Nemesis

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “That’s all right, son,” the eldest policeman said. “You’ll be all right.” Laying a hand on Brendan’s shoulder not to coerce but to give comfort as, to his shame, Brendan burst into hot splashing tears.

  He’d known they were coming because, earlier that evening, Maggie had called to tell him of the shocking news, the really quite incredible news: Rolfe Christensen was dead!

  He had just come home from eating a distracted, tasteless meal in a diner within walking distance on Route 1 when the telephone rang. His heart lifted in hope—a friend? a friendly call?—even as he knew there could be no friendly call, for he had no friends in Forest Park. He’d shunned the company of the music students who might have befriended him and he had no promising acquaintance among the staff of the Book Mark (a new and used bookstore in the village of Forest Park, at which he’d recently begun work) and he knew that Maggie was unhappy about him and no longer cared to see him, yet he lifted the receiver hopefully, and indeed it was Maggie, but she sounded upset, extremely upset, for a brief while he was incapable of absorbing her words: something had happened to that bastard Christensen, someone had done something to that bastard Christensen? “I think you should know, Brendan,” Maggie was saying, “and be prepared.” He asked her to repeat her words. He was so surprised he didn’t even stammer at first.

  So Maggie in a low urgent voice told Brendan all she knew at that time, early evening of December 8, 1988, of the death of Rolfe Christensen: that he had died in the emergency room of the Forest Park Medical Center at approximately 5:30 P.M.; that he had collapsed on the Conservatory campus, while driving his car; that it was believed he’d been poisoned by eating a piece of contaminated chocolate candy. Forest Park police were already making inquiries, Maggie had been told, and it was unavoidable that they would be given his name, Brendan Bauer’s name, and told of the assault case hearings. “I had to call you, Brendan, to warn you: you must be prepared.”

  Numbly, Brendan said, “Let me see if I understand all this. Rolfe Chr—Christensen died? Today? He’s dead? He was poisoned?” Brendan swallowed hard. “He was m-m-murdered?”

  Maggie said softly that she thought it must be so: for it was not likely that he would have poisoned himself or that a box of chocolate-covered truffles would be accidentally laced with a lethal poison.

  Brendan whispered, “Murdered,” in so low an undertone Maggie did not hear.

  Brendan was bracing himself against a doorframe but he had no clear conception of where the doorframe was in the physical world, what the rooms were it divided. There was a murmurous swelling of sound inside his head like hundreds of kettledrums struck in unison.

  His enemy—dead? So abruptly, and irrevocably, dead?

  And he, Brendan Bauer—how was he implicated?

  At this time, Maggie did not know precisely what sort of poison had killed Christensen; the forensic laboratory results would not be available for another day or two. She knew only what, by way of several friends, including Nicholas Reickmann, whom, as she told Brendan, she’d encountered on the steps of Phillips Hall, a look of astonishment on his face, that Rolfe Christensen had been poisoned and that the poison had been somehow embedded in a box of gift chocolates. As Maggie excitedly amplified the account, Brendan became more and more confused until finally he had the idea that Maggie too had received a gift box of poisoned chocolates in the mail—from a former student or from someone she’d erroneously presumed to be a former student. His head swam. “But you weren’t poisoned, Maggie, were you?” he asked. “You weren’t?”

  There was a moment’s perplexed silence. Then Maggie said, “Of course I wasn’t, Brendan. If I had been, I wouldn’t be alive now.”

  As they talked, Brendan removed his glasses (which were still clumsily mended with soiled adhesive tape) and rubbed at his eyes. If since that terrible night in September he had frequently envisioned Rolfe Christensen dead—if in his most shameless and childish dreams of vengeance he had imagined himself the agent of his rapist’s death—this sudden fulfillment of his wish gave him no pleasure. For now the drama between them was over: Christensen could never be suitably exposed, punished, and forgiven; Brendan, who had been humiliatingly bound, wrists and ankles, and scorned, and abused, and assaulted, and reduced to the object, the receptacle, of another’s grunting heedless lust, could never triumph over the circumstances of his degradation. And there was more: “I—I didn’t do it, Maggie, I didn’t—you believe me, don’t you?”

