That was not the first time he had hit Rayette, and it most certainly wasn’t the last. By the time Rayette was fourteen and was laughing with Billy Taylor every night up in the old tree house that Billy’s daddy had built, laughing and naked and tingling between her legs when she let Billy stroke her and kiss her all over, she had been beaten many more times than she could count. Enos had twice broken her nose with the force of his fist. Once he’d broken her eye socket. When Doc Greeby had come to the house that time and wanted to know what happened. Enos said she’d been playing baseball with the boys, was catching for them because no one wanted to be catcher, and been hit in the face with a swinging bat. The bruise was so bad the doctor didn’t even question it. Alone at night, she sometimes wondered how her father could hit her so hard that his hand could cause the same damage as a baseball bat. But she didn’t wonder too often, because then she’d also have to ask herself how he could kick her down the basement stairs, which he did once, and how he could light a match and hold it to her bare back. which he did twice.
If Rayette started wondering, she’d have to wonder about her mother, too, and she didn’t like to do that, either.
Sulene Boudreau, born Sulene Jackson, was a saint. At least that’s what everybody in town said. When Rayette would go into Julienne’s general store, run by Abigail Brock, that’s what Abigail said every time. She would pat Rayette on the head and say, “You know, honey, you are almost as pretty as your momma was. And your momma was the prettiest girl I ever saw. ’Course, your momma was a saint, too. Never knew on one like your momma.”
No one had ever known anyone like Sulene. Pretty. Gentle. Quiet and soft-spoken. And smart as a whip. Even as a child, Sulene had a kind word for everybody. She was a little girl who saw no bad in anyone and, even growing up in Alabama in the early part of the century, didn’t know black from white. She was courteous to all, helpful to anyone who needed help, never had anything but a smile on her face.
Of course, Sulene Jackson was also crazy as a loon.
Nobody spoke about it, but everyone in town knew it. They all loved this child, but she also scared the devil out of them.
She’d been a wonderful little girl, already making money for the family by the time she was ten years old, helping her own mamma take in laundry. She didn’t talk much—sometimes she could go a week or two without saying one word—but no one paid too much mind about that. She was thoughtful, they said. It was too bad more children couldn’t be like Sulene. Nice and thoughtful and quiet.
She stayed quiet even when the first incident happened. That’s what was so scary about it. So creepy. She’d been helping with the laundry, doing the ironing for Miss Pritchard, the teacher. Miss Pritchard would give little Sulene private lessons in exchange for some housework. That evening Miss Pritchard had been working with Sulene on her multiplication tables. It had gone well, as usual; Sulene was good with numbers. After the lessons, Miss Pritchard was reading over by the window when she thought she smelled something strange. It was like something was on fire. She looked up to see that Sulene Jackson was standing at the ironing board, the hot iron pressed down on her hand. How long it had been there, the teacher didn’t know. Long enough to permanently turn the little girl’s left hand into a misshapen, scarred ball. Long enough to melt two of her fingers together.
Miss Pritchard had picked the girl up and carried her six long blocks to the doctor’s, running the whole way. There wasn’t much the doc could do, though. He could ease the pain—that was it.
Miss Pritchard never gave Sulene private lessons again. It was the silence, she said. During the whole time the little girl had the iron on her hand, the whole time she was being carried down the street, the whole time she was at the doctor’s, Sulene never said a word.
There were no more incidents until two years later. That’s when Sulene jumped off the roof of her house. It was a miracle she wasn’t killed that time. She had climbed up to the top of the three-story wooden structure, stood there for several moments—long enough for her mother to look up and see hear and cry out—and then spread her arms and jumped. For a second she looked like nothing more than a lovely bird in flight. But when she hit the ground, she broke her leg and her collarbone and gave herself a concussion.
After that, people pretty much left Sulene alone.
A year later she jumped again. From a higher building, the Baptist church right in town. This time she didn’t even break any bones. She walked away unhurt. And still silent.
