Bellefleur

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Instead, as Raphael could not have foreseen, the Skin-Drum became invisible.

  Of course it was there on the landing, it was always there, but no one saw it, even the servant girl who routinely dusted it did not see it, and only when Leah prepared the castle for the celebration of great-grandmother Elvira’s hundredth birthday did anyone realize what it was: and then, suddenly, it was looked upon with horror, disgust, and embarrassment: and of course someone (quite possibly Leah) hauled it away for “safekeeping.”

  And in a closet, or in the attic, or in the darkest regions of the cellar, the Skin-Drum was to remain, for as long as Bellefleur Manor stood.

  The Traitorous Child

  Now in that final summer there began, at first in secret and then quite openly, a contest between Germaine’s mother and father: over her, for her, with her as the prize.

  Which of us do you love? Leah whispered, gripping her tight by the shoulders. You must choose! Choose.

  And Gideon, in secret, squatting down before her, gripping her too (though less painfully) by the shoulders: Would you like to come flying with me, Germaine, sometime soon? In one of the smaller planes? In one of the Cubs? You would love it, you wouldn’t be at all frightened. Just you and your daddy, for an hour, to Mount Blanc and back, so you could see all the rivers and lakes and this house, even, from the sky, and nobody here would ever know—!

  THE CONTEST WAS invisible. Yet you could feel it. A teeter-totter’s motion: first one side and then the other and then the other again, and then the other. For all that one had the other demanded. And then again the other demanded. And then again . . .

  Which was very strange, like a dream that wouldn’t end but went on rumbling and rolling no matter how you tried to wake up. Which was very ugly. And made the little girl (who was, in June of that year, exactly three years and ten months old) run away and hide in the long narrow dark closet in the nursery, where old cast-off clothes and toys were kept; or down at the bottom of the garden, behind the new hedgerow.

  She stuck her fingers in her mouth: first one, then two, then three. She learned to be cautious. For once, on the terrace, pretending to read the newspaper over her mother’s shoulder, she did begin to read out loud, shouting and giggling, suddenly very excited, and Leah turned to her in astonishment—astonishment not altogether pleased.

  My God, Leah exclaimed, you know how to read. . . . You know how to read.

  Germaine backed away, bumping into one of the wrought-iron chairs in her excitement. Her face had gone very warm.

  But who taught you? Leah asked.

  Germaine, sticking a finger in her mouth, did not reply.

  Someone must have taught you, Leah said. Was it Uncle Hiram? Was it Lissa? Vida? Raphael? Was it your father?

  Germaine shook her head, suddenly mute. She stood, stubborn and shy, with two fingers in her mouth, her head bowed, peering at amazed half-angry Leah, with nothing at all to say for herself.

  You didn’t teach yourself, did you, Leah said, rummaging through Bromwell’s old books? All those old books in the nursery? You couldn’t have taught yourself.

  Germaine blinked, watching her mother closely.

  Or did I teach you, without knowing it? These mornings on the terrace, going through the newspapers . . . Leah contemplated the little girl, perplexed. She fumbled for her cigarillos and shook one out onto her palm: though smoking made her cough, and she had vowed to give it up soon. Why don’t you answer, why do you look so guilty, Leah asked. It wasn’t your father, was it? As if he’d have the time!

  So she learned to be cautious.

  SKIN AND BONES, they call him, Leah whispered. The women. The girls he chases. Skin and Bones. And some of them, the younger girls, even call him Old Skin and Bones. Think of it—! Gideon Bellefleur who thinks so highly of himself!

  Early on the day of Morna’s wedding, when everyone had been up since dawn, and the house was in a turmoil. When Leah sent one of the maids away, in tears, because the clumsy girl couldn’t make Leah’s chignon look the way it was supposed to look.

