Bellefleur

by Joyce Carol Oates

  That would break us, Noel said. You know that would break us.

  Certainly it wouldn’t! Not Bellefleur, said Sam with a quick warm flashing smile.

  So they argued, and occasionally raised their voices, and one of the Bellefleurs left the table snorting with disgust, and Sam himself, lightheaded with exhilaration, or audacity, or from having gone too long without eating, pounded on the table so hard his fake-gold ring left a mark on its gleaming surface. I will pay for this, he said wildly, I will buy a new table. . . . Don’t be absurd, one of the Bellefleurs said.

  By 12:45 they had agreed on 160 percent. Which was very high. Which, Noel kept intoning, with as much grief as if it were true, will break us.

  So they agreed, and shook hands, and Sam said he would call for a vote among his people in the morning, though he was absolutely certain the result would be positive (and then, he said with his leaping glinting smile, we can at last get to work—which is after all why we came); and the Bellefleurs promised to have their attorney on hand, and to arrange for another attorney, a presumably disinterested party, to represent the workers. By 1:00 A.M. Sam and his lieutenants had left, and the Bellefleurs went to the main house to drink themselves to sleep. Gideon, though he drank the most, was awake the longest, until nearly 5:00 A.M.

  He contemplated his maimed right hand. Was that the correct term, maimed? The little finger was missing; it was decidedly missing; one’s eye kept worrying the empty space, knowing something was wrong. There was ugly scar tissue where the dwarf had bitten him. It had been healing, like an ordinary scab, and should have simply flaked away, but for some reason it had turned into a substantial scar. It seemed, Gideon sometimes thought, as if it were growing.

  Still, it was fascinating. What perverse little miracles the body could provide. . . .

  THEN IN THE morning Sam, with a mock-apologetic smile, announced that his people had vetoed the offer of a wage increase.

  They had accepted, of course, the other offers; which were in fact their own demands; but they had refused the offer of 160 percent, and had instructed Sam to tell the Bellefleurs they would go no lower than 185 percent.

  Vetoed the offer, Noel said faintly, and Hiram said in a jerky, incredulous voice, Vetoed! . . . that offer! Those scrubs and derelicts and whores and halfwits. . . .

  Not only did they want higher wages, Sam said, his darkly tanned hands clasped before him, but they wanted several more things: free medical service on demand, insurance policies, private lavatories in the barracks and not outside, and ice water available in the orchards. He had had, he said with a droll smile, to talk them out of demanding a percentage of the Bellefleur’s profits—their net profits. They had been noisy about it, but he had overcome their wishes, as he’d overcome what he considered to be trivial demands (for telephones, stoves with ovens, refrigerators, swimming privileges in Lake Noir, the use of the Bellefleurs’ boats); but I was able to do so, he said, only by promising them that next year’s contract would include such things.

  Next year’s contract! Noel said, pressing his hand to his chest.

  —for after all, as I explained to them, raising my voice to them, Sam said, we have come here to pick fruit, and the fruit will soon rot or the birds will get it. Those lovely pears and peaches . . . and even the apples, too, are getting ripe. Not an hour to lose, when there are so many acres! I was very stern with them, Sam said.

  Hiram staggered so that Jasper had to catch him in his arms. A percentage of the profits, Hiram whispered. The net profits. . . .

  This will break us, Noel said. It has already broken us.

  Gideon stood over Sam. He said, Now you know you’re lying: you don’t really expect us to believe this.

  Sam pretended to cringe, grinning up at him.

  You know this is absurd, Gideon said.

  They are excited, they’ve been drinking, they have a will of their own, Sam said with a shrug of the shoulders.

  It’s your will, it isn’t theirs—

  See for yourself! Go and ask them yourself, if you know so much!

  A percentage of the profits, Hiram whispered. The net profits. . . .

  We don’t believe that vote, said Jasper. We challenge that vote.

  Then you’ll see! Sam said. He waved his arms about, and his smile widened and contracted without ever deepening. He gave off a tart odor, wine and heat and sweat. The people have their own will, I am not their leader but only their spokesman, I can’t control them—I am the last person you should blame!

