The Wood of Suicides (20 page)

F
OR
ALL
his appetites, Steadman’s aversion to women at times seemed to equal my own. I remember one afternoon not long after his staff meeting when I broached the issue of Miss Kelsen’s blue-eyed, dimpled, soon-to-be-wedded prettiness. “You mean Suzanne? Oh, she’s lovely now. But you can just tell that she’ll be pregnant in a year and, after that, it will all go to hell,” he responded, more bitterly than necessary for a man simply wishing to dispel his mistress’ jealousy. I was so taken aback by this judgment that I decided to interrogate him further. “What about the girls in class, do you think they’re pretty?”

“Which girls?”

“Amanda?”

He made a face. “She’s cheap.”

“Christina?”

“Too plump.”

“Karen? Or Emma? Or Maryanne. . . ?”

“Unexceptional. You know they can’t even be compared to you.”

“What about Kaitlin Pritchard?”

“Who?” He feigned ignorance, blanking his face of all expression.

“She isn’t in our class, but you’ve met her. She knows your wife. I heard she went to your house for dinner once.”

I had him there. He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then made a show of remembering. “Oh,
her.
Well . . . I wouldn’t kick her out of bed. But she’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Just a younger Danielle.”

“Your wife is pretty. I’d be glad to look like her when I’m older.”

“You don’t even need to think about getting old, my nymph.” He smiled condescendingly. “Believe me, you have a long time to go until you’re Danielle’s age . . .”

W
HEN
MY
mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I requested some cute underthings, dispelling her curiosity by telling her my old ones were all worn out and that I may as well replace them with something nice. As usual, we didn’t have a proper tree—only an indoor bamboo plant, which neither of us put much effort into decorating. Nonetheless, we attended Midnight Mass as we did every Christmas Eve. Before Christmas lunch, we traded parcels.

I had mounted and framed one of my best Japanese inkings for her, showing the willows and the lake. As for my mother, she’d more than delivered on my request, giving me a selection of lacy things from her favorite French boutique off Fillmore Street. “Thank you, Mom.” I kissed her on the cheek and tried not to look suspiciously overjoyed. “You didn’t need to spend so much.”

She waved away my concerns. “You’re old enough for nice things now. Just make sure you hand-wash these. This is Chantilly lace, honey . . .”

I spent the remainder of Christmas break putting the final touches on my college applications, attempting to make up for my lack of extracurriculars—sleeping with teacher, alas, did not count—by dazzling the gods of admissions with my precocious knowledge of art and literature. At my behest, my lover had furnished me with a letter of recommendation, which painted me up, in glowing terms, as one of the most gifted young women that he’d ever encountered in his ten years at S.C.C.S. Moreover, in a fit of passion, he’d promised me whatever grades I wanted for all my upcoming assignments. This promise didn’t mean much, considering I was already getting straights As in English.

He effused that I had a bright future ahead of me, that I could be anything that I wanted to be, and that I’d get into any school I set my sights upon. “I can imagine you as a Bryn Mawr girl,” he smiled when I reeled off the list of colleges outside my own state that I was applying to. To my disappointment, however, he didn’t remark upon my penchant for schools in the state of his birth. Worse still, he didn’t make any reference to how our relationship would be continued, post-graduation.

As intense as my attachment to him was, I couldn’t allow myself to consider the possibility of him leaving his wife for me. In fact, if we were to carry on making love once I ceased being his student, it would have to be on a far more sporadic basis—a truth that struck me as too dire to contemplate. The clean break of life in another state was almost preferable to the prospect of a prolonged affair, with me as a student at some Californian liberal arts school. Of course, neither option was even as remotely desirable to me as the self-destructive fantasy of foregoing college altogether and living as a kept woman in a hideout of his choosing.

Between bouts of productivity, I refrained from thinking about my future, hoping that my fate would somehow be decided for me. I lay on the daybed reading the
Canzoniere
as my father’s books and papers were gradually cleared from the room. Now and then, a spasm of longing would force me to set my book aside and press my thighs together, as isolated memories of our couplings flashed through my mind. I had become physical, dreadfully physical, under his regime.

My father’s desk was cleared. My father’s bookshelves were cleared. My father’s wardrobe and medicine cabinet were cleared. My mother was keeping herself busy to avoid thinking about the tragedy of our first Christmas without him. “Do you want any of these?” she questioned me at one point, still dressed in her widow’s weeds and carrying a pile of philosophy books out of the room. “No thanks,” I replied, barely looking up from Petrarch’s sonnets. She stopped in her tracks to look at me quizzically. “Where did you get that book, sweetheart?”

“San Rafael,” I responded coolly.

“Can I see? That looks like an antique.”

“Later.” I flushed, thinking of Steadman’s inscription. “I’m reading now.”

