In A Strange Room: Three Journeys Part 9

That first night is very long and almost sleepless. Aside from the missions to the pharmacy, the hours pa.s.s in a tedium under the fluorescent lights. The bathroom which everyone must share is filthy, and has two bins overflowing with hospital refuse from which rats scatter in all directions every time the door is opened. When he eventually lies down on the floor to sleep, he puts screws of newspaper into his ears to stop the ubiquitous c.o.c.kroaches from crawling in.

But morning returns eventually and the door is opened again. Anna is lying exactly as she was last night, a princess frozen by a witch's spell. For her there is no dirty floor to endure, no pa.s.sing time, no rats or insects, these elements belong to the rest of us, and to the days that follow. But I'm rescued by Caroline and by Sjef and his English wife Paula, who between them take turns helping me stand guard outside the door. We ride back and forth between the village and the hospital, an hour each way, in overlapping shifts.

The time I spend in the village is mostly occupied with e-mails and phone calls, messages both personal and official st.i.tching across the sea. The biggest ongoing conversation is with Anna's girlfriend in Cape Town. The devastation is enormous. I can feel her helplessness from the other side of the world, a witness who's not even present. Of course she wants to come over immediately. But the practicalities are complicated, there is the visa, which will take a few days to organize, and also the flights are still full. But I try to dissuade her for another reason as well. It would be terrible for her to come here, only to discover that Anna doesn't want her but somebody else instead. The memory of the last few weeks is still heavily with me, all the talk about Jean, her knight in shining armour, who has expressed no interest in rushing to her side, even though he's been told what's happened. He's still a secret, but eventually I have to speak. There is something, I say, something I have to tell you.

Yes.

Anna had an affair over here.

There is a silence. I knew, she says at last, I knew it.

I'm sorry.

With a man.

Yes. She was determined to do it, I say, and any man would do. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before. But I thought you should know about it before you come out here. She's been saying her relationship with you is over, that she wants to be with this guy.

Now I spill out all the details, everything that's been kept under wraps. We seem to have arrived at some confessional core, where there are no more secrets, no more concealments. We are turning ourselves inside out, as if the truth might absolve us, but it only brings more pain. It may be in this conversation, or perhaps in another soon afterwards, that I walk with the phone into the middle of an empty field next to the hotel and bawl. I'm sorry, I tell her, I'm sorry I said I could look after her, I had no idea what I was taking on.

He returns to Anna's journal and spends hours reading it, from the very first page. He feels no compunction about delving into her private thoughts and feelings, if she has brought us to this moment of truth, well, let it embrace her too. What he finds there is sad and shocking. It's as he realized in the end, her act was not a momentary impulse, on the contrary, it was a goal she yearned for from the outset, one she worked herself up to by degrees. Her girlfriend has meanwhile discovered, hidden in their home somewhere, a letter that Anna left behind before her departure. It's almost, but not quite, a suicide note, further proof that her plans were made far in advance. So she was never on their side, on the side of everybody who loved her and tried to make her well. Instead she was in league with the dark other stranger inside her, the one who wants her dead. It's hard not to feel profoundly betrayed. Even as they made plans for the trip, with all the talk about how good it would be for her, she was already dreaming up this other scenario, in which she needed him as the helpless bystander, the custodian of her remains. If she recovers, which it begins to seem she might, he doesn't know how he will ever be able to speak to her again.

Meanwhile he sweeps up the litter of discarded medicine wrappers from under the bed. It's painful to be reminded every time he's in the room, but there is another reason for this clean-up. Attempted suicide is a crime in India and there could be more serious trouble coming. When she was first admitted to the hospital in Margao, a policeman stationed at the emergency room came to speak to him and take his details. And at the hospital in Panjim a doctor approaches Sjef one day and tells him, if there is any ha.s.sle from the authorities, to give him a call.

In preparation for possible trouble, he speaks to the South African emba.s.sy in Bombay, giving them all the details of what happened and emphasizing, in advance, that the drugs she took were of a legal nature. But he also knows by now from her journal that she was indulging in other drugs with Jean, so in case of an unexpected search he goes through Anna's rucksack from top to bottom, to be sure there's nothing incriminating.

Around me, in the village where I have spent months of my life and come to know some of the locals quite well, there has descended a general air of suspicion. A number of people, some of them near-strangers, have felt free to question me aggressively about what took place. A few pretend sympathy, but it always leads to the same point. Your girlfriend, they say, why did she do it. Were you fighting with her. The inference is clear, and chimes exactly with my underlying guilt. She's not my girlfriend, I begin, but I always fall silent. My protests only confirm what they believe.

