Confinement Read online

  Dr. Whitney could go on no further. He motioned to the nurses to lift her luggage.

  "The nurses will accompany the two of you to your room, Charlotte. Help Duffino unpack."

  "I will."

  Dr. Whitney walked through the front door. We turned left, to go down the long, blue hallway, to our small room. As we turned there were rows of inmates waiting, lined up, tall ones, short ones, young, old - all trying to get a look.

  "She's here," someone yelled.

  "Stop," Dr. Whitney was startled.

  "Where is she? Where?" the inmates called out.

  I shivered. This kind of thing rarely happened these days. But news had spread like a summer fire, and any change in the routine dislodged the balance of our fragile days. Chaos could erupt at any moment. Dr. Whitney knew that. Suddenly, he raised both hands high.

  "Step back this minute. Go to the dayroom. There is no reason for being here."

  Waves of inmates moved in closer. Their cries continued, like hoots of strange owls. "Where is she? Where?"

  "Quiet them!" Dr Whitney snapped to the tall nurse beside him." Get them back where they belong."

  "I'll call Restraint, before it gets worse!" the nurse answered.

  The reporters edged in closer, taking quick notes and trying to take pictures, horrified.

  "Back off," Dr. Whitney, commanded, pale. "If you don't listen, it's Restraint!"

  A fat, bald inmate, Marcus Yudy, leaned towards Duffino and grinned. His front three teeth were missing.

  "Restraint," Dr Whitney shouted.

  I stepped forward, and lifted my hand. "Restraint is not necessary," I said softly. The inmates back off a bit.

  Duffino, ashen, slid closer to me.

  "You're safe," I whispered and put my hand on her shoulder. She shook it off, as if it were a poisonous but, ready to bite.

  Dr. Whitney rang his small bell furiously, and three orderlies ran down the hallway towards us.

  Duffino wanted to scream. I felt it inside.

  "Scream," I whispered.

  She couldn't do it.

  "Step back. Be quiet! Let her pass." The orderlies spoke with the utmost severity as Dr. Whitney slammed the bell back and forth. The inmates paid no attention.

  I stopped out in front of them all. "Let us pass, please," I said nicely. "Duffino is tired. She's had a long day. She's lonely, she's frightened." I spoke like a mother to hungry children. "If you let us pass, you'll be happy later."

  The crowd slowly receded, like a wave back to shore.

  We passed through slowly, and as we moved forward, I realized how frail Duffino was.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered to her. "This is very unusual."

  She didn't have to say a word. She hated it here. I felt it in every bone of my body.

  Dr. Whitney, came up behind us. "I'm going to prescribe sedation, so you can have a good rest, Duffino. Soon this greeting will recede into the background. Nobody here meant you any harm. They were curious, that's all."

  He smiled blandly, trying to sweeten the alarm.

  "Duffino doesn't want sedation," I interrupted.

  Dr. Whitney spun around to me.

  "If you prescribe it, she won't take it."

  He looked at her intently. Although she held her head straight, a small muscle twitched under her left eye.

  "Will you take sedation, Duffino?" he asked.

  The muscle twitched more violently.

  "She doesn't want it," I repeated, more roughly. "I know what she needs. We're not different, after all."

  Dr. Whitney backed off as we turned a corner to a gray hallway, at the end of which was our small room. The orderlies, nurses, and Dr. Whitney, however, all accompanied us right up to our thick, green, metal door.

  Then, Dr. Whitney himself pushed it open. "Walk in, Duffino," he said kindly.

  She hated his kindness. It stank of stale air. She knew soft words had nothing to do with kindness.

  "For now, it's best that we leave you with Charlotte. There is a bell over there. If you need anything, ring it."

  She didn't much like that either. I could see in a flash Duffino would not take to me kindly. None of us loonies enjoyed being together, if the truth be completely told. We'd rather stay locked inside our fantasies of a glorious, perfect world.

  She stood completely still and stared.

  "Walk, Duffino," I said, edgy, right into her ear.

