The Rescuer by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page A

published in a prestigious journal; such a publication would have an immeasurable effect upon my young career. Professor A. had virtually handed me this gift—yet now, irresponsibly, I had a fantasy of ripping it into pieces—that is, the photocopied text; but what good would that do? All that Professor A. had entrusted to me was a sixteen-page photocopy of the “sacred” text miraculously preserved from antiquity and now kept under lock and key in the University library’s hallowed special collection.
    I thought Individuals die, life endures. A copy of a text is destroyed but another takes its place—just like us.

Chapter Six
    V oices inside. Unmistakable.
    And when I turned the doorknob, the door was locked.
    “Harvey? It’s—me . . .”
    The voices continued, punctuated by laughter. A sharp staccato series of barks—Dargo?
    “. . . . it’s Lydia, will you let me inside?”
    I knocked on the door. Knocked, banged my fist. Manic dog-barking ensued. I thought I have the right, he can’t keep me out. I live here too, now.
    More soberly I thought If the door is opened, the pit bull will rush at me. No one will stop him.
    Still I waited in the hall. I pressed my ear against the door. I thought I heard Harvey’s voice—muffled, indistinct. I was sure that I heard Leander’s voice, and another male voice.
    Possibly, a female voice. Maralena?
    I was holding bags of groceries in both my arms, which I’d purchased not at Pinneo’s Market but several miles north in a Trenton suburb, at a ShopRite. In this store there was “fresh” produce, better quality food overall, and, unexpectedly, the price of my purchases was slightly less than it would have been at the corner market on Camden Avenue.
    I knocked another time. The dog’s barking was hysterical now. They must have known who was at the door, who was desperate to be admitted, but no one opened the door, no one spoke to me.
    I retreated to my car. Locked the groceries in the trunk and walked over to the little library to wait there, abashed and humbled, until closing time.
    He has betrayed me, my brother. It is strangers he loves.
    * * *
    Another time when I was in my study working on the Eweian translation Harvey came to the doorway to inform me that he was shutting my door and that under no circumstances was I to open it—“Someone is coming here. If he sees you he’ll be suspicious. If he’s suspicious there could be trouble. There could be danger. Not only to me but to you.”
    “Danger? What—”
    “No time to quibble. Just don’t open this door.”
    “But—who is coming? What’s happening?”
    “God damn, Lydia, I’ve warned you— just don’t open this door.”
    Harvey’s eyes looked as if they were shadowed in grime. His smile had become gat-toothed. Overnight, in some bizarre episode of which I knew nothing, he seemed to have lost one of his lower front teeth. Like a deranged Hallowe’en pumpkin my brother grinned, or grimaced; his facial features were so agitated and twitchy, I couldn’t distinguish a grin from a grimace.
    “Stay inside. It will be fine. He’ll arrive, and he’ll depart. It will go well. Just don’t open the door and show your face .”
    Harvey shut the door. I heard him dragging something, a heavy piece of furniture, to buttress against it, to prevent my opening it.
    Immediately I went to the door, and tried the knob. I could not budge the door open, I was trapped.
    Soon there came a sound of someone arriving at the apartment: a man’s voice. Not a voice I recognized. And a second voice, also a man’s, and unrecognizable.
    Harvey’s voice was a murmur, indecipherable.
    Whatever the transaction was, it did not take more than fifteen minutes. By which time in my desperation I had worked out a plan If they kill Harvey, I will not be trapped here. I can scream out the window. I can climb out the window onto the roof. I will not die here. Not with Harvey.
    * * *
    Seven weeks, living with Harvey. As our parents