The dining room is next, empty save for a few lawn chairs and a plank lying flat across two sawhorses. Then there’s the bathroom with its wallpaper coming off in strips. Pauline steps toward the toilet, lifts the lid, and pulls a face. After that the film cuts to the exterior and shots of car parts in the orchard, followed by one of the outhouse. Its door opens and Pauline emerges holding her nose, pretending to cry. In the left side of the frame a small snake flashes emerald and disappears into the grass.
Another shot studies the low building on the orchard’s edge. The camera advances and Pauline runs ahead to the door. Inside is a long room with a lone bare bulb dangling from a cord. Fletcher lies on a bench in the corner with his shirt off. His face is red and puffing, and he arches his back as he pumps a bar across his chest. When he sees the camera, he sets down the bar and gestures with delight to a set of dumbbells on the floor nearby, showing off what he has found. In the next shot he’s helping Pauline to lift a dumbbell high above her head.
Back in the house, Pauline stands behind another title card that reads OTHER THINGS THE LAST PEOPLE LEFT BEHIND. It’s followed by a series of shots in which she presents items to the camera: a furry vermilion slipper, a half-empty bottle of champagne, the box for a jigsaw puzzle of a Florentine villa. Lastly, she approaches with something in her palm. This time she’s crying for real. Maggie’s hand reaches from behind the camera, and into it Pauline drops the corpse of a small bird. The hand pulls away, reflexively letting the creature fall. The camera’s eye descends too, remaining focused on the body. Then it trails Pauline down the hall into an empty bedroom with boggish green walls. Still sobbing, the girl points to three more birds lying stiff on the windowsill, sparrows broken from beating themselves against the glass, two of them curled within themselves, the wings of the other extended as if in flight. There’s a shot of Pauline wiping her eyes, Maggie reaching with her free hand to stop her, then leading her to the bathroom. Pauline looks up to the camera as if taking instructions, steps onto a stool beside the sink, and begins to wash.
2
Hidden in the undergrowth, Gordon watches the riverbank. A rubber dinghy with an outboard motor lies pulled up on the shore, several sets of footprints leading away from it in the brown clay. Nearby stand a pair of men, both Lao, not much more than boys, rifles hanging from their necks. One of them keeps wiping his nose with the back of his hand while kicking a pebble back and forth between his feet. The other stares in all directions with hard eyes and snaps at his companion upon noticing his inattention. The man makes a show of standing alert, then takes up kicking another pebble. In the river, a dozen women have waded up to their waists and are washing clothes, laughing with one another as if the men’s presence is no more remarkable than the drops of rain spreading ripples on the water. The only suggestion of anything unusual is the jitter in the women’s voices.
A few feet from where Gordon crouches, a Hmong girl of sixteen or seventeen sits on the bank holding Yia Pao’s little boy. The baby is asleep, swaddled in a beige blanket. Gordon trembles as his eyes dart between the child and the guards by the boat.
After a time, the man with the hard eyes says something to the girl. His tone is jeering, and she looks up for a moment before dropping her gaze. He speaks to her again, louder this time. The girl sets the child down and stands, takes a hesitant step toward the guard. He speaks more sharply and she takes a few more steps, hands clutching the band of cloth tied around her hips. The women in the water have fallen silent and stopped their work. The other guard speaks to the girl now too, laughing and gesturing for her to come closer. When she doesn’t move, he barks at her impatiently. Then an old woman in the river, gaunt and hunched, calls out to rebuke him. The man smiles and turns. The women stiffen as he puts his hand on the butt of his rifle.
A second later, the girl shrieks. The women’s gaze shifts back to her, and the guards wheel. She points to the place where she was sitting. The baby is no longer there.
When the girl starts for the trees, the hard-eyed guard cries out an order and she halts. The men turn back to train their rifles on the women, as if they’re suspected of some ruse. The old woman pleads, but the hard-eyed guard shakes his head, and the women draw closer together. He fires once into the air, then sits down on the side of the dinghy to light a cigarette, and everyone waits for the return of the other armed men who arrived with him.
The first shot is of Brid on the couch. She’s wearing a bikini, the freckles pronounced across her tanned shoulders, while on the soundtrack Pauline can be heard having a conversation with her doll. She sits at her mother’s feet, and occasionally the top of her head appears in the frame. As Brid speaks, she keeps her eyes fixed upon her daughter.
“So what do you want me to say?”
“Start with why you came up here,” replies Maggie, off-screen.
“Hmm. Well, my family disowned me, and then the co-op shut down, so I was out of work. I thought it might be nice to take a ride on Fletcher’s tab awhile.”
“His father’s tab,” corrects Maggie’s voice.
“There was also Wale. If he ever gets here, it’ll be a safe place for him. Mostly, though, I did it for Pauline. I don’t want her living in the States. Before she came along, I was idealistic. I organized, I chanted, I threw bottles at cops. I even called my little kleptomaniac phase an anti-capitalist gesture. Then I turned into a mommy and realized that if some pig cracked my skull open, I was dying for two, you know? The question became, what’s best for my little girl?” The camera jounces and moves in on her face. “I used to say breeders are nuts, but now things that seemed corny to me, things like devotion and sacrifice, are just everyday facts.” She laughs. “Wait till you’ve had a kid latched onto those boobs, you’ll see. You’re not on the pill, are you? You know they invented it to let men fuck women whenever they want, right? Anyhow, I thought the pill was illegal for Catholics.”
“I know you don’t like Christians—” says Maggie.
“Oh, Catholics are different. You worship a chick. I dig that.” Brid laughs again, then grows sombre. “To be honest, I don’t think in terms of liking or disliking people. It’s more a matter of not letting their neuroses increase my craziness.”
In the next scene