"Oates, Joyce Carol - We Were the Mulvaneys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oates Joyce Carol)

They said, Tell us!-so that justice can be executed.

She said, I was drinking. I was to blame. I don't remember. How can I give testimony against him!

How many times Marianne Mulvaney was to repeat these words. To her parents, to anyone who questioned her. Including two Mt. Ephraimn police officers when, the morning following Michael Mulvam-iey's "disruptive and disorderly behavior" at the Lundts' house, they came to High Point Farm to question her in her parents' presence.

I was drinking. It's so hard to remember. I can't swear. I can't be certain. I can't bear false witness.

Her many hours in solitude, in St. Ann's Church, had given her a strange stubborn placidity new to Marianne Mulvaney. She'd been reading the Gospels, she'd been praying. Opening her heart to Jesus as she'd never done before-oh, never! He had instructed her in the way of contemplation; of resisting the impulse to rage, to accuse. And, in truth, drunk as she'd been, sick, staggering, confused and frightened as she'd been, she could not clearly remember what had happened between her and Zachary Lundt.

So Marianne told the Mt. Ephrairn police officers, her parents looking on, subdued, silent.

(Michael Mulvaney had been arrested, the previous night. Charges of assault were "pending.")

Yet: what could be proven against Zachary Lundt, with no witness except Marianne?-her words against his? Zachary's friends would rally around him-she knew. She was not bitter but she knew. It was clear to her, logical as a chess game in which you see your opponent's devastating moves to come but are helpless to prevent them. (Patrick had once tried to teach Marianne to play chess, but soon gave up on her-she was too nice, too unaggressive, no comnpetition for wily Pinch.) Quietly, calmly repeating I was drinking-there's so much I can't aaount for, can't remember. How can I bring criminal charges against him. I am as much to blame as. Can't bear false witness.

As if this litany were the most basic, the most irreducible of knowable facts. As if it were all that might be granted her by way of understanding. As if, wakened from a cruel enchantment, she'd discovered in her hands a wide, ragged, rotted net, a net with enormous tears and holes, yet her sole solace, her sole hope, was to cast this rotted net out again, again, again and draw it in breathless and trembling to discover what truths it might Contain. But they were always the same truths. I was drinking. I was to blame. I don't remember. How can I give testimony against him!

Given to understand, too, that if she declined to bring charges of sexual assault against Zachary Lundt, Zachary Lundt and his father Morton would not bring charges of assault against her father.

So it was, and had to be. She'd peered deeply into her soul.

Her soul she'd never truly examined until now. Her soul she'd scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed as, in the hot, hurting water at the LaPortes', she'd scrubbed her offended flesh. And if there was pain in such abrasion, there was satisfaction, too. Even a muted joy. Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Jesus' voice had never been so vivid to her, so specially directed to her. Obsewe all things whatsoever I have commanded thee; and lo, lam with thee always, even unto the end of the world.

She didn't return to school until the first Monday in March. By that time she'd thought, thought long and hard, much of the time in solitude in her room, and healed herself. Of course, she kept up with her school assignments-she was diligent, even obsessive about that. (It was Corinne who called Marianne's teachers, virtually every day.) She did most of her household chores, eager to follow Mom's

* * * WORK SCHEDULE * * * which was the very essence of family life at 1-ligh Point Farm. Schoolwork, chores-as if nothing was wrong. For, after all, now she was recovered, even the nastiest of the bruises fading, nothing was wrong.

Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefufly use you.

The Lundts did not file charges against Michael Mulvaney Sr. Marianne Mulvaney did not file charges against Zachary Lundt. These facts were distant, impersonal as radio voices fading in and out of coherence. The Kingdom of God is within, Her bare knees on the floorboards of her room, her hands grasped tight, tight together and her eyes shut streaking tears.Jesus!Jesus!Jesus!

It was a secret thing from the first. After what he'd done to her, in- side her, deep and up inside her, using his fingers snatching, digging, clawing You bitch! cunt! don't tell me you don't want it, cunt! pushing her down into the seat of the Corvette, the new-smelling leather up-. hoistery, the cold f-ibric, and his furious pale face leaning close, shoving her legs apart, her thighs, the dress ripping, and she too weak too terrified to resist, even to utter No!-and after, brought to the LaPortes', slipping in quietly in stealth and shame and guilt and in the sparklinghot water scrubbing herself sobbing and murmuring to herself and even laughing, giggling-biting her lip to keep from making too much noise, waking Trisha and her parents. A secret, and a revelation.

Blessed be they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

She could not speak of the -oy that arose from such hurt, stirring her to excited wakefulness in the night, so she climbed from bed, knelt on the bare, hard floorboards, flung herself against the edge of the bed and prayed, prayed. A cold-glaring frill moon suspended in the sky like the unblinking eye of God. And the wind, the wind that never ceased at High Point Farm, above the Valley--twining into the very ventricles of her heart.

Jesus! I thank You, I am alive. I thank You for this - this breath.

For Zachary might have strangled her, after all. He might have dragged her limp body out of the car, pounded her head against the icy pavement, hadn't that been a possibility? an unspoken (unless it was a spoken) threat?

She harbored such secrets, such revelations. Dared not speak of them to her father (so upset, distraught, he was making himself sick) but spoke elliptically of them to her mother (who hurried to Man anne as if summoned, so powerful was the connection between them, and the two knelt and prayed together, weeping, sometimes laughing, clutching hands like young sisters, the simplest of prayers Our Father --io art in Heaven hallowed be -my nanje until their cheeks were streaked with tears, the color returned to their faces). For there was comfort to be taken in such hurt-Jesus knew, on the cross. Public shame and humiliation. Knowing of course how everyone must be speaking of her, pitying her-at the high school, and in town. Through the Chautauqua Valley- Zachary Lundt would have told his buddies, of course, would have boasted-yet even if he had not, news of it, of Marianne Mulvaney and her father's intervention, the arrest, the police, would have spread, irrevocable.

You Mulvaneys. Think you're hot shit don't you.

Few of Marianne's friends had called to ask after her. Though she'd been absent fromn school for days. No boy had called. Trisha who was her closest friend, since fifth grade, hadn't called. Well, yes-Trisha had called, on Tuesday of the second week Marianne had stayed out of school, and Corinne had answered the phone, but when Marianne called back, hours later, Tnisha wasn't in. And Mrs. LaPorte spoke so stifily to her, so-oddly. As if she scarcely knew who Marianne was. Marianne said quietly, "Please tell Trisha I'm sorry she's involved in any way, in this." After a startled pause Mrs. LaPorte said, "Involved? My daughter- My daughter isn't involved in anything. I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."

So she prayed, and by degrees healed herself. The bruises and abrasions were gone, or almost gone. A second visit to Dr. OaUey and there remained only coin-sized discolorations on the insides of her thighs. Where Zachary had torn at her with his furious fingers, where he'd poked. pushed his b1ood-engorged penis-again, again, again, again-was healed. At any rate, the bleeding had stopped. She would not know for another several weeks if her regular menstrual pattern would resume but she wasn't thinking of that now.