The Bell Jar Part 19

But I never seemed to get any reaction. I just grew fatter and fatter. Already I filled the new, too-big clothes my mother had bought, and when I peered down at my plump stomach and my broad hips I thought it was a good thing Mrs. Guinea hadn't seen me like this, because I looked just as if I were going to have a baby.

"Have you seen my scars?"

Valerie pushed aside her black bang and indicated two pale marks, one on either side of her forehead, as if at some time she had started to sprout horns, but cut them off.

We were walking, just the two of us, with the Sports Therapist in the asylum gardens. Nowadays I was let out on walk privileges more and more often. They never let Miss Norris out at all.

Valerie said Miss Norris shouldn't be in Caplan, but in a building for worse people called Wymark.

"Do you know what these scars are?" Valerie persisted. "No. What are they?"

"I've had a lobotomy."

I looked at Valerie in awe, appreciating for the first time her perpetual marble calm. "How do you feel?"

"Fine. I'm not angry any more. Before, I was always angry. I was in Wymark, before, and now I'm in Caplan. I can go to town, now, or shopping or to a movie, along with a nurse."

"What will you do when you get out?"

"Oh, I'm not leaving," Valerie laughed. "I like it here."

"Moving day!"

"Why should I be moving?"

The nurse went on blithely opening and shutting my drawers, emptying the closet and folding my belongings into the black overnight case.

I thought they must at last be moving me to Wymark.

"Oh, you're only moving to the front of the house," the nurse said cheerfully. "You'll like it. There's lots more sun."

When we came out into the hall, I saw that Miss Norris was moving too. A nurse, young and cheerful as my own, stood in the doorway of Miss Norris's room, helping Miss Norris into a purple coat with a scrawny squirrel-fur collar.

Hour after hour I had been keeping watch by Miss Norris's bedside, refusing the diversion of OT and walks and badminton matches and even the weekly movies, which I enjoyed, and which Miss Norris never went to, simply to brood over the pale, speechless circlet of her lips.

I thought how exciting it would be if she opened her mouth and spoke, and I rushed out into the hall and announced this to the nurses. They would praise me for encouraging Miss Norris, and I would probably be allowed shopping privileges and movie privileges downtown, and my escape would be a.s.sured.

But in all my hours of vigil Miss Norris hadn't said a word.

"Where are you moving to?" I asked her now.

The nurse touched Miss Norris's elbow, and Miss Norris jerked into motion like a doll on wheels.

"She's going to Wymark, " my nurse told me in a low voice. "I'm afraid Miss Norris isn't moving up like you."

I watched Miss Norris lift one foot, and then the other, over the invisible stile that barred the front doorsill.

"I've a surprise for you," the nurse said as she installed me in a sunny room in the front wing overlooking the green golf links. "Somebody you know's just come today."

"Somebody I know?"

The nurse laughed. "Don't look at me like that. It's not a policeman." Then, as I didn't say anything, she added, "She says she's an old friend of yours. She lives next door. Why don't you pay her a visit?"

I thought the nurse must be joking, and that if I knocked on the door next to mine I would hear no answer, but go in and find Miss Norris, b.u.t.toned into her purple, squirrel-collared coat and lying on the bed, her mouth blooming out of the quiet vase of her body like a bud of a rose.

Still, I went out and knocked on the neighboring door.

"Come in!" called a gay voice.

I opened the door a crack and peered into the room. The big, horsey girl in jodhpurs sitting by the window glanced up with a broad smile.

"Esther!" She sounded out of breath, as if she had been running a long, long distance and only just come to a halt. "How nice to see you. They told me you were here."

"Joan?" I said tentatively, then "Joan!" in confusion and disbelief.

Joan beamed, revealing her large, gleaming, unmistakable teeth.

"It's really me. I thought you'd be surprised."

16.

Joan's room, with its closet and bureau and table and chair and Joan's room, with its closet and bureau and table and chair and white blanket with the big blue C on it, was a mirror image of my own. It occurred to me that Joan, hearing where I was, had engaged a room at the asylum on pretense, simply as a joke. That would explain why she had told the nurse I was her friend. I had never known Joan, except at a cool distance. white blanket with the big blue C on it, was a mirror image of my own. It occurred to me that Joan, hearing where I was, had engaged a room at the asylum on pretense, simply as a joke. That would explain why she had told the nurse I was her friend. I had never known Joan, except at a cool distance.

