A Widow’s Story: A Memoir. Joyce Carol Oates

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      Vanity of our lives. Vanity of our love for each other, and our marriage.

      Vanity of believing that somehow we own our lives.

      Lines from a Scottish ballad—“The Golden Vanity”—rush into my head. For my brain is unnervingly porous, I have no defense against such invasions—

      There once was a ship

      And she sailed upon the sea.

      And the name of our ship was

      The Golden Vanity.

      There is something faintly taunting, even mocking about these words. I am transfixed listening to them as if under a spell. The words are familiar to me though I have not heard them—I have not thought of them—in a very long time.

      There once was a ship

      And she sailed upon the sea. . . .

      Long ago—as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in 1961—it was my task—it was my pleasurable task—to write a paper on the English and Scottish traditional ballads for a medieval seminar taught by marvelous Helen White, one of only two female professors of English in that largely Harvard-educated, highly conservative department; subsequently, for years of our married life, Ray and I listened to records of ballads, in particular those sung by Richard Dyer-Bennet. It is this singer’s voice that I hear now. Never had it occurred to me—until now—clutching a can of aerosol shaving cream in my hand—that this plainspoken, plaintive Scots ballad has been the very poetry of our lives.

      There once was a ship

      And she sailed upon the sea. . . .

      (Now that “The Golden Vanity” has invaded my thoughts I will not be able to expel it from my mind for days, or weeks; I am helpless to expel such invasions of songs, sometimes a random stanza of poetry, by any conscious effort.)

      Again I think—that is, the thought comes to me—that vague fantasy in which masochism masks fear, horror, terror—how frequently in the past I had consoled myself that, should something happen to Ray, I would not want to outlive him. I could not bear to outlive him! I would take a fatal dose of sleeping pills, or . . .

      How common is this fantasy, I wonder. How many women console themselves with the thought that, should their husbands die, they too might die—somehow?

      It’s a consolation to wives not-yet-widows. It’s a way of stating I love him so much. I am one who loves so very much.

      When he’d been just middle-aged, and not yet an aging, ailing man himself, my father would say in that way of masculine bravado: If I ever get bad as—(referring to an elderly chronically ill and complaining relative)—put me out of my misery!

      But when Daddy grew older he would live for years with myriad illnesses—emphysema, prostate cancer, macular degeneration—and he did not express any desire to die, still less any desire to be put out of my misery.

      For this is the fallacy of such wishes, made in “good health”—truly they will not apply to the person who has uttered them, at a later time.

      So too the prospect of taking sleeping pills at this time is unthinkable. No more than I would escape the cold by flying to Miami tomorrow morning. My responsibility to my husband would not allow such impulsive behavior.

      “Honey? What should I do with these things?”

      Not quite aloud, in a murmur not to be overheard these words are uttered. Of course I know, I know perfectly well that my husband is dead, and will not hear me, still less reply.

      Another habit begun this past week—talking to myself, querying myself. Animated conversations with myself while driving the car. If at home, talking to the cats—in a bright ebullient voice intended to assure the frightened animals that all is well. (It is always allowable, to talk to pets. One may be eccentric but not crazy talking to pets.)

      Here is a fact, I think—I think it is a fact—not once in our forty-seven years, twenty-five days of marriage did I overhear Ray talking to himself. It was rare that Ray muttered to himself—swore, cursed.

      When I return to the hospital room—to Ray’s bedside—I am relieved that no one else is there. I think that there was a nurse here just a moment ago. I think that she told me something, or asked me something, though I don’t remember what it was. I want to cry with relief, she has gone. We are alone.

      Outside Ray’s room in the hospital corridor there is no one. Those five or six medical workers, strangers to me, as to Ray, including the very nice soft-spoken Indian-American woman doctor, have vanished utterly.

      Were these individuals united in their effort—a failed effort, a futile effort—to save my husband’s life? Is there some term for what they are, or were—not a Death Team—though in this case their effort ended in death—a Life-Rescue Team?

      Badly I want to speak with them. I want to ask them what Ray might have said, nearing the end of his life. If he’d been delirious, or—deluded—

      This rash thought, like others, rushes into my head and out of my head and is lost.

      There is something that I must do: make a call. Calls.

      But first, I must gather together Ray’s belongings.

      “Honey? Tell me—what should I do?”

      I am feeling very light-headed. The phone ringing and waking me from that frothy-thin sleep is confused with a ringing in my ears and the taunting lines of the ballad—And she sailed upon the sea and the name of our ship was—I am thinking that Ray so much admired Richard Dyer-Bennet—strange how we’d stopped listening to folk songs, which in the 1960s we’d loved.

      Though there is no one in the hall yet I am conscious of being observed. Very likely, all the nurses on the floor have been alerted—There is a woman in 539. Ray Smith’s wife. Smith died, the wife has come to take away his belongings.

      I have been watching Ray—I have been staring at Ray—I am transfixed, staring at Ray—I am memorizing Ray as he lies on his back beneath a thin sheet, his eyes shut, his recently shaved face smooth and unlined and handsome—and I am thinking—that is, the thought comes to me—that Ray is in fact breathing—but very faintly—or he is about to breathe; his eyelids are quivering, or about to quiver. As in sleep our eyeballs sometimes move as jerkily as in waking life—if we are dreaming, and seeing in the dream—so it seems to me that Ray’s eyeballs are moving, beneath the shut eyelids; it seems to me He is dreaming something. I shouldn’t wake him.

      It’s an instinct you quickly acquire during the hospital vigil, not to disturb a sleeping patient. For in such a place, sleep is precious.

      I shouldn’t disturb Ray of course. Yet—I have to tell him that I’m sorry—I can’t leave this room without trying to explain why I’d come too late—though there is no explanation—“Honey, I’m so sorry. I was just—at home. I was just home, I could have been with you, I—don’t know why. . . . I was asleep. It was a mistake. I don’t understand how—it happened.”

      How faltering my words are, how banal and inane. As I’ve become physically clumsy this past week—there are mysterious bumps, bruises and small cuts on my legs and СКАЧАТЬ