Turn of Mind (22 page)

Something nags. Something that resides in a sterile, brightly lit place where there is no room for shadows. The place for blood and bone. Yet shadows exist. And secrets.

An extraordinarily clean place, this. They are constantly scrubbing, vacuuming, touching up the paint. Dusting. Fixing. It is pristine. And luxurious. A five-star hotel with guardrails. The Ritz for the mentally infirm. Plump cushy armchairs in the great room. An enormous flat-screen television in the TV lounge. Fresh flowers everywhere. The scent of money.

They keep us clean, too. Frequent showers with strong antiseptic soap. Harsh washcloths wielded expertly by rough hands. The indignity of a vigorous scrubbing of the belly, the buttocks.

Why bother exfoliating? Let the dead cells accumulate, let them encase me until, mummified, I am preserved as I am. No more deterioration. To stop this descent. What I wouldn't pay. What I wouldn't give.

I am sitting with a well-groomed woman with feathered gray hair. We're in the dining room, at the long communal table. It has been freshly set for a dozen or so diners, but we are the only ones eating.

I have some sort of long pale strings of matter swimming in a thick red liquid. She has a piece of whitish meat. We both have a mound of white mush with a brown liquid poured on it. Through a sort of haze I recognize a fellow professional. Someone I could respect.

What is that? I point to something she has to the right of her food, something I don't have.

That's a knife.

I want one.

No, you don't need one. See, your food is soft, easy to break into bite-size morsels.
You don't need to cut it.

But I like that one. Most of all.

That makes sense.

How long have you been here? I ask.

About six years.

What did you do?

What do you mean?

To get sent here. What did you do? Everyone here has committed a crime. Some worse than others.

No, I work here. My name is Laura. I'm the resident manager.
She smiles. She is tall and broad-shouldered. Strong and sturdy.
And what crime did you
commit?
she asks.

I don't like to say.

That's all right. You don't need to tell me. It's not important.

How long have you been here?

Six years. My name is Laura.

I like your necklace, I say. A word comes to me. Opal?

Yes. A present from my husband.

My husband is out of town, I say. Somehow I know this. In San Francisco, at a conference. He travels.

You must miss him, then.

Sometimes, I say. And then suddenly the words come more easily.

Sometimes I like rolling over in the bed, to find a place where the sheets are still cool. And he can take up a lot of psychic space.

But it seems that you have great affection for him. You talk about him a lot.

What is that you are holding?

A knife.

What is it for?

To cut.

I remember that. Can I have one?

No.

Why not?

It's not safe.

For whom?

For yourself, mostly.

Just mostly?

There is a concern.

That I might hurt others?

Yes. There is that.

But I am a doctor, I say.

And you've taken a solemn oath.

I am gifted with a vision. A framed script hanging on a wall. I quote what I see written there.
I swear by Apollo, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea,
and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses
. . . the image leaves me before I can finish.

Impressive words. Frightening, even.

Yes, I've always thought so, I say.

And of course, there's the part everyone knows, about never doing harm
, the gray-haired woman says.

I've always fulfilled that oath, I say. I believe I have.

Believe?

There is this thing that nags.

Oh?

Yes. It has to do with the thing you're holding.

The knife.

Yes, the knife.

The woman leans forward.
Are you remembering? No. Let me rephrase that.
If you are remembering, keep it to yourself. Don't tell me.

I don't understand, I say.

No, not today. It is not your day to understand. But you might remember tomorrow.
Or the day after. Memory is a funny thing. It might be a good thing not to
try too hard. That's all I'm saying.

And with that, she leaves, taking the lovely shiny sharp thing with her.
Knife.

One living creature still trembles at my command. A small dog, a mutt that has somehow become attached to me. I've never been fond of dogs. The opposite, in fact. The children's pleas counted for nothing.

At first I kicked the thing away. But it persevered, haunted me morning until night. The other residents attempt to entice it away at every turn, but it always returns to me after devouring a treat or being subjected to a trembling petting session.

I'm unclear who it belongs to. It wanders the halls at will and is a general favorite. But I am the one it pursues relentlessly. Despite the fact that it has a bed in the television lounge, bowls of food and water in the dining room, it sleeps with me. Shortly after I go to bed I feel a thump, of dog that I always hated. But gradually I have found comfort in it, have enjoyed being so adored.

Other residents are jealous. They try to steal Dog away. Several times I have awakened from deep sleep to find a dark shape bending over my bed, attempting to grab the whining wiggling body. I always let it go without comment, and the thing always returns to me. My familiar. Every crone needs one.

The only thing that helps is the walking. What the people here call
wandering.
They've set up a kind of a trail. A labyrinth for the mentally deficient.

On any given hour, there might be two or three of us traversing the loop. If someone tries to wander more randomly, they are stopped and firmly put back on the trail.

I remember the Chartres labyrinth, the children fascinated with it, following its mesmerizing lines to the center. Where pilgrims hoped to get closer to God. Where repentant sinners who suffered the stony path on their knees finally arrived, bloodied and weary, their penance fulfilled.

How I would love to experience once again that sense of freedom that follows punishment, that release that children feel once they have confessed and paid for their trivial crimes. But I—I have no choice but to keep wandering.

We have a visitor, Jen. Aren't you glad we had a bath? Look how nice your
hair looks!

It is a face I have seen before. That's what I am reduced to now. No more names. Just characteristics, if they are idiosyncratic enough, and knowing whether a face is familiar or unfamiliar.

And those are not absolute categories. I can be looking at a face that I have decided is unfamiliar only to have its features shift and reveal a visage that is not only known but beloved.

I didn't recognize my own mother this morning, disguised as she was. But then she revealed herself. She cried as she held my hand. I comforted her as best I could. I explained that, yes, it had been a difficult birth, but I would be home soon, the baby was doing well. But where is James? I asked.
Mom, Dad can't be here right now.
Why are you calling me Mom and him Dad? More tears.

And then my mother was gone.

Now this one. A different sort altogether.

I am Detective Luton. We've spoken on a number of occasions.

Who performed your thyroidectomy? Was it Dr. Gregory?

My what? Oh—
and her hand goes to the scar on her throat.
I actually
don't remember his name. Why?

He always had a good hand with the needle. Your scar healed nicely.

So I've been told.

Has your dosage been titrated correctly?

Ma'am?

When was the last time your T3 and T4 levels were checked?

O, perhaps a year ago. But that's not why I'm here.

It's not my specialty, I know. But it's something I would ask your endocrinologist. I find that eighty percent of the people with chronic thyroid conditions aren't adequately monitoring their levels.

Okay, well I appreciate that. But I actually came here on another matter. I know
you don't remember, so I'll just fill you in real quickly. I'm with the police. I'm
in charge of an ongoing investigation into the death of Amanda O'Toole.

She pauses as if waiting for something.

Is that name familiar?

There's someone on my street of that name. But I don't know her well. We've only just moved into the neighborhood, and I have a new baby and a very busy practice. So I'm very sorry to hear it. But we were not more than acquaintances.

I'm glad. Because it was very upsetting to the friends and family of this woman.
The sudden death, but also the way her body was treated after death.

Go on.

We believe, due to the violence with which her head hit the table, that it was not
an accident. And then, sometime after death, the fingers of her right hand were
cut off. No. Not cut. Surgically removed.