Sourland (5 page)

Rhonda laughed. Rhonda's mouth was a sneer. Rhonda knew better than to draw attention to herself, however—though Daddy loved his
sweet little pretty girl
Daddy could be harsh and hurtful if Daddy was displeased with his
sweet little pretty girl
so Rhonda fixed for herself a very thick sandwich of Swedish rye crisp crackers and French goat cheese to devour in the corner of the room looking out onto a bleak rain-streaked street not wanting to think how Daddy knew, yes Daddy knew but did not care. That was the terrible fact about Daddy—he knew, and did not care. A nasty fat worm had burrowed up inside Daddy making him proud of silly Brooke speaking of him in such a tender voice, and so falsely; the
stepmother
who was so much younger and more beautiful than Rhonda's mother.

 

Here was the strangest thing: when Rhonda was living away from them all, and vastly relieved to be away, but homesick too especially for the drafty old house on Broadmead Road where she'd been a little girl and Mommy and Daddy had loved her so. When Rhonda was a freshman at Stanford hoping to major in molecular biology and she'd returned home for the first time since leaving home—for Thanksgiving—to the house on Winant Drive. And there was a family Thanksgiving a mile away at the Hodge Road house of elderly Mrs. Hay to which numerous people came of whom Rhonda knew only a few—and cared to know only a few—mainly Madeleine and Drex of course—there was the disconcerting appearance of Drex's brother Edgar from Chevy Chase, Maryland—identified as an
identical twin
though the men more resembled just brothers than twins. Edgar Hay was said to be a much wealthier man than Drex—his business was pharmaceuticals, in the D.C. area; Drex's business was something in
investments
, his office was on Route One, West Windsor. The Hay twin-brothers were in their late sixties with similar chalky scalps visible through quills of wetted hair and bulbous noses tinged with red like perpetual embarrassment but Edgar was heavier than Drex by ten or fifteen pounds, Edgar's eyebrows were white-tufted like a satyr's in an old silly painting and maddeningly he laughed approaching Rhonda with extended arms—
Hel-lo! My sweet li'l step-niece happy Turkey-Day!
—brushing his lips dangerously close to Rhonda's startled mouth, a rubbery-damp sensation Rhonda thought like being kissed by a large squirmy worm. (
Call me Ed-gie
he whispered wetly in Rhonda's ear
That's what the pretty girls call me.
) And Madeleine who might have observed this chose to ignore it for Madeleine was already mildly drunk—long before dinner—and poor Drex—sunken-chested, sickly pale and thinner since his heart attack in August in high-altitude Aspen, Colorado, clearly in some way resentful of his “twin” brother—reduced to lame jokes and stammered asides in Edgar's presence. And there was Rhonda restless and miserable wishing she hadn't come back home for Thanksgiving—for she'd have to return again within just a few weeks,
for Christmas—yet more dreading the long holiday break—wishing she had something useful to do in this house—she'd volunteered to help in the kitchen but Mrs. Hay's cook and servers clearly did not want her—she'd have liked to hide away somewhere and call her roommate Jessica in Portland, Oregon, but was fearful she might break down on the phone and give away more of her feelings for Jessica than Jessica had seemed to wish to receive from Rhonda just yet…And there was Rhonda avoiding the living room where Hay relatives were crowded together jovial and overloud—laughing, drinking and devouring appetizers—as bratty young children related to Rhonda purely through the accident of a marital connection whose names she made no attempt to recall ran giggling through a forest of adult legs. Quickly Rhonda shrank back before her mother sighted her, or the elderly white-haired woman who insisted that Rhonda call her “Grandma”—sulkily making her way along a hall, into the glassed-in room at the rear of the house where Mrs. Hay kept potted plants—orchids, African violets, ferns. Outside, the November air was suffused with moisture. The overcast sky looked like a tin ceiling. A few leaves remained on deciduous trees, scarlet-bright, golden-yellow, riffled by wind and falling and sucked away even as you stared. To Rhonda's dismay there was her stepfather's brother—Drex's twin—wormy-lipped Edgar—engaged in telling a story to a Hay relative, a middle-aged woman with a plump cat-face to whom Drex had introduced Rhonda more than once but whose name Rhonda couldn't recall. Edgar was sprawled on a white wicker sofa with his stocky legs outspread, the woman in a lavender silk pants suit was seated in a matching chair—both were drinking—to her disgust and dismay Rhonda couldn't help but overhear what was unmistakably some crude variant of the story of the stabbing of long ago—narrated in Edgar's voice that managed to suggest a lewd repugnance laced with bemusement, as the cat-faced woman blinked and stared open-mouthed as in a mimicry of exaggerated feminine concern
My brother's crazy wife she'd driven into Manhattan Christ knows why Maddie'd been some kind of hippie fem-ist my brother says those days she'd been married to one of the Commie
profs at the University here and so, sure enough Maddie runs into trouble, this was before Giuliani cleaned up the city, just what you'd predict the stupid woman runs into something dangerous a gang of Nigra kids jumping a white man right out on the street—in fact it was Fifth Avenue down below the garment district—it was actual Fifth Avenue and it was daylight crazy “Made-line” she calls herself like some snooty dame in a movie came close to getting her throat cut—which was what happened to the poor bastard out on the street—in the paper it said he'd been decapitated, too—and the Nigra kids see our Madeline gawking at them through the windshield of her car you'd think the dumb-ass would've known to get the hell out or crouch down and hide at least
—as Rhonda drew nearer her young heart beating in indignation waiting for her stepfather's brother to take notice of her. It was like a clumsy TV scene! It was a scene improbable and distasteful yet a scene from which Rhonda did not mean to flee, just yet. For she'd come here, to Princeton. For she could have gone to her father's house in Cambridge, Massachusetts—of course she'd been invited, Brooke herself had called to invite her, with such forced enthusiasm, such cheery family-feeling, Rhonda had felt a stab of pure loneliness, dread.
There is no one who loves me or wants me. If I cut my throat on the street who would care. Or bleed out in a bathtub or in the shower with the hot water running…

