Collages
A Jewish Girl's Search for Self
by
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CHAPTER 2
The room was dingy green and white. Discolored shades covered the windows, allowing the faintest ray of sunlight to fall on the gray linoleum. There was a blood stain on the ceiling directly above a single chest of drawers and diagonally across from a narrow cot. A straight cane-backed chair completed Andi Levy's view.
Actually, this room afforded no privacy, as it was merely a partitioned part of a larger area, an observation center where Andi was placed during the night. She slept an exhausted sleep, relatively unaware of her new environment.
The quiet of the hospital was soon broken by early morning activity, and Andi was jolted to consciousness.
"Wake up! We don't sleep late here."
Her eyes opened and then automatically shut against unhappy memories. But the hand on her shoulder was insistent and she finally opened her eyes against her will. She examined her fuzzy surroundings and managed to focus on the attendant.
"I need a hug," she blurted.
"We don't do that here. Come on, it's time to wash up."
Weakly, Andi tried to prop herself up on the cot, but immediately fell backward. "I'm tired, I can't," she groaned.
"Well, we'll see about that," said the attendant, who slowly moved away. "Your doctor will be in to examine you soon."
"Wait," called Andi, in growing desperation, "I need to go to the bathroom."
Andi stared at the walls and ceiling, waiting for the attendant to return. Her eyes finally riveted on the blood stain and she froze.
"Where'd that come from?" she inquired through her fear.
"Look, I'll help you get to the lav," said the attendant, pointedly ignoring her question.
She recalled little from the night before as she slowly clutched the white-clothed arm. Anxious to replace inner horror with the details of reality, she pressed further.
"Please, I'm just trying to remember . . . "
As he steered her to the bathrooms, the attendant was professionally firm.
"That's for you to discuss with your doctor."
Andi stood before a rather large lavatory without fully realizing how she got there. Even from the outside, she saw that none of the stalls had doors.
"Go on in. I'll wait for you," urged the attendant.
Andi found it impossible to urinate, even though her bladder was full. She grew cold watching patients walk back and forth. Never exposed like this before, she told herself to breathe deeply and to gain control.
Eventually she relaxed and imagined herself with Joe. But her reverie ended quickly with thoughts of his betrayal. She desperately reached for anything familiar and remembered their favorite song. But her anxiety worsened with the lyrics, and her breathing became irregular. She saw her life as a cruel joke and then everything went blank.
Moments later she found herself on the floor. Her forehead was pressed into bathroom tile and there was an awful scent in her nose. Andi heard words in the distance.
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About the Book
Collages . . . A Jewish Girl's Search for Self
The principal action begins on Andi's first day in a mental institution where she is inappropriately given antipsychotic medicine and put into a strait jacket. Shortly after her release from restraint, Andi believes her only hope is to phone her now ex-boyfriend, Joe, who refuses to speak to her. Andi becomes violently enraged enabling Dr. Zemmel to perceive an undercurrent of agonizingly unresolved issues. He realizes she is vulnerable to panic attacks and proposes a regimen that is short on meds and long on therapy.
Parallel to Andi's healing is a subplot that reflects the Jewish American experience. Marty Zemmel has an uncanny ability to help Andi, but is actually emotionally impoverished himself. He attempts to escape his emptiness by pursuing Bliss Rothstein, a career woman and single parent, who is rebuilding her shattered personal life. Bliss has a strong physical attraction for him, but struggles against involvement with a married man. Anne Zemmel, Marty's wife, realizes their marriage is a failure and uses prescription drugs and scotch to numb her pain.
The major characters in Collages struggle around issues that help define them. Their Jewishness, often a painfully confusing enigma, also provides a channel to help synthesize meaning from seemingly intolerable events. Through a process of action and reflection, the novel offers hope for Andi, Bliss, Marty, and possibly Anne.
Therapy scenes in the novel were written under consultation with Dr. Mark Seglin, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist.
About the Author
Sharon Levine
Yedwab
holds a BA in Psychology from Boston University and an MAT in British and
American Literature from Rutgers University.
She teaches English and Reading in Passaic High School, Passaic, New
Jersey, where she has directed a Summer Theater Workshop and is advisor to the
Poetry/Reading Club. Mrs. Yedwab also
facilitates a series of Passaic High School Multicultural Poetry Workshops, and
has edited several collections of student poetry, entitled, Walking in Someone Else's Shoes Volumes I and
II and Multicultural Poetry for the
Millennium. She lives in West
Orange, New Jersey, with her husband and has three children.
Mark Seglin,
Ph.D.,
licensed psychologist and certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist, who was a
consultant for the therapy scenes in the novel, holds a private practice in
Newark, New Jersey.