The Heroines (4 page)

T
he trouble simmering between Mother and me had boiled over months before when Emma Bovary arrived. I found her novel five minutes after she registered—I didn’t have to scour the shelves—there she was in gold leaf on the navy-blue spine:
Madame Bovary
. It was spring break, April, so I was free to keep whatever hours I chose, to lie on a mattress in the attic and read and doze all day. The rain pounded and dripped down the windows while I read, kept company by a half dozen box fans, the dollhouse replica of the house, three antique trunks, and the occasional scamper of a mouse across the floorboards.

I read to discover why Madame Bovary needed us, yet I soon became engrossed in the plot. I adored learning about the customs of the French country folk, the descriptions of hills and fields, the little towns, the ritualized, careful courtship of Charles Bovary and Emma. Their wedding feast delighted me, and I dreamt that I would one day have a country wedding where the guests processed through an open field following a fiddler. But did I understand Emma’s character—the soul fed on romance novels, the convent girl who fasted with pleasure, who mourned her mother’s death with a delicious sadness she deemed “inaccessible to mediocre spirits”? Emma drew deep and somewhat perverse pleasure from her pain, cultivated terrific funks that I didn’t yet recognize as similar to my own teenage disposition. Everything she experienced seemed fathomable. I didn’t judge this Heroine, as I took Flaubert’s word as gospel. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me that women who made bad marriages lived to regret them.

Charles revered her delicate hands, her dark hair, her pale complexion. He adored her drawing skills, her piano playing, her ability to run a household. But she quickly grew bored with him. He lacked finer sensibilities. When she botched a piano sonata, he told her she played beautifully. He backed off when she was in a foul mood, rather than diving in to explore it. When she fell into a depression, the quintessential nineteenth-century antidote was prescribed—a change of scenery! When they arrived in the slightly bigger town of Yonville, Emma easily attracted Monsieur Léon Dupuis. He shared her love of the arts, especially literature. This interchange about reading killed me:

When the naïve Léon realized his love could never be consummated, believing that Emma was happily married to Charles, he fled Yonville for Paris. Bereft, Emma suffered dizzy spells and tried to cope with the loss. She took Italian, changed her hairstyle, went on shopping sprees, chugged brandy. I loved when Charles’s mother showed up and blamed Emma’s depression on novels and banned them from the house. She went to the library and canceled Emma’s subscription and warned the librarian that she would call the police if he “persisted in spreading his poison.” The only thing that cured her latest malaise was the arrival of Rodolphe Boulanger, who immediately decided to seduce Dr. Bovary’s beautiful wife. After a lathered horseback ride, he took her in the grass. After that, they had weekly trysts in her arbor; she snuck to his château for liaisons; they engaged in a heated letter exchange; they swapped locks of hair. They planned to run off together.

The problem was, Emma couldn’t keep from going overboard, and Rodolphe decided to ditch her. She revered love and romance to a degree that made her lovers bristle. She was impulsive (showed up uninvited to Boulanger’s château), reckless (walked boldly arm in arm with a lover in the streets of Rouen), and dramatic (sobbed uncontrollably when a lover was late for a date). As a wealthy woman, Madame Bovary could easily pawn her child off on the nurse or maid; she took erratic interest in her household responsibilities. She couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something more out there. That something had to be a man.

I was versed enough in the language of feminism to get that much. At thirteen, I found Emma absolutely reasonable. (I’d had the same experience reading
Catcher in the Rye
at ten. I didn’t get that Holden was heading toward a nervous breakdown at all. I thought he was hospitalized because he caught a cold or pneumonia from standing in the rain watching Phoebe ride the carousel.) Flights of fancy, delusions, moody rages—those were the everyday symptoms of adolescence. I figured the month-long swoons and fevers had something to do with the limits of medicine.

When I woke up with my thumb in the middle of the book, the dawn light pink in the window, I was frustrated. I couldn’t stand the thought of another day passing without my knowing Emma’s fate. I jumped ahead and read the last few chapters in horror. She’d run the family into irreparable debt thanks to the conniving Monsieur Lheureux (Mr. Happy!), a local merchant who exploited Madame’s weakness for fine clothes and furniture. Worst of all, this woman sleeping below me, this woman who drank pots of Constant Comment tea, was headed for the arsenic.

