Hyde

by Daniel Levine

  One of the maids knelt before the fireplace, picking through dead coals. She was relatively new at Big House, ghostly and unnoticeable, with dark hair pulled under her white bonnet. The name came to me—Lizzie. She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist and looked up. She froze, wrist still lifted, staring at me, and I stared back in sudden recognition.

  All at once I was seeing her from the corner of Father’s study where he made us stand: the girl kneeling before him, Father with his long fine fingers pulling the bonnet from her dark mass of hair and bringing it up to his face, crushing it there, eyes closed.

  Sir, Lizzie murmured now, and flicked her eyes down. She crouched there by the fireplace, her hands black with coal dust, a smoky wisp of hair escaping the bonnet at the nape of her neck. Yet the image of Father lingered on my retinas like a photographic flash, leaving shards of pain buried in my eyeballs. I winced, gripped the door frame. I felt myself listing forward into the room. This was Jekyll’s house. I gave my head a violent shake and jerked myself back a step from the doorway. Then I hurried down the corridor toward the stairs. The hairs on my neck were prickling; I wanted to get out of here—something bad was going to happen if I didn’t. The entrance hall was dim and as I passed into it, my balance went askew. I staggered, making a rattling clatter.

  It was the wooden stand for walking sticks. Nearly a dozen of them slotted into separate compartments. I had grabbed one by accident, reflex, and I drew it from the slot. The warm brass knob fitted snug in my palm, and the stout oak shaft tapered to a brass cleat at the tip. I tapped a few times it on the flagstone, then shrugged and carried it down the hall to where my coat was hanging by the bench. I put down the stick, flung the overcoat on, snatched up the stick again, and turned to find Poole standing just behind me. Beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to alarm you, sir. His gaze dipped to the stick clutched in my hand, then rose to my shaded eyes, peering wildly out from under my topper. His brow tensed, ever so slightly. Then he moved past me to open the front door. I squinted at the silver daylight, not quite believing I’d be allowed to leave. With hope, Dr. Jekyll will be here to receive you, Poole said, when you call on us again. I tittered out a nervous laugh. With hope. I edged past him and out the door.

  Day One, Nightfall

  For the second time today, I turn back the bolt and ease the cabinet door open. Gaslight cuts down the stairwell and throws my shadow across the pitted brick wall. Halfway down, a glimmer of silver catches the light—the domed cover of the dinner tray. You see? All is well. Poole suspects nothing. As if the steps descend underwater, I take a deep breath and steal down in my stockings.

  Poole always sets his tray down here, on this precise step, twelve from the top. It seems to be the exact centre step, though I haven’t been the rest of the way down since we started living up here, two months ago. I take hold of the wooden rail and peer into the vaulted dark of the surgical theatre. Through the murky glass cupola high overhead, a funnel of twilight filters down onto the stone dissecting table, cluttered with bottles. Beyond the spotlight is gloom, thronging shadows. My eyes adjust as they scan the space, picking up the packing straw that scatters the floor around the table, an empty crate standing upright.

  The axe. The axe Jekyll was using to smash the crates into slats and tinder when I awoke that summer. Is it still down there? Poole isn’t permitted to tidy up in the theatre. If Jekyll didn’t remove the axe, which I don’t think he did, then it’s down there, somewhere.

  I hunker down next to the tray on the twelfth step. I should just go down there, sniff around. The axe is probably propped someplace in plain sight; I could take it with me up to the cabinet, lock it inside. How will they break the door down then? Yet I do not move. For this twelfth step, here, I’m beginning to realise—it is a boundary line. Why does Poole place the tray here every time? Every day for the last two months he has set the tray down here and never ascended a step above it, as if he too knows it is a boundary line. As if Jekyll and I have been living within a protected bubble in the cabinet that extends down to this precise step, separating our world and Poole’s. Cross the boundary, and the spell of protection pops. I let my eye travel down the remaining steps that vanish into the blackness at the bottom, like a reflection of the steps rising behind me. As if I am kneeling at the rim of a dark mirror world, above my own blurred double luring me down.

  No, I do not trust it. I rise, lifting the dinner tray by its scrolled-silver handles.

