The silence settled down again like wet newspapers. Finally Madge, who was young and healthy but a terrific hypochondriac, said in her deep, slow voice, “God this is a depressing place! It would cheer me up just to hear somebody choking to death. I’ve got a pain in my chest, Sydney, do you think I’ve got t.b.?” Mother said, “Madge, you know that if this were an orthopedic hospital the pain would be in your leg.” Madge laughed and dropped all the books again. The clatter was muted by the rug but we all looked guiltily toward the door. No one came. Nothing happened. Just the silence.
Like wax figures in a store window we sat motionless in unnatural attitudes on the unyielding furniture, all facing each other and the empty grate. The quality of the whole scene was so dreamlike that I looked at Mother and Mary, side by side on a mustard-colored love seat in front of the window, and expected to see large cobwebs attaching them to each other and to the casement back of them. I felt that we had all been there forever.
Then from far off, down one of the dim passageways we heard the creak of a wheelchair and the slap, slap of approaching footsteps. At once we came to life, stood up, checked over the luggage, embraced each other tenderly and said all the things we’d been trying so hard not to say for the past thirty minutes. I said, “Only once a month for ten minutes—I won’t even know them.” Mother, with tears in her sweet brown eyes, said, “I can’t bear to say good-bye to you, Betsy.” Mary said, “Don’t worry about money.” Madge said, “I hope the rest of the place isn’t as depressing as this.”
A nurse came in pulling a wheelchair behind her. She was blond, cool and efficient. She said, “Which of you is Mrs. Bard?” I stepped forward. She did not smile. She looked at me, then at my luggage with expressionless granite eyes. She said, “Get in the wheelchair. Don’t bring any books, you won’t be able to read for a long time.” She didn’t acknowledge the presence of Mary, Mother or Madge. She merely piled my belongings in my lap and wheeled me out the door and down the corridor. I turned to wave good-bye but all I could see past her starched white uniform were waving fingertips, pale and blurred against the dark walls.
We left the main building, crossed a little vine-covered bridge, entered another building, took an elevator to the second floor and went creakily down a long, draughty, pale green hall, each side of which was partitioned off into rooms. Each room had two white-covered single beds in it and in each bed a head was raised as I went by.
At the end of the hall we went through a pair of swinging doors marked BATHROOM. Bathroom proved to be three rooms—a square center room with a single hospital bed in each corner, tall casement windows at the end and dark red block linoleum on the floor; a room to the left with three lavatories and two washtubs; and a room to the right, in which there was a large old fashioned bathtub. The nurse was busily filling this with boiling water. I explained to her that I had had a bath not three hours before but she didn’t even look up. She said, “Makes no difference, rule of the Sanatorium is that all incoming patients must have a bath. Get undressed.”
As I undressed she opened my suitcase and took out soap, washcloths, pajamas, slippers and robe and accompanied each movement with a rule. She acted as if she were reading them off the bottom of the soap, in my bathrobe sleeve, from the hem of the washcloth. “Patients must not read. Patients must not write. Patients must not talk. Patients must not laugh. Patients must not sing. Patients must lie still. Patients must not reach. Patients must relax. Patients must . . .” I was ready for the bath so I interrupted to ask if I might put a little cold water into the steaming tub or if there was a rule that patients must be boiled. She gave me the full impact of her granite eyes and let a little cold water into the tub.
While I bathed she unpacked my bags, holding up everything in two disdainful fingers and saying, “Why did you bring this?” I answered truthfully that some of the things, such as extra sweaters, I thought I would need; other things, such as a little sewing box made me by Anne and a calendar with the picture pasted on upside down, made me by Joan, some sachet bags and a little cactus plant, I had brought to remind me of home.
She put them all back in the suitcase with no comment but when she came to my bottle of cough medicine and box of aspirin, she exploded. “Patients must never take medicines without the Doctor’s permission. No patient of the Sanatorium ever has medicine of any kind whatsoever in his possession. Patients are never allowed to choose own medicines. These,” she held up the cough medicine and aspirin as if they were Home Cure for Syphilis and Quick Aborto, “will have to be sent home or destroyed. These extra sweaters, these bed jackets, all your clothes, books, writing materials and handkerchiefs [her disdain of this last filthy habit-forming article was tremendous] will have to go through fumigation and be sent home.”
