Hysteria

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

Eric pulled back, as though he’d momentarily recalled something uncomfortable. Heike moved toward him again and then stopped, her skirt catching on the drawer handle. She tugged at the fabric. Eric let the hand with the cigarette drop, and ash sprayed over the papers on the desk.

  — What are you doing there? He had the strange look of a barn cat, only the slimmest ring of pale grey banding his pupils. Stop it. There’s nothing there. Nothing. Do you hear me?

  But he glanced at the doorway warily. Heike turned again in the direction of the hall, following his gaze. Whatever was out there, a hiss of wind or some other thing, he also seemed to hear it now.

  She picked the skirt free. Eric snapped a hand out and grabbed her wrist.

  — I said don’t do that, didn’t I? There’s nothing there. Nothing’s pulling at you.

  Heike froze for a moment, and he peeled his hand off her and took a cautious step back toward the window. His eyes still low, fixed on her skirt where she’d just been fiddling with it. When she spoke, she kept her voice low and steady.

  — Such a sweet little thing. The girl in the water. So like me, only smaller. I wish I could have shown her to you. I can almost see her now, Eric. Can’t you?

  Eric stepped back again, until he was almost sitting on the sill, the window still half open where Heike had pulled it up. He blinked and then blinked again, holding his eyes closed and then opening them again. Three storeys down.

  The door to the office tapped lightly against the wall. From just beyond it, the same noise came again.

  A skittering sound.

  — Of course, she said, these things can take on a life of their own. What did you say? Always there. Wanting something.

  Heike looked over her shoulder to the doorway and then back again. Whatever she’d imagined in the turret, heavy and waiting, it was gone. What was coming now was fierce in its lightness.

  — I can almost hear her, she said. Coming down the stairs. Can’t you? Listen: her steps are so quick. Heike took hold of his arm, gently at first, then tighter. Someone only you can see, Eric, she said. Can you imagine that? You won’t ever be alone. Never again. The little fingernails scratching at your arms. Scratching until you bleed.

  He pushed her away, aiming back toward the desk, Heike at his heels.

  — Always there, following behind you, she said. Just like today.

  Eric’s leg buckled under him, and he tried to catch himself, grabbing at anything. Heike swung out of the way just in time.

  The office door banged back against the wall, harder this time, and they both flinched.

  — Doctor? You needed something?

  The same breeze as before, from some unknown source, but now Eric’s nurse stood in the hallway. Her cloth cap shifted on her head. Heike turned slowly to the door.

  The sound of footsteps still lithe and light, up and down the hall behind her.

  Eric stared down, first at his leg, then at his own hand, flexing and opening his fingers.

  — I’m bleeding, he said. Just like you said. I’m bleeding.

  He held tight to a fountain pen, the barrel cracked where he’d been squeezing it in his fist; a few droplets of ink ran over his hand in a thin stream. The nurse stood frozen in the entryway. Eric’s eyes moved around the room as though he were following something with his look.

  — Do you hear that?

  The sound changing as Heike listened for it: a breath at the back of the throat. A furious panting. Gasping. Faster now. A bird, caught in the chimney, its talons rasping against the stone. Eric took hold of Heike’s dress and dragged her in toward him, his voice louder now and low in his throat.

  — Keep her away from me, Heike.

  She could see where his fingernails dug into his palm, his hand shaking with the strength of its grip, and reached up to grab onto anything, the cord from the blinds, an anchor, however fragile.

  As she turned, she caught a flash of white in the glass. Her own wrist tethered to the window frame, and then next to her, some other version: the girl in a matching white gown, lip curled back, the muscle of her diaphragm beating out, pushing air from her lungs in a seething stream. Too fast to be seen. No bird, but Tessa in her moment of changing, muscles taut and ropey along their bones, massive jaw gaping. Her cur’s grin: Heike could almost feel it in her own gums. She wheeled back from the window, looking wildly around her, but found only Eric in the room.

  — She’s coming. Isn’t she? You hear it.

