Hysteria

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

  — Rita can’t help you. She can’t help anyone.

  — Maybe. But she said a peculiar thing to me. Heike looked up at the ceiling, then moved to face Eric again. She told me: “There was no little boy there that night.” Not, “I didn’t see your little boy.” There was no little boy there that night. And I thought this was so strange. Don’t you think? Isn’t that a strange thing to say to a mother?

  She was standing in the very centre of the room. They were close enough that if she’d held her arm out straight, she would have touched him.

  — And then Arden. He was always napping, she said. She said you kept us too close. That you were cruel, or trying to control me. All those tonics! She pressed a hand against her side, along the lowest ribs, where Daniel had curled in against her. Do you know I can feel him, just here. She let the hand fall and brush her leg, then tugged at her own skirt. You remember how he used to do that? Always at my feet, you said. Always pulling me away. It drove you crazy. She shook her head and it was a tiny motion, controlled and dismissive. It’s somehow so hard to recall exactly how he looked, she said. When I see him now, it’s like a dream. I get the feeling of him, but I can’t remember the details.

  When she looked up, she saw that Eric had stepped away from her. She closed the gap.

  — Tell me, she said. Tell me about the day he was born.

  He didn’t say anything at first, and she kept on looking at him. His eyes a little unfocused now in the dim light. He moved back against the desk.

  — Surely you recall that yourself, Heike. An important day. Are you saying you don’t remember?

  — No. I don’t remember. She stepped forward, following him. In all those years, she said. Not a single picture of him. Just Heike alone. Heike on a ferryboat, Heike on the fire escape, Heike drinking a coffee. I went through everything, Eric. She reached out for the photo of herself in the kerchief, where she’d left it on the desk behind him. Not even you are in those pictures, she said. Because, why? Because they weren’t meant for an album. Were they? They were just a document. A record. She pushed the photo at him, at his chest. That’s all we ever were to you. All I ever was, Eric: an experiment. It’s true, isn’t it?

  She held her fists high and clenched, as though she was about to beat down a door.

  — Say it, Eric! Say it. Tell me I’m right: There is no Daniel. Say it! There is no Daniel. There is only a tonic. There is only a little pill.

  Eric was silent, looking at her. Then:

  — There is no Daniel.

  Her arm swung out.

  — I want him back!

  She threw her weight at him, her fist connecting hard with his throat, and he coughed and stumbled long enough for her to pull back and hit him again, cutting into his shoulder before he caught her. She was screaming, almost a shriek, to keep herself from weeping.

  Her arm twisted. She wrenched away from him, but he had his hands on her already, and she felt the crack of her head against the wall. They were close to the open window—the darkness spiralling down to the walkway below—and she caught the frame with one hand, pushing herself away. Eric stood over her, his hand at her collarbone, pressing her back into the frame so that she could feel the open ledge cutting at her thigh.

  The blow to the throat had left him breathing hard. He spat, staring at her.

  — Pull yourself together.

  She smacked his arm away and spun sideways. Whatever the drug was, on his wrist, it slowed him down. She moved across the room, putting distance between them.

  — I can remember, she said. I remember carrying him inside me. I know how that feels. A baby kicking you, a baby pressing down hard. She spread her shoulders wide, her arms unfolding to either side like wings. I thought he might tear me in two, she said. You could see him when I lay flat, see the shape of a foot, a shoulder, a little bum, where it pushed out. She brought her arms in again and came a step closer. That’s the only part I couldn’t explain, she said. But then I think of the accident, of course. And things make sense. Don’t they? Tear me in two. All that blood. My skirt was soaked with it.

  Eric drew a hand back as though he might hit her.

  — I saved you.

  He was still breathing hoarsely. His hand curled slowly into a fist, the muscles in his arm twitching. After a moment he let it drop, watching her steadily, but moved instead to fumble for his cigarettes.

