by David Bergen
Hope helped Emily clear out the house. Emily had recently had double knee replacements and was just barely becoming mobile, and so she sat in the middle of the house while Hope trotted about, noting the contents. Pieces of furniture that Paul had built were everywhere, stacked on end in the basement, the living room, overflowing the workshop. There was hardly room to walk. In total, there were fifty-five end tables, all made of cherry. Hope did not take any of the pieces, even though she was offered whatever she liked. She had gone modern, she said, glass and steel, and this was true. She had bought a new dining set at Design Manitoba. Leather and steel chairs, glass-topped dining table—something Roy would have found pretentious. Later in the day, drinking wine and sitting in the backyard on oak folding chairs that Paul had built, Emily surveyed the house and said, “It might be best to simply make a bonfire and burn everything.”
Alone and driving back to the city, Hope wondered if that wasn’t the difference between her and Emily. Emily’s answer to trouble was to set fire to the strife, and in doing so, to make it disappear, whereas Hope held trouble close to her chest, as if she might suffocate the difficulty or worry it into submission. Emily, after several glasses of wine, said that she should have been more vigilant. She had spoken with Paul once a month, and their last conversation had been disjointed. “He kept repeating the word ‘disarray.’ He was trying a different medication, and it wasn’t working. Without me he was desolate and lonely.”
“But Emily, he was desolate and lonely when you were still living with him,” Hope said.
“Was he?”
“Yes. You told me that. I remember when you left him, you told me that you would die if you stayed.”
“I was young. And desperate. I felt hemmed in. Funny thing, I still feel hemmed in. Maybe more so.”
“When Roy died, I was terribly lonely. Inconsolable. Still, there was suddenly all this space around me and though at first it was overwhelming, I grew to like it. Quite quickly. Shamefully.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. I envy you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There is nothing to envy.”
“See? This is exactly what I mean.”
But Hope hadn’t seen. What did Emily mean?
She recalled the lilac bush in Eden, beyond the kitchen window, which bloomed briefly for one week every spring, and then became just another shrub with green leaves, indistinguishable from every other shrub. What was the point? She had told Penny one afternoon, as they drank tea on Penny’s front porch, that she believed in heaven, though she wasn’t sure about hell. “Actually, I don’t believe in hell. And truth be told, I’m no longer sure about heaven either.” She said this with a certain amount of glee, as if tasting rebellion for the first time.
It was on this same day that Penny announced it was time to move beyond the short story and write a novel. She was going to take a leave from the hospital. The novel would be about a woman born in 1930 whose existence was both minor and major.
Hope was wary. She smelled a rat. “What do you mean, ‘major’?”
“She is a woman. And what is there about the life of a woman that is worth exploring? A woman does not fight in wars, does not invent, does not make something out of nothing, except for the exceptional woman, like Madame Curie or Jane Austen. Most women your age had children and raised them, and then what did the children do? They took the mother for granted.” Penny sighed. “I don’t know. I haven’t figured out the major part yet, though it has to be there. Doesn’t it?”
“I was born in 1930.”
“You were.”
“Oh, why write such nonsense?” And then, pleased, she said, “Leave out the unfortunate parts.” And then, “If you must tell the truth, be kind.”
“It’s not about you, Mom. You might recognize bits and pieces, but it is a novel.”
“I was not perfect. Never perfect. I was the furthest from perfect. But then that was not my intent.”
She was amazed that her middle daughter showed any interest in her. All of a sudden. And then she realized one day that the interest was ultimately selfish. Penny needed a story, was incapable of making something out of nothing. She called her up one day and said, “It will be too episodic. You’ll need some backbone to the story. A plot. My life was plotless.” And she pictured her existence printed out on several hundred pages, formless and wilting in a drawer somewhere. “No one will want …” She struggled to conclude the sentence.
