Wonderland

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Jesse looked around the mill for a while, walking through the tall weeds, approaching the cellar. A whiff of dank air. It was dark down there, it looked forbidding.… Farther up the lane an old truck was parked on four greasy blocks in a cluster of blue-flowered weeds. In the distance was a scrubby field with deserted hulks of automobiles and trucks, and what appeared to be part of a snowplow. Abandoned in the weeds. The lane was very narrow and probably not often used: weeds grew in its center. Jesse noticed on his left an apple orchard. This belonged to a family who lived in a nearby farmhouse on the highway. He peered through the orchard and saw on its other side a large backyard. There was an old swing, made of wood and metal, painted green, that could seat four people. Was someone in the swing …? Jesse could make out two people, a woman and a child. Chickens were picking in the grass around them, oblivious to them. Jesse wondered what they were saying to each other. He wanted suddenly to hear them, to get closer.… The woman seemed to be scolding the child. Her voice rose in sweet, indecipherable notes, single notes, syllables of sound. Jesse could not hear. The woman, the mother, began to make the swing move, and the little girl jumped up on the seat opposite, exclaiming in delight. The little girl was about three or four years old. She had long dark hair. The woman had thick brown hair, very light, very curly, almost red-blond, like Jesse’s hair. She wore a yellow dress. For some reason Jesse’s eyes watered to see them, the two of them, and to know that he could not join them on the swing.… A mother and her little girl on a swing, in the country, on a warm late-summer evening … and he could not join them, it was impossible for him to join them. Now a man came out of the back door of the farmhouse. Chickens scattered before him. He was tall, husky, with his shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows. His hair was black. He was saying something, but Jesse could not make out the words.

  Then, suddenly, this man was looking over at Jesse. He stared. He must have said something, a murmur of surprise or irritation, because now the woman also turned to look. Jesse was on the other side of their orchard, far enough away to show he meant no harm. He was not trespassing. But the couple stared at him suspiciously. The little girl had not seen him. She was chanting something in a high melodic voice.

  Jesse thought: I will explain myself to them. I will show them I mean no harm.

  The black-haired man approached the orchard slowly. Jesse saw a cautious, springy threat to his step, in the very look of his arms.

  He must leave.

  He must get out of here.

  Panting, he hurried back to his car. As he backed out of the lane he saw the black-haired man watching him. He had lit a cigarette. In such a way, Jesse thought, does a man protect himself and his family. In such a way does a man, a normal man, exclude the rest of the world.

  When Jesse returned to the hotel, Mrs. Pedersen did not answer his knock. He rapped politely on the door. He waited. No answer. A man passed him in the corridor, glancing at him. Jesse saw the man approach out of the corner of his eye and for a moment his size was a puzzle—could this be Dr. Pedersen? But no, Dr. Pedersen was back home. Jesse was safe. He set the suitcase down by the door and knocked again.

  She did not answer. His heart began to pound with panic. It was possible that something had happened to Mrs. Pedersen. She might have collapsed.… For a moment he could not remember how long he had been gone. Maybe he had been gone many hours. Time was confusing to him. He knew that the drive back from Lockport to Buffalo had taken much longer than it should have taken, as if he were in a dream, fighting through a dream to come to the surface of his own consciousness. Hours might have passed. Maybe a day had gone by.

  He knocked again timidly. This time he heard someone’s voice. Mrs. Pedersen was calling out a question but he could not make it out. He waited patiently until she came to open the door, opening it to the width of its safety chain. She peered out at him, her face florid and cautious in the crack of the door. Jesse could smell whiskey.

  “You’ve been gone so long.… I thought something had happened.… I thought he had come here instead of you.…”

  She let him in. Her hair was wild and ravaged, a scarecrow’s hair. The front of her dress was stained. “I was so afraid. So afraid,” she said in a thick, childish voice. “Is that the shoes? That there, the suitcase? Thank God for you, Jesse. You’re all I have now.”

