RUBY SLIPPED OFF HER CLOTHES AND WATCHED AS they fell to the floor. She let the cloud-coloured hospital gown unfold its worn cotton threads slowly over the tan curves of her breasts, her belly, then her hips. She sat down on the edge of the bed, bending over to feel if there were any straps hiding underneath. Curling up into a ball on the crisp sheets, she frowned at her ashen kneecaps. She thought of how her grandmother would have disapproved of their greyness and would have scolded her father for not teaching her how to lighten them up with the juice and rind of a lemon. In her mind she cradled this vision of her grandmother and her father, letting their comfortable sepia images rock her back and forth in sleep’s lullaby.
Ruby woke with a start. She heard words hurtling out into the night, then a rush of feet stampeding off in the direction of the distressed voice. Then silence. The vastness of it engulfed her. She had dreamed about the faceless man again, but this time he actually raped her. There was something about his voice that seemed vaguely familiar. She tried to sit up, to escape it, but her body kept shaking violently. She began plummeting down a tunnel of darkness. She tried to still her frantic hands long enough to grab on to the rails of her bed. If she held on, maybe she could stop this sudden, mad descent. But she felt her spirit seeping away, leaving her bones and flesh wide open for the demons. In they came, piercing and penetrating what was left of her. A thousand different faces from her past erupted into her brain and just as quickly as they appeared, eyes that had laughed with her, lips that had kissed her, arms that had held her became disfigured. Ruby watched in horror as the flurry of faces flashing before her transformed into one massive heap of rotting flesh on the floor by her bed.
Then she saw his feet. Brown shoes, perfectly shined. Clad in a pale doctor’s gown, Werner approached steadily. Ruby stared at his feet, transfixed.
Werner began to whisper. He swung an iron swastika tauntingly in his hand, its points sharpened like daggers. Ruby began screaming silently into her pillow, her arms pummelling the sides of the mattress. Her chest was heaving furiously; the air was being choked out of her lungs. In a low, halting groan she begged, “Go away, go away and leave me alone. Please,” but his cold breath closed around her.
Rat a tat tat tat tat tat tat! Ruby thrashed free of Werner’s hold. Hanging on to the bed rails as tightly as she could, she listened for this sound that played insistently on the edge of her mind. Rat a tat, rat a tat, tat tat tat! Her right hand loosened its grip and slammed against the wall in response. Rat a tat tat, rat tat tat, ta ta ta tat! She heard the door to her room fling open and a shaft of angry light bathed the wall where her hand was drumming ferociously.
“Frau Edwards! Was machen Sie bloss? What on earth are you doing?”
Footsteps neared the bed. Ruby felt a hand on her back, cold breath on her shoulder. Whirling to push the white blur away from her with all her might, she screamed, “Go awaaaaaay!” It went crashing to the floor. More footsteps thundered down the hall. Voices hissed like vipers. Ruby felt herself being shoved back down on the bed. She listened desperately for the sound of the drums. Instead all she heard was a voice yelling, “Give her the goddamn needle!”
Ruby wound her body up into a tight ball, and the doctor twisted her arm flat against the mattress. She waited for the steel to bite her flesh; she waited for blackness to come.
When she woke, she could feel the rays of morning sun streaking down her back. Rolling over to look out the window, she felt as if lead weights were attached to every muscle, every bone. With a slow, sickening realization, Ruby recalled the scenes from the previous night. She tugged hold of her pillow and crushed it against her body. Tears spilled over her face; anguish surged with every breath she expelled. When no more tears came, the cool silence of the room lapped over her.
It was not the first time Werner had tormented her in her visions. But she didn’t want to think about him. She couldn’t dig down below the surface. So she thought about the drums. She remembered how days before her hospitalization she had spent a whole day hallucinating that she was travelling across other continents. As soon as she had stepped out of bed that morning, she found herself thinking, If it’s six a.m. here, it’ll be around midnight in Brazil. She mumbled the words repeatedly to herself, until she had willed herself into the heart of Bahia. Her feet shuffled around the apartment to a samba beat. All day long she hummed what Portuguese words she remembered from all the bossa nova songs her mom had played when they were children. Werner tried to shut her up, pleaded with her to lie down and rest. He finally gave up, conceding that her antics were harmless, even if they irritated him to no end.
In the evening, she had looked out her fifth-storey window to find the air blackened with the buzz of insects. Bees, scorpions, flies, giant moths clamoured against the screen, wings flapping in a wild symphony. The buzz droned louder and louder in her head. Words fluttered in her ear. Africa. The whole world will return here. The flapping transformed into a steady drumbeat. Dark bodies swayed around orange firelight. Propelled by the rhythms, Ruby whirled around the room. Flinging her head from side to side, thrusting her arms out in front of her, she stamped her feet on the floor.
Someone coughed. Ruby realized she was no longer alone in the room. A woman with greying hair and a wrinkled forehead lay on the bed next to the wall, staring sullenly at the ceiling. Ruby wondered if she had been there during the night. The woman glared back. Words percolated out of her thin mouth, hot and angry.
“Was guckst du denn so an?” What are you staring at?
The word du hit Ruby like a slap in the face. It was unusual for an older woman, a total stranger, to speak to her in this informal, familiar way. She got up to use the washroom.
She sat on the toilet, her legs spread wide, and watched the stream of warm, yellow liquid form a puddle on the platform inside the white bowl. She giggled at this Germanic need to inspect every aspect of their lives, inventing thrones for their shit and piss to rest on. All in order to check out its size, colour, texture. Werner bemoaned the toilets he had seen elsewhere. Of course the German toilets were superior!
Thinking of him, she dipped her fingers into her steaming excrement and brought the brown filth to her lips.
Someone pounded on the door. “Beeilen Sie sich, bitte. Hurry up! You’re not the only one in here.”
Ruby jumped off the seat with a start. Shaking, she slashed an arm across her mouth, wiping the shit from her lips onto her wrist. She turned on the taps, spat into the sink and let hot water stream over her hands.
The pounding started again.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming out!” she hollered.
When she opened the door, the woman brushed by her without a word and slammed the door shut. Ruby looked at her shaking hands, hands that no longer belonged to her. She flattened herself down on the mattress and pressed her hands under her body to still them.
She convinced herself that she almost felt safe. At least here her movements could be confined. At least here she couldn’t step out into a street, oblivious to the screeching cars around her. Only one thought continued to stalk her. The words to frame it slipped backwards off her tongue, tumbling down her throat to toss in her stomach until they were carried out of her body again. Home.
Would she ever go home again?
Metal carts rattled down the hall. An aide came in and handed her a tray of breakfast. As Ruby balanced it carefully on her lap, she heard the aide call her roommate’s name gently.
“Frau Elke Jungblut, Ihr Frühstück ist da.” Your breakfast is here.
“Ich will es nicht” came the voice from the bathroom. I don’t want it!
The aide persisted. “You have to eat something.”
“I said I don’t want it!”
The aide shrugged and left the tray on the night table before leaving the room. Elke opened the bathroom door and peeked out. Seeing only Ruby in the room, she slumped down on her bed, ignoring the tray.
Ruby slapped the cheese and wurst on a piece of bread and chewed noisily on the rubbery bits. When she was finished, she sucked at the seeds from the grainy bread that had stuck between her teeth.
Frau Jungblut snapped: “Didn’t anyone ever teach you any manners? Cover your mouth with your napkin when you do that!”
A jet of anger shot up out of the white nothingness that enveloped Ruby like a blanket. “This isn’t exactly Café Kranzler.” The hunched old women that filled the Ku’damm Kaffeehaus on Sunday afternoons flashed before her. Carefully slipping forkfuls of Herrentorte into their mouths, taking tiny sips of coffee, blotting their lips with folded cotton napkins, they reminisced about the good old days before the Wall, before Willy Brandt, before the Turks.
