Sherbrookes: Possession / Sherbrookes / Stillness (American Literature Series) by Nicholas Delbanco
Authors: Nicholas Delbanco
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anyway . . .”
“I’ve got my bike.”
“I got a truck. We’ll haul it.”
“I couldn’t,” Maggie said. “Thanks anyway. And for the water.”
“Put that glass down.”
He stepped around her and down off the porch and picked her bike up and slung it in the truck bed and tied it to the crossbar, then laid it on burlap so it wouldn’t scratch. “Get in,” he said. “We’re going,” and climbed into the cab.
She had obeyed him, of course. She edged the door shut, and he told her to slam it. She did. Yet there was something peremptory in her submission, a kind of acquiescence that made the favor conferred seem not his favor but hers. She accepted compliments as he’d seen some men take insults—as though it was the rightful portion, properly bestowed. Praise was her rightful portion, even then. Later she would enter rooms as though she knew he’d rise, expectant, and would walk to the room’s door knowing some man would sweep it open. Beauty was conferred on her, he understood, and was its own authority (though at thirteen the conferral had been tentative, mawkish, a first rehearsing only of the spectacle to come—and she sat there stork-legged, voluble, pitching her voice high against the engine din.) He asked her name; she announced it. “Margaret Cutler.”
“Where you from?”
“From New York City. Manhattan Island.”
“Where in New York City?”
“Eighty-Third Street,” Maggie said. “In the just about exact middle of town. Between Park Avenue and Madison. Do you know where that is?”
“Close enough,” he said.
“Well, I think it’s the very nicest part of New York City. Because there’s a museum there and I’ve a real bike, not like that one”—she tossed her head—“and I ride it to school if I’m late, or Mary doesn’t feel like walking, or for any reason mostly, as long as I wait for the lights.”
“And don’t get lost?”
“You can’t, really. Not in Manhattan. You’d know that if you knew it well. There’s Central Park. There’s the East River to the east and the Hudson to the west, and the even-numbered streets run east . . .”
He cut across Route 7 and took the old East Road. She chattered while he watched her, idly, and he’d forgotten now (if indeed he had ever remembered, had then seen fit to remember or had listened even to her singsong litany of how to get to where you’re going, and her game of naming trees) what else she had told him or asked. She asked though, he remembered, to be let off two miles from her house.
“My mother would be angry,” she explained. “At me making you come all the way. I can make it back from here, really. Really and truly. I take the first left turning, and then it’s just down that hill. Please.”
He stopped the truck. The clutch was giving out; they settled, lurching. She smiled at him (the images coincident again, girl become woman, though practicing, and with her bite plate still) and pedaled off. He was not sorry. He started up and turned at the fork and made for Nickerson’s. She’d known enough, he knew, not to bring some stranger back and maybe knew enough to work the sweat and dust up on her on her trip’s last leg—arriving breathy, cheerful, just in time for supper and not admitting how she’d lost her way or found it, giving a fair imitation of hunger and hungry enough anyhow to do justice to the soup.
(He taxed her with that later. “Why me?” he’d ask. “Why me?”
“You’re fishing for compliments, darling.”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “What made you pick me then?”
“When?”
“The first time. Later. Whenever.”
She smiled at him, showing her teeth. She had had a toothache in her right incisor, he knew, and touched it with her tongue.
“Why not? No reason not to. It was such a lovely house.”)
Now Judah knows, with bitterness, her talent for deceit. He wonders if he’d been a part of her sin-schooling then, and source to some white half-lie or omitted truth.
“I’ve got my bike.”
“I got a truck. We’ll haul it.”
“I couldn’t,” Maggie said. “Thanks anyway. And for the water.”
“Put that glass down.”
He stepped around her and down off the porch and picked her bike up and slung it in the truck bed and tied it to the crossbar, then laid it on burlap so it wouldn’t scratch. “Get in,” he said. “We’re going,” and climbed into the cab.
She had obeyed him, of course. She edged the door shut, and he told her to slam it. She did. Yet there was something peremptory in her submission, a kind of acquiescence that made the favor conferred seem not his favor but hers. She accepted compliments as he’d seen some men take insults—as though it was the rightful portion, properly bestowed. Praise was her rightful portion, even then. Later she would enter rooms as though she knew he’d rise, expectant, and would walk to the room’s door knowing some man would sweep it open. Beauty was conferred on her, he understood, and was its own authority (though at thirteen the conferral had been tentative, mawkish, a first rehearsing only of the spectacle to come—and she sat there stork-legged, voluble, pitching her voice high against the engine din.) He asked her name; she announced it. “Margaret Cutler.”
“Where you from?”
“From New York City. Manhattan Island.”
“Where in New York City?”
“Eighty-Third Street,” Maggie said. “In the just about exact middle of town. Between Park Avenue and Madison. Do you know where that is?”
“Close enough,” he said.
“Well, I think it’s the very nicest part of New York City. Because there’s a museum there and I’ve a real bike, not like that one”—she tossed her head—“and I ride it to school if I’m late, or Mary doesn’t feel like walking, or for any reason mostly, as long as I wait for the lights.”
“And don’t get lost?”
“You can’t, really. Not in Manhattan. You’d know that if you knew it well. There’s Central Park. There’s the East River to the east and the Hudson to the west, and the even-numbered streets run east . . .”
He cut across Route 7 and took the old East Road. She chattered while he watched her, idly, and he’d forgotten now (if indeed he had ever remembered, had then seen fit to remember or had listened even to her singsong litany of how to get to where you’re going, and her game of naming trees) what else she had told him or asked. She asked though, he remembered, to be let off two miles from her house.
“My mother would be angry,” she explained. “At me making you come all the way. I can make it back from here, really. Really and truly. I take the first left turning, and then it’s just down that hill. Please.”
He stopped the truck. The clutch was giving out; they settled, lurching. She smiled at him (the images coincident again, girl become woman, though practicing, and with her bite plate still) and pedaled off. He was not sorry. He started up and turned at the fork and made for Nickerson’s. She’d known enough, he knew, not to bring some stranger back and maybe knew enough to work the sweat and dust up on her on her trip’s last leg—arriving breathy, cheerful, just in time for supper and not admitting how she’d lost her way or found it, giving a fair imitation of hunger and hungry enough anyhow to do justice to the soup.
(He taxed her with that later. “Why me?” he’d ask. “Why me?”
“You’re fishing for compliments, darling.”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “What made you pick me then?”
“When?”
“The first time. Later. Whenever.”
She smiled at him, showing her teeth. She had had a toothache in her right incisor, he knew, and touched it with her tongue.
“Why not? No reason not to. It was such a lovely house.”)
Now Judah knows, with bitterness, her talent for deceit. He wonders if he’d been a part of her sin-schooling then, and source to some white half-lie or omitted truth.
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