Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

by David Sedaris

  To see her, so delicately done, so finely finished, so softly sheltered by her very loveliness, you might have laughed to hear that she was a working-woman. “Go on!” you might have said, had such been your unfortunate manner of expressing disbelief. But you would have been worse than coarse; you would have been wrong. Mrs. Martindale worked, and worked hard. She worked doubly hard, for she was unskilled at what she did, and she disliked the doing of it. But for two months she had worked every afternoon five afternoons of every week, and had shirked no moment. She received no remuneration for her steady services. She gave them because she felt she should do so. She felt that you should do what you could, hard and humbly. She practiced what she felt.

  The special office of the war-relief organization where Mrs. Martindale served was known to her and her coworkers as Headquarters; some of them had come to call it H.Q. These last were of the group that kept agitating for the adoption of a uniform—the design had not been thoroughly worked out, but the idea was of something nurselike, only with a fuller skirt and a long blue cape and white gauntlets. Mrs. Martindale was not in agreement with this faction. It had always been hard for her to raise her voice in opposition, but she did, although softly. She said that while of course there was nothing wrong about a uniform, certainly nobody could possibly say there was anything wrong with the idea, still it seemed—well, it seemed not quite right to make the work an excuse, well, for fancy dress, if they didn’t mind her saying so. Naturally, they wore their coifs at Headquarters, and if anybody wanted to take your photograph in your coif, you should go through with it, because it was good for the organization and publicized its work. But please, not whole uniforms, said Mrs. Martindale. Really, please, Mrs. Martindale said.

  Headquarters was, many said, the stiffest office of all the offices of all the war-relief organizations in the city. It was not a place where you dropped in and knitted. Knitting, once you have caught the hang of it, is agreeable work, a relaxation from what strains life may be putting upon you. When you knit, save when you are at those bits where you must count stitches, there is enough of your mind left over for you to take part in conversations, and for you to be receptive of news and generous with it. But at Headquarters they sewed. They did a particularly difficult and tedious form of sewing. They made those short, shirtlike coats, fastened in back with tapes, that are put on patients in hospitals. Each garment must have two sleeves, and all the edges must be securely bound. The material was harsh to the touch and the smell, and impatient of the needle of the novice. Mrs. Martindale had made three and had another almost half done. She had thought that after the first one the others would be easier and quicker of manufacture. They had not been.

  There were sewing machines at Headquarters, but few of the workers understood the running of them. Mrs. Martindale herself was secretly afraid of a machine; there had been a nasty story, never traced to its source, of somebody who put her thumb in the wrong place, and down came the needle, right through nail and all. Besides, there was something—you didn’t know quite how to say it—something more of sacrifice, of service, in making things by hand. She kept on at the task that never grew lighter. It was wished that there were more of her caliber.

  For many of the workers had given up the whole thing long before their first garment was finished. And many others, pledged to daily attendance, came only now and then. There was but a handful like Mrs. Martindale.

  All gave their services, although there were certain doubts about Mrs. Corning, who managed Headquarters. It was she who oversaw the work, who cut out the garments, and explained to the workers what pieces went next to what other pieces. (It did not always come out as intended. One amateur seamstress toiled all the way to the completion of a coat that had one sleeve depending from the middle of the front. It was impossible to keep from laughing; and a sharp tongue suggested that it might be sent in as it was, in case an elephant was brought to bed. Mrs. Martindale was the first to say, “Ah, don’t! She worked so hard over it.”) Mrs. Corning was a cross woman, hated by all. The high standards of Headquarters were important to the feelings of the workers, but it was agreed that there was no need for Mrs. Corning to scold so shrilly when one of them moistened the end of her thread between her lips before thrusting it into her needle.

  “Well, really,” one of the most spirited among the rebuked had answered her. “If a little clean spit’s the worst they’re ever going to get on them…”

  The spirited one had returned no more to Headquarters, and there were those who felt that she was right. The episode drew new members into the school of thought that insisted Mrs. Corning was paid for what she did.

