Mudwoman

by Joyce Carol Oates

  If truly he loved her—he’d have been hopeful for her, proud of her.

  Or maybe: even an exceptional man has difficulty feeling pride in an exceptional woman.

  M.R. tried to determine where she was. Ever more uneasily she was conscious of time passing.

  Ready you must be readied. It is time.

  A sign for SPRAGG 7 MILES. SLABTOWN 13 MILES. A sign for Star Lake, in the opposite direction—66 MILES.

  Spragg—Slabtown—Star Lake. M.R. had heard of Star Lake, she thought—but not the others, so oddly named.

  Abruptly then she came to a barrier in the road.

  DETOUR

  ROAD OUT NEXT 3 MILES

  You could see how beyond the barrier a stretch of road had collapsed into the Black Snake River. Quickly M.R. braked the Toyota to a stop—the earth-slide was shocking to see, like a physical deformity.

  “Oh! Damn.”

  She was disappointed—this would slow her down.

  She was thinking how swiftly it must have happened: the road caving in beneath a moving vehicle, a car, a truck—a school bus?—plunging into the river, trapped and terrified and no one to witness the horror. Not likely that the road had simply collapsed beneath its own weight.

  Death by (sheer) accident. Surely this was the most merciful of deaths!

  Death at the hands of another: the cruelest.

  Death by the hands of another who is known to you, close as a heartbeat: the very cruelest.

  By the look of the fallen-away road, vines and briars growing in cracks, a tangle of sumac and stunted trees, the river road had not collapsed recently. Beechum County had no money for the repair of so remote a road: the detour had become perpetual.

  Like a curious child—for one is always drawn to DETOUR as to NO TRESPASSING: DANGER—M.R. turned her car onto a narrow side road: Mill Run. Though of course, the sensible thing would be to turn back.

  Was Mill Run even paved? Or covered in gravel, that had long since worn away? The single-lane road led into the countryside that appeared to be low-lying, marshy; no farmland here but a sort of no-man’s-land, uninhabited.

  At a careful speed M.R. drove along the rutted road. She was a good driver—intent upon avoiding potholes. She knew how a tire can be torn by a sudden sharp declivity; she could not risk a flat tire at this time.

  M.R. was one who’d learned to change tires, as a girl. There was the sense that M.R. had better learn to fend for herself.

  In fact there had been inhabitants along the Mill Run Road, and not too long ago—an abandoned house, set back in a field like a gaunt and etiolated elder; a Sunoco station amid a junked-car lot, that appeared to be closed; and an adjoining café where a faded sign rattled in the wind—BLACK RIVER CAFÉ.

  Both the Sunoco station and the café were boarded up. Just outside the café was a pickup truck shorn of wheels. M.R. might have turned into the parking lot here but—so strangely—found herself continuing forward as if drawn by an irresistible momentum.

  She was smiling—was she? Her brain, ordinarily so active, hyperactive as a hive of shaken hornets, was struck blank in anticipation.

  In hilly countryside, foothills and densely wooded mountains, you can see the sky only in patches—M.R. had glimpses of a vague blurred blue and twists of cloud like soiled bandages. She was driving in odd rushes and jolts pressing her foot on the gas pedal and releasing it—she was hoping not to be surprised by whatever lay ahead and yet, she was surprised—shocked: “Oh God!”

  For there was a child lying at the side of the road—a small figure lying at the side of the road broken, discarded. The Toyota veered, plunged off the road into a ditch.

  Unthinking M.R. turned the wheel to avoid the child. There came a sickening thud, the jolt of the vehicle at a sharp angle in the ditch—the front left wheel and the rear left wheel.

  So quickly it had happened! M.R.’s heart lurched in her chest. She fumbled to open the door, and to extract herself from the seat belt. The car engine was still on—a violent peeping had begun. She’d thought it had been a child at the roadside but of course—she saw now—it was a doll.

  Mill Run Road. Once, there must have been a mill of some sort in this vicinity. Now, all was wilderness. Or had reverted to wilderness. The road was a sort of open landfill used for dumping—in the ditch was a mangled and filthy mattress, a refrigerator with a door agape like a mouth, broken plastic toys, a man’s boot.

