The Green Muse (23 page)

 

T
HE MOST HIDEOUS
thing has happened. Poor Adelaide! News travels oddly here. It is almost impossible to get our mute attendants to speak. I have written before of how they simply appear in the doorways like big white birds that have landed with silent feet. Sometimes I am so engrossed in my writing that I do not even hear the opening of the door. Of course they do not knock. Privacy is a luxury we do without in this place. And of course they do not speak, any more than birds speak. Oh,
Come
, they say,
It is time
, and other such short inanities, but these have no more real meaning than the sounds birds make. Certainly I have never been able to get any actual information out of one of them.

When something happens, though, the air begins to buzz. It is almost a feeling: I will look up from my book to hear faint, urgent noises down the hall. It is as if the heart of the hospital starts to beat faster, the very breathing of the walls quickens. Of course I cannot simply step out into the hall. I must wait to be taken to my next treatment, my next meal, where all the women are twittering like little birds in a bush.

When I am taken to the lunchroom, then, standing in line to have my bowl filled, I tilt my head back over my shoulder and say, “What?”

“Adelaide.”

“Adelaide?”

“She went into the room where the photographers work.”

Another voice, ahead of me, another head tilted back: “Has she been reprimanded?”

“No, worse than that.”

Another: “Much worse.”

“What, then?”

“She saw a head.”

“Rosalie's head.”

“What?”

“She went into the room dressed only in her shift.”

“That girl has no shame.” Other voices have joined, and they all seem to be speaking at once.

“She wanted to seduce the—­”

“What do you mean,” I broke in, “she saw Rosalie's head?” I cannot bear the things they say about Adelaide.

“Well, you remember that Rosalie died two days ago, don't you? Well, apparently the Great Doctor decided to examine the head.”

“—­always photograph the head in such a case.”

“I hear your suitor was the one in charge of this particular.”

“Edouard?” I had not thought of Edouard being in the hospital when he was not with me. Of Edouard walking the halls when I was unaware of it, going about his duties at the hospital; for me he existed only in my little room and at the Friday morning lectures. I felt a stab of something akin to jealousy, then something akin to shame. I was not the only reason he came to this place. Perhaps I was only a curiosity of his employment, and perhaps only one of many. He spoke to an insane girl, he photographed an insane woman's head. Different facets of the same job, the same quest to understand and categorize the mentally defective.

“—­what these men do! It is monstrous.”

“Poor Rosalie. She always thought herself so dignified.”

“—­you think they have done with her rosary?”

“Holy Mother, do you remember the way she was always praying?”

“Remember! Rattling those beads everywhere she went, mumbling her litanies to her plaster gods.”

“—­to blaspheme so! Are you not ashamed of yourself?”

“What happened to Adelaide?” I could not bear it; in the space of a moment I had lost Edouard as my friend, my confidant, my suitor; I was humiliated and afraid, and I had not yet found out what had happened to Adelaide.

“Oh, look at Augustine! Are you jealous that Adelaide went in her shift to see your suitor?”

“Oh, please tell me what happened to her!” Had I lost Adelaide too?

“Leave Augustine be, you know she and Adelaide were close as sisters.”

“All right, all right. Well . . .” Now we had to speak softly and quickly because we had reached the servers.

“Adelaide went into the little room behind the Amphitheatre. The photographers were there, Monsieur Edouard and that other one, what is his name?”

“Monsieur Richet.”

“Yes, Augustine would know the name.”

I blushed red from my chest to my forehead. But I was no longer the same Augustine as I had been when I got here. Was Dr. Charcot in the room too? Anything to make them stop thinking about me and Edouard. There was no Augustine and Edouard. But I did not cry.

“Well, Adelaide went in and saw the head, and now she is insane.”

“What? She has lost her reason?”

“She has.”

“But Adelaide is sane as can be! She has more reason than Dr. Charcot! After all, he's the one having ­people's heads cut off and brought to his laboratory to be photographed! Where is Adelaide now?”

