Rodin's Debutante (31 page)

She watched him go with a tired smile. They're always like that, Magda said. Men, women too. If they know about the rape of me they're embarrassed, as if it's a disease they might catch. They stammer. They fumble for words. They make false smiles. They don't finish sentences and they don't look you in the eye. In some ways the women are the worst because I know exactly what they're thinking. And they can't wait to get away from me. Magda dropped another lump of sugar into her coffee cup and stirred. Poor Joel, she said. So—at a loss. He was a nice boy. She looked at the business card front and back and put it in the ashtray.

They sat in silence. The waiter had gone away and they were alone in the big room, empty tables set with fresh linen and flatware. The afternoon sun cast sharp yellow stripes on the walls and Lee felt a fugitive breeze from the open windows. Lee watched the old scow move away from the dock, the deckhand winding stern lines as the vessel made way from the harbor to open water, its chevron wake bubbling behind. Carl's scows had been at dockside for as long as he could remember. Lee lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl in the stillness.

I've taken too much of your time, Magda said.

No, you haven't, Lee replied.

I haven't been to this restaurant ever, all the years I lived in New Jesper.

As you can see, you haven't missed much.

But there's one last thing, Magda said. I want to know what you think of this. My mother and I went to the library to find the files of the
World.
I thought if I read the account of the rape of me the memory of it might come back, some word or phrase might—rouse it. And then I would know the identity of the man and he would be arrested and punished. The search took us a while. And when we finally located the article we could hardly make sense of the words. "An incident," the story said, but never described the incident. The story was written in a strange sort of code, almost a stammer, fumbling for words. Do you remember it?

I certainly do.

Well, then, what was it about, Lee?

They were embarrassed, Lee said.

The man who wrote the story was embarrassed?

Alfred Swan wrote the story. They did not want to embarrass the town.

The
town?

They had many of the details, clinical details. Exactly what was done to you. Those were suppressed. They were afraid—

Afraid of what?

Afraid of alarming people. Afraid the town would be overrun with Chicago reporters. Afraid that the story was too lurid, too frightful, and that reputations would be ruined, yours included. They did not believe that publication of the whole truth would serve anyone's interest. And that was why the story was written as it was. Sanitized. Chaste, I would call it. Lee thought a moment before he added one last thought. He said, You. What happened to you was too heavy a burden.

The man who raped me, was he a heavy burden also?

They had no idea who it was, Lee said. They still don't. They had the crime but not the criminal. The victim had no memory of it. That was you. No witnesses, no evidence. They had nothing. No leads.

Did they try?

They did try, Lee said. They were frightened too. A maniac in their midst.

You keep saying "they." Who's "they"?

The people who run things in New Jesper, Lee said. The mayor, the banker, Walter Bing, Alfred Swan, a few others. My father.

They decide, Magda said. What is known, what is not known.

Not always, Lee said. In your case, yes. They see themselves as lawyers with the town as their client. It's pro bono work. No charge.

I know what pro bono means, Lee.

They sat in silence. Magda dropped another lump of sugar into her cup, a sharp clink. She said, Do you think we could get more coffee?

Lee rose from the table and walked into the barroom, where the waiter was reading baseball scores in the sports section of the
World.
When he asked for coffee the waiter replied that the kitchen was closed. Open it, Lee said. It's closed, the waiter repeated and went back to the paper. Lee bent close to his ear, suddenly unreasonably angry. He said, Do your job. Get the lady a cup of coffee. Do it now. The waiter put the newspaper down and hurried off. Lee returned to the dining room, where he saw Magda standing at the window looking into the harbor, a few small sailboats resting at their moorings, motionless in the airless heat. In the sunlight the water was the color of mercury, oily white. Lee noticed a sweat stain on the back of Magda's white blouse.

