Wonderland

by Joyce Carol Oates

  But though he recalled this now, he felt all the more desperate to see her. So many little vexations. Little disappointments. He had to get hold of her, he had to make certain of her. He would frame her face in his hands, he would press his mouth against hers, he would embrace her wildly.… Up ahead he saw a couple approaching and for a moment, shocked, he thought the girl was Anne-Marie. But no, it was a stranger, a girl dressed in white—a white dress that was not a uniform. Shakily, Jesse went back to Anne-Marie’s street and waited.

  When she finally came, getting off a bus at the corner, he again saw the surprise and the faint fear in her when she noticed him. “Jesse …?” she said, wondering. He hurried to her and took her hand. He tried to smile. They greeted each other, smiling. Jesse saw that her face was not quite ready for him—there was a coarse, greasy cast to her forehead and her hair was wind-blown. But she was still very beautiful.

  “Don’t bother going in the house. Let’s leave here. Let’s go for a walk,” Jesse said.

  “I—I want to change my clothes—”

  “No, don’t bother, you look beautiful. You look lovely,” Jesse said.

  She seemed evasive beneath her smiling surprise. He could sense her thinking rapidly. Maybe she did not love him, he thought angrily, maybe she wanted to marry him only because he was going to be a doctor. All these nurses, these clever little girls, hoped to marry doctors.… But why was he thinking such things? He loved her. He loved her very much. He liked her being a nurse, he felt the rightness of their marriage. Everything was right. It would work out.

  They walked out along Geddes Street, to the arboretum. It was one of their frequent walks. Jesse could not pay attention to Anne-Marie’s chatter; he thought only of embracing her, of making love to her. When they were in the arboretum, on one of the deserted paths, he embraced her and she slid her arms about him tightly. She was so sweet, so light in his arms.… His desire for her was painful.

  Then she squirmed away. She took his hand and walked beside him, and he could sense her separateness, her isolation from him. What was she thinking? Jesse led her down a slope, so steep that they had to dig their heels into the earth. They were alone now. Jesse put his arms around her again. He could not stop mauling her, pressing himself against her. Everything about her seemed to him vital and mysterious, filmy with the gauze-like confusion of his closed eyes, the rubbing of their faces together, the warm flesh of her back through the uniform she wore, the tight straps his hands brushed against, the sense of her tight, compressed little body.… He was whispering something to her. He loved her. Loved her. He needed her. An image flashed into his mind: that girl on the street in the white dress, whom he had mistaken for Anne-Marie. A girl he might make love to, like this. Another image: Mrs. Spewak on the other side of the bathroom door, calling him. Taunting him. She was an attractive woman; she threw herself around the house half-dressed sometimes; she knew exactly what she was doing … and why was she always brushing against him or tugging at his arm, teasing him? He remembered. Trick in the laboratory doorway. Trick backing away. That look on his face. The bitter drawing-up of his lips, the contemptuous scowl. Love! What the hell is love? And Mrs. Spewak had made a bitter face too, though her skin was exhilarated with the energy of her anger: Pigs.

  Jesse felt like sobbing. He was mad with love for Anne-Marie. He could not control himself. She was whispering, “Jesse? Jesse?” They lay down. Anne-Marie said, “Jesse, I love you, I love you, but I can’t get used to you … all this emotion.… You’re happy with me and then, when we meet again, you’re angry.… I don’t understand you.” He kissed her wildly, happily. “I’m not angry with you. I’m not angry,” he said. She had such a pretty face—why couldn’t he trust it? Maybe he did not trust prettiness. Her skin was fair and smooth, her hair gleaming, always clean, lovingly tended … she was always tending herself, checking herself in mirrors.… “I’m afraid of you,” she whispered. “Jesse, please don’t hurt me.…”

