Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates
“I guess”—Sabbath laughed, awkwardly—“I don’t know.”
“Well, I know.”
“Yes? You do?”
“ ’Cause you got a look in your face like the way some kinda nasty lizard looks—iguana, I’m thinking of. Mean ugly thing sayin Leave me alone. Don’t fuck with me.”
Sabbath laughed, embarrassed. Yet it was not so surprising to her, that another might so interpret her expression.
Chantelle Rios was a clinical psychology post-doc in her early thirties. She wore her shiny-black hair in braids and her clothing, outside the Psych Department, was bright-hued; at Females Without Borders, and to make Sabbath McSwain smile, though she had an advanced degree from the University of Florida at Gainesville, she affected the sexy-insinuating style of an Hispanic rapper.
Like Haley McSwain, Chantelle Rios was involved with another person—(whom Sabbath was never to meet). But, like Haley, Chantelle seemed to want to take up Sabbath McSwain as a cause.
“You don’t have any family, girl? At all? Is that possible?”
Yes. It was possible.
“Everyone you know is—dead? Y’know, li’l dude—that don’t hardly seem likely.”
Sabbath sat inert, silent. She could not think how to speak: how to defend herself.
For by this time it did seem to her, back there had vanished.
Her memory had been so washed-away, as with a crude hosing, all that remained were swaths of “familiar” scenes—a room that had once been her room, a view of a residential street seen from a window in this room she could not recall was called Cumberland Avenue. If she shut her eyes tight she could see a house—a large, sprawling house with many staircases—(too many staircases not to be a dream, or a drawing by M. C. Escher)—and harried stick-figures on the staircases rushing up and down oblivious of one another: the foot of one sharing a step with the foot of another who is upside-down. (If you turned the house-drawing upside-down, ingeniously it would be revealed as the same drawing; whether this-side-up, or its reversal, the drawing of the house of many staircases is only one drawing.)
No idea what any of this meant. Why the fuck did it haunt her.
Why her instinct to hide her face in shame.
“Know what, Sabbath? I’d like to get you in our lab. We’re working with volunteers but we can pay you a few dollars an hour. It’s an experiment in ‘induced amnesia’—pretty damn interesting.”
Sabbath shook her head mutely, no.
For it was hopeless to speak. To try to explain.
Like stammering in a foreign language in which you know only a few words but not how to connect them.
There are fairy tales in which one sister is the good beautiful sister—one sister is blessed. And another sister is damned.
I am that sister. The damned sister. Yet, I am still alive—a mistake not yet corrected.
TWELVE
The Guilty One
March 2012
HE’D SAID TO HER You betrayed me.
Those words ringing in her ears. In her brain. Betrayed. You have betrayed.
Like harsh-glaring sunshine on a beach littered with storm debris, the dead and desiccated bodies of creatures once living. This sunshine was blinding to her, terrible.
For she was beginning now to see the devastation of her life—that she herself had precipitated.
For perhaps it had been a mistake, to have fled. To have erased her life back there.
She’d allowed herself to believe what her rescuer had wished her to believe—that whoever had hurt her, would hurt her again.
That whoever belonged to her past would not miss her. Did not love her and would not claim her.
Had she been sick? For so long?
Turning the silver star-ring around on her finger, and around.
SHE CALLED. Tried to call.
The old number so long-ago memorized: her own.
But a recording clicked on: The number you have called has been disconnected.
PANIC GRIPPED HER: the Mayfields no longer lived in the house on Cumberland Avenue.
One of her parents had died? It would be Zeno.
And then, her mother had moved from the house. And Juliet—of course by now, Juliet would have moved from the house.
Juliet would be—how old? Twenty-nine.
How strange it was to her, that the house on Cumberland Avenue had existed in some way unknown to her, all this time.
Her father Zeno, her mother Arlette. Her sister Juliet.
In ways unknown to her, they’d outlived her.
Six years, eight months.
And he—Brett Kincaid.
In those years she’d scarcely given them a thought. She’d become Sabbath McSwain and all of her energy had gone into the effort of maintaining this imposture as a one-legged person with a single crutch must concentrate upon her ability to move, not easily, not gracefully, nor even without pain, but simply to move in a clumsy simulacrum of “walking.”
Sabbath McSwain was of little value in the vast world yet of inestimable value to Haley McSwain. It is required that we must be fiercely beloved by one individual in order to exist: for Sabbath, Haley was that individual.
And so, she’d lost the capacity to recall the Mayfield faces. And the face of the corporal.
A part of her brain had seemed to shut down. Much of her memory had become like a paralyzed limb, attached to the body but estranged, useless.
Since having entered the execution chamber at Orion, she was beginning to see differently. She was beginning to wonder if her behavior had been a primitive sort of revenge for their failure to love her.
Her family, and Brett Kincaid.
How otherwise could she have erased them from her memory!
She would have liked to explain to the Investigator. She would have liked to ask his advice: What, now, should she do?
He would know. He would give an immediate answer.
Yet how could she confess to him, or to anyone—in all those years she’d made no attempt to contact her family?
Never called, never tried to call.
