Sputnik's Children

by Terri Favro

  twelve

  Amchitka

  When the Famous American Artists Correspondence School called to speak to Mr. Biondi, Mom put Dad on the phone. After hanging up, he walked into the kitchen with the proud news that his youngest child had shown glimmerings of artistic genius — so much so, that they’d assumed I was a boy. A representative of the school was coming over to our house that very evening to discuss my future.

  Mom snorted. “Coming over to hard-sell us, more like it. How did they hear about Debbie’s doodles?”

  “I sent away for a free talent test,” I mumbled through a mouthful of toast.

  “Congratulations,” said Dad. “They said you have a unique creative spark.”

  He was so happy, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had thrown away the test. I hoped that bit of information wouldn’t come out while we were in the living room, awkwardly sitting through the Famous American Artists Correspondence School sales pitch.

  * * *

  The representative of the school looked nothing like an artist: he was a small man in a dandruff-dusted sports jacket, with nervous hands and a twitchy lip. He carried a vinyl briefcase bearing that self-portrait of Norman Rockwell I’d seen in the ad and the words: We’re looking for people who like to draw.

  Despite his twitchiness and the pungent odour of Old Spice and rye, the salesman said many things that my parents — particularly my father — were happy to hear. I had clearly demonstrated a high degree of artistic ability. There was absolutely no question of that; the school’s adjudication process was strict and stringent and scientifically proven. This seemed odd, given that I didn’t send in the test.

  My mind drifted. I woke up again when he said that many alumni of the Famous American Artists School were themselves now famous: he rattled off the names of several well-known cartoonists whose strips appeared in the colour comics of the Shipman’s Corners Examiner, including the one with the sexy hillbillies, Mom’s favourite.

  “She comes by her talent honestly,” confided Dad. “I’ve always had a bit of an artistic streak myself.”

  I looked at Dad in surprise. “Since when?”

  Dad lifted his chin. “I loved to draw when I was young. I wasn’t bad. If I’d had some encouragement, who knows where I’d be now?”

  The salesman swivelled his head toward Dad, lip twitching: it was the expression of a small cat preparing to corner a large slow-moving mouse.

  “We have someone local available to act as Debbie’s instructor right now, to provide marking, feedback, personalized lessons, even meet with her as often as once a week, and this individual is less than five miles from your beautiful home, can’t beat that, but I can’t guarantee that this opportunity will last: might be gone by tomorrow or even later tonight. You see, the good ones — and trust me, this instructor is a good one — get snapped up fast.”

  Giving a soft burp, he removed a fountain pen from his pocket and laid it on top of a form he’d quietly unfolded on the coffee table. Then he hung his hands between his knees and waited, eyes on Dad.

  Mom scrutinized the small print. “Three hundred dollars seems steep.”

  The salesman sat back on the couch, folded his hands over his tiny paunch and gave a quiet sigh. “Spread over twenty-six weeks, that’s only about ten dollars a week, breaking it down for you. Less than the price of a cup of coffee a day.”

  “I can break it down just fine for myself, thanks. That’s over eleven dollars a week, which is about a dollar forty for a coffee,” said Mom. “You can get a decent cup for a quarter in this town.”

  “Think of it as an investment in your daughter’s future,” suggested the salesman, changing tactics.

  “The guy who sold us a set of encyclopedias told us the same thing,” said Mom in a voice that sounded as if she suspected some type of international conspiracy of door-to-door salesmen.

  The salesman looked over at Dad, who was reading one of the brochures.

  “This sounds on the up-and-up. It would be good for Debbie to have a hobby,” Dad said. Mom, the salesman and I watched him sign on the dotted line. And just like that, I became a student of the Famous American Artists Correspondence School.

  After exchanging boring bits of adult blah blah blah about tax deductions and void cheques, the salesman shook my hand, presented me with my complimentary Famous American Artist student portfolio and assured me that my instructor would be in touch with me within five business days. My course would be carried out by correspondence, with my finished assignments and the instructor’s critiques passed back and forth by mail. Depending on what we could work out, we might meet even more often than once a week.