So she'd had a vision of her life, Rhonda thought. Or maybe it was a vision of life itself.

Not that Rhonda would ever cut her throat—of course! Never. That was a vow.

Not trying to disguise her disgust, for what she'd heard in the doorway and for Edgar Hay sprawling fatuous-drunk. The ridiculous multi-course Thanksgiving dinner hadn't yet been brought to the dining room table, scarcely 5:30
P.M.
and already Edgar Hay was drunk. Rhonda stood just inside the doorway waiting for Edgar's stabbing-story to come to an end. For maybe this would be the end?—maybe the story of the stabbing would never again be told, in Rhonda's hearing? Rhonda would confront Edgar Hay who'd then gleefully report back to Drex and Madeleine how rude their daughter was—how unattract
ive, how
ungracious
—for Rhonda was staring, unsmiling—bravely she approached the old man keeping her voice cool, calm, disdainful
O.K then—what happened to the stabbed man? Did he die? Do you know for a fact he died? And what happened to the killer—the killers—the killer with the knife—was anyone ever caught? Was anyone ever punished, is anyone in prison right now?
And Edgar Hay—“Ed-gie”—looked at Rhonda crinkling his pink-flushed face in a lewd wink
How the hell would I know, sweetheart? I wasn't there.

M
idday, early spring, sunshine in steel bars flashing on the river, she drove to meet him where he'd summoned her. Wind swept in roiling gusts from the Canadian shore.

Suburban life: appointments! Mornings, afternoons. And then the children's appointments. Dentist, orthodontist. Gynecologist, hair salon, yoga. Architect, community relations forum, library fund-raiser for which she's a committee co-chair, flattered to be invited, yet uneasy. Suburban life: each calendar day is a securely barred window, you shove up the window and grasp the bars, grip the bars tight, these are bars that confine but also protect, what pleasure in shaking them!

My appointments this afternoon, she'd told them. Two o'clock, then three, after the library I must drive downtown.

It was a journey: downtown. Twelve miles south and east on the thunderous expressway.

