door identical to all the others. The attendant took out a key from her

  uniform pocket, inserted it in the lock. Beyond was a small cubicle with

  a bed and a dresser and one tiny window, screened by wire mesh, so high

  up all she could see was the dull grey of the winter sky. ' are you

  going to do with me?' There was as much anger in her voice as fear. Dr.

  Geist regarded her earnestly from behind his thick bifocals. He appeared

  distinguished and altogether assured. '. Whitney,' he said in his most

  stentorian voice, ' are seriously ill.' She felt her stomach contract

  but still she said, ' do you mean? I haven't even had a cold in three

  years! The doctor's thin lips curled upwards in what he thought of as a

  godlike smile. ' are not speaking of your body now, 400 Whitney, but of

  your mind. The . is a strange, . System and, most often, subjective

  knowledge gives off signs. Only through truly objective observation can

  the r diagnoses be made.' Dr. Geist grabbed the base of one ger with the

  fingers of his other hand, twisting until the e cracked. ' are

  unbalanced. To put it as bluntly as le, you have developed a psychosis!

  He loomed over abruptly as big as a bear though she had not, before, t

  of him as a large man. ' constant running away home is an attempt on

  your part to deny reality! ina thought Dr. Geist must be out of his mind

  and she him so as she tried to dodge past him to the door. e blocked her

  easily and now his thick-fingered hands ped down so painfully on her

  biceps that she whimpered funtarily. ''m terribly sorry' - now his voice

  sounded inely apologetic - ' we can hardly expect you to agree such a

  diagnosis, can we? After all, you lack the proper, impartiality to make

  the correct determination! He shook a little as if that would get her

  back on the right track. have a deep-seated illness, Miss. Whitney. You

  must learn st us. We know what's best for you.' The thought seemed

  amusing, it made him chuckle, a sound as thick as molasses; nd that

  would haunt her long beyond her stay there. e hugged her to him but the

  gesture contained no warmth, intimacy at all, and Daina found herself

  wondering not for first time what kind of special training doctors

  underwent order to so cut themselves off from the rest of humanity.

  thev, she wondered, so utterly, bonechillingly colded in their private

  lives? Did they mount their wives with same callous scorn? Did they pat

  their sons and daughters h such practised indifference? Would any

  personal tragedy se them to shed tears of grief? Daina suspected not.

  But she no pity for Dr. Geist or his family. When you lie down swine,

  you're sure to get fouled.

  No, she felt only a ing aiiger like a cold flame at the centre of her

  heart and, g with that, a wall of spite stronger than the hardest ond. I

  won't give in, she vowed. No matter what, I won't in to him. ow don't

  you worry at all,' the doctor was saying in his 401 lightest tone.

  "You're a very lucky girl to be in good harlds. We know the quickest

  method of recovery. We'll have you feeling ship-shape in no time at all,

  eh? I ' feel ship-shape now,' she said but all she got in return was Dr.

  Geist's raised forefinger waggling in her face. ' soon,' he said,

  'you'll come to understand.' Daina steeled herself. 11 want,' she said,

  'to know what you're going to do with me.' Dr. Geist ' you ever heard of

  insulin shock therapy?' said. His face seemed to gleam in the harsh

  overhead lighting. ', I see by your face you haven't. No matter. It's

  better this way. You see, the process is quite simple. Massive doses of

  insulin are injected into the patient, producing a kind of shock coma.

  Now that's nothing to be frightened of.

  All it means is that we are, for the moment, defeating your conscious

  mind. So, while it, er, sleeps, we can bring your unconscious to the

  surface for there is where your problem lies.' It's where your problems

  lie, Daina thought. ', er tell us what your probblems are and in between

  treatments, group therapy resolves those problems. ' I shall take you

  down to the treatment room myself to get you, ah, acclimatized to the

  surroundings. Some, uh, peripheral factors may be a bii frightening

  initially.' ' my mother know anything about this?" "Miss. Whitney,' the

  doctor said slowly as if he were explaining something quite simple to a

  slow child, ' was your mother who came to me for advice regarding your,

  ah, condition.' '?' Daina cried.

  "I don't have a condition! ' course.' Dr. Geist smiled, sure of himself.

  ''re as crazy as a loon.' And when that didn't work: ' want to see her.'

  The smile stayed just where it was, fully as broad as he had been taught

  to carry it. ''m sorry, Miss. Whitney, but institution regulations

  forbid all visitors for a period of eighteen days. Phone calls, too, I'm

  afraid.' He rubbed the palms of his hands together, all brisk business.

