Sweet Land Stories

by E. L. Doctorow

  Show him, Mama said to me. Go ahead, it’s all right, she assured me.

  So I did, I showed him. I showed him something to hand. I opened the top of the gunnysack and he looked down it.

  The fool’s grin disappeared, the unshaven face went pale, and he started to breathe through his mouth. He gasped, he couldn’t catch his breath, a weak cry came from him, and he looked at me in my rubber apron and his knees buckled and he fainted dead away.

  Mama and I stood over him. Now he knows, I said. He will tell them.

  Maybe, Mama said, but I don’t think so. He’s now one of us. We have just made him an accessory.

  An accessory?

  After the fact. But he’ll be more than that by the time I get through with him, she said.

  We threw some water on him and lifted him to his feet. Mama took him up to the kitchen and gave him a couple of quick swigs. Bent was thoroughly cowed, and when I came upstairs and told him to follow me, he jumped out of his chair as if shot. I handed him the gunnysack. It was not that heavy for someone like him. He held it in one hand at arm’s length as if it would bite. I led him to the old dried up well behind the house, where he dropped it down into the muck. I poured the quicklime in and then we lowered some rocks down and nailed the well cover back on, and Bent the handyman he never said a word but just stood there shivering and waiting for me to tell him what to do next.

  Mama had thought of everything. She had paid cash down for the farm but somewhere or other got the La Ville bank to give her a mortgage and so when the house burned, it was the bank’s money. She had been withdrawing from the account all winter, and now that we were closing shop, she mentioned me the actual sum of our wealth for the first time. I was very moved to be confided in, like her partner.

  But really it was the small touches that showed her genius. For instance, she had noted immediately of the inquiring brother Henry that he was in height not much taller than I am. Just as in Fanny the housekeeper she had hired a woman of a girth similar to her own. Meanwhile, at her instruction, I was letting my dark beard grow out. And at the end, before she had Bent go up and down the stairs pouring the kerosene in every room, she made sure he was good and drunk. He would sleep through the whole thing in the stable, and that’s where they found him with his arms wrapped like a lover’s arms around an empty can of kerosene.

  THE PLAN WAS for me to stay behind for a few days just to keep an eye on things. We have pulled off something prodigious that will go down in the books, Mama said. But that means all sorts of people will be flocking here and you can never tell when the unexpected arises. Of course everything will be fine, but if there’s something more we have to do you will know it.

  Yes, Aunt Dora.

  Aunt Dora was just for here, Earle.

  Yes, Mama.

  Of course, even if there was no need to keep an eye out you would still have to wait for Miss Czerwinska.

  This is where I didn’t understand her thinking. The one bad thing in all of this is that Winifred would read the news in the Chicago papers. There was no safe way I could get in touch with her now that I was dead. That was it, that was the end of it. But Mama had said it wasn’t necessary to get in touch with Winifred. This remark made me angry.

  You said you liked her, I said.

  I do, Mama said.

  You called her our friend, I said.

  She is.

  I know it can’t be helped, but I wanted to marry Winifred Czerwinska. What can she do now but dry her tears and maybe light a candle for me and go out and find herself another boyfriend.

  Oh, Earle, Earle, Mama said, you know nothing about a woman’s heart.

  BUT ANYHOW, I followed the plan to stay on a few days and it wasn’t that hard with a dark stubble and a different hat and a long coat. There were such crowds nobody would notice anything that wasn’t what they’d come to see, that’s what a fever was in these souls. Everyone was streaming down the road to see the tragedy. They were in their carriages and they were walking and standing up in drays—people were paying for anything with wheels to get them out there from town—and after the newspapers ran the story, they were coming not just from La Ville and the neighboring farms but from out of state in their automobiles and on the train from Indianapolis and Chicago. And with the crowds came the hawkers to sell sandwiches and hot coffee, and peddlers with balloons and little flags and whirligigs for the children. Someone had taken photographs of the laid out skeletons in their crusts of burlap and printed them up as postcards for mailing, and these were going like hotcakes.

