The brownstone, p.25
The Brownstone, page 25
“Thanks.”
Justin slid the pack of cigarettes back onto the doctor’s desk.
“Have you spent much time with her lately?” The doctor had wanted to avoid that question, if at all possible.
Chandal exhaled and came face to face with four pairs of eyes staring at her. “She just spent a week in our apartment, didn’t she? She seemed all right then.”
Justin moved uncomfortably in his chair. The doctor caught the movement.
“Is that true, Mr. Knight?”
Justin glanced uneasily at Chandal. “She did seem a little tense.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Chandal drew in hard on the cigarette.
“Del, she did.”
“So did we all, but we didn’t go out and attack anyone.”
“Mrs. Knight, I believe your mother is suffering from schizophrenia. Some sort of ego breakdown.”
“From what?” she said sharply.
“I’m not a psychiatrist. You would have—”
“So just like that, she starts inflicting pain on herself?” Chandal turned to the nurse. “Just like that, my mother flung herself against the wall?”
“That’s right.”
“Why!?”
“I’ve already told you. She had been in a deep state of depression.”
“But why take it out on herself?” Chandal cried furiously. “Something isn’t right here. I want to see her—now!”
“But she’s in a semi-state of consciousness,” said the head nurse and turned from the position she had taken in the chair near the door and looked at the doctor. He put his finger up to his lips and indicated that Chandal should have her way.
“Follow me,” said the head nurse, rising from her chair. She led Chandal and Justin down a long corridor to the elevator, pressed the UP button. Justin held Chandal firmly with one arm. Looking into her sad eyes, he felt that he’d betrayed her. He could see the weeks of hell that she’d been going through written across her face. He brushed a few strands of hair away from her eyes and kissed her gently on the forehead.
The knot of people tangled inside the open door of the elevator made it almost impossible to step inside. There was a moment of voices shouting, cursing, and threatening.
The noise of the crowd rose. Chandal put her hands over her ears. Justin insisted that they wait for the next elevator in order to give Chandal a chance to rest. The elevator door closed and they sat down on a bench in the hallway.
“Honey, are you going to be all right?” he asked.
“I’ll get the smelling salts.” The nurse hurried away down the corridor.
“Oh, God! First the baby, and now this!” she said.
Justin was silent. He’d been trying to think of something to say, to make everything all right. He knew that he’d done nothing to make it easier for Chandal since she’d lost the child. Why had he treated her so badly?
He tried to recall how he’d ever managed to let things get so far out of hand. He remembered how difficult it had been on both of them to actually move, and that Chandal had really wanted to go to California. It was Chandal who singlehandedly had done most of the packing, finishing in barely enough time to move into their new apartment.
Irritated with himself, Justin turned to see what was keeping the nurse. The corridor was empty. “Honey, you wait here. I’ll see what’s keeping her.”
“No, please—don’t leave me!” She clung to his arm and pulled him back onto the bench.
He nodded and held her hand and then saw the nurse coming toward them from the end of the corridor. She stopped to open a door and stuck her head inside. Justin could hear her speak into the room behind the door, but though her voice was loud, he still couldn’t catch the words.
Chandal couldn’t wait any longer; she was going to be sick. She wrenched her arm away from Justin and dashed into the bathroom, where she vomited. Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably.
The nurse snapped the smelling salts under Chandal’s nose. Chandal’s head shot back and she started to gag all over again. Forty minutes passed before Chandal was able to see her mother.
Motionless, her mother lay there, battered and bruised. She had a tube up her nostril and an electrical gadget recorded her heartbeat. The nurse indicated that Chandal and Justin should proceed into the room with caution.
In the center of the room stood another nurse. Behind her, standing protectively close to the bed, was a young intern. Both moved aside as Chandal advanced.
At first, her mother didn’t seem to recognize her. Then tears started to gush from her eyes. The nurse moved to the bed and patted the tears away with gauze.
“Please, may I speak with her?” Chandal asked in a low voice.
“Only for a moment.” The nurse moved away and stood beside the intern. Chandal moved close and sat on the edge of the bed. Justin leaned on the table at the foot of the bed and watched the thin green lines pulsate across the monitor.
“Momma, can you hear me? It’s Chandal.” She looked down at her and there was silence for a moment. A little girl stopped by the open doorway and peered in: almost in shadow, her hair mixed into the darkness, but her white face and pale, naked shoulders remained visible. The intern moved behind Justin and closed the door.
“Momma, what happened?” Chandal leaned forward, hoping that she could be heard.
Her mother tried to speak, but it was only a little wind-blown whisper of a voice and Chandal could not understand a word of it. Her mother tried again; this time the whisper was louder and Chandal could begin to hear the words. But it was impossible to make any sense out of what she was saying.
“Please, I think you should let her rest,” said the nurse, moving up behind Justin.
“Wait, just one more minute. She’s trying to tell me something. Go ahead, Momma. I can hear you.”
Then Chandal heard the fragments of a sentence.
“Punish... us. She has... punished us,” her mother whispered, then fell into a state of unconsciousness. With a sudden jerk of the muscles, her mouth dropped open, as though she were continuing to speak.
