The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich [107]
“Got a slip on?”
I take her hand around the wrist, my thumb at her pulse.
“Stop, stop,” she pretends, but her voice is soft. I follow her around a corner, then a sharp turn, through a door, and we are right in the middle of the pipes, some wrapped with powdery bandages of asbestos, some smooth, boiling copper conduits. My cap snags. I let it fall. We walk into the nest of pipes and duck low, underneath the biggest, walk down the cast stone steps to the other side, a kind of landing, completely closed in. Behind us there is a wall of rough brick and flagstone that smells of dirt, of fields in summer with the sun beating down just after a heavy rain. The heat brings out the smell.
“Let’s sit down,” she says. “I’d like to get you stoned but I don’t have anything.”
I’m still holding her wrist. There is barely room to stand. The pipes, running parallel, of different lengths, graze the tops of our heads.
We sit down together. I’m shaking but she’s very calm. Anyway, it isn’t the way I thought it would be. After the first few moments, there is nothing frightening at all about kissing her or touching her. It is familiar, entirely familiar, much more so than if I were touching a boy I’d never touched before. The only thing is I keep shaking, trembling, because our bodies are the same, and when I touch her I know what she is feeling just as she knows when touching me, so it seems both normal and unbearable. We don’t take our clothes off, do anything, just touch each other lightly on our arms, our throats, our hands, and kiss. Her whole face is burning, and soft, like flower petals.
She says, “That’s enough.” I should go back now and she will follow. Any longer, and they’ll miss us. As I walk back down the corridors of whitewashed stone, through the five doors, back onto the ward, I begin to imagine how things really are. I invent her story. My thoughts take off. Nonette came here in obvious need, and I was here for her. She was here for me. I came here not knowing that I would meet the one I’d always needed. A week, maybe three, and she will be all right. I’ll leave with her.
“Nonette said you asked for a patient visit.” Mrs. L. sits behind her desk, a stack of forms beneath her spread hands.
“Yes,” I say, though I didn’t ask. But I’m smiling, slowly blooming at the idea. Nonette’s idea.
“We like to encourage our aides to work with the patients during off-duty hours, and I don’t see anything wrong with it, as long as you know that she presented here with some real problems.”
“I know that. I’ve talked to her about them.”
“Good.”
Mrs. L. waits, watching me a little too carefully. I am not supposed to know a whole lot about each patient’s personal history, not more than the patient wants me to know.
“Look,” I say, “she told me about her cousin forcing himself on her. I know she came here out of control, and I still don’t know exactly what precipitated it. I don’t know what she’s dealing with at home, at school, or if she’s going back there. The thing is, I really like Nonette. I’m not doing this because I feel sorry for her.”
Mrs. L. bites her lip. “Your motives are good, I know that. But you’ve got to know, to understand, she’s on lithium and we’re adjusting her dosage. She’s depressive, and then she has her manic spells.”
“We’re just going to make a batch of cookies.”
Mrs. L. smiles at me approvingly, and signs the pass.
There is a small kitchen in the basement of the staff dormitory, just one room with a stove and some cupboards, a fridge, an old wooden table