WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW by Holly Clark
What you need to know is that the blind nurse washed the windows. Peer into her bucket and besides the cold lump of washrag, you will see strands of her red hair coiled around suds. Watch as the blind nurse pushes the rag around and around the pane, so that gray bubbles migrate across its surface, then split and divide. See her eyes stare over the sill, into the parlor, and across the room to the empty fireplace, with its brown borders of brick.
The thief enters through this window. That snowy night when he approaches the house, his boots muddy the rabbit prints beneath the window, give them new lines. Darkness angers him. His clothing, though carefully chosen, never becomes part of the night; black pants, black sweater, black cap and scarf all seem frighteningly visible. The red bandanna peeks out of his back pocket. Silver snaps gleam up at the moon. Even the eyelets of his boots betray him.
The patient sleeps always. She never wakes. She was born asleep, and that is how she stays. In the top story of the house, where the windows are smallest, the patient sleeps, her lashes tilted down in an embarrassed flutter. She sleeps through days, nights, weeks, months. She sleeps through seasons. Light diminishes or increases, turns pink or gray. But her windows need no curtains: she never wakes.
Now look again. You know that the night is snowy; rabbits dart across the path, duck under bushes, hide in the burrow beneath the front steps. The nurse wiped windows long past twilight: just imagine her rag cast blue in the evening light, her cold fingers raised above the glass, the darkened windows with her fingers upon them, the lamps she hadn’t lit. Now she is finished. Tomorrow she will drag out the ladder and wash the ones on the second floor; tonight she will rest. She tips the bucket. Glistening suds sink into the snow.
The thief watches not for shrieking housewives or angry mongrels, but mirrors. To catch a glimpse of himself is bad luck. As he tiptoes through the living room, he keeps his eyes on the stairs, lets himself focus on the plush blue runner. The mantel clock chimes, but he does not look up; he does not look away from the runner, because above the clock hangs a mirror in an ornamental frame – hideously ornate – and if he looks inside the frame, he will see himself. His other self, dark in the mirror, somewhere inside or on top of the glass, tries to catch his eye. But he forces this self to look away, to peer into the deep blue blur of staircase.
The patient keeps herself to herself. Her hair spreads across the pillow, but her arms are tucked out of view. The patient keeps to herself. Keeps what she sees to herself. What she cannot see is what is there: the embroidered sheet, the torn coverlet, the way her eyes roll beneath their lids. The patient keeps herself away. The patient keeps sleeping, and she cannot see the lack of curtains or the blue-black sky behind the window. Under her yellow nightgown, the patient sleeps, and as she shifts, tiny yellow folds make pockets of shadows.
See how pale her fingernails are, there on the doorknob? The blind nurse has come into the foyer and closed the door. There, on the red tile, water pools around her shoes and trails into the grout, slides toward the doorway. The bucket drips. A film of soap clings to its basin. The blind nurse puts down the bucket and wipes her hands on her skirt. She lights the lamp that she does not need, then goes to the mantel for a candlestick. She lights that, too. The candle is yellow, and pale. Like the insides of cakes.
The thief looks angrier than his other self – that is his belief – and as he strides to the staircase, for a minute, that is how he appears. But as he passes the nurse’s bedroom, he pauses in the doorway. Assorted brown bottles – thirty or more – cluster on top of the dresser. The entire room is white. White floorboards, white washstand, white cupboard, white chamber pot. And white bed: white bedstead, white pillows, white counterpane, white nightgown kicked to the bottom near the white footboard. Across the bedspread, a large red stain. Medicine.
The patient shifts in her sleep, turns on her side when the blind nurse enters the room. The patient does not see the nurse in the doorway, nor the dark hall behind her, and she cannot know that the nurse stands there and does not move. She cannot know that the nurse does not see her. She shifts nonetheless. In the darkness, the nurse does not move, and the patient shifts again, so that this time, she lies on her back. Her closed eyes look on the ceiling. The nurse’s eyes look ahead.
Or is it beyond? Do you know? The blind nurse grips the candlestick, and soft yellow light falls on her apron, shirtfront, and face. Inside her apron pocket waits a brown bottle with a paper label glued to its front. The label stretches around the bottle, and behind the label, behind the brown, waits thick dark syrup.
The thief creeps up the stairs, places his foot in the center of each stair, imagines each footfall denting the blue plush as he gathers momentum. His hand reaches out to clasp the railing, but he thinks better of it; he puts his hands in his pockets as he trots up the steps. The red bandanna bobs up and down in his pocket. His cheeks flush. The stairs curve to the right, and he follows.
The patient sleeps on. Already the nurse is leaving. Her white back retreats from the doorway. The ties of her apron sash dangle. One hand cups the air in front of the candle flame, the other holds the candlestick. The nurse moves on; the patient sleeps. Inside the apron pocket, the brown bottle falls sideways, but this cannot be seen. If she were watching, the patient would see the twitch of the blind nurse’s rump, the rising and falling of the knot at the back of her waist, the bobbling light moving farther and farther out of reach. Now she is gone.
Watch as the nurse reaches the staircase. See her steady the candle, then place her hand on the rail. She takes the stairs slowly, and though the runner muffles the sound of each step, she can remember where her foot falls, which step she’s at, how close she is to the wall or the bannister. Look at the flame that wiggles atop the candle, how it shimmers and flits to match the movement of its shadow there on the wall beside her.
The thief stops when he sees the blind nurse at the top of the stairs. But she moves forward, one hand sliding down the railing, the other holding the candlestick. The candle throws its steady light. She is going down the stairs, coming closer, coming closer, and he wonders why she doesn’t call out, cry for help, even drop the candlestick. The light is growing stronger as she gets closer, and he sees the buttons on her shirtfront glint. He presses his back against the wall. Watches the candle. Then she walks past. She steps forward, steps forward, steps forward, is gone.
The patient drifts in her nightgown, in her bed, somewhere in something that is not what is there. The patient drifts somewhere steady, where she is certainly herself, or certainly not; she is somewhere, drifting in a yellow gown, flickering through something steady, whatever it is, this steady sleep.
Last of all, you need to know what the patient couldn’t see: the thief arriving at the top of the stairs, the thief stealing through the doorway, the thief lifting the coverlet and drawing it back. Look away. Watch the blind nurse at the parlor window, the darkened fireplace behind her, and in front of her, something endless, something tirelessly blue.
Holly Clark has a recent story in Third Coast.