Mudwoman

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “For reasons of health, you know—‘sanitary conditions’—it would be better if—if you would allow . . .”

  Everywhere underfoot were discarded cartons, tin cans, plastic bags and bottles. Stacks of old newspapers, magazines. Rug-remnants like chewed tongues. It was evident that something had died—and decayed—on the premises. And on the walls—what you could see of the walls—were religious pictures—crucifixion, Blessed Virgin Mary—and plastic crosses, crooked.

  Meredith was becoming light-headed holding her breath against the stench yet determined to “help”—if any sort of “help” was feasible here. “Christ sake!” Diane muttered. With the toe of her boot she poked at a pile of debris in a corner of the kitchen that had seemed to be quivering and out leapt a scrawny tiger cat panicked and hissing—as the women shrieked, the cat fled into the interior of the house. “This-here’s a damn pighouse,” Diane protested even as her mother sternly reprimanded her: “Shhhh.”

  “People who live like pigs die like pigs. So what!”

  “Shhhh. She can hear you.”

  “She can’t! She’s God-damn deaf and dumb.”

  Diane was one of those girls—not uncommon in the Carthage public schools—who had the look of stunted women: sizable breasts and hips, “mature” facial features, foreshortened legs and large feet. Her hair had been inexpertly but glamorously bleached—blond with streaks of red, pale orange, purple. Her mouth was fleshy and sullen and her smiles were mocking. She exuded an air of peevish self-assurance that was astonishing to Meredith for she could not have been in more than seventh grade. Though several inches shorter than tall straight-backed Meredith and several years younger Diane seemed indifferent to Meredith, disdainful.

  “She isn’t well, Diane. These people we visit—to help—they need our help. They aren’t—‘well’—like us.”

  Meredith spoke awkwardly. It had never been easy for her to address girls like Diane who reminded her of—of the girls who’d been sister-orphans, at the Skedds’.

  Years ago, at the Skedds’! Meredith did not care to remember, just now.

  Diane snorted, amused: “ ‘Like us’? Who the hell is us?”

  Meredith stared at the stocky twelve-year-old in amazement. Why had Diane’s mother brought her along, when she was clearly so resentful of being here? The girl made only the most desultory gestures at “helping”—though strong, as strong as Meredith, she wasn’t at all motivated; when she and Meredith were charged with dragging trash cans out to the curb Diane exerted very little effort, unapologetically.

  Outdoors, in the startlingly fresh air, the girls paused to draw deep breaths. From the outside, the shrunken woman’s house resembled a misshapen shoe, with a crumbling chimney, sagging gutters and rotted shingles. “ ‘There was an old woman who lived in a shoe—she had so many children she didn’t know what to do.’ ” Meredith spoke whimsically, but Diane scarcely heard. In a childish aggrieved voice she was saying, “My mother is always bitching at me—‘Di, watch your mouth’—‘Di, your mouth is too damn smart’—why I’m here today, it’s ‘discipline.’ ‘Di is learning some Christian charity for once.’ ” The girl shocked Meredith by reaching into the pocket of her purple-satin jacket and taking out a pack of cigarettes.

  “ ‘For once’? Like for twice, three damn times . . . Every God-damn time, I could count on both hands.”

  Meredith couldn’t make sense of this, exactly. But she supposed she understood. It was both shocking to her, and amusing, that the twelve-year-old lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, like an adult; she had not offered a cigarette to Meredith, as girls at the high school, who smoked, often did, as if slyly hoping to inveigle the good-girl Meredith into smoking, too.

  Meredith thought Why do I want her to like me? Why should Mudgirl give a damn, too?

  It was a prevailing mystery: what Mudgirl gave a damn for.

  At the house, Irene leaned out the front door to call to the girls.

  Diane yelled Yah yah we’re coming.

  To Meredith she said, like one imparting confidential wisdom, “My mother is some kind of Christian-nut. She really gets off on this bullshit. Fuck being ‘good.’ Everybody take care of himself.”

  Meredith laughed, startled. This was so crudely phrased, so cruel—“But the weak, those who need our help like this poor woman . . .”

