Already in her young girlhood, she’d failed at that.
She could not even recall. But she knew, she’d failed.
Back there, she’d been stripped of all pride. She’d been exposed as contemptible, debased. And so it had been, but she was no longer back there.
Here, where no one knew her, and cared nothing for her, she felt a small residue of hope. She’d had friends of a kind, and had drifted from them, preferring to live alone. Her “progress” at the university resembled the motions of a rock-face climber who inches upward so close to the rock face that he’s blind to it, as he is blind to the spectacular view behind his back.
You must have faith, your efforts are upward. You are ascending.
As she worked in a succession of nondescript and anonymous jobs mostly without complaint as she was without expectations so she lived in a succession of nondescript and anonymous residences far from the Atlantic Ocean, dazzling sand beaches and causeways and glittering high-rise hotels. In the great tourist cities of Florida it is possible to live within a mile or less of the ocean and to never see it, and to never think of seeing it, or of caring to see it. She’d made her way like flotsam floating upon a haphazard tide for months, and years; in so wayward a life, one year blends into the next, and that into the next; until in Temple Park where she seemed to have washed ashore, at least temporarily, she found herself living in a small single room in the slant-roofed attic of a rotting flamingo-pink Victorian house across the street, Pepperdine Avenue, from a multi-ethnic residence for undergraduate and graduate students called International House where in the cafeteria she ate inexpensive ethnic meals at long communal tables, was befriended by strangers, attended films, lectures, discussions; especially, she was befriended by a feminist group called Females Without Borders which had a center in the building. In such milieus her identity as Sabbath McSwain was never questioned:
Sabbath Mae McSwain, birth date August 15, 1986. Breathitt, MD.
This was not a laminated ID but an actual birth certificate replica much folded and creased. With it came a Social Security card—Sabbath Mae McSwain whose number was 113-40-3074.
A woman she’d met at Female Without Borders, a post-doc in clinical psychology who’d befriended her, had been the one to put her into contact with Cornelius Hinton at the Institute—“He’s a nice guy. He’s eccentric. He’s old—he won’t hassle you.”
Hinton was looking for an assistant, an “intern”—except the work paid well, significantly higher than the university rate for student assistants. His previous intern—(also a young woman: Hinton described himself as a feminist and tried always to hire women)—had had to give notice suddenly, leaving him bereft. The intern was expected to drive Hinton’s vehicle for him, short and long distances; assist Hinton in making appointments, buying groceries and picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy; if Hinton was flying, the intern would make plane and hotel reservations, and oversee each detail of the schedule; often the intern would travel with Hinton when he went to give lectures, teach seminars—whatever it was Cornelius Hinton did, as a self-described cultural anatomist.
“He investigates things and writes about them—like sub-standard care for mentally ill children, or nursing homes where patients are mistreated. He travels incognito. He might use different names. People say he writes best-selling books under pseudonyms and there’s no author photo on the jackets. Everything’s secret about him. He’d been arrested, back in the 1960s. He’d demonstrated against the Iraq War, too. He’s what they call an ‘old Leftie’—not sure what that means. Like, a Communist. Anyway, a Socialist. He’s kind of pissy and stand-offish at first but later, one day, he turns into a great guy—generous. He’s given us money for our center here. He’s helped me out personally, with my girlfriend. He kind of forged documents for us, on Institute letterheads. The thing is, he’s generous if you don’t ask him, and if you don’t expect it. He likes to surprise you. He’s a great guy—mysterious. Weird.”
Chantelle paused, thoughtfully.
“Might be rich, too.”
“YOU ARE—‘SABBATH MCSWAIN’?”
Yes. She was.
“And you’re applying for the ‘internship’—my assistant?”
Yes. She was.
“Recommended by Chantelle Rios.”
Yes. That was so.
The Investigator peered at her, curiously. She saw that his fair-blue eyes weren’t those of an older man but youthful, sharp and acute. His beard was close and neatly trimmed, dazzling-white as his hair, but dense and wiry as his hair was soft, airy, and flowing. His face reminded her of an old, faded-bronze coin. His manner was brusque, matter-of-fact. His posture suggested a military bearing. Yet he was courtly, elegant. He wore a tweed sport coat over a dark turtleneck sweater that gave him the look of an older male actor in a British film of some bygone era—eagerly you would spill to such a man all your secrets, except of course such a man would not want to hear all your secrets.
