American Appetites

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Nonetheless,” Ian said, “in the context of . . .”

  “I don’t know about any context,” Denis said, staring, “but please don’t thank me for saying things that anyone in his right mind would say about you.” He spoke loudly, incredulously. “I’m sure that all of us who were subpoenaed by that prick Lederer, and who will testify in your defense at the trial, said the same things I did. For Christ’s sake, don’t make an issue of it; let’s drop it right now. You seem to be forgetting . . .”

  “Yes? Forgetting?”

  “Who you are.”

  LATER THAT DAY, when they were having drinks on the beach, the Grinnells, and Ian, and some visitors from Cambridge—among them an attractive couple whom it seemed Ian had once met, though he could not in all conscience recall their meeting: the man a freelance writer of biographies, as he identified himself, the woman, much younger, an artist and photographer, as she identified herself—Ian made the company laugh, made Denis snort with laughter, in fact, by wryly acknowledging his “altered status” in the intellectual community. “The great advantage of my situation,” he said, “is that, now, virtually no one asks me for letters of recommendation; my ducklings have all paddled away.”

  Denis said, “My ducklings, bless their hearts, I’ll have until I paddle away.”

  So they laughed, as if with relief, that the air (perhaps) had been cleared; except for Roberta, who, smiling, stared into the tall frosted glass in her hand, a plain fizzing drink of some kind, very likely club soda, into which Denis had dropped a neat crescent moon of lime.

  “IF YOU’VE BEEN avoiding me, I mean being alone with me,” Ian said, “I quite understand. I don’t, you know, want to embarrass you. I don’t . . .” He paused; could not think what he meant to say, standing in Roberta’s kitchen, tall, slope-shouldered, rather too thin, self-conscious as an adolescent boy. He wore khaki shorts and a T-shirt, white, freshly laundered, that fitted his torso loosely; his legs, thin also, bony-kneed, covered in fine fair hairs like down, seemed to him unnaturally pale in this healthy sunny seaside setting. “. . . don’t after all want you to dislike me.”

  Roberta laughed nervously and smiled at him, or made the attempt, a blush like an imperfectly realized birthmark rising from her neck to her cheeks. She said, “How could I dislike you? You are our closest friend. You, and Glynnis, and Denis, and me. . . .” And her voice too trailed off; and they stood, smiling, embarrassed, oddly happy, looking at each other as if across a small abyss, while outside, from the beach, came shouts and laughter—an impromptu volleyball game had begun, at Denis’s instigation, since there was a volleyball net, slack, rather ripped, yet serviceable, slung between poles, and there were now enough players; as the long Sunday waned, several more friends had turned up. Ian’s heart was beating violently. He thought, Why am I doing this, what am I saying? Why am I here?

  Ian had followed Roberta into the house, they’d been talking of other things, and now, as gracefully as possible—with, Ian was thinking, the forced ease of an experienced speaker, who, having made a mistake in his speech, simply continues, without breaking his rhythm, as if nothing were wrong—he reverted to one of these subjects: Denis’s recent disappointments, his mood of professional dissatisfaction, for which Ian felt some responsibility; he felt that Denis was contaminated, to a degree, by his friendship with him and was at a loss what to do about it.

  “Are you serious?” Roberta asked, staring at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I most certainly am serious.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, it’s too absurd,” Roberta said. “Don’t you think Denis has qualities of his own, sufficient qualities of his own, to make even people who admire him not care to hire him for sensitive positions? You know what he’s like in close quarters.”

  “I know that there has been a good deal of adverse publicity, and when the trial begins—”

  “Why don’t you try not to think about it! Since you’re here with us; it’s Labor Day weekend; it’s”—she made a gesture, as if of appeal, toward the beach, the ocean, the sky—“it’s another world, here. Or we are trying to make it one.”

  “I wish there were something I could do,” Ian said. “I’ve put you all in such an awkward position. And my colleagues at the Institute—”

  “Did he bring it up?”

  “Denis? Of course not.”

  Roberta looked doubtful, as if not believing him. “He isn’t perfect, you know.”

  Ian laughed, happy again. “I’d thought he was!”

