The Mystery of Right and Wrong

by Wayne Johnston

  “The next evening, just after dinner, the doorbell rang. I answered it and there was Nancy’s sixteen-year-old boyfriend. He said he wanted to speak with Dad. I told him Dad was out, which was true, but I would have said that anyway because I knew what he was there for. When he told me that Nancy had told him what had happened the night before, I told him he shouldn’t be going around making accusations he couldn’t prove. I told him that Nancy was not welcome at our house anymore and that he better not show up at our house again. And then I slammed the door in his face and locked it. I looked out the window to make sure that he went away, that he drove off and wouldn’t be waiting for Dad when he came home.

  “When I turned around, my mother was standing in the front hall. I can’t describe the expression on her face. ‘You did exactly the right thing, Rachel,’ she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. ‘You handled that just right. I’m so proud of you. There’s no need to tell your sisters or your father about it. They would only get upset with Nancy.’ Father’s little helper. That’s what I was that day.”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself for that. You were a child. And if that’s the worst that Hans did—”

  “I knew what I was doing.”

  “But he didn’t actually do anything to you or Nancy.”

  “No. But you sound as if you wouldn’t stick around long if I said he did. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Erase that last sentence. I wouldn’t blame you if you walked away this second, all things considered.”

  “Rachel, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You see, we were raised to believe that, whatever happened, we were all to blame for it. My sisters and I, we circled the wagons, not just for him, or her, but for ourselves. I’m thinking about some things now that never did make sense. Dad took Bethany away one summer when he went to the mainland to teach a course to make extra money, as Mom explained it. Why didn’t he just teach a summer course in St. John’s? There were more extra courses available in the summer than at other times of year. He could have taught two or three courses if he wanted to. But my mother pretended that it made perfect sense. He had Bethany all to himself for the summer in a house that he rented, thousands of miles away from home. When Bethany came back, she told me she’d been bored to death. She said she went visiting with him on Sunday afternoons and played the charming daughter to the hilt. Another summer, he took Gloria away with him to Montreal, and once, he took Carmen to Vancouver. He told Mom that he wanted them to see the world—his daughters who were born in South Africa, had been to other parts of Africa and to various cities in Europe and to England—he wanted them to see the world. My mother said it was a good idea for one of us to go with him to keep him from getting lonely. It’s so absurd, all of it, but we acted as if it made perfect sense. My turn to spend a summer with him never came. I don’t remember why.”

  “It does sound odd,” I said, “but none of it proves anything. The Bare Area strikes me as odd, but it doesn’t prove anything.”

  She went on as if she hadn’t heard me. “And look at us, the four of us girls: we’re all so screwed up. One with anorexia and suicidal; one a drug addict; one a nymphomaniac or something; one the Anne Frank Freak. That doesn’t prove anything—yeah, right. It might all just be owing to cultural displacement? That’s what my parents put it all down to. An eternity of Sunday afternoons spent visiting near-total strangers. What in God’s name was that all about?”

  She had been so measured, controlled, assertive. But that seemed to have been a disguise that she was shedding piece by piece.

  As if she had abruptly realized the effect on me, she stopped speaking, darted a glance at me, looked away, glanced at me again. “Jesus,” she said. “You must think I’m a fruitcake. Forget everything I said. I can’t remember most of it myself. I’m just…so upset about Bethany. Don’t worry about me. Please don’t worry about me. Dad never laid a hand on me, never. It’s not the kind of thing that I’d forget, especially if he was still doing it. And please don’t tell your parents that anything is wrong. They would only worry, being so far away. Especially don’t say anything about Dad.”

  “I won’t say anything to Mom and Dad, at least until I know what’s going on.”

  Tears began to stream down her face. “I don’t mean to sound so vague, so full of riddles. All I meant was that, if Dad was ever caught red-handed doing something, Mom would expect us to pretend it never happened. I’m doing the best I can, Wade.”

