Unspeakable

see that she had come alone. Whatever had happened there the night before, Mary Joseph was obviously too terrified to let anybody in.

The rain continued to trickle down the window. Holly turned around and could see that the dog was still barking. At least its mouth was opening and closing, but as far as she was concerned it was barking in absolute silence.

Eventually, very slowly, the coats and blankets were lifted and Mrs. Joseph came crawling out from under them. She was a small woman, not much more than five feet tall, with a slack stomach and swollen ankles. Her tufty black hair was decorated with colored beads. When she stood up, gripping the breakfast bar for support, Holly could see that her reddish-brown shift dress was ripped at the shoulder so that part of her grubby white brassiere was exposed. Normally it was obvious that she was of Native American extraction, but this morning it was almost impossible to tell if she was human at all, let alone what kind of human.

Her face was swollen to twice its size, a Mardi Gras face painted in purples and crimsons and maroons. Her nose had been broken and her lips were split and encrusted with blood. She shuffled toward the window in one slipper and stood on the other side of the rain-spotted glass, trying to focus on Holly with eyes that were totally bloodshot.

'Mary, you have to let me in?. You need help!'

Mrs. Joseph continued to stand and stare, occasionally lurching on one foot to balance herself, a parody of an Indian medicine dance.

'Please, Mary, you have to open the door! Where's Daniel? Is Daniel okay? Come on, Mary, you have to open the door!'

At that moment the girl in the pink bathrobe appeared around the back of the house, holding a newspaper over her head to protect herself from the rain. When she saw Mrs. Joseph she said, 'Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. I told you that guy was a crazy person.'

'Call 911,' said Holly. 'Tell them what's happened. Here- phone this number too. That's my boss, Doug Yeats.'

'We don't have a phone. Well, we did, but Ricky lost his job and everything.'

'Well, here, take mine. Please, do it now.'

'Okay. Okay. Jesus, look at the state of her. I mean I don't evenlikethe woman, but, shit?'

Mrs. Joseph slowly lifted her hands toward the catch on the sliding glass doors. Her fingers were just as swollen as her face, so that she looked as if she were wearing thick purple gloves. She managed to nudge the lever upward a little and push the door back by an eighth of an inch, but then her hands dropped down to her sides and she stood looking at Holly helplessly, unable to find the strength to do any more.

Holly picked up a rusted spatula from the barbecue and slid it into the crack beneath the catch. She tugged it up once, twice, and then the catch clicked upward and the door slid open. She stepped into the kitchen just in time to catch Mrs. Joseph as she fell sideways toward the floor.

Daniel and the Devil

She laid her down on the heap of blankets. 'Mary, can you hear me? Where's Daniel? I need to know where Daniel is.'

Mrs. Joseph pointed with her broken left hand toward the living room. 'Beating, beating, wouldn't stop.'

Holly folded one of the coats to make a pillow and then she covered Mrs. Joseph with a blanket. 'Try to keep still. The paramedics are coming; they won't be long. Where is your husband now? Where is he? Is he still in the house?'

Mrs. Joseph clutched at Holly's sleeve and she pulled Holly closer. Her breath was sour with bile. 'He said? he said that Daniel had a devil. He said that he had to beat him, to beat the devil out. He beat him and beat him, and when I tried to stop him he beat me too.'

'Where is he now?'

'He left, I think. I didn't see.' She started coughing and she couldn't stop.

'Okay, Mary. Keep as still as you can. The paramedics are coming and the police are coming and you're going to be fine. I'm just going to look for Daniel.'

Holly left Mrs. Joseph in the kitchen and walked through to the living room. The house was cold and gloomy and her shoes crackled on broken glass and fragments of china. Mrs. Joseph must have been serving a meal when her husband attacked her, because there was a broken ovenproof dish outside the living room door and trampled lumps of brown stew all over the carpet.

She wasn't an educated woman, Mary Joseph. She could read and write no better than a seven-year-old and she found it difficult to feed her family and keep her house clean, especially since her husband drank most of his welfare check. But her son Daniel was a gentle and bright little boy, inquisitive and sensitive. Holly had always believed that she had a good chance of saving him from the curse that afflicted so many Native American families inPortland : the curse of hopelessness and all the evils that went with it.