  In the cabinet I set the tray on the laboratory table, peek under the cover. Steam billows out. A lamb shank leaking its juice into the boiled, bloodless vegetables. I shut the cover and turn away from the smell, repulsed by the very idea of eating. From the shelf above the glazed press, I haul down the two-gallon jug of ethanol. I pour some water into a graduated glass, and from the cumbersome jug I tip in a splash of the clear, pure alcohol. Bracing myself, I take a sip—boom! A blue flame bursts in the gastros and roars up my esophagus into the sinus and I cough, blinking tears. There’s dinner for you! Burn off all the scum inside.

  Carew came to Big House for his first visit soon after Jekyll’s fiftieth birthday party, on 8 January. I suppose I can’t blame Jekyll for inviting him. I had opened Carew’s letter myself and tossed it back on the blotter. I could have burned it or something, but I didn’t, I left it there for Jekyll to find. I don’t really recall having any particular feeling at the time about Carew’s visit, aside from my customary wariness of new characters.

  He wore a royal-blue velvet jacket, very beautiful against his silvery hair. His face was laced with a network of delicate wrinkles. His eyes moved around Jekyll’s study, crystal eyes, like disks of quartz. Poole brought in a decanter of pale sherry and two tiny glasses, bowed, and withdrew. Jekyll poured the sherry and said, So that lecture you said you attended, my lecture in Vienna ten-odd years ago. I happen to remember it. It was on demonological fixations in early-dementia patients. I don’t imagine there were many politicians in the audience.

  Carew made a wry little smile. No, I imagine not. But politicians would do well to attend the occasional psychiatric lecture; many I know could use the insight. He raised his sherry glass, then took a sip. I was in Vienna, Carew continued, for a conference, but my interest in your lecture was purely extracurricular. I was very interested in hearing you speak of your work on the Haemler case. Yes, Jekyll said, sitting back, Erwina Haemler. I haven’t thought of her case in years. Ah, but it was groundbreaking. The most lucid presentation of circular insanity I had heard since Falret first described it.

  Jekyll regarded him, suppressing the flush of flattery.

  I assure you, Doctor, I’m not trying to charm you. I’ve merely maintained an amateur’s interest in your field for many years. I find that your field of study and mine, you see, at times intersect. And what is your field of study, if I might ask? You are welcome. Tell me, have you heard of the Society for Psychical Research? Jekyll nodded. I have. Gurney, Sidgwick, Myers, yes? Very good, Carew said. He took another careful sip of his sherry, watching Jekyll over the crystal rim. So, you investigate psychic phenomena.

  Carew nodded. Exactly.

  Investigate: I didn’t like the sound of that. I didn’t like this man, with his clever eyes and private smiles. You do not care for the comparison, he said, our field to yours. Jekyll shrugged. You’re not the first to draw it. The mind cannot be seen, spirits cannot be seen, there is a seeming desire to conflate them. Yet you consider them to be wholly distinct? I find considerations of the spiritual realm unnecessary to psychiatry. The mind is quite enough on its own.

  Except, Carew said, surely you can’t dismiss the issue out of hand, can you? Mrs. Haemler, for instance, believed herself to be infested by a demonic spirit—the Egyptian spirit Apep, if I recall correctly. Can you begin your analysis with the assumption she is deluded? I begin with the assumption that the idea—in this case, possession by an Egyptian god of chaos—has a point of origin. The patient had the idea put into her head. I assume that it
is the idea that is troubling her, not an actual spirit. Mrs. Haemler’s husband was an archaeologist; she had visited Egypt with him several years earlier, which is where, I soon discovered, she heard stories of spiritual possession, deities entering mortal bodies. It obviously made a strong impression on her. And a year later, when she began to manifest certain symptoms—severe mood fluctuations, nightmares, disturbing daydreams—her mind sought an explanation and ultimately fixated upon the notion that she too had been. . . . infested, as you put it, by a spiritual entity. It is simpler for the mind to externalise causes of distress. The attachment to this idea stimulates her symptoms, and they worsen, confirming her suspicions. A self-perpetuating delusion.

  I had never heard Jekyll speak of his work like this. His work was sealed off in regions of the mind well beyond me, whole wings of memories I was curious about but also leery of. Jekyll’s voice was calmly pedantic, but his pulse was picking up. Carew listened patiently. Except, he said, that does not absolutely rule out the possibility of an external cause, does it? Just because Mrs. Haemler had the idea put in her head that possession was possible does not mean, speaking logically, that possession is factually impossible. Especially when you are dealing with a patient who is not merely fixating upon the idea but actually transforming in appearance and behaviour. A patient who actually becomes, at certain times, a different person entirely. Surely—Carew paused, and then turned his eyes to the fire. It had gone horribly quiet. Jekyll had stopped breathing. Surely, Carew continued, when you are dealing with a patient such as Mr. Verlaine, you cannot rule out the possibility of possession until you’ve confirmed that it is definitively false.

