Soundtrack – Tori Amos, Strange Little Girls (Yes, really.)
I’m looking at the sign and I’m not clear about where to go. On the phone with my friend I ask: How well do you know this metro? If I tell you the choices of stops can you tell me which line I should take? Oh god I am going to be late again and I will miss everything and I have to hurry and get down this escalator and get on the right train and make the right transfer and I cannot make a mistake or I will be late…
Devushka.
Devushka.
You fell. You had a seizure. Instant and complete fear shooting straight through every vein in my body. How is it even possible to understand these words in Russian? But I can always tell when waking in absolute confusion and disorientation and fright. I always know what has happened and the feeling of the injuries to my tongue as I check to make sure it is all still there always confirm my worst suspicions.
Do you speak Russian? Um, um, tolka chute chute.
Dokumenti! This is another voice. A distinctly militsia voice. How is it possible to tell this as well?
I am a doctor. Do you have your passport? This is in English. Um, um, (think brain, think brain, think.) Yes. Passport, passport, passport. Dig, dig, dig. Here it is.
Shto tvoya imya? Um, imya. What is this. Last name? Um, Sabia.
Sabia, you had a seizure. Where am I? You are in the metro station Evropayskya. You fell. Ok. Long pause, careful examination of my passport. Oh no please let me go. Please let it be enough. Passport handed back. Can you walk? Um, yes. (No.) Three men, maybe a woman as well, help me up. One is wearing a white collared shirt and darker pants. He is not Russian but he speaks in Russian. He speaks very little English. He is the doctor. He says he is a doctor to keep the fear metastasizing in every bone in my body from creeping upwards and completely taking over my brain. To keep me from screaming out in fright. To make me stop struggling violently and yet completely without power. I cannot move. I can barely move. He is very kind and stopped to help even though he did not in any way have to. I want to cry. I cannot cry. Oh my god how do I hold this back. I have to pretend that everything is normal and ok. I cannot let them know that I am hurt at all if I do happen to be hurt. I cannot let them take me with them. Blue uniform, unnecessarily large hat, young, young man. Militsia. Paramedics. They have just arrived. They come towards me with some kind of toolbox and I look down and look all around. What can I do? I am slouched against the dull yellow tiled wall. Someone propped me there. They pull the entirety of my weight up off the filthy metro ground. My hand hurts, my leg hurts, my head hurts. I think I lose consciousness again while being dragged up the steps.
Sabia, Sabia, can you walk? Is there anyone you can call? Was this in Russian or in English? This was in survival language.
Bright, bright sunlight. Are people looking? Are people staring?
Ambulance! No! No! No! No! No! This is me in both English and Russian. My heart is racing. No I am fine, no ambulance. Violent struggling reaction shooting straight through my veins from the violent, scared reaction in my brain. Never go in a Russian ambulance. These are the only words I can remember. Someone told me this once. Never go to a Russian hospital. You will be lost there. No. No. No. No I’m fine, I’m fine. More Russian getting louder and louder and louder. Sabia! Finally, English. Dragged by both arms, pushed from behind, getting closer to the ambulance, primal fear.
Blood pressure!
Blood pressure!
I look into this ambulance and see a woman, the woman. Blonde hair, skirt, sitting stoically and waiting for them to get me inside. Maybe she is not my enemy. There is a chair. If they try to shut the door maybe I can get out? Give up. Surrender. Sit in the chair. Maybe she will not hurt me. What can I do? Blood pressure cuff. Oh, blood pressure. This is an ambulance? Two chairs?
Where did these people come from?
Sabia. Call, someone. Phone, phone, phone, phone. My friend, my friend can help me. Embassy.
He will tell them no. Ok. Scroll through phone. Friend. Push send. Friend, I had a seizure, I am at the metro, they want to take me to the hospital and I don’t want to go. Please don’t let them take me. Please come and get me. Please tell them. Please make them think it is ok. Hand phone to doctor. Ohn gavorite pa-Russki? Da. Quick conversation that I don’t understand. Doctor who is on his day off, coming or going from the mall, seemingly by himself but maybe there is his family? Why did he stop? My friend - he is on his way. This is in Russian but I think I understand and I can’t imagine that anything else would happen in this moment. I think he is close by, I think he can come, but I don’t know for sure. They won’t leave me. Can the ambulance leave? Yes, yes! Please leave!
