Samedi the Deafness

by Jesse Ball

  —What does the note say? James asked.

  —It's the same thing every day, said Grieve. He's going to murder us all, somehow.

  She turned a little pale. That was odd, thought James.

  —What do you think? he asked.

  Grieve said nothing, but looked down at her feet. Her face had gone blank. She had been trying to play a game, but the gravity of it had gotten the better of her. James was sure now. She knew. She knew what her father was going to do. Now if only she would tell him.

  He started to say something.

  She tossed the paper on the floor and slid up on top of him. He started to kiss her, and he could feel the length of her against him. He thought of days then in October when he was a boy and he had seen in the windows of houses candles lit at night, and how happy it had made him. There were waters in the middle of the ocean that met having come great distances, dispersing through great distances but keeping still some character, some inimitable character of water, and then, to have that, and meet, in the midst of a great ocean, water from a far place, and mingle with it in the midst of the ocean's lapsing. He felt her tongue along his chest, her legs wrapped tight around his legs. She tightened and he could feel himself like the sound in a room when a door is opened, rushed out into intervening space, unable to counter anything, accepting all, expanding, meeting, taking upon itself all space, all motion, trembling, entering other rooms, other bodies. Grieve was trembling, and her face was hot against his. She kissed and kissed him.

  —I was lying, she whispered. What can I tell you?

  And then he was inside of her and they were together in the lost deep ground where no one had gone until they, and where no one could go, where everyone had gone, of course, and did go, but not at once, just one pair and then another, never passing one another on the way, each taking of its own accord a seldom path that cannot be found by the eye, but is traced irrevocably in pageants of color and light. She was saying something, talking and talking. He could hear her but he could not.

  And then they slept.

  And afterwards it was late morning, and the light had not left or been made less by clouds. His arms about her, James wondered again if someone was watching. He wondered if someone had been watching the whole time.

  It would have been quite a show, he thought, and pictured Sermon and Leonora Loft kneeling in the small room and winking to each other.

  And also, he wondered, in the broad vagueness of his thought, what did Grieve know? What could she tell him?

  A note beyond the door:

  * * *

  Meeting canceled.

  * * *

  James rubbed his eyes—it was a good thing the meeting was canceled. He'd forgotten to go in the first place.

  What was the origin, James wondered, of Grieve's lying? He remembered she had said something about the matter. What had it been? He thought back. They had been standing on the roof of the house. First they had gone up the stairs into the upstairs bathroom. Grieve had gone in. She had waved to him. He had gone in. She had locked the door with a key from the inside.

  —Here we are, he said, in the bathroom.

  It was very small. Just a porcelain sink recessed in the wall, a porcelain toilet with a chain pull, and a window in a roof that slanted down, halving the room. Grieve opened the window with a practiced gesture.

  —This is the way.

  Out then the window onto the roof that proved to be only an initial roof. Many roofs stretched in all directions, some up, some down, most across, all away.

  —I want to have sex with you right now, said James, for Grieve's dress was being blown very tightly against her by the wind.

  —You shall not, she said. At least, not while he's watching.

  James looked over his shoulder. The cat had come up with them, had entered the bathroom unseen, and now was limping across the roof, dragging its hind leg.

  —Oh, Mephisto, she said. What a darling you are.

  She scooped up the cat.

  —I thought its name was something else, said James.

  —Around here, said Grieve, we think about naming a little differently than you do. As you understand it, people have names; things have names. But the weather . . . if it is sunny you call it a clear day, and if it rains you complain of a storm. But it's the weather; it's one thing. Around here we have names for people, and for Mephisto, for instance, that, like the names for the weather, change along with the object's behavior. When Mephisto is being bad, or at the very least, daring, acting without compunction in preposterous affairs like the one in which we are now involved, he is called Mephisto. When he is good, sitting quietly in the sun in a window seat or sill, he is called Xerxes. When he is terrified of someone new, hiding under chairs, scurrying in shadow, then he is Benvolio.

  —But he was never scared of me, said James.

  —No, said Grieve, not in the least. But that's because he could tell that I liked you so much. It's really all that matters to him.

  —How did he break his leg?

  —It was terrible, said Grieve. He was my one real friend when I was a girl. Back then he used to talk to me. You wouldn't believe the things he'd say.

  —I daresay not, said James.

  Mephisto jumped then out of Grieve's arms and made his way in a half trot, half drag across the shingled roof.

  —One day, said Grieve, Mephisto went into the egg room by mistake. My father was furious. No one is to go there, no one at all.

  James said nothing about the egg room.

  —So, he took Mephisto in his arms, at that time we called Mephisto Cavendish, and held Cavendish's paw up. Cavendish, said my father. Never in the egg room, Cavendish. And he broke the cat's leg by bending it back and forth quickly. During all this Cavendish neither cried out nor tried to escape, but sat watching my father with a still sort of patience. When he had broken the cat's arm to his satisfaction, he dropped him to the ground and the cat ran off, dragging its broken leg. He is no longer Cavendish, said my father. Now he is Benvolio. And from then on, Benvolio would not speak to me or tell me things. He stayed out of the egg room, though, and was mostly close by my side as before.

