Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Well—it will take more than el terremoto to move me from here.”

  Mariana had the idea that this was an old issue. Many times, far too many times, the wife and the husband had spoken of it, and always the husband would make the same offhanded reply.

  “Mariana, dear—what of you?”

  “Yes? What?”

  “Does el terremoto not frighten you, a little?”

  Mariana tried to think. It was a fact, she’d given little thought to the possibility of an earthquake in this precarious hillside dwelling. As she’d given little thought to the possibility of a fire, a flash flood, landslide.

  “Mariana is not an alarmist, Ines. She is a practical person—she knows to live here, now.”

  This was the first time anyone had ever spoken of Mariana as practical. And in the third person, in her hearing, as if she were a very young child or in some way incapacitated.

  Perhaps it was a fact, Mariana accepted the possibility of an earthquake in this beautiful place as a feature of her marriage. She was so very grateful for the marriage, a mere earthquake could not dissuade her.

  “I haven’t thought of it, I guess . . . I . . .”

  Mariana’s voice trailed off lamely. How weak Ines and Hortensa must think she was, this new, young wife of Austin’s!

  When he’d joined them a few minutes before, Austin had greeted Mariana with a distracted sort of affection. All the while he’d been staring in Ines’s direction without exactly looking at Ines, as one might look in the direction of a blinding light without daring to confront it head-on.

  Now he glanced at Mariana with a sharp crease of a frown between his eyebrows, as if he had but a vague idea who this person was, and why she was in his living room with his exotic Spanish ex-wife.

  Gracelessly Hortensa had lowered her weight onto the sofa, at an end from which the shimmering view wasn’t visible. She hadn’t troubled to wash her somewhat greasy face or to change for the evening apart from removing the polyester jacket: beneath, she was wearing a rumpled T-shirt, matte black, with a faded sparkly image—a human face of some kind, glaring eyes, wild hair—Beethoven?

  While Austin prepared drinks Ines continued to walk about in her clattery high heels, exclaiming at things—old, familiar—new, bonito. It was impossible to tell—impossible for Mariana to tell—if the vivacious little woman was sincerely admiring, or subtly mocking; if, drawing her former husband’s attention to a sculpted “demon” from Mexico, or a grimacing Cambodian mask, or the lacquered Japanese screen, she meant to remind him cruelly of their shared past, or to congratulate him on having retained some of the beauty of their shared past. She spent some time examining the orchids, the bonsai trees, the little lemon tree.

  Mariana thought She will pick one of the little lemons and put it in her pocket.

  But Ines just complimented Austin on his beautiful house —seemingly without irony. Then, recalling Mariana, the new wife, turning to Mariana with a warm smile, to include her as well.

  Seeing the empty socket beneath the arched eyebrow, Mariana felt a wave of faintness again.

  And the other eye, the remaining eye—bright as reflected glass, beautifully made up and all but winking at the new, young wife.

  Mariana excused herself to get appetizers from the kitchen, which she’d prepared earlier. Expensive cheeses, Austin’s favorites, had been set out to warm, from the refrigerator; there were Greek olives, cashews, small perfect grapes, and Austin’s favorite rye-crisp crackers. How grateful Mariana was to escape Ines’s presence for even so brief a period of time—the impulse came strong, to run outside, along the graveled drive to the road, and—away.

  But I am his wife now, he loves me. I belong here.

  She wasn’t so sure of this. The wave of faintness rose in her again, confused with a powerful scent of overripe peaches and a meaty odor from the rich cassoulet Austin had begun preparing the previous evening, that was simmering at a low heat in a Dutch oven on the counter.

  When Mariana returned with the tray of appetizers, Austin and their guests were seated at uncomfortable angles to each other—Ines on the white-leather sofa facing the plate-glass window, Austin in a chair exactly perpendicular to Ines, and Hortensa at the far end of the sofa. But no one was looking at anyone else, and no one seemed, for the moment, to have anything to say.

  Even Ines was just slightly uncomfortable. She had a habit of stroking her bare arm slowly, sensuously; caressing herself, as if to comfort herself.

