Strange Fits of Passion (12 page)

I said that I would go to Chicago to tell my mother. I didn't ask him to come. I knew he wouldn't now.

Was this the reason, then? The reason why the man I loved was so twisted, angry, brutal? And if so, do we forgive him his brutality?

Or if so, what then was the reason for his father's brutality and ice? A father's father's sin? A legacy that I have now dismantled?

I am trying to tell you the truth. I am doing this so that you will understand how it was—how it was that I stayed, wanted Harrold, believed in us. Later, yes, I was afraid to leave, that was simple; but in the beginning, when I could have left, could have stopped it from happening, I didn't want to.

You see, I loved Harrold. I loved him. Even on the day I left, even when I was most afraid of him.

And I wonder now, was this a sickness on my part? Or was it my best self?

I got your letter this morning. I knew that you would be surprised to hear from me, to receive the notes and writings I had sent you. I see you getting the package at your desk, your puzzlement as you look at the first page, wondering what this is, then your face as the wheels begin to turn, realizing you have your story after all, will not have to abandon all the work you've done in Maine, have a story that is viable.

I see you in your white blouse and skirt, your shoes kicked off in the heat. Your suit jacket is behind you, over your chair. You are bent over your desk, reading what I have written. Your hand is at your forehead; you are concentrating deeply. I see your blond hair pinned back with tortoiseshell barrettes, falling behind your ears. Maybe you unsnap a barrette and run your hand through your hair, thinking; it's an excited gesture.

And then you'll have a drink at lunch, maybe a glass of wine. You'll be humming with ideas, your own ideas of how to write the story. You'll think you've got the cover now; it cannot fail to make the cover. You'll have to time it right. The peg will be the verdict. It must come out before the verdict, or the story quickly will grow old. You are thinking—possibly, just possibly—that this story will be the one that will truly make your career. That will let you rise above the others, that will allow the world to see just how good you really are. It's got juice and meat, and you are thinking you can do it justice.

Yet even so, I don't believe it is possible for you ever to know the truth or to write it. For at the end you will have an article, your own ideas, which you will have edited, by necessity, in the process of writing it, and that story will, in turn, be edited by those above you, and
that
final printed story will be read and perceived differently by every reader, man or woman, depending on the circumstances of his or her life, so that by the time all of the magazines are put out with the rubbish, and you are off interviewing someone else, no one will have any idea of my story as it really was at all, will they?

We were married in the winter. My mother came and was radiant, even though we did not get married in the Church. I filled the apartment with flowers, made it seem like a happy place. We were married there and had a party: We invited people from the office.

It was a curious match at the magazine—the subject of much gossip and of speculation: Why had Harrold chosen Maureen? I wore an ivory-colored dress and a wreath of flowers in my hair. I let my mother brush my hair in the morning, and she put it up with combs. I was buoyant with belief in the ritual, drifting lightly with the illusion. If we seemed happy, and had my mother with us, and there was sunlight in the rooms, and there were people there who wished us well, wasn't that enough?

Not long after the wedding, I had to go to Los Angeles to do a story. There was an oil spill off the coast of California, and I was part of a team—two reporters and a photographer.

My colleagues both were men. They had a motel room together; I had the adjacent room to myself. But the three of us moved easily from room to room, sharing takeout, talking of our story, watching television, until it was time to go to bed.

One night Harrold called me on the telephone. Robert, the photographer, was in the room, writing down what I wanted from the Chinese restaurant around the corner. He called out to me as he was leaving, said not to bother with the money, it was his turn to pay. Harrold heard his voice, said, Is that Robert? I said, Yes. He said, What's he doing in your room? I laughed. Possibly that was my mistake. I shouldn't have laughed. I heard the ice in his voice. I said, What's the matter, Harrold? He said, Nothing. I knew that
nothing.
It's what he always said when he was angry and wouldn't talk. I made it worse then; I tried to explain. I said, Robert and Mike are always here. We eat our supper here. It's nothing. Don't be silly.

