Joyce Oates: The Gravedigger’s Daughter

He offered to help Rebecca to her feet, but Rebecca gestured for him to keep his distance. “Mister, I don’t need your help. Get away.”

Rebecca was on her feet, shakily. Her heart was still pounding. Her blood was up, she was furious with this man for having frightened her, humiliated her. She was furious with herself, even more. If anyone who knew her saw her cowering like this…She hated it, the way the stranger stared at her with his queer lashless eyes.

He said, suddenly, yet almost wistfully, “It’s Hazel-yes? Hazel Jones?”

Rebecca stared at the man, not knowing what she’d heard.

“You are Hazel, aren’t you? Yes?”

“Hazel? Who?”

“”Hazel Jones.“”

“No.”

“But you look so like her. Surely you are Hazel…”

“I said no. Whoever it is, I am not.”

The man in the panama hat smiled, tentatively. He was at least as agitated as Rebecca, and perspiring. His checked bow tie was crooked, and his long-sleeved shirt was damp, showing the unflattering imprint of his undershirt beneath. Such perfect teeth, they had to be dentures.

“My dear, you look so much like her-”Hazel Jones.“ I simply can’t believe that there could be two young women, very attractive young women, looking so much alike, and living in the same region…”

Rebecca had limped back to the towpath. She tested her weight on the ankle, gauging if she could walk on it, or run. Her face was flushed with embarrassment. She brushed at her clothes, that had picked up crumbly loose dirt and burrs. How annoyed she was! And the man in the panama hat still staring at her, convinced she was someone she was not.

She saw that he’d removed the panama hat, and was turning it nervously in his hands. He had crimped-looking gray-blond hair that looked like a mannequin’s hair, molded, hardly disturbed by the hat.

“I got to go now, mister. Don’t follow me.”

“Oh, but-wait! Hazel-”

Now the stranger was sounding just subtly reproachful. As if he knew, and she knew, that she was deceiving him; and he could not comprehend why. He was so clearly a well-intentioned man, and a gentleman, unaccustomed to being treated rudely, he could not comprehend why. Saying, courteously, with his air of maddening persistence: “Your eyes are so like Hazel’s, and your hair has grown a little darker, I think. And your way of carrying yourself is a little harsher for which,” he said hurriedly, “I am to blame, frightening you. It’s just that I had no idea how to approach you, dear. I saw you on the street yesterday, I mean I believed it was you I had seen, Hazel Jones after so many years, and now today…I had to follow you.”

Rebecca stared at him, deliberating. It did seem to her that this earnest man was telling the truth: the truth as he saw it. He was deceived, but didn’t appear to be deranged. He spoke with relative calmness and his reasoning, granted the circumstances, was logical.

He thinks I am her, and I am lying .

Rebecca laughed, this was so unexpected! So strange.

She wished she could tell Tignor about it, when Tignor called. They might have laughed together. Except Tignor was inclined to be jealous, and you don’t tell a man with such inclinations that you have been followed by another man wanting to think that you are another woman beloved by him.

“Mister, I’m sorry. I’m just not her.”

“But…”

He was approaching her, slowly. Though she’d told him, warned him, to stay away. He seemed not to know what he did, and Rebecca wasn’t fully aware, either. He did seem harmless. Hardly taller than Rebecca, and wearing brown oxford shoes covered in dust. The cuffs of his cream-colored trousers were soiled, too. Rebecca smelled a sweet cologne or aftershave. As he was a young-old man, so he was a weak-strong man, too. A man you misjudge as weak, but in fact he’s strong. His will was that of a young coiled-up copperhead snake. You might think the snake was paralyzed with fear, in terror of being killed, but it was not; it was simply biding its time, preparing to strike. Long ago Rebecca’s father Jacob Schwart the gravedigger of Milburn had been a weak-strong man, only his family had known of his terrible strength, his reptile will, beneath the meek-seeming exterior. Rebecca sensed a similar doubleness here, in this man. He was apologetic, yet not humble. Not a strain of humility in his soul. He thought well of himself, obviously. He knew Hazel Jones, he’d followed Hazel Jones, he would not give up on Hazel Jones, not easily.

Tignor would misjudge a man like this, for Tignor was affably blunt in his opinions, and never revised them. But this man was a man with money, and an education. Very likely, family money. He had a bachelor look, yet a cared-for look. His clothes were of good quality if now slightly rumpled, disheveled.

On his right hand he wore a gold signet ring with a black stone.

“I don’t know why you deny me, Hazel. What I’ve done to so alienate you. I am Dr. Hendricks’s son-you must recognize me.”

He spoke half-wistfully, insinuatingly.

Rebecca laughed, she knew no one named Hendricks. Yet she said, as if to bait him, “Dr. Hendricks’s son ?”

“Father passed away last November. He was eighty-four.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But-”

“I’m Byron. You must remember Byron?”

“I’m afraid, no I don’t. I told you.”

“You were no more than twelve or thirteen! Such a young girl. I was just graduated from medical school. You perceived me as an adult. An abyss of a generation separated us. Now, the abyss is not so profound, is it? You must have wondered about us, Hazel. I am a doctor now, following my father’s example. But in Port Oriskany, not in the Valley. Twice a year I return to Chautauqua Falls to see relatives, to look after family property. And to tend my father’s grave.”

Rebecca stood silent. Damn if she was going to respond to this!

Quickly Byron Hendricks continued, “If you feel that you were mistreated, Hazel…You, and your mother…”

“I told you no! I’m not even from Chautauqua Falls. My husband brought me here to live. I’m married.”

Rebecca spoke hotly, impatiently. Wished she’d worn her ring to shove into this man’s face. But she never wore her pretty ring at Niagara Tubing.

Byron Hendricks sighed. “Married!” He had not considered this, it seemed.

He said, “There is something for you, Hazel. Through his long and sometimes troubled life my father never forgot you. I realize it’s too late for your poor mother, but…Will you take my card, at least, dear? If you should ever wish to contact me.”

He handed her a small white business card. The neatly printed black letters seemed to Rebecca a rebuke of some kind.

Byron Hendricks, M. D.

General & Family Medicine

Wigner Building, Suite 414

1630 Owego Avenue

Port Oriskany, New York

tel. 693-4661

Rebecca said, furious, “Why the hell should I contact you?”

Rebecca laughed, and tore the card into small pieces, and tossed them down onto the towpath. Hendricks stared at her in dismay. His lashless myopic eyes quivered.

Rebecca turned, and walked away. Maybe it was a mistake: turning her back on this guy. He was calling after her, “I am so very sorry if I offended you! You must have a very good reason, dear, for such rudeness. I don’t judge others, Hazel. I am a man of science and reason. I don’t judge you . This newly harsh way of yours, this…hardness. But I don’t judge.”

Rebecca said nothing. She wasn’t going to look back.

God damn, he’d scared her! She was shaking, still.

He was following her again, at a short distance. Persisting, “Hazel! I think I understand. You were hurt, or were told you were. And so you wish to hurt, in turn. As I said, dear-there is something for you. My father did not forget you in his will.”