Perfume (14 page)

Yield to me. Give me the body, Dove.

Dove lingered on the edge, between submission and fight.

Yesss s s s s sss …
whispered Evil.

I
N ANOTHER AGE AND TIME
, Dove might have stayed in that hospital for years. Certainly the doctors wanted to keep her.

But this was a day of recession and tight budgets and insurance companies running out of funds. The insurance would not pay for months and months of hospitalization.

Dove stayed only one week.

It amazed her that this endless prison, this horrifying complete robbery of her self, had lasted only a week.

She was still half Wing, or perhaps more than half, because Wing was working harder than Dove to keep the body when her parents came and got her.

They had never looked so wonderful. So ordinary and safe. She had never loved them so much. Oh, Mother! thought Dove.

She thought the woman coming toward her was the most beautiful person on earth, and the man at her side the handsomest. Their eyes, their walk, their hands—oh, how Dove wanted her parents!

So maybe we weren’t the closest people on earth, thought Dove. We loved. In our own way, we loved so much.

Did not
, said Wing viciously.
They don’t care about you. They
—

Dove ignored her. She had not known it was possible to ignore Wing. Dove elbowed her way to the front of the mind and cried out, “Oh, Mother! I’m so glad to see you! Oh, Father! It’s been so awful! Thank you for coming. Don’t leave me here again, please!” She flung herself against them and folded herself in their embrace.

The embrace was real. They had missed her, too. She could feel it, the way their hands closed so tightly around her shoulders and their kisses landed so emotionally on her face.

Wing disliked affection. She squirmed.
I am a danger to others
, yelled Wing, but Dove didn’t listen to her. Who was Wing, anyway? Some invader. Best forgotten.

Her mother’s long thin fingers wove through Dove’s hair and caressed Dove’s cheek. “Feeling better now, honey?” said her mother huskily.

More than anything, Dove loved her mother’s breaking voice: the throat full of tears and sorrow.

“Much better,” said Dove. “I was just tired. I’m fine now, I promise. It was all nonsense, Mother.”

Her mother’s arms tightened. How cozy and warm a hug was. In a way, it was like lying at the back of the mind: so safe and secure, being hugged. Everything was all right when your mother’s arms were around you. Dove hugged back. Don’t let go! thought Dove.

Let go
, said Wing.
I detest the maternal body.

It was her father’s turn, and his hug was so strong, it lifted her right off the ground and swung her around. “We need you at home,” said Father. “It isn’t a family without you.”

His kiss was healing. The little warm spot on her face felt kinder and gentler than the rest of her, as if Wing would not be able to use it when Wing took hold again.

Father’s car had a single wide front seat, and Dove sat between her parents, as she had not for years. Her father drove with his right arm around Dove’s shoulder, and her mother sat with her left hand in Dove’s lap.

This is my armor, thought Dove. Their touch and their love.

“Why did the hospital let me go?” said Dove. “I was so afraid that I would be there forever!”

“They explained to us,” said her father, “that a patient who is not a danger to herself and not a danger to others is quickly released.”

Wing stirred.

A moth striking a screen over and over, trying to get at the light.

A danger to others …
those were the words to waken Wing.

Dove did not hit her head. She knew now that people thought that was a sign of mental illness. Fine, thought Dove, I’ll figure out how to live with somebody buzzing around in my head.

It won’t matter, anyway, what Wing wants. I’m safe between my parents. As long as they’re here, I’m here, and not Wing.

But of course, she could not stay home forever.

Teenagers go to school.

How relentless and unfair school is. The thought of going back to that building was as horrid as the thought of returning to the hospital, and the windowless room, and the group therapy.

“Will you be all right?” said her mother anxiously, that first morning of the return to school.

“Of course,” said Dove. Lies, she thought. I have wrapped my entire life in lies.

They kissed good-bye round-robin fashion. Kisses each way, and kisses again.

It seemed to Dove that her parents’ kisses would be amulets to protect her from evil, but she was wrong.

School was grim.

Dove was abandoned.

Only Hesta remained friendly.

Dove could not imagine why.

