My Heart Laid Bare

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Elisha snatched the cameo from Millie’s fingers and regarded it with a queer little smile, not quite derision and not quite sympathy. He said, “This girl is most likely dead and gone by now, how old do you think she’d be in real time—!”

  (Elisha has said that nothing of Father’s—nothing that is stored in the church, at least—belongs to “real time.”)

  But he is mistaken, isn’t he?—for one of the oil portraits, the most beautiful portrait of all, is of Darian’s and Esther’s mother Sophie.

  FATHER KEEPS THE portrait hidden in a locked room at the very rear of the church, his “vault” as he calls it. He allows Darian and Esther to look at it only in his presence, perhaps he fears they will ruin its delicate cracking surface with their fingers, their furtive caresses . . . .When it is time, and only Father knows the correct time, he takes them into the secret room, he draws off the dusty velvet cloth with reverent fingers, crouching solemn and transfixed before the painting, Darian in the crook of his left arm, Esther in the crook of his right, Why, is this their mother! Is this poor Sophie, who lies buried now in the churchyard! Their eyes mist over with tears and at first they cannot see clearly. In the painting Sophie is alive again, as they cannot remember her, a girl again, no more than twenty years old; younger than Thurston and Harwood are now. As the artist has rendered her she is extremely handsome, with fair creamy skin, lustrous dark eyes, gleaming black hair pulled smartly away from her forehead; a small pensive smile playing about her lips; yet a mature, composed tilt to her head, an air of startling self-assurance. How easy to imagine that this woman, their mother, is gazing at them; she sees and recognizes them; that glisten of interest in her beautiful eyes is her love of them. Darian and Esther marvel that their mother has scorned to costume herself in the stiff, fussy clothes worn by other women portrayed in other paintings stacked carelessly about the church; Sophie wears a smart riding habit, dove-gray, with pert, mannish, raised shoulders, black velvet trim at the collar, a ruffled white blouse. Beneath her left arm she carries a riding crop as if, only a moment before, she’d strolled casually into the room . . . and has turned her head, casually, to glance in their direction.

  You? Of course I know you. You two children are my secret, and I am yours.

  Father tells them quietly that of course their mother was of aristocratic birth. “Her maiden name was Hume. The Humes of New York—Old New York—English-Dutch-German stock. One of the great shipbuilding fortunes. Of course, they disowned Sophie for marrying me,” Father says, staring at the portrait with such intensity the children begin to be frightened, “as if Abraham Licht were not their equal! As if I, an American, am not the equal of any living man! But I stole her from them,” he adds, laughing. “And I broke their hearts.”

  Father is breathing audibly, as if he has just run up a flight of steps. Impossible to tell if he is angry, or deeply moved; or behaving in this way for their benefit. To educate us. In the cosmology of that mysterious time before we were born.

  Esther has begun to fidget; Darian has begun to find his mother’s face too terrible to gaze upon; those eyes! Mercifully, the visit is over. Father draws the black velvet cloth reverently back over the canvas.

  IT IS FORBIDDEN to ask questions but it is not forbidden to play (if they are careful) in the storeroom, in the old church, among Father’s inheritances.

  (Not all the items are “inheritances,” however. Some are called “payment for debts.” Others are called “gifts.”)

