Folio Literary Magazine: 1993 Edition by Folio Literary Magazine

FOLIO 1993

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FOLIO

A Collection of Art and Literature Skidmore College 1992-1993

Printed by Bookcrafters, Chelsea, Michigan

STAFF Editors in Chief:

Art Editors: Assistant Editor: Treasurer: Editorial Board:

Adriana Grant Robin Shear Amy Kingsbury Jill Nasman Christian Stuart Lee La Allen

Jim Aronson Jen Cavanaugh Anne Davis Shawn Kelly Eric Lederman Alex Mahlke

Stacey Mutt R. Todd Murray Joseph Sacco, Jr. Gabriel Schlesinger Adam Throne Rosemary Whalen

Faculty Advisor: Terence Diggory Faculty Production Advisor: Marc Woodworth

All art photographed by Nicole Ballinger.

We thank Sue Stein for her invaluable guidance, help, and time. Additional thanks to Joe Marcuccio for his expert assistance.

Cover detail from painting by Liz Blazer.

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Stan Cross Untitled (photograph)

CONTENTS POETRY When a Poem is Caught Jardine Libaire 9 Sixteen Laura Marshall 11 Masochism R. Todd Murray 13 Road Kill Torey Adler 14 Everyday Robin Shear 15 Comer Burlesque Cristina Prado 16 Locomotion Sunny Payson 18 Justin’s Favorites Adriana Grant 20 Black Ink Terry Dubow 22 [Madness creeps slowly;] Alex Mahlke 25 Untitled Chantal Filson 26 Of Deviance and Masterful Art R. Todd Murray 27 Bargain Torey Adler 28 Building Houses Robin Shear 30 Kittens Jardine Libaire 32 Black-Eyed Susans Adriana Grant 34 This Poem is Decomposing Laura Marshall 35 delivered Alex Mahlke 37 At The Zoo P. B. Herrick 38 The Fortunate Fall Adriana Grant 41 The Anti-Poem Gabriel Schlesinger 42 Adam Throne 44 One into the Manifold Persephone Cristina Prado 46 Laura Marshall 49 The Perfect Loaf

FICTION A Simple Story

Creston Lea

JennyBelin Belin 56 The House of Pies Jenny The Psychiatrist Jen Cavanaugh 63 Water Never Stops Moving Laura Marshall Our Father Who Art in Heaven, Amy Viens 85 Howard Be Thy Name My Hunger Robin Shear 90 Jen Cavanaugh 97 The Nursery School

ART Stan Cross Liz Blazer Bryan Smith Sarah Ritch Kathleen Beckert Matt Rockman Liz Blazer Carrie Miller Amy Kingsbury Rinat Haimovitz Jenny Belin Stan Cross Jed Cleary Faith Evans Amy Kingsbury Nicole Ballinger Nicole Ferguson Bryan Smith

4 10 12 19 21 24 31 36 40 43 45 48 55 62 76 84 89 96

Jardine Libaire

When a Poem is Caught My father and I are patient in this dark night. We wait, as our white boat, fiberglass, slaps the black water. Everything is gentle, even the Robert Moses Bridge, a long horizon on the glitter of the bay. Lawns stretch up from the canal, tennis courts. My father holds the floodlight, sweeps it through the dark bay, causing green shadows. I hold the net. We watch, unspeaking, for the image of the orange crab. Phosphorescent jellyfish glow in the murky canal, as the stealthy light sweeps forward and back, forward again. I kneel on a mildewed lifejacket, leaning over to follow the light. Forward and back. Now the beam picks one out and I am quick; no splash, just a clean sweep. I drag the net through the water and raise my prize to the light, net dripping. My father takes one step closer, questioning. We see that it is not one crab, but two. The small, female crab is on the back of her mate in an underwater embrace. They are locked, stopped and terrified. 9

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Liz Blazer Untitled

(Mixed media painting, 48"x 60")

Laura Marshall

Sixteen Our dresses billow underwater, weightless, the floral cotton filling with the lake, then releasing it, the way squid propel themselves— it’s only May, the water is full of reeds and we are drunk, I can feel the tug of mud-covered life from below, wanting us; our long hair and dresses will flow behind as we sink, will flow as we drift, hoping the dressed-up people from shore will realize how perilous we are, as if their concern alone could make us safe.

Bryan Smith Untitled (photograph)

R. Todd Murray

Masochism After dropping ten percent of my wealth into the collection basket, I move up in line, licking my lips with thoughts of the Holy Feast. I think of the sensual quiverings of your nailed limbs, and my own acceptance of being restrained to the point of repression. I receive your body, and revel in your helplessness as you lay on the plateau of my tongue...

A stale round wafer, purchased from a wholesaler on the Lower East Side, and impressed with a symbol of sanctity.

I swallow you whole, like your doctrine, follow with the Sign, and, wiping my mouth, quietly return to my pew.

Torey Adler

Road Kill I could scarcely see in the dim twilight Silently she fell beneath my front wheel I drove on in confusion and fright I saw her screaming face in my headlight I could imagine how bad she must feel But I could scarcely see in the twilight Her hand stuck in my grill, packed in tight just below where the brands reads “Oldsmobile” I drove on in confusion and fright

she went with a thud, dropping out of sight my wiper blades cleared the gut washed windshield I could scarcely see in the dim twilight

she seemed to explode, just like dynamite; Came apart like an orange from its peel I drove on in confusion and fright

I briefly reflected on her sad plight— She’d been my wife for seven years-but still— I could scarcely see in the dim twilight I drove on; I arrived home late that night

Robin Shear

Everyday the violinist in his parka plays from an alcove of the abbey. His music tangles in the gurgling of grey birds. Bifocaled, he looks all there, counts his change often.

Cristina Prado

Comer Burlesque Two ham-hocks pop from the interior of a brown Chevy A mound of husband heaves a sigh impatiently outstretching a palm to hurry the rest out But the walrus is beached between dashboard and front seat People in the street don’t stop but steal eyefuls while striding past the Comedy in Five Acts

The mound-man colors with embarassment as flesh trapped in the car ripples thick as a bowl of Jell-0

I watch waiting for the bus willing it to arrive before the walrus emerges completely Consumed by the car she bleats Help me please help 16

At last the husband belching grotesque laughter wrenches her free of the upholstery She wobbles on the pavement looks out into the street

I long to hide in her massive folds and cease to be one of the bystanders

Sunny Payson

Locomotion Sometimes you just have to sit down when a train roars by leaving you windswept, shaken by its ferocity. Other times, You need to stand on the yellow line, leaning slightly forward craving just one hit.

Most of the time, you suffocate under indecision. You lean against a cement post, coveting the space beside the edge.

Sarah Ritch Untitled (mixed media, 22 1/2" x 35")

Adriana Grant

Justin’s Favorites Justin’s favorite shoes cramp my feet. The dress he likes leaves my thighs cold. He wants his women small, prettily dressed with eyes that blink shut as he lays them on their backs.

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Terry Dube*

Black Ink No light in these pages- all this black ink obscures it.

Alone on dark days such as this, I sit naked in corners buried by arched books, all of them mumblingsome in screams, some in whispers ail telling me their birthday stories; what their mothers and fathers said the moment they swooped out of the womb: “Me! Me! It’s me in your face, me in your bones! You will survive me, son of mine; you will be my sword in the back of time!” These words are all I read in the catalogues smothering me. Yet I cannot shed my infection: I still read every one believing itself vast and great enough to conclude— 22

those words seep through my pores like iodine, like my own dried blood.

But I declare that I need only this blank page to affirm my conclusion: All that is valid and useful lies in a romp with a large dog.

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Matt Rockman Something Against You (oil and charcoal on canvas, 4* x 5*)

Alex Mahlke

Madness creeps slowly; A goblin in the garden of the full moon Slips its footsteps across my path In greenery glowing slyly at the side, Hiding beneath the shrubbery, Waiting coldly in my eyes, Smiling in its cruelty. Crush me now with your rocks: Your knives, too blunt to go the whole way in, Stab me bloody, yet I cannot die.

Chantal Filson

Dreaming of my mannequin lover And plaster fingers Hard knuckles tangling in my hair Flakes of fleshpaint Stick to sweaty skin My warm leg brushes Cold hard echoes I lick your lacquered lips Black acrylic hair scratches my cheek As I bury my face In the seam of your neck You stumble from your stand And we dance in the darkened aisle The metal stake from your leg Carves undulations across the floor tile With a low hiss.

R. Todd Murray

Of Deviance and Masterful Art Your finger guides the melting cube over my body, pushing it through its exploration, just as William’s quill negotiated the nuances of his language.

I have distinct difficulty deciding whether I would rather view this scene in a comfortable, theatre-style chair, appreciating your performance with other players— or be satisfied with my own reading of such a work.

Torey Adler

Bargain You’ve got to sell your soul nowadays Watch your entrails hang like a highway billboard crack your skull pour out the yolkyou’ve got to love to watch it cook... Highest bidder gets it Everyone’s high as the sun But needles blend into haystacks Like you blend into everything Stick it in your arm if you find it You’re a bullet with nothing to hit And a painter without eyes Tell ’em all that you’ve got it! You’ll have to sell your soul When you reach crossroads Empty handed With holes in your pockets you’ll shiver in a ten O’clock rain Soaking late November With your trick knee twitching like a lunatic alarm clock— Slickrock pouring steamSell your soul

Clutch your cup of coffee In burnt fingertips Sell it Cheap Whatever you can get When you’ve bartered your blood Pawned your shadow You’ve not got long, not long Sell it it’s better to bum No light in drowing you’ve not got much to lose. like slicing the belly of a deer, / slit my fingertip, I signed the Bottom of the Page

Robin Shear

Building Houses Growing old, they build new houses: pore over blueprints, knock down walls.

Their courtship involved less time: hung-over in a bathroom, he declared his love: “She doesn’t love me!” And she gave in, proved she didn’t not, said she did, to wipe clean the image of him sick and sweating on a tile floor.

Her carpets will be white; she must have marble, and backsplashes to catch the grease that splatters.

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Jardine Libaire

Kittens A bald white man stands with a black boy, eleven years old, on a comer in the city. Bald man has a gold tooth that shines like a sunbeam. He fingers the collar of the boy’s white shirt It is a November afternoon. Hey, sweetheart, what’s your name? You must have a name. I’m sure your name is as sweet and beautiful as your face. Robert? Well, that is pretty. And you have an accent. Jamaica? I can practically smell itbright flowers and beach. But Robert, I don’t know how much you’ve figured out here, but this isn’t Jamaica.

Two black Cadillacs slide by and Bald Man stares them down. The street is windswept, quiet. Robert cocks his head, watches Bald Man who takes out a pack of cigarettes. He lights one, hands cupped against the wind. Robert, darling, would you like one? Well, let me give you one for later, at least. Listen, first of all, you’re gorgeous. I love to look at you. I like to keep your company. Second of all, I’d like you to do something for me. It’s something only Robert can do. Are you following me? You do have lovely skin. Do you get it from your mother’s side? 32

Behind them, a flutter of pigeons descends, then rises. Robert has not moved, is still, muscles clenched and jaw tight. His fingers touch the subway token in his pocket. His body is pulled to this man like a loyal moon to Jupiter. Robert, darling, this is not a pretty place. It is not a nice city. But you are special to me and that’s why I want to share my business with you. Would you like to be a salesman? Would you like a gold tooth? Maybe you’d like one eventually.

Bald Man tightens the black belt of his leather jacket. His gold ring is a plump rock on his finger. He licks his pale lips.

Would you like to take a drive with me? We’ll just drive around the neighborhood. Maybe your friends will see you driving with me and get jealous. But anyway. Perhaps you’d like to stop at my apartment so I can feed my kitten. Robert stares at the sidewalk and Bald Man reaches out to touch his chin. He tilts Robert’s face up gently and winks. With Robert’s hand in his, they head down the street, walking to the beat of a basketball bouncing on a court the next block over. 33

Adriana Grant

Black-Eyed Susans Susan’s Got a black eye, Yet her neat teeth smile. Her long-stemmed body waits To be plucked, A relocated ornament.

Her ankles cut. She will be added to a vase, And live A few more hours.

Laura Marshall

This Poem is Decomposing Because it is not made up of binary oppositions, I can’t find the sun and moon it fits between, This is not about a woman not about a man, this wanders like a bad argument and flirts with a topic sentence that contradicts itself. This poem is dizzy from being held in the air and spun like a baby with too many relatives, tired of being made to be clear This poem is decomposing to prevent the sun and the earth from clapping it between them, pressing it into a dried flower, it will not be limited that way.

r Carrie Miller Untitled Painting (oil on linen, 30" x 72")

Alex Mahlke

delivered wrench my heart, your voice a rusty spanner of twisting teeth, and pulling through my throat a leap and a beat, my blood pours at your feet as you have demanded; I am cold at your request.

P.B. Herrick

At the Zoo I walked among the brain-dead As they lined up in their grades And applied their newfound eloquence To theories others made. They calculated numbers And analysed their Christ; They contemplated consciousness, Played Skinner with their mice. Such a tiny fortress With a scientific view To pick apart the life around To try to find The Truth.

The sterile walls vacation, Most books are set aside, They’ve left behind the chalkboards And the problems they had tried. But when their time is free, They stick with things allowed, So they come and gather here Where they fit into the crowd.

They pack into the building For poetry and song. They smoke their smokes and drink French Roast And philosophize along. 38

But the irony appears In the dark of night outside Where no one here can see it Because no one here has tried.

A wild raccoon approaches: A spectacle he makes. They think that he’s a danger They’re scared of rabies and ticks.

He stands on leaves and looks, As they gather to watch outside The cage they often dwell in: Where Nature’s time they bide.

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Adriana Grant

The Fortunate Fall I choose the green apple, I break the skin: my perfect teeth reveal pale flesh. I did not convince you to eat, simply ate. You must have read my face: my mouth was full, silent, my fingers sticky with pleasure. My name is Eve. You got to name all the animals. And no matter what you say, I would have had to labor there.

Gabriel Schlesinger

The Anti-Poem Late one night I discovered that there were too many writers and not enough words. So I made up some of my own and I won’t show anyone.

