The existence of the ability to forget has never been proven: we only know that some things do not come to mind when we want them to.
Are my eyes open? Is anybody here?
I can't tell if my lips are moving or if there's anyone else in the room. It's too dark, I can't see anything. I blink once, twice, three times. My gut tightens with inexplicable fear. Then I understand what's going on. Thoughts transform into speech slowly, as if wading through molasses. Questions are made up of individual words: where am I? Why does my head itch? Where is everyone? And then the surrounding world gradually appears - at first its diameter is the size of a pinhead, but gradually its circumference expands. Objects emerge from the darkness, focus is adjusted. In a minute I recognize them: TV, curtain, bed.
I immediately understand that I have to get out of here. I make a leap forward, but something is stopping me. Fingers feel the mesh of belts on the stomach. They hold me on the bed like... I can't remember the word... ah, like a straitjacket. The straps are fastened to two cold metal rails on either side of the bed. I grab them and pull myself up, but the straps dig into my chest, and I only manage to lift myself a couple of centimeters. To my right there is a closed window - it looks like it goes out onto the street. There are cars there - yellow cars. Taxi. I'm in New York. I'm home.
But before I have time to feel relieved, I see her. The woman in purple. She looks at me intently.
Help! - I shout.
But her expression doesn’t change, as if I hadn’t said anything. I'm trying to escape the restraints again.
“Don’t do that,” she says melodiously, with a familiar Jamaican accent.
Sybil? - But is this possible? Sybil was my nanny. The last time I saw her was as a child. Why did she come back today? - Sybil? Where I am?
In the hospital. You better calm down.
No, it's not Sybil.
I'm in pain.
The woman in purple comes closer, bends down to unfasten my bonds, first on the right side, then on the left, and her breasts lightly touch my face. With my hands free, I instinctively lift my right one to scratch my head. But instead of hair and skin, I feel only a cotton cap. I rip it off, suddenly angry, and begin to feel my head with both hands. I feel rows of plastic wires. I pull one out - my scalp stings - and bring it to my eyes. It is pink in color. On the wrist is an orange plastic bracelet. I squint, trying to read the inscription, and after a couple of seconds, capital letters appear before my eyes: MAY ESCAPE.
More than once I have said that As a psychologist, I am very interested in books in which the characters suffer from mental illness. I even have selection on this topic, if anyone is interested.
And so, relatively recently, I heard from a friend about this book. She read it in the original, even before the announcement in Russian. In general, after reading, she began to tell me about the book. Naturally, she spoke chaotically, without going into details and definitions. I really became very interested in reading the book and understanding what kind of disease “brain on fire” is. But what finally captivated me was that the story was real, and Suzanne Cahalan was a real girl, and besides, a journalist who wrote a book about her unusual illness.
And the disease is truly unusual. And before the book, I had heard absolutely nothing about it. So, what kind of disease is this? After surfing the Internet, I discovered an article on Wikipedia. Although, I immediately assumed that it was encephalitis, because... Suzanne wrote in the book that she found bites on her hands and assumed that she had been bitten by ticks.
This disease has several names:-acute diffuse lymphocytic meningoencephalitis- English acute diffuse lymphocytic meningoencephalitis
-acute transient limbic encephalitis- English acute reversible limbic encephalitis
-acute early female nonherpetic encephalitis- English acute juvenile female nonherpetic encephalitis
-acute nonherpetic encephalitis of young people- English juvenile acute nonherpetic encephalitis
If you tell us a little about the symptoms, then it will probably be easier to quote the same Wikipedia than to describe it yourself.
An analysis of 100 cases of the disease, published in 2008 in The Lancet, provides the following figures: 91 out of 100 patients were women, the average age of patients was 23 years (range 5-76 years), 58 out of 98 patients examined for cancer diseases, tumors were found, mainly ovarian teratomas. All patients exhibited psychiatric symptoms or memory problems at presentation; 76 of them suffered from seizures, 88 had a reduced reaction to surrounding stimuli (impaired consciousness), 86 had dyskinesia, 69 had instability of the autonomic nervous system, and 66 had hypoventilation. Antitumor therapy was associated with a greater number of remissions and fewer subsequent exacerbations. 75 patients recovered without consequences or with minor residual abnormalities, for 26 the result was severe impairment or death.
Often young women with this disease are admitted to psychiatric hospitals with a preliminary diagnosis of schizophrenia, catatonia, drug addiction or malingering, and only at the onset of neurological symptoms do they begin to suspect an organic disorder. In more rare cases, the disease debuts with severe short-term memory impairment, reminiscent of limbic encephalopathy.
The main problem is that it all starts like a common cold and is not immediately diagnosed. Later, when the disease gains momentum, hallucinations, delusions appear, and doctors make a huge mistake in diagnosing schizophrenia. They inject patients with psychotropic drugs, which only worsen the situation, causing even greater complications. Up to and including death.
