The Best American Mystery Stories 2019

by Jonathan Lethem

  At the top were Aryans, the purest Caucasians—the “white race.” Northern Europe, UK, Germany, Austria. The crème of the crème. Beneath these were Middle Europeans, and Eastern Europeans, and beneath these Southern Europeans. By the time you got to Sicily you were in another, lower level of evolution—“Though some of the people are very physically attractive, paradoxically.”

  There were the Eastern civilizations—Asian, Indian. Here too the lighter-skinned had reigned supreme for many thousands of years though in continuous danger of being infected, polluted by the darker-skinned who resided in the south.

  In Africa, Egypt was the exception. A great ancient civilization, and (relatively) white-skinned. The remainder of the continent was dark-skinned—“Indeed, a ‘heart of darkness.’”

  Earnestly and gravely Mr. Sandman spoke, facing me. His words were incantatory, numbing.

  “Black Africans were brought to America as slaves, which would prove a disaster to our civilization. For the enslaved Africans would not remain enslaved through the meddlesome efforts of Abolitionists and radicals like Abraham Lincoln, and so it was to be inevitable that black Africans were granted freedom, and seized freedom, and wreaked havoc upon the white civilization that had hitherto given them shelter and employment and nurtured them . . . First, the military was ‘integrated.’ Then, public schools. Then, the Boy Scouts of America!” Mr. Sandman shook his head, disgusted.

  “With integration comes disintegration. Some Negroes wish to dilute the white race by interbreeding while others wish to eradicate the white race of ‘demons’ entirely. Revenge is only natural in humankind. As species have to compete for food to survive, so races must compete for the dominion of the earth. The Führer understood this and launched a brilliant preemptive strike but his fellow Caucasians idiotically opposed him—who can forgive them! One day there will be a race war. To the death.” Mr. Sandman’s voice rose, vehemently as it sometimes did in class.

  Führer. This too was a word out of a comic book. Yet, there was nothing funny about Führer now.

  “Violet, have you heard of the fearful science of eugenics?”

  To this, I could shake my head no.

  “Why is it ‘fearful,’ you’re wondering? Because it tells truths many do not wish to hear.”

  According to eugenics, Mr. Sandman explained, interbreeding—“miscegenation”—was a tragic error that would result in the destruction of Master Races, and free-breeding—“promiscuity”—would result in inferior races having as many babies as they could and overwhelming Master Races with their sheer numbers.

  “We have seen how the black race is being contaminated by its own thugs—cities like Chicago have become overrun with gangs and drug addicts. They breed like rabbits—like rats! Slavery is the excuse their apologists give—its shadow has fallen upon all blacks, and renders them helpless as invalids. They have no morals. They are greedy and lustful. Their average IQs have been measured many degrees lower than those of whites and Asians. How many great mathematicians have been Negro? That’s right—none.”

  Relenting then, “Well. Almost none. And they were light-skinned blacks, Arabs. In medieval times.”

  And, “In all fairness, some dark-skinned persons have realized the danger of promiscuity. Certain black intellectuals and leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois believed that only ‘fit blacks’ should reproduce—not thugs! The ‘Talented Tenth’ of all races should mix.” But Mr. Sandman shuddered at the prospect.

  In my fifth-period algebra class there were just three black students—two girls and a boy. Not often but occasionally Mr. Sandman would call upon Tyrell Jones, a stolid, solemn dark-skinned boy with thick glasses: “Ty-rell, come to the blackboard, please. Solve this problem for us.” Because Tyrell was one of the better students in the class, and black, Mr. Sandman seemed bemused by him. Tyrell was not a thug certainly. Yet Tyrell was not what Mr. Sandman called light-skinned.

  “Here, Ty-rell. We are waiting to be impressed.”

  Mr. Sandman handed Tyrell the chalk, which Tyrell near-fumbled in his nervousness.

  Tyrell Jones was in two other classes with me. Teachers were protective of Tyrell for he was cripplingly shy, with few friends even among the black students. He wore heavy tweed jackets that might’ve belonged to his grandfather. He had allergies and was often blowing his nose, sucking air from a plastic device he kept in a pocket. He did not seem young. Standing at the board in Mr. Sandman’s class, chalk in his fingers, he appeared to be paralyzed with fear, staring at the problem Mr. Sandman had scrawled on the blackboard as if he had never seen it before though (probably) he’d successfully solved it in our homework assignment. His eyes magnified by the thick lenses skittered over the class of (mostly) white faces as if, desperate, he was looking for a friend.