  He could no longer remember where they were. Often they had lain in each other’s arms out here, far from the wide paths and from other people, and Jesse had felt at those times a small prickling sensation of being spied upon, though no one ever watched anyone else out here … and now he experienced the same sensation but it seemed to provoke him further, to increase his desire … the certainty that someone must be watching, that Trick himself was somehow staring sardonically at the two of them, his lips prepared to utter a contemptuous word: Pigs.… It was possible that Trick had been Anne-Marie’s lover, that he had known her when she was a nursing student years ago. It was possible that she had lied about that and about other things. He could not believe her. “Don’t be afraid, I love you, I love you,” Jesse said in anguish as the poison built up in him, a sharp rhythmic pain. They had made love only a few times before, gently and guiltily; but today Jesse pressed himself against her, into her, with a sudden violence that made her cry out. Jesse’s mind seemed to bounce everywhere, from one part of the hill to another, stricken with the blind agitation of this moment—

  She wept in surprise, clinging to him.

  “I love you.…” he said, as if this explained everything. But now, with his face pressed against her hair, his eyeballs numb, as if scorched, he felt the beginning of a long wavering sigh of despair. And he knew that he did not love her, not any longer. He did not believe that Trick had been her lover, and yet it was as if it had happened—as if he had witnessed it. Trick, curious and cynical in this beautiful girl’s arms, in the silence of this place, in the damp grass. Trick screwing up his face and spitting. Pronouncing judgment upon her. Trick’s wise, monkish face.…

  No, he could not love her after this, though he would still marry her. He would marry her. It was not possible for him to love her but he would marry her as he had promised.

  3

  One day in late May, Jesse was behind the wheel of his landlady’s car, parked in front of a grocery store in which Mrs. Spewak was shopping. The car was an old Ford with a splotched windshield and soiled, frayed seat covers. A small St. Christopher medal, of a yellowish plastic meant to look like ivory, was attached by a suction cup to the dashboard; in the back seat, the eight-year-old Carla sat, jarring Jesse’s seat with her knees, chattering at him in her high-pitched, exasperated voice. Something about her mother—her mother’s injustice to her. Carla had the frank, wistful, tortured expression of a dwarfed adult but the relentlessness of a child, continually circling the same topic: “I hate her. I hate her.”

  “No, you don’t hate her,” Jesse said sternly.

  But he had his eye on a couple approaching the car, walking along the sidewalk.

  The man was familiar but somehow out of place here—unexpected here—that careful, fastidious walk, the way he moved his hands in slow, artificial, restrained gestures—as if explaining something that must be visualized precisely. Jesse recognized Professor Cady. It was Cady. And the woman was probably his wife: she wore a dark green suit, the jacket a little mannish, plain, loose as a maternity outfit, giving her a sturdy, shapeless appearance. Jesse saw that her legs were quite slender, though, and probably inside that unflattering suit she was slender, lithe, appealing. Cady had evidently married a woman many years younger than himself. Jesse did not know if he approved of this or not. He stared at them, hoping they would not notice him—Cady was no taller than the woman, his near-white hair clipped short and clean about his handsome skull, his coat a dark khaki, plain and correct as a uniform. He looked British. Jesse had always supposed that his clothes were expensive; they were so understated, muted. Only the man’s voice, by a certain trick, called attention to itself—the lifting of words at the conclusion of a sentence, a subtle accenting of the next-to-last words, so that he seemed about to call his listeners to account. They were alerted, a little intimidated by him. His expression was usually neutral and undramatic. His eyes were shrewd but rather small and closely set. Were they gray, some near-neutral color? Jesse wondered if the man’s small, excellent
white teeth could really be his own.

  Jesse drew in his breath as he watched Cady and the woman approach, the two of them so obviously together, united. They were talking earnestly about something that united them. Cady’s graceful hands, describing odd little circles and boxes in the air, united them with their seriousness and their precision. What were they saying? Cady had married an attractive young woman. Jesse stared critically at her and saw that her face was serious and intelligent, the pale lips curved to a tentative smile as Cady explained something to her. She nodded uncertainly. He smiled. Jesse wondered what they were talking about. What did married people talk about? Suddenly he wondered what it might be like to be that man, that distinguished man—Cady had been a colleague of Walter Cannon’s at Harvard, years ago, he had been awarded a Nobel Prize along with two other men and certainly at Michigan he was highly respected, almost idolized by certain students—Jesse’s mind raced with the thought of meeting Cady now, face to face on the sidewalk. Why not?

