Joyce Carol Oates - Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

by Because It Is Bitter

  Just bites her lip, keeps her mouth shut.

  The boysenberry pie costs forty five cents, the coffee ten cents, Graice carefully counts out seventy cents from the change in her pocket, adds another nickel, some pennies her last penny, in fact as if she's suddenly eager to get rid of all her money, meager as it is.

  While Mandy is elsewhere, back to Graice, Graice leaves her little pile of coins by her plate, hurries out of the cafe before Mandy returns to see how much she's left and call her back.

  'Bye! Graice calls.

  She hears Mandy call something after her. As she leaves, the Shirelles are still singing Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

  Not to police, not to the doctor in charge of the Syracuse Memorial Hospital emergency room or any of the nurses there, not to Alan Savage, not to any of the Savages will Graice Courtney make any attempt to explain why.. what logic, what purpose, walking alone at night in a neighborhood so far from her own, a part of her mind not numbed with fatigue but brightly alert, even hopeful, imagining she's in Hammond somehow. in Hammond, in Lowertown. the slow smiling eyes, the bared teeth glistening, Mmmmmmmmmm! hey girl. but you must never look, it's dangerous.

  She'll say, I didn't see their faces.

  She'll say, Yes they were black but I didn't see their faces.

  Walking at the curb on Tenth Street to avoid the doorways, the mouths of alleys. Now the rain has stopped it's cold. Her breath is steaming. There's a tavern brimming with noise and warmth blinking MOLSON'S in the window where black men stand at the bar in a haze of smoke and someone calls, whistles, dances after her.. but she doesn't look. it's dangerous. Graice Courtney's studied, slightly swaying walk and her loose arms suggest she's drunk or drugged but her eyes are fully open, bright, intelligent don't talk to me, don't approach me, don't touch me and for several blocks she makes her way unimpeded like a dreamer in a charmed landscape until at Oswego Street and West Avenue a car with a noisy muffler cruises through the intersection, skids to a stop, backs up like a comically agitated insect its rear hiked, its back tires luridly exposed. A black boy's head emerges from the driver's window and there's a soft sliding call, Hey: you looking for a ride?

  Graice stares at the pavement before her. Murmurs, No no, thanks.

  Say what, honey? Huhhhhhhh? And, louder: You looking foraride?

  The car, filled with young black men in their late teens, early twenties, is noisily idling in the street, spewing out clouds of exhaust It's a holiday! You can feel it! From the car radio rock music blasts and all the boys are talking at once, there's a car door flung open, long long legs springing out, black sneakered feet enormous as clubs. Graice Courtney turns quickly to walk in the opposite direction but somehow it happens she blinks: he's there one of them is on the sidewalk grinning, blocking her way basketball style and when she turns like a trapped animal there's another, gangly limbed and antic, reefer happy, blocking her way so she's transfixed, thinking, Don't struggle, don't resist then they won't kill you but when the playful black boys grab her and drag her into the back seat of the already moving car she loses control, she's weeping and hysterical suddenly, screaming, kicking, pummeling with her fists sprawled helplessly and gracelessly across their laps, three of them jammed in the back as the car guns off, tires squealing, and there's wild laughter as their hands run over her in amazed delight, fingers deft and hard, there's a smell of sweet acrid smoke and cheap wine and they're grabbing her breasts, squeezing, sticking their fingers into her, into her crotch, she's panicked, squirming like a maddened eel, screaming and sobbing. even as her consciousness detaches itself from her struggling body floating and suspended voiceless above it as if she has already died.

  But she hasn't.

  eppilog.

