Silhouette
D. Beckett

A graphically superior, fantastically boring newspaper published here in the Northwest for liberal yuppies ran an ad for a volume of short stories entitled Paradise Plus: Tales of Another Life available from the author. The ad was just askew enough that I was intrigued. The volume in magazine format turned out to be one of the best things I'd seen in a while, a combination of film noir sentiment and occult surrealism. ' 7 was not intending to be weird or surreal; to me they were merely stories,'' Don Beckett told me. "Come to think of it, many things that seem ordinary to me are considered supernatural by the general populace.'' The present selection is the collection's most horrifically appealing.

I

Charles Gordon was an incurable optimist, and meticulously meticulous. He lived in a brown stone house on Pleasant Street. (Someone else -- in New York or Chicago, for instance -- might have called the house a brownstone, but Charles Gordon didn't like brownstone houses, had never like brownstone houses, and so this was simply a brown stone house.)
Meticulous, yes. And an optimist. So what brought Charles to the hospital? He certainly had no love for hospitals; he didn't believe in hospitals. What brought him there, on a sunny August afternoon, to be stuck in bed with a plastic tube in his arm? It was a question, which could be answered in at least two ways.
According to Charles's housekeeper, it was she who brought him to the hospital; and, on the surface, this was undoubtedly true. But Charles saw the housekeeper as merely the mechanism: the actual force behind his trip to the hospital was
Margaret.
The housekeeper, of course, had her own viewpoint. In the first place, Charles was eccentric (anyone as meticulous as Charles was bound to seem eccentric to this kid, being the sorority girl that she was). She admired eccentricity up to a point, but Charles had begun to worry her: he had all but given up eating. His food intake had come to consist of fresh coconuts and egg roll skins -- nothing more.
Even worse, Charles was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. "Why do they call them skins, anyway?" he asked her one day, as he was frying up a batch. "Egg roll skins -- it's not very appetizing. Egg roll wrappers would be much more appropriate, don't you think?"
"I don't really know."
"Well, the recipe calls them skins. Right here in the Chinese cookbook -- look at this."
"I guess they should know," said the housekeeper.
What could she do? She tried to get him to eat. She even baked him a meatloaf and left it in his refrigerator -- until it sprouted.
He had always been thin, and was rapidly getting thinner. He would sit in his rocking chair, rocking gently, smoking his pipe, occasionally nibbling a strip of fresh coconut; and she could practically watch him evaporating. So, finally, she didn't know what to do except take him to the hospital.
"I really think you should go," she told him. "Let them find out what's wrong."
"But there is nothing wrong."
"Then why aren't you eating?"
"Because I'm not hungry."
"And why aren't you hungry?"
"Because I'm not."
"Well, there has to be a reason."
"Entropy," he said. "Look it up." He knew that would confuse her. Actually, his loss of appetite was just the most recent development in a long-developing pattern: Charles had been giving up things for years. In high school he had given up swimming, archery, and butterfly collecting, all of which he had dearly loved as a child (mere must have been other things, too, which he had entirely forgotten). In college he gave up drawing and painting. A few years later he had more or less given up women, and then alcohol. Then he had given up housework, hired this sorority girl. So it was only a matter of time until the natural progression brought him to the point of phasing out food. His attention was coming to rest increasingly on Margaret.
"I'm taking you to the hospital," said the housekeeper, putting the dictionary back on the desk. "I mean it, now get ready."
Charles was stuffing his pipe with tobacco. "I'm not paying you to make decisions. I'm paying you to dust." He stared her down; she went back to dusting.
But then it occurred to him that the hospital had some connection with Margaret. Could this be the mechanism for bringing the two of them together? Charles would never have considered this on his own; hospitals were so far out of his realm, they might as well not have existed. But now, suddenly, the hospital seemed very important -- and it seemed that the housekeeper's part in this whole puzzle might be simply to take him there. He contrived, after all, to let himself be persuaded.

