Frost leaps up and runs after her. At the door he calls “Janet! Janet!” She does not answer or look back but continues running down the darkened hallway. The sound of her heels fades. She passes Madame Bourguiba, and in the weak light of the distant admin area she turns and is gone.
When Frost comes back into the staff room Mohammed is standing near the door, holding the baby. It has stopped crying. There is a slight smell of fresh urine and of sour milk. Mohammed carefully turns the baby so that they can see its face. Frost sees that the black eyes can focus.
Mohammed says “She is a Muslim, so it is only right that I should take her.”
“Good God, Mohammed!”
“It is my duty, actually. But the truth is that she will have a better chance with you. May Allah forgive me.”
Frost’s eyes grow wide. He tries to say something but chokes on the words. Then he finds himself holding the child. The black eyes clutch his face like a pair of tongs. Mohammed sees that Frost feels faint and steadies both Frost and the child. Finally frost says “Mohammed, no… How can I…? I mean…”
“Don’t worry about getting her out. I will add another sentence to the note. They won’t keep her out of Canada, not in these circumstances. Speaking of notes…”
There is a wrinkled piece of paper pinned to the baby’s blanket. Frost turns the child more so that they can read what is written on it. He sees jagged English letters printed in red. ZAHRA. There is also some Arabic script. As Mohammed straightens the paper to translate, his amber beads slip off his fingers and clatter on the floor.
“It says, Allah protect our child.”
9
Frost stood looking out his ground floor window at rain that fell steadily. “It takes so much light from the world” he said. “That’s the problem. And the whole winter ahead of us.” He watched the water trailing down the window. He touched the pane. “This is one of the few pieces of glass that survived the quake.”
“Rain gives us the opportunity to appreciate such things” said Noor behind him. She was feeding chopped vegetable into a pot in the fireplace.
Frost said “I wish we could get hold of a wood stove. That fireplace sucks all the heat out of the place when its doors are open. Is there rabbit in that?”
“Yes. Rain gives us the opportunity to stay indoors and cook somethin’ good.”
“You’re telling me I should be more positive. Subtle, as always.”
Will was lying in the hammock, reading Principles of War. He said “We should raise them, not just catch them.”
Frost said “Of course. Why did I never think of that? Could you make a trap?”
Will said “I think so. You know who has glass? Kingsway and Night have glass. Arthurlaing’s mom and dad also have glass.”
Noor said “Where did they ever get such a name for their child?”
Will said “Arthurlaing says it was the name of a bridge in the good times.”
Frost turned from the window and said “Can you smell that stink? There must be something dead.”
“A pigeon in one of the empty rooms” said Will.
“No, it’s stronger than that.” Frost went to the door and stepped out into the hallway. Because of the rain, only meagre daylight seeped from the entrance into the long corridor. “It’s stronger out here. I think it’s on this floor.”
Noor came out into the hallway, and Will came too. There was the sound of slow footsteps from the perpetual dark of the stairwell. Daniel Charlie and his woman Jessica emerged. Daniel Charlie said “What’s that stink?” Airport stepped out behind them and sniffed the air. Old Brittany called down the stairwell “Frost. Somethin’ smells.”
Frost said “Noor, stay here with Will.”
He walked down the corridor, through the light at the entrance and on to the end. The others followed. He turned to Daniel Charlie and found only a look of defeat and resignation. Frost opened the door to the spud room. The stink swept out into the corridor. He said “Someone go out and open the shutters.”
It was very dark in the spud room because the single window was covered over by wooden shutters. Frost stepped into the room. Potatoes filled most of it, but there was space to stand against the wall. Frost bent and began clawing potatoes out into the corridor. There was a small scrape of metal, the shutters swung open and the spud room was washed with the insipid light of the day.
There were feet sticking out from under the pile. They were very dirty, and the nails were stunted and ragged. Frost straightened and looked down at the feet. He leaned forward again, but not to bend to the task of clearing away the potatoes. There appeared to be a weight on his shoulders, forcing him downward. Airport stepped into the room and touched Frost on the arm and Frost stepped further into the room and Airport set to clawing potatoes away from the body.
Frost stepped sideways over to the window and leaned against the sill, staring out at the rain. In the corridor there was a loud woman’s cry. There were words barked fearfully, words choked forth in pain. Dead? Who is it? There was a distressed echoing din of voices as the residents of the domicile filled the hallway. Old Brittany still shrieked down from above “Frost. Somethin’ smells.”
Tyrell and Richmond joined Airport, and soon the edge of a short rag dress was revealed, and voices said, It is, yes, and It’s her. A woman started to wail. A man called out “What the hell are we going to eat now? We can’t eat them spuds after a rotten body’s been in them.” Someone else: “It ain’t rotten. It only stinks a little.” There was further high-pitched debate, and new voices joined the wailing and weeping.
The pile was not deep where Fire had wormed into it, or where she had gathered the potatoes over herself. But it was difficult to uncover her face because potatoes kept rolling down from the pile. Airport and Richmond stood and left the spud room. There was brief silence as they passed down the corridor. Tyrell put his hands around the ankles and slid the body out as much as he could. Frost turned now and looked down at it. His blank expression did not change. Tyrell stepped over the body, into the space it had occupied, and knelt and dug among the spuds on either side. He turned to Frost and said “Nothin’.”
