Joyce Oates - The Gravedigger’s Daughter

The worst was when Pa came into the house in a bad mood, limping and cursing, too tired to wash up after working ten, twelve hours in the cemetery and not even the promise of the war - news could liven him. At supper he chewed his food as if it pained him, or was making him ill. More and more he would drink the liquid in his glass. With a fork he pushed fatty chunks of meat off his plate onto the oilcloth covering and finally he would shove away his plate with a sigh of disgust. “Huh! Somebody must think this is a family of hogs, feeding us such swill.”

At the supper table, Rebecca’s mother stiffened. Her flushed, soft-sliding girl’s face that was pinched inside her other, older and tireder face showed no sign of hurt, nor even of hearing what Pa had said. The boys would laugh, but not Rebecca who felt the stab of pain in her mother’s heart as if it was her own.

Pa grunted he’d had enough. Shoved his chair back from the table, grabbed his bottle to take into the parlor with him, shut the door hard against his family. In his wake, there was an awkward embarrassed silence. Even Herschel, his ears reddening, stared down at his plate and gnawed his lower lip. In the parlor, you could hear a stranger’s voice: muffled, teasing-taunting. Ma rose quickly from the table and began to hum and would continue to hum, fierce as a swarm of bees, crashing pans and cutlery in the sink as she washed the dishes in water heated from the stove. Every night, now that she was a big girl and no longer a toddler, Rebecca helped Ma by drying. These were happy times for Rebecca. Without Ma giving a sign of noticing, still less of being annoyed, Rebecca could draw close against Ma’s legs, that exuded such warmth. Through her almost-shut eyes she might glance up, to see Ma peeking down at her. Was it a game? The game of Not-See, but with her mother?

Supper was over abruptly. The boys had gone out. Pa was gone into the parlor. Only Rebecca and Ma remained in the kitchen, doing dishes. From time to time Ma muttered under her breath words in that strange sibilant language the farmer’s wife had spoken at their front door, passing too swiftly for Rebecca to grasp, that she knew she was not meant to hear.

When the last dish was dried and put away, Ma said, not smiling at Rebecca, speaking in a sudden sharp voice like a woman waking from sleep, “You were wanted, Rebecca. God wanted you. And I wanted you. Never believe what that man says.”

Never say it .

And there would be other things never - to - be - said . That, in time, vanished into oblivion.

Marea was one of these.

Marea -a sound like music, mysterious.

When Rebecca was five years old, in the summer of 1941.

Later, the memory of Marea would be obliterated by her father’s emotion at the time of “Pearl Harbor.”

Marea -“Pearl Harbor”-“World War Too” (for so it sounded to Rebecca’s ears). In that time when Rebecca was still a little girl too young to go to school.

One evening after supper instead of going into the parlor, Pa remained in the kitchen. He and Ma had a surprise for them.

Of Herschel and August it was asked, Would you like a brother?

Of Rebecca it was asked, Would you like two sisters?

Pa was the one to speak so, mysteriously. But there was Ma beside him, very nervous. Giddy and girlish and her eyes shining.

As the children stared, Pa removed from an envelope photographs to be spread carefully on the oilcloth cover of the kitchen table. It was a warm June evening, the cemetery was alive with the sounds of nocturnal insects and there were two or three small moths inside the kitchen, throwing themselves against the bare lightbulb overhead. In his excitement Pa nudged the dangling lightbulb with his head so that the halo of light swung, veered drunkenly across the table; it was Ma who reached out to steady the bulb.

Their cousins. From the town of Kaufbeuren in Germany across the ocean.

And these: their uncle Leon, and their aunt Dora who was their mother’s younger sister.

The boys stared. Rebecca stared. Your cousins . Your uncle, aunt . Never had they heard such words before from their father’s mouth.

“Herschel will remember them, yes? Uncle Leon, Aunt Dora. El-zbieta, your little cousin, maybe you do not. She was just a baby then.”

Herschel crouched over the table to frown at the strangers in the photographs, who squinted up at him in miniature beside Pa’s splayed thumb. He was breathing hoarsely through his nose. “Why’d I remember ‘em?”

“Because you saw them, Herschel. As a child in Munich.”

“”Mew-nik‘“?-what the hell’s that?”

Pa spoke hurriedly, as if the words pained him. “Where we lived. Where you were born. In that other place before this one.”

“Nah,” Herschel said, shaking his head now so vehemently the flesh of his mouth quivered, “I wadna. Not me.”

Their mother touched Pa’s arm. Saying quietly, “Maybe Herschel does not remember, he was so young. And so much since…”

Pa said bluntly, “He remembers.”

“Fuck I don’t! I was born in the fuckin Yoo Ess.”

Ma said, “Herschel.”

Now was a dangerous time. Pa’s hands were shaking. He pushed one of the photographs toward Herschel, to look at. Rebecca saw that the photographs were bent and wrinkled as if they were old, or had come a long distance. When Herschel picked up the photograph to hold to the light, squinting as he peered at the couple, Rebecca worried that he might tear the photograph in two; it was like her older brother to do sudden wild things.

Instead, Herschel grunted and shrugged. Maybe yes, maybe no.

This placated Pa who snatched the photograph back from Herschel and smoothed it out on the table as if it were something precious.

There were five photographs, and each was wrinkled, and somewhat faded. Ma was saying to Rebecca, “Your new sisters, Rebecca? See?”

Rebecca asked what were their names.

Ma spoke the names of the children in the photograph as if they were very special names: “Elzbieta, Freyda, Joel.”

Rebecca repeated in her earnest child-voice: “Elz-bee-ta. Frey-da. Jo-el.”

Elzbieta was the oldest, Ma said. Twelve or thirteen. Freyda, she was the youngest, Rebecca’s age. And Joel was somewhere between.

Rebecca had seen pictures of people in newspapers and magazines but she had never seen photographs, that you could hold in your hand. The Schwarts did not own a camera, for such was a luxury and they could not afford luxuries as Pa said. Strange it seemed to Rebecca, and wonderful, that a picture could be of someone you knew, whose name was known to you. And of children! A little girl Rebecca’s age!

Ma said these were her little nieces and nephew. Her sister Dora’s children.

So strange to hear Anna Schwart speak of nieces , nephews . Sister!

These attractive strangers were not Schwarts but Morgensterns. The name “Morgenstern” was utterly new, and melodic.

In the photographs the Morgenstern children were smiling uncertainly. Almost you might think they were looking at you, because you could look so closely at them. Elzbieta was frowning as she smiled. Or maybe she was not smiling at all. Nor Joel, who squinted as if a light was shining in his eyes. The smallest, Freyda, was the most beautiful child, though you could not see her face clearly for she stood with her head bowed. Shyly she smiled as if to beg Don’t look at me please!

In that instant Rebecca saw that Freyda was her sister.

In that instant Rebecca saw that Freyda had the same dark, shadowed eyes that she had. And except that Freyda had fluffy bangs brushed down on her forehead, and Rebecca’s forehead was bare, their braided hair was the same. In one picture, Rebecca’s favorite for you could see Freyda the clearest, the little girl appeared to be tugging at her braid over her left shoulder in the way that Rebecca sometimes did with hers when she was nervous.