Tarnished Beauty (11 page)

“Don't worry about me. I'm used to taking care of myself,” she says with a sly little smile that effectively turns his knees to jelly.

Eddie has been staying close, strategizing his next move, when they arrive at a gate that appears to be chained and locked. But strong and capable as he is, he opens it wide enough for them to slip through. Jamilet can't help but notice his well-muscled forearms as she “accidentally” brushes them with her breasts. There's a tangle of trees rising on either side of the narrow path leading up to the hospital. It's dark, but Jamilet insists on taking the lead even though she's starting to feel afraid.

“Did you hear that?” Eddie whispers.

Jamilet stops to listen and stumbles back into his waiting arms. She's trembling and scared this time, and she doesn't push him away, but looks up into his face, her lips parted and moist. Eddie devours her with his eyes for a moment or two, then with passion burning in his heart, he slowly lowers his face to hers so that his mouth gently…

 

“What's wrong with you? Can't you hear me?” Eddie asked, clearly annoyed.

Jamilet turned to find him standing at least ten yards behind her on the path, and she shook her head, confused. “Is…is something wrong?”

“I don't like the sound of this.” He headed out to the middle of the main road, Jamilet close behind. “There it is again,” he said under his breath.

It started as a steady hum, reverberating as though underground, and then escaped into the cool night air, low and eerie, moaning like a ghost through the trees. It grew steadily all around them, swirling and surging between and through them, quickening the blood in their veins. They heard the call of a tortured soul crying out for release from the sheer agony of existence. And then it sweetened into the haunting song of a wandering heart, cool and then warm again, waning at the memory of life and love, hesitant in the face of another, remembering. It was no doubt a human voice, singing and wailing for whoever or whatever was brave enough to listen.

Jamilet stood still and closed her eyes, swaying to the sound of the singing as it grew louder. Then, without warning, Eddie grabbed her wrist and pulled her, stumbling behind him, as he ran at breakneck speed back toward the gate through which they'd entered moments earlier. He released her as they approached the gate, and pushed himself through the narrow opening first. He kept running down the street without looking back. But Jamilet felt no need for alarm. She calmly passed through the gate, and when she finally caught up to him at the corner, he was still panting, doubled over, with one hand on the lamppost to steady himself. When he glanced up at Jamilet, his eyes retained a glint of the wild fear that had possessed him, while Jamilet covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“I'm glad you think I'm so funny,” Eddie said, straightening up.

“I'm sorry, it's just that…” She shrugged contritely. “I once saw a man run from an angry bull that had the biggest horns you ever saw, and he still didn't run as fast as you.”

“Okay, you made your point.” He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants legs and pointed a thumb behind him. “That's the way home,” he said, and then he pointed back the way they'd come. “And now you know where Braewood is.” He turned to leave.

“Are you mad?” Jamilet asked.

He answered without turning around, raising one hand and then letting it drop to his side in a beleaguered fashion. “Nope.”

“Yes, you are. I can tell.”

Eddie turned around. The light from the streetlamp over his head made him look like a lone actor on a stage. “I'm just freaked out, I guess.”

“Freaked out?” Jamilet wasn't so familiar with this expression.

“You walk straight through the gate like you own the place, and when I tell you to slow down, you don't even answer me, you just keep going like some kind of zombie.” He shook his head, still dazed. “It was pretty weird.”

Jamilet was prepared to offer excuses, but he stopped her with a more decisive hand this time. “Save it. I…I hope you get the job.”

Jamilet watched Eddie walk out from under the streetlight and slip into the darkness down the street. Moments later, her fantasy resumed.

 

“Don't you think the singing was beautiful, Eddie?”

He takes her face in his hands, and his fingers softly stroke her cheek. “Yeah, it was, but not as beautiful as you.”

“You're crazy, Eddie.”

“I know I am,” he says, right before he kisses her for the first time. “I'm crazy about you.”

T
HE WORDS CAME OUT
however they could: “I'm applying for the housekeeping job.” Jamilet was certain that her accent was worse than ever, but the pale woman behind the desk understood her perfectly, and responded without looking up from her work.

