Bellefleur

by Joyce Carol Oates

  So he went away; and she dragged herself up, and managed to dress without glancing in her mirror, and actually went downstairs; and ate what someone gave her; and allowed them to fuss over her, and to tell her about the strikers’ demands—higher hourly wages, better living quarters, better food, legal contracts, attorneys on both sides, but primarily higher wages, much higher wages—as she sat with her head balanced on her neck on her shoulders so precariously, so very precariously, her head brittle as crockery on her neck that had no strength on her shoulders that yearned to slump forward as water yearns to circle, faster and faster, the drain through which it is plunging.

  So she made an appearance downstairs. So she could do it, whenever she liked. Did that satisfy them? Did that answer their anxious questions? She wanted to yawn, and swat them away like flies, and say that everything comes to an end: life ends: there was no point in continuing with the charade.

  Then, moving carefully as an elderly woman, she went back upstairs.

  SHE HAD NOT cried, and would not.

  There was a triumph in that, that she hadn’t weakened; that she felt, really, only indifference. It was pure, it was virginal, her supreme indifference. . . . Hiram and the others might think she was despondent because of the strike, but in fact, as they must have known, Leah had begun to sink into her black mood weeks before. She sank three feet, and rose two; she sank eleven feet, and rose eight; one day she sank thirty feet and did not rise at all. On her chaise longue with a damp cloth over her eyes, too tired even to scream at Germaine, or Nightshade, or whoever it was rattling at the doorknob pleading to be let in, she simply floated, bodiless, at the bottom of a great dark pool of water. She was the drowned Vernon, she was Violet, she was Jeremiah who had been swept away in a flood. What remained of Leah cared to protest nothing.

  And there had been much, that summer, to protest. For somehow it had happened, no one knew exactly how, that the castle was overrun with children. . . . They were all Bellefleurs, the nieces and nephews of distant relatives; cousins many times removed; strangers with the name Bellefleur who had arrived at Lake Noir for the summer, evidently at Leah’s (or Cornelia’s, or Aveline’s, or Ewan’s, or Hiram’s) invitation. If you can’t come yourselves, send your children . . . they will love the lake and the woods and the mountains. . . . So there were, at different times, nine children, and then twelve, and then fifteen. Of course the servants complained bitterly. Edna wept because she was insulted by them, and the kitchen servants wept because the kitchen was a shambles, the groundsmen were furious, the groom complained that Germaine’s pony was being mistreated, Nightshade was hurt (though of course he didn’t let on) by their whispers and giggles; and grandmother Cornelia discovered that several of the visitors had dusky skins and very black eyes, black moist wicked eyes, could they possibly be Bellefleurs, with that sort of blood in them . . . ! One July day when Leah felt reasonably well she had been walking restlessly in the garden when she came upon two children scrambling over each other on the ground, beneath low-hanging evergreen boughs, and she saw to her astonishment that one of them was her nephew Louis, Aveline’s boy, and the other was a girl she had never seen before: a ferret-faced insolent little wench with dark blue eyes and a defiant Bellefleur nose: and both the children were half-naked. What on earth are you doing! Children your age! Get out of here—get out! Leah shouted and clapped her hands, with as much fury as if she’d come upon one of the cats sharpening his claws on a piece of antique furniture.