She’d never sought information about them, online. She’d never typed into any computer the names Zeno Mayfield. Arlette Mayfield. Juliet Mayfield. Corporal Brett Kincaid.
Still less, she’d never typed into any computer the name Cressida Catherine Mayfield.
THE INVESTIGATOR had named her: betrayer.
She’d wronged him! Never would he forgive her, nor would he trust her again.
Turning the ring on her finger, round and round.
“SABBATH MCSWAIN.”
These precious documents she gathered: the birth certificate, the Social Security card, the laminated Mountain Forge High School card long outdated, and the Florida driver’s license.
Mailed in an envelope to Haley McSwain at the new address.
Dearest Haley—
I am saying good-bye to you now. I will not see you again.
I will pray for you & Drina—that she will be well, & you will be happy together as you deserve.
I know you would not look for me and it is a good thing if you do not. I am going back to my home—it is time.
I should not have left as I did. This is what I think now.
I may be mistaken. I will return there, to see.
Still I owe my life to you. I am so grateful to you.
Sincerely & with Love—
Your Sister Who Was Sabbath
STRING SHE FOUND to wrap around the inside of the silver star-ring the Investigator had given her, that it would fit her finger less loosely.
It was her fear, the ring would slip from her finger and be lost.
SHE’D FLED. Like a kicked and terrified dog she’d fled. Like a dog she’d wished only to hide, and lick her wounds. Her shame that was a kind of wound. It did not occur to her, it had not once occurred to her, that others might have been injured as well.
“But they didn’t love me. Did they?”
IT WAS RIGHT, that they should
She had not been beautiful in their eyes. She had not been loved.
The smart one. She smiled, a ghastly struck smile—so she had hurt them, she hoped!
Then, a moment later, the recoil came over her, the revulsion—Betrayer! You have betrayed those who loved you.
“HELLO? Is this—Juliet?”
“Yes. This is Juliet. Who is this?”
The voice was both friendly and guarded. She would not have recognized the voice perhaps except knowing it was Juliet, she gripped the little phone tight against her ear and for a moment could not speak.
“Hello? Who’s this?”
“Juliet, this is Cressida.”
Silence. You could guess, a shocked silence.
“What do you mean—‘Cressida’?”
“It’s Cressida. Your sister.”
This was mistaken, what she was doing. She was speaking too bluntly, and yet in a weak guilty voice. Juliet said sharply:
“My sister is not living. This is not—this is not funny . . .”
Abruptly the line went dead.
Not living. Strange that Juliet hadn’t said My sister is dead.
Cressida called the number again. This time, there was no answer.
It had not been easy for Cressida to acquire her sister’s cell phone number. The old way of landlines was passing—there was no national directorial assistance any longer.
She’d acquired the cell phone number from the mother of a girlfriend of Juliet’s who lived on Caledonia Street, Carthage. Mrs. Hempel had been happy to look up Juliet Mayfield’s number for her, in an address book. She had not recognized Cressida Mayfield’s voice.
Cressida had told Mrs. Hempel that she was an old high school friend of Juliet’s who had lost touch with her. Mrs. Hempel hadn’t questioned the name Cressida provided, which was the name of an actual girl who’d gone to Carthage High at that time.
This matrix of old, lost names. A vast spiderweb of associations long forgotten and now resurrected for a desperate whim.
She’d said, “Thanks for Juliet’s number, Mrs. Hempel,” and Mrs. Hempel said, “Of course! No problem. But Juliet doesn’t live in Carthage any longer, you know.” And she’d said, “She doesn’t? Where does she live now?” and Mrs. Hempel said, “Well, I think—I think she lives in Albany. Her husband has something to do with—I think it’s a state government position,” and she’d said, “Oh. Juliet is married. I—I didn’t know,” and Mrs. Hempel said, lowering her voice as if they might be overheard, “Well, you know—after that terrible thing that happened to her sister . . .” and Cressida listened in silence, gripping the phone, scarcely daring to breathe, “Juliet had some sort of breakdown. Because it had been her fiancé, you know—who’d killed her sister. He’d drowned her in the Nautauga River, people thought—but the body was never recovered. And Juliet moved out of Carthage and never has moved back but Carly sees her sometimes in Albany, and they keep in touch, by email and phone. And I think Juliet is well, now—I think she has a child, or two children—that’s what Carly has said.”
All this information, volunteered to a stranger. Cressida thanked Mrs. Hempel and said good-bye.
Killed her sister.
Drowned her in the Nautauga River.
Body never recovered.
IT SHOULD NOT have surprised her that, in Carthage, she was believed to be dead.
Missing for so many years, presumed dead.
And maybe it was better that way? As she’d always thought, with that part of her mind in which back there remained prominent.
Better to have vanished. That she would cause no one any further grief.
But there was the matter of the corporal, who’d been with her at the time of her vanishing. And there was the matter of Cressida Mayfield’s family, she realized now must continue to miss her as one lost to them, and her body never recovered.
ZENO HAD SPOKEN OF an ancient Greek philosopher whose teaching was It is better never to have been born.
