Eyes in the Fishbowl Read online

  That was on Saturday. It was the next Monday morning at the hat shop that I talked to the clerk named Myrna. Myrna had been a clerk in the Pet Shop at Alcott-Simpson’s for a year or so. She was a good friend of Jayne Anne, who owned the hat shop where I worked every Monday morning. She was fairly young and very pale and nervous looking, so that she always made me think of the white mice that were sold in the department where she worked. Now and then, on her way to work in the mornings, Myrna would drop by the hat shop for a quick cup of coffee and a little gossip with Jayne Anne. At the hat shop she was always friendly to me, but if I saw her in Alcott-Simpson’s she was very formal because she was afraid of the man who was the department manager. That morning when I got to the hat shop, Jayne Anne was late; the shop was still locked, and Myrna was having hysterics in the alcove outside the front door.

  “Dion,” she sobbed when I came up, “I’m so glad to see you.” She rubbed her eyes with a handkerchief that looked sopping wet already. “Where on earth is Jayne Anne?”

  “I don’t know. I guess she’s a little late. She’s this late lots of times on Monday mornings. She’ll probably be here any minute.”

  Myrna wiped her eyes again and looked at her watch. “Oh, I guess it isn’t so very late. It just seems like I’ve been waiting here for-ee-ev-ver.” And she broke down and started to cry again.

  I felt very uncomfortable. It seemed as if I ought to do something, but I couldn’t think what. Finally I said, “Is there anything I could do?” It occurred to me that maybe someone had been chasing her, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Besides she wasn’t the kind of girl that anyone would want to chase, unless it was just to see her run. “Could I call the police, or something?” I said.

  “Oh, no-o-o,” Myrna said, pulling herself together a little, “no thank you. I’ll just wait here and talk to Jayne Anne when she comes. Not that she can help me either, but I just have to talk to someone or I’m going to go crazy.” And then she added in a kind of a wail, “if I haven’t already.”

  It occurred to me that if what she needed was someone to talk to, I’d be glad to oblige. I didn’t want to see her go crazy and, besides, I was curious. To start things out I ventured a guess. “Did you get fired, or something like that?” I’d heard that the manager of the Pet Shop was a real tyrant.

  “Fired?” she said. “Oh, no. Oh, my no. I’m almost the only full time clerk Mr. Braunstetter has left. He couldn’t fire me, though I suppose he’ll try to blame it on me. He always tries to blame it on one of us. But he couldn’t fire me.” She stopped and looked at me, and I could tell she was trying to decide how much she should say. I tried to look mature and helpful. She took a deep breath and started out, and once she began it was like a break in the dam. She never even stopped to take a real breath.

  “It was this morning—I don’t mean that what happened this morning is all of it, because it’s been going on for weeks and weeks, but this morning was the last straw. It was my turn to get to work early to clean the cages and do the feeding, so I got there just as the morning janitorial crew was going in. And when we got in, the Canaries and parakeets and mynas were loose and flying all over the store. They’re catching them now—running all over the store with nets and ladders—but I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand it anymore—I just had to get out of there. I didn’t even stop to check out.”

  Myrna had been looking scared to death all along, but when she said that she looked horrified. She was the type who wouldn’t be caught dead breaking even the littlest rule, and checking in and out was almost sacred at Alcott-Simpson’s. “I didn’t even stop to check out,” she said again, “I am going crazy—I’m sure of it.”

  “You said it had been going on for weeks and weeks,” I said. “What has? Have the birds been out before?”

  “No, not the birds, but other things. Some of the mice, and the kittens—the kittens so many times that we had to stop stocking them. And the chipmunks—and, oh yes, once an iguana. But that’s not all. They feed things, too. Right in the middle of the afternoon They feed things. So that you look in the feed trays one minute and they’re empty, and the next minute they’re full. And They put things in places they shouldn’t be—spools of thread in the kittens’ cages—wind up toy submarines in the fish tanks—”

  “They?” I asked.

