A Dark Matter: A Novel

by Peter Straub

  “Howard wants to see the Eel. That’s your wife, isn’t it? Her nickname was the Eel, and his was Hootie.”

  “You’ve been having long conversations with him.”

  “While I still can,” she said. “But I do want him to see your wife again, I really do.”

  “Then we’ll have to make sure you’re there, too, one day.”

  “Is it time to go inside yet?” Don asked.

  Dr. Greengrass beckoned us into his office and invited us to sit down. The progress of everybody’s favorite patient continued at its astounding pace, though he had showed some signs of backsliding today, in his friends’ absence. Some moodiness, loss of appetite, and a couple of instances of his “quote mark” arm gestures to indicate that he was selecting his phrases from a wider context.

  “In a sense, though, I gather that everything Howard says now comes from the much wider context of multiple sources. A near infinity of sources. That’s his contention, anyhow. I can’t imagine how a human memory can hold so much, and in fact, I wonder if it’s humanly possible. Howard never seems to need to search through these mental documents of his for an expression, he just comes out with it, whatever it is.”

  “You think he’s cheating?” I asked, smiling.

  “I think he may still need the comfort of an underlying text, even if it’s an infinite patchwork that is … more theoretical than actual.”

  “Or it may be that we just don’t understand how his memory works.”

  “Point taken,” Greengrass said. “In my view, you understand, it would be preferable if Howard is merely pretending to be quoting from an infinitely available multiplicity of texts. As a practical matter, of course, it makes little or no difference. I just want you to be aware that Howard appears to be significantly more secure in his progress when he knows that you’re in the vicinity.”

  “He was unhappy that we left town?”

  “It affected him, let’s put it that way. We’re open to the idea of moving Howard into a residential treatment center, but right now our first concern is that we refrain from doing anything prematurely, or anything that has even the faintest chance of undermining Howard.”

  “We share your concern,” I said. Don nodded. “And I’m glad you’re open to the idea of a treatment center.”

  “Well, they’re very different from halfway houses, aren’t they? I can’t pretend that Howard is likely to get anything new out of staying on at the Lamont. Actually, I have been thinking for years that he would very likely experience considerable benefits simply from being in a new environment, but Howard never found that idea even faintly acceptable. He just shut down on me. Until now.”

  “That’s very interesting,” I said.

  Greengrass cocked his head and stuck a ballpoint pen in his mouth, apparently considering some matter. “You remember promising to share any new information you might acquire about the sources of Howard’s pathology?”

  “If I had anything you’d find explanatory, you’d already know about it.”

  “Surely you have discussed the incident involving Mr. Mallon.”

  “We had kind of worked out that we’d start on the meadow today.”

  “In that case, let me detain you no longer.” Greengrass smiled at them and began to stand up.

  “First let me make a suggestion,” I said. “You can tell me if it’s any kind of possibility.”

  Greengrass settled down again. “Please.”

  “Our presence in Howard’s general vicinity seems to have a positive influence on him?”

  “On his progress, yes.”

  “Are there any special limitations or conditions pertaining to the treatment centers you would be exploring for Howard?”

  “What a question! Yes, first, availability, of course. Suitability. The general condition of the unit.”

  “Is location an issue?”

  Dr. Greengrass tilted back in his chair and gave me a careful look. “What is this suggestion of yours, Mr. Harwell?”

  “I wondered if it might be helpful to Howard to be placed in Chicago. I’m completely ignorant about this kind of thing, but through my wife’s work, she would know any number of people who could be helpful in finding Howard a good placement there.”

  “In Chicago.”

  “The first thing Howard told Pargeeta was that he wanted to see my wife.”

  “He referred to your wife as the Eel?”

  “It was her high-school nickname. Her name is Lee, which backwards is….”

  “You and your wife have the same given name?”

  “So it seems. Do you draw any psychological conclusions from that?”

  “None. Why do you ask?”

  “Someone we met this morning implied it meant something unpleasant.”

