by M. D. Elster
The blackout was extensive. All over town, streetlamps were out and windows were dark. The streetcars weren’t operating. We hurried as fast as we could on foot, hoping my stepfather would take his time emptying out the club, securing everything, and locking it up for the night. The hour wasn’t terribly late — it was nine o’clock the last I’d checked — but the pitch black streets and the starless sky with its eerie glow of thunderclouds made it seem as though we were lost in an eternal night, as though we’d almost fallen out of time completely.
The only time I had ever felt this way in my life was in London, during the air raids when everything had to be blacked out. The resemblance to this former time, a time of peril, made me jumpy; I winced at every high-pitched sound we heard, anticipating the wailing of the air raid sirens. Jules noticed.
“Say, are you all right?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” he said.
“All of these lights being out, the city in total darkness… it reminds me of the war.”
“That’s right. You was in Europe for the worst of it, weren’t you?”
I gave another nod. I wanted to say more, but I was too bothered; my throat felt thick.
“I suppose that couldn’t have been too easy. Well, just think: You made it out of that, safe and sound. You’re either strong, or lucky — or maybe even both. This little storm ain’t but a mosquito buzzing around your head.”
I mustered a smile to show him my thanks, despite still being haunted by an uneasy feeling. “Yes… my stepfather and I made it through all that. But it’s also when we lost my mother. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten fully over it.”
Jules nodded, taking this in. Lightning flashed and for a split second, I could see the rain making rivulets down his face, dripping from his chin. “You say she died in the bombing?”
“One of the worst nights of the Blitz. The house where we were staying — it was hit.”
“Where was your stepfather when your mother was… injured?” he asked.
I remember being surprised by this question, looking at Jules’s face and trying to determine the source of his curiosity.
“In the room with her,” I said.
“And you?”
“Same.”
The lightning flashed again. His unreadable face did not change, he only continued nodding, thinking things through. I found myself wishing to change the subject.
“Tell me more about your interest in boxing,” I said. “Do you hope to become a boxer yourself?”
Jules scoffed. “Of course not,” he said. “Where I’m from, boys who buy into that nonsense never amount to nothing — the idea you could be a pro boxer and get rich, it’s just a way to keep you thinking about how poor you are. No… I don’t have no interest in being a boxer, not like that. I told you: I’m destined for the stage. And boxers… well, they take a lot of hits to the face.”
“Can’t have that, eh?” I said. It was my attempt to resume our usual dynamic — a dynamic in which it was my sacred duty to tease him at all times.
“Are you joking me? With this mug?” he said, and grinned. It was funny, but it would have been funnier if Jules were actually unfortunate looking. As it stood, there must have been at least a little truth in him wanting to guard his handsome face. We chuckled together awkwardly, but just then, a streak of lighting flashed so brightly it seemed to be right on top of us, and a ripple of thunder shook the asphalt beneath our feet and echoed in our hollow chests.
“Hey. You still rattled?” Jules asked. There was no mockery in it. I looked into his dripping face and saw genuine concern.
I tipped my chin in a nod, just slightly, hoping he wouldn’t make fun of me. “You must think I’m stupid — being afraid of the dark,” I said. “But it’s not the dark. It’s just the memories.”
“How ‘bout I sing a song for you, to keep your spirits up as we walk? I could use the practice if I’m gonna convince your stepfather to let me on that stage someday…”
“All right,” I agreed.
For my amusement, he began dancing and singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” He had to compete with the steady drone of the wind and rain all around us, and as the storm picked up momentum, he fought back by raising his volume.
“Boy — Judy Garland, eat your heart out!” I said, laughing. As he continued to caper about, thoughts of London and the bombings completely left my head.
A block or so later, we finally reached my house.
“Well, it looks like we beat him home,” I said, meaning my stepfather. “I’m sure I’ll get an earful from Edie, but that’s never so bad.”
“At least she won’t get an earful from him,” Jules pointed out.
“That’s true.”
I looked around at the dark houses and empty streets. “Will you walk back to the club alone?”
“Sure,” Jules said. He shrugged and squinted up into the rain. “Don’t worry. This ain’t a hurricane. This is just a regular old storm. A storm that caused a little blackout is all.”
He was right, of course. The storm that blew into New Orleans that night never did turn into a hurricane, and electricity was restored before the sun came up the next morning. But I couldn’t know how it would turn out at the time, and found myself nonetheless a little worried for Jules. Before I knew what I was doing, I impulsively reached my arms around him and hugged him. I had been too embarrassed to thank him aloud, and I hoped my gratitude for the distraction he’d provided — singing and dancing around — was somehow folded up in that hug.
The hug only lasted a few seconds, and after I let him go, he looked slightly sheepish.
“I’ll wait for you to get on inside,” he said.
I nodded, and turned to walk in the direction of the front door. Then I paused and called over my shoulder.
“You’ve got a nice singing voice, Jules — you really want to get my stepfather to let you perform onstage one day?”
“Sure,” he said.
I’ll never forget what he said next. I hardly thought it was prophetic at the time, but of course the irony of it dawned on me much later.