  “So what? ‘Need’ isn’t ‘want.’ You see her glaring at us? Your silly mother trying to ‘interview’ her—what’s she think she is, somebody on TV? People got a right to live how they want. So they live in garbage and dead crap, so what? It’s the U. S. of A.”

  “But—she’s mentally ill. She’s probably physically ill. . . .”

  “So what? Who gives a fuck?”

  Meredith smiled, uncertainly. She wanted to think that Diane was joking—had to be joking. But there was Diane exhaling smoke through her nostrils, in turn regarding Meredith, who loomed over her, as if she didn’t know what to make of her.

  “Yah, your mom is pretty nice. She’s O.K.” Diane spoke grudgingly: Meredith understood that this was, to a girl like Diane, a very friendly gesture.

  “My mom, Jesus! That bitch is always after me. Nothing I do is ever good enough, so fuck her.”

  Fuck her! Meredith was shocked.

  Fuck her! Good. Meredith laughed.

  In the Skedds’ household, this was how you talked, sensibly. You did not put on airs, you did not pretend to be something you were not.

  And in the long-ago house in—was it Star Lake?—where she’d lived with the woman who was said to be her mother—in the ramshackle house behind the gas station—(crosses on the walls! Meredith had not thought of these crosses in years)—memories like thunder at the horizon, ominous, not yet fully audible. She thought But I am not Mudgirl, not now. This is proof.

  For Mudgirl had not been a “good” girl—Mudgirl would be contemptuous as Diane to think You must help others. There is happiness only in helping others.

  Irene was calling from the door, louder—“Girls! Please come in here—we need you.” Seeing that Diane was smoking she cried, “Put that out! That cigarette—damn you, put it out! Now!”

  Yah yah fuck you Diane muttered under her breath, nudging Meredith in the ribs, a sister-accomplice.

  Meredith thought But I hate this, too! Except I have no choice.

  It was shortly after this, on Thanksgiving eve, that Meredith observed Agatha slowly turning the pages of an album—it appeared to be a photo album, with a gaily-colored cover like a quilt—while sitting in her easy chair, in the living room. Since the visit to the shrunken little woman—which had been the least rewarding of any of the “good-neighbor” visits, and was in fact to be the last of the visits—Agatha had been preoccupied, weepy. She had thrown herself into preparations for a “festive Thanksgiving”—in addition to the Neukirchen family, there would be nine others at the big old table in the dining room, most of them single, unattached—what Konrad called “odd-ducks.” (Which was exactly what he would be, Konrad said, if he hadn’t met his dear Agatha, and their dear little Meredith had not come into their lives just in time—“the quintessential odd-duck.”) But on the night before the festive day, there was Agatha in her comfortable old chair, that fitted the contours of her body like a mold, turning album pages, biting her lower lip as if on the verge of tears, entranced.

  From time to time, Meredith had seen her mother looking through this album. Always in so intense and preoccupied a way, Meredith had sensed that her mother didn’t want to be interrupted. For always when Agatha wanted Meredith to see a book she would call to her, excitedly—“Merry! Merry! Come look—oh, this is wonderful.”

  This evening, sensing Meredith’s presence, if at a distance, Agatha didn’t glance up but shut the album casually, and put it away beneath a pile of books on her table. And later, the album had vanished.

  Though Meredith had never
been the willful sort of child to behave, unobserved, in any way other than the “good” way she’d have behaved if adults were observing, yet that night, after the Neukirchens had gone to bed, and the house was darkened by 11 P.M., Meredith crept back downstairs to search for the album, which she located in a bureau drawer at the farther end of the living room. Breathlessly she lifted it out, and examined it by lamplight.

