by Kat Cameron
Dan came to the pulpit to give the eulogy. He spoke of his mother’s famous hospitality, inviting twenty people for Thanksgiving dinner, her love of quilting, her practical jokes, her sense of humour. Zoe looked at the program, with its white dove on the front cover and the picture inside of the great-aunt in a blue dress, smiling a big toothy grin.
She’d been here and now she was gone.
The minister was back at the pulpit. “And now, Zoe Willis will sing Thelma’s favourite song, ‘Amazing Grace’.”
He’d pronounced her last name wrong, making her sound like one of the crazy dead women from Giselle. As if she’d dance a man to death for betraying her.
She walked to the front. “Give me a four-bar entry,” she whispered to the organist. Her throat felt tight with nerves. She should have brought a bottle of water. The pitch on the organ sounded high.
She sang the first three lines of “Amazing Grace”. Feeling the quaver in the fourth line, she tried to push through, lost control of her breath, and swallowed the final “see”. If only the organist would play a little faster.
Her mind blanked on the third verse. She’d sung the song a hundred times, but she couldn’t remember the words. The organist started into the chords, recognized her problem, and improvised a solo, adding trills and bridges. Under the cover of the music, he whispered, “Through many dangers, toils, and snares.” The words flooded back, and she came in on the entry as if the interlude had been planned.
As the mourners filed out after the coffin, Zoe went up to speak with the organist, a small balding man with a trim mustache. “Thanks for the save,” she said. “I don’t know what happened. I’ve sung ‘Amazing Grace’ before.”
“Think nothing of it.” He waved his right hand dismissively through the air. “I play for funerals all the time. Most of the singers are amateurs.”
Zoe smiled weakly. After the way she’d performed, she couldn’t protest that she wasn’t an amateur. The adrenaline of performance had ebbed, leaving her shaky with exhaustion. Only the wake to get through.
Grant hugged her shoulders. “You did great, hon.” No one else commented. Shelia avoided them.
At four, Zoe stood with Grant at the back door of his parents’ house. The sun was already setting though a haze of blowing snow, a weak yellow glow.
“We should get going,” Grant said to his mother. “We’ll be driving in the dark as it is.”
Zoe stood beside him, frantic with impatience. Practice started at 7:30. She’d been pushing Grant to leave since 3:30, but his mother had insisted they come back for coffee.
“Why don’t you stay,” Sheila asked. “It’s Saturday night. You don’t have to work tomorrow.”
Zoe glanced over at Grant. He wasn’t saying anything. “I have to be at rehearsal by 7:30.”
“The roads will be terrible, Zoe. It’s been snowing all day. And I don’t want to drive in the dark. Couldn’t you miss rehearsal, just this once?” His brow was wrinkled, that implacable look that said she was being unreasonable, that he knew better. A flat stubbornness.
“No, I can’t. I have to show up.” She couldn’t believe her tone. She sounded like a prima donna. Really, she just couldn’t stand another hour with Grant’s mother.
“Fine, okay.” Grant turned to his mother. “I guess we have to get going.”
“Well, it was nice meeting you.” Sheila clearly hoped that it would be the last time. “Be careful driving back.”
Grant waited until they were in the car before speaking. “Why do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Make your life more important than mine.”
“You said we’d be back in time for rehearsal.”
“I didn’t know the weather would be so bad. Would it kill you to stay another night?” He fiddled with the dash controls, cold air blasting through the vents. “Look at it coming down.”
She said nothing. Sometimes he made her so angry she couldn’t speak. There was no room for compromise with him. He always thought he was right.
“Fine. Have it your way.” He got out of the car to scrape the ice off the windshield.
By the time they reached Airdrie, the sun had set. The long tunnel of the road, lit by headlights, was pitted with ruts of ice and snow. On the right hand, the darkened ditch waited. A truck loomed behind them, headlights illuminating the snow swirling around them, a tungsten glare. Grant slowed to fifty. The truck careened past in the fast lane, sending waves of gravel and snow over the windscreen. Zoe grabbed the side handle, bracing herself.
