Plainsong Read online

  In the pickup it was warm now, driving along the county road. Beyond the ditch the fenceline passed by, thickened and snarled with tumbleweed and brush. Above, on the cross arm of a telephone pole perched a hawk the color of copper in the lowering sun, and they watched him but his head didn’t turn at all when they passed under him.

  I just guess they never found the right girl, their father said. I don’t rightly know.

  Bobby looked out the window. He said, I guess they didn’t want to leave each other.

  Guthrie glanced at him. Maybe so, he said. Maybe that’s what happened, son.

  At the highway Guthrie and the two boys turned north and it was quieter in the pickup now because they were on the blacktop, pointed toward town. Guthrie turned the radio on to receive the evening news.

  Victoria Roubideaux.

  When she said her name the middle-aged woman sitting on the other side of the window looked at her and said, Yes, Mrs. Jones called, and then she made a check mark on the chart in front of her and handed the girl three sheets of paper on a clipboard to fill out. She took them back across the waiting room to her seat and held the papers on her knees, leaning over them with her hair fallen about her face like a thick dark curtain, until she lifted it deftly in a motion familiar and automatic and settled it behind her shoulders. There were questions she had no answer to. They wanted to know was there cancer in the family, heart disease among her father’s people, syphilis in her mother’s relations. Altogether more than a hundred questions. She answered the ones she could, the ones she had some certain knowledge of, believing it would not be right to guess on the others as it might be if this were some test she was taking at school. When she was finished she took the clipboard and sheets of paper to the woman and handed them through the window.

  I didn’t know all of these, she said.

  Did you answer what you did know?

  Yes.

  Then take a seat. We’ll call you.

  She sat down again. The waiting room was a long narrow room with potted plants tied upright to sticks and set in front of the four windows. There were three other people in the room waiting too. A woman with a little boy whose face looked as yellow as tablet paper and whose eyes looked too big for his head. The boy leaned listlessly against his mother while she caressed the back of his head, and after a time he put his face down in her lap and shut his eyes and she smoothed her hand over his yellow sick-looking cheek while she herself stared blankly toward the windows. The other person in the room was an old man with a new pearl-gray felt hat that rode squarely on his head like a statement. He sat against the opposite wall and he was holding the thumb of his right hand forward on his knee. The thumb of that hand was wrapped thickly in white bandages and it stuck up like some kind of hastily wrapped exhibit in a freak show. He regarded the girl with merry eyes as if he were going to say something, explain to her all that had happened, but he didn’t. He looked at her, and no one said anything. Presently a nurse called the woman with the sick boy, and then she came back and beckoned the old man with the bad thumb, and after a while they called her.

  She rose and followed the woman in the white smock and slacks down the narrow corridor past a number of closed doors. They stopped at a scale and she was weighed and her height was taken, then they went into a little room where there was an examination table and a sink counter and two chairs. The woman took her pulse and checked her blood pressure and temperature, all without talking, and wrote the results of her findings in the file.

  Then she said, Now get undressed please. And put this on. He’ll see you in a minute. She went out and shut the door.

  The girl felt discommoded but she did what she was told to do. She put on the paper jacket that was open in the front, then she sat on the examination table with a paper sheet over her legs, both the sheet and jacket starkly white and scratchily uncomfortable to her, and waited and looked toward the wall in front of her at the picture of autumn trees growing up in some place that was altogether foreign to Holt, Colorado, since the trees were tall and dense and were of a species of hardwood and were colored so spectacularly that they seemed in the girl’s experience altogether unlikely if not impossible. Then he came in, the old man, the old doctor, stately and formal and elegant and kindly in a dark blue suit and wearing an absolutely white shirt with a maroon bow tie knotted expertly at his starched collar, and after he closed the door he shook her hand cordially and introduced himself.

  You saw me once before, she said.

  Did I? I don’t recall.

  Six or seven years ago.

  He looked at her closely and smiled. The eyes behind the rimless spectacles were lighter than his suit. His face was gray but his eyes were very lively. There were age spots at his temples.

  That’s a long time, he said. Probably you’ve changed somewhat since then, since the last time I saw you. He smiled again. Now then, Miss Roubideaux, I need to examine you. And after I’m finished with that we’ll have a little talk about what I find out. Have you ever had a pelvic exam before?

  No.

  I see. Well, it’s not very comfortable. I’m afraid you’ll just have to endure through it, and I’ll try to be careful and not hurt you, and be as quick but as thorough as I need to be. He picked up a silver instrument from the tray on the counter. I’ll be using this speculum. Have you seen one of these before? It opens like this inside you—he showed her, as illustration, by sliding it into the circle made by his finger and thumb, and then opening it—and you may hear me screwing this little nut so that it stays open. Try not to tighten the muscle at the bottom—he indicated the muscle web between his finger and thumb—because that makes it more difficult for me and more uncomfortable for you. This is the light which shines inside you so I can see the cervix, and I’ll also be taking a smear with this swab. Do you have any questions?

  The girl looked at him and looked away. She shook her head.

