Small world, p.24
Small World, page 24
Leyna returned to the tray on the floor. There was no longer a fork, so she ate with her hands, and never mind the mess. The wine was tepid, sour-tasting, but she drank it directly from the bottle, ignoring the glass that had been provided.
It came back to herself, she decided, as she swallowed the gelid mess in great gulps. She was the end of the circle. She had created her own mad prison out of bits and pieces of an antagonistic relationship with a woman who meant, in the total context of Leyna Shaw’s life, next to nothing to her. The Giant Dorothy was an insane metaphor, her present existence her own crazy poem. She had hoped, when she first began to suspect that she was living an irrational hallucination, that her mind would heal itself. Now, with her mouth and stomach full of the spice and grease and acid of her meal, she thought she couldn’t bear the terrors she was inflicting on herself much longer.
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When the light came around again, there was a new tray, laden
- :a aromatic delicacies. She didn’t move to claim it. The room *as fragrant with the odor of coffee, croissants, eggs benedict, strawberries in cream. Curled in her quilt, she inhaled their rtrfumes and then became inured to them. The rush of saliva -_rsided; her stomach growled in protest once or twice, and fell sient when she didn’t respond.
Late in the afternoon, she left the bed to empty suddenly liquid bowels on the chilly porcelain throne. She shivered and trembled, shuffling back to the bed, but took no water to ease her throat or ; eanse the bile from her mouth. When dark came, she crawled on her belly across the floor, and consumed the cold contents of the 'reakfast tray, and the lunch tray of cold lobster in avocado, and the tepid supper tray, abandoned with much clucking about sleepyheads by the Giant Dorothy. She ate with her fingers, -tuffing the food in slippery fistfuls into her mouth, swallowing it whole. No sooner did the last pasty glop of mashed potatoes f ollow the last fibrous chunk of roast beef down her gullet than she was stricken with cramps. Scuttling across the floor to the
- throom, she lost most of the day’s meals into the bathtub, while suffering spasms of diarrhea on the john.
Grasping the basin for support while she gathered her strength to go back to bed, she glimpsed herself in the dimly lit mirror. There were sores around her mouth. Her hair had become curiously dull and colorless. She touched it gingerly. Threads of it ;arae away with her fingers. She was losing her hair. She moaned 'Oftly and began to cry. The oblivion of sleep between the sheets came much later, a careless boon from indifferent gods.
The War ended, or a truce fell. She wasn’t sure; she was sick. Her meals came on time, silently, and the intrusions of the Giant Dorothy were brief and unthreatening. Sometimes she heard the Giant humming and she felt dread, but nothing else happened. Dorothy did not speak to her. The days began to assume a new, more normal rhythm.
Leyna ate frequent, small meals and slept long hours of mostly dreamless sleep. When she felt a little stronger, she walked through the nearest rooms, never venturing as far as the elevator. She listened for it often but it never moved. In the other rooms on the third floor, she found a few books and took them with her to while away the time. The fevers and chills gradually left her. Her bowels returned to something like normal. Her hair seemed slightly more secure on her scalp. She washed it very carefully and
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one day, feeling especially strong, used the art blade to chop it off close to her scalp.
Another day there was a gift of clothes that fit her. They were ugly clothes and ill-made but a change that kept her warm and covered. It amused her that they were exactly the sort of clothes she had once dressed her Barbie dolls in. Flashy, tarty things, meant to show off a plastic figure that was far, far from her present bag of bones.
Feeling better, she was able to achieve boredom. Her restlessness must have shown in the disarray of the bed and the clutter in her room. One morning the Great Dorothy appeared, to take away the breakfast tray, and lingered, noticing the mess. Leyna trembled. So far her illness had absolved her of household duties.
But the Giant only clucked mildly and then, surprising her, said, ‘I have a treat for you, if you feel up to it.’
Leyna watched her warily, clutching the bedsheets, white-knuckled.
‘It’s a little gift from Roger.’
This made Leyna twitch visibly. Dolly noticed it with amusement. She was no doubt remembering she had paid dearly for her last treat from Roger.
