The Hypnotist Read online

  In the meantime some of my students had installed a large glass tank on the stage of the lecture hall and, following my instructions, they filled it right to the top with ice. I’m not averse to a bit of showmanship and I asked to have all the lights dimmed except for a spotlight on the tank and a smaller light projecting upwards from below a lectern with a microphone. I could tell that I’d achieved the right effect because as they filed into their seats, all 225 students were whispering as if they were in church!

  While the audience was getting settled, I was at the back of the stage with my volunteer and, as expected, it didn’t take long to put him into very deep trance.

  At the allotted time I stepped onto the stage, to a very warm welcome, and I was delighted to see Professor Cerberus and his colleagues in the back row nudging each other in anticipation. After a short introduction a couple of my students guided our man onto the stage. He looked a little dazed and he was dressed in swimming trunks and a bath robe.

  When the auditorium was absolutely silent, I stood at the lectern, and this is where the spotlight below my face comes in – let’s just say that it intensifies the effect of my eyes! Having carried out my pre-induction, all I had to do was whisper a few trigger words and place my hand lightly on my volunteer’s forehead before he slumped back into trance, amidst audible gasps from the audience. As I led him across the stage towards the icy tank, I whispered continuously and quietly in his ear, persuading him that, except for his butler, he was alone in a magnificent hotel bathroom and was about to relax in a tub of steaming water.

  You should have seen the lovely calm smile on the fellow’s face as I helped him out of his robe and into the tank of ice! My assistants had taped thermometers to various parts of his body, and these were projected onto a screen at the back of the stage so that the whole audience could monitor his body temperature. For a bit of fun I handed our fellow a scrubbing brush, and there was a delightful moment when he started singing and washing beneath his arms. Meanwhile the thermometer on the screen showed that his body temperature was plummeting!

  After five or ten minutes it was evident that our man was close to hypothermia and a few of my students began to panic! We hauled him out, and although he looked slightly blue, he wasn’t even shivering because he truly believed that he had stepped out of a hot bath.

  He stood there dripping a pool of icy water onto the stage, but perfectly comfortable. I got him to take a few bows amidst tumultuous applause, and even some foot stamping and whoops from the enthusiastic audience.

  For an encore, I informed our man that he was now standing in a desert, and as he hopped from foot to foot on the hot sand, the thermometer showed his temperature rushing upwards until he was approaching heat stroke. All the water evaporated from his body and he began to perspire.

  Just a bit of fun! Just a simple demonstration to show the power of hypnotic suggestion. But I must admit that I savoured the delight and amazement on the faces of Professor Cerberus and his visiting VIPs; and the Vice Principal gave me a broad grin and a thumbs-up as I took my bow.

  What a day! I couldn’t wait to share the story with my family back home. And that’s what I was thinking about as I drove up the track and parked the old Spider in front of the bungalow. As I hopped out, I was surprised to see old man Zachery relaxing on the swing seat on my deck, as calm as you please. All that talk about trespassing, and there he was, behaving as if he owned the place!

  As I climbed the steps, he waved an envelope in my direction. ‘Got mahself a letter from the state authorities. Summat ’bout edoocation an’ ob-lig-ation. Truth is, I cain’t understan’ a dog-darn word they say. Lilybelle say, go show it t’ the young fellah yonder.’

  ‘Delighted to help if I can,’ I said, dropping my bag and unfolding the letter.

  ‘S’ long as they don’t want no money, ’cos I ain’t got no money.’

  ‘Let me see . . . Dear Mr Zachery . . . blah, blah . . . No, they don’t want money . . . This is a letter advising you that if you have children under the age of fifteen in your care, you are obliged by state law to provide them with an education.’

  ‘Wal, I ain’t got no chil’ren. Erwin’s near twenny now.’

  ‘Now, that’s not strictly true, Mr Zachery. I’ve often seen children working in your yard. I bumped into that young girl the other day, and there’s a new lad too . . . What’s his name?’

  ‘You mean th’ orphan boy? Name’s Pip. But everyone know ye cain’t send Coloured kids ter a Whaite school.’

  ‘Yes, I know about the segregation laws . . . But presumably there’s a Coloured school in the district?’

