Fantastic Metropolis

 

for Dorothy Wallace

 

What I am about to relate took place in the late summer of 1930 when, a woman of middle age, I was a guest at the house of Mrs. Livesday in Barrytown-on-Hudson. The house was destroyed the following year in a freak storm that lasted under an hour and yet devastated the village and woodland. No one was harmed, and Mrs. Livesday, her vigor untrammeled, simply took up housekeeping in her summer home on Block Island—not a small feat for a woman in her eighties.

A self-taught student of botany, I had spent the previous summer in Mrs. Livesday’s company on the island, hunting down rare specimens and pressing them between prepared papers. I also collected seeds—upon Mrs. Livesday’s encouragement: of field poppy, chicweed, nigella, et cetera; and pinecones, the samara of the maple and elm. Some seeds are smooth and others rough and wrinkled; the seed of the field poppy is honeycombed with alveolate depressions. I set the seeds in cotton from the pharmacy.

Although a Christian and a woman of common sense, Mrs. Livesday had been reading the Jew, Freud. Certain arcane words and phrases—cabalistic, very pagan—peppered her conversation—always lively—so that speaking with her was now more than ever like eating borscht. That summer on Block Island I heard for the first time psychical unpleasure and obsessional neurotic. And although these terms were addressed to me—“There goes Gertrude Hubble once again indulging in psychical unpleasure!” or, “May I introduce you to my friend Gertrude Hubble, one of my favorite obsessional neurotics?”—they were always said with an affectionate tone. In other words, I did not take Mrs. Livesday’s latest enthusiasm seriously. (I believe it is a mistake to take Jewish ideas seriously.) When I came down to dinner with my boxes of seeds neatly sown in sterile cotton in impeccable rows, Mrs. Livesday turned to Cobb—who at that moment had brought a large tureen of veal-bone broth to the table—and said: “Cobb, look at these latest efforts of Gertrude’s and tell me: might they be said to illustrate a neurosis of containment?”

Despite the fact that I, too, am Christian, that Mrs. Livesday was both a great deal older than myself and my hostess, my dander was up.

“These little collections,” I said, “lovingly arranged are nay more than seeds, Mrs. Livesday. I fear your gracious mind has been addled by Semitic tomfoolery!”

“No! No!” she replied with such earnest good nature that I was at once reduced to shame, “They are charming, dear—there is no doubt about that. Very prettily executed. You do everything with skill, Gertrude, and these collections are no exception to that rule. But, you see, Cobb and I were talking in the kitchen about pathological phenomena” (inwardly I rolled my eyes, my temper fraying anew) “and how anxiety is often revealed by attempts to order and to contain the world, Anxiety is the product of chaos—or, rather, of the fear of chaos—and what could be more chaotic than the natural world? So we attempt to order it: just look at Cobb’s spice rack! Yes! Yes! I know I’m being silly. But, for example, think of the way you lay out your combs and brushes as though they were schoolchildren or dead matter: bones, fossil fish on exhibit in a museum! One, two, three—run up to your dresser, Gertrude, and there they will be! Lined up: big brush, little brush, comb next—lined up as if for execution! Don’t look at me like that. So are your shoes!”

I was scandalized, How did she know about my shoes? I was outraged. Cobb offered to serve me a slice of chicken pie and despite its fragrancy I shook my head, frowning for all I was worth.

“You are wanting pleasure, Gertrude,” Mrs. Livesday prodded her butler on. “Do serve our guest some pie. It is too easy to ruffle your feathers, my dear,” she said kindly. “And so that you won’t think otherwise, I didn’t go up to your room to spy. Call it intuition!”

“I was brought up to be an orderly person,” I said next. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Yes! Yes!” She tore into her bread with such ferocity I was startled. “But suppose it all means something.” I was dumbfounded, my temples throbbing. “Suppose those shoes and those brushes in their rigorous rows, and the perfectly folded linens in the upper-left-hand drawer were the key to your inviolable soul, Gertrude. Saying more about you than anything you could possibly say about yourself?”

