The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

  Really in a hurry, he thought, to leave her purse in the car. I know what it is, he thought. I know. And all I have to do is open the purse, only catch sight of it, the little white card.

  Bending, he opened the purse. Lying at the top was the card; he was right. He lifted it out. An appointment card, for today. For Dr. Gorme. The gynecologist that she went to. She’s pregnant, all right. Naturally she rushed here to confer with Dolly.

  He ran up the steps of the house. From beyond the front door, inside, he heard their voices. He opened the door. The two of them sat together on the couch, Dolly in old slacks, her hair tied up, his wife in suit, heels, dressed for the job. Standing at the door, he saw them jump; their faces froze and they ceased talking.

  He said, “I hope it’s a boy.”

  His wife’s face lost all its color, but she said nothing. She did not answer or show any other reaction.

  “Hi,” he said to Dolly. She nodded a little.

  Sherry said, “I’ll tell you one thing.” She laughed a short brisk laugh. “It won’t be a boy.”

  “Why not?” he said. And then he saw the phonebook, the phone moved to the end of its cord and put down on the couch, the pencil and pad of paper, the unfolded note on his wife’s lap. Going over to her he took hold of her by the arm and, with a tremendous pull, lifted her to her feet; she stared at him—her eyes flew open. “Come on,” he said. “Okay?” He dragged her across the living room; he felt such hatred and fury at her that he grabbed her by the back of the neck, he dug his fingers into her neck and propelled her to the door.

  “I won’t be pushed,” she snarled, at the door. Catching hold of the door with both hands she hung onto it. She grasped it and clung to it.

  “We’re going,” he said, yanking her away from the door.

  “You’re going to accomplish it anyway,” she panted as he tore her fingers loose and shoved her with his knee out onto the porch. “So what does it matter.”

  That was true, he realized. So he took her by the wrist only; he twisted her left arm until she sagged and gasped. And she came along. She kept up with him, along the short path to the car.

  “I’m not going to drive,” she said.

  “I will,” he said, pushing her down into the seat. Instantly he ran around and got behind the wheel. But she made no move to get out of the car; she stared ahead with a dead expression.

  “Too bad,” he said as he started up the car. “Really too bad. I really feel sorry for you.”

  “No you don’t,” she said.

  He turned the car around in a driveway and drove back down the hill. For a time neither of them spoke.

  “Aren’t you afraid Sheriff Christen will see you driving?” his wife said at last, in a distant voice.

  “No,” he said.

  She said, “What I do about the baby is my own business. Not yours.”

  “I’ll be darned,” he said. “It’s not mine, then?”

  “It’s yours,” she said in a quick, disconcerted way.

  “Not Lausch’s?” he said.

  “No, not Lausch’s,” she said.

  “I don’t really care,” he said. “What I care about is you’re pregnant; I don’t care who by.”

  “God damn you,” she said. “I know you mean it.”

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  “I’m not home,” she said. “You can’t keep me from getting my abortion. Dolly got an abortion a year ago when she was pregnant.”

  He said, “I’ll keep you from getting it. You don’t think I can? I’ll drive you over to Sheriff Christen and have him arrest you for trying to commit a felony. For trying to murder my child.”

  “You liar,” she said.

  “I’ll kill you,” he said. “I’ll beat the living hell out of you. And everybody’ll be on my side because it’s natural. Natural for a father to feel like that. With a wife like you, wanting to do a hideous unnatural act like that.”

  “It’s just your word,” she said. “I’ll deny it. You know what I’ll say? I’ll say you got mad when you heard I was pregnant; you beat me up so I’d have a miscarriage.”

  “I’ll have them get Dolly Fergesson on the stand, and she’ll testify.”

  “She’s a friend of mine,” Sherry said. “Not yours.”

  “That doesn’t matter. She still has to tell the truth.”

  “Do you think she’s going to get up there and tell the truth? Admit that she had an abortion? Give out the name of her abortionist?”

  “I know I can get some kind of court order,” he said. “Restraining you. It’s my child as much as yours.”

  “You just want me pregnant so I can’t work; this high and mighty talk—it’s just rationalization.”

  “I don’t hide it,” he said. “I’m not rationalizing. All I care about is you can’t work any more. And he’s not going to want you waddling around that place, I can tell you that. There’s nothing more repulsive than a fat ugly-looking pregnant woman. Some public relations that would be.” He felt glee, thinking of that, imagining her with her front bulging out, her body dropping under the weight. Her feet shuffling along, arches flattened by the load. “Too bad,” he said, “about your figure. Maybe you’ll never get it back. Even after.”

  “What an incredible terrible way for you to talk,” she whispered, ashen-faced. “A husband talking to his wife like that.”

  “All the awful things you’ve said to me,” he said. “In the past.”

  “I never attacked you so brutally as you’re attacking me,” she said, rallying. “You have no love for me. You never did; when you said you did you were only pretending.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  With tears in her eyes, she said in a quavering, shocked voice, “The only reason you love me is because you can hurt me.”

  “No,” he said.

