雙語·鐘形罩 17

“You're a lucky girl today.”

The young nurse cleared my breakfast tray away and left me wrapped in my white blanket like a passenger taking the sea air on the deck of a ship.

“Why am I lucky?”

“Well, I'm not sure if you're supposed to know yet, but today, you're moving to Belsize.” The nurse looked at me expectantly.

“Belsize,” I said. “I can't go there.”

“Why not?”

“I'm not ready. I'm not well enough.”

“Of course, you're well enough. Don't worry, they wouldn't be moving you if you weren't well enough.”

After the nurse left, I tried to puzzle out this new move on Doctor Nolan's part. What was she trying to prove? I hadn't changed. Nothing had changed. And Belsize was the best house of all. From Belsize people went back to work and back to school and back to their homes.

Joan would be at Belsize. Joan with her physics books and her golf clubs and her badminton rackets and her breathy voice. Joan, marking the gulf between me and the nearly well ones. Ever since Joan left Caplan I'd followed her progress through the asylum grapevine.

Joan had walk privileges, Joan had shopping privileges, Joan had town privileges. I gathered all my news of Joan into a little, bitter heap, though I received it with surface gladness. Joan was the beaming double of my old best self, specially designed to follow and torment me.

Perhaps Joan would be gone when I got to Belsize.

At least at Belsize I could forget about shock treatments. At Caplan a lot of the women had shock treatments. I could tell which ones they were, because they didn't get their breakfast trays with the rest of us. They had their shock treatments while we breakfasted in our rooms, and then they came into the lounge, quiet and extinguished, led like children by the nurses, and ate their breakfasts there.

Each morning, when I heard the nurse knock with my tray, an immense relief flooded through me, because I knew I was out of danger for that day. I didn't see how Doctor Nolan could tell you went to sleep during a shock treatment if she'd never had a shock treatment herself. How did she know the person didn't just look as if he was asleep, while all the time, inside, he was feeling the blue volts and the noise?

Piano music sounded from the end of the hall.

At supper I sat quietly, listening to the chatter of the Belsize women. They were all fashionably dressed and carefully made up, and several of them were married. Some of them had been shopping downtown, and others had been out visiting friends, and all during supper they kept tossing back and forth these private jokes.

“I'd call Jack,” a woman named DeeDee said, “only I'm afraid he wouldn't be home. I know just where I could call him, though, and he'd be in, all right.”

The short, spry blonde woman at my table laughed. “I almost had Doctor Loring where I wanted him today.” She widened her starey blue eyes like a little doll. “I wouldn't mind trading old Percy in for a new model.”

At the opposite end of the room, Joan was wolfing her Spam and broiled tomato with great appetite. She seemed perfectly at home among these women and treated me coolly,with a slight sneer, like a dim and inferior acquaintance.

I had gone to bed right after supper, but then I heard the piano music and pictured Joan and DeeDee and Loubelle, the blonde woman, and the rest of them, laughing and gossiping about me in the living room behind my back. They would be saying how awful it was to have people like me in Belsize and that I should be in Wymark instead.

I decided to put a lid on their nasty talk.

Draping my blanket loosely around my shoulders, like a stole, I wandered down the hall toward the light and the gay noise.

For the rest of the evening I listened to DeeDee thump out some of her own songs on the grand piano, while the other women sat round playing bridge and chatting, just the way they would in a college dormitory, only most of them were ten years over college age.

One of them, a great, tall, gray-haired woman with a booming bass voice, named Mrs. Savage, had gone to Vassar. I could tell right away she was a society woman, because she talked about nothing but débutantes. It seemed she had two or three daughters, and that year they were all going to be débutantes, only she had loused up their débutante party by signing herself into the asylum.

DeeDee had one song she called “The Milkman” and everybody kept saying she ought to get it published, it would be a hit. First her hands would clop out a little melody on the keys, like the hoofbeats of a slow pony, and next another melody came in, like the milkman whistling, and then the two melodies went on together.

“That's very nice,” I said in a conversational voice.

Joan was leaning on one corner of the piano and leafing through a new issue of some fashion magazine, and DeeDee smiled up at her as if the two of them shared a secret.

