by Lisa Grekul
“It’s for the best,” says Dad, filling the silence on the car ride home. “Kalyna did us all a favour by telling Baba and Gido. Your mother just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was afraid of their reaction. Doesn’t help that her sisters encouraged her to keep it a secret. I don’t know. Maybe they were right.”
Dad sighs.
“We’ve got to remember that Mom’s parents are old,” he says. “They’re old and they’re old-fashioned and they don’t know any better.”
It sounds as though he’s trying to convince himself.
“Their way is to fear everything. Anything new, anything different. That’s why those aunts of yours are the way they are. Not one of them knows how to swim, how to skate, how to ride a bike. Those girls were raised on fear.”
“Mom can swim,” says Wes.
“Only because I forced her to learn,” says Dad. “She was petrified of water. Lakes, pools, you name it. She was scared that she’d drown if she went near water. She didn’t know how to drive until after we were married, and I taught her. Imagine that. Those girls were raised on the farm and their dad never taught them how to drive a car.”
Dad slows down as we approach the Duvernay Bridge. He asks if anyone needs the bathroom at Brosseau, then he picks up speed for the final stretch home.
“I offered to talk to Gido,” he says, “a few times. Every time we visited there, I wanted to tell them. They had to be told, Mom knew that. I think your aunts would have told your Baba. I’m surprised they didn’t tell her, the way they gossip. But your mother wanted to tell Baba and Gido herself, when she was good and ready.”
“Why did he pick on Wes?” I ask, interrupting Dad. “Gido, I mean. Why did he yell at Wes like that, and shake him up?”
Wes looks out the window, blinking away tears.
“Well,” says Dad. “After I told Gido that the arrangements had all been made, that your trip had been paid for, he suggested that we send Wes to Africa.”
“Wes?” says Sophie. “You’re kidding.”
Dad shakes his head. “Don’t forget, Gido hasn’t seen much of the world.”
“He immigrated from Ukraine,” I say, “doesn’t that count for anything?”
“He was eighteen months old. Too young to remember. Never spent a day of his life in school. Really, except for the odd trip to Edmonton, Gido never left the farm. So you can’t expect him to understand. He figures you girls should be getting married right about now. And if anyone is going anywhere, it should be Wes. Because Wes is a boy.”
I roll my eyes. Dad continues.
“Gido wasn’t yelling at you, Wes. He was yelling at your mother and me, for sending Colleen instead of you. Gido told us that we’re as cracked as Kalyna. Crazy. He called us crazy.”
Dad slows down to fifty as we enter St. Paul.
“But you know,” he says, turning north down the gravel road that leads to our farm, “sometimes I think Kalyna isn’t crazy at all. Sometimes, I think that she’s saner than all the rest of us put together.”
I’m not sure that Dad is right. Kalyna should have stayed quiet. Then the fight wouldn’t have happened. Mom would be driving home with us. Kalyna made a mess out of everything.
“Kalyna was the only one who had the guts to speak up. And she did it in an eloquent way, too. One hell of an eloquent way. She asked Gido to bless you, Colleen. She asked him to say a special prayer for you, for your journey. And when the stubborn old goat wouldn’t do it – when he wouldn’t pray for you – well, Kalyna did it herself. Right in Gido’s face.”
Dad chuckles as we pull into the yard. The Christmas lights blink red and green along the eavestroughs of the house. Ralph greets us, barking, at the garage doors.
“So, Colleen,” says Dad. “For what it’s worth, you have Kalyna’s blessing. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you have her blessing.”
The automatic garage door kicks in and Dad eases the car into the garage. As the garage door closes behind us, I watch the snowbank shrink, the full moon disappear. With a flick of the light switch, Dad turns off the Christmas lights outside, and the yard is black.
Part 4: Swaziland
One
My plan is to make a quick, clean getaway. “Just drop me off when we get to the airport,” I say. “You don’t even have to walk in with me. We’ll just wave and say, ‘See you later.’ Pretend that I’m going away for the weekend.”
But Mom and Dad insist on staying with me as long as they can. Wes gets to miss school, and Sophie skips her morning classes at the university. We huddle in a group beside the Air Canada counter, Mom and Sophie and me. Wes lifts my hockey bags onto the weigh scale. Dad talks to the woman behind the counter.
