Evil Eye

by Joyce Carol Oates

  In such circumstances you would think that a little girl so frequently singled out for special attention by a (male, older) relative would be observed. But you would be mistaken.

  Our baby. Our darling. I’m shamelessly spoiling her—she’s my last baby.

  Everyone adores her! They just can’t help it.

  Her mother certainly adored her. But mostly when others were present. At the start of dinner parties she was shown off—her curly ash-blond hair, her special party dress and fancy little shoes—then carried away upstairs by a nanny hired for such purposes.

  To have told her mother! She could not.

  For she could foresee: the look in her mother’s face.

  Surprise, hurt, disbelief. No no no no no—this could never be.

  To have told her father! Absolutely no.

  All this she would have to explain to N. If she did not, she would lose him.

  And if she did, very likely she would lose him just the same.

  Yes of course, as a child she’d been taken to a doctor periodically.

  A (male) family doctor, pediatrician. An acquaintance of her mother’s and so, during the visits, in the examination room, her mother and Dr. T. chatted.

  The examinations were routine, perfunctory, non-traumatic. The examinations did not involve an inspection of the child’s body inside her clothing for why would one do such a thing? With the child’s mother present, friendly and sociable?

  Visits to Dr. T’s office usually involved a “booster” vaccine, possibly ear-wax removal.

  She who was her mother’s darling endured these visits to the doctor stoically. Young she’d learned the strategy of being mature beyond her years.

  Later, as a young adolescent, she’d had to endure the ignominy and pain of a gynecological examination.

  Here, the doctor was her mother’s (female) doctor: obstetrician, gynecologist.

  The examination of her small hard breasts had been both painful and humiliating but she’d managed to bear it without resistance only just biting hard on her lower lip to draw a little blood.

  The pelvic exam had been so brutal, such a shock to her rigid-quivering body, in horror and disbelief she’d begun to cry, laugh, hyperventilate—this could not possibly be happening to her, that which was happening to her—worse, far worse, more painful and more terrifying than what had been perpetrated on her as a child, which she’d begun to forget; the examination had had to be terminated for the delicate-boned girl was squirming, thrashing, kicking in hysterics, in danger of injuring both the examining doctor and herself.

  Her mother had accompanied her to the gynecologist’s office but now that she was fourteen, and so seemingly self-composed, she’d asked her mother to please remain out in the waiting room. Now her poor shocked mother had to be hurriedly summoned into the examination room by one of the nurses.

  It took some minutes to calm the hysterical girl. Her blood pressure had been taken at the start of the examination and had been one hundred over sixty; after the bout of hysterics her blood pressure was one hundred thirty-six over sixty.

  The doctor who was her mother’s friend was both concerned and annoyed.

  Telling her mother to take her home. The examination was over.

  She’s had a shock. She’s extremely sensitive. Maybe some other time I can do a pelvic exam. But not today.

  She’d had to comfort her mother on the way home. Assuring her mother that she would have no “traumatic” memories of the assault.

  And afterward she’d overheard, by chance, her mother telling her father, in a rueful tone At least we know she’s a virgin!

  Yet, years later, when she was living alone and went alone to a (female) gynecologist for a routine examination, virtually the same thing happened: shock, hysterics.

  Except then, for God’s sake, she’d been twenty-three years old.

  Though technically still a virgin but no longer a skittish young teenager.

  Usually, she avoided doctors. She was in “perfect health”—so she believed. But for medical insurance purposes, in connection with her new employment, she’d had to have a routine physical examination and this included a gynecological examination.

  Again, she’d managed to endure the breast exam. But the pelvic exam was as brutal as she’d recalled. The gynecologist was a young Chinese-American woman, very skilled, soft-spoken; she’d explained what she was doing, as if to mollify her tense patient; she’d shown her the speculum—(was that the word? the very sound of it made her tremble)—that was an instrument of torture to her, a crude caricature of the male penis, unbearable. Involuntarily, on the examination table, feet in stirrups and knees raised and parted, she’d recoiled as she had at the age of fourteen; her lower lip would ooze blood afterward, where she’d almost bitten through it.