“Oh, Esther,” Joan said then, holding up the magazine, “isn't this you?”

DeeDee stopped playing. “Let me see.” She took the magazine, peered at the page Joan pointed to, and then glanced back at me.

“Oh no,” DeeDee said. “Surely not.” She looked at the magazine again, then at me. “Never!”

“Oh, but it is Esther, isn't it, Esther?” Joan said.

Loubelle and Mrs. Savage drifted over, and pretending I knew what it was all about, I moved to the piano with them.

The magazine photograph showed a girl in a strapless evening dress of fuzzy white stuff, grinning fit to split, with a whole lot of boys bending around her. The girl was holding a glass full of a transparent drink and seemed to have her eyes fixed over my shoulder on something that stood behind me, a little to my left. A faint breath fanned the back of my neck. I wheeled round.

The night nurse had come in, unnoticed, on her soft rubber soles.

“No kidding,” she said, “is that really you?”

“No, it's not me. Joan's quite mistaken. It's somebody else.”

“Oh, say it's you!” DeeDee cried. But I pretended I didn't hear her and turned away.Then Loubelle begged the nurse to make a fourth at bridge, and I drew up a chair to watch, although I didn't know the first thing about bridge, because I hadn't had time to pick it up at college, the way all the wealthy girls did.

I stared at the flat poker faces of the kings and jacks and queens and listened to the nurse talking about her hard life. “You ladies don't know what it is, holding down two jobs,” she said. “Nights I'm over here, watching you…”

Loubelle giggled. “Oh, we're good. We're the best of the lot, and you know it.”

“Oh, you're all right.” The nurse passed round a packet of spearmint gum, then unfolded a pink strap from its tinfoil wrapper herself. “You're all right, it's those boobies at the state place that worry me off my feet.”

“Do you work in both places then?” I asked with sudden interest.

“You bet.” The nurse gave me a straight look, and I could see she thought I had no business in Belsize at all. “You wouldn't like it over there one bit, Lady Jane.”

I found it strange that the nurse should call me Lady Jane when she knew what my name was perfectly well.

“Why?” I persisted.

“Oh, it's not a nice place, like this. This is a regular country club. Over there they've got nothing. No OT to talk of, no walks…”

“Why haven't they got walks?”

“Not enough em-ploy-ees.” The nurse scooped in a trick and Loubelle groaned. “Believe me, ladies, when I collect enough do-re-mi to buy me a car, I'm clearing out.”

“Will you clear out of here, too?” Joan wanted to know.

“You bet. Only private cases from then on. When I feel like it…”

But I'd stopped listening.

I felt the nurse had been instructed to show me my alternatives. Either I got better, or I fell, down, down, like a burning, then burnt-out star, from Belsize, to Caplan, to Wymark and finally, after Doctor Nolan and Mrs. Guinea had given me up, to the state place next door.

I gathered my blanket round me and pushed back my chair.

“You cold?” the nurse demanded rudely.

“Yes,” I said, moving off down the hall. “I'm frozen stiff.”

I woke warm and placid in my white cocoon. A shaft of pale, wintry sunlight dazzled the mirror and the glasses on the bureau and the metal doorknobs. From across the hall came the early-morning clatter of the maids in the kitchen, preparing the breakfast trays.

I heard the nurse knock on the door next to mine, at the far end of the hall. Mrs. Savage's sleepy voice boomed out, and the nurse went in to her with the jingling tray. I thought, with a mild stir of pleasure, of the steaming blue china coffee pitcher and the blue china breakfast cup and the fat blue china cream jug with the white daisies on it.

I was beginning to resign myself.

If I was going to fall, I would hang on to my small comforts, at least, as long as I possibly could.

The nurse rapped on my door and, without waiting for an answer, breezed in.

It was a new nurse—they were always changing—with a lean, sand-colored face and sandy hair, and large freckles polka-dotting her bony nose. For some reason the sight of this nurse made me sick at heart, and it was only as she strode across the room to snap up the green blind that I realized part of her strangeness came from being empty-handed.

I opened my mouth to ask for my breakfast tray, but silenced myself immediately. The nurse would be mistaking me for somebody else. New nurses often did that. Somebody in Belsize must be having shock treatments, unknown to me, and the nurse had, quite understandably, confused me with her.

