My Heart Laid Bare

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Wheezing-snorting laughter. Suety juice trickling down his chin.

  Seeing Father’s expression, he fell silent. Fumbled for his fork, which clattered to the floor.

  Jesus he was tired suddenly. So tired.

  Nearly collapsing as Elisha, quick on his feet, helped him from the table. With a glance at Father, for Elisha and Father are close as Siamese twins it sometimes seems, their brains a single circuit, surely they share identical thoughts, but Father was occupied in lighting his cigar, face like stone. Elisha and Katrina helped Harwood to his room, Harwood’s spiky-haired head lolling on his shoulders, knees buckling, half-sobbing he was saying O Jesus O God so tired, wasn’t his fault not his God-damned fault . . . nobody could blame him.

  Abraham Licht succeeded in relighting his cigar, and tossed down the match onto the table.

  Esther whispered, “That isn’t him . . . is it? Who is it?”

  THE BOY HAD committed an evil act, yes, but more reprehensibly he’d lied to his father. He’d lied to Abraham Licht.

  He hid his distress. That kick of his heart. Murderous rage.

  Yet: it could not be rage. For Harwood with all his imperfections was a Licht, unmistakably; flesh, blood and bones; though his elder sons’ mother had betrayed Abraham Licht long ago and he would never forgive her, yet Abraham Licht loved them as much as he loved the others. For that is my vow. As I am their father.

  So next day when finally Harwood crawled from bed, still unshaven, unbathed, smelling rank as a horse, beset by spasms of nausea, but unable to vomit, Abraham Licht called him into the room at the rear of the house that was Abraham Licht’s “rectory”—his office and library, containing stacks of files, and boxes of documents and correspondence, and a three-foot safe with a combination dial. Bluntly he asked, “All right. What has happened between you and Thurston?”

  Harwood said quickly, with a guilty duck of his head, “What—what d’you mean, Father? Has something happened—?”

  “Tell me.”

  Harwood, groggy from his stuporous sleep, steadied himself against a chair. His greasy hair fell in quills into his face and he brushed them back nervously. His puffy lips twitched in a kind of smile. “Did I say last night I saw Thurston?—because I don’t guess I did. It was a mistake if I did. I mean—if I said I did.”

  “Harwood. I’ve asked you if something has happened between you and Thurston.”

  Harwood shook his head like a baffled dog.

  “Has something happened to—Thurston?”

  “I don’t know anything about God-damned Thurston,” Harwood said irritably, “—all I heard is, he’s in some kind of trouble. In Atlantic City, at that fancy hotel. Where I didn’t get to go ’cause I had to go to God-damned Baltimore to operate the God-damned lottery.”

  “In trouble?” Abraham said sharply. “Thurston? How?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Tell me.”

  “Father, I said—”

  “Do you imagine, Harwood, you can lie to me? You are my son; you are my creation. Even as a lie forms in your brain, d’you imagine I can’t sense it? hear it?”

  Harwood stared in terror at Abraham Licht. In the act of wiping his mouth with a beefy forearm he froze, and began to back away as, on his feet now, Abraham Licht advanced. Harwood swayed as if faint, his eyes showing white above the rim. “Look at me, son,” Abraham Licht said, calmly. “Tell me what’s in your heart.”

  And now Harwood began to sob, visibly trembling. It was as if his very backbone had become unhinged. Saying in a faltering voice, “—don’t know, I never saw him—God damn I was on my way to see him, and he wouldn’t let me in—wouldn’t lend me money—denied that we were brothers.”

  Abraham Licht gripped his son’s hunched, muscular shoulders to prevent him wrenching away. He said, still calmly, “Tell me.”

  “Father, I did nothing wrong—it was his fault—”

  “What was his fault?”

  “—he denied we were brothers, Father!—made me beg for crumbs—”

  “Tell me.”

  Harwood stood mute, his bruised face turned aside in an attitude of shame. An odor lifted from his cringing body that Abraham Licht knew well, of rank animal distress. Even then, though I knew, I could not believe. For we had reaped such a harvest, until then.

