A Harsh and Private Beauty

by Kate Kelly

  “Well, that will depend.” He breaks into another slow smile as he takes in her high colour, cheeks flushed with the heat of the room or his attention; he’s unsure of which but hoping for the latter.

  On what? Jeanie thinks but dares not say, “On me?” Instead, she asks, “On the business with my uncle?”

  “Yes.”

  Looking at him, she smiles at the unspoken words, at the meaning passing between them, the emotions. Is it the war that has done this? Is it the lack of young men, the horror of the returning dead, that sharpens the need to reach out and take what is given without reserve? she wonders. Daniel Kenny, young and handsome, is her future. She knows this. The knowledge is buried deep within herself—past the pounding of her heart, past the rush of emotion, in the pit of her stomach. She knows this with an undeniable precognition that reveals itself in impatience.

  “Can you meet me tomorrow, Daniel?”

  Daniel’s mind rushes ahead to the business concerns they will address this evening, when the men adjourn to the study. In the following days, he will have no plans except to wait for the concluding details before he returns to Chicago. “Yes. Where?”

  They are speaking quietly, with a nonchalance neither one feels. Daniel’s answer is louder than he expected, drawing enquiring smiles from around the table. Nodding, he continues, his voice softer but still full of its previous intensity. “I don’t believe I have any plans for tomorrow. Could you suggest something, perhaps?”

  “I would be more than happy to accompany you at your convenience and show you the sights of the city.” Jeanie lowers her head to disguise the excitement she feels.

  Yes, I would like that. I want to spend as many hours as possible with you, Jeanie Lehman, Daniel thinks. He replies, “Yes, thank you. I would appreciate that, Miss Lehman. Would the afternoon suit you?”

  “Yes, around three?”

  “I will look forward to it.” Daniel nods and picks up his glass.

  As if on cue, Pierre stands and looks around the table. “Gentlemen, I believe we shall retire to the study. I have brandy and cognac. We can talk business and allow the women their own time.”

  AS HE ENTERS THE WELL-LIT STUDY, Pierre sweeps his arm in a grand gesture. “Sit, gentlemen, sit.” Deep burgundy leather chairs are pulled around a fireplace that glows amber. A large oak desk on the north wall faces the room, and to the left is an expansive bar lined with bottles of varying size and shape. “What is your pleasure, Daniel?”

  “What would you suggest?” Daniel seats himself, shaking his head when Simon offers him a cigar.

  “That will depend on what you like—something sweet, something smoky, or something to bite the back of your throat?” Pierre laughs over his shoulder as he reaches for the bottles. “Would you like a whiskey? I have one of Hiram Walker’s better brands here.”

  “Yes, Daniel,” Simon says between puffs. “Walker is one of your own countrymen, chased out by the growing temperance movement.

  “Dismantled his distillery in Detroit one day, crossed the lake, and set it up in Windsor the next!” Mike Frank adds, picking up the story.

  “I think that would take a little more than a day,” Daniel says.

  “We can get nothing by you, Mr. Kenny.” Pierre winks as he hands Daniel his drink.

  “There is something quite ironic about all this, don’t you think?” Daniel takes his glass, nodding his thanks.

  “You mean, our drinking while we discuss the topic of prohibition?” Simon asks.

  “Yes.”

  Pierre laughs. “The idea of prohibition is an English thing, Daniel. We French have never had to worry about where our next drink will come from, or indeed if it will be there at all.”

  “Is that because you’re French, Pierre, or because drinking is part of your Catholic religion?” Lenny Davis asks, taking his drink from Pierre.

  “Exactement! It is a sacrament—the breaking of the bread, the drinking of the wine.

  “No law will stop the consumption of alcohol,” Davis continues. “We’ve seen that over and over again. Any country that declares itself dry is setting itself up for exploitation.”

  “Exploitation is a bit harsh don’t you think, Lenny?” Simon says with a dry laugh. “We are simply entrepreneurs who see a need and are obliged to fill it.”