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Adam Throne

One into the Manifold He can only cast pebbles, not stones Sending them out across the lake he watches as ripples engulf the surrounding water and hungry fish gnaw at the murky sky. Each ripple grows larger that the last, flowing into others; each one lapping at the next as crickets chirp with the drunkenness of time. He stands on the bank and shivers. Something drains from him as the last ripple fades away in despair

he grows hungry, huddled alone on the bank

dreaming of the stone he knows he needs 44

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Jenny Belin Untitled (pastel, 32 1/2" X « I72")

Cristina Prado

Persephone You never understood why I fade with each summer: I will tell you.

In May, when warm showers thaw the ground and raise your temperature, my spirit wilts. Summer skies that incite your wild euphoria make me dizzy, fearful, hot; everyone can touch his bare skin to mine ...

I pass out before a slow autumn wind creeps unnoticeably through your windownips your face in a surprise attack. Yet as you groan and unpack the dreaded fall coat, my heart begins to hum. In December I am ripe: a child in delicious anticipation, 46

I stay out too long in the icy midnight so I can climb onto a late bus heater rumbling strangers crushed together, unable to penetrate my layers of wool. I sit alone and rub my cars: numb red alive.

Stan Cross Untitled (photograph)

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Laura Marshall

The Perfect Loaf The woman is leveling flour with the back of a knife, excess flurries to the counter; there will be nothing extra in this bread. Nothing decorous or careless. While it bakes she brushes film on her countertops into the air, inhaling superfluous flour. She is humming with the precision of her habits as invisible flour settles in her hair, she has not escapedsome excess poisons inside, she tries to write a song about the frightening music in her head.

Creston Lea

A Simple Story My dad’s left hand is a little bigger than his right He was a good catcher way back, even made it to semi-pro, playing out of Portland with the Rockets. Those years catching hardball made his hand all funny. His little finger and the one that ought to have a ring on it are always bent some. I mean, he can make them straight when he wants, but mostly they just sit there curved like the little pink shrimp face down in the cocktail sauce at The Oasis. The Oasis is the place Ray Kentnor owns down in Warren. I workeddishes there two years ago when I was a kid. The Oasis sits on that comer where somebody put up a big round post so people can put up flyers for garage sales and such without cluttering up store windows with a bunch of loose paper. Ray Kentnor, Mr. Ray to me, never let anybody tape anything to his window anyhow. Well, The Oasis was a pretty funny place. Not that working there was fun or anything, but it was funny. The name was funny. I mean, one thing The Oasis is not is an oasis. Really it’s just another lousy restaurant like all the other ones in Warren. Nobody really thinks about the name though. In fact, I never did either ‘til I had to write it out on the first day of eighth grade when I was telling what it was I did over the summer. Which was funny, because I did the same thing I do in the winter over the summer—just without going to school too. But I wrote down the place where I worked, so I wrote OASIS. To tell the truth, I had to stop and think how to spell it. It sort of looked funny sitting there on the paper. OASIS. A pretty funny word, how the O and the A sound just like O-A. OASIS. The Oasis has been on that same comer for more years than I’ve been alive, but I can’t say that I’d ever spoke the word before that day. I sort of said it real quiet under my breath, “o-a-sis.” I hadn’t ever thought twice about

it. I raised my hand in the air and Mrs. Willard came over. That’s what we were supposed to do. Raise our hands when we didn’t understand something. Then Mrs. Willard would come over. She was always real nice and never got cross, noteven with the dumb kids. She crouched real close to my desk so I’d whisper and not disturb the others. They were all squirming in their seats and writing about their summers in Town Park taking swim lessons and playing volleyball with that grey park ball that always needs air. She was wearing her outfit that she’d wom every Monday since she took her job at the Laura Smith Barnes Elementary School, a brown skirt and matching vest that tried to hide a fading yellow shirt the color of mustard. She said oasis means a pond with some trees in the desert. Mr. Ray made me quit The Oasis the summer before high school. He told me the morning after my dad caused the ruckus. The night before that, when I was spraying down the inside of the silver, double-doored Hobart in back, I heard my dad come in and sit down at the bar by the other men. To tell the truth, I know my dad isn’t too popular among the other folks in Warren. He’s pretty inclined to drink and pretty inclined to talk when he’s been drinking. He’s quiet when he’s straight. Sometimes you can tell when he’s mad because he just sits there and gets quieter. Like when my mother gets sore that becomes back from working at the mill and won’tpay any attention to her. He hangs up the keys to the Pontiac on the hook he pounded in the doorframe and walks right past her. He watches boxing and the stock cars on television until he’s fed. My mother cooks and doesn’t talk to me and 1 draw pictures of helicopters and red motor cycles in a pad at the kitchen table. She’ll say something to him while her back is turned, scraping food from a skillet onto plates, so she won’t have to look at him. She wants him to be nicer, she says. From where I sit I can see his jaw muscles expand and relax. He gets mad and tries to look mad. He doesn’t hither or anything, he just bites down on his jaw and doesn’t say anything. It was pretty late, close enough to closing for me to start spraying down the dishwasher. To tell the truth, I really kind of liked spraying down the dishwasher. The jet of water from the sprayer that hangs from the ceiling pushes the eggshells and cigarette butts wherever I want them to go. Usually I flood all the junk into the sink where it sticks to the square sides. 52

Then I spray the water in circles, and it all gets sucked down into the drain. The drain comes out, so it’s easy to throw the stuff away. I like how the whole dish area works. All the neat racks labeled Hobart that fit perfectly into the counter top. Everything is set up just right and fits in its place good. Rinse the dishes, put them in the racks, slide them into the dishwasher, close the doors, press the button, wait for the little red light to shutoff, open the doors, unload the dishes. Do it again. It’s simple. I’d do it at home if it wasn’t for my mother to do and we had a Hobart. I could tell m y dad was kind of drunk. His voice gets all gravelly. He was talking about playing ball in Portland, which he does most when he’s been drinking— telling about games and real quick judgments he made to out-stealing baserunners. I was old enough to tell when my dad was lying, and I heard his scratchy voice stretching the truth out It made me feel funny and I tried to make the water spray extra loud on the metal counter so I couldn’t hear. Pieces of parsley and abandoned toothpicks flew off the edge of the counter and into the sink, circling the drain in my whirlpool and coming to rest in the removable plastic basin. I heard the sound of my dad through the wall when he went over and sat near the new electric cash register that I wipe with a cloth before I leave. He was ringing the silver service bell Mr. Ray glued to the barover and over and boasting to Jeffrey Logan’s father. Jeffrey Logan was a year older than me in school. His father was a logger for Reeves/Nelson over in Plymouth, cutting up in Lincoln and over around Orford. Jeffrey’s dad was sitting next to mine, turning a bottle of Schlitz around and around in wet circles on the pine bar. He was looking at the tracks of his bottle and trying to ignore my father, who was waving wildly and talking in the direction of the liquor lined up behind the bar. Mr. Ray stayed at the other end, down by the cigarette machine, pretending to work out the day’s receipts. Wanting more attention, my father shifted his weight towards Jeffrey Logan’s dad and looked at him. The other man’s face was hidden by the black greasy brim of his hat. The patch stitched there said “IT’S A STIHL!” My father stuck out his gnarled thumb and poked up on the underside of Jeffrey Logan’s dad’s hat, knocking it halfway off his head. Jeffrey Logan’s dad didn’t look up, but kept on spinning his Schlitz on the bar. My father stuck out his left hand, right under Jeffrey’s dad’s nose so as to show off his brown palm and twisted fingers, telling him, “Take a look

at that-” Jeffrey Logan’s dad told him to quit his bragging about the old days. My father jerked his hand around behind Jeffrey Logan’s dad’s neck and grabbed the back of his head and jammed his eye down on the bottleneck he held between his thumbs and held him there. Mr. Ray said he was sorry, but he’d have to let me go. Now I work across the street I’m the cook and the owner doesn ’ t mind having flyers taped to his front window, so long as they’re kept neat.

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Jed Cleary Time 971992 (oil on masonite, 32" x 34")

Jenny Belin

The House of Pies The rain annoys me today. It falls disorganized in drops that make an eerie rhythm, an unpredictable German lullaby that’s weeping from a gothic chapel with wooden angels hanging from warped ceilings and thick oak doors. A chamber of anticipated horrors. I lean back in the booth, and I’m lost in the window watching trains pass by. It’s miserable outside. Strangers look tragic in the storm. People in panic from trains with damaged luggage, broken straps and uncomfortable plaid hats, too tight around the ears. I realize The House of Pies is the wrong diner. The last thing I want is for Paulo to find me hiding here and eat all my breakfast. But I am curious. I have chosen the wrong diner so that I can watch for Paulo. I’ll jump under the table if he actually arrives. My apartment has high ceilings and a landlord with an undershirt and an awful Poughkeepsie twang. He explained why I don’t get heat in the winter. “It’s all about gravity. Your heat’s in the ceiling, that’s the bottom line. It’s a shame to knock the ceilings down, they’re so dam attractive. You’ve got to get the fan on, all your dam heat is in the ceiling.” That’s the bottom line. I told him he was ridiculous, but allowed him to play with the fan. Planned to call my father, a Los Angeles vigilante. He’s tough with landlords, especially over the phone. I seem pouty, a precious girl from California who hates being cold. Before I moved to the East coat, I would romanticize about wearing wool. I’d turnon the air conditioner really high. And my brother would start a fire on the stove. We’d drink marshmallow hot cocoa. He’d read to me stories by Truman Capote and writers from New York. We always wanted to be cold. We always made the babysitters cry.

My brother is frequently misunderstood. He always advised that I don’t move to the East Coast, where the weather would create havoc without my permission. Now he lives in Texas with a girlfriend who’s religious. We’ve gone our separate ways. It started to rain this morning. At first the drops made melodies like tiny children ringing bells. This was lovely, and so I stayed in bed so I could dream. But when I made coffee, I began to shake. Coffee beans spilled everywhere like inside my big green boots. The rain became a smelly seaweed color, and not terribly lyrical. Then I noticed I had gotten a telephone message from earlier in the morning. It was from Paulo. He said he’d be in town for the next few weeks. Was that OK? He’d call again in the afternoon. He’d keep calling. WasthatOK? Ifound an insecure whine in his voice. I panicked a little and decided to leave my apartment immediately. I found my wool black dress. Silk stockings. I combed my hair and snuck out into the weather. And it was warmer in the rain than in the ice capade depths of my crummy apartment. I picked up a newspaper and walked in the rain, kicking broken glass bottles into the gutter. I was walking to get breakfast anywhere that would be warm. And so I have settled for The House of Pies. Here I sit slouchy, making decisions, observations, nostalgic reflections. Nostalgic is the eerie sounds of the storm. I’m in Mary Grace’s section. She’s got a big black beehive and looks just like Liz Taylor. Mary Grace brings me my maple nut toast. I thank her, but she doesn’t really give a damn. I am particularly aware of the people who surround me. I mean details like really evil jail-house tattoos. And the tapping of a blind man’s cane. And a weeping girl in a dirty dress, with a broken umbrella. A woman with white hair needs money for medicine. She’s chewing peppermint gum, and is dripping turquoise mascara. I have the least noticeable presence in this environment. I am not physically odd. I don’t make any noise. I stretch my legs, and draw the curtains. The House of Pies is mostly black and white, but with flashes here and there of wild day-glo orange and green. The tiles today are clean enough so I can sec my own reflection. Walls are off-white with the texture

of cottage cheese, and tiny nooks for sleeping spiders. My booth is orange, with many holes and stuffing fluff. The holes, I guess, are from Mary Grace. She smokes cigars while she’s waiting tables. Still, I’ve got to know. What does Paulo mean is it okay he’ll be in town? Is what okay? There is suddenly a shriek, and the rain begins to sound like Wagner. Mary Grace has burned a customer with her cigar. Perhaps he had been unpleasant. Now he too is full of holes.

Paulo had a collection of socks. They were wool in renaissance wines, eggplantsand olives. He’ll mix and match a brandy or a mushroom with a pepper. Come February, Paulo would wear bigger shoes, so he could mutilayer the sock collection. It was a casual type of obsession. With Paulo I was always warm. Paulo had recipes for staying warm. He’d surprise me with midnight picnic baskets, filled with dumplings, schnitzels and apple cider. Two months ago, he visited me during his holiday. He smelled too much like lemon. A Christmas cologne from an ex-girlfriend. He made secret phone calls. Private. I tried to dent the coffee table. I threw fits. Slammed the door like Bette Davis. This weekend was basically typical. I lost my wallet. I lost my new wool mittens. Because this is what it’s always like with Paulo. We’re disorganized and impractical. We wander and wind up at the pool tables. And accidents happen slowly and irrationally. When it was time for Paulo to leave, I drove him to the station. I parked my borrowed Buick. Paulo reminded me to pull the emergency brake. Then, suddenly three parking lot collisions occurred simulta neously. The car crash made a big boom. An earthquake. And all three cars melted together. The drivers were escape artists. They were OK, but Paulo had to hurry for his train. We walked together tall to the tracks. Nothing mattered. We kissed and cried. Paulo kissed me. He told me I looked like a corpse. He said that with all sincerity. And so I told him that our involvement was really bad. It’s a real distraction, I said, a damperon my rationality. I became three inches taller. He became six inches shorter. 58

And now he wants to know if it’sokay. I don’t owe Paulo my kind of hospitality. Idon’towcanything to Paulo. It'snotokay. Ifhestays with me it won’t be okay. And that’s why I walked in the rain, avoiding his god damned phone calls. Why I took my paper to The House of Pies, this greasy spoon diner where coffee refills are for free. I am quiet in these contemplations, spilling my coffee, writing his name with table salt. And out of nowhere comes this woman. She’s dressed like me in black wool. But she’s older, wears a hairnet to be fancy. She catches her sleeve on an artificial flower that’s hanging by the glass pie display. She squirms to be untangled, then walks to sit down at my booth. I’ve never seen this woman in my life, but she sits right down and offers me crackers from her plastic pocketbook. I feel really uncomfortable, ask Mary Grace politely if she’ll bring some doughnuts. “Damn that Samuel!” says the woman in my booth. And I bang my knee against the edge of the table. “He drinks Jack Daniels in church, the drunken fool.” “I don’t know Samuel," I say. I’d like to be alone. I just sit, eating doughnuts with an unknown woman who’s got some really personal problems with this guy Samuel. Wholdon’tknow. Hc’sanabusivcalcoholic lover. And I’m sympathetic. Sortof. Butl’mnervous. Sol read and reread my horoscope a dozen times. Itsays loneliness is natural and genuine. It must be clear to this woman that I’d rather she quit with the monologue. “Decaf. Who can be bothered?” And she starts to pinch her cheeks to give them color. “Forever got to stay awake,” she says. Then she leaves. I straighten my posture and I finish my doughnuts. Outside the storm has become chaotic. I am now convinced that Paulo is nearby. He puts a spell on this town and everything becomes odd. And what’s to come is even worse. It’s Ebony and Annex, two girls I know from art class. They’re with three guys I’ve seen before but have never met. They paint post modern and they all wear glasses.

