Punish the Sinners (35 page)

The fresh air hit her like a bucket of water, and she knew what had happened. Penny had killed herself. But why was she so calm? Why wasn’t she screaming? Why wasn’t she running, calling for help? Maybe Penny was still alive. Maybe if she did something, they could still save Penny.

And then she realized that Penny wouldn’t want her to do that, that Penny would want her to stay calm, and walk down the hill. And leave her alone.

Marilyn started down the steps, and away from the school. Suddenly it all seemed to be closing in on her, and she felt the pressure building in her, the pressure she had been fighting against for so long—the pressure to do what should be done, instead of what she wanted to do. Now she was going to do what she wanted to do. She was going to listen to the voices.

She was not going to tell anybody what she had seen in the restroom.

She passed the rectory, glancing at it as she passed. Then she stopped and looked more closely. Smoke was coming out of the chimney. It struck her as strange, since the afternoon was still warm. The evening would be cold, but not yet.

Then she heard the chanting. At first she thought it must be coming from the convent. Then she knew it wasn’t. It was coming from the rectory.

And it was telling her the same things the voices inside her were telling her. She listened for a moment, then hurried down the hill.

Margo looked surreptitiously across the table at Peter, trying to see him with his guard down, trying to decide whether he looked strained, or whether it was her imagination. He was concentrating on his food, unaware of her scrutiny.

“I’m not going to stay tonight,” Margo said, breaking the silence that had reigned over the table since they had sat down for dinner. Peter looked up from his steak.

“Don’t ask me why,” she went on, anticipating the question. “I couldn’t tell you. I just have a feeling Pm going to be needed at the hospital tonight.”

“It’s the atmosphere around here lately,” Peter said, putting down his fork. “I’ve felt the same way all day, ever since I talked to Janet Connally.”

“Can you tell me what she said, or is it confidential?” Margo wanted to know. She had already heard about Peter’s visit with Janet from Dr. Shields, but she wanted to hear it again, first-hand, from Peter. If his story differed much from the one Dr. Shields had told her, it might help her make up her mind.

Peter looked at her wryly. “It’s not confidential,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Pd like to hear what you think of it. The whole day, not just the visit with Janet.” He cast around in his mind, trying to decide where to start.

“There was a note in my box, just before the psych class. It was from Monsignor, and it told me to go to the hospital right away, that Janet wanted to talk to me. He said he’d take over my class, and I should leave as soon as I found the note. I stopped by his office to see if there were any details but he wasn’t there. So I left … “

   He walked into the hospital just after eleven, and asked for Janet Connally’s room number. The nurse looked slightly annoyed; then, when he identified himself, her annoyance grew.

“Well, you certainly took long enough.” She didn’t seem to expect an answer, so Peter followed her silently down the hall. He was relieved when they passed the room Judy Nelson had been in, and turned into the next one. Janet was propped up on a pillow, watching television. As soon as she saw him she reached over and snapped the TV off.

“You certainly took long enough,” she echoed the nurse. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming at all.”

Peter sat down in the chair at the foot of the bed and looked at Janet in puzzlement “The nurse said the same thing, that I ‘certainly took long enough.’ I came as soon as I got the message.”

“It must be the school, then,” Janet complained. “I called at seven-thirty this morning, and talked to Monsignor. He promised he’d give you the message as soon as you got there.” She smiled sheepishly. “I really did a number on him, Mr. Balsam. I tried to make it sound like I was dying, and that if you didn’t come instantly, terrible things were going to happen to me. But I guess he didn’t believe me.”

Or, more likely, chose to ignore it, Peter thought. He
looked at Janet carefully, trying to determine if she was as well as she appeared to be.

Last night this girl had tried to hang herself.

Today she was the same as she had always seemed—happy, cheerful, with no apparent problems. Or were the problems just too well concealed for his eyes to see?

“I look too good, don’t I?” Janet said. Her perceptiveness startled Balsam and made him wary.

“I don’t know,” he said evasively. “How do you feel?”

“No different than ever,” Janet responded immediately. Thea, realizing the answer could have a double meaning, she clarified it. “That means fine. I feel fine now, and I felt fine yesterday.”

