by John Tan
‘Did you touch the library’s walls? Or have you ever touched the library’s walls? Answer me, quick!’
‘Why? Why do you want to know that for? No, I never touched the walls. They looked so clammy and slimy: I hated the look of them, sir.’
‘If you ever go back to the library again, don’t ever touch the walls, and don’t ever go near the window that looks out into the wire fence at the far end—do you hear me, Miss?’
‘Like I said I never touched the walls, and moreover, I didn’t like the look of that window last night; the light in the room was weaker there and it was the darkest place in the room, seen from where I was sitting. It had an air of some wicked thing, hovering close by the curtains, which I couldn’t see and outside, everything was fog-riddled; and which I wouldn’t want to, anyway. I thought I saw dangling shoeless feet in a flash, but quickly pulled myself together. I felt its eerie-ness then, especially, last night—if you want to know anything about it.’
‘You must have been a very sensitive-souled person. I have been told there had been two suicides successfully committed near the window, two former inmates had hung themselves there, these fifty years ago, and going to the library alone at night might cause you to encounter—I mean, the still atmosphere there might conjure up in you—of a terrifying suddenness, you know, some kind of feeling that might quite unhinge the likes of you. I myself wouldn’t like to spend too much time in there, late in the evening; and I am not a person given to hysteria at all. Perhaps, you don’t want to go back there again, hey?—anyway, should you still want to read our collection of books—I prefer you do it in the daytime, anyhow. What do you say?’
‘Hamplock House, I know, is an old establishment with a long history, and some of it is sad and tragic: quite checkered, I take it?’
‘It is the same for every mental institution of any sort, and that is the same for all, all over the country. I don’t say—rather, I won’t say it’s the best place—as there are many happier houses—but as Hamplock House stands--it is one of the very best in Upper New York State. This is how I feel, if I might say so to you. So, don’t be crass-headed, Miss, and take my advice. You won’t go there at night again, will you? Prevention is better than cure and all that; don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, prevention is better—than cure,’ she said, thoughtfully dwelling on the adage.
‘Especially—when your mind is still weak on account of your breakdown, and might fall prey to insidious auto-suggestion.’
‘You think I might do something silly and dangerous in the library, especially, since the place has this bad reputation?’
‘Yes, yes! But let’s leave of this topic for now; if you promise to do what I say.’
‘Yes, I won’t go there at night,’ said the girl, and went off to have her late breakfast.
‘Don’t forget to get some sleep afterwards—get some sleep soon please, I mean,’ I called out after her, and then I turned to my colleague, Doctor Alvarez, and said, ‘Well, Liam, what do you think? Can you proffer us with your learned opinion for our great benefit, what you have observed about the girl this very morning?’ I thus waxed half-humorously.
‘Her life is not a cabaret, old chum, and neither is ours, Doctor Cranston. This is what I have learnt this morning. By the way, how are things now on the west wing—everything already under control?’
‘Yes, barely. I think that some of the inmates are playing us for fools, pretending to take their pills. They did take them again out of their mouths afterwards and swap them with other inmates, or play checkers with one or two pills on the back row of the board. We’ve got to watch them carefully, and put a stop—a grinding halt—to their mischief. They might have done great harm to themselves, these foolish, crazy people! What great, silly dolts!’
‘I have heard from the warden there had been another suicide attempt—an old woman with a lachrymose disposition this time, Adeline Soong, the Chinese woman from Vancouver, Canada, with the rich husband.’
‘Yes; luckily she did not succeed.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘In Wicklow, where she’s being watched. Luckily for her, her folly was discovered before she could do herself in.’
‘We can use the other method to administer the drugs, right, Doctor Cranston? We shall use jabs instead of pills, to put a stop to the other nonsense that is going on behind our backs, or which we have known to have been going on behind our backs in the past, eh, Doctor Cranston? We shall pay no heed to their protest—about being shy of the needle and all that.’
‘And, yes--make sure they sedate Mrs. Bateman, doubling her dosage, while reducing Miss Wysocki’s. That is my professional recommendation for the patients on this floor today,’ I said, tarrying behind Doctor Alvarez down the corridor, and nodding familiarly to the residents there who happened to be about, as the nurse in attendance carrying the patients’ thick cardboard files, marched behind with smart steps, while we still continued with our morning round.
