Totentanz (18 page)

It was going to happen again.

Frances knew that now, knew it so deep in her
bones that her body quaked with the knowledge. The barber pole was
just a barber pole now; not the Northern Star, the red and white of
His passion and pain, His protecting veil over her. There was only
the open Book before her, open to the last page of the last
chapter, where the screaming things of judgment were—the screaming
red things that would not go away and would only die and die.

Would this finally be the
last time
he
made
her witness?

Other times came to her: a long, white, empty
boat, the sound of booming gun blasts fading over the long water
and a spreading red-ink stain over the bow and stern, spreading to
meet the horizon. . . . A high tower, the misleading pop of rifle
shots, a mother trying to fall protectively over her baby carriage
and then falling down to the concrete: another rifle crack and then
another. . . . A lick of night flame creeping up the side of a tent
and whipping around the base and rising up with a sonic boom to
form a ball of hell that grew and grew, engulfing everything, the
animals, the circus, the spectators.

Him I mourn. . . .

Where was Jeb now? Where had he been then?
She wanted him to be here, to tell her it was all right, that Ash
would not come back, that what they had done was not wrong, that it
would happen no more, that those faces in the flames, those
horrible, surprised faces, would not stare at her anymore.

It's going to happen again.

"Frances?"

"Jeb?"

The voice came soft and
soothing, like Jeb's voice when he was kind, when she was sick that
time with the measles, when he came and covered her with a blanket
and then made the doctor come out to their place against his will,
the doctor who
cringed
when he entered the house, looking at the paintings on the
walls, trying to make small talk as he bent over her, his hands
trembling as he examined her, waiting for perhaps the hammer blow
on his head or worse, wanting only to leave, to leave even his bag
and run back to town, to be away from them. She was sure it must be
Jeb's voice.

"Frances?"

She knew it was Ash before she turned around.
He could make his voice soft if he wanted to, could do anything
with it that he wanted: make it sound like animals, like a train
whistle at night, a cricket, a mouse, the sigh of chilly wind, like
a roaring ball of fire.

"What do you want?"

"It's time, Frances.–

His voice was not as soft now. It would
change, soon, to something as long and white as a knife, and as
hungry.

It will happen again.

"What do you want?" she repeated.

"You know what I want," he answered. His
voice still soothed. "This will be better than the first time. Do
you remember the first time, Frances?"

"I don't—" she began, but she remembered, and
then Ash was gone and she didn't remember. She was in a white
place. At first she thought it was heaven, the heaven that Jeb had
sometimes talked about with fear and longing on his face. He always
made sure she went to church. He insisted she go, even walking with
her as far as the dirt path that led up to the steps of the
clapboard chapel. He never went in himself. She would sometimes sit
by one of the stained windows with a little clear glass at the
bottom and look out at him, standing straight against the oak tree
by the front gate. He stood tall, and his head was thrown back. In
a strange, cold way, he seemed to be praying. She asked him once,
on one of those Sunday mornings that always smelled like Sunday,
with sharp, wooden-bench smells in the air, along with coffee and
flowers in the spring, or in the winter with a cold clean smell,
and he looked at her and told her about heaven.

"Go to church when I tell
you, read His Book, and go to heaven when it's time," he said.
"
Love only life.
"
He would say no more. It was Jeb who had given her her Bible, and
he took it from her now, showing her the passages he wanted her to
know, the ones he had outlined with a shaking pencil, the ones he
had made her say over and over until she had memorized
them:

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

And also:

. . .
by his death he could take away all the power of he who had
power over death, and set free all those who had been held in
slavery all their lives by the fear of death.

That day he locked himself in the barn and
painted, and just before sunset she heard him yelling and breaking
things, his voice rising to a horrid screech like a dog's yowling.
There was a huge, tearing crash followed by silence. She tried to
open the barn door, and then his voice came clear and icy, more icy
than ever before.

"Come in and I'll kill you," he said. He
stayed in the barn for two days. When he came out, she did not go
near him for nearly a week.

But the white place she was in now was not
heaven. It was quite like heaven might be, but when she looked
close, she saw that even this was an illusion. The walls were
dirty. At one time, after they had just been painted, they must
have been very white, but now there were streaks on them, smudges
and tiny red dots.

She was not alone. Around her there were
others dressed in white, sitting up in bed and staring at the
ceiling or walls or doing things with their hands. Some picked at
imaginary bits of dust. One young girl was hitting herself on the
leg repeatedly, in the same spot, in rhythm: another was trying to
tear out her hair but could not reach her head because her hands
were tied to the sides of the bed. There were flies everywhere. A
dirty screen window was ajar, leaning against the bars that formed
the real window. There was a door at one end of the room, white,
with a lot of stains on it and a small glass porthole.

"We were going to kill you," a chilling voice
said from Frances' left. The face was young, fifteen, perhaps
sixteen, with blonde hair pulled straight back and knotted, giving
the head a skeletal appearance; the face was thin and emaciated.
The eyes were gray-blue steel, the gaze the most direct Frances had
ever seen.

The lips pulled away from the girl's teeth,
showing a crooked bite and a few gaps. They looked as shark-like as
if they had been two level rows of razors.

"We were going to climb on you while you were
asleep and rip the flesh from your body with our mouths. We weren't
going to use our hands." The girl tried to gesture, but her hands
were bound loosely to her sides with straps, giving her only a few
inches of movement. Her nails were bitten almost to the cuticles.
"All of us here, every one. We would have gulped your blood through
our teeth and then spit it out." Her razor-thin lips pulled back
even farther. "We would have done it, too," the girl continued,
"only the doctor told us not to. He wants you himself." Then she
turned her head away, snapping it downward, trying to gnaw at her
left hand, barely reaching the fingers to rip at a small bit of
skin.