Another time she called Penny and said, “You might think twice about using my life. But if you go ahead, please leave out certain things I have told you. Paul’s kiss, the abortion, I don’t believe it would benefit anyone to know that, the bankruptcy, my work for Merry Maid, humiliating, the hotel room scene, whatever sex talk I have let slip, my weakness for sweets. You could wait till I am dead. And failing that, try to lie a little. Also, at all costs, avoid sentimentality.”
Penny laughed. “Mom, this is fiction. If you want the facts, write a memoir.”
“Don’t. I’m not even sure this is working, so you can forget about it, okay? Probably nothing will come of it.”
“Oh.” This was disappointing. For a month now Hope had discovered that the space she occupied had grown slightly. She imagined herself a minor player in a drama that was self-contained. Somewhere out there a box was being built for her, and the box itself would not allow for spillage or chaos, or if chaos did present itself, the moment of disorder would be brief. The narrative of her life would be clean and unsuspecting, with tiny bumps like potholes on the road. She had, in a self-deprecating though ultimately hubristic manner, told Emily about Penny’s novel. She had sensed that Emily might have been slightly miffed, and it made sense. What was so important about Hope Koop? Emily, in every way, had lived a more interesting life.
The next time Hope saw Penny, she said, “You know, Emily Shroeder is a fascinating person. She’s incredibly well read and has lived a bustling, dare I say, almost dangerous life. For a time she had a lover who was a chef. Her daughter lives in New York, where Emily lives for months at a time as well. Even Paul, her husband, died in a tragic way, from a suicide.” She heard herself, and paused. Waved her hands in the air and said, “I would think the voice is most important. Don’t you?”
Within a few months, perhaps because Penny stopped mentioning her novel, the subject was shunted off to the side, and in every way this was a relief to Hope, who was finding it difficult to live both her real life and the projected other life. She settled down and gradually let go the idea of immortality. Who did she think she was?
Over the past year Hope had been taking day trips out to Altona to visit her cousin Frida. George, her husband, disliked Frida having too much fun, and so their coffee times usually took place in Frida’s kitchen while George hovered nearby. Frida had no access to money, wasn’t allowed to answer the phone, rarely saw anyone, save Hope, and was beginning to talk of death, as if she had some premonition of her own demise. Hope was worried.
Over the last while, when they had moments of privacy, talk had turned to escape. At first, because it was a touchy subject and Frida was a fearful woman, the word “escape” was not used. Instead, Hope talked about what was normal and abnormal. She told Frida that it was not normal that she did not have money. And it was not normal to be disallowed use of the telephone. “It’s a basic right, Frida. You should be able to pick up the phone and call your friends. You should be able to answer the phone and not have George screen your calls.”
“He doesn’t like you, Hope. He thinks you’re putting thoughts in my head.”
“The thoughts are already there, Frida. I could be anyone.” She did not tell Frida that the feeling was mutual. She did not like George. He was a sweet talker in public, a man with two faces.
“Well, he doesn’t think you’re a positive influence.”
“That makes sense, doesn’t it? That he would think that? He’s afraid.”
“He is?”
“Oh yes, and fear can make a
person do crazy things.” Hope thought this was true, simply because she had been afraid at certain points in her own life and had acted in an unwell manner. “He’s afraid that you will leave him.”
“Oh, no, I’m not planning to leave him. Where would I go?”
“Well, there is Irmie.”
Frida had a daughter, Irmie, living in Ottawa who refused to speak to her father. Irmie made it known that Frida lived in a prison, but she did little to help her mother. She didn’t come home for visits, and she talked with Frida by phone only once a month, though she had told her one time that if she needed a place to live, she could come to Ottawa.
Hope was a patient woman, and for a year, as Frida flip-flopped between leaving George and staying, she neither encouraged her, nor tried to dissuade her. She merely asked questions. Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons, as George napped in the bedroom, she and Frida talked in whispers about various scenarios and images of freedom. These were other women, nameless and faceless, who had lived in situations that were very similar to Frida’s.
