The Dark Side of Love (126 page)

But during the outing something happened that she couldn't forget. The twin brothers were nice boys, but they kept looking at Rana in an odd way. The day was hot. Her father invited her and the others to swim, and soon she had left everyone else behind. The lake was deep, and her father had been right: the water was clear as glass and refreshing. Her mother was already setting out the picnic in the shade of a tall oak tree.

When her father was tired of swimming he climbed out of the water and told the boys to keep an eye on Rana. All three of them laughed, and soon they were playing catch and diving under the water. They formed into two groups, Rana and Jack against the twins, but before five minutes were up all three boys were chasing her. She was surprised, furious with her brother, and tried to get away. But Jack held her firmly by one hand, and one twin by the other. Suddenly she felt the third boy's fingers under her swimsuit. He was grinning at her. Rana saw in his face that he knew exactly what he was doing. He boldly squeezed her nipples. Rana couldn't defend herself. Pleading, she turned to her brother. “Let go of me!” she cried. But Jack
pretended not to hear her. The boy's hand was now sliding down over her stomach to her vagina. “No!” cried Rana, kicking out at both her brother and the other twin, and finally she managed to free herself. She dived down, swam through the waterweeds in the depths of the lake, swallowed water, and came up again a long way from the other three, coughing and crying.

The boys went on playing. They laughed. But Rana swam far out, to keep a safe distance away from them. When she finally came out of the water, they were already sitting by the camp fire lit for the picnic, laughing. None of them took any notice of Rana.

That was over fourteen years ago, but suddenly it seemed like yesterday. Her throat felt tight. She said goodbye to the doctor, who had borne her silence patiently.

Of all the patients in the hospital, Sami was the strangest. He kept raising his hands and announcing his name and job to some invisible inspector. Then he would assure his unseen interlocutor that he was innocent, and wasn't a bird. But he was a completely different person when someone in a white coat appeared, even if it was only the porter. Then he spoke thoughtfully and reasonably, and you might have thought him completely sane. Sometimes his “reasonable” manner intrigued strangers, who took him for one of the staff until he began telling them about the experiments being made underground here to turn human beings into birds and fish. He had told Rana in confidence that Dr. Salam was giving him pills so that in due course he would be able to fly like a bird. It was being done for the benefit of the air force. But he only pretended to take the pills, said Sami. As soon as the doctor turned his back, he spat them out again. “And one day the pill hit a worm, and what do you think? It sprouted wings and flew away.”

But Rana found it difficult to draw the line between being crazy and acting crazy in other patients as well as Sami, and sometimes
even in herself. It was a balancing act. At least, she reassured herself, the part of her brain where Farid lived was still sane, and that was a large part. She checked every day when she got up to see whether she could recall every detail of a given meeting with Farid, and always felt better when she found that it worked.

And in some ways she felt that the world of this hospital was more honest than the sane world outside. Rana thought of the women in her neighbourhood who gave up all their own desires out of fear, and just did what other people expected them to do.

‘I'd rather be with these brightly coloured birds here,” she whispered, and smiled at the gardener, who was doing a little dance with his rake.

Patient to some extent responding to medication, shows more energy, thinks and speaks with less inhibition. However, mood still very despondent. Feelings of guilt and failure, in particular lacks any idea of future prospects. Affect clearly less labile, but still potentially suicidal. Seems to have settled down well, helps the staff where she can, is solicitous of weaker women patients. Nursing staff say that a kind of friendship has developed between patient and male nurse, Adnan. According to Sister Sahida, is now also sleeping through the night without chloral.

Imipramine can be increased by 50 mg, for the time being continue levomepromazine at the same dosage. May be permitted to go for walks alone now, only for an hour at a time to start with.

