A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Naomi thought, with horror—Could they be lovers?

  The way in which Madelena observed Kinch, that was clearly affectionate, yet exasperated; her unease in his presence, that shaded into a kind of dread, or into emotional anticipation, a kind of gaiety—this did suggest a history even more complex, Naomi thought, than with the courtly white-haired Laslov.

  And the more closely you considered Kinch’s young-old face, the more likely it seemed that Kinch was older than he appeared at first glance. There were fine, near-invisible lines at the corners of his ruined eyes, and his hair was graying and receding from his forehead. Naomi noted that the fingers on both Kinch’s hands were nicotine-stained. His wide, sensuous mouth was not a young mouth. If the sexes were reversed it would not be at all bizarre to suspect that a vigorous and attractive man in his seventies might be having an affair, or some sort of emotional entanglement, with a woman in her mid-fifties.

  Of course, they’d met years before. When both had been younger, and Kinch had not been so incapacitated. Naomi supposed.

  In his kindly-teacher mode Kinch inquired of Naomi how old she was, and where was her home in Michigan; were her university courses exciting and challenging to her; what were her plans for after graduation, and—“What is your life’s passion? Have you stumbled upon it yet, or are you still searching?”

  “I—I don’t know yet,” Naomi said. Life’s passion was a daunting term.

  She tried to deflect Kinch’s interrogation by speaking with enthusiasm of the New York City Ballet, exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum, the documentary by the Israeli filmmaker. Walking with Madelena in Central Park in a light-falling snow . . . (Or was this a blunder? Thoughtless? For Kinch could not walk with anyone in Central Park in a light-falling snow.) She was feeling slightly panicked trying even to recall her life back in the Midwest.

  She told Kinch that yes, she’d been “searching”—she guessed. She was nineteen years old and felt sometimes as if she were twice that age, or half that age—“I haven’t been very happy for a while which makes time pass slowly, yet at the same time I haven’t exactly ‘lived’—which makes me immature, stunted. I don’t know what to do with my life that will make any difference to anyone else. I don’t even feel sometimes that it is my ‘life’—it could be anyone’s life, I could be anyone, except that my father died prematurely which makes me different from most people—but Daddy’s death didn’t happen to me, it happened to him.”

  But why had she said Daddy?—a child’s word. Better for her to have said my father.

  She did not want to say My father was killed—“assassinated.” This was claiming too much for herself—a way of raising her voice, to capture attention. Though she supposed that Madelena must have told Kinch such a crucial fact in both their lives.

  With his left, sighted eye Kinch was staring intently at her. He seemed actually to be listening to her. And Madelena too was listening intently though with a kind of apprehension as if dreading what Naomi might utter next.

  “Well, Naomi! You are being very honest. But it isn’t just at age nineteen that one feels as you do—at least, your remark about feeling immature, stunted. And some of us are in fact, as you say—‘immature and stunted’ no matter our age.” Kinch laughed, and began coughing wheezily.

  Madelena asked, in an undertone, if Kinch needed his inhaler and Kinch shrugged irritably, and did not reply.

  “Madelena tells me you are interested in documentary filmmaking? Though ‘film’ is not the correct term any longer, is it?—everything is ‘digital’ today. The beautiful old films of the past will never be replicated . . .”

  At this point Sonia returned with a plate of quartered mangoes to set beside the cheese tray. Kinch looked at her, and at the mangoes, with an expression of disdain.

  “Why on earth are you bringing us these? Take them away, please.”

  This was startling. Had Kinch forgotten he’d sent Sonia away to prepare the mangoes? Seeing that Madelena did not seem about to intervene, maintaining a discreet neutral expression, Naomi surmised that she must say nothing either.

  Without a flicker of expression dour-faced Sonia retreated.

  “As Baudelaire observed—‘Parfois, j’adore les mangues. Et parfois mangues sicken moi.’”

  He had forgotten, evidently. No one wished to remind him.

  “I know a little of your father’s ‘premature’ death, Naomi. Madelena has told me.”