I waited until the nurse had made her little circuit of my room, patting, straightening, arranging, and taken the next tray in to Loubelle one door farther down the hall.

Then I shoved my feet into my slippers, dragging my blanket with me, for the morning was bright, but very cold, and crossed quickly to the kitchen. The pink-uniformed maid was filling a row of blue china coffee pitchers from a great, battered kettle on the stove.

I looked with love at the lineup of waiting trays—the white paper napkins, folded in their crisp, isosceles triangles, each under the anchor of its silver fork, the pale domes of soft-boiled eggs in the blue egg cups, the scalloped glass shells of orange marmalade. All I had to do was reach out and claim my tray, and the world would be perfectly normal.

“There's been a mistake,” I told the maid, leaning over the counter and speaking in a low, confidential tone. “The new nurse forgot to bring me in my breakfast tray today.”

I managed a bright smile, to show there were no hard feelings.

“What's the name?”

“Greenwood. Esther Greenwood.”

“Greenwood, Greenwood, Greenwood.” The maid's warty index finger slid down the list of names of the patients in Belsize tacked upon the kitchen wall. “Greenwood, no breakfast today.”

I caught the rim of the counter with both hands.

“There must be a mistake. Are you sure it's Greenwood?”

“Greenwood,” the maid said decisively as the nurse came in.

The nurse looked questioningly from me to the maid. “Miss Greenwood wanted her tray,” the maid said, avoiding my eyes.

“Oh,” the nurse smiled at me, “you'll be getting your tray later on this morning, Miss Greenwood. You…”

But I didn't wait to hear what the nurse said. I strode blindly out into the hall, not to my room, because that was where they would come to get me, but to the alcove, greatly inferior to the alcove at Caplan, but an alcove, nevertheless, in a quiet corner of the hall,where Joan and Loubelle and DeeDee and Mrs. Savage would not come.

I curled up in the far corner of the alcove with the blanket over my head. It wasn't the shock treatment that struck me, so much as the bare-faced treachery of Doctor Nolan. I liked Doctor Nolan, I loved her, I had given her my trust on a platter and told her everything, and she had promised, faithfully, to warn me ahead of time if ever I had to have another shock treatment.

If she had told me the night before I would have lain awake all night, of course, full of dread and foreboding, but by morning I would have been composed and ready. I would have gone down the hall between two nurses, past DeeDee and Loubelle and Mrs. Savage and Joan, with dignity, like a person coolly resigned to execution.

The nurse bent over me and called my name.

I pulled away and crouched farther into the corner. The nurse disappeared. I knew she would return, in a minute, with two burly men attendants, and they would bear me, howling and hitting, past the smiling audience now gathered in the lounge.

Doctor Nolan put her arm around me and hugged me like a mother.

“You said you'd tell me!” I shouted at her through the dishevelled blanket.

“But I am telling you,” Doctor Nolan said. “I've come specially early to tell you, and I'm taking you over myself.”

I peered at her through swollen lids. “Why didn't you tell me last night?”

“I only thought it would keep you awake. If I'd known…”

“You said you'd tell me.”

“Listen, Esther,” Doctor Nolan said. “I'm going over with you. I'll be there the whole time, so everything will happen right, the way I promised. I'll be there when you wake up, and I'll bring you back again.”

I looked at her. She seemed very upset.

I waited a minute. Then I said, “Promise you'll be there.”

“I promise.”

Doctor Nolan took out a white handkerchief and wiped my face. Then she hooked her arm in my arm, like an old friend, and helped me up, and we started down the hall. My blanket tangled about my feet, so I let it drop, but Doctor Nolan didn't seem to notice. We passed Joan, coming out of her room, and I gave her a meaning, disdainful smile and she ducked back and waited until we had gone by.

Then Doctor Nolan unlocked a door at the end of the hall and led me down a flight of stairs into the mysterious basement corridors that linked, in an elaborate network of tunnels and burrows, all the various buildings of the hospital.

