Soul/Mate

by Joyce Carol Oates

  But why do the bastards any favors?

  Also, Colin was getting absorbed in matters up here. Looking for a job. Making contacts. Making the right connections.

  It did not worry him in the slightest that police might in some way trace him … as if they could trace his footprints in the sand leading them right to him! Not once since the age of fifteen, when he had first killed, or been forced to kill, had Colin Asch been linked to any of his murders; so far as he knew (admittedly, he could not absolutely know), his name had never been on any list of police suspects. The police, like everyone else, or nearly everyone (for there was the one tenth of one percent who stood apart from the herd), were just too stupid.

  Colin Asch had in fact always relied upon the world’s stupidity as a factor in his own talent. Amid a herd of slow-witted bovine beasts he was a leopard capable of running at speeds up to seventy-five miles an hour—a flash of burnished flaming light. In Florida he had not been rushed; he had been methodical as always, knowing that, as soon as he returned to his car and drove away, he could enter the Blue Room and float weightless there for miles, hours, in an utter bliss of childlike innocence; thus he followed his self-prescribed stratagem of the Baffle … meaning that he deliberately, and with boyish pleasure, fucked up the scene. He dragged the body into a scrubby littered area behind the rest rooms (scolding it for its heaviness and its inclination to snag on tree roots, bushes, and the like, as if even in death Block was being uncooperative) and there pinned a page torn out of a magazine from Block’s car onto Block’s sweater, reasoning that, when police discovered the body, they would think that the photograph on the page (of AIDS patients in a Washington clinic) had some relevance to the victim’s death. Next he found several lipstick-stained cigarettes where someone had dumped them in the gravel, and these he tossed into the Toyota, on the floor by the passenger’s seat and in the rear. A condom from his own wallet he tore out of its foil wrapper and tossed both condom and wrapper into the back seat. Then, with Block’s car keys, he scratched nonsensical letters and zodiac signs on the hood of the Toyota; then locked the car doors; and, still not hurrying (though a car with Georgia license plates, heavily weighted with children, had just driven into the rest area to park some distance away), he wiped the surface of the Toyota everywhere his fingerprints might conceivably be found. Then he got into the red ’87 Mustang and drove away—and did indeed enter the Blue Room almost immediately, sucked breathless into it, like a soul into heaven.

  3

  Poor man, Dorothea Deverell thought, staring. But surely he can’t be totally blind? Out by himself like this?

  The gentleman in question, a timid rather stooped figure in dark glasses, wearing a tweed cap, a loosely belted trench coat, and unbuckled galoshes, was making his way across the foyer of the Brannon Institute, tapping the marble floor with a white-tipped cane and following at a slant in the wake of others entering the recital hall; it was nearly 4 P.M. of a dark wintry Sunday at the end of November, and people had come to hear, in larger numbers than Dorothea Deverell had dared hope, the British soprano Natalya Lowe sing Schumann, Brahms, and Poulenc. Always anxious before such events (as indeed before any event that might be said to be her responsibility or, in retrospect, her fault), Dorothea found herself more anxious than usual this afternoon: a pitiable figure, no doubt, to those who knew her, in her elegantly cut black silk dress with the high neckline and the countless shimmering pleats. There were pearls screwed into her ears, and pearls around her slender neck, and she was very pale and smiled steadily. She had worried that no one would show up for the recital, though the event was advertised as free. She had worried that Miss Lowe, known to be temperamental, would not herself show up. Or that her accompanist would raise further objections to the conditions of the recital hall and the piano he was obliged to play. (This high-handed individual had decided, late Friday afternoon, to reject the Institute’s Steinway concert grand, insisting that another be rented for the performance.) And Roger Krauss, who hated Dorothea Deverell, had come, with another trustee and his wife; and Charles Carpenter, who loved Dorothea Deverell, had not yet come—and perhaps would not. Standing by the entrance, smiling and waving and calling out greetings to friends, she felt her heart congealing to ice; she could not have been more uneasy if she herself were going to sing. And it was all so absurd. And so excessive. And futile.

  Which of the philosophers was it who observed that the natural bent of things is toward chaos, and that order itself is unnatural? For there is only one way for things to go ideally, and any number of ways for things to go wrong.

  Seeing that the man in the dark glasses was headed waveringly in her direction, Dorothea quickly came forward to assist him. “Sir? May I?”

