by Shani Mootoo
And what about him, she perked up still more, startling him. He had no chance to consider the most meager of answers, for she continued: he was a wine drinker, that much she certainly knew. In fact, she rolled on, just the other day she had been thinking about his club and was curious about how it had come about. His club. He smiles at this notion.
“You don’t too often see people from the islands—you know, people like yourself, darker-skinned I mean, if you don’t mind me saying, is it kosher to say that? You don’t see them paying close attention to the wines. Well, at least not as carefully as I’ve caught you doing. The ones you buy are always, and I mean always, winners.”
He enjoyed the flattery.
She simply couldn’t pass up this opportunity, she said, to hear about the club. “So, who else is in it?”
She was welcome relief from the isolation of his secret and enveloping liaison. And the topic of the club did concern her. It was she, after all, who, though still unknown to her, through an ill-conceived bit of deducing on her part, had planted the notion in his and his friends’ heads that they were a wine-tasting club. When they called themselves that, it was in jest, mocking the eager clerk he had once mentioned to them.
As he turned in his mind what it was that this rather forward woman was wanting from him, and what he might offer her, his impulse was to provoke her. He told her that on arrival in Canada, to put himself through school—for he was a qualified gardener now, he interjected—he had driven a taxi. He paused for a response, a show of surprise or some noticeable loss of interest, but she merely nodded to indicate her attentiveness. A few of the drivers in the company he had worked for became friends, and long after they had moved on from that line of work, they maintained their closeness.
Kay’s attentiveness intrigued Harry. Happy now to be socializing, he expounded: at one of their regular rum-drinking gettogethers, one of the ex-taxi-driving friends, a man named Anil, waxed on with inebriated eloquence that fine-wine drinking was nothing but status-mongering; it served only to exclude immigrants and to imprison them—in particular those from the non-grape-growing equatorial climes, the darkies of the world—in what was supposed to be their rightful place: that of backwardness.
Unfazed, Kay asked, “And is this man still with you guys today?”
He nodded affirmatively.
“So his position has changed, then. Good. You’re definitely a first. Carry on.”
She was certainly a brassy woman. He noticed that the roots of her red-tinted hair were brown and that at the temples there were gray strands. He decided to relay what Anil had said, as if reciting a well-known piece of lore.
“‘Fellows like we could smell curry a hundred miles away. We born with taste buds that mourning the scarceness up here of scents and flavors like hurdi, illaichi, dhania, the tandoor.’ Do you know what those are?” he interrupted himself to ask her. “Turmeric, cardamom, Indian spices, and that sort of thing. So, to continue, Anil said to us, ‘You ever hear of wine that have those flavors? Is a simple fact, man: people like us not born with a wine-tasting gene.’”
Alertness brightening her eyes, Kay opened her hands in a gesture of impatience, saying, “And so?”
And so, continued Harry, at the following gathering of the old friends, another ex-driver, Partap, deciding to prove Anil wrong, showed up with what had been determined for him—and Harry pointed to Kay as he said, “By someone exactly like yourself”—to be a so-called fine red wine.
Kay nodded as if accepting a compliment that had been slid to her across the table.
To the surprise of the old friends, they had indeed discerned the distinct aroma of oak and an unlikely tang of black pepper, exactly as the bottle’s label had promised. Kay nodded aggressively, as if to say, “Of course!” With their curiosity piqued, the following week there was another bottle of fine wine, and the week after that, yet another. The jaded Anil proclaimed in good time that after one of their sessions, he had felt a tingling and a twitching deep inside of him, so deep he could hardly identify where, but he knew instinctively that it was the awakening of his latent wine-tasting gene.
And so the Once a Taxi Driver Wine Tasting and General Tomfoolery Club, as they eventually dubbed themselves, was still un-corking. Kay clapped her hands as if she herself had triumphed. A mischievous impulse to rein in her too-eager enthusiasm prompted him to blurt out, “But tell me something, have you ever tasted the flavor of coconut in a wine? And lamb vindaloo? Because, I will tell you, we have tasted mango, curried crab, red fish, and chicken stew. We have even identified in certain South American reds a variety of styles of garlic—sliced, smashed, minced, roasted.”
