“Come, now, Doctor James,” Phillips said. “You surely have more of an opinion than that?”
He fixed me with a needling look.
“His is an interesting case,” I admitted. “As are the cases of three thousand other patients here at Orient Point. Is there some matter you are referring to in particular?”
Doctor Phillips seemed to change his tune slightly then. He could see I was not going to be made the fool again, and his taunting manner disappeared.
“I know you think that some of our ways here are old-fashioned, but that is far from the case. As it happens, we are at the forefront of certain techniques, at least as far as the United States is concerned. I am very influenced by one or two European practitioners and, in fact, I have selected Dexter to be the first subject upon whom we will try a new cure, known as malarial treatment. The work in London, on those suffering from general paralysis, is very encouraging.”
“Malarial treatment?” I asked.
“You haven’t heard of it? I thought you were abreast of all the latest techniques. Macbride and Templeton have published on the subject, as long as two years ago.”
“I must have been too busy to—”
“It doesn’t matter. It is a very simple procedure and the outcomes of the experiments have been remarkable, at times.”
“What is involved in the procedure?”
“As I say, it is a very simple procedure. All that is required is access to a patient suffering from benign tertiary malaria. A blood sample is taken from that patient, and then injected into the general paralytic.”
“You infect the insane patient with malaria?”
“Indeed. The subsequent fevers are often high enough to destroy the syphilis bacillus in the patient, leading to recovery.”
“Often? And what of the malaria? Does that not prove fatal?”
Doctor Phillips fixed his eyes on me.
“Not in so many cases.”
I could do nothing but stare for a moment.
“And why do you select Dexter for this treatment?”
“I told you. Dexter is the candidate whom I consider most suitable. He is suffering from tertiary neurosyphilis, he shows increased symptoms and there seems little to be lost.”
“And when will you start?”
“We will start next week,” Doctor Phillips said. “I am making arrangements for the delivery of malarial blood from New York. All should be in hand very soon.”
Then he wished me a good night, and a pleasant weekend.
Sunday, April 10
I wanted to warn Dexter about what Doctor Phillips had in store for him. I spent all morning hunting for him. He had been allowed out to walk freely, the first time in two weeks.
I combed the grounds of Orient Point, as far as the shore, through the ornamental and vegetable gardens, through the workshops and outhouses of the asylum. I asked everyone I knew, and finally, it was the patient, Jonathan, who found him for me. Jonathan was nervously weeding a flower bed. I know he speaks to Dexter sometimes and thinks highly of him, and when I asked if he knew where he was, he sheepishly stabbed his trowel in the direction of the crematorium.
Spring has come to Long Island. The grounds are looking verdant and green, and today was warm, so I found it strange that Dexter had chosen to go inside.
The door of the crematorium was open, and I walked in to find it empty. It is a small place with enough room to seat no more than twenty mourners. There is the door to the furnace, and some apparatus for that business in front of it. But, of Dexter, I could see no sign. I noticed a metal door leading to a set of steps, which headed down to the basement, I guessed, and that was where I found him.
He turned away from a set of shelves as he heard me come into the dark basement room. It is without skylight or ventilations of any kind, and all four walls are covered with shelves from floor to ceiling. Every inch of the shelf space, the entire room, is taken up with identical metal canisters, copper canisters, each about five inches high and four in diameter. I noticed that there is a label on each, with some printed sections and handwritten additions.
“What are they?”
Dexter gave me the saddest of the many smiles he’s given me in our time together.
“This is the library of dust,” he said.
Upstairs I had seen the cremation equipment, down here …
“Yes,” he said. “You’re right. These are the ashes of the dead. Each in their own little tin, with a label. Their name, the date. Their age. That’s all. And one by one, they’re eating up the shelves.”
“Why don’t the relatives take them?”
“You should know as well as me that asylums are full of people who no longer have anyone they can call a relative.”
He was right and I felt foolish for even asking the question. Yes, even somewhere as progressive as Orient Point had its share of people that society just wanted forgotten. And here they were, lining the shelves of the basement. Forgotten.
“Except by me,” Dexter said.
“Excuse me?”
“You were thinking about these people. All forgotten, yes? Except by me. And now you.”
That was not the first time that Dexter had somehow seen my thoughts. It continues to disturb me how he knows things he should not know. I did not want to give him a chance to disturb me the more.
I came to tell him that Doctor Phillips was going to try a procedure on him that sounded experimental, at best, and yet then, standing in the library of dust, I thought better of it.
Perhaps Doctor Phillips is right. If the treatment is as effective as he claims, then maybe Dexter can be cured, and there is no doubt he needs help. His speech is becoming increasingly slurred, he stammers often and the shake of his hands is now impossible for him to hide. If the cure does not go ahead, perhaps Dexter will soon be joining those he mourns in the library of dust. Very soon.
It’s something I hate to think about, and so I decided not to tell him of the treatment.
A week has passed since I read his strange dark poem and since I had my nightmare of the sea, and of Caroline. I was feeling stronger this morning, and I wanted still to know what it is about spirals that so alarms Dexter.