“You need to speak with Nurse B.” The woman glanced up at Jamilet's startled face. “Who shall I say is applying?”

Jamilet took a deep breath, and her lungs quivered when she exhaled, making her voice sound like an out-of-tune violin. “My name is Monica Juarez.”

The woman took the application Jamilet had completed the night before, and returned within less than a minute. She directed Jamilet to follow her through a narrow passageway behind the front office. They had proceeded down a labyrinth of halls painted chalky green before the woman opened one of several office doors and indicated that Jamilet should enter on her own.

Nurse B. was sitting behind her desk. She was an older woman with a fleshy face, graying yellow hair, and eyes so deep set that it was difficult to be certain of their color. In her white uniform, she resembled an overstuffed pillow. With a flick of her hand she directed Jamilet to sit in the chair across from her, and Jamilet promptly dropped into it, grateful that her trembling knees might be less apparent from a seated position. She folded her hands on her lap and waited for her application to be reviewed. Jamilet had asked Carmen to fill it out for her the night before and to make sure there were no mistakes.

Nurse B. studied Jamilet when she'd finished, her brow twitching sporadically. Then, quick as a flash, she produced a piece of paper and a pen and whisked it across the desk toward Jamilet. “Write down your name, your address, and…the reason you want to work at Braewood Asylum,” she said.

Slowly Jamilet took up the pen. As she started to trace aimless patterns on the page, her face smoldered with shame. For an instant she considered confessing the truth about her illiteracy, but suspected that this was not a woman who would soften when encountering vulnerable disclosures or hard-luck stories, no matter how heartwrenching they might be. The brooding lines engraved on her face were clue enough.

Jamilet's pencil dragged across the page. With her nose only inches from the paper, she wished that she could somehow fold herself into it and disappear. From the corner of her eye, she saw Nurse B.'s thick fingers tapping on the desk, almost dancing with joy, like a troupe of jolly little men rejoicing at the prospect of witnessing this impending humiliation.

It was then that a firm and furious knock was heard at the door, and a red-faced young woman burst into the room, followed by the same pale receptionist who'd shown Jamilet to the office. She was muttering her objections with the effectiveness of one trying to speak underwater.

The young woman didn't notice Jamilet sitting in the chair, and when she spoke, her voice was shrill, and louder than necessary. “It's been more than a month and you said it would only be two weeks.”

Nurse B. clenched her jaw. “I'm in the middle of an interview, as you can see.”

But the woman seemed incapable of understanding, and continued to rant about the time that had passed, the agreement they'd made, and other complaints she was no longer able to contain. Jamilet wondered if she might be an escaped patient, but she didn't look like a mental patient, and her anger, although extreme, didn't sound like the ravings of a lunatic, but more like the frustrations of an overworked employee.

“I'm not going back up there, and if you try and make me, I'll call the union.” She stood back from the desk, a bit wild-eyed, as if she was looking for something she might throw. “I think I'll call them anyway. There's gotta be a law against sticking someone up there for hours on end like that.”

Nurse B. took two deep breaths, her eyelids fluttering slightly with each one. As she listened to the woman, a crimson glow gathered about her ears. “You may call the union, the president, or the pope if you wish, but if you're interested in discussing the matter with me, you'll have to wait until I'm finished. As you can see, I'm in the middle of an interview,” she repeated, pointing to Jamilet, who sat slumped in her chair, the pencil still propped in her fingers.

When the woman took notice of Jamilet, she calmed down considerably. “Oh,” she said, stepping back from the desk. “I didn't realize…”

Nurse B. addressed the receptionist, who was still in the doorway, wringing her hands. “Ms. Clark, please see Veronica to the waiting room. I'll let you know when I'm ready to see her.” The two women left as abruptly as they'd entered, and the silence that followed was punctuated only by the large woman's breathing, deep and low in her throat.

Jamilet watched as Nurse B.'s eyes roved across the ceiling, and her lips twitched into a smile. “Why continue this ridiculous charade, Monica?” She leaned over her desk so that her ample bosom spread across it. “Why not admit the truth?”

