Echoes

by Ellen Datlow

  So relieved to see him, Elisabeth hears herself laugh nervously. She will not allow herself to wonder why he is so breathless, and so pale.

  Nor does she accuse the child except she must ask where has he been?—hadn’t he heard them calling him, for the past ten minutes or more?—hadn’t he heard his father?

  Evasively Stefan mutters what sounds like: “Here. I was here.”

  Nothing sly or mischievous, nothing deceitful about the child. Elisabeth is sure. But how strange!—where had he been? And how had he slipped past her and Ana, to return to the dinner table on the porch?

  In the pale freckled face there’s a look of adult anguish, cunning. And the skin is still clammy-cold, with the sweat of panic.

  As the angry father approaches, footsteps loud in the hall like a mallet striking, Stefan cringes. Elisabeth holds his small weak hand, to protect him.

  “You! God damn you! Didn’t I warn you!”—for a terrible moment it seems that Alexander is about to strike his son; his hand is raised, for a slap; but then like air leaking from a balloon Alexander’s anger seems to drain from him. His eyes glisten with tears of frustration, rage, fear. He drags out his chair to sit down heavily at the table.

  “Just tell me, Stefan: Where were you?”

  And Stefan says in his small still voice what sounds like: “Here. I was here. . . .”

  Alexander snatches up his napkin, to wipe his eyes. “Well. Don’t do anything like this again, d’you hear me?”

  2.

  Bollingen Prize Poet N.K., Child Found Dead in Wainscott, MA

  Asphyxiation Deaths “Possibly Accidental”

  Bestselling Feminist Poet N.K. Takes Own Life

  Four-Year-Old Daughter Dies With Her

  “Shocking Scene”—Wainscott, MA

  Always Elisabeth will remember: the shocked voice of a colleague rushing into the library at the Radcliffe Institute.

  “. . . terrible. They’re saying she killed herself and . . .”

  Lowered (female) voices. Solemn, appalled. Disbelieving.

  Glancing up from her laptop as talk swirled around her.

  Who had died? A poet? A woman poet? And her daughter?

  Wanting to know, not wanting to know.

  That evening at a reception at the Institute for a visiting lecturer, all talk was of the suicide. And the death of the child.

  Asphyxiation by carbon monoxide poisoning.

  “. . . wouldn’t have done it. I don’t believe it.”

  “. . . herself, maybe. But not a daughter.”

  “. . . not possible. No.”

  How shocking the news was! The voices were embittered, incredulous. For how demoralizing for women writers, women scholars, women who declared themselves feminists. Nicola Kavanaugh—“N.K.”—had been a heroine to them, defiant and courageous and original.

  “. . . murder, maybe. Someone jealous . . .”

  “. . . that husband. Weren’t they separated . . .”

  “. . . but not the daughter! I know her—knew her. N.K. would never have done that.”

  Of course they had to acknowledge that N.K. had written freely, shockingly of taboo subjects like suicide—the unspeakable bliss of self-erasure.

  Elisabeth listened. Grasped the hands of mourners that clutched at hers in anguish. She had not been a fellow at the Institute several years before when N.K. came to give a “brilliant”—“impassioned”—“inspiring” presentation on the “unique language” of women’s poetry but she’d heard colleagues speak admiringly of it, still.

  At the Institute, Elisabeth was researching the archives of the Imagist poets of the early twentieth century. She’d read no more than a scattering of N.K.’s flamboyant, quasi-confessional poetry, so very different from the spare understatement of Imagism; she wouldn’t have wanted to acknowledge that she found N.K.’s poetry too harsh, discordant, angry, unsettling. Nor had she been drawn to the cult of N.K. that had begun even before the poet’s premature death.

  What is a cult but a binding-together of the weak. So it seemed to her. The excesses of feminists, she hoped to distance herself from. A certain physical/erotic posturing, needless provocations. Not for her.

  Soon then, reading an obituary of N.K. in the New York Times, Elisabeth discovered that N.K. had allegedly named herself, or rather renamed herself, as “N.K.” in homage to the Imagist poet H.D.; she’d wanted a pseudonym “without gender and without a history.”

