Disquiet Heart

by Randall Silvis

  “Are you feeling all right?” I asked.

  And he told me, “Very tired, Augie. I am always so tired.”

  “Would you like to lie down for a while?”

  “May I?” he asked.

  I helped him to stand.

  “This way,” said Miss Jones. “Upstairs. He shall have my bed.”

  Along the way, as we climbed slowly to the second floor, he draped an arm around my shoulders. He leaned his head against me. “Augie,” he said.

  I said nothing. To be cast in this position again—the memory choked me with emotion. I remembered the other time I had led him, in just this manner, out of a Five Points groggery, where he had been drugged with opium. Afterward, the next day, he had labeled me his fidus Achates. I was ten at the time and assumed that “fidus” meant the same as Fido, that he was calling me his dog, his little puppy, and so desperate was I for affection that I secretly thrilled to the appellation. I rejoiced in it still. Yet wondered by what name, this time, he would call me in the morning.

  “We should write to Muddy soon,” he told me.

  “Yes. We will.”

  “To tell her of our good fortune.”

  Again I did not speak. Halfway up the stairs he laid a hand on the wall, considered the ancient cherry paneling. “Whose house is this?” he asked.

  “It belongs to Miss Jones.”

  “We are acquainted?”

  “She is a great admirer of your work.”

  And he answered, “Aha!”

  Side by side up the stairs to the second floor, Miss Jones leading the way, Buck following behind us, hands outstretched to prevent Poe from tumbling backward. At Miss Jones’s bedroom Buck chose to remain outside the door, too embarrassed to even look inside a lady’s boudoir.

  Miss Jones and I sat Poe on the edge of her bed, removed his shoes, helped him to lie supine. Before I drew away, he clutched at my hand.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Sissie,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Sissie is gone.”

  “I know,” I told him.

  “It took,” he said, “such a very long time.”

  I nodded. What could I say? “She’s out of it now.”

  At this, he smiled. He closed his eyes and let go my hand. “Requiescat in pace,” he said.

  And we left him to his peace.

  29

  POE SLEPT off and on throughout the day, just as I imagined he did in the doctor’s home. He seemed a bit more alert each time he awoke, and from this I determined that whatever medicines he was given each morning were calculated to keep him placid during those hours when Dr. Brunrichter was not available as his companion.

  “I think we’ll see a change in him come evening,” I told Buck and Miss Jones.

  “And what do we do until then?” Buck asked.

  I shrugged. “We play cards.”

  Buck rubbed a cheek with the flat of his hand. “No offense to you, Augie, but I wasn’t built for all this sitting still we’ve been doing. I think I’d better go down to the docks and find some work to do.”

  “Keep an ear out for news of my escape.”

  “You can bet on that,” he said.

  And so I was left on my own in the basement. Miss Jones supplied me with a writing tablet and pencil, should an epistolary urge overtake me. From time to time throughout the long hours until evening, she brought me food and drink and a bit of news concerning Poe.

  “He awoke asking for rum,” she told me in the morning.

  “And did you give it to him?”

  “You will find no rum in this house, young man.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “I gave him a cup of chamomile tea. He seemed content enough with that instead.”

  At midday he called out for Mrs. Dalrymple, and when Miss Jones appeared at his bedside he took no notice that she was the physical antithesis of Brunrichter’s housekeeper but only asked her, “Is it time for my medicine yet?”

  She answered that it was and fed him a cup of chicken broth. His forehead, she told me, was beaded with perspiration. The movement of his eyes never rested, but his gaze seemed unable to focus well.

  “He didn’t protest?” I asked. “When you gave him the soup instead of his medicine?”

  “I believe he contemplated doing so. Until I informed him in no uncertain terms that I was his nurse from now on and he would do as he was told.”

  And of course he would. Just as he had always acquiesced to Muddy and never raised his voice to her. In the presence of any woman he would behave with great civility, even docility. He treated them all as the gentlest and most precious of creatures, even when there was little gentleness apparent.

  “Take that broom from the corner and sweep,” she told me after clearing away my own soup bowl and mug.

  “Sweep what? The floor itself is dirt.”

  “Sweep down the ceiling beams. There’s likely a spider or two up there.”

  “I’ve got nothing against spiders,” I told her.

  “I will not tolerate sloth, young man. You can sweep or you can find another place to pass your time.”

  “Speaking of time, what day is this?”

  “It is the first of April.”

  “April Fool’s Day?”

  She gave me a look that, had I not turned sideways to her, might have burned a hole clean through me. “There will be no pagans in this house, Mr. Dubbins. You may practice your sacrilege elsewhere.”

  “I’m not a pagan, Miss Jones. Please resume breathing.”

  “Are you an atheist?” she demanded.

  That one gave me pause. But finally, when it seemed her eyes could glare no longer without bursting into flames, her nostrils flare no wider without splitting her nose apart, I responded with what she needed (though a part of me must surely have been hoping to rile her even more). “Anglican,” I answered.

  She blinked once. “I do not hold with the papists,” she said.

  “Protestant Anglican.”

