In the waning light of the bayou there rowed a woman who was once the most educated in all of England. She landed ashore of some tributary of the mighty Mississippi, feeling desperately out of place and longing to retreat from the suffocating humidity of the region. The orange sky darkened, gleaming like a moth’s wings illuminated by candlelight, fluttering away into the distant sunset. On the shores of the murky river, she saw the imposing mass of the mansion she was staying at. The shadows of several of its occupants were fleeing across its windows, making it appear as if it were a treasure chest of ghouls that could only be detected through transparent orifices dimly lit on its sides. A great foreboding came upon her already deflated spirit, making her dread whatever wild inhibitions this strange family might spring on her tonight.
One day, for no other reason than to escape the social pressures of high academia in Yorkshire society, she’d decided to come here of all places, to the dregs of the land of opportunity; past bustling metropolises filled with promising students who attended great universities and all the way to the heartland of Acadia, where the subjects of her favorite poem Evangeline had built their new homes after being thrust away by the British from Canada in the Great Expulsion of 1755. She’d just finished a triple major in Linguistics, Art History, and Postmodern Literature when she decided to come to Louisiana; but of the three, it was linguistics that was truly the passion of her mind, and so this academical adventure- her first as a professional tutor- became dedicated to her teachings about the theory of language. What lost days those were, her times in Yorkshire, when people actually thought she was worth something and valued her hospitality. Now she just felt like some helpless butterfly caught between the jaws of hungry toads fighting for her juices with their slobbering tongues.
This place is so vile I could faint. Look what you’ve done Robert; look at where you’ve sent me. All my friends, family, and teachers, whose expectations of me were even higher than Maria Gaetana Agnesi’s, it was just an excuse; it was really you. I ran away to the ends of the Earth because everything in that place reminded me of you. I just had to get away. Now I’m soiled, stained, and swarmed by the rigidity of these wild yanks; all because you did the unthinkable. I long to return to those days in Yorkshire when you courted me at the University of Leeds and the green hills of the Dales; those mazes of dry-stone walls guiding us over the country as birds lent a token to that brilliant music pouring out of your fingertips. Oh, how I loved to hear you play your piano, Robert. I could die listening to those soaring arpeggios and soothing adagios. Agnesi was a Seven-Tongued Orator by the time she was 11, but you’ll always be a seven-pitched virtuoso in my heart. Oh dear, I’m at the door now; time to return to this zoo.
“Why hello Ms. Della James, have a seat there”, said the man of the house.
She sat down at the dinner table with a carefulness only noticed by the man’s children. The father turned to Joseph, the youngest of his two sons, saying, “What did we learn today, Josey?”
The child fumbled with his roll and said, “I d-d-don’t rem-m-m-ember, p-p-papa.”
“You better remember, or else I’d be be payin’ this fine lady for nothin’”, said the father, cutting his meat so furiously that it moved the whole table.
“Henry, that is quite unnecessary,” said the mother. Della thought she looked ghostly, like someone fighting a terminal ailment. But really, it had to have been the woman’s struggle of caring for her family that made her look so exhausted. It looked like the years had been drained out of her; that each drooping eye on her face had been stolen away by the efforts of raising her children. The rest of her face was etched with shadows in the most unusual places, where winkles had extended to the furthest reaches of her zygomatics, looking like they’d made her anciently weary after marrying a man like Henry; a man who lumbered around the house- or anywhere else for that matter- forcing his will on any creature smaller than he was, which accounted for about 99% of the population. He was like a wrecking ball that ruptured any edifice that stood in his way, by the might of his muscles and the will of his gravity. He was a seasoned bodybuilder who’d won trophies at competitions that glorified the physique of men; men who had more muscles than neurons and skin that shined with the most fake spray-on tanning chemicals Della had ever seen.
