Desert of the Heart: A Novel

by Jane Rule

  “So these are instead of children of your own?”

  “I suppose so,” Ann said. “With all the surplus children in the world—they’re being dumped in India and China the way we dump wheat—I figure motherhood should become a specialized profession like medicine or law for people really suited to it.”

  “How do you decide you’re not one of those?” Evelyn asked.

  “Ann! Ann!” It was Frances’ voice, distant but urgent.

  Ann was across the room before Evelyn had time to move. As Ann opened the door, her name came again, louder, almost a presence in the room.

  “All right, Frances, I’m coming,” she called.

  When Evelyn reached the hall, it was empty. Virginia’s bedroom door was open. Virginia lay on her bed, Ann and Frances standing over her. Ann was shaking a pillow out of its case.

  “Call the doctor, Frances, right now,” Ann said. “And don’t get into a flap. Virginia’s all right.”

  Frances came out of the room, crying.

  “What is it?” Evelyn asked. “What’s the matter?”

  “She’s slashed her wrists. She’s killed herself.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Frances,” Ann yelled. “Don’t stand there gossiping! Call the doctor!”

  Frances hurried off down the stairs. Evelyn did not know whether to follow her or go into the room.

  “Evelyn, get me another pillowcase off your bed,” Ann called.

  Evelyn did what she was told. When she got back into Virginia’s room, she saw the blood for the first time, great, purple-brown patches of it on the sheets, on the rug by the bed. Ann was finishing a rough tourniquet on Virginia’s left arm. She seemed unconscious.

  “Thanks,” Ann said. “Now take the top sheet and tear me strips of it.”

  Evelyn hesitated, reluctant to uncover Virginia.

  “Quickly!” Ann said. “Then get a blanket to cover her. Grab one off the closet shelf there.”

  By the time the doctor arrived, Ann had stopped the bleeding and was sitting quietly by the bed, adjusting the tourniquets. Evelyn stood just inside the door, ready to do anything she was told. Frances stayed in the hall, talking unhappily to herself.

  “Well, this is a pretty amateur job,” the doctor said, after he had uncovered both wrists. “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. You don’t want to be a simple butcher. All the same,” he said, turning to Ann, “it’s a good thing you found her. She’s done a fair amount of bleeding.”

  Virginia stirred and moaned.

  “You go right ahead and moan, young lady, and be grateful you still can.”

  “Dave … Davie,” Virginia whispered.

  “He’ll be here shortly,” Ann said. “Well, I’m going to wash. Is there anything you need, doctor?”

  “No. Here’s the ambulance now.”

  “Could I borrow your towel?” Ann asked Evelyn. “Mine are all upstairs.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  When Evelyn brought the towel to Ann, she was soaking her hands in a basin full of water.

  “You certainly knew what you were doing,” Evelyn said, “Is she really going to be all right?”

  “Oh, sure,” Ann said. She reached over to take the towel. “She wasn’t even trying, or she’s ignorant. You don’t slash a wrist like that. You cut it like this.”

  Ann demonstrated with her finger across her own wrist. Evelyn, looking down, noticed for the first time the fine diagonal scar across Ann’s wrist.

  “An old attempt,” Ann said, “but not my own. It was an idea my father had before Frances came along.”

  Evelyn stared at Ann, too shocked to reply.

  “Well, now it seems to me we should give Dave-Davie a ring and tell him it’s time to come to take Virginia home. Pride has only drastic ways out, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re angry.”

  “Yes, I’m angry. I love life. Despair always makes me angry. It’s the one sin I believe in.”

  Evelyn turned to watch the stretcher-bearers carry Virginia out of her room and down the stairs, but it was not Virginia she saw; it was George. “I don’t quite,” she said quietly. “I mean I don’t quite believe in despair, whether it’s a sin or not.”

  “I’d better go to the hospital with her and phone from there.”

  From her own bedroom window, Evelyn watched Ann talking with the doctor and then getting into the ambulance. Why must she go? Why was Virginia Ritchie Ann’s responsibility? Because Frances had not taken it. Because Walter was not home. Because Evelyn herself had been no more than a reluctant sightseer—all day. Frances had said, “She’s not ordinary.” Ann herself had wondered, ironically, if “naïve” was the word to describe her own incredible innocence, her absurd sense of duty. Evelyn was seeing again, in fact, what she did not believe. Ann, marked on both wrists by her father’s death wish, wandered among ruins and graves, looked out across the desolation of desert as her inheritance, and loved life. How? With a confusion of humor, tenderness, and rage, with aggression, reluctance, and generosity. Any special assistant to the Dean would certainly recommend a psychiatrist. Evelyn herself, from behind her desk, would have no other choice. As the ambulance door shut, Evelyn wanted to call out, “Ann, wait. I’ll go.” But it was too late. Evelyn turned from the window, ashamed. There was something she could do. She could face the simple, physical unpleasantness of Virginia’s room. It must be cleaned up. And there was Frances. She could comfort Frances. Ann would not be long.

  4

  ANN DID NOT GO back to the house. Instead, she asked Dr. Riesman to drop her off at the center of town.

  “It’s late, Ann.”

  “Not for me.”

