‘I suffer no sense of devaluation by using makeup,’ she said crisply. ‘It cheers me up to look nice, and God knows it’s hard enough to be cheerful around you.’
He turned, blinking away the patch of clear sight, considering the blurs of distant foliage. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to maintain anger against her. Almost without his notice, as subtly as the spinning of a web, threads of his anger had been drawn loose and woven into another emotion. Its significance escaped him, but he thought that if he attempted to understand it, he would become more deeply ensnared.
‘I have a confession,’ she said. ‘I read through your notebook this morning. Some of the fragments were lovely…’
‘Why don’t you just look in the toilet after I go…’
‘… and I think you should finish them!’
‘… and see if my shit’s spelling out secret messages!’
‘I’m not trying to pry out your secrets!’ She threw down her magazine. ‘I thought if you had some encouragement, some criticism, you might finish them.’
Halting footsteps scraped on the path behind him, and a scruffy, gassed voice asked, ‘What’s happenin’, man?’
‘Good morning, Mr Richmond,’ said Jocundra with professional sweetness. ‘Donnell? Have you met Mr Richmond?’
Richmond’s head and torso swam into bleared focus. He had a hard-bitten, emaciated face framed in shoulder-length brown hair. Prominent cheekbones, a missing lower tooth. He was leaning on a cane, grinning; his pupils showed against his irises like planets eclipsing green suns.
‘That’s Jack to you, man,’ he said, extending his hand.
The hair’s on Donnell’s neck prickled, and he was tongue-tied, unable to tear his eyes off Richmond. A chill articulated his spine.
‘Another hopeless burn-out,’ said Richmond, his grin growing toothier. ‘What’s the matter, squeeze? You wet yourself?’
A busty, brown-haired woman came up beside him and murmured, ‘Jack,’ but he continued to glare at Donnell, whose apprehension was turning into panic. His muscles had gone flaccid, and unable to run, he shrank within himself.
The brown-haired woman touched Richmond’s arm. ‘Why don’t we finish our walk, Jack?’
Richmond mimicked her in a quavery falsetto. ‘ “Why don’t we finish our walk, Jack!” Shit! Here they go and stock this place with these fine bitches, and they won’t do nothin’ for you ‘cept be polite!’ He bent down, his left eye inches from Donnell’s face, and winked; even when closed, a hint of luminous green penetrated his eyelid. ‘Or don’t you go for the ladies, squeeze? Maybe I’m makin’ you all squirmy inside.’ He hobbled off, laughing, and called back over his shoulder. ‘Keep your fingers crossed, sweetheart. Maybe I’ll come over some night and let you make my eagle big!’
As Richmond receded, his therapist in tow, Donnell’s tension eased. He flicked his eyes to Jocundra who looked quickly away and thumbed through her magazine. He found her lack of comment on his behaviour peculiar and asked her about it.
‘I assumed you were put off by his manner,’ she said.
‘Who the hell is he?’
‘A patient. He belongs to some motorcycle club.’ Her brow knitted. ‘The Hellhounds, I think.’
‘Didn’t you feel…’ He broke off, not wanting to admit the extent of his fright.
‘Feel what?’
‘Nothing.’
Richmond’s voice drifted back from the porch, outraged, and he slashed his cane through the air. The rose-colored bricks shimmered in the background, the faceted dome atop the roof flashed as if its energies were building to the discharge of a lethal ray, and Donnell had a resurgence of crawly animal fear.
After the encounter with Richmond, Donnell stayed closeted in his room for nearly two weeks. Jocundra lambasted him, comparing him to a child who had pulled a sheet over his head, but nothing she said would sway him. His reaction to Richmond must have been due, he decided to a side effect of the bacterial process, but side effect or not, he wanted no repetition of that stricken and helpless feeling: like a rabbit frozen by oncoming headlights. He lay around so much he developed a bedsore, and at this Jocundra threw up her hands.
‘I’m not going to sit here and watch you moulder,’ she said.
‘Then get the fuck out!’ he said; and as she stuffed wallet and compact into a leather purse, he told her that her skin looked like pink paint, that twenty dollars a night was probably too high but she should try for it, and - as she slammed the door - that she could go straight to Hell and give her goddamn disease to the Devil. He wished she would stay gone, but he knew she’d be harassing him again before lunchtime.
