Elliot Hoover lifted Jennie from the taxi. For a while he was unwilling to step into Des Artistes.
“The last time I came into this building,” he mused, “it was to take a daughter. Now it is to return one.”
Janice looked at him distantly, wondering what it was that had resolved itself in such a peculiar circle of events.
Hoover carried the girl slowly toward the elevator. He seemed to walk on tiptoe, and he ignored Mario’s incredulous gaze as they rode up. Down the hallway he carried the girl, following Janice. The noise of the door being unlocked broke the silence.
The apartment door swiveled open. The stained-glass windows displayed a buoyant light, a subdued extravagance of reds and greens in the hushed atmosphere. In some unspoken way when he crossed the threshold, a terrifying sense of responsibility wakened in him.
Jennie stirred in his arms. Her eyes remained closed.
“The ceiling,” he marveled softly. “It hasn’t changed.”
“No. The ceiling never changes.”
He turned to her, having heard a deeper meaning in her words.
“But so much else has changed.”
“Yes. In all of us.”
Jennie stirred again.
“Shall I put her to bed?” he asked softly.
“She can sleep upstairs.”
Janice led them up the carpeted steps. She paused at what had been Ivy’s room. Delicately she pushed it open. Jars of paintbrushes, ink bottles, and piles of sketchbooks lay on white shelves and a desk.
“In Ivy’s room…” marveled Hoover.
“I have a cot in the closet.”
Hoover lifted Jennie carefully to Janice’s arms. He went to the closet, briskly brought out a metal cot and unfolded it. Then, as directed, he brought in sheets and two blankets from the closet in the hallway. Gently he undressed Jennie down to the underpants and covered her, tucking the sheet and blanket around the slender shoulders.
“She normally sleeps like a log,” he said, stroking her chin.
“Elliot, why did she go to him?”
Hoover shrugged. “She was tired. It was a long, hard flight, a strange environment. She heard a man’s soothing voice and simply went to him.”
“She’s autistic; she doesn’t respond to voices.”
“She’ll hold my hand. And yours. Maybe she does distinguish tones of voices.”
Janice stared at the sleeping child. “It frightened me,” she confessed, “to see her go to him like that.”
“We should be happy, Janice,” Hoover said. “Isn’t it what we worked for? To make contact with him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel right about it.”
Hoover said nothing. He walked to the window and stared down at the grimy, sultry city. He almost seemed to forget her, lost in thought. To Janice the silence was unbearable.
“Will you stay?” she asked simply.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t. We can’t. Not for a while.”
“Did Bill say something that changed your mind?”
He turned to her, confused and not hiding it. “It would spoil the—the sanctity of what we’ve done,” he said very quietly.
“Sanctity?” Janice replied almost harshly. “We deceived him! That birth certificate was phony! And he’ll find out! He’ll call the Hall of Records! You know he will.”
“He’ll find the certificate, properly filed, just as I told him.”
“But there is no certificate!”
He glared at her, and she grew silent.
“Now there is,” he said simply. “I’ve arranged it. That’s all you have to know.”
Janice looked down at Jennie sadly. “This kind of deception can come to no good.”
“Look. You saw him when we left. He was joyous, calm, a gentle soul. What the hell was he before? A maniac. A vegetable.”
Something dangerous filled the air, like smoke. Hoover sensed it too and softened. He looked out the window again, but this time he saw only the grit and streaks that adhered to the glass.
“We are instruments of heaven,” he said. “We can only follow its dictates. Blindly.”
She said nothing. The feeling of vague horror consolidated into the specific fear of being discovered. She felt a peculiar darkness everywhere, hovering over her, all over the apartment.
“Will you take care of Jennie?” he asked. “For as long as Dr. Geddes needs her?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Suddenly tears burst from Janice’s eyes, and she turned away. Hoover quickly turned her back, held her, and she sank against his chest.
“What’s going to happen, Elliot?” she said unevenly.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. All we can do now is help Dr. Geddes.”
“What about us?”
He stiffened. She felt him draw away. It was as though they were saying farewell forever.
