Hysteria

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

  Perhaps the parents were hiking in the woods and Tessa had run ahead for a swim without telling them. By now they would be frantic. Heike pictured Eric, thrashing in the brush, furious, and her chest tightened up so that she had to take a breath and expel it.

  Out on the water, the girl’s drawing was floating away. She could see the colours in it, the childish wings of birds, an indiscernible scatter of letter m’s littering a cloudless sky. It had somehow failed to become waterlogged and sat, pristine, on the surface. An unseen current pulling it slowly to shore.

  — Oh! Your picture is there!

  The words slipped out as fast as Heike thought them. Tessa looked up from their game. There was something there, on one side of her face, something Heike hadn’t noticed before. She peered at her. If she hadn’t just been in the water, Heike might think she had a bit of her breakfast there, stuck on her cheek. A little errant porridge. As she looked closer now, she wondered if it could be mud.

  — Come here a moment. Reaching out to her. Tessa turned her head, looking for the paper she’d left floating away. The smudge on her cheek now looked not so much like mud as like vomit. Heike recoiled.

  — My birds! The girl stepped lightly off the raft and seemed to skip, weightless, across the water, her feet barely skimming the surface of the lake.

  Heike lurched forward and grabbed onto Daniel, pulling him against her. He tried to squirm free, and she locked her arms around him.

  — Something is wrong.

  How could it be so shallow? Were the reeds so matted there, just below the surface? The girl was a tiny thing; the reeds might hold her up. The water looked clear and clean. Heike thrust a hand into the water off the side of the raft. There were no mud flats that she could see.

  The disturbance had created a band of choppy waves across the veneer of the lake, and now one corner of the picture tipped, as though a drain pulled at it, the whole sheet suddenly sinking fast. Heike watched as the girl dove down after it, her feet and ankles disappearing under the water. Then nothing. The pond flattened, instantly calm.

  At some point, the woods had gone still. Heike loosened her grip around Daniel’s middle and then let go altogether. Not even the loon was crying.

  She counted to five in her head. Neither the girl nor the drawing resurfaced.

  Heike turned and grabbed Daniel by the shoulders, shaking him.

  — Stay here! You don’t move, you understand? Stay right here! She dove off the raft, long and shallow, making the distance to where Tessa had gone after her picture, then duck-diving down, her eyes open and searching. The pond had little depth on that side of the raft. Eight feet at most to the bottom, the water clean and clear. She dove again and again. No sign the silt had been disturbed, and only a few fronds waved gently from the sandy floor and caught in Heike’s fingers. The bed was still.

  Heike came up for air, her heart moving fast and heavy. There was no little girl, no Tessa. She inhaled and oriented herself, turning her back to the shore, looking for Daniel. Her head was spinning. She could see him, now, crouched on the edge of the raft, toes curled over the side, looking down into the water. He reached out with one arm, the tips of his fingers. Heike called out to him, but he didn’t turn his head, instead leaning farther forward until suddenly his body tipped off the raft. He disappeared with a splash.

  — Daniel! Heike charged forward, stroking with her head above water, and then dove again, arms out in front of her, the pond suddenly deeper and silt stinging her eyes. She could see him there, already ten or twelve feet down, a little compact ball, his knees in tight to his chest, pink and yellow against the green-grey of the water. She grabbed him by the arm and tugged, hauling him up and kicking hard to get back to the surface. They broke the water line, Heike’s head spinning again as she struggled to take in air herself and push Daniel’s head above water.

  She propelled them forward until her feet found bottom, only then realizing how far they’d travelled from the raft: in her panic, she’d made more distance than she would have imagined. Daniel’s eyes wide with fear and the long moment of silence before he finally gasped and let out a long, choking wail. His body registering shock.

  She waded out onto the beach, holding his body against her and calling out.

  — Hallo? Hallo? Is anyone here? Please! Hallo?