The walls were bright, white lavatory tile with bald bulbs set at intervals in the black ceiling. Stretchers and wheelchairs were beached here and there against the hissing, knocking pipes that ran and branched in an intricate nervous system along the glittering walls. I hung on to Doctor Nolan's arm like death, and every so often she gave me an encouraging squeeze.

Finally, we stopped at a green door with Electrotherapy printed on it in black letters. I held back, and Doctor Nolan waited. Then I said, “Let's get it over with,” and we went in.

The only people in the waiting room besides Doctor Nolan and me were a pallid man in a shabby maroon bathrobe and his accompanying nurse.

“Do you want to sit down?” Doctor Nolan pointed at a wooden bench, but my legs felt full of heaviness, and I thought how hard it would be to hoist myself from a sitting position when the shock treatment people came in.

“I'd rather stand.”

At last a tall, cadaverous woman in a white smock entered the room from an inner door. I thought that she would go up and take the man in the maroon bathrobe, as he was first, so I was surprised when she came toward me.

“Good morning, Doctor Nolan,” the woman said, putting her arm around my shoulders. “Is this Esther?”

“Yes, Miss Huey. Esther, this is Miss Huey, she'll take good care of you. I've told her about you.”

I thought the woman must be seven feet tall. She bent over me in a kind way, and I could see that her face, with the buck teeth protruding in the center, had at one time been badly pitted with acne. It looked like maps of the craters on the moon.

“I think we can take you right away, Esther,” Miss Huey said. “Mr. Anderson won't mind waiting, will you, Mr. Anderson?”

Mr. Anderson didn't say a word, so with Miss Huey's arm around my shoulder, and Doctor Nolan following, I moved into the next room.

Through the slits of my eyes, which I didn't dare open too far, lest the full view strike me dead, I saw the high bed with its white, drumtight sheet, and the machine behind the bed, and the masked person—I couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman—behind the machine, and other masked people flanking the bed on both sides.

Miss Huey helped me climb up and lie down on my back.

“Talk to me,” I said.

Miss Huey began to talk in a low, soothing voice, smoothing the salve on my temples and fitting the small electric buttons on either side of my head. “You'll be perfectly all right, you won't feel a thing, just bite down…” And she set something on my tongue and in panic I bit down, and darkness wiped me out like chalk on a blackboard.

“今天是你的幸運(yùn)日哦。”

年輕護(hù)士收走我的早餐盤，我繼續(xù)裹著白毯子，像個在輪船甲板上吹海風(fēng)的旅客。

“為什么這么說？”

“嗯，不曉得該不該現(xiàn)在就告訴你，今天你就要搬到貝爾賽思樓了。”護(hù)士滿眼期待地看著我。

“貝爾賽思樓。”我說，“我不能去那里。”

“為什么？”

“我還沒準(zhǔn)備好。我恢復(fù)得還不夠好。”

“你當(dāng)然夠好了。別擔(dān)心，要是你不夠好，他們不會讓你搬過去。”

護(hù)士走后，我開始苦苦思索諾蘭醫(yī)生這一新動作是怎么回事。她想證明什么？我根本沒有變化。一切都沒有變化。貝爾賽思是療養(yǎng)院里最好的大樓，離開貝爾賽思的人就可以重回工作崗位，重回學(xué)校，重回家庭。

瓊應(yīng)該在貝爾賽思樓，她和她的物理書、高爾夫球桿、羽毛球拍、帶著氣音的聲音一起住在那兒。瓊，代表的就是我和即將康復(fù)的人之間的那道鴻溝。自打她離開卡普蘭樓后，我就從各種小道消息隨時了解她的進(jìn)展。

瓊有了散步權(quán)，瓊有了購物權(quán)，瓊有了進(jìn)城權(quán)。我將搜集到的所有關(guān)于瓊的消息聚攏成一個令我感到苦澀的小堆，盡管我表面上為她高興。她就像以前最美時光的我，是故意來這里跟蹤、折磨我的。

等我到貝爾賽思樓，她可能已經(jīng)走了。

不過，至少在貝爾賽思樓可以忘了電擊?？ㄆ仗m樓里很多女人都受過電擊治療，我能看出誰做過，因為她們不像我們其他人這樣有人送早餐來。我們在房間吃早餐的時候，她們在接受電擊。做完后，護(hù)士像領(lǐng)著一隊小孩一樣，帶著安靜不語、死氣沉沉的她們?nèi)バ菹d吃早餐。