  Names are obscuring, misleading. So N.K. argued. Surnames—family names—have no role in art. Artists are individuals and should name themselves. “Naming”—the most crucial aspect of one’s life, the name you bring with you, blatant as a face, should not be the province/choice of others.

  Essentially, your parents are strangers to you. It is not reasonable that strangers should name you.

  And so Nicola Kavanaugh had named herself “N.K.” The poet’s vanity would help brand her, help to guarantee her fame.

  Soon after, Elisabeth found herself staring at a poster on a wall in Barnes & Noble depicting the gaunt, savagely beautiful N.K. in a photograph by Annie Leibovitz. The poet had been wearing what looked like a flimsy cotton shift, almost you could see the shadowy nipples of her breasts through the material, and around her slender shoulders a coarse-knitted, fringed shawl. Her thick disheveled hair appeared to be windblown, her eyes sharp and accusing. Beneath, the caption—Live as if it’s your life.

  3.

  “And what did you say your name was, dear?—‘Elizabeth’? I didn’t quite hear.”

  “Elisabeth.”

  Gravely he laughed at her. Leaning over her.

  “Is that a lisp I hear?—‘Elis-a-beth’?”

  “Y-Yes.”

  By chance, months later, when the last thing on her mind was N.K., Elisabeth was introduced to Alexander Hendrick. A tall gentlemanly man of whom everyone whispered—D’you know who that is? Alexander Hendrick—N.K.’s husband.

  He was older than Elisabeth by nearly twenty years. Yet youthful in his manner, even playful, to disguise the gravity beneath, even as he had to shave (Elisabeth would learn) twice a day, to rid his jaws of graying stubble, sharp little quills that erupted not only on his face but beneath his chin, partway down his neck.

  She’d known something of the man’s identity, apart from the disaster of his marriage: He was the director of the Hendrick Foundation, that had been founded by a multimillionaire grandfather in the 1950s, to award grants to creative artists at the outset of their careers.

  Including in 1993, the young experimental poet-artist Nicola Kavanaugh, as she’d called herself then.

  Had Alexander Hendrick and Nicola Kavanaugh met before Nicola received the grant, or afterward?—Elisabeth was never to learn, with any certainty.

  “Tell me you aren’t a poet, my dear Elisabeth.”

  “No. I mean—I am not a poet.”

  “You’re sure?”—Alexander Hendrick was grimly joking, unless it was his very grimness that joked, that made such a joke possible.

  Elisabeth laughed, feeling giddy. Since adolescence she’d been waiting for such a person, who could intimidate her yet make her laugh.

  4.

  You tell yourself: The new life is sudden.

  The new life is a window flung open. Better yet, a window smashed.

  Sometimes it is true. The new life is flung in your face; you have not the capacity to duck the flying glass.

  • • •

  What was it like, to visit that house? Will you have to live there as his wife—permanently?

  Can you—permanently?

  Are there traces of her? Is there an—aura?

  Oh, Elisabeth. Take care.

  • • •

  The (civil) wedding in March is very small, private. Few relatives on either side.

  Immediately afterward they leave for a week in the Bahamas. And when they return it is to the house on Oceanview Avenue, Wainscott, where the surviving child awaits, looked after by the housekeeper, Ana.
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  Are you prepared for him? A ten-year-old stepchild whose mother tried to kill him?

  In death, N.K.’s notoriety has grown. Articles about her appear continuously in print and online. An unauthorized video titled Last Days of the Poet N.K. goes viral. An unauthorized Interview with the American Medea N.K.—in fact, a pastiche of several interviews—appears, with photographs of the starkly beautiful woman over the course of years, in Vanity Fair. There are Barnes & Noble posters, T-shirts, even coffee mugs—a cartoon likeness of N.K. with an aureole of fiercely crimped dark hair and a beautiful savage unsmiling mouth.

  Of these outrages Alexander never speaks—perhaps he is not aware. (Elisabeth wants to think.) The posthumous cult of N.K. is like a cancer metastasizing—unstoppable.

  Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and now Nicola Kavanaugh—“N.K.” For each generation of wounded and angry women, a deathly female icon.

