The Lower Deep (3 page)

He had not heard that voice since his earlier sojourn in St. Joseph, two years ago, and reacted as though he had not heard any woman's voice since then.

Turning in astonishment and delight, but a delight tempered with a touch of anger in spite of himself—he found himself gazing wide-eyed at a slender, attractive woman five years younger than he, who looked five years younger than that. She wore a nurse's white uniform.

"Nadine." It came out like a prayer because he still loved this woman. No other had taken her place.

Her smile was quick and warm. "Steve. So here we are again."

He took a step toward her, to embrace her, then realized he was being watched by people in the dining room. Reluctantly he settled for clasping her hands. "No one told me I'd find you here."

"Until this morning, no one told me you were coming. We must get together and talk."

"Have dinner with me now!"

"Uh-uh." When she wagged her head, her soft, light gold hair bounced as though laughing. "You're expected to dine with the brass tonight. Come on, I'll take you over and introduce you."

He let her do so, then she left him. With his heart still pounding he watched her join a young St. Joseph nurse at another table. His past was overtaking him here, he realized. First Mendoza, then the cook, now the only woman he'd ever truly loved.

What next?

For the next hour or so he mechanically lifted food to his mouth while his tablemates told him about the job he had taken on. But although they obviously had the best of intentions, he heard little. Nadine Palmer kept getting in the way.

"Now then, Steve"—he had asked them at once to call him that—"let me tell you a little about Dr. Driscoll's diet program." That was the lady dietitian talking, an obviously competent woman of middle age, from, she had said, Chicago. And he listened, or tried to, while his mind said, Damn it, Nadine, you and Tom Driscoll saved my life! Why wouldn't you answer my letters?

"We think we have some interesting ideas on therapy, Steve." That was the staff psychologist, a middle-aged New Yorker named Baker. Very intense, very sincere, obviously very dedicated to his work. But—

We were in love, woman. You nursed me up from hell after those voodoo people clobbered me. Then you wouldn't even let me say good-bye when I had to haul ass out of there. Why, Nadine, why?

They talked to him about the lectures. The medication. The exercise and recreation programs. They explained Driscoll's solid belief in the use of stress-management and assertiveness training. It went on and on.

But anything he took in must have been absorbed subliminally, because he wasn't really listening.

Nothing mattered except the woman across the room.

He still wanted her. Still loved her. Damn it, he had never stopped loving her! And now she was in reach again!

T
o reach the town of Dame Marie Du Nord from the Azagon one could go by road or along the shore. Along the shore was shorter by at least half a mile, but, of course, one had to walk.

Paul Henninger chose the shore route, leaving the Azagon just after eleven in the morning. He had hoped to go earlier, but the newly arrived Dr. Spence had wanted to inspect the retreat's facilities with him and go over the patients' records. He had even wanted to meet certain patients who had severe problems. Robert Morrison, for instance. Philip Wynn. Lawton Lindo. Especially Lawton Lindo.

A good man, Spence. A bit too energetic, perhaps, but knowledgeable and decent. Still, there
were things he must not be told, or allowed to find out.

Striding along the wet, hard-packed sand just above the water line, Henninger kept turning his head to glance at the sea. The rain had stopped just before dawn and the water was extra dazzling this morning. The sunlight seemed to melt on contact and flow over it like liquid gold. There was almost no breeze.

Normally there was a breeze. Sometimes for days on end it was strong enough to keep the local fishermen from venturing out. The many large chunks of driftwood littering the shore attested to that. Some weeks ago, at the cove called Anse Douce, a whole rose apple tree—a big one—had been washed ashore.

The tree had come to rest among coral boulders in a wide gully that ran from the beach's backdrop of sea-grape bushes to the water's edge. It was gone now, Henninger noted. Someone must have chopped it up for firewood, or to make charcoal.

Peering at the boulder-choked gully as he trudged past it, the manager felt his fear return. His hands began to tremble. He thrust them into the pockets of his khaki shorts and clenched his fists. He must stop being terrified here, he told himself angrily. But the fear rode him like an Old Man of the Sea until, with the cove well behind him, he came to the fishermen's shacks at Pointe Pierre on the outskirts of the town.

There was a road now, leading up past yards where fishermen worked on boats and nets and on bamboo fish traps shaped like oversize coffins.

Climbing up through the town, it took him between rows of assorted small shops with, here and there among them, some of the town's better homes. Second-story verandas with rickety railings overhung the sidewalks. The deserted open-air marketplace was dark and spooky under its half-acre roof of banana thatch, its tables bare because this was not the once-a-week day for buying and selling.

On passing one of the better-class homes, Henninger returned a cheerful "Good morning" from one George Benson, an American hired by the St. Joe government seven or eight months before to help the area's fishermen solve a few of their many problems. A little farther on, at the end of his journey, he climbed the steps of an old, unpainted wooden building that wore on its door an unpretentious sign indicating it was the office of one Dr. Louis Clermont.

Entering, the Azagon's manager smiled sadly at Simone Valcin, the doctor's plump and cheerful receptionist, and said, "He's not expecting me. I hope to God he'll see me."

"Of course he will." Rising, the young St. Joseph woman opened an inner door and said, "Mr. Henninger is here, Doctor." And then to Henninger, "Go right in, please."