  It was as if Jekyll had been waiting to hear the name. Emile Verlaine, his French patient. His heart clenched tight and then opened with a hot rush of blood to his face. Ah, he said, like a sigh.

  Carew glanced over. I can understand that you are hesitant to speak of the case, Doctor. And I hope you don’t think I’ve come tonight to weasel the details out of you. Why have you come tonight? Carew took a breath. I’ve come because I would like to tell you something. I understand how these matters work. When there is publicity, public expectation, and then things go badly, a scapegoat is required. It is ancient behaviour, driving the goat from the village burdened down with the collective guilt. You were the obvious choice in this case, you were the head doctor, and an Englishman. But you are back in England now. You are amongst peers. There is sympathetic, admiring interest in your work. And if you should have any wish to unburden yourself, to share your accomplishments, I would consider it a great honour to hear of them.

  I did not like this. I knew this racing in Jekyll’s veins. I had felt it each time he’d spoken my name aloud, to the bank clerk, to Utterson, to Poole. It was the terrible thrill of trespass. And yet in spite of my increasing unease, I was gripped by it too. I wanted to hear, to learn. Jekyll just sat in his wing chair, legs crossed, one finger at his chin, the shell of his face cool and intact.

  What precisely would you like to know, Sir Danvers?

  Carew lifted his gaze to that picture hanging above the mantel. He seemed to contemplate it a moment, that blackish, swirling mess of paint. I would like to understand how you determined, if indeed you did determine, the origin of Mr. Verlaine’s other personalities. How you eliminated the possibility that they derived from some external source. Jekyll did not say anything. Carew kept his eyes on the picture, waiting. Perhaps, he said, you might tell me something of your initial experience with the personalities. It would have been Pierre you met first?

  Pierre, Jekyll repeated softly. Yes. Although Emile didn’t have a name for him when he was first admitted to the hospital, about six months before I arrived. Emile was having episodes, lapses into unaccountable, childlike behaviour. He had no memory or awareness of these episodes; they were blacked out. He was frightened. But he put on a brave show, welcomed me very warmly, wanted to speak English. Told me he was eager to address the problem. Handsome young man. Talented painter. Jekyll stopped. Something lightly gripped him at the throat.

  It was Mr. Verlaine’s father, Carew prompted, who admitted him?

  The father. Monsieur Verlaine. He had just gotten remarried, to a younger woman. Emile’s mother had died nearly ten years before. Emile was reluctant to speak of her, his mother. But he wanted to cooperate, he wanted to get better. For the first month he didn’t have any episodes. Then one of the orderlies came to fetch me. Emile’s room appeared to be empty when I entered. I looked under the drawing table, and there was this boy, cowering under there. Staring at me as if I were a stranger. He looked at least ten years younger than my patient. Only because I knew it was Emile could I recognise him.

  Did he speak to you? Carew asked, after a silence. No. Not that first episode. The second time, he spoke to me. I was ready. I had prepared an experiment. One of the orderlies came to fetch me again and I brought a box of chocolate truffles. Emile, you should know, did not care for sweets of any kind. The boy was in bed facing the wall, crying. I opened the box and ate a chocolate. The boy stopped crying at once, turned around. He slid from the bed and came over. Not all the way, he kept his distance, but when I extended the box, he plucked one out and stuffed it in his mouth. Pure joy in his expression as he chewed. He swallowed and then eyed the box in my hand as if he were a cowering dog. Emile always held himself straight and graceful; he met your eyes squarely. Yet here was this cringing child begging for another sweet. I said that I would give him the entire box if he told me his name. And that is when he said, Pierre.

  For a moment I could almost see the boy’s face in the shimmer of the fire, eyes closed, dreamy with rapture. A room with wrought-iron bars over the windows and pictures hung on the walls. Then Jekyll shook his head. He lifted a hand to touch his face, below his eye. Please excuse me. I didn’t expect to speak of this tonight. Carew was silent. Of course, he said at last, of course, I understand. He patted the arms of his wing chair and pushed himself to his feet. Jekyll stood as well. Carew’s eyes lifted again to the picture above the mantel as he buttoned his velvet coat. Jekyll contemplated it too: a hideous thing, whirlpools of paint in the knotted frame. Carew turned to Jekyll and extended his spidery hand. Dr. Jekyll, thank you. This has been a most intriguing conversation. To be continued, I hope?

