Sourland by Joyce Carol Oates
She was thinking how, on what was to be the very last day of her husband’s life, with no knowledge of what was imminent she and her husband had made plans for his discharge from the hospital in two days. They’d read the New York Times together. Tracy had insisted on Adrienne bringing him his laptop and so he’d worked—he was determined to examine the copyedited manuscript of a lengthy article he’d written for the Journal of 20th-Century European History—though complaining of his eyes “tearing up” and his vision being “blurred.” He’d eaten the lukewarm lunch, or part of it—until he’d begun to feel nauseated and asked Adrienne to take it away. They’d quarreled—almost—over whether Adrienne should call Tracy’s parents, to deflect their coming to visit him—an arduous trip for them, from northern Minnesota—since he was being discharged so soon, and was “recovered, or nearly”—Adrienne had thought that Tracy should see his parents, who were concerned about him; Tracy had thought otherwise, now that he was “feeling fine.” The hospital allowed visitors until 9 P.M. but Adrienne left at 7 P.M. since Tracy had become tired suddenly and wanted to sleep—Adrienne was exhausted also—maintaining her cheery hospital manner was a strain, like carrying heavy unwieldy bundles from place to place and nowhere to set them down, until at last you drop them—let them fall—she’d managed to drive home and was in bed by 9:20 P.M. and at 12:50 A.M. she’d been wakened as in a cartoon of crude nightmare cruelty by a ringing phone and in her dazed sleep she’d thought That is not for me. That is not for me even as, groping for the phone, she’d known that of course the ringing phone was for her, she’d known that the ringing phone had to be for her and she’d known, or guessed, what the call was.
Mrs. Myer? Your husband is in critical condition, please come to the hospital immediately.
“Mrs. Myer? Come with me, please.”
Time had passed: an hour? Two hours? Adrienne was being led briskly along a corridor to the Office of the Surrogate. The name on the door was D. CAPGRASS. Her heart beat quickly. She’d stood so swiftly, blood had rushed from her head. Don’t let me faint. Not here, not now. Not this weakness, now. It had become confused in the widow’s mind—such fantasies are exacerbated in steam-heated waiting rooms, in hard-backed vinyl chairs—that her obligation in Surrogate Court was an obligation to her deceased husband, and not to herself; it was her husband’s estate that was to be deliberated, the estate of which she, the surviving spouse, was the executrix. If this can be completed. Then…Adrienne’s thoughts trailed off, she had no idea what came beyond Then.
Crematorium is not the polite term. Funeral home is the preferred term.
There she’d made arrangements, paid with their joint credit card.
Tracy Emmet Myer was a co-owner of this card. Tracy Emmet Myer was paying for his own cremation.
Ashes to ashes, dusk to dusk. The nonsense jingle ran through the widow’s brain brazen and jeering as the cries of a jaybird in the trees close outside her bedroom windows, that woke her so rudely from her sedative sleep.
“Mrs. Myer. Please will you sign these consent forms”—a middle-aged bald-headed man with eyeglasses that fitted his face crookedly and stitch-like creases in his forehead was addressing her with somber formality. Without hesitating—eagerly—Adrienne signed several documents—“waivers”—without taking time to read them. How she hoped to placate this frowning gentleman—an officer of the Mercer County Surrogate’s court. “And now, you will please provide these required documents, which I hope you’ve remembered to bring”—frowning as the widow foolishly fumbled removing folders from a briefcase—the deceased husband’s birth certificate, and her own birth certificate; their marriage certificate…
Quickly Adrienne handed over the marriage certificate. She could not bear to see what was printed on it and, long ago, gaily and giddily signed by her husband and her.
“And your husband’s death certificate, Mrs. Myer?”
Your husband’s death certificate. What an eccentric form of speech—Your husband’s. As if the deceased husband yet owned “his” death certificate.
Your husband’s body. Your husband’s remains.
Adrienne fumbled to hand over the odd-sized document. Though it had been newly issued and was scarcely twenty-four hours old yet it was creased and mud-smeared as if someone had stepped on it. Adrienne murmured an apology but Capgrass silenced her with an impatient wave of his fingers.