Another truck slid by them in a whoosh of snow. The Sentra bucked and rocked, caught in the backdraft. Grant gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white.
“Can’t we pull over?”
“We’d slide into the ditch.”
A single tail light appeared in front of them, a motorcycle or a car with a broken light. All she could see was the red glow, like a warning or a stop sign.
“Look out!”
“Shit.” He took his foot off the gas, but the car was right in front of them, half in their lane and half on the shoulder, a long black car with a low bumper, the single tail light gleaming like an evil eye. Grant swerved into the passing lane and the tires slid on a patch of black ice, pulling them towards the opposite ditch.
She’d heard that in an accident your life flashed before your eyes. She didn’t have time to think. Grant cranked the wheel in the direction of the skid. Halogen beams illuminated those few seconds, the skid to the left, the wheels sliding under them, the windshield wipers whipping madly back and forth.
The tires hit ruts of packed snow, jarred the car sideways, then caught and corrected, pulling the car back to the middle of the road. Grant eased them over to the slow lane, crawling to twenty.
“Fucking asshole! What the hell was he thinking, stopping like that?” Sweat slickened his forehead. “We’re turning around at the next overpass.”
On the drive back to Calgary, Zoe replayed those few moments over and over. The red tail light appearing out of the darkness. The slow slide towards the ditch. She felt frozen. Her fault, everything was her fault.
Neither of them spoke until they finally pulled up in front of the house. Then Grant turned off the ignition and leaned over, putting his hand on Zoe’s thigh.
“Are you okay, hon?”
She nodded, shivering. “I’m sorry,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was apologizing. She was sorry for all the flaws in her life. For all the problems that trailed after her like plumes of car exhaust on a winter night.
“I’ll just tell Mom the roads were too icy.” He didn’t need to say they would avoid mentioning the near accident. Zoe knew she would be blamed if Sheila ever found out. She blamed herself. Every choice she made was wrong.
Zoe took a long hot shower and then went to bed. After what seemed like hours, she rolled over and checked the illuminated red glow of the clock radio. 2:15. Nights of insomnia had taught her coping mechanisms: get out of bed, read a detective novel, drink a cup of peppermint tea, watch a late-night movie. Anything to distract her from the night terrors. Maybe she could tuck herself into bed with Grant in his bedroom, a childhood sanctuary still decorated with Bruce Lee posters and Star Wars memorabilia.
He was her hot-water bottle when she couldn’t sleep, on the nights when worries about her ex stalking her in Edmonton, her mother alone in Nelson, her increasing student loans, and her stalled career buzzed along the nerve endings, truths she couldn’t ignore in the dark. At three in the morning, she’d try to visualize the next year and see a fuzzy TV screen, grey and indistinct. She’d stare at the ceiling, the same thoughts repeating over and over in her head. Then she’d roll over and slide her hand along the comforting curve of Grant’s stomach. Feel it lift and fall, listening to the slight wheeze of his breathing.
Zoe pulled on her track pants. Her door creaked as she slowly opened it. She paused, but no one stirred. She tiptoed down the hall towards Grant’s room. Her hand was on the doorknob wh
en Sheila opened the opposite door, clutching a green terrycloth robe tight at the neck.
“I heard a noise. Do you need something? Another blanket? A glass of water?”
Sheila stared her down, daring her to make a move.
Zoe wanted to ask, Who do you think I am? You know nothing about me. But she was afraid of the answer. Whoever she was wouldn’t be good enough. There was nothing that she could say that would make Sheila accept her.
She opened the door to Grant’s room, went in, and closed the door behind her. A streetlight shone through the blinds, casting orange stripes on the wall. She lifted the comforter and crawled into the single bed. Grant rolled over and she nestled against his back. Placing her hand on his stomach, she breathed slowly, in and out.
Dancing the Requiem
THE BALLET IS MOZART FOR a modern age, dancers marching in khaki fatigues, machine guns held in clenched fists; dancers dressed as Afghan women in full blue hijab, their faces covered with veils, mourning the dead. A requiem for the Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, but also a prayer for peace. Zoe watches the troupe come offstage after rehearsal, their inward intense focus. Friendly but distant, living in their pack, a group of teenagers mostly, all with beautiful toned bodies and fanatical dedication. Like soldiers, their lives dedicated to a cause.