  — Do you think you would ever have gotten out of this asylum if it weren’t for me? People don’t leave this place. Look around. No one leaves. Not men, not women, and not foreigners. Some city hospital transferred you here. That’s what happens: you’ve got a woman who can’t stop crying and has no next of kin. Nothing wrong with you that they can fix. You had no papers, no identification. You could barely remember your name.

  — But I did know my name.

  He was struggling to get the smoke lit, his movements weirdly incongruous, almost lethargic—the match in one hand and the cigarette in the other, as though he were comparing them. When he spoke again. his voice had regained its edge.

  — You didn’t want your memories.

  — So you gave them away.

  He wheeled around and flicked at the file drawer handle with an open hand. It rolled open and stopped with a rough bang.

  — You want them back? Take ’em.

  His voice was sloppy. He hauled five folders up onto the desk, throwing them down one after the other, each of them stuffed full and the papers spilling out across the surface and sliding to the floor. Heike stepped back despite herself, nervous of him.

  — This is all you: Patient K. He lurched toward her. That’s what I named you, he said. Because that’s what the nurses called you: the little Kraut girl. K for Kraut.

  He picked up a sheet and held it away from his face, then closer again, tromboning it back and forth and narrowing and widening his eyes before throwing the paper down in disgust. He rubbed his face:

  — Must be dark in here or something.

  Heike approached the desk cautiously, keeping her focus on Eric. She retrieved the sheet.

  — Patient K. Psychogenisch—

  She paused, aware that she was pronouncing the word in German.

  — Psychogenic amnesiac, Eric said. The words ran together a little as he spoke them. It means your brain looks fine from the outside. It’s not just a bang on the head, like in the cartoons. Biology can’t explain your amnesia.

  Heike tried to scan the paper in her hands, her finger running jaggedly down the margin.

  — I could tell you everything about your case without looking at a single note, he said. Pathology: Trauma, automobile accident—

  She held up her hand in an effort to silence him, but he kept going.

  — Next of kin: Deceased. Concussion. Contusions to left side. Eric rhymed the terms off, his own hand in the air, as though he were conducting some invisible orchestra.

  — Please! Heike’s arm jerked, and the paper in her hand with it. She brought it closer.

  — Massive hemorrhage, late-stage placental abruption—

  — Stop, Eric! I can read.

  So much blood. Her dress soaked with it. Harry’s head in her lap, and both of them lying in the road.

  — Stillbirth, she said.

  When she looked up again, she couldn’t focus and her eyes wandered from one side of the room to the other before coming back to Eric. He was talking to her. She squinted at him, as though that would help her hear him.

  — Hysterical with milk and pregnancy. They didn’t know what to do with you! Put you to sleep, and when you woke up, you couldn’t remember a thing.

  Heike sank back against the desk. Her hand slid against a file folder, the pages inside it shifting: the sound of paper slippers on the hall floor, a nurse urging her on. It’s good for you to walk, miss.

  Her body felt very far away, a thing that used to be connected to her. She brought a hand to her heart again, as she had downstairs. Her breasts swollen, hard and burning.

>   She turned to Eric, her voice low and blank.

  — When did he come along? Daniel. Was it right away? Or was he something you invented for me later? Sometime when you were bored.

  She wondered that she was not crying. Instead, she could feel her jaw wiring itself together, tooth against tooth. The ceiling, or whatever she’d thought she could hear moving there, pacing her, was mute and dull now. Eric close by her, half-sitting on the desk.

  A slouchy look to him. He seemed drunk.

  — You were absolutely lovely. Like a china doll. When we were alone, he said. When it was just me and you. A beautiful doll with only one crack—one crack!—and I knew I could fix it. I knew I could, he said again, talking more to himself than to Heike. I knew I could fix it. He tried to take her hand. You would have been happy! I saw it in you.

  He was pawing at her now, a hand at her face, her neck, her waist, pulling her in close. She tried to twist out of the embrace, but could only free herself halfway, his fingers wound tight around hers.

  — Why, then, Eric? Why invent a child for me if you were so happy.

