Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories Read online

  The driver was a rawboned Midwestern type, you would think. Tall, slope-shouldered, sawdust-colored hair worn long, receding from a high forehead. White shirt, khakis. Genial, cooperative. Maybe a little edgy. Eyes lifting to the police officers’ suspicious eyes, to signal to them Hey—I’m a good citizen. Average guy. Nothing to hide.

  Conover was of an age somewhere beyond the older of the police officers which would make him in his early forties, very likely. Though his manner was youthful, even playful. And the furrowed lines in his face were not age-lines. The man had an easy authority to which, in other circumstances, the officers might have deferred. Possibly, he’d been in the U.S. armed services. (In fact, Conover had not “served” his country. Conover loathed the very institution of armed services.) The faculty parking sticker on Conover’s rear window, issued by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, would have alerted the police officers to his possible, probable identity: one of those hip university professors determined not to resemble a professor.

  “I hope it isn’t anything serious, that has happened. Whoever it is you’re looking for.” Conover paused, smiling. His words were innocently inane, like the murmured afterthought—“Officers.”

  They took away the driver’s license, and the auto registration, to run data through a computer in their vehicle. In the car, Conover and his companion whispered together like abashed children.

  “Naïve question, asking if it’s something ‘serious.’ It must be, or they wouldn’t be stopping cars.”

  “You meant seriously serious—like a terrorist attack.”

  “No terrorist attacks in the American heartland. Not worth the effort.”

  Drewe laughed. Conover was the one who made her laugh, in the most stressful situations.

  The police officers returned, at a deliberate pace neither slow nor hurried—in the car the couple tried not to betray the unease they felt, watching the uniformed men approach them from the rear. Drewe thought absurdly If they draw their guns!

  Almost it would seem to her afterward, she’d seen this.

  Behind Conover’s steel-colored Toyota a line of vehicles was forming, traffic brought to a halt. No one made an attempt to turn around at the barricade and flee.

  Without explanation the police officers handed back Conover’s driver’s license and vehicle registration and asked to examine the glove compartment, the rear of the car, the trunk. Now a little stiffly Conover said, “Of course. Officers.”

  She knew: her lover was a longtime member of the ACLU. By temperament, training, and principle he was an adversary of what he’d call the police state. He distrusted and disliked police officers. Yet, without being asked a second time, Conover stooped to push the little lever on the floor that unlocked the trunk.

  “Maybe they’re looking for drugs.”

  “Maybe somebody has kidnapped somebody.”

  “And put them in the trunk?”

  “Maybe the victim is dead. The trunk is the logical place.”

  “They’re looking so grim.”

  “Because they suspect, with us, that we’re ‘innocent’—of whatever it is that has happened, that has caused them to look grim.”

  Conover spoke lightly. Much of his speech was dialogue, meant to evoke amusement in listeners.

  She had become his most ardent listener. And so, she knew herself privileged to hear, from time to time, usually unpredictably, what the man truly thought, beyond what the man believed might be cleverly presented.

  But Conover wasn’t so relaxed as he was pretending, she knew. He had not scheduled enough time for them to make the drive to Eau Claire without feeling rushed; he’d been coolly pragmatic, planning the drive. Neither had wanted to make the appointment in Madison, or anywhere near Madison.

  Now, a police checkpoint was slowing them down. She would not mention this to Conover, of course.

  A wifely impulse, such reproach. And the intimacy of reproach.

  But she was not Conover’s wife and had not the luxury of such intimacy.

  She saw, Conover was rubbing his jaws. He’d shaved that morning hastily, there was a swath of silvery stubble on the underside of his jaw. And six minutes late picking her up at her residence so she’d been awaiting him anxiously and eagerly and had run out to him, oblivious of who might, in fact, be observing.

  “You don’t have anything incriminating in the trunk, I hope?”

  Conover tried to think. His mind had gone blank.

  “Just the spare tire. I think.”

  “No mysterious clothes, shoes? Bloodstains? Nothing to be mistaken for a—weapon?”

  “Jesus! I hope not.”

  At the rear, the state police officers were taking their time examining the trunk. Drewe had the idea that they were picking up bits of desiccated leaves, to smell them—as if the leaf-fragments were evidence of a controlled substance. She felt an impulse to laugh, this was so ridiculous.

  “Maybe they will arrest us. They will stop us.”

  “Don’t be silly, Drewe. Just don’t talk that way.”

  “‘Conspiracy to commit murder.’ That’s a crime.”

  “You’re not being funny.”

  “I’m not. In fact.”

  They sat silent. Conover was staring through the windshield, unseeing. He’d scratched at his jaw, and started a little, just-perceptible bleeding. She was perspiring inside her loose clothing.

  Now you’ve gone too far. Good!

  Her demon-self chided her, teased and tormented her through much of her waking day. And in the night, the demon concocted her dreams in a swirl of fever-anxiety and nausea.

  Drewe’s demon-self was nothing new. He—it—had sprung into a powerful and malevolent independent life by the time she’d been eleven years old when it was beginning to be said of her half in admiration and half in disapproval That girl is too smart for her own damned good.