This is really interesting. Suzanne's father came up with the idea of recording everything that happened to his daughter while she was sick. He thought she would be interested. And not only for her, but for the readers too. That’s how this book actually appeared. The father took notes, and his daughter, having recovered, put the collected material into a more literary form. And what’s more, now this book is the only one that can be used to diagnose this disease.
This is a real story of a real family. Father and mother fought for their daughter, each having their own family. And the girl’s illness brought them together, although there was a moment when her parents were simply broken. It is understandable, what kind of parent can calmly look at the torment of their child. But Suzanne was really lucky; she recovered, despite the fact that the doctors did not give a prognosis. And even now, doctors never tire of reminding that a relapse can occur at any moment.
It is difficult for me to judge and evaluate a book based on the type of like/dislike. You may not like the fairy tale, but this is life. Therefore, I will probably refrain from such words. For me, this is very interesting literature, from which you can learn a lot of new things.
Suzanne was only 24. She had just begun the first serious relationship in her life, she got a job at the editorial office of The New York Post. And suddenly life threw the girl a difficult test. It all started with the fact that she began to feel as if bedbugs were biting her. Then I began to suffer from migraine attacks, insomnia, apathy and fatigue. When Suzanne felt an inexplicable feeling of anxiety, she realized that something was wrong with her. The gynecologist advised her to see a neurologist when he heard that her hand was going numb.
The same drawing that helped the doctor make an accurate diagnosis
Before finding out the correct diagnosis, Suzanne had to undergo many examinations. During this time, she was tormented by attacks that she herself did not remember, but reconstructed from the stories of her family and boyfriend. One doctor considered her illness to be Pfeiffer's disease (infectious mononucleosis), another - meningitis, a third decided that the patient abused alcohol, a fourth suggested bipolar disorder. Fortunately, one of the neurologists came up with an unexpected idea: Dr. Suhel Najar offers the patient a drawing test, which is usually taken by those who are suspected of having a stroke or Alzheimer's disease.
Suzanne draws a strange dial- all 12 numbers on it are located on the right side, and the left is empty. This is a sign of inflammation in the right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for what we see on the left. It turns out that her disease is not mental, but autoimmune (anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis). Her brain is being attacked by her own immune system. A timely diagnosis saved Suzanne's life.
I rushed to the bed and turned on the phone: it turned out that two hours had passed! And it feels like no more than five minutes. A couple of seconds later the migraine struck my head again; I felt nauseous. It was then that I first noticed that something was wrong with my left hand: a tingling sensation, like numbness, but too strong. I clenched and unclenched my fist, trying to get rid of the “pins and needles,” but it only got worse. Then, trying to ignore the tingling sensation, I rushed to the dresser to put away Stephen’s things so that he wouldn’t notice that I was rummaging through them. But soon my left hand became completely numb.
Suzanne Cahalan
“When the doctor saw the result of my test, he almost laughed with relief,” recalls Suzanne. - Our brain hemispheres control the body crosswise, the right hemisphere is responsible for what you see on the left. Half the dial was evidence of inflammation in the right hemisphere of my brain. It also indicated that I was in the wrong place: the psychiatry department was primarily a place where symptoms were dealt with with heavy drugs. Further research revealed that I have an autoimmune disease in which my own body attacks my brain. Scientists first wrote about my variant, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, in 2005. So if I had gotten sick a couple of years earlier, everything could have been different..."
Excerpt from the book “Mind on Fire. My month of madness"
I woke him up with strange muffled groans, mixed with the sounds of the TV running. At first he thought I was grinding my teeth, but then, when the grinding grew into a high-frequency squeal (like sandpaper on metal) and a dull moo, similar to what the mentally ill emit, he realized that something was wrong. He decided that I couldn’t sleep, but when he turned around, he saw that I was sitting on the bed with my eyes open - an unseeing gaze, my pupils dilated... I suddenly began to wave my arms in front of me, like a mummy; his eyes rolled back and his body tensed. Foam and blood gushed from his mouth through clenched teeth. I still don’t remember this attack - however, like all the subsequent ones.
A long (more than a year) and expensive treatment begins. It ends with complete recovery. She doesn't even need to take medication anymore.
But that month of her life that she spent in a psychiatric clinic completely disappeared from her memory. She is trying to fill this gap by talking to doctors and relatives, reviewing medical reports and videos taken at the clinic. She sees herself in a state of insanity: she is crying, lying in bed, trying to rip the electrodes off her head. She remembers discovering bed bug bites on her arms that weren't there.
She thought her father was a murderer that she can make other people grow old at will, that the pages of newspapers and the walls of the room breathe...