  He didn’t look at her but scratched at his wrist, rubbing the glass watch face against his leg.

  — All I invented was a tonic, he said. You said it yourself. All I invented was a little pill. You invented Daniel.

  He pushed her away suddenly and picked up his abandoned cigarette, seesawing it over the fulcrum of his index finger. This seemed to take all his focus. He flipped it over the finger and caught it with his fist. The trick pleased him, and he looked up at her:

  — Lodi. That’s what I call it. L-O-D-I. Supposed to calm your memory, take it away, make you feel good. Healing without trauma. He nodded to himself. The thing worked better than I’d ever imagined, he said. Even when you started to remember things—

  — My mind filled in the blanks.

  — Seeing is believing, Heike. And you saw that kid for years. Who expected that? He opened his hand, and the cigarette spilled out onto the desk, in pieces now. Without that hallucination, I could have managed, he said. Even when the chemicals ran out. I tried everything: switching up drugs, rotations. No way to tell you. It would have broken your heart. It would have broken you.

  — That’s why you agreed to come out here. To leave New York. In case things went wrong.

  For a moment he didn’t respond.

  — It was time to go. He said this more softly than she expected. Then: I thought I’d get better stuff. A steady supply of test drugs. Between the Willard and the college, he said. Wouldn’t you think? He walked away again, his voice rising higher and higher. But no. Damn chemists. Jealous. Jealous! They could see I was on to something. And then you, dumping your meds on the sly. Instant withdrawal! How could I have predicted you’d do such a foolish thing? He wheeled back around to face her. I would have had the Nobel. His finger pointed in accusation: The Nobel!

  She could feel her face constrict, stony.

  — Your experiment is over now.

  — Maybe. He stopped and turned his head decisively to look first over one shoulder and then the other. Loss of peripheral vision, he said. That’s the first symptom. He tapped the watch face. Don’t let me forget to write that down, he said. When he managed to focus his gaze, he leaned forward, pointing at her again. Hard to say how a drug like this might mess up a weaker mind.

  Heike nodded, just once. She stood up and moved toward him.

  — What does the hospital think of this experiment of yours? And at Cornell, what do you think they’ll say when they find out?

  His brow creased and then relaxed.

  — When they find out? About you, you mean? He craned his head to look out into the hall beyond the door, as though checking to see if anyone was listening. I’ll tell you a secret, he said. I saw you coming across the lawn. I saw you coming. My experiment doesn’t have to be over. I transferred you out of here, and I can transfer you back in. He glanced toward the hall again. Then, reaching for a new cigarette: I already called for the nurse.

  There was a moment of stillness as the weight of what he’d said lodged itself in Heike’s mind.

  — I’m not crazy.

  Even as she said this, she caught her reflection in the window glass: her hands and nails ragged from digging through Marek’s storage room, and the white dress, dirty now, slipping off her shoulder like some cast-off bit of charity. She could feel her breath shorten. A kind of prickling in her wrists, the back of her neck. The dress damp against her skin. She looked at the doorway herself, gauging the distance, how fast she could get out.

  — Aren’t you? You turned up here, raving! He cast his hand about the desktop and held up first a fountain pen and then, thinking better of it, a pair of scissors. You tried to kill me, Heike. What could I do?

  The sound she’d heard on her way up the stairs, what seemed to come from above them, in the turret: just Eric’s nurse all the time, following her at a distance. Waiting for his signal. She thought of the woman in the bed downstairs, her ankle and calf bruised and bloody from the way she kicked at her own tether. Relentless.

  — I only came here to get my Daniel back.

  Eric set the scissors down and struck a match instead. The tip of his cigarette flared.

  — That’s a funny thing to say.

  — It’s what I came for.

  He exhaled a little smoke, watching her. Then reaching for her hand and missing, his fingers closing lightly around a bit of her skirt.

  — There is no Daniel, Heike. You just told me yourself. He tugged at the fabric. You had what we call a long-standing compound hallucination, he said. A medically induced delusion.

