by John Saul
Peter Balsam was alone.
It was on Tuesday that Peter Balsam overheard Marilyn Crane. He was sitting behind his desk in Room 16, trying to grade Latin exams. In the small room adjoining Room 16, Marilyn Crane and Jeff Bremmer were working with the rats. Peter had been vaguely aware of their conversation as they worked, but it wasn’t until Marilyn suddenly began talking about the rats that Peter gave up trying to concentrate on his work and began listening to the two adolescents in the next room.
“They aren’t any good anymore,” Marilyn suddenly commented.
Jeff Bremmer glanced at her, annoyed first that he had been assigned to work on the experiment with Marilyn, and currently because now she was insisting on talking, instead of simply getting on with it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Marilyn ignored the implied rebuke.
“Look at them. They don’t even try anymore. It doesn’t matter what you do; they just plod along until they get through the maze. A few days ago, you could tell them apart. But not anymore. Now they’re all alike. It’s like their personalities are gone.”
“They never had any personalities,” Jeff said, his irritation growing. “They’re just rats, for Christ’s sake!”
Marilyn shot him a look. “You shouldn’t talk that way.”
“What way?”
“Swearing.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Jeff said deliberately.
Marilyn didn’t hear him this time; her attention was back on the rats.
“Why do they do it?” she mused. “Why don’t they just sit in a corner and wait it out? All they get for finding their way through the maze is a little piece of food, and they’d get that anyway.”
“They don’t know that,” Jeff said, anxious to get back to work. “For all they know, if they sit down and do nothing, they’ll starve to death.”
Marilyn didn’t seem to hear him. “Sometimes I feel just like them,” she said. Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality, and Jeff was no longer sure if she was talking to him, or to herself. “Sometimes I feel like my life is just like that maze, and every time I figure out what I’m supposed to do, somebody changes the rules, and I have to start all over again.”
In Room 16, Peter Balsam put down the exam he had been working on, and devoted his full attention to Marilyn.
“Why do I bother to do it?” she was saying. “Why don’t I just quit? I mean, what could happen to me? I’m just like the rats.” Her voice grew bitter. “They keep going, and I keep going, and they’re all starting to seem alike, and I’m starting to seem like all the rest of them. It must have been the same for them. They must have felt just like I do, like someone else is running their lives for them. But they all gave in, and did what they were supposed to do. Except Judy. But she never does what she’s supposed to do.”
Jeff Bremmer had stopped working, and was gaping at Marilyn. She no longer seemed to be aware of his presence, or even of where she was. Though she was still staring down into the maze, her eyes had taken on a faraway look, and Jeff wasn’t sure she even saw the rats. Her voice continued to drone through the sudden quiet that had fallen over the two rooms.
“Janet tried to fight it, too; she just wasn’t as strong as Judy is. But she was stronger than me. If she couldn’t hold out against him, how can I? And why should I? It would be a lot easier just to give in to him, and get it over with.”
Jeff picked up on the word. “Him.” She had said “him.” He reached out and grabbed Marilyn’s arm.
“Who?” he said. “Give in to who?”
Marilyn didn’t respond for a second or two, but then her eyes focused on Jeff, and her body stiffened. She hadn’t realized she’d been talking out loud. She’d been thinking. Only thinking. But Jeff had heard.
She shifted her gaze, and looked through the open door to Room 16. Mr. Balsam was staring at her too. Everything she’d been thinking—no, said—they’d heard. Now they’d think she was crazy. She had to get out. Get out of the room. Get out of the school.
She wrenched her arm free of Jeff’s grasp, and bolted toward the door. As she passed through Room 16 her tears began to come, and she tried to force back the sob that was in her throat She began to run, out of the room, down the halt Out.
She had to get out. By the time the wracking sob tore loose from her throat, Marilyn Crane was halfway down Cathedral Hill.
She hadn’t even noticed the smoke curling up from the roof of the rectory. She was only aware of her own sobbing, and the noises in her head. The sounds. The awful, compelling sounds.
