Burial (6 page)

I turned to Michael in shock. The room itself had the feeling of a tightly-compressed shock.

‘Who's that?' I asked him, in a hoarse whisper.

Michael took off his glasses, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘That's Naomi, that's my wife.'

I stepped into the dining room and cautiously looked around. This time, I wasn't acting the part of cautious psychic. I was living out the part of shit-scared psychic. The air was unnaturally chilled and the light was oppressively dim, and right in front of me sat a white-haired woman clutching her chair as if she were determined that nobody was going to prize her free from it, no matter what.

With her white, blank, terrifying eyes.

With her lips stretched back across her teeth as if she were going to snatch a bite out of anybody who tried to come close.

She was so tense, I felt that I could have hit her with a poker and she would have cracked in half. Fallen apart, like a broken bell-casting.

‘How long has she been like this?' I asked Michael, leaning forward to take a closer look at her. Thinking,
shit, give me Mrs John F. Lavender any day of the week — this is serious shit.

‘Three weeks, ever since it happened. She won't move.'

‘What do you mean, she won't move?'

‘She won't get off the chair. She sits on it twenty-four hours.'

‘Has she eaten?'

‘I've fed her, she allows me to feed her, and to give her water.'

‘What about …?'

‘You mean hygiene? I just have to clean her the best way I can.'

‘Jesus.'

Karen said, ‘Harry … you must be able to help somehow.'

I stepped back. ‘I don't know … can't the shrinks do anything at all? Jesus. She looks like she's catatonic'

Michael said, distractedly, ‘They bandaged her ribs … they checked her over. Then they tried to take her in for observation, but as soon as they tried to move her she threw such a fit that they decided that it would be safer to leave her where she is. I mean she went totally crazy. Arms waving, feet kicking, choking on her tongue. They keep coming up with these theories, but they still don't understand what's wrong with her. Dr Stein visits every two or three days. He used to be senior consultant at Bellevue. He's given her every test he can think of. Every session he comes up with a different theory. Hysteria, deprived childhood. Change of life. He even tried to suggest that she was a secret alcoholic, and that she was suffering from DTs. God almighty, Naomi never drank more in her life than a half a glass of red wine at her brother's bar-mitzvah. Dr Bradley's the same, he's been twice. He keeps saying she's manic depressive.'

‘Does she speak?' I asked him.

Michael nodded. ‘Sometimes. It doesn't always make sense.'

‘If I say something to her now, do you think she might answer?'

‘You can try.'

I approached Naomi Greenberg with considerable caution and leaned forward. Her eyes were still rolled up into her head, but her eyelids had begun to flutter.

‘Naomi,' I said. ‘Naomi, my name's Harry. I'm a friend of Karen's.'

Naomi didn't show any signs that she might have heard me, but her eyelids fluttered even faster, and she began to breathe more quickly.

‘Naomi, I've come here today to see what I can do to help you.'

Still no reply, although her right foot suddenly shifted on the woodblock floor, making a sharp chipping sound that made me jump.

‘Can you hear me, Naomi? I need to ask you some questions. I need to know what has happened to you.'

‘She won't say,' Michael put in.

I lifted my hand behind me to shush him. ‘Naomi … I need to know what happened. I need to know what you saw.'

Naomi suddenly stiffened, and her pupils rolled down into sight. They were brown, filmed-over, unfocused. She stared at me in bewilderment — not so much as if she couldn't work out who I was, but as if she couldn't work out
what
I was. Maybe she thought that I was furniture, too. I didn't have any idea how deep her disturbance went. A friend of my mother's lived for years under the delusion that her husband was a hatstand.

‘Naomi,' I repeated. ‘My name's Harry. I'm a friend of Karen's. Karen asked me to come see you. She thinks that maybe I can help you.'

‘You … can … help … me?' Naomi slurred. Her voice had no intonation at all.

‘I'm going to try. But I need to know what happened to you. I want you to tell me all about this furniture.'

