The Sacrifice

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Sybilla mumbled an inaudible reply.

  “We are going to identify ‘Jerold Zahn’—we will come to Pascayne PD headquarters immediately.”

  Sybilla was staring at the photograph in the paper. A white boy, looked like a nice boy, even if he was some kind of cop—“rookie.” There were white guys Sybilla knew, fair-skinned, part Anglo from the Islands so you couldn’t tell if they were Puerto Rican or Jamaican or—whatever. This boy didn’t look much like them with his white-looking hair. A certain kind of older fair-skinned boy like in high school or older, observing Sybilla Frye like he’d kind of like her. They weren’t all nasty.

  There were streets in Red Rock in an outlying district where some of them lived. She’d wanted to make that clear. In the interviews, where Sybilla sat silent beside Reverend Mudrick while he answered questions, she’d wanted to interrupt sometimes and explain that “white cops” had hurt her but she didn’t hate all “white” people—she did not.

  She’d had teachers . . .

  And this boy, looked like he’d shot himself with his gun. That had to be sad.

  “Nah, this ain’t him, Rev’end. The one that did it was like older . . .”

  “Sybilla, look again. Take your time.”

  “This ain’t him, Rev’end.”

  Sybilla’s voice was beginning to quaver. Ednetta was feeling so stressed, she was pacing at the doorway, hitting her fists light against her thighs. Her face was a net of wrinkles Sybilla hated to see—No no no no no.

  Weakly Sybilla said she didn’t think this was the man—“Like I say, he younger, Rev’end. The ‘yelow-hair cop’ I saw was not so young”—and Reverend Mudrick interrupted saying how fitting it was, at this time, that one of her rapists should kill himself out of fear of being exposed by the Crusade; being caught, arrested, and put to public shame. And Sybilla said that might be right but this wasn’t the man. And Reverend Mudrick said this was the one who killed himself—“The guilt was just too much for him. Even a white Nazi-fascist cop.”

  Sybilla was shaking her head no, stubbornly.

  Ednetta had come to stand square before her, staring at her face. But Sybilla’s sly-drifting left eye avoided her mother’s urgent gaze and her other, good eye was shimmering with tears.

  The Reverend was saying, slowly, as one might speak to a retarded person, “This happens to be the Pascayne police officer who has killed himself, Sybilla. We are not going to have a choice of such officers, I think. Is your mother there? I can talk to her.”

  Quickly Sybilla murmured No! Mama ain’t here.

  “It’s a crucial step, Sybilla. Here is our man—a gift and a blessing from Jesus. People are beginning to say, even in Pascayne, even among my brother’s law students and Newark colleagues, that you might have lied, Sybilla—made the ‘kidnapping’ and the ‘rape’ up. Because you haven’t identified a single ‘white cop’ so far. And now, when one of them is displayed before you, and you have plenty of time to deliberate and remember, you must seize it.”

  Sybilla sucked at her thumb, breathing quickly.

  “D’you know what ‘perjury’ is, Sybilla? ‘Filing a false charge’ with the police? If you’ve lied, if there was never any rape and never any ‘white cops,’ the Pascayne PD will arrest you. The district attorney will get a waiver for your age, and try Sybilla Frye as an adult.” Reverend Mudrick paused.

  “Do you want to examine the photograph again? ‘Jerold Zahn, twenty-seven.’ It’s natural that you mistook his light-blond hair for ‘yelow hair’—the interior of the van would have been dim.”

  Sybilla said, with an angry little sob, “OK Rev’end. This him.”

  Quickly then before Reverend Mudrick could speak again she hung up the phone. Would have run blindly out of the apartment and into the drafty corridor and maybe tripped and flung herself down the stairs but her mother grabbed her and shook her, hard.

  “Girl, what the hell you doin? That ‘rookie cop’ some mother’s son feelin bad and kilt himself, and now—”

  Sybilla jerked her arm away from her mother. With a sulky sort of triumph she said, “Go fuck y’self, Mama. This shit all comin from you.”

  Sybilla ran from the kitchen and into the interior of the apartment. Ednetta was too distressed to follow. Nor did Ednetta wish to answer her sister’s prying questions. With the dazed helplessness of a creature staring at a cobra she stared at the telephone waiting for it to ring.

