The Wicked City

by Beatriz Williams

  Though the air is still dark, the sky has taken on a promising transparency. Not long before dawn. We tread across the soggy ground, the queer half-familiar landscape of my youth, small, broken-down houses replaced by great houses, trees snatched away to appear somewhere else, fences repaired, new garages erected to contain new automobiles: all of them as shadows against the wet, charcoal world. Closer and closer, the creek roars hard, fighting its banks, and I consider what a good thing it is that Duke’s ancestors had the wit to build atop the slope of such a hill, a comfortable height away from all that hurtling water. Even here, on the high ground of the ornamental garden, the rain stands in deep pools around the shrubbery, and the grass has turned to swamp. By the time we reach that corner of the house occupied by the kitchen, my shoes are soaked through, my stockings squishing against the leather insoles.

  I think, Damn it all, Billy, could you not have stayed put in Glen Cove? Could you not have just sat and sulked before that comfortable fire in the inglenook fireplace, the fire that you built by your own hands?

  I have no proof, of course, that this door exists, linking the kitchen to the outdoors. But it stands to reason, doesn’t it? And we’ve reached some kind of stone beneath our feet, smooth and puddled, suggesting a path or a courtyard. I find the brick wall with my hand and crawl along, Luella in my lee. Already the garden is exposing a little more light and shape. Around the far corner, I distinguish an irregular shadow that might be the tops of the trees shading the fishing hole. My fingertips hurt from the rough brick; the damp tobacco smell of Luella’s breath fills my head like a fog. So chill as it is, we might stand but a few degrees from snow. Worse, an ice storm. Had one of those when I was six or seven, before I went off to the convent, and I never will forget the sight of the world glazed in ice. The terrible beauty. Walls all coated, locks all stuck. Trees and shrubs all dipped in glass. We were lucky. Over McCurdys’ way, the limb of a giant elm crashed right through the upstairs, killing Mr. and Mrs. McCurdy in their bed. Left their three children orphans. I believe Laura Ann Green took them all in, poor mites, though I don’t recollect for how long. Whether she adopted the three little McCurdys as her own or gave them up to some kind of institution.

  My left hand finds wood. I stop and motion to Luella. Run my fingers over the panel until they encounter a knob, dead cold. Won’t turn. I jiggle carefully, trying not to make a racket, but the lock is surely bolted.

  “Move aside,” Luella whispers, and I step to the left, blowing on my fingers, which burn from the coldness of the metal. She draws something out of her pocket, an object like a pencil, and inserts it slowly into the keyhole, lovingly, feeling her way as might a midwife confronted with a baby in breech. The lock gives out, the door opens. She steps back to allow me in first. Can’t see her face so well, but I expect she’s smiling.

  And yet an uncommon understanding seems to have opened up betwixt the two of us, Ginger and Luella, which requires no words. Like a pair of oxen in yoke, I guess, who might despise each other in pasture. I step past the threshold into the unlit entry, troubling not to see if she follows. Some kind of pantry, seems like, except lined with the tools of housekeeping. Brooms and mops of all kinds, hanging on rows of hooks. I can just make out their shapes. A few more steps, and we pass into a pantry proper, cabinets bumping along my fingertips, and then the room opens up to the kitchen as I remember it, except empty of bustle, empty of cook and kitchen maid and God knows, massive Garland range squatting mute along the wall. Icebox and sink over there. Worktable in the middle. I throw out my hands to find my way to the remembered door at one end of the opposite wall. A swinging door, as I recollect, so as to render the carrying of trays and dishes more efficient. I can’t hear Luella’s footsteps behind me on the sleek linoleum floor, but I know she’s there. Her scent, the warmth of her breath. There is a perilous passage from the end of the worktable to the wall with the door. I can’t quite picture how it lies; the room’s too dark to really see. You can only sense the presence of furniture and cabinet and wall, by something closer to instinct than sight.

  Except when you can’t.

  My foot finds the leg of a chair; I lurch forward, snatching for balance. Chair legs scrape against the floor. Gin falls to one knee, bites back a cry of pain and surprise. Then silence. Only the knock of our two hearts, the delicate whoosh of air from alveoli into throat into warm kitchen atmosphere, and back again.