By the time Peter Balsam could react, she was gone. He hurried to the door of the room, but she had disappeared around the corner; all he could hear was the pounding of her feet. He went slowly back into Room 16. Jeff Bremmer was waiting for him.
“What did she mean?” Jeff asked. “It sounded like—”
“Never mind what it sounded like,” Peter snapped. Immediately he regretted his tone; he hadn’t been thinking when he spoke. He tried to ease the hurt that had sprung into Jeff’s face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was worried about Marilyn.”
“She’s getting worse,” Jeff commented.
“Worse? What do you mean, worse?”
Jeff fidgeted uncomfortably. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “Well, she was always a little, you know, weird. But lately it’s really gotten bad. I mean, most of the kids think—” He broke off, unwilling to condemn a peer in front of an adult, even if the peer was Marilyn Crane.
“Think what?” Peter asked. Then: “Never mind. I know what they think.”
Jeff looked at his teacher curiously, remembering the word Marilyn had used. “Him.” And then, when she had seen Mr. Balsam looking at her, she had run.
“You,” Jeff said suddenly. “She was talking about you, wasn’t she?”
“Me?” Balsam said blankly.
“When she was talking about giving in. She said something about giving in to ‘him.’ She was talking about you, wasn’t she?”
“No,” Peter said definitely. “She wasn’t talking about me.”
But there was something in his eyes, something in his face, that made Jeff doubt him. When he left the room, Jeff Bremmer was sure that whatever had happened to all the girls—what was happening now to Marilyn Crane—Mr. Balsam was to blame.
Peter Balsam sat alone in the room for several minutes, trying to decide what to do. Whatever he did, he would have to do it alone. There was no one left to turn to.
He made up his mind. He would call Marilyn’s mother. He would warn her, tell her to watch out for Marilyn, to talk to her.
Peter gathered his things together, locked the uncorrected quizzes into his desk, and left the room. His mind was so occupied with trying to decide exactly what to say to Mrs. Crane that he passed the rectory without even looking up.
No one answered the telephone at the Cranes’ home until nearly nine o’clock, and as the hour grew later, Peter became more and more worded. Maybe he was too late. Maybe something had already happened to Marilyn. But when the phone was finally answered, the voice speaking in his ear sounded normal.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Crane?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“We haven’t met, Mrs. Orane. Pm one of Marilyn’s teachers.”
Geraldine Crane’s impulse was to hang up. How dared he call her? Didn’t he know what everyone was saying about him?
“Mrs. Crane, are you still there?”
“What do you want?” Geraldine asked coldly.
“Pm calling about Marilyn. Is she there?”
“Of course she’s here. Where else would she be?”
“Mrs. Crane, Pm very worried about Marilyn. I think she may be in danger, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Danger?” Geraldine Crane held the receiver away from her ear and stared at it What was the man talking about?
“She was working in the lab this afternoon, and I—well, I don’t know how to put it exactly—”
“Well, she was sort of talking to herself.”
“Marilyn? Don’t be ridiculous.” Geraldine was finding the man more annoying every minute.
“I’m sorry, maybe I put it badly.” He told her what he’d overheard, and what had happened after Marilyn realized she’d been talking out loud.
“I tried to go after her,” Peter finished. “But by the time I got to the hall, she was gone.”
“Well, I can assure you, she’s quite all right now,” Mrs. Crane said idly. “She came home this afternoon, and we all went out for dinner. Right now she’s upstairs, doing her homework.”
“Mrs. Crane, I know it sounds like a strange request, but I think you ought to spend some time with Marilyn. Talk to her. Try to find out what’s bothering her.”
