Beautiful Days

by Joyce Carol Oates

  She didn’t know if this possibility filled her with dread or with an irrational hope.

  NOW IT BEGAN TO SEEM as if the Diane Arbus family was following her.

  In the ship’s lounge where she was sitting with a book in her lap reading of the Coiba Island penal colony that had been closed only in 2004, an infamous Panamanian site of brutal executions, tortures, human misery dating from 1919 which they were to visit briefly on the next-day’s tour, there came the girl, the brother, the mother—talking loudly among themselves, the obese girl accusing in a whining voice, the obese boy denying in a whining voice, the obese mother trying to placate them making her maddening cluck-cluck-cluck with her tongue; and instead of sitting on an unoccupied sofa in another part of the lounge, to the wife’s dismay the three sat down just behind her, and continued their inane chatter that mimicked human speech as the chatter of monkeys mimics human speech without being intelligible. Though the wife could not actually see the obese girl, she could imagine the girl’s plump moist tongue protruding between her lips, and she could imagine the expression on the boy’s face that was both aggrieved and petulant. And the mother must have taken out of her shiny tote bag the ubiquitous hand sanitizer for the wife smelled the sudden sharp odor of the antibacterial disinfectant and could not concentrate on her book for fear of being sick to her stomach.

  Thinking how strange, though the daughter had not died in a hospital the wife had a clear memory of smelling such an odor in association with the daughter’s death. The daughter had been brought to an ER in a Newark hospital—that is, her broken and lifeless body had been brought to an ER—but she had not died there, they were told that she had died in the roadway approaching the Verrazano Bridge, in the rain.

  Yet, the wife felt a surge of nausea, at the smell of the disinfectant. Blindly she pushed to her feet, and stumbled away, in dread of being overcome by a fit of vomiting.

  Behind her, the Arbus family continued to bicker. The wife’s nostrils pinched with the powerful smell of disinfectant even after she was free of them, gasping for breath outside on the ship’s deck.

  “God, help me. Help me to keep going.”

  After the dinghy returned them to the ship late each afternoon Max dropped off his hiking gear in the cabin and disappeared. He did not invite Becca to accompany him. Once, wandering the ship with a book in her hand as a prop, Becca discovered her husband in a deck chair at the prow of the ship where sunbathers lay sprawled on lounge chairs; Max Needham was the older man facing the ocean, his back to the others, in a long-sleeved white shirt, khaki shorts and wide-brimmed hat. Becca saw that he too had a book as a prop but that he wasn’t reading his book, he was staring at the ocean and hearing the sound of waves washing against the ship’s side—Nothing, nothing, nothing. Take comfort.

  The husband wouldn’t initiate divorce proceedings, she knew. He was too kindly, and thought too highly of himself—he wasn’t a man who would stoop to cruelty. He wasn’t a man who wished others to think of him—Max is divorcing Becca? How can he, the poor woman will be devastated.

  Like many men who are distinguished intellectuals, whose work has been largely cerebral and has taken them far from their roots, Max Needham was highly aggressive; but in his relationships with individuals, his aggression was masked by a perverse sort of passivity. He would so shut Becca out of his life, he would so starve her emotionally, she would be forced to initiate divorce proceedings against him.

  So painful was the thought, Becca felt her tongue numb and tingling in her mouth like a living thing. Her tongue, prodding against her lips. For the first time understanding how natural it was, that a tongue might emerge from a mouth in a ferocity of concentration.

  NEXT MORNING, ON THE ISLAND OF COIBA, again she saw them—the Diane Arbus family.

  Of course, there were many other ecotourists—and tourists—on Coiba, which was the largest island in Central America. There were dozens of ecotourists from the Boca Brava crowded about the site of the old penal colony, reconstituted now for tourists as a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a gift shop selling souvenirs and picture books of the prison. (Becca had read of the horrific tortures and executions in the penal colony during the regime of the dictator Noriega and wondered how the books might picture these.) Yet, even while Jorge spoke to his group in a grim voice of the history of the prison in which so many Panamanians had died Becca was nervously aware of the obese family—father, mother, sister, brother—in the corner of her eye.

