The bar snapped in Danny’s fists. In a single, swift, slicing movement—like brittle stems stripped from a branch—down through the ladder he fell, down through the rust-corroded rungs and back into the tank.
————
With rust-reddened hands, Harriet pulled herself up, and fell forward gasping onto the hot boards. Thunder rumbled in the deep blue distance. The sun had gone under a cloud, and the restless breeze tossing in the treetops set her shivering. Between herself and the ladder, the roof was partially caved in, sprung boards slanting downward to an enormous hole; her breath rasped noisy and uncontrollable, a panicky sound that made her feel sick just to hear it, and as she rose to her hands and knees, a sharp pain stabbed her in the side.
Then, from inside the tank, burst a flurry of agitated splashing. She dropped to her stomach; breathing raggedly, she began to scramble around the collapsed portion of the roof—and her heart clenched as the boards sank sharply under her weight and groaned precariously toward the water.
Back and away she scrambled, panting—just in time, as part of a board snapped off into the water. Then—up through the hole, high in the air—spattered a startling fan of water, flung drops striking her face and arms.
A strangled howl—wet and burbling—spouted violently from below. Stiff now, practically waxen with terror, Harriet inched forward on her hands and knees; though looking down into the hole made her dizzy, she couldn’t help herself. Daylight flooded in through the broken roof; the inside of the tank glowed a lush, emerald green: the green of swamps and jungles, of Mowgli’s abandoned cities. The grass-green blanket of algae had broken up like pack ice, black veins cracking the opaque surface of the water.
Then splash: up burst Danny Ratliff, white-faced and gasping, hair plastered dark on his forehead. His hand grappled and groped, grasping for the ladder—but there wasn’t any more ladder, Harriet saw, blinking down at the green water. It had broken off about five feet above the surface, too high for him to reach.
As she watched in horror, the hand sank into the water, the last part of him to vanish: broken fingernails, clutching at the air. Then up bobbed his head—not quite high enough, eyelids fluttering, an ugly wet gurgle in his breath.
He could see her, up top; he was trying to say something. Like a wingless bird, he guttered and struggled in the water, and his struggles gave her a feeling that she could not name. The words broke from his mouth in an indistinct burble as he slipped under, flailing, and was gone, nothing of him visible but a weedy tuft of hair, bubbles foaming white at the slimy surface.
All quiet, bubbles boiling. Up he burst again: his face melted-looking somehow, his mouth a black hole. He was clutching at some floating boards but they wouldn’t hold his weight and as he crashed back into the water his wide eyes met hers—accusatory, helpless, the eyes of a guillotined head held up before a mob. His mouth worked; he tried to speak, some glubbing gasping incomprehensible word that was swallowed as he sank.
A strong wind blew, raising goose bumps on Harriet’s arms, shivering the leaves on all the trees; and all at once, in a single breath, the sky darkened to slate-gray. Then, in a long sweeping gust, raindrops rattled across the roof like a shower of pebbles.
It was a warm, drenching, tropical-feeling rain: a squall like the ones that blew in on the Gulf Coast during hurricane season. It clattered loudly on the broken roof—but not so loudly that the gurgles and splashing from below were dinned out. Raindrops leaped like little silver fish on the surface of the water.
Harriet was seized by a fit of coughing. The water had gone in her mouth and up her nose, and the rotten taste soaked her to her marrow; now, with the rain driving in her face, she spat on the boards, turned on her back and rolled her head to and fro, driven nearly mad with the wretched noise that was echoing up the tank—a noise, it occurred to her, that probably was not much different from the noises that Robin had made as he was strangling to death. She’d imagined it happening clean and quick, no floundering or ugly wet strangles, only clapped hands and a puff of smoke. And the sweetness of the thought struck her: how lovely to vanish off the face of the earth, what a sweet dream to vanish now, out of her body: poof, like a spirit. Chains clattering empty to the floor.