  Naomi was feeling self-conscious beneath the scrutiny of the left, singular eye. She wished that Kinch would turn his attention back to Madelena; she wished the awkward visit would end, and she could breathe fresher air. She had tried to drink the sparkling water brought to her by Sonia but the water was tepid, and flat; and the glass was scummy.

  Still Kinch was in his kindly mode. You were meant to know that this was a generous, even altruistic mode.

  “‘Pro-choice’—yes! We must honor free will, even if we don’t altogether believe in it. A woman—a girl—must be free to terminate a pregnancy if she wishes. It is abominable and outrageous that the state might curtail this right, like the right to suicide—that is equally precious! In fact, abortion does not seem to me anything but a good, heroic deed. Life is the horror, abortion or miscarriage is the redemption. As Sophocles said so beautifully, ‘Never to have been born is best, but once you’ve entered this world, return as quickly as possible to the place you came from.’”

  Naomi winced, hearing these words so bluntly uttered. This was hardly Gus Voorhees’s belief at all . . .

  “Abortion, miscarriage—these should be more common. Pregnancy is the aberration. Our lives—lives endured in consciousness—are the evolutionary blunder. Considering our absurd ‘central nervous systems’ the wonder is that anyone is ever born.”

  Kinch was speaking vehemently. So worked up, so suddenly, he fumbled for a pack of cigarettes squeezed beside his thin haunch and the side of the motorized chair; he extracted a long parchment-colored cigarette and made a snapping gesture with his fingers, that Madelena should hand him some matches from a nearby table.

  Madelena pleaded: “Please don’t smoke, Kinch. You know how bad it is for your lungs. And I detest the filthy habit.”

  “Many filthy habits are detested, that are nonetheless indulged. Will you hand me the matches, please?”

  “No!”

  “Chère Naomi, will you? This is not your grand-mère’s territory, you know. It is mine.”

  Naomi hesitated. She did not want to offend Madelena.

  “Will you make me call in poor oppressed Sonia, who escaped from a lesser Chekhov play to work at a minimum wage in this country, to perform an act you might perform very easily, by passing me those fucking matches?”

  Naomi wondered why on earth Kinch could not get his matches for himself, since it was no great effort in his motorized chair.

  A signal of disgusted resignation from Madelena freed Naomi to obey Kinch, though she had no wish to obey him.

  With a sigh of sensuous relief Kinch lit his cigarette, exhaling smoke from both nostrils. His milky eye gleamed at Naomi.

  “Your father—‘Augustus Voorhees’ is the rather distinguished-sounding name—was not personally known to me. We might have met—that was entirely possible. Your grandmother might have introduced us. But it did not happen. My loss, I am sure. Among many losses in ‘this disease, my life’—to paraphrase Alexander Pope.” Kinch smiled, and smoked his cigarette. He glanced at Madelena with an expression of solicitude.

  “Of course—Voorhees’s death was indeed ‘premature’—a tragedy. In America, such tragedies are not uncommon. The death of an idealist, a selfless individual. That is the price the individual must pay, pitting himself against the black tide of ignorance and superstition. There is a war in the United States—there has always been this war. Those of us who are rationalists can never win for there is a stronger, more primordial and more spiteful will to American irrationality. What is it—‘my country right or wrong’—that
sick, servile patriotism. And that patriotism is a God-ism, for they are all Christians. All we can hope for is to prevent a total defeat. Pockets of relative enlightenment across the country—the larger cities, where people of education and intelligence have clustered. The rest is a vast wasteland—‘religious’ and ‘patriotic.’ You venture into it at your own peril—so many of them are armed! And they carry their weapons concealed! Even if I were physically strong I would never be an activist like Gus Voorhees. The activist must be willing to die for his cause, and no ‘cause’ is worth dying for—this is what rationalism tells us. My refuge is another, more oblique sort of activism—a quest for truth . . . Madelena, why are you glaring at me like that? I am not going to blurt out any uncomfortable truth at this moment, I assure you.”

  Madelena said coldly, “You’re frightening my granddaughter, speaking so harshly. And it isn’t good for your blood pressure to become over-excited, you must know.”