Geraldine Crane lost her patience. “Mr. Balsam, apparently you don’t know who you’re talking to. I happen to be her mother. I talk to Marilyn every day. You spend perhaps one hour with her each day, and now you presume to tell me how to behave with my daughter. I know you claim to be a psychologist, but I have to tell you that I don’t have much faith in that sort of thing. I never have, and after what’s been happening in Neilsville since you arrived, I have even less. As far as “I’m concerned, I think it might be best for everyone if you spent a lot less time meddling in the affairs of your students, and stuck entirely to your classes.”
“Mrs. Crane—”
“Mr. Balsam, I’ll appreciate it if you don’t interrupt me. Marilyn isn’t like any of the other children in Neilsville. She’s always, since she was a baby, been somewhat withdrawn. I don’t know why, but it’s always been that way. So you see,” she went on, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “your wonderful perceptions are no news to me. I’m aware that Marilyn has been upset lately, but why wouldn’t she be? My Lord, Mr. Balsam, she’s lost three of her best friends. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but Marilyn was very close to those girls. She visited Judy Nelson in the hospital, and Karen Morton had Marilyn at her party. So of course she’s upset She’s a nomai teen-ager, Mr. Balsam, and I would think you’d understand that” Without waiting for a reply, Geraldine Grane firmly placed the receiver back in its cradle.
Peter Balsam stared at the dead phone in his hand, and wondered what to do. But there didn’t seem to be anything left He put on the coffee pot, and took one of the pills that helped him stay awake. It was going to be along night
Geraldine Grane sat seething for several minutes after she hung up on Peter Balsam, and congratulated herself on how well she’d handled the impudent teacher. Then, as her anger eased, she remembered what he’d said. Could he have been right? Was something bothering Marilyn?
Marilyn was on her bed, a book open in front of her. She looked up when her mother came into the room, but didn’t close the book.
“Marilyn?” Geraldine’s voice was tentative, as if she weren’t quite sure how to approach her daughter.
“I’m studying, Mother.” There was a flatness to Marilyn’s voice.
“I just thought you might like to talk awhile.”
“I don’t I talk too much. Can’t you just leave me alone?” Marilyn turned her attention back to her book.
Geraldine stood helplessly at the door, wondering what she should do. Then, following the path of least resistance, she started out of the room.
“Marilyn? If you need to talk, I’m here.”
“I know, Mother.” But it was a dismissal, and Geraldine knew it She left her daughter, and went back downstairs.
Marilyn got up and closed the door to her room. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? All of them? It was Mr. Balsam on the telephone. She was sure of it. If it wasn’t him, who else would have called and induced her mother to try to talk to her?
She couldn’t talk to them. What could she talk to them about? The strange things she wanted to do to herself? They wouldn’t understand. She didn’t even understand it herself, so how could they?
Maybe they wanted her to be upset. Maybe it all was Mr. Balsam, or he was part of it, whatever it was. But it couldn’t be him, could it?
She would pray. She would pray for guidance, and the Blessed Virgin would tell her what to do.
She began praying. She prayed all through the night And all through the night the voices howled in her mind, calling to her, chanting to her.
The night was long, but for Marilyn Crane it wasn’t nearly long enough.
29
Peter Balsam watched the sun come up, watched the black horizon turn first to a pearly gray, then to a pale rose as the first rays crept above the hills. The long night was over.
He’d sat up through the endless hours, concentrating his depleted energy on resisting the strange impulses within him. Hour after hour, he had heard the chanting echoing in his mind, reaching out to him like invisible fingers, pulling at him, demanding that he leave his home and go—where?
He was sure he knew. He was sure the Society of St Peter Martyr was reaching out to him, trying to draw him to the rectory, trying to ply its evil on him once again.
The telephone had rung several times during the night, its jarring clangor breaking into his intense concentration, sending waves of fear through him. He wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t leave the chair he clung to. Each time it rang, it seemed louder, and went on longer. The last call had been just before dawn, and went on endlessly, the steadily paced rhythm of the bell breaking in on him, rattling on his nerves, shaking him.
Now, as the sun rose over Neilsville, Peter Balsam dragged himself into the tiny bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror, and wondered if the image he saw was truly himself, or if something else was being reflected there.