Her grisly death stunned me: the vomiting, the convulsions, the nosebleeds. I never expected this ending. In her coffin, she was dressed in her wedding gown (Charles insisted), and black liquid poured from her mouth. They had to cover up the suicide, pretend it was an accident, so she could be buried in a Christian grave. For the first time, I felt genuine horror for a Heroine’s fate. I could not understand why Mother didn’t intervene. I didn’t understand the complexity of Emma’s mental troubles, and her debts seemed insurmountable. But maybe she had come to the Homestead before the real problems began. Maybe there was a chance to save her, to keep her from getting together with Léon, to warn her about M. Lheureux. I had to do something.

That night after dinner, Mother and Emma retired to the living room, and I said good night and went upstairs. Halfway up, I stopped, my hand on the velvet striped wallpaper. I couldn’t hear much, but the name Rodolphe was pronounced with a perfect and loving accent. I tiptoed back down the steps and crossed the foyer, passing the front desk. I peeked around the wall.

They sat with their backs to me, watching the fire. Mother was curled up on the sofa; Emma sat in the wingback chair. I crouched, then crawled across the hardwood floor, hiding behind the sofa. Through the couch upholstery, I heard Mother crunching popcorn.

“He is so attentive and refined,” Emma said.

“Uh-hum,” Mother said.

“Perhaps he was worried about ruining my life. He couldn’t bear to watch someone in my position take a fall.”

I closed one eye, nodding my head. So she’d arrived at the Homestead just after Rodolphe ditched their plan to run off together.

“Maybe,” Mother said.

“But didn’t he realize that I was done with all that? I don’t care about society anymore.” She held her head in her hands and pulled on her long, black curls. “Do you think he’ll return?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. More popcorn?” Mother held out the bowl to Emma, who waved it away. Like most Heroines, she had little appetite.

“How could he abandon the promise of a life of love? Of passion!”

“Try not to worry too much right now. It’s good to distract yourself.”

“I’m driven to distraction, thinking of Rodolphe. Why did he leave? To bury his note in a basket of apricots! I’ll never eat another!”

My toes ached from squatting. I was getting worried; Emma had fallen into a forty-three-day swoon after Rodolphe left. Were we in for a month and a half of this?

“I told him I’d do anything for him. I called him my king, my idol. I said I was his slave, his concubine—”

“Maybe he had some thinking to do,” Mother said.

“About what? What do you think he might be thinking?”

“I have no idea what Rodolphe is thinking.”

I nearly tipped over. Of course she knew what Rodolphe was thinking. There was an omniscient narrator. We readers had access to everybody’s thoughts. Rodolphe was dumping Emma. It was right there in Chapter 12. He was bored with her love-slave routine. Even Charles Bovary had called Rodolphe “a bit of a playboy.” But oh, that moment when she saw his carriage crossing the village square, escaping her. She keeled right over.

“But try to imagine,” Emma said, “you are like him. Having left a person like me. What would you be thinking?”

“I might be lonely.”

“Honestly? Do you think he misses me?”

“I really can’t speak for Rodolphe…”

“I can!” I leapt up from behind the couch. “Rodolphe’s not coming back! You have to forget him!”

Madame’s mouth hung open, her skin pale and eyes wide. I could tell that her horror was twofold. It wasn’t simply what I’d said, but that someone my age had said something at all. In her world, children kept their mouths shut. She held her throat; she looked as if she might be headed for another swoon.

“Penelope Anne!” Mother jumped off the couch, knocking the popcorn to the floor. “What on earth?” Already her hand was raised. She turned and knelt on the couch, leaning over the back of it.

“Get over Rodolphe!” I yelled. “He’s just using—”

Mother swung back and slapped my face. Hard. I staggered backward. Then she jumped over the couch, covered my mouth with her hand, and pushed me out of the room. Tears sprang to my eyes. Never in my life had she raised a hand to me; I never once had a stinging cheek. I backed into the hallway. I’d never seen her so angry, her nostrils flaring, her eyes narrowed to slits.

