Joyce Oates - The Gravedigger’s Daughter

Her hymen he’d torn, Rebecca knew the word from her dictionary. She’d smiled, years ago seeing how close hymen was to hymn , hymnal .

Suddenly she recalled how, in the Presbyterian church, beside Rose Lutter who had been so kind to her, Rebecca had not really listened to the minister’s sermons. Her mind had drifted off onto men, and maleness, and sex. But with unease, disdain, for she had not yet met Niles Tignor.

In the morning though groggy and hungover, Tignor would need to make love. His breath foul as ditch water yet he would need to make love. For he was fully aroused, and mad with love for her. Couldn’t keep his hands off her, he said. Crazy about her she was so beautiful, he said. My Gypsy-girl . My Jewess . Oh, Jesus …

Later Rebecca would say, in Tignor’s car driving back to Milburn, her head resting against his shoulder, “You know, I’m not a Gypsy, Tignor. I’m not a ”Jewess.“”

Tignor, bleary-eyed in the raw morning air, jaws glinting with stubble where he’d shaved in haste, seemed not to hear. Like a fisherman casting his line out, out into a fast-moving stream, he was thinking ahead to Milburn, and what awaited him. And beyond.

“Sure, kid. Me neither.”

The ring: it wasn’t the ring Baumgarten/Bumstead had placed at the foot of his bed to beguile Rebecca. She was certain, now she had time to examine it. The stone in the other ring had been a darker purple than this stone, square-or rectangular-cut, and clear as glass. (Very likely, it had been glass.) This small oval stone was purple, and opaque.

She was not pregnant. Yet she was pregnant with her feeling for the man, that accompanied her everywhere and at all times.

It was mid-March yet still winter, very cold at night. Only the days were lengthening, there were ever-longer periods of sunshine, thawing and dripping ice. Rebecca was stubborn in her belief that Tignor would return, check into the General Washington Hotel as usual, and call her. She knew, she had not doubted him. Yet when the phone rang in the early evening, and LaVerne Tracy answered, Rebecca came to the doorway to listen, her heart beating in dread. LaVerne was a blowsy blond woman of twenty-three whose attitude toward men was both flirtatious and mocking; always you could tell if LaVerne was speaking with a man on the phone, by her malicious smile.

“Rebecca? I don’t know if she’s home, I’ll see.”

Rebecca asked who the caller was.

LaVerne covered the receiver with the flat of her hand, indifferently. “Him.”

Rebecca laughed, and took the call.

Tignor wanted to see her, that night. After 10 P.M. if she was free. His voice was a shock in her ear, so close. He sounded edgy, not so bluff and assured as Rebecca recalled. His laughter sounded forced, unconvincing.

Rebecca said yes, she would see him. But only for a while, she had to work the next morning.

Tignor said stiffly so did he have to work the next morning-“I’m in Milburn on business, honey.”

In February, Rebecca had had no excuse to give Amos Hrube for being late for work, when Tignor brought her back at midday from Beardstown. She’d stood mute and sullen as Hrube scolded her, saying another chambermaid had had to take over her rooms. Tignor had wanted to speak to Hrube on Rebecca’s behalf, but Rebecca wouldn’t let him. The last thing she wanted was talk of her and Tignor among the hotel staff, beyond what the staff was already saying.

It was 10:20 P.M. when Tignor’s Studebaker pulled up outside the brownstone on Ferry Street. Tignor wasn’t one to come upstairs to knock on the apartment door, instead he entered only the vestibule and called Rebecca’s name up the stairs, with an air of impatience.

LaVerne said, “Tell that fucker to go to hell. Fuck he thinks he’s hot shit, yelling for you like that.”

LaVerne had known Niles Tignor before Rebecca had met him. Their relationship was vague to Rebecca, enigmatic.

Rebecca laughed, and told LaVerne she didn’t mind.

“Well, I mind,” LaVerne said hotly. “That fucker.”

Rebecca left the flat. She knew how LaVerne would complain of her to Katy, and how Katy would laugh, and shrug.

Shit it’s a man’s world, what can you do…

If Niles Tignor snapped his fingers for her, Rebecca would come to him. She would come initially, but on her own terms. For she must see the man again, and be with him, to re-establish the intimate connection between them.

She was wearing the green plaid coat Tignor had given her, of which she was so vain. Rarely did Rebecca wear this coat for it was too good for Milburn, and for the hotel chambermaid. She’d smeared lipstick on her mouth: a lurid moist peony-red. On her finger was the silver ring with the small oval milky-purple stone, Rebecca had learned by this time was an opal.

“Tignor! Hello…”

When Tignor saw her on the stairs, his smile faded. Something seemed to break in his face. He began to speak, he meant to be jocular in his easy, bantering way, but his voice failed. Quickly he came to Rebecca, and took her hand, hard, clumsy in possession. “Rebecca. Jesus…” Through her lowered eyelashes Rebecca assessed the man who was her lover and would be her husband: ruddy-faced, sensual, this man who’d seduced her and whose wish it was to break her, to use and discard her as if she were of no more consequence than a tissue: she saw him, in that instant exposed, naked. Beneath Tignor’s good-natured gregariousness was a ghastly nullity, chaos. His soul was a deep stone well nearly emptied of water, its rock sides steep, treacherous.

Rebecca shuddered, knowing.

Yet she lifted her face to his, to be kissed. For these are the rituals that must be performed. She would be without subterfuge, lifting her young, eager face to his, the moist red mouth that so aroused him. For she wished him to think she trusted him utterly, not to hurt her.

Tignor hesitated, and kissed her. Rebecca understood that, at the last moment, he had not wanted to kiss her. The light in the vestibule was glaring, overhead. The vestibule was shabby, unswept. Tenants on the first floor had a young child whose tricycle Tignor stumbled against, greeting Rebecca. He meant to kiss her lightly, a kiss of mere greeting, yet even this kiss Tignor mismanaged. He was stammering, as no one in Milburn had heard Niles Tignor stammer, “I-I guess I been-missing you. Jesus, Rebecca…” Tignor’s voice trailed off, he stood abashed.

Outside on Ferry Street was the robin’s-egg blue Studebaker, idling at the curb and expelling clouds of exhaust.

In the car, Tignor fumbled to turn the key in the ignition, but the key had already been turned, the motor was on. He cursed, and laughed. The interior of the car no longer smelled of smart new upholstery but of bourbon, cigar smoke. In the backseat Rebecca saw amid scattered newspapers, a valise and a pair of man’s shoes, the glint of a bottle. She wondered if the bottle was empty or yet contained bourbon and, if so, if she would be expected to drink from it.

Tignor said, “Honey, we can go to the hotel. Where I’m staying.”

He did not look at Rebecca. He was driving slowly along Ferry Street as if not altogether certain where he was.

Quietly Rebecca said no. “Not the hotel.”

Tignor said, “Why not? I have a room.”

When Rebecca did not reply, Tignor said, “It’s my private business at the hotel, who I bring. Nobody is going to interfere. They know me there and they respect my privacy. I have a suite on the seventh floor you will like.”

Again, quietly Rebecca said no. Not the hotel.

“There’s windows looking out toward the canal, over some roofs. I’ll order some supper, room service. Drinks.”

No, no! Rebecca would not. She was smiling, biting her lower lip.