He patted her head. ‘Just the same, I’m going to see.’ And he pushed past her, walked in front of her into the rose-walled room. She saw him go to the harpsichord – he did not gaze around, but went straight to it – she saw him pause in front of it, standing between her and it. He did not bend down, he did not touch the instrument. But he did emit a low, unmusical whistle. Then she was at his side.
The key, looking just as she had visualized it, was in the lock. She reached out and touched it; it was real. She turned it, felt the tumblers click, softly, easily, lifted the lid, doubling it back on itself slowly so as not to scratch its polished surface. The two manuals, two banks of black and white steps to Parnassus, lay before her eyes. She reached forward, fingered a note, and heard an A twang its call to order. Her fingers stretched, she sighed, she played a major triad, a scale, a bar or two of Anna Magdalena’s sarabande.
Basil spoke, as if from a distance, although he was right beside her: ‘You know, darling, it must have been there all the time…’ His blue eyes were intently upon her, his forehead was wrinkled, his wide mouth was partly open, expectant. In a moment he will laugh at me, she thought.
She hated him, and she slapped his face hard.
3
She had felt it before seeing it, felt the yielding warmth of flesh beneath her outstretched, clawing fingers, felt the sting of pain that set fire to her taut skin, felt her nails scrape his cheek. But when she opened her eyes – she was dreaming, yet in the dream she opened her eyes – she saw her hand outspread before her, saw, to her horror, that the blow she had struck had opened a great hole in his face, revealed a view, a distant, beguiling perspective, that peeped between the lattices of her fingers. Suddenly it was as if his face had ceased to exist, as if the slap of her hand had swept away a barrier that had stood between her and another scene, and she walked between her fingers, seeking what lay beyond, Basil, behind her, following her…
‘That night I dreamed of striking Basil,’ she said, her eyes on the slatted light and dark of the Venetian blind, her ears fretted by the sibilant sound the doctor’s pencil made as it glided over the pages of his notebook. ‘It was most realistic. I actually felt the blow. My hand stung, my nails dug into his cheek, and then I looked at my hand and – how shall I describe this? – it was so very strange – it seemed as if my slap had split his face apart, although there was no blood, no flesh or tissue to be seen. What I saw instead was a vista, a long, narrowing perspective, and something – I could not be sure of what it was, it was too far away, too vague – something that I wanted to see more closely, that aroused my curiosity, existed there in the distance. But my hand was still between me and this – this vista – I saw it only between my fingers, the way a child peeps at a strange and fascinating sight. I remember worrying about this, thinking, “If I take my hand away the vista will be gone, but if I don’t my hand will always stay between me and it.” Then, before I had stopped worrying, I decided to walk through my hand – I remember smiling to myself and saying, “Now, you know, this is impossible; it can happen only in a dream” – but, despite my scepticism, I did walk through my own hand, and Basil did, too. He was right behind me.’
She paused and looked around the doctor’s consulting-room. They sat in chairs that were placed at a comfortable distance from each other. They might have been friends, talking. There were some books in the room, not many. The lighting was soft and came from bulbs hidden in the moulding. Dr Danzer slouched in his chair, his knees crossed, his notebook balanced on his knee-cap; most of the time he did not look at her, but kept his eyes on the page, on his writing. She snapped open her purse and took a battered pack of cigarettes from it, shook it until one fell out, then probed with her finger to see how many she had left. There were one or two more, but she would have to get another pack soon. She had bought a carton Sunday night, and it was already half-gone. And this was only Wednesday—
‘Can you remember more of your dream?’ The doctor’s question was put quietly, with total lack of emphasis; but it carried full weight just the same. She knew he was reminding her that she must continue, that she must leave nothing out – that there could be no evasion.
‘I remember walking faster,’ she said. ‘I remember wanting to get away from Basil, but when I walked faster, he did, too. Soon we were both running. And yet it wasn’t like any running I had ever done before. My feet seemed hardly to touch the earth, each of my strides covered many yards, but there was no sensation of great effort, I did not breathe heavily, I felt no wind on my face.
‘We ran for a long time. Although I had gone through the hole because I had wanted to reach the vague object I had seen in the distance, when Basil followed me I forgot my original intention. All I could think of was trying to escape him. I kept on running and running, and it seemed that the longer my strides were, the closer came the sounds of his footfalls. Then, all at once, they stopped; I heard nothing. I ran a few more paces before I stopped, too. I turned around slowly, half-afraid to face Basil. But he wasn’t there. He had disappeared!
‘And, while I was still recovering from the shock of his disappearance, I began to be aware that the scene around me was changing. The distance was closing in on me. The sky, the ground, everything was shrinking, rapidly growing smaller everywhere I looked. I put my hand to my mouth to keep from screaming. I shut my eyes, thinking, “If I am going to be squeezed to death I would rather not see it happen.” But I did not die. I waited a long time, expecting from moment to moment to feel a great weight begin to press in on me from all sides, to feel myself crushed in an inexorably contracting vice. But nothing happened and, after another long wait during which I gathered up my courage, I opened my eyes.