“I’ll come see you, Janice. But it can’t be for a while.”
“Elliot—”
He smiled, stroking her cheek.
“I’ll be with you, darling,” he whispered. “I always am.”
Something softened within her.
He smiled gently. “Let me call you from Pittsburgh.”
She nodded slowly. Together they went down the stairs to the apartment door. He kissed her lightly on the cheek. They tried to convince each other that there was no leave-taking, that they would be together, that night and every night, but there was a wrench of emptiness when he drew away. She watched him walk to the elevator. With a friendly smile, sweet and bashful, yet complicitous, he waved. Then he was gone.
The impact of his absence hit her as though she had fallen into a vast and empty shaft. Now the apartment was denuded of protection—Bill was gone, Elliot Hoover was gone, and upstairs was a strange child who needed help.
Janice went to Ivy’s bedroom and peered in. For an instant the bundle of blankets deceived her. Then Jennie’s small face appeared. An eye lazily opened and closed. Janice stroked the girl’s hair, but the room seemed alive with muted whispers. They barraged her in long enfilades of obscene, mocking jeers. She looked up. It was silent. Nothing in the room was left from the night when Ivy, in that mad whirl of pain, ran from the nightmare that finally destroyed her.
“Five.”
Janice nearly gasped in shock. For an instant she did not know who spoke. Then Jennie sat up, stared blankly at her.
“Five-four-two.”
Janice, trembling, went to the bathroom and brought Jennie a glass of water. The girl drank greedily and hiccupped lightly. Janice kissed her forehead.
Slowly Jennie’s eyes closed, the glassy, cool stare of sleep disappeared under the soft lids. The tiny lips curled around a word, like releasing bubbles, and a tiny aspiration made a sound: “Four.”
What a peculiar malady, Janice reflected. A child makes an analogue of language, but not language itself. What, if anything, did Jennie speak of now, in her unimaginable dreams?
The following morning Janice cut bananas into cereal for Jennie, poured milk into the bowl, and made a ring of strawberries on top. Then she heard faint sounds overhead. They were light, delicate sounds, unlike Ivy in her terror. Jennie peered uncertainly down from the top of the stairs. A shy smile spread over the elfin face.
“Come on down, darling,” Janice called.
But Jennie recoiled into Ivy’s room. Janice ran upstairs, found the girl hiding under the cot, quickly dressed her, and carried her down to breakfast. Jennie had a fabulous appetite. Her metabolic rate must be high, Janice thought, to keep her so thin.
That morning, Janice braved the department stores with Jennie. A jumper in green, two pairs of jeans, four shirts, numerous underclothes, and a dress found their way back to Des Artistes. Then Jennie, exhausted, teetered over to Janice and fell, half asleep, against her breast.
So it was nothing freakish, Janice thought. Jennie’s collapse on Bill was just a lucky piece of timing. Janice, m
uch relieved, took her upstairs to the cot for a nap, and worked through the afternoon on an assignment she and Elaine had decided could just as well be done at home.
Jennie was popular with the hospital staff. She had a sly sense of humor. She metamorphosed paper clips, file folders, and pencils into objects of ritual, forming semicircles composed of prime numbers. Psychiatrists tried to catch her at subtraction, but she only added, multiplied and divided. No one knew why. But she never made a mistake.
By early autumn, she knew the way to Bill’s room. She walked in front of Dr. Geddes, avoiding the swirls printed in the tiled floor.
Bill rose eagerly on the mornings of Jennie’s visits. He shaved, wore his best clothes, and paced the floor nervously. An inner love glowed from his eyes. He ignored Janice, but found delight in every action, every sound from Jennie. He became irritated at Dr. Geddes and Janice, jealous of their time with the child.
“This awareness of the child,” Dr. Geddes confided as they left. “It’s a real relationship. The first step to social reintegration.”
In fact, to preserve his meetings with Jennie, Bill controlled his every act. He tried never to be suspicious, never angry, amenable to any test Dr. Geddes proposed. He learned to mimic the easy pleasantries of men shaking hands and discussing the weather. He read the newspaper, forced himself to discuss things with other patients, until he was certain he could speak without hesitation.
