Читать книгу Shock! - Donald Ph.D. Ladew - Страница 10

Gilbert laid back, legs stretched out on the old sofa. He loved everything about the room. As a boy, all reward and punishment had been meted out in the library. If he'd been 'good', his father let him come in and play. If he'd been 'bad' he'd be sent there to hear the 'voice', as Mother called it.

His father spanked him only once. Gilbert borrowed some wooden matches from his father's desk after watching a Dr. Wizard show on TV that described how to make a rocket. He did his own experiment with a tin of gasoline and some old rags. The fire department arrived within minutes and only one side of the garage was burned.

Once in the library, his father said, "sit in the chair, Gilbert."

It was an Empire piece of dark walnut with a worn black velvet covering and a matching bench. As it was over-sized, he could measure how fast he was growing by how far his feet were from the floor.

Once seated, his father would question him about his latest peccadillo, his gentle professorial voice filled with disappointment.

The lectures always made him keenly aware of his failure to measure up to the standards set by his parents. Because he loved his father without reservation or judgment, each word was more painful than the worst imaginable spanking.

Years later his mother told him that after his father spanked him, he locked the door to the library and drank a great deal of brandy; something he never did.

Remembering, she had smiled sadly. He told me, “I felt like Stalin, Hitler and Attila the Hun all rolled into one. I never want to feel like that again.”

"Where are you now, Father?"

He didn't think about the fact that he was talking aloud and had been ever since he came back from the Middle East. "I could sure use the 'voice' now."

He looked slowly around the room. It was the largest room in the house. It occupied all three stories of the house. The books rose in warm-colored steps from the floor to the trompe l’oeile ceiling.

Two spiraled staircases made a graceful ascent to a balustraded balcony that went halfway round the room. Every bit of space not filled with books was covered with paintings spanning three hundred years and a dozen different schools.

His father and mother traveled widely when they were in their twenties and thirties, his father being one of the youngest professors of American Literature at Yale. From there he went on to teach at the finest universities in Europe. They were both avid collectors, and fortunately, the family money put the world of beautiful things in reach.

At the north end of the room French doors opened on a small, unique garden. His mother wanted it to be like an English country garden in miniature. With only two acres, there wasn't much choice, and Southern California climate wasn’t exactly conducive to the lush landscapes of southern England. She started it right after they came from England where his father had been teaching at Oxford.

The garden was beginning to come back. When he arrived a month before no one had taken care of it for some time, and, unlike England where a little neglect does little harm, the lack of care in the dry California hills nearly ruined it. One of the first things he'd done was to hire a gardener.

Mr. Hozen Nakamichi had been a real find. The leathery old Japanese walked back and forth over every inch of the garden like a hound on the scent. Every few minutes he looked at Gilbert accusatively, muttering God knows what kind of Oriental curses.

Gilbert, feeling unjustifiably guilty, tried to tell him he'd only just arrived, but it hadn't seemed to matter. Finally he stopped inspecting and rumbled belligerently.

"You want fix?"

Gilbert said yes, he did, to please make it as fine as when his mother took care of it. Mr. Nakamichi must have sensed something because his rumble was less menacing.

"Do not worry, Mr. Piers, I fix excellently." Then he smiled in a conspiratorial way; "Verry expensive, have three daughters, two at USC."

One morning, early, Gilbert had been out at the back of the property in the old gazebo, beginning the first moves of a Tai Chi exercise when Mr. Nakamichi appeared through the hedges. Instead of waiting, the old man took his shoes off, joined him and slipped into the movements with the ease of long practice.

They passed through the exercise, encased in the soothing protection of pure activity without thought. When they finished, Nakamichi bowed to Gilbert.

Gilbert invited him to share tea, the green tea of Japan he'd brought to the gazebo earlier. After that the old man was unfailingly polite to his young employer.

On this afternoon it was through the open doors to the garden that his other new friend came an hour earlier. Now she lay stretched along the curved back of the sofa, looking smug and possessive. Probably her real owner, if there were such a thing with a cat, wouldn't let her on the furniture.

She was a British longhair with typical coloring except for two reddish patches on her white cheeks. For no practical reason he called her Rachel.