She said, I was such a terrible student and not only math. I thought of myself as stupid. But when my mother and I went away and my wounds healed my attitude changed. I began to take my studies seriously. I knew that I had to make my own way. We were in St. Louis, my mother and I. I went to parochial schools, taught by nuns. They were no-nonsense nuns. Mean, some of them. Very mean. But I was not rebellious, as I am sure you can understand. Rebellion was the furthest thing from my mind. I did well at school and later in the small Catholic college. I converted to the Church and it's become an important part of my life. Even so, you have to make your own way. As for this, all you have told me, I don't know what to think. Magda hesitated, and when she resumed her voice had acquired an unfamiliar tone, hard-edged and caustic. She said, I feel like a piece of merchandise. The stuff in the cut-rate bin at the Dry Goods that's been pawed by a hundred hands. Picked up. Put back. What were they thinking? No one was supposed to know but everyone knew. My story was not worth printing. And the man who did it went free. This awful thing has meant everything to me. I am two people, everything I was up to the age of fifteen and something else since. I am unable to connect the two. I am celibate, you know. I always will be. We teach forgiveness in my church but I am not forgiving. In my school I am not a popular teacher. My students find me strict. A disciplinarian. A tough grader. Unsympathetic. Every day of my life I have a ghost at my elbow. And I want him to go away. I want him dead, whoever he is. I would kill him myself. I'm trying to make sense of this, Lee. I had not thought of being a burden to New Jesper or to anybody. The idea of it I cannot grasp. It's New Jesper that's a burden to me. It was a mistake to come back.

Lee heard a noise behind them and turned to see the waiter with two fresh cups of coffee. He put them on the table and hurried away. Lee motioned to Magda, but Magda did not move from the window. An old man and a young boy perhaps six years old were standing in shade on the pier, fishing with bamboo poles. The old man was smoking a corncob pipe, the smoke from it hanging in the heavy air. When the boy moved to the edge of the pier in order to look closely at the water, the old man stepped sideways to stand protectively behind him, his hand on the boy's shoulder. Lee smiled at the physical similarity between them and the protectiveness of the old man, a moment that would make a sentimental cover for a magazine or a calendar. Summer, New Jesper. The old man and the boy stood motionless waiting for a fish, but there was hardly a ripple on the surface of the water and no birds either, and what fish there were in deep siesta.

Magda said, I looked at the police reports. I went to the station house and spoke to the desk sergeant, who refused to let me see them. When I saw the name on his uniform I spoke to him in Spanish. He knew who I was all right and after a moment he went into another room. I heard him on the telephone. In a little while he came back with a folder and handed it to me and said I could read it there, in the waiting room. Then, after another moment, he said I could come with him and he would find a place for me to read in private. The reports are as you say. No evidence at all beyond me. I was evidence. No leads. I was surprised to find the attack occurred in a room off the gym. I didn't know there was a room off the gym. I had only been in the gym once or twice. So that was new. Fresh information, for whatever it's worth. When I returned the file to him, he said he was sorry. He said, I'm sorry for what happened to you. He wanted me to know that the case was still open. I thanked him and said I was happy to meet him. I was, too. He was simpatico.

Lee said, Do you want your coffee?

No, Magda said. I think I'll go now.

Lee said, I'm glad you called me.

It's good seeing you again, Lee.

I'm afraid I wasn't much help.

No, no, she said. I understand things I didn't understand before. I have more to think about now.

I've told you what I know. I hope I haven't upset you.

I'm always upset. It's how I live.

I hope things work out for you, Magda.

Tell me this, she said. Has your life worked out the way you thought it would?

Lee hesitated and did not speak for a full minute. He hardly knew how to reply; his life had been so very fortunate. He had never been amnesiac and wondered now if his life would be different if he remembered nothing about the scar on his face. But it was only a scar, nothing resembling Magda's ordeal. A minor mystery. He said, I never imagined myself living in Hyde Park. My horizons did not extend to Hyde Park. I didn't know where Hyde Park was. When I was in school I thought that if things broke a certain way I could make a living at sculpture. Whether or not I could make a living at it, sculpture was what I intended to do. Maybe I would have to make a living at something else but I would always work at sculpture. I did know that much. It's where I find the truth of things, and once you know that you'll never give it up.

Sculpture, Magda said with a smile. Has that held you back?

Not so far, he said.