Frau Jungblut’s voice burst through the flow of images: “Why, you rude thing, you. Just who do you think you are? You’re not German. What are you doing here anyway? All you people, stealing from us, using up our money, our resources. Why don’t you go home!”
Ruby looked at the woman lying in the bed next to hers and wondered where she had been during the war. She snarled. “Ach. You’re so right. This place should really be reserved for Germans only.”
The ferocity of Ruby’s words stunned the old woman. She sputtered, “Well, well . . . I didn’t ask to be here, my husband put me here. I didn’t ask to come here.”
Storm clouds closed in on Ruby again. She shoved the tray and sent it crashing to the floor. When someone came to clean up the mess, Ruby laughed at their tsk-tsking. A nurse came with more pills.
People floated in and out of the room, holding clipboards, jotting notes, whispering secrets to each other. Ruby closed her eyes and let the waves of darkness roll over her. Night came early.
Werner had taken her away to Corsica after Dom’s death. But she hadn’t gotten better. Every day they trudged for an hour up the dusty road. The yellow and orange flashes of the fruit trees interrupted the monotony of the dirty brown September hills, the craggy bushes that marked their way. She was careful to watch out for the scorpions that seemed to dart out from under every rock. At the village market, she picked over grapes and oranges. Her fingers finally rested on fresh figs, bursting with juice and seeds, to bring home. She smiled at Werner and thought he knew. They filled their baskets with lemons still graced with their dark shiny leaves, artichokes, olives, bread and cheese. And figs. She hummed an early Ella tune on the way back down the mountain. It was part of a collection of her father’s old jazz 78s. Werner knew the song: it wasn’t too highbrow for him. As he chirped along with her, she smiled and held his hand tightly.
That night the owner of the house they rented brought them wild boar. On his way up the path, Ruby saw him stop to pull fresh bay leaves from the laurel tree that shaded the courtyard. He showed them how to cook it the Corsican way. Wine, garlic and bay leaves, braised slowly in the oven. A celebratory feast. Ruby smiled at him and lifted her glass of wine to her lips.
She left the men and wandered out into the dusk, staring at the stars blinking in the early night sky. The pungent smell of eucalyptus filled her nostrils. It all smelled so new, so clean. She pressed a hand into her belly and thought, “Daughter of the southern stars.”
Those late-September days were filled with dark clouds that burst across the skies, crowding out the sun momentarily. She missed their drama when they returned to Berlin ten days later. The city was a blanket of grey. Werner called her sister and asked her to come. She heard him whisper, “It didn’t help. She’s not getting any better.”
Ruby spent days staring out the window, waiting for her sister to arrive, waiting to be admitted to hospital. Four flights up, on the other side of the courtyard, she watched her neighbour knotting the muslin curtains that hung in her windows. Two knots hanging in the window. Ruby pressed her hand into her tummy, feeling around for life. “Twins,” she whispered to herself.
That afternoon, she lay on the bed, fighting to keep the voices out of her head. They were getting louder and louder and she couldn’t hide from them anymore. Werner turned on the vacuum. He pushed the machine all around her, zigzagging over the floor by her feet. Suddenly she felt the air-sucking nozzle buzz up between her legs. Then it was inside her, shoving, sucking, shoving, sucking. One fetus after another being ripped right out of her.
“No!” she screamed. “No!”
She ran over to yank the cord from the outlet. But it was too late. She saw the blood streaming down her legs. She grabbed a T-shirt from the dresser to wipe off the blood and plug up her vagina so that nothing more would come out. But when she wiped the inside of her thighs, there was nothing. Nothing. Werner stood shaking in the middle of the room, still holding on to the nozzle. He let it drop with a thud on the floor and came over to where she stood. She screamed at him to get away. He stomped out of the room. She could hear him picking up the phone in the hallway, dialing. He had betrayed her. Yes, he had told her that he wouldn’t bring children into this godawful world, but she thought all that had changed. After all, he had sung the song with her. He knew. She crumpled up on the bed and wailed. Half an hour later they were in a cab, racing through the city. Another needle.
Ruby opened her eyes. Cold sweat dripped off her body onto the sheets. She was shivering. She looked at the clock. Seven a.m. A young woman, dark hair flying about her face, burst into the room. She surveyed the cold, rectangular space with a disdainful eye. It was as if she knew the place well and wanted to be sure she had the best room possible. She stepped back out into the hall, talking loudly in a language Ruby had never heard before. Every so often a turn of phrase caught her ears, lilting with the sounds of something vaguely French, vaguely Spanish. When she returned to the room, the woman was dragging an enormous suitcase, ragged and bulging at the sides. Two other women lingered in the doorway, saying goodbye to her. Ruby looked in amazement at the suitcase, its tan leather streaked with wear, and somehow felt naked. She had brought so little with her.
A harsh peal of laughter vibrated throughout the room. The woman had let go of her suitcase and was laughing at her friends, inviting them in. Her whole body, round and full in its curves, echoed her amusement. She began speaking in German. “Komm doch ’rein. Come in, come in. Don’t be afraid of them. They won’t bite.” She looked at Ruby and her roommate and added, “Will you?” She eyed Frau Jungblut with a look that said, Yes, I know you very well. Then, resting her gaze on Ruby, she said, “You, you’re not German. Turkish?”
Ruby shook her head.
“What are you, then? Where are you from?”
Ruby smiled at this old, familiar question that had followed her overseas. “My name is Ruby and I’m Canadian.”
The woman did a double take, her eyebrows rising right off her forehead. “Hah, Canadian.” She added brightly, “Well, they’ve captured quite a little corner of the world right in this room, eh? I’m Irina. I’m a Roma. From Romania.” She broke out into that wild laughter again, slapping her stumpy thighs, pleased with the alliteration. Behind her, her friends were nodding, smiling shyly, still not part of the conversation. Ruby was turning the word Roma over in her mind.
As if reading her thoughts, Irina snorted. “Ah yes, of course. You Americans know nothing.” She turned a cool eye on Frau Jungblut, now feigning sleep, and continued, “But maybe this is better than the Germans who know all but do nothing. Hah! Yes, Roma, we are what you call Gypsies. Roma, Sinti, Kale, Gypsy. Call us what you like, we are all over the world.”
She picked up the strap of her suitcase, jerked it like a recalcitrant puppy over to the only empty bed in the room. The others followed. The mattress sighed underneath the weight of the valise. Irina whisked the zipper noisily along its track. Ruby watched eagerly as her new roommate unfolded the suitcase. First came the bottles, each carefully wrapped in black, red, pink panties, all satin and lace. Ruby strained to see the names but found it easier to make them up for herself. Dawn’s Dew, Lascivious Lavender: the kind of scent that would wither your nose. Irina and her friends unpacked bottle after bottle. They were followed by slithery, slinky nightgowns that matched the panties that had snuggled the bottles so closely. Irina tossed these carelessly onto the bed. Next came shoes, spiky-heeled, shiny black ones, flat silver sandals, fuzzy pink slippers. Frau Jungblut sat up in her bed. Irina stopped fumbling with her clothes long enough to say, “Hi. I’m Irina. Who are you?”
Frau Jungblut sniffed the air, wrinkling her short, stubby nose. “What is that smell?” she demanded.
“Oh, it’s probably these,” replied Irina, her chubby, ringed fingers holding up a pair of satin undies. “I spray them with my perfume. I mean, even in here you gotta smell nice.”
“Could you crack the window open? I feel a little faint.” Frau Jungblut held her hand over her mouth.
“Why certainly,” chuckled Irina, blinking thick black eyelashes at her friends.
“You didn’t answer my question. This is Ruby. I’m Irina. Who are you?”
“Elke Jungblut” came the answer. Elke slid her body back under the covers, scowling at Irina’s back as she watched her get up to open the window.
