Дэймон Найт - Orbit 9

I lay back down and stared at the ceiling. I could hear her footsteps recede up the stairs, across the hall to her room. Lenny’s heavy tread returned and there was the sound of measured pacing. Soon, I thought. Soon it would end. And after today, after she recovered from the next few hours… She would have to remain nearby, here in this house as long as possible. Above me she was starting to dress. I was there. She didn’t doubt a presence haunting her. Nor did she question that he could force her to go away with him if he chose.

“Who?” she whispered, standing still with her eyes closed. She imagined the suppressed fury on Lenny’s big face, the pulse in his temple that beat like a primitive drum summoning him from this time back to a time when he would have killed without a thought anyone who threatened his woman. I laughed and forced his face to dissolve and run like a painting on fire.

Suddenly I was jerked from my concentration by the sound of Janet’s voice. “Where is he? How is he?”

“He’s sleeping in the study. Feverish, but not bad.” Lenny’s reassuring voice.

Janet came into the study and sat on the couch and felt my face. “Honey, I was scared to death. I called and called and no answer. I was afraid you’d passed out or something. Let me take you over to Dr. Lessing.”

“Get out,” I said without opening my eyes. “Just get out and leave me alone.” I tried to find her , and couldn’t. I was afraid to give it too much attention with Janet right there.

“I can’t just leave you like this. I’ve never seen you like this before. You need a doctor.”

“Get out of here! When I need you or want you I’ll be in touch. Just get the hell away from me now.”

“Eddie!”

“For God’s sake, Janet, can’t you leave me alone? I’ve got a virus, a bug. I feel rotten, but not sick, not sick enough for a doctor. I just want to be left alone.”

“No. It’s more serious than that. Don’t you think I know you better than that? It’s been coming on for weeks. Little things, then bigger things, now this. You have to see a doctor, Eddie. Please.”

Wearily I sat up and stared at her and wondered how I’d ever found her attractive or desirable. Freckled, thin, sharp features, razorlike bones… I turned away and said, “Get lost, Janet. Beat it. Yeah, it started a long time ago, but it takes a club over the head, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what you think I mean. I’m sick. I’m tired. I want to be alone. For a long time. Tonight. Tomorrow night. Next week. Next month. Just get out of here and leave me alone. I’ll pick up some things later on after you’ve gone to work.”

“I’m going to call Dr. Lessing.”

I looked at her and hoped I wouldn’t have to hit her. I didn’t want to hurt her, too. Her freckles stood out in relief against the dead white of her skin. I closed my eyes. “I won’t see him. Or anyone else. Not now. Maybe tomorrow. Just leave me alone for now. I have to sleep.”

She stood up and backed away. She had seen. She knew that I’d hit her if she didn’t get out. At the door she stopped, and the helplessness in her voice made me want to throw something at her. “Eddie? Will you stay here for the next hour?”

So she could bring in her men in white. I laughed and sat up. “I had planned to, but I guess I’d better plan again. I’ll be in touch.”

She left then. I could hear her voice and Lenny’s from the kitchen, but I didn’t try to make out their words. A clock chimed twelve. I wanted to go out there and throw Janet out. I didn’t want her around for the next half hour or so. I heard the back door, then the sound of a motor, and I sighed in relief.

I went to the kitchen and got coffee and stood at the window watching snow fall.

Lenny joined me. “Janet says you had a fight.”

“Yeah. I was rough on her. Sickness brings out her mother-hen instincts, and I can’t stand being fussed at. What was wrong with Christine?”

“A dream.” He stared at the snow. “Supposed to get a couple of inches by night, I think. Won’t stick long. Ground isn’t cold enough yet.”

“Lenny, for God’s sake quit kidding yourself. She’s sick. She needs professional help.”

“She thinks—she’s certain that he learned enough about her to put an end to this so-called illness. She’s desperately afraid of a relapse. Hospitalization, shock therapy…”

“What if you are causing her present condition? Isn’t it suggestive? Her husband, now you. It’s a sexual fantasy. By making her reach a decision about you, you might push her off the deep end irreversibly.”

He looked shocked. “That’s crazy.”

“Exactly. Lenny, these things are too dangerous for a well-meaning but non-professional man to toy with. You might destroy her…”

“If she was crazy you’d be making good points,” Lenny said distinctly. “She isn’t.”

I finished my coffee. A doctor. Shots, pills, all yesterday and last years and decades ago. Questions. Lost forever and forever falling. Through all the yesterdays. Lenny wants to get a doctor for you. A psychiatrist. You have to get him out of here now. Immediately. Even if it kills him .

She resisted the idea. She kept trying to visualize his face, and I wouldn’t let it take shape. Instead I drew out of her memories of the institutions she’d been in.

Lenny’s voice startled me, and I left her.

“I don’t think it’s such a good idea for you to be here when she comes down. She knows you think she’s psycho.”

I put down my cup. “Whatever you say.”

She came into the kitchen then. She was deathly pale. She had a gun in her hand. I stared at it. “Where… ?”

She looked at it too, looked at it in a puzzled manner. “I had it in my car when I came here,” she said. “I found it when I was unpacking and I put it upstairs in my room. I just remembered.”

“Give it to me,” Lenny said. He held out his hand and she put the small automatic in it.

I sighed my relief. That was the last thing I wanted her to do. She’d be locked up the rest of her life. Now if I could make her drive him out, maybe he’d use it himself.

Lenny kept his hand in his pocket, over the gun. “Why were you thinking of guns right now? Where was this?”

“In my train case. I told you…” She glanced at me and I turned my back to stare at the snow again. I was watching my own back then, and seeing Lenny’s face and the kitchen that I was keeping in focus only through great effort. “I told you,” she said again. “If he makes me go back with him, I’ll have no choice.” I made her add, “The only way I escaped from Karl was through his death.” She shuddered, and an image of Karl’s face swam before her eyes. It was contorted with pain and fear. It was replaced by another face, Lenny’s, also contorted by pain and fear. And the image of a hospital ward, and a doctor. And I watched his face change and become my own face. The image dimmed and blurred as I tried to force it away, and she fought to retain it. The concrete corridor was there. She forced the image of a man backward through the corridor, grey walls and ceiling and floor all one, no up and no down, just the cylinder that was growing smaller and smaller. I tried to pull away, and again there was a duel as she fought to keep the imagery. Cliffs, I thought. Crumbling edges, falling… Hospital, shots, electroshock…

“Chris, what is it?” Lenny’s voice, as if from another world, faint, almost unrecognizable.

“I don’t know. Just hold me. Please.”

Cliffs… Exploding pain in my chest suddenly. Burning pain in my shoulder, my arm. Darkness. Losing her, finding her again. Losing…

“You!” Her voice coarse, harsh with disbelief. I turned from the window clutching my chest. The room was spinning and there was nothing to hold on to. Let go. They’ll lock you up . Pain.