  At once Maggie said, “Of course I believe you, Brendan. Don’t even say such things.”

  Still bracing himself against the doorframe, as in a strong gale, Brendan said numbly, “But I—I didn’t. Please believe me.”

  There was another brief pause. Brendan could imagine Maggie’s face: the pale skin warm with feeling, animation; the eyes alight. She said, “Maybe the police won’t even question you, Brendan—maybe I’ve called you and worried you to no purpose.”

  Brendan Bauer laughed bitterly.

  After they hung up he began his wait, his vigil, for he knew of course they would come: it was not yet eight o’clock and he would have supposed they might come within the hour, at any moment; he prayed only that they would not speak with the building superintendent or any of the other tenants, his very bowels writhed in agony of more, and yet more cruel, public exposure. Since that terrible night in September—these were the terms in which Brendan thought of the incident: that terrible night—he was well aware of people looking at him covertly; well aware of talk behind his back, of irresponsible speculation. And he could not control it! He could not make the truth known!

  And now the police were coming for him, now he must prepare to defend himself: I might have said I wanted to kill him. But I don’t remember.

  He heated up a pot of instant coffee and paced about in his tiny room-and-a-half drinking cup after cup of scalding bitter-black coffee; not minding, or not noticing, how the inside of his tender mouth was being burnt. The loathsome acts he’d been forced to perform with his mouth, in service to Rolfe Christensen: no scalding, no scouring, could ever be cleansing enough. But don’t think of that. Not now. And his anus, tender too, and lacerated, and partially ruptured, and bruised … and his genitals, his terrified penis in its soft, so vulnerable envelope of skin, an emblem, as he’d been taught for so many years in his Catholic schools, of sin, of shame, of that-which-must-be-overcome. But don’t think of that now. Don’t think.

  Even as, in preparation for the police, Brendan cleaned his dirt-ridged fingernails with the prong of a fork, and washed his face energetically, and shaved, steadying his right hand by gripping his right elbow hard, he was thinking of flight: a bus to the Manhattan terminal where he might lose himself in humanity, hide, disappear, the wild notion of forty days and forty nights in the wilderness came to him, and certain hypnotic phrases of Varèse’s Ionisation sounded piercingly in his head. Those orgasmic cries, howls, grunts of his rapist—his enemy! How could he, Brendan Bauer, who was so shy, so courteous, so stammering and ineffectual, hope to expunge them from his memory?

  These past few months, he’d learned to shave without looking himself in the eyes.

  What beautiful eyes those are Bren dan … long-lashed like a girl’s. And those tears! sparkling tears! jewels of tears! D’you know that tears too are a lubricant?

  That morning in the Book Mark when Brendan was sorting a begrimed carton of used textbooks the store manager, a man named Pollock, fortyish, straggly-haired, graying, in a plaid flannel shirt with sleeves too short for his long arms, ambled by to chat and hinted strongly that he knew something of what had happened to Brendan that fall, and Brendan had continued working, head bowed, eyes averted from Pollock’s seemingly sympathetic face, and at last Pollock said, as if unable to resist a big-brotherly slyness, “Look, Brendan—everybody knows. It’s no secret.”

  Everybody knows. It’s no secret.

  “And what I heard,” Pollock continued, “is that the Conservatory gave you a raw deal
. A truly raw deal. Am I right?”

  Brendan Bauer shook his head mutely and shut his eyes.

  Everybody knows. It’s no secret.

  But what do they know?

  And what would they think they knew now, now that Rolfe Christensen had been murdered?

  Shaving, Brendan Bauer’s hand slipped. A tiny nick in his chin began to bleed. Still, he did not look himself in the eyes; he reasoned there was no need.

  Blood too is a lubricant. Not too much—not too little.

  Don’t move! Don’t.

  Mmmmmmmmmmmmm Bren dan: sweet!

  He could hear voices in the corridor outside his door, he could hear footsteps approaching his door and his heart stopped but there was—nothing. No one and nothing.

