Saving Anna Karenina
Part 43
Start with Part 1, and read a short synopsis of the original book.
Anna was almost finished reading the Danielle Stone novel. She lay in bed wishing it would never end.
Mitch had bribed all but the two leaders of the pirate crew to stand down, and then used a stun grenade to repel the hostiles. The pirates climbed down into their skiff and took off. Prince Gabriel was beaten and bloody, but alive. Adriana bandaged his wounds as Mitch drove the yacht to port.
“He saved our lives, daddy,” said Adriana tearfully.
“And I’m very grateful. Mitch will never want for anything the rest of his life,” said Gabriel. “But you’re not dating him. Mitch…Adriana, sweetheart, you don’t know his history. I do. Trust me when I tell you this must end now.”
“I can’t. I love him! I’ve never felt this way about any man.”
“I understand that you believe that now, but you’re traumatized. Give yourself a little time. You’ll love again, and it will be a man more suitable for the long term. I know you darling. You give your heart to people. But don’t give it to the wrong person.”
“Wrong why?” Adriana shouted. “Because he isn’t noble? Because he isn’t wealthy? No. I won’t use that shallow formula anymore. I know what feels right. It’s my life. My decision.”
“Honey, that’s not my concern. My concern is your long-term happiness. What will you do when Mitch is at sea for six months out of the year, when you don’t know if he’s taken company in whatever port he’s docked in? He’s unpredictable, a stray. You can’t domesticate the man. Ahhh. It’s times like these that I wish your mother was alive. She would be so much better at explaining this.”
Anna’s new roommate was stirring. The silent one had been taken away on a stretcher the night before, to a different part of the hospital, they said.
It was a worrisome event, frankly. Blair said the doctors destroyed her cognition by giving her electric shocks. She said they went to court together, each to try and get out of the hospital, and there Anna’s roommate protested the electric shocks. She said the treatment was making her forget everything. But the doctors had won, and therefore continued the shock treatment. Anna was surprised the woman had been able to speak as she had never said a word in their shared room. At one point earlier in the week, Blair tried to give her a pen and asked her to write something, anything, to keep her mind agile. But the woman couldn’t hold a pen.
It made Anna feel like she had everything in the world when she thought about this roommate, even about Blair, who didn’t have a husband or children, was not so young, or pretty. She had puffy bags hanging from her eyes like dead fish. And the doctors treated her like someone without status — a prostitute, or scandalized woman — not the way Anna had been treated in Russia, but far, far worse, and Blair didn’t deserve it. She said her boyfriend had punched her in the face, leading to their breakup. And now she was alone.
“Do you know what happens to divorced women in Muslim countries?” Blair had asked everyone. “They have to live in half-way houses, and they aren’t allowed to work or participate in society. The doctors in this hospital are no better than Muslims!” She had it out for these Muslims.
Anna’s elder roommate had improved. She now rose for breakfast, and last night had watched television in the front salon. She told Anna that she was relieved she wasn’t demented. Apparently this word wasn’t only a slight that could be so aptly applied to Princess Betsy[1]. The elder roommate’s concern of dementia was related to her memory — she hadn’t worked in thirty years; she said she lived in the same apartment her whole life, shopped at the same stores, and took care of her dying mother. It was because of this dismal routine that she had become melancholy and checked into the sanatorium, fearing that she suffered from all kinds of mental ailments. In fact, the doctor told her, her only problem was Xanax, a drug she described to Anna as, “the only way to live.” The doctor recommended that she visit some new shops to spice up her routine, and start volunteering somewhere.
“Oy vey,” she said to Anna. “I already spend the day taking care of my mother.”
“Why don’t you visit a dressmaker?” said Anna. “That always makes me feel fresh, wearing a new dress.”
Blair joined Anna and her roommate at breakfast. Bernadette had gone home, Blair announced.
“She went to Haiti as a volunteer after the earthquake,” Blair said. “She saw all of these horrible things, she had to amputate children’s limbs; it was a panorama of death. And someone had prescribed her sleeping pills, to sleep, in Haiti. And when she came back she was so traumatized from her work in Haiti, that for the first two nights, she couldn’t sleep without the sleeping pills. Her husband saw her taking them, and then he called 911 and said his wife was trying to kill herself by overdosing on sleeping pills, that she had gone crazy! Just like that! But she hadn’t. Obviously. That’s why the doctors let her out. He probably just wanted cause to divorce her in this disgusting state, because he was having an affair, and Bernadette is the one with the money.”
Anna shuddered at the thought of such extreme connivance in a betraying husband. What would happen to Bernadette’s children?
The servant was shutting the restaurant.
“The cafeteria’s CLOSED!” she shouted several times to people eating slowly.
Anna rose with the rest and wandered out into the salon. She wanted to read the ending of the novel. There were only a few pages left. On her way to her room she passed the pale girl pacing the crack in the floor in her animal print sweater, laughing alone. Anna stopped and said hello. The girl looked up, turning stern.
“I came here from Indiana. All I wanted was a job in New York. But I ended up getting handcuffed to a chair in Duane Reed at four o’clock in the morning. I was just sitting in that chair to rest. I was tired.” She returned her gaze to the crack and continued to walk.
Anna had heard many people discuss their troubles finding work. It seemed to be a theme with the patients, something that drove them to madness. At least she had one blessing — no desire to work whatsoever, and zero guilt about this sentiment.
[1] Princess Betsy: A selfish, vain, fair-weather friend.
This is part 43 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, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42
I’m the author of Oh, the Places Where You’ll Have a Nervous Breakdown.
