Fiction: Raskolnikov's Bread
*** This is a work of fiction. It contains discussions of sexual violence. Please consider that before reading. ***
I do not like the early mornings, nights rather, when it is my turn to bake. Before the sun breaks the darkness, I trudge to the bakery, flip on the lights, and knead the dough. Four days a week. Gustav comes at four in the morning every day, but the old man loves his early hours. He likes to be done by two, then to leave and live the rest of his life, he says. He plays Go by the water, from what I know.
But I love the now. The spring sun climbs over the buildings across the street and floods my bakery. The old regulars lift their faces from the newspapers I provide for them to read, and lift their coffee to another day and to me, their neighborhood friend. They know I will step out from the ovens to greet the sun. Steve, Maya, the gardener man whose name I always forget. Even the young turn their faces from the screens to look outside, for once not unhappy about an intrusion.
Each morning with the sun, I assert how right I was to leave the grey office world that handcuffed me to other men’s dreams with a promise of achievement. On the rainy days, I sometimes miss the money and the prestige of my former life at the banks. But even on the rainy days, I am not miserable in my apron as I was in a suit.
I wash my hands at the sink and watch.
The queue is healthy today. It meanders by the pastry counter and the recessed bread shelves, then to the door. Outside tables are full. A hipster buys two croissants, a loaf of polenta sourdough, pays with his phone. A new person joins the end of the queue as he leaves. Two women order breakfast sandwiches and a coffee to eat outside. I recognize their faces but do not know their names. A few new faces in line. Brisk business.
A late middle-aged woman, about my vintage, is looking straight at me. Business suite, short hair, black against the pale face, blue eyes. The eyes are angry, set by the clenched jaw of her thin face. A beautiful face distorted by trouble. I often see it in the queue. People play out scenarios of their days in the anonymity of the crowd, minds absorbed by the happiness of the moment or the struggle, their faces reflecting emotions that only they understand. But her gaze is not vacant, and it unsettles me. She stares a little too long, looks at her phone, then rushes out of the bakery.
A lawyer fighting her pending battles, I guess.
"Gustav," I am back by the ovens, " I am going to run the kid to school. You good?"
He nods. I hang my apron, say I’ll be back in an hour, and head out the back.
“Papa,” Sophia pouts at me, “I want Mama to take me today.” She pushes her cereal across the table.
A pang of jealousy and resentment arises in me, but I almost laugh. Sophie is six. She does not know when her words can bring hurt. I am sure I have done the same in my younger days.
“I would want Mama to take me to all the places, too,” I smile and wink, “but it is my turn today, and Mama will pick you up.”
She huffs.
“You know what is in two weeks?” I ask.
“No school!”
“And we are going to the summer cottage.”
“Who will bake bread?”
“Gustav. He knows more than I do.”
“But he is mean, and he talks funny.”
“He is very kind. But where he grew up, people were more serious.”
“Why?”
“He did not have it as easy as us in our country. He did not have cereal or much bread. But he is a kind man.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s go. Don’t want to be late.”
We walk past the one-hundred-year-old craftsman homes. Past the manicured yards with flowers and magnolia trees. And past the yards with overgrown prairie grasses, so designed and maintained, the owners are old hippies now driving Volvos. We walk past the schoolyard chicken wire fence that keeps the kids off the street.
Sophie picks up a stick and I do the same. We run them against the fence to make a noise like we do every other morning on our walk to her school.
I watch her run up the steps. And thank the good fortune for being fired those years ago, pushed into a decision I was years late in the making. It destroyed me then but gave me a gift of watching my kid run up the school steps. Even if she wanted her mother to take her today.
“Hey, Love,” I phone the mom.
“All good?”
“She wanted you to take her, was a bit mad.”
“Am I picking her up? Shit. Yes, yes. I will.”
“Problems? Are you at the university?”
“Just forgot. At the mental hospital with the grad students. Not practicals, so I will escape.”
“Ok. If something changes, Professor, I’ll be done by then.”
Three days later, I see the angry lawyer woman in the bakery queue again. She is in a business attire, more formal than the general trend in the city. Of late, men shed their ties, and women their high heels. The creased pants shifted to khakis or jeans, skirts to pants. She followed the easy fashion half-way.
