That week they were short, so the boss was acting as rigging slinger. That was one way the boss maintained respect. He worked with the men, harder than they did. He stood down there and gave Havryil a wave and a thumbs-up. Havryl had never seen that gesture before arriving here, but gathered that it meant good job or good morning. Something good.
Earl didn’t think it was safe
for Sydney to go there by herself.
“If I were a man, you wouldn’t try to stop me,” she said.
“What’s with this ‘if I were a man’ business?” Earl’s desk was separated from Sydney’s by a cardboard partition. They could hear every creak of each other’s chairs, but could not see each other’s faces. “It’s not safe. He lives out there in the trees by himself. We don’t know anything about him.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s meant to be light reading, Syd. It’s meant to make people laugh.”
“But can we agree that he’s a Tahsis Personality?” She’d written about Clive and Carla Dell, who ran the bakery. And William Paul, the fishing guide. “Can we agree he fits the criteria?”
“He doesn’t talk. Do you get that? He’s never said a word to anybody.”
“I’ll be back in an hour.”
“You’ve been here one month and I’m going to stop concerning myself with you.” Earl stood and looked at her over the partition, the lines in his forehead deep as ruts in a gravel road. “From now on, you are your own concern.”
He was obviously lying. She appreciated his fatherly attention, but would never admit it.
“That’s right.” She packed her pen, notebook, camera, and film into her purse. “I always have been.”
An alder skidded down the hill.
Underneath the white-blotched bark the tree was a deep golden red, like it bled when sliced from its stump.
Maybe the engineer yarded it too fast, or maybe it was the way it hit that stump, flipping up and over. The boss faced away, still working on the last log, when the alder slammed his wide back and head. The tree threw him like he was light and breakable as a pair of glasses. The boss crumpled to his knees.
Havryil stood still except for his arm that reached for the line—it cut his palm but he didn’t feel that until later. One, two, three, four . . . after the seventh whistle, he ran, tripped, slid down the skid. He reached the boss’s body, saw blood that leaked from a fractured skull.
The engineer had cut the donkey’s engine, and everything was quiet except for Havryil’s hard breathing.
That evening, he packed his things and walked out of the camp, along the gravel road. He chose a clear, flat patch of forest near some water and figured: good enough. He slept curled up on the ground. His mouth ached as though those infected teeth, the ones he’d ripped out years ago, were back. He decided then to stop speaking. He had nothing to say. Nothing to be thankful for.
She used Earl’s truck,
a Ford that was rusted along the bottom, and drove toward the Head Bay Road. The boy, or man—no one knew his age—lived off a small logging road a few kilometers from town. He didn’t have a phone, so she couldn’t warn him that she was coming.
She felt an edgy excitement. So far all she’d done was write up the tide tables, the results of local sporting competitions, and a few fluff pieces. This would be her first real story.
It rained that day, so no dust rose off the gravel. Instead, she worried about how Earl’s bald tires would fare in the mud. The boy’s house was set deep in the woods, so far back from the road that it seemed she’d taken the wrong turn. But then the yard appeared. A muddy clearing, a small house near the Leiner River. The house was more of a shack, really: one room built from beams that seemed to have been stolen from a logging site. It was unpainted but did not look precarious. It would withstand storms; every angle was well measured and every board accurately cut. There was a chimney, and it was smoking.
She stepped out of Earl’s truck and it rained lightly on the top of her head. Her shoes—a pair of brown Mary Janes she never gave much thought to—squelched through the mud. This deep in the trees, the air was colder.
She’d expected him to hear her engine and to be outside, waiting, when she pulled up. She imagined he didn’t get many visitors, so her arrival would merit curiosity. But she was met by silence. She slammed the truck’s door as hard as she could, but still there was only the sound of rain drizzling.
She knocked on the wooden door. “Hello? Jim?”
She heard a noise—a gentle cough, a clearing of the throat—and turned. He wore muddy overalls and a pair of gloves that were brown with dirt. He had a metal rake that leaned against one shoulder, and a rifle propped against the other.
Sometimes he still heard that whistle,
the seven long of emergency. He couldn’t be sure whether it came from a logging camp nearby or if it was just a memory, a shriek that lived in his head. He heard it now, as the stranger stood on his porch, so shrill it made him dizzy.
She put her hands in the air.
“I’m from the paper.” She knew from watching her mother deal with customers at the bookshop that the way to calm crazy people was to talk to them like they weren’t crazy. “Just wondering if you’d agree to an interview. Have you read our Personalities column?”
His glasses sat crookedly on his nose, looking childish and comic. The lenses were splattered with rain, and maybe this was why he had the posture of someone who was half blind, his chin jutting forward, his body tilting toward her.
From his face, he looked thirty. Thin, with arms that seemed too long. She guessed he was the kind of man who was always hungry, no matter how much he ate. He shifted his weight. He lowered the rifle.
“It’s nothing difficult.” She took a breath. “Just a few questions. And we take a photo.”
He dragged the rake back and forth along the ground, digging furrows into the mud.