  We remain still for many seconds, counting breaths. Listening hard for any stirring. Luella’s hand grasps my elbow and urges me up. Disapproval flows from her flesh into mine. I shake her off and strike forward, around the chair, this time reaching the wall and then the door. Passing through without a squeak into the short hallway to the dining room.

  The light’s a shade better here, on account of the great windows. I skirt the massive table, the ducal chairs, the fireboard of dark, mottled marble, and come out the door on the other side. Here be the grand hall, the staircase curving upward in its double tracks, exposed to maybe twenty-five feet of empty vertical space. You might suggest I should have tried the back stairs, but that particular hall leads past Duke Kelly’s private study, which I aim to avoid, because my step-daddy is an early riser and always has been, even before he had any fixed occupation to rise to.

  The white marble gathers up the dawn. I have no trouble at all stealing soundless up those stairs, Luella padding in my wake, all the way to the landing above. Blood runs loose, such that I ought to feel dizzy but do not. The queasiness has likewise disappeared. There is only purpose, sharp and singular, filling my head and chest, galloping along my limbs. This landing. That hallway. One door, two doors, three dark mahogany doors beneath my hand.

  Stop.

  Seems my heart is pounding hard. Breath rushes low. Run my fingers over the third door, looking for I don’t know what. A sign of some kind. A detail recalled, to assure me my surmise is correct. Something to counter this small surge of doubt that assails me inconveniently as I touch the brass knob, caress it without turning, eyes closed, ears open.

  “Are you sure this is it?” whispers Luella, so low as to make me strain.

  “Course I am,” I whisper back, “unless he’s gone.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “Nothing.”

  I turn the knob all quiet, and the door swings wide, and I call out in a hushed voice: Johnnie?

  A figure rises up from the dark bed. “Geneva Rose? That you?”

  But it’s not my brother Johnnie’s voice, oh no. Similar, maybe, but Johnnie ain’t lived enough years on this earth to collect that much mountain gravel in his throat, disturbing all the honey.

  I turn and push Luella back from the doorway. “Go!” I shout. “Run!”

  And she does run, sprinting back down that hall like a spooked horse, but it’s too late for me. Dumb out of luck this new spring morning. Or else the Lord seen fit to abandon me altogether, for the greatness of my sins.

  7

  NOW, I did make earlier mention of the springhouse, did I not? I feel certain that I did. Small room built of stone atop the running creek, just above the place where it widens out to form the fishing hole, in the absence of an actual spring bubbling up from Duke Kelly’s land. It’s been there so long as ever I can recollect; from the time of Duke’s granddaddy, or even before, judging from the general degradation of stone and shingle roof. Used to store meat and milk and butter and such precious things, for we had no ice delivery in River Junction when I was small, nobody rich enough to pay for ice. Certainly no modern electric refrigeration machine, which we still modestly call an icebox, like there now stands in Duke’s fancy new kitchen. In summer, we small fry might head down the slope of the hill to fetch a bit of butter for Duke’s bread, or a couple of eggs, or a plucked chicken for frying. Sometimes I might seek out the springhouse on my own, for no other reason than to obtain an hour or two of quiet, cool peace during a hot summer’s afternoon, for all that there was no window and no light to read
by. Just privacy.

  And sometimes we did play in that springhouse, during our childhood adventures. We might make like it was the Alamo, to be defended to the last man, or else seek shelter there during some game of hide-and-go-seek. Some sudden break of thunder.

  So I happen to know every last stone of that springhouse, maybe fifteen foot by twelve foot, wooden shelves to one side, channel cut into the floor along another side, no windows and no light to speak of, though I confess I’m surprised to see it still exists. Surprised to see this humble crib intact, built into the bank astride the narrow, raging creek this March morning, near enough engulfed by the torrent; even more surprised that Duke Kelly should lead me here, of all places, when he has now an entire mansion at his command. An entire town.

  Dawn has come, but the sun hasn’t risen so far as to breach the ridge to the east. We are yet in shadow, the same as we were that last morning in River Junction, four and a half years ago, when I did give my step-daddy the white scar that streaks downward from his temple, and he bestowed on me a scar of another kind. Whether Duke recalls this particular geographic detail, I can’t say. We neither of us utter a word as we sidestep down the last of the slope, slipping a little on the wet grass. He’s wearing a pair of handsome, shiny black shoes and a thick felt hat and a sturdy mackintosh, belted at the waist, like any businessman on his way to work. On his mouth there is a pleasant smile.