  There was no movement from the house or the woods around it. Daniel thrashed against her and pummelled her chest with his little fists, a panicked temper tantrum, still not fully able to take in air, his wet trunks plastered against her stomach. Heike dropped to the ground, rolling him onto his side and rubbing his back. He was crying, and the sound came out broken, stilted, between bouts of coughing.

  — It’s okay, Mami’s here, Mami’s here. Cough out the water. Just cough out the water. You’re alright. I am here, I am here.

  She stroked his cheek, his hair, his brow. Daniel coughed a little more, his breath coming quick and shallow, then deeper. Heike leaned over him.

  — Just stay lying down nicely. Mami’s here, just lie down a moment longer. Catch your breath.

  She left a hand on his back for comfort and sat up slightly, looking out over the water to the raft and then beyond it, to where she’d last seen the little girl, Tessa, before she disappeared below the surface. There was no change in the weather, the sun as high and hot as it had been when they first tied up the canoe. No breeze, a wetness to the air, the woods still and humid. The birds were as quiet now as they’d been the moment the little girl went under. Somewhere back in the trees Heike heard a cicada start up. Its weird song rising, louder and louder against the silence.

  3.

  Daniel stopped coughing and pushed himself up, hugging Heike’s legs a little. She pulled him close, leaning back on a log with their feet in the damp sand, and ran a hand through his hair, her other arm wrapped tight around his chest. By now, it was clear that no one was looking for the girl: no voices shouting her name from the woods, no magical appearance of a rowboat from the reeds. Heike twisted around to look behind her. The little house sat dark and indifferent, the windows shut tight. Her breathing was shallow, and the action of stroking Dani’s head calmed her a little. She did not want him to be afraid. They needed to get home.

  The canoe was still tied up out at the raft. She could see her pack, the jars of lemonade and cookies, their clothes all heaped together where they’d been sitting, before the girl appeared. The towel she’d been lying on when she fell asleep stretched flat in the sun. The pond was not quite still. The canoe lifted and fell with the swell of the water.

  Daniel turned and clambered onto her, his arms tight around her neck, and Heike struggled to see over his shoulder, scanning the far shoreline for any sign of movement, the splash of a child’s kicking feet, or her fingers at the edge of the raft. He pressed his face into hers, demanding her attention, and finally she pulled back and squeezed his two hands and swung them, rubbed her nose against his, trying to soothe him with playfulness. Pretending nothing was wrong. She turned to look at the cottage again, sure now that she’d made a mistake. She must have missed something, the girl surfacing at the beach and running inside while Heike was underwater.

  Daniel tried to climb up against her again and she stood up, setting him firmly on his feet and taking his hand.

  — Come, let’s see if someone is home. Come on.

  They picked their way up to the clearing, on tiptoes where the sand mixed with sharper shingle and driftwood, then old roots and weeds nearer to the cottage. At the side of the house, Heike put a hand up against the windowpane and peered in. Everything looked as it had the day before, undisturbed. No dishes on the table or kitchen counter, no shoes kicked off by the door. The house was orderly and unchanged. She tried the door and it gave easily, the latch still sprung from where she’d given it her hip. It swung wide but they didn’t go in.

  — Hallo? Hallo, is someone at home? Her voice broke off. The sound of her own calling made the space lonelier, empty. She had the urge
to check over her shoulder, the woods behind them, to slam the door. Her head hurt.

  She led Daniel up and around the other side, and then beyond the house in the other direction, through taller grass and some low brush, until he whined about his feet.

  — The ground is all spiky here!

  Heike stood still for a moment, tightening her fingers around his hand. Her heart felt high in her chest, jerky, uneven. There was no car; not even a place where the plants were pushed down, no kind of driveway at all. Daniel pulled at her. She squatted low to pick him up, held him against her hip.

  They came back around the other side of the house like that and down to the beach again. The trail she’d cut through the trees two days before was just to their left, and Heike heard a chattering off in the woods, chipmunks, and then the bleating call of a nuthatch. The warmth of Daniel’s body against her and the noise, a break in the silence, gave her some comfort. The pond lay flat and wide as an open mouth.

