Jim Shepard - Lights Out in the Reptile House

“Where’s my brother?” she said shrilly. “Where’s Nicholas Schiele?”

“Hsh,” the nurse said. “You can’t visit anyone today.”

“ Where’s my brother ?” Leda demanded.

The woman winced and made conciliatory petting gestures at the noise. She suggested they come back Saturday.

“Where is he?” Leda shouted. The woman looked over her shoulder and back at them, biting her lip, and then produced the spatula key and opened the gate. She stopped Leda when she tried to push by. “ I’ll fetch him,” she said. “You wait here.”

“What happened here last night?” Leda asked.

The woman looked at her carefully. “You’re concerned, I know,” she said. “I’ll fetch him. I’m sure whatever happened, happened.” She was one of those adults Karel was always meeting who believed if they said something it had to mean something.

They waited in the courtyard. Leda said to herself, “I should go in there,” but stayed where she was.

A few of the patients were out, standing around, and looked at them curiously. Windows of the reception area were broken, and there was a tricycle wheel near the door. Otherwise things looked the same.

Karel looked at the patients, full of doubts. Suppose something had happened? What could they do about it? Make things worse?

An impossibly short girl walked up to them and stared, holding her doll by the foot. The doll’s head thumped through the dirt. Why was she in here? he found himself wondering. He could see nothing wrong with her.

“Did some men come last night?” Leda asked her, bending over. “Did something happen last night?”

The little girl smiled, and righted the doll and twisted its head decisively, as if she knew all about it.

“Here we are,” the nurse said, leading Nicholas out of the reception area. He looks as tired as I am, Karel thought. Probably got him out of bed, too.

Leda flew to him and hugged him. He hugged her back with one arm, rubbing an eye with the other hand.

“Hi, Leda,” he said. “You must’ve made a big stink.” He smiled.

Leda looked over his shoulder at the nurse. “Can we talk for just one second?” she asked.

The nurse, with an expression meant to convey that there was no end to the extent to which she could be taken advantage of, withdrew to a safe distance and remained there, wounded.

“What happened?” Leda said. “You’re all right?”

“I’m okay,” Nicholas said. “I don’t know what happened. I was asleep.”

“You don’t know anything?” Leda said.

“A lot of people are gone,” Nicholas said. “Mrs. Beghé, both Willems.”

“Who took them? Where’d they go?” Leda said. “Are they coming back?”

“Willem’s brother said the Civil Guard,” Nicholas said. “I don’t know, because I was asleep. Willem’s brother said he was pretending. They took the girl they just operated on. Andrea.” He pointed to his head.

Karel said, “The one with the head that was shaved? Like this?”

Nicholas said that was the one, and Karel felt his stomach shift.

“Are they coming back?” Leda said. To the nurse, who had come closer, she said, “What happened here? Is he safe?”

“Everything’s fine,” the nurse said. She seemed to feel that was her signal to come back. “And you’re to get out of here now, before I get into more trouble.”

But Leda was not to be budged until two orderlies appeared and carried her out of the courtyard. A third escorted Karel by locking his arm behind his back. Nicholas waved to them before being led back inside.

She watched her brother disappear from outside the gate and told Karel they were going to the police. He asked why.

“You don’t understand any thing, do you?” she demanded. “Don’t you get it? The Civil Guard took them, I don’t know why. But suppose nobody says anything? Suppose it’s a test? Suppose they want to see if anyone cares what happens to these people?”

“I thought of that,” Karel said, but he hadn’t. “I just meant what’s the point of going to the police.”

Leda didn’t answer. Then, halfway there, she said, “I don’t know what else to do. At least they’re not the Civil Guard. Maybe they can do something. Maybe they know something.”

But his hopes in that regard sank immediately when they entered the station. The crush he’d seen following the declaration of war was gone. The local police’s supersession by the Civil Guard and Security Service had clearly turned the station house into a backwater. The waiting room had one other customer, a shy fat man sitting as if hoping he was camouflaged by a nearby potted plant.

The sergeant on duty was eating either an early lunch or a late breakfast. It was spread before him on a sheet of waxed paper, and he eyed them when they came in as if part of his daily routine involved having his meals ruined.

Leda walked up to his desk and said, “I’d like to find out what’s going on at the Retention Hospital.”

The sergeant gazed over at Karel as if trying to connect him to an unpleasant memory. He had an unappetizing way of rinsing his mouth with milk before he swallowed it. He said, “Is it about the stolen plants?” He motioned for Karel to sit down.

“No, it’s not about stolen plants,” Leda said. “It’s about missing people.”

“A girl was in here before about stolen plants,” the sergeant said. He folded a small wedge of sandwich into his mouth. “With everything else that’s going on,” he said, mouth full.

“It’s not about plants,” Leda said, exasperated. “People are missing, kidnapped, from the hospital.”

“Kidnapped,” the sergeant said. “Hold on, here.” He moved his lunch aside by lifting the corners of the waxed paper and shifting the square over. He scanned papers that had been beneath it. Leda waited.

The fat man, as if a host, indicated for Karel a bowl of nuts on the table. Karel shook his head.

The sergeant looked up sharply and shot Karel a look. Karel attempted to return it or straighten out any misunderstanding until he realized the stupidity of what he was doing and stopped.

“Kidnapped,” the sergeant said with a little more feeling, as if it were one of those familiar and tragic stories one was always hearing: placid dog attacks baby in crib.

Karel paged through a glossy photo magazine called Community Life . It was full of beautiful black-and-white pictures of well-oiled and gleaming machine parts and thighs and backs, dramatically lit. There was a two-page spread of a woman high diver in a black bathing suit, her body an arcing T over a tiny pool below. He shut the magazine, and the fat man gestured that he’d like to see.

Leda was explaining the situation to the sergeant, who said finally, “You’ll want to speak to the lieutenant,” and left to fetch him.

The lieutenant was thin and deferential and conscious of his posture. It looked as if he resented being called out here for this. He gave the sergeant looks while he listened to Leda. The sergeant, settling back down to his lunch, refused to notice.

“So,” the lieutenant said, pleased it was only a girl, “this isn’t about a plant?”

“No, it isn’t about a plant ,” Leda said, and her voice rang through the room. The lieutenant made the same patting conciliatory motion the nurse had made. He asked what was going on then, and Leda, grimly, her teeth set, explained it again.

“Ah,” he said. “The Civil Guard.” He nodded. Leda stared at him. He was sorrowful, as if this were all a regrettable local custom or inevitable process that couldn’t be prevented. The Civil Guard just did things, he said, and informed the police afterward, if at all. Relatives complained, the police had to write to them, fill out forms, it all took forever. He said he’d complained many times and could show Leda the correspondence on the subject. He said they’d do their best in this case. He asked exactly who in her family was missing.