  “When I need your help,” she said, “you really lay it on. You would be happy if I lay down and died.” She stared at him as he drove.

  “No I wouldn’t,” he said.

  “This is what I deserve,” she said. “I’m a wicked selfish person and I’m getting paid back. I don’t blame you. I don’t see how you could ever have lived with me; I don’t see how anyone could live with me or love me.” From her purse she had taken her handkerchief; she pressed it to her mouth, so muffling her words that he could barely make them out. “I’m the bad one,” she said. “What you’re doing to me I’ve compelled you to do. You’re just getting back. When you raped me that day—you were paying me back. I let down my guard for a minute, and you assaulted me, like some animal would. Like a male cat does to a female; he sneaks along after her, following her, and the first second she isn’t watching, he jumps on her.”

  He said, “What a view of life. Of relations between men and women.”

  “But it’s so,” she said. “It was revenge on your part.”

  “Then,” he said, “if you know, then don’t complain. If you understand that it’s revenge.”

  “Why?” she said. “Is revenge supposed to be a virtue?”

  “An eye for an eye,” he said. They had got back to their own house, now; he brought the Alfa to the side of the road and parked. He shut off the motor and opened the door on his side.

  “I’m not going in,” she said.

  Grabbing her by the arm he lifted her up; he dragged her from the car.

  “Let everyone see,” she said. “I don’t care; I want them to see you pushing me around. Like a low class drunk, which is what you are.” As he propelled her up the path, she raised her voice. “You’re nothing but a low class drunk who beats up his wife. You have bad taste. All you watch on TV are those low class programs like Fibber McGee and Molly. Let go of me!” At the porch she managed to tear her arm loose from his grip. Facing him, her eyes shining with defiance and rage, she said, “You unfit wop.” Her mouth trembled. “You and your Negro friends.” He saw her hesitate on the word; she could not bring herself, even at this time, to say nigger. She wanted to, but i
t would never be possible for her.

  He said, “Nigger, you mean.”

  “I would never use that word,” she said, with frenzy. “I wouldn’t but you would.”

  Opening the door he pushed her into the house; he slammed the door after them.

  Sherry said, “You couldn’t beat up Lausch, so you beat up your wife instead; you beat up a helpless woman who’s pregnant to boot.”

  “Lausch and I were good friends,” he said. “Until you showed up. We got along fine.”

  “All right,” Sherry said. “So it is me you hate.” Retreating from him, she came onto the end table by the lamp. On the table were little model boats that he had built years ago when he had been in junior high; he had kept them all this time. Her eyes fixed on the boats, and he saw her hand dart down. He knew what she was going to do. “Do you think it bothers me to be disliked by a boy who never grew up?” she said, picking up one of the boats. “What do you do when you lock yourself in your workshop? Honest to god, I think you play with yourself. I think you still do.” And she threw the model boat at him; it came sailing towards him.

  He did not try to catch it. His hands reached for the chair nearby him, the white modern chair, upright; he lifted it and hurled it at his wife’s head. She stood where she was, staring at the chair as it silently dropped onto her. The chair struck her, legs-first, in the chest; but he saw that only vaguely—even before it had hit her he was running across the room towards her, reaching out to take hold of her. To protect her. To salvage, to make repairs.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, trying to put his arms around her; she stood evidently stunned, her face blank. The chair lay at her feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I love you. Let’s stop this.”

  She said, “I wish either you were dead or I was dead.” Her face squirmed with pain. “You could have killed me,” she said in a chanting voice, a suffering voice.

  “I know,” he said. He still tried to take hold of her, but she slunk away; without even seeming to see him, she stepped back, and his hands could not grasp her. “Let me hold you,” he said.

  “Why?” she said. “To hurt me more?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll never forgive you,” she said. “For mistreating me. I’ll make you suffer. As long as we’re together. You better leave me, because it’s going to be terrible for you.”

  “Maybe so,” he said.

  “I mean it,” she said, more quietly. She had become calmer; she rubbed her chest. “There’s this terrible thing in me,” she said. “This ugly part of me. I want to do back to you twice what you do to me, every bad thing you do. You shouldn’t stay. I’m sick. I know it. I’m a sick person. All this is my fault, all this awful fighting. I provoked you by this abortion business—you’re right. You should beat me up for it; it’s a sin. It’s a crime. It’s your child.” Her voice dropped lower and lower; he could hardly hear her. “You have a right. If someone says they’re going to murder your child. If I was any real mother I wouldn’t even consider getting an abortion. That dreadful Dolly Fergesson…what an empty sterile life she leads. No kids, just going out for lunch, getting her hair fixed. Buying all sorts of clothes. She never does anything. I feel so sorry for her husband.”

  They were both silent, for a time. He did not try to touch her; he let her stand by herself, meditating and rubbing her chest.

  She said, “I think you do love me.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  “The hate that you feel,” she said, “isn’t really for me. Do you know what it is? It’s bottled-up hate you feel for Runcible, and you’ve turned it on me because he’s out of reach and I’m here—I’m available. That’s what I should be for. That’s what a good wife does; she lets her husband take out his fears and aggressions on her. That’s how she protects him from the world.”

