The brownstone, p.13
The Brownstone, page 13
Shopping list in hand, she looked at herself in the hall mirror. Suddenly, there were two people in the mirror—herself and a young girl who stood high above on the second-floor landing, watching her.
Chandal turned. The girl was still there.
“Angel, where are you?” Elizabeth’s voice filtered down from above. The girl turned, passed through the open doorway, and closed the door behind her.
The girl from the nursery—Chandal had thought she’d imagined her. Yet, there had been a girl standing on the landing just now. She’d seen her.
Taking a step forward, she was hit with a sudden dizziness. Ahead of her, the stairs stretched out like a spool of unraveling ribbon. Bracing herself against the wall, she tried to catch her bearings. It was no use. She was going to be sick.
Chandal was still in the bathroom when she heard Justin yell.
He took the steps leading from the basement three at a time. “Honey, wait until you see it!” He ran from one room to another trying to find her. “Honey, where are you?”
When Chandal stepped from the bathroom, he could see that she was sick and insisted that she lie down. He would call the doctor.
“Justin, please—I feel fine,” she said with a sour grin.
“Honey, are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Now, what was all the yelling about?”
Proudly, he produced a photograph of Mintz. It was priceless. Justin had caught Mintz at exactly the right time. No photographer of animals could have asked for more. He had brought out the texture of her fur, casting highlights, and had caught each drop of water that hung from either whisker.
But Chandal did not look pleased.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?” asked Justin.
It wasn’t the cat that she was looking at. There in the background, she could see the face of the young man. She looked at the picture more closely. There wasn’t any doubt—it was him.
“Justin, there, in the background—what do you see?”
“What?” Justin took the photo from her. “What are you talking about?”
“Directly to the right of Mintz’s head, in the background. What do you see?”
Justin examined the photograph. “I don’t see anything but an out-of-focus cellar door!” He grew tense. “You can hardly see it, though, the way the picture is composed.”
“I don’t mean the door—I mean in the doorway!”
Justin looked again. “Are you crazy? There’s nothing there. It’s pitch-black.”
“There—right there!” she screamed, pointing to the open doorway in the picture.
“Those are shadows!”
“Justin, that is not a shadow.”
“No? Then what is it?”
For almost an hour, she tried to convince Justin that it was the face of a young man. At first Justin laughed and told her that she was seeing things. But she persisted. Finally, in a fit of anger, Justin tore up the photograph. “There! I’ve destroyed the goddamn picture. Now, I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“Justin, I tell you that there are other people living in this house—that man and a young girl. I’ve seen them. Both of them.”
“Oh, really—then why haven’t you mentioned it before?”
“Because I thought I was imagining it. But—”
“I hate to tell you this, but you are!”
Chandal made up her mind. She would never mention it to Justin again. Her manner would become guarded and deferential, quite unlike her. It was a few minutes past eleven when Chandal crawled into bed. She lay there for a long time and thought about the picture.
In what followed, she seemed to discover the absolute belief that she was right, that the couple was very much part of this house. A tiny understanding began to form within her as she tapped the memory of the first day they had spent in the brownstone. Justin had taken her to the nursery—the couple was there; she’d seen them. Together, they were there, as if this was their home. Chandal was sure that the nursery had been their bedroom at one time.
After much tossing and turning, she fell asleep, curled up in the corner, the blanket pulled up over her head.
In the basement, Justin had once again begun work on the portrait of Magdalen. He scarcely understood the earnest desire which he now felt, but he knew that he had to perfect her picture. Her soft eyes gazed back at him. Beautiful eyes and yet... something different from what he saw when he was with her. He looked back into the developing tray. See me as I am, said a soft voice. He frowned, looked at the picture. Sometimes it seemed to him that he had captured two images on the film. A woman within the woman. If he were to look long enough, he was sure that the images would blend, become one woman. Your mind is the camera, whispered the voice. My mind is the camera, thought Justin, as though he were learning a lesson.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LOIS YATES STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF HER OWN apartment and smiled. “It’s wonderful. I don’t know what Justin told him, but Bender has decided not to renovate. He’s moving people back into the building. Look—isn’t it great?”
