One

by David Karp

  “Twelve now. Including yourself.”

  “Where are they all?”

  “Oh, various places,” she said with a vague smile, “getting their hair cut, or reading, or in some class lecture, or talking. They’ll drift back in time for dinner, though.”

  “I see,” Burden smiled and nodded. Miss Funston smiled back at him and then walked down the aisle, one plump hand in her dress pocket so that she looked like a fat soldier marching in an outlandish salute position.

  There was one thing Miss Funston had omitted to tell Burden. He discovered that for himself when the “boys” came back from the barber’s, the reading rooms, the classroom lectures, and what other places they had been in. The eleven men who shared the room with Burden were insane. Completely, hopelessly, incurably insane.

  19

  The room creaked with their silent agonies and it was most awful when it was most quiet. Everywhere Burden looked he caught the glint of madness in the eye. Victor took off his shoes when he rested in bed but the cane remained by his side and he stared at the wall with those piercing bird eyes as if he could see through it to the horizon. They did not speak to one another and Burden was as alone in the ward as he had been in the curved room. They remained wrapped in their inner terrors, private, separated from one another as if each were alone on an island, helplessly marooned, incapable of seeing any but distant, visionary ships, deaf to all but private inner voices. The evening meal was served in the ward and Burden noticed that some were given no silverware but had to pick up their food with their hands. Victor was one of these, and Burden began to understand that Victor was not nearly as harmless as Miss Funston said he was. The silence of the room was shattered by an occasional frightful clatter as one of the men, done with his meal, casually threw his metal tray on the polished floor. As soon as that happened one of the small, gray-faced men who had his bed near the door put down his own tray and patiently padded across the floor to pick up the discarded tray. He carried it then to a small wagon and carefully placed it on the wagon as if the tray were made of fragile china. Once done with that he returned to his own bed, picked up his own tray, and resumed eating. The crash of a tray caused Burden to start, but the others seemed insensitive to the sound no matter how sudden or how loud.

  Victor fastidiously finished his meal, dabbed at his lips and carefully scoured his fingers with the napkin, and then casually tossed the tray over the foot of the bed. It struck the floor with a sound that made Burden rise from his bed. Particles of food still left on Victor’s tray spattered the wall. One tiny wet bit struck Burden’s cheek and he put up his hand and wiped it away. Burden’s chin sank to his chest in misery. He could not remain in the ward long. He knew it as certainly as if he had spent a year there.

  Miss Funston had said that the “boys” were “good sleepers” but Burden felt now it was a lie. Perhaps a good sleeper was someone who didn’t rise at night and try to murder the supervising nurse. But Burden dreaded the night.

  The small, gray-faced man came up to Burden’s bed with the tray and Burden looked at him. Probably he was the most harmless of the lot. Burden looked into the vacant face, drained even of the alertness of madness, the mindless eyes, the weak jaw, the mouse-brown hair, and the stunted, thick body that suggested the man might once have been a circus dwarf who had suddenly grown a few more inches. Burden wanted to speak to the small man but could not. The heavy, dwarfed figure turned and waddled back to the wagon with Victor’s tray.

  Miss Funston eventually returned to collect all of the trays that had not been thrown on the floor. Burden heard her cheerful voice address each man in turn as she collected his tray and counted his pieces of silverware. But Burden did not hear anyone answer Miss Funston but himself.

  “The meal was delicious,” Burden said, anxious for her to stay a while.

  “And that was only the regular weekday meal,” Miss Funston said with a trace of pride in her voice.

  “I wonder if I can have something to read,” Burden asked quietly­.

  “Oh, I’m afraid not. The reading room was closed before dinner. You can go there tomorrow if you like,” she said, and started to go.

  “But tonight,” Burden said quickly, trying to check her, trying to keep her with him for a moment more, “I would like very much to have something to read tonight.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to do that,” she said with a smile, “it’ll just strain your eyes. Why don’t you get acquainted with the boys this evening?”

