by Donna Tartt
“All right?” the nurse inquired as she wheeled Harriet (Edie clicking rapidly behind, footsteps echoing on the tile) to a small, semi-private area and jerked the curtain.
Harriet suffered herself to be got into a gown, and then lay down on the crackly paper and let the nurse take her temperature
my goodness!
yes, she’s a sick girl
—and draw her blood. Then she sat up and obediently drank a tiny cup of chalky-tasting medicine that the nurse said would help her stomach. Edie sat on a stool opposite, near a glass case of medicine and an upright scale with a sliding balance. There they were, by themselves after the nurse had pulled the curtain and walked away, and Edie asked a question which Harriet only half-answered because she was partly in the room with the chalky medicine taste in her mouth but at the same time swimming in a cold river that had an evil silver sheen like light off petroleum, moonlight, and an undercurrent grabbed her legs and swept her away, some horrible old man in a wet fur hat running along the banks and shouting out words that she couldn’t hear.…
“All right. Sit up, please.”
Harriet found herself looking up into the face of a white-coated stranger. He was not an American, but an Indian, from India, with blue-black hair and droopy, melancholy eyes. He asked her if she knew her name and where she was; shone a pointy light in her face; looked into her eyes and nose and ears; felt her stomach and under her armpits with icy-cold hands that made her squirm.
“—her first seizure?” Again that word.
“Yes.”
“Did you smell or taste anything funny?” the doctor asked Harriet.
His steady black eyes made her uneasy. Harriet shook her head no.
Delicately, the doctor turned her chin up with his forefinger. Harriet saw his nostrils flare.
“Does your throat hurt?” he asked, in his buttery voice.
From far away, she heard Edie exclaim: “Good heavens, what’s that on her neck?”
“Discoloration,” said the doctor, stroking it with his fingertips, and then pressing hard with a thumb. “Does this hurt?”
Harriet made an indistinct noise. It wasn’t her throat which hurt so much as her neck. And her nose—struck by the gun’s kick—was bitterly tender to the touch, but though it felt very swollen, no one else seemed to have noticed it.
The doctor listened to Harriet’s heart and made her stick her tongue out. With fixed intensity, he looked down her throat with a light. Uncomfortably, jaw aching, Harriet cut her eyes over to the swab dispenser and disinfectant jar on the adjacent table.
“Okay,” said the doctor, with a sigh, removing the depressor.
Harriet lay down. Sharply, her stomach twisted itself and cramped. The light pulsed orange through her closed eyelids.
Edie and the doctor were talking. “The neurologist comes every two weeks,” he was saying. “Maybe he can drive up from Jackson tomorrow or the next day.…”
On he talked, in his monotonous voice. Another stab in Harriet’s stomach—a horrible one, that made her curl up on her side and clutch her abdomen. Then it stopped. Okay, thought Harriet, weak and grateful with relief, it’s over now, its over.…
“Harriet,” Edie said loudly—so loudly Harriet realized that she must have fallen asleep, or just nearly—“look at me.”
Obligingly, Harriet opened her eyes, to painful brightness.
“Look at her eyes. See how red they are? They look infected.”
“The symptoms are questionable. We’ll have to wait until the tests come back.”
Harriet’s stomach twisted again, violently; she rolled on her stomach, away from the light. She knew why her eyes were red; the water had burned them.
“What about the diarrhea? And the fever? And, good Lord, those black marks on her neck? It looks like somebody’s taken and choked her. If you ask me—”
“There may be an infection of some sort, but the seizures aren’t febrile. Febrile—”
“I know what it means, I was a nurse, sir,” said Edie curtly.
“Well, then, you should know that any dysfunction of the nervous system is the first priority,” replied the doctor, just as curtly.
“And the other symptoms—”
“Are questionable. As I said. First we’ll give her an antibiotic and start her on some fluids. We should have her electrolytes and her blood count back by tomorrow afternoon.”
Harriet was now following the conversation closely, waiting for her turn to talk. But finally she couldn’t wait any longer, and she blurted: “I have to go.”
Edie and the doctor turned and looked at her. “Well, go ahead, go,” said the doctor, flicking his hand in what was to Harriet a kingly and exotic gesture, lifting his throat like a maharajah. As she hopped off the table, she heard him call for a nurse.
