Emma Donoghue - Room - A Novel

“Vultures,” says Officer Oh.

Where?

“No pictures,” shouts the man police.

What pictures? I don’t see any vultures, I only see person faces with machines flashing and black fat sticks. They’re shouting but I can’t understand. Officer Oh tries to put the blanket over my head, I push it off. Ma’s running, I’m shaking all about, we’re inside a building and it’s a thousand percent bright so I put my hand over my eyes.

The floor’s all shiny hard not like Floor, the walls are blue and more of them, it’s too loud. There’s persons everywhere not friends of mine. A thing like a spaceship all lit up with things inside all in their little squares like bags of chips and chocolate bars, I go look and try and touch but they’re locked up in the glass. Ma pulls my hand.

“This way,” says Officer Oh. “No, right in here—”

We’re in a room that’s quieter. A huge wide man says, “I do apologize about the media presence, we’ve upgraded to a trunk system but they’ve got these new tracking scanners . . .” He’s sticking out his hand. Ma puts me down and does his hand up and down like persons in TV.

“And you, sir, I understand you’ve been a remarkably courageous young man.”

That’s me he’s looking at. But he doesn’t know me and why he says I’m a man? Ma sits down in a chair that’s not our chairs and lets me in her lap. I try to rock but it’s not Rocker. Everything’s wrong.

“Now,” says the wide man, “I appreciate it’s late, and your son’s got some abrasions that need looking at, and they’re on standby for you at the Cumberland Clinic, it’s a very nice facility.”

“What kind of facility?”

“Ah, psychiatric.”

“We’re not—”

He butts in. “They’ll be able to give you all the appropriate care, it’s very private. But as a matter of priority I do need to go over your statement tonight in more detail as you’re able.”

Ma’s nodding.

“Now, certain of my lines of questioning may be distressing, would you prefer Officer Oh remain for this interview?” “Whatever, no,” says Ma, she yawns.

“Your son’s been through a lot tonight, perhaps he should wait outside while we cover, ah . . .”

But we’re in Outside already.

“That’s OK,” says Ma, wrapping the blue blanket around me. “Don’t shut it,” she says very fast to Officer Oh going out.

“Sure,” says Officer Oh, she makes the door stay halfway open.

Ma’s talking to the huge man, he’s calling her by one of her other names. I’m looking on the walls, they’ve turned creamish like no color. There’s frames with lots of words in, one with an eagle, he says The Sky’s No Limit . Somebody goes by the door, I jump. I wish it was shut. I want some so bad.

Ma pulls her T-shirt down to her pants again. “Not right this minute,” she whispers, “I’m talking to the captain.”

“And this took place — any recollection of the date?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Late January. I’d only been back at school a couple weeks . . .”

I’m still thirsty, I lift her T-shirt again and this time she puffs her breath and lets me, she curls me against her chest.

“Would you, ah, prefer . . .?” asks the Captain.

“No, let’s just carry on,” says Ma. It’s the right, there’s not much but I don’t want to climb off and switch sides because she might say that’s enough and it’s not enough.

Ma’s talking for ages about Room and Old Nick and all that, I’m too tired for listening. A she person comes in and tells the Captain something.

Ma says, “Is there a problem?”

“No no,” says the Captain.

“Then why is she staring at us?” Her arm goes around me tight. “I’m nursing my son, is that OK with you, lady?”

Maybe in Outside they don’t know about having some, it’s a secret.

Ma and the Captain talk a lot more. I’m nearly asleep but it’s too bright and I can’t get comfy.

“What is it?” she asks.

“We really have to go back to Room,” I tell her. “I need Toilet.”

“That’s OK, they’ve got them here in the precinct.”

The Captain shows us the way past the amazing machine and I touch the glass nearly at the chocolate bars. I wish I knowed the code to let them out.

There’s one two three four toilets, each in a little room inside a bigger room with four sinks and all mirrors. It’s true, toilets in Outside have lids on their tanks, I can’t look in. When Ma pees and stands up there’s awful roaring, I cry. “It’s OK,” she says, wiping my face with the flat bits of her hands, “it’s just an automatic flush. Look, the toilet sees with this little eye when we’re all done and it flushes by itself, isn’t that clever?”

I don’t like a clever toilet looking at our butts.

Ma gets me to step out of my underwear. “I pooed a bit by accident when Old Nick carried me,” I tell her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says and she does something weird, she throws my underwear in a trash.

“But—”

“You don’t need them anymore, we’ll get you new ones.”

“For Sundaytreat?”

“No, any day we like.”

That’s weird. I’d rather on a Sunday.

The faucet’s like the real ones in Room but wrong shaped. Ma turns it on, she wets paper and wipes my legs and my butt. She puts her hands under a machine, then hot air puffs out, like our vents but hotter and noisy again. “It’s a hand dryer, look, do you want to try?” She’s smiling at me but I’m too tired for smiling. “OK, just wipe your hands on your T-shirt.” Then she wraps the blue blanket around me and we go out again. I want to look in the machine where all the cans and bags and chocolate bars are in jail. But Ma pulls me along to the room where the Captain is for more talking.

After hundreds of hours Ma’s standing me up, I’m all wobbly. Sleep not in Room makes me feel sick.

We’re going to a kind of hospital, but wasn’t that the old Plan A, Sick, Truck, Hospital? Ma’s got a blue blanket around her now, I think it’s the one that was on me but that one’s still on me so hers must be a different. The patrol car looks like the same car but I don’t know, things in Outside are tricksy. I trip on the street and nearly fall but Ma grabs me.

We’re driving along. When I see a car coming I squeeze my eyes every time.

“They’re on the other side, you know,” says Ma.

“What other side?”

“See that line down the middle? They always have to stay on that side of it, and we stay on this side, so we don’t crash.” Suddenly we’re stopped. The car opens and a person with no face looks in. I’m screaming.

“Jack, Jack,” says Ma.

“It’s a zombie.”

I keep my face on her tummy.

“I’m Dr. Clay, welcome to the Cumberland,” says the no face with the deepest voice ever booming. “The mask is just to keep you safe. Want to see under?” It pulls the white bit up and a man person smiling, an extra-brown face with the tiniest triangle of black chin. He lets the mask back on, snap. His talk comes through the white. “Here’s one for each of you.”

Ma takes the masks. “Do we have to?”

“Think of everything floating around that your son’s probably never come in contact with before.”

“OK.” She puts one mask on her and one on me with loops around my ears. I don’t like the way it presses. “I don’t see anything floating around,” I whisper to Ma.

“Germs,” she says.

I thought they were only in Room, I didn’t know the world was all full of them too.

We’re walking in a big lighted building, I think it’s the Precinct again but then it’s not. There’s a somebody called the Admission Coordinator tapping on a — I know, it’s a computer, just like in TV. They all look like the persons on the medical planet, I have to keep remembering they’re real.