The last of the evening sun lit my parents’ bedroom, bouncing off their mirror and sending a little rainbow to the foot of the crib.
Eric wouldn’t fall asleep. He kept crying, mouth open, eyes shut.
“Eric, what’s wrong?” Ally put her hand in the crib and let him grab her pinky finger.
I lifted him out of the crib, his tiny hand still holding Ally’s finger tightly.
“Did you burp him?” Ally asked.
“Yeah. He spat up a bit.” I showed her the stain on my T-shirt near the collar: a mix of peas and strawberry baby food. When I’d tried to feed him, he spit the peas out with a look of disgust, so I had to slip them in between spoonfuls of strawberry. That way I got him to finish both jars, just as Mom had said.
“You changed him?” I asked.
“Right before you fed him.” Ally undid the diaper sticker and peeked. “Nothing.”
I leaned in and sniffed, but only smelled the coconut oil Mom used on his skin.
Ally ran her fingers through his soft, black hair. The cries kept coming. I carried him over to the rocking chair next to my parents’ bed, then rocked the chair back and forth, but Eric kept crying.
“Should we call Mrs. O’Brien?” Ally asked.
“If we do that, Mom and Dad won’t ever leave us home alone with him again,” I said.
“Maybe he’s sick again.”
Eric had caught a cold a few weeks back. He had a mini-cough, and when his nose got stuffed up, Mom had to suck the snot out from his nostrils and then spit it out. It was the grossest thing I’d ever seen. “What else can you do?” Mom said. “You can hold a tissue up to a baby’s nose, but telling a baby to blow isn’t going to work. I did the same for both of you when you were babies, because I love you.” I changed Eric’s diapers, gave him baths, and burped him, but I didn’t think I could suck his snot into my mouth.
“I don’t think so,” I said, feeling Eric’s forehead. “Maybe he just needs a story.” I thought back to the ones Mom used to tell us before we went to bed. “How about ‘The Elephant in the Mountain’?”
“Can I tell it to him?” Ally sat on the bed next to the rocking chair.
I nodded. Eric’s body was tense against my chest, and I was getting worried. His arms and legs kept squirming and his cries started to hurt my ears.
“Once upon a time,” Ally began, “in a faraway land, there lived a herd of elephants. And because the elephants had five toes instead of four, they were Asian elephants. So, the faraway land had to be somewhere in Asia.”
“Ally, that’s not part of the story.”
“Mom always adds things to her stories. I’ll get all the important stuff in.”
“Fine, keep going,” I said. Eric still had tears in his eyes, but his cries were a little less piercing.
“In this faraway land in Asia, a new elephant had been born. A very special elephant. His name was Om, and he was born on the day the sun hid behind the moon. The elder elephants had said it was a day of great fortune, but they changed their minds later when they realized something about the new elephant. Om tripped over the ground much more than any other young elephant. Although he always tried to keep his trunk in contact with his mother, Radha, he kept running into her legs. If Om ever lost contact with Radha, he’d wander and accidentally get knocked over by the other elephants.
“‘An elephant that can’t see won’t survive,’ the elder elephants said to Radha.
“‘He will, as long as I love him,’ Radha said.
“And so Radha only let Om walk underneath her, to protect him. Om learned to walk within her four legs until he could walk behind his mother, holding her tail with his trunk. The only place where Radha didn’t have to guide Om was in the water. The large pond was Om’s favourite place. He was clumsy everywhere else, but in the water he could feel all around himself and swam easily. Om could spend all day there—he loved to shoot water from his trunk as high up in the air as he could, then feel it sprinkle down onto him.
“But Om’s happiness didn’t last long. It had not rained in a very long time, and each day the large pond shrunk a little bit. Eventually the water turned muddy. At different times during the day, many other animals, from the deer to the monkeys, huddled around the edge to drink. Even the tiger, who kept to himself most times, came out to sip the water. Radha noticed the way the tiger eyed Om, and she made sure when he came to the pond there were other elephants around.