  She couldn’t decide whether Germaine should wear a yellow satin frock with a bow at the collar (which would match her own yellow satin gown), or a dotted-swiss with long white ribbons. She couldn’t decide whether Germaine’s corkscrew curls should be left as they were, hanging down the poor child’s back (for the little girl, of course, detested those curls), or brushed out quickly, and her hair swept up in imitation of her mother’s, fastened with gold barrettes, a sprig of lily of the valley pinned in place.

  Do you know—they laugh at him behind his back, and call him Old Skin and Bones! Leah said. But of course you mustn’t tell anyone. You mustn’t even ask me about it. I suppose I shouldn’t have told you—you will have so debased—disappointed—so sad a memory of your high-and-mighty father—

  And at breakfast, at their hurried breakfast, Leah had leaned over to kiss Germaine, but really to whisper in her ear (almost within Gideon’s hearing), Old Skin and Bones!

  BUT WHY WAS that?

  Because he was so thin now.

  And why was he so thin?

  The automobile accident, the concussion, the quarrels, not eating right, drinking too much, staying away for so long, and now this business, this crazy selfish business, of flying planes. . . . And I wouldn’t be surprised (so people whispered) if there was another woman involved. Up there in Invemere. Another, another, another woman.

  Old Skin and Bones: with his yellowish hawkish hollowed-out face: so restless most of the time he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t even sit down, because his mind was taxiing down the runway and lifting into the sky, always lifting, lifting into the sky, and his heart leapt at the thought of it, pursuing the Hawker Tempest, following it to its secret destination somewhere north of Lake Tear-of-the-Cloud. Restless most of the time, and sleepless too, so that a quart of bourbon a day wasn’t unusual, simply so that he could sleep after the excitement of the sky; but then again, then again, there were days when he was too drained of spirit even to rise from bed and dress himself, and at eleven or eleven-thirty his mother would rap timidly on his door, saying Gideon? Gideon? Are you all right? This is Cornelia, are you all right?

  “WHAT I OBJECT to,” Gideon said, on their way to Morna’s wedding, seated, the three of them, in the back seat of the smaller Rolls limousine, with the glass partition firmly shut, “what I particularly object to is your obsessiveness. Your morbid obsessiveness with the child.”

  “What on earth are you saying—!” Leah laughed.

  “Your interest in her.”

  “She’s only a three-year-old, she needs her mother, it isn’t uncommon for mothers and daughters to be inseparable,” Leah said, looking out the window. “And you, after all, have no time for her.”

  “You weren’t like this with Christabel.”

  “Who? Ah, Christabel! But she and Bromwell had each other, it was an entirely different thing,” Leah said quickly. “They were twins, and—and—it seems so long ago.”

  “You fawn over her and bully her,” Gideon said, “as you did this morning at breakfast, and according to my parents you do constantly, never letting her out of your sight. As if she were much younger. As if she were a baby.”

  “She’s only three years old! Aren’t you, sweetheart?”

  Germaine, seated between her parents, pretended to be very interested in her coloring book. With purple, orange, green, and scarlet crayons she was coloring in a rainbow of her own design, which curved through the not-very-interesting drawing of a farmhouse and barn she was meant to color. In the yellow satin frock with the big bow at the collar, and her smart new patent-leather shoes, she was somewhat uncomfortable, but forced herself to sit still; for otherwise Leah would scold.

  “She’s almost four. She’s very mature for her age,” Gideon said. “She isn’t a baby.”

  “But you know nothing about children, do you,” Leah said. “You!”

  “I am not thinking of myself,” Gideon said evenly, “I
am thinking only of her.”

  “You think of no one except yourself.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “Even your other—your other— Your other interests,” Leah said, with a small stiff smile, still turned away from her husband, “are ways of thinking about yourself.”

  “We won’t discuss that now,” Gideon said.

  “We won’t discuss it at all: I’m not interested.”

  “It isn’t just my objection,” Gideon said, “but my parents’ as well, and even Ewan said he noticed—”

  “Ewan—!” Leah said. “He’s home even less than you are.”

