We dance upon demons, p.1
We Dance Upon Demons, page 1
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To James Barrett, John Britton, David Gunn, Shannon Lowney, Jennifer Markovsky, Leanne Nichols, Robert Sanderson, Barnett Slepian, Ke’Arre Stewart, Garrett Swasey, and George Tiller, and to all those who risk their safety to ensure access to reproductive care.
1 FORTY DAYS
Depression feels a lot like drowning.
I know everyone says that: Depression is a tar pit, depression is a weight, depression is like drowning. I should clarify that depression feels a lot like drowning—in calm, shallow water when you’re a strong swimmer. My body knows what to do. It strains and strains to reach the surface. But my brain refuses to send the right signals. My brain won’t do anything at all. It’s a fucking traitor.
But then, because it’s shallow water, my feet hit the ground and muscle memory kicks in. I push off the ocean floor. I surface, coughing up water. I think, Thank gods that’s over. I take a stroke toward solid ground, an impossible distance away. I am pulled under again.
Perhaps that’s a dramatic excuse for why I’m chronically late for work. On the rare days I actually roll in at nine a.m., people pretend to be shocked. I’m sure there are plenty of Indian Standard Time jokes made at my expense. It’s fine with me. I’d rather that than have them know the truth: after a night of hardly sleeping, once I’ve bypassed the nightmares to wake up with the sun, I lie in bed, paralyzed by the thought of sitting up. Of getting dressed. Of brushing my teeth. But once my bladder gets too full, my feet hit the ground, and the momentum carries me forward. I eat a piece of toast. I walk to the Red Line station. Thankfully, my place of work comes with my own personal depression filter—protesters. Something about getting screamed at and called a baby-murderer fills me with just enough annoyance to power through the rest of the day.
Today I exit the train around nine thirty a.m. Even though I’m late, I pop into one of the Indian grocery stores to grab a chai from an uncle I know.
“Running late, dear?” he asks, and I give a little shrug.
I know him well enough to understand that it’s concern, not judgment. I’m already tardy, so why not grab an extra energy boost? It’s a Wednesday, which is usually quiet at the clinic, since we don’t have surgical abortions scheduled, and I’m hopeful I won’t be the only one getting in late. But as I get closer, I hear a swell of people who are trying and failing to be quiet. It can’t be. I scramble to look at the date on my phone, and sure enough, it’s Ash Wednesday. Or, for those who find perverse joy in harassing women and want to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of the country, the start of Forty Days for “Life.” In the forty-six days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, extra protesters haunt the clinic Monday through Saturday—Forty Days of Hell.
Every year, Forty Days sounds the death knell for clinics like ours. It’s Forty Days of scaring patients, threatening newer providers, and turning community members against each other. In my culture, after a baby is born, the mother and child stay at home for forty days, sheltered from the outside world. So I always envision this period similarly, as our clinic’s time to hunker down until it’s safe again. A yearly rebirth. I’m sure the protesters would hate this idea, given the significance of Lent.
I pick up the pace after I spot a regular, Steve, standing on the corner and holding a gory dead baby sign. “Stop Calling Child Sacrifice ‘Choice,’ ” the sign reads, above a picture of a chopped-up, toddler-sized “fetus” smeared with blood. It’s not like scientific accuracy matters to these people, but still, you have to wonder how many hours he spent on Photoshop to make this monstrosity.
“Go not into the house of death!” Steve shouts into his megaphone. “The worshippers of Satan have powers you know not! Death follows!” I lift my chin and give him a little wave. “Oh, it’s you.”
His comic disappointment is only heightened by the way his words bounce from his megaphone. I resist the urge to laugh. Steve loves his house-of-death spiel. He teaches high school physics, but he is tenured and so senior that he’s been able to engineer his schedule to keep his mornings free to harass women all around the city—sometimes his own students! He’s also a card-carrying member of the Midwest Family Institute, and through it, he’s helped get his own queer colleagues fired. At least Steve is a known quantity. As I pass him, I see what looks like a veritable horde of protesters amassed on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. They’re not blocking the turn into our parking lot, but they are dangerously close. Some are kneeling and praying the rosary. Others are holding their own signs: “God Loves You, Mommy!” “We Will Help You!” As I turn into the drive, they start shouting at me.