  “They don’t seem very friendly.”

  “Oh, but they are. They are ever so friendly. It just takes a little patience. They’re mostly shy, you know. That’s all—just shy. If you’re patient with them you’ll see they’ll come around your bed to talk to you like a flock of birds.” She laughed at that and brushed back a wisp of her hair. “Oh, my, once they’re started they can hardly stop—like a lot of twittering and chirping birds.”

  “No one’s said a word since I’ve been here,” Burden said, “except—” Burden nodded his head discreetly in Victor’s direction.

  “They’re shy. You’re a newcomer and they won’t say a word for awhile until they get over your being here. Then they’ll be themselves, all right. And they’re very nice boys. One of them dances. Very well, too. I’ve never seen him dance. He’s very shy about it. But I’ve heard he dances.” Miss Funston patted his hand affectionately. “You’ll make friends in no time. They’ll like you. I can tell generally how they’ll act toward someone. They’ll like you. I’ve no doubt about that.” Miss Funston smiled again and walked down the aisle with the trays she had collected and Burden watched her go with a slight shudder of fear. He leaned back on his pillow and tried to envision the madmen about his bed, talking and talking like a flock of birds. Burden closed his eyes in horror at the image.

  The sound of the table rolling out with its load of trays and the faint, distant click of the door behind Miss Funston was like a signal in the room. Burden sensed rather than saw someone leap from his bed. He turned and watched a young man standing in the middle of the aisle, his hands lifted in a theatrical gesture, his body frozen and tense as he half turned on his hips to display a clean, classic profile, a strong, long neck, and a well-shaped head disfigured by hair that was cut without shaping. He stood in that attitude for a long moment as if waiting for his cue. It came, and he did a swift series of strong, soaring turns, rising on the balls of his feet and whipping his arms around. It was done silently except for the faint sound of his bare feet on the polished floor. He came to a halt in the attitude of one who has heard something and stands frozen, afraid of detection, listening. Then he began a series of small, intricate steps, crossing his feet, advancing, retreating, his hands shyly together behind his back, his eyes downcast.

  Burden sat up in bed watching him, marveling at the grace, the control, and the complexity of the man’s memory—if it was memory that directed his feet and not some spirit of improvisation. Burden scarcely noticed that the others ignored the man who danced. Victor remained in bed, his fingers lightly caressing his cane, staring through the wall opposite him.

  The dancer worked his way down the aisle to Burden’s bed and Burden saw that the man was not as young as he first appeared. He might have been anywhere from forty to sixty years of age but his body had been kept marvelously young by dancing so that he had all the whipcord strength of a young athlete. The mincing counterpoint became stronger and the movements more pronounced. The hands came out from behind the dancer’s back and he began to move them back and forth, palm down and then palm up, and then he tossed his head up and down to match the movements of his hands and feet. He seemed to be working himself into a frenzy of plunging and retreating. Burden began to marvel at his skill, at the illusion of plunging and springing back that became more and more difficult to sustain. Suddenly the dancer sprang backward in an enormous, horrified leap, his shoulders drawn up, his hands stretched open against his body in withdrawal, his eyes opened large in loathing.
He landed with his back heel within a fraction of an inch from the wall. The slightest miscalculation and he would have struck the wall and seriously hurt himself, so enormous and strong had the backward leap been. The dancer remained on the spot in which he had so accurately landed, his body locked in a horror that seemed so real that Burden unconsciously looked about him. The others still ignored the dance.

  Softly, slowly, his eyes glittering, the dancer began to advance, turning his body on his hips as he put first one foot forward and then the other. His body became supple and yielding and Burden was shocked to discover how fully the character of the dance and the dancer had changed. The look in the dancer’s eyes, the movements of his body, the gestures of his hands all seemed to suggest that the dance was now all feminine, all desiring, flirting, yielding, begging, entreating. The dancer’s face had undergone a distinct change. The lips actually seemed fuller, the lids of the eyes heavier, the strength of the man’s body changed to the slenderness of a girl’s. The illusion was awful in its directness, in its nakedness. The dancer advanced close enough so that Burden could hear him hissing. Burden drew back in his bed slightly. But the dancer was obliquely approaching Victor, who paid no notice, who still stared ahead, soundless.

