Fallen Land (36 page)

b. For a portrait of truly bad mothering, one need look no further than Nathaniel’s mother. When I first met Ruth and Arthur Noailles, neither said anything to me directly, and up until our wedding day Nathaniel’s father never spoke to me; even since then we speak only telegraphically, yes or no questions, brief greetings and farewells. I know the man is evil and I will have him nowhere near my child. I encourage Nathaniel not to see them, and finally decided Copley would never see them again, not until he is old enough to defend himself, by which time Arthur, I hope, will be dead. All real communication has always been through Nathaniel’s mother, who dismissed me on first sight as “a backwoods tomboy,” and suggested he could do better just by throwing his hand inside any of the sorority houses on campus and grabbing the first plaid skirt that presented itself. Apart from the many horrors Nathaniel himself has told me about his mother’s behavior, there is one story I have heard only from his brother, Matthew, and which, at Matthew’s request, I have not discussed with Nathaniel. Matthew confided in me in the hope that it would help me appreciate things about Nathaniel that perhaps even he himself does not understand. I am still of two minds about whether it would help him to know the story, or do him more irreparable harm. He knows his mother subjected him to analytical interrogation recorded on a daily basis from the moment he was old enough to hold a coherent conversation, and that these “sessions” fed directly into her published research. What he does not seem to remember is that in his earliest years she all but used him as a subject of psychological experimentation, while Matthew looked on, bewildered. The experiments were a variation on others, undertaken earlier in the century, in which children were exposed to adults beating up an inflatable doll and then themselves given the chance to play with the same doll. “In our mother’s case,” Matthew explained to me, “she experimented only on Nathaniel. Although I suppose it’s possible she did the same thing to me when I was very small and I have no memory of it, or have merged the memory of my own experience with the memories of watching Nathaniel make his way through these set-ups. In mom’s version, she and Nathaniel, who was three at the time, made a doll together, the size of an adult man. They stuffed newspaper into panty hose to make legs, which were then placed inside a pair of my father’s cast-off khaki slacks. They filled one of dad’s old thermal underwear shirts with more newspaper to make a torso and arms, then clothed it in one of dad’s cast-off dress shirts. This was all pretty straightforward, nothing very sinister, and they were doing it around Halloween, ‘making a scarecrow’ for the front porch, as my mother put it. It was with the making of the head that things turned weird. They inflated a pink balloon and covered it with papier-mâché, which was allowed to harden and dry before being painted a sickly flesh color, and carefully pasted on a photocopied image of dad’s face, taken from a recent academic portrait, so the scarecrow was explicitly an effigy of our father. In this whole process, I wasn’t allowed to participate. They did it on the back porch and I was locked in the kitchen, told to do my homework, even though I was too young to have any. When the scarecrow was finished, my mother sat the figure upright in a lawn chair and looked at it for a long time, while Nathaniel also looked, and then she said to him, ‘Sometimes I get so angry with your father. And you know what I do when I get angry? I want to hit him.’ There was a baseball bat on the porch and she suddenly picked it up. ‘I’m feeling angry with him now,’ she said, and she took a swing at the scarecrow’s head, which was attached to a broomstick that had been shoved into the torso. The papier-mâché head, brittle as it was after drying, cracked open like a piñata. She hit it again and again until it was in shreds, and then she started to punch the stuffed body, tearing it apart and strewing the newspaper all over the porch while Nathaniel watched. Our mother was in a frenzy and Nathaniel looked like he didn’t know what to think. When she was finished, she smoothed back her hair and said, ‘Oh dear, it looks like we’ll have to start all over.’ So they began the process from the beginning, but unbeknownst to Nathaniel there was a second head already prepared, which she brought out from a box in the corner of the porch. When the second scarecrow effigy was complete, seated in the lawn chair, she excused herself, leaving Nathaniel alone with the simulacrum of his father and the baseball bat, which was too big and too heavy for him to handle. He tried to pick it up but couldn’t swing it, and then he noticed a smaller bat, a toy plastic one, on the other side of the porch. He went for the plastic bat and ran at the scarecrow, walloping its head with the pasted-on image of our father’s face until it began to crack apart. When it failed to break in the same way as the first one, he dropped the bat and pulled the scarecrow onto the floor and began stomping all over it while my mother watched from the kitchen, taking notes the whole time. As I remember it, this happened once a week, usually on Friday afternoons, for more than six months. When it got too cold to do it on the porch, she relocated to the basement, and the scarecrow turned into Santa Claus, and then the Easter Bunny, and finally Uncle Sam. Sometimes the figure had my father’s face, but sometimes it had mom’s, or even mine, and with each subsequent iteration of the game, my mother’s beatings and Nathaniel’s abuse of the dolls became more violent, until, by the end of it, they burned two effigies of dad in the garden on the Fourth of July, while he was at an academic conference in New York. When the fires burned out, smoking fragments of material were strewn around the lawn and my brother, who hadn’t even turned four, was sobbing uncontrollably.” After Matthew told me about these “experiments,” I went looking through Ruth’s publications for any indication that she might have used her findings, such as they were, and came across a long article she published in the early 1980s, in which she claimed to have undertaken a similar study on a group of thirty children.

