Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

Fearfully, Harriet glanced over her shoulder. But the hall was empty. She reached down and touched her knee, which hurt from skidding on the floor. She’d been running from somebody; she’d fallen and hurt herself; that part was true, not something she’d dreamed.

Nurse Bonnie was disengaging Harriet from Edie. Nurse Bonnie was leading Harriet back to the curtained room…. Nurse Bonnie was unlatching a cabinet, filling a syringe from a little glass bottle….

“ Edie ,” screamed Harriet.

“Harriet?” Edie poked her head through the curtain. “Don’t be silly, it’s just a shot.”

Her voice sent Harriet into a fresh hiccuping of tears. “Edie,” she said, “Edie, take me home. I’m scared. I’m scared. I can’t stay here. Those people are after me. I—”

She turned her head; she winced as the nurse pushed the needle in her arm. Then she was sliding off the table but the nurse seized her wrist. “No, we’re not finished yet, honey.”

“Edie? I … No, I don’t want that ,” she said, recoiling from Nurse Bonnie, who had circled to the other side and was coming at her with a new syringe.

Politely, but without much amusement, the nurse laughed at this, while casting her eyes over to Edie for assistance.

“I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want to go to sleep,” Harriet cried, all at once surrounded, shrugging off Edie on the one side and Nurse Bonnie’s soft, insistent, gold-ringed grasp on the other. “I’m afraid! I’m—”

“Not of this little needle , sweet.” Nurse Bonnie’s voice—soothing at first—had turned cool and a little frightening. “Don’t be silly. Just a little pinch and—”

Edie said: “Well, I’m just going to run home—”

“EDIE!”

“Let’s keep our voice down, sugar,” said the nurse, as she stuck the needle in Harriet’s arm and pushed the plunger home.

“Edie! No! They’re here! Don’t leave me! Don’t—”

“I’ll be back —Listen to me,” said Edie, raising her chin, her voice cutting sharp and efficient above Harriet’s panicked blithering. “I’ve got to take Allison home and then I’ll just stop at my house for a few things.” She turned to the nurse. “Will you set up a cot in her room?”

“Certainly, ma'am.”

Harriet rubbed the stung place on her arm. Cot . The word had a comforting, nursery sound, like poppet , like cotton , like Harriet’s old baby nickname: Hottentot . She could almost taste it on her tongue, that round, sweet word: smooth and hard, dark like a malted milk ball.

She smiled at the smiling faces around the table.

“Somebody’s sleepy now ,” she heard Nurse Bonnie say.

Where was Edie? Harriet fought hard to keep her eyes open. Immense skies weighed upon her, clouds rushing in a fabulous darkness. Harriet closed her eyes, and saw tree branches tossing, and before she knew it she was asleep.

Eugene roamed the chilly halls, hands clasped behind his back. When at last an orderly arrived, and wheeled the child out of the examination room, he sauntered behind at a safe distance to see where they took her.

The orderly stopped by the elevator and pressed the button. Eugene turned and went back down the hall to the stairs. Emerging from the echoing stairwell, on the second floor, he heard the bell ding and then, down the hall, the gurney emerged feet-first through the stainless-steel doors, the orderly maneuvering at the head.

Down the hall they glided. Eugene closed the metal fire door as quietly as he could and—shoes clicking—strolled after them at a discreet distance. From a safe remove, he took note of the room they turned into. Then he wandered away, back towards the elevator, and had a long look at an exhibition of children’s drawings pinned on the bulletin board, also at the illumined candies in the humming snack machine.

He’d always heard it said that dogs howled before an earthquake. Well, lately: when anything bad had happened, or was about to, this black-headed child was somewhere close by. And it was the child: no question. He’d got a good long look at her out in front of the Mission, the night he got bit.

And here she was again. Casually, he passed by her open door and stole a brief glance inside. A low light glowed from a ceiling recess, deepening gradually into shadow. Little was visible in the bed but a small huddle of covers. Above—up towards the light, like a jellyfish hanging in still water—floated a translucent IV bag of clear fluid with a tentacle trailing down.

Eugene walked to the water fountain, had a drink, stood around for a while examining a display for the March of Dimes. From his post, he watched a nurse come and go. But when Eugene moseyed up to the room again, and stuck his head in at the open door, he saw that the girl was not alone. A black orderly was fussing about, setting up a cot, and he was not at all responsive to Eugene’s questions.

Eugene loitered, trying not to look too conspicuous (though of course that was difficult, in the empty hall), and when, at last, he saw the nurse returning with her arms full of sheets, he stopped her going in the door.

“Who is thet child in there?” he asked, in his friendliest voice.

“Harriet’s her name. Belongs to some people named Dufresnes.”

“Ah.” The name rang a bell; he wasn’t sure why. He looked past the nurse, into the room. “Ain't she got nobody with her?”

“I haven’t seen the parents, only the grandmother.” The nurse turned, with an air of finality.

“Pore little thing,” said Eugene, reluctant to let the conversation go, putting his head in the door. “What’s the matter with her?”

Before she said a word, Eugene knew from the look on her face that he’d gone too far. “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to give out that information.”

Eugene smiled, engagingly he hoped. “You know,” he said, “I know this mark on my face ain’t very handsome. But it don’t make me a bad person.”

Women tended to cave in a little when Eugene referred to his infirmity, but the nurse only looked at him as if he’d said something in Spanish.

“Just asking,” said Eugene, amiably, holding up a hand. “Sorry to bother you. Ma'am,” he said, stepping after her. But the nurse was busy with the sheets. He thought of offering to help, but the set of her back warned him that he’d better not push his luck.

Eugene drifted back towards the candy machine. Dufresnes . Why did he know that name? Farish was the person to ask about this sort of thing; Farish knew who was who in town; Farish remembered addresses, family connections, scandals, everything. But Farish was downstairs lying in a coma and not expected to live the night.

Across from the elevator, Eugene stopped at the nurse’s station: nobody there. He leaned for a while on the counter and—pretending to inspect a photo collage, a spider plant in a gift basket—he waited. Dufresnes . Even before his word with the nurse, the episode in the hallway (and particularly the old lady, whose crispness reeked money and Baptist position) had convinced him that the child wasn’t one of Odum’s—and this was too bad, because if the girl belonged to Odum, it would have fit neatly with certain of his suspicions. Odum had good reason to get back at Farish and Danny.

Presently, the nurse emerged from the child’s room—and when she did, she gave Eugene a look. She was a pretty girl but all reddened up with lipstick and paint like the horse’s ass. Eugene turned—casually, with a casual wave—and then sauntered off back down the hall and down the stairs, past the night nurse (desk light shining spookily up into her face), down to the windowless waiting room for Intensive Care, where the shaded lamps glowed round-the-clock with a muted glow, where Gum and Curtis slept on the couch. There was no point in hanging around upstairs and calling attention to himself. He would go back upstairs once that painted-up whore went off shift.