The Bloodstone, page 11
Doreen continued to stare dumbly.
“I lost my mind,” Chandal explained helplessly.
“No kidding. I hate to ask, but....”
“About a million dollars. I think I bought everything. Cookware at Zabar’s, copper pots and things to hang in the kitchen. Satin sheets at the Bath ’N Sleep Boutique. A beige silk skirt from Bloomingdale’s.”
“Bloomingdale’s,” echoed Doreen, white-faced.
“I know,” nodded Chandal. “I mean, I can’t even afford to walk through the door at Bloomingdale’s. What do you think of that short red nightgown? It’s right at your feet. For God’s sake, don’t step on it. It cost forty-five dollars.”
“It’s sexy,” Doreen said, not looking at it very closely. “Who’s it for?”
“And here—” Chandal went on, unaware that she had ignored Doreen’s question, “silk panties. Fourteen pairs of them. One for every day of two weeks, or two pairs for every day of one week.” She shrugged. “If I feel like changing a lot.”
“Chandal,” Doreen managed at last to say. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know,” she groaned. “But it was sure in hell a lot of fun!” She bowed her head sheepishly. “To tell you the truth, I really don’t know how I’m going to pay for all of it. Look at this.”
She began to uncover the largest of the wrapped packages. In the next instant she held up an exquisite oil painting, Autumn in New York. “Just like the song. What do you think?”
Doreen’s eyes regarded the painting. “I think it’s great,” she said and flopped into the arm chair. “Also expensive.”
Chandal deliberated over this, then reluctantly said, “Yes and no. I suppose so. I mean, you know, I thought how nice it would look over the fireplace. This room is so dreary. Hey,” she said, putting the picture aside, “wait until you see the shoes I bought. And the new spring coat. They’ll be here in the next shipment.”
“Next shipment? How much stuff did you buy?”
“A lot. I’ve been at it now for three days.” Chandal lit a cigarette and tossed back a few loose strands of hair. Then she knelt and plunged her hands into a shopping bag at Doreen’s feet and brought forth rolls of wallpaper. As she spoke, she placed each roll into Doreen’s lap. “This is for the room that leaks. This for the kitchen. This for the bedroom.” The last she unrolled with a grimace of disgust. “Why I chose a dark blue for the bedroom I’ll never know.”
“Because you’re nuts, that’s why!”
“No... I’m not,” Chandal said with a frown. Then smiled. “Just happy. Things are starting to happen! My agent called me for a commercial. I read for them on Wednesday. I’ve got a callback for the play at the Pilot Theatre, and...” She let a cryptic pause hang in the air. “I’ve been invited to a party tomorrow night.”
“Oh. Who by?”
“My agent. She called and said there’s a costume party. Theatrical type of affair. And I’m invited.” Chandal winked. “She said there were people who were interested in meeting me. Isn’t that great?” She blew cigarette smoke in Doreen’s direction.
“I guess,” Doreen mumbled.
“You guess? Is that all you can say?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“That’s what I like. Someone who has a tremendous vocabulary.” Chandal grinned.
Doreen made no response. She leaned back against the couch, and after a moment forced a smile. It seemed a painful attempt.
“Where did you buy that statue?” she asked hastily, to change the subject. “What is it, some sort of God or something?” She carefully lifted the heavy statue from the box.
Chandal glanced at the Gothic creature now sitting in Doreen’s lap—with twisted, folded legs. Cloven hooves. Part man, part beast, the creature seemed to wear a look of disdain on its goatlike face. An abrupt silence froze the room. Chandal caught her breath and stood motionless for a moment in an attitude of wistful supplication.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” she murmured. “I found it in a little antique shop on Amsterdam Avenue. As to what it is, I haven’t a clue.”
“What does it say?” Doreen asked, and stared at the symbols at its base.
