Braided Lives

by Marge Piercy

  The broken triad of gongs at last. As I start down, aware of how disheveled I feel, my eagerness to see Mike slides away. The world is wide, in all directions more attractive than this house. A rope of sheets out the window. They come to search. Ten years later a postcard from Manila, Jill the beachcomber. Now my parents will never approve of me, never accept me, never love me. Blown. But nothing I did was ever what they wanted. Wrong child.

  Mike is posed stiffly in the rust armchair that rubs knees with the green, where Mother perches, her hands twisted in her lap. She has changed into her good blue dress and powdered her face, but her hair is wild. I look last and unwillingly at Dad in his usual chair in front of the windows. His face is a mask of cold fury. I seat myself on the couch toward the kitchen, the farthest point available.

  “Now that this thing has come out, I intend to settle it this evening.” Dad’s voice catches. He sits heavily, addressing himself to a copper plaque above Mike of a galleon in full sail. “The worst has happened. We can keep shame to a minimum.”

  “I don’t think we’ve done anything for which we need feel ashamed,” Mike begins in his reading aloud voice. “There’s been some misunderstanding.”

  “I misunderstand nothing.” The lines tauten in Father’s cheeks. “We will not talk about that.”

  “Mr. Stuart, Jill is old enough to know her own mind—”

  “She’s my daughter and my dependent, and this is my house.” Father’s hand quivers as he lights a cigarette. “A wrong has been committed against society, against us. It must be set right.”

  Those two hundred dollars: a dependent. But I can’t make enough this summer to pay the whole dorm this year either. All my muscles clench as if pulling the words from Mike, for I want him to answer them, to make them understand. “Ideas change, sir. Jill doesn’t think what we did wrong any more than I do.”

  “We’re right,” I burst out. “I can’t live by a morality I don’t believe in, I don’t approve of. I don’t try to make you act the way I do, but you grew up in a different world than I have to live in. You grew up right after World War One. They didn’t even have cars—”

  “Keep quiet,” my father bellows. “You’ve forfeited your right to be heard.” He does not glance at me.

  “Suppose I’d done something really bad like robbing Mrs. Coyle of her Social Security check or running over a kid playing in the street! For two people to make love just isn’t a crime!”

  “There’s nothing you can say! Be quiet!” My father’s fists clench. For a moment there is silence. Everyone stares at the floor. Why doesn’t Mike speak up? They’ll listen to him.

  Mother blazes at me, “Were you a virgin? Was he the first?”

  My face prickles. I rub my fingers against the worn nap.

  “Answer me. Were you a virgin, Jill?”

  “What difference does that make? So was he.”

  Mike throws me an awful look.

  “Are you lying to me? I wish I could believe you.” She turns to Mike. “Was she?”

  Reluctantly he nods. How can you, she won’t believe you. Finding his nod has not released our stares he says finally, “Yes.”

  My only value to them. Broken like a vase.

  “The only thing to do …” Father’s gaze rebounds from our faces and comes to rest on the blank television. “What must be done …” His eyes behind gold rims are winter ponds. The new burn from the day fishing has condensed to hectic red splotches. “You’ll be married as soon as possible.”

  Mike stirs. “I never promised to marry her.”

  “I never promised to marry him either!” I squawk. We will never escape this place. We will be staked here sweating forever.

  “I’ll bet you were careful not to promise anything!” Mother bends toward Mike. “Taking advantage of her—you can see she hasn’t the sense to come in out of the rain. What did you intend?”

  He thrusts his chin out, straining with exasperation. “We didn’t intend anything! We like seeing each other, talking, spending time. I suppose we might get married someday when I have my doctorate, but that’s irrelevant.”

  “I wonder how irrelevant your mother will find it when I show her the detective’s report.”

  Father writhes in his chair scattering ash. Mike stares at Mother in frank hostility, each measuring the other’s will. “You know I wouldn’t have my mother see it. She’d die before she’d have anything to do with sordid matters like detectives.”

  “You should have though of that before you began carrying on. You can drop that high-and-mighty manner right now.”

