I rose to a sitting position, the hall before my eyes wavering in alternate tides of light and darkness. My chest felt tight and a remorseless chill gripped my body. I pulled myself up to a bent-over stance and staggered to Saul’s room, a cough burning in my throat as I stumbled across the floor and against his bed.
He was there and looked emaciated. He was unshaved and the dark wiry beard on his skin seemed like some repugnant growth. His mouth was open and emitting sounds of exhausted slumber and his smooth, white chest rose and fell with shallow’ movements.
He made no motion as I tugged weakly at his shoulder. I spoke his name and was shocked at the hoarse, grating sound of my own voice. I spoke it again, and he stirred with a grumble and opened one eye to look at me.
“I’m sick,” I muttered, “Saul, I’m sick.”
He rolled on one side, turning on his back to me. A sob of anguish tore at my throat.
“Saul!”
He seemed to snap his body around insanely then, his hands clenched into bony, white fists at his sides.
“Get out of here!” he screamed. “Leave me alone or I’ll kill you!”
The body-shaking impact of his words drove me back from the bed to where I stood dumbly staring at him, breath stabbing at my throat. I saw him toss his body back over as if he wanted to break it. And I heard him mutter to himself miserably, “
A spasm of coughing struck me then and, my chest aching with fiery pains, I struggled back to my own room and got into bed with the movements of an old man. I fell back on the pillow and pulled up the blankets, then lay there shivering and helpless.
There I slept all day in spasmodic periods offset by waking moments of extreme pain. I was unable to rise to get myself food or water. All I could do was lie there, shaking and weeping. I felt beaten as much by Saul’s cruelty to me as by the physical suffering. And the pain in my body was extremely severe. So much so that during one seizure of coughing it was so awful I began to cry like a child, hitting the mattress with weak, ineffective fists and kicking my legs deliriously.
Yet, even then, I think I wept for more than the pain. I wept for my only brother who loved me not.
It seemed that night came more swiftly than I had ever seen it come before. I lay alone in the darkness praying through mute lips that no harm should come to him.
I slept a while and then, abruptly, I was awake, staring at the light beneath the door, hearing the high- pitched humming in my ears. And I realized in that moment that Saul still loved me but that the house had corrupted his love.
And from this knowledge came resolution, from despair I gained amazing heart. I struggled to my feet and swayed there dizzily until the streaks before my eyes dispersed. Then I put on my robe and slippers, went to the door and threw it open.
What made things happen as they did I cannot say. Perhaps it was my feeling of courage that caused the black obstruction in the hall to melt before me. The house was trembling with the vibrations and the humming. Yet they seemed to lessen as I moved down the stairway and, all of a sudden, the blue light vanished from the living room and I heard loud and furious rumblings there.
When I entered, the room was in its usual order. A candle was burning on the mantel. But my eyes were riveted to the center of the floor.
Saul stood there, half naked and motionless, his body poised as though he were dancing, his eyes fastened to the portrait.
I spoke his name sharply. His eyes blinked and, slowly, his head turned to me. He didn’t seem to comprehend my presence there for, suddenly, his glance flew about the room and he cried out in despairing tones:
“Come back! Come back!”
I called his name again and he stopped looking around but directed his gaze at me. His face was gaunt and cruelly lined in the flickering candlelight. It was the face of a lunatic. He gnashed his teeth together and started to move toward me.
“I’ll kill you,” he muttered in liquid tones. “I’ll
I backed away.
“Saul, you’re out of your mind. You don’t…”
I could say no more for he rushed at me, his hands extended as if he would clutch at my throat. I tried to step aside but he grabbed hold of my robe and pulled me against him.
We began to struggle, I begging him to throw off this terrible spell he was under, he panting and gnashing his teeth. My head was being shaken from side to side and I saw our monstrous shadows heaving on the walls.
Saul’s grip was not his own. I have always been stronger than he but, at that moment, his hands seemed like cold iron. I began to choke and his face blurred before my eyes. I lost balance and we both fell heavily to the floor. I felt the prickly rug against my cheek, his cold hands tightening on my throat.
Then my hand came in contact with something cold and hard. It was the tray I had dropped the night before, I realized. I gripped it and, realizing that he was out of his mind and meant to kill me, I picked it up and drove it across his head with all the power I had remaining.
It was a heavy metal tray and Saul sank to the floor as if struck dead, his hands slipping from my bruised throat. I struggled up, gasping for breath, and looked at him.
Blood was running from a deep gash in his forehead where the edge of the tray had struck.
“Saul!” I screamed, horrified at what I’d done.
Frantically I leaped up and rushed to the front door. As I flung it open I saw a man walking by in the street. I ran to the porch railing and called to him.
“Help!” I cried. “Call an ambulance!”
The man lurched and looked over at me with startled fright.
“For God’s sake!” I beseeched him. “My brother has struck his head! Please call an ambulance!”
For a long moment he stared at me, open-mouthed, then broke into a nervous flight up the street. I called after him but he would not stop to listen. I was certain he would not do as I’d asked.
As I turned back, I saw my bloodless face in the hall mirror. and realized with a start that I must have frightened the wits out of the man. I felt weak and afraid again, the momentary strength sapped from me. My throat was dry and raw, my stomach on edge. I was barely able to walk back to the living room on trembling stalks of legs.
I tried to lift Saul to a couch but dead weight was too much for me and I sank to my knees beside him. My body slumped forward and, half crouched, half lay by the side of my brother. The harsh sound of my breathing was the only sound I could hear. My left hand stroked Saul’s hair absently and quiet tears flowed from my eyes.
I cannot say how long I had been there when the throbbing began again; as if to show me that it hadn’t really gone away.
I still crouched there like a dead thing, my brain almost in coma. I could feel my heart beating like some old clock in my chest, the dull-edged and muffled pendulum hitting against my ribs with a lifeless rhythm. All sound registered with similar force, the clock on the mantel, my heart and the endless throbbing; all blending into one horrible beat that became a part of me, that became
Then I thought I heard a tapping of feet through the room, the rustling of skirts and, far off, a hollow laughter of women.
I raised my head abruptly, my skin tight and cold.
A figure in white stood in the doorway.
It began to move toward me and I rose with a strangled cry on my lips only to collapse into darkness.
What I had seen had been not a ghost but an intern from the hospital. The man I had called in the street had, apparently, done what I’d asked. It will give some indication of the state I was in when I reveal that I heard neither the ringing of the front doorbell nor the pounding of the intern’s fist on the half-open door. Indeed, had the door not been open, I am certain that I would be dead now.
They took Saul to the hospital to have his head cared for. There being nothing wrong with me but nervous exhaustion, I remained in the house. I had wanted to go with Saul, but was told that the hospital was overcrowded
