Small Ceremonies

by Carol Shields

  We have had a late breakfast, coffee and an almond ring brought by Lala from her local ethnic bakery in Montreal. The sun is pouring in through the streaky windows making us all feel drowsy and dull. Richard and Meredith, both of them blotchy with sleep, sprawl in front of the television watching the Rose Bowl Parade. There are newspapers everywhere, on the floor and on the chairs, thick holiday editions. And cups and saucers litter the coffee table. Lala leans back on the sofa, lazily puffing a duMaurier.

  Grandpa Gill asks Martin how his course load is going and whether he is doing a paper at the moment. Lala leans bird-like toward them, eager to hear what Martin has to say. I too am roused from torpor. We all wait.

  Martin tells his father about the paper that has been turned down. “I’ll show it to you if you like,” he says. “Apparently it just didn’t measure up in terms of originality. One of the referees, anonymous of course, penciled ‘derivative’ all over it.”

  “That was bad luck,” Grandpa Gill nods.

  “What a shame, Martin,” Lala adds.

  I marvel for the thousandth time at the constancy and perfect accord with which they underscore their son’s ability.

  “To be honest,” Martin continues, “it was pretty dull. But I’m working on something else now which might be a little different.”

  “Yes?” his mother sings through her smoke.

  “Well,” Martin says, addressing his father automatically, “I think I can say that I actually got this idea from you.”

  “Really?” Grandpa Gill smiles.

  “Remember that chart you showed me. In your office last fall? A colored diagram with the structure of world power charted in different colors?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. The Reynolds Diagram. Very useful.”

  “Well, after I saw that I got to thinking that it might be a good idea to use a diagram approach to themes in epic poetry. To Paradise Lost specifically.”

  “But how would you go about it?” his mother presses him.

  “I thought it might be possible to make a graphic of it,” Martin says, “Like the Reynolds Diagram, only using wool instead of paint since the themes are so mixed. In places it’s necessary to interweave the colors. Sometimes, as you can appreciate, there are as many as four or five themes woven together.”

  His father nods and asks, “And how have you gone about it?”

  “I thought about it for a long time,” Martin says.

  Where was I while he thought so long and hard?

  “Finally I decided on a large rectangle of loose burlap for each of the twelve books. That way the final presentation could be hung together. For “comparison purposes.”

  “I don’t get it, Martin,” I say, speaking for the first time.

  He looks faintly exasperated. “All I did was to take a color for each theme: For instance, red for God’s omnipotence, blue for man’s disobedience, green for arrogance, and, let’s see, yellow for pride and so on. But you can see,” he says, turning again to his father, “that one theme will predominate for a time. And then subside and merge into one of the others.”

  “And how do you know just where in the text you are?” Grandpa Gill asks.

  “I wondered about that,” Martin says.

  Where was I, his wife, when he wondered about that?

  “And I decided to mark off the lines along the side. I’ve got them printed in heavy ink. The secretary helped ink them in.”

  She did, did she?

  “I think that sounds most innovative,” his mother says nodding vigorously and butting out her cigarette.

  “Is it nearly finished?” his father asks.

  “Almost. I hope to present it in March.”

  “Present it where?” I ask, trying to control the quaver in my voice.

  “The Renaissance Society. It’s meeting in Toronto this year. I’ve already sent in an abstract.”

  “I’m anxious to see it,” Lala says. “Is it here at home?”

  “No. I’ve been putting it together at the university. But next time you come down I’ll show it off to you. It should be all done by then.”

  “But Martin,” I say, “you’ve never mentioned any of this to me.”

  “Didn’t I?” He gazes at me. “I thought I did.”

  I give him a very long and level look before replying, “You never said a single word about it to me.”

  “Well, now that I have told you, what do you think?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  All three of them turn to me in alarm. “Of course,” Martin says.

  Wildly I reach out for the right word – “I think it’s, well, I think it’s absurd.”

  “Why?” Martin asks.

  “Yes, why, Judith?” his father asks.

