In another letter we find:
You will laugh, but in the dull warm afternoons I sit here in Gravelotte and imagine what sort of nun I shall be, if I ever get my courage up to tell my father of my intentions. As you know, I am far too stupid to be a scholarly Benedictine, and too nervous to make a good contemplative. The Carmelites would not have me with a queen’s dowry! I think that what I would really like is to help the sick, as our Lord did. I have read with interest the reports of Miss Florence Nightingale and think it a shame that the English should be so far in advance of us here in Catholic France, as it was we who invented the very idea of hospitals. I know that there are now some congregations of religious who do such work not in hospitals, but in the homes of the poor and helpless, and I think I would like that. I have a strong stomach and am not frightened of blood, or troubled by horrid smells. Would you be so kind as to look into the Institut de Bon Secours de Paris, and tell me what you think. Oh, and, although it is very wicked to ask this, would you please not tell Papa!!
It is not known whether Aurore Puyot ever told her brother-in-law about these notions, but in any case, events were to overtake them all, bring an end to Marie-Ange’s girlhood in Metz and set her feet on the course they were to follow for the remainder of her life. In August of 1870, while she sat penning this letter, perhaps in the gazebo at Bois Fleury that overlooked the small river Mance, war came to her nation, bringing its dread tide to her very doorstep.
From the start this war did not go well for France. The French Army of the Rhine fell back through Metz on its way to Verdun, with the Germans in pursuit. On the morning of the 16th of August, Marie-Ange was awakened by the sound of horsemen in the courtyard of the chateau. As she expected the arrival of her brother Jean-Pierre on convalescent leave, she ran down the stairs in just her robe and slippers, pausing at the door to throw on a blue uniform cloak of her brother’s that was hanging there. Yet when she burst through the door, she found to her dismay not her brother’s coach, but a troop of Prussian uhlans.
— FROM FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH: THE STORY OF THE NURSING SISTERS OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, BY SR. BENEDICTA COOLEY, SBC, ROSARIAN PRESS, BOSTON, 1947.
Nine
Lorna follows Darryla Chambers down the Pine Sol-perfumed corridors of Jackson Memorial Hospital toward the locked ward run by the Division of Forensic Services. Darryla is a large woman, so large that much of Lorna’s field of view is occupied by her blue scrubs, the broad back and shoulders, the spectacular rolling buttocks. Darryla the Gorilla to the wards, but this is because of her size and not, as far as Lorna knows, because of either her ferocity or the color of her skin. She is actually a gentle and caring person, who brooks, however, no shenanigans from her criminous lunatics. As she walks, Lorna continues her reflections on large women. Judge Packingham is large, larger than Darryla, really, a set of shoulders like a linebacker in pads, her face flat and pale beneath a ridiculous little gray perm, those black robes accentuating the hugeness. Packingcrate they call her around the courthouse, the usual cruelty. A few decades back she had worked for Janet Reno in the state’s attorney, and they used to say that she was the box Janet had come in.
At the hearing the judge did the right thing, really the only thing she could have done given the agreement among the headshrinkers and the acquiescence of the prosecutor. Emmylou was deemed incapable of assisting with her own defense and remanded to Jackson for thirty days’ observation. The defendant sat quietly during the twenty-minute hearing and answered in a clear voice when the judge explained to her what was about to happen. She seemed to Lorna at that moment the furthest thing from crazy.
That was the day before yesterday, and now Lorna is about to visit Emmylou for the first time. She catches up with Darryla and asks, “How is she settling in?”
“Dideroff? Shoot, give me a couple more like her I could get rid of half my staff.”
“What do you mean?”
Darryla pauses to open a locked door with one of the large ring of keys she carries at her waist. She motions Lorna through, then follows, locking the door behind her.
“Spends most of her time writing in a school notebook. Besides that…well, the population always responds to new people, usually by getting upset. There’s a new mix on the ward, in the dayroom, you know? But this time, it seems like she calms everyone down.”
“She calms them?”
There is a nurses’ station inside the door, and Lorna signs in on a clipboard.
“Yeah,” says Darryla, “she reads them stuff from the Bible. And explains it, like it was the newspaper, not preachy or anything.”
The dayroom smells of people and bleach, not unpleasant really, compared with some of the booby-hatch dayrooms Lorna has experienced; this is because the inhabitants are the dangerous rather than the incontinent type of nut, and many are not nuts at all, but mere criminals feigning madness. Darryla gestures and Lorna sees that Emmylou is sitting on a couch with a book open on her lap. Two women, one black and one white, are sitting on either side of her on the peeling vinyl, and the black woman is stroking her arm. Emmylou’s lips are moving, but Lorna is too far away to hear what she is saying and something in the scene disturbs her so much that she does not wish to come any closer. She observes, however, that of the two dozen or so people in the dayroom, somewhat more than half are paying attention at varying levels to Emmylou, while the rest are conversing with the usual demons: some unseen, some on the screen of the television set hanging from the ceiling.
“You can use therapy room B,” Darryla says. “I’ll go get her for you.”
Lorna leaves the dayroom and walks down the hallway. A smiling figure blocks her way, and it takes her a moment to recognize Rigoberto Munoz. Rigoberto has been cleaned up and looks as normal as deteriorated schizophrenic street persons ever look: only mildly nightmarish. The man grimaces involuntarily and says, “Hi, Doc.” Lorna assumes a professional smile and they chat. Rigoberto is doing fine, is scheduled for release. To where? The man looks doubtful. He thinks his cousin in Hallandale will take him in. Lorna makes a winding gesture with her hand. “So that’s okay now?” Rigoberto shuffles and looks embarrassed. “Oh, yeah, no problem,” he says as his tongue shoots out and does an elaborate lip lick. Lorna is happy that Munoz no longer thinks his penis is being reeled into his abdomen by aliens, but she does not wish to know much more about his mental state or plans. It is not her job.
She excuses herself and enters Therapy B, which is a room about half the size of a high school classroom, containing nothing but chrome and plastic chairs in cheerful colors and a couple of Formica-topped tables. She sits and takes her notebook and tape recorder from her bag. In a minute or so, Emmylou comes into the room, dressed in a gown and a striped bathrobe and paper slippers. Lorna gestures to one of the chairs, and Emmylou sits in it. Lorna sees she is carrying the book she had in the dayroom; not surprisingly, it is a Bible.
“So you decided I was crazy,” says Emmylou, smiling, gesturing to the environment.
“We decided you couldn’t effectively help your own defense,” says Lorna primly. “Like the judge said, you’ve been sent here for observation and treatment. How are you doing on your meds?”
“They make me sleepy and dull.”
“We can have the dosage modified.”
“To zero?”
“Well…I’ll speak to Dr. Lopez and see if we can’t get you more comfortable. Meanwhile, you seem to be adjusting well. You’re writing, I understand.”