“But your stepfather is an awful tough nut to crack,” Jules said. “At the rate I’m going, the only way he’ll ever let me onstage is if I put a gun to his head.”
CHAPTER 30.
I wake up in the asylum dormitory full of dread and disappointment. I’ve been unbuckled and I am resting, but I’m all too aware that today is the day I am to receive my first round of electroshock therapy.
There is little time to stew in my bad mood, however. Some kind of commotion is stirring near my bed. I see Dr. Waters, a cluster of nurses, and an additional, familiar shape. I freeze when I recognize her: It is Colette. What is she doing here, I wonder, standing in the dormitory of the women’s wing? For a moment, I am hopeful that she has changed her mind about authorizing the electroshock.
She suddenly looks over, as if she can sense me pondering her presence.
“Look,” Colette says in a hushed, commanding voice. “She’s awake! Surely I can talk to her now, can’t I?”
Her question is directed to Dr. Waters. He follows Colette’s gaze to where I am still laying prone in my rickety twin cot, slightly confused and rubbing sleep from my eyes.
“Yes, all right,” he sighs. “I suppose you can.”
Colette turns and clicks over to my side in her heeled shoes.
“Hello, Anaïs. Good morning,” she says. She is trying to keep her voice calm, but there is a fresh a quiver of nerves in it — even more than she had during our last exchange. Something is bothering her.
“What’s happened?” I ask.
“I’m here about your stepfather,” she says.
I sit up, fearing the worst. I can feel the color drain out of my face and my blood run cold in my veins. Oh, God, I think, It can’t be. But why else would she be here?
“Is he…”
I work to muster the strength to say the words. It is too early for me to think of such complicated matters as death. “Is he… dead?”
“Oh, no!” she says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. No, no… it’s not that. It’s rather the opposite… early this morning, your stepfather came out of his coma. He’s awake — that’s what I’ve come here to tell you.”
“Oh!” I exclaim. I can breathe again. Colette moves to sit down, perching her dainty backside in a precarious manner on the edge of my twin bed.
“The trouble is, he’s been asking for you, Anaïs,” she says. She drops her voice again, as though she is confiding in me. “He wants to see you.” She looks me over from head to toe, a cautious expression on her face.
This is good news, I think. After all, I’ve been asking to see him — even to visit his resting body while he lay sleeping in a coma — but I’ve been fobbed off at every turn. Now he is awake, and asking for me; of course I want to see him.
“Dr. Waters?” I ask, calling over Colette’s shoulder in an anxious voice. “My stepfather is awake. He is asking for me. May I be permitted to visit him?”
“Yes. If Miss Baudin agrees to facilitate and chaperone the visit, I will allow it,” Dr. Waters says, nodding and stroking his heavy moustache. “But I’m afraid she has voiced some reservations about your own fragile health, my dear.”
I refocus my eyes on Colette, giving her a stormy look.
“Why wouldn’t you want me to see my father?” I ask.
Her eyes go wide. “It’s not…” she stammers, “It’s not that I don’t want you to see him. It’s only that I want to make sure you’re well enough first. I don’t want…” she wavers, her eyes swimming around the room, looking everywhere from the walls to the ceiling, as though some answer might be written into the very plaster of the room. “I, uh, simply don’t want the visit to do you more harm than good,” she finally finishes.
“In my professional opinion, I don’t believe it would harm the girl, not at this point,” Dr. Waters interjects.
I smile at him, grateful. I have never liked him so much in the entire history of our acquaintanceship.
“I understand your caution, Miss Baudin. I myself was hesitant to allow her to see her stepfather while he was still unconscious,” he says now. “After all, the lawyers told me he was in a bad state and that his prognosis was not good. I didn’t want the poor girl to lose heart! But now that events have taken such a fortuitous turn, now that he is awake and wishes to see her, I believe we ought to respect his wishes, and bring her to him! A true hero; he has been through so much.”
At this, Colette bites her lip and looks at me with a glimmer of something wary in her eye. I realize: My stepfather must know exactly who shot him, and how. Whatever the truth is about that night, it is bound to come out — perhaps that is exactly what she hopes to prevent.
But no matter what I glimpse in her eye, I decide it is likely best not to confront her at this juncture.
“Please, Colette?” I say instead. “Will you chaperone me so I might pay a visit to his hospital?”
She bites her lip again, and I can see that she is going to relent.
“Is that really what you want, Anaïs?”
“Of course — why wouldn’t I?”
She doesn’t have an answer for this. She sighs, and stands up from where she has been perching like a nervous little bird on the edge of my bed. She turns to address Dr. Waters.
“I suppose…” she says, “I suppose I could drive her over there, and supervise the two of them while they visit for a bit. The nurses say his visits must not last longer than thirty minutes,” she cautions. “You know… to keep from tiring him out. He still doesn’t have all his strength back.”
“Well, that sounds most reasonable,” Dr. Waters says. “I would be happy to sign the paperwork to permit Anaïs a brief mid-day excursion under your care, Miss Baudin. Come with me to my office, and we will get this business straightened out while the nurses see to it Anaïs is dressed in some suitable clothing and that she has a chance to eat some breakfast.”