During his last competition, he’d checked into a hotel with a credit card that had a balance sixty dollars short of the amount needed to authorize the room. He’d called his credit card company and chewed them out on the phone for fifteen minutes, whining in futility about them not allowing him the proper balance and ending it by saying he’d never use their company again. Turns out the card would only authorize 75% of the amount he needed, so the front desk agent, in an attempt to calm him down, allowed him to pay for the rest of it with cash and take a small hold for incidentals, which he wasn’t supposed to do. Well, that generous and trusting agent allowed him to check in when he very well could have asked him to leave, and he even gave him a free rollaway bed for one of his children. Things got out of hand after the agent, a night auditor working alone, caught his children on camera sneaking into the restaurant when it was closed. They hadn’t taken anything- they claimed they just wanted a view of the pool- but the agent felt betrayed and suspected that they might engage in other illegal activities, such as stealing from their room since their guardian’s credit card hadn’t been authorized for the right amount. So, the agent called the father’s room and told him about his children’s misdemeanor, being very firm with him and threatening to make them leave if they didn’t follow the rules. The father got extremely defensive, as if trespassing weren’t even a crime, and hung up the phone on him. Then the agent called him back, saying there was no reason to be upset and pointing out that he was being ungrateful after the generosity he’d provided them. The father hung up the phone again and stormed off to the front desk, accusing him of using profanity and threatening to speak with a manager in the morning. The agent remained calm and told him they might ask him to leave. After that they walked away from each other in disbelief. The father waited a whole day to tell anyone about the incident, and when he did, he told all the agent’s co-workers a lie about how it was the declining credit card that was frustrating the agent and not the fact that he’d let his children trespass in the restaurant. In fact, he wouldn’t even admit that they’d trespassed, despite being caught on camera. He also told his managers he’d used profanity and was detrimental to their business, hoping to get him fired. Fortunately for the agent nobody believed him, because the agent had never used profanity around any of them before, and he rarely received complaints for poor service. This was just one example of the many ways he tried to bully his way through good, responsible people. People like Della James.
“Perhaps Ms. James can tell us what she’s been teaching our children herself?”, he asked.
She didn’t feel like saying a single word, but she knew she had to. People like this couldn’t pass a meal in silence; every second had to hinge on the drama that someone might unleash, as if the act of chewing food were some social green light for letting the dark secrets of the day out of their mouths. It was odd to her that humans always felt the need to speak extensively about private things while enjoying a delicious meal at the same time. To her it seemed to take away from the joy of the taste, contaminating it with the apprehensions of social anxiety; an anxiety that had drastically increased in a place like this.
“I taught the children about pro-clauses and the controversy of determiner vs. noun phrases.”
Nobody understood her, even the children she’d taught, so the father interjected, “A whole lot of hogwash, that. The election; now that’s a real subject to talk about.”
“She said Pat Robertson was a red-eyed pillock!”, said Calvin, the oldest son.
“I did no such thing. Pat Robertson is a perfectly decent fellow; an outstanding example of a virtuous politician.”
Joseph chuckled to himself, and his father’s eyes widened. One bite and the conversation had already come to politics. The mother suggested they change the subject, but the father wanted to hear more.
“He shoulda’ been the Republican nominee back in ’88, ain’t that the truth. His preachin’s the best thing to happen to this country since the pilgrims ran them injuns out a’ the east. The devil’s a guy in red spandex n’ horns worn by B’rrack Hussein Obomber, and if he was still in politics he’d knock that Muslim-loving commie right out a’ the government, fer sure.”
Della thought to herself that the real danger to this country wasn’t a man who wanted to bring people together, but someone who dismissed everything he didn’t understand- which was a lot- as demonic; as if anything that didn’t fit inside his tiny concept of rightful living were an invention of Satan’s. His idea of individuality was weakness personified, contaminated by some foreign entity’s possession of the soul. It was a dangerous man who openly expressed his support of child abuse, dismissed cheating as a man’s divine right over his woman, and blamed certain ethnicities for making deals with the devil that resulted in environmental catastrophes. That sorry waste of sagging flesh looked to her like it was possessed itself- by the very thing he accused others of being. In the 50s he would have been a McCarthyist, in the 17th century a witch hunter, and in the 16th century a proud member of the Catholic Inquisition. Even back in Medieval times it was men like him who sacked pagan temples holding classical riches, plundering their booty and mutilating their statues, believing that God had told him it was ok to destroy such idols of heresy when it was really just figureheads who were using his intellectual emptiness to rid the world of people who clung to stronger ideologies. Only in America could someone like Pat Robertson be nominated for the presidency, she thought.
