The Changeling

by Joy Williams

  The sky splintered soundlessly open, breaking like the shell of an egg. For an instant she thought she might be able to see right into it. She came so close . . . but she did not want to make anything up. She would not cheat. It was too late to cheat and she had come too far.

  She reached the porch. Leaves lay upon the raw boards. A child’s sweater slumped upon a wicker rocker. In the house, flowers rattled in a vase as the wind came in after her. She saw Miriam. At first Pearl was relieved. I’ll have to tell her, she thought, and what she’d seen shaped spherical in the air between them.

  I’ll tell her, she thought.

  She was relieved to see her there, to recognize the warm brown eyes, the face that grieved, the hands that nourished, the familiar skirt with its mooncalf language.

  There was a radio playing. It pushed in on Pearl’s thoughts. There was a broadcaster on it with a whining conspiratorial voice. It was close to her, just inside the kitchen. She turned it off. It made a click.

  It was a sound like the old woman’s looking at her. Pearl had heard it. In the head, a membrane floated across the eyes and then rose again with a click. Like the sound of a door being opened.

  She heard a baby crying.

  “It’s Angie,” Miriam said. She was fumbling with the stove. The stove didn’t seem to be working. “You’d better go look at her.”

  I should tell her, Pearl thought. I will tell her the truth of this house. This house is in our minds. Truth is separated from Life very cunningly.

  She passed through the kitchen toward the sound of the baby’s cry and found Angie in the library wedged beneath the pillows of the sofa. Angie wept as though something was tearing her up inside. She held her arms out to Pearl.

  Her legs are hurting her, Pearl thought. She picked her up and felt the child’s damp, heavy bottom through her dress. It was a long party dress, red and white check, with a large gay bow in front. Pearl kissed the child’s hair, which smelled rank, and rocked her in her arms for a moment.

  Angie stopped screaming and was now looking calmly up into Pearl’s face.

  They’ve left us behind haven’t they? Pearl thought. The two of us. She looked into the child’s innocent and inaccusable face.

  The child was quiet but panting slightly. The room was quiet. Pearl’s mind was calm. They’ll blame me, she thought. But it doesn’t matter. What does it matter?

  “Look,” Miriam was saying, “I want you to look.”

  For the children, she was saying. They can’t be found.

  Put that down, she was saying.

  Angie’s hair was wet as rags from crying. Pearl mopped at it with her hands. She started crying again. Pearl couldn’t hush her.

  “They are hiding,” Miriam was saying. “They are playing a joke on us.”

  The food is cold. It’s dark. It’s beginning to rain.

  “She must be sick, crying like that. I’ll heat her some milk,” Miriam was saying. “They’ve frightened her. I don’t know what’s gotten into them, playing such games.”

  I’ve had my own reversals today, Miriam was saying. That woman is a fraud. She asked for more money. I’ve given her so much. It’s impossible for me to give her any more money. She said she saw my Johnny crying and running away from us because I had lied about something as petty as money. She said I had done the worst thing on this earth. I had betrayed a child’s faith. She ordered me to leave. She had me so upset. I thought she might have me arrested.

  Miriam was pale. A brown vein throbbed near her eye. She raised her hand to still it. Her arm was very white, too white, like the neck of a swan.

  “Sometimes I thought I felt his eyes,” Miriam was saying. “They were bright loops tightening around my heart. But she says now he won’t look upon me anymore. He’s turned his eyes away.”

  Pearl could hear the rain begin. She heard the green leaves lying on the ground one upon the other and the rain falling upon the rain. She could hear the rain falling on the faces of the children, upon their shells, taking them back, chrysalis-like, transferred.

  I’m going to make another cup of tea, Miriam was saying. I can’t seem to calm myself.

  She went away. Angie pulled on Pearl’s face.

  “Here, here,” Pearl said aimlessly. The child’s eyes flickered. She wrinkled up her lips in a laugh.

  The room smelled of perfume and cooking and the rain. And there was the overwhelming smell of liquor. Pearl left Angie on the couch and went to the bar where she poured herself a glass of gin.