  ' that we've got the, er, orientation out of the way, we'll let the

  hospital staff take over and we'll see you in the morning.' He was as

  good as his word. They woke her up at four AM 402 got her dressed in a

  fresh hospital gown. Dr. Geist was #ing rather impatiently for her as if

  she were late for their date. But he smiled just the same when she

  appeared in hallway just outside her door. She was accompanied by same

  burly female attendant who had brought her in the before. There were no

  windows in the hallway and the t lighting was kept at the same level

  twenty-four hours a It had a disconcerting effect. Geist's face was

  freshly scrubbed, as red as if he had been In his sleigh all night

  delivering packages down squeaky- chimneys. He smelled strongly of a

  cheap men's cologne found anonymous in its abject familiarity. Again,

  his gripped her like bands of steel. at will be all, Miss. Macmichaels,'

  he said curtly as Daina @'I. ed him to lead her away.

  At the first branching, he took t, then left down another corridor

  identical to the first. s eerily quiet in the hospital at that hour and

  even the soft -screek of their rubber-soled shoes against the

  light-green M was audible. lfway down the corridor, Dr. Geist stopped.

  He dug in cket of his tweed trousers for a key and inserted it into r

  before which they stood. Inside was a flight of metal nted dark green,

  leading downward. It was dank and d forbidding. The walls and ceiling

  were of unpainted unrelieved and grindingly monotonous. the time they

  had reached the second landing, Daina to hear faint noises. They would

  shiver the air for long during which she would turn her head to the side

  in an to make sense of the sounds. ist took her down to the third level

  and, as they came staircase, the sounds returned, abruptly, shockingly

  in people were screaming. The sounds were muffled but distinct for all

  that. shivered and tried to draw back but the doctor merely his grip on

  her arm, half dragging her along by his are they doing that?' Daina said

  very softly. ignore it,'Dr. Geist said airily. ' is just a by-product

  tment! 403 'You mean the insulin shock therapy?' And when he didn't

  reply, her stomach fluttering in fear, she said, ' don't want to scream

  like that.' .'That, my dear Miss. Whitney, is how you will speak to us;

  the doctor said dispassionately and she hated him all the more. ' will

  scream out to us all of your psychosis and once it is out in the, ah,

  light of day, we shall dissipate it like so much snow on a city street.'

  She did not think much of his imagery, He took her into a cell-like

  room, windowless and dim and, abruptly, she realized why the 'treatment

  rooms' were so far beneath the normal levels of the rest of the

  hospital. It was the same reason that the therapy was administered at

  odd times: so that the screaming would not disturb the other patients.

  Daina looked around the cell. There was only a zinc-topped table to

  which leather straps perhaps three inches in width were attached. ' are

  nothing to be afraid of,' the doctor said, flipping the straps up and

  down between his thumb and fingers. ' must be strapped in for your own

  protection.' ' own protection?' she said weakly. She felt as if all the

  blood were draining out of her through the soles of her feet. '.' The

  doctor turned around. ' insulin shock sets up a series of rather

  violent, ah, convulsions throughout the body. You might inadvertently

  hurt yourself if you were not restrained -' Daina turned away and was

  sick in one comer of the tiny room. She remained half bent over with the

  paroxysms that by now were dry and accompanied by, in Daina's mind at

  least, the most disgusting gagging sounds, which only served to prolong

  her nausea. ' is merely a sign of your body throwing off the ills that

  have haunted it from inside,' the doctor said, not missing a beat. He

  ignored her actions. ', it is a good sign, for in forcing your conscious

  mind to let go its control, we will possess the key to your cure. And

  day by day we shall bring it about.' Wiping her lips and breathing

  through her mouth because of the stink she had made, Daina looked at

  him. The tiny ead incandescent bulbs made spot glares on his bifocals,

  ng the lenses opaque so that he no longer looked like ick but Dr.

  Cyclops instead. ' ...' She faltered. ' a does the treatment take?' wo

  and a half months.' h, my God! she thought. I'll never make it through.

  And as he led her away from there back upstairs to her room, a, where

  are you now?

  Take me away from here! ey began the next morning at four. Dr. Geist was

  waiting @her as before except this time he seemed calmer. Together, trod

  the same path down and down and down into the Is of the hospital to

  where no one would hear her screams, at each landing Daina felt a little

  bit of her life-force drain her. e night before her fitful sleep had

  been punctured by e dreams of what she would do when this moment came:

  she would fight back, fly her fists in the face of the burly ale

  attendant, take a great bite out of Dr. Geist's solid thigh. t now that

  the moment had come she felt so enervated that docilely allowed them to

  strap her face down on the table. Gently, ever so gently, Dr. Geist

  lifted the hem of her gown. derneath, she wore nothing. He peered down

  at her as if she re his own daughter. Bright light, reflected, splashed

  off his ses, zooming across the rough concrete walls like a swinging r's

  headlights. Daina looked at the stone floor and that was en the word

  dungeon exploded in her mind like a bombshell. Liglitheadcd and dizzy,

  she turned her head to see Dr. cist's right hand. It was filled with

  a,,syringe, its great needle ger tlian anv Daina had ever seen before.