Together we make six. I’ve got a boy to my left and to my right. Annex sits with Ebony on the other side of the table and everybody’s talking at once. “Picasso thought art was living and breathing.” “All we need is an eventual endless post-modern environment.” “Movies take us away from the art of the narrative...to a form that is more pure. A microscopic new reality.” These are not my friends, and I’m personally more enlightened by Mary Grace slamming doughnuts. I ought to find a better diner. Because to me, “avante garde” means expensive. “Post-modem” means contemporary. Pastispassed,contemporary is the HouseofPies. Butl’m more concerned about phone messages. And the post-modem quiet boy who’s sitting to my left. He makes my knees shake, so I step on his toes. Listen to him sniffle. It’s something flu-ish from the stormy weather. Annex says she won’t be dating over the next few months. She needs to create a forced kind of angst. A neurotic and depraved creative energy. This is to put limitations on her freedom. Then she suggests that we all inhale pink and exhale blue. Everybody laughs. The storm isn’t noisy anymore. It’s my post-modem company! They’re building a knife and jelly piece with table scraps. And everybody is talking at the same time. Sing song lingo. Talk about who’s who with the fashionable nobodies. Talk about retro gas stations and freaky poets. Everybody is talking but me and the quiet boy. He’s reading my newspaper. He’s no bother. And I’m watching for Paulo. And then it’s all over. The post-modernists have run out of cigarettes. They flock to an anti-smoke cafe. And the quiet boy stays with me, slouchy. We exchange doughnuts, mine is sour strawberry, his is square. We don’t talk. We read the newspaper with doughnuts and step on each other’s toes. I’m reading the reviews of a horror play, that has an additional theme of mutilation. “Simon decided to break with his lover, who retaliated by throwing a pot of coffee in his face. She is promptly arrested, but Simon refused to press charges. And so she feels compassion. She visits Simon

frequently, to bring him sushi and chocolate ice cream. Simon begs his assailant to kiss his scarry face. And when thier lips meet, he strangles her.” It’s all over. Three tall violinists are fiddling for small change. Singing semi romantic Italian operas for Mary Grace. And she is dazzled, unties her apron and lights a cigar. The post-modem boy has seen my paintings. He says they’re sleazy and romantic. Like the one of the couple in a strawberry bed. She’s on her stomach, spilling cheap French wine. He’s on the phone with big sharp teeth. The quiet boy says he’s had a two-sided conversation with the paintings. It was a little confusing. I leave Mary Grace a tip. A big one. I warn her about Paulo. I ask her to bum him seriously with her cigar. But to never fall in love with him or let him stay with her when he’s on holiday. And it’s all over. The quiet boy says we can share his big umbrella. We walk on our toes in a thick grey fog. Just like an old photo from the nineteen forties.

I IS

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Faith Evans Untitled (charcoal on paper, 19 1/2" x 27 1/2")

i •I 7

Jen Cavanaugh

The Psychiatrist I always draw the same face. Tucked in the upper left-hand margin the face of a young boy stares relentlessly at me. He is my witness. The only critic in the private world of my art. His face is calm in comparison to the wild and distorted faces of my caricatures, but one side is shaded. He has benevolent eyes and an understanding half-smile on his sketchy lips. He listens to my patients and watches my reactions. As I lean back and stroke the pen across my lips he sneers at me: Liar. Charlatan. Cheat. I tum away from him, back to the woman in front of me. “How long ago did the dreams start?” I ask, swiveling a little on my leather chair. She answers, but I’m not listening. I tum back to my notepad and pick up my pen. She pauses, considerately, to allow me time to write down everything she says. “Go ahead.” I give her a nod. She takes a deep breath and begins her story. It’s the same as the others. In all my years of psychiatry I have never met an extraordinary case. They come to me, so adamant about their suffering, so pathetic in their mediocrity: Stories of disinterested fathers, crumbling marriages, the unfairness of their average lives, their wasted potential. I nod and smile, murmur my sympathy and condolences. I help them believe their suffering is special. My pen moves across the page, capturing the woman’s face and her small, slumped body. I can almost sec the little fluttery movements of the two-dimensional hands as she fingers the sketchy, thin dark strokes of her purse strap. Steadmanesque, I think, smiling, or perhaps Gerald Scarfe. Those wide bloodshot eyes and the little lines around her mouth. I suddenly realize that she has paused. “Carry on, Audrey, I think this is very important to understanding the way you feel,” Her eyes glimmer with expectation. I have raised her 63

above the mundane; she is thrilled by the hope that her sub-conscious is revealing something fascinating. Far from fascinating, Audrey’s problem, as I see it, is a fear of responsibility. The dreadful knowledge that she could cause something to happen. So she’s kept herself hidden behind other people; she claims to have no opinions; she agrees with everything. If you ask her what she’d like for lunch she says, “Oh, I don’t mind, whatever you’re having.” Of course, all this self sacrifice hasn’t been good for her. She is resentful; she feels that others have cheated her out of a fulfilling life by having needs more pressing than her own. I can hardly blame them, though, when I see her sitting pigeon-toed and damp-eyed in my office, pulling a crumpled handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe her running nose. She’s just crying out to be dictated to. So I tell her that I can see a way of helping her, but it’s going to take time. My secretary books her for three appointments a week, at fifty pounds an hour, and Voila!, she has a purpose in her life. Three days a week she wakes up in the morning knowing that she is doing something for herself, and she feels good about it. And that’s really what I’m for, isn’t it? To make people feel better. It doesn’t matter why they feel better, or whether they really have problems to begin with. “You know that’s not true,” says the boy in the picture, “you’re using her, and you know it. Playing on her weaknesses. Enjoying her misery.” I look firmly back down at the paper in front of me. Her eyes are a little too close together, perhaps. I shade the area around their edges to compensate, and she continues her monologue.

Opening the front door, I already know that Helen is sitting in the armchair in the living room, reading. I’m not sure whether the thought is comforting or alarming, knowing something will be the same every day of your life. Every day except Wednesday, that is, on Wednesday she has her yoga class and isn’t home until seven fifteen. “Can I get you anything?” I call to her from the front hall as I hang up my coat. “No, thanks, dear, I’m fine. We’re all out of ginger ale, but I think there’s gin and tonic if you want it” Such is theextentof her greeting: brief description of the contents of the bar. I go to the kitchen and make myself a drink. The tonic fizzes

over the ice, and the gin swirls in oily streams between the bubbles. I pick up thecrystal dish of peanuts and carry it into the living room. With a sigh, I sit down on the sofa and put my drink on the coaster on the coffee table. It has a picture of a bright red bird on it, a souvenir of our trip to Canada last year. The scaly talons are magnified by the liquid in my glass. I pick up the stereo remote from the table and press play; I already know that Faure’s Requiem is on the machine. “Were they ghastly today?" Helen asks, putting her book face down in her lap. “Oh, no more so than usual, I suppose. Nothing a nice cold G and T won’t take care of.” Helen fingers the pearls around her neck, makes a faint acknowl edging noise and takes up her book again. I’m grateful, really, for her disinterest. I think that if ever she actually wanted to listen I wouldn t be able to stop myself. I’d tell her everything. The way they disgust me, how I can’t bear to touch them when they come into my office. The revulsion I feel as I take their coats and sit them down in the red leather armchair. Helen won’t understand that. Helen likes people. She has no reason not to. She tells me over and over how much she admires me for the work do, that she would love to spend her life helping people. In my mind I sec my half-lit boy, “It’s me she loves, not you,” he says laughing with his queer one-sided face.

On the train to work this morning I began to wonder just how much more of this I could take. Every day, the same thing, every week the same patients, the same problems. Is it normal for a psychiatrist to question his own sanity? Sometimes I catch myself having thoughts I would consider dangerous in my patients. Sometimes, as we rumble and clatter through these subterranean passages, I want to scream with the train, run through the carriages back to the light and security of the station. I used to think I was imagining it, dreaming up problems for myself the same way medical students develop symptoms of the diseases they study. Such a wealth of possibilities: I could be schizophrenic, though I don’t suppose I’m that far gone, perhaps depressive, certainly neurotic. But they’re all just names. I like drawings better than names, you can see where you are in a drawing. The one thing I’ve learned in this business is that everyone

has something going on in their head that they don’t think is normal. Some peopledon’twanttoadmitiL The others are the ones who come to me. The train stops at Baker Street and I get off. Weaving through the tile corridors and up the escalators I find myself out in the open again, blinking in the early morning light. I push my way through the rush hour crowds to Harley street. In the office I sit down and have a cup of coffee. My clipboard sits open in front of me, the boy’s vacant stare fixed somewhere between my eyebrows. “What are you looking at?” laskhim. Hesaysnothing;he’squiet today. Iglanceatthedateinfrontofme. Natasha is my first patient. She is married to an older man who has found that they have nothing in common. They haven’t had a real conversation in two years. They exchange niceties over dinner, then retire to separate bedrooms. Next there’s Jeanette. Her parents were distant towards her when she was a child, and now she blames them for her inability to have a relationship, although I’m inclined to disagree with her. Jeanette is actually too critical of people to form a relationship. She’s on a quest for an unattainable goal of human perfection. At three o’clock I see Audrey again. Her latest fear is that her husband is taking control of her children's lives in the same way that he’s taken control of hers. She is also suspicious of his new secretary. She’s afraid of people who organize things for him. She secs that kind of ordering and control as an indication of intimacy. I assume this is because all her intimate relationships revolve around some kind of domination. Her monologues are punctuated by a kind of apology for her own opin ions. She feels guilty for having feelings of her own. Audrey, it occurs to me, is my least favorite patient.

* “Dr. Woolf, Mrs. Caldwell is here to sec you.” “Thank you, Sheila, you can send her in now.” 1 lum my clipboard face down. Audrey enters, looking even more flustered than usual. 1 step out from behind my desk and take the coat which she shrugs from her shoulders. “Very chivalrous,” sneers the boy, his voice slightly muffled by the leather blinder. I ignore him and sit back down. Audrey is twisting the purse strap round and round her fingers; the 66

skin of her knuckles is yellow and taut over the bones. “It’sa good thing I had this appointment,” says Audrey, “I don’t think I could have made it through the week without seeing you again.” I feel a twinge of disgust; the paper in front of me is white and inviting. Continue, I motion. As Audrey talks my pen glides: I draw her, crouched in the comer of the page, hiding behind her impossibly large purse, face twisted in agony. On the rest of the page I draw the things she is afraid of, swirling around her head, threateningly close. Her husband, Richard, looms above her. I draw him as a jailer. A huge bunch ofkeys dangles from his belt. The keys have the faces of her children. His secretary stands behind him, large and voluptuous. The nib of my pen swirls around and around in the mass of her curls. I dress her in fishnet stockings and a garter belt. In the right hand comer of the page I draw Audrey’s father. I give him a magistrate’s wig. The hem of his gown is supported by Corinthian pillars. Audrey’s brothers stand on these, disguised as marble statues. A steady stream of black ink, but my aggression remains two-dimensional. I need to do something real. I want to stand up and scream at her to stop whining, I want to shake her until her hands let goof that stupid purse strap. "You’d love to shut her up, wouldn’t you?” says the boy from the upper left hand comer of the page, “give her something to really worry about.” I stifle the urge to answer back. It wouldn’t do for Audrey to see me talking to the paper. So I lay my hand on it, flat and deliberate, drawing the picture into the middle, crushing it. From inside the crumpled ball I hear the melody of the boy’s laughter, backed by the soft percussion of the rustling paper.

