Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates
The desk clerk frowned into the computer.
“ ‘M. R. Neukirchen’ ”—the name sounded, on his lips, faintly improbable, comical—“yesss—we have your reservation, Mz. Neukirchen—for two nights. But I’m afraid—the suite isn’t quite ready. The maid is just finishing up. . . .”
Even after the unscheduled stop, she’d arrived early!
She hadn’t even instructed Carlos to drive past her old residence Balch Hall—for which she felt a stab of nostalgia.
Not for the naïve girl she’d been as an undergraduate, nor even for the several quite nice roommates she’d had—(like herself, scholarship girls)—but for the thrilling experience of discovering, for the first time, the livingness of the intellectual enterprise, that had been, to her, the daughter of bookish parents, previously confined to books.
M.R. told the desk clerk that that was fine. She could wait. Of course. There was no problem.
“ . . . no more than ten or fifteen minutes, Mz. Neukirchen. You can check in now, and wait in our library-lounge, and I will call you.”
“Thank you! This is ideal.”
Smile! Win more flies with honey than with vinegar Agatha would advise though this was not why, in fact, Agatha smiled so frequently, and so genuinely. And there was Konrad’s dry rebuttal, with a wink of the eye for their young impressionable daughter.
Sure thing! If it’s flies you want.
The library-lounge was an attractive wood-paneled room where M.R. could spread her things out on an oak table and continue to work.
Always it is a good thing: to arrive early.
The impulsive stop in the nameless little town by the nameless little creek or river hadn’t been a blunder after all—only just a curious episode in M.R.’s (private) life, to be forgotten.
Arrive early. Bring work.
She’d begun to acquire a reputation for being the most astonishing zealot of work.
It was known, M.R. was very bright—very earnest, idealistic—but it had not been quite known, how hard M.R. was willing to work.
For this brief trip, she’d brought along enough work for several days. And, of course, she would be in constant communication with Salvager Hall—the president’s team of aides, assistants, secretarial staff. In a constant stream e-mail messages came to her as president of the University, and these she dealt with both expeditiously and with an air of schoolgirl pleasure so it was known, and it would become more widely known, that M.R. never failed to include personal queries and remarks in her e-mail messages, she was irrepressibly friendly.
For we love our work. No more potent narcotic than work!
And M.R.’s administrative work was very different from her work as a writer/philosopher—administration is the skillful organizing of others, its center of gravity is exterior; all that matters, all that is significant, urgent—profound—is exterior.
“I want to be ‘of service.’ I do not want to be ‘served.’ ”
This too was a legacy of the Neukirchens. For the Quaker, the commonweal outweighs the merely personal.
Critically now M.R. was re-examining her address—“The Role of the University in an Era of ‘Patriotism’ ”—even as she found herself distracted by a memory of the bridge and the sharp water-smells—the mysterious faded lettering on the dark-brick building on the farther bank.
In the lobby, uplifted voices. Her fellow conferees were arriving.
She felt a stirring of apprehension, excitement. For soon, her anonymity would vanish.
The desk clerk had no idea who she was—(this was a relief!)—but others would know her, recognize her. This past year M. R. Neukirchen had become renowned in academic circles. She could not but think her elevation very unnerving, and very strange—accidental, really.
God has chosen you, dear Merry! God is a principle in the universe for good, and God has chosen you to implement His work.
In emotional moments her mother spoke like this—warmly, earnestly. It was something of a small shock to M.R. to realize that Agatha probably did believe in such a personal destiny for her daughter.
Another time M.R. leafed through the conference program—to check her name, to see if it was really there.
The program was a large glossy-white booklet with gilt letters on its cover: Fiftieth Annual National Conference of the American Association of Learned Societies. October 11–13, 2002. The conference was scheduled to begin with a 5:30 P.M. reception at which M.R. and other speakers were to be honored. Dinner was at 7 P.M. and at 8 P.M. the keynote speaker was listed—M. R. Neukirchen.
She’d given many talks, of course. Many lectures, speeches—presentations—but mostly in her academic field, philosophy. It was an honor for her to have been invited to speak to this organization, not the largest but the most distinguished of American intellectual /academic societies, for membership was limited and selective.
M.R. had herself been inducted into the organization young—not yet thirty, and an associate professor of philosophy at the University.
“Oh! Damn.”
She’d discovered mud on the cuffs of her trousers, and in the creases of her shoes. Irritably she brushed at the stains, that were still damp.
She touched her hair discovering something cobwebby-sticky in her hair, that must have sifted down from the wrought-iron bridge.
Fortunately, she’d brought other clothes to the conference. She would wash her face—check her hair—change quickly once she was given her room.
She had good clothes to wear, this evening. Since she’d become president of the University her female staffers had seen to it that M.R. looked “stylish”—her assistant Audrey Myles had insisted upon taking M.R. to New York City to shop and they’d come back with a chic Chanel-imitation Champagne-colored wool suit—with a skirt—by an American designer. And Audrey had convinced M.R. to buy handsome new shoes as well, with a one-inch heel—bringing M.R.’s height to a teetering five feet ten and a half inches.
