The microbus goes again, and she is alone when she trudges along the mud-smeared path to the front door of the long building, a forty-year-old woman in a long brown skirt, long red pullover, and a woollen cap with flaps hanging over her ears. Against the green lawns and the backdrop of drenched gravel road and behind that a green and brown orchard, she looks like a withered flower. Having reached the door, she says: “Morning. I’m Eileen Kamfer.”
Her voice makes people in the lounge look this way, and the nurse at reception scrutinises the woman’s face. The voice sounds strange even in a psychiatric institution, and to the experienced nurse the reedy sound is a reminder that brain ailments are serious.
“I’m Sister Sebhoko.”
“When can I see Doctor De Lange? I’ve heard such nice things about him.”
“We call him Ronnie. You’ll see him this afternoon at your first group session.”
“I’m going to cooperate. I’m so going to cooperate.”
“If you’ll sign here, I can show you your bed.”
“It’s so lovely out here,” Eileen says.
“The road is terrible. It’s the rain.”
“Green and autumn colours and mud. The driver pointed out a wine cellar among the trees. It’s beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it, Eileen.”
“This is my last hospital. But I promise to remain positive.”
“No, we don’t harbour those kinds of thoughts. We think of today and tomorrow can look after itself.”
“Sister, your hair looks lovely.”
“Thank you very much, Eileen.”
“It’s my pleasure. I make people happy. Do you see what I do? I’m positive.”
Her bed is one of three in a room on the first floor. There’s a small table in a bay window looking out on a wet parking lot.
“Now you pack your things in the cupboard and put your case under the bed. Lunch is at one.”
“Sister, I don’t eat much.”
“You have to eat, dear. For your health.”
“That’s what I mean. I’m a healthy eater and healthy eaters don’t eat much. I’ll cooperate, you’ll see.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Eileen. Look for me if you want to know something, hear?”
“Thank you, Sister. I can see you’re a dependable person.”
She unpacks. Her clothes consist of socks, high shoes, long skirts, long pullovers and woollen caps. When she is done, she sits down on the edge of the bed, legs close together, one hand in her lap, the other touching the light acne on her cheek.
A woman enters.
“Well, I’ll be,” the woman says in a loud voice on seeing Eileen. Her laugh makes Eileen blink.
“I’m Eileen,” she quickly says, her voice as reedy and insignificant as ever.
“My goodness! I’m Joan.”
“I’m a patient here.”
“You are? Well, so am I, I suppose. Are you a tarty?”
“A what?”
“Everyone here is either a druggie or a tarty. I’m a druggie. You must be a tarty. So we won’t be in the same group.”
“Do you know Doctor De Lange?”
“Ronnie? I know him so well, by now I feel nothing but contempt for him.”
“Hey?”
“I’m just pulling your leg, lovey.”
“It’s very beautiful here. And you have a beautiful skin.”
Joan touches a dark cheek. “Hmm. We should go for a walk when the rain clears up.”
“It’s lovely out here on the farm.”
“Well, it’s not really a farm. Not now. You have to do your bit for Ronnie.”
“I will. I will.”
“But there’s some nice walking to be done.” Joan feels under the little table next to her bed and takes out a kerchief to wipe her nose.
“Where do you walk?”
“I like going out past the vineyards, to the wheat field.”
“The what field?”
But Joan doesn’t seem to hear. “Come, it’s almost lunchtime.”
The food is hot and tasty. Outside the rain has drawn back and sunlight falls as if shining through soup on the tables nearest the windows.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Eileen says.
A few people smile or nod, others briefly look at her and then away.
In the afternoon a young doctor talks to her asking familiar questions. “What day of the week is it? How is your mood?”
Then she attends her first session. The psychiatrist, Ronnie, has thinning black hair stretching back across his skull and something challenging and fit about his middle-aged figure.
At first he ignores her and talks to a man who appears sullen and frightened at the same time. “Ben, you want me to wrestle you to the floor?”
The impression the man makes immediately changes as he laughs and rubs his ears. “No, Ronnie, not today.”
“You know I can do it.”
The group laugh and Eileen can see that for at least a while Ben won’t look sullen and frightened.
“Eileen,” Ronnie asks, sitting down on a chair, his hands under his thighs. “How are you?”
They’re sitting in a circle of chairs, eight of them, men and women. But she decides not to pay any attention to the audience and rather immediately take the man into her confidence. “I do my exercises. I make eye contact. I smile a lot. I don’t concern myself with trifles.”
