Evil Eye

by Joyce Carol Oates

  In the neurologist’s suite, Louisa Hansen and her son Bart are a familiar pair. The receptionist greets them by name. The nurses greet them by name. “My son.” Louisa clutches his arm tight at the elbow when the nurse calls her name, the tall looming darkly handsome young son, and she the ravage-faced mother, a Pietà in reverse. “My son will accompany me into Dr. Kraukauer’s office.”

  THE FLATBED

  For Henri Cole

  She liked to envision him in this way.

  Some sort of flatbed. Like the kind hooked behind a small truck.

  And he’s on the flatbed in some kind of arrangement of chains securing his wrists and ankles so he can’t move.

  He’s sitting up, chained. An awkward posture that must strain his back, neck, legs.

  His head is lifted, his eyes are alert and aware.

  The flatbed is being hauled along the interstate.

  Wet snow has begun to fall. No wind, the snow falls vertically out of a gunmetal sky, mostly melting on the ground.

  Who is driving the truck, he can’t see.

  He’s trapped there on the flatbed. Can’t move except to jerk his shoulders and head and tug against the chains making his wrists and ankles bloody. He has screamed—but no longer. His throat is raw, he is exhausted.

  Snow on his face like melting tears.

  Would G. know where he was being hauled, on the flatbed?

  Would G. guess it was to a slaughterhouse?

  He said, Is it me? Must be.

  He was N. who’d come into her life unexpectedly.

  He was one in a sequence of men. Most she eluded and rebuffed and found reasons to dislike, or they suddenly disliked her—one of them said bitterly A beautiful face doesn’t give you the right.

  She hadn’t had to ask The right to what?

  Or suddenly she was afraid of them, of what is called leading a man on.

  For no man likes to be led on.

  But N. was different, she had no idea why. N., she found herself thinking of, often. Maybe it was an ordinary sort of female yearning. Maybe it was her fear of being left alone or discovered to be a dirty girl, that’s to say a badly dirtied girl, past redemption. Or maybe (this was a thought she could hardly acknowledge) she was falling in love with N. as a young woman might fall in love with a man.

  A normal young woman. In love with a man.

  But now it had gone wrong. She was stricken with guilt, shame.

  For again it happened. Again, her body resisted the man. It was a subtle stiffening of her body, the tension of one poised at the brink of a dangerous action: diving from a high board, for instance.

  It was not an obvious rejection of the man, or a rebuff. It was subtle, yet unmistakable. Every molecule in her body shuddering No no no.

  And she began to shiver. The shivering was convulsive, and unstoppable.

  Her way of combating it—the convulsive, ridiculous shivering in her own bed, in the man’s arms—was to clench her jaws tight. If relaxed, her jaws would tremble, her teeth would chatter.

  What chagrin, her body shutting up as it did. Like the body of a frightened child.

  And the chattering teeth, with another as a witness, so intimate.

  She said, No. It isn’t you. I . . .

  There was a pause. N. was listening to her intently. His breathing was hoarse, harried.

  She could not bring herself to say It isn’t you, I love you.

  He said, Well. Then there is something you haven’t told me.

  She said, I don’t think so.

  Amending then, for this sounded too defensive, I—I don’t know. I don’t think so but I don’t really know.

  Something you haven’t revealed to me yet.

  His hands on her, tentative, caressing. As you might lay hands on a frightened and shivering dog, to comfort; to contain, calm, and comfort; and in the strength of the hands, a certain confidence, assurance.

  Somebody hurt you, I’m guessing. D’you want to tell me about it?

  How many times, she hadn’t wished to count.

  There had been the mortifying first time, when she’d been nineteen years old—old for a first-time sexual experience. And there’d been a second time, and a third—and each time baffling, humiliating.

  This was perhaps only the fourth time. But it seemed to her the final time. She was twenty-nine years old: she would have no more chances.

  As a young girl she’d been diffident about sex. She’d been uncomfortable hearing other girls talk about sex, her friends had laughed at her.

  As an older girl she’d become adept at avoiding sexual circumstances. She grew to like the company of boys and men, and they liked her company, usually—but it was not a good idea to pursue this attraction, she’d learned.

  To mislead another is cruel. To entice, and to repel—this could be dangerous.

  For she could not anticipate the reaction of her body. Even if she’d had a few drinks. Even if she felt loving.

  The clenching of pelvic muscles involuntary as the blinking of an eye when the eye is touched. The panicked withdrawal, recoil.

  As if the man touching her, seeking entry into her body, was an instrument of harm, torture—to be repelled.

  The panic reflex. The convulsive shivering. She was helpless in thrall to a terrible suffocating fear as the sexual part of her, which had seemed so alive, so yearning, as if thrumming with desire for the man, had shut up like a fist.

  No. It was her body’s mute cry—No.

  An aroused male would have the right to be seriously pissed. Seriously offended. He’d have the right to extricate himself from the female, throw on his God damned clothes and depart and not return.