  She bent over Angie once more. A sourness rose in the back of her throat. The dress fell over the baby’s feet. Pearl pushed it up. Angie’s legs were withered and hairy, ending in sharp little claws. A thick, sorrel-colored tail flecked with gold fell down between the legs. The stomach was speckled and flat.

  Pearl held Angie and went upstairs to her room. All the lights were on. Nothing had been disturbed. She made a little bed for Angie by putting two chairs together, then she slowly undressed herself and put on a nightgown. The gown had been hanging in the back of the closet for years. She seldom wore it. It was white with a hem of salmon-colored lace. She locked the door and slowly drank her gin.

  It wasn’t long before she heard the children softly scratching on the door.

  “Pearl,” they said, “where is everybody? Are they hiding? Where are you?”

  I’m here, she said.

  Once she had thought that she was crazy and that she might get well. She thought that she had to be herself. But there was no self. There were just the dreams she dreamed, the dreams that prepared her for her waking life.

  “Come out, Pearl!”

  Not yet, she said.

  The children had their lives too, new forms by which the future would be accomplished.

  She drank the gin. She was the drunkest person in the world. Inside she was bathed in crystal light. She turned off the lamps. She lit two candles, the second from the burning wick of the first. She watched her own simple gesture entranced. Then she blew the candles out.

  Outside her now was a profound darkness that reminded her of the crystal light inside. She closed her eyes. The children went away. She was on a lost and drunken ark. There was no oar, no sail, no rudder . . .

  Then they were back, whispering.

  “Pearl, Miriam’s in the kitchen. She’s lying on the floor. She won’t move. Her face is funny. It looks all collapsed.”

  They nudged at the door. The knob rattled.

  The glass was almost empty. She could not bear to finish the last of it, to truly empty the glass. She held it with both hands. It is the guilt alone that matters, she thought.

  Not yet, she said, I can’t come yet.

  “What shall we do about Miriam? She doesn’t know what to tell us to do. Ashbel’s scared. Franny’s scared.” Their voices were heavy and blurred.

  In death we are not human and there is no need to know, Pearl thought.

  She was on a lost and drunken ark. Her mind shuttled to and fro, dipped and rose, like water, sickeningly.

  It will be all right, she said.

  The wind sucked at the windows.

  “Pearl!”

  I’ll be there, she said.

  They were quiet. They went away. Pearl sat in the dark, but with the glass in her hands she held the last of the light and in herself she felt the inner morning.

  Angie snuffled and stirred in her sleep.

  Once they had been children, tamed by the years and her confusions. But now they were free and in that freedom was change and endless rebirth. She had brought about that freedom. Seven years ago she had brought here the instrument of change.

  To take the leap! To fall. The fool. The dog.

  Her mind shied, lingered.

  The spirit is animal, she thought. It is the spirit which knows God. It is His favorite, His dream, freed from His imagination. The shadow of Jesus, the shadow of the Devil were so long ago laid to rest, side by side, in one common death, but the spirit is changeling. And is forev
er being fashioned into endless and impending transformations.

  She raised the glass and drank, and felt herself being taken up by, being part of, an enormous wave just about to fold, just about to begin its long, triumphant fall . . .

  The world seemed red. In the wave was the sky and she saw a great wine-colored falcon wheeling out of that sky, holding a rabbit in its pitying, merciless claws.

  And then black, the wave, dissolving the black room. The peg-joined floor boards black, the single fly drowned in the dark glass, the curtains black against the night like loathsome angels, the black small shape on the chair.

  Then white. Lovely it seemed. She lay quietly, looking. Galaxies of energy emptying light. But then a howling came out of it. The force of the vital shapeless wave drew back and up into its frightful cry.

  “Bitch!” Thomas’s word was. Bitch bitch bitch.

  Out of the wave, his shadow with its man’s mouth opening at her, cursing, grabbing her hair with its one hand, wrapping it around its fist, while the other hand struck her face, peeled it back, and she could feel small bones fracturing softly in that face, of that woman so long ago.

  There was a crash. Glass fell like stars. The wind beat against her ears like wings, great starved wings. Pearl screamed. “Bitch!” the word was. “Lunatic!”