How they’d laughed! Rob Roy had barked in delight, frisking about their legs and with his long swishing setter-tail coming dangerously close to knocking over glasses and bottles.
She’d asked who had said this and Zeno had screwed up his quizzical-Daddy face and said it was (maybe) Sophocles, and it was (maybe) Socrates. And it was (certainly) Schopenhauer—centuries later.
Better never to have been born.
But how then would you know?
They’d thought the philosopher was silly—had to be an old grouch.
A typical weekend evening at the Mayfield house on Cumberland Avenue. When the girls were young, which meant that Zeno had been active in politics at the time, perhaps even mayor of Carthage. Frequently they’d had visitors, dinner guests and houseguests, friends, neighbors, Zeno’s Democratic party friends, friends of Arlette’s—companionably crowded at the long table in the dining room covered with a beautiful Irish linen tablecloth.
Candlestick holders, and bright-colored candles. Flames reflected dancing in the darkened windowpanes.
The consensus was, this cranky old philosopher had obviously never (A) been in love (B) held a baby in his arms (C) inhaled the smell of fresh-mown grass (D) sipped Champagne (E) won an election.
In the gaiety of the moment all had laughed. Zeno’s friends had lifted their glasses to him in a toast—one toast of many. So perhaps it had been an evening to celebrate Zeno’s election to the office of mayor of Carthage. And Rob Roy had trotted about the room, licking fingers as they stroked his sleek handsome head. And Cressida who’d been a child at the time hadn’t laughed with the others for the fear of never having been born had pierced her heart, so young.
A FOURTH TIME, and a fifth she called Juliet’s number.
Then leaving a message, in a careful voice.
Juliet it is me—Cressida . . .
I am calling from Florida . . .
I will be coming home—back home—if people would want me . . .
I am well. I am not ill or—hurt in any way. I have not been incarcerated or hospitalized . . .
I have a job here in Temple Park. Or, I had a job . . .
I am living alone. I am alone but I am—I am not . . .
I am not a sick person.
Her voice broke. She began to sob. She had no control over the tears that spilled from her eyes hot, stinging and blinding.
I did not think that any of you would miss me—much.
I did not think that any of you loved me much . . .
I was very frightened, I think. I am frightened now.
I wonder if you can forgive me . . .
She was sobbing now. She could not catch her breath, now.
The cell phone that had been given to her by the Investigator slipped from her fingers, fell to the pavement and shattered into a dozen pieces of plastic.
THE TRIP NORTH would not be an easy one, by bus.
The trip north she did not wish to be easy, or quick—it would require all the days she would spend on the bus, to prepare herself for Carthage.
(She might have flown, or taken a train. Which would have required her traveling as Sabbath McSwain.)
(Her own identification, as Cressida Mayfield, had been lost long ago.)
Air-conditioning in late March when the bus disembarked from Fort Lauderdale. In a seat near the rear of the bus she huddled hoping to remain alone, avoiding the eyes of fellow passengers who shuffled past. Her few belongings were in the rack overhead, books, notebooks and papers on the seat beside her.
It was March 16: five days since the visit to Orion.
Five days since, in the execution chamber, she’d known that she must return to Carthage.
She had not tried to acquire her parents’ phone numbers. She might have called her mother’s sister Katie Hewett, assuming that Katie was still living in Carthage, and had a landline; but she could not force herself to call her aunt, who would recognize her voice immediately.
The prospect of seeing her family again filled her with an almost unbearable apprehension—dread, shame, yet also anticipation, hope.
Forgive me. I thought you didn’t . . .
. . . was sure you didn’t . . .
. . . love me.
She forgot, Zeno might have died. This awful thought came to her frequently but seemed then to fade almost at once.
She did not think that Arlette would have died.
(Oh but what if Arlette had died! In a panic she recalled how her mother had been plagued with false-positive mammograms, cysts in her breasts that turned out to be “benign.” And once, Arlette had had a “benign” tumor, not small, removed from her large intestine. And Cressida had practically shut her bedroom door in Juliet’s frightened face, when Juliet had wanted to talk about Mommy, and Cressida had not wanted to talk about Mommy. Go away leave me alone! I don’t want to talk about it OK!)
So Juliet was married! And had a child, or two children.
The pretty one had prevailed. She, too, had left Carthage—the debris-littered landscape.
Had some sort of breakdown. Her fiancé—killed her sister.
Drowned in the Nautauga River but the body never recovered.
It was a (plain) sister’s revenge against her (beautiful) sister. Yet, Cressida had not ever thought of it in this way.
Like one who has been circling a devastated site seeing now the gaping wounds, ravaged and gouged earth, broken trees and exposed roots from another perspective she was beginning to realize: a catastrophe is not one individual—a single “victim.”
She had not given thought to the corporal, much. That he had shoved her from him, with such disgust for her—it had been a kind of murder.
A murder, and over.
Who she’d been, in his eyes—finished, gone.
She had not thought that he—the corporal: Brett Kincaid—might have had to account for her, after that episode.
That others might have believed he might have murdered her, too.
And if the corporal had murdered her, the younger sister of his (ex)-fiancé, he must have been punished for this murder?