A Child Lost

by Michelle Cox

  “Henrietta,” he said taking her hand in his. “Be serious. This is an awful place. I was here once on a case with the chief. Expect to see anything—filth, nudity, swearing, screaming. All manner of abuse, though I daresay they won’t parade it out in front of visitors.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have seen all of those things before, darling. But I thank you for the warning,” she said lightly.

  Clive did not respond. God, this was a mistake. Again, how had he gotten Henrietta into such a jeopardous situation? It had seemed like an innocent case, just something to do, really. Something to distract Henrietta. Drive out to Mundelein and find an errant cleaning woman. But somehow it had gotten more complicated, as usual, and now he was about to take her into fucking Dunning, of all places. He put his hand on his brow. And Elsie would be in tow, to make things worse. He hoped this Gunther had his wits about him, at least. It had been Henrietta’s idea to ask them to accompany them. When she had proposed it, saying that it would be less of a shock for Liesel, less frightening if Gunther were present when they finally found her, to explain and maybe translate, he had thought it a good idea. Now, however, with the foreboding brick building looming ahead of them, he was having second thoughts.

  “Where the hell are they?” Clive asked, looking impatiently at his wristwatch and then out the car window back toward Irving Park Road. An old-fashioned truck with a smashed headlight rumbled past them from somewhere deeper into the grounds, carrying what looked like a load of dirty laundry.

  Henrietta laid a hand on his arm. “Come on. Maybe they’re already inside, or maybe they’re delayed. At any rate, it’s no use sitting out here. Let’s go in. The sooner we find this woman, the sooner we can leave.”

  The entrance of the asylum sat behind a set of triple brick archways, accessed by a short flight of steps to the main doors, which looked to have been painted white once upon a time. Now, however, large patches of the dull, gray concrete beneath could be seen where the paint had worn away. As they ascended the steps, Clive felt the unmistakable beginning of a fit and nearly panicked. He could feel another one of his attacks brewing, and he fought desperately to control it, though a part of him knew it was hopeless. He hesitated at the door, trembling, causing Henrietta to glance over at him.

  “Are you all right, darling?” she asked, her voice one of concern. “You look white as a ghost!”

  “I’m fine,” he managed to answer and made himself reach for the door handle. He pulled on it and held it open for her, though the smell that escaped almost crippled him. The miasma of urine, feces, mold, and vomit took him immediately back to the war. Henrietta gently put a hand on his arm, and he struggled not to grab and crush it to his nose. Instead, he gave her what he hoped was a smile, though he suspected it came out as more a grimace. She turned her gaze from him, then, and stepped inside. Taking several deep breaths, he followed her.

  The room they found themselves in was a sort of shabby main lobby, which looked as though it may have once upon a time been the foyer of a grand estate, with its thick crown molding and large, wooden pocket doors. Like the steps outside, however, the walls had been painted white, though it appeared to be a job done long ago, as everywhere the paint was peeling and flaking, the broken bits and flakes of paint forming a trail which lay collecting along the baseboards and gathering in the corners. Likewise, to add to the room’s current state of negligence, several of the windows, which were barred, were cracked and dirty.

  Clive removed his hat and gripped it, trying to steady his shaking hands. The door had closed behind them, and a horrible, claustrophobic feeling began to creep over him, further setting off the wheels of panic. He could feel the sweat dripping down the back of his neck. It wasn’t just the smell that set him off—it was the noise. Not the sound of gunfire or shells, but the sound of low moans coming from one of the lobby corridors that paralyzed him completely. He tried to focus his gaze on the large wooden desk that sat in the center of the room, behind which stood two apparently frazzled nurses engaged in a heated discussion, but his vision was blurry.

  Mercifully, Henrietta glanced over at him again and seemed to immediately sense what was happening to him. Quickly, she threaded her arm through his and gripped his hand. “Take a deep breath,” she said quietly, leaning into him as she said it so no one could hear; not that anyone was listening anyway. He was tempted to bury his head in her chest, but he fought it. “You’re all right,” she whispered. “I’m here. You’re all right, darling. Here. Sit down, here,” she said, leading him to a couple of thick, scuffed chairs pushed forlornly up against the wall just inside the door.