On his left wrist was an aluminum stretch-band watch with an ungainly large face, of a kind popular with sporty young men—a digital watch likely to be waterproof and to glow in the dark, to tell the tides, the date, the hours of sunrise and sunset.
And on the third finger of his right hand, a thick silver ring in the shape of a star.
“ ‘Sabbath McSwain’—you are—female?”
She laughed, the question was so unexpected.
“Yes. I think so.”
“You only ‘think so’? Indeed?”
It was true, she preferred boys’ clothes—not men’s clothes but boys’ clothes which were likely to fit her slender hipless body. Boys’ shirts, boys’ pullover sweaters, boys’ khakis and jeans. Boys’ running shoes, hiking boots. Of colors she preferred beiges, browns, black—but a dull matte-black. Small, drab, minimal and inconsequential.
She had no serious fear of being recognized any longer. Anyone who might recognize her, who might have known her back there, would have forgotten her by now, she was certain.
Forgettable, forgotten. Good!
“When required, I check the box ‘F.’ It seems more appropriate than the box ‘M.’ But it isn’t, I guess, what you’d call significant.”
“And why is that, Miss McSwain?”
“Because I think that our sexual identity is no more significant than the color of our eyes—to some of us, at least. It doesn’t weigh heavily.”
“Doesn’t it! You seriously think that there are no essential, biological differences between female and male?”
“I am speaking of culturally-mandated differences.”
“And these spring from—what?”
“Culture.”
“And culture springs from—what?”
This was a familiar academic-intellectual riposte but Sabbath McSwain was at a loss how to reply—she was distracted by the Investigator’s pale-blue gaze upon her, that was impertinent and bemused, and strangely intimate. It had been years since she’d engaged with any professor—with any adult—in this sort of intellectual dialogue, that lifted her heart as in an impromptu Ping-Pong game.
She said, “Dr. Hinton—I know that there are many essential biological differences between the sexes, of course. But not so many ‘culturally-mandated’ differences. In First World countries we’ve evolved beyond mere biology—it isn’t the fate of the human female to be pregnant continuously until she wears out and dies.”
It was a heated little speech. It was a heated, breathless, utterly unoriginal and obvious speech. Yet the Investigator fixed the Intern—(for so she wished to think of herself, however prematurely)—with something like sympathy.
“You are right, of course! No one should expect you—or any other ‘female’—to have a succession of babies until she wears out and dies. I think that is a quite plausible wish. But I only hoped to ascertain whether in fact you are female—I’ve found that, as interns, females are just more competent.”
Abashed Sabbath McSwain murmured yes, she was female.
/>
A wave of hot shame washed over her. She could not have said why, in her deepest being, she felt such sex-shame.
As she was repelled by glimpsing her own diminutive body, unclothed, exposed, in a mirror or reflective surface. Ugly that’s the ugly one a jeering voice assailed her.
“But I like it that you aren’t—in the slightest, and by choice, I think—‘feminine.’ That no one, glancing at you, would take a second glance. Which is not the case, I’m afraid, with ‘Prof. Hinton.’ ”
The Investigator enunciated the words Prof. Hinton with such quaint disdain, the Intern was moved to laugh.
“And I like your laugh, Sabbath: it’s inaudible.”
The Intern laughed again inaudibly. It had to be the first time she’d laughed in such a way, as if she were being tickled, in memory.
“Chantelle says you are a very solitary young woman. And a mysterious young woman—with no evident attachments.”
The Intern ceased laughing. Was this funny, or not-so-funny?
It made her uneasy, as it was unexpected and surprising, that anyone should be talking about her.
“ ‘Sabbath McSwain’—a curious name. It strikes me as invented, somehow.”
“Did you say—‘invented’?”
“Is it?”
The Intern stared at the Investigator, as if he’d slapped her: not hard but, as it’s said in martial arts, hard enough to capture one’s attention.
