Castle on the Edge (2 page)

“Don’t be sorry, Mary. The anticipation of knowing that I’d have these moments with you this morning and now, the reality of it is the perfect tonic for my heart,” I uttered in artistic reverie.

“Maybe you should have been a poet. You’re always talking to me in dreamy words, not in the analytical language of a clinician,” she cheerfully quipped with a smile on her lips.

“I only do that with you, Mary. You bring out the poet in me.”

She moved close to me and softly whispered in my right ear, “I’m looking forward to more of your poetry tonight, after the Halloween party when the children are in bed.”

I took Mary in my arms. We embraced tightly. Our lips came together for a prolonged kiss, which put me into a state of unadulterated ecstasy. Would it last forever? Mrs. Dudley, seeing this performance upon peering into the room, caught my eye with a gesture to look at the clock on the wall. It was already quarter to nine, which meant that Doctors Lederer and Calloway would be here within fifteen minutes, if not sooner. She undoubtedly wanted to save us from an embarrassing situation. I thanked her for the alert because I really was lost in the moment, which wouldn’t have stopped were it not for her protective intervention. She’s my guardian angel, too.

Mary asked, “What’s Doctor Lederer like, Alex?”

“He’s one of the leading psychiatrists in the field of electric shock treatment therapy and its appropriate use, in cases of psychoses, and extreme neuroses when deemed applicable,” I replied in a professional manner.

With searing concentration, she looked at me and said, “I know what his credentials are, Alex, but what’s he like…his character, personality? You know what I mean.”

“Well, he’s much more approachable than Doctor Calloway. I mean, not that Doctor Calloway isn’t approachable, but Doctor Lederer has a more…how should I say…empathetic aspect to his nature. He’s easier to get to know. He’s not so, clinical, not so standoffish…not that Doctor Calloway is standoffish, but…well…”

While I was tripping over my words, Doctor Lederer entered the dining room. He gracefully walked up to us and smiled.

“Doctor Lederer,” I said, “allow me to introduce you to Mary Holden, the nurse in charge here at Castillo Del Mar Sanitarium.”

Doctor Lederer gave a formal bow, took Mary’s hand and said, “How do you do, Miss Holden. I’m Franz Lederer. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Mary responded, “How do you do, Doctor Lederer. It’s an honor to meet you, too. Alex…I mean Doctor Ramsey, has told me so much about you. He said any redeeming qualities he has were passed on from you, while he was studying under your guidance.

“Any redeeming qualities that Alex has were of his own making. That’s something you cannot teach, Miss Holden,” he said humbly.

I looked at the clock on the wall. It was already five after nine and I was wondering why Doctor Calloway wasn’t here yet. He’s never late. The feeling of uneasiness I’d had last night was beginning to rise to the surface of my consciousness again. Doctor Calloway is always so punctual. Why wasn’t he here? As I was about to express my concern to Doctor Lederer and Mary, I looked up and saw Doctor Calloway standing between the clock and me.

It was as if he simply materialized there, because none of us saw or heard him enter the room…yet there he stood with his eyes fixed on me. He couldn’t have been there more than a minute. Doctor Calloway makes a commanding impression. He’s six-foot-six , very thin, almost gaunt. He had piercing, black hypnotic eyes, black hair combed straight back and a pale, almost anemic, complexion on his clean-shaven face.

As he was still gazing at me in deafening silence, I intervened by saying, “Good morning, Doctor Calloway, allow me to introduce you to Doctor Franz Lederer.”

Doctor Calloway turned his eyes to Doctor Lederer and said, “I’m very happy to meet you in person, Doctor Lederer. Please let me apologize for not being here last night when you arrived with Alex,” he said in a controlled, stilted manner.

“You don’t have to apologize, Doctor Calloway; no doubt there are going to be unexpected situations that will require your immediate response in a facility like Castillo Del Mar Sanitarium,” Doctor Lederer articulated with a guarded tone.

