A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence
“Was he angry?”
“Yes. But that didn’t matter. He was angry at me half his time, anyway. No – it was just that it hit him. It was something he couldn’t accept, in the same way he couldn’t ever accept the fact that I never learned to speak Ukrainian. My mom was born in this country, and she spoke English to us. My dad tried for quite a while, but finally he gave up and spoke English, too, and this put him at a great disadvantage with us, although he never admitted it, maybe not even to himself. By him, not even the Queen speaks better English than he does. He has this gargantuan faith in himself, and I don’t know even yet if it’s real or just some kind of barricade. I hope to God I never find out, either.”
“It’s too bad, though, that you never learned his language.”
“Well, it had its points,” Nick says. “My grandmother came over when Dad came, and she lived with us until she died. She was a female warrior-type and sour as a crabapple. But whatever her disapproval was, it passed right over our heads. How many kids are lucky enough not to be able to exchange a word with their dear old grandmothers?”
He has this streak of flippant bitterness that I can’t reply to. I don’t know how to interpret it.
“We’ve talked enough for now,” he says. “Don’t you think so, Rachel?”
We are kissing as though we really were lovers, as though there were no pretence in it. As though he really wanted me. He lies along me, and through our separate clothes I can feel the weight of his body, and his sex. Oh my God. I want him.
“Let’s get rid of some of these clothes, darling,” he says.
I’m not good about physical pain. I never was. And how it would shame me, to have him know it hurt, at my age, with only one possible reason for it. I can’t. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt. The membrane went years ago – I made sure of that, thinking I won’t have my wedding night ruined. What a joke. It would hurt, all the same. It would be bound to. I can’t let him know that about me. A woman’s most precious possession. My mother’s archaic simper voice, cautioning my sixteen-years’ self, and the way she said it made me want to laugh or throw up. But I was neither one way nor another, not buying her view but unable to act on my own. It would have been better for me if I’d wanted to keep myself withheld, or else could have rid myself easily of that unwanted burden with the first boy who asked. The first boy who asked wasn’t very insistent, though. I wish he had been. I wasn’t more or less afraid then. Just the same. Only then I had more time.
“What’s the matter, darling?” Nick’s voice, puzzled. “You want it, too. You know you do.”
His eyes are smiling in a bewildered way. He can’t fathom my hesitance. I’m not a child, after all, not a young girl. What in hell is the matter with me? I can’t take off my clothes in a field. What if someone saw?
“I can’t – here.”
“I told you – no one ever comes to this place.”
“That was years ago.”
“Oh darling,” he says, quite gently, but smiling some reproach, “it’s as private as the grave. What more do you want?”
The grave’s a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace.
That’s why he said that, maybe. My mother said, “One thing about your father, he was never one to make many demands upon me, that’s one thing you could say for him.” And I thought how terrible for him, the years and years.
“Not everything, Nick. Not my slip.”
“All right, darling. Have it your way.”
In the mind, in that deep theatre, no one ever had to stumble through the awkward acts of undressing. The clothes vanished by themselves. I don’t want to watch him, although God knows he does it neatly, slithering out of his grey flannels like a snake shrugging off its last year’s skin. No, not a snake, of course.
Naked, he’s warm and cool. The smoothness of his skin, and the light roughness of the hair along his thighs and between his legs. His sex, unfamiliar and giant and real. Now nothing matters and I’m not afraid of anything and nothing is around us, only the dark blue of the night, and I will never again be afraid of anything and he does want me after all.
“Put it in, darling.”
His low voice, speaking some words, and then I realize that if I wanted to change my mind now, I couldn’t. It has to be done. But – I hadn’t thought or considered or remembered until this instant –
“Nick – you haven’t – you know, taken any –”
His mouth searches my face, my eyes.
“Haven’t you, Rachel?”
“No. No. I thought –”
I thought the man always would. Not so? Or not any more? Any seventeen-year-old would have known that. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t want –
“Did you think I went around like a Boy Scout, darling,” he says, “always prepared?”
I can’t bear his anger, if that’s what it is. Not now. Not like this. And yet it angers me, too.
“Did you think I did?”
“Sh, Sh, darling. It’s all right. Don’t worry. I won’t go off in you.”
A brief searing hurt, and then his sex is in mine and I can feel him piercing warmly, unhurtfully. And – oh, Nick, I can’t help this shuddering that is not desire, that’s something I don’t understand. I don’t want to be this way. It’s only my muscles, my skin, my nerves severed from myself, nothing to do with what I want to be. Forgive me. Forgive me. Then –
“Oh hell, darling,” he says. “I meant to get out before that happened, but I –”
I don’t care, I don’t care about anything, except this peace, this pride, holding him.
“Never mind.”
“Well, you were so worried, before. You’ll – take care, when you get home?”
“Yes.”
But I wish he wouldn’t talk about it. I’m hardly aware of what he’s saying.
“You didn’t make it, did you, Rachel? You were pretty tense, darling.”