The pencil slipped from Jamilet's fingers as she considered which of the shameful truths she should admit to first: the fact that she was an illegal alien presenting false documents for employment, or that, with the exception of her true and false names, she was unable to read or write a single word. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how difficult it was to lie. She'd thought it would be just like prompting her imagination to take over and guide her, as she did when she created her stories. But lying was nothing like that. It didn't make her feel free, like her stories made her feel, but constricted and locked up about the heart and throat, making it difficult to speak and breathe.

Nurse B. chewed slowly on her tongue as she considered the application more carefully. “My guess is that you've never had a job before in your life,” she declared flatly.

“I'm a good cleaner and a hard worker,” Jamilet said. “Even when I don't get paid for it.”

Nurse B.'s great head nodded, her fingers still tapping on the surface of her desk. Jamilet felt a twinge of encouragement upon seeing this, and piped up again. “And I'm not afraid of ghosts,” she added confidently. “I'm not afraid of anything.”

Upon hearing this, the collection of creases radiating out from Nurse B.'s eyes and mouth deepened into a smile. “That's very nice, but I'm afraid the janitorial position was filled yesterday afternoon. Of course, I do have another job that's just become available. It's yours if you want it.”

 

The next morning Jamilet arrived twenty minutes early, and waited in the lobby as she listened to the sounds of the asylum beginning to stir. Although many corridors separated her from the patients' area of the hospital, the acoustics created by tiled floors and metal doors made it possible to hear every loud bang and echo from beyond. Voices called out their terse commands, as shrill as trumpet blasts. They were met with lingering groans that blended and twisted like smoke curling around and through the walls and doors that held them in. Laughter soon followed, disquieting laughter, devoid of cheerfulness. A chill stole up Jamilet's spine, and she glanced up at the clock on the green wall. Ten more minutes to go.

The sounds beyond the door grew into a cacophony of noises, bells buzzing, screams and complaints from patients, orders barked by the nursing staff, and finally, the sound of showers and faucets flowing from a hundred different sources at once. It was at this moment that Nurse B. appeared. She was in a hurry, and her thick-soled shoes pressing on the tiled floors produced a muffled smack and squeak with every step she took. This, combined with the zipping sound of her stockinged thighs rubbing together, made her breathy words barely understandable. It didn't help that Jamilet's own hard-soled shoes created a deafening sound, so much so that Nurse B. suddenly halted her march to inspect Jamilet's shoes. She frowned, but said nothing.

Nurse B. proceeded through endless tunnels of green until she and Jamilet arrived at a metal door larger than the others. Next to it was a clock at chest level and a series of bracketed frames into which were inserted numerous cards. Nurse B. showed Jamilet where her time card would be kept, and how to punch it into the opening at the top of the clock upon her arrival and departure every day. “I'm too short staffed to provide you with a full day of training,” she said as she grabbed the keys that hung on a peg nearby. “I'm putting you straight to work.” Having found the proper key, she inserted it into the lock, then braced her foot against the door as if expecting a gale-force storm on the other side. “Follow me and stay close,” she commanded. Jamilet had no intention of doing otherwise. She nodded and held her trembling hands together to steady them. It wouldn't do to show her fear, especially after she'd bragged about her courage the day before.

When they entered, Jamilet was assaulted by the pungent smell of cleaning solution masking the unmistakable odor of human urine. Green, gleaming corridors radiated in all directions, but there were no patients visible anywhere. She followed Nurse B. to the nearest nurse's station, and stood nearby as she inspected one of several charts there. At that moment a small group of male patients still in pajamas and hospital robes peeked out from inside one of the rooms, and waited until Nurse B. was fully engrossed in her reading. They then approached Jamilet, who'd been watching them as well. She was trying to guess their ages, but it was difficult, for although some were wrinkled and gray, they appeared motivated by a childlike enthusiasm rarely seen in adults.

They stood before her, their eyes wide with wonder, as the spokesman for the group, a small man with a head as smooth and shiny as a lightbulb, asked the question Jamilet would hear at least a hundred times that first day, and every day thereafter. “Do you have a cigarette?” he whispered, holding out his tar-stained fingers as though confident that his request would be instantly fulfilled, but it was Nurse B. who responded. “You know the rules, Charlie,” she said, admonishing him with a thick hand. “You'll receive your cigarettes at the canteen after you've showered and changed, and from the look of you, it would seem that soap and water is long overdue.”

