She took him to a small, windowless room. Exam table in the middle, covered with a wide sheet of paper. She invited Solomon to sit on the table, while she pulled up a stool next to it.
“You wanted to tell me about your friend,” she said. “I have to admit I’m pretty curious about her myself.”
“Where you keepin’ her?”
“Don’t worry, she’s being cared for. We’ve put her in her own room and she’s under constant observation.”
“You got any idea why the police brought her here?”
The nurse lady frowned and shook her head. “I was hoping you could tell me. They’re keeping it on a need-to-know basis. And apparently they don’t think I need to know.”
“Aren’t you a supervisor or something?”
She nodded. “So they tell me.”
“Then why wouldn’t you need to know?”
“I’m afraid you’d have to ask one of the detectives in charge. They’re a pretty tight-lipped bunch. I’ve read her chart, but there’s not a whole lot there.”
“I was on the street when they picked her up,” Solomon said. “Heard the cops talking about her.”
“And?”
“They said she tried to stab a guy with a pair of scissors. Some cab driver, over on The Avenue.”
The nurse lady’s eyes widened slightly. Just enough to tell Solomon she was surprised and definitely interested.
“But what I have to tell you,” he said, “won’t be in a police report, and it won’t be on any chart. I don’t want you thinkin’ I’m crazy, but what that woman is going through has its roots in the heart of the Vieux Carre.”
“The what?”
“The French Quarter. New Orleans. Down in the dark alleyways and behind private doors. You won’t hear too many people talkin’ about it, because those who know tend to keep it to themselves, keep it in the family. Most of the locals have never even heard of it.”
He looked at her a moment, wondering how deep into this he should get. Then he said, “You can call it a religion, a lifestyle, a crazy man’s superstition — doesn’t matter. La manière du rythme is what it is and ain’t nobody on this good earth can deny it.”
“La manière… what?”
“The way of The Rhythm.”
She frowned now. As if she had just been confronted by someone trying to hand her a copy of The Watchtower. He was taking her into foreign territory and her first instinct was to retreat.
Most people who knew about The Rhythm were born into it, like Solomon, so it never took any real convincing. But outsiders were different. Had a natural tendency to be skeptical. He’d tried telling Clarence about it once and Clarence had just looked at him and said, “What the fuck you been smokin’, man?”
But if Solomon was right, if he’d judged this woman accurately, once she got past those initial instincts, she’d be receptive to what he had to tell her.
Weighing his words, he said, “People who believe, people who know, know that the way of The Rhythm is like a heartbeat. Keeps us alive. And life is all about balance and timing.”
“That’s true no matter what religion you practice.”
Solomon nodded. “Action and reaction. Everything we do, every move we make is countered by another move. It’s the world’s way of gettin’ itself back in sync.”
“Like karma,” she said.
Solomon shook his head. “Karma’s different. That’s all about people being mindful of what they do. Be good and get good in return. Do bad, get bad back.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“The Rhythm don’t give a shit what you do, just so long as everything’s in balance. And when it ain’t, it’ll do anything it has to to correct it.”
“What does any of this have to do with your friend?”
“Her being here ain’t no accident,” Solomon told her. “She’s here because The Rhythm wants her here. Wants us all here, to balance things out.”
“What things?”
“I’m not sure. But the woman you’ve got in that room isn’t who you think she is. She’s what we call un emprunteuse.”
“A what?”
“Un emprunteuse. A borrower. One of the children of the drum.”
Another frown. Solomon knew he was treading on dangerous ground here. Had just crossed that invisible line that most people don’t want to cross. But to her credit, the nurse lady didn’t laugh or get up and throw him out. She’d probably heard wilder stories in her day.
“Are you a Christian woman?”
She shrugged. “More or less.”
“Then you probably believe that when people die, they become spirits, right? That the soul travels on.”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, sometimes, when a person dies before her time, when her death throws off the beat, messes up the rhythm, she finds herself kinda trapped in the middle of nowhere, lookin’ for a way to make things right. And one of those ways is to borrow a little time among the living.”
“And you think that’s what your friend has done?”
“If I’m right about this, the woman in that room ain’t my friend,” Solomon said. “Not anymore, at least.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, she might look a little like Myra. Got some of the same marks and features, but Myra’s just the vessel. Somebody else has got ahold of her body, and she’s changing.”
A pause. “Changing how?”
“Her eye color, maybe. Nose not quite as big as it once was, fingers thinner, shoulders wider. She’s slowly taking on the form of the borrower. And the migration ain’t an easy thing. There’s a lot of pain involved. Takes hours. Sometimes days. All depends on how accommodating your host is, and how familiar the borrower is with the ways of The Rhythm.”
She gave him a bemused look. “Wouldn’t your friend have something to say about all this?”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Solomon said. “The only way a borrower can take over is if the host is either too weak to resist or just plain dead. But just because we’re dead, don’t mean we ain’t still attached to our bodies. Some of us can get pretty possessive about it. So the borrower’s got a better chance at success if she knows the host. Got permission to come aboard, so to speak.”
“I don’t suppose you know who this so-called borrower might be?”
There was a minute trace of sarcasm in her voice now, and he could see that he’d misjudged her. That she was merely tolerating him. Giving him a chance to speak his peace before she tossed him back in with the rest of the loonies.
Solomon couldn’t really blame her. This was pretty nutty stuff to an outsider. But when you thought about it, it wasn’t any crazier than the beliefs of any other culture or religion. If you’re born into it, you believe. If not, you either laugh or start dialing the mental health hotline.
“No,” Solomon said, refusing to give in. “I’m afraid I don’t know who she is. But somebody in this hospital does. You take her out of that box, parade her around for a while, and I guarantee somebody’ll recognize her.”
The nurse lady stiffened. Had he struck a chord?
Hard to say.
She gave him a curt smile and stood up. “This is a fascinating story, Mr. St. Fort, it really is. But I have a lot of work to do. Why don’t we get you back to the Day Room now?”
“That’s it? That’s all you want to know?”
“I think I’ve heard enough. Maybe we can talk more later.”
He knew she was only humoring him. Mentally, she had just made a big red check mark next to his name and he had a feeling he’d soon be on a regiment of antipsychotic drugs. But he also sensed by that last reaction that what he’d said wasn’t completely lost on her. She seemed a bit rattled. Unnerved.