Corridor Nine

by Sophie Stocking

  “That’s a relief. A coyote would make quick work of him.” Mrs. Gotslieg sits on the settee beside him and puts her grocery tote on the floor, extracts from it two plastic Tim Horton’s go-cups and hands one to Bernie. “Come sit. I hope you don’t take sugar. I just put in a little cream.” Bernie sits and glances sideways at Eva’s lavender sweatshirt where two chickadees cavort on a branch strained across the bust. A modest crucifix lies centreed between the points of the pink polo collar. Mrs. Gotslieg looks at the black and white photos strewn on the floor.

  “So how are Susie and Randy? I think about them a lot. Is Randy in the fire department still?”

  “Oh, they’re fine, just fine. They both live in Calgary now, so I see them often. Randy actually went back to school and got a degree in social work. He has a wife and two little girls. My pride and joy, and Susie nurses now, she has a nice boyfriend and works at the Foothills in intensive care.”

  “That’s wonderful that they’re so close, that you’re so close.”

  “Well, I always told them ‘Sticking with family is what makes it family’.”

  Bernie looks down at her feet and feels the blood creep away from her face and chest to some unspecified destination. She looks up. The neighbour leans forward and stares with intensity into her face.

  “What I meant to say was ‘Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten’.” Bernie’s blood decides to abandon ship altogether, it trickles as far away as possible, in this case due south to her feet. The crucifix glares at her.

  “‘Honour thy father and mother’,” Bernie says huskily. She tightens her hands around the plastic cup. The neighbour reaches out and touches her knee.

  “I think you misunderstand me, dear. Do you know the other half to that? What is it? Ah, Ephesians 6, I think. ‘Honour thy father and mother that it may go well with you and you may live long in the land.’ But people don’t often know about the second half of the verse. It reads something like ‘Fathers do not embitter your children, lest they become discouraged.’”

  Her vision suddenly murky, Bernie gawps into the beam of the owl-eyed glasses. The muscles of her face quiver just out of control, Eva keeps talking.

  “Your father forgot David, didn’t he? Left him behind, and in a different way he forgot you too. My Leonard used to say, ‘nice people, but something’s not right in that house’.”

  Bernie gives up as the hot wet slides down her face. Eva Gotslieg holds her hand and gives her a napkin.

  “I sometimes think,” Bernie hauls herself back from the brink, mops her face. “I sometimes think if I had stayed in touch, maybe I could have convinced him to go to rehab.” She blows her nose.

  “Two good women spent a lot of time trying to fix your dad. Your mother of course, and Serena finally left, you know, because he refused treatment. I doubt you’d have had any more leverage.”

  Bernie takes a sip of the coffee. It slips down her gullet, creamy and hot, relaxing the knots on the way. She drinks again. From a Tupperware box Eva hands her a plastic fork and a square of cake on a napkin. Bernie bites, dense, mildly sweet with the autumnal tang of plums.

  “This is very good,” Bernie mumbles through the crunchy cinnamon crumbs, waving her fork.

  “My mother’s recipe. I’ll write it out for you. Besides, he was the father and you were the child. It was up to him not you.”

  After they finish the coffee, they talk about all the childhood adventures with Susie and Randy and David. Before Eva leaves, Bernie takes her to the basement and shows her the books and the bizarre partitions.

  “Do you know when he built all this?” They stand surrounded by the acid prints. Eva goes to the rocking boat and pushes to set it going.

  “Oh my. I remember all of you out playing in the yard on this, rocking it to high heaven.” She looks around her and shakes her head. “Let me think. After his second operation maybe, when he was quite recovered. I saw more of him for a time. Yes! I watched him carry two-by-fours into the house, and Totem delivered some drywall. He said he was renovating the basement.”

  Bernie laughs.

  They turn to leave and Bernie helps her neighbour scramble over all the books, and they go up the stairs.

  “You said he had an operation?”

  “Two, dear. He went to the Foothills for the second time, about a year-and-a-half ago. Something about a blockage in his bowels, I think? He said it was only a temporary measure, that he had chronic issues. Oh yes, ‘It will be the end of me,’ that’s what he said. I didn’t want to pry. He seemed embarrassed.”