  Here is the wedding dress Graice Courtney will be wearing at her wedding to Alan Savage in the First Presbyterian Church of Syracuse, New York: an Empire style gown sewed for Gwendolyn Savage's mother in 1904, lovely flawlessly white Chinese silk, a bodice of tight, tiny pleats, a many layered skirt with an illusion of floating, and a long graceful train, and a bridal veil of Brussels lace: an extraordinary costume the bride to be has contemplated many times in the past six months and now contemplates in silence another time, holding it at arm's length, reverently before, with the deft assistance of missis Savage and the seamstress missis Vitale, she tries it on again. This is the final, or nearly final fitting: the nuptial ceremony is scheduled for 11 A. M. , September 12, 1964, scarcely forty eight hours from now. The tailor's mirror is positioned to contain Graice's full height, top of head to hemline, and as the feathery parachutelike skirt, then the snug fitting torso, are eased downward Graice stares into the mirror in wonderment that it is her headher familiar head, hair, face that emerges from so much white silk. and not a stranger's.

  The first time Graice Courtney was urged to try on this heirloom dress, back in June, she'd felt a wave of apprehension sweep over her palpable as a draft of cold air, but laughed to disguise her nervousness, saying, This is a work of art, missis Savage, it seems wrong for someone to actually wear it, and missis Savage said briskly, I think it's high time it is worn. what's a wedding dress if it only hangs inacloset?

  Now missis Savage is all business, conferring with missis Vitale quite literally behind Graice's back as, cautiously, Graice lowers her arms the women are rapidly buttoning up the long row of mother of pearl buttons in back that's in mimicry of her spine's vertebrae; they puff out the dress's sleeves, straighten the skirt, far more brusquely than Graice would dare. For what if a fingernail snags in the dazzling silk, what if a seam rips? Silk is a strong, durable fabric, Graice knows, has been told, but doesn't believe it.

  It was a disappointment to Gwendolyn Savage that her mother's wedding dress, this Empire style, simply didn't suit her, so she married Byron Savage in a very pretty but very ordinary dress she wants something finer for her lovely daughter in law, and this is it.

  Softly exclaiming as she pinches the bodice, Oh, damn. is this loose?

  Again?

  And missis Vitale says, sighing, It's loose.

  Evidently, since the last fitting, the bride to be has lost more weight. Another pleat or two will have to be taken in, another judicious tuck.

  The bride to be is a tall, slender, high waisted young woman, inches taller than Gwendolyn Savage's mother back in 1904, her bust is inches smaller, extensive alterations have already been made in the dress.

  But missis Vitale can certainly take in the bodice a little more and they'll try the dress again after lunch for a final time before the wedding. Then, says missis Savage, it's over to the church for the rehearsal including the Bach organ solo, and the soprano singing Schumann.. and a reasonably early dinner, just family though family in this instance includes six Makepeaces already north for the wedding and, missis Savage is going to insist, a reasonably early bedtime.

  When all this is over, and you and Alan are off on your honeymoon, I am going to collapse, missis Savage says, sighing, collapse, but her jewellike blue eyes light onto Graice's eyes in the mirror, she's flush cheeked as a young girl and it's clear she doesn't mean a syllable of complaint or reproach Gwendolyn Savage never does.

  missis Savage and missis Vitale help Graice out of the dress, lifting it from her in slow, careful stages.. over her head, her slender arms out of the sleeves then she's standing bare armed, shivering in her lacy slip, suddenly exposed. Her face without makeup looks shiny as if scrubbed, the scattering of freckles across her cheeks and forehead has long since faded.

  She turns quickly from the mirror, now the dress has been taken from her.

  The lovely Chinese silk dress is an heirloom, and so is the antique engagement ring on Graice Courtney's finger. A square cut diamond edged with smaller diamonds, in a finely wrought silver setting, not raised but recessed so the tiny prongs rarely catch in clothing or on gloves.

  This ring has come down through the Savage family; Byron's mother willed it to Gwendolyn shortly before her death.

  Now Graic
e and Alan have been engaged seven months, she has never taken it off her finger. Not once.

  It's a perfect fit.

  When, after graduation in May, Graice re turned to Hammond for a brief visit and showed this ring to Leslie Courtney, her uncle pursed his lips and whistled but the sound emerged breathy and melancholy.

  He said, though, what was foremost in both their thoughts: Wouldn't Persia be proud!

