Lost (11 page)

The speckled light in Mamie's room went out. Leona turned the radio on without turning it up. She checked her watch by the ghostly radio light—ten till ten, right on time. Now her breath came heavier and deeper. She shut the radio off; the pale light blinked to black. The windshield became opaque with her breath, two bluish surfaces fogging up until she couldn't see out. But, she thought, no one can see in either. She pulled on her cream-colored tam; then, squirming and raising her body under the steering wheel, she changed from her mink coat to a tan raincoat, too thin for this early November weather but practically invisible down a long corridor of doors. From a distance, it would be almost indistinguishable from a nurse's uniform. On the seat beside her sat the shopping bag of clothes and the new white parka she had brought for Mamie to wear tonight, but it would take too long, would be too much trouble; and she stood out in the bristly cold air, easing the car door shut with only a click.

Across the asphalt in her crêpe-soled nurse's shoes, into the darkness of the laundry room, through the swinging doors into the shadowed vestibule—empty as expected. Then up the stairs to where the first-floor corridor began. She peered around the corner. Toward the end of the corridor, a nurse pushed a medicine cart and another nurse appeared from one of the distant rooms. They turned toward the station.

Moving quickly but not so quickly as to draw attention to herself, Leona went down the corridor of opened doors, staying close to the wall, down the corridor of moanings and mumbles and a radio playing softly, against the rules. She counted five doors and slipped inside. Stepping out of the slab of door light, she stood still against the inside wall to catch her breath. Blinking, she let her eyes probe the darkness.

A spill of light from the parking lot outside fell through the large window and onto one corner of the bed. In her haste, before she could see as well as she wanted to, the child's name had formed and been uttered, on a rush of breath, “Mamie?”

Slowly, as her eyesight adjusted to the dark, a flurry of disturbing impressions overtook her other concerns. The room was cold, unreasonably cold. The far wall had curtains that, when drawn, entirely covered two large windows. But tonight the curtains were partly pulled back and a draft of raw wind blew by her and out the lighted doorway. In nearly the same instant, she realized that one of the windows was open, the thin curtains on that side swelling and shifting and collapsing with the movement of the breeze. The venetian blinds had been drawn up. But oddest of all was the overbearing smell of the air itself. It was as if one of the nurses had dropped a bottle of cheap perfume and decided, rather than clean it up, to air out the room. Good Lord, she thought, what have they done? It made no sense.

Taking up less than half the bed and outlined by the sheet tucked in around it, the curled-up figure lay on its side, the top end of the sheet clutched to its chest. Its smudgy eyes seemed locked on a corner of the ceiling. For a stabbing moment, Leona gazed at the door number again to see if she might actually be in the wrong room. Then, confirming that she wasn't, she wondered if Mamie might have been moved to another room. Had they, perhaps, released her early? There was nothing to do but find out.

She took a tentative step forward. “Mamie?” she whispered across the dark depth of the room. “I've come back. Like I promised.” But her voice broke.

The curtains fluttered.

Avoiding the light that fell through the doorway, she moved up past the foot of the bed. She could see that the loosened bandage covering Mamie's shoulder had shifted sideways; she could see the scabbed edges underneath, and the hard, emaciated face—the face that had been getting softer, fuller, but now seemed even more gaunt. “My God, Mamie, what're they doing to you?”

As she leaned down toward the child, a cold gust of wind lashed through the room. Half the curtains filled and collapsed so quickly that they snapped. She shuddered, all the while speaking quietly: “I'm sorry I took so long to get here, Mamie, but at least I can stop that wind.” She glanced at the curtains once more and then, without taking her eyes from the doorway where a nurse might appear at any moment, she stepped back, caught the window frame, and pulled the window shut. “There,” she said, hurrying back.

But through her own soft voice, she heard the slow squeak of nurses' shoes in the hall; in a panic, she glanced about for a place to hide. She thought of the curtains first, but discounted them immediately as too obvious; if she accidentally caused the curtains to move, she could bring her entire house of cards down around herself. She thought of stooping behind the wing chair, but that seemed childish and risky. Then she saw that the door to the shared bathroom near the foot of the bed had been left open; it protruded dimly into the room.

