Nights at the Neuropsychiatric Hospital

Clack. Clack. The nurse's shoes on the wooden floors. Clack. Clack. Start from the beginning. The day I was checked in. Name? Katalin Zavaleta. No. Catalina. Catalina Zavaleta. Only my sister-in-law calls me Katalin. Age? Twenty-four. Occupation? Student. Are you coming in from the General Hospital? No. I don't know why I am here. I shouldn't be here. Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Zavaleta. Please come with us. We will give you  a clean uniform and show you to your sleeping quarters. That was eighteen months ago. It isn't easy being the new girl in this hospital.

I shouldn't be here. I still shouldn't be here. I spend my days in silence, observing the cracks in the walls and the bars in the windows to see where I might squeeze out. Fascinating, isn't it? How many times did we drive past this godforsaken place? It never occurred to me that I would end up here. I am not sick. Not like the people I see every day. Lucho, who spends most days asleep on the floor of the recreational area. He's harmless. He is a kind man who sees angels when he can manage to wake up. Now I know he is harmless, not like in the beginning. All the staff ever do is inject him with medicine. They keep him weak and silent. There are hundreds of patients like him. More than there should be. Stumbling around, lost inside their own minds. I escape sedation by playing dumb. Even that isn't enough. I spent the first month under their poison.

This is the only psychiatric hospital in the country. There are too many of us; some in much worse condition than me or Lucho. They stalk me and the other female patients during the day. They don't scare me anymore. Not like the male doctors and their leering, hungry eyes. Not like the nurses who gossip and jeer in our faces. They think we are too stupid and sedated to realize. I also see them smoking their cigarettes in the garden, despite a hospital wide ban on lighters and matches. Maybe if I stole one from their coats during their lunch break? I have to get out of here.

Luisa is my only friend. She wants to get out, too. She doesn't remember when she came, but she remembers her husband signing the admission papers while another woman waited smiling in his car. Her yelling and her screaming didn't move the staff. They became more convinced of her supposed insanity. She's telling me she found a window in the basement.

"It has bars, but I managed to loosen them a little. We can get out through there." She tells me, excited. The hospital is a large complex. An old building that smells of rotting wood and filth from the other patients. "Have you managed to get any matches? We still need a distraction."

"Not yet. Nurse Bianchi carries a lighter in her pocket."

"She smokes like a chimney."

"I know. It will have to be while she's tending to the others or asleep."

Tick tock. Tick tock. The clock never stops. Luisa got lucky; they put her in a room in the east wing of the hospital. There are too many of us. Patients, especially women. So many women. We are all sardines crammed into the dining area with cots pressed together. We barely fit. Tick tock. Tick tock. Sweat, urine, and shit. Five hundred hearts beating in a long corridor. All in one room. Tick tock. Tick tock.

I don't have a husband. Who signed my admission papers? My brother Pablo? Never. Surely, he would never. I adore him. Him and his wife. My sister-in-law is the only one who calls me Katalin. My brother Diego? He used to be kind. Then he joined the army. They crushed the boy I loved. Now he is nothing but a shell of someone I knew. My father. If anyone could lock me in here it would be my father. Fucking liar. He swore to my mother he would protect me before she died. Yes, Catalina has her moments. She used to be a civilized girl. Why can't she go back to how she used to be? Just promise you will look after her. She will grow out of it, this difficult phase.Her body was still warm in her grave when he dragged me here by my hair. There is no safety guaranteed in the hands of men. None, not from the doctors in this hospital or the men you bring to your bed. None! Not even from him!

I need to get out of here. I ignore the rumors that followed me here. This is the only psychiatric hospital in Guatemala. Old floors that creak and windows that howl at night. And the dead? I wonder. There are too many of us here. I wonder who gets out. Whose bones does Lucho dig up every full moon? They don't live long, the patients at the Neuropsychiatric Hospital. We don't live long.

The odd muted shout interrupts the silence. I'm used to it by now. Nurse Bianchi's lighter is in my pocket. I managed to swipe a couple of cigarettes, too. Those are for me. I want to get out. I have to get out tonight. I will do anything to get out. Me and Luisa. It is July 14th, 1960. Bastille Day. Why would anyone care about Bastille Day? We're not French. I care about it. I spent ten stellar years in the French Lycée only to end up in an asylum. C'est un métier, d'être folle. I am counting down the seconds until midnight. Minuit.A la medianoche. Cuando todos estén durmiendo. Antes no. ¿Entendés? I repeat Luisa's instructions to myself. She must be getting ready in her own crowded room.

It's almost midnight. Everyone is asleep. The nurses, too. There should be someone checking in every so often, but they don't care. They would let us all choke to death if it were up to them. Deep sleep and the occasional snore. No one noticed when I slipped out into the hallway. Bare feet, wearing the same stained uniform I was given on admission day. I could count on both hands the times it had been washed in all my eighteen months interned. I am getting out. I can feel the smooth silver lighter in my pocket, I know she rolled the cigarettes earlier today. The director will find her lighter in the kitchen. Her lighter and a burnt up cigarette. Luisa and I will be gone, and we'll take Nurse Bianchi with us. The thought makes me giddy. We are getting out.

I take the time to smoke. It is a quick skip from the dining room into the kitchen, past a few rooms of solitary confinement. It was not enough to just light the cigarette. I smoke a few refreshing drags. So long since I had felt the sweet burn of tobacco on my tongue. Victor hated it when I smoked. It was fun watching his disapproving eyes when I smoked in his bed. Before all of this. Such a messy kitchen. I try not to think about where the food comes from before I put it in my mouth. Among the pots and plates and cabinets, I spot a few towels and napkins. Nothing significant. But the floors, all wood. Turn of the century. Difficult to replace, ancient. Highly flammable. I take the cigarette between my fingers and bring it close to one of the napkins near a sink. Wait and watch as the strands of the napkin warm up, then turn red and orange as they start to catch fire. It is almost midnight now. I drop the burning napkin on the floor and walk away. Luisa should be joining me soon. Now I have to find my way through the maze of corridors and rooms while the remaining staff puts out the small fire in the kitchen. Nurse Bianchi's lighter is waiting to be discovered next to the kitchen sink.