  Jostled, she stepped through the narrow doorway.

  The minute she got in, I motioned for the staff to leave. To my surprise, they seemed happy to oblige, quickly slammed the door behind us, tight.

  Duffino stood without moving a muscle, taking everything in.

  I gave her time, went over and sat down on the edge of my bed. The small window, high up on the wall, was open, and a breeze trickled down on both of us. Other than that, the room felt stuffy.

  "Welcome to Bingham, Duffino," I said after a long while.

  She neither moved or said a word.

  My voice got louder. "You can't stand all night. That's your bed. Sit down."

  Again no response.

  I started to feel irritated. I didn't want a ghost for a roommate. This could be hard on me, too. I started walking around the room, tapping my feet loudly on the black and white linoleum floor.

  No response of any kind. Would she stand like that forever? Was she determined to drive me crazy? I would never let that happen, of course.

  There were three narrow, iron beds lined up next to each other. I went over to the one which was nearest the far wall.

  "This is my bed," I said, "the one in the middle is yours. The one over there is always empty."

  She raises her eyebrows ever so slightly.

  "It's for the holy spirit."

  Her body clenched tight for a split second, then was immobile again.

  Her deafening silence pounded at my head. I chattered aimlessly to fill it up.

  "Do you like your bed? Is it all right? If you want my bed, you can have it."

  She didn't want my bed. She didn't want anything. She kept quiet and stared.

  Now, I was fully used to silence, I'd lived with it for years in the convent. But her silence had a gritty edge, as if she were condemning us all.

  "Stare all you want," I said boldly. "I'm used to people like you. You won't drive me crazy. You won't shake my faith. Whether you like it or not, we had to meet this way. Our meeting was arranged a long time ago. Guilty or innocent is not our business. Freedom or chained is not in our hands. We are here to help each other, Duffino.

  At that she smiled, I thought, ever so slightly, smiled and dropped to her knees at her thin, steel bedside.

  Chapter Two

  Memorandums for inmates were often typed on paper and slid under our doors. About an hour after Duffino and I got to our room, a paper slid in, saying that for the next two days we would go nowhere, just rest up, and receive our meals in our room. We should take our time getting used to everything. Other than that, there were no initial plans.

  This was a highly irregular arrangement, and was probably put into effect because of the commotion that had just taken place. The staff probably figured she needed unstructured time to recover herself. It would help the others quiet down as well.

  Duffino registered no response when I told her we had the next two days together, completely alone. She didn't seem to care.

  The entire first day I said nothing to her, just sat on my bed and wrote little poems. I had started this habit back in the convent, where everyday I wrote down the sayings of the saints. By now I had quite a collection. When I got to Bingham, I branched out to writing letters to the staff, to U.S. Congressmen, and editors of newspapers all over the land. I once even sent a letter to President Eisenhower. No one answered me, of course.

  Dear Ike,

  I admire your efforts, but I need to advise you on the work you are doing in the White House. I also live in a white house, where doctors are trying to find a Cure to the ang
uish that grips the soul of our nation.

  They think Insulin is the answer. I know better. What I have discovered would be of help to you. After all, people all over are suffering, no matter where they live.

  Drop me a note and we can really talk.

  Although I waited several months, I never received a reply.

  Now things were different. I had a famous roommate, reporters were waiting to hear from us, they were roaming everywhere.

  The first day with Duffino passed uneventfully. Duffino ate a few bites of her meals, then lay on her bed and stared.

  I let her stare. I didn't pay attention.

  The next day, while I was sitting on my bed, writing, she got up and unpacked. I didn't look at her directly while she did this. She seemed to like it better that way. As long as she thought I wasn't looking, she found plenty to do.

  She opened her suitcase, took out a few belongings, and stashed them neatly under her bed. There were a few pieces of clothing, three or four green shoe boxes, packed with papers, bulging full. Other than that, she had nothing.