  “People’s names have very little to do with their romantic attachments,” Greengrass said.

  “Also, back in those days, we looked like twins.”

  “No wonder you fell in love!” The psychiatrist tilted his head and grinned. I thought he looked a bit like a Wind in the Willows character, too. As Greengrass’s mind returned to our earlier topic, his smile faded. “I don’t believe there is any serious obstacle to placing Howard in Illinois. If we were a state hospital, of course, it would be impossible. However, those codes and restrictions do not apply to us. As I explained to you, I’d be entirely willing to see Howard pass into a good center. For me personally, and I want to be completely frank about this matter, the central issue here concerns your involvement in Howard’s ongoing treatment. How committed are you to Howard’s case? I am asking both of you. How do you see your wife’s involvement, Mr. Harwell?”

  “We’d both do everything we could.”

  “So would I,” said Don. “It’s long past time I settled down, and Chicago would be a great place to do it. I don’t want to die broke and alone.”

  I turned my head and regarded him in amazement.

  Don shrugged. “I mean, man, I’m getting too old to keep living like this. What I could do, you know, is find a little apartment and advertise for students. All the time I been staying with you, Lee, I been thinking about this. Mallon got off the road, so can I.”

  “Could you make a living that way?”

  “Hell, yes, I can make a living. It’d be a small one, bro, I’ll never buy any fancy townhouses on the Gold Coast, but it would be enough for me. D’you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “If you sell wisdom, you’ll always have customers. I’ll print up a couple of pamphlets, leave ’em in bars and drugstores and libraries, inside a month I’ll have fifty, sixty queries.” He swiveled in his chair to face Greengrass. “I’d consider it an honor to maintain contact with Hootie—Howard, I mean. Damn, man, I’d go over and see him once a day, until he got sick of me, anyhow.”

  “And I would need good, reliable paperwork for this patient. Monthly reports, say, for at least the first twenty-four months.”

  “You want monthly reports?” Don asked. “Whoa, Nellie. I think I’ll leave that to the writer over here.”

  “I don’t believe the doctor meant us,” I said.

  “Correct, Mr. Harwell. I would expect monthly reports from any treatment center that admits Howard. In a sense, Howard will always be my patient. It’s essential that I be kept informed of his ongoing condition.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”

  “No,” Greengrass said. “It should not be a problem.” He looked up and placed his hands on his desk. “Our biggest problem is that we’ll all be so brokenhearted when and if Howard actually does move on. Pargeeta especially.”

  “I promised her she could visit us,” I said.

  “That was kind of you, Mr. Harwell. What do you say we drop in on our patient?”

  In a room as brightly colored as a preschool classroom, Howard Bly was seated on the edge of his neatly made-up bed, dressed in a red polo shirt slightly too small for him, striped bib overalls laundered so often the denim folded on itself like c
ashmere, and shiny yellow Timberland work boots. He looked splendid. His sparse hair had been combed back and flattened against his scalp with water, and his ordinarily placid blue eyes glowed with plea sure and excitement.

  “You’re wearing your birthday shoes,” Greengrass said, smiling, and turned to us. “We gave them to Howard last year. He saves them for special occasions.”

  “Yes, I do,” Howard said. “I love my Timbs.”

  “Today, you could go back into our garden, sit at the picnic table. That’s a good place to talk.”

  “I’m going to talk today,” Howard said, glowing at Don and me. “I’m going to tell you things. It won’t be like that other time.”

  “You’re feeling better now,” Greengrass said.

  The three of us stood there, lined up at the side of Hootie’s bed like doctors doing rounds.

  Hootie nodded. “Dill and Illslie are back again, and safe.”

  “Dill and who?”

  A wide smile from Howard Bly.

  “Howard, what did you call Mr. Harwell?”

  The smile extended ever farther. “Illslie. Because that’s what he is. He used to be Twin, but now he’s Illslie.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Yes. I get it. I’m Eel’s Lee.”

  “Of course that’s who you are,” Hootie said. “And I feel better because you and Dill are back in Madison. But now I would like to go outside with my friends, please.”

