Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
Madelyn that she get “your employer” on the phone, immediately.
No matter if he’s already on the phone, get him on. Was it a family emergency, yes it was.
How long had it been since Dirk had spoken with anyone in the Burnaby family? He couldn’t recall. Months. He’d neglected to return his sisters’ calls (he knew they’d be furious with him, in this matter of Love Canal) and he’d neglected to call Claudine, let alone visit the difficult old woman.
One day he’d be stricken with guilt, Dirk knew. After Claudine died. But not just yet.
After a hurried, perfunctory preamble of inquiring after Dirk’s health and family and paying no heed to Dirk’s polite replies, Clarice bluntly attacked. “This female you’re involved with, this woman, she’s married, she has children, she’s a Tuscarora Indian, is she?—a
squaw
? In the eyes of the world, my brother has no more shame than to shack up in Mt. Lucas with a
squaw
?”
Dirk was so stunned by this rush of words, the vulgarity of a woman he’d always believed to be prissy, puritanical, for a moment he sat speechless.
Clarice said, furious, “Dirk, God damn you are you
listening
? Are you
awake,
or are you
drunk
? Are you trying to destroy the Burnaby family, through some
madness
?”
Dirk managed to say, shaken, “Clarice, what the hell are you talking about? ‘Tuscarora squaw’? I’m not going to listen to bullshit like this.”
“Don’t you hang up! Don’t you dare hang up! It’s impossible to reach you, like it’s impossible to talk to your wife. The two of you in your dream world, oblivious of the rest of us, how ashamed we are, your behavior, and her—‘Ariah’—a ridiculous name—a name no one has ever heard of—you and her, what a perfect match you are—the adulterer and the wife who sees and hears no evil—”
“What has Ariah to do with this? I forbid you to speak of Ariah.”
“Of course! ‘Forbid you to speak of Ariah!’ And what of this other woman, ‘Nina’? Do you forbid me to speak of her?”
“Yes. I’m going to hang up, Clarice.”
“Fine! Good! Ruin your life! Your career! Make enemies who will 236 W
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destroy you! If Father could see you now, how his ‘favored child’ has turned out.”
“Clarice, we’ll talk about this another time. There is nothing between Nina Olshaker and me, that’s all I’m going to say. Goodbye.”
“Ariah hung up on me, too. That woman is blind, as blind as you.
As selfish. Mother said of her, ‘She’s a demon.’ What a match, the two of you. A match made in hell.”
“Clarice, you’re hysterical. Goodbye.”
Dirk hung up the phone, trembling. He would remember only a few of his sister’s shouted words.
Ariah hung up on me, too
.
“I’m not anyone’s ‘lover,’ darling. I’m your husband.”
Dirk tried to explain, gently. A headache beginning to rage behind his eyes.
Yes he was involved in a complicated civil case, the most challenging of his career. No he was not involved with Nina Olshaker, the principal litigant.
He was representing Mrs. Olshaker, yes. He was not Mrs.
Olshaker’s lover.
“I’m her attorney. I’ve committed myself. It’s no different than any other case of mine, except—” Dirk hesitated, his voice beginning to quaver. For of course the case was different from any he’d ever taken on. “Except it’s more complicated. It has required much more preparation.”
How misleading, for Dirk Burnaby to speak of Love Canal as if the case were nearly completed. As if the massive preparation was over.
Ariah listened attentively, with averted downcast eyes. Her face was a girl’s face set in pale marble that had begun to crack very finely.
At the edges of the evasive eyes, and bracketing the mouth that seemed to have shrunk to the size of a snail curled inside its shell.
Dirk continued with his explanation that was not—for why should it be?—an apology. The day had been a long one, and not a very cheering one, for another of Dirk’s expert witnesses was reneg-ing on his promise to delivery testimony for the plaintiff, and Dirk
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had been on the phone, cajoling, pleading, cursing, his throat raw in indignation; yet now he managed to speak matter-of-factly, calmly.