As the father continued speaking, her thoughts drifted away to Robert again. She heard the lofty notes of a piano playing in the distant past, a piano whose notes soared with the fingers that rose above it. It was him, that saintly King of Ivory Keys, made of the same stuff that the angels in heaven were. His fingers danced over the keys in an imitation of nature, playing with a quickness unmatched in any other version of Bach’s 5th concerto. Where was it she was? Oh yes, the Royal Albert Hall- where Robert and the rest of the London Philharmonic played all the classics. There were times during that show when the music became so powerful that she thought the building itself could hear it; and that every baroque ornament from the castles of England to the palaces of France shined in resonance with their harmonies, as they’d done so many other times in the past- when their great halls had been blessed by the talents of amateur composers.
Now the mother was speaking, “I don’t see why the Tea Party doesn’t take matters into its own hands. They should have marched on the capital the second Obamacare passed.”
“Like the B-b-b...”, stammered Joseph, who tried again, “B-b-b-boston Tea P-p-party.”
His father threw his fork down and said, “Josey you stupid sack a’ shit, the Boston Tea Party was a thousand years ago.”
“I’m s-s-s-...”
“What?”
“S-s-s-o-o...”
“Spit it out!”
The child gulped and stopped speaking. The father looked at Ms. James. “Is this what yer teachin’ my children? Some hullaballoo about northern unrest? No wonder he can’t speak straight.”
The phenomenon of stuttering was interesting to Della. There had to be a similar cause among the victims of it- one that likely had to do with a social block and not any physical ailment, much less the absurd notion that it could be education. When she thought about all the people she knew who had stuttering problems, the one common element was a domineering, verbally abusive parent. These children were all raised by someone who constantly interrupted them with harsh words and unnecessary criticism, making them feel like their voice didn’t matter and afraid to share their opinions. The stutter itself would only make things worse, as the victim became conscious of trying to say something and feared failing again. It seemed to Della that this child, who had wrestled with his tongue countless times during her lessons, would have been perfectly capable of speaking if his father hadn’t lost his temper so easily whenever he made a mistake; that his father, who would get upset at even the tiniest things in normal conversation, such as the origin of the Tea Party, had unwittingly cast that dark demon of insecurity on his son for the sake of his own self-righteousness, even when he was wrong.
“With all due respect sir, the Tea Party was in fact named after the protests in Boston. I can understand why it might surprise you, seeing as it happened in a city famed for its Union sympathies. But in Boston they had protested against taxation by the British, just as the current Tea Party is protesting taxation and big government.”
“Did ya hear that, Josey? That’s how you’ve got to learn how to speak. Now go wash the dishes and get to bed, ya little son of a bitch.”
“Henry!”, shrieked the mother.
Something snapped inside Della. It wasn’t often that she reached a boiling point, but this time she'd been pushed her over the edge. She could see as clearly as anyone that he was ruining his family- nothing said so more than the expression of his wife. She looked like he hadn't made love to her in years: only hate. The way her hollowness revealed a repressed terror reminded her of the way paintings of Mother Shipton, a prophetess born in a Yorkshire cave, bore into one's soul with every ounce of ugliness in her face. It was a look that said it knew what was going to happen to the world- to people like Henry- that there would be no mercy for the damned once the day of Judgement came. Even though she didn't believe in such divinations, she wanted to change her mind and believe in them now more than ever.
Then Calvin said something that sucked the life out of his mother for good.
"I hate this place; I wish I'd never been born!"
His father didn't seem to hear him. "Josey, hurry up and finish the damn dishes. Scrub hard, scrub with violence. If you ain't sweatin', you ain't tryin'."