But there was no nurse outside the curtain, and none came, and Harriet, desperate, struck off down the hall. A different nurse—her eyes as small and twinkly as an elephant’s—lumbered out from behind a desk. “Are you looking for something?” she said. Creakily, sluggishly, she reached for Harriet’s hand.
Harriet, panicked by her slowness, shook her head and darted off. As she skimmed light-headed down the windowless hall, her attention was fully fixed on the door at the end of the corridor that said Ladies and as she hurried past an alcove with some chairs, she didn’t stop to look when she thought she heard a voice calling: “Hat!”
Then suddenly there was Curtis, stepping out in front of her. Behind him, with his hand on Curtis’s shoulder and the mark on his face standing out blood red like a bull’s-eye, stood the preacher (thunderstorms, rattlesnakes) all in black.
Harriet stared. Then she turned and ran, down the bright antiseptic hallway. The floor was slick; her feet skidded from under her and forward she pitched, onto her face, rolling onto her back and throwing a hand over her eyes.
Fast footsteps—rubber shoes squeaking on the tile—and the next thing Harriet knew, her original nurse (the young one, with the rings and the colorful make-up) was kneeling beside her. Bonnie Fenton read her name-tag, “Upsy Daisy!” she said in a cheery voice. “Hurt yourself?”
Harriet clung to her arm, stared into the nurse’s brightly painted face with all her concentration. Bonnie Fenton, she repeated to herself, as if the name was a magic formula to keep her safe. Bonnie Fenton, Bonnie Fenton, Bonnie Fenton R.N.…
“This is why we’re not supposed to run in the halls!” said the nurse. She was talking not to Harriet, but stagily, to a third party, and—down the hall—Harriet saw Edie and the doctor emerging from the curtained enclosure. Feeling the eyes of the preacher, burning into her back, Harriet scrambled up and ran to Edie and threw her arms around Edie’s waist.
“Edie,” she cried, “take me home, take me home!”
“Harriet! What’s got into you?”
“If you go home,” said the doctor, “how can we find out what’s wrong with you?” He was trying to be friendly, but his droopy face had a waxen melted look under the eye sockets that was suddenly very frightening. Harriet began to cry.
Abstracted pat on her back: very Edie-like, that pat, brisk and businesslike, and it only made Harriet cry harder.
“She’s out of her head.”
“Usually they’re sleepy, after a seizure. But if she’s fretful we can give her a little something to help her relax.”
Fearfully, Harriet glanced over her shoulder. But the hall was empty. She reached down and touched her knee, which hurt from skidding on the floor. She’d been running from somebody; she’d fallen and hurt herself; that part was true, not something she’d dreamed.
Nurse Bonnie was disengaging Harriet from Edie. Nurse Bonnie was leading Harriet back to the curtained room.… Nurse Bonnie was unlatching a cabinet, filling a syringe from a little glass bottle.…
“Edie,” screamed Harriet.
“Harriet?” Edie poked her head through the curtain. “Don’t be silly, it’s just a shot.”
Her voice sent Har
riet into a fresh hiccuping of tears. “Edie,” she said, “Edie, take me home. I’m scared. I’m scared. I can’t stay here. Those people are after me. I—”
She turned her head; she winced as the nurse pushed the needle in her arm. Then she was sliding off the table but the nurse seized her wrist. “No, we’re not finished yet, honey.”
“Edie? I … No, I don’t want that,” she said, recoiling from Nurse Bonnie, who had circled to the other side and was coming at her with a new syringe.
Politely, but without much amusement, the nurse laughed at this, while casting her eyes over to Edie for assistance.
“I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want to go to sleep,” Harriet cried, all at once surrounded, shrugging off Edie on the one side and Nurse Bonnie’s soft, insistent, gold-ringed grasp on the other. “I’m afraid! I’m—”
“Not of this little needle, sweet.” Nurse Bonnie’s voice—soothing at first—had turned cool and a little frightening. “Don’t be silly. Just a little pinch and—”
Edie said: “Well, I’m just going to run home—”
“EDIE!”
