The Year She Disappeared

by Ann Harleman

  And tonight. Tonight makes the third.

  There was hardly any hospital bustle beyond the closed door: it must have been two or three in the morning. But Nan was wide awake. Blood racing, muscles jumping, brain alive with wild, impossible images. Charged with a welter of contradictory emotions—pity, fear, anger, grief. Weirdly, it made her think of the Easter vigils of her girlhood, when she and Deenie, sharer of those vigils, had savored the gritty grown-up feel of sleeplessness. The pranks they’d played, sneaking through the connecting door to the convent at midnight while the nuns and the other girls knelt spartanly, occasionally fainting, in the chapel. Nan could still remember the heavy carved door resisting their combined strength, could still hear the reproachful sound the hinges made as it closed behind them. Even now, anxious and angry as she was, listing those long-ago deeds made her smile to herself in the dark.

  •throwing crotchless black lace panties down the nuns’ laundry chute

  •wedging colored Fizzies tablets in the showerheads

  •stretching Saran Wrap across the toilets, underneath the seats, so that when the nuns peed, it would bounce

  Preparation for a life of crime? Paving the way—the Slippery Slope, Attila the Nun used to call it—to where Nan was right now?

  She’s better off without me, Alex had said—the most terrible thing for a mother to say, and the saddest.

  For the first time Nan saw, truly saw, the depth of her predicament. Like it or not (and I don’t like it, she thought, I didn’t ask for it), she was now responsible for Jane.

  And as if that weren’t enough, I don’t even know where she is.

  Suddenly furious—at Alex, who’d left her no choice; at Walker, whose overconfidence had landed her here—Nan shifted restlessly in the high hard bed, a cross between a pool table and a coffin. Beneath the hospital smells she could detect the smoky animal odor of her own sweat.

  God, if only I had a cigarette.

  |

  “Visitor!” caroled the day nurse at eight the next morning. Nan braced herself, gripped the edge of her breakfast tray. But it wasn’t Gabriel who appeared in the doorway.

  “Val!” she breathed. “What are you— How did you—”

  He was beside her bed in two strides, stooping to give her a bumpy, bumbling hug, to kiss her on each cheek. He laid a bunch of yellow roses across the foot of her bed, then pulled up a chair and sat down, smiling. “The world is narrow.”

  Roomie was in the bathroom, where she spent an audibly striving half hour each morning after breakfast. Val leaned forward. He took Nan’s hand between his two large ones. Warmth communicated itself from his palms to her fingers. She felt it, a shining current, up her arm and through her whole body. Relief—here was someone who knew everything, from whom nothing need be hidden—made her shiver. Val squeezed her hand. He was wet, she saw now. Little gray dimes dotted his jacket sleeve. For the occasion he’d put on a dark suit that gave him a stern but nefarious look. Nan saw herself through his eyes: ragged two-tone hair, unlipsticked lips, limp hospital johnny. This is no time for vanity, she told herself. It seemed light-years since there had been a time; and when, if ever, would it come again?

  “Is it raining?” she said.

  “Nan. What I can do? You are fine? I think not.”

  “I’m all right. Truly. But Jane—”

  Val leaned closer. His breath misted her ear, and she smelled gasoline and Juicy Fruit and the doggy odor of wet wool. He whispered, “Walker is sending this message: We are gold.”

  “Walker!” Nan exclaimed, and Val, looking over his shoulder, murmured, “Shhh! Tishina!”

  Walker. Apples and pencil shavings.

  “You’ve seen him? And Jane? You’ve seen Jane? Is she all right? That cough—”

  “Nyet, nyet. He has telephoned. First Mel is speaking to him, then I. He does not tell where he is. He asks where you are, if you are unwell, if you have need. He telegraphs money. What to hell! Mel calls every hospital. So here I come.”

  “But you will see them?”

  Val shook his head. “Walker is saying, too dangerous. Also, yesterday police come to our flat. They ask questions about you, about Jane. Does she stay with you of her own free will.”

  How good Val was! She remembered that Khrushchev used to say communism merely put into practice the teachings of the New Testament. If only Val had seen Jane. If only she could know how she looked, how she sounded. Whether she missed Nan.

  In the bathroom Roomie groaned, then sighed. Val pulled a pack of Camels out of his jacket pocket and lit one, then held it out to Nan. “Treat yourself!” She shook her head, then thought, How could I be in worse trouble than I am already?