Six months after that, she was swimming by herself and disappeared under the water. Two other children, the Clarkson twins, were swimming nearby and saw her go under. They swam over to the spot, dove repeatedly, finally grabbed hold of the girl and pulled her to shore. They later swore that Sulene had been below the surface for well over five minutes. But when they brought her up, she wasn’t even gasping for breath. She just looked at them, gently nodded, and walked on home.
After that, there were no more incidents. But people still looked at her funny—half in fear, half in praise. This was a little girl who seemed to be indestructible. This was a little girl who just might be something special.
When she was seventeen, Enos Boudreau started coming to call. He was handsome, he did some selling, and he didn’t mind about the deformed hand or the fact that she still didn’t talk much. In fact, he liked her silence. He liked it even more when they got married, for he could hit her as hard and as often as he wanted and she never cried or whimpered or screamed. She only stared right into his eyes, which never really bothered him.
When Rayette was born, two years after the wedding, Sulene kept quiet during the birth. And as far as the rest of Julienne was concerned, she kept quiet, for the most part, after that, too.
But not when she was with Rayette.
She talked to Rayette. Softly. Gently. Lovingly. Holding her little baby girl in her scabbed and rough-skinned arms, she told her all about the different kinds of flowers, and how animals could know things that people never knew, and about God, who was looking down at them at all times, looking out for them, saving them up for some wonderful plan he had for all living things. She told her baby how death was not something to be feared. How death was not something to run from. There was only one thing to be feared, Sulene told her tiny daughter. And that was life.
Rayette was five years old when she found her mother’s body in the bathroom, blood everywhere. Sulene had found something even she could not survive: a razor blade. With Enos passed out in the living room and Rayette playing with her favorite doll, Sulene had gone behind the closed door and calmly slashed her wrists. It took her about twenty minutes to die. And in those twenty minutes, Rayette heard only one sound coming from inside the room. It was the first time she’d ever heard this sound.
It was the sound of her mother laughing.
After that, something inside Rayette told her she’d better grow up quite different from her mother. And that’s exactly what she did.
She did not believe that God had any great plan for everyone on earth. She did not much care about the beauty of flowers or the intelligence of animals. And she did not care to be quiet. She liked to talk and laugh and moan and cry.
That was one thing her mother’s death taught her: It does not pay to keep your mouth shut.
By the time she was twelve years old, Rayette could drink a pint of whiskey and be none the worse for wear. She had the face of an angel to go with the body of a mature woman. Boys couldn’t stay away from her. And the later she stayed out and the worse her reputation grew, the harder Enos would punch her. Rayette spent her nights in ecstasy and her days in pain, and she thought that was pretty much life’s normal cycle.
Until she met Billy Taylor, who not only brought her ecstasy with his big, hard cock and his miraculously soft, gentle hands, he could make her laugh. Day and night.
She laughed right after the first time she kissed Billy; his scrunched-up face was just so funny. She laughed the first time he saw her naked; he was dumbfounded by her body and could barely speak or even look at her. She laughed after she first had sex with Billy; even though he was four years older than she was, he’d been a virgin, and he was so pleased, so proud. She laughed when he proposed to her and when they ran away to get married by a preacher whose only stipulation was that he get paid two dollars in advance to perform the ceremony. She laughed the night they first made love as husband and wife, and she laughed as hard as she could when they spent the first night in their very first apartment in Chesterville, Arkansas, which was where they’d run off to, telling no one, not Enos, not Billy’s folks, not any of their friends from Julienne. She laughed hardest that night because she knew she’d never have to see anyone from her past ever again. She’d never had to wonder about Enos’s fists or Sulene’s blood or dirty little boys wanting to put their things in her mouth.
Rayette kept laughing for most of the first year of her marriage to Bill Taylor. She only really stopped eleven months after their wedding, the Saturday when Billy went out hunting and never came back. It was an accident, they told her that night. You know Billy, they said. He was always clowning around, always making jokes. Only this time while he was joking, he tripped and fell and his rifle went off and he blew a hole the size of a beer can right through his chest.