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.

Breakfast was always sumptuous—Cobb bringing out a great silver platter of eggs scrambled with oysters, piping hot coffee, and fresh bread. When Mrs. Livesday noticed that my appetite was not equal to her own, I described for her as best I could the wee cacophony plaguing me. I was mortified when, as Cobb returned with a freshly made compote of summer apples, she asked him to fetch the ear syringe, for she supposed my discomfort was the result of accumulated wax. I thanked her curtly, informing her that I was not accustomed to having men aware of or engaged in my intimate affairs. Just then Cobb returned with the thing—bright red it was and seemed far too large for the office with which it was to be entrusted.

“Warm salt water,” said Cobb. “I’ve placed a basin in the upstairs lavatory.” I blushed. Once he was gone, Mrs. Livesday, with an odd bark, said, “Well! I never thought I’d see the day when Cobb—poor old Cobb! —would make a woman blush! And over an ear—! It’s not as though he’d handed you an amorous proposal!” I was shocked. Never in all our time together had I ever heard Mrs. Livesday suggest a vulgarity. In more soothing tones she continued: “Do give it a good flushing, and then we will take our walk and I will tell you about Freud and you will tell me about your sister and Deacon Hill’s latest letter, and all the things that have transpired since we were last together!”

Enraged with her, I kept an outward appearance of calm and did as she asked. The cymbals were clashing and the little hooves clattering, and when I reached the lavatory I dropped the basin to the tiles, where it shattered, bringing Cobb at once with another basin, a large mop, a dustpan, and a broom. As he bent over the small mess I had caused, I thought that, indeed, he was not much of a man. One could not imagine him in any function other than the one he had—that of butler, cook, and companion to an old, an eccentric woman.

“Cobb!” I said. “Do you do the ironing, too?” And as his answer was satisfactory, I gave him what I had brought but for the clothes I wore—everything horribly creased despite the care I had taken, packing it all between sheets of tissue paper.

---

It was later, on our walk together, that I heard a trill of peculiar intensity, a series of notes sweetly piercing. Next I saw close by the path a remarkably beautiful bird, slender- beaked, its wings a velvety black with emerald markings as though embroidered there, its breast a glittering steel blue, its tail velvet. Indeed it seemed to me so lovely that I imagined it had flown directly to Barrytown from Paradise. Again it called and then, spreading its wings, was gone with such celerity I was astonished.

I cried out to Mrs. Livesday, who at that moment was off the path examining a clump of wild asparagus with the intent to pirate it for lunch, and who came running—too late to see the marvelous bird. She had no idea what it was I had seen and supposed it was a raven: the velvety black, the metallic reflection… Once again I felt myself flush with anger.

“But,” I insisted, “the song was superb!”

“I don’t disbelieve you,” she countered. “However, the raven imitates the cries of other birds—a marvelous thing in itself” And she was off, as was her wont, this time telling of Dr. Franklin’s raven Jacob who could imitate the cries of infants, the crowing of cocks. As she spoke, the ringing in my ear, until then blessedly absent, thrust me into an agitation impossible to conceal.

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My sister Abigail had been a flapper and when she returned home at dawn dressed in what looked like a slip our family dissolved. Mother, who had been waiting up for her, slapped her as soon as she walked through the door. This fact was the one major event that undid everything, for rather than burst into tears, or run to her room and lock herself in, or implore forgiveness, or attempt the impossible: to justify the levity (and that is putting it politely), she turned on her heel and vanished (and she was wearing a pair of silver shoes such as I had never seen). We had no news of her for years.

Once she was picked up downtown for vagrancy and if Father paid her bail he did not attempt to see her. That week he removed her from his will. A few years later when both Mother and Father were carried away by influenza, I was sole inheritress of a modest allowance that has enabled me to live comfortably—if carefully—the life of a gentlewoman of an earlier time and not have to scrounge for a living teaching other people’s brats—the work for which I was trained—or to submit to the banalities and indignities of matrimony.