  The young-woman gynecologist had been concerned. She couldn’t complete the examination, she hadn’t been able to get a Pap swab, there was no way to know if the young woman shivering and shuddering on the examination table had a vaginal infection, or—something more serious.

  I’m so sorry! My God. Please forgive me. We can try again.

  It was the voice of reason. Her best self. But the child-self, quivering with hurt, in dread of further hurt, was always there, waiting for the collapse of the best, adult self.

  But she’d managed. She had gripped the edges of the leather examination table and held her trembling knees parted as the gynecologist re-inserted the speculum, to open her vagina, to open it terribly as a delicate flower might be opened, exposed to a harsh killing sun.

  What relief then, the speculum was withdrawn!

  Am I bleeding? But bleeding doesn’t last.

  It’s normal to bleed and the blood to coagulate.

  Yet, there was more to the exam. The gynecologist had not yet finished. Inserting her rubber fingers into the young woman’s vagina, pressing against her lower abdomen to determine if there were tumorous growths, irregularities. And, at the end, a rectal exam—swiftly executed and less painful.

  In the vagina were scars, fine as hairs, faded scars—and in the soft moist walls of the uterus. So the gynecologist said, puzzled.

  Have you had an illness, an infection? This would have been some years ago, perhaps.

  Shook her head no. Did not know.

  Or some sort of—accident? Or . . .

  There was a long pause. An awkward pause.

  Until Dr. Chen said, It’s healed now. Whatever it was, it has healed. Do you have pain with sexual intercourse?

  Shook her head no. Frowning and vague as if to suggest That is a private matter, doctor!

  The gynecologist regarded her with an expression of—was it sympathy? Pity?

  She thought This woman knows. She is my sister.

  Carefully Dr. Chen said, Do you have any questions to ask me? We will receive the results of the Pap test in a few days and we will call you.

  The dreaded exam was over. In triumph the shaken young woman sat up on the leather table, tissue-paper bristling beneath her buttocks. A smear of lubricant, a barely visible smear of blood on the paper.

  Thank you, doctor.

  She’d gone away smiling. Whistling.

  These good times no one will know. Our secret.

  The Pap test came back negative. It was a confirmed fact, she was in perfect health.

  No need to see any doctor for a long, long time.

  N. said, We have to talk.

  Gravely and profoundly N. fixed his gaze upon her. He’d urged her to sit down, to be still. For there was a need for her, in N.’s presence, to be always moving about, to a window, for instance, to glance nervously down into the street. The sound of a phone ringing, in a neighboring loft, was distracting to her.

  Wanting to tell him, to amuse him, that she�
��d had a “stalker” once—when she’d still been a university student.

  Foreign-born, dusky-skinned, lonely-looking. He’d waited for her in stairwells, on the sidewalk in front of the residence hall. (He’d been a graduate or post-doc, she thought, in something unimaginably difficult—molecular biology, computational neuroscience.) She’d smiled at him in her careless way and he’d followed her home and thereafter for much of her senior year he’d hung about with yearning doggy-eyes and her roommates had been concerned for her Aren’t you worried? Shouldn’t we report him to security? And she’d laughed saying Don’t be silly. He’ll give up soon.

  Through a rustling in her brain N. was saying gravely, Look, I love you. We have to talk.

  Love you had the air of a mild rebuke. He was chiding her, as you would a small stubborn self-destructive child.

  Frowning, N. said, You aren’t being honest with me. If you care for me, as I care for you, we have to be honest with each other.

  Care for me. Care for you. These words were giddy in her ears, she was stricken to the heart.

  She’d never told. She could not begin now, at her ridiculous age.