  We hugged for a long time, but even as I was holding her, I remembered the way Hans acted when he’d dropped in on my parents unannounced and saw my sisters. Had there even been a minute when, as Myra engaged us in conversation, he had slipped away? I felt a flash of panic, but then assured myself that he had not been out of my sight for a second.

  That night, Rachel wrote in her diary and read Het Achterhuis as usual, and I read the Cape Times. When the phone rang, Rachel rushed to answer it. “Hi,” she said. I could tell by her tone and the look on her face that it was Bethany. A couple of minutes later, without having said another word, she said, “Okay, we’ll—” She looked at me. “She hung up. She said Clive called her after he left here this afternoon and told her that he spoke with you. She wants us to visit her tomorrow.”

  “Us?”

  “You and me,” she said.

  “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” I said.

  She crossed the room and pulled me to her as if I was all that was keeping her from falling off a cliff.

  RACHEL

  The next day, we drove partway up the slope of Devil’s Peak to the hospital, a sprawling, white Cape Dutch building with a central observatory tower. Above the hospital, the peak was shrouded in fog that sometimes parted to allow a glimpse of sky that was even more intensely blue than the sky above St. John’s.

  “The hospital is called Groote Schuur,” I said. “That’s Dutch for ‘Great Barn.’ It used to be a barn, back when the cape was first settled by the Dutch.”

  Wade nodded, though he was crouching to get a better look at Devil’s Peak, which, as we drew closer to it, seemed to grow steeper, the slope scattered with massive boulders that looked as if they might at any moment continue their long-stalled tumble down the mountain. “This must be a spooky place at twilight,” he said.

  Neither of us could bear to talk about the reason for our trip.

  * * *

  —

  Bethany’s ward looked even more like a psychiatric ward than the one that I’d been in: windows reinforced with thick wire mesh; chairs and tables, their edges rounded, bolted to the floor; the walls bare and painted the same green as the male nurse’s uniform. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Bethany, also clad in green, her stick-like arms bare almost to her shoulders, was sitting alone at one of the tables and noticed my look of dismay as I surveyed the visiting room. “It’s better than the padded cell just down the hall,” she said. “I look quite fetching in a straitjacket, I must say, though it took them a while to find one in my size.” She held up her left hand. “See, no engagement ring. I’m not sure where it is. I might have swallowed it. Just kidding. I left it in my chest of drawers.”

  But for us and the nurse, the visiting room was empty. The nurse, a blond, burly fellow, stood with his hands joined in front of him, his back against the wall, staring off into space.

  “Wade and Rachel,” Bethany said, drum-rolling her hands on the table. “Meet Terse the Nurse. Terse, Wade and Rachel.” The blond man nodded and smiled at us as if he was well accustomed to Bethany by now.

  “How are you, Bethany?” I said.

  “Well, I’m dying for a cigarette but I’m not allowed to have one. Apparently, they’re bad for your health, especially if you poke one in your eye, which they seem to think I would do. I’ve been suicide-proofed. They won’t even let me have a plastic spoon. And how are you, Rachel, my ever-effervescent sister?”

  I sat in the cha
ir nearest her, Wade directly opposite her.

  “I’m worried about you,” I said.

  “You look like you haven’t slept in quite some time, Rachel,” she said. She took hold of my left hand and turned it over. “Ah. You’ve been writing your diary. A lot. Living in Arellia? Pay attention, Wade. I told you the signs. See, she has a very dark ink stain on the underside of her left hand. Very dark.”

  “I always forget to wash it off.”

  “It gives you away. At least to people who don’t pretend not to notice it. And you don’t forget to wash it off. If you washed it off every day, you’d have no skin left on your hand. Remember the glove you used to wear—”

  “I’ve been open with Wade about writing in the diary,” I said as he stared at the evidence of my worsening obsession.

  Bethany shook her head slowly. “You can’t fool me, Raitch.”

  “I do know about the diarizing,” Wade said.

  “My sister is a pro like me, Wade,” Bethany said. “You’re being played. Haven’t you noticed that she hasn’t been in bed for most of the past few nights?”

