by Joan Barfoot
Just standing up against him gave her an advantage, since he had not expected it. Like a fighter going into the ring assuming an opponent with shorter arms, he was bewildered to find himself facing someone of precisely the same reach. The one more surprised, dismayed, and affronted is the one who loses.
She discovered an atlas on the shelves of books. It contained not only maps of the earth, but sketches of the solar system. From Neptune, Mars, or Mercury, all the upheaval in this house was insignificant: rather like God’s perspective, peering down from heaven. From high in one of the trees at the farm, her brothers had looked small, gaping up at her. You could cause quite a lot of unintended pain, throwing something from a height. She’d tossed an apple at her smallest brother once, and hit him in the chest and knocked him down. Maybe God didn’t quite realize the effects down here on earth, in her front room, of the smallest of his finger flicks.
So many countries there were, and continents, signifying so many people of so many colours and customs. So many possibilities there must be, then. Finding out one thing led to another. There was, she found, an expanding progression in all this. She got quite frantic about it for a time; trembled in the desire for a further fact, the definition of an unknown word, some magic piece of knowledge that surely must be out there, if only she knew just where to look. She carted the dictionary with her through the day, replacing it on the proper shelf shortly before he was due home. She discovered the town library and hid books beneath her bed.
It was hard, choosing between fact and fiction. Both were vital, after all. Simple information: what crop is grown where, the location of deserts, the periods of kings and queens and the names of plants — all of it counted, all of it was useful. Just knowing was an edge, a gain. Oh, she cared for June as well, scrubbed the floors and cleaned out the ashes of the woodstove, continued to mend and darn. Most of all, cooked and baked and ate, her hand reaching out absently for another cookie as she read another chapter in another book, ending a day flushed with facts and food. Perhaps it was just as well, from that point of view, that June was such a good child.
Whatever hurt, like the sound of his pen scratching on paper in the dining room in the evenings, or his snores in the middle of the night, or June’s periodic cries, or the sound of his briefcase being set down in the hall, the tap-tapping of his papers being knocked into line on the table, or his knees cracking when he bent to pick up an eraser he’d dropped — all that could be soothed, in the day, with food, and reduced by knowledge. How could a woman who knew the capital of Peru and the names of the explorers of America be hurt? What could damage a person who could recite the names of all the planets, and all the continents of the earth, and all the oceans? She was making herself a fortress of facts.
Novels had an interest of another sort. They told of men moving, leaping around the world from event to event, with great occurrences of significance and heroism, passion of various kinds. Revenge and honor and blood. Nothing to do with washing dishes and making meals and patching sheets and scrubbing floors and getting to the end of the day. It seemed reasonable to conclude that the lives of men offered the chance to shift scenery and conditions.
There were no changes in her life. There was instead his voice droning on in the front room, telling June his endless tales of England; and his whoops of joy when he came through the door and lifted up his eager daughter. There were his little lectures, his instructions and rebukes, about the condition of his books and her behavior in the presence of company. His punctuality: meals to be served at six-fifteen; his footsteps going past her door at ten-thirty at night; his feet hitting the floor promptly at seven in the morning. The rhythm of relief when he left the house, and the weight of knowing he would be back. The drudgery of all the small jobs involved in running the house, and having them all to do again the next day. Dishes washed were dirtied again, sheets laundered had to be washed again, shined floors got scuffed, and dust resettled on windowsills and furniture. June bathed had to be bathed again the next night; June weeping had to be comforted again and again. There did not seem to be an end. It seemed, most days, a matter of surviving from one moment to the next, of drawing the next breath and taking the next step. Of keeping running and keeping reading.
Keeping eating, too: the banana cakes, blueberry muffins, date squares, and oatmeal cookies. They soothed pains and avenged her. As if the food were flesh, she devoured it. Her slim belly became plump, then rolling. Her thighs began to ripple, her chin sagged and doubled. Her features, and her feet and hands, came to look tiny against the bulk of the rest of her. She became imposing. If he glanced in her direction, she must fill up his view. It wouldn’t be so easy for him to pretend she wasn’t there.
He grew small and insignificant beside her. When they had to go out, usually to school functions, she thought they must look fairly odd. Certainly she was no longer what he must have had in mind, as the appropriate wife of a teacher.
It is ridiculous, of course, and wicked, too, to compare her life then with the lives of prisoners, of people who are scooped off streets by secret police, taken to dark cellars, and tortured. Of course there were no electrodes attached to her body, and the soles of her feet were not beaten by switches. Her pain, unlike that of tortured prisoners, was dull, not sharp. But it was constant, lodged somewhere below the heart, just above the waist, and was accompanied by a tiny perpetual headache. She could no longer remember how it felt to be without those pains. Words and food soothed, but did not cure.
She prayed for freedom, although without a clear idea of exactly what God could do for her. She only asked for some miracle, and meanwhile she ate and worked and read. By the time she was thirty-one, she was fat, literate, furious, and disappointed.