c. Nathaniel and I came together, in part, as survivors of our childhoods. We described ourselves to each other in those terms. And in leaving Boston we are both, in our ways, fleeing from our parents. I believe that I am a good mother. I believe that I am neither like my depressive mother nor my abusive mother-in-law. I believe that I am nurturing and fair, and that the ways I have involved Copley in my work are not exploitative. He enjoys recording the lexicon and we discuss the meanings of words that are new to him. As a result, his vocabulary is far beyond what is normal for his age, as though there is anything truly “normal” in this world of constant and subtle and highly individualized variation. Yet I wonder if I have bewitched myself into believing that I am good. Perhaps I work too hard, perhaps I should stay home instead of trying to have a career, although the idea fills me with dread. I would die if I gave up my work. I wonder if the ways I have involved him in the production of my research, ways that I tell myself are merely temporary, because his voice will be replaced in time with the voice of someone else, a professional, someone paid to express words in a neutral, natural way, are in fact forms of exploitation no less serious if less disturbing than what Nathaniel’s mother did to him. I hear noises and I ask the machine to confirm what I believe I hear; I fail to trust my own senses, and, on some occasions, the machine is unable to confirm what I think I have heard, or even that there was anything
to
hear: “I can hear you breathing,” it says in Copley’s fragmented voice. “But can you hear anything else? Can you hear any noise that I am not making?” I ask. It thinks for a moment, looking at my hands, my body, I even stand up in front of it so it can have a clear view of my entire person, and know I am not making a noise under the counter, and then it says, “No, I cannot hear any other noise.” I check its sound sensors and, holding my breath and keeping my body completely still, confirm that they register nothing. If I am hearing noises that do not exist, then there must be something amiss in the way my own brain is firing, even if it is not mental illness as such. I hear noises, I see moving shadows, and I have no way to confirm these phenomena are “real” in the sense of their occurring in a way that others would be able to verify, and not just manifested by my mind. When I sleep do I sleep soundly, or do I rise from the bed and fly through the house, putting my hands to mischief I never remember when I wake? No. I would leave behind evidence for my waking self. I have to believe that if I were the agent of our distress, there would be a sign: a trail of crumbs leading me back to my own guilt. There is no such trail, at least not one pointing in my direction.