She looks at me through the large window into the kitchen but without anger. A curiosity? Maybe a parent from the same school? I shape the brioche dough and, between the kneading strokes, glance through the window. She orders. Two croissants, a baguette, and a pumpernickel loaf. I can’t hear her but I see the items loaded in the bag. Good order.
She stumbles with her purse, fishes out a credit card, and it falls to the floor as she tries to tap it against the reader. It works on the second try. I watch her slot the card back into the purse but it falls again. She grabs it and drops it into the large pocket of the purse, picks up the bag and turns to leave, but the long way, a three-quarter turn where she can look at me. I smile. She does not.
She is back the next day, but at one in the afternoon. The crowd is light after lunch, two people in line, and a few around the tables on their laptops with a coffee. Sophie is with me, it is her short day at school, and we are at a table leafing through her coloring book.
The woman is in a black pant suit, the blazer unbuttoned, a cream button-up shirt underneath. Bright, ugly running shoes on her feet. She slows when she sees me with Sophie, smiles at my girl, nods at me, and heads to the counter. The counter help is busy slicing bread. I walk behind the register.
“How is your day?” I ask.
“It is… It is fine. I will…” She looks in the pastry case then the menu above.
“Pumpernickel, sourdough baguette and two croissants?”
“What? Ah, no. Is it too late for Croque Madame?”
“We can make it. Breakfast is until one but it’s close enough.”
“Ok, that and a latte,” she taps to pay. “Pumpernickel, sourdough baguette, and two croissants? Oddly specific.” She says.
“You order from a few days ago.”
“Do you remember all orders?”
“Only unusual combinations. And you looked at me as if I were about to run you over with a Land Rover.”
“Sorry, I thought I recognized you.”
“Small city. I have a stand at the Farmer’s Market. Familiar mug.”
“I am not from here. Here for work.”
“For how long?”
“A couple of months.”
“Well, you should go to the Farmer’s Market then. It’s a zoo. Enormous.”
She shifts her gaze between my face and her hands, closes them into fists. “I’ll grab a seat.”
“I’ll make your sandwich.”
She scans the tables. Most are empty now. She picks the one next to Sophie, pulls out a pad, and jots notes. Hmm. Most people would pick a table with a space apart.
I search my memory but cannot place her. Maybe from the old days of business conferences? But I was fit then, without a gut pushing against my shirt, and with a gaunt face of a triathlete, my overreaction to the pudgier college days. Old banker friends do not recognize me.
“Croque Madame,” I sat the plate in front of her, a napkin and silverware to the side.
I take my seat by Sophie and watch her color the finer details on the already completed page. She is her mother’s daughter.
“Is this your place?” The woman asks.
“Yes, and my wife’s but she is busy with a real job.”
“This is not a real job?”
“Too easy.” I say. She raises an eyebrow. “Show up at four, make what you love making, sell it to people who love eating it. Easy. Beats the old job."
“Which was?”
“Investment banking. Soulless.”
“What is soulless,” Sophie asks.
“Hmm. That’s when you do what you don’t like, and your work makes people upset, and it keeps you away from your family.” I am not convincing myself, but the woman nods. I ask her: “Here for work? What"s work?”
“ I run a non-profit working with rape-crisis centers and rape survivor support organizations."
I am afraid of Sophie’s questions, but she is focused on her page.
"Heavy," I say, "could be hard to leave at the door."
"It was, but easier when you are making a difference. And I am now once removed."
"Once removed?"
"Don’t work directly with the survivors. Easier to leave at the door."
" I thought you were a lawyer for some reason."
"I was. Represented the victims of rape. But like you said, can’t leave it at the door, so found another way to make a difference."
I am looking for a way to shift the conversation. ‘Papa, what is rape’ is a question I don’t want to answer.
"Lawyer?" She says. "I fit some stereotype?"
"I don’t know. I shouldn’t have said that."
"You were right. How long in this community?"
"Lived here for twenty years, but in the community for five, since I opened the bakery. Just lived here before, not getting involved."
"What changed?"
"Suddenly it mattered. Sophie will grow up here. And the bakery depends on my neighbors. I want it to be better."
"Is it bad?’
"The community? It is great. But takes much work to keep things up. Entropy. Things fall apart without effort."
"As do people. Why did you leave the investment banking?"