She wandered in a week before while he'd been going through his mother's correspondence. He didn't realize he was crying. It started without visible memory or stimulus. At first, he got up, walked around, willed it to stop. Visible emotion was dangerous. Then he ignored it and went on doing whatever he was doing. Finally it stopped of its own accord.

That first day the cat jumped up on the desk, sat back on her haunches and talked to him. They looked at each other myopically from a distance of about five inches and then she did a fey thing.

She rose, stepped forward tentatively and licked the tears from his face. Later he told himself it was the salt, but in his heart he knew it wasn't so.

Soon after, he stopped. It was as though contact with the soul that was Rachel, was needed. Since then she came by every afternoon around one thirty, and spent a few hours lazing around, inspecting her new domain.

Once in a while, not often, she jumped into his lap, particularly if he was sitting on the sofa, and permitted him to pay whatever homage she felt due. Mostly she stretched out, as now, along the back of the sofa, possessing all that she surveyed.

Gilbert reached down and picked a book off the floor and opened it to a marked section. He read quietly for a while.

"Listen, Rachel." Now, although he frequently talked aloud, he directed his comments to her.

"You'll recognize this." He turned the book over and read from the cover. "This is from ‘Torture in Brazil'; a report on the use of torture by Brazilian military governments from 1964 to 1979. This section is on a more scientific appreciation of torture." Rachel watched him myopically as he read.

Neither Rachel nor Gilbert noticed the young woman coming across the garden toward the French doors. When she heard the voice, she stopped and listened. She began to get the gist of what he read. Although the voice was quiet and cultured she felt the underlying rage as if it were a physical presence.

She sat unnoticed on an old cast iron bench by the door.

"This is a report on a ‘patient’ Maria Regina Peixoto Pereira, 20, signed by Dr. Ronaldo Mendes de Oliveira Castro on 17 June 1970." Hospitalized in the 1st, (District Hospital of Brasilia), RM 519, coming from DOPS—Department of Political and Social Order—where she had been detained since 29, May 1970.

“- Reason for hospitalization: removed for presenting a confused state and impossibility of locomotion.

- Main complaint: headache and feelings of weakness...

- During her first days of imprisonment, 'Commitment; sorry, Rachel, I added the commitment' she began to feel anguished, suffering panic and fear, accompanied by a migraine headache on the left frontal-lateral side, constantly throbbing. At the same time she noticed difficulties in the movement of her whole body.

- She presented, soon afterwards, an acute confused state, temporal disorientation, loss of sense of reality and ideas of self-extermination. She had the impression during the night that the interrogation to which she had been subjected continued without ceasing; she was unable to distinguish the real from the imaginary, and could not say precisely how long she remained in that state.

- She says that she suffered physical aggressions, such as beatings on her abdomen and electric shocks on her head...

- She also complains of lack of memory for recent facts.

- She says that she has been having, for several days, contractions over her entire body, not knowing when they began, but that it was just a few days ago...

- Mental exam: hyper-emotional, frequent weeping, slow conversation with a whispering voice, punctuated by periods of silence. Difficult initial contact, depressive humor.

- 'Attenuated memory' for recent facts. Perception attention and intelligence alterations.

- Lack of orientation in time and still somewhat confused. Main courses of thought: Experiences of terror and panic. Suicidal ideas.

- Presents primitive reactions of regression and hysteria.”

He let the book fall to the floor and looked around as though dizzy and lost.

"You see, Rachel, how it is?" His voice fell away to a whisper.

He sat up and put his face in his hands, but there were no more tears. Finally he got up and pulled another book from a stack on a nearby table and opened it to a place already marked.

"Listen to this, my little friend. A woman who received repeated electro-shock treatments at a mental clinic not far from here wrote it. She says:

"ECT is a cruel, if not unusual, punishment for which there has been no crime. It is a death sentence, no - that isn't quite it- it is a series of death sentences each of which is almost but not entirely carried out. There is no trial, no jury. There is merely an executioner, one who is excellent at near killing. There is the anticipation of death, the terrible wait and the sound while others are punished, and finally, your turn. In that eternally long fraction of a second, while electricity is ripping apart your being, the searing pain disperses to every nerve ending in your body; you pray that you will die quickly."