Steam rose from the hot, verdant ground. Far below, in the weeds, the Trans Am was hunched in a disturbing, confidential stillness, raindrops shimmering on the hood in a fine white mist; a couple might have been inside it, kissing. Often, in the years to come, she would see it just so—blind, intimate, unreflecting—off in the thin speechless margins of her dreams.
————
It was two o’clock when Harriet—after pausing to listen (all clear)—let herself in through the back door. Apart from Mr. Godfrey (who didn’t seem to have recognized her), and Mrs. Fountain, who had given her an exceedingly strange look from the porch (dirty as she was, striped with dark filaments of slime that had stuck to her skin and baked on in the heat), she had encountered no one. Cautiously, after looking both ways, she scurried down the hall to the downstairs bathroom and bolted the door behind her. The taste of decay fumed and smoldered in her mouth, unendurable. She stripped off her clothes (the smell was horrific; the Girl Scout shirt coming over her head made her gag) and threw them into the bathtub and turned the faucets on them.
Edie often told the story about the time she almost died from an oyster at a New Orleans wedding. “Sickest I’ve ever been.” She’d known the oyster was bad, she said, the moment she bit into it; she’d spit it right out in her napkin, but within hours collapsed and had to be taken to Baptist Hospital. In much the same way, from the instant she tasted the water in the tank, Harriet had known it was going to make her sick. The rottenness had seeped into her flesh. Nothing would wash it away. She rinsed her hands and mouth; she gargled with Listerine and spat it out, cupped her hands under the cold tap and drank and drank and drank, but the smell permeated everything, even the clean water. It rose from the dirty clothes in the bathtub; it rose ripe and warm from the pores of her skin. Harriet dumped half a box of Mr. Bubble into the tub and ran the hot water until the foam churned up outrageously. But even under the numbing mouthwash, the taste lingered ugly like a stain on Harriet’s tongue, and it called up vividly and quite particularly the bloated creature half-sunk and bobbing against the dark wall of the tank.
A knock at the door. “Harriet,” called her mother, “is that you?” Harriet never took baths in the downstairs bathroom.
“Yes maam,” called Harriet, after an instant, over the pounding water.
“Are you making a mess in there?”
“No, maam,” called Harriet, looking bleakly at the mess.
“You know I don’t like you to bathe in that bathroom.”
Harriet couldn’t answer. A wave of cramps had gripped her. Sitting on the side of the tub, staring at the bolted door, she clamped both hands over her mouth and rocked back and forth.
“There’d better not be a mess in there,” her mother called.
The water Harriet had drunk from the tap was coming right back up. With one eye on the door, she got out of the bathtub and—doubled over by the pain in her abdomen—she tiptoed to the commode as quietly as she could. As soon as she removed her hands from her mouth, out it poured, whoosh, a clear, startling gush of putrid water that smelled exactly like the stagnant water Danny Ratliff had drowned in.
————
In the bath, Harriet drank more water from the cold tap, washed her clothes and washed herself. She drained the tub; she scrubbed it with Comet; she rinsed out the slime and grit and climbed in again to rinse herself. But the dark odor of decay had soaked her through and through, so that even after all the soap and water she still felt pickled and drenched in foulness, discolored, wretched, hanging her head with it, like an oil-soaked penguin she’d seen in a National Geographic magazine over at Edie’s house, standing miserably in a wash pail, holding its little greasy flippers out to the side to keep them from touching its befouled body.
> Harriet drained the tub again, and scrubbed it; she wrung out her dripping clothes and hung them to dry. She sprayed Lysol; she sprayed herself with a dusty bottle of green cologne that had a flamenco dancer on the label. She was clean and pink now, dizzy with the heat, but just beneath the perfume, the moisture in the steamy bathroom was still heavy with the suggestion of rot, the same ripe flavor that lay heavy on her tongue.
More mouthwash, she thought—and, without warning, another noisome spout of clear vomit came up, pouring out of her mouth in a ridiculous flood.
When it was over, Harriet lay on the cold floor, cheek against sea-green tile. As soon as she was able to stand she dragged herself to the sink and cleaned up with a washrag. Then she wrapped herself in a towel and crept upstairs to her room.