  “Yes. They!” she said angrily, as if I’d meant I didn’t believe her. “Don’t take my word for it. It’s not just me. It’s not just in the Pet Shop either.” Her voice got higher and more hysterical. “Oh, a lot of them won’t talk about it, because they’re afraid of what you’ll think, or because they’re afraid they’ll think it themselves. But if you pick the right ones, the ones who have to talk to someone and who can see that you’re as scared as they are, they’ll tell you. They’ll tell you about the sounds They make—feet running and laughter, and voices—and the things that move by themselves—toys, balls that bounce by themselves—and things you see—in dark corners—” She pressed her hands over her mouth as if she were trying to make herself stop.

  I felt paralyzed. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Just then Jayne Anne came around the corner. “Hello, Di,” she said, “sorry to be so late. Myrna! What is it? What on earth is wrong?” She unlocked the door and led Myrna inside, patting her and making sympathetic noises. She stuck her head back out long enough to say, “Di, run along, won’t you please. We’ll skip the sweeping up for today. Catch me later in the week if you have time.” She nodded towards Myrna and made a face that said, “You see how it is.”

  “Sure,” I said. “See you later.” And I started off down the sidewalk toward my next job in the McAdam building.

  I finished the rest of my Monday morning work in a kind of daze. My mind was just treading water, doing the same things over and over without getting anywhere. The only positive conclusion that I came up with was that I was going to have to see Sara again right away. I was going to have to break my promise about not asking any questions. For my sake, and maybe for her own too, Sara was going to have to tell me what she knew about whatever it was that was going on at Alcott-Simpson’s.

  Chapter 12

  Maybe they’ve heard in the toy department

  The endless whispered sighs,

  Or have they seen on the goosedown couches,

  Where each night something lies?

  Could they be learning to shun the shadows

  For fear of great dark eyes?

  They know, they fear, they’re almost certain

  But they tell each other lies.

  REMEMBERING ABOUT POOR Myrna gave me the idea for the second verse.

  I finished my work in a hurry on that Monday morning, and on my way to catch the bus to school I walked back past Alcott-Simpson’s. Through the doors I could see that a few more clerks had arrived. The birds must have all been caught, because I didn’t see any ladders or butterfly nets. That is, if there had been any birds; I’d almost decided that poor Myrna was right about going crazy.

  But whether there was anything to Myrna’s story or not, I was getting more and more frantic about seeing Sara. I almost decided to wait around until nine-thirty so I could take a quick look for Sara before I went to school. I would have, too, even though I hated being late, but I was almost positive she wouldn’t be there. No matter what kind of weird home life she had, she probably had to be in school on Monday mornings like everyone else. So I went on to school and tried to keep my mind off the whole thing until I’d had a chance to get some more information. But that afternoon I was back at Alcott-Simpson’s as quickly as I could get there after school.

  Sara wasn’t in the store that afternoon either. I hung around until the closing bell rang, and she just wasn’t there. The crowds were very light again, so I was fairly sure that I’d have seen her if she were anywhere around. There weren’t many customers, and there didn’t seem to be as many clerks as usual. I glanced in the pet shop and it seemed quiet and normal enough. Excep
t that Mr. Braunstetter, the department manager, was waiting on customers himself, which was something I’d never seen him do before.

  I was on my way home, just a couple of blocks from Cathedral Street, when I passed a bus stop and there was Madame Stregovitch getting off the bus. She was carrying a couple of big packages, so I hurried and caught up with her and asked if I could help her carry something.

  “Dion,” she said. “How nice to see you. You appear like magic and in the nick of time. My arms are very tired.” She gave me the biggest package, and we started off down Willow Street. I’d been wanting another chance to question Madame about the trouble at Alcott-Simpson’s, and this seemed like a made-to-order opportunity. But I remembered that the last time I’d tried, she’d seemed pretty reluctant to give any answers. So I thought I’d ease into the subject as carefully as I could. I began by saying that I’d heard she’d been sick and I hoped she was okay now. She said yes, she had been and that she was better. Then, just as I’d gotten around to asking if she thought the store was still having as much trouble, she turned into a driveway.