  So they talked for a while of other things, like, Ian was thinking, children skidding and swerving down a snowy hill on makeshift sleds, and Roberta asked Ian that discreet codified question, How are things going? and Ian asked Roberta how, with her, things were going; and from outside the shouts, cries, screams of laughter of the volleyball players came like a raucous music, a counterpoint and a check to solemnity inside. Though Ian’s heart was still beating uncomfortably fast, and Roberta seemed unusually breathless, her face heated, her eyes shy, damp, shining, even as, as if unconsciously, she maintained a certain distance between them. Ian, not drunk, but not as fully sober as he might have wished, thought it an odd, ironic, yet appropriate fact that, were he to tell Roberta Grinnell he loved her and would give his life for her and would—ah, how happily, how desperately he would!—marry her if, ever, she were free, his declaration must be made in the kitchen of a rented seaside cottage, amid a clutter of kitchen debris: cooking utensils and things soaking in the sink, things on counters, things in Styrofoam containers, things named and unnamed, the paraphernalia of food and drink and their consumption. There was a lingering smell of grease, from breakfast; a lingering smell of oyster shells, from lunch; a smell—Ian’s mouth watered though he wasn’t hungry in the slightest—of puff pastries heating in the oven.

  Out of nervousness Ian lit a cigarette and saw Roberta tolerate it, the thin curling smoke, until, as if unobtrusively, she waved the smoke away; and Ian quickly stubbed the cigarette out. “I always hated Glynnis smoking,” he said. “Of course she hated it, too, and was always trying to stop.”

  “It’s said to be more difficult for women to stop than men,” Roberta said. “I have no idea if that’s so.”

  “When Freud was dying of cancer of the mouth . . .”

  “Oh I know! Wasn’t that—”

  “Pathetic.”

  “Tragic.”

  They had spoken at once, and Roberta went on, as vehemently as if Freud were a friend of theirs, of whom one had a right to expect better things, “That he couldn’t give up that wretched pipe of his, even after the operations to his jaw! That the addiction to his pipe was greater than the addiction, if it can be called that, to life. I used to wonder how such things were possible, but now . . .”

  Ian laughed helplessly, sadly. “Oh, well. Now.”

  The volleyball players were hooting someone’s comical blunder, and then they were applauding someone’s inspired or lucky shot, and Roberta said she didn’t really mind if Ian smoked if he really wanted to smoke and Ian said of course not, it was a filthy habit he intended to give up soon; his daughter was disgusted with him, strongly disapproved. So they talked for a while of Bianca, and, for a while, of the Grinnells’ sons, and Ian stared at the timer on the oven, clicking away, eight minutes to go, five minutes. . . . Roberta said, “I can’t take her place, you know; I’m sure that’s what you want,” and, when Ian did not reply, as if, however improbably, Ian had not quite heard, she continued, in the same voice, quickly, guiltily, as if this were what they had really been talking about, or what she had meant to say, “Denis says I don’t need to explain, but I should explain, I know you’ve seen the grand jury’s minutes by now, I know you’ve seen the transcript of my testimony, which is what I will have to give at the trial too, if I’m called, and Denis says of course I will be called, that terrible man, that manipulator, won’t let anything get by that might help him with his case. You know I was subpoenaed, we were all
subpoenaed, we hadn’t any choice . . . it seems civil rights are suspended in such instances . . . something I had not known . . . I was forbidden to take the Fifth Amendment since I was not charged with any crime and could not incriminate myself by anything I said. It’s tyranny, isn’t it; I told them that, that terrible man Lederer and his assistants; I told him it was like Orwell’s 1984, the thought police prying open our skulls.”

  She paused to draw breath; she looked as if she were about to take hold of Ian, to seize his hands as, he didn’t doubt, she would have done, in those more innocent days before he’d embraced her in the courtyard of his house and begged her for whatever it was he’d begged her; he supposed it had been love.

  “You know, Ian, don’t you, that I had no choice but to tell them about my conversation with Glynnis, that final conversation, and I had no choice but to try to answer their questions as honestly as I could; I couldn’t perjure myself even in the interests of friendship, even though I am so . . . even though I love you, Denis and I both love you, as a friend, our oldest closest dearest friend—”

  Her voice broke, and Ian said quickly, “Of course I know,” smiling hard at her, his hands involuntarily lifted as if in appeal. “Of course. Of course I know.”