The peace is gone. I turn my head away from him.
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s never much good the first time.”
“Was it so obvious, then?”
“Was what so obvious, Rachel?”
“That it was the first time, for me?”
Now he is the one who turns away.
“Don’t say that, Rachel. You don’t have to. It’s not necessary. Let it be, just as it is. Don’t worry – I don’t think you’re a tramp.”
I can’t see what he means. Then I realize. When he said the first time, he meant the first time two people were with each other. He doesn’t know I never was, before, with anyone. The relief of this realization is so great that for a moment I can think of nothing else. Then the other thing strikes me. He believes I was lying to him, out of some false concern for – what? My reputation – I’ve lost my reputation. Who said that? Some nitwit in Shakespeare. Nick doesn’t know – he doesn’t know how I’ve wanted to lose that reputation, to divest myself of it as though it were an oxen yoke, to burn it to ashes and scatter them to the wind. I want to laugh, to rage at him for thinking me a liar, to – Hush. Hush, Rachel. This won’t do. Now now. Not here.
The world spinningly returns, the soft scraping of branches against one another in the darkness. Then I see there is no darkness, really, all around us. It’s a full moon. Anyone could see.
“Hey, what’s the matter, darling?”
But I’ve shoved him from me with all my strength. Getting into my clothes again takes an hour, an aeon.
“What’s the hurry?” he says. He is still lying there in the grass, grinning lazily.
“I’ve got to go home now, Nick.”
“Oh, do you? All right, then.”
As we drive back, the night seems unbearably warm, the air glutinous and sugary with the heat and the smell of grass and weeds that still clings around us. He drives with one arm around me, and I want to draw closer to him to have him hold me so reassuringly that nothing can ever go
“Here we are,” Nick says. “I’ll phone you, eh?”
“Yes.” Without thinking, I’ve put my arms around him, held my face to his, asking to be kissed.
“Oh – Rachel, listen.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll – fix yourself, next time, won’t you? It’s better that way.”
“Yes.” But I can’t look at him, can’t speak of it like this. Not yet. Give me a little time. I’ll get used to it, to this practicality, these necessities, this coldness. Why should this hurt? What do I expect? To have him say he loves me? That he’ll never say. He doesn’t like people telling lies.
“Are you all right, Rachel?”
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You look a little strained.”
“No, I’m all right. Good night, Nick.”
“Good night, darling. I’ll see you.”
Mother is awake. Of course. Anything else would have been too much to hope for. The instant she hears me on the stairs she flicks on her light. What if she comes out into the hall and sees me like this, dishevelled? I will not be quizzed. I won’t be. I’ll refuse.
“That you, Rachel?”
“Yes.”
Who does she think it is – the Angel of Death? But maybe that’s precisely what she did think. Maybe she has been lying there for hours, listening for uncertainties in her heart’s beating. Or worrying about me. She cares about me. I matter to her.
“I’ll be there in a minute, Mother. Would you like some cocoa?”
“That would be nice, dear. And I think I could manage a little slice of toast, while you’re on your feet.”
Into the bathroom, quickly, to re-do my makeup and hair. There. Now I look neat, usual. And yet, when I’m in her room and handing her the tray, I avoid the querulous fragility of her face, the over-brightness of her eyes rimmed with the shadows of sickness or disappointment. I cannot look at her. She wouldn’t know at all; no explanation could ever get through to her. There are three worlds and I’m in the middle one, and this seems now to be a weak area between millstones.
At last she’s settled and I can go to bed. I haven’t begun to think yet. I’ve been saving that for when I am alone.
I wish I could tell my sister.
Right now, I’m fantastically happy. He did want me. And I wasn’t afraid. I think that when he is with me, I don’t feel any fear. Or hardly any. Soon I won’t feel any at all.
He thought I lied to him.
I couldn’t tell him I hadn’t. At least it’s better than having him know the absurdity of the truth. But I wish he didn’t think I had lied. How could I have been so dense, when he said, “It’s never much good the first time”? I should have seen what he meant. If I had, then the matter of telling lies wouldn’t have arisen. Damn. Damn. Why didn’t I see? It was quite obvious.
He said, “You were pretty tense, darling.” Yes. More than I knew, even? I don’t know how one is supposed to be. I don’t know what other women are like. Of course he would be comparing. Tense. All my actions jagged, jerky, spasmodic, convulsive? I didn’t do well. I must have been – no, I won’t think of it. I can’t. I can’t think of anything else. But he said “Next time –”. God, please. Even if only once more. So I can make up for it. So I can cancel out the clumsiness. Please.
I don’t know why a person pleads with God. If I believed, the last kind of a Creator I could imagine would be a human-type Being who could be reached by tears or bribed with words. Say please, Rachel, it’s the magic word. Mother.
Please, God, let him phone.
