Little Bird of Heaven. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ And my mother’s face looked shiny and swollen and her mouth was greasy with fresh smears of Revlon lipstick as if she’d been expecting company or possibly company had come and departed and that was why there were dishes in the sink and cigarette butts smoldering in the ashtray and an air of frantic unease that felt like a churning in the guts. I was young enough then to react as a child would react—trying to push into my mother’s arms. But my mother was distracted, upset; she had no time for a needy daughter; the ringing phone seemed to stymie her as if she couldn’t recognize its sound. When I moved to pick up the receiver my mother gave a little slap at me: “No, Krista. Not for you. I’ll take it, you go away.”

      SO ABRUPTLY MY FATHER was staying with my uncle Earl Diehl who lived in East Sparta. But Daddy’s things remained at home, most of Daddy’s clothes and Daddy’s tools in his basement workshop and Daddy’s 1975 Willys Jeep he’d been thinking about selling, in the garage.

      Each time the phone rang naturally the thought was This is Daddy!

      But Daddy didn’t call until the next evening when we were just sitting down—late—to a meal already delayed and interrupted by phone calls. In a guarded voice my mother answered and waved for Ben and me to leave the kitchen, which we did, hovering nervously in the living room, and after a few minutes my mother called Ben back—“Your father wants to speak with you, Ben! Hurry up”—and Ben took the receiver from her hand shyly and reluctantly; his face flushed red, all he could murmur was O.K., Dad, yeah I guess so in a voice close to tears. Then it was my turn, I was dry-mouthed and anxious and like Ben stricken with shyness for how strange it was, how wrong-seeming, to be speaking with Daddy on the phone! I don’t think that either Ben or I had ever spoken on the phone before with our father; I was unprepared for my father’s voice so close in my ear—“Is that Puss? That’s my li’l Puss? Is it? My sweet Puss—is it?” I was unable to say anything more than Yes Daddy! Yes Daddy for something seemed to be wrong, there was something wrong with Daddy I could not have identified He’s drunk. Couldn’t get up the courage to call his family except drunk. Unexpectedly I began to cry, I was confused and frightened and out of nowhere began to cry, and Daddy said sharply, “Damn, don’t cry. Krista, don’t you cry. No fucking crying, what the fuck’s your mother been telling you, put your mother on the phone, Krista—”

      What happened after that, I don’t remember. My mother must have taken the receiver from me, the rest of the evening is a blank.

      Hadn’t heard my father’s voice very clearly over the phone and so it came to be a time when I couldn’t hear anyone’s voice very clearly. At school I had difficulty hearing Mrs. Bender. A roaring in my ears like distant thunder. Or in the distance, the roar of one of Daddy’s cars on the Huron Pike Road coming home. On the blackboard—in fact, at our school it was a green board—where chalk-words and numerals melted into one another. My eyes swam in tears. My nose ran. Hunched over my desk desperately wiping my nose with my fingers, shiny wet mucus on my fingers I had to let dry in the air, I’d used up the wad of Kleenex my mother had given me. “Krista? Are you crying? You can tell me, dear.”

      Mrs. Bender stooped to peer at me. Mrs. Bender provided me with fresh tissues. Mrs. Bender asked if I would like to step outside into the hall to speak with her—if I had something to say, I might want to say in private—but I shook my head no. My mother had cautioned me Don’t say anything about Daddy. Never say anything about our lives at home. Never anything to be repeated Krista do you understand?

      Faint and reproachful in my ears were my father’s admonitory words Don’t cry! Krista, don’t you cry! No fucking crying.

      I was shivering so hard, my teeth were chattering. Like a stark-wet-eyed little doll set to shaking. Somehow it had happened that a daughter of Lucille Diehl—Lucille, who took such pride in her household and in her children!—had been allowed to leave the house on a freezing February morning in just a cotton pullover and slacks beneath a winter jacket, my fine limp pale-blond hair badly snarled at the nape of my neck and my skin hot.

      Tenderly Mrs. Bender pressed the back of her cool hand against my forehead.

      “Oh, dear! You’re running a fever.”

      Shivering turned to giggling. Running a fever—how could this be? In the school infirmary the nurse took my temperature with a thermometer thrust beneath my tongue, making me gag. She examined the scummy interior of my mouth and my throat that throbbed with soreness. She and Mrs. Bender conferred in whispers This girl, you know who she is—Diehl?

      It took much of an hour for the nurse to contact my mother on the phone to tell her please come immediately, take your child home she has a temperature of 102° F and seems to be coming down with the flu.

      Coming down with the flu! This expression was used so frequently in Sparta in the winter, it had acquired something of the lilt and innocence of a popular song. Coming down with the flu explained this sick sad collapsing sensation so it wasn’t scary any longer but a hopeful sign, you were just like everyone else.

      “BULLSHIT.”

      This was what Ben said. Sometimes in disgust, sometimes laughingly. Sometimes in a mutter not meant to be overheard and sometimes rudely loud so that my mother and I had no choice but to hear.

      When Mom wouldn’t let us see the newspaper, watch the six o’clock local news or any TV unless she was in the room with us clutching the remote control.

      When Mom took telephone calls upstairs in the bedroom with the door shut against us. When Mom no longer summoned us to the phone, to speak with Daddy. In desperation I appealed to Ben to say why, why was this happening, and Ben had no answer except a shrug—“Bullshit. That’s all it is.”

      I asked Ben what this had to do with Mrs. Kruller being killed and Ben only just repeated in maddening idiocy—“Bullshit. I told you.”

      “What do you mean—‘bullshit’?”

      “I told you, stupid. ‘Bullshit.’”

      I followed Ben around. I pulled at Ben’s arm. Ben slapped at me, shoved me. I was white-faced in desperation, indignation. I repeated my question and finally Ben relented as if taking pity on me.

      “What they’re saying in the news. That Dad is a ‘suspect.’”

      “‘Suspect’—what’s that?”

      “The police are ‘questioning’ Dad about Mrs. Kruller. He’s ‘in custody’—Eddy Diehl is a ‘suspect.’”

      “But—why?”

      Of course I knew what a suspect was. I knew what it meant when a suspect was in police custody. Yet I could not seem to comprehend what this had to do with our father, or with us. I was feeling anxious, vaguely nauseated. I could not comprehend why my brother suddenly hated me.

      “Why? Because they’re assholes, that’s why. These men she was seeing, one of them did it, ‘strangled’ her—‘murdered’ her—and they’re trying to say that Daddy was one of these men, but everybody knows Aaron’s father is the killer, it’s God-damned fucking bullshit, taking Dad into custody.”

      Ben’s face contorted as if he were about to cry and I was frightened that Ben would cry for if Ben cried and I was a witness, Ben would be furious with me, Ben would never forgive me and would hate me even worse than he hated me now. So I said, in a silly-girl voice, like a girl on a TV comedy whose mere presence evokes expectant titters СКАЧАТЬ