  “Where’s Bill tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” Ann said. “I don’t see him much anymore.”

  “Oh?”

  “No sympathy required.”

  “For you, you mean?”

  Ann did not answer.

  “Ann, when are you going to leave that house?”

  “I don’t know. Is there any reason why I should leave?

  “Things like tonight seem to me reason enough.”

  “You think changing an address can change the world?”

  “In a way. At least you could choose the kind of trouble you get into.”

  “Oh, come,” Ann said. “I have a choice now, as far as anyone does.”

  “Four years ago I told you …”

  “I know. And I am free.”

  “You’re not. You’re as tied to your father’s memory as you were to him.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is. Why aren’t you seeing Bill?”

  “Because I am free. Because I want to stay free.”

  “Because you don’t want to let any other man have the right to your life that your father had.”

  “Something like that,” Ann said.

  “All men aren’t your father.”

  “No? Well, it’s kind of you to take such a fatherly interest.”

  Dr. Riesman glanced over at Ann and smiled. “Let me take you home.”

  “No.”

  Ann opened the door before the car had come to a full stop. She no more than nodded good night to the doctor. A blunt, good man with an oversimplified sense of psychological history, he had always irritated her. Of course she missed her father. She missed him because he had borne down on her like a weight of gravity, had given her substance, had caged her in the knowledge of her own flesh. While he lived, her world was the prison of his need. She missed him now with a relief that used to seem almost a kind of madness. It was not simple, missing with joy the weight of earth. It was not simple, love freewheeling over fear of earth. She was not tied to his memory. If she had been apprenticed to her father’s need, she was now at least a journeyman and could choose the need she served. It was her own.

  There was no one she knew in the employees’ lounge. Idly, she read notices on the bulletin board, most of them orders from the Management to the Employees, always a
dyspeptic paraphrase of the Golden Rule set out in large type among the bits of gambling jargon. “The Admonishments” Ann called them. She turned away from the board and saw two children standing quietly by the matron of the movies, an ample, tired grandmother of a woman whose job it was to accept, send to the free movies, and return children to their parents. The last movie ended at eleven. It was now after twelve. Because the employees’ lounge was always crowded, the children were not allowed to sit down to wait for their truant parents. They had to stand, as these two did, until they were claimed.

  The boy was younger, perhaps seven. He had been crying. The girl was nine. She might have comforted her brother if her own humiliation had not closed her off from his fear. She stared straight ahead of her at the door. Ann walked over to the matron.

  “Every night. Every single night it happens. I should have been home an hour ago.”

  “You’ll get your overtime,” Ann said.

  “What about my sleep?”

  The boy looked at Ann. The girl refused to listen.

  “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?” Ann asked, squatting down beside the boy.

  “No, thank you,” the girl answered, still not looking at Ann. “My mother will be here in a minute.”

  “How about a Coke?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Ann looked at the boy. “How about you?”

  “He doesn’t want any either.”

  “If she doesn’t turn up in fifteen minutes,” the matron said, “I’m calling the police.”

  The little boy began to cry again. The little girl stared at the door.

  “It’s all right,” Ann said, putting an arm around the boy. “It’s all right. She’s just tired and grumpy.”

  But in fifteen minutes the matron would call the police if they hadn’t already come of their own accord. Rarely a night passed that a child or two weren’t taken to the hospital to sleep. Before the free movie was instituted, the police found children locked in cars. In the summer it wasn’t so bad. In the winter the children were a real trial to the law.

  “Say, why don’t we do something while we wait?” Ann said. “Do you like to draw?” The little boy shook his head. The little girl did not respond. “I do. Shall I draw you a picture? What kind of a picture shall I draw?” Ann helped herself to the matron’s pencil and looked around for a piece of paper. “What’s your favorite animal?” Ann looked down at the children. “Horse? Dog? Cat?”

  “Dog,” the little boy said softly.

  “Do you have a dog?” The little boy nodded. “What’s his name?”

  The little boy turned away from Ann as a tall, well-dressed, young woman came into the room. He cried out and ran to her. The little girl did not move. She stood, staring in front of her, forcing her mother to walk the full length of the suddenly silent, hostile room.

  “Now stop making a fuss, Tommy. Stop it!” the mother said in a loud, cheerful voice. “Come along, darling,” she said to her daughter. “Don’t keep mother waiting.”

  Ann could not watch the child. She turned away, rage rising in her throat like nausea. Why save Virginia Ritchie’s life? I should have slashed deeper, made a decent job of it, let life out of that house of petty horrors, the female body. “Mummy loves you.” Of course she does. Having opened her thighs to that faltering hero, your father, having swelled and ripened to your appalling birth, she has to love you. If she has eaten off your arm or your leg, if she has consumed you altogether, you must understand that she is nothing more than a young animal herself, ignorant, clumsy, hungry. She has needs of her own. Of course, she loves you; you’re one of them. I should have cut deeper. Stop it! Don’t rage. She really is no more than a young animal herself. As I am. As I am.

  Ann walked out into the alley to the Club entrance. She opened the door and let the noise beat against her nerves like a thousand fists. The abscess of fury broke. Ann stepped up to the bar and ordered a double Scotch.