“Then why are you here?” Peter said, trying to approach the issue obliquely. Janet, in her straightforward way, hit it head on.

“Because I hung myself last night. Or tried to. I’ve been trying all morning to decide if an attempt counts. I mean, since I’m not dead or anything, do I say ‘I hung myself,’ or ‘I
tried
to hang myself?”

Peter bit his lip, suddenly nervous. She must be covering up something. She
had
to be. But what? He decided to be as forthright as she.

“Janet,” he said somberly, “it isn’t funny. You hung yourself—or if you want to be absolutely correct, “hanged yourself—last night. If your father hadn’t gotten to you as quickly as he did, you’d be dead right now. As it is, you’re lucky you didn’t suffer any brain damage.”

The grin vanished from Janet’s face, and she shifted in the bed. When she spoke, the lightness had gone from her voice.

“I know it isn’t funny,” she said. “But right now it’s
the only way I can cope with it. If I don’t make fun of it, I think I’ll go crazy. I might be crazy anyway.”

Peter Balsam’s brows arched, and she took the expression as a question.

“That’s why I called you. I suppose I should talk to Dr. Shields, but I just can’t. He’s nice, but I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me. You’ve seen me every day this semester—”

“Which has barely begun,” Peter broke in.

“All right, so it’s barely begun. But you’ve seen me every day, and you know what I’m like. Or, anyway, better than Dr. Shields does. Dr. Shields is sure to think I’m some kind of a nut I mean, what else can he think? Anybody’d have to be crazy to do what I did.”

Peter decided to take a gamble. “Then by your own terms, you’re crazy.”

She stared at him for a moment then nodded.

“I know. That’s why I called you. You decide if “I’m crazy.”

Tm not qualified,” Peter protested.

“I don’t care.” Janet said. “You’re the one I want to talk to. There isn’t anybody else I can talk to. Don’t you see? Dr. Shields has to think I’m crazy, and why shouldn’t he? And everybody élse—well, you know what it’s like around here. Particularly at school. All they’ll do is tell me I’m a sinner, and give me a penance. But I’m
not
a sinner.”

Peter moved his chair closer to the bed and took Janet’s hand.

“All right” he said gently. “What happened?”

“First, I didn’t try to kill myself.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I didn’t. Oh, yes, I
did
, I know, but I didn’t
really.”
Her face twisted in frustration. “I’m sorry,” she went on, forcing herself to relax. “I know none of this
makes sense, but just listen to me, then you try to figure out what happened. I’ve tried, and I can’t, and I’m scared. So please, help me?” For the first time since he’d gotten there, Peter Balsam saw the part of Janet Connally that was still a small child. He wanted to hold her and comfort her. ‘ “I’ll listen,” he said softly. “I’ll me what happened.”

“I keep telling you,” Janet said. “I don’t know what happened. Where shall I start?” Without waiting for an answer she went right on talking. “Everything was fine yesterday, or as fine as it could be, what with Karen and all. I don’t know how I got caught up in what happened at church. In fact, I can barely remember it. We must have sounded like a bunch of Holy Rollers. Anyway, after it was over with, I went home with my parente, and we watched television for awhile. Then I went up to do my homework.” She stopped talking. Peter waited patiently for her to resume the story. Finally he prompted her.

“And?”

She looked at him bleakly. “And that’s when it happened. I was studying, and all of a sudden I got this crazy urge to hang myself. At first I told myself it was ridiculous, that there wasn’t a reason in the world why I should want to kill myself. But I still wanted to. So I sat there for about an hour, and argued with myself. I mean, I literally argued with myself. But the feeling wouldn’t go away.”

“But why? There must have been some reason why you wanted to kill yourself.”

“That’s the part that makes me think I must be crazy. There wasn’t any reason. Just this incredible urge to hang myself. And I did.”

Balsam nodded gravely. “This may sound strange, but do you remember what it was like?”

“It wasn’t
like
anything. I mean, there I was, getting a chair, and putting it under the chandelier in my room, and taking an extension cord, and tying it around my neck. And all the time wondering why I was doing it, and trying to make myself stop. But I couldn’t.”