  ‘Wal . . . yeah, thar’s a Coloured school out towards th’ mountains, but tha’s miles away. Ah ain’t drivin’ thar each day. Wha’s th’ point o’ it, anyways?’

  ‘The point of what?’

  ‘Th’ point o’ edoocation. Ain’t no school teach a boy t’ split wood or skin a rabbit. Tha’s raight, ain’t it, Doc? Pip’s a workin’ man now. He’s gonna learn hisself real skills.’

  ‘Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, Mr Zachery, but the law disagrees. The letter clearly says that you are registered as having children at this address and you are obliged to provide them with an education, on pain of legal proceedings.’

  ‘Wha’ ’m ah gonna do?’

  I recalled the bewildered boy stepping out of the truck with his book. I’d seen him several times since then, running around on errands. And then the startled girl with the dreamcatcher by the dry river-bed. There had been other children too, although I hadn’t seen them in a while. I answered almost without thinking, ‘Ah, well, send them to me, Mr Zachery. I suppose I could spare an hour or two in the evening. As I told you, I work at the university so I’m not a school teacher, but I could probably help with reading and writing.’

  He re-lit his cigarette. ‘I ain’t payin’ nuthin’.’

  ‘No. I didn’t expect you would.’

  ‘Could give you a few aigs.’

  ‘Some eggs would be grand.’

  ‘Th’ gull cain’t tawk. She’s dumb.’

  ‘Is she now? That’s most interesting. Would you know if she’s physically mute or suffering from elective mutism?’

  ‘Wha’ . . .? What th’ hell ah know? She don’t tawk – ’s awl ah know.’

  ‘All right, Mr Zachery. Why don’t you send the children over on . . . let’s see . . . Wednesday afternoon? We’ll give it a try for a few weeks, just to help a neighbour.’

  An appropriate response might have been, ‘That’s very civil of you, Jack.’ Or simply, ‘Much obliged.’ But old man Zachery just shuffled across the track, scratching his buttocks beneath his overalls.

  I went into my cool kitchen and took out a beer. I thought about what I had let myself in for. I wasn’t a school teacher, so why on earth had I offered to give up my free time to work with those kids? Well, if you want to know the truth, I was a little lonely. Ah, I know what you’re thinking: the Head of Neurology at the new university – he probably has invitations to dinner parties every other night of the week. And I did get invitations. The trouble was, when I went along to those barbecues and baseball games, I felt like the odd man out. I’d always had trouble fitting in.

  Besides, those youngsters – Pip and Hannah – they intrigued me far more than my clever colleagues. I wanted to know where they came from. There were all kinds of things that didn’t stack up: Zachery had said that the girl was mute, and yet on that scorching Saturday when I had intruded on her hiding place by the dry river, I had heard something extraordinary. In the seconds before she ran away, that Indian girl had been singing to herself in a small and beautiful voice.

  I heard every haunting note, and the words of that song were so strange and mysterious that I had written them in my notebook . . .

  9

  Song of the Silent Girl

  i am spirit

  i am sky

  i am eagle

  flying high

  i am rive
r

  i am stream

  i am sleep

  i am dream

  i am ocean

  i am earth

  i am death

  i am birth

  i am mountain

  i am tree

  i am spirit

  flying free

  10

  The Boy Without a Face

  Pip loved the smell of paints and the bright colours that Lilybelle squeezed from stubby tubes.

  On a rectangle of card cut from a cereal box she was creating a childlike scene: there was Dead River farmhouse beneath a bright blue sky and a sun as yellow as an egg yolk. On the pink cobbles of the yard stood a line of smiling people. The bearded one holding a cockerel was Zachery, with Amigo at his feet. The brown and black ones were Hannah and Pip, side by side, and on a chair beneath a densely fruited apple tree sat Lilybelle herself, nicely plump and smiling too.

  ‘That’s th’ way it should be,’ said Lilybelle. ‘Folks livin’ together in harmony laike spoons in a drawer.’

  She squeezed a line of paint onto her plate and, with a fine brush, sketched in the outline of the final character in her painting – a boy as tall as the apple tree.