  “That explains it then. In his suicide note he said something about a ‘fatal disease’. I guess that’s what he meant.”

  An hour later she closes the door behind Eva, gripping Smokey firmly against her bosom. Bernie watches them walk back to the white bungalow streaked with the shadow of poplar trees. In the living room she gathers up the photos off the floor and lays them in the storage box. Then she finds her headlamp and goes down to the basement.

  First, she uncovers the wall, pulling out the pushpins and stacking up the posters on her baby cookstove. Towards the middle she finds the last word written in Sharpie: ANCESTORS.

  The hammer makes quick work of it, and stepping in, her headlamp finally finds the far foundation of cemented river rock. Four more blue plastic storage boxes lie on the floor. She opens them and sees bundles of old letters in her grandma Evelyn’s tiny writing, yellowed newspaper clippings, some war medals, a stiff sawdust-stuffed teddy bear, and stacks and stacks of sepia-toned photographs, mainly of Fabian at different ages and her grandparents. I can sort through these at home, she thinks. She picks up a storage box and starts hauling it to the van.

  Bernie almost trips on the toy stove on her way out. She sets the bin down and looks at it, flips the switches that used to turn on the red light-bulb burners. Inside the drawer she finds the plastic dishes, white with sprigs of blue flowers. They are dirty with the remnants of some concoction, crushed flower petals, mud. Maybe Jell-O or Kool-Aid crystals have glued a stack of teacups together. She remembers her father giving it its final coat of harvest gold paint. Maybe she should bring it home for the twins and repaint it. She looks inside the oven and finds the enamel teapot her mother bought in Chinatown. David rushing around in the kitchen making tea for her parents, while Bernie listens to them yelling at each other in the living room. She closes the little oven door. I’ll build them a new one, she thinks.

  Fabian stirs from sleep to the occasional static crackle of the Membrane and the steady breath of Bune. He drifts out again into the eddy of his dream. Margaret lies warm against him. Her hair smells of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, the yellow kind that says “no more tears.” He listens to the chirping of the children down the hall. He will capture all their dancing moments with his big black Nikon. The day stretches before him free of the usual muttering discontent, and he wants to leap to it, like a frog to a pool. He smiles as he hangs the Nikon on a branch by its strap. The branch is grey with lichen, but sturdy, and forms a hook. He touches the water with his toes, and then steps in to join David and Bernie. He feels the cool bracelets creeping up his ankles as he moves into the transparent green. I am here, I am here he says, squatting down, and selects for each of them the perfect water-silky pebble from the thousands on the bottom. He is surprised to see calm expectancy in his children’s eyes, to feel a member of a tribe. Someone pushes on his back. Move along. But Fabian ignores the intrusion. Into David’s hand he nests the flattened oval of jade and red oxide, divided with a seam of white quartz. Stop pushing! I’m not done yet. For Bernie this buffed-amber sea-glass lozenge. A chip off the end shows the congealed transparency inside the sandblasted skin. Just in time, he slides it into the cup of her palm then he turns around to see.

  “I’m not done yet,” snaps Fabian.

  “Wake up tadpole. See how far the sun has risen. Today we will go on the field trip. You must eat.”

  “I’m not . . . ” but the grey ceiling blots
up his dream. He punches the turf. It forms around his knuckles, then extrudes him back out.

  Fabian sits cross-legged and glowers up at Bune standing above him in full-angel format. The cloud gown and creamy feathers contrast with his calloused skin. Quickly Fabian reaches down and touches the angel’s foot. Under the roughness it feels warm.

  “Today an extra special breakfast,” says Bune.

  “Why?”

  “It’s Sunday. You have worked hard, made progress, and we will visit the Sponsor Ring, as I promised.”

  “The Sponsor Ring, where you go to select your next lifetime, your next assignment.”

  “That’s right. Where you choose your sponsor. Not today of course. Today we will just get the lay of the land.”

  “By sponsor you mean my next mother? And by mother you also mean the Gateway?”

  “Mmm, hmm. You are full of questions this morning. Now lie down and eat your breakfast so we can get going.”

  Fabian flops sideways and nestles into the turf.

