For Love of Audrey Rose

by Frank De Felitta

  “The point is that Elliot Hoover and Bill both believe in the doctrine of reincarnation. They have that in common. They are linked by their beliefs.”

  Dr. Geddes backed away. He went to the coffee machine and wiped up some spilled coffee with a paper towel.

  “The sick treating the sick,” Dr. Geddes muttered.

  Janice rose to her feet and stepped closer to him.

  “That too is the point,” she said earnestly. “You don’t accept the doctrine. I’m not sure what I believe. That’s why Bill rejects us both.”

  “True.”

  Hoover came to his feet, sensing Dr. Geddes’s weakening position.

  “And Bill and I are intimately connected. We were together through it all.”

  “At least,” Janice persisted strongly, “it could open an avenue, just a little. Just to make Bill feel there are human beings who believe and are ready to help him.”

  “Could you sit down, please? It’s disquieting to have everybody jumping around the room.”

  After a long silence, Dr. Geddes daubed perspiration from his forehead.

  “What, actually, would you say to Bill?” he asked. “Assuming that I let you see him?”

  “Exactly what I’ve said to you. That he must renounce the child. He must accept his loss.”

  Dr. Geddes nodded.

  “That is what we’ve been trying to tell him,” he observed somewhat doubtfully.

  “The difference is,” Hoover said, smiling, “that Bill understands my language.”

  “The jargon of religion, you mean?”

  “Yes. He will respond to that. He’s been studying it for months now. That’s all he will respond to.”

  “Will you wait here?” Dr. Geddes asked.

  Then he turned and abruptly left the room. Janice and Hoover waited in silence. The conference room was a chilling, antiseptic environment.

  After ten minutes no one had come to the room. Then there was a distant, low-rolling rumble. Janice and Hoover looked up.

  “Even in this hospital nature finds its voice,” he murmured.

  Janice stopped fidgeting. Once again the deep bass reverberated in the clouds piling over the island.

  “Like the thunder before the monsoon?” she said softly.

  For a moment they smiled at one another, exhausted by the long day of waiting, and remembering the subcontinent that devoured them, changed them forever, and spit them out again.

  The door opened. Dr. Geddes walked in, and behind him was Dr. Boltin, the director of the hospital. Behind the director were two more physicians and a lanky staff assistant who carried the relevant files in his arms as though they were religious totems. The door closed.

  “Be seated, gentlemen,” Dr. Geddes said, extending a cursory hand at the chairs around the table.

  As the thunder rolled Dr. Boltin reached for the pile of folders at his right hand. Looking through them, he pulled out a stapled pair of tissue-thin, typed reports.

  “Templeton, William. Severe depressive and delusionary. Well, you gentlemen know the case as well as I do,” the director said, turning his attention to Janice. “Mrs. Templeton, before we proceed you should be made aware of certain changes in the direction of the case. During your absence your husband attempted suicide.”

  Hoover’s face blanched. Janice rose, stunned.

  “Suicide…?” she stammered.

  “Attempted asphyxiation,” Dr. Boltin elaborated.

  Janice’s hand involuntarily went to her mouth.

  “The facts are,” Dr. Geddes interrupted, “that Bill was able to procure some matches and oily rags from the kitchen. He barred himself in the room by pushing his bed against the door, and sealed the windows. He filled the air with fumes and smoke.”

  “He was unconscious when we broke the window from the ledge outside,” Dr. Boltin concluded.

  The director and the rest of the assembled physicians seemed to wait for a response.

  “The same death as Ivy’s,” Hoover said. “He was trying to atone.”

  Dr. Boltin eyed him balefully. “For what, Mr. Hoover?”

  “For feeling himself responsible. For allowing the death of his daughter. Which he might have prevented.”

  “We consider this was a serious act toward suicide,” Dr. Boltin said, peering first at Janice and then at Hoover. “It was not a mere gesture, a cry for help, as it were.”

  “I understand,” Janice said, barely audible.

  “That is why we are willing to let you talk to him, Mr. Hoover,” broke in one of the physicians.

  “We’re very grateful for your understanding,” Hoover said.