“Penny told me just last week of a friend, let’s call her Jane, who took her three young children and moved into an apartment. The husband had gambled away the mortgage, the car, the cottage. Nothing was left. Jane didn’t even write a note. She just packed up the kids and left.”
“George doesn’t gamble. And our house is paid for. He insists on doing the grocery shopping. I can make lists, but he doesn’t always follow them.”
“Has he hurt you? Physically?”
“Oh, no. Never.”
“He doesn’t touch you, then?”
“Only when we lie together. Once a week.”
“Do you want that?”
She shook her head. Nodded. “It doesn’t hurt.” Then she said that she was embarrassed. Sex talk made her nervous.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry.”
“What about Roy?” Frida asked one time. “Did you ever want to leave him?”
“There were moments,” Hope said. “And to give Roy credit, he would have said, ‘You can go.’ A marriage is a balancing act of giving and taking.”
“But you didn’t have to leave. Roy died.” And as she said this, Frida put a hand over her mouth as if she had overstepped some moral boundary. “I’m sorry.”
“And it might be that you wish George were dead.”
“Oh, no. I don’t. Do I?”
And then, one afternoon after an especially difficult week, Frida said, “I want to leave.” Immediately she looked horrified. Her hands shook.
Hope touched her elbow and said, “Are you sure?”
Frida nodded.
“Okay,” Hope said, all business. “This is what we will do.”
She had, in preparation, called a women’s shelter and they had been very specific about protection and having a plan and making sure that Frida had a safe place to stay. One time the word “violence” was used and Hope had been adamant that George was not violent. He had never been violent.
Over the next weeks, whenever Hope visited, she collected some of Frida’s clothes and her personal effects, taking them home with her, preparing a suitcase for the trip. She purchased a flight to Ottawa, using her own money. She called Irmie in Ottawa and said that Frida was planning to leave George. The date was set. Frida would be arriving in Ottawa on an afternoon flight.
“Are you sure this is what she wants?” Irmie asked. “I mean, it’s about time, but I can’t quite believe it. My mother has never chosen for herself. It’s always about Dad.”
“She’s decided.” No wonder Frida had been stuck for forty-five years. Even her child had no faith in her. Where was the agency?
Hope was not afraid of George. Whenever she arrived at the house and George answered the door and said, “Oh, you again,” Hope simply said, “Yes, it’s me, George,” and walked past him and went to find Frida. George didn’t know what to do with a woman like Hope. She was like that innocent-looking cloud on the horizon that becomes a tornado.
The day of the great escape, as Hope would refer to it later, in a rendition devoid of irony and pathos, she drove to Altona in the middle of the night and parked her car on the street outside Frida’s house. Frida planned to leave the bed and walk out with her winter coat over her nightgown and climb into the car, and Hope would whisk her away. She had prepared a Thermos of coffee and a tuna sandwich for Frida. Food and a hot drink could calm an uneasy soul.
The street was quiet. A soft snow fell through the light of the streetlamps. A cat crossed in front of Hope’s car, jumped on the hood, padded about for bit, and then disappeared. Frida’s house was dark. And then the door opened and Frida stepped out in slippers and an ankle-length down parka. She closed the door and stood on the porch, not moving.
“Come, Frida,” Hope whispered.
And then she came, an old woman, shoulders slightly bent, hair in a tight perm, looking back now and then at her house.
She climbed in and shut the door.
“Is everything okay?” Hope asked.
“I forgot my key. I’ve locked myself out,” Frida said. She looked at the house one last time, and then said, “You can go.”
Hope drove through the quiet streets, and it was only when they had passed the town limits and were on the highway that Frida began to cry. Hope handed her the Kleenex box. Frida whispered, “Poor George, he will be so worried. I should have told him. What will he have for breakfast?”
“Toast. Cereal. He’s very capable.”
“The coffee maker has been finicky lately, and he won’t know about the broken switch. It needs to be wiggled to make it work. I should have left him a note.”