There was no blood on the body or on the floor, and no marks that could be seen. Someone said “The poison mushrooms are up.” Someone said “Skag.” Someone said “She decided to die, that’s all.” Someone else: “The spuds told her.” Oak stepped forward, and the voices stopped while he and Tyrell carried the body out of the spud room and down the hallway. Frost returned to the window.
“Frost. What’re we going to eat now?”
“We’ll starve, Frost.”
“We can’t eat them spuds.”
“They stink of a rotten body.”
Frost stepped up the slope of potatoes, holding on to the window sill as they rolled under his feet. He swung a leg over and pushed himself out the window and onto the ground.
There was a new commotion in the hallway. Noor’s voice ordered “Move. Move. Move.” A rusted wheelbarrow filled the doorway. There were three plastic buckets in it. Noor stepped over it and into the room. Her clothes and hair were wet. She filled a bucket with potatoes and handed it to someone without looking, and took another bucket and started filling it. Someone dumped the bucket into the wheelbarrow. Noor said “We put the spuds outside to get washed. We bring them in to dry somewhere. We wash the spud room. We bring the spuds back in. We eat them.”
She pushed the full wheelbarrow down the hallway and out. Daniel Charlie was coming through the rain with another wheelbarrow and more buckets. She dumped the potatoes and spread them out with her feet. Frost was standing nearby, as was Will. Nobody was saying anything. Daniel Charlie came and stood beside Frost and put a hand on his shoulder. Noor went back in for another load. Fire lay a few feet away, appearing to stare up into the rain.
Frost said “I’ll get a shovel.”
Daniel Charlie looked as if he wanted to stop Frost. He looked as if he wanted to say, Not now. Later, when the rain h
as finished. She’s not goin’ nowhere. But then he shrugged and went and gripped the handles of the wheelbarrow and stood upright and pushed it up the plank walk into the building.
10
As far as he could see in any direction, nothing moved. The water below the bridge was flat. There were no ripples around the wreckage of Fallen Bridge just down the side channel. The cattails at the edge seemed rigid. There was a high layer of cloud. The day was silent and cold. Frost stood alone on Little Bridge. He turned in a slow circle. Through the scratched lenses of his glasses he looked out at his world. Across the river to the north: Fundy’s Bridge and then the slope of Town, barren, treeless, pocked by the remains of houses and cut by erosion gullies. Northwest, the scrubby acres of Fundy’s farm and further west the remains of the airport. South, past the old highway, the ruins of the burbs, a treeless sweep of foundations and small irregular fields and broom and blackberry and thistle and scrub.
Frost came down off the bridge. Beside the old road his shoes crunched the scythed stubble of hay. He saw the empty potato fields, silver in this light, pooled here and there with rain. Upon these fields the silence of the day pressed like a weight. Frost laid a hand against his chest, as if he could feel that burden, and the corners of his mouth turned down. Farther on there were squashes and pumpkins in their sprawling patch. For a while Frost stood and observed these, waiting, as if their colour might in some way improve the silence. But soon he sighed and went on.
He stepped over irrigation ditches.
He walked for a ways beside the rapid transit track. Then he turned north, toward the river. At the water he stood above the old marina and, as he always did for some reason, looked for the rotted shapes of sunken boats that had been washed out to sea decades before. Then he left the river and walked past the graveyard. He did not turn his head toward the graves.
He passed the small barns of dirty concrete block, surrounded by mud. He passed Daniel Charlie’s workshop.
He crossed through the shadow of the domicile. Above him smoke spilled from homemade stovepipes that protruded like spines. The building seemed to lean even more than usual, as if the silence were a burden upon it as well as upon him. The smoke from the stovepipes rose in columns as straight as strings.
He walked on.
Fixed to the side of the clinic was a cross made of red polyethylene. There was no blackberry on this building. The concrete blocks looked new, and the window had glass. As Frost approached the clinic Blackie whined. The dog was tied to a big staple set into the mortar between blocks. Blackie rose up on his hind legs and strained against the twine.
Frost said “You fool, you’ll choke yourself.” He untied Blackie and made the dog stay down, and he opened the door and he and the dog went into the clinic.
There was a concrete block fireplace but it did not work well, and the clinic smelled of peat smoke. Grace sat in a plastic chair at a table made of two-by-fours, in front of a window. Frost said “Should I leave the door open for a minute?”
“What about Blackie?”
“He won’t run.”
There was a sagging couch covered with a patched white sheet. Frost folded this and laid it on the table. He wore a rabbit skin poncho, which he removed and dropped over the back of the couch. He sat. Blackie lay at his feet. Frost said “I wish we had a lock. This close to the trail.”
“The dogs do a good job.”
“I don’t like to tie them. The problem with a lock though, is you have to find one with a key. Fat chance.”
Grace came and sat beside him on the couch and leaned against him. He slid his hands under her shirt. She flinched but did not move away. “Do you know how cold your hands are? Go warm them at the fire.”