  “Yes,” Dr. Boltin said ambiguously as he drummed his fingers on the table, exchanging glances with Dr. Geddes. Neither Janice nor Hoover could decipher what the signals were, but after a long pause, Dr. Boltin raised an eyebrow and the lanky assistant went quickly from the room.

  “When Bill comes in,” Dr. Boltin said more kindly, “he may be disoriented. He may not know you, or feel uncertain about expressing his feelings at seeing you, Mrs. Templeton. He may break into tears. You must just accept whatever he does as natural and support him.”

  “Does he know I’ve come?” Hoover asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what did he say?”

  “I don’t believe he said anything at all, Mr. Hoover.”

  The door opened. Janice gasped. A travesty of Bill stood blinking in the doorway. His collarbones protruded sharply and his shoulders bent inward. His trousers hung loosely at the waist. He looked as though he were recovering from an operation.

  “Bill!” Janice whispered, standing up, taking a step closer.

  He gazed at her blankly, and then his face made a mask with a smile on it.

  “Hello.”

  Pathetically, he took a step closer to her, tried to mumble something, but only blinked rapidly. He looked around at the assembly of white-coated physicians and seemed terribly ashamed to be under their scrutiny.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” he whispered, edging still closer.

  As though he had recognized one friend out of the multitude, Bill shuffled in tiny steps sideways toward her, to protect him from the onslaught of the eyes that examined him and dissected him.

  “I’m—okay,” he whispered confidentially. “Just—just a bit cold—and—and—it’s good to see you….”

  He stood now next to her, his arms uncertain whether to touch her or not, until she put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him forward. Suddenly he trembled like a baby.

  “So—good to—see you,” he cried into her shoulder, shaking.

  “Oh, Bill. Darling Bill. I’ve worried so much about you.”

  “Don’t go away again. Please don’t go away….”

  Hoover, much affected, now felt the attention of the assembly shift slowly but inexorably onto him. Bill, with Janice holding his hand, was seated next to Dr. Geddes. It took Bill a full two minutes to realize that they were not going to ask him any questions. Slowly he became aware of the tension filling the room. Overhead, the thunder cracked abruptly, viciously.

  Bill turned slowly, following his instincts, following where Dr. Geddes stared, where the two physicians gazed, where Dr. Boltin had stationed the lanky staff assistant. Down at the other end of the table, perspiring in the humidity, confident, boldly immobile and staring back, was Elliot Hoover.

  Bill blinked rapidly. He looked at Janice, then at Dr. Geddes. He looked back down the long table at Elliot Hoover. He smiled an awkward, pathetically inappropriate smile. Then the smile vanished. He simply stared.

  “Hello, Bill,” Hoover said softly.

  Bill rubbed violently at his eyes, the way an infant might, as though some piece of grit had gotten lodged under the eyelids. It was an abrupt gesture, as though he tried to rub out what he was seeing.

  “I’ve come to talk to you,” Hoover said hesitantly. “Do you mind?”

>   Bill pressed his lips together, stared down at the table, and his fingers violently pressed into the cheap veneer and polish. He looked up quickly at Hoover, opened his mouth, but said nothing.

  Janice put a hand gently on Bill’s shoulder. A tremulous shudder rolled through Bill, and he brushed the hair from his forehead.

  “I—I knew you were here,” he said in a stilted voice. “They told me.”

  “Things have changed, Bill. For both of us.”

  “They told me,” Bill said, louder, fighting off the mental anarchy by raising his voice against the confusion. “They told me Elliot Hoover was here.”

  Hoover leaned forward, his features softened by compassion.

  “Listen to me, Bill. We’ve suffered. Both of us. In the same way.”

  “What?”

  Bill turned, his face in a grimace, as though he was hard of hearing. His movements were jerky, exaggerated, like an abnormal child who playacts his aggression.

  “I can’t hear you!” Bill complained.

  Hoover slid into a seat closer to Bill, and kept his voice soft and distinct.

  “We must help each other, Bill. We must forgive each other.”

  “What?”

  Janice had never seen a display of willed autism before. Bill was only partially in control of himself, driven by some twisted mechanism inside, some machine perpetually breaking down, trying desperately to defend itself against one more wound.

