The Reincarnation of Peter Proud

by Max Ehrlich

  They went into the administration building.

  “We’d like to see Mrs. Ellen Chapin,” Ann said to the girl at the reception desk.

  “Are you relatives or friends?”

  “I’m a granddaughter. He’s a friend.”

  The girl checked a card file.

  “You’ll find her in Room 106.”

  They went down the deeply carpeted corridor, past a florist shop, a gift and bookshop, a small drugstore, and a beauty parlor. The place had an expensive and opulent look. He reflected grimly that Marcia Chapin had taken care of her mother-in-law very well. She probably figured, the bastard is dead, and I killed him, and I guess it’s the least I can do.

  There were a number of elderly residents sitting in the recreation room. Their faces were wizened and desiccated, their bodies arthritic, their eyes blank. They sat in beach chairs or at glass-topped tables, and a number of them were staring at a television set, watching a late afternoon soap opera. The old people watched it with glazed eyes, and Peter felt they really didn’t know what was going on, they weren’t really following the story at all but were simply staring at the screen because it was there. As he walked past, none of them even had the curiosity to turn their heads and look at him.

  He felt sorry for them all. He wanted to light up their vacant and hopeless faces. He wanted to tell them they would all get another chance.

  “I hate this,” Ann whispered to him. “I always feel like crying when I come here. If I ever get that old, they’ll never put me away in a place like this. I’ll kill myself first.”

  The door to Room 106 was open. They stood in the open doorway for a moment, watching.

  Ellen Chapin was sitting on the edge of the bed. A plump, middle-aged nurse was spoon-feeding her some kind of cereal mush or baby food from a bowl. The nurse had a little difficulty aiming the spoon. The old lady was babbling something at the same time she was trying to eat. A little of the mush dribbled down her chin.

  “There we are, Mrs. Chapin,” said the nurse cheerfully. “That’s it. That’s very nice. Very good.”

  The old woman’s babble was totally incoherent. She wore a flowered robe that seemed to engulf her slight figure. Her shoulders were narrow and huddled, the line of her back crooked as she sat on the bed. Her legs were sticklike and ribbed with huge varicose veins. Her face was seamed and chalk-white. Only her eyes, bright blue, seemed to be alive. Childlike, unblinking, they fixed themselves on the nurse, as though trying hard to perceive her instructions.

  “That’s it, sweetie. You’re doing very well today.”

  The nurse’s voice was gentle. Neither the nurse nor Mrs. Chapin saw them standing in the doorway. Ann rapped gently on the door. The nurse turned, but Ellen Chapin continued to stare straight ahead.

  “I’m Ann Chapin, her granddaughter. This is Dr. Proud, a friend.”

  The nurse put down the bowl. “Please come in. I’m Miss Hagerson. I’ve met your mother many times.”

  Ann nodded toward the old lady. “How is she?”

  “About the same. Still in a world of her own, poor dear. But of course she’s been this way for a long time.” The nurse smiled. “You know, your grandmother is really very sweet. Never gives us any trouble.” She turned to Mrs. Chapin. “You never give us any trouble, do you, dear?”

  The old woman was still unaware that they were in the room. Her vacant face was turned away from them, and her mouth continued to move. Peter watched her. Again he thought, this was my mother once. He felt nothing in particular, except pity.

  The nurse patted Ellen Chapin on the cheek.

  “Turn around, dear. You have visitors. Isn’t that nice?” The old lady didn’t respond. Gently the nurse took Ellen Chapin’s face in her hands and turned her head in their direction, as though she were manipulating the head of a doll. “It’s your granddaughter. And she’s here with a friend.”

  The old lady’s blue eyes took in Ann for just a moment, then moved to Peter.

  “She doesn’t know who you are, of course,” said Miss Hagerson. “But she’s aware that someone else is in the room, that she has visitors. And I’m sure it makes her feel good. Even people like this, people who have lost all touch with reality, can feel lonely …”

  The nurse stopped suddenly, watching Ellen Chapin’s face. Something extraordinary was happening. The old lady was staring intently at Peter. He began to squirm uncomfortably. She had stopped babbling, and the vacant face had suddenly become alive. Her eyes were straining at Peter now, as though trying to pierce a fog. Then, suddenly, she smiled.