每天清晨，聽見護(hù)士敲門送早餐的聲音，我心中都感到一陣洶涌澎湃的安慰，因為我知道那一天我安全了。我不明白諾蘭醫(yī)生自己沒經(jīng)歷過電擊治療，憑什么說做電擊的時候可以睡著。她又怎么會知道被電擊的人并不像表面上看到的睡著的樣子，其實從始至終病人的腦中都是藍(lán)色的電流和巨響？

走廊盡頭傳來鋼琴聲。

晚餐時，我靜靜地坐著，聽貝爾賽思樓的女人們嘰嘰喳喳。她們都打扮入時，妝容精致，有幾個已經(jīng)結(jié)了婚。有些人剛進(jìn)城購物回來，有些則外出訪過友，整個晚餐期間她們都不停地說著她們的私房笑話。

“我會給杰克打電話。”一個名叫蒂蒂的女人說，“只怕他不在家。當(dāng)然嘍，我知道可以打去哪里找他，他一定會在那兒。”

我同桌一個矮小活潑的女人笑著說：“我今天差點就搞定了羅林醫(yī)生。”她睜著炯炯有神的藍(lán)色眼睛，活像個洋娃娃，“我不介意用老波希換個新款式。”

在房間的另一頭，瓊狼吞虎咽地吃著斯帕姆午餐肉和焗番茄，胃口好得很。她似乎跟這些女人很合得來，對我卻冷冰冰的，還帶著點鄙夷，她似乎是把我當(dāng)成一個遲鈍的熟人，高攀不上她。

吃過晚餐我打算去睡覺，可正好聽見了鋼琴聲，腦海中浮現(xiàn)瓊、蒂蒂、金發(fā)女人羅貝爾和其他女人在客廳里背著我講我閑話、肆意嘲笑我的畫面。她們會說貝爾賽思樓有我這種人多可怕啊，我應(yīng)該待在威瑪克樓才對。

我決定讓她們閉上鳥嘴。

把毯子往肩上一披，當(dāng)成個松松垮垮的披肩，我沿著走廊慢慢踱向那片燈火和歡聲笑語。

這個夜晚接下來的時間，我都在聽蒂蒂用那臺大鋼琴自彈自唱，其他女人則圍坐一圈打牌聊天，就像在大學(xué)宿舍里一樣。只是她們多半超出大學(xué)年齡十歲。

其中有個叫薩維奇太太的，身材高大，頭發(fā)灰白，聲音低沉，畢業(yè)于名校瓦薩爾學(xué)院。我一眼就看出她是社交名媛，因為她談的都是少女初入社交界的各種逸事。據(jù)說她有兩三個女兒，就在她們即將進(jìn)入社交圈的那年，她自愿進(jìn)了精神病院，毀了女兒們的初次派對。

蒂蒂創(chuàng)作了首名為《送牛奶工》的歌。大家一直說她應(yīng)該拿去發(fā)表，一定會成為暢銷歌曲。她的雙手先在琴鍵上敲出一小段旋律，像小馬慢跑的嗒嗒聲，接著另一段旋律加入，像送奶工在吹口哨，最后兩段旋律合二為一。

“真好聽。”我以閑聊的口吻說。

瓊靠在鋼琴的一角，翻閱著一本剛出版的時尚雜志，蒂蒂抬頭沖她一笑，仿佛二人之間有什么心照不宣的秘密。

“哦，埃斯特，”瓊舉起那本雜志，說，“這不是你嗎？”

蒂蒂停下演奏。“讓我看看。”她拿走雜志，看著瓊指出的那頁，然后瞧了我一眼。

“哦，不會吧。”蒂蒂說，“肯定不是。”她又看看雜志，再看看我，“絕不可能！”