  Kinch laughed. But it was clear that Kinch was angry.

  “Your blood pressure is low, is it, Professor! Very low, I’m sure—appropriate for one who is barely alive.”

  “Kinch, enough. That is not even true, as well as being insulting.”

  “So? Some untruths are more interesting than truths. And many untruths become truths, in time.”

  “You will drive your visitors away, Kinch. If you are not more hospitable.”

  “I am hospitable! For God’s sake, it is virtually a hospital here—a hospice. You should see my bedroom—my IV line—poor Sonia is entrusted to keep clean. Among other indignities—mine as well as hers.” Kinch fluttered his hands, meaning to be funny. Ashes flew from the parchment-colored cigarette and settled on his clothing and wheelchair.

  “To return to the subject of ‘Voorhees’—as I think we must do.

  “The only demurral I would make regarding the heroic abortion doctor is the absurd sanctification that has followed his death. The man is not a saint, a martyr—he was a fool. Utterly foolish to act as he did, blindly, heedlessly, provoking the enemies of rationality to ‘assassinate’ him—which such assassins are delighted to do. They are desperate people—fundamentalist Christians. You can’t come between a desperate people and their God—they will tear you limb from limb. By definition, a martyr is a fool—the perpetrator of une folie.”

  Madelena was white-faced, furious. Hurriedly she’d set aside her cup of tea and was on her feet.

  “I told you, I won’t have you upsetting my granddaughter, Kinch. You are behaving unconscionably, and I won’t forgive you.”

  “‘Granddaughter’—since when? One might be suspicious, you are playing the loving grand-mère now—so belatedly.”

  “Kinch, enough. You are not amusing.”

  “Oh hell—what’s wrong with what I’ve said? You’ve said as much yourself, to me. Is there a single syllable I’ve uttered, that isn’t glaringly true?”

  “Naomi, come. We’re leaving.”

  But Naomi was already on her feet and eager to leave.

  She’d scarcely been able to breathe since Kinch had begun smoking. She felt sick to her stomach, wanting only to run out of the suffocating apartment.

  This sick, selfish man had said terrible things about her father. In her confusion and distress she would not remember much of what he’d said.

  “Wait, wait! Professor Kein . . .”

  In his motorized chair Kinch followed Madelena and Naomi to the foyer, protesting and muttering to himself. The damned chair drew aggressively close to Naomi’s heels. By this time Sonia reappeared, to remove their coats from the closet without a word.

  Kinch did not follow his departing visitors over the threshold of the doorway but called after them as they hurried to the elevator.

  “Au revoir! A brief and not very satisfying visit, but I hope you will return, ma chère Naomi. Now that you know the way, you might come next time non accompagnée.”

  “FORGIVE ME, NAOMI! I had no idea.”

  In the cramped rear of a taxi returning to 110 Bleecker Street Madelena gripped Naomi’s hand tight. It was surprising to Naomi that the sky was still light—the sun had not yet set—for it had seemed to her that they’d been in Kinch’s airless apartment for a very long time, and it must be nighttime by now. But it was not even dusk.

  “He had promised—he would not behave so badly . . .”

  Madelena was very upset, wiping at her face with a tissue.

  “He is unwell, you see. He has had small strokes. He has threatened suicide, if his health continues to deteriorate. I worry so for him, but I am disgusted with him. He had promised.” Madelena paused, breathing rapidly.

  Saying then, with a heedless air, since Naomi remained so silent, “Well, you see—no one knows—not even my oldest friends—Karl Kinch is my son.”

  Naomi wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Son?

  “My second son. Younger than your father by eleven years.”

  Naomi was speechless. She stared at Madelena openmouthed. Was this known within her family? Why was this not known?

  “No, I haven’t told anyone in the family. You are the first to know.

  “My former husband doesn’t know. Gus may have suspected—from remarks I’d made to him, from time to time . . . I mean, he may have suspected that he had a half-brother. I’d considered introducing them, more than once. Gus would have been thrilled to learn that he had a half-brother and Karl—well, he knew about Gus; fortunately there was such a gap in their ages, Karl couldn’t possibly have felt jealous. Or, if he’d felt jealous, he couldn’t have acted upon it—much.”