  When Mrs. Martindale paused in the clear light and looked along the Avenue, it was at a moment of earned leisure. She had just left Headquarters. She was not to go back to it for many weeks, nor were any of the other workers. Somewhere the cuckoo had doubtless sung for summer was coming in. And what with everybody leaving town, it was only sensible to shut Headquarters until autumn. Mrs. Martindale, and with no guilt about it, had looked forward to a holiday from all that sewing.

  Well, she was to have none, it turned out. While the workers were gaily bidding farewells and calling out appointments for the autumn, Mrs. Corning had cleared her throat hard to induce quiet and had made a short speech. She stood beside a table piled with cut-out sections of hospital coats not yet sewn together. She was a graceless woman, and though it may be assumed that she meant to be appealing, she sounded only disagreeable. There was, she said, a desperate need, a dreadful need, for hospital garments. More were wanted right away, hundreds and thousands of them; the organization had had a cable that morning urging and pleading. Headquarters was closing until September—that meant all work would stop. Certainly they had all earned a vacation. And yet, in the face of the terrible need, she could not help asking—she would like to call for volunteers to take coats with them, to work on at home.

  There was a little silence, and then a murmur of voices, gaining in volume and in assurance as the owner of each realized that it was not the only one. Most of the workers, it seemed, would have been perfectly willing, but they felt that they absolutely must give their entire time to their children, whom they had scarcely seen because of being at Headquarters so constantly. Others said they were just plain too worn out, and that was all there was to it. It must be admitted that for some moments Mrs. Martindale felt with this latter group. Then shame waved over her like a blush, and swiftly, quietly, with the blue-gray head held high, she went to Mrs. Corning.

  “Mrs. Corning,” she said. “I should like to take twelve, please.”

  Mrs. Corning was nicer than Mrs. Martindale had ever seen her. She put out her hand and grasped Mrs. Martindale’s.

  “Thank you,” she said, and her shrill voice was gentle.

  But then she had to go and be the way she always had been before. She snatched her hand from Mrs. Martindale’s and turned to the table, starting to assemble garments.

  “And please, Mrs. Martindale,” she said, shrilly, “kindly try and remember to keep the seams straight. Wounded people can be made terribly uncomfortable by crooked seams, you know. And if you could manage to get your stitches even, the coat would look much more professional and give our organization a higher standing. And time is terribly important. They’re in an awful hurry for these. So if you could just manage to be a little quicker, it would help a lot.”

  Really, if Mrs. Martindale hadn’t offered to take the things, she would have…

  The twelve coats still in sections, together with the coat that was half finished, made a formidable bundle. Mrs. Martindale had to send down for her chauffeur to come and carry it to her car for her. While she waited for him, several of the workers came up, rather slowly, and volunteered to sew at home. Four was the highest number of garments promised.

  Mrs. Martindale did say good-by to Mrs. Corning, but she expressed no pleasure at the hope of seeing her again in the autumn. You do what you can, and you do it because you
should. But all you can do is all you can do.

  Out on the Avenue, Mrs. Martindale was herself again. She kept her eyes from the great package the chauffeur had placed in the car. After all, she might, and honorably, allow herself a recess. She need not go home and start sewing again immediately. She would send the chauffeur home with the bundle, and walk in the pretty air, and not think of unfinished coats.

  But the men in uniform went along the Avenue under the snapping flags, and in the sharp, true light you could see all their faces; their clean bones and their firm skin and their eyes, the confident eyes of the soldiers and the wistful eyes of the sailors. They were so young, all of them, and all of them doing what they could, doing everything they could, doing it hard and humbly, without question and without credit. Mrs. Martindale put her hand to her heart. Someday, maybe, someday some of them might be lying on hospital cots…

  Mrs. Martindale squared her delicate shoulders and entered her car.

