Jesse Ball - Samedi the Deafness

Is this the broom closet? wondered James. He took a piece of paper out of his coat pocket. The paper was very flat. It said:

Broom closet, Floor 3, Stair 7, Rear of Hospital.

He had made it through the hospital without incident. He had made it up the stairs without incident. Now he was before a closet. He presumed it was a closet. All the other rooms had numbers painted in neat black paint over dark wood. It must be, he thought.

And he opened the door.

Begin with me, said the bird. James reached out, took hold of the bird's neck and head, and gently but firmly twisted it off.

Within the little metal bird was a rolled-up piece of parchment.

It said:

I anticipate you as farmland anticipates the wilderness to come when all that's ordered is the sum of thought in a white wren's head as it flutters among red apples. Red red apples and the smell of blood.

— I saw in the distance a harbor approaching, a harbor walking arm in arm with the sea, and upon the sea great catastrophes of ships, constellations of storm and fright. Distances. How much then I knew that distance was always our greatest enemy; distance was always the obstacle that could not be overcome. Steam trains bring us closer. Airplanes. Elevators. Rockets. But how can we be beside the one we love on that particular day when it would suddenly, inexplicably, mean the most? For small distances, a street, a room, the length of an arm, these divide like a sword. They are the worst, the most devilish, the most puzzling. Ask me again when I go into the hall, will I hate to be parted from you, will I call out the moment I am finished with what I must do? Instead, my love, arrive. Arrive quietly as I finish. Surely that is within your power.

James put the book down. Carlyle was looking at him.

— That is beautiful, he said. What happens next?

— It's the book's end, said James. But I think it is a suicide. The woman is speaking to her lover who is far away.

— This taking leave of life, said Carlyle. For many it is not easy.

Carlyle was wearing a short brown jacket with dark wool pants and a white cotton shirt. He had a hat on indoors, slouched across his head, and had been writing in a book when James arrived.

— I finished reading the manual, said James. It's fascinating.

— Ah, the manual, said Carlyle. There are many opinions, like insects, about the manual. Some flutter but do not fly; some fly but do not flutter. Some stay close to the ground unmoving. It is an old book, you know. From the nineteenth century. The idea had been put into practice once, in England. But not since then, until Stark discovered it and realized it was the perfect way of treating today's illness of chronic lying. And, he thought, a sort of lovely way of living in general. At any rate, he likes it.

— Do you have all the rules memorized? asked James.

— God, no, said Carlyle. But one gets a sense of what one ought and ought not to do. After a while it becomes instinctive. Of course, every now and then there is a transgression, and when one is excited, one often doesn't count to fifteen, et cetera, but mostly, yes, the rules work just fine. It is very difficult, of course, to train the maids. But they like it very much here, I think. Certainly they get paid well. Everyone who comes into contact with this place is rewarded for it in some way.

Carlyle said this with a real belief.

I wonder if that's true, thought James.

— How did Stark make his money? he asked.

— I believe he inherited it. He's always had it, and there's never been an explanation, as long as I've known. Where he lived as a boy, these sorts of things are a mystery. He doesn't talk about himself very often. He's the kind of man who obsessively controls the work that he is upon, and thinks of it and only it.

— What is his work?

— Well, psychology, to start. But his writings are complicated and verge into social theory and other realms. He is the acting head of this hospital, the one that we are on the edge of here. It runs partly into the house, as Graham tells me you discovered in an unfortunate way.

Carlyle laughed when he said this.

— I was just trying to get some supper, said James. I didn't know where to go.

— The few of us who live here and are not patients generally eat in our rooms, or in the private dining rooms. But you know that if you've finished the manual.

James nodded.

Carlyle looked at his watch.

— I have to go. I have to meet someone.

He looked quickly at James, quickly away, and stood.

— Sorry to run off, he said.

— No worries, said James. He stood too.

Carlyle put his arm on James's shoulder.

— I like you, he said. I think we could be friends.

— I think so, said James.

— If you like, said Carlyle, I'm having supper with McHale and Grieve tonight in my room. You can come. I'll send a note.

— That would be fine, said James.

Next to the chair where Carlyle had been sitting was a pile of newspapers.

I should have a look, thought James.

Both yesterday's and today's were there. The Samedi matter was front-page news on both. There had been two more suicides and two more notes. The area of the White House was now sealed off for ten blocks in every direction.

The two men who had died were American citizens. The first, an Alfred Mitchell, had also shot himself in the face. The second name James recognized, and a chill ran up his spine.

Good God, he thought. I have been right all along.

The second man, who had poisoned himself, then staggered three blocks to die on the White House lawn, was Marvin Estrainger.

James went to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He downed it, poured himself another, and downed that. Then he began to cough. He looked around the room. He had taken the curtains off the windows and laid them all across the section of wall he knew to be the observation panel.

Let them try to look now, he thought.

and also

Why are they doing it? Why are they sending these men to die?

The two notes had been more of the same, a strange sort of puzzling rhetoric. Martin Stark, thought James. Martin Stark is Samedi.

What good was the information?

He walked to the door, opened it, shut it, walked back to the bed. The information was only useful to him if he could use it, and he realized how well they had trapped him. They knew that he would never go to the police now that he was implicated in Mayne's death.

Then a thought occurred to him. Had Mayne been ordered by Samedi to suicide just as the others had been?

But this thought passed quickly. It would have been just as easy for them to take him, James Sim, away, as to arrange the suicide of a random man. No, he had just happened to play into their hands. What a fool he'd been.

Of course, he thought, even if I decide now to go to the police, they'll never let me leave the house. I'm sure of that.

There was a knock at the door. James stepped towards it. But it was not followed by another. He reached the door, opened it. On the shelf was a note.

Supper, 9: rm. 73.

Now, thought James to himself, the only question is, who here knows what's going on, and who doesn't? Grieve seems to know. But does she know because they've told her, or because she's found out on her own? With Estrainger dead, the cat must be out of the bag for more people than just Sim. It must be obvious to everyone.