  “Yelow Hair”

  Yes.”

  And, “Yes. That him.”

  “You are certain, Miss Frye? This officer—‘Jerold Zahn’?”

  As instructed by Byron Mudrick she spoke quietly and without hesitation. She was not emotional: not sullen, not angry, not resentful, not vindictive, not anxious and not fearful. She did not betray uncertainty, or apprehension. Her eyes were partway closed.

  “The young lady hardly knew the officer’s name, Officer. No point in asking her that.”

  Byron Mudrick spoke curtly, with an edge of irony.

  Third floor Pascayne City Hall, Family Services Division. On the morning of December 14, 1987, Sybilla Frye was seated at a table in an interview room making a formal statement to a woman officer from the Pascayne Police Department Juvenile Aid Bureau: identifying the “yellow-hair cop” who had raped her and participated in beating her on or about October 4, 1987.

  Sybilla wasn’t definite about the location of the assault. As Byron Mudrick had cautioned her, she should say that she believed she’d been kept captive in “some kind of van, like a police van” and that it had not been driven very far, but parked much of the time.

  (Byron Mudrick had explained to Sybilla that this was to establish “jurisdiction”—“Otherwise they might try to say that the crimes were committed in a county other than Passaic, and pass the blame onto someone else.”)

  With Sybilla and Byron Mudrick were her mother Ednetta and Reverend Marus Mudrick, who were seated in chairs behind them, against a wall of the windowless room.

  Byron Mudrick who was Sybilla’s “legal counsel” was more comforting to her than Reverend Mudrick who seemed never really to look at her. Byron was softer-spoken, with a smile like her real daddy ought to’ve had, if she’d ever known him. (Anis Schutt who was her stepdaddy had a smile hard as steel. You never wanted to see that smile bare Anis’s yellowy teeth.)

  Sybilla was so grateful to Byron Mudrick! He’d insisted that his “juvenile client” meet with police officials and the Passaic County district attorney in the County Family Services Bureau office and not at police headquarters across the street, in order to avert a “nightmare scenario” of the rape victim accidentally encountering one or more of her yet-unidentified rapists.

  “That would be a trauma we can avoid,” Byron Mudrick said gravely. “The original trauma, the nightmare to my client, is irrevocable.”

  Family Services was a far friendlier setting than police headquarters, in any case. Ednetta Frye had come to this office a number of times in the past several years and believed she could remember having brought Sybilla with her at least once.

  There would not be such hostility to the Fryes, in Family Services, as in police headquarters. They would be spared entering into what Reverend Mudrick called the “dominion of the Enemy.”

  Present also at the meeting were several Family Services officials, all women. And one of the social workers who’d come to speak with Ednetta Frye in her home several weeks before, whom Ednetta had ordered to leave.

  The Pascayne Juvenile Aid officer, the Red Rock precinct captain, and the Passaic County district attorney sat at the table with Sybilla Frye and Byron Mudrick. Other officials, including several assistant district attorneys, sat behind the table in chairs against the wall.

  This was a meeting highly charged with emotion! Sybilla sensed waves of repugnance for her, from the Enemy; though Byron had warned her and her mother what to expect, it was disconcerting. Sybilla wasn’t used to being in places where people disliked her—like they had some spec
ial reason to dislike her?

  Both Byron and Reverend Mudrick had cautioned her not to smile at the Enemy, and not to make eye-contact. Ednetta had been so nervous earlier that morning, she’d been in and out of the bathroom throwing up.

  Sybilla was only vaguely aware of the hours of negotiation that had preceded the meeting. Numerous calls had passed between Byron Mudrick and the Red Rock captain and other police officials, and between Byron Mudrick and the district attorney and assistants. As soon as he’d announced to them that his client had “made an ID of one of her rapists” and wanted to meet with authorities to “confirm” it, the Enemy had reacted with alacrity.

  The agreement was: Byron Mudrick would bring his client to City Hall to identify one of the “alleged rapists” and to make a brief, formal statement, but nothing more.

  No “interview” with the Juvenile Aid officer. Not at this time.

  Byron Mudrick insisted that Sybilla Frye hadn’t fully recovered from the violent trauma she’d undergone. To subject the fifteen-year-old to further trauma would be an outrage.