3
Nearly a week and half later, due to an especially exasperating meeting, I was late when I came up to Mrs. Cavendish’s room, only to find Doctor Alvarez there, and having checked on the old lady earlier, he had already turned his attention to the younger inmate and was having an engrossing and animated conversation with her. The first words I caught was his,--and it did seemed--he was repeating something she had just said to him, and he was watching her expression and saying the words slowly and carefully; as if he were mulling over them—or rather, their significance—in his mind.
‘You were saying Miss,--eddies and atoms in the air, which, upon congealing-- turned into some palpable threat, or hinted at something along these lines?’
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘And—what about these, eh? You say: some anomaly that was shivering into pieces the psychic fabric of the place? Or—at least beating that idea forcibly into one’s head?’
‘Er—yes.’
‘Perhaps, as a scientific man, I shouldn’t dream of saying anything myself—but some things can influence the workings of the mind—at least, temporarily—until reason restores itself to himself again,’ said Doctor Liam Alvarez. ‘For myself I don’t believe in ghosts inhabiting this place myself, since I am not a superstitious man by nature, by any means. At least, not in front of my colleagues. ‘Yet, it is quite usual that such a notion might readily attract the un-enquiring acceptance of weak and diseased minds.’
‘Such as mine, eh,’ she said, eyes flashing, ‘perhaps? Oh, sir!’
There was another awkward silence, and then I felt I must intervene before that kind of talk got out of hand, big time; because I felt it was inappropriate in an establishment like Hamplock.
‘Hear, hear! I heartily concur with Doctor Alvarez, whatever he had said,’ I said, and then I added, -- by way of trying to open up a more profitable line or subjects: ‘It is Mrs. Cavendish’s birthday today! Hooray! Congratulations, my dear! Happy seventy-first birthday, and many happy returns of the day! And we are going to have a party in the tea room, and the birthday girl will be the guest of honor, of course. But, what have you been discussing, my dear Liam, with this young lady here?’
‘Oh, she said she had the strange experience of seeing water droplets running down the five inches square tiles, whenever she looked at them, when she was having her bath,’ tart Doctor Alvarez said, matter-of-factly.
‘Oh, she did—did she?’ I muttered loudly, looking from one to the other of them, and scratching my earlobe with my pen.
Doctor Alvarez shrugged his lean shoulders, and he explained, ‘Yes, Doctor Cranston, she complained to me just now that every time she had had her showers, especially on the warmer days these last few months, little silver beads of water seemed to crawl or run down the tiles and this has something to do with her thinking. Her thinking and feeling, at those particular moments. She had been experiencing this for two or three months now. Personally, I think her state of mind has been affecting such a thing around he
r, her psyche, that was ruptured, might have set up such a vibration—though I might be a heretic for saying this since there is no conclusive scientific evidence to support it—but I believe some kind of vibrations has caused the phenomenon that she had witnessed—and, in this claim, I don’t think I am in any serious error whatsoever—especially, when she was alone by herself, and her feelings were running amuck! In other words, it’s precisely a case of mind over matter.’
‘You are allowed to play with your pet theories, Liam; but, Miss, can’t you not think those thoughts that you usually have when you are in your bathroom? I mean, pluck out whatever thoughts you are having?’
‘I can’t do it, Doctor. I mean, I have tried, but I just can’t—or at least I think I can’t—since they’re so ingrained in my mind by now.’
‘Well, Miss,’ said Doctor Alvarez, obviously, for my benefit, ‘when was the last time you saw those tadpoles swimming down the tiles in numbers? Can you remember?’
‘Yesterday, when I was having my shower.’
Doctor Alvarez nodded his head at me, and said, ‘What would you suggest? How about putting her on Sodium Valproate, starting dose of 600 mg, twice a day? Will that do?’
‘Yes,’ I answered trying to keep my enunciation perfectly level, as I flipped through the girl’s files and jotted down some things, ‘that will most certainly do.’
‘And, Miss, please to inform us, if you still find those startling experience unpleasant or unsettling whenever you are taking your shower. But besides the bathroom, do you have these experiences elsewhere?’
