Elephant Man (21 page)

“Here.” Merrick reached into his pocket and brought out a small battered picture of a very lovely woman, which he handed gently to Anne.

“Why Mr. Merrick—” Anne studied the woman’s young, delicately formed face, “—she’s beautiful.”

“She has the face of an angel,” Merrick said simply. “She
was
an angel. She would hold my head and sing to me. She was so kind—” his voice trembled, “—so kind to me. You must not think ill of her. It’s not her fault, for in the fourth month of her maternal condition she was knocked down by an elephant. I’m sure I must have been a great disappointment to her.”

“Oh no, Mr. Merrick,” said Anne softly, looking at
him. “No. No son as loving as you are could ever be a disappointment.”

“If only I could find her. If only she could see me now, here, with such lovely, kind friends. You, Mrs. Treves, and you, Mr. Treves. Then maybe she would love me as I am. I’ve tried so hard to be good.”

Anne could no longer see his face for her eyes were blurred with tears. The yearning sadness in Merrick’s last words had moved her unbearably and she saw the piteousness of his tragedy unclouded by revulsion for his looks. She tried to fight back the tears but they would not be restrained. They coursed down her face, distorting it, so that she dropped her head. Without knowing what she was doing she held out a hand to Merrick and he took it at once, everything forgotten but his desire to comfort her. He understood why she wept and he wanted to tell her that there was no need, but all he could do was to repeat huskily, “Please—please—”

They sat there together, the beautiful woman and the ugly man, their intense communication of sympathy wiping away all difference between them. Treves watched them in wonder, but made no attempt to interrupt. He knew they had both forgotten him.

“It seems we may have to revise our ideas about the mother,” Carr-Gomm mused, turning the photograph over in his hands. “Possibly she existed as he remembers her.”

“Possibly, but I’m still not convinced,” said Treves. “There’s no proof that this picture is of her, and no way of knowing how he got it. He says he’s always had it, but that may simply mean he picked it up so long ago that he’s forgotten.”

“That’s true I suppose.”

They were sitting in Carr-Gomm’s office the morning after the tea party at Treves’ house. The Chairman had insisted that Treves come along as soon as possible and let him know how it had all gone, and Treves had been able to do so with a certain amount of pleasure. Despite some of the disconcerting events of the day before he felt Anne’s meeting with Merrick could be called a success.

“On the other hand,” he said, “it may be as you say. She may be his mother and his memories of her may be substantially correct. I doubt if we shall ever know now. At any rate I haven’t hurt his feelings by letting him know my doubts.”

“Very wise. And you’ve also allowed him to continue believing that his mother was charged by an elephant, apparently?”

“I haven’t mentioned my own scepticism to him. I saw no point. If it comes to that, I don’t know for certain that it isn’t true. She may have been, although I doubt very much whether it would explain his condition. I certainly don’t believe the ‘African isle’ part of
the story, and I think John’s just repeating what he’s heard from Bytes and others like him.

“I haven’t said all this to John because I think the truth would be hard for him to bear. It’s just about tolerable for him to think his condition is caused by a tragic accident when his mother was carrying him. But to tell him that nature made him that way …”

“I see. Yes, of course.” Carr-Gomm nodded and stared again at the picture. “I wonder where he got such a good frame for this.”

“I can tell you that, sir. My wife gave it to him just before he left us. She took one of our own photographs out of it, and said the best gift she could give him was a way to protect his mother’s picture. He was so overcome I thought he was going to break down again.”

“Mrs. Treves bore the visit well then?”

“Extraordinarily well. They seemed to understand each other quickly in a way that took me weeks to achieve. John constantly surprises me. I thought he’d told me everything, but I’d never suspected the existence of that picture. Yet he brought it out to show Anne at the first meeting.”

“A woman’s sympathy will often have that effect, while the most up-to-date medical science will fall short.” Carr-Gomm handed back the picture. “You’d better return this to Mr. Merrick. I’m sure he doesn’t like to be parted from it.”

