Draw the Dark

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “Do you need to a lot?”

  “More than we’d like to sometimes. We can run a code and take care of someone in an emergency situation, get them stabilized, but if they get really, really complicated—like they need surgery or something—we transport them to Ashburg Memorial. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t. Most times, they do. We’re set up as a hospice too.”

  “You mean, people die here?”

  The look Peggy threw me practically screamed DUH. “Where else? Believe it or not, it’s better to die here than a hospital. When I go, I want to go at home in my own bed. If I can’t do that, then I’d want a place where I can look outside and see water and trees, have my things in my room. There are worse ways to go.”

  The unit was large, arranged in a big square around the nurses’ station, and held about a hundred guests in need of more intensive care, Peggy said. It was also much quieter, a place where you instinctively lowered your voice, though I could hear the occasional beep-beep-beep of machines coming from some of the rooms. A lot of the residents were in hospital gowns and lay in aluminum-railed hospital beds. The smell was really different: the antiseptic odor again, but now I caught the scent of age, the stink of diapers. The people here weren’t necessarily older than the seniors next door, but they really were frailer, all spindly arms with wattles of sagging skin. A lot of the seniors were tied up in their wheelchairs or bedside chairs with a kind of sling Peggy called a posey. A few sat in the common area where a TV chattered to itself in one corner. As we passed through on our way to the kitchen, some of the old people looked over. Their faces were blank and nearly featureless, like when I molded something out of clay that hadn’t worked and so I’d taken a loop tool and skimmed off all the detail in large curls until the clay was smooth again.

  Peggy retrieved a big metal, cafeteria-style gurney loaded with covered trays. “Okay, so here’s the drill. Some people we have to feed. Other folks can feed themselves, but you have to check every couple of minutes or else you’ll be cleaning peas off their laps or the floor. Also, you’ve got to be sure to match the tray with the right person, you got that? Let’s take care of the people who don’t need to be fed first; then I’ll coach you through feeding a few of them. Oh, and be sure to say everyone’s name, and then tell them what’s on the tray to orient them.”

  A half hour went by in a blur of covered trays, napkins tucked under chins, cut-up meat loaf, bowls of quivering Jell-O and mushy peas, and other bowls of colored glop that were probably pureed vegetables and looked like baby food. Still, I was getting into it a little, not so freaked, because the work wasn’t hard. You just had to get over being creeped out, and then it was easy. Well, easier.

  So everything was going okay. Yeah, Mrs. Krauss was a jerk, but Peggy was okay. Lucy had been kind of sweet. I was feeling kind of good, actually—so that alone should’ve tipped me off that things were about to go really, really bad.

  I was on the last set of trays when I saw the doctor at the end of the hall. She was busy reading a chart, and then she peeled off into one of the rooms . . . and I felt this little, tiny mental tug, like a fishhook in my brain. I stopped dead. Something was pulling at me, stroking my brain with sticky fingers, and it was coming from that room, where the doctor was. Something was drawing me....

  So I eased down to the door. To the left was a name tag, written with black Magic Marker, slotted into a metal holder: WITEK. To the right, I saw a strange brass tube, inlaid with colored glass and crystal, stuck at a weird angle to the right doorjamb.

  Inside was a single hospital bed and there was this brittlelooking old guy propped up on pillows. His arms were sticks, and his face was so sunken his cheeks looked like axe blades about to cut through his skin. There was something wrong with his face. The whole right side drooped, like molten candle wax, like he was Mr. Eisenmann’s mirror image only not scarred and definitely not a gargoyle.

  The doctor was talking to the old man. I couldn’t hear what she said, but her voice was kind, like what I imagine a mom might be like with her kid. She was leaning over the old guy, flicking a penlight back and forth across his eyes. Her back was to the door, so she didn’t see me.

  But I sure saw those paintings.

  There were five: all in frames and most were oils, I thought. The canvases were relatively small, maybe twenty-four- and thirty-inch squares. I was too far away to make out any of the details, but it didn’t matter—because I felt this queer little thrum in my head. Not quite a sound but definitely physical and

  (?)

  then that weird floaty feeling caught hold and then I was falling, the way I had right before those nightmares and in the barn and

  I’m sweating and my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth, and I wish I had a penny to spend for an ice that Mr. Grinstein is selling at the corner from his white handcart, like it’s May Day or the Fourth, but I don’t have any money and besides the prisoners will be here soon, and I don’t want to miss that.