‘I found myself back in my own room, standing in front of my chest of drawers. I had one of the drawers open and was staring into it, looking for something. Basil was still behind me. I remember thinking, “So I didn’t escape him, after all. He didn’t disappear. He came here before me, that’s all.” And then, as I thought this, Basil spoke to me. He said, “Ellen, why do you keep looking for it, expecting to find it? You know that you’re looking for something that isn’t there, that hasn’t been there for a long time, if it was ever there at all.” And I looked, and he was right – it wasn’t there.’
She stopped speaking. Her lips were dry and her throat ached. She closed her eyes and let her head sag into her hands. Thinking about the dream again depressed her, made her want to get out of the doctor’s room, out into the street, into the open air. As she recalled, the sun had been shining and there had been a breeze.
‘That’s all?’
‘Yes. Then I woke up.’
‘You are sure you can remember nothing else? There isn’t some little detail that you didn’t tell me because you thought it really didn’t matter? These little details can be very important, you know.’
‘No. That is all I remember.’
‘Hmm.’ Dr Danzer sat forward in his chair, shutting his notebook and laying it aside on the table. ‘Let us see. One thing is certain. The beginning of the dream – the slapping of your husband – was merely a reenactment of something that had happened that day. Isn’t that true?’
She nodded her head. The doctor was smiling inquiringly, as if he almost expected her to say to him, ‘No, that isn’t the way it was! How can you be so stupid?’ What would he say if she did say that? But she said nothing, just kept nodding her head.
‘And what do you think is the significance of the opening up of the wound, the running through the aperture, the pursuit?’ he asked kindly.
‘I suppose you would say that was a womb symbol. That I was expressing a desire to escape from reality.’
He stood up and walked over to her. ‘A natural desire at this time. You must remember, Ellen, that you have been ill. You have lived in a small world, a world that was fitted to your needs. Now you are back in New York, and it is very different. A little frightening, perhaps. Oh, you won’t admit it
to yourself. When you talk to yourself you are brave. But when you dream at night, then it is different.’ He turned and looked at the darkened window. ‘Tell me, Ellen, what was the object that you saw in the distance? The thing you saw and wanted to reach. What did it look like?’
‘It was a harpsichord,’ she said, hating him for the way he managed to pull secrets from her, hating him for the time it took to say the words. But afterwards she was ashamed of herself and she smiled guiltily.
‘So, after slapping your husband’s face, you tried to run away from him to your harpsichord. But he ran after you and wouldn’t let you escape.’
‘And I never reached the harpsichord,’ she said. ‘Even after he disappeared I could not find it. And then things began to close in on me, and I shut my eyes. When I opened them I was in my room, looking in my drawer, searching for something. Basil was beside me, saying it was not there – whatever it was I was looking for.’
‘What do you think it was?’ Dr Danzer asked.
She thought about his question before answering. She had not told him yet about the search for the key on Sunday. It had been such a silly thing to do – to think she had lost that key when it had been there right before her eyes all the time. Why should she tell him? She didn’t have to tell him everything, did she?
‘Haven’t you any idea of what you were looking for?’ the doctor asked again.
‘I might have been looking for the key to my harpsichord,’ she said with impulsive honesty. He knows that if he only asks me enough questions I’ll tell him everything, she said to herself. Why can’t I keep a secret?
‘What makes you think that?’ he asked.
‘I lost the key to my harpsichord Sunday. I looked all afternoon for it. I looked in every drawer and cubbyhole in the house ten times. Then Basil found it – right where it had been all the time – in the keyhole of the harpsichord. I was awfully embarrassed. That’s why I slapped Basil’s face. He was going to laugh at me!’
‘Why do you think you lost that key?’
‘I don’t know.’
The doctor looked down at her, his finger pointed, touching the arm of her chair. He turned around and walked to the window, stood with his back to it, facing her. He did not speak.
‘You think I lost it for a reason? That, perhaps, I didn’t want to play my harpsichord? But that’s absurd! Why shouldn’t I want to play my instrument? For months I’ve thought of nothing else!’
‘You’ve been practising hard since you came home?’
She felt herself shrink inside, draw up and contract. Somewhere the cruel teeth of a trap had snapped shut, biting into the gentle flesh of a small, warm, helpless creature. She tensed her jaws to keep her lips from trembling, spoke slowly and carefully, confessed. ‘No, I haven’t had the chance to practise yet. I’ve been too busy.’
‘I imagine there are a great many things to do, especially since you’ve been away so long. But I am a little surprised to hear that you haven’t played your instrument. You used to talk to me about how you were going to practise six hours each day. Aren’t you going to give a concert this fall?’
‘Oh, I shall. Every day I’ve intended to, but there have been so many things to do. I can’t begin to tell you. The house! Everything’s out of place – everything’s upside down—’
She had meant to say more, to tell him about how yesterday had been such a lovely day and she had gone for a walk in the Park in the morning, with no idea in her head that she would be out more than an hour, and had not come back until dusk. Or how Monday she had gone shopping, had gone from store to store, had bought dress after dress; of how today, after she left his office, she had to go to Julio’s to meet Nancy for lunch. Nancy had telephoned yesterday and asked her. She could not have refused her husband’s own sister, particularly when she knew that Basil must have suggested that she call. It would have been rude.
