The Medium (38 page)

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Authors: Noëlle Sickels

BOOK: The Medium
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“That's your prerogative, of course,” he said.
As leery as Helen had felt about the intimacy of Levy's attitude when he'd first sat down, now she regretted its evaporation. She hadn't known how it would feel to see the major again, but the formality they'd both adopted was definitely dissatisfying.
“I should caution you,” Levy continued after a pause, “that strictly speaking, your … performance … the other day was part and parcel of your work for the Army, and thus classified information, not to be shared with anyone outside the project.”
“My performance?”
“I didn't mean—”
“So, Major, as it was part and parcel of my work, I assume there'll be a full account shared
within
the project. To whom should I report for de-briefing? The Army is bound to want someone other than you to interview me.”
A wish was lodged beneath Helen's sharp words, a wish that she and the major could move together onto more open, more honest ground. But at the moment, she had no interest in shaking off her justifiable pique. She couldn't help but feel gratified that Major Levy looked truly miserable.
“I seem always to be putting my foot in my mouth with you, Miss Schneider,” he said dejectedly.
“When you're not trying to put it on my neck.”
Levy threw up his hands.
“I had that coming, and more,” he admitted.
“Don't worry,” Helen said curtly, “I only told my grandmother, and she won't tell anyone else.”
Levy tapped his fingers irresolutely on the tabletop.
“The truth is, Miss Schneider,” he finally said, “that you flat out scare me a little, and even a little fear can make a man say and do stupid things.”
Helen sighed. She'd wanted the formality dispensed with, and now she'd have to rise to the occasion.
“That seance was scary for me, too,” she confided. “The fainting part.”
“But you
have
fully recovered, haven't you?” Levy said with genuine warmth. “You really are all right?”
Suddenly, as when Boddington had looked so disappointed, Helen felt close to tears.
“Physically, yes,” she answered shakily, “but … I seem to have lost my abilities.”
Levy made a disbelieving grimace.
“Lieutenant Boddington told me you had some problems today, but lost them? How?”
Helen waited to speak until she could trust her voice to be steady.
“Because you grabbed the spirit and you touched me while I was in trance.”
“What?” Levy jerked his head back as if he'd been struck. “My God, if I'd known, I wouldn't have—”
“It's only technically your fault. I shouldn't have been trying to show off.”
“But can't you get your abilities back?”
“I don't know how.”
Levy looked towards the window. The view was of a shorter office building across the street and a stunning band of blue sky. A pair of pigeons flew by, their heads iridescent in the sunshine. Levy returned his gaze to Helen.
“And I've been worried about the hell there'd be to pay if my superiors ever find out,” he said, shaking his head ruefully.
Acknowledging his imprecise apology with a nod, Helen stood up and retrieved her hat from the end of the table. She took it to a small wall mirror and began pinning it on. Major Levy came to stand some feet behind her. His reflection spoke to hers.
“I'm glad it happened,” he said quietly.
Helen's hat was in place, but she continued to face the mirror.
“Why?”
“I can't answer that completely yet,” he said. “Something that I
know
is impossible nevertheless occurred. I don't expect ever to understand it. But I won't be able to insist anymore that there's only one way the world works, only one ‘right' way to describe it.”
“My spirit guide …” Helen began, then paused to see if Levy would scoff. When he remained attentive, she went on. “My spirit guide says that we're not supposed to understand everything, because understanding doesn't have an end or a top, it just keeps going.”
“I'll have to chew on that one a while,” Levy said with a sincerely self-deprecating smile.
Helen turned around and took a long look at the major. She wanted to remember his face, especially his face at this moment. He withstood her scrutiny patiently. Maybe he was harvesting her face, too. It was unlikely they'd ever meet again. Finally, a hint of official demeanor returned to his expression. It
was time to go. Helen tucked her clutch purse under her arm.
“The Army appreciates your service, Miss Schneider,” Levy said, extending his hand to shake hers. He held on a moment. “For myself,” he added, “thanking you doesn't seem exactly the right thing for what you did the other day, but … Let's just say I'll never forget it. And I hope it turns out you're wrong about losing your gift.”
Helen moved towards the door. Levy stepped ahead of her to open it. Before passing out of the room, she paused close by him.
“All my life people have called what I can do—what happens through me—a gift,” she said. “But maybe, Major, it was only a loan.”
When Helen came back from New York, her mother and grandmother were in the living room listening to
The Cisco Kid
. Emilie switched off the radio and urged Helen to take off her shoes and lie down on the sofa. She propped pillows under Helen's head and feet and gave her a tablespoon of cod liver oil, as if she were a sickly child. Helen didn't resist.
“You need to take things more slowly,” Emilie said, recapping the cod liver oil bottle. “Next time, go in for half as long.”
“I've quit,” Helen said dully.
“What?”
“I'm not going back.”
“Oh, darling,” Emilie exclaimed, “I'm so glad. Your father will be, too.”
“The job, it is finished?” Ursula asked.
“For me it is.”
“Well, I'm going right to the butcher's for a roast for dinner,” Emilie announced, plumping the pillow at Helen's head. “It'll fortify you.”
She bustled happily out of the room. Helen closed her eyes.
“Helen,” Ursula said quietly a few minutes later, “you aren't sleeping?”
“No,” Helen replied, opening her eyes, but holding her gaze to the ceiling.
“What did you find out?”
“I found out that you were right,” Helen said in an adamant
whisper. “My abilities are gone.”
“The work today didn't go well?”
“The work didn't go at all.”