  “How can you do this to me? Don’t you see Mike’s right? I don’t want to get married! It’s the last thing I want.”

  “It’s too late for that.” Father lurches forward, clasping his hands till the knuckles stand out in ridges. “You chose each other and you’ll have to make the best of it. Though God knows this is not what I’d have chosen. Or you for a son-in-law.”

  Mike asks quietly, “Are you going to put me through school?”

  Father turns to glare directly at him, the light bristling off his white stubble. “What?”

  “If I marry a girl who isn’t Jewish—in fact if I marry at all now—my family will disown me and stop support.”

  “You should have thought of that before you messed around with Jill,” Mother spits. “She was Jewish enough for you all this time.”

  Mike slumps negligently, drawling, “But don’t you see, if they stop support, I don’t care if they read your damned reports. I’ll lose them anyhow. What does it matter whether they disown me because you drag dirt into my mother’s house, or because I marry a wife she doesn’t approve of?”

  He has escaped them. How can they talk as if I’m an object whose ownership is debated? The loser will lead me off.

  Father sits dreadfully still. “Get out!”

  “Wait, Malcolm.” Mother regards Mike from under her lashes. “You object because you’ll lose your mother’s and aunt’s support?”

  “That’s the situation, in a nutshell.”

  “Anything’s more important to you than Jill. I understand. All right, good-bye, and I’ll call the police if you ever come near her again.”

  “No!” My voice rings in my ears. I say again, “No! You can’t do this.”

  “That’s not true,” Mike says. “How do you expect me to support her, by working in a factory?”

  Dad says, “I supported my wife for twenty years without benefit of schooling. And we had the discipline to wait.”

  She was married to somebody else, but I cannot use those weapons on them. I know their vulnerabilities. “You made Leo get married, you and the Haleckis, when you caught him with Joanie. What did that last, eighteen months? What kind of satisfaction can there be forcing people to get married who don’t want to? I won’t marry Mike if he quits school.”

  “You’ll do as you’re told,” Father says.

  “I don’t care. I’d rather die than make him quit.”

  Mike looks at me with warmth for the first time. “You heard what she said. We’re united on this.”

  “You’ll die too?” Mother smiles. “I have a better idea. Get married secretly, and no one needs to know till you graduate.”

  “But…” I can see the surprise hit him. “How do I know you’ll keep it a secret?”

  Father puts out his butt in the full ashtray, grinding and grinding. “You expect us to boast about it?”

  “Suppose you got angry? How do I know you wouldn’t take it to my family?”

  Mother says, “We’d give our word.”

  From the set of Mike’s lips I can taste his enjoyment. “Would you take mine?”

  “What kind of a guarantee …” Mother begins.

  Bartering. He sits bolted into himself. A cold slick of humiliation dirties me.

  “… at least my master’s….”

  Let the roof fall and crush us to silence. We are insects, all.

  “… put it in writing with a la
wyer …”

  The reddish tree of life on the machine-made Oriental rug writhes like the twisted nerves in my flesh. On the knickknack shelf a blue china cat washes herself with cool dignity. Remember Lightning, my tuxedo tom, always coming home with an ear torn or a cheek clawed open, but in my lap he would lie purring himself to and from sleep. I wrote stories about his heroic exploits modeled on the Lad, a Dog stories and almost believed them.

  “Jill, are you listening?” Mother asks sharply. “We agree not to disclose your marriage before Mike gets his Ph.D., unless you get pregnant. If we break the promise, we pay his tuition till he finishes.”

  Are they mad? Where would they get the money anyhow? They don’t even pay my college costs, and my grades are better than his anyhow, which makes him furious. “Is this what you want?”

  “Want!” Mother snorts. “This is the last thing I ever wanted.”

  “Will you send me back to school?”

  “What for?” Mother looks uneasily at Father who sits contemplating his fingers. “Do you think you deserve it? Besides, you’re getting married. What’s the point?”