“It’s a real name. A family name. I have an older sister—Haley McSwain. We’re both—we both—we live in the Fort Lauderdale area—though we aren’t so close as we were, once.”
“So you do have family? Chantelle was mistaken?”
The Investigator was frowning. Not so good!
“No. Not really. Haley is my—half-sister. I mean—stepsister. I never see her any longer, now—we’re estranged.”
“But ‘Sabbath McSwain’ is your name?”
“Yes. ‘Sabbath McSwain’ is my name.”
(It was so, “Sabbath McSwain” wasn’t a name she’d have chosen for herself. The name was a gift, it had been a freely given and loving gift, she could not ever repudiate, for it had helped to save her tattered and fraying life at the time.)
(To Haley she owed this remnant-life. Yet, in speaking so expeditiously of her, she’d betrayed Haley.)
Fumbling in her backpack for those crucial documents without which she could not make her way blind and groping across the treacherous rock face.
So long as she was ascending. Any effort, any danger was justified.
“I have—an ID. I have two IDs. A birth certificate and a—a Social Security card. I can show you, if . . .”
These documents, carried in a manila folder, she presented to the Investigator, who examined them closely. The Intern wondered if it was the name and birth date of “Sabbath McSwain” that piqued his interest so much as the literal nature of the documents—the very paper with which each was made.
Did he think they were forged? But why would he think so?
“They’re legitimate, Dr. Hinton! You can examine them under a microscope if you wish. The seal of the State of Maryland—I’m sure that’s legitimate. You can go to the place of issue, in the county court of records in Breathitt, Maryland. Same with the Social Security number. It belongs to Sabbath McSwain—8/15/86.”
“No photo ID?”
“Yes. I have a—a driver’s license, somewhere. I don’t have it with me because I—I don’t have a vehicle right now. I don’t drive. I mean—right now.”
“The internship would require driving, you know. That’s a principal requirement. I don’t drive if I can avoid it.”
“I said, Dr. Hinton, I do have a driver’s license. Not for the state of Florida but—another state. I can look for it when I get back—to where I live.”
“And where do you live?—I see, ‘928 Pepperdine Avenue, Temple Park.’ That’s your home?”
“No. Just where I live, temporarily. While I take classes here at the university.”
Though in fact, this semester, she wasn’t taking classes. She’d fallen out of the bottom of the big, rotted net—something small and squirmy that yet clung to the underside of the net, desperately.
“And where is your home, ‘Sabbath’? Not around here, eh?”
“I—I don’t have any permanent home, Dr. Hinton. I’ve lived in various places—I’ve moved, a lot, in recent years. My parents are—aren’t—living . . . My family is ‘scattered’ . . .”
“Where were you born?”
“B-born? You mean—”
“Where was your mother, literally, when you were born? Where in the United States?”
“I think—well, obviously—Breathitt, Maryland. It’s just a—a small town in a—mostly rural county. I’ve never actually lived there, except as an infant. And my mother—my mother and my father—are not any longer living there, either.”
“And where did you grow up?”
“Grow up? I’ve told you—I think it’s in the application letter . . .”
“No. Not here.”
“We moved from Breathitt to a small town in Pennsylvania, when I was just a few months old. No one has ever heard of it—‘Ephrata.’ Then, we moved to East Scranton where I went to school. Then—the family kind of broke up. Then—I went to college—a community college—then, I was out of school for a while—I’d left home by that time, and—I was working, and I was traveling.”
Her voice was slow, halting and struck with wonderment.
Is this my life? This—my life?
But this is not a life—is it?
“I have no inner life. I have no ‘intimate’ life. I am just what I—what I do. I move from one habitation to another like one of those—is it hermit crabs? Taking up residence in others’ shells.”
If the Intern had thought that the Investigator might be impressed by this solemn recitation, he wasn’t. He said, with a shrug: “Others’ shells are fine. You come, and then you go. They’re gone.”
Quickly she said, as if the aim of the interview were to entertain: “And then I came to Florida, to Miami first—with friends. Not ‘friends’ exactly but—people I knew. Used to know.”