  He said nothing.

  “Isn’t that so?” she said, in a halting voice.

  “No,” he said. “I really hate you.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said. “You love me. You said so just now.”

  “I feel both,” he said.

  “That’s not possible. You either feel one or the other. A man who loves his wife—really loves her—could never say that.” She gazed at him with a hopeless, broken expression. “Won’t you let me get an abortion?” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “You can’t stop me,” she said. “I’ll do a lot of things like jumping down stairs—I’ll induce a miscarriage. And then I’ll go on working; I won’t have to give up my job. I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong. But I’m going to do it. I’m not going to be tied down here serving strained spinach to a snot-nosed sniffling child of yours, like some fat floozy of a housefrau.”

  “What I’ll do,” he said, “is sell the car.”

  “The—Alfa?”

  “Yes,” he said. He went to the telephone, took it and carried it to the couch.

  “You need my consent,” she said.

  “The pink slip,” he said, “says or. Either Sherry Dombrosio or Walter Dombrosio.”

  Sherry said, “If you sell it I’ll buy another car.”

  “With what?”

  “With the money we get for it.”

  “We won’t get enough,” he said. “I’ll make sure about that.”

  “When you get your license back,” she said, “you’ll want to drive it. You’ll regret it. We can’t get by without it. We can’t earn any money—we can’t get into town. What about when it’s time for the baby? How’ll we get to the hospital?”

  He said, “You can go in on the Greyhound bus.”

  “You’ll kill me and economically ruin us—we’ll probably lose the house.”

  “I don’t care,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He said, “I just don’t. Why should I?”

  “All this,” she said, “so I can’t work?”

  “More than that,” he said.

  “Could I go back to work after I have the baby?”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  “You won’t promise me?”

  He shook his head.

  “Promise me that,” she said. “And I’ll go ahead and have it.”

  “You’ll have it,” he said. “Anyhow.”

  “Please,” she said.

  He said nothing.

  “Tell me, then,” she said, “that you love me, and all that business about hating me was just your being mad.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Will you kiss me?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Do you mean it?” she eyed him frantically.

  “Yes,” he said. And he did. He went to her and put his arms around her.

  “You hurt me,” she said. “You hit me right in the chest with that chair. Do you want to see the bruise?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “It probably hasn’t formed yet,” she said, in a small, childlike voice. “Why are you so rough? You don’t realize how strong you are; you’re really terribly strong. Do you know it? You could kill me. You would have. I think you were going to, for a minute.”

  He said, “It’s a good thing you calmed us down.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I kept you from doing something you would have felt dreadful about. Aren’t you glad?” She peered at him hopefully. “I kept it from being a really awful fight, didn’t I? That shows I’m a good wife, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said, his arms around her. “You’re a very good wife.” He patted her. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “I knew I was,” she said, gazing past him at the wall, holding on to him determinedly, and then patting him back. “But I like to hear you say it,” she said.

  17

  In Sheriff Christen’s official car they drove out to the estero, to the old town. It was almost dark by the time they came out on the water. Two dim yellow lights could be seen on the far side. The lights were so close to the water that, to Runcible, it
seemed as if the slight motion of the tide would extinguish them. As Christen drove, he watched the lights, wondering if they were still going to be there the next moment.

  “How can they stand it out here?” Faulk said. “I’d go out of my mind. It’s so uninhabited.”

  “Do you think they’ll cooperate with us?” Sharp said.

  The vet said, “I can’t tell you. How are we going to put it? They wouldn’t be able to understand why we’d want to see pictures of their parents and grandparents; we’ll have to make up a story.”

  As they drove they considered a story. By the time they had reached the wharf they had decided to say that there was a sum of money, not very large, due on a piece of property. They did not know the name of the man to whom the money was supposed to go, but if they saw a picture of him they would recognize him.

  It did not seem to any of them that it was much of a story, but probably it would do. The people would recognize Sheriff Christen and the vet, so they would know this was an official visit; that was probably more important than the story itself. Runcible, gazing out into the darkness and trying to pick out the tumble-down buildings, the shacks and abandoned stores, thought to himself that this was certainly a part of the area which he had shut from his mind. He had never taken anyone out here; in fact he could not remember ever having been here before. And yet, he thought. I must have been out here at least once.

  What really are we here for? What are we trying to find out? We want to see old pictures, to see if any malformed jaw can be discovered. That was what Dudley Sharp wanted, anyhow. And what do the rest of us get out of it? he asked himself. What do I get?

  We know already that malformed persons lived here once, he thought. We’ve seen their bones. All we could learn now is how they looked when alive. But anthropologists can reconstruct from the bones anyhow. In time we could trace the bones at the graveyard, find out who was buried where we dug. Who, for instance, the person was that Walter Dombrosio transported to my eucalyptus grove. Yes, he thought, I could find out the name of the person whose skull I found. It might even be a Bastioni. Even Angelo Bastioni himself. Born 1835, died 1895. In the sheep business, perhaps. Despite his unusual jaw.