  “And Lily, and Aveline—”

  “Ah, the Bellefleurs are siding against me!” Leah laughed. “The redoubtable Lake Noir Bellefleurs!”

  “And Della too.”

  “Della! But that’s a lie,” Leah said angrily.

  “According to my mother—”

  “According to your mother! Don’t they have anything else to do, those absurd old women, but sit around and gossip about me?”

  “You upset Germaine with your constant attention, your constant fussing, even the way you sometimes look at her,” Gideon said, still in an even voice, “I’ve seen it myself: it would frighten me.”

  Leah made an impatient snorting sound. “You. It would frighten you.”

  “I don’t mean to suggest that she doesn’t love you. Of course she loves you. She’s a wonderfully sweet little girl, she does love you, but at the same time . . . at the same time, Leah . . . don’t you really know what I mean?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t really?”

  “No. I told you no.”

  “Your obsessiveness, your morbidity . . .”

  “Obsessiveness! Morbidity! You’ve gotten light-headed from flying, haven’t you, up there in the sky with nobody around, so you can think your selfish cruel thoughts with no interruptions! Of course her mother has had to love her: her father has no feeling for her at all.”

  “Leah, that’s ridiculous. Please.”

  “Well—should we ask her?”

  “Leah.”

  “She’s sitting right here pretending not to be listening, isn’t she! Should we ask her whether her father loves her?—or whether her mother isn’t the only person in the world who loves her.”

  But Germaine did not look up. She was shading in the rainbow now with a bright scarlet crayon.

  “Suppose you had to choose, Germaine,” Leah said softly. “Between your father and your mother.”

  “Leah, please—”

  “Germaine,” Leah said, touching the child’s shoulder, “are you listening?—do you understand? Suppose, just for the fun of it, you had to choose. Between your father and me.”

  But the little girl did not look to left or right. She remained bent over her coloring book, her lower lip caught in her teeth.

  “Let her alone, Leah,” Gideon said, reaching across to take Leah’s yellow-gloved hand. “You really know better. This isn’t like you.”

  “But it’s just in play, it’s just for fun,” Leah said, pulling her hand out of his. “Children love to play: they invent the most outlandish things: they invent entire worlds! Which you wouldn’t know, because you’ve cut yourself off from your children. So Germaine, just tell us, nod your head one side or the other, which of us you’d choose. If you had to. If you were going to live with one of us or the other for the rest of your life.”

  “Leah, really,” Gideon said uneasily, “this is what I mean by—”

  “Germaine? Why are you pretending not to hear?”

  But the little girl did not hear.

  She continued coloring, and when the scarlet crayon snapped in two she simply used the larger of the pieces, and kept on coloring, without glancing up.

  Now the rainbow was wide, now the rainbow was immense, crowding the house and the barn and the earth out.

  “You’re upsetting her,” Gideon said. “This is exactly what I mean.”

  “You began it, and now you’re frightened,” Leah whispered. “You’re frightened she might not choose you.”

  “But there’s no need for her to choose— It’s false, it’s melodramatic—”

  “Who are you to speak of something being false!” Leah laughed. “You of all people!”

  “It was a mistake for me to speak to you,” Gideon said angrily. “You clearly don’t have Germaine’s well-being in mind.”

  “But I do! Indeed I do! I am giving her the right to choose, at this moment, I am giving her a privilege few children have: and what is your decision, Germaine? Just nod your head right or left—”

  “Stop, Leah. You must know you’re upsetting her.”

  “Germaine?”

  “If you want, I’ll have the driver stop and let me out. I can ride with my parents, I’ll be happy to leave you alone—”

  “Germaine? Why do you pretend not to hear?”

  Leah bent low, peering into the child’s face. She saw with what willfulness her daughter stared at the coloring book, and would not look up.

  “Aren’t you bad! Aren’t you bad, to pretend not to hear!” Leah said. “It’s as if you were lying to me. It’s exactly like lying . . .”

  But the little girl did not hear.

