Shutter Island(24)

We were supposed to grow old together, Dolores. Have kids. Take walks under old trees. I wanted to watch the lines etch themselves into your flesh and know when each and every one of them appeared. Die together.

Not this. Not this.

I held her, he wanted to say, and if I knew for certain that all it would take to hold her again would be to die, then I couldn’t raise the gun to my head fast enough.

Chuck was staring at him, waiting.

Teddy said, “I broke Rachel’s code.”

“Oh,” Chuck said, “is that all?”





DAY TWO



Laeddis





7


CAWLEY MET THEM in the foyer of Ward B. His clothes and face were drenched and he looked like a man who’d spent the night on a bus stop bench.

Chuck said, “The trick, Doctor, is to sleep when you lie down.”

Cawley wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Oh, is that the trick, Marshal? I knew I was forgetting something. Sleep, you say. Right.” They climbed the yellowed staircase, nodded at the orderly posted at the first landing.

“And how was Dr. Naehring this morning?” Teddy asked.

Cawley gave him a weary rise and fall of his eyebrows. “I apologize for that. Jeremiah is a genius, but he could use some social polishing. He has this idea for a book about the male warrior culture throughout history. He’s constantly bringing his obsession into conversations, trying to fit people into his preconceived models. Again, I’m sorry.”

“You guys do that a lot?”

“What’s that, Marshal?”

“Sit around over drinks and, um, probe people?”

“Occupational hazard, I guess. How many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“I don’t know. How many?”

“Eight.”

“Why?”

“Oh, stop overanalyzing it.”

Teddy caught Chuck’s eyes and they both laughed.

“Shrink humor,” Chuck said. “Who would’ve guessed?”

“You know what the state of the mental health field is these days, gentlemen?”

“Not a clue,” Teddy said.

“Warfare,” Cawley said and yawned into his damp handkerchief. “Ideological, philosophical, and yes, even psychological warfare.”

“You’re doctors,” Chuck said. “You’re supposed to play nice, share your toys.”

Cawley smiled and they passed the orderly on the second-floor landing. From somewhere below, a patient screamed, and the echo fled up the stairs toward them. It was a plaintive howl, and yet Teddy could hear the hopelessness in it, the certainty it carried that whatever it longed for was not going to be granted.

“The old school,” Cawley said, “believes in shock therapy, partial lobotomies, spa treatments for the most docile patients. Psychosurgery is what we call it. The new school is enamored of psychopharmacology. It’s the future, they say. Maybe it is. I don’t know.”

He paused, a hand on the banister, midway between the second floor and the third, and Teddy could feel his exhaustion as a living, broken thing, a fourth body in the stairwell with them.

“How does psychopharmacology apply?” Chuck asked.

Cawley said, “A drug has just been approved—lithium is its name—that relaxes psychotic patients, tames them, some would say. Manacles will become a thing of the past. Chains, handcuffs. Bars even, or so the optimists say. The old school, of course, argues that nothing will replace psychosurgery, but the new school is stronger, I think, and it will have money behind it.”

“Money from where?”

“Pharmaceutical companies, of course. Buy stock now, gentlemen, and you’ll be able to retire to your own island. New schools, old schools. My god, I do rant sometimes.”

“Which school are you?” Teddy asked gently.

“Believe it or not, Marshal, I believe in talk therapy, basic interpersonal skills. I have this radical idea that if you treat a patient with respect and listen to what he’s trying to tell you, you just might reach him.”

Another howl. Same woman, Teddy was pretty sure. It slid between them on the stairs and seemed to spike Cawley’s attention.

“But these patients?” Teddy said.

Cawley smiled. “Well, yes, many of these patients need to be medicated and some need to be manacled. No argument. But it’s a slippery slope. Once you introduce the poison into the well, how do you ever get it out of the water?”

“You don’t,” Teddy said.

He nodded. “That’s right. What should be the last resort gradually becomes standard response. And, I know, I’m mixing my metaphors. Sleep,” he said to Chuck. “Right. I’ll try that next time.”

“I’ve heard it works wonders,” Chuck said, and they headed up the final flight.

In Rachel’s room, Cawley sat heavily on the edge of her bed and Chuck leaned against the door. Chuck said, “Hey. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

Cawley looked over at him. “I’ll bite. How many?”

“Fish,” Chuck said and let loose a bright bark of a laugh.

“You’ll grow up someday, Marshal,” Cawley said. “Won’t you?”