"Disagreements with partners. We were in private equity, buying manufacturing plants and such. Turn them around, so they make money then sell them. Standard private equity fair. But then we started consolidating small family businesses. Like small vet offices all around, buying the owners out and making everything efficient, standardized."
"What’s wrong with that?"
"Breaking ties with the communities. Those little places were the community bedrocks, that made everything cohesive. But when a part of something bigger they serve a different interest. It seemed wrong, but it was profitable, so I lost the argument."
"An investment banker grew a consciousness?"
"Hard to imagine, ah? But can’t everyone redeem themselves?"
"A rapist?"
"I don’t know." I glance at Sophie hoping the woman notices my discomfort.
"How does someone get into private equity?"
"Business school, meeting the right people there. Or wrong people, you can say."
"Business school here?"
"A state down. Undergrad there too. Go Ducks!"
"I went there too," she nods, "early nineties."
"We may have been in the same lectures together!"
"I am sure we were."
“Anthony Wheeler.” I say.
“Freida Smiles.”
My bag is a small duffel. It holds my clothes for two weeks at the cabin. Maddie’s two suitcases are bulging, and she has two stacks of clothes next to them on the bed.
“Wife, are you moving out?” I ask.
“Fuck off. I need options.”
“See, too much psychology and not enough Stoics in your education, Love.”
“What?”
“The simplicity and focus on experience,” I say. She is not amused. “Sorry. How were the students?”
“I read Stoics. Ever noticed none were a woman?”
“Hmm. So?”
“They don’t know a half of it.”
“Aha. So, how were the prospective students?”
“Fine. Three are golden, bright. Two entitled a-holes from the East Coast, and one. Hmm. I don’t know. Either dumber than shit or does not know how to express ideas. Will see. The stumbling ones surprised me before. Every time actually. “
“Good ones in the end?”
She stops shuffling clothes from one suitcase to another, thinks. “One. The others had no business being there.”
“You are tough.”
“Oh, well. They know my rep, like you knew what you married. But hey, my vacation started today, so we only talk about your work.”
“One more day. Sophie will love hanging with you tomorrow. But the work is good. Ran into a woman who went to school with me.”
“Oh, yeah? What school?”
“Undergrad. Did not recognize her, not the same friend circle, but the timing was right.”
“How did that come up?”
“Just a customer chat over three non-contiguous days.”
“Non-contiguous. What a phrase. Was she hot?”
“Very. Perversely. Walked around with a baguette in my pants for the rest of the day.”
“More like a hot dog bun. You are such a dick.”
“You started it.”
The next day, Freida orders Croque Madame, and I make it. She invites me to join and I do. We chat about the Ducks, the ocean, and the formative years. She asks about the community. No, she is not moving here, just curious how people make one better. Festivals, I tell her, and the money from that goes to fund local projects for kids. Yes, I am involved. I still have contacts in the business world and know how to talk to those people. I am good at finding sponsors. No, it's a surprise to me being good at it, but I love separating the rich from their money now. No, I don’t appeal to their good nature, more like their sense of guilt, but mostly pride and vanity. That’s how it works, right?
“Do you remember much of your undergrad?” She jumps topics.
“Just history, had a neck for it.”
“I mean, the life outside of school.”
“ The last two years. The first two were a blur - studying and parties. Good times and good stories. But I had to straighten out my act.”
“Sports?”
“Ha, no. I was not in a great shape. Just a bit soft around the middle. Debate society.”
“Fraternities?”
“No. Friends in a few but felt wrong to buy friends.”
“Buy friends? That’s what you think of fraternities? Probably right. Frat parties?”
“Sometimes.”
She nods. “Do you walk home?” She asks.
The question confuses me. “Yes,” I say.
“You said you are done at two? In ten minutes? I have a bit of business to discuss.”
I squint my eyes and tilt my head. “Business?”
“Yes. Will take ten minutes.”
“I am leaving on vacation after I get home. Maybe in a week?”
“It is important. It is best if we chat now. May I walk with you?”
“Ugh. Ok, sure. It is about eight blocks.”
I walk to the kitchen, take off my apron, and wash my hands. Gustav is already gone. I check his notes hanging on the ticket rail. He refuses to type them into the software, but that is fine. It is his only quirk. I try to read the notes but can’t focus on his scribble. She wants to talk. Is it a proposition? No, different vibe. Are we getting sued? But for what? Some scam? Does not seem the type. But the scammers are good. I begin to type her name in the search bar on my phone - ‘Frieda…,’ shit, what was it? Agh, fuck it.