  Sybilla wore a long-sleeved white silk blouse with a little bow, a dark pleated skirt, dark woolen stockings and shoe-boots. In the shallow crevice of her throat, a small gold cross glittered.

  Her hair had been hot-combed and plaited and fixed in place with plastic barrettes. She might have been a middle school student, and not a high school student; her almond-shaped eyes were both downcast and alert. The only visible scar on her face was a tiny white comma in her left eyebrow.

  No ear-studs, no bracelets or rings. And her fingernails neatly filed, short and unpolished as a child’s nails.

  “Miss Frye? Will you look at these, and tell us if this is the same man . . .”

  Several photographs of a young man with light blond hair were shown to Sybilla. In none of these was the young man smiling and there were no visible dimples in his cheeks.

  Might’ve been Jerold Zahn, or someone else. Sybilla sensed a trick.

  “My client says no, she doesn’t recognize this man. If this is Jerold Zahn or someone else, she doesn’t recognize the photo.” Byron paused. In a voice heavy with sarcasm he said that his client had only “glimpsed” the rapist—“In not ideal circumstances and in a state of pain and terror.”

  Sybilla pointed to the original photograph, which had appeared in the newspaper. This was the one!

  “My client is certain that the man in this photo is the man she remembers from the assault. ‘Jerold Zahn’—a positive ID.”

  Buzzing in the room. Shock, outrage. Sybilla wasn’t listening.

  Sharp raised voices—male. And Byron Mudrick answering, quick and efficient.

  But Sybilla wasn’t listening. It was all a haze. It was all happening somewhere else. And Sybilla wasn’t looking. Downcast eyes, shy and stricken. Deep inside, she wasn’t even there.

  Jaycee saying to her S’b’la we gon see each other when I get out, that a promise.

  The look in Jaycee’s face when his sister Shirley appeared with Sybilla in the visitors’ room at Mountainview—and Jaycee expecting to see his little sister Colette.

  Damn she was crazy for Jaycee Handler. Never minded he was at Mountainview where she could just think of him and not have to worry about the kind of things you’d worry about, if you were a girl, and a guy like Jaycee “liked” you.

  But now God damn, she was so shamed!—Jaycee seemed to forgot her. A week at least he’d been out of Mountainview. Must be parole—probation? Martine was the one to tell her, knowing how it would hurt.

  Except—it was maybe better if Jaycee didn’t try to come around right now.

  She’d have to explain some things to the Reverend—not sure what she’d tell him. Fuck it!

  Fuck sometimes she wished he’d killed her, like he said he would do.

  All the day before Marus Mudrick and Byron Mudrick had coached her and rehearsed her these few words to utter, how to breathe (through her nose), how to move her head, her eyes, where to look, where not to look, how to clasp her hands together in front of her when she wasn’t required to point to a photograph—(for instance). How she must not “lock eyes” with anyone in the room—any of the Enemy.

  The Family Services people, and the social worker—they’d be wanting to speak with her, get her attention, but—no.

  And going into City Hall, and afterward leaving City Hall: walking between the Mudrick brothers, and Mama close behind, so the photographers, journalists, TV people (Reverend Mudrick had alerted) could observe her but not take advantage of her. Byron Mudrick and Marus Mudrick would speak to selected reporters and TV interviewers on the steps of City Hall only after Sybilla and her mother were safely enclosed in the waiting car with dark-tinted windows.

  Rape Victim I.D.’s One of Six Alleged “White Cop” Rapists.

  Between them they’d coached her until she’d wanted to lay her head down on the table and just cry. Until she’d screamed and wept and laughed the high wild laugh Mama said was a crazy-girl’s laugh it scared her to hear. And Mama held her arms pinned to her sides to quiet her saying it would be all right, the Reverend had explained why it was necessary, and had to be done, and would be over soon.

  They’d promised Just this once, Sybilla. Just say what we have prepared for you to say. Not a word more. Then we will leave. You will never have to see them again we promise.

  Until now it had been mostly Reverend Mudrick who’d done all the talking. In this meeting-place in Pascayne City Hall it was Byron Mudrick who did most of the talking in his quick-snappy way reminding Sybilla of a whip, a whip you could snap, a whip to snap into the face of the Enemy.

