Spring of a Down - 17
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The lunatic is on the floor.[1] In the hospital of the insane. But who is to say what sane is? A war convulsed. Everyone else is an inmate from an asylum.[2]
The lunatic’s name, when she had a real one, was forgotten. Now she lies on her back staring at the white ceiling. It was a quiet place: Затишок.[3]
Outside, an attenuated woman watched, but not long, because there was the outer door to answer. Her name was Daryna.[4] The woman was the only one here. The button said she was the head nurse. There was the throng of clanging. Got to keep the lunatics on the path, both inside and outside. She weaved through patients who were free to go about through the halls. She knew not to skitter as she turned the corner. Instead, she changed to a plodded, not dashed.[5] If the patient and herself were going to have been killed, a few minutes would not deaden relationships.
Pressure is what the nurse felt.[6] Pressure to keep all the lives alive and living. It was the pressure of having loaded guns to your face.[7] It was a tap-dance as a crusade.[8] What does it mean?[9]
She entered into the reception area and looked out the door. She did not recognize the 3 men, but she saw the Latin alphabet on various points on the grey-brown jumpsuits. She decided to open it.
The tallest man, white with stubble and jet-black hair spoke first: “Do you speak English?”
She nodded; English was now the lingua franca of the civilized world. She learned it in Lyons.
He continued: “We are from France 24 on the English side of the fence. Can we come in?”
The three men looked in intensely. The only thing that surprised her was one of them was dark from Africa – which was not seen in Ukraine by most - it had actually been a subterranean hint to trust. The shortest man had beside his hips a TV camera and a pair of mikes. He was also the one looking at everything. The debris made a statement.[10] The nurse kept the key to the inner door – patients would be a horror in the room.
She gestured to come in. Inside were debris and shatter pictures slung through the reception area. The was a fragmented glass in that room, once upon a time, where the on-duty nurse direct the flow of traffic and dispense the meds. That was years and years ago in February. The glass had been shattered the first night along with the staff resigning en masse.
She then composed herself, with the grace under pressure that she had made it her practice since the conflict. It had not had any distant early warning to sound the red alert.[11]
“What may I do for you? The patients do not give interviews and I am short-staffed at the moment.”
The tallest man looked a little sheepish and started, seemingly off on a tangent: “We came to look at the carnage the invading force left.”
“My concern is the hospital which I have to keep running. Please hurry up.”
The cameraman interrupted: “We saw purple coffins over which the mourners were praying.”
The nurse said: “The first thing is to bury the dead.” She looked at her large crystal watch. It did not fit well.
The tallest man continued: “They told us about Kateryna who was in her.”
“Yes. I say it again: the patient does not give interviews.”
The tall man said: “We just want a picture.”
The cameraman said: “From outside.”
This, though none of the visitors knew it, placed the nurse under pressure. Time had come to make the call. “Come with me.” She glanced into a looking glass on the table.[12] She saw that she was not a child anymore.[13]
She unlocked the inner sanctum et sanctorum and waited for the trio to walk in.
She turned to them mechanically.
“First, I must thank you for not killing or raping us. I fear that you might be Russians in disguise.”
The tall man said: “We have heard this before.”
She then plodded up the stairs and the crew flowed her. They moved to the third floor down the hall passed many doors. Each with a small window with steel grates. In most of the, there was a patient in some sort of disarray. Each was different but all the same.
Then she stopped in front of a door. It was no different from the rest.
But the patient inside was different: instead of wearing the white habit of the rest of the patients, Kateryna was in a deep blue dress, frilly in its attire. She was bent down on her knees and her lips moving to a prayer. She was fatter than most but then that was not saying much. Her cheeks were sunken. Clearly, she was on an enforced diet. She did not move except for once to glance out the small window in the door. Then she resumed praying.
The cameraman focused his light reader and then picked up his broadcaster. He then took a series of pictures by the dozen. He told the tall man: “It is good.”
The tall man turned to the nurse and asked: “What can we do for you?”
She thought carefully.
“Call the people at the center for psychiatric care in Kyiv and tell them to send the normal requirements to take away the patients when it is safe. Tell them we have friends here to feed and care for them, but the time grows extremely limited.”
“We can do that. You will transfer them?”
She looked down at her light grey shoes and then looked up.
“No, I will be going with the other patients.”
[1] Pink Floyd, “Brain Damage”
[2] Billy Joel, “Goodnight Saigon.”
[3] Protected from the wind.
[4] Дарина - The gift of God.
[5] Dasha is diminutive.
[6] All of the “Pressure” references are to Joel, “Pressure.”
[7] Joel, “Pressure.”
[8] Joel, “Pressure.”
[9] Joel, “Pressure.”
[10] Title.
[11] Rush, "Distant Early Warning"
[12] Allusion to Styx, “Suite Madame Blue”
[13] Allusion to Styx, “Suite Madame Blue”