of course that effort was doomed to fail.”
“Stop the protocol? No, I need it.”
“Not how you felt then. Or you’d never have written that painful little note to yourself,” she says, and points to my hand.
I open it. Nothing there. “The letters?”
She nods. “Before they could take you for treatment, you got hold of a pen and started writing them on your palm: P-L-I-E-B-A-B-T-W-M-A-N. When the pen ran out halfway through, you were so desperate you carved the rest right into your hand.”
Now I remember—the feeling of the pen cutting my skin. All the blood.
“What a mess you were,” Mary continues. “As the nurses cleaned you up, they puzzled over what you’d written like it was the Sunday crossword. It took more than a few shocks before you forgot about the letters. Stopped pulling off the bandage, screaming till you were hoarse.”
“Just gib … gib…”
“Gibberish?” she asks, and I nod. “Seems so—unless you wrote a ‘b’ when you meant a ‘d.’ Wouldn’t be surprising, given the state you were already in. I think you intended to write P-L-I-E-D-A-B-T-W-M-A-N. Short for ‘Paul lied about a woman.’ Maybe a woman he had an affair with. It happens. My late husband lied about more than one. Maybe you found out, flipped your lid, and ended up here.”
I shake my head. “No. Mind musta made it up.”
“I’d think you’d place a little more faith in that sharper, smarter you of a week ago.”
“Was sicker then.” I tap my head. “A voice here made me think things. But she’s dead now.”
“Well, sometimes you need to trust that lunatic voice, ’cause she’s the only one in your corner,” Mary says. “No matter, after your first treatment Monday, a dimmer you won’t even remember we had this conversation. But at least your faith in good ole Paul will be magically restored. As you happy protocolled ladies like to say, ‘It’s all for the best.’”
Witch. But right. Dimmer and dimmer I’ll be. Did Officer Worthy really tell me Paul lied? Or did I imagine it? Like Betsy’s transmitter in her head. Need them to stop shocking me till I remember. But they won’t stop shocking till I’m cured—
And then I won’t care what Officer Worthy said.
Mary’s just a blur now behind my tears. “For Chrissakes, pull yourself together!” she hisses. “The nurse’ll be back any minute.”
Mary’s too mean to be regressed. And smart. Must be a while since they stopped treating her. “How’d you make ’em stop shocking?” I ask.
“Nope.” She shakes her head. “I’ve got my own problems. Can’t be—”
“How?” I ask louder, and a couple moths start moving in their beds.
“Shhhh!” Mary says.
Hear the tunnel door opening—Nurse’s coming back. “Now, or I tell Nurse.”
Mary’s eyes are angry slits. “You’re too far gone to pull it off.”
“Tell me. Please.”
“You sure you’ve got it down?” Mary asks. “You won’t get a second chance tomorrow.”
Two nights Mary’s been teaching me during Nurse’s smoke breaks. “Yes. Ready,” I say.
Mary frowns. “If they find out you’ve been faking, you’re right back here, only now you’ll be under the care of a ticked-off Sherman, ready to shock even the slightest hint of doubt or rebellion right out of you. A reset. It’s done all the time here. Alice was a reset.”
“Alice?”
“Brought back by her husband when she ‘relapsed,’ which according to nurse gossip meant she caught him cheating again.”
Poor Alice. Bill had them reshake her Etch A Sketch.
“You think the doctor or Paul will see my faking?”
“They won’t have to—not if you tell them first.”
“Me tell?”
She nods. “Through its brain-damaging regression and behavioral conditioning, Sherman’s protocol etches into the minds of his subject new ways of thinking, of acting. And a temperament inclined to obey authority. That’s the protocol’s true purpose, to render difficult patients—defiant, mouthy women like Alice—more manageable, to the point they no longer question the rules or the rule giver of the institution—whether that institution is Hanover or their marriage. And with all that compliance comes a drive to confess all, then ask for forgiveness.”
Like Betsy, wanting to apologize to Dr. Sherman for slicing up her face. “I won’t.”
“You sure? That programmed deference is hard to shake. Let’s say you get your mind back and remember what was said during the deputy’s visit. Do you think while still in that obedient state of mind you’ll be able to summon the will to confront your husband about his lies?”
“If he lied. Yes.”
She shakes her head. “Just promise me that if by some miracle you pull this off and they send you to the infirmary to recover, you won’t rush into confronting Paul. Wait a few days, till you’ve recovered enough of your wits that you can handle yourself. Otherwise you’ll just look paranoid, that voice in your head back running things. You need to tread lightly up there.”
“I will.”
“Let’s hope so, for both our sakes,” Mary says, lying back down in her bed.
“Mary, why fake? Why not take treatment. Get out?”
“Because I wasn’t sent here for treatment,” Mary says. “I was sent for interrogation. By the ones who really run this place. Government agents.”