  It was then that Abraham Licht saw a curious shadowed or indented mark on Harwood’s forehead. Forcibly he drew him to a window, the better to examine him in the light. “Harwood, what is this? This mark? Since when have—” Harwood panicked, pushing away from his father; not daring to flee, but sinking to his knees on the floor; raising his hands in a childlike gesture of piety. His face was puckered; he wept in harsh, heaving sobs; clutched at Abraham’s hands, stammering, begging for mercy—“Father, it was Thurston’s fault, not mine! Thurston is the murderer, not me! It was Thurston who strangled her.”

  THE MUTE

  He fled to the north, along the wide bleached sands, past Oyster Creek, and Little Egg Harbor, and Barnegat Bay; he fled to the west, to the trackless wilds of the Pine Barrens, where he might hide for days, years; unwisely (now starving, near-delirious) he fled south, by Batsto, by Makepeace Lake, by Vineland . . . where, at last, on the fourth day following the murder of Mrs. Wallace Peck, he would be run to earth.

  And so ignobly, like any common criminal!—tracked down by bloodhounds, pursued by police, shot and wounded, beaten, kicked, manacled, brought back to Atlantic City in triumph.

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT THE “fiancé” of MRS. WALLACE PECK.

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT the murderer of MRS. WALLACE PECK.

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT standing mute at his arraignment, nodding just perceptibly when asked if “Christopher Schoenlicht” is his name, shaking his head no, just perceptibly, when asked if he had any accomplice in the heinous crime.

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT (unrepentant? in a daze of terror and grief? weakened by the gunshot wound in his left shoulder?) standing mute as testimony is given . . . by the little Filipino maid (who had been hiding in a wardrobe in the adjoining room, paralyzed with fear, “For next, I knew, he would have strangled me”), and the manager of the Saint-Léon (who had behaved so very unctuously to Eloise and Christopher in the past), and many another witness, including sweet Mrs. Amos Sellick, who had seemed, at one time, to have been attracted to him . . . .

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT about whom much official and unofficial speculation soon rages—for who is he? how had he and the wife of Wallace Peck met? where does he come from, why can no county supply a birth certificate, has he no family he wishes to contact?

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT standing mute, sullen, declining to confess or to deny the charge that he murdered (“by an act of wanton and willful brutality, with robbery as the motive”) the unhappy woman, the supremely foolish woman, who had publicly declared herself, only a week before, his “fiancée” . . . declining to enter a plea of Not Guilty and forbidden by law to acquiesce to the charge of Guilty since the plea of Guilty is tantamount to suicide, which cannot be allowed under the New Jersey statute.

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT, mute, unmoved, doubtless “calloused,” “hardened,” “defiant,” when told that the penalty for his heinous crime is death by hanging.

  CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT, mute.

  THE GRIEVING FATHER

  1.

  For the next eleven months, from the time of Thurston’s arrest and arraignment, through the four-day trial, and the long months of his imprisonment, up to the very hour of his “execution” at the State Correctional Facility at Trenton, New Jersey—Abraham Licht was to think of nothing else; no one else.

  It was the great challenge (as it threatened to be the great sorrow) of his life.

  For Thurston was as dear to him as his own breath, his very heartbeat, and must be freed.

  For Thurston, being a gentleman, could not be guilty of the vulgar crime charged against him, and must be freed.

  For, guilty or no, he was a Licht, and A
braham’s firstborn, and therefore innocent, and must be freed.

  WITHIN AN HOUR of his interview with Harwood he left Muirkirk, alone, telling no one where he was going; and was away for several days.

  During that time he ascertained these terrible facts: a woman by the name of Eloise Peck had been murdered in Atlantic City; one “Christopher Schoenlicht,” her twenty-five-year-old fiancé, was suspected of the crime; “Schoenlicht” had already been arrested, booked on charges of murder, arraigned for a trial; he seemed to have no prior record, and nothing was known of his background; he was reported as “uncooperative” with authorities and “clearly guilty” of the heinous crime.

  Abraham Licht subsequently made no attempt to see his son in jail (for reasons having to do with his own past record); but, acting swiftly, he contacted a lawyer acquaintance by the name of Gordon Bullock, of Manhattan (a business associate from the era of X. X. Anson & Sons Copper, Ltd.); and allowed it to be known in Atlantic City courthouse circles that a generous defense fund had been established for “Christopher Schoenlicht,” by way of an anonymous donor.