  I would have smiled at Tyrell Jones if he’d looked at me. Just a quick, small smile. For if I smiled at anyone, I did not (really) want them to see; I did not want to be responsible for a smile.

  But I was seated too far to the right, out of Tyrell’s range of vision.

  Mr. Sandman had been peering at me, frowning. Could he read my thoughts? In my fear of the man was a numbness of intellect: I had ceased thinking rationally.

  “. . . race war, inevitable. If they can’t mongrelize our civilization they will attack us directly. Even Tyrell Jones of whom you seem fond . . . he is no friend of ours.”

  I could not bear it, the way Mr. Sandman read my thoughts. Often I felt as if my head must be transparent, Mr. Sandman could peer inside.

  “Most politicians shrink from associating themselves with the ‘race issue’ at the present time—they’re cowards. As a public school teacher, I am in an awkward position. At least, in this northern state. All around me, I believe are sympathizers—embattled ‘whites.’ And yet, we must not acknowledge one another. I’ve had to be the very soul of discretion. I never ‘discriminate’ against Negro students, when they are in my classes. Nothing could be proved against me if the NAACP tried to sue. I never go out of my way to help, or to hinder. But I rarely acknowledge them, either. For the most part they are invisible to me.”

  This seemed sad, and wrong. I dared to ask Mr. Sandman why he didn’t like Ethel, Lorraine, and Tyrell, in our class? They were all nice, and Tyrell was smart.

  “It isn’t a matter of ‘liking’ them as individuals. As individuals they might be inoffensive. They do behave themselves in our class. It’s the race that is a threat. Suppose the Negroes were carrying plague virus? You’d avoid them then, even if they are ‘nice.’”

  “But—they don’t have the plague . . .”

  “Silly girl! They have something worse than the plague. They have the virus that will destroy the white race, from within. Look, I am one of the most fair-minded teachers in the Port Oriskany school district. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But the Ne-groes, I do not. I draw the line. I don’t ‘see’ them and I don’t want to teach them. I am obliged to teach them, but I am not obliged to ‘see’ them.”

  “Did a black person hurt you, Mr. Sandman?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! No one has hurt me. I’ve tried to explain to you! This isn’t personal, it’s principle. Even if I ‘liked’ one of them, I would not want our race to be contaminated by their genes . . . Some of them are attractive, yes, and even intelligent, to a degree. I grant you, there are astonishing black musicians, singers, dancers. Athletes—of course. But their cousins, brothers, fathers—those are the problems. The race issue in the US isn’t black people we know, our students, our servants, and the people who work for us, for instance in the school cafeteria, or collecting trash, it’s the ones making trouble politically, and the ones who are their relatives. Thugs just getting out of prison, or on their way in.” Mr. Sandman spoke meanly. Words bubbled up like bile.

  My eyelids were becoming heavy. Mr. Sandman’s vehement words were like blows of a mallet that has been wrapped in a material like burlap. Hard, harsh yet numbing.

  It was not an unpleas
ant sensation, sinking into sleep. For now my heart was beating less rapidly and nervously and my thoughts were not flashing and darting like heat lightning.

  Gently the voice nudged: “Vio-let? Time to wake, dear.”

  Gently the hand nudged my shoulder. With an effort I opened my eyes. Seeing a man stooping over me, feeling his humid meat-breath.

  Seeing with alarm that the sun had disappeared entirely from the sky and night pressed against the windows.

  In a silk robe I was lying on a bed. A four-poster bed that creaked as the man’s weight settled heavily upon it.

  The silk robe was royal blue on the outside, ivory on the inside. It required some time for me to realize that something was wrong.

  Was I naked, inside the robe? My skin tingled, as if I’d been bathed. Lotion rubbed into my skin. Talcum powder on my breasts, belly.

  A shock to comprehend. I could not allow myself to comprehend.

  The ends of my hair were damp. At the back of my mouth was something dry and gritty like sand.

