CHAPTER 9

Several times during the course of the day I had knocked at Dr. Hill’s door. I felt I could not rest until I had asked him what all these strange events could mean.

Each time I was told by his daughter, Mary, that he was not at home. What a strange girl, I thought. A beautiful girl, but with a beauty so odd that at first you couldn’t see it.

It was remarkable how attached to Dr. Hill I had grown in the last few days. After all, to be precise, I had only spoken to him once in my whole life. I gave up waiting in the hallway and returned to my apartment upstairs. I needed to find a better hiding place for those intimate photographs. I took them out of the chest; they would be better kept in the safe box.

A photograph fell from the envelope. Angelina’s face appeared to be experiencing extreme pleasure, or perhaps pain. She looked me straight in the eyes and sighed very softly. Memories returned. I knew that face, I knew that look.

----

A snow battle was raging outside my window.
One snow flake regiment after the other, tiny soldiers in shaggy, white coats, rushed across the windowpanes for minutes on end, always in the same direction, as if they were all fleeing from some particularly vicious enemy. Then all of a sudden they would tire of running away for some inexplicable reason and dashed back again until they were ambushed from above and below by new hostile armies and everything dissolved into a chaotic, swirling vortex.

I felt as though months had elapsed since my strange experience in the theater, through actually only a few days had passed. Had it not been for the fact that several times a day new rumors of the TAR would surface and remind me of that night, I think I might suspect I had imagined it all.

I became conscious of the immense, profound loneliness separating me from everyone else. I wish I had a single friend, apart from Dr. Hill, with whom I could talk about my experiences.

Looking out the window I could see Seven standing and talking, apparently quite amicably, to Wasser.

Someone was at my door. Angelina.

She seemed incapable of speech, but finally she explained that Wasser had been threatening to call her husband again.

“Why should your husband believe Wasser, anyway?” I added.

“He has evidence, Anton and I liked to take pictures of each other, you know, pictures. They were in a drawer in the apartment and they are missing.”

I told her that I had removed the photos from the room and they were safely locked away. She flung her arms around my neck, laughing and crying at the same time. She kissed me, then ran to the door, turned back and kissed me again. Then she was gone. A minute later everything was silent. Silent as the grave.

Then the half-open door creaked and Seven peeked around it. “Sorry, but I knocked; you didn’t seem to hear.” I just nodded.

I told Seven what had happened between Wasser and Angelina, and how we were smart to have removed the photos from the room.

“That vermin down there, Wasser, is beginning to take a liking to me. Charles, it’s a strange thing, that call of the blood,” he added quietly, almost as though speaking to himself. I had no idea what he meant, and assumed I had missed part of what he had said.

“He wanted to give me a coat,” Seven went on in his normal voice. “I thanked him but said no, of course. My skin is hot enough as it is. And then he forced some money on me. Naturally I accepted it.”

“Accepted it?” I stammered. “Don’t you realize that puts you in his debt?

Seven shrugged his shoulders. Then added, “You lack appreciation of how poor I am. Turning down money would be foolish."

Seven went back to the table and silently sat down. He stared at the table top for a bit. Mechanically, his fingers stroked a utility knife that lay on my table.



Seven’s Story

“I gradually came to understand what hatred is. We can only hate something as deeply as I do Wasser, if it is part of ourselves. And when I found out, bit by bit, what my mother was, it was clear to me where the root of it lay.

Wasser is my father.”

I spontaneously looked over Seven trying to spot any of the man in him, but found nothing. It was hard to imagine such a sensitive man could be a child of Wasser.

Seven went on, “Wasser controlled her with drugs. Then abandoned her to the street. He didn’t do it because he was tired of her. The day he dumped her was the day he realized just how passionately in love he was with her. The wild animal inside him gives a screech of horror the moment anyone buys something from his junk shop. No matter how much they pay for it, all that he feels is that he is being forced to give up part of his life.

During the affair with my mother, fear grew within him that loving someone was a weakness that would harness his will. The logical consequence for Wasser was to cripple my mother’s strength. It gratified the perverse pleasure he finds in tormenting himself.”



Seven's eyes teared, his vulnerability made me pull him to me. I wrapped my arms around him like I might a lost child. He squeezed me tightly. I realized that our breathing had gotten slower but still we held to each other, neither of us acknowledging that what had began as a sympathetic embrace had gained a caring aspect that felt fresh and warm.

I pushed him back slightly, brushed that hair away from his eyes with my hand, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. For a moment his dark eyes flickered into those of Angelina and I felt the urge to kiss her. When Seven’s face came back into focus, I still felt that same urge but I restrained myself, though his eyes showed no resistance to what he sensed in me. Instead I kissed him slowly and lovingly again on the forehead.

Without his noticing, I took a one-hundred dollar bill out of the sideboard drawer and slipped it into his pocket.

----

Later I went to Dr. Hill’s apartment again.  Mary said Dr. Hill was out but would return soon if I wanted to wait.

It was the first time I had seen his apartment. It was as sparse as a prison cell. The apartment was clean. There was no furniture other than two chairs, a table and a sideboard; standing against either wall to the right and left were two wooden stands.

I tried making small talk.  I asked her how long she and her father had lived in the apartment.  She replied with a smile. “Dr. Hill is not my father.  He is my doctor, just as with you. Just as with many of the tenants of this building. We are his collection of oddities.”

My mind reeled at that information.  I found speaking difficult and couldn’t process what she could possibly mean.  

She continued, “I have been living with Dr. Hill since I was a child.  I am a hermaphrodite and Dr. Hill has been observing my transition from childhood to adult.  He photographs my genitals weekly.  It is important research that has never been done before.”

I only stared at her blankly.

Noticing my reaction she added, “It isn’t sexual, he seems to only see my parts as a medical curiosity.  At times I wish he did see me that way, I have never had any sexual experience since reaching puberty, it isn’t easy to find a partner for someone like me.”

After a moment’s silence she asked, “So, what is so weird about you that Dr. Hill has taken an interest. You seem pretty normal on the outside?”

My brain scrambled up images that made no sense.  I kept hearing her say, "We are his collection of oddities." 

“Are you okay?” Mary’s voice came to me from far, far away.  I must have been sitting there in a trance for a longer time than I realized for her to be so concerned.

There was nothing to do but pour out my whole story to Mary. As if I were talking to a friend I had known all my life and from whom I had no secrets, I told her the truth about myself, how I had learned from Zac that at some time, years ago, I had been hospitalized and my memory of my past suppressed for my own good. I told her how I was frightened of the moment when everything would come back to me.

She had moved her chair close to mine, and was listening with deep, breathless sympathy, which comforted me more than I expected. At last I had found someone with whom I could talk.

She leaned in, “I get it, I have a similar fear of a memory. The world is more beautiful when I close my eyes and see it in my imagination rather than in real life.”