  Heike stood quiet, looking at him. She stepped closer, and then again.

  — Then you can give him back to me. The tonics, Eric. Or a pill. She reached for his hand, intertwining her fingers with his. Some tiny capsule, she said. I know you can.

  — Is that all you want?

  His other hand lay high on her thigh. He was using her for balance. Heike pressed her body against him now, working to keep her voice even and steady.

  — That’s all I want. I know you can do this, Eric. You won’t leave me here.

  — Leave you? Heike, the world is just opening up. It’s opening for us, don’t you see it? He reached for her face, stroking the line of her cheek. Like a flower, he said. I’d never leave you. I’d keep you. Safe.

  He had his arm around her now, and he swayed her back and forth against him, as though they were dancing. His breath hot on her neck. She looked down.

  — You’ll always take care of me.

  — Always. He started to laugh. I gave you a son, didn’t I?

  Heike let him pull her closer. Her fingers light against his chest.

  — Then give him back.

  There was a pause, his hand tightening roughly on her arm.

  — It’s too late.

  He pushed her away, his mood changing again. Heike stumbled back and a few papers slipped off the desk to the floor. She watched him tentatively, then stopped and looked over her shoulder to the window. The fall was three storeys. If she jumped, they would catch her and keep her here. There was no nurse yet, no sign of her.

  — Too late, Eric said again. Haven’t you been listening? My supplier dried up. He’d rather play cards with the general himself instead of a middleman.

  He turned his head from side to side, testing his vision, then pulled another match from the book and lit his cigarette a second time, the burner briefly flaming up. He shook out his wrist, and the match flame died.

  — But you don’t have to go with the nurse when she comes. He leaned in again, taking her elbow this time, his weight jarring her. See? You can still come home with me. You only think you came here for Daniel. He took a long drag and offered her the cigarette, shrugging it off when she refused. You really came for me, Heike. We’re good together. We’re good. Think of it: now that Daniel’s gone, it’s just the two of us. Out here in the country—didn’t you see it
, at those parties?—people were absolutely struck by it. Perfection. Those people were dying to be us.

  He reached out and patted her cheek, a little too hard.

  — And what did you do but run away? Your party trick with that two-bit hack. Small-potatoes television man. I called the police and everything. He paused and dragged on the smoke again, rocking back on his heels. And even that, you managed to make it about the kid! It’s not what I wanted.

  — And if what I want is Daniel?

  — Ha! Let’s say I could make that same tonic. You know now that he doesn’t exist. You know, he said. That’s too big a hurdle to overcome. Your brain would just supply a new delusion.

  — A delusion.

  Dani, hopping from foot to foot on the raft, holding his skinny arms out to her before he jumped.

  — Always there, Eric said. Pulling at your skirt. Wanting something. And maybe this time it wouldn’t be so nice.

  Heike felt herself growing starker, a tight muscle.

  There was the vaguest rustle from the hall, a sound of dry leaves skittering across the stone floor toward them. Eric picked up an ashtray and held it to eye level, puzzling at it as though he were taking a kind of measurement.

  — The only thing I could never explain was the second hallucination, he said. That little girl of yours. I don’t know what caused that. Once the drugs ran low, it was hard to keep track. I missed so much in your withdrawal. His voice slurring over the r’s and l’s. Tell me, he said. Did you ever see her again?

  From the doorway, the same light rustling picked up speed and then stopped abruptly. Almost the light clatter of footsteps. Heike thought of Tessa, skipping lightly across the surface of the pond, her feet barely sinking into the water as she ran. Tessa, so like Daniel, she could almost be Heike’s daughter. Small and blond, a tiny creature. A little bird, with sharp teeth.

  She looked at Eric, and his eyes were wide and black. She stepped closer.

  — I wish you’d seen her that day, Eric. My little girl. She was absolutely lovely. Just what you always wanted. A Dresden doll.