Mrs. Winchester VI. The Bath Room

Welcome to the bathroom - my favorite room in the house!

There are thirteen bathrooms on the premises, and they are all my favorite room in the house.

For someone who lives in a mansion alone, I have a ridiculous amount of company: builders clomping from one end of the house to the other; city officials with their permits and inquiries, parched Franciscans….

A recluse requires her solitude!

One is never more alone, in the best sense, than when one is in the bath. Forgive my candor, but to be as nature intended, and submerged in warm water, tea within reach, and the muffled reports of hammers like rain on the roof….

Well.

Should there come another deluge, let it take everything but the tub!

Who would have thought, that of all the aesthetically pleasing fixtures, furniture, and finery of this house, what would please me most is this simple tub.

Simple, yes, but not ordinary. Note the deep blue of the basin, the milky green of the exterior, the golden harpy claws bearing it up, and the thick rim of finished wood that one holds onto like a banister! If ever I go missing, look for me among the prunes!

I could bathe all day; for what is a bath but a return to the womb? A return to that suspension where all of one’s needs were met, where one dreamed of nothing, where one floated like a buddha in an all-too limited eternity?

Mother would recall that when she was carrying me, and she and father took to The Green on a Sunday, I would kick when the marching band passed by. She thought it was in protest. She was correct; I prefer music that does not march.

Had humans never made music, we would still have music: the crepuscular song of the crickets, these seven stories cracking and groaning in response to temperature and gravity, the new railroad howling in the distance. All of it music, and all of it heard from my bath.

When I carried Annie, I sometimes would stroll by the Sound, breathe the salty air, and sing lullabies. Annie never kicked - she was not demonstrative - but I knew she could hear me.

No, I knew she listened.

They say whales sing as they swim through the deep, leading their calves to warmer waters. When a whale is born, it goes from one womb to another.

It’s tougher on us terrestrials. Perhaps this is why we flock to the beach.

And take baths.

***

From Mrs. Winchester, or, A Gun in the First Act

by Joe Christiano

Next: The Grand Ballroom