Stacey Levine - Dra-

Remembering all this as she lay torpidly in the hallway, breathing, blinking into the crook of her arm, hearing the soughing sounds of a nearby air regulator, Dra— wondered where Dr. Billy had come from, and if he was even real; she wondered how she could have waited against the air grille all that strange afternoon, listening so intently, and watching out for something else which she desired vastly but would not recognize until she had seen it, though evidently, she had not seen it.

Now that day was gone, though she could still see the way the doctor hunched on the stool, hands hanging between his legs, and how he rose and walked away in nearly the same halting, abstracted manner as the small woman who at this moment was walking through the far end of the hallway, seeming to head straight toward her. And with an onrush of alarm Dra— sat up, knowing as if with instinct that it was her Administrator.

Floundering to her feet, Dra— fashioned a quick wave, feeling faint, gazing at the woman who was, after all, immeasurably important, and yet who, with her small frame and rather jerky gait, seemed to possess much less stature and prominence than expected. Approaching, the Administrator gave an awkward wave back. She wore moccasins, and draping her thinness was a light, limp dress so impossibly filled with flowers that Dra— began to cry.

As the Administrator arrived, she linked her hands with Dra—’s, holding the mass of their scaly red flesh near her eyes and staring at it with consternation before flinging it all down again and saying, “Hello! I am Mrs. Covers,” then sneezing violently. Gawky, the woman moved away, gesturing widely and tripping. As her thin fingers moved through the air she looked at Dra—, adding, “And it’s a thrill to meet someone as tiny as I am!”

The Administrator’s face, she noted, was kindly and warm. On thin, flexing legs, the woman stepped toward a door behind her as Dra— followed through the narrow passage with its low ceiling and omnipresent hissing of pipes.

The Administrator stopped. “Aren’t you almost insane for want of water? Most are. ‘We like to find water whenever we can,” ’ she sang abruptly in a small voice. “I love that song, don’t you? Of course we’ll find water, you can be sure.” She stared for a moment. “You know never to bathe in it, don’t you?”

They entered another passageway with a staircase that did not ascend or descend, but instead lay sideways on the floor, so that, bent, they had to take intricate, picking steps in order to pass over it.

It would be prudent, Dra— decided then, to take this opportunity to inform the Administrator about her work history and training, which, though meager, she now began to say, was shored up by a well-tempered yet ferocious desire to work regularly at any sort of job, clerical or otherwise; and she added that though she sometimes floated into a kind of paralysis while on the job, she was generally competent, and could answer telephones and use maps; she was also well-familiar with record-keeping, owing to a grim daily diary of bowel habits she had maintained for several years in a row.

The Administrator continued to lead the way through the hall. “Why is it that when people begin talking together, a thousand doors swing open and it’s all so exciting and rich that one becomes lost and wants to die just from happiness?”

Dra— made no reply, though the Administrator continued without pause, “On the other hand, can we really be held accountable for everything we say or for the primitive nature of speech itself?” while patting her palms together rhythmically. “Oh, we’ll talk anyway, won’t we? We’ll talk about longing and repletion and that hollow, withering feeling one gets when answering a telephone; or you could tell me about the food and eating problems you have; or why, for the life of you, you can’t remember your mother.”

Staring ahead through the dim, stuffy hall, groaning once to herself as they passed a pile of odorous, dark-soiled plastic sheeting, Dra— otherwise remained quiet, noticing, as she breathed, the faint sound of the whistling in her chest. She began to long painfully for the warm, lanky woman in the dressing gown and her man; and thinking sentimentally of the moments she had lain with them on the hallway floor, sunk in sleep, her eyes teared. She wanted to ask the Administrator’s permission to retreat through the passageways to find them, but she could not remember their names, nor scarcely what they looked like, so her only recourse was to follow the Administrator and continue longing for them, which was actually steadying in its way, for the longing seemed both to whet and satiate itself.

The Administrator turned to face her. “Do you know this morning I saw a swallow?” the woman said and smiled, eyes crossed slightly in pleasure.

In silence they tracked through further spokelike hallways, possibly, Dra— began to hope, now rather hungry, toward the cafeteria with its rows of partitions and light bulbs suspended from the ceilings by cords. But as they drew nearer to the cafeteria, the Administrator walked straight past its entranceway which, in any case, was sealed by caulk.

Instead, they moved up a stair which fed into a room containing two chairs and small, high window through which a blackness like night’s showed through.

The Administrator fell clumsily into a chair and smiled vaguely at Dra—, who began to sob with the long-unreleased tension of waiting for the woman who was at last here, and who was indeed different than others had let on, with her strange clothing and oily, flat hair. Lowering herself into a chair opposite the Administrator, placing her palms to her damp face, Dra— suddenly remembered that decades before, a bucket of sand had been upended on her head by another little girl.

In a few minutes the sobbing ebbed, and the Administrator leaned forward. “Let’s talk,” she said, as Dra— looked at the woman’s feet, thin and set apart on the slanted floor.

Eyes still leaking, Dra— demanded suddenly, angrily, “Where have you been?” with seething tension and hostility.

“Where do you imagine I’ve been?” the Administrator said sweetly.

“I was supposed to meet you ages ago! You were supposed to train me for work. But I missed our appointment at the station—”

“You did?”

“—and it was all terrible, and now I have so many things to ask … and …” she panted in anger.

“What things?” the woman asked quizzically.

She waited, then answered mournfully, “Well, I don’t know! It’s about work. And about my difficulties.”

“Difficulties? What difficulties?”

“Oh, I don’t know! With needs,” she managed.

“You have difficulties with needs?”

“Yes. And with feelings …”

“What on earth does that mean?” the Administrator asked.

“Well, I don’t like them very much.”

“Ah, my girl!”

Pleased with the attention the Administrator was paying her, she ran her fingers through her hair at the back of her skull, attempting to prettify it.

“Who enjoys those awful things we call ‘needs,’ or even feelings, for that matter?” the Administrator said, her face both smiling and a mass of worried lines. “Why, no one, really. Who can blame you?” She shifted a hip in her chair. “Let me tell you something. Most girls miss their administrators deeply in their hearts, do you know, even when that administrator is standing right beside them, leafing through a magazine. Girls so often grow sad, isn’t it strange? But it’s true.”

Dra— sat up. “I didn’t miss you deeply in my heart!”

“And girls frequently grow angry and ill with headaches and — in your case — go to see Dr. Billy for treatments!”

“I didn’t see Dr. Billy!”