His lunch tray, however, was brought by the orderly who sang, and when Donnell asked about Jocundra, he said, ‘Beats me, Jim. I can’t keep track of my own woman.’
Donnell was puzzled but unconcerned. Coldly, he dismissed her. He spent the afternoon exploring the new boundaries of his vision, charting minuscule dents in the wallpaper, composing mosaic landscapes from the reflections glazing the lens of the camera mounted above the door, and - something of a breakthrough - following the flight of a hawk circling the middle distance, bringing it so close he managed to see a scaly patch on its wing and an awful eye the color of dried blood and half filmed over with a crackled white membrane. An old, sick, mad king of the air. The hawk kept soaring out of his range, and he could never obtain a view of its entire body; his control still lacked discretion. It was a pity, he thought, that the visual effects were only temporary, though they did not suffice of themselves to make life interesting. Their novelty quickly wore off.
The orderly who brought his dinner tray was tanned, fortyish, with razor-cut hair combed over a bald spot and silken black hairs matting the backs of his hands. Though he was no more talkative than the singing orderly, Donnell suspected he could be drawn into a conversation. He flounced pillows, preened before the mirror, and took inordinate pleasure in rubbing out Donnell’s neck cramp. Gentle, lissome fingers. On his pinky he wore a diamond ring, an exceptionally large one for a person earning orderly’s wages, and Donnell, seeking to ingratiate himself, to learn about Jocundra, spoke admiringly of it.
‘It belonged to my grandmother,’ said the orderly. ‘The stone, not the setting. I’ve been offered eighteen thousand for it, but I held onto it because you never know when hard times might snap you up.’ He illustrated the snapping of hard times by pinching Donnell’s leg, then launched into an interminable story about his grandmother. ‘She had lovers ‘til she was sixty-seven, the old dear. Heaven knows what she did after that!’ Titter. He put on a dismal face. ‘But it was no picnic being raised by a dirty old woman, let me tell you.’ And he did.
Donnell had been hoping to weasel information about Jocundra during the course of the conversation, but the orderly showed no sign of allowing a conversation, and he was forced to interrupt. The orderly acted betrayed, said he had no idea where she was, and swept from the room with a display of injured dignity that evoked the angry rustle of taffeta.
Then it dawned on Donnell. She wasn’t coming back. She had deserted him. How could she just go without telling him, without arranging a replacement? Panicked, he wheeled out into the hall. As he headed for the foyer, hoping to find Edman, a ripple in the carpet snagged his wheels and canted him into one of the potted ferns; the brass urn toppled and bonged against the floor. The door beside it opened, and a thin blond woman poked out her head. ‘Shh!’ she commanded. She knelt by the fern, her nose wrinkling at having to touch the dirt. She had the kind of brittle prettiness that hardens easily into middle-aged bitchdom, and as if in anticipation of this, her hair was done up into a no-nonsense bun and tied with a dark blue ribbon.
‘Have you seen Jocundra?’ asked Donnell.
‘Jocundra?’ The woman did not look up, packing down the dirt around the fern. ‘Hasn’t she left?’
‘She’s left?’ Donnell refused to accept it. ‘When’s she coming back?’
‘No, now wait
. I saw her on the grounds after supper. Maybe she hasn’t gone yet.’
‘Laura!’ A querulous voice leaked out the open door; the woman wiggled all five fingers in a wave, a smile nicked the corners of her mouth, and she closed the door behind her.
It had been easy to tell Jocundra to leave when he had not believed it possible, but now he was adrift in the possibility, all solid ground melted away. He skidded down the ramp into the parking lot. The lanterns above the stone benches were lit, bubbles of yellow light picking out the blackness, and fireflies swarmed under the oaks. Toads ratcheted, crickets sizzled. She would be - if she hadn’t left - at the bench near the gate. The flagstones jolted the wheels, his chest labored, his arms ached, a sheen of sweat covered his face. Something flew into his eye, batted its wings, clung for a second and fluttered off. A moth. He crested a rise and spotted Jocundra on the bench. She wasn’t wearing makeup, or was wearing very little, and she looked hardly more than a girl. He had always assigned her the characteristic of sophistication, albeit of a callow sort, and so her youthfulness surprised him. Her melancholy expression did not change when she saw him.