  She screamed because the person she was had to. The person she was no longer would not scream. That person was going to die and what could be done about that? Nothing could be done about that. The man who was trying to beat her half to death before she died punched her and she felt everything go flat. He was talking to her. He wanted her to know why she was being punished. He would hold her by the hair and give her an openhanded slap and then he would wait for a while as though he wanted her to understand it and then he would slap her again. It was painful. She screamed. She had just had a baby, only a few days before, and she still hurt from it. She had had many babies and they were all difficult births, but she loved them all. It was terrible that this man would be hitting her right after she had her baby with the baby right here with her, probably terrified, probably sobbing, although she couldn’t hear it in the din.

  The man shoved her down and she tried to wrench herself away from the baby but the baby was not there. She was falling but perhaps the baby had fallen farther. She screamed.

  She saw the children massed in the doorway.

  She saw them just an instant before they leapt into the room and dragged the man down. The little one with the round dark head was first. He fastened himself upon the man’s neck. The flesh bunched out between the teeth.

  Another had his long thin face deep into the man’s side. Another chattered and dug at his eyes.

  A mist of blood blew upon Pearl’s face. They were tearing him apart. They bit in. They held. The larger ones were on his chest, striking his chest with their jaws with a flat sound. She saw a sliver of yellow bone, a hand severed. With his last strength, the man pushed himself off the floor a few feet. His face turned. Pearl saw it. Blood streamed down it. The eyes were shut, the lips displaced in ribbons. And then the face vanished. It sank beneath the foaming heads.

  Pearl saw it being finished. She watched the haggard, snarling impossible scene and accepted it. She saw the animals, their mouths full of meat, the eternal consuming the corruptible. She heard the silence around them all, the silence of the storm stilled. The silence of no screaming or snarling or cry. Just the dip, pull and flick of those mixed monsters of God’s abyss.

  Pearl rose painfully to her feet. Her nightdress was torn. She touched her swollen face. On the threshold of the room she saw the old woman, the skinny old woman holding Sam in her arms. She was stronger, stronger than one could possibly imagine. Once upon a time there was a child who wanted to run away. Once upon a time there was a child that wanted to be a real child. Once upon a time she had had a child that hadn’t been hers. He had never been hers, he had never wanted to be a human child, she had, a very long time ago, made it up.

  But there they were.

  She remembered the night with everyone dead and the dogs running around her. But of course not everyone was dead. You could not live in a world where everyone was dead.

  She remembered the night when she fell. It was warm like this night and something terrible had happened like this night. There was a child who was never found.

  The old woman looked at Pearl from far away. Her face had never been complete but there had always been a look of anger upon it. But that was not so now. The old woman was not angry at Pearl anymore. Pearl had been forgiven. The old woman was not flying around in Pearl’s mind anymore, angry with her about the child, flying around in Pearl’s mind with awful wings. The old woman had what Pearl had called Sam and would leave now. She had left Pearl the others. She had not left Pearl alone. Pearl was forgiven. Pearl was gone.

  Outside, away from the carcass within. The others followed her. She crouched on the wet ground in the view that Pearl had so often witnessed from her room, from the flowered chaise behind the windows as she lay drinking. She was the view now, she was the drunken vision scarcely outlined in the darkness, the inchoate body of the dream, at last perfectly recalled.

  She crouched there and they pressed against her, the warmth of night in their coats. She traced the deep horn of fur above their eyes, the hard caskets of their skulls. She smelled the different odors of their skin, felt their black scalloped jaws. They scrubbed the sour folds of their skin with their rough tongues. They unraveled her tangled hair softly with their nails. The air was still and fresh. The only sound was of the animals breathing in the summer night. The animals who were children.

  Animals like little flowers with only the smallest threads as their roots.

  Animals like little stars with their past lives flickering.

  Animals part of one large animal of God, the heart pounding and never breaking.