  He had never threatened to hurt her, exactly. The tall (male) figure of her childhood. She was sure he’d never hurt or injured her, it was bizarre to suggest that he’d inserted something into her tiny child’s vagina so sharp that it had left miniature scars; her mother, or one of her older sisters, would have discovered bloodstains on her panties and all would have been exposed.

  Though this individual, this tall (male) figure so predominant in the life of her family, alone of his (older) generation insisting upon sitting on the floor, Indian-style on the thick carpet in front of the Christmas tree, with the kids. An individual whom her mother greatly respected, adored, and to a degree feared; a man whom her father greatly admired, though G. had never been particularly friendly to him.

  Which was a mystery, since G. was her father’s father.

  Good times our secret. Ours.

  And so, she’d never told. In recent years when she tried to recall what it was—exactly what had been done to her, and with her; what sorts of things he’d shown her, and spoken of to her—she’d discovered that she remembered very little at all.

  There was such banality to it—“recovered” memory.

  Or was it “repressed” memory.

  She’d never tried to explain to any man. Never to any of the boys with whom she’d been friendly in high school. Boys who’d been attracted to her in ways flattering to her even as she understood They don’t know me. How disgusted they would be, if they knew me.

  But she could not. She could not tell. Not only was she repelled by the prospect of telling, she would have faltered and fumbled for words. For, when she’d been a little girl, and entrusted to this tall dignified relative, a kind of blindness had come over her, amnesia like a fine pale mist—she could not really remember clearly what he’d done to her only the air of furtive excitement, anxiety, and elation. That he was getting away with it. Under the noses of the family. His family! That was part of the attraction.

  All that she could remember of those years was both faded and over-bright, like a photograph of an exploding nova. You understood that there was something inside the blinding light but you could not see it. You could not identify it.

  He’d given her gifts. Countless gifts. He’d taken her to The Nutcracker each year at the War Memorial. And to A Christmas Carol.

  He’d taken her sisters and her brother to some of these occasions, as well. He’d given them presents. He’d pressed his forefinger against his lips, smiling Don’t be jealous, darling! It’s to make them think that they are your equal though we know better.

  He’d been clever. He’d never been suspected—not once.

  She’d been made to know that she was special. That was the secret.

  And now she did not want to acknowledge herself as a victim. In this era of victims, “survivors.” She could not identify herself as one of them. She was too accomplished a young woman, and too promising—in her career, in which she had an excellent job helping to oversee the funding of arts projects, if not in her private life. If she’d been visibly wounded, crippled—she would have stubbornly denied it. For she did not want pity, or sympathy.

  She would explain to N. that she could not tell him who he’d been, the man who had despoiled her life. She could not share with him such memories.

  And of course, she wasn’t certain. She remembered—some things. But in patches, like broken clouds.

  Broken clouds blown swiftly across the sky. You crane your neck to observe as the clouds are blown away and disappear.

  Oddly she did recall G.’s voice, sometimes. In others’ voices, she heard G.’s voice. His grunted words. And pleas—she remembered pleas. (But these were not his. These were hers.) In the speeches of politicians she heard the thrilling timbre of his voice, the voice of a public man, even when he’d retired from public office.

  The fact was, G. had been a locally renowned man. Bankcroft the revered name.

  All of the family was proud of that name. She, too, had been proud of that name except in secret she’d been ashamed of that name for it was his name, as it was her own.

  She would not tell N.: a ten-year-old child is capable of considering suicide.

  Killing oneself isn’t such a secret now. Not such a taboo. A child is well aware of suicide attempts, and of successful suicides. As a child is aware of death generally. And betrayal.

  She’d moved 360 miles away from Bankcroft Street, Bankcroft Square, the Bankcroft Building.

  Yes, she’d been proud that G. had so favored her. You would have been proud, too.

  They’d sung together, on their walks. G. had taught her “You Are My Sunshine,” “White Christmas,” “Tea for Two.” Jaunty tunes were G.’s specialty. Hand in hand. She had not ever tried to run away. She had not ever tried to wrest her hand from his, and run away.