“Let’s keep our voice down, sugar,” said the nurse, as she stuck the needle in Harriet’s arm and pushed the plunger home.
“Edie! No! They’re here! Don’t leave me! Don’t—”
“I’ll be back—Listen to me,” said Edie, raising her chin, her voice cutting sharp and efficient above Harriet’s panicked blithering. “I’ve got to take Allison home and then I’ll just stop at my house for a few things.” She turned to the nurse. “Will you set up a cot in her room?”
“Certainly, maam.”
Harriet rubbed the stung place on her arm. Cot. The word had a comforting, nursery sound, like poppet, like cotton, like Harriet’s old baby nickname: Hottentot. She could almost taste it on her tongue, that round, sweet word: smooth and hard, dark like a malted milk ball.
She smiled at the smiling faces around the table.
“Somebody’s sleepy now,” she heard Nurse Bonnie say.
Where was Edie? Harriet fought hard to keep her eyes open. Immense skies weighed upon her, clouds rushing in a fabulous darkness. Harriet closed her eyes, and saw tree branches tossing, and before she knew it she was asleep.
————
Eugene roamed the chilly halls, hands clasped behind his back. When at last an orderly arrived, and wheeled the child out of the examination room, he sauntered behind at a safe distance to see where they took her.
The orderly stopped by the elevator and pressed the button. Eugene turned and went back down the hall to the stairs. Emerging from the echoing stairwell, on the second floor, he heard the bell ding and then, down the hall, the gurney emerged feet-first through the stainless-steel doors, the orderly maneuvering at the head.
Down the hall they glided. Eugene closed the metal fire door as quietly as he could and—shoes clicking—strolled after them at a discreet distance. From a safe remove, he took note of the room they turned into. Then he wandered away, back towards the elevator, and had a long look at an exhibition of children’s drawings pinned on the bulletin board, also at the illumined candies in the humming snack machine.
He’d always heard it said that dogs howled before an earthquake. Well, lately when anything bad had happened, or was about to, this black-headed child was somewhere close by. And it was the child: no question. He’d got a good long look at her out in front of the Mission, the night he got bit.
And here she was again. Casually, he passed by her open door and stole a brief glance inside. A low light glowed from a ceiling recess, deepening gradually into shadow. Little was visible in the bed but a small huddle of covers. Above—up towards the light, like a jellyfish hanging in still water—floated a translucent IV bag of clear fluid with a tentacle trailing down.
Eugene walked to the water fountain, had a drink, stood around for a while examining a display for the March of Dimes. From his post, he watched a nurse come and go. But when Eugene moseyed up to the room again, and stuck his head in at the open door, he saw that the girl was not alone. A black orderly was fussing about, setting up a cot, and he was not at all responsive to Eugene’s questions.
Eugene loitered, trying not to look too conspicuous (though of course that was difficult, in the empty hall), and when, at last, he saw the nurse returning with her arms full of sheets, he stopped her going in the door.
“Who is thet child in there?” he asked, in his friendliest voice.
“Harriet’s her name. Belongs to some people named Dufresnes.”
“Ah.” The name rang a bell; he wasn’t sure why. He looked past the nurse, into the room. “Aint she got nobody with her?”
“I haven’t seen the parents, only the grandmother.” The nurse turned, with an air of finality.
“Pore little thing,” said Eugene, reluctant to let the conversation go, putting his head in the door. “What’s the matter with her?”
Before she said a word, Eugene knew from the look on her face that he’d gone too far. “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to give out that information.”
Eugene smiled, engagingly he hoped. “You know,” he said, “I know this mark on my face aint very handsome. But it don’t make me a bad person.”
Women tended to cave in a little when Eugene referred to his infirmity, but the nurse only looked at him as if he’d said something in Spanish.
“Just asking,” said Eugene, amiably, holding up a hand. “Sorry to bother you. Maam,” he said, stepping after her. But the nurse was busy with the sheets. He thought of offering to help, but the set of her back warned him that he’d better not push his luck.
Eugene drifted back towards the candy machine. Dufresnes. Why did he know that name? Farish was the person to ask about this sort of thing; Farish knew who was who in town; Farish remembered addresses, family connections, scandals, everything. But Farish was downstairs lying in a coma and not expected to live the night.