  It was a summer night. Always it was summer in the womanish, childish, animal houseshape of God.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Puuuuurl Puuuuurl it’s my turn let me let me! he’s like a cyborg maybe don’t cry Trip read about them a long time ago he says they’ll use a brain to fly the brain of an unborn child is the perfect thing to use on an otherwise unmanned flying ship it can go everywhere it can know everything when he smiles it stops raining all over the world it’s just a mirror there all greasy so greasy you could write on it the world is happening everywhere at once isn’t it nice not there here it’s gloomy there Pearl it’s empty too the harm’s been done they’re not here no truly you’re the only person here and you’re with us the others live in a mad world in the midst of strangers you remember that the struggle to love to eat to beware truly don’t be anxious we would never betray you there was some sort of explosion Tracker grabbed the first thing he could it was a book about metoposcopy imagine it had a picture in it of a naked woman all covered with moles let me it’s my turn to feed Pearl today at night his initial is among the stars Jane’s got worms she eats too many flowers listen to that noise now that is an old noise the lost without the underground river the lost without has been found within happy? wring out a rag and put it around her wrists she likes that to dream of grapes means children put that blouse on her if she’s cold no the other one’s gone Pearl it fell apart Miriam was going to put a part of it in one of her skirts but she couldn’t there wasn’t anything for the thread to go through to dream of falling means children at night we crawl into a head it’s not a bad idea it’s cozy and dark it sleeps Franny’s got the daintiest hands of any creature around she can open anything the face our hands feel is our face no more and yet the sensation is the same see? sing her the song she likes you know i couldn’t sing a note until the hawk flew out my throat the hymn ohhhhhhh he walks with me and no she doesn’t want it he wasn’t very big but sometimes he seemed big ohhhhhh Tracker stop it you are so mean yes Pearl you know us better than anybody you see us as we are and we see you no it’s not raining do you feel wet now once it rained
for so many days that the flowers began growing out of the machines i will tell your fortune animals are by their very nature prophetical as you know yes you will live forever here with us dolphins foretell hurricanes for example birds flying on your right bring luck and manatees think they’re mermaids they really do Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers we are now up to Corinthians I for the fourth time you’d think she’d get tired of it but she never does do you Pearl she loves that book and the other one that manual that came with the stove you’d think there might be some aesthetic tension there no no it’s all right here 15 behold I tell you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed ohh yes she likes that look at that smile where is the biggest bar in the world do you think i bet it’s in Atlantic City Death’s a wagon rattling down the boardwalk Pearl’s not going to get on that old wagon are you Pearl no there’s no need we’ll plant potatoes in the spring Peter can make vodka it’s easier on the stomach ohh she thinks that’s funny isn’t that funny Pearl yes it’s true manatees think they’re mermaids because the sailors told them so no it’s not spring yet are you cold then we can’t get any closer Pearl we’re as close as we can get what do you say to a pickle that’s one year old no Pearl your heart can’t be cold that’s just poetry why does the weigher of the hearts of the dead have the head of a jackal happy birthday is what you say that’s Timmy’s joke she wants you to make a face ohh that’s fierce the face your hands feel is imagine that poacher shooting at Timmy out of that helicopter poor little Timmy he was scared half to death it was a terrible sound and that other man that man that came by boat with a bow and arrow and shot at Tracker that man had a face like an asshole there was really something wrong with it faces when they’re your own are complex matters Trip’s for example that spot where the hair doesn’t grow the spot that’s in the shape of a boy’s face all its own do you think it has its own dreams that boy’s face? in sleep you know the treasure is buried in the darkness to which all creature’s go we’re safe here Pearl and we’re safe there too that’s the part that’s special it’s my turn to brush Pearl’s hair how long it’s gotten how pretty yes pretty eggzactly it’s not just brown it’s impossible to define its color really so many colors in such bewilderment that it seems to be none at all when Ashbel was little and he’d find a pretty place you know the oak you could stand up in or the little broken bridge over the marsh he’d always have to pee that was when he was a child seeing the water i wish that when we saw something we could taste and feel and smell it too that it was all one thing wouldn’t that save a lot of time i suppose that happens on the astral level no of course we have all the time in the world and even if we didn’t we would still be like this all of us here with you happy birthday happy as for there Peter saw it yesterday he poked about it’s a mess the books have mushrooms in them poisonous and