  But the adults were no better. The adults were worse. Ostensibly to celebrate the success of the Mount Kittery mines, Ewan had thrown open the castle on July 4, and a great crowd of people—invited and uninvited—arrived, and swarmed over the grounds, and gobbled up and drank everything in sight. (Hams, roasts, lobster, caviar, every conceivable sort of salad, fresh-baked breads and rolls and pastries, fruit and cheese, and of course whiskey, bourbon, gin, vodka, wines, brandies, beer and ale on draft. . . . ) Not two weeks later Ewan had another party, a somewhat smaller one, on the lake; and every Friday night now his guests arrived, already merry and braying with drink, men from the sheriff’s department, Nautauga Falls policemen, business friends and acquaintances, smalltime gamblers, the owners of bowling alleys and taverns and roadside restaurants, and their women, all their women, in various stages of intoxication. Ewan had paid a lighting contractor to set up, on the dock, an ingenious mechanism that flashed out onto the dark water all sorts of colored designs: crescent moons, snakes, human silhouettes. There was usually a small band, and dancing, far into the night, and in the morning the beach was littered with sleeping couples and other debris, among which dogs and cats and even, at times, mice and rats prowled boldly. As Leah’s despondency deepened and she spent more and more of her time upstairs, Ewan’s parties became increasingly noisy, and the behavior of his guests—and Ewan’s behavior as well—became increasingly blatant. Lily never attended these parties, of course, claiming that she disliked the loud music and the behavior of the guests, but everyone knew that Ewan didn’t want her, and simply ordered her to remain in her room. Some of the older children attended these parties, unsupervised. There was a brawl between Dabney Rush, a seventeen-year-old Bellefleur from—where was it?—somewhere in the Midwest—and a man said to be a smalltime bookie out of Port Oriskany, allegedly over the favors of a photographer’s model from the Falls; the boy’s face had required thirty-two stitches, but even then he had refused to go home. Some of the parties, begun on Friday night, spilled over onto Saturday, and Saturday night, and broke up late Sunday afternoon, but what could anyone do? Gideon was absent, or indifferent; or perhaps he attended the parties himself; so far as Leah knew, he never challenged his brother. Grandfather Noel and grandmother Cornelia looked the other way, as did Hiram, murmuring, But Ewan feels he has to repay the people who put him into office . . . and he has so many new friends now . . . he was always a gregarious young man. . . . Most astonishing of all, some of Ewan’s guests had asked if they might see Jean-Pierre II, about whom so much was whispered, and the old man consented to appear, in person, down at the lake, smiling a loose, frightened smile, his dead-white skin glaring in the shadows, his eyes darting from side to side. He had even dressed for the occasion in an old loose-fitting frock coat. Ah, is that him . . . ? Is that the one . . . ? So Ewan’s guests whispered, drawing back in awe.

  Leah was angry, but tired; she was very angry, or would have been, if she hadn’t been so tired; so the weeks passed. The jaws devour, the jaws are devoured. . . . In a listless twilight sleep she heard, at a distance, the clarinets and drums and isolated squeals, and wondered idly who they were, those guests of Ewan’s, possessed of such gaiety, such zest. . . . It exhausted her even to listen to them.

  Vernon.

  And Christabel.

  And Bromwell.

  And Gideon.

  And that baby of Garnet’s. That baby. Leah turned her back for a half-moment and the great flapping jabbing bird had appeared: and afterward, on the flagstones, there were coin-sized splotches of blood.

  So many decades earlier, her own father. Killed as a prank on Christmas Eve. She had heard the story so frequently she half-thought she had witnessed the death. On Sugarloaf Hill. But which tree?

  Nicholas Fuhr. Atop Sugarloaf Hill, gazing down at the stunted evergreens. The elfin forest, it was called. They had embraced. They had kissed. Many times. Her hands flat on his chest she had pushed him away, trembling. The memory of his mouth: so warm, damp, loving, living. He might have been her lover, and not Gideon. But she had not loved him, finally; she had not even met him on Sugarloaf Hill. Another girl met him, perhaps. Other girls. Women. There were so many . . . so many women. . . . Nicholas, Gideon, Ewan, and their friends, and their innumerable women. Months ago, or was it only weeks ago, Leah had received a letter from an Invemere woman who claimed that her nineteen-year-old daughter had had an abortion and nearly died, nearly bled to death, right in her room, upstairs in her room, and of course it was Gideon’s f
ault though the girl refused to admit it: would rather die than implicate her lover. Her lover who didn’t love her. But what is that to me, Leah wondered, studying the letter—filled with misspellings, grammatical errors, odd stilted phrases—what is it, even, to Gideon, if he doesn’t love her? Probably he doesn’t remember.

  She didn’t even regret not having gone to Sugarloaf Hill, that day. Nothing would have been changed, probably.