  Though startled, he acquiesced immediately to her hand on his arm, smiling inside his gingery-gray beard and murmuring, “Ah! Thank you! You’re very kind.” Had he been standing at his true height he would have been a head taller than Dorothea Deverell, but he walked in a hunched, crablike manner; it would have been difficult to determine his age. Not young, certainly. But how old? As Dorothea led him slowly down the wide center aisle of the hall and to a choice seat in the third row he apologized for being a nuisance; he wasn’t, he said, totally blind, but had a fair amount of vision in his left eye, at least if the light was good; most of the time he had no difficulty getting around.

  “You aren’t a nuisance,” Dorothea protested. “We’re very happy to have you here.” In her excitable mood she spoke almost gaily; she had no idea what she said. (For perhaps Charles Carpenter had arrived by now? was watching her help a blind man settle into his seat?)

  Though Dorothea would have liked to flee, the man in the dark glasses unexpectedly thrust out his hand at her and said, “My name is Lionel Ashton—may I ask yours?”

  “Dorothea Deverell,” Dorothea said.

  Mr. Ashton did not release her hand quite so quickly as she might have wished; his grip was strong. He had heard of her, he said; didn’t she have something to do with the Brannon Institute, wasn’t she well known in Lathrup Farms? He squinted frowningly up at her through the smoky black lenses of his glasses; you could see nothing of his eyes inside. In the foyer he had seemed timid and hesitant, but he exuded a curious sort of authority now, bent upon deterring Dorothea though he sensed her eagerness to hurry off. His voice was husky as if unnaturally lowered and much of his face was concealed, by the glasses, and the tweed cap (in style though not in quality resembling a British workingman’s cap) pulled low over his forehead, and the bristling little beard that reminded Dorothea of a Scotch terrier’s fur. How odd that I have never seen him here before, Dorothea thought. When she finally excused herself to back away, he called after her, “Thank you again, Miss Deverell! I’m not a man who forgets kindness!”

  It was just past 4 P.M. and the recital hall was agreeably filled. Dorothea dismissed the girls who were handing out programs in the foyer and remained to hand them out herself to last-minute stragglers. But there were few. She stood smiling vaguely toward the front doors, waiting. As she so often waited. Perhaps I am of that breed of women uniquely qualified for waiting, she thought. Behind her the doors of the recital hall were shut; after a pause the first vigorous notes of Schumann’s “Widmung” were sounded; a powerful soprano voice, so much larger than life, seized control of all imaginations. That is the way to do it, Dorothea thought, staring toward the entrance. Though she had signed on Natalya Lowe for this engagement back in March and had been quite pleased at the prospect of bringing the soprano to Lathrup Farms, in Dorothea Deverell’s own Sunday afternoon recital series, now, she scarcely heard—

  The outer doors opened another, final time, and two Lathrup Farms matrons, sumptuously clad in fur coats and hats, hurried inside, bearing with them a bone-chilling gust of air.

  Dorothea Deverell took her place inside, at the rear of the little hall, sitting alone, hands clasped on her knees. She was thinking that since Roger Krauss had begun his systematic campaign ag
ainst her she had become conscious of doing many things wrong.

  It was like proofreading for the dozenth time a passage of her own careful prose to discover, to her chagrin, that she’d made a typographical error of the most blatant kind.… The other day, doing galleys for next season’s calendar, she had come upon “arists” where “artists” was meant. And she had read this so many times.… The error was trivial yet it filled her with dread: for if the eye trickily fills in where there is a significant absence, what does that portend for our reading of the world? and our sense of ourselves in the world?

  Where previously, at the Institute, Dorothea had carried on in a bliss of well-being, assuming that, underpaid as she was and uncomplainingly overworked, she had the general support of the community behind her, now she supposed that was not the case at all and never had been. She was well liked, of course—how many times had people said, conspicuously in her hearing, Isn’t Dorothea Deverell marvelous!—but she was liked as other civic-minded women in the community were liked, and her talents, such as they were, set beside those of a man—any man?—were likely to be discounted. In this affluent suburban village many women, the wives of prominent citizens, exerted themselves in volunteer work; yet their exertions were likely to be erratic, unreliable, and even, in certain comical instances, seasonal. With these, Dorothea Deverell was surely lumped: which was, she supposed, no one’s fault but her own. For in what ways am I different?