  ***MY LIFE AS A BABY***

  Merry Neukirchen

  Inside, the first page was shell-pink as the interior of a baby’s tender ear. Beneath a photo of a red-flushed infant with black Eskimo-hair and flat features, mouth opened in a distended wail, were block letters lovingly printed in a wide-tipped black felt pen:

  MEREDITH RUTH NEUKIRCHEN

  “MERRY”

  8 LBS. 3 OUNCES

  BORN SEPTEMBER 21, 1957

  CARTHAGE GENERAL HOSPITAL

  CARTHAGE, NEW YORK

  USA

  PROUD PARENTS

  AGATHA RUTH HINDLE

  KONRAD ERNEST NEUKIRCHEN

  In stunned silence Meredith turned the stiff pages of the bulging album. For here were not only dozens—hundreds—of snapshots of the infant girl but snapshots of a much-younger Agatha with braided brown-burnished hair, sweetly shy smile, and lovely large eyes; and there was handsome Konrad, without a beard—Konrad, younger than you could imagine he’d ever been! Sometimes a beaming Agatha held Baby Merry, sometimes a beaming Konrad held Baby Merry, and sometimes both Agatha and Konrad held Baby Merry, arms around each other’s waist. But Baby Merry was in all the photographs without fail.

  And how happy the proud parents were! Meredith felt that sliver of ice pierce her heart, she’d felt in Friendship Park. That sense of loss, isolation, aloneness.

  No pictures of Mudgirl! Not one.

  So many snapshots had been taken of the infant, you had to suppose the parents were tracking her day to day; but gradually the red-faced infant metamorphosed into a plump dimpled baby, and then a plump dimpled toddler, then a pretty child of three, or four—the flat Eskimo features vanished, replaced by a rosy-skinned snub-nosed face that was a likeness of Agatha’s face with something in the quizzical slant of the eyes and eyebrows that replicated Konrad; the black hair vanished, replaced by fair, brown hair with a slight curl, very like Agatha’s hair. There were birthday celebrations: First Month—First Six Months—First Year—Second Year—Third Year—Fourth . . . Birthday cakes, Christmas trees, gaily wrapped gifts—stuffed toys, dolls, tricycle, wagon—black patent leather shoes, little white socks—snowsuits, mittens, fuzzy caps—pajamas, slippers—fair-brown wavy hair in braids, like Meredith’s when she’d first come to live with the Neukirchens, and tied with the identical pink velvet bow. And there were the storybooks from which beaming Agatha was reading to the rapt-listening little Merry:

  Tales of Mother Goose, The Wind in the Willows, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Heidi . . .

  Meredith closed the album, carefully. Not a single loose snapshot fell out.

  In the bureau drawer she replaced the album exactly as it had been so no one would ever, ever know that this book with its precious mementos had been disturbed by any intruder.

  Somewhere distinguished, like Cornell.

  In secret she prepared her escape.

  Preparing college applications Meredith would spend a minimum amount of time on the forms for the State University branches—Albany, Buffalo, Binghamton—which trained teachers of the sort the Neukirchens believed their daughter would be, one day; most of the time she spent on the application for Cornell, that loomed large in her imagination like the Alps in a child’s picturebook, more wonderful even than actual photographs of the campus she’d studied in a brochure in the high school guidance counsellor’s office.

  Not the teachers’ colleges. Not you. Somewhere distinguished, like . . .

  The Neukirchens had told Meredith—somewhat vaguely—that tuition to private universities was “too high”—and certainly the Cornell tuition was many times more than tuition at the state-run schools; in this way the Neukirchens had discouraged any discussion of Cornell, for Meredith would hardly have dared to oppose her loving parents. Now, applying in secret to Cornell, she instructed herself not to be disappointed, not to be hurt even as she urged herself to believe, to hope—Maybe it will happen! A scholarship.

  She had taken the State Regents’ exam. She didn’t yet know her scores and had to hope that they were high enough to offset the poor reputation of the Carthage school.

  Not even its administrators and faculty believed that Carthage High was a very good school. The most impressive teacher on the staff, Hans Schneider, had departed, hurriedly, and had been replaced by an affable middle-aged woman with a degree in “math education” from Buffalo State College; in her classes rowdier students were frequently out of control and A-students, like Meredith, sat coiled with embarrassment and boredom in their seats as the teacher stumbled through the more difficult math problems, squeaking chalk on the blackboard.

