by Torey Hayden
Silence followed. I always had my plan book out during this time, not only because it was my planning time but also because it allowed me to focus on something other than Jadie, and this gave these little get-togethers a less intense timbre.
“You know what?” she said softly.
“What’s that?”
“There’s nothing for me to do in here.”
“You’re feeling a bit bored?”
She nodded.
“What do you suppose we might do about it?” I asked, hoping this might lead to expansion beyond the locked doors of the cloakroom.
“It’d be nice if those dolls were in here.”
“If you want to play with those dolls, that’s okay,” I replied.
“But they’re out there.”
“You could go get them. The box with the clothes in it is on the bookshelf. You could put the dolls you wanted into that and bring them in here.”
Jadie studied me. I could tell she wanted me to go get the dolls for her, but when she didn’t speak, I went back to my work. Jadie continued to stand, her expression morose.
“If you open the door, you’ll be able to get the dolls,” I said, not looking up. “It isn’t very far from the door to the bookshelf. You can bring them back in here and close the door again.”
Jadie turned her head and looked at the door. Not only would she have to leave the safety of the cloakroom to do this, but to carry the box of dolls back, she needed to remain upright. Unlike her speech, which had generalized quickly to include the others in the classroom, her posture seemed unchanged outside the privacy of the cloakroom. Sighing sadly, she slumped down on one of the benches.
“Do you want some help?” I asked.
She nodded.
“You know, if you explain to me what you want, then I am much more likely to help. I can’t read your mind. You need to tell me when you want help.”
Still silence.
I rose from my chair. “I’ll open the door.” Getting the key from the other door, I peeled back the masking tape and unlocked it. Jadie shrank back. “Come on,” I said, extending my hand. “We’ll go together. You get which dolls you want, and I’ll carry the box of clothes.”
Jadie accepted this. Taking my hand, she crept behind me into the classroom, where I gathered up most of the big dolls and put them into her arms. Jadie, not quite bent double by this time but definitely slumped, scurried back into the cloakroom ahead of me. As I closed the door and relocked it, she relaxed visibly, but not quite trusting me, she had to get up and check that the door was well and truly locked and then return the key to block the other keyhole.
The trauma of having had to go out into the classroom to get the dolls clearly overwhelmed Jadie. Still hunched over, she sank down onto the bench adjacent to the doll box and peered in at the collection of hard-won dolls, but she seemed unable to summon up enough strength to take them out and play with them. For five minutes or more, she just sat, all the usual liveliness she brought with her into the cloakroom momentarily gone. Then, at last, she reached in and started to take the dolls out. One by one, she lined them up on the bench. When she had finished, she sat back a little and observed them.
“These dolls are pretty,” she said softly.
“Yes, they are nice. I think so, too.”
“Where’d you get them at?”
“I bought them. Not all of them at once, but one at a time, over the years.”
“How come? You’re too big to play with dolls.”
“I bought them for the children I work with.”
Jadie paused, reaching a finger out to gingerly touch the hair on one of the dolls. “Are them the boys and girls you were telling me about that one time? The ones like me that don’t talk?”
“Yes.”
“Did you really work with those kids?”
“Yes.”
She looked over. “Really? You’re not just making that up?”
“Yes, I really did work with girls and boys like you before. I worked at helping them start talking again and at getting over the kinds of problems that made them stop in the first place. That was my special interest, you see. It’s called ‘research.’ That’s when you want to learn more about something people don’t know much about already. And I was very interested in children who found it hard to talk in certain places. I wanted to know what was wrong, and I wanted to find ways to make things better for them, so that was my research.”
“And did you find out about them?” Jadie asked, her attention going back to the dolls.
“I think so, yes.”
A pause came and it lingered. Jadie was still not playing with the dolls, not even touching them. She just sat, gazing at them. “Them other kids,” she started slowly, “they really didn’t talk? Like me?”
“Yes, just like you.”
“But then you made it better for them? Did you? And then did they talk? They talked to you then? They told you things?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at me. “They told you things?”
I nodded.
“And you believed them?”
“Well, I always try to listen to what people tell me.”
“And then you tried to make it better for them?”
“Well, I did try.”
Silence then. Jadie reached over and picked up one of the Sasha dolls. It had thick, waist-length black hair, which she gently smoothed down. “Can I change this doll’s clothes?”
“Yes, of course. You may dress any of them any way you want. They’re meant for playing.”
Again she caressed its long hair and gazed into its face. Then, bending over the box, Jadie sorted through the clothes, taking out a complete outfit consisting of undershirt and underpants, shirt, overalls, sweater, mittens, coat, shoes, socks, and woolly hat. I went back to work on my plans but stole occasional glimpses of her. She remained tenser than usual. Her shoulders remained hunched, her limbs drawn in close. Even with the doors locked, she didn’t seem much more relaxed than she generally was in the classroom, but she was very intent on what she was doing. So intent, in fact, that it didn’t have the aura of play about it.