‘No, sir,’ the girl answered, thinking carefully.
‘Well, be sure to tell us if you do, so that we can assist you to cope better. The Sodium Valproate we’d just prescribed for you is to be taken along with your other medications. You understand, of course? Good, if there is nothing else, Doctor Alvarez will come to see you again next week, same day, same time, and do tell him if your problem still persists or if you are feeling better. We’ll make a note of it. If the medication disagrees with you, tell Doctor Alvarez. Don’t hesitate. Anytime, I mean, okay?’
‘Goodbye, Miss,’ said Doctor Alvarez, ‘we, the doctors here at Hamplock House aim to do our best for our patients, you know that, don’t you, Miss? Put their minds at rest, so that the healing and the coping more and more successfully can take place.’
He imparted a look of great kindliness upon Mrs. Cavendish, and said gently, in pleasant tones, ‘Come to the Opal Room in four hours at three o’clock. I am sure you have invited your roommate and Miss Wysocki and Milo and Ovaltine and Ellie Curzon. And don’t be late because many people will be there. Hooray! Because today is your birthday, my dear Ma’am! Miss, give Mrs. Cavendish a hug and a kiss!’
4
Miss walked into and visited my office that has a golden plate outside of the door with my name—one of those few times she did venture right into my territory when she stayed in Hamplock House, was a day, about five months later-- short of one week, to be exact. I know because I am referring to my notes as I write this. It was a grey, rain-sodden February day, four days before St. Valentine’s Day, and I had answered her knock, with a staccato ‘Come in, please, Miss!’ while I was still engaged in trying out some official variations that were generally approved by the authorities in Queen’s Indian Defense. I had been playing against the computer, my new PC, to be exact, and had lost two games, and drawn one; and her first words to me when I turned round to look up at her was exactly, ‘Have you received a note from—him? Ah,--busy now? Or should I come back some other time, sir?’
‘No, it’s all right; take a seat, or stand if you so prefer to stand.’
She moved to the center of the room and stood. I took a chair and waved her to sit.
I blinked my eyes, because they had been trained on the computer screen for too long and said, ‘Your mutual friend, you mean? It’s him, you are wishing to enquire from me about? Just a minute.’
Switching off the computer, I went over to sit in my black upholstered swivel chair.
‘Yes, Clara Amelia’s and mine—our mutual friend!’ she intoned, hesitantly, looking suddenly unsure of herself. I pretended not to take any notice of her mood.
‘Let me read you correctly here, you are feeling lonely here, and you have been getting lonesome lately, especially—with Valentine’s Day coming up?’ I said, venturing a shot because I was stalling, and didn’t want the conversation that had begun so promisingly to falter just like that.
‘Yes, I have been taken to thinking a lot about him lately.’
‘There is nothing I have for you,’ I said, ‘If I have I’d have remembered.’
‘Are you sure, there is nothing?’ Won’t you go through your mail and check your correspondences again, sir. I mean, if you shan’t mind it, and please, sir! I would be so glad to hear from him, and a Valentine Day’s card would do wonders for me right now, and send me over the moon.’
So far I am aware, I haven’t received anything,’ I said, laying my hand involuntarily on one of my non-fiction books titled, Teach Yourself to Play Chess Openings, which I picked up absentmindedly, and began to flip over the pages, without letting my eyes settle on them. I examined my pile of unopened mail on the tray. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Nope, he hasn’t sent anything.’
I looked at her puckered eyelids and her scarcely comely face, full with the strain of the disappointment dawning upon her; so I muttered some words or syllable of commiseration and esteemed that she was at the point of communicating what was in her heart in the form of tears.
‘You feel you still—ahem!—I mean, you feel he still ought to care for you?’
She nodded assent by dashing her fist against her eyes.
‘But, for that, Miss, first, you need a judgment of perfect maturity; or at least, no less than great maturity. Are you up to that? Are you ready now to talk about him and your sister, Clara Amelia? Yes? – or no?’
She nodded, and a look of firm resolution flashed in her eyes, as if she had already made up her mind firmly, when she first placed her knuckles on my door to give her rap. So, I thought, to talk must be the main reason she sought me out in my office, today.