On Sundays we drive to the countryside. Helen was bom in Shropshire, and she likes to get out of London on the weekends. I enjoy these drives too, the fields seem comforting and melancholy with their dry stone walls weaving over the hills. We usually bring a picnic or eat lunch in a pub. Today, however, Helen is going to visit her mother. My motherin-law andldon’tgetalong. I used todutifullyaccompany Helen on these visits, but her mother’s gelling senile and seeing me upsets her. 1 still make excuses, pretend that I would like to go sec her, but the excuses are becoming increasingly flimsy. This Sunday I told her I was going to the Norman church in the next village. Helen accepts my excuse, grateful to

have something to tell her mother. I drop my wife off in front of the pebbledashed cottage. The net curtains of the front room twitch, and a moment later her mother appears at the door. Helen disappears into the dark hallway. In the churchyard I find myself a shady secluded spot under a great oak tree. Taking my folding easel and a cigar box of charcoals from under my arm I set up my outdoor studio. Finally I take the walkman out of my coat pocket and slip the little earphones into my ears. I put in Faure’s Requiem, and even the sounds of the birds and the tractor are blotted out. The music soothes me. That’s what I need, eternal peace, perpetual light. I look out at the tombstones framed by the overhanging oak boughs. Narrowing my eyes I blur the shapes, and the gravestones turn into menhirs set against a glowering sky. Slowly I start laying out the shapes on the paper as the music rises to a crescendo. A crowd of druids congregates within the circle of monoliths, surrounding a crude granite altar. The picture grows with the music until I see that it is the druids that are singing to me, chanting remorselessly over Audrey’ supine body. My hand moves over and over, the charcoal sweeping in broad strokes, clothing her in a misty, diaphanous grey. Above her head the druid chief stands, his cowl slung over his shoulders revealing the boy’s face. In a rich baritone he offers up his sacrifice, his voice is soothing, winding its way inside my mind, persuading me. An idea, removed ever so slightly from the picture, begins to form in my head. I draw a stake in the boy’s hand with dark, deliberate, waxy, black conti crayon, a spray of fresh oak leaves still sprouting from the unsharpened end and the dark rolling clouds on the horizon. The druids’ voices beckon me onwards, surging in waves of freedom and release. I struggle with the force of their pagan ritual, but the chorus swells, too powerful for my rational mind to overcome. Back in the car I drive to the center of town, the Requiem still resonating in my mind. Eventually I see a public telephone by the side of the road. It’s one of the old ones, the ones you don’t find in London anymore. A deep red, its doors and walls have thick panes of dingy glass. It is a refuge. Closing the heavy hinged door behind me, hidden behind the grimy stained-glass of my cathedral, I take the change out of my pocketand lay all the coins that the machine will take in a neat row on top of the phone. There is a faintly beckoning dial tone. What if she recognizes my voice? I take the handkerchief out of my pocket, fold it a couple of times, and stretch it over the mouthpiece. Then I put three peppermints into my mouth. I say my name. VictorWoolf. It comes out sounding deep, muffled

and blurred. Satisfied, I dial Audrey’s number. “Hello,” her voice comes on the line, hesitant and timid. “Hello Audrey.” “Who is this?” “You must know Audrey, you told me to call you.” “Um, I don’t remember, you must be mistaken.” “It’s no mistake Audrey, you wanted me to call. I can tell by the way you look at me.” “Who is this? This isn’t funny.” "Of course it’s not funny, Audrey, I’m dead serious. You know you wanted me, and now you’ve got me. I bet Richard doesn’t know, I bet you didn’t tell him about us.” “Didn’t tell him what? Who are you?” He wouldn’t like it, would he, you and me together. I bet he didn’t know you were such a little vixen, Audrey.” I can hear her breath coming in gasps. I want to laugh, but I restrain myself. “Don’t cry Audrey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But I never would have done it if it hadn’t been for you.” “Done what?” she sobs from the other end of the phone. “What have you done? I didn’t ask you to do anything. Who are you?” “You know who I am, Audrey.” I put the receiver back in its cradle, and the handkerchief back in mypocket. I feel light, elated. A rippling melody of strings and voices sing “Sanclus, sanctus, sanctus.” An organ joins them, and together we rejoice.

* Audrey sits in front of me, sipping noisily from a tepid cup of milky tea. I can see purple smudges under her eyes and a network of lavender veins spread across her eyelids. “It’s so horrible,” she says “and I don’t know how it happened." “Calm down, take your time.” “Really, I don’t know what I did to provoke him. I wish I could explain that he must have misunderstood me.” Audrey looks apologetic. Dutifully she begins to sip the tea. I sit quietly until Audrey has finished.

“Now tell me what happened, slowly.” “I don’t know who it was, I got a phone call yesterday from a man. He seemed to think that I knew he would call, that I had encouraged him.” “Did you?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t even know who he is. He said that Richard would be angry.” “Do you have any idea who it could be?” “No, that’s the thing. I haven’t said anything to anyone in the last week that would give the impression that I wanted to be romantically involved with them.” “Are you sure? Sometimes our subconscious sends messages. Maybe you were feeling angry with Richard, maybe you were more friendly than usual to the greengrocer, or to the man at the garden center, or the plumber. Maybe you’re trying to compensate for your jealousy of his secretary.” “But I’m not, really. I hardly even looked at the greengrocer, and it’s a woman at the garden center.” I’m having difficulty holding myself still in the leather chair. Oh, I allow myself the occasional swivel, but what I want is to spin it around with my feet, to luck my legs underneath and do pirouettes of delight. With every distressed utterance I feel the need to laugh, but I hold it back. I ask her whether the man knew her name: I tell her how he could have found out. Then, finally, my piece de resistance, I tell her that she imagined the whole thing. “But I didn’t,” Audrey protests. The tears were starting to form on the lip of her eyelids. “I can’t have. I heard the phone ring. I picked it up. There was a voice.” “Did anyone else hear the phone?” “No, no one else was home." “Oh, that’s right. Richard takes the boys to watch the football match on Sundays. Well, I’d like to rule out that possibility, Audrey, but you have been under a lot of stress recently.” “I can’t have imagined it. “We’ll see. Maybe it won’t happen again. Maybe it was just a prank phone call. Or maybe next time someone else will hear it, too. You could call the police and have them listen in on your line, but I’m afraid you’d have to tell Richard.” “Oh, 1 couldn’t possibly tell him. What if he thinks I encouraged the man?” 70

“Well, then, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

In bed this morning I watch Helen sleeping, her white flesh, soft and vulnerable under the orange glow of the streetlight outside our window. The contours of her body show through the thin cotton of her nightie, and with every exhalation the wisp of hair hanging over her face rises and falls. Her face is innocent, almost child-like in sleep. I reach out to touch her, and then feel instead the pull of another desire. I tiptoe down the corridor, my feet sinking in to the thick wool carpet, my fellow conspirator, the muffler of my footsteps. At the top of the stairs I stand for a moment, anticipating the creak of the third step, avoiding it. The house is silent for me. I can still hear Helen’s drowsy breathing, can still imagine that wisp rising and falling on the current of her breath. In the front hall I switch my dressing gown for my dark grey overcoat. I feel a surge of energy and exhilaration as the cold air outside chills my face and creeps through the creases of my coat and through my pajamas. The sky is that strange, dull, reddish brown you find only in cities. It hangs low over the rooftops, reminding me of my oppressive need to act. I pull the coat around me and walk to the pay phone at the end of thestreet. Jeanette. She’stheonlyonewho’llbealoneatthistimeofnight. The phone rings several times, the noise drilling into my brain again and again. Finally she answers, her voice hoarse and sleepy. “Hello, Jeanette.” “Who is this? What’s wrong?” “You were wrong to treat me the way you did, you never gave me a chance.” “Who is this? Do you know what time it is?” “Time doesn’t matter, Jeanette.”

The page in front of meisfreshlyprimedforAudrey’svisiL The face of the boy is waiting in silent expectation for the delightful figures she will reveal to me. Audrey is proving my most valuable asset Although I enjoy the calls to the others, there is something deeply satisfying in the chaos of her mind, so delightful in her distress. I’ve put her on 5mg of 71

Ativan as well, just to blur the edges between fantasy and reality a little more. Last week she described a conversation to me which I didn’t even have with her. She worries more than ever, but now she has a focus; with a little effort I may even have a genuine psychotic on my hands. Finally a really interesting case. Audrey enters at last, scanning the office with drug-glazed eyes. “I’m sorry I’m late Victor,” she says. “I thought it was Thursday for some reason and I was half-way to pick up the boys from rugby practice before I remembered about our appointment.” “Never mind, Audrey, we all have days like that. How are the boys, anyway? Has Hugo stopped wetting his bed yet?” “I think so, I mean I hope so. He hasn’t said anything about it recently, I don’t think.” She looks vacantly about the room for her purse before seeing that it’s on her lap. “How’s Richard? Are things going better with him now?” “Oh, yes. Well, I suppose. He’s not home very often, so it’s usually just me and the boys. We don’t argue so much anymore. Isuppose the Ativan’s helping with my anxiety.” She looks up with a start, as if realizing for the first time that I’ve been talking to her. “Yes, that’s right. You’re not experiencing any unusual side effects are you?” “Well, sometimes I feel a bit dopey, like I just woke up, and I was having trouble sleeping, but the sleeping pills are helping. I don’t have headaches or anything.” “And what about your auditory hallucinations, any more of those?” “Honestly, Dr. Woolf, I’m still not sure that they’re hallucina tions, they seem so real.” She continues to tell me about our last telephone conversation. I resist the temptation to fill in the parts which I know already but which her slowed mind has not expressed yeL She doesn’t remember the conversa tions in any detail, just the tone and the topic. Sometimes, if I decide in retrospect that I would have preferred to say something else, I just have to suggest it and she believes that that’s how it was. I draw Audrey as a bloated and sluggish worm. Her face lolls amid folds of pulpy larval flesh, like an overripe version of Tenniel’s caterpillar. From her tail-end she spins an oozy thread of silk. The stickiness of the thread clings to her problems. At one point the fiber coils like a telephone cord, at another it shrouds a dark male figure in an 72

overcoat It is knotted in places, and halfway along it wraps itself around Richard’s face, covering his eyes, concealing the boy in the comer from him. Then, twisting around in a network of fibers, it cocoons the boy, covering the area where his body would be, obscuring all but the lit side of his face under the mesh. The boy winks at me with his one visible eye. “It’ssonice and cozy in here,” he says. “She’s keeping me warm and safe.”

* Audrey travels with me everywhere now; she is the lens through which I see the world. When my work gets confusing, or my patients trying, I know that I can go to her. She’s the bottom rung on the ladder. It’s funny, but I think I may be in love with her. Not in the sense that I was with Helen, but more like the way I felt about my mother. Someone I can go to whatever happens. An unconditional method of release. When the train is too clackety on the way home from work, or the drawings are screaming, or the walls are too wooden and the windows too shiny. She’s always there to nurse me back, to set me straight, at least for the time being. Helen is staying with her curtain-twitching mother for a few weeks. She says that I’m obviously overworking myself and that she can’t deal with my exhaustive drive. She tried to make me come with her, she thought the rest would do me good. She says that it’s no wonder I get over tired working with psychiatric patients all day long. I told her that I'm on the verge of something very important, that I won ’ t be able to rest until it’s done. She shrugged, packed her bags, and was on the next train to Shropshire. She didn’t say when she was coming back. I have the house to myself now. I like it that way. I can leave my drawings around without worrying about her finding them. I don’t have to hide them in between pastel watercolors in my portfolio. I decide to use the phone in my study. I don’t usually make calls from home, but I figure that Audrey is far enough gone that she’s beyond asking the police to check her calls. I set the paper out in front of me and check that my Rotring pens are filled. Testing the needle-like nib of the finest one, I draw my boy in the middle of the page. The lines skirt the prominent features of his face, his high cheekbones, straight nose and thoughtful brow. I draw the tiny creases of the flesh of his lips, revealing his contemplative smile. I dial Audrey’s number. “Hello.” I can already hear the fear in her voice; she knows it’s me, but she can’t put the phone down. 73

“It’s so nice to talk to you again, Audrey. I’ve missed you." “Who are you? Who’s there?” “Oh, come now, Audrey, after all the things I’ve done with you, after all the time we’ve spent together. Why do you reject me?” "Please tell me who this is.” Her voice cracks on the last word. I hear a hiccoughed sob. “I’m whoever you want me to be, Audrey. After all, you created me.” She’s no longer trying to restrain the sobs, I hear the snort of her running nose, and the short gasps for breath. My pen whisks across the page, but I barely notice it, I’m so absorbed in her misery. Every disruption in her breath sends a thrill through me. I try to imagine her reddening eyes, the rush of blood to those veins in her eyelids. The slackness of her mouth, the sweet mixture of tears and saliva on her lips. “Please stop this, whoever you arc. Please, I don’t know what I did.”

“You were vulnerable, Audrey, you opened yourself up, you exposed your soul to a hungry predator. You have only yourself to blame, ofcourseyour mind created me, I’m here because you need me. You never could do anything for yourself.” I stop so that I can hear her cry. The whimpers arc as beautiful as the requiem, the unrelenting sobs as del icatc as the most rippl ing strings. Overcome by the sound of her, I start to draw with her weeping in my head. Those grey streaks in her hair, damp and clinging to her wet face. I focus on each detail, bringing out every little nuance of her unhappiness, ignoring the whole picture. Suddenly I hear the crunch of the telephone receiver being replaced. It makes me jump, but looking around the office I see that there’s no one there. My hand has just let the receiver fall back in its cradle. I’m covered in sweat, my shirt sticks to my back, and the back of the chair. Audrey’s body takes up the entire page, except it is not her face which dominates, but the swell of her huge abdomen under pendulous breasts. Her flesh is missing over the belly, and the center of the picture is her dark and cavernous womb. Curled inside the uterus is the image of the boy, fetal and naked. He is nesded in the shadow of Audrey’s enormous belly, linked to her with an umbilical cord as twisted and coiled as the cord on the telephone. His eyes are closed and contented, but he is blurred by the membrane which covers him. The rest of Audrey’s body has shrunk

in comparison to her new, nurturing organs; her weeping face seems almost like an afterthought set haphazardly on her weak shoulders. I stare at the picture for a moment waiting for a voice, some recognition from the picture, but all 1 hear is a faint sucking sound.

-r

fij ri

Laura Marshall

Water Never Stops Moving Fall in New Hampshire. Chapel bells. Anne spanking her comforter across the bed. The pond, tingling from leaves that quiver to its surface. Clock radios. Shower lines. Water. Carol pulls on blue socks, her sleep-heavy fingers smoothing the cuffs around her ankles. She scratches her dry calves and wets her lips. Anne sets her bed straight. She has sixteen small, embroidered throw pillows, one for each birthday. A fuzzy bear extends its stub arms from the overlapping pillows. Pajamas are folded at the foot of the bed. The pond slowly covered by leaves. Two squirrels chase each other by the water’s edge, hopping to avoid cold dew. Her belly still shrinking from the recent birth, breasts fat and sore withmilk.TheresaCanestandsona hardwood floor brown as wet soil. Her husband has left for chapel. The girls should be leaving soon. Theresa peers at her sleeping baby and thanks God that she no longer teaches at this school. “I’m concerned because Robertahas not showered in two weeks.” “Perhaps she is not inclined." “Perhaps she wants to disgust us.” “I hear her scratching her scalp in German class." Anne brushes her long, dark bangs away from her forehead.

