Bee Season (34 page)

“You’ve been cleared,” she warbles. “Go out through the door you came in and follow the sidewalk to the left until you reach Building 3. You’ll have to buzz to be admitted, but they’re expecting you.” Saul nods his thanks, hurries out into the sun.

When another melodious voice greets him through the intercom, Saul can’t help but wonder if the ability to sound perpetually perky is part of the job description. The voice makes it too easy to imagine his wife asleep in an enchanted bed, awaiting his kiss to turn everything right again.

Saul is buzzed inside. There is no front lobby, just a nurse waiting inside the door. When she inspects the box he has brought, it occurs to Saul that he should have come with a nightgown, a toothbrush, or at least a comb and not a pink rubber ball. He follows the nurse as they pass through another door that requires her key and which locks with a foreboding click behind them.

“Your wife is in the day room, Mr. Naumann. Just follow the yellow line down this hallway and to the left.”

Saul follows the line, the shoe box clutched in one hand, past doors whose windows he does not look into and past people he does not greet. The yellow line ends at a set of double doors that he at first pushes instead of pulls. When they refuse to open he fears he has unwittingly become subject to a test of his own mental fitness. Then he sees the handle that he somehow missed. He pulls.

Miriam sits alone on a nubbly green couch in a corner of the room. Until today Saul has never seen his wife without at least one part of her moving. If not accomplishing one of her endless tasks, she would be tapping a foot or bouncing a knee or twiddling a finger to maintain her body’s momentum. At the sight of Miriam so still, Saul realizes that his wife’s perpetual motion had become as much a personal constant as the ticking of his watch. It is her stillness, and not the events of last night or her present setting, that dispels Saul’s sense of remove, forcing him to realize that this is his family and not some clever simulacrum.

“What have they done to you?” is the first thing out of his mouth. He sits down at her side but she shifts beyond his reach. “They’ve drugged you, haven’t they? I’m calling your doctor first thing. This will not happen again. I can’t believe — ”

“Saul.” Her voice is flat, unimpressed by his ardor. “Saul, they haven’t done a thing. They wanted to put me on something, an antidepressant, I think, after my entrance interview, but I wouldn’t let them. I told them it wouldn’t make any difference. What’s done is done.”

“You mean they haven’t — you’re sure you aren’t sedated?”

Miriam laughs, but it is toneless.

“Do I look like I need to be sedated? You saw me in court. The police will tell you I was the same last night. I’m a model prisoner.”

“You are not a prisoner,” Saul insists. “You are ill. The police found you.”

“Did they tell you where?”

“Yes. They said you were inside a stranger’s house.”

“Doing what?”

Saul’s replies are slow and stubborn. “Holding a vase.”

“And, according to the police, was the vase mine?”

“No.”

They are both silent, Miriam daring Saul to look in her eyes, Saul looking anywhere but.

“Did they show you my kaleidoscope?” Miriam asks softly. “Isn’t it beautiful?” For the first time since their visit began, Saul hears expression, senses the Miriam he thought he once knew.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Saul admits, unable to keep the wonder from his voice.

“I’ve been searching for the proper pieces since childhood, before I even knew what they would become. It was you who made me realize what they were for. We had only known each other a little more than a month then, but at that moment I knew you were the man I would marry.” She leans closer to Saul, her eyes bright, her face alive. “
Tikkun Olam,
the fixing of the world,” she whispers. “I’ve been gathering up the broken vessels to make things whole again.”

Saul does not remember the specific conversation, was given no reason at the time to fix it in mental amber. To him,
Tikkun Olam
was merely one of many intellectual pillow talks, cerebral calisthenics performed for the sake of keeping his skittish, brainy lover in his bed. He cannot believe she began keeping secrets from him so soon.

Miriam looks to Saul for a response. He nods, afraid to do more. He doesn’t know whether he wants to yell or plead, isn’t sure if he should become accuser or supplicant. How could she have kept all this to herself? Was she afraid he would try to stop her? Even as Saul suspects Miriam was right not to tell, he can envision a wistful alternative. In another life, another Saul might have been her willing accomplice. Together they might have explored the mysteries of color and symmetry, creating a vision of a world more intensely unified than their own. A world in which they could have lived without secrets.