So I retreat into a tiny circle of refuge. Caroline and Sjef and Paula are my new and only friends. I spend a lot of time in their company and we talk endlessly about what happened and what might still be coming. We even manage to laugh at certain moments. I really want her to recover, I say one day, so that I can kill her myself.

It's around now that I become aware something else is afoot, something connected to Caroline. I hardly know her, yet we've been plunged into artificial intimacy, and in our scattered conversations I've learned a little bit about her. She's mentioned that she was married but that her husband was killed in an accident long ago in Morocco. I gather, between the lines, that this is the central event of her life, one which has marked her deeply, despite the intervening time, and what's happened now with Anna seems to have revived the memory for her again. She talks about it now and then, always in sideways allusive terms, but a shadow creeps over her face, her eyes fill up with tears. That ride in the ambulance with Anna, she says one day, it was terrible, it reminded me of, oh never mind. On another occasion she says, I've been having the most terrible dreams, all about what happened in Morocco. She doesn't go on, but on the far side of her words I sense a chasm falling away into darkness, and I don't want to look over the edge.

On the third day already there are signs of life. Anna makes the occasional movement, her eyelids flicker, and on the fourth day she's awake. When I go through for the morning visit, she peers dimly at me and her mouth, stretched around a thick plastic tube, manages a smile. When I visit again that evening the tube is gone and she's lying there, whole and restored.

After everything that we've been through, this feels unreal. I stroke her hand and speak gently, a gentleness that in truth is almost genuine at this moment, as I ask her how it feels to be alive. She's very weak and I have to crane to catch her whispered reply. s.h.i.t, she says.

After this period of suspension and stasis, events start to move quickly again. First thing the next day they move her from ICU to the coronary ward opposite. They need the bed, one of the nurses explains, and she will be under intermediate care. And at first this new arrangement seems in balance. Because she has no physical power, she's mostly docile and compliant, though she still requires constant care and attention and one of us must be on hand to provide it. For the first day or two she has terrible diarrhoea and every little while has to be helped out of the bed and steadied while she crouches over a bedpan. He remembers the conflicting sensations of pity and distaste as he holds her upright, his hands and feet being splattered with the watery discharge. She smiles sweetly up at him and murmurs, this is a test of our friendship. You have no idea, he answers.

Afterwards it's his duty to carry the br.i.m.m.i.n.g bedpan into the rat-infested bathroom and empty it out and wash it clean. It's a job he repeats over and over through the day, a humbling task which is more than has ever been asked of him before, but he does it without protest, maybe only because he has no choice. All around him are other people similarly engaged, and there is a resigned solidarity in their efforts.

At some point in the day she looks over at the next bed and whispers confidingly, look at that one, she's definitely in here for an eating disorder.

I glance across, perplexed. But she isn't a patient, Anna, she's a visitor.

Anna raises her head and peers. Well, she ought to be a patient, she says. She's enormous.

No, she isn't, I say, but before I can point out that the woman concerned is actually quite tiny, I break down in laughter. It's a mad conversation, but for the first time in many days the madness is almost charming. Underneath the words is a glimmer of the friend I remember, eccentric and funny rather than demented.

Sjef stays with her that night and I go back to the room. Relief at having emerged from the tunnel makes it possible for me to sleep properly, and it's in a state of semi-replenishment that I return to the hospital next morning. But even before I can cross the threshold of the ward I realize something is amiss. Sjef is waiting, he takes me grimly aside.

It's been a difficult night, he says.

Difficult. I glance across at where Anna is sitting up in bed, her arms folded crossly, glaring back at us. Don't worry, I'll deal with her, I say.

But nothing has prepared him for the transformation that's taken place. The sweet, feeble angel of yesterday has disappeared, to be replaced by something else completely. The dark stranger has waxed to the full. The first sign comes when he tries to talk to her about the way she's treated Sjef. You don't understand, she says. That's only half the story. The f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The way he speaks to me.

He's spent the whole night looking after you.

Who asked him to. I don't need looking after.

You do, but in any case somebody has to be here. It's a hospital rule.

Why didn't you do it. Where were you.

I was at the room, trying to sleep. Please, Anna, it was the first chance I've had. Sjef was helping me, so that I could rest.

Rest from what. You're making a big f.u.c.king drama about nothing. All I want is cigarettes, that f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d won't buy them for me.

This is a coronary ward, you're not allowed to smoke in here.

f.u.c.k that, I'll do what I f.u.c.king please. Go and get me cigarettes.

