Joyce Oates - The Gravedigger’s Daughter

Rebecca had never heard of potpourri and she had never smelled anything like it before. It made her feel almost dizzy sometimes. When she stepped into the house, and the fragrance struck her. Or when she wakened in the morning, and it awaited her.

Blinking her eyes uncertain of where she was, what this meant.

Another startling thing was, the walls of Miss Lutter’s house were so clean . Some of the walls were covered in floral-print wallpaper, and some had been painted white. And all of the ceilings were white. In all the rooms there were windows!-even the bathroom. And at each of these windows, even the tiny window on the back door, there were curtains.

Mornings when Rebecca opened her eyes in the room designated as hers, in the rear, left corner of Miss Lutter’s house, what she saw first was pale pink organdy curtains facing her bed.

Wished she was friends still with Katy Greb! God damn she’d have liked to show Katy this room. The curtains, and the pink-rosebud wallpaper, and the fluffy “throw” rug, and the step-in closet…Not boast but just to show her. For Katy would be impressed. And she would be sure to tell Leora.

Is Rebecca lucky now, Momma! You should see her room …

Another remarkable thing was, how few cobwebs you saw in Miss Lutter’s house. Even in the summer, not many flies. None of those crazed stinging flies that hung out in kitchens and privies and made your life miserable. Rebecca helped Miss Lutter with keeping the house clean, and it was rare for her to discover dust-balls beneath furniture, or a patina of grime on any surface. So this was how people lived, in real houses in Milburn! The world of those others that had eluded the Schwarts.

There was a procedure to life, Rebecca saw. It wasn’t meant to be haphazard and made up as you went along.

As Miss Lutter had been a scrupulous teacher at the Milburn grammar school, so she was a scrupulous housekeeper. She owned not only a carpet sweeper but a General Electric vacuum cleaner. A heavy upright mechanism with a roaring motor and a bag that swelled up like a balloon with dust and grit and roller-wheels to be pushed along the floor. Of all of the household tasks, Rebecca liked vacuuming most. The roaring motor filled her head and drove out all thoughts. The very weight of the vacuum cleaner, tugging at her arms, making her short of breath, was like wrestling with someone who was strong and stubborn but finally tractable, and became an ally. Soon Rebecca was entrusted with vacuuming all of the rooms of the beige-brick house at 114 Rush Street.

Always there is a way out . If you can make yourself small enough, like a worm .

For two and a half years Rebecca would live with Rose Lutter, and for two and a half years she would await Jesus.

She’d given up expecting her brothers to come for her. Not Herschel, not Gus. Herschel was still a fugitive from justice and Gus had simply disappeared. It seemed to Rebecca that they must know what had happened for in her dazed state she believed that all the world must know. When she left Miss Lutter’s house to walk to school, when she appeared with Miss Lutter at church services in the First Presbyterian Church, everyone who saw her knew, as if a glimmering halo of light surrounded her, like those halos of light surrounding figures in Bible pictures: Jesus stilling the storm, Jesus healing the leper, Jesus presiding over the miraculous draught of fishes, but also Daniel in the lions’ den, Solomon dedicating the temple, Moses and the brazen serpent, Mary visited by the angel. Some were singled out for attention, and could not hope to hide.

In Sunday school, in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church, Rebecca learned to clap hands as she sang with other, mostly younger children:

This little light of mine!

I’m going to let it shine!

Let it shine all over God’s mountain!

I’m going to LET IT SHINE!

For the news of the Gospels was good news, Rebecca was told. It was all about Christ and the coming-again of Christ and Christ entering your heart.

Sometimes, Rebecca saw the minister’s wife Mrs. Deegan watching her above the heads of the younger children. At such times Rebecca smiled, and sang louder. The palms of her hands stung pleasantly with clapping.

“Very good, Rebecca! What a nice voice you have, Rebecca. Do you know what it is? A contralto .”