  I am confused. And unwilling to hurt Martin and certainly not wanting to upset his parents whom I like. But the project seems to me to be spun out of lunacy.

  I try to explain. “Look,” I say, “I can’t exactly put it into words, but it sounds a bit desperate. Do you know what I mean?”

  “No,” Martin says, more shortly than usual.

  “What I mean is, literature is literature. Poetry is poetry. It’s made out of words. You don’t work poems in wool.”

  “What you’re saying is that it’s disrespectful to the tradition.”

  “No, that’s not really it. I don’t care about the tradition. It’s just that you might look foolish, Martin. And desperate. Don’t you see, it’s gimmicky, and you’ve never been one for gimmicks.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Judith, don’t make too much of it. It’s just a teaching aid.”

  The children have turned from the television now and are watching us. Grandpa Gill and Lala, almost imperceptibly, shrink away from us.

  “Martin, you’ve always been so sensible. Can’t you see that this is just, well, just a little undignified. I mean, I just feel it’s beneath you somehow.”

  “I don’t see what’s so undignified about trying something new for a change. Christ, Judith. You’re the one who thinks the seventeenth century is such a bore. Literature can be damn dull. And especially Milton.”

  “I agree. I agree.”

  “What I’m doing is making a pictorial presentation of themes which will give a quick comprehensive vision of the total design. It’s quite simple and straightforward.”

  “Couldn’t you just do a paper on it?”

  “No. No, I could not.”

  “Why not?”

  “How can you put a design image into prose?”

  “What about that paper they turned down. Couldn’t you do that one over for them?”

  “No.”

  “So instead you’ve dreamed up this lunatic scheme.”

  “Judith, we’re talking in circles. I don’t think it’s all that idiotic. What do you think, Dad?”

  Grandpa Gill regards me. Clearly he does not want to join in the foray, but he is being pressed. He speaks cautiously: “I think I partially understand what Judith is worried about. The publish-or-perish syndrome does occasionally have the effect of forcing academics to make asses of themselves. But, on the other hand, cross-disciplinary approaches seem to be well thought of at the moment. A graphic demonstration of a literary work, with the design features stressed, might make quite an interesting presentation if –"

  I interrupt, out of exasperation, for I know he can go on in this vein for hours. “Look, Martin there’s another thing. And I hate to say this because it sounds so narrow-minded and conventional, but I, well, the truth is – I can’t bear to think of you sitting there in your office weaving away. I mean – do you know what I mean? – do you – don’t you think it’s just a little bit – you know –?”

  “Effeminate?” he supplies the word.

  “Eccentric. It’s the sort of thing Furlong Eberhardt might dream up.”

  “And I suppose you think that reference will guarantee instant dismissal of the whole idea.”

  “Oh, Martin, for heaven’s sake, do what yo
u want. I just hate you to look ridiculous.”

  “To whom? To you?”

  “Forget it. I don’t even know why we’re discussing it.” I start picking up newspapers and gathering together the coffee cups. Lala springs to my side, but I tell her not to bother; I can manage.

  I feel strange as I carry the cups into the kitchen. A nervy dancing fear is spinning in my stomach, and I lean on the sink for support. A minute ago I had been overjoyed that Martin’s wool was to be put to so innocent a purpose. What has happened? What am I afraid of?

  Guilt presses; I should have been more consoling when his paper was turned down. I should take greater interest in his work. Year after year he sweats out the required papers and what interest do I show? I proofread them, take out commas, put his footnotes in order. And that’s it. No wonder he’s developed a soft spot on the brain. To conceive of this bit of madness, actually to carry it through.

  And to carry it out furtively, covertly. For I am certain he deliberately withheld the project from me. Perhaps from everyone else as well. He probably even pulls the curtains in his office and locks the door when he weaves. I try to picture it – Martin tugging at the wool, sorting his needles, tightening his frame, and then pluck, pluck, in and out, in and out. My husband, Martin Gill, weaving away his secret afternoons.