  Her parents were religious Protestants. Not extreme, but definitely believers. Her father was a superintendent of public works in Glens Falls, New York. Her mother had been a kindergarten teacher for twenty years. They were not unintelligent people yet their reiterated criticism of their only daughter who’d gone to college and then to a distinguished Midwestern university on full-tuition scholarships was something on the order of Pride goeth before a fall.

  She was feeling nausea, now. The chilling-sweating-clawing grasp of nausea.

  In recent weeks these purely physical spasms came upon her, in rebuke of her public poise and self-control.

  Conover had been drawn to her, he’d said. Her cool demeanor, the elegance of her public manner. That she was a sexually attractive young woman as well, in the most conventional of ways, was not a disadvantage.

  But now she was gagging. She took a deep breath, and held it. To give in, to vomit at the side of the highway, the Wisconsin police officers looking on in surprise and disgust—she could not bear such a humiliation.

  Conover nudged her. Was she all right?

  Mutely she nodded Yes.

  It had been suggested that Drewe eat a light meal two or three hours before the procedure. But this wasn’t practical for they were on the road early. And an early breakfast would have truly turned her stomach. And she’d had virtually nothing to eat the previous night, so maybe it was only hunger. Voracious and insatiable hunger, that felt like nausea. And a dull headache, and the sweating-inside-the-clothes which were deliberately plain, ordinary clothes—none of her eye-catching consignment-shop costumes—a pale blue long-sleeved shirt which was said to be mosquito-proof, that Conover had bought her for one of their hiking trips; dark blue corduroy pants with deep pockets. On her feet, sandals. For there would be no hiking today.

  On the third finger of her left hand was a silver star-shaped ring, which Conover had brought back for her from an academic conference in Delhi. He had not (probably) meant for Drewe to wear the ring on the third finger of her left hand, she supposed. But Conover was too gentlemanly to object.

  It was helpful, yet a
kind of petulant rebuke, the way the police officers shut the Toyota trunk, with a thud. Disappointed that they’d found nothing—no evidence of criminal activity.

  “OK, mister.”

  The younger of the two police officers waved Conover on. Both were stony-faced. Conover waved at them in return as he moved his vehicle forward, a kind of salute, playful, not at all mocking, in its way sincere—“Thank you, officers. I hope you find whatever—whoever—you’re looking for.”

  There would seem to have been nothing funny in this remark yet they laughed together, in the vast relief of co-conspirators who have not been caught.

  IT WAS SEVEN WEEKS, two days now.

  She’d counted, assiduously. Like a fanatic nun saying her rosary she’d counted, counted again, and again counted the days since your last period.

  There was something so vulgar about this! She resented her situation, the banality of her biological destiny.

  She had not told Conover. Not immediately.

  To keep such a secret from your lover is to feel a thrill of unspeakable power. For always there is the possibility He doesn’t have to know. He can be spared.

  Or—His life can be altered, irrevocably. This is in my power.

  She wasn’t a careless person. But she was sometimes reckless, defiant.

  What is the worst you can do to yourself or another. This, you will one day do.

  Her demon-self predicted. And so it would be.

  The very fact of conception, pregnancy was astonishing to Drewe. For all her reputed brilliance she hadn’t quite understood that such biological facts pertained to the unique individual who was Drewe.

  When she told Conover, his expression could only have been described as melting.

  He did not say My God how has this happened, we were so careful.

  He did not say This can’t be an accident, Drewe. You are not the sort of woman to have accidents.

  He said Oh honey. How long have you known?

  Meaning, How long have you been alone, knowing?

  She’d made two appointments with a gynecologist in Madison. She’d had an array of tests, blood work, Pap smear, mammogram. She’d been very quiet during the initial examination. The gynecologist had said several times Excuse me? Are you all right? She’d alarmed the young Asian woman by staggering light-headed when she slipped down from the examination table in her paper gown but quickly she’d laughed and assured the doctor that she was fine.

  Just a little surprised. And I guess—scared.

  But laughing. Wiping at her eyes, and laughing.

  The procedure at the Eau Claire clinic was scheduled for 11:30 A.M. Arrival no later than 11:00 A.M.

  It would be a surgical procedure and not a medical procedure, now the pregnancy was seven weeks. The medical procedure had appealed to Drewe initially, for it involved merely pill-taking, but her gynecologist had dissuaded her. Too much can go wrong. You don’t know how long you will be bleeding, and where you might be. The more protracted the discharge, the more opportunity for an acute psychological reaction. Drewe had felt sick, a sudden indraft of terror, at these matter-of-fact words.

  She was not a minor. She was twenty-six.

  Except now feeling much younger. Helpless.

  Your decision, Conover had said. Of course.

  No. Not my decision alone. Our decision.

  It’s your body. It’s your life. You will decide.

  Gently, yet with a chilling sort of equanimity, Conover spoke these words. And so she knew: Conover was the one to decide.

  She did not “want” children—this was a statement she’d often made, to herself and others. As she did not “want” to be married.

  So she’d made the arrangements. She’d chosen WomanSpace in Eau Claire, out of several possibilities. Driving three and a half hours to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, would be a strain on them both, a kind of punishment for Conover as well as her, yet worse the strain of returning after the procedure.