  She cocked her head at this, swiveling her pointed chin upward by thirty degrees or so and glaring at me cockeyed. Her resemblance to a heron, poised to stab its beak into the water, was remarkable. “I am unfamiliar with the Protestant Anglicans,” she said.

  “It’s a Midwest movement. Reform. Highly progressive.”

  “And what are the tenets of this faith?”

  “Only one. Salvation through denial.”

  “Denial of what, might I ask?”

  “Of all things,” I said.

  “All? How can one deny all things and yet retain a faith?”

  “It is very difficult,” I said.

  “I fail to see the logic in it.”

  “It is an extension of your own belief, Miss Jones, that all things are possible through God. For if one accepts the possibility of all things, one must necessarily accept the possibility of nothing, because nothingness is a part of the All. In fact it is the primal part. So, by denial of all things, we are paying reverence to the original Nothing, which was, in its initial and unified form, the Everything.”

  She laid a hand to the side of her face, as if to keep herself from swooning. “The day after tomorrow is Good Friday,” she said. “How will you observe it?”

  “With the ultimate discipline, of course. By denying that it exists.”

  Fifteen seconds later she nodded slightly. “I would like very much to discuss this with you further.”

  “Unfortunately, the act of discussing the subject negates the denial of that subject. I’ve already lapsed in my discipline by telling you as much as I have.”

  “It is a very strange faith you practice, Mr. Dubbins.”

  “Impossibly rigorous,” I said.

  “Are its roots in the religions of the East, perhaps?”

  “There are no roots.”

  This puzzled her for only a moment. “Of course. I see. You are compelled to deny even the origins of your religion.”

  “What re
ligion?”

  “Enough!” she said, and turned on her heels and, still shaking her head, went stiffly up the stairs, leaving me to my basement, my broom, and my spiders in the ceiling beams, their webs too small to see.

  WHEN I was with Susan and lived every moment with the possibility of Susan I had been aware of something building inside me, something new that at its peak might well have changed me again just as Poe’s unexpected friendship had once changed me. That possibility was gone now, irrevocably gone, but as I whisked invisible cobwebs from dark corners, feeling myself enshrouded in a less observable darkness—though perhaps I should not say enshrouded but filled, for this particular darkness lay well beneath the skin—I was forced to acknowledge that there is something about love that turns it into a focal point, turns it into the brightest of lights in the center of a large room, illuminating all those objects you had never before noticed and giving each of them an individual relevance.

  With Susan I might easily have accepted the notion of a divine beneficence because with her light filling all my dark corners I would have seen beauty and relevance wherever I looked. Some people, who through their lack of luck or their own hard nature cannot find an earthly love, find a divine one nonetheless, perhaps as a substitute, or because it is the only one available to them. But that was Miss Jones’s kind of love and although I liked her very much despite her sternness and old maid’s brittle ways I was not constructed to love as she loved.

  These, in any case, were my thoughts as I swept clean a room in no need of sweeping. Afterward I stoked the fire in the furnace, and then, with a head full of thoughts, sat at the small table for a while. I, like Buck, was not used to inactivity either, and I did not know what to do with my hands. I could build a house of cards and watch it fall down time after time, or I could employ the paper Miss Jones had provided.

  Here is what I wrote, my manifesto of aloneness:

  Premise:

  It is an observable and well-documented fact that the human condition is now and always has been marked by an abundance of physical and emotional pain, with sorrow, misery, and cruelty. Therefore, as to the role of Divine influence on the human condition, one of the following must apply:

  1. There is a God who is powerful enough to alleviate all pain, sorrow, misery, and cruelty from the human condition, but a. He is unaware of the human condition. Or,

  b. He is aware of but indifferent to the human condition. Or,

  c. He is concerned with the human condition but is too busy elsewhere to lend assistance. Or,

  d. He is aware of but entertained by the human condition. Or,

  e. He is aware of but has decided not to interfere in the human condition, because 1. humans are irrelevant to the Divine Plan. Or,

  2. human pain, sorrow, misery and cruelty are a requisite of the Divine Plan. Or,

  f. His efforts to improve the human condition are routinely subverted by a power of equal or greater but opposite intent. Or,

  2. There is a God, but, even in the absence of a power of opposite intent, he lacks sufficient power himself to counteract the forces of human nature. Or,

  3. There is no God.

  Conclusion:

  The human condition is not likely to be improved through Divine intervention.

  Early evening brought another kettle of soup from Miss Jones, this time a thick concoction of leeks and potatoes, ham and carrots. The first spoonful made me want to believe there is a God after all. How else to explain how a woman so parsimonious of laughter could produce such happiness for the tongue?

  “You’re an excellent cook,” I told her.

  She said, “If I decide to take on a task, I make certain to do it well.”

  I attempted then to engage her in conversation about her past; I thought she might be as hungry for companionship as I. “What did you do before you came to Pittsburgh, Miss Jones? Have you always been a teacher?”

  “One is never always one thing or another,” she answered. With that she stepped back against the staircase and stood there with arms crossed over her bosom until I had scraped my bowl clean. She then came forward to retrieve the bowl and spoon.