“This will do, Mrs. Myer. Thank you.”
With a pencil-thin flashlight the Probate Court official examined the death certificate—was this infrared light?—and the ornamental gilt State of New Jersey seal. The document must have been satisfactory since he stamped it with the smaller gilt seal of the Surrogate’s Office which bore, for some reason, quaintly and curiously, the just-perceptibly raised figure of a horse’s head, or a chess knight in profile.
“Oh—why is that? This seal—why does it have a horse’s head on it?” Adrienne laughed nervously.
“It is the Court’s seal, Mrs. Myer.” Capgrass paused, as if the widow’s question was embarrassing, a violation of protocol. “May I see—? Have you brought—?”
“Of course! Of course.”
As the primary beneficiary and executrix of her late husband’s estate Adrienne was required to provide photo I.D.s of herself and her husband—she’d brought drivers’ licenses, passports—as well as IRS tax returns for the previous year—documents attesting to the fact that she and the deceased Tracy Emmet Myer had lived in the same residence in Summit Hill, New Jersey.
To all these items the frowning Capgrass subjected the same assiduous examination, with the pencil-thin light.
“Now, Mrs. Myer: may I see your husband’s Last Will and Testament.”
This was the single document that most unnerved Adrienne. She’d had difficulty locating it in her husband’s surprisingly disorganized filing cabinet and she’d been unable to force herself to read more than a small portion of the opening passage—I, Tracy E. Myer, a domiciliary of New Jersey, declare this to be my Last Will and Testament, and I revoke all my prior Wills and Codicils…
Nervously she said, “I hope this is complete, Mr. Capgrass. It’s all that I could find. I’m not sure what ‘codicil’ means. I’m afraid that…”
“Hand it here, please.”
Leafing through the document of about twenty pages Capgrass paused midway.
The expression on his face! Adrienne stared uneasily.
“Mrs. Myer, this is—this is not—this is irregular.”
A crude blush rose into the middle-aged official’s face. His eyeglasses glittered in alarm. Rudely he pushed the document toward Adrienne—at first she couldn’t comprehend what he wanted her to see, what she was looking at—then she realized it was a page, or several pages, of poorly developed photographs of stunted, broken, naked figures—death camp survivors?—manikins, or dolls?
“I don’t understand. What is—”
Numbly Adrienne took up the offensive pages, to stare at them. How could this be? What were these ugly obscene images doing in her husband’s will? She was sure she’d looked through the will, or at any rate leafed through it—if barely recognizing what she saw, for she’d been upset at the time, very tired, and the densely printed legal passages had seemed impregnable, taunting. Now she saw that she was staring not at printed passages but at photographs—blurred, not-quite-in-focus photographs as of objects seen underwater—bizarre disfigured manikins, or adult dolls, some of them missing arms, legs—bruised, blood-splattered—several of them hairless, bald—all of them naked—and all of them female.
Adrienne felt a stab of horror, shame. How could this be! How could Tracy Myer who’d been so courteous, so kindly, such a good decent gentlemanly man who’d taken care with every aspect of his work have been, at the same time, so careless, reckless—hiding such obscenities in his study, in his legal files where they would be discovered after his death?
Yet thinking But they are not real, at least! Not real girls, or women. Real amputees.<
“You may take these back, Mrs. Myer. Please.”
“‘Take them back’? They don’t belong to me, or to my husband—I’m sure. I’ve never seen these before…”
Capgrass removed his crooked plastic glasses and polished the lenses vigorously with a strip of chamois. His eyes, exposed, were small, rust-colored and primly disapproving; the crude hot blush had expanded to cover most of his face, and the gleaming-bald dome of his head. Clumsily Adrienne took up the offensive sheets of paper, which were in fact not photographs but Xerox photocopies of photographs, several to a page: not wanting to see she saw nonetheless that the figures were both painfully lifelike and perversely artificial; she had the idea that they were artworks of another era, perhaps “Germanic” maybe it was possible to interpret the reproductions as a historian’s assiduous and uncensored research, and not pornography. Adrienne tried to explain that her husband Tracy Myer—Professor Tracy Myer, who’d taught at Princeton for nearly thirty years—had been a distinguished historian, his field of specialization was post–World War I twentieth-century European history and this included the notorious—decadent—Weimar era. Though deeply embarrassed Adrienne managed to sound convincing: “By accident my husband must have filed these—documents—in the wrong folder. They seem to be ‘art’ of some kind—posed manikins or dolls—maybe Surrealist. Or—Dada. Tracy was always fascinated by art—by what art ‘reveals’ of the culture that gives rise to it, as well as of the artist. They are not…” Adrienne couldn’t bring herself to utter the ugly word pornography.