  Jesse opened the suitcase and took out the shoes, which had been wrapped carefully in tissue paper. Mrs. Pedersen leaned near him, and her tears fell on some of the thin white paper. “The telephone has been ringing. He has been calling me, tormenting me. But I won’t answer. I will never answer that telephone,” she said. “Oh, thank God for you. And Dora. Dora is wonderful. How did he know I came here? To this hotel? He knows everything. He can read minds. Did I tell you that he can read minds? He can read minds and hypnotize people without them knowing it—just sit down with him and he looks right into your brain—he knows everything—he knew I would come to this hotel before I knew it myself—”

  Jesse wondered where she had hidden the bottle. He noticed a tray on the night table, with a few food-encrusted plates from room service.

  “I’m not going to talk about him,” Mr. Pedersen said. She sat down on the bed and the springs creaked in surprise. “I don’t care if he gets a proper dinner or not tonight. I don’t care about Hilda either. She never loved me. She hates me. And Frederich—he hates me. They love their father better and they always did. You always loved him too. Everybody loves him, it’s a mystery. I heard someone out in the hall while you were gone and I thought it was him, his voice, my heart rushed like mad.… I don’t know if I still love him. I don’t want to love him. I’m going to be free of him forever.… What did he say to you when you got the shoes?”

  “Nothing. Henry was waiting outside with the suitcase.”

  “Just Henry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dr. Pedersen didn’t talk to you?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Pedersen sat for a while without speaking. She did not seem to be aware of Jesse at all.

  The telephone rang.

  She jumped to her feet. “Tell him to leave me alone. Tell him to leave me alone,” she cried.

  Jesse went to answer the telephone, but standing above it, he felt his arm suddenly go numb. Was it paralyzed? The telephone rang again. Mrs. Pedersen had backed up against the far wall, her knuckles pressed against her mouth. “I’ll kill myself. I’ll go crazy. Tell him to leave us alone, to leave us alone forever.…”

  Jesse forced himself to pick up the receiver. His eyes shut, he yelled: “Leave us alone!”

  He hung up.

  Mrs. Pedersen and Jesse stared at each other. Mrs. Pedersen embraced herself, shivering. “Jesse, I feel so strange. I feel so hungry.… Was that him, was that Dr. Pedersen?”

  “Yes. I don’t know.”

  “I feel so hungry, I’m just shaking.… Could you go and get me something to eat? Jesse? From a good restaurant?”

  “Why don’t we leave this room? Then you wouldn’t have to listen to the telephone ring.”

  “I don’t want to leave, no, I look awful, I’m not well.… I can’t go out on the street … it’s getting dark.… I don’t want people to see me.…”

  “But—”

  “Go and get us something to eat. Get us some dinner, please.”

  “We could call room service.”

  “No, not room service, I don’t want room service. I want something else. Food from a good restaurant … different food.… I feel faint, I feel shaky.… Jesse, go and get us something to eat, something solid, and we’ll have dinner together up here, just the two of us, and we won’t answer the telephone when it rings.…”

  She was about to cry, so Jesse gave in.

  He went down to the street and looked for a restaurant. He walked several blocks. At last he came to a dingy Chinese restaurant that was nearly empty; he looked at a menu and ordered the first four dinners on it—pressed almond duck, beef with Chinese vegetables, shri
mps in lobster sauce, chicken chow mein. He had to wait for the food to be prepared and his mouth began to water. So he bought a few candy bars at the cashier’s stand and chewed on them nervously. He wondered how Mrs. Pedersen was. Maybe she was drinking. Maybe the telephone had begun to ring again and was frightening her.…

  This day had lasted half his lifetime.

  When he brought the dinners back to Mrs. Pedersen she was waiting for him at the door and opened it immediately. Now she wore her pink flowered bathrobe and her hair stood up in jagged tufts, as if she had been pulling at it with her hands. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back, Jesse, I’m just so shaky, my nerves are ragged.… What is this, Chinese food? But Chinese food is so insubstantial … it’s delicious, but there’s nothing to it.… I feel so faint, I’m dying of hunger.…”

  “Everything is all right now,” Jesse said.