I don’t want anyone in the airport to know that this is my first flight, my first solo trip anywhere. I want to look relaxed and slightly bored. Like I know exactly what to do with my luggage, where to go with my boarding pass. I want the world to think that I’ve done this a hundred times before.
Hockey bags were Dad’s idea, not mine. Two big hockey bags, cheap but durable. Experienced travellers don’t use hockey bags for luggage. Experienced travellers carry tidy little Pierre Cardin suitcases and posh Pierre Cardin garment bags, and they definitely don’t fill their baggage to the maximum weight allowance. My hockey bags weigh seventy kilograms each. Dad checked at home on the stainless steel scale he uses during hunting season, to weigh moose meat.
“Window seat or aisle?” says the woman in the Air Canada uniform.
“Window seat or aisle?” Dad repeats.
I pause, wondering what sort of seat an experienced traveller prefers. Before I have a chance to speak, a voice answers for me from across the departure lounge. A familiar voice. Loud.
“Window seat. Take a window seat!”
I turn around, glaring. Kalyna continues.
“From the sky, all the farmers’ fields are like a patchwork quilt.”
A few months after Uncle Andy passed away, Auntie Mary and Kalyna went on a trip to Hawaii. To take their minds off all the sadness.
Trailing behind Kalyna is her mom, Auntie Mary, and behind her, Auntie Rose and Uncle Bill, Auntie Pearl and Uncle Charlie, Auntie Linda and Uncle Ed, Auntie Jean and Uncle David, Auntie Natalka and Uncle Harry, and Auntie Marika and Uncle Dave. Seven aunts and six uncles – nearly all of my mother’s sisters and their husbands. Plus Kalyna. Fourteen relatives altogether.
The uncles stand quietly in a circle, sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups, but the aunts all talk at once. Auntie Natalka asks Mom how she’s holding up. Auntie Mary answers that she’s a wreck.
“Look at her,” says Auntie Mary. “Just look at her. The poor thing hasn’t slept in days.”
“I’d be a wreck, too,” says Auntie Jean, nodding.
“If my Sonya were going to the other side of the world,” says Auntie Linda, “I’d be in the mental hospital.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind, Colleen,” says Auntie Pearl.
“Never too late,” says Auntie Marika.
“But my Sonya would never go.”
“My girls wouldn’t go either. Never.”
“You can come home with us right now.”
“Right now.”
“Honestly, I’d be in the mental hospital.”
“enough!”
My mom yells so hard that strangers standing around us turn and stare. The aunts fall silent immediately.
“I’m not going to the mental hospital. I’m not going anywhere. My daughter is.”
The aunts are too shocked to speak.
“My daughter is going to Africa and I’m so proud of her my heart is bursting. Colleen is doing something none of you – none of us – could ever dream of doing. Now give her some peace, for heaven’s sake, before she goes. Give me some peace. Please.”
My aunts look like a group of schoolgirls who have just been scolded by the teacher. They don’t know what to do with themselves. Their eyes all drop to the floor. Dad puts his arm around
Mom. She keeps her chin up, her shoulders straight.
I reach out to hold my mother’s hand, and I squeeze. I’m proud of her too.
Uncle Ed steps forward.
“We’ll say our goodbyes now,” he says, giving Mom a sympathetic look. “Let you have some time alone with Colleen.”
Experienced travellers don’t break down in public. I’m sure of it. They definitely don’t cry in the airport. But one by one, as each of my aunts kisses me goodbye – as I press my face against each uncle’s winter jacket, taking in the smell of cigarettes and aftershave – I start to feel my throat tighten. Then, watching them walk away toward the airport coffee shop, the tears come. Hot, wet tears spilling down my cheeks.
Wes tries to make a joke as he hugs me, but his voice cracks, so he buries his face in my shoulder.
Sophie wipes her eyes again. “We’ll write all the time, right? And we’ll talk on the phone all the time, right? And in no time at all –”
She stops talking as she puts her arms around me.
Then Mom and Dad hug me, together, and I hug them back, hard. The three of us stand together for a long time.