  Nine-thirty. His enemy had been dead for four hours, yet he, Brendan Bauer, was still free.

  How feeble and unconvincing his voice over the telephone, I—I didn’t do it, how suddenly childlike, raw, You believe me, Maggie, don’t you? What choice had Maggie Blackburn but to assure him yes?

  He’d lied to her, hadn’t he. About a few small matters.

  Oh, he couldn’t help lying: just a little, now and then; not lying so much as fabricating, embellishing … making himself more interesting. A habit he’d had since childhood. The youngest of four boys, the two eldest big husky strapping guys good-looking and no-nonsense and athletic and uncontaminated (he’d thought, meanly) by intelligence, thus how was little Brendan to distinguish himself—in school; at the piano; as an altar boy, Sunday mornings at high mass? He’d lied to Maggie Blackburn about things too trivial to set right; that was the nature of most of Brendan Bauer’s innocent fabrications, for which he’d castigated himself in the seminary, spent a good deal of time in self-analysis, examination of conscience, Why do you lie, Brendan, isn’t the truth enough?

  Never. Never enough.

  Which was why he composed his music too … or made the effort.

  Maggie believed him, though. She trusted him, seemed to like him: sisterly, sweetly … unquestioningly. A woman of such poise and elegance and beauty, an intimidating sort of beauty, like the girl singers with their crystalline heartbreaking voices, sopranos, mezzo-sopranos, velvety-throated contraltos, several of them at Indiana, in the music school; you kept your distance and regarded them with the proper detachment of irony, wrote your “art” songs as “anti-art” in order to spurn them. And Maggie herself he’d managed at last, that night in November, after the committee had made its decision, to exasperate … to disgust. She’d politely asked him to leave her house, and he’d crept away like a dog with its tail between its legs.

  He’d been shocked, yet acquiescent. Of course Maggie had been right: the rapist’s victim is degraded, damned; it is pain to look into his face.

  And what would they think they knew now, now that Rolfe Christensen had been murdered?

  Not lies so much as falsifications … subtle innocent-seeming misrepresentations. The Church defines such clever ruses as sins of omission. For instance, in order to whet Maggie’s natural sympathy for him, Brendan had indicated to her how friendless he was in Forest Park, how scorned, lonely … when in truth it was he, through the autumn, who had systematically avoided certain of his fellow graduate students, male and female, who had made overtures of friendship; attractive and clearly bright and talented young people whom in other circumstances Brendan would have liked enormously but in these perverse circumstances found himself disliking … yes, he’d been chill, haughty, abrupt … partly this was sheer nerves but partly (and the Master of Novices had shrewdly seen this in his behavior in the seminary) it was a self-lacerating pride, a neurotic pleasure in hurting others by which one is spared the possibility of being hurt oneself. Don’t stimulate me to like you. To love you. I can’t take that risk, I am not strong enough.

  By way of clever omission Brendan had also misled Maggie into thinking him rather more ill-treated by the Conservatory than he was. He had been disappointed by the committee’s final decision, but he’d been fully prepared for it, having had lengthy conversations with individuals on the committee, among them the school attorney, Mr. Woodbridge, and the provost, Mr. Gould, and the Dean of the Faculty, and the Dean of Students, and there was the psychologist who’d been so patient and kind with him, and there was Nicholas Reickmann, who’d called him up one evening and asked if they could have dinner together and talk, and so Brendan had consented, suspicious at first (for was not Nicholas Reickmann a friend of Christensen’s, if not an ally) and then quite pleased, flattered, grateful for Nicholas’s concern, for though he was a friend of sorts of Christensen’s, he was also a very decent and fair-minded young man and seemed simply to want to know the truth of what had happened, or had not happened, between Christensen and Brendan. So Brendan had confided in him, to a degree. Not so thoroughly as he had confided in the doctor who’d examined him, or the psychologist, or Mr. Gould, but more than he’d been able to bring himself to tell the committee, or Maggie Blackburn, whom he had not wanted to shock and disgust … though he wanted to enlist her pity and sympathy and support. And at the end of the evening, after paying for Brendan’s dinner, Nicholas had said thoughtfully, clearly from the perspective of one who knew the way of the world, or at least the way of a certain corner of the world, “Look, Brendan: I know it’s been hell. I know—I can guess—something of what you’ve gone through. But in your place, considering circumstances, your own future, I guess I’d try to accommodate myself to what happened, as people accommodate themselves to accidents, diseases, ‘acts of God’—yes, certainly I know that Rolfe Christensen isn’t exactly an ‘act of God’; he should be made to pay for his behavior—but, Brendan, there’s another side to the man: he can be generous, he can be helpful … if you don’t press your advantage—don’t look so surprised: I mean it: your advantage—you might discover that something valuable can still come of … of this mess. But if you become obsessed with him, if you try to make trouble for him, for instance by going to the police, it will only hurt you even more in the end … as I suppose Andrew Woodbridge counseled you? And Calvin Gould? Your music should come first—your music, and your career. So if Rolfe Christensen has behaved monstrously toward you, if the man is a monster: so be it. You’ll outlive him.” And Nicholas smiled a lovely dazzling assured smile. “We all will.”