With immense care, Jadie removed the clothes that had been on the doll. When it was totally undressed, she gazed at it, running her fingers lightly over the smooth contours of its body. She examined the joints, now rather loosely strung after years of play, and poked her finger into the sockets. She felt the faintly indented belly button. She looked for genitals. Then, with the same tenderness she’d shown undressing the doll, she began to gently ease on the new clothes, starting with the socks and underwear. She worked very slowly, however, and inevitably I had to acknowledge the time.
“We’ve got only a few minutes left, Jadie. It’s almost five o’clock.”
“Don’t say that,” she replied, not looking up.
“There’ll be enough time to finish putting the clothes on, but then we need to go. Mr. O’Banyon will want to lock up.”
“Don’t say that.” A bit tetchier in tone.
“You’re not quite ready to go yet, are you?”
“I got no time to play today.”
“Yes, well, perhaps tomorrow. We can leave the things as they are. I don’t think the boys’ll mind if we keep the dolls in here. Then you can pick up where you left off, if you come in tomorrow afternoon.”
Unexpectedly, I saw her lower lip tremble. She clutched the doll tightly between her hands.
“You’re really feeling bad about having to leave. I can see that.”
“I need to finish what I’m doing. I need more time!” Then, abruptly, Jadie burst into tears. Leaping up from the bench, she clutched the doll to her chest. “I need to make a place for her! I can’t go now. I need a place for her to be safe!” And with that, Jadie bolted off to the far side of the cloakroom and pressed herself face first into the corner.
Startled by the tears, as I’d never seen Jadie cry before, I rose from my chair.
Still clutching the
doll tightly, she darted away from me when I approached. “There’s no place for her to hide,” she wailed, frantically turning her head from side to side in search of concealment. “This is a dumb room. A dumb, stupid room. Where’s she going to hide in a dumb, stupid place like this? There’s no place, and I gotta find a place now, before I go!”
“Jadie, sweetheart—”
“You don’t understand!”
“Maybe I do,” I said, keeping my voice soft and reassuring. “And there are still a few minutes left. If you need to do something with the doll and it’ll only take a few minutes, I’m sure there’s time.”
A moment or two longer she watched me through teary eyes, then slowly she began to relax.
I smiled. “Come on, lovey. Finish what you want to do.”
Jadie slowly approached me. “I need to make a place for her,” she said softly, her cheeks still wet. “I want her to be warm and cozy.” Jadie glanced up at me, her expression almost one of embarrassment. “See, that’s why I put these clothes on her. ’Cause she’s always cold. And I was always telling her I’d get some warm clothes for her.”
“Yes.”
“But now I need a place for her.”
“How can I help?” I asked. “What kind of place do you have in mind?”
Jadie scanned the room. “That’s just it. There isn’t any place in here. It’s bare. And I don’t have time to make one for her before I got to go home.” The tremor of tears was in her voice again.
“You want some place to put the doll?”
“A warm place. But it’s got to be safe. She’s got to hide.”
I cast around the room. Jadie was right about there not being many hiding places in here. Then I glanced at the box of doll clothes. “What about in there?” I pointed. “Maybe you could make a good place down in the midst of the doll clothes for her.”
Standing silently beside me, Jadie considered the box a moment and then bent over it and felt into the thickness of clothes. She nodded.
I collected the other dolls and put them into the lid of the box, which was separate, while Jadie knelt and made a hole among the doll clothes. Tenderly, she laid the black-haired doll in and covered her all up, except for her face. “There you are,” she whispered. “All nice and warm.”
Rising, she contemplated the doll in the box; then, with great care, she began picking up the other dolls and placing them gently over the top, leaving the dark-haired doll’s face hardly visible. “She can breathe like that,” Jadie explained, as she arranged the other dolls. “I’ve left an air hole for her. But when anybody comes in here and sees this, they’re not going to know she’s there. They’ll think it’s just an old box of toys.” An anxious glance in my direction. “Won’t they?”
“I’m sure they will.”
“They won’t know she’s in there. She’ll be safe.” Jadie looked up. “And you’ll lock the door, okay?”
I began pulling on my jacket. “Yes, I’ll lock the door. I always do.”
This seemed to satisfy Jadie, and she went to get her own things.
Then, as we prepared to leave, I paused and picked up the lid to the doll clothes box. Gently, I placed it on the box.
“No!” cried Jadie.
“I’ll just put it on lightly, so that it doesn’t get separated from the box and get stepped on or something.”
“No. No, don’t put it on the box. She’d think she was being buried alive, if you put the lid on, and Tashee’s so afraid of that.”
Chapter Eight
For the next few days, Jadie didn’t come after school. One afternoon I was busy with a meeting; another was Reuben’s birthday and she’d been invited to his party; a couple more slipped by and she simply didn’t turn up. Then, on Friday, there she was.
As always, the first thing she did was lock the doors and test their security. The second was to run to the box of dolls, which was still sitting on the bench. “Where are you? Where are you?” she called anxiously, flinging off the dolls that lay on top. However, any anticipation I might have had about a continuation of the tender scenes from Monday was rudely dispelled when she jerked the dark-haired doll up from the box.