And the way I rushed off like that. What’s the hurry? He was amused. No wonder. Crash! And I’d pushed him away and flashed into my clothes as though there were an unseen audience ready to hoot and caw with a shocking derision. Someone might really have come along, though. Just because the place wasn’t much frequented when Nick was a kid, that doesn’t mean it’s the same now. Someone might very easily have come along. I couldn’t have borne that. What’s the hurry? Oh Christ, I might at least not have done it the way I did. I can see myself now, the frenetic haste, like a person in some early film, everything speeded-up comically.
I must not think. And now I remember. He said, “You’ll take care of yourself when you get home, won’t you?” I can’t. I haven’t got anything. Has Mother? Somewhere, undoubtedly, some antique contraption. A red tube like a catheter, a bag like a rubber udder. The coldness of my nausea is like a stone in my guts. No. I won’t get worked up over details. I can’t afford that, not any more. Would Mother have kept it? That’s the only important question at the moment. She never throws anything away. But where would it be? I can’t rummage around now, that’s plain. I can’t think straight.
What if it happens? When am I due? Not for another two weeks. That’s the worst time, too, the most likely, right in the middle of the month. What if? That’s crazy. It’s stupid to worry. It hardly ever happens the first time. What would I do, though? What would become of me? Maybe –
No, he wouldn’t. Anyway, who would want anyone on those terms? A life is too long for reproach. That would be worse than any alternative.
You’ll fix yourself? How can I? Listen, Nick – you don’t understand. How can I get what is necessary? Doctor Raven has known me since I was a child. I can’t see myself going to him. It’s out of the question. Or going to the Manawaka Pharmacy, where everybody knows me. How can I? He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know. I’ll have to tell him. He’ll have to. It’s up to him. What if he won’t? He will, of course. But what if he won’t? Then I’ll just not see him again.
Yes I will, though.
SIX
“Did you see that awful rubbishy thing that’s on at the Roxy this week, May?”
“No. No, I didn’t. Rachel and I did intend to go, we fully intended, but Rachel’s been rather tired lately, poor child. She’s always just that little bit run-down for a full month after school quits. She needs to rest up. It’s the only thing. What was the movie, Verla?”
“Teenage Tigress. Well, really, I ask you. Just junk, of course. All these awful creatures with those sloppy hairdos and not an ounce of decency or sense among the whole lot of them. I could hardly sit through it.”
“Whose deal? Oh, mine? They’re not making any good movies any more, that’s the whole trouble.”
“I used to like Claudette Colbert.”
“So did I. She was sweet. So natural. And such pretty hair. Let’s see. I think – I think just maybe – yes, I’m going to say one spade.”
“I used to like Ruby Keeler.”
“She was years ago, Holly. Years and years ago.”
“Well, it wasn’t that long ago, I don’t believe. I’m no older than you are, Verla. It doesn’t seem that long ago to me.”
“Florence, what are you bidding?”
“With this mean old hand, I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, make up your mind, dear. Nothing venture, nothing gain. Try some of these, Holly. They’re not the ordinary Bridge Mixture. These have got chocolate-covered raisins, as well. I think it’s a nice addition, myself.”
“Oh, thanks, May. Just a few, then. Maureen tells me I shouldn’t eat candies.”
“Mercy, why not? You’ve hardly gained at all, not to speak of.”
“Well, she says –”
“I’m going to pass, May. Honestly, with this hand –”
“The one next week at the Roxy is The Doomed Women. I can’t imagine what it can be about. I don’t suppose it’ll be worth seeing. Harold says if I want to go, I can go alone. He’s reading the life of Albert Schweitzer. It’s very long.”
“I’ll go with you, Verla, if you like.”
“Oh, are you sure, Holly? I just hate going alone. I don’t feel right about i
The voices. Shrill, sedate, not clownish to their ears but only to mine, and of such unadmitted sadness I can scarcely listen and yet cannot stop listening.
There. That’s the last of the sandwiches cut fine and bite-size. So Rachel’s a bit run-down, is she? She needs to rest, eh? As if I were getting the opportunity to do anything much else. It’s been a week, nearly.
So much for my practicality and my stealth, persuading Mother over to Mrs. Gunn’s where the garden is pleasant to sit in (this pretext flowering so naturally that I wouldn’t have found it difficult, myself, to be convinced). Then running back to ransack her dresser like a she-Goth out for loot. Small blue glass bottles, once Evening in Paris but long since dried; a stack of heavy clotted-lace doilies she crocheted for the arms of chairs and never used, having a million others; new nylon nightgowns, pink pastel, still folded in the tissue paper, given to her by my sister each Christmas, but believed too delicate to wear – morbidly, she saves them for hospital and the last illness, so she’ll die demurely; a sachet of rose petals encased in stiff mauve voile and tied with a royal purple ribbon, the petals now ruined to the appearance of bran flakes; a chocolate box filled with sepia photographs of herself, a ringleted child with enormous long-lashed eyes and prettily pursed mouth, and one picture of Niall Cameron, awkwardly proud and unbelievably young in his new uniform as Private in the Artillery in 1915.