  So instead, I squirt to the front of the crowd of people lining Main Street to the foundry’s gates. It is still blindingly hot, so bright that everything looks bleached and bone white. Even though the prisoners have been here for a few weeks, people are still curious. Papa’s forbidden me to come. He says that these men are our enemies and we have better things to do than gawk, but I don’t understand that because Papa spends a lot of time with them. In fact, Papa told us at supper that Mr. Eisenmann has taken him out of the ceramics workshop for the time being. Papa’s only job now is to make drawings of the prisoners because that’s what Mr. Eisenmann wants. Mr. Eisenmann says that this is history in the making, and he wants Papa to record everything—and Mr. Eisenmann himself, of course, because he’s the town’s history too.

  I spy Marta across the street, close to the gates. Of course, she’s there, making eyes at the prisoners, who make eyes back. She’s with some of her girlfriends, and all of them are wearing nicer clothes than normal. Marta stands out, of course, with her gypsy looks and brown skin and red hair band. Papa doesn’t want her here either, but she comes every day so she can watch when the prisoners get back from the fields. Mama and Marta have quarreled, their hands flashing, because Mama and Papa believe that Marta should be modest, but she only shouts with her hands that there are no other men in town because everyone is either away at the war or too young or too old. Besides, all her friends are there and where’s the harm?

  I know where there’s harm: in making eyes with wolves. If Papa knew what she was doing, he would beat her and not allow her to work at Big Brown because the wolves are there too. Miss Catherine wants a new house, but Mr. Eisenmann says that Big Brown should do very well, only it will need a lot of work and the wolves can do that. Mr. Eisenmann and Miss Catherine have quarreled about this in public because my mother says that Miss Catherine is headstrong and willful. We’re not supposed to notice the quarrels, but everyone does. The rich are not like the rest of us; that is what Papa says.

  There is a grumbling from down the street, and now the trucks are coming back in boiling spumes of red dust. The truck beds are open, and the prisoners are there, along with some guards, who cradle their rifles like babies, and laugh and joke with the prisoners. There are seven trucks and only one guard per truck, and that doesn’t seem like very much to me. A prisoner drives each truck. With no guard. I think: All they would have to do is push the guards out of the truck or kill them, and then they could escape. Only these men won’t do that. They’re fed and have a place to sleep and money too. Here, Papa says, they have it good and know it.

  The trucks squeal to a stop at the foundry gates. I taste grit in my mouth and spit red, and my eyes sting. Pavel’s scrubbing his eyes with his fists, and muddy tears streak his face, but he is jabbing me with his elbow too: “They don’t look so tough. I heard most of these are Wolfsangels, only they’re the wolves that got caught now, aren’t they?”

  I see that he is right, because all their eyes are yellow, and when they smile, the
y grin like wolves, showing all their teeth.

  Across the street, Marta and her friends are smiling and waving and holding out little wrapped parcels of sweets. A few of the prisoners reach down to snatch at them, and that reminds me of what I’ve read from the books Mama’s brought from Poland, about knights and how a lady might hand one a ribbon or a glove or a kerchief to show that he was hers. That is what Marta is doing, and it makes me uneasy because there is the gemini, the golden prisoner who is Mr. Eisenmann’s right arm, and he’s taken a parcel from Marta and said something slowly so she understands and they’re smiling into each other’s eyes, and I’m thinking: Doesn’t she see that he’s . . . ?

  There is a scream, very high, like an iron spike piercing the air, and then a woman shouts: Fritz-Fritz-Fritz Hueber!

  All the men in the trucks turn and then, in the second truck, one prisoner leaps over the wooden slats and sprints toward the crowd. People start screaming, and Marta looks confused, not understanding at first, and I’m jostled as everyone lurches away, the crowd parting like the Red Sea. Around the trucks, the guards are bewildered. Then someone in the crowd screams, and that seems to throw a switch in the guards because a few bound after the prisoner, their rifles held high so they don’t shoot anyone by accident: HALT-HALT-HALT!