  She could not protest. She could barely murmur Sorry.

  At the bottom of the pit she lay helpless. Her body was a child’s body, in terror of violation. Clenched tight, shivering.

  N. was saying, Will you tell me? Who has hurt you?

  She told him no one. Please.

  No one? I don’t believe that.

  She’d managed to control the shivering. Clenching her jaws tight so that her teeth couldn’t chatter. That was an accomplishment, in these mortifying circumstances.

  Until at last N. said, Hey: it’s OK. We’ll be fine.

  N. spoke genially, with a kind of forced cheer. For this, she loved him.

  Though he was somewhat mysterious to her—not a man she knew well, except intimately.

  She’d calculated that he was at least fifteen years older than she was. She’d gathered that he was the father of children; divorced, and the children near-grown. Some bitterness—personal, legal—regarding the ex-wife. And there’d been a domestic tragedy in his life—the death of a child.

  To which he’d alluded but of which he had given her to know he did not care to speak, just yet.

  Just now he’d seemed to understand, and to forgive. Her body’s clenching against his touch was not a clenching against him.

  The last man who’d touched her in this way, who had tried to make love to her, whom she hadn’t liked so much as she liked N., had been sulky, sullen—rudely asking if she’d seen a doctor about this—problem.

  Asking if it was a problem she’d had in the past?

  What measures had she taken, or tried to take, to deal with the problem.

  Sexual frigidity. Fear.

  Sexual terror, phobia.

  Can’t breathe. Can’t bear it.

  Sorry sorry.

  No man wanted to think that it was he whom the woman’s body was rejecting. It was necessary to think that the woman had a problem—physical, mental.

  Yet N. was saying, We just need to go slow, I think. Slower.

  Through a buzzing in her ears like cicadas she heard herself mu
rmur yes.

  I’m a big man. I’m heavy. Heavier than I look. Maybe I scare you. Maybe your body thinks it’s being crushed. We can figure some other way. When, you know—you think you’re ready.

  Heard herself murmur weakly yes.

  We have plenty of time, right? There’s no urgency about any of this.

  No urgency! She wanted to think so.

  Except: I am twenty-nine years old not nine years old. I want my life to begin.

  She and N. had known each other for approximately eighteen months. Not as lovers nor even as friends but as acquaintances brought into contact through a professional association in which she, the younger, the female, was a new employee and he, the elder, the male, had a position of authority.

  Not that N. was her boss. N. was her superior of course but the chain of command didn’t link N. and her directly.

  The intersection between non-profit and private. He was the private.

  Was it true there was no urgency between them? There is always an urgency to sexual love.

  He would find another, she thought. There were so many women.

  Young, unattached. In the early stages of their careers.

  And there were other women, single, divorced, even ­widowed —a man like N. would not have to look far.

  Yet, N. had seemed to be attracted to her immediately. A shrewd hunter-look had come into his eyes when he’d first approached her at a reception She’d come alone, in black: black silk skirt falling to nearly her ankles, sleeveless black silk top and over it a black velvet jacket that fit her narrow torso like a glove. Her ash-colored hair she’d braided and twisted around her head. He’d greeted her, and peered at her quizzically—he hadn’t recognized her at first as one of the young women of the arts foundation, too junior to have a title other than assistant. Then, he’d seemed embarrassed. He said, I’m sorry—I thought you were someone else.

  Wittily she’d said, Yes? Who?

  Between them something seemed to have been decided. Though they’d spoken to others at the reception they met again as others were leaving and N. said, Have dinner with me? Hey?

  She wanted to think that N. was right: there was no urgency between them.

  But when they tried to make love another time and her body recoiled—what then?

  She was deeply ashamed of her sexual shyness. If that was what it was.

  She had never gone to a therapist. The very thought was repugnant to her, such weakness.

  It was wonderful to her, that N. seemed to forgive her. Kissing her and caressing her, comforting her and trying to warm her so that she stopped shivering. Wonderful, this man was on her side.

  She’d heard N. had a quick temper. She had not yet witnessed it but she’d heard from others at the arts foundation, who’d been astonished and impressed at the way N. was capable of speaking at meetings, cutting off slow-speaking individuals, interrupting or contradicting others. One of his favored words was Bullshit. Another was Fine!—meaning the discussion was ended.

  It was said of N. that he never attacked younger employees but only individuals of his own approximate rank.

  It was said You wouldn’t want to cross him.

  In N.’s arms she lay shivering, less convulsively now. The panic fit was passing.

  The bedclothes that had been freshly laundered when she’d made the bed earlier that day were now humid, sticky. A ceiling fan turned wanly overhead. It was an unusually warm autumn. Their bodies were naked and hopeful—or had been. Now they clutched at each other like exhausted swimmers washed to shore.

  She felt the fatty flesh at N’s waist, and at his back: sinewy little knobs of flesh, and bumps and indentations across his back. Sparse coarse hairs scattered on his back, in striations across his sides. How strange, to be caressing the naked body of a man whom she scarcely knew, yet imagined she might love!