  After she unpacked, she went to the wash basin and started splashing water on her gaunt face. She kept at it for what seemed like forever. The sound of the water, continually splashing, echoed like a lonely refrain, over and over in my mind. It was as if the water was saying, Except as you become little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

  I longed to say the words out loud to her, but thought better of it right away. To break the harrowing sound of her splashing, I wrote the phrase over and over on old, crumpled paper I'd found. I wanted so badly to read it to Duffino, but I knew timing was everything. Right now, she would not hear a word I said.

  By the time she splashed her face one hundred times, I'd written the phrase over both sides of the paper. After she finished, she lay back down on her bed, stoically, face up, like a dead Indian.

  I didn't like her lying there like that. It made me remember Dorothea, how still she had become when the murder was done. There was not a quiver left in her then. Not even a prayer. All I could hear in the background was the evening chanting of the nuns.

  I had felt exhausted when it was over. "You made me do this, Dorothea. You made me do this," I'd whispered into her silent ear.

  To break the painful memory, I started talking to Duffino. "When we get out of our room, I'll take you on a tour," I started. "It's not so bad here once you get used to it. Some people are decent. Some aren't. You get used to everyone. The doctors are stranger than we are though, busy hunting for the Cure. After awhile we'll come back to the room, and laugh about them. I can't wait until then, Duffino. Years ago, I had someone decent to laugh with. Her name was Mella, but she was only here for a year. No matter how much Insulin they gave her, she couldn't calm down. They thought about giving her a lobotomy, but decided to take her back to prison instead."

  The quality of Duffino's silence seemed to shift a little then. It felt softer, tamer, more like the silence in the convent, where some nuns had taken a vow of silence for life.

  "The papers said you're afraid of everything, Duffino. You don't have to be afraid here. I'll watch out for you. And even if you don't want me to, I'll watch out anyhow."

  I laughed out loud.

  She didn't.

  "The worse part is the Insulin Therapy. We all have to go through it, though. I read that your parents signed you up for it. The best thing to do when they come to get you is to give in. Don't scream, whatever you do."

  She clenched both hands so tight then, I thought her veins would pop right out. I decided then to stop talking, and let her have her silence all day long.

  * * * * *

  By the time evening came, I was tired of her silence. They slipped our food under the door and we ate in silence. Duffino hardly ate anything, just picked at some carrots, here and there. I licked my plate clean, ate every crumb. I was a hungry person and proud of it too. Duffino pretended not to watch me devouring my food. She pretended not to be disgusted. She was though, and I didn't care. When I was finished I put the dishes back where they came from, in the slot under the door.

  Usually after dinner, we roamed around and sat out in the dayroom talking with the other inmates. It calmed our nerves to talk to each other as the dark of night fell. But I didn't want to leave Duffino alone in the room the very first day she'd arrived.

  "You know, Duffino," I said first thing after I'd shoved the dishes away, "once you start talking the jig is up. You can get out. The public wants you to get out. They're in your corner - they're all convinced you don't deserve a sentence like this."

  She was standing at the wash basin again, about to start splashing water on her face again. When I said that, she stopped cold.

  "You can walk out of here a free woman, if you want to. Plenty of us would give anything to walk out of here like that."

  She went back to splashing her face with water, so I talked over the noise.

  "We don't have much time alone together, so I'm telling you now. You don't have to talk to the doctors right away. You don't have to talk to the nurses, or the priests. But me, it's different. I'm your friend."

  The water kept splashing. She couldn't stop.

  "Keep as silent as you want," I continued, undaunted. "I'm used to silent. I was raised in a convent where three nuns took a vow of silence for life. One nun broke it though. She said she had to break it. I hated her for breaking it, I hate when people don't keep their word. Someone has to make sure people keep their promises."

  Duffino suddenly looked fragile, like she could be snapped in half, in a moment flat, if someone wanted to. I was sorry I told her about the nuns. I could see the suffering she'd been through. Scenes from her crime, that I'd read about in the papers, flashed through my mind. I remembered that when they'd found her she was lying on the pavement, covered with blood, holding the knife in her hand. She was so immobile they thought she was dead.

