As it passed by my bench, it saw me, gestured at me, leaned in my direction amidst its stumblings, its dark face twinkling with sweat.
— No, Hollis, I heard the attendant say as the thing and I exchanged a long glance amidst the swirling trees, the spinning buildings, out there on the stormy Gulf. Then it grinned, its white teeth sparkling, its eyes almost pulled shut from the effort of grimace, its twisted fingers spieling a language both of us could grasp.
— Come on, Hollis, the attendant said impatiently, and the thing reared its head and turned away. No more time for me. It took a step or two, fell, and rolled in the grass, grunting, making sounds like I had never heard. — Hollis, I swear to God, the attendant said mildly, and helped the messenger to its feet once more.
The nurse in the building Tumulty had pointed out looked at me questioningly. — I’m looking for... Mrs. Bedlow.
— You’ll have to wait... she began, and then her expression changed. — Oh, you must be the one. I knew I’d forgotten something. All right, straight back and to the left. Ward Three.
I walked down a long corridor with lights on the ceiling, each behind its wire cover. I wondered if Hollis might have been the reason for the precaution. Had he or she or it once leaped upward at the light, clawing, grasping, attempting to touch the sun? The walls were covered with an ugly pale yellow enamel which had begun peeling long ago, and the smell of cheap pine-scented deodorizer did not cover the deep ingrained stench of urine, much older than the blistered paint. Ward Three was a narrow dormitory filled with small beds. My eyes scanned the beds and I almost turned back, ready for the untidy wards again. Because here were the small children — what had been intended as children.
Down almost at the end of the ward, I saw Irma. She was seated in a visitor’s chair, and in her arms was a child with a head larger than hers. It was gesticulating frantically, and I could hear its sounds the length of the ward. She held it close and whispered to it, kissed it, held it close, and as she drew it to her, the sounds became almost frantic. They were not human sounds. They were Hollis’s sounds, and as I walked the length of the ward, I thought I knew what Tumulty had been about to say before he had thought better of it.
— Hello, Irma said. The child in her arms paused in its snufflings and looked up at me from huge unfocused eyes. Its tongue stood out, and it appeared that its lower jaw was congenitally dislocated. Saliva ran down the flap of flesh where you and I have lips, and Irma paid no mind as it dripped on her dress. It would have been pointless to wipe the child’s mouth because the flow did not stop, nor did the discharge from its bulging, unblinking eyes. I looked at Irma. Her smile was genuine.
— This is... I began.
— Albert Sidney, she finished. — Oh, no. I wish it were. This is Barry. Say hello.
The child grunted and buried its head in her lap, sliding down to the floor and crawling behind her chair.
— You... wish...?
— This is Albert Sidney, she said, turning to the bed next to her chair.
He lay there motionless, the sheet drawn up to what might have been the region of his chin. His head was very large, and bulged out to one side in a way that I would never have supposed could support life. Where his eyes should have been, two blank white surfaces of solid cataract seemed to float lidless and intent. He had no nose, only a small hole surgically created, I think, and ringed with discharge. His mouth was a slash in the right side of his cheek, at least two inches over and up from where mouths belong. Irma stepped over beside him, and as she reached down and kissed him, rearranged the sheets, I saw one of his hands. It was a fingerless club of flesh dotted almost randomly with bits of fingernail.
I closed my eyes and then looked once more. I saw again what I must have seen at first and ignored, the thing I had come to see. On Albert Sidney’s deformed and earless head, almost covering the awful disarray of his humanity, he had a wealth of reddish golden hair, rich and curly, proper aureole of a Celtic deity. Or a surfing king.
V
We had dinner at some anonymous restaurant in Alexandria, and then found a room at a motel not far from Pineville. I had bought a bottle of whiskey. Inside, I filled a glass after peeling away its sticky plastic cover that pretended to guard it from the world for my better health.
— Should I have brought you? Irma asked, sitting down on the bed.
— Yes, I said. — Sure. Nobody should... nobody ought to be shielded from this.
— But it... hasn’t got anything to do with... us. What Howard wants to do, does it?
— No, I said. — I don’t think so.
— Howard was all right. If things had gone... the way they do mostly. He wasn’t... isn’t... a weak man. He’s brave, and he used to work... sometimes sixteen hours a day. He was very... steady. Do you know, I loved him...
I poured her a drink. — Sometimes, I said, and heard that my voice was unsteady. — None of us know... what we can... stand.
— If Howard had had just any kind of belief... but...
— ... He just had himself...?
— Just that. He... his two hands and a strong back, and he was quick with figures. He always... came out...
— ... ahead.
She breathed deeply, and sipped the whiskey. — Every time. He... liked hard times. To work his way through. You couldn’t stop him. And very honest. An honest man.
I finished the glass and poured another one. I couldn’t get rid of the smells and the images. The whiskey was doing no good. It would only dull my senses prospectively. The smells and the images were inside for keeps.
— He’s not honest about...
— Albert Sidney? No, but I... it doesn’t matter. I release him of that. Which is why...
— You want me to go ahead with the divorce?
— I think. We can’t help each other, don’t you see?
— I see that. But... what will you do?
Irma laughed and slipped off her shoes, curled her feet under her. Somewhere back in the mechanical reaches of my mind, where I was listening to Vivaldi and watching a thin British rain fall into my garden, neither happy nor sad, preserved by my indifference from the Gulf, I saw that she was very beautiful and that she cared for me, had brought me to Alexandria as much for myself as for her sake, though she did not know it.
— ... do what needs to be done for the baby, she was saying. — I’ve asked for strength to do the best... thing.
— What do you want me to do?
— About the divorce? I don’t know about... the legal stuff. I want to... how do you say it...? Not to contest it?
— There’s a way. When the other person makes life insupportable...
Irma looked at me strangely, as if I were not understanding.
— No, no. The other... what he says.
— Adultery?
— And the rest. About Albert Sidney...
— No. You can’t...
— Why can’t I? I told you, Howard is all right. I mean, he could be all right. I want to let him go. Can’t you say some way or other what he claims is true?
I set my glass down. — In the pleadings. You can always accept what he says in your... answer.
— Pleadings?
— That’s what they call... what we file in a suit. But I can’t state an outright... lie...
— But you’re his counsel. You have to say what he wants you to say.