if he tells me this, I can be reasonably assured that it is a real possibility.
I have prayed for Bernard every minute of every day. I am going to see him this week. I am staying with his friend Ted and Ted’s wife.
Still, I am very angry with him. Please pray for me that this anger dissipates, because I know it is not right to be angry when my friend is suffering. I am very angry with him because in his mania he has confused me with a saint. I itch writing that sentence. I am angry with him because he did something to me in his mind, something that now makes me wonder what else had been in his mind before he said what he did. It’s making it very hard to write—to the point where I don’t know what’s weighing heavier on my conscience, the blank page that’s resulting from my anger or the anger itself. I sit in front of the typewriter and type and then start looking out the window, worrying about Bernard and then fuming at Bernard. And so he’s turned me into a crazy person too—he’s led me into the realm of what if and who’s there?
Love,
Frances
April 15, 1959
Dear John—
Your office called and told me you are in England for a few weeks on business. I hope all is going well with you, and you are enjoying your time there.
You asked me to tell you what happened when I saw Bernard.
Hospitals are horrible places, and this sort of hospital in particular—it’s supposed to be expensive, but it feels like a dump.
I walked into the common room and there was a baseball game on—the sound of it like flies buzzing over the heads of the bodies slumped in vinyl padded chairs. Gray linoleum, navy blue vinyl. I had baked Bernard some chocolate chip cookies at Ted’s apartment—Ted said that Bernard was starving and had been making the staff miserable in his loud complaining about the food. So I walked into this awful, cloudy, bruise-colored room and saw Bernard’s big curly head over the collar of a cheap red velour bathrobe the color of port. “Bernard,” I said to the back of his head, and he got up and came to me. He looked exhausted. The bathrobe hung on him like something shaggy and ancient, but he still looked regal, like a chieftain robbed of his scabbard. “Bernard,” I said, and took his hand. “No, no, that’s not enough,” he said. He took the package out of my other hand, put it down on a chair, and then pulled me to him. He was right. That wasn’t enough.
That over, we took our seats. We didn’t say anything for a while. I smelled the smell of that place—stale, a film of body odor, dust. Ammonia at base. The baseball game droned. I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound inappropriate in its smallness or patronizing in its sincerity. “I made you some cookies,” I said, “because Ted said you had been inciting riots at dinner.” Bernard smiled. But his smile came slower than it usually does, and I realized that he must be swimming through the Thorazine. I started to cry and he saw this. “Now I know you love me,” he said.
I brought The Tempest and I thought I could read him some of it. I should have realized that perhaps this was not the best choice. After a while he asked me to stop. “Are you afraid of me, Frances?” he said. “No,” I said. “I’m not afraid of you. I want you to get well.”
“You waited too long to come,” he said.
I said nothing. That seemed the gracious thing to do.
“Please pray for me,” he said. I told him I had been praying for him all this time.
I saw his parents on my way out—I heard his mother arguing with the nurses. I think they had gotten confused about his schedule and she wanted to be allowed to see him even though visiting hours were over. I see where Bernard gets the fire in the gut to demand better institutional dining. He has her face too. “Watch my purse,” she said in ill temper to a nurse bustling by. She’s the pier and Mr. Eliot is the dinghy tied to it, bobbing away in oblivion. I suppose I should have introduced myself but I didn’t think it would go well.
I’m going next weekend. I’ll give you another report then.
Yours,
Frances
April 15, 1959
Dear Claire—
How are