  Her bare arms were thin, crepey. Mariana saw what appeared to be tiny black ants on her arms, which were, of course, moles.

  Moles on the nape of Ines’s neck. A mole on the underside of her jaw.

  Smiling, Mariana served the appetizers. She was very warm: beginning to perspire. Of course she’d showered earlier that day but not since and she dreaded Austin glancing at her, as he’d done once, not long ago, startled by a smell of her skin perhaps, when she’d become unexpectedly warm, and he’d asked her—not cruelly, not maliciously, but just a little playfully, teasing—if she hadn’t had time to shower that morning?—and she’d been deeply embarrassed and ashamed.

  She saw that the expensive Brie was soft and runny—Austin would approve. For this difficult evening she’d dressed in new clothes: a blue pleated top, a white pleated skirt. Around her neck was the heavy Chinese jade medallion, a gift from Austin. Her hair had begun to recover some of its glossy thickness and her skin was less sallow than it had been; she’d darkened her lips with a plum-colored lipstick that seemed to illuminate her face, to suggest hope. But Austin seemed to take little notice. The rich, runny Brie he spread thickly onto a cracker, eating hungrily.

  Though Austin had spoken casually of his former wife’s visit he had dressed for the occasion: his shirt was fine Egyptian cotton in a pale orange color, worn open at the throat; his trousers were dove-gray linen, with a sharp crease. He’d shaved for the second time that day, for his beard was dark, and grew in heavily.

  Mariana thought He’s still in love with her. That is his secret.

  Rapidly then Ines and Austin exchanged news of mutual friends, acquaintances, children?—Mariana could barely follow their murmured words, that had the air of coded messages.

  “Austin! How is—?”

  “He’s good. And how is—?”

  “Very good! I think.”

  “And how is—?”

  “Not so good.”

  “No! When was this?”

  “A few months ago.”

  “How old?”

  “Not old. Sixty-seven.”

  “Sixty-seven! Not old at all.”

  Yet, the ex-wife and the ex-husband did not exactly look at each other. There was a grim willfulness in their remarks as if a force impersonal to both were driving through them, coercing them. Mariana understood that they were bound together not by this web of names but by the unspoken loss at the core of their relationship—the infant Raoul.

  No bond between the fourth wife and the husband could ever be so deep, so intimate as this—Mariana knew.

  Mariana moved closer to the lonely-seeming Hortensa. She’d thought it strange—though, in the anxiety of the moment, she’d scarcely had time to think—that Ines had airily introduced herself as Ines Zambranco but her niece as merely Hortensa, as one might introduce a young child, or a servant. Yet Hortensa was a cellist of some reputation, wasn’t she?—Mariana was eager to engage her in conversation.

  “Austin told me that you play cello?—what a beautiful instrument! I used to play double bass, and piano; I mean, I’ve had training—lessons—twelve years of lessons—though at the present time, I seem to have given up. . . .” A feeling of loss swept through Mariana, for a moment she thought she might begin to cry: her face would crinkle like an infant’s, and tears would run from her eyes. But brightly she said: “I
hope it won’t be permanent—giving up. If I could play with someone, I’d be happy to accompany on the piano, or try. . . .”

  There was a piano in Austin’s work-studio in this house, a small Steinway at which Austin occasionally played; one of Austin’s talents was for composing music, Mariana had learned, though he’d set aside composing in recent years. He’d offered to pay for music lessons for Mariana with an Institute instructor, but Mariana had demurred, for the time being—“I don’t feel very ‘musical’ right now.”

  Where did Hortensa live? How frequently did she travel to Spain? How often did she see her aunt Ines? Where had she had musical training and where did she play the cello?—eager questions that provoked Hortensa to replies, terse but not rude; glancing at Mariana almost shyly, Hortensa volunteered that she’d studied cello at Julliard and at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid, with the distinguished Vincent Martínez; that she lived most of the time in New York City, which was where her mother and stepfather owned a brownstone in the West Seventies; she played cello where and when she could, most recently with a chamber music group called . . . Mariana saw that the young woman’s eyes were dark, close-set and beautiful, with a sort of wariness as in one who has too often been baited into responding openly to another and then been rebuked.