  Wade stared at me. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he saw the truth in mine.

  “Uh-oh,” Bethany said. “Is there no joy in Bedville anymore?”

  “Look, Bethany,” I said, pulling my hand from hers and smacking it on the table. “I didn’t try to kill myself. I don’t have the advantage of being on God knows how many kinds of drugs. I should be the one interrogating you.”

  “Well, I just hope you’re not visiting Arellia because of me.”

  “You know it doesn’t work like that.” I felt Wade’s eyes on me, but I looked at her as I spoke. “Arellia’s this place I made up when I first got sick. You know, from Arellian. When I was unplugged, so to speak, I thought I lived in a place called Arellia. Or so the doctors said. I don’t remember it. And apparently, I shouldn’t have told my sister about it, since she clearly can’t keep a secret.”

  Wade reached across the table and put his hand on my arm. “Let’s concentrate on why we’re here.”

  “Yes,” Bethany said, “let’s do that. I’ve been rude. Let’s have a chat.”

  When Wade withdrew his hand, I folded mine on the tabletop so as to hide the smudge of ink. Bethany’s eyes were sunken and darkly shadowed. She looked at Wade, raising her eyebrows. “So, buddy boy, how are you holding up? This is not what you signed on for, is it? People killing each other with screwdrivers. A night at the Porn Palace of the Twelve Apostles. Hans van Hout’s discourse on the awfulness of Jews. The racial and sexual politics of the beach at Clifton. And now this. Deathany returns.”

  I could think of nothing to say, so I smiled.

  “Just trying to lighten the mood,” Bethany said. “I am sedated, as my sister pointed out.” Then she lowered her head and began to cry. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. She drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I phoned Mom and Dad this morning. Sedation gives you courage. I told Dad what I told Clive. He didn’t deny anything. He didn’t admit to anything. In fact, he didn’t say anything. He just handed the phone to Mom. ‘You’ve had a bit of a setback, dear,’ Mom said. ‘Too much excitement all at once, getting engaged and everything.’ It seems that setbacks are rampant among the van Houts. I told her that Clive and I were no longer engaged, and she said, ‘Perhaps, when you’re feeling better, you’ll change your mind.’ She said I shouldn’t try so hard at everything. She actually asked me to give her love to Clive. She put Dad back on the phone, and Dad asked me if I would help him with the new accounting textbook that he’s writing. He said he’s going to need someone to put the books in boxes and send them off to universities.”

  “That’s all he said?” I almost shouted.

  “That’s all he said. Nothing else. I was crying, but his voice never changed a bit.”

  “Well, they were forewarned about your accusations by the DeVrieses,” I said. “They had time to prepare themselves.”

  “Jesus,” Wade said. He stood, put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walked a few steps away from the table, then stood with his back to us.

  “Are you all right?” I said. He nodded but didn’t turn around. “None of this surprises me,” I said to Bethany. “It makes sense.”

  “Well,” Bethany said, “it surprised the shit out of me, let me tell you. Maybe if I hadn’t cried, maybe if I’d just stayed calm, Dad wouldn’t have thought the time was right to ask me to do some work for him. As far as they’re concerned, nothing I said is on the record. I mean, as far as they’re concerned, I didn’t say it.” Tears continued to stream down her face.

  Wade turned around. “None of this is your fault, Bethany. It’s not Rachel’s fault, or Carmen’s or Gloria’s.”

  “Wade, you are in uncharted territory, and I am not talking about South Africa. You are in way over your head.”

  He came back to the table and sat down. He looked close to tears.

  “I don’t remember him doing anything to me,” I said. “He never laid a hand on me and that’s the truth.”

  Bethany nodded but rolled her eyes.

  “I mean, I believe you,” I said. “It seems like he must have done something to you, but I don’t remember him doing anything to me. Maybe I repressed it or something?”

  “You said yesterday that he didn’t do anything to you, period,” Wade said. “You didn’t say anything about repression.”