After Abigail vanished, Mother, Father, and I did our best to fill the hole she had left behind—“with good, black earth,” Mother said, “a heavy stone on top.”

At first we entertained a hushed silence—never speaking of her, nor for that matter, of much of anything. We kept busy at our separate tasks, although I must admit I often pretended to be busy. ‘But then little by little we began to speak together again and—as if by silent consent—to recreate the past sans Abigail. This involved a great deal of concentration and imagination. It became a game as well as an act of faith, or I should say: love. For in this way we were able to reassure one another and to prove that our affection was real, somehow legitimate (as if that needed to be proved!) and that we were worthy of being called a family. The unexpected effect of all this tender subterfuge was that I learned to speak convincingly and with eloquence on just about anything and so to contribute to important causes—such as Deacon Hill’s charities. And if Mrs. Livesday has chided me about what she calls my “antiquated manner” and “eccentricities of speech,” I pride myself upon this capacity. I see myself not only as Christ’s spokeswoman, but a servant of Good English. Before Abigail vanished, her conversation rattled and belched with absurdist “slang.”

“What news,” Mrs. Livesday asked as we returned the way we had come up the path, “have you of your sister?”

“Abigail is beyond repair,” I answered her, and with such acidity that Mrs. Livesday, if she frowned, did not dare ask me about my sister again. Perhaps because of my curt reply, lunch was eaten in silence, and after coffee Mrs. Livesday retired.

Sometime in midafternoon as I lay in my chamber in an attempt to refresh my brain, I heard her depart with Cobb for town (a salmon had been ordered from the city for our supper) and overheard the following; it stabbed me to the quick:

Cobb: Is Miss Hubble coming with us?

Mrs. Livesday: Good gracious, no! She’d spoil our fun. Let’s steal away, Cobb. Now!

Well what of it if I had been brusque. She was, after all, an intrusive busybody who had no right, no right whatsoever, to bring up family matters out of the blue. And now the dreadful poppets were all gazing at me, or so it seemed, with eager eyes. “Tell Oz,” I continued the letter to the Deacon in my head, “that the Barry town harem is begin- ning to test my temper.” I closed my eyes.

The trilling was deeper now; it had gathered energy and speed. Overtaken by exhaustion, it seemed to me that a blizzard of sound was raging in my skull, so that when I slept I dreamed of ice. In my dream I was struggling along a narrow isthmus hemmed in on all sides by ice. I knew that I needed to head south, else die, and prayed for the sun to guide me. And then I saw it blazing before me beyond a veil of snow and sleet. As I battled on I could hear the ice falling with a fearful distinctness, but the sun was fuller now; it began to blaze with such intensity I feared as much for my life as before. The sun’s shape was strange—more like a vertical mouth—and I knew with rage and horror that it was not the sun at all but Abigail’s vulva burning above my face.

I awoke then, shuddering and drenched with perspira- tion. The sun was sinking; low on the horizon it had, for an instant, flooded the room. I lay panting until it had set, until I lay in shadow, until the first crickets began their chirping—so shocked by the vision in the dream that I prayed: Let me be turned to stone this instant! For that is precisely what I thought I deserved—to be rendered blind and deaf and mute. But instead of turning to stone, I lay hot and heavy on the bed until I heard a sound beyond those of evening, beyond, even, the ringing of my mind, a sound akin to the rustle of dry leaves in the wind or the sensuous rasp a taffeta gown makes on the body of an actress as she moves across the stage; a sound of such intense sweetness that my heart was at once throbbing with a rare delight. A delicious sound and captivating—and yet chilling because so feral. A wild, extravagant murmur unlike anything I had ever heard before. I raised myself from my pillow then and stared at the door expectantly. I should not have been surprised had Pan himself walked into the room. I waited. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred except that once the moment had passed I felt an acute sense of loss, or longing—I cannot say which—as though something offered had been taken back.

