The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns Read Free Book Online

surrounded by empty space. Often his red Citroën could be seen driving through the snow to his house, then back to campus, then around town on various errands: to Wegmans supermarket, the Trustworthy Hardware. It would have been better if he had driven a more conventional car because his little Citroën was like salt in civic wounds. And indeed, five days after the interview appeared in the
Independent,
Chihani emerged from Wegmans one afternoon to find his windshield smashed and a large stone sitting in the front seat. He put his shopping bags in the trunk, returned to the store, and telephoned the police. Chuck Hawley, a cousin of mine, responded to the call. There was no sign of the culprit and it was clear that Chihani had called the police only for insurance purposes.
    â€œHe wasn’t even angry,” said Chuck. “Snow was blowing into the car but this guy didn’t even notice. He made his statement, signed the form, and that was it. I asked if he’d seen anyone or if he had enemies. I’d read the interview, of course. He said there was no reason for him to have any enemies. Then he got into his car and drove off with the snow blowing in his face. He must have been freezing.”
    The day after Chihani’s windshield was smashed, Franklin stopped by my house in the evening with Sadie, and I gave them each a cup of tea. On a bookshelf in the parlor I keep the books my mother read as a young girl, and Sadie settled down to read
Understood Betsy.
She sat with her feet tucked under her in the old wing chair. Her brown hair fell forward to frame her face. She was the image of her father, long and bony. I also set out a plate of sugar cookies. Sadie would take one and break off small pieces to put in her mouth. Other than saying hello, thank you, and good night, I don’t believe she spoke.
    Franklin was restless and didn’t care to sit. Though he felt guilty about having run the interview, his very guilt angered him, as if feeling guilty indicated that he wasn’t as good a newspaperman as he should be.
    â€œI neither changed what he said nor exaggerated,” he explained. “If anything, I played down what he told me. I didn’t want to make him seem like a fanatic.”
    Franklin wore an old sheepskin coat that reached his knees. Around his neck was one of those British university scarves, blue with two red stripes. He held an Irish fisherman’s hat in his hand and kept hitting it against his leg, knocking off drops of water. Franklin must have been hot but he gave no sign of it. He wore boots with Vibram soles and as he paced back and forth he deposited little wedge-shaped chunks of snow on my grandmother Francine’s Turkish carpet. I’m sure he wanted a cigarette, though I don’t let anyone smoke in my house. Now and then Sadie would smile at him fondly and go back to her book.
    â€œAll kinds of people live in a town,” Franklin said. “If everyone acts the same, what’s the point in that? Just the fact this sort of debate exists shows the town isn’t sleepy.”
    But it seemed there wasn’t any debate, just anger and resentment. Most of the resentment was aimed at Chihani, but people also knew who had been the medium for Chihani’s views. If Franklin hadn’t conducted the interview, no one would have been any the wiser about this Marxist in our midst.
    Franklin flung his scarf on the couch. It seemed a considered gesture, not quite studied, not quite spontaneous—the gesture of a man who isn’t sure who he is and so assumes a borrowed gesture, one that he thinks correct for the occasion.
    â€œMy job as a journalist is to make people think. I can write nice stuff they won’t pay attention to, but that means I won’t be doing my job.”
    I asked what he was going to do about the smashed windshield.
    â€œI’m going to write an editorial about it.”
    And that’s what Franklin did. When the