The Neurosis of Containment
The rest of that week I roamed the crags of Block Island collecting pebbles and wondering about Mrs. Livesday. Had she gone mad? What had hairbrushes to do with spirit? Clearly hairbrushes, linens, and shoes were worldly artifacts. Once I attempted to squelch her for good by saying in my most imperious tone: “There are no linens, hairbrushes, or combs in Heaven!”
“Poor creature,” had been her response, before retracting into a silence unlike her. “No. I suppose not.” Before we separated for the night she addled me one last time: “Gertrude,” she said, “why were you never a flapper? Had I been your age…” She trailed off and then: “Oh! Imagine! To have been a flapper!”
The key to my room in Barrytown was very small—like the key to a child’s music box—and when I opened the door and saw Mrs. Livesday’s collection of family dolls nested down in ancient perambulators, I thought the key’s size most appropriate. One of the dolls was black—a rarity in any collection. Black people were a rarity in those days, too, at least within the circle in which I moved. Missionary friends in Africa saw them in droves, of course, and once Mrs. Livesday had thrown an eccentric garden party for the Episcopal clergy and friends of the mission work to which—to my astonishment and discomfiture—a number of Negroes came. As I had previously offered to pour, I found myself in the preposterous position of pouring tea for potential cannibals.
Mrs. Livesday’s black poppet was a pretty thing, idealized, its expression sweet and its clothes—if faded with age—trim. As with her tea guests, not one button was missing from the little shirt and trousers; the doll even wore shoes. I am a spinster, and it occurred to me that putting me up in this particular room demonstrated a certain insensitivity on Mrs. Livesday’s part.
In a recent letter, my dear friend Deacon Hill, who was living among the Kaffirs in Kaffirland, described the marriage customs of that country and included a little sketch of Oz, the chief of the Zulus, in ordinary dress—or, dare I say it, undress—for as far as I could tell, Mr. Oz wore little else than a feather duster. I recall being not a little surprised when I opened Deacon Hill’s envelope and the sketch fell out. The sketch proved Deacon Hill’s imperfect judgment—the result, I suppose, of living among savages for longer than any civilized person should. I was outraged. But his letter proved fascinating and I read it despite myself. The Deacon described domestic polity in Kaffirland and I learned that Oz, who perambulated in nothing but a handful of turkey feathers, had an illimitable number of wives! The Deacon had enclosed a photograph: a gaggle of wives all sitting on their heels in rows, bowls of porridge incongruously set before them—perhaps to illustrate a racial propensity for overindulgence. Standing among several dozen dolls, all white and female but for one little black fellow trussed up in striped trousers, I could not help but think I had been spirited away to a Kaffir harem—a conceit I imagined would surely amuse Deacon Hill as I was a spinster of forty-two with no intention of marrying, not ever. In his letter the Deacon instructed me that in Kaffirland each wife has her own hut.
“Tell Oz,” I wrote to Deacon Hill that evening in reply, “that I am already an integral member of a harem in Barrytown and have no intention of giving my heart to Oz—even though he has apparently (reading between the lines) offered me a hut of my very own and. as I gather from the photograph, my very own bowl of porridge, and even though it is all too true that my own Bambola has his harem packed together in one small room—two or three to a perambulator!”
That night I was plagued by a peculiar ringing deep within my left ear—or, perhaps, the brain. It was impossible to tell although I concentrated on it for hours. The absurd question how many angels can dance on a pin came to mind although it was easier to imagine infinitesimal devils wearing tin shoes and crashing cymbals any which way. Once I had that idea—of devils cavorting within my inner ear, or tucked away in a corner of my brain—I was submerged by anxiety and unable to sleep. Turning on the bedside light, I was further dismayed by the sight of Mrs. Livesday’s dolls, their porcelain eyes smoldering in the shadows.
When at last I slept—and this thanks to a summer shower, soothed as I was by the patter of rain upon the roof and the windowpanes—I dreamed unpleasant dreams apparently, for I awoke troubled, my temper frayed, the strange words Time’s flies buzzing in my mind. I recalled that the old cemetery was just beyond Mrs. Livesday’s garden and what else could Time’s flies be but the things that swarm about a cadaver? I feared I breathed a tainted atmosphere and got out of bed to take from my travel case a bottle of fine cologne. I dabbed at my temples, deeply inhaling, before, exhausted, falling back upon my pillow, thinking to catch a few minutes’ repose before breakfast. And then I heard it again and it came to me that I might be the aural witness to the wheels of my own thought—the genesis of thought, so to speak. But were this the case, those wheels needed greasing, for the brittle clashing was chaotic—no rhythm discernible at all. Yet it was persistent—busy and incalculable as bacilli. This noise was a poisonous thing, demanding all my attention. I sent my mind ranging through the week’s occupations: tasks performed, books read, conversations with my sister, et cetera, and yet always came back to that infernal chamber music. And whether my pulse stilled or quickened, the clatter had a life of its own and paid my pulse no mind.
The sun had long been up and I had arranged to meet my hostess at seven-thirty for breakfast. I chose a white linen blouse and a beige linen skirt—both in need of pressing— scrubbed my face until it shone pink, pulled a comb through my hair, and put on a pair of comfortable shoes as it was a habit of Mrs. Livesday’s to take a long walk after breakfast.