  She was keenly aware too of the many missteps and blunders of her daily life. Returning from the grocery store with fruit already bruised, overpriced items she must have selected without seeing. Mislaying things, losing things. Forgetting things. Spilling things. Allowing herself to be cheated in stores because she was absentminded, inattentive … for her life pushed forward in its subterranean way with little vigilance and self-protection. She believed, at times, that she was under the spell of an interior voice she did not quite recognize: chiding, nagging, questioning, narrating. The voice passed judgment on Dorothea Deverell, and this judgment had the power to silence her. Ah, what would it be, Dorothea thought, to have the confidence to so powerfully (yet tenderly) declare oneself to the world as the soprano Natalya Lowe declared herself? (Miss Lowe was now singing Poulenc’s beautiful little cycle “Tel Jour, Telle Nuit.”) Does the power of one’s voice come first, or is confidence required for power? Dorothea wondered.

  Over the telephone Charles Carpenter, to whose elusive figure Dorothea Deverell’s hopes for “emotional happiness” were affixed, had murmured apologetically that he would not know until the last minute if he could come to the recital. “If I’m not there—I suppose I won’t be coming,” he had said. Dorothea laughed. “Your logic is amazing.” “But I do want to come. You know I do.” Adding, after a wistful pause, “Just to see you, Dorothea.” Carelessly, Dorothea Deverell said, “Ah, Charles, you can see me any time!”

  When the recital ended and Miss Lowe and her accompanist were warmly applauded, Dorothea woke from her trance and applauded happily with the rest. Despite her distracting thoughts she had noticed that the middle-aged singer, still flamboyantly beautiful, or at any rate “striking,” had developed a slight hoarseness at lower levels; and her upper register of passion and substance seemed rather willed—if not frankly simulated. In the middle range Natalya Lowe was most effective; thus in the middle range she poured out her soul, or gave a convincing impression of doing so. In any case we are an audience of amateurs and not difficult to please, Dorothea thought. She clapped and clapped until her hands stung.

  Overall, she was so pleased with the event she had herself arranged that she did not even dread the wine and cheese reception to follow, at which Dorothea Deverell would function as hostess for two hundred-odd people. The color had returned to her cheeks, the light to her eyes. The dry cleaner’s had done a superb job with her black silk dress. She had forgotten her enemy Roger Krauss entirely. She had forgotten the importunate blind man whose grip had been so insistent. She had forgotten—almost—that Charles Carpenter had again disappointed her.

  Next day at noon, crossing the small park attached to the Institute (the Morris T. Brannon Institute was housed in the English Tudor mansion that had been the home of the wealthy industrialist-philanthropist Josiah Brannon, and the property included several acres of land), Dorothea happened by chance to notice a solitary figure on one of the park benches … bareheaded, very blond … in a patch of wintry sunshine, The Selected Poems of Shelley in his hands. It was the very paperback edition Dorothea had owned since college, thus the cover was familiar; and familiar, too, the young man who sat so intently reading. He was long-limbed, lean, boyish, with a bright blue scarf around his neck and a soiled sheepskin jacket: ah, Ginny Weidmann’s nephew Colin. Dorothea hesitated, wondering if she should say hello; but he was so absorbed in his book and had not seen her. Dorothea Deverell was the kind of person, inexplicably shy at selected times, who, seeing even old friends and acquaintances on the street, was inclined to turn quickly away if she herself had not been detected.

  Afterward, however, she thought of the young man with pleasure: so romantically alone, in a chilly deserted park, in the middle of the day, reading the poems of Shelley! I envy him, I suppose, she thought.

  That night she felt urged to telephone Ginny Weidmann, to thank her, belatedly, for the dinner party; and to apologize for not having telephoned sooner. As a single woman in a world dominated by couples Dorothea Deverell could not dispel the notion that any social invitation made to her was proffered out of kindness, if not charity; she had to keep in check a propensity for excessive, guilty gratitude. But Ginny Weidmann was primarily interested in critiquing Agnes Carpenter’s behavior that evening—like other Lathrup Farms women, she did rather resent the fact that Agnes Carpenter was Charles Carpenter’s wife, now that the woman had grown so charmless, and so unapologetic as well. “I simply can’t forgive her for attacking my nephew after I’d confided in her, in her and in all of you, about his—his sensitivity,” Ginny said. “The poor boy has had breakdowns, he’s been hospitalized, and he has made such a—I really don’t think it’s excessive to say he has made a valiant effort, a heroic effort, to live hi the world. The vegetarianism is only a phase, I’m sure, and it isn’t after all criminal.”