Stepping sideways, she moved behind the forty-five-degree angle of the open door—in the room's darkest corner. Clasping the edge of the door, she peeked around it, watching the front of the room. And momentarily the light coming through the hall doorway was all but blotted out by a huge Negro woman in a white uniform, buttonholes straining and gapping, the popping tight skirt riding up on her waist.

Leona found it almost impossible to breathe. It was as if she were hanging by a wire in the air, caught up on the hook of her own imagination like a fish, suffocating. She kept her mouth open and let her breath leak out silently. All around her, a dank and moldering odor drifted. It was a particular foul scent, both recognizable and familiar, but she couldn't place it.

The nurse lifted her head high and Leona heard her say, “You wearin' perfume in here? Nope? Well, I swear I smell perfume in here.” Backlit, the black face caught chiaroscuro highlights. Her head seemed too small for the rest of her, and she seemed to be looking directly at Leona.

Standing near the curtain pleats and holding the bathroom door before her, Leona felt her fingertips begin to tingle with pinpricks of pain. She was afraid to move her head behind the protection of the door, afraid the movement would reveal her presence. Then, with her eyes locked on the figure at the door and all her senses heightened, she felt a vague stirring at the back of her neck, like something crawling on the outermost ends of her hair. What is that? she wondered. She wanted to slap at it, but couldn't; she wanted to shiver, but kept herself rigid. Her scalp began to prickle and itch—in a flash, she could feel every pore on her body. She took a slow breath as if pulling it through a straw. Quietly.

The nurse strayed in toward the bed, but in the hall another nurse said, “Did you tell that Wharton kid to turn off his radio?” The black nurse sniffed the air a moment longer before she shook her head, grumbling aloud to herself: “I must've brought that perfume smell in with me, from Mrs. Carruther's room.” Then she backed out the doorway and was gone.

Leona stepped from behind the door, shivering and rubbing the back of her neck. She drank the air. Frowning as she turned, she squinted back at her dark hiding place and at the curtains, but they hung in perfect folds. Again the sound of nurses' shoes in the hall drew her attention. Hurrying around the bed, she went to the front of the room and eased the door shut. The light in the room shrank. She turned back to Mamie. It occurred to her to stoop over into the spill of light from the window so the little girl could see who it was, as well as hear her better. “Don't they pay any attention to you at all?”

Mamie was trembling hard, but the smudgy eyes didn't change or respond, and now that the immediate danger had passed, Leona breathed freely.

It was hopeless. Mamie didn't know who she was, had never known who she was, perhaps was even afraid of her, tonight of all nights. She had never felt less certain about what she had set out to do than she did at that moment. All those sleepless nights, fretting and hoping—all for nothing. After four days' absence, she had only wanted a glimmering of recognition, but there was nothing more than there had been, and for those endless seconds Leona wanted to change her mind, to turn and walk away and never come back.

But Mamie … Even if she wouldn't look at Leona or say her name, even if she didn't know who this woman was who had come to her every night, and talked and read and held her when she trembled, and kissed her goodbye in the morning while slipping a cellophane-wrapped lollipop under her pillow for good luck—even if Mamie didn't care or know or notice, one day her lips had been purple, the next day orange from the lollipop, and she was getting better. Not completely well, but better. And tonight, as Leona pulled the gray blanket from the footboard to wrap Mamie in, she told her, “If we have to start from scratch, at the very beginning all over again, one day you will know your name, Mamie, and you will tell me mine.”

Mamie was still trembling; Leona had to undo the small fingers one by one in order to pull the sheet down and replace it with the blanket. “This'll keep you warm,” she whispered. “We don't want you to catch pneumonia.” She shoved the sheet down. Partway, then farther. Except for a top, Mamie was dressed. In clothes too big for her, but dressed. Girls' clothes, a size or two too large. Denim jeans and socks and old tennis shoes. An edge of the wadded hospital smock had slipped from under her pillow. “Oh, Mamie,” Leona said, surprised, “were you going to run away? Is it that awful? Where'd you get these clothes?” She shook the blanket open and pressed it around the little girl, and as she leaned over Mamie to pick her up, she saw the curtains shift just slightly and below the bottom edge of the curtain she saw shoes. In that instant, everything—the room, Mamie, even herself—seemed surreal. Then, before that sensation had passed, the window light shining through the fabric weave delineated a moving shape, a very distinct shape of a figure standing as if it were wrapped in gauze. She tried to speak, but her voice was too dry to lift sound; finally, as she exhaled, her thin voice carried: “Who are you?” She gasped. “What do you want?” The curtains stirred and began to part. She couldn't see who it was—the emerging figure was in shadow. Her heart seemed to stop.