  Grunting with effort M.R. managed to climb—to crawl—out of the Toyota. Then she had to lean back inside, to turn off the ignition—a wild thought came to her, the car might explode. Her fingers fumbled the keys—the keys fell onto the car floor.

  She saw—it wasn’t a doll either at the roadside, only just a child’s clothing stiff with filth. A faded-pink sweater and on its front tiny embroidered roses.

  And a child’s sneaker. So small!

  Tangled with the child’s sweater was something white, cotton—underpants?—stiff with mud, stained. And socks, white cotton socks. And in the underbrush nearby the remains of a kitchen table with a simulated-maple Formica top. Rural America, filling up with trash.

  An entire household dumped out on the Mill Run Road! Not a happy story.

  M.R. stooped to inspect the refrigerator. Of course it was empty—the shelves were rusted, badly battered. There was a smell. A sensation of such unease—oppression—came over her, she had to turn away.

  “And now—what?”

  She could call AAA—her cell phone was in the car. But probably she could maneuver the Toyota out of the ditch herself for the ditch wasn’t very deep.

  Except—what time was it?

  Staring at her watch. Trying to calculate. Was it already past 4:30 P.M.—nearly 5 P.M.? This was unexpectedly late! Mid-October and the sun slanting in the sky and dusk coming on.

  This side of the Black Snake River were stretches of marshland, mudflats. She’d been smelling mud. You could see that the river often overran its banks here. There was a harsh brackish smell as of rancid water and rotted things.

  Staring at her watch which was a small elegant gold watch inscribed with the name and heraldic insignia of a New England liberal arts college for women. It had been given to M.R. to commemorate her having received from the college an honorary doctorate in humane letters and shortly thereafter, an invitation to interview for its presidency. She’d been thirty-six at the time. She’d been dean of the faculty at the University at the time. Graciously she’d declined. She did not say I am so grateful but no—it isn’t likely that I would accept a position at a women’s college.

  Or—It isn’t likely that I would accept a position at any university other than a major research university. That is not M. R. Neukirchen’s plan.

  Amid the cast-off household litter was a strip of rotted tarpaulin.

  M.R. pulled it loose, dragged it to the Toyota to place beneath the wheels on the driver’s side, that were mired in mud. This was good! This was good luck! Awkwardly then she crawled back into the badly tilted car, located the keys on the floor mat, and managed to start the engine—eased the car forward a few inches, let it rock back; eased it again forward, and let it rock back; at first the wheels spun, then began to take hold. The car moved, jerked spasmodically; in another minute or two she would have eased the Toyota back up onto the road except—the rotted tarpaulin must have given way, the wheels spun frantically.

  “God damn.”

  M.R. reached for the cell phone, that had fallen to the floor. Tried to call AAA but the phone was unreceptive.

  If only she’d thought to call her assistant a half hour ago—the cell phone might have worked then. Just to allow the (anxious?) young woman to know I may be late for the reception. A few minutes late. But I will not be late for the dinner. I will not be late for my talk of course.

  She would have spoken to Audrey in her usual bright bris
k manner that did not invite interruptions. It was a bright brisk manner that did not invite murmurs of commiseration. She would have said, if Audrey had expressed concern for her, Of course, I’m fine! Good-bye for now.

  She was hiking along the road with the cell phone in her hand. Repeatedly she tried to activate it but the damned thing remained dead.

  Useless plastic, dead!

  If she ascended to higher ground? Would the phone be more likely to work? Or—was this a ridiculous notion, desperate?

  “I am not desperate. Not yet.”

  Amid the mudflats was a sort of peninsula, a spit of land raised about three feet, very likely man-made, like a dam; M.R. climbed up onto it. She was a strong woman, her legs and thighs were hard with muscle beneath the soft, just slightly flabby female flesh; she made an effort to swim, hike, run, walk—she “worked out” in the University gym; still, she quickly became breathless, panting. For there was something very oppressive about this place—the acres of mudflats, the smell. Even on raised ground she was walking in mud—her nice shoes, mud-splattered. Her feet were wet.