  Sybilla was rubbing her eyes. So sleepy! She never slept right any longer even with Martine cuddling beside her and snoring quiet like a cat.

  His snores she’d hear through the house, in their old place. Hoped they would never go back to that damn stinky place.

  “Sybilla?”—Byron Mudrick nudged her gently.

  Oh here was a surprise: yellow Post-its on the table before her.

  Not close in front of Sybilla so she might’ve grabbed and torn them if some wild impulse had come over her but about eighteen inches away. The Juvenile Aid policewoman had had these, in a folder. It was surprising and disorienting to Sybilla to see the Post-its she’d forgotten, or mostly forgotten, confused with a vague memory of the St. Anne’s emergency room and Mama clutching at her like crazy trying to protect her from the medics and that female detective asking questions—looked like Puerto Rican—dark straight eyebrows, straight nose, beautiful eyes and beautiful smooth tanned-olive skin—real kind to Sybilla saying Maybe it would be easier to write, Sybilla? Here.

  The Post-its had been hers. The detective. For a brief second flashing like a short thread through the eye of a needle Sybilla recalled the woman, then forgot her. They were confronting her with the Post-its hand-printed in pencil:

  WHITE COP

  WEAR A BAGDE

  YELOW HAIR

  AGE 30

  Yes. Shook her head yes.

  Yes she recognized these.

  Sybilla’s heart beat hard in protest. They’d promised her she would not have to answer questions only just say what she’d memorized. Yet, questions were being asked, and Byron Mudrick was answering them in his quick curt whip-snap way; and sometimes, Marus Mudrick would interject a cutting remark, and Byron might turn to Ednetta seated behind them blinking and staring like a drunk woman, and Sybilla would cringe hearing her mother stammer What—what did you say? What?

  The hostility in the room! She’d been warned to expect it, she’d been warned to expect the hatred of the Enemy, for of course they would deny that one of their own, Police Officer Jerold Zahn, had committed a heinous crime, but there was something more than just hatred, Sybilla thought—the looks in the faces of the women from Family Services, and the social worker—like they were all but saying aloud You poor girl! What has been done to you, Sybilla Frye!

  Hiding her face in shame. Hidin
g her eyes.

  “No. My client will not answer any more questions today. And yes, we will consent to a polygraph. So long as I am involved in the choice of the polygrapher who will not be an employee of the Pascayne Police Department or, indeed, any law enforcement bureau in this state.” When Byron paused, Marus Mudrick quietly interjected: “And not a ‘white’ polygrapher.”

  (Polygraph? Was this—“lie detector”?)

  (Sybilla felt faint. Hunched over her tight-clasped hands. The buzzing in her ears, a quick beat-beat-beat of blood. Byron Mudrick had promised—Don’t even try to listen, what will be said. By them and by me. These are tactics of law. The Enemy has no defenses. The Enemy is flummoxed. And that means fucked.)

  Byron said: “Yes. We will insist upon choosing the polygrapher ourselves.”

  Byron was on his feet, signaling the end of the meeting. Affably he said, “We’ll hope to schedule the polygraph before the end of the year, if you can meet our criteria. In the meantime, we’ve made some progress—my client has made the first identification of her rapists. She will soon give a full statement. By then her memory may have returned at least partially, so that she might identify others of her rapists among the Pascayne Police Department. We will want to examine photographs—we will want a ‘lineup.’ But this is enough for today—this is more than enough. You can investigate ‘Jerold Zahn,’ one of your own. Determine why this twenty-seven-year-old white man shot a bullet into his brain, and why at such an appropriate time as the Crusade for Justice for Sybilla Frye was coming into prominence. Officers, look a little harder for the suicide note. Interrogate the family. They’ve taken the note and hidden it, and it’s up to your skilled detectives to find it and reveal its guilt-laden contents to the world. And now, we are leaving.”

  Byron spoke calmly and with much satisfaction. His lawyer’s diction, clipped and precise, he’d cultivated since moot court in law school in emulation of certain of his revered elders. Sharp as an arrow, young Byron Mudrick! He was seeing lately that his very integrity had held him back, as a clubfoot holds back a runner. Around him he’d seen lesser individuals, like his twin brother, rise to prominence, make names and reputations for themselves, lavishly profiled in the white liberal press. And now, belatedly, it was Byron Mudrick’s turn.