  HE THEN RETURNED at once to Muirkirk, knowing himself, for the first time, a man no longer young.

  “DO I DOUBT—I do not. Does my hand shake?—it does not. Am I like other men?—I am not.”

  Now he must plot strategy, now his son’s life depends upon his genius, and his life depends upon his genius; now that all that Abraham Licht is must bear fruit in what he does.

  The door to his room is kept locked, the blinds drawn against the shimmering white heat of August. He is able to eat only one meal a day, late in the evening, brought to him by Katrina, who can be trusted to ask no questions; not even to glance, that sharp-eyed old woman, at the newspapers he has spread across his desk. When he questions her (about Millie, Elisha, Darian, Esther, but especially Harwood, who will be leaving again soon) she answers succinctly, without reproach. Have they lived through a terror before, he and she?—the protracted dying of poor Sophie, perhaps?—Abraham Licht’s own ill luck with the law, and his subsequent (secret) imprisonment? No matter, no matter, Katrina can be trusted.

  “Does my hand shake?—it does not.”

  Bloodshot eyes confronting their own filmy mirror image, beneath eyebrows grown grizzled and queer; fingers plucking at the beardless chin; lips that have acquired the habit, it seems, of moving of their own accord . . .

  How could Thurston have forgotten, a gentleman does not soil his gloves, raise his voice, lift his hand! . . . How could Thurston of all people have committed so vicious a crime! . . . breaking a defenseless woman’s neck.

  Assuming of course that this time Harwood has not lied.

  But Harwood would not dare lie, would he, to his father?

  THESE HAD BEEN weeks of triumph, coups to be recorded at a later date in My Heart Laid Bare, that readers eat out their paltry hearts in envy and outrage: the adroitly “coked” Midnight Sun ridden by that most professional of jockeys Parmelee (with whom A. Washburn Frelicht had never once spoken directly); the mysterious poisoning of little Tatlock (by way of an herb of the family Atropa belladonna); the felicitous accident of Xalapa’s fall (with which Frelicht had nothing, nothing to do—ah, the poor beast!); the honest winnings, in excess of $400,000, now kept in absolute safety in Abraham Licht’s master bedchamber, until such time as investment seems providential. And there was “Mina Raumlicht” in her brilliant debut; and Elisha, proving as clever at the age of twenty as Abraham Licht had been at that age.

  And now it seemed that the Wheel was reversing itself, to destroy all that Abraham Licht had forged out of very nothingness.

  Honor is the subject of my story.

  For God is theirs; and The Game, ours.

  For years, for a quarter century, since the very morning of Thurston’s birth, Abraham Licht had tormented himself, in idle hours, with dread of catastrophe involving one or another of his children. When he was caught up in his work, in the intricacies of The Game, why, then he had no time for such feverish imaginings!—then he had scarcely time for “Licht” itself!—but in the interstices, so to speak, of his professional life, it seemed he was prey like any man or woman to certain ignoble fears. For these children were hostages to Fortune, indeed. For he had not counted on loving them so much.

  “I suppose I do not care greatly about myself,” Abraham Licht mused, “—for there is some doubt as to the existence of ‘myself.’ But no doubt, certainly, about the existence of my dear ones!”

  (And though it could not be said, in the most precise terms, that the adopted Elisha was “his”—flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood—he loved the boy as deeply as the others.)

  As a younger man, as an impassioned lover, Abraham Licht had often fancied himself at the mercy of Woman’s caprices; but with the passage of years he had come round to believing that it was but his idea that rankled his heart, and not the women in themselves. For did a woman, even the loveliest of women, exist, apart from the aroused imagination of a lover? . . . had Arabella, and Morna, and poor Sophie, and one or two others, been as potent in the flesh as in the heated confines of Abraham Licht’s mind? Two of the women, Arabella and Morna, lived yet, so far as Abraham knew; yet they seemed to him no more immediate, and distinctly less worthy, than Sophie who was dead. Ah, they had betrayed him so cruelly! . . . and Sophie as well! . . . and one or two others, harlots best forgotten.

