Chapter 5
The moment I remove my evening glove, my breath abruptly dies in my throat. What I see is not my once regular human hand. Instead, veins and arteries wind over each finger like ancient roots. Blood pulses through them like the dancers on the stage. Roused. Obtrusive.
My pulse quickens, then ice crawls up my chest. I turn my hands, shake them, try to rub the crimson lines off with my thumb. But to no avail. I feel the skin’s texture with its calluses and fine hairs on my hands, but it’s all invisible to the eye.
I run to the washbasin, certain this must be some trick of the light. When I remove the second glove, that hand exhibits the same features.
Soap. I need more soap. Perhaps if the water was scalding hot?
This isn’t real. It can’t be real.
I run my hands through my hair, but it resembling aspic sickens me.
The room starts to blur, and I have to grip the wall to not fall onto the tile below.
Still, the beiges and ochres call to me.
So I slide down, legs spread wide, staring at my hands, refusing to believe what my eyes can plainly see.
I shut them, wishing with all my might that when I open them again, everything will be as it once was.
This is a dream. Yes, some strange fever dream.
I knew there was something the matter with me. Even the physician observed it. I simply overexerted myself at the ballet. It explains my despondency. It explains the visions. Yes, that is it. I laugh in relief, open my eyes, then look at my hands again.
Ruby rivers sprawl over every finger. Faint yellow cotton lines my palms. They are wrapped tightly in red twine, forbidding any thoughts of escape.
Please. No.
I tear off my evening dress, layers of a once ordinary man suddenly transmuted into nothing but a forgotten puddle on the floor. With every stripped garment, another shred of hope vanishes that normalcy remains beneath.
In nothing but my drawers, I examine the rest of me. When I follow my veins, I’m relieved to see them vanishing beneath my skin halfway to my elbow. The rest seems to be as it always was. Pale skin scattered in freckles. A few small scars. A trail of hair beneath my navel.
Maybe Aphra could—
Without hesitation, I ring my sister.
“Something is happening to me,” I say breathlessly.
“Hello, Orlando. How nice of you to call. I’m well, thank you for asking,” she replies in her usual nonchalant manner.
“It’s no laughing matter, Aphra. I’m serious.”
The moment she hears my words, her tone shifts. “What is the matter?”
“My hand. It’s not normal. I—” Frustrated at my inability to form a more coherent sentence, I interrupt myself. How could one begin to explain such a thing?
“Have you tried a physician?”
“No. I mean, yes. But it’s not like that,” I answer, running a hand through my hair. I must have done this so often in the past hour that it’s starting to curl at the top.
“Orlando, you’re making very little sense.”
I take a breath, forcing my thoughts into order. “It’s just, well…” I sigh, then continue. “When I returned from the ballet—”
She cuts me off with a gasp. “Oh, my darling worm! Did you meet Lady Black and Vaslav? You must have been so nervous. I know how much you fancy him,” she says, as brazen as always.
“That is precisely the problem. I felt nothing.” I say, sliding into the bergère next to me.
“What do you mean you felt nothing? I remember you confessing how you stirred when you last saw him. Was there no stirring?”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at her words. “It sounds so childish when you put it like that.”
“Infatuations are not childish, Orlando. They are the fabric of existence. But what does your infatuation have to do with your hand?”
“My hand seems to be skinned.”
“Skinned?” she half-whispers, clearly confused by my explanation.
I take a moment before answering, trying to find a way to be precise. “Do you remember the models at the Hunterian?” I finally say.
“Of course I do. But there were so many, you must be more specific.”
“Well, my hand looks like one of the specimens.” I let the explanation linger between us.
“Oh,” she finally says, followed by an abnormally long pause. “Skinned.”
“Yes. Skinned.”
“And you felt absolutely nothing when meeting Vaslav?” she says, softer this time.
“Nothing at all.”
“That’s not very normal, is it?”
“Not particularly.” I sigh.
“My poor Orlando, you must be terrified.” Her voice is as gentle as it was when I hurt myself playing too enthusiastically when we were little.
“That is precisely the problem, Aphra,” I stop myself, unsure of how to explain it well. “I’m not scared. Concerned, yes. Worried, maybe. But scared? Not at all. I feel no fear, no infatuation. And no kind of stirring. In fact, I suspect my senses might have abandoned me as well.”
“That is—” A long, heavy silence fills the line before she continues. “Well, go test it, then. Hit yourself with something.”
“I’d rather just try hot water.”
I leave the receiver on the telephone desk to test my theory. I let the water run from the tap until I see steam rising. When I’m certain it’s as hot as it gets, I run my fingers under the stream.
“Nothing,” I say when I finally return.
“Are you sure the water was hot enough?”
“Certain.”
I know I should be scared. So I take a moment, really trying to listen, to feel.
I think something might be hiding in the recesses, but it’s too dull and distant to distinguish. Was that faint sensation my very last one or perhaps the beginning of something new?
“And what did the physician say?” Aphra’s voice brings me back.
“Apparently, I’m in perfect health. He did not see my Hunterian hand, of course. That only happened this evening.”
“I don’t think being partially skinned and in perfect health are simultaneously possible states,” she scoffs. It’s quite clear she doesn’t trust my physician’s opinion. “And besides the unfeelingness, do you feel ill?”
“No, which makes it all only more peculiar. I only feel wrong. It started about three days ago, which is why I visited him yesterday. I thought I might have contracted a new kind of exotic fever of sorts.”
“And did you—” she starts just as I say, “Wait.” I remember the little hammer rapping on my non-responsive limbs. “There was something I had not considered important. An anomaly with my reflexes…”
“Please elaborate,” she urges me on.
“Well, they seem to have vanished.”
“Like your skin?”
“I suppose.” I shrug.
“And this so-called physician had no explanation?”
“He was just as confused. He promised to contact the board, but I have not heard from him yet.” A movement in the corner of my eye catches my attention.
Outside of the window, the Platanus x hispanica sways gently, its leaves illuminated by the orange lamp next to it.
From here, it looks a bit like the illustrations in scary tales. I wonder how late it is?
“Alright, I think you must visit Nicodemus.”
“What?” I say, startled.
“Nicodemus,” she repeats. “Do you have a pen?”
“Who is Nicodemus?”
“He is easier seen than described, but if anyone could help, it would be him.”
“Very well, then,” I say, grabbing my fountain pen and writing down the address given to me.
“Are you alright, Orlando?” she says softly.
I hesitate a moment before answering. “I don’t think I am.”
“You want me to come? I could be there within the week,” she says, sounding quite unlike herself.
“I don’t think it would be of any use.”
“I don’t want you to be alone if…” She lets the words hang between us.
I suppress a sigh. “It will be fine,” I finally say, trying to seem as convincing as I can.
“Nicodemus will help you,” she says, unable to muster much conviction herself.
“I’m sure,” I force a smile into my voice. “Thank you, Aphra.”
“I love you, little beast,” she whispers.
“As do I,” I reply before hanging up the receiver.