Don't be silly.

He said, Fine.

I got in late at La Guardia, took a taxi to the apartment. He was waiting up for me, sitting in a chair in the bedroom. There was a bottle on the table. He'd been drinking, quite a lot by the look of him. He got up, hesitated, started walking toward me. I said, Harrold.

Which one did you sleep with? he asked me, moving closer.

I put my hands up. I remember that, I put my hands up. I said, Don't be ridiculous. A tremor in my voice suggested I was trying to wriggle out of it. He made me feel guilty, even though I was not. Harrold, I said, backing up to the wall. For heaven's sake.

He put his hands on my shoulders, shook me once. He said, I know what these trips are like, what goes on.

What does that mean? I asked.

It means I know what goes on, he said.

I brought my arms up, pushed his hands away. I said, You're crazy; you've been drinking. I turned around, as if I would walk away. I wanted to get out of the room, shut a door.

I don't know if it was my saying he was crazy, or my accusing him of drinking, but I'd said the magic word, ignited him. He grabbed my hair from behind, jerked my head back. I could somehow not believe that this was happening. Revolving as if in slow motion, I saw his hand, his free hand; it made an arc, hit the side of my head. I spun back into the wall, covered my face with my arm. I slid down onto the floor.

I was motionless. I didn't move a muscle. I was afraid even to breathe.

I heard a voice above me.
God,
he said. He hit the wall, put his fist through the plasterboard.

I heard him grab his coat, his keys. I heard the door shutting.

He didn't come back to the apartment or to the office for three days. I covered for him, said that he was sick. I said that a taxi driver at the airport had opened the door when I was bending down and that the door had hit me on the side of the face.

Once you tell your first lie, the first time you lie for him, you are in it with him, and then you are lost.

I want to tell you about something I witnessed when I was in St. Hilaire. Actually it was in Machias, when I was shopping at the A&P. I had Caroline in the baby basket in the front of the cart and was in the fruit-and-vegetable aisle, counting out oranges, when I heard a small commotion behind me. I turned to look and saw a woman walking fast, and with her there was a boy, about six years old or seven. He was crying, trying to catch up to her, trying to hold her hand. She was short and somewhat overweight. She had on a car coat, plaid, and a flower printed kerchief. She snapped as she was walking, You're the one that lost the money; don't come cryin' to me. There won't be no treats this week. I give you a dollar bill to hold on to, and you lose it.

She was furious, wouldn't look at him.

He ran a little faster then and caught her hand. She whirled around and shook his hand out of hers as if it were a viper, a snake that she had found there. Don't touch my hand! she screamed, and walked away from him.

He followed her; he had nowhere else to go. I knew what he was thinking. He had to get her back. He had to make her like him again, or his entire world would fall apart.

He had on an old woolen winter jacket, a faded navy: a hand-me-down from an older brother? His hair was cut severely short, and his nose was running. He turned the corner after her, and I lost sight of him.

I bought my groceries and paid for them, and went out to the parking lot to put them in the car. Beside my car there was a dented station wagon, rusted here and there from the salt. The man inside was chewing on a cigarette. He had thinning hair that was greasy and dark sideburns that came almost to his jawline. He'd waited in the car while the woman and the boy I'd noticed were shopping. He was sitting in the driver's seat, listening to a story that his wife was telling him in fits and starts, with many hand gestures, some directed angrily to the boy in back. The boy sat sideways in the cargo area, his hood pulled up over his head. He was crying, sniveling, his face bent toward his knees.

The father screamed, Jesus fuckin' Christ! What's the matter with you, givin' the money to the boy. What are you, some kind of moron? Serves you right he lost it.

And then he gave a kind of hiss of disgust and put the key in the ignition.

The wife turned her head away, inadvertently in my direction. She didn't look at me; she was looking at the brick wall. But I saw it all on her face: that mix of anger and of resignation; a desire there to lash out and a desire to be left alone. She was exhausted, drained. She hated the man beside her, but she would never be able to tell him that. Instead she'd shower anger on the boy in back.