  There was the pop and split of thread, the seam of her dress coming apart where Eric tore at her. Ink streamed down his arm from the fountain pen, shattered and glinting where he grasped it still, almost a dagger in his hand.

  In his panic, he began to weep:

  — I don’t want to see her! Get her away. Away!

  The window gave suddenly, slamming down into its frame behind them, the chime of breaking glass covering everything. Heike bent at the waist, a pain in her ears as though the pressure in the room had been sucked out all at once. Eric grabbed at her again.

  — Do you hear it?

  The last shard of broken glass spun to a stop on the floor.

  Whatever she had first sensed outside and then high in the turret above them, some strong thing in the dark, came into her now, burning hot and unbreakable. She cast her gaze down, allowing her cheeks to lift as though something there delighted her. Her throat open, muscular in its exhalations. She leaned close to Eric’s ear:

  — I hear her.

  Eric raised his hand. From the doorway, the nurse began to scream.

  A Descent of Ravens

  Two forces create eternity—a fairy tale and a dream from the fairy tale.

  — Dejan Stojanović, “A Fairy Tale and the End”

  Dear Prince, I must leave you . . .

  — Oscar Wilde, “The Happy Prince”

  21.

  Arden met her out on the courtroom steps, carrying a large canvas bag. She’d been worried that she was still too shaky, she told Heike, to attend the hearing herself. Heike said it was just as well. The nurse from the asylum had spent an hour on the stand, her testimony prickling with detail.

  The audience—a larger than usual number of onlookers, and mostly women—had been wedged hip to hip on benches that were in fact church pews borrowed from the neighbouring Presbyterian in anticipation of the crowd. Heike sat unobtrusively at the back of the courtroom, just another curious housewife in a lavender sundress. The heat was cloying: a rivulet of sweat trickled down her back. At the sight of the nurse, she’d pulled her hat just a little lower, but the nurse herself wanted only the attention of the judge and had not looked around the crowded courtroom at all.

  There had been only one moment of true anxiety during the inquest: a record existed, the court clerk said, at the local sheriff’s office, of police being called to the deceased man’s house just a few weeks before his death. Heike froze in her seat, bracing herself to hear that the man’s wife was under investigation, or was at least a person of interest. But no report had ever been filed. The judge struck the item from the transcript and moved on.

  Now she dipped to pick up one handle of Arden’s bag.

  — Come on, she said. Before that nurse comes out here and spots me. We are two very average ladies, out for a walk.

  The women turned to head east toward the river, and made some small talk as convincingly as they knew how: the quality of the button tables at Lasky’s Dressmaker Supply (very good), and that of the vodka gimlet at Saul’s (rather wanting, unless you like the taste of ice). They shared the weight of the grocery bag, each holding one handle, the bag swinging between them. Arden had an umbrella with her, and she rapped it against the ground as they went. It made a counterpoint to the sound of their heels striking the sidewalk, and if you were not paying close attention, you might think it was three women walking instead of only two. There was a tavern wedged into a corner at the end of the block, its shutters half down. Heike wondered if Arden wouldn’t fancy a cup of tea.

&n
bsp; — This place looks pretty.

  Inside, there were only three patrons, all on stools, and an old-timey popcorn maker and a defunct slot machine.

  — Just for show, the bartender called out when Arden stopped to finger the handle. Imported!

  — I’ll bet. All the way from New Jersey.

  — That machine has crossed water, is what I’m saying.

  He was a thin man with long legs and a skinny tie and his sleeves rolled up way past the elbow. There was a tattoo up there, but Heike could see only the bottom corner of it. He had hair on his arms, dark but baby fine, and he carried a little scratch pad in his breast pocket. When he came to take their order, he pulled out the pad like it was lunchtime.

  — What’ll it be? I got a cold plate with pickles and a pig’s knuckle on it.

  Heike reached up and pushed at the fold of his sleeve with a finger.

  — We’ll have a fifth of bourbon, she said. And two glasses if you’ve got them. But we’re not fussy. We’d rather have the bottle than the glasses.

