Frankenstein's Monster

by Susan Heyboer O'Keefe

  Winterbourne did not tell the guests to leave, perhaps thinking that whatever news I had of Walton was not of an intimate nature.

  Before he could mention him, the baker took up a pipe, pointed with its stem, and said, hesitantly, “Your costume—”

  Immediately the others began to question me.

  “Is your mask rubber? It moves when you speak.”

  “Is your face glued on?”

  “Why did you dye your hands different colors?”

  “Are you wearing stilts?”

  Even as the guests edged closer, their features grew more distressed, as they left the real question unasked.

  “Who are you meant to be?” asked the baker.

  I sat back and steadied my hands against the armrests. This was what I had planned: to check my murderous intent and use this opportunity to hint at my true nature, then to judge the reactions of those who heard. Yes, my face is terrifying; I will never be able to change that. But if people knew, if they could understand, could they move beyond their fear? Or would they condemn me? Drive me out of the house? The world had changed much in recent time. Centuries ago, advances like gaslight, chloroform, and the telegraph, even a friction match, might have brought denunciations of witchcraft. Now they were science. And after all, what was I but a product of science? Should society not take responsibility for what it had produced?

  I decided to present my life as mere fiction and let their response to it determine the rest.

  “There is a legend in my country,” I began, “so famous that, had I appeared at any party there, I would have been recognized at once. I assumed the tale had traveled this far. I can see by your faces it has not.”

  Revulsion transformed into enthrallment as my audience listened. I suddenly realized that so famous a creature would have a name, like France’s La Velue, Denmark’s Erlkönig, or even Yorkshire’s Jack-in-Irons. My eyes searched the room for inspiration, then moved to the ballroom beyond the open door. There! A jester in motley—and suddenly I had my name.

  “It is the legend of the Patchwork Man.”

  Heads nodded, eyes stared more intently at my face. My first few words, combined with my hideous scars, had hinted at what was to come without diminishing the audience’s expectations. Now I had only to fulfill their horror.

  “Many, many years ago,” I said softly, “there was a young man, a student more of philosophy than medicine. Many have questioned his character in an attempt to understand his actions. No satisfactory explanation exists. I will leave his character to others and merely describe what he did.

  “This young man, after innumerable experiments, discovered the secret of life, the secret of creating life from inanimate matter. And having discovered the secret, he of course sought to create the highest form of life there is—a human being.”

  The guests sat forward. A half smile played on Winterbourne’s lips as he lit a cigar. Lily stood behind my chair, her presence a shadow over me. I wished to see her face as I spoke, yet could not bring myself to turn around.

  “The student worked in solitude,” I said, “for to whom could he tell his secret? He must have felt many doubts, many fears, and yet, too, an overwhelming sense of triumph. To create life was to cheat death itself. It was the power of God. Had the student truly discovered that power? Or was he able to steal it only because of an unholy pact?”

  “An unholy pact,” laughed the executioner as he relit his cold cigar. He blew a thick cloud of smoke overhead and slapped the mouse on the back. “Now we’re in your territory, Reverend Graham.”

  “Hush,” urged the older woman. “Let him continue.”

  “The student worked, as always, on the darkest of nights, and, on one such night, his experiment proved a success: he was able to animate a man of his own creation. When the thing rose up out of the oblivion of nonexistence, the student was struck with dread. He ran out of the laboratory and wandered the streets of the city in a near-trance. What had he done? When he returned, the creature was gone.”

  “Gone where?” Winterbourne asked.

  I did not answer him immediately. I had never spoken of my origin to anyone. To frame it now in such fairy-tale language made it more fantastic. My father, around whom my thoughts orbited crazily like moons knocked loose from their bearings: Was that all he was, a student playing at science? Had I imparted too much meaning to his role in my life? However purposefully he worked, I was an accident.

  “The creature was simply gone,” I said at last to Winterbourne. “Never to be seen again, or so they say. They also say in my country not to walk the streets alone late at night. If you do, you may hear slow, heavy footsteps and, if you dare to turn, you will see the creature itself, the Patchwork Man, wandering the night, looking for his creator.”

  A murmur rippled through the crowd, and the guests sat back in satisfaction.

  Reverend Graham struggled to remove his papier-mâché mask, yanking up the mouse head so quickly his sweaty hair stuck out like spikes on a mace. He had a weak chin, a timid face, and the frantic look of a real mouse caught in a trap.

  “ ‘A man of his own creation’? What do you mean? How does one make a man?”

  Lily edged closer, half-leaning on my chair. I still could not see her face. She slipped her finger inside the collar of my shirt and unerringly traced the heavy scar that circled my neck.

  “Yes, tell me,” she said, a tremor beneath her challenge. “How does one make a man?”

  “The creature was … assembled … from the inanimate.”

  Reverend Graham froze. I softened my voice as I explained, or admitted, the nature of my birth: “Parts of dead bodies, both human and animal, were stitched together to form a whole.”

  “Abomination!” he cried, jumping up and knocking the papier-mâché head to the floor.

  “It’s not an abomination,” argued the baker, thinking the word a comment and not an epithet. “It’s a new Adam. You’ll have to tell that story to the bishop, Reverend.”

