Saving Anna Karenina

Part 28

Start with Part 1, and read a short synopsis of the original book.

Next came a woman with olive skin holding a clipboard. Her eyes were blue and sparkling, such an unusual contrast to her skin color. Her brown hair had white streaks in it. When she opened her mouth the voice that came out was shockingly hoarse. It made such a range of notes that the woman must have been trained as an actress or chanteuse. She stopped dramatically in the middle of her sentences, changed clip, and stopped at the end of a phrase to smile widely. The whole effect of her was so moving that Anna had not heard a word. She didn’t want to be so rude as to admit this, so she commenced listening and hoped to pick up the woman’s theme in the middle.

“…and we’ve investigated the possibility of sending you and your son back. But the technicians say it’s not possible, because the device in Russia can’t accommodate an incoming traveler. It’s the doctors’ opinion that you would be better off if you could return to your own home and period of history, but since that’s not possible, we’re going to have to put our heads together and figure out what the best thing is for you. What do you think Anna?”

Anna felt she had a sympathetic confidante in this new woman, whoever she was. Clearly, she wasn’t a doctor. There was something about her like Margaret, that same indulgent, motherly quality. She felt her rage at the doctor receding, and took a deep, resolute breath.

“I keep telling every soul in this sanatorium that I left home because I had troubles with Vronsky, which lead me to nearly take my own life, twice. No one listens to me. They tell me bizarre -”

The woman smiled, causing Anna to stop talking.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you, it’s just the word sanatorium, I haven’t heard that in a long time,” she said.

“Well it is a sanatorium, isn’t it?” said Anna.

“No — well, I suppose it is, Anna, although I would hope it’s not as sinister as is sounds!”

“Sinister? I just saw a man vomiting in a trashcan out there, and it doesn’t seem the nurses will give him his clothes. Furthermore, I spent nearly all day yesterday being ignored as I suffered terrible pains in my head that had me vomiting repeatedly until I lost all of my strength and fainted on the bathroom floor, where the woman from that bed over there, Patti, found me, and carried me back to my bed.”

“They’re supposed to be giving you meds,” said the woman. She consulted her clipboard. “It says they prescribed you Ativan and Zyprexa, and if you’re in pain, they should give you Tylenol.”

“But they didn’t give me anything for the pain! I fell to the floor in pain yesterday waiting for some attention outside their office. Then the woman told me to collect myself, as though I was a petulant child. Such insulting treatment. I want the other pills, the ones I’ve been taking since I first arrived in New York.”

“Anna, we can’t give you OxyContin. Do you know what it’s prescribed for? Cancer, people recovering from major surgeries. It’s a powerful painkiller. You don’t have a debilitating physical condition. If you keep taking it like you have been, it will kill you. Sooner rather than later. And it’s a grisly death. Your organs fail, slowly.” She paused and widened her eyes for effect. “You told the doctor in the ER that you only take it occasionally, but now you’re telling me you take it regularly?”

“Regularly?” cried Anna. “Is it regular to be cast out from society, to be an orphan, to be isolated, alone, ignored by the man you risked everything to be with? Is it regular to travel through time and live in a house where the landlady refuses to cook for her boarders? To be insulted and ostracized by the very women who are supposed to be hosting you — 150 years into the future, in a new world, where you have no social invitations except to meetings for anonymous people in church basements? I don’t think any of it is very regular. The fact is, I’m in a terrible amount of pain every day, and these pills are the only thing to tide me over.”

“Anna, I’m really sorry you’ve had such a terrible experience. Believe me when I tell you that opioids are not the answer. They destroy the lives of so many people who come into this ward. We can help you feel better in other ways. It’s not true that no one cares. I care.”

“I miss him so much,” Anna whimpered.

“I’m sorry,” said the woman gravely. After a memorial pause, she began again. “You also had a close relationship with Margaret, I understand. It must have been disappointing when that ended?”

“Have you spoken to her? To that witch, Jean?”

“I did speak to Margaret.”

“What did she have to say for herself?” Anna almost shouted.

