The Inverted Forest (46 page)

He frowned severely and squared his shoulders as if he’d just been gravely insulted. “It’s not fair to say that, Harriet.” His voice was heavy and low. “You’re not the one who’ll be taking the test.”

“I understand that. You can say no if you like. You can refuse. But I think you should take the test. It’s something that would put your mind at rest.”

“No,” he said. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“Why on earth wouldn’t it? Why not?”

“Either way. If I pass the test. Or not. Either way, there’s something to feel bad about.”

“That makes no sense to me, Wyatt.”

He glared out at the yard. What a face he showed her—lopsided and trembling and pinched with raw feeling. “There are times,” he said, “when I like to think I
was
confused. Confused or . . . retarded. There are times when I like to believe I didn’t understand what I was doing. Back then. When I did what I did to Christopher. When I killed him.”

“That was a special circumstance,” she said. “You were upset at what you saw Christopher doing in the van. Because he was an awful person.”

It was a line of reasoning that didn’t seem to have the power to persuade him. He shrugged.

“You don’t believe he was awful?”

“I do,” he said.

“So?”

“I did an awful thing, too.” He held up a hand and stretched open his fingers, which were stubby and blunt and still bore the faint scars of having been separated by a scalpel. “I touched Evie Hicks,” he said. “I was alone with her in the van and I touched Evie.” He cupped his hand and placed his fingertips on the right side of his chest. “Here,” he said. “I touched her here.”

She did her absolute best to stay calm, to maintain a neutral expression. “You touched Evie on her chest? On her breast?”

He nodded mournfully. Then he gasped loudly and wetly though one side of his mouth.

“When did this happen, Wyatt?”

“It happened before I did what I did. Before I killed Christopher.”

“Before? I don’t understand.”

“Some things were said to me. That Evie wouldn’t mind. That I should spend some time alone with her. Because a person like me—with my condition—I wouldn’t get another chance to be alone with a girl.”

For a decade or more her feelings toward Christopher Waterhouse had been resigned, some days even ambivalent. He was dust and bones after all. Fortunately so. But what a surge of rage and anguish shot through her now. If she could, she’d dig up and set fire to those dusty bones. Or she’d launch a campaign—letters and newspaper ads, billboards for Christ’s sake—to let the world know how petty and cruel and worthless he’d been. “
God damn
him,” she said through clenched teeth. She shook her head steadily back and forth. “
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong,
”she hissed. “That shouldn’t have been said to you, Wyatt. The things Christopher Waterhouse did were bad enough,” she said. “But the things he said to people—not just you, but other people at camp—were a kind of poison. God damn him for saying those things.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and concentrated. “So,” she said. “Wyatt. You reached out and touched Evie Hicks . . . on the breast. And then?”

“She knew what I was doing. She didn’t like it.”

“Did you touch her anywhere else? I’m asking this because . . . If it’s worse than that, if it went farther . . . It would be better, for your sake, to tell me everything that went on. I’m not going to hate you. I’d understand. I’ve made mistakes, too. Did you touch Evie on her bottom? Or between her legs?”

“No.”

“Did you— Wyatt. Did you take any of your clothes off?”

“I didn’t. I touched her one time. Then I stopped. Then I got angry at myself. After that I went looking for Christopher.”

It was somehow enough, this terse explanation.
He touched Evie Hicks.
He got angry with himself. Then he killed Christopher Waterhouse.
Harriet believed she’d just heard an accurate account of what had happened.

“Listen,” she said. “Listen, Wyatt. The mistake you made doesn’t compare to what Christopher Waterhouse did to Evie. That was far worse. And would have been even more awful if you hadn’t found the van and stopped him. You understand that, don’t you?
Damn it,
Wyatt. I need a response. You can’t just hang your head and ignore what I’m saying. What Christopher did was worse, wasn’t it?”

He lifted his head and nodded. “Yes, it was worse.”

“Listen. We’re all flawed. We all make mistakes. But most of us, thankfully, aren’t willing to harm another person. The idea is too upsetting. Inside us an important shift occurs. We stop ourselves. That’s what you did, Wyatt. You thought of the harm that would come to Evie Hicks. You stopped. You will always be a good person,” she said.

He sat perfectly still in his chair. After a while he slipped his glasses back on his face.

“Take the test,” she said. “It’s something you need to know about yourself.”

He gave her an exasperated look and turned away. This, she knew, was his last gesture of protest before he consented.

“I wish you’d told me about the test before now,” he said. “I might have practiced a few things. If I’d known this was coming.”

A few minutes after ten the iron knocker at the front door sounded. Harriet ushered Professor Mitchell into the front hallway. She was a thin, energetic woman in her mid-fifties. A large carry bag was slung across her shoulder. “What a wonderful house, Harriet,” she said. “Thank you for inviting me over.” Behind these gracious remarks
there was an efficient appraisal being made. She looked ready to get on with the task at hand.

To her credit Professor Mitchell didn’t pause for a second when taken to the kitchen and introduced to Wyatt. She wished him a good morning and shook his hand before taking her place at the table. From her carry bag she began extracting the components of her test: laminated picture cards, puzzle pieces, colored blocks, pencils, and sheets of paper with half-completed drawings.