  “Sleeping Beauty! Time to open those beautiful myopic eyes.”

  My eyes were open. But I was not seeing clearly.

  Did he—bathe me? Remove my clothes, carry me into the bathroom?

  In the bathroom was a marble tub with claw feet. An antique tub, deep as an Egyptian coffin. Vividly I remembered.

  A worn tile floor, slick with wet. A camera flash, blinding.

  “Ah, good! You’re waking up, are you? Yes.”

  Mr. Sandman spoke distractedly. Perhaps I had slept too long.

  He had freshly shaved, his skin exuded an air of heat. His thinning gray hair too was damp, brushed back from his creased forehead. Had Mr. Sandman changed into a fresh-laundered white shirt?

  A panicked thought came to me—He is naked, below.

  But no: Mr. Sandman was fully clothed. White shirt, dark trousers. At school he wore a white shirt, dark trousers, tweed coat. No necktie.

  I was very confused. Sitting up, foolishly clutching the silk robe around me. It was shocking to me, to see my bare feet.

  You can’t run away. Can’t run far. He would catch you.

  He could kill you if he wished. Strangle you.

  The man was waiting for me to realize. To scream. To become hysterical.

  His fingers were poised. It was up to me.

  Lying very still trying to summon my strength. Like water, that falls through outstretched fingers. Despair filled me, yet the calm of reason—silly bare feet, I could not run far.

  “Your clothes are here, Violet. I had to launder them—they were soiled . . .”

  Mr. Sandman spoke briskly, disapprovingly. Indicating, at the foot of the bed, clothes neatly folded. Strange to see, how neatly folded.

  So grateful to see my clothes! I’d been clutching the silk robe around me, in terror that Mr. Sandman would snatch it away.

  But he was a gentleman, you could see. The cobblestone house on Craigmont Avenue. So many books.

  Could have wept, suffused with gratitude. For he would allow me to live, and he would forgive me the fear and repugnance in my face.

  “Our secret, Violet. Do you understand, my dear?”

  Yes. I understood. Understood something.

  Understood that I’d been allowed to live. To continue.

  Discreetly now Mr. Sandman retreated. Allowed me some privacy.

  (A bedroom, dimly lighted. At the windows, darkness. The floor was covered in a thin carpet, against a farther wall a tall vertical mirror reflecting pale-shimmering light.)

  Hurriedly I dressed. Underwear, jeans. Shirt and sweater. (It did seem as if my panties had been laundered, and had not quite dried in the dryer, the synthetic white fabric somewhat damp, at the same time somewhat warm.)

  In his car driving me to my aunt’s and uncle’s house on Erie Street Mr. Sandman explained that, after school that day, there’d been an emergency meeting of the Math Club. As the Math Club secretary, I had had an obligation to attend.

  “You understand, dear, that if you tell anyone about our friendship it will hurt you most. You will be expelled—immediately—from school. You may be sent to a facility for ‘delinquent minors.’ And I, too, might be shuttled to—an inferior—school . . .”

  At this Mr. Sandman chuckled. As if it were so unlikely, such a possibility might occur.

  Bathed me. Held me down. Licked me with his sandpaper tongue. Until I squealed, shrieked.

  Took my hand in his and guided it between his legs where he was swollen, fattish.

  Don’t pretend, Vio-let Rue. Dirty girl!

  The face was contorted. Of the hue of a cooked tomato, about to burst. Eyes about to burst out of their sockets. Breath in gasps. Like a bicycle pump, my brothers’ bicycle pump, pumping air into a tire, that wheezing sound it makes if you are not doing it correctly, and air is escaping.

  The hand gripping my hand, so that it hurts. Pushing, pressing, urgently, faster and faster, jamming my hand against his swollen flesh, my numbed hand, as he groans, rocks from side to side, eyes roll in their sockets, he is about to faint . . .

  But no. None of this happened. For none of this was witnessed.

  6.

  “This endearing little blemish, Violet?—not a birthmark, I think, but a scar?”

  Mr. Sandman drew his fat thumb over the star-shaped scar at my forehead. Involuntarily, I shivered.

  “Futile to try to hide it, you know. And what caused it?”

  “I—fell from a bicycle . . . When I was a little girl.”