  “Home, please,” she told her chauffeur. “And I’m in rather a hurry.”

  At home, Mrs. Martindale had her maid unpack the clumsy bundle and lay the contents in her upstairs sitting-room. Mrs. Martindale took off her outdoor garments and bound her head, just back of the first great blue-gray wave, in the soft linen coif she had habitually worn at Headquarters. She entered her sitting-room, which had recently been redone in the color of her hair and her eyes; it had taken a deal of mixing and matching, but it was a success. There were touches, splashes rather, of magenta about, for Mrs. Martindale complemented brilliant colors and made them and herself glow sweeter. She looked at the ugly, high pile of unmade coats, and there was a second when her famous heart shrank. But it swelled to its norm again as she felt what she must do. There was no good thinking about those twelve damned new ones. Her job immediately was to get on with the coat she had half made.

  She sat down on quilted blue-gray satin and set herself to her task. She was at the most hateful stretch of the garment—the binding of the rounded neck. Everything pulled out of place, and nothing came out even, and a horrid starchy smell rose from the thick material, and the stitches that she struggled to put so prettily appeared all different sizes and all faintly gray. Over and over, she had to rip them out for their imperfection, and load her needle again without moistening the thread between her lips, and see them wild and straggling once more. She felt almost ill from the tussle with the hard, monotonous work.

  Her maid came in, mincingly, and told her that Mrs. Wyman wished to speak to her on the telephone; Mrs. Wyman wanted to ask a favor of her. Those were two of the penalties attached to the possession of a heart the size of Mrs. Martindale’s—people were constantly telephoning to ask her favors and she was constantly granting them. She put down her sewing, with a sigh that might have been of one thing or of another, and went to the telephone.

  Mrs. Wyman, too, had a big heart, but it was not well set. She was a great, hulking, stupidly dressed woman, with flapping cheeks and bee-stung eyes. She spoke with rapid diffidence, inserting apologies before she needed to make them, and so was a bore and invited avoidance.

  “Oh, my dear,” she said now to Mrs. Martindale, “I’m so sorry to bother you. Please do forgive me. But I do want to ask you to do me the most tremendous favor. Please do excuse me. But I want to ask you, do you possibly happen to know of anybody who could possibly use my little Mrs. Christie?”

  “Your Mrs. Christie?” Mrs. Martindale asked. “Now, I don’t think—or do I?”

  “You know,” Mrs. Wyman said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you for the world, with all you do and all, but you know my little Mrs. Christie. She has that daughter that had infantile, and she has to support her, and I just don’t know what she’s going to do. I wouldn’t have bothered you for the world, only I’ve been sort of thinking up jobs for her to do for me right along, but next week we’re going to the ranch, and I really don’t know what will become of her. And the crippled daughter and all. They just won’t be able to live!”

  Mrs. Martindale made a soft little moan. “Oh, how awful,” she said. “How perfectly awful. Oh, I wish I could—tell me, what can I do?”

  “Well, if you could just think of somebody that could use her,” Mrs. Wyman said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, honestly I wouldn’t, but I just didn’t know who to turn to. And Mrs. Christie’s really a wonderful little woman—she can do anything. Of course, the thing is, she has to work at home, because she wants to take care of the crippled child—well, you can’t blame her, really. But she’ll call for things and bring them back. And she’s so quick, and so good. Please do forgive me for bothering you, but if you could just think—”

  “Oh, there must be somebody!” Mrs. Martindale cried. “I’ll think of somebody. I’ll rack my brains, truly I will. I’ll call you up as soon as I think.”

  Mrs. Martindale went back to her blue-gray quilted satin. Again she took up the unfinished coat. A shaft of the exceptionally bright sunlight shot past a vase of butterfly orchids and settled upon the waving hair under the gracious coif. But Mrs. Martindale did not turn to meet it. Her blue-gray eyes were bent on the drudgery of her fingers. This coat, and then the twelve others beyond it. The need, the desperate, dreadful need, and the terrible importance of time. She took a stitch and another stitch and another stitch and another stitch; she looked at their wavering line, pulled the thread from her needle, ripped out three of the stitches, rethreaded her needle, and stitched again. And as she stitched, faithful to her promise and to her heart, she racked her brains.