  “Why can’t we have this on Earth? It’s really such an excellent system, so efficient. No dishes, no grocery shopping, no chopping or stewing or grinding or baking, no refrigeration required. No botulism, no E. coli poisoning. You don’t even have to brush your teeth!”

  “Stop talking and eat.”

  He breathes for a while and breakfast arrives. Little round waffles, made with nut flour perhaps? Light and crisp, yet chewy. Dense, silky whipping cream. Tumbling wild blue berries, golden currants, fraise de bois. For the carnivore, a hearty side of fried ham, texture perfect, no gristly bits. Fabian sits up and burps.

  “You know, there was just one thing missing.”

  “Good Lord, lie down then.”

  He lies down. A big cup of kickass French roast. A deep sigh and Fabian smiles blissfully.

  “Stand. Now rotate ninety degrees away from the Membrane. We are pointed due black you see? Now we walk.”

  “How far do we have to walk? Is it further than one ‘circumnavigation of the lifetimes of man’?”

  “Twice the distance actually. I regret restoring your capacity for exhaustion; we may need to rest.” Bune extends his nomad foot, the cloud gown murmurs of rain and Fabian falls into a dogtrot beside him. For a while they walk in silence, the light receding until they are engulfed in dark. A vacuum surrounds them. Fabian can detect nothing beyond his own childish pant and the soft rasp of the angel’s calloused feet against the nap of the turf.

  “How will we know if we’re walking straight? I mean what if we veer off and just wander around in circles?”

  “Well if you are worried you can hold my hand.”

  “But how do you know? How do you not get off track?”

  “I just feel my way.” Bune stops, reaches out in the dark and finds Fabian’s shoulder. “As always the turf predicts our needs. Kneel.” Fabian drops to all fours and runs his paws over the carpet.

  “Oh!” Under his hands the softness organizes itself into rows running away from him. “It feels like corduroy!”

  “Yes, follow the grain and you can’t get lost. Shall we proceed?” Fabian stands up and again starts to trot but he doesn’t get through more than twenty of Bune’s paces before the density of the blackness overwhelms him. He feels his puny bit of self in danger of snuffing out. He begins to hyperventilate. Blindly he claws until he touches Bune and finds the calloused hand.

  “Sensory deprivation getting to you?”

  “It’s so endless, and thick, I feel like I’m going to dissolve, like I’ll get sucked away.”

  “The next time we go you won’t mind so much, once you know where the end is. But maybe we should talk, or I know, did you used to sing?”

  “Very badly. Couldn’t do sports, sang offkey, and danced like Mr. Bean. The whole prowess area, beyond my intellectual capacities was a fiasco. I used to put marbles up my nose to imitate Bob Dylan though. Actually, I did a passable Bob Dylan. Margaret could stay on key, but not me.”

  “Well pick a Bob Dylan song then. What was your favourite?”

  “Oh, there were so many. Let me think. How about ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’? Do you know that one?”

  “I can generally catch the gist. You start, and I’ll back you up. Ready, and we’ll walk.” Fabian aligns his toes in the ribs of turf, and grips Bune’s finger. He opens his mouth and the first words quaver out, the mother’s question to her son.

  “Deep breath and a little louder,” says Bune.

  Fabian launches back in, reiterating the question.

  “Now it’s coming! Belt it out! On Corridor Nine you can sing like you never dreamed.”

  With gusto, Fabian chews into the gritty lament. Bune stops and turns to him in the dark.

  “Really? Are you sure that’s the sound you want? It sounds like, like . . . ”

  “It sounds like sandpaper singing! That was Bob Dylan! Wow, it’s just like him, even without the marbles up my nose. How will you catch on if you don’t know the lyrics?”

  “I’ve ‘tuned into your wavelength’. You sing sandpaper, and I’ll back you up with bass.”

  Fabian howls out the next line.

  “Now you come in with your part,” and Bune’s low roll of thunder joins the little guy’s nasal trumpet call.

  Fabian closes his eyes, so they can stop straining against the dark. He feels the lines of turf falling away behind each searching step — foothills undulating, the scudding shadows of cloud tangling with sunlight. Far ahead he can make out the indigo line of the mountains.