  Mrs. Pedersen sat on the edge of her bed and began to eat. She panted. Tears of gratitude inched out of her eyes and down her belling cheeks. Jesse hardly tasted the food; he ate quickly, dipping his head to the plate. Hurry. Hurry. The telephone might ring at any moment. He, too, was starving and must eat, he must fill his stomach. An actual ache had begun in his stomach, demanding to be filled.

  “This food is delicious but there’s just nothing to it … only one bowl of rice for both of us.…” Mrs. Pedersen said. When they had finished, she wiped her mouth and sighed shakily. “Jesse, could you go and get something else? This wasn’t nearly enough for both of us. We missed our regular meals today. All the driving and the nervousness and the telephone ringing have made me so weak … I’m afraid to go without eating, I might faint, and we don’t know any doctors up here.… Jesse, could you get us something else? Please?”

  Jesse rose slowly.

  “You are all I have, Jesse,” Mrs. Pedersen whispered.

  He went out again. This time he walked aimlessly, nearly got lost, then found himself across the street from the Chinese restaurant again. He went in and ordered the same four dinners. The cashier, a young Oriental woman with exaggerated eyes, stared at him. He bought a handful of Hershey bars and ate them while he waited.

  Twenty minutes later, crossing the hotel lobby, he noticed that the desk clerk was watching him closely. The bellboys were watching him. But he took the elevator up to the fourth floor, carrying the warm cardboard box in his arms, his mouth watering violently from the aroma of the food.

  “Mrs. Pedersen? Mother?”

  He knocked but no one answered.

  He pressed his mouth to the crack of the door and said, “Mother! It’s Jesse!”

  But no answer. He knocked again. His stomach was aching with hunger and he felt shaky. He imagined her sprawled on the bathroom floor, the tub filled with water, warm water, trembling in thin, nearly invisible ripples.… He stood for a while with the package of food in his arms. Then he set it carefully down on the floor and knocked again. No answer. Why was she hiding from him? He was weak with hunger and, while waiting for her to unlock the door, he squatted and opened the package. What food! It smelled delicious. With his fingers he picked something up—slivers of chicken, noodles, dark green leaves of a vegetable he couldn’t recognize—and began to eat. He would eat only a little. Minutes passed and Mrs. Pedersen still did not come to the door. What was wrong? Jesse, ravenously hungry, picked up another handful of food, then another.…

  He squatted there awkwardly and ate. Might as well eat. His mouth prickled with each handful of food—his tongue seemed to come alive, suddenly muscular. Evidently he had been very hungry and had needed this food. There was something desperate in his throat that urged the food down and demanded more. What if he didn’t get enough? His stomach was an enormous open hole, a raw hole, a wound. He had to fill it with food. He had to stuff it. But he could not eat fast enough, and the Chinese food was so delicate, so thin, there was no substance to it.… He should have bought some hamburgers, some good solid American cheeseburgers from the hotel’s coffee shop.… This food would never be enough for him. He felt weak, baffled. His jaw muscles ached from eating, even his arm ached from lifting food to his mouth, yet he was still hungry. His insides buzzed with hunger. He could almost feel the soft, frail, pulsating lining of his stomach trembling with hunger, demanding to be fed. Finally he sat down on the carpet to ease his aching knees and to give his stomach more room.

  Mrs. Pedersen did not come to the door. Jesse ate all four dinners and when he was finished he looked up groggily and saw that he was sitting in a corridor that was dimly lit and smelled of dust and food. He was alone. He felt slightly drunk. With an effort, panting, he got to his feet and knocked again on Mrs. Pedersen’s door.

  No answer. Nothing.

  Finally he folded the packages carefully together and put them back in the box, along with the napkins he had used. He took the elevator down to the lobby. There was a feeling of urgency in him, concentrated in his stomach. It led him to the desk clerk, who seemed to have been watching for him. “My mother won’t answer her door,” Jesse said. “I knocked on it but she wouldn’t answer.…” The desk clerk’s polite gaze dropped to Jesse’s belly. Then it rose again. “I’m afraid something happened to her,” Jesse said.

