Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

Mickelsson’s eyes began to ache—the only lights were the lamp in the corner by Blassenheim and the dim light, a circular fluorescent, overhead—and he gave up for a while, dropping the tattered Newsweek back on the table and lowering his eyelids. He heard—or perhaps only saw, peripherally—the man in brown stir in his chair. Mickelsson glanced over at him and saw him rising, as if with slight difficulty, like a man in light shock, soundlessly moving his lips. The man wandered down the hallway, his steps almost silent—probably looking for a men’s room. Near the end of the hallway he opened a door and went in.

Mickelsson once more closed his eyes. He could hear faint, faraway machine sounds—pumps, furnace vents, refrigerators perhaps. Now and then Blassenheim turned a page. Otherwise, silence. He thought of Blickstein smiling with interest as he predicted Jessie’s advancing doom, and at the thought he felt a muscle in his face jerk. He heard someone groan, not far away, then realized that, in a kind of doze, he himself had made the sound. He glanced at Blassenheim, and their eyes met. They nodded like strangers on a train; then Blassenheim went back to his reading.

He decided to get up and walk. There seemed no one anywhere, though it stood to reason that on the floors above this one, the first floor, there would be sleeping patients in room after room. Looking in through a windowed door near the end of the hallway he saw the brown-coated man from the waiting room, seated at a glossy table, poring over a book. He had more books piled at his elbow. Mickelsson frowned, wondering what queer drama he was getting a glimpse of. He would no doubt never know. He found the men’s room and went in. When he came out again, the man in brown was at the waiting-room end of the hallway, looking out at snow, or looking at his reflection in the glass of the door.

Finally the door of the room where Mabel lay came swooshing open and Dr. Mowry and Tom Garret came out. While Tom came over, the doctor smiled distantly and went to another room farther down the hallway, near where the man in brown had been. Blassenheim dropped his magazine on the table and stood up.

“Everything’s OK,” Garret said and smiled. “They’re keeping her overnight, just to watch her.”

“I take it you’ll stay with her?” Mickelsson asked. “I’m sure we can find somebody to look after your kids.”

“No need,” Garret said, and raised his hand. “I’ll run home and see to things, then come get her in the morning. She’s asleep now—she’ll sleep right through. He gave her a sedative.”

“I’d be happy to babysit,” Blassenheim said. He stretched his chin, self-conscious.

“Really no need,” Garret said. He picked up his suitcoat from the chair-arm where he’d dropped it, then got his overcoat from the rack. Blassenheim went around behind to help him on with them.

“So did they figure out what it was?” Mickelsson asked.

“Yes and no,” Garret said. He took a step toward the door, then paused. “Is this the way we came in?”

Mickelsson nodded, and the three of them moved together toward the door. The man in brown continued to gaze out, a book under his arm. He did not turn as they drew near. “And what was it?” Mickelsson asked.

“Well, it seems she ‘saw’ something,” Garret said, and gave them an evasive grin. Mickelsson held the door. They went out into the cold.

“What d’ya mean?” Blassenheim asked.

Garret threw out his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “Believe me, if I knew what I meant I’d tell you. She doesn’t know herself—I mean, she does know, but …”

Mickelsson stopped walking. “What?” he said.

Now Garret and Blassenheim stopped too. Garret’s face was still smiling, frozen. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” he said. When they went on waiting, not accepting it, he reached out and touched Mickelsson’s arm. “She saw a funeral, all right?” He shook his head. “She walked in that room where all of us were standing and instead of seeing us she saw these two people holding a funeral all by themselves.” He laughed.

Mickelsson and Blassenheim waited.

Garret looked down, raising his fist to his lips. After a minute he said, “She took some Darvon earlier tonight—malrotated colon. The doctor thinks it may have been the combination of Darvon and alcohol. That could explain the fainting, too.”

“I see,” Mickelsson said. As he opened the car-door for Garret, he asked, “What kind of funeral, did she say? Who had died?”

“A child,” Garret said.

Back at the house they said nothing to the others—it was Garret’s wish—of what Mabel thought she’d seen; but in the kitchen Mickelsson told Jessie what Garret had said.

She looked at him, sharp-eyed as a bird. “How did you feel?”

“Well, I was interested, I suppose,” he said. He leaned against the counter, swirling the liquid around and around in his martini glass.

“I should think so.” She moved her hand as if to touch him, then thought better of it. “And you didn’t feel anything—at the time she was seeing those things?”

“Or thought she was.”

“Oh, stop it, Mickelsson.” As if to take back the snap of irritation, she did touch him, lightly resting her hand on his arm.

He looked down. “I felt something, yes. A coldness, and fast-moving shadows.”

She asked, “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” Her eyes met his, then skidded.

“I don’t know,” he said before he’d stopped to think. “I mean, yes, but—”

She nodded. “It’s all right. Stop worrying. Another time.”

“It’s just—”

Alan Blassenheim came into the kitchen for ice. He nodded, smiling one-sidedly, apparently thinking well of himself. Behind him, the Swisson woman poked her head in at the door.

“I wonder,” Mickelsson said. Blassenheim glanced at him, seeing whether he was the one addressed. “I wonder what that man in the brown coat was there for. Eerie, somehow.” When Blassenheim seemed not to follow, Mickelsson said, “The man in the waiting room,