Bentham shook his head quickly as if to clear it, spattering blood onto the glass between them. Then he bared his teeth. This was, Arnaud felt, a terrible thing to watch.
The Muzak clicked off.
“Accounting,” said a flat, implacable voice.
“Excuse me?” said Arnaud.
“Accounting division.”
“I don’t understand,” said Arnaud. “The subject assigned to me is dying.”
The man on the other end did not respond. Bentham, Arnaud saw through the glass, had stopped moving.
“I think he may have just died,” said Arnaud.
“Not my jurisdiction, sir,” said the voice, still flat, and the line went dead.
It was hard for him to be certain that Bentham was no longer alive. Several times, as Arnaud prepared to record a time of death, Bentham offered a weak movement that dissuaded him, the curling or uncurling of a finger, the parting of his lips. He was not certain whether these were actual movements or whether the corpse was simply ridding itself of its remaining vitality. For accuracy’s sake, he felt, he should unlock the adjoining door between the two rooms and go through, to manually check Bentham’s pulse with his fingers. Or, rather, to make certain there was no pulse to check. But the strangeness of Bentham’s condition made him feel that it might be better to leave the adjoining door closed.
As to leaving his own room, he had no choice but to wait until the session had officially expired and a guard came to unlock the door. He waited, watching Bentham dead or dying. He watched the blood dry between them, on the window. When his ear began to ache, he realized he was still pushing the dead receiver against his face, and hung up.
He stood and looked under his desk until he found his pen, then wrote in his notebook: 6:26. Patient dead?
The remainder of the session he spent, pen poised over the notebook, watching Bentham for any signs of life. He watched the skin on Bentham’s face change character, losing its elasticity, seeming to settle more tightly around the bone. The nose became more and more accentuated, the cheeks growing hollow. The frightful perfection of the skull glowed dully through the skin. Even when the guard opened the door behind Arnaud, it was very hard for him to look away.
“Ready?” the guard asked. “Session’s over.”
“I think he’s dead,” said Arnaud.
“How’s that?” said the guard. “Come again?”
The guard came and stood next to Arnaud, stared into Bentham’s room. Arnaud looked too.
When he looked back up, he saw that the guard was looking at him with frightened eyes.
“What is it?” Arnaud asked.
But at first the guard did not answer, just kept looking at Arnaud. Why? Arnaud wondered, and waited.
“What,” the guard finally asked, “exactly did you do to him?”
It was not until that moment that Arnaud realized how wrong things could go for him.
The guard became businesslike and efficient, hustling Arnaud out of the observation room and down the hall.
“Where are we going?” Arnaud asked.
“Just down here,” said the guard, keeping a firm grip on Arnaud’s arm, pushing him forward.
They passed down one flight of stairs, and through another hall. They went down a short flight, Arnaud nearly tripping, and then immediately up three brief steps and through a door that read “Conference Rooms.” The door opened onto a short hallway with three doors on either side and one at the end.
The guard walked him down to the final door, coaxed him inside. “Wait here,” the guard said.
“For what?” Arnaud asked.
But the guard, already gone, did not answer.
Arnaud tried the door he had come through; it was locked. He tried the door at the far end of the room; this was locked as well.
He sat down at the table and stared at the wall.
After a while, he began to read from his notebook. Fugue state, he read. Had he done anything wrong? he wondered. Was he to blame? Was anything in fact his fault? 6:13, he read. Subject has begun to bleed from eyes. Even if it were not his fault, would he somehow be held responsible? Subject feels fine, he read. Is bleeding from eyes.
Oh no, he thought.
He got up and tried both doors again.
He sat down again, but found it difficult to sit still. Perhaps he was in very serious trouble, he thought. He was not to blame for whatever had happened to Bentham. But someone had to be blamed, didn’t they? And thus he was to blame.
Or was he? Perhaps he was becoming hysterical.
He opened the notebook again and began to read from it. The words were the same as they had been before. They seemed all right to him now, mostly. Perhaps the guard was simply following routine procedure in the case of an unusual death.
No, he began to worry a few moments later, something was wrong. Subjects did not customarily bleed from the eyes, for a start. He closed the notebook, leaving it facedown on the table.
On the far side of the room, affixed to the wall, he noticed a telephone. He stood up and went to it.
“Operator,” a voice said.
“Outside line, please,” he said.
“Right away, sir,” the operator said. “What number?”
He gave the number. The dial tone changed to a thrumming, punctured by intervals of silence.
Nobody was answering.
After a time the thrumming stopped and a recorded voice came on, the tape so distorted he could barely make the words out. It was a man’s voice. Not the right number, he thought, and started to hang up, and then thought, no, he might not have a chance to dial out again. Hapler, the distorted voice identified itself as, or perhaps Handler, or Hapner. Nobody he knew. But Handler or Hapler would have to do.
“Hello?” he said. “Mr. Hapner? Is that in fact the correct name? My name is Arnaud. I’m afraid I’ve been given your number in error.”
He swallowed, then began choosing his words carefully.
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” he said. “I have every hope it will be quickly resolved, everyone’s heart is in the right place. But, Mr. Hapner, could I trouble you to contact my wife? Would you ask her, assuming that I am not safe and sound by the time you reach her, to do what she can to find out what has become of me? It would mean a great deal to both of us.” He stopped, thought. “She might,” he finally added, “begin with Bentham.”
Immediately after he hung up, the phone began to ring. Almost reflexively, he picked it up.
“Hello?” he said.
“Who is this?” a voice asked.
Arnaud hesitated. “Why,” he asked slowly, “do you want to know?”
“Mr. Arnaud,” said the voice. “Why are you answering the telephone?”
He didn’t know what to say. He held the receiver, looked out the window.
“You made a call a few moments ago,” the voice said. “What was the purpose of this call?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Arnaud.
“How are you acquainted with—” he heard a rustling through the receiver “—this Mr. Hapner?”
“I—” said Arnaud.
“—and what, in your opinion, is the nature of the so-called … misunderstanding.”
Not knowing what else to say, Arnaud hung up the telephone.
By the time he was sitting down again, a guard had appeared in the room. A new guard, not the same one. He stood just inside one of the doors, watching Arnaud nervously.
“Hello,” said Arnaud, just as nervously.
The guard nodded.
“What’s this all about?” asked Arnaud.