I used to think that, like that woman, I never would be free—that freedom was like that distant point on the tracks. You could never get there.

Harrold went to work on the fourth day, came home that night. I did not know where he had stayed, and he didn't tell me. Already I was learning to be careful, not to ask certain questions, not to use a particular vocabulary. He said that it would never happen again, and I believed him. He was contrite, and he explained it—to me or to himself. He said that just the idea of my being with another man drove him crazy. And he'd been drinking. He would cut down on his drinking, but he denied he was an alcoholic:
not like his father,
he said. He wasn't like his father.

And I must not tell anyone. I must promise not to tell a soul.

I did not go out on stories again. I made excuses at the office. I said that I got motion sick, could not travel well in automobiles or airplanes. I could do a job of sorts if I did not go out, but it would hold me back: I'd have to rewrite files, not report them. I wouldn't get the bylines.

He did not hit me again for several months, but there are levels of abuse, and some of it is not physical. The other violence was sometimes worse than being hit. It was more insidious, and he was very clever. I didn't understand it quite, and I don't think he did, either. It was something he could not stop himself from doing.

When you have been hit, it is almost a release. You have power then, because he cannot deny what he has done. He can only threaten you more, and he will, but he has lost a little bit of power. Because even though you never do, it is understood that you could now go to the police, or tell someone and say, Look at what he has done to me. But when the violence is invisible, no one knows. It is the violence that is more intimate than sex, that no one ever talks about. It is the darkest secret, the thing that binds you together.

There was a pattern to our married life. We would be close for a day or two or even a week, and I would have hope, and I would think the worst was over now and that we would be happy and have a family. And then, one day, because he had a story that was difficult, or because I had bristled or raised my voice, or because the ions in the air were crazed—I don't know—we would grow distant, and in the distance I would become afraid and tentative, and he would see that and would find that unattractive. Everything about me would suddenly be cause for criticism. I was growing shrill, he'd say. Or others thought me strident. Or I should learn to laugh a little more, loosen up. It didn't matter what it was—there were a thousand faults I had. My faults were legion, dizzying. It was because he loved me, he would again say when I asked him why. Because he cared so much.

And in the distances my anger would develop, so that what he said about me became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I
was
strident; I seldom laughed. The anger eroded joy, dissipated a life. It is a fallacy that anger makes you stronger. It is like a tide running out, leaving you depleted.

And that would be the ebb and flow of our days: the bait, the anger, his saying with derision,
Look at you.
The tears, my silence.

I told myself then that I would leave him. I tried to think of where to go and how to do it.

I tell myself now that I would have left him if I had not become pregnant.

I had the test in the morning but saved the news for the night. I had hope that the pregnancy would end the distances forever.

I had bought a bottle of champagne; we hadn't had champagne in ages. I made a dinner that I knew he'd like, put candles on the table. He knew at once, when he saw the table, that this was special, and he asked. He said, What's the story? And I said, We're going to have a baby.

He kissed me then and put his hand on my stomach. It seemed that he was happy. I felt a rush of giddiness myself: It would go well; I would call my mother after dinner. He opened the champagne, and we toasted babies.

I didn't want to drink much, so he had the bottle to himself. He said once, during the dinner, What about your job? and I said that I would quit when the time was right. He said, What about us? and I said, We'll be better now—babies bring you closer. I saw a darkening on his brow, but I thought that this was normal: It was only natural for a man to worry some when he had a family coming.

I was drying dishes in the kitchen, thinking of how I would tell my mother, when I saw him standing in the doorway. He had changed into a T-shirt. He was drinking something else now; he had finished the champagne at supper. He said, Come to bed.

I didn't want to go to bed; I had other things to do. I was full of news and plans and wanted to tell more people. But I thought: He needs attention now; I can call my mother later.