  “Jeff,” she said. “Jeff.”

  He stood transfixed. His skin prickled. He glanced at Ann. She was staring at the old lady, open-mouthed.

  “Isn’t that interesting?” said Miss Hagerson. “She thinks you’re her son, Dr. Proud. She’s never done that before. Not with anyone …”

  “Jeff, dear, where have you been?” The old woman’s voice was perfectly clear and lucid now. The change was startling from the babbling of a few minutes ago. “Why have you been away so long? Why haven’t you come to see me?”

  She rose from her seat on the bed and came toward him. Her arms were outstretched, waiting for his embrace. Her mouth began to tremble. Tears filled the blue eyes.

  My God, he thought, what is going on? Did this woman have some kind of mystic perception that normal people did not have? He didn’t look like Jeff Chapin, and he didn’t sound like him. Yet there was obviously no question in the old lady’s mind that he was her son. It was weird and frightening.

  She stood looking up at him, her eyes swimming with tears. She reached up and put her trembling hands on his shoulders. He looked helplessly at Ann and the nurse. Their faces were full of pity. They said to him, humor her.

  He took her in his arms, feeling a slight revulsion and, more than that, fear. He wanted to thrust her away from him. Her thin body pressed against his as she sobbed on his shoulder.

  “It’s all right, Mother,” he said. “It’s all right …”

  As they got into the car, Ann said, “You know, you were very sweet.”

  “Yes?”

  “Putting on the act you did. It must have been quite a strain for you.”

  “It was.”

  “Anyway, you made her happy.” Then: “I wonder why you, of all people, reminded her of her son.”

  “I’m damned if I know.”

  Suddenly she laughed. “You know who I am? I’m a female version of Hamlet. I’ve just seen the ghost of my father. Although you are a little young for that.”

  Chapter 27

  The next night he was invited to dinner at the Chapin house. He and Ann planned to go on to a movie afterward.

  Throughout dinner, Marcia Chapin said very little. She seemed taut, withdrawn. He was aware, again, that she was covertly watching him. And, again, he was sure she did not like him. The conversation was strained, desultory. Ann did most of the talking.

  Suddenly Marcia broke her silence and turned to Peter. “Ann told me what happened when you went to see my mother-in-law.”

  “Yes?”

  “Strange that she mistook you for—Jeff. Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s really peculiar. I mean, you don’t look anything like my husband. And you don’t talk like him.”

  “Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are.”

  “Surprised?” said Ann. “He was stunned.”

  “But why you?” said Marcia. “Ellen Chapin’s seen a lot of other men. Psychologists, doctors, porters—they’re in and out of her room all the time. Why would she see you as Jeff?”

  “For God’s sake, Mother,” said Ann, “I don’t know why you’re making such a thing of this. I think it’s probably very simple. Grandma Chapin is way out there somewhere in another world. She must have been dreaming about Father when we came in. You know the way she babbles. Maybe she was even talking to him, at least in her imagination, when she saw Pete. She simply assumed
he was Father, that’s all. She doesn’t recognize people, anyway. It was some kind of illusion—or delusion.” She picked up the electric percolator. “More coffee, Pete?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Mother?”

  “No, dear.” Marcia Chapin rose. “If you’d both excuse me, I’m going upstairs. I’ve got a terrible headache.”

  Marcia Chapin lay on the bed, still tense and very tired. She was also angry at herself for the way she had behaved at the table. She knew that her daughter had been upset with her. She’d apologize to Ann later. She could always use the old excuse—nerves.

  Nerves. It was a good and useful word. It covered practically everything. It had been her standard excuse for hiding herself in all those bottles all those years. With it, you didn’t have to explain all the real reasons why you sometimes thought you were going crazy.

  Peter Proud. It was a funny name. It belonged in a book of nursery rhymes. But she saw nothing funny in the man himself. In fact she saw him as some kind of threat. She sensed in his presence here some vague danger.