The book joined the other on the floor by the sofa.

"What difference is there a between 'men of science', the doctor in his white clinician's coat, his high-tech treatment room, and the dungeon beneath some military junta's political re-education barrack? There, 'men of science' wear a military uniform. Their high tech is not quite so lofty, but would either prisoner know the difference between the voltage applied by a modern electro-shock machine and a hand-cranked telephone generator, or electric cattle prod?"

He looked at the books on the floor in despair.

"Don't you grow tired of my voice? Why do you stay, sweet Rachel? Any decent woman would have left long ago. If ever I find a woman as faithful as you, I shall immediately marry her."

He got up, crossed the room, and got a tin of sardines from a small refrigerator tucked away beneath a Georgian side table. As he was dishing them up, he heard a cough from outside the French doors.

Standing, framed by the afternoon light, half in and half out of the French doors stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She stood as though in a magical casement, admired by the afternoon sun.

Tall and slender-waisted, she was wearing a light summer frock of white cotton patterned with dark red roses. He would remember later how fine her legs looked highlighted by the sun through the dress.

Her chestnut hair was long and full. Although her face was in soft shadow he could see large dark eyes beneath darker eyebrows, a strong, straight nose and lips too full to be classic. She just missed great beauty and was more appealing because of it.

He stood frozen over an old rosewood dish he used to feed Rachel, not wanting to move, then she would move, and he thought he might never see anything as beautiful again.

"Did I hear you propose to my cat?" Her smile was sunshine itself.

He stood self-consciously. "Forgive me for staring. I'm being rude. Please come in."

She came forward with an easy stride, her hand out. "I'm Grace Melville, your neighbor to the east and foster parent to Rachel. How did you know her name was, Rachel?" she asked.

"Gilbert Piers." Her hand felt warm, real. He realized he hadn't touched another human in a long time. He held onto her hand, looked at her long elegant fingers, thinking he liked it that she used no polish. She gave the lightest of tugs. He let go as though burned.

She grinned at him. "I don't mind if you hold my hand, but I really would like to look around."

He blushed. Christ, I'm acting like an idiot.

"You haven't told me how you knew her name." She watched Rachel eat the sardines fastidiously.

Gilbert bent down and got a carton of milk from the fridge and poured some in a saucer.

"I don't know, Miss Melville, it never occurred to me to call her anything else. She has been my only company since I got back." He looked up at Grace.

She stood by a large table in the center of the room. It had a green beige covering and was piled high with the books he'd been studying.

"I didn't propose to Rachel," he smiled, "besides, I doubt she'd have me. She's far too independent, and I wouldn't like to see her change. I proposed to an imaginary woman who had the patience to listen to me all afternoon without complaint."

"I hope this imaginary woman isn't swayed by a tin of sardines. I've been wondering where she went every afternoon. Now I find she's having an affair with an older man. My father was an old sweetie, convinced that all women, except my mother, were fickle and here's Rachel proving him right."

"An older man, thank you very much." Gilbert smiled wryly.

"Well, she's only four." Grace chuckled and strolled around the room, stopping occasionally to touch things.

"I love this room; we have a very small library. Grandmother has several of your books at home. She and your mother visited frequently."

She stopped. "Oh, I'm so sorry about Mrs. Piers; she was a wonderful woman, I liked her very much. You will think me very callous. These past few weeks must have been very difficult for you."

"Yes, I'm trying to adjust, but I can't get a grip on things, nothing fits."

He swept his arm in an arc indicating the room. "All this, is the product of generations of literary scholars and historians. I am the first to break with that tradition. Mine has been a world of logic and fact since I was a little boy. I am poorly equipped to deal with it. I look for a logical explanation and find...chaos.

"I'm sorry, Miss Melville," he looked at her directly, "you are the first event that makes sense since I've come back. I'll try to be more cheerful in the future, if you promise to come looking for Rachel often."

She blushed, and the wine red roses of her dress reflected in the pale cream of her cheeks.

