Dreamer

by Daniel Quinn

  He continued his inspection of the room. Bathroom: immaculately clean, impersonal; a single toothbrush in the holder, a half-empty tube of toothpaste, not his brand, on a glass shelf. He gazed blankly at the contents of the closet: three suits, two sport coats, a windbreaker, three pairs of odd trousers—unfamiliar but, judging by the eye alone, roughly his size. He opened one of the jackets and stared for a long time at the Marshall Field label; he never shopped for clothes at the big downtown department stores in Chicago. He closed the closet door and tried the next one: by elimination, the exit. It was locked, with no latch on his side. Not a motel room.

  A peach-colored telephone stood on a bedside table. It had no dial. He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear, half expecting to find it dead. It crackled briefly, then a woman’s voice said, “May I help you?” He snatched the receiver from his ear and looked at it in disbelief. Then he put it back to his ear and said, still calm, “Yes. You can tell me where I am.”

  “Ah,” she said. She drew the sound out for a long time, as if a blank space had appeared in the universe before her. “Wait just a moment. A nurse will be with you right away.”

  “A what?” he asked, but she’d already hung up. A nurse? A dressing gown lay across the foot of the bed—the sort of item he’d never felt the need to own. He put it on and turned to the door as the latch turned. A small brunette stuck her head in and said, “Do you need something, Mr. Iles?”

  “Mr. Who?”

  “Mr. Iles?” she repeated doubtfully.

  “I’m not Mr. Iles,” Greg stated.

  She stared at him openmouthed. “Oh my,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait!” She turned back reluctantly. “What is all this?”

  “All this?”

  “Where am I?”

  “I’ll bring Dr. Jakes right away,” she promised and headed down the hall.

  “Why is the door locked?” he shouted after her.

  “It’s not,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s open.”

  Greg followed her as far as the doorway and saw her disappear down a long, carpeted hallway. Most of the hallway doors were open, and at one of them appeared a tall, gray-haired woman in tweeds. She glanced at the departing nurse, at Greg, then smiled and waved, and he pulled his head back hastily and shut the door.

  “Jesus,” he breathed. He sat down on the bed and looked around, wondering what to do. Obviously he had to get dressed. He could hardly walk out of the place in a dressing gown. Swallowing his reluctance to don a stranger’s clothes, he pulled open a drawer and began to take out underwear.

  He was dressed and looking through pockets for money in a mounting fury when he heard a knock at the door. “Come in,” he snarled. It was recognizably a snarl, and Greg knew he’d just about run through his reserve of calmness. Holding the pants he’d been searching, he turned in time to witness the entrance of a short, blockish woman with close-cropped iron-gray hair. As if having trouble focusing, he blinked a couple of times and found himself looking into the eyes of Agnes Tillford.

  “Agnes!” he gasped.

  Her normally cheerful dumpling of a face was solemn as she studied him. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he took in her formal appearance: she was wearing the well-cut gray suit he remembered from her lecture at the library.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

  She raised the other eyebrow and said, “Mr. Iles?”

  “What?”

  Her eyebrows drew down into a puzzled frown, and she nodded toward a pair of chairs in front of the window. “Let’s sit down, shall we?”

  “Agnes, what the hell is going on here?” His legs began to tremble, and he looked down stupidly at the pair of pants he was holding. Agnes eased them from his hands and tossed them into the closet. Then she took him by the arm, settled him in a chair, and sat down across from him.

  “Now,” she said gently, “tell me what’s going on.” He gawked at her and suddenly felt great bubbles of hysterical laughter quaking in his stomach. There was nothing he could do to hold them down, and Agnes watched gravely as he let them come welling out. At last he wiped his eyes and said, “That’s really funny. You want me to tell you what’s going on.”

  She cocked her head on one side but said nothing.

  “Agnes, for God’s sake, tell me what’s going on!”

  “Very well,” she said agreeably. “Where should I begin?”

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “We’re at the Glenhaven Oaks Sanatorium, a private institution some fifty miles south of Louisville, Kentucky.”

  “You’re kidding. What the hell are we doing here?”

  “Ah. Well, you’re doing one thing and I’m doing another.”

  “Agnes, Christ’s sake, just tell me what’s going on.”

  She studied him with baffled concern. “Mr. Iles, believe me, I’ll tell you anything you like.”

  Greg looked at her. “What is this Mr. Iles shit?”

  “Perhaps I don’t have it right. That’s not your name?”

  He sprang out of his chair. “Cut it out, Agnes. Don’t do this to me anymore. It’s not funny.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m really not trying to be funny. Please sit down, Mr. . . . Please sit down.”

  “I don’t feel like sitting down. I’m getting out of here.” He looked around wildly. “Where the hell’s my money?”

  “Your money?”

  “I had at least fifty dollars on me last night. I want my money and my billfold and my credit cards. Right now.”

  Agnes put an elbow on the arm of her chair and rested her head on her hand. “Very well. But I’m afraid the cards and things in the billfold will have the name Richard Iles on them.”

