Return of the Magi Read online

  Emil recoiled as the doc shoved one into his hands. ‘Are these pajamas?’

  ‘This is what all of our orderlies and support staff wear. I think you’ll find them quite comfortable.’

  ‘What do you mean by “dirty”?’

  ‘That will become evident in time. I’ll show you to your room.’ He strode briskly to an elevator and pushed the ‘up’ button.

  The elevator pinged and, to Emil’s deep distress, the doors slid open on the two crazy old ladies in the weird bathrobes. On closer inspection, the robes looked more like costumes. Actually, they looked a lot like the costumes on the wise men mannequins at Our Lady of Perpetual Peace, made of velvet and brocade and trimmed with gold braiding. It piqued his curiosity a little, but he wasn’t about to ask.

  ‘Hello, Emil,’ they chirped in unison. ‘I’m Edith, and this is my sister Gloria.’

  Emil balked. ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘We were watching you from the balcony when you arrived, remember?’

  ‘We know things,’ Gloria said mysteriously.

  ‘Coming out, ladies?’ Dr Harold asked.

  ‘No, we’re just riding,’ Gloria said, in a sing-song voice.

  ‘Up and down,’ Edith continued, making room for the two new passengers, ever mindful of the full skirts of her bathrobe or costume or whatever it was.

  Emil followed Dr Harold into the elevator, pressing himself against the wall furthest from Edith and Gloria, carefully avoiding eye contact with anything but the floor. He felt a brief moment of panic when the elevator doors closed, because nothing good could come out of being confined in a small space with two nut-jobs.

  Gloria inched her way toward Emil, then reached out with one finger and touched his face.

  Emil jerked his head up and back, trying to disappear into the elevator wall. ‘Stop that! What are you doing? What do you want?’

  ‘I want to touch your skin.’

  Emil looked at Dr Harold in desperation. ‘Get her away from me. What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘Paranoid schizophrenic.’

  ‘Delusional paranoid schizophrenic,’ Edith corrected him, turning to Emil. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s wrong with him?’

  Dr Harold just smiled tolerantly.

  ‘Dissociative obsessive neurosis,’ Gloria said, with a firm nod.

  Edith frowned. ‘I still don’t think that’s quite right, Gloria. You can’t just negate episodic mania. It’s pervasive.’

  Emil looked at Dr Harold. ‘What are they talking about?’

  He just shook his head with a sigh.

  ‘If it’s pervasive, then we’re dealing with psychosis, not neurosis,’ Gloria said.

  Edith tipped her head thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it’s possible. But I, for one, do not wish to entertain even the possibility of residing in a mental institution managed by a psychotic.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time, dear.’

  The elevator finally stopped and the doors slid open. ‘Third floor, lingerie, notions, cosmetics and schizophrenics,’ Edith said sweetly, and Emil bolted out into the hall.

  ‘Is everybody in this joint as wacked out as those two sisters?’ he whispered to Dr Harold, when the doors had closed on Edith and Gloria.

  ‘As I mentioned before, we have varying degrees of impairment at this facility. Edith and Gloria are actually extremely high-functioning.’

  ‘High-functioning?’ Emil asked, his voice creeping up the panic scale. ‘So what does low-functioning look like?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough, Mr Rice.’

  Not if I can help it. ‘This may sound like a stupid question, considering where we’re at, but why are they dressed like that?’

  ‘We had our annual Christmas pageant this morning. Edith and Gloria wait for it all year.’

  ‘Oh, I get it. They’re supposed to be the wise men.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Emil thought they looked more like old drag queens, but he kept that opinion to himself. ‘So, Doc, we never really got into any details about the kind of work I’m supposed to do here.’

  ‘There are no small jobs, Mr Rice. Remember that.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Edith and Gloria were in their private room, still dressed in their magi regalia. The room’s furnishings were institutional, but the décor looked as if it had been conjured by a little girl. Stuffed animals were heaped on top of the two metal-framed beds, which had been adorned with lacy bed-skirts and flowered chenille throws. The curtains were white and frilled, if a bit yellowed, and on a small side table sat old music boxes, arranged to entertain an audience of porcelain dolls, whose complexions had ivoried with age.