  The first drag was heaven, a chorus of seraphim. Nan felt as if she might levitate. She let the smoke issue slowly from her nostrils, watched it ascend toward the ceiling. Val opened the window, then lit a cigarette for himself. Rain-wet air filled the room.

  After a minute, he said, “I have also potato chips. You would like?” Nan shook her head. “Probably, police follow me here. Walker says, Best not to know where he exists, or Jane. But he wants that you hear, he has plan.”

  A plan. Of course Walker would have a plan.

  “First of all, he is sending to you advokat, a lawyer—”

  “No! It’s too dangerous.”

  “A lawyer,” Val repeated firmly. “I am finding one, the best. Walker says, you must have.”

  “But—”

  There was a loud commotion beyond the closed door. Gabriel, Nan thought; and something inside her descended steeply.

  The door opened. Captain Abernathy entered, followed by the little blond nurse, looking frightened, and a square-faced, black-browed policewoman who immediately scowled at Nan. Absurdly, her first reaction was panic at being caught smoking. She stuck her cigarette into the remains of her breakfast cereal. Val pinched the end of his between two fingers and tucked it, without hurrying, into his breast pocket. In the bathroom the toilet flushed.

  Courtly Captain Abernathy said, “Good morning, Mrs. Mulholland.” His calm gray eyes flicked across Val, who stood by the open window in his up-from-the-underworld suit. “This is Officer Grace Blank. Rhode Island State Police.” The woman nodded, still scowling.

  The jug-eared nurse stuck her head in the door. Unfazed by the assortment of people in the room, she chirped, “Have we moved our bowels today, Miz Mullen?”

  “Yes,” Nan lied.

  “Excellent! Then we won’t be needing a suppository.” She withdrew.

  “I’ll say good-bye now” Nan said to Val in a calm voice. “I’m going to jail this morning. These good people are here to escort me.”

  Ignoring the two policemen, Val kissed Nan on each cheek. “In Russia we say, Beware to divide skin of bear not yet killed.”

  “Give my love to Mel,” Nan said.

  No time for more. In the doorway—by now the policewoman had him by the arm—Val stopped. The policewoman wouldn’t let him turn around. Sequins of rain gleamed in his dark curly hair. He raised one hand in a quick thumbs-up; then the door shut behind him.

  Almost immediately it opened again. “Small, medium, or large?” the jug-eared nurse asked.

  “I didn’t look,” Nan said. “I just flushed.”

  Captain Abernathy said, “Officer Blank will help you dress. Then she’ll escort you to the station.”

  “You’ll go with us?” Nan said. Please, she thought. Don’t leave me alone with her.

  He shook his head. “I’ve got other business. I just came by to make sure everything was in order.” He held out a hand, and Nan shook it. He left.

  Roomie, emerging from the bathroom accompanied by a faint smell of shit, gave a little gasp on seeing the policewoman. Her disappointment at being asked to leave the room made Nan smile, a smile that Officer Blank, mistaking it for insouciance, repaid with chilly hauteur. Coldly she watched the little blond nurse unhook Nan’s IV and take the port out of the back of her hand, then help her stan
d.

  One good thing. This speedy departure would save her from Gabriel.

  She realized, as the little nurse untied her johnny and help her slip it off, that she still didn’t know why Gabriel had come after her now, when almost six months had passed. She stood naked under the cold gaze of Officer Blank while the nurse popped her heart monitor wires from the snaps stuck to her chest. What had made Gabe file charges now? She hadn’t thought, last night, to ask Alex.

  Officer Blank’s eyes flicked over the tattoo. “Happiness,” Nan murmured defiantly; and saw Mel leaning forward, holding the coffee mug that said, WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE AWAKE AROUND HERE?, her chapped lips kissing the edge of the mug. Mel, closer now than Nan’s own daughter; Nan’s life in Providence more real now than the lost life in Seattle.

  The little blond nurse held out Nan’s underpants. Stepping creakily—how out of shape three days of enforced sloth had made her!—into them, Nan felt their now-strange civilian texture, smelled their now-unfamiliar smell, which was her own. The nurse fastened her bra, then helped her pull her cotton sundress—chosen, it now seemed, years ago—over her head. She eased Nan’s arms into the sleeves of her denim jacket and straightened the collar. She held out Nan’s glasses and, when she made no move to take them, stepped up close and put them on her, hooking them gently around her ears. Officer Blank produced a heavy chain wrapped in orange plastic, from which dangled a padlock and two handcuffs. The nurse backed away. Officer Blank clasped a cuff around each of Nan’s wrists, pulled the chain around her waist, snapped the padlock shut. Nan’s hands were pinned to her sides.