  At first the mainstream media contrived to believe that N.K. had been mentally ill, to have killed her daughter as well as herself. It was known that she’d “struggled with depression” since adolescence, she’d tried to kill herself several times in the past. But then, newer readings of N.K.’s poetry suggest that her horrendous act had been deliberate and premeditated, a “purification” of the self in a rotten world.

  It seemed clear that she’d meant to kill Stefan as well, initially. She’d given the seven-year-old a sedative, as she’d given the four-year-old a sedative, and brought him into the garage with her, and into the Saab sedan; then for some reason she’d relented, and carried him back into the house and left him, and returned to the car with the running motor, filling the garage with bluish smoke for the stunned Alexander to discover, hours later.

  The dead woman lying in the front seat of the car with the little girl, Clea, in her arms, the two of them wrapped in a mohair shawl.

  Was there a suicide note?—Alexander saw nothing.

  It would be his claim, he’d seen nothing. Emergency medical workers, law enforcement officers, investigators—suicide note discovered in the car.

  Yet, it came to be generally known that there’d been “packets of poems” scattered in the back seat of the car. (As well as the left sneaker of a pair of sneakers—belonging to Stefan.) Not new poems by N.K. but older poems, among her more famous poems, that quickly took on a new, ominous prescience. The posthumous cult of N.K., so maddening to Alexander and his family, quickly fastened upon these poems—the small bitter apples of extinction.

  Ana had been given the entire day off by Nicola. The housekeeper hadn’t been expected to return until eight o’clock in the evening, by which time Nicola and Clea had been dead for several hours.

  Stefan, missing, was eventually found by searchers inside the house, partially dressed and shoeless, at the rear of an upstairs closet. (The mate to the child’s sneaker in the rear of the Saab would be discovered in a corner of the garage amid recycling containers, as if it had been tossed or kicked there.) He was curled into a fetal position, so deeply asleep he might have been in a coma. His blood pressure was dangerously low. His skin was deathly white, his lips had a bluish cast. Emergency medical workers worked to revive him with oxygen.

  The surviving child was slow to come to consciousness. Not only carbon monoxide poisoning but barbiturate would be discovered in his blood. He would remember little of what had happened. Except—Mummy gave me warm milk to drink, that made me sleepy. Mummy kissed me and told me she would never abandon me.

  Yet, the child’s mother must have changed her mind about killing him with his sister. A short time after she’d started the Saab motor, when the seven-year-old was unconscious, but before she herself had lapsed into unconsciousness, she’d pulled him from the back seat of the car, dragged or carried him all the way upstairs to a hall closet . . .

  Elisabeth ponders this. Why did N.K. relent, and allow one of her children to live? The boy, and not the girl? Did in fact this happen, as it’s generally believed?

  Elisabeth wonders if the seven-year-old might have crawled out of the car, and saved himself. Yet, why would he have hidden upstairs in a closet? And he’d been deeply unconscious when his father discovered him.

  More than three years after the deaths the Wainscott police investigation is closed. The county medical examiner issued his report: homicide, suicide. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Heavy barbiturate sedation. Still, no one knows precisely the chronology of events of that day. The surviving child cannot be further questioned. The surviving husband will never speak again on the subject publicly, he has declared.

  And privately? Elisabeth knows only what Alexander has chosen to tell her, which she has no reason to disbelieve. N.K. had suffered from bipolar disorder since early adolescence, she’d been a “brilliant poet” (Alexander had to concede) afflicted by a strong wish to harm herself, and others unfortunate enough to be caught up in her emotional life. She’d been coldly ambitious, Alexander said. Always anxious about her reputation, jealous of other poets’ prizes, publicity. Ultimately she’d cared little for a domestic life—though, for a few years, she’d tried. Perversely the children had adored her, Alexander said bitterly.

  And yet, what is it we cannot know? Though the heart breaks, the great sea crashes, crushes us. We must know.

  Since becoming Alexander’s wife Elisabeth has resisted reading N.K.’s poems. Yet, it is difficult to avoid them for often lines from the poems, even entire poems, are quoted in the media. Quickly Elisabeth looks away but sometimes it is too late.

  . . . crashes, crushes us. We must know.

  Very still Elisabeth has been sitting, fingers poised above the laptop keyboard. How many minutes have passed she doesn’t know, but her laptop screen has gone dark like a brain switching off. By chance she hears a quickened breath behind her—turns to see, in the doorway, the beautiful child, her stepchild, Stefan.