  “I’ve come to talk to you, Bill—in humility—about what happened—and why.”

  Bill nodded vigorously.

  “Good, good,” he said in a strange monotone. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Hoover looked nervously around the conference room. Dr. Boltin gave him an almost imperceptible nod of encouragement. Hoover licked his lips and leaned forward. Janice’s grip on Bill’s shoulder tightened.

  “When I heard that you were searching, Bill, as I had searched,” he began, “my heart was filled with… with sorrow. And with understanding. Because I’d gone through just that very search.”

  Bill stared disconsolately down at the tabletop.

  “And I knew the torment of that search. The doubts, the trials, the doctrines that leap against the mind like a dark and angry sea.”

  Sensing contact, Hoover moved closer. His voice took on more confidence, and Janice heard the familiar charisma of his passion, the love and strength that knew no obstacles, admitted to no impediments, the iron will that penetrated any soul placed before it.

  “But the error is not renouncing,” Hoover explained gently. “Do you recall in the Vedas, in the description of the progression of the soul, that beautiful description wherein it is written that the passions must renounce ere they possess? There is that extraordinary passage of the dawn of the soul, where the verse begins—”

  “How did you know about me?” Bill interrupted, suddenly whirling to look at him, his expression sly as a wolf.

  “What… what’s wrong, Bill?” Hoover said, frightened by the grinning intensity, the malevolence of the gaze.

  “How did you know about me?” Bill whispered.

  “Well, I—I heard…”

  “Little birds in India? Singing in your dreams?”

  Hoover shot a glance at Dr. Boltin, who was staring at Dr. Geddes. Dr. Geddes had gone pale. Janice and he began whispering feverishly. Meanwhile Bill’s haggard, tortured smile grew into something worse than a smile.

  “Bill, listen to me. The Vedas exist for the benevolence of all mankind.”

  “Who told you about me?” he shouted.

  Hoover gazed helplessly at Dr. Boltin, who cleared his throat.

  “Your wife went to India, found Mr. Hoover there, and brought him back for you.”

  Bill clapped his hands over his ears. “No! No!” he shouted.

  “Bill,” Janice said, touching his cheek. “I told you I would get help.”

  Bill threw off her hand. He suddenly lurched to his feet and stared into Hoover’s startled face. A thousand emotions shot across Bill’s lips, cheeks, and eyes, and he seemed uncertain, then enraged, and then the trembling got the better of him and he could not speak without stuttering.

  “H—h—has she—?” he began.

  “Has she what?” Hoover asked defensively.

  Bill came closer, whispering confidentially, his eyes gleaming, bloodshot.

  “H—h—has she—she—a nice—cunt?” he said, almost inaudible, hoarse, as though his throat had been torn out.

  “Bill!” Hoover said, shocked, standing.

  Bill leaped forward, tried to strike him, but found his hands too tightened up to make fists or direct a blow, and fell on Hoover, his teeth clamping onto Hoover’s neck.

  Janice screamed, jumped forward, chairs fell backward, Dr. Geddes threw himself at Bill, and the lanky staff assistant found his own fingers bleeding profusely where he foolishly tried to restrain Bill’s jaws. But in just that second Hoover managed to free himself. Gasping in disbelief and shock, he rolled to a kneeling position.

  “I—is she…” Bill whispered, restrained by Dr. Geddes and the assistant, oblivious of Dr. Boltin and the physicians standing in paralyzed terror over the table, “is she a good fuck?”

  Dr. Geddes edged backward to protect Janice. Bill sensed the change, broke free, and threw himself forward. He clubbed at Hoover with a heavy glass ashtray from the table. With sickening thuds the blows landed repeatedly at the base of Hoover’s skull, smashing at the hands which tried in vain to cushion the force of the blows.

  The two physicians, stumbling, launched themselves onto Bill. The door opened and two burly orderlies appeared and instantly ran across the room, knocking chairs to the wall. In the tumult Janice saw a thin, awful spray of red blood fly outward as Bill was catapulted toward the wall. As they doubled him up by bending his arms behind his back, exerting pressure at his neck, she watched in numb horror as the tiny trickle of blood, like a symbol of total disaster, oozed slowly down the pale green wall to the floor.