  "Will it liurt?' she said in the tone of a frightened child. But 11 the

  while, Lears of rage stood out in the corners of her eyes nd she

  clenched her hands into white fists. If only, she ought, I wasn't

  strapped down. How she wanted to murder r Geist with all his platitudes

  about the goodness of medical ience and the mind-numbing expanse of his

  frozen smile. ' won't hurt a bit,' she heard him say as if from a

  thousand iles away but she didn't believe him for a minute. Not with e

  buckets of blood he had undoubtedly spilled in the cause 404 405 of

  advancing the field. And not one tear dropping from his unclouded eye.

  She felt a cool breeze drifting across her naked buttocks and with it

  came the most intense spasm of hatred she had ever experienced. She

  thrashed upon the cold zinc-topped table as if she were a fish out of

  water. Dimly she was aware of the doctor calling to Miss. Macmichaels

  for assistance, but that didn't stop her. Nothing could stop her now. No

  one. The hate rocketed through her like a geyser and she imagined her

  unpimoned hands wrapped around Dr. Geist's chunky throat. She felt

  something pierce her flesh, sinking down and down into her as she had

  come down and down into this dungeon, and she cried out not in pain or

  in shock but from the humiliation. Her rage continued unabated, but now

  the face she held so close to her own was growing dim so that she had to

  squint in order to make it out. Then Dr. Geist was gone, the face

  metamorphosing into that of her mother. Still her hands were wrapped

  around the elegant neck, squeezing, squeezing. She seemed to be panting,

  the breath coming out of her like gushes of water spilled upon the stone

  floor until she was slipping and sliding, her lips open in a soundless

  scream. For some time she had her eyes closed with the force of her

  hatred. Mother, she thought, how could you do this to me? jealous. You

  were always jealous of me. It was all right when I was just a kid who

  you could diaper, feed and bathe. But as soon as I grew up, I was your

  competition. You wanted me to stay a child. She opened her eyes because

  she wanted to see her mother's face now, grotesquely distorted as she

  neared death by suffocation. But it was not her mother's face she saw

  before her but another's, shadowy and somehow terrifying. Daina screamed

  and screamed until she had no breath left inside her. Then for a time

  she floated in nothingness, insensate. When she awoke, they fed her a

  thick lemony syrup that tasted as if it were made of pure sugcr. Still,

  all that sweetness could not take the strong taste of rubber out of her

  mouth. The next day, lying in her room and staring at the ceiling, she

  would remember the T-bar of black rubber she had seen lyin-,,r 406

  _,-,the floor as they took her out of the '', her teeth- scalloping its

  sides so deeply she thought she must have right through it during her

  first treatment. pstairs, in her room, when she had recovered, they

  brought in breakfast. She had never been so ravenous in her life when

  she saw the size of the plates and their number she ght, No human being

  can cat this much food at one time. ate it all. so it went, day after

  day: the treatment followed by jolt of glucose and the prodigious meals.

  Dr. Geist came to er every day. He talked to her endlessly. She did not

  listen at he said. Her mind felt swollen like a balloon, filled with odd

  mixture of thoughts and ideas as if she were some e adapting to a wholly

  new atmosphere on some distant world. At those times, Dr. Geist seemed

  as unreal as a to the far side of the sun.

  She began to think of him as form of grotesque day lily who bloomed anew

  with each cycle only to wither and die with the coming of darkness. she

  treated him with the same indifference she would a or, perhaps, a

  television that has been left on at low e for companionship and nothing

  more. t night, she would lie awake with the hatred of Monika Aurelio

  Ocasio raging like a forest fire in her breast and that bleak and

  desolate hatred she clutched close to her the terror of being

  incarcerated at White Cedars or the trip to the dungeon threatened to

  overwhelm her. Dr. t could have the part reserved for Monika - he had it

  ay; it was a major topic of his daily talks with her. But fear of his

  leaming of her secret rife with Baba and her t hate of Aurelio Ocasio

  seemed unfounded as the days sed and he made no mention of either of

  them. This hers and hers alone: the love for Baba, the hate for his .

  She had been right. No one - nothing - could sever her them. And, later,

  when she could bear to think about this she would be certain that her

  secrets were all that stood n her and madness - a real, pure form that

  she felt sure Geist would never recognize let alone know how to treat.

  After a while, they started her on group therapy as part of daily

  routine. The other members were all patients under- 407 going the same

  treatment. At one of these, one of the patients, a heavyset man who had

  been there far longer than she, gave her one bit of hurried advice. '

  everything they give you,' he whispered. She did not understand what he

  meant until one evening 0 perhaps three weeks into her stay. Already she

  noticed the weight piling up on her. When the attendant brought in her

  dinner tray, she found that she had no appetite. She had visions of

  herself horribly fat, waddling into a room where everyone stopped what

  they were doing to stare at her. When the attendant insisted that she

  eat, she refused. He departed only to return moments later with another

  attendant and a doctor she had not seen before. This one was long and

  lean with sandy hair and a bristling beard. His upper lip was curiously

  hairless. The attendants had wheeled in a stainless-steel cart covered

  with medical paraphernalia. At the doctor's instruction, they strapped

 

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