“但那就是埃斯特，對不對，埃斯特？”瓊說。

羅貝爾和薩維奇太太裊娜而來，我強(qiáng)裝信心十足，跟著她們一起走向鋼琴。

雜志照片上的女孩穿著毛茸茸的白色無肩帶晚禮服，笑得嘴巴簡直要裂開，身邊一群男生眾星拱月似的圍著她。那女孩手里端著一杯透明飲料，眼神似乎越過我的肩膀，注視著立在我身后稍偏左的什么東西。一陣微弱的氣息吹過我的后頸，我旋即轉(zhuǎn)過身。

夜班護(hù)士不知何時進(jìn)來了，穿著軟底膠鞋，沒人注意到。

“別開玩笑了。”她說，“真是你嗎？”

“不，不是我。瓊完全搞錯了。那是別人。”

“哦，說吧，是你！”蒂蒂嚷嚷道。我假裝沒聽見，轉(zhuǎn)過身去。羅貝爾求護(hù)士跟她們一起打牌，因為這會兒正好三缺一。盡管對橋牌一竅不通，我還是拉了張椅子在一旁觀看。大學(xué)里我可沒時間學(xué)這些富家女玩的東西。

我一邊看著國王、杰克和王后拉長的撲克臉，一邊聽著護(hù)士大吐生活的苦水。“你們這些女士哪里知道打兩份工的辛苦。”她說，“晚上我在這里照看你們……”

羅貝爾咯咯笑道：“哦，我們可乖了。我們是這么多人里最乖的，你知道。”

“對，你們很棒。”護(hù)士把一包綠薄荷口香糖分給大家，然后打開自己手上那片的錫紙，拿出一片粉紅色的口香糖，“你們都很棒，是那些州立醫(yī)院的笨蛋讓我疲于奔命。”

“這么說，你在兩個地方工作？”我忽然很有興趣。

“可不。”護(hù)士直直看著我，我看得出來，她覺得我根本沒資格待在貝爾賽思樓。“你絕對不會喜歡待在那種地方的，簡女士。”

她明明知道我的名字，可是卻叫我簡女士，真是奇怪。

“為什么呢？”我追問。

“哦，那里可不比這里舒服。這里就像正規(guī)的鄉(xiāng)村俱樂部，而那里什么都沒有，沒有專業(yè)治療，不能散步……”

“為什么不能散步？”

“缺人——手——啊。”護(hù)士手里的牌占了先機(jī)，羅貝爾發(fā)出哀嘆。護(hù)士接著說：“相信我，小姐們，只要存夠了買車的銀子，我就不干了。”

“連這里也不做了？”瓊問。

“還用說么。以后只接私活，而且想接的時候才接……”

可我已經(jīng)聽不下去了。

我覺得這個護(hù)士是被派來暗示我的，給了我兩條出路。要么我好轉(zhuǎn)，要么我沉淪下去，一直沉淪，像一顆燃燒殆盡最終崩塌的星星，從貝爾賽思落到卡普蘭，再落到威瑪克。最終，當(dāng)諾蘭醫(yī)生和吉尼亞夫人也放棄我時，就落到隔壁的州立療養(yǎng)院去了。

我裹緊身上的毯子，將椅子向后推。

“冷啦？”護(hù)士粗聲問道。

“對。”我說著朝走廊走去，“我快凍僵了。”

我在白色的繭中醒來，溫暖而平靜。鏡子、柜子上的眼鏡和金屬門把上映出一道蒼白卻炫目的冬日陽光。廚房女工正在準(zhǔn)備早餐，嘈雜的聲音透過走廊傳來。

我聽見護(hù)士在敲著隔壁的房門，那是走廊盡頭了。薩維奇太太睡意濃濃的聲音隆隆作響，護(hù)士端著早餐盤，叮里當(dāng)啷地走了進(jìn)去。我?guī)е臍g喜，期待熱氣騰騰的藍(lán)瓷咖啡壺、藍(lán)瓷早餐杯和那只繪有白色雛菊的藍(lán)瓷奶油罐。

我開始放棄自己了。

即使我會沉淪，起碼先把握當(dāng)下這小小的慰藉，有多久算多久。

護(hù)士敲了敲門，沒等我應(yīng)門，就一陣風(fēng)似的進(jìn)來了。

今天是個新護(hù)士——這里的人總是換來換去——清瘦的臉和頭發(fā)都是淺褐色的，骨感的鼻子上有斑斑點點的大雀斑。不知為什么，她的出現(xiàn)讓我心里一慌。我看著她大步穿過房間，打開綠色百葉窗，才突然意識到，這種奇怪的感覺是因為她兩手空空。