She had other questions too. “Why so many schools in Pennsylvania?” was one of them, which I dealt with by citing the superior number of liberal arts colleges in that state. “Is that all your father’s pills?” she asked another day, showing me the box of prescription medicines that she’d collected from around the house. This collection didn’t include the bottle of muscle relaxants I’d stolen all those months ago and now kept in a private compartment of my toiletries bag, along with my dial of birth control pills. “Have you met any nice boys?” was repeated more than once over the course of my stay, always in a syrupy tone. I never dignified it with anything more than a noncommittal shrug or a typical teen-aged eye-roll.

Toward the end of break, while my mother was out, I went to the en suite bathroom to admire myself in my new lingerie. I turned. I preened. I posed. I located my parents’ bathroom scales and expected the number on the dial to conform with my self-esteem. Instead, I suffered an unpleasant surprise. Since September, my weight had gone up an entire three pounds; not much, perhaps, in the scheme of things, but a travesty for a girl who ate as little as I did and had formerly monitored herself from one day to the next. When I inspected my half-naked form, it seemed that everything—my breasts, my belly, my backside—had grown more curved. To my own eyes, I was suddenly as grotesquely voluptuous as a Hottentot Venus. I wanted to weep my weight in tears, to never touch another morsel.

“I don’t want any dinner,” I told my mother as she was deciding what kind of pasta to cook that evening.

“Oh, Laurel.” Her face fell. “Not this again.”

“It’s nothing. I just don’t feel very well.”

“Are you sure? You know how I worry about you starving yourself . . .”

“I’ll have something when I’m feeling better. I just don’t think I can keep anything down tonight.”

“All right, honey, if you say so.” My mother palmed my forehead and frowned at some imaginary fever or lack thereof. “It’s probably from being cooped up with your books all week. All this stale air—it’s not healthy. And your father’s study is the worst. I don’t know how you can stand sitting in that room day after day . . .”

I didn’t bother telling her that sitting in that room was easy for me. She wouldn’t have understood that what was hardest for me was the simple fact of changing, of enduring change.

O
N
THE
first day of winter term, Marcelle skipped ahead of me while I was making my way to French class.

“Ger-man-
yyy
! Tell us about Ger-man-
yyy
!”

Amanda was with her as usual, looking at me with cool, amber eyes. Her gaze reminded me of the lie I’d told eons ago about spending Christmas with my fictive father in Trier.

“It was cold,” I said simply.

“Did you eat any bratwurst?”

For a moment, I thought she was referencing the extra three pounds I was carrying. Thankfully, common sense interceded in time to tell me that this was just Marcelle’s usual crude brand of humor.

“I ate
so
much at Christmas,” Amanda complained, falling into step with me. “I’d better be careful. They say it’s even harder to lose weight when you’re on the pill.”

“What?”

“Well, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“I mean . . . when did you start using it?” I tried to look unfazed, compassionate.

“God, you’re out of it. Last month. My sister helped me get the prescription. Of course, my parents know nothing about it . . .”

I didn’t know what pained me more to think of: the fact that the pill keeping me without child could also be slowing down my metabolism or the fact that I was now as sexually active as Amanda. Sitting in French class, I was so preoccupied with this question that I didn’t hear the one Madame Rampling addressed to me.

“Quest-ce que vous avez fait en vacances, Laurel?”

She repeated the query, pursing her lips as I groped hopelessly for a reply. All eyes were upon me as I fumbled, Amanda’s included, telling me exactly how far I’d fallen.

I
DIDN
’
T
go to him with my concerns about my body, just as I didn’t go to him with my concerns about our future. Instead, I took it upon myself to make cuts at suppertime, and to suppress the thoughts that pained me most. Back in his arms that afternoon, I did everything as before—clinging to his neck and dulling my mind to all that lay ahead. He uncovered the new lace beneath my school uniform and smirked, “This is nice.” It was defiled within the hour.

We had agreed to tone things down in class after our weekend together, which suddenly seemed to me like a distant paradise, an age of innocence that I’d never get back to. As before, he spent most lessons reading to us from the front of the room; when he did come by, however, he made sure to divide his time equally between each desk and to address me and Marcelle together—something he’d done in the early days of our romance, before he knew me well enough to engage me separately. In this way, I came to find myself listening, chin in hand, as he recited snippets of Keats or responded to some query of Marcelle’s. I mostly stayed silent, taking note of the ties that he wore, of his cologne and the salty, manly musk that underlay it. I took note of how his hair fell over his brow, how long it had been since he last shaved, and a thousand other details of his nearness. I’d then match these details up with my memories as a fond lover: learning how to do a half-Windsor knot with his maroon tie; brushing my lips against the one-day stubble of his jaw; running my hands through his soft, dark chestnut hair, which showed no signs of thinning and only the rarest strand of silver. Now and then, I’d feel compelled to keep him there longer by asking him to explain something complicated. One day, I got him to stay for a full fifteen minutes talking about negative capability.