  Eben scrubs out the mac and cheese saucepan, while Lola loads the last of the dishes into the dishwasher. The twins sit on opposite sides of the banquette. Lola found them a bag of potato chips in the back of the snack cupboard, and they nosh steadily while they wait for the kettle to boil for the Ichiban.

  “Has she always been like this? I mean, what did it used to be like?” asks Lola, straightening up and pushing the dishwasher door with her hip until it grinds shut. “It’s hard to remember.”

  “Who? Mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m thirsty,” pipes Louis. “Can I have some of Daddy’s Starbucks cold brew?”

  Eben picks the litre bottle up from the counter and unscrews the cap, sucks back a mouthful and thinks.

  “No cold brew. You’re too young for that much caffeine. Have some milk, there’s protein and calcium in milk. ‘Always have protein with your carbs’.” He steps to the fridge and takes out the carton, waggles it at Lola. “She’d be around all the time, saying stuff like that, you know useful rules to live by.” He pulls two plastic kid cups out of the cupboard.

  “We’re watching way too much media now. ‘Turn off the computer!’ She said that constantly.” Lola gets herself a cup too. “What else?” turning to the twins.

  “‘Boredom is just creativity warming up,’” says Moira

  “‘Wait five days, and if you still want it go back and buy it,’” continues Louis. “She just says that because she knows I’ll forget. Hey wait a minute! I never got that dagger letter opener from the Egyptian store.”

  “We used to go places,” says Moira. “It’s boiling, Eben.” He peels the plastic tops half open on the Styrofoam Ichiban cups and fills each one from the kettle, then sets the timer on the microwave for two minutes.

  “We used to have projects, or she’d get all excited about something. Remember Mexican cooking and masa harina, home-made tortillas?”

  “The summer when we got the potter’s wheel,” says Louis.

  “Paper making!”

  “Candles, that whole beeswax phase.”

  “The year she built the tree house, and we helped her,” says Lola.

  “Well we didn’t help too much, I snuck into the house when we were working on the post holes for the foundation. She finished them herself with a shovel and her soup ladle.” Eben picks up the Coke bottle and takes another swig. “God, and the yoga, when she made us all do yoga. We were so little.” He gets fou
r spoons and pulls the lids all the way off the Ichiban cups, puts one in front of each twin. “But it was fun actually, and I still do it you know, sometimes when I can’t sleep. You guys eat that and then go to bed, it’s school tomorrow.” He and Lola lean against the kitchen counter and eat standing up.

  “We used to just talk a lot. Tell her about stuff. Now she just says ‘aha’ and ‘mmm’. You know I wish I had met her dad. What was his name?”

  “Fabian.”

  “What a weird name. You saw him a few times, didn’t you? There’s that picture in your baby book, when he came to the hospital after you were born.”

  “He used to stop by the little house sometimes, this short bald guy with big black glasses. He wouldn’t ever look at me, but he brought me a gift once, an easel for painting. I think he made it himself out of plywood, but it was so heavy, and the hinges didn’t lock. It fell over one day and scraped my leg. After that she must have thrown it out and we got that cheap easel from IKEA.”

  “And you were there weren’t you, for the ‘Secret Santa Package’?”

  “Oh yeah!” says Eben. “You were just a baby. I remember looking out the patio doors, you know to the back deck we had in the little house? It was snowing.” “Was it Christmas morning?”

  “Yes, I think we’d opened gifts and were getting ready for breakfast. This huge present wrapped in red and gold paper with a big red ribbon, it looked like a Christmas decoration at the Bay. It came out of the sky very slowly in little jerks and landed on the deck. Whump! The snow flew up all around it. It was as big as a dishwasher!”

  “How did he do that?”

  “Well then I saw him up in the neighbour’s tree, looking at me through those glasses. He’d lowered it by a rope and I guess he didn’t want to come down and untie it. The rope landed on the deck like a snake. I looked up again, and he was gone.”

  “And it was full of toy guns, right?” asks Lola.

  “Yeah, totally full. I’ve never seen so many, oh and a tin frog that you could wind up with a key. Mom said I could only pick out two guns to keep, and the frog.”

  “I want a story, will she come out in time for stories?” Moira fishes out the last of the instant noodles and drinks the salty broth out of the bottom of the cup.