“Yes, there are often surprising events that take place here…and they’re not always with the residents,” he responded rather accusingly to Doctor Lederer.

“I’m sure they’re not,” he snapped back abruptly to Doctor Calloway.

As the Doctors were bantering back and forth in their somewhat sharp exchange, I could not help but feel an undercurrent of animosity between them. It was as if Mary and I weren’t even there, the way they now focused on each other. I could see that she too was sensing, the cold tension that was beginning to permeate the room. My feeling of uneasiness was pervasive and really started to crescendo, to the point of panic, by the time Mrs. Dudley opened the kitchen door and stepped into the dining room, to announce breakfast was ready.

Again, she appeared at the right time. Bless her.

After a sigh of relief, I looked at Doctor Lederer and proudly announced, “Wait till you savor Mrs. Dudley’s home-made marmalade.”

“After consuming her Irish stew last night, I’m sure the meals at Castillo Del Mar will always be a pleasurable experience,” Doctor Lederer responded with warm anticipation.

Mrs. Dudley came back into the dining room rolling a large cart laden with scrambled eggs, sausages, fried potatoes, toast, marmalade, and a large pot of coffee. Like bees to a honeycomb, we all made a beeline to the table.

After eating several forkfuls of potatoes and drinking a couple of swigs of coffee, Doctor Calloway said, “Please forgive me for being so mysterious, but I had to arrange for the admittance of another patient. The process took longer than I thought it would.”

Mary said, “I’ll ask Miss Hathaway right after breakfast to start the paper work rolling.”

“That won’t be necessary, Nurse Holden, the patient is already here. I arranged it myself, personally,” he quickly retorted.

“Oh?” Mary questioned surprisingly.

I almost choked on some sausage upon hearing this mysterious development.

“Yes. I know I should have informed you and Alex, but there wasn’t time. It all happened so fast, you see…with Alex en route to San Francisco to pick up Doctor Lederer and you so short staffed yesterday…and then there was the episode with Miss Hopkins. There wasn’t time. I know it goes against the standard practice of the six-week entry process; however, this situation required me to bend the rules.”

Doctor Calloway had expressed this in a slow guarded way. After a pause, I asked him, “May I ask who this patient is and why he or she is here?”

“All in due time, Alex,” he answered.

Mary and I looked at each other with expressions of amazement. Why was he being so evasive?

Then Doctor Lederer intervened, “Doctor Calloway and this institution are well known the world over. Naturally there are going to be situations where he has to make sudden decisions and ‘move mountains,’ so to speak; right, Doctor Calloway?”

“You already know me too well, Doctor Lederer,” he responded with an air of superiority.

“I’m learning more all the time. Every day is a learning experience for me…and this is only the beginning of my first day here.”

When Doctor Lederer uttered those words, they seemed to have more than one meaning. I longed to break this unsettling exchange with its coded undercurrent, but hoped they’d soon sort it out.

“I hope you had a restful sleep after your long journey from New York, Doctor Lederer.” Mary said.

“I slept haphazardly, Miss Holden. You know, even though the accommodations were very nice on the train during the cross-country ride, I had a difficult time sleeping because of the constant movement. Six days of it.”

“I know,” she commented. “I was affected the same way when I took the train from Indiana last year, to take this position. I remember I only had four days of it but it did take its toll on me.”

“What part of Indiana are you from, Miss Holden?” Doctor Lederer asked.

“Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana.”

I was silently enjoying my breakfast while Mary and Doctor Lederer were making small talk. Then Doctor Calloway said to me.

“Mrs. Dudley mentioned the automobile broke down in San Francisco, and you had to take the train back here. I take it, it’s still there?”

“Yes. I sent Harper by train up to San Francisco to replace the generator and drive the car back here.

“When will we have the car back?”

“Harper took the eight o’clock express this morning carrying a new generator. When he gets there, he’ll replace the old one with the new one and drive the car back. He should get here sometime between five and six this evening,” I explained.

“I see. Well, I’m sure we can get by without the vehicle for one day. I know we have enough supplies to get us through several days.”

