Finally on Monday morning, his nerves frayed, his hands shaking, he found himself in the old psychiatrist’s office. He had not made up his mind what he would say, only that he could stand the strain no longer. And he soon found himself rattling on about the tropical heat, headaches and sleepless nights, the need for quick acceptance of his resignation.
He drove out of New Orleans that very afternoon.
Only when he was safe in his father’s office in Portland, Maine, did he at last reveal the whole story.
“There was never anything menacing in the face,” he explained. “On the contrary. It was strangely unlined. It was as bland as the face of Christ in the portrait on the wall of her room. Just staring at me. But it didn’t want me to give her the injection! It was trying to scare me.”
His father was a patient man. He did not answer at once. Then slowly he began to talk of the strange things he’d witnessed over the years in psychiatric hospitals-doctors seemingly infected with the neuroses and psychoses of their patients. He’d seen a doctor go catatonic one day in the midst of his catatonic patients.
“The important thing. Larry, is that you rest,” his father said. “That you let the effects of this whole thing wear off. And that you don’t tell anyone else about it.”
Years had passed. The doctor’s work in Maine had gone well. And gradually he had built a solid private practice independent of his father.
As for the specter, he had left it behind him in New Orleans, along with the memory of Deirdre Mayfair, sitting eternally in that chair.
Yet there remained in him a lingering fear that he might someplace or other see the thing again. There was the lingering fear that if such a thing had happened once, it might happen another time for entirely different reasons. The doctor had tasted real horror in those damp, dark New Orleans days, and his view of the world had never been the same.
Now, as he stood beside the window in the darkened hotel room in New York, he found the whole affair overwhelming him again. And as he had done a thousand times before, he analyzed the strange tale. He searched for its deeper meaning.
Was the thing really stalking him in New Orleans, or had the doctor misunderstood the silent specter?
Maybe the man had not tried to scare him at all. Maybe it had in fact been pleading with him not to forget that woman! Perhaps in some way it was a bizarre projection of the woman’s own desperate thoughts, an image sent to him by a mind which knew no other means of communication.
Ah, there was no comfort in such an idea. Too awful to imagine the helpless woman pleading with him through a spectral emissary, who, for reasons never to be known, could not speak, but only appear for brief moments.
But who could interpret these strange elements? Who would venture to say the doctor was right?
Aaron Lightner, the Englishman, the collector of ghost stories, who had given him the card with the word Talamasca? He had said that he wanted to help the drowned man in California: “Maybe he doesn’t know that it has happened to others. Maybe I am needed to tell him that others have also come back from the edge of death with such gifts.”
Yes, that would help, wouldn’t it? To know that others had seen ghosts too?
But that was not the worst of it, seeing a ghost. Something worse than fear had taken him back to that screen porch and to the wan figure of the woman in the rocker. It was guilt, guilt he would bear all his life-that he had not tried harder to help her, that he had never called that daughter out west.
The morning light was just breaking over the city. He watched the change in the sky, the subtle illumination of the soiled walls opposite. Then he went to the closet and removed the Englishman’s card from his coat pocket.
THE TALAMASCA
We watch
And we are always here.
He picked up the telephone.
It was an hour in the telling, which surprised him, but all those details had come tumbling back. He had not minded the little tape recorder going, with its tiny red eye blinking. After all he had used no names, no street numbers, not even any dates. New Orleans, an old house, he had said. And on and on he had talked. He realized now that he had never touched his breakfast, except to empty the coffee cup over and over again.
Lightner had proved an excellent listener, responding gently without ever interrupting. But the doctor did not feel better. In fact, he felt foolish when it was over. As he watched Lightner gather up the little recorder and put it in his briefcase, he had half a mind to ask for the tape.
It was Lightner who broke the silence as he laid down several bills over the check.
“There’s something I must explain to you,” he said. “I think it will ease your mind.”
What could possibly do that?
“You remember,” Lightner said, “that I told you I collect ghost stories.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know of that old house in New Orleans. I’ve seen it. And I’ve recorded other stories of people who have seen the man you described.”
The doctor was speechless. The words had been said with utter conviction. In fact, they had been spoken with such authority and assurance that the doctor believed them without doubt. He studied Lightner in detail for the first time. The man was older than he seemed on first inspection. Perhaps sixty-five, even seventy. The doctor found himself captivated again by Lightner’s expression, so affable and trusting, so inviting of trust in return.
“Others,” the doctor whispered. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve heard other accounts, some very like your own. And I tell you this so you can understand that you didn’t imagine it. And so that it doesn’t continue to prey on your mind. You couldn’t have helped Deirdre Mayfair, by the way. Carlotta Mayfair would never have allowed it. You ought to put the entire incident out of your mind. Don’t ever worry about it again.”
For a moment the doctor felt relief, as if he’d been in the Catholic confessional and the priest had spoken the words “I absolve.” Then the full import of Lightner’s revelations struck him.
“You know these people!” he whispered. He felt his face color. This woman had been his patient. He was suddenly and completely confused.
“No. I know of them,” Lightner answered. “And I shall keep your account entirely confidential. Please be assured. Remember, we did not use names on the tape recording. We did not even use your name or mine.”
“Nevertheless, I must ask you for the tape,” the doctor said, flustered. “I’ve broken confidentiality. I had no idea you knew.”
At once Lightner removed the small cassette and placed it in the doctor’s hand. The man seemed entirely unruffled. “Of course you may have it,” he said. “I understand.”
The doctor murmured his thanks, the confusion intensifying. Yet the relief was not altogether gone. Others had seen that creature. This man knew it. He wasn’t lying. The doctor was not, and had never been, out of his mind. A faint bitterness surfaced inside him, bitterness towards his superiors in New Orleans, towards Carlotta Mayfair, towards that ghastly Miss Nancy …
“The important thing,” said Lightner, “is that you do not worry about it any more.”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “Horrible, all of it. That woman, the drugs.”
No, don’t even … He went quiet, staring at the cassette, and then at his empty coffee cup. “The woman, is she still-”
“The same. I was there last year. Miss Nancy died, the one you disliked so much. Miss Millie went some time ago. And now and then I hear from people in the city, and the report is that Deirdre has not changed.”
The doctor sighed. “Yes, you do indeed know of them … all the names,” he said.
“Then please do believe me,” Lightner said, “when I tell you others have seen that vision. You weren’t mad, not at all. And you mustn’t worry foolishly about such things.”