  Naomi wasn’t making sense of most of this. She was trying to comprehend: Karl Kinch was Madelena’s son? Which meant: Karl Kinch was her uncle, or half-uncle?

  “Well, I never told anyone. Some friends may suspect—something. But no one knows with certainty. ‘Kinch’ is a name randomly chosen by the father and by me—‘Kinch’ is no one’s surname. The baby—the child—lived with the father’s older sister who was eager to take care of him, in her vast, near-empty apartment on Central Park West. I visited often, but I did not live there. It was rare that I would stay overnight. I have always cherished privacy, solitude—it is the great luxury for a woman! Karl learned young to be utterly independent, indeed rebellious, and to resist authority. Until his health began to deteriorate he was remarkably independent. Of course Karl was brilliant from the start, before he could even read. It has been a kind of fate, his brilliance. Because he is also scattered in his interests, and he is easily bored. You saw how fidgety he is—he has always been that way. He was that way in the womb! He can keep a secret at least, or has kept our secret all these years—I don’t know what will become of him when his health worsens, how he will behave. Those psychotropic medications he takes are very powerful, and can corrode the personality. You might not believe it from today, but Karl is a good, kind, moral person—he is not vindictive or malicious. But when he loses control . . .”

  Madelena was speaking rapidly, gripping Naomi’s hand. Lights from the street rippled across her face like fitful emotions. Naomi was astonished, she had never heard her usually poised and evasive grandmother speak so openly, heedlessly.

  “My life is no one’s concern but my own. I don’t defend myself. Karl has nothing to do with the Voorhees family. It is none of Clement’s business. Karl is mine, exclusively—he has no one else. His father is no longer living but if he were, he wouldn’t be concerned about the state of his offspring. Though he did leave a reasonable amount of money for Karl, in trust.”

  Naomi was still rather dazed thinking: uncle? Half-uncle?

  She was eager to share the news with Darren.

  “I am hoping that you will keep this secret, Naomi. Will you?”

  Naomi murmured yes.

  Reluctantly, yes.

  “You see, Naomi: I am so worried about Karl. He takes medications for MS, and medications for HIV. He has a very fluctuating white blood cell count. His eyesight is worsening. Sometim
es he has such tremors, he can’t hold a pen. He can’t play piano, which he needs badly to do, when he composes. After your father was killed I became vulnerable to—many things . . . And after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, from which some of us have yet to recover . . . I had once been fearless, or so I’d thought. People still say that about me—‘Oh, Madelena is fearless.’ But I know better. I am not fearless at all. I am filled with fear. I loathe myself, that I didn’t try to reason with Gus more—I might have pleaded with him to quit the line of medical work he was in, to channel his idealism and energy elsewhere—anywhere . . . God knows there are plenty of poor people, including children, he might have cared for. I did try a little to reason with him, but not enough. I have been such a great believer in the freedom of others, to choose their own lives. I regret that now. Maybe I could have saved him . . . I can imagine how anxious your poor mother was, all those years. For of course something was going to happen to Gus, eventually. It was terrible, terrible! Those years, and so much fear. Abortion centers were being firebombed, abortion providers were being threatened. And killed. In my dreams even now sometimes I am arguing with Gus. And Gus laughs and tells me to relax, nothing will happen, he will be fine, it’s all exaggerated—remember, Gus would so often say It’s all exaggerated . . . Do you remember? Yes? At the funeral I thought someone might say, as a joke, or rather not as a joke, in Gus’s voice—Hell, it’s all exaggerated. Or, I was thinking, that might be carved on his gravestone—It’s all exaggerated. Naomi, I’m sorry—I don’t know what I am saying. Where are we? Are we almost home?”

  Naomi assured the agitated woman yes, they were almost home.

  The neighborhood had become familiar to her now. She could speak of home. A taxi circling Washington Square Park, making its way to LaGuardia Place and the tall silver towers just beginning to be illuminated from within.