The Ballroom

The Ballroom

Ella
 
 
“Are you going to behave?” The man’s voice echoed. “Are you going to behave?”
 
She made a noise. Could have been yes. Could have been no, but the blanket was pulled off her head and she gasped for air.
 
An arched hall stretched before her, lit with lamps. The thin hiss of gas. Plants everywhere, and the smell of carbolic soap. On the floor were tiles, reaching out in all directions, polished till they shone, some in the shapes of flowers, but the flowers were black. She knew then that this was no police station, and started shouting in fear, until a young woman in uniform appeared from the darkness and slapped her on the cheek.
 
“There’ll be none of that in here.”
 
Irish. Ella whipped her head back, tears in her eyes though she wasn’t crying. She knew those Irish girls. There were plenty at the mill. They were mean as hell.
 
Another woman came, and they put their hands beneath her armpits and began pulling her toward two doors. Ella dragged her feet, but they slapped her till she walked for herself. Both of them had sets of keys at the waist. There must have been twenty, thirty keys there, clanging away. They pushed her through the doors, locked them behind her, and then they were standing at the top of a corridor so long the end was impossible to see.
 
“Where am I?”
 
No reply. Only the wheeze of the gas and the corridor, stretching. They turned to the left with her, through another set of doors, marching her between them, uniforms crackling as they walked. Everywhere the same hard smell of soap, and something else, something wrong underneath.
 
Then a last door, and a large room, with a stink like a pigpen, where they dragged her to a narrow, metal-framed bed and shoved her down. “We’ll deal with you later.”
 
Other beds showed themselves in the grayish light, hundreds of them lying end to end. On each a person, but man or woman she couldn’t tell. Heavy furniture lined the walls, which were painted dark. She could see the large double doors she had come in from. Locked.
 
Was this prison, then? Already?
 
She crouched at the top of the bed, breathing hard. Her cheek was throbbing. She lifted her fingers to it; it had split where the men had punched her earlier, and was pulpy and thick. She pulled the rough blanket up over her knees. Someone nearby was singing, the sort of song you’d sing to hush a baby to sleep. Someone else crying. Someone muttering to himself.
 
A humming started up. It seemed to be coming from the next bed, but all Ella could see of the woman in there was her feet, soles like peeling yellow paper, until she sat up straight like a jack-in-the-box. She was old, but wore her hair in bunches like a little girl. Thin, tallacky flesh hung slack on her arms.
 
“Will you come with me?” the woman said.
 
Ella inched a little toward her. Perhaps she knew a way out. “Where to?”
 
“Germany.” The woman’s eyes were wet and gleaming. “We’ll dance there, we’ll sing.” And she started up a wordless tune in a cracked childhood voice. Then, “At night,” the woman said, in a loud whisper, “when I’m sleeping, me soul comes out—creep creep creep like a little white creature.” She pointed at Ella and smiled. “But you must let it be. It comes back in the morning, right enough.”
 
Ella brought her fists over her eyes, curling away from the woman into a small, tight ball. Someone was banging on the walls:
 
“Homehomehomeiwantogohomehomehomeiwantogohome.”
 
She would have joined in. Except she didn’t know where that was.
 
She stayed awake through the night, but couldn’t have slept if she’d wanted to. Her cheek flamed, and as soon as one of the women stopped bleating another one started up, bawling, singing, chelping to themselves:
 
“Andhewasthe…”
 
“Wouldyoutaketheelectricity…”
 
“Reek! Reek! Didmeagreatfrightand…”
 
“But that’s it, where the spiritscomeintome…”
 
As the sky started to lighten, the chorus got louder, and Old Germany in the bed beside her was the loudest of the lot, a terrible songbird greeting the dawn. A bell clanged at the top of the room. But there was movement at least, something happening, Ella could see a woman at the far end, dressed in uniform like those who had brought her here last night, and she slipped out of her bed, walking fast down the middle of the room. “I’ve to speak to someone.”
 
“What’s that?” The woman was plump, her face thick with sleep.
 
“Someone in charge.”
 
“I’m in charge.” The woman smoothed her uniform out over her belly. She lifted her watch, began to wind it up.
 
“Where am I?”
 
