The Sacrifice. Joyce Carol Oates

racial identities—Puerto Rican, Creole, Hispanic, Asian, African-American and “Caucasian.” There was invariably a claim of Native-American blood—a distant strain of Lenape Indians, on Iglesias’s father’s side. The Iglesias family owned property in the northeast sector of Pascayne adjacent to the old, predominantly white sector called Forest Park; they owned rental properties and several small stores as well as their own homes. It was not uncommon for a young person in Iglesias’s family to go to college—Rutgers-Newark, Rutgers–New Brunswick, Bloomfield College, Passaic State. The most talented so far had had a full-tuition scholarship from Princeton. They did not think of themselves and were not generally thought of as black.

      Iglesias did not take offense, being so summoned to St. Anne’s ER. Something in her blood was stirred, like flapping flags in some high-pitched place, by the possibility of being in a position unique to her.

      For racism is an evil except when it benefits us.

      She liked to think of being a police officer as an opportunity for service. If not doing actual good, preventing worse from happening. If being a light-skinned female Hispanic helped in that effort, Ines Iglesias could not take offense and would not take offense except at the very periphery of her swiftly-calculating brain where dwelt the darting and swooping bats of old hurts, old resentments, old violations and old insults inflicted upon her haphazardly and for the most part unconsciously by white men, black men, brown-skinned men—men.

      With excitement and apprehension Sergeant Iglesias drove to St. Anne’s Hospital. The emergency entrance was at the side of the five-story building.

      This was not a setting unfamiliar to Ines Iglesias. She had witnessed deaths in this place and not always the deaths of strangers.

      Just inside the ER, a patrol officer led her into the interior of the unit where the (black) girl believed to have been gang-raped was waiting, inside a curtained cubicle.

      In the ER she noted eyes moving upon her—fellow cops, medics—in wonderment that this was the officer sent to the scene as black.

      Cautiously Iglesias drew back the curtain surrounding the gurney where the stricken girl awaited. And there, in addition to the girl, was the girl’s mother Ednetta Frye.

      Sybilla Frye was a minor. Her mother Ednetta Frye had the right to be present and to participate in any interview with Sybilla conducted by any Pascayne police officer or social worker.

      Too bad! Iglesias knew this would be difficult.

      Iglesias introduced herself to Sybilla Frye who’d neither glanced at her nor given any sign of her presence. She introduced herself to Ednetta Frye who stared at her for a long moment as if Mrs. Frye could not determine whether to be further insulted or placated.

      Iglesias addressed Mrs. Frye saying she’d like to speak to Sybilla for just a few minutes. “She’s had a bad shock and she’s in pain so I won’t keep her long. But this is crucial.”

      Iglesias had a way with recalcitrant individuals. She’d been brought up needing to charm certain strong-willed members of her own family—female, male—and knew that a level look, an air of sisterly complicity, shared indignation and vehemence were required here. She would want Mrs. Frye to think of her as a mother like herself, and not as a police officer.

      Extending her hand to shake Ednetta Frye’s hand she felt the suspicious woman grip her fingers like a lifeline.

      “You ask her anythin, ma’am, she gon tell you the truth. I spoke with her and she ready to speak to you.”

      Mrs. Frye spoke eagerly. Her breath was quickened and hoarse.

      Not a healthy woman, Iglesias guessed. She knew many women like Ednetta Frye—overweight, probably diabetic. Varicose veins in her legs and a once-beautiful body gone flaccid like something melting.

      Yet, you could see that Mrs. Frye had been an attractive woman not long ago. Her deep-set and heavy-lidded eyes would have been startlingly beautiful if not bloodshot. Her manner was distraught as if like her daughter she’d been held captive in some terrible place and had only just been released.

      But when Iglesias tried to speak to Sybilla Frye, Mrs. Frye could not resist urging, “You tell her what you told me, S’b’lla! Just speak the words right out.”

      The battered girl sat slumped on the gurney wrapped in a blanket, shivering. Iglesias found another blanket, folded on a shelf, and brought it to her, and drew it around her thin shoulders. Close up, the girl smelled of disinfectant but also of something foul and nauseating—excrement. Her hair was oily and matted and had been cut in a jagged fashion as if blindly.

      With both adult women focused upon her, Sybilla seemed to be shrinking. Her shut-in expression was a curious mixture of fear, unease, apprehension, and defiance. She seemed more acutely aware of her mother than of the plainclothes police officer who was a stranger to her.

      Between the daughter and the mother was a force field of tension like the atmosphere before an electric storm which Iglesias knew she must not enter.

      Iglesias asked the girl if she was comfortable?—if she felt strong enough to answer a few questions?—then, maybe, if the ER physician OK’d it, she could go home.

      A trauma victim resembles a wounded animal. Trying to help, you can exacerbate the hurt. You can be attacked.

      “Sybilla? Do you hear me? My name is Ines—Ines Iglesias. I’m here to speak with you.”

      Gently Iglesias touched Sybilla’s hand, and it was as if a snake had touched the girl—Sybilla jerked back her hand with an intake of breath—Ohhh!

      There was something childish and annoying in this behavior, Iglesias thought. But Iglesias wanted to think The girl has been badly hurt.

      Mrs. Frye said sharply to her daughter, “I’m tellin you, girl. You just answer this p’lice off’cer’s questions, then we goin home.”

      Sybilla continued to hunch shivering inside the blanket. She had shut her eyes tight as a stubborn child might do. Her upper lip, swollen like a grotesque discolored fruit, was trembling.

      Iglesias had been told that the girl’s assailants had rubbed mud and dog excrement into her hair and onto her body and that they’d written racist words in black ink on her body.

      When she asked if she might see these words, Sybilla stiffened and did not reply.

      “If you could just open the blanket, for a minute. The curtain is closed here. No one will see. I know this is very unpleasant, but …”

      Sybilla began shaking her head vehemently no.

      In a plaintive voice Mrs. Frye said, “She don’t need to do that no more, Officer. S’b’lla a shy girl. She don’t show her body like some girls. They took pictures of the writing, they can show you. That’s enough.”

      “I would so appreciate it, if I could see this ‘writing’ myself.”

      “Ma’am, that nasty writin is all but gone, now. I think they washed it off. But they took pictures. You go look at them pictures.”

      “If I could just—”

      “I’m tellin you no, ma’am. It’s enough of this for right now, S’billa comin home with me.”

      Iglesias had been briefed about the “racist slurs”—scribbled onto the girl’s body “upside-down.” Clearly it was already an issue to arouse skepticism—upside-down? She would study the photos and see what sense this might make.

      Iglesias had placed a recording device on the examination table. Mrs. Frye objected: “You recordin this, ma’am? I hope you aint recordin this, I can’t allow that.”

      The small spinning wheels were a provocation. Iglesias had known that Mrs. Frye would object.

      Carefully she explained that it was police department