(But every disappointment toughens. Frances once said to her, “Grandma, you’re a tough old bird,” meaning it affectionately, as a compliment. But there are different kinds of toughness. Aggie’s, she fears, has added scales. She is afraid she is dying with a crusted soul.)
How sad, how unfortunate, that he wound up with a fat woman out of whom he tried, once, to beat wilfulness. Naturally he would have preferred some slim meek woman who would deliver his small pale children without fuss. Just as she would have preferred a robust man whose children were adventurous. She might have felt pity for him.
This is the importance of proper memory; not birthday parties.
That winter when she was thirty-one set records. There was more snow than anyone in the town could recall, and between snowfalls the temperatures dropped bitterly. “This is one for the books, all right,” people said.
Aggie rather liked it. Apart from the kitchen, the house was hard to keep warm, and hanging out the wash with mittened hands fumbling with clothespegs was difficult. Bringing it in again, stiff and frozen, was also tricky; sheets could shatter like glass. But her own padded body was a kind of protection. She did not need to go around bundled up like the teacher and June. At night she lay listening to winds roar and whistle around the house, and found the sound more stirring than menacing. For once, the weather was as violent as the little seed of fury she contained, and she lay with fists clenched, limbs rigid, skin flushed, hearing the destruction.
There was no such pleasure for people who had to go out. Neil and June struggled to school together, hand in hand, ploughing their way out every morning and home at night. They came in wet and cold, steam forming instantly on his glasses in the warm kitchen, June’s pale-blue eyes rimmed with red and her nose running. They clapped their hands and hugged themselves and wore layers of sweaters. Aggie warmed June’s nightgown in the oven before sending her to bed.
June came down sick, and then he did, although he kept going to school for a few days until he lost his voice and had to give in. Aggie had a lot of extra work then, with two patients, a lot of running up and down stairs with juices and soups and hot-water bottles. She made them hot lemonade and wrapped their throats in warm greasy rags and r
ubbed their chests with liniment. It was odd, touching him: hairless and smooth, and so narrow she could feel the breastbone and ribs beneath the skin. Too much pressure sent him off into a spasm of coughing; otherwise she might have been tempted to dig her fingers right in, through the flesh.
Sometimes he was sleeping when she went into his room. It was interesting, watching him without his knowing. How vulnerable he was, lying there. A stranger. What did she have to do with this man? She could not make out what could have induced her to alter visions. He was thirty-nine, and just like a child sleeping. She thought there must be a way to get free of such a person, it ought to be easy; but apparently not. Weak people, she saw, had the force of a multitude of the strong.
Without his voice, he had to point at what he wanted, or write it down. He couldn’t call out to her, so he clapped his hands when he wanted her attention. His room was close and dark. There was too much human flesh in it for such a small room; their flesh in it together made it smell somewhat peculiar.
And then there was June, tossing and feverish and demanding. Poor little girl. Aggie sat on the edge of her bed and stroked her forehead and read stories to her. Really, it was all a great deal of work, and there was no time to spare for books or baking.
She was amazed she wasn’t sick herself, spending so much time with them. She was proud of her body standing her in such good stead.
The weather improved and so did June. In a couple of days she’d be ready to go back to school, and he would follow shortly. Aggie could see an end, to this at least.
Throughout it all, and it went on for more than a week, it did not occur to her to call a doctor. Doctors, in her experience, were for things like chicken-pox or scarlet fever or whooping cough, certainly not for colds.
The morning she went into his room and didn’t immediately hear the rasping of his breath, she abandoned prayers. At first she thought he was better, and sleeping. She stood in the doorway, looking at the heap of blankets. Closer, however, the view was different.
He was on his side, his right hand clutching the pillow as if he’d needed something from it — perhaps a breath. His eyes, unfortunately, were open, and so was his mouth. She thought later it might not have been so terrible if his eyes, at least, had been shut. He must have put up quite a fight for the last tiny trail of oxygen.
(Once, back home, she’d been exploring up in the barn and come across one of the barn cats, its limbs stretched rigid, eyes blank and open, the same peculiar combination of absence and tension about its body. “Distemper,” shrugged her father, who took it off on a shovel to bury it.)
He looked so plain. Just a small, plain man. This wasn’t what she’d meant at all. God could surely not have heard a request for death in her prayers for freedom. “Oh, God,” she whispered, backing away. This time it was a protest.
“Mother,” June was calling, “I’m awake, can I get up? I’m thirsty, can I get a drink?”
There were all those moments when she’d looked at him and thought of getting free. God must have misinterpreted, or taken her too literally. Brutal. And could He plan, with one of those grand sweeps of His that massacre whole peoples for small errors, to free her entirely?
Panicked, she bolted to June’s room. But June was sitting up looking peevish, her eyes clearer and her fever down. “You can get a drink of water,” Aggie told her, “but then come right back to bed and stay quiet. Daddy isn’t well, and I have to go out for a few minutes.”
However could she tell June? What she wanted was to crawl under the sheets, huddle beneath the blankets, and be comforted. Also to protect June against any further whims God might have in mind.