  Gideon seized him by the shoulders and walked him to the door and shoved him out. Liar, Gideon said, extortionist.

  Sam’s knees buckled and he nearly pitched forward into the drive. But he regained his balance, and straightened, and made a flurried little obscene gesture at Gideon.

  Extortionist, Gideon said.

  Bellefleur, Sam muttered, walking away without haste.

  BUT IT SEEMED that the workers were in earnest, and some of them believed that the strike had already begun; a small gang of children ran wild in the pear orchard, knocking pears off trees with clubs, trampling them underfoot, throwing them at one another. There were high shrill shrieks and outbursts of laughter and many of the workers, even those as young as twelve or thirteen, appeared to be half-intoxicated by nine in the morning.

  They’re going to destroy us, Noel said.

  It would only be the fruit harvest, wouldn’t it, Cornelia said. But she was white-faced, and sat huddled in her chair, an unconvincing wig slightly askew on her head. It needed a firm brushing: it looked as if mice were nesting in it.

  The first loss will be the fruit, Noel said tonelessly, and then the wheat, and then the others, and the dairy farm too, and the property in Rockland, and the Falls, and the gypsum mine is a demonstrable failure, and the titanium may run out . . . or the miners will go on strike . . . yes, surely, they will go on strike . . . when they hear . . . when . . . when they hear of . . . when they hear of our humiliation.

  If only Leah were well, Cornelia whispered.

  Leah! Noel said. He blinked stupidly, as if, for some queer old-man reason, he had already given her up for dead.

  WHEN THEY HEARD of the workers’ astonishing decision, the young people announced at once that they would pick the fruit. Let the buses load up and haul those fools away, those lazy sons of bitches, the Bellefleurs would pick their own fruit, it was obviously such easy work.

  Garth was most enthusiastic, but there were a number of others, many of them city children, houseguests for the summer, who crowded about him shouting with excitement. Nearly all the servants volunteered, as well, except of course for those who were too old; even Nightshade, despite his hump and his caved-in chest (which would, one might think, make reaching up to pick fruit a torture) seemed eager to begin. With rabble it is important to hold fast and never to surrender, not even an inch, he said excitedly, to whoever would listen.

  So the young people led the way, trooping off into the orchards, not bothering with sun hats or gloves, making a game of it, whistling and singing and feinting at one another with the ladders as if they were battering rams. Their zeal was such, as they shouted up and down the rows of trees, and tossed fruit at one another, and climbed up into perilous positions high in the creaking limbs, that it was a full forty-five minutes (and the sun, though still far from noon, was blistering hot) before the first of them weakened: a Cinquefoil girl with a chubby high-colored skin that had gone alarmingly white. Oh, I think I’m going to faint, she murmured, dropping her quart basket of peaches so that it bounced on the rungs of her ladder.

  And then rather quickly Vida grew faint (for it was terribly warm, and the sun beat so mercilessly through the leaves); and the younger Rush boy, who had overheated himself by scrambling up and down ladders, grabbing at ankles in play; and one of the kitchen girls, though she looked hearty and tireless as a young ox. They dropped their containers and let the peaches roll where they would, while the others jeered. Aren’t they lazy! Look a
t them! Aren’t they soft!

  But the sun was ferocious and no one was accustomed to such strangely hard work, for hadn’t picking fruit from a tree seemed easy, but then you were always reaching overhead, and your shoulder began to ache so quickly, and your hand, and then your legs, and sweat ran down your sides in trickles, and odd black blotches floated in the sunshine, and soon—and soon only Garth and Nightshade and a half-dozen of the domestic help remained in the orchard, grimly picking, hand over hand, as the sun climbed toward noon—and then only Garth and Nightshade remained—and then suddenly, at about three o’clock, Garth was seized by a terrible spell of vomiting, and that was the end for Garth. Nightshade would have probably continued to pick until dusk except for a misstep as he climbed his ladder, so that his right foot slipped forward and his left backward, and with a high-pitched terrified cry the poor little man fell into his ladder face-first and brought both ladder and container (and it was three-quarters filled with peaches) down on top of him. So that was the end of the picking for Nightshade.