THEY WERE ON THE SIDEWALK
in the afternoon glare. The old man and his grandson were walking ahead of them, each with a bamboo pole on his shoulder. The boy was lagging behind. His grandfather said, Come along, Willy. The boy turned suddenly and smiled at Magda, announcing that they had caught no fish. Magda said, Maybe next time, all the fish you can eat. The boy said, I hope so. Magda said, Goodbye, Willy, and then added under her breath, You darling boy.

Lee and Magda walked in the direction of the train station, but when they reached New Jesper Street Magda said she was going the other way. She kissed Lee shyly on the cheek and said she hoped they would meet again sometime, as unlikely as that was. She was returning to St. Louis in the morning. As Magda spoke she watched the old man and his grandson cross the street hand in hand, Willy chattering on about fishing, wondering if they needed new bamboo poles or different bait. The old man nodded but did not answer, unless his chuckle was a kind of answer.

Maybe I can be a third person, Magda said suddenly. I have the before and the after but who knows if there's another waiting in the wings, a year or so from now. A later-still Magda. Later-still will be my new life. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be a gift?

That's a good thought, Magda. Keep it.

I will, she said. It's out of reach now.

Do you think, Magda, Lee said, giving voice at last to the thought that had been with him all afternoon, from the moment she asked him where he got his scar. Do you think it's possible that you're fortunate having no memory of what was done to you? You're living with an unknown and have done for all these years. As you said to my father, your memory is asleep. It may never wake up. And so your imagination has taken charge, and yours is vivid. I know that without being told.

You mean, A thing's better not known than known.

It depends on what you fear most, the known or the unknown.

She offered a ghost of a smile. Do you have to choose?

I imagine it's chosen for you, Lee said.

That's what I think too.

You must have thought about this a hundred times, Lee said.

More than that, Magda said and gave a little wave and walked off down Sac Street, the Victorian eaves of the courthouse visible in the distance. There were few pedestrians in the heat of midafternoon. Ahead of Magda was the
World
building with its brass Elgin clock that gave the date and the time and beyond that the First National Bank of New Jesper. The Dry Goods was a little farther on. Magda walked slowly in the heat, the damp spot on her blouse revealing the straps of her bra. Had she known that, she would have been embarrassed. Mortified.

T
HEY CORRESPONDED FOR A TIME
, Christmas cards at first and then letters, two or three a year. He never went back to New Jesper after the lunch at Carl's so he had no news from there. Lee always sent Magda invitations to his Chicago openings, and she always replied that she would try to come, but never did. Magda replied to his letters with news of her own, written in the smallest script he had ever seen. She had a new apartment that overlooked a park near the river. In her school she had moved on from the classroom to become an administrator, assistant principal. She enjoyed the work. Also, she was a daily communicant at Mass. Her church gave her solace. She had come to love the music and the Latin prayers, the communion and the profound privacy of faith and the essential mystery of it. At one time she had considered joining a holy order, but in the end, on reflection, she did not pursue the matter. Lee tried to read between the lines but was unsuccessful. Of course he considered the obvious reason, but the obvious reason was not always the true reason, so he remained in the dark. He hoped she had not had a crisis of faith and wrote a letter to that effect but when she replied, some months later, she avoided the issue. She wrote that she had found a cat at the local shelter and she and the cat had become great friends. Lee was fearful that he had been too direct, a meddler. Her faith was not his business. At length the letters both ways became fewer and finally stopped altogether and their only contact now were the cards at Christmastime, hers a religious card depicting the Virgin Mary and the child, and his a color photograph of him, Laura, and their two boys on vacation—Cape Cod, Williamsburg, London, Naples. Magda signed her card "Love and Prayers, Magda Serra." Lee decided to take the card as evidence that her faith was intact.

One Christmas there was no card from her. Lee worried that she had met with misfortune, so he called Information in St. Louis but she was not listed. He called the St. Louis newspaper to see if there had been an obituary or death notice but there was nothing. Magda Serra was not in their files. On a sudden inspiration he called Information in New Jesper but there was no listing there, either. So she had vanished, moved away somewhere in Missouri or elsewhere, no forwarding address. Was the cause the weight of memory or its absence? He knew in his heart he would not hear from her again. He had the idea she was on the run, a step ahead of the shadow that would be with her always. Lee wanted to believe that she was living simply in a place of repose where her prayers, whatever they were, would be answered.