“Don’t you ever—” She pressed her hand harder against my mouth, and I stuck out my tongue and licked her salty palm, tasted popcorn. She yanked her hand away, recoiling. “Penny, my God!”

“You hit me!” I hissed.

“Don’t you ever butt in—”

“I can’t just sit there and let her ruin her life!” We were fighting in a whisper.

“You have to.”

“Why? Because that’s what
you
do?”

“Because it’s not our place to change things.”

I turned away and tried to start up the stairs, but she caught my arm.

“It’s dangerous!” she said.

“It’s dangerous to do nothing.” I yanked my arm from her hand and made a gun of my index finger and thumb. I pointed it at my forehead. “You want her to wind up dead?”

“It’s not my job to fix her life. Her fate is sealed.”

“That’s just an excuse. You could do something.”

“You think it’s easy for me to hold back? I feel so much for them.”

“Yeah, the Heroines get all the sympathy, and I just get slapped.”

Mother covered her face with her hands. She shook her head and slumped against the wall, dragging her hands down her face, pulling her skin so she looked almost ghoulish. She slowly slid down the wall into a crouch. “This isn’t working anymore. You’re getting too old…you’re…”

“I’m what?” I started to sob then, a crooning wail right from my gut. All the pent-up confusion and rage I felt over no longer being her little girl overwhelmed me. “What’s so wrong with me?”

That was the moment when I wanted her to say,
There’s nothing wrong with you.
Instead, she let the tears roll to her chin without wiping them away. She looked up at the ceiling, avoiding my eyes. “Everything now. Everything is wrong.”

T
he woods smelled different to me that night—the ground more wet, the trees sharp and fragrant. Nighthawks shrieked and bats fluttered in the trees. Conor let me hold the reins. Our bodies moved in sync with the galloping horse. His hands rested loosely on my hips when we sped up, dropped to his thighs when we slowed down. He had relaxed since I’d dreamt up the half-baked scheme of tricking Deirdre to come into the woods. We were in cahoots, though my complicity was a lie. I got a sharp thrill from fooling a man like him. I would relish lording this over Mother. I had to meddle in a Heroine’s fate this time! She couldn’t slap me out of it. I really believed that I was an agent, that I would discover Deirdre’s story and save her from her fate. I didn’t have to inherit Mother’s passivity.

“Deirdre’s always moping around!” I yelled over my shoulder. “She needs to snap out of it.” I was so judgmental at that age; I actually thought I knew better than adults, probably because the complexity of their problems eluded me. Deirdre was only a few years older, but I was a baby compared to her. I was thrilled by the mere feel of Conor’s chin sliding across my head. As I bad-mouthed Deirdre, he shook his head as if she were a naughty child. I imagined him spanking her, felt a perplexing flash of arousal. I ducked as we went under a railroad trestle, where a ragged cyclone fence hung from the embankment.

For a minute I considered not turning Deirdre over to him. Maybe he would take me away to his castle. In truth, I envied Deirdre, with her waist-long blond curls, her cheeks of perpetual blush. Men transcended time and space to capture her. Her curves seemed to mock my planes, and I winced to think of how only last week I’d balled up Kleenex and stuffed my bikini top to see how I might look with breasts. My kinky red hair and head-to-toe freckles would have made me the child star of baloney commercials. I wasn’t ugly, but I had the look people loved because it was so uniquely unthreatening; they pointed and smiled, secretly thanking their stars for their tans and shimmering straight locks.

We broke from the bridle path and quickly approached the prairie. The horse skidded to a halt before we could cross. My head and chest fell over its neck, my fingers tangled in its mane. The horse reared up as if an invisible brick wall had suddenly risen in the path, though there was nothing but heavy air, then it dropped back down and turned a circle. Conor leapt off its back in a split second, and I followed, kicking my left leg over the side, and shimmying down before he could help me.