“Why Miami?”
“It wasn’t my choice. It was just—where I was taken.”
Not very vividly she recalled those days. Months?
Things had happened to her then, in that place. But not intimately. Easy to pick off, like scabs, scaly encrustations.
“You’re twenty-four?”
The Investigator seemed faintly incredulous, whistling thinly through his teeth.
Grayish-white teeth they were, not big, broad and gleaming-white.
Set in the neat-trimmed dazzling-white beard, these teeth exuded an air of sincerity, even modesty.
“I guess so—yes. Twenty-four.”
So little had happened to her, it was hard to comprehend how twenty-four years had passed in her presence.
“You look younger. You look,” the Investigator said, slightly sneering, “like a teen.”
The Intern shook her head, no.
“You’ve never lived in upstate New York?”
“Upstate New York? W-why do you ask?”
“Why do you think I would ask, Sabbath?”
“I—I’m not sure.”
“Not that I am a linguistic expert. I am not. But my inexperienced ear can detect certain regional accents, like upstate New York. Somewhere in the north of the state, and the west—near Lake Ontario. You’ve lived there—for a long time.”
“Well. I don’t r-remember exactly, but . . . Maybe, after Ephrata, my father took us somewhere, maybe it was upstate New York, until . . .”
“You don’t sound like you’ve lived in Florida very long. Maybe you’ve forgotten the exact dates.”
Bemused, the Investigator read through Sabbath McSwain’s application letter another time. The entire letter was a single, brief paragraph with the letterhead Females Without Borders Temple Park, FL stat
ing the applicant’s wish to work as Dr. Hinton’s assistant on the recommendation of Ms. Chantelle Rios.
Included also was Chantelle Rios’s letter of recommendation, extravagant with praise for my sister and my friend Sabbath McSwain. Thoughtfully if not altogether accurately Chantelle had indicated that Sabbath had been a “lab technician” in her psychology lab at the university and that, at Females Without Borders, she’d helped with “crucial” administrative tasks; Sabbath McSwain was a “zealous, tireless, idealistic & 100 % reliable” worker whom Dr. Hinton would not regret hiring for such a “sensitive & confidential” position.
Also with the letter was a list of Sabbath’s paltry minimum-wage jobs—clerk, kitchen worker, etc.—and two pages, stapled together, of photocopied transcripts of courses and grades issued by the registrar of the State University of Florida at Temple Park.
Just faintly smudged, all the grades were A and A--. All had been issued to Sabbath McSwain, Continuing Education School.
The Investigator peered at the photocopied transcripts as if, just possibly, they were forged documents.
Which they were not.
“You don’t have a B.A. degree, I gather?”
The hot wave of feeling came over her again, a sensation like angry nausea. She hoped that the little blue vein in her right temple wasn’t visibly beating.
“Many things I don’t have, Dr. Hinton. A degree is one of them.”
The Investigator laughed. This was a good answer.
So far as she’d been able to gather, Cornelius Hinton had several distinguished degrees—Harvard, Cambridge University, Columbia University. He’d written a number of books published by academic presses on obscure topics in semantics, social psychology, cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind. His Text/Subtext/Encoded “Meaning”: An Existential Theory of Semantics (Oxford University Press, 1979) was his most acclaimed academic book, that had won an award from the National Academy of Science; since that time, his interests seemed to have shifted elsewhere, and if he continued to publish it was under another name or names. At the Institute, he was a prominent name and yet an elusive figure who was invariably “on leave”—he hadn’t taught his popular undergraduate course “An Anatomy of American Civilization” in years, and his graduate seminars on obscure subjects (“Charles Sanders Peirce: Semiotics & Visionary Madness”) were limited to a small, select number of graduate students. Hinton was the most coveted of dissertation advisors, as he was likely to be the most absent of advisors—Chantelle claimed that there were individuals writing dissertations under his guidance who had not seen the man, face-to-face, in years. Hinton had come to prefer emails to personal conferences and had acquired a distaste for “copious hard copy” that took up too much room on his desktop and in his life. His preferred way of professional academic reading had become, he’d said, scrolling.