“She hasn’t arrived in chapel yet. Mr. Cane’s closing the doors. I’ve heard his wife has post-natal depression." “Carol, shhh.” And with thy spirit. We praise thee, O God. We praise thee, 0 God. We bless thy holy Name. We thank thee, O Lord. Thanks be to thee. Hear, O Lord, our prayers for them. Amen. Most of the girls look down while they chant in response to Rev. Sipple. These words pulse to the ceiling of the chapel each morning and go no further. Anne stares up as if she expects rain. Roberta curls around a pillow, eyes open, listening to the deserted dormitory around her. Heat pipes whistle and sigh with steam. She squints at the window; it has fogged from radiator heat and her own breathing in the small room, all night while she slept. She feels her hair full of static before she raises her head from the pillow. Deliberately, Roberta rests both feet on the floorboards for a moment before walking to the bathroom. She smooths her hair and hums along with the nine o’clock chapel bells. Mrs. Cane listens as her husband talks to the two girls. His voice softens and stiffens, the cadence natural. A gift for speech, said all their friends. Theresa’s gift is not for speech, she knows. She remembers how she can make her husband speechless, how her own hands can turn the words from his lips to sounds. She was fifteen when she realized this power. It was not with her husband. Mrs. Cane comforts herself with this thought while her husband’s voice continues, so rhythmic it could be danced to. She dances only to stop music. Her movements are like rain, she thinks. Consuming, hypnotic. Her movements are like water. Theresa listens for his voice. “We thought you should know. Anne and I are just worried- - it might be an adjustment period, but she won’t even get up for chapel.” Carol’s eyes are bright and earnest. “Please don’t tell her we came, Mr. Cane. I don’t want her to think we can’t be friends,” amends Anne, vacantly. “No, no, no, of course not. It’s wonderful that you worry for the new students. Certainly, I will take this conversation into account. Now, tell me, is all well with you girls?” 78

“Oh, yes,” the two chorus. “How are the baby and Mrs. Cane?” Carol adds. Guiltily, Theresa glances at her baby, left sleeping in a cushioned laundry basket in the kitchen.

During the night, the dormitory phone ringing and ringing. Leaves drift over the pond’s surface, black and oily. Roberta sleeping with one hand on her face. The pond goosepimpled like skin under light rain. Like water, Theresa waits for her husband’s words to change to sounds.

Movement. Rain. Sleep. Roberta wakes to find a white shampoo bottle and a note outside her door. She opens the bottle to smell the sweet, soapy, liquid. The note says, Shampoo is for washing your hair.

“She wasn’t in chapel again, did you notice? I hope Mr. Cane talks to her. Maybe we should, Anne. Her hair is so greasy it looks wet.” “Mr. Cane probably will.” “I saw his wife crossing the street yesterday. She was wearing a maternity dress. Imagine how depressing that would be, to wear those clothes after the baby’s bom. Have you seen her?” “No.” Anne glances fast at the lunch tables around them to make sure no one is listening. “Well, she looks terrible,” Carol continues. “She’s got dark rings under her eyes.” The girls eat french fries and tuna salad sandwiches. Anne drinks four glasses of water with each meal. Carol drinks two glasses of orange drink. Anne watches other students pass with their trays. One girl drinks chocolate milk, another red punch. Iced tea. Lemonade. Milk. Tea. Water. Carol continues to talk, but Anne is busy watching beverages slosh dangerously close to the rim of the cafeteria glasses on the trays that glide by

When Roberta was twelve, her mother would not allow her to wear the same kind of V-neck blouse all of her friends wore. You must learn how to be humble, she said, her eyes avoiding Roberta’s developing breasts. Roberta’s mother wore long sleeves in the summer. She was not religious, she explained, only humble. Roberta’s cheeks pink when she looks at herself in the mirror and remembers her mother’s words. Surely, her breasts will stop growing soon. She wonders what the difference is between being humble and feeling shame, as she dresses for German class. Stanng at the mirror, Roberta is fascinated by the way her hair lies so flat against her head. In the bones of her face, she can see subtle contours and shadows she never noticed before. She imagines her face, white as the moon, the only thing people notice when they look at her. Frau Wolff calls on Anne for all the hard questions in German class because she always answers correctly. When Frau Cane used to teach, before the baby, she called on everyone in turn. She wanted to be fair. Roberta is bored by Anne’s perfect grammar and irritated by her bad accent When Frau Wolff wants a passage read aloud, she calls on Roberta. Roberta will not know what she is saying, but she always stresses the right words, and her accent is beautiful. Today, the class is devoted to verb review. Anne recites verb after verb with no expression. Roberta scratches her scalp. She can feel the girls behind her watching her fingers. Their stares have the weight of heat on her fingers. Her scalp tingles.

“Shhh, shh. Relax.” “Theresa, honey, I have a sore throat tonight and don’t feel well. You know 1 find you incredibly attractive. Just this afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way your collarbone curves under your neck. I just wanted to kiss it.” Mr. Cane kisses her collarbone gendy. Theresa lies very still in the silence of her husband’s breathing. She listens as it becomes soft and deep, then she gets out of bed and walks cautiously to the window. Her eyes fog and she hears nothing as she looks blankly into the night. Like water, she thinks, I will stand still until something touches me. Theresa Cane stands for a very long time. After a while, she is glad her husband does not wake. Instead of returning to bed, she puts on her robe and walks downstairs.

The pond is black outside of their house. Roberta sleeping with her hand over her face. Wind, hitting the pond with the force of a slap.

“Roberta? Arc you awake?” “Yes.” Roberta sits up in bed and stares at the door, as if Anne could already see her. “Come in.” Anne stands in the door frame. She explains that Mr. Cane sent her to fetch Roberta. HereyesavoidRobcrta’shair. Unconsciously, Anne pushes her dark bangs away from her forehead. Roberta smooths her own hair behind her ears. She does not ask why Mr. Cane wants to sec her. “Thank you,” she tells Anne. “What did she say?” “She just thanked me, and I left.” “She was still in bed?" Carol asks. She chews her grilled cheese sandwich. “Yes.” “So have they talked yet?” Anne shrugs. Her mouth is full. “So, Roberta. How is your fall term going?” Mr. Cane smooths a wrinkle in his pants as he talks to the girl. He finds it difficult to look at her face. Her eyes are piercing with her hair pulled back. “I’m having some trouble with German verbs, but other than that, fine.” “And you like living on your own?” “Oh, yes." Roberta notices that Mr. Cane won’t look al her, so she focuses on his eyes as she speaks. “Good, good. Some of your friends were concerned that you might be shy about getting involved with things. I can understand feeling shy. There are a lot of assertive girls here. But I was wondering, do you have trouble getting up in the morning?”

“No.”

“You’ve missed a lol of morning chapels, Roberta. Do you sleep through them? Perhaps a friend could help with waking you up." “I choose not to go.” Mr. Cane looks directly at this girl with greasy hair, wearing an old red sweater. He cannot decide if he is being made a fool of or not. “I choose not to.” Roberta continues. “People stare at my hair, and I don’t want to be a distraction.” “Does it bother you that they stare?” Mr. Cane, genuinely interested, asks. “The right people will know that 1 am being humble.” “Humble? For whom?” “It’s hard to explain.” Roberta begins to speak more quickly, and Theresa Cane has difficulty overhearing the girl from the kitchen.

■

Mrs. Cane walks quietly to the doorway, listening not for the cadence of her husband’s voice, but for the girl’s answer. Theresa’s eyes dart around the kitchen as if she could hear better if they landed on the right object. She remembers Roberta’s voice from German class, the beautiful accent. Roberta’s English is not as eloquent, perhaps because she tries to understand her own words. She speaks to silence Mr. Cane. Like Theresa, Roberta uses words with little meaning. She speaks only so she can stop talking. ”... not to be made a spectacle of,” Theresa hears, “because I never wanted to do this for attention, but I can see why you think that.” “No, no, no, Roberta. I just don’t know why such a pretty girl would want to make herself unattractive.” Roberta and Mr. Cane both pause to listen to the phone ring twice and Mrs. Cane answer it, then to her deliberate footsteps to the living room. “Sorry to interrupt. It’s for you, dear.” Mr. Cane excuses himself uncomfortably. Both Roberta and Theresa can hear the rhythm of Mr. Cane's voice coming from the next room. The words wash them both into silence for a moment, and then Theresa speaks to the girl.

Leaves, slick and brown, layer around the bank. A squirrel chatters defensively from a branch. In her room, Anne drills herself on German verbs.

Carol walks into Anne’s room without knocking. She is wearing a green turtleneck that makes her skin look sallow. “German?” She asks Anne. “Yes.” Anne nods her head slightly. “Have you seen Roberta?” “Not since this morning.” She waits for Carol to ask if Roberta was in German class, but Carol seems to have forgotten. Anne doesn’t mention that Roberta was not there. “So when do you want to go to dinner?” Carol asks, looking at herself in Anne’s mirror. She looks better in the reflection than in life; the late afternoon light softens her skin tone. Anne shrugs. Her fingers have the weight of stares, Roberta realizes. Her fingers are like eyes, looking and probing. Theresa’s hands do not know the difference between being humble and feeling shame. They lift Roberta’s soggy hair and rub her scalp. Roberta sits very still, eyes closed, her head tilted back in the sink. She accepts whatever it is that Theresa’s fingers pass on to her. The water is heavy, lukewarm, the same temperature as her skin. The water, too, has in it the weight of stares. Roberta feels the liquid saturate each strand, sucking seventeen days from her head and pulsing them down the drain. Her features quiver and sink back, a bit flatter. Her scalp tingles.

Nicole Ballinger Flying Fetish (photographs)

Amy Viens

Our Father Who Art in Heaven, Howard Be Thy Name I first met God when I was six. I had known he existed before, but he was just a vague, kind spirit. Now I knew him—he had shape, substance, and his name was Howard. It took me a long time to meet the Devil, however. There are many masks and names he uses. He doesn’tjust give you his name in a prayer like Howard did. I encountered the Devil for the first time when I was about eight. By chance, I had watched “Rosemary’s Baby” on T.V. some Sunday afternoon. He came to visit that night. The Mickey Mouse poster on my closet door was glowing with an odd sheen and the Devil popped out He was a dark mist in front of my dresser. Sitting down on the edge of my bed, he almost crushed my feet. I got bored waiting for him to do something. After he threw my comforter on the floor, I fell asleep. The next morning I had a terrible stomachache and did not go to school. It felt like there were nails inside me. However, I could not tell my mother the real story of my illness. The Devil had made me pregnant. He must have stuck his pitchfork or his tail into my belly and made a baby. What would I do in a year with my demon baby? Could I love it as Rosemary loved hers? Ididnotthinklcouldifithadblackpig’sfeet. Each day I watched to see if my stomach swelled, but there was no evidence. I told my brother that the Devil would come to visit me and sit on the edge of my bed (I neglected to tell him that the Devil had given me a baby). My brother said, “Satan visits you because you are his actual child.” He told me the story of my origins. “The neighbor’s German shepherd found you out by the brook

when you were a baby. The dog picked you up by his teeth, careful not to hurt one of Satan’s own, and brought you to our house. We took you in out of kindness, but I did notice 666 tattooed on your head. He will know you by that sign when he sends his demon servants to get you.” I was terrified—did I have that tattoo all along and never know it? My brother parted my hair and found the 666 on the left side, near the back. I took a small hand mirror and tried to see the tattoo from every angle. “You can’t see the reflection 666, stupid, you have to be actually looking at it. Of course, you also have to know what to look for.” I wondered if there were any other mysterious signs on my body that I could not see, but were obvious to everyone else. Walking around the house, I slyly glanced into mirrors to see if I could find a true reflection. Though I begged Howard to let me see these deformities on my body, the only thing the mirrors revealed was my brother sneaking up behind me. As he whispered 6-6-6, my mouth dropped into a scream. One afternoon my catechism teacher was lecturing on evil spirits and plagues. He was an expert at warding off ghosts. “If you want the locusts and diseases to pass by your house when they are in your neighborhood, paint MBG above all your doorways. This is for the three wisemen, Melchior, Balthazar, and Gaspar, who will help protectyou. Otherwiseyourbody willrotfrom theinsideout. Theancients used blood to draw the symbol, but I find it works just as well with chalk.” After class, I asked my catechism teacher how to resist the Devil; he told me his secret. “A guardian angel named Love sits on my shoulder and whispers into my ear. Love tells me what is good and what is bad and which women to avoid. I cannot hear Satan when I listen to Love.” The Devil never talked to me, he just sat on the edge of my bed and sometimes threw my comforter on the floor. I was afraid of the other things people told me about-the snakes, the devil babies, and the fire. I wanted to know how the Devil operated so I could avoid all of these tortures. Was throwing my comforter on the floor a sign? I asked my teacher about Howard. “I’ve never met anyone named Howard.” Walking down the steps from the choir loft, I thought that Love was a stupid name for a friend.

If the comforter on the floor was a sign from the Devil, I assumed that I should get a sign from Howard. I would sit in bed at night and concentrate on sending a message to him, “Howard, if you hear me, open the window—now !" Nothing happened. I thought maybe he did not like demands, because thinking about it, my friends did not like when I ordered them to do things either. I rephrased my message, “Howard, if you’re around and feel like opening that window, then go ahead.” He must have been angry, because he never touched my yellow curtained window. Resorting to my catechism teacher’s suggestion, I drew MBG in soap above the closet door. A few days later, I noticed the inscription had changed. It read, “Maleficent Beelzebub Girl.” It must have been in God-speech, because I did not understand it. I asked my oldest sister how I could get in touch with Howard in hopes of a clearer message. “Where does he live? Is it long distance?” I told her that Howard was in heaven. The comers of her mouth turned down in an older-than-thou look. She pulled a box from the top shelf of her closet and gave me her Ouija board. “I was meaning to get in touch with Jimmy Dean again anyway.” That night, my brother, sisters and I banished the babysitter to the T.V. room and set up the Ouija board in the cellar. My brother was the Invoker and called out in an unusually deep voice, “If there are any spirits in this room, come to us.” The plastic disk went wild and pulled my fingers across the board until settling on “yes.” “Tell us your name, demon of the dark! We have one of your spawn with us.” Big, wet spots appeared on the board and I was surprised to find that they were my tears. Food and burning water rose up my throat I took my fingers off the disk and ran upstairs. After that I did not go into the cellar for a long lime, convinced that if I did demons would be there to reclaim me. My belly had stopped hurting a few days before the Devil stopped

visiting. Instead, during the day I would be terrified by any marie of his. I would sweat seeing the colors black and red anywhere near each other. Noticing my neighbor’s black cat crossing our street, I hyperventilated. The Devil never told me to do anything; in fact, he never spoke at all. I just saw his signs all over the neighborhood, whereas I only saw Howard’s signs (crosses, white wafers, golden cups) in church. The Devil seemed much more accessible, if I could only get over the terror of meeting him. He was such a big part of my life and I did not even know his name. This search for the Devil’s name eased my fear of him. Examin ing his signs instead of running from them, I tried to find some spelling of his name. I investigated the bark of the old oak tree in our backyard, hunted down warty toads and scanned the skies for black crows or bats. At last I ventured into our cellar where I thought he might feel at home in the shadows. There was someone in the cellar playing tapes on the stereo. It was my brother, but the sounds from the stereo were distorted. The music seemed slow and warped and the people sounded as if they were chanting through molasses. I heard one semi-clear line through the twisted music. It was, “Satan, my Anthony.” I whooped. The Devil’s name was as simple as Anthony. He was now on the same plane as Howard, I knew him. The visits ended, though, and he stopped giving me signs. I did not miss the terror, but thought it was a shame that once you took the time to find out someone’s name, he started to ignore you.

