Catherine House

by Elisabeth Thomas

  I walked to his window and peered down at the Molina courtyard. I liked viewing the courtyard from different angles. It made me feel like I was someone completely different, seeing things in a completely different way. Theo’s window was obscured by the leaves of a fig tree. I could barely make out the benches, painted tiles, and stone fountain.

  As I turned from the window, a flash of color caught my eye. Something slipped behind the radiator. I fished it out.

  It was a photograph. A stiff, older black woman sitting on a pink couch, her shoulders strained in a way that made me think she was in pain. The coffee table in front of her was cluttered with tea candles, Minnie Mouse figurines, a wobbling stack of cassettes, a dirty cereal bowl and spoon. Her face was tough, her eyes wide and frank in a way I instantly recognized. She must have been related to Theo. His grandmother, probably.

  And there he was, in the background, in graying socks, frying something up on a creaky old stove. He was sticking out his tongue and winking at the camera. His legs were knob-kneed and skinny.

  I stared at the photograph for a long time before slipping it back behind the radiator.

  The summer drawled on.

  There was a hole in my bedroom window screen. Every night I was startled awake by a sudden horrible mosquito drone by my skull. By morning, everything itched. I scratched until I was red and puffy all over.

  I did catch a mosquito, once. I was alone, lying awake in the pale morning light, and saw it land on the wall by my bed. It stood, legs arched, so silent and still, waiting. I smacked it dead.

  *

  Baby died on the hottest day of the summer, a day so hot the third-years upstairs decided they couldn’t take it anymore; they were going to break into the baths. Yaya overheard their plan: The rooms, down in the Harrington basement, were still roped off, but apparently the pools had been filled and chlorinated days ago. The administration was waiting for some final inspection, but the construction workers were gone. No one was watching.

  After dinner, Yaya and I crept together through the halls. We went down the stairs, through a snaking shadowed hall, slipped beneath a construction rope, and opened the door to the baths.

  I felt I had crept into a mountain, into some dank palace grotto built by gnomes. The low ceilings were ribbed with hundreds of tiles that arched over a grand green expanse of pool and, on the other side of the room, a steam bath. Naked students splashed in the water, laughing and kissing and drifting around one another with wine bottles held aloft. The air was heavy with humidity and the overwhelming smell of chlorine.

  I peeled off my T-shirt and jeans and slipped into the pool. At first the water shocked my bare skin. But soon it felt luxuriously smooth and cool.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes. I floated.

  Someone tapped my shoulder. I opened my eyes. Yaya gestured her bottle of wine to me.

  Hours later, I walked alone back to Molina, my brain dully buzzing. Through the fog, I heard voices echo from down the hall.

  I turned into the parlor.

  Our grade dean, M. David, stood there with Anna and one of our few international students, a tiny strawberry-curled girl named Paola. A lamp was on, its yellow glow weak in the dawning daylight. Anna and Paola must have been up all night studying. Their Modern Philosophy books and notes were strewn across the table, the notes now forgotten. Paola was holding her hand pressed against her mouth. M. David, dressed in a full suit, stood with his arms folded tight to his chest.

  The three of them turned to me as I came in.

  M. David glanced at his watch. “It’s four-thirty in the morning,” he said. “You should go back to sleep.”

  “I wasn’t asleep,” I said.

  Anna said, “You have to tell her.”

  M. David shot Anna a glare. She didn’t flinch. Her eyes were shining and her hair was frizzed up at the crown. She looked too tired and sad to be intimidated.

  “She was her roommate,” Anna whispered.

  “What happened,” I said, “to Baby?”

  M. David sighed.

  “We planned to talk to you all in the morning,” he finally said. “I didn’t mean to run into … I didn’t want any of you to find out like this.”

  He dropped his arms.

  “Barbara has passed away,” he said. “Her—she was found in the tower yesterday.”

  Birds were chittering in the fig trees outside.

  “I don’t understand,” Paola gasped. Her face was wet with tears. “She was in the tower. She should have been safe, no?”