“You warm them for me.”
They were quiet for a while. The peat burned with a slight sizzle. When the room felt cold Frost got up and closed the door. When he turned, Grace had also stood. She was leaning on the table, looking out the window.
Frost said “Another god damn winter.” He took five steps to the fireplace, where he squatted and finally did warm his hands.
Grace said “It’s sad about Fire. I’m really sorry.” She spoke in an uneven rhythm, as if she had to plan her sentences while she spoke them. The voice itself was quiet and velvety.
Frost held his hands to the struggling flames.
Grace said “You knew her for so long. She was not an easy person to like, but...”
Frost said “Don’t.”
Grace stood silent for a minute. She sorted some of her things on a shelf. Plastic bags of the dried leaves of blackberry, kinnikinnick, Oregon grape. Pliers. Several needles and some coils of blue and yellow nylon thread. Two litres of alcohol. A few rolls of cloth bandage in a plastic bag. A knife. A plastic pouch of skag. A half-litre of skag-in-water.
She said “Has anyone seen another willow tree?”
Frost replied in a low, tired voice “That was the last one. Someone took it for firewood. Maybe it will send up shoots in the spring. The only thing we have now for pain is the skag.”
She stood silent again for a time and then went and crouched behind Frost and put her arms around him and laid her cheek against his back.
Frost said in the same tired croak “I wanted things to get better before I died.”
She waited, then said “Things are better. You made them better.”
“We are this close to disaster.” Grace lifted her head and looked. The space between Frost’s thumb and index finger was as thin as the page of a book. “We were always close. But this winter could be the end. There’ll be flu. There’ll be pneumonia.”
Grace said “There’s always flu. There’s always pneumonia. We’ll survive. Most of us will.”
“I’ve dug more than a hundred graves.” He lifted his calloused palms for her to see. “Susan was the first. Fire was the last. That’s my accomplishment. My world.”
“Come to the couch. I’ll rub your back. You’re thinking too much.” The pitch of her voice was soothing. But she seemed to have to force the words out.
Frost said “I’m tired. Tired of it all.”
“Let’s walk the farm” she said, as if suddenly inspired. She stood. “Then you’ll see how things are better.”
“I just finished doing that. That’s not what I saw.” Frost stared into the flickering peat. He said “People trusted me.”
For a few minutes there was no sound but the hissing of the peat. Frost got up and stepped past Grace and took his poncho from the couch. Blackie scrambled to his feet. Frost opened the door but did not leave. He stared out at the empty day.
There was a sound behind him. He closed his eyes. His forehead furrowed as if he were in pain. His shoulders sagged. His hands hung limp. The poncho dropped to the floor. The sound was a ragged sobbing. Frost shook his head. Grace stuttered “I... I... I..." but could not make a sentence through her crying. Frost bent and picked up the poncho and wearily closed the door. He turned and dropped the poncho again on the couch. He sat.
Grace threw herself onto his lap. She held him tight, in a quivering grip. She pressed her face into his chest. Frost wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her grey head. He felt the wet of her tears through his shirt.
“I can’t stand it” she managed to say. “I can’t stand it.” She heaved with sobs.
Frost held her. He rocked her. He said “Shh, shh.”
Soon she was quiet. She said, without looking up “I can’t do it anymore. It’s all I can do to get through the day. You should find someone strong to do this work. I just want to rest. I just want to be taken care of.”
After a minute Frost said “I wish it could be like that. I wish it could be easy. I’ve been wishing that for the last forty years.”
“But you see, I can’t” she said. “I just can’t. It’s that simple.” She lifted her head and looked at him finally. Her grey eyes were as naked and empty as the day from which he had sought shelter. She said “What else?”
&n
bsp; Frost waited. A strange flame flickered deep in the pale eyes. Almost a smile.
She said “What else besides flu and pneumonia?”
Her breath was as pure as a child’s.
She said “War.” She started to shake.
Frost eased her off his lap and onto the couch. He took her face in both hands and kissed her forehead. She lay on her side on the couch, with her knees drawn up. He covered her with his poncho. She said “I just can’t.”
Frost rose. “I’ve got some hooch at my place. I think you’d better have some.”
Grace appeared not to have heard him.
As he reached for his poncho Blackie barked once, then again, and scratched at the door. Frost listened. He held Blackie by his leash and opened the door and stepped outside. Blackie set to barking in earnest and strained at the twine. Frost tied him again to the staple. Then he started toward the trail by the foot of bridge, not quite running.
Two people were coming. One of them was a dark-haired girl of about ten. She wore a crude shift of woven wool and was barefoot. The other, a thin, dark-haired woman similarly dressed, walked beside her. The woman hunched forward slightly as she walked, and her eyes were fixed on Frost. Each step seemed to be a separate operation requiring an act of will. Yet she did not walk slowly. Her left hand gripped the left shoulder of the girl, and the girl, with her right arm, held the woman around the waist. The woman’s right arm hung limp. As he came near, Frost saw that two bones, bloody and sharp, were protruding from the forearm. And he heard the moan that was produced with each exhalation of her breath.
Since Tomorrow Page 6