Timmy was not friendly. Laurence was not. Connie was not. The eyes into which Dove looked on, the day she came back from the mental institution, flickered quickly away. The chatter and laughter that usually welcomed Dove were muted and spent elsewhere.

Dove was alone in a crowd of her companions.

But Hesta was downright chummy. Hesta handed her a pencil, since Dove had forgotten to bring anything with her. Hesta loaned her lunch money because Dove had forgotten that, too.

What does Hesta have in mind here? thought Dove. I nearly killed her and she’s cozying up to me?

Wing laughed joyfully.
Dove Bar!
shouted Wing silently.
You admitted it. You said:
I
nearly killed her. See? You don’t know anymore. You can’t tell anymore. You don’t know which of us is which. You don’t even know if there are two of us, or just another you!

Dove shuddered.

I’ve done it!
cried Wing.
I’ve driven you crazy.

Happiness welled inside Dove … Wing’s happiness. Dove was shaking with horror, and Wing was happy.

What kind of twin are you?
moaned Dove.

Wing said:
An evil twin. I told you that at the beginning. I wanted to live, you see. I was looking forward to life. And I didn’t get it. You did. So I waited. I bided my time. And now I’m destroying you.

But why?
cried Dove.

Wing was impatient with her.
There is no why, Dove. Stop harping on the why and the wherefore. Evil simply is. Evil does mean things, because that’s what evil is. I am evil.

I don’t want you in me!
cried Dove.

You don’t have a choice, do you?
said Wing.

Dove saw that the class period had ended and that people were streaming into hallways and going on to the next event. She saw that it was two forty-five and school must have finished. What had she and Wing said out loud? What did people know or guess by now?

Dove Daniel walked slowly through the high school she had once loved and been part of. How quickly it had been destroyed. She smiled at kids who were coming the opposite direction, and some smiled back, but most pretended not to see her, and instead talked rapidly and loudly with their friends.

She saw them getting changes of clothing from lockers, for sports events. She saw them leaving some books and getting others, for homework. She saw them wave and kiss and greet and kid around with each other.

She saw that she was alone.

Completely alone.

Where she had been a member, now she was simply a creature to be avoided.

“Dove?” said a voice softly.

She was afraid to look. Who would it be, that voice?

“It’s me, Luce. I’m really worried about you, Dove.”

Dove turned. The face looking at her was full of concern and friendship. A kind face. A face the opposite of evil: a good face. “Oh, Luce,” said Dove, and all her heartache poured forth in those syllables. “I’m having such a hard time.”

“I know. Where did it come from, all this hard time?” Luce linked her arm through Dove’s. Such relief to be touched! To know that she was not a pariah. Luce wanted to be with her. Luce cared.

Dove wet her lips, yearning to tell Luce everything: the vanished twin, the evil, the perfume, the venom. No one yet had understood or believed. Would Luce? Was it safe to talk?

Luce said, “You don’t have to talk about it if it hurts, Dove. But it hurts me, too, you know. I’m your friend, and I didn’t even see that anything was wrong! I want to be here for you. Okay?”

The loveliest gift on earth: being there.

I’m going to make it, thought Dove. I have parents who love me and I have a friend. In the end, that’s all you need. “Oh, Luce,” she said, her voice quavering. “Thank you. I—”

Do you remember, Dove
, said Wing inside their head,
that I am a danger to others? Do you remember that you asked which others I had in mind?

Life dried up.
Not Luce.
Dove begged. She could not fight.

Of course Luce!
said Wing.
Why would I waste my time being a danger to somebody you don’t care about? Or being a danger to somebody who doesn’t care about you?

Dove felt Wing moving through her flesh. Wing took over, seizing her legs and her arms, her feet and her hands.

Wing owned the body now.

What would Wing do with this body? To what use would she put these hands?

Not Luce! thought Dove.

She poured herself back. With tremendous strength, as if she were diving underwater and needed enough air for hours, she tightened herself against Wing’s invasion and stiffened herself against Wing’s venom.

Dove and Wing fought over the arm that was linked through Luce’s.