  “When someone chooses to go,” M. David said slowly, “nothing can be done to stop them.”

  “She murdered herself.” Paola hiccupped a sob.

  “He’s not going to tell us,” Anna said. She wasn’t crying. Her voice was steady and low. “He’s not going to tell us anything.” She looked at M. David. “You fucked up.”

  “Miss Montgomery,” M. David snapped. “The circumstances of Barbara’s death are a private matter—”

  “This isn’t private, this is a school—” Anna began, but M. David continued, louder:

  “I do wish the news hadn’t come out like this, but now that it has, I hope you will respect Barbara’s family’s wishes during this difficult time and refrain from such prurient speculation.”

  Anna’s cheeks were still flushed, but she didn’t look angry. She looked hurt.

  “Ines,” M. David said, turning to me. “We will want to meet with you tomorrow.” He blinked three times. “I can only imagine this will be quite disruptive for the Molina community, for you especially. I imagine … you must have been quite close.”

  He blinked again.

  “Yes,” I said.

  M. David kept talking. He said something about counseling sessions, a memorial, gathering her things. I didn’t hear most of it. I just watched his face as I waited for him to finish.

  When he did, I went to the bathroom. I peed. Then I went back to the room I had shared with Baby.

  Her bed was made, its pale coverlet stark in the now-brilliant dawn. Her papers were still there, arranged in neat piles. Her shoes were lined up by the door. Her closet was closed. The only thing out of place was her brush, out on her desk. A tangle of dark, intimate hair was still there, caught in its plastic bristles.

  *

  One of the images we had to memorize for my American Photography course was a print of a young boy astride a stallion in a desert landscape. The boy’s mouth was set in a determined frown, his arm tense with power as it grasped the rein. The sunset behind him was wild and courageous. A simple portrait of the heroic American West.

  But as I’d stared at the portrait, I’d noticed something: The boy’s other hand, the one not holding the rein, rested on his thigh. It seemed he hadn’t known what to do with it. He was picking at his cuticle. He was just a boy.

  Cameras were forbidden at Catherine. At first I thought this was to maintain the house’s privacy and isolation; the administration wouldn’t have wanted the New York Times style section running some silly snapshot of our great hall or auditorium. Now I saw it was more than that. Photographs, in their honesty, would have captured the house’s specifics—the peeling wallpaper and dirty wineglasses—but missed the smell of the garden in June. Photographs would flatten it all into real, dull detail, and Catherine didn’t want detail. Catherine wanted glamour.

  I wished I had a picture of Baby, though, the way Theo had one of his grandmother. Maybe one of her examining Billie Jean, peering at him in that shrewd way of hers, poking at his tentacle. Or her studying in bed, feet propped up on the headboard. I didn’t care what she was doing as long as there was something that was real about it, something I didn’t quite expect. Maybe the shape of her nose had been different than I thought, or she had flexed her toes in a way I didn’t remember.

  Because Baby had been bigger than me. She wasn’t mine. She wasn’t anyone’s.

  Days passed and people said nice things about her. She was such a good student and fr
iend; what a pity it was that her life ended so tragically, so soon. And I, too, crafted my own story of her short life and death, the sad plot points that led to this somehow self-evident end.

  But that wasn’t right. Her life wasn’t a story, and it didn’t have to end this way. She was a girl. She was real. It was true.

  *

  Baby’s memorial was held on Friday in the Molina parlor. All of the Molina first-years were there, leaning against walls and squeezing four to a sofa. A few of her professors came, too, and students from other halls, some upperclassmen. Some of them I didn’t even recognize.

  Why were they here? They hadn’t known Baby. No one knew Baby.

  I didn’t sit with anyone. I stood by the door, hugging my stomach.

  Lukewarm cups of tea and plates of cookies drifted around the room. Porcelain clinked.

  Paola was sitting on the floor, leaning forward with an eager tilt. She wiped her face with a crumpled tissue. Her mouth was buckled in a silent sob. Her eyes roved the room before squeezing out a few more tears.