  The police had been inspired by the charred remains they found in the basement to look down the well and then to dig up the chicken yard and the floor of the stable. They had brought around a rowboat to dredge the water hole. They were really very thorough. They kept making their discoveries and laying out what they found in neat rows inside the barn. They had called in the county sheriff and his men to help with the crowds and they got some kind of order going, keeping people in lines to pass them by the open barn doors so everyone would have a turn. It was the only choice the police had if they didn’t want a riot, but even then the oglers went around back all the way up the road to get into the procession again—it was the two headless remains of Madame Dora and her nephew that drew the most attention, and of course the wrapped bundles of the little ones.

  There was such heat from this population that the snow was gone from the ground and on the road and in the yard and behind the house and even into the fields where the trucks and automobiles were parked everything had turned to mud so that it seemed even the season was transformed. I just stood and watched and took it all in, and it was amazing to see so many people with this happy feeling of spring, as if a population of creatures had formed up out of the mud especially for the occasion. That didn’t help the smell any, though no one seemed to notice. The house itself made me sad to look at, a smoking ruin that you could see the sky through. I had become fond of that house. A piece of the floor hung down from the third story where I had my room. I disapproved of people pulling off the loose brickwork to take home for a souvenir. There was a lot of laughing and shouting, but of course I did not say anything. In fact I was able to rummage around the ruin without drawing attention to myself, and sure enough I found something—it was the syringe for which I knew Mama would be thankful.

  I overheard some conversation about Mama—what a terrible end for such a fine lady who loved children was the gist of it. I thought as time went on, in the history of our life of La Ville, I myself would not be remembered very clearly. Mama would become famous in the papers as a tragic victim mourned for her good works whereas I would only be noted down as a dead nephew. Even if the past caught up with her reputation and she was slandered as the suspect widow of several insured husbands, I would still be in the shadows. This seemed to me an unjust outcome considering the contribution I had made, and I found myself for a moment resentful. Who was I going to be in life now that I was dead and not even Winifred Czerwinska was there to bend over for me.

  Back in town at night, I went behind the jail to the cell window where Bent was and I stood on a box and called to him softly, and when his bleary face appeared, I ducked to the side where he couldn’t see me and I whispered these words: “Now you’ve seen it all, Bent. Now you have seen everything.”

  I STAYED IN town to meet every train that came through from Chicago. I could do that without fear—there was such a heavy traffic all around, such swirls of people, all of them too excited and thrilled to take notice of someone standing quietly in a doorway or sitting on the curb in the alley behind the station. And as Mama told me, I knew nothing about the heart of a woman, because all at once there was Winifred Czerwinska stepping down from the coach, her suitcase in her hand. I lost her for a moment through the steam from the locomotive blowing across the platform, but then there she was in her dark coat and a little hat and the most forlorn expression I have ever seen on a human being. I waited till the other people had drifte
d away before I approached her. Oh my, how grief-stricken she looked standing by herself on the train platform with her suitcase and big tears rolling down her face. Clearly she had no idea what to do next, where to go, who to speak to. So she had not been able to help herself when she heard the terrible news. And what did that mean except that if she was drawn to me in my death she truly loved me in my life. She was so small and ordinary in appearance, how wonderful that I was the only person to know that under her clothes and inside her little rib cage the heart of a great lover was pumping away.

  WELL THERE WAS a bad moment or two. I had to help her sit down. I am here, Winifred, it’s all right, I told her over and over again and I held my arms around her shaking, sobbing wracked body.

  I wanted us to follow Mama to California, you see. I thought, given all the indications, Winifred would accept herself as an accessory after the fact.

