I follow behind Suseas to the right hallway. It looks longer than the others. Both in length and in life sentence.
I am introduced to two patients.
The first room harbors a woman with a fear of bacteria and germs. Her hands look like a slab of raw beef from scrubbing them with bleach, and she has no fingernails from ripping them off to get rid of any germs that linger. Her head is shaved to keep away lice along with her eyebrows and eyelashes. She persistently peels off the skin from her lips to keep them clean as well. She is under constant watch, so she won’t hurt herself anymore.
Another room holds a frantic man in his midforties. This case may be the most frightening. He believes he is in the ninth layer of hell. He sees fire and lost souls burning in pain and agony. They tell me that he’s even tried to claw his own eyes out from the horrid things he’s seen. He has to wear mittens now like a newborn.
Suseas stops walking at the second to last room of the hallway. Her feet remain planted in front of the last door as if there’s a barrier keeping her from stretching her leg forward. For a moment, she glances ahead, parting her thin pink lips as a ghost of a fearful frown leaves her cheeks.
“Miss Ambrose, I’m happy to say you are most impressive. Just as Mr. Aurick said you would be.” She blots the sides of her face with the back of her hand, ridding herself of the glossy sheen of perspiration. “Is this really a life you could see for yourself?”
I remember asking Scarlett this same question one night while we sat on the roof of her beaten-down house, letting our eyes wander over the thousands of stars in the sky. She had finished telling me about an incident in one of the treatments. A young boy drowned. While the conformist stared emptily at his cold, blue body. Scarlett tried to resuscitate him. She pressed on his bare chest for forty-five minutes, bruising her knees and spraining her wrist. He was only twelve years old.
I couldn’t see why she would subject herself to this kind of torment. Why not leave? She looked at me then, like I’m looking at Suseas now. She said, If more people with compassion chose to see the ugly and not turn a blind eye, maybe this world would be a better place.
“This is where I belong,” I say. And despite the evil I’ve seen, I believe it to be true. I can’t understand my own illogical reasoning, but walking down this hallway, running my fingers over the textured walls—there’s a cosmic pull that is binding my soul to this place. A vortex that is sucking me in, deeper and deeper.
Suseas lifts her chin with obvious pride. “What a delight. It would be my honor to offer you a conformist position. Might you start as soon as tomorrow?”
I take a deep breath. Nod my head. Swallow down the bitter taste of fear and stress that gathers on my tongue like sour stomach acid.
She takes two steps away from the last door, guiding me back to the beginning of the hallway. I don’t follow but hold a hand up to stop her.
“Wait, you’re not going to show me the last room?” It’s the only room without a profile clipboard or a small window on the door.
“No,” she replies sharply, tilting her head and squinting her eyes down at me as if my asking was completely out of place.
“Why not?”
“No one goes into that room.” Her voice is cold and out of character, like a winter’s death.
I should let it go. But it’s like an itch I have to scratch. “Can you explain why?”
She whips her head at me. “Miss Ambrose, this will be the first and last time I address this question. I will not tolerate nosiness or a proclivity for unladylike subjects. Is that understood?”
I nod, frozen in place. What nerve have I struck?
“That room is never spoken of by any individual in this establishment. No one goes near that door. No one steps foot inside except members of the council. You may venture anywhere in the asylum, work with any patient, open any door—except that one.” Her unwavering stare forces me to avert my eyes. “If you value your life, your sanity, and if you prefer to remain employed by this asylum rather than be a patient inside of it—you’ll respect my order, drop your curiosity, and never pick it up again.”
I gaze back at the largest door at the end of the hallway.
The thirteenth room.