  I had known for years that Madame Stregovitch lived somewhere in the Cathedral Street neighborhood, because I used to see her around now and then, but I’d never known exactly where. The driveway we were walking down led back behind an old Victorian town house that had been turned into apartments years and years before. It was a mess of peeling paint, cracked windows and crumbling ornaments—the kind of thing that artists and tourists love, but nobody in their right mind would want to live in. But Madame didn’t go into the big house. We went around back and behind the garage we came to a gate that led into a tangled overgrown mess of trees and bushes that had probably once been a garden. Almost hidden in the bushes was a small house. The little house was probably built at the same time as the big one in front of it, maybe for servants to live in; but now it was fenced off into what looked like a little world of its own. It was old and a little shabby, but not rundown and uncared for like the big house; and sitting there almost hidden in the undergrowth, it gave you a funny feeling. Like you’d stumbled onto a place where time had stopped a long time ago.

  Madame Stregovitch unlocked a heavy front door with a small oval window, and we went inside.

  “I’ll just put these things away,” she said taking the packages. “And in the meantime you can get the fire going in the fireplace. Then we’ll have a nice cup of tea.”

  I don’t spend much time having tea with old ladies as a rule, but I was curious, and besides I hadn’t had a chance yet to ask the questions I’d been planning. The logs were all arranged in the fireplace, so I found some matches on the mantle and got the fire started. Somewhere not far away I could hear Madame bustling around running water and clinking dishes.

  When I was putting the matches back, I noticed a bunch of pictures on the mantle—mostly big framed photographs of foreign-looking people. There was one picture I noticed especially. It was larger than the others and in a very fancy frame. It was just a photograph, an old dim photograph of a woman, but there was something about it that made me keep staring at it. She had a kind of shawl draped over her head, and her face looked a little like Madame Stregovitch, dark and bony. But it was mostly the eyes I kept looking at. I’ve seen pictures before that had eyes that seemed to follow you, but these did more than that. They made you feel like squirming.

  The fire was going pretty well and Madame S. still hadn’t come back, so I turned away from the picture and walked around the room. It was a small darkish room, stuffed with lots of big old-fashioned furniture and smothered with heavy drapes and curtains. The few places the walls did show, they were covered with pictures, some of them painted or sewn on heavy cloth. In two corners of the room there were little cupboards full of weird looking what-nots. All the time I was wandering around I kept glancing back at that one picture on the mantle, and finally I went back to look at it again. I was standing in front of it when Madame finally came back into the room. She was carrying a tray with a teapot and cups and a plate of little cakes and pastries. She came and stood beside me and looked at the picture, too.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  Madame turned away without answering and put the tray on a little table. After a minute she said, “She was my mother.”

  “I thought she might be,” I said. “She looks a little like you.”

  “Do you think so?” She motioned for me to come and sit down. “Yes, I suppose it is quite evident. I am quite like her in many ways. It is a likeness I’ve spent most of a lifetime trying to escape.”

  “Trying to escape?” I said. I guess I sounded a little surprised. Kids are always running their parents down and nobody pays any attention. But you just don’t expect people as old as Madame Stregovitch to do that sort of thing.

  “You are shocked,” Madame said. “You are thinking perhaps that such an attitude is unsuitable for one of my generation?” I knew she was kind of teasing me, and I got the point. But then she shrugged and said, “Well, perhaps. However, in this case I think you did not understand my meaning. I did not intend to suggest that I disapproved of my mother in the usual manner of younger generations. She was an extraordinary woman, and I did not wish to be like her for an extraordinary reason—I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?” I said. “Afraid of what?”