“Poopy pants!” she shrieked, then gathered all the dolls up in her arms and flung them down across the floor. “All these dolls got poopy pants. And you know what I’m going to do? I got to change them and get all this poop out. Shit. That’s what it is. Shit. Gonna get a big pile of shit right here.” She indicated a place on the bench. Sitting down on the floor, she began tugging the overalls off the dark-haired doll.
There was an unmistakably manic quality to her play. She yanked, jerked, shouted, and threw. The doll so tenderly put away on Monday was screamed at and flung around with the others.
“Did you poop your pants, too?” she inquired of one doll. “You did, did you? Well, let’s get the dish then.” Putting down the doll, Jadie glanced around quickly. “Where’s something I can use?” she asked absently, then jumped up. “There. That Play-Doh. Gimme that. I need it.” She pointed to a canister sitting on the far edge of my desk. I handed it to her. Prizing off the lid, Jadie returned to the dolls. “This is going to be the dolly’s shit.” She pinched off bits of dough and stuffed it into the doll’s underpants.
Her play did not include me. She wasn’t making any special effort to shut me out, but her comments were all to herself. I just happened to be in the same room.
The entire scenario revolved around dirty pants. Carefully, Jadie laid out all the boy and girl dolls and inserted Play-Doh feces into their underwear; then there was a big to-do about standing each doll up, peering down the back of the underpants, and discovering the contents.
“Oh, look! Have you done something shitty in your pants? Is there something there? Has everyone shat in their pants?” Over and over she went through this, with ever-increasing volume, until she was virtually shouting at the last doll. Then she took one of the small bowls from the doll-sized tea set in the box and began collecting the bits of dough from the underpants. “There. There. There,” she muttered each time she extracted some Play-Doh. “There’s plenty now. Look how much poop.”
Sitting silently at my desk, pen still in my hand, I watched with fascinated horror. There was an urgent, compulsive quality to her play which would have made any interjection from me an interruption, so I did nothing but watch.
Once she had all the Play-Doh out of the dolls’ underwear, she completely undressed them all and laid them out side by side on the bench. “Here. Here’s what’s going to happen now,” Jadie muttered to herself as she picked up the small bowl of Play-Doh feces. “Now you’re going to eat it.” Taking a piece of dough, she pushed it onto the doll’s mouth. When that didn’t satisfy her, she smeared it all over the eyes, nose, and face. “Eat it,” she demanded. “Eat it.”
“Why should they do that?” I inquired, enable to stay silent any longer.
Jadie must have forgotten about me entirely because, at the sound of my voice, she started violently, spilling most of the rest of the contents of the little bowl. Leaping up from where she’d been kneeling, she flung the bowl at me.
“Shit!” she cried. “Shit on you! That’s what it means. Shit on you!” And she tore off around the room in a frenzy, hitting against the benches, stumbling, leaping up again. “I’m going to get you now! I’m going to get you! I’m going to kill you now!” she shouted, but her words seemed directed more at thin air than at me.
On about her fourth circle around the room, she careered by my desk. Reaching out, she snatched the felt-tip pen from my hand. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” she continued to shriek. Bumping into the far wall, since the room really was far too small to run in, she whipped up the pen, and before I realized what she was doing, she had drawn several encircled crosses on the wall.
“Hey ho,” I said, jumping up. “I can’t let you do that, Jadie.”
“You can’t stop me!” And she continued to draw more.
“I can,” and I did, catching her b
y the arm and pulling her up close against me.
“You can’t. I can kill you,” she retorted and attempted to draw the cross with the circle around it on my skin, until at last I pinned her arm down and removed the pen. Jadie struggled violently for several moments, kicking and jerking to get free, but I held on, eventually enveloping her in a massive bear hug to the point where she could no longer move. Her hysterical screaming degenerated into sobs and we both sank wearily to the floor. Jadie wept, first from frustration at being unable to get free, then finally the desperate note disappeared and she just cried, pushing her face into the fabric of my blouse.
“I’m sorry,” she began to say through her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. Don’t worry about it.”
She reached to rub away the marks she’d made on my skin with the pen. When she couldn’t remove them, she brushed her fingers across her cheek and then tried to rub them out with her tears. The poignancy of this gesture affected me, and I pulled her closer.
“Don’t be upset. They’re just marks. They won’t hurt me.”
“I don’t want you to die. Don’t die.”
“It’s just felt-tip pen, Jadie. I can wash it off. Don’t cry about it.”
“Just don’t die. Please don’t die.”
I came away from school that night deeply unsettled. I don’t know if it was the intensity of what had happened or simply the unexpectedness of it, but I couldn’t leave the incident behind me at school the way I usually did with things that happened during the day. Under normal circumstances, I enjoyed living alone. The silent serenity of my apartment and the total lack of demands was a healthy contrast to my work; however, with its lack of distractions, my apartment was not a good place to take problems I couldn’t shake. So instead of going home that evening, I drove out to the supermarket-cum-drugstore on the edge of town to do some shopping. Even then, as I wandered up and down the brightly lit aisles, reading labels on the breakfast cereal and contemplating what flavor of cat food might tempt my confirmed mouse-eater away from things that required regurgitation on the carpet, I still couldn’t keep my mind from wandering back to Jadie.