‘Trot outside, dolly-mouse. Your chariot awaits. No treats for me. I have to clean this nasty room.’
The wall began to move in its slot. Leyna slipped from the bed and vanished into the walled warren of the house as fast as she could move. She had to take her treat, she knew. There was no hiding. But the elevator that had before given her the creeps was safety this time. Within it’s cage, going downward, she realized that for a moment she was beyond the Giant’s reach.
Once it reached the ground floor, she dared not remain in it. Now Dorothy’s cleaning activites reverberated through the house. Apparently she had not lied about that. So Leyna padded down the corridors in a pair of gold lame Barbie pajamas. The seam along one leg was shredded, and the collar, sewn with fine plastic thread that felt like suturing stitches to Leyna, irritated the back of her neck. She peeked back over her shoulder at intervals, but the Dorothy noises remained a safe, same distance away.
She left the house by a side entrance, one that in the real White House was used for discreet diplomatic visits and by the president and his family, when he had one. It meant walking around the side of the house to the drive where, presumably, ‘the chariot’ stood, but she could pass through the Rose Garden which gave at least a feeling of cover to the South Portico.
The tinkling music of the Carousel came to her before she saw it. She had heard it before, from the safety of her bedroom, and it tugged at her, calling her to ride again. She always refused the summons, convinced in her heart that another time the magic would be lost, perhaps forever. Glimpsing its circus colors, she slowed and shrank as much as she could into the cover of the shrubs. But no Giant Dorothy shadow waited to pounce on her, only a small racing car, a garishly colored projectile, sitting quietly in the drive.
Leyna looked up. The sky was the same uniform blue it had been every day. The orb of the sun was never visible yet the light was strong, warm, and diffuse. It came and went at regular intervals. There was never rain or cloud cover; the garden remained lushly green and colorful thanks to a sprinkler system that operated every day. It was all evidence that this world was artificial, and yet, because it was evidence gathered by her suspect senses, she could not believe it.
The little car attracted her. It promised power and speed. The dashboard was not what she was used to, but then she was very out of practice driving anyway. She had never really mastered standard shift and noted the stick shift on the floor nervously. There was something intimidating, sweaty, and masculine about its black leather knob and cowl. She climbed in and sat there, examining the display of dials and buttons she did not comprehend. At last, she began a systematic exploration, trying them out. Wipers swept across the low curve of the windshield; lights came on all over the dashboard. Leaning across the horned half moon of the wheel to twiddle the various knobs, she put her elbow squarely into the horn. It blatted. She sat back hastily.
Nervously, she scanned the roofline of the house. The protest of the horn might draw the Giant Dorothy. After a few tense moments, it appeared that it hadn’t.
Leyna settled back, closed her eyes, and concentrated, calming herself. She wanted, very much, to master this odd gift. Opening her eyes, she looked at the stick shift. She moved it idly through its pattern. The little car jerked once and then was still. Suddenly, she was sure that the little automobile had been parked in neutral. That was new to her. Still, she had never had anything to do with this hot a machine before, so for all she knew, they were all parked in neutral. She moved the stick into the most forward position.
Then moved it back to its original position. She would have to assume that was the parking gear.
Then, she resumed her study of the dashboard. Magically, her exploration was rewarded; the engine turned over after a couple of tentative twiddles, and after a polite cough, began to chug smoothly. It had a diesel sound to it, reminding her of a Mercedes-Benz that her husband had run while in college and now kept in storage in fond hopes of its attaining classic status.
She danced nervously on the foot peddles and with much jerking and some minor league cursing on her part, she had the little pink car rolling at a sedate pace down the drive. It was a very pleasant sensation, passing through the sweet fresh garden smells, along the gracious curving drive. Picking up speed after a time, the rush made her feel almost euphoric. She had forgotten how an automobile could free her. Behind the boasting roar of the car’s engine, she was no longer a prisoner, not of the Giant Dorothy or of madness, if they were not the same.
Passing through a bridge of shadows, she realized they had not been in that place on her first few circuits of the drive. Looking up, she saw Dorothy. Then her attention was given to regaining control of the little car. She slowed then and stopped it, waiting to be told the treat was over, or that it might continue a little longer. As she waited, it came to her how foolish it had been to stop. It might be fun to see if the Giant could catch her. But the car would run out of gas and then she would be punished. The illusion of freedom vanished as the shadow and its substance hovered over her.