  BABY WILSON

  I had taken up with her knowing she was this crazy lovesick girl. It was against my better judgment. I was too accustomed to having my life made easy. I was stuck in my tracks by the smitten sweet smile and the pale eyes. With straight brown hair she never fussed with but to wash it. And she wore long cotton dresses and no shoes in the business district. Karen. A whole year ago. And now she had gone and done this thing.

  She held it out to me all rolled up in a blanket.

  Where’d you get that?

  Lester, this is our baby. He is named Jesu because he is a Spanish-looking child. He will be a dark saturnine young man with slim hips like yours.

  The face was still red with its effort to be born, and the hair was slick with something like pomade, and it had small dark eyes struggling to see. Around his wrist was a plastic band.

  I don’t want to hold him, I said. Take him back.

  Oh silly man, she said, smiling, cradling it in her arms. It’s not hard to hold a dear child.

  No, Karen, I mean take him back to the hospital where you stole him.

  I couldn’t do that, Lester. I couldn’t do that—this is my newborn child, this is my tiny little thing his momma loves so that I am giving to you to be your son.

  And she smiled at me that dreamland smile of hers.

  She moved her shoulders from side to side and sang to it, but the little arms sort of jerked and waved a bit and she didn’t seem to notice. There was a dried blob of blood on the front of its wrappings.

  I looked at the clock. It was just noon. Was this a reasonable day, Karen should have been at Nature’s Basket doing up her flowers.

  I went into the bedroom and put on my jeans and a fresh shirt. I wet my hair and combed it and got a beer from the kitchen.

  There were two hospitals in Crenshaw, the private one in the historic district and the county one out by the interstate. What did it matter where she took it from, either one would be just as good. Or I could drive it direct to the police station, not the smartest move in the world. Or I could just take the Durango and leave.

  Instead of any of these things, by which I would finally reform into a person who makes executive decisions, I thought to myself I would not want to shock such a woman in her dangerous blissful state of mind, and so went back and tried again, as if you could argue sense into someone who was never too steady to begin with and was now totally bereft of her remaining faculties.

  This is wrong, Karen. It is wrong to go around stealing babies.

  But this is my baby, she said, staring into its face. I mean our baby, Lester. Yours and mine. I bore it as you conceived it.

  I went over to the couch where she had sat down and I looked again at the wristband. It said “Baby Wilson.”

  My name is not Wilson and your name is not Wilson, I said.

  That is a simple clerical error. Jesu is our love child, Lester. He is the indissoluble bond God has placed upon our union. God commanded this. We can never part now—we are a family.

  And she looked at me with her pale eyes all adazzle.

  Jesu, if it was him, was crying in little yelps and its head was turning this way and that with its mouth open and its little hands were all a-tremor.

  I had known she would finally put me at risk. I tried to pay no attention when she stole things and presented them to me, because they were little things and of no use. A Mexican embroidered nightshirt, whereas I like to sleep in the altogether, or a silver money clip in the shape of an L for Lester, like I was some downtown lawyer, or an antique music box, for Christ’s sake, that plays “Columbia the Gem of the Ocean,” as if anyone would want to hear it more than once. Totally the wrong things for me, if it was me she was stealing for, whereas I was hard pressed to get a decent meal in this household.

  Karen opened her blouse and put the baby to her breast. It hadn’t changed any that I could see—of course there was no milk there.

  I sat down next to her and pointed the remote at the TV: cartoon, a rerun, puppets, a rerun, nature, a preacher, and then I found the local news station.

  Just like them, they hadn’t heard the news yet.

  KAREN, I SAID, I’ll be right back, and I drove into town to the Bluebird. It was lunchtime, busy as hell, and Brenda wasn’t too pleased, but seeing the look in my eyes she took a cigarette break out the back door. I told her what was what.

  She stood listening, Brenda, and shook her head.

  Lester, she said, your brains are in your balls. That is the way you are and the way you’ll always be.

  Goddamnit, Brenda, it’s not something I’ve done, you understand. Is this what I need to hear from you right now?

