West Virginia dwindled under heavy skies. The early years of Clarice's life were doused in its smokey, grainy, subdued blue, like twilight that had not quite leaked away. Back when the coal mines were king, what money flowed into the town was invested into fixing up the decrepit car wash, and opening a small cinema. Clarice adored going with her ma on warm Sunday afternoons, wearing her best flowery dress and shining black shoes. Her eyes soaked in every detail of the films, the way the light and shadow of the projection reel danced on the screen to produce places so far away, yet inhabited by people so close it seemed that she saw the characters every day. Before the town's money was squandered on drugs and booze to dull the pain of the frequent cave ins and eventual closure of the mines, Clarice's household managed to remain upright the same way a tree tried to resist shaking in the midst of a storm.
If Clarice paid a visit to the Starling home today, she would have had to pass the broken windows of shuttered businesses and other homes crumbling from neglect. She loved the holler, loved wearing bruises and muddy clothes as badges of honour; always spry, always mean, she got in trouble for going farther from the house than she was supposed to. She cut her jeans off and made shorts and played bare-footed in the yard. She swam in the neighbour's pool after a barbeque, the meat hauled home by the husbands who shot deer in the woods and the wives who helped cook knew how to survive, how to plant a garden, how to sew, and what it meant to hang clothes on the knew how to use a hammer and a screw driver then how to turn 'round and make a pot of cabbage rolls or a pan of cornbread.
They loved their motherhood and their children and their town. They spat out fiery truth and ignored anyone who sneered at their way of life, who presumed to bring civilization in the form of crinkled Benjamin Franklin's and predictions of ruin if the great wheels of modernization didn't keep a-turnin'. Sometimes Clarice envied those people, like when she read magazines her ma lifted from the hotel rooms. Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent adorned elegant women with striking lipstick and glittering jewelry. Their skin was clean, glowing. They looked as contented as singing tucked those magazines in her closet, between the folds of party dresses she never wore. She felt a pang of hunger that flushed to the tips of her ears. It was a feeling not easily discarded, so she did her best to repair broken beams and floorboards, to chase away the crows pecking in the backyard, to read her books and finish her homework before dinner. There was always something more to be done within the reach of her arm.
The little Starling home had a few leaks in the green roof when it rained but some of her best memories were seeing ma put out pots and bowls to catch those leaks. She could still hear the drip, drop, drip, drop. Once, the water was so insistent that it kept her awake. Her pa suggested a car ride; they'd ended up driving aimlessly through town, past the bank and the corner store and the wash and the drug store. Eventually they sputtered up a mountain path and stopped near a gorge. Her pa let the radio play an old cassette full of blues. He reeked of cigarettes and rain on his thick leather jacket. Clarice recalled feeling safe, the gathering of humidity, the raindrops chasing each other down the windows, the sigh of silence. When they got home, the roof kept on leaking, but she didn't care because it taught her the worth of small things. Her circumstances didn't make her feel low.
Even now, Clarice could smell the pine trees that lined her front yard and see the wooden posts her fence was fastened to. She could see the sunflowers down the lane blowing in the breeze from a time gone by; when her small fingers would pick violets and carry them home to rest in a delicate glass vase. On a cool quiet summer evening the crickets chattered late into the night. The lightning bugs danced atop the highest trees, gracing the Starlings' presence during camp fires and late night talks on the porch. Sometimes they would roast marshmallows. Sometimes her pa would gently pluck the mahogany parlor guitar with its silver resonator cone, and her ma would sing favourites like Jolene or What's Forever For with her somber, soft voice. They were often joined by the distant howl of coyotes. This was the whine of the wilderness.
And perseverance was the wine of the wilderness. It was everywhere: in the water from the well she carried home in buckets, the juice of blackberries, the way the mountains literally had a way of molding the person she would become. Clarice swore she had coal slate under her skin. The place became a part of her. Now a highway had been laid parallel to the town. It was narrow, winding and rough, and diverged from the path of the creek through the bottom of the valley. It was the road along where the railroad tracks used to run. The road lined with collapsed and burned-out buildings.
The other paved roads gave way to dirt before winding steeply up wooded hollows. Clarice preferred to take the ones that inevitably dipped into the valley because she could enjoy the murmur of the creek. Spending an afternoon in pleasant solitude usually brought her peace of mind. Once, she had stayed too long and her ma tore up the town looking for her; it was when Clarice had first allowed guilt to intrude into her life. That afternoon was particularly humid. Her t-shirt was sticky against her back and her shorts had to be peeled from her thighs. She was ten years old at the time, dashing between the pine trees, skidding on the gravel path, her cheeks rosy and hot when she arrived at the creek.