  He had said he was here to work on his book. It sounded plausible enough, but somehow she didn’t quite believe it. Her intuition said he had come to Riverside for some other reason, and that he had deliberately sought out her and Ann. The way he had met Ann the first time, for instance, was suspicious. It was presumably by accident on the tennis courts at the club, but it seemed to her now that it was just a little too accidental. And the way he had ingratiated himself with Ann. She was very fond of him, probably in love with him. She felt that this was deliberate on his part, too. She felt that he would be here, in her house, often from now on.

  She had sensed all along that he was watching her, that his interest in her was more than casual. But even more disturbing was that he seemed to show an inordinate interest in Jeff. He asked too many oblique questions about Jeff, and he was a little too interested in the answers. Why this fascination about a man who had been dead for almost thirty years?

  Sometimes she wondered if he was who he said he was. Was that absurd name, Peter Proud, his real name? Who was he, anyway? Could he be a detective? Did he know something about what happened at the lake that night? But no, that was ridiculous. He probably hadn’t even been born when Jeff died. And the case was long closed and forgotten, remembered only by her.

  She decided she would call UCLA in the morning, just to check on whether he was who he said he was, to see if his name was on the faculty list.

  And there was one thing more that bothered her. It wasn’t just that he had Jeff’s habit of tapping the edge of his glass with his fingernail. That was, of course, just coincidence. But about ten days ago she had arrived at the club to meet Ann for lunch. When she got there, Ann was playing tennis with him, and she had sat down on a bench to watch. The two of them had been so intent on their game that they hadn’t noticed her. They were volleying when suddenly Peter had started to yell to Ann, “Hit it back, hit it back.” He would serve and run up to the net and shout to her, “Hit it back.” Exactly the way Jeff used to shout at her years ago on the court, in exactly the same words. Hit it back. She had sat there, stunned. Watching them then, she had seen two other people out there on the court….

  Of course it had probably all been her imagination. It was impossible that Peter Proud had used those exact words on the court. She recalled that she had had a drink or two before she had left for the club, and it had been a warm morning. She had felt a little dizzy sitting there in the hot sun. What had probably happened was that, watching them play, her mind had drifted back, and she had begun to imagine that Peter was Jeff and Ann was herself, and she was playing tennis again with Jeff long ago, before they were married, on that very court. And all of a sudden she was hearing Jeff yelling at her, “Hit it back, hit it back.”

  She had also made too much of the fact that Ellen Chapin had called him Jeff and embraced him as her son. Who knew what went on in the mind of a crazy old lady? Jeff’s mother had been hit hard when he had died, and her mind had started to slip then. It had gone on for years, until the old lady had completely lost touch with reality. That was when they had had to commit her.

  She would have to watch herself, watch what she said or did at all times. She was becoming somewhat irrational lately. Control, she thought. She had to stop drinking, for one thing. She had read somewhere that whenever you took a drink, you destroyed several thousand tiny brain cells. She had to quit, once and for all. She was seeing things where they did not exist.

  I must relax. Relax.

  She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She ran hot water into the tub, sprinkled it with a generous amount of bath crystals, undressed, and stepped into the bath. Then, for an hour, she lay back, her head against the tub, her eyes closed, buried in the warm and billowy suds.

  Finally she came back to the bedroom, still drying herself with a huge Turkish towel. She felt a little better now, a little more at peace. She stood naked before the mirror, looking at herself critically. Suddenly she hated what she saw. She was fifty-two, but at this moment she thought she looked much older, not so much in the body, but in the face. She stared at her pasty complexion, the puffiness under her eyes. There were tiny red veins in her nose. The blue eyes seemed pale and watery. It was the damned drinking that did all this, she thought. I don’t take care of myself. I should exercise, go on the wagon as long as I can….

  Her breasts seemed to sag a little. She put a hand under each of them and lifted them up, pointing them at her reflection in the mirror. She remembered that Jeff loved this little gesture. Whenever she did it, it seemed to arouse him sexually. She would hold up her breasts and point them at him, teasing him, laughing at him. When she did that, he would usually take her right then and there. Of course she had been young then, young and beautiful, and the fire had burned just as hot in her as it had in him.

