A-Splendid-Ruin(64)

Findley rushed over, forgetting to give us an order in her hurry. Several of the women rushed with her. I wanted to see what was happening, and so I went too.

The scene inside was appalling. Josie again, her red hair falling into her face as she strangled O’Rourke. O’Rourke tore at Josie’s hair, but I remembered the woman’s strength and my own throat constricted in response. The veins popped in O’Rourke’s face and her eyes bulged. Gould grappled with Josie, but she could not be budged. O’Rourke flailed soundlessly. The other patients watched in fascinated horror.

It was not that I liked O’Rourke—in her way, she was the worst of them, since you never knew which O’Rourke you were going to get. But watching this was no pleasure. Gould tried again to pry Josie’s hands loose. O’Rourke had gone bright red.

The patients, including those who’d come to watch with me, began to cheer.

Findley shouted, “Shut up! Shut up, the lot of you! You all standing there at the door—get back in line!”

One of the patients echoed, “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” and the others took up the cry, a low and haunting chant. Shut up shut up shut up.

I could not stand it. I turned to go back, but before I got to the stairs, a door down the hall opened. Dr. Scopes came out, adjusting his suitcoat, running a hand through his hair to smooth it.

“Doctor! She’s going to kill her. The nurse! You must go—” I motioned toward the room.

He frowned and broke into a run. In that moment before the door closed, I caught a glimpse of inside. A private room. A bed. And on that bed, Nurse Costa, pinning up her long, dark hair.

When O’Rourke appeared in the ward the next morning, she wore a necklace of bruises. The whites of her eyes were red, and the skin around them was black. She looked horrible and her voice was raspy and faint, and she was in a very bad temper. I stayed near the window and well out of her way, and when Costa came to relieve her, she was so solicitous toward the nurse that all I could see was her guilt, that mussed bed, and Dr. Scopes adjusting his jacket—and the two of them together while Josie’s sinewy hands gripped O’Rourke’s throat.

Mrs. Kennedy was on her knees already, offering up promises to God as surety for her daughter’s ascension to heaven. “I will do only good works, my Lord. I will turn my sons’ eyes to you. I will bend every woman here to service in your name. A church I will build, my Lord. I will perform whatever sacrifices you demand—” She choked, either on the words or on God’s horror at her offer. Or perhaps it was just the cascara they gave her daily, because the choking turned into farting, and suddenly she was bent over, clutching her stomach, and a terrible smell wafted through the room.

“Oh God, she’s shitting herself,” Sarah moaned, burying her face in her pillow.

Mrs. Kennedy had collapsed onto the floor, groaning and gripping her stomach. Her nightgown dripped with diarrhea. Costa hurried over with O’Rourke, and I turned away. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, not with Mrs. Kennedy nor with others, and I closed my eyes and resigned myself to the stink that would sicken the rest of us all through the night.

O’Rourke took Mrs. Kennedy away to bathe. One of the feeble-minded maids came in to “scrub” the floor. All she had was a cloth and a bucket of already gray water. She wiped in rhythmic circular motions for fifteen minutes, and ended up only creating a scrim of filth.

The poisonous stench lingered, choking. I pressed my face to the windowpane, wishing I could inhale fresh air through the glass.

“Come away from there, Kimble,” said Costa from where she sat near the door, idly reading a magazine.

“I can’t breathe,” I complained.

“Everyone else is breathing just fine. Get into bed.”

I glanced around. The others studiously avoided looking at me. I should have done as Costa said. No one else seemed to care. But I could not. Perhaps it was my disappointment over being unable to talk to the commissioners, or perhaps it was the brutality I witnessed every day. Or perhaps it was something else entirely. All I knew was that I hated Costa. I was tired of being stupid. I was tired of being used. I was tired of being a victim. I reached through the bars—a wide enough opening for my fingers only—to the window clasp.

“Kimble!”

I unlatched it. I heard the shush of Costa’s skirts, the clap clap clap of her boots. I pushed the window open, and gulped the cold, damp air, and then I turned to face the nurse, who held a leather strap.

“Close that this instant!” she demanded.

“Why wasn’t Dr. Scopes on his rounds yesterday?” I asked.

She stuttered to a stop. “What?”

“When O’Rourke was being nearly strangled to death. Where was he?”

Costa frowned. Her mean little dark eyes squinted.

“You don’t know?” I lowered my voice. “I think you do. In fact, I know you do. I saw him coming out of the bedroom across the hall. I imagine the commissioners would like to know that, wouldn’t they? O’Rourke might like to know it too, given that she was nearly killed.”

Costa stared at me, but she was disconcerted, and I heard it even through her threat, which did not have its usual force. “You’d best watch yourself, Miss Kimble.”

I smiled.

“No one will believe a word you say,” she said quietly. “You’re a lunatic.”