  The woman screams again: FRITZ! She pushes past, and it’s Mrs. Grunewald from our school, and then she and the prisoner are hugging and crying and she is screaming: Oh we thought you were dead, we thought you were dead.... Everyone else is gawping, and the guards pound over now and shout: Get back everyone get back, Hueber, let her go and come back here, back away, don’t make us shoot you, Fritz....

  Then another prisoner shoves through, the one with no accent and good teeth and yellow eyes—slit eyes, eyes like a wolf. It is Marta’s gemini, and he’s shouting in his flawless English: Get back everyone be calm he means no harm. He goes to Hueber, who is crying with Mrs. Grunewald, and he puts his arms around the other prisoner, and they’re talking together.

  Mrs. Grunewald’s face is blotchy, and there are white stripes on her cheeks from where her tears have cleaned away the dust, and she says: He’s my cousin. We thought Fritz was dead, but he isn’t, here he is and . . . oh oh, we thought he was dead....

  Then someone in the crowd—the minister at St. Luke’s Lutheran—shouts: It’s a miracle. It’s a sign from God! These are our brothers! And then other people start nodding, and s ome begin to weep.

  Mr. Eisenmann comes running through the foundry gates into the street, and even though he is in his shirtsleeves and they’re rolled to his elbows, he is as he always is because he’s like a king: all gold, and his gold ring flashes, and his gold chain with its twinkly fobs is very bright. He talks to a few of the guards and then walks with the prison commander to speak with the prisoner with the yellow wolf eyes. They talk together, heads bent, their hair spun gold in the sun.

  Eventually, everyone calms down. Mr. Eisenmann makes a speech about family and brothers and how war divides, and he talks about the Civil War, which I know nothing about, but everyone else who is not new here does. All around, people are weeping; I hear whispers, muttered talk about how there might be others—brothers and cousins and uncles. Across the street, I see Marta smearing away tears from her cheeks because it is all so touching. Even the wolf is crying.

  But looking at Mrs. Grunewald and Fritz Hueber, I also wonder if maybe what the rabbi says is true: that we are all brothers under the skin—even if some are wolves.

  A hand falls on my shoulder. Startled, I twist my head around and there is Papa. His face is black as a storm cloud, his eyes are thunderous, and I expect a beating. I cringe back, and my feet tangle....

  And then he’s on me: What are you

  “. . . doing here, Christian? That tray belongs to Mr. Griffith.”

  I blinked and nearly dropped the food tray at Peggy’s feet.

  Before I could say anything, a monitor in the old man’s room gave a little eep of alarm. The doctor’s head whipped toward some machine and then back at the man on the bed and then she took his hand. “Mr. Witek, can you hear me? Blink if you hear me.”

  More bleeps from the machine, and now my fingers began to itch, and I thought: Give me a pen, give me a pencil, anything. . . .

  “Well?” Peggy was semi-pissed. “Mr. Griffith’s room is two doors down.”

  “Ah . . .” Confused, I looked from the tray to Peggy, then to the old man on the bed. “Sorry. I wasn’t . . . I got mixed up.”

  “Uh-huh.” Peggy’s eyes clicked over my face, and then she nodded. “That’s okay. Let’s just keep moving.... Sorry about that, Doc.”

  “No problem.” The doctor was studying me with a curious expression I couldn’t read. “Are you all right?”

  Well, I just dropped into another kid’s body, only this time it was like a hand slipping into a glove, like time travel, and I was awake. . . .

  “I’m fine.”

  “We got it covered, Doc.” Peggy was steering me away. “No problems, right, Christian?”

  Later, after the dinner rush, Peggy didn’t ask what I’d been doing or why. That was good. Because I didn’t have any answers.

  X

  After that, my entire body went creepy-crawly-twitchy, like ants on my skin. I couldn’t get that old guy with the paintings out of my head or the whole dream thing. I’d been awake this time. Maybe Sarah was right; maybe I was having seizures or something. There was a scritchy-screechy feeling in my head like nails raking my brain. I told myself to calm down, take it easy, but I also knew that I had not imagined being drawn, and I wasn’t daydreaming. It was time travel all over again, just like the barn, and it started at the threshold to the old guy’s room....