  The dancer had come almost to the foot of Victor’s bed. The dance now became more insistent, more urging, the movements fuller, the dancer’s sibilant hissing stronger. The deep, voluptuous rubbing motions of the dancer’s hands had disarrayed his clothes so that his chest was bared, lean, strong, waxenly white with dark, circular nipples. With a swift turning motion the dancer dropped his pajama top and then, drawing up his shoulders, crossed his hands and delicately caressed his own arms. Burden wanted to look away but found he could not. He watched the half-naked figure turn and dip, touching its own body with hands that kissed and then called and retreated only to advance. When the dancer made a swift turn into the place between Victor’s bed and the adjoining bed, Burden had an awful presentiment that something cruel would happen. The dancer leaned closer, his hissing stronger, his face passing within inches of Victor, who stared ahead, oblivious.

  The motion was so swift that Burden only caught a fragment of it. The dancer had turned his back on Victor and was facing across the adjoining bed toward Burden. His face was hungry with a look of desire, his eyes half lidded, his mouth half opened, his hands touching his breasts, his long, thin torso bared and pale. The sound and the movement seemed to come at the same split instant and Burden heard the sound and saw the movement incompletely. It came like a pistol shot and the dancer fell full length across the bed with a shuddering scream. Victor had turned in the bed and Burden saw the cane rise. Before Burden could stir the cane lashed down again on the dancer’s back. The dancer leaped under its impact and screamed again. His naked body started to turn as Victor got out of bed and raised the cane once more. Burden lunged across to intercept the blow and caught it half on his forearm but the pain was so intense that Burden winced and screamed involuntarily. His arm grew instantly heavy and dead and fell to his side. Burden rolled and fell off the bed, striking the floor, the pain tearing at his shoulder, making him want to vomit. The blood began to drain from his head and he felt cold sweat break out on his legs, his back, and the seat of his pants. He rested on his back, knowing that he would be unconscious if he did not rise and force the blood back into his head. As if in a nightmare he saw the dancer’s face peering over the edge of the bed down at him on the floor and the eyes were fixed and wild, the face contorted in an awful mask of pain and delight. Burden turned away so that he would not see the face. The screams came down at him between the beds like pistol shots and he kept hearing the unbelievably cruel sound of the cane cutting through the air and the explosion of it against flesh. He was aware of feet hurrying across the floor in many directions and disconnected voices and screams and, very clearly, someone giggling with a frenzy that seemed indecent and insane. Then he remembered no more.

  Burden came to in his own bed, sweating under heavy covers, feeling his arm throbbing and aching distantly as if he had been given some pain deadener. He tried to move his arm and found that he couldn’t. He groped with his fingers to see if his arm had been splintered but it had not. It was not broken. Or was it? Burden found he didn’t care. The ward was dark except for the faint luminescence of moonlight, cold and revealing. Victor was in his bed, sleeping quietly, evenly, the classic, severe profile outlined in moonlight, completely at peace with the world. Burden hated him but then, with a tired small sigh, retreated further under the covers. Victor was mad, as mad as the dancer whose hungers were so awful, so twisted, so strange. He could not be alone and he could not be with others. They were strange, sick, tortured animals whose inner realities were far more awful than the outer realities. Burden rested, feeling the sweat crawling down his back, absorbing the lesson. The State’s moral was implicit: as long as he held the heresies he was a sick, strange animal like Victor, the dancer, the small gray-faced man with the compulsion toward order and neatness. Who was he to say that his heresies were less dangerous to him and to society than the perverted sexual fantasies of the dancer? How could he be right and all the others wrong? The State was far different from the individual. It had no private advantage to seek. It would roll on as magnificently without him as it could with him. He did not mean that much to the course of the society. Then they were right and he was wrong. It was their concern for him that was innocent and not his concern for himself. That was wrong. It was filled with the evil of vanity and vanity had been the curse of the world since the dawn of man. Were his misconceptions so important to him that he could offend his mind, his soul, his body with them? Would he not be happier if he believed as they did? If he did as they did? Were they so wrong? The ward contained men who had gone their own mysterious, imagined ways to happiness, and what were they but sick, miserable wretches? They did not recognize one another’s desperate unhappiness but it existed. It was real. To the State he was as desperately unhappy as any of the others. And he was no longer sure that he wasn’t like them. To all insane men there appears a path of happiness, of correctness, and the path is always the chart of their insanity, he thought. Was his path of happiness equally crazed?