“Choose adoption!”
“Your baby should have a choice, too!”
“Don’t be a killer!”
“These clinics kill Black babies!”
Ugh, that one’s particularly disgusting. I scan the crowd, which is pretty much all white, but fail to identify the commenter.
“At least take a leaflet,” someone else says while shoving a piece of glossy paper with a smiling baby into my hands. “You have other options.”
I turn my eyes to the ground and keep walking. Someone rushes in front of me. FACE Act violation! Not that it matters. I wouldn’t rely on the police for help even if there was an active shooter, and the current administration’s Department of Justice would probably prosecute us if we tried to report a breach of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. I try to sidestep the protester, and they grab my wrist. I firmly shake them off, but I’ve been encircled. How many patients have had to run this gauntlet today? There’s nothing I can do, since I’m not interested in losing any teeth. I pull out my phone and start recording, capturing the faces of everyone around me just in case.
“We’re just trying to help you!” a woman says in a voice I’m sure she thinks is compassionate. “If you go in there, they’ll try to trick you. They’ll lie and say we’re the bad guys. But really, we’re pro-women. Half of all fetuses are girls!”
There is one thing the antis and I agree on—there are good guys and bad guys—though obviously we disagree on which is which. Seeing what I do every day, it’s impossible not to sort the world this way. It’s the division that keeps me sane.
There are no clinic escorts outside, but usually Diane keeps an eye on the situation to help if things get serious. I’m not sure identifying myself as an employee is the best way to get myself safely inside, so I just try to edge my way toward the entrance. The crowd moves with me, never mind that they’re trespassing on private property.
“Please, mommy, don’t go in,” a serious voice says. I gag internally. “Your baby wants to live!”
I think about what Aai would say to me, what she has said to me whenever I’ve told her that I want to give up. If Durga could defeat Mahishasura and Kali could consume Raktabija and Satyabhama could defeat Narakasura, you can survive this ten seconds longer. Our women are strong. Ten seconds more. Ten seconds more. And then, I didn’t raise a quitter.
The door to the clinic swings open and Diane marches out with her bullhorn. “Get off the property, now!” The crowd almost immediately disperses, and I hold up my phone to try to get a picture of the whole group. It could be helpful to track repeat offenders. Diane turns to me. “You okay?”
“Has it been this way all morning?” I ask, not wanting to answer her question with the truth, that I almost had a panic attack.
She nods. “I prepared myself, but I didn’t think it would be this intense.”
“They must be coming from Indiana or somewhere else where there aren’t any clinics left to protest.”
If I’m right and we’re going to be hosting this volume of antis for the next Forty Days of Hell, I’m going to need to draw up a daily escort schedule—and fast. We’ll need to onboard new volunteers. I’ll pick up more shifts. There’s so much to do, but at least now I’m motivated to get it done. I pull out my employee badge and scan into the building, hearing a collective groan behind me. It’s almost enough to make me smile. Instead, a wave of despair overtakes me. There’s a seed of doubt blooming in my brain as I think about the wall of faces wishing me bodily harm. My heart beats faster, and I realize that at last I’m feeling an emotion. Fear.
2 ART IMITATES LIFE
I’m halfway to my office when Diane calls after me, “Nisha, I almost forgot! We have a new doctor starting today.”
We only have one provider, who also maintains a practice at Rush Medical Center for her long-term patients. “New doctor?” I ask. “What happened to Dr. Levy?”
“Dr. Levy’s new resident,” Diane says with a wink.
“It’s February,” I point out. “Don’t they switch in the summer?”