  Pip watched her struggling with the face of the oversized boy; again and again she tried, but she couldn’t get it right.

  These days Erwin was around more frequently – driving about in the small hours and sleeping away the days. When Pip thought of Erwin, the image that came to mind was not of a spoon but a long knife – pointed and razor sharp. The kind of knife that could open a throat like a watermelon.

  ‘Lilybelle . . .’ Pip began his sentence nervously. ‘Lilybelle . . . how come you’re so kind an’ Erwin is so . . . you know . . .?’

  ‘Unkaind, Pip. Come raight on out an’ say it. Erwin’s hard as nails an’ it breaks mah ol’ heart.’

  Pip saw a tear roll down her lovely face. She seemed instantly agitated, as if the creative spell had been broken. ‘Awl ah wanna do when ah think about it is to eat an’ eat, till there’s no more room fer sufferin’.’

  She tinkled the paintbrush furiously in a jar, and Pip watched a dark typhoon swirl within the glass. Then, with a rag on her fingertip, she wiped away the unsuccessful face of the boy and tried to paint his boots.

  ‘Even when he was a kid, Erwin was tall an’ lanky . . . doctors called it Gigantism. Ah had thyroid problems, see, so Erwin had excess growth hormones. Zach and me used t’ say a tall boy laike that gonna be a basketbawl star fo’ sure . . . ’cept . . . ’cept there was somethin’ strange about Erwin – he made th’ other kids wary.

  ‘We used t’ lie awake at naight frettin’ about him. Then one day he says he’s signed up t’ join th’ army.

  ‘Course, he was too young, but he musta lied about his age, and bein’ so big ’n awl, ah guess they believed him. They took ma boy off to a military trainin’ camp an’ next thing we know he’s in some place named Vietnam, me an’ Zach ain’t never heard of. Ah never learned ’xactly what happened there. All ah know is when he came home to Dead River, me ’n Zach didn’t hardly recognize the boy shufflin’ up the track laike a zombie. If it weren’t for the height o’ him, ah’d have thought they sent th’ wrong boy home.

  ‘Oh yeah, Pip, ah remember that homecomin’ laike it was yesterday. At twenny to naine Erwin walks in the door an’ his face was jus’ fulla naked hate. Zach noticed somethin’ weird – th’ clock on th’ man’lpiece stopped raight there an’ then. Ain’t never worked since. It wus laike mah whole laife stopped too.’

  Lilybelle was sobbing openly now, honking and snorting into a tissue.

  ‘There wus summat brutish got into him, Pip. Erwin used to cuss an’ yell an’ break thangs, an’ kick th’ dawg. At naight we heard him shoutin’ an screamin’. Only time he found peace was out huntin’ with a gun . . . Ah don’ wanna tawk ’bout it no more, if it’s awl the same t’ you. Awl ah know is what ah tol’ you – it’s best when folks git along.’

  ‘Like spoons in a drawer, Lilybelle.’

  ‘Yeah, Pip, like spoons in a drawer.’

  She stared at her unfinished painting and then, very quietly, she said, ‘It ain’t somethin’ a mother say easy, but ah don’ know mah son no more. He don’t speak more’n twenny words t’ me in a year . . . There’s somethin’ evil in his heed, Pip. Scares me. Erwin scares me bad.’

  Even talking about him scared Pip too. He rose to his feet and began gathering an armful of Lilybelle’s clothes for washing. These chores were second nature to an orphanage boy.

  ‘Giss who ah’m gonna give mah li’l picture to?’

  Lilybelle stroked the top of Pip’s head and handed him the painting.

  Pip looked at the surreal image. The farmyard characters, the egg-yolk sun, the apple tree, and the giant boy without a face.

  When that painting was dry, Pip slipped it between the pages of his book and it stayed there for many years.

  Out in the yard he filled a tin tub with water. He carried out saucepans and kettles of boiling water from the kitchen and poured them in too. Then he set about pummelling and scrubbing the clothes until they were clean. It was pleasant enough to be kneeling with the warm sunshine on his back.

