Black Dahlia White Rose: Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Just—on the train. Like she’d traveled somewhere—yesterday, maybe—and lost the wallet, and . . . She could be in New York, or—who the hell knows—Miami. She could be with somebody—I’ll find out who.”

  His mother had questions to ask, Jalel answered tersely: “No. Anybody who called me back, they didn’t know any damn thing. They hadn’t seen her—they said.” He paused, running a hand through his hair, fingers like angry claws through his greasy hair. “No! Fuck we ‘had words.’ What kind of—fucking kind of—asshole thing to say to me—we did not. Go to hell!”

  Violently he hung up the phone. In an instant he’d become furious, glaring.

  He had not asked about his daughter. I understood that he would regret this and regret his angry outburst and if I hadn’t been there, he would have called back his mother immediately.

  He’d hung up the phone so hard, the receiver slipped off the hook. Panting and muttering to himself he replaced it, with care.

  “Nobody knows. Bullshit anybody can ‘read anybody’s mind’ . . . She left me.”

  Jalel wasn’t speaking to me but he saw me now—a strange tender smile rayed across his face. He came stumbling to me—collided with a kitchen chair, pushed it aside—took my hands in his hands—both my frightened hands, in his hands. Still panting, reeking of his body, he leaned down to kiss my forehead.

  “Nad-ja! It has to be something special—why you came here to me. Why you brought the wallet to me . . .”

  Something in his voice, in the way he stared at me, made me draw back now, abruptly.

  “No. I don’t think so—no.”

  I managed to stand. He was slow to release my hands.

  “Yes. You came to me. There is a reason to all things.”

  He was smiling. He wasn’t altogether serious. He’d want you to think this was so: the speculations of a man who’d been drinking but wasn’t, you had to know, drunk.

  “ ‘Good Sam’tan.’ Yes, there’s a reason God sent you.”

  Long I would remember the kiss on my forehead—wet, forceful—a man’s kiss, deflected.

  Before I left, Jalel took down my name, my address, my telephone number in Carthage. I wanted to think—He will call me. He will want to see me again, if she doesn’t come back.

  *

  Whenever I return to Carthage, which is at least once a year, I drive past the brownstone row house at 2117 Pitcairn Street. I park my car, and I walk past the house—though it has been thirty years now, and no Niveccas live there any longer, I’m sure.

  Yes, I have checked the Carthage telephone directory. There are a number of Niveccas listed, but none with the initial J.

  A few days after I’d brought the wallet to Jalel Nivecca, a call came for me—not from Jalel but from a Carthage police officer.

  He was checking information that Jalel had given them. That I’d found the wallet on the train, and when; and that I’d brought it to him.

  Carthage police were investigating the “missing” woman now—Jalel had had to notify them, finally.

  Though I was feeling shaky and uncertain I answered the police officer’s questions in a firm friendly voice, borrowed from Lolly O’Brien for the purpose.

  I did not tell the detective—I did not tell anyone—that, a few days after I’d brought the wallet to Jalel, I’d called the number I had for him, the next-of-kin number. Wanting just to know if Anna-Marie had returned home yet. Wanting just to know—how he was. But no one had answered, the phone had rung and rung.

  When finally I’d arrived at our house on that day, an hour and a half late, my mother hadn’t been furious with me but anxious—she’d thought that something must have happened to me on the train. Quickly I told her that yes, there’d been an emergency on the train, a woman had fainted in the seat beside me and I’d been involved in trying to help her.

  Seeing that I was all right, and grateful that I’d arrived, and with so much to do in our beleaguered household, my mother didn’t question my story.

  I returned to school. I tried not to think of Jalel Nivecca.

  I tried not to think of Anna-Marie Nivecca.

  The pressure of the man’s hands on my shoulders. The pressure of the man’s lips on my forehead. The smell of the household—the smell of the man. The conscientious way in which, taking down my name, address, telephone number, Jalel Nivecca had gripped the pencil in his left hand, like one not accustomed to writing; the way in which the pencil point had pierced the scrap of paper.