“New rotation,” Dr. Levy says, emerging from the clinical wing. “The last one wasn’t interested in sticking around when her time was up. But my new resident has a passion for providing abortion care.”
She holds open the door, and my heart stops. I have to protect the patients.
“This is Dr. Robinson,” Dr. Levy says, still smiling, as I lunge forward.
Aaron’s eyes widen as he sees me leaping toward him, and he hastily steps back. The door swings shut and I slam into it. I would be embarrassed, if Aaron fucking Robinson wasn’t now inside the clinical wing unsupervised. I turn to Dr. Levy and Diane, who are staring at me like I’ve lost my tenuous hold on reality.
“I know we don’t usually call the police,” I say, keeping my voice quiet. There are two patients in the waiting room, and I don’t want to scare them. “But we might have to if he doesn’t surrender himself.”
“Surrender himself?” Dr. Levy echoes. “Nisha, are you feeling all right?”
My hands are shaking. “Dr. Levy, this might be hard to believe, but Aaron Robinson is an anti. A vehement, protest-outside-the-clinic kind of anti. Would you be comfortable going after him to make sure he’s not sabotaging our equipment?”
Aaron slowly pushes the door back open. His face is flushed a deep red. “I promise I’m not sabotaging your equipment.” He steps into the waiting room, and Diane gestures us over to the welcome desk.
“So who’s going to explain?” Dr. Levy asks. Her bullshit tolerance is about on par with Aai’s, and I can tell this drama has used up all her patience for the day.
I cross my arms and look at Aaron. “Perhaps this pitiful excuse for a human being?”
Aaron winces. “Nisha, I’m so sorry.”
“For infiltrating the abortion clinic I work at? Not sure ‘sorry’ is the right word.”
“I didn’t—I’m not infiltrating your clinic. I’m here to work. I’m an OB-GYN resident, and I requested a placement here. I didn’t know you would be here too.” His voice is so sincere, it might have even worked on someone else.
“Dr. Robinson, what is your view on abortion?” Diane asks.
“I’m pro-choice,” Aaron says with confidence. I snort so hard, my nostrils hurt. “I wasn’t always. I was raised in a very conservative rural environment. I protested outside a clinic—once—during my last year of college because someone from high school invited me. And it was… horrible. The experience changed my life. Every person should have the right to choose what they do with their bodies, and I want to help however I can.”
“And,” Dr. Levy adds, “he wrote all this in a very compelling personal statement. And repeated it during a truly touching interview. It’s not a secret.”
“He’s a liar,” I snarl. His words aren’t an apology, they’re a recitation. It’s almost like I’m having an out-of-body experience, except I can very clearly feel the sweat pooled under my arms, the runaway heartbeat in my chest. I can smell that he still wears the same deodorant. “I would know.”
“Would you?” Aaron asks. “Name a single time I lied to you.”
My eyes snap up to meet his, and I regret it. The nerve of this asshole, trying to be familiar. “I don’t think you want that.”
Dr. Levy looks at the two of us. “Although I appreciate your concern, Nisha, you’re going to have to trust me on this. Dr. Robinson is going to be heavily supervised. So far, he’s done an admirable job. So you are both free to resolve this interpersonal conflict after our patients have been seen.”
She leaves me and Aaron standing behind the desk, with Diane trying to make herself invisible in her rolling chair. Aaron opens his mouth to say something, but Dr. Levy clears her throat and he dashes behind her. I sag, all the energy flooding out of me in a rush.
“What was that?” Diane asks. “Who are you, and what have you done with Nisha?”
“I was worried he was a threat to the patients,” I say, not quite turning to face her. I feel cold, shaky.
“You walk past people threatening to firebomb the clinic every day and turn the other cheek,” Diane says. “That was something else. I’ve never seen you that worked up.”
I swallow. She’s right. For all the years I’ve worked here, I’ve maintained a veneer of calm. But this anger isn’t unfamiliar to me; it’s always been there, just under the surface. “That’s because you can’t see inside my mind.”