A man in a white coat entered the room.
Irina saluted him. “Hello, Dr. Heller. Nice to see you again.”
Dr. Heller was short and fit, with wiry brown hair. Ruby thought he looked awfully young.
“Hello, Irina,” he said kindly. “How are you?” Stepping up to her, he told her quietly that her guests would have to leave.
“Okay, Doc. I know the rules.”
While Irina ushered her friends out of the room, Dr. Heller took Ruby’s hand firmly in his and gave it a resounding shake. She was aware that her hands were clammy, her grasp clumsy. Werner had told her that Germans regarded a strong, firm handshake as a sign of a strong, firm character. She felt weak.
“Nice to meet you, Frau Edwards. I wasn’t on duty last night, but I hear you had a pretty rough go of it.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She paused before asking, “Did someone get hurt?”
“You knocked down a nurse. But you’re lucky. She’s okay.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Ruby’s voice was hushed as she looked at the doctor.
“Well, the medication you were taking before you were admitted was obviously not strong enough. They had to give you a pretty hefty dose of Haldol last night. It’s what we call a neuroleptic. And a much more potent antipsychotic than what you were on. We’re hoping it will be enough to prevent the kind of hallucinations you were having last night. If you don’t get better and you continue to pose a safety threat, we’ll have to move you to the other ward down the hall until you improve.”
“God, no,” Irina gasped, “don’t send her there!”
Ruby’s eyes welled up with tears. “I never thought things could get so out of control,” she stammered.
Dr. Heller took hold of her hand again. It was still shaking. “Listen, you’re not alone here. I’m hoping we’ll be able to help you. That’s my job. Your job is to rest and take it easy on yourself. In the meantime, we’ll start you on something that will help prevent the shaking. It’s a common side effect of antipsychotic medication.”
He picked up a book that lay on the table next to Ruby’s bed. “What’s this you’re reading?” he said, turning the book over. “Ah yes, Langston Hughes.”
Ruby had forgotten about the book. It was the only thing she had grabbed before leaving her apartment. She had left everything else. Werner could bring it later.
“Yeah,” Ruby responded. “Helps keep me sane. Helps me remember who I am.”
“Well, we’ll do our best to get you out of here as soon as we can. I’ll be meeting with you once a week in my office. We also have group therapy sessions that we like the patients to participate in, but you can take your time deciding about that. No rush. I’m here Monday to Friday, and every third weekend. If you have any questions, just come on down to my office, okay?”
Dr. Heller strode up to Frau Jungblut, who was sitting up in her bed, fidgeting.
“Doctor,” she burst out before he had a chance to begin. “Dr. Heller, I don’t think I should be here. You know my husband brought me here against my will. I’m really fine, just a case of bad nerves. Harald, the jerk, he’s just worried about me spending all his money. I, I’m not like them.” She waved a thin arm dismissively around the room.
Dr. Heller raised his eyebrows and reached for the file that was clipped to the end of her bed. “Well, Frau Jungblut, we’ll have to see,” he murmured as he glanced over the notes. “Hmm. Says here that you threatened to kill your husband and jump out of your condominium window. Then you took an overdose of pills after he cut up your credit cards. I think we’ll need a little time to straighten things out here, Frau Jungblut.”
Irina screeched, “Hey, way to go, Elke!”
Dr. Heller frowned at Irina and scolded, “I’ll have none of that.” Turning back to Frau Jungblut, he said, “We’ll have to wait until your weekly appointment with me to discuss this further. You’ll need at least a few days to recover. I’ll be talking with your husband in the meantime.”
Elke Jungblut’s face had turned red as a beet. “Doctor,” she whined, “you can’t leave me here with these, these . . . madwomen! Foreigners, stinking foreigners. And down the hall, the screaming. Please, I don’t belong here,” she wailed, her blue eyes full of fear.
Irina jumped up off her bed and shouted, “Hey! Who you calling a madwoman? Who you callin’ stinkin’? You better watch your mouth, bitch, ’cause you’re stuck with us now.”
Dr. Heller stepped quickly to the door and signalled for a nurse. Then he clapped his hands together twice and said, “Enough, Irina. Sit down right now or I’ll have you removed in an instant.”
Dr. Heller waved a male nurse into the room. Throwing Irina a last glance of disapproval, he returned to Frau Jungblut’s bed. “Frau Jungblut, you are being unreasonable. You must not upset yourself and the other patients like this. It will get you nowhere. I don’t want to have you restrained, but if you force my hand, I will.”
The old woman was now sobbing uncontrollably. Ruby rolled her eyes and looked over at Irina, who caught her glance and tossed back a wry smile. Dr. Heller ordered the nurse to give a sedative to Frau Jungblut. He watched while she swallowed her pill obediently and then rolled over to face the wall, sobbing. Ruby was relieved, though she also felt sorry for her. There was something ominous in other people having the power to control your pain.
Dr. Heller went over to speak quietly to Irina now. There was a certain sorrow in his voice as he spoke, and she too was subdued, listening and nodding. Ruby wondered how many times she had been in and out of this place. Then Dr. Heller announced that a nurse would come in right after breakfast to tell them when their weekly appointments would take place, and left the room.
A feeling of numbness began to wash over Ruby. She knew it was from the mega-doses of drugs the night before. Sure, she was back in the real world for now. But it came with a vast feeling of emptiness that swallowed her up.
Irina’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Y’know, you just gotta learn to go with the flow here. It’s like Pavlov’s dogs—you’ll get rewarded for good behaviour and deprived for bad. You hear those screams down the hall earlier? Well, that’s the other wing. Only it’s not so far away. Got the real bad cases over there. You wanna make sure they don’t send you down there. You won’t get out too soon.”
“Yeah,” Ruby mumbled, “I was wondering what that was all about.”
“Listen, take some advice. I don’t know what you’re in here for—I don’t care really. But you just try to get along, and pretty soon you’ll be taking strolls out on the grounds, meeting up with friends in the Schlosspark for a bit, and a few weeks later you’ll be out on weekend passes. And you know, you can still get away with having some fun in here. Just choose your moments carefully.”
“Fun?” scoffed Ruby. “I didn’t come here to have fun. Just to get better.” She looked down at her hands.
“Meine Liebe, there is no quicker way to get better than with a little fun. Hey, I bring my guy down here all the time. You know, nooky-nooky here, nooky-nooky there.”
“I wouldn’t know what that’s all about anymore,” Ruby said.
“So why you here? You got a bad husband, too?”
“No! I don’t know. Lots of things went wrong at the same time. My mind was like a closet with too many old clothes stuffed up in the corners, just waiting to tumble out. Then I couldn’t sleep. My brain was going tick tick tick all night long, all those thoughts going round and round in my head. Telling me things, making me see things and hear things. Couldn’t ignore them.” Ruby started to choke on her words. “God, it gets so scary . . . something so simple as lack of sleep . . .” Her voice trailed off into nothingness.
Irina looked at Ruby as if to say, Yeah, I’ve been there too, but all she said was “Doesn’t sound to me like it was just lack of sleep. When are we going to meet this husband of yours?”
“Oh, he’ll be here every day, knowing him. He’s a German guy. I met him when I first came to Europe, one and a half years ago. We got stuck on each other somehow.”
“Goddamn Germans. They have a knack for making you fall for them. And look at what we have to put up with over there,” she said, nodding at Frau Jungblut. “Another German. Scheisse, every time I’ve been in here, there’s been someone like her around. Cursing the Turks or the Jews, talking about the good ol’ days with Hitler when they all had work and dignity. Man. They’re so intelligent, they had to go kill off everyone that didn’t look like them. Look what they did to my people! Executed as many as they could. And those who’re left? I know people who were born here, parents born here, grandparents born here. They still won’t give them no German passport. Just call us stinkin’ Gypsies.”