  Such rage she felt for them! These were the sort of people who should have been imprisoned in the penal colony, and hidden away from sight. Obese clowns, who provoked reasonable people like Becca to fits of exasperation.

  It couldn’t be that these terrible people were following her. She knew! For often it happened, ironically, it was she who seemed to be following them.

  The tourist-group to which the obese family belonged was the Albatrosses, who sometimes followed the Howler Monkeys on an island excursion, and sometimes preceded them. The Albatrosses were led by an Indian guide younger and more personable than Jorge with a moustache, a red headband, and a dashing look reminiscent of Che Guevara. This young guide laughed often, and evoked eager laughter amid his group of tourists. Becca could not help glancing back at the obese girl, who stood close to this guide, head cocked in concentration as he spoke; Becca could not see if the girl’s hideous tongue was protruding but she could see that the girl was wearing one of the beltless, shapeless dresses in which her rubbery young flesh was encased as in a loose bandage, and on her pudgy feet Birkenstocks and white cotton socks.

  “Many thousands of prisoners died here and are buried in unmarked graves in the cemetery”—solemnly Jorge spoke with a wave of his hand indicating a desolate area stretching behind the old prison; but in her effort to hear what the handsome young Albatross guide was saying, Becca scarcely heard. She was thinking—She has fallen in love with him. She will be heartbroken.

  Next, the Howler Monkeys were taken by bus to another part of the island. Three hours hiking in an ancient forest in rising heat and the wife worried that both she and the husband—but particularly the husband, who took less care than the wife with such precautions—would suffer from insect bites, for the strong-smelling insect repellent they were wearing was sweating away on their skin, and stinging insects were everywhere. But their eyes were dazzled by gorgeously colored butterflies, dragonflies. Overhead in the tall trees macaws of all colors—vivid scarlet, vivid blue, vivid yellow, vivid green. Swarms of smaller birds and hummingbirds so tiny, you could barely see them in the green-tinted humid light.

  Yesterday had been December 19. They had lived past the birthday, the wife thought. A small smile twisted the lower part of her face, she hoped the husband would not see.

  (Of course the husband would not see. The husband walked ahead of the wife as if he were alone, staring intently into the forest, camera poised at chest level.)

  Jorge was lecturing to them about frogs—“endangered amphibians”—the “catastrophic decline” of amphibian populations worldwide. Frogs, toads, snakes, lizards. They must proceed with caution and not step off the trail for venomous reptiles were plentiful in the rain forest where there was intense competition for food, and a great range of predators. Despite the rising heat and a din of tiny insects in her ears the wife tried to listen to Jorge explaining the phenomenon of toxic creatures and the mimicry of toxic creatures by species that were not in fact toxic but were designed to appear so to elude predators. “It seems as if all of life is eluding predators, unless you are one”—the wife heard herself make this trenchant observation to Jorge though (she was sure) she’d never been one of those annoying individuals who makes clever inconsequential remarks in such circumstances to draw attention to herself.

  Fortunately, no one seemed to have heard except Jorge, who nodded in polite agreement. How clever, the señora! The husband had drifted farther ahead, camera raised now to eye level.

  Becca had read about Panamanian g
olden frogs (in fact, the creatures were toads) that were poisonous, and had become extinct in the wild. She’d read about poison dart frogs. She was prepared to engage Jorge with informed talk of such creatures, as well as sloths, monkeys, and sea lions—but hesitated for fear of being mistaken for a desperately lonely American woman of still-youthful middle age whose husband was shaking her out of his life in the way of a man shaking something off his shoe at which he does not wish to look.

  Among the Howler Monkeys, sloths were a hit. Many clever remarks were made about sloths, and many pictures were taken. And, farther into the forest, packs of monkeys: mantled howlers, white-headed capuchins. These were the most popular creatures of all though they kept a cautious distance from the human Howler Monkeys eagerly taking pictures of them.

  In some parts of the world, the guide told them, monkey meat is a delicacy. In Africa, apes are eaten: “bush meat.” But the monkey population in Central America was protected.