“The elder elephants told the herd it was time to move on, to cross the dry lands to find water. Radha pleaded with the elders, ‘But Om won’t survive such a long journey.’ The elders said, ‘But if we stay, we’ll run out of water.’
“Radha didn’t know what to do. If she stayed, they’d run out of water, and she’d have to keep Om safe from the tiger on her own.”
Ally paused the story to glance at Eric. His cries had quieted. With the chair rocking back and forth, he was calm against my shoulder, and I was calm, too.
“But don’t worry, Eric,” Ally continued, “that’s not how the story ends. It wouldn’t be a very good bedtime story if it did. Luckily, one of the birds, a little golden oriole that sometimes rested on the elephants’ heads, had overheard Radha. The golden oriole said, ‘I know where you can find water, but it’s in the mountain and only the birds who can fly visit it. All others who go in never come out.’
“‘Please take us there,’ Radha said.
“And so, before the other elephants left, the three of them headed for the mountain, with the golden oriole perched on Radha’s head and Om holding on to Radha’s tail. Soon they were climbing the mountain’s slope, but they had to stop often so Om could keep up.
“The oriole stopped them once along the way at a deep hole in the thick stone, a hole as wide as Radha. ‘The water is down there.’
“‘But how do we get to it?’ Radha said, carefully looking far down below.
“‘We have to go to the other side.’
“And so they pressed on to the other side of the mountain. Radha soon let Om walk ahead and held her trunk under him, lifting his body to lighten his walk.
“When they finally reached the other side, they were all very tired, but when they saw the cave, they perked up. They entered the cave, and it became narrower and narrower the farther they walked. There was an opening up ahead, but Radha realized it was too small and she couldn’t take Om any farther.
“The oriole flew ahead into the opening of the cavern and then returned.
“‘Is the water through that opening?’ Radha asked.
“‘Yes, but if he goes down there, he won’t be able to get back out. The walls are smooth and run straight down. But there is an island in the middle that’s shaped like an egg and big enough for him to stay on. There are plants and trees and bugs, and light comes in through the hole we saw.’
“Om did not want to leave his mother. It was difficult for Radha as well, knowing she was sending Om somewhere she could not follow. But she told him, ‘My love will keep you alive.’
“Om walked farther into the cave and was just small enough to squeeze through the opening.
“Radha heard a splash a few seconds later and got worried, but when she heard laughter and saw water trickling from the hole, she knew he was okay.
“That day Om sprayed so much water up into the air, the mist rose from the hole, and a rainbow formed over the mountain.
“Radha visited him as often as she could and gathered fruit to drop down the hole.
“The golden oriole told the other birds about the elephant in the mountain, and the birds told the monkeys and other animals. Whenever they passed by the hole, they would also try to drop some fruit down.
“As time passed, a stream of water flowed out from the cave. This stream grew stronger as the years passed, and ran down the mountain even in the driest days when there was no rain
. All the animals drank and drank and thanked the elephant.”
Ally stopped the story. With her hand against her tilted head, she indicated that Eric was asleep.
Before my parents came home, I laid Eric back in his crib and thought of him dreaming of the elephants, like Ally and I had when we were younger. I pictured the elephant in the mountain then and thought again about what had kept him alive.
1996
Hold It Like a Butterfly
When I was nine years old, I received a love letter from the son of the man who came to build our deck. While I no longer have the letter, I remember those few days as clearly as I remember any from my childhood.
The deck wasn’t very large, but it was a big deal to my family all the same. We’d lived in that red-brick house for years, and my parents hadn’t done anything to it, not even paint. The walls were still builders’ white. Dad used to say that the house belonged to the Royal Bank of Canada. I worried that a banker in a dark suit might come knocking on our door and force us to leave at a moment’s notice. So getting a deck built in the backyard finally seemed to be a sign that the house was ours. I knew the deck was mostly for Mom, though. She often told me and Aiden how she missed sitting outside in the mornings to have a cup of tea, like she had back in Goa.