  Jekyll stood in the entrance hall after closing the door on Carew. A piece of coal lay on the flagstone hearth, its shadow flickering long and struggling to escape. It was giving me a vertiginous sense of disproportion, as if the chunk of coal were in fact a huge boulder we were looking down upon from a sickening height. There was so much I did not know. All at once I was realising it, the magnitude of my ignorance. How little I knew about the years, the life that yawned like an abyss behind me.

  About Emile Verlaine I knew what Jekyll needed me to know, what memories he had selectively shown me to explain what the powder and syringe could do. But listening to Jekyll tonight was like hearing the young man’s case for the first time, filling me with a revelatory fear, a dizzying sense of expanding dimension. What had happened to Emile Verlaine? How had Jekyll lost him? I stared at the coal, feeling on the brink of a dark premonition—before Jekyll stiffened and strode from the entrance hall. Ten minutes later I was locking the Castle Street door behind me.

  Jekyll felt distant as I stumped north to Soho. I knew he was thinking about his conversation with Carew. I knew he had let me loose to distract me whilst he pursued his own thoughts. I didn’t like this secrecy, this feeling of a dark, open doorway widening behind my back.

  I arrived at the Pig and Gibbet without even realising I’d been headed there. Fondly I peered up at the gold-flaked letters, then pushed inside. Ah, the Pig and Gibbet. Even though they betrayed me, all the regulars and Vic in particular, I can’t seem to hold it against them. They were such a weary, brokenhearted lot. Not the weekend crowd, but the regulars who’d chosen the place decades back for whatever reason and stuck grimly with it. I can see them ranged down the chipped bar,
nursing their milds, old men and a few rawboned whores, and fat surly Vic reading his daily up against the dusty bottles. Dead and quiet, that’s the way I liked it best. I wasn’t a regular—the regulars had been coming for years—but my presence was acknowledged by them with a kind of begrudging obligation in their mucosal old eyes. When I took my seat and placed a sovereign on the bar, Vic would bring me the gin bottle and a glass. His face was a fleshy splintered sack with two sad mistrustful eyes gleaming out. He would tip me the faintest of nods and trudge back to his post, leaving me with the bottle. I had to earn that, him leaving me the bottle, and as I sat there pouring out my own shots at my own corner of the bar, I felt like a man of substance.

  This night, however, there was a man sitting at the far end of the bar, my end of the bar. And not a regular either. He had a pink elderly face with a white moustache and wore a dark plain suit and cheap collar. They did not match, the face and the suit. I took a stool at the middle of the bar and tossed down a coin.

  The gent was drinking neat whisky. His hand had a slight, elegant palsy as he brought the glass to his lips. I could picture him perfectly in the Grampian lounge, in tailored tweeds, chuckling along with the old boys. So what was he doing here, of all places? The Pig didn’t generally attract many tourists, and it irritated me that this tame old party had even found the pub, obscure as it was, and then presumed to take my seat. I felt unguarded, sitting at the middle bar, with my back to the foul corridor leading to the jakes and the alley. Hunched over my elbows, I watched the old gentleman, his eyes wandering unobtrusively around the room, brows politely lifted. When he encountered my seething stare he paused and then raised his whisky with a weak smile and that genteel tremour in his hand. That spike of pain was beginning to pierce my left eyeball again. I pressed the ocular hollow with my fingers. My skin felt clammy, and my other hand was gripping the gin glass so hard it was trembling. It did not seem like my hand, with that bifurcate vein branching over the knuckles, I didn’t feel quite in control of it. Suddenly the glass slipped out of my hand, wobbled to the edge of the bar, and dropped onto Vic’s side like a drunk off a high wall. Vic lowered his paper and looked morosely up at me. I tried to grin and caught sight of myself in the warped mirror behind the bottles, a bulging face crowded with teeth. Startled, I looked away, at the gent at the end, and found him on his feet counting out coins from his cupped palm. He tipped a gracious nod to Vic, picked up his hat from the stool, and made his way to the door, sending a wave of goose flesh over my back as he passed.