The Ghosts of Heaven

by Marcus Sedgwick

  But he was not. We progressed slowly, ever downward, floor by floor, and our slowest progress was on the third and second, where the forms of madness displayed by our patients grew more extreme. Now the inmates were clothed in simple white pajamas, as on a hospital ward, though the clothes were gray from frequent washing. Delgado laughed at one or two, was angry with others, and even shoved one unfortunate man back into his room, which was much more akin to a cell than the rooms on higher floors, slamming the door on him.

  “Idiot,” Delgado said. “But that’s why he’s in here, right?”

  He grinned at me.

  Still we had not found Dexter, and it was close to lunchtime when we reached the first floor.

  The sights behind the doors on the lowest rung of Orient Point were ones I was familiar with from New York. Yes, their rooms might be a little bigger and brighter and they might not be shut in with other patients, but the terrible sad scenes were just the same. These rooms had, for the most part, been stripped of all furniture. There were no washstands or bedframes, just mattresses on the bare floor, for the patients’ own safety, so they did not do themselves harm.

  Then, toward the end of the wing, farthest from the center of the building, we finally found Dexter.

  Delgado opened the door, and there he was, sitting on his bed, propped up on a pillow with his hands behind his head.

  As we entered, he showed no sign of noticing us, which gave me a moment to regard him closely. Here was another tall man, with gangly limbs, emphasized by the fact that his suit was rather small for him. His eyes were large and somewhat round. They spoke of nights lying awake with the moon. The cut above his eye had dried but bruises had welled up around his neck and forehead.

  Finally, he stirred.

  “Doctors,” he said, turning to us.

  “What did you do this time, Dex?” asked Delgado, with the air of one trying to provoke. Dexter responded amiably.

  “Something I had apparently been told not to do,” he said.

  “You freak,” said Delgado. “Don’t be smart with me.”

  “Doctor,” I interjected. “Please. Let’s let Mr. Dexter speak for himself.”

  “You let him,” said Delgado. “I think we’re done for today.”

  He turned and left the room with a sour look on his face.

  I turned back to Dexter. The door was open, and I stood on the threshold.

  “Won’t you come in, Doctor?” Dexter asked.

  Once again, I had the feeling that I was the one taking orders when I should have been the one giving them.

  “I’m fine here,” I said. “In fact, why don’t we take a walk? It’s a sunny day.”

  Dexter raised his eyebrows.

  “Would Doctor Phillips think that a good idea?”

  Damn this, I thought.

  “Doctor Phillips has given me no such instructions and since I am second here, I think if I invite a patient for a walk there is nothing to prevent us. Don’t you?”

  Dexter smiled and got to his feet.

  “Besides,” I said. “Your room, though comfortable, must get tiresome occasionally.”

  Dexter’s room is unlike the others on the first floor. He has not only a proper bed, but a chair, and a tidy desk. There is a washstand with a good china jug on it and, most remarkable of all, along the wall above his bed is a narrow shelf crammed with books, so many that they are piled on their sides along the top of those ranged conventionally. Fascinated, I tried to glance at some titles, but Dexter was speaking to me.

  “On the contrary,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the only way I can get any peace around here.”

  I wondered at the use of the word peace, since just next door one of his peers was emitting a constant low moaning. Other, wilder sounds came from along the hall—the cries of the insane and the harsh shouts of warders. I am used to such noises, of course, from my work in the city and so I put the sounds from my mind.

  Dexter was appraising me.

  “But I’ve reached a good place to stop work for the day,” he said, and then, as if we were two old friends deciding to take a stroll, “Yes, why not?”

  He even picked up a fedora to put on his head.

  “It’s not as warm as it ought to be,” he said. “The winds that come in from the sound can cut you in half.”

  “Work?” I asked, as we made our way along the corridor. “What are you working at?”

  “A novel,” he said, simply. “It’s to be my first.”

  “That’s admirable,” I said. “To use your time here to such good effect. What did you do before you came here?”

  We had reached the door to the grounds, which Dexter held open for me.

  “After you,” I said.

  Dexter shrugged, and I followed him out.

  “What work did I have?” he asked. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “This and that. Needs must, so they say. But what I was before I came here is what I am now.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A poet.”

  “Oh,” I said. “A poet.”

  “Yes,” said Dexter. “I’ve been a poet for as long as I can remember. I have written a number of short stories, too. A great number, in fact. I am finished with that form, however, and currently I am engaged in writing a novel.”

  It was now that I began to see hints of a disturbed mind in Dexter. I doubted very much whether he had written short stories as his tone had something of the delusional about it. Nonetheless, in all my years, I have never come across such an intriguing delusion, and one that could perhaps be beneficial to the patient, if used correctly. So I pressed him to tell me more.

  “And you were planning some part of the novel, were you?” I asked. “When Doctor Delgado and I came in. Dreaming up some scene or other to incorporate in the book when you write it?”

  “When I write it?” Dexter asked, and for the first time, he sounded confused. “Not when I write it. I am writing it. I was writing it when you came in just now.”