  “Are you concealing something from me, Howard?”

  Howard blinked, then smiled. “No more than a dark shimmer in the air.”

  “What’s that a quote from?”

  “Mrs. Pembroke’s Wager, by Lamar Van Gunden. Permanent Press, New York, New York, 1957. I found it behind a sofa in the Game Room, but the next time I looked, it wasn’t there.”

  “I think you gentlemen should take your friend into the back gardens,” said Dr. Greengrass. “When he starts making books up, he’s had enough of me.”

  “He thinks I made it up, but Mrs. Pembroke’s Wager was real,” Howard said. “I never make books up. To make books up, you have to be an author.” They were moving, at a deliberate pace, through soft, mild sunlight toward the picnic table just inside the canopy of shade cast by a huge oak with a wide crown.

  “Were you worried about us?” Don asked.

  “Of course I was worried. You almost could have died.” Howard slipped into the shade, moved to the back of the table, and sat where he could look out at the whole of the Lamont’s back gardens.

  Don moved around beside him. Together, they looked like a farmer and a cowboy momentarily occupying the same picnic bench: a sly, humorous farmer; a leathery, sun-baked old cowboy with something on his mind.

  “Almost could have died?” he asked.

  “Yeah, what does that mean?” I asked, sliding into the opposite bench and planting my elbows on the table.

  “It means you almost could have, but you didn’t, because you couldn’t. It’s not the same as ‘could almost have,’ though. Right, right?”

  “I think I see your point,” I said, “but how did you know? A little bird told you?”

  “The dark shimmer in the air,” Howard said. “Once I found it in back of the Game Room sofa, but after I took it away, it wasn’t there.”

  “All right,” I said. “No more ‘almost could’ as distinct from ‘could almost,’ and no more about whatever was behind the Game Room sofa. All right?”

  “It is, with me,” Howard said. This time, I could almost taste the quotation: a ghostly book seemed to form itself around the words, humming with language of a remembered flavor that flowed out through details of every kind, and through these specificities into the characters. The whole experience was like a warm taste in my mouth.

  I turned away from the men on the other side of the table and gazed out over the hospital’s gardens.

  Before me, long descending terraces unrolled like a flawless green carpet. On these wide, serene terraces, men and women in wheelchairs rolled along smooth, black asphalt paths beside tidy four-foot hedges. Through the middle of every terrace ran a long, brilliant bed of flowers bracketed at either end by smaller, circular beds. Just enough oaks and maples cast just enough shade. Fountains played, and beads of water scattered in a slight wind. It would be a nice place to end up, I reflected. Inside, of course, the hospital was less comfortable. Given their context, the gardens were a surprising fact—it came to me that they had been added later on, by someone who had understood that extensive gardens like these would aid the healing of the patients at the Lamont.

  Without looking back at the other two, I said, “Hootie, was it like this when you first came here?”

  “Back then, it was really ugly out here, Sarge.”

  “Sarge?”

  “Never mind,” said Hootie. “Never mind, never mind anything at all. I don’t.”

  “Is everything you say still a quote from a book?”

  “Everything I say,” Hootie started off, then for a moment like the flicker of a bird’s wing, seemed to search his remarkable memory, “is made up of a variety of quotations. As if in a … blender. Get it, Jake? Sentences that have never met become joined at the hip! My doctor does not want this to be true, but it is true, and that’s that. He would prefer me to have access to entirely original language, whereas I would prefer not to. Nobody’s language is really original. The way I talk is infinitely free, anyhow.”

  “It’s wonderful that you let yourself move on from Hawthorne, though I suppose he’s still in there, somewhere.”

  “‘In the way of literary talk, it is true,’” Hootie said, grinning with pleasure.

  “What let you do it?” Don asked. “I mean, I know this sounds egotistical, but was it us?”

  “I remembered my old English classes.” He closed his eyes and pulled his brows together. “I mean to say, I remembered that I remembered them. And all those amazing books we read. Do you remember? Do you?”