  Later, Graice visited with her father and her father's new wife Jenny Lou Guthrie. Spoke of her fiance, Alan Savage, and of the

  Savages of Syracuse, New York, passed around snapshots, as if describing a re mote tribe of human beings in no way contiguous with the residents of Hammond, New York. Duke Courtney did not question this but when Graice showed him the engagement ring he too whistled, snatched up her hand in his, and brought it to the lamplight; he'd been drinking and so had Jenny Lou: a brassy haired good looking woman in her late forties, former widow of a Buffalo racehorse owner , and he clowned about pretending to be examining the ring like a jeweler, through his encircled thumb and forefinger, Honey, this is the genuine article, the re al goods, are you aware?

  Stiffly, with dignity, Graice Courtney withdrew her hand from her father's.

  She said, The ring is priceless. It can't be replaced.

  Duke Courtney laughed, his tawny golden eyes flaring up.

  He said, winking, Not without a lot of money, it can't.

  Afterward, Graice wondered why she'd sought him out: her father and his new wife.

  Her laughing charming silver haired alcoholic father, his big breasted big hipped showgirl looking wife Jenny Lou, with her half moons of bright lipstick smudged on glasses, cigarettes, Graice's left cheek. A gay easy laughing couple clearly fond of each other and determined not to acknowledge, not even to suggest, what possible link there might be between Duke Courtney and the twenty two year old woman who came to visit, what third party, not present, linked them.

  They energetically matched Graice's talk and snapshots with talk and snapshots of their own, for in marrying a racehorse owner's widow Duke Courtney had married a stable of seven horses of which two or three were consistent winners, in low stakes races at least: Here's Princess Meg, here's Will o' the Wisp, here's Iron Heel, if you have time, Graice, let's all drive out to Oldwick to the farm; I'd love you to see Orion, our new trotter, the first yearling I bought myself at auction last August, he's being trained by one of the best in the business and here's the list of stakes he's entered in already and if things go as Jenny Lou andIhope Graice Courtney was sitting on an overstuffed sofa smiling and admiring and exclaiming over photographs of horses, and after the two hour visit she came away amazed and vengeful thinking that not once had Duke so much as alluded to the fact of Persia, the fact that there had ever been a Persia, and she thought, But I won't invite them to the wedding, and then she thought, a while later, more calmly, re turning to Syracuse and to her life there, that the new Courtneys hadn't asked about the wedding, hadn't shown the slightest interest, for at the very least it would mean a wedding present, wouldn't it.

  Duke Crurtney's parting words to his daughter were, Love ya, honey!

  Keep in touch!

  Graice intends to invite Leslie Courtney to her wedding of course. As for Aunt Madelyn, she hasn't decided.

  Not because she's ashamed is she? of her beautician aunt with her cheap colorful clothes and orangish dyed permed hair, but yes perhaps she's worried of how the Savages will respond to her and interpret her, a woman bearing so little re semblance to Graice Court they and to the Persia Courtney whom Graice has described, an aunt who isn't in fact an aunt but a more distant relative, of ambiguous stature.

  Graice tells herself nervously, I must invite someone, they will think I am an orphan, or an outcast.

  This is the problem, however: in re cent years Madelyn Daiches has become passionately religious, an evangelical convert, sending off $5 and $ 10 bills out of her meager salary to Christian causes, speaking of her RedeemerJesus Christ in familiar, emotional terms, a glisten to her eyes suggesting a true inner light, or madness. Graice had heard of Madelyn's conversion from Leslie but did not know, quite, what it meant, wasn't prepared for the shock of meeting her.

  According to Leslie, shortly after Persia's death which upset her greatly , Madelyn went with several women friends to hear the Reverend Billy Graham preaching in Batavia, New York, at a

  Christian Revival Festival and has never been the same since. When Graice visited her the first thing she told Graice was that Jesus Christ was the most important person in her life now and the most important person in your life, Graice, if only you would realize.