  “It’s the same thing, if you think about it,” I said. “If you completely forget something, you’re sure it never happened. I wasn’t trying to mislead you.”

  “How could you forget something like that?”

  “Over here, you two, over here,” Bethany said, tapping her sternum with her index finger. “When you leave, all I’ll have is Terse the Nurse, so please speak to me.”

  I leaned to stroke her cheek and brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “I love you, sweetie,” I said, and began to cry. “I’m so sorry. So sorry you’re here and that Dad reacted the way he did and that you made another attempt and—”

  “Wade,” Bethany said, “I think my sister could use your arm around her right now.”

  I couldn’t help resenting Bethany for telling him I needed to be held, so, when he came to me, I shook him off. He backed away and began to pace.

  “Four girls,” he said, stopping behind Bethany. “Four sisters, and none of you have ever talked to each other about your father before?”

  “Out of the mouth of a babe,” Bethany said. “But what would you expect? I mean, if Gloria had spoken out—well, at what age should she have spoken out? When she was five? Ten? The longer it goes on, the more ashamed you feel, because you think it’s your fault, that you did something to make him do what he did. You think there’s something wrong with you, not him. And he knows that, so he blames you to make you keep your mouth shut. What kind of girl would make her daddy do such things? Heaven help you, not him, if your mother finds out. So you wind up alone. You’re worthless but you pretend you’re not. You become very good at hiding and pretending. So no, Wade, we didn’t talk to each other, or tell our mother, or our friends.”

  “Don’t speak for me,” I said. “And you might want to cut Wade some slack.”

  Bethany folded her arms and nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s just—” Her lips quivered. “I’m told I’m going to be sick for a long time before I get better. You don’t just try to kill yourself one day and go back to being normal the next. It’s hard to give up everything and then change your mind, you know? It is. It’s hard to cross that line and then come back. Once you convince yourself you’d be better off dead, it’s hard to get going again. Everything seems different when you cross that line. This is my fourth attempt now, not my second. There were two others that no one in the family knows about. Every time I decide to do it, I feel so relieved. It’s like this great weight has been lifted
off my shoulders. I used to think—I still think—that people who off themselves die in despair. But they don’t—you feel hopeful for the first time in a long while. Because you’re escaping. The pain will soon be gone, and maybe there is another world that’s nicer than this one, an afterlife where you can start again. I’m still on the afterlife side of the line. You guys seem very far away, over there. Or maybe it’s just the drugs.”

  She put her hands over her face, then dropped them to the table. “Packing boxes with textbooks.” She stood and leaned on the table toward us.

  The nurse made a step in our direction, but I held up my hand. “She’s fine, we’re fine,” I said.

  “Sit down, Bethany,” the nurse said.

  She shot him a look of scorn. “A world in which your father answers your accusation of abuse by asking for your help with his next textbook is the one I’m supposed to go back to? The one the doctors are preparing me for? Well, I don’t think so. I don’t want what this doctor of mine keeps calling a second chance, as if I screwed up the first one.”

  “Sit down,” the nurse said.

  Bethany sat and folded her arms, her chin on her chest, eyes downcast, but she kept talking. “When I asked the doctor if he believed me about Dad, he said, ‘I believe that you believe it,’ which is his way of saying I’m delusional. He said that, as far as Dad is concerned, no one has any evidence on which to prove it one way or the other. ‘All that matters to us, right now,’ he said, ‘is that you believe it and it made you try to hurt yourself.’ Maybe they assume you’re nuts if you try to kill yourself. I mean, why, if you weren’t nuts, would you try to kill yourself?”

  She met my eyes. “Do you think that’s the way they look at it? Some doctors see anorexia as a slow kind of suicide. I hope you don’t run into one of them while you’re here. We might wind up sharing a room if you tell them you believe Dad never laid a hand on you. How could anyone think he did to you what he did to me when you’re perfect in every way except for that smudge of ink you’re hiding? Don’t you think she’s perfect, Wade? I’ve never been in love, but I’m told that love is blind.”