  “I remember most of them, probably,” I said.

  “I only read half of them,” said Don. “Being a more typical high-school student than you guys.”

  “The Catcher in the Rye,” Hootie said. “To Kill a Mockingbird. The Lord of the Flies. Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn. The Last of the Mohicans. The Red Badge of Courage. My Ántonia. Hamlet. Julius Caesar. Twelfth Night. Great Expectations. A Tale of Two Cities. Dombey and Son. A Christmas Carol. The Red Pony. The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men. The Sun Also Rises. A Farewell to Arms. A Separate Peace. ‘The Bear,’ ‘A Rose for Emily,’ ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner,’ ‘The Celestial Omnibus,’ ‘Up in Michigan,’ ‘The Big Two-Hearted River,’ and about fifty other short stories. Black Boy. Death of a Salesman. Pygmalion. Man and Superman. Rebecca. Fahrenheit 451. The Call of the Wild. 1984. Animal Farm. Where Angels Fear to Tread. Pride and Prejudice. Ethan Frome. Emma. Vanity Fair. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Jude the Obscure. The Great Gatsby. The beginning of The Canterbury Tales. A lot of poetry—Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Tennyson, Whitman. There’s a lot more, too. Just for pleasure, I read five James Bond novels, and I remember every word of every one. And Harrison High, by John Farris. Our whole gang read that.”

  “All those books are inside you.” I felt something like reverence.

  “All that and more. L. Shelby Austin. Mary Stewart. J. R. R. Tolkien. John Norman. E. Phillips Oppenheim. Rex Stout. Louis L’Amour and Max Brand.”

  “I forgot how much stuff we read in high school,” Olson said.

  “To state the obvious, I did not.” Hootie was grinning again.

  “Just out of curiosity, what was that from?”

  “The Moondreamers,” Hootie said. “A great novel. Honestly. But you asked me a question, and I’d like to answer it. Yes, I think it was you. The two of you. After you came to me, and I cried, and we talked, I remembered what I knew. I remembered what I had known all along, all during every minute of those long years, those dear, foolish years, those long, vanished years.”

&nb
sp; “Don’t quote from that one anymore,” I said. “Writing like that drives me up the wall.”

  “Sorry,” Hootie said. “I thought you’d enjoy that. Anyhow, you were asking about the gardens. The good doctor and his fair wife are responsible for all that you see before you. They planted a lot of it themselves, but they hired gardeners, too.”

  “Where did ‘gardeners’ come from?”

  “Right off the bat, at least five or six books. If you go on asking me about that, you’ll drive yourself around the bend.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. “I’m with Greengrass. Sometimes, yeah, you’re quoting, but more than half the time you’re talking the same way as everyone else.”

  “Split the Lark and you’ll find the music, bulb after bulb in silver rolled. The sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the tranquil world like a benediction.”

  “Emily Dickinson, meet Tom Sawyer,” I said. “I know you can do that. You don’t have to prove it to me.”

  “I don’t care if he quotes from books or not,” Don said. “The important thing is, it’s not all in code anymore! He sounds like a normal person, most of the time anyway.”

  He turned to Howard and placed a hand on his shoulder. Hootie looked over at him with an expectant smile, as if he already knew what Olson was going to say. Howard Bly had become capable of meeting the unknown with perfect composure.

  “Hootie, before you start telling us about the meadow, Lee and I wanted to ask you about something.”

  “The answer is yes,” Hootie said, nodding.

  “Hold on, wait until you hear what I have in mind.”

  “If you like, but the answer is still going to be yes.” He caught me with a darting glance. “That one was all mine. So was that one. And ditto.”

  “God bless you,” I said.

  “This is the deal, Hootie. We were talking about you with Dr. Greengrass. The three of us wondered if you might be feeling as though pretty soon you’d be prepared to move to some new environment.”

  “I told you. Yes. I think I could … Where you are? Where’s that?” He looked back across the table, an impish flame in his eyes. “And where do you live? What are you?”