Chandal muttered, “It’s nice.”
“Oh, this is the young lady who’s taken your apartment.”
Chandal turned to find a tall, thin girl with cameo-pink skin and large green eyes set off by dark lashes under light red hair standing next to Lois. Her figure accented through the bright sheerness of her pale green blouse; her breasts were high and pointed and sharply divided; her waist, tiny, cinched with a wide leather belt which clung to the short green skirt under which, it appeared, she wore very little.
“How pretty you are,” Chandal murmured, vaguely aware that it was a strange thing to say. An older woman would tell a young girl: “How pretty you are.” A girl would never say it to another girl on first meeting. Nor had Chandal ever before been so conscious of another woman’s body.
“Oh, thank you,” said the girl, not seeing anything strange in the remark.
Lois lifted her two hands, coaxing the girls to become instant friends. “Chandal Knight—Bonnie Barrett.”
“How are you?” Bonnie smiled.
“How do you do?” Chandal shook her hand.
“I won a beauty contest, you know. In Canton, Ohio. Winning that contest meant a lot to me. It was one of the loveliest things in my life; it really was. That was four years ago.” She paused for a moment to embrace the passing of time.
“How about coffee, girls?” Lois asked.
“No, I have to get to work,” said Chandal. “I only stopped by because I saw the moving truck outside.” Had Justin called Bender? Chandal wondered.
“I hope they haven’t broken everything.” Bonnie paused. “Oh, I’ve got to run—” She dashed down the stairs.
“She’s a sweet girl.” Lois leaned over the wooden railing and watched her exit the building on the lower level.
“Yes, she is.” Chandal paused. “Did Bender tell you why he changed his mind?”
“No, I haven’t even talked to him. Just yesterday, out of the blue, I hear someone turn the key in your apartment; I thought it was you. I open the door and there stands Bonnie. She tells me she’s moving in—today. Right behind her, there’s an older couple—they’re taking the apartment directly above me, you know, the one where the two—well, you know—boys lived. Michael and...?”
“Anthony.”
“Yes, Anthony, such a nice boy. Such a shame.”
Chandal glanced at her watch. Eight-fifty A.M. “Well, I’m glad everything worked out all right for you.”
“Oh, yes—Jerry and the kids are so happy. Please, tell Justin thank you. All right?”
“I’ll do that.”
The morning turned out to be a total disaster. Everything went wrong. Chandal spilled coffee on an important set of papers, broke two of her nails, and without thinking ran into a glass door that was clearly marked. She walked slower now, down the institutional-gray corridor to the ladies’ room. She couldn’t shake last night from her mind.
The young girl on the landing—no, she had not imagined her! A daughter of Magdalen, perhaps? The girl was too young. It was possible, though. The young man—her husband? Why conceal the fact they are living there? Third—fourth floor, maybe? Boarders—the sisters are embarrassed because they had to rent most of the brownstone. But how could they hope to conceal it?
She washed her hands and patted her cheeks with cold water.
The picture was proof! The young man was there. Damn Justin! Destroying the picture like that. Does Justin know the girl is living there? Maybe his photography is just an excuse. The small door at the far corner of the basement—they could meet, who would know?
Eventually, though, she had to get back to her desk. Go on working, go on thinking, with the nausea always with her. Morning sickness—if it kept up, she’d have to get something from the doctor.
Sheila invited Chandal to her apartment for lunch. Chandal was pleased by the change. They took a taxi to save time.
Sheila had a bright studio with dark wood cabinets, a handsome sofa that turned into a bed at night, plenty of plants, and a dining alcove. Books on the occult filled her bookshelves.
