The Address(61)

“Five years, I think. Non lo so, time gets lost here.”

The blood drained from Sara’s head. She wouldn’t make it another week, never mind five years. “Why were you sent here?”

“I stole some jam from my employer, a rich signora on Twentieth Street. I worked as her kitchen maid. My kids were sick; I could sell it for their medicine. She searched me and found it, and when I told her what I thought of her stingy ways, she had me committed.”

“How could she do that? You seem perfectly normal to me.”

“I see that in you as well. How are you here?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I’d been feeling off the past month or so.” A hand went to her belly, a reflex. “I work for a large apartment house, and when a necklace went missing, they insisted I’d taken it. But I have no memory of it. How can that be?”

“You seem sano di mente to me. Very good, very smart.”

Natalia’s bright comment lifted her spirits. “I feel that way as well. I’m going to explain that to the doctor today.”

Natalia stopped. “Best not to. They don’t like the idea that they are wrong.”

“But I can’t stay here another minute.”

“Take care.” Natalia blew into her cupped hands, the spectral steam escaping through her fingers. “If you make a fuss, they put you in the Retreat or the Lodge. You don’t want that.”

“What happens there?”

“They’re the wards where they put the worst, most violent patients. You’re in danger if you end up there.”

“I won’t be violent. That’s the whole point. I’ll be civil and logical. I’ll show them that I’m sound of mind.”

Natalia didn’t respond. Another bell rang. “We go inside.”

As they retreated back inside, a thought occurred to Sara. “What happened to your children?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do they know that you’re here?”

“Probably no. I didn’t even know where they were taking me.”

“Nor did I.” If she had known, could she have done anything to change the mystifying turn of events? If she’d kicked and screamed, she would have ended up in jail. Poor Natalia, having to leave her children to fend for themselves. She struggled for something kind to say. “You speak quite good English.”

“I listened carefully, picked it up fast when I came from Italy.”

They stood in a line behind the other inmates funneling back inside the octagon. Like hens going back to the henhouse. “It’s wrong, what they’ve done. To you and to me. An injustice.”

Natalia laughed. “Do you think we band together, fight back? No good.”

“We must do something.”

“Others have tried.”

“How?”

Natalia made a motion with her arms. “Swim across, to escape. Drowned.”

Sara looked back at the frigid expanse. Even in summer, powerful currents roiled the brackish water, as if giant sea serpents thrashed just below the surface.

They were getting nearer to the door, and Sara was reluctant to enter. It was such a comfort to speak with someone, someone who understood. Ahead of them, a young girl with matted hair and a sweet face garbled out a song.

“An idiot. We have many,” said Natalia. The girl’s song faded out into a hum. “But at least she doesn’t know where she is. I am jealous, sometimes.”

Lunch was a chunk of rancid beef, eaten with the hands due to the lack of a knife or fork, one boiled potato, a bowl of soup, and another piece of bread. Sara was so hungry by then and chilled from the cold walk that she ate and drank as much as she could, trying not to look at the greenish tinge of the bread crust. The strength in her appetite gave her hope for her general health, as the past couple of weeks she’d been unable to eat much and figured that had contributed to her mental lapses.

The work assignments that were handed out at the end of the meal offered a chance to move around and get the blood flowing again. Sara was assigned to scrub the octagon’s stairways with a half dozen others. Nurses handed over buckets and brushes, and the women spread out, each taking a landing and a stair. Although the water made her fingers cold, the joints in her shoulders and knees welcomed the activity. She looked up at the skylight high above her. Theo would have appreciated the grand Ionic columns that lined the balconies.

“Keep on scrubbing.”

A nurse glared at her from the balcony above. Sara went back to her work, and even though her staircase was finished in thirty minutes, she noticed the other women stayed at it, going over what they had scrubbed before, so she did the same. It wouldn’t do to attract attention by announcing that the job was done. As she was working on the lower steps, a couple of nurses walked by.

“Superintendent Dent is due in an hour. Dr. Fields said to lock up the noisy ones until he’s gone.”

“They’ll miss supper.”

“No matter. There’ll be another meal tomorrow.” At this she laughed. It was Nurse Garelick, and she caught Sara staring.

“What are you looking at?” She stepped over and placed a dirty boot on the step Sara had been working on. “Clean that up, will ya?”

The other nurse guffawed and they walked away. Superintendent Dent. Sara would pick her moment and approach him, tell her story. Even though she was no longer wearing black silk, and her hair was braided down her back like a schoolgirl’s, she still had the accent and the countenance of a good English girl. She’d stop him in his tracks, raise one eyebrow, and ask for a private moment. It had always worked before, and she knew it was best to do so now, as a fresh arrival.