We walk north. I walk with an easy smile, but my right-hand squeezes my left behind my back.
“Business?” I say
“Do you know why I do what I do?”
“Not exactly; you said you like to make a difference.”
“Yes, I understand what people have gone through. Women, and sometimes, men. Being raped, that is. Screws with people, you know.”
I do not answer. I shake my head.
“So I thought I could make a difference, helping others get over a thing like that. Or rather make it a less dominant memory in their life. I have both training and empathy, after all.”
“You were raped?”
“I was. A frat party in college. Drinking, playing, talking. I grew up in a religious family, Anthony. Sex was for marriage. All undone in a night..”
“I am sorry.”
“I am sure you are. You did it, Anthony.”
I stop and look at her. I feel unsteady, my feet on the ground but my mind tumbling off a cliff, in sudden fear, rejection, anger, concern.
“No. I would not.”
“I know your eyes. I know your smile. You smiled the entire time. A drunken smile and a laughter.”
“I would not.”
“You smelled of Rumple Minze. Can’t forget your breath on my nose.”
“No way.”
“Sit down, Anthony,” she points at a bench in the park that we pass, and I do. “You never finished. You passed out. I remember your sweaty neck on my shoulder and pushing your slumped weight off me. Do you know how hard it is to push a limp body around? I remember that. Then, walking away from that orange brick fraternity house.”
“Listen. What you are saying is insane. I met you a week ago, and you are accusing me of something criminal that I have not done.”
“As far as you remember.”
“I am not that man.”
“From what I see, not today. But then.”
“No.”
“You said you are going on vacation. Think about it.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to atone.”
“What does it mean? Are you taking me to court?”
“No. The statute of limitations is up, and it would be hard to prove. But I can drag your name through the mud. Here in your community.”
“Why?”
“You almost ruined my life.”
“Almost? No.”
“Yes. It took a lot of work to speak to you with such detachment. I hated your face, the smell of peppermint, the drinking for twenty years. Then I forgot you, but not forgot you, learned to cover the hate. But you showed up in my life. And now I hate things again. You know what I hate the most.”
“What?”
“That you are not evil. You are a father and a seemingly decent man. I talked to a lady in the bakery a few days ago; she sang your praises - a community man. But does it matter? It does not. You broke me. But then it does. In destroying you, I may be destroying your daughter, Sophie, right?”
I numbly nod.
“Well, am I right to hurt her? See, Anthony Wheeler, we have a dilemma. We must find a way for you to atone. For you to own your past. Enjoy your vacation. I will see you in a few.”
She gets up. Waves. Walks away.
I sit for another minute. No, I could not have. Then I walk home.
Atone. Find a way to atone. Own my past. How can I own what is not in my memory? I am in bed at my in-laws cabin. It is morning, and my eyes have been open for hours.
“You have been brooding,” Maddie says.
“Was I?”
“What’s on your mind.”
“Bakery, festival fundraising, my old parents, money for their care. Feeling overwhelmed a little.”
“Yeah, much on the plate. And that’s it?”
“Not enough?”
“You can always talk to me. You know?”
“I want to climb the Sisters tomorrow. Early. Want to come?”
“You? Hike? How early?”
“At first light.”
“Hell, no. That time does not exist on my vacation.”
“Come on. Your mom would love the time with Sophie.”
“Why not go later? Ah, lunch with… whatever. The day after?”
“Rain.”
“You go. I will read in bed all morning. Pulp fiction.”
“Pulp fiction? I have not seen you read a book without a disease name in a title in years.”
“Exactly. Pulp fiction. A book a day.”
I scoff.
The next morning, I throw my backpack in the truck and leave in the dark. I don’t want to be alone this morning, and I don’t want anyone around me, either. I want no one to distract me from my thoughts, yet I am afraid to face them alone. They are queueing in my mind, ready to crumble my composure.