"How did you get here?" I curled up on Joan's bed.

"I read about you," Joan said.

"What?"

"I read about you, and I ran away."

"How do you mean?" I said evenly.

"Well," Joan leaned back in the chintz-flowered asylum armchair, "I had a summer job working for the chapter head of some fraternity, like the Masons, you know, but not the Masons, and I felt terrible. I had these bunions, I could hardly walk--in the last days I had to wear rubber boots to work, instead of shoes, and you can imagine what that that did to my morale...." did to my morale...."

I thought either Joan must be crazy--wearing rubber boots to work--or she must be trying to see how crazy I was, believing all that. Besides, only old people ever got bunions. I decided to pretend I thought she was crazy, and that I was only humoring her along.

"I always feel lousy without shoes," I said with an ambiguous smile. "Did your feet hurt much?"

"Terribly. And my boss--he'd just separated from his wife, he couldn't come right out and get a divorce, because that wouldn't go with this fraternal order--my boss kept buzzing me in every other minute, and each time I moved my feet hurt like the devil, but the second I'd sit down at my desk again, buzz went the buzzer, and he'd have something else he wanted to get off his chest...."

"Why didn't you quit?"

"Oh, I did quit, more or less. I stayed off work on sick leave. I didn't go out. I didn't see anyone. I stowed the telephone in a drawer and never answered it....

"Then my doctor sent me to a psychiatrist at this big hospital. I had an appointment for twelve o'clock, and I was in an awful state. Finally, at half past twelve, the receptionist came out and told me the doctor had gone to lunch. She asked me if I wanted to wait, and I said yes."

"Did he come back?" The story sounded rather involved for Joan to have made up out of whole cloth, but I led her on, to see what would come of it.

"Oh yes. I was going to kill myself, mind you. I said 'If this doctor doesn't do the trick, that's the end.' Well, the receptionist led me down a long hall, and just as we got to the door she turned to me and said, 'You don't mind if there are a few students with the doctor, will you?' What could I say? 'Oh no,' I said. I walked in and found nine pairs of eyes fixed on me. Nine! Eighteen separate eyes.

"Now, if that receptionist had told me there were going to be nine people in mat room, I'd have walked out on me spot. But mere I was, and it was too late to do a thing about it. Well, on this particular day I happened to be wearing a fur coat...."

"In August?"

"Oh, it was one of those cold, wet days, and I thought, my first psychiatrist--you know. Anyway, this psychiatrist kept eyeing mat fur coat me whole time I talked to him, and I could just see what he thought of my asking to pay me students cut rate instead of me full fee. I could see me dollar signs in his eyes. Well, I told him I don't know whatall--about me bunions and the telephone in me drawer and how I wanted to kill myself--and men he asked me to wait outside while he discussed my case with the others, and when he called me back in, you know what he said?"

"What?"

"He folded his hands together and looked at me and said, 'Miss Gilling, we have decided mat you would benefit by group therapy."

"Group "Group therapy?" I thought I must sound phony as an echo chamber, but Joan didn't pay any notice. therapy?" I thought I must sound phony as an echo chamber, but Joan didn't pay any notice.

"That's what he said. Can, you imagine me wanting to kill myself, and coming round to chat about it with a whole pack of strangers, and most of them no better man myself...."

"That's crazy." I was growing involved in spite of myself. "That's not even human." human."

"That's just what I said. I went straight home and wrote that doctor a letter. I wrote him one beautiful letter about how a man like that had no business setting himself up to help sick people...." "That's just what I said. I went straight home and wrote that doctor a letter. I wrote him one beautiful letter about how a man like that had no business setting himself up to help sick people...."

"Did you get any answer?"

"I don't know. That was the day I read about you."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh," Joan said, "about how the police thought you were dead and all. I've got a pile of clippings somewhere." She heaved herself up, and I had a strong horsey whiff that made my nostrils p.r.i.c.kle. Joan had been a champion horse-jumper at the annual college gymkhana, and I wondered if she had been sleeping in a stable.

Joan rummaged in her open suitcase and came up with a fistful of clippings.

