Robert Alter - 100 Malicious Little Mysteries

That was all that they said about the witches until they were looking for their first apartment and Catharine demanded brightly that they find one with a closet that was small, shallow, and had a light in it. They made a little joke of this, telling each other that the landlords probably thought they were finicky bores for inspecting the apartment so carefully. When they had rented a place that exactly suited Catharine’s specifications, John almost, but not quite, forgot about the witches again.

“You’re not the imaginative type,” he observed lazily the evening after they had moved. “It’s funny you think you see such things. Of course, it’s a business of hallucinations.” He looked at her and laughed. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her fine black hair. In a few minutes she would meticulously tuck a hairnet around the curls, cleanse her face with a thick white cream, step out of her yellow kimono, and turn out the light. She looked to be the last person in the world to have hallucinations.

“Oh, I know that,” she said, a bobby pin between her teeth. “I know it’s perfectly silly, and probably a good psychiatrist could explain it all away. But then he might not.”

“I can see myself telling the office that I’d just dropped my wife at a psychiatrist’s.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” she answered casually. “I hope there’s enough breakfast cereal; I forgot to buy some.”

“You haven’t seen anything of them since we were married, have you?”

“Oh, no,” she gave her little smile. “No, I imagine I’ll tell you when I do.”

“Maybe it all had something to do with sex.”

Catharine giggled.

“I bet that’s what a psychiatrist would say.” Her eyes were suddenly mysterious. “Maybe.”

One night, seven months after their marriage, John returned late from his poker club. He had told her he would be home by one, but he did not make it until after four. He entered the apartment softly, and was surprised and irritated to find all the lamps turned on. He had thought her much too sensible to wait for him, angrily awake, and he walked from room to room, calling “Sweetheart?” in a loud, belligerent voice. When she did not answer, he stalked into the bedroom, flung off his coat, and began explaining as he undressed.

“I couldn’t get out very well when I was taking everyone in the house; it went on like that all evening...”

He glanced toward the bed, and started. She was curled in a tight, covered hump in the middle. The hump was shivering, as though she had been crying for hours.

“Catharine!” He leaned over her, weak with remorse. “Were you that worried? You could have phoned.”

She pulled an inch of cover from her face.

“Oh, darling.” She sat up, suddenly cheerful. “Darling, they’ve been there for hours. It must have been hours ago I saw them.”

“Saw what? Oh my God!”

She laughed happily.

“I really didn’t mind you staying out. It wasn’t that. But several hours ago I knew they would be there, so I got up and turned on all the lights. But I was afraid to turn on that light. I was nervous, you see, and I did feel so silly.”

“My God,” he repeated. “Is that what had you down?”

“Please don’t think you can’t stay out because of it. I would hate you to think that.” She accepted a cigarette and leaned for a light. “Really, I did see them, though.”

He did not know whether to believe her or not. The timing seemed too apt. But Catharine was certainly not the melodramatic type, and in his memory she had never been too possessive. She was not sly nor subtle and her gay lack of sentimentality had pleased him more than it had troubled him. When he looked at her now, suspiciously, he thought her smile seemed too honest and her eyes too strange. He spoke carefully:

“Now you look here. You’ve got to stop indulging yourself. You know and I know how ridiculous it is. Why, you’re not neurotic, darling.” He waited, and then said again, “You’re not neurotic, not at all.”

She was rearranging the wrinkled hairnet around her curls.

“Do you remember a Russian children’s story about an old witch?” Her voice was gossipy. “And a little girl named Magda who ran and ran away from her? Well, I read that when I was little. Come to think of it though, they’re more like the witches in Macbeth.” She shivered slightly. “Only it’s ‘when shall we four meet again.’ ”

“Some women would invent a thing like this to keep their husbands at home. What’ll you do when I’m drafted? What’ll you do then?”

She patted his hand.

“Don’t worry, please don’t worry. I got along by myself for years.” She shrugged. “They don’t do anything, you see. They just appear.” Sighing, she leaned close to him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about them. I won’t tell you next time.”

He clutched her shoulders harshly.

“Yes, you will. You’ll tell me every time; you’ve got to tell me. And for heaven’s sake,” his voice grated, “get that funny look out of your eyes!”

He suggested the next morning that they move to another apartment. In the small sunlit kitchen, the conversation seemed so incongruous that he could not help smiling when he said:

“We don’t need a psychiatrist at all. All we need is a place without a bedroom closet. Let’s look for one today.”

Catharine smiled back as she poured the coffee.

“Wouldn’t that be hard to find? Besides, if they weren’t in the bedroom, I don’t know why, but I’m sure that they would move somewhere else.”

The thought of sending her to a psychiatrist stayed with him. He hated to suggest it seriously. He was afraid she would be hurt, or angry, and would behave as though there were no real provocation. When several quiet weeks had passed, he began to think that the problem was absurd. Some men he knew hated spiders, and since a fall when he was four years old, he had always secretly feared unlighted stairways.

He did not got out often in the evenings. When he did, he always turned on the light in the closet just before he left, and he did not allow himself to think of the witches while he was away. But he went out less and less often. He dropped the poker club, and Catharine observed:

“I thought you liked to play, darling. And it’s nice for men to get out by themselves once in a while.”

“It was something to fill a bachelor’s evening.” He looked at her closely, and was sure that she did not realize why he was staying home.

They entertained or went out together, and the evenings they spent alone were relaxed and companionable. She was fond of sewing, and he liked to watch her, over the edge of his magazine, as she neatly whipped the needle in and out. The weeks stretched into months. The draft crisis passed when John was rejected because of a compound skull fracture that was not too solidly healed. He had forgotten about the boyhood accident, but now he could not help being glad of it. They said patriotic things and settled down to a smooth married life. Then John was obliged to go on an overnight business trip.

He did not think of the situation as an emergency until, well-settled on the train, he remembered that he had not turned on the closet light. He resolved immediately to return at the earliest possible hour, putting the other thoughts out of his mind. He did not even tell himself why he was boarding the train the next morning at the unbearable hour of five.

When he opened the door of the apartment, he was trembling and sick. His heart bounded with relief when he found the lights turned out, the morning seeping softly through the dusky rooms. He tiptoed into the bedroom and dropped his coat on a chair. Humming softly, half hoping that his voice would wake her, he walked over to the bed.