Betraying no guilt for he felt no guilt. (Did he? No one would think so, seeing the man. For this midnight conversation with his wife he’d even shaved and smoothed lotion on his smarting jaws. He’d removed his camel’s hair sport coat. He’d removed his silk necktie. He’d removed his monogrammed gold cuff links and rolled up the sleeves of his starched white cotton shirt, in a gesture of husbandly frankness.) He was explaining that he’d never “deceived” Ariah in any way, no matter what Clarice had said. Ariah had given him reason to assume that she wasn’t interested in the Love Canal case, and he didn’t blame her. (“It’s a nightmare. You’re better not knowing.”) He had reason to assume from remarks Ariah had made over the years, that the details of his law practice weren’t of much concern to her; and in this case, which was demanding so much more effort than any other he’d undertaken, he’d particularly wanted to spare her.
“Did you!”
Ariah spoke in a breathy murmur that might have been intended as flirtatious.
How strangely Ariah was behaving. As if it were she, and not Dirk, who’d been “exposed” by Clarice. As if, having been informed of her husband’s deception, and having said nothing to him about it for months, Ariah was an accomplice to his crime.
Dirk said uneasily, “Ariah, darling? You aren’t upset, are you?”
“ ‘Upset.’ ”
The snail-mouth scarcely moved. Ariah murmured so without emphasis, her remark had no meaning.
“Darling.”
Dirk touched her arm, but Ariah shrank gracefully away. As a cat shrinks from the touch of one she doesn’t quite want to touch her just at this time, yet wishes not to offend for in the future this individual might be of use.
Barefoot Ariah moved swiftly. She brushed past Dirk without a word of explanation, and left the room and descended the stairs.
They’d been in their bedroom where a single bedside lamp was burning. Dirk had been speaking quietly. Ariah had slipped a 238 W
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pumpkin-colored satin robe over her nightgown as soon as Dirk entered the darkened room, apologized for waking her and switched on the light. Another time he apologized though Ariah indicated no, don’t be silly, she hadn’t been asleep. She’d been waiting for him.
Playing Chopin mazurkas on her fingertips, as often she did in this bed. No need for any apology!
Downstairs, Ariah directly went to the liquor cabinet in the dining room. With the brisk aplomb of one wringing the neck of a chicken, who has wrung the neck of a chicken numerous times, she unscrewed the top of Dirk’s Black & White scotch whisky and poured herself a drink in a wine glass hurriedly snatched from a shelf.
“Ariah! Darling.”
Dirk was stricken, witnessing such a sight. That Ariah had grabbed a wine glass made the gesture somehow more poignant.
Ariah drank, shutting her eyes. Almost, Dirk could see a flame piercing her slender throat, lifting upward into her nostrils. Ariah drew a sharp shaky breath, but remained stoic and contained.
“Ariah, please don’t be upset. There’s no reason, truly!”
Still Ariah had avoided looking at him. Her eyes were shrunken and slanted in her face as if secret weeping had worn them out. And her freckles were gone, like Ariah’s youth. Shakily she lifted the wine glass and took another quick sip of scotch. Her eyelids shuddered shut.
Dirk said, “Ariah, I don’t know what my sister has told you. I can’t imagine what she has been saying. She has no grounds for the terrible accusations she’s made.” Dirk paused, uncertain what accusations Clarice might have made. He didn’t want to make a needless blunder here. “The relatives are angry with me on both sides of the family.
Not just the Burnabys, but my mother’s people, too. Everywhere in l’Isle Grand. They’re saying that I’m a ‘traitor to my class’—like FDR. They never approved of him! Ariah, there’s nothing to Clarice’s charges about Mrs. Olshaker. Whatever she has been saying about Mrs. Olshaker. My relationship with Nina Olshaker is purely professional, I swear.”
How weak that sounded:
I swear
.
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The claim of every liar.
“And Nina Olshaker isn’t a Tuscarora Indian. And even if she were . . .” Dirk’s voice trailed off, defensive and wavering. What exactly was he telling Ariah?
Ariah seemed hardly to be listening to these protestations. She might have had her question prepared for some time. Quietly she asked, “A house in Mt. Lucas? Why?”
Dirk said quickly, “For reasons of health. The children’s mainly.
The nine-year-old Billy Olshaker has asthma and an extreme allergic reaction to the school site, which is on this Love Canal waste dump we’ve exposed. And the younger child, a little girl, has a low white-blood-cell count, and respiratory problems. I’ve hired expert witnesses to report on certain of the chemicals, benzene and dioxin for instance, that are among as many as two hundred chemicals in Love Canal, dumped since 1936, and these specifically cause leukemia in young—”
Ariah shook her head lightly as if dispelling an unpleasant dream-fragment. “Yes, but where is the husband? Is Mr. Olshaker in Mt.
