The Moment Before

Chapter Eight

EIGHT

Duplicity, Mrs. McConnell writes on the board, underlining the word three times and following it with several dots of punctuation. “Faulkner’s work is full of it. Exploring betrayal from many, many points of view. As I Lay Dying, ladies and germs, is awash with the theme.”

            Duplicity. The form of that word, the sound of it, is lyrical, beautiful. I loop the letters across my notebook.

            “The interface between existence and the next thing—the hereafter, or the cessation of consciousness, these are all the themes our Faulkner explored,” Mrs. McConnell continues. “Heavy stuff.”

            It’s after lunch and warmish outside. The classroom windows face south. Heads are on desks. Some students are completely asleep, and the boy next to me has a thin line of drool pooling under his cheek. Mrs. McConnell is known for her death obsession. Her “Classics in Context” lit class will probably be cut next year, because it’s controversial. Last grading period we read De Beauvoir’s She Came to Stay, and I couldn’t shake the death of the character, Francois, from my memory: On the bed there still remained a living form, but it was already no one.

            “Faulkner was a post-structuralist, ladies and germs,” says Mrs. McConnell. “By which I mean he explored matters of religion and religious truth.” Her fingers make invisible quotation marks when she says truth.

            “Duplicity, infidelity, God and the question of God, mortality, class and race theory, all classic Faulknerian themes that fuel this story about the death of matriarch Addie Bundren.”

            There is a wave of laughter because when Mrs. McConnell says Faulknerian, it sounds like she’s saying Fucknarian. A few sleeping heads rise from their desks. A hand goes up. It’s Cathi. Mrs. McConnell points to her with her chalk, “Question, Miss Serge?”

            Cathi clears her throat. “I understand Faulkner was a racist, and I’m wondering why we’re reading a racist book that actually uses the N-word.”

            “Twain, Faulkner, Welty, yep, they all used the N-word in their books. They were describing the world in which they lived. Faulkner was a diagnostician, not a fixer.”

            With the word fixer, again the invisible quotation marks. Cathi is not pleased with the explanation. “I don’t think we should be reading a book written by a racist,” she continues, her hand still half-raised in the posture of permission-seeking.

            “As I Lay Dying is not a prescriptive on how to live one’s life, Miss Serge,” the teacher retorts, whirling around dramatically so that the knee-length cardigan she’s wearing swirls like an umbrella caught in a gust. “Faulkner boldly unveiled the dark side of humanity, unflinchingly setting his characters in a sort of truth pudding where questions like what is truth, what is life, what do we really want are presented through a narrative that takes the reader to the edges of comfort. That’s art, Miss Serge. Art.”

            In my notebook I’m working on a huge, stylized “L” which will start the word Liar that will cover the entire eight-by-eleven page.

            Cathi says, “Still,” under her breath, and the teacher continues to lecture about integrity and free will. Once it’s clear that Mrs. McConnell did not, indeed, swear, heads return to desks.

            In the paper today was the piece on the Greenmeadow Art Fair and Martha’s smiling face above the oversized Cupworth check. Her Mt. Hood rendition, the other photo in the article. Above the fold in the Life & Lifestyles section. Life. Right. Cupworth’s rant was also part of the article, where she said, Art does not come cheaply, ladies and gentlemen. One must nurture the soul in order to grow one’s appreciation for beauty. The reporter left off the bosoms on the Internet part.