“You’re right,” said Ruby. “All those old men and women on the subways. They just sit there complaining and hissing. It’s like it’s against the law to smile. And then the neo-Nazis and football fans storming down the platforms with their racist chants. But I’ll tell you one thing. Despite the fascism, I’ve never seen people take to the streets anywhere else like they do here. I never saw anyone barricade streets in Toronto like they do in Kreuzberg.”
Ruby heard Irina snort and she rolled over to look at her. She was fast asleep, snoring away. Ruby sighed and gazed back up at the ceiling. I guess that’s all there is to do here, she thought. Talk, sleep, wait for meals, wait for visitors, talk, sleep.
She looked at the clock on her bedside table. Only eleven. Lunch wouldn’t come for a while yet. She rolled over and picked up Langston Hughes’s book and flipped it open. She began reading softly out loud to herself, letting the words glide over her tongue like honey. “My People” was her favourite poem, gentle yet melodiously insistent. Poetry was the perfect antidote, as it didn’t require the extended concentration that a novel might. She closed the book when the last lines had crossed her lips.
Ruby had always yearned to draw out her blackness, to place it front and centre. Here in Berlin, without her family around, she struggled to keep in touch with this part of herself. Perhaps this ambiguity had helped lead her to the psych ward. But there had been so many years of questions even before this: “What are you, anyway? Where are you from? No, that can’t be!” And it wasn’t only the endlessly stupid reactions of white people that bothered her. She had recognized early in her life that many of them couldn’t focus their lenses to include any landscapes beyond their own narrow borders.
What was worse was the disdainful comments of Black people outside her circle of family and friends. She would return home with the words half-breed, half-black, yellow bitch seared in her brain. She knew the history of their anger. Her father had spoken often of the wretched comments of his own maternal grandmother, who advised her children to “marry light, but not white.” And she remembered his singsong words, “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” He had never told her the rest of the lines until she was a young adult: “But when they get that black, they ain’t no use.”
She had never thought of herself as more beautiful because of her light colouring. In fact, she had secretly wished she had been born darker, certain that this would have kept the questions at bay. Her father’s words, the familiar rhythm of his speech, would shore her up, reassure her. He spoke to her as his girlchild: “Darlin’, butterball, honeychile . . . Don’t let them take away who you are. Being black isn’t a monochromatic state. Just look at the rainbow of colours in our family. Being black doesn’t mean we’re all the same. We are many people, many colours, many cultures. And therein lies the beauty of it.”
She loved her father dearly. Loved his wide open view of the world. She was enthralled when he took his children to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre and plunked them one after the other onto the knees of a Santa whose eyes looked so different from any Santa she’d ever seen before. She loved it when he took them to the traditional wedding of a Native Canadian colleague and spoke to them of their great-great-grandmother, an Algonquin woman who left her people to marry a Black man. He told his children that he himself believed in no god, but that they should accept other people’s right to believe.
“Just tell them your mother’s white and your father’s Black” was his response to his children’s need for a simple answer to the constant queries of the people around them. For years she dutifully repeated his words to all who asked. Only as a young woman did she realize that describing her parents did not actually define who she was herself. She wished he had not left her to struggle with that damn puzzle all on her own. And now here she was, stuck in a Berlin hospital, the blackness and the whiteness, the days and nights, battling like knights and dragons over her true self.
Ruby heard the carts rattling down the hall and checked her watch again: 11:30 a.m. Her thoughts drifted to easier questions, such as what lunch would taste like. She checked the card she had filled in at breakfast time, full of tedious little boxes lined up next to equally tedious selections: yogurt, porridge, cheese, white rolls, brown rolls, sausage, rice, soup. She had been given the option of deciding one day at a time what she wanted to eat, or selecting foods for a whole week at a time. She chose the soup and the sausage and rice, as she was tired of cheese and rolls and sticky porridge.
Emma poked her head into the room and waved. “Hiya!”
“Oh my love, I’m so glad to see you,” said Ruby. They hugged for a long, long time.
“So, you’re in the loony bin. How do you feel?”
“Tired and scared. Wondering how long I’ll be here for, wondering when I’ll have my mind back.”
“Ruby, just so you know, I don’t think you really belong here. I’m sure you’ll get out soon.”
“I wish I could just snap my fingers and it would all be done with.”
The two women carried on together for an hour. Emma had brought wool and knitting needles with her and showed Ruby how to cast on and off and do a simple knit stitch. They chatted about their friends and about planning a trip to the East. When Emma was ready to go, she said once again, “You don’t belong here, Ruby. Come home soon.”
Ruby nodded and waved goodbye, sorry to see her friend leave.
The clattering food carts neared their room again. Irina and Elke began to stir in their beds, pushing sheets aside, rubbing their eyes. Ruby wondered if they felt the same panic she did every time they woke. “Where am I? Why am I here?” followed by the realization that she was adrift in this sea of strange faces, sounds and sights. Irina sat up, swung her feet out over the floor and stretched both arms up over her head. Thick, mottled scar tissue zigzagged around both wrists. She saw Ruby staring at them.
“Yep, these are my battle scars.” She laughed. “Been here a few times.”
Ruby looked down at her hands in silence.
“Hey, don’t be sorry for me. Every time I’ve been in, I’ve gotten out. Besides, my honey’s coming to see me today. I bet yours will be here soon, too.”
Ruby smiled at her, glad at the chance to talk about something else. “Who’s your honey?”
“His name’s Niko. He’s a beaut. Just you wait and see. He’ll be in here every day, bringing me things, taking care of me. I’ll be out in no time. Mmm! Can’t wait to get some more of his stuff.” Irina thumped her hands down on the bed next to her hips and shoved her pelvis into the air.
Ruby blinked in astonishment and then laughed. She could see that Irina would breathe a lot of life into this place.
“Excuse me!” Frau Jungblut’s voice exploded through their giggles. “Would you refrain from making such crude gestures in my presence!”
Irina shot off the bed and stamped her foot on the ground. Ruby shook her head at her and pressed a finger to her lips. Irina glowered at Frau Jungblut and marched off to the washroom.
“Ja, sicher. Of course, meine Dame. We’ll just have to take it out to the hall.”
Two aides pushed lunch carts into the room. Ruby lifted a tray off one cart and opened the lid gingerly. Three compartments divided the servings: sausage, rice, mixed vegetables. She pushed a slice of sausage into her mouth. Frau Jungblut took a tray, but left it resting on her lap.
“You should eat something,” Ruby ventured. Although she didn’t really care for her, she couldn’t stand the thought of being locked up with this woman without being able to have a sensible conversation with her.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“You’ll feel a lot better if you eat. Try it. I’ve seen worse.”
Ruby chewed slowly and watched Frau Jungblut hover her nose above the food on her tray, nostrils flared.
Just then Werner strode into the room. He held one hand behind his back, and with the other he brushed back a lock of Ruby’s curly black hair as he bent over to place a kiss on her cheek.
“Ta-da!” He handed her a bouquet of red roses. As Irina let out a loud whistle from her bed, Ruby’s face flushed.
“Thank you,” she murmured. Lifting the roses to her lips, she kissed a petal. She let her fingers graze the tip of each flower, carefully avoiding Werner’s eyes.
“Eleven,” Werner said, interrupting her counting. “You always give an uneven number of flowers.”
Ruby sighed and laid the bouquet beside her on the bed. “Yes, of course. You’ve told me that more than once already.”
Werner’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s go find a vase for these.”
Ruby pried her hand loose and lifted the tray off her lap. She shifted her feet into a pair of paper slippers the hospital had provided. She moved to stand up. Her legs felt rubbery, as if they couldn’t carry her weight. Werner took hold of her arm and guided her out of the room. He stopped just outside the door and took both her hands in his.