“Beats me. I only studied one semester of high school French,” sighed Chandal, “two years of college German, and that was that. It would be great, wouldn’t it, if I could step forth and say, ah, yes, that’s from the lost civilization of Latep, I know it well. I am also the only human alive who still speaks the dead language of the Latepenese. At that point, I would modestly translate and—”
“And I would drop dead from admiration,” finished Doreen.
“Right!” Chandal smiled. “But I loved that ugly thing the minute I saw it. Then when the salesman told me how lucky it was, I had to have it. Listen to this, Doreen, anything I want, I can have. All I have to do is ask the statue for it. That’s what he said. So what do you think?”
Doreen absently held the half-shadowed face between the palms of her hands. “That’s better than throwing coins in a wishing well,” she laughed. “Can I use it sometimes?”
“Sure. I wonder where I should put it.”
“How about the mantel?”
“I was thinking of a small table, or a stand. Something like a pedestal.”
“What about the antique shop? Were they out of pedestals?”
“Doreen, what I’m leading up to is a favor.”
“Hmmm.”
“When Mike carried those antiques down to the basement for me, he said there was an airtight room down there. That it was sort of a vault where valuable furniture was stored. And I was wondering...
“The only pedestal I know about,” grinned Doreen, “is the one Mike claims he keeps me on.”
“Can we look? If nothing else, I’d like to get that little inlaid table I had Mike take down, although it’s too low.”
“I’m not supposed to go down there.”
“Why not?”
“Mike said not to.”
“Doreen, you’re a disgrace to modern woman. Do you have a key?”
“I don’t think so,” Doreen said, a note of finality to her voice.
Chandal paused, then shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s that then.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s all right.” Chandal took the statue from Doreen’s hands almost protectively, as if in some way the statue belonged to her more specifically than anything ever had in the course of her life. “I’ll put it on the mantel for now,” she decided, and cradled it for a moment before setting it carefully in place.
On the mantel the creature became at once the focus of the room, compelling the eye even as it had in the dusty antique shop. Chandal was unable to resist touching it once more and laid her hand almost reverently against its cheek. The creature seemed to meet her gaze.
“Chandal? Did you just make a wish?” queried Doreen.
Suddenly the desire rose in Chandal so strongly, that she could almost see it. Success. Not so much for the money. But to be someone. She straightened, trembling, and thought: It’s important. Success. This time, I’m going to have it. All for me.
“What did you wish?” asked Doreen in a small voice.
Chandal turned. Felt taller, beautiful in a way. All of these things that were spread before her on the floor of the carriage house—she knew it was only right that she have them.
“I wished,” she said in a cool remote voice, “for success. To be a star, Doreen. That’s what I asked for. And that’s what I’m going to get.”
A sudden stir of breeze touched her cheek, causing her to turn with a start to stare once again at the statue. The eyes of its goat’s head glinted like pieces of glass and stared evenly back at her. Its lips, snake like and fat, appeared to vibrate with utterance. Its entire surface seemed to glow as if coated with a thin layer of fresh blood. Chandal felt an extraordinary thrill of desire as she watched the statue expand, grow enormously large, like a strange mystical inflating of stone and metal, until finally it loomed immense and throbbing with life. It was as if all reality, all thought, had been drawn into it.
“I’m here,” the voice whispered. “I’m in your blood.”
And Chandal smiled.
CHAPTER TEN
RIVULETS OF SWEAT DRENCHED HIS TENNIS SHIRT, STAINING THE couch pillow and mixing with cigarette ash from his almost defunct cigarette.
It was 7:25 P.M.—10:25 P.M. in New York.
Dr. Luther had been speaking for a full minute. Ron had never in his life heard such rich-toned, warm and yet neutral, noncommittal pleasantries in his life. He wondered if Dr. Luther was deliberately affecting it, or if his psychiatric training had been so encompassing as to make such conversation normal, even second nature.
“Uh, what I’m asking,” Ron ventured during one of the clinical pauses, “is whether you believe I should insist that Chandal come back here. To L.A.!” he emphasized defiantly, fighting another of those deadly significant silences.