* * *
Diane decides to meddle and texts my supervisor, who insists that I take a few hours off to “center myself.” Not that he knows much about me as a remote project manager, but I think Diane is worried that I’m on the verge of a breakdown, which, maybe I am.
I pass back through the protester gauntlet, get on the Red Line, and before I know it, I’m in front of the greening lions of the Art Institute. This museum has always felt safe, and I can’t deny that it’s especially on my mind because Aaron and I came here on our first date. I text Diane that I’ve gone downtown and I’ll be back in two hours, then grab my ticket and go directly up the steps, across the second floor, and back down the rear landing to stare at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky Above Clouds IV. I remember coming here as a kid and being bored to death by it, wondering why it occupied such a place of pride at the Art Institute. But now, I feel like the painting sees me just as I see it. It is too vast, too deep, too much. The clouds don’t quite fit inside the frame, jostling for room in the composition. There’s a haze of clear sky in the distance, too blurry to make out. The depth of sadness is endless. If I turn my head just so, I can see the border of the art. But when I do, I cannot see the full picture. Something is always lost.
A voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like Aai says, Get some distance, but my feet are rooted to the ground. Eventually, I close my eyes and the imprint of the clouds floats before them. I shake my head and decide to wander through the impressionism exhibit.
If you are someone to whom impressionism speaks, you can feel it when you look at each painting. The naked, ephemeral unfilteredness, the dappling of light and dark, the way that no image is quite right. Wonder and pain. Hope and confusion. It’s almost enough to make you believe in magic. The placard introducing the exhibit explains that these works were produced during a time when rapid industrialization and urbanization dramatically changed economic and family structures. These artists tried to capture hope and the continuation of daily life, even among that bleakness. Some went mad. Some made beautiful and transcendent works of art. Some did both. I know absolutely nothing about living during the late nineteenth century and yet tears prick the corners of my eyes when I stare at the blue-green-purple of these skies. In the quiet wonder of the room, surrounded by grief, I find myself smiling. These paintings are proof that perseverance is possible, that pain can be transformed into the sublime. I have not yet learned that alchemy. I may never remember how to swim to the surface of my mind again. But it is possible. Someone has done it.
My break is almost up, and at last I leave the impressionists behind to pay a quick visit to the South Asian art section. As much as I love the sculptures, I can only look at them for so long before I start thinking about the mass lootings that helped fill the gallery. But today, the exhibit is in a state of disarray. Some of the protective cases are missing, and it seems like pieces are being moved around. I’ve never seen this before, but I’ve never been here in the middle of the workday. I make my way through the sculptures, pausing briefly to look at one of Krishna defeating Kaliya, before allowing myself to be pulled toward my favorite statue of Nataraja. Shiva’s avatar, the Lord of Dance. I used to love assuming the pose when I practiced Kathak, one knee bent, the other foot raised over the knee, arms outstretched, one hand flexed up and one down. Even though it was a static pose, it felt so dynamic. My teacher kept a beautiful gold-colored Nataraja statue in the corner of our dance space, and I have a small murti in my apartment, but I’ve always loved this Nataraja at the Art Institute best. You can clearly see Ganga flowing from his hair, the damaru keeping time, and the demon of ignorance’s near-comical expression of woe as he’s trampled underfoot. Perhaps it’s the history embedded in this version—a sculpture over a thousand years old just feels different, like it could spring to life at any moment, whirling hair snapping around, raised foot landing on the demon’s head, and all the world being destroyed by the awesome wonder of it.
I realize from about ten feet away that the Nataraja statue is also missing its glass case. I inch closer, until I’m near enough to brush my fingers against the cool metal if I wanted to. Instead, I pull out my phone to take a quick picture of the statue in all its unfiltered glory before leaning forward, hands on knees, to peer at it closely. My eyes are drawn to Apasmara, the demon of ignorance—he really does look like he’s moving. Suddenly I’m too hot, even though the Art Institute is always uncomfortably cool.