I was trying to grow my hair out that summer and wore it in pigtails tied with red elastics. Grade 3 had finished a few weeks earlier, and Aiden had gone to a friend’s cottage. Only Mom and I were home when the men dropped off a stack of lumber almost as tall as me in the backyard. It sat next to our maple tree, the only tree I preferred to sit under rather than climb. My favourite spot was between two exposed roots that formed the arms of a little chair with the trunk as its back.
The builder was supposed to come at ten that morning. Dad had found the guy through someone at work. He said he was Indian, but not Indian from India, like us.
At half past ten, Mom worried about the directions she had given him, and tried to call but got no answer. By eleven-thirty, she gave up and said she was going to start on her essay. Mom had been a teacher in India but was having to do her education over again to be one here.
Out the front window, I saw a white van pull up and I called Mom over.
A man wearing a faded red baseball cap, blue jeans, and a tool belt stepped out of the van. When he opened the sliding door, it fell right off the van onto our lawn.
“Oh, brother,” Mom said.
The man picked up the door with both hands and reattached it.
We moved away from the window so he wouldn’t catch us spying on him. But Mom opened the front door before he knocked, so he must have known. I stood next to my mom and was surprised to see a boy standing next to the man. He was a little taller than me and his black hair was longer than mine.
“Hi there—Clarissa, right?” said the man.
“Yes, Jim. I spoke to you on the phone.”
They shook hands.
“Sorry I’m late, had to pick up my boy. He was supposed to go with his mother…” Jim paused. “Anyway, he’ll be here the next few days with me. Hope that’s okay?”
“Oh, no problem.” Mom turned to the boy. “What’s your name?”
The boy held a coiled notebook at his side and looked up for just a moment before his eyes returned to the floor. “Joseph.”
“Joseph and Jim. I’m going to get those mixed up, you watch,” Mom said. “Are you going to help your dad, Joseph?”
He shook his head, embarrassed, then glanced at me for a second and looked away.
Jim patted his boy’s shoulder. “He doesn’t take after his father.”
They weren’t dressed like the Indians on TV, or the ones I’d learned about on a class trip to Crawford Lake that year. Everyone on that trip got a dream catcher with netting like a spider’s web and feathers hanging below. I hung it in my bedroom window to make sure only good dreams would come to me. Mom said she was glad I went there and told me Canada is rightfully their land and that it was stolen years ago. I tried to imagine all of Canada being stolen, but all I could picture was that same banker in a dark suit forcing people from their homes.
“Did they bring the wood already?” Jim asked.
“Yes, early this morning. Come, let’s go to the backyard.” Mom slipped on her sandals and led Jim and his son out the front door and around the house. My flip-flops were at the back door, so I went through our house instead.
In the kitchen, I stood on my tiptoes and peeked out the window above the sink. While Mom showed Jim the bamboo-stick outline she’d made where the deck would go, Joseph went over to the maple tree and sat down—right in my spot. He looked up and met my eyes through the window, forcing me to crouch by the cabinets.
But it was silly to be hiding in my own house. I took a carton of chocolate milk from the fridge and filled a tall glass from the cabinet. Aiden and I always argued over which glass held more—the tall skinny ones or the short fat ones. It was important to know which glass was the biggest for when we had guests over and were allowed to drink pop.
When I turned around, Joseph was at the window looking in. I nearly jumped, and felt the drink slip from my hand. The glass shattered on the tile, and creamy brown milk splattered on the floor and cupboards.
“Crap!” I put my hand over my mouth as soon as I said it, then looked back out the window, but Joseph was gone.
Mom came in a few moments later. “Stay put, Ally.” She kept her sandals on and gathered the bigger broken pieces into what was left of the base of the glass, then put them into a plastic milk bag. We agreed I was lucky my dad wasn’t home—he always got angry with Aiden and me if we broke something, saying we needed to be more careful. Mom got my flip-flops and I helped her sop up the chocolate milk with paper towels and sweep up the shards of glass that had scattered all the way to the corners of the kitchen.