Lucas with his family?”
“Sometimes, weekends.”
Dirk wasn’t certain if this was true. But it sounded plausible.
He said, “Sam Olshaker works at Parish Plastics, it’s a ten-minute commute from their home in Colvin Heights. If he stayed in Mt.
Lucas, it would be a much longer drive.”
“Why didn’t you arrange for a more convenient house, then?”
How shrewd a litigator Ariah might have been. Cross-examining a witness who doesn’t quite comprehend how he is incriminating himself. And her voice so maddeningly small, constrained.
Dirk said, confused, “A—more convenient house? Conveniently located? Well, we wanted—I mean, I wanted—a place in the country, to remove Nina and the children from the air of east Niagara Falls.”
Dirk spoke rapidly now, and convincingly. “East Niagara Falls is very different from Luna Park, Ariah. You can’t imagine. I don’t think you’ve driven out in that direction for years. We live so near the river here, the Gorge, and Canada, the air is nearly always fresh. But a few miles to the east—”
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“Are the Olshakers formally separated?”
“They are not
separated
. No.”
“Yet they don’t live together.”
“Some of the time—much of the time—they do. They do live together. Except—for reasons of health—”
“Yes, you’ve said. Are you in love with Nina Olshaker?”
“Ariah.” Dirk was shocked at the question, and the calmness with which it was uttered. “How can you think such a thing, of me. Your husband! You know me.”
Ariah’s veiled eyes lifted fleetingly to his. She seemed bemused, not angry. “Oh yes, do I?”
Dirk said, hurt, “Ariah, certainly you know me. No one knows my heart as you do.” Moving his big shoulders uneasily, as if his shirt was too tight. Tugging at his already opened, unbuttoned collar that irritated his neck. “I’ve always believed, darling, that you know me better than I know myself. That I’m naked before you, exposed.”
Ariah laughed thinly. “That cliché! ‘Know me better than I know myself.’ Marriage is a sustained
folie à deux
. Like crossing a tightrope without a safety net beneath, and not looking down. So the more we know of each other, the less it signifies. You’re a lawyer, Mr. Burnaby, one of the best. So you know.”
Dirk was dismayed by Ariah’s cold little speech. He’d begun to think she might be sympathetic with him. But now she was accusing him. And of what, exactly, was she accusing him?
“Ariah, I don’t understand. What do I know?”
“Is it the individual words you don’t understand, or their overall meaning.”
“Their meaning.”
“You do know what a
folie à deux
is?”
“Ariah, our marriage is not a
folie à deux
! That’s ridiculous. It’s crude and cruel. We’ve known each other almost twelve years.”
Ariah said stubbornly, “All marriage—all love—must be a
folie à
deux
. Otherwise, there would exist neither marriage nor love.”
Dirk’s cheeks smarted. He wanted to take hold of his wife’s narrow shoulders and give her a good, hard shake. Never once in their marriage had he touched her in anger, or even impatience; rarely had
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he lifted his voice to her, though provoked beyond endurance at times. At such times. There was a fatal smugness in Ariah’s self-damning pronouncements. There was a fatal smugness in self-damnation. “Never mind if I’m deluded, for the moment! Say I am.
Fine. I happen to think that I love you, and I am not in love with—”
Dirk hesitated, suddenly reluctant to use Nina Olshaker’s name in this way, to shore up a case with his exasperating wife. “—this other woman. Whatever Clarice has told you. She and Sylvia have always been resentful of us, you must know. They’d like very much to undermine our marriage.”
Ariah considered this. Of course, Ariah knew this was so.
Dirk touched Ariah’s wrist. It was a gentle, tentative gesture, neither repudiated by Ariah nor accepted. He said, “I love you and my family, darling. My truest life is my family.”
“Is it!”
“Of course it is.” Dirk wondered if he might take the bottle of Black & White scotch whisky from Ariah’s hand. There was something in the way she gripped it that worried him. And he would not have minded a small drink of his own. He’d had one or two at Mario’s before driving home but that seemed a very long time ago now.
Dirk said humbly, “I realize I’ve been distracted by work. And it won’t—can’t—quiet down for a while. If we lose at the preliminary hearing, I’m certainly going to appeal. But if we win, let’s say by early summer, of course the other side will appeal, and—”