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  Now Sara is in me. Henrietta has imprisoned me. I have become her creature, her creation, her child. There is no escape, and I don’t want an escape anymore because I feel I am suddenly so vulnerable in the real world that I can function only in her warped reality. I must decide what to do. I need time.

  In any case, I can no longer go out in public looking this way. I can’t even let Laura see me. So I unhook the Mickey Mouse mask from our cabin wad and put it on my face. At first it fits comfortably, but after a while I feel hot and humid. That’s a small sacrifice, to conceal the black magic going on underneath the mask.

  I wear the Mickey Mouse mask: at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, and in between, because it’s only strange, whereas the transformation in my face is supernatural, worse than strange.

  When I eat, I lift the mask up slightly, just enough to uncover my mouth, so I can put food in it. I lower the mask when I chew.

  How do people react to the mask? They are amazed, amused, annoyed, impatient, condescending, contemptuous, and finally indifferent, ad of which is normal, healthy, fine with me, and much better than the covert glances I was getting yesterday when they could see the change in my face as plain as day.

  Under the mask, I think about what I should do. After much thinking, certain things become clear. For instance, I’m responsible for Sara’s death. If I hadn’t entered her life, she would probably still be alive. She would not have crossed the street at the particular instant when that yellow car was there to hit her. Now I owe Henrietta my life. We are bound to each other by our unhappiness. I won’t feel at peace until I do the right thing. I belong with her, I belong to her; I must return.

  And when I return I will tell her the truth about Sara, about her fifty percent chance of recovery. I realize I will be contemptible not to spare her the agony of knowing how tragic Sara’s accident really was, but I can no longer bear the pain all by myself. If we are to have a close relationship, we should both know the truth. I will then comfort her and stay with her always.

  I must get rid of Laura so that I am free to go back to Henrietta. I try to think of how to accomplish this. Behind the mask, I am plotting. I finally make my decision. I will drown her.

  I will do it now, right now. It’s a nice afternoon. I will take her for a walk—we’re in port today—and I will drown her. I ask her if she’d like to go for a walk; she acts delighted. Before we leave, I hand her a pen and a piece of paper.

  “Take these,” I say, “and write your will the way you want it: the clapper at your grave forever, if that’s still what you want.” Because after ad, I think she should be allowed to write her will before she drowns. It’s just common courtesy.

  She looks at me with surprise and says, “Why now?”

  “Because it has to be written and signed by you. I don’t think they’d believe me if I just told them, without your signature.”

  “But why now?”

  “Because you were right. It’s best not to wait,” I ted her through the mask. “You’ll feel more at peace if you get it off your chest. You’ll be more relaxed, our promenade will be more carefree.”

  So she writes whatever she wants on the piece of paper and hands it to me. It says: “I want my fortune to be spent on everything that was written in the National Enquirer: clapper at my grave forever or until money runs out, shifts allowed, etc.” Her signature is at the bottom.

  I fold the paper, tuck it in my pocket, and we go on our walk. I must find a place to drown her. A place with lots of people. Some sort of event. An event that attracts large crowds. A concert would be perfect.

  Eventually we come upon an outdoor circus. That will do. It’s very crowded. The people are standing, watching, and clapping at the show. I bring Laura to the edge of the clapping crowd, and I watch her sink, becoming engulfed in the sea of clap ter. She looks at me with confusion, but the people soon close in on her. She tries to hang on to me, to my clothes, but I don’t help her. The crowd is clapping at the circus, not at her. She sinks into a sea of anonymous clapter. She is submerged in someone else’s success. I gaze at her through the eyes of the Mickey Mouse mask, and I am comforted that she cannot see the blank expression on my face as I watch her sink.

  On the way back to New York, I feel much better and saner. My mind is cleared.

  I know I’m going to have to face people when I get back. I dread having to face them. They will still clap at Laura. They will clap at her death. They will ask me, “How did she do that death trick? Is there any chance you might ever reveal how she did that death trick? How subtle. Ah! The naïveté of it, the deceptive simplicity of it! The vocabulary is rich, and the language, my goodness, the language is sublime. She is a genius, her choice of tricks is superb, exquisite. I love the way she deaths! I mean, the way she dies.”

  When the plane lands, I go to Lady Henrietta’s apartment. She is ecstatic to see me, as I knew she would be.

  She says, “When you were away, I realized why it was so important for me to be with you. The memory of Sara can be preserved more vividly between us. I can’t be with anyone else, or it would be like abandoning Sara. But between us, she will live.”

  I hug her.

  “Where’s Laura?” she asks.

  “They loved her to death. She drowned in success.” I avoid specifying that it wasn’t her own success.

  I tell Henrietta I want to take her out to dinner. She says she needs a minute to change and goes into her room.

  While I wait, I spot on a low table by the couch a magazine with a totally black cover and a white title: Suicide. Under the title: “The Cheer-up Magazine for Every Man or Woman Who’s Ever Thought of Committing It.”

  I open the magazine and read an advertisement at random:

  Do you come out of Disneyland feeling depressed?

  Wanting to jump off the roller coaster?

  Or to kick the giant mouse in the balls?

  Having trouble enjoying even the simplest pleasures in life?

  You need to put your life in perspective. We can do it for you. Come visit us at DEATHLAND, where we offer high-quality suffering. Your petty problems will evaporate in seconds. Your bigger problems will disappear in hours. The death of a loved one will be forgotten in a day.

  (We guarantee that our simulations are as effective as the real thing, or your money back!)

  To receive your free brochure and sample meal kit, simply call:

  1-800-570-HELL CALL NOW! WE’LL PUT YOUR LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE

  The world isn’t as I thought it was.

  As I keep waiting for Henrietta to get ready, I absentmindedly glance around the room, and I am astonished to see in a corner, next to the hateful painting of me and Sara, a large painting of Tommy, nude.

  When Henrietta comes back out and sees me staring at the painting, she says, “Oh, yes. Tommy got in touch with me through your mother, because he was so upset to have been the indirect cause of Sara’s death. He wanted to talk to me and offer help if I needed it.”

  “Why did you paint him?” I ask.

  She takes the suicide magazine from my hands, dips through it, and says, “Because I read an article in here that said that to get over a tragedy, it can be helpful to make a picture of the person who is responsible and then tear it up, or cross it out, or burn it, or stab it, or harm it somehow. I wanted to try, so Tommy agreed to pose for me.” She hands me the magazine, opened to a page with an article entitled: “A Healthy Mixture of Voodoo and Art Therapy Will Kid Those Suicide Blues.”

  I look at the painting of Tommy. It is not damaged in any way, but there is a big kitchen knife lying next to it on the door. “When are you going to damage it?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I’ve lost interest. It now seems pointless and trite. I doubt it would make me feel better, especially since there was no hope of Sara recovering from her illness. She was going to die anyway, so the car accident didn’t make much difference did it?”

  I pick up the knife and hesitate a moment before placing it
in her hand. I close her fingers over the handle.

  “There was hope.”

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  Table of Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven