The Madrigal

by Dian Day

  How foolish, foolish you must be

  To think I loved no one but thee

  When we get to the end of the song, Jiro looks at me from the piano, and we wait through the exuberant applause, fifty people sounding like two hundred, in a four-fold appreciation of their talented offspring. As if they could get their children to smile by clapping, or clapping harder. As if to prove they do not drag them, screaming, to the Limestone City Youth Choir.

  The lights are dimmed in the church. We ask the parents to sit in the first few rows and we put tall candles at the ends of the pews; the resultant atmosphere is like an intimate pre-historic gathering in an isolated cave. There’s something about darkness in churches that insulates you from the world, and can make you feel smaller even than when standing under the bowl of the night sky and praying to the stars.

  The clapping began to die down, and I nodded at Jiro, and he began to play the next selection on the programme, the Kenyan children’s song Kanyoni Kanja. The lisp is not so noticeable now, because there’s only one family in the audience that actually understands the words.

  The theme for this year’s concert is “Songs of Childhood.” I’ve used this one a couple of times, and it’s getting harder and harder to help kids find something other than the Beatles, Michael Jackson, or Mötley Crüe. That’s from the ones whose parents played music at home, so they actually heard tunes from somewhere other than the television. Those who didn’t suggest the theme songs from Fraggle Rock or Inspector Gadget.

  “No, no, no,” I say. “Children’s songs. Folk songs. Lullabies.”

  They go back again and ask their parents, and, if they have any nearby, their grandparents. Eventually they get the idea, and “Kumbaya” and “Mocking Bird” and “Lavender’s Blue” straggle in like lost boys. We sing them all until we know them, and then they vote on the eight or ten we’ll do for the parents.

  A month and a half ago, when we were first picking out songs, Becky put her wavering hand up while I was re-arranging their standing order so those having growth spurts would be in the back row, and, without waiting for me to call on her, blurted her question in my direction.

  “Sir,” she asked. “What about you? What about your songs from your childhood?”

  Some people claim they see their lives flash before their eyes when they are in the gravest danger. Me, I heard my mother’s entire repertoire in the split second before I answered her.

  “That was so long ago, Becky,” I joked. “All those songs are in the old folks home!” And I moved right on to “Oyfn Pripetchik” and “À la claire fontaine.”

  But all through the concert I kept thinking about my mother, standing alone in our kitchen, singing and swaying, while a small boy sat silently, listening intently, effortlessly memorizing the words, just out of sight down the hall in a dark doorway.

  THERE WAS A LETTER FOR ME lying on the mat when I pushed Annie’s door open. I recognized the handwriting straight away; it was from my mother. I ripped it open and unfolded the single page, looking only for the five-dollar bill. I did, for once, feel grateful for it, though I was inclined to think of the hand of God in this stroke of luck rather than my mother. I didn’t even read what she’d written, and left the letter crumpled on the hall table beside the vacant envelope and my soggy gloves. I went back out again right away, leaving the gloves to stain the wood as they dried.

  There was a hardware store on the Danforth; one of the kind, now all-but-disappeared, that sold everything. I wandered up and down the aisles as if I were a criminal furtively looking for the “common household ingredients” with which to make explosives—except I wouldn’t have had any idea of what those might be. Within a short while, a clerk came and asked me if she could help me find something, but I told her no. After that, she saw something to rearrange on every shelf I walked past, and kept her eyes steadily at my hands—which began to shake a little under her scrutiny.

  I lingered a long time in Home Décor, staring at the innumerable gallons of paint stacked in precarious towers. The shadowing clerk relaxed a little then, knowing that I couldn’t slip one of those monstrous cans underneath my jacket.

  Finally, in Automotive, I found the touch-up paint for cars, in miniature spray cans. There wasn’t a lot of choice of colour, and I deliberated a long while with the clerk so close behind me that I could hear her scratching behind her ears. There was no yellow, no off-white or cream; I finally chose Bright White. I wanted to practise putting it in my pocket to make sure it would fit, but I didn’t dare.

  After I paid for the paint, I stuffed it into my jacket pocket, and ran as fast as I could back to Annie’s, knowing she would be getting home soon, and worrying about my suddenly-remembered gloves drying on the hall table. I ran up the steps two at a time and pushed open the door.

  My gloves had already been carefully removed to the top of the radiator. Annie’s half-folded umbrella was dripping obediently in the stand. Annie herself was bent over, unzipping her boots.

  “Oh, I—”

  “Is something wrong?” she asked me. She unbuttoned her tweed coat and took a hanger from the closet, sending the others into a rattling complaint, risvegliato.

  “I just needed—”

  “Yes?” She uncoiled the scarf from around her neck. “What did you need?”

  I did think about lying, but I couldn’t think fast enough.

  “This,” I said, and I took the paper bag from my pocket and shook the spray paint out into my hand.

  “Frederick,” she said doubtfully, “I hope you’re not going to take up model airplane building?”

  THE NEXT DAY, I waited until I had Geography, which was in a classroom on the second floor right next to the washroom. Once the bell rang for class and the hallways were clear, I ducked past the BOYS sign with my Bright White bulging in my pants pocket. I shook the can vigorously, as instructed in tiny print on the tiny can; the tiny ball bearings rattled like dice being rolled by elves. I held my breath for as long as I could and sprayed, watching the paint obliterate the letters L … I … C … K … S ... H ... O ...

  The nozzle jammed, and I wiped it clear with a wad of toilet paper from one of the stalls, careful not to get any paint on my hands. I continued spraying, turning my head away from the noxious fumes to gasp air as I worked. If I kept my eyes wide and my vision out of focus, the letters looked like random lines, a careless doodle, an indecipherable secret code. They were just black lines with no meaning. E ... S ... S ... U ... C ... K ... S ... C ...

  The can was empty. I shook it again, wiped the nozzle several times, turned it upside-down, and hit it against the edge of the sink. Nothing more would it spray.

  There was a giant Bright White cloud-shape of paint on the yellow wall. At the bottom edge of the cloud, still visible, were the letters OCK. A Bright White drip trickled down through the O.

  I put the empty can in the bag and threw it in the garbage. I unrolled half a roll of toilet paper and threw that into the garbage on top of the can in the bag. I washed my hands, scuttled out of the washroom waving my wet hands in the air, and ran up and down the hallway to try to leave the lacquer smell behind me. I had thought the whole operation would only take a minute, but it had been more than ten, and as I ran I tried to think of what excuse I’d make for being so late for class.

  “DID YOU SEE IT?” HE ASKED ME, but his mouth was full of pizza so I could pretend I hadn’t understood what he said. “Did you see it?” he tried again after he swallowed.

  “See what?”

  “In the washroom.”

  “What?”

  “What they wrote.”

  “Oh,” I said, “that. Ock. I didn’t know what it meant. Do you?”

  “What?” he said.

  “Ock. O-C-K. Someone wrote Ock. What the heck does that mean?”

  “Ock?” he repeated, confused.

  “Dumbass thing
to write,” I told him. “Doesn’t mean anything. Ock-ock-ock-ock!” I stuffed my last bite of pizza into my mouth and flapped my arms like a chicken until he laughed.

  “HEY FRED,” SAID MY ANSWERING MACHINE, in my brother’s voice. “Just checking in. Johanna wants to know if you could recommend some instrumental music—you know, some background noise—for the part where the communion business is happening. Got any ideas?”

  Beep. Erase.

  There was nothing in my fridge except some mouldy strawberry jam, half a jar of kalamata olives, four slices of black forest ham, and an empty pizza box. I took out the pizza box and unfolded it, then folded it up again—flat this time—and jammed it into my overflowing recycling bin. I ate the ham and a handful of olives as I made my grocery list, and piled the pits on the counter beside the new book I’d ordered online.