  “That is thinking in the noblest of terms, Mr. Bigman.” Mike Frank agrees.

  “Perhaps that is why they call it the noble experiment, no?” Pierre laughs.

  “Well,” Davis continues, “if it is an experiment, it’s failing. We have been successful in supplying dry states and provinces for years.”

  “How do you get it across the border?” Daniel asks, looking at the men in the room, men used to getting what they want.

  Simon Bigman laughs loudly and taps his cigar into the ashtray. “With a few bribes here and there. Anyway, how well can they enforce this law when there are hundreds of miles of open border between our countries?”

  “And the lakes—they’re wide open, Daniel.” Mike Frank nods.

  “The desire to legalize temperance has been with us forever.” Simon squints his eyes through the smoke.

  “Yes,” Lenny Davis adds, “and where would the true businessman be without the Puritan? As we know, value is increased through scarcity.”

  “It is the way of the world.” Pierre nods in agreement. “The Volstead Act creates a need, and one way or another we will be filling it for some time to come, gentlemen.”

  The men around the room nod and remain quiet, their thoughts varied and diverse. Simon Bigman breaks the silence. “These are chaotic times we live in. Messy times we have lived through, where the value of human life has been nullified.” His sentiments move through the room like the pungent odour of his cigar. “What has been lost? What has been gained?”

  “I think much has been gained.” Pierre states as he looks around the room. “We sit here tonight, a Parisian Jew, a Russian Jew, a Sardinian-born Italian, an Irish American besotted now with my lovely niece, who is herself a product of a Scottish and German marriage. We represent the European nations at war against each other months ago, and here we are tonight in congenial acceptance.”

  “Perhaps it is the flavour of the new world: forging our own national identity with combinations of others,” says Mike Frank.

  “And it is so much better, no?” Pierre adds.

  “It makes you wonder about the point of war, if there is one,” Frank muses.

  “The point of war is to eliminate fascism, to stop it from taking root,” Lenny Davis answers, his intensity a cold presence in the room. “Evil can only happen when good men stand by and do nothing!”

  “Perhaps you are right.” Daniel nods, his eyes on Davis, his mind a thousand miles away.

  “Let us return to the business at hand, shall we, gentlemen?” Simon entreats, nodding slowly, sensing the distance in Daniel’s eyes.

  “Yes! We drink and we discuss the business that has brought us together, no?” Pierre says, taking Daniel’s empty glass and moving to the bar to refill it.

  The business is interesting and amiable, and Pierre keeps the atmosphere jovial and social. Daniel appreciates this; he finds Lenny Davis somewhat intense and tiring, and he can’t stop his mind from wandering back to Jeanie and the intimacy of her presence. It is as if he knows her, has already experienced a lifetime with her. Meeting her tonight has allowed him to reflect upon the hollowness he has been feeling; he understands now that the feeling of emptiness is simply her absence in his life. Or is it? Could it be that easy? Is her presence in his life preordained? It seems absurd that such a quick encounter, such a minimal brush against another individual, can cause such a cascade of emotion, such an awakening of possibility. New thoughts and feelings dart like minnows in the depths of his soul.

  When the men emerge from the study, hours have slippe
d by and the women have left or retired for the evening. They part in the small hours of the morning—Pierre Montcalm, Lenny Davis, Michael Frank, Simon Bigman, and Daniel—their smiles and handshakes forging the future, shaping the past.

  Daniel can hardly remember returning to his hotel, his mind is so full of the evening. He remembers the men in the room, turning the world toward their own ends with an ease that seemed like child’s play. Men with the ability to change and shape, influential, powerful men. And the soft brown eyes of Jeanie Lehman.

  That night, he cannot sleep.

  7.