"Here, have a look."

The first clipping showed a big, blown-up picture of a girl with black-shadowed eyes and black lips spread in a grin. I couldn't imagine where such a tarty picture had been taken until I noticed the Bloomingdale earrings and the Bloomingdale necklace glinting out of it with bright, white highlights, like imitation stars.

SCHOLARs.h.i.+P GIRL MISSING. MOTHER WORRIED.

The article under the picture told how this girl had disappeared from her home on August 17th, wearing a green skirt and a white blouse, and had left a note saying she was taking a long walk. The article under the picture told how this girl had disappeared from her home on August 17th, wearing a green skirt and a white blouse, and had left a note saying she was taking a long walk. When Miss Greenwood had not returned by midnight, When Miss Greenwood had not returned by midnight, it said, it said, her mother called the town police. her mother called the town police.

The next clipping showed a picture of my mother and brother and me grouped together in our backyard and smiling. I couldn't think who had taken that picture either, until I saw I was wearing dungarees and white sneakers and remembered that was what I wore in my spinach-picking summer, and how Dodo Conway had dropped by and taken some family snaps of the three of us one hot afternoon. The next clipping showed a picture of my mother and brother and me grouped together in our backyard and smiling. I couldn't think who had taken that picture either, until I saw I was wearing dungarees and white sneakers and remembered that was what I wore in my spinach-picking summer, and how Dodo Conway had dropped by and taken some family snaps of the three of us one hot afternoon. Mrs. Greenwood asked that this picture be printed in hopes that it will encourage her daughter to return home. Mrs. Greenwood asked that this picture be printed in hopes that it will encourage her daughter to return home.

SLEEPING PILLS FEARED MISSING WITH GIRL.

A dark, midnight picture of about a dozen moon-faced people in a wood. I thought the people at the end of the row looked queer and unusually short until I realized they were not people, but dogs. Bloodhounds used in search for missing girl. Police Sgt. Bill Hindly says: It doesn't look good. Bloodhounds used in search for missing girl. Police Sgt. Bill Hindly says: It doesn't look good.

GIRL FOUND ALIVE!.

The last picture showed policemen lifting a long, limp blanket roll with a featureless cabbage head into the back of an ambulance. Then it told how my mother had been down in the cellar, doing the week's laundry, when she heard faint groans coming from a disused hole....

I laid the clippings on the white spread of the bed.

"You keep them," Joan said. "You ought to stick them in a sc.r.a.pbook."

I folded the clippings and slipped them in my pocket.

"I read about you," Joan went on. "Not how they found you, but everything up to that, and I put all my money together and took the first plane to New York."

"Why New York?"

"Oh, I thought it would be easier to kill myself in New York."

"What did you do?"

Joan grinned sheepishly and stretched out her hands, palm up. Like a miniature mountain range, large, reddish weals upheaved across the white flesh of her wrists.

"How did you do that?" For the first time it occurred to me Joan and I might have something in common.

"I shoved my fists through my roommate's window."

"What roommate?"

"My old college roommate. She was working in New York, and I couldn't think of anyplace else to stay, and besides, I'd hardly any money left, so I went to stay with her. My parents found me there--she'd written them I was acting funny--and my father flew straight down and brought me back."

"But you're all right now." I made it a statement.

Joan considered me with her bright, pebble-gray eyes. "I guess so," she said. " Aren't you?"

I had fallen asleep after the evening meal.

I was awakened by a loud voice. Mrs. Bannister, Mrs. Bannister, Mrs. Bannister, Mrs. Bannister. Mrs. Bannister, Mrs. Bannister, Mrs. Bannister, Mrs. Bannister. As I pulled out of sleep, I found I was beating on the bedpost with my hands and calling. The sharp, wry figure of Mrs. Bannister, the night nurse, scurried into view. As I pulled out of sleep, I found I was beating on the bedpost with my hands and calling. The sharp, wry figure of Mrs. Bannister, the night nurse, scurried into view.

"Here, we don't want you to break this."

She unfastened the band of my watch.

"What's the matter? What happened?"

Mrs. Bannister's face twisted into a quick smile. "You've had a reaction."

"A reaction?"

"Yes, how do you feel?"

"Funny. Sort of light and airy."