Suzanne was lucky - only 10% sick people, according to Suhel Najar, receive the correct diagnosis. Those who got sick before 2005, when the disease was first described, had no chance at all. “If I had gotten sick a couple of years earlier, I could have spent my whole life in a psychiatric clinic or even died. There was a thin line separating me from this,” says Suzanne Cahalan in an interview with 1.
Excerpt from the book “Mind on Fire. My month of madness"
It turned out that, in addition to the severe tonic-clonic seizure, I also experienced several partial seizures with various symptoms. The cause was overstimulation of the temporal lobes of the cerebrum, the part of the brain most susceptible to irritation. Symptoms of such an attack may include high spirits as on Christmas morning, sexual arousal, or experiences that are mistaken for religious or mystical. Some patients report a feeling of déjà vu and its opposite, jamevu, when everything around seems unfamiliar. Some people see halos of light, others begin to see the world as strangely disproportionate (the syndrome is called the “Alice in Wonderland effect”) - this happened to me when I was going to meet John Walsh.
Having recovered, Suzanne decided to reconstruct everything that happened to her and write a book, to spread awareness about their rare disease. Her story has saved more than one life; it turns out that this disease affects young girls and women from 12 to 45 years old.
For example, an American sophomore named Emily suddenly behaved strangely. It seemed to her that vans were chasing her, and that the doctors were not doctors at all, but actors. The girl ended up in a psychiatric ward, where her parents were advised to apply for a disability pension for their daughter. But the girl's father heard Suzanne Cahalan's story and showed the neurologist an article about her. Emily turned out to have the same disease. A year later she was already healthy, although before that she moved in a wheelchair.
Anti-NMDA receptor disease encephalitis affects 30-35 patients each year in the Netherlands alone. Including other types of diseases in which the body's immune system attacks its own brain, this amounts to about a hundred patients a year.
Excerpt from the book “Mind on Fire. My month of madness"
No one knows why some people—especially those who don't have teratomas—get anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. There is also no basic understanding of what causes the disease. We don’t know which factors influence the development of the disease more strongly - the external environment or genetic predisposition... But doctors believe that, most likely, the cause of the disease was a combination of external influences - contact with someone who sneezed, contraceptives, toxic substances in the apartment - and genetics predisposition to the production of aggressive types of antibodies. Unfortunately, because it is so difficult to find out the real cause of a disease, prevention may be the main goal of doctors; it is much more realistic to focus on early diagnosis and rapid treatment.
Today it is already known that the disease, discovered quite recently, young women are most often affected. In half of the cases the cause of the disorder is unknown, in the other half of the cases it is associated with a benign ovarian tumor. Antibodies view the tumor as something foreign to the body and begin to attack. When antibodies do this too fanatically, and also attack areas where they should not be, then we are talking about an autoimmune disease.
Symptoms of this disease: sudden onset of psychosis and epileptic seizures in the complete absence of similar complaints before, or strange movements of the mouth or hands. Doctors take a sample of cerebrospinal fluid and test it for antibodies. Such a test allows you to determine with 100% certainty the presence or absence of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Without therapy, the course of the disease is negative. About 2/3 of patients die or end up in care homes for the rest of their lives. The disease is treatable. However, it costs a lot of money.
Suzanne and her husband Stephen on their wedding day in 2015
This disease is unique compared to other types of fatal encephalitis and autoimmune diseases that can cause lifelong disability. Indeed, it is difficult to remember another disease in which the patient can be in a coma or even dying and spend several months in the intensive care unit, and then fully - or almost completely - recover.
In Suzanne Cahalan's case, treatment cost a million dollars. But in Europe it costs several times less. With the help of aggressive medications, the body’s own immune system is “slowed down.” Or they filter the patient’s blood and remove unnecessary substances from it. Such therapy returns 80% of patients home and ultimately leads to complete recovery. For treatment, it is necessary to spend several times under a drip for about a week.
Based on your history and her diary entries, Suzanne wrote the book “Mind on Fire: A Month of Madness.” In 2016, the book was made into a film starring Chloë Moretz. The film was produced by Charlize Theron.
Today Suzanne writes articles, blogs, and helps everyone who is faced with a similar diagnosis. She recently married her boyfriend, who supported her during her illness.
Website Suzanne susannahcahalan.com
You can order the book at website eksmo.ru
1 S. Cahalan “Mind on Fire. The month of my madness" (Eksmo, 2016).
Suzanne Cahalan
Mind on fire. Month of my madness
Susannah Cahalan
BRAIN ON FIRE. MY MONTH OF MADNESS
Copyright © 2012 by Susannah Cahalan
Originally published by Free Press, a division of Simon&Schuster, Inc.
© Zmeeva Yu. Yu., translation into Russian, 2016
© Design. LLC Publishing House E, 2017
* * *Dedicated to all patients with my diagnosis
The existence of the ability to forget has never been proven: we only know that some things do not come to mind when we want them to.
Friedrich Nietzsche
At first nothing is seen or heard.
