Mudwoman. Joyce Carol Oates

entire household dumped out on the Mill Run Road! Not a happy story.

      M.R. stooped to inspect the refrigerator. Of course it was empty—the shelves were rusted, badly battered. There was a smell. A sensation of such unease—oppression—came over her, she had to turn away.

      “And now—what?”

      She could call AAA—her cell phone was in the car. But probably she could maneuver the Toyota out of the ditch herself for the ditch wasn’t very deep.

      Except—what time was it?

      Staring at her watch. Trying to calculate. Was it already past 4:30 P.M.—nearly 5 P.M.? This was unexpectedly late! Mid-October and the sun slanting in the sky and dusk coming on.

      This side of the Black Snake River were stretches of marshland, mudflats. She’d been smelling mud. You could see that the river often overran its banks here. There was a harsh brackish smell as of rancid water and rotted things.

      Staring at her watch which was a small elegant gold watch inscribed with the name and heraldic insignia of a New England liberal arts college for women. It had been given to M.R. to commemorate her having received from the college an honorary doctorate in humane letters and shortly thereafter, an invitation to interview for its presidency. She’d been thirty-six at the time. She’d been dean of the faculty at the University at the time. Graciously she’d declined. She did not say I am so grateful but no—it isn’t likely that I would accept a position at a women’s college.

      Or—It isn’t likely that I would accept a position at any university other than a major research university. That is not M. R. Neukirchen’s plan.

      Amid the cast-off household litter was a strip of rotted tarpaulin.

      M.R. pulled it loose, dragged it to the Toyota to place beneath the wheels on the driver’s side, that were mired in mud. This was good! This was good luck! Awkwardly then she crawled back into the badly tilted car, located the keys on the floor mat, and managed to start the engine—eased the car forward a few inches, let it rock back; eased it again forward, and let it rock back; at first the wheels spun, then began to take hold. The car moved, jerked spasmodically; in another minute or two she would have eased the Toyota back up onto the road except—the rotted tarpaulin must have given way, the wheels spun frantically.

      “God damn.”

      M.R. reached for the cell phone, that had fallen to the floor. Tried to call AAA but the phone was unreceptive.

      If only she’d thought to call her assistant a half hour ago—the cell phone might have worked then. Just to allow the (anxious?) young woman to know I may be late for the reception. A few minutes late. But I will not be late for the dinner. I will not be late for my talk of course.

      She would have spoken to Audrey in her usual bright brisk manner that did not invite interruptions. It was a bright brisk manner that did not invite murmurs of commiseration. She would have said, if Audrey had expressed concern for her, Of course, I’m fine! Good-bye for now.

      She was hiking along the road with the cell phone in her hand. Repeatedly she tried to activate it but the damned thing remained dead.

      Useless plastic, dead!

      If she ascended to higher ground? Would the phone be more likely to work? Or—was this a ridiculous notion, desperate?

      “I am not desperate. Not yet.”

      Amid the mudflats was a sort of peninsula, a spit of land raised about three feet, very likely man-made, like a dam; M.R. climbed up onto it. She was a strong woman, her legs and thighs were hard with muscle beneath the soft, just slightly flabby female flesh; she made an effort to swim, hike, run, walk—she “worked out” in the University gym; still, she quickly became breathless, panting. For there was something very oppressive about this place—the acres of mudflats, the smell. Even on raised ground she was walking in mud—her nice shoes, mud-splattered. Her feet were wet.

      She thought I must turn back. As soon as I can.

      She thought I will know what to do—this can be made right.

      Staring at her watch trying to calculate but her mind wasn’t working with its usual efficiency. And her eyes—was something wrong with her eyes?

      The reception would begin at—was it 6 P.M.? But M.R. wouldn’t need to arrive promptly at 6 P.M. M.R. wouldn’t have to attend the reception at all. Such events were hardly crucial. And the dinner—was the dinner at 7:30 P.M.? She would hurry to the table which would be the head table in the enormous banquet room—she would murmur an apology—she could explain that she’d had to drive somewhere, unavoidably—her car had broken down returning.

      Stress, overwork the doctor had told her. Hours at the computer and when she glanced up her vision was distorted and she had to blink, squint to bring the world into some sort of focus.

      How faraway that world—there could be no direct route to that world, from the Mill Run Road.

      A crouched figure. Bearded face, astonished eyes. Slung over his shoulder a half-dozen animal traps. With a gloved hand prodding at—whatever it was in the mud.

      “Hello? Is someone …?”

      She was making her way along the edge of a makeshift dam. It was a dam comprised of boulders and rocks and it had acquired over the years a sort of mortar of broken and rotted tree limbs and even animal carcasses and skeletons. Everywhere the mudflats stretched, everywhere cattails and rushes grew in profusion. There were trees choked with vines. Dead trees, hollow tree-trunks. The pond was covered in algae bright-green as neon that looked as if it were quivering with microscopic life and where the water was clear the pebble-sky was reflected like darting eyes. She was staring at the farther shore where she’d seen something move—she thought she’d seen something move. A flurry of dragonflies, flash of birds’ wings. Bursts of autumn foliage like strokes of paint and deciduous trees looking flat as cutouts. She waited and saw nothing. And in the mudflats stretching on all sides nothing except cattails, rushes stirred by the wind.

      She was thinking of something her (secret) lover had once said—There is no truth except perspective. There are no truths except relations. She had seemed to know what he’d meant at the time—he’d meant something matter-of-fact yet intimate, even sexual; she was quick to agree with whatever her lover said in the hope that someday, sometime she would see how self-evident it was and how crucial for her to have agreed at the time.

      Thinking There is a position, a perspective here. This spit of land upon which I can walk, stand; from which I can see that I am already returned to my other life, I have not been harmed and will have begun to forget.

      Thinking This is all past, in some future time. I will look back, I will have walked right out of it. I will have begun to forget.

      The spit of land—a kind of raised peninsula—the ruin of an old mill. In the tall spiky weeds remnants of lumber. Shattered concrete blocks. She was limping—she’d turned her ankle. She was very tired. She had not slept for a very long time. In the president’s house she was so lonely! Her (secret) lover had not come to visit her. Her (secret) lover had not come to visit her since she’d moved into the president’s house and there was no plan for him to visit—yet.

      In the president’s house which was an historic landmark dating to Colonial times M.R. had her own private quarters on the second floor. Still, the bed in which she slept in the president’s house was an antique four-poster bed of the 1870s and it was not a bed M.R. would have chosen for herself though it was not so uncomfortable a bed that M.R. wished to have it moved out and another bed moved in.

      For his back, Andre required a hard mattress. At least, the mattress in M.R.’s bed was that.

      At the end of the peninsula there was—nothing. Mudflats, desiccated trees. In the Adirondacks, acid rain had been falling for years—parts of the vast forest were dying.

      “Hello?”

      Strange to be calling out when clearly no one was there to hear. M.R.’s uplifted hand in a