‘I see you figured out how to run it. You must remember to thank Roger for being so good to you.’
Leyna giggled wearily. Her mother talking. She would write him a thank you note.
‘Isn’t this little track rather boring? Wouldn’t you like to ride somewhere else?’
Leyna listened without hearing. What did she mean?
Dorothy showed her immediately. An enormous Hand descended, and while Leyna cringed, trying to fold herself into the well of the seat, closed round the car and lifted it. Leyna sensed upward movement and peeked over the edge of the car door. Below her, the White House she lived in was shrinking as she was carried away from it. It receded and disappeared, no longer a compass point.
The journey was quick. The car and its passenger felt solidity beneath them almost immediately. The Giant Dorothy crouched beside them, the currents of her hot breath flowing over Leyna, reinforcing the nausea that was already strong under her breastbone. And as quickly as she had come, Dorothy withdrew a considerable distance. Her smell and sounds were still heavy in the air, but the mass of her blurred and became blue like a mountain on a not-quite clear day.
Leyna turned on the car again. As it chugged patiently, waiting to be shifted up, to run as it was it meant to, she looked around. The surface she was on was smooth, reflective, and hard, a brick-red in color. The sky overhead was the same one that she had seen so long, except that it did seem farther away. The horizon was completely flat in all directions around her. As she turned in the seat, craning to see as far as she could, Leyna made out indistinct shapes and colors but had no name for anything she saw.
So she sped away, not too fast, slow enough to observe what she could. She moved in the opposite direction from Dorothy, not out of any sense that she might escape her, but in distaste. Escape was the farthest thought from her mind. All this was in her own mind. How could she escape herself?
She passed enormous square pillars that supported a roof, a structure that would have to be measured in acres. There was a familiarity about its dimensions but nothing she understood as yet. After some time, she passed another of the strange, heaven-scraping columns. This one was festooned with thick cables that had her think, wildly, of the bean stalk that Jack climbed. Behind her, she was aware that the Giant Dorothy moved, but at a distance.
She stopped the car, suddenly very tired. The red plain around her stretched for hopeless distances. Its nakedness made it seem sven larger and more abandoned than it was. It was a vast dead end; there was no place to go. It was suitable only for racing, only at great speeds.
A knot of anger and resentment formed in her chest. The Giant’s gifts were always sawdust in the mouth. Just another form of torture, she thought, and brought the heel of her hand down on :he horn, driving it into its own well. The blatting rose in an angry crescendo as she pumped up and down and then, when she released it, fell silent.
The mass that was Dorothy was silent, watching. Why should she respond? She was the one in control.
The tiny car jerked and then shot away, turned a perilous
wheelie to face Dorothy and came roaring at her, except that to her ears the roar that Leyna heard was the angry hiss of a hornet. She couldn’t see the tiny face hunched over the wheel of the car but she understood, instantly, the meaning of the sudden fierce race, with her as its goal.
She laughed and stood up. Deliberately, she placed one foot in the path of the little car, too close for it to be able to swerve away. The projectile slammed into her shoe. She felt it. It was like stubbing up against the furniture, a mild ache that would not even bruise. The car bounced off her shoe and stopped.
She picked it up and regretted it immediately. The hood was hot enough to scald. She held it gingerly in her palm. Its tiny occupant flopped like a rag doll in the seat. The windshield was patterned with an abstract sunburst of cracks. The car’s pink metal skin was wrinkled; the bullet end flattened and fissured.
Dolly pulled Leyna’s unconscious body from the little car and deposited her in her bedroom on the neatly changed bed. Brushing back Leyna’s hair, Dolly could see that her forehead was rosy and swelling. The skin was barely broken, dotted with a few dewdrops of blood.
‘Ice,’ Dolly muttered, and remembered that Roger had neglected, while he was busy shrinking ten days’ worth of food for Leyna, to zap a few ice cubes. Even a single cube would be like dropping an old-fashioned cake of ice on her. Besides, the mess from its melting was unthinkable. She would have to crush some herself and use the tiniest pieces.