  “Take him…Take him…” Dr. Boltin faltered.

  “To the restraint room,” one of the physicians ordered, his voice trembling. “And stay with him!”

  “Sedation,” Dr. Geddes called after them. “No physical restraint.”

  The other physician accompanied Bill while the orderlies and staff assistant simultaneously locked him in their arms and trundled him toward the door. Janice saw the grisly sight of Bill’s mouth drooling. He had lost control of his own throat in his pathological rage, and a roar of pain shook his thin frame. He glared at Janice like a tiger from a cage, and she knew that if he were free he would certainly at that moment have killed her.

  “WHORE! WHORE!”

  He lost coherence. The orderlies dragged him out into the hall, his ravings echoing, growing louder in the corridor, like a demented bull elephant, screaming obscenities about Janice’s body, about her lust, about her death; then it subsided and faded into the distant north wing.

  Janice reeled from chair to chair, and finally sat down heavily. In her shock she gazed about vaguely, apprehending nothing, seeing horrific caricatures of the men she had trusted to heal Bill. Dr. Geddes stood, half poised to sit, paralyzed, trying to think of something, anything, to end the horror. Dr. Boltin trembled like a leaf, knocking over cups of coffee, as in a dream, trying to get to Elliot Hoover on the floor.

  “It’s—it’s all right,” Hoover said, pushing the physician away.

  The sound of Hoover’s voice restored a sense of reality. Janice reached out, touched Hoover on the cheek, and saw thin flecks of his blood stain her fingers.

  “Dear God,” he whispered, “what have we done?”

  “We’ve killed him. Inside,” she whispered. “He’s broken. Completely.”

  “God forgive us.”

  Dr. Boltin cleared his throat. At the sound, Dr. Geddes stirred, lifted his head, and his eyes were red.

  “I must go see Bill,” Dr. Geddes said. “I—I will stay the night with him
.”

  Compassionately, Dr. Boltin nodded. “We’ll confer in the morning.”

  Dr. Geddes sensed his impotence, muttered a few more words, and left the conference room, heading for the north wing of the complex.

  Dr. Boltin went to Hoover.

  “Is your neck all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’ll be all right.”

  Janice stood next to him, needing his strength, his warmth, his solidity, even under the gaze of Dr. Boltin.

  “I am so sorry that this happened,” Dr. Boltin said. “We had no way of predicting.”

  “Have we destroyed him?” Hoover asked after a pause.

  “It is most serious now,” the doctor conceded. “I believe that we must be prepared to accept the worst.”

  Janice sagged against Hoover’s chest. “Don’t go,” she said, frightened.

  Hoover’s eyes looked bloodshot. His face was pale.

  “I came to atone,” he said incredulously. “I’ve only compounded the sin.”

  “Please don’t leave me. I need you.”

  He looked down at her.

  “Let me go,” he pleaded. “Let me pray. Let me understand. Perhaps then I can help you. But now it’s all too confused.”

  He stumbled toward the open door. The corridor was filled with nurses and doctors who peeked into the room where the disturbance had rocked the hospital. Hoover stopped at the door.

  “Pray for Bill,” he said, adding, “and for me, Janice.”

  He walked quickly toward the lobby. Janice followed him into the corridor, caught a glimpse of his retreating form at the double glass doors to the parking lot.

  “Elliot!”

  He slowed ever so slightly, then painfully opened the door, stepped outside, and saw a taxi discharging a patient with family. He raised his arm, shouted, and ran through the night rain toward the twin shafts of headlights.

  “Elliot!”

  Janice ran through the double doors into the cold rain. Instantly her hair was drenched, and a foul smell of the marsh assailed her nostrils. She ran through the puddles and caught Hoover just as he opened the rear door of the taxi.

  “Please,” she wept. “Don’t leave me now.”

  He touched her cheek softly. “I’m no good to you now. I can’t help you. I can’t help Bill. When I understand, when I know what to do, I’ll contact you. And we can make right everything that we’ve done wrong. Trust me. For Bill’s sake, trust me.” With a tortured look he got into the taxi and closed the door.