She splashed cold water on her face and licked the drops from her lips. A smooth rock rested on a patch of moss. She sat down and closed her eyes. The concentration of the moment slipped beneath the creek's steady trickle, the caress of movement against the pebbles and earth. Carried from the top of the imposing mountains right down to her feet, the water whispered calmly. Clarice opened her eyes when her foot unwittingly nudged a half submerged broken stick. She picked it up. It was gnarled, wet strips of bark hung off it, and the end was viciously jagged. Careful of the splinters, she picked at the lighter wood to hone it into a rough point. She doubted that there were any fish in the creek, yet she couldn't help but absently prod the water anyway. She felt the stick sink into the mud. Her final plunge was so halfhearted she wasn't sure if she wanted to yank it out again. Maybe the stick would remain in the creek forever, a sign that she had been here.
Clarice stood up, and then she heard a frog croak. She glanced at the rock to see it perched there in a pool of water and slime. Its limbs were folded serenely beneath its stout bright green body, and its wide black eyes stared past her. For a moment, she was amused by the way it looked almost sage-like. The small sac in its throat vibrated with the air it let out. Clarice moved toward it slowly, hefting the stick in her right hand. The frog croaked again. When it was within reach, she hesitated thoughtfully. Then, as it took another breath, Clarice skewered the frog.
The sound of the creek leaping and falling; the rasp of the sharp submerged stones; the frog's faintest squeak as she punctured its sac and pushed the stick up and through the back of its soft head. The sac abruptly bulged again, as if it were a balloon, and then filled with blood. Clarice flinched when it burst. The frog sagged down onto the rock and she thought it was awful. One of its limbs twitched, as if it would get up for one final croak, then it was quite still. Clarice hurled the stick away. She picked up the cold and limp frog. She stared at it for a while before gently lowering it into the creek. The water carried it away. Eventually, evening crept in around her while she remained sitting opposite the stained rock, hugging herself.
"Did it feel good to kill the frog?" Dr. Lecter asked. Today he was wearing a three piece suit, demure black slacks, and a malevolent red pocket square for flourish. Clarice was drawn to his tie because its silk pattern was like a sonnet about a bloody water lily.
"No." she answered from her place on the cot.
"Why not?"
"Cos it didn't do anything to me. It was just there an' I wanted to see what would happen."
"You were curious and then you were guilty."
"Yeah." Clarice muttered. "I shoulda been able to separate right from wrong. But I didn't." She picked at the identification number emblazoned on her uniform. A set of digits that could have been plucked randomly from a lottery and thrown together without a second thought; she figured that they only meant something to Chilton or Crawford but they couldn't possibly mean anything to her. She scowled.
"I s'pose the law is for telling us what's right an' wrong."
Dr. Lecter taunted, "You think that's what the law is for?"
"Yeah, that's exactly what the law is for, Doctor! The law exists 'cos our own morals aren't enough."
"No. Our morals exist because the law is not enough."
"How can you say that?" she stammered.
Dr. Lecter steepled his fingers. Clarice noticed a vein in his forehead became more pronounced. His voice was black velvet. "The law is not meant to protect people like us. It does, however, protect state sanctioned murder. It protects the corrupt and allows for war and poverty. Avarice and euphoria, typhoid and swans-the beauty of life crushed by the ugliness of the law. Only because it limits us."
"Maybe it should." said Clarice firmly.
He inclined his head. "But limitation is not always enough, is it, Clarice? Not when you are guilty. That is when you need the law more than ever, because it promises...what does it promise? Answer, please."
"Punishment." Clarice breathed.
"Which implies that you think you are guilty. Are you?"
"Obviously."
"I don't mean legally. Based on your own values, do you feel guilty about your actions?"
"Yes," she answered tremulously, "of course I do. I killed four people!"
"Then there is your morality, Clarice. There is your power, higher than that of any court or abstract oath."
"I didn't have to kill them. I could have done something good. That's why I joined the FBI. Right?"
Dr. Lecter offered a small smile. "What is good? You chose murder, after all. I appreciate your intentions."
Her voice was barely a whisper. "Yes, I chose murder. That felt-that felt good." The word good was a pained gasp.
"Murder must feel good to God as well. He does it all the time. And are we not made in his image?"
Clarice shook her head, insisting, "It's not just destruction. It can't be."