At such a height, you could not hide. You had best imagine yourself as a prow on a ship—a brave Amazon girl-warrior with breastplates, spear uplifted in her right hand.
Her astronomer-lover, when he’d first sighted her on a street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, years before, had described her in his way. He’d claimed to have fallen in love with her, in this first sighting. And her hair in a tight-woven braid hanging down between her shoulder blades like a glittery bronze-brown snake.
Since she’d risen in administration at the University, M.R. had long since gotten rid of the girl-scholar braid. As she’d tried to rid herself of a naive sentimentality about the sort of love her astronomer-lover could provide her. Now her hair was cropped short, trimmed and styled by a New York City hairdresser, at Audrey’s insistence: it was dense, springy, no longer golden brown but the ambiguous hue of a winter-ravaged field threaded with metallic-gray hairs that glittered like filaments.
In official biographies, M. R. Neukirchen was forty-one years old in September 2002. And looking much younger.
As a little girl she’d seen her birth certificate. Her parents had shown her. A document stamped with the heraldic New York State gold seal stating her birth date, her name—her names.
Our secret you need to tell no one.
Our secret, God has blessed our family.
She was “Merry” then—“Meredith Ruth Neukirchen.” Her birthday was September 21. A very nice time of year, the Neukirchens believed: a prelude to the beautiful season of autumn. Which was why they’d chosen it for her.
Which was why she often forgot her birthday, and was surprised when others reminded her.
She hadn’t minded not being beautiful, as a girl in Carthage, New York. She’d learned to be objective about such matters. There were those who liked her well enough—who loved her, in a way—for her fierce wide smile that resembled a grimace of pain, and her stoicism in the face
MEREDITH RUTH NEUKIRCHEN, CLASS OF ’79 VALEDICTORIAN CARTHAGE HIGH SCHOOL.
It had been the kind of upstate New York, small-city school in which, as in a drain, the least-qualified and -inspired teachers wound up, bemused and stoical and resigned; there had been several teachers who’d seen in Meredith something promising, even exciting—but only one who had inspired her, though not to emulate him personally. And when poor Meredith—“Merry”—hadn’t even been asked to the senior prom, though she’d been not only valedictorian of her graduating class but also its vice president, one of the women teachers had consoled her—“You’ll just have to make your way somehow else, Meredith”—with fumbling directness though meaning to be kind.
Not as a woman, and not sexual.
Somehow else.
Soon after the senior prom to which M.R. had not been invited, M.R.’s prettiest girl-classmates were married, and pregnant; pregnant, and married. Some were soon divorced, and became “single mothers”—a very different domestic destiny from the one they’d envisioned for themselves.
Very few of M.R.’s classmates, female or male, went on to college. Very few achieved what one might call careers. Of her graduating class of 118 students very few left Carthage or Beechum County or the southern Adirondacks, where the economy had been severely depressed for decades.
One of those regions in America, M.R. had said, trying to describe her background to her astronomer-lover who traveled more frequently to Europe than to the rural interior of the United States, where poverty has become a natural resource: social workers, welfare workers, community-medical workers, public defenders, prison and psychiatric hospital staffers, family court officials—all thrived in such barren soil. Only fleetingly had M.R. considered returning, as an educator—once she’d left, she had scarcely looked back.
Don’t forget us, Meredith! Come visit, stay a while . . .
We love our Merry.
M.R. had pushed her laptop aside and was examining road maps, laid out on a table in the library-lounge for hotel guests.
Particularly M.R. was intrigued by a detailed map of Tompkins County. She hoped to determine where she’d asked Carlos to stop. South and west of Ithaca were small towns—Edensville, Burnt Ridge, Shedd—but none appeared to be the town M.R. was looking for. With her forefinger M.R. traced a thin curvy blue stream—this must be the river, or the creek—south of Ithaca; but there was only a tiny dot on that stream as of a settlement too minuscule to be named, or extinct.
“Why is this important? It is not important.”
She whispered aloud. She was puzzled by her disappointment.
Abruptly the map ended at the northern border of Tompkins County but there were maps of adjoining New York State counties; there was a road map of New York State that M.R. eagerly unfolded, with no hope that she could fold it neatly back up again. Some crucial genetic component was missing in M.R., she could never fold road maps neatly back up again once she unfolded them. . . .
In the Neukirchen household, Konrad had been the one to carefully, painstakingly re-fold maps. Agatha had been totally incapable, vexed and anxious.
It feels like some kind of trick. It can’t be done!
M.R. saw: to the north and east of Tompkins County was Cortland County—beyond Cortland, Madison—then Herkimer, so curiously elongated among other, chunkier counties; beyond Herkimer, in the Adirondacks, the largest and least populated county in New York State, Beechum.
At the northwestern edge of Beechum County, the city of Carthage.
How many miles was it? How far could she drive, on a whim? It looked like less than two hundred miles, to the southernmost curve of the Black Snake River in Beechum County. Which computed to about three hours if she drove at sixty miles an hour. Of course, she wouldn’t have to drive as far as Carthage; she could simply drive, with no particular destination, see how far she got after two hours—then turn, and drive back.