One of the men shifts in his seat. Two women look at each other. It doesn’t matter. Her voice, even being what it is, conveys the necessary, as always.
“Glad to hear it,” Ronnie says.
“Are you going to wrestle me to the floor?” she asks, her heart thudding with impetuosity.
He smiles and looks away. “You will be happy here. Group, shall we …”
“Joan is going to show me the we field,” Eileen says.
Ronnie nods slowly. “Where’s the we field?”
“It’s very beautiful there. You walk there.”
“Here you’re free,” Ronnie says. “You can do what you want as long as it doesn’t intrude on others’ peace and quiet.”
“Thank you, Ronnie. I can see you’re a dependable person.”
She turns around to look at the other patients with a smile, and it is in that moment that Ronnie gets up, approaches her and talks in her face.
“Stop sounding like that!” he says firmly.
“Hell and damn!” she says and steps back. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t swear.” There is no trace of whining in those words.
“Swear if you want to,” Ronnie says. They stare at each other. Then he raises his eyebrows and she has to look away.
“One doesn’t expect this sort of thing,” she says, now a little indignantly, but whining too.
“Excuse me?” Ronnie says with some threat in his tone.
“I said one doesn’t expect this sort of thing!” she says loudly and clearly.
After the session Sister Sebhoko pushes the medicine trolley into the lounge where Eileen is sitting with the other patients. The television is on and an attractive man in a white coat is explaining that one shouldn’t eat sour fruit with sweet fruit in the same meal.
“Everything okay?” the nurse asks her.
“Yes, I’m very happy here.”
“You must take these pills.”
“I always take my pills.”
Joan comes in and complains. “Don’t you guys get enough of doctors? Where are the soaps?”
“Joan is going to show me the we field,” Eileen says. “She’s my friend.”
“Joan, calm and serenity, hey?” Sister Sebhoko says.
“Sister thinks I’m too manic for my own good,” Joan says to Eileen.
“You’re beautiful,” Eileen says.
By late afternoon the clouds glow above the institution, which consists of a long main building and four or five prefab structures. In the distance the trees and bare vineyard appear sharp and cold. The two women walk down the road, Joan in a large windbreaker, Eileen with a large pullover and an even larger one over that.
“So what do you think of him – Ronnie?” Joan asks.
“I heard about him and that’s why I’m here.”
“The great psyche man.”
“He offended me a little.”
“You should work at your voice, you know. Make an effort to speak clearly.”
Eileen folds her arms as if gathering her own body heat.
They follow the road under dripping oaks and then past vineyard and an orchard. They walk in silence, except for Eileen, who keeps saying how lovely everything is. They walk until the institution is behind them in the shallow valley.
“We’ll have to go back,” Joan says.
“But the we field,” Eileen says, and the words come hard and shrill. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You said you were going to show me.”
Joan shakes her head.
“The we field’s everyone’s place,” Eileen says. ”That’s where the community gathers.”
“It’s getting late.”
Eileen says, “I think it’s this way.”
She starts following a track away from the gravel road, past trees and a stack of sawn logs.
“We’d better get back.”
Maybe it’s the insecurity tempering Joan’s voice, but suddenly Eileen is filled with courage.
“Come on!” she calls out and laughs at the strength in her voice.
They walk along the muddy track. Left of them the leafless vineyard is resting in dark brown stumps; on their right blue gum trees line the next field; in front of them is shrub.
“It’s going to rain.”
The sun is behind clouds that look like old wool.
“Come,” Eileen says.
“Where are we going?”
They enter the shrub, Eileen leading.
“It’s here, it’s here.”
“What?”
“The we field.”
An iron gate leans at an angle, attached to its post by one hinge. Beyond it stretch rows of ground heaps garnished with faded plastic flower wreaths briefly revived by the wet, and real, dead flowers in upside down soda bottles filled with water. There aren’t many headstones, and those there are, are handmade from wood and rock. They have to tread carefully to avoid the puddles.
“See, the inscriptions are about being faithful,” Eileen says. “‘Veronica Konak. Faithful to the end.’ ‘Maans Galant. He was faithful. A more faithful worker there never was.’ What beautiful words.”
“Your average colonial heritage. I’m going back,” Joan says, but she doesn’t take more than half a step.
Because Eileen has taken off her woollen cap and is pulling the topmost pullover from her body. Then the next one follows, exposing a tracksuit top, which she also takes off, and then a blouse and a T-shirt. She drapes the clothes over the slanted iron gate.
