Little Bird of Heaven. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ eyes I was still a child when I was certain I had not been a child in a long time.

      “How badly was he drinking? Was it bad?”

      “No.”

      “And he was driving. Was he—drunk?”

      I turned away. I hated this. I would not inform on my father any more than, to my father, I would have informed on my mother.

      We’d blundered out of the warm-lit kitchen of shiny maple wood cupboard doors on brass hinges and a countertop of pumpkin-colored Formica, into a shadowy, always musty-smelling alcove by the stairs to the second floor. As in an aggressive dance my mother seemed to be pushing close to me. Breathing into my face with a smell of something sour, frantic.

      Lucille didn’t drink: but Lucille had her prescription medication with the unpronounceable name: “Diaphra”—something.

      “Where are you going so quickly, Krista? Why are you in such a hurry to get away from me?”

      “Mom, I’m not. I have to use the bathroom. My clothes are wet, I want to change my clothes.”

      “He made you run through the rain? He didn’t even bring you up to the house?”

      “There’s an ‘injunction’ against him, Mom. He’d be arrested, coming onto this property.”

      “He should be arrested, violating the custody agreement. Picking you up at school—I assume that’s what he did—without my permission or knowledge. He should be arrested for drunk driving.”

      I was trying to smile, to placate her. Trying to ease past her without touching her for I feared that her touch would be scalding.

      It was so frequently a surprise to me, a sick-thrilling sort of shock, that my mother was not so tall as she’d once been. For by magic I had grown taller, and more reckless. My hard little breasts were the size of a baby’s fists but the nipples were growing fuller, a deep berry-color, and sensitive; I now wore these breasts tenderly cupped in a white cotton “bra” size 32A. I wore white cotton panties with double-thick crotches. Every four weeks or so I “menstruated”—a phenomenon that filled me with a commingled rage and pride, and anxiety that others—like my mother—would know what my body was doing, what red-earthen-colored seepage it was emitting through a tight little hole between my legs.

      My mother was speaking to me, sharply. I wasn’t able to concentrate. As I stood on one of the lower steps of the stairs, my mother stepped up to stand beside me. This was so weird! This was not right. At school, you’d be nudged away, standing so close; even a best friend.

      In my confusion it seemed almost that my mother had slapped me, or—someone had slapped me. Or—had someone kissed me hard at the edge of my mouth? A man’s whiskery-scratchy kiss that had stung.

      What I wanted was: to get away from this woman, to contemplate that kiss. To draw strength from that kiss. To observe my heated face in a mirror, seeing if that kiss had left a mark.

       Love ya, Puss! You know that eh?

       Your old man has let you down, you and your brother, but your old man will make it up, sweetie. You know that eh?

      Yes it was so, Daddy “drank.” But what man did not drink? No man of my acquaintance in Sparta, no man among my father’s relatives, did not drink except one or two who’d been forbidden alcohol since alcohol would now kill them.

       Tell your mother I love her. That will never change.

      “—I have now, you and your brother. Don’t roll your eyes at me, Krista, it’s so. You are my family—you are precious to me. He doesn’t love you, he’s just using you to get back at me. ‘Vengeance is mine, saieth the Lord’—this was some old joke of your father’s, he and his brothers would laugh about. The Diehls are all good haters. They’re good enemies. They aren’t trustworthy husbands, fathers, friends—but they’re very good enemies.” My mother paused, having made this familiar declaration: many times I’d heard it, from both my mother and from her (female) relatives. “He picked you up at school, yes? It’s dangerous to drive with a drinker, Krista. You know he’s been arrested for DUI—I wish they’d revoked his license forever. He has hurt others terribly, he will hurt you. He has hurt you, but you pretend not. Can’t you understand, Krista, the man is an adulterer. It wasn’t just me he betrayed, he betrayed all of us. And you know—he hurt that woman. He is a—”

      I pushed free of her, with a little cry. I would not let her utter that terrible word murderer.

      As I dared to push past my mother she lost control and slapped me: twice, hard, on the side of my head. It was rare that Lucille behaved like this—rare in recent years—for she wasn’t “Mrs. Edward Diehl” any longer but had reverted to “Lucille Bauer” which was her prim girlhood name, a name of which she appeared to be proud; and Lucille Bauer, like all the Bauers, disapproved of displays of weakness in herself, as in others.

      Yet her coppery eyes were fierce, she was trying to hug me in an iron grip, pin my arms against my sides. You hear of out-of-control children, autistic children, being “hugged” in such vises, for their own good. The sensation was terrible to me, terrifying. I could not bear it. I could not bear my mother’s sour breath. A smell of her intimate flesh, her powdery-talcumy-plump body, the feeling of her large soft breasts nudging against me, her surprisingly strong fingers…“Let me go! I hate you.” Terrified I ran up the stairs, stumbling and near-falling; and then I did fall, and scraped my knee, pushed myself up again immediately like a panicked animal, running from a predator. It is said that a panicked animal’s strength increases double—or triple-fold and so panic-strength coursed through me, an adrenaline kick to the heart.

      To be touched—claimed—by my mother in one of her moods of possession! I knew that I was expected to be passive, meek and childlike in her embrace, this had once been peace between us, this had once been love, Mommy’s little Krissie who has been naughty but now forgiven and safe in Mommy’s arms protected from Daddy’s loud voice and heavy footsteps and Daddy’s unpredictable ways, all that is unknowable and unpredictable in maleness, but I was resisting her now, I would not ever be meek and childlike in this woman’s arms, never again.

      It was wounding to us both, lacerating. I would feel that my heart had been torn. Yet I was resolute, unyielding. I would not call back to her, not the most careless words of apology. Stumbling into my darkened room I slammed the door. Behind me on the stairs was the furious aggrieved voice:

      “You disgust me, Krista! You’re deceitful, you will turn out like him—betraying those who love you.”

      For there is nothing worse than betrayal, is there? Not even murder.

       3

      HE WOULD SAY I am innocent you know that don’t you?

      And I would say Yes Daddy.

      But it was never enough of course. The fervent belief, the unquestioning love of a child for her father—this may be precious to the father but it can’t ever be enough for him.

      To claim—to claim repeatedly—that you are innocent of what it is claimed by others that you have done, or might have СКАЧАТЬ