“I have everything right here.” She reached into her purse to take out her notepad, but saw that her movement startled him. “Just a pen and paper,” she said, holding it up.
When he saw it was a girl,
he lowered the gun, picked up his rake. He couldn’t see her very well but she was wearing a red coat and had a small, solid body underneath it. She took a few steps toward him, talking fast, and he saw that her brown hair was stuck to her forehead from the rain. That made him shy. Why was she here? Was he supposed to invite her in?
He walked away from her, behind the house.
She followed him, watched as he scraped wet mulch under the apple tree that he hoped would one day produce. She was still talking and he sneaked one or two glances at her. Not at her face—he was too nervous for that—but at her ankles and knees. At the drops of rain darkening her tights.
She stopped talking and watched him. “Well.” She shrugged, hands on her hips. “Guess I’ll go now.”
And it felt like yanking a tooth when he dragged the word up from where it had been buried. “Stay,” he answered.
“I’ve got everything right here.”
She flipped open the notepad. “I’ve got my questions right here.”
He nodded but didn’t face her, didn’t stop his raking.
“Where are you from?” she began.
“Ukraine,” he answered. His voice sounded hoarse, as though his throat were torn like a patch of clear-cut. “Lviv.”
“How do you spell that?”
When he didn’t answer, she moved on to her next question. “What’s your profession?” She spoke slowly, so he would understand. “What jobs have you done?”
“I work many places. First for my father. Then German factory for bricks.”
She watched his back as he spoke; along his spine, his shirt was yellowed from sweat. She noticed the lean muscles moving under the material.
He was not sure how long he had been in Canada—maybe six or seven years—and for some of those he worked as a logger. “I live here now.” He stamped the ground with his boot.
Then she took a photo, directing him to stand beside the apple tree, the rake still in his hand, looking at the camera. “Smile,” she said. And he did, showing a plate of shiny metal teeth.
After she left, he took out that old comic book,
saved from the logging camp. The paper was yellow and damp, the ink faded, but he bent over it and didn’t give up. He used a pocketknife to scratch each letter into the wooden wall of his house.
That evening, the mill boy spoke of his plans.
He would work at the mill and offer fishing tours on the weekend. That way he’d have money soon enough for a house. “A place for me and my girl,” he said, his arm around her.
She had a perverse desire to offer him up to her mother. Here, she would say, is the nice man you’ve been waiting for.
“I went to see the guy who lives out there in the forest,” she said. “The Displaced Person.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“For the paper. For an interview. Did you know that Jim isn’t actually his name?”
“Don’t like the idea of you going out there.” His grip on her tightened. “That guy’s a thief. You tell me if you ever see him in town. I’d interview him, all right.”
When she came back,
a week later, it was in a red truck.
“It’s mine,” she said. “Just got it.”
He took a few steps toward it and read the word on the side: Dodge. She was still talking and he had to focus on her mouth to keep up. She said she bought the truck from a family in Sayward. Earl had driven her out there, looked under the hood, bargained for her.
Who’s Earl? he wondered.
“My boss,” she said, as though he’d asked out loud. “He thought a man would get a better deal.” Then she passed him a newspaper. “Anyway. You should have a copy,” she said. “You’re in there. Page four.”
He turned to the article and, for the first time in years, saw his own face. Except it wasn’t his own face; it was his father’s. He felt that old soreness in his chest.
“Well.” She seemed not to know what to say. She shifted her weight, looked past him. “I admire your home here, Havryil.” She used his real name, pronouncing it as best she could. “Your way of living.”
He took a breath. “Thank you.”
He surprised her
by asking her to stay for dinner, and she surprised herself by saying yes. He served deer meat, and greens he grew behind the house. He pulled out the only chair for her and said, “You are guest here.”
“A guest,” she corrected. “You are a guest.”
“No.” He smiled at his own joke. “You are.”
After dinner, he showed her the design for the chicken coop he would build, and offered her coffee cake, and asked her to read the article about him aloud while he bent over the paper and tried to follow along. “Sydney,” he said, tracking his finger under her byline.
The mill boy was waiting for her
when she got home, leaning against her door. “Working late?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Developing photos.”
She leaned in to kiss him but he didn’t kiss her back. She took out her key to the door, but he didn’t move out of the way.
“Really?” she said. “You’re going to do this now?” She could already predict the words he would use: Where were you? I know you’re lying. “I can’t marry you.” She crossed her arms. “You should have figured that out by now.”
But the words he chose did surprise her. “You’re a selfish girl.” He stepped away from the door. “Selfish, and not as smart as you think you are.”
She couldn’t sleep after that, paced her kitchen, then decided to go for a drive. She took the Head Bay Road because she needed the feel of the washboard, the challenge of gravel under her wheels. Then she turned off at the almost-invisible road to Havryil’s—it was somewhere to go. Someone to talk to.
“You are back,” he said, when he opened the door. “Welcome, Sydney.”
She told him that the way he pronounced her name made it sound like a sneeze.
“Sorry.” He looked at his shoes. “I practice.”
“No.” She stepped toward him, touched his arm. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I am having tea. Do you want?”