  Through the cemetery she might have run. Run run run until her little heart burst and she fell amid the weatherworn old grave markers striking her head, cracking her skull so the bad memories leaked out like black blood.

  He had not ever injured her. His finger inserted inside her to tickle, that was all.

  Tickle tickle! That’s my good little girl.

  Of all that G. had told her, the stream of words, chatter and banter, teasing and cajoling, years later she would recall virtually nothing.

  The grunts, she did remember.

  And when they’d been alone together—(when he’d managed to arrange that they were alone together: could be a visit to Cross Memorial Cemetery to the grave of his dear departed wife who’d been buried beneath a shiny salmon-colored grave marker)—he hadn’t felt the need for words.

  His hand gripping hers had been sufficient. No need for words.

  Plunged to a place beyond language where even his careful cautious demeanor dissolved, spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth, and his eyes rolled white beyond the dignified gold-rimmed glasses.

  N. said, You’re thinking of him now. You’re remembering.

  She denied this. Guiltily, weakly she denied this.

  No. You’re thinking of him now. Tell me who he is!

  N. was becoming impatient, angry. She had not guessed at the start of their relationship how aggressive N. might be, how possessive of her.

  She would have risen, walked quickly away. But N. seized her hands in his and held her in place.

  Tell me who he was. What happened.

  Her hands, gripped by his. She felt a swirl of vertigo.

  Whoever it was—the bastard! Tell me.

  She was not adept at lying. Bold frank outright lies. She was no good at such. But she’d become adept at another sort of lie, shrewdly nuanced, ambiguous. The lie that is an omi
ssion, a failure to totally recall.

  Yet even this she could not risk. For N. seemed to see into her innermost heart.

  Someone hurt you. Sexually. Or—in some other way, as well as sexual. Tell me.

  I did tell you! I told you no.

  Something that went wrong, something that left a wound. Not a scar that has healed. A bleeding wound.

  I am not a—bleeding wound. Don’t do this to me.

  N. was smiling at her. But N. was not smiling with her.

  He was older than she was: yet not old, only just in his early forties. A still-young, vigorous man. A man whose physical being seemed trapped, or in any case contained and repressed, inside his proper businessman clothing: expensive suits, shoes.

  His background had been, he’d said, working-class.

  Or maybe just a little lower.

  Immigrant grandparents, and his father had worked with his hands most of his life and had wanted to be, for a few years in adolescence, a professional boxer.

  He, N., had tried boxing at a neighborhood gym. In high school.

  He’d loved it. Hitting, and even, to a degree, getting hit. But there were guys in the neighborhood, black kids, some of them built like Mike Tyson at age fifteen-sixteen—they’d discouraged N., you might say.

  So, he’d quit. Probably just in time, before he’d gotten seriously hurt.

  His hair was thick, sleekly brushed back across his furrowed scalp. She could see the boxer-hunter in him now: the way his eyes were fixed upon her.

  She was frightened of him, in that instant.

  She’d thought him husbandly, fatherly. But there was something else now, a deeper and more primitive being.

  She said, I—I can’t remember. . . .

  What? What can’t you remember?

  . . . what happened, or . . .

  When? When was this, that you can’t remember?

  Not recently. Not for a long time.

  And who was it?

  Who was it?—no one . . .

  Fuck that! Tell me.

  Oh he’s an old man now—he isn’t the man who. . . .

  She was laughing. Her face was bright as a flame, her very hair seemed to stir on her head, like upright flames. He was staring at her in triumph, he had won. He had overpowered her, he had obliterated her opposition to him. Never in her life had she uttered such things—it was unbelievable to her, she’d said so much. Secrets snatched from her, irremediably. Her burning face she hid, she wiped at her eyes. Bright laughter fell from her mouth like broken glass.