“I’m not sure you should do anything,” the doctor said drily.
Stunned, Ron considered this information. “Do you mean I shouldn’t try to get her away from New York?”
“Perhaps she doesn’t like California. Have you thought of that? Or, forgive me for putting it bluntly, perhaps she is only in New York to run away from a relationship she’s not ready to deal with. You should understand that when I knew her, Chandal had made only elementary progress in understanding her feelings toward her husband’s death.”
The words penetrated Ron like small daggers. It was impossible for him to conceive of Chandal’s emotions where other men were concerned. He seemed to hear a replay of long conversations with Chandal. Conversations always about the present or the future. Somehow never the past. The past, he had reasoned, was gone. Didn’t matter, didn’t have to be dealt with, didn’t even—secret gladness—have to be remembered. In that manner her psychic block had been his protection.
“We can’t pretend that she doesn’t have to face it,” Luther went on with long-distance X-ray into Ron’s mind. “She does.”
The cigarette was burning Ron’s finger. He crushed it out in the ashtray and sighed grimly. “So, what do I do? Nothing? Just stay away?”
“The most important thing,” Luther remonstrated gently, “is for you not to force her hand. Don’t lay down ultimatums. The best way to make her stay in New York is to order her to leave.”
“Then you’re not at all concerned?”
“I didn’t say that,” Luther murmured in even, noninflected words.
Before Ron could respond, the doctor had launched into another monologue about manifestations of anxiety, perception of reality and inner life. It wasn’t until he mentioned neuroses that Ron actually allowed himself to acknowledge the truth. That Chandal had been ill. Mentally ill.
He found himself shaking with anxiety, the kind of anxiety that comes when simple and unspeakable things surface. Things that lie buried and known, but unconfessed.
He was suddenly uncomfortable, physically so. Slowly, with strained effort, he got off the couch and walked a little distance to the window, carrying the telephone.
“I understand,” he muttered. “Yet I don’t.”
“In what area are we not communicating?”
“Well, you seem to be indicating that Chandal may be suffering a relapse of sorts.”
“She could be. Yes.”
Ron stood there for a moment staring out the window and not knowing what he should say next. The silence was thick, almost tangible, but he could tell there was a great deal of sympathy and concern being felt some three thousand miles away at the other end of the line. Ron groped for another cigarette.
“Dr. Luther?”
“Yes.”
With the phone clamped between his chin and shoulder, Ron bent his head to the match. The tiny flame sent sulfur into his eyes. He withdrew, squinting, as he said, “So what should I do? Go to New York?”
“Well, has she issued an invitation?”
Ron found himself unexpectedly, inconceivably angry. “Goddammit, please stop playing the shrink with me. What can I say—what can I possibly do—to convince you to talk man-to-man with me, rather than as doctor to some sort of confused layman who might be needing the couch himself.”
Ironically Dr. Luther hadn’t proved to be the comforting influence that Ron had expected. Instead he was more of a catalyst. Ron was feeling the same dizzying confusion he’d suffered all afternoon. He started to apologize, when unexpectedly a chuckle released itself over the wire.
“I wonder,” Luther said, still chuckling, “exactly what you want me to say. Did you call me for instructions, permission, forgiveness...?”
“For openers, you could tell me exactly how sick you think she is. That’s the part I haven’t been able to get. Chandal isn’t the screwball type, at least she doesn’t behave that way with me. She isn’t the sort who does something like this—”
“That’s what the neighbors said,” Luther offered, “when one of my latest patients killed his father and stepmother. He was such a normal kid, everyone agreed.”
“I’m not the neighbors,” Ron snapped. “I’m the man who’s in love with her. And Chandal’s not—” He paused. Something unspoken had warned him.
“No, of course she’s not.” Luther seemed to measure every word he said.