  — We’re going to walk back through the woods, she said.

  — What about the canoe? Daniel said. And my cookies?

  For a moment she didn’t answer. Her arm ached from holding him.

  — Mami comes back for them tomorrow.

  His body slipped down against her thigh, and he kicked his legs:

  — Don’t put me down! Don’t put me down!

  Heike, suddenly frustrated, twisted and dropped him to the ground. She crouched to his level, his hands tight in her hands.

  — When Tessa came to the raft, and Mami was sleeping, where did she come from? Did you see her parents, or a boat?

  — She swimmed.

  — And then what happened?

  — We played a game. Then she swimmed away.

  — Did you see her swim away? When Mami was under the water?

  Daniel hopped on one foot.

  — It’s hot here. I’m too hot. I want to go home.

  — Did she tell you anything, when you were talking? When she told you her name, did she say where she lives?

  — She didn’t tell me her name.

  — Yes, she did. She said her name is Tessa.

  — She didn’t tell me her name. I just knowed it.

  Heike let go of his hands and turned to look out at the lake. Then:

  — Hold onto my shoulders. Come on, we do a piggyback.

  When Daniel was holding tight, she started to run.

  THEY WERE IN THE LONG WHITE ROOM at the back of the house, curled up together on the daybed, when she heard Eric come home. Not alone: Heike heard the car door slam, then laughter—Eric, that much for sure, but she couldn’t have said how many others—the key turning in the front door lock, chairs scraping the kitchen floor. She left Daniel sleeping and walked to the front of the house in her bare feet. She hadn’t bathed, and her calves and ankles were still spattered with dry mud from the walk home through the forest.

  Arden and John were there, the chairs pushed aside to make room for a bushel basket of groceries Eric had brought in with them: apples and two bottles of milk and a green frill of lettuce, wilting in the heat. There was a wildflower bouquet on the counter that looked like the kind of thing you’d buy from a child at a roadside stand. He seemed in a golden mood. Heike hung in the doorway, watching.

  The maid, Rita, had arrived at the same time, a signal that Eric meant for them to go out somewhere and leave Daniel behind. Heike’s fingernails dug into her palms. She’d wanted a quiet evening in, an early bedtime for Dani, some way to counteract what had happened at the pond. When Rita stayed with him something always went wrong: she forgot to bathe him, or left him without a warm blanket at bedtime. Eric had a soft spot for waifs. Rita was a kind of charity case, a patient sent to him by the local doctor. She had some little family in town—her uncle caught and sold fish house to house—and Eric had offered to keep an eye on her outside the hospital. This little job the perfect amount of occupation for her, he said, brushing off Heike’s complaints: the girl was certainly in fine enough form to put a child to bed and do a few dishes. Heike could see now where she had one of the flowers from the bouquet tucked into her cuff like a corsage.

  The flower stem bent but did not break as Rita dragged the basket back toward the pantry. She was a short girl with thick wrists, and knees and shins that almost surely betrayed an absence of good food in her childhood: they bowed out heart-shaped. She was usually silent in Heike’s presence, avoiding her eyes and often looking to Eric for instruction instead. Heike suspected that he’d designed it this way, offering Rita an easy excuse to avoid her. Madame is prone to nerves and tires easily, or something else of the kind. She’d heard him say such things before. Try as she might, Heike had not managed to make of her anything like a friend and often found her staring, reproachfully, when she looked up from buttoning Daniel’s jacket or shoes. She did not always answer when Heike called. Eric said the last thing they wanted was a talky Tina, anyhow.

  He had his back to her now, at the counter with a brown bottle in his hand, riffling through the drawer for a church key.

  — Eric.

  Heike crossed the linoleum and pulled the opener from the draining rack.

  — Oh, you’re here. Eric popped the cap off the beer. What did you have the door locked for?

  Heike shook her head slightly.

  — I don’t know. I don’t remember locking it. Then, reaching out a hand to touch his arm, fingers squeezing where the bicep curled into the elbow’s crook: Eric. I need to talk to you for a moment. Please.