  The capuchins were fretting and shrieking at one another. Were they angry? Excited? Frightened? Showing off? Were they well aware of their human observers, and mocking them? Becca felt her heartbeat quicken in imitation of the frantic-seeming creatures who flung themselves through the air in ceaseless agitation. It was upsetting to watch them, yet impossible to look away. “Something terrible is going to happen”—the little monkeys seemed to be screaming this warning and the wife meant only to be amusing in translating it aloud. Fortunately, no one seemed to hear.

  After the forest, which left the wife drenched with sweat and feeling oddly disoriented, as if she’d been granted a profound vision (of animal ancestors?) that had come to nothing, they were driven by van to a rocky shore with stretches of sandy beach where dinghies from the cruise ship had landed. As the guide lectured entertainingly on the courtship rituals of sea lions the wife felt a clutch of dread that the Arbus family would be there, inescapably—though at first she didn’t see them, amid a pack of tourists taking pictures of cavorting sea lions and their young.

  And then, there they were. Big-headed big-bellied father and son, obese mother and daughter in sleeveless beltless shapeless dresses.

  How they ruined the primitive beauty of the setting! The sea lions, and seabirds . . . Everything was ruined by their presence. The wife believed that others felt the same way, and looked upon these people with exasperated pity.

  It was particularly upsetting to see how the brother was wading in the surf much too close to the sea lions, as visitors were warned not to do. Becca considered calling to him—Be careful! A sea lion can slash you with its claws. She watched to see if the sea lion would attack the brash boy . . . The boy’s mother made a futile effort to call him back but the boy took no notice, stamping and hooting in the surf; the father took no notice, frowningly absorbed in his videotape camera. The obese girl was also barefoot, having removed her sandals and socks, wading in the surf with an imbecile look of intense frowning concentration, tongue protruding . . .

  Soon then as the wife looked on in horror the boy, the girl, and the mother began to strip to bathing suits as other tourists were doing, for swimming and snorkeling were allowed in this cove.

  The wife looked on in amazement. Such ugly ungainly individuals voluntarily removing their outer clothes in public! Only a few yards away was another family—(in fact, one of the Norman Rockwell families)—attractive adults, beautiful young children. These were normal, undeformed bodies from which no one would look away in disgust.

  From what she’d overheard on the ship Becca gathered that the Arbus family was from Long Island. Both parents were educators of some kind—high school? community college? It was not possible to believe that they were university faculty. In the ship’s lounge Becca had overheard the big-headed father talking importantly about Central America to another passenger who must have been amused by his fatuous arrogance. And the obese girl—her name was something like “Nadine”—“Natalie”—was still in school, it seemed.

  The wife wanted to call out to the girl’s mother, to warn her—Don’t! Don’t let your daughter expose her body like this! You can’t know what you are doing . . .

  There came the heedless fat boy running in the surf, making a yodeling noise to frighten away seabirds; his chins, torso, stomach and thighs jiggled. And there was the girl in a pink floral bathing suit with a little skirt like the skirt of a ballet costume that exposed her enormous lard-like thighs, her swelling belly and hips, her hideous sagging breasts like an obscene fruit . . . The mother sat in the shade of a great rock, tote bag on her lap, watching with a frowning sort of affection; the father sat heavily on a low rock with his fat legs outspread, enormous groin scarcely contained by the crotch of his Bermuda shorts, taking pictures of his hideous children wading in the surf. What was astonishing was that the family seemed to be having a good time.

  The obese girl seemed truly not to know how ugly she was. Cavorting in the waves, breathless and panting like a young child as the brother splashed her, and she shouted and splashed him in turn. A kind of wildness came over the two, as in the white-headed capuchins in the rain forest. The wife wanted to shout at her How on earth can you be happy? Don’t you know what you look like?

  Indeed the wife wasn’t the only person taking notice of the two. There were others casting scornful looks. A bare-chested boy of about fifteen and an older brother—both of them good-looking boys whom Becca had noticed on the ship, talking and laughing with other teenagers. It was the girl who drew the most derisive stares and yet—perversely—she seemed not to notice.