Nicole Ferguson Untitled (photograph)

Robin Shear

My Hunger The ritual begins at dawn: The boy ringing bells from the tower, nuns raking the gravel paths, ravens screaming overhead. I dip my hands in the barrel of cold water by my mattress and wipe my face. I pin my hair under a grey cloth and go down the back stair to feed the dogs; they are still sleeping. Nights, I fall asleep to their barking. In the dream, the wild dogs come; I see nothing in the dark forest but hear their growling grow louder. Now, at their shelter, I bang a tin pan, and the barking resumes like noise rising from an empty stomach. I pull several pigeons from the wire shed and twist their necks. I enjoy how swiftly I end their suffering. The dogs bite and rip at feathers and flesh. They are lean, never quieted by their meal. I will leave today. In the kitchen I carry coal to the furnace, shovel out ashes of what has burned and died during the night. The sun is coming up now. I pull the cloth across the window facing the road and remove my dress and scarf; I wear nothing else. I came to this convent when I was nine years old with achain and crucifix my grandfather had given me. When I arrived. Mother Julia snapped the chain from my neck and poked me towards the wash basin with the tip of her finger, saying, “You will not soil the Lord with your filthy flesh. Wash yourself, girl.” Feet shuffle on the floor boards above me. I scrub at the nape of my neck with a burlap swatch, then the rest of my body. I use the same burlap to dry myself, then place it in the furnace. I like to imagine my skin rises with the smoke, like a grey feather, escaping this place. Friction has warmed me, and the heat from the furnace stings. I watch the flames, like bloody teeth, devour the cloth. The deaf boy in the tower wakes me with his bells, reminds me I am still here, marks each day I remain.

It is early morning still. The door to the kitchen from the outer hall opens, and I am standing naked by the furnace; my stomach glows in the dark room. I am not startled, I am like one asleep, stretched under blankets. I can only remember how those feel. Here I have no blanket, only a rough sheet: an old burlap sack tom open. We are not allowed comfort here, not allowed any privacies. The cook’s girl stands frozen at the door; she is younger than I am and smaller. Her features are thin and sharp like the leftover bones I save for the dogs. I bend down for my dress and smile at her. She walks past me, carrying a sack of onions. She does not look at me even though I am dressed now. Her hands struggle, the cord from the sack digs into her purpled skin. She is scared of me. She will tell her mother she saw me, and Mother Julia will make me kneel on the gravel during evening meal. Outside, the wind, more abrasive than cloth, scrapes my skin. It blows on the uncovered parts of my neck; it is trying to get inside of me. My clothes offer little resistance; I am vulnerable. The trees are bare; I have stopped trying to count the leaves on the ground when I walk from the kitchen to the bam. The trees have turned into skeletons again like the cook’s daughter. It is the time of year when a flash of sun can reveal legs dangling from a branch. My eyes trick me, tangle in the intricacy of the tree limbs meshed against the sky like woven fabric. It is my mother dangling from a tree. She has been dead for five years now; this is how she visits me, tries to scare me into thinking I’m as mad as she was. Grandfather, pedaling home from his shop, hands stained with liquid bronze, saw her hanging from the road. From the kitchen window, I saw the cross he had made her for her birthday; he was holding it to his lips, still warm I imagined. I ran to the pantry when he came inside the house. I was shivering in silence, my bladder heavy as a sack of onions. I had seen her go to the tree. Had she gone to shoo away the crows picking at the field? She climbed the tree; she was a young woman: twenty five years old. Now the sunlight shifts, and her body vanishes from the tree, flies off in a ring necked dove, like a scarf escaping with the wind. The two-story bam blocks the wind, but it is cold and dim and filled with the smell of cows. They are swollen with milk. Mother Julia never comes out to the bam, otherwise she would have it scrubbed. She 91

does not approve of the natural process, does not like that dust settles, cannot stand stench. Once, a year after I had been here, I saw her cell: a cot on the floor and a wooden chest. I opened a drawer. Inside were winter stockings, a wire scrub brush, a bag of rocks the size of a child’s fist. The door slammed, and I pushed the drawer closed with my back. Mother Julia glared at me from the door, pressing her prayer book to her breasts. “What did you find? Do not lie, Emelia. Tell me what you saw.” I answered calmly, for a ten year old. “A bag of stones, white socks, and a wire brush.” “Go milk the cows,” she said, dropping the book away from her breasts, revealing how they sagged beneath the stiff cloth of her habit. It takes me until noon to finish today’s milking. The pails are so full that white foam splashes onto the gravel; bubbles burst and seep between sharp stones. The sides of my legs grow sticky as fresh milk dries on them. Like that day my grandfather called to me, and my insides released. Warm fluid ran down my legs onto the cracked floor boards, dripping through to the basement; it was the first time I thought about being above something. I could hear each drop hitting the furnace directly below me. My hiding place was warm but with a sweet stink, like sour milk. Things rotted in the pantry; small animals liked it. “Emla, where are you?” Grandfather called, but I stayed hidden. His mutt began barking and scratching at the pantry door, sniffing my urine and fear. There is a strange pleasure in being found, like letting go of the bladder when it is full: It is unpleasant, and at the same time, an end to suffering. I had watched my mother walking through melting snow towards the trees. 1 had waited for Grandfather to return, for someone to come and puncture the heavy emptiness of the house. The nuns pass me as they empty out of the rectory where they have had their morning prayers while I have milked the cows. Their feet scrape across the gravel towards the gate where they will take the cart to market. They do not look at the driver when the wagon pulls up to them,and he unbolts the gate and swings the hinges aside. I see their cheeks glow, especially the youngest ones. I see the blood from their crimson cheeks in the milk I carry as it swells from side to side. I see the discolored ring around my mother’s frozen neck as they untie her from the tree. Grandfather tried to keep me from seeing; he placed me in his bicycle’s straw basket, the lap of my dress still damp. He peddled fast, delivering

me to the convent. But I had seen everything already. I had seen her walk out the door and through the snow. I saw her climb the blank branches as if chasing a bird escaped from its cage. I saw her tie her wool stockings around her throat and around the branch above. I saw her fall: a flame leaping from the furnace. I reach the west side of the abbey. The sun is leaning in the sky. I pull my scarf from my head to wipe the back of my neck, like the fanners’ wives, standing in the fields, arching their backs to look at the sky with their beaten faces. I rest my shoulder against the stone wall to catch my breath. The deaf boy in the tower rings the bells for supper. Leaving one pail of milk at the bottom of the steps, I hold the other, waiting in the passageway until he has stopped his ringing. The ground vibrates under my feet; the milk quivers and spills. I climb the tower to its opened top. The boy dips his cupped hands in the pail and drinks from them. Milk rolls down his chin, his trace of beard. When I first refused meals, Mother Julia hit my naked shoulders with a switch of branches, repeating each time she struck, “You belong to no one.” The deaf boy is an orphan too. I look over the edge of the tower while he drinks. The dogs below curl together for warmth; they look like infants from above, whining and twitching in their sleep. My grandfather brought me here the day I became an orphan. I had never known of a father, and my mother was dead. “You are an evil girl,” were Mother Julia’s first words. “We will teach you to believe in Hell,” she said to me but was peering at my grandfather from the comer of her eye. He would have had to look up to make eye contact, but he didn’t; he stared down at the ground, and I could imagine my mother beneath us. Grandfather dug his fingers through his pockets, plucking out the polished crucifix, hearing nothing. Kneeling in front of me, Grandfather placed the chain around my neck. “It is for you now,” he whispered and turned and left me with nothing but a cross with a dead man pinned to it. “Emelia! Emelia, your letter!” The words fly up at me like leaves. I race down the stairs of the tower, growing dizzy in the spiral. I feel like I am inside of a shell. Like the one I keep wrapped in cloth by my bed. Grandfather found it in our field after one winter’s thaw. “It is unusual to find one in such good condition, one the birds have not cracked with their beaks. Listen, you can hear the waves.” When the dogs come 93

to me at night, sometimes I hold it to my ear and the rush of blood in my head becomes the waves; I fall asleep on the sea, dream that it carries me away from here. My blood beats like waves pounding the shore as I rush down the tower stair. The driver has returned from town with supplies, mail, and the Sisters. He hands me an envelope. As I tuck it into the waist of my apron, I feel his starebuming into the roundness of my belly; his smile sickens me. I will not eat tonight. I keep Grandfather’s letters in a crack beneath the furnace, safe from moths and Mother J ulia. Weeks after he delivered me to the convent, the first one arrived: “Dear Emla, I have tried to come back for you, but I cannot. When the ground thaws we will bury your mother. It is better for you there, where you are safe. You are very young, Emla, you have time to forget.” I would not believe he was never returning for me; sometimes I thought I saw his bicycle spokes glimmer through the steamed window in the kitchen. Now he writes he is ill and bound to his bed. He is growing old, too old to take me away. Mother Julia is right. I belong to no one. Mother Julia allows me supper tonight, but I refuse in order to show her my strength. She makes me sit at the table. I look down at the plate of coarse meat and see my mother’s purpled flesh; all the Sisters close their eyes, but I cannot. They pray to the God that Mother Julia has kept from me, like she has kept my crucifix, hidden in her drawer with her wire brush and her rocks and her stockings. The Sisters open their eyes and dig their forks into the meat I see my mother, like the pigeons with twisted necks that I feed to the dogs each morning. I cannot touch the meat; blood seeps from it, slow flames reach for my hand. I gag like the dogs when the pigeons’ fine bones get caught in their throats. Mother Julia sends me to my room. It was in the rectory two years ago my bleeding came. Mother Julia was making me kneel on the boards and stare at the wooden Christ. I was alone with Him for hours. I was supposed to be praying for forgiveness, but His eyes scared me, making me feel like I do when the wind pushes through my clothes. When Mother Julia told me to get up my legs were wet and sticky, my knees bloody. Her face turned red. She dragged me to the kitchen and put me in the scalding basin. She tried, but she could not scrub the evil from me with her wire brush, could not stop 94

the blood with her bag of stones. I knew then that I was going to become like my mother. I stopped bleeding when the leaves last changed color. I imag ined the leaves had taken my blood to paint themselves. My mother used to wrap cloths around herself during the day and wring them out in a pail of water after Grandfather had gone to bed. Sometimes I helped. Kneeling by her, I saw the moon reflected in the surface of the water and my mother’s hands, slicing through it. I thought her bleeding was asign of the madness.

In my room now, my fingers trace the hard, thin emptiness of the walls of my shell. I wish my body were like this shell, but it is full with something. I am weak from hunger and hold my shell to my ear so I can hear the waves.

* In the dark, the wild dogs come. I hear their growling growing louder. They are on me at once, hungry, ripping my flesh, tearing at my body.

I wake screaming like the ravens overhead. Bloody cloth surrounds me. I am alive, but my insides feel like the gravel paths the nuns tend to. I am no longer fat. I hold a wet baby. He is small and purple, blotchy like a cold arm. The cord strangles his neck. I remove it and wrap him in my scarf. With warmth from the furnace, he grows pink, like my shell. He drinks milk from me; it drips from his mouth, begins to fill his stomach. He whines and twitches in his sleep like a puppy. I slip down the back stair before dawn, before the deaf boy in the tower wakes everyone with his bells. I hold my baby in one arm. With the other, I bang a tin against the shed. Roused from sleep, the dogs jump up at the fence between us. I feel the baby’s heart echoing against my breast. I imagine the pigeon bones like twigs beneath my fingers, feel my thumb stretched across their wings. I open the wire bars of the cage. The pigeons rise like a great grey veil of smoke, disappearing in the trees. We will leave today.