  “It all depends on your level of ability, honey,” the salesman told me, giving Dad a broad wink to show that he was in on the open secret of just how staggeringly talented I was.

  When a postcard finally arrived on behalf of the Famous American Artists School with my instructor’s name, address and phone number, I stood at the mailbox for five long minutes, staring at it. It read:

  Mrs. Beatrice Kendal

  105A Zurich Street

  * * *

  The first time I went out to Z Street for an art lesson, Dad drove me, even though I assured him I was more than capable of getting there myself.

  “You’ve got to watch yourself in that neighbourhood,” was his only explanation for the lift.

  When we got to Kendal’s house and Bea Kendal opened the door in her tie-dyed pantsuit and chic scarf, I could see Dad was taken aback — even more so when he came in and saw her paintings.

  “I’ve always suspected Debbie had artistic ability,” she said.

  “She comes by it honestly,” Dad said. “I’ve always had a leaning that way myself.”

  This seemed to impress Mrs. Kendal, who folded her arms and listened to a long description by Dad of the lost days of his youth, sketching dogs and farmhouses. Pretty soon Dad and Mrs. Kendal had completely forgotten me; when she offered him something cold to drink, he accepted, following her into the kitchen to continue the conversation. I had the uncomfortable feeling that they had, in the words of the older generation, hit it off.

  Mrs. Kendal was an excellent instructor, far better than the business studies teacher who also taught grade nine visual art, my only arts elective at St. Dismas Collegiate — all he did was show us murky tinted slides of Renaissance sculpture and occasionally let us blow up a piece of pottery in the kiln. Despite the biography that was eventually cooked up for me by my publisher, which included an MFA from New York’s prestigious Parsons School, my only art instruction came from Mrs. Kendal, who met with me every week to practise perspective, life drawing and colour theory. It turned out to be the best three hundred dollars my parents could have invested in me; years later, it would provide what would turn out to be my only marketable skill. Not to mention that, over those weeks of driving me back and forth, a friendship developed between Mrs. Kendal and Dad, making it easier for him to take a fatherly interest in John Kendal.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  * * *

  Fast forward to the first week of high school — not much of a change, even with those lost eighteen months, since my classes were full of kids I’d known since kindergarten. The biggest adjustment was seeing Duff roam the hallways in a short-sleeved shirt and clip-on tie, chased by kids in welding glasses, waving their chemistry homework and shouting, “Sir! Sir!” wanting him to look at their equations or answer a question about the periodic table. Enrollment in his classes skyrocketed when he announced that he would teach how to build a TV that could receive broadcasts from another dimension — a popular project in a town that could barely pick up stations from Buffalo.

  Linda had weepily returned to university in Toronto with promises to come home every weekend. Duff had been spending a lot of time at our house ever since her departure, eating most of his meals with u
s, as if he were already some type of de facto son-in-law.

  I eased into the routine of six hours of rotating classes every day, Kendal and I brushing fingertips or even stealing a kiss as we passed one another at the bell or meeting up after school at our lockers. We’d settled into the role of high school sweethearts; the younger, more progressive teachers looked at us with satisfaction. To underline the point, Kendal was elected student council president and captain of the basketball team, while I took up Linda’s old position on the volleyball team and became the first girl to sit as student council treasurer. The first months of high school were a golden time for Kendal and me. It felt as if we had turned a corner into a bright, brave, colour-blind utopia.

  On October fourth, I turned fifteen. Kendal took me to a movie. Shaft. He knew the guy selling tickets, so we were able to get in despite the movie’s Restricted rating. As the trailer said: If you wanna see Shaft, ask yo momma!

  We drove downtown in Duff’s Cutlass, the battered chassis and U.S. plates giving the two of us an aura of grit and glamour. “Mixed-race couple sees Shaft at the Shipman’s Corners Downtown Cinema — right on!” We were practically as urban as Buffalo now.

  The plot was about how the “mob” wanted to “take back Harlem.”