  She thought I must turn back. As soon as I can.

  She thought I will know what to do—this can be made right.

  Staring at her watch trying to calculate but her mind wasn’t working with its usual efficiency. And her eyes—was something wrong with her eyes?

  The reception would begin at—was it 6 P.M.? But M.R. wouldn’t need to arrive promptly at 6 P.M. M.R. wouldn’t have to attend the reception at all. Such events were hardly crucial. And the dinner—was the dinner at 7:30 P.M.? She would hurry to the table which would be the head table in the enormous banquet room—she would murmur an apology—she could explain that she’d had to drive somewhere, unavoidably—her car had broken down returning.

  Stress, overwork the doctor had told her. Hours at the computer and when she glanced up her vision was distorted and she had to blink, squint to bring the world into some sort of focus.

  How faraway that world—there could be no direct route to that world, from the Mill Run Road.

  A crouched figure. Bearded face, astonished eyes. Slung over his shoulder a half-dozen animal traps. With a gloved hand prodding at—whatever it was in the mud.

  “Hello? Is someone . . . ?”

  She was making her way along the edge of a makeshift dam. It was a dam comprised of boulders and rocks and it had acquired over the years a sort of mortar of broken and rotted tree limbs and even animal carcasses and skeletons. Everywhere the mudflats stretched, everywhere cattails and rushes grew in profusion. There were trees choked with vines. Dead trees, hollow tree-trunks. The pond was covered in algae bright-green as neon that looked as if it were quivering with microscopic life and where the water was clear the pebble-sky was reflected like darting eyes. She was staring at the farther shore where she’d seen something move—she thought she’d seen something move. A flurry of dragonflies, flash of birds’ wings. Bursts of autumn foliage like strokes of paint and deciduous trees looking flat as cutouts. She waited and saw nothing. And in the mudflats stretching on all sides nothing except cattails, rushes stirred by the wind.

  She was thinking of something her (secret) lover had once said—There is no truth except perspective. There are no truths except relations. She had seemed to know what he’d meant at the time—he’d meant something matter-of-fact yet intimate, even sexual; she was quick to agree with whatever her lover said in the hope that someday, sometime she would see how self-evident it was and how crucial for her to have agreed at the time.

  Thinking There is a position, a perspective here. This spit of land upon which I can walk, stand; from which I can see that I am already returned to my other life, I have not been harmed and will have begun to forget.

  Thinking This is all past, in some future time. I will look back, I will have walked right out of it. I will have begun to forget.

  The spit of land—a kind of raised peninsula—the ruin of an old mill. In the tall spiky weeds remnants of lumber. Shattered concrete blocks. She was limping—she’d turned her ankle. She was very tired. She had not slept for a very long time. In the president’s house she was so lonely! Her (secret) lover had not come to visit her. Her (secret) lover had not come to visit her since she’d moved into the president’s house and there was no plan for him to visit—yet.

  In the president’s house which was an historic landmark dating to Colonial times M.R. had her own private quarters on the second floor. Still, the bed in which she slept in the president’s house was an antique four-poster bed of the 1870s and it was not a bed M.R. would have chosen for herself though it was not so uncomfortable a bed that M.R. wished to have it moved out and another bed moved in.

  For his back, Andre required a hard mattress. At least, the mattress in M.R.’s bed was that.

  At the end of the peninsula there was—nothing. Mudflats, desiccated trees. In the Adirondacks, acid rain had been falling for years—parts of the vast forest were dying.

  “Hello?”

  Strange to be calling out when clearly no one was there to hear. M.R.’s uplifted hand in a ghost-greeting.

  He’d been a trapper—the bearded man. Hauling cruel-jawed iron traps over his shoulder. Muskrats, rabbits. Squirrels. His prey was small furry creatures. Hideous deaths in the iron traps, you did not want to think about it.

  Hey! Little girl—?

  She turned back. Nothing lay ahead.

  Retracing her steps. Her footprints in the mud. Like a drunken person, unsteady on her feet. She was feeling oddly excited. Despite her tiredness, excited.