  These were not profound thoughts on reality, Burden thought critically, but they had more than profundity: they had pertinence, a terrible, sharp pertinence. He could persist in his here­sies and if he did he might eventually become like the others in the ward—locked in the chamber of his own making, walls composed of rationalization, doors belted with reason and barred with vanity, and what would he live on within the room he had made for himself? Then thin gruel of being right? Victor was right. He lived on some imperial fantasy in which he waited for armies to return. And the dancer was right. He lived on the sure, feminine knowledge that he was a slender, desirable woman whom all men wanted. And in the small, gray-faced part-dwarf body the world was neatly and correctly aligned without broken walls or irregular shapes, where each thing had and occupied its place.

  When the ward attendant with the broken face came for Burden at four o’clock on the morning of Friday, the twenty-third of October, Burden was almost grateful to see him.

  “Is my arm broken?” Burden asked softly.

  “No. But it will be stiff. I’ll help you out of bed,” the attendant said. He had brought a heavy bathrobe for Burden and Burden, chilled by the cold air striking his wet body, was grateful for the blanketlike robe. He found it difficult to stand on his feet and leaned heavily against the attendant as they walked slowly down the moonlit aisle. He passed the bed where the dancer lay and the face was serenely turned against the pillow, the fingers limp and faintly curved like a child’s. Burden wondered what release pain could bring, what pleasure it aroused, and thought with a sinking heart what a childhood the dancer must have had.

  The halls were poorly lit and cold and more than once Burden had to stop, almost too exhausted to walk. The attendant was patient. He waited for Burden to resume without
saying a word. When they came up to the door of the examination room Burden was almost pleased to see it again. It was so familiar, so much a part of what he had known. Any sense of pain or anger was gone. It was with gratitude that he saw the room had not changed, that Doctor Emmerich still waited for him at the leather-topped examination table, that the lamp still burned at the far end of the room.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” Burden said softly.

  “Good morning,” Doctor Emmerich said.

  “Will you tell Lark that I am ready to purge myself of my here­sies?”

  “I certainly shall,” the doctor said with a smile and with the attendant helped Burden up on the examination table. “How does your arm feel?”

  “It throbs. I can’t move it at all,” Burden said.

  “Never mind. We’ll help you.” They did, very gently.

  “You won’t need the drug any more,” Burden said, knowing that it was hopeless to say that.

  “Well, you let us decide that.”

  “Yes, of course, I know. I was just telling you in advance. I’ve changed.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Doctor Emmerich said as he pushed up the heavy blanket stuff of the bathrobe, baring Burden’s arm.

  “You’ll see that I’m telling you the truth,” Burden said softly. He felt the needle and closed his eyes, grateful now that they would believe him, that they could see into his mind and find that he was telling the truth. All he wanted now was to be rid of the sickness that infested him. It would bring peace. It would bring quiet. It would bring love and the life he wanted to lead.

  “You did not enjoy being with others, did you?”

  No. Not those others. They are sick.

  “Yes, sick the way you are. Do you believe that?”

  Yes, I do believe that.

  “They may never recover. But you could.”

  I want to. I want to very much.

  “Will you help?”