Capgrass interrupted Adrienne to inform her disdainfully that there appeared to be “irregularities” in her husband’s will; he’d had time only to peruse the document in a cursory fashion but had noticed that the first codicil hadn’t been properly notarized—the notary public had used a seal with what appeared to be several broken letters which undermined the validity of the transaction, should litigants want to take issue.
Litigants! Adrienne’s heart beat in alarm.
“Though it’s unambiguous that you’ve been designated your husband’s primary beneficiary, as well as the executrix of his estate, it would appear, from a strictly legal standpoint, that the document is of questionable authenticity. I’m sure that ‘Tracy Emmet Myer’ was indeed your husband, and that he has indeed died—but, unfortunately, if there is a pre-existing will, either in your possession or elsewhere, it might take precedent over the one we have here.”
“But I—don’t understand…‘Pre-existing’—there is none…”
“How many times such a claim has been made, and a pre-existing document turns up, that is fully legal. Mrs. Myer, please understand that we can’t proceed to ‘probate’ your husband’s will in its present state. There are no legal grounds for the assumption that you are, in fact, the executrix of Tracy Myer’s estate.”
“But—I am his wife. You’ve seen my I.D., and the marriage certificate—”
“And if there are claims against the estate—these must be processed.”
“‘Claims against the estate’…”
Adrienne spoke faintly. What a nightmare this was!
She remembered how several years before—following the unexpected death of one of Tracy’s brothers—he’d made arrangements for both their wills to be drawn up. This was a task—a necessity—Tracy had postponed as Adrienne had postponed even considering it and at the signing in the attorney’s office she’d so dreaded reading through the dense legal language that she’d signed both wills without reading them assured by the attorney that everything was in order.
It was the future Adrienne had dreaded when one or another of the wills would be consulted. Now, the widow was living in that future, and it was more terrible than she’d anticipated.
“Letters will have to be sent by you, Mrs. Myer, by certified mail, to all of your husband’s relatives and business partners, if he had these, as well as to anyone else who might have a legitimate claim upon the estate.” Capgrass spoke in a flat perfunctory voice in which there lurked a frisson of something insolent, disruptive. “This is standard procedure in probate, and it is very important.”
“But—why would anyone make a ‘claim’ against the estate? Why would this happen?”
“Mrs. Myer, this is probate. The court must determine if your husband’s estate is ‘free and clear’ before allowing the estate to be divided among beneficiaries and administered by any executor or executrix.”
“But—how would I know how to begin?” Adrienne’s voice rose in alarm. “My husband took care of all of our finances—our taxes—insurance—anything ‘legal.’ He has—had—relatives living in many parts of the country—he didn’t have business partners, but—he’d invested in his older brother’s roofing business, to help him financially…” Adrienne recalled hearing about this, years ago, though Tracy hadn’t discussed it with her at any length. And hadn’t the brother’s business gone bankrupt just the same? A part of Adrienne’s mind began to shut down.
Suttee. She’d wakened that morning thinking of suttee.
The ancient Hindu custom of burning the widow, alive, on her husband’s funeral pyre. A cruel and barbaric custom said to be practiced still in the more remote parts of India and Adrienne thought There is a cruel logic to this.
“Your husband was married previously—?”
“‘Married previously’? Why do you say that? He was not.”
“Our records show—”
Capgrass was typing into a computer, hunched forward like a broken-backed vulture peering at the screen. A small thin smile played about his lips. “It seems here—our records show—unless there are two distinct ‘Tracy Emmet Myers’…Your husband was required by law to inform you of any prior marriages as he was required to inform the individual who performed the wedding ceremony and if he failed to comply with this law, Mrs. Myer, there may be some question about whether your marriage to him was fully legal. You may want to retain an attorney as soon as possible to press your claim.”
