The Panopticon
The panopticon is an architectural design for institutional buildings with an inbuilt system of control. Originated by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham it was later derided by historian Michel Foucoult as replacing fetters with hidden observers, thus creating a form of obedience that is based on information rather than force. The panopticon at the Rilhafoles Hospital in Lisbon – later renamed after Dr. Miguel Bombarda – was built in 1896 and was closely based on Bentham’s ideas.
Lisbon July 7th 1951
After more than ten years of incarceration Vladimir was moved to a new cell in Block 8 where they could keep a continuous eye on him. Within a few days he had made the new cell his own with his caged birds, his wildly coloured crocheted doilies, his dolls and his huge picture of the Virgin Mary with vividly painted lips, kohled eyes and a sly side-gaze. When Tiago, the “good” nurse, asked him
Do you like it here Vladimir?
Yes. It’s peaceful.
Don’t you want to ask to leave now?
No, no. Anyway, who would I ask? The director’s a madman.
Apart from the disruption of the move Vladimir hardly noticed the new conditions. He knew they were watching him but there was nothing new about that.
Stuttgart May 7th 1937
He was a madman, that Portuguese dancer in the corps. Wild mad beautiful.
This dream had none of the flickering monochrome of “archive footage”: it was as bright and vivid as life itself. He saw the gloved male hand on the door of the sleek limousine. He saw the porcine reddened faces, the uniforms, the flowers, the glint of glass against the plush of the theatre. He was whisked off to luxurious palaces, given costly wines and white powders. In this new and shining prison he was given a whiff of freedom. He was, yes, maddened by it. Sex, beautiful clothes, the smell of money and power drove him mad, unanchored as he was from anything except the actuality of the dance, the orchestra, the theatre, the money he was given every week, the lovely wild greedy boys, the new uncouth country, language and culture, the fawning adoring old men in uniforms. The freedom – or whatever it might be – was delicious and intoxicating and he drank it so, so eagerly.
Lisbon, May 9th 1980
The journalist showed up after breakfast. She asked lots of questions to which Vladimir replied honestly but somehow unsatisfactorily. He answered her questions about his time as a dancer touring in Spain and Germany just before the war but he seemed unable to link his own experience to the momentous political happenings of the time and even seemed unaware of the fact that he had been courted by the beasts of the regimes. She was kind to him and endlessly patient as Vladimir provided her with nothing. She asked to look at his paintings and clothes and dolls and suggested that he might consider doing a self-portrait.
Lisbon, April 26th 1974
There was a revolution in progress outside.
The good nurse was late and when he did show up he brought with him a transistor radio which played jolly martial music interspersed with announcements from the Armed Forces Movement. The good nurse hadn’t shaved and looked different somehow, radiant with some hidden happiness.
Everything’s going to change now, comrade. The revolution has just started. The new world will be for all of us. You too Vladimir. There’ll even be a place for you.
Vladimir didn’t share the good nurse’s optimistic outlook.
My dolls don’t quite believe you. They think we’re here for ever.
Vladmir pointed to his dolls ranged on the bed and on every surface in the small cell.
No, no, no. In time we’ll all be free. Even your dolls. This place is the old world. It’ll all be swept away I promise you.
Be careful what you say. The walls have ears.
Lisbon, November 9th 1980
As soon as he could Vladimir made good on the promise of his vivid dream and painted a moustache on his picture of the Blessed Virgin. When good nurse Bruno saw it he asked what had happened to the lovely virgin. Oh, said Vladimir, she asked me to make her hairy. Bruno was not a very devout Catholic but, although he thought the addition of the moustache was rather disrespectful decided not to comment any further. The weather had turned cold and Vladimir had enveloped himself in a number of the crocheted blankets he had made over the years. The bold stripes on the blankets made him look as though he had been bound and trussed. On his head was a carefully-made headdress of knitted items and artificial flowers.
You think he wouldn’t like it, says Vladimir, I mean the moustache.
Who, says Bruno.
You know….Dr. S. He wouldn’t like to have a hairy Madonna perhaps.
Dr. S? l
Yes, he might not approve I suppose.
Oh Vladimir! He’s been dead for more than ten years.
Oh, I know but it’s still important what he thinks. Isn’t it?
No. Not any more.
Oh, so I can keep the moustache?
Have you fed your birds yet?
Dr. Salazar.
Lisbon, May 7th 1948
They were very nice to him before the operation. Even the bad nurse. No-one really told him what the operation was or what it was meant to do but he knew that it was a new and revolutionary surgery invented by a Portuguese doctor and that they’d be opening up his skull and that afterwards he’d be free to go and live his life and wouldn’t have to come back to the hospital.
Leucotomy? Lobotomy? Dr….. Moniz?
Lisbon, 10th September 1948
He remembered nothing of it afterwards. They had all told him that it would calm him and make him happier but all he felt was a bit of a headache and some anguish about his head being shaved and swathed in bandages. They kept telling him he was better but he felt just the same. Still full of lust and fury, still only interested in what they called “feminine arts”, still wanting to dress in women’s clothes. So after a short and frightening time in what they called the outside world, here he was, back under their vigilant gaze of the panopticon and the ministrations of the good and bad nurses.
Lisbon, July 10th 1982
Vladimir had a huge surge of energy and at last set to work on the self-portrait that the journalist had suggested to him. He used his usual brilliant colour palette and black outlines but this time he was unable to confine the image of himself to the limits of the canvas and his feet, ears and the top of his head were all cut off. He gave himself the same vivid red lips and the heavy eye make-up that he’d given the Blessed Virgin and dressed himself in a variety of vibrant materials. In each of his hands, held in front of him, perched a bird, one blue, one yellow.
January 23rd 1983
Is that you? said the bad nurse, pointing at a black and white photograph of a handsome young man in a suit and tie leaning against a car. No, said Vladimir, it’s not me, but he threw me like a doll onto the bed. I think this is me. He indicated another old photo, this time of a dancer onstage and suspended in the air with his feet together, his arms aloft and his painted face triumphant but somehow fearful.
They all came to Stuttgart and they took us off in their cars. Then we went to Berlin and then they brought me here. Ja, mein herr! Ja, ja!
Prometheus. Beethoven, Petrushka. Stravinsky. Dolls. Puppets. Ja, ja, ja!
January 10th 1986
It was the current bad nurse, Adérito, who broke the news. He was just the latest in a succession of good and bad nurses over the past four decades. Their names changed but they were always either good or bad. Vladimir hadn’t painted anything or made anything for over a year and he was, at last dispirited, hunched in his chair and swathed in blankets.
You’ll be leaving soon.
Where am I going?
That’s your business. But we’ll be free of your nonsense at last. Vladi.
Nonsense?
Your knitting and dolls and dressing up and lies.
Vladimir took the shawl from his shoulders and flapped it at the bad nurse.
Careful, sweetie, said the bad nurse. Or we may have to take away your privileges again. And then what would happen to your birds?
Vladimir struck a pose.
The next day he died.
Feature Image: Section view of a panopticon prison drawn by Willey Reveley, circa 1791. The cells are marked with (H); a skylight (M) was to provide light and ventilation.[