“I’m a believer,” laughed Sheila from the kitchen, seeing Chandal’s eye on a volume of mysticism. For lunch, she fixed a fruit salad, corned beef sandwiches with kosher dill pickles, and rum-raisin Häagen-Dazs ice cream.
After they ate, Sheila showed Chandal her collection of pictures: Sheila at graduation; Sheila with her brother; Sheila at a wedding party.
“Me as a virgin,” Sheila said, handing Chandal a chromium frame. It enclosed a picture of a naked baby. Laughing, Chandal returned the picture to the bookshelf.
“Do you believe in those things?” Chandal loosely indicated Sheila’s collection of occult books.
“I don’t know—sometimes.” She reached for the dish cloth.
“Like when?”
“Well, it sounds strange—but, one night I woke up and saw my mother standing in my room—she was in Florida at the time—and she called my name. Then she leaned down and kissed me and said, ‘Don’t feel sad, I’m well and happy!’ Then she moved toward the window and vanished. The next morning, I received a telegram that my mother had died during the night.” She shrugged. “It makes you think, if you know what I mean?”
“Yes.” Chandal watched as Sheila wiped the dishes and put them away. Sheila’s story made Chandal nervous. The unexplainable, completely beyond understanding—it was beginning to become nerve-wracking. Strange, Chandal thought, that she had come to Sheila’s to get away from her worries, and now the most trivial conversation had ended by upsetting her. She sighed, the strangeness surrounding her. She could feel it, taste it, everywhere she went now. It was there.
Sheila stacked the dishes on the top shelf. Was there such a thing as too much intensity? Look at Sheila. She had had the experience, had just talked about it in a personal way, yet she was going about her work, wiping the counter clean, folding the cloth, putting it on the rack to dry. Of course, Chandal was feeling all the tension because she had no explanation for why she saw the young couple that morning, the young man in the picture, the voices at night—no explanation whatsoever. Now she had noticed it, could not stop seeing and hearing and feeling these people; it was as if their presence were a constant throbbing in her brain, hammering out their message.
“Sheila?” Chandal’s voice was too loud for the room.
“Yes?”
“I... do you...” Something stopped her. “It was a nice lunch. Thank you.” She had wanted to tell Sheila about her worries, what she had imagined was going on within the brownstone. Instead, she blushed and discarded the thought.
In the silence Chandal fought off her embarrassment; how difficult it was to speak of the feelings growing inside of her! But God, she had to tell someone.
“Well, all done.” Sheila smiled. “I’ll be right back. Then we’ll go.” She strode into the bathroom and closed the door. She was humming a tune.
The silence in the room was complete, not only in the room, but inside Chandal’s head, as well. She was no longer thinking of anything.
The breathing came first. It caught her off guard, a blistering, harsh, in-the-pit-of-her-stomach breath. Hot steam that pushed up into her mouth, gagging her. The odor, the taste followed—vile-smelling acid that scorched the roof of her mouth.
She gasped. She tried to scream. But something was moving inside her throat, traveling from her stomach, winding its way upward, trying to escape from her mouth.
In a panic, she tried to open her jaw and couldn’t. She felt something slithering up and down her windpipe. She turned her head slowly, twisting it to one side of her neck, gagging, and forced her mouth open wide. Her tongue shot back, out of control. It slapped against the roof of her mouth, shot outward, licked her lips until her jaw loosened, her head dropped slightly, and her breathing came back to her in short spurts. “Sheila!” she whispered hoarsely, her body falling limp against the arm of the chair. That was the way Sheila found her.
“Did you call...? Oh, my God!” Sheila looked with shock at the redness around Chandal’s mouth and neck, at the panic in her gaping eyes. “Chandal, are you all right?”
“What?” she asked, in a short gasp for air.
“What is it? What happened?”
Chandal’s eyes darted around the room. “I don’t know.” She moved her hand to her chest. “Whatever... it was—it’s gone.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know.” Chandal’s heart raced. “It felt like someone was forcing a tube down my throat. I... I couldn’t catch my breath—trying to get it out.”