  She kicked at the shingles of the roof.

  —It seems that talking was a part of Cavendish, not a part of Benvolio or Mephisto or Xerxes. As soon as Cavendish went away, the cat became dumb. I felt I had to speak for him.

  She smiled, a delicate smile like a bookish otter.

  —You know, he used to say the most ingenious things. Anyway, I felt that if he was no longer going to be saying them, then someone should. So I began. I talk for both of us. I got so used to making things up for Gone-Away-Cavendish to say that I have never been able to change the habit. Besides, I don't see why I should.

  —That is not, said James, why you really lie.

  —No, she agreed. That's not why at all.

  They walked along the roof to a place where the next roof began. Up it they went to another roof, and another after that. Slowly they ascended the house until they reached a sort of gazebo set at the highest point. There was a fine wooden rail about it, a lovely cupola above, and benches within. Yes, benches and a table.

  —Is this the only way up here? James asked.

  —Yes, everyone who comes up comes out that bathroom window.

  —It's nice, said James, to discover this upper world, a place complete in itself. Yet the window to the bathroom has been left open and there, our little foothold in the old world is preserved. The door to the bathroom is locked. Someone might even now be standing there waiting. They think we are in there, and we are! It's as though all of this, everything that takes place up here, all these roofs, all these vantages, are all shuttered together in that tiny bathroom. We'll go back inside, unlock the door, and present ourselves to the person just beyond. My, we'll say, how the time passes.

  —But if that's true, said Grieve, then when a fellow sneaks out his bedroom window at night in order to go wandering in the country and meet
his girl on a covered bridge beneath which some slow water passes and passes again, when he leaves and returns before daybreak back through the window, shutting it tight and climbing neatly into bed, before dressing and going back out the bedroom door into the actual world when the cock crows, then, then the countryside, the whole countryside, the covered bridge, the slow river, the girl, the running through the night, all of it, is within that room, as if it all climbed back in the window with him, to sit there as dawn returned in morning's clothes, with an old stick and a stone it keeps rubbing for a reason no one will ever know.

  —Well, said James. I don't see what you're getting at. I would agree with that. That doesn't contradict anything.

  Grieve moved her face close to his, then lunged down and bit him quite hard on the shoulder.

  —Ay! he cried out, and fell from the bench onto the wooden slats of the gazebo.

  Then she was upon him and bit him again.

  But why had she begun to lie in the first place?

  As James went about the house, he noticed that all the maids were crying. One maid crying. Another maid crying. All the maids, crying. He rang his bell. The maid at the end of the hall froze. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. He approached her.

  —What are you crying about?

  —It's Grieve, she said, turning. She's killed herself.

  James felt a cold shock over him. Had she killed herself?

  —Grieve, he said slowly. She's killed herself?

  —Yes, said the maid. And the baby, too. She drowned herself in the bath. And her eight months pregnant. No one can say who the father is.

  She began to cry.

  Pregnant, thought James. Which Grieve was this?

  —Do you mean, he said, a young girl, about . . .

  He described the maid, Grieve, to this maid.

  —Oh, said the maid, drying her eyes. Not her. No. Why, she is named Grieve also. That's why you thought that she had . . . Oh, no. I mean, I'm named Grieve too, but I haven't done myself in, now, have I?

  —No, said James. You haven't.

  He explained that he would have to be going.

  —But you mark my words, said the maid. There'll be a penalty for this.

  She shook her head violently from side to side like a bird in a leather trap.

  —Mark my words.

  Within a short while all the water had drained from the bath. The room was quiet. No room can be so quiet as a quiet bathroom in an empty house. Everyone has left for the country, James thought, though he knew it wasn't true. Everyone has left for the country and I am still here. And he remembered small things he had done wrong here and there throughout his life and felt that this was some accounting of blame—he was being paid back in kind. And then he thought of kind voices reading old stories. He thought of the ease of paper boats on a Victorian pond. He thought of marzipan and weasels, of Easter on easels and trees shed of last year's leaves. Many were present then in him, and one was his brother. I will say, said he, that the lily when it blossoms is the name of four-fold ovens. But that's meaningless. No, no. Four-fold ovens and the cleverness of hands. A man with the skill of setting traps. A bird with one eye because he has been painted only in profile. We shall not let him turn, not until he has sung his supper.

  Is this the broom closet? wondered James. He took a piece of paper out of his coat pocket. The paper was very flat. It said:

  * * *

  Broom closet, Floor 3, Stair 7, Rear of Hospital.