  Nevertheless, on the way out she managed to snag Val’s yellow roses. She thrust them into the arms of Roomie, who stood outside the door in her bathrobe, coughing.

  |

  The hospital lobby held the festive smell of popcorn and the sound of a hundred strings playing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” A big red-white-and-blue banner said MEMORIAL DAY FESTIVAL FUNDRAISER. Officer Blank unhooked a velvet rope, then refastened it behind them and towed Nan into the crowd. A clown with a bouquet of helium balloons accosted them, then stopped short when he caught sight of Nan’s chains. Officer Blank hustled Nan along, pretending not to see her stumble, brushing children briskly out of the way. BITCHCRAFT STUDIOS, proclaimed a display case in the center of the lobby. Eddying around it with the other festival-goers (BIRCHCRAFT—too bad), Nan felt oddly light. No responsibility; nothing to carry; no one whose hand she needed to hold. With each step toward the revolving doors and the waiting police van, her relief increased. Illogical, but she felt as if she were leading her pursuers away from Jane. The farther she went, the less danger Jane was in. Up ahead, someone let go half a dozen white balloons. Ribbons trailing, they rose purposefully to the high peaked glass roof, like so many sperm. (Deenie’s joke: Why does it take a million sperm to fertilize one egg? Because they won’t stop to ask directions.)

  “Nan!”

  A shout, audible over the sound track from Evita, over the feet and voices of the crowd. Nan stopped so suddenly that Officer Blank was jerked to a standstill.

  “Nan! Wait!”

  Even before she turned around, she knew.

  At the bend in the corridor, behind the velvet rope, stood Gabriel.

  The whole length of the hospital lobby seemed to darken, all the light withdrawing upward into its high angled glass roof. Its sounds dimmed too, an outgoing tide of voices and violins and metal on metal. What was left was Gabriel, silent, in a glove of light. The set of his body: that violent humility. Too far to see his eyes, yet she felt them meet hers. She raised a hand to shield herself, but it was jerked painfully back, the steel cuff biting into her wrist.

  Gabriel knocked down the velvet rope, posts and all, and thrust himself into the crowd. A woman in a green security guard’s uniform caught him by the arm. Violently, he shook her off. She hit the wall and slid down it. “Stop! Stop her!” Nan could hear Gabriel shouting. Then his voice was drowned in other voices, a whistle piercing the air, a woman screaming. Gabriel dodged another guard, a big black man, feinted to the left, and began shoving his way through the crowd, toward Nan.

  Officer Blank by this time was half dragging, half pushing her charge toward the revolving door, about twenty yards ahead. Outside it Nan could see the police van with its doors open, a man in uniform standing beside it. Officer Blank wasted no time on who Gabriel was, or why he was chasing them. “One side, please! One side!” she cried, breasting the crowd.

  “Nan!”

  Fury and—what was it? She could almost recognize it, that deeper note. Feet moving forward, head turned back (Lot’s wife), Nan saw Gabriel gaining on them. Figures in uniform converged at a run behind him.

  “Stop! Stop her!”

  Anguish—that was it. That was what she heard.

  Then Gabriel went down, slammed to the floor by two men in green uniforms. Nan felt the impact in her own body. The steel links across her belly clanked. Then they were at the revolving door, Officer Blank’s arm a yoke across the back of her neck, Officer Blank’s hand digging into her clavicle, the heavy glass panel sweeping them forward.

  Twelve

  The Providence police station—dark, with the scuffed linoleum floors and cinder-block walls of Nan’s South Philly grade school—smelled of sweat and exhaustion. The walls of the elevator were covered with graffiti. AMANDA IS COOL! Nan read. JESUS WON’T FUCK ME. (An ongoing refusal, or just an impossibility?) They emerged, she and Officer Blank, into a long hallway redolent of gym shoes. Officer Blank pushed open a frosted glass door. Inside, it was terribly hot. All over the large room, desk fans whirred.

