Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

'He cried out.'

Trom the cold, you suppose?'

'Ay, sir.'

'Was it a cry only? Was there some word?'

'A name, sir.'

'What name?'

'I fancy it was Maria or Mary.'

'Very good. Tell us. Dyer. Who is Maria? Wife? Sister? Whore?'

'Perhaps he is a papist. I might make him talk, sir, if you wished it.'

'No, Mr Wagner. Nothing of that. This is an enlightened age. Nature and philosophy are our guides.'

'OOOWWWWWWWWW! OWW OOOOWWWWWW-WWWWWW!'

'Gag him!'

'My name is Adam. I have brought you some drink. Do not spill it. It is milk. Fresh milk. If you have money you may buy what you will here. If you are easy they will let off your chains and you may go out into the galleries. I have been in this place three hundred and nineteen nights. Three hundred and twenty days. I shall go free when the world grows sane. They are madder than us, friend, but do not tell them so. Tell them only what they wish to hear. They are fragile men. Now drink, for one must be strong to be mad.'

'Dyer!' 'Answer!' 'Shall you speak to us today?'

'Yes no yes no yes no yes no yes . . .'

'What does he say?'

'He says he shall speak.'

'You will not howl today?'

'No.'

'Howling, sir, is for dogs. How came you those marks upon your hands?'

'I do not remember.'

'Note, Wagner. The lunatic is a very cunning creature. I wager he made those marks himself. Who is the woman you call Mary?'

'I do not know.'

'He is a great fluent liar. You know your own family, I suppose?'

'They are all dead.'

'What of your friends? Even a madman may have friends.'

'I have none.'

'Dyer! You wish to be free? To walk in the galleries?'

'Sir, I do.'

'What would you give to be free?'

'I have nothing.'

'And if you had, what would you give?'

'Everything.'

'Everything is too much, sir. It is a mad answer. Ha! We have him there, Wagner. Is the patient civil? Is he compliant?'

'There are others worse than him.'

'Well, we shall see. Another month. If he is a good fellow he shall have the irons off. See that he has fresh straw for his bed. I have never known such stinking. My dog would not step in here.'

'Adam. I think I must die here.' 'Many think so at first.' 'And then?'

'Those who do not die, live.' 'How do you live?'

'By being no man's enemy.'

'That is enough?'

'I go away inside my head. There I may travel where I like, speak with whom I like.'

'I heard a woman. Singing. Last evening or yesterday. I do not know when.'

'The keepers bring them in at night. They are for the keepers' comfort.'

'And are there mad women here?'

'They are locked up separately. You may sometimes see them or hear them.'

'Adam? How long have you been here?'

'Three hundred and sixty days; three hundred and fifty-nine nights.'

'Dyer!'

'Sir?'

'I wish to blister your head.' 'I beg you do not.' 'Why do you beg?'

'When you blister my head the pain is very fierce.' 'Come now, there is no remedy without a little discomfort.' 'I beg you do not.' 'I think you do not wish to recover.' 'I do.'

'I think you do not.' 'Sir, I do.'

'Then I shall blister your head. I always get my way. Ain't that right, Wagner?'

'Ay, sir, it is very true.'

All Hallows 1768. James Dyer is freed from his chains. Though now at liberty to walk in the galleries he stays in his cell until Adam leads him out and introduces him to the society there. Cromwell, Pericles; half a dozen Old Testament prophets haggling with the beer-seller, the boy with his bucket of shellfish, the girl with her basket of oranges. O'Connor is the keeper; he remembers James and prods him in the chest with the end of his stick, up-ends him, then loses interest.

From the stairs an addled Methodist, preaching in dumb, wards off swarms of diabolic bees. Other inmates sit or lie or stand: in rags, in motley, in blankets. They pick at sores, rock on their heels, moan, slobber, weep. At the feet of the Methodist a bald tailor sews nothing to nothing. The noises echo, like a bestiary in a cathedral.

James points through the bars that separate the men from the women. 'What is that?'

Adam says: 'They call it the Coffin. It is to punish those who are violent.'

They walk to the bars. On the other side is a narrow box, five to six feet in height and set on two small iron wheels. Near the top of the box is a hole six inches across. Through it, James sees the pale dial of a woman's face.

Adam says: 'It is Dot Flyer.' He calls to her: 'Good day to you. Dot.'

Says James: 'How she must suffer.'

'She is used to it. She is wild. The keepers fear her.'

'Sure she is not always in the device?'

'She has her calm seasons.'

A voice speaks out of the Coffin, distant and solemn as an oracle. What is thy name?'

*It is Adam, sister.'

'And the other?'

'He is called James. Lately sprung from his irons.'

She starts to sing. Adam says: 'Her father was a musician. He drowned himself in a well.'

Her voice swells, the song booms inside the box. A woman keeper, Passmore, raps on the wood. Dot Flyer rends the air with her song, chases out what silence is left in the place. In Bedlam. Another keeper comes. They wheel the Coffin away. The song dwindles.

He sees her the following day; the shadow and glaze of her face. He goes to the bars, leans against them, presses his cheek against them. Sometimes her face seems to disappear, and then the device is like an empty clock case, standing on its trundle wheels amid the slotted light and dark of the gallery. The light comes through the windows of the open cells. On the wind he hears the sounds of the world without, its small music. The calling of cattle on Moorfields, the drumming of coaches and the swooping calls of the hawkers on London Wall . . .

Then she blinks or turns her