FT 5

Bryan Smith Untitled (photograph)

Jen Cavanaugh

The Nursery School The three old women stood at the window staring out at the confused flock of parents and children. Laetitia Munroe, smoothing the last strands of hair so severe it seemed painted on into her tighdy coiled bun, walked over to the shiny electric kettle to see if it had boiled. She set up three mugs on the counter, spooning instant coffee and sugar into them. The kettle began to sputter, its spout coughing up scalding drops. “Coffee’s almost ready now. Black? Or would you like some cream?” “1 can’t believe we’re back again. Justone sugar, that’s O.K. Do you need help with the tray?” Tamara Wilcox turned, leaving a small patch of condensation on the glass where she had been breathing, and was followed by her sister, Margot, to the woodworm-riddled table which stood in the center of the room. They were a perfect pair of opposites, Tamara tall, with white hair curled and set so firmly that it looked like the hair on a marble statue; Margot shorter, her black hair, glossy and almost blue where the light hit it, hung in a thick Viking braid down herback, and was only just beginning to grey, making her look younger than she really was. The old women sat in silence around the dark antique table, blowing cool breath over their hot drinks, preparing to meet the crowd of children for the first day of nursery school. Dust hung in the air, lit by morning sunlight, creating bright white filaments which streamed across the room and fell to the floor beside them. The grandfather clock in the comer of the room began to chime: nine o’clock. “Shall we meet the children now? Come, it’s time, we’d better go.” 97

Alice Jensen stood in the crowd of mothers and nannies, clutch ing tightly at the small fleshy fingers of Katie’s hand. Her daughter looked up at her reproachfully, her slim pale neck rising out of the white collar on her new dress like a dancer’s, her wet, pink lower lip protruding slightly, threatening to break into a full-fledged quiver at a moment’s notice. Above them a huge blue door loomed, waiting to suck each clinging child from a reluctant adult’s grasp into the nurturing bowels of the Institution. The glass window above the door was stenciled with black and gold letters: Dr. Rawle’s Montessori School for Gifted Children. Alice supposed that the part about the children being gifted was a concession to mothers like herself who were not altogether thrilled by the idea of leaving their offspring in someone else’s care. An elderly woman with hair pulled fiercely back from her temples and eyes so cold that she looked like a moray eel peering from the mouth of her cave, appeared in the doorway and clapped her hands twice, sharply. Katie squeezed her mother’s hand, and Alice had a sudden impulse to scoop her daughter up and run back to the car, to put off nursery school for another year. Then she remembered her prom ise to herself: she would finish her thesis within the year and be ready to start on her career by the time Katie went to a real school. Dr. Rawle’s offered the longest hours and was immensely popular with mothers who wanted jobs; besides, it was supposed to be one of the best nursery schools in the area. “I don’t want to go, Mummy.” Katie looked up with an expres sion exactly like her father’s when he was pleading for something. “Sweetheart, you have to. I promise, you’ll like it. There’ll be lots of other children to play with, and lots of new toys.” Katie gave her mother a skeptical look, but took the Muppets lunchbox from her. “If I don’t like it, I’m not going ever again.” “That’s right, but you have to give it a try first. Now remember what we talkedabout? You’re to be a nice girl, no biting the other children. Biting’s for babies, remember?” “I don’t do that anymore,” said Katie. “I’m a big girl now.” “That’s right, and big girls go to school, so off you go. I’ll be back

here to pick you up later.” Alice gave Katie a hug, and adjusted the hem of her new dress, then pushed her in the direction of the door and the other children, hoping that her daughter wouldn’ t see that she was about to cry. Alice felt horribly guilty at the weightless sense of freedom which crept slowly over her.

By lunchtime Katie had forgotten all about her mother. There were so many new things to do. There were lots of children, and more paints and crayons than Katie had ever seen. She had pasted a picture of a squirrel by the peg with her name on it, so she would always know where to hang her coat, and she had been told that every time she was especially good she would receive an acom sticker to put next to her squirrel. Whoever got the most acoms by the end of the week would lead the other children in the two-by-two crocodile on the way downstairs to lunch. Katie was convinced that next week she would be wearing the blue monitor pin proudly and standing at the head of the group of children. It was not until after lunchtime that she realized how difficult it was to be good in nursery school. They had returned to the classroom, and Katie was cutting out shapes with a pair of plastic-handled, round-ended scissors. She was annoyed because at home she was allowed to use scissors that were sharper than these, and the edges of her shapes were coming out ragged. A little girl with frizzy blond hair approached her and asked, “Can I have the scissors, please?” “No. I’m not finished,” said Katie, holding the dull blades close to her. “I’ll give them back straight away.” “You can have them when I’m done.” Katie turned around and put the scissors down on the table so she could reach for a piece of blue card. When she looked back they were gone, and the frizzy haired girl was skipping across the room with them, tell-tale red handles poking out of her chubby fist. Katie was furious. She marched across the room with her hands on her hips, trying as much as possible to look like her Mummy did when she was angry. 99

“Give me back my scissors,” Katie demanded. “They’re not yours, they’re everybody’s, and I’m using them now. You can have them when I’m done.” Katie felt a surge of temper, and smacked the girl on her frizzy head, trying at the same time to grab the scissors. She almost had them, when the girl let out a terrible shriek. “Miss. Munroe, Miss. Muuuunroooeee...” Katie dropped the scissors, which fell to the floor with a small plastic sound and broke in two. The elderly woman with the painted-on hair appeared through the crowd of children who had circled to watch the fight. She stood before the two girls, an obelisk of authority, and demanded an explanation. “She hit me,” said Frizzy. “She took my scissors.” “She broke them.” All eyes settled on the broken pair of scissors on the floor, incontrovertible evidence that Katie was in the wrong. “Did you break the scissors, Katherine?” Miss Munroe glared with stony grey eyes, and seemed to grow taller and more monumental. Katie tried to plead her innocence, but the scissors lay there, in silent denial. Tearful and shaking, she was led outside theclassroom and into the teacher’s office to be told off.

* The office was a small room that smelled of disinfectant and instant coffee. Two other teachers were there and bored deep angry gazes right through Katie, making her feel very small and naughty. They were dressed in matronly grey tweed suits, and shoes that laced up in the front set on thick, short heels. Katie just stood there, wishing that the woman would say something. When she finally did speak it was not to Katie, but to the other two women. “I wonder what Dr. Rawle would do about little girls who break things and hit their classmates?” The other two old women shook their heads and made disapproving sounds with their tongues. Katie was getting very nervous about what was going to happen to her. She hadn’t meant to 100

be bad, and it was the other girl’s fault for taking the scissors. She wanted to cry, but she was scared that that would only make the situation worse. Getting no answer from the others, Miss Munroe turned back to Katie and petrified the girl with her granite glare. “Well, it’s only your first day, so I suppose we ought to be lenient with you. But you have to remember, you’re to share with the other children, and under no circumstances are you to hit anyone. You wouldn’t want me to ha ve to tell your mother about this, would you? I think you owe Sarah an apology, and when we go back in there, you’re to tell her you’re sorry.” “I’m sorry, Miss Munroe.” Katie felt her breath coming in sharp bursts, but was determined not to cry. “That’s better, but it’s not me you have to apologize to. Now let’s get back to class." Katie was led out of the office under the cold expressionless fish eyes of the old women and marched back into the classroom.

* “There youare! How’s my big girl? Did you have fun at school?” Alice grabbed Katie and picked her up, kissing her on the forehead. “I’m not going back!” “Oh, Katie, come on, it can’t be that bad. Wasn’t it fun playing with all those other children?” “Miss Munroe is a meanie. She told me off.” “Oh, Sweetie, what did you do?” “Nothing. I got cross with a girl who took my scissors, but I got told off and it wasn’t my fault.” “Well, you just stick it out for the rest of the week, and then we’ll see if you still want to leave.” Alice opened the door to the car and helped Katie into her safety harness. She was relieved that Katie wasn’t crying like some of the children were, and confident that by the end of the week Katie would be willing to submit to an authority other than her parent’s.

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“Give me back my scissors,” Katie demanded. “They’re not yours, they’re everybody’s, and I’m using them now. You can have them when I’m done.” Katie felt a surge of temper, and smacked the girl on her frizzy head, trying at the same time to grab the scissors. She almost had them, when the girl let out a terrible shriek. “Miss. Munroe, Miss. Muuuunroooeee...” Katie dropped the scissors, which fell to the floor with a small plastic sound and broke in two. The elderly woman with the painted-on hair appeared through the crowd of children who had circled to watch the fight. She stood before the two girls, an obelisk of authority, and demanded an explanation. “She hit me,” said Frizzy. “She took my scissors.” “She broke them.” All eyes settled on the broken pair of scissors on the floor, incontrovertible evidence that Katie was in the wrong. “Did you break the scissors, Katherine?” Miss Munroe glared with stony grey eyes, and seemed to grow taller and more monumental. Katie tried to plead her innocence, but the scissors lay there, in silent denial. Tearful and shaking, she was led outside the classroom and into the teacher’s office to be told off.

The office was a small room that smelled of disinfectant and instant coffee. Two other teachers were there and bored deep angry gazes right through Katie, making her feel very small and naughty. They were dressed in matronly grey tweed suits, and shoes that heed up in the front set on thick, short heels. Katie just stood there, wishing that the woman would say something. When she finally did speak it was not to Katie, but to the other two women. “I wonder what Dr. Rawle would do about little girls who break things and hit their classmates?” The other two old women shook their heads and made disapproving sounds with their tongues. Katie was getting very nervous about what was going to happen to her. She hadn’t meant to 100

be bad, and it was the other girl’s fault for taking the scissors. She wanted to cry, but she was scared that that would only make the situation worse. Getting no answer from the others. Miss Munroe turned back to Katie and petrified the girl with her granite glare. “Well, it’s only your first day, so I suppose we ought to be lenient with you. But you have to remember, you’re to share with the other children, and under no circumstances are you to hit anyone. You wouldn ’ t want me to have to tell your mother about this, would you? I think you owe Sarah an apology, and when we go back in there, you’re to tell her you’re sorry.” “I’m sorry. Miss Munroe.” Katie felt her breath coming in sharp bursts, but was determined not to cry. “That’s better, but it’s not me you have to apologize to. Now let’s get back to class.” Katie was led out of the office under the cold expressionless fish eyes of the old women and marched back into the classroom.

“There youare! How’s my big girl? Did you have fun at school?” Alice grabbed Katie and picked her up, kissing her on the forehead. “I’m not going back!" “Oh, Katie, come on, it can’t be that bad. Wasn’t it fun playing with all those other children?” “Miss Munroe is a meanie. She told me off.” “Oh, Sweetie, what did you do?” “Nothing. I got cross with a girl who took my scissors, but I got told off and it wasn’t my fault.” “Well, you just stick it out for the rest of the week, and then we’ll see if you still want to leave. ’’ Alice opened the door to the car and helped Katie into her safety harness. She was relieved that Katie wasn’t crying like some of the children were, and confident that by the end of the week Katie would be willing to submit to an authority other than her parent’s.

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* The old women sat in the office, drinking camomile tea in their lacy Victorian nightgowns. The janitor had left, and they felt free to roam around the building in deshabille. The school was quiet again, the high ceilings echoing with the absence of high-pitched children’s voices. The scratches caused by scuffling new school shoes had been waxed from the dark brown floor-boards, and the old women sealed themselves off from the outside world with the heavy velvet draperies which covered the tall windows over-looking the street. “Katherine Jensen is a brat,” said Laetitia, pouring more tea from the chipped porcelain pot in front of her. “Come now, it’s only her first day,” said Margot, who had a weakness for the more audacious children. “Respect for authority, that’s what she needs. I’m sure Dr. Rawle would agree with me. You weren’t harsh enough today. Make her an example, that’s what I say. If you don’t put your foot down, she’ll walk all over you, and then the others will follow.” Tamara liked to provide a balance for her sister’s leniency. “Dr. Rawle should remember, they’re still only kids.” The other two women stared at Margot. Dr. Rawle had been a famous child psychologist, a pioneer of child development He had known Freud. His theories had been studied by everyone in his field, and he had written dozens of essays in psychiatric journals. It was inconceivable to them that anything he said should be thought of as less than sacred, the final word. He had been their teacher, their mentor, and he had entrusted them with the continuation of his work and his school. “All I’m saying is give them a few days, to settle in and adjust to being away from their parents. We can’t expect them to conform straight away.” The other two women nodded and made pacified noises. Laetitia poured the rest of the tea into Margot’s cup. “Shall we take the tea upstairs? It’s been a long day, and we’ll all feel better tomorrow if we get a good night’s sleep.” The three old women stood up and pushed their chairs back under the table. With Laetitia leading the way, they walked down the unlit 102

corridor towards the small door which led to the upstairs apartment. Leaving their slippers on the landing inside the doorway, they climbed the narrow attic stairs to their rooms, Margot shutting the heavy door behind them. ♦

“Miss Munroe knows someone who’s a hundred and fifty years old.”

“No one’s a hundred and fifty years old, Katie.” Alice stirred thick, creamy primavera sauce over a blue gas flame. “Miss Munroe knows someone who is.” “Yes.Sweetie.WouldyousetthetableforMummysoI can make the salad?” Katie collected silverware from the kitchen drawers, counting slowly. “One, two, three forks, one, two, three knives.” “You don ’ t need knives for pasta. Can you get us each a big spoon instead?” Alice turned the heat down under the sauce and went to the counter to chop vegetables. A ripe tomato fell into pieces under the swift stroke of her sharp knife. She washed the lettuce and shook the bottle of salad dressing. “Can you go tell Daddy that his garlic bread’s nearly done and dinner’s on the table?” Katie skipped off, singing a repetitive childish chorus in garbled French under her breath and touching the parts of her body that corre sponded to the verses. Alice sighed. Itwasnicetohavetimetocookagain, and to be able to get some work done during the day. She had written thirtyfive pages in the first week of Katie ’sabsence.andit looked like she would finish her thesis after all. Maybe ahead of schedule. Katie even seemed better behaved recently, although Alice attributed this to the exhaustion of playing with other children all day. Katie returned with Michael in tow. Alice set the salad bowl down on the table. “Mmmm. This looks great” Michael snaked an arm around Alice’s waist and kissed her, “I’ll just get the garlic bread out of the oven, and we can eat” The family sat down to enjoy their dinner. Alice smiled as she watched them eating. Even when Katie dropped a forkful of tagliatelle on 103

the table, trying to imitate her father’s spoon-and-fork technique, Alice was happy. She had a lot more appreciation for her daughter now that she wasn ’ t cleaning up after her all day, and the little messes seemed endearing rather than a nuisance.