  “You bastard,” I say, as our destination becomes clear, “you’ve got them freezing in the springhouse, haven’t you? Why, they might could drown if the creek runs any higher!”

  “Then I reckon it be good work you showed up in time, Geneva Rose,” he says calmly, reaching inside his pocket, and now I do notice a recent alteration to the springhouse’s construction. A door at the entrance, bearing a small window barred with iron, and a thick, heavy lock.

  “Lord Almighty,” I whisper. Feeling a little sick.

  Duke withdraws a small object from his pocket, a key, which he inserts into the lock on the springhouse door. Scarce does he turn the bolt and draw back the door but I push him aside, into the raw darkness, creek roaring against the stone outside, and call out Anson’s name.

  “Ginger?” someone says in a thready, exhausted voice, belonging not to Anson but another.

  “Billy!” I exclaim.

  And while this short exchange is taking place, Duke lifts a lantern from its hook near the door and lights it, and the flame slowly takes and spreads a circle of illumination along the dim stone walls and shelves, the floor now sloshing with a good foot of icy water. The three men held by their wrists to one wall, from chains fixed to the stone at such a height that they cannot stand upright. Can only kneel on that hard stone floor, taken over by the rising creek that rushes in through the open channel.

  Anson, Billy, and Johnnie.

  I scream and plunge forward, down the three steps from the door and into the pool, splashing my way toward them. The wall’s not long, and the three men are packed shoulder to shoulder like sardines in a tin, Johnnie nearest, head canted toward his massive chest at a strange angle. I grasp his cheek and try to turn up his face to mine, but his eyes remain closed, his skin cold, his neck too stiff to budge, and that’s when I see the thick purple bruises at his throat, the black eye, the smashed and blood-crusted jaw.

  The cold, lifeless skin.

  “Ginger,” Anson says softly, next to me.

  I start up a keening, cradling Johnnie’s broken head. His wide, strong shoulders, which could once bear any weight. “You killed him! You killed him!” I wail, smoothing back his poor hair, kissing his poor white forehead.

  “Not myself, I did not,” Duke says calmly.

  I turn to face him, still holding Johnnie’s head. “You ordered it done, which is the same thing. Your own son. You had your own son killed. And you call yourself a Christian!”

  “God Himself did sacrifice His only begotten son, to cleanse the sins of man.”

  I don’t even recognize the noise in my throat as my own. I just let go of Johnnie and launch myself at Duke, pounding and scratching and biting, while Anson shouts at me to stop in a voice like the breaking of glass.

  But Duke only laughs at my onslaught. Laughs and jerks my right arm behind my back; grasps the hair at the nape of my neck and twists it around his fist so that my scalp about bursts into flame. “You play nice, Geneva Rose,” he says. “You play nice or I pick one-a these fine young fellows to go next. You want that, baby girl? You want to watch these poor boys die on account-a your wickedness?”

  “No,” I whisper, so soft you can’t even hear me above the noise of the creek outside.

  His face is so close, his chin nearly touches mine. The same sleek, handsome face as before, skin of smooth olive, eyelids low and lazy. Lips red and full. His black lashes cast a furry shadow against the sockets of his eyes.

  “Now, you be soft and attend to me. Attend to your step-daddy that reared you and loved you like you was his own, even though you be but a bastard, begotten in sin betwixt a harlot’s legs.”

  “She was your wife.”

  He tightens his fist in my hair, setting my eyes to sting.

  “She were a harlot, Geneva Rose, though I did take her to wife and redeem her, until the Lord saw fit to summon her to His side. As I did take you to my own bosom, but instead-a cleaving to me as you should, you turned on me like a snake. Ain’t that right?” He puts his mouth to my ear and yanks back my head. “You turned on me, and you turned my own son against me, and by your wiles you did lure that poor fellow Green. You done broke my heart, near enough, and so I got no choice, Geneva Rose, no choice but to take an eye for an eye, as the Lord commands. Break your heart as you broke mine.”

  “You are the devil’s own, Duke Kelly.”