He looks at her, stunned. But before the conversation can go any further, she has another attack of diarrhoea. Help me, she orders, I have to go. There is the squatting down, the splattering. This is so horrible, she mutters. Horrible horrible horrible. It's not much fun for me either, I say.

Afterwards, while I empty the bedpan in the bathroom, I have an uneasy qualm about what she might be up to. Panic makes me slop the mess over my hands, and washing myself clean slows me even further. But my instinctive premonition is correct, when I get back to the ward Anna is out of bed and heading off somewhere. Her legs are still wobbly, or she would have covered more ground.

Where are you going.

To buy cigarettes.

I told you, it's not allowed, and anyway you have no money.

Take me back to the hotel. I'm fine now, I demand to leave this minute. It's unconst.i.tutional to keep me against my will.

The const.i.tution won't help you, this is India. And the more trouble you make, the longer you'll have to stay here. Now get back into bed.

Unexpectedly, she obeys, but when she's properly settled she says smugly, I wasn't going to buy cigarettes, I was going to throw myself out of the window.

There are bars on the windows and they're only on the first floor, but nevertheless he's filled with furious despair. He tries to control his voice as he says, we are doing everything we can to keep you alive.

Who asked you to. Just let me die. Walk away. I give you permission to just walk away.

I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for other people who love you. And for me, so that I can look myself in the eye.

Hah. She fixes a certain gaze on him, a disdainful calculating stare. This is all your fault, you know. You took responsibility for me when you brought me along, and look what happened.

She is not too ill to sight and hit my most vulnerable spot, the truth that will hurt me for ever. My voice is choked when I answer. And you, you're not responsible, I suppose. The fact is, you didn't care about anybody else, you just did what you wanted.

I couldn't, because you stopped me.

And I'll keep on stopping you. You're going back to South Africa alive and after that you're not my worry any more.

You're not worried about me anyway, you just care what other people will say.

Right now that's true. Right now I hate you.

So what, I hate you too.

These ugly words have come from a deep core in me, part of the destructive essence that Anna has pared us to. It takes an effort of will to understand, even in a theoretical way, how very sick she is. It will be years before I'm able to acknowledge that she is psychotic, her mania full-blown, with no medication to subdue her and with a raging fever from pneumonia, and even then it's hard to forgive her. Because from long ago, even in her sanest moments, she wanted this and worked hard to reach it, her toxic, terminal rapture. The rest of us are just walk-on parts in a drama centred only on her.

I remember every accusing word, including my own, like a knife in the guts, like something that has shamed us both. Yet she herself is untouched. Later that same day, for example, Sjef and Paula and Caroline all arrive together to help me. In an attempt to bring down her temperature we buy ice from the canteen downstairs and press it all over her body. She wails and protests but also smiles, look at me, she says, I have a whole team working on me, and in that moment she is angelic again, my coy and flirtatious friend, and the awful exchange of that morning has disappeared. She remembers none of it, nothing of what is said and done, even by herself. She floats above all the pain and grief and guilt that she's created, looking down on our scurrying and striving. There is a very real element of contempt in the way she treats us now, a quality of mocking laughter at our concern. She is far beyond us all, because she's not afraid of death any longer, which is both her weakness and her greatest strength.

And it only gets worse. Every day she is more powerful and wily, more resourceful in her self-destruction, and her demands become more insistent. I want my money-belt, she announces one morning, and when I tell her that I'm taking care of it she accuses me of stealing her money. Another time she wants her shoes. Look at me, she cries wretchedly, I have to sit here with nothing on my feet, you're so cruel to me. These appeals move him not at all, with money and shoes she will be able to escape, he knows what she's after. But when he refuses she starts to repeat it like an hysterical child, my money, give me my money, give me my shoes right now. He just keeps shaking his head. No. There is perverse pleasure in wielding that word, in being able to withhold death from her.

But he's also aware that time is short and that she might outplay him yet. In a few days Sjef and Paula will be going home and then only he and Caroline will be left. He doubts that between them they'll be able to keep her covered, it will mean shifts of twelve hours each, and she can't be trusted for a moment. She's out of bed and heading towards the door as soon as anyone's back is turned. He has spoken to the nurses at the desk and implored them to keep an eye, but they are busy and distracted and also not that interested, what do they care for this rude foreign woman and her overwrought minders.