Pulling Mamie up into a gray bundle in her arms, she ran to the door and yanked it open. Glancing back toward the lone desk lamp at the nurses' station, she rushed along the corridor, down steps, through the doors, into the laundry room, then out into the clear, cold night, and into the car—driving away before she'd even turned on the headlights.

As she pulled the knob, the two pools of light skimmed the hedges at the back of the lot and suddenly in the road ahead, as if rising out of nowhere, came eyes—oddly tilted eyes, catching the light in gimlet slants. The Buick closed toward them, but the weird reflective eyes did not waver. It was an animal of some kind, maybe a dog. She couldn't tell what it was except that it was enormous. Her hands grew tighter on the wheel, every sinew braced. She couldn't respond fast enough to move her foot off the accelerator. Whatever it is, I'm going to hit it.… I'll never get out of this.

At the point of impact, she felt her reflexes snap and she turned the wheel hard, one hand flying out protectively to Mamie, and just as she swerved, it came up along her side window, a blur of teeth and slobber and a deafening growl. She saw it slide away, but before she could straighten the car, it came again, striking the side window with such force the glass cracked; the creature's black maw rimpled back on slashing teeth, so close she lunged from it, threw her arm up defensively, and jammed her foot on the gas pedal. With a loud growling noise, the creature hit the window a third time, its claws digging at the glass beside her face, but by then the Buick had shot forward. Bouncing across a low brick wall, it plunged into shrubbery, jarring Mamie up against Leona. And Mamie's arm came up across the line of Leona's sight, as if she were reaching for the animal.

“Get down! Mamie! Get down! Dear God, get down, Mamie!
Please!
” Evergreens scrubbed the length of the bucking car; swabs of black boughs lashed the windshield, and the steering wheel whipped from side to side under her weakened grip. The Buick broke through to the other side of the evergreens, struck pavement and spun past a parked car, tires squalling. As she struggled to correct the car, she saw in the rear-view mirror a figure running after them, and something else. That dog. No mistake now; she had seen it close: it was a dog, a damned crazy dog. She was so completely shaken that the muscles in her arms and legs had cramped. But she didn't stop for the intersection at the bottom of the long hill. The car squealed into the turn and fishtailed across both lanes of the highway.

They sped through Graylie and had driven several miles on the open road before Leona rubbed at the pain in her arms and rearranged Mamie on the seat beside her. Who was it? she thought. A patient? But who? Who in the hell? Now even more than when it happened, she could feel the tickling sensation at the back of her neck. Could feel it touching her hair tips. And she knew what it had been.
Breath
. Someone breathing on her hair in the room … watching her, waiting. She had been that close, had come that close to … But who? Waiting for what? And that stench she couldn't identify seemed so obvious now—it was the stink of a wet dog. She couldn't stop shaking. With her trembling right hand, she patted and smoothed the small head on her lap. And with her left hand, she gripped the steering wheel, easing the Buick through the night traffic—a speeding blue car made distinguishable by a fluttering sprig of black cedar caught on its hood ornament.

5

If there was any chance of catching that woman tonight, Sherman knew, it would be at the house. He crossed the last long fairway behind the hospital grounds, running as hard as he could. Ahead of him, the Chinaman sniffed the ground, then plunged through tree shadows, a mottled streak. As long as he kept going, Sherman could maintain a precarious equilibrium, concentrating on the single thought of getting to the house fast. It was when he paused to track his direction or lift the rusty tines of a wire fence to climb through that the rage surged in him again, like quick poison through all his senses. The unexpected shock of what had happened struck him in waves. The bitch, he thought again and again; the bitch, the lousy bitch.