  “Ah! Tragic, in a female so young.”

  Tragic. Mr. Sandman was joking, I supposed.

  “Well, dear, if it’s any consolation—you were not destined to be a ‘beauty’ anyway. The scar gives you character. Other, merely pretty girls tend to be bland.”

  Steeled myself to feel the fat lips against my forehead, to smell the hot meaty breath. Shut my eyes, shivering, waiting.

  7.

  One day, discovering Mr. Sandman’s (secret) archive.

  A door just beyond the bathroom. A closet, with shelves containing what appeared to be photography albums, dates neatly labeled on their spines. Daring to pull down one of the albums, 1986–87, stunned to see photographs of a dark-haired girl of thirteen or fourteen posed on Mr. Sandman’s sofa, and on the four-poster bed. In some photos the girl was fully clothed, in others partly clothed. In others, naked inside the royal blue silk robe that was so familiar to me.

  In the marble tub deep as an Egyptian coffin, head flung back against the rim of the tub and eyes half-shut, vacant. Beneath the surface of blue-tinged water, the pale thin body shimmering naked.

  Many photographs of this girl—M.H.

  Abruptly then, a sequence of photographs of another girl, of about the same age and physical type—B.W.

  Wanly pretty (white) girls. Thin-armed, with small breasts, narrow torsos and hips. Captured in the throes of deep sleep. Positioned as if dead with eyes shut, hair spread out around their heads. Lips slightly parted and hands clasped on their chests.

  Turning the stiff pages, and more photos . . . More (white) girls.

  Also, locks of hair. Folded-in notes fastidiously recording measurements—height, weight, circumference of skull, waist, hips, bust.

  Clumsily I shut the album, returned it to the shelf. Took down the most recent album which was 1991–92. But before I could open it there came Mr. Sandman’s voice from the kitchen: “Vio-let!”

  Mr. Sandman was assuming that I was in the bathroom. In another minute he would come seek me. Quickly I shut the album, returned it to its place on the crammed shelf, shut the door.

  Heart thudding in my chest. Such violence, like a fist punching my ribs.

  None of the girls I’d recognized. My predecessors.

  “Vio-let, dear. Come here at once.”

  Already forgetting how in some of the photographs, the camera was close, intimate. Bruised mouth, open. The silk robe had been pulled open, or tossed away. Small pale breasts with s
oft nipples. The curve of a belly, a downy patch between legs.

  In one, a girl with opened, dilated eyes. A look of fear. A smear of blood on her face. Hands not clasped on her chest in that attitude of exquisite peace but uplifted as if pushing away the camera.

  But already forgetting. Forgotten. The ugliest sights.

  Unless it was myself I’d seen, confused with another.

  What had he done to this girl? Stared and stared.

  She’d failed to fall asleep properly. She’d been stubborn, resistant.

  Or he had not drugged this girl because he had not wanted her to sleep. He had wanted her awake, conscious.

  But why was this? Why was one girl treated differently from the others?

  You are that girl, you wish to think. Always, you are different from the others.

  8.

  Not true that all times were the same time. For there was the last time in Mr. Sandman’s house that would not be repeated.

  Inadvertently he’d given me an overdose. A fraction of a teaspoon of fine-ground barbiturate dissolved into sweet blueberry juice but he’d miscalculated, or he’d become complacent over the months. For so obediently the stupor came upon me, each time a mimicry of the time before, his vigilance had diminished.

  And then, Mr. Sandman couldn’t wake me.

  Vio-let! Vio-let! Wake up, dear . . .

  No memory of falling asleep. Only vaguely, something in my hand that had to be taken from my fingers to prevent its spilling.

  A terrible heaviness. Sinking downward. Surface of the water far overhead, no agitation of my numbed limbs could bring me to it. Comfort in the dark cloudy water like many tongues licking together.

  Violet! Open your eyes, try to sit up—the voice came from a distance, alarmed.

  Shaking me, and shaking me. Bruising my shoulders with his hard fingers, naked inside the silk robe. My skin still warm from the bath, not yet beginning to cool into the chill of death. Slick creamy lotion caressed into my skin, smelling of lilac. Talcum powder on all the parts of my body that would be covered by my clothes, when I was clothed again.