  She returned to the littered roadway—there, the child’s clothing she’d mistaken so foolishly for a doll, or a child. There, the Toyota at its sharp tilt in the ditch. Within minutes a tow truck could haul it out, if she could contact a garage—so far as she could see the vehicle hadn’t been seriously damaged.

  Possibly, M.R. wouldn’t need to report the accident to the rental company. For it had not been an “accident” really—no other vehicle had been involved.

  She walked on, not certain where she was headed. The sky was darkening to dusk. Shadows lifted from the earth. She saw lights ahead—lights?—the gas station, the café—to her surprise and relief, these appeared to be open.

  There was a crunch of gravel. A vehicle was just departing, in the other direction. Other vehicles were parked in the lot. In the café were lights, voices.

  M.R. couldn’t believe her good luck! She would have liked to cry with sheer relief. Yet a part of her brain thinking calmly Of course. This has happened before. You will know what to do.

  At a gas pump stood an attendant in soiled bib overalls, shirtless, watching her approach. He was a fattish man with snarled hair, a sly fox-face, watching her approach. Uneasily M.R. wondered—would the attendant speak to her, or would she speak to him, first? She was trying not to limp. Her leather shoes were hurting her feet. She didn’t want a stranger’s sympathy, still less a stranger’s curiosity.

  “Ma’am! Somethin’ happen to ya car?”

  There was a smirking sort of sympathy here. M.R. felt her face heat with blood.

  She explained that her car had broken down about a mile away. That is—her car was partway in a ditch. Apologetically she said: “I could almost get it out by myself—the ditch isn’t deep. But . . .”

  How pathetic this sounded! No wonder the attendant stared at her rudely.

  “Ma’am—you look familiar. You’re from around here?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Yes, I know you, ma’am. Your face.”

  M.R. laughed, annoyed. “I don’t think so. No.”

  Now came the sly fox-smile. “You’re from right around here, ma’am, eh? Hey sure—I know you.”

  “What do you mean? You know—me? My name?”

  “Kraeck. That your name?”

  “ ‘Kraeck.’
I don’t think so.”

  “You look like her.”

  M.R. didn’t care for this exchange. The attendant was a large burly man of late middle age. His manner was both familiar and threatening. He was approaching M.R. as if to get a better look at her and M.R. instinctively stepped back and there came to her a sensation of alarm, arousal—she steeled herself for the man’s touch—he would grip her face in his roughened hands, to peer at her.

  “You sure do look like someone I know. I mean—used to know.”

  M.R. smiled. M.R. was annoyed but M.R. knew to smile. Reasonably she said: “I don’t think so, really. I live hundreds of miles away.”

  “Kraeck was her name. You look like her—them.”

  “Yes—you said. But . . .”

  Kraeck. She had never heard it before. What a singularly ugly name!

  M.R. might have told the man that she’d been born in Carthage, in fact—maybe somehow he’d known her, he’d seen her, in Carthage. Maybe that was an explanation. There was a considerable difference between the small city of Carthage and this desolate part of the Adirondacks. But M.R. was reluctant to speak with this disagreeable individual any more than she had to speak with him for she could see that he was listening keenly to her voice, he’d detected her upstate New York accent M.R. had hoped she’d overcome, that so resembled his own.

  “Excuse me . . .”

  Badly M.R. had to use a restroom. She left the fox-faced attendant staring rudely at her and climbed the steps to the café.

  It was wonderful how the sign that had appeared so faded, derelict, was now lighted: BLACK RIVER CAFÉ.

  Inside was a long counter, or a bar—several men standing at the bar—a number of tables of which less than half were occupied—winking lights: neon advertisements for beer, ale. The air was hazy with smoke. A TV above the bar, quick-darting images like fish. M.R. wiped at her eyes for there was a blurred look to the interior of the Black River Café as if it had been hastily assembled. Windows with glass that appeared to be opaque. Pictures, glossy magazine cutouts on the walls that were in fact blank. From the TV came a high-pitched percussive sort of music like wind chimes, amplified. M.R. was smelling something rich, yeasty, wonderful—baking bread? Pie? Homemade pie? Her mouth flooded with saliva, she was weak with hunger.