He arrived in the waiting room with a long red robe and a toothbrush, and the picture of Margaret that he always kept by his bed. He didn't have a doctor, so the housekeeper called hers: a Dr. Anderson.
"I don't know how you're still on your feet," said the doc. "You're going right to bed."
They put him in a room on the third floor: a private room, at Charles's request. On the night table he set up the picture of Margaret, and then made himself comfortable in the motorized bed; inclined, gazing out the windows to the west. A nurse (with nicotine stains on her fingernails) came in and plugged a bottle of glucose into his arm and took his temperature. He was left alone then, until the next morning.
In the morning the interrogation began. Doc Anderson came in, stethoscope swinging from around his neck. He stood at the bedside, hands in his black pants pockets. "Well. How are we doing this morning?"
Charles didn't answer, except with a patronizing smile. Doc was already moving to the chair, sitting down, looking at the picture on the table. "Nice-looking girl. Who is she?" "Her name is Margaret."
"Looks like an old picture." (Very observant, these doctors.) "Nineteen twenty-two," said Charles. "Some relation of yours?" "She was my wife."
Doc's eyes came up from the picture to look at Charles. One eyebrow lifted itself sarcastically (as if to say: "All right, Son -- how gullible do you think I am, anyway?").
Charles lifted an eyebrow in return ("You shouldn't ask questions unless you're willing to accept the answers, Doc.") "Mister Gordon, how old are you?" "Uhh... what year is this?"
"Well, I'm under the impression," said the doc -- rubbing at a stain on his stethoscope -- "that we're in the vicinity of nineteen eighty-four."
"Well, and then... I must be thirty-three." "And you say this picture was..." "Nineteen twenty-two."
Doc pulled a pair of half-glasses from somewhere, put them on, and glared over the top at Charles. "Mister Gordon, how would you describe yourself physically? Your weight, in particular -- are you happy with it, or maybe... a little overweight? Mister Gordon?"
"I'm not anorectic, if that's what you're thinking." "You let me be the judge of that, Young Man." "For one thing, Doctor... anorexia is unheard of in men. But I'm sure you're aware of that."
"Well, of course. There's no need for jumping to conclusions, Mister Gordon. I was merely asking a question -- and I would appreciate you merely answering it. Now, how would you describe yourself physically? Please?"
"Well... I would say that my physical condition at this point could fairly be described as Skinny as a Rail, due to the fact that I have eaten nothing but egg roll skins and coconuts for the past few weeks!" That ended the interrogation.

II

Mar-gie...I'm always thinking of you
Mar-gie...I'll tell the world I love you
Don't forget your promise to me...1

Margie was coming back. She was very close, he could feel it. He lay propped up in bed, looking out the window, playing games with a cloud on the horizon. He was vaporizing the top of the cloud -- whittling it down with his thoughts -- when he saw Margaret's face. It wasn't the face he had known before. The eyes were the same, but the face was different. He closed his eyes and tried to sustain the image.
Mar-gie...I'm always thinking of you
Mar-gie...
"That's a pretty song." It was the nurse; he hadn't heard her come in.
He stopped singing. "Yes -- it's an old one. From the Twenties."
"Aren't you going to eat any of your lunch?"
"I did. I ate the crackers."
"That's all you want?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"Well, how are we going to put any weight on you if you won't eat?"
Charles refrained from answering. Maybe, if he stayed very still and didn't open his eyes, he could get her to leave.
When she went, she sneaked out on her white crepe soles. Charles didn't hear a thing; he only felt her absence. These nurses were as sneaky as cats. Always sneaking in and out.
Oh, well -- all that mattered was that Margie was coming back. And he knew what she looked like; he would know her when he saw her. Pulling the sheet up over his face, he felt wonderfully smug.

III

After all is said and done
There is really only one
Oh! Mar-gie, Mar-gie, it's you