  * * *

  He had made it through the hospital without incident. He had made it up the stairs without incident. Now he was before a closet. He presumed it was a closet. All the other rooms had numbers painted in neat black paint over dark wood. It must be, he thought.

  And he opened the door.

  Begin with me, said the bird. James reached out, took hold of the bird's neck and head, and gently but firmly twisted it off.

  Within the little metal bird was a rolled-up piece of parchment.

  It said:

  * * *

  I anticipate you as farmland anticipates the wilderness to come when all that's ordered is the sum of thought in a white wren's head as it flutters among red apples. Red red apples and the smell of blood.

  * * *

  —I saw in the distance a harbor approaching, a harbor walking arm in arm with the sea, and upon the sea great catastrophes of ships, constellations of storm and fright. Distances. How much then I knew that distance was always our greatest enemy; distance was always the obstacle that could not be overcome. Steam trains bring us closer. Airplanes. Elevators. Rockets. But how can we be beside the one we love on that particular day when it would suddenly, inexplicably, mean the most? For small distances, a street, a room, the length of an arm, these divide like a sword. They are the worst, the most devilish, the most puzzling. Ask me again when I go into the hall, will I hate to be parted from you, will I call out the moment I am finished with what I must do? Instead, my love, arrive. Arrive quietly as I finish. Surely that is within your power.

  James put the book down. Carlyle was looking at him.

  —That is beautiful, he said. What happens next?

  —It's the book's end, said James. But I think it is a suicide. The woman is speaking to her lover who is far away.

  —This taking leave of life, said Carlyle. For many it is not easy.

  Carlyle was wearing a short brown jacket with dark wool pants and a white cotton shirt. He had a hat on indoors, slouched across his head, and had been writing in a book when James arrived.

  —I finished reading the manual, said James. It's fascinating.

  —Ah, the manual, said Carlyle. There are many opinions, like insects, about the manual. Some flutter but do not fly; some fly but do not flutter. Some stay close to the ground unmoving. It is an old book, you know. From the nineteenth century. The idea had been put into practice once, in England. But not since then, until Stark discovered it and realized it was the perfect way of treating today's illness of chronic lying. And, he thought, a sort of lovely way of living in general. At any rate, he likes it.

  —Do you have all the rules memorized? asked James.

  —God, no, said Carlyle. But one gets a sense of what one ought and ought not to do. After a while it becomes instinctive. Of course, every now and then there is a transgression, and when one is excited, one often doesn't count to fifteen, et cetera, but mostly, yes, the rules work just fine. It is very difficult, of course, to train the maids. But they like it very much here, I think. Certainly they get paid well. Everyone who comes into contact with this place is rewarded for it in some way.

  Carlyle said this with a real belief.

  I wonder if that's true, thought James.

  —How did Stark make his money? he asked.

  —I believe he inherited it. He's always had it, and there's never been an explanation, as long as I've known. Where he lived as a boy, these sorts of things are a mystery. He doesn't talk about himself very often. He's the kind of man who obsessively controls the work that he is upon, and thinks of it and only it.

  —What is his work?

  —Well, psychology, to start. But his writings are complicated and verge into social theory and other realms. He is the acting head of this hospital, the one that we are on the edge of here. It runs partly into the house, as Graham tells me you discovered in an unfortunate way.

  Carlyle laughed when he said this.

  —I was just trying to get some supper, said James. I didn't know where to go.

  —The few of us who live here and are not patients generally eat in our rooms, or in the private dining rooms. But you know that if you've finished the manual.

  James nodded.

  Carlyle looked at his watch.

  —I have to go. I have to meet someone.

  He looked quickly at James, quickly away, and stood.

  —Sorry to run off, he said.

  —No worries, said Ja
mes. He stood too.

  Carlyle put his arm on James's shoulder.

  —I like you, he said. I think we could be friends.

  —I think so, said James.

  —If you like, said Carlyle, I'm having supper with McHale and Grieve tonight in my room. You can come. I'll send a note.

  —That would be fine, said James.

  Next to the chair where Carlyle had been sitting was a pile of newspapers.

  I should have a look, thought James.

  Both yesterday's and today's were there. The Samedi matter was front-page news on both. There had been two more suicides and two more notes. The area of the White House was now sealed off for ten blocks in every direction.

  The two men who had died were American citizens. The first, an Alfred Mitchell, had also shot himself in the face. The second name James recognized, and a chill ran up his spine.

  Good God, he thought. I have been right all along.

  The second man, who had poisoned himself, then staggered three blocks to die on the White House lawn, was Marvin Estrainger.

  James went to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He downed it, poured himself another, and downed that. Then he began to cough. He looked around the room. He had taken the curtains off the windows and laid them all across the section of wall he knew to be the observation panel.

  Let them try to look now, he thought.

  and also

  Why are they doing it? Why are they sending these men to die?

  The two notes had been more of the same, a strange sort of puzzling rhetoric. Martin Stark, thought James. Martin Stark is Samedi.