  There was a pause. Dorothea too felt a thrill of maternal, or perhaps sisterly, solicitude for the beleaguered young man. “How is he?” she asked. “I assume he’s staying with you and Martin for a while?”

  Unhearing, with passion, Ginny said, “How do you think Charles endures that woman? He is such a superior human being himself—but I do think he carries loyalty rather too far, don’t you? There is something so annoyingly old-fashioned about Charles Carpenter, don’t you think?” Dorothea murmured mere sound: neither assent nor dissent. The subject of Charles Carpenter, as conversation, filled her with a profound unease. Ginny plunged on. “Martin believes that Charles is a ‘desperately stoical’ man and that it is his religion that keeps him from divorcing her. These old Episcopalian families, these stubborn old Bostonians!”

  Dorothea thought, Charles Carpenter is no more religious than I am. She said, “Well, you can see that Agnes was a very attractive woman at one time. She still would be, in fact, if—”

  “Oh, Dorothea! Just stop!” Ginny said. “You carry that sort of thing too far!”

  What sort of thing? Dorothea Deverell wondered.

  Ginny Weidmann went on to speak in a hostess’s effusive terms of Jerome Gallagher, who had been “quite taken” with Dorothea—“As I’d predicted, Dorothea; why were you so worried?”—and of her glamorous young friend Hartley Evans: “Isn’t Hartley beautiful? Just so—sharp and quick and contemporary. She telephoned last week to ask if Colin might be willing to be interviewed on one of the television station’s talk shows, about his animal rights work and vegetarianism. Martin and I were delighted—Colin needs to be involved more with the world, the work-a-day ‘real’ world—and to our surprise he agreed. ‘If you give me mora
l support, Aunt Ginny,’ he said. He’s such a shy boy at heart, but as you might have noticed he can be amazingly articulate, even eloquent, at times. And he’s smart. He hopes to get a job in the public sector of some kind, so meeting people at Hartley’s station will be a step in the right direction, we think—actually, he happened to mention just sort of casually that he had been an assistant to a German public television producer in Heidelberg, a sort of American consultant, I gather. Isn’t he remarkable, really? And so sweet.”

  Dorothea said, as if she had been bullied into it, “Yes.”

  “He’s going to be staying with Martin and me for a white—there are so many excellent universities and art schools and God knows what all else in this area, and he intends to go back to school in a year or so. The awkward thing is, he hasn’t much money but he doesn’t want to be a burden on us. Becoming an orphan at the age of twelve was probably more traumatic in certain ways than having been an orphan at birth would have been, since the boy has his pride after all.”

  “Yes,” Dorothea said, not certain that this was true but for some reason keen upon pursuing the subject. “But does he have many friends? Girlfriends?”

  Ginny said, “No—and yes. Because he’s so itinerant he doesn’t have friends in the usual sense, I mean they’re all scattered, but as soon as he settles down he starts attracting them. Hartley, for instance—she’s such a sophisticated young woman, but she seems quite taken by Colin.” She paused. “I do wish he’d find the right girl and marry her. I’m conventional enough to think that might be the only solution to his problem.”

  “His problem?”

  “The trouble is, Colin is so damned trusting. He’s an idealist. He has always wanted people to be perfect, and when that doesn’t work out he becomes disillusioned, sometimes bitterly. I’m not clear on the details, but evidently when he was living with one of his father’s brothers in Baltimore and going to college—the state university, not Hopkins; he’d applied at but been rejected by Hopkins, which hurt him a great deal; after all, he is so bright!—he was involved with a man or men later arrested for drug dealing, and check forging, and somehow poor Colin got roped in with the others and actually arrested. It was a mistake of course and the charges were later dropped but it was upsetting. And there were other things,” Ginny said vaguely, thoughtfully, “other unfortunate incidents that grew out of his naïveté. In some respects, you see, Colin Asch is still a child. An unspoiled, natural child. What is that European term, it applies to children abandoned in the wilds, and brought up by animals—”