Rebecca ducked her head, too shy to thank Mrs. Deegan. Her voice was scratchy as sandpaper and it hurt her throat when she sang, especially it hurt her to sing loudly. Still, she would sing.

She would sing children’s songs to please the minister’s wife, who wore her hair in twisty little bangs on her forehead, and who would tell Reverend Deegan what a good girl Rebecca Schwart was. Miss Lutter would be informed, too. Make no mistake about that. They were keeping close watch on the gravedigger’s daughter, she knew.

She knew, and she accepted. She was a ward of Chautauqua County, a charity case.

“Rebecca! Put on your gloves, dear. And hurry.”

Sunday school began promptly at 9 A.M. and promptly at 9:50 A.M. Miss Lutter appeared in the schoolroom doorway, to take Rebecca to church services upstairs. If Rebecca had left her white cotton gloves back at the house, Miss Lutter would have discovered them, and brought them to give to Rebecca.

You could see that churchgoing was the very center of Miss Lutter’s quiet week. Always she wore dazzling white gloves, and one of her pert little hats with a veil; she wore “pumps” that gave her an unexpected, giddy height, of about five foot one. (Already by the age of thirteen Rebecca was taller than Miss Lutter, and heavier.) In warm weather Miss Lutter wore floral-print dresses with flared skirts and crinolines beneath, that made a frothy sound when she moved. Her thin cheeks glowed with pleasure, or with rouge. Her thin lips had been reddened. Her sparrow-colored hair was curled tightly as a child’s.

“We mustn’t be late, dear. Come!”

Sometimes in her enthusiasm Miss Lutter took Rebecca’s hand, to pull the shy gawky girl along.

It was like the Red Sea parting in the Bible picture, Rebecca thought. When Miss Lutter made her way importantly along the center aisle of the church to her pew near the front, with Rebecca in tow. “Hello!”-“Hello!”-“Good morning!”-“Hello!” So many friendly curious faces, for Miss Lutter to address, somewhat breathlessly. So many eyes sliding past her, and onto Rebecca.

Miss Lutter had bought Rebecca several girlish dresses with flared skirts, that were already too tight for her, in the bodice and armpits. She’d bought silk ribbons for Rebecca’s hair. At Thom McAn’s Shoes for the Family she bought Rebecca a pair of beautiful black patent leather shoes to be worn with white anklet socks. And white gloves to match Miss Lutter’s, a size larger than hers.

In all, Miss Lutter would be obliged to buy several more dresses for Rebecca, pairs of shoes, gloves. For goodness how the girl grew !

And her hair that was thick, coarsely wavy, inclined to snarls-Miss Lutter insisted that Rebecca brush, brush, brush it with a wire handbrush until it shone, and her wrist ached with weariness. Like a horse’s mane, Miss Lutter sighed. Yet she touched Rebecca’s hair, with a fascinated repugnance.

“Sometimes I think you’re part-horsy, Rebecca. A wild roan pony.”

Rebecca laughed, uneasily. She was never certain whether Miss Lutter was joking, or meant such extravagant remarks.

When manly Reverend Deegan strode to the pulpit to preach his sermon, Miss Lutter sat upright in the pew before him, rapt with attention as if she were the sole person in the room. The minister had been a U.S. Army chaplain, he’d served in the war, in the Pacific. So it was frequently noted, in Reverend Deegan’s sermons. He spoke in a gliding-and-dipping voice, a voice trained as a singer’s; he frowned, he smiled. Almost inaudibly Miss Lutter murmured Yes yes yes . Amen, yes . Her lips parted moist as a child’s, her eyelids fluttered. Rebecca tried very hard to hear what Miss Lutter was hearing for she wanted very badly to believe for if she failed to believe, Jesus would not enter her heart and her soul would be as nettles cast upon the earth, and not seeds. And the stones that the Jews took up to throw at Jesus for His blasphemy would be her lot.