6. I fear my husband and I fear for Copley. Nearly a week has passed since I began this document, the night when I believed I woke to find myself alone in bed, when I went in search of answers and found only the dark shape at the bottom of the stairs. When I spoke to Nathaniel about it the next morning, he flew into a rage: “You’re accusing me of rape,” he said. “I am accusing you of nothing. I am asking you if we had sex last night.” “I was working. And no, we didn’t have sex. I wouldn’t—you have to believe I would never violate you, Julia.” I wish I could believe him. After that morning, when everything was in order, the house calm for a brief period, the incursions have now resumed. Nathaniel looks at me as if I were the guilty party, while I look at him in the same way, more convinced with each passing day that I must be right. The changes I now find each morning have turned from the dramatic to the subtle, so that I wonder even if they are intentional. A brush that I am sure I left next to the sink in the bathroom I find lying on top of a stack of my sweaters in the walk-in closet the next morning. The long-missing window keys suddenly appeared in a drawer, and windows that have been closed end up open, rain flashing in through the screens to soak the floors. Doors I am sure I have locked are unlocked in the morning—not open, but susceptible to opening. We all come home one day, the four of us having gone out together to a movie, to find the back door unlocked and a candle burning in the living room next to a framed photo of Copley. I do not remember lighting the candle, nor do I remember the candle being next to his photograph, but Nathaniel assures me it was just an oversight, forgetfulness, because he and I are both so busy. (Later I ask Louise and she shrugs, looks concerned, says she does not remember the candle even being in the living room. During the movie, I recall, Nathaniel excused himself to buy more popcorn. He was gone for almost half an hour and then returned empty-handed, saying he’d been to the restroom.) On the weekends, there are endless phone calls from numbers I do not recognize. Whenever one of us answers, there is a brief pause before the caller hangs up. I have checked the numbers and they all belong to payphones, scattered across the western half of the city, none of them more than a mile from our door. I feel my gut contract every time the phone rings, and threaten to have it disconnected. I know that Nathaniel cannot be making such calls, but perhaps, I think, it is unrelated to the other “events.” All of them, it seems clear to me, he
could
have done, and not only that, given the other factors, he
must
have done. What I do know, and what I cannot ignore, is that it is my duty to protect Copley from a father who, not an hour ago, hissed into my ear, “I hate that kid. I’m gonna kill him.”

H
is wife believes he is being driven to collapse by Maureen McCarthy and by the expectations of working at his company’s national headquarters, but in fact Nathaniel has found himself distorting the weight of expectation he is facing so he can spend longer hours in the office that has become, along with the work itself, a refuge and release from the horrors of home, even though the nature of his work produces a certain amount of distress. The longer he is on the project, marveling at the genius of Maureen’s vision for a criminal-labor populace subject to a form of permanent incarceration either inside or outside the walls of a prison, providing units of production for EKK while minimizing their criminal activities, the more it seems to make sense. Perhaps, he thinks, some people simply
are
criminal in a fundamental, immutable way that, for all he knows, might even persist at the genetic, cellular level: a selfish impulse passed down through the generations, across continents, compelling bearers of whatever gene it might be to take what is not theirs. He will find ways to safeguard against any exploitation in the system, to ensure that those who are innocent remain untouched, to allow for redress if miscarriages of justice occur. It will be important to retain the possibility of total rehabilitation. Assuming criminality might in fact be innate and the first visible crime committed a form of self-identification by the criminal that he
must
enter the corrections rehabilitation system (in other words to take up his rightful place, a place reserved for him, in which his own purpose in the world becomes clear), then the permanent monitoring of anyone who has been convicted of a crime, even after they have served their sentence, seems not just logical, but natural. It is the only way truly to protect the law-abiding, who are themselves, of course, also a natural group. Nathaniel has taken to heart one of Maureen’s favorite maxims:
Anyone who doesn’t believe in freedom at eighteen is a fascist. Anyone who doesn’t believe in security at forty is a criminal.

The moment he is alone in the company car, pulling out of his garage, he can begin to feel the agitation and anger that have accumulated in the hours at home disperse. Even though he is ignored by his wife and son (who do not wave from the window, never mind stand outside and wish him well the way he and his brother did when Arthur Noailles left each morning; whatever their private feelings about the man, they maintained a performance of respect), watching the garage door go down, smelling the filtered air come through the vents, a recorded female voice welcoming him by name and reminding him to fasten his seatbelt, the hatred toward his son that has been growing since before the move begins to settle into a feeling closer to annoyance, disinterest. He will speak with Julia about asking Dr. Phaedrus to boost the dosages again and increase the therapy sessions to twice a week. The EKK health insurance is generous and, even if it were not, they can easily afford whatever it takes to get the boy behaving like a normal child again, before there is any further disruption at school or damage to the home. There can be no question that Copley is the one at fault, the little brat marching through their lives with his automatic movements. It is nothing but sociopathic behavior—the daytime manifestation of the chaos he unleashes at night. If it doesn’t stop soon, Nathaniel is going to have to take more serious action: an outside lock on Copley’s bedroom door, for instance, or, if Julia won’t agree to that, then hidden surveillance cameras, whatever it takes to prove to his wife that their son is the monster in their midst.