Most alarming of all, as her physical condition improves she is shunted to more general wards in the hospital. Fewer nurses are in attendance here and the wards are fuller. After three or four days she's taken to a room where two people are sharing each bed and some patients are lying on the floor. She begins to weep and rave, this is unacceptable, I refuse to stay here, I demand you take me out of this place.

He would like to comply, but it isn't so simple. She is supposed to pa.s.s through levels of medical a.s.sessment before she can be officially discharged, this process is not in his hands, and whenever he's asked about it the answer is always vague. A few days, they say.

We'll have to see. One doctor has told him that she will have to be psychologically evaluated, a prospect that terrifies him, if she's certified it may be a very long time before anybody can get her out. But even if he could remove her today, where would he take her. She cannot go back to the village. The flights are all full, he has already checked, he cannot send her home early. The best hope is to try to keep her here until the date of her original departure, which is about five days away by now. How she will be able to travel in this condition still remains to be seen.

But the chances of holding out till that flight home are slim. This is Sjef and Paula's last day, in the morning they will be gone. He and Caroline are worn to spiritual shreds by now and Anna is at her maddest and most powerful. It is the lowest point they've reached since she woke up and at this desperate moment another character enters from the wings, a sly and sidelong fellow in uniform who comes picking his way through the bodies on the floor. We look at him in bemus.e.m.e.nt.

He is very polite. He's from the casualty police, he tells us, and he'd like to be of a.s.sistance. As we must know, this is a matter for criminal investigation, and when Anna is discharged she will probably be detained. It's a difficult situation but if we speak to him, and at this point he gives us a piece of paper with his name and number on it, he's sure that we can come to some agreement.

Of all of us, Anna is the only one happy to see him. Oh thank G.o.d, she cries, at last, somebody who understands. All I want is to get out of here.

The seedy little man nods in sympathy. I will help you, he says.

Thank you, thank you.

I thank him too, more demurely, and shake his hand. But when he's slid away again like an insidious drop of oil, the rest of us look at each other despairingly. Oh b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. What will we do now.

Paula speaks up. Remember that doctor who spoke to Sjef, she says, maybe you should contact him. Sjef isn't here today, he's at the room packing up their bags, but I shoot off to a payphone and ring him. Luckily he's kept the name and number of the doctor concerned and I'm able to call him immediately afterwards. He listens to the story and sighs. That's bad news, he tells me carefully, it's what I was worried about. Here's what you need to do, but you can't ever use my name or say that you spoke to me.

I won't.

The police must have been tracking her through the hospital, they know she's going to be discharged soon. That's when they'll grab you, so you must get her out before then. Do it now. Go to the doctor in charge of the ward and tell him you want a DAMA. That stands for discharge against medical advice. He'll argue and tell you it's impossible, but you must insist. Then take her out before the doctor can call the police and let them know. The doctor will also be getting a cut, so you must be fast.

But where will I take her. I have nowhere to go.

There is a private hospital in Panjim run by a friend of mine. Go and see him. His name is Dr Ajoy.

He gives me the address of the hospital and I take a taxi over there immediately. It's a small, clean, quiet place, close to the beach, and Dr Ajoy is helpful. Yes, he says, she can be accommodated. He has drugs to calm her down. I should bring her round now.

In a last co-ordinated burst of activity, we engineer the escape. The taxi driver who has been ferrying us all back and forth between the village and the hospital keeps his car at a side-entrance, waiting. Inside I go to the nurse in charge of the ward and ask to see the doctor on duty. He's not there, she tells me.

Where is he. He's supposed to be here, isn't he.

He's at a meeting.

Well, we're taking my friend, so I need to see the doctor.

You can't take her. She has to be discharged.

I am taking her. We've got her on a flight to South Africa and we have to leave for Bombay right now.

No, that's not possible. You heard what the policeman said, there's an investigation. You can't take her.

I want a DAMA, I say with false confidence, and I must have it right now.

You will have to wait for the doctor.

I'm not waiting. To show how serious I am, I signal to the others to get Anna out of bed. Give me the form to sign or I'll take her anyway.

Furious and steely-eyed, the nurse brings the form. I show Anna where to sign and then we hustle her through the crowded corridors to the side-entrance and the waiting taxi. At every moment I expect the venal hand of the police to close around us, and as we swing out of the hospital gates the sense of freedom is enormous. When they make the movie, I say, I want Tom Cruise to play me.

Faye Dunaway for me, Caroline says.