"If I wouldn't be intruding, I'd like to come by. Usually I work in the afternoons, but I'm sure I can manage something." She paused to gather herself.

"You could invite me to dinner sometime. I would like that."

When he didn't answer for a moment she blushed even harder, and pretended to examine a book on one of the shelves. She watched him covertly. He looked helpless, and for some reason she was sure he wasn't an indecisive man.

"That would be very fine...please forgive me, Miss Melville, I can't think of anything I would enjoy more. I'm not at my best. My whole world is upside down. If you would come by from time to time, for tea or just to talk...I need to get used to having company. When I feel more on center, I'd like very much to have dinner with you."

She smiled ruefully. "Well, it's not complete rejection." She laughed self-consciously. "You know, Gilbert, people are seldom at their very best, and they still manage to have a good time."

"I know." The intensity of his voice startled her. "I want very much to see you, to take you places, to get to know you. I'm just a bit undone right now. You deserve all of a man's attention."

She felt flustered, unsure of herself. It was a new feeling. She wasn't sure she liked it. He was formal, yet his intention felt as intimate as a caress. She didn't understand it, all he did was shake her hand and she felt out of breath.

"Should I call ahead of time? I wouldn't want to disturb your afternoon tête-à-tête with Rachel. She may be jealous and I know she can scratch," Grace said.

"You may come here anytime you want. I hope you will." Gilbert's intensity forced her attention.

She wasn't ready to leave and went over to the sofa. As soon as she sat, Rachel, finished with her after-lunch toilette, jumped into Grace's lap and stretched out regally. Grace looked up and found Gilbert looking at her intently with a bemused expression on his face.

"A penny for your thoughts?" Grace asked.

He smiled quite openly. "I think how easily you become part of this room. You are like the other beautiful things here." His dark eyes held her like strong hands.

"That's more like it. I knew you could say nice things. Tell me something, I get up very early and my bedroom window looks out over your garden. Was it you I saw doing those peculiar exercises with Mr. Nakamichi?"

"Yes. I think when he first looked at the garden he thought I was a complete Philistine for letting it go to ruin. Then, when he discovered I was a practitioner of Tai Chi, he forgave me."

"Tai Chi?" She raised a lovely eyebrow in inquiry.

"Tai Chi Chuan: It is one of the more ancient of the martial arts of China. Most people do it for the exercise and the calming effect."

She seemed puzzled. "I'm trying to figure why you might need to know such things. You don't look like someone who would be interested in violence." From the expression on his face she wondered if she had said something wrong.

"Ahhhh, yes, violence." He smiled sadly. "I work in parts of the world where rooms like this," he looked around at the walls of books, "are unknown, more than unknown, they are inconceivable. "The source of the next meal is always in doubt. That reality has a tendency to bring out the worst in people, though I am unwilling to call violence motivated by hunger and lack of a future the worst side of man.

"I worked for three years in South America. There is no middle ground, it is all saintliness and evil, and of course violence and its twin, cruelty."

He hadn't been looking at her, but at events indelibly written on his memory.

"Again, I must apologize. I haven't quite acclimated to this world. I can't even have a conversation with a beautiful woman without these morbid parts of life creeping in," Gilbert said apologetically.

"Please don't apologize," she said. "If we have to pick our way through subjects, selecting only those that are 'nice', we aren't going to be very real to each other."

He walked over to the sofa, sat down next to her, picked up her hand and held it tightly.

"I am going to like you very much."

She started to say something.

"No," he smiled at her tenderly, "don't worry, I will let you set the pace. I can't help how I feel. I wouldn't if I could. To feel affection at all amazes me. Last week, I was convinced the capacity was gone." He took her hand and raised it to his lips gently and placed it back in her lap.

She couldn't answer. She sat silently at a loss for words. "I have a thousand questions, but I think I'll save them for the next time we meet."

As she got up to go, he smiled at her and said, "That's the nicest thing I've heard in a long time."

"What's that?" Grace asked.

"The next time we meet."

"Oh, yes. I'll see you soon, Gilbert." She walked back through the garden. Her legs felt shaky. She was puzzled and elated at the same time.