我想開口問她我的早餐呢，但隨即閉上了嘴，她可能把我錯認(rèn)成別人了，新護(hù)士總是這樣。貝爾賽思樓里一定有我不認(rèn)識的人在進(jìn)行電擊治療，這護(hù)士把我和其他病人搞混了，這倒情有可原。

我一直等著。護(hù)士在我房里巡了一圈，拍拍這里，扯扯那里，整理一下東西，然后拿著早餐托盤走向長廊的下一個門，那是羅貝爾的病房。

我把腳塞進(jìn)拖鞋，拽著毯子——早上天氣雖然晴朗，卻非常冷——快速走到對門的廚房。穿著粉色制服的女幫工正把爐子上一只破舊大茶壺里的液體灌入一排藍(lán)瓷咖啡壺中。

我深情款款地注視著列隊等候的托盤——白色的餐巾紙，折成簡潔的等邊三角形，上面擺著銀叉子，半熟的水煮蛋從藍(lán)色蛋杯里露出白色的圓頂，扇貝形的玻璃碟子里盛著橙子果醬。我只要伸出手去，拿起屬于我的托盤，世界就會恢復(fù)如常。

“一定是搞錯了。”我靠著柜臺，用親密的口吻低聲對女幫工說，“新來的護(hù)士今天忘了把早餐拿到我房間。”

我擠出一個開朗的笑容，表示我沒有生氣。

“你的名字？”

“格林伍德。埃斯特·格林伍德。”

“格林伍德，格林伍德，格林伍德。”女幫工伸出布滿腫疣的食指，一路掃過墻上那張貝爾賽思樓病人名單，“格林伍德，今天沒有早餐。”

我雙手抓住柜臺邊緣。

“一定是弄錯了。你確定是格林伍德沒有早餐？”

“格林伍德。”女幫工堅定地說。正在此時，護(hù)士進(jìn)來了。

她狐疑地看看我，又看看女幫工。“格林伍德小姐要拿她的早餐。”女幫工避開我的目光，告訴護(hù)士。

“哦。”護(hù)士笑著對我說，“你今天遲點吃早餐，格林伍德小姐。你……”

沒等護(hù)士說完，我就沒頭沒腦地沖入走廊。我沒回房間，因為會被他們抓住，我去了走廊上的內(nèi)凹室。雖然這里遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)比不上卡普蘭樓的內(nèi)凹室，但好歹是走廊上的一個僻靜角落，瓊、羅貝爾、蒂蒂和薩維奇太太都不會來這里。

我用毯子蒙住頭，蜷縮在內(nèi)凹室的角落。真正打擊我的不是電擊治療，而是諾蘭醫(yī)生公然的背叛。我喜歡諾蘭醫(yī)生，敬愛她，我對她推心置腹，傾訴一切，她也信誓旦旦跟我保證，如果非得做電擊治療，一定會事先通知我。

如果她昨晚告訴我，我一定會徹夜難眠，忐忑不安，心中充滿不祥的預(yù)感，但一夜過后，我應(yīng)該已經(jīng)鎮(zhèn)定下來，準(zhǔn)備妥當(dāng)。當(dāng)兩名護(hù)士挾著我穿過走廊，經(jīng)過蒂蒂、羅貝爾、薩維奇太太和瓊的門前時，我會保持尊嚴(yán)，冷靜地奔赴“刑場”。

護(hù)士彎下腰，喚我的名字。

我挪動身體，又往角落里縮了縮。護(hù)士走了，我知道她馬上就會帶著兩個身材魁梧的男看護(hù)過來，架著我走過休息廳里那群微笑的看客，任憑我一路嘶喊掙扎。

諾蘭醫(yī)生像母親一樣伸手抱住我。

“你說你會提前告訴我！”我躲在一團(tuán)凌亂的毯子里對她吼道。

“我就是來告訴你的呀。”諾蘭醫(yī)生說，“我特地一大早來跟你說，而且我會親自陪你過去。”