More Mary crazy. “You imagine,” I say.
“Wish I did. Two spooks from some deep, dark pocket of the CIA are running the show using Sherman and his protocol to soften up their subjects. Most of their ‘interviews’ are conducted on ‘patients’—more accurately, prisoners from the Men’s Unit, but they made an exception in my case. They’re pretty certain they’ve gotten all the information they can out of me—and it needs to stay that way,” she says, looking all serious. “I’ve got to protect those caught up in this mess till my interrogators decide they’re done with me.”
“Who’s caught up?” I ask.
“Never mind. I’ve already said too much. Those agents could easily have another go at you.”
“Someone had a go?”
Mary nods. “They’re convinced Soviet agents are trying to contact me here. So when you claimed hubby lied to get you into the Unit—that’s when the agents shot you full of happy juice and dragged you off to room three for a little question-and-answer session. Your lying husband probably has no idea they even did it. That’s how it works.”
“No one shot me with juice,” I say.
“Yes, they did. But apparently you told them you were sent from the future in a time machine on a mission so a doctor could help you get rid of someone called the Guest and save the world.”
“Just my deh … deh…”
“Delusion?” she asks, and I nod. “The spooks agreed with you, decided pretty fast you weren’t some trained Soviet operative subjecting yourself to brain damage in order to obtain government secrets from me. Just another protocol patient sure their doctor had all the answers.”
More Mary crazy.
Just hope her plan works.
Inside the green treatment room, there’s a war going on in my mouth. Juice from the lemon Mary had me take off the nurse’s teacup is mixing with the baking soda from the custodian’s cart, and now the bubbles want out.
But I’m waiting for him. Dr. Sherman.
Finally, he comes in, and when he reaches for the switch, I start: grunt and gurgle, clench and twist, then roll my eyes back the way Mary coached.
“She’s seizing. Keep her still,” Dr. Sherman yells, but I’m off the table and onto the hard floor, thrashing and jerking round. When Miss Wallace and Gus crouch down beside me, I make the choking noises, let the foam out the corners of my mouth and stiffen my arms and legs.
They turn me on my side and Wallace slips a blanket under my head. “I’ll call the infirmary,” Gus says. “Get Dr. Sackler.”
“No need,” Dr. Sherman says. “It’ll be over soon.”
The doctor kneels down next to me to take my pulse. Now comes the worst part: I push and push till I feel it—the warm wet flooding between my legs. Can smell the sour. Feels horrible. Mary’s right, nothing a person would do on purpose.
“Dammit,” Dr. Sherman says, so I know I soaked him. Good.
Now the clonic part. Begin to blink, shake. Tiring. Hope I keep it up long enough.
When the doctor opens my eyes, I keep them pointed down, away from his light. “Pupils are still equal, reactive.”
Gus asks, “You sure we shouldn’t call Doctor—”
“I said that’s not necessary.”
Miss Wallace puts her cold stethoscope on my jumpy chest, and I hardly breathe like Mary told me. “Breathing’s shallow. Dorothy, wake up.”
“Shouldn’t be too much longer now,” Dr. Sherman says. But I make sure it is much longer. Eventually I stop shaking, close my eyes and start the pretend-sleep part, hoping they’ll think it’s status epilepti-something and send me up to the infirmary. Mary said no opening eyes. No matter what.
Mary had lots of rules.
After a bit, Dr. Sherman pinches my arm hard but I don’t move. “Dorothy, dear, I need you to—”
But before he can tell me what he needs, I start singing a song I must’ve learned a long time ago. Not out loud. Just in my head. Enough to block out his words. And it works. I don’t hear what the doctor wants.
Soon lots of hands are picking me up, putting me back on the table.
“Twenty-three minutes of status epilepticus, Doctor,” the nurse says, and I fight to keep my smile inside.
“I’m aware, Miss Wallace,” says the doctor. “Get an IV drip of saline going and start her on thirty ccs Dilantin and sixty phenobarbital.”
Someone wipes my arm. Then come the needle sticks and the drugs trying to flatten me, but I stay focused on the next part, what Mary called the waking but not really waking. I open my eyes but keep them blank on the ground.
Mary said staring at the floor wouldn’t be so hard. She was right. Must be something I’ve been practicing a lot. Dr. Sherman takes my hand. His is cold and damp. “Dorothy, it’s time for you to open your—”
But all I hear is my song:
Wa saw the forty-second
Wa saw, gone to war
Wa saw the forty-second
Marching through the brambles raw.
Some the men got boots and stockings
Some the men got none at all
Some the men got boots and stockings
Marching through the brambles raw.
The doctor drops my hand. “Get her to the infirmary and tell Dr. Sackler I said not to call the husband.”