“Mademoiselle Dechelette? You are on the vegetarian diet, are you not?” asked one of the servers.

“What? Yes, yes. The soup and the fruit compote, please.”

“The fruit compote is not an acceptable part of your diet, Mademoiselle Dechelette. The acidity of the fruit acts as an irritant on the nervous system. It says here”—­and she checked her ledger—­“that the plain pudding would be—­”

“Oh, very well!” And then, to the air behind my shoulder, “Where is Adelaide now?”

“They took her for an electric treatment. I expect she is there now.”

Adelaide. Strapped to a gurney, immobile and defenseless. Adelaide who always made fun of the idea that electricity could cure anything at all, Adelaide who danced in her room when no one was watching, Adelaide who was of all the residents of La Salpêtrière, patients and staff alike, the most truly sane. Electric shock. I had heard the stories. I had seen the machines. And one time Adelaide had seen a treatment being administered to Rosalie, as fate would have it—­and mimicked it for me so convincingly that I was afraid to sleep that night.

“Perhaps that is the best idea,” I said as we sat at one of the long tables, not realizing I was speaking aloud. “Perhaps the shock will bring her back to her senses. and bring her back to us. Bring her back to me.”

Their laughter was derisive, dismissive. “Why don't you ask Rosalie?” said one young woman. “You know that she was Dr. Charcot's pet before you got here. She was very good indeed at acting the hysteric for the camera.” She had always been jealous of the attention Dr. Charcot had paid to Adelaide, and I knew that now she was jealous of me too.

“Adelaide already knows how to be insane!”

“She won't have to put on a show for the Great Doctor now!”

“At least now,” I said softly, almost to myself, “she has something that cannot be taken away from her.”

“I don't think you'll have any competition now, Augustine, in being the star of La Salpêtrière.”

“I never wanted to take anything away from Adelaide. She is my friend.”

“Adelaide was only out for Adelaide. She would have taken your young man from you in a flash, you silly girl.”

“He is not ‘my young man.' I would never begrudge anyone his friendship.” Suddenly I could not even bear to look at my food. Adelaide stole my pudding, on the rare occasions they let me have any. It was a game we played: even as I uttered loud protestations I was slipping her spoonfuls; her pleasure in the simple sweet was as pure as the pleasure she took in everything else: good gossip, a good book, a handsome man, a fresh flower, a treasured memory. And friendship.

“But you do not know of how Adelaide spoke of your young man when you were not around, Augustine.”

I knew. The same way she would speak about a meal she wanted to have when someday she and I were free. But not a meal she would steal.

“I do know. I wish you would just . . .” They had all become nothing but strange faces, every one of them. I stood up so suddenly I spilled both my soup and my pudding. That spilled pudding was too much for me: spilled pudding that Adelaide should be eating. I burst into tears and ran out of the cafeteria. I did not care that I would lose privileges for spilling food, not eating my lunch, and leaving a room without permission. I ran, and I was surprised not to hear the heavy footsteps of the attendants following me.

But as I stumbled up the stairs toward my room, I did hear steps behind me. Quiet steps, fast but even, with something familiar about them. As I reached the hall to my room I turned around, ready for one of the girls to have followed to taunt and torment me.

It was Lucille. She was breathing rapidly, but her face showed no more emotion than it ever had. Her hair, loosed from its bun, fell in pretty wisps about her face, and for a moment I could see the woman she might have been had Life not condemned her to madness.

“Lucille?”

She stood hesitant, then stepped toward me. I saw uncertainty in what I now could see were pretty eyes, eyes darker even than Adelaide's.

“Lucille?”

And I realized that for a fraction of a second her eyes had met mine, another thing that had never happened before, that I had never thought would happen. Then we stood in the hallway, Lucille looking intently at my shoes, for so long that I almost turned to go to my room. But I was deeply grateful. I had no idea her childish mind could comprehend my situation. No, I thought suddenly, not my situation. My pain.