  When the teacher was most desperate, Meredith raised her hand to help out—of course. But Meredith never came to the blackboard any longer—the new teacher had never once thought of asking her.

  It was so—even the rowdy students missed Mr. Schneider. Even the poorer students who’d disliked him. Or so they allowed his bumbling substitute to know, out of adolescent cruelty.

  Often now Meredith thought of Hans Schneider. He had vanished from Carthage, so far as she knew—none of the other teachers would comment when asked, or perhaps they didn’t know.

  She did recall, Konrad had mentioned he’d been hospitalized in Watertown. But that was more than a year ago.

  Meredith could not believe that Hans Schneider had died—that was one of the rumors. Or that he’d been sent to a mental hospital.

  Still less could she believe that he’d “fled to Germany”—this was another, ridiculous rumor.

  In her most secret times alone in her room while downstairs her parents watched TV—she found it comforting to hear them laughing, Konrad’s robust laughter in particular, but she wasn’t drawn to joining them, any longer—vividly Meredith recalled the math teacher with his thin beaky face, his twitchy smile, his fierce gaze, fixed upon her. For it was rare, any man or boy fixed his gaze upon her. If she was very still she could summon back his voice—You did not live a child’s life. You could wait for me. We—you and I—could have an agreement like a—contract.

  At the time she’d been astonished, frightened. Now hearing the words she felt her bones turn molten, her breath come quickly. Now in solitude she tested the words I love you Mr. Schneider.

  Like tasting a rare spice, that would sting her mouth belatedly, after she’d swallowed.

  I love you, too.

  In secret she’d saved money from after-school jobs and the small allowance the Neukirchens gave her, to send a money order for twenty-five dollars, for the Cornell admission fee. Twenty-five dollars was not a trivial amount of money for her, she was gambling to win, reckless. A toss of the dice, reckless! Her reasoning was that the Neukirchens would never know how she was betraying them—“Unless I win a scholarship.”

  Mudwoman in Extremis.

  May 2003

  Smiling in the new, tight way she welcomed them into Charters House. She knew—They are the enemy. But I can befriend them, perhaps I can persuade them.

  Too late she would realize that he—the man who despised her, the man who was her enemy—must have organized this delegation of University colleagues, to hide himself among them. To be invited—“warmly welcomed”—to meet with the president of the University at this unorthodox hour—to discuss “urgent matters”—to “appeal, reason” with M. R. Neukirchen who had—allegedly—(for this was a rumor, solely)—declined even to discuss the possibility of accepting a contribution of thirty-five million dollars!—from a major American corporate sponsor—on p
olitical grounds.

  “Not political. Moral.”

  More stridently she spoke than she’d intended. And more steely the stitched smile, that caused her (still somewhat bruised, swollen) lower face to pucker, not very becomingly.

  Of course, they would point out that the moral is political. The political is moral. Every “major action” of M.R.’s presidency had been “steeped” in her political ideology that had become “increasingly non-negotiable, unilateral”—“dictatorial.”

  Dictatorial! M.R. laughed in surprise, of course this was a—joke.

  Even for a conservative enemy—such an accusation had to be a joke.

  The delegation of “concerned colleagues”—faces M.R. recognized of course—most of them—several were startling to her, she had not seen these friends in a very long time—(since her inauguration, possibly)—in such close quarters—wanted her to know that their appeal to her was “informal, improvised”—they were most eager for her to know this—as they wanted her to know that they were “concerned for her health, her well-being”—in the University community there were ever-proliferating rumors that M.R. was “overworked, exhausted”—“under enormous stress”—that she’d had “health issues”—which made M.R. laugh also, for it was such a cliché, and such a slander! You would not approach a man in my position, would you. Only that I am a woman—you would dare to approach me, but not a man.

  While a part of her sharp-flashing mind was registering, still, this mild shock—faces of individuals she’d believed to be her friends, friends among the faculty, supporters of M. R. Neukirchen, their presence among the others was upsetting to her, she did not want to think of it as betrayal.