After I was well scrubbed and beet red from the boiling water which, I judged, was at least one third disinfectant, I was told to put on my pajamas and report to the washtub. Knowing that it would be wasted effort, I told Granite Eyes that already that morning I had had two shampoos, one before and one after my permanent wave.
She looked without interest at my hair, which had been painstakingly arranged in flat curls close to my head, and said, “It’s a rule of the Sanatorium that all incoming patients must have their hair washed.” This she proceeded to do, aided by a great deal of green soap, her own strong fingers, and more boiling water. “At least she didn’t delouse me,” I thought bitterly as she hauled out the drier. The drier was very hot and had enough force to strip the spring growth from any tree at fifty yards.
When my hair was as dry as excelsior the nurse handed me a comb and a mirror. One glance at my exploding head and I felt like breaking the comb in little pieces and throwing them over my shoulder. I made a few futile dabs but it was like trying to part and arrange a thistle. The nurse offered no suggestions. She put away the bath things, then wheeled me down the hall and into a four-bed ward.
The ward was large and square. The walls were a pale Oscar Wilde-ish green. The floor was dark red. Across the east end of the room were four casement windows, curtainless and blindless and opened wide. In each corner of the room were a bed, a bedside stand and a chair. Each bed had a white muslin slipcover, called a windshield, over the head, a white cotton spread and a folded dark green blanket on the foot. The bedside stands had white porcelain tops. In three of the beds there were patients. The fourth, in the southeast corner by the windows was turned down for me.
The nurse helped me off with my bathrobe and motioned me in. After the scalding bath and the hot blasts from the hair drier, reaching my legs down into the clammy depths of the bed was like pulling on a wet bathing suit. I asked for a hot-water bottle. The nurse had just put it, along with my clean pajamas and washcloths into the cupboard of the bedside stand. She didn’t take it out and she didn’t answer.
She put the bath powder, soap, toothpaste and toothbrush in the drawer. To a bar on the side of the stand she fastened, with large safety pins, a heavy brown paper bag neatly folded down at the top. Inside this she put a smaller brown paper bag, also neatly folded down at the top. “All used paper handkerchiefs must go into this bag,” she said. “You must put in a clean bag every morning.” Beside the used-napkin bag she pinned another heavy brown paper bag. Into this she put a large package of new paper handkerchiefs. She said, “Always cover your mouth when you cough. Use these handkerchiefs.”
On the top of the stand she put two glasses of water on a neatly folded paper napkin. Also a waxed cardboard sputum cup. She said, “Keep nothing on your stand but your water glasses and sputum cup. Never keep pictures or flowers on your stand.” She put extra brown bags, extra sputum cups and extra paper handkerchiefs in my stand drawer, saying, “Keep your stand neat and clean. An orderly patient is a helpful patient.” Then pushing the wheelchair out of the way she stepped back and looked me over. Coolly, impersonally.
I said again, “May I please have my hot-water bottle filled?” Granite Eyes said, “It is a rule of the Sanatorium tha
t hot-water bottles are never filled until October first.” I said, “I’m cold. My teeth are chattering.” She said, “October first,” and left. This was September twenty-eighth. Three days to go. Well, I could hold out if my teeth would. I pulled the covers up to my chin and looked around.
Across from me was a woman apparently in her early thirties, thin to the point of emaciation, with thick short curly brown hair, a small triangular face, feverish cheeks and enormous luminous brown eyes. Her name was Sylvia Fletcher she told me. She was very sweet and very hoarse. She said in a whisper that sounded like walking on spilled sugar, “Don’t worry about the cold. You’ll warm up eventually. I know because I’ve had t.b. for twenty years.” I said, “Why do we have to be so cold? Is it part of the cure?” “In a way,” she said. “You see everything out here is governed by rules and the theory of the greatest good for the greatest number. Somebody decided that the average patient could keep warm in this temperature and with this number of blankets and if you can’t then that is your problem.” I said, “But how can I rest when I’m shivering?” She said, “You’ll warm up. As your nervous tension lessens you’ll get warmer.”
