Nancy Kress - Stalking Beans

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Stalking Beans

Nancy Kress

SOMETIMES I TRY TO MAKE MY WIFE ANGRY.

I CLUMP in from the dairy in boots fouled by cow dung; I

let the hearth fire die; I spill greasy mutton on the fresh

cloth Annie insists on laying each night as if we were still

gentry and not the peasants we have become. I wipe my

nose with the back of my hand, in imitation of our

neighbors. I get drunk at the alehouse. I stay away all night.

It's like fighting a pillow. All give, and feathers

everywhere. Annie's pretty face flutters into wispy dismay,

followed by wispy forgiveness. "Oh, Jack, I understand!"

she cries and falls on my neck, her curls— that but for me

would be bound in a fashionable coif— filling my mouth.

"I know how hard our fall in the world is for you!" Never a

word about how hard it is for her. Never a word of anger.

Never the accusation,

You are to blame. Always, she invites me to sink into

her understanding, to lie muffled in it as in the soft beds we

once owned, to be soundlessly absorbed.

Sometimes it takes every fiber of my muscles not to hit

her.

Only when, drunk, I traded our best cow to a dwarf for

a sack of beans did Annie show a flash of the anger she

should feel by right. "You… did… what?" she said, very

deliberately. Her pale eyes sparkled and her thin, tense

body relaxed for one glorious moment into anger. I took a

step toward her and Annie, misunderstanding, cried, "Keep

away from me!" She looked wildly around, and her eye fell

on the shelf with our one remaining book, bound in red

leather and edged with gold. She seized it and threw it at

me. She missed. It fell into the fire, and the dry pages

blazed with energy.

But she couldn't make it last. A second later her

shoulders drooped and she stared at the fire with stricken

eyes. "Oh, Jack—I'm sorry! The book was worth more

than the cow!" Then she was on my neck, sobbing. "Oh,

Jack, I understand, I do, I know your pride has been so

badly injured by all this, I want to be a good wife to you

and understand…" Her hair settled into my mouth, over

my nose.

Desperate, I said, "I cast away the beans in the forest,

and vomited over them!"

"Oh, Jack, I understand! It's not your fault! You

couldn't help what happened!"

What kind of man can never help what happens to him?

I can't bring myself to touch her body, even by chance.

When one of us rolls toward the center of the sagging

mattress, I jerk away, as if touched by rot. In the darkest

part of the night, when the fire has gone out, I hear her

sobbing, muffled by the thin pillow that is the best, thanks

to my stupidity, we can now afford.

I get out of bed and stumble, torchless, into the woods.

There is no moon, no stars. The trees loom around me like

unseen giants, breathing in the blackness. It doesn't matter.

My feet don't fail me. I know exactly where I'm going.

She is taller than I am by perhaps a foot, and outweighs

me by thirty pounds. Her shoes are held together with

gummy string, not because she doesn't have better—the

closet is filled with gold slippers, fine calfskin boots,

red-heeled shoes with silver bows—but because this pair is

comfortable, and damn how they look. There is a food

stain on her robe, which is knotted loosely around her

waist. Her thick blond hair is a snarl. She yawns in my

face.

"Damn, Jack, I didn't expect you tonight."

"Is he here?"

She makes a mocking face and laughs. "No. And now

that you're here, you may as well come in as not. What did

you do, tumble down the beanstalk? You look like a dirty

urchin." She gazes at me, amused. I always amuse her. Her

amusement wakes her a little more, and then her gaze

sharpens. She slides one hand inside her robe. "Since he's

not here ..." She reaches for me.

It's always like this. She is greedy in bed, frank, and

direct. I am an instrument of her pleasure, as she is of

mine, and beyond that she asks nothing. Her huge breasts

move beneath my hands, and she moans in that open

pleasure that never loses its edge of mockery. I ease into

her and, to prolong the moment, say, "What would you do

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