The Gravedigger’S Daughter (36 page)

The iron was heavy, her wrist ached. Bad as Niagara Tubing except the smells weren’t so sickening. Ma had taught her to iron but only just flat things, sheets, towels. Pa’s few shirts she’d ironed herself taking care frowning over the ironing board as if all of her life, her female yearning, had been bound up in a man’s shirt spread out before her.

“Jesus. A blind cripple could do better than this.”

It was Tignor, examining one of his shirts. The iron had made creases at the collar. Ma had told her
The collar is the hardest part, next are the shoulders. Front, back, and sleeves are easy
.

“Oh, Tignor. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t wear this shit! You’ll have to wash it again, and iron it again.”

Rebecca took the shirt from him. It was a white cotton dress shirt with long sleeves. Still warm from the iron. She would not re-wash it, only just soak it and hang it to dry and try ironing it again in the morning.

In fact she stood mute, sullen. After Tignor went away. God damn she worked eight hours five days a week at fucking Niagara Tubing, did all the housework, took care of Niley and him and why wasn’t that enough?

“This factory job. What’s it pay?”

Out of nowhere came Tignor’s question. But Rebecca had the idea Tignor had wanted to ask for a long time.

She hesitated. Then told him.

( If she lied, and he found out. He would know then that she was trying to save money out of the salary.)

“
That
little? For a forty-hour week? Christ.”

Tignor was personally hurt, insulted.

“Tignor, it’s just the machine shop. I didn’t have any experience. They don’t want women.”

It was nearing the end of October. The sky was a hard steely knife-blade-blue. By midday the air was still cold, begrudging. Rebecca had not wished to think
How will we endure the winter together in this old house!

She’d missed Tignor, in his absences. Now that Tignor was living with them, she missed her old loneliness.

And she was frightened of him: his physical presence, the swerve of his emotions, his eyes like the eyes of a blind man who has suddenly been gifted with sight, and doesn’t like what he sees.

Tignor’s new habit was running both his hands through his ravaged hair in a gesture of impatience. His hair had grown back slowly, was no longer thick. It was the hair of an ordinary man now: thin, lank, faded brown. Beneath, his skull was bony to the touch.

Tignor was ashamed for Rebecca and of her and of himself as her husband, for a long trembling moment he could not speak. Then he said, spitting the words, “I told you, Rebecca. You wouldn’t have to work anymore, that day we drove to Niagara Falls I told you. Didn’t I?”

He was almost pleading. Rebecca felt a stab of love for him, she knew she must console him. Yet she said:

“You said I didn’t have to work at the hotel. That’s all you said.”

“God damn, I meant any kind of job. That’s what I meant and you fucking know it.”

He was becoming angry. She knew, she knew!�she must not provoke him. Yet she said:

“I only took the job at Niagara Tubing because I needed money for Niley and me. A young child needs clothes, Tignor. And food. And you were away, Tignor, I hadn’t heard from you…”

“Bullshit. I sent you money. In the U.S. mail, I sent it.”

No. You did not.

You are remembering wrongly. You are lying
.

Rebecca knew the warning signals, she must say nothing more.

Tignor went away, furious. She heard his footsteps. Vibrations of footsteps pulsing in her head. So Jacob Schwart in his righteous anger had walked heavily, on the heels of his boots. That after his shotgun-death had had to be cut from his feet like hooves grown into the flesh.

Jacob Schwart: a man, in his home. A man, head of his family. Heavily on his heels he walks signaling displeasure.

“At the factory, is he? This guy?”

Rebecca opened her eyes, confused. Tignor was standing before her, hadn’t he walked away?

“Foreman, is he? Some local big shot?
Boss?
”

Rebecca tried to smile. She believed that Tignor was only taunting, he wasn’t serious. Yet he could be dangerous.

Saying, “Hell no, not a boss. One of those assholes drives a Caddie. Not you. Look at you. Used to be damned good-looking. Used to have a real happy smile like a girl. Where’s it now? Anybody fucking you now, he’s got to be on the floor. I smell him on you: that burnt-rubbery stink and sweat like a nigger.”

Rebecca backed away.

“Tignor, please. Don’t say such ugly things, Niley might hear.”

“Let the kid hear! He’s got to know, his hot-shit mommy is a
w
-
h
-
o
-
r
-
e
.”

“Tignor, you don’t mean that.”