  It might even be better if he did have a mistress. One could understand that. One could commiserate; one could forgive. But what can be done with a man who makes a fool of himself – what do you do then?

  Martin is crazy. He’s lost his grip. Or is it me? I try to think logically, but my stomach is seized by pain. I try to construct the past few months, to remember exactly when Martin last mentioned something about his work. I sit down on the kitchen stool and try to concentrate, but my head whirls. When did he last discuss the seventeenth century? Paradise Lost? The Milton tradition? Or something temporal such as his lecture schedule. When? I can’t remember.

  And then I think with a stab of pain, when did we last make love with anything more than cordiality?

  My head pounds. I open the cupboard and find a bottle of aspirin. And then, though it is just a little past noon, I creep upstairs and get into bed. The sheets are cool and deliciously flat. Below me in the family room I can hear the Rose Bowl Game beginning.

  Hours later I awake in the darkened room. In the upstairs hall the light is burning brutally; long, startling El Greco shadows cut across the bedroom wall. Footsteps, whispers, the rattle of teacups. Someone reaches for my hand, places a cold cloth on my forehead.

  “Thank you, thank you,” I want to say, but my voice has disappeared, in its place a dry cracked nut of pain. My lips have split; I can taste blood. The inside of my mouth is unfamiliar, a clutch of cottonwool.

  “Drink this,” someone says.

  “No, no,” I rasp.

  “Please, Judith. Try. It may help.”

  Lala was sitting on the edge of my bed, a figurine, a blue-tinted shepherdess. She was pressing a teaspoon toward me. I opened my mouth. Aspirin. Aspirin crushed in strawberry jam; its peculiar bitter, slightly citrus flavor reaches me from the forest of childhood (my father crushing aspirin on the breadboard with the back of a teaspoon when my sister and I had measles, yes).

  A drink of water, and I lay back exhausted. Again the cool, wet cloth. Again the mellifluous voice. “There, there. Now just sleep. Don’t worry. Just rest, dear.”

  What choice had I but to obey; the lack of choice, the total surrender of will enclosed me like a drug. I slept.

  There followed another long blurred space.

  Several times I woke up choking on the thick cactus growth in my throat. And to my inexplicable grief, every time I opened my eyes it was still dark. If only it were light, I remember thinking, I could bear it. If only this long night would end, I would be all right.

  But when the light finally did come, milky through the frosted-over windows; I couldn’t look at it without pain. It battered my stripped nerve ends, pierced me through with its harsh squares. Anguish. To be so helpless. The wet plush tongue of the facecloth descended again. Coolness. It was Meredith.

  In all her sixteen years I had never heard such sadness in her voice. It curled in and out of her breath like a ballad.

  “Mother. Oh, Mother. Are you any better?”

  Was that my voice that squawked “yes”? I said it to comfort her, not because it was true.

  “The doctor’s coming. Dr. Barraclough is coming. Any minute, Mother. After his hospital rounds. He said as soon after ten as he could make it.”

  I moaned faintly, involuntarily.

  “Is there anything you’d like, Mother? A nice cup of tea?”

  In my angle of pain I could only think of what a strange phrase that was for Meredith to use – a nice cup of tea. Did I ever say it? My mother certainly did. Lala did too. Even Martin did. But did I? Out of kindness or ritual or sympathy did I ever in all my life offer anyone such a thing as a “nice cup of tea”? If not, then how did I come to have a daughter who was able to utter, unselfconsciously, such a perfect and cottagy phrase – a nice cup of tea?

  Her voice rocked with such mourning that I felt I must accept. From the roof of my mouth a small scream escaped, saying “Yes please.”

  She fled to the kitchen joyfully, only to be replaced by Martin. “My poor Judith. My poor little Judith.”

  Again it was the phrase I perceived, not the situation. “My poor little Judith,” he had called me. Echoes of courtship, when he had used those exact words often. And I am not little. Tall and lanky then, I am tall and large now, not fat, of course, only what the world calls a fair-sized woman; my size has always defined my sense of myself, made me less serious, freer of vanity, for good or bad.