“What happened?” he asked, when no one could hear them.
Ruby looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Last night. The doctor told me you had another fit.”
“Oh. So you were talking to him already?”
“Yeah. Tell me what happened.”
She thought about the visions she’d had and looked into the face that had stalked her at night. “Just like the doctor said. I had another fit. I don’t really want to talk about it.” She didn’t like the way he was looking at her with such intensity. She couldn’t shake the thought that he was really out to get her. Could all those visions be wrong?
She moved away from him. He pulled her back.
“Listen, it’s better to talk to me than to some group therapy nuts.”
“Werner, I just want to forget about it. Besides, I don’t have to do the group therapy stuff if I don’t want to. I can just see Dr. Heller.”
“That’s good.”
“Werner, I’m still feeling pretty shaky. Can we go back?”
Werner shrugged. “Okay. Just wait here a sec while I get the vase.”
Ruby leaned up against the wall and watched him march down the hall and disappear into the nursing station. He came out and waved a white porcelain vase in the air, his lips stretched into a thin smile. Back in the room, Werner put the flowers in the vase and placed them on the night table. Then he pulled a chair up next to the bed.
“I’m going to need a few things from my place,” Ruby said.
“I know. I brought some paper and a pen so you could write a list.”
“The doctor put me on some stuff to stop the shaking, but I guess it’ll take a while to kick in. Can I just dictate the list to you?”
“Sure.” Werner printed at the top of the paper, in neat, block letters: list of things to bring to the hospital. Then he drew three columns, printing at the top of them Toiletries, Clothes, Miscellaneous. Ruby waited for him to finish organizing the page. Then, column by column, she rhymed off the things she thought she needed.
Irina was listening carefully. “Boy, are you guys ever organized! I just threw whatever I could find into my suitcase.”
“Being organized is his specialty,” Ruby said, nodding at Werner.
“Well, of course,” said Werner, looking sternly back at Ruby. “How do you expect me to sort through all your things and know what to bring without a list?”
“Werner, give it a rest, okay? Anyway, it’s finished. I can’t think of anything else I need.”
There was another knock at the door. Irina yelled out, “Come on in, don’t bother knocking.”
A short man with dark hair slicked back off his forehead came into the room. He wore a bright orange shirt unbuttoned to his navel, black pants and pointy black suede boots. Ruby stared at the thick mat of hair that covered his chest. Irina bounced up and down on her bed, shouting, “Niko, Niko, I knew you’d come. Darling, come here and let me kiss you!”
Looking a trifle embarrassed, Niko flashed a bright smile at no one in particular and went over to Irina’s bed. She threw her arms around his waist and shimmied up against his furry chest. Werner looked at Ruby and rolled his eyes in disdain. Ruby ignored him and smiled, enjoying Irina and Niko’s reunion. The two lovers got up to leave the room. Irina turned to wink at Ruby as she passed through the doorway. She whispered, “Remember what I said about having fun?” Ruby laughed and said, “Go for it!”
“Did you see the clothes the guy had on?”
“Yeah, I saw. So what? They’re in love,” Ruby said almost accusingly.
“They look like a couple of wackos, if you ask me.”
Ruby changed the conversation. “How’s my sister?”
“Jessie’s okay. Packing her stuff up. You know she goes back tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But she’ll be in to see you later today.”
“Why didn’t she come with you?”
“I don’t know. I guess I wanted to see you by myself first. See if you’re okay enough to have any more visitors.”
“Werner, she’s my sister. She’s seen everything there is to see already, anyway.” Ruby sighed. She remembered how anxious she had been about Jessie’s arrival in Berlin. Werner had gone to pick her up at the airport. Tired from the long flight, her face had blanched when she first saw Ruby. The next day she had slept late. Ruby had stood over her prostrate figure on the mattress, listening to the high-pitched wheeze of her snore. She stared at her flared nose, thick lips, the tight kinks of her light brown hair. She wondered how it was that they had come out so different.
She had missed Jessie incredibly these years. Her father had always insisted that family was the most important thing in the world; she never believed him before, but now she understood. Despite having rejected them, having run away to Europe and married Werner, it was her family that she loved more than anything else.
Ruby wasn’t able to talk to her sister much about anything, as fragmented as she was. But Jessie kept her company and held her hand and hugged her. She cooked for her and made endless pots of tea. She made sure she didn’t go outside. She was there. That’s what counted. Once she asked if she could look at what Ruby was scrawling in her journal. Ruby had reluctantly pushed it towards her and said, “You won’t understand.”
Jessie read the journal thoughtfully, her head in her hand. She said, “You’re right. I don’t really get it. So much paranoia, Ruby. Where do all these thoughts come from?”
Ruby shrugged and said simply, “They’re a part of me. I can’t separate myself from the voices, the thoughts.”
But it did open up the door for them to talk about Dominick and the abortion.
“You really took a gamble on him, Sis. And you put your relationship with Werner on the line. He must have been devastated when you told him.”
Ruby nodded and gave a watery smile as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Yes, he was.” She hung her head in her hands.
Werner’s voice brought her back into the present. “Ruby, you’re in a safe place now. They’ll look after you here. And I’ll be in to see you every day, I promise. Besides, your parents will be here in a few days.”
“You’re right. Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been snappy. I’m just worn out.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m going to go now anyway. I’ll come back with Jessie tonight.”
“Will you? I don’t know what I’m going to do here all day long. I guess if you bring me those books, I can read some.”
“I’ll bring them.” Werner leaned over and kissed her again. “I’ll see you later, then. Don’t go thinking any more funny things.”
“Christ, Werner. It’s not as if I can control it,” Ruby said, looking up at him.
“Well, just don’t go getting into any trouble with what’s her name out there.”
“Her name’s Irina. And actually, I think she’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
“Uh-huh,” Werner groaned. “Just take it easy, for my sake.”
“Yeah, sure,” Ruby muttered. Then to herself: “Everything’s for your sake, my dear.” Then she waved at him from her bed, watching as his perfectly polished brown shoes marched out of the room.
Ruby had forgotten about Frau Jungblut. She had been dead quiet while Werner and Niko were there. Ruby rolled over to see what she was doing. Frau Jungblut’s head was propped up on her pillow and she was staring at the ceiling again. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ruby asked.
“It’s hard to see you two with your husbands or boyfriends or whatever they are. But you should go on and enjoy yourselves.”
“I’m sure your husband will be in to see you today,” Ruby sympathized. “Is he working?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, maybe he’ll be here at suppertime.”
“If he shows up I’m going to make sure he gets me out of here today.”
Ruby said nothing. Everyone was wondering when they would get out. Just thinking about it gave her a headache.
Irina and Niko came back into the room, arms wrapped around each other like a couple of teddy bears. After Irina sat back down on her bed, Niko leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Irina smiled and said, “Just make sure you come back tomorrow.”
Niko smiled. “Of course I will.”
There was something in the tone of his voice that made Ruby look at him. The muscles of his face were pulled into a tense smile, his body coiled like a spring waiting to be released. She remembered that he hadn’t looked her in the eyes when he came in. He left the room a few minutes later.
Ruby smiled at Irina. “Everything okay?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Irina answered, all dreamy-eyed. “What did I tell you? He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? My Niko.”
“Yeah, he seems nice. Did you guys have a nice stroll?”
“Yup.” Then in a conspiratorial tone, she added, “If you go right down the hall and into the stairwell, you can have a bit of privacy, if you know what I mean.”
“You’re not serious,” said Ruby, almost choking on her laugh.
“Of course I am! Just remember what I told you before.”
“Yeah, right.”
Frau Jungblut’s bed creaked. She got up and began pacing the floor, back and forth. Irina nodded to Ruby as if to ask “What’s the matter with her?” Ruby shrugged.