  Roberta spoke of the ordeal of appearing before the grand jury; of the questions put to her, which were insidious, snide, unfair, and unjust; of the fact that, as Ian perhaps knew, she had tried, like all his friends, to represent him as he truly was: Glynnis and him, their marriage, their family life, their significance in the community. She had tried, and she believed she had succeeded, to the degree to which the prosecution had allowed her to speak her heart. Of course, at the trial, she would be cross-examined by his attorney, and it would then become clear to the courtroom, if any ambiguity remained, that she was not a hostile witness but a friendly witness, a “character” witness in fact. She would tell all the world what a good man he was: decent kindly generous gentle good.

  And Ian listened and nodded, his face very warm and his eyes smarting; yes he knew yes he understood yes of course of course but is there no hope of you loving me apart from your husband’s “love” of me? Is there no hope? No hope?

  Then the timer on the oven rang, and Ian volunteered to take out the tray of pastries, but, foolishly and so very typically, he nearly forgot to use potholders; and Roberta gave a little scream and stopped him, ending, as Glynnis had so often ended, doing the little task herself.

  Ian said, “Those smell delicious,” and Roberta said, “There’s crabmeat, minced mushroom, sausage, would you like one?—no, wait, they’re too hot,” taking them from the baking tray and setting them on a platter.

  Ian watched and said again, “They do smell delicious; you’re a wonderful cook,” and Roberta glanced up at him as if he were teasing and said, “Of course I didn’t make these myself, I bought them; I’m not a purist like Glynnis was.”

  Ian waited a bit and said, as he’d said some minutes before, that if Roberta had been avoiding him this weekend he understood; didn’t blame her in the slightest; she knew, he thought, he hoped, how he felt about her, and—but here she interrupted to say that she seriously doubted that he knew: he was under a terrible strain, Glynnis’s death and the other, the rest of it; he really didn’t know what his feelings were and couldn’t be expected to know. He said, smiling, his lips so dry they felt as if they were about to crack, that the high regard he had for her, the love he had for her, was as genuine as any in his life, in his entire life, but he quite understood if being told this simply embarrassed her. “There is nothing worse than being loved when one can’t love in return,” he said, wondering if this were true, and why he was volunteering it, since he’d had so little experience along those lines. Had Glynnis simply told him? Was all he knew of love, to the degree he knew of love, nothing more than what Glynnis had told him?

  Roberta said, “I don’t think we should talk about this now, Ian; this isn’t the ideal time to talk about it.”

  Ian said, “I only want you to understand that, having said what I’ve said, I do love you, I don’t want you to think that I expect any sort of reciprocity, any response on your part at all, even a . . . even a calm and considered refutation.” He smiled, and his eyes filled now frankly with tears; and Roberta looked away, as if too deeply, keenly, moved; and he said, hoping she would not interrupt, but hear him out, “I dread your thinking this is some sort of emotional blackmail. Please don’t think it! My feeling for you is as disinterested as it can be, though I—I will admit—I will admit I think about you a good deal,” he said, beginning now to tremble, and speaking rapidly, daring to take Roberta’s hand in his, then both her hands, in his, trapped in his, as if to hold her still; to make her listen. She did not resist, nor did she return the pressure of his fingers. How like ordinary hands our hands are, Ian thought; how ordinary it all is, after all; while somewhere up the beach a dog was barking in a series of high piercing yips, and the volleyball players were throwing themselves about—Ian could see them through the screened window, had been keeping Denis in sight all along—and the rich warm delicious smell of the pastries lifted from the platter.

  After a moment Roberta drew her hands out of his but did not step away. She said, “May I ask you something frankly, Ian?”

  “Yes? What?”

  “About Sigrid Hunt.”

  Ian hesitated. “If you must.”

  “Well, no then,” Roberta said evenly. “It isn’t that I must.”

  She picked up the platter, to take outside to her guests. Would Ian like to sample one of the pastries? she asked, and Ian, his glasses misted over, standing very still, frowning, said politely, “No thank you, I’m not hungry,” and Roberta said, “Of course you are, you were swimming this afternoon, weren’t you?” and Ian obediently picked up one of the pastries and bit into it, scarcely knowing what he did or what he chewed except, yes, it was delicious.