  And she'd hugged Graice, hard. And kissed her. Eyes shut tight.

  It was a strange visit, with Aunt Madelyn. Whenever Graice tries to re call it, in bits and pieces, it seems stranger still.

  You see, Graice dear, people like Persia aren't re ally dead,' they're with Jesus and the Father. Persia is with her loved ones who have crossed over, all of them, your grandparents and your great grandparents and, oh! all of them, looking down upon us and feeling pity for us in our blindness, Madelyn said. She spoke in spurts, both slowly and eagerly, as if a great pressure were building up inside her that must be contained. Seeing that Graice sat silent, eyes downcast, hands clasped in her lap, and thinking that silence is consent, Madelyn continued speaking in this vein for some min minutes, and in her voice Graice believed she could detect cadences not Madelyn Daiches's own but those of a stranger, an inspired and aggressive stranger. Not Jesus Christ perhaps but one of His earthly emissaries?

  Oh, said Graice. I see.

  I commune with Persia every day, sometimes twice a day, Madelyn said.

  Her eyes were soft, her mouth tremulous. Persia is there for you too, Graice, if you'd give your heart to Jesus Christ. If you'd try.

  How do you know I haven't tried? Graice thought.

  Aloud Graice said, Well.

  'As I want you to, dear.

  Graice could not think of an intelligent reply, let alone an made quite rejoinder. Religious fanaticism frightened her less because it was fanatic than because it suggested a reality however interior, however problematic, inaccessible to her; it was a food that, in her mouth, had no taste. gave no nourishment. In Aunt Madelyn's living room she sat for an hour, murmuring Yes and No and Thank you as Madelyn spoke, even re ad to Graice from her Bible as, oddly, yet in an entirely different context, Gwendolyn Savage had once re ad to Graice, newly home from the hospital: And he said unto them, Ye arefrom beneath,' I am from above.

  ye are of th is world,' I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins. for ifye believe not that I am he Graice could not help saying, with a child's futile obstinacy, Jesus is always threatening us, isn't he? Always saying, If you don't do this, then this will happen to you. If you don't believe in me you're doomed to hell.

  Madelyn blinked at Graice as if Graice had spoken unintelligible words.

  She said, Why, of course, dear. That's how it is.

  Outside on the street children were playing, calling to one another.

  An airplane passed high overhead. Graice felt something tug at her, anger, despair, grief; no, she was wholly in control of herself as always, saying, with a smile, And Persia isn't gone, as if she'd never livedshe's only watching us.

  Watching over us.

  Waiting for us.

  Waiting for you especially, Graice. seeing as how she loved you more than anyone else on earth.

  Saying goodbye, Graice and Madelyn had embraced again, and this time they'd both cried. As if knowing they might not see each other for a long, long time.

  Graice has decided not to invite Madelyn to the wedding.. and not to examine her conscience about the decision.

  Which means she'll have only one relative, Leslie Courtney, as a guest; Leslie, whom she believes she can trust.

  In any case, it seems to suit the Savages, the elder Savages in particular, to think of
Graice Courtney as an orphan.

  But do you re ally love me?

  Of course I are ally love you, how could I not?

  But do you. forgive me?

  You were a victim of circumstances, Graice. You were the victim.

  Alan Savage wants to marry Graice Courtney, gave her his mother's heirloom ring, because he loves her.. loves her more than he has ever loved anyone in his life. and is not going to be deterred in loving her. Somehow, Graice thinks, I hadn't counted on that.

  Now that the wedding is imminent, less than forty eight hours away, all family conversations are about how a thing should be done, not why. Of course. Life is practicality; life is planning and scheduling; life is a sequence of pleasant tasks. No one ever brings up, or even alludes to, Graice's accident on that terrible day in November 1963.

  That terrible terrible day.

  Graice had expected to see in Alan Savage's eyes, when he first came to visit her in the hospital alone: the elder Savages had not yet been informed of the assault , a look of distaste, perhaps even revulsion.