  “But you have neither pen and paper, nor a typewriter.”

  “Doctor, I am not stupid. I am writing it in my head.”

  “That’s fascinating,” I said, eager for him to say more.

  “I am writing it in my head. I had just finished a chapter when you came in.”

  “You mean to say you are dictating the thing to yourself, in your head? But how will anyone read it?”

  “I don’t need anyone to read it,” he said. “Furthermore, I have perfected the art of novel writing. I have studied it endlessly and now that I come to do it myself, I see that I am writing the most perfect prose ever written. It is sublime—it redefines beauty, in fact. And since I have the whole thing in my head, I therefore have no need to write it down. I intend to write this way from now on, in fact. Perhaps another novel, although I might return to poetry, one day, I suppose.”

  He stopped walking for a second and gave me a smile. It was modest, and so charming that I could not but be infected with something of his contentment.

  “It’s going very well,” he added.

  He walked on, leaving me staring after him, trying to work out if he was a madman or a genius.

  * * *

  I hurried after him.

  We walked together, and chatted for some time.

  “Tell me, you have a fine collection of books there, in your … room.”

  I hesitated as I avoided using the more accurate word.

  “Fine? You call that a collection of books? A library? It’s a shelf, no more. But I managed to keep one or two nice pieces.”

  “You don’t have enough to read? I could get you more books, perhaps.”

  “You are a strange kind of doctor,” he said. “Most professionals I have spoken with appear to think I read rather too much. Doctor Phillips only tolerates my books because I read from them to the other patients.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” I offered.

  He brushed my compli
ment aside.

  “It’s surely only a decent thing to do. Once a patient arrives here, it is all too easy to slip from mere frailty to genuine insanity. Many of them stop receiving any kind of mental stimulus. Many cannot read, or find it too hard to concentrate. I read what I can to them. Fairy tales, the great poets. Twain and Dickens!”

  I clapped Dexter on the back, heartily.

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “Do you see results from your reading? Are there improvements in the patients’ demeanor?”

  Dexter looked at me strangely, as if amused by what I’d said.

  “Come now,” he joked. “You’re the doctor, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling foolish. “Of course. Of course. But I wonder what you have perceived in those who you read to. Do they appear to become healthier?”

  Dexter stopped walking. The gentle smiling peace on his face fell away, and he spoke softly.

  “Doctor. We are lunatics here. All of us. What hope is there for any of us? Do you know how many people ever leave here on their own two feet, restored to equilibrium? Or should I say, how few? We are those who are without hope. But when I read, I see, in just one or two faces, the return of something more noble.”

  “Yes?” I asked. I felt the need to clear my throat. Dexter waited for me to do so, and to speak again. “And what is that?”

  “It is their soul, crying for peace. It appears in their eyes, like a ghost surfacing, crying for help. And then, when I stop reading, the mad waters rush in, and wash it away once more.”

  Tuesday, March 29

  If things are going well with Dexter’s writing, life is not being so kind to Verity. Yesterday was her first day at the schoolhouse in Orient and it was not a happy one.

  When I finished my afternoon’s work, I came upstairs to our rooms to find Verity in her room, crying. Solway had let her in when she’d returned from school, and there she’d been ever since, miserable.

  “They’re mean,” she said.

  “The other children?”

  She nodded, the poor creature, and I sat down next to her on the bed. What does one say to a sad child? That these things will pass? That life is unfair but that it must be faced anyway? That it is foolish to take heed of what unkind people might say or do?

  What do any of these things mean to a crying child of eight years?

  “I expect tomorrow will be easier,” I said, and to that Verity said nothing.

  Wednesday, March 30

  I was wrong.

  Verity had no easier time of it on her second day at school, nor her third. Her classmates are stupid, she says, and very mean. They taunt her, and when I asked about what, I was angry to hear her reply.

  “They say I’m crazy. I’m a crazy girl living in the madhouse.”

  * * *

  Tuesday had seen me working the floors of the women’s wing, and it was only today that I found myself talking to Dexter again.

  I found him in his room, writing his book.

  “Why are you living on this floor?” I asked.

  “One moment, please,” he said. “I need to stop at the end of a paragraph…”

  He looked into the wall as if seeing something, and then, a few seconds later, he rose to greet me.

  “This floor?” he asked. “No reason.”

  “Come now,” I said. “All around you are, for want of a less prejudiced term, the desperate insane. And you are sitting here with your books and your furniture, an island in the storm. Why?”

  Dexter waved a hand at me.

  “I have a fear of heights,” he said. “I asked to be put down here and Doctor Phillips was good enough to oblige me.”

  The subject seemed closed and I decided not to push things for the time being.

  “Why was Solway punishing you?” I asked, instead.

  “Just as I told Delgado yesterday, I was doing something I was told not to do.”

  “Which was?”

  Dexter shrugged. “Speaking to your daughter.”

  I found myself speechless then.

  “That’s all, I swear,” said Dexter.

  “Doctor Phillips told you not to speak to my daughter, even before we arrived here?”

  “He did.”

