My Heart Laid Bare (20 page)

And Father replies sharply: I don't discuss my business affairs with women.

And Mother laughs suddenly, and says:
Women!
Am I
women
! I'd deceived myself that I was your
wife
!

And now silence, silence, silence . . .

And now great waves of silence . . .

For Father does not reply. Father does not condescend to reply.

And the shivering little girl crouched in the hallway, fingers thrust in her mouth, hears nothing further save the sound of a woman's heartbroken sobbing.

(
MINE AND MY
daughter's:
what extraordinary words!)

(Is this pain
daughter
, this anguish
daughter
, this paralyzing suffocating fear
daughter
?)

MOTHER INSISTS THAT
Katrina and the boys address her as “Miss Hirshfield” (“For I am not
Mrs.
, it seems—God has spared me that blessing”) and that little Millie address her not at all.

For
daughter
is to be explained as shame; as error; as sin.

For
daughter
does not exist.

There have been too many upsets, Miss Hirshfield says, laughing
sharply, too many evictions, too many middle-of-the-night decampings, too many escapes from creditors, policemen, outraged “investors”: and now Miss Hirshfield's heart has turned to stone: has turned in fact toward God. “For surely He will not betray me, Katrina, will He?—being pure spirit, and ‘He' only by custom.”

God the Father.

God of
her
father, the Reverend Thaddeus L. Hirshfield of Rackham, Pennsylvania, whom she betrayed (and is betraying still, if he lives) by eloping with Abraham Licht . . . and vowing to love him forever, and to follow him wherever he wishes to go, and to be a true Christian mother to his children.

So
mother
instructs
daughter.

So
mother
catechizes
daughter
as they kneel together in prayer.

“ . . . ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.' Do you understand these words, Millicent?” the laughing woman asks, gripping Millie's tiny shoulders, shaking her, “—do you understand? Or are you too young?”

Yet there are reconciliations. There are unexpected hours of happiness, even of calm. For Abraham Licht cannot be resisted—when he chooses not to be resisted. When he chooses to court his Morna again, to adore her again (his narrow-cheeked golden-blond Siennese madonna), to ignore the evidence of her thinning hair and tense mouth. She can be made to weep again in his arms, as he weeps in hers, for he
is
her husband, she
is
his wife . . . when he so chooses.

And between them, supremely
of
them, is pretty little Millicent.

Who learns early the value of being
pretty
and
little.

Who learns early the need to keep secrets.

MILLICENT, MY CHILD,
where are we?

Is this Hell?

A kingdom at the bottom of the world, where no one can follow.

Yet, here is a steeple—blessed by God!

And a churchyard ripe and rotting with the anointed dead.

In the drafty kitchen Katrina lights the wood-burning stove, coughing so that her eyes fill with tears. Is it possible—stiff-backed Katrina, of all women, has become humbled by want? Losing pride, her stubborn country-bred strength? Telling the children tales of the marsh to frighten them; tales of the miller's son who fell in love with a demon and lost his soul, and of Miss Mina Harwood the Governor's daughter who lost her soul as well . . . and disappeared into the marsh. And, oldest of all, young Sarah Wilcox, or was she Sarah Hood?
Not a Londoner by birth, very likely not even English by birth, you could hear it in her voice. The princess who died (yet lives still) in old Muirkirk.

In the marsh. Deep, deep in the interior of the marsh.

Where you would not wish to follow. Would you?

For now it is summer and the air so damp, so warm, as an exhaled breath, moisture gathers itself in clumps like gnats brushing against one's face. Mother whispers to daughter, Morna to Millicent, she cannot breathe and fears she will suffocate, Oh my child, my darling little girl, shall I bring you with me, Millicent?—or are you too much
his
?

If Mother had a rowboat with a bottom not rotted she would row them to safety across the broad weedy pond, the pond large as a lake, past tall nodding pampas grass and whispering scrub willow, past part-submerged fallen logs, past a glittering scrim of dragonflies into the hidden heart of the marsh.
Daughter
and
not-daughter
, will you come with me? To that place where no one from the other world dare follow?

Is this Hell? Or our salvation?

Where no one dares follow.

AND THEN SUDDENLY,
overnight, the wind shifts. A harsh cleansing wind out of the northeast. The sky opens to torrential rain, and all is changed.

Business flourishes! There is a much-heralded “boom” in the economy!

One flurried day Father moves them again to the city—but which city?—not Vanderpoel, not back to elegant Stuyvesant Square, where, it seems, certain debts remain unpaid—but they have a carriage and a hired driver, Thurston and Harwood find themselves enrolled in a private school for boys “of good family” and Elisha is being tutored by a young Irish seminarian and Millie, vivacious Millie,
daughter
and
not-daughter
, has a French governess and a charming little silk-and-organdy sunshade and the Licht family attends church services in a massive whitely gleaming Episcopal church where the angelic choir sings with such passion Millie must crouch and press her hands against her tender ears
Is this Heaven?—their Heaven?—I hate it!
—even as she's smiling, laughing, like her vivacious glittery-eyed Mother in the company of new friends, Father's new friends and business associates and in an emerald-green dogcart pulled by two handsome grinning German shepherds across the mayor's sloping lawn little Millie and the mayor's nine-year-old son bask in the adoration of their elders knowing how they are beloved, and blessed. And yet—hardly a day later, Father rouses the family at dawn, out in the street a carriage awaits, they must hurry, they must flee, ask no questions, no tears, please!—for they are returning to Muirkirk to the old stone church to Katrina who greets them with no discernible emotion save irony inquiring how long this time will they be staying?

And what has happened to Father's boisterous good humor? And why does Mother weep, bitter tears etching her cheeks?—she will only make herself ill, Katrina warns her, and die before her time.

