The Black Blanket

When he woke up that morning the first thing he thought was, That cow better’ve had her calf.

An hour later, she got up. Down in the kitchen she poured his coffee, which had started to burn, into the sink with the water running, as if it were caustic, and made her own. Before going to bed the night before she’d put her new book on the table; and, as she sat down to it with her coffee, she thought of the story sitting there all night in the dark and wondered, when a book is left to sit like that, whether all the action takes place in one simultaneous moment, or whether the action takes place in time. And if it takes place in time, she wondered at what pace it moves: at the pace we read it, or faster, or slower?

It was The Idiot by Dostoevsky. She opened the book.

The obnoxious woman in her book club had suggested she read it. They met every other Thursday evening in the library and had been reading Beloved by Toni Morrison. After the last meeting the obnoxious woman, whose name she could never remember, had come up to her and asked her who her favorite authors were. Caught off-guard, she’d managed to come up with Tolstoy, having just finished Anna Karenina per Oprah’s recommendation, and was trying to come up with another name when the obnoxious woman interrupted: “Have you read Dostoevsky? No? Oh you have got to read Dostoevsky. Start with The Idiot, it’s easier.”

All that night she thought the obnoxious woman had meant, “Start with the idiot, it’s easier,” as if telling her that Dostoevsky was easier than Tolstoy, but the next day, searching for his books, she found The Idiot and checked it out.

Because it was a newer edition it contained one of those exhaustive introductions written by a scholar that gives the entire plot away for the sake of literary exegesis. She wasn’t going to read it, but the story of Dostoevsky’s life was so interesting she couldn’t stop herself. She read about how he was condemned to die and even led in front of a firing squad with a black cloth over his head before being pardoned at the last minute. And she read about his epilepsy, his gambling addiction, his debt. When she finished the introduction, she closed the book and got up to start breakfast.

The moment he walked in she knew something was wrong. She heard it in his sigh as he bent over to untie his boots. It was seven-thirty, and he’d already been up for two and a half hours, and a lot can go wrong in two and a half hours on a farm. But she knew better than to ask. He’d tell her eventually, reluctantly at first, as if it didn’t involve her, then it would come pouring out of him with the approximate haltingness and intensity of sobbing.

She made up a plate of eggs and toast and set it on the table near him. After a minute or so of staring straight ahead, he kicked back in the chair like he’d been shot and said, “Well, goddamn it, I gotta call Bessert. I thought 114 was gonna have that calf last night, and here she is this morning pregnant as Mary. Bessert’s gonna have to come and pull ’er.”

“I don’t see what it is about Bessert you don’t like.”

“They always send Bessert out here, almost like they know I hate him. Or like the secretary says ‘Schrader’s’ and he raises his goddamn hand and volunteers. He doesn’t shut up about his kids . . .” He bit this off like a paper cartridge, and she knew why. He never had forgiven her for refusing to try again. “He’s always humming, drives me nuts, just nuts.” He picked up the fork and stabbed the tines full of eggs, as if he hadn’t considered before that they were edible and there to be eaten...