I can tell Colette is flustered, and unhappy with this course of action, but hardly knows what to do about it. Her mouth opens and shuts like it did in the courtyard when I attempted to confront her, her eyelids flutter, but ultimately her protests die before they are able to take form on her lips.
“All right,” she says finally.
Dr. Waters gestures with one arm towards the open door in the dormitory. “Shall we?” he says. She nods, he leads, and they disappear through the doorway and down the hall, towards Dr. Waters’s office.
So now it is up to me to prepare for today’s excursion. Instead of goading me to put on a fresh hospital gown, Nurse Baptiste fetches a dress and helps me put it on. She slips the garment in question over my head and I realize these are my own clothes. It is like seeing an old friend from a previous life, I recognize the dress — it used to hang in my closet from the time before the hurricane, before the incident that changed everything. It’s funny, I think, how they feel like “civilian” clothes, as though the asylum is some kind of military institution, and I am only pretending to be a normal person for the day.
In the cafeteria, I wolf my oatmeal down at record speed. One of the girls, Sharon, cautions me, “What’s the rush? You’ll give yourself a stomachache if you don’t slow down…” I ignore her. A strange sort of asylum-logic has taken root in my mind. I am convinced the sooner I am finished with breakfast, the sooner I am ready to go, the sooner Colette will check me out and drive me across town to see my stepfather.
The only thing I am worried about is spilling on my dress, because I want to look nice for my stepfather. Everyone is already giving me funny stares — funny, even by asylum standards — because the dress marks me as someone different, someone not quite like them: Someone with a life outside these walls. Even the girls who don’t speak in coherent sentences are making queer faces at me and whimpering. I have upset their balance — the balance in which we are all wearing the same hospital gown and are equally insane. I don’t care. The only thing that matters is my reunion with my stepfather.
Soon enough, Colette comes to collect me, and together we make our way through the many locked gates of the asylum, until finally, I find myself sailing out the front door. We climb into my stepfather’s Cadillac (it is not lost on me that, while we own a handful of perfectly fine, nice cars, Colette has decided to drive my stepfather’s most expensive automobile in the wake of his absence). Colette slips on a pair of ladylike driving gloves, and we pull out onto the Louisiana highway.
“Will you be pleased to see your stepfather?” she asks in a probing voice as we drive along.
“Of course,” I say. “He was nearly killed. I was knocked unconscious; it is a wonder we are both still alive.”
I look at her from out the sides of my eyes, wondering what she knows… wondering how I might get her to tell me what she knows.
“Say…” I try to make my voice sound casual. I don’t want to anger her before I have a chance to reunite with my stepfather. “Where were you that night? The night of the hurricane. I never asked.”
“Me?” she asked. Her eyes flick from the road to my face, and back to the road again.
“Yes. I am beginning to remember things, and I remember you’d moved in with us, didn’t you? That’s right,” I say aloud, more to myself that to Colette, “that’s right — after your engagement party… you moved all your things into our big pink house. You moved in to live with us.”
“I was at the nightclub that night,” she says. “Your father had left some important papers there, and I’d left a diamond necklace. You can never tell what will happen after a hurricane hits; I thought we might need to protect those things from looters.”
She is lying. I look at her, but I don’t say anything.
“It was a mistake to go,” she says. “I feel very bad about that.”
“A big
mistake,” I agree. Since she is lying to my face, I may as well see if I can’t push some buttons. “Going out like that in a hurricane… maybe if you had stayed put you could have stopped Jules from shooting him.”
Colette only glances at me — a sidelong glance, quick, and rabbit-like. A guilty, nervous glance, I think.
We drive the rest of the way in silence.
At the hospital, we sign in and are directed up an elevator and down several hallways, where we find my stepfather still in the urgent wing.
“You’re in luck,” says one of the nurses. She looks younger — and great deal more optimistic — than any of the nurses back in the asylum. “The nurse on duty just finished up helping him to a shave. He’s all cleaned up now, not to mention awake and lucid. You can go on in, if you like — just don’t keep him too long. He’s not up to lengthy visits yet; he needs his rest.”
Colette leads the way; she was here to visit my stepfather only a few hours earlier. She seems distracted. We walk down the hallway, finding our way to his room. I consider that perhaps I have become accustomed to riding in a wheelchair, for my legs feel a bit weak and rubbery as I walk. I’m shaking ever so slightly, too; I’m nervous.
But my nerves are unnecessary. As soon as we poke our heads in the door, I hear my stepfather’s voice. He is happy to see us.
“Anaïs!” he calls.
I can still smell the shaving lather that was inevitably washed from his face only minutes earlier. There are two nurses buzzing near him, tidying the room.
“Well now, ladies! Take a good look: It’s my old war buddy,” he says, winking at me. “Haven’t we been through thick and thin together, though, my dear?”
He moves to lift his arms but winces and stops short. I see an abundance of white gauze wrapped around his upper left shoulder. A small red flower blooms where the blood has begun to seep through. He reaches his free hand to clutch at it, an expression of pain on his face.
“Mr. Reynard,” one of the nurses attending to him says. “How many times have I told you to be careful with that shoulder? Here, let me re-dress it. Let’s hope you haven’t gone and pulled the stitches.”