  Gloria was seated primly on her bed, stroking the threadbare head of a stuffed kitten that had once been plush, many, many years ago. She watched intently as her sister straightened an old calendar picture of the three wise men on the wall, their likenesses encircled by gold-paper stars.

  Edith stepped back and examined the picture thoughtfully before poking a finger at the king named Balthazar. ‘I’ll admit, Emil does bear some resemblance. But I was so sure it would be a woman. Three men the first time, three women this time.’

  Gloria cocked her head and exchanged the kitten for a sock monkey. ‘Perhaps we’re placing too much importance on gender, Edith.’

  Edith took one long last look, then sat down on her own bed. ‘You could be right about that, Gloria. God has, after all, been a bit sexist for a very long time. You can’t just change that overnight.’

  Gloria beamed at her. ‘You’re absolutely right. And two out of three isn’t bad.’

  ‘How many years have we been waiting?’

  ‘Two thousand, at least.’

  ‘No, not the world. Us. How many years have we been waiting?’

  Gloria frowned down at her sock monkey. ‘Oh. I’m not certain. Do you know?’

  Edith sighed and stood up again, pacing a tight circle between their beds. ‘Not precisely. Fifty, I think. Maybe sixty. But it doesn’t matter, I suppose. The point is that, in all that time, not one dark-skinned person has been admitted to this facility until today.’

  ‘That’s interesting, isn’t it? One could almost extrapolate that the Caucasian genetic structure contains the link to mental aberrations.’

  Edith stopped pacing and gave her sister a gentle smile. ‘You’re drifting, dear.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So, I suppose the admission of Emil is so unusual, it simply cannot be construed as mere coincidence, in spite of his gender.’

  Gloria looked up at her sister in wondering awe, her body quivering on the brink of ecstasy. ‘Then … he’s the one?’

  Edith nodded decisively. ‘I believe he is.’

  Gloria gasped and put a hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, my. Oh, my. If it’s so, then we have so much to do! Everything must be perfect! We must be perfect!’ She rushed into the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the small, dull mirror and wasn’t entirely pleased with what she saw. The costume was magnificent, of course, stitched of gold and blue velvet that flowed like water when she moved, and the billowing sleeves fell to her fingertips. But somehow it didn’t look quite as flattering as it had in Christmases past.

  Probably the hair, she thought, teasing a frizzy curl behind her ear. The beauty-school students who came once a month to practice on the residents were for the most part sweet and well-meaning but, on the whole, utterly incompetent. The girl who had worked on her last week had put a blue rinse in her thinning hair, then a permanent that had left it in tight, hysterical curls. ‘Edith, please bring my headdress!’

  Edith entered the bathroom, magnificent in her own red brocade costume, and Gloria spun in place, her face screwed up in misery. ‘Oh, Edith, I don’t look dignified at all – I look like a Smurf!’ she whimpered.

  ‘Nonsense. You look like a king. A magi.’

  ‘The magi do not have blue hair. Not one of them.’

  ‘Calm down, dear.’ Ed
ith smiled and placed an elaborate crown on Gloria’s head. ‘There. You look beautiful. Resplendent, in fact. This mirror just doesn’t do you justice.’

  Gloria sighed in consternation and continued to fuss with her crown, which kept tilting to one side. ‘Of course it doesn’t. Why can’t we get a proper mirror? How many times have we complained to the management about this?’

  Edith took a step back, regarded the position of her sister’s crown, then began to make adjustments. ‘You need to wear the chin strap, dear. That’s why we put it there.’

  Gloria gave her a horrified look. ‘Kings do not have blue hair and they most certainly do not wear chin straps. I never used to wear one, and this crown never used to be so wobbly. Do you think my head is getting smaller?’

  Edith frowned while she thought about that. ‘Maybe a little. That’s the real trouble with aging, isn’t it? Some things get smaller and other things get bigger.’

  ***

  Emil was staring aghast at a barren room with nothing but a thin mattress on a metal bed frame, cinderblock walls, and a nightstand bolted to the wall.