  “Bullshit.” Greg turned and started walking, but got only as far as the door before realizing he had nowhere to go. He stood facing the door for a moment, then turned back. “Agnes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Come on.”

  She gazed at him. “I think you’re getting tired of this.”

  “I am, yes.”

  “Then sit down and let’s see if we can straighten it out. Okay?” He eyed the chair with distaste, shrugged, and sat down. “Something seems to have happened here this morning,” she said. “Will you tell me what it was?”

  “Something happened during the goddamned night.”

  “All right. Tell me what happened.”

  He shot her a look of disgust. “You don’t know.”

  “That’s right. I don’t know.”

  “Someone brought me here from Chicago.”

  She stared at him. “From Chicago. I see. Then this is something else I don’t know: What were you doing in Chicago?”

  Greg interlaced his fingers, turned his hands palm out, and pushed, cracking half a dozen joints at once. “That’s it,” he said. “Finished.” He looked around grimly, then went to the phone and picked up the receiver.

  “May I help you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “A while ago you sent a nurse to this room.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is she available? I’d like to ask her something.”

  “She’s right here. Do you want to talk to her?”

  “Could you send her here?”

  “Certainly. She’ll be right along.”

  Greg opened the door and sat down on the bed to wait. When the small brunette arrived, he asked her if she remembered talking to him a while ago.

  “Of course I do.” The question seemed to startle her.

  Greg smiled at her. “Will you tell me your name?”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Why, my name is Wendy, Mr. Iles. You know that.”

  “I don’t know that, Wendy. There’s been some confusion here, you see. I’m not Mr. Iles.”

  She gave Agnes a bewildered glance and said, “Oh.”

  “Wendy, when you left here, you said you were going to get a doctor. I don’t remember the name.”

  “Dr. Jakes. That’s r
ight.”

  “Good. Is Dr. Jakes the person in charge here?” Again she glanced at Agnes. “Well . . . yes. One of the persons in charge anyway.”

  “Good. I’d like to see him as soon as possible, Wendy. Him or her. Can you arrange that?”

  Wendy’s jaw dropped and she gaped at him. Agnes said, “It’s all right, Wendy. Run along, everything’s under control.”

  Greg turned on her, his face red with fury.

  “Since you knew my first name, I naturally assumed you knew my last,” Agnes said. “I am Dr. Jakes.”

  XV

  THAT,” GREG SAID, “IS ALL A FUCKING LIE.”

  Agnes gave him a thoughtful look. “Does that mean that you know me by another name?”

  He shook his head stubbornly, and Agnes sighed.

  “All right. You won’t talk to me. You think I’m playing some kind of trick on you. You think I already have the answers to the questions I’m asking. Is that right?”

  “You know it’s right.”

  “Okay. Since you won’t talk to me, I’ll talk to you. How’s that?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sit down first, please. Thank you. Now.” She paused to think for a moment. “Let’s begin someplace easy. Last night around eleven a man named Richard Iles went to sleep in this room, in that bed over there. How does that sit with you?”

  Greg shrugged.

  “He went to sleep in this room and in that bed, and during the night the door didn’t open once.” She waited for a reaction to this and, getting none, went on. “This morning at nine, the man who slept in this room, in that bed, picked up the phone and asked the nurse at the desk to tell him where he was.”

  “That,” Greg said, “is a lie.”

  “Okay. Am I right in assuming that you went to sleep last night in Chicago?”

  “That’s right.”

  She shook her head in wonderment. “Then would you kindly explain how the devil you got here?”

  “I assume I was brought here.”

  “By whom? Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How was such a thing managed, for heaven’s sake?”

  He glared at her, then at the lush blue hills outside. After two minutes of furious thought, he turned to her with a triumphant smile. “We can settle all this very easily. I should have thought of it sooner.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’m delighted to hear it.”

  “Can I use that phone to make a long-distance call?”

  “Certainly. Just give the operator the number.”

  A few moments later he was listening to the buzz of a phone ringing in Chicago. A woman’s voice came on the line, and Greg said, “Ginny?”

  “You must have the wrong number,” the woman said.

  “Is this 328-9494?”

  “Yes. But there’s no Ginny at this number.”

  “Wait,” Greg said and stood blinking for a few moments. “Are you sure this is 328-9494?”

  The woman hung up.

  Greg got the operator back and asked her to dial Chicago information for him.

  “Directory Assistance. What city?”

  “Chicago. I’d like the number of Ginny or Virginia Winters on Dearborn.”

  After a momentary pause, “I have no listing for a Ginny or Virginia Winters anywhere in Chicago.”

  He swallowed. “Gregory Donner, Lake Shore Drive.”

  Another pause. “I have no listing for a Gregory Donner.”

  “D-O-N-N-E-R?”

  “That’s what I checked, sir. I have no such listing.”

  “You have to have one.”

  “Would this be a new phone, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m sorry. There is no listing for a Gregory Donner.”

  “Wait. His number is 984-2754. Could you check that for me?”

  “One moment . . . That number is not in service, sir.”

  “Not in service? What does that mean?”

  “It means no one has that number, sir.”