  She was squinting at me from the smoke drifting up into her eyes.

  I said, And you sometimes haven’t minded if that’s where my brain is, as I recall.

  Brenda is as unlike Karen as two women can be. Sturdier in mind, and shaped as if for the Bluebird clientele in her powder blue uniform with the Brenda stitched on the bosom pocket.

  Are you aware, she said, that kidnapping is a federal offense? Are you aware that if something happens to that infant the both of you—I’m saying the both of you, don’t shake your head no—let’s see, how do they do it in this state, I forget, electricity or the needle? I mean all Alice in Wonderland will end up is in the loony bin, but you as aiding and abetting—good-bye, Charlie.

  I was beginning to feel sick to the stomach standing there out in the sun with the Bluebird garbage bins in full reek.

  She ground out her cigarette and took me by the arm and walked me around to the parking lot.

  Now, Lester, the first thing is to go to the Kmart and buy you some infant formula, I believe it comes in their own plastic bottles these days. You follow the instructions and feed that baby so it doesn’t die, as it surely will if you don’t step in here. And while you’re at it, buy you an armload of diapers—they come with Velcro now—and a nightie or three and a cap for its head—she looked up at the sky—it’s supposed to get cooler later on—and whatever else you see there in Infants and Toddlers that might come in useful. You understand me?

  I nodded.

  And then when it turns out you haven’t killed that child, you get it back to its rightful parents as soon as you possibly can, anyway you can, and see to it that your darling poetess up there on Cloud Nine takes the rap that is justly hers to take. Do you hear me?

  I nodded.

  Brenda opened the door for me and saw me up behind the wheel.

  And, Lester? If I don’t hear on the TV tonight that you’ve settled this to a happy conclusion, I personally will call the cops. You understand me?

  Thanks, Brenda.

  She slammed the door. And don’t ever try to see me anymore, Lester, you asshole, she said.

  I HAD DONE everything Brenda said to do by way of food and sanitation, and now there was peace in the house. I didn’t want to alarm Karen in any way, so I treated her with nothing but cooperation. By the time I had gotten back from the store, she had just begun to realize a baby needed taking care of. She was so grateful she hugged me, and I helped her fus
s over that child as if it was truly ours. Isn’t he the sweetest thing? Karen said. How he seems to know us—oh that is so dear! Look at that sweet face. He is surely the most beautiful baby I ever have seen!

  Now, with everything calmed down and both Karen and Baby Wilson asleep on our bed, it was time to do some thinking. I put on the five o’clock news to get the lay of the land.

  Oh my. The Crenshaw Commissioner of Police saying the entire CPD had been put on alert and deployed throughout the city to find the infant and apprehend the kidnapper or kidnappers. He’d also notified the FBI.

  Hey, I said, it is just my slightly crazy girl Karen. You don’t have to worry, we’re not kidnappers, man.

  The female they wanted for questioning was probably in her twenties, young, white, about five-six, slight of build with straight brown hair. She had brought a bouquet of flowers and, when approached by a nurse, claimed to be a friend of Mrs. Wilson.

  She was that cool, my Karen?

  Behind the commissioner was a worried-looking hospital official and, I supposed, the nurse in question, tearful now for having turned her back for a moment to look for a vase.

  Then a doctor stepped to the microphone and said whoever had the baby to remember that there was an open wound at the site of the umbilical cord. It should be kept clean and dressed with an antibacterial agent and a fresh bandage at least once a day.

  Well, I knew that. I had seen it for myself. I’d found the Polysporin in the medicine chest I had once bought for a cut on my forehead and applied it only after I washed my hands. I am not stupid. The doctor said the baby should only have sponge baths until the wound healed. I would have figured that out, too.

  A reporter asked if a ransom note had been received. That really got me riled. Of course not, you moron, I said. What do you think we are? No ransom note as yet, the commissioner said, emphasizing the “as yet,” which offended me even more.