lips.
And all the while I was grieving over my last story. Outlined—which is as far as I take stories now—but dead in embryo. My hand stilled by cowardice, my heart the heart of a slave.
page 14
Of course Mordecai wanted to see the story. What did I have to lose?
“Flip over a few pages,” I said. “It is the very skeleton of a story, but one that maybe someday I will write.”
“The One-Legged Woman,” Mordecai began to read aloud, then continued silently.
The characters are poor dairy farmers. One morning the husband is too hung over to do the milking. His wife does it and when she has finished the cows are frightened by thunder and stampede, trampling her. She is also hooked severely in one leg. Her husband is asleep and does not hear her cry out. Finally she drags herself home and wakes him up. He washes her wounds and begs her to forgive him. He does not go for a doctor because he is afraid the doctor will accuse him of being lazy and a drunk, undeserving of his good wife. He wants the doctor to respect him. The wife, understanding, goes along with this.
However, gangrene sets in and the doctor comes. He lectures the husband and amputates the leg of the wife. The wife lives and tries to forgive her husband for his weakness.
While she is ill the husband tries to show he loves her, but cannot look at the missing leg. When she is well he finds he can no longer make love to her. The wife, sensing his revulsion, understands her sacrifice was for nothing. She drags herself to the barn and hangs herself.
The husband, ashamed that anyone should know he was married to a one-legged woman, buries her himself and later tells everyone that she is visiting her mother.
While Mordecai was reading the story I looked out over the fields. If he says one good thing about what I’ve written, I promised myself, I will go to bed with him. (How else could I repay him? All I owned in any supply were my jars of cold cream!) As if he read my mind he sank down on the seat beside me and looked at me strangely.
“ You think about things like this?” he asked.
He took me in his arms, right there in the grape arbor. “You sure do have a lot of heavy, sexy hair,” he said, placing me gently on the ground. After that, a miracle happened. Under Mordecai’s fingers my body opened like a flower and carefully bloomed. And it was strange as well as wonderful. For I don’t think love had anything to do with this at all.
page 17
After that, Mordecai praised me for my intelligence, my sensitivity, the depth of the work he had seen—and naturally I showed him everything I had: old journals from high school, notebooks I kept hidden under tarpaulin in the barn, stories written on paper bags, on table napkins, even on shelf paper from over the sink. I am amazed—even more amazed than Mordecai—by the amount of stuff I have written. It is over twenty years’ worth, and would fill, easily, a small shed.
“You must give these to me,” Mordecai said finally, holding three notebooks he selected from the rather messy pile. “I will see if something can’t be done with them. You could be another Zora Hurston—” he smiled —“another Simone de Beauvoir!”
Of course I am flattered. “Take it! Take it!” I cry. Already I see myself as he sees me. A famous authoress, miles away from Ruel, miles away from anybody. I am dressed in dungarees, my hands are a mess. I smell of sweat. I glow with happiness.
“How could such pretty brown fingers write such ugly, deep stuff?” Mordecai asks, kissing them.
page 20
For a week we deny each other nothing. If Ruel knows (how could he not know? His sheets are never fresh), he says nothing. I realize now that he never considered Mordecai a threat. Because Mordecai seems to have nothing to offer but his skinny self and his funny talk. I gloat over this knowledge. Now Ruel will find that I am not a womb without a brain that can be bought with Japanese bathtubs and shopping sprees. The moment of
And all the while I was grieving over my last story. Outlined—which is as far as I take stories now—but dead in embryo. My hand stilled by cowardice, my heart the heart of a slave.
page 14
Of course Mordecai wanted to see the story. What did I have to lose?
“Flip over a few pages,” I said. “It is the very skeleton of a story, but one that maybe someday I will write.”
“The One-Legged Woman,” Mordecai began to read aloud, then continued silently.
The characters are poor dairy farmers. One morning the husband is too hung over to do the milking. His wife does it and when she has finished the cows are frightened by thunder and stampede, trampling her. She is also hooked severely in one leg. Her husband is asleep and does not hear her cry out. Finally she drags herself home and wakes him up. He washes her wounds and begs her to forgive him. He does not go for a doctor because he is afraid the doctor will accuse him of being lazy and a drunk, undeserving of his good wife. He wants the doctor to respect him. The wife, understanding, goes along with this.
However, gangrene sets in and the doctor comes. He lectures the husband and amputates the leg of the wife. The wife lives and tries to forgive her husband for his weakness.
While she is ill the husband tries to show he loves her, but cannot look at the missing leg. When she is well he finds he can no longer make love to her. The wife, sensing his revulsion, understands her sacrifice was for nothing. She drags herself to the barn and hangs herself.
The husband, ashamed that anyone should know he was married to a one-legged woman, buries her himself and later tells everyone that she is visiting her mother.
While Mordecai was reading the story I looked out over the fields. If he says one good thing about what I’ve written, I promised myself, I will go to bed with him. (How else could I repay him? All I owned in any supply were my jars of cold cream!) As if he read my mind he sank down on the seat beside me and looked at me strangely.
“ You think about things like this?” he asked.
He took me in his arms, right there in the grape arbor. “You sure do have a lot of heavy, sexy hair,” he said, placing me gently on the ground. After that, a miracle happened. Under Mordecai’s fingers my body opened like a flower and carefully bloomed. And it was strange as well as wonderful. For I don’t think love had anything to do with this at all.
page 17
After that, Mordecai praised me for my intelligence, my sensitivity, the depth of the work he had seen—and naturally I showed him everything I had: old journals from high school, notebooks I kept hidden under tarpaulin in the barn, stories written on paper bags, on table napkins, even on shelf paper from over the sink. I am amazed—even more amazed than Mordecai—by the amount of stuff I have written. It is over twenty years’ worth, and would fill, easily, a small shed.
“You must give these to me,” Mordecai said finally, holding three notebooks he selected from the rather messy pile. “I will see if something can’t be done with them. You could be another Zora Hurston—” he smiled —“another Simone de Beauvoir!”
Of course I am flattered. “Take it! Take it!” I cry. Already I see myself as he sees me. A famous authoress, miles away from Ruel, miles away from anybody. I am dressed in dungarees, my hands are a mess. I smell of sweat. I glow with happiness.
“How could such pretty brown fingers write such ugly, deep stuff?” Mordecai asks, kissing them.
page 20
For a week we deny each other nothing. If Ruel knows (how could he not know? His sheets are never fresh), he says nothing. I realize now that he never considered Mordecai a threat. Because Mordecai seems to have nothing to offer but his skinny self and his funny talk. I gloat over this knowledge. Now Ruel will find that I am not a womb without a brain that can be bought with Japanese bathtubs and shopping sprees. The moment of
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