Joyce Oates - The Gravedigger’s Daughter

Of course Rebecca knew (from the illustrated pamphlet Your Body, Your Baby & You ), that in fact the “fetus” more resembled a frog than a human being, yet by the twelfth week, in May, she fantasized that Baby Niles had already acquired a face, and a soul.

“There are men crazy for pregnant women. A woman blown up like a goddam whale, still there’s men who…” Tignor’s voice, bemused and disdainful, trailed off. You could see that he, Tignor, was not inclined to such perversity.

And so Rebecca knew, to shun the attentions of men. Even elderly men. She was aloof and indifferent to the most innocuous of greetings-“Good morning!”-“Fine morning isn’t it?”-cast in her direction by men in hotel corridors, elevators, restaurants. Yet she had a weakness for women. Now in her pregnancy, she was avid for the company of women. Tignor was annoyed by her gabbing with waitresses, salesclerks, chambermaids for more than a minute or two. He liked his exotically good-looking young wife to be admired, to be vivacious, and to display “personality”: but he did not like too much of this, behind his back. In the hotels in which Niles Tignor was known as a frequent guest he knew he was talked-of by the staff, he knew and accepted this but he did not want Rebecca to tell tales of him, that might become exaggerated in the re-telling, and make him into a figure of fun. And now that his wife was pregnant, and would soon begin to show her pregnancy, he was particularly sensitive.

It was in May 1955, that Tignor returned unexpectedly to their room in the Hotel Henry Hudson in Troy, to discover Rebecca not only gabbing with the chambermaid who was making up the room, but helping the woman change the bed. In the corridor just outside the door Tignor froze, observing.

For there was his wife deftly tucking in bedsheets, tugging at a sheet as the other woman tugged at the other end. With girlish eagerness Rebecca was saying, “…this baby, he’s always hungry ! He takes after his daddy for sure. His daddy wants him bad as I do. I was so surprised! I thought my heart would burst, I was…well, I was so surprised. You don’t expect men to have those kinds of feelings, do you? My birthday was last week, I’m nineteen and that’s plenty old enough to have a baby, my doctor says. I guess I’m a little scared. But I’m very healthy. My husband is always traveling, we stay in the best hotels like this one. He has an important position with the Black Horse Brewery, maybe you know. You know him, I guess?-Niles Tignor?”

When Rebecca glanced around, to see why the maid was staring so fixedly past her shoulder, she saw Tignor in the doorway.

Quietly Tignor told the maid, “Out. I need to speak with my wife.”

She would not try to elude him. Vividly she recalled her father needing to discipline her. Not once but many times. And Tignor had been sparing with her, until now. Pa’s way had not been to slap but to grab her by the upper arm and shake-shake-shake until her teeth rattled. You are one of them. One of them! Rebecca no longer knew if she had ever known what Pa had meant by these words and what she had done to provoke him but she knew she’d deserved it, her punishment. You always know.

The bleeding began a half-hour later. Cramps in the pit of her belly, and a sudden hot surging of blood. Tignor had not struck her there, Tignor was not to blame. Niles Tignor was not a man to strike a woman with his fists, and not a pregnant woman in the belly. Yet the bleeding began, a miscarriage it would be called. Tignor poured bourbon into glasses for them both.

“The next one, you can keep.”

It was so. He kept his promise. She had not doubted him.

“You’ll be safe here. It’s quiet here. Not like in town. Not like on the road, that ain’t good for a woman trying to have a baby. See, there’s a food store here. Five-minute walk. Anytime you want, if I’m not here you can walk to town, along the canal. You like to walk, eh? Most walking-girl I ever known! Or you could get a ride, there’s plenty of neighbors here. Meltzer’s wife, she’ll take you when she goes in. I’ll pay for a telephone, and for sure I’ll call you when I’m on the road. I’ll make sure you have everything you need. This time, you got to take better care of yourself. Maybe cut back on the drinking. That’s my fault, I kind of encouraged you, I guess. That’s my weakness, too. And I’ll be here as much as I can. I’m getting tired of the road, frankly. I’m looking into some property in town, maybe buying into a tavern. Well!”

Kissing her, baring his big horsey teeth in a grin.

“Y’know I’m crazy about you, girl, eh?”

She knew. She was four weeks’ pregnant again, and this time she would have the baby.

“Why’s it called ”Poor Farm Road‘?“

She was frightened, naturally she asked jokey questions.

Yet Tignor surprised her, he knew the answer: a long time ago, could have been a hundred years ago, there’d been an actual “poor farm”-“a farm for poor people”-about a mile down the road where the schoolhouse was, now. Vaguely Tignor thought it might’ve had something to do with the canal being dug.

Edna Meltzer said it was so, there had been an actual poor farm just up the road: “I remember it real well from when I was little. Mostly old people. That got sick or too old and couldn’t work their farms, and had to sell them cheap. There wasn’t this ”welfare‘ we have now to take care of people-there wasn’t “income tax’-”Social Security‘-any kind of thing like that.“ Mrs. Meltzer made a snorting sound that might have meant she was disgusted that life had ever been so cruel, or might have meant she was disgusted how people were coddled now in modern times. She was a stout pudding-faced woman with sharp little eyes and a motherly air that seemed to suck oxygen out of the room.

The Meltzers, who lived approximately a quarter-mile away, were Rebecca’s nearest neighbors on the Poor Farm Road. Mr. Meltzer owned Meltzer’s Gas & Auto Repair with a big round red-letter ESSO sign out front of his garage. There was some kind of connection between Meltzer and Niles Tignor, Rebecca hadn’t figured out. The men were known to each other yet not exactly friends.

Tignor warned, “Take care you don’t go gabbing with the old woman, eh? An old bag like that, her kids’re grown up, she’ll be wanting to ask you all kinds of things ain’t her business, see? But you know better, I guess.” Tignor stroked Rebecca’s head, her hair. Since the miscarriage , he’d been gentle with her, and patient. But Rebecca knew not to talk carelessly with anyone. Whether Tignor was around, or whether Tignor was away.

It was a ramshackle old farmhouse at the end of a dirt lane-not where you’d expect Niles Tignor to live! Rebecca had expected a rented house or an apartment in one of Tignor’s favored cities, at least a residence in Chautauqua Falls instead of in the deep countryside. Tignor kept saying, “Nice, ain’t it? Real private.” No other house was visible from the upstairs windows of this house. Nor could you see the road, that was a narrow gravel road. Except for the slow-rising smoke-haze to the east, you could not have guessed in which direction Chautauqua Falls was. All that remained of the farm’s original ninety acres were a few overgrown fields and pastures, a faded-red falling-down hay barn and several outbuildings, and a thirty-foot-deep stone well that yielded water so cold it made your mouth ache, and tasted faintly of metal.

“It’s beautiful, Tignor. It will be special to us.”

From the driveway, the farmhouse looked impressive, bordered by fierce craggy yew trees, but up close it was clearly shabby, in need of repair. Yet when Tignor was home, though he did not call it home , he appeared to be in a heightened mood.