“Is there anything I should know?” Ron forced himself to slow down. His head had begun to ache slightly from the strain of the conversation. “Anything that might, for instance, give me a clue as to what’s happening. I know about the amnesia. I know about her past before that point. Why do I feel like there’s a lot more I could know, that I should know?”
“Do you know about how her husband died?”
“In the fire, yes.”
“Do you know how her mother died?”
Ron felt a momentary impulse of fear. “No.” He frowned. “Just that she died during that period of time Chandal can’t remember.”
“Doesn’t want to remember,” corrected Luther.
“You know that, I don’t,” protested Ron. “How did her mother die?”
The doctor gave a deep sigh and, with the release of breath, said, “She committed suicide by jumping from her hospital window.”
Ron’s mouth gaped open. After a rather long pause he found himself shivering from the conditioned air, even though he had wrapped a heavy woolen sweater around his shoulders. He knew only after some time had passed that he had made up his mind. “Here’s what I’m going to do,” he said bluntly, no longer caring what Luther might think the right course of action to be. “I’m going to New York to see her. I’m going to take her to dinner and see if she eats. I’m going to take her to bed and see if she can make love. I’m going to talk to her, listen to her, try to make some sort of sense out of what’s happening. And I don’t really give a damn what you think about all of that.”
Unexpectedly Luther’s voice descended a notch into confirmation. “It’s what I’d do if I were you,” he said. “By the way, please feel free to call me if you should need my help.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I still have a very deep concern for Chandal’s well-being.”
“I appreciate that. And thanks. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Ron slowly lowered the receiver. After that he went to the refrigerator, took away a bottle of beer which he drank in the shower. He felt marginally better. He put on his bathrobe and slippers and lay down on the couch in the living room.
Without paying attention to what he was doing, his mind empty, he wasted time reading the warning on the Dristan bottle that he had had in his medicine chest for months. The night was heavy.
... He spent the rest of his time lying on the couch, thinking of nothing, a strange heaviness in his chest. He clipped his toenails. He counted the cracks in the ceiling, called Chandal, read—called Chandal, and finally shoved three Dristan tablets into his mouth and moved into the bedroom.
There was the pain. The splitting pain in his head that blotted out all else. It left him oblivious to his surroundings. To the passage of time as well. He stretched out on top of the bed for an hour, maybe two. He was glad to resign himself just to stay still.
His head buzzed slightly from the beer.
He didn’t move. He waited. He knew he wasn’t waiting for anything specific to happen, yet he had the odd feeling he was in the midst of a happening, not its conclusion, but its beginnings, a shifting of sorts, like standing solidly on ground that had been suddenly hit with an earthquake.
Yet he didn’t fear the thought. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t. No fear, no apprehension. This reaction astounded him.
It was midnight when Ron finally crawled under the covers, and two in the morning when he dialed Chandal’s number for the last time. No one had ever picked up on the other end. Ron was amazed. Despite how impossible the situation had become, he remained determined, even at this late hour. He was brutally fatigued. His eyes were strained and bloodshot, but he sat quietly, trying to reassure himself that he would make everything all right.
Finally, somewhere around four o’clock he fell asleep.
The dream came upon him swiftly, leaving no chance for escape. He was swept forth by a sudden supernatural power and passed like a spirit through a veil of thin mist that stretched out before him.
At first he was confused as to where he was. It wasn’t until he glanced up that he realized he was standing in a forest of crucifixes. Huge, twisted treelike crucifixes that shimmered in the glow of a lustrous moon. He imagined it was raining. But when he looked closer he saw that each branch, each tree trunk, spewed blood. Wild, fountainlike spurts of blood.
Something pulled him forward—a compulsion, an obsession—one step at a time until he felt the earth crumbling under his feet, heard the dry clumps of clay falling away, down, far down, and still he moved forward.
Before him a mass of light flashed in a constant tremulous motion. Shapeless, it appeared to expand in every direction, and then vanished for a moment. In the next instant it appeared again. He moved closer so that he could examine it, keeping his eyes fixed on the light for fear it might disappear.