When I tried to question him on the subject, he grew evasive.
“Do you know what Edgar Allan Poe’s first published book was?” he asked me instead. “It is also,” he added, “perhaps the book that earned him the most money of anything he ever put his name to.”
I played along.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Murders in the Rue Morgue? Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket? I’m sorry, I’m not as much of a reader as you.”
“Don’t worry. It’s a question most people would get wrong. Mr. Poe’s first published volume was a short history of conchology.”
“Of what?”
“Shells, Doctor James. In fact, Poe did not write the book, someone else did, but he edited it and put his name to it because, being a noted newspaper man, he thought it would sell better.”
“What of it?”
“Why on earth do you think a man as distinguished as Edgar Poe would bother with such a thing? Shells, Doctor! Spiral shells. Page after page of them. Poe wrote some fine horror stories in his lifetime, but no one realizes that the greatest horror of all was a book of nonfiction!”
I became enraged by his delusions. I, who have dealt with some of the worst excesses in the minds of men, and I lost my temper at this most rational of lunatics. Because I care about him, too much.
“Spirals, Dexter? Are you not better than this? Have you nothing finer to report from your wanderings through the universe?”
Then he turned a cold stare on me, and I felt ashamed at my rage. But he wasn’t done with me.
“My wanderings? Yes, I have learned a lot. And I can help you.”
“Why would I need your help?” I asked.
“I can get rid of Caroline for you. She is haunting you, from the spiral depths of the Atlantic Ocean, and I can get
rid of her. If you wish it.”
* * *
Soon after that, I left Dexter in the basement, and I prayed that somehow the malarial blood soon to be coming this way in an icebox from New York would kill the disease in his mind, and leave his true self unharmed. Yet, as I went, I was troubled with the question of whether I, or anyone else for that matter, had ever told Dexter my dead wife’s name.
Wednesday, April 13
Today I discovered that Verity has not been going to school.
At lunchtime, as I ate with the other doctors in the canteen on the east wing, one of the warders came over to me to say there was someone at the reception desk who wanted to speak with me.
I left my lunch, glad of the excuse to leave Delgado to his wit, but less glad when I saw a lady I did not recognize, but who soon introduced herself as the schoolmistress from Greenport.
“We do not care for truants at Greenport,” was her summary of the situation.
“I’m sure not,” I said, torn between defending myself and sticking up for Verity. “I will see to it that the situation changes.”
“I would be glad of that,” replied the schoolmistress.
“And perhaps in return, you can see that my daughter is not bullied?”
I did not smile at her.
“Is that a fair agreement?” I added, putting her in a corner from which she could not escape.
She slunk away, but as soon as she was gone I worried that I might have done Verity more harm than good.
* * *
This evening, however, I had to make Verity see that what she has been doing has been unwise, and placed us both in a difficult place.
“You have to try and fit in,” I told her.
She stood by her window, the one overlooking the south.
“But they’re so mean,” she said, and years dropped away and I remembered my own schoolyard days. Not with any pleasure.
“That may be so. But you must endure it. You should tell yourself how stupid they are for teasing you, and just ignore them.”
I remember my own father telling me the same thing. I also remember how little good it did me. Is there no escape from the circular prisons we make for ourselves?
“I’ve tried,” Verity was saying. “I’ve really tried. But they never leave me alone.”
“And where have you been spending your days?”
It seems that Verity has been absent all week.
“Walking home, and at the beach. There’s an old mill by the shore. It’s fun.”
“Verity, it could be dangerous. You can’t just go wandering around Orient Point. You might meet anyone!”
“I’d be happy to!” Verity said then. “At least that would give me someone to talk to. I haven’t spoken to anyone since the day I arrived! At least Charles listened to me. He was kind! I could speak to him!”
“No!” I said, and I tried to quash my anger. “You are not to speak to him, or to anyone. You are to go to school each day and study and if you want to speak to anyone, you can speak to me!”
Verity looked at me, scornfully, and I died.
“You? Speak to you? We never speak! At least Charles listened to me!”
“Really, Verity! This must stop!”
And it did, because that seemed to silence her. Into the silence came a thought I could not detach.
“What did you and Mr. Dexter speak about? You told me it wasn’t us, and it wasn’t Caroline. So what was it?”
“Geese,” said Verity, miserably.
“Geese?” I said. “You spoke about geese? Don’t be ridiculous! Why would you want to talk about geese?”
“We just did,” Verity said. “That’s what people do. They just talk about things.”
Then I told Verity she was going to bed without any supper, she told me she didn’t care, and both of us will spend a miserable night, I’m sure.
* * *
I return to my diary making some hours after the previous words.
It was as I feared; I was unable to sleep.
Eventually I gave up the battle to find rest, swung my legs out of bed, and sat on its edge, in the strong moonlight that broke through the thin curtains of my room. I pulled a robe around me as I stared out of my window at the night-gray sea shimmering. The sound was calm, and the light of the moon glittered like jewels on a dark velvet bedspread. It was so beautiful, and yet my heart could not accept the beauty.