  All love is desperation. This is our secret.

  Her fingers groped for his penis, that had been so hard a minute before; now limp, soft-skinned, and vulnerable; and his fingers closed over hers in what she felt to be a kind of rebuke, gently pushing away.

  Saying, Maybe we need a drink. Maybe that would help.

  She wasn’t sure that she had anything to drink in the loft. A friend had brought a bottle of red wine to celebrate her moving into these new quarters in a refurbished warehouse overlooking the river but that had been months ago, she’d never opened the bottle and wasn’t even sure where it was.

  Drinking was not a solace for her. Or, drinking would be too wonderful a solace, she had better not begin.

  He had urged her to drink. A little sip of his drink. On their walks, a stop at a taverna, as he called it, or a bistro, and how delightful, the little girl sipping from the older gentleman’s wine- glass, until she began to cough, choke.

  Then, he’d given her chocolate mints. To disguise the smell of the wine.

  Our secret. Just the little darling and me.

  N. said, Tell me what you’re thinking, Ceille. Just now.

  She couldn’t recall. What had she been thinking?

  She said, I love the sound of my name when you say it. For the first time, I love my name.

  Neither made a move to detach from the other. N. would fall asleep kissing her.

  That the man so trusted her, felt comfortable with her, after even this clumsy episode, was deeply moving to her.

  Badly she wanted to sleep, in the man’s arms. It was very late: nearing 2 a.m. But she was not so comfortable. Her skin chafed against his. His thick-sounding breathing would keep her awake though she was relieved to hear it close beside her as if this were N.’s bed in N.’s life and she had been taken in by N.

  Her brain was alive with thoughts, brittle darting thoughts like nails that flew about to no purpose. Often in intimate situations this was the case, with another person.

  Fear of the other. His strength, and the surprise of what he will ask from you.

  What he will execute upon you, without asking.

  And still she was cold. Her fingers and toes like ice.

  Huddled against the man’s warm body, a solid sizable body, taking up more than half of her bed.

  So cold! Bone-marrow cold!

  As if her life, a still-young life, were veering to a premature ending like a runaway vehicle on a twisting mountain road where you can see only a few yards ahead for the way is blind and the descent from the road steep and irrevocable.

  Wanting to plead with this deep-slumbering man in her bed Love me anyway—can’t you? I think—I can love you.

  She’d never told anyone. Not ever.

  She’d known better. Already by the age of—had it been seven? eight? ten?—that it would be a mistake to tell.

  For once you tell, you can’t take back what you have told.

  In the household, in the family. And it was a large family.

  A family so large, if you shut your eyes and tried to assemble them all in the living room, standing and seated in a half-circle around the ceiling-high Christmas tree, you could not.

  For always there are shadowy figures, vague and undefined at the periphery of the scene. Always, tall male figures whose faces are just slightly blurred.

  You could identify them perhaps. But you could not truly see them.

  Sometimes these figures are sitting. In fact, sitting on the floor.

  In some juxtaposition to the glittering Christmas tree. The astonishment of the Christmas tree, that so glittered and gleamed and the fragrance of its still-living needles so powerful, just recalling makes you want to cry.

  Eyes filled with moisture. The trip of a heartbeat.

  Want to cry but will not cry. Not ever cry.

  For she was a shy child. Shy, and shrewd. You might mistake shyness for slowness, reticence for stupidit
y, physical wariness for physical ineptitude, but you’d have been mistaken.

  He had counseled her This is our secret. These are good times but secret.

  He had warned her This is our secret. These are good times but secret.

  And so she had not ever told.

  (For who was there to tell? Not her nervous mother, not her irritable father. Often they smiled startled seeing her before them as if she were a surprise to them, a happy surprise, amid so many other surprises that were not happy; as if somehow they’d forgotten her, and the sight of her was a happy reminder; for she’d been led to believe from a young age that she was the one happy thing in their lives, despite being an “accident” in their lives—I think we were burnt-out, almost—with the marriage—playing house—we’d had our kids, we thought: four of them! Jesus! And then—our darling . . .)

  (And later, in grade school, when still it was happening to her, still she was in thrall to him-whose-identity-she-could-not-reveal, she could not have told her teachers, nor could she have told another child, even her best friends—especially not her best friends. From the experiences of others who’d had far less significant secrets to reveal she’d learned how telling flew back in the face of the teller like spitting in the wind. Forever afterward you were the one who’d told, the tattletale; and what had been done to you would be irrevocably mixed up in the minds of others with you.)

  No one knew. No one wished to know. No one asked her.

  The family was large, and well-to-do. The name Bankcroft was attached to a downtown street and a square and a dignified old office building. Bankcroft exuded an air of satisfaction, pride.

  Brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.

  These were highly sociable people. Most evenings there were visitors in the big old Victorian house.