And Mother says, calmly
How is it possible to die before one's time? God ordains; ripeness is all.

AND NOW BEGINS
the God-season, for Abraham Licht has gone away again from Muirkirk. This frantic God-season Millie will remember with dread for the remainder of her life.

For she, who is Morna's daughter, that's to say Miss Hirshfield's daughter, is the one to be disciplined, and not her rowdy wayward brothers who are not Miss Hirshfield's sons. Millie's crinkly-wavy hair braided up so tightly (by Mother herself, not trusting Katrina) that the very corners of her eyes pull upward, and ‘Lisha teases her she has
Chinee blood
; her tender skin must be scrubbed, or chafed, cleansed of all impurities; her private parts must be especially cleansed, with harsh lye soap, a necessary procedure, Miss Hirshfield has decreed, where there is the likelihood of sin.

And Millicent alone of the children must kneel in prayer, being daughter. Being so pretty, so charming, so crafty; a daughter of the Devil's, indeed.

Now Millicent who has been given no food but watery oatmeal since yesterday morning must kneel in the drafty old church without squirming and without tears, overseen by agitated Miss Hirshfield she must recite verse from Saint Matthew, a water-stained Bible held in the woman's trembling hands, held close to her glassy blinking eyes,

        
And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down . . . .

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation must rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes . . . .

And all these are the beginning of sorrows.

Her bare knees numbed with pain against the hardwood floor, her head ringing with hunger and fatigue and wonderment. Is that the hickory cross floating before her?—is that contorted piteous figure her Savior, Jesus Christ?—but what is a “savior,” and who is “Jesus Christ”?—she dares not ask for there is Mother, there is Miss Hirshfield close beside her, always close beside her, whispering urgently to God to save them both.

For this is Mother, and this is Daughter, and this is the consequence of sin.

For this is the consequence of turning away from God, to follow an earthly, carnal love.

FATHER IS ANGRY.
Father is furious. Learning from 'Lisha of Millie's religious “conversion”—Millie's enforced “indoctrination”—for that woman Morna has done it to spite
him
, knowing how he fears and loathes all fanatics of Holy Writ. Taking the child forcibly from the embittered mother, lifting her into his arms, Father carries her into his study and kisses away her tears and gives her delicious “tar-balls” to eat, molasses and ground almonds, perching her on his knee and assuring her there is no God, there is no Savior, there is no Hell, or Heaven, or Sin; yet she might consider herself fortunate that her mother forced her to learn Bible verses, for one day, when she is independent and moving about in the world, such verses will surely be of use. “For it is impossible, dear, to overestimate the value of Holy Writ as it comes rolling and artless off the tongue, as if from the very heart of the speaker,” Father says with a smile, and years later Millie
discovers this to be true; for when she's away at school, or assisting Father with a business venture, it's often very helpful to quote the Bible; and to speak with reverent familiarity of Our Savior Jesus Christ.

“And so my poor deranged mother prepared me for life after all,” Millie thinks, “never knowing whom she served when she imagined she served God.”

. . . sometime in the early autumn of 1898 . . . when
daughter
was six years old . . . and Father was away . . . and a heat-haze lay over Muirkirk for days on end and would not lift . . . and Mother complained to Katrina that she could not
breathe
. . . pressing her bony hand to her chest, her eye sockets enormous but her eyes small, narrow, moist, watchful, blinking . . . that gaze fixed upon
daughter
. . . the dry lips blistered, the voice nearly inaudible,
cannot breathe, cannot breathe
. . . when Father was away, had been away for weeks (in love again? preparing, like a young bridegroom, to wed again? but no one in Muirkirk knew of Miss Sophie Hume yet!) . . . and Katrina said it was hopeless to summon Dr. Deerfield because the townspeople hated Abraham Licht and his household and wished them ill . . . and Katrina
knew
. . . and a day and a night passed, and the heat-haze did not lift . . . and in the morning
daughter
was told: “Your mother has left us. She has walked away and left us.”

. . . leaving behind her worn frayed clothing, her much-laundered bed linen, her books, her Bible . . .

. . . leaving behind
daughter
who did not grieve and who promptly, at Katrina's urging, began to forget.

“For
he
will quickly forget, I assure you,” Katrina said.

AND SO MISS
Morna Hirshfield betrayed them all by disappearing.

And leaving no note behind.

And leaving no
regret
behind.

(Unless, thinks Millie, she died. And is buried in the Nazarene cemetery; or in the marsh. Does it matter?)

For she was easily supplanted in Muirkirk by Father's new young wife: so very new to them all, and so
very
young and lovely . . . .

(DOES MILLIE, NOW
a young woman of eighteen, dwell upon such matters?—
she does not.

Except: that windy excitable May morning, when, having risen before dawn, “Miss Mina Raumlicht” cunningly strapped the pillow to her stomach, securing it tight against her pelvic bones, that it might not be jostled loose when she walked, or sat down abruptly, or, perhaps, fainted away . . . she was struck by a sudden vision (though why? for there was no connection) of the doomed woman who had been, in another lifetime, her mother . . . that is, little Millicent's mother: doomed
mother
to a doomed
daughter.

Mina's small childish teeth bared themselves in a sudden smile.

For now she had no mother, and could come to no grief; but was herself (in a comical manner of speaking) a
mother-to-be.

For none of it mattered.

For nothing,
nothing
mattered: only The Game, never to be played as if it were but a game.)

“Millie!—don't be sad any longer!—
I am a dead man!
”

So Thurston murmurs, smiling happily, his frank boyish gaze precisely as Millie remembers, the grip of his fingers, warmly squeezing hers, and suddenly, though they are in the courtroom, under the very eyes of the Law, there is no harm in acknowledging that they are brother and sister: children of Abraham Licht.