INSIDE
The house was a jigsaw puzzle of many dreams. It could not exist in reality and, dimly, the girl knew this. But she wandered its changing halls and corridors each day with a mild, floating interest. In the six months she had lived here the house had grown rapidly, spinning out attics, basements, and strangely geometric alcoves with translucent white curtains that never moved. Since she believed she had been reborn in this house, she never questioned her presence in it.
Her bedroom came first. When she woke to find herself in it she was not frightened, and she was only vaguely apprehensive when she discovered that the door opened to blackness. She was not curious and she was not hungry. She spent most of the first day in her four-poster bed looking at the heavy, flowered material that framed the bay window. Outside the window was a yellow-gray mist. She was not disturbed; the mist was a comfort. Although she experienced no joy, she knew that she loved this room and the small bathroom that was an extension of it.
On the second day she opened the carved doors of the mahogany wardrobe and removed a quilted dressing gown. It was a little large and the sleeves partially covered her hands. Her fingers, long and pale, reached out uncertainly from the edge of the material. She didn’t want to open the bedroom door again but felt that she should; if there were something outside to discover, it too would belong to her.
She turned the doorknob and stepped out into a narrow hall paneled, like the wardrobe in her room, in carved mahogany. There were no pictures and no carpet. The polished wood of the floor felt cool against her bare feet. When she had walked the full distance to the end and touched a wall, she turned and walked to the other end. The hall was very long and there were no new rooms leading from it.
When she got back to her bedroom she noticed a large desk in the corner near the window. She didn’t remember a desk but she accepted it as she accepted the rest. She looked out and saw that the mist was still there. She felt protected.
Later that afternoon she began to be hungry. She opened various drawers of the desk and found them empty except for a dusty tin of chocolates. She ate slowly and filled a glass with water from the bathroom sink and drank it all at once. Her mouth tasted bad; she wished she had a toothbrush.
On the second day she had wandered as far as the house allowed her to. Then she slept, woke in a drowsy, numb state, and slept again.
On the third day she found stairs, three flights. They led her down to a kitchen, breakfast area and pantry. Unlike her room, the kitchen was tiled and modern. She ate a Swiss cheese sandwich and drank a glass of milk. The trip back to her room tired her and she fell asleep at once.
The house continued to grow. Bedrooms appeared, some like her own, some modern, some a confusion of periods and styles. A toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste appeared in her medicine cabinet. In each of the bedrooms she found new clothes and wore them in the order of their discovery.
She began to awaken in the morning with a feeling of anticipation. Would she find a chandeliered dining room or perhaps an enclosed porch whose windows looked out on the mist?
At the end of a month the house contained eighteen bedrooms, three parlors, a library, dining room, ballroom, music room, sewing room, a basement and two attics.
Then the people came. One night she awoke to their laughter somewhere beyond her window. She was furious at the invasion but comforted herself with the thought that they were outside. She would bolt the downstairs door, and even if the mist disappeared she would not look. But she couldn’t help hearing them talk and laugh. She strained to catch the words and hated herself for trying. This was her house. She stuffed cotton into her ears and felt shut out rather than shut in, which angered her even more.
The house stopped growing. The mist cleared and the sun came out. She looked through her window and saw a lake made up of many narrow branches, its surfaces covered with a phosphorescent sparkle like a skin of dirty green sequins. She saw no one—the intruders came late at night, dozens of them, judging from the sound they made.
She lost weight. She looked in the mirror and found her hair dull, her cheeks drawn. She began to wander the house at odd hours. Her dreams were haunted by the voices outside, the splash of water, and, worst of all, the endless laughter. What would these strangers do if she suddenly appeared at the doorway in her quilted robe and demanded that they leave? If she said nothing but hammered a “No Trespass” sign to the oak tree? What if they just stood there, staring at her, laughing?
She continued to wander. There were no new rooms, but she discovered hidden alcoves and passageways that connected bedroom to bedroom, library to kitchen. She used these passageways over and over again, avoiding the main halls.
Now when she woke, it was with a feeling of dread. Had any of them got in during the night, in spite of her precautions? She found carpenters’ tools in a closet and nailed the windows shut. It took weeks to finish the job, and then she realized she had forgotten the windows in the basement. That part of the house frightened her and she put off going down. But when the voices at night began to sound more and more distinct, when she imagined that they were voices she recognized, she knew that she had no choice.
The basement was dark and damp. She could find no objects to account for the shadows on the walls. There was not enough light to work by, and when she finished, she knew she had done badly. If they really wanted to come in, these crooked nails would not stop them.
The next morning she found that the house had a new wing of three bedrooms. They were smaller than those in the rest of the house and more cheaply furnished.
She never knew exactly when the servants moved in. She saw the first one, the cook, when she walked into the kitchen one morning. The woman, middle-aged and heavy, wearing a black uniform with white apron, was taking eggs from the refrigerator.
“How would you like them, madam?”
Before she could reply, the doorbell rang. A butler appeared.
“No, don’t answer it!” He continued to walk. “Please—“
“I beg your pardon, madam. I am partially deaf. Would you repeat your statement?”
She screamed: “Do not answer the door.”
“Scrambled, fried, poached?” said the cook.
“It may be the postman,” said the butler.
“Would madam like to see today’s menu? Does madam plan to have guests this evening?” The housekeeper was dark and wiry. She hardly moved her lips but her words were clear.
“Some nice cinnamon toast, I think,” the cook said, and she placed two slices of bread in the toaster.
“If you’re having twelve to dinner, madam, I would suggest the lace cloth,” said the housekeeper.
The doorbell was still ringing. It wouldn’t stop. She ran to the stairs, toward the safety of her room.
“Madam?” said the cook, the housekeeper, the butler.
That night they came at sunset. She climbed into bed and drew the covers up around her, but still she could hear their laughter, rising and falling. The water made splashing sounds. She pulled the covers over her head and burrowed beneath them.
A new sound reached her and she threw off the covers, straining to hear. They were downstairs, in the dining room. She could make out the clink of silverware against dishes, the kind of laughter and talking that came up at her from the water. The house was alive with a chattering and clattering she could not endure. She would confront them, explain that this was her house; they would have to leave. Then the servants.
She went down the stairs slowly, rehearsing the exact words she would use. When she reached the ballroom floor she stopped for a second, then crossed it to the open doors of the dining room. She flattened herself against the wall and looked inside.
There were twelve of them, as the housekeeper had suggested—and she knew every one.
Her husband, bald, bold, and precise. “I told her, ‘Go ahead and jump; you’re not scaring me.’ And she jumped. The only brave thing she ever did.”
Her mother, dry as a twig, with dead eyes: “I told her it was a sin—but she never listened to me, never.”
A friend: “She didn’t seem to feel anything. When other people laughed she always looked serious, as if she was mulling it over to find the joke.”
“She used to laugh when she was very small. Then she stopped.”
“She was a bore.”
“She was a sparrow.”
“She was a failure. Everyone knew. When she found out for herself, she jumped.”
“Was it from a bridge? I was always curious about that.”
“Yes. They found her floating on the surface, staring into the sun like some would-be Ophelia.” Her husband smiled and wiped his lips with a napkin. “I don’t think I’ll recommend this place. I’ve got a stomachache.”
The others agreed. They all had stomachaches.
The guests returned, night after night, but each night it was a different group. Always she knew them and always she watched as they ate. When the last party left, joking about the food being poisoned, she was alone. She didn’t have to dismiss the servants; they were gone the next day. The yellow-gray mist surrounded her windows again, and for the first time she could remember, she laughed.