At his desk, looking a lot like a brown-skinned Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Clermont motioned his caller to a chair. He was, Henninger knew, one of the best medics in all St. Joseph, a truly brilliant man who had done his schooling in Paris as so many of the island's elite did. Without doubt a lucrative practice in the capital could be his for
the asking, but he'd been born here in Dame Marie and felt needed here. Peasant patients came to him from miles around.

"Paul, you must lose some weight."

Henninger sighed. "I know, I know. And I will. But that isn't why I'm here."

"That other business again, eh?"

"Doctor, I'm frightened! Believe me, I don't make such an admission easily, but it's true. My nights have become nightmares!"

Folding his long-fingered hands over his belt, the man who looked like Lincoln leaned back and waited.

"I am not a hypochondriac, Doctor," Henninger said carefully. "At thirty-seven I am physically and mentally sound, so far as I know. As a young man in Belgium I played world-class soccer. Now all at once I'm behaving strangely."

Clermont frowned. It was a little hard for him to picture this barrel-shaped man playing a game that required agility and stamina. He solemnly nodded, though, then just as solemnly listened.

The manager of the Azagon, that retreat for alcoholics, was walking in his sleep, it seemed. Not aimlessly. Not just strolling around the former hotel where that aging Dr. Driscoll and his staff did whatever it was they did with their patients. He was sleepwalking
out
of the place, leaving the grounds, finding himself at times as much as a mile away when he came to.

"I have never in my life done this before," Henninger moaned. "Yet in the past two weeks it has happened eight times!"

"That's a lot of walking, Paul."

The expected smile was not forthcoming. "Then there are the dreams." Henninger actually shivered. Violently. "The dreams, Doctor! They're even worse than the sleepwalking!"

"What sort of dreams are they, actually?"

"They're fantastic. Mind you, I've always dreamed. It seems to be my nature. But these are horrible nightmares. They terrify me!"

Elbows on the desk now, chin resting on the backs of his hands, Clermont said, "Tell-me."

"Always there is water."

The doctor nodded.

"Always something to do with water." Henninger spread his hands as though begging. "In one I was walking along the beach at Anse Douce, alone, naked, in the middle of the night. Why naked, for God's sake? In another I was swimming naked, far out at sea. A few nights ago I dreamed I was swimming like a fish along the bottom somewhere, through an undersea forest of monstrous coral formations." He paused to shake his head. "In all my life I have never seen such a place, actually. It must have been something I remembered from a motion picture."

"Like a fish, you say. You mean you were a fish?"

"No, no. I was myself. But I could exist underwater. I didn't have to come up for air."

"Must have been an interesting experience." Clermont's smile took on an odd twist.
"DO
you swim, Paul?"

"You mean can I? Yes, I suppose you could say so. But I'm no expert. I would never venture far from shore, believe me."

"Let me be sure I understand this. You only dreamed you were walking naked on the beach, right? This wasn't one of those times when you actually walked in your sleep and woke up in some strange place?"

"No, it was a dream. But I wonder now if I really know which are dreams and which are not. I mean, I'm becoming more and more confused. This is a terrible thing, Doctor. I'm not even able to do my work properly."

"Just what do you do there at the Azagon, Paul?"

"Pardon?"

"I know you're the manager, but what are your duties, exactly? It's never been quite clear to me."

Henninger shrugged. "I—well, I'm charged with keeping the place up, buying the food, paying the bills, that sort of thing. I suppose you could say I'm responsible for everything but the medical part of the operation. To keep things running smoothly, I mean."

"What about the doctors there? Your director is an M.D., isn't he?"

Henninger nodded. "Dr. Driscoll, yes. He is a psychiatrist, as well."

"Any other M.D.s on the staff?"

"There is a Dr. Mendoza, who came as a patient but has been helping out. And the new man, Dr. Spence."

"Have you talked to any of those people about your problems?"

"No, no! Nor must you!"

"You might lose your job, you mean?"

"Yes! They might—"

"Can the job itself be responsible for the dreams and the sleepwalking? Running a place full of alcoholics must be a nightmare itself at times."

"No, no, it isn't that. I don't dislike the job."

"This new man is actually in charge there now, isn't he? Until Dr. Driscoll gets back on his feet, at least."

"Dr. Spence, yes. But he arrived only yesterday."

"Think he'll work out, do you?"

"I believe so. Yes."

"You like him?"

"He seems a very decent sort."

"Well then, why don't we wait a bit and see if his being there will make a difference? To you, I mean. Before we start experimenting with you. Because that's what we'll be doing, you know. Experimenting."

Clermont paused. "By the way, what do you do for recreation, Paul? To unwind when things get rough, that is. You originally came to St. Joseph to paint, I've heard. Something to do with the Centre d'Art in the capital."

Henninger allowed a sheepish look to touch his face. "Yes, but the job didn't materialize. I'm not painting now."

"Why don't you get into it again? If only as a hobby."

"Pardon?"

"It might be good for you," said the man who resembled Lincoln. "Might help to relax you. Do you have what you'd need to work with? Paints, brushes, canvas—whatever?"

The manager wagged his head.

"Then why not call St. Joe City and have the stuff sent out? I'm serious, Paul. Believe me. You need something to take your mind off your troubles. Think about it." Clermont rose and offered his hand.

"Thank you," Paul Henninger said.

"Of course, if things get worse, I'm always here."

"Yes. Thank God for that."

Clermont opened the door, then reached out to touch his patient on the shoulder as the Belgian trudged past him. "Don't worry, Paul," he said gently. "We'll find the answer."