I began, firmly, so that she had no opportunity of backing out of her plan. ‘Tell me, why were you and your sister crazy about him? There are other boys to choose from, isn’t there? New York, I have heard, is a big place.’
She trembled, and fresh tears watered her cheeks.
I continued: ‘Is it not folly now—that you both should have fought over him—with the tragic result that some of us standing here still feel its impact even today! Can you please explain to me,--that?’
‘Clara Amelia and I were very close when we were young, we were each other’s closest and best friends in the whole wide world, a refuge to each other against the buffets of life, this hostile world in our utter isolation—and the unpredictableness of our family life. That’s how things were to us, growing up, and we thought our friendship would last forever. Then, we hit puberty. We became crazy about clothes, fads, boys and the theater, and although we still shared the same tastes and like almost the same things, Clara Amelia, who was three years older than me, then, began to develop a personality—and affect an air, annoying at times, and sometimes she was moody and wouldn’t speak to any of us, and hid herself away in her room, and played with the telephone. I was prettier and bolder, I suppose, and I began to notice the kind of boys she liked, I also liked. She was my shy older sister. She had always been my confidant at home, and neither of us confided anything or repose any faith in our parents. Then, when I was twenty-one, I met this boy and fell immediately head o’er heels in love with him, and whenever he said, ‘C’mon, give me that special look, girl,’ I did, and felt proud he took so much notice of me. Clara Amelia was then almost twenty-four. He was twenty-five, and had recently graduated from Yale, and he had a great-looking red sports-car, lots of nice friends, was fun to be around, and everyone loved to dance at his parties bec
ause of his expensive tastes and gifts, and his folks down south was rich, we heard. When Clara Amelia fell in love with him, it was the first time I think I hated my sister—I mean really hated her. It was with a most virulent hate—I believe few people who had never been in love and loved the same boy—ever felt or experienced--and I loathed my sister with my whole soul, and swore to myself I would not let her win over my boyfriend. Especially, we had this huge fight, when I found out she had been trying to seduce him, and steal him from under my nose. I always had been a slow learner, and had spent a longer time at college than most of my peers. I thought, he being educated, and all, would prefer my sister to me, and oh!—I was so jealous! I thought nobody could be so vain as Clara Amelia,--and so nasty! I was so thoroughly consumed with jealousy; that I began to ill wish her, but I didn’t know she had a weak heart and a thin skull. When it became obvious to us both that I was his preferred one, instead of my sister, she just couldn’t take it. It entirely deflated her ego, you know, Doctor Cranston? She threatened, if she can’t have him, she would commit suicide. There were many scenes of tears, great bitterness, recrimination, bullying, pleading, promises, bribes, avowals, denials, cat-fights, argument, and accusations, all so tempestuous and so unpleasant, all because it turned out her single-minded desire to possess him was outrageous as it was extraordinary! Some black thing was stirring up her blood, and she was quickly turning into a monster! I felt I didn’t know her any more. My mother’s attempt to adjudicate between us proved a failure, and a little more than a month before her death, she had become super-sensitive, touchy and moody all at once—without the least trace of sibling feeling in her left for me, and vice versa! Her hair-trigger temper was famous among our friends, those few that still remained, and I remember seeing her contorted face, thin and sharp, her body, thin as a rail, spitting sarcasm at fifty miles an hour, more like a wild animal than my own elder sister that I used to love dearly until a short while ago. She would signify to me she would fight with me for him to the death, because, she said, she had made up her mind long ago, she must have him. She ranted maniacally that she deserved him! As for myself, I felt she had insulted me and wounded me deeply, and the wound would never heal. We were really both very messed up. In my pride, I was just as adamant that I would never give him up. She grew wild, felt revulsed, that he, who was so handsome and so cool and so—oh, so kissable!--refused to give in to her wayward advances, by falling desperately into her arms at long last! Then, she dyed her hair with all sorts of weird colors, like a fool, dressed as if she was a Bohemian and went out to wild parties, just to gain his attention or comment, but he remained solid and unmoved. On the twenty-ninth of August, she slipped and fell on the pavement outside our house, and hit her head against a water hydrant; from this, she got a concussion and how she vomited—oh, it was ghastly—really gruesome! We sent her to hospital, but she died of brain hemorrhage a few days later.’