  “Christ is the new Adam,” the reverend said, with agitation. “You—your Patchwork Man—are the Devil!”

  He backed out of the room slowly, as though I might attack him if he turned.

  “My, he took that quite seriously,” said the older woman.

  “He took it quite theologically,” said the executioner.

  “And was theologically offended,” said one of the knights. “What we don’t understand offends us.”

  “Such a fuss!” the older woman said. “All for a story, something to frighten little children to behave. After all, if one truly believed that such a creature existed …”

  “Yes?” I prompted her eagerly. “If such a creature did exist, if one truly believed … ?”

  She looked inward; what she beheld there caused her to shudder.

  “I could no longer feel safe in this world.”

  The executioner nodded vigorously. He withdrew the cigar from his mouth and blew its smoke toward me as he spoke, its odor heavy and rancid. “There is merit in what Mrs. Eliot says. A creature made from the dead could have no respect for life.”

  “Or, could appreciate it more keenly,” I suggested.

  “No, it would have no understanding of what it means to be human.”

  “It would want to know. I think it would want desperately to know.”

  My reply put a stop to the discussion. In the silence I turned to Lily behind me. It was her reaction, above all, that I wanted.

  “What do you say, Miss Winterbourne? Have I told too gruesome a tale?”

  She shook her head, yet without explanation rushed from the room, her hand pressed to her mouth. The crown toppled from her head and clattered loudly on the hardwood floor. I made to follow. Gregory Winterbourne pressed me back into the chair.

  “My daughter has been skittish of late, sir. Do not presume your story to be the cause of her discomfort. I myself found what you said more interesting than you could know. I would speak with you about it,” he said. “Tomorrow
at tea?”

  “I would enjoy that.” My thoughts spun giddily. “Now, I must excuse myself.”

  “Of course.”

  Winterbourne gestured and a servant appeared. I followed him to the back of the salon, where I could exit without passing through the ballroom. I meant to leave, but Winterbourne—and, thus, his servant—had misinterpreted my words. The servant led me down a corridor, left and right, and at last to a door, lower and narrower than the others and discreetly designed to look like part of the wall. The servant motioned to it, then stepped back. Dipping my head, I entered and shut the door behind me. It was a water closet, a room dedicated solely to private comforts, such as I had read about in books.

  Behind a screen stood a prettily decorated commode, too small and delicate for me to ever use. The rest of the room was a wonder. Greedily, my eyes took in everything in a single moment: The room was painted in pale green and beige, depicting figures from Greek mythology, who reclined in leisure in a meadow. A chaise longue and three chairs were arranged in a corner, each seemingly too fragile to hold a doll. A console was set against one wall, its top covered with an assortment of perfumes, soaps, creams, and oils. The console itself had a dozen drawers, each with a small brass handle. The drawers held medicinals: smelling salts, salves, unguents, and more.

  Everywhere I turned, there were candles. Everywhere I turned, there were mirrors. And everywhere I turned, there were lilies: tiger lilies and panthers, goldbands and trumpets, madonnas and Novembers and pink arums—names I knew, names I guessed at from books—bowl after bowl of cool waxy petals, their fragrance thick and heady like overripe fruit. What far-flung countries had they been gathered from to then be forced to bloom, just for the sake of caprice?

  I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes against the glamour of these things, which were just more sources of confusion.

  I was at once gladdened yet disheartened by what had just occurred in the salon, so much so that my face refused to obey me, as if all its former owners were reasserting their separate claims: my eyes and lips trembled, cheeks prickled, ears twitched. I had sat in polite company, conversed with party guests as one of them, entertained them with a tale. I had been extended and had accepted a return invitation.

  And had been called an abomination.

  Made an old woman shudder.

  Forced Lily to run from the room, gagging.

  She had touched the scar around my neck. It was not until minutes later that she fully understood that it meant a severed head had been attached to a headless body. Only then had she run from the room. Who would not be disgusted?

  Mirrors are an unwanted luxury: I seldom see myself, nor want to. I studied my reflection as dispassionately as I could. My lips are as black as my hair. My face has a slight undertone of gray, as though the blood had returned to the flesh too late to hide the color of death. But the scars joining the various strips of skin are no longer violent red. I could even fancy that the thicker scar around my neck made it appear I had barely escaped the hangman’s noose or had been near-mortally wounded in battle. But it is more than just scars that inspires dread. Do people look at me and see horror lurking just beneath this tattered skin? Or is it the reverse? Do they see that something is missing, the spark of divinity that makes a life human? I am a void, a chaotic abyss, that would swallow up the world.

  Outside the water closet, the servant waited to lead me back. He walked to the rear door of the smoking salon. Instead, I moved toward the ballroom to look inside.

  I had expected to leave; Winterbourne expected me to rejoin him. I needed time to …

  The ballroom was a living thing unto itself. The gaiety, the colors, the music! Silk rustled, satin flashed. Faces smiled or laughed or nodded slyly. Eyes winked or flirted; shone with fondness, pride, shyness, love; yearned for a life as wonderful as a perfect party. Hearts that were sad or envious or hateful could not abide such joy and had fled, for the moment, into the shadows.