She drove without haste. She drove like a woman already fatally stricken, resigned. She drove at a wavering speed, in the right lane. Calm as a woman in a dream the outcome of which she already knows though in fact she did not know
What will happen? I will never go through with this—will I?

She didn't think so. It would be her first time, she hadn't such courage.

Out of the leafy suburbs north of the Midwestern city she drove. Massive vehicles passed on the left, her station wagon shuddered in their wake. The nape of her neck was bare, her pale hair swung in scissor-cut wings about her face. Suburban villages were passing beyond the six-foot chain-link fence above the expressway, barely visible from the highway that seemed to be sucking her into it, by degrees downhill in the direction of the river, what was called, as if it were a self-contained place, City Center.

The air was clamorous, like an argument among strangers you can't quite hear. It was a gusty April, not yet Easter. There was something she meant to remember: Easter. Something about the children. Her skin burned in anticipation of him.

He was her friend, she wished to think. He'd touched her only once. The imprint of his fingers on her forearm was still visible to her, in secret.

The station wagon was a new model, handsome and gleaming and paneled in wood. A sturdy vehicle, in the rear strewn with children's things. Still, gusts of wind rocked it, she gripped the steering wheel tight. Such wind! In their hillside house in Bloomfield Heights that was an old fieldstone Colonial wind whistled in the chimneys, rattled the windows with a furtive sound like something trying to get in. Doors were blown open by the wind, or blown shut with a crash. Oh Mommy! their five-year-old daughter cried. The ghost!

My appointment downtown, she'd told Ismelda who had her cell phone number in any case.
Should anything happen. Should you need me. You can pick up the children at the usual door, at their school. I will be back by five-thirty, I'm sure.

Five-thirty! This was a statement, a pledge. She wondered should she tell him, as soon as she stepped inside the door.

I can't stay long. I will have to leave by.

It was astonishing to her, how the city began to emerge out of a muddle of wood-frame houses, aged tenements, flat-topped roofs and debris-strewn pavement. Suddenly in the distance, two or three miles ahead, were a number of high-rise buildings, some of them quite impressive. City Center was ahead, a narrow peninsula at the tip of downtown, on the restored riverfront: Renaissance Plaza. She would exit there.

The city had once been a great Midwestern city, before a catastrophic “race riot” in 1967. Since then, the white population had gradually declined, like air escaping from a balloon.

I won't have the courage, I'm not a reckless woman. I will only just talk to him. I will tell him…

The next exit was City Center. Last Exit Before Tunnel to Canada. Her heart quickened like the heart of a creature sensing danger though not knowing from which direction danger will spring.

…I want you as a friend. Someone in whom I can…

She'd driven the children to school that morning, as she did most mornings. Mommy in a bulky car coat. She had been married for nine years. That morning the children had been unusually fretful, tugging at her. Mommy! Mom-
my
! That sound of reproach in a child's voice, your heart is lacerated. It was a summons to her blood, she could not resist. The children adored her, they were insatiable. Perhaps they sensed something. The little girl was in kindergarten, the little boy in second grade. Mommy kiss-kiss! She laughed, she was wounded by their beauty that seemed to her fragile like something tiny that has fallen from its nest, or something that has been expelled from its shell, its protective armor.

She shuddered with the knowledge, Mommy was their protective armor. She was not wearing the bulky car coat now but a coat of soft black cashmere with a blank mink collar, that fell in loose folds about her slender legs.

In the rearview mirror above the windshield her face gleamed pale as a moon. Fine lines at the corners of her eyes not visible in the glass. She smiled, uneasy. For a long time she'd been one of the young wives, one of the younger mothers, now no longer. She thought
I am a beautiful woman, I have a right to be loved.

Lying beside her heavily sleeping husband, nights in succession for nine years. She could not remember their first time together, it seemed as if they had always known each other, as children perhaps. Her husband was a man who shook hands forcefully, looked you in the eye. A man you could trust. A man you wanted to know. She had seen him look appraisingly at women, she'd seen the way women looked at him. He was careless, there was something imperial about him, he was a six-foot boy, confident of being admired. He was a man who could not love her quite so much as she loved him, he'd admitted this. Even in wounding her, saying such a thing, he seemed to be granting a blessing, tossing gold coins at her.