  “I’m looking for a nigga named John Shaft,” said a stereotypically Italian mobster.

  “You just found him — wop,” answered Shaft.

  Kendal gave a snort of laughter.

  I loved watching movies set in New York City. Dangerous. Dirty. Crowded. Unpredictable. One of two places I wanted to travel to with Kendal, the other being the Sea of Tranquility.

  * * *

  I had forced myself to stop worrying about the end of the world. Duff’s wallet full of twentieth-century ID convinced me that he was nothing more than a con artist and that all my memories of hopping through time had sprung from my overactive imagination. Duff had never mentioned alternate timelines or me being the Ion Tagger. The whole idea of hopping into a parallel world, taking everyone on Earth with me, had begun to sound like the plot of a comic book.

  And yet, every time I walked into the TV room while Dad was watching the Buffalo evening news, an ominous dark tension seemed to be tightly wound around every word that came out of Walter Cronkite’s mouth.

  The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks in Helsinki — known as SALT — were not going well. Richard Nixon was about to press the issue of nuclear arms limitation with a no-holds-barred show of force on Amchitka Island, exploding the Cannikin bomb, the largest underground nuclear test ever carried out in America. A ragtag group of seafaring hobos predicted tsunamis and earthquakes. They said the blast would cause untold devastation to what people were starting to refer to as “Earth’s ecology.”

  “Amchitka Island is on Russia’s doorstep,” said Duff. “What, exactly, is the point of a five-megaton underground nuclear test anyway?”

  “They’re trying to send the Ruskies a message,” said Dad approvingly.

  Duff cleared his throat, something he always did when he was about to disagree with Dad. “Not sure the Soviets give a damn. They have a considerable stockpile of nuclear weapons themselves.”

  My mother frowned and ladled out the lasagna. “Ma che,” she said, sighing. “Politics at the supper table.”

  * * *

  That year, October 31 fell on a Sunday, so the St. Dismas Halloween dance would be held on the thirtieth, a Saturday night. Everyone was excited by the news that Mr. Duffy was going to be “the man” for the Halloween dance, a cross between a bouncer and a chaperone. It was expected he would tolerate bad behaviour — drinking plonk in the bathrooms, pot smoking, fights.

  Unexpectedly, Duff stood guard outside the gym door that evening dressed as a priest. With his hair cut short and a fake beard hiding his perpetually sunburned skin (I had decided he was suffering from eczema, not radiation burns), Duff was unrecognizable. Linda was at his side in a nun’s habit.

  “Except for the wimple, it’s pretty comfortable,” she told me, tucking a few stray hairs under her veil.

  I had come to the dance dressed as the Contessina — flesh-coloured tights, high boots, ballet leotard, a purple-tinted beehive wig. Sandy wore layers of ragged petticoats that Mrs. Holub must have brought from the old country, and the tight red bodice and red boots of her traditional Ukrainian dance costume: she was supposed to be a gypsy fortune teller. She’d unbraided her hair and left it an uncombed mess, as if she’d just got out of bed, looking even more spectacularly beautiful than usual.

  “Is that a Snugglegirl costume, Deb?” Sandy asked, shaking out her petticoats.

  I frowned at her. “I’m a crime fighter. The Contessina Doloria di Largo, Captain Kyle Crusher’s girlfriend from the Agents of V.E.N.G.E.A.N.C.E. comics. How does this look like a Snugglegirl?”

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You look really skinny dressed like that. Have you lost weight?”

  “A little,” I said, trying not to nibble on my bile-chapped lips. I seemed to be thinking about food all the time these days.

  Kendal came as Shaft, wearing a turtleneck, sunglasses and leather jacket, with a water pistol tucked in his belt. He’d grown mutton-chop sideburns and wore a fake moustache that made me wish he’d grow a real one.

  “You should dress like that all the time,” I told him.

  “Hotter than Bond. Cooler than Bullitt,” he said, quoting the movie’s trailer.