  I am on my feet. Married off to a man who does not want me. The aqua walls and their pale faces are riddles with specks, red then black spots widening. The dining room table lurches toward me, slams me on the hip. I run for the bathroom. I grip the sink and propped on stiff arms vomit my small supper, my tuna fish lunch undigested, acid, finally air.

  Mother stands in the doorway hugging herself. “Jill, are you all right?”

  All right? All wrong. When I come out she stands by the dining room table, holding herself. “About college, Jill. We’ll see. After you’re married.”

  Thin, shadowless I wait. I want to be unconscious.

  She peers into my face. “Mike wants to talk to you. Do you want to go for an hour’s drive?”

  Out of the house, yes. They walk us to the door and standing a foot apart look after us down to the car. I huddle against the window. My throat feels scraped, my mouth tastes of mouthwash and acid. His face set with anger he takes corners squealing as I bump against the door and slide away. Round corners, through an alley, across tracks. “I think I’ve shaken him.”

  I try to rouse myself. “What?”

  “The detective. Nobody’s behind us.” He halts on a side street by a big brick house where we have often parked, where we have elaborated fantasies of our life together in that house.

  “If they’re following, mightn’t they come here?” The familiarity disgusts. I cannot escape the sense that someone watches.

  “I hope he shows up.” He drives his fist into his palm. “I’ll break his damn nose and knock his teeth down his throat.”

  I cannot believe we will see Nastasian except in nightmare. Our old patterns are severed; I cannot move. Noticing he scowls. “Come here.” He pulls me to be kissed: an assertion, without pleasure. He draws back to hunch over the wheel, drumming his fingers. “You’ve made a fine mess of things! Why didn’t you keep denying?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you act shocked, oh Mother, how could you say such things, and run from the room?”

  “Then your mother would have the reports by now. She wouldn’t have believed me acting like that anyhow.”

  “Did you want this to happen?”

  “You act as if you hate me!”

  “What do you expect me to say, Gee, Mrs. Stuart, I’d be tickled pink to take your daughter off your hands? Just wrap her up to go.”

  “Don’t you see how this humiliates me? I don’t want to get married like this!”

  “We won’t, then.”

  “Then what’s to become of us?”

  He scratches his head. “I’ll think about it. We’ll outwit her yet.”

  “She’s shrewd, Mike.”

  “Obviously.” Again he drums his fingers. “Must be a way. Got to get advice. Cribbets, maybe. I can trust him to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Your old high-school teacher?”

  “The poet. I’ll think of something. Trust me.”

  I must believe he will. Tonight he was caught off guard.

  “If he’s watching, let him get his eyes full.” He moves toward me.

  The street is empty, ominously still under the streetlights. As so many times we make love in gestures repetition has made natural, yet I feel a shade of awkwardness, of actions more willed than felt. I am conscious of every movement, of even the faint caress of his cuff against my ankle. His hand on my breast is violent. As if he sensed me freshly, we are more passionate, yet colder. We grate electrically. For this simple act my parents hate me. They think you need a license for it. I remember the bloody empalement, how he put his arm around me and called me a good soldier. The time in the pines when my pleasure was born. Tonight a tautness in him does not yield, pounding into me and holding back. From time to time a wince of anger slants across his face; I too cannot escape remembering.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JILL WITNESSES A JOUST

  THE NEXT MORNING I sit bolt upright at five thirty. The room blazes with light but no one stands over me. Then I remember. I cannot stay in this bed. Fear drives me upstairs to the glider—the fear of seeing my parents and being seen. I doze and wake sweating while the small noises of the house seep through the floorboards: the toilet flushing, the refrigerator door closing, the rough timbre of Dad’s voice, Mother’s contralto answering. I cannot sense time, for always the same oppression squats on my chest. Through the open window children’s cries in a game of hide-and-seek flutter like white and yellow moths. A lawn mower chirrs. Faintly the odor of frying fish wafts up. Why should the knowledge of joy be accounted a crime? They suffer and I suffer and this house is too narrow.