Slowly, Naomi turned her head and stared at the heaped-up chairs and tables. ‘Couldn't … stop … it,' she said. ‘Couldn't … stop … it.'

‘Naomi,' I asked her, coming closer. ‘Did
you
move the furniture?'

She thought about that for a while, and then gave a quick flurrying shake of her head.

‘What did I tell you?' said Michael. ‘Last week, Dr Bradley kept on shouting at her, trying to get her to admit that she was acting hysterical. Like she was doing it on purpose. But how the hell could she? Why the hell
would
she?'

‘Please, Michael,' I told him. ‘I need to concentrate here.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Michael. ‘But all I've been hearing is, “Why did you move the furniture, Naomi?” “What are you trying to
do
to yourself, Naomi?” “Have you been sniffing any substances, Naomi?”'

His mouth tightened as he tried to control his distress. ‘All I know is, I went with Erwin to the synagogue that night and I left a happy, smiling, stable wife. I came back three hours later and I found this strange woman — traumatized, terrified, out of her goddamned mind. That's all I know.'

‘Has she told you what happened?'

‘I don't know, fragments. She said there were noises. She said there were shadows. She wouldn't stop talking about shadows. But nothing that makes any sense.'

‘Nobody broke in?'

‘Unh-hunh. The police were one hundred per cent sure about that. The windows were barred and locked, all the security locks and chains were fastened. In fact
we
had to break in, Erwin and me. We called the fire department and they jacked the front door right out of its frame.'

‘Naomi wouldn't have admitted anybody into the apartment of her own free will? There was no sign of that?'

‘What is this?' Michael snapped. ‘I thought you came here to help me, not give me the third degree.'

‘Michael, I have to eliminate all of the natural possibilities before I even start thinking about the supernatural possibilities. It's far more likely that what happened here was caused by some kind of scientific glitch — you know, a high-voltage electrical disturbance maybe, or a localized earth tremblor, or a lightning-strike.'

‘You're trying to tell me that Naomi was struck by lightning?'

‘I have to consider it,' I insisted. ‘She shows some of the symptoms of electrocution, right? Shock, disorientation? And all of the furniture was moved, right? They had a case like that in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, about 1977. A boy was struck
by lightning and all of the living-room furniture was blown into the yard. They found the couch in the next street, with the boy's
Green Lantern
comic still on it, open at the exact same page he'd been reading when he was struck.'

‘Harry, this wasn't lightning,' Michael assured me, with exaggerated patience.

‘Well, no, I don't really think it was.'

‘It wasn't an earthquake, either.'

‘No,' I conceded. ‘Probably not.'

‘So if it wasn't lightning, or an earthquake, and nobody broke in, it must have been supernatural, whether any of us want to believe in the supernatural or not.'

‘There could be some element of the paranormal involved, yes.'

‘What do you mean, “some element”? Look at my wife! Look at this furniture! I'll tell you what — try to move one of those chairs back to the middle of the room!'

‘Michael, your wife is suffering severe psychological trauma. I can't deal with that. She needs heavyweight professional help.'

Michael turned sharply to Karen, and then back to me, ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘Karen gave me the impression that you were the heavyweight professional help.'

‘Oh, come on, Michael,' I told him. ‘I'm a clairvoyant. I tell people's fortunes. I deal with things that look as they might be but probably aren't. I deal with Uncle Fred who wants to get in touch with Auntie Eugenie from beyond the Cypress Hills cemetery, and tell her where he left the spare lightbulbs for the icebox. This thing — this thing that's wrong with your wife … I can't deal with this. This is a medical problem.'

‘And what about the furniture?' Michael demanded. ‘You think the furniture is a medical problem, too? Try moving it, then you'll see how “medical” it is!'

Reluctantly, I went across to the tangle of furniture and
took hold of one of the chairs. It felt as if it were caught on one of the other chairs, and I had to tug it hard to get it free. It was only then that I realized it hadn't been caught at all. It was being drawn toward the wall as strongly as if it were magnetized.