We’re going to take a ride in Luce’s car
, said Wing, struggling.
That little tin can of a car. That car so low to the road she can’t even go over the speed bumps at your condominium. That little car that is an accident waiting to happen.

Oh, no, we’re not
, said Dove.
We are not hurting Luce!
Dove wrenched free of Luce’s arm and staggered to the far side of the high school hall. “Go away, Luce,” she managed.

Luce burst into tears. “Dove!” she said. “What’s the matter! Really and truly, I am your friend. You need me.”

Dove clapped her hand over the mouth to keep Wing from talking.

“Oh Dove!” cried Luce. “I can’t stand looking at you! You’re having some sort of convulsion! Fighting with yourself! Don’t do that. Don’t pull your hair and your face. You look insane. Please stop.”

She obeyed. The wish was Wing’s as well as Luce’s, and the wish from two of them was too great for Dove to combat.

She stopped fighting with herself.

Perhaps the strength of evil is greater than the strength of good.

Perhaps good does not even realize it is going to need strength until it is too late, and evil has the upper hand.

Wing had won.

Venom
was in control.

Dove tumbled, dizzy, nauseated, falling to the back of the mind, seeing only a blur where once she had had eyes.

Wing said coaxingly, “Luce, don’t be mad. I need you. I’m going through some real personal problems here. Could we go for a drive? I just want to talk and maybe share some of this.”

“Of course,” said Luce, lovingly. “I was going to suggest that.” Luce put her arm around the body, but Dove could not feel it. Luce hugged tightly to show her concern, but Dove was not there.

Dove was dwindling away. The space in the back of the mind was more cramped and dingy than it had been before. She could not quite tell what Wing was doing; Wing possessed much more of the body than she usually did.

What is left to me? thought Dove. Do I have a way to save Luce?

Wing’s laughter resonated through the skull like an electric drill.

No, Dove
, said the voice of her evil self.
You have nothing. Certainly not a way to save Luce.

E
VEN EVIL IS SUBJECT TO
interference.

Hesta intercepted Luce and Wing on the way to Luce’s car. “Hi, guys,” said Hesta brightly.

“We are not guys,” said Wing sharply.

“You’re using your second voice today,” said Hesta, laughing. “You did that when you were in the car with me. I don’t know what it is about you, Dove Bar, but there’s some sort of spark that really attracts me these days.”

“It’s called evil,” said Wing, not missing a beat.

Luce pulled back a little.

Wing yanked her in again.

“Let’s go to the mall,” said Hesta. “The three of us. Who needs Connie, anyway?”

No Dove was present. She had drowned in the tide of venom, and she was floating face down inside the mind.

“My car,” decreed Hesta. “Yours is too little, Luce. I hate being crowded like that. Plus I have a better radio.”

Luce stopped walking. “Maybe another day,” said Luce.

Hesta flung open the school’s big glass front door. A bright blue sky greeted them, brittle as construction paper. Solid but easy to rip. The sun was so brilliant it burned the eyes as well as the skin.

The sun lit up the inside of the mind, light passing through the eyelids and coloring the interstices of the skull. Wing looked straight up. The sun was both giver of life and source of ancient cruelty. It could cause drought and famine of the soil, as well as of the soul. The sun shines on the good and the bad, the sleeping and the dead.

Dove stirred, feeling heat and color.

Wing said without speech,
One victim is as good as another. I have eons of time. So Luce postponed her moment. I will get her later. Today I will get Hesta.

Dove seemed to be at a railroad station. Luce was vanishing down the tracks, getting smaller and smaller, until she was only a memory.

But she’s safe, thought Dove.

She tried to imagine time as Wing knew it, time that lasted generation after generation, time for all cruelties under the sun.

Whereas for Dove, time had run out.

I never did find out who I am, she thought. That’s what you do when you’re an adolescent: wonder who you are, work through your layers of family and past, try to find yourself.
I found somebody else.

Dove wanted to roll over, face another direction, but she seemed to be lying beneath a great weight. Perhaps a bridge had caved in and crushed her. There was nowhere to go.