Kay showed no surprise but looked eager. She asked if he had a preference for a particular grape, or for the wines of a specific region. Before he could answer, she slipped in that she hardly ever drank anything but Italian, and mostly the heavier reds, the Barolos and Barberas, and she couldn’t honestly say that she had ever tasted anything like curry or garlic in them. Harry was compelled to take advantage of how readily she indulged him.
He reveled, gilding fact and fiction, that he and his friends vowed to shun the Old World vintners—the wines of Europe. They, the dark-skinned island people, he said, squinting mischievously at her, had been too wounded by centuries of Old World greed and exploitation to unbegrudgingly partake of its stuffy fare, the result of which was that he and his ex-taxi-driver friends agreed to drink only the less expensive but lighthearted wines of Chile and Argentina, those of Australia, since it was, after all, a commonwealth country and, one way or the other, their consumption would benefit the aboriginal population. They conceded, Harry added, to support the British Columbia wine industry, and still drank Californian wines because they were all in agreement that much of the labor propping up that industry was immigrant, and it was the support of the immigrant—not the consideration of taste—that was of significance to them. Kay laughed raucously, blurting out that she thought he and his friends were wonderfully mad, and she drew out the word “wonderfully.”
Abruptly, she reached out, slid aside his beer mug, and cupped both her hands over the tiny blood-beaded dashes on one of his forearms. The fingertips of one hand, wet from the condensation on the mug, startled him.
“Animal or roses?” Her voice lowered in the noisy room; it was a few seconds before he realized what she had said.
He answered. She nodded knowingly, moved her cupped hand lower then higher, resting it lightly each time for a few seconds. Her forwardness was beguiling. On account of it, he had just revealed things about his life, made light of his insecurities, and suggested that there could be a frugal side to him. After being faced with Rose’s discomfort of Harry’s early Canadian work experiences, hardly any of this—even in jest—would he have dreamed of disclosing to her. But his friends, their club, their antics, and their delight in inventing off-color moral justification for their actions meant a great deal to him, and Kay’s indulgence was a much appreciated validation.
Her hot hand, still on his arm, only made the rosebush wounds sting more.
“Well, I know a whack about you—still not enough—but fair is fair: let me tell you about myself,” she said, causing him to realize that he knew hardly a thing about this person in front of whom he had so unreservedly revved himself up. She proceeded to impart that she had been married to a man from Iran. Peeved by this revelation, he slid his arm away from her; he mused inwardly that perhaps he was not special after all—it was merely that this woman liked foreign men, immigrant men. Perhaps his wine-club story wasn’t all that interesting, he thought, and admonished himself to exercise more discretion with his babbling in the future.
After the second of two daughters was born, her husband left them and returned to his country, and ever since, she has been on her own, she said.
To break the awkwardness that immediately ensued, Kay, again gesturing to some undefined vicinity behind her, asked Harry if he had ever canoed on any of the lakes. He mutte
red that he hadn’t. “Not very Canadian of you,” she said in a tone of mock accusation. “We’re just going to have to fix that, aren’t we!”
Getting up as the waitress arrived with Harry’s order of deep-fried seafood, Kay suggested that since fall was just around the corner, they take advantage of the good weather forecast for the weekend and head out the very next morning. Harry thought again of Rose; with Shem ever present, there was hardly a chance that she would try and contact Harry from their seaside home. Besides, he had no other pressing engagements. It was a well-timed opportunity, he reasoned, to do something out of the ordinary. From his notepad he tore a page and handed it and his pen to Kay.
LANDSCAPING
Following the map Kay had drawn, the road curved sharply, and he was driving frighteningly close alongside the brisk Squamish River. Much of the valley—river on one side, low sprawling houses, fenced-in fields with grazing horses—was Native Indian land. He slowed to watch two deer on the road ahead, but the instant they spotted his vehicle, they bounded down a gully and were swallowed in the shrubbery.