  Here, amid the battered oak pews, pushed into the corners and crowding even the pulpit and the hickory cross, are trunks, and wardrobes, and stacks of china, and tarnished silver plate, and crystal, and panes of stained glass; furniture of every kind—divans, and S-backed chairs, and tables, and lamp stands, and settees, and desks, and giant sideboards, and chandeliers with dripping prisms; marble statuettes; carpets of various lengths, rolled up cruelly and bound, tight, with fraying twine; sextants, and astrolabes, and telescopes, and great framed maps of North America; globes of the Earth, where entire continents have faded to near invisibility; gentlemen’s and ladies’ and children’s clothing—top hats, tuxedos, traveling cloaks, chesterfields, boiled shirtfronts, detached collars, women’s gowns, feathered boas, capes, cloaks, fur stoles, fur hats, even a riding habit and smart curved hat; wigs—ah, what a variety of wigs; and jars and tubes of theatrical makeup; election campaign material for one JASPER LIGES (said to be a “remote uncle,” whom the children have never met) who unsuccessfully ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket out of Vanderpoel, New York, in 1902; cigar boxes elegant as jewel boxes stuffed with tickets and ticket stubs (lotteries, racetrack, railway, steamboat, the Metropolitan Opera); a stack of yellowing copies of a five-page newspaper, Frelicht’s Raceway Tips; soiled, dog-eared “shares” in such companies as The Panama Canal, Ltd., North American Liberty Bonds, Inc., Banting Cotton Goods Co., X. X. Anson & Sons Copper, Ltd., The Society for the Reclamation & Restoration of E. Auguste Napoleon, The Byrd Expedition, and Hollowell Aerocraft; a single handsome golf club; a pile of mud-encrusted croquet mallets; an agèd, discolored drum; a tarnished bugle, property of U.S. Army; a violin with three snapped strings; a flute in poor condition; a carton of mounted and stuffed creatures—snakes, pheasants, raccoons, rabbits; shelves of worn leatherbound books—Hugo, Dumas, Hoffman, Poe, the entire works of Shakespeare, the entire works of Milton, The Illustrated Don Quixote, dog-eared books on medicine, agriculture, necromancy, the settlement of New Netherlands, horse breeding, cabinet making, a tattered pamphlet on mesmerism, studies of phrenology, vegetarianism, astrology, Home Cures & Emetics, The Complete Poems of Longfellow, Tales of the North, Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, The Dictionary of the English Language (Including a Rhyming Index); a squat wooden barrel filled with every variety of footwear—mens and ladies’ and children’s shoes, formal shoes, work shoes, high-top boots, slippers, etc.; and immense gilded mirrors, propped haphazardly against the walls, reflecting, it seems, bygone times—in which poor Darian and Esther tiptoe diaphanous as ghosts, fearful to look too closely at their own images.

  What a curious world it is, Darian thinks. Already, he has tried to speak of it in his little musical compositions. Or rather to hint of it. Father’s world of inheritances, payments for debts, gifts from mysterious admirers. For, as Father is in the habit of saying, with a wink, “The man or woman who doesn’t adore you is the man or woman who hasn’t—yet—made your acquaintance.”

  And there, against the front wall of the old church-interior, is the foot-pedal organ which Darian has been able to play this past year, wearing Father’s boots so that he can reach, just barely, the pedals; it’s a crude, hearty, boisterous musical instrument very different from the spinet piano that had been Sophie’s, in the parlor; Darian loves the noises that ring out with a wild, deranged glory, as if God were shrieking through the pipes. Darian has mastered most of the hymns in the books Reverend Woodcock has given him: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our Lord,” “Rock of Ages,” “Soldiers in Christ,” and his favorite for its treble runs like crashing icicles, “For the Sound of the Lord is Joy, Joy.”

  Hearing her brother play the organ, Esther stands transfixed, her small cameo of a face radiant with wonder; at times, when the notes crash noisily, she giggles, presses her little hands over her ears and begs him to stop. (If Darian knows how to play nice, Esther says, why doesn’t he play nice? He knows how much she likes “Chirping Crickets” on the parlor piano, “Fire-Balls Mazurka,” Father’s favorite marching songs, and “The Lass of Aviemore,” “Carry Me Back to Old Virginnie” which Father and Elisha sing in bawling unison, like old black slaves . . . why doesn’t he play nice if he knows how? And Darian says coolly, his child’s pride stung, “Music isn’t meant to be nice, it’s meant to be—music.”)

  Father’s youngest children, his angel-children as he calls them, share a peculiarity: they are afraid to be alone.

  And there is no reason for them to be alone when they have each other.

&nbs
p; It is forbidden to ask too many questions but it is never forbidden, in fact it’s encouraged, for these bright, inquisitive children to read aloud to each other from Father’s library of old mildewed leatherbound books; to take as many parts, “voices,” as they wish. Such activities delight Father. It is encouraged, too, that they dress in certain of the clothes, or costumes, in the closets. And the wigs. And the shoes, the boots. There is even an antiquated makeup kit, paints hardened and cracked, brushes stiff as sticks. How Father laughs in delight, seeing his youngest son in a spiky black wig, and his younger daughter in an enormous flower-festooned hat; seeing the children in drooping silk vests and beaded satin jackets, in petticoats stiffened with dirt . . . a moustache painted inexpertly on Darian’s upper lip, flaming spots of rouge on Esther’s round little cheeks . . . what waves of childish hilarity, waves of sudden panic, for who are they now? whom have they become? as in a silken top hat Darian prances about, an ebony cane slung through his arm, and in a beribboned lace frock little Esther stumbles after him, humming, clapping her hands like a Broadway ingenue . . . who are they now, whom have they become?