  He glanced over her head, to where John was standing, then back down at Heike.

  — Stop. What’s eating you?

  She pulled at him gently, hoping he would step out of the room with her, but he didn’t move.

  — Are you alright? Arden stepped forward to look at her. You don’t look well.

  — Too much sun, Eric said. I told you not to go out on the lake today. He flexed the arm to shake her off a little, then looked down at her legs and let his eyes stay there.

  — We’re going up to Skaneateles, Arden said. To Leo Dolan’s house. You’ve met him before, haven’t you? The playwright.

  — I don’t think so, Heike said. She could see now that Arden was dressed for a party, with her short string of wedding pearls and a light crinoline under the skirt of her dress. She turned to Eric again, tugging at his arm: Eric, listen to me. Something happened today. Out on the water. There was a little girl there, but no parents, I couldn’t find her parents. And she went into the pond, and then—Heike stopped for a moment, as though she were unsure of her words. And then, she said. Then I couldn’t find her, either.

  Eric glanced over to John again.

  — I’m sorry about this. Give us a minute. He pulled Heike back toward the doorway, irritated: What are you talking about?

  — I’m saying we met a little girl, we saw her, Daniel and me. And she went into the water and she disappeared. I dove after her, but she was gone. Heike let her voice drop. Like she didn’t exist, Eric. And then, when I came up, Daniel fell into the water. Only it wasn’t quite a falling. It was like something was pulling him. She was almost whispering now, frantic: Eric. Something was pulling him under the water.

  Eric shook his head.

  — Sounds like a bad dream, he said. He looked over his shoulder at Arden: Your party may be too much for her, he said. We’ll have to bring her around a bit. Then, to Heike: You’re black under the eyes. He patted her cheek. Just look. The colour’s draining out of you.

  Arden swished in Heike’s direction:

  — Don’t! Don’t listen to him. Dolan’s a whopping lot of fun, and the house is gorgeous. No idea what to do with money, so he just spends it however he pleases. Champagne all night! Go get dressed, would you?

  — That seems terribly extravagant for just a writer of plays, Heike said. She still had her bathing suit on, under a red beach coat meant to look like a Chinese jacket.

  John stood up and swiped at his lapel, brushing away some invisib
le crumb or remnant.

  — I thought you Europeans loved artists, he said. Isn’t that why they all moved over there, before the war? Of course, they soon scurried home, didn’t they, when the clubs caught fire. He said this absent-mindedly, more concerned with the state of his jacket than with making conversation. To Eric: I’d take a whisky soda if you had one lying around.

  Arden said Dolan was fun and an artist because now he wrote for television.

  — Tele-plays. He used to do radio, but the whole future is in television.

  Heike looked at Eric.

  — But, Eric, she said. Eric, the girl.

  Eric set his bottle down and watched her. She could see his mood slipping; her insistence was making him stiffen. She crossed her ankles, one foot tucked lightly behind the other. Her bare legs made her feel like a child.

  She turned back to Arden.

  — I don’t know, Heike said. I don’t think I should leave.

  — For Christ’s sake, Eric said. He turned briefly to Arden and John: This is about the kid. He leaned back against the counter and gestured at her with the bottle, forcing a more lighthearted tone: He’s not an infant, you know. He’ll be fine without you.

  — I don’t want to leave, Eric. I don’t think it’s a good idea. You said yourself, I look tired. She turned to where the maid was setting canned goods onto a pantry shelf: Rita, I’ll put those away myself, later. You can go home, after all. I’ll do it.

  The girl paused, looking first at Eric, then to Heike and back to Eric again. Eric shook his head.

  — Stay, Rita. I know you like to line up the jars for us. He leaned to Arden and John, some odd mix of paternalism and something else: You see how she does it? By colours and by size, both. So the tomatoes and then the peach preserves. Then the little artichokes beside the green peas. And now the beets. That’s right, isn’t it, Rita? Look, I’ve embarrassed her!