  “Oh—Stefan! Hello . . .”

  Elisabeth is so startled by the sight of him, something falls from the table—a ballpoint pen. Clattering onto the floor, rolling.

  “H-Have you been there a while, dear? I didn’t hear you. . . .”

  Rises to her feet as if to invite the elusive child inside the room, but already Stefan has backed away and is descending the stairs.

  Like a wild creature, she thinks. A wraith.

  If you reach out for a wraith he shrinks away. Oh, she is so crude!—so yearning, the child sees it in her face and retreats.

  5.

  “Certainly not! We live here. We are very happy here. It’s ordinary life here.” Declaiming to visitors, Alexander laughs with a sharp sort of happiness.

  A steady procession of visitors, guests at Hendrick House. In the summer months especially, on idyllic Cape Cod.

  No aura. Not her. That one is dead, gone. Vanished.

  On the wide veranda looking toward the ocean, in the long summer twilight. Drinks are served by a young Guatemalan girl who is helping Ana tonight, cut-glass crystal glitters and winks. Elisabeth is the new wife, shy among her husband’s friends. He has so many!—hopeless to try to keep their names straight.

  Perhaps these are not friends exactly. Rather, acquaintances and professional associates. Visitors from Provincetown, Woods Hole. House guests from Boston, Cambridge, New York City connected with the Hendrick Foundation.

  In summer the house on Oceanview Avenue is particularly beautiful. Romantically weathered dark-brown shingle board with dark shutters, stone foundation and stone chimneys. Steep roofs and cupolas, a wraparound veranda open to the ocean on bright windy days. Fifteen rooms, three stories, the converted stable at the rear. Not the largest but one of the more distinctive houses on Oceanview Avenue, Wainscott. Originally built in 1809, and listed with the National Landmark Registry. Beside the heavy oak front door is a small brass plaque commemorating this honor.

  Of course, Alexander has an apartment elsewhere, on Boston’s Beacon Street, near the office of the Hendrick Foundation. In the years of his marriage to N.K. he was obliged to rent an
apartment in New York City, on Waverly Place, to accommodate her.

  “. . . well, yes. We ‘took a chance’ on her at the Foundation—though after Allen Ginsberg that sort of wild feckless quasi-confessional poetry was fashionable—riding the crest of the ‘new feminism’ . . .”

  Elisabeth marvels at the coolness with which at such times Alexander is able to speak of N.K. So long as the subject is impersonal; so long as the subject is poetry, and not wife.

  Coolness, and condescension. (Male) revenge on the (female) artist. Yes she is, or was, brilliant—“genius.” But no, I am not so impressed.

  Most of these guests had known Nicola Kavanaugh. This, Elisabeth gathers. You see them frowning, shaking their heads. Pitying, condemning. Allowing the widower to know that they side with him of course—the bereft, terribly wronged husband.

  Monstrous woman. Deranged and demented poet.

  “. . . yes, I’ve heard. It will be ‘unauthorized’—of course. The last thing we need is a biography of—her. Fortunately, copyright to her work resides with me, and I don’t intend to give permission for any sort of use—even ‘the’—‘and’—‘but’ . . .”

  Laughter. As he is famously stoical so Alexander is so very witty.

  A biography? This is the first Elisabeth has heard.

  Not from Alexander, but from other sources, Elisabeth has learned how the poet Nicola Kavanaugh was reluctant to marry—anyone. How she’d suffered since early adolescence from mania, depression, suicidal “ideation”—and suicide attempts. Love affairs with Nicola were invariably impassioned, destructive. And then, at last, after a most destructive relationship with a prominent woman artist living in New York City, to the astonishment of everyone who knew her, and against their unanimous advice, Nicola suddenly married the older, well-to-do Alexander Hendrick, who’d been one of her ardent courters for years.

  For solace she’d married, it was said; for financial security, and to pay for therapists, prescription drugs, hospitalizations; as a stay against the wild mood swings of bipolar disorder; for peace, comfort, sanity. Because a sexually rapacious young woman took advantage of a besotted well-to-do older man with literary pretensions.