  The doorknob rattled and it was her little girl, her sweet Germaine, begging to be allowed in. Or was it her servant Nightshade. If only, Miss Leah, you will allow me to serve you . . . if only you will allow . . . She turned her head aside and did not hear and in a while the noises ceased. The jaws, the jaws devour. But what is that to me, she thought. She wanted to cry. But could not. She wanted to mourn. But how? And why? What good did it do, exactly? What was the point? She was too practical, too efficient. She was dry-eyed, her skull floated on a dark featureless sea, she was very tired.

  Even when they came to her, unlocking her door with a forbidden key, even when they whispered that Gideon had had an accident out on the highway, she could not weep. She found it difficult, even, to open her eyes. What is that to me, the hoarse parched voice wished to say, but hadn’t the strength.

  The Strike

  Sam, the new foreman, the spokesman for the workers, was a nut-brown youngish man with a small, slick head and a spidery body. He was several inches shorter than Gideon but carried himself so erectly, his head flung back, that it appeared he was staring at Gideon from his own level. Sam’s smile was constant. His teeth flashed, as if with surprise. The Bellefleurs deliberated: was that smile ingratiating, or was it mocking?

  He means well, they murmured.

  He doesn’t at all mean well: he’s a rabble-rouser.

  He speaks with surprising clarity, when you consider . . .

  If this were the old days there would be no problem.

  They say he has studied law. . . .

  He has glanced through magazines and books, he has a stack of newspapers at the rear of the bus, that’s all he has “studied.”

  He is in contact with a union downstate.

  He doesn’t care about the others—he’s only promoting himself.

  Some of the ideas aren’t unreasonable. . . .

  Demands, not ideas. They’re demands.

  It wouldn’t cost much to put in new floors. Cement floors. To clean out that well. . . .

  It’s true, the septic tank is near the well, it must be leaking after all these years. . . .

  Why does he smile so much? Is that a smile?

  He’s frightened of us.

  He’s frightened of Gideon.

  No, he’s mocking us. You can see it, the way his shoulders swing. The way his mustache twitches. . . . Then he goes off, putting his arms around his lieutenants, and they roar with laughter, they don’t even trouble to disguise their hostility, can’t you see it?

  I don’t mind the cement floors, or the well, grandfather Noel said slowly, sucking at his unlit pipe, I don’t even mind fixing up the latrines (in this weather, when the wind blows from that direction, I think I can smell them—or is that my imagination?—across all that distance!), or even buying new mattresses or whatever. Or even giving them more food. Food costs nothing, after all. That kind of food. What I mind, grandfather Noel said, his voice rising, is giving them more money. Because that will escalate season by season.

  And they want a contract.

  We could pick the fruit ourselves.

  All these children running around, let them work for a change: they might be diverted, they might think it was exciting, picking fruit.

  The workers aren’t on strike yet. I don’t think they will strike.

  “Sam” says—if I can imitate the little bastard’s accent—“Sam” says they don’t want to strike, striking is like war, it’s a desperate measure—it’s only resorted to when negotiations fail.

  Meanwhile the fruit is ripening. It’s beginning to rot.

  It isn’t beginning to rot!

  It’s almost beginning to rot.

  Won’t they starve, if they don’t start work and aren’t fed?

  They brought along their own food. In cans and boxes.

  But that won’t last.

  They’re prepared for a wait.

  They prepared for this, coming up here. Sam prepared them.

  In the old days there wouldn’t be any problem. . . .

  They killed what-was-his-name, Barker. Of course they killed him. Somewhere along the road. This new one, Sam, must have killed him.

  We don’t know that he’s actually dead. . . .

  With Barker, there was never any trouble.

  He was reasonable, he knew his way around.

  If they killed him Ewan should arrest them. He should start an investigation.

  It isn’t in his jurisdiction, is it. Another state.

  If he arrested Sam and took him away, we could deal with the rest of them ourselves. Hiram could assemble them and make a speech. . . .

  I don’t know, Hiram said uneasily, that I would exactly want to do that. Because, after all, Sam isn’t the only one.

  He’s the leader. They’ve elected him.