  Nan was so tired she could barely stand. She refused to let Officer Blank see this. Trembling, she held on to the counter, trying not to let the chain clank at her wrists. They waited for the woman behind the desk to finish her phone call. Heavy eyes, yellow hair that stood up in slept-on shocks: Bed Head, Mel would have called her. A blue policeman’s hat sat on top of the in-box by her elbow. “When you’re depriving a dying person,” she said into the phone. “That’s outrageous. That’s hard.”

  Behind a partition someone was whistling. Nan knew the tune but couldn’t remember the words. Willing her eyes not to close, she gazed at a map of the city that covered the back wall. “Downtown Larcenies,” the caption read. The map was stuck with little red pins, like the chart of some World War II campaign. To distract herself Nan counted crimes on Elbow Street.

  Bed Head said into the phone, “Now lemme get this clear … So, sometime Wednesday night … disturbances, okay, all right …” She looked up at Officer Blank and made a one-more-minute face. Behind the partition the whistling stopped. Two young policemen came in, in shorts that disclosed bare burnished knees. They studied a schedule posted on the wall next to Nan. “Sunday night,” one said, “who they gotcha doubled up with?”

  Just when Nan thought she would have to give in and ask to sit down, or faint, Bed Head hung up. “This the hospital transfer?” she asked Officer Blank.

  “Yeah. The Fugitive.”

  “Lawyer’s waitin’ for her inside. Down-city type.”

  Nan opened her mouth to say, No. No lawyer. But two hours in the company of Officer Blank—two hours in handcuffs—had weakened her. Had made her wonder if she really could manage this alone.

  Officer Blank’s teeth made a clicking noise. Glancing sideways, Nan could see she was put out. Good, she thought; and the urge to faint disappeared.

  “I s’pose they want bail,” Officer Blank said in a tone of disgust. “Who’s on?”

  “Hold-’Em-Tight Wright.”

  “Giddout! This I wanna see. He don’t turn little old ladies loose.”

  Bed Head raised her eyebrows and glanced in Nan’s direction, as if to say, That is a little old lady. Fury erased Nan’s tiredness. She straightened up, clanking, and tugged her jacket down over her hips. Her arms didn’t reach high enough to smooth her hair.

  Behind her someone said, “Urgent! Comin
’ through!” Officer Blank yanked her aside. A woman accompanied by a pretty black policewoman stood at the counter next to Nan. The woman had dark-red welts and bruises all over her cheek and neck.

  “Go on in,” Bed Head said to Officer Blank. She produced a sheet of paper with the outline of a female figure and began recording the woman’s injuries as she recited them in a dead voice.

  “You goin’ to the deli?” one of the young policemen in shorts asked the other. “Get me a coffee milk, wouldya?”

  “Get me an orange slush!” a voice called out from behind the partition. “It’s ninety fuckin’ degrees in here!”

  The unseen whistler resumed, a different tune, an old song whose words Nan knew.

  Once you told me I was mistaken,

  That I’d awaken

  With the sun

  And order orange juice for one …

  It never entered my mind

  Back in the corridor, long and dim, feeling as if she were being taken to the principal’s office, Nan clanked along at Officer Blank’s brisk pace. She had the suspicion, from glances shot at her belly by passing policepersons, that she should by now have been unshackled, that all this hardware was required only on the outside. They stopped at a vending machine. Officer Blank shoved in some coins and a can of Coke thudded into the trough. She popped it open, took a long, shuddering swig. Thirstily Nan watched her throat pulse above her uniform collar. They continued, Nan Cokeless, down the corridor.

  At the end they came to a door painted a scrofulous military gray and marked WOMEN’S DETENTION. As they approached, a face appeared in the little head-height window: pale, with lightless eyes and sagging cheeks. Poor woman. Then, with a lurch of recognition, Nan saw that the face was her own. The window was a mirror.

  Officer Blank pressed a button on the jamb.

  |

  Jenny Root—that was the lawyer’s improbable name. Val had hired her, she said. With money from Walker, Nan assumed. (My money, really. Thank you, Deenie!) Tiny, stick-thin, young. A twit, the Last Lover would have called her. She had Nan’s hair, or what would have been Nan’s hair if Nan had been able to make it to a hairdresser. A crisp, upstanding thicket, only Jenny Root’s wasn’t teal blue, but black. It looked strange above her stiff, dark business suit. A twit in armor.