  There is no movement from him, no word at all. Just that hot breath in my ear. Behind me, someone mutters something, kind of agonized, and Duke lifts his head.

  “What you say, son? Was you fixing to join Miss Geneva in blasphemy?”

  Billy’s voice, young and defiant. “I said, take your hands off her!”

  “Be quiet, damn it!” Anson snaps.

  “That’s right, boy,” says Duke. “You attend to your big brother. He knows better ’n you. He knows there be a dozen good men among them trees outside, like an army of righteous salvation, just a-waiting for my word.”

  I draw breath sharply.

  “That’s right, now. They be waiting with blades sharp and eyes full-a glory, hearts full-a vengeance against this Delilah who has abased herself in the eyes of the Lord Almighty, who has betrayed her own people that did nothing but welcome her and her harlot mother to their bosom. So you just keep that tongue-a yours inside your pretty head, boy. You keep your eyes open and your mouth closed. You attend to what I say. You just watch how I wield the hand of God against them harlots that turn against their people. Turn against the good men and women that reared them up from the cradle.”

  And he releases my hair and spins me around and tears the Coast Guard overcoat from my shoulders and arms, and he throws that coat to the stone floor, now covered by a foot of cold water.

  I close my eyes, because I cannot watch the faces of the two men before me, as I stand there in Duke’s arms, realizing what I realize, understanding what he is fixing to do. The nature of his vengeance upon me, for my crimes against him.

  The air is stone cold on my skin, on my arms and my chest through the thin, delicate material of my crepe de Chine blouse, which I have now worn for three days running. Duke’s hand curls around my throat, caressing the long tendons.

  “She always were pretty,” he croons. “Not so pretty as her mama, maybe, but pretty enough. Don’t you two gentlemen agree? You surely do, I swan. By word and by deed.”

  Billy cries out: not a word of any kind, just agony.

  “Don’t look,” I say.

  “Now, you fellows know better ’n that. I told you both to keep your eyes open, I believe, and I surely don’t want to hav
e to hurt all this pretty white skin any more ’n I need. You watch, or I will make her bleed. You hear?” There is a little pause, and then: “That’s right. That’s good. Now watch.”

  His fingers find the collar of my blouse and rip downward.

  As I said, I wear but my cami-knickers under my clothes, for my brassiere still lies in the drawer of the pool house bedroom in Southampton, New York. And that camisole is made of nothing but silk and peaches, and the air be as cold as stone, and I might just as well stand bare-naked just now, for all the modesty this scrap of gossamer confers upon me. My face is hot with shame and hatred and grief and something else, panic or what have you, because we are all at Duke’s mercy, all of us, and when he has had his way with me, torturing Anson and Billy by the sight of my degradation, he will kill all three of us, one by one, by the might of his bare hands. So I have nothing to lose, have I? Only a few minutes of life lost, and those minutes not worth the trouble of enduring them: not for me nor those men who hang in chains before me, who hang for the sake of me.

  So I come to some decision. I move fast as a pistol shot. Dig my elbow into Duke’s middle, spin about, and drive my knee into his groin.

  He grunts and totters back, nearly falling into the edge of that channel through which the creek runs, refrigerating the stone interior of the spring-house. I press forward, raising my fists, while someone roars behind me, and Duke’s head snaps up just as I fix to swing that fist toward him, into his thick jaw.

  And though my fist strikes home in a satisfying thwack, sending a shock up the bones of my hand and wrist, radius and ulna and humerus all the way into my shoulder, I perceive I have caused no such shock among the bones of Duke’s skull. He shakes his head once, as if to discard the sensation of my touch, and reaches out to snatch my arm as it draws back to punch again. He bends that arm backward, near enough snapping the elbow, smiling quietly as he goes, until the joint folds behind my back and my brain goes white with pain. My body limp and pliant in Duke’s hands. We are caught in a terrible embrace, face-to-face, while he holds my arm bent behind my back, and his head looms over mine, smelling of stale tobacco and hair cream and lust. The noise of the creek does rush in my ears, yet louder than before, and above that din I hear somebody groan like it’s dragged out the devil’s own throat. Anson. And I wonder, sort of inconsequential, because your mind is apt to strange frivolities when you can’t reason for pain, if that’s the last sound I shall hear on this earth. Anson’s voice, sending me into eternal rest.