  Judy and Jayne Donato dressed as the Pan Am stewardesses from Coffee, Tea or Me? and flirted with Bum Bum and Rocco, who had driven in from the farm. In old-fashioned three-piece suits, Borsalino hats and wingtip shoes, the guys were straight out of The Godfather. Bum Bum carried a violin case as a prop.

  “Where’d you get the threads, man?” Kendal asked, adjusting Bum Bum’s pinstriped lapels.

  “Rocco’s dad, Frank,” said Bum Bum. “He’s got a shitload of them stuck in mothballs. He’s given them up for leisure suits, so he said they were all ours.”

  One of Shipman’s Corners’ many garage bands had been brought in to provide live music: with their combination of electric guitars, drums, mandolins and balalaikas, they were a Ukrainian-Italian fusion folk music group that had added some Led Zeppelin, Elton John and David Bowie to their repertoire. They had just kicked off the evening with “The Immigrant Song” — perfect for St. Dismas — when Linda fluttered up onto the stage in her nun’s habit, shouting “Cut the music” and making a slashing motion across her throat. The lead guitarist handed her the microphone.

  “I want you all to remain calm and stay where you are,” said Linda. “We just received news from the States — Mr. Duffy will be making an announcement.”

  Duff’s voice boomed out over the PA system, struggling to be calm, but slightly shaky — a nice touch. “Your attention please! The school board has just received an alert from the Emergency Broadcast System, which I have been instructed to read to you, as follows: a thermonuclear test was carried out on Amchitka Island earlier today at 12:01 a.m., Pacific Time. Dead radioactive birds have washed up on the coast of Siberia. The Soviet Union considers this an act of aggression. They have declared war on members of the North American Treaty Organization, including Canusa. NBC New York reports that NORAD is confirming that Soviet Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles have left their silos. In a short time, we will be under nuclear attack.”

  We looked at one another, a bunch of terrified teenagers dressed as superheroes and characters from gangster movies. This was the moment we had spent our entire childhoods preparing for. The drills, the duck-and-covers, the Emergency Broadcast System tests — it all came down to this. World War Three. And as our parents had always pointed out, Shipman’s Corners would be the first to go.

  Sandy put her hands over her face, silently weeping. I put my arm around her. Her body was trembling as if she were standing in a gale.

  Duff’
s voice continued over the PA. “Please listen carefully to this emergency bus schedule: Welland Avenue to Niagara Street, bus 1A. Scott Street to Lakeshore Road, 1B. If you live outside those areas, catch bus 2C, that’s 2C, and it will drop off any of you who live on the concession roads or on the other side of the Welland Canal. Please remain calm and line up quietly to dismiss. Buses will be in the parking lot momentarily. May God be with you all, and your families.”

  The rush for the doors knocked over some of the smaller kids who hadn’t yet had their growth spurt. I felt a hand grab mine. Kendal’s.

  “It’s bullshit!” he yelled over the screams. “It’s got to be a prank.”

  “I know!” I shouted back. “If it was a real attack, we’d be hearing the —”

  That’s when the air-raid siren blasted down at us from the roof of the school, an up-down, up-down wailing like Planet Earth’s collective death scream.

  In the stampede out of the gym, I saw Linda’s fluttering nun’s habit disappear through the doors of the girls’ change room. Strange, that she was running in the opposite direction from everyone else.

  I started to consider who I wanted to die with, my family or Kendal. Duff had said that ICBMs could reach us in under fifteen minutes, barely enough time to go home and kiss Nonna Peppy and my parents goodbye. I had little faith in the anti-radiation suits in the basement, and even if we did survive, what would be the point of living in a world devoid of other people? Kendal’s hand tightened around mine, settling the matter: if it was the end of the world, we were going out together. Caught in the current of the crowd, the two of us were pushed through the fire doors, with Sandy, Bum Bum, Rocco and the Donato twins close behind. The buses hadn’t arrived and I doubted they ever would; the announcement was probably just a way to normalize the situation by making it seem like the authorities were in control. Judging by the crowd of milling, weeping teenagers outside the school, fighting over a single pay phone, that strategy wasn’t working.