  What a disappointment it was, to see how little fruit they had picked . . . ! When the bushel baskets were emptied into one another, and lined up, there couldn’t have been more than three dozen of them; and much of the fruit, as Gideon saw, examining it, had been bruised.

  Folly, thought Gideon. He straightened, the small of his back aching, and stared for a long moment into the massed foliage of the orchard, where so many hundreds, so many thousands, of ripe peaches hung. Folly, he thought, staring sightless at the sky.

  HE FLED BELLEFLEUR. He drove off in his dirt-splattered white Rolls coupe, accelerating at every turn, leaning over to rummage through the glove compartment for his flask. Though of course it was dangerous, though of course he could hear there was something wrong with the engine, something alarmingly wrong, but what folly, he thought, as the wind rushed against his face and whipped his hair back.

  The vibrating in the engine became a knocking. How crudely they had tampered with the automobile, Gideon thought contemptuously. He pressed down on the accelerator. In a moment the highway would straighten and he could speed along it at a hundred miles an hour, at 110, all the way to Innisfail. The knocking was a heart gone wild. Desperate and baffled. He took no pity, but continued to accelerate.

  He had wanted to take his little daughter with him, just for a ride. He saw her so rarely. He loved her, but saw her rarely. She held back shyly as if intimidated by his manner (he was boisterous, uncharacteristically cheerful) but would surely have consented to ride with him, had Lily not said, with surprising bluntness: No. You drive too fast. We know about you. You’re a marked man, like my husband. Leave the child alone.

  (Because Germaine’s mother was ill Lily was taking care of her. Feeding her peanut-butter cookies, and sourdough bread with plum jam. They were making shell jewelry. Stringing pretty pale blue and cream-colored shells on lengths of twine, to make necklaces; one of them was going to be a birthday present for Germaine. Did he know her birthday was coming up in a few days . . . ? No, he hadn’t known.)

  Still, Gideon said aloud, she is my daughter. I had a right to her, if I insisted.

  He was taking the turn onto the old Military Road when something happened: it was as if he’d driven over an enormous sheet of metal, there was such a crashing deafening sound. His foot flew to the brake and the automobile began to skid, the rear wheels yearned to change places with the front, then he was rushing through a shallow ditch, then into some bushes, through the bushes and into a barbed-wire fence, through the fence, heaving and bucking, into a cornfield. He was thrown against the windshield, then against the door, and the door came open, so he found himself finally, after many confused minutes, on the ground, in the cornfield, dripping blood into the dirt. He groped about for Germaine. For his little girl. Where was she?—had she been thrown clear? (For he thought, irrationally, that the car would explode.)

  Germaine? Germaine? Germaine?

  The Harvest

  And then, quite abruptly, on the eve of Germaine’s third birthday (a still, airless, humid night of oddly varying temperatures, unilluminated by any moon or stars) an event took place that altered everything: the strike was averted; the fruit pickers returned to work (docilely, near-silently, and for their last year’s wage); a bumper crop of peaches, pears, and apples was harvested; and Leah, after weeks of despondency, of being someone other than Leah, was wakened from her trance.

  And all because of Jean-Pierre II.

  When grandmother Cornelia, happening to glance out an upstairs window early in the morning (just before seven: the poor woman rarely slept later), saw her elderly, infirm brother-in-law making his way unsteadily toward the house, on a graveled walk that paralleled, at a distance of some twenty yards, the garden wall, she knew at once—without having seen, yet, the stained hog-butchering knife he carried close against his body—that something had happened. For he had, to her knowledge, never left the castle before. (No one had dared tell her of his appearance at Ewan’s party.) And there was something about the mere sight of him, down there, in the early morning, italicized by his black frock coat and his starkly white hair against the damp green of the lawn, that struck her as unnatural.

  She hurried immediately to Noel, and roused him from his heavy slumber. (For he had drunk himself to sleep, the night before—sick with worry about the hospitalized Gideon, and about the rotting fruit.)

  “You’d better go downstairs. I think. At once. I think. I can’t tell you why,” she whispered, pulling at him, thrusting his eyeglasses at him, “but I think . . . I’m afraid . . . , Your brother Jean-Pierre . . .”