“Goddamn men,” Frau Jungblut muttered. “You cook for them, you clean for them, you have their children.” She stopped pacing and stared at Ruby and then at Irina. “And then, just when you’re thinking it’s about time for you to have some fun, they go and throw you in the loony bin, so they can sneak around with some young thing.”
Irina stared at Elke coolly and said, “Some things are the same for everyone, it seems. But I wouldn’t take any shit from a man.”
“You’d think I’d have a right to go shopping after all I’ve done for him. It’s just that the Porsche got smashed up, too.”
“Who smashed it up?” Ruby asked. “You?”
“Well, yes. But we’d had it a long time.”
Irina mumbled, “You must have been daydreaming about all those new things you’d just bought, huh?”
“It’s the first time I ever had an accident,” Elke snapped. “Besides, didn’t I hear you cheering me on just a few hours ago?”
“You sure did. Like I said, I don’t take shit from any man.”
“But how do you think I’m going to get out of here, except through him?”
“Just sweet-talk him till you get what you want. Then take off. Divorce him.”
Elke walked over to her bed and sat down. “I can’t. I’m Catholic. We have children.”
The three women sat in silence for a few minutes. Elke stretched out across her bed and covered herself up with a blanket. Irina slouched down on her pillow and began chewing on her nails. Ruby rolled over and picked up her Langston Hughes book. She opened it up to the last lines she’d read. She lay there reading the poem, quietly mouthing the words to herself until the book slipped out of her hands and her head rested against the pillow.
A few hours later, the touch of a hand brushing through her hair jolted her out of a deep sleep. Werner and Jessie were sitting on the bed.
“What time is it?” she asked, smiling sleepily at her sister.
“Five thirty. Dinner’s coming soon. What’s on the menu?”
“Oh, I don’t remember. But you’re welcome to share with me if you’re hungry.”
“No, we’re okay. We’re going out for a meal when we’re finished here,” Werner answered.
Jessie’s presence comforted Ruby and she let her guard down. She began crying. “Damn, don’t say those things around me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get out of here.” She couldn’t stop the rush of sobs. Jessie pulled her up close. Her long, full arms hugged her tight.
“Hey, you’re already looking better than you did two days ago. You’ll be okay, Sis. It’s just going to take some time. Anyway, before we go for dinner you and I are going to go for a walk in the Schlosspark. It’s beautiful outside. They’ll let you go out for half an hour if you’re with someone.”
Ruby continued sniffling, but smiled a little. Immediately she thought of how wonderful it would be to put clothes on again. What freedom!
Werner was fidgeting, wringing his hands while Jessie talked. “Calm down,” he said. “Stop crying, you’re getting yourself all worked up. I told you I’d come to see you every day. They’ll take good care of you here.”
Ruby ignored him and held on to Jessie’s hand as she pulled away from her. “You’re leaving tomorrow,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, I have to. I’ve been here for two weeks, Ruby. Now that you’re here and settled—well, I’ve got to get back home. I have work to do. You are gonna be okay, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m sorry, Jessie. It’s so weird being in here. It’s enough to make you crazy!”
Jessie laughed and stroked her head. “You’ll have some pretty good stories to tell when you get out.”
The rattle of carts punctuated her words. Ruby threw her arms up in the air and said, “Here we go again, the major event of the day. Meal time!”
Werner picked up Ruby’s dinner tray. “Let’s see what we have here,” he said. “And where are your roommates? They’ll miss dinner.”
Ruby looked around and saw that neither was in the room. “They must have gone wandering down the hall while I was sleeping.”
Werner sat down on the bed and pulled up the table and placed the dinner tray on it. Jessie pulled up a chair. “Mmm, smells good,” she said and laughed.
“Yeah, well, you can take some with you if you think it’s so good,” said Ruby.
She ate her food quickly. There was no point in taking time to savour anything; it was hospital food, mushy and tasteless. When she finished, she pushed the table away and got up from the bed. She went to the small dresser and pulled out some clothes: jeans, sweater, bra, socks. She went into the bathroom and got changed. She looked herself up and down and said, “How liberating! I almost feel myself again.” She stepped back into the room and said “Ta-da!” Jessie and Werner looked at her and beamed, sharing in her happiness.
Werner said, “Maybe I should go with you? Can you manage on your own?”
“We’ll be fine,” said Jessie. “Don’t worry about us. You’ll be able to see us walking down the park path if you look out the window in the lobby.”
Ruby grabbed her sister’s arm and said, “Come on, let’s go, no time to waste here.”
The two sisters went out onto the floor and strolled down to the nurses’ desk by the elevator. They put an armband on Ruby and told her that she had half an hour. She was looking forward to this walk with her sister, time with someone she loved. Once outside she held her head up to face the sun and yelled, “Shine on me. I worship you.”
Jessie held her arm for a while as they headed down the path through the top end of the park. They could see the Charlottenburg Palace glistening in the distance. The beautiful gardens were modelled after those at Versailles, full of formal beds and symmetrical paths. The air was crisp and the sweet light of the late afternoon had set in. Ruby walked stiffly, her shoulders hunched over, her feet dragging one after the other.
“The medication has its side effects, doesn’t it?” said Jessie, watching her sister. She took Ruby’s hands in hers and said, “What about the tremor? How’s that going?” Ruby’s hands were trembling considerably.
“Same as usual. It got a little better when they added the second medication, but they still shake a lot. Just like Mom’s.”
“Yeah, it really does run in the family, doesn’t it? I’m sorry, Ruby, I’m so sorry that this had to happen to you. Why you and not me? Why?”
“Lord knows. You know, I never saw this coming. Even with Mom being bipolar, it just never occurred to me. I just went blithely along, leading my life, never stopping to worry that I might get sick. And then wham! Now look at me.”
“I used to wonder if I might turn out like Mom. But I didn’t dwell on it much. Maybe it was just too scary a thought. But Ruby, just know you’re gonna get better. The whole family’s behind you. Mom and Dad will be here soon. And you’ve got Werner. I know you guys have your issues, and he may not be all that you want in a husband, but he’s definitely looking out for you.”
Half an hour had slipped by quickly, so Ruby and Jessie walked back towards the hospital at the other end of the park. When they got up to the room, Werner was sitting there with cups of coffee for everyone sitting on the night table. There were also two pieces of Sachertorte for them. “I had mine already,” he said, gesturing at the cakes. “Enjoy.”
Jessie smiled and said, “I’ll save mine for after dinner. Listen, Ruby, I don’t want to drag this out. You know how I hate goodbyes. I just want to tell you how important it is for all of us that you get better. Maybe when this is all over you can come home for a while.”
Ruby sighed. “Yeah, I don’t know how I would have made it this far without you being here.”
Werner stood up and blew her a kiss. It was so typical of him that he would refuse to kiss her in front of her sister. Jessie pulled a small book out of her bag. “Here, I brought this for you as a present. Pushkin. I think you’ll like it.”
Ruby took the book and flipped through it. Jessie continued: “You told me about Alexandre Dumas and Napoleon’s Josephine. Now I’ve got one on you.” A slight grin crept onto her face. “He’s mixed race, Sis. His grandfather was Black.”
Werner’s body almost bounced off the bed with the force of his “No way!” Ruby smiled at the thought of Werner not knowing something for once.
Jessie stooped over and planted an awkward kiss on her cheek. “Ruby, I love you. We all do. Take care of yourself.” She straightened up and walked quickly towards the door with Werner. She stopped to wave goodbye. Ruby thought she could see her eyes clouding over. Then she turned and disappeared down the hall.
Ruby could feel her heart knocking in her chest. She sat still for a moment, gulping in breaths of air. “Jessie,” she called out. But her voice cracked. Her sister had gone.