  “MY PARENTS MARRIED within two weeks of meeting each other. Amazing isn’t it? But I suppose what is more amazing is that they were together for all their years and still very much in love.” Ruby gazes out the car window, unaware of the countryside, pale greens and golds, struggling through the winter chill. The bar car is busy, low conversations spiked with occasional laughter percolating above the muffled sounds of the track. Snaking through the countryside on its steel rails, the train is comforting in its repetitive motion, soothing, almost hypnotic.

  Lisa waits, watching Ruby, who is now lost to the world of memory. She thinks of her grandmother as a link to the past, to her own understanding of herself. Speaking softly, pulling Ruby back to the present, she says, “I never knew that, Nan.”

  “Knew what, lovey?” Ruby turns quickly, surprised by the comment.

  “That your parents married within two weeks of meeting each other.”

  “Why, yes, they did.” Ruby’s unspoken question—how did you know that?—hanging in the air between them.

  “It was a different time I suppose.” Lisa continues gazing out the window and nodding.

  “Yes, it was a different time.” Ruby is silent again, pulled back to the still pictures and movie reels of her mind. When she continues, it is with an abruptness that surprises Lisa. “It was after the war, when life must have felt very tenuous, when you had to reach out and grab it without the luxury of waiting for it to come to you.” Ruby grabs the air in front of her, bringing it to her breast. “They met in Montreal after the war. Met and married within two weeks.”

  “I guess it must have been exciting. That time.” Lisa nods and then adds after a moment, “And simple. Maybe the war did that for people, you know, made life feel immediate.”

  “Yes, there must have been that for them, finding happiness after war.” Falling silent, Ruby watches the countryside slipping by, her face partially reflected. “My mother always seemed so content,” she continues almost to herself, “while I, well, I have always felt I was living life with some sort of urgency, waiting for the next thing to happen.”

  “Really, Nan? I feel like that too sometimes, but mostly I feel like I’m being pulled along through life, bumping along like a pebble in a stream, wondering where I’m going to end up next.”

  “No, Lisa you can’t feel like that, honey.” Ruby, turning, pats her granddaughter’s hand and laughs. “You’ve got your education and your job with the paper. You have given yourself your life’s direction.”

  “Actually, Nan, I’m not working for the paper anymore. I took a buy-out, and now I’m freelancing for a while.”

  “Is that why you’re feeling at such loose ends?”

  “No, it’s more than that.” Lisa falls silent, pulled into her mind, distracted by indecision and the continuous attempt to push her thoughts to the far ends of her mind. She’s plagued by her floundering relationship and her growing disappointment with her career, but even more urgent is the need not to allow her mind to alight on the one decision she needs to make. It grows heavier in her mind with every passing mile, growing heavier in her womb with every passing day.

  Aware of Ruby patiently waiting for an explanation, Lisa continues almost absentmindedly, “I don’t think journalism is really for me. I didn’t really choose it; I just fell into it more or less and I don’t really think it’s what I want as a career.”

  Ruby nods her understanding, sensing a deeper sadness but reluctant to prod further. She has never been driven by not knowing. She could let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak. In this way, she was the opposite of Leland James, who, like a kid with a stick, couldn’t help poking at a nest of hornets. He always had to have an answer.

  “But what would make your parents leave Chicago so suddenly in 1924?” she remembers him asking. “How was he so easily able to set up a business, buy a home, even a summer home?”

  “I don’t know. It was just something my parents never spoke about.”

  “But Ruby, aren’t you curious? Aren’t you just dying to know the story behind a big move like that?” With Ruby’s silence, Leland pushes on. “You know, I asked him once, asked Daniel why he moved from Chicago to Montreal. We were at the Reservoir Club. You know the one, off Front Street? And I don’t know whether it was the music or the whole atmosphere, but he started to tell me something but then thought better of it.”

  “What did he tell you?” Ruby asks, her interest piqued.

  Leland pauses, remembering the evening; the dark, cellar like atmosphere of the bar; the haze of smoke and noise; the man sitting beside him and the intimacy of the moment….

