Lady Oracle Read Free Page B

crowds, death on the sands, wild animals growling, snarling, screams, and martyrs weeping in the wings, getting ready to be sacrificed; above all, emotion, fear, anger, laughter and tears, a performance on which the crowd feeds. This, I suspected, was his view of my inner life, though he never quite said so. And where was he in the midst of all the uproar? Sitting in the front row center, not moving, barely smiling, it took a lot to satisfy him; and, from time to time, making a slight gesture that would preserve or destroy: thumbs up or thumbs down. You’ll have to run your own show now, I thought, have your own emotions. I’m through acting it out, the blood got too real.
    By now I was furious with him and there was nothing to throw except the plates, which were Mr. Vitroni’s, and no one to throw themat except Mr. Vitroni himself, now plodding doubtlessly up the hill, puffing a little because of his short legs and pillowy belly. What would he think if I came raging up behind him, hurling plates? He’d call a policeman, they’d arrest me, they’d search the flat, they’d find a paper bag full of red hair, my suitcase.…
    I was quickly practical again. The suitcase was under a big fake-baroque chest of drawers with peeling veneer and an inlaid seashell design. I pulled it out and opened it; inside were my wet clothes, in a green plastic Glad Bag. They smelled of my death, of Lake Ontario, spilled oil, dead gulls, tiny silver fish cast up on the beach and rotting. Jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt, my funerary costume, my former self, damp and collapsed, from which the many-colored souls had flown. I could never wear such clothes in Terremoto, even if they weren’t evidence. I thought of putting them in the garbage, but I knew from before that the children went through the garbage cans, especially those of foreigners. There had been no place to discard them on the well-traveled road to Terremoto. I should have thrown them away at the Toronto airport or the one in Rome; however, clothes discarded in airports were suspicious.
    Though it was dusk, there was still enough light to see by. I decided to bury them. I scrunched the Glad Bag up and shoved it under my arm. The clothes were my own, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I still felt as though I was getting rid of a body, the corpse of someone I’d killed. I scrambled down the path beside the house, my leather-soled sandals skidding on the stones, till I was among the artichokes at the bottom. The ground was like flint and I had no shovel; there was no hope of digging a hole. Also the old man would notice if I disturbed his garden.
    I examined the foundation of the house. Luckily it was shoddily built and the cement was cracking in several places. I found a loose chunk and pried it out, using a flat rock. Behind the cement there was plain dirt: the house was built right into the hillside. I scrapedout a cavity, wadded the Glad Bag up as small as I could, and shoved it in, wedging the piece of cement back on top of it. Perhaps, hundreds of years from now, someone would dig up my jeans and T-shirt and deduce a forgotten rite, a child murder or a protective burial. The idea pleased me. I scuffed the fallen earth around with my foot so it wouldn’t be noticeable.
    I climbed back up to the balcony, feeling relieved. Once I’d dyed my hair, all the obvious evidence would be taken care of and I could start being another person, a different person entirely.
    I went into the kitchen and finished burning the hair. Then I got out the bottle of Cinzano which I’d hidden in the cupboard, behind the plates. I didn’t want it known here that I was a secret drinker, and I wasn’t, really, there just wasn’t any place where I could do it in public. Here, women were not supposed to drink alone in bars. I poured myself a small glassful and toasted myself. “To life,” I said. After that it began to bother me that I’d spoken out loud. I didn’t want to begin talking to