“And you think it would be the same another day? That it would be the same, too, at the home circle, or in solitary trance?”
“I know it would.” Helen irritably kicked the pillows out from under her feet and onto the floor. She sat up.
“I could probably still go into trance,” she continued, “but I wouldn't receive anything. Or anyone.”
“Not even Iris?”
Helen shook her head.
“I think she tried to come through a couple of times, but it was no use. I guess now she'll be moving on. No sense knocking her head against a brick wall.”
“She is your guide,” Ursula said. “She will stay. You maybe won't see her again, but she will stay.”
“If I can't see her, what good is that?”
“Whenever you know, deep inside, what to do, where to go, there will Iris be.”
“Like some kind of puppeteer?” Helen snarled.
“Did she ever feel so?”
Helen would have liked to be able to make another negative comment, but she felt too drained and deflated.
“You are not a puppet, Helen. If Iris brings a desire, it is your own desire she shows you, your right place. And you are free to ignore.”
Ursula bent over from her chair to pick up the pillows Helen had kicked off. She tossed them back onto the sofa.
“You remember you asked once about my guide,” she said, “and I told you he didn't come so much?”
“Yes.”
“That was a little
Flunkerei
, a fib. He hasn't come at all since
I was only a bit more than your age. And I can blame only myself.”
“Why?”
“I hold the hands, but I read the faces. I am a good guesser. Sometimes, too, there is a small trick here or there, for the little excitement. To have the people come back.”
“And that's why your guide stopped coming?”
“
Ja
, I think so. Yet I feel him sometimes, like he is right here.” Ursula pointed to a spot six inches above her left shoulder. “And when, once in a while, true spirits come to sittings, I believe it's Gerard who brings them. Iris, maybe, will do the same.”
“But why should I ask her to, Nanny? So people can get their puny questions answered? So they can stop feeling afraid and guilty and lonely?”
“These are not puny things, Helen.” Ursula hesitated a moment, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap. “And there is yourself, too.”
“Myself?”
“You were on the way to being a great medium, someone people will seek out and reward. This you can still have.”
“What do you mean?”
“You say the gift is gone. But you remember what it was like. You do not have to wish Iris will help. You already know what to say, how to act.”
Helen had never used gimmicks to court clients. She'd never felt the need to make excuses or reparations when a seance “failed.” She could be almost haughty to clients who complained of too meager results. But now her grandmother was showing her an alternate path, crass but definitely inviting. She could still be special. She could still feel powerful. But it was such self-importance that had lost her her gift.
“Nanny,” she said at last, “I can't … cheat … like that. I
know you've said that telling people what they want to hear can help them, and I've seen it, but I just couldn't. It wouldn't bring back Iris or my boys or any of it, and it would be like … like spitting on them, like … like spitting on myself, and on you.”
Ursula let out a long breath redolent with melancholy, and yet, she was smiling.
“You are right,
Liebling
. But more people than me will ask you to keep having seances. It's good to wonder here, quiet in your own house, what to answer.”
“You mean you didn't really want me to—”
“I would like it, your company and help. But not in this way, to be
eine Fälschung
. You make the choice as I had hoped. To lead you to this is my gift to you, and my gift to spirit. To make up for all the tricks I have done, and all the
Flunkereien
ahead.”
Ursula stood up purposefully. The topic was unmistakably closed.
“Your mother will be home soon,” she said. “I'm going to scrub some potatoes and set the oven for our roast.”
“Nanny?”
“
Ja
?”
“I feel so lost. Like I've forgotten my own name and there's no one around to tell it to me.”
“Emilie had a boy in her hospital like that,” Ursula said. “His head was hurt, and he couldn't remember his name or his town or if he has a sweetheart …”
“What happened to him?”
“Some pieces, they leaked back in. For the rest, he must figure them out—he ate chocolate ice cream to see if he was a person who likes chocolate ice cream.”
“Did that really work?”
“Pretty good, your mother said. Because the same person was still there underneath. That person knew he likes chocolate,
and maybe that person is who has the idea to make the test with the ice cream. What you had, Helen, maybe it is not gone forever.”
“You can't be sure of that, Nanny.”
“Just so,” Ursula said with a small shrug of her shoulders. “But it is what I think all the same.”
Helen slouched down into the sofa, tucking a pillow behind her back.
“I wonder, Nanny,” she said quietly, “if they're disappointed in me.”
“Who?”
“My boys.”
“
Ach
, child, spirits have no interest in such feelings.”
“I know, but I worry anyway that I let them down, that their stories were wasted on me.”
Ursula considered her granddaughter.
“Did their stories change you, Helen? Did they teach you?”
“Yes. Yes, they did.”
“And you shared these stories, no? With the home circle, with clients at seances. So, maybe some of those people, they are changed, too. Maybe they learn to live a little bit in a different way, a bigger, more hopeful way. And maybe each changed person meets along his way another person and makes a change there, also. Quietly, with no fuss or hooray. Do you think this is possible?”
“I guess so.”
“Then where can be the waste or disappointment? The spirits, they do not have expectations. They only give, and leave us to take it or not.”
Helen nodded. Her heartsickness softened to wistfulness.
“It's so strange, Nanny, to think I'll never see Iris again, never hear any more stories.”
“Then don't think so,” Ursula declared. “Don't wait for them,
but don't wash your hands, neither. Always there is change. Spirit teaches that.”
Helen reached for her shoes and slipped them on.
“Want some help with the potatoes?” It was a halfhearted offer.
“
Nein
. I will do by myself.”

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