  “My poor little Judith,” he had said. I reached out a hand and felt it taken.

  “Poor Judith. My poor sick Judith.”

  So that was it: I was sick.

  “Just try to rest, love. You’ve got some kind of flu. And you’ve had a bugger of a night.”

  I strangled with agreement.

  “Mother and Dad had to leave. Early this morning. They were awfully worried, especially Mother.”

  I thought of Lala sitting on the edge of my bed in some half-blocked fantasy. Aspirin and strawberry jam. We had met at that level. I clutched Martin’s hand harder. I wanted him to stay and, miraculous, he didn’t hurry away.

  Richard poked his head around the doorway. I was shocked at his size, for viewed from this unfamiliar angle, he seemed suddenly much taller. A stranger. And miserably shy.

  “Meredith says, do you want some toast?”

  “No,” I croaked. Then I added, “No thank you.” Etiquette. My mother’s thin etiquette surfacing.

  I fell asleep again, woke momentarily to see the tea, cold and untouched in its pottery cup. Sleep, sleep.

  The doctor comes. A provincial tennis champion, now barely thirty-five. Too young to wield such power. Permanently suntanned from all those holidays in the Bahamas, hands lean across the backs, a look of cash to his herringbone jacket. Money rolling in, but who cares, who cares?

  “Well, well, what have we here?” he whistles good cheer.

  Sullenly I refuse to answer or even listen to such heartiness.

  He does the old routine, listens to heart – is my nightgown clean? – temperature, pulse, blood pressure. A searing little light with a cold metal tip pokes into throat, nostrils, ears. Eyelids rolled back.

  “You’re sick,” he says leaning back. “A real sick girl.”

  And you’re a fatuous ass, I long to say; but how can I, for he and only he can deliver me from my width of wretchedness. Already he is writing something on a pad of paper. I can – I can be restored.

  He speaks to Martin; perhaps he considers that I am too ill to comprehend. “I can only give her something to make her more comfortable. It’s a virus, you know, a real tough baby, it looks like, and there’s nothing we can give for a virus.”

  “Nothing?” Marti
n asks unbelieving.

  “Rest, plenty of liquids, that’s about it.”

  “But how about an antibiotic or something?”

  “Won’t work,” he says, brushing Martin off – how dare he! – picking up his overcoat, feeling in his pocket for his car keys.

  Meredith sees him to the door, and Martin and I are left in immense quiet. The Baby Ben is ticking on the night table. In spite of my contagious condition, Martin lies down on his side of the rumpled bed. He lies carefully on top of the bedspread and in less than a minute he has fallen asleep. I am obscurely angered that he has violated my bed with his presence. The walls dissolve, the silence is enormous. I think, I can’t bear this. And then I too fall asleep.

  For days the fever laps away at me. My scalp, after a week, feels so tender that I can hardly comb my hair. My arms and legs ache, and my back is so sore that I keep an extra pillow under it.

  The efforts of Martin and the children to comfort me are so great and so constant that I wish I could rouse myself to gratitude. But it is too tiring. I can do nothing but lie in bed and accept.

  I have never in my adult life been so ill. I can hardly believe I am suffering from something as ubiquitous as flu, and it seems preposterous that I can be this ill and still not require hospitalization. The doctor comes once again, pats me roughly on the back and says, “Well, Judith, I think you’re going to surprise us and weather this after all.”

  My illness shocks me by giving me almost magical powers of perception; the restless, feverish days have sharpened my awareness to the point of pain. Phrases I hear every day acquire new meaning. I find myself analyzing for hours what is casually uttered. The way, for instance, that Dr. Barraclough calls me Judith now that I have become an author. All sorts of people, in fact, whom I know in a remote and professional way began using my first name the moment my first book came out, as though I had somehow come into the inheritance of it, as though I had entered into the public domain, had left behind that dumpy housewife, Mrs. Gill. Judith. I became Judith.