He knows it is best to stay silent. The last thing Miriam needs is the fanciful perspective of a sleep-deprived and overstressed husband. It is in his wife’s best interest that the beautiful contents of her storage room be disassembled by the time of her release. It is best to put all of this behind them as quickly as possible.

“I don’t expect the doctors or the police to understand,” she says, her voice matter-of-fact. “You and the children will continue to be provided for. I added your name to my parents’ trust long ago. Talk to my attorney. He’ll provide the details.”

“Miriam, don’t talk like that. I already talked to your lawyer. He’s sure we can get you a commuted sentence and probation in exchange for a promise of good behavior, public service, and intensive therapy. You won’t even need to go to trial. You’ll come home. I’ll — I’ll work harder at giving you what you need. We can go to therapy together. We can even take the children. You’ll never need to steal again.”

“I’ve never stolen anything in my life.” Her face is resolute.

“Miriam, your lawyer says it’s best to confess to everything, to admit to your problem, and to show sincere contrition.”

She smiles. “But I’m not sorry, it wasn’t stealing, and if I could I would do it again.”

Saul tells himself he doesn’t know what she means.

“Miriam, please.”

Her smile is larger now, defiant. He offers her the box. The smile vanishes, replaced by something close to wonder.

“I found this.” Saul shrugs. “It’s silly, but I thought you might want it.”

“You
do
understand,” she whispers. She reaches for the box slowly, as if afraid it may be a mirage.

“It may not be what you think. It was under your side of the — ”

“I know exactly what it is,” she says, carefully lifting each layer of tissue paper. “Thank you.” The two words are more intimate than any she has ever spoken. Saul feels as though he is inside her in ways beyond the merely physical, connected by a bond transcending flesh.

She reaches into the box, cups the ball reverently in one hand. She is about to pronounce the secret word, the one she has never spoken to anyone, when she notices the scuff marks. The ball has been indelibly and irredeemably ruined. The feel of its flawed pink surface on her skin revolts her, each scuff mark a wriggling worm. She stops herself from flinging the ball across the room, knows it will only draw unwanted attention, instead drops the small pink corpse into its coffin.

“Please go,” she manages to say without screaming, without pummeling the man responsible for this blasphemy with her fists.

“But, Miriam, I just got here. We still have time.”

“Nurse!”

“Miriam, please. I know you’re upset.”

“Nurse!”

“Miriam, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

A man appears in a white shirt and white slacks. “Mrs. Naumann, can I help you?”

And there’s that universal question again, the one that doesn’t mean a thing.

“I would like to go back to my room. Now.” Miriam is already at the locked door to the day room, is trying to open it with Saul behind her.

“Please, Miriam, let me help.” Saul reaches out his hand, grazing Miriam’s shoulder. Miriam stiffens.

“Don’t you
dare
touch me,” she says in a low hiss that turns Saul’s mouth dry.

“Mr. Naumann?” says the nurse in an infuriatingly calm tone. “Why don’t you let me escort Mrs. Naumann back to her room and then you can talk to her doctor.” Up close, he really is quite large.

“I don’t want to talk to the doctor,” Saul says as close to level as he can. “I want to talk to my wife.”

Miriam is pounding at the door. The nurse stops her fists with his arm. “I’m going to take you back to your room now, Mrs. Naumann. Just calm down. Mr. Naumann,” the nurse says without looking back toward him, “I think it would be best if you waited here for the doctor. He’ll be with you shortly.”

Saul wants to be furious too, longs to pound the door with his fists. He wants to be stopped by something large and impassive and led to a bed with soft sheets and a pillow large enough to block out the sound of the world collapsing. Instead he stands where he was told to stand. He waits for the doctor he has been told will arrive. He listens to the sound of his wife’s footsteps receding to a room he will never see.

The possibility that no one will pick up the phone tonight is too terrible to consider. Aaron needs to be done with it, needs to get the words out, or he may explode. He knows better than to eat, knows that nothing he puts in his stomach will stay down until it is done. After getting the answering machine three times in a row the night before he could barely sleep, spent the whole time chanting to himself just to stop from thinking about it. He keeps reminding himself he is not asking his father for permission. He is informing him of a decision.