He was standing at the window. It was dusk. The window was open, pulling smoke from his cigarette out through the screen.
A nurse came into the room and stopped -- gawking at the empty bed and the I.V. tube hanging in the air, dripping glucose on the sheet. "Where's Mister Gordon?" she demanded.
"Excuse me?" (Sneaky bitches; always sneaking around.)
She looked at him more closely, finally recognized the red robe. "Mister Gordon?"
He turned back to the window.
"What are you doing? What are you doing? And where did you get that cigarette? Give me mat." She took it away from him, not knowing what to do with it herself. "Mister Gordon, are you... ?" He looked older -- and different. "Mister Gordon?"
"Please, call me Ned." The voice was different, too; slightly British.
"What are you doing?"
"Waiting. For Margaret."
"Oh, that's nice. Wouldn't you rather wait in bed?"
"Certainly not." He gestured to the window. "Look out there, it's twilight. It's the best part of the day."
"Yes. I see. Uhh... tell me, who is Margaret? I guess I've forgotten."
"Well, I don't believe I ever told you. She was my wife." "You say was -- you mean you're divorced?" "No. She killed herself... and me, too." "Uhh... what do you mean?"
"I mean she killed us both. With a knife."
"But you're not dead, you're standing right here."
"Oh, I'm dead enough all right. Neddie's dead." He turned from the window, rubbing a thumb against his chest. "This is no more than an empty silhouette. Like those trees out there, look at them, turning into silhouettes. We're all silhouettes of what we were before."
The nurse sat down on the bed. "Wouldn't you like to sit here and rest?" When he didn't answer, she said: "Well, tell me about your wife. When were you married?"
"Nineteen twenty-two. Twentieth day of May."
"Tell me about it."
"Well... the marriage was a riotous joke from the beginning. Not that we weren't in love, we certainly were that, but... well, the marriage never had a snowball's chance in Hell. It was a very stupid thing. It lasted seventeen years, but you wouldn't have known we were married most of that time. She spent a good deal of it running around -- very taken with different men. More or less constantly."
"It was very strange -- to say the least -- because she was a Catholic, you see. Very dogmatic, for the most part. That was why we got married -- at her insistence, because of the Church. And we spent seventeen years like that."
He turned to face the nurse, looked at her hands on the bed. "You're not married?"
"No."
"Not a Catholic?" She shook her head. He nodded, went back to the window: "You see, the Church would forgive you for having an affair with every bounder that passed through the neighborhood... but they wouldn't forgive you for not being married -- I mean, living with someone out of wedlock. So that was how it went."
He was talking to the twilight. "The God-damned Church, the bastards. They were the ones that finally sent her over the edge, of course. And God-damned if she didn't take me with her." He forced a laugh, glancing back toward the nurse.
"The way it finally came about... she fell for this other chap, you see. After seventeen years of falling for other chaps. I mean, she had it bad for this one. They had a go at it for a while, and then he was going to leave. Well - she couldn't stand him to go, not this one. But he was going, and not a bleedin' thing she could do about it, you see.
"She couldn't run off with him. She couldn't marry him, because she couldn't divorce me, because of the Church. Marriage was completely sacred... so there she was. Nothing she could do, and this fellow was leaving. He did leave -- and something in Margaret came undone. Could I have my cigarette back, please?"
The nurse let him take it. This was getting interesting, even if he was crazy.
"Would you have a match?"
She found one in her pocket, lit the cigarette for him. He nodded a thank you, and shuffled back to the window.
"The day it happened," he said, "1 was down in the cellar. I must've taken something down -- we used the cellar for general storage, plus as a pantry -- and I was starting to come back up. And the place was so full; there was just a narrow aisle alongside the wall. You went along next to the wall, round the end of it, and up the stairs.
"I was coming along, almost to the end of the wall, just ready to turn the corner -- and there she was. Like something out of a nightmare. Wearing a satin slip -- very slinky affair. No shoes, nor anything else. I hadn't even heard her on the stairs.
"Her hair was pulled straight back and tied, and you could tell by her face -- by her eyes -- that she was quite gone. Mad as a hatter. I saw the eyes before I saw the knife, she was so close. Right there face to face, coming round the end of the wall."
His voice was mesmerizing the nurse.
"I suppose I knew right then what was about to happen. Like turning the last page of a book, and already knowing what's there. And it didn't really bother me; it was just something that was very clearly going to happen.
"I remember saying her name. 'Margaret.' I don't remember actually feeling the knife, isn't that odd? There she was hacking bloody hell out of my chest, and I was watching her do it, and I don't remember feeling it! But the smell of it -- so heavy, you could taste in the air! That smothering, metallic taste! I suppose it's the iron in the blood -- is that what it is?"
He looked at the nurse, but she didn't answer.
"I remember lying there on the floor... and seeing her back away from me. Seeing her crouched in the corner, at the bottom of the stairs. Blood everywhere. All over her slip, on her face, on the floor." He scraped the cigarette ash against the window screen and watched it blow away.
"It seemed that she didn't move for the longest time -- just crouched there. And then the sound that came out of her, God in Heaven! All the poor souls in Hell couldn't make a sound like that! Like something you'd hear at the end of the world! There's nothing to compare with it....
"And she went right over onto the knife... and then the sound of the knife handle scraping on the concrete floor, and then stopping."
He was beginning to shake; took a huge drag on the cigarette. "The irony of the thing, you know: here was this brilliant woman... magnificent woman! Beautiful, and talented, and funny -- she was a nightclub singer, which was crazy enough in itself -- and a prisoner of the Catholic church.
"I mean, the idiocy of not being able to get a divorce because of the Church, and then to end up killing herself -- the most unforgivable sin of all! Driven to it by those pompous, moronic bastards!"
The nurse got up, stood behind him at the window, put her hands on his shoulders. "That's a beautiful story -- I mean... a sad one."
"She's coming back," he said. "She's very close right now."
"Here -- let's get you back in bed. You'll get a chill, standing here with that window open. And let me have the cigarette, all right?"