  “THEY’RE NOT FIT for The Game. Even if I hadn’t promised their mother. I have an instinct for such things.”

  They’d overheard Father tell the older children this, one winter evening by candlelight. Father’s pungent-smelling Cuban cigar settled in the corner of his mouth. Father’s expression was somber yet affectionate. No one, not even Millie, who loved to contradict, wished to contradict Father on this point. He’d been discussing plans with the others, his plans for them, the “projects” they would be pursuing in the months ahead, the “investments,” the “dramatis personae”—handsome Elisha in shirtsleeves sprawled by the fire like a lazy ebony-dark panther; Millie in silk slacks and an aqua brocaded kimono, languidly brushing her waist-long hair; Thurston in rumpled riding clothes, smiling and dreamy, smoking one of Father’s cigars; and scowling Harwood sipping at a tankard of ale, his glance flicking briefly onto Darian and Esther as if he’d never seen them before, and took not the slightest interest in whether they were fit, or not fit, for The Game.

  Father pursued his line of thought as Father had a way of doing, speaking of certain of his children as if they weren’t present and avidly, anxiously listening; one day, Darian would think It was as if God spoke His thoughts aloud, and we were inside them. Stroking sleepy Esther’s baby-fine hair, drawing a forefinger along Darian’s jaw, musing philosophically, “No. They are unsuited. It can never be. Though they are children of Abraham Licht, they are not such robust children as you.” For Father was addressing the elder children, who basked in the pleasure of his pride, even Harwood, sipping ale, not so scowling now, though the creases remained in his brow.

  “KATRINA? WHAT DOES Father mean—we’re unfit for The Game? What is The Game? Katrina?”—so Darian and Esther plagued Katrina, in the months to come when Father, as well as the others, was absent from Muirkirk. And Katrina would say, with a shrug, “There is no Game, there is only life itself. Your father knows, but doesn’t wish to know.” “But, Katrina,” they begged, plucking at her sleeves, “—The Game, what is The Game?” But Katrina turned away with a dismissive wave of her hand. And they gazed at each other in exasperation and hurt, that they were silly little children, and never to know what their elders knew, and never to play The Game their elders played, whatever that Game was.

  3.

  “Here I am. But no, no—I prefer to be alone. Thank you, dear Katrina. I said alone.”

  Mud-splattered, bleeding from a dozen nicks and scratches on his face, one side of his throat inflamed by insect bites, Father returns at last after three hours tramping in the marsh. He slams through the rear of the house, locks himself in the bath, sits down at 9 P.M. for supper with so ravenous an appetite, poor Katrina can’t serve him quickly enough, or plentifully enough, though she’s been preparing food much of the afternoon. Father eats, and drinks several tankards of cold dark brimming ale; lights up one of his cigars; and feels, suddenly, an overwhelming wave of fatigue.

  He had not wished, truly he had not wished that Xalapa, beautiful Xalapa would be put down, that hadn’t been his plan, truly it hadn’t been his plan, may God have mercy on my soul if there be a God and if I possess a soul. Such fatigue! It’s a mercy, he can’t brood upon mistakes for very long. Abraham Licht isn’t a man to brood for very long. His head nods, wily Katrina removes the drooping cigar from his fingers. Since his itinerant boyhood, when alertness and alacrity kept him alive, Abraham has had the gift of sleep when he knows himself safe; sleep doesn’t steal upon him by degrees, but overpowers him at once. He is a Contracoeur pine, he has boasted, the magnificent tree that is rumored to have no natural ceiling to its height, nor depth to its roots; the Contracoeur pine is a tree of exquisite beauty and strength that can grow forever—and live forever. (If no circumstances intervene.) Just as Day beckons to Abraham Licht, stirring his imagination like a lover’s, so does Night draw the man down, down, down to a voluptuous consummation in sleep. So that I must wonder who I am: if the Abraham Licht who dwells in shadows isn’t the supreme self, and the Abraham Licht of day the imposter.

  He sleeps for ten hours. For twelve hours. For fourteen.

  Waking at last refreshed, and smiling again. Kissing little Esther and little Darian, who squeal with delight, that Father is returned to them yet again.

  4.