  “I need to go outside again,” I told her.

  “You may use the chamber pot upstairs.”

  “I won’t do that,” I said.

  “There are as many as ten children a day inside this building, Mr. Dubbins. Yours would not be the first pot I’ve emptied.”

  “All the same, I would prefer to take my chances on a dash to the privy.”

  “You cannot wait till nightfall?”

  “I cannot wait another five minutes.”

  So she fetched down her longest overcoat and widest bonnet. Then I, properly costumed, did a lively spinster’s stroll out to the privy. Afterward I was so reluctant to return to the dank enclosed spaces of the basement that I lingered awhile at the hand pump. I washed my face and hands and filled my belly nearly to bursting with cold water.

  Then came a moment when, looking up into the lavender light, an unexpected stillness came over me, and I thought how beautiful the sky appeared at this time of evening, how lovely the budding trees, and I sensed something of the promise of another spring. But it was a short-lived contentment, ten seconds at the most, for just as suddenly I thought of Susan, and all the images I wanted to suppress sprang full and vivid inside my head.

  And then, perhaps because the light was fading, perhaps because I had given up on God, perhaps because I saw myself as a ridiculous scarecrow of a figure in old maid’s clothing, or perhaps none of that but just because Susan was gone, a terrible nausea overtook me there at the pump, a sudden and violent nausea that kept me doubled over and heaving for another three minutes.

  Stomach emptied, soul turned inside out, I felt no less sickened. I pumped water splashing onto the ground until long after Miss Jones’s fine soup had been washed away. Then doused my face and hands and mouth again. Then, weakly now, clinging to the cold metal, aching in every joint, I heard the nausea speak.

  You never even kissed her, it whispered. And now you never will.

  I thought of walking away from there, of flicking off the bonnet and shucking the coat and strolling off to whatever fate awaited me. If no one laid a hand on me before I reached the river, I would walk into the water. And why not? What did the continued beating of my heart avail?

  Only one thought gave me strength enough to return to that basement. It was a black thought, yes, and blood-soaked. But it steeled me for another day of living.

  POE WAS sitting on the basement stairs when I returned from the yard, sitting four steps from the bottom, elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. I knew him by the posture only, for the oil lamp had not yet been lit and he was little more than silhouette, a shadow hunched over with one of Miss Jones’s afghan shawls draped around his thin shoulders.

  He lifted his head when I latched the door behind me, but he did not speak. So I crossed to him and stood waiting at the foot of the stairs. He was shoeless and wore no collar.

  He looked at me for a while, chin in his hands now, one finger poised between his lips. Then he said, “I had forgotten how tall you’ve grown.”

  His voice was weak and his eyes were weak and he lacked the strength to sit erect. The finger trembled against his mouth. “Can you tell me what I am doing here?” he asked, and smiled his crooked smile at me, the sheepish smile that said he blamed himself for his current situation, whatever it was.

  “How much do you remember?” I asked.

  “A great deal. Unfortunately, no one memory is connected to another. My mind is a jumble of broken pieces.”

  “It will pass,” I told him. “With rest and good food, you’ll soon be straightened out again.”

  He nodded. “That woman upstairs … .”

  “Miss Jones. It is her hospitality you now enjoy.”

  “I had the impression, awhile back, that she was Muddy.”

  “It’s been awhile since you’ve seen Mrs. Clemm. A month at
least.”

  “And how long, precisely, have I been in this place?”

  “You came this morning.”

  “It seems much longer.”

  “Do you remember why you came?” I asked.

  He told me he had a recollection of sorts but that he placed no faith in it, and asked instead that I explain not only the why but the where and what-for of our current situation.

  “Do you remember coming to see me in the jail?” I asked.

  “I had thought that a dream.”

  And so I reminded him of my incarceration. I recounted the events that followed his reading at the Old Drury, my confrontation with Brunrichter, Buck’s discovery of his daughter’s body, my arrest the next morning, and my subsequent escape. He eyed me steadily throughout, sometimes turning his head slightly this way or that. He was drawing energy, I think, from my candor, my obvious need for his assistance. He appeared to sit a bit straighter as I spoke, and placed both hands atop his knees so as to straighten his spine.

  “Forgive my trickery,” I said, “but it was necessary to bring you here.”

  “Apparently I was eager to be duped. Besides, your circumstances warranted a bit of subterfuge.”

  “And yours,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Consider the way you feel at this moment,” I explained.

  “Do you know how I feel?”

  “I can only speculate.”

  “Please do so.”

  “As if you are just now awakening from a week-long fever dream.”

  Again he smiled. “A fair enough appraisal.”

  “You have been drinking a great deal,” I told him. “Principally in the evenings. With Dr. Brunrichter. By all accounts you sleep through most of the day. Because, I assume, of the medications the doctor has prescribed to alleviate your condition.”

  “My condition?” said Poe.

  “He told me, on the night of your reception, when I objected to the state I found you in, that he has been treating you for melancholia and brain fatigue. Were you not aware of being given medication?”