IV

The moon woke him. No one had shut the curtains. It must have been two or three in the morning; he didn't know which day.
He tried sitting up in bed. Sitting up, sitting up -- it was taking forever. The room was a sequence of still pictures, like individual frames of a movie, and the pictures were barely changing. Just sitting up seemed endless.
It was the moonlight: it wasn't continuous. The moon was a strobe light, breaking every movement into countless components.
Sitting up, finally; getting the tube out of his arm; it was agony. Out of bed. Moving for the window. Not getting anywhere.
Seeing the moon through the window -- and seeing it and seeing it. Tic tic tic tic; glucose dripping into a pool on the sheet. Tic tic tic: the pictures were all the same now, the same picture, over and again, over and again. Frozen.
Then he knew where he was (he heard nurses talking in the hall). He was in the hospital. He pulled himself away from the moon, got out into the hall, and things were continuous again. Green and white squares of tile, making nice continuous diagonals on the floor. He started walking.
"Getting some exercise," he said to the woman at the nurse's station.
"Good," she said. "It's good for you."
He took the elevator down to the first floor. He was feeling all right again; he would find a newspaper and a place to sit.
Two young men in white uniforms, wheeling a cart, were coming out the doors marked SURG. PREP. Someone was on the cart, under a green sheet, covered from head to foot.
"A dead one?" said Charles.
"Not quite."
"What happened?" He started walking with them, back past the elevators.
"A lovers' quarrel. Boyfriend beat the hell out of her."
There was a hand poking out from under the sheet: a nice, broken hand. Looking at it, Charles thought the still pictures were going to start again -- tic tic -- and he already knew who was under the sheet. But then he got himself under control.
Still walking alongside, he reached for the corner of the sheet, to lift it. "May I?"
"I wouldn't recommend it."
"But I have to." He pulled it back and recognized the face, terrible as it was. He watched the men wheel her into Surgery.
When they came out with the empty cart, Charles was sitting formlessly in the hallway; propped against the wall like a pile of soggy newspapers. "Just resting," he said, and motioned for the men to go away.
He sat thinking about the white uniforms and the green sheet; the feel of the green sheet between his fingers.
Two doctors marching past in the hall: "... then if you'll cover for me Thursday..." "Sure. And Clifford will take the weekend..."
"Doctor Spanner, call Five-four-one, please. Doctor Spanner, Five-four-one."
When the doors to Surgery opened, a nurse came out, went off down the hall, all but running. Another woman, apparently a surgeon, walked over to Charles. He took her hand and she helped him up.
"You knew her?" the woman said.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. She's gone."
They walked along together, toward the elevators. "Well," Charles said, "I'll just have to start over. We'll both have to start over, that's all." He wasn't going to let this get him down, not after coming this close. If Charles was anything, he was an optimist.