  The old man removed his blue suitcoat and folded it over the back of the chair and rolled up his white starched cuffs and went to the sink and scrubbed his hands. Then he came over to her at the examination table.

  Now I’ll ask you to lie back, he said, and put your feet up here, please.

  She did as he instructed. Her feet were in the stirrups and he draped the paper sheet over her knees and thighs and he put on rubber gloves and took up the speculum and squeezed a little lubricant onto it from a tube. Then he sat down on a stool between her knees and patted down the drape so he could see her face.

  This is the uncomfortable part, he said. He adjusted the sheet. Slide all the way forward, please. Thank you. That’s right. This may feel cold. He warmed the instrument for a moment in his hands.

  She felt it then and flinched.

  Did I hurt you? I’m sorry.

  She stared straight up. He was seated low, eye-level between her open legs.

  That’s right, he said. Try to relax. Now I’m just going to take a look.

  She stared up at the ceiling and felt what he was doing and waited and endured it and listened to his calm voice telling her all the time what examinations he was making and why and what was next, and that everything was fine and he was almost finished. She didn’t say anything. He continued his examinations. Then in a little while he was finished and he removed the discomfort of the metal instrument and said, Yes. That’s fine. Now I just need to do this, and felt the ovaries and the size of the uterus, one hand outside and one inside, again telling her what he was doing, and afterward he took the rubber gloves off and examined her breasts while she was still lying down and told her that she needed to do the same for herself regularly and how she should do it. After that he stood back and moved to the sink and washed his hands again and turned down the cuffs of his stiff white shirt and put his suitcoat on. You may get dressed now, he said. Then I’ll come back and we’ll talk.

  The girl sat up and removed the paper jacket and put on her own clothes once more. When he returned she was seated on the table waiting for him.


  So, he said. Miss Roubideaux, as I expect you already know, you are pregnant. Something over three months, I’d say. Closer to four. When was your last period?

  She told him.

  Yes. Well, you can expect to have a baby in the spring. The middle of April, I calculate, give or take two weeks on either side. But I’m wondering, I don’t know whether this is good news to you or not.

  I already knew, if that’s what you mean, the girl said. I felt sure of it.

  Yes. I thought you must have, he said. But that doesn’t answer my question.

  He put her chart out of the way on the counter. He drew a chair up and sat near her in his blue suit and white shirt, looking at her where she sat slightly above him on the examining table, her hands in her lap, waiting, her face flushed and guarded.

  I want to be straightforward with you, he said. This doesn’t have to go anywhere but right here. Do you understand? You and I talking. Having a brief conversation in the privacy of this room.

  What do you mean? the girl said.

  Miss Roubideaux, he said. Do you want this baby?

  Quickly she raised her eyes to him. She was frightened now, her eyes dark and intent, waiting.

  Yes, she said. I want it.

  You feel certain of that, do you? Absolutely certain.

  She looked at his face. Do you mean if I want to put it up for adoption?

  That too, perhaps, he said. But more, I meant are you going to keep this baby? Carry it full-term and give birth to it?

  I plan to.

  And you do want it, don’t you.

  Yes.

  And now that you’ve told me that, you’re not going to do anything foolish such as trying to stop it by yourself by some means.

  No.

  No, he said. That’s fine then. I believe you. That’s what I need to know. You will have various kinds of trouble, I expect. That’s what happens. Many teenage mothers do. You’re not supposed to be having babies yet. Your body’s not ready. You’re too young. On the other hand, you do seem strong. You don’t appear to be the hysterical kind. Are you the hysterical kind, Miss Roubideaux?

  I don’t think so.

  Then you should be all right. Do you smoke?

  No.

  Don’t start. Do you drink alcohol?

  No.

  Don’t start that either, not now. Do you take any drugs of any kind?

  No.

  You’re telling me the truth? He looked at her and waited. That’s important. Because everything you take in goes to the baby. You know that, don’t you.

  Yes. I know.

  You need to eat right. That’s important too. Mrs. Jones can help you with that. I expect she’s a good cook. You need to gain some weight but not too much. Yes, well. All right then. I’ll see you again in a month, and once each month until the eighth month, then I’ll see you every week. Do you have any questions?

  For the first time the girl released the hold on herself a little. Her eyes welled up. It was as if what she wanted to ask him was more important and more frightening than anything either one of them had said or done so far. She said, Is the baby all right? Would you tell me that?

  Oh, he said. Why yes. So far as I can tell, everything is fine. Didn’t I make that clear? There is no reason why that should change, so long as you take care of yourself. I didn’t mean to frighten you.

  She let herself cry silently just a little, while her shoulders slumped forward and her hair fell about her face. The old doctor reached up and took her hand and held it warmly between both of his hands for a moment and was quiet with her, simply looking into her face, serenely, grandfatherly, but not talking, treating her out of respect and kindness, out of his own long experience of patients in examination rooms.