Dr. Bishara satisfied. Two months after their first meeting, patient laughed for the first time, a few days ago began painting (watercolours). On warm summer days spends more time outside than in her room. Patient does not seem very anxious for her family to visit her. Keeps her distance from husband in particular. Ward nurse says he has visited only twice. Conversations with Dr. Bishara seem to mean
a good deal to her, she tells me they talk about her childhood most of the time. Dr. B. has learned that patient's mother also had phases of severe depression.

Psychiatry was his domain. No medical director in the Republic had such a high reputation as Dr. Salam, but only within the walls of his own hospital. Hanna Bishara had a free hand there. It was she who had arranged for soft classical music by Bach or Mozart, to be played in all the wards.

Hanna Bishara always gave a straight answer when Rana asked her a question. Dr. Salam phrased his answers so carefully that sometimes Rana wasn't sure whether he meant yes or no.

“Why do many of the patients here have burn marks on their temples?” Rana asked. Hanna Bishara told her about the electric shocks that such patients needed to cure them.

Dr. Bishara was a happy woman, but in general she didn't mention her private life much. However, when Rana asked to see photographs of her husband and her children, she brought some next day. They talked about the wedding night, and the doctor asked if Rana had been prepared for that first time with her husband. She didn't feel like telling the doctor yet that he had raped her, but confined herself to a “no”. “My mother can't talk about either love or sex,” she added. The doctor nodded, and wrote it down in her little notebook.

When Hanna Bishara left that afternoon, Rana watched her go, and felt that it wasn't fair for her to leave this woman in the dark. A woman who helped her, who didn't ask insistent questions, and she, Rana, was leaving her to puzzle over the reason for her sadness. A little later she got to her feet and ran after her, but the doctor was not in the ward any more. The nurse on duty tried to reach her by phone, and was in luck.

“There's something important I'd like to tell you. When will you have time?”

“Any time, for you,” replied the doctor. She sensed that the gate which had been closed to her so long had just opened at least a crack, and hurried back to the ward.

Then Rana told her the whole story of herself and Farid, and Hanna Bishara listened for four hours. She made not a single note, but every word was imprinted on her mind.

December 1968 brought more rain than the country had seen all year. A strong wind whipped heavy raindrops against the window. Dr. Salam was watching one of the male patients who had been dancing in the garden, and was now being led back indoors by two male nurses.

“Go on. I'm listening,” he prompted Dr. Bishara, who had briefly paused in the middle of reading her report.

“After a difficult start, a definitely productive mental process has now developed, one in which Rana can admit to her grief over her forbidden love for Farid, her fears and uncertainty since his arrest, and can carry on without falling into despair. She also feels able to stand up to her conflicts with her own family, in particular her mother, who offered her neither protection nor emotional warmth. Equally positive has been her overcoming of her anorexic tendencies, with slow but steady weight gain, and she is becoming physically stronger. So we are reaching a phase of stabilization which makes it seem appropriate to prepare her for discharge in the near future …”

“But that would require her to make a personal decision to go back to her husband,” Dr. Salam interrupted, turning slowly back to his desk. Dr. Bishara gave him her case notes, with a question in her eyes. The medical director shook his head. “She ought to stay here a little longer. It's still too soon!”

Why, Hanna Bishara wondered that evening on her way home, is he so set on postponing Rana's return home? Does he suspect that she never
will
want to go back to her husband? But what chance does she stand if she leaves him now – a woman on her own, without a
profession, here in Damascus? Or is that itself his reason: to keep her here until she knows her own mind?

Hanna Bishara could find no answer. By now she had come to realize that sometimes there
is
no clear answer.

Patient surprised to find that I know about relationship with Farid M., yet do not condemn her for it. Does not seem to have expected understanding. Obviously entertains great hostility towards mother and brother on this subject. Disappointed rather than hostile towards father for ranging himself on mother's side. Clearly feels very much alone. Will allow her to get in touch with Farid's mother by telephone. Once a month, from my office. Farid M. obviously still detained, but patient wept for joy on learning that he is still alive. She should talk to Dr. Bishara about it, but discretion is key. For now she seems to feel safe and protected in the hospital.

