Doppelgänger (19 page)

Clea nodded. “I been wondering what happened that night.”

Anine shuddered with the memory. “It was like nothing I've ever experienced.
Nothing
.”

She told the story in great detail. She did not hesitate to repeat the words the
spöke
had shouted at her. Anine had firmly decided that Clea must know everything, because knowledge was the most powerful weapon against the spirit—assuming anything worked against it at all. She also confessed to Clea for the first time that she thought she'd seen Ola Bergenhjelm's apparition after his untimely death, though she admitted she wasn't sure she could trust her senses regarding this or how it might relate to the phenomenon in the house. The only thing she omitted was the ominous undertone of Julian's question to Dr. Dorr about whether the death of Mrs. Quain would exterminate the doppelgänger. Anine phrased it as: “We discussed whether the spirit was coupled to Mrs. Quain's life. The doctor didn't give us a very clear response but I suspect the answer is yes. Doppelgänger are, it appears, literally the ghosts of living people. It seems like everything is pointing in that direction.”

Clea thought for a moment and then gave a sort of nonchalant little shrug. “You almost don't need to hear what I think, Miss Anine, 'cause you know it already. The doctor's right. You'd best be getting out of this house. Mr. Julian's a fool for wanting to stay.”

“I know it. Of course the doctor's right. I've been urging Julian to sell the house and move for weeks now. Mrs. Minthorn's note certainly seemed to make it clear that the family is no longer willing to deal with us, which means their generous offer is off the table. I think we could still get a fair price for the house but Julian won't consider moving.” She sipped from her beer mug. Trying not to alarm Clea—or herself—Anine said delicately, “It appears that his strategy is simply to wait the spirit out. Meaning, wait until Mrs. Quain—”

Clea finished the thought for her. “Wait until she dies and then the thing is gone.”

“That's what he's expecting, yes.” She shook her head. “It's childish, really. It's like he's now pretending there
is
no problem in the house, just hoping it will go away. I don't think it will go away. Suppose Mrs. Quain lives another ten years? She could, you know. I don't think she's that old. Given the disturbances we've seen this week I suspect in six months' time we'll be reduced to wearing rags and eating food from our fingers because our clothes will be shredded and every dish broken. There won't be a stick of furniture left in the house that isn't ruined. That is, unless my husband wishes to devote the entirety of his fortune to replacing everything the doppelgänger destroys. If that's what he wants we may as well mortgage our lives to the Crown Derby company.”

Clea shook her head. “You just talking just to talk, Miss Anine. You know what's got to be done.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Leave Mr. Julian. He's no good for you. I see the way he treats you. You think I don't hear through the walls when he's yelling at you? Everybody hear it. Mrs. Hennessey too. And him and that manservant—Shoop—you know, Miss Anine, what goes on between them?”

Anine had her suspicions but she'd endeavored mightily to keep them out of her mind. “What goes on?”

“Things that gentlemen shouldn't be doing. Unnatural things. He don't need you, Miss Anine. And you don't need
this
, all the nonsense with this—I can't even say that name.”

“The doppelgänger.”

“So leave. Pack up. There ain't nothing worth all this. Leave him in the house, if he wants it. He's the one who made this bed. He got to lie in it.”

She's absolutely right
, Anine thought,
but it still feels wrong to give up so easily
. She admitted to herself she'd been thinking more and more about Sweden, about what she might say to her parents if she returned. It had even occurred to her that perhaps she didn't need to divorce Julian. It seemed likely that if their marriage ended she would be doomed to be a spinster forever and strangely that didn't bother her. If she remained married to Julian but separated from him by an ocean her life would be little different except that both of them would escape the scandal of divorce. Julian might not have any interest in taking another wife, especially if he preferred Bryan Shoop's company to that of a woman. Remaining married might keep that potential scandal at bay.
But how do I even suggest this to him? Would he agree?

Another question weighed on her mind. “Clea,” she said, “let me ask you something else. It may be difficult for you to answer. If I were to do as you say, leave the house and go back to Sweden, would you come with me? I would be happy to continue to employ you.”

Miss Wicks didn't seem surprised or even particularly moved by the question. “You don't worry about me, Miss Anine. You don't need to be hauling me across an ocean. If you leave the house and leave Mr. Julian, you should go back with your own people. I wouldn't be any help to you.”

“I'm not sure that's true. I've come to rely on you a great deal.”

“You say that 'cause you got no one else to rely on. They got you cornered here, Miss Anine. Mr. Julian, the Fifth Avenue ladies, everybody—even the ghost. You got to break free. You take it from me, I know. You only a slave if you give up trying to be free.”

Anine took another sip of beer, and then set the mug down on the rough plank table. “I believe I've had enough,” she said, suppressing a soft belch. “Thank you for speaking so frankly to me, Clea.”

“You asked me to speak to you like that. Don't thank me just for doing my job.”

Just doing my job.
There was a curious sadness to this moment that did not escape Anine's notice.
Is that all it is to her? Does she not really consider me a friend?
Anine was eternally grateful of her company and her counsel, but sometimes Clea Wicks was very difficult to read.

They said nothing more to each other on the ride home. When they did reach the house Clea went silently back to her duties, pressing clothes, dusting and cleaning up the shards of freshly-broken crockery.

For that weekend and into the next week a sort of delicate balance held throughout the house, thin and fragile like the crust of ice just forming on the top of a water barrel. The dreadful mood of claustrophobia remained, plates and furniture were still found broken and in the deep of the night on Sunday Anine heard again the chilling sound of Mrs. Quain's laughter coming from somewhere above her bedroom. But there were no quarrels with Julian, no sudden spasms of rage from the
spöke
, and the strange hash-mark attempts at communication (if that's what they were) ceased. The situation was not exactly optimal, for Anine could not see herself living for long even at this slightly-reduced level of intensity, but at least it was less dire than it had been at any time before the séance, and it suggested that it was possible—just barely
possible
—that the Athertons and the doppelgänger might be able to live together.