“You don’t know?” The woman smiled at the round face of her watch as though the two of them were sharing a nice little joke. Another bell rang, louder, somewhere outside the room. The women began to swarm and press themselves into lines. Ella put her thumbs in her palms. For a moment she was back at work—seven in the morning and everyone rushing up the hill so as not to be late, not to have their pay docked—the metal-tasting panic in the mouth. Jim Christy, the penny hoil man, standing at the gate, waiting to shut it in your face on the stroke of seven.
 
“You should wait till you’ve eaten something.”
 
She turned to see a tall pale girl at her elbow.
 
“Never fight on an empty stomach.” The girl had a quick, easy smile. “Come on.” She touched her on the arm. “I can show you the way.”
 
Ella shook her off. She didn’t need friends. Especially not in here.
 
She followed the crowd into a large, echoing room, where the women were taking seats on benches set before long wooden tables. One side of the room was all doors, and at each of the doors stood a woman with one of those sets of keys. The other side was all windows, but the panes were tiny, so even if you broke one you’d only get your wrist through.
 
“Sit down.” She was given a shove by a passing woman in uniform. A bowl clattered onto the table before her.
 
“Porridge,” said the pale girl, who was sitting on the other side of the table. “There’s milk. Here.” She lifted a large pitcher and poured some for herself, then did the same for Ella. “The food’s not so bad.”
 
A young, dark-haired woman sitting beside Ella leaned toward them. “It’s mice,” she said, pointing toward the porridge. “They put them through t’feeder.” Her face was gray and sunken. She seemed to have no teeth.
 
Ella pushed her bowl away. Her stomach was cramping with hunger, but if she ate here, then it was inside her. It was real. And wherever this was, it wasn’t real.
 
“You’ve hurt your cheek,” said the pale girl.
 
“I know.”
 
“You should get it seen to.” The girl tilted her head to one side. “I’m Clem,” she said, and held out her hand.
 
Ella didn’t move.
 
“Your eyes look bad too.”
 
“They’re grand.”
 
“They don’t look grand.”
 
“Can I take yours?” Mouse-woman’s breath was hot on Ella’s arm.
 
Ella nodded, and the woman curled the bowl toward her.
 
There must have been five hundred women in there, and it was noisier than the mill with all the machines going. An old lady on the other side of the table was crooning to a rolled-up shawl, rocking it in her arms, shushing it, reaching out with a finger and touching it. A uniformed woman walking up and down the lines stood over her and rapped her on the shoulder. “Give over with that rubbish and eat your food.”
 
The old lady shook her head. “Not till babby’s eaten first.” She began to unbutton her dress.
 
“There’s no baby,” the other woman said, raising her voice. She grabbed the shawl and shook it out, holding up the holey piece of cloth. “See? There’s nothing.”
 
“Babby! You’ve hurt my babby!” the old lady screamed, and fell to her knees, scrabbling on the floor. The uniformed woman hauled her up by her elbow. More women joined the commotion then, as though they’d all been given the signal to bawl. At the height of it, a bowl shattered on the floor.
 
“What did you want to do that for?” It was the same hard-faced woman from last night. The Irish one. Ella put her thumbs in her palms to grip them.
 
“You want the tube?” said the woman. “You want the tube again?”
 
Baby-woman was shaking her head from side to side and crying as she was dragged to her feet and pulled from the room.
 
Across the table, Clem was eating calmly. When she had finished, she put her spoon to the side of her bowl and folded her hands in her lap.
 
Ella leaned forward. “Where did they take her? Where did they go?”
 
Clem’s gaze flicked up. “To the infirmary.”
 
“Why?”
 
“So they can feed her through a tube.”
 
“Where am I?”
 
“Sharston Asylum.” Clem’s eyes were a still and steady blue. “Why, where did you think?”
 
Ella looked down at her hands, clasped into fists; she stretched her fingers on the table: eight of them, two thumbs. But they did not look like her own. She turned them palms up and stared. She wished for a mirror. Even that old piece of cracked rubbish they had at the end of the spinning sheds. The one they’d all elbow each other out of the way for on a Friday. Even that. Just to see she was still real.
 
She looked up. Doors. Nurses standing at each like jailers, carrying one of those big rounds of keys.
 
Sharston Asylum.
 
She’d heard of it. Since she was small. If you ever did anything stupid: the asylum. For the lunatics. The paupers. They’ll send you to Sharston, and you’ll never come out.”