“It must have been frightening.”

“That’s what I kept thinking, too. But it wasn’t. All the time, there was just this strange sense of not being able to control myself. Like a puppet. It was just like someone was pulling strings, and I had to do whatever they wanted me to do.” Her voice suddenly became bitter. “So I stood up on the chair, and tied the cord around my neck, and kicked the chair away.” The blood drained from her face as she remembered it “What if they hadn’t been home? What if Mom and Dad had gone out last night?” Janet Connally shuddered, and fell silent.

Peter Balsam turned the story over in his mind. It all seemed preposterous, and if it had been anybody but Janet telling him, he would have been inclined to discount it But not Janet Her assessment of herself coincided exactly with his own, and the story had the ring of truth. Or of what Janet thought was the truth. Then her voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Mr. Balsam,” she said, almost pleading, “am I crazy?”

“Do you feel crazy?” he countered.

“No.”

“And you don’t look crazy, and you don’t sound crazy. Granted, the story sounds crazy, but you don’t So,” he went on, more lightly, “I think we can assume that since you don’t feel like a duck, look like a duck, or sound like a duck, you probably aren’t a duck.”

“Probably,” she said, repeating the qualifying word.

Peter Balsam shrugged. “Would you believe me if I
said ‘absolutely’?” He was pleased when she smiled again.

“No. And ‘probably’ is a lot better than I was doing by myself.” Silence. Then: “Mr. Balsam, what am I going to do?” Again, the plaintive, childlike quality in the voice.

Balsam had been expecting the question. But when it came, he had no ready answer. All he could offer was some reassurance.

“Try not to worry,” he said. “Just relax, try to stop worrying, and I’ll go talk to Dr. Shields and see if I can convince him that you aren’t quite ready for the looney bin yet.” And talk to him about a few other things, he silently added to himself. He squeezed Janet’s hand one last time, and stood up. “Do you need anything?”

Janet shook her head. She started to speak, stopped, then started again. “Mr. Balsam? Thanks for coming. I feel better just talking about it to someone.”

“There’s lots of people you can talk to about it,” he said.

Janet smiled wanly. “I suppose so. But not around here.” Then, as if to preclude any answer, she reached out and switched the television set back on. Peter Balsam stood in the doorway for a second or two longer, then turned and left the room.

He approached the nurses’ station and waited for the nurse to finish with the chart she was working on. Finally, she looked up and put on a practiced smile.

“Can you tell me where Dr. Shields’s office is?”

“I’d better show you.” She stood up and led him down the hall. “You’re the psychology teacher, aren’t you?” Her voice stayed carefully neutral, and Peter wondered whether the question was hostile.

“Yes.”

“And all these girls … they’re in your class, aren’t they?”

“I’m afraid they are.”

The nurse smiled tightly. “Must be some class,” she observed. Then, before Peter could respond, she was pointing to a door. “Dr. Shields’s office is right through there.” And she was gone. Peter watched her until she turned a corner and disappeared from view, then went into the reception room she had indicated, and tapped on the inner door, half-hoping Margo would come out. Instead, Dr. Shields himself opened the door.

“Excuse me,” Peter said. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m—”

“Peter Balsam,” Dr. Shields said, opening the door wide. “I’ve been expecting you.” He held the door until Peter was inside the inner office, then closed it firmly. Instead of taking the chair behind the desk, he seated himself in one of the armchairs that flanked a small table, and gestured for Peter to take the other.

“Expecting me?” Balsam asked.

“Janet Connally. Ever since she was admitted she’s been saying you were the only one she wanted to talk to. So this morning we gave in, and let her call you. I assumed that as a matter of—what shall we call it? professional courtesy?—you’d drop by to see me after you talked to her.”

“I have a few questions of my own.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dr. Shields said, observing Balsam behind a smile.

As Balsam related the conversation he’d had with Janet Connally, Dr. Shields found himself putting all his attention on what the giri had said. When Balsam finished the story, Shields’s first question was, “Will she tell me the same story?”

Balsam nodded. “I told her I was going to try to convince you that she’s not crazy.”

“You don’t think she is?”

“I don’t.”

“What about her story? Do you believe it?”