Across from the elevator, Eugene stopped at the nurse’s station: nobody there. He leaned for a while on the counter and—pretending to inspect a photo collage, a spider plant in a gift basket—he waited. Dufresnes. Even before his word with the nurse, the episode in the hallway (and particularly the old lady, whose crispness reeked money and Baptist position) had convinced him that the child wasn’t one of Odum’s—and this was too bad, because if the girl belonged to Odum, it would have fit neatly with certain of his suspicions. Odum had good reason to get back at Farish and Danny.
Presently, the nurse emerged from the child’s room—and when she did, she gave Eugene a look. She was a pretty girl but all reddened up with lipstick and paint like the horse’s ass. Eugene turned—casually, with a casual wave—and then sauntered off back down the hall and down the stairs, past the night nurse (desk light shining spookily up into her face), down to the windowless waiting room for Intensive Care, where the shaded lamps glowed round-the-clock with a muted glow, where Gum and Curtis slept on the couch. There was no point in hanging around upstairs and calling attention to himself. He would go back upstairs once that painted-up whore went off shift.
————
Allison, at home in bed, lay on her side staring out the window at the moon. She was scarcely conscious of Harriet’s empty bed—stripped nude, vomity sheets piled in a heap on the floor. In her mind, she was singing to herself—not so much a song as an impromptu series of low-pitched notes that repeated, with variations, up and down monotonously and on and on like the song of some mournful, unknown night bird. Whether Harriet was there or not hardly made a difference to her; but presently, encouraged by the stillness on the other side of the room, she began to hum aloud, random tones and phrases that spiraled on in the darkness.
She was having a hard time falling asleep, though she didn’t know why. Sleep was Allison’s refuge; it welcomed her with open arms the moment she lay down. But now, she lay on her side, open-eyed and untroubled, humming to herself in the darkness; and sleep was a shadowy forgetful distance, a
curling like smoke in abandoned attics and a singing like the sea in a pearly shell.
————
Edie, on her cot by Harriet’s bed, was awakened by the light in her face. It was late: 8:15, by her wristwatch, and she had an appointment with the accountant at nine. She got up and went into the bathroom, and her wan, drained reflection in the mirror stopped her for a moment: it was mostly the fluorescent light, but still.
She brushed her teeth, and gamely set to work on her face: pencilling her eyebrows, drawing in her lips. Edie did not trust doctors. In her experience they didn’t listen, preferring instead to strut around pretending that they had all the answers. They jumped to conclusions; they ignored what didn’t fit with their theories. And this doctor was a foreigner, on top of everything. The instant he’d heard the word seizure, this Dr. Dagoo or whatever his name was, the child’s other symptoms faded into insignificance; they were “questionable.” Questionable, thought Edie, exiting the bathroom and examining her sleeping granddaughter (with intent curiosity, as if Harriet were a diseased shrub, or mysteriously sickened house plant) because epilepsy aint what’s wrong with her.
With academic interest, she studied Harriet for several moments longer, then went back into the bathroom to dress. Harriet was a hardy child, and Edie was not terribly worried about her except in a generalized sort of way. What did worry her—and what had kept her open-eyed on the hospital cot for much of the night—was the disastrous state of her daughter’s house. Now that Edie thought about it, she had not actually been upstairs since Harriet was just a little thing. Charlotte was a pack rat, and the tendency (Edie knew) had increased since Robin’s death, but the condition of the house had shocked her thoroughly. Squalor: there was no other word. No wonder the child was sick, with garbage and trash all over the place; it was a wonder they weren’t all three in the hospital. Edie—zipping up the back of her dress—bit the inside of her cheek. Dirty dishes; piles of newspaper, towers of it, certain to attract vermin. Worst of all: the smell. All sorts of unpleasant scenarios had threaded through Edie’s mind as she lay awake, turning this way and that way on the lumpy hospital cot. The child might have been poisoned, or contracted hepatitis; she might have been bitten by a rat in her sleep. Edie had been too stunned and ashamed to confide any of these suspicions to a strange doctor—and she still was, even in the cold light of morning. What was one to say? Oh, by the way, Doctor, my daughter keeps a filthy house?