  There he is. There. Here you are, sitting here. Don’t let him get away.

  They had passed the car. Jesse’s heart beat with a heavy, sullen envy of their intimacy, that gray-haired man and his young wife, the two of them perfect together … ennobled.…

  He mumbled something to Carla and got out of the car.

  “Dr. Cady!” he called out. Cady and the woman turned. Jesse hurried up to them, blushing. His mind was in a whirl—what would he say?—but he was encouraged by Cady’s polite, alert smile. It was the public smile of the lectures, generous and impersonal but unthreatening. “I just wanted to say hello, Dr. Cady. I wanted to tell you how much I’ve liked—I’ve learned—I took your neurochemistry course this year—”

  Cady smiled at him.

  “It’s good of you to say so,” he said, extending his hand. “What is your name?”

  “Jesse Vogel.…”

  “Ah, Jesse Vogel, I think I remember that name.…” This was probably not true and he did not stress the point; he simply shook Jesse’s hand firmly and released it. He was a fairly short man, about five feet six. “Mr. Vogel, this is my daughter Helene; she’s been kind enough to stay with me for the past few weeks, taking care of me.”

  Jesse and the young woman nodded shyly. Jesse saw that she was very young—obviously she could not have been Cady’s wife; obviously she was his daughter. The outfit she wore was not a maternity suit, just a suit that was a little too large for her. “Do you like Ann Arbor?” Jesse asked her. He looked her full in the face and gave no sign of his own nervousness. She replied, and Cady began to speak again, chatting about Ann Arbor, which was so much more leisurely than Cambridge, so much more pleasant in certain ways. He spoke of a chamber-music recital he and his daughter had heard the evening before and though Jesse knew nothing about it he nodded briskly, as though he too had attended. His smile was strained but ambitious, big enough for both Cady and his daughter. How easy it had been to shake Cady’s hand! Cady seemed to have no idea of his own importance. He spoke to Jesse as casually as if Jesse were a friend of his or an equal at the university. “Yes, we are both charmed by Ann Arbor, but I’m afraid we’re impatient to be back home.… Helene doesn’t know anyone here, of course.” Cady had a small man’s love of precision, his words were neat and clipped and self-conscious, as if to call attention to some subtlety in his meaning. Jesse felt a surge of emotion—affection—and recalled how readily, how cheerfully, Cady had shaken hands with him. He had done it. He had done it. Always, all year, he had admired this man, knowing enough to be able to assess Cady’s knowledge and his undramatic recitation of dramatic material, his patience, his ability to anticipate questions in the sleepy, shadowy heads of his students in that big amphitheater. He had always had the sense, too, that Cady was somehow aware of him.

  Standing in front of Cady and his daughter, Jesse felt that his height was a burden—he was so much taller than either of them. Did he appear overgrown and clumsy in their eyes? And he was wearing old clothes—it was a Saturday morning—a frayed shirt with its sleeves rolled up, the collar not very clean, soiled cotton trousers, shoes without socks. He had not even shaved that morning.

  Time for them all to part. Jesse thanked Cady for the course and Cady accepted this graciously. “I’m sorry to bother you,” Jesse apologized, backing off. It had all gone well. Cady was obviously flattered, and the girl was proud of her father, casting a cool, demure sideways glance at him, a wifely glance. Jesse said good-by and turned to leave.

  His heart was pounding.

  He returned to the car just as Mrs. Spewak was leaving the store. What good luck that she had not come out while he had been talking with the Cadys.… “God, Jesse, it cost me twenty-five dollars in there. The stuff is just inside the door there, can you get it? It’s too heavy for me. God, I feel sick.” She was wearing lime-green slacks and a nylon sweater of pale peach, too tight for her small, sharp breasts.