“I think Margaret tried her best Anna, but she couldn’t help you as much as you needed.”

“And now she’s just abandoned me.”

The woman paused, thinking.

“That’s what often happens when we need too much from people. They leave us. Adults are supposed to be able to rely on themselves, and when they try and depend on other adults, for all of their needs…they often find the relationships… break.”

“In your country!” Anna shouted. “In Russia, when we are wounded, people tend to us. They care.”

“Well I can’t help but mention the obvious Anna, even if it’s a bit cruel — your friend in Russia did send you off to another continent, and into the future —” she stopped and thought, then began again. “I’m sure he thought he was saving you, actually. And you may very well be right. Each culture, each era, has its own mores and principles of community. None of the people you meet here can really know what your life in Russia was like. And you happened to have landed in a place where people have huge personal boundaries, I mean they attempt to be very self-reliant.”

Anna tried to wipe the tears away, but the more she wiped the more they came. It was a shame, really a shame, about Margaret.

“I used to work as a literary agent for screenplays, the scripts for films, if you’ve seen a film?” Anna nodded. “We used to say that all storylines had to be tied up to make for a commercial script. That means if someone gets Cancer in act one, the Cancer has to be revisited at some other point in the story. No loose ends were allowed for a Hollywood story. But your story, Anna, is full of loose ends. Margaret gave me a list of the people who tried to help you since you’ve been here. Beyond her and Jean, there was a woman named Allison, a man named Berge, some Russian parents of Seryozha’s schoolmates and also his teacher —

“Garbage,” said Anna. Her face had turned hard as stone. “These people threw crumbs at me. Like a trail through a dark forest with no end. They could not do anything to restore my status so that my son and I could live in dignity, instead of that horrid boardinghouse.”

“You have very high expectations. But I suppose that’s natural for a countess. You are a countess, aren’t you?”

“By marriage.”

“Well not very many people today in America will understand what you lived like, so I can imagine it could be very alienating.”

“Wake up, America,” said Anna. She thought of that angry man in the dining room.

“Let’s end this on a good note today. Tomorrow we can pick up where we left off, okay?”

“You mean you’re not leaving me forever?” Anna said.

“Forever? No, I’m your social worker. I’m not leaving you until you feel better.”

Anna nodded, wiping her face. Margaret had forsaken her, but she had an ally, two counting Patti. And there was Richard, who gave her the water.

“It’s clear to me that what you’ve been feeling all this time is shame,” said the woman. “You can’t tolerate the feeling anymore, so your ship is sinking. But it’s not at the bottom of the sea, and that is a good thing Anna. We need to patch up the holes.”

“I’m in a sanatorium,” said Anna. “I’ve lost Vronsky, and now I can never go back to him.”

“Well, you’re right about some of those things — you are in a sanatorium, but you’ll soon leave. You’re alive, and you have a son, here in New York. We want to keep you alive. He needs you. Imagine how frightening it would be for Seryozha to be stranded without anyone he shared a past with, in another country, another era?”

This was the first American to pronounce her son’s name correctly.

“Please think of him,” she continued. “You had a lot of adversity, but you aren’t the only one, and I believe you can survive it.”

“Now, I want you to tell me one good moment you can remember from the last two days. It can be something you laughed at, or someone you laughed with, or someone you liked. Surely you must like someone in this place, there are a lot of people in here.”

“That man, Richard,” said Anna. “He came to me in the middle of the night and he said he had read about me. He brought me a glass of water. He was so kind to me.”

“Doesn’t that feel better, to think of that?”

“It’s not going to solve anything.”

“Don’t be too sure. I have to leave you now. I’ll come see you tomorrow.”

“Pardon me for asking this, but I didn’t hear your name.”

“Joan. Like Joan Rivers. They all say I sound like her because of my voice.”

Anna smiled.

This is part 28 of a serialized novella being published each Thursday. It is a speculative sequel to Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27

I’m the author of Oh, the Places Where You’ll Have a Nervous Breakdown.