– Are my eyes open? Is anybody here?
I can't tell if my lips are moving or if there's anyone else in the room. It's too dark, I can't see anything. I blink once, twice, three times. My gut tightens with inexplicable fear. Then I understand what's going on. Thoughts transform into speech slowly, as if wading through molasses. Questions are made up of individual words: where am I? Why does my head itch? Where is everyone? And then the surrounding world gradually appears - at first its diameter is the size of a pinhead, but gradually its circumference expands. Objects emerge from the darkness, focus is adjusted. In a minute I recognize them: TV, curtain, bed.
I immediately understand that I have to get out of here. I make a leap forward, but something is stopping me. Fingers feel the mesh of belts on the stomach. They hold me on the bed like... I can't remember the word... ah, like a straitjacket. The straps are fastened to two cold metal rails on either side of the bed. I grab them and pull myself up, but the straps dig into my chest, and I only manage to lift myself a couple of centimeters. To my right is a closed window that looks like it faces the street. There are cars there—yellow cars. Taxi. I'm in New York. I'm home.
But before I have time to feel relieved, I see her. The woman in purple. She looks at me intently.
- Help! – I shout.
But her expression doesn’t change, as if I hadn’t said anything. I'm trying to escape the restraints again.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says melodiously, with a familiar Jamaican accent.
- Sybil? – But is this possible? Sybil was my nanny. The last time I saw her was as a child. Why did she come back today? - Sybil? Where I am?
- In the hospital. You better calm down.
No, it's not Sybil.
I'm in pain.
The woman in purple comes closer, bends down to unfasten my bonds, first on the right side, then on the left, and her breasts lightly touch my face. With my hands free, I instinctively lift my right one to scratch my head. But instead of hair and skin, I feel only a cotton cap. I rip it off, suddenly angry, and begin to feel my head with both hands. I feel rows of plastic wires. I pull one out - my scalp stings - and bring it to my eyes. It is pink in color. On the wrist is an orange plastic bracelet. I squint, trying to read the inscription, and after a couple of seconds, capital letters appear before my eyes: MAY ESCAPE.
Part one
And I know the fluttering of wings in my head.
Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary: Excerpts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf
1. Bedbug Blues
It all probably started with a bug bite - a bedbug that wasn't really there.
Although I was very worried about the problem, I tried to hide my growing anxiety from my colleagues. For obvious reasons, I didn't want to be seen as someone who had bedbugs. And so the next day, as calmly as possible, I walked through the New York Post editorial office to my workplace. I disguised the bites and carefully pretended that everything was fine with me, that nothing was happening. Although “normal” in our newspaper, on the contrary, should have aroused suspicion.
The New York Post is known for its pursuit of breaking news, but in reality the paper is as old as the American people. Founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801, it is the oldest newspaper in the country, having been published continuously for more than two centuries. In its first century, the Post fought slavery by supporting abolitionists; It was largely through her efforts that Central Park was founded. Nowadays, the newspaper's editorial office occupies a huge but stuffy room; rows of open cubicles and a mountain of cabinets with filing cabinets, where no one needs, forgotten documents from several decades are stored. On the walls hang clocks that have stopped long ago, dead flowers that someone hung to dry; a photo of a monkey riding a border collie and a polystyrene glove from the Six Flags amusement park are reminders of past reporting. Computers are dying, copying machines are the size of small ponies. The tiny closet, which was once a smoking room, now houses equipment, and the door is decorated with a faded sign reminding that the smoking room is no longer here - as if it would occur to someone to wander in here and light a cigarette among the monitors and video cameras. I started working as a seventeen-year-old intern, and for seven years the Post editorial office was my eccentric little world.
When the deadline looms, the office comes alive: keys are clattering, editors are yelling, reporters are chatting incessantly - a typical tabloid editorial office, as everyone imagines it to be.
– Where is the damn picture for this signature?
- How could you not understand that she was a prostitute?
– Remind me, what color socks were the guy who jumped off the bridge?
On days like these, it’s like being in a bar, only without the alcohol: a bunch of adrenaline-charged news junkies. The Post's personalities are unique, and you won't find them anywhere else: the writers of the best headlines in the entire print industry; hardened bloodhounds tracking down corporate directors; ambitious workaholics who can instantly win over and then turn everyone around against them. But other days the office is quiet; everyone silently leafs through courtroom footage, conducts interviews, or reads newspapers. Often – like today, for example – it’s quiet here, like in a morgue.
As I walked to my desk to begin the day's work, I passed rows of booths marked with green signs bearing the names of Manhattan streets: Liberty Street, Nassau Street, Pine Street, William Street. Previously, the editorial office was located in the seaport area near South Street, and its building actually stood at the intersection of these streets. I work on Pine Street. Trying not to disturb the silence, I sit down next to Angela, my closest friend from the editorial office, and smile tightly. Trying to speak quietly so that the echo of my words does not spread throughout the silent hall, I ask:
– Do you know anything about bedbug bites?
