Exiles in America(111)

body was only a phase he was working through. And now the phase is finished

and he’s going to get really abstract.”

34

On Saturday afternoon Daniel went with Zack out to Eastern State

for the annual Christmas party. He hadn’t gone in the past few years,

not because the party was too weird but because it wasn’t weird enough. He

wasn’t entirely sure why he went this year, although he had his suspicions.

“Anybody I should be warned about?” he asked in the car. “Exciting

manic-depressives? Dangerous nymphomaniacs?”

“No, it’s a pretty tame bunch. Just watch out for family members. They

can pump you for pity like there’s no tomorrow.”

The party was held in the day room, a large, open, sunny space with no vis-

ible bars on the windows, hardly Marat/Sade but more like a 1960s nursing

home. People sadly sat or moved about with the slow, self-conscious uncer-

tainty of the elderly, yet the median age here was only forty. Few patients wore

robes and pajamas, and it was difficult to tell patients from visitors, at first.

The chief decoration was an artificial tree like a big green scrub brush

wrapped in chains of construction paper. Christmas music played over the

P.A. system, songs from fifty years back, but then Christmas music, like men-

tal illness, is stuck in its own time outside of time.

Daniel spotted Mrs. Chat, the senior shrink’s wife, and went straight to

her.

E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a

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“Hello, Daniel. So good to see you. You are here like me, to offer an ex-

ample of normal?”

“If we count as normal, the world gets a lot of wiggle room.”

“You’re telling me, brother,” said Mrs. Chat with a laugh. She was a lively,

bosomy Indian lady who reminded Daniel of his aunt Louise in Brooklyn,

frank, funny, and just a bit nosy. They stood side by side, watching their

spouses work the room.

Dr. Chat was chatting up an African American family, laughing with them

in forced amusement over something said by the stiff, white-haired scarecrow

who must be a father or uncle.

Zack crouched in the corner, talking to a large young woman with a face

like a troll doll who sat moping in a chair. He coaxed her up and across the

room to a little old lady beside the tree.

“How have you been keeping yourself?” Mrs. Chat asked Daniel. “Keep-

ing out of trouble?”

Her question might be just friendly noise, but there was no telling how

much Zack told Dr. Chat and what Dr. Chat told his wife. “Oh, you know

what they say,” said Daniel. “No rest for the wicked.”

The troll doll began to shriek, “I love you, Mama! I love you, I love you, I

love you!” and threw her arms around the old lady.

The old lady looked terrified.

Zack gently drew the two women apart, calming the troll doll, whispering

to the old lady.

The whole room was staring—you’d think the daughter had shouted an

obscenity, which was exactly how she’d used the words.

Zack remained remarkably calm and professional. A nurse came over to

help, but Zack gestured her away: they were fine.

Daniel couldn’t understand how he did it. So few things seemed to upset

Zack in his work. Which might be why he often appeared to experience

everything from a slight distance. Zack seemed to want too little from life.

Selflessness was a virtue, but not necessarily a pure virtue. It might also be a

fear of self.

Daniel found himself admiring Zack today, but he also envied him. There

was a tinge of resentment in his envy. If only he could be more like Zack, if

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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

only he could lose himself in other people’s troubles, then he might get into

less trouble. Next year he would do better. Yes, next year he would be wiser.

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Christmas Day fell on a Wednesday, which poked a hole in the middle of the

week. They did their usual morning of a big breakfast and gifts: Zack gave

Daniel a boxed set of Murnau on DVD, which was actually for them both.

Daniel gave Zack the BBC adaptation of Wives and Daughters, also on DVD,

which he wanted to see, too: he knew he’d never read Elizabeth Gaskell but

he was curious about where Zack had been these past months. They gave

Jocko a knotted piece of rawhide as big as a dinosaur bone, which was solely

for Jocko.

At noon they drove out to Ross’s house on the Chickahominy for a midday

dinner. The scenery was classic. A gray glaze of ice covered the river. The

woods around the old farmhouse were still lightly salted with snow. The hot

tub steamed threateningly out back.

The only other guests were Jane Morrison, her husband, John, and their

teenage daughter, Artemisia. “I invited the Rohanis, but they couldn’t come,”