  ‘These are your quarters for the duration of your stay,’ Dr Harold said.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

  ‘We don’t joke here.’

  ‘There are bars on the windows.’

  ‘Safety precaution for our patients, and this is a patient room. Only lodging available here.’

  Emil looked around despondently, completely empathizing with anybody who would jump three stories to get out of this place. He suddenly got wistful about the halfway house where there were no bars on the windows, no ex-SEAL dictator, and some semblance of a real house and a real life. For the second time in a few hours, he was seriously questioning his judgment. ‘This is just like jail.’

  ‘Were you expecting the Four Seasons?’

  ‘No, but …’

  Dr Harold opened an interior door onto a small bathroom. ‘Your towels, bed linens and some personal hygiene items are in here. Are things looking better, Mr Rice?’

  Emil thought about the communal bathrooms at the halfway house. ‘This seems just fine, Dr Harold. Actually, it’s great.’

  ‘There are three meals a day in the cafeteria on the lower level, served at oh eight hundred, noon, and seventeen hundred sharp. No exceptions. You start work immediately after breakfast every day except Saturday and Sunday – those are your free days. You can’t leave the campus, but you can choose any activities available to our staff and patients. For instance, Gloria and Edith like to play cribbage,’ he said, with a wry smile. ‘Chores will be assigned as needed, and you will perform whatever is asked of you, starting right now. You have five minutes to get yourself into uniform. I’ll be waiting outside.’

  He closed the door behind him, leaving Emil standing in stunned silence, his mouth gaping open and shut, like a landed carp’s. He was in uncharted territory and this was way too much to process. He was under the thumb of a despot – benevolent or malevolent remained to be seen – but he had his own private bathroom. He was surrounded by lunatics and had two insane old ladies obsessing over him, but at least they weren’t criminals who might shank him in the shower. He had to work a forty-hour week, doing God knew what, but at least he had a little more leeway here than in jail. And leeway meant opportunities to exploit in the future. This wasn’t good, but maybe it wasn’t so bad, either.

  After the five minutes had expired, Emil emerged, still dressed in his suit. He stuck out his jaw and held his ground. It maybe wasn’t the smartest move, but if he was going to start testing the waters with Dr Harold, now was the time to do it.

  ‘Listen, Doc, I know you have rules and all that, and I’m going to follow every single one of them, do everything you tell me to do, but can you please just give a man some dignity? It’s about the only thing I’ve got right now, and I’m going to lose it if I have to wear puke-green pajamas all day.’ He cringed inwardly, watching as the doc regarded him shrewdly. He fully expected a drill-sergeant dressing-down, then maybe electro-shock, but Dr Harold just shrugged.

  ‘Seems like a reasonable request for the time being. Besides, hard lessons are the best teachers.’

  Emil frowned, confused. ‘Uh … what exactly does that mean?’

  Dr Harold smiled. ‘You’ll see. Follow me. You’re on the job now.’

  ***

  A half-hour later, Emil was still defiantly, ridiculously, dressed in his suit, sullenly mopping the hallway while he muttered to himself, ‘Can’t kid me. This is a racial thing. See a black man, stick a mop in his hand. That’s what this is. Don’t see anybody else mopping. Don’t see any white people mopping.’

  He was making a determined effort not to glance into any of the rooms, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself. He saw the violin lady lying flat on her back in bed with that fiddle still stuck to her chin, and other patients in various states of sanity and health, some strapped to their beds, some talking non-stop, some making noises he wished he couldn’t hear. The end of the hallway opened up onto a dayroom with chairs and sofas and a TV. There was a handful of patients sitting around watching a nature show and, one by one, they craned their necks to stare at him.

  Emil put his head down and mopped faster.

  Just up the hall, Edith and Gloria glided out of their room, still in their magi costumes, but now Gloria was wearing her crown fastened with a chin strap and Edith’s red turban was decorated with a rhinestone pin. They stood there watching Emil as he drew closer with his mop and bucket.

  ‘You’re doing a lovely job with that mop,’ Gloria hummed.

  Emil jerked his head up, saw the two crazy ladies, and extended his mop like a sword to hold them at bay. ‘Now, you two stay away from me!’