By the end of autumn he had purchased, with Janice’s help, a small library of books for Jennie.
“Do you remember, Ivy?” he whispered into Jennie’s ear, seating her on his lap. “You loved this one.”
He read through an entire fable of the hippopotamus that worked for a baker, and barely suppressed his anger when Jennie made no response.
“Soon, darling… soon…” Bill whispered, kissing her behind the ear.
Bill bought toys, the toys that Ivy had loved, and was mystified that Jennie went dead when brought before them. He bought a red plastic phonograph and yellow records that played tinkling chimes of folk songs, but Jennie appeared to be deaf. Bill drew pictures of the pumpkins Ivy loved more than anything in those bright autumn days upstate, but Jennie clumsily stepped on the crayons and tore the pictures into shreds.
In the evenings, Bill sat by the edge of the bed, brooding in the darkness, steeling himself for patience, ever more patience.
Autumn died suddenly. The trees were bleak. The frigid winds piled detritus of the seasons in doors, grates, and alleys.
It was not until the first snow fell that Bill truly divined the mystery of autism. In the midst of tramping a path through the hospital grounds—a field of glistening white— with Dr. Geddes and two orderlies watching, he stopped. Instead of following, instead of playing the game, Jennie collapsed in the snow. A soft white spray glittered upward in the sun. Bill knelt at her side. Gently he brushed the snow from the tiny face.
“You don’t understand anything, do you?” he murmured.
“No one knows,” Dr. Geddes said, hunching down next to the girl. “Some say the child refuses to be aware, but has the capacity.”
“Well, I used to be locked up, too. You just have to find the key all by yourself.”
Pleased, Dr. Geddes reported to Dr. Boltin that Bill felt compassion for the girl, and understanding of another’s suffering. He added that Bill had inquired about adoption.
Dr. Boltin chuckled. “Not very likely, I should imagine.”
“Perhaps not, but don’t you see? He’s suddenly taken a look into the future. He feels the coherence within himself. So he can plan for tomorrow.”
At the beginning of December, Jennie caught a cold. The fever persisted, the symptoms lasted weeks. A physician recommended bed rest. Bottles of pills, cups of orange juice, a thermometer, and several toys collected at the side of the cot. Jennie’s eyes grew dazed, her arms weak.
Bill fought against despondency. He was hooked on Jennie’s visits. Pretend as he might, the desolation closed in tighter and tighter as the month dragged wearily on toward Christmas.
Bill purchased seven boxes of crepe paper, five of ornaments. He and three other patients strung them across the cafeteria and along the hall leading to Bill’s room. In the room itself, Bill put up the most elaborate white angels, gold stars, and glittering balls. He persuaded the nurse to bring him branches of pine trees from the edge of the hospital grounds and these he decorated with hoops of colored paper.
Dr. Geddes walked in, amazed at the frenetic activity.
“Bill. You’re putting on a Christmas pageant.”
Bill turned, eyes red but dry.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “For Ivy, even though I know she can’t be here. Isn’t it the strangest thing? A few months ago I’d never seen her, and now…”
Dr. Geddes stepped closer.
“This relationship is a stepping-stone, Bill. You are quite right to cherish it.”
Overcome, Bill grabbed Dr. Geddes’s hand. He squeezed hard.
“Thank you, Dr. Geddes,” he whispered. “For everything you’ve done.”
“Bill, I just—Well, I guess I just hope for the same things you do.”
Bill nodded; then, to break the impasse, moved away. He sadly fingered the twirled crepe paper that arched along the window.
“How is she?”
“Getting better, Bill.”
“Won’t be here for Christmas?”
“No.”
“What about New Year’s?”
“Maybe. I doubt it.”
“Well, there’s always her birthday.”
Dr. Geddes smiled quickly. “Really? When is her birthday?”
“February third. Ten forty-three in the morning.”
“That’s right, the birth certificate.”