  “And for that, he beat you?”

  “He had me beaten,” corrected Dexter, holding up a finger.

  “That’s…” I said, and then remembered I was speaking to a patient.

  * * *

  This evening, I went along to Doctor Phillips’ rooms, because there were two things about which I wished to speak.

  The first was the question of an advance against my salary, which Doctor Phillips very kindly told me was impossible, but that since the month end was soon approaching, I would receive a week’s pay within a few days. I did some quick calculations in my head and decided I could afford to let that subject drop, and that brought me to my second one.

  I asked Doctor Phillips straight out why he had told Dexter not to speak to Verity, and his manner immediately worsened.

  “I told you on Monday, I believe, that Dexter is a dangerous character. I would not have him near your daughter and I would think you should not either.”

  “I have weighed the risks of bringing Verity here,” I said. “And since I have spent my life trying to convince the general public that they are at no more risk from the insane than any other member of society, I would be a poor politician who did not put his words into practice.”

  “And there I would agree with you, Doctor James,” he said. “But, for the exceptional case of Charles Dexter.”

  “That may be so, Doctor Phillips, but beatings? That’s not how I imagined things were done here.”

  That was going too far, and I knew it at once. The superintendent grew quietly angry with me.

  “What you imagined in your comfort from New York is hardly the point, wouldn’t you agree, Doctor? And I am superintendent here; it is my judgement of how things are run that matters and, as I told you on Sunday, I recall, I like things to be run well.”

  “Just what is it that Dexter did? Is he criminally insane?”

  “If you want to know whether he murdered someone or some other act equally dire, the answer is no. But I judge him to be a menace to himself and others here, and I intend to make sure he does not upset the apple cart. It is a continual battle to see that he does not. And what is your diagnosis, Doctor James? Have you not noticed various telltale symptoms? Or do you think he’s the sanest one among us?”

  Doctor Phillips was not only goading me, but testing my medical capabilities. I knew I needed to succeed here and, in truth, I had seen one or two things about Dexter.

  “I would say that he is suffering from General Paralysis. There are some signs of tremors in his hands, which he fights to control. His speech is slurred at times, occasionally noticeably. I would like to test it to be sure, but I thought I detected in his eyes some signs of Adie pupils. If that were the case the diagnosis would be certain, but what I have seen, coupled with these delusions about being a poet, is enough to make me suspect General Paralysis of the Insane.”

  “Very good,” said Doctor Phillips. “Just so. Dexter is suffering from neurosyphilis as a consequence of the tertiary stage of the disease. But you are wrong on one count.”

  I could see he wanted me to ask, and feeling that I needed to appease him, I obliged.

  “I am?”

  “Oh, yes,” Doctor Phillips said. “I had thought you a better-read man. Charles Dexter was a poet before he came here, a notable one. I have his collection, On Drowning, somewhere. It was heralded, by some, as the greatest new writing since Whitman, before Dexter’s illness. I can lend the book to you, if you would like to educate yourself.”

  I didn’t care that Phillips was taunting me again. No. This wasn’t taunting. This was a cold blade slicing into me.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think I would like to read that. Very much.”

  Phillips gave a derisory snort, but he stood and began
hunting along the shelves in his study for Dexter’s book.

  “Tell me, Doctor, why is Dexter housed on the lowest floor of the asylum? He told me he’s afraid of heights … that you agreed to this arrangement?”

  “He told you that?” asked Phillips, turning back to me with a book in his hand. He tossed it at me casually, and I scrabbled to catch it. There was something derisory again in this action, I felt belittled, and for some reason I felt it belittled the book of poetry, and its creator, too. With surprise, I realized that I have already come to care about Dexter. It is never a good idea to feel too much for your patients. If you followed every madman down his dark flight to death you would soon be destroyed. But, and it is quite simple, I like Dexter.

  Doctor Phillips’ action angered me, and in that anger I decided to press him for answers.

  “Dexter tells me you warned him not to speak to my daughter. I would like to know why.”

  “I have already told you that. I consider him to be dangerous.”

  “Doctor Phillips,” I said, taking my courage in my hands, “You may be in charge here but, as your assistant superintendent, I would like it to be noted that I do not approve of beating patients under any circumstances, never mind for something as trivial as this.”

  He stared at me then, and my courage withered under that stare.

  “Noted,” he said, drily. Then he seemed to relax a little. “Very well, Doctor James. You have made your case, and I concede that we may have dealt with Dexter somewhat harshly.”

  “I just think such actions could set him back in his recovery. It will damage his self-esteem, which must already be very low.”

  “Perhaps so,” said Doctor Phillips. He came round the desk to me and took my elbow in his hand, gently guiding me to the door. “Perhaps so. I tell you what. In order to rebuild this self-esteem, I shall apologize to Dexter personally.”

  I turned to him.

  “That’s a noble gesture, Doctor Phillips. One I’m sure will not go without reward in the form of Dexter’s character.”

  He nodded.

  “Bring him to me tomorrow and we’ll have a chat about all this. The three of us. Agreed?”