Fletcher Flora - Desperate Asylum

“Do you deny the possibility of any kind of correction?”

“In my case, I deny it. Last December in Miami I honestly thought that it might be possible, and I have tried to go on thinking it, but now I am sure that it is not so.”

“Have you never loved anyone at all, Lisa?”

“Are you sure you want me to answer that? I told you that I am very tired and worn out with pretending. If I answer, I will tell you the truth.”

“I wish you would.”

She had not looked at him since he had sat down beside her. She did not look at him now. She continued to start out across the river valley to the ridge on the other side, and the light had now left the crest, and the darkening air swelled and collapsed and swelled again with the persistent rhythm of the unseen cicadas in the listless trees.

“Very well, then,” she said. “I have loved more than once with an ardor that would surprise you. In the beginning there was a girl named Alison, and it was a long time ago. It seems to me, anyhow, like a long time. She was tall and slim and strong and very good at games and things like that, and it was my opinion that she was the most wonderful person who had ever been born or was ever likely to be born. I loved her very much, and for a while she loved me too, but then she didn’t love me any more, and this was because of something that happened. I wrote her a note and lost it, and someone found it, a teacher in the school we went to, and that was the end of it, of course, and it was all my fault. She said that I was careless about the note, which was true, and I didn’t blame her for being angry, and I still don’t blame her. No one understood about it, and we were treated like criminals, and it isn’t right for someone like her to be treated that way. I would have given up everyone else for her sake, the whole world, but she said that I was a fool and that she never wanted to see me again. It wasn’t quite that way, however. I did see her many times afterward, but we were like strangers, and it was far worse than not seeing her at all. Do you want me to go on?”

“I’m not sure that I understand what you are trying to tell me.”

“I think you are. I think you are very sure. Later, one summer at a lake, there was someone else. It didn’t amount to much. It was just something that happened in the summer and was not expected to last or to mean any more than it obviously did. After that there was no one else for quite a long time, but I was often very depressed, and it was then, sometimes during that period, that I took the barbiturates but did not die. I wanted to die, I believe I was sincere in that, but I did not want to do any of the things that would have made dying certain, and after the attempt which failed I did not try again. Eventually I was glad for a while that I hadn’t succeeded in dying, however, for I was in college then, Midland City College, and there was a teacher there who taught French. She was French herself, I believe, or had been born in France at least, and she was very sleek and sophisticated, and all the men in her class were excited about her, which was a great joke on them that they never understood. It was wonderful with her at first, as if I had been lifted to a new, exhilarating life, but it couldn’t last long because of circumstances. Because of her position in the college, I mean. You can see that, of course. The perils were multiplied, and the consequences of exposure were far too severe to be risked indefinitely. I have found that nothing can survive in the shadow of a constant threat. Nothing on earth has the strength for that.”

She stopped and waited and was apparently listening for some sound in the hot dusk, but actually she was only giving him time to say something or strike her or do what he felt impelled to do in the circumstances. She still did not look at him, but she knew that he had not moved and was still sitting with his head back against the swing, and she had a feeling that his eyes were closed and had been closed all the time she had been talking. After a while he repeated his long sigh.

“Is that all?” he said.

“No, it is not all, but perhaps it is enough.”

“I want you to tell it all.”

“All right. Just as you wish. Bella was the last. I met her in a park during a particularly bad time, and we met there two or three times afterward, and I went to live with her in her apartment. It was never very good with Bella, not like with the others, but it was better than being alone, and I stayed with her until it was no longer possible. She found out that my family had money and wanted me to help her blackmail them, and it was this that made it impossible to stay. Against my will, she contacted my brother Carl and had him come to the apartment, and he came and paid her five thousand dollars, and this was the night he took me away with him and three or four days later took me to Miami.”

He stirred and sighed again and spoke so softly that she could barely hear him.

“To meet me.”

“Yes. You were in bad luck. You probably won’t believe it, but I’m truly sorry.”

“Why did you marry me?”

“For asylum. Carl thought that marriage would eventually convert me to normalcy, that it was the only way. He had been very kind to me, and I wanted to please him. He wanted me to change, and I honestly wanted to change myself. I even convinced myself that it would be possible in the way you offered, but now I know that it is not possible and can never be accomplished. I’m sorry for the hurt I’ve done you.”

“You needn’t be. I deserve what I’ve received.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I had no capacity for marriage myself. I was using you as much as you were using me.”

“Oh, that. That’s different.”

“Yes? How?”

“Impotence can be adjusted to. Even compensated for. If only that were between us, we would have no great problem. Anyhow, it will serve no purpose now to weigh the blame. You said that yourself a little while ago, and I agree with you. The only question is, what do you intend to do about it?”

“Do? What’s to be done?”

“I must say you are taking it very calmly. Don’t you find me disgusting? Don’t you want to strike me or curse me or even kill me?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand it.”

“Maybe I am too tired. Do you think you are the only one who has ever been tired or depressed or has wanted to die?”

His voice did not rise with emotion. It was perfectly flat and lifeless. She turned her head and looked at him for the first time since his arrival, and he was sitting as she had thought he was, with his head back and his eyes closed, and his face had in the dusk the stiff, waxen look of a face that had been embalmed.

“I told you I should go away,” she said, “and now I will go.”

“Break your promise?”

“I think you are now willing to relieve me of it.”

“No. I am not.”

“Why? Do you want me to stay so that you can punish me in some way? If you do, I will not blame you.”

“I don’t want to punish you. I am in no position to assume a judicial role, God knows.”

“Then why do you want me to stay?”

“Because I am obligated by the fraud I practiced on you, which was as great, in spite of what you say, as the one you practiced on me. Because I cannot release you without first trying to help you. What does it matter? You have made a promise, and I will hold you to it.”

“You are being kind, and I wish you wouldn’t. No good has come of kindness. Carl was kind, and you can see what it has come to.”

“I will take you somewhere for treatment.”

“I won’t go. No good has come of treatment, either. If you have faith in treatment, why haven’t you sought it for yourself?”