“I called the Hall of Records in Pittsburgh.”
“And?”
“Her certificate’s there, all right. Guess I was wrong.”
Dr. Geddes chuckled pleasantly. “Now, when you’re through in here, I’d like you to come down to my office.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Some legal matter. Shouldn’t be serious.”
At 2:30 Bill stepped into Dr. Geddes’s office. Janice sat against a small window covered in brown drapes. At her side were two men, one of whom was Harold Yates, their family lawyer. Self-consciously Bill sat down, feeling all eyes fixed on him. Harold flashed him an uncomfortable smile.
The other man, in a blue suit a size too tight, introduced himself as Charles Petty, deputy assistant to the Attorney General of the State of New York. He had enormous hands and a craggy face, a thin black tie, and a habit of chewing his tongue.
“Mr. Petty has been very kind to come down here,” Dr. Geddes began, “his time being limited.”
Petty cleared his throat, looking Bill up and down. Petty’s casual manner was studied.
“The—uh—case which provided for your original detention—”
“What case?” Bill asked.
“The kidnapping.”
“Oh.”
“By order of the court you were remanded, under a psychiatric provision, to the Goodland Sanitarium. Now, the theory of such placement is not punishment, but to make the person well enough to stand trial.”
“Trial?” Janice blurted.
“Or whatever action the court deems, in its wisdom, to undertake.”
Harold Yates held up a beefy hand for silence. “That’s the formal scenario. A trial is most unlikely.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No previous arrests or convictions. The death of an only daughter. The peculiar nature of the trial which preceded her tragic death. Its bizarre publicity. The marital difficulties, incarceration at the Eilenberg Clinic—you see, Bill acted in extremis. He’s not an extortionist, or sexually driven.”
Bill stared back at the two men.
“So what are you saying?” he demanded. “A whole task force came down just to tell me there’s nothing to worry about?”
/> Petty cleared his throat. “There will be some formalities, affidavits, interviews.”
“But Bill won’t have to appear in court?” Janice asked anxiously.
Harold Yates shrugged. “Offhand, Janice, I’d say there is a ten percent chance he’ll see the inside of a courtroom. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the State quashed the whole thing.”
Embarrassed, Petty squirmed in his seat. “Well, I can’t speak for the District Attorney. He’s funny. Blows hot and cold. But I’ve seen him throw out better cases. I mean, stronger cases than this one.”
“There? You see?” Harold insisted. “Straight from the horse’s mouth.”
For half an hour the lawyer and Petty detailed the material, spelling out the probable steps. Most of it was procedural, explained slowly and carefully to Bill. Exhausted by the meeting, Bill politely shook their hands, thanked them for coming, and went to the door.
“Does the cook make birthday cakes?” he asked.
“What?” Dr. Geddes said. “Oh. Yes, of course. Tell her it’s for me.”
“Right. Merry Christmas, gentlemen.”
Only Dr. Geddes caught the fact that Bill only nodded dutifully at Janice before he left.
Harold Yates left with Charles Petty. Dr. Geddes escorted Janice to the door. The noises of the hospital were muted, as though the snow outside absorbed sound, or sealed them from the outer world. Something made Janice pause as she saw the Christmas ornaments stretched over the lobby, leading to the cafeteria.
“What did he say about a birthday party?” Janice asked.
“Oh,” Dr. Geddes said, smiling, “for Jennie. In early February. She’ll certainly be well by then.”
“Yes, of course,” Janice said lightly, but a palpable shiver went up her spine. A birthday party? For Jennie. Who, to Bill, was Ivy.
Janice left, crossed through the deep snow of the parking lot, and found a taxi waiting. When she arrived at Des Artistes she saw that Christmas decorations had been strung along the lobby there too. In the apartment, Jennie slept by the small window in Ivy’s room. Janice paid the baby-sitter. After ten minutes she telephoned Pittsburgh.
“Elliot, he’s going to give a birthday party for Jennie!”
“What about it? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I just sense that everything’s about to explode. They’re going to bring Bill into court.”
For Love of Audrey Rose Page 34