Exiles in America(36)

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

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were no longer in use. They’d been shut down in the years of deinstitutional-

ization. Shuttered brick hulks stood in the tall, yellowing grass. It was already

October, and the view from the barred windows of Building 2 was both bu-

colic and melancholy.

“Zachary, my good friend. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Roy, just fine. Yourself?”

“Oh, I have been worse, but I have been better. You are done for the day?

Do you have time for a cup of tea?”

Roy Chadha was the senior psychiatrist at Building 2, a short, dapper man

in his fifties with a soft Indian accent. Daniel inevitably called him Dr. Chat.

Other units were staffed by newly arrived Russian or Chinese doctors, but the

Building 2 patients could be brilliantly, viciously articulate, so the senior, res-

ident, and visiting psychiatrists all spoke excellent English.

“I’m seeing a patient back at the house at five,” said Zack. “But sure, I’d

love a cup of tea.”

Zack followed him into his office, where Roy promptly began to fuss with

his tea things: ceramic pot, tea bag tin, mugs decorated with cartoons of cat

psychiatrists and mouse patients.

“What a day, what a day,” said Roy. “How I hate Mondays. Nobody wants

to commit anyone on weekends, so they get crazier and crazier until Monday,

and then we get them.”

“But you transferred the Lewis girl back to the juvenile home?”

“Oh yes. She is not psychotic, only unhappy. I was not afraid for her here,

except that she could get bored and do something foolish.”

This was a teenage girl who had been brought in this morning, feigning in-

sanity, thinking the hospital would be easier than jail.

Zack told Roy about Rebecca Mays. “I’ll write up the diagnosis and have

it on your desk before I go. The poor mother. A nice old schoolmarm who got

stuck with a psychotic daughter.”

Roy passed him a cup of steaming tea and led them to the armchairs in the

corner. He sat and sipped. “So how is your home life? Did you have a good

weekend?” He was finished with shop talk; he was smiling like a man with a

good dirty story to tell.

“Nice and quiet.” Zack wondered what Roy wanted to confess.

8 2

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

But Roy’s smile was not about himself. “How are things with your

boyfriend’s new boyfriend?”

“They saw each other again, if that’s what you mean.” A third time, but

who was counting?

“Ah, so it’s serious.”

“No. It’s just steady.”

Zack should never have opened his big mouth last week. Roy knew that

Zack had an open marriage. They rarely discussed it—there was nothing to

discuss—but last week Roy had abruptly asked what the rules were. Roy was

smitten with the new Ukrainian nurse, Ms. Krasic. He was happily married

and would never act on his desires, but he enjoyed imagining the possibilities.

Zack had let slip that Daniel had met someone new and the cycle was starting

over. That was all he said; he gave no details about the man being married or

Iranian, nothing to identify him. Yet Roy was fascinated. He must have been

thinking about it all weekend. As Zack’s superior, Roy sometimes acted as his

therapist, but the line between consultation and locker room talk could grow

awfully thin.

“You boys are such gadabouts. How I envy you.”

“They’re sex buddies,” said Zack. “That’s all.”

“And you’re not jealous?”

“No. I’m glad Daniel is getting laid. Really. He’s happier when he’s getting

laid. I want him to be happy.”

“That is what you said last week,” said Roy. “And I didn’t believe you. But

I have been thinking it over. And I suspect you are happy because the door is

now open for you. You are free to dip your wick elsewhere.”

Zack smiled and shook his head. “I’ve felt that in the past,” he admitted,

“but not now. Nobody interests me now. I seem to be taking a vacation from

sex.”

“You have been taking a vacation for a long time, I think.”

“Have I?” Zack tried to remember what he’d told Roy in the past, how

much Roy knew.

Roy was smiling, not like a doctor but like a skeptical friend. “How old are

you? You are not so old. You could give yourself a prescription. Put some lead

back into your pencil.”

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

8 3

“Maybe I don’t want any blue pills,” said Zack with a laugh. “Maybe I don’t

miss lust. Maybe life is more peaceful without it. Duller maybe. But peaceful.”