Maud Casey - The Man Who Walked Away

“The first hysterogenic point,” the great doctor says, nodding to the hairy bear, who places his hand under the girl’s left breast. When the great doctor nods, the hairy bear presses.

The girl rises from the chair, twisting in one direction, wrapping both arms around one side of her waist; abruptly, she swings herself in the other direction, wrapping her arms around the other side of her waist. Then her muscles go limp and she falls to the floor, writhing in the sawdust shavings.

“First, the epileptoid phase marked by contractures and spasms.”

The amphitheater is illuminated by another flash. The photographer exists only for the photographs themselves, the pictures that arrive years later, like a star’s light; like a star’s light, dark around the edges, its miraculous image shining in the center. Here, the squirming figure — had she held still, mid-squirm, for one, two, three seconds? — captured.

As quickly as she fell to the floor, the girl freezes; her legs go stiff and her mouth opens, sawdust shavings speckling her hair. Flash: an image of her stiff arms by her side, her entire body gone rigid.

A few eager men clap politely.

Shhh! say the same men who knew about the monkey, those who want everyone to know they know better.

“Tonic immobility. And now, the second hysterogenic point,” the great doctor says. The hairy bear bends over, pressing the girl just below her ribs.

“Remember,” the great doctor says, “we are not dealing here with simulation.”

The girl has rolled onto her stomach, reaching behind her for her feet. Her face, a contorted mask that is no longer gratitude or love. The in-between, this is where the Doctor would like to pause; this is what he is interested in. He would like to ask the girl why she is wearing that contorted mask and what it means but stillness is not the point here. The girl has taken hold of her ankles; pulling, she becomes a bow, rocking. Then, just as quickly, the rocking stops.

Flash: an image of her with her back impossibly arched, her hair cascading behind her.

Ohhhh , says the audience, and even as he wishes for stillness, the Doctor hears himself ohhhhing too.

“The arc de cercle ,” says the great doctor. “We have arrived at the stage of large movement, in which the patient assumes contorted postures. The third hysterogenic point. .”

The hairy bear reaches underneath the girl and presses the side of her waist, and her body goes limp. Then she is scrambling to her feet again, shaking him off. As if an invisible force is acting upon her, she begins to stumble.

“I have a spider in my eye,” the girl says. Her eyes flutter; one eye fixes itself in a wink. Her movements are more and more illogical; she appears to be a jumble of limbs gathered from different bodies. A slow tremor shivers through her. She falls to her knees, hands in prayer, eyes raised. Flash: an image of her crying “Oh, God, forgive me,” as she begins to weep.

“ Attitudes passionelles ,” the great doctor says. “Here the patient reenacts past emotional events.” On her knees, the girl makes the sign of the cross. “A statue of living pain.”

With a quick jerk of her shoulders, she falls back as though someone has yanked her. She thrashes and twists. Flash: an image of her mouth making the shape for the sound the audience is making. O. Leaping to her feet, she thrusts a hip to one side and turns to the great doctor. Flash: an image of her as she says, “Get rid of the snake in your pants.”

“Eroticism,” the great doctor says.

The girl looks up into the audience. “When I am bored, all I have to do is make a red knot and look at it.”

The Doctor thinks of Marian in the courtyard the other day, turning her attention to the single red flower triumphantly blooming among the green shoots in the asylum flower garden. The sun isn’t the only thing that speaks to her: there are the trees, the benches, the figures in the stained glass, the Virgin Mary who, it turns out, is very concerned the patients are not being fed properly, and the red flower too. The red flower frustrates her because it speaks a foreign language she has not yet learned. If she could only learn it, she said, and he’d had to call one of the attendants over to prevent her from banging her head against the wall in an effort to shake the language loose. The beautiful red flower isn’t beautiful to her; it is a red knot to be undone.

“I’m not sure what we have here,” the great doctor says, aiming the same stern owly look at the girl that he had aimed at the photographer and then at the Doctor. You will be banished . Still, for a moment the Doctor thinks he may have lost control; the girl may no longer be willing.

“You don’t want any more?” she shouts.

Flash: an image of her pausing as she begins to pull something from her open mouth, from somewhere deep in her throat. The Doctor believes her entirely capable of conjuring something; he is only waiting to see what that something will turn out to be.

“Darling,” the great doctor says, as if she is his wife with whom he is having a quarrel.

The great doctor nods to the hairy bear who steps forward and puts his hand on the right side of the girl’s waist and presses.

“Mother! I am frightened.” The fierceness gone; she is just someone’s lost daughter.

“Note the emotional outburst,” says the great doctor.

“Oh, Mother!” the girl cries.

“Not quite regular as a mechanism today,” the aristocratic nose in front of the Doctor whispers to the high forehead.

“The belt,” the great doctor says to the hairy bear, who leaves the amphitheater. To the audience he says, “This is no ordinary pain.”

It is hard to tell from this distance, but the Doctor believes he sees a smile pass over the girl’s face. Certainly the girl’s pain is anything but ordinary. There is that great distance between where she began and where she has arrived; underneath the surface pattern that allows for the great doctor’s diagnosis, the messier life.

“The ovary compressor,” the great doctor announces when the hairy bear returns with a device comprised of a leather strap and a screw. “It may be directed at a particular hysterogenic point, then loosened or tightened as needed.” The hairy bear secures the belt around the girl’s slender hips, pulling it tight, turning the screw to secure it, and slowly, very slowly, she begins to list from side to side, a metronome: tock, tock, tock . Slower and slower. Tock. Tock. Tock.

“She may enter the withdrawal phase now. This phase can last for hours. Even days. The belt will give her a bit of peace.”

The girl’s movement has become so slow it is almost imperceptible.

“But she can’t wear it forever,” the great doctor says.

The hairy bear hoists her up on the stretcher, where she goes completely still. Her light has gone out. Once again, she appears to be sleeping; once again, she appears to be shrinking.

The monkey thumps against the door.

“The regularity of a mechanism,” the great doctor says. The monkey or the girl? the Doctor wants to ask.

“He is amazing,” Monsieur Eager whispers.

As much as he wishes for the girl to rise from the stretcher, as much as he is puzzled by what has just happened, the Doctor can’t deny it.

“Oh, Mother,” the girl says again, lifting her head, then laying it down again.

Flash: an image of the girl collapsed, arms hanging by her side, her eyes looking back over her shoulder. Then the hairy bear wheels her out of the amphitheater, the girl’s look still a dare: Take a photograph. Here I am.

The keening that comes next fills the amphitheater. It might be a tree falling; it has that momentum, the sense of anticipation in advance of something inevitable and loud. It is the girl, the Doctor thinks. It is the sound of her very soul. The great doctor will be proven wrong — the soul does not have the regularity of a mechanism, it is not so easily described after all. Even as he thinks this, he realizes it is a childish wish.