I often jokingly said that if I had a daughter, I would want her to be like Angela. In the editorial office she was my hero. Three years ago, when we met, she was a timid, polite young woman from Queens, just a couple of years older than me. She came to the Post from a small weekly newspaper, and her intense work at a major city tabloid gradually revealed her as a talented reporter—one of the Post's most gifted. Angela gave out excellent reports in batches. Late Friday night, she could be found writing four articles at once on four different screens. Of course, I began to look up to her. And now I really needed her advice.
Hearing the terrible word “bugs,” Angela automatically moved away.
“Don’t tell me that you have them,” she said, smiling playfully.
I started showing her my hand, but before I could complain, my phone rang.
- Are you ready? – It was Steve, the new Sunday editor.
Current page: 1 (book has 18 pages total) [available reading passage: 12 pages]
Suzanne Cahalan
Mind on fire. Month of my madness
Susannah Cahalan
BRAIN ON FIRE. MY MONTH OF MADNESS
Copyright © 2012 by Susannah Cahalan
Originally published by Free Press, a division of Simon&Schuster, Inc.
© Zmeeva Yu. Yu., translation into Russian, 2016
© Design. LLC Publishing House E, 2017
* * *
Dedicated to all patients with my diagnosis
The existence of the ability to forget has never been proven: we only know that some things do not come to mind when we want them to.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Prologue
At first nothing is seen or heard.
– Are my eyes open? Is anybody here?
I can't tell if my lips are moving or if there's anyone else in the room. It's too dark, I can't see anything. I blink once, twice, three times. My gut tightens with inexplicable fear. Then I understand what's going on. Thoughts transform into speech slowly, as if wading through molasses. Questions are made up of individual words: where am I? Why does my head itch? Where is everyone? And then the surrounding world gradually appears - at first its diameter is the size of a pinhead, but gradually its circumference expands. Objects emerge from the darkness, focus is adjusted. In a minute I recognize them: TV, curtain, bed.
I immediately understand that I have to get out of here. I make a leap forward, but something is stopping me. Fingers feel the mesh of belts on the stomach. They hold me on the bed like... I can't remember the word... ah, like a straitjacket. The straps are fastened to two cold metal rails on either side of the bed. I grab them and pull myself up, but the straps dig into my chest, and I only manage to lift myself a couple of centimeters. To my right is a closed window that looks like it faces the street. There are cars there—yellow cars. Taxi. I'm in New York. I'm home.
But before I have time to feel relieved, I see her. The woman in purple. She looks at me intently.
- Help! – I shout.
But her expression doesn’t change, as if I hadn’t said anything. I'm trying to escape the restraints again.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says melodiously, with a familiar Jamaican accent.
- Sybil? – But is this possible? Sybil was my nanny. The last time I saw her was as a child. Why did she come back today? - Sybil? Where I am?
- In the hospital. You better calm down.
No, it's not Sybil.
I'm in pain.
The woman in purple comes closer, bends down to unfasten my bonds, first on the right side, then on the left, and her breasts lightly touch my face. With my hands free, I instinctively lift my right one to scratch my head. But instead of hair and skin, I feel only a cotton cap. I rip it off, suddenly angry, and begin to feel my head with both hands. I feel rows of plastic wires. I pull one out - my scalp stings - and bring it to my eyes. It is pink in color. On the wrist is an orange plastic bracelet. I squint, trying to read the inscription, and after a couple of seconds, capital letters appear before my eyes: MAY ESCAPE.
Part one
Madness
And I know the fluttering of wings in my head.
Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary: Excerpts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf
1. Bedbug Blues
It all probably started with a bug bite - a bedbug that wasn't really there.
Although I was very worried about the problem, I tried to hide my growing anxiety from my colleagues. For obvious reasons, I didn't want to be seen as someone who had bedbugs. And so the next day, as calmly as possible, I walked through the New York Post editorial office to my workplace. I disguised the bites and carefully pretended that everything was fine with me, that nothing was happening. Although “normal” in our newspaper, on the contrary, should have aroused suspicion.
The New York Post is known for its pursuit of breaking news, but in reality the paper is as old as the American people. Founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801, it is the oldest newspaper in the country, having been published continuously for more than two centuries. In its first century, the Post fought slavery by supporting abolitionists; It was largely through her efforts that Central Park was founded. Nowadays, the newspaper's editorial office occupies a huge but stuffy room; rows of open cubicles and a mountain of cabinets with filing cabinets, where no one needs, forgotten documents from several decades are stored. On the walls hang clocks that have stopped long ago, dead flowers that someone hung to dry; a photo of a monkey riding a border collie and a polystyrene glove from the Six Flags amusement park are reminders of past reporting. Computers are dying, copying machines are the size of small ponies. The tiny closet, which was once a smoking room, now houses equipment, and the door is decorated with a faded sign reminding that the smoking room is no longer here - as if it would occur to someone to wander in here and light a cigarette among the monitors and video cameras. I started working as a seventeen-year-old intern, and for seven years the Post editorial office was my eccentric little world.