“We love you so much,” they say. “We’re going to miss you.”
“I love you, too.” I can hardly get the words out.
Then I force myself to walk toward the boarding gate – right, left, right. I do my best to straighten my shoulders, like Mom, and lift my chin. I try not to feel sorry for myself. But my nose is running. The strap of my knapsack keeps cutting into my shoulder. And each time I look back, Mom and Dad are further away, Sophie and Wes look smaller and smaller. In the distance, they’re holding on to each other. I’m on my own.
I’ve never been through airport security before, so I don’t know what to do. I glance back once more at Mom and Dad, take a deep breath. While I stand in line waiting for my turn to go through the metal detector, I watch the people around me, to see what they do. Ahead of me are two businessmen in three-piece, pinstriped suits and dark grey trench coats. They empty their pockets into a plastic basket while their briefcases roll down a moving belt through an X-ray machine. In front of the businessmen, a young woman stands with her arms outstretched. A security guard rubs a metal detector up and down her legs, across her torso, sideways along the length of her arms.
None of the other travellers is crying. I wipe the tears from my cheeks.
When my turn comes, I try to act like everyone else, like going through airport security is routine, so that no one will stare at me. I wish that I’d cleaned out my jacket before passing through the boarding gate. I’ve got used Kleenex, movie ticket stubs, matches, a tampon – a tampon, of all things – and two Tylenol caplets in my pockets. Do they let drugs through security? For a split second, I consider swallowing the pills. But there isn’t time. The security guard is asking for my airline ticket and my boarding pass.
After my knapsack has passed through the X-ray machine – after the security guard has looked through my guitar case, rubbed his metal detector against my arms and legs – I’m home free. Nobody looks twice at my Tylenol. Nobody looks twice at me. I follow the other passengers down a long corridor toward my boarding gate. I’m on my way.
But halfway down the length of the corridor, I hear my name – a voice behind me, from the direction of the security check, calling my name. Several people around me stop walking to look around. I feel my face burning. Could I have forgotten something? I check for my ticket, my boarding pass. Knapsack, guitar. Nothing is missing. Have I broken a rule?
“Miss Lutzak? Miss Colleen Lutzak?”
One of the security guards taps me on the shoulder. I spin around to face him. And there, beside the security guard, in her bright red parka – out of breath, but grinning from ear to ear – is my cousin Kalyna. She’s already said goodbye to me. Why is she here?
The security guard says that Kalyna tried to slip through security, that she put up quite a fight when they wouldn’t let her through.
“I’ve got an older brother,” says the guard, shrugging his shoulders. “My brother’s sort of like your cousin, here. I didn’t think it would hurt to bring her to you. She says that she forgot to give you something.”
From the pocket of her parka, Kalyna brings out a long necklace of big pink and purple plastic flowers. A lei. She must have saved it from her trip to Hawaii.
With a solemn, ceremonious air, she drapes the lei around my neck.
“Bon Voyage!” she says. “Aloha!”
Five or six travellers turn to watch Kalyna as they make their way down the corridor. Some smile. I don’t want them to stare so I give Kalyna a quick hug – a quick thank you and an even quicker goodbye. Once she has passed back through the security check with the security guard, I stuff the lei into my knapsack.
During the flight from Edmonton to Toronto, I’m seated next to an older lady. Gladys is her name. At first, I think that Gladys is the nicest lady I’ve ever met. She gives me Kleenex so that I can blow my nose and a whole pack of Trident to help my ears as we take off. Then, Gladys starts talking.
Gladys is visiting her daughter, Cheryl-Lynne, who is married to Gerald, a stockbroker from Windsor, originally. I see photos of the children from Cheryl-Lynne’s first marriage to Adam, photos of the children from Cheryl-Lynne’s second marriage to Bernie. Gerald is Cheryl-Lynne’s third husband. They haven’t started a family yet.
Now and again as Gladys talks, I glance out the window of the airplane. I rifle around in my knapsack, bringing out a book, my Walkman – anything to give Gladys a sign that I’m not interested in Cheryl-Lynne. Gladys doesn’t take my hints. When the stewardess brings us our lunch, Gladys hardly touches her meal. She’s too busy telling me about Cheryl-Lynne’s job at Toronto’s Sick Kids, Cheryl-Lynne’s home in Etobicoke, Cheryl-Lynne’s last holiday in Florida. By the time we’ve landed at Pearson International Airport, I know everything about Cheryl-Lynne.