He turns on soft ambient music, and to avoid the flooded neighborhoods takes the freeway hot lane (faster commute, nominal cost, no junkers or trucks), arriving in only twenty minutes at his reserved parking space in the executive underground garage. Artworks hang on the concrete walls and, if he is late for a meeting, one of the attendants will park the car for him and he can dash from the driver’s seat through the palm-scanning barrier and into the elevator that takes him to the twentieth floor, his oasis of gray short-pile carpeting, potted plants, and glass doors that slide open and closed with the wave of a hand over motion sensors and never so much as a whisper of sound.

Because she worked overtime last night to help him finish the bi-weekly report of their division’s progress toward identification of “insourceable” manufacturing, he has brought Letitia a bouquet of flowers. It is not even eight but she is already at her desk, smiling, professional, grateful, he suspects, for a job with benefits. He knows he should find a way to help her advance out of the lower ranks of administration and into a managerial position; she is well educated, intelligent, makes no mistakes with dictation, her spelling and grammar and typography are all close to flawless. But already he feels reliant on her and does not want to risk a replacement less well versed in the organization and expectations of the headquarters’ hierarchy. She has noted all the birthdays of important colleagues in his calendar, reminds him that a small token should be given, makes suggestions for appropriate gifts, undertakes the ordering on his personal credit card and keeps the receipts, reminding him they all count as tax-deductible business expenses, which he should not fail to have his accountant claim next spring.

In the last several weeks, despite his misgivings, he has taken to phoning his mother each morning out of a sense of desperation. She has booked him a regular slot in her schedule.

“Hello, Nathaniel. You sound hungover.”

“I’m not hungover. I didn’t sleep well.”

“Is your wife still snoring?”

“Yes, Julia still snores, but so do I.”

“What have I told you about spreading the blame around, Nathaniel? Look to the source. The source is lying next to you in bed each night. You need to put your foot down and reclaim your place as head of the household. I always said that your wife was one of these forward women who thought that because she has a career she can also subvert the traditional hierarchies that are in place for the very good reason that they work: gender hierarchies keep order, prevent chaos, and let everyone know where they stand, not only in relation to each other, but to the rest of the world. The only blame you bear is in failing to maintain your position in the hierarchy.”

“It’s difficult. They’ve formed such a cohesive block. Every time I try, they stand together. There doesn’t seem to be a way around them.”

“Divide and conquer, Nathaniel. You need to separate the child from his mother and enact the kind of discipline necessary to restore order to the family unit. And get rid of the nanny if you can. Remove the person from the home who is disturbing its balance. Everything was fine before you hired her, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly fine.”

“But it sounds like things have gotten much, much worse since she moved in.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“Then you have to get rid of her.”

“And what do we do about vacations and after school?”

“You’ve told me your financial footing is sound. So enroll the child in day care during vacations and hire a babysitter for after school. In time, once order is restored, you might think about an au pair—but it should be a
young
woman, someone you can control, not an older person who thinks of herself as your equal or even your superior, which is clearly what this Washington woman thinks. I understand you were acting out of desperation and guilt when you hired her, but pay her a severance and end it. Promise me that you’ll act on this.”

“I’ll act on it, Ruth.”

“And remind me who you are.”

“I am Nathaniel Noailles.”

“Go on. Start over.”

“I am Nathaniel Noailles. I am the head of my house, husband to my wife, father to my son. I make the decisions, I steer the ship, I cut the path through the forest.”

“Now, tell me, have you still been having those dreams?”