  Clive slumped into a chair and closed his eyes.

  “Droppin’ off?” asked a voice from behind Henrietta. Clive opened his eyes to see a young man swimming before him. He was wearing a white, tunic-style top with white uniform pants and loosely brandished a clipboard and pencil, apparently ready to write down their information.

  “No, of course we’re not dropping off,” Henrietta said crisply as she turned to face him.

  “I just need a minute,” Clive said hoarsely.

  “Yes, of course, darling,” she said, not looking at him, but moving her body further so that Clive was completely blocked from the man’s view. “As a matter of fact,” she said stiffly, in her own splendid rendition of Antonia, “we’re here to visit one of your patients. Never mind him,” she commanded the orderly, who was still eyeing Clive carefully. “We are looking for a young woman by the name of Liesel Klinkhammer. How would we find her?”

  God, she’s marvelous, Clive thought.

  “Patient?” he asked.

  “Yes, a patient.”

  The young man did not say anything, but merely pointed his pencil toward the desk across the room. “Suit yourself, lady. But he don’t look too good,” he said, nodding at Clive.

  “He’s just getting over a particularly virulent flu and tires easily,” she said stiffly, which caused Clive to smile despite his condition. He tried to watch her as she marched across the room, but a wave of nausea overcame him and he had to close his eyes to try to stop the room from spinning. With shaking hands, he took out his handkerchief and placed it over his nose, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes again.

  Get a hold of the situation, he scolded himself; he had seen and heard much worse during his years on the force. Why was he having an attack now? It must be the combination of effects, he thought miserably, and continued to breathe deeply into his handkerchief. Not only did doing so block out the vile smell around him, but the cloth’s faint traces of tobacco and linen and the woodsy smell of his cologne calmed him. He kept his eyes closed and tried to imagine the trees around Highbury and the deeply calming Lake Michigan that butted up to Highbury. He tried to envision the waves gently lapping, tried to concentrate on the rhythmic sound he remembered from all of the years of his boyhood.

  “I’m looking for a Miss Liesel Klinkhammer,” Henrietta said to the frazzled nurse seated behind the big front desk. The other one seemed to have disappeared. “She’s a patient here, I believe,” Henrietta added.

  The nurse let out a sigh of impatience. “Recent?” she asked.

  “A couple of months ago. October maybe?”

  “That’s recent,” the nurse said, pulling out one of the thinner volumes of the massive ledgers stacked up behind the desk. Henrietta assumed that they had once been orderly, some of them still neatly tucked into the spot apparently assigned to them, but many had escaped and were stacked haphazardly on the desk and even the floor.

  The nurse opened the ledger and ran her finger down the columns for what seemed to be several minutes. Suddenly a loud screech came from the depths of the open corridor to the right, and Henrietta jumped at the sound of it. The nurse did not react at all, however, and continued running her finger down the columns. When the screech was heard again, the nurse looked over her shoulder for a brief moment and then slowly stood up, as if she thought perhaps she should go investigate, but her fin
ger and her eyes remained on the book in front of her.

  “Ah, here it is. Ward 3C. Upstairs. Joe can take you if you want,” she said without giving Henrietta a second look, instead turning quickly toward the corridor. She was in such a hurry that she nearly collided with another harried nurse coming from inside.

  “It’s Lichter again,” this one said. “Can you give me a hand?” Without responding, the desk nurse followed her back into the corridor, pulling the big wooden pocket doors shut behind her.

  Henrietta turned from the desk, then, and herself nearly collided with the same orderly who had addressed them moments before, and whom she assumed was the Joe the nurse had just mentioned.

  “Ward 3C yer wantin’?” he said, an annoying toothpick dangling from the corner of his mouth now. He had short, flaming orange hair with a face full of freckles.

  “Well, yes, thank you,” Henrietta said, “but we’re just waiting for some people to join us. My sister,” she added.

  “Ah! A regular tea party,” he grinned. “Or is it a search party?” he asked with a short laugh and strode off. “All right, sister. You let me know when yous want to go up,” he said, throwing himself into an abandoned chair by the desk and crossing his legs.