  The bartender looked down at her finger. She tipped her head up so that she could see what she was doing from under the wide brim of her hat.

  — Ah. It’s an anchor you have. I was afraid it might be a hula girl. What would your mother say?

  He pushed the sleeve up higher himself to reveal the letters M-O-M in an arc above the anchor.

  — Perfect. I approve, Heike said. We don’t need a pig’s fist, though.

  — I can’t serve you dames liquor without some kind of food at this time of day.

  Heike untied the strap of her hat and shook her hair out.

  — Haven’t you got anything else? Some crackers or something?

  — How about a piece of cake? Arden said.

  — No crackers. He turned to Arden: And no pastry, neither.

  The canvas bag was on the chair next to Heike; she settled the hat on top of it.

  — So what do you have?

  — I got a cold plate with pickles and a pig’s knuckle on it.

  — It’s terribly austere, but I suppose we’ll pull through. She looked at Arden. We’ll have a pig fist, please.

  — Knuckle, the bartender said.

  — Yes, the knuckle from the fist.

  — Two glasses, two plates.

  — In that case, Arden said, we’re quite hungry.

  He went back to the bar and poured a double for one of the hard tickets sitting there, and then he ducked down behind the counter and came up again with a couple of plates. There were three big glass jars on the counter, and he unscrewed the lids, one by one, and used a pair of wooden tongs to distribute some onions and pickles on the plates and then the pickled hocks next to those. Heike watched him working as she pulled her gloves off.

  When he came back, he had the two plates balanced in one hand and the fifth and the two glasses in the other. He set the plates down first.

  — Schweinshaxe.

  There was a pause, and he put both glasses and the bottle down on Heike’s side of the table and leaned there.

  — Schweinshaxe, Heike said again. That’s what we call this at home. She poked at the knuckle with the same finger she’d used to examine the man’s tattoo. Only I think we make it better, crispy. And with a cabbage salad. Schweinshaxe.

  — Gesundheit, the bartender said. He went back to his bar and began washing and drying glasses that hadn’t been used.

  Arden pulled the two glasses into a line and dosed them each with an inch or two of bourbon.

  — I suppose we’ll have to orchestrate a funeral next, she said.

  Heike hooked a finger into the rim of one glass. The mention of a funeral made her blanch. Arden flicked at a bit of pickled onion on the table.

  — John says a memorial in New York in the fall will quite suffice, and I’m inclined to agree.

  Heike nodded.

  In the end, Arden told her, very few people had even known Heike existed. No one would expect her to attend such a service. Arden would not expect it, at least.

  — What was the verdict?

  — Misadventure, Heike said.

  — That makes it easy, then, for the obituary. In that he didn’t throw himself out the window, she said. Or hang himself with his own suspenders. Arden lifted her glass to eye level and swirled it as though she were examining the colour and viscosity of the liquid for laboratory reasons. When she set it down again, she looked tired. No need for any extra cleanup, she said.

  — I’m sorry, Arden. I am sorry for your family.

  Arden took a drink and set the glass down again.

  — I’d say it’s my family that owes you a thing or two, not the other way around. She spun the empty glass on the table and caught it again. But goddammit, she said. He ruined everything. I don’t want to be angry. He was my brother, after all. She lifted a hand to touch her forehead.

  Heike pulled her handbag into her lap and picked through it. She needed something from inside.

  — I brought this for you. You should have it.

  She pushed a little pink sachet across the table. Arden opened the snap and fished through the bag with a finger. A few dry calendula blossoms tumbled out, and then a ring, the gold of it dimmed by a bit of powder, some cardamom or lavender turned to dust.

  — Oh, Heike. This is yours.

  — It isn’t.

  — At least melt it down.

  Arden laid the ring on the table. It had a dull lustre, even in daylight. Heike pushed it away again.

  — No. No, it’s part of your brother’s estate. I don’t want anything to do with it.

  After a moment, Arden slipped it back into the sachet and clicked the snap.