"That is exactly what it is. Precisely that. Only that. Who you are yesterday is destroyed to give rise to who you are today. Don't be wasteful."
"Who I am…" A bitter chuckle escaped her. "Don't you think there's something wrong with who I am?" her voice was rising above seemingly insurmountable words. "I used to know normal. Nowadays I know I'm not normal, because normal people don't kill. Right? You don't just kill, especially repeatedly. Not without a good reason."
"Tell me, what was your reason for crushing that poor cameraman with the storage door?"
"I wanted to."
"You acted on your desire. Why did you want to kill him?"
"Because it felt good."
"What does good mean?"
"I meant, it felt right."
"As in, just?"
"Um, not exactly." Clarice raked a hand through her hair. "He had no business there, he kept pushin' me around. Killing him felt right to me. So I figured I should do it. Feeling right was what made it feel good because he won't bother anyone else like that ever again. Is that good enough for you, Doctor?"
Dr. Lecter chewed thoughtfully on the end of the pen. "Describe the act of killing."
"I've never felt as alive as I did when I was killing him. Honest to God, Doctor."
"And that moment when you killed the cameraman, Clarice, that precise moment of contact between the heavy door and his chest, when you heard the hard crunch, when he began to gasp and shudder and his eyes rolled into his skull," he licked his lips, "during that moment, did it all feel close or far away?"
Clarice could barely gasp in enough air to speak. "What do you mean?"
"Did you feel like you belonged to the moment?"
"Yes."
"Good. And how did you feel about yourself afterwards?"
"Detached."
Dr. Lecter sat straighter in the chair. The way the light fell over him, dark shadows were cast across his cheeks and melted into his skin. "How do you feel about me?"
Clarice felt her heart lurch. A long, agitated silence ensued. He repeated the question more forcefully. She felt a turning, a fluttering, in her chest.
"I feel very attached to you."
Disappointment twisted in her gut at the Doctor's unchanged expression and anger drew her brows together.
"What will you do now, Clarice?"
"I don't exactly have plans so I s'pose I'll wait."
"For now long?"
"As long as necessary."
Dr. Lecter sounded like the way it felt to walk on glass. "Ah, you'll wait for Jackie Boy to throw you another bone. Just how long do you think he'll keep you waiting? True, you've been helpful with Buffalo Bill. But Jack does not appreciate how much you're a feast for the senses, Clarice. Your ambition shines on your face like ducats tossed into a fountain. All the grace of Persephone is nothing compared to yours. And remarkably, speaking with you makes me feel, if I may use your term, good. I think you are meant for more than languishing in purgatory."
Clarice was aware that a flush had spread to the very tips of her ears. It was a relief that she could keep her voice steady. "Well Doctor, are you suggesting I listen to my good ol' conscience and just do whatever I damn well please?"
"There is nothing else worth doing."
"Or I could just wait and get lucky."
"Integrity and passion are not qualities of the lucky. They are qualities of the curious, and the brave."
There seemed nothing particularly brave about being shut away. The room terrorized her sleep; blank walls and no windows and always the same number of steps from one end of the floor to the other. If she didn't have to walk to keep her muscles from cramping and eventually succumbing to atrophy, she would have preferred to slump down on the floor. It was easier.
Of course, the Doctor complicated things. He made her more aware of her own body, the way it came into contact with the same items in the cage, day after day. He let his eyes wander over her, and he allowed her to simply take up space. It mattered all the more to Clarice that her space was limited. It churned her resentment. She realized her hands were curled into fists. Her fingernails dug sharply into the flesh of her palm. With deliberate slowness, she exhaled.
"I know you have plenty of time to dwell on the past," Dr. Lecter said, "but please do try turning your thoughts to the future instead."
Such a wonderful thing had not existed until he mentioned it. Existence came from his very words, life and death, with nothing in between except the miserable half life she had duly accepted. Aside from bland meals and passable conversation with Barney, Clarice had been building something. It was a quiet endeavour, almost sly, and she used her memories as blueprints. With just a casual proposition, the Doctor crumbled her. He was the hammer and she was the stone, cracking only under his strength. If she allowed it, he could crush her into dust. It would be liberating.
Clarice emerged all at once from her mourning to the smell of coal smudging the clear air. She could hear the distant clamour of a train. She was particularly fond of the robin's nest in her backyard, with its three blue eggs and its promise of something more. In her mind, they all survived. The face of her future cracked a tired smile. Its dark eyes held her whole.