Sheila moved to her side. Placed her arm around her shoulder. “You’ll be all right.” She squeezed Chandal’s hand, and Chandal managed a nervous smile in return. “Maybe we should get you to a doctor.”
“No!” Chandal whirled around, her eyes wide and filled with fear. It was still in the room. Whatever it was, it was still there. “Sheila, I have to talk to you. But not here. We still have a few minutes. We’ll walk back, okay?”
Sheila glanced at her watch. “Sure. Whatever you want to do.”
Sheila strode along the walk, her hands stuck neatly into the pockets of her woolen coat. She looked perplexed. “And you actually saw them in the nursery?”
“Both of them. She was asleep. Her head rested in his lap.”
“Then they vanished?”
“Yes.” Chandal frowned.
“What did you do then?”
“Nothing. What was I supposed to do?”
“And you were awake?”
Chandal stopped. “Sheila, you’re not listening to me. Justin and I had just entered the front door of the brownstone. I was nowhere near the bed.”
Sheila squinted, turning slightly away from the sun. “Jesus, that sun’s bright.”
“Sheila!”
“What?”
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “You said you and Justin were into smoking grass. Did you have any—”
“Oh, don’t give me that drug bullshit!” she said angrily. “All right, just forget it. Okay?”
Chandal took several steps—stopped. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Sheila, I thought you said you were a believer. Then why don’t you believe I saw them?”
Sheila cleared her throat slightly. “I didn’t say you didn’t see them, but—”
“But what?”
“They don’t seem to have any connection with you. At least with my mother—” Her voice lowered, she spoke objectively. Detached. “It was personal. There was a reason.”
“I’ve thought about that.” The crisp, cold air stuck in her throat. “Maybe there is a connection.” She exhaled, her breath vaporous in the frosted air.
“In what way?” At the crosswalk children played, wrestling each other into the pile of snow next to the fence. “Hey, watch it!” Sheila scowled at them.
“I don’t know.” Chandal continued across the street.
“What?” Sheila walked next to her.
“I don’t know in what way they’re connected. But I feel they are.”
Sheila suddenly grabbed Chandal’s arm. “I don’t want to pry, but are you and Justin getting along all right?”
“Yes,” Chandal lied. “Why?”
“Because that could be the cause of the problem.”
Sadly, Chandal shook her head. “Believe me, Sheila, you’re a good friend, but you’re a rotten psychiatrist.”
“Why?”
“This had nothing to do with our getting along.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I... can’t.” The image of Justin’s face, moody, tense, passed before her eyes.
“So, maybe I’m a better psychiatrist than you think. When people aren’t getting along, they imagine—” She stopped herself.
“I know. They imagine all sorts of things.” Chandal locked her fingers together, tightening her gloves. “So you think it’s all in my head?”
“I think it’s good you got it out in the open.”
“Got what out in the open?”
“That Justin may be the cause. I mean, it’s possible, right?”
“Maybe.”
“So now you can deal with it.”
“But if the couple is real—what then?”
“Then... they’re real, and you’ll find a logical explanation for them being there.”
In the museum, the attendant smiled, the gorilla scowled, the medicine doctor looked paler than ever, and they were both back in the office fifteen minutes late.
“We’ll talk later, okay?” Sheila hung up her coat.
“Yeah—later.”
Chandal continued to have a difficult time at the office. She completely forgot to inform the vice president of an important message, costing the museum a valuable acquisition. She misplaced a priceless document, which was later discovered in the wastepaper basket, and she broke a third nail. Things dragged on in this way for the rest of the day.
Then a new element was added to her confusion.
During the last hour, she received a call from her mother. Her flu had gotten worse. She would have to go into the hospital for a complete checkup. Nothing serious, but the doctor wanted to make sure. Chandal promised that she would visit her tomorrow after work.