Caroline, I thought.
I pulled myself away and, leaving my room, stole along the corridor and stopped outside Verity’s door, listening.
There was silence, total silence, and after a time had passed I began to grow worried. I was about to put my hand on the door when I heard a snuffle from her, as she turned in her sleep. The springs of the bed squeaked and I knew she was safe.
Still, I knew I could not sleep and, returning to my room, I found the key to the gate, and then let myself out into the hospital, locking the gate behind me as I went.
The hospital, late at night, is a strange beast, I think.
In darkness, the wards are as quiet as they ever get, which is not to say they are silent. I found myself walking without purpose or direction, down the turning spiral of the floors. As I did so, noises rolled out of the darkness toward me, a shout that broke the stillness of the night, a murmur. A cry, a sound of banging, or a wail of fear that chilled me.
What do we do with these, our insane? How shall we care for them, when there is no care to be given? Most of them will die here, despite Doctor Phillips’ proud claims of restitution. Die, be burned, and have their ashes filed in a copper can in Dexter’s library of dust. To be forgotten. And if we are forgotten, surely that is when we truly die?
To be remembered after our death, that at least would let us live on, in some way, in someone’s heart, but if even that is denied to us, then it is as if we never lived at all.
* * *
I found myself on the ground floor, in the great entrance space, and just as I was heading for the door, a voice called across the darkness to me.
“Doctor?”
“Who’s there?” I said. I turned but could see no one at first; then I saw the faint glow of a cigarette’s tip.
Approaching, I found Delgado lounging on a wooden chair by the doors to the women’s ward.
“It’s you,” said Delgado.
“Of course,” I said, stiffly.
“Well, we can’t have anyone wandering around here, now can we, Doc?”
I tried to attain the upper hand.
“Is everything in order tonight, Doctor Delgado? I couldn’t sleep and thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a turn of the wards.”
“Take that rod out of your ass, Doc,” he said, and I was so dumbfounded I had no reply. But Delgado wasn’t done. “You don’t need to keep up that act. Phillips is safe in bed, snoring.”
“Doctor Delgado—” I began, but stopped dead as the door to the women’s ward suddenly opened. A guard, whose name I don’t yet know, stepped through, speaking as he came.
“Hey, you were right, she is one fine piece of…”
He trailed off as he saw me, and then shot a glance at Delgado.
“Forget it, Micky, the doctor is cool. Ain’t you, Doc?”
The guard shut the door behind him, guilt written all over his face.
“I said, Doctor James is cool,” repeated Delgado. “Maybe we can fix you up, too, huh? That why you came down here? A little fun?”
I understood then what was happening, but was so speechless at first that I could find no words.
“Beat it, Micky,” Delgado said to the guard, “I’ll deal with the good doctor. And tuck your goddamn shirt in. Don’t make it too obvious, huh?”
The guard crept away into the night, and I pulled myself together.
“Delgado,” I said. “If what I think is happening here, is indeed—”
“Shut up,” snapped Delgado. “Don’t you think you can scare me. Now listen, why not be reasonable? There’s this great
girl at the end of the ward. Just came in. Foreigner, but that don’t matter. And she’s all warmed up for you, that’s the best part.”
Even in the half-light I could see the leer on Delgado’s face.
I stood, trembling with rage and confusion. Hoping the dark would hide my shaking hands, I did my best to keep my voice even.
“How dare you? How can you do such a thing? I will see Doctor Phillips knows about this!”
“Yeah? You don’t want any? No, of course you don’t. You got your own, doncha?”
Unable to stop myself from being drawn in, I spluttered.
“What? My wife is dead!”
“Not your wife. You got that pretty little girl, right? She keep you happy up there on the roof, does she?”
He stood, jutting his foul face into mine, and then I could stand it no more, and I swung my fist as hard as I could at his chin.
He went down, sprawling into the chair, which went clattering across the marble tiles.
Afraid I might leap on him and strangle him, I stepped away, but pointed at him on the floor.
“You will be leaving this place tomorrow, Delgado,” I hissed. “I swear it.”
Still, I couldn’t seem to even unsettle him.
“Yeah?” he snarled. “You think you’re gonna tell Phillips? Well I wouldn’t, because then I might have to tell him that the girl ain’t your daughter. And I wonder what else I could tell him? Like what you get up to with her.”
It was all I could do to restrain myself from trying to kill him, then and there, and instead, I found myself backing away in horror as he began to laugh at me.
I fled upstairs, running all the way, to the safety of my room.
Friday, April 15
Two days have passed, in unease.
I have come across Delgado in the course of my duties, and each time I have done so, he has leered at me in the most unsettling way. I need to do something about him, and soon. I need to speak to Doctor Phillips, but I need to be sure of my own position first. I will do it tomorrow, whatever. Delgado must be stopped, and whoever else is involved. I shudder to think of how Doctor Kirkbride would feel, knowing what abuses of trust are occurring in a hospital of his design.
The Ghosts of Heaven Page 16