It came to him at school two days ago. Since September he had been going through the motions of his classes, filling the chairs in the various classrooms and secretly chanting
japa
until he could return to the temple, staying there for the last
arati
and then returning home in order to get up the next morning and do it all over again. Then two days ago he was changing out of his gym uniform in a corner so that no one could see, trying to block out the sound of the shower he was supposed to be taking and the guys making fun of him because he wasn’t, when he realized he was going in circles. His life at that instant was no different from the life he had been living in eighth grade. And as simple as that he realized it was time to stop. He had the means to break the cycle. So the next morning he hugged his father and sister goodbye and got into his car feeling lighter and happier than he has ever felt. And as soon as he can make that phone call, his new life will really begin.

When Eliza gets home, Saul sits her down at the kitchen table. He has rehearsed in front of a mirror to confirm that his face matches his words.

“Eliza, honey, I’ve got some sad news. If you have any questions — anything at all — I want you to ask me, okay?”

Eliza nods.

“Last night your mother went into a stranger’s house to take something she thought was hers but really wasn’t. The people in the house called the police. When the police came, they could tell that she was mentally ill, so they sent her to the hospital. I visited her there today. She was very upset and confused, but the doctors are going to work with her so she can start thinking clearly again.”

Eliza smiles at Saul like he’s told her an inside joke. “It’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to say all this.”

Saul puts his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “I know it’s not a nice thing to think about, Elly, but telling the truth about things like this is important. Your mother might be in the hospital for a long time.”

Eliza giggles. “It’s okay, Dad. I know. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to. She can come back.”

Saul talks very slowly and carefully, the way one might try to coax someone down from a ledge. “Elly, honey? Can you explain what you’re talking about?”

Eliza squares her shoulders and looks her father in the eyes. She puts on the most grown-up voice she has.

“It’s okay that you and Mom are getting a divorce. I won’t tell anyone. I told Aaron that you guys weren’t sleeping in the same bed, but I won’t tell him about the divorce if you don’t want me to.You can tell Mom it’s okay to come back. She doesn’t have to pretend to be sick.”

Saul’s eyes well with tears. “Oh, Elly, is that what you think has been happening? That your mother and I are getting a divorce?”

Eliza nods a little too vigorously.

“Oh, Elly-belly, I wish it were that simple. It’s true that your mother and I have been having problems and it’s true that we haven’t been sleeping in the same bed, but I’m afraid that she really is sick. She’s been breaking the law — stealing things — because she’s been very mentally confused, and now she’s in the hospital to try to get better.”

“She’s a burglar?”

Eliza’s voice is different now, the certainty gone, the careful calculations she made at school useless. Saul talks calmly, as if soothing a nervous animal.

“According to the doctor, she has a mental illness that makes her believe she needs to take things.” He knows he’s talking down to her, but he doesn’t want to use the words the doctor used, words that scared him to hear.

“My mother’s been stealing things because she’s crazy? And she got arrested? And now she’s in a loony bin?” Saul flinches. At first he doesn’t reach for Eliza, afraid that she, like Miriam, will back away, but his daughter folds into his arms, grinding her head into his chest as if she wants to bury it there.

Saul strokes Eliza’s hair and whispers soothing sounds into her ear. When she has stopped shaking, he tries again.

“There are a lot of ways to think about what has happened to your mother, but not all of them are helpful. Calling someone crazy doesn’t describe the problem. It’s a name used by people who don’t understand or are too afraid to understand what’s really going on. Your mother is mentally ill.” It’s much easier to say this in terms of Eliza’s mother rather than his wife. “Being mentally ill is a medical condition like having diabetes or having high blood pressure, except that the part of the body that isn’t working right is the head. Because the head is so complicated, it sometimes takes longer to figure out what exactly is wrong and how to fix it,” or if it can be fixed at all, he thinks, remembering the doctor’s confident use of the words “delusional disorder,” his tentative mention of the term “schizophrenia.”