In all marriages there is the imbalance: one who loves more than the other. One who licks wounds in secret, the rust-taste of blood.

Now she was no longer on the expressway, she was uncertain where to turn. The streets of the City Center were narrow, one-way, congested with delivery trucks. A dying city, why was there so much traffic? She could see the gleaming tower of the hotel that was her destination. She could not possibly get lost in a maze of streets, so close to the hotel! She regretted she hadn't left home earlier. Her pride in not having left home earlier. She had stared at the clock mesmerized, she had held herself back. Then calmly telling Ismelda: I have an appointment, downtown. I will be back by. Her eyes shone like the eyes of one unaccustomed to emotion, taking care not to stammer.

In this season of their marriage, her husband often returned home
late. He was an enormously busy man, he had both an assistant and a secretary. He had business luncheons, dinners. He was in New York City, in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles. Yet he was one of the younger men in his firm, his elders looked upon him with admiration and approval. The children loved Daddy emptying his pockets for them, pennies and nickels, dimes. She was fearful of lying to this man, he might hear the quaver in her voice with indifference.

She had turned the station wagon in to a parking garage. She was beginning to be anxious. She would be late meeting him, she had no idea if he would wait for her. He was not a man accustomed to waiting for women, she supposed. He was not a resident of this city, he came here on business. Though perhaps it wasn't business as her husband might identify it. He appeared to have money, he appeared to be unmarried, not a father. She tried to recall his eyes, if they were brown, if they were dark, she could recall only the impact of his eyes, the heavy lids, the carved-looking face, a singular face, one she'd felt she had recognized, that left her weak to contemplate. She could not have said his middle name: did not know exactly how to spell his surname. (Perhaps—she had to concede this!—she didn't know his actual name.) What he'd said to her, she could not recall except it had made her laugh initially, with a kind of visceral shock, and then it had made her weak. He'd told her he stayed at the new hotel by the river, where there was a heliport. The governor of the state was flown to the city, often. They'd been cadets together out in Colorado.

It was a torment to her, in her agitated state: navigating the damned station wagon, looking for a parking space, turning the clumsy vehicle around tight turns, ascending to the next parking level, and to the next. Was this a joke, a comedy! Was her life a farce, others might observe with scorn! Yet she managed to find a place to park, always you manage somehow. She locked the station wagon, a chill wind blowing at her face, her legs. Tugging at her black cashmere coat, like teasing fingers. Then in the slow clanking elevator descending to street level, ugly graffiti at which she could not look. She was thinking
This is a mistake
of course.
In the hilly suburban village in which she lived there was no graffiti.

If you don't mind a married woman, she'd joked with him. Her voice had been bold, wistful. He'd only laughed.

It was a windy walk to the Renaissance Plaza by the river. A fierce white sun, though half the sky was massed storm clouds. So close to the great Midwestern lake north of the city, the sky was likely to be unpredictable, one hour to the next. There was sun, later there might be sleet, then a warm rain. The Plaza was elevated above the street, there were numerous steps, revolving doors. There was a symphony hall, there were restaurants, high-rise apartment buildings, a luxury hotel. Limousines, airport shuttle buses moving slowly forward. At once she began to feel more at home, doormen recognized women like her, bellboys, security guards. If she was not a guest at the hotel, she resembled its guests. Good day, ma'am! the uniformed men called to her. They were dusky-skinned like Ismelda, their smiles flashed white. She was a beautiful woman, at a distance you saw this. A beautifully sculpted black coat, black fur collar. Her shoes were expensive, her leather gloves. She wore dark glasses she'd fumbled to slip onto her face. She carried a leather handbag, finely stitched. The uniformed doorman smiled at her as she passed into the revolving door, in the corner of her eye she saw his smile begin to fade immediately, she felt his scorn for her, she had to be mistaken.