  — My estate now, though. She looked at Heike once more, then tucked the sachet into her purse. John’s been going through the files, she said. He says it looks like Eric got rid of a fair amount of paper in the last while.

  — But no marriage certificate, Heike said. That’s right, isn’t it?

  — I guess not. He said there are gaps everywhere, though. Not just in his research documents. The financial records are a mess—funding seems to come out of nowhere, and then the money just disappears again. No receipts for anything.

  — There are no wedding pictures, Arden. Not even one. Heike emptied her glass. I wonder sometimes how he managed to sign me out of that place.

  — The Willard?

  Heike gave her head a little shake.

  — I can’t even say the name, she said. It makes me nervous. If we weren’t ever really married, he must have faked some kind of paperwork. A transfer? I keep worrying that one day I’ll hear a knock on my door and it will be the straitjacket, come to get me.

  She waved her arms stiffly, zombified. This was meant to be a joke, a distraction for Arden. A decoy. Heike couldn’t be sure if she was taking the bait.

  Her own questions—the things she could not say out loud—remained unanswered. What had happened to her real wedding ring, for instance, Harry’s ring, the ring she’d been wearing the night of the accident? Or her wedding photos? Somewhere there would have to be pictures of them, Harry in his army uniform, Heike in a travelling dress, boarding the train to Vienna for their honeymoon. Easier to focus on these details, lost objects, than to struggle for memories that wouldn’t come.

  She could not remember what Harry had said to her before he died, lying in the road, or if he could talk at all. What he’d wanted to name the baby. If they’d been hoping for a boy or a girl. She could remember the feel of the baby kicking inside her, but not the feel of Harry’s hands on her body, her face. His parents had been dead. Who had buried him?

  True memories felt chromatic—a vivid flash—and at the same time, suspect. Hard to trust: she wanted them so much. The first time she’d kissed Harry, a secret, in a passage between houses. She’d pulled him along to show him where a stork was nesting on a chimney pot. The shine of daylight, and high above them a voice calling out: Kuckuck! Kuckuck!

  A little girl leaning
out her window, red ribbons in her hair. Spying there.

  Arden spun the bottle cap on the table. The chime as it pinballed from bottle to glass. Heike pulled her glass over and poured again for both of them.

  — Well. What do you think? Are we going to drink this whole thing?

  Arden stayed where she was, watching. Her fingers wound together in her lap.

  — It’s inadvisable.

  — And yet.

  There were two large windows on either side of the door, and Heike turned her head as if to look out onto the street. Where there were no shutters, the sheers hung down in front of the glass, grey with age and tawdry along the edges. On the other side there were only silhouettes moving in turns along the sidewalk, as though someone had rigged a slow-moving fan to cast shadows.

  — The hospital will keep it quiet, she said.

  THE NURSE AT THE INQUEST—Marjorie Halloway—had started her testimony by saying she’d been called to Dr. Lerner’s office, but he seemed zonked, out of sorts: she’d been afraid to come in, and then afraid he might hit the young lady, his lady friend, who was with him.

  Heike had also thought Eric meant to hit her. He was weeping in fear—Get her away! I don’t want to see her!—and suddenly raised the broken pen high in his fist, his whole arm shaking with the force of his grip. She was trapped between him and the window and threw an arm over her head to shield herself, the other hand grabbing at the cord from the blinds, trying to wrap it around her wrist like a tether. She was afraid he might push her out the window, the nurse only standing there, stupidly, frightened of him herself.

  But he did not hit her. Instead, he brought his hand down to his own eye—the hand still holding the fountain pen—and the action of driving the nib’s point and then the barrel of the pen itself into the eye socket was not impulsive or easy. It was a fervid gesture, determined, and the bursting of the eye seemed meant for Heike alone. A kind of final punishment.

  This could not be true. Eric was by that time lost to his delusion, she told herself, and Heike’s own face hidden away under her arm, bracing for the blow. She did not look up until she heard him screaming, his face already running with ink and blood. Heike felt the room weave around her. Eric’s other hand still held tight to her dress, pulling her closer.