The fragile equilibrium ended the following Tuesday, the second of November. It was election day. It began cheerfully enough. Julian, taking the day off from his law practice, stayed home for breakfast which was quite rare. Though thoroughly boring, his one-sided chatter was at least upbeat. “I just hope my father takes the loss well,” he babbled. “He was wounded deeply enough when I told him I was a Democrat, and he's taken constant umbrage at my activism for the party here in New York. Tonight, hopefully, he'll come to realize that the past is the past and being a Democrat is no longer synonymous with disunion, treason and Jefferson Davis. Who knows? Maybe we'll even invite him to dinner as sort of a reconciliation.”

He went off to his political meetings which would last well into the evening. Anine cared very little for politics, and as this Tuesday unfolded she had no idea what was happening in the city or the world outside the Green Parlor. It proved to be an uneventful day. Clea Wicks told her that a saucer had been found broken in the pantry but that was the only disturbance. Anine thought for a moment she felt the presence of the Abyssinian cat in the parlor but could not see it. The feeling went away soon enough.

At shortly after eight o'clock in the evening, just as Anine was leaving the dining room after her customarily somber and solitary dinner, the front door burst open and Julian stumbled inside, in a state of rage and apoplexy unusual even for him.

“Dirty bastards!”
he roared at the entryway.
“Dirty Republican thieves, they have no shame! How dare they even call themselves Americans? There'll be an uprising, another civil war! It's a fucking outrage!”

He marched straight into the Red Parlor, wrenching off his necktie. Anine heard the glassy clatter of him removing the stopper from one of the liquor decanters.

So, the Democrats lost.
She'd been hoping for a Democratic victory for the sole reason that the opposite outcome would make Julian disagreeable. She debated with herself whether to go to him. She didn't wish to annoy him, but with as deeply as the election mattered to him she thought it at least the sporting thing to do to offer him her condolences.

She appeared at the door of the Red Parlor. He was standing in front of the fireplace, drinking—more like gulping—from a crystal tumbler of whiskey.

“Your man lost?” she said.

“Don't gloat!” Julian blasted at her. “I don't want to hear your arrogant, sanctimonious nonsense! You've been for Garfield since the beginning! You've undermined me at every turn!”

“I know absolutely nothing about this Garfield person. I don't even know what the issues are in American elections—”

“Don't lie to me!”
Julian screamed. “You wanted Garfield to win because I was for Hancock! You oppose me at every turn, just on principle! Don't even try to deny it! Every single thing I've tried to do, you've desperately
wanted
me to fail!”

“Now that's not true and you know it—”

“Get out of my life, you bitch!”
Julian suddenly swung around and hurled the tumbler directly at the portrait of Jefferson hanging above the fireplace. The glass shattered and the liquor made a wet splash cross Jefferson's face. “You will
never
understand what it means to be an American!” he shouted. “You and your savage Viking country—where kings and noblemen play with peoples' lives like chess pieces—how can you possibly understand this country? How can you understand anything except selfishness?
The world does not fucking revolve around you!
When are you going to get that through your head?
Why are you trying to destroy me? Why are you trying to ruin my life? Why do you hate me so much?”

He was virtually hysterical. Far from offering her condolences, Anine realized that all she'd done was to provoke yet another confrontation with him, this one over absolutely nothing. She turned and marched toward the door of the parlor.

“Oww,
stop
it!” Julian cried. “That's so fucking
irritating
!”

What is he on about now?
At the door, she turned to look at him. He was pacing between the fireplace and the end of the desk, covering his ears with his hands.

“
Stop it!
” he shouted. “That
sound…
I can't
abide
that
sound
!”

The nub of unease in her stomach began to rise into something more. Except for the crackle of the fireplace, the Red Parlor was as silent as a tomb. She turned back toward him. “What is it?” she asked. “What do you hear?”

“Can't you
hear
it?” he shrieked. “Are you
deaf
?”

“Julian, I don't hear anything.”

He sat down in a wing chair, but immediately sprang up from it. His hands were still clapped over his ears. “The
trumpet
! It's the goddamn
trumpet
…the one that Bradbury heard…” He winced. A strange sound came from his lips which were pulled back in an unnatural leer, baring his clenched teeth. It was a high-pitched squeal, like the screech of a hysterical child in the midst of a crying jag that was leaving him breathless.
“Stop it!”
he roared.
“That sound…dear God, that sound…stop it, please, stop it!”

Anine heard nothing. Strangely, imagining what
he
was hearing was even more disturbing than hearing it for herself. Julian winced again as if the sound was very high-pitched, piercing and deafening.

“You fucking bitch!”
he squealed. At first Anine thought Julian was addressing her, but she soon realized he was shouting at the doppelgänger.
“No! No! I will never leave this house! I will never leave this house!”

Julian moved his head rapidly from side to side. He gasped suddenly as if he was in severe pain. His chest heaved as he panted for breath. Then, strangely, he held his breath, ballooning out his cheeks. His face turned bright red almost instantly. Through it all he never took his hands from over his ears; in fact he pressed harder, as if trying to crush his own skull between them.

Unease, which had become fear in a matter of seconds, now became panic.
The doppelgänger is attacking
. She bolted for the doors of the Red Parlor only to realize that they were closed. She grasped the handles of the pocket doors and tried to pull them open—but they held together as solidly as if banded with iron. They were trapped.

Julian let out the breath he'd been holding.
“No, I won't!”
he screamed.
“I hate you! I'll die before I let you have this house!
Fitta
!
FITTA
!”
Then he took another deep breath and held it.