  The Girl with the

  Blackened Eye

  Joyce Carol Oates

  From Witness

  This black eye I had, once! Like a clown’s eye painted on. Both my eyes were bruised and ugly but the right eye was swollen almost shut, people must’ve seen me and I wonder what they were thinking. I mean you have to wonder. Nobody said a word—didn’t want to get involved, I guess. You have to wonder what went through their minds, though.

  Sometimes now I see myself in a mirror, like in the middle of the night getting up to use the bathroom, I see a blurred face, a woman’s face I don’t recognize. And I see that eye.

  Twenty-seven years.

  In America, that’s a lifetime.

  This weird thing that happened to me, fifteen years old and a sophomore at Menlo Park High, living with my family in Menlo Park, California, where Dad was a dental surgeon (which was lucky: I’d need dental and gum surgery, to repair the damage to my mouth). Weird, and wild. Ugly. I’ve never told anyone who knows me now. Especially my daughters. My husband doesn’t know, he couldn’t have handled it. We were in our late twenties when we met, no need to drag up the past. I never do. I’m not one of those. I left California forever when I went to college in Vermont. My family moved, too. They live in Seattle now. There’s a stiffness between us, we never talk about that time. Never say that man’s name. So it’s like it never did happen.

  Or, if it did, it happened to someone else. A high school girl in the 1970s. A silly little girl who wore tank tops and jeans so tight she had to lie down on her bed to wriggle into them, and teased her hair into a mane. That girl.

  When they found me, my hair was wild and tangled like broom sage. It couldn’t be combed through, had to be cut from my head in clumps. Something sticky like cobwebs was in it. I’d been wearing it long since ninth grade and after that I kept it cut short for years. Like a guy’s hair, the back of my neck shaved and my ears showing.

  I’d been forcibly abducted at the age of fifteen. It was something that could happen to you, from the outside, forcibly abducted, like being in a plane crash, or struck by lightning. There wouldn’t be any human agent, almost. The human agent wouldn’t have a name. I’d been walking through the mall parking lot to the bus stop, about 5:30 p.m., a weekday, I’d come to the mall after school with some kids, now I was headed home, and somehow it happened, don’t ask me how, a guy was asking me questions, or saying something, mainly I registered he was an adult my dad�
�s age possibly, every adult man looked like my dad’s age except obviously old white-haired men. I hadn’t any clear impression of this guy except afterward I would recall rings on his fingers which would’ve caused me to glance up at his face with interest except at that instant something slammed into the back of my head behind my ear, knocking me forward, and down, like he’d thrown a hook at me from in front, I was on my face on the sun-heated vinyl upholstery of a car, or a van, and another blow or blows knocked me out. Like anesthesia, it was. You’re out.

  This was the forcible abduction. How it might be described by a witness who was there, who was also the victim. But who hadn’t any memory of what happened because it happened so fast, and she hadn’t been personally involved.

  It’s like they say. You are there, and not-there. He drove to this place in the Sonoma Mountains, I would afterward learn, this cabin it would be called, and he raped me, beat me, and shocked me with electrical cords and he stubbed cigarette butts on my stomach and breasts, and he said things to me like he knew me, he knew all my secrets, what a dirty-minded girl I was, what a nasty girl, and selfish, like everyone of my privileged class as he called it. I’m saying these things were done to me but in fact they were done to my body mostly. Like the cabin was in the Sonoma Mountains north of Healdsburg but it was just anywhere for those eight days, and I was anywhere, I was holding on to being alive the way you would hold on to a straw you could breathe through, lying at the bottom of deep water. And that water opaque, you can’t see through to the surface.