Treves rose to go. “Sir, was there anything in the mail this morning?”

“Very little, I’m afraid. But I haven’t given up hope. I cannot believe that the British public, whom I have always believed a kindly people, will refuse to come to this man’s aid. I shall speak to the
Times
again, and let you know if anything comes in. In the meantime please convey my kindest regards to Mr. Merrick.”

Nora was beginning to regard her duties with the Elephant Man as a test of her suitability as a nurse.
On the day of her first encounter with him, when she had screamed and dropped the tray, she had waited for a moment alone with Mothershead, and apologized for her unprofessional reaction.

“It was just seeing it …” she explained.

Mothershead had regarded her with stern kindness. “Patients here are not ‘it’s.’ They are either ‘he’s’ or ‘she’s.’ But that’s all right, Ireland. This one is going to be more work for all of us.”

Since that day Nora had tried her hardest to see the Elephant Man as a “he.” She had tried to tell herself that he was an ordinary human being, inwardly just like any other. In fact, inwardly he was better than many others, if what she was now hearing was to be believed. And while she was not in his presence it was easy to convince herself that he was nothing but a much injured man who was entitled to her kindness.

But all the good resolutions dropped away from her whenever she entered his room and saw that ghastly head again. Then it would be as it always was, and she would have to struggle to maintain the composure and smiling face that Mr. Treves had told her was essential, and that her own kind heart also prompted.

After all these weeks she was easier in his presence, but not so much easier that she felt it made much difference. This morning she had volunteered to take his breakfast tray up to him instead of delegating the job to Kathleen, because she had imposed it on herself as a duty. If she could not force herself to do distasteful things then she was no use as a nurse, and this thought haunted her.

As instructed she knocked and waited for his husky, “Come in,” then pushed the door open. He was sitting at the table, his hands occupied with some work that in her preoccupation she did not notice fully.

She set the tray on the table, managing to avoid lifting her head and looking directly at him, while despising herself for this piece of cowardliness. But as she began to lift the plates off and set them on the
table, her eye fell on a cardboard box which he hastened to move out of her way. Its sides were covered with carefully drawn windows and arches. Many of the lines were shaky, but the whole thing bore evidence of hours of ingenious work.

“Good morning, Mr. Merrick,” she said politely.

“Good morning,” he responded in the same formal tone. He did not look at her, nor did he seem at ease, and Nora was shrewd enough to realize that this was because of her own unease. She busied herself in the invariable morning routine, removing a clean towel and blanket from the cabinet where they were stored, but as she headed for the bathroom with them she stopped and looked again at the cardboard box. Merrick was working on it again, holding it clumsily in his right hand while his good left one grasped the pencil to make marks on the side of the box. His breakfast stood there, ignored.

Curious now she moved a step nearer and stayed watching until he became aware of her presence and leaned back, looking up at her timidly, as though awaiting reproof.

“What is this that you’re doing?” she asked. When he did not answer she pointed at the box. “What is it?”

He indicated the window and her face lightened.

“What? Oh, I see. It’s St. Philips. Oh, of course. Why—why, it’s very good. I mean, you’ve got the windows and arches just right.”

“Yes,” he said, pleased at her tone, but not offering further information.

“But it’s so good, I mean—” she floundered, aware that it would hardly be tactful to say what she was really thinking—that it was good, considering his condition. “It’s so very good,” she finished lamely.

“Thank you—very much.”

“Where did you get this box?”

He pointed to the door. He was not sufficiently relaxed with her to speak unless it was absolutely necessary.

“The hallway?” she said, puzzled. “Oh, the waste-can?”

“I meant no harm,” he said anxiously. “It was the only place where I could find cardboard. I thought it had been thrown away.”

“It’s all right. It was thrown away. No one wants it. It’s just that it’s a little dirty, that’s all.”

Forgetting everything now but her curiosity she set down the towel and blanket and leaned closer. Through the awkward drawing of a man who could use only his left hand she was beginning to perceive real skill and meticulous observation.