Chandal looked around the room in a panic. The intern quickly checked her heartbeat as the nurse checked her pulse. The nurse reassured Chandal that her mother was all right, that she’d just fallen asleep.
Justin walked over to Chandal and beckoned her away from the bed. There was a slight knock on the door. The intern opened it, allowing Dr. Margolin to step inside. After a brief examination, the doctor also assured Chandal that her mother was resting comfortably.
Outside the hospital, the snow had begun to fall again. Chandal waited in the doorway as Justin tried to hail a cab. Next to her stood a woman with a baby in her arms. She hugged it to her, covered its small face with a blanket, and hurried over the white snow to an awaiting car. Chandal thought of her baby, but did not cry. She had no tears left.
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHANDAL SAT IN THE KITCHEN LATER THAT NIGHT and heard her mother’s words, from the voice of her mind, but the wind whipped through the backyard and would not let the words finish, but blew them away.
Justin put a penny in her hand. He looked down at her and smiled. “For your thoughts.”
“I don’t know. I just can’t help thinking about what my mother said—that she had punished us.” She picked up her cigarette from the ashtray.
“She was delirious.”
Chandal remembered what Magdalen had told her earlier—that she would punish her for coming into her private room. That had happened. She was there. She inhaled deeply. Her throat was dry and sore. No matter. She inhaled again, looked at Justin, and wondered if she should tell him about what had happened this morning. Would he think she was crazy? Maybe she was. She was in the bedroom when the phone rang. How did she get there? First she was with the sisters. Then—She put the cigarette out in the ashtray. “Justin, I had a long talk with Elizabeth today.”
“Oh, really? What did she have to say?”
“She told me that Magdalen used to be married to a young doctor and that they lived in this house until his death.” She paused, then added, “She showed me where they lived. An apartment on the third floor.”
Justin turned. “You went up to the third floor?”
“Yes. Elizabeth and I.”
“And Magdalen let you?”
“Well, at first she wasn’t home.”
“What do you mean—at first?”
Chandal could detect the tension that had crept into Justin’s voice. “She came in while we were up there. I don’t know how it happened, but she and Elizabeth started to argue and she began to slap Elizabeth.”
He thought, goddamn it!
But aloud he said, “Oh, Christ! Chandal, how could you? You know what she said about going up there. Now she’s going to blame me!”
Chandal saw that Justin’s only concern was for what Magdalen might think of him. He became furious and shouted at the top of his lungs. Throwing his coffee cup into the sink, he wheeled on her. “You’re an idiot, do you know that? A damn idiot! Why did you go up there in the first place? She told you not to!”
“Because someone nearly killed me with a flowerpot—that’s why!”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I came back into the house this morning, I stopped at the foot of the stairs and waited for the mailman to finish with the mail. As I stood there, a flowerpot fell from the third floor and nearly hit me. When I looked up, someone was just closing the window. When I asked Elizabeth who it was, she denied that anyone was up there.”
“Of course there was no one up there!”
“Then what made the flowerpot fall like that?”
Justin crossed to the back kitchen window and flung it open. “The wind, Chandal—can you feel it? Hear it? It was the damn wind!” He shook his head, like a monstrous dog coming out of water. And then he began to laugh a high, clear yelping laugh that frightened Chandal. “You keep saying that you’re not imagining things, but each day you come up with a new story!” He slammed the window shut.
She saw that Justin was in no mood to hear anymore. She wanted to tell him about the picture of the young doctor, how much it looked like him, but knew he wouldn’t believe her. And the fire that had ignited by itself when Magdalen entered the room. She knew she hadn’t imagined it. Any of it.
Justin stood by the window looking out. “I don’t know what’s happening to us, Chandal. I really don’t.” Then he walked up and down in the kitchen and glanced out the window every few minutes.
“What are you looking at?” Chandal asked.
“Nothing.” But Justin was lying. There in the shadows, he saw a young man. He’d seen him come up from the cellar and cross to the center of the yard. The young man looked so much like himself that at first he’d thought he was seeing his own reflection in the glass. But as he watched, the young man moved about in the snow and he knew that it couldn’t possibly be a reflection. He rubbed his temple. If he had a brain in his head, he wouldn’t be here. He hadn’t wanted to blow up like that. I’m sorry, he thought.
“I’ll start dinner,” Chandal said, halfheartedly rising to her feet.
“I’m not hungry!”
“But you said you skipped lunch.”
“So what? I’m still not hungry.” He slipped on his coat and reached for his hat.
“Where are you going?”
“The cellar door is open. I’ll have to close it.”
She watched through the kitchen window as Justin went into the backyard. No sooner had he stepped outside than the wind tore the hat from his head. Retrieving it, he sank into a bank of snow and almost fell. Constantly, he watched for the prowler, but he had gone.
His hat pulled down over his forehead, he finally reached the cellar door. From the steamed-over window, Chandal peered out at him. He shook his head in annoyance and disappeared down the cellar stairs, closing the door behind him.
Chandal heard him throw the large bolt into place, his footsteps descending the stairs below and the lower door closing on its rusty hinges. Silence.