The chorus stands behind the stage arranged in giant open boxes, like grouping of vases in an IKEA display. On the monitor is the conductor, down in the music pit. In front of them, facing the audience, is Mozart, a Japanese dancer in an eighteenth-century white frock coat and breeches. His wig glitters with silver. His feet are fastened to the podium as if he is emerging from its stone base, a statue brought to life. He sways forward, almost level to the stage, then to the side, bending at impossible angles and then righting himself.
“He looks like he’s wearing ski boots,” Rachel whispers to Zoe.
“Shh.” Their cue is coming up.
Introit Requiem
Count Franz von Walsegg commissioned a requiem mass after the death of his wife, Anna, on February 14, 1791. In July, Walsegg had intermediaries approach Mozart secretly. He planned to pass the work off as his own, as he had done with other composers’ work.
The dancers have been given the dressing rooms behind the main stage, with the chorus relegated to the basement dressing rooms. Zoe doesn’t mind, although a few of the more prima donna types, like Pria, gripe about the conductor favouring the members of Alberta Ballet Company in what was supposed to a collaboration between the two companies. She doesn’t say this around the conductor, just in the bar afterwards.
Backstage, they slip out of their brown monks’ robes. “Not much of a costume this time,” Rachel complains. “At least it’s not a Merry Widow in a size six. I could barely take a breath in La Traviata. Those hoop skirts weighed ten pounds.”
Zoe loves the costumes, the make-up, the disguise. Even in these coarse robes, her hair pulled harshly back in a bun, she feels transformed, outside of the ordinary world. In jeans and a T-shirt, she feels awkward and conspicuous. Lately, her jeans have been pulling even tighter at the waistband and fat rolls spill over either side of her brassiere. She is still a size 10, but just barely. Too many meals cooked for two, steaks on the barbeque with a side of baked potato and sour cream, turkey lasagna with tomato sauce smothering handfuls of grated cheese and cottage cheese, rich pork goulash with egg noodles and white buns to sop up the gravy.
“Coming out for a drink?” Rachel asks. She’s left her stage makeup on, her vivid blue eyes outlined in thick streaks of black kohl, heavy lines of blush accentuating her cheekbones. Rachel lusts after James, a scruffy six-foot tenor with a wispy beard, and never misses an opportunity to flirt with him when the chorus goes to the Black Dog after rehearsals.
“I better not. Grant has to be at work early tomorrow.”
“Come on, Zoe. Just because you’re living together doesn’t mean you have to act all married. Just one drink. Please?” Rachel clasps her hands together. “I hate going on my own.”
The Black Dog on Whyte sits above an Indian restaurant. Upstairs, the dark room stinks of stale beer. The eight members of the chorus crowd around one of the long tables at the back, near the bathrooms.
Zoe twirls her glass of red wine, listening to Pria and Rachel argue over the lead soprano’s voice. She’d checked the soprano’s résumé; she always checked. Where had she done her training, what roles had she played, what awards had she won? What was she paid? Zoe knows that several of the soloists are billeted with Edmonton families; the cost of hotels isn’t covered by the opera company and the soloists couldn’t afford a month in a hotel each time they took a role.
Chorus members make about $500 per opera. Zoe worked out the hourly rate once: $30 an hour for performances, $5 an hour for dress rehearsals, and $2 an hour for practices. She makes more money at her afternoon waitressing shift at the Urban Diner, even before tips. She is still paying off the credit card debt her ex racked up in Vancouver. VISA doesn’t care that she hadn’t made the purchases.
As if her thoughts have conjured an apparition, she notices a man sitting at a table by the stairway, at the front of the room. Brown hair in a ponytail. Thick belligerent shoulders. His back is to her, and she can’t tell for certain, but something about the man’s pose reminds her of her ex.
Zoe hunches down, feeling trapped. She knows it is ridiculous to feel so frightened when she has other people around her, but panic pounds in her head. “I should get home. Can you walk me to my car?” she asks James.