And then Lucille stepped forward; she thrust out her hand. There was something. I smiled and reached to accept her offering: two crushed dandelion heads, almost unrecognizable but with their sunshine smell still intact. I took them from her damp hand and held them, as though they were something precious, up to my nose to breathe in their uncontaminated sweetness.

“Thank you,” I said, heartily but softly. “Thank you, Lucille.”

“Loo-­cee-­oo,” she said. “Fang-­koo.”

I knew better than to touch her; many times I had seen her attack attendants simply for taking her arm.

I was crying. “Good night,” I managed, and ran down the hall to my room.

 

My dearest Augustine,

Please forgive my tardiness in replying to your letter: It arrived before ten, but I did not return to my room until past the luncheon hour. I was engaged in business with Capt. Bezier, of the Prefecture of the Paris Police Force. I would very much like to tell you about our conversation. We are engaged in the investigation of a most intriguing series of murders.

But first let me say how delighted I was to arrive home to a missive from you. My feet were worn from walking, my mind worn from debate with my employer. I have told you I have two jobs, but I have never talked to you in detail about what I do when away from La Salpêtrière, simply because it has never before seemed necessary: Our time has been so full.

Oh, Augustine, I do not quite know how to say what I want need to say. I have wanted to say it for a long time now, and perhaps I am a coward to write it to you instead of kneeling at your feet; could you possibly do me the kindness of thinking it more romantic to receive a declaration of love on paper? Because that is what this is: a declaration of love.

I love you, Augustine. I think I knew it from the moment our eyes first met in the Amphitheatre. Certainly I have known it for weeks, months even. But at first I thought you too delicate to receive the attentions of a young man in such a place as La Salpêtrière. Forgive me, my darling, for I did think you were ill. It was by no action of your own but merely the fact of your being in this place, and also that Dr. Charcot seemed to believe it. You never seemed in the least ill to me. Can you forgive me, Augustine? And will you forgive that I call you darling? I do not know if you realize how difficult it has been for me to refrain from endearments all this time. Please grant me the right to them now.

But I should be answering your most heartrending cry for help, Augustine. So I will put aside my feelings for the moment and tell you all I know of what transpired regarding your friend Adelaide. It is true that she came to a small room off the Amphitheatre where certain photographic documentations are done. And it is true that Dr. Charcot had asked me and Richet to photograph the head of a recently deceased patient, taking measurements first and recording them faithfully. It was a most unpleasant task. I remembered Rosalie, and although I must confess to being of so small a mind that I never properly pitied her, in death I found her piteous indeed and sorely wished that I had shown her more kindness in life.

Richet and I were taking measurements, as I said the circumference of the head, the distance, on each side, from ear to nose, when Adelaide simply appeared. She looked disheveled; her hair was wet and her shift was not fully dry. These things I did not notice at the time, only that a patient was where a patient most decidedly should not be.

She smiled. She said my name. And then she saw what was left of Rosalie so coldly laid out on a metal table. And she started to scream. I went to her, Augustine, and I tried to console her, but I could not even keep her from breaking away from me and running toward the head. She would actually have succeeded in lifting it straight off the table had Richet not nearly tackled her. I am afraid she was somewhat roughly treated, but she was so strong! I had not realized a woman could be so strong. We did manage to restrain her until attendants appeared. It broke my heart to watch them fetter her in a straitjacket. She fought, and the attendants were much less gentle than Richet and I had tried to be.

I am being honest with you, Augustine—­brutally honest because I do not want there to be any secrets between us. You asked what happened to Adelaide: I am telling you, because you are very strong and because it is the right thing to do. I can only hope that I have not hurt you too much. I can only hope that you can forgive my honesty and selfishness; because I am selfish in wanting you to give real consideration to what I have written concerning my feelings for you, at a time when it may be both inconsiderate and cruel to ask such a thing of you. I can only hope you can understand that I love you, Augustine.

Your Edouard