“Don’t, eh? Don’t ‘mean’ what, baby?”

“What you’re saying.”

“Exactly what’m I saying? You tell me.”

Rebecca said, trying not to stammer, “I love you, Tignor. I don’t know any man except you. There has never been any other man except you. You must know that! I have never�”

There was Niley crouched beside the sofa, listening. Niley who should have been in bed by now.

The previous night Tignor had been playing poker with friends in Chautauqua Falls. Exactly where, Rebecca didn’t know. He’d hinted it had been a “damn worthwhile” night and he was in a generous mood, in his soul.

He was! Fuck it, his mood wasn’t going to be ruined.

Tignor sank onto the sofa, heavily. Pulled Niley onto his lap. He seemed not to notice, unless it amused him, how the boy winced at his rough strong fingers.

Tignor hadn’t shaved today. His stubbled jaws glinted gray. He looked like a giant predator fish in an illustrated book: Niley stared. Daddy’s eyes were bloodshot, he’d rolled his shirtsleeves up tight over his biceps. Droplets of perspiration gleamed on his skin that looked like myriad skins, stitched together, just perceptibly mismatched.

“Niley, my boy! Tell Daddy does a man come to the house here to see Mommy?”

Niley stared as if not hearing. Tignor gave him a shake.

“A man? Some man? Maybe at night? When you’re supposed to be asleep but you ain’t? Tell Daddy.”

Niley shook his head faintly.

“What’s that? No?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Swear? Cross your heart and hope-to-die?”

Niley nodded, smiling uncertainly at Tignor.

“Not once? Never a man in this house? Eh?”

Niley was becoming confused, frightened. Rebecca ached to pull him from Tignor’s arms.

Tignor was demanding, “
Never
a man? Not
ever
? Not one man,
never-ever
? You haven’t waked up, and heard someone here? A man’s voice, eh?

Niley tried to hold himself very still. He would not look at Rebecca, if he did he would burst into tears and cry for her. He was facing Tignor, eyelids partly closed, quivering.

Rebecca knew he was thinking: radio voices? Was that what Daddy meant?

Niley whispered what sounded like
yes
. It was almost inaudible, pleading.

Tignor said sharply, “A man? Eh? Here?”

Rebecca touched Tignor’s hand, that was gripping Niley’s thin shoulder. “Tignor, you’re scaring him. It’s the radio he’s thinking of.”

“Radio? What radio?”

“The radio. Radio voices.”

“Hell, he’s told me, baby. He’s spilled the beans.”

“Tignor, you don’t mean any of this. You�”

“Niley admitted there’s been a man here. He has heard the voice. Mommy’s man.”

Rebecca tried to laugh, this could only be a joke.

She had a sense of things-falling-away. Walking on thin rubbery ice as it starts to sink, crack.

“It’s the radio, Tignor! I told you. Niley has to have the radio on all day and all night, he has some notion in his head the men’s voices are
you
.”

“Bullshit.”

Tignor was enjoying this, Rebecca saw. The color was up in his face. This was as good as drinking. As good as winning at poker with his friends. Not for a moment did he believe any of it. Yet he seemed unable to stop.

Rebecca could have walked from the room. Waving her hand in disgust. Walked away, and began to run. Where?

Impossible, she could not leave Niley. Tignor was on his feet suddenly, dumping Niley to the floor. He caught hold of her elbow.

“Admit it, Jew-girl.”

“Why do you hate me, Tignor? When I love you…”

Tignor’s face flushed with blood. His mean wet eyes shrank from hers, he was ashamed. In that instant she saw his shame. Yet he was furious with her for defying him before the child.

“You are a Jew, aren’t you? Gypsy-Jew! Hell, I was warned.”

“What do you mean, ‘warned’? By who?”

“Everybody. Everybody who knew you and your crazy old man.”

“We weren’t Jewish! I am not�”

“You aren’t? Sure you are. ‘Schwart.’”

“What if I was? What’s wrong with Jews?”

Tignor made a disdainful face. He shrugged, as if he knew himself above such prejudice.

“
I
don’t say it, baby, it’s other people. ‘Dirty Jews’�you hear that all the time. What’s it mean, people say that? It’s in the papers. It’s in books.”

“People are ignorant. They say all sorts of ignorant things.”