  He stood staring blindly at the wall. The phone felt welded to his ear.

  “Sir? Is there another listing I can check for you?”

  He slowly lowered the receiver and replaced it. Then he turned to Agnes and said, “That’s very good. How did you manage it?”

  Agnes frowned at him. “I think you should have something to eat.”

  He heard himself laugh at this grotesque suggestion, felt it bucking in his chest, but it sounded like it was coming from a stranger. His knees began trembling and he sat down on the bed.

  Someone said, “I don’t like this,” and Greg laughed again when he recognized it as his own voice.

  “You’re Gregory Donner, aren’t you?” Agnes asked gently.

  He nodded.

  “Strangely enough, Mr. Donner, I believe you.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “You do?”

  “Yes. I believe that you’re Gregory Donner and that up till last night you lived on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. That’s the address you gave the operator, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So we seem to be making some progress after all.”

  “But I thought . . .”

  “Yes?”

  He shook his head in bewilderment.

  “I think I’m beginning to see what happened, Mr. Donner. We’ll have it sorted out soon.” She stood up. “But right now I’d like to see you get something to eat.”

  He frowned. “What is this obsession with eating? Are you a nutritionist or something?”

  Agnes chuckled. “I’m not a nutritionist, Mr. Donner, I’m a psychiatrist. And, speaking as a psychiatrist, I have the distinct impression that you’ve just lost a hell of a lot of substance. Eating will help you put some of it back. Come along.”

  Greg followed her out of the room.

  XVI

  THE DINING WING WAS THERE on the ground floor of the Glenhaven Oaks Sanatorium, but Greg took it in only remotely, as if viewing it on a television monitor. A cocktail lounge, lush with velvet and chrome, glowed at his right; he noted that it looked inviting—and felt no invitation. A room at his left offered a cheerful, almost bohemian, coffeehouse atmosphere, with small tables oriented toward a spotlit stage; to Greg, it seemed as cozy as a corporate boardroom. Agnes led him past these to the main dining room, where an acre of glass pulled the viewer out into a vast green world apparently never visited by man. It was a large room, but one that seemed at once intimate and regal, formal and casual—a room as accommodating to evening wear and ball gowns as to jeans and tennis shorts. It was an impressive feat of interior design, and Greg noted that he was impressed.

  They paused at the entrance and Agnes asked him where he’d like to sit.

  “I don’t care where we sit,” he said. “Let’s just sit.” Agnes shrugged and told him to lead on. Greg headed for a booth in the far right-hand corner, beside the twenty-foot-high window and facing the entrance. When they’d settled themselves in it, Agnes smiled and said, “In change, however cataclysmic, there is always continuity.”

  “Meaning what?”

  She nodded toward the approaching waitress.

  “Good morning, Dr. Jakes,” the waitress said. “Good morning, Mr. Iles. You must have slept in this morning.”

  “Yeah,” Greg said, staring straight ahead.

  “Just coffee for me, Ella, Mr., uh, Iles will have breakfast.”

  “I’ll bring a menu.”

  Greg chewed his lower lip for a moment. “Dr. Jakes,” he said experimentally.

  “Please go on calling me Agnes,” she said. “I take it you knew me . . . in Chicago?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what was my last name there?”

  He made a face. “Tillford.”

  “Tillford,” she repeated thoughtfully. “And we were what? Friends?” He nodded stiffly, as if he had a sore neck. “It’s no wonder you were disconcerted when I walked into your room this morning.”

  “Yeah.”

/>   “Order something,” she told him. “The food’s pretty good.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said dryly and glanced through the large, handsomely printed menu. When Ella appeared at his side, he ordered eggs Benedict.

  “Tell me about you and Agnes Tillford,” Agnes said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, what was your relationship? Our relationship?” He shook his head. “You said we were friends.”

  “Yeah,” he said wryly. “Drinking buddies.”

  “What did I call you? Gregory? Greg?”

  “Greg.”

  “Is it all right if I call you Greg?”

  “Don’t humor me, Doctor.”

  “I’m not, honestly. How did we meet?”

  Greg laughed. “We met at the Chicago Public Library. You were giving a lecture.”

  “A lecture.”

  “That’s right.”

  “A lecture on what?”

  He made a face. “On dreams.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re supposed to say ‘Very interesting.”’

  Agnes chuckled. “Well, it is interesting. How long ago was this?”

  He shrugged. “Three or four weeks.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “Agnes.”

  “Yes?”

  He sighed and closed his eyes. “I keep hoping that you’re going to stop fooling around and admit that this is all just a very bad, very cruel joke. I would like it to be a very bad, very cruel joke. Do you understand?”

  “I understand. I think. You’re telling me you’d forgive me if I said, ‘Ha ha, April Fool!’”

  “Yes, I guess so—provided you said it right now.”

  “I’m sorry, Greg. For your sake, I wish it was all just a very bad, very cruel joke.”

  “But it isn’t.”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “I am too.”

  “It may not seem entirely bad when . . . you’ve had a look at it. Meanwhile tell me about Greg Donner. About yourself.”