“Are you going already?” Rachel pouts, but for once Zoe isn’t vulnerable to guilt-tripping. After a few minutes of arguing, Rachel comes along, pretending to need fresh air. Zoe walks out of the bar between them, trying to hide behind James’ height.
The car is parked two blocks over, and with each block Zoe feels her anxiety grow, that prickly feeling between her shoulder blades. She resists looking behind her; she can barely focus when Rachel asks if she’ll give her a ride to practice the next night. Inside the car, Zoe slams the button on the door locks even before she puts her key in the ignition.
Grant is in bed when she slips into the room. “Sorry I’m late,” she says.
“Yeah, well, I have to get up early.” He rolls away from her, burrowing his head under the covers.
Zoe reaches over tentatively, slipping a hand under his T-shirt, touching the soft, warm flesh of his stomach. “Don’t be mad.” She needs the security of his arms. “Rachel wanted me to come along.” Sliding her hand under the elastic of his boxer shorts, she rubs the muscle along his thigh.
“You always drink too much when you go out with the chorus.”
“I only had a glass of wine. I’m a cheap drunk,” she teases. Finally, he rolls towards her, kisses her, his tongue brushing her lips, adding his salty taste to the red wine infusing her mouth.
Zoe is chopping red peppers when her phone rings. “Can you grab that?”
Grant glances at the call display. “It’s a pay phone.” He picks up the cell phone, listens without a comment, and hands it over to Zoe. “It’s your brother.”
“Hi, Steve.” She cradles the phone between her shoulder and neck. “Yeah, I’m just making supper. Okay. Okay. Sure, we’ll get you.” She hangs up, keeping her back turned away from Grant, preparing for an argument. “Steve just came in on the bus. I said we’d pick him up.”
“Does he have a place to stay?”
“I doubt it. Maybe he could sleep on the couch again.” She tosses the peppers in the pan, adding a dollop of sweet soy and some ginger out of a jar, focusing on the veggies sizzling in the pan.
“Did you tell him not to invite his friends over this time?”
“You heard me on the phone. I just invited him for supper.”
“Which will turn into inviting him to stay and he’ll still be here in a week.”
She pulls the skin off a garlic bulb, minces the garlic, and throws it in with the peppers. “Last time was differ
ent.” The oil smokes. Zoe turns on the fan, avoiding Grant’s gaze.
“Don’t you have rehearsal tonight?” Grant asks.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say.” She tosses the veggies, turns off the heat, and sets the pan to the back of the stove. “We should get going. He’s waiting at the station.”
Steve had stayed with them in early December. He’d shown up a month after the funeral. He went out every night and came home drunk. Twice he brought buddies back with him. Grant kept telling her to put her foot down, but she’d never been able to tell her brother anything. Finally, on December 22, Zoe drove them both to Nelson to spend Christmas with their mother. She left Steve there.
Steve is waiting outside the bus depot, his hockey bag dumped on the ground. Grant grimaces as Steve slings the bag into the trunk of the Nissan Sentra, the wet bottom thwacking against the clean carpet.
Her brother’s look hasn’t changed since the late nineties: long shaggy black hair, a black leather jacket patterned with silver studs. He has a small goatee, like a line of dirt extending down from his sideburns. He climbs into the back seat and immediately puts his foot on her seatbelt, the way he’d done on car rides when they were kids. Pulling the seatbelt away from her neck, Zoe snaps, “Move your foot.”
“How’s the yo-de-lah-hee-hing?” He always does this, drawling the word, mocking opera’s pretensions.
“Good,” Zoe says shortly. “I’m in rehearsals for Requiem. How’s your music going?”
“Some guys asked me to play backup on this demo. They’re shopping it around.”
“Did you get paid?” Whether he was paid or not is irrelevant. He makes more on EI from his summer construction work than she does from her part-time waitressing job and her opera pay combined.
Kyrie Eleison
Mozart was paid 100 ducats, a first installment on the Requiem. During the summer of 1791, he finished two operas, La Clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute. By November he was ill, believing he’d been poisoned. He would never finish Requiem. Death was dancing towards him.