“What’s this?” she said, pointing to a circle drawn on the top.

“The main spire.”

“The—oh, the spire. How silly of me, it’s as plain as day. Mr. Merrick, where did you learn to do this?”

He longed to talk to her, to answer her question fully and draw her into conversation. Then perhaps they could sit and chat as people did when they have suddenly found each other interesting. But instinct warned him that her suddenly kindled warmth would be extinguished just as suddenly if he dared presume on it. So he contented himself with saying vaguely, “I learned a long time ago.”

“Oh, but how will you finish it? You haven’t any more cardboard.”

“I’ll have to find some more.” He shrugged, at a loss. The movement of his shoulders made Nora aware of his body, and she drew back. He was the Elephant Man again.

“Yes, well—” She felt suddenly uncomfortable. “Good day, Mr. Merrick.”

She hastened from the room, forgetting the towel and blanket which she had left on the table. Merrick made as if to call after her but thought better of it With difficulty he scooped them up himself and took them into the bathroom. He arranged the towel neatly over the back of the bath, and the blanket over the
back of a chair. Then he stood back to admire his work. There wasn’t a line out of place.

He was becoming adept now at eating. His meals always arrived already cut for him so that he could manage them easily with just a spoon or fork in his left hand. Today he got through his breakfast quickly, anxious to resume work as soon as possible on the cathedral. As he ate he gazed out of the window on the original. This was his favorite time of day for looking at it, the moment when the morning sun climbed the spire till it seemed like one glowing finger pointing upward. Watching it he felt part of that glow, part of the eternal hope to which it aspired. As the day wore on and the sun moved away he would give a faint sigh of regret, and count the hours till he would be given his vision again.

He wondered if Nora would return for his breakfast things. He hoped so. For a moment as they talked that morning he had looked up into her face and known that she had forgotten his ugliness in the interest of their conversation. It gave him a chance to study her features, which were not turned away from him but open and friendly, and he had thought how pretty she was. He would have sat there all day, watching the movement of her lips, the soft, peachlike color of her complexion, and the flickering movements of her dark eyes, had she let him. But their moment of communication had passed almost as soon as it had begun. He had seen the awareness of him creep back into her eyes, and hoped he had concealed his hurt.

His pain had caught him unaware, it was so long now he had thought himself inured to it. That wound had been inflicted so often during his life that it seemed like a natural part of himself. But now—his mind ran back over the weeks he had spent in the hospital—he’d been protected and cared for long enough for the wound to begin to heal, and any new infliction hurt as bitterly as that first pain, long ago in his childhood, when the truth about himself had begun to dawn.

It was easy in this room without mirrors to forget what he was, and think that a pretty girl might talk to him at her ease, might smile and laugh, and that he might see reflected in her friendly eyes the image of the man he longed to be. For the moment that hope was crushed. All over the hospital—all over the world—there were pretty girls like the one who had fled him this morning; as they would all flee him, no matter how hard they tried to pretend, and in fleeing they would force him back into hell.

With a desperate intensity that took his breath away he yearned for beauty to feed his senses, which had been starved since the moment of his birth. Why, he thought—what was he? Ears that had heard no music, eyes that had seen no loveliness, hands that had touched no softness, a heart that had known no love, save once so long ago that it seemed a dream. There was beauty all around him in the world—and it fled from him.

He rose and moved over to the window. There was a constriction in his heart that was like a choking pain. He would have wept if weeping were easier. He stood by the window a long time, gazing out on the spire glittering in the sun, until the ache in his throat had subsided. At last he went back to the table and sat down again to his work.

A nurse came to take away his breakfast things. It was not Nora. He greeted her politely but did not look up at her. Half an hour later two others came to give him his bath. Again neither of them was Nora and this time he was glad.

Lunch came and went. He ate it quickly and returned to his cardboard cathedral. He wanted to do as much as possible before the light became poor, and he was pleased with the way it was going.

Late in the afternoon, just as he was beginning to think he must finish for the day, there came a knock on the door.