Characters
Angela's Patient: The Alcoholic Woman
One of Angela’s patients, a woman in her fifties burdened by alcoholism, strikes Angela as someone who “must have run away from home at nine and kept on running.” Angela informs her about an impending transfer to a less favorable public institution. The woman clings to the hope that her daughter will intervene, yet the daughter never appears. This situation stirs memories within Angela, echoing her own struggles with maternal bonds and the heartache of separation from her child.
Angela's Painter Companion
Angela’s current partner is a painter, but she doesn’t feel love for him. She speaks of him as a ‘‘friend, who is as much in need as myself of a friend to lie down with, make love with, share the rent with, share soup with, break bread with, and lie down with again.’’ Though sharing these moments lightens the load of her daily life, they fail to soothe her underlying sense of loneliness.
The Life of Angela Anson
Angela is the central figure of this narrative, her perceptions shaping the storyline. As a fledgling actress navigating the bohemian world of San Francisco during the 1960s, she takes up a role as a social worker in the women’s ward of the city hospital. Here, her interactions with patients profoundly influence her. Tasked with notifying them of their next institutional destination, she finds it impossible to maintain an emotional distance. Instead, she envisions the myriad lives these women might have led or could lead, bending hospital protocols to cater to their emotional needs.
Angela begins to ponder the symbolism of women and their beds, seeing it as an essence of the female existence that transcends her own disparities with the women in the ward. In each ailing woman, she glimpses fragments of her own being—her history, her future, her ties with her mother, and the child she left behind. Angela’s knack for delving into the inner lives of her patients intertwines with her acting skills, which thrive on embodying others.
The Resilient Cleaning Woman
Another of Angela's patients is a cleaning woman, newly recovered from pneumonia. Angela, with her theatrical lens, perceives her as diminutive, almost like a symbol of life’s deprivation. A doctor, intrigued by her son’s unusual extra fingers, asks to inspect her hands, foreshadowing a Gypsy’s later reading of Angela’s palm. While the doctor seeks a scientific explanation, the woman attributes these fingers to a curse.
Dan: The Kind-hearted Dissident
Dan, a colleague and friend to Angela, holds a master’s degree in political science and expresses dissent through his writings on Vietnam in an underground weekly. Angela describes him as having ‘‘the kindest heart, the hardest head.’’ With a lively wit, he jests with Angela and Lew by using the intercom to call them by names of renowned fictional and historical doctors. Angela shares her thoughts on women and their beds with him, finding solace in his understanding.
The Enigmatic Gypsy Woman
A magnetic presence on the ward, an old Gypsy woman captivates Angela. Dubbed a ‘‘Gypsy queen,’’ she embodies profound womanly power. Offering to read Angela’s palm, she reveals a long life ahead for her and questions if Angela is a ‘‘wayward girl,’’ which Angela attributes to her bohemian attire and jewelry. This stands in stark contrast to the doctor’s inquiry into the cleaning woman’s hands, showcasing the Gypsy’s intuitive wisdom.
The following day brings a downturn for the Gypsy woman, as her family—whom Angela admires—gathers by her side. Despite her passing, she defies the solitude and disappointment that shroud the ward. “Fear wasn’t her bedmate here, Faith was and probably...
(This entire section contains 1008 words.)
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always would be.”
The Judge: Arbiter of Fates
The Judge, a moniker Angela bestows upon the doctor who assesses psychiatric patients upon their arrival, bears a title that hints at an almost mythical power. He determines their next ‘‘bed,’’ and thus, in the tale’s metaphorical framework, their fate. Angela recalls encountering him years earlier at a wedding reception where she catered, observing his mannerisms and pondering how she might portray such a role on stage.
Lew: The Insightful Actor
Lew, another of Angela’s friends and professional peers, shares in the playful antics with Dan, calling out fictitious names over the intercom. Though he seems to ‘‘know everything before it was told him,’’ Lew listens patiently as Angela confides her bleak and critical reflections on the women’s ward. He advises her to be cautious, suggesting that the hospital’s atmosphere could be perilous to her mental and emotional health.
Nurse Nancy: The Pragmatic Guardian
Head of the women’s ward, Nurse Nancy cautions Angela against perceiving the patients as young girls or indulging them with candles. As part of the impersonal medical system, she lacks Angela’s imagination and thus, her empathy. Angela finds no kinship with Nurse Nancy, except perhaps in the ambiguous conclusion, where Nancy touches Angela, possibly to guide her or out of ‘‘complicity.’’
The Suicidal Girl
On one of Angela's routine shifts, she finds herself assisting a young girl with a bedpan—an act outside the traditional scope of her responsibilities as a social worker. The girl, shadowed by the weight of a failed suicide attempt, piques Angela’s curiosity. She sees a reflection of her own youthful uncertainties in the girl, recalling a clandestine suicide attempt she made as a teenager. Driven by this connection, Angela later wanders into the psychiatric ward, eager to glimpse where the girl’s new journey will begin.
Young Doctor
As a cleaning woman readies for her discharge, a young doctor intercepts her, eager to examine her hands in pursuit of understanding the genetic mystery behind her son's polydactyly. Described as "hyperactive" and "intense," the doctor seems to brim with an almost blinding fervor for medical discovery. Angela, witnessing his fervor, feels a surge of anger at his insensitivity. His gaze, fixed on the physical, misses the intricate tapestry of emotions woven into the lives of his patients.