Outdoors, it was white and silent. Standing on the porch she looked around, wondering just where she had thought she would go, and what she’d intended to do.
Down the block and around the corner was the minister’s house. To deal with this error of God’s, it seemed reasonable to go to His interpreter. She began to run through the heavy snow, clumsy in the rubber boots she’d pulled on.
“Good gracious,” said the minister’s wife. Aggie supposed she must have pounded on the door, and heaven knew what she looked like. “Whatever’s the matter? Come in, you’ll catch your death out there.”
She was led to the kitchen. A cup of tea appeared. There was an arm around her shoulder, and a calm voice in her ear. “Now you just come with me,” leading her upstairs, directing her to a bed, helping her lie down, “and I’ll send my daughter right over to June. You just try to be calm, my husband will take care of things. I’ll be back in a minute.”
It was not calm that came, although it was reassuring that unpleasant details were being taken care of, but anger: how dared God misinterpret like this when He was supposed to understand perfectly? This must be a punishment, then. But of whom? Of her, for lacking love and grace? Or for something petty, like not going to church? A petulant God, that would make Him. Or was it aimed at Neil, whatever sins he might have committed; or at June, who had done nothing at all?
She wanted an explanation here, someone to account for God’s perversity, this way He had, apparently, of caricaturing longings. She could ask the minister’s wife, but when the woman returned, Aggie had no words.
“My dear, everything’s being done. My daughter’s gone to June and my husband has sent for the doctor. And, well, you know, he’ll make the arrangements, too. So you can just stay here and rest as long as you like and not worry.”
But obviously in a world of mad events, one would be best up on one’s feet, alert and if possible fighting back. “No, thank you, you’ve been very kind, but I think I should go home to June.”
June, who had now been told, looked up at her with enormous eyes. She was just a little girl, not accountable in the way adults were, or God should be, but she was furious and frightened, and she did say, “You killed him.” And repeated, “You killed him. You let him die.”
That was a possibility, and Aggie considered it. She could see that it might be the case. Not through any action, of course, but perhaps through lack of it.
“Now, now,” said the doctor, “your daddy was very sick.” He turned to Aggie. “It just turned into pneumonia, I think. There wasn’t anything you could have done, you know, you mustn’t blame yourself. And he wouldn’t have suffered for long, not really.”
But what if she had called the doctor days ago? Was he telling her comforting lies? There must be cures.
“You know, June,” said the minister, “your daddy’s happy now because he’s with God. God needed him because he was such a good man.” June turned away and faced the wall.
Surely there were such things as oxygen tents, or drugs, something that a doctor could have done. Still, it came back to God. No one told her a doctor might be needed.
Confused, Aggie watched as people flickered through the house on unknown errands. They murmured regrets, which meant at least that they did not discern guilt in her, or responsibility. But then, the idea would never occur to them.
“Such a fine man,” they said. “Such a fine teacher. He will be missed.” Really? If she’d been the one who died, what would they have known to say?
They brought food, and hovered. They seemed to be waiting for some action on her part. She understood finally that they must be waiting for tears. She had none, however. It wasn’t exactly grief that she was feeling: just that something important that she couldn’t identify was missing.
He was laid out in the front room, and people filed in, filed past, filed out. There seemed to be so many of them. Had they all respected him, or liked him? Was it for Neil or for the teacher? And who was there for her, the teacher’s widow?
The night before the funeral, when everyone had left, she pulled up a chair beside him. He was lying on some kind of white satiny pillowy material, inside the shiny wooden box. He wore his best black suit, and his hands were folded neatly on his white
shirtfront. Expressionless, of course.
The room she had made so light was now too light, the cream color inappropriate. At the moment, she could see how he might have felt about the dark.
He looked smaller, more fragile and also more firm. There was so little to him. The undertaker’s pots and brushes had given a waxy gloss to his face, an artificial, fevered flush to his cheekbones. Through the still flesh of his hands, she could make out bones. How long would it take for the flesh to fall away, leaving just the white and gleaming bones beneath?
A waste. She could not see his life at all. Who was this man, her husband, this orderly heap of matter waiting to be buried? How cruel, not to be able to see.
He’d been different. There were pictures of him, a chubby little boy in short pants, blouse, blazer, cap, grinning shyly at the camera. It had amazed her that he had once been plump and smiling. She had no connection with that little boy at all.
If his bitterness had squeezed the plumpness out of him, and her bitterness had made her fat, whose was greater?
He must have been so frightened. Always, not only at the end. He’d done a few brave things: coming here alone, and then this marriage. That must have worn out his courage, and having it turn out so badly.
If she’d known before that he was just afraid, really; nothing much more than that. And now when she could have spoken, and might have tried to make it better, he was out of reach. That was what death took away: the chance for resolution.
She had an impulse to hold him, comfort him, restore the plump innocence and make it better. She felt, she thought, like a mother, not a wife. She even reached out a hand — surely she had enough life for the two of them, enough to spare that she could even restore the dead? But she flinched back from the flesh, so amazingly inert and mysteriously dead. Was this how he’d felt about her living flesh?