  On the beach the wife stood, staring. A murderous rage overcame her. That the beautiful slain daughter was dead, and this obscenely ugly daughter was alive—it was unbearable. The raging words of Lear came to her—Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life? And thou no breath at all?

  The sun seemed to be swelling in the sky. White sun, white-vapor sky. In thin trickles sweat ran down her body inside her clothes and left her shivering.

  Where was the husband? Why was he not beside her?

  The wife felt strength drain from her legs and suddenly she was on her knees, and then on her stomach, fallen forward in the hot gritty sand.

  “Ma’am? Señora?”—Jorge was bending over her, concerned. Other faces approached. The husband was absent but the rotund little Arbus mother had heaved herself to her feet with a grunt and hurried over on fat legs; she and the guide helped Becca sit up. Then, the rotund little woman in the beltless bare-armed dress took a cloth out of her tote bag which she dipped in the surf and brought to Becca to press against her overheated face. “Lower your head, dear. That will help. If you lower your head, blood will flow to your brain and you won’t be so faint.”

  And, “It’s the ‘vagus’ nerve, that can cause a blackout. In this tropical climate you could have heatstroke so you should be very careful not to become dehydrated.”

  And, “My name is Gladys, dear—‘Dr. Gladys.’”

  Unhesitating the wife obeyed Dr. Gladys. The wife was very weak, and did not push away the bottled water the woman lifted to her lips though (she guessed) someone else had been drinking from it before her.

  High on the trail above the cove, not visible from where the wife sat spread-legged on the sand, the husband continued to ascend the trail, oblivious.

  3.

  “My name is Nathalie.”

  “Oh yes—‘Nathalie.’ Thank you.”

  It was late afternoon of the final full day of the tour. The wife had entered the library on the lower level of the Boca Brava, which was usually deserted, and had been dismayed to discover the obese girl there, alone.

  As if waiting for me. But of course that can’t be right.

  Against a wall was a table of light refreshments: instant coffee, tea, cream and sugar packets; small cellophane-wrapped nuts and candies. The wife had intended to peruse the shelves of books but the obese girl misunderstood, and moved aside for her to approach the refreshments table. “Some of these?”—with a shy sort of push
iness the girl offered her a package of pistachios.

  “No thank you . . .”

  Smiling, the girl announced her name: Na-tha-LIE. She spoke with a faint lisp. Her manner was just slightly coquettish, the wife thought uncomfortably.

  “‘Nathalie’ is a—pretty name . . .”

  “Thank you!” The smile broadened. Moist pink gums were exposed. In the fleshy cheeks, sharp dimples.

  And now—was there something missing? Something wrong?

  She was feeling uneasy in such close quarters with the girl—with “Nathalie.” Only later would the wife recall that she’d failed to tell the girl her name. She had not even thought of saying My name is Becca.

  Close up, the obese girl was obviously younger than twenty. A child trapped inside the ungainly mammalian-female body.

  Nathalie was slightly taller than Becca, and must have weighed one hundred pounds more than Becca. Like her father she seemed to loom and lurch dangerously. Her young forehead was lined and creased from frowning and like her mother’s, her eyes were curiously bare. (Had she been ill? When Daphne had had hepatitis her hair had grown brittle and thin but her eyelashes had not fallen out, so far as Becca remembered.) She was wearing the unflattering bib-overalls with a mustard-yellow T-shirt beneath—Becca had the impression that the girl’s enormous young breasts were bare inside her clothing, with no support. (How was this possible? Didn’t the mother monitor the girl’s clothing? Didn’t the mother see? Becca felt a rush of maternal indignation.) Nathalie was nervous and self-conscious yet seemed pleased to be talking with Becca; she had the manner of a child who is accustomed to being praised by adults. Excitedly she spoke of a project she was doing for her Earth Science class at school and Becca had no choice but to ask her about it: a little book of photographs Nathalie had taken on the islands, with a text and captions: “The title is ‘Birds and Animals of the Panama Islands.’”