At the gravel logging road, exactly as Kay had drawn, a posted sign read: CAUTION. ROAD TO CAROL LAKE DEACTIVATED. EXPECT UNEVEN SECTIONS / UNSTABLE AREAS AND SOFT SHOULDERS / 4 × 4 ONLY / AT YOUR OWN RISK. She had told him about that sign but added, “It’s just letting you know the road is rough.” He shifted into four-wheel drive and began the slow ascent. The path’s surface coarsened. This woman is fearless, he mused. Her independence certainly intrigued him. The truck crunched loose shale, lurched over large rocks. Every part of the vehicle squeaked or rattled ferociously. A tool kit on the canopy-hooded bed slid about noisily. He had suggested they travel up together, but she said that she usually liked to get up there quite early and exercise a little on her own. The air bristled with diamondlike specks of dust. When he came to what seemed a relatively safe stretch in the winding road, he decided to stop and take another look at Kay’s drawing. He switched off the engine. Dust raised by his vehicle swirled high upward before settling.
Where he had stopped, the land to his right plunged vertically. He congratulated himself on having had no more than two beers at the pub the night before, just enough to cause him to ramble on about the wine club, but not enough to have caused a hangover, dangerous on such a precipitous journey.
Ahead loomed range beyond range of ice-capped mountains. Here and there were bursts of lavender, clumps of mustard goldenrod. Pride coursed through him; he had become an insider. By inviting him up, Kay was showing him something few people like him—he grinned at the thought—ever had the chance to glimpse. This was the Canada of postcards and tourism posters. In reality, it was his backyard. He wanted to get out of the truck and look around but had the sensation, terror really, that at any time the land and road could simply slip away. He thought about how Rose might be affected on learning that he’d had an accident or met his death while on a pleasure trip to go canoeing with a woman he hadn’t mentioned. He wondered how far inland he was, how far from public roads, from a town, a gas station, a hospital, and decided it was better to remain inside. From there he took in the vista, a picture straight out of a calendar.
A vertical crevice in which a dollop of blue-edged ice was suspended triggered in his mind the phrase “hanging glaciers.” A mountain-sized protrusion of rock, severely weather-sculpted to resemble a pyramid, provoked the term “Matterhorn.” A knife-edged ridge produced “Arête.” He couldn’t recall the verbal definitions, but, from the high school geography texts in Guanagaspar, he instinctively knew the names of the formations around him.
He had just spent the better part of the summer leading, he mused, his Guanagasparian Rose around, showing her his version, a tamer one to be certain, of British Columbia. He hardly ever did anything he was unsure of. Yet here he was in unfamiliar terrain, about to have a boating adventure, initiated by a woman—cultures apart from his—whom he couldn’t say he really knew. He wondered if Anil or Partap or any of the other men from the club had ever been up such a road, seen this kind of landscape, or known a woman—or even a man—as adventuresome as Kay.
He started the truck and continued somewhat less hesitantly. If the day turned out to be successful—that is, if Kay did indeed show, particularly after an evening of imbibing far more than he had; if the canoe didn’t capsize; if he made it back to his house in Elderberry Bay in one piece—he would make at least one more trip of this kind. Then he could say he did this sort of thing, or used to, at any rate. Yes, it would be very Canadian of him to be able to say that he used to get up early on mornings, drive to a lake high up, awfully high up, in the mountains, and go canoeing.
Three dust-covered sport utility vehicles and a Volkswagen van were already in a parking clearing. His truck was no longer red but enveloped in gray dust. It made him proud.
Kay, already at the water’s edge, waved when she heard the vehicle roll in. The owners of the vehicles in the lot were nowhere to be seen. Neither was a canoe rental outfit visible. He wondered where Kay had gotten the one next to which she stood. Beside it, in a yellow life vest and wearing yellow rubber boots into which her faded blue jeans were tucked, she appeared tall and rather fit. Harry knew that in every sense he was in unfamiliar waters. He stepped up his pace and headed down to her, ready to receive and return the friendly embrace that had surprised him the night before.
Instead, she handed him a cup of coffee poured from a thermos, and immediately opened her arms to the view, the icy green lake in the foreground, and backdropping it, a vivacious glacier-topped ridge, best seen to postcard-beauty standards only from this narrow angle of view. “Have you ever seen anything so magnificent? Have you?” She laughed as she added, “I feel like hell this morning, but I did get here an hour ago, and I’ve already been out for a little spin on the lake. It was damn cold. But it’s warming up real quick, can you believe it! It’s going to be a gorgeous day.”
So early, so still the morning, and she was already chatting away. She handed him a bottle of mosquito repellent and a jacket like the one she wore. He muttered that even if he were to fall overboard and manage to remain afloat on account of the life vest, within seconds the iciness of the lake would numb him to death.