“Jews, niggers. A nigger is next thing to an ape but the Jew is too smart for his own damn good. ‘Jew’ you down�pick your pocket, stab you in the back, and sue you! There’s got to be some damn good reason, the Germans wanted to get rid of you. The Germans are a damn smart race.”

Tignor laughed crudely. He didn’t mean any of this, Rebecca thought. Yet he could not stop himself as, during lovemaking, he could not stop himself from thrashing and moaning helplessly in her arms.

Rebecca said, pleading, “Why did you marry me, then? If you don’t love me.”

A shrewd, sly look came over Tignor’s face. Rebecca thought
He never did marry me. We aren’t married
.

“Sure I love you. Why the hell’d I be here, in this dump, with this antsy kid, half-Jew kid, if I didn’t? Bullshit.”

Niley had begun to whimper, Tignor stalked out of the room in disgust. Rebecca hoped she would hear him slam out of the house, she and Niley would cower together hearing the car start, and back out of the driveway…

But Tignor didn’t appear to be leaving. He’d only gone to the refrigerator for another ale.

That sensation of things-falling-away. Once the ice begins to crack, it will happen swiftly.

She would put the child to bed, quickly. Desperate to get him in bed, and the door to his room shut. She wanted to think that once the door was shut, Niley quieted and in bed, Tignor would forget him.

She was dazed, disoriented. It had happened so quickly.

Isn’t my husband, never was my husband
.
I never had a husband
.

The revelation was a blinding light in her face. She was sickened, humiliated. And yet, she’d known.

At the time, in the shabby brick house in Niagara Falls. Hastily married by an acquaintance of Niles Tignor’s said to be a justice of the peace. She’d known.

She was tucking Niley into bed, the child pulled and clutched at her. “Don’t cry! Try not to cry. If you have to cry, hide your face in your pillow. It makes Daddy upset to hear you cry, Daddy loves you so. And stay in this bed. Don’t get out of this bed. No matter what you hear, Niley. Stay in this bed, don’t come out. Promise?”

Niley was too agitated to promise. Rebecca switched off the bedside lamp, and left him.

Since Tignor had returned, Niley’s rabbit-lamp did not burn through the night. The radio was no longer on his windowsill but back in the kitchen where, when Tignor was home, it was turned on only once a day, for the evening news.

It was Rebecca’s intention to head off Tignor, to get into the front of the house and so prevent him from entering the bedroom. But there in the bedroom was Tignor, disheveled, glaring, a bottle of foaming ale in his fist.

“Hiding him away, eh? Making him afraid of his father.”

Rebecca tried to explain it was Niley’s bedtime. Far past his bedtime.

“You been poisoning him against me, haven’t you? All this time.”

Rebecca shook her head, no!

“Turning him against me. Why he’s so afraid of me. Nervous like a kicked dog.
I
never raised a hand to him.”

Rebecca was standing very still, staring at a spot on the floor.

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing. No resistance, and no defiance.

“Like I don’t love him, and you. Like I ain’t doing a damn good job. All the thanks I get.” Tignor spoke in an aggrieved voice, searching in his pocket for something. He was clumsy, urgent. He took out his wallet, fumbled to pull out bills. “Gypsy-girl! Always wanting money, eh? Like I don’t provide enough. Like for five fucking years you haven’t been bleeding me dry.” He began to toss bills at her, in that way that Rebecca loathed. She was certain now that he’d lied about Herschel, he’d never met Herschel in his life, that episode had been deceptive, demeaning. She hated dollar bills being tossed at her yet she tried to smile. Even now, she tried to smile. She knew it was necessary for Tignor to see himself as amusing and not threatening. If he sensed how frightened she was of him, he would be even angrier.

“Take ’em! Pick ’em up! This is what you want from me, isn’t it?”

The bills fluttered to the floor at Rebecca’s feet. She smiled harder, as Niley smiled in terror of his teasing Daddy. She knew she must perform, somehow. Must abase herself another time, to protect the child. She no longer cared about herself, she was so tired. She would not be one of those mothers (in Milburn you heard of them, sometimes) who failed to protect their children from harm. Always it seems so simple, self-evident
For God’s sake why didn’t she take the children, why didn’t she run for help, why wait until it was too late
yet now that it was happening to her she understood the strange inertia, the wish that the storm might blow over, the male fury would spend itself and cease. For Tignor was very drunk, unsteady on his feet. His bloodshot eyes caught at hers in hurt, shame. Yet the fury had hold of him, and would not yet release him.