  I almost said, I'm sorry, Duffino. But my better judgment told me, no. It said, leave her alone in her sorrow, Charlotte. Time will bring her closer to you. Do not press the issue, in any way.

  What need was there to press any issue, anyhow, here in these mountains, where red and white pansies surrounded the main house, and carnations grew helter-skelter; where fences are erected as borders to teach us inmates that space is not endless, and that time, too, will come to an end.

  * * * * *

  I got up from my bed, stepped onto the footstool, and on my tip toes looked out of the tiny, barred window, which was high up on the wall. Under the window hung a small portrait of Christ, framed in old wood with gold trim. I looked from the portrait to the window. New morning light rose over the rolling hills. Fresh dew, smelling like clover, had fallen during the night. I paused and breathed it in. Although we were surrounded by barbed- wire fences, these hills seemed as if they went on forever, bathing us in new life and hope.

  As I looked up and down the incredible hillside I wondered if Duffino was guilty or innocent? Maybe she deserved to be here after all?

  "It can be beautiful here, Duffino," I said, still looking out of the windows. "The seasons change in front of our eyes. I know you're hurting. But, you're not alone. Each inmate is hurting the same."

  The silence between us grew deeper. I turned on the stool and looked over at her. She looked like a storm tossed bird that had landed in a strange place, with broken wings.

  I got down off the footstool slowly.

  "Once you start the routine, it will be different," I promised.

  A persistent fly buzzed around both of us. I didn't even try to brush it away. Besides the sound of the fly, it felt as if we were buried together in a tomb. I began to dwell upon why she and I had been brought together again.

  "There's a reason we're together like this," I continued babbling. "Take advantage of it while I'm here. I won't be here for long. I've been planning ways to get out for two years. My plans are almost done. I have diagrams of all the mazes in the building. This pl
ace is constructed like an incredible maze. Guards are stationed at every juncture, both inside the building and out. In the evening, they walk the halls, or sit on chairs in the hallways. Some have keys on chains, dangling from their belts. Some have keys that droop out of their pockets. I've been keeping close watch of them all.

  "Outside the barbed wire fence, there's a changing of guards every night at exactly midnight. For about six minutes, exactly, the north gate, near the lake, is left unattended. Believe me, there's a way I'm gonna slip through the cracks, and get out into the world, where I'd hardly ever been. If it wasn't the convent, it was this damn Bingham."

  A large clock in the main hall chimed out the hour. Nine o'clock. You could hear it echo over the hillside, through the corridors, into our tiny room.

  "You have to learn the ropes here, fast. You can stay sick for years, or get well in a minute and leave. I've seen it happen. And I know how! But nobody wants to get well, it's more fun being crazy! Not me though. I can help you go home when you want to, and I think you can help me too."

  I thought I saw her snickering at me though her chiseled features did not move an iota. She wasn't snickering, I decided. It was my mind playing games again. After all these years, I'd learned to spot my mind playing games, coughing up dreams, trying to take reality away.

  I leaned back on my own bed, and took my favorite book from under my pillow, The Desert Fathers, and for the thousandth time, started reading every word.

  At about ten, just before bedtime, there was a knock on our door. It was the old orderly, Tommy, bringing Duffino's admission package; robes, towels, tooth brushes, soap, and papers for writing letters home.

  I pulled opened the door and took in the package.

  "Tell her to unpack this right away," Tommy said, "It's the clothes she has to wear tomorrow for meals. Dr. Whitney said he will come tomorrow himself, and accompany both of you to the dining room."

  "Fine," I answered, as he stuck his head in, looked at Duffino for a minute and then pulled the door shut.

  "This is your stuff. You need it for washing and meals. Everyone has to go to meals. If you don't show in the dining room, and you're not strict with bathing, there's big trouble right away. You don't want them to take you down to sub-basement before you're ready to go. The rules are the rules. Everyone obeys them."