When the deadline looms, the office comes alive: keys are clattering, editors are yelling, reporters are chatting incessantly - a typical tabloid editorial office, as everyone imagines it to be.
– Where is the damn picture for this signature?
- How could you not understand that she was a prostitute?
– Remind me, what color socks were the guy who jumped off the bridge?
On days like these, it’s like being in a bar, only without the alcohol: a bunch of adrenaline-charged news junkies. The Post's personalities are unique, and you won't find them anywhere else: the writers of the best headlines in the entire print industry; hardened bloodhounds tracking down corporate directors; ambitious workaholics who can instantly win over and then turn everyone around against them. But other days the office is quiet; everyone silently leafs through courtroom footage, conducts interviews, or reads newspapers. Often – like today, for example – it’s quiet here, like in a morgue.
As I walked to my desk to begin the day's work, I passed rows of booths marked with green signs bearing the names of Manhattan streets: Liberty Street, Nassau Street, Pine Street, William Street. Previously, the editorial office was located in the seaport area near South Street, and its building actually stood at the intersection of these streets. I work on Pine Street. Trying not to disturb the silence, I sit down next to Angela, my closest friend from the editorial office, and smile tightly. Trying to speak quietly so that the echo of my words does not spread throughout the silent hall, I ask:
– Do you know anything about bedbug bites?
I often jokingly said that if I had a daughter, I would want her to be like Angela. In the editorial office she was my hero. Three years ago, when we met, she was a timid, polite young woman from Queens, just a couple of years older than me. She came to the Post from a small weekly newspaper, and her intense work at a major city tabloid gradually revealed her as a talented reporter—one of the Post's most gifted. Angela gave out excellent reports in batches. Late Friday night, she could be found writing four articles at once on four different screens. Of course, I began to look up to her. And now I really needed her advice.
Hearing the terrible word “bugs,” Angela automatically moved away.
“Don’t tell me that you have them,” she said, smiling playfully.
I started showing her my hand, but before I could complain, my phone rang.
- Are you ready? – It was Steve, the new Sunday editor.
At thirty-five, he had already become the editor-in-chief of the Sunday edition - that is, my division - and although he behaved friendly, I was afraid of him. On Thursdays, Steve held a meeting with reporters, where everyone proposed their ideas for the Sunday newspaper. Hearing his voice, I realized with horror that I was completely unprepared for this meeting. Usually I had at least three clear ideas prepared - not always brilliant, but at least I had something to offer. And now - nothing, absolutely nothing to fill my five minutes with. How could this happen? It was impossible to forget about the briefing: it was a weekly ritual for which we all diligently prepared, even on weekends.
Forgetting about the bedbugs, I stood up, staring at Angela and desperately hoping that by the time I got to Steve's office, everything would resolve itself.
I nervously walked down Pine Street and went into his office. I sat next to Paul, the Sunday news editor and dear friend who had taken me under his wing since I was a sophomore. I nodded at him, trying not to meet his gaze. I adjusted my glasses with huge scratched lenses on my nose, which a journalist friend of mine once called my personal means of protection, because “no one will want to sleep with you while you’re wearing them.”
We sat in silence for a while, and I hoped that I would be calmed by the presence of Paul, so familiar and imposing. With his mop of prematurely gray hair, his habit of inserting the word “horseradish” everywhere and everywhere as an interjection, Paul embodied all the old-fashioned stereotypes of a reporter and was a brilliant editor.
We were introduced by a family friend, and the summer after my freshman year, Paul gave me the opportunity to try myself as a reporter. After a few years of working on the sidelines—breaking news, gathering information for other reporters writing stories—Paul gave me my first big assignment: a story about rows in a student dormitory at New York University. I'm back with an article and photos of me playing beer pong; My courage amazed him, and although the revealing article was never published, he began to assign me more and more reports, and finally, in 2008, I was accepted on staff. And so, sitting in Steve's office, completely unprepared for today's meeting, I felt that I had let down Paul, who believed in me and respected me, I still felt like a dropout.
The silence dragged on and I raised my head. Steve and Paul looked at me expectantly, and I started talking, hoping that I would come up with something along the way.
“There was a story on one blog...” I muttered, desperately trying to cling to scraps of half-formulated thoughts.
“That won’t work,” Steve interrupted me. – Next time, find something better. Agreed? So that she doesn’t come with anything else.
Paul nodded, his face flushed. For the first time in my entire journalistic career, I sat in a puddle: this had never happened even in the school newspaper. I left the meeting fuming with myself, puzzled by my own stupidity.