  The phone rings nasal through the floor. Then the door opens at the foot of the stairs. “Jill?” Mother calls. “Telephone. It’s Mike.”

  Too uneasy to take a seat, I stand. “Hello?”

  “Are you alone?”

  The whine of the saw locates Dad in the basement, but Mother is dusting the knickknack shelves. “No. Will I see you tonight?”

  “We’re going to my aunt’s. Try to get to a pay phone before six. I’ve been thinking.”

  “Did you come up with something?” Faint spurt of hope.

  “The first shock has worn off. A cheap trick like that catches you off guard.”

  “I’ll try to.”

  When I hang up Mother says, “You might as well eat. There’s leftover fish I can warm up.”

  “No thanks.”

  “If you don’t eat you’ll get sick and I’ll end up taking care of you. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You made your bed and you’ll lie in it.”

  Too lethargic to argue I follow her to the kitchen. “I’m not hungry. Is there any cheese? Any ripe tomatoes yet?”

  “Is he coming tonight to give his answer?”

  “Mike has to visit relatives.”

  “Any port in a storm.” She turns on the burner under the coffeepot. “I’m so tired I could keel over. Even your father couldn’t sleep.”

  Reek of fish from the frying pan. “Maybe I should leave.”

  “I remember the last time you did. You got plenty tired of Heine-mann’s garage.”

  I was ten. After the first few hours already waiting to be found, not knowing Mrs. Heinemann had called Mother and been told to leave me there till I got ready to come out. Defeat. I chew cottage cheese and cherry tomatoes.

  “Of course if your friend wants to support you in that grand style he pretends to be accustomed to, wearing torn shirts …”

  The kitchen door swings open. “Pearl, what did you do with that ant powder?” He halts and a wave of shock freezes him as if seeing me alive were too much. Then he leans forward with his jaw shaking and shoves the table at me. I jump from the chair. Mother’s voice breaks in high warning, “Malcolm!”

  His voice rips from him, “Guttersnipe!”

  “You hate me! But I’m not sorry!” I run scalded f
rom the room.

  As I grab my wallet Mother comes after me. “Where are you going? If you leave, you’ll regret it all the days of your life.”

  “I’m going for a walk.” I let the front door slam and bound down the walk, something torn loose inside me. Mangled tissue. Guttersnipe. Worse to imagine what that stands for he cannot bring himself to say.

  Marcie is sunning herself on her second-story porch with her shades on and old shorts, not yet duded up in her whore clothes. She gives me a slight nod. Since I went away to college nobody talks to me. Even Freddie doesn’t spill me his money troubles. I feel like a double outcast. My old gang wouldn’t bug me for fucking Mike; they’d shrug and say, What else? Where do my parents get their weird morality? I was the last virgin my age on the block. Mother adored Freddie. She was always making chocolate chip cookies for him, and if he didn’t rape me on the kitchen floor, it was only because I took a hot iron to him. I thought fucking Mike was supposed to prove I’m a healthy normal female. I need a woman friend bad. Donna’s miles and miles away. Julie’s in a suburb I can’t get to without a car. Theo’s in New York, in a town called Southampton.

  Three girls walk arm in arm ahead of me into the corner drugstore, their little butts in shorts twitching consciously, their chatter loud. “He whistled at me yesterday by Sharkie’s Garage!” “Frieda was petting with him in the balcony during Doris Day.” The girls stop at the soda fountain while I pass on to the empty phone booth at the back.

  His mother answers. “Who’s calling please? I’ll see if he’s at home.”

  I slide the door open for a little air. The grip of the phone soothes me. He has a plan.

  “How’s it going, pumpkin?”

  “Don’t talk about it. It’s good to hear your voice. Can you get away tonight?”

  “It’s good strategy to delay a few days. Let them see they can’t push me. I called Cribbets and I’m seeing him Friday.”

  “Don’t wait till next weekend to give them some sort of answer, Mike.” How long can I hide in the attic? I fear my father.

  “Look, she’s trying to marry you off. The old comedy routine. She’s not about to send away the only suitor.”