When we finished cleaning up, I looked out the window again. Joseph was back in my spot under the tree.
That afternoon, Mom stood next to the sink with a cutting board. She used a long knife to remove white globs of fat and goosebumped skin from chicken legs and thighs. Everything she sliced away from the chicken was pushed off the cutting board into the sink. She gave the milky pink pieces of meat a quick rinse under the tap before placing them in a metal bowl. I didn’t like raw chicken—it was one step too close to the chicken being killed.
“What are we having for dinner?”
“Chicken curry.”
“Can’t we just have barbecue?”
“Not tonight, honey. I’ve got to finish this before your father comes home and then get to work on my essay before my shift tonight.”
“Can I have Kraft Dinner, then?”
Mom stopped cutting and looked out the window. “Ally, can you do me a favour? Go ask Jim and his son if they need water. It must be hot out there in the sun.”
I hoped she wouldn’t also ask me to bring a jug of water out. I might drop that, too.
When I got outside I was surprised at how much had been done in just a few hours. The lumber lay in stacks around the yard, with a workbench and the tools in the centre. There were two deep, round holes in the grass, and next to the holes sat a large pile of fresh dirt with a shovel stuck in it. I didn’t see Joseph by my maple tree, but Jim was behind the pile of dirt—he was bent over, drinking from the garden hose. It wasn’t until he stood up straight and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand that he noticed me.
“Hello there.” He had a crooked front tooth, but his smile was too wide for him not to seem like a nice person. “Do you want a drink?” He held up the hose, water flowing out.
I took the hose and held it sideways, like eating corn on the cob. I’d learned to drink this way because Aiden always kinked it to try to spray the water in my face.
“Can you do me a favour, young lady?” Jim picked a few tools out of a nearby white plast
ic pail. “Can you fill this guy up to here?” He took the pencil from behind his ear and made a mark on the inside of the bucket. The pencil looked like it was sharpened with a knife, into a rough pyramid instead of a cone.
“Sure.” I directed the water into the pail, going from a hollow splat noise to a pee-into-toilet sound.
“Thanks. I’m just going to grab the concrete from the van.”
Jim walked around the side of the house. The water reached the mark he’d made, and I pulled the hose over to Mom’s garden and laid it down. I looked over at the maple tree and noticed Joseph’s notebook in my spot, like he’d left it there for me. I went over and opened it. Out rolled a blue pencil sharpened the same way as Jim’s, and on the inside cover he’d written Joseph Billy. It turned out to be a sketchbook, not a notebook. There were birds, rivers, and trees drawn in detail and shaded in a way that made it seem like they were moving.
“That’s mine!” Joseph grabbed the notebook from me. There was a small scar above his left eye that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Sorry.”
“Who said you could look at it?” He took a step toward me and my body went tight.
“Joseph.” Jim returned carrying a bag of concrete on his shoulder and dropped it next to the pail with a thud. “Why don’t you go turn off the water, son.”
Joseph obediently went to the side of the house where the faucet was.
“Don’t mind him, sweetie,” said Jim. “He’s been in an awful mood all morning. Just leave him be for now.”
The water from the hose trickled to a stop. Jim opened the bag of concrete, approved how much water I’d put in the bucket, and poured the concrete in. A small cloud of dust rose into the air and made me sneeze.
“That’s a mighty big sneeze for such a small person,” he said, in a way that sounded like a compliment.
Jim attached a contraption to his drill that looked like a silver coat hanger bent into a long J. He dipped it into the pail and turned on the drill. The metal attachment spun, mixing the water and concrete. It reminded me of the hand blender Mom used to mix wet and dry ingredients for her pineapple-and-coconut cake. Afterwards, she would give Aiden and me each one of the metal beaters to lick clean.
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