The Sacrifice. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ a single man in Kahola’s life but numerous men. Ada was too free to make decisions of her own, too reckless. It was the price of her female independence and a certain stiffness, resentment even, about inhabiting a fleshy female body. Oh, she was frightened now. But damn if she’d turn back. She cupped her hands to her mouth and called: “Hello? Is anybody there?”

      The cries seemed to be coming from the factory cellar. Bad enough to be inside the nasty fish-factory, but—in the cellar! There were steps leading down, a door that had been forced open years ago. Everywhere was filth, storm debris and mud. Ada drew a deep breath and held it.

      She thought—It’s only a cat. A trapped starving cat.

      A wounded cat.

      Planning how she would trap the cat—in a box?—somehow—and take it to an animal shelter.

      (But how practical was that? The shelter would euthanize the cat. Better to keep the cat.)

      (But she couldn’t keep the cat! No room for a scrawny diseased alley cat in their place already too small and cramped for the people who lived there.)

      It was 8:20 A.M. It was a bright cool Sunday morning in October. Ada Furst would recall how she made her way into the cellar down a flight of steps littered with broken glass and pieces of concrete as she continued to call in a quavering voice—“Hello? Hello?” A pale, porous light penetrated the gloom, barely.

      The cry came louder. Desperate.

      Ada blinked into the shadows. Ada took cautious steps. She could hear someone whispering Help me help me help me.

      Then she saw: the girl.

      The girl was lying on the filthy floor in the cellar not far from the entrance, on her side facing Ada, on a strip of tarpaulin, as if she’d been dragged partway beneath a machine. She appeared to be tied, wrists and ankles, behind her back. It looked as if there’d been a wadded rag in her mouth, she’d managed to spit out. And around the girl’s head was a cloth or a rag she’d worked partway off. Her hair was matted with mud and something very smelly—feces? Ada began to gag. Ada began to scream.

      “Oh God. Oh God! My God.”

      A girl of thirteen, or fourteen. On the filthy floor, she looked like a child.

      Ada was stricken with horror believing that the girl was dying: she would be a witness to the girl’s death. She’d wasted so much time—she’d come too late—the girl was shivering uncontrollably, as if convulsing. Ada crouched over her, hardly daring to touch her. Where were her injuries? Was she having a seizure? Ada had a confused sense of blood—a good deal of blood—on the tarpaulin, and on the floor. It seemed to her that the girl had been mutilated somehow. The girl’s bones had been broken, her spine deformed. Ada would swear to this. She would swear she’d seen this. Certainly the girl’s face was swollen, her eyes blackened and bruised. Dark blood had coagulated at her nose, that looked as if it had been broken. How young the girl seemed, hardly more than a child! Her clothing was torn and bloody. Her small breasts were bared, covered in a sort of filthy scribbling. Cruelly her legs were drawn up behind her back, hog-tied.

      Ada was telling the girl she was here, now. She would take care of her, now. The girl would be all right.

      “Is it—Sybilla? Sybilla Frye?”

      Feebly the girl tried to free herself, moaning. Ada pulled at the ropes binding her wrists and her ankles, which were thin ropes, like clothesline—tugged at them until a knot came loose and she could lift the girl in her arms, into a partially sitting position on the filthy tarpaulin. The stench of dog shit was overwhelming. The girl was shivering in terror. Saying what sounded like They say they gon come back an kill me—don let em kill me! When Ada tried to lift her farther, out of the filth on the tarpulin, the girl began to squirm and fight her, panting. She seemed not to know who Ada was. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She fell back heavily, as if lifeless. Ada would not wonder at how readily the knotted rope had come loose, at this time. Ada was begging the girl: “Don’t die! Oh—don’t die!”

       Yes I saw she was Sybilla Frye. I saw that right away.

      Ada Furst ran stumbling and screaming for help.

      A first-floor resident in her building called 911.

      An ambulance from St. Anne’s Hospital, two miles away on the other side of the river, arrived in sixteen minutes.

      The first query on the street would be—She goin to live?

      Then—Who done this to that girl?

       “White Cop”

      OCTOBER 7, 1987

      Jesus help me

      Say they gon kill me, I tell anybody Dear Jesus help me, they hurt me so bad and they will do worse they say next time my mama they gon hurt bad an my lit sister an any nigra they find where I live, they told me they will murder us all

      They was hopin I would die, they leave me in this place to die sayin you be eaten by beetles nasty black cunt you deserve to die you are SO UGLY

      Thought I heard say there was other dead nigras in this place they was laughin about where they drag me thinkin I would not live this like cellar-place they say, you will die here an beetles eat you only just bones left nobody gon recognize by the time those beetles finish with you

      They had white faces an one of them a badge like a cop would wear or a state trooper an they had guns an one of them, he put that gun barrel up inside me and it hurt so bad I was crying so bad they said Nigra cunt you stop that bawlin, we gon pull this trigger an all yo’ insides gon come splashin out your ugly nappy head

      And they laugh, laugh some more

      All the time they be laughin like they are high on somethin smokin crack, I could smell

      The Pis’cyne cops they con-fis-cu-ate the crack an smoke it for themselves, why they are crazy to kill black people they white bosses tell them, you give us our percent of the money we be OK how you behave

      Grabbed me from behind where I was walkin from school in the alley behind the car wash on Camden some kind of canvas they pulled down over my head like a hood and I was screamin but couldn’t get free to breathe Thought I would die an was cryin Mama! Mama! till they stuffed a rag in my mouth near to choking me O Jesus

      It was in the back of a van it was a police van, I think there was a siren they were laughin to use a cop can use a siren any time he wishes they drove to underneath the bridge I could hear the echo up under the bridge I could recognize that sound like when we were little and played there, and put our hands to our mouths and called up under the bridge and it was like pigeons cooing and the echo coming back and the water lapping except now, I could not hear any echo the white men were laughin at me took turns kicking and beating and strangling me raped me like with they guns and fingers sayin they would not put their pricks in a dirty nasty disease nigra cunt they jerked themselves off onto my face that’s what they done they said, swallow that, you ignorant nigra bitch how many times how many of them they was who hurt me, I could not see I thought five, maybe five—their faces were white faces—there was a badge this one was wearin, shiny spit-in-your-face СКАЧАТЬ