‘I don’t want you to leave,’ he said, scraping to a halt a couple of feet away.
She laughed palely. ‘I’ve already left, I just went into New Orleans for the day.’ She regarded him with mild approval. ‘You made it out here by yourself. That’s pretty good.’
‘I thought you’d gone,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, not wanting to appear too relieved. ‘I didn’t much like the idea.’
‘Oh?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘Listen.’ He balked at apology, but gave in to the need for it. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve been an asshole.’
‘You’ve had good reason to be upset.’ She smoothed her skirt down over her knees, then smiled. ‘But you have been an asshole.’
‘Could it be my nature,’ he said, rankled.
‘No, you’re not like that,’ she said thoughtfully. She slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘Let’s go on in.’
As she wheeled him toward the house, Donnell felt strangely satisfied, as if some plaguing question had been put to rest. The fireflies pricking the dark, the scrape of Jocundra’s shoes, the insect noises, everything formed an intricate complement to his thoughts, a relationship he could not grasp but wanted to make graspable, to write down. Near the house another moth fluttered into his face, and he wondered - his wonder tinged with revulsion - if they were being attracted by the flickers in his eyes. He pinched its wings together and held it up for Jocundra’s inspection.
‘It’s a luna moth,’ she said. ‘There was this old man back home, a real Cajun looney. He’s blind now, or partially blind, but he used to keep thousands of luna moths in his back room and study their wing patterns. He claimed they revealed the natural truth.’ She shook her head, regretful, and added in a less enthusiastic voice, ‘Clarence Brisbeau.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Donnell loosed the moth and it skittered off, vanishing against the coal-black crowns of the oaks.
‘I was just remembering. He scared me once. He got drunk and tried to kiss me. I was only thirteen, and he must have been almost sixty.’ She stared after the moth as if she could still see it. ‘It was spooky. Stripes of light were shining between the boards of the cabin, dead moths on the floor, thousands clinging to the walls. Every time he gestured they fluttered off his arms. I remember him walking toward me, dripping moths, talking.’ She adopted an accent, like French, but with harsher rhythms. ‘“I’m tellin’ you, me,” he said. “This worl’ she’s full of supernatural creatures whose magic we deny.”’
Chapter 5
March 25 - April 17, 1987
‘Now don’t laugh, but I’ve been thinking about our patients in terms of spirit possession.’ Dr Edman folded his hands across his stomach and leaned back; the leather chair wheezed.
Jocundra was sitting across a mahogany desk from Edman in his office: a curious round room whose roof was the glass dome. Shafts of the declining sun struck through the faceted panes, and dust motes swirled idly like the thoughts of a crystal-skulled giant. Recessed bookshelves ringed the room - you entered by means of a stair leading up through a trapdoor - and the volumes were mired in shadow; though now and then the light brightened, crept lower on the walls, and the odd gilt word melted up from the dimness: Witchcraft, Psychologica, Pathology. A chart of the brain was tacked up over a portion of the shelves, and Edman had scribbled crabbed notes along arrows pointing to various of the fissures. The shelf behind his head held an array of dusty, yellowed human crania, suggesting to Jocundra that he was the latest in a succession of psychologist-kings, and that his own brain case would someday join those of his predecessors.
‘During a voodoo ritual,’ Edman continued, ‘the celebrants experience tremors, convulsions, and begin to exhibit a different class of behaviors than previously. They may, for example, show a fondness for gazing into mirrors or eating a particular food, and the houngan then identifies these behaviors as aspects belonging to one of the gods.’
‘There is a rough analogue…’ Jocundra began.
