William Bernhardt - Primary Justice

At a quarter to ten, the nurse stepped out of the elevator feeding the sunken parking garage of the apartment complex. Her feet clubbed the pavement. She walked through the garage, then stepped into a yellow Nova and started the engine.

Ben waited a full five minutes after she had driven away before he stepped out of his car. A matter of caution, he told himself, but he knew he was really just drumming up the nerve. He hopped a brick wall, walked into the sunken parking garage, and punched the elevator button. He rode the elevator to the seventh floor.

Quietly, taking care not to attract attention, he walked the short distance to apartment 724. He knocked sharply on the door. He knew she wouldn’t answer, but the suburbs in him made him try, just to be polite. He knocked again.

No answer.

He had examined the simple lock earlier, when he was inside. Later he’d driven to a pay phone, called Greg, and had a brief conversation about push-button door locks. It sounded simple enough.

He withdrew the Citibank MasterCard from his wallet and slid it between the edge of the door and the wall, just below the lock. He wedged the card beneath the lower end of the tongue. One sharp slice, and a quiet popping noise told him the lock was sprung. Simple. Most bathrooms were better protected. He stepped into the apartment.

“Hello?”

The apartment was dark except for the light of a single lamp burning in the room at the far end of the hallway. He saw a dark figure moving in the shadows and then, a moment later, she stepped into the hallway.

Ben flipped on the lights. Catherine could not have reacted faster if he had hit her knee with a hammer. She fell back, clutching the wall with one hand. Her eyes expanded to three times their previous size. She breathed with sharp, painful gulps of air.

And yet, she did not scream. She did not run. She stared at him with uncomprehending eyes. She did not seem to recognize him but, after a moment, she did not seem afraid of him either.

Ben took a step closer. He had not meant to startle her. He had to do something fast to put her at ease.

“I’m here to help you,” he said quickly. He wished he could take it back. Sounded like something out of a fairy tale—knight in shining armor here to save the damsel in distress. He took another step closer.

“Daddy?” she asked. She had a high-pitched, uncertain voice, the voice of a child. Ben wondered how many times she used it in the course of a day. Or a week. Or a year. She was wearing a dingy blue bathrobe, tattered and pocked with holes and dried food stains. She pulled the robe tightly around her body.

“No,” he answered quietly. “I’m not Daddy. But I’m your friend—I want to help. I knocked on the door, but no one answered, so I let myself in.”

She stared at him, puzzled, as if he were speaking in a foreign language. Her initial rush began to fade; her eyes seemed droopy and tired.

“I was here this afternoon. Remember?” He was standing directly in front of her now. Her dark hair was stringy and matted; it hadn’t been washed for weeks. Her pale face was smudged and dirty.

She continued to stare at him. “Are you Harriet’s helper?” she asked.

“Yes,” Ben said quickly. “That’s it. I’m her new helper.”

“Harriet told me to sleep. But I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid.” The pained look crept back into her eyes. “Daddy might come for a visit.”

Ben sat down on the love seat next to the sofa. He gestured for her to sit on the sofa, but she hung back in the hallway, clutching her bathrobe.

He knew he needed to gain her confidence or he would get nowhere. “Do you like poems, Catherine?”

She nodded slightly.

“I do,” he continued. “Do you know this one? ‘To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee/One clover, and a bee/And reverie.’ ”

“ ‘The reverie alone will do,’ ” Catherine said slowly, “ ‘if bees are few.’ ”

I was right, Ben thought. “Catherine, I know Harriet was very busy tonight—maybe she didn’t get to do everything you wanted her to do. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Can I have a bath?” she asked quietly, without looking at him. Although Ben sat only a few feet from her, her eyes couldn’t seem to focus on him. “Harriet left, but I didn’t get a bath.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “She almost never lets me anymore.”

“Of course you can have a bath. I’ll run the water.” Ben stood and walked toward Catherine and the hallway. She did not move away from him. Her expression was of almost palpable sadness. Sadness and exhaustion.

He took a wisp of her straggly black hair in his hand and brushed it away from her face. Then he walked into the bathroom, flipped on the light, and started running the water. After a few moments, Catherine timidly followed him into the bathroom.

“How hot do you like it?” he asked. She looked at him as if he were speaking gibberish. He adjusted the knobs for a medium-warm temperature.

“That’s enough,” she said. She reached past him and turned off the faucets. The tub held perhaps three inches of water. “I’ll need a towel.”

“Are you sure that’s enough?” Ben asked. Catherine did not answer. She began to remove her bathrobe. “I’ll go out and … find you a towel,” Ben said, embarrassed. He stepped out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Ben found the linen closet and removed a white towel. He stepped into the bedroom and checked the dresser drawers. No panties or bras—no undergarments at all. No ornaments or photos or any other indication that a person actually lived there. On the nightstand next to the bed, Ben found a small book of poems by Emily Dickinson and four large bottles of pills, two of them about half empty. He read the labels, but it was all pharmaceutical Greek to him. Sleeping pills, he guessed, or maybe tranquilizers. Four different kinds.

He carried the towel back to the bathroom door. On the floor, outside the door, he saw Catherine’s bathrobe tossed in a heap, next to a brown towel. He bent down to pick them up, then stopped. The towel stank abominably, like the worst smell from the worst sewer from Ben’s worst nightmare. The towel was knotted on both ends, like a diaper.

“Don’t you have any”—he paused, searching for the right word—“undergarments?”

“No,” Catherine said from inside the bathroom. She was still whispering. “Harriet couldn’t buy any. It would attract attention. Daddy’s spies are everywhere. Making sure I’m good.”

Ben glanced through the crack in the door and saw Catherine’s reflection in the mirror. She was standing naked in the tub. The water barely covered her ankle.

“Is the water too hot?” he asked through the door.

“It’s fine, thank you.”

“But … why are you standing? Why don’t you sit down?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I could fall asleep and drown and die. It happens every day. Daddy says.”

Ben looked away from the bathroom. “My God,” he murmured under his breath. “What have they done to you?”

“I’m ready to get out now.” Ben heard the sound of water splashing as she stepped out of the tub. He handed the clean towel through the door and, a moment later, handed through her bathrobe.

She stepped outside. The smudges on her face were still there, perhaps smeared, perhaps a bit faded. Her eyes were red and bloodshot and tired. Ben held her by her upper arms and, to his surprise, she did not shrink away.

“Look, Catherine,” he said, “I’m going to take you out of here.”

“No!” she cried, horror-struck.

“For God’s sake, why not?”

“He’ll find out! He’ll find out!” She was breathing heavily again, punctuating her words with desperate gasping noises. “He’ll kill her! I have to stay here and be good. I have to prove it’s safe for him to bring her back.” Her hands pushed against Ben’s chest.