She couldn’t stand being alone with her thoughts. She got out of bed. Maybe they’re still waiting for the elevator. She rubbed her hand up and down over her chest, over her heart, as she walked out into the hall. She could see the elevators straight down the hall but there was no one there. She walked in circles outside the room. She heard the noise of the television in the common room a few doors down the hall. She hadn’t been in there yet. Go there. Fill your head with other thoughts so the crazy ones can’t come in.
There were only a few people in the room; some slouched in armchairs, others sitting tensely on the couch. The face of J. R. Ewing was plastered across the screen. Dallas. God, even over here! She didn’t have a television at home but she had heard about the show. She plunked herself down on a small wooden chair, still rubbing her hand back and forth over her heart. She couldn’t break its rhythm. Her eyes followed J. R. around on the screen. He was arguing with someone. A door slammed, someone cried, another shouted, “Murder!”
Ruby sat on the edge of her seat and stared into the screen. Another voice eased its way into her ears, sliding over the voices of the actors. She could feel its slippery tentacles sounding their way into her head. Her hand rubbed harder and faster over her heart. Jessie, Jessie, Jessie, Jessie. The chameleon voice rustled now like a distant wind. “Hush!” Ruby told it. She shook herself and squinted at the screen.
Werner’s mocking voice droned on and on in her ears. “She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.” She slapped her hands against her ears and threw herself on the floor. She crawled over to the TV and pawed the screen. Her voice railed out into the air, “Why are you doing this to me?” White blurs appeared in front of her again, lifting her, pushing her.
“Get her back to the room. Then get Dr. Heller. Quick!”
Ruby’s body collided against the mattress. Bodies huddled over her. She heard someone say, “Take it easy, take it easy on her, will ya!”
Irina! Ruby flailed the space in front of her.
“Get the hell back! Get her out of here!”
Ruby fought to get a glimpse of Irina’s face. Someone yanked on her arm. She knew the needle was coming.
“Come on, let it come, let it come,” she ranted to herself. Heavy clouds puffed up in her head. Exhausted, she fell back against her pillow, waiting for the nothingness to come.
At two o’clock she got out of bed and prepared to go down to Dr. Heller’s office. Irina and Elke were sleeping. She walked slowly out into the hall, her arms hanging disjointed at her sides as if they no longer belonged to her. She stared at the floor, watching her feet move, right, left right, left, in front of her. She looked up only when she was at the nursing station. An older woman was standing in a hospital gown outside the station, drooling and babbling to herself. Down the hall a young man was banging himself up against the wall, moaning and pulling at his hair. “Christ,” Ruby thought. “What am I doing here?”
When Werner came to visit the evening before, he told her that her parents would be arriving the next day, and that made her feel better. The next morning he called, saying her parents were on their way in. Not long after, her mother and father poked their heads through her door and then came rushing up to her bed. Ruby began to cry at the sight of them.
“My dear daughter, no tears, we’re here now,” her father said, standing over her bed with a wide smile on his face.
Ruby’s mother hugged her daughter to her chest and then wiped Ruby’s cheeks gently with her fingers. “Yes, we’re here now. What happened, Ruby, whatever happened to you?” her mom asked. Her face was not wide open and beaming like her father’s but tired and drawn. Ruby did not want to go into any stories about Dom and the abortion and said simply that she was stressed out at work and that things slowly began to cave in on her. Her mother looked sad as she listened, and Ruby wondered if she blamed herself for her daughter’s misfortune. “I wasn’t getting enough sleep and everything caught up with me.” She held her mother’s hands and whispered, “It’s not your fault, Ma.”
Two solitary tears trickled down her mom’s face. “Maybe not, but I can’t help feeling like it has to do in part with me. What can we do for you? What can we bring you?”
Ruby smiled at her mom and said, “You can bring me some chocolate and some sweets. Werner will know what to pick.”
Ruby’s father sat down on the edge of her bed. “We’ll be in to visit every day. When you’re better, maybe we can take you out for walks. What do they have you on?”
“Haldol. It’s an antipsychotic.”
“Your mother was never on anything like that. Will they put you on lithium?”
“So far they’re just treating it as one episode, so no lithium.”
“Hmm,” said her father. “I hope the doctor will agree to talk to us.”
“I’m sure he will. He’s very pleasant.”
“How are your roommates?” asked Ruby’s mom.
“Well, as you can see they’re still sleeping. Not much else to do here. They’re fine. Quite nice, actually.”
“We brought you a book,” said her father. He tugged at the small bag at his feet and pulled out The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. “Your mother and I both loved this book and we thought you might enjoy it, too. Give you something to do with all that free time you have.”
Ruby smiled as her father handed her the book and thanked her parents for the gift. “I’m so glad for anything to read.”
After another thirty minutes, Ruby’s parents got up and said they were leaving but that they’d be back to see her again the next morning. Ruby kissed them both goodbye and waved when they turned before going out the door. She was so happy to have seen them that she started to cry again.
That afternoon she went to see Dr. Heller for her appointment. She sat down in his office, squirming in her chair, and proceeded to skirt around every direct question he asked her. She avoided his eyes when he spoke to her, looking down at her nails or up at the ceiling, or commenting on paintings hanging on the walls. She remembered Werner telling her not to get caught up in a bunch of psychobabble with therapists there. He didn’t want her to go to the group therapy sessions. Why should she divulge her life history to a bunch of total strangers? Forty minutes later she left the doctor’s office and felt somehow cleansed even though she’d said very little. The old woman was still there, still babbling, still drooling.
Back in the room, Irina was sitting on the edge of her bed, knees pulled up to her chest, painting her toenails scarlet. Ruby heard water pounding against tiles in the bathroom. Elke was in the shower. A heavy smell of sweat mixed with the damp heat rushing through the cracks of the bathroom door and enveloped the room like a musty old blanket. Ruby could hardly breathe.
Elke emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. Her skin was silky with wetness, and shiny beads of water dripped with rhythmic precision from the tips of her hair. She looked at Ruby and scowled, nodding towards Irina. She whispered, “Can’t you tell her that she should clean herself up? It smells awful in here.”
Ruby sighed and thought, Why me? She went over to Irina’s bed and sat down. “When is Niko coming?”
“I dunno. He didn’t call yet. But I’m getting ready just the same.”
Ruby nodded sympathetically and said, “Yeah, what else is there to do here anyway?” She added, “You know, Irina, if you’re getting ready for him you might want to take a shower before you put on your perfume.”
“Bah! Bodily smells really bring out the animal in men. Grrrr.”
Irina’s frank irreverence unsettled Ruby for a second and she shuffled backwards on the bed.
Irina threw back her head and laughed. “I’ve heard about you North Americans. Always showering, washing your hair every day. Why are you so afraid of your bodies?”
Ruby stammered, trying to find words to defend herself.
Irina continued. “Even the Germans with their crazy need to clean, clean, clean. Even they respect the nature of their bodies. Look at her.” She pointed a painted toe conspiratorially at Elke and whispered, “Do you see the fur underneath her arms? Even she knows enough to let nature alone.”
Ruby couldn’t resist sneaking a look. Elke sat in her underwear on her bed, facing them. Her slim arms were raised, her hands ruffling her still-damp hair with a towel. Tufts of curly blond hair sprouted out from underneath the joint where arm met shoulder.
“What are you two gawking at!” Elke sputtered. “You’re always up to something.”
In between gasps of laughter, Irina said, “I’m just giving her a lesson in German Naturalism. I thought you’d be as good a specimen as any.”
“I don’t know what you two are going on about. But if you’re not going to clean yourself up, you could at least have the courtesy to open the windows.”
Elke pulled on a bathrobe and pulled the door wide open.
Irina snorted. “Looks like I’m giving lessons to the wrong person.” She resumed painting her toenails.
