3
Peggy
JUNE 1946
I rode into Newburgh with Mr. and Mrs. Barnett the following morning, and we took the car ferry across the Hudson River to the veterans’ hospital in Wappingers Falls. We were a little early and more than a little nervous, so we spent a few minutes walking around outside the hospital. The peaceful grounds offered a sweeping view of the river and of the distant mountains that had surrounded me and grounded me since childhood. I hoped Jimmy could see the mountains from his hospital room and that they would remind him of home and the people who loved him.
I had remembered Jimmy’s Bible and I pulled it from my pocket to show his parents. “I brought this along to give to Jimmy, if that’s okay with you.”
His mother caressed my shoulder. “Of course, Peggy. That’s a wonderful idea.”
“And look—I found the name Gisela, the woman in the photograph, written in the margin beside this psalm.”
I showed Mr. Barnett the marked page and he shook his head in bewilderment. “Martha showed me the photograph but neither of us can recall Jim ever mentioning her.”
“There’s an address in Brooklyn written on the back page. See? Does Jimmy know someone who lives there?”
Mr.B. studied it for a moment. “Not that I know of. Maybe it’s one of his Army buddies.”
“Maybe we’ll get a chance to ask him today.” I put the Bible back in my pocket as we walked up the stairs to go inside. The hospital was a square brick building three stories tall, with an odd white-pillared replica of a Greek temple pasted onto the second floor like an afterthought. It was as if someone had decided that the institution’s dull facade needed to be taken more seriously, so they added a completely useless miniature version of the Parthenon. It did nothing to inspire my confidence in the VA. The waiting room was stark and institutional, with drab linoleum floors, a row of uncomfortable metal chairs, and an antiseptic odor that made my nose tingle. A soldier at the information desk led us up a flight of stairs to Dr. Morgan’s office for our appointment.
I disliked the doctor almost immediately, even before he began speaking to us as if we were barely worth his time. He ordered us to sit, then lit a cigarette.
“Corporal Barnett is suffering from combat exhaustion,” he said, exhaling smoke with his words. “It’s my considered opinion that he could benefit from a course of insulin therapy.”
“What’s that?” Mrs. Barnett asked.
The doctor ignored her question, tapping ash into his ashtray as he consulted the papers in his file folder. “It says here that he served as a combat medic.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Barnett replied. He reached to take his wife’s hand.
“Because of the nature of their work, medics often suffer from compassion fatigue as well as combat stress. Their condition can sometimes be relieved by therapeutic rest. With insulin therapy, patients are administered large doses of insulin each day over a period of weeks in order to induce a coma. The goal is to shock the system out of psychoneurosis.”
I nearly cried out in protest. I hated the way he talked about Jimmy as if he were a case to be solved instead of the living, breathing man we loved. But Mr. Barnett interrupted first. “An insulin coma? Is that even safe?”
“Of course.” Dr. Morgan drew on his cigarette again, then waved his hand dismissively as he exhaled. “Why else would I prescribe it?” I had seen Mr. Barnett approach his four-legged patients with more concern and compassion than Dr. Morgan showed us. “Insulin therapy has been in use for some time. The deep, induced coma gives patients’ brains relief from anxiety and the nightmares which often plague them.”
“And you believe this will cure our son’s depression?” Mr. Barnett asked.
“We prefer the word relieve rather than cure. Psychoneurosis isn’t some ordinary disease with an instant cure. It will require time and expertise to ameliorate the patient’s symptoms so we can dig down to the root cause.”
“I would think it’s fairly obvious what the root cause is,” Mr. Barnett said. “Our son, Jim, just witnessed the horrors of modern warfare. He went away healthy and whole and came home a broken man.”
“Yet millions of other soldiers have been able to resume their former lives, haven’t they? Unfortunately, for the handful like Corporal Barnett, the war has acted as a catalyst, exacerbating the patient’s underlying childhood neuroses.”
I wanted to punch the smug doctor right in his cigarette-smoking mouth. How dare he accuse Jimmy of being ill as a child, before the war! He’d grown up in a happy, loving home with two devoted parents. The Barnetts seemed to have been shocked speechless.
Dr. Morgan held up his hand as if to stop our protests before we spoke them. “The purpose of this appointment is to explain the treatment—which I have just done—and to inform you that the treatments will begin tomorrow morning.”
I wanted to beg the Barnetts to refuse and to bring Jimmy home with us right now. But I had no right to interfere.
“How is Jimmy?” Mrs. Barnett asked. “He’s been here for a week now. Is there any improvement at all?”
“We’ve been observing him all week before deciding which course of therapy he might benefit from. Once the insulin therapy begins, it may take several weeks or even months to see an improvement.”
There was little more for anyone to say. The Barnetts were desperate to help their son and would do anything the experts said. And I was eager to get out of the stifling office. The doctor’s cold, impersonal words along with his arrogance and his clouds of cigarette smoke made me feel as though I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to see Jimmy for myself.
Dr. Morgan crushed out his cigarette. “Any questions?”