It’s just me and the unbelievably kind doctor who stopped when he did not have to, and the militsia. If the militsia were going to do something beyond yell dokumenti at me they would have done it by now, I think. They look bored. We are all looking around for my friend. Where is he? Can’t he get here faster? How did this happen… there are just a few too many moments in which time my brain can just go and go and go around again.
Oh dear. My language, my brain, my injuries. Are there any? I feel my head. Oh my tongue. It is really bad. They can’t understand me. My voice. Where is my voice? It is there, kind of. This is why they are yelling. To get me to speak louder. To get me to overcome my tongue. Apparently more things are happening but they are in survival adrenaline mode and immediately after I cannot at all remember them. It is quiet now for a long, long time. There is no conversation and I just focus on everything appearing normal. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong I swear.
My friend is here. I can walk, I can leave, I have to pretend, at least, so they let me go. I am fine, this happens all the time, I will not cry, I will not flip out, I take deep breaths and try not to think at all. My friend is here and it is much harder not to cry when a friendly face appears. I am so disoriented and afraid. Is this your friend? Do you recognize him? Da. Militisia disappears. Doctor says ok Sabia, goodbye. We say thank you thank you thank you thank you. There are not enough thank yous for this man. He walks away as though he has just come from the underground hole where the metro stops to let people on and off. He looks around like he is just deciding what entrance to walk through to enter the mall. He acts completely normal and barely says goodbye. This stranger who just saved me, just made me safe. This person I don’t know who I now trust implicitly, he walks away like he doesn’t even know me…
I walk down part of a block and notice more people looking, only those who saw some semblance of something happening and stayed to look on for a minute. They are starting to move away but are still looking. Just look down, just don’t cry. Thank god I am not alone. Even though I am alone. Part of another block, then another black out.
I recognize a store, then black out.
I am in an elevator, then black out.
I am laying in a bed. Black out for hours. My tongue hurts. Lisa is there now and will take care of me. Did I go to her or did she come to me? We aren’t in the same place where I blacked out last. Matt is there. How did they get there? How did I get there? I need something cold. Some ice. Anything. I can’t talk my tongue is so swollen and bloody and numb in my mouth.
This will last for a while.
I am walking into Lisa’s house. I am ok. I don’t need to cry. I have surrendered to another seizure, which will interrupt and seemingly destroy my life for the next two weeks to a month. I will not in any way remember this week. This whole entire week in which I will do many memorable things and walk around in wonder in this beautiful amazing place where I have always wanted to be, where I am so proud to be, and I will not remember one single bit of it.
I have no idea what time it is, but I will sleep now for hours and hours and hours. Seemingly days. My tongue will hurt and be numb for more than a week. I will have to talk out of some strange side of my mouth and try not to talk at all so people do not know the difference. I will not remember anything I learn in that week and everything else I have learned while I’m here will be very hard to match up with the rest of the thoughts in my brain. There will be huge gaps where information and memories were stored away and I will struggle and struggle and be so frustrated to not be able to simply remember any of it. Is it more frustrating to be alone and afraid, or more frustrating to just be frustrated with not being able to retain information, understand, learn, remember.
It doesn’t matter.
I’m sure I had dreams but I don’t know what they were. I’m sure they were violent and matching nearly exactly the kinds of feelings I had that last day in the metro.
And none of this is easy. It should be over, my tongue and bruises and memory should just heal and then I’m healed. I am weak minded to not be able to just let this go and move on. I am making it up. But I shake, almost physically, when entering the metro the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. Every time I enter the metro now my body prepares to struggle away from their arms. I have to take really deep breaths and think about not crying. Think not about being alone and afraid and almost, almost completely powerless over my surroundings without the advantage of language and being overcome with the frustration of not moving about how I would like. It happened the way it did. Everything is now ok. I cannot think about these things anymore. I have to just think about something else. I think all the time about what that must have looked like, how people must have reacted or not reacted, how lucky I am to not have taken those last three paces onto the escalator, how fortunate to be lost in the metro just before I was to get on the train, to not be on the escalator when I had that seizure…I am remembering it to be more scary than it was. It was nothing. I have to stop thinking about it. I have to move on. I have to stop talking about it. It has to be like it didn’t happen. I have to stop remembering it. Stop.
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