  ‘Boy . . . ah say, boy, ah got somethin’ to tell ya.’ Zachery shuffled over. ‘Now listen up – ah fixed fer you ’n Hannah to git an edoocation. Private schoolin’ near caust a fortune, but ah figured it were th’ right thang to do.’

  ‘Yes, sir, thank you, Mr Zachery, sir. But who gonna teach us?’

  ‘Crazy-eyed feller in the bungalow yonder. Teaches at th’ university, he do, an’ that’s why he’s so ’spensive. You start after chores this af’ernoon.’

  Then Zachery climbed into the truck and set off to sell a couple of goats.

  Lessons at the white bungalow with Hannah? It all seemed very peculiar. Pip puzzled over it as he knelt down at the tub to wring out the last of Lilybelle’s clothes.

  And it was in that moment that a colossal shadow fell from behind, and all the weeks of dodging and dancing came to an end.

  A mighty hand descended from above and Pip found himself catapulted violently into the air, ten feet above Dead River farmyard.

  With arms and legs paddling like a helpless swimmer, Pip looked down at Erwin’s snarling face – it was infinitely uglier and crueller than he had imagined. Apple-seed eyes buried deep beneath a hulking brow. Knotted red ears projecting like bolts from his shaven cranium, and that terrible jaw – as huge and solid as a tombstone.

  ‘Seems ah caught mahself a li’l black rat!’ said the deep, slow, teasing voice. ‘I kep’ on hearin’ it scritchin’ ’n scratchin’ ’n snuckin’ about; but ever’ taime ah looks fer it, it turns its li’l black tail and scampers everwhichways.’

  Erwin held Pip high above his head as if he weighed no more than a bundle of twigs.

  ‘Now you don’ wanna be doin’ awl that washin’. That ain’t work fer a boy. The li’l dumb gal cin finish that.’

  He lowered Pip to the ground and set him on his feet, holding him firmly by the collar so he could not escape. Pip felt giddy and sick with fear. The top of his head reached little higher than Erwin’s waist, so that the giant had to bend right over to speak to him – stabbing him repeatedly with a finger as long as a bone.

  ‘We’s gonna take a wawk, li’l rat. Jes’ you ’n me. Up to th’ red barn t’ play.’

  Pip felt the collar tighten around his neck. He thought fondly of his mother and prepared to die.

  11

  David and Goliath

  I returned from work and swung the silver Spider into my drive.

  I hopped onto the deck and was just unlocking the front door when I saw something that disturbed me greatly: in the yard opposite, Zachery’s gigantic son Erwin was dragging young Pip along by the scruff of his neck like a fellow with a string puppet. It was clear that the boy was petrified.

  I dumped my books on the folding table – and, I admit, I didn’t know what to do. I was the
outsider, after all, and anyway, you’d have to be a damned fool to take on a monster like Erwin. Common sense told me to go inside. Common sense told me to take a shower and avoid trouble, but my conscience is an undisciplined fellow. It yelled at me to intervene and it simply would not shut up. If there’s one thing I cannot stand it is blatant injustice. I had trouble enough with the disgraceful Jim Crow laws in this part of the world, but the appalling abuse of a child by a seven-foot bully could not be tolerated.

  With no real plan, I rose to my feet. ‘Excuse me!’ I called. ‘Excuse me! Are you Erwin? Are you Mr Zachery’s son? My name’s Jack – Dr Jack Morrow, to use my full moniker . . .’

  He turned his lantern jaw and leered at me. Once again I noticed the peculiar lumbering quality of his movements, like a creature from a swamp.

  ‘You tawkin’ at me?’

  ‘Look, it’s none of my business but—’

  ‘Goddam raight it’s none ’f yer business, y’ puny freak.’

  He held the boy with two fingers and stared at me in utter disbelief. The scene was straight out of the Bible – like David and Goliath, except that wee fellow had a slingshot, didn’t he? David had been in with a fighting chance.

  ‘Well, in a way it is my business, see, because I’m about to be a kind of tutor to Pip – and to Hannah too – starting this afternoon, as a matter of fact. Look . . . look here, I have all the books and I’ve bought them a pencil case each – the Flintstones, isn’t it? Fred and, er . . . Wilma?’