- Everything is fine? – Angela asked when I returned to my seat.
- Yes, but I suddenly forgot how to do my job. But this is nonsense,” I joked darkly.
She laughed, showing slightly uneven teeth, which, however, did not spoil her at all.
- Come on, Suzanne. What's wrong? Never mind. You're a pro.
- Thank you, Ange. – I took a sip of the cooled coffee. – Today is just not my day.
That evening, as I walked west from the Newscorp building on Sixth Avenue, past the tourist cesspool of Times Square toward my home in Hell's Kitchen, I reflected on the day's troubles.
As if deliberately fulfilling the stereotype of a New York writer, I rented a cramped one-room studio apartment and slept on a fold-out sofa. The windows of the apartment, in which there was a strange silence for New York, looked out onto a courtyard common to several apartment buildings. Here I was more often awakened not by the howling of police sirens and the creaking of garbage trucks, but by a neighbor playing the accordion on his balcony.
Despite assurances from pest control that I had nothing to worry about, all I could think about was bedbug bites as I tossed away my favorite Post articles, reminding me of what a strange job I had—victims and suspects. , dangerous slums, prisons and hospitals, twelve-hour shifts spent in the cold in the photographers' car waiting for a celebrity to be “caught” and photographed. While doing my job, I enjoyed every minute. So why did everything suddenly start to fall out of hand?
As I stuffed my treasures into trash bags, I stopped to read some of the headlines. Among them was the biggest report of my career: I was able to secure an exclusive prison interview with child abductor Michael Delvin. Every media outlet in the country was chasing this story, and I was just a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. But Delvin spoke to me twice. However, the story did not end there. After the article was published, Delvin's lawyers went crazy; The Post was sued for libel, tried to get a publication ban, and local and national media began criticizing my methods on air, questioning the ethics of prison interviews and tabloids in general. Paul had to endure a lot of tearful calls from me at the time, and this brought us closer; In the end, the newspaper and my senior editors stood up for me.
And although this experience cost me a lot of nerve cells, it whetted my appetite, and from then on I was sort of proclaimed a full-time prison reporter. Delvin received three life sentences.
There was also a report about butt implants – “Behind the Watch,” a headline that still made me smile. I went undercover, posing as a stripper who needed a cheap butt enlargement, and approached a woman running an illegal operation out of a downtown hotel room. I remember I stood with my panties down to my knees, and was downright offended when she announced the price - “a thousand apiece,” that is, twice as much as they charged the girl who introduced us to this enterprise.
Journalism was the most interesting thing in the world: life was like in an adventure novel, only even more amazing. But I had no idea that soon my fate would take such a strange turn that it would fit to be written about in my own favorite tabloid.
Although the memory of the “butt report” made me smile, I consigned this clipping to the growing mountain of garbage. “That’s where she belongs,” I snorted, despite the fact that these crazy stories were worth more to me than gold. At that moment it seemed to me that I should just throw it all away, but in fact, such merciless reprisal of the traces of many years of work was completely unusual for me.
I spent several hours cleaning, clearing my apartment of bedbugs, but it didn’t get any better. I knelt down next to a pile of black garbage bags, and suddenly my gut tightened with an inexplicable horror, as if in a free fall, a feeling similar to what happens when you learn about something bad or about someone's death. I stood up, and then pain pierced my head - a bright white flash of a migraine, although I had never suffered from migraines before. Stumbling, I went to the bathroom, but my legs wouldn’t obey me, it was like I was falling into quicksand. She probably caught the flu, I thought.
* * *
Most likely, there was no flu, and there were no bedbugs. However, some pathogen still entered my body - a small microbe that started a chain reaction. Where did it come from - from the businessman who sneezed on me on the subway a few days before and released millions of viral particles onto us, the rest of the passengers of this car? Or did I eat something, or did something get inside through a tiny cut in the skin - maybe even through one of those mysterious bites?
* * *
This is where my memory fails me.
The doctors themselves don’t know what caused my illness. One thing is clear - if that businessman had sneezed on you, you would most likely have caught a cold, and that would have been the end of it. But in my case, this sneeze upset my entire universe; Because of him, I was almost sentenced to life in a mental hospital.
2. Girl in a lace bra
A few days passed, and the migraine, the unsuccessful briefing and the bedbugs were almost forgotten, and I woke up, rested and happy, in my friend’s bed. The day before, I introduced Stephen to my father and stepmother, Giselle, for the first time. They lived in a luxurious mansion in Brooklyn Heights. Stephen and I had been dating for four months, and meeting our parents was a big step for us. True, Stephen already knew my mother - my parents divorced when I was sixteen, and my mother and I always had a closer connection, which is why we saw each other more often. But my father was of a stern disposition, and we were never particularly frank with him. (Although he married Giselle almost a year ago, my brother and I found out about it only recently.) But the dinner turned out to be a success - wine, delicious food, warm, pleasant communication. Stephen and I left under the impression that the evening had been a success.