She was so sick, so giddy and tired that—before she’d realized what she’d done—she’d pulled down the covers and climbed into bed, the bed she hadn’t slept in for weeks. But it felt so heavenly that she didn’t care; and—despite the griping pains in her stomach—she fell into heavy sleep.
————
She was awakened by her mother. It was twilight. Harriet’s stomach ached, and her eyes felt scratchy like when she’d had the pink-eye.
“What?” she said raising herself heavily on her elbows.
“I said, are you sick?”
“I don’t know.”
Harriet’s mother bent close to feel her forehead, then knitted her eyebrows and drew back. “What’s that smell?” When Harriet didn’t answer, she leaned forward and sniffed her neck suspiciously.
“Did you put on some of that green cologne?” she said.
“No, maam.” Lying a habit now: best now, when in doubt, always to say no.
“That stuff’s no good.” Harriet’s father had given it to Harriet’s mother for Christmas, the lime-green perfume with the flamenco dancer; it had sat on the shelf, unused, for years, a fixture of Harriet’s childhood. “If you want some perfume, I’ll get you a little bottle of Chanel No. 5 at the drugstore. Or Norell—that’s what Mother wears. I don’t care for Norell myself, it’s a little strong …”
Harriet closed her eyes. Sitting up had made her feel sick to her stomach all over again. Scarcely had she laid her head on the pillow than her mother was back again, this time with a glass of water and an aspirin.
“Maybe you’d better have a can of broth,” she said. “I’ll call Mother and see if she has any.”
While she was gone, Harriet climbed out of bed and—wrapping herself in the scratchy crochet afghan—trailed down the hall to the bathroom. The floor was cold, and so was the toilet seat. Vomit (a little) gave way to diarrhea (a lot). Washing up at the sink afterwards, she was shocked to see in the medicine-cabinet mirror how red her eyes were.
Shivering, she crept back to her bed. Though the covers were heavy on her limbs, they didn’t feel very warm.
Then her mother was shaking down the thermometer. “Here,” she said, “open your mouth,” and she stuck it in.
Harriet lay looking at the ceiling. Her stomach boiled; the swampy taste of the water still haunted her. She fell into a dream where a nurse who looked like Mrs. Dorrier from the health service was explaining to her that she’d been bitten by a poisonous spider, and that a blood transfusion would save her life.
It was me, Harriet said. I killed him.
Mrs. Dorrier and some other people were setting up equipment for the transfusion. Someone said: She’s ready now.
I don’t want it, Harriet said. Leave me alone.
All right, said Mrs. Dorrier and left. Harriet was uneasy. There were some other ladies lingering around, smiling at Harriet and whispering, but none of them offered any help or questioned Harriet about her decision to die, even though she slightly wanted them to.
“Harriet?” said her mother—and with a jolt, she sat up. The bedroom was dark; the thermometer was gone from her mouth.
“Here,” Harriet’s mother was saying. The meaty-smelling steam from the cup was ripe and sickening.
Harriet said, smearing her hand over her face: “I don’t want it.”
“Please, darling!” Fretfully, Harriet’s mother pushed the punch cup at her. It was ruby glass, and Harriet loved it; one afternoon, quite by surprise, Libby had taken it from her china cabinet and wrapped it up in some newspaper and given it to Harriet to take home with her, because she knew that Harriet loved it so. Now, in the dim room it glowed black, with one sinister ruby spark at the heart.
“No,” said Harriet, turning her head from the cup continually nudging at her face, “no, no.”
“Harriet!” It was the old debutante snap, thin-skinned and tetchy, a petulance that brooked no argument.
There it was again, under her nose. There was nothing for Harriet to do but sit up and take it. Down she gulped it, the meaty sickening liquid, trying not to gag. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with the paper napkin that her mother offered—and then, without warning, up it came again, glub, all over the coverlet, parsley snips and everything.
Harriet’s mother let out a little yelp. Her crossness made her look strangely young, like a sulky babysitter on a bad night.
“I’m sorry,” Harriet said miserably. The slop smelled like swamp water with chicken broth mixed into it.