  A plate of pastries arrived in front of me. I picked an empire biscuit with a glacé cherry.

  The vase on the mantel held a bouquet of long-stemmed lilies. The bruised blooms drooped with the heat. Their extravagant fragrance intoxicated me.

  Viktória sat in one of the armchairs, legs crossed, hair brushed behind her ears. Her face, so exposed, looked frank and drawn. Something was different about her eyes today. Whatever it was, she seemed younger.

  She had been staring down at a slip of paper on her lap, idly turning her ring around her finger. Now she laid the paper on the side table and looked up. The parlor quieted.

  “We’re here today,” Viktória said, “to honor the memory of Barbara Pearce—Baby—our dear child.”

  Viktória wasn’t wearing mascara. That’s what was different. Her eyes looked tired, naked.

  Paola sniffled theatrically.

  Someone tried to pass me a teacup, except I was still holding the biscuit. I hadn’t eaten any of it. I set it down to take the teacup. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Baby represented the best of Catherine,” Viktória said. “She was creative, diligent, and rapaciously intelligent. She was a beloved classmate and friend. Her professors, two of whom will speak today, were endlessly impressed by her thoughtful scholarship and dedication to her work. She had big dreams. She aspired to devote her life to the study of new materials, of plasm. She wanted to stand on the frontier of our future world, to pioneer new ways of relating to our bodies, our minds, and our environments. There is no doubt in my mind that she could have done it. I truly believe she had the heart and the intellect to change the course of history. But every girl, every boy, every woman and man, everyone has a private struggle that is sometimes too much to bear. Baby hurt. And so now … we hurt.”

  Viktória touched her heart. Her nails were unpolished.

  “We hurt,” she said, “because we miss her. This is understandable, of course. But it is not necessary. Because Baby doesn’t hurt anymore. She is home now, truly home. Yes, in some ways she is gone. But she is also everywhere. She is in our windows and trees and walls. She is with us in the library, and in the dining halls as we eat our desserts. She is everywhere in this house, in everything. I believe that. I do.”

  Viktória’s fingers clutched at her heart, eyes lowered.

  “I can feel her,” she whispered. “Here.” She opened her eyes. “Can’t you?”

  I looked down at the cup. The tea had been over-steeped. It was so dark it looked almost like blood.

  *

  I spent the last stunningly hot days before finals alone in the library. I wrote long lists of artists, stared at textbook images of photographs, and memorized dates. Lewis Hine, 1910. Frederick Sommer, 1943. I wiped sweat off my neck. I rewrote my class notes for Japanese Prints and German again and again. When I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, I napped on the library floor, underneath a desk. Then I crawled right back out and opened my books again. I studied until I was stupid.

  After lurching through finals, I returned to what had once been our shared bedroom for the first time in days.

  Baby’s bed was stripped bare, her desk emptied. Her dresser had been cleaned out. Everything of hers was gone.

  I sat on my bed.

  How could Viktória feel Baby here?

  None of us at Catherine had seen her body before it was taken away. Did her parents get to see her one last time? Did they arrange for an open casket? Her family must have organized a funeral. One in a nice church, with a sermon and singing and a reception in the basement serving fruit punch, pound cake, and macaroni and cheese. All of her family and friends and old teachers would be there, remembering what she was like when she was a cheery little girl. They would touch her hand as they bent over the casket to say goodbye.

  At lunch and dinner, I heard students whispering, wondering what had really happened to Baby. If she killed herself in the tower, how had she done it? Did she hang herself with a bedsheet? Someone’s cousin knew a boy who had hanged himself with a bedsheet. It could be done.

  I didn’t care. I knew that however it happened, it was Baby’s choice. That was all that mattered. Baby had given everything to Catherine. She believed in Catherine. When I remembered the joy in her eyes as she chanted during sessions, I couldn’t help but think that in the end—the very end—she was happy and full of light.

  I picked up my grades from the registrar’s office on a bright blue August day. I found my envelope in the bin, slid out the sheet, and unfolded the letter. I scanned the page.