  Yet the women, Abraham Licht’s “wives,” had given him splendid children; which argued, however fleetingly, for their existence. And if he lost Thurston, whether to the hangman, or to exile, might he not father another son?—might he not acquire a new wife, as beautiful as any of the others, and father another miraculous being? For Abraham Licht was yet in the prime of life, no less handsome and vigorous than he had been in the days of his early manhood, arguably more handsome, more vigorous, the wisdom of the years upon him—the natural graying of his yet abundant hair—the natural weathering and creasing of his skin—the deepening of his voice—the sorrow glinting like mica chips in his gaze—Spirituality suffused throughout his well-proportioned figure.

  Was he not Abraham Licht, most remarkable of men?—and might he not be again a lover, a bridegroom, again a father, holding his infant aloft, as if daring the hand of God Himself to strike it from him—?

  2.

  “Father!—look here!”

  How is it, so very suddenly?—here is Thurston, but a child again, in short pants, jacket, and striped school tie; his white-blond hair ablaze in innocent sunshine; his face healthily tanned, his eyes light, his smile dimpled and sweet . . . .He has trotted up quietly behind the Irish nursemaid, that he might, in a twinkling, wrest the handle of the baby carriage from her grasp . . . that pretty carriage, of the subtle shade of mother-of-pearl, bedecked with pink ribbons and Belgian lace, in which, in infant glory, beautiful Millicent rides! . . . and now, calling out to his father, his face uplifted, he pushes the carriage along the sidewalk, to Abraham Licht who awaits him . . . .

  What a shock, to see the boy so young again, and so small: no more than nine years of age: which means that the family is living in the three-story brownstone in Stuyvesant Square, in one of the finest residential neighborhoods in Vanderpoel; moneyed again—at least for the space of ten or twelve frenetic months; and able to afford clothes of the highest quality, and travel by Pullman car, and evenings at the opera, and a personal maid for Morna, and an Irish nursemaid for the baby, and a private Episcopal boys’ school for Thurston and Harwood, and an elegant house in which Abraham Licht can entertain business associates and potential investors . . . in the copper mine, is it? or, by the time of Millie’s birth, in ’92, has he already launched the problematic Santiago de Cuba Sugar Cane Plantation?

  Faithless Arabella, the boys’ mother, is gone from Abraham Licht’s life; and Miss Morna Hirshfield, the parson’s daughter, has taken her place; the feckless young woman who has vowed, weeping, that she will love Abraham forever, and follow him wherever he wishes to go,
and be a true Christian mother to his sons . . . .So little Thurston, dimpled and husky, rushes up to his father to claim his father’s full attention: so happy in his prank, he appears oblivious of the fact that Abraham Licht is not bodily present on that sun-splashed sidewalk, but only regarding it, as it were, from an eerie pleat or tuck in time.

  “Father!—look here!”

  And now time has shifted abruptly, and Thurston is still younger, held aloft in Arabella’s arms, to shout at the jailhouse window at which Abraham Licht, or a gentleman who very much resembles him, stands shivering (for the wretched place is unheated, and Abraham is suffering from a chest cold, and his cousin “Baron” Barraclough will not post bond for another forty-eight hours); the scene being Powhatassie Falls, is it? Or Marion, Ohio?

  How is such a thing possible?—Arabella, bareheaded, defiant, a young woman again, tears glistening on her cheeks, her feet set stolidly apart, brandishing aloft the kicking child—their child, in reproach?—while the younger boy, Harwood, clutches at her skirt, wailing, and scarcely able to stand. Mrs. Abraham Licht, slightly drunk, come to visit her husband. Standing down there in the muddy courtyard, in the chill spring drizzle, that any idle jailhouse inmate might contemplate her in derision, and know her for what she is. Abraham vows: he will never forgive her, he cannot.

  “Father!—help!”

  Suddenly they are in the dim-lit parlor of the rectory, here, close at hand, Thurston and Harwood, mere boys, playing rather roughly together—now on the floor, and wrestling—striking each other swift savage blows—cursing like grown men—gasping for breath—rolling over, and over, and pummeling each other, panting, amid the furniture—now Thurston, red-faced, on top—now Harwood—crashing against the spinet piano—overturning one of Sophie’s little tables—“Father! help! he is killing me, help!”—Thurston’s cry of pain as, enraged, Harwood sinks his teeth in his throat, just below the jaw, and, like any bulldog, will not release his bite, will not, will not! until Abraham Licht seizes him by the hair and thumps his head against the carpet.