  “You know, son, a decision is not always about one thing. It is never just about one decision; it is a series of decisions, one leading to the next. And then suddenly you have already made half the decisions before you know it, before you’re even aware of it.” Daniel takes a sip and then studies the ice in the glass, tipping it this way and that, watching the effects. “You grow up in a neighbourhood and it becomes what you know, who you are. It was a different place and time, growing up in Chicago back then. There were no rules, no road maps. There was just the neighbourhood; family relationships, friendships, business, and life all revolved around it. Sometimes the lines blurred, and you would be led down a path complicated by loyalties. It’s a lot to know, and sometimes it’s more than you want to know.” Daniel nods to himself. He has become a pool of stillness in the noise and blur around him. Then, almost in a whisper, he continues “I made decisions, some of them good, some not so good. But I made them. I’m responsible for them….” Then he looks up from his glass and over at Leland, almost in surprise. “I think I need another drink, I’m starting to sound like a broken record. How about you, Leland? Let’s have one more for the road, as they say.”

  “Your father, Ruby. He is just so interesting.” Leland shakes his head.

  “I never know what to think about him,” Ruby answers, taking Leland’s hand in hers.

  “I think he was a man trying to make it in a country just starting to land on its feet. It must have been mindboggling, living in Chicago just after the turn of the century, going to war as such a young man, and then trying to be a husband, a father, a businessman. He is a good man, your father.” He turns to look at her and smiles impishly. “You get your looks from him, you know—your black Irish looks and your black Irish temper.” He laughs and, taking her chin in his hand, he tilts her face upward, looking into her eyes before kissing her. Ruby laughs at his playfulness, his intensity.

  SHE SMILES, A LAUGH ESCAPING HER. “Ha!”

  “What’s so funny, Nan?”

  “What?” Ruby turns to Lisa, her smile lagging around the corners of her mouth.

  “What were you laughing at?”

  “Oh, I was laughing at Leland.”

  “Leland?”

  “No, no. Don’t worry.” Ruby responds to the alarm in Lisa’s voice. “I was just remembering Leland, I should say. Laughing at his memory.”

  “You loved him the most, didn’t you, Nan?”

  “Yes. I loved him the most.” Ruby’s gaze turns inward, drawn to the richness of the memories emanating around her like an aura. “Leland died, and I thought I couldn’t go on, but I did.”

  “You remarried.”

  “Yes, I married Jack in 1978. I wa
s no spring chicken. Jack was a good, steady man, and I had known him for years. I knew him when we were both young and living in Montreal. Leland had been gone for two years when I bumped into Jack at the Toronto Symphony one evening—imagine my surprise. He had an apartment in Toronto and had just bought a home in Peterborough. When I told him I was living in Peterborough, he couldn’t believe it, couldn’t imagine me living in provincial Ontario. I told him it wasn’t so bad, and we laughed. It broke down barriers, for both of us, that laughter. He had moved his business to Peterborough after his divorce, and he was out on a date that evening. The next thing I knew, we were dating!” Turning to smile at Lisa, she adds, “He said he’d loved me for years. He told me he was shattered when I married John Grace, and that it was our destiny to be together. I guess he was right to a certain extent. I mean, who would have thought that we would both end up living in the same town after all those years, I ask you? Anyway, we ended up together, happy and very comfortable; money was never a problem. I even got to enjoy my life with Jack. He wasn’t Leland James—nobody could replace Leland and what we had together, what we’ve always had and still have,” Ruby finishes with a sigh.

  “And Jack didn’t mind you performing, your involvement in the theatre and everything?”

  “How could he? It was who I was. By the time I met Jack that night, I had been reincarnated as a local stage star. He knew me as a singer, and he must have taken my evolution into musicals and stage work as a matter of course. I remember when he came to see me in Hello Dolly—my voice was still as strong as ever then.” She smiles broadly and nods her head. “I loved the theatre, and performing came naturally.”