I looked around at Michael in bewilderment.

‘Take it into the centre of the room,' he told me. ‘Go on. Then put it down.'

With considerable difficulty, I carried the chair to the centre of the room, underneath the chandelier, and set it on the floor.

‘Now let it go,' said Michael.

I lifted my hands. Immediately, the chair tumbled noisily back to the opposite side of the room. No strings, no hidden mechanisms. It literally
fell
sideways, and clattered back into place with all the other furniture.

I stood and stared at it and didn't know what to do. I went back to get it, but Michael said, ‘It'll do that every time.'

‘Well,' I agreed, hunkering down, and inspecting the chair closely, ‘that's some problem.'

‘And it sure isn't a medical problem, is it?'

‘No, I have to agree with you. It isn't a medical problem. There's definitely some element of the paranormal involved here. Right now, I'm not too sure what it is; or what the extent of it is.'

‘But you can deal with it?' Michael insisted. ‘Five minutes ago you
guaranteed
you could deal with it. “All it takes is good psychic management,” that's what you said.'

‘Exactly, exactly! But you can't exercise good psychic management until you know what kind of psychic phenomenon you're supposed to be managing.'

‘And you don't?'

‘Not yet,' I admitted. ‘As I said … we could be talking psychokinesis here. Or it might be a poltergeist On the other hand, it might be neither of those things. It might be
transmutation. Or levitation, even. Kind of
sideways
levitation.'

Michael shook his head. ‘I see,' he said, in obvious disappointment. Even Karen looked uncomfortable. I suddenly felt shabby and unconvincing, and about as professional as a door-to-door soap salesman. All the same, I turned back to Naomi and said, ‘Naomi … listen. I need you to tell me what happened.'

She stared at me, her head nodding and nodding as if she had Parkinson's Disease, saying nothing.

‘Was there anybody here? Did you see anybody moving the furniture?'

She shook her head. ‘Nobody … here. Only … shadows.'

‘What shadows?'

Fearfully, she edged her eyes towards the wall. ‘Shadows … on … the … wall … it …
bit
him …'

‘It bit him?
What
bit him?'

There was a very long silence. Naomi sat staring at the wall, breathing deeply and harshly. Then, without warning, she did something that — for some reason — utterly chilled me. She covered her face with her hands so that only her eyes looked out; and looked slowly and threateningly from right to left, and back again.

‘It …
bit
… him …' she repeated, and made her fingers writhe and wriggle like a nest of white snakes. ‘It …
bit
… him …'

Then she raised both writhing hands so that they rested on top of her shock-white hair, like horns or antlers, or a Gorgon's snakes.

As unexpectedly as she had started this performance, she lowered her hands and resumed her grip on the seat of her chair, staring at me as if she expected me to understand exactly what she had been doing.

‘Has she ever done that before?' I asked Michael.

‘No, never. Not to anybody.'

‘Has she said “it bit him” to anybody else?'

‘Not unless she said it to Dr Stein when I was out of the room.'

I stood frowning, thinking.
Shadows on the wall
. Naomi had seen shadows on the wall. At the moment, there were very few shadows on the wall, because all of the light came from the dim chandelier suspended from the ceiling. The main shadows were mine and Naomi's, in small misshapen pools around our feet. So how had Naomi seen shadows on the wall?

‘Michael … could you bring me a desk-lamp, something like that?'

‘Sure,' he said, and went back through to the living room.

Karen stood in the doorway, her arms cradled, her face pale. ‘I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't realize how difficult this was going to be.'

I grunted. ‘Difficult? This isn't difficult. This is so far out it's meeting itself coming the other way.' I wasn't angry with her. I just felt inadequate, and seriously embarrassed.

Michael returned with a small red enamel desk-lamp and I set it down on the floor and plugged it in. As I stood up again, however, it slid sharply across the room, unplugging itself as it did so, and clattered up against the opposite wall, next to the dining-table.

‘“A slight element of the paranormal,”' Michael quoted me.