  None of this had Brendan Bauer told Maggie Blackburn.

  Everybody knows. It’s no secret.

  But what do they know?

  By eleven o’clock the police had not yet arrived and Brendan was becoming exhausted by his vigil. He was playing a tape of a Bach toccata and fugue, music of a rhythm and a speed to match his quickened heartbeat. He’d wetted his hair and combed it flat against his head but, drying, it lifted in wry little tufts, like field grass. From so much bitter-black coffee his nerves were like wires strung tight—he could hear in the distance strangers’ voices lifting derisively (“Bren dan, Bren dan”) but the voices refused to define themselves and remained teasing, taunting.

  Bren dan? Don’t make me angry.

  Bren dan don’t play games with me!

  Like a sacrificial victim he changed his clothes: fresh underwear, fresh shirt, clean trousers, necktie, the brown tweed coat frayed at the sleeves but still his “good,” his “public” outfit … for at the age of twenty-seven Brendan Bauer was very poor and could afford nothing better.

  This too was a part of his shame. He could afford nothing better.

  Years ago when Brendan was seventeen, and still in Boise Consolidated Senior High School, and dreaming of going away to college to study music, his father warned him, “Remember we’re not poor—we just don’t have any money.”

  Mr. Bauer was a plumber but for all his skill and industry his income fluctuated, and not one of his sons cared to learn his trade. His life was money—bills of demeaningly small denominations, methodically counted change. Yet he had, upon occasion, a strange careless flair for the piano; he could improvise songs without seeming to
know what he did or how he did it; like magic the right notes came, his broad stubby fingers ranging up and down the keyboard. Rarely did Mr. Bauer play the piano, however, without being mildly drunk, and his playing was thus qualified, subtly polluted, by the association. He loved music, he was musical, and yet wasn’t it a kind of weakness, a waste of time, a “feminine” inclination no responsible father should encourage in a son, let alone subsidize?

  Brendan’s piano lessons, twice weekly, were paid for by his grandmother, his father’s mother, who’d had, it was said, a lovely mezzo-soprano voice as a girl. And before his voice changed Brendan too had a lovely singing voice, a sweet clear tenor, a girl’s voice of which he was alternately proud and deeply, complexly, ashamed.

  Fortunately, this voice coarsened, became transformed into a slightly strident and high-pitched but recognizably “masculine” voice.

  Brendan went away to study music and to learn that he had not the talent for piano that others—so many others!—had, nor had he the requisite patience. He wanted to compose new sounds, not be trained to imitate sounds already known. His family did not understand, and he sensed their subtle disappointment in him: for where, in his secret pride, he believed himself talented, they saw deformity of a kind; where he saw the possibility of his being freed of home, of a merely local, parochial life, they saw the possibility of his being unfit for that life, in a way unworthy. Remember we’re not poor—we just don’t have any money. Poverty was like dust and grime, ingrained in the very texture of one’s life.