In the southwest corner was a small, very pretty dark woman also in her early thirties and also very thin. Her name was Marie Charles and she informed me immediately that she hated everything about The Pines and everyone in The Pines. She said, “It kills me when I think how anxious I was to get in this place. I had read too many books and I thought all sanatoriums were like those in the Swiss Alps. What a laugh! The only thing Alpine about this place is the attitude of the nurses.” Sylvia said, “Now, Marie, you must be patient. The cure of tuberculosis is all discipline. Patience and discipline.” Marie flounced over and turned her face to the wall.
In the northwest corner was a little Japanese girl with delicate pale brown hands folded demurely on her chest. Her name was Kimi Sanbo. She had thick straight black hair parted in the center and pulled severely back with two blue barrettes, sharp black brows that tilted toward her temples and large, very bright buttonhole-shaped black eyes. Her cheeks were pink and shiny. She said nothing.
At four o’clock we had supper. First an ambulant patient came around and propped up the beds so that we were sitting up; then nurses dealt out trays, set with silver, napkins, salad, bread and butter, dessert and little slips of paper with beautiful thoughts on them. Then the food carts were wheeled around, and we were served spaghetti, soup and tea by the Charge Nurse. The food was well seasoned and very good but cold. The beautiful thought on my tray said, “If you must be blue, be a bright blue.”
While we were eating supper the Charge Nurse and House Doctor made a rapid tour of the room and asked us how we felt. I said that I felt cold and the Charge Nurse, who was Nordic and beautiful, said, “Hot water bottles October first,” and they left. Half an hour after supper we took our temperatures. Temperatures seemed to be very important and as each of my wardmates took the thermometer out of her mouth she solemnly reported the results. Sylvia’s was 102°, Marie’s 101°, Kimi’s 101.6° and mine was 99°.
At five o’clock the radio, which was controlled and set at the office, with a speaker in each ward, began drooling forth organ music. Organ music of any kind depresses me and added to that was the fact that I had no bed lamp. A bed lamp apparently was not considered a necessity and had not been on the list of requirements. My corner was dark. My thoughts gloomy.
It was hard to remember how anxious I had been to enter The Pines; how grateful I had been to the Medical Director for putting me ahead of the long waiting list; how wonderful it was that I was being cured and cared for for nothing. I was cold and lonely and I missed my children and my family. The ward was very quiet and little wisps of fog crept through the wide-open windows. If only I could read, or write, or talk or do anything but lie there and listen to that awful organ music.
The organist was playing “Hills of Home.” I couldn’t stand it. Large tears rolled out of the corners of my eyes, across my temples and into my ears. I looked at my three wardmates. They all seemed relaxed and contented. Sylvia said, “The first hundred years are the hardest,” and a nurse, coming in just then to give us back rubs, said, “Patients are not allowed to talk. Roll over, Mrs. Bard.”
At seven o’clock we had hot cocoa, hot milk or cold milk. At nine o’clock the lights were turned out by a main switch in the hall. The night nurse operated by flashlight. Up and down the halls she went with her flashlight like a firefly dancing over each bed, resting for a second on each face. When she left our room the darkness, silence and cold settled down again like a shroud.
The dark-haired woman coughed, drank water, reached in her stand for something, turned over and coughed again. Sylvia wheezed faintly. Her bed creaked and I heard the thump of her water glass on the stand. There was no sound at all from Kimi’s corner. I drank some water and tried turning on my stomach but in so doing I missed the original slightly warmed place where I had been lying arid hit virginal, ice cold, fog-dampened sheet. I almost screamed as I quickly turned back and snuggled down into my original lukewarm nest. The night went on and on and on and I grew progressively colder and sadder. “There’s one thing to be said in favor of life at The Pines,” I thought, as I tried futilely to warm a small new area at the bottom of the bed, “it’s going to make dying seem like a lot of fun.”