And there he was, lying on his back in the living room, where the curtains had been half torn down, and the couch tipped over, and most of Mrs. Joseph's precious china ornaments smashed. His blue-striped T-shirt had been pulled up around his neck and his short khaki pants had been pulled below his knees. One of his sandals was missing and his short white socks were spattered with blood.

Holly cleared away the broken china so that she could kneel down beside him. His eyes were closed and he felt very cold. He could have been sleeping: a moon-faced five-year-old with a flat Nez Perce nose, a little overweight, and very sallow, as if he were hardly ever allowed to play outside. There were no bruises on his cheeks but his shiny black hair was clogged at the top with dried blood, like a crusty beanie.

His body was even worse. His stomach was a mass of purple swellings, and there were livid diagonal lines across his chest, his upper thighs, and his genitals, scores of them, as if he had been furiously beaten with a cane or whipped with an electrical cord. Holly pressed her finger to the soft inside of his wrist, trying to feel for a pulse, but she couldn't. She laid one hand on his chest, wondering if she ought to start CPR, but she felt the crunching of broken ribs and was scared that she might do even more damage if she tried.

She bent over him as close as she could. She couldn't hear if he was breathing but might be able to sense his breath against her cheek.

'Please don't be dead,' she whispered. 'Daniel, can you hear me? Please don't be dead.'

It was then that she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was a nudge at first, but then a shake, and another shake, even rougher. She turned around and looked up and there was Elliot Joseph, wearing jeans and a studded denim jacket, a black bandanna tied around his fraying gray hair, his eyes glistening with rage and drink.

'What the fuck are you doing here, you deaf bitch?'

Rule 33 (a)

Rule 33 (a) of thePortland Children's Welfare Department manual on dealing with belligerent parents. Stand up, making no sudden moves. Look the belligerent parent directly in the eye but not in a confrontational manner. Keep your hands by your sides. Speak soothingly and repetitively and try to appeal to the belligerent parent's sense of responsibility and self-esteem. For instance, do not say 'What kind of a parent do you think you are?' Rather say, 'I know you're a very good parent and I'm sure that you want the best for your child.'

'Mr. Joseph, you're a very good parent,' said Holly.

Elliot Joseph stared at her, blinking in amazement. 'I'm a what? I'm a fuckingwhat?I'm a fuckingoutstandingparent. You tell me-youtellme-what father would do for his boy what I did?'

'I'm not sure, Mr. Joseph.'

'Oh, no? I'll tell you what any other father would have done. He would have let the devil go on growing inside of him, until it took over hisbodyand hissouland eaten him alive! Any other father would have let him go on having nightmares for the rest of his- Jesus! Do you know whatnightmareshe was having?'

He staggered, almost losing his balance, and suddenly focused his eyes on Daniel as if he didn't know who the boy was.

'That's-that'sDaniel! Jesus, that's my boy. What have you done to him? What the fuck have you done to him?'

'He's had an accident, Mr. Joseph. I've called the paramedics and they're on their way to help him.'

'Anaccident?'Elliot Joseph pushed aside one of the armchairs and dropped onto his knees on the floor. Holly could smell the whiskey on him, and it made her eyes water. He lifted Daniel's torso and shook him. 'Daniel!Daniel!Listen to me, boy, this is your dad! Daniel, you listen up, now!'

'Mr. Joseph, he's very badly hurt. I know that you don't want to make his injuries any worse.'

But Elliot Joseph shook Daniel even harder. 'Daniel, goddamnit! What's the matter with you? Are you trying to make me look like some kind of asshole?'

'He's hurt, Mr. Joseph. He has broken bones.'

'Hurt? He'snot hurt! Now, that devil, oh, yes! That devil got hurt okay! I beat the devil out of him! I beat it out! I saw it with my own eyes! It was black! It was like a black shadow! I saw it! I beat it out of him! I saved him! Daniel! Daniel, if you don't fucking open your eyes and look at me I'm going to beat the living shit out of you, boy, the same way I beat the living shit out of your devil! Open your fucking eyes!'

'He can't hear you, Mr. Joseph. Please leave him alone.'

Elliot Joseph abruptly let Daniel drop back onto the floor. He gripped the edge of the armchair, missed it, gripped it again, and clambered onto his feet.

'He can't hear me? He can'thearme? Is that what you've fucking done to him? You've infected him! You've made him deaf, just like you, you bitch!'