Hubert Haddad - Rochester Knockings - A Novel of the Fox Sisters

“Rid me of this horror,” she said.

Not knowing if she was addressing him or her cat, Lucian picked the fly up between two fingers and without even thinking ate it.

The big house on Central Avenue had lost its copper plaque with the Fox & Fish Spiritualist Institute insignia as well as some of its furniture, which was distributed to relatives. The two younger Fox sisters were living there temporarily — though Margaret was currently on tour in Philadelphia along with Leah’s ex-manager. Kate sat grieving over this abrupt dislocation of the restless and complicit little family world she had known. Disciples and supporters had quietly returned to their churches, or had joined propaganda societies; some of them had set out on their own, increasing the army of mediums that crossed America and Europe by the hundreds to appear before crowds of converts, believers, and supporters who these days numbered in the millions. Now a pythoness adored in Washington, Wanda Jedna carried on her same divine plan in the battle for universal emancipation. For the living as well as spirits, there could be no segregation. Many of Leah’s companions had taken their leave, encouraged by recent theories positing that the gift of mediumship was available to every soul. If with a little study every Puritan could become minister of a cult or another sect of the reformed church, it was even easier to take part in the spiritualist doctrine since no certified congregation could limit the practice. And the spontaneous conversions were by now far too many to count. Spiritualist networks scattered throughout organized private séances, mediumistic seminars, and group camps — like Onset Bay Grove or Lake Pleasant in Massachusetts, the Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp in Wisconsin, and even Lily Dale not far from Rochester — where fervent crowds often coming from very far away congregated, in the manner of those great Puritan meetings that came out of the Revolutionary War.

There was hardly anyone left but the Catholics to ostracize the new faith. The archbishop of Quebec or Paris hurled anathemas at the necromancer wave that was fast outpacing the baptisteries. The Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition condemned for its part the use of magnetism and other methods of divination. Talking tables were commerce with the devil. It was the devil himself responding to their trances and invocations.

Kate doesn’t open the anonymous death threats addressed to the three sisters any more than the uncountable letters from learned societies, mystic factions, or of single individuals anxious to confess, a number of whom were melancholics, maniacs, or other fanatics stricken with insanity. From all over the world came these requests for long-distance divination with scraps of fabric, strands of hair, or photographs to help — and the hope of receiving news from their dear departed by return mail.

While waiting for a sign from her sisters, Kate sorted piles of paper and hovered half-asleep over her notebooks. She hardly received anyone anymore, except the occasional relative, leaving Maggie in charge of paying the bills and Janet in charge of housekeeping. Maggie seemed delighted about her stay in Philadelphia, according to the single letter that had reached her, after more than a month: her handwriting was beautiful, that of a passionate being, leaning into the wind of inspiration and oddly riddled with details about the public demonstrations, galas in progressivist circles, and other notable encounters, like the worried joy of a child surrounded by all the colored paper ripped from her presents. There was the question of two or three mentions of a certain Elisha Kane, a doctor by profession and explorer, with whom she’d had exchanges as fierce as they were friendly. Thus she declared: “Mr. Kane is an unbearable rationalist. He claims that there is nothing true in our practices.” And a few lines later, “This dear Mr. Kane showed himself to be a perfect gentlemen in ushering a clique of unbelieving Puritans away from me.”

This very night, Kate had reread several times the single letter from Maggie, a bitter smile at her lips, thinking of the shadows that were about to extend under the high ceilings and how she wouldn’t have the courage to confront the maid hiding in the kitchen by ordering her to light all the lamps. A weariness had taken hold of her like it had done in Hydesville. She wandered through the house for hours with an intense feeling of dispossession. Soon to turn eighteen, she felt old, completely forsaken from the inside. Between the death of her young brother and then of her mother, blocks of nothingness had crossed through her; now the dead pursued her mercilessly, little white souls, demons, octopi in tears over a repeated drama, detached hands grasping daggers sharp with grief. She didn’t want to hear the lamenting widows of the world confronting the grave anymore. In a matter of a few years, this naughty game of little girls had shaken the foundations of Puritan society; but was it her fault that most grown ups didn’t really exist, that they were puppets frightened by their own living image? How could a child more alive than fire and water be transformed one day into this scarecrow of God? Patchworks of cadaverous things, all adults had a little of bit of Frankenstein in them.

Kate was wearing her only fancy dress, brilliant with embroidered flowers. Barefoot, she went through each of the rooms with a slight shudder of terror. What she was feeling had no name in English, and she doubted it had a word even in Enochian, the supposed language of angels. A sort of rippling undulation was coming from objects and particular spaces: it seemed to her that the times lived by others here and there manifested themselves to her in a thousand mute innuendos. What advantage was there having this paroxysmal vulnerability? A kind of sponge more innervated than the cornea, ready to fill until soaked by the least impression, that’s how it felt to her in the worst moments. Quite despite herself, a dull pain at each moment, nothing escaped her senses, not the twitch of an eye, not the belated private sigh of an admission. From an out of place chair or a particular shift of dust motes in a luminous ray, she induced intentions or unsuspected events. Which didn’t prevent her from being dismayed at her own lack of culture and ignorance about the things of life, like love and sexuality. Seeing other people love and desire each other taught her nothing about herself. She stopped with curiosity in front of the big mirror in Leah’s otherwise empty bedroom. Was she pretty or seductive, would someone one day want to unbutton her dress and undergarments? She started to laugh, twirling, and ran to an adjoining door. Her brother David and her cousins had pillaged her mother’s bedroom after her funeral, but a negligible remainder was spread on the chimney mantel and in the corners, enough to ignite flares of emotion in the young girl’s face. These little items had belonged to the old woman as much as the spots on her hands and her wrinkles when she smiled. Knitting needles in a skein of wool, a pair of well-worn slippers, and a bandage for her varicose veins all brought the indivisible effect of her presence to Kate. She staggered while sobbing.

“Little Mother, where are you?” she implored in a tiny voice.

Something trembled around her. Was it the Rochester night, with its red and black tentacles? Alert, she stood petrified, arms drawn up close to her chest, pupils dilated. The pair of slippers had moved, she saw it without seeing it, the right one moved in front of the other, taking turns very slowly with the left one and so on in a simple movement of walking. The long needles flew up with the yarn and started to stitch above the slippers like the mandibles of a beetle or crab. This lasted an indefinite time before the light of the full moon supplanted the night’s darkness. Then came the sonorous knocks, like a box being nailed shut. Suddenly dizzy, Kate could no longer feel her legs. In a cottony listlessness, she fell to her knees and patted the floor with both hands. Janet called to her from below in a shrill voice. Coming back to herself, the young woman fled the room and stumbled into the staircase at the end of the hallway.