I almost went out again.
But this time it was easier to come back.
I looked up at the face over me. Hodge Kistler’s face. White. Sweating.
“It hit me.” That was my voice. I must have left most of it back in the pit.
“Take it easy, but try not to drop off again. Try, try, will you?”
“My head.”
A river of air ran back and forth across his face with the smile on it.
“You’re still wearing it. It’ll fit again.”
He stood back, and his voice from away on the other side of the room said, “How’s she doing, Doc?”
“Fine,” another oceangoing voice boomed back. “Who’s going to be the nurse around here? Fine. Just don’t let her drop off to sleep before noon.”
It was quiet after that except for the noon whistles in my head. Sometimes Mrs. Waller and sometimes Mr. Kistler was beside my bed. Every time I closed my eyes, they slapped me, which didn’t seem kind when I felt so badly. So I found a way to sleep with my eyes open. They didn’t object to that.
Finally they really let me sleep. When I woke up, the light was on in the middle of my ceiling, with a paper bag tied around it. People do such ridiculous things. But I was better. My head had decided to run locomotives instead of whistles. Locomotives jar, but they’re nicer than whistles. My body was detached from me, but there I was inside it, even if I was loose. I reached up and turned my mind on, like a radio dial. Nice to think again, even if there was a lot of static. Hodge Kistler was sitting beside the bed, his legs stuck out in front of him and his hands in his pants pockets, looking grimmer than I’d ever thought he could look.
“Hello,” I said.
He jumped.
“Why, hello! Look who’s back in town!” He brought his face down close to me; he was smiling all over it.
“Who did it?”
“If you won’t be slithering away again I’ll tell you. We don’t know.”
“You mean you didn’t catch them?”
“Gwynne, it’s as much a mystery as all the rest.”
I wasn’t too weak for malice.
“Do the police—does Lieutenant Strom say it was a natural dea—say I fell out of bed on my head?”
He smiled with tight lips.
“If you want to crow, you can. You could buy two of Lieutenant Strom today for one mildewed Chinese yen.”
“My head—is it broken?”
“Say, your head can’t be broken.”
“Then why do I feel so awful?”
“Listen, Gwynne. Smell.”
I smelled. “Funny. Like—”
“Like ether?”
“Yes.”
“Well, whoever it was went one better than ether. It was an ether dry cleaner. You’ve got a right to feel rotten.”
“I do. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Aw, Gwynee.” He took my hand. “I’m awfully, awfully sorry.”
“I should have taken you up on your invitation.”
“Don’t.”
“You aren’t going to leave me here tonight, are you?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve stayed up all night before.”
That was a peaceful thought. I went to sleep on it, and this time I really slept. When I woke again, the light was still going inside the paper bag on the ceiling, but sunlight was flowing in the windows, too. Hodge Kistler was sitting fast asleep in the armchair jammed close to my couch, his head almost down to his shoulder, his feet up on another chair, his hands limp and open at his sides, with the palms outward.
It was the only time I’d ever seen him look pathetic.
Clearly I heard a step in the hall; startled, I turned my head. The face of the Wilson-chinned policeman appeared briefly around the door casing, turned owlish eyes on me, disappeared again.
I lifted my head cautiously from the pillow; it didn’t fall apart. In fact it was quite a decent head. It was sore when I touched it, but outside of a feeling that I ought to hold on to it with my hands to keep it in place on my neck, it didn’t bother me.
I slid down the couch, hoping not to disturb Mr. Kistler in the armchair. I wasn’t successful. At the first slide his eyes popped wide open.
“Hey, what’re you doing?”
“I’m hungry.” I was, too.
“Hungry?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course I’m hungry.”
“You can’t be hungry. Your stomach’s upset.”
“I can too be. I should know.”
He stood up, yawned, shook himself.
“All you get is orange juice. The doctor said so. Nothing yesterday. Orange juice today.”
That was all I did get, too, all day long. We fought about whether I was to get up, too; he called the doctor by phone and came back disgruntled.
“The doc says all right, get up, if you’re so damn healthy. Go back to bed the minute you feel weak. I don’t see why you don’t feel weak; I do. And oh, gosh, I’ve got to go to work. It’s Wednesday, do you know that? Wednesday. I’m going to tell that cop to keep an eye on you.”
The first thing I did when I got on my feet was to turn off the ceiling light. I stood in the middle of my bed-living-dining-room floor, reorienting myself.
Heavens, things were in a mess. Newspapers, magazines, books strewn on the floor. The drawers of the buffet yawning, their contents tumbled and spilling over. The lower drawer was entirely out; it stood on the floor. Dishes were pushed about in the cabinet above.
I didn’t get it. Even if the people who’d dragged me back to life had needed to find things in a hurry, they needn’t have made a mess like this. It was willful, malicious!
I walked toward the passageway to my kitchen. Here, too, on the right of the little hall, drawers had been pulled out, their contents jumbled. Heartsick,