spiders everywhere the doors won’t shut they’re swollen open and there are puddles and moths the color of whatever they rest upon everything’s broken not a thing works the paintings are as fuzzy as Angie’s hair we’ll go there in the winter maybe when everything is icy and rackety but the sun is nice today feel the sun the words they used to say are gone now on the side of the speakable are human beings but beyond the speakable is the beginning of the world Pearl Pearl? she knows that why that’s just something you know isn’t it of course the house is just mud and bones Peter said it’s dead well it had its day Pearl’s got the slowest smile don’t you love the way it spreads Peter walked around the roof all the air’s been let out of it was the way it seemed the children gone don’t cry you’ve made her cry again don’t cry feel the sun it’s summer you used to say drinking made you feel it was summer all year long no well something similar night and the water seem the same that’s why Jesse’s never minded the dark if you hug him you’ll drown it’s always been difficult to show him affection but in his dreams he’s loved in his dreams he’s a child being rocked being rocked but we’re in the day now the sky’s as white as bread all that is learned is remembered little by little the face of a stranger peers out of the faces of us all it happens all the time she wants more about the house all right the house well you can imagine what remains the porch remains and the chimney and the staircase rising there’s a smell of gas which is not unpleasant look at that boat with the bluish-gray sail we had a boat like that once with a sail faded just so just the color of your eyes Pearl a pearly colored sail a beautiful still day isn’t it the boat’s not moving at all the sky is white the sea’s like silk it’s summer well you could look through the windows like the weeds do they flourish around emptiness you could see what the weeds see like looking through a veil almost the same grown people go away they’re contrived they can’t be counted upon they go away the devices of their bones accomplished curl up on her she wants that yes we’re here Pearl with you night and day month and year run together and are at rest here in us in these shapes we’ve been given we’re happy in them you’re scratching her get down and sponge her off a little she’s hot the fishline stretches from the great above to the great below Jesse knows we all know the fire’s in the wood as they say the whole’s unlike the parts that make it life’s not it’s little moments after all and Aaron was no one’s father as you’ve said and yet without his presence those lives could not have entered us yes he suffered the fate of death for us that was how it happened she wants to know she never tires of it well it happened gradual well you saw we never saw her but we knew better for it she was complete for us him we played with it was easy enough you showed us how to begin once there was a child yes lap that spot there where she’s hurt herself she chews on herself sometimes i think once there was a child who traveled with his grandmother who would not let him go sometimes the two traveled as a bird in the sky and sometimes they went on land as wild things and sometimes they traveled as human beings but within each was the other within the woman was the child which she would not let go and within the child was the animal the changeling who was eternal when they seemed the most human as a child as an old woman they were these other things apart flying on wings as a bird flies in the channels that bank and drift between life and death or walking as an animal walks along the ridges and through the caves that link one sense of being with another they came here yes you brought them she’s hearing hard you can tell cool that rag again how pretty her hands lie in her lap like empty gloves you went away but you came back and they came with you we played with him he was like us more and more he got to be like us you said and we like him yes we ate we slept we played carelessly we were on a journey you used to be afraid we knew that of the simple things the children their toys the clock the cars with their sealed eyes the water speak monotonously and calmly yes we’re with you you know we love you speak calmly and rhythmically and softly the pump the screen the closed door the food on plates a ruin that house now a shell we don’t live there anymore nature is generous and insensible the heart of heartlessness nothing endures or is completed everything is in constant change it happened gradual with the eyes first and then our bodies were no longer smooth and hairless down we went we fell to fours our heads were happy really we knew it could be done and it was done the way as you thought our enemies were defeated our head was like a house of keys tawny too crystal in a moment in a twinkling we were changed the children gone but us become in the instant of your cry don’t spin it out too long she wants to curl up now help her grab our backs she’s light as a feather look at the nice food Tracker found no not even a nibble? chew it up for her a little here you are then there that’s better the lost without has been found we are your pets and protectors the circle is closed and we are with you there that’s it quiet now there are no words for what you think Pearl there are no words for us words turn back Puuuuurl