V
Oh, Salvadora! Don’t Spit on the Floora
THE STAFF AT The Pines had but one motivating factor—to get the patients well. This motivating factor, like a policeman’s nightstick, was twirled over our heads twenty-four hours a day. And by necessity too, because a tuberculosis sanatorium is a paradox. It should be a place where the patients are striving to get well, aided by the doctors and nurses, but is actually a place where the patients are trying to kill themselves but are prevented, in many cases, by the doctors and nurses.
In the beginning the staff at The Pines had undoubtedly been more sympathetic, more understanding, more interested in each patient as an individual, but years and years of working with people who clutched their tuberculosis to them like a beloved old shawl and dared the doctors and nurses to get it away from them, or took the attitude that the staff was secretly injecting them with tuberculosis to keep them on to perform small tasks like putting up beds or pushing tray carts, had finally worn off any little facets of sympathy and tenderness and left the system smooth, efficient and immutable. “We are going to make you well and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line,” we were told. “Here is the line, either follow it or get out.”
The shortest distance between two points in waking people up in the morning is to bong them on the head with something. The Pines had the next best thing, the washwater girls. The washwater girls were female patients with eight hours up, who were testing their strength and endurance (and the bedrest patients’ nerves and stamina) by doing a little work around the hospital.
That first morning, in the bleak, low vitality period between five-thirty and six, they suddenly came careening in our door, snapped on the overhead lights and brought their cart, loaded with basins and pitchers, to a crashing halt in the center of the room. The blare of light and the shattering noise were like being exploded.
I was jerked out of sleep and into wakefulness with one blow and sat up quivering, trying to bring the room into focus. A short, round girl with black curly hair and surprising, light blue eyes, slammed an aluminum basin down on the porcelain-topped stand with a resounding wham and told me in a loud cheerful voice to put one of my water glasses into the basin. I did and she filled the glass with hot water, putting a very small additional amount into the basin.
“What’s the glass for?” I asked. “Teeth,” she said. “Not hot water!” I said, horrified. “Sure,” she said. But added generously, “You can brush your teeth in your drinking water and drink this if you want to.” She smiled. “You’re new, aren’t you?” I told her I was and we exchanged names and information.
She
told me that her name was Estelle Richmond and that she had been at The Pines for three years and was “real bad.” As she was plump and pink cheeked and looked much healthier than most of my friends, I said, “But you look wonderful.” She said, “Oh, I get along fine for a while and then I break down and back to bed I go. I’ve been in this ward five different times. Are you very bad?” I answered truthfully that I didn’t know but that I hoped to go home in a year. “A year!” She was scornful. “Nobody gets out of here in a year. It even takes longer than that to die. You better plan on longer, kiddo.” Kiddo didn’t dare tell her that she had been secretly planning on six months, dead or alive.
The other washwater girl, a very thin young blonde with a gold tooth and a maroon sweater, was giving Sylvia, Marie and Kimi the news about the rest of the sanatorium. “Mary Haley had a hemorrhage and is back at Bedrest. Katherine Fay had a chest exam yesterday but the doctor told her she had to stay on three hours up. She’s been on three hours for two years. Poor kid! Hazel Espey’s going to have an operation and John Hennigan was caught smoking and lost his town leave, his first in two years.”
I noticed two things: all the news was depressing and the patients spoke of two, three and five years with a casualness usually associated with minutes. But as I was still having difficulty coming face to face with the bald fact that I would be away from the children and the family for a year, this new business about two, three and maybe five years, made me feel as though I had just finished a hearty dinner and then been informed by my laughing hostess that she had canned those funny-tasting oysters herself.
I asked Sylvia if she knew how long the average patient stayed at The Pines but she was brushing her teeth and didn’t answer, so I pushed the question to one side and took up a weightier one of whether to wet my hair first and wash in comby water, or to wash first and wet my hair with spit.