Dis Mem Ber by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786693969
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

3.

Her room. Now, mine.

Sleep! Sleep, and be healed.

And take my hand for you are no longer alone.

*

In The Magellan, in room 2D, there is a single window overlooking Humboldt Street. Across the way is a brownstone building resembling The Magellan, with a water tank just visible on its roof.

I have not (yet) seen the water tank on the roof of The Magellan (though I have seen photographs of it online).

I am happy in my new room. I am not so lonely here, I think.

Here, there is a (small) (private) bathroom. An enormous improvement over the shared bathroom in the “family” house on Humboldt Street.

Still, I am careful about germs, bacteria. I am careful about the toilet seat. The sink, that is permanently stained; the shower stall, with the dripping showerhead.

Careful to examine the water, that comes out of the faucet as if reluctantly. Not gushing-hot but lukewarm, or cold.

*

How crowded it is, this Thursday evening at the University Medical Clinic!

Familiar faces! Frightened eyes.

Lying on my side. Shut eyes. Close hand into fist. Take a deep breath. Slow exhale.

*

Many questions have not been answered by investigating detectives. For instance, how did the drowned girl manage to gain access to the roof of The Magellan when the door to the stairs leading to the roof is always kept locked; and how did a girl weighing scarcely one hundred pounds manage to lift the heavy cover to the water tank, that required two men to lift it? How could she possibly have climbed inside the tank, and lowered the cover over herself? Why would she have removed her clothes? And what has become of her clothes?

The manager of The Magellan insisted that the door to the roof is always kept locked and that it was locked at the time of Miri Krim’s disappearance. Custodial staff in the building were interviewed at length by detectives and not one of them was arrested.

“A key could be duplicated”—this is my suggestion.

One of the roof keys was stolen, and duplicated in a hardware store; the original was returned, and no one knew it had ever been taken. Armed with this key, the individual or individuals who abducted, raped and murdered Miri Krim could unlock the door to the stairs at any time, and bring their victim up to the roof to murder and dispose of her body.

Keys are duplicated all the time. Even those keys clearly marked Do Not Duplicate.

Some commandments are not enforced. Because unenforceable.

It was claimed, physical evidence had deteriorated in the water tank. Which was why (of course) the drowned girl had been brought to such a place by her abductor or abductors.

It was believed, in some quarters, that the coroner botched the autopsy deliberately. For why otherwise was the rape kit “lost.”

The coroner’s finding is that the drowned girl died as a suicide or “accidentally” in the water tank—as if the victim had decided to go swimming one night in the tank with the heavy cover lowered over her, and was unable to get out again!

Removing all of her clothes.

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