Continue imipramine and levomepromazine until further notice. Can go for walks alone as long as she likes, but not in the evening.

Still no special wish for family visits. According to Head Nurse Kadira, husband is very cold towards her. Comes once a month and talks to patient, who never answers.

When Farid kissed her, his kiss was like a pebble and she like a lake rippling all the way from her mouth to her toes.

She had never been kissed by her parents, only by other relations, but she shrank from those kisses. Uncle Bulos, who always smelled of sour milk, had been particularly nauseating. He used to hold her so tight that she could scarcely breathe, and the dense stubble on his
chin was scratchy. Kisses from Aunt Basma, her mother's sister, were even nastier; her mouth had smelled of decay. When Rana was little, her father once whispered to her, “Aunt Basma died ages ago.”

And her father had laughed. Aunt Basma reminded Rana of the dead mouse that her father had found behind the couch years ago, after a long search. The drawing room stank of it for days.

Aunt Basma had died on a Sunday in May 1945. Rana remembered precisely. It had been a beautiful spring day. She was playing indoors when the first French bombs dropped on the city. Her parents were still at the funeral, and Rana and her brother had gone to the neighbours. Suddenly her father arrived. He took her hand and ran ahead with her, while her mother hurried along behind with Jack in her arms. The French bombers and heavy artillery were aiming at targets in Damascus. One of them was the parliament building, very close to her parents' house. It seemed to take the four of them forever to reach Bab Tuma, and then they had to spend a week staying with George Abiad, a lawyer who was a friend of her father's, in a large house with lemon trees and in the company of his horrible children, until at last the fighting stopped.

The French withdrew from Damascus, leaving six hundred Syrian dead and three thousand wounded. Many houses were destroyed.

Her parents were glad to get home and find their house still standing. “Our Lady protected it,” said her mother. But Rana felt sure it was the evil spirit under the stairs who – even though he was evil – needed a place to live too. She was glad, all the same. Riad and Fuad, George Abiad's children, had been spiteful, calling Rana and her brother refugees and hitting them when the grown-ups weren't looking. The two boys were big and strong, particularly Riad, who was a colossus, and liked to sit on Rana's stomach saying he wouldn't get off until she kissed him on the mouth, and she'd better not tell tales, because if she did he'd put a rat in her bed one night, and rats liked to eat little girls' ears. After that Rana often woke up in the night and felt her ears. But she'd had to kiss Riad three times because he was pressing all the breath out of her.

Here in the psychiatric hospital, over twenty-three years later, she saw him in a dream with a rat in his hand, and she ran down a little
flight of stairs to the courtyard where her parents were sitting. She screamed, but no one heard her, and whenever she reached the last step the stairs grew longer. Riad came no closer to her, but the flight of stairs still never seemed to end.

Dr. Salam, chief medical director, 15 May 1969, 11.00hrs.
Psychopathologically, distinct improvement and stabilisation in patient. Drive and sleep patterns normalised, psychomotor functions also normal, affectively adequate to the situation and responding to it, no more indications of suicidal moods. In conversation in the last few weeks very frank, affectively modulated, able to empathize. Still sees her future as very dark, in particular cannot imagine returning to husband, but seems to know of no alternative. Cannot count on support of her parents. Medication: 150 mg imipramine, was able to discontinue levomepromazine over last two weeks.

Popular in the ward, feels safe and sheltered. Does not want to be discharged yet, but must begin facing reality. She rejects my suggestion of a stay with relatives or abroad, for which her husband's consent could be obtained with a little pressure. Cannot yet make up her mind what to do. In view of difficult family situation and the anhedonia still present, inability to make decisions and tendency to brood still part of the picture for the time being. I prescribe an active life with plenty of exercise. Possibility that therapeutic conversations may merely increase brooding tendency? Dr. Bishara rejects this, strongly wishes to continue therapy. Once a week will be enough.