  Before Henrietta could respond to this, another of the doors across the room opened. An elderly man, unshaven and oddly dressed in what looked to be a thin hospital gown, cut off somehow to form a sort of top and dirty black trousers, slipped out. He had no shoes or socks, and Henrietta shivered at the thought of how cold he must be. Having quietly emerged, the man did not look at anyone in the room. His eyes were focused on the entrance doors, the obvious object of his current mission, and he slowly shuffled toward them. It took Joe only a minute to spot him. He had tipped the chair back on two legs so that it was leaning against the dirty wall behind him, but now he snapped it forward and jumped up, lunging toward the elderly, creeping man.

  “Hey, Bugsy!” Joe shouted. “Wheredya think yer goin’?” He grabbed him by the sleeve. “Get back in here, you old coot,” he said impatiently, pulling him back toward the doors from which he came. The man did not say anything or even react, but defeatedly allowed himself to be led. “How many damned times?” Joe said under his breath, holding the man with one hand and pulling open one of the doors with the other. “How do ya manage it?” he asked, pushing him through and following behind.

  Henrietta watched as the door swung shut behind them and took advantage of the moment alone afforded them to turn and look at Clive, who smiled up at her weakly.

  “Darling, are you okay?” she asked, trying to keep calm herself.

  Clive nodded. “Forgive me, Henrietta,” he said. “I shouldn’t be so weak. I know I should be stronger, but sometimes I . . . these attacks just come upon me, and I . . .”

  “Shhh,” she said, putting her gloved fingertip to his lips. “There’s no need.”

  Clive formed his lips into a kiss on her finger until she lowered her hand.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can just sit here, though,” he said. “I need to be doing something or I’m going to go crazy myself. Maybe Elsie isn’t coming,” he said, glancing over at the main doors. “Perhaps we should go up without them, at least initially, locate this Liesel and get on with it. The sooner we find her, the sooner we can sort this out and leave.”

  Henrietta considered this for a moment. Perhaps he was right, though she dreaded the thought of Elsie walking into this nightmare on her own. Gunther would be with her, though, she reasoned, and for Clive’s sake, she quickly decided it would be best to go on ahead. “Yes, I think you’re right,” Henrietta said, holding out her hand to help him up. “But are you sure, Clive?”

  “Yes, I’m quite recovered,” he said stiffly. “Now where did that orderly run off to?”’

  Henrietta contemplated whether she should go look for Joe beyond the doors he had disappeared behind, just as he conveniently burst forth from them alone, apparently having deposited the wandering Bugsy back where he belonged. Joe pulled down his tunic as he walked, as if he had just been in some sort of struggle. Brushing his hands against each other, he approached the two of them now.

  “Had enough of sittin’ there?” he said, grinning. “Thought ya would. What about yer sister?”

  “We’ll go on ahead. If they do arrive, please escort them. It’s a Mr. Gunther Stockel and a Miss Elsie Von Harmon.”

  “Got it. But I think I could probably figure out who they were without the names,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t get all that many visitors. Anyway, Ward 3C? Come on; this way,” he said, walking toward the set of double doors directly behind the desk. He pushed on one of the doors with his shoulder, and it easily swung open, revealing a long, low corridor beyond. Clive and Henrietta followed him through.

  “Infirmary,” Joe said casually, as they walked along. Henrietta could not help but peer into the various bedchambers that opened up every hundred feet or so, but there was nothing unusual about them. It resembled an ordinary hospital. She could see patients lying in bed or propped up in a chair. An occasional moan could be heard from time to time as they strode past, along with one shout for “nurse!”—but it was otherwise unremarkable, except for the overwhelming smell of urine mingled with a trace of excrement.

  “I say, man, do you always lead visitors through the infirmary?” Clive asked. “This is highly unsanitary.”

  “Not always, but this is the fastest way, and I’m in a bit of a hurry, if ya don’t mind.”

  Finally, they came to the end of the seemingly endless hallway, where sat a pale green metal door, which possessed several dents and scuffs and which likewise had its own share of peeling paint. Joe paused in front of it and fished into his pocket for a large ring of keys. Rifling through them with amazing speed and agility, he found the one he wanted and bent down to unlock the door before him.