Because I had to, I next bathed and dressed, did my hair, and, succumbing to a rare moment of vanity, pulled out some silver by the roots. I thought: My eyes are still quite fine. Opening the lavatory door I heard a familiar domestic clatter, the table being set deep within the house, the oven door opening and closing, and made my way down two flights of stairs to the first floor, which was brightly lit and submerged in the fragrant smells of Cobb’s excellent cooking.

I found Mrs. Livesday in the music room sipping sherry.

“And have you rested?” she asked with what I feared was forced cordiality.

“I have, thank you,” I replied, “and I must apologize to you. Please accept my apology, Mrs. Livesday. You have always shown me nothing but generosity and have been a constant friend now for over a decade—”

“That long! Of course I accept. What a reliefl Dear Gertrude, you have been testy. But now that’s over and forgotten. Have some sherry and begin to think about the feast Cobb has prepared.” Indeed, as I had lain thrashing in my little room, they had been to the train station to fetch a large, boxed fish packed in ice and sent from Nova Scotia. It was a beautiful salmon, its recent history revealed on a small square of cardboard Cobb had found tucked playfully in its smiling mouth. There were lemons in the box also—an extravagance in those days—wrapped in white paper. And they had also brought back flowers—something I wished I had thought of myself. Instead of stewing upstairs, I chided myself, I might have been out gathering flowers. Entering the dining room with Mrs. Livesday on my arm and seeing them throbbing at the table’s center I said as much: “I intended to bring you some flowers, dearest Mrs. Livesday!” (I had not thought to bring her anything!) “But I promise to make up for my ill temper and the rest.”

“Dear Gertrude!” she replied. “Will you please cease to torture yourself! Now. Sip this wine and look! Here comes Cobb with our fish.” Baked in cream, it appeared to swim in a dish the size of a small pool. Cobb brought out scalloped potatoes next, a spinach soufflé, corn bread. “Attempt to discover the nature of our dessert,” she continued, “although I doubt you can!”

Cobb sat down then and smiling shyly echoed her: “I doubt she can!”

I could not. As it turned out, Cobb had baked a tarte Tatin—and a perfect one, I should add, gilded with caramel and served with a small glass of brandy, followed by a smaller cup of Turkish coffee.

“Mine shows a face!” Mrs. Livesday cried, peering into her cup. “The world is full of delights.” She gave Cobb her brandy glass to be refilled, repeating as she took it back: “To delight!”

Again I felt stirring that irresistible rage. I believed she was chiding me for my spinsterhood and Spartan ways and so set to scowling, muddling over a thousand things, as the eerie buzzing started up again—or I became once more aware of it.

She: It seems the word delight_ has offended you, somehow._

I: Not at all! Delight! How could it? That would be silly! I blushed. It’s only… my ear is still ringing… a strange affliction… hard todescribe. Imagine a hive, Mrs. Livesday, filled with bees made of tin. Bees the size of… atoms. Their wings… cymbals of brass. Imagine that! Deep in your brain! I wonder: Could I have picked up some malady on thetrain?

She: Poor Gertrude! I had completely forgotten. So you are still afflictedwith this odd malaise. I hope it is not tinnitus! Or Meniere’s disease. My God! That would be terrible! Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous? Your appetite is good. That is a promising sign. Shall we call in a doctor? I’ve a competent one just down the road.

Astonishing us both I blurted out: “But I do not wish to be cured! What if this is… is intentional?”

“Intentional?”

“A summons of some sort.”

“Gertrude! A summons! Forgive me but I cannot follow your reasoning here. A summons from whom?”

“But I have no idea!” I cried out, my irritation rising once again. Why was she always demanding that I justify myself? “You are worse than my mother!”

“That I doubt.” Had I hurt her? She looked more perplexed than hurt.

“How horrid I am!” I said then. “How horrid to you my dearest friend and the sanest. Yes, Mrs. Livesday, the sanest creature I know!”