‘Everything is so strange,’ she said instead, ‘so different from what I had expected it to be,’ she said, not knowing why she told him this, not having realized before she spoke that it was true.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘In what way are things strange?’
‘The house,’ she said, whispering; ‘it’s changed. Oh, the furniture is all there, the pictures are in place. But when I look for something, it is never where I expect it to be. And I keep finding … finding things.’
‘What is it that you find?’
‘Little things. Nothing important. Some powder spilled in a drawer. Of a shade I dislike, that I do not remember having used. In the drawer to my vanity. A pocket-book of black leather, a queer, square purse, that I do not remember owning. Little things like that.’
‘Have you spoken to your husband about this?’
‘No.’
‘Why haven’t you?’
‘He would think it peculiar of me, wouldn’t he? He would think that I had forgotten that these things were mine. He might think I was accusing him, mightn’t he?’
‘Aren’t you accusing him? Didn’t you accuse him in your dream?’
‘Accuse him? Accuse him of what?’ She was indignant. Why couldn’t Dr Danzer ever come out and say what he was thinking? Why did he always have to imply his meanings, make her say them to him?
‘Isn’t that for you to say, Ellen?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
The doctor placed his hand over his eyes, pressed it against his brow. He hesitated before he spoke, as if he wanted to make sure of what he would say next, think it over in his mind and phrase his thought exactly, make his precise intention clear.
‘Ellen,’ he said, ‘at the end of your dream, when you were back in your own room and Basil was standing beside you, when you had failed in your attempt to escape him and reach your harpsichord, what did he say to you? I could go to my notes, you know, and read your own words of a few minutes ago back to you. But I think it would mean more to you – in this particular context – if you would speak them again. What did your husband say to you in your dream?’
She shut her eyes and saw again her bedroom, the chest of drawers. She was looking down into a disordered drawer, a drawer in which powder – pink powder of a disgraceful shade – had been spilled. And she could feel Basil’s presence beside her – if she looked up she would see his face in the mirror. And he was saying…
‘He said, “You know that you are looking for something that isn’t there, that hasn’t been there for a long time, if it was ever there at all.”‘ The words came out of her mouth haltingly, seemed unnatural to her lips. A part of her cried, you have never said anything like that – you have never dreamed anything like that – it isn’t true! But another part of her, the cold, reasoning faculty, knew that what her mouth reported was unequivocally true.
The doctor nodded his head, ‘And what do you think this means?’
‘I was afraid I had lost something. The whole dream was about losing, wasn’t it? I had lost something – something that was connected with Basil, something I may never have had. Although I kept looking for it as if I had it.’
She was silent, waiting for him to speak. But he did not speak, just as he never spoke at any of the difficult times. ‘It has all to come from you,’ he had often said. ‘You know what it is, only a part of you keeps it well hidden. But you only have to think and it will come to you.’
‘In my dream I ran away from Basil – ran to my harpsichord. But Basil kept running after me and, even after he disappeared, I never found my harpsichord. Could it have been my harpsichord I was looking for?’
‘In a drawer?’
‘Perhaps it was the key to my harpsichord that, in reality, I looked for in the drawer. In my dream the harpsichord might have stood for the key, just as in life the key stands for the harpsichord.’
‘And where does this lead us?’
Basil. Basil had kept running after her, had kept her from reaching her instrument. ‘Could it be tha
t in my dream Basil stood between me and my harpsichord, that Basil kept me from playing my instrument?’
‘Has Basil ever tried to keep you from playing?’ Dr Danzer asked.
‘Sometimes I think he resents my taste in music. He likes other things. Great, cacophonous, modern symphonies. He likes D—’s work.’
‘But has he ever kept you from your instrument?’
‘When I was ill. Before I went to the hospital.’
The doctor smiled and looked away. He said nothing for a few minutes, seemed to wait for her to speak, to add to what she had said. But she refused to speak. Why did he place so much importance on this dream? She had dreamed many more bizarre happenings on other occasions, and he had brushed them aside briskly with a few curt words of explanation. Was he trying to find something wrong? Did he expect her to relapse? She was going to have to be very careful, to choose each word, to deliberate before she spoke.
‘Ellen,’ he said, looking at her again, smiling, ‘you know as well as I why your husband forbade you to play your instrument when you were ill. You know that playing excited you – made you worse. But you haven’t answered my question, Ellen. I didn’t ask you about before – I know about that, and you know I do. I want to know if Basil tries to keep you from the harpsichord now.’
‘No,’ she said, speaking slowly. ‘He did say that he thought I shouldn’t practise too much, that it was too soon for me to give a concert. But he hasn’t kept me from it. He even helped me find the key.’
The doctor was lighting his pipe. She watched the ruddy flame come and go as he sucked on the stem, whetting the embers. Then he exhaled a thick, dark cloud that swam lazily towards her and made her want to cough. ‘And what about the dream, Ellen? What were you looking for in the drawer?’
‘Something I had lost.’
Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly Page 6