  No, correction: it really got going when I got a look at those paintings.

  After an hour of clearing dinner trays and settling people into rooms, Peggy said, “Would you help Mr. Nelson down to the activities room for the art class? I’m going to take a smoke break.”

  The activities room was set up with about twenty easels. The teacher looked up as I wheeled in Mr. Nelson and pointed me to an empty spot. A rectangle of drawing paper was clipped to the easel: a shaky, half-finished Japanese-style wash of bamboo and some kind of attempt at a bird. I spotted his brushes, and it was all I could do not to grab them.

  “Hey,” I said, as I slotted Mr. Nelson before the easel and kicked on his brakes, “that’s pretty good.”

  Mr. Nelson’s lips parted to reveal irregular yellow pegs ground down almost to the roots. “Thank you. I used to draw a bit, but then life caught up with me, and I had to go to work to support my family.” He fumbled up a brush, and I half reached to steady his hand but quick jammed my fists into my pockets as he said, “Now they’re supporting me, and I’ve got all the time I need to draw.”

  I muttered something about that being nice. Then the teacher moved in, and I backed away. The urge to draw was so overwhelming, though I had no idea what was begging to flow out of my hands and onto paper. I turned, thinking: Get out, get out, just get out . . .

  “Young man,” a familiar voice quavered, “young man.”

  Lucy. I hadn’t seen her. She lifted a hand like she was a student in class. “Young man, I need your help.”

  “Be right there, Lucy,” the teacher called, and then he jerked his head at me. “Go keep her company a second, would you?”

  So I was trapped. Lucy’s picture was a mess. She’d been trying to do a copy of a portrait of her done maybe ten years back by someone else. The older portrait was actually pretty good—and a little disturbing, if you knew how to look. In that picture, your gaze snapped to her eyes: blue, sharp, a little angry, the irises stark against the whites—like a surrealist’s vision of what a doll’s eyes might look like. But the rest of her face was deliberately blurred, like another Lucy was trying to step outside her body, or maybe it was just that the perspective had been flattened and smudged, her image like something scissored out of a magazine and sl
apped onto paper. But I could’ve sworn another person was there, stepping out of Lucy’s body: not quite a shadow, not a ghost, but as if Lucy were giving birth to another version of herself. Imperceptible but there nonetheless. There was virtually no color other than Lucy’s accusing blue eyes and a bloodred sweater. Everything else—her skin and features—was gray with smudges of a sick, putrid yellow, like something oozing out through her pores. The background was a frenetic, spastic wash of various shades of cool gray mixed with 6 percent blue into slate and pewter and a little green. Maybe the artist had sensed that Lucy was losing it.

  Lucy’s attempts at a copy had produced only an amorphous muddy blob floating in the center of the paper: A vaguely egg-shaped head with tiny pellet eyes, an off-kilter nose glued to one cheek. A slash for a mouth. A Cubist’s nightmare, actually.

  “I just can’t seem to get it right.” The hollows beneath Lucy’s faded denim eyes were wet. A tear trickled over the cracks and crevices of one pruned cheek. Her fingers were black from charcoal, and when she smeared away tears, she left a watery smudge. “Could you help me? I can’t seem to find myself. I used to . . . but I can’t now.”

  That made me feel really sad, and I kind of choked up. “Sure,” I said. I found a clean piece of paper and clipped it to her easel and took down the artist’s portrait because I thought, well, maybe it upset her. Then, without thinking, I reached out and took her right hand in mine.

  The moment of contact was a snap, a charge, like a little electric shock. I stiffened and Lucy gasped, and her fingers twitched. My mouth was dry, and I said, “We’ll . . . let’s draw it out together, okay?”

  “All right,” she said, her voice faint as if from far away, or maybe that was just my head starting to balloon. She/I pressed the charcoal against the paper and made the first hesitant swoop of a cheek and jaw—and then I thought: Don’t look. Just let it come out. Just draw. . . . So I closed my eyes.