“A sane creature!” She laughed. “I like that. It makes me feel1ike a thing from fairyland. Something Alice might have met on the train in Wonderland. A sane creature! What you need,” she continued, “is a second glass of brandy. This one therapeutic. You are frazzled—that’s clear enough, but surely not beyond repair. This will cause you to sleep and to dream,” she said as she filled my glass, “and to awaken refreshed and lively, full of good spirits. Tomorrow is the flower show—do you remember? And we will enjoy a marvelous time in Rhinebeck. I’ve heard that the displays this year are unlike anything they’ve done previously. You know: the rarest blooms. It will be a treat.” As she spoke I sipped my second brandy dreamily and when it was time for bed, went upstairs feeling tipsy and happier than I had in a very long time. In fact, when I reached my little room I felt so buoyant that had there been a party going on in the music room, I would have returned there and joined in the dancing, a thing I had not done for ever so long—or rather, a thing I, to be honest, had never done. The one who had danced was Abigail. “One too many,” said Father.

For a time I stood upon the threshold staring out across the little bed, the dolls in their perambulators, and as the window was wide open to the night, out across Mrs. Livesday’s south lawn flooded as it was with moonlight. The sight was so inviting, the room so small, so stifling, that I stole back down the stairs and, unlocking the music room’s French doors, out into the night. For a time I stood in the center of the lawn beneath the moon, painfully aware of my unbecoming behavior. The buzzing in my ear had ceased and the only sound the gentle rustle of leaves agitated by the merest whisper of a breeze. Until I heard again, briefly, that sweet trilling, and again-preceded by a hush—that strange, troublous sound.

It was then that I saw what had been haunting me. They moved toward me precisely, inexorably, and gently also, like naked truth I thought; yes, there was something flawless about the way they moved across Mrs. Livesday’s moon-soaked lawn: two tall, beautiful young men, redheaded and pale, moving with a species of subtlety, a rigor, a—I have difficulty finding the words—a meticulousness so that I was held in thrall. And they had wings—enormous, velvety wings of tawny brown and deepest black with spots of blue and green so dark and rich-looking in the moonlight. So stately were they as they moved toward me, their great wings rustling and sighing, that they might have been bishops.

And then they were so close that looking up into their faces I could see how pale their skins were, how delicate, even a little raw around their nostrils, their eyes, and at the corners of their lips, as though they had been weeping or, perhaps, just recently recovered from a malady, or had been out in the cold.

“You have summoned us,” the first one said.

“I, never!”

“You dreamed the cipher,” said the second. “The cipher that, in our world, is an open sesame.” And he laughed.

“What cipher?” I whispered. They were both so beautiful I could not tear my eyes from their faces, their throbbing necks, their shoulders—which were powerful, supporting as they did the greater weight of those terrible wings.

“The cipher of sexual longing.” With his fingers he traced the contours of my aging face lovingly, a tenderness that flooded me with sweetness. Yet I thought his touch sinister, too. I stepped back, and forcing myself to speak—for I was mesmerized by his touch and the heat in his eyes—
“There is no such thing as men with wings. What are you doing in Mrs. Livesday’s garden? I suppose you are burglars,” I said then, simultaneously fascinated and aghast, “and furthermore,” I continued, fighting to get my ire up—for I was so drowsy, so submerged in something I can only—to speak clearly—describe as longing—“who gave you leave to touch me?”

“You gave me, gave us leave,” he said. “Can you deny it?” He stepped behind me so that I was standing between the two of them, the moonlight pouring down upon us like an inverted fountain.