  I’m not good at grocery shopping. I’m not good at food, period, so I guess for me shopping is just one element of a whole package of nutritional incompetence. I do know what’s good for me, but I don’t want to have to buy it or prepare it. I don’t object to trying new foods, like some people do; I just can’t seem to care enough to think about ingredients or recipes or the temperature of the oven. I think it’s got something to do with the fact that I had to start preparing meals for myself at eighteen, and never graduated to cooking for two. I’m still an adolescent eater.

  I’ve heard that it’s not a good idea to go grocery shopping hungry, to preclude buying up the entire store. In my case this isn’t a problem, since buying too much is preferable to buying nothing. If I weren’t hungry, I’d never go. Besides, since I don’t have a car I have to carry everything home, which places definite weight restrictions on the appetite.

  I took my knapsack and walked up to the Loblaws. It hadn’t snowed for a week, and the snowbanks that lined the streets were grey and hard.

  I suppose there was a time when I thought quite a bit about cooking for two. Sooner or later, I had imagined—perhaps assumed—I would find a woman I liked well enough to be with. Human beings are fundamentally hopeful creatures. We can hold on for a long time, but, as the years pass, it’s hard not to notice that there is less and less evidence for hope. I can’t say that I’ve given up, but I don’t think about it much anymore. Big things get buried in the mundane. Life goes on. Oneness just is.

  My breath rose translucently as I walked. The store was busy, and there was a bit of a traffic jam at the automatic doors, with people coming and going, and a general lack of available carts. A woman in a pink ski jacket came out with a small cart, pulled on her gloves, and lifted out a couple of overfull cloth bags, and I was in the right place to grab the thing. If I just fill the bottom of the cart, I can usually manage to carry the stuff home without too much trouble. I am, after all, used to carrying heavy loads. I could always take a taxi, but there’s something depressing about the thought—something too obviously solitary about it—so I hardly ever do.

  I wheeled up and down the aisles, knowing what I needed without looking at my list, because it’s what I always buy. Bread, orange juice. I try not to look at couples and families in there, but I always look in other people’s carts if they’re shopping alone. Eggs, cheddar cheese. I look to see what they’re buying, to see if I can guess if they live alone. It’s usually pretty obvious. Frozen dinners.

  I was standing at the deli counter, contemplating supper, when it happened.

  “Weeell, hello,” Kathleen said. She had come up beside me, her hand still resting proprietorially on the front edge of her shopping cart. Her coat was off, and shared cart space with a host of fruits and vegetables, a bag of whole wheat flour, and a twelve-pack of plain yoghurt.

  I was instantly in a panic. “Hello,” I said, flustered. “What are you doing here?”

  “Probably what you really mean is What the hell are you doing here when I’m here?” she suggested. I wasn’t sure whether she was joking or angry.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “That’s not what I meant.” But it might have been. And then there was a pause that it seemed up to me to fill, so I said “Well….” I didn’t know whether one meaningless word would be enough to make something else happen. In a glass case beside me a half dozen chicken carcasses rotated on a spit.

  “You could have called me.” Okay, so she was angry.

  “I was going to call you,” I said. “Didn’t I call you?”

  “You left me a voicemail,” she said.

  “Only one?” I asked. The heat—I hadn’t taken my jacket off—and the smell of roasting chicken was making me feel light-headed.

  “Only the one.”

  “Well, I was going to call you,” I assured her. “You should have called me. Things have been busy—Ed, and the shop, and all.”

  I assumed she’d have heard about Ed’s health, and she didn’t ask for clarification, so I guess I was right. Or maybe she was too mad to care what the hell I was talking about.

  “I fed some of the salmon to the dog,” she said.

  “I was going to call, really, and ask you—I was going to see if you wanted to—I was going to invite you to—come to Toronto with me, for my brother’s wedding.”

  How can it be that things come out of our mouths that are not at all what we planned to say. Somewhere in a Twin World, another Frederick bravely admitted that it was only cowardice that made him unpredictable. I thought about him longingly. The chickens mocked me as they turned.