It wasn't the first time he'd ignored an outburst from Calvin. In fact, he quite often ignored him and chose to pick on his brother instead. He did this because Calvin was old enough to fight back and Joseph wasn't. The boy seemed to get a rise out of his father losing his temper, so long as Joseph was the one being punished and not him. It used to be that Calvin would cower in the corner when his father was angry or drank too much booze, but now that he'd eased off him it gave him more confidence to speak out of turn. It also gave him a great deal of pleasure to say something that would arouse the ire of his parents, which had quickly become distasteful to everyone around him. He didn’t care though. Negative attention was what made him feel like he still existed, because he didn’t know any other way of getting anyone to notice him.
"Calvin, I wish you wouldn't say such things. Especially in front of a guest." She smiled at Della with every indication of an apology that she could muster.
"She ain't a guest anymore, she's part of the family now. And I'll say whatever I want to, since Josey’s a word-fumblin’ dufus an' Emil can't speak from the grave."
"Don't you dare talk about Emil. Your brother had more sense than any of you."
The mystery of what happened to Emil was a subject Della never broached. All she knew was that he'd been their third child and had hung himself from the ceiling of the barn several years ago. Her reason for being candid about it was that she didn't want the dinner discussions to get uglier than they are already were. It was better not to open a subject that would bring back old wounds. But Calvin had, and his father's silence was unbearable.
“You know why he killed himself, pops? It’s cos’ you beat him halfway to Hell an’ then spent away his college fund on booze.”
The father upended the table, sending all the plates and glasses crashing to the floor. Calvin tried to run out of the house, but his father caught up with him. The last thing Della heard before she retired to the guest room was the sound of his screaming.
She couldn't tell which of them had started the fire. All she could see was a figure up on the hill, standing still in the face of the flames. One of them had done it, that much she was sure about. It couldn’t have been an accident, and if it was then the house had to have been involved itself, lighting its walls up in abject mercy, committing suicide the way Emil and Robert had. Robert, I still remember the last thing you said to me: ‘Listen to it, Ms. James. That's Rachmaninoff's second symphony. If it were a woman, I'd make love to it.’ And then you held me like the way you would have held the music, softly in your hands, its true substance just out of reach. If that house had any last words to say, they wouldn’t have been nearly as sweet. Why did you do it, Robert? Your environment wasn’t nearly as wretched as Emil’s. You had everything you wanted. Too much, maybe. There’s something strange about extreme loss and extreme gain- both seem to aggravate us in proportional amounts, but for different reasons. The man who gets everything he ever wanted always wants more, and once he doesn’t get something he wants the whole world collapses on him. The man who never gets what he wants already carries the burden of the world on his shoulders, so he does the one thing he always wanted- to rid himself of it for good.
Firetrucks paraded through the night. Two of their cranes rose high over the roof of the mansion before drowning it with water from the bayou. A policeman told her it had started on the second floor, where the bedrooms were. She already knew this because after the smoke had first woken her, she’d tried to go up the stairs to see if she could reach anyone. It alarmed her to find out that the stairway had been blocked off, and that a gasoline can rested at the top of the stairs. It was then that she couldn’t stand it anymore- this heat, this hamlet of hellfire- and knew that she had to get out of this country even if it killed her. She’d return home, to the comforts of England, where even the ghost of Robert would be preferable to living like this.
A fireman came out of the house with a child coughing in his arms. Della ran forward to see who it was. It was Joseph, which didn’t surprise her. He was the kindest of them and didn’t seem capable of harming anyone. With closed eyes he said words that were as clear as any she’d ever heard him say; “She’s finally free. God rest her soul.” Who did it? an officer asked. Before he could answer the boy lost consciousness.
Ashes from the flames burned the bayou to blood, simmering the summer sands with the murderer’s wrath. It was only through the great beyond that there was a chance of salvation. If the child had been talking about her then he’d read her emotions perfectly: free she felt, free at last, free for the rest of her life. But after he was taken to the hospital and she was taken into custody for questioning, she convinced herself that he hadn’t been talking about her. It had to have been his mother, the figure on the hill, the one who’d set the house ablaze, killing her husband and her oldest son, leaving her youngest in the care of anyone who might be gracious enough to take him. Yes, she told herself while biting her nails, it had to be her.
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