Wind and rain suddenly hit the blue gum trees and then the shower pulls closed over the two women.
“What a miserable day,” Joan says. “I hate winter.”
Eileen laughs. “The we field, the we field.” She is in her underclothes, but finds those to be a nuisance too and takes them off. She is naked but for mud on her pale lower legs and a gloss to her chest and face. She sits down, squatting so that the flesh on the outsides of her hips and thighs bulge, sits down in the cold mud and starts rubbing it over herself.
“For God’s sake,” Joan says with little enthusiasm. “I’m going.” She pulls up her collar and turns her face away from the rain.
The mud soon covers Eileen’s nakedness. After an initial cold minute or so it begins to feel warm. As the rain washes her clean, she pastes on some more, and it cakes in her hair.
How much time passes, she has no idea, and maybe it’s only the weather bringing on the evening so early, but it’s almost dark when again she hears Joan.
“Just up there, Ronnie.”
“Eileen?” asks the doctor with the face that’s noble in its masculinity and sensual in its femininity.
Eileen is sitting with her legs drawn up, arms around her knees, next to a grave. Now she is shaking. The warm feeling has left her. She is glad to see the man. He has that sort of presence. You’re always glad to see him.
“What are you doing?” Ronnie asks. He kneels next to her. She sees some muddy water staining his trouser leg where it touches the ground.
She looks at him, tries to say something, doesn’t immediately find the words.
“Hello, Doctor,” she ventures, soft and nasally.
He leans closer, raises his hand to his ear and frowns.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Eileen Kamfer.” Clear and proud.
“And where are you?”
“I’m in the we field.”
“What is that?”
“It’s where people meet.”
“And what do they do?”
“They pray and sing and afterwards they share food with family.”
“You’re at the Kingsley Hall. Do you remember?”
“No, I’m no longer there.”
“Where did you hear about the we field?”
“Joan showed me. She showed me the we field.”
“Wheat field. I mentioned a wheat field this morning and now she’s all …”
But Ronnie raises his hand and Joan is quiet again.
“Is Joan your friend?”
“Yes.”
“Did she help you do something about your voice? Your voice is beautiful.”
Eileen is quiet for a few seconds. Then she says, “It’s you who taught me to speak.”
He smiles roguishly. “It’s not me. You did it yourself.”
She doubts that, but it’s so cold and the company is so welcome. “I don’t know. I think of one thing … and then another … but I don’t know …”
“Come.”
Now she notices the two men in white clothes behind Joan.
“No!” Her voice is harsh. “I’ve had enough of places like that.” Still embracing her legs, she moves her face down to her knees.
The two men approach, but Ronnie waves at them and they step back. Eileen has looked up again, first at the men, then at the doctor.
Ronnie rises and unbuttons his coat and throws it over a headstone. Then his pullover and shirt and shoes and trousers follow. Then his underclothes. He sits down next to her.
She smiles. “It looks like there’s a pillow of mud on your backside. Aren’t you cold?”
“Aren’t you cold yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go and have tea in my office.”
“No. I’m here now and I want to stay here.”
“But why? It’s always better to be warm.”
“It has to stop sometime.”
“Why does that have to be now?”
“I’ve had enough. Of hospitals and doctors and pills.”
“And if I tell you it won’t be necessary again? That you’re no longer a patient?”
“What am I then?”
“My guest.”
She searches his face, but reads only the nobility and the beauty in it. He doesn’t even blink. She does, however, and then looks away. She notices the skin over his narrow shoulders.
“You’ve got goose bumps,” she says.
“So help me get warm.”
“You only have to get dressed, silly.”
“Not without you.”
And together they dress, and she turns from a muddy mushroom-like figure into a bright red flower on a brown stem. It’s a beautiful moment, she almost says, but Joan, whom she wanted to address, has turned and is on her way, in the direction of the gravel road and the institution.
Back at the building, Ronnie sends her to take a bath. She first showers to get rid of the worst mud, then sits back in the hot bath. She misses supper, but Sister Sebhoko lets her into the dining room, where a bowl of food awaits her.
After that in the lounge Joan doesn’t speak to her. Eileen smiles, saying nothing herself, watching television where a man is shown being furious at another and saying he has no idea of the effect that separate development had on people.
“I agree with that,” she hears Joan say.
Eileen doesn’t look at her. But she speaks. In her clear, loud, confident new voice: “It’s often the case that your own concerns keep you from paying attention to national crises.”