  She selected another crayon, a very dirty white crayon, and began to shade over the rainbow, in quick rough slovenly strokes.

  LATER, WHEN THEY were alone, Leah stooped and gripped Germaine’s shoulders tight. For a long moment she said nothing, she was so angry. The faint lines on her forehead had become creases; her skin was blotched with indignation. Germaine could see without wanting to see how her mother’s hair had thinned: her scalp was faintly visible, and the skull looked oddly, crudely layered, as if the bone were growing irregularly, in planes that did not quite meet. She was a haggard woman, and not at all beautiful, even in her yellow gown, with strands of pearls about her neck. . . .

  “Selfish Germaine!” Leah was saying, giving her a shake. “Selfish! Nasty! Traitorous! Aren’t you? You know you are!”

  The Vanished Pond

  Where, everyone wondered, was poor Raphael . . . ?

  The undersized child with his pale, clammy skin, and that furtive expression tinged with a melancholy irony, the son of Ewan’s who could not possibly be, Ewan thought, his son, or the son of any Bellefleur, was seen less and less frequently that summer until, finally, one morning, it was discovered that he had simply vanished.

  Raphael, they called, Raphael . . . ?

  Where are you hiding?

  At family gatherings Raphael had always been distracted and reluctant, and he was so frequently absent (he hadn’t, for instance, gone to Morna’s wedding) that it was several days before anyone actually missed him. And then only because one of the upstairs maids reported to Lily that his bed hadn’t been slept in for three nights running.

  They went in search of him to Mink Pond, of course. Albert led the way, shouting his name. . . . But where was Mink Pond? It seemed, oddly, that Mink Pond too had vanished.

  By midsummer the pond had shrunk to a half-dozen shallow puddles, grown over with grasses and willow shrubs; by late summer, when Raphael was discovered missing, nothing remained but a marshy area. It was a meadow, really. Part of the large grassy meadow below the cemetery.

  Where was Mink Pond, the Bellefleurs asked in astonishment.

  A low-lying marshy ground, where bright mustard grew, and lush green grasses, and willow trees. It gave off a rich pleasant odor of damp and decay, even in the bright sunshine.

  We must be standing in it, they said. Standing on it. Where it once was.

  But looking down they saw nothing: only a meadow.

  Raphael, they cried. Raphael. . . . Where have you gone? Why are you hiding from us?

  Their feet sank in the spongy earth, and their shoes were soon wet and muddy. How cold, their surprised wriggling toes . . . ! Germaine ran and chattered and giggled and slipped and fell but immediately scrambled to her feet
again. Then they saw that she wasn’t giggling: she had begun to cry. Her face was contorted.

  Raphael! Raphael! Raphael!

  In Lily’s arms she hid her face, and pointed toward the ground.

  Raphael—there.

  AFTER A SEARCH of many hours, up along Mink Creek (which had narrowed to a trickle of peculiar rust-tinged water that smelled flat and metallic) and back through the cemetery into the woods, and a mile or two into the hills, they returned to Mink Pond again—to what had been Mink Pond—and saw that their footprints were covered over, in rich green grass.

  Raphael? Raphael?

  Was there a pond here, really, one of the visiting cousins asked.

  It was here. Or maybe over there.

  Here, below the cemetery.

  By those willows.

  No—by that stump. Where the redwings are roosting.

  A pond? Here? But when? How long ago?

  Only a week ago!

  No, a month ago.

  Last year.

  They wandered about, calling Raphael’s name, though they knew it was hopeless. He had been so slight-bodied, so furtive and pale, no one had known him well, none of the children had liked him, Lily wept to think she hadn’t loved him enough—not enough—and now he had gone to live beneath the earth (for, after Germaine’s hysterical outburst, Lily was never to be placated, or argued out of her absurd conviction) and would not heed her cries.

  Raphael, she called, where have you gone? Why are you hiding from us?

  EWAN, HEARING ABOUT the pond, and his little niece’s words, went out to investigate. But the pond of course was gone: there was no pond.