  But Madame just began pouring tea and saying things like, “Do you take sugar?” and I got the feeling she was wishing she hadn’t let the whole conversation get started. I was curious, but I had some other important questions to ask and I didn’t want to wear out my welcome before I got around to them. So I went back to the question I had started to ask when we were just getting to the house.

  “Well, what do you hear about the trouble at Alcott-Simpson’s?” I asked. “Do you think there’s been as much—er—excitement lately?”

  “Why do you ask? Have you been hearing more rumors?”

  “Well, I heard that they weren’t using the dogs anymore and not so many extra guards. I was wondering if they’ve already arrested somebody. Do you know if they’ve arrested the ones who were causing the trouble?”

  Instead of answering me, Madame went off into a long string of the silent chuckles that were her way of laughing. “Hah!” she said finally, “Arrested them. I am afraid not. And as for there being less excitement lately, I had not heard that such was the case. If they are no longer using the dogs, perhaps it is because they proved to be useless. And as for the situation improving—just today one department was closed, perhaps permanently. And there may be others soon.”

  “Closed?” I said. “I haven’t heard anything about that. What did they close?”

  Madame looked at me for a moment with a strange expression on her face. “The toy department,” she said finally. “Today the toy department was closed. Oh, there was no official announcement, but there are rumors that tomorrow it will be roped off and no clerks will be on duty.”

  The way Madame was acting puzzled me. I knew that she made fun of Alcott-Simpson’s lots of times, particularly the executives and some of the customers. But I didn’t think she really hated it or anything. After all, she’d been making her living there for a long time. But I kept getting the feeling that she was pleased, or at least a little amused by all the trouble.

  “But why?” I asked. “Why the toy department?” It gave me a kind of empty feeling. Even though I wasn’t hung-up on the Alcott-Simpson toy department the way I once had been, I felt a loss, like when an old dream finally fades away for good. “I mean, the Alcott-Simpson toy department is famous all over the country. It’s kind of a symbol for little kids. Even the ones who can’t afford to buy anything there.”

  “Well,” Madame said, “the reason being given is that there were economic difficulties—the department was not able to make a profit. But in the past the profits have always been high; for a symbol, the public expects to pay dearly. The real problem seems to have been that the store was no longer able to keep a staff. The clerks
in the toy department have been quitting almost as quickly as they have been hired.”

  “But why?”

  Madame shrugged. “Who knows? Many reasons have been given. Who knows which reasons are true ones? Perhaps the real reasons have not yet been given at all. But then, reasons rarely have much to do with reality. Won’t you have another pastry, Dion?”

  Up to that point I hadn’t intended to do much talking myself. I’d only planned to find out what I could from Madame Stregovitch, without going into the rumors I’d heard or any of the things that had happened to me. But something about the way Madame was taking it, making a joke out of it, made me want to force her to admit the seriousness of the whole thing. I guess I was feeling a lot like poor Myrna was when she wanted me to admit that it was more than just a crazy dream.

  “Look,” I said, “you seem to think this is all very amusing, that there’s really nothing to worry about. Well, I know some things—some things I haven’t told you. Maybe you’ll just laugh them off too, and maybe I hope you do, in a way, but anyway—”

  So I started out and told her everything. I began with the rumors I’d heard and the strange little things that had happened: the things José had told me; the way Mrs. Jensen had acted in the toy department; and all about Myrna and the things she had said.

  Madame was interested. She watched me closely as I talked, and there was a sharpness to her eyes. But at times her lips still twitched, and her shoulders jerked with amusement. I took a deep breath then and started to tell about Sara. I began at the very beginning—how I’d seen her being chased by Mr. Rogers—and I told it all. How I’d gotten shut in the store the first time. How Sara had let me in again. What Sara had told me about herself, and how she talked about someone she called the Others. About the strange things that had happened when we were together. Long before I was finished, I could see that Madame was finally impressed. Her face had turned as still as stone, but her eyes blazed with interest.