‘Silly little nit,’ she scolded the still-unhearing Leyna.
While Ruta looked on surreptitiously over the top of her movie magazine, Dolly crushed the ice personally in the food processor. It made her feel wickedly efficient. Roger had charged her with the care of their tiny house guest and no one could say she wasn’t doing it, taking care of her. The thought made her laugh out loud. Ruta dared to drop the magazine and stare at her directly.
‘I spilled some glue. If I freeze it, I can pick it off,' Dolly told her.
Ruta grunted. If she had any real curiosity, it appeared to be satisfied.
In the dollhouse room, Dolly spilled a chip of ice from the bowl she had carried from the kitchen onto one of the miniature washcloths from Leyna’s bathroom. When she piled it gently on Leyna’s forehead, the tiny woman groaned, almost too faintly to be heard. Dolly had folded the cloth neatly in a band, and it looked as if it were going to stay put.
The silly thing was going to have a rotten headache, if she didn’t already, but it was her own fault for being so careless. Too bad Roger hadn’t zapped a little aspirin, too. Perhaps she ought to crush some of her own, but then again, it might be dangerous. Poor little Leyna might just have to suffer the consequences of her own bad temper. Might teach the little beast a lesson.
At least Dolly had done her duty. She deserved a cigarette. Before looking for one, she picked up the tiny pink car from the drive where she’d absently set it while looking after the foolish driver. It was rather sad-looking. Perhaps Roger could fix it. He would be very displeased with his teeny tiny woman when he saw what she had done to his treat. She couldn’t help smiling just a little at the thought.
Leyna had more than a headache when she came to, in darkness that was relieved only by the light from the bathroom, a faint blur of w hite that cast fantastic shadows into the room. The pain in her head was intense, radiating from the enormous tender bruise that was her forehead. She was stiff all over, from the back of her neck to the base of her spine and in all her limbs. Flexing her reluctant muscles as she lay waiting for her vision to adjust to the nearabsence of light, she inventoried a hundred small aches and pains. Sittipg up at last, she felt her bowels lurch, adding their unease to the general symphony of discomfort. She groped her way very :autiously to the bathroom, becoming thoroughly dizzy along the .'ay. Bending her head into her hands, as the room reeled around her, she emptied her bowels in a spasm of delayed reaction.
The dizziness was so persistent and steady that she feared drowning and did not dare soak the aching muscles in a hot tub. 3ack in bed, she kept her eyes closed. It seemed to help with the ■ ertigo. She dropped back into a fevered doze, full of chaotic dreams that were less coherent dreams than nightmare collages, _nderlined in hot sensations of pain. As she thrashed, she found a *et washcloth on her pillow and sucked it for its tepid, soothing moisture. The darkness dispersed at an agonizingly slow pace. Sometime in the predawn, she slipped into real sleep.
She woke to the noise of the wall rising but did not open her eyes. When the wall was replaced and the sound of intrusion ceased, she peeked, pretending to be waking. The morning tray, already announced by its comforting scents of toast and coffee, '■range juice, and eggs, assumed a solid form, within reach on the
commode. A heap of white chunks in a soup bowl sat next to it.
Leyna sat up, suddenly hungry. The quickness of her movement was quickly regretted; she was promptly dizzy and had to close her eyes again and wait for her body to catch up with her. The smells of breakfast were maddening. There was a faint acid undertone that piqued her curiosity. As soon as she was able to open her eyes, she reached, but slowly and carefully, for the mysterious white chunks. A deep sniff and a quick lick identified them: aspirin. The residual ache in her head, so deep as to be mere background music to the rest of her aches and pains, seemed suddenly stronger, as if it wanted the magic potion. She nibbled the stuff quickly, hating the burning acid taste^n her mouth, and washed it down with a slug of orange juice. Breakfast followed, a deeply satisfying, filling experience. At the end of it, with her stomach full and the plates empty of even the smallest crumbs, she realized the aspirin and food together had worked magic. The headache and its cohort of lesser pains subsided to mere discomfort.
