Evil Eye by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page B

girl—there is no place for her even in music.
    But when Mariana tried to reestablish a sympathetic rapport with Hortensa, Hortensa coolly ignored her.
    As if to say Who are you? Somebody’s wife? Nobody gives a damn about you.
    Numbly Mariana rose from the table. She would clear the dishes away—she would bring in the dessert, an elegant crème brûlée prepared by a famous Berkeley caterer.
    Austin sat at his place unmoving, as if Mariana were his servant.
    In the kitchen, Ana took the dishes from Mariana quickly, to rinse at the sink. She would have come into the dining room with Mariana to help clear the table but Mariana told her no, please—“Austin prefers that you stay here.”
    How sad she felt, how anxious, even before their guests’ arrival her husband had seemed oblivious of her; not that he was angry at her in the way she so dreaded, but rather that he seemed to have forgotten her. Yes—my wife. My new, young wife. Which one is she . . .
    Mariana didn’t want to think that their marriage was so fragile, a husk of a marriage—entered into far too swiftly on both sides, as in a romantic Latin film. She didn’t want to think that she was with this much older man only because the man loved her: claimed to adore her.
    She was empty, scoured-out inside. Her life had collapsed with her parents’ deaths, she had never fully recovered. She had no love in her for this husband, nor the hope of love.
    She returned to the dining room. Candlelight fluttered against the three uplifted faces—of which one, missing an eye, was turned to her, with a sly smile of recognition.
    As Mariana passed by Ines’s chair the white-haired little woman seized her hand to tug her roughly down and whisper in her ear: “You are safe, Mariana! He will never know your secret.”
    Mariana had sought, in her husband’s filing cabinets and drawers, photographs of the predecessor-wives. But either Austin had not kept careful records of his domestic past or, deliberately, he’d bowdlerized these records after his divorces.
    Yet in the oldest album Mariana had found what must have been a photograph of Ines Zambranco, crumpled and torn: a beautiful pale-blond young woman in oversized dark glasses, laughing as she exhaled a plume of smoke. She was wearing what appeared to be a silk shawl draped about her slender shoulders, fallen open to reveal the tops of her creamy-smooth breasts. Whoever had taken the picture—very likely Austin himself—had clearly adored this woman, leaning close to her, swaying above her.
    On the back was scribbled in pencil Amalfi—Oct. 1982.
    The year before the death.
    Deaths.
    * * *
    â€œDear Mariana! It has been a deep pleasure to meet you .”
    There was a subtle, sly emphasis upon you. So that Mariana was given to know, as Ines smiled coquettishly at her, that Ines had much more enjoyed being in Mariana’s presence than in Austin’s.
    Was this sincere? Was anything about the one-eyed little woman sincere? Mariana had never met anyone for whom she felt such a visceral repugnance and dread; yet, perversely, a fascination. She could imagine Ines Zambranco’s ruined face painted by a great artist—Picasso for instance. The demonic strangeness beneath the faux -female smile would exert an irresistible appeal.
    â€œThough it has seemed—tonight—that we have met you ­before—both Hortensa and I agree—in this household. You—or someone very like you. In years past.”
    Ines spoke lightly yet urgently. She was heedless of Mariana’s look of offended surprise at her remark.
    â€œWe sense that you have had a great loss in your life—and that Austin has taken you up, as one of his ‘projects.’ He is not comfortable with strong women—only women missing a part of their souls. Once I was the man’s wife also, before I understood this. As others have been—to their