The closeness of those two male bodies was an astonishing thing. I felt as though I were encompassed by a halo that caused an intense lethargy to invade my soul. I attempted to disengage myself from what seemed to be an illicit embrace although they did not touch me. But when I attempted to flee from the charmed circle, the two—with the clatter of a sailboat in a high wind—spread their wings I and I was held in the deviant space they made. Then, as I stood there in the curious orbit of their wings, they began to touch me with their fingers, to insinuate their warm fingers into my hair. It fell to my shoulders like water once they had loosened it from its nets and pins. Next they began to worry the buttons of my blouse. Whatever way I turned I could not escape their many hands—captive as I was between those wings. I felt a compelling ease of spirit, a vibrancy, a fluidity I had never known, and imagined this was a species of dancing. I would have succumbed to them; I was about to swoon with pleasure, their many hands on my neck, my breasts, when I realized the danger, the terrible danger I was in, the impossible danger of what I was about to do. Indeed, the one was whispering in my ear scandalously, outrageously: “I shall penetrate your cunt and my brother your ass, simultaneously as you have wished.” It was the unforgivable heresy of these words that brought me to my senses and I cried out with rage: “Begone! Begone! Never to return! For I hate you! I hate you both with all my heart! I loathe your caresses! How dare you touch me!” And I screamed as loud as I was able: “Burglars! Burglars in the night!” Cobb came running—it was absurd—with a broom, and Mrs. Livesday—dressed in white, in a dressing gown that looked like white silk, the dressing gown of a bride—came running too. The fearless soul! Brandishing a poker! How I loved her at that instant, running so unafraid. Already I was in Cobb’s frail arms, sobbing.

“There were two,? I cried, “two burglars! Two burglars with black wings!”

“Black wings!” Mrs. Livesday began to laugh. “Black wings! Gertrude! Think what you are saying.” I ceased to sob and, pulling away from Cobb, stared at Mrs. Livesday with astonishment.

“That is impossible,” I said.

“Are you certain they were burglars?” Taking me by the arm she steered me back to the house as Cobb led the way with his broom. “Your hair is lovely,” she said, “the color of wheat. I’ve never seen it down.”

“I don’t want to sleep in that wretched room,” I blurted out, “with all those damned toys, Mrs. Livesday, as though I were, as though I were a mere, a mere child!”

“Well, you won’t.” She soothed me, her own brow deeply furrowed. “What a peculiar thing. Had I known … it’s not as though I’m lacking in rooms. It’s the view,” she babbled now—I had succeeded in ruffling the calmest of women—“it’s because it’s the room with the best view. Especially now when the moon is full. That night garden! Bathed in tender light!”

I was sobbing again, uncontrollably.

“Were you harmed?” She was once more alarmed.

“Yes! I believe. I believe they wanted to”—we were in the music room now—“to invade my privacy.” I had bewildered her, utterly.

“But they… how many were there?”

“Two.”

“Did not manage to … ‘invade your privacy’?” (“Whatever that means!” she added as an aside to Cobb.)

“No.” I ceased to cry. I was ashamed of myself but I could not have said why. Because I shouted out. And Cobb came, bless him! With a broom! I laughed out loud. “And you—dear Mrs. Livesday—I have caused you so much trouble, You must think me mad,”

“Not at all.”

“And now asking for another room in the middle of the night when the little room is so delightful, What could have gotten into me?”

“I can easily put you in another room, Cobb, could you make up Puffy’s old room? We call it that,” she explained, “because that’s where old Mrs, Notus used to stay, The children called her Puffy because of her asthma or whatever it was that plagued her. Poor thing. Emphysema. Plagued her constantly. Now she’s so old. Older than I! Fit to be stuffed! Put on display!”

We had reached the room. It was stuffy, had not been aired since Puffy’s last visit. I stood blinking stupidly as a moth discovered the bedside lamp and stormed the shade, Cobb bustled in with my few belongings in a jumble and wondered: Would I be needing tea? He would bring up a vase of fresh flowers in the morning. Would I be wanting breakfast in bed? Mrs, Livesday told him to stop treating me like an invalid. At last they were gone.

The room had an outsized mirror—a thing I was not accustomed to. As I disrobed I caught sight of my naked body. In the lamplight it seemed surprisingly lovely to me: full, rosy, and youthful still. Unlike my face—how it had aged! As though it had been shut away, forgotten at the back of a closet. And my eyes. My eyes were not kind at all. And they were haunted.

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“The Neurosis of Containment” can be read in Rikki Ducornet’s collection of short stories The Word “Desire”, published by Henry Holt.