“I don’t know your reasons for wanting this test,” Professor Mitchell said. “But I can tell you this. An IQ test is useful for a few things. Mostly to help students with disabilities get the help they need. For almost everything else it’s no use at all. No real predictor of what a person is able to achieve. I hope you’ll keep that in mind, Wyatt. Are you ready to begin?”

He gripped the seat of his chair with both hands and nodded woefully.

For the duration of the test, an hour and ten minutes, Harriet waited in the living room. She had a vague notion that she might accomplish a few minor chores while she waited. The chairs and sofa might be vigorously cleaned. Or the magazine rack set to order. She made several false starts at these chores, but in the end she kept easing back into her reading chair and eavesdropping on Professor Mitchell’s instructions.
Can you use the blocks and make this design here?
And later . . . 
Can you think of another object that might be made from this line, Wyatt? Good, yes, that works. Can you think of another? All right. And another? All right. How about one more? That’s all right then. Let’s move on to the next picture.

Eventually there was ten long minutes of silence, and then Professor Mitchell called out, “Harriet, would you come in now, please?”

W
yatt,” Professor Mitchell said. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to go ahead and discuss the results of the test.”

He tried to wet his lips and shape a few simple words:
Yes. All right.
No use. All he could do, in the end, was nod in consent.

In some private chamber of his mind he heard the word
mercy
spoken aloud.
Mercy,
intoned with great reverence and clarity. He lowered his face to the table as if he’d been instructed to say grace. From the corner of his eye he could see Harriet wavering in the entranceway. She took a few hurried steps across the kitchen floor and stood behind the chair he was sitting in. Both of her hands settled onto his shoulders. After a few moments he felt her lean down and embrace him from behind.

“Are we ready?” Professor Mitchell said.

“We’re ready,” Harriet said on his behalf.

“All right then,” Professor Mitchell said. “I hope you won’t be disappointed to know, Wyatt, that according to the test we just performed, a test that is useful in some ways and not very useful in many
others, you have an IQ that lands squarely in the medium range. We have a term for this. We say a medium-range IQ. The number earned from today’s test is ninety-seven. If we tested you again next week, it might be a few points lower or a few points higher. That’s why it’s fairer and more accurate to refer to the range of the IQ rather than the specific score.”

He could feel Harriet’s arms clasped across his chest, squeezing him mightily. She said, “Medium range is another way of saying average, Wyatt. An average IQ.”

He gave a slow, stunned nod. “What would it be . . . ,” he said and faltered. “What would the score be for someone who’s . . . retarded?”

“There are different ranges for that,” Professor Mitchell said. “The mild retardation range is anywhere from fifty to sixty-nine. The range for moderate and severe retardation would be lower than that.”

“I’ve heard,” he said. “Some people have told me that if you have a score that’s lower than a hundred, then it means you’re retarded.”

Professor Mitchell fixed him with a steady and patient stare. “Those people would be mistaken.”

He tried to rise from his seat, thought better of it, and sat back down. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Professor Mitchell.”

“You’re very welcome, Wyatt,” she said. She slung her bag across her shoulder and made ready to leave. “I hope you’re not upset by these results.”

Harriet and Wyatt both answered her. “No, no,” they said.

“It’s just that you look, both of you, like you’re in a state of shock.”

A kind of shock, maybe. In the minutes after Professor Mitchell’s departure, he was too startled to linger inside Harriet Foster’s handsome redbrick home. He crossed through the living room and stepped out the front door onto the sidewalk. When he turned, he found Harriet at his side.

“A walk?” he asked. It seemed to Wyatt that he’d been promised a last walk around the neighborhood.

A bright and expansive midday was unfolding itself across the lanes and small front yards. They walked along at a brisk pace. Around them they could hear the side doors of minivans sliding shut, the squeaks of swing sets rising up from beyond backyard fences. Block after block they went, past the grocers and apartment buildings and school playgrounds. How strange that he couldn’t quite gauge the distance they’d traveled or the length of time they’d been out walking. When they passed a bank clock, they saw it was already half past noon.

They had no choice but to turn around and hurry back along the same lanes and tree-shaded sidewalks. Strolling beside him, Harriet asked, “Are you happy, Wyatt? Are you pleased to know?”

“Yes. I’m glad to know.”

“It’s one thing—one large important thing—that you don’t have to spend time wondering about anymore. So it’s a relief, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he said. “I have an average-range IQ.”

“Yes, you do, Wyatt. It’s a proven fact.”

As soon as they returned to the house, he climbed the stairs to the guest room and packed his belongings into the rollaway suitcase. He made his bed according to Harriet’s strict standards. Then he carried the suitcase down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he sat for a hurried lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

The kitchen wall clock read a quarter past one. Harriet caught him glancing at it.

She said, “We’ll need to go in a few minutes, Wyatt. Get yourself ready for that.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

He turned to the kitchen window. Outside, in the fenced backyard, the branches of Harriet’s prized elm trees were being lifted by a languid summer breeze.

“What are you thinking about, Wyatt?” she asked. “What are you thinking about with that average-range IQ of yours?”

What could he say? He’d never been able to translate his most private thoughts into spoken words. It was a trait he’d shared with the state hospital campers of Kindermann Forest. But in other ways he was different. He was not of their tribe. He’d like to believe that in the deepest and wisest part of himself he’d known this all along.