A Jest of God

by Margaret Laurence

  This circumlocution is necessary for Mother.

  “You mean she’s had a child?”

  Mother spoons the last drop of vanilla ice cream slowly into her mouth, letting it melt and dribble down her throat before she replies.

  “Twins,” she says sepulchrally. “What a heartbreak for her mother. Imagine. Twins.”

  I have to resist some powerful undercurrent of laughter. Twins. Twice as reprehensible as one.

  “Is she going to keep them?”

  “That’s the awful thing,” Mother says. “Apparently she refuses to have them put up for adoption. I can’t fathom the thoughtlessness of some girls. She might consider her mother, and how it’ll be for her. It was Mrs. Barnes that told me. I said to her, I thank my lucky stars I never had a moment’s worry with either of my daughters.”

  Had. Past tense.

  Mother took her sleeping pill soon after dinner. By nine, she was sleeping like a baby. I’ve finished the dishes and done some laundry, and I’m ready for bed myself.

  Each day dies with sleep. I wish it did. My headache has gone, but I’m restless. The slow whirling begins again, the night’s wheel that turns and turns, pointlessly. When I close my eyes, I see scratches of gold against the black, and they form into jagged lines, teeth, a knife’s edge, the sharp hard hackles of dinosaurs.

  I must sleep.

  The blood ran down from his nostrils to his mouth’s edge. He wiped it away as though it were only to be expected. What can I ever say that might make him forget?

  I have to get to sleep. I must. The one who grows out of shadows won’t venture near tonight. Even that solace isn’t deserved.

  – When Egypt’s queen received Antony, that book said, she used to fall upon him even before he had taken off his armour. Think of that – even before he’d taken off his armour. They used to have banquets with dozens there. Hundreds. Egyptian girls and Roman soldiers. Oasis melons, dusty grapes brought in the long ships from somewhere. Goblets shaped like cats, cats with listening ears, engraved in gold, not serpents or bulls, not Israel or Greece, only golden cats, cruelly knowledgeable as Egypt. They drank their wine from golden cats with seeing eyes. And when they’d drunk enough, they would copulate as openly as dogs, a sweet hot tangle of the smooth legs around the hard hairy thighs. The noise and sweat – the sound of their breath – the slaves looking on, having to stand itchingly immobile while they watched the warm squirming of those –

  The night is a jet-black lake. A person could sink down and even disappear without a trace.

  FOUR

  Holidays are enticing only for the first week or so. After that, it is no longer such a novelty to rise late and have little to do. I don’t really know what to do with myself these days. I invent duties and expeditions. I see the children from my last class, on the streets, and they are so busy running somewhere that they hardly notice me.

  Already July smells of dust and dryness, and I hope we aren’t going to have one of those yellowing summers, with no rain, and the green seeping away from the grass and leaves.

  River Street is almost empty this morning, only a few bicycles buzzing slowly like bluebottle flies, and the occasional kingfisher flash of a car driven by some impatient housewife bored with shopping. Outside the Parthenon Café, Miklos is sponging his windows dawdlingly, spinning the job out to last the morning while his wife waits stoically on the customers inside. The Flamingo Dancehall is shut tight and locked, blinds drawn, but tonight it will be all mauve and green shifting lights, and blare, and couples. In the summer there are dances every night here now. It used to be only once a week, Saturdays, when I was about seventeen. Sometimes I’d go with three or four other girls, scarcely wanting to, for the peril undertaken, the risk of no one asking a person to dance. But I dreaded not going even more – having to make up an excuse which anyone could see through. What a relief when one actually was asked to dance, no matter by whom. Except if it was Cluny Macpherson from the BA Garage, and then I used to want to get out of it, but couldn’t, being unable to say I’d promised the dance as it was obvious I hadn’t. He used to like to dance with me because he liked being a clown. I’ve often wondered how anyone could enjoy that. He was exceptionally short and broad, like a bulldog, and I was my full height then, and must have looked like some skinny poplar sapling. Naturally I’d falter or lose a step and he would croon to the band tune in his carrying voice so no one would miss the joke – Don’t watch your fee-eet, don’t watch your feet. Maybe he even thought he was doing me a kindness, teaching me to dance. He must have been thirty-five then. He’s in his fifties now. Probably he still goes to the dances at the Flamingo. What do the cool-eyed youngsters there now say to him? Has his foolery worn a little thin, even to himself, or does he still go on, unaware, or else compelled to be a card, a character, until he drops? What would he say if unexpectedly I turned up there one night? Perhaps we’d twist (is that still current?) for old times’ sake, two caricatures, dog out-reached to tree, the others’ laughter howling louder than the music.

