She was wearing a linen suit.
Jacket and skirt the color of wheat.
Saffron silk blouse open at the throat.
Beige French-heeled pumps.
She had eyes as deeply green as an Amazonian jungle.
Her blonde hair was clipped short — I wondered if they’d cut it here at the hospital — framing in abbreviation a pale, exquisitely shaped face.
She wore no lipstick on her generous mouth.
She was tall, five-eight or — nine, I guessed, a slender, delicately boned woman — narrow hips, ankles, and wrists; small, perfectly formed breasts — who conveyed in her stance an overwhelming sense of fragility... or was it vulnerability?
She extended her hand to me and said, in a voice that was as hushed as evenfall, “Mr. Hope?”
“Miss Whittaker?” I said, and took her hand.
“You’re really here,” she said. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“Would you like to take your visitor outside, Sarah?” the receptionist said.
The attendant who’d led Sarah into the room exchanged a glance with her.
“I’m sure it’ll be all right,” the receptionist said.
The attendant looked at her more sharply.
“I’m sure,” she said again.
We went out into the sunshine.
“Welcome to Nut’s Retreat,” Sarah said, and grinned.
The attendant had followed us out of the building. I could hear his footfalls on the gravel path as he continued to walk slowly behind us. I did not turn to look at him.
“That’s what It’s called, you know,” Sarah said. “Even the patients call it that. Oh, I’m so happy You’re here! You have no idea how worried I was. That you wouldn’t come.”
“I told you I would.”
“Ah yes, but people often humor lunatics, don’t they?” she said, and grinned again. “Shall we walk down by the lake? It’s man-made, but it looks real enough to those of us who indulge impossible fantasies.” She rolled her green eyes, mocking her own words.
“Yes, certainly,” I said.
We walked in the sunshine. The day was balmy and warm. You can say what you wish about Florida’s West Coast, but in the month of April, when the temperatures hover in the midseventies and the sun spills a wash of golden beneficent light, there is no place better on earth. Sarah’s attendant followed along behind us, his footfalls a steady crunch on the gravel path, a reminder that this was not, after all, paradise.
“That’s Jake,” Sarah said without looking over her shoulder. “My watchdog. he’s afraid I’ll slit my wrists or something. That’s why they put me in North Five when I first got here. Because Mother told them I’d tried to slit my wrists. Which was nonsense, of course.”
She held out both her wrists for me to examine.
“See any slash marks?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Of course not.”
She pulled back her arms, folded them across her chest.
“North Five is the worst of the wards,” she said. “That’s where the real loonies are kept. No garden-variety neurotics there, oh no. You’ve got your keeners and your pickers in North Five, not to mention your fair share of Napoleons and Joans of Arc. The keeners are the ones who walk from wall to wall to wall, hugging themselves and chanting in an indecipherable singsong. Ululation, It’s called, which is a rather poetic word for such a sad symptom, wouldn’t you say? The pickers sit in the corner and — well, pick at their clothes. Or their scabs. Or their imaginary bugs. They’re really rather frightening because They’re so preoccupied with their impossible task. You get the feeling that should you interrupt them, they might hurl themselves at you in rage.” She sighed heavily. “It was a picnic, North Five.”
“How long did they keep you there?”
“A month. Well, almost a month. I was admitted on the fourth of October, and they sent me straight to North Five. I didn’t get out of there until the first of November — after my period of ‘observation’ was concluded. So how many days is that? Twenty-seven? It seemed an eternity. If I hadn’t known I was sane when they sent me to this place, I certainly knew it after twenty-seven days in North Five. Maybe that was the idea, do you think? To drive me bonkers in there? Do I seem crazy to you?” she asked suddenly.
“No, you don’t,” I said.
“I’m not, believe me. And believe me, too, when I say this isn’t the case of the nut who’ll sit and talk intelligently with you for an hour and then kick you in the ass at the end of the visit and yell, ‘Give my regards to the governor!’ That’s a funny joke, but it isn’t the case here. I’m sane, Mr. Hope. I’m totally and completely sane.”
Everywhere around us the patients of Knott’s Retreat strolled with their visitors. Or sat on green benches in the sunshine. They all looked totally and completely sane, patients and visitors alike. But the white-coated attendants were watching.
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
“Ah,” she said.
“You told me on the phone—”
“Yes, I want you to get me out of here.”
“If You’re mentally competent, as you just said—”
“No, what I just said is I’m sane.”
“Yes, well, That’s the same thing, We’re simply using different terms. The law defines it as mental competency. As I understand it—”
“You understand it correctly. My mother had me judged mentally incompetent, and put me in this place against my wishes.”
“An involuntary commitment, as I understand it.”
“Is that a lawyer’s tic, or what?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The ‘as I understand it.’ ”
“Oh. No, I... I’m simply trying to understand what happened.”
“What happened is this. One fine night my mother invoked the Florida Mental Health Act, familiarly known as the Baker Act — are you familiar with the Baker Act, Mr. Hope?”
“I did some reading on it last week.”
“Ah. Then you know that it covers a wide variety of ill winds that blow no good. Do you know Danny Kaye’s ‘Anatole of Paris’?”
“Yes. How old are you, Miss Whittaker?”
“Twenty-five. Is that too young to know Danny Kaye?”
“I wouldn’t have thought—”
“I have every record he ever made. Actually, It’s ‘an ill wind that no one blows good,’ but you’ll forgive me the license. I tend to appreciate the past, Mr. Hope. Maybe That’s why my mother thinks I’m nuts, huh?”
“Maybe,” I said, and smiled.
“You have a nice smile,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“And nice manners, too. Are you a good lawyer?”
“I hope so.”
“I was told you were. Which is why I contacted you, of course. Hope is the thing with feathers, don’t you agree?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “I suppose so.”
“You seem very formal with me, Mr. Hope. Are you always this formal? Or are you afraid I’m crazy?”
I took a deep breath.
“I was told You’re seriously disturbed,” I said.
“Ah. And who told you that? Dr. Cyclops?”
“I don’t know anyone named Dr. Cyclops.”
“Dr. Silas Pearson,” she said, “familiarly known as Dr. Sy, sneeringly known to the patients as Dr. Cyclops, perhaps because he’s blind in one eye. He runs this place, Mr. Hope. He is in charge of the nuthouse, the loony bin, the cracker factory, the funny farm, the booby hatch, the mental facility, Mr. Hope. He is, Mr. Hope, the son of a bitch who won’t let me out of here.”
“I see.”
“Can I say ‘son of a bitch,’ or will that confirm your suspicion that I’m bonkers? Here we are,” she said, stopping at the edge of a still-water lake that occupied a good half acre of land. Willow trees lined the shore. We sat on a bench under one of the trees. Dappled sunshine glittered in her golden hair. Dappled sunshine danced in her dark green eyes. On a bench under another tree nearby, a young woman sat with a man who held her hand. I did not know which of them was the patient. Sarah’s attendant, now that we had come to roost, leaned against the wall of a stone building some hundred yards from the lakefront, his arms folded across his chest, watching us.