“By ‘they’—”
“My mother. And Mark, and Helsinger, and God knows who else. I’m sure Cyclops has to be in on it, or I wouldn’t be kept here, would I?”
I remembered what Helsinger had told me: “She knows with certainty that she is being persecuted, deceived, spied upon, cheated, and even hypnotized by her mother and/or people in her mother’s employ.”
“And they’ve all fabricated, you think, an elaborate delusional system—”
“And attributed it to me, yes.”
“But it doesn’t actually exist.”
“Of course not.”
“And this delusional system, when you learned about the inheritance—”
“I’m supposed to have gone off the deep end. First, I believed I was being cheated—”
“Do you believe so?”
“Of course not. To begin with, my father didn’t have to leave me a dime. Where is it written, Matthew? Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars is more than I could spend in a lifetime. But in addition to that, a provision of the will makes it mandatory for my mother to name me the sole beneficiary of her will. In short, the money — all of it — will be coming to me, anyway, when Mother dies. So why would I have believed I was cheated?”
“What else are you supposed to have believed?”
“That a large portion of the estate went to his girlfriend. This despite the black-and-white evidence of the will itself.”
“You saw the will?”
“Read every page of it.”
“And no one else was named except you and your mother?”
“No one. But this didn’t stop me from embarking on a wild-goose chase in search of this imaginary woman Daddy was shacking up with — in my mind. That’s what they say I did. Please realize, Matthew, that all of this was reconstructed after the fact. None of it happened. But it’s all supposed to have happened before the night of September twenty-seventh, when they broke into my room and carted me off.”
“They say, do they—”
“That I ran hither and yon, trying to find Daddy’s girlfriend.”
“Which you didn’t do.”
“Matthew, you’re falling into the trap. Either I believed, still believe, my father was having an affair — or I don’t believe it, and didn’t then. If I’m sane, I didn’t go running off after a person who existed only in my mind.”
“And this was when? This alleged search of yours?”
“Shortly after I learned how much Daddy had left me.”
“Which would place it — he died on the third and Ritter called you on the thirteenth. It was shortly after that?”
“The third week in September, I guess.” She paused. Her eyes met mine. “They say I heard voices commanding me to find her.”
“Who says this?”
“Schlockmeister. And Cyclops. And the staff psychiatrists here.”
“And of course you heard no such voices.”
“None.”
“Did not go looking for her, and did not — of course — find anyone.”
“How can you find someone who doesn’t exist?”
“How long do they say you were out looking for this woman?”
“Until the afternoon of the twenty-seventh. Which is why I tried to slit my wrists, you see. Because I couldn’t find her. But this is all bullshit, Matthew, don’t you see? This is what they cooked up when they decided to put me away.”
“Why do you think they decided that, Sarah?”
“Several reasons. One, Mother hates me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Why else would she be persecuting me this way? The night the cop came — it was a Thursday, you see, all the help was off — Mother herself cooked dinner for the two of us. ‘Your favorite, darling,’ she said. ‘Just a quiet dinner alone together, darling.’ She was deceiving me, of course. She knew all along that Helsinger had signed that damned certificate and that the police would be arriving.”
“You did not attempt to slash your wrists at about six o’clock that night?”
“I did not.”
“What were you doing at six?”
“Bathing. Getting ready for dinner.”
“Did Dr. Helsinger come to examine you at seven o’clock?”
“Mother and I were eating alone together at seven o’clock.”
“Where?”
“In the dining room. Where? Where do people normally eat?”
“Was anyone serving you?”
“No, she gave the entire staff the night off. Because she knew what was about to happen, you see. Knew they were getting ready to spirit me away.”
“The psychiatrist who examined you at Dingley—”
“Dr. Bonamico, yes. He’s on the payroll, too. The same as Cyclops and all the shrinks here.”
“The payroll?”
“They’re being paid off,” Sarah said. “To falsify records. To say I really am hearing voices, hallucinating, whatever the hell, all in support of a delusional system Helsinger himself invented. Each time they hypnotize me—”
“They hypnotize you?”
“Oh, regularly. As part of my so-called therapy. To get at the roots of my illness, don’t you know? Each time they hypnotize me, they try to feed me the delusion. I was hot for Daddy’s bod, I suspected he had a lover, I offered myself to him, I went searching for the woman, tried to commit suicide when I couldn’t find her. They tell me I’m hearing voices that don’t actually exist — they have to tell me this? Don’t I know there aren’t any voices? Shoot me up with sodium pentothal, whatever, put me under, and feed me the line of bullshit.”
“And you believe They’re falsifying records?”
“I know they are.”
“How can you know that?”
“They’re constantly taking notes. Why would anyone be taking notes if they weren’t going to be typed up later and made part of the record?”
“How do you know the notes themselves are false?”
“Because I’m still here. If the records weren’t faked, I’d be out of here in a minute.”
“I see.”
“I know what you’re thinking, Matthew. you’re thinking paranoia, the lady’s a bedbug. Is it paranoia when someone is spying on you even when you go to the toilet? Ask Brunhilde if she doesn’t stand outside the open bathroom door every time I pee.”
“Who’s Brunhilde?”
“One of the attendants on North Three. That isn’t her real name. I call her that because she reminds me of a concentration camp matron.”
“What is her real name?”
“Christine Seifert. Five feet eight inches tall, two hundred and twenty pounds, tattoo on her left forearm, ‘Mom’ in a heart.” Sarah smiled. “I made up the tattoo, but the rest is real. Why don’t you ask her why she spies on me whenever I go to the john? Does she think I’m going to strangle myself with the roll of toilet paper? Stick my head in the bowl and drown myself?” She paused. Her eyes met mine directly again. “You didn’t think I knew her real name, did you? You were even wondering if she really existed. You think I’ve surrounded myself with make-believe witches and villains. My mother, Ritter, Helsinger, Cyclops — and now Brunhilde. you’re thinking I may be everything they say I am, and you’re wondering what the hell you’ve got yourself into.”
I said nothing.
“Isn’t that the truth, Matthew?”
“Sarah...”
Across the room, the woman playing checkers said, “King me!”