  “Your mother has checked out.”

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Pedersen has checked out of room 405. She is your mother? A gentleman came to get her … he said he was Dr. Pedersen … the two of them left about half an hour ago. I think you were out then …? Mrs. Pedersen seemed to be crying.” The desk clerk was watching Jesse’s face solemnly. “There must be some misunderstanding. You are Jesse Pedersen?”

  “What did they … did they say what …”

  “Dr. Pedersen left this letter for you.”

  Jesse took a letter from the desk clerk. In a daze, he turned and walked out to the street.

  He could not remember where he had parked his car. He walked for a while, the letter in his hand. It seemed very large. It attracted people’s attention. Then he discovered his car—it looked like his car—parked on a side street. Warm greasy air being expelled from a vent made him realize suddenly how hungry he was. There was a diner nearby. He needed good solid American food.… He clutched at his stomach, he was so hungry.

  The diner was empty except for two sailors, lean as children, at the counter. Jesse settled himself carefully on one of the stools and ordered six hamburgers with chili sauce on them, three side dishes of French fries, and a Coke. He finished the Coke before the food was ready, so he ordered another. He was very thirsty—why was that? It panicked him to think that he might not get the second bottle of Coke quickly enough. But the waitress brought it right over. What was happening to him? His hand trembled as he reached for the first hamburger in its large toasted bun. The chili sauce smelled sharp, delicious.… His insides were buzzing with expectation. Jesse bit into the bun and he had the idea that the sailors and the waitress were observing him, but he didn’t look over at them. He was so hungry; he felt sick with hunger. He would have liked to explain to them … explain to them that something strange had happened to him, that he didn’t understand, didn’t know what it was … he would have liked to explain to them that he had only wanted to do what was right … that there was a shrill hunger in him that rose like a scream.…

  Eating. Pressing the food into his mouth. He had to hurry, he felt so shaky. Then, carefully, he opened the envelope from Dr. Pedersen and took out a piece of paper. Before he read it he finished the bottle of Coke. For strength, he took another large bite of hamburger. Some of the sauce ran down his arm, so he had to wipe it with a paper napkin before he could examine the piece of paper. Tears of hunger dimmed his vision.

  It was a check, made out to Jesse Pedersen, for one thousand dollars. It was signed by “Karl Pedersen, M.D.”

  Jesse turned the check over. Nothing on the back. He sat for a while, eating, and then he picked up the envelope and looked inside. Another piece of paper, folded. He chewed desperately at a mouthful of French
fries as if he feared it might get away from him, then he swallowed and felt the food streaming down the insides of his body; and already he was biting into the next hamburger, though his back teeth had begun to ache from the chewing and his eyes were hot and dazed. There were raw onions on the hamburgers and he did not like raw onions. He finished one hamburger and picked up another, and he was disappointed to notice that the bun was a little stale; saliva rushed into his mouth as if in refutation of his disappointment. He was still shaky, weak with hunger … he stuffed his mouth. Somehow the bun slipped out of his hand and fell onto the edge of the counter, and before he could catch it, it fell onto the floor. He stooped, grunting, and picked it up. He brushed it off with a napkin and bit into it. He ordered another Coke and then remembered that he should have milk; so he ordered a glass of milk. Then he changed his mind and ordered a chocolate milkshake. He noticed the sailors watching him from the other end of the counter—their boyish, intent faces—and the waitress, a pretty young woman, served him deftly and politely, with a small smile of her own, a creased little forehead. He was shaky, dizzy with hunger, and yet he noticed, as if from a distance of many years, the concern of other people. He wanted to explain to them that something had gone wrong, something had happened, he was not to blame, they should not blame him, they should not think ill of him.…

  Finally, when he felt strong enough, he took out Dr. Pedersen’s letter.

  Jesse:

  With this check and with this letter I pronounce you dead to me. You have no existence. You are nothing. You have betrayed the Pedersen family, which accepted and loved you as a son, and now you are eradicated by the family. Never try to contact us again. You are dead. You do not exist.

  Karl Pedersen, M.D.

  BOOK II