When we finished our breakfast, Doctor Calloway went on to tell Doctor Lederer about each of the patients residing at the sanitarium and the reasons why they were here.

“We currently have six patients at our facility, Doctor Lederer. They all suffer from varying degrees of anxiety neurosis. Miss Madeline Gould, for example, is an unmarried thirty-eight-year-old finishing school teacher from Boston, Massachusetts. She came to us three months ago for therapy and treatment because she became overwhelmed with the problems, of teaching young, spoiled, unruly girls, and coping with their wealthy un-cooperative parents.

“Then there’s Penelope Hopkins, an over-made-up, New York stage actress who always wears a red wig. She won’t say how old she is, though her manager told me she’s forty-six. She’s been with us for two months now. She has periodic episodes with dramatic precision every so often. Only yesterday she had a doozie with one of our other patients. Most of those spells are staged, of course, what with her flair for the theatrical. Miss Hopkins’ anxiety is due to the fact that she hasn’t had a part since last year; she says her agent thinks she’s too old for leading lady parts, which she is, of course but refuses to admit it.

“Arthur Duncan is thirty-one. He’s a very accomplished sculptor with brown curly hair and matching full-face beard, and has heavy features. Mister Duncan has been here for…let’s see, I think it is four months. Although he’s English by nationality, he lives in Paris, France six months of the year. His distress is a result of the unsettling events currently going on in Germany.

“You may have heard of Kyle Morgan, the motion picture actor with the classic Adonis look. He came up here from Hollywood last month following the recommendation of his personal psychiatrist. He’s twenty-seven, unmarried…and wants to remain so. His trouble has to do with the pressure his studio boss has been putting on him, to marry a famous actress in order to dispel growing rumors of his ‘true nature.’

“Ernest Lipton is a local man who has accomplished a lot in his thirty-five years of life, although he looks older. He is a writer, an adventurer…and an alcoholic. He has been with us six months for treatment of the third attribute. And lastly and most recently, three weeks now, is Alfred Strutmire. He is a balding fifty-five-year-old mathematics professor from the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Strutmire suffers from uncontrollable rage. He came here at the behest of the chairman of the Mathematics Department. It seems when some of his students are having problems or don’t understand certain mathematical concepts, he often hits them over the shoulders with a yardstick. Hopefully his treatment and stay at Castillo Del Mar will give him a foundation to build patience, as well as how to handle anxious situations. In fact, it was he who had the hostile encounter with Miss Hopkins yesterday.”

* * * *

It was ten a.m. and we’d finished our first meal together. Mrs. Dudley looked in to see if she could start clearing the table. Doctor Calloway gave her an affirmative nod and went on to say, Mary and I should introduce Doctor Lederer to the rest of the staff and the patients. Meanwhile he would orientate the new seventh patient. Mary and I were also to show Doctor Lederer the layout of the interior of the building. He would then meet us back in his office at eleven o’clock and give Doctor Lederer the Cooke’s tour, as it were, of the outside and surrounding grounds himself before lunch. Although I was troubled with Doctor Calloway’s reluctance to tell me anything about this new patient, I figured he would introduce Mary, Doctor Lederer and me, to him, or her, when we met Doctor Calloway in his office in an hour.

The Residents

The elevator door opened on the second floor. Mary, Doctor Lederer and I went to the nurses’ station, where Miss Hathaway was waiting for us. The station was centered in the middle of the floor, like a hub. Last year a telephone switchboard had been installed, to make it the new central communication center of the Castle.

“Miss Hathaway,” Mary said, “allow me to introduce you to Doctor Franz Lederer, our visiting psychiatrist.”

“How do you do, Doctor Lederer, welcome to Castillo Del Mar. I am Dorothy Hathaway, the administrative secretary.”

“How do you do, Miss Hathaway, I’m very happy to meet you,” Doctor Lederer said with his professional protocol as he took her hand.

Then Mary said, “Our office is on the east side of this floor, Doctor Lederer.”