Press your claim. Adrienne sat stunned.
“But—I know my husband. I knew him. It is just not possible…”
Capgrass continued to type into the computer. In a matter-of-fact voice reading off data to the widow who could not hear what he was saying through a roaring in her ears. This is wrong. This is not right. You don’t know him. None of you knew him.
Yet, had Adrienne known Tracy? Had she known the man, except as her husband? In the hospital an altered personality had emerged from time to time, unexpectedly. Adrienne couldn’t forget a curious remark Tracy had made that was wholly unlike the man she knew: one evening he’d muttered in a wistful voice as a cheery Jamaican attendant left his room chattering like a tropical bird—a fleshy girl bearing away soiled linen, the remains of a meal—“If only we could be so simple! It’s as if they don’t realize they are to die.”
Adrienne had objected: “Tracy, you can’t judge them by their outward manner. They are spiritual people just like us.”
Adrienne’s reply had been inadequate, also. Not what she’d meant to say. Not what she meant.
It wasn’t like her to say them, they in this way. As it wasn’t like Tracy to speak in such a way. And what had Adrienne meant by spiritual people just like us. This was condescending, crude.
Was this how racists talked? How racists thought?
The widow’s mistake had been, her husband had been her life. She was a tree whose roots had become entwined with the roots of an adjacent tree, a seemingly taller and stronger tree, and these roots had become entwined inextricably. To free the living tree from the dead tree would require an act of violence that would damage the living tree. It would require an act of imagination. Easier to imagine suttee. Easier to imagine swallowing handfuls of barbiturates, old painkiller medications in the medicine cabinet. I can’t do this. I can’t be expected to do this. I am not strong enough
What was mysterious to her was, before Tracy’s death she had not ever understood that really she might
That there would be a time, a perfectly ordinary morning like this morning in the Mercer County Courthouse, Office of the Surrogate, when the man who’d been Tracy Emmet Myer no longer existed and could not be found anywhere in the world.
The very routine of the hospital, to which she’d become almost immediately adjusted, had contributed to this delusion. How capably she’d performed the tasks required of her, bringing Tracy his mail, his work, his professional journals, his laptop—proof that nothing fundamental had changed in their shared life. And the cardiologist was optimistic, the EKGs were showing stabilization, improvement. Yet one evening Adrienne had naively approached an older nurse at a computer station in the corridor not far from her husband’s room—the woman middle-aged, kindly and intelligent—her name was Shauna O’Neill—you had to love Shauna O’Neill!—she’d seemed to like Tracy very much—you had the feeling with Shauna O’Neill that you were a special patient, of special worth—for hadn’t Shauna always remembered to call Tracy Professor Myer which had seemed to comfort him—and flattered him—but seeing Mrs. Myer about to peer over her shoulder at the computer screen Shauna O’Neill had said sharply, “Mrs. Myer, excuse me I don’t think this is a good idea”—even as Adrienne blundered near to see on the screen beneath her husband’s name the stark terrible words congestive heart failure. In that instant Adrienne panicked. She began to choke, to cry. For hadn’t they been told that her husband was improving, that he would be discharged soon? Adrienne stumbled back to her husband’s room. Tracy had been dozing watching TV news and now he wakened. “Addie? What’s wrong, why are you so upset?” Adrienne had never cried so helplessly, like a terrified child. If one of the broken mutilated dolls in the lurid photographs could have cried, the doll would have cried in this way. This was the single great sorrow of which Adrienne Myer was capable—at the time of her husband’s death, and in the hours following, she would not cry like this. She would not have the strength or the capacity to cry like this. Raw emotion swept through her leaving her stunned, hollow. At the time she’d kissed her husband desperately, his cool smooth cheek which the Jamaican attendant had recently shaved; she’d gripped his fingers which were cool also, as if blood had ceased to flow in the veins there. She stammered, “I’m c-crying only because—I love you so much. Only because I love you so much, Tracy. No other reason.”