  Impulsively Mariana said, “Maybe—we could play together? I mean—I could accompany you on the piano. . . .”

  “I don’t have my cello with me. You didn’t see me bring my cello, did you.”

  Hortensa’s reply was just slightly sarcastic. Mariana chose not to hear.

  “Well, I mean—sometime, Hortensa! When you and Ines visit Austin again.”

  Mariana rose to pass the appetizers another time. She saw that her hands, chilled, were trembling slightly.

  “Ah!—you have the nazar here, still. This is very wise, Austin!”

  In the dining room, Ines inspected the blue-glass “eye” beside the arched doorway. Mariana held her breath for it seemed that Ines was lifting the nazar from its hook and might drop it.

  Two glasses of Austin’s favorite chardonnay in the living room had brought a feverish flush to Ines’s face, discernible even through the thick white cosmetic mask. Seen from behind, the white-haired woman looked touchingly frail—her bare shoulders, prominent backbone—the upper arms like those of a malnourished child. Yet Mariana felt that of the four of them, including even Austin, Ines was the most strong-willed and forceful.

  “You see—I am never without my nazar”—Ines lifted her thin arm, to show the company a linked-gold bracelet on her left wrist, to which was attached a coin-sized nazar of blue glass. “Though it is ‘just superstition’—as Austin says—it would be very foolish to travel across the Atlantic Ocean without such a precaution. And I insist my dear niece wears a nazar, too.”

  Hortensa, with the air of a put-upon adolescent, dutifully lifted her fleshy arm to display the bracelet on her wrist.

  Ines said reprovingly: “The evil eye is all around us and now in cyberspace, too. One cannot be too cautious.”

  “Yes! So true! And yet—one must live.”

  Austin helped Ines settle into her chair, and would have helped Hortensa except the dour young woman had already seated herself. And there was Mariana, fully capable of seating herself, even if Austin had taken notice of her.

  Four places at the dining room table, two on each side. Austin and the fourth wife would face the first wife and Hortensa, inescapably.

  But Mariana was thinking now, though Austin was ignoring her, Austin was only stiffly attentive to Ines, looking toward her rather than at her. In the living room he’d remained sitting perpendicular to her, like a figure in an Edward Hopper painting in the presence of, yet not with, other figures; his smile was fixed, forced.

  “So beautiful, as always! For a man alone, Austin knows to surround himself with the most exquisite things.”

  Ines was referring to the dining room, with its dark-red walls, brass-framed mirrors, and lithographs by Klee, Chagall, and Picasso; gaily she leaned over the table to sniff at a vase of purple and yellow iris Mariana had cut in the garden beside the house.

  It wouldn’t occur to Mariana until later, nor did it seem to have occurred to the others, that Austin was no longer a man alone.

  “Ah, these are—artificial? I think so.”

  Mariana said no, she’d cut the flowers herself.

  “Long ago, there were very fragrant flowers growing around this house,” Ines said, cocking her head at Mariana, squinting her single sparkling eye, “but each year I have visited there are fewer. These have no fragrance at all, and could pass for artificial.” Ines gave the word a chic Spanish pronunciation.

  Mariana glanced at Austin for support, or sympathy, but Austin didn’t appear to be listening. Between his eyebrows was a sharp knife-crease.

  The first course was a light, frothy, and creamy mushroom soup Austin had prepared. Ines praised the soup effusively—“Ah! Perfecto.”

  For the evening, Austin’s longtime housekeeper Ana was helping in the kitchen, but Austin preferred to serve dinner guests in person, as if he had no hired help at all. Of course, Mariana was enlisted to help him with the heavy cassoulet. It was an elaborate Spanish meal comprised of a variety of ingredients—duck, sausage, pork, pancetta, ham hocks, beans—and provided a subject for much conversation, drawing in even Hortensa. Brought to the table at the same time was a large wooden bowl filled by Mariana with salad greens, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and parsley, and chopped figs, tossed with Austin’s olive-oil-and-vinegar dressing—a beautiful salad. And there was yet another bottle of red wine to be opened and poured, with ceremony; so Austin was preoccupied, and Mariana began to feel less acutely self-conscious.