She could be a guest here certainly! More likely, she was meeting friends for a late lunch. A business lunch, she was a woman who belonged to numerous committees. Her father served on corporate boards, he was a trustee of his former university, both her parents were civic-minded, responsible. Only this once she would be unfaithful to her husband, and to her children, it would never happen again.

He, the man, was to be in room 2133. She did not think of him as an individual with a name, she did not think his name to herself, only just
he
,
him
. Without apparent haste or agitation she crossed to the bank of elevators, sleek glass cubicles that lifted and fell soundlessly through the
immense open space of the hotel's atrium. At midday the hotel lobby was crowded, festive. There was a convention of hairstylists, another of radiologists. There was recorded harp music. There were terraces of Easter lilies, tulips. Potted ferns the size of small trees. A noisily trickling fountain. Like a woman in a spell she stepped into the glass elevator, she was sucked up into the interior of the hotel as if into a vacuum. Still she was thinking
I can turn back at any time.

How distant her other life seemed to her, where she was Mommy.

That morning the children had behaved strangely, as if sensing her mood. She'd laid her hand against their foreheads that seemed slightly overwarm, damp. The little girl had been fretful, uncooperative while being dressed. The little boy had complained of bad dreams. She would keep them home, she thought. For April, it was such a raw wet windy day. She and Ismelda and the children would make Easter eggs as they'd done the year before. Yet somehow she'd hurried them through breakfast, she'd driven them to school as usual. If they came down with colds, if they had fevers that evening, it would be her fault.

Ismelda had been born in Manila, she belonged to an evangelical sect called the Church of the Risen Christ. In her small room on the third floor of the stone house Ismelda played Christian rock music.

He was to be in room 2133. He'd left a message for her just that morning. Breathless she hurried along the corridor. Underfoot was a thick carpet, rosy as the interior of a lung. The far end of the corridor seemed to dissolve in haze. Closed doors, no movement or sound. On the doorknob of room 2133 was
DO NOT DISTURB
. Hesitantly she knocked on the door. He would not open it, there was no one inside. She was faint with yearning, dread.

The door opened inward, he was there.

He laughed at her, the expression in her face. He spoke words she couldn't hear. His arms pulled her inside, the door was shut behind her. He wore trousers, a white undershirt. Hair lay in damp dark tendrils on his forehead, like seaweed. The ridge of bone above his eyes was
prominent. He was heavier than she recalled, she was trying to speak his name.

 

…
my happiness is my children, my husband. My marriage. My family. My happiness is not myself but
…

 

It was mid-afternoon, the tall windows were open to the sky. A spangle of sunshine like gold coins against the ceiling. He returned from the bathroom, his face was shadowed. He knelt above her. He straddled her. Their skins slapped wetly together. He laughed into her face, his teeth were bared. She began to plead no, I don't think…He was gripping her throat that was so beautiful. His thumbs caressed the arteries beneath her jaw. Beneath her makeup, her skin was wearing through. She began to move in protest, she was a beautiful scaly snake. She was firm-fleshed as a snake, lithe and pained. She was having difficulty breathing. Her eyes were open and stark showing a rim of white above the iris. Her wristwatch and rings had been removed, as before surgery. Her bracelet. On the table beside the bed. She was lost, she had no idea where she was. Her cries were torn from her, like blows. He was not squeezing her throat, only just caressing, forcibly, rhythmically. He was deep inside her, even as his large hands held her throat, he moved deeper, her body had no defense against him. He was unhurried, methodical. He had been a fighter pilot in an earlier lifetime. As a young man he had dropped bombs onto the earth, onto cities. At a distance he had killed. He had not told her this exactly but she knew. He had not done these things by himself, others had performed with him, he was one of many though he'd been alone in the cockpit of his plane as he was alone now inside his skin. His thumbs released their pressure on her arteries, the relief was immediate and enormous. Breath rushed into her lungs, she could have wept with gratitude. The wish to live flooded into her, she adored this man who gave her back her life. In a flat bemused voice he was saying, You like this. You like this. You like this.