Two weeks after that, she was laughing again. But she was also crying and screaming. She had never had anything hurt this much, not even Enos’s punches. And yet she had never had anything fill her with so much pleasure. So much pride. And so much fear.
It was a new year: 1945. A cold but sunny January day.
The day Rayette Taylor’s son was born.
When Carl woke up, he was still sitting in his desk chair. He’d crashed there while the damned pages were printing out. Bleary-eyed, he glanced at his watch. It was nearly noon, five hours later than the last time he’d looked. He yawned. He knuckled his eyes. He stretched his stiff neck …
And he screamed.
Harry Wagner was standing there in his kitchen, calmly making breakfast.
“I thought you were going to knock, you fuck!” Carl cried.
“What I said was I’d think about it.” Wagner expertly broke some eggs into a bowl. The coffee was already made. His jacket was off. Cream-colored linen trousers today. Pink shirt. Maroon bow tie. The man looked maddeningly fresh and alert. “You need a proper omelet pan.”
“I’ll rush right out and get one,” Carl said sourly.
He got up out of the chair, groaning and muttering, and went into the bathroom to shave and take care of other matters. As an act of rebellion, he closed the door. When he reached for a towel, he discovered that Wagner had—using a wooden hanger, of course—hung his linen jacket on the hook that was screwed into the back of the bathroom door. Carl hesitated, then gently pulled the coat back to reveal the lining. The clothier’s name Marco Buonamico, was smartly stitched on the inside left breast pocket. It was a name Carl didn’t know. With another glance at the door, he checked the pockets. Nothing.
Nothing to tell him who the hell was making breakfast in his kitchen.
When he came out of the bathroom, Wagner was sliding a fragrant, golden omelet onto a plate. There was sour cream in it, chopped scallions, shiitake mushrooms. While Carl ate, Wagner perched on the bed, reading Carl’s output. Carl found himself watching the big man carefully for a reaction. He couldn’t help it. And he couldn’t believe he was craving feedback—criticism, praise, something, anything—from this big ape. But Wagner’s expression revealed nothing. He merely set the pages aside when he was done reading and sat there, stone-faced, waiting for Carl to get to work. The manila envelope with the diary in it lay on the bed next to him. For Carl, this was sheer torture.
“Well, what do you think?” he finally demanded when he could stand Wagner’s silence no longer.
“That’s not really my department,” Wagner replied.
“You’ve got to have some kind of opinion.”
Wagner hesitated. “Are you asking me?”
“I’m asking you.”
“It could use some tweaking.”
“Who asked you?!” Fuming, Carl poured himself more coffee. “You know something, Harry? Last night, when I was hitting the heavy bag, it was your torso I was seeing. You were pissing blood by the time I was done with you.”
“I thought we were getting along so well.”
“You’re really starting to get on my nerves. Although I have to admit, you make the best fucking omelet I’ve ever tasted.”
“Got that all out of your system now, Carl?”
“Maybe,” Carl replied, scowling.
“Good man. Let’s get started. Time’s a-wasting.”
* * *
It became a routine. Everything became a routine, Carl realized, no matter how bizarre it might seem. No matter how grueling it might be.
By day Carl would study the diary and letters and clippings, making notes under Harry Wagner’s unblinking, unwavering eye. By night Carl would convert the material into a novel, catching as much sleep as he could before Wagner returned the next morning to pick up his nightly output and bring him more material to study.
And to cook him breakfast. Breakfast became the highlight of Carl’s day. Wagner was an amazing cook. One morning he showed up with a day-old challah from a Jewish bakery, which he promptly turned into mouth-watering French toast. Another morning he baked buttermilk cheese biscuits with bits of bacon in them. The man was marvelously skilled. He was also tidy as a cat. He washed every dish the moment Carl was done eating. One day he brought Carl a new sponge. Another day he brought a scouring pad. The kitchen sparkled as it never had before.
Always Wagner would go to the window and check the street below before he left, to make sure the coast was clear.