Upon hearing this, he hung his head and the group disbanded, their unity disrupted by such sudden and absolute failure. Nurse B. said, “They think every new face belongs to a fool, and more often than not, they're correct.”

Nurse B. and Jamilet began their long march through the wards, and Jamilet became increasingly aware of the hollow stares and shadowy figures lurking behind bed curtains, slumped in chairs, and peeking out of half-closed shower doors. Those who didn't stare seemed lost, as though waking from a dream, too confused to direct their energy toward anyone or anything outside themselves. Jamilet couldn't help but stare back and was suddenly afraid that she too might become lost if she stared too long, for some of the patients, with eyes deep and wide as lagoons, looked as though they could possess her. There was an inexplicable power in their countenance, as if the only thing that held them up on their feet or upright in their chairs was the strength that came from too much suffering and hopeless longing.

When Nurse B. approached, some of the patients ducked behind curtains and doors, trying not to be noticed, but there was little chance of that. She continued her march, looking neither left nor right, but straight ahead, her jowls jerking along with the rhythm of her step.

By the time the elevator had deposited them on the fourth floor, Jamilet felt her nervousness somewhat lessened. The brisk walk had produced a soothing warmth that radiated through her arms and into her hands. This was true despite her observation that with every floor they'd traveled up, the patients seemed to become more mentally disturbed, the lost and wandering look in their eyes more intense, their rambling conversations with unseen companions more animated.

Nurse B. had barely uttered one word. For a moment Jamilet wondered if she'd forgotten that there was a new employee following her like a loyal puppy dog, walking when she walked, and stopping when she stopped. Then, quite suddenly, as they stepped out of the elevator, Nurse B. turned around to face her. “I think I should inform you,” she said as her pinlike eyes quivered in their sockets, “that you'll be looking after only one patient. He is unlike the others you've seen.”

Jamilet felt the knot that had loosened in her stomach begin to tighten once again. She said nothing as she followed Nurse B. to another door and, rather than take the elevator, they started to climb up a narrow staircase. Nurse B. sputtered for breath as she awkwardly maneuvered her feet on the narrow steps. Jamilet didn't follow so closely this time, for fear that her hefty superior might squash her on the way down, should she stumble. But they reached the fifth floor without incident, although Nurse B. was flushed and gasping for air.

If the wards below were stark, then the fifth floor was absolutely barren. The lime green paint freshly applied throughout the rest of the hospital was absent here. Bare lightbulbs protruded from the walls, but only one was still working. It emitted a thin yellow light that cast a strange pallor over the place.

Once Nurse B. was feeling better, she led Jamilet down the corridor to the office at the far end. This room was a bit more cheerful, due to the large window overlooking the grounds below. The only furniture was a desk, completely cleared except for a black phone placed in the center, and an oversize chair. Nurse B. promptly sat down and the chair groaned as it accommodated her bulk. “This,” she said, leaning back, “is where you'll be spending the majority of your time. The charge nurse on the fourth floor has orders to call up and check on you, and you can call her if you have questions or if there should be a problem.” Nurse B. leaned forward and pressed her hands together so hard her fingers turned pink. “Now let's talk about your patient. He is disturbed, but quite clever. I recommend that you avoid all unnecessary conversation with him. Experience has taught us that he can become quite disagreeable if given the opportunity, and that's when you'll want to leave, like all the others have.” Nurse B. stood up and smoothed her uniform, and pulled at her girdle. “He has refused to leave his room, not because he's not allowed to do so, but because every time he's attempted to leave, his condition worsens. Unfortunately he's also refused treatment by a psychiatrist, but he won't be able to refuse for long,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “If he doesn't demonstrate some measure of progress in a few months, he'll be transferred to a more secure facility for his own good, whether he wants to go or not. But that isn't anything you need to worry about now. In fact, I think you'll find that this could be the easiest job you ever had.” She thought about this for a moment and addressed Jamilet with enough enthusiasm as to make her appear almost cheerful. “If you make it past one month, I'll give you a raise. How do you like that?”