  Often alone I walk quickly and with a sensation that someone is looking after me, or following me. Usually, there is no one.

  I would never meet any man like Jalel Nivecca. I mean—any man whom I seemed to know, and who seemed to know me.

  I would meet many men, and most of them were friendly—civil, kindly, dependable, predictable in good ways. And one of them, I would marry at the age of thirty-seven. But none of them was Jalel Nivecca.

  The Carthage police called me several times in the fall and winter of 1981, at college. Each time a detective asked me the same thing: where I’d found the wallet belonging to Anna-Marie Nivecca, when and how; and who was I, and had I known Anna-Marie Nivecca or Jalel Nivecca or anyone in the Nivecca family, previously.

  Once, I asked the detective if police believed that something had happened to Mrs. Nivecca but the detective cut me off abruptly saying the investigation was “under way.”

  Another time, I heard myself say that I’d had the impression at the time that Mr. Nivecca was genuinely surprised when I brought the wallet to him but that, later, when I considered it, I had to wonder—“Maybe he’d left the wallet on the train, himself.”

  For a moment, the detective was silent. My old, chronic unease with speaking over the phone, particularly to strangers, returned with force—I felt sweat break out on my body. I wanted to retract my impulsive words but could not.

  “Why do you say that, ma’am? Any reason for you to say that, that Mr. Nivecca gave you?”

  “I—I don’t think so. No.”

  “Your impression was, he hadn’t expected to see the wallet?”

  “Yes. That was my impression, at the time.”

  “But now you say—maybe he’d planted the wallet on the train, himself? Why would you think that?”

  A rivulet of sweat ran down my side, inside my clothes. I felt sick with regret, I had said such a thing about Jalel Nivecca.

  I stammered a reply—I didn’t know.

  The detective thanked me for my “assistance” and told me that I would be hearing from him again, very likely.

  When I could, I read the Carthage newspaper. Headlines became familiar—POLICE SEARCH FOR MISSING LOCAL WOMAN CONTINUES; POLICE SAY NO LEADS IN SEARCH FOR MISSING LOCAL WOMAN.

  In the summer, when I was home and working at the downtown Carthage library, I had the opportunity to look through back issues of the newspaper and so discovered, belatedly, that Jalel Nivecca had been “interviewed” in the matter of his wife’s disappearance, and that Jalel Nivecca was a “suspect” in the matter of his wife’s disappearance; I discovered his picture in the paper, and felt a stab of recognition—Him!

  But I did not discover that Jalel Nivecca had ever been arrested, still less indicted for any crime, and tried.

  Jalel Nivecca insisted that he knew nothing about his missing wife and that he “loved” her—“wanted her back”—“could not imagine where she was.”

  There was no evidence that Anna-Marie Nivecca had been harmed. There was no evidence that Anna-Marie Nivecca was not alive somewhere, and in hiding.

  Only the missing woman’s family and friends protested that Anna-Marie would never have disappeared in such a way, without telling anyone—without taking her little girl with her.

  The house at 2117 Pitcairn was thoroughly searched. Not once but several times, according to the Carthage newspaper. The basement floor had been “dug up.”

  Eventually, police officers ceased calling me. In the spring of 1983, I graduated wi
th honors from the small liberal arts college, I went on to study at the Indiana School of Music, I did not ever speak with Jalel Nivecca again and never learned what became of him and his daughter Isabelle. Now in the era of personal computers it isn’t difficult for me to check Carthage 1981 Anna-Marie Nivecca police investigation and to learn that the investigation is still, officially, “ongoing” though nothing new seems to have come to light in decades.

  He would be an old man now, or nearly—though probably not much changed. In his soul, he would not be much changed. If we saw each other, we would recognize each other. I am sure of this, as I am sure of very little otherwise in my life.

  My college roommate wasn’t entirely correct about me. I have had a professional career of some achievement—modest, moderate. Of course, I am hardly Richard Wagner.

  I am hardly Daniel Pinkham.