Justin turned on the light in the basement and looked around. The basement floor was covered with a light coating of snow that had blown in from the backyard while the door was left open. It was the first time to his knowledge that the door had ever been opened. Who had opened it?
By the time Justin swept up the loose snow, Chandal had brought him a hot cup of coffee and was now examining the mannequins. She vividly remembered the night she’d lost the baby and was surprised to see that all the mannequins looked alike and resembled no one in particular. But there were fewer of them now. Or were there? She wasn’t sure. She took a step back.
Justin had just finished cleaning up and was taking his first sip of coffee when he glanced through the small window that looked out on the wintry trees and shrubs in the yard. A young man’s face stared back at him.
“Damn!” He slammed down the cup and darted for the basement door. Startled, Chandal spun around.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s someone prowling around in the yard!” He flung open the first door, leaped up the stairs, threw open the second door, and practically fell into the backyard on all fours. But as soon as he reached the yard, the prowler was gone.
Justin searched around for footprints; there were none. He next looked for a way in or out of the yard. Again, he discovered that there was none.
Returning to the basement, he took off his coat and flung it over the back of the chair.
“Who was it?” Chandal asked.
“No one—just a dog!” He immediately set about nailing the basement door shut.
Chandal occupied herself with a closer examination of the room. Back against the south wall were two large kerosine drums, an empty fire bucket, and gardening tools. Next to them stood a small table with sewing gadgets and bales of wool and cotton reels. Years of dust covered everything.
Brushing the cobwebs away, she took up a piece of loose cloth in her hand. It was especially pretty material, bright red and wonderfully soft to the touch.
Suddenly she could picture the young girl sitting by the fire sewing. Hatless, but still in his cloak, the young man entered the room. The girl looked up as he came in, smiled, and put her sewing down. He crossed to her; kissed her; stood still for a moment then, looking down at her, he said, “I love you.”
I love you, too, she replied.
“What?” Justin hollered without stopping his hammering.
“I didn’t say anything,” said Chandal, putting down the piece of cloth.
“Oh, I thought I heard you say something!”
For a brief moment, Chandal felt herself reduced to a tiny pinpoint of identity, as if she were the young girl whom she had just imagined, and no longer herself. Did she say, “I love you?” This was not the first time she’d felt the loss of her own identity, and with it came the feeling of solitude. Unending, alien solitude.
It was ten o’clock by the time Justin had finally nailed the basement door shut. The snow was still coming down as they entered the kitchen. Justin switched off the basement light and closed the door. “God, what a day!” He moved to the sink to wash his hands.
“I know!” She handed him a towel. “Do you think Mom will be all right?”
“Sure. She’s a tough old bird.” He dropped the towel on the countertop and removed his shirt. Next he sat at the edge of the chair and kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks. Dressed in only his jeans, he leaned his head back against the kitchen wall and shut his eyes.
For the first time in days, Chandal took a close look at her husband. His mustache was fully grown now and looked dashing. His body had grown lean and muscular. The short haircut accented the sharp features of his face; his lips looked moist and sensual. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Justin what she was thinking, that she wanted him to make love to her. “I think I’ll take a hot shower,” she said. “How about you?”
“Maybe later,” he said, without moving or opening his eyes. In the silence that followed, Chandal went into the bathroom, removed her clothes, and stepped into the shower. Each movement accentuated her physical need and longing for Justin.
She turned the hot water on and let it play across her skin.
Upstairs in the attic, the old woman looked around the room with fear and revulsion. A cake of blood had dried on her cheek. Her voice was as deep as a man’s and heavy and slow. She repeated over and over again, “But I tell you, he is no good, he’s like an animal! Won’t you send him away? If you won’t—I will!”
How easy it had been. She simply had walked into his room, slowly, on tiptoes. The slightest noise would have brought attention to her being there. So she had moved quietly, cautiously, as if suspended in midair. Her hands were not trembling. The knife was not trembling.
Holding the knife so, she had walked closer and closer until she had stood over him—and with one thrust, she had plunged the knife into his chest!
Chandal had finished soaping herself and was just about to reach for the washcloth when she saw she was standing in a pool of blood! “Oh, my God!” she gasped. Stepping back, she tried to understand what was happening to her. The blood now flowed from the shower head, running down her body between her legs. She tried to rip open the shower curtain, but slipped and fell to one knee, tearing the curtain. The blood was everywhere, running into her eyes, her nose. With her arms tangled in the curtain, she couldn’t free herself. The blood splattered on the walls as she flung her arms wildly, trying to escape.
Justin was brought to his feet by Chandal’s horrified scream. He rushed into the bathroom and found his wife curled up against the bathroom tiles, completely naked and half out of her mind. He lifted her up and tried to calm her.
“Blood! In there—blood!” she screamed.
Justin reached in and shut off the water, which was scalding-hot, steam clouding the entire bathroom. He checked the tub to see what she meant, but couldn’t see anything resembling blood. “Honey, there’s nothing here.”
It took nearly an hour to convince her that she had imagined the blood. The tub was checked again and again; nothing was found. Chandal looked into his eyes. She was startled and afraid.
