Read Online The Inverted Forest by John Dalton - Free Book Online
Authors: John Dalton
Tags: Contemporary
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clipper.
Inside the bag were stacked sheets of birth control pills, dozens of sheets, one for each female state hospital camper of childbearing age. Their names were taped to the edges of the sheets. M RS . R AMONA K AISER , M ISS B LANCHE N AGEL , M ISS M ARY A NN H ORNICKER .
Because these names had been neatly handwritten on adhesive labels, you might think that each woman had pondered her circumstance and then made a practical choice. But of course that wasn’t it. Someone at the state hospital had decided—wisely—on their behalf.
Could it be that Mr. Kindermann had misunderstood these intentions, or misunderstood the workings of birth control pills?
Or did he plan to hold back these pills for the duration of the state hospital session—the act of an old-fashioned Catholic, a principled man?
It was hard, if not impossible, to know his intentions. At that moment all Harriet could do was dump the birth control pills into the bottom drawer of her work desk and searched for a reasonable replacement. Seltzer tablets? Gauze bandages? Stool softeners?
In the end she chose throat lozenges, twenty or more sheets’ worth. A ridiculous substitute. She placed the lozenges in the bag, folded down and restapled its sides.
Maybe the real difficulty of reading Schuller Kindermann’s intentionshad to do with his age and appearance. At first glance he looked properly, reassuringly paternal. Grandfatherly. His face was pale and kind, his hair vibrantly white. He had the fussy manners people seemed to approve of in the elderly. (Easy to imagine a man like Schuller Kindermann fixing clocks or cobbling shoes in some quaint Bavarian village.) If you looked close, you could see an age-softened version of the child he’d once been: a tidy, well-mannered boy of ten or eleven, a boy not so very interested in other children or in pleasing adults, but not at all troublesome, either, just wholly devoted to his own interests and pursuits—self-sufficient, determined, a bit aloof. You looked at seventy-eight-year-old Schuller Kindermann and expected a grown boy’s sly humor, or at least a willingness to be playful.
What you got was altogether different.
The infirmary door creaked open, and Schuller hoisted himself inside. A carefully placed step. A slow turn. He carried with him the expectation that each of his slow and deliberate movements was somehow interesting for others to watch. “Well,” he said. “Linda Rucker tells me we have one hundred and four campers. Eight more than last year.” He glared at the infirmary floor, waiting, it seemed, for Harriet to take his simple statement—a hundred and four campers—and turn it into a lively and inclusive conversation. Several tepid moments slipped by and he lifted his face and took a squinting glance out the window at the buses and the bright afternoon. “These attendants from the state hospital,” he said. “They really ought to do a better job unloading the buses.”
Again Harriet was struck by the oddness of it. The incongruity. To be so primly lectured to by such a seemingly mild and kindly old man.
“But it always looks like pandemonium at first,” Schuller added. “There was a summer four years ago when a dozen of the state hospital campers arrived with the stomach flu. By the next day we had anepidemic. All the infirmary beds were full. We lined up cots in the mess hall. But I probably told you about that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Mr. Kindermann. You did.”
“Awful for the nurse that year.”
“Yes,” she said. “Awful.”
“These new counselors. Have you met any of them?”
“I haven’t had a chance.”
“Well, they look good. They’re frazzled, of course. Who wouldn’t be? But they’ll catch on. Say, did a nurse from the state hospital, a Ms. Dunbar, drop off a package for me?”
Almost funny, the effort he made to act as if this request were of no importance. When she pointed the bag out on the counter, he picked it up as if it were an
Inside the bag were stacked sheets of birth control pills, dozens of sheets, one for each female state hospital camper of childbearing age. Their names were taped to the edges of the sheets. M RS . R AMONA K AISER , M ISS B LANCHE N AGEL , M ISS M ARY A NN H ORNICKER .
Because these names had been neatly handwritten on adhesive labels, you might think that each woman had pondered her circumstance and then made a practical choice. But of course that wasn’t it. Someone at the state hospital had decided—wisely—on their behalf.
Could it be that Mr. Kindermann had misunderstood these intentions, or misunderstood the workings of birth control pills?
Or did he plan to hold back these pills for the duration of the state hospital session—the act of an old-fashioned Catholic, a principled man?
It was hard, if not impossible, to know his intentions. At that moment all Harriet could do was dump the birth control pills into the bottom drawer of her work desk and searched for a reasonable replacement. Seltzer tablets? Gauze bandages? Stool softeners?
In the end she chose throat lozenges, twenty or more sheets’ worth. A ridiculous substitute. She placed the lozenges in the bag, folded down and restapled its sides.
Maybe the real difficulty of reading Schuller Kindermann’s intentionshad to do with his age and appearance. At first glance he looked properly, reassuringly paternal. Grandfatherly. His face was pale and kind, his hair vibrantly white. He had the fussy manners people seemed to approve of in the elderly. (Easy to imagine a man like Schuller Kindermann fixing clocks or cobbling shoes in some quaint Bavarian village.) If you looked close, you could see an age-softened version of the child he’d once been: a tidy, well-mannered boy of ten or eleven, a boy not so very interested in other children or in pleasing adults, but not at all troublesome, either, just wholly devoted to his own interests and pursuits—self-sufficient, determined, a bit aloof. You looked at seventy-eight-year-old Schuller Kindermann and expected a grown boy’s sly humor, or at least a willingness to be playful.
What you got was altogether different.
The infirmary door creaked open, and Schuller hoisted himself inside. A carefully placed step. A slow turn. He carried with him the expectation that each of his slow and deliberate movements was somehow interesting for others to watch. “Well,” he said. “Linda Rucker tells me we have one hundred and four campers. Eight more than last year.” He glared at the infirmary floor, waiting, it seemed, for Harriet to take his simple statement—a hundred and four campers—and turn it into a lively and inclusive conversation. Several tepid moments slipped by and he lifted his face and took a squinting glance out the window at the buses and the bright afternoon. “These attendants from the state hospital,” he said. “They really ought to do a better job unloading the buses.”
Again Harriet was struck by the oddness of it. The incongruity. To be so primly lectured to by such a seemingly mild and kindly old man.
“But it always looks like pandemonium at first,” Schuller added. “There was a summer four years ago when a dozen of the state hospital campers arrived with the stomach flu. By the next day we had anepidemic. All the infirmary beds were full. We lined up cots in the mess hall. But I probably told you about that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Mr. Kindermann. You did.”
“Awful for the nurse that year.”
“Yes,” she said. “Awful.”
“These new counselors. Have you met any of them?”
“I haven’t had a chance.”
“Well, they look good. They’re frazzled, of course. Who wouldn’t be? But they’ll catch on. Say, did a nurse from the state hospital, a Ms. Dunbar, drop off a package for me?”
Almost funny, the effort he made to act as if this request were of no importance. When she pointed the bag out on the counter, he picked it up as if it were an
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