The Seal Wife - Kathryn Harrison [45]
But she doesn’t open her mouth. Her father steps into the small room, the parlor that is too small for even three people. “Say ‘Hello.’ Say ‘How d’you do?’ Say ‘My name’s Miriam.’ Or ‘Mimi,’ say ‘Mimi.’ ”
She shakes her head.
“Say, ‘My name’s Mimi Getz.’ ”
Bigelow stands between them, transfixed. The girl opens her mouth, then shuts it. She stands from the sofa and steps back, but Getz moves quickly toward her. He seizes the top of her arm, and the big sleeve collapses under his fingers so that it looks as if he’s caught nothing more than a handful of fabric. “Say ‘My name’s—’ ”
“No!” Bigelow says. “Leave her. What does it matter?”
“What does it matter? Well.” Getz’s face is hard and assessing, the way it looks when he stands behind his counter, considering something offered in trade, a pelt or an egg. A snuffbox holding a few flakes of gold. “I’m not sure. But you’ll see that it does. Matter.” He shakes his daughter’s arm. “Don’t it, Mimi?”
The girl pulls away. She raises her chin so that the cords stand out in her white neck. Then the red blotches appear, her lips compress into a line.
“That’s it,” her father says, “Mmmmmm. Mmmmmy name . . .”
Bigelow watches the sinuous white neck, the jaw thrust toward the ceiling, as fine-boned as a cat’s. Getz gives the arm another jerk and frees a sound, a broken m- m- m-, nothing more, her head tossing with the effort.
“Stop it!” Bigelow says, and Getz turns on him.
“Who are you? Who are you to tell me what to do! Is this my daughter? Yes! Is this my home? It is!” He drops the crumpled sleeve and Miriam falls back onto the couch. Like a child, she covers her face with her hands.
“Fifteen years of elocution lessons. Eight years of vocal training. Dance and rhythm and—and . . .” Getz’s face is red; he swings his arms and minces his legs in parodic choreography. “Moved up here on advice of a doctor. Change of scene.”
Bigelow turns away from Getz, away from his performance. “How is it you can sing?” he asks, looking at Miriam.
“You tell me!” Getz’s arms go up over his head.
“What I mean is, why can’t . . .?” Bigelow looks back at Getz. “She could sing what she wants to say,” he says.
“You think you’re the first genius to come up with that! She can sing lyrics. She can sing nonsense. She can sing polly wolly doodle, but she can’t sing a thing but what somebody else made up.”
Getz drops his flailing arms and stands, staring at the girl, her face as white as his is red.
“So now you can get out. You’ve seen what you wanted, what you waited for. Get out and stop toying with her. She’s had enough.”
“But—” Bigelow says.
“But what?”
“It . . . it doesn’t bother me.”
“Not yet it don’t.” Getz looks at his daughter, who drops her eyes, then back at Bigelow. “But it will,” he says. “It will.”
He takes Bigelow’s elbow, escorts him down the stairs and to the front door, where he pauses, his hand on the knob. “She’s been married, you know. More than once.” He smiles, and Bigelow sees the pleasure in this revelation.
“Not consummated the first time,” Getz continues. “But the second . . . Well, that would be for you and her to”—he pauses—“talk out,” he says, enjoying the irony.
Bigelow’s mouth is open. Getz looks satisfied.
“But then you’re a man. You’ve had your affairs.” Getz doesn’t mention the Aleut woman, but he lets go of the doorknob, he leans against the jamb and looks Bigelow up and down. With his thumbnail, he traces three lines on his chin, watching Bigelow’s face to measure the effect of his gesture. “You like ’em quiet, I guess. Women that don’t talk back.” He studies Bigelow. “Can’t say as I blame you.”
When Bigelow doesn’t answer, Getz sticks his tongue out, a long, narrow, nimble tongue, whose pointed end he wags in what Bigelow struggles to interpret as anything else than the universal sign for cunnilingus.
“I—” Bigelow says. “I—she—she never . . .” He stops himself before saying the words let me.
AS IT’ S TURNED OUT, Thursday is the day he calls on Miriam. Not that it’s a formal arrangement, or even that he says to himself on a Wednesday evening that