  I WOKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT with a jolt. I had been dreaming, and realized in my dream that I’d been tricked. I’d never had any intention of going to Salvador’s wedding—my plan had been to rustle up a terrible cold or flu at the last minute—and now not only was I going, I was planning to take a woman who had a car and a cottage and who cooked planked salmon on an open fire.

  It was raining ice; I could hear it clanking against my bedroom window. I looked at the clock, groaned, then quickly tried to reassure myself—told myself to keep calm, breathe deep, sleep was still possible—but really, by the time I get to that point it’s already too late. It would be another godless night, the weight of the universe pushing in on me, my heart a black hole. All black holes have what’s called an event horizon; when things get drawn in past this point, they can’t be seen by anyone on the outside. That was it: the story of my life.

  The furnace came on, and the duct work began to creak as it warmed. I got up, put on my robe and slippers, and went downstairs to the kitchen, turning the thermostat up some more as I went through the living room. The strings of the sleeping harp vibrated as I passed.

  I poured some milk into a mug and put it in the microwave. I made it too hot, and burnt my upper lip. Plans are often better in my head than they ever turn out in real life. How could I have let this happen?

  And then in an unwanted and unwelcome vision, my spirit hung in the air over the Loblaws deli counter, and I was looking down at my own face tinged green from the heat and the florescent lighting and the sheer stupidity of the moment. I knocked my forehead against the top edge of the fridge, largamente. A skin formed on the surface of the milk.

  Like the third ghost of Christmas, I flew again, still unwilling, and lingered high above the chancel and all the children of the Limestone City Youth Choir, and Becky was asking her earnest question—what about the songs of my childhood? I could see myself standing slightly below them, music stand glinting in the muted light. But the scene replayed with a different result. I didn’t laugh it off, or make a joke, or move right on to “Danny Boy.”

  “The songs of my childhood are curious lullabies,” I said.

  I watched as I told them instead about St. Mary’s Choir School, and my favourite Christmas carol, the one I eagerly awaited every year, once the snow began to fall. The one I sang to myself a thousand times walking between the school and the cathedral, my head down, watching the rhythm of my feet.

  Earth stood h
ard as iron, water like a stone

  Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow

  I walked with the rest of the choir, boys jostling each other and slipping on patches of ice. Father Gregory watching us to make sure we didn’t get too out of hand. A younger boy holding the side entry open while we all filed in, leaning with all his weight upon the great wooden door.

  And then I was suddenly younger, and hadn’t yet left for St. Mary’s, and the cathedral was St. George’s, and belonged to the Anglicans. The junior choir boys were filing into the rectory door, and it was a crisp night, a Christmas Eve, and the snow fell on our hair as we took our hats off and looked up at the soft flakes falling like silent stars. I was in front of the congregation, every pew full, stepping forward into the light with a child-like reverence for holiness, and I sang the solo just as I had in my final year at home.

  Panis angelicus

  fit panis hominum

  Dat panis coelicus

  figuris terminum

  O res mirabilis!

  There was such a quiet in the congregation, and my voice rose through the vaulted ceiling and into the dome, walls like poured cream in the candlelight. In the silence afterwards, a baby made half a cry and was hushed, a man coughed, and the spirit-filled space closed in around all of us, warmed with a sense of destiny.

  Afterwards, I walked home alone through streets of houses lit with strings of coloured lights and friendly with hope. My own childhood house was dark, and I undid my tie before I crept in to go to bed. But I didn’t go to bed; it wasn’t Christmas, it was every other night of the year when I waited for my mother to sing. I sat just inside the doorway of my room, holding the curtain that hung there raggedly, watching her rise from her chair and put one hand on the Formica countertop, watching her centre herself, take a breath, and begin to sing what was surely one of her favourites—a song I knew by heart before I was five, she sang it so often.

  The water is wide, I cannot get o’er