The children sat on child-sized chairs arranged around a horse shoe shape of low tables. Miss Tamara Wilcox stood in front of them, laboriously copying the alphabet onto the blackboard in capital letters. Every now and then she would snap her head around on a neck which seemed surprisingly elastic for her years, and fix her fierce glare onto whichever child she suspected of talking. With the slightest twitch of her tweed suit the children froze like guilty statuary, poised for denial. Katie was kicking the freckled boy next to her under the table. She wanted him to pay attention to her, but he was listening to another boy tell a joke about elephants that she didn't understand. As the boy broke into suppressed giggles, Katie delivered a sharp kicktohisshin, scraping off a layer of skin with her patent leather shoe. At that moment Miss Wilcox turned, pinning Katie to her diminutive chair with a dour and tyrannical scowl. “Katherine Jensen, I saw that. Stand up at once.” Katie stood, feeling sick and humiliated, while the boy next to her inspected the damage to his shin, evidently ascertaining how much sympathy it was worth. “I didn’t mean...” she ventured weakly. “You are an obstinate and unpleasant child. Dr. Rawle believes in only the most severe punishment for undisciplined urchins like yourself. You will stay in here all afternoon and write your alphabet while the class paints.” Tamara paused, gathering momentum, “Look at her, all of you. See what a naughty, disobedient little girl looks like. No one is to talk to her for the rest of the day, or they’ll find themselves being punished also. Katherine, take your exercise book and go sit in the reading comer.” Katie stood, looking out across the faces of her watchful friends. They all registered sympathy, but none were so bold as to smile or give her a sign of encouragement. She picked up her book and went to the comer of the room where she cried onto the blank pages in front of her.

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* The streetlights outside the window were just beginning to turn on, flickering dying orange-yellow light into the room which was greying as the sun disappeared behind the rooftops of the buildings. The table in front of the old women was spread with an assortment of eclectic foods. Wedges of brie oozed, viscous, from under the chalky white skin, pale yellow and salty. A paste of pink cod’s roe held a mouthful of pita bread upright in its dense and fishy mass. Bowls with nuts and pickles lay uncovered, attended by shiny silver forks and nutcrackers. A jar of raw Norwegian herrings in vinegar stood unopened in the center of the table. The old women surrounded the offerings, snatching at morsels, prying the meat from the wooden shells of the nuts and munching on the small sweet innards. “We must consult Dr. Rawle about the Jensen girl.” Tamara spat crumbs of water biscuit and brie with her vehement pronouncement. “She’s disruptive, and we can’t afford to have her ruining the group. She undermines our authority and divides the children.” With this, she reached across the table and grabbed a handful of chestnuts from the dish beside Margot, which she began peeling and stuffing into her mouth. Margot took a breath, readying her defense, but as her sister continued to talk about the girl deliberately kicking her classmate, she decided that maybe Tamara was right. After all, the most important thing was that the group functioned smoothly. Dr. Rawle’s had the most wellbehaved children of any school she knew, precisely because they were the only school which actually expelled children at the age of four. Their philosophy was that by weeding out any potential leaders and troublemak ers, dissidence and rebellion could be avoided. Without ringleaders, the students submitted easily to the authority of the old women, and learned to be well-mannered and charming. “Shall we give her another week, or just get it over with now?" Margot asked, looking up from the pile of papers scrawled with drunkenly staggering letters across the page. “I think we’re going to have to ask Dr. Rawle,” announced Laetitia.

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The other two nodded. Finishing the food in front of them and rinsing the plates and silverware, they followed Laetitia out the door and up into the attic apartment

* “Would you like me to read you a story, pumpkin? Or would you like to hear one of Daddy’s special stories about when he was a little boy?” “Special story,” said Katie, snuggling a wom pink bunny with one eye missing into the crook of her arm. “Well, how about the time Daddy put Vaseline on all the door handles at school, and his class had to leave by the fire escape because the doors were too slippery to open.” Katie grinned, it was one of her favorites. “Tell me from the beginning.” “Okay, well, once there was a little boy called Michael who was very naughty.” “How naughty?” “He was so naughty that his teachers used to beg his parents to keep him home from school.” Michael stroked the fluffy brown baby hair around Katie’s temples. “Daddy, I’m scared of Miss Munroe and both Miss Wilcoxes. I don’t want to go to school anymore.” “Katie, Sweetie, everyone’s scared of their teachers. It’s normal. I bet she’s big and tall with grey hair and huge teeth. You know, even when he was being naughty, Michael was always a bit scared of his teachers. But when he grew up and saw them again, he saw that they were just people like everyone else. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” “I don’t want to go back. Mummy said that if I didn’t like it I didn’t have to go.” Michael thought about his wife, downstairs waiting for him. It was so wonderful to have her back again. For the last four years he felt as if she had been stolen from him. By the time he came home she was exhausted, and she had been trying to fit in her work as well, leaving him with the tired and empty shell of a woman in the evenings. He had brought her roses today to celebrate her emancipation, and a boule of white wine 106

was chilling in the fridge for later. “Katie, you’re a big girl now. You’ll always still be my baby, but you have to go to school. You’ll get used to it, it’s not so bad. Why don’t we have some of your friends over for tea this week? That’ll be nice.” Katie yawned. She felt her father’s lips and his rough chin against her forehead. “Okay, Daddy. I’ll try to be good and not get into trouble so much.” “There’sagoodgirl. 'Night,‘night.” Michaeltumcdoutthelight and headed downstairs to uncork the wine.

In the apartment, the three old women crowded around the bedroom dresser. Against each of the side walls, and running parallel down the center of the room were three beds, made with hospital precision, jutting into the room like stark white teeth in a gigantic mouth. The women jostled and nudged each other, spilling conflicting scents of lavender and elderflower. Laetitia had lodged herself firmly in the presiding seat, and was trying to maintain her position on it while the other two clamored for glimpses of their reflections in the minor. She began picking pins from her bun, one by one, piling them up like some sort of rodent boneyard. Finally, with a shake of her head, she sent the entire grey mass falling over her thin shoulders, and began brushing it furiously, counting the strokes to one hundred. Margot smeared thick pale green cream into herskin, smoothing it down her neck and under the collar of her nightgown with splayed fingers. Each absorbed in her toilette, the old women fussed and muttered, primped and preened, until Laetitia announced, “Let’s go." Immediately the three women fell in line, following Laetitia as she led them into their living room. On the table a thick candle of yellow wax burned with a smoky flame. The old women, wearing white cotton nightdresses with their hair brushed loose, falling in strands around wrinkled skin, circled a covered mahogany box. Inhaling a deep breath of dusty air, Margot began to chant, her ancient vocal chords releasing a throaty vibrato. Laetitia and Tamara 107

joined her, harmonizing with the pentatonic scale. Raising her arms to waist height, Margot swept the embroidered cloth from the surface of the box and heaved open the heavy wooden lid. It fell on its hinges and thudded against the side of the coffin. The embalmed face of Dr. Rawle stared up at them with glass eyes bluer than they had ever been in life. His skin was taut against his bones, aged and crisp like old paper. “Friedrich,” whispered Margot, “Friedrich, we need your advice.”

The corpse lay still, swathed in white satin. Gently, Margot began to stroke the hand which, resting on its partner, covered the darkly clad stomach of Friedrich Rawle.

“Katie, don’t make me angry! I said you’re going to school, and that’s final.” Alice tried once again to push the little girl’s arm through the sleeve of the duffel coat. She was just beginning to get frustrated, and she felt herself twist Katie’s arm harder than she should have. Katie yelped, turned, and bit down firmly on her mother’s arm, her milk teeth digging into flesh, piercing skin. Alice glared at her. “Katherine Jensen, I thought I told you never to do that again." Katie looked up, sheepishly, realizing she had escalated the conflict one step too far. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Well, I hope you’re sorry. Look at this, you drew blood. And we’re going to be late for school. Come on, get into your coat and let ’ s go. ” Recognizing that at least she wasn’t being punished as severely as usual for biting, Katie allowed herself to be helped into her coat and pushed down the front hall to the door. They drove to the nursery school in silence, Katie making grooves in her lunchbox with a fingernail. When they arrived, the doors were still open and a few children still being ushered into the building by Tamara Wilcox. Katie stopped picking at the lunchbox and folded her hands politely in her lap at the sight of Miss Wilcox, as Alice pulled up in front of the school. “I’m sorry, Sweetie. Have a good day, okay? I’ll be here to pick you up.” Alice unlocked the car door while Katie disentangled herself 108

from her seatbelt, then leant over and kissed her daughter on the top of her head. “Be a good girl.” She watched until Katie was safely inside the building, then drove home, examining her arm and the darkening crescent of scabs as she turned the wheel.

Margot beamed down on the children with her heavily creased moon-face. Standing in the doorway she addressed each one as they entered the room, trying to remember names. She was about to close the door when she saw Katie Jensen running, red-faced from the cloakroom. She stopped the girl at the door. “It’s alright, no need to rush, calm down. You’re the one we had some trouble with the other day, aren’t you?” Katie nodded, feeling as if she would never be forgiven. She was already feeling bad about Mummy’s arm, and it seemed that last week’s misdemeanors were not to be forgotten either. She had decided not to do anything naughty today. She wouldn’t even talk to anyone. To her surprise the younger Miss Wilcox looked quite kind this morning. She nudged Katie and said, “Don’t worry, I think they’re going to give you a second chance.” Katie slid past Miss Wilcox and into a seat behind the upright piano. The boy whose shin she had kicked scowled at her from the seat in front, and pointed to the Winnie the Pooh band-aid which covered his wound, but Katie stared straight ahead primly, waiting for the music to begin. Miss Wilcox sang with gusto, “Oh, the grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again.” Katie sang along, out of obligation, but deliberately ignored the boys who pulled and pushed, trying to tip each other’s chairs over as they sang, “and when they were down, they were down.” It didn ’ t seem to matter anyway, Miss Wilcox was in such a good mood that she ignored the boys completely, banging away at the old yellow ivory keys.

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“I hope Friedrich isn’t going to make a habit of this leniency,” said Laetitia, scowling, as she stirred her coffee. From the next room came the gregarious sound of Margot’s piano, which was trying Laetitia’s nerves. “And I don’t think this music is appropriate either, after all, we’re supposed to be turning these children into well-behaved members of society, not rousing a rabble.” Tamara nodded, grimly. “That scolding you gave the Jensen girl didn’t do any good. She was late today. It’s just like I said, you give them an inch and they take a mile.” The two women sat in silence listening to the barely suppressed giggles from the room next door. “This can’t be what Dr. Rawle wants. Surely when he sees what’s happening, he’ll change his mind. It’s only fair, after all, we’re the ones who have to deal with the children, not him. We must protest if he tries to indulge Margot again with her stupid whims.” “You’re right,” replied Tamara. “We must plan another session soon, and no more pandering to Margot’s gentle nature. It’s for their own good.”

The women sighed in agreement and took up their red pens to correct the children’s renditions of the alphabet. Soon they were content edly scribbling, straightening letters and dispensing tiny gold stars on the better work. Their cups of coffee grew cold beside them, a film of grey sediment clinging to the sides of the cup, and forming thin layers of scum over the surface. Next door the children were marching up and down the classroom, first on tip-toe, then crouched, close to the ground.

“Mummy tells me that you had a disagreement this morning, is that right?” Michael hated being the authority figure, but Alice had wanted him to talk to Katie so she knew that they were serious. Katie didn’t say anything; she splashed sullenly at the bathwater, capsizing her toy boat against the porcelain cliff with a tidal wave. “She said you bit her, Katie. 110

Do you remember when we talked about biting?” Katie nodded. Itwasn’t fair, she had been so good in school all day, but no one cared now. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean to.” Michael looked at her and saw his own eyes looking back at him, his own pout. Suddenly he couldn’t bring himself to be angry with her anymore. “Come on, then. Let’s see if we can get that shampoo out without getting it in your eyes. I’ll tell Mummy that you’re sorry and you won’t do it again, but you have to promise me, no more mischief.” Katie grinned and tipped her head back so that Michael could scoop water onto it. Carefully, making sure not to let any trickle onto her face, he rinsed the suds out of her hair.

Margot sat on her bed, barely creasing the tightly bound sheets, while the other two women preened themselves in front of the mirror. “I don’t see why we need another consultation. After all, just yesterday he said that we should give her a chance, and be more lenient in general.” “Well, that was yesterday,” said Laetitia, not turning, but looking into the mirror at Margot’s reflection, “and besides, he’s always too soft when he talks to you. Tonight we’ll go through Tamara or me, to get some balance.” “But we did it the same way as always, it was my turn. You’re just jealous because he agreed with me.” “Well, we’U ask him again, and he can still agree with you if he really meant it.” Tamara pulled at the satin bow around her throat, loosening her neckline and exposing the ridges of her collar-bone. She dusted the skin of her throat with white talcum powder, which settled in her wrinkles and was caught by the soft down which covered her flesh. Laetitia, frowning over her shoulder, rearranged her tresses so they fell over each shoulder like a grey shawl. This evening Tamara led the way into the living room, followed closely by Laetitia, and reluctantly by Margot. The box had been re-covered from the night before, and the women circumambulated it, staring each other down across the ornate Ill

embroidery. Margot pulled three cards from her pocket, which she shuffled under pertinent gazes from the other two. Laying them down on the red velvet, she allowed her companions to choose. The room was quiet except for the sound of Tamara sliding her card across the crushed velvet cover. For a moment there was complete silence, then a release of breath from Laetitia as the card was flipped to reveal the curious smile of a oneeyed jack. Like a snake striking its victim, Laetitia snatched at one of the two remaining cards and turned it triumphantly, revealing the queen of hearts. Margot tucked the cards back in her pocket. With curtains drawn against the night, and the room tormented by the unsteady wavering of candlelight, the women stood, Margot and Tamara flanking Laetitia in an aberrant trinity. Laetitia closed her eyesand began to shake while the other women held her convulsing body upright. A low growl welled from her throat, tumbling in guttural bubbles over her larynx. The flames of the candles, disturbed by the vibrations in the air, flickered faster, making spirals of smoke which coiled upwards to the ceiling. The growl became louder, as Margot and Tamara struggled to support the weight of their companion as she writhed in their grasp. With a scream which forced the air from her lungs, she broke their grasp, then fell, gasping for breath, to the floor. The two women regarded her silently for a few moments before kneeling down and helping her to her feet. In the coffin the body of Dr. Rawle remained, unshaken by the commotion, preserved and rouged in his morning suit, eyes fixed at the ceiling, forever unblinking.

A few miles away, undisturbed by the ritual of her teachers, Katie Jensen lay sleeping in bed. Nestled in flowered sheets and mohair blankets, she held the lop-eared pink bunny under a chubby arm and slowly sank her tiny teeth into its woolly fur.

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