The eyes were rimmed in red from lack of sleep, and at the corners, crow’s feet were beginning to show starkly against his pale skin. His whole face seemed to sag under the weariness he felt He wondered how long he could go on.
Today, he decided. Today, somehow, he must find a way to get into the rectory, to search the study. Whatever he was looking for, it had to be diere. If it wasn’t there was no hope at all.
He began dressing, fighting off the tiredness. An irrational idea grew in his mind, and he reached up to the highest shelf of his closet and pulled a large box from the depths. He set it on the bed, and opened it His monastic robes lay inside, relics from a more secure past He put on the unfamiliar articles, one by one.
He knew the exhaustion was overtaking him, knew that he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing. He tried to tell himself to take off the vestments, to put on his ordinary clothing. But his body wouldn’t obey, and once again he heard the chanting voices reaching out to grasp his mind. Only now he had no more resources left. His fight was done. As the unspoken commands came into his mind, his body numbly obeyed.
In his black robes, a crucifix swinging from his waist, an exhausted Peter Balsam left his apartment and began walking toward Main Street
Marilyn Crane, too, had fought against the voices through the long night her beads clutched in her hands, counting out the decades over and over, praying for her soul. As the sun climbed into the sky above Neilsville, Marilyn put the rosary aside, and looked at her fingers. They had grown red during the night, and had swollen. Blisters showed where she had squeezed the beads, as if through pressure alone she could find strength. Her legs ached, and at first she could barely move. She sat on the edge of the bed, flexing first one knee, then the other. She tried to close out the chaos that still raged in her mind, and concentrated instead on the sounds of her family preparing for the day.
She heard her mother calling her, and forced herself to get up from the bed, and move through the door of her room, and down the stairs.
In the kitchen, her mother stared at her.
“You’re not dressed,” the voice accused. One more accusing voice. One more fragment of disapproval, adding itself to the confusion.
“I’m staying home today.” Her vo
ice was flat, drained by the long hours of whispered prayer.
“Don’t be silly.” Geraldine looked sharply at her younger daughter. “Are you sick?”
“No. Just tired.”
“Well, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have studied so late. But that’s your fault and no one else’s. You’ll go to school.”
The words rang in Marilyn’s mind as she slowly plodded up the stairs. “Your fault Your fault Your fault” Everything was her fault Everything that went wrong was her fault The chaos in her mind grew, and Marilyn Grane stopped thinking.
She dressed slowly, almost dreamily, and when she was finished, she gazed at herself in the mirror.
“I’m pretty, she thought I’m really very pretty.
She went downstairs, and presented herself to her mother. Geraldine surveyed her daughter critically.
“White?” she asked. “For school? That’s a Sunday dress.”
“But I want to wear it today.”
Why not? Geraldine Grane asked herself. She looks so tired, and if it’ll make her feel better, why not? She kissed her daughter on the cheek, and Marilyn left the house.
She walked slowly, almost unaware of her surroundings. Suddenly she felt at peace, and the voices in her head were no longer calling to her so stridently; now they were singing to her, caressing her spirit
She got to Main Street but instead of turning to start up the long hill to the school, she turned the other way, and began walking into Neilsville, her soft white skirt floating around her, the morning sun bathing her face.
Far ahead, as if at the end of a tunnel, she saw a shape moving toward her. She concentrated on the shape, and her focus seemed to narrow until she was no longer aware of anything else: only the dark shape coming slowly closer. Marilyn clutched her purse to her abdomen with one hand, and with the other once again began counting the decades of the rosary.
Peter Balsam trudged slowly up Main Street vaguely aware that people were staring at him. He knew he must be an odd spectacle in his robes, his face unshaven, his eyes swollen and red. He wanted to go back, to go home and lock himself in once more. But it was too late. The chanting had a firm grasp on his mind now, and he could only keep walking, his pace steady, one foot carefully placed in front of the other.