  I honestly do not know why I feel the daft sting of imagined embarrassments. The ones that occur are more than plenty, God knows. I must not let myself think like this. I don’t know why I do. Unless to visualize something infinitely worse than anything that could possibly happen, so that whatever happens may seem not so bad in comparison.

  On the steps of the Queen Victoria Hotel a few old men sit, absorbing the sunlight through their grey buttoned-up sweaters and loose grey unpressed trousers, talking in thin voices. Perhaps if my father were alive, he’d be there with them. He’d be about that age by now, I guess. I hate to think of him like that, crinkled face not properly shaven, an Adam’s apple moving up and down in a scrawny throat. I’m not sorry he didn’t live, if that is the measure of it.

  Mother is as bright and flighty as she ever was, though. More so, really, since he’s not here – not that she’d ever see or acknowledge that. No one could say mortality had very noticeably laid claws on her, not yet. Except when she’s ill, of course. The breathing is so erratic. And that worrying purple that tinges her mouth like potassium permanganate. I think I ought to tell Doctor Raven those new pills aren’t doing her as much good as we’d hoped. I must remember to do that today, and also without letting her know. No use in upsetting her. That will be something for me to do this afternoon. Straight after lunch I’ll pop into Doctor Raven’s office. He’ll say –

  “Hello, Rachel.”

  Has someone spoken to me? A man’s voice, familiar. Who is it?

  “It is Rachel, isn’t it?” he says, stopping, smiling enquiringly.

  He is about the same height as myself. Not thickly built, really, but with the solidity of heavy bones. Straight hair, black. Eyes rather Slavic, slightly slanted, seemingly only friendly now, but I remember the mockery in them from years ago.

  “Nick Kazlik. You haven’t been back in Manawaka for a long time.”

  “No, that’s right, I haven’t.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Teaching,” he says, “in a High School.”

  “In the city?”

  “Yes,” he says, with a quirk of a smile.

  I oughtn’t to have said the city. As though I believed it were the only one anywhere. Why didn’t I say Winnipeg?

  “What’re you doing back here?” I have to rush to fill the empty spaces with words, and then I realize there is only one thing he could be doing here.

  “I came back to be with my parents for the summer. They’re getting on.”

  “Yes, of course. I – well, of course.”

  “What are you doing here, Rachel?”

  “I – oh, I live here.”

  What a moronic thing to say. As though that explained my presence.

  “Oh? You’re married, then?”

  “No. No – I’m living with my – I keep house for my mother since my father – he’s dead, you know. And I teach, of course.”

  Of course. As though he would be bound to
know. Why should Teresa Kazlik write to him of me? I never had anything to do with him. He’s a year older than I am, I think. And anyway, I just didn’t. Mother used to say, “Don’t play with those Galician youngsters.” How odd that seems now. They weren’t Galicians – they were Ukrainian, but that didn’t trouble my mother. She said Galician or Bohunk. So did I, I suppose. She needn’t have worried. They were rawboned kids whose scorn was almost tangible. They would never have wanted to play with us. I knew that Nick went to university, but I never knew him there, either.

  “I mean –” but I’m fumbling this amendment, “I’m a teacher – also.”

  “Are you? Whereabouts?”

  “Grade Two.” I find I’m laughing – tittering, maybe – yes, for Christ’s sake, that. “I wouldn’t want to cope with High School.”