  Edith smiled at him. ‘I suspect that you do everything you set your mind to equally well.’

  ‘Right. That’s how I got this job over all the other applicants.’

  Edith and Gloria started closing in on him. Emil lowered his mop and took a step back. ‘I’m telling you, stay away from me. I’m a criminal. I’ve been in prison.’

  Edith looked genuinely pleased. ‘Really? How fascinating. We’ve never seen a prison.’

  ‘Never.’ Gloria shook her head. ‘We’ve read about them, of course. The Count of Monte Cristo.’

  ‘Is it like that?’ Edith asked. ‘Dank and dark, with water dripping down the stone walls and rats everywhere?’

  ‘Did you eat the rats?’

  Emil looked at Gloria in horror. ‘Hell, no, I didn’t eat any rats! They didn’t have any rats.’

  ‘Would you care to see our room, Emil?’ Edith asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘We’ve never invited anyone to see our room before. The staff come in all the time, of course, but not at our invitation. You would be our first guest.’

  ‘Well, I can’t do that. It’s in the rules. No substantive interaction. That’s what the doc told me. In fact, I’m not even supposed to look at you.’

  ‘Oh, Emil, don’t be ridiculous.’ Edith took his arm and dragged him into their room.

  Emil looked around uncertainly at the little-girl décor that was totally incongruous with the two old ladies who lived there. Then again, they were crazy, so all bets were off as far as interior design went.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Gloria asked hopefully.

  ‘Well, it’s not really my style, but if it works for you …’ Emil started backing out of the room, then saw the calendar page on the wall. He studied it, then looked back at Gloria and Edith’s costumes. Whoever had made them had done a pretty good job of replicating the ones in the picture, right down to the headdresses, which they hadn’t been wearing before. ‘Hey, you kinda look like these guys.’

  ‘Of course we do. It’s our destiny.’ Edith pointed to Balthazar. ‘Look familiar?’

  Emil shrugged. ‘Sure. I guess. I remember him from when I was a kid because he was the only brother, which I thought was cool.’

 
Gloria’s eyes grew wide. ‘He’s your brother?’

  ‘No, no, no, that’s just an expression … never mind.’

  ‘His name is Balthazar,” Edith explained. ‘So you knew all along.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘Your destiny.’

  ‘Yep. I knew all along I was destined to push a mop around in a loony bin for a year. Couldn’t wait for it to finally happen. I guess dreams come true after all.’

  ‘Yes, they do,’ Gloria said, blotting tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her costume. ‘Let me show you something.’ She darted to a closet and pulled out a transparent dry-cleaning bag, which held a purple velvet robe with silver and gold embroidery. ‘This is your raiment.’

  The clothes inside the bag looked exactly like the third wise-man costume in the calendar picture. ‘Uh-huh. That’s nice. Well, I’ve got a lot more mopping to do …’

  Gloria took a quick step, blocking his exit, and looked at Edith. ‘I think it’s all right if we speak about this now. I don’t think that would seriously affect anything.’

  ‘He may not know.’

  ‘But it’s so obvious.’ Gloria gestured at the calendar page. ‘Their skin color is almost a perfect match. He really could be your brother, Emil. Are you sure he’s not?’

  Emil got a little huffy. ‘Okay, now listen, you got to stop harping on my skin.’

  ‘I like your skin very much. It’s quite unusual.’

  Emil looked to the ceiling for forbearance. ‘Oh, yeah, us African Americans, we’re rarer than unicorns.’

  Edith gasped. ‘Oh, my dear Lord. You’re from Africa?’

  ‘No, no … Well, not exactly. Not recently …’

  ‘You’re from Africa.’ Gloria pointed triumphantly to Balthazar. ‘And he’s from Africa! What more proof do you need?’

  Emil backed out of the room, watching them warily, then beat feet down the hall.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was mid-afternoon by the time Foster got back to the eerily deserted probation office. Even the poinsettias and Christmas cards were missing from the bleak landscape, no doubt packed up in boxes by harried colleagues who’d already evacuated in force for the holiday break.