He served tea boiled with milk and sugar, so creamy it left a film on her tongue. It was nothing like the thin, bitter drink she’d grown up with. And he was nothing like the mill boy, who prodded with his callused fingers under her skirt. As he unbuttoned her blouse, this man was careful, determined, furrow-browed. She could tell from the way he squinted that his prescription was out of date.
They got married
in the town’s A-frame church, a concession to propriety, with Earl and his wife as witnesses. But still her mother was angry, writing that it wasn’t proper, it wasn’t right. A girl shouldn’t get married like a fugitive, without even a good dress. Even so, she mailed her daughter a pair of lace gloves, the same ones she wore at her own wedding. Something borrowed, she said.
To tease the newlyweds, Earl wrote up a wedding announcement for the paper:
Sydney Lambert Weds Havryil (Jim) Kohen
The wedding bells pealed forth joyous music yesterday in the United Church on Maquinna Drive, as Miss Sydney Lambert, of Victoria, married Mr. Havryil Kohen, of Lviv, Ukraine. The nuptuals were performed by Reverend Mr. Bill Howie and witnessed by Earl and Theresa Schuberg. Mrs. Ida Johnson presided at the piano.
The bride presented a handsome appearance in blue merino, wearing lace gloves, and carrying a bouquet of dogwood. Afterwards, a reception was held at the Tahsis Talk office, where wine and cake were served. The rain did not dampen the celebrations. While walking hand-in-hand from the church, the groom carried an umbrella and the bride wore a red slicker.
Sydney worked at the paper.
Havryil added two rooms onto the house, and a veranda. They had chickens for eggs and a goat for keeping the grass clipped. The apple tree produced small, hard, sweet fruit.
They spent most evenings in front of the woodstove, reading the newspapers Sydney had delivered—they always arrived a week late—from the mainland. Havryil would have preferred not to know anything of the world, but he liked to listen to her voice as she read aloud. She lay tucked under his arm, and he rested one of his hands between her thighs.
Every Sunday, Earl and Theresa invited them for dinner.
All three of the Schuberg children were grown now and had moved away, so Earl and Theresa had more time for guests. They had a smokehouse in their backyard and served a platter of smoked salmon at every meal. Havryil told them about babka, a dish made with fish, eggs, milk, onion, and bread. He said his mother used to make it for his birthday. “When’s your birthday?” asked Theresa. “You’ll come over and show me how to cook it then.”
After dinner, they played Scrabble and Havryil always won. He had a knack for memorizing two- and three-letter words, then placing them ingeniously on the board. Fez. Od. Jig.
“Are those words?” Earl would have the dictionary out. “Okay, but he doesn’t even know what they mean.”
Havryil would shrug and grin, showing his lustrous teeth.
A few years later, her mother married
one of the bookstore’s regular customers, a divorced lawyer named George Owens. Sydney remembered him from her childhood; her mother had always called him, in a tone that was both admiring and condescending, Mr. George.
Mr. George drove a Lincoln Continental convertible, which he used to bring Sydney’s mother to Tahsis. Even along the Head Bay Road, where mists of fog from the river pooled in the gravel’s dips and holes, they drove with the roof down. They arrived covered in dust.
“Mom,” said Sydney.
“Sydney,” said her mother.
Havryil stepped forward. “I am happy to meet you.”
Her mother smiled tightly, looked around the small, dim house. “A lovely little room you have here.”<
br />
“He built it,” said Sydney. “Himself.”
Mr. George said he’d like to take them all out to dinner. “Come on, Cecilia.” He took his wife’s hand, led her outside. “We’ll wait in the car.”
“We have nothing in common,” said Sydney, when they were out of earshot. “Nothing to talk about.”
But Havryil took her face in his hands. “She is your mother,” he said. “You must be thankful to have her.”
Sometimes they fought—
Sydney yelling on behalf of both of them, the sound of her voice softened by the wooden walls.
Havryil didn’t like when she stayed late at work, had a beer in the office instead of dinner, then drove home along that logging road after dark. And Sydney grew antsy and tired of the forest in the winter. “Sometimes,” she admitted, “I just want to go dancing.”
So on Fridays he took her to the marina, where the fishermen cleaned their catch while a band played. “Brown-Eyed Girl.” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” They danced close, on wooden boards slick with guts and small, translucent bones.
The town wondered:
Why was he so quiet? Why didn’t they have children? And it was strange that she went to work while he stayed home to cook and tend the garden. She would have answered for both of them: Because we like it this way.
But the people of the town never bothered to ask her. And eventually, they grew accustomed to the couple. Syd-n-Jim, people called them, eliding the names so they sounded like one word.
Sometimes children from town would visit,
tramping through the trees to see the cabin. Once it was three boys, all siblings, who stood wide-eyed on the periphery of the property. All three had red hair and faces streaked with dirt, and one of them wore thick glasses like Havryil’s.
There had been a time when the children of this town taunted him, threw stones at his back, and laughed as he passed them. But she had taught him not to be afraid.
The Dark and Other Love Stories Page 11