How quickly her heart was beating!
M.R. calculated: it was just 1:08 P.M. She’d been waiting for her hotel room for nearly twenty minutes. Surely in another few minutes, the desk clerk would summon her, and she could check into the room?
The reception began at 5:30 P.M.—but no one would be on time. And then, at about 6 P.M., everyone would arrive at once, the room would be crammed with people, no one would notice if M.R. arrived late. Dinner was more essential of course since M.R. was seated at the speakers’ table—that wasn’t until 7 P.M. And of course, the keynote address at 8 P.M. . . .
There was time—or was there? Her brain balked at calculations like a faulty machine.
“Absurd. No. Just stop.”
The spell was broken by the cell phone ringing at M.R.’s elbow. The first stirring notes of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
M.R. saw that the caller ID was UNIVERSITY—meaning the president’s office. Of course, they were waiting to hear from her there.
“Yes, I’ve arrived. Everything is fine. In a few minutes I’ll be checked in. And Carlos is on his way back home.”
It was a fact: Carlos had departed. M.R. had thanked him and dismissed him. Late in the afternoon of the third day of the conference Carlos would return, to drive M.R. back to the University.
Of course, M.R. had suggested that Carlos stay the night—this night—at the hotel—at the University’s expense—to avoid the strain of driving a second five-hour stretch in a single day. But Carlos politely demurred: Carlos didn’t seem to care much for this well-intentioned suggestion.
It was a relief Carlos had left, M.R. thought. The driver had lingered in the lobby for a while as if uncertain whether to leave his distinguished passenger before she’d actually been summoned to her hotel room; he’d insisted upon carrying her suitcase into the hotel for her—this lightweight roller-suitcase M.R. could handle for herself and in fact preferred to handle herself, for she rested her heavy handbag on it as she rolled it along; but Carlos couldn’t bear the possibility of being observed—by other drivers?—in the mildest dereliction of his duty.
“Ma’am? Should I wait with you?”
“Carlos, thank you! But no. Of course not.”
“But if you need . . .”
“Carlos, really! The hotel has my reservation, obviously. It will be just another few minutes, I’m sure.”
Still he’d hesitated. M.R. couldn’t determine if it was professional courtesy or whether this dignified gentleman in his early sixties was truly concerned for her—perhaps it was both; he told her please call him on her cell phone if she needed anything, he would return to Ithaca as quickly as possible. But finally he’d left.
M.R. thought Of course. His life is elsewhere. His life is not driving a car for me.
Questioned afterward Carlos Lopes would say I asked her if I should stay—her room wasn’t ready yet in the hotel—she said no, I should leave—she was working in a room off the lobby—I said maybe she would need me like if they didn’t have a room for her and I could drive her to some other hotel and she laughed and said no Carlos! That is very kind of you but no—of course there will be a room.
As the desk clerk would say Her room was ready for her at about 1:15 P.M. She was gracious about waiting, she said it was no trouble. But then a few minutes later she called the front desk—I spoke with her—she asked about a car rental recommendation. Sometime after that she must have left the hotel. Nobody would’ve seen her, the lobby was so crowded. Her room was empty at 8:30 P.M. when some people from the conference asked us to open it. There was no DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. The lights were off. Her suitcase was on the bed opened but mostly unpacked and her laptop was on the bed, not opened. There weren’t any signs of anybody br
By 2 P.M. she was in the rental car driving north of Ithaca.
Her lungs swelled with—relief? Exultation?
She’d told no one where she was going or even that she was going—somewhere.
Of course, M.R. was paying for the compact Toyota with her personal credit card.
Of course, M.R. knew that her behavior was impulsive but reasoned that since she’d arrived early at the conference, in fact hours before the conference officially began, this interlude—before 6 P.M., or 6:30 P.M.—was a sort of free fall, like gravity-less space.
Once she’d asked her (secret) lover how an astronomer can bear the silence and vastness of the sky which is unbroken/unending/unfathomable and which yields nothing remotely human in fact rather makes a mockery of human and he’d said—But darling! That is what draws the astronomer to his subject: silence, vastness.
Driving north to Beechum County she was driving into what felt like silence. For she’d left the radio off, and the wind whining and whistling at all the windows drained away all sound as in a vacuum leaving her brain blank.
Ancient time her lover called the sky without end predating every civilization on Earth that believed it was the be-all and end-all of Earth.
She’d resolved to drive for just an hour and a half in one direction. Three hours away would return her to the hotel by 5 P.M. and well in time to change and prepare for the reception.
Except the driving was wind-buffeted. She’d rented a small car.
Not so very practical for driving at a relatively high speed on the interstate flanked and overtaken by tractor-trailers.
In high school driver’s education class, M.R. had been an exemplary student. Aged sixteen she’d learned to parallel park with such skill, her teacher used her as a model for other students. Approvingly he’d said of her Meredith handles a car like a man.
Remembering how when she’d first begun driving she’d felt dizzy with excitement, happiness. That thrill of sheer power in the way the vehicle leaps when you press down on the gas pedal, turns when you turn the steering wheel, slows and stops when you brake.