  A B+ in American Photography, two Cs, and a D. The D was in Japanese Prints, of course. And below that, an official confirmation of my acceptance into the concentration in history of art.

  I’d passed. I was no longer on academic probation. I was officially here at Catherine for two more years.

  The envelope included a list of everyone in our class along with their concentration. Yaya had been accepted into mathematics. Diego was in history of art with me, and Anna in chemistry. Theo was the only one of us accepted to the new materials concentration.

  Baby wasn’t listed at all.

  I folded up the sheet.

  I didn’t take my usual walk to the great hall that day. Instead, I turned to pass by the parlor where the black girls held their salon. The door was closed, but when I bent close I could smell their honey-rose hair creams, hear their secret laughter.

  I stared at the door for a while, and then kept going.

  In the great hall, at lunch, I saw my friends gathered in our usual corner of the Molina table. Anna waved to me. She was wearing her Pearl Jam T-shirt. I felt a surge of affection for her right then, but didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I pretended I didn’t see her. I grabbed two big handfuls of blueberries from the dessert service before leaving.

  I ate the blueberries as I walked to the parlor. Their juice stained the tips of my fingers.

  Two more years.

  I sat in the window seat. I leaned against the glass.

  Today was graduation day for the third-years. The ceremony was private but I knew it took place in the garden, in the bluebell field. The third-years would wear the yellow and blue sashes I had seen hanging in the laundry. Daisy garlands would circle their heads. After the ceremony, they would dance all night.

  Over the past semesters, I had watched the house as if through glass. I was never really here. I wasn’t anywhere. But Baby, my mean, precious Baby—Baby had been here. According to Viktória, she was here still.

  Don’t worry, I whispered to Baby. I’m here too. I’m staying with you.

  I sucked on a blueberry and fell asleep slumped by the window. When I woke up, it was time for dinner.

  Year Two

  Futurism

  M. David glared down at us from the auditorium stage. He had spent the past half hour trying to confirm that we were ready for the new semester—that we’d finalized our class schedules and refilled our
supplies, submitted our grades and picked up our laundry. But none of us were listening. His sign-up sheets drifted down rows and crammed themselves between seats. He kept clearing his throat with a snippy raise of his eyebrows. I might have been the only one who noticed.

  It wasn’t our fault we couldn’t pay attention. It was dozy late afternoon, and we were full on a rich lunch of the last summer produce: peas in butter, mushrooms with braised lettuce, and for dessert, pineapples filled with berries, almonds, and vanilla ice cream. We didn’t care about the fall semester. We just wanted to nap.

  Yaya leaned her head against my shoulder. “Wake me up when I’ve graduated,” she mumbled.

  One year ago, I had sat in this same auditorium for Catherine orientation. I had been up in the balcony, far from the introductory video with its long shots of then-unfamiliar rooms and explanations of rules I had no intention of following. Back then, every aspect of the auditorium—the nap of the navy velvet seats, the bronzed ceiling’s greasy sheen, the water-damaged walls—had seemed softened and blurred by distance. Now I sat down in the front with Yaya, Theo, Nick, and Anna—kids who were my friends, actual friends—watching M. David pace the stage in his sharp, familiar way, and I could hardly remember this room ever feeling new. What had the auditorium smelled like then? Did it smell like this, like clover? Had I been able to hear the lawn mower outside, droning like a lazy bee? Had the sun shone in this lemony way? And the students who lounged around me, faces so recognizable as they flickered with whispers and giggles—had they all been here, too, back then?

  The door banged open. M. David scowled at the students trooping in late, but they didn’t seem to notice him. They were too busy whistling and waving at their friends in the back. M. David rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  “Name three cars,” Anna said. She and Nick were playing MASH.

  Nick idly twisted a blond curl around his finger. “Dodge Viper. Aston Martin DB5. A Mustang, let’s say … 1967. Oh, or a Porsche, the 911 Turbo. My uncle got one last year. He’s going through the most fabulous midlife crisis.”