M
OST OF THE DAY
IS
devoted to reading a report on how much EKK spent globally on paint and paintbrushes in the last year. The figure is higher than he could have imagined and it occurs to him, from previous research, that prison labor produces the majority of all paint and paintbrushes on the market in the country, which means, in all likelihood, that EKK is effectively paying either the government or some rival corrections corporation for paint and supplies it could be producing in its own prisons at a much lower cost. A day does not pass without him discovering a fact of this kind. In the end the question will be: what are the things that inmates can produce that will both save and make the most amount of money for the corporation? Paint is unlikely to be the answer, although it is a good place to begin. Circuit boards, telecommunications equipment, these are also possibilities, but the area that excites him most is the possibility of prisoners manufacturing domestic law enforcement drones, which, if his research is correct, could be mass-assembled in relatively little time, equipped with surveillance and other equipment, including crowd-control taser and baton rounds, and used either by EKK itself or sold on to local governments across the country and around the world. Extraordinary machines, some no larger than a hummingbird, once they reach cruising altitude they are as silent as the glass door to Nathaniel’s office.

In the process of undertaking this vast research project, Nathaniel has begun to have other ideas as well, about a new regime of prison life that would introduce more regimentation and restriction: requirements that prisoners rise at five in the morning regardless of the season, and that they work a ten-hour day with lights out at eleven in the evening. In the hours when they are not manufacturing or sleeping, they will be given cleaning duties around the prison and compulsory education, as well as a total of one hour for eating, forty-five minutes for personal hygiene, and thirty minutes for religious observance, all at appointed and immovable times. Their days will be spent in monastic silence, with speaking restricted to working and religious hours and even then only when necessary for clarification, compliance, or ritual. Periods of hygiene, cleaning, and eating are to be conducted in silence. Any infraction will lead to a sixty-day extension of their sentence (a fact, Nathaniel is pleased to note, which is bound to result in higher profits for EKK). There is no place for recreation in Nathaniel’s new schedule, the idea being that the cleaning duties will be physically strenuous, requiring the lifting of large buckets of water, scrubbing, mopping, and sweeping. In the past, in the barbaric history of this country, prisoners were punished through pain. In the enlightened present, they are disciplined through a curtailment of rights and freedom, and through the enforcement of productive labor. If that is not progress he does not know what is.

Nevertheless, one thing begins to concern Nathaniel. In an age in which so many people—the free, the innocent—struggle to live comfortable lives, prisoners under his notional executive supervision might, in fact, be better off than many of the people outside, so that committing a crime and submitting oneself to punishment could be seen by the underprivileged as a way of having an
improved
life: more stable, better fed, better housed, and of longer duration than would ever be possible for them if they remained free.

Late in the day a memo circulates from the Vice-President of American Operations. In the clearest possible language, it suggests that all employees registered to vote should, in the upcoming election, tick the box for the candidate who is on record as looking favorably upon corporations such as EKK. Failure to elect the right candidate from the right party could, the memo explains, imperil the jobs of countless EKK employees, from the bottom all the way to the top. “If security is what you want,” the memo concludes, “then defense of your very own job security should be at the heart of your voting choice.”

O
N HIS WAY HOME
THE
traffic is so heavy that even the hot lane is slow, and as Nathaniel creeps along he looks across to the encampment of homeless people on an island of overpass to the north, surrounded by floodwaters. They have erected tents and makeshift shelters. A fire burns in a trashcan. Although they would be better off inside, the homeless shelters—those that have survived in the current economy—are all overcrowded. He makes a mental note to check on the rigor of municipal vagrancy laws.

“I am Nathaniel Noailles,” he says to himself, repeating the mantra his mother has taught him. “I am the head of my house, husband to my wife, father to my son. I make the decisions, I steer the ship, I cut the path through the forest.”

“Have you spoken to Julia yet about your longer-term plans, about Alex’s vision for your place in the company?” Maureen asked him earlier in the day.

“She’s been really busy. We’re going through some things at home. Our son has been having problems at school. But it’s on my mind, believe me. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ll speak to Julia soon.”

“
Have
that conversation,” Maureen said, squeezing his arm. “Bringing her into the fold will do wonders for your career, and for your family. We want all three of you under our canopy.”