The Accursed. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ young women were following Todd and Thor into the forest, at a little distance. By degrees their conversation was shifting into a tone compatible with sun-dappled shade, or shadow, as they left the open sky behind. Willy said that she was feeling just a little hurt, that Annabel wasn’t more confiding in her; after all, she had confided in Annabel many times, since they’d become “fast friends” in fifth grade at the Princeton Academy for Girls. “To whom would you speak, Annabel, if not to me, your closest friend?”

      Annabel laughed. Without mirth, and with an air of vexation.

      “Why, maybe with your aunt Adelaide, of whom such things are said, of an ‘accident’ on her honeymoon.”

      “My aunt Adelaide? But why?”

      “Because—such things are said of her. And of the ‘accident’ on her honeymoon.”

      “Why do you speak of it?—no one knows what happened. At least, I don’t. Within our family, such things are not spoken of.”

      “What I don’t understand, Willy, is: was there an accident in travel, or at an inn where the honeymoon couple was staying? And the ‘accident’ has been irrevocable?”

      “An ‘accident,’ it has always been said, of an ‘unspecified sort.’ I believe it happened in Bermuda, or on the cruise ship bound for Bermuda.”

      “And so, your aunt Adelaide is both a ‘married woman’—and yet, in many respects, a mere ‘girl’—not so much older than we are, in essence. And her figure is unaltered, for she has not borne children. And she and her husband are so very close, it’s said—they remain a romantic couple.”

      “Yes, so it’s said. I find it difficult to talk to Horace, however—as he, with me.”

      “So that one doesn’t know if Adelaide Burr has suffered a kind of tragedy,” Annabel said, musing, “or a kind of blessing.”

      All this while, Annabel was turning the diamond heirloom engagement ring on her finger, where it fitted her loosely.

      For several minutes the young women walked together, in a brooding silence; though ahead, Todd was shouting to Thor, and Thor was barking; and there came wafting out of the interior of the forest a subtle brackish odor, where the land sank into a sort of bog.

      “Todd? Where have you got to?”—so Annabel called, without much expectation that her young cousin would answer her.

      More quickly the young women walked now. There was a sort of path into the woods, which gradually broadened, to spread out in all directions, soft, yielding, and springy beneath their feet. Willy exclaimed how delightful it was, to walk here—“It feels as if I am floating, weightless.”

      Annabel laughed, startled. “Yes—‘weightless.’ ”

      But something was catching at the hem of Annabel’s shirtwaist, and at the petticoats beneath. To her dismay she saw that the hem of her pretty blue-striped dress was both torn and soiled; the undersides of her frilly white petticoats were quite filthy. With a little sob she brushed at the dirt, then let her skirt fall back into place and said, as if the thought had only just struck her, “Please don’t think that I am crazy, Willy—and please don’t repeat this—but I’ve often wondered why it is that sisters and brothers can’t continue to live together, after they are grown; not eccentric old bachelors and old maids, but—perfectly normal people! Why is it, the world so insists upon marriage? Since I was a girl of twelve, I swear my mother has thought of little else, for me; every female relative in the family has been plotting. When I’d hoped to be a children’s book writer, or illustrator, or artist—that was all they said to me: maybe, after you are married, and have your own children, you can take up a ‘hobby’ like that. But no boy or young man who wants to be a writer or an artist—or a musician, or a scientist—is told that he should take it up as a hobby, why is that?”

      “For the same reason that we are not ‘allowed’ to vote. We are but second-class citizens, though residents of the same United States of America as our brothers.”

      “Father has explained, female suffrage is ‘redundant’—a woman will vote as her husband votes, or, out of willfulness, she will vote against his vote, thus canceling it. In either event, the female vote is wasted.”

      “Hardly! We will want to try it, first.”

      “But why is it, sisters and brothers are not encouraged to live together? Entire families might live together, as they used to do, in the past? I will feel so—alone—strangely alone—with just Dabney; as he will feel alone with me, I think. And, as you know, there is no one quite like Josiah, for getting along with people—at least, with me. We have no need even to talk, much of the time; we are quite happy being quiet together. Whereas, with Dabney, there is a need to be always talking—nervously . . . Which leads me to wonder,” Annabel said, in a rapid low voice, “why it must be, we marry strangers, and dwell apart from our loved ones. D’you know, my cousin Eleanora, who lives in Wilmington, was married a few years ago, and nearly died giving birth to a husky big boy, for she’d had rheumatic fever as a child, and her heart had been strained; and it’s said, she and her husband live together now as sister and brother, and no one feels obliged to criticize them. Yet it seems, if an actual sister and brother, related by blood, were to establish an independent household, society would look upon them with much disapproval, and disdain. How unjust, Willy, and how illogical!—do you agree?”

      Willy murmured a feeble assent. (For she did not like the drift of this conversation, or its one-sided vehemence.) Adding, with girlish wistfulness: “Only think, we three might all live together, in such a household, if we’d lived in a happier time—for instance, at Fruitlands, or Oneida, or in the Shaker community. Why can’t ‘sister and brother’ be expanded to include ‘sisters and brothers’ in the plural?—there being no harm, surely, in that.”

      So, Willy had spoken: brashly, recklessly, and irrevocably!

      Feeling the need now to press her hands against her warm cheeks, to cool and soothe; for she had grown unpleasantly warm, in the sun-splotched shade of the forest, with its damp, springy forest-bed; her hair felt disagreeably damp, coarse as a horse’s hair, at the nape of her neck. And why had she thought her “Turkish trousers” so chic, that were now stippled with burdocks, and muddied at the hem?

      The young women paused, and Annabel plucked at the burdocks on her friend’s clothing, as on her own. Gnats, mosquitoes, and tiny stinging blackflies had begun to swarm, in the forest interior. Fretfully Annabel said: “Yes, Willy—you are right. Yet, it is too late—for me. I have fallen in love and am damned—I belong now to another, in body as well as spirit—and neither Josiah, nor the dashing Lieutenant, can save me: not even you, dear Wilhelmina.”

      IT WAS AT this moment that the young women made their discovery, that Todd and Thor were nowhere in sight; though the boy’s shouts and laughter, and the dog’s wild barking, seemed to be echoing from all directions of the forest.

      Annabel led the way deeper into the forest, calling her cousin’s name; then, faltering, she surrendered the lead to Willy, who led them in another direction, calling out: “Todd! You are very bad! Why are you hiding from us? Come out at once!”

      After some stressful minutes, as the young women made their way ever more deeply into a soft, sinking, bog-like part of the forest, into which Stony Brook Creek evidently emptied, at last they sighted Todd at the same moment, in a sort of clearing, in which gigantic logs lay in a jumbled profusion; the logs being ossified, it seemed, and formidable as fallen monuments. СКАЧАТЬ