  “What? Jean-Pierre? Is he ill?” Noel cried.

  “Yes, I think he must be,” Cornelia said.

  Hiram too saw him, from his bedroom window: for Hiram had been unable to sleep except in patches during the long airless night. His brain had churned with images of mounds of rotting fruit, and the spectacle of his family’s public humiliation (there would be another auction, strangers would tramp mud through the downstairs rooms of the castle, this time even the buildings would be sold—and for a mocking pittance), and the horror of his only son’s death, which he had not had time, yet, to completely grasp. (Thrown by the family’s lifelong enemies into a filthy river, his wrists and ankles bound, like a dog!) And now with Gideon hospitalized in the Falls, with multiple fractures and a concussion . . .

  In his underclothes, not yet shaven, Hiram peered out the window and adjusted his glasses as the dark figure hobbled into sight. At first he believed it must be a sleepwalker, a fellow sufferer: for the man made his way with such vague groping steps, his head tilted back as if he were making no attempt to see the ground at his feet. (And indeed he walked blindly. Now on the graveled path, now on the grass, now stumbling through the narrow border of phlox and coral bells.) It was some minutes before Hiram recognized his brother Jean-Pierre. And then, like Cornelia, he knew something had happened.

  “I hope he didn’t . . . That fool . . . !”

  Young Jasper saw the old man, alerted by the nervous whimperings of his dog, who slept at the foot of his bed; and great-grandmother Elvira, who arose each morning promptly at six, and fussed about preparing, for her bridegroom (whom she had begun to refer to, secretly, silently, as “Jeremiah,” though to his face she called him only “You”) a breakfast of fresh peaches and cream, and honey toast, and good strong black coffee; and Lily saw him, going to the window to see what it was, down on the lawn, that so drew the interest of her little niece Germaine (for the child had crept out of bed, her curls atangle, her pudgy fingers stuck in her mouth, and now she knelt on the velvet window seat and stared and stared at her great-uncle who was making his way to the rear of the house, his head flung nobly back, something glinting in his hand); Raphael may have seen him, for the boy slept lightly, and was uneasy these days because his pond—lovely Mink Pond—had been invaded by the fruit pickers’ children, who loved to splash and belly-dive and paddle in it, meaning no harm, of co
urse, intending no serious harm, but trampling down the cattails and the flowering rushes nevertheless, and tearing out by the roots the lovely waxed water lilies; of course Raphael had avoided the pond for days, and could not hope to return until the intruders were banished, or went, at last, to work in the orchards. And some of the servants must have seen him. The kitchen help, and Edna, and Walton; though of course they were to say nothing, and immediately averted their eyes, when they recognized both Jean-Pierre II and what he carried in his right hand, half-hidden alongside his leg. Nightshade, however, sighting the old man from a distance, had both the wit and the audacity to hurry upstairs to his mistress’s chambers: for she, he knew, must be told.

  “Miss Leah! Miss Leah! Arouse yourself! Come quickly! Mr. Jean-Pierre has made his move!”

  So the hunched-over little man whimpered and whined, rattling his lady’s doorknob in a frenzy of concern, until, at last, after many minutes, after many minutes, during which he alternately begged and commanded her, and punctuated his words with spasmodic sobs, the door was unlocked: the door was actually unlocked: and a slack-faced blinking Leah stood before him.

  (She had wakened from her hideous trance. Or had been awakened. And was soon to forget, with merciful completeness, its claustrophobic calm, its sickly peace. She would never suffer such an uncharacteristic episode again. Interpreting it, afterward, she would say, frowning, so that those sharp, rather poignant lines appeared between her anxious brows, that her “black mood” had been nothing more than premonitory. It had no reference to her, to her own life, certainly not to the Bellefleur affairs as a whole; it had reference only to Jean-Pierre’s extraordinary behavior that August night. She had sensed something would happen—she had, somehow, known it would happen—but had been powerless to prevent it—like Germaine—for Germaine, too, “saw” things yet could not prevent them or even comprehend them—and so she had fallen into a black pit of a mood, quite helpless: but then of course she had been freed. Once the horror had taken place, once it was there, in the world, quite naturally she was freed.)