And I’ve learned my lesson. From Toronto to Montreal, I don’t even smile at the man sitting next to me, a bald, middle-aged man in a fancy suit. He orders a drink while he reads his Globe and Mail. I sip on a Diet Coke, flipping through the airline magazine. I’m learning how things work on airplanes. I know when to expect the liquor cart, the peanuts; when to listen for the captain’s voice over the loudspeaker. I make sure that between the bald man and me, there is no exchange of names and no small talk. No conversation whatsoever.
On the flight from Montreal to Paris, I decide to take a nap. I want to be refreshed when we land in Europe. Except for family trips to the States, I’ve never been out of Canada before. I’ve never left North America. This is my first time overseas.
But the airport in Paris is a big disappointment. There’s nothing European, nothing exotic, nothing remotely interesting about it. It’s just like the airport in Edmonton, and Pearson, and Mirabel. The same duty-free shops, the same magazine kiosks. I expected more. Marble floors, maybe, and gold fixtures. Indoor cafés with small, round, candlelit tables and checkerboard tablecloths and wandering accordion players. I thought the people, at least, would look different. Avant garde outfits, haut couture hairstyles.
After I exchange some of my Canadian dollars for French francs, I buy a coffee and a pastry. The coffee tastes like ordinary, everyday Maxwell House. The pastry is chewy and bland.
To kill time, I pick up a handful of postcards. For Mom and Dad, a picture of the Eiffel Tower; for Sophie, the Palace of Versailles. And for Wes, L’Arc de Triomphe. Neither Baba nor Gido can read English, or Ukrainian, for that matter. But I pick up a Notre Dame Cathedral postcard for them anyway, to show them that I’m alive and well. Maybe they can look at the picture, bring it out when people come to visit.
Once I start to write on the backs of the postcards, I realize that there isn’t enough room to say anything meaningful. I want to tell Mom and Dad about everything that I’ve seen, everything that I’ve learned about airport security, and customs, and passport control. About changing planes, and changing mon
ey. The flavour and texture of airplane food, the way that airplane earphones work when you plug them into your armrest. I want to tell them about Kalyna’s farewell gift to me.
The idea comes to me as I’m shopping for paper. I could buy a package of flimsy, see-through airmail paper to write letters home or – for the same price – I could buy a book. A bound, hardcover book filled with regular, lined sheets, all blank.
It’s genius. Pure genius. To write a book about my travels starting with my departure from Edmonton, covering all of my adventures in Swaziland, and ending when I return to Canada, a year from now. After I’ve filled the book with stories of my trip, I’ll present the finished product to my family. Of course, I’ll still have to write letters every so often, and send the odd postcard. But nothing will compare to the book.
Paris to Johannesburg is, by far, the longest leg of my trip. Fourteen hours from takeoff to touchdown, including an hour-and-a-half stopover in Kinshasa to take on fuel and passengers. When the captain comes over the pa system, he explains that our flight will be long because all airplanes destined for apartheid South Africa are banned from a considerable portion of African airspace. Now that I have a book to write, the long flight doesn’t bother me. Fourteen hours will pass quickly.
My first objective is to come up with a good title. Something clever and quirky. I make a list of possibilities on the airline barf bag. Leaving on a Jet Plane comes to mind. Not a bad title, except that it makes no reference to Africa. A Passage to Africa could work. Into Africa, even better. Or, Hello the Beloved Country.
As I’m covering the barf bag with possible titles, I get the feeling that someone is watching me. To my right is the window of the plane and to my left is an empty seat. On the other side of the empty seat, though, sits a guy about my age. A black guy with a pillbox hat tie-dyed yellow and green. He has a fat face and chubby hands. Around his neck he wears a big, leather pendant in the shape of Africa. I think that he’s staring at me. But when I glance over at him, his head is down. He seems engrossed in a paperback novel. I decide that I’m just imagining things.