  There are those two or three others, I don’t know their names, he calls them his lieutenants; and there must be eight, nine, ten other men helping to organize this. . . . I have their names somewhere. It’s reliable information. Because not all the workers, of course, like Sam, some of them are worried, as they should be, they’ve been picking for us year after year and they know what to expect, but with these new ideas, going out on strike, going out on strike after having traveled a thousand miles on those rattle-trap buses, well, naturally they’re frightened. So they come to me, on the sly. They give me information. I’m fairly sure it’s reliable but the problem is, everything changes so swiftly, maybe there are twenty-five men directly supporting Sam by now, or maybe some of the others have dropped away, it just goes on and on, how many hours have we been discussing this—

  Striking is like war, it’s a desperate measure, nobody wants to strike because everybody suffers—but if the owners aren’t reasonable—if they aren’t fair-minded—

  The hellish thing is, they arrived late. The telegram said they were unavoidably delayed but I suspected fraud at once—unavoidably delayed, what kind of language is that for fruit pickers!

  Sam picked it out, leafing through one of his magazines.

  I didn’t think they were behaving normally, when they first arrived. Wouldn’t look me in the eye. I’m out there in my overalls bare-headed in the sun, shaking hands and welcoming them back, making a fool of myself, ice water for everyone, noon meal ready, and they told me Barker wasn’t with them any longer, they mumbled and giggled and wouldn’t look me in the eye, then this cocky little bantam in the crimson shirt comes up to me, I’d noticed him watching me, whispering with his friends, he comes up and introduces himself, he’s Sam, he’s their elected representative, doesn’t even want to use the word foreman, he sticks out his hand and forces me to shake it . . . he sticks out his hand. . . . Crimson shirt, crinkly little mustache, hairs growing out of his nostrils and ears. I don’t suppose Ewan could arrest him?

  Not until there’s violence. Until the fighting begins.

  Is there going to be fighting?

  Oh, they’ll attack our own workers—they’ll set fire to the barns—what the hell, they know we can’t stop them—they can sense the attitude you are all taking. Nothing escapes someone like Sam.

  I think you are exaggerating. For one thing—

  The negotiations are a ruse. What they really want is to bring us to our knees. The Bellefleurs, on our knees. They want to see us beg. Because they know they’ve got us: the fruit is ripe, the fruit is going to rot, we can’t handle things the way we used to.

  Remove Sam, and they’d be as docile as ever.

  It’s more than Sam, as I pointed out. It isn’t just Sam. There are even women, f
or Christ’s sake, who are angry about the situation. That jabbering, that shouting you hear—

  I don’t hear anything.

  But it isn’t just Sam. They want him to speak for them. It isn’t just Sam.

  You exaggerate everything.

  You exaggerate.

  There was a sound from the doorway, and they all glanced around to see, peering into the smoky room, old Jean-Pierre himself. He looked somewhat dazed; he was wearing a badly soiled silk dressing gown that hung loose on his emaciated body. Noel stood quickly, to offer his brother a chair, but the old man remained motionless, blinking.

  Is there trouble? he whispered, clutching at the neck of his robe. Are we in danger?

  Jean-Pierre, don’t be distressed. There isn’t any trouble, there isn’t any danger, nothing we can’t handle. Don’t upset yourself.

  Fire? Someone is going to set a fire? To the castle? To us? Why? What will happen? What can we do?

  There isn’t any trouble, Noel said, patting his brother’s shoulder. We have everything under control.

  Jean-Pierre’s jaw trembled almost convulsively, and his clawlike fingers shook. His rheumy eyes darted from place to place but came to rest on no one, as if there were no one in the room he recognized.

  Danger . . . ? he whispered. Here in Bellefleur Manor?

  And then, to everyone’s surprise, the negotiations went fairly well.

  Sam and two of his lieutenants came to the coachman’s lodge, and from 4:30 until well past midnight the situation was discussed: the demands for better living quarters, for better sanitation, for better food and drinking water, a legal contract, attorneys on both sides and a legal contract; and of course more money. One by one the points were contested and one by one they were conceded. It was only on the issue of money that they seriously disagreed: for Sam claimed that his people wanted a 200 percent increase in their hourly wage, and the Bellefleurs claimed that this was a lie.