  But if you search my name you will discover that I am listed as an American composer, born 1981; I am a recipient of awards, professional fellowships, and commissions; my work has been performed at Tanglewood and the Kennedy Center in D.C. and I am currently composer-in-residence at William and Mary College.

  I have been married now for thirteen years. My husband and I have two young, adopted children. At times, I am so overwhelmed by the happiness of my life, the sensation I feel is purely visceral, musical—the way Mozart must have felt on an ordinary day. Unlike Mozart, I can’t translate this sensation into musical notes—my compositions are very different, darker and, as critics have complained, “gnarly”—“unresolved.” But that does not invalidate the power and the authenticity of my feelings.

  On Pitcairn Street, Carthage, I park my car, and I walk past the brownstone at 2117. It is an utterly ordinary row house—indistinguishable from its neighbors—in a neighborhood that seems to have become Hispanic and Asian. I know no one here, no one knows me, no one glances after me, it’s as if I am invisible here, and so I feel strangely safe, consoled. For I feel his hands on my shoulders guiding me and I hear him say again in his hoarse intimate voice—It has to be something special, why you came to me. Some reason God sent you.

  And this time I hear myself say—Yes. I think that you must be right.

  A Brutal Murder in a Public Place

  At Gate C33 of Newark International Airport in a waiting area of seats facing curved glass windows and a heavily occluded sky beyond the windows, a sudden frantic chirping!

  Everyone looks around—upward—the frantic chirping continues—the bird—(if it is a bird)—is hidden from view.

  A bird? Is that a—bird? Here? How—here?

  In these rows of seats, strangers. Directly in front of the curved-glass windows facing the runway outside and the overcast New Jersey sky are three sections of seats of ten seats each, with six plate-glass windows facing each section of seats: in all, eighteen windows.

  On the other side of the walkway, which is not wide, no more than a few yards, are rows of seats arranged in the usual utilitarian way: back to back and, across a narrow aisle, facing one another.

  Barely, there is room for people to make their way through this narrow aisle, pulling suitcases.

  You might guess fifteen seats in each row. Ten such rows of seats at Gate C33.

  This place of utter anonymity, impersonality.

  This place of randomness.

  Emptiness.

  And suddenly—the tiny bird-chirping!

  An improbable and heartrending little musical trill like an old-fashioned music box!

  A sound to make you glance upward, smiling—in expectation of seeing—what?

  At the ceiling above the closest row of seats facing the window there appears to be a ledge of some kind, probably containing air vents—(from my seat about fifteen feet from the outer row of seats by the window, I am not able to see the front of the ledge)—and very likely the trapped little bird—(if it is a bird, it must be “trapped” in this place, and if it is between the ledge and the ceiling, it must be little)—is perched there.

  The seated travelers continue to look around, quizzical and bemused.

  A white-haired woman in a wheelchair squints upward, with an expression of mild anxiety. A contingent of soldiers—mostly young, mostly male—mostly dark-skinned—in casual-camouflage uniform like mud-splotched pajamas—squint upward frowning as if the bird’s chirping might be a warning, or an alarm.

  How is it possible, a bird here?

  Though the chirping is fairly loud, rapid-fire and somewhere close by, yet no one has sighted the bird. A lanky young man with a backpack stands, to squint toward the ceiling, with the air of an alert bird-watcher, but the bird remains invisible.

  Another possible place (I see now) in which the little bird might be hidden is in the leaves of a stunted little tree near the windows.

  This is a melancholy tree of no discernible species in a plastic pot meant to resemble a clay pot. At first you assume that the tree must be artificial then, when you look more closely, you see to your surprise that the stunted little tree is a living thing.

  The tree is a well-intentioned “decorative touch” in Newark International Airport. Intended to soften the harsh utilitarian anonymity of the place.

  And the horror of randomness—of strangers gathered together to no purpose other than to depart from one another as swiftly and expeditiously as possible.

  But the little tree has not fared well in this mostly fluorescent-lit environment. Coaxed out of a seed, nurtured into life, it is now a thing scarcely living: its large spade-shaped leaves are no longer green but threaded with what looks like rust. Still, the little bird might yet be hidden among these leaves . . .