  Guests noticed me and backed away, though I had not even crossed the threshold. Their apprehension prompted an ever-widening circle of uneasiness that spread through the room. My melancholy burned off, leaving the dross of anger. Who were these people? What frightful things would be revealed if their masks were lifted?

  Inciting me further, I saw Lily, well recovered from the disgust I had caused her. She spoke animatedly with several young men. Each was dressed like a king. Perhaps they had learned of her costume beforehand and had wished to be her partner. As she and the men spoke, she looked around carelessly—nothing they said was of consequence—then she saw me, and her eyes clutched onto mine.

  Her careless expression yielded to … I knew not what. Dismissing the group, she pushed her way through the crowd. Guests detained her at every turn to exchange courtesies or, glancing at me, to share their worries. She nodded at each and slipped away, moving ever toward me. Her lips were pinched white. I braced myself against what she might say.

  She reached out and pressed my hand gently, took it in both of hers.

  “I am sorry, Victor,” she said, startling me with her words and her express of concern. “I truly did not think you would come. I never meant to—”

  A scream ripped through the waltz, through the conversations, through the tap and thump of feet and the bell-like tinkle of glass. Music, speech, movement—all stopped; the scream endured, ripping through even the sudden silence it had caused, as brutally as a sword piercing a white veil.

  Margaret Winterbourne had seen me.

  She said no words. She did not point. She no longer saw at all: her eyes were opaque with terror.

  “Margaret!”

  Winterbourne’s voice, the speed with which he burst from the salon, the path he frantically cleared to rush to his wife, broke the ballroom’s silent tableau. Guests rushed toward Winterbourne with curiosity, while others tripped backward from me, for surely I was the reason Margaret Winterbourne had been stricken.

  Winterbourne stood on one side of his wife, supporting her limp frame. On her other side stood Reverend Graham, whispering urgently—to Winterbourne, to Margaret?

  Where was Lily? Should she not have hurried to comfort her mother, too? She was nowhere in the ballroom. She had left as soon as her mother screamed.

  November 3

  I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the rest.

  Would it have profited Gregory Winterbourne to have cut the pages of his book and read Pascal’s words? Does it profit me now? I know who put me into the world, I know what I am, I know what my body is. But of my senses, my soul, “that part of me which thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself”—of that I am no less ignorant than any man.

  I sit in my cave by the fire, reading these words that earnestly attempt to elucidate the human condition, all the while waiting to climb the cliff to do murder. At the party, more guests were inimical to me than not; more cowered like Lily’s dogs than overcame their revulsion to at least speak with me. Margaret’s shriek of horror, even despair, had turned the whole room against me.

  She forces a quick end to things. I must act before she flees. But if I kill her, how can I not kill Lily, who is also Walton’s blood? If I kill the two women, how can I not kill Winterbourne himself, who calls them wife and daughter? And if I kill Winterbourne, how can I not kill in me the soul that should be there?

  November 4

  After midnight, I slipped around the outside of the Winterbourne house. From the distance came the howling of dogs, but the sound came no closer. I quietly tried each window till I found one unlocked, which opened onto a room decorated with ruffles and lace. On either side of the room, velvet settees, piled high with pillows, were flanked by tall panels lavishly embroidered with Oriental splendors. On a dainty writing
table stood a pen and inkwell and blank sheets of pale yellow paper—the yellow stationery I had seen in Venice. This was Margaret’s desk. Also on the desk was a small, uneven pile of dirty gray sheets and scraps of paper.

  Stepping closer, I scanned the top one and saw “Your brother, Robert” scrawled at the bottom. These pages I folded into my pocket to read later. Then I crept down the hallway and found my way to the main staircase. I paused on each stair to make its creak long and soft, no more than the breathing in and breathing out of an old house at night. My own breath was ragged.

  At the top of the stairs, I turned right and passed glowering portraits, heavy tapestries, overstuffed chairs, little footstools, vases of dried reeds, wicker birdcages with no birds, tall wooden clocks that did not tick—an increasingly senseless array of goods. The rooms here were furnished in rich splendor, yet none were occupied.

  Returning to the staircase, I now proceeded to the left. The first room was filled with books—a second library? The books drew me inside like iron to a magnet, although I knew I should not tarry. Shelf after shelf lined up to dazzle my eyes with even more treasures than were downstairs. The room held two large leather armchairs, a massive desk and chair, a telescope set up near the window, a globe, and a narrow table on which sat glasses, liquor decanters, and humidors. Cigar smoke lingered in the air, embedded in the rugs and drapes.

  Easily I imagined all this my own, reading every book on every shelf, writing in my journal every day, no want ever of candlelight, no want ever of paper and ink. I would finish one journal, and another would be waiting to take its place. I would burn a candle not halfway down, and dozens more would appear.

  But not even paper and light equaled the wonder of the desk. It beckoned to me. A fine place to read and to write! Overcome with desire, I sat down; the immensity of the chair, the desk, fit me like a close embrace. I stroked the wood, smelled the oils used to polish it, bent my cheek to its cool surface.