  “Trample their egos firmly,” Nick says. “It’s the only way.”

  “Oh – I wouldn’t have thought so –”

  He laughs. “No?”

  Why didn’t I see he didn’t mean it, before? I don’t know why I take people’s words at their surface value. Mine can’t be taken so. But I do. And then they think – What naïveté – who could believe it? Is he thinking that?

  “Been here long, Rachel?” he asks.

  There is something almost gentle in his voice, and suddenly I long to say, Yes, forever, but also to deny everything and to say Only a year – before that, I was in Samarkand and Tokyo.

  “A while. My father died –”

  “Yes. You said.”

  Yes, I did say, didn’t I? So why again? What can he be thinking? Never mind. Whatever he thinks, it’s not even approaching the truth. Who does he think he is? High School or not. Nestor Kazlik’s son. The milkman’s son.

  It can’t be myself thinking like that. I don’t believe that way at all. It’s as though I’ve thought in Mother’s voice. Nick graduated from university. I didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick is saying, still speaking about my father, whom momentarily I had forgotten.

  “Well – it was some time ago.” So no condolence is required, and I’ve pushed away his well-intended words? I must say something. “Anyway, that’s when I came back. I didn’t finish college.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “No, of course. I mean, of course you wouldn’t know.”

  “What is there to do here in the summer?” Nick asks.

  “I don’t – well, not a great deal, I guess.”

  “Would you come to a movie on Friday night, Rachel?”

  “Oh. Well – I guess – well, thanks. I – yes, I’d like to.”

  “Good. Fine. Eight?”

  “Yes. That’s – fine.”

  “See you, then. Oh, wait, Rachel. I don’t know where you live.”

  “In the same – you remember? My father had the –”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “The man who took over the business didn’t want the upstairs flat, so we – my mother and I – we’ve kept it on.”

  “I see.”

  “You can’t miss it,” I am shrilly saying. “There’s a neon sign.”

  He laughs, but I cannot tell whether it is done in puzzlement or what. Then he walks on, saying “So long,” and I must walk on quickly as well, not remain standing here.

  At home, Mother has the table set and is waiting for the lamb chops for lunch.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so long.”

  “It’s quite all right, dear. I did begin to wonder a little, that’s all, what could possibly have kept you so long, or if you’d had some kind of accident –”

  “Oh Mother. For heaven’s sake. It’s only half past twelve. I was talking to someone. Nick Kazlik, actually. He’s back for the summer.”

  “Who dear? I don’t believe I know him.”

  “Nick Kazlik. You know.”

  “Oh – you mean old Nestor’s son?”

  “Yes. He’s a High School teacher. In the city.”

  “Really? How did he manage that?”

  “I couldn’t say. Some miracle, I suppose. Divine intervention, maybe.”

  “Really, Rachel,” she says, exceedingly perturbed. “There’s no need for you to speak to me like that. If you please.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  I’m not sorry. And yet my anger is childish. It’s not her fault. Half the town is Scots descent and the other half is Ukrainian. Oil, as they say, and water. Both came for the same reasons, because they had nothing where they were before. That was a long way away and a long time ago. The Ukrainians knew how to be the better grain farmers, but the Scots knew how to be almightier than anyone but God. She was brought up that way, and my father too, and I, but by the time it reached me, the backbone had been splintered considerably. She doesn’t know that, though, and never will. Probably I wouldn’t even want her to know.

  How shall I tell her I’ve agreed to go out with him? This is what I keep on wondering through our evening, the TV clanging and bellowing, and Mother belching softly on the sofa and gnawing peppermints for indigestion.

  I wonder why he asked me out. I suppose he didn’t have anything better to do, and thought he might as well.

  Why in God’s name did I say that about the neon sign? The first time I ever went to a movie with a boy, I was fifteen. The adult price wasn’t charged until sixteen. The boy was sixteen. I stood beside him on the winter street, outside the ticket window, shivering, obsessed with one thought – how would I ever walk past the ticket girl and face the usherette if he bought a child’s ticket for me? He didn’t, of course, so I had upset myself needlessly.

