Was I naked, inside the robe? My skin tingled, as if I’d been bathed. Lotion rubbed into my skin. Talcum powder on my breasts, belly.
A shock to comprehend. I could not allow myself to comprehend.
The ends of my hair were damp. At the back of my mouth was something dry and gritty like sand.
“Sleeping Beauty! Time to open those beautiful myopic eyes.”
My eyes were open. But I was not seeing clearly.
Did he — bathe me? Remove my clothes, carry me into the bathroom?
In the bathroom was a marble tub with claw feet. An antique tub, deep as an Egyptian coffin. Vividly I remembered.
A worn tile floor, slick with wet. A camera flash, blinding.
“Ah, good! You’re waking up, are you? Yes.”
Mr. Sandman spoke distractedly. Perhaps I had slept too long.
He had freshly shaved, his skin exuded an air of heat. His thinning gray hair too was damp, brushed back from his creased forehead. Had Mr. Sandman changed into a fresh-laundered white shirt?
A panicked thought came to me — He is naked, below.
But no: Mr. Sandman was fully clothed. White shirt, dark trousers. At school he wore a white shirt, dark trousers, tweed coat. No necktie.
I was very confused. Sitting up, foolishly clutching the silk robe around me. It was shocking to me, to see my bare feet.
You can’t run away. Can’t run far. He would catch you.
He could kill you if he wished. Strangle you.
The man was waiting for me to realize. To scream. To become hysterical.
His fingers were poised. It was up to me.
Lying very still trying to summon my strength. Like water, that falls through outstretched fingers. Despair filled me, yet the calm of reason — silly bare feet, I could not run far.
“Your clothes are here, Violet. I had to launder them — they were soiled...”
Mr. Sandman spoke briskly, disapprovingly. Indicating, at the foot of the bed, clothes neatly folded. Strange to see, how neatly folded.
So grateful to see my clothes! I’d been clutching the silk robe around me, in terror that Mr. Sandman would snatch it away.
But he was a gentleman, you could see. The cobblestone house on Craigmont Avenue. So many books.
Could have wept, suffused with gratitude. For he would allow me to live, and he would forgive me the fear and repugnance in my face.
“Our secret, Violet. Do you understand, my dear?”
Yes. I understood. Understood something.
Understood that I’d been allowed to live. To continue.
Discreetly now Mr. Sandman retreated. Allowed me some privacy.
(A bedroom, dimly lighted. At the windows, darkness. The floor was covered in a thin carpet, against a farther wall a tall vertical mirror reflecting pale-shimmering light.)
Hurriedly I dressed. Underwear, jeans. Shirt and sweater. (It did seem as if my panties had been laundered, and had not quite dried in the dryer, the synthetic white fabric somewhat damp, at the same time somewhat warm.)
In his car driving me to my aunt’s and uncle’s house on Erie Street Mr. Sandman explained that, after school that day, there’d been an emergency meeting of the Math Club. As the Math Club secretary, I had had an obligation to attend.
“You understand, dear, that if you tell anyone about our friendship it will hurt you most. You will be expelled — immediately — from school. You may be sent to a facility for ‘delinquent minors.’ And I, too, might be shuttled to — an inferior — school...”
At this Mr. Sandman chuckled. As if it were so unlikely, such a possibility might occur.
Bathed me. Held me down. Licked me with his sandpaper tongue. Until I squealed, shrieked.
Took my hand in his and guided it between his legs where he was swollen, fattish.
Don’t pretend, Vio-let Rue. Dirty girl!
The face was contorted. Of the hue of a cooked tomato, about to burst. Eyes about to burst out of their sockets. Breath in gasps. Like a bicycle pump, my brothers’ bicycle pump, pumping air into a tire, that wheezing sound it makes if you are not doing it correctly, and air is escaping.
The hand gripping my hand, so that it hurts. Pushing, pressing, urgently, faster and faster, jamming my hand against his swollen flesh, my numbed hand, as he groans, rocks from side to side, eyes roll in their sockets, he is about to faint...
But no. None of this happened. For none of this was witnessed.
6.
“This endearing little blemish, Violet? — not a birthmark, I think, but a scar?”
Mr. Sandman drew his fat thumb over the star-shaped scar at my forehead. Involuntarily, I shivered.
“Futile to try to hide it, you know. And what caused it?”
“I... fell from a bicycle... When I was a little girl.”
“Ah! Tragic, in a female so young.”
Tragic. Mr. Sandman was joking, I supposed.
“Well, dear, if it’s any consolation — you were not destined to be a ‘beauty’ anyway. The scar gives you character. Other, merely pretty girls tend to be bland.”
Steeled myself to feel the fat lips against my forehead, to smell the hot meaty breath. Shut my eyes, shivering, waiting.
7.
One day, discovering Mr. Sandman’s (secret) archive.
A door just beyond the bathroom. A closet, with shelves containing what appeared to be photography albums, dates neatly labeled on their spines. Daring to pull down one of the albums, 1986–87, stunned to see photographs of a dark-haired girl of thirteen or fourteen posed on Mr. Sandman’s sofa, and on the four-poster bed. In some photos the girl was fully clothed, in others partly clothed. In others, naked inside the royal blue silk robe that was so familiar to me.
In the marble tub deep as an Egyptian coffin, head flung back against the rim of the tub and eyes half-shut, vacant. Beneath the surface of blue-tinged water, the pale thin body shimmering naked.
Many photographs of this girl— M.H.
Abruptly then, a sequence of photographs of another girl, of about the same age and physical type— B.W.
Wanly pretty (white) girls. Thin-armed, with small breasts, narrow torsos and hips. Captured in the throes of deep sleep. Positioned as if dead with eyes shut, hair spread out around their heads. Lips slightly parted and hands clasped on their chests.
Turning the stiff pages, and more photos... More (white) girls.
Also, locks of hair. Folded-in notes fastidiously recording measurements — height, weight, circumference of skull, waist, hips, bust.
Clumsily I shut the album, returned it to the shelf. Took down the most recent album which was 1991–92. But before I could open it there came Mr. Sandman’s voice from the kitchen: “Vio-let!”
Mr. Sandman was assuming that I was in the bathroom. In another minute he would come seek me. Quickly I shut the album, returned it to its place on the crammed shelf, shut the door.
Heart thudding in my chest. Such violence, like a fist punching my ribs.
None of the girls I’d recognized. My predecessors.
“Vio-let, dear. Come here at once.”
Already forgetting how in some of the photographs, the camera was close, intimate. Bruised mouth, open. The silk robe had been pulled open, or tossed away. Small pale breasts with soft nipples. The curve of a belly, a downy patch between legs.