Ruby shook her head and stood up by the windows. Looking down into the verdant colours of the Schlosspark, she watched people thread in and out of the palace and hand-holding couples stroll along the paths. The sight made her feel lonely, then edgy. She left the room and walked down to the front lounge. She hadn’t spent much time there, except when she went for her evening smoke. The chairs were all full. People sat reading, sleeping, smoking. A young man was walking circles around the lounge, moaning loudly. Every few seconds he’d stop, shake his head furiously and throw his hands up in the air, and then continue his circling. His eyes fixed on Ruby a few minutes after she entered the lounge. He stopped pacing and stared at her from across the room, his hands on his hips. He started rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, still staring at her. He stuck his tongue out at her. Ruby felt her legs grow wobbly. She thought, Am I afraid of him?
She leaned against the wall and looked away. Her eyes rested on a group of women who sat knitting. Click, click, click. The whir of the needles brushing against each other entranced her. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby saw the strange man snake across the room in her direction. His tongue darted in and out of his mouth. Her feet became glued to the floor. She flattened herself against the wall, closed her eyes and tried to will herself back to her room.
“Blaaagh! Blaaagh! Blaaagh!”
His gravelly voice blasted into her ears, making them pop. A hot, dank smell of rotten eggs breathed onto her face. Rough, leathery fingers dragged down her cheeks. His slimy tongue spat out at her nose and jabbed into her nostril. Ruby shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut tighter, and balled her fists, pressing them into the wall. Her body froze in fear.
Someone yelled, “Cut it out, Hans. Stop it right now!” Someone pried him off her. Ruby crumpled to the floor, her arms crushed up against her face.
“Aiyeeee aaaaaahhhhahahahah . . . !” His laughter turned into screams as the nurses dragged him down the hall into the other wing. A woman knelt down next to Ruby and patted her arm.
“It’s okay, dearie, he’s gone. He does that to everyone who’s new on the ward. He’s been here forever. Don’t mind him. He’s gone now.”
Ruby opened her eyes. The woman was still there, still patting her arm. Irina sat next to her. She nodded at the woman and said, “Help me get her up.” Then, whispering in Ruby’s ear, she said, “Let’s get you back to the room.”
Ruby shuffled down the hall beside Irina, her head hanging down, her arms hanging limp and disjointed at her side. Could that be me? Could that be me? Could that be me? The words echoed endlessly in her mind. She closed her fingers tightly around Irina’s hand.
She stayed curled up in bed for the rest of the day, not talking to anyone, not eating. My god, she thought, will this never end? Werner came in the evening, but she only opened her eyes long enough to shake her head at him and whisper that she just wanted to sleep. Her lashes fluttered shut. He shook her shoulder gently, but she didn’t respond. His hand rested on hers for a while, his fingers curled up, locking into hers. Then they were gone.
Ruby’s parents came the next day, and they all went to see the doctor first. He told them that he did not intend to put Ruby on lithium, and that the Haldol should do the job well. He explained that it took a while to settle on the correct dose and that Ruby had been having ups and downs, so they had increased the Haldol. She should react quickly enough.
Ruby spent the next week going for daily walks with her parents in the park. The weather played along, and while there were often clouds in the sky, the sun was never far away. Both her mother and her father tried to cheer her spirits with stories from Ruby’s childhood, gossipy tales of their neighbours and updates of family friends. On their last day of visiting, they brought in a spread of food for Ruby to enjoy, followed by various cakes from the local bakery.
“Ruby,” her dad said, “I’ve said this over and over again, but I do truly believe that you’re going to be fine. It all takes some time, but you will get better eventually.” Looking at his wife, he continued, “I have some experience in this field already, as you well know. Your mother has always come out of her troubles with flying colours, and you will, too.”
Ruby’s mother added, “We’ll be expecting a visit from you soon. I never thought I’d be saying this, but you should come home for a while.”
Ruby’s parents lingered for a final walk in the park and they tried to draw out a plan for her recovery from her.
Werner visited as usual that evening, but he was not happy with her talk of going home.
Beady eyes bulged out at her through the darkness. A red tongue darted in and out of her mouth, in and out of her ears, flicking, hissing, flicking. Ruby lay still, her body pressed into the mattress. Slithering around her belly, he slunk down between her legs and invaded her, thrusting in and out. Ruby felt hot waves flush over her tummy. Her pelvis contracted with the involuntary orgasm that was rushing over her. She heard him laugh: “Aiyeeee ha ha ha ha!”
Ruby slammed her eyes shut and pounded against the bed. The thud of her fists on the mattress reverberated through her head. Werner’s words exploded into her, flung themselves out at her, wrapping around her, tightening, choking, strangling. Why do you people have to wear such stupid hats why i don’t care if you’re black i don’t think you should ride a bike why the fuck would you go to a demonstration did you wear a balaclava why do you always blame it on me you don’t know what to do with yourself why don’t you ever listen to me close the blinds before you turn on the light these tree huggers here are fools think if they plant a tree it will change the world do you think your parents are the only ones who suffered because of their race the world’s fucked why have children why is his english so bad if he’s from ghana louis jordan not ellington that’s the real stuff you can’t leave don’t you see it’s you not me you’re getting fat what does it matter whether you’re black or white what does it matter . . .
Ruby was panting. Her fingers flailed back and forth over her crotch. A thick, sticky wetness streamed out of her. She looked down and saw a head protruding out of her. She groaned and pushed. A tiny baby’s body thudded dully on the floor. Ruby screamed. It had Werner’s face. She reached down to touch it. It was cold, lifeless. Another voice. My people, my people, my people, my people. The rhythm of the words pounded like a drum in her ears. Ruby pulled her knees to her chest and rocked herself to the rhythm of the words that pounded like a drum in her ears.
When she opened her eyes the next morning, she saw Irina propped up on her elbows, her chin resting in her hands, staring at her.
“Jeez, you sure know how to have yourself some fun,” she said, winking at her. “But I still think I could teach you a trick or two.”
Ruby winced and pulled the sheets up over head. Irina’s voice trilled through the stuffy air.
“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. Everybody does it. I just happened to be awake at the same time. But you were so caught up with yourself you didn’t even notice.”
Ruby wept silently under the sheets. Irina was quiet. Elke sat up in her bed and reached over to pat her arm. “There, there,” she whispered. “You know what she’s like.”
Dr. Heller came in to speak with her. He explained quietly that they were increasing her dose of Haldol because of her outbursts. Ruby rolled away from him and refused to answer any of his questions. He left her alone. Then he came back, as if as an afterthought. He suggested that Ruby join one of the therapy groups. She shook her head silently. He persisted. “If you don’t want to go to group therapy, that’s okay. But we have a hospital policy. You have to try something.”
Ruby mumbled that she wasn’t interested in making ceramic bowls or ashtrays. Dr. Heller said, “Well, we have music therapy. Why don’t you try that?”
Ruby was too tired to put him off. “Okay, okay. I suppose I’ll be able to sing my way out of here, then?”
Dr. Heller laughed and said, “That’s the spirit.”
Lunch came and went. Nobody talked. But Ruby heard Irina mumble into her pillow, “He’s not coming back, is he? Niko’s not coming back.”
Ruby caught her breath. It was true. Niko hadn’t come back since his first visit. Ruby got out of her bed, went over to Irina and knelt on the floor beside her bed. Her hand reached up to touch Irina’s head. She knelt there silently for half an hour, stroking her fingers through her hair.
Werner came that day with another bunch of blood-red roses. The sickly sweet scent filled the airless room. Ruby was overcome with nausea. Werner spoke to her softly, rubbing her curls, stroking her arm. His eyes smiled lovingly at her. She tried in vain to separate them from the eyes that stalked her at night. As Ruby gazed at him, she realized nothing would ever be the same.
She didn’t love him anymore, and indeed, despite the fact that he done his best to care for her, she felt intimidated and frightened by him. This was the beginning of the end.