‘Bear with me a moment!’ Edman waggled a finger, summoning a thought. ‘I prefer to regard this so-called spirit possession as the emergence of the deep consciousness. A rather imprecise term, easily confused with Jung-ian terminology, but generally indicative of what I’m after: the raw force of the identity to which all the socialized and otherwise learned behaviors adhere, barna-cling it with fears and logical process and so forth, gradually masking it from the light and relegating it to a murky existence in the…’ He smacked his head, as if to dislodge an idea. ‘Ah! In the abyss of forethought.’ He scribbled on his notepad, beaming at Jocundra. ‘That ought to wake up the back rows at the next convention.’ He leaned back again. ‘My thesis is that we’re stimulating spirit possession by microbiological means rather than hypnogogic ones, elevating the deep consciousness to fill the void created by the dissipation of learned behaviors. But instead of allowing this new and unfocused identity to wander about at will for a few hours, we educate and guide it. And instead of a houngan or a mama loi to simply proclaim the manifestation, we utilize trained personnel to maximize their potential, to influence their growth. Of course if we had a mama loi on the staff, she’d say we had conjured up a god.’ He chuckled. ‘See what I’m after?’
‘It’s hardly a scholarly viewpoint.’ Jocundra found the idea of playing voodoo priestess to Donnell’s elemental spirit appealing in the manner of a comic book illustration.
‘Not as such! Still, a case might be made for it. And wouldn’t it be a surprise package if we learned there were exact correlations between personality types and the voodoo pantheon!’ Edman pursed his lips and tapped them with his forefinger. ‘You must be familiar with anthropological studies in this area… Any input?’
‘Well,’ said Jocundra, unhappy at having to supply grist for Edman’s mill, ‘the voodoo concept of the soul has some resonance with your thesis. According to doctrine all human beings have two souls. The ti bon ange, which is more or less the conscience, the socialized part of the mind, and the gros bon ange, which is the undying part, the immortal twin. It’s been described as the image of a man reflected by a dark mirror. You might want to read Deren or Metraux.’
‘Hmm.’ Edman bent to his notepad. ‘Tell me, Ms Verret. Do you like Donnell?’ He cocked an eye toward her, continuing to write. ‘You must have some personal reaction.’
Jocundra was startled by the question. ‘I think he’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘You’ve seen his work.’
‘It seems quite competent, but that’s not what I’m driving at. Suppose Donnell wasn’t your patient, would you be attracted to him?’
‘I don’t believe that’s relevant,’ she said defensively. ‘Not to the project or…’
‘You’re right, of course. Sorry.’ Edman took another note and favored her with a paternal smile. ‘I’m just an old snoop.’
‘I’m concerned for h
im, I’m not happy he’s going to die.’
‘Please! Your private concerns are just that. Sorry.’
Edman opened a file drawer and rummaged through it, leaving Jocundra a little flustered. The sun was going down, staining the faceted panes to ruby, empurpling the shadows along the wall, and these decaying colors -augmented by the glutinous sound of Edman’s breath as he bent over the file, taxed by even this slight exertion - congealed into a perverse atmosphere. She felt soiled. His question had not been idle curiosity; he was constantly prying, hinting, insinuating. Her opinion of him had always been low, but never so low as now. She pictured him alone in the office, entertaining fantasies about the therapists, fondling himself while watching videos of the patients, feeding upon the potential for sickness which the project incorporated.
At last he unbent, his pale face mooning above the desk. ‘The microbiology people think Magnusson’s the key…’ He paused, his attention commanded by a clipping in a manila folder; he clucked to himself and closed it. ‘Did you know they’ve been letting him work on material related to the bacterial process?’
‘Yes, Laura told me.’
‘Ah! Well, he is important. But because of Donnell’s youth, his human focus, it’s possible he’s going to give us a clearer look into the basis of consciousness than even Magnusson. Now that he’s in harness it’s time to lay off the whip and break out the sugar, although’ - Edman fussed with papers - ‘although I wonder if it isn’t time for another forced interaction.’
‘He’s working so smoothly now, I’d hate to disrupt him… and besides, he didn’t react well to Richmond.’
‘None of them react well to Richmond!’ Edman laughed. ‘But I keep thinking if we could override this fear reaction of theirs, we might proceed by leaps and bounds. Even Richmond seems reluctant for intimate confrontation. He enjoys facing down his own fear, but his contacts are kept on the level of ritual aggression.’
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