I'd brought a book with me to read, but I must have nodded off; when I woke up, the book was on the floor by my feet and I had the urgent, distressing feeling that something was wrong-no, not wrong; but different. Strange. I quickly got up, looked around the room; there was no one there, and the door was still closed. Garth, of course, hadn't moved; he was still in the same position, turned away from me on his side, with earphone and half his face hidden by the sheet. I yawned, stretched, glanced at my watch; it was almost time to put in the next cassette. I took the second tape out of my bag, walked around to the other side of the bed-and almost cried out.
Tears were streaming from Garth's eyes, dripping from his face, soaking the sheet beneath him.
"Garth!"
My brother's bloodshot eyes rolled, then came into focus on my face.
"Garth?!" I cried, snatching the earphones from his head. "Are you all right?! Can you hear me?! Can you talk?!"
The fact that he could indeed hear and understand me was now clearly reflected in Garth's eyes-but that was all. He still couldn't-or wasn't prepared to-talk.
But he was coming back, I thought, slowly riding wave after sonic wave of the most profoundly moving music ever written, dripping tears as evidence of his long, tortuous passage. I would settle for that, not be impatient.
After gently trying and failing for close to twenty minutes to elicit some response in addition to his tears, I put the earphones back on his head, changed the cassette, turned on the Walkman. I sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hand and smiling down into his tear-streaked face, until the opera was finished. I packed up the tapes and the Walkman, hugged and kissed my brother, then went back to Building 18 and contentedly went to bed. I was confident that I would see some change in Garth in the morning.
I was wrong, and bitterly disappointed.
At eight o'clock, it was impossible to tell that Garth was the same man I had seen copiously weeping only a few hours before; his eyes were once again glassy and vacant, and the only change was that he seemed even paler than usual. I debated whether I should tell Slycke, or Tommy Carling, about what had happened during the night, decided not to. It would have meant trying to explain why the Ring — and only the Ring — could elicit such a response from Garth, and I was not yet prepared to do that, at least not until the complete cycle of four operas was finished.
Despite Garth's present unresponsiveness, I had seen unmistakable evidence that the music of the Ring — combined with the images of horror and unrelenting cruelty that he and I would always associate with it-was a bridge that had reached across the unfathomable void in his mind and touched his consciousness. Now that bridge had to be maintained-and expanded. Now, more than anything, I was afraid of being second-guessed and interfered with. Charles Slycke might be a fine psychiatrist, if not so fine a person, and the D.I.A. facility might be a fine psychiatric clinic, but Der Ring des Nibelungen evoked a realm of consciousness shared by only Garth and me in a way no one else would ever be able to understand. I had now taken Garth back three-quarters of the way through that realm, and I felt I had no choice but to take him the rest of the way. Whatever happened at the end of the journey, if anything, would be my responsibility.
Gotterdammerung.
As the lush, revolutionary music of the final opera in the Ring cycle flowed through the earphones into Garth's brain and mind, he again began to weep. After a few minutes I realized that I, too, had begun crying. I brushed his wet cheek, then rose from the edge of the bed and walked to the Plexiglas window. I stood looking out over the moonlit grounds of the Rockland Psychiatric Center, remembering the horror. .
"What are you doing?!"
I wheeled around, and was thoroughly startled to see Charles Slycke standing over my silently weeping brother and glaring at me. He abruptly snatched the earphones off Garth's head, ripped off the sheet covering him, and grabbed the Walkman. The psychiatrist's unruly gray hair stuck up from his head as if an electric current were running through him, and his rheumy eyes glinted with rage. I started to say something, but the man was obviously in no mood to listen to any explanations, even if he had requested them.
"What are you doing here?!"
"Just a minute, Doctor. I've signed in every time-"
"Signed in?! That didn't tell me you were here in the middle of the night! That was left for somebody else to tell me!" Slycke's moon face was almost crimson as he marched around the bed, marched up to me, and shook the Walkman in my face. 'Wow I see what you've been up to! What on earth do you think you've been doing?!"
"I think I've been playing some music for my brother," I replied evenly, stepping away from Slycke so that I could see Garth. "In case you haven't noticed, Garth is responding."
"The man is crying!"
"So what? Aren't signs of sorrow better than the vacuum that was there before?"
"That's not for you to say!"
"It's for anybody to say!"
"You're not a doctor!"
"And my brother isn't a Goddamn turnip!" I paused, took a deep breath, lowered my voice. "The tears show that Garth's mind is still there; it hasn't been burned out of him. Whatever door it's locked behind has been opened, even if just a little bit, by the music. I'd think you'd be pleased."
"What you've done is unauthorized! How do you know what effect that music has had on him?''
"We can both see the effect; he's awake, and he's aware."
"You had no right to do something like this! He is my patient!"
"He's my brother, and I've done absolutely nothing but play some music for him. Instead of standing around and screaming at me, why don't you consider the implications of the fact that the music elicited a response?"
"Just because you're a friend of Lippitt's doesn't give you the right to do something like this without my permission! This is my clinic, and in medical matters I have supreme authority! I'll have your pass removed, Frederickson!"
Garth settled the argument when he suddenly sat up in bed. Slycke and I stared, dumbfounded, as my brother swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He swayed for a few moments, supporting himself with one hand on the edge of the bed, finally steadied himself. Then, without really looking at either Slycke or me, he walked forward, almost casually pried the Walkman from Slycke's stiff fingers, turned around, walked back to the bed, and got in. He put the earphones on his head, turned on the player, lay down on his back, and pulled the sheet up to his chin.
I let out a whoop of joy and excitement that must have been earsplitting, because it brought the three male nurses into the room on the run. They stopped just inside the doorway when they saw Slycke and me, exchanged puzzled looks.
Garth was going to be all right, I thought, elation welling up in me and overflowing as tears as I stared at my brother. I let out another whoop, even louder than the first, just for good measure, then did a little hopping dance of celebration. I picked up my shoulder bag, which contained the rest of the tapes and an ample supply of batteries, triumphantly set it down on Garth's stomach.
"Batteries for the Walkman and the rest of the tapes are in here, brother," I said.
I waited, my breathing shallow. Slowly, Garth's hands came out from under the sheet, wrapped themselves around the bag. I wheeled around to face Slycke, who was continuing to stare at Garth with an expression of disbelief.