Emails from the Edge by Ken Haley Page B

to right in front of me, were four medicos— three men and a woman—in white coats, each with biro poised over clipboard.
‘Do you know what has happened to you?’ the woman asked in a clipped professional manner.
I wanted to say, ‘I went mad.’ (That says it so much quicker.) Instead I said, ‘I was running down the road last night screaming it was the end of the world.’
The tallest man, on my left, asked, ‘Why did you think it was the end of the world?’
To tell the truth I can’t remember what my answer to this was, but clearly this was no time to discuss theology.
‘Do you remember attacking the police?’ came another verbal arrow, this time out of right field. I did. This had a psychological, fear-based cause but to put that into words was beyond me: I felt as if this were a ‘job interview’ where certain answers would win more favour but one could never know what answers those were.
While the chorus line of pens jigged its way across the massed clipboards, trying to make sense of my stuttering response to the previous question, I turned to the woman—the matron who had greeted me upon my arrival—and put a couple of queries of my own.
‘How long will I be here?’
‘A few days, until you are better.’
‘Where will I go then?’ (Clearly, the question presupposed I wouldn’t have any choice in the matter.)
‘That is yet to be decided.’
‘Where are you all from?’
‘We are Egyptian psychiatrists,’ Matron replied archly. It occurred to me that the diagnosis of the best Egyptian psychiatrists living in Bahrain mightn’t take account of my odd Western, even Antipodean, character.
Back to bed I went, none the wiser about their assessment of my mental state. What struck home was that, if my inquisitors could deduce that state only from my behaviour and words, they could not know my background, fears, loves, dreams and hopes, and so whatever they concluded was likely to be wrong. The idea that ‘You can’t know me so you can’t help me’ first took root there. It was to prove a dangerous one.
The lithium continued. That afternoon, when I asked Matron about my diagnosis, the cement in her face set so hard I thought it would crack: ‘You are not entitled to know that.’ I disagreed emphatically but then withdrew into my shell, biding my time. Some 24 hours later my vigilance paid off. Matron was called away and, after briefly checking the coast was clear, I ducked into her office and riffled through the notes on her desk. I was in luck: the second page was headed ‘James, Haley Ken (I thought Western name order mustn’t be a subject in Egyptian medical universities) . ‘Diagnosis: Borderline manic depressive. Post-traumatic stress syndrome.’ I darted out again: no one had spotted me.
Back on the bed, a corner of my pulsing brain seethed with anger. None of this would have happened if my immediate boss hadn’t bad-mouthed me to the deputy editor and played on the insecurities of an office newcomer to bolster his own self-regard. In a perverse way, my being here seemed like karmic retribution: This’ll make him ashamed he treated me so badly . It was a couple of days before an alchemy of the heart transmuted such crazed thoughts of pure vengeance into something nobler: I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what I’m going through. So if he is shamed by this turn of events it will make him better; and if he isn’t, or cannot be, his reaction is not worth adding to my worries .
I don’t mind saying now that such meditations were so intense, and cut so deep, they amounted to a prayer.
Compassion didn’t come from any expected quarter or in any expected form. None of the news executives visited, a disappointment that spun off a cycle of emotions, from contempt to eventual acceptance that there must always be an explanatory factor we cannot