  I’ve noticed another tree of the same indistinct species in the same plastic pot about thirty feet away, at (unoccupied) Gate C34. Very likely at other gates in the terminal, in all the terminals of the airport, there are other trees similarly potted, of a near-identical type, height and condition, their once-glossy green leaves grown shabby, desiccated. You can tell that these trees are not artificial because they are shabby, desiccated.

  The artificial endures. Living wears out.

  Invisibly, almost teasingly, the tiny chirping continues.

  Like tiny bits of glass being shaken together in a great fist.

  The chirping is drowned out by an announcement—a particularly shrill-voiced woman—and when the announcement ends, the chirping has ceased.

  Everyone has turned back to their preoccupations of a moment before—desultory conversations, laptops and books, the high-perched TV news of far-flung and domestic tragedies that never ceases whether anyone is watching or not.

  Even the soldiers who’d appeared vigilant a moment before have turned away. Even the lanky young man with the backpack, who is hunched in his seat speaking on a cell phone.

  Am I the only traveler thinking—The little bird is still here somewhere, it could not have flown away without our seeing?

  Stubbornly, I listen for the little bird. Scarcely daring to breathe I listen for the little bird. As if its tiny heartbeat had aligned itself with my heartbeat and acutely it is aware of me, as I am aware of it.

  A living thing. Somewhere close by, invisible.

  How loud and intrusive are the announcements—flights boarding, flights departing—flights delayed. How grating, the human voice.

  For it seems that, at Gate C33, an incoming flight has been delayed (weather, Chicago) and an outgoing flight has been delayed (weather, Minneapolis).

  But at last, a few minutes later, the frantic little chirping resumes, with greater urgency.

  Already I am on my feet, restless and alert. Where I’d been annoyed and mildly anxious that my flight has been delayed—(another forty minutes)—yet I am more intrigued by the mysterious little bird, that has drawn my attention. Pages of the New York Times lay scattered on the seat beside mine, and on the floor.

  I know—you are advised not to leave your luggage unattended in this public place, but I intend only to walk—to stretch my legs�
�for a short distance.

  Unlike the others who’ve turned their attentions away from the mysterious chirping overhead, I’m consumed with curiosity about the little bird in our midst who is not only hypothetical but also invisible. For the fact remains: there is a bird here at Gate C33 of Newark International Airport.

  It’s probable that the bird entered the terminal through an opened door in this area when passengers boarded one of the smaller, propeller planes. At such times passengers are not shunted directly onto the plane through a covered chute but are obliged to walk across the pavement—(invariably in windy, wet weather)—to steep metal steps ascending to the prop-plane that, when entered, exudes the cramped, airless, and claustrophobic air of a straining intestine.

  And yet—think of the odds against this! A luckless bird blown by the wind, unable to prevent itself from being sucked into the terminal through the opened door . . . Unless, confused by plate-glass reflections, the poor bird had blundered into the opened doorway of its own volition.

  Now there’s a sudden blur of wings! Small wings! My vigilance has paid off since I am almost directly below the bird—it was hidden, as I’d surmised, between the ledge and the ceiling—it’s a small sparrow—beating its wings madly, careening in the air—striking the rows of plate-glass windows looking out onto the runway—making its way dazed and confused into a high, windowless corner of the waiting area. By this time everyone has glanced up again and several people smile—(why does the panicked fluttering of a small bird, trapped in such a place, provoke people to smile?).

  After a few minutes of wing-beating, chirping, blundering along the row of windows, the little bird—(it’s a beautifully patterned sparrow)—has positioned itself back on the ledge, but near the edge where it’s visible. I have followed it here, in this relatively quiet space near the (unmanned, unlighted) Gate C34; beyond the window here is an empty runway, and close by is another stunted little potted tree—glamorous poster-ads for Costa Rica, Tampa Bay, Rio. Poor little bird! How did it get into this terrible place, and what can I do to help it?