“Oh, darling, what a mess. No, don’t—” said Charlotte, with a panicky catch in her voice as Harriet—overcome with exhaustion—attempted to lie back down in the mess.
Then something very strange and sudden happened. A strong light from overhead blared in Harriet’s face. It was the cut-glass ceiling fixture in the hall. With amazement, Harriet realized that she wasn’t in her bed, or even in her bedroom, but lying on the floor in the upstairs hall in a narrow passage between some stacked newspapers. Strangest of all, Edie knelt beside her, with a grim, pale set to her face and no lipstick.
Harriet—wholly disoriented—put an arm up and rolled her head from side to side, and as she did it, her mother swooped down, crying loudly. Edie flung out an arm to bar her. “Let her breathe!”
Harriet lay on the hardwood floor, marveling. Besides the wonder of being in a different place, the first thought that struck her was that her head and neck hurt: really hurt. The second was that Edie wasn’t supposed to be upstairs. Harriet couldn’t even remember the last time Edie had been inside the house beyond the front hall (which was kept relatively clean, for benefit of visitors).
How did I get here? she asked Edie, but it didn’t come out quite the way it was supposed to (her thoughts were all jumbled and crunched together) and she swallowed and tried again.
Edie shushed her. She helped Harriet to sit up—and Harriet, looking down at her arms and legs, noticed with a strange thrill that she was wearing different clothes.
Why are my clothes different? she tried to ask—but that didn’t come out right either. Gamely, she chewed over the sentence.
“Hush,” said Edie, putting a finger to Harriet’s lips. To Harriet’s mother (weeping in the background, Allison standing behind, hunted-looking, biting her fingers) she said: “How long did it last?”
“I don’t know,” said Harriet’s mother, clutching her temples.
“Charlotte, it’s important, she’s had a seizure.”
————
The hospital waiting room was unstable and shimmery like a dream. Everything was too bright—sparkling clean, on the surface—but the chairs were worn and grubby if you looked too close. Allison was reading a raggedy children’s magazine and a pair of official-looking ladies with nametags were trying to talk to a slack-faced old man across the aisle. He was slumped forward heavily in his chair as if drunk, staring at the floor, his hands between his knees and his jaunty, Tyrolean-looking hat tipped down over one eye. “Well, you can’t tell her a thing,” he was saying, shaking his head, “she won’t slow down for the world.”
The ladies looked at each other. One of them sat down beside the old man.
Then it was dark and Harriet was walking
alone, in a strange town with tall buildings. She had to take some books back to the library, before it closed, but the streets got narrower and narrower until finally they were only a foot wide and she found herself standing in front of a large pile of stones. I need to find a telephone, she thought.
“Harriet?”
It was Edie. She was standing up now. A nurse had emerged from a swinging door in the back, pushing an empty wheelchair before her.
She was a young nurse, plump and pretty, with black mascara and eyeliner drawn in fanciful wings and lots and lots of rouge, ringing the outer edge of her eye socket, a rosy semicircle from cheekbone to browbone—and it made her look (thought Harriet) like pictures of the painted singers in the Peking opera. Rainy afternoons at Tatty’s house, lying on the floor with Kabuki Theatre of Japan and Illustrated Marco Polo of 1880. Kublai Khan on a painted palanquin, ah, masks and dragons, gilt pages and tissue paper, all Japan and China in the narrow Mission book-case at the foot of the stair!
Down the bright hall they floated. The tower, the body in the water had already faded into a kind of distant dream, nothing left of it but her stomach ache (which was fierce, spikes of pain that stabbed and receded) and the terrible pain in her head. The water was what had made her sick and she knew that she needed to tell them, they needed to know so they could make her better but I mustn’t tell, she thought, I can’t.
The certainty flooded her with a dreamy, settled feeling. As the nurse pushed Harriet down the shiny spaceship corridor she reached down to pat Harriet’s cheek and Harriet—being ill, and more malleable than usual—permitted this, without complaint. It was a soft, cool hand, with gold rings.