Conor paced in front of the prairie path entrance, shouting and cursing. With both hands, he angrily plunged his sword into the dirt, kicking up dust and clumps of dirt. He pulled out the sword with both hands and plunged it in again and again, as if he were stabbing the life out of someone. His hair flew about wildly and sweat flew from his face.

“The High King is the only man powerful enough to defeat the druid’s prophecy against Deirdre. Yet this shield has me stuck!”

I was stunned. He yanked the sword out of the ground and angrily pointed at the prairie, the muddy sword flying back and forth. My attraction to him changed into a burning feeling in my stomach. I’d never witnessed such fierce and sudden male rage. I wrapped my arms around my skinny ribs and cowered, my legs beginning to tremble.

“Deirdre cried out while still in her mother’s womb. Everyone heard it! Cathbad foretold that she would be the most beautiful woman in Erin and that she would bring death and destruction to many an Ulsterman. Only I, Conchobor MacNessa, son of Nex, the daughter of Eochaid Salbuide of the yellow heel, foster son of Cathbad, King of Ulster, can keep her from destroying herself and Erin.”

My fear of him made his lineage sound like gibberish. Deirdre was no physical match for Conor, nor was I. Duty bound me to the Heroines, even when they stirred envy and resentment in my childish heart, a heart that nonetheless possessed a sharp sense of justice. I looked down at my chest, weary of my mediocrity, my body’s refusal to transform into curves like Deirdre’s. My thin legs and bony arms made me feel weak. There would be no defeating this man physically. I had to take a different tack. So though my mind screamed
Run!,
I kept my cool and assumed the demeanor of a lowly servant, bowing my head and delivering with great humility this versatile cliché: “At your will, sire.”

“Bring her to me!” he roared. He rested his hand on his scabbard and cleared his throat. His voice too had a depth that could only be described as regal: both commanding and gentlemanly. He must have sensed my fear, because he lowered his voice when he said, “I’ll be waiting here.”

“I’ll bring her in the morning.” I struggled not to look him in the eye; lying to him wasn’t easy for me. However much I was drawn to Conor, some instinct told me to beware. He was muscular and smelled great, but I couldn’t let that make me forget that he was a hunter of women. I had to get away from him, out of the woods and back into the thick, weedy sanctuary of the fragrant prairie.

“Excellent. Till the morning!” he said.

“Do you need food?”

“I can manage.” He pouted modestly, shrugging his shoulders and looking around. “I’ve slaughtered many a wild boar.”

I bowed again, and refrained from telling him he’d have better luck finding a buck. “Okay.”

I turned and ran, soft wood chips crunching beneath my flip-flops. I didn’t want to enter the prairie from that spot, right in front of Conor, as I worried it would irritate him, so I took a side path. Something darted into the rustling leaves, and I briefly thought Conor was following me, but that was unlikely. Up ahead I saw the outline of a wooden signpost with six arrows, an old guide for wagon trails. I’d passed it a thousand times, knew to follow the arrow pointing to Chicago to reach the prairie. The trees waved above me, darker than the sky. The sound of my footsteps threw me off, and I thought I heard another horse coming down the path at me. Maybe it was Conor’s men, so I ran harder, my eyes wide and dry with fright. I was afraid to look back, afraid not to, and as the trees cleared and opened into the prairie, I dared to look over my shoulder. Conor was gone.

I burst into the prairie. It seemed like daylight compared to the woods; nothing blocked my view of the stars. Fireflies flickered among the weeds, quiet and golden. The hazy half-moon had dropped behind the power lines. The sweet, peppery scent of wildflowers overwhelmed me like a potion. I ran through the swampy dip beside the natural spring, swatting mosquitoes as I went. My knees were bleeding and blisters webbed the space between my big and second toes, but I didn’t care. The cool prairie was alive with crickets. This was a true taste of freedom. Suddenly I saw our windows, glowing pinkish orange. I was nearly there. The haze of Conor’s charm was clearing quickly, and it dawned on me that this man could have done anything to me, could have killed me. I had been abducted. This night went beyond anything Mother had ever experienced with the Heroines. I had either encountered a Hero or I’d galloped through the dark woods with a genuine Villain.