  From four o’clock until six on weekday afternoons, and from nine o’clock until noon on Saturday mornings, Darian and Esther are tutored by the village schoolmaster. For Abraham Licht can’t tolerate the thought of his sensitive angel-children attending the Muirkirk school, a one-room schoolhouse attended by eight very disparate (and often rowdy) grades. Of course, he tutors them himself when he can, as he did with the four elder children: he lectures them on Science, Grammar and Elocution; on History, Art, Music, Etiquette and the Ancient World; on Mathematics (both applied and pure). He assigns them the great soliloquies of Shakespeare, in which, in his estimate, all the natural wisdom of the world is contained, in miniature.

  “For if you know Shakespeare, children, you know all.”

  What a boon it would be, if one of Abraham Licht’s children had a natural talent for the stage! But Thurston, years ago, was slow to memorize lines, and recited them so woodenly it was painful to hear; Harwood, being Harwood, was surly and stammering; Elisha could memorize lines of difficult verse with no trouble, as if imprinting them in his mind’s eye after a single reading, but he spoke with an annoying glibness, mocking the elevated poetry. (For Elisha was destined for satire, it seemed. “Inside my black skin, my black soul.”) And there was Millicent, lovely yet exasperating, who recited verse as if she were reciting popular song lyrics, pursing her mouth in mock sobriety, crinkling her smooth brow, wringing her hands as she murmured “Out, out damned spot!” in the throes of conscience as Lady Macbeth, then lapsing, with a wink at her audience, into a Paul Dresser tune—

  “A wild sort of devil,

  But dead on the level,

  Was my gal Sal.”

  Now Darian and Esther were made to memorize passages of demanding, riddlesome verse, as Abraham Licht listened frowningly, without much pleasure; for, as he’s suspected, these two of his children are not suited for The Game; with no talent for making of themselves ventriloquists, no aptitude for the most innocent sort of duplicity. Darian, trying so hard to please his father, stumbles over lines repeatedly; Esther, only six years old, is perhaps too young for the exercise. Yet, for all her prettiness, she seems to lack the spirit for self-display that is so natural in Millie, a certain glisten to the eyes, an animation like flame. “No matter, I suppose,” Father says, sighing, “—for neither you, Darian, nor you, Esther, need ever leave the protection of Muirkirk, if you don’t want to; and life will spare you its grim trials.”

  IT’S A SURPRISE, then, that the children fare so much better with their tutor (whom Abraham Licht is rumored to pay generously); as pupils, they’re
eager to learn, and love reading—“I’d rather read than anything,” little Esther declares with childish passion. And Reverend Woodcock continues to marvel at Darian’s gift for music. Is this an inherited talent?—is the slender, shy child but the father’s son? Darian has had a little difficulty learning to read music but he plays with remarkable intuition, “by ear”; Woodcock tells friends that the child doesn’t seem to pick out notes, like most keyboard musicians of his acquaintance, including himself, but plays “as if the music already exists in his head—as a stream of water is but a continuous stream, from its source to its destination.” In Muirkirk there are a number of moderately talented pianists and organists, most of them female, and Woodcock himself is a competent musician, but nine-year-old Darian is altogether different. Already he has mastered such favorites of the amateur’s repertoire as Gottschalk’s “The Last Hope” with its glimmering arpeggios, Chwatal’s “The Happy Sleighing Party” with its merry twinkling bells, Lange’s “Crickets,” Behr’s feverish Mazurka and a number of stalwart, thumping Christian hymns; and works by such masters of the keyboard as Spohr, Meyerbeer, Mozart and Raff.

  It is Bach’s Two- and Three-Part Inventions, however, which Woodcock was reluctant to assign, that most intrigue the boy, and draw forth every reserve of his precocious talent. How he strains himself, quivering at the keyboard of the old upright piano in the Woodcock parlor; how his small hands strain, and stretch—for Darian has a reach of only six notes in his left hand and five in his right, and hasn’t yet mastered the trick of eliding octaves with grace. Still, Darian plays, and plays, and plays; if he makes mistakes, he insists upon beginning from the start, and playing through; a child-perfectionist, amazing to see. (Abraham Licht has warned Reverend Woodcock that Darian shouldn’t be allowed to overexcite himself, he isn’t a strong boy, he suffered rheumatic fever when very young, his health is problematic.) Unlike any other pupil of Woodcock’s acquaintance, Darian begs his teacher to give him difficult assignments and to insist that he play them not just “well” but “very well—as they are meant to be played.”