  Afterward, when she was calm again, after the doctor had left, she went into the air outside the Holt County Clinic next to the hospital, and the light in the street seemed sharp to her and hard-edged, definite, as if it were no longer merely a late fall afternoon in the hour before dusk, but instead as if it were the first moment of noon in the exact meridian of summer and she was standing precisely under the full illumination of the sun.

  Guthrie.

  In the last period of the day he sat at his desk at the front of the room, listening to their speeches and glancing out the window toward the place where the sun shone aslant on the few bare trees risen up along the street. It looked cold and bleak outside.

  The tall girl talking at the head of the class was just finishing. Something to do with Hamilton. She had spent half of her speech on the duel with Burr. What she was saying was scarcely coherent. She finished and glanced at Guthrie and approached his desk and handed over her notes. Thank you, he said. She turned and sat down at her desk near the west windows, and he made a note about what to say to her in conference and again consulted the list before him and looked out at their faces. They looked as if they were waiting for some inevitable doom and disaster. Unless they had already given their speeches. Then they were bored and indifferent. Glenda, he said.

  A girl in the middle row said, Mr. Guthrie?

  Yes.

  I’m not ready today.

  Do you have your notes?

  Yes. But I’m not ready.

  Come ahead. You’ll have to do what you can.

  But I don’t know about this, she said.

  Come ahead.

  She got up and walked to the front and began to read rapidly from her papers without ever once looking up, a stream of uninflected talk that would have bored even her, even as she uttered it, if she weren’t so terrified. About Cornwallis, evidently. The Battle of Yorktown. She didn’t get as far as the surrender. Suddenly she was finished. She turned her paper over and there was nothing on the other side. She looked at Guthrie. I told you I wasn’t ready, she said.

  She stood facing him, then she advanced and handed him her papers and went back in a rush to her seat in the middle of the room, her face hotly red, and sat down and peered into the palms of her hands as though she might discover some explanation or at least some form of consolation and succor there, and then she looked at the girl next to her, a large brown-haired girl who gave her a little nod, but it didn’t seem to be enough because lastly she hid her hands under her skirt and sat on them.

  At the front of the room at his desk Guthrie made a note and consulted the list of names before him. He called the next one. A big boy in black cowboy boots rose up and stomped forward from the back of the room. Once he got started he talked haltingly for something less than a minute.

  That’s it? Guthrie said. You think that just about covers it?

  Yeah.

  That was pretty short.

  I couldn’t find anything, the boy said.

  You couldn’t find anything about Thomas Jefferson?

  No.

  The Declaration of Independence.

  No.

  The presidency. His life at Monticello.

  No.

  Where did you look?

  Everywhere I could think of.

  You must not have thought very long, Guthrie said. Let me see your notes.

  I just got this page.

  Let me see that much.

  The big boy handed over the single sheet of tablet paper and stomped back and sat down. Guthrie watched him. The boy had sulled up now. He was staring straight ahead. The room was quiet, the students all waiting and watching him. He looked away and stared out the window. The trees along the curb in front of the school still showed sunlight at the tops; in the slanting afternoon sun the trees cast the thinnest of shadows as though they had been sprayed onto the street and the brown grass. For weeks it had been very dry and in the nights there were hard freezes. He turned back and called Victoria Roubideaux to make her speech.

  When she came forward she was in a black skirt and a soft yellow sweater and her coal black hair fell down her back, and he noticed that her hair was cut off squarely and neatly at the bottom in a straight thick line. She looked bette
r now, better kept. She stopped in front of the class and turned slowly and began at once to speak very softly. He could barely hear her.

  Could you talk a little louder, please? Guthrie said.

  From the beginning? she said.

  No. From where you are.

  She began to read from the notes again in a voice that had scarcely more volume. He watched her in profile. The girl was staying in Maggie Jones’s house now. Maggie had told him about it. That was better. She already looked better. Probably Maggie had been the one to trim her hair that way.

  Then there was a commotion in the room. Abruptly she stopped reading because somebody had said something from the back of the room and now all of the girls were turned in their seats looking at Russell Beckman. He sat at the very back corner, his red curly hair combed down over his forehead, a big boy wearing a tee-shirt under his red and white Holt County Union High School jacket.

  She wouldn’t start reading again. She was still staring out at their faces, holding her papers before her. She looked as though she were in a kind of panic.

  What’s wrong? Guthrie said.

  She turned her head and looked at him, her eyes guarded and dark.

  What’s wrong here?

  She would not speak nor make any complaint, but turned back toward the class, the rows of suddenly blank faces staring back at her, and looked over their heads toward the Beckman boy who sat at the back row cramped in his desk and who gazed forward blankly, his hands folded on his desk as though he were no more responsible for any disturbance than he was for the setting of the sun. At the front of the classroom the girl watched him. Then without saying any word at all she started walking across the front of the room. By the time she reached the door she was running. Behind her the door crashed against the wall and rebounded and they could hear her rapid steps diminishing in the tiled hallway.

  The students sat looking at the door, which was still shuddering. Guthrie rose from his desk. Alberta, he said. Go catch up with her and see what you can do.

  A small blond girl in front stood up. But what if I can’t find her?