  “This is a locked ward?” Clive asked.

  “At this end, yeah.”

  They stepped through the doorway into a small antechamber, not more than six feet square, which seemed to serve as a connection between one section of the asylum and another. There was a spiral staircase of rusty metal to the right, and straight ahead seemed to be another wing. As Joe bent to relock the door they had just come through, Henrietta tentatively peered into the next room through a small circular window that was cut into the door. She could see various patients, mingling about, slumped in chairs along the wall or lying on mattresses that lined the room’s corridor as far as she could see.

  “Their beds are in the hallway?” she asked Joe incredulously, turning to look back at him.

  Joe shrugged. “Ain’t no more room. Better a bed on that floor than under a bridge somewhere in the city where it’s freezin’. Head count always goes up here in winter. Peculiar, ain’t it?” he grinned. “Come on.” He started up the stairs. “Up we go.” He walked up a few steps before turning to look at them more closely. “Just why are yous here, anyways? Come to see the freaks? Or are you reporters?”

  “Of course, we’re not reporters!” Henrietta said. “We’re here to visit one of your patients, as I’ve said. Why would you think we’re reporters?”

  “’Cause ya look the type. And if yer not, then it don’t add up. You look like you’ve got money, and people who end up here don’t got no friends with money.”

  “What do you mean?” Henrietta said, a little breathless now that they had reached the third floor.

  “People with money don’t end up here, do they? If yer rich and crazy, people call you eccentric or something like that and yer relatives stick you away somewhere in yer big ol’ house and get some biddy to look after ya. But if yer poor and crazy, well, yer not so lucky then, are ya?” He bent to unlock the door at the top of the stairs, and Henrietta momentarily thought of Ma in light of Joe’s explanation. Could she be considered eccentric, or worse, crazy?

  “You can save us your speech,” Clive said crisply.

  “Well, sorry to have o
ffended, sir. Where’s me manners? You’d think we were in the loony bin, wouldn’t ya?”

  “Are all of these hallways locked?” Clive asked, ignoring him.

  “In this wing, yeah. But not in all of’em. Like the small buildings out back—those is fer melancholias. Depressives. Mostly women. Hysteria. Those ain’t locked.”

  “Are the patients in this ward really such a danger?” Henrietta said, nodding toward the door in front of them, wondering how and why Liesel would have been consigned here.

  “Nah. The really dangerous ones is down below. Basement level. These ones here,” he said, inclining his head. “Dangerous to themselves maybe. They’re the schizos. Loons. They try to shock’ em every so often. Usually does no good. But whadda I know?” he said, pulling the door open now. “This ward’s only women. Male schizos is on a different floor.”

  Clive went through first, with Henrietta gingerly stepping behind him. This ward was arranged differently from the other ones they had passed. It appeared to be set up to at least partially resemble a normal home. There was a common area in the center, delineated by a frayed rug, upon which sat a few ratty armchairs and two rocking chairs. A table stood in the center of these with a jigsaw puzzle on top of it, only partially completed. The unused pieces were strewn haphazardly about the tabletop, though Henrietta could see that several had fallen to the floor, and she had to resist the urge to go pick them up.

  The bulk of the furniture in the room, however, consisted of wooden, straight-backed chairs, which lined the walls beyond the “parlor” area and which were all occupied by patients, most of them staring blankly into space like so many worthless paint flakes, crushed and collecting along the walls in the lobby down below. The ones who hadn’t been lucky enough to get a chair this day leaned listlessly against the wall, some of them with their eyes closed, but some of them muttering to themselves or to an un-listening neighbor. At least it didn’t smell as bad up here.

  Henrietta could not help staring at them, though she tried not to make it obvious. Many were rocking slowly back and forth, as if they were in some sort of trance or meditation. One woman tapped the windowsill nervously with her fingers, and one was picking the skin on her arm, so much so that blood had been drawn. Overall, she noticed that most of them were not donned in hospital gowns but were dressed in normal clothing, though many of their ensembles were mismatched and either too big, or in other cases, too tight-fitting. Some had oddly shaved heads, so that they did not look like women at all save for their clothing.