  “Where are you going, Rachel? Are you going somewhere?”

  “Yes.” I should have told her before, I know. “I’m going to a movie.”

  “Oh. What’s on? Maybe I’ll come along.”

  “I mean I’m going with someone.”

  “Oh. I see. Well, you might have said, Rachel. You really might have told me, dear.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. I just –”

  “You know how glad I am, dear, when you go out. You might have mentioned it to me, that’s all. It’s not too much to ask, surely. After all, I do like to know where you are. I would have thought you could have said, Rachel.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, it’s quite all right, dear. I’m only saying if you had let me know, it would’ve been better, that’s all. I could have invited one of the girls in, maybe. Well, never mind. I shall be quite fine here by myself. I’ll just slip into my housecoat, and make some coffee, and have a nice quiet evening. I’ll be just dandy. Don’t you worry about me a speck. I’ll be perfectly all right. If you’d just reach down my pills for me from the medicine cabinet. As long as they’re where I can get them handily, in case anything happens. I’m sure I’ll be fine. You go ahead and enjoy yourself, Rachel.”

  I can never handle this kind of thing properly. What’s behind it can never be brought out. She’d only deny, and be stricken and wounded. Maybe she really doesn’t know what she’s saying. She half convinces me, all the same, because it is true that something might happen when I’m away, and then what? All my fault. It worries me, anyway, even apart from whose fault.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t go.” Do I mean this?

  “No, no. You go ahead, dear. It isn’t so often that you – and I’ll be perfectly fine. After all, you’re young. I must expect to be a bit lonely sometimes.”

  “I’m sorry.” We could pace this treadmill indefinitely.

  “You never said who it was, dear. It doesn’t matter in the least, but it does hurt me just a little when you don’t even –”

  “Nick Kazlik.”

  “Who? I don’t believe I –”

  “I told you the other day that I met him on the street. Nick Kazlik.”

  Mother, flitting around the livingroom, having suddenly decided that the pictures all need straightening, pauses with one small white mauve-veined hand on the autumn-coloured print of The Strawbe
rry Girl.

  “You mean the milkman’s son?”

  The milkman’s son. The undertaker’s daughter. But she wouldn’t laugh. I must be very calm and careful. Anything else is useless.

  “The same.”

  An infant sigh bubbles from her lips.

  “Well, of course – I mean, it’s your business, dear. You go ahead and have a nice time.”

  If only once she’d say what she means, and we could have it out. But she won’t. Maybe it would be worse if she did. I don’t know.

  Doorbell. Quick – I must get her pills for her, first. They are on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet so that no one will take them by mistake. She can’t reach that high.

  “Here – they’re on top of the TV. Is there anything else you need?”

  “No, no.” She has moved on to the straightening of a simpering puce-mouthed Madonna. “I told you, dear – I’ll be quite all right. I may just get started on the laundry.”

  “Mother – you’re not to! You know you mustn’t lift things, or strain too much. I’ll do it tomorrow morning.”

  Doorbell again.

  “Well, Rachel dear, I only thought I might as well get going on it, as I haven’t anything much to do.”

  “Please.”

  She glances at me with the innocent guile I’ve seen so often on the faces of my children.

  “I’ll see how I feel, dear. I only thought I might as well be doing something useful.”

  “Promise me not to. Please.”

  “We’ll see. There are those blankets we’ve been meaning to wash all spring –”

  “Mother!”

  Why does she do this now? Why not half an hour ago, when I would have had the time to cajole. That’s why she didn’t, then, of course.

  “All right. All right. Wash them if you like. I can’t stop you, can I?”

  Going down the stairs, rapidly, my heels clattering, I can see again the astonished disbelief on her face. I can’t believe, myself, that I could have said what I did. What an awful thing to say. I don’t care. I don’t give a damn. I’ll care later. Not right now.