What am I doing
here?
Frances thought. And then, in a
panic, she realized that she didn't remember anything about
herself.

When she tried to move, she discovered that
she, too, was bound to her bed. She could move her hands and arms,
but the lower part of her body was securely fastened.

The girl in the bed next to hers was once
again smiling at her from her serpent-like head.

"Please let me out!"
Frances shouted, hoping that someone might hear her through the
door and open it. Instead, there was instant silence in the room.
Every face turned toward her. "
Please!
" she yelled again. "Please
let me out!"

The blonde girl began to laugh. Her voice
started as a low, dry tick, quickly working up to a lurid squeal.
The others in the room followed her, and soon the entire ward was
filled with rabid laughter.

A face appeared at the porthole in the door
and then retreated. Abruptly the door was pushed open and two men
came in, scared, pinched looks on their faces. Behind them was
another man, hard-looking, and he had a hose in his hands. He held
it loosely draped across one arm with the nozzle in one hand. When
Frances saw the hose, the nozzle, something opened in her mind and
she remembered who she was; there was something horrible about a
hose. . . .

The two attendants walked briskly up one side
of the room and down the other, holding up their hands for silence.
The noise only increased. One of the men motioned to the third, who
brought the hose into the room and made a signal behind him, out
into the hallway. The hose hissed and swelled and then the nozzle
came to life, sending out a hard spray of water. The man expertly
swiveled it back and forth. Some were hit in the chest, some in the
face. The flood of water knocked Frances back against her pillow,
and for a moment it filled her mouth and she was unable to breathe,
or even to see. She gagged, and when she was about to lose
consciousness, the stream turned to the next bed. She was left
gasping and drenched. When the man with the hose finished, he left
the room and the other two followed close behind him.

Before long Frances was shivering in her bed,
unable to move. Everything was soaking wet: the bed, the pillows,
her nightgown and the sheets. She waited for something to happen,
but nothing did. The others around her were stunned into silence,
most of them turned on their sides, pulled into balls, hands around
their knees to retain warmth. The screen had been knocked aside,
and swarms of bugs were finding their way into the room. It was
late afternoon now, and a cool breeze drifted in, only adding to
the dampness.

Frances tried to curl up like the others. She
could not stop shaking; her teeth were rattling, and the sheets
felt like lead upon her body. The shadows on the side of the window
lengthened as the sun began to set.

There was a commotion outside the door. An
argument was going on in the hallway; someone was yelling loudly,
and someone else was answering in a gruff, low voice. “Don't
believe . . ." a voice shouted, and then the door swung open.

Someone flicked a light switch, and a long
neon light that stretched the length of the room flickered into
life. "Holy Christ!" the loud voice said, and there were tramping
footsteps into the room. You think this is a goddamn zoo?" The
other voice, the gruff one, said, "No," and then the first voice
said, after a pause. "Which bed is she in?" The other voice mumbled
something.

Frances saw that they were approaching her
bed. She tried to close her eyes, but the presence of the two men
standing over her was too strong and she opened them. She caught a
glimpse of the man with the strong voice just as he was turning
away from her. His features were as solid as his voice; his face
was full and squarish with a broad nose, and he had a head of
thick, graying hair. His eyes were powerful and slate-gray.

"Good God Almighty!" the man screamed at his
companion. He raised his hand as if to strike him, and then lowered
it, regaining his composure. "I should fire you for this. Get new
linen for everyone—I don't care if you have a coffee break or go
off in half an hour or whatever in hell," he said, cutting off a
complaint the other man began. "Just do it or you're out."

The orderly turned away, and the man with the
gray eyes bent over Frances. She looked up into his face. He was
startled for a moment, but then his face suddenly expanded into a
warm smile.

"I see you're with us now."

She shivered in answer.

"I know you're cold. We'll take care of that.
When did you wake up?"

Mutely, she continued to stare up at him.

"If you can speak to me, I can get you out of
this ward."

In shivery breaths, she said, "I can
talk."

"Don't worry," he said. His eyes held what
looked like kindness, which she hadn't seen in a long time. "We'll
take care of you. You really shouldn't be in here, but there was
nowhere else to put you." He looked around at the other girls in
the ward; they were beginning to come out of their stupor; some
were staring at Frances and the doctor; others were involved in
their own pursuits, trying their bonds. The girl who had been
hitting her leg resumed her monotonous activity.

The doctor said wryly, "This is a state
hospital. Since you were in a coma, there didn't seem to be
anything else to do with you." And then his face grew solemn. "Do
you know how long you've been here?”

Frances stared at him, unblinking.

"You're nineteen years old. You've been in
this bed for four years."

Frances shivered, looking up at him steadily.
"Do you have the Book?" she said suddenly.

His eyebrows frowned, but he kept the warm
smile.

"I don't understand."

"Jeb told me to always read it."

Dawning comprehension came into the doctor's
eyes. He looked up at the doorway, where the orderly, along with
two women from the laundry, were entering with a cart. He motioned
them over to Frances' bed.

He said to her, "We'll see what we can do
about getting you a Bible. And into another room. We have some
talking to do, Frances."

Frances nodded as the doctor stood up.

The girl with the piercing blue eyes in the
bed next to hers sat bolt upright and began to scream.

"Fuck her! Then let us eat her flesh! Fuck
her! Fuck her now!"

The doctor talked in a low voice to the
orderly, who left the room and returned a moment later with a tray.
The whole ward began to scream again. Some of the girls lashed
their bodies back and forth against their bonds; the girl who was
pounding her leg continued to do so, each hard, dull whack audible
as her body swayed, her mouth open to emit a continuous, unthinking
shriek.