  She could not imagine. The return home.

  What intimacy between them, then! It was the terrible intimacy she most craved, with the man. Not with any man had she had a true, vital intimacy, that had entered her deeply, into the most profound and secret depths of her soul. In fact she had not known many men, in her young life. Conover, who’d impregnated her, against their calculated plans and their wishes, would be that man.

  And so, it was arranged. They had only to execute their plans.

  Probable arrival back in Madison in the early evening.

  Stay with me tonight, OK?

  If you want me.

  Don’t be ridiculous! I always want you.

  She wanted to believe this. She smiled, so badly wanting to believe.

  Though the great land-grant university at Madison was very large—(45,600 enrolled students, a campus of over 900 acres)—yet the Madison community was somehow small. You saw the same people often. You recognized faces, knew names, even of people whom you didn’t personally know.

  Both Conover and Drewe would have been mortified to have been seen together and recognized at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Madison, that was so prominent in the university community.

  To the Eau Claire WomanSpace clinic she was bringing a hardcover volume of Milton: Paradise Lost. There was desperation in clinging to this hefty volume, which she’d first read as an undergraduate of nineteen. She’d been ravished by the austere sublime poetry of Milton, that was a reprimand to the doggerel of her demon-self.

  Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit / Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world, and all our woe . . .

  Milton’s Lucifer beguiled her. Also, Milton’s Eve.

  Such beauty in the poet’s grave sonorous blank verse yet behind it was an implacable and unyielding façade of something inhuman. Justifying the ways of God to man.

  Conover asked what the book was?—and Drewe told him.

  Conover said he’d read only just a little of Milton, as an undergraduate. “Read me something now, darling. Convince me that poetry matters.”

  Drewe thumbed through the familiar, much-annotated pages. In her most level voice she read to Conover the passage in which Lucifer, the fallen archangel, says Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. (To which Conover grunted in approval.) She read the longer, surpassingly beautiful passage in which Eve sees her own reflection for the first time in a pond, in Eden:

  I thither went

  With unexperienced thought, and laid me down

  On the green bank, to look into the clear

  Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.

  As I bent down to look, just opposite

  A shape within the watery gleam appeared

  Bending to look on me: I started back,

  It started back, but pleased I soon returned,

  Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks

  Of sympathy and love; there I had fixed

  Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire.

  When she’d finished, Conover remained silent for a while, then said, as if there might be an answer to his question, “This myth of ‘paradise’—it’s always lost. Ever wonder why?”

  They were approaching Eau Claire: thirty-six miles to go.

  But it was 10:20 A.M., they would not be late.

  “OH GOD. Look.”

  As they approached the WomanSpace Clinic on Hector Street they saw them: the demonstrators.

  Pro-Life picketers. Milling together on the sidewalk in front of the clinic, and in the street. Some were carrying picket signs. Drewe’s contact at the clinic had cautioned her There might be demonstrators on the morning you’re scheduled. Try to ignore them. Walk quickly. Don’t engage them. They are forbidden by law to touch or impede you in any way.

  Stunned and dismayed Drewe stepped out of the car. Quickly Conover came around to her, as the demonstrators sighted her, and hurried in her direction as if recognizing her.

  Like piranha, they seemed to Drewe.
Horrible, in their rush at her.

  There might have been thirty of them—there might have been more. Drewe had a confused impression of surprisingly young faces, young men as well as women, even teenagers. At once she felt sick with guilt, these shining faces were massed against her.

  Unlike her friends and acquaintances in Madison, these strangers in Eau Claire knew her secret.

  Immediately they knew, and they did not sympathize. They would not forgive.

  “God-damn! This is unfortunate.”

  Conover took hold of Drewe’s arm, urging her forward.

  The demonstrators’ voices lifted, pleading. Yet sharp. Excited, aroused. They were happy to see her.

  As she was surprised to see teenagers, so Drewe was surprised to see so many men. Easily, there were as many men as women among the Pro-Life demonstrators. And they were of all ages—young, middle-aged, elderly. Though she’d been instructed not to look at them yet Drewe could not stop herself; she could not stop herself from making eye contact with some of them; they were on all sides of her, blocking her way as they’d been forbidden to do, forcing Conover to shove against them, cursing them; there came a Catholic priest of about Conover’s age, with something of Conover’s furrowed forehead and earnest genial coercive manner, dressed in black, with a tight white collar; like a raven the man seemed to Drewe, a predatory pecking bird intent upon her.

  Hello! God loves you!

  Listen to us! Look at us! Give us five minutes of your time—before it’s too late!

  Your baby wants to live—like you.

  Your baby prays to YOU—LET ME LIVE! You have that choice.

  Look here! Look at us! Your baby is pleading . . .

  There came a WomanSpace escort, a lanky young man in dark lavender sweatshirt and jeans, to take hold of Drewe’s other arm. Just come with me please, just come forward, don’t hang back, you will be fine. Just to the front door, they can’t follow us inside.

  Yet the demonstrators clustered boldly about them, defiant, terrifying in their fanatic certainty.

  Look here, girl! You had better know, it’s murder you will be committing.