  He said, smiling, “You are all too good to us.”

  SO THE LABOR Day weekend passed. Like sand slipping through his fingers.

  He left early the following day, before lunch, though it was a clear cloudless lovely day at last, and the ocean had never looked more beautiful: slate blue waves, white-capped like mountains, and the fishy salty smell edged with an autumnal coolness. Denis urged him to stay another day, and Roberta urged him, with a look almost pleading, to stay at least for lunch, but Ian thanked them for their hospitality, shaking Denis’s hand hard and embracing Roberta in their quick polite ceremonial manner: feeling her initial stiffness, then her pliancy, the warmth of her lips brushing his cheek. He drove away, waving out the window of his car. The Grinnells stood waving after him, side by side; then their hands dropped and they continued to look after him, he saw in the rearview mirror, until he had passed out of view, and they were lost to one another.

  6.

  That fall, Ian began volunteer work at the Short North Rehabilitation Center in Newburgh, a twenty-minute drive from Hazelton. He taught in the adult illiteracy program, Monday and Thursday evenings; his course was advertised as Remedial English for Native-born Americans.

  At the Short North, so far as he could make out, no one knew him; his name meant nothing; the color of his skin marked him off not only from his students—three black women, middle-aged, and one youngish black man, on parole from Sing Sing for attempted robbery and felonious assault—but from the majority of his fellow volunteers. People looked at him, sometimes stared thoughtfully at him, but he knew himself invisible.

  Had it occurred to anyone to ask what had brought Ian to the program, he intended to tell the truth: he really didn’t know. He had happened to read about it on a communal bulletin board in the Hazelton public library; it had sounded like a good, helpful, charitable thing, a way of filling in the hours, biding his time. In prison, he thought, if he went to prison, he would sign up for similar programs, teaching inmates to read, even to write.

  No one asked. But he had his answer prepared, in any case.<
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  BY THE END of October the trial had been postponed another time: to January 11.

  Ian, who had been marking off the days on his calendar, thought, It will never end. It will never even begin.

  There was a rumor too that Sigrid Hunt had returned to the area. She was to be a witness for the prosecution; a witness for the defense. Nicholas Ottinger, who had, in secret, hired a private investigator to find her, told Ian that the rumors were unfounded, unfortunately. “It’s quite possible the woman is no longer living,” he said carefully, as if the word dead might be too strong for Ian’s nerves. “But the body probably won’t be found either,” he added.

  Ian winced inwardly but made no reply. Why was Ottinger looking at him so closely? What was he supposed to say? That he had not killed Sigrid Hunt and did not know who had?

  FOUR

  THE TRIAL

  1.

  So frequently, and with such hallucinatory vividness, had Ian McCullough anticipated his trial, had in fact dreamt of it for months, that, on the first day, a snow-muffled morning in late February—for Ottinger had cannily succeeded in getting it postponed another time—many of its proceedings had the air, to him, of an imperfectly recalled dream: alternately monotonous and jarring, predictable and disconcerting. He had been prepared for the opening of the prosecution’s case, but he had not been prepared for the disjointed nature of the session itself: its several delays and false starts, its many interruptions—most of them, in fact, by his own counsel, for Nicholas Ottinger was quick as a pit bull to the attack, rising to his feet to object, to raise points of law, procedure, and propriety. He had been prepared for a crowded courtroom but he had not been prepared for so much seemingly uncoordinated activity in the area of the bench, nor for the initially appealing but finally rather disappointing candor and lack of pretension of Justice Benedict Harmon, who seemed intelligent enough for the authority of his position, but only enough. (“Benedict Harmon is the best of second-best,” Ottinger had told Ian, “which, in the larger context, is after all quite good.”) He had been prepared for the substance of the prosecution’s case against him but he had hardly been prepared for Samuel S. Lederer’s theatrical, repetitious, and heavily ironic performance: that air, beneath the public servant’s zealous vigilance against all things evil, of something mean-spirited and mendacious. Above all he was not prepared for his growing, and numbing, conviction that, though “Ian J. McCullough” was the still point of all procedural motion, and his formally rendered plea of “not guilty” to the charge of murder in the second degree its mainspring, he himself, in the flesh, sitting beside his counsel at the defense table, was irrelevant. I am being tried in absentia, he thought.