The drive takes off the edge. I am driving slowly, with my windows down and the heater on full blast to fight the morning mountain cold. No one is behind to hurry me to where people rush to relax. I listen to the river burbling next to the road. It is louder than the whoosh of the tires and the wind. I think of fly fishing on this stream back in my early thirties. Maddie would get up early then and take me to the spot her father taught her to cast, and where she taught me. Right there. Seeing it brings me joy. Why did we trade the wholesome discomfort of outside for the complacent comfort of the city routines? Even when we visit her parents, we rarely stray from the porch.
I park and begin my climb. It is four hours up and three down. Enough time to return for the late lunch. ‘You did it, Anthony," she said. Could I have? No way.
I think of my buddy Tally. His name was Steve but no one called him that in college. He kept score of little things he won or lost, a tally of meaningless bets - the memory of a savant. So, he became Tally in our freshmen year.
I think of a Sunday morning after the homecoming football game. We are hungover and eating pancakes. Three of us laugh at Tally and him at a bar the prior night. It is after the tailgate, sneaking booze at a game, and then at more backyard parties. He is throwing darts but none hit the board. They fall to the floor. He loses the game and thinks the game is for money, but he has none. He takes his shirt off, gives it to a guy, and says, ‘Double or nothing.’ He is drunk. The bouncer shows up, tells him to put the shirt back on, but Tally spouts of honor code and the need to pay the debts. We are thrown out. Tally remembers none of it. The memory of a savant.
How many nights in my first and second years have gone this way for me? I know of a couple. How many do I not know? But rape. No way.
I am above the tree line. It is only the first light. The sun has another twenty minutes to show itself. I turn off my headlamp. In a minute, my eyes adjust, and I can see. I forge on.
What would I say if what was happening to me now was happening to Tally? Would I believe that he could? Could he do this to someone? He is not that kind of a man. But in the drunken stupor? Could it happen? The debauchery of those years and actions taken without care. If he were accused, what would I think of him? Give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe. Would I ever look at my friend with the same love? Same respect? Fuck. I want to scream
The sun is now at my side, and my face is warmer. Its disk is diffused orange. I look at it directly. The smoke from a distant fire sapped the sun’s strength. Is it me? The mistakes of the past blighting my shine for the rest of my days? Don’t be so fucking dramatic, I tell myself.
I walk over the remnant tongue of the winter snow, still on the mountain, yet to melt. I realize I may not make it to the top. The trail follows the south side, but it is still early in the season, and the snow will fight on for weeks. Maybe it is for the best not to make it. There is a smell of sulfur at the top of these sleeping volcanos. I don’t need another reminder of the hell my life is becoming. The hell that Freida’s has been?
What would I do if a grown-up Sophie were to tell me of her drunken rape? Would I give the accused a chance? Not with my Sophie. That man would have to face justice, or my justice. That man would have to atone. So what am I to do? Must I accept my guilt even if I don’t know?
I stop. A murderer must for killing in a drunken stupor. Is this different? Not in any way.
I walk to the ledge for a breather and the view. Below is a river of lava frozen into rock millennia ago, still young by the earth's clocks. The relief stood up to erosion, spiraling eddies visible from my height. So easy to step forward over the lava river hundreds of feet below and end the agony. A few seconds of terror and an eternity of peace. There is no hell after death, only here before it.
But that can never be my way. No. I have people who need me, and I need them. I have Sophie to take to school, pick her up and send her to college, listen to her troubles, enforce curfews, and let things slide when the mother is away. I have boys to vet and threaten however lightheartedly in a few years from now, but too soon anyway. I have my wife and our life shared for two decades of bliss and fights and conversations. And twenty years more. Even after now?
I think of Freida. I don’t know what she wants. I don’t know how she feels. I know what she says but don’t know what it means. What will she do? Will she let it go? Destroy me in an even revenge for my actions? Will she keep my family out of it? No way. And it won’t do. I cannot live a forever Raskolnikov with the secret of a crime and the punishment of a secret. Such life breaks all bonds. Careens you to destruction. Will I live forever alone?
Wait. Me. Me. Me. What about her? Freida and her youth, her life, her dreams? Squandered by a drunk, diminished by an evil act of a man. Me? Was it me? Who am I to challenge what she says?
It is time to step back. My life has changed last week. I am not the man I thought. Tomorrow it will change again. Maddie will hear me talk. She will listen to my burden. She will listen to my doubt. She will listen to my admittance. The start of my atonement? A path without an end.