  Suddenly she was aware that her husband was watching her. His face was framed in a picture that stood on the bureau. He was smiling at her in that special way of his—sly and very sexual. Jet black hair cut short. Dark eyes watching her appreciatively. In them now she saw the same lust she remembered so well. The same lust for her body he had shown all through their marriage.

  She turned and, her hands still holding up her breasts, pointed the nipples at him. Then she said, “Remember this, darling?” Her husband’s face did not change. There was the same fixed smile, the same even teeth showing white against the handsome face.

  Oh, Jeff, Jeff, you lying, loving, hateful, beautiful, treacherous son of a bitch. You damned skirt-chasing, womanizing, unfaithful slob. If you just hadn’t slept with her that weekend, that particular weekend above all others, maybe you’d be here with me now.

  She flung herself down on the bed, still naked, and buried her face in the pillow. For a while she half-dozed, thinking of the way it had been….

  She had married Jeff Chapin in 1941, when she was only nineteen. She had been enormously attracted to him physically, so much so that any other man paled by comparison. He was a beautiful and virile male, and he could never get enough of her. Neither could she get enough of him. She was passionately in love with him. They began to meet surreptitiously in motels along the highways outside of Riverside. Once or twice she stayed late at the club, and they met out on the golf course in the dark of night. His hunger for her seemed bottomless. His lovemaking was often savage; he would attack her like an animal—especially after he’d been drinking. Sometimes it frightened her. Sometimes there were bruises and scratches all over her body, At times like these, she thought him crude and insensitive, and toyed with the idea of breaking it off. But she knew she could not. She was hooked on him. And at times he could be very sweet and very gentle.

  She knew he had an eye for other women. She knew that he had another life somewhere away from the club, in another part of the city. She knew that he frequented bars with old cronies, and that there was another women—a redhead named Molly Warren—he was often seen with. She
had no idea who this Warren woman was, where she came from, or what she did, but she did not fear her competition. To her, Jeff’s simple animal lust for her was a kind of security. She supposed she had been stupid, as young girls often are. Too much emphasis on sex, and not enough on other things. Yet she had loved him for what he was.

  Finally, she and Jeff eloped. Her father was furious. He did not want even to see or talk to his new son-in-law. “You’re on your own now, Marcia,” he told her. “You’ve done a stupid thing and you’ve ruined yourself. This man Chapin is no damned good. All he wants is your money—or shall we say my money. But he isn’t going to get it.”

  Her father tried to get the marriage annulled, but she was of age, and there was nothing he could do about it. Meanwhile, when the governing board at Green Hills learned what had happened, they fired Jeff instantly. That was her father’s influence, too. Her mother had a nervous breakdown after she learned about it, and died a year later.

  That year there was talk of war, and Jeff joined the Marines. She took a small apartment in the east end of town and lived on his allotment and waited for him. Two years later—or was it three?—he came back a hero. He had been wounded in the side and had won two or three medals for valor under combat, and the town couldn’t get enough of him. He was the first real war hero they had, and the newspapers were full of pictures and stories about him, and parties were given for him everywhere. They even had a small parade for him up Main Street, and she sat next to him proudly in the tonneau of the open car.

  In the face of all this, her father relented. Her mother had died and he was alone, and he needed her. Under the circumstances, it was hard not to accept Jeff Chapin now. He gave them both a big allowance and gave Jeff a job at the bank. The idea was to start Jeff in as a teller, so that he could learn what banking was all about, and then move him up to a desk behind the rail. About this time, she came into a lot of money left to her in trust by her mother.

  After that, they bought this house on Vista Drive. And life with Jeff was marvelous. They went everywhere and did everything. Jeff bought a Packard Clipper, and they drove to New York or Boston for weekends, going to clubs, seeing the shows. They built a cottage at Nipmuck and spent marvelous weekends there. The club even relented, because they really couldn’t keep a war hero out, and let Jeff use the premises because he was married to her and she was a member.