“Do you want me to turn around, Frida? I can do that. Absolutely.” According to the woman at the shelter, this was not the thing to say. Stay calm, don’t give in to her panic, talk her through the doubts. Carry on. As if Frida were a mere animal with no free will. Why shouldn’t she choose, either way? Hope had found that the counsellor in the shelter, probably late thirties, was unfeeling about Frida’s quandary. It had seemed such a simple matter to her. Just leave. “But she’s close to eighty,” Hope explained. “She’s leaving the place she’s lived in for sixty years.” The counsellor had made a face, one of impatience, and Hope thought then that she was incompetent.
Frida was steadfast. She said, “No, keep going,” and she began to put on the clothes that Hope had brought along. Hope talked to her, mostly nonsense about her own children, about a movie she had seen the previous week, a comedy of sorts that hadn’t been particularly funny, but she liked movies no matter the subject. “Give me a movie star on a big screen and I’m happy,” she said. “I would think that in Ottawa you’ll have the chance to see some movies with Irmie. It’ll be very comfortable. Irmie has a bedroom ready for you.”
“I forgot my glasses,” Frida said. “They’re on the bedside table.”
“You can get a pair in Ottawa. They’re very cheap these days. Maybe you can even get two for one.”
“I don’t know.” Frida worried her hands. She had managed to change into her clothes, awkwardly, fighting her way out of her down coat and her nightgown, baring herself briefly as Hope kept her eyes on the road. Her face was pale, a round puddle of flesh that could no longer countenance her own perfidy. She began to cry again.
Hope took the Thermos and unscrewed the lid, managing this poorly as she drove. Some coffee spilled on her lap, scalding her.
“Shit,” she said.
Frida laughed through her tears. Reached for the Thermos and poured a little. Handed the mug to Hope, who took it and drank.
“This was for you,” Hope said. “I was going to give it to you at the airport.” She pointed to the tuna sandwich.
“I’m sorry,” Frida said.
“Why? You’re very brave.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m not. Please take me home.”
“It’ll be fine, Frida. You’re afraid. But Irmie is waiting for you, and I will check you in at the airport. You’ve been
fearless.”
“Not anymore. This is all wrong. Take me home.”
Hope pulled the car over on the shoulder. Touched Frida’s knee. “You’ve come this far. A long way.”
Frida was suddenly and irrevocably clear-headed. “I can’t.”
Neither of them spoke during the return trip, except once when Frida whispered, “I’m sorry,” and Hope said, “You have nothing to apologize for.” To the east was the grey ghost of a late-rising sun. Hope pulled up in front of Frida’s house. The lights were on.
“He’s awake,” Frida said.
“I think I should come in with you,” Hope said.
Frida shook her head. “That’ll only make it worse. I can manage.” She climbed from the car and opened the rear door and pulled out the suitcase.
“You phone me, okay? Frida? Call me today.”
“Yes. Yes, okay.” And she turned and walked back up the sidewalk, the little suitcase banging against her coat.
Hope watched as Frida rang the doorbell. The door opened, George stepped back, and Frida entered her home. George looked to the car where Hope sat, and then he shut the door.
She sat and waited and watched. The car ran and the heat blew over her ankles and calves. There was nothing to report. Only silence.
The next day George phoned, and when she answered he said, “You bitch,” and he hung up. He called again the next day, exactly at three, and as soon as she heard his voice, she interrupted him and said, “Do not phone here, George, and swear at me.”
“You stay away from her, Hope, and I’ll have no reason to call. You’ve embarrassed her and yourself.”
“How is that, George? There are only three of us who know of Frida’s wish to leave. Four if you count Irmie. And so how is that an embarrassment?” She was arguing with George, an impossible thing, but she could not help herself.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve told people about me, Hope. George is cruel. George doesn’t let Frida do anything. Well, let me tell you this, Hope. Frida has a weakness for drama and storytelling. She makes things up.”