Three short rings of the bell, then a breezy, high-pitched “Babe!”
Shirley Gordon. Babe sighed and went to open the door.
“Hi! Shirley!” she recited politely.
Her neighbor was trussed up in a pink lace robe. Where did she find stuff like that? Babe wondered. She hadn’t had time to get dressed, yet she was already made up like a resprayed stolen car. She was clutching a yellow flyer in her chubby little hand.
“I got one for you! Must dash!” she prattled.
Babe grabbed the flyer. It was an appeal by the Church to the generosity of the faithful. In exchange, the ad promised, in large red letters, GOD WILL BE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
“Hey, Babe!” Shirley shrieked ridiculously, spinning round in the sun, which threw a glittering halo around her.
Dazzled, Babe screwed up her eyes and stood still to show she was paying attention.
“Do you know what a blonde does when the baby’s bathwater’s too warm?”
Babe gave a wave of her hand, as if to chase away a fly, and turned on her heels. She hadn’t managed to close the door behind her when the punch line came:
“She wears gloves!”
The events of the previous night took some time to beat a path into her memory.
Enough time for me to reappropriate I.
I returns with my memory, then leaves me, I can’t hold on to it, I’m too afraid.
Mom told me that the dead go to heaven, so I used to believe that Papa could see me when I was undressing or washing. Mom would come into the bathroom and turn on the light, and ask me in a suspicious tone: “What are you doing in the dark?” I didn’t dare tell her it was because of Papa. I wouldn’t have told her for anything. I sensed that would have made her really angry with me. She looked at my body, my breasts, my girlish belly. I made you, so I’m allowed to look at you. As if it all belonged to her. Disgusting! It made me want to be sick. To kill her.
But I couldn’t say anything, show anything, think anything. Otherwise, it would be worse than death. A block of shame fell upon the room, the walls cracked under the strain, the house creaked and tottered, my body was full of cold coal, from my feet to my eyes, there was a taste of ash at the back of my throat, I had to empty myself out and burn it all in order to feel cleansed.
There are lots of places in town where a woman can touch up her hair and makeup, straighten her skirt, check out her figure, the bags under her eyes—in short, the current status of her mobile femininity. The eyes of men and other women, shop windows, mirrors in bathrooms and changing rooms, rearview mirrors, compacts … All these are benevolent and hostile judges of this human being who is forever condemned to see herself as an image. God, protect her, her soul is troubled and her narcissism is contagious, as even men are catching it now! It is as if the whole world were a labyrinth of mirrors, designed to drive you crazy!
Oh, Babe had learned when she was a child not to admire herself. It was evil, it gave the wrong idea. Many of her friends strove without success to make themselves look like models in the fashion magazines. They simply ended up looking like whores. It was ridiculous.
That is not to say she neglected her appearance. She dyed her hair, because the blonde made her look softer. She wore silky clothes in pastel colors, tokens of her innocence. Although she liked her food, she watched her weight, because bulges were vulgar. She did check her reflection everywhere, but not to look. She merely glanced, and that was enough to ensure that her blouse was correctly buttoned up at the bottom and unbuttoned at the top, that her pants didn’t make her behind look too big and that her long hair was all in place.
But today, when she glanced in the hall mirror, she was captured by the reflection. Her image looked at her from the mirror: Babe Smith, wife of Wesson. Her image stared at her with dark eyes, as if reproaching her for something.
Once again, her own image was looking at her …
But when had she experienced this before?
Something began to work its way into her mind, a nocturnal Thing; it was perceptible, close, she couldn’t yet name it or recognize it, but like a mole it burrowed its way inside her brain. At that moment she felt a Disruption enter her life, the first effect of which was to make her drop her plan to go out, for no other reason than the sudden urge to go down to the cellar.
She phoned the university to tell them that she had a fever and was unable to come in. She had never missed a day’s work, even when she was a waitress in a bar. The fear of negative judgment made her voice waver as she tried to justify her unwonted absence.
The frosty tone with which Kate, the secretary of the French and Italian Literature Department, replied clearly expressed disapproval, even bad temper. Babe stammered out a few more excuses and hung up. Then she stood there in the living room next to the sofa covered by a throw with a vaguely ethnic print, Native American no doubt, wondering what she would do if the telephone rang. But it didn’t, and she finally relaxed. She turned to face the window, for she needed to allow some light inside her.
She wasn’t really religious anymore, but in her childhood she went to church every Sunday like everyone else. White ankle socks, dark brown curls tied back, sermons, hymns, prayers. God saw everything and she always kept a watch on herself, for she knew that He only liked good girls, and how could you expect Papa and Mom to love you if He was not satisfied with you?
So she tried to douse the twinkle in her eye, to develop a look of disdain when the boys approached her, to not let her thoughts drift when she was made to say her prayers before going to bed … And she had retained this built-in apprehension of the Almighty who observes us, judges us and scares us with the promise of Hell.
And as she descended the stairs, Babe was filled with a new mystical feeling, as if her steps were being guided by God, as if God Himself resided in the basement of her house and was calling her down, into His Light that was like a Black Sun. God was no longer His Compassionate Cruelty but His Absolute Insensitivity, His Secular and Indifferent Revelation; God was there, and she went toward him with neither fear nor love, but with serenity and detachment, with a feeling of perfect Justification.
The events of the previous night came back to her, but with no negative feeling attached—quite the opposite. Bobby’s actions in the cellar now appeared to her in their full magnificent, tragic dimension: Bobby got up at night to sodomize Death personified, Bobby did it to protect both of them, Babe and himself, he shot down Death with his Pistol, it was a splendid sacrifice and she knew, she knew it would change their Lives. Now she knew Why she had lived until now: for That which was about to happen, from this Present Moment that would never come to an end.
And she goes down to the cellar on a glittering Barge, against the flow of the Stream, except that the countercurrent carries her forward, and when she reaches the Falls, instead of going under, she will sail up to them to be Splashed in their white Showers.