Even Anna joins in. Julia Roberts, she says, and we're all laughing. But the levity doesn't last long. In minutes it dawns on Anna that we're not going back to our hotel, and she starts to moan and protest. I want to go back to the beach, she cries, I want to finish my holiday. You have no right to do this. When I tell her the police will come looking for her there, she falls temporarily silent, but then she starts up again. Just give me my money-belt, give it to me. You can't have it. Give it to me and drop me at the side of the road. Fortunately she's wedged in at the back between Caroline and Paula, or she might make a break for it. Do you see what they're doing, she yells at the taxi driver, they're kidnapping me, they're criminals, they're thieves.

This taxi driver, whose name is Rex, has seen a thing or two over the last week to astonish him. He's come up to the hospital ward a few times and witnessed Anna in action, but she's setting new standards today. When we get to the clinic I ask Rex to come in with us, just in case we need an extra hand. When she sees the room where she'll be sleeping and hears that a nurse will be in the spare bed to keep watch, she goes berserk. I demand to leave right now, she shrieks, and makes a break for the door. I stand in her way and grab hold of her wrists and for half a minute we grapple silently together in a pantomimic frieze for the benefit of the open-mouthed Rex. I am, in this moment, physically afraid of her. She has power far beyond her muscular strength, there's a lunatic gleam in her eye. But she finally relents and slumps and then, once I let go, lashes out in a screaming fit, punching the walls and kicking the door, before collapsing in a howling heap on the bed.

All through the drive back to the village, Rex relives that moment. Pow, he says to himself, crash. He makes kicking, punching movements and shakes his head in wonder. It's safe to say he's never witnessed anything like it. A year or two later, out of the blue, he will send an e-mail to me in South Africa. In part it reads, how is your work going on. I hope that you may sell lots of books. I'm fine and do good business. I always remember your good words, your words are a great knowledge to me. In future if you publish a book you should write about that girl, who wished to die.

She is heavily sedated now and much calmer than she was in the government hospital. But this doesn't stop the endless stream of abuse, the accusations of failure and neglect, as well as the demands for various items. There is a telephone in the clinic where patients can make calls on credit and she rings him obsessively at the hotel, numerous times each day, with an inventory of requirements for his next visit. She wants her shoes, her money, her rucksack. He isn't willing to hand any of these over, for fear of what it might lead to, but what he can bring he does. There is never a thank you, only a litany of charges against him, which he hears out wearily. You're stealing my things, I'll have you arrested. You're so cruel and selfish. I hate you, I'll never speak to you again.

For the first time there are paid hospital attendants to watch over her and this means that he doesn't have to be there every day. He's happy to keep some distance between them. So he checks in for an hour each afternoon, then heads back to the room, but there's not much chance for rest. Instead there are frantic preparations for Anna's return. In consultation with her partner and family back home, it's been decided that she will be accompanied by Dr Ajoy and the other friendly doctor from the hospital who helped orchestrate her escape. Arranging tickets and visas at short notice for them is a devilishly complicated business, involving faxes to the South African emba.s.sy and the airline, with all sorts of supporting doc.u.mentation, some of which must come from home. But it's all finally resolved and the evening arrives when he can bring her rucksack to the hospital, along with her pa.s.sport and ticket, and say goodbye.

After everything that's gone before, the moment is somehow small and empty. Her attention is not on him, but on her luggage, which she must instantly unpack and check and re-order. You see, he tells her ruefully, everything's there, nothing's been stolen. The different bags of clothes with their little labels are a sad reminder of where the journey began.

She comes outside to say goodbye. She's wearing the shoes she's been demanding for so long and appears almost serene. The high tide of madness has receded, leaving behind this translucent husk of a woman who nearly resembles his old friend. But not quite. There is a chilly reserve between them, which covers over a gulf so huge that it can perhaps never be bridged. Nevertheless, he finds it in himself to embrace her. Goodbye, he says. Take care of yourself.

You too. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

Or some such words. Whatever they say, it is in breezy phrases like these, phrases without content, or perhaps too much. Then he is driving away from her, with Rex at the wheel, looking back one last time at the solitary, lost figure in the twilight.

It's only now that the full force of what's happened begins to hit him. Until this point he has been constantly in action, at the receiving end of calamity, with no chance for reflection. It's like a hurricane has blown through his life, flattening every structure, and in the aftermath the silence and vacancy are immense.

There is nothing to do, but his body struggles to accept it. He is constantly on edge, constantly prepared for crisis. He sleeps badly and lightly, and wakes long before dawn. The days are empty and he doesn't know how to fill them. Gradually he moves out of his head and starts to see what's around him. He notices his own face again, how much weight he's lost, the fixed stare of his eyes.