  “I’ll buy that for you.”

  Ann looked up at the not very drunk young man who stood beside her.

  “Thanks, but I’m waiting for a friend.”

  “You don’t have to wait for me.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  Ann put her money on the counter and took her drink away from the bar. She stood at the edge of a roulette game, letting the alcohol mute the dying fanfare of indignation in her head. At last, at the center of the noise, she was still, but anger had kept her a kind of company. As she forced it away, grief could too easily sound the silence of her heart unless she could find human company. Bill would not be here. A year ago they had arranged the same night off. He might be at home. But to go to him in need was to incur a debt she could not repay. Silver? It was two hours before the end of the shift. And, anyway, Joe was home. Home. Frances might have gone to bed. Evelyn might still be awake. At one o’clock? Evelyn welcomed the conventions of time and space, fifteen years and the Sierras. One does not play games with ladies from California. No? No. What were you doing today then? I was … being kind. That little maneuver on Geiger Point as well? All right, that was a mistake. Which you won’t make again? No. How will you stop? I won’t go home. I won’t see her.

  “Here you are. A double Scotch.”

  It was the same young man. Are you human company, random antidote to grief? Must I take you? A habit of will forced Ann to response.

  “Thanks.”

  She stood beside him, watching the roulette wheel spin. If it lands in black, I’ll say no. If it lands in black, I’ll go home. The wheel slowed. The ball swung slowly, round and round, dropped, bounced, dropped again into red.

  “Have any money on it?”

  “No money,” Ann said, “no.”

  Had she really tied the night to chance and lost? Of course not. Red or black, it didn’t matter. She would not see Evelyn. And if you look in a mirror? I’ll see myself. Will you? It doesn’t matter who I see. She’s in another time, on another earth.

  “Where are you from?” Ann asked.

  “Frisco.”

  The City. Even here in Reno they called it the City, a promised land across the mountains, a promised sea, her earth. But that was years ago on a beach of cypress, sea sand, kelp. She’s a wish I’ve outgrown. An image. My mother. Myself. The wheel spun again. He put money on red. The ball swung round and round. A need I haven’t got. A need I mustn’t have. Evelyn is … herself. The ball swung slowly, dropped into black.

  “Damn!”

  “Everybody loses,” Ann said.

  “Red again.”

  He stacked chips on numbers too, watched, waited, won.

  “That will buy the drinks,” he said. “Shall we try for more?”

  “More?”

  “Yes, more,” he said. “Let’s go all the way.”

  All his simple way could not be far. Ann looked up, willing.

  But in the morning, when she woke and looked at the naked, dog-tagged man asleep beside her, her will broke as a dream might. She had been here before in this stale, hot motel room, the sun an orange insistence against the heavy drapes, the rattle of the cleaning wagon outside the window. She reached out to the metal circle on his chest and read his name. He slept on, secure in his identity. Ann got up quietly, dressed, and walked out into the parking area. At a public phone booth, she called Silver.

  “Little fish, do you know what time it is?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Eight o’clock in the morning!”

  “Oh.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The Rancho Something-or-Other Motel.”

  “Where’s the neatest café?”

  “Next door.”

  “Go have a cup of coffee. I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks.”

  Silver, huge and haggard, arrived with a prepared list of insulting questions. Ann had been called in on Silver’s own excursions often enough not to feel guilty, but she did apologize.

  “I scared h
ell out of the paper boy, and his dog howled. Say you’re sorry to him.”

  Ann laughed.

  “Now, what’s the matter?” Silver asked, pouring an unmeasured quantity of sugar into her coffee.

  “I didn’t have my car. I needed a ride home.”

  “I heard a rumor the other day that there’s a cab company in Reno.”

  “Really? Did you hear anything about the drivers?”

  “It’s not the hour,” Silver said. “You’re just not funny.”

  “Are you really irritated?”

  “No.”

  “Sil, did you ever want to kill yourself?”

  “But I might get irritated.”

  “I’m serious.

  “I somehow picked that up. I’m a sensitive sort.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Christ, Ann, everybody wants to kill himself sooner or later. It isn’t exactly what you’d call an unusual experience.”

  “Isn’t it? I’ve never wanted to, never ever.”

  “What have you been doing in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “I went up to Virginia City yesterday.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, I took Evelyn Hall.”

  “That’s the mother figure of the moment, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean, ‘of the moment’?”

  “Haven’t you ever noticed that you have a thing about women?”

  “What kind of a thing?”

  “Oh, go to hell. I’ll charge you twenty-five bucks an hour when I decide to tell you who you are.”

  “It’s a funny thing,” Ann said. “Dr. Riesman …”

  “That bastard!”

  “… has me all figured out as well. Only his theory is that I have a thing about men.”

  “Clever! I wonder if he’s ever met a woman who didn’t.”

  “There’s something about figuring people out and summing them up that I don’t like. You find out who somebody is in order to cure him. I haven’t the least desire to be cured.”

  “So you’re sick, so sick you want to live.” Silver finished her coffee. “Then what did you do?”

  “Well, we went home for dinner, and then I took Evelyn up to my room to see some cartoons.”