  “Sure, I’ll get it. I’ll get it,” Jesse said quickly.

  He no longer saw Anne-Marie. They had argued over something—her accusation of his not loving her—and had decided to break their engagement. It had been unofficial anyway. Unofficial. It didn’t count, Anne-Marie had said bitterly. With Anne-Marie out of his life, Jesse found himself with Mrs. Spewak more and more. It happened. Inertia, a vague desire to please, a vague sense of guilt: her sighs, her headaches, her backaches, her continual amazement at the troubles a woman had to face. And that daughter! Carla was not really a child of superior intelligence, Jesse thought, but she had a quick, crippling mind, a premature cynicism that sometimes passed for intelligence. She was very thin in the chest, her arms and legs were so small that Jesse could easily have circled them with his thumb and forefinger. She had strange, undiagnosed allergies that Mrs. Spewak seemed to think would make her more interesting to Jesse because he was going to be a doctor—she was allergic to dust and pollen and food and fur and certain mixtures of sunlight and humidity; she was feverish, restless, she rarely smiled, she did a lot of kicking and hanging onto her mother or Jesse, clamoring for attention. But when she received attention she became quickly embarrassed and bored. She hated to be looked at. She would put her fingers over her eyes as if to hide.… When Mrs. Spewak went out, which was often, Jesse took care of Carla.

  “Where is my mother? Where did she go?” Carla would demand.

  When Jesse told her, she wouldn’t believe it.

  Trick didn’t believe it either. He was probably right: Jesse’s landlady was just using him. Taking advantage of his kindness. She was an ignorant, lazy woman and there was something not quite clear about her life, but she had not exactly hurt Jesse, she had not really interfered with his studies very much. Jesse was inclined to defend her. She had evidently been married at one time but her husband had left her or she had kicked him out; maybe she was officially divorced, maybe not; she spoke of herself as Catholic, though she did not often go to Mass. When she asked favors of Jesse she spoke in a swift, apologetic voice, staring fixedly at him so that Jesse did not have the heart to turn her down.

  “She wants to eat you up, kid,” Trick laughed.

  But the domestic squabbles, in which Jesse was forced to join, the routine of Saturday shopping and the putting away of groceries in the kitchen, his care of the garbage cans, his beating the rugs for her, quieted the racing of his brain that sometimes frightened him. He was so weak, really.… In spite of what people thought, he was so weak, he dared not be alone too much, dared not allow himself to think much, to remember much.… He was grateful for the duties of household life, even the dull, demanding voices of Mrs. Spewak and Carla.

  “I don’t mind helping her out,” Jesse said to Trick.

  “She just wants to use you.”

  “What do you mean, use me? I don’t mind.”

  “Does she offer to pay you?”

  “She doesn’t have any money.”

  “She could take it off your rent. She could do something for you.”

  “She
couldn’t afford that.”

  “Jesse, Jesse!—you’re so eager to give yourself away!”

  They were friends now, Jesse and Trick. Somehow they had become friends. Jesse did not know whether to resent Trick’s interest in him or to be grateful that someone seemed to care about him. He had the idea that other students envied him his friendship with Trick—Dr. Monk—and so he did not mind when Trick showed up half an hour early to have coffee with him, interrupting his work, or when he dropped in on Jesse at night, complaining that he was unable to sleep.

  “We insomniacs share a certain mystique,” Trick said.

  They never spoke of Anne-Marie.

  Jesse would have liked to explain to Trick that he had fallen out of love with her entirely. It was over. It was nearly forgotten. He did not hate Trick. Trick really had nothing to do with it—Jesse had just stopped loving her, that was all. And if he had hated Trick, even a little, it was forgotten along with his love for Anne-Marie.… Trick was like an older brother, a fretful older relative. He was critical about Jesse’s habits: “It’s a kind of mania, the way you force yourself to work. But as long as you function so well, that’s the only test, the only test of health.” He seemed to Jesse a superior man, an exceptional man. What had appeared to be dangerous in him was really only his frankness and his whimsy, which were foreign to Jesse.