Chapter Thirty-Six. Betty, 1964
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Ganzfeld experiments at the University of Edinburgh show strong similarities between the video the ‘sender’ was watching and the receiver’s thoughts at the time …
‘Suddenly, the man falls down in a deep muddy pool (at the same time, the receiver says: “Falling. Muddy…”). The camera zooms in on the man’s face (at the same time, the receiver says: “Blond hair. Seventies hairstyle. Curly-ish. White face…”).
All the utterances appear to describe exactly what is being shown on the film. ’”
—The British Psychological Society
“The janitor cleaned this up for us,” Dr. Trimble informed them as he opened the door leading to the library basement. A heavy, metallic odor lingered in the air. Cracks marred the concrete floor and the walls were covered with old stains. A few bare light bulbs hung overhead.
“Where should we put our things?” Kathleen asked.
“Pick any cot.” Dr. Trimble was already setting up his typewriter and a stack of notebooks on a long table that looked like it had been borrowed from the campus dining room, and probably had been.
He’d brought nothing else but a coffee percolator, an ashtray, a small overnight case, and a canvas laundry sack.
He held up the sack. “Take your dresses and change into them.”
Betty followed the other girls deeper into the basement.
It was an eerie combination of unused and aged.
Sets of white bedding were folded on the ends of the four identical beds.
At least the sheets smelled fresh. The girls made up their bunks and Betty hung up the sheet she’d brought from home so that their sleeping space had a measure of privacy.
Betty’s hand touched her stomach as Ivy’s words echoed in her mind: You’re pregnant.
Ivy was right; Betty could sense it now.
Helen’s whisper jarred her into the present moment: “Should we make up Dr. Trimble’s bed?”
“Yes, then we can move his bunk farther away from ours,” Kathleen replied, picking up the final set of bedding. She and Helen quickly made the cot, then lifted it up and carried it a dozen yards away.
Next the women unpacked as best they could. Kathleen had brought a set of pink rollers, which looked woefully out of place on the floor. Ivy had brought the diary she faithfully kept.
“Should we change?” Helen wondered.
Kathleen opened the sack. Inside were their four dresses, neatly folded.
“We might as well. The more obedient we are, the quicker we’ll get out of here,” Betty said.
Outside, it was growing dark. Betty spotted a giant cobweb stretching between two corners of the wall that the janitor’s mop had missed, but she couldn’t see the spider. Maybe it was out hunting.
She sat on the edge of a bunk next to Helen and folded her hands, waiting for whatever would come next. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Girls?” Dr. Trimble pulled away one side of the sheet. His big frame filled the narrow pathway between rows of cots. “It’s time to begin.”
“I brought the sheet in case there wasn’t a private room to change clothes,” Betty said quickly.
“The sheet is wonderful,” Dr. Trimble said. “It keeps you four close and contained. Your instincts were correct.”
He studied them in their matching white dresses, his eyes roving over them one by one, then nodded. “I need to photograph you for my records. Arrange yourselves in a line, girls.”
Betty shuffled next to Helen, then Kathleen and Ivy joined them in a row. Dr. Trimble lifted a point-and-press Kodak camera and snapped a picture.
Next he instructed them to lie down on their bunks.
“The four of you have become very close over these past months,” Dr. Trimble told them.
“You share something most uncommon. Others may think they know you, but they can never relate to the inner core of your psyche. Not even your families or husbands. And so you’ve been alone most of your lives.
Before you found each other, you felt adrift.
Different. As if you had to wear a mask. ”
Is it true? Betty wondered. At times, maybe. But she’d always felt her innate gift, as Dr. Trimble called it, paled in importance to her marriage to Douglas.
“It has been very, very difficult for you,” Dr. Trimble continued. “Suppression always is.”
He sounded like a different man. A kinder one.
And of course, he was so smart. He instructed them to close their eyes and listen to his words.
The longer he talked about the pain and loneliness they’d experienced, the more Betty began to believe he was right.
After all, he was the expert in psychology.
A sob broke free from the bunk next to Betty’s.
“I’m sorry!” she heard Helen cry.
“No, no, it’s good to feel strong emotions here, Helen,” Dr. Trimble said. “Let them out. All the fear and worry you’ve held for so long. You are finally safe in this place. These girls will never, ever betray you.”
Betty felt tears form in her own eyes. She’d never seen this side of Dr. Trimble. He was almost fatherly. It was as if he were tenderly reading them a bedtime story, except it was the story of their own buried pain.
His cadence slowed. Betty felt her limbs relax as his sonorous voice drifted over her like a warm blanket.
“Your bond can never be broken. After all, you only have each other to rely on.”
From beneath her closed lids, Betty could sense a change in the quality of light in the room.
Dr. Trimble must have turned off the bulbs.
The mattress didn’t feel quite so hard beneath her back now, and the strange metallic odor had become familiar.
She was filled with love toward the other women.
She wished she could reach out and hold their hands, but her limbs were so heavy she couldn’t move them.
“It’s perfectly fine to drift off if you’re tired,” Dr. Trimble told them.
And with that permission, Betty’s last defenses crumbled. With Dr. Trimble’s low, rumbling voice still filling her ears, she felt herself slip into a heavy sleep.
It felt like it lasted only minutes before bright lights assailed her eyes and a noise that sounded like an air horn jolted her awake.