Although my father later admitted that at that first meeting he felt that Stephen was more of a temporary fling than a “long-term” boyfriend, I would disagree with him. Yes, we started dating recently, but we had known each other for six years—when we met, I was eighteen and we were both working at a record store in Summit, New Jersey. Then we just communicated politely at work, but it didn’t lead to anything serious, since Stephen was seven years older than me (for an eighteen-year-old girl, the difference is unthinkable). And then one evening last fall we met again at a mutual friend's party at a bar in the East Village. We clinked beer bottles and started talking. It turns out we have a lot in common: a dislike for shorts, a love for Dylan's Nashville Skyline 1
Bob Dylan's ninth album.
Stephen had a special charm, the charm of a slacker and a partygoer: a musician, long, disheveled hair, a thin figure, an always smoking cigarette in his mouth, an encyclopedic knowledge of music. But his most attractive feature was his eyes - trusting and honest. The eyes of a man who has nothing to hide - when I looked into them, it seemed to me that we had been dating for a long time.
* * *
That morning, stretched out on the bed in his huge (compared to mine) studio in Jersey City, I realized that I had the entire apartment to myself. Stephen had gone to rehearsal with his band and wasn't due back until that evening, and I could stay with him or leave. About a month ago we exchanged keys. For the first time in my life, I had a boyfriend with whom I had reached this important step, but I had no doubt that I did the right thing. We felt very good together, we felt happy, we were not afraid of anything and we knew that we could trust each other. However, lying in bed that day, I suddenly, completely unexpectedly, felt a bell ringing in my head, a thought that obscured everything around me: read his mail.
Irrational jealousy was completely out of character for me; Never before have I had the desire to violate the boundaries of someone else's privacy in this way. But that day, without even realizing what I had done, I opened his MacBook and began looking through the contents of his mailbox. Several months of boring everyday correspondence - and finally, the last letter from his ex-girlfriend. "Do you like it?" – was written in the subject line of the letter. My heart pounded desperately in my chest; I clicked the mouse. She sent him a photo of herself with a new haircut: red hair, a seductive pose, pouting lips. Stephen didn’t even seem to answer her, but I still wanted to punch the computer screen or throw it across the room. But instead of stopping there, I gave in to my rage and continued digging until I restored all of their correspondence over the course of a year of relationship. Most letters ended with three words: I love you. And Stephen and I haven’t even confessed our love to each other yet. I slammed the laptop shut in anger, although it was hard to tell what exactly made me angry. I knew that he had not communicated with her since we started dating, and had not done anything that could be convicted of him. But for some reason I wanted to look for other traces of betrayal.
I tiptoed over to his yellow IKEA chest of drawers and froze. What if he has video cameras installed? No, it can not be. Who would think to monitor what is happening in the apartment in their absence, except for concerned parents spying on a new nanny? But the thought wouldn’t let me go: a what if he's watching me now? What if this is a test?
Although I was startled by the unusual intrusive thoughts, I opened the drawers and began rummaging through his things, throwing them on the floor, until I finally came across the jackpot: a cardboard box decorated with stickers of rock stars. The box contained hundreds of letters and photographs—mostly of his exes. There was one long strip of photos from a photo booth: him and his latest ex, bow lips, looking at each other with loving eyes, laughing, then kissing. Everything happened right before my eyes, like in a children's picture book: the story of their love. Next photo: the same girl in a transparent lace bra, standing with her hands on her thin hips. Her hair is dyed ash, but it suits her - she doesn’t look like a whore at all, as ash blondes often do. And under the photographs are letters, a whole stack of handwritten notes, some from my school years. The top letter is the same girl, crying about how she misses him while she lives in France. Two words in the letter were misspelled; Noticing this, I felt such gloating that I laughed out loud - I literally laughed.
And then, as she reached out to pick up the next letter, she caught her reflection in the dresser mirror, wearing only her bra and panties, with an armful of Stephen’s personal love letters clutched between her knees. A strange woman looked at me from the mirror - her hair was tousled, her face was distorted by an unfamiliar grimace. " I never behave like this, I thought with disgust. – What happened with me? I've never rummaged through my friends' things in my life.».
I rushed to the bed and turned on the phone: it turned out that two hours had passed! And it feels like no more than five minutes. A couple of seconds later the migraine struck my head again; I felt nauseous. It was then that I first noticed that something was wrong with my left hand: a tingling sensation, like numbness, but too strong. I clenched and unclenched my fist, trying to get rid of the “pins and needles,” but it only got worse. Then, trying to ignore the tingling sensation, I rushed to the dresser to put away Stephen's things so that he wouldn't notice that I was rummaging through them. But soon my left hand became completely numb.