The sand around the boat was fine, shifty. With the slightest pressure, water oozed up out of it. When they were both ready, she set her feet firmly in the gravel, grasped the stern, rocked the boat, and gave it a little push so that its far end slid into the shallow waters. She treaded in behind it, steadying it by the stern. With her legs astride and firm, she grasped the sides. She directed him to reach across the boat with one hand and hold on to both gunwales as he stepped in. He was uncomfortable getting in before she did. He would have preferred to give her a hand in; she might have rested her hand on his, pressed with all of her weight, and his hand would have supported her like a rock. He followed her directions, stepped nervously in, and hobbled down the middle. He was about to sit on the bow seat facing inside the boat. He crossed over awkwardly at her instruction, gripping both gunwales with concentration. He lifted himself barely enough to angle his body so he might watch her, worried that she wouldn’t be able to get in without toppling them both. The boat rocked from side to side. With a glance backward—at which she shouted, “Stay centered”—he saw that she had already seated herself and that a single paddle lay across her lap. It dawned on him that the canoe belonged to her. He wondered where she stored it. He didn’t know which vehicle in the parking area was hers. On any of them, it would have to be strapped to the top. She must have brought it down herself. She wasn’t in this moment physically appealing to him, yet such independence fascinated him.
By the time he looked back to the shore, they had already traveled a good distance from land. What had been the far shore when they started out was the nearer. The distant glacier, perfect as a picture from the vicinity of the picnic tables, was no longer visible. A thick cloud of mosquitoes appeared. Its hazy mass seemed to propel itself with a mesmerizing ro
tation as it hovered above the silken turquoise water, the surface of which the early-fall sun seemed unable to penetrate. Each fine grain of glacial silt, suspended on the surface, seemed to sparkle, but mere inches below was total opacity.
He had been quick to tell her stories last night at the pub, and she to listen, but now no words passed between them. The quiet on the lake was broken only by a rhythmic ripple, and an occasional hollow thuck as paddle shaft and gunwale made contact.
Kay stole into his thoughts. “Do you want to paddle?”
He had never learned to swim. “I am just fine here. You’re doing a pretty good job.”
“Oh, come on, try it!” she insisted. “What if I were unable to paddle? We’re heading for that clearing over there. I will tell you exactly what to do.”
The thought that he would have no idea what to do if she were indeed unable made him turn carefully and take the paddle she held out to him. He was not accustomed to following the lead of a woman. It seemed to him to be, however strange, a kind of intimacy. Unusual and compelling. He followed her precise, Spartan instruction, and it was he who paddled for the rest of the trip, albeit from the stern, gaining confidence and improving with each stroke.
Later, he helped her set the boat on top of the Volkswagen van. They drove down into Squamish together, he following her. She waved him over to the curb before the turnoff to her house, and invited him for a sandwich.
She left him in the living room, looking at her country CD collection, while she made tea and sandwiches. He put on a Jim Reeves disc and toured the room, peering at the numerous photographs on the walls, perched on tabletops. Most were of her and her two daughters at various stages of their lives: the girls square-dancing, canoeing, at various campsites, at a swim meet; one of the Volkswagen parked on the side of a country road, Kay and her daughters, young women by then, standing next to it. He wondered who that photographer might have been, and glanced around for other pictures that might have been taken on the same trip. He found nothing evidencing memories of anyone with whom she might more recently have shared intimacies. There were also numerous photographs of groups of women, her club, he guessed: one taken in front of a log cabin; one with several women at a train station; one with her and two others, all wearing baseball caps, hers with Mickey Mouse ears attached; and one of a woman about to swing an ax into a fire log. There was one that had not been framed, leaning against an ornament on the side table. In that one she looked much the way she did presently. She was standing on the front stairs of her house, the one he was in now, grasping the elbow of a woman who, from their strong resemblance, he guessed to be one of the daughters, a grown woman now. In all of them, Kay smiled broadly, and in some he could almost hear her laughter. He found himself wanting to laugh out loud with her. There is a woman, he mused, who knows how to have fun, and for the briefest moment he contemplated the possibility of a romantic liaison with her. It is I who would be introduced to entire new worlds, he considered, and I would not have to draw out of her every blessed feeling or desire.