  It was an exquisite dinner. Austin prided himself on his cooking, and took as much pains with food and drink as he did with his professional work.

  Yet the cassoulet was very rich. After two small forkfuls, ­Mariana began to lose her appetite.

  Ines, too, ate sparingly. But the vivacious little woman was practiced at pushing food around her plate, flattering her host into thinking that she was busily consuming his food and relishing it.

  And Hortensa ate heartily—seconds, thirds heaped by Austin onto her plate.

  During the meal, Ines chattered brightly about California—“Only just a memory to me now. But—a memory!”

  Mariana saw Austin flinch at this seemingly casual remark.

  “Those trees! Eucalyptus are very dangerous in a windstorm, Mariana—yet more, in a firestorm. I’ve seen them burst into flame—it’s astonishing, like a—holocaust. You can never look at a eucalyptus tree in quite the same way again.”

  Mariana smiled, perplexed. Had Ines—and Austin—lived through a firestorm? Or was Ines simply talking, aimlessly?

  “Austin sneers at superstition. But there is something to it—the logic of chance—things happen to us for a reason. In the old folk tales there are no natural deaths—spirits cause them. If you are stricken, fall down, and die, it’s the place where you die that is responsible—an evil spirit must dwell there. My grandmother told me about a woman who was careless in a cemetery, and dropped an urn, and an evil spirit leapt out of it and into her . . .”

  Hortensa laughed, suddenly. Ines turned to her with a look of startled scorn.

  “Sí, you young people will laugh. Until it happens to you.”

  Conversation now reverted to less sensitive subjects—Berkeley and San Francisco restaurants, tapas bars, Spanish cuisine vs. other cuisines. Ines led, and Austin followed, though with less enthusiasm than he usually showed, talking of food; for food was one of Austin’s passions, perhaps in this phase of his life a primary passion, along with wine. Mariana saw that Austin still did not look directly at Ines, if he could avoid it; as if he simply couldn’t bear to see her—his once-gorgeous young
wife now decades older and disfigured.

  Politely Austin turned his attention to Hortensa, asking her questions about her “musical career”—until at last Hortensa said, sharply, with no effort at being civil to her host, “I don’t have a musical career. I try to get gigs, and I try very hard. And mostly I fail. And in the meantime I teach—children. When I can get them. I’ve never had a career, I’ve barely had a life. I am a worker in music, a member of the proletariat.”

  Before Austin could reply, Ines intervened: “Hortensa exaggerates of course! But it is true, for all her talent she has had ill luck. Even as she scorns superstition she has had ill luck not deserved by one who has worked so hard, with so much heart—but that will change one day soon, I am confident.”

  Again Hortensa laughed. She made no effort to defend herself against her aunt’s brittle optimism but scooped more cassoulet onto her plate.

  Mariana felt a pang of sympathy for the young woman. It’s because she is not beautiful. She is a homely girl—there is no place for her even in music.

  But when Mariana tried to reestablish a sympathetic rapport with Hortensa, Hortensa coolly ignored her.

  As if to say Who are you? Somebody’s wife? Nobody gives a damn about you.

  Numbly Mariana rose from the table. She would clear the dishes away—she would bring in the dessert, an elegant crème brûlée prepared by a famous Berkeley caterer.

  Austin sat at his place unmoving, as if Mariana were his servant.

  In the kitchen, Ana took the dishes from Mariana quickly, to rinse at the sink. She would have come into the dining room with Mariana to help clear the table but Mariana told her no, please—“Austin prefers that you stay here.”

  How sad she felt, how anxious, even before their guests’ arrival her husband had seemed oblivious of her; not that he was angry at her in the way she so dreaded, but rather that he seemed to have forgotten her. Yes—my wife. My new, young wife. Which one is she . . .

  Mariana didn’t want to think that their marriage was so fragile, a husk of a marriage—entered into far too swiftly on both sides, as in a romantic Latin film. She didn’t want to think that she was with this much older man only because the man loved her: claimed to adore her.