Russell Banks - Affliction

“Well,” I said, “I just got here. Give me a minute, will you?” I tried to smile graciously, but Clyde did not meet my smile. I stepped to my father then and found myself actually glad to see him there — small, silent, inattentive, like the only child in a room full of angry adults.

“This is nuts,” Wade muttered.

“Wade,” Margie said sharply.

When I hugged my father, the force of my embrace caused his head to bob like a puppet’s, and I drew away from him, afraid. Wade was right — it was nuts.

Clyde was already down on his knees, and his two children had followed with alacrity, like acolytes, earnest assistants at the rite.

“Dear Lord Jesus,” Clyde began, his eyes jammed shut, head tilted toward the ceiling. “O my Lord Jesus in heaven! We come to thee on our knees today begging forgiveness for our sins and thanking thee for the blessing and the undeserved gift of thy salvation. We thank thee, Lord Jesus. For everlasting life by thy side in heaven, we thank thee, O Jesus, Lord of the Heavenly Hosts, whose blood was shed so that we may live!”

The boy, eyes tightly shut, moaned, “Praise the Lord!” and the girl followed, as did Lena, who was still positioning herself on her knees, not an easy job, given her bulk and awkwardness. Behind me, the Reverend Doughty, in a quiet shy voice, added his more restrained Praise the Lord, and I turned and watched him get down on his knees too, somewhat reluctantly, perhaps, but obediently, just in case.

What were the rest of us to do but follow suit? First the young man from the funeral home — more accustomed, perhaps, to scenes like this than we were — got down on his knees, and then Margie and Gordon LaRiviere, and finally Wade got down — all of them watching Clyde warily, as if playing Simon Says and expecting the next command to be a trick. That left only Pop standing, and me.

Pop’s gaze, for the first time since I had entered the house, had taken on a hard focus, and he directed it at everyone in the room, one by one, until it landed on me. I shrugged, as if to say, Why not? and hitched my trousers by the crease and got down on my knees with the others, expecting Pop to do the same.

He shook his head slowly from side to side — in disbelief? disapproval? disgust? I could not tell. Meanwhile, Clyde’s prayer went on, full of praise and gratitude for Jesus’ having interceded in the natural order of things by eliminating death for those sinners willing to turn their lives over to Him. As he prayed, Clyde glared up at the ceiling, as if at an accuser, while Lena and her children held their eyes tightly closed, their lips moving over a tumbling flow of words that were inaudible to the rest of us. Reverend Doughty, his hands clasped before his chest, seemed to be posing for a photograph, and though his eyes were open, he looked at nothing in particular and everything in general. Gordon LaRiviere, head bowed, eyes closed, hands appropriately clasped, had the appearance of a man who hoped he was not being seen by anyone he knew. Margie and Wade, too, were clearly going through the motions, nothing more, with their heads slightly bowed, eyes open, expressions reserved, all-purpose and noncommittal, and I tried to follow their example.

Turning away from us, Pop walked to the sink and took down from the cabinet his bottle of Canadian Club. He carefully poured a substantial drink into a glass, then spun around and took a gulp from the glass and set it down and crossed his arms over his chest and watched us. He said something, but I could not hear him over Clyde’s loud prayer and the numerous Amens and Praise the Lords that punctuated it. No one but me seemed to be observing Pop. He smirked in a way I remembered, and suddenly I felt not embarrassed but wildly ashamed to be seen this way, on my knees, hands pressed together, in the midst of fervent prayer. I saw us — me, Wade and Lena in particular, but the others as well — the way Pop saw us, and I cringed and tried to make myself smaller, hoping for invisibility, the way I had as a child. I could feel his wrath building, could almost smell it, a gray smell, like an electrical fire starting to smolder, when he spoke again, loud enough this time for me to make out his words: “Not worth a hair on her head,” he said.

The prayer went on, however, as if he had merely said “Praise the Lord.” There was a little more volume, perhaps,for Clyde now had tears running down his cheeks, and it looked as if Lena was about to join him. Reverend Doughty seemed to have caught the rhythm of it, his eyes clamped shut, his body swaying back and forth, his hands wringing with the beginnings of fervor, and even LaRiviere and the mortician seemed tied to the form of the prayer. I cut a glance at Margie and Wade, but they were both staring down at the floor in front of them, as if hoping for a trapdoor to open. Again Pop said it, louder still: “Not worth a goddamned hair on her head!”

Wade turned around and looked at him, puzzled. He scowled and shook his head no, as if to a fidgety child, and resumed his prayerful stance. Clyde rolled on. “Jesus, we beseech thee, thy children beseech thee, to please look down on this woman, our mother and friend, O Lord, and make her example known to us. Make her vivid to us, Lord! We know that it is too late for her to be saved, but let her be an example unto those of us who have forsaken thee. Make her vivid to us! Let her sufferings in hell, where she must burn even now, serve as a warning to those of us who still have time, Lord. Make her vivid to us who are dead in spirit only and who still have time to allow thee to enter us, to cleanse us and to lift us up into everlasting life!”

With bottle and glass in hand, Pop stepped elaborately over the legs of the people in his path and made his way to the living room door, where he stopped short and in a voice that was practically a shout announced, “Not a one of you is worth a goddamned hair on that good woman’s head!”

Wade said, “Pop!” and he stood up. His face was white, and in a trembling voice, he said, “Don’t do this now, Pop.”

Clyde stopped praying, but he held his position, eyes shut, tears sliding down his cheeks. Lena and her children froze too, in silence, waiting. Margie dropped her hands to her sides but stayed on her knees, while LaRiviere slowly got up, and the mortician and Reverend Doughty followed.

“Maybe I’ll head on over to the church,” LaRiviere said, and edged toward the door.

“This is a difficult time,” Reverend Doughty said, backing away. “Emotions run high at a time like this.”

The mortician nodded with compassion and followed LaRiviere to the door, where he said, “I’ll wait in the car,” and all three men stepped outside and closed the door behind them.

Those of us left in the room were standing now. Our father’s face had reddened with rage and he began to sputter, a furious small man spattering us with his words, the way he had done it years ago, when we were children and were terrified of him, and now here we were, Wade and I and Lena, terrified again, as if we were still children, even including Margie, I realized, when I looked at her drawn white face, and Clyde too, whose eyes were opened at last, and the boy and the girl, who had moved around behind their parents and peered over their shoulders, wide-eyed, mouths slack.

Wade took a step toward our father and said, “Listen, it’s no big deal, Pop,” and our father swiftly put his bottle and glass on the floor and clenched his fists and came forward a few feet, his bony face shoved out in front of him like a battering ram.

“Come on, smart guy. Tell me how it’s no big deal,” he growled. “Tell me how a single one of you is worth a single hair on that woman’s gray head.”

He was right, and I knew it. And I was sure that Wade and Margie knew it, and that probably even Lena and Clyde and their children knew it too. Our mother was worth more than we. For she had suffered our father more than we. He was telling this to us, and he was proving it too. Our mother had endured our father’s wrath long after we had fled from it, endured it all the way to her death, and now here he was demonstrating it before us, his wrath, with his claim that we were morally inferior to her. The form of his claim, in that it was a form of wrath, was the proof of his claim.