我睜開浮腫的眼皮盯著她。“昨晚為什么不告訴我？”

“我怕你會睡不著。要是早知道……”

“你說過，你會提前告訴我的。”

“聽我說，埃斯特。”諾蘭醫(yī)生說，“我會陪你去，全程在場，一切都會像我保證過的那樣進(jìn)行。你醒來時就會看見我，我會把你帶回來。”

我看著她，她一臉憂心。

等了一會兒，我說：“答應(yīng)我，你會一直陪著我。”

“我保證。”

諾蘭醫(yī)生拿出一條白手帕擦擦我的臉，然后像老朋友一般挽起我的手臂，扶我起身，走向長廊。毯子糾纏在我腳邊，我索性丟開它，不過諾蘭醫(yī)生似乎并未注意到。我們走過瓊的房間，她正好出來，我對她露出一個意味深長的冷笑，她急忙躲回房去等著我們走遠(yuǎn)。

諾蘭醫(yī)生打開長廊盡頭的一扇房門，領(lǐng)我走下臺階，進(jìn)入神秘的地下通道。通道里有許多復(fù)雜的地道和洞穴，像張網(wǎng)一樣連接著療養(yǎng)院的各棟建筑。

通道墻壁貼著洗手間用的光面白瓷磚，黑色天花板上間隔有序地掛著光禿禿的燈泡。隨處可見擔(dān)架和輪椅靠在嘶嘶震動的管子上，管子沿著白亮的墻面延伸、分岔，形成一個復(fù)雜的神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)圖案。我嚇得半死，緊緊攀著諾蘭醫(yī)生的手臂，她不時捏捏我，給我打氣。

最后，我們停在一扇綠色的門前，門上印有黑色字體：電擊治療室。我裹足不前，諾蘭醫(yī)生耐心等著。然后我說：“做就做吧。”我們一起走了進(jìn)去。

等候區(qū)里除了諾蘭醫(yī)生和我，還有一個面色慘白、穿著破舊紫褐色浴袍的男子和他的隨行護(hù)士。

“要不要坐著等？”諾蘭醫(yī)生指著一張木質(zhì)長椅，但我的雙腿重得像灌了鉛一樣，坐下容易，等電療人員進(jìn)來帶我時，站起來就難了。

“還是站著好了。”

終于，一個穿著白色工作服、一臉憔悴的高個子女人從里屋走出來。我以為她會帶走那個穿紫褐色浴袍的男人，因為他排在我前面，所以她向我走來的時候我真的很吃驚。

“早上好，諾蘭醫(yī)生。”女人說著，伸手?jǐn)堊∥业募绨颍?ldquo;這就是埃斯特吧？”

“沒錯，休伊小姐。埃斯特，這位是休伊小姐，她會好好照顧你的，我把你的情況都跟她說了。”

我想，這位休伊女士的身高足有七英尺。她親切地彎下腰，我看見她的臉，暴突的門牙在中間突出，臉上都是青春痘疤，看起來就像是月球上的環(huán)形山分布圖。

“我想我們可以先給你做，埃斯特。”休伊小姐說，“安德森先生不會介意稍等一下的，是不是，安德森先生？”

安德森先生沒回答，于是休伊小姐摟著我的肩膀走進(jìn)隔壁房間，諾蘭醫(yī)生緊隨其后。

從瞇起的眼縫中——我不敢把眼睛睜得太大，怕一下子看清房間會嚇?biāo)雷约?mdash;—我看見一張高架床，白色床單緊繃如鼓面，床后就是機(jī)器，有個人站在機(jī)器后面——戴著口罩辨不出男女——床兩側(cè)也站了幾個戴口罩的人。

休伊小姐扶我爬上床，幫我仰面躺好。

“跟我說話。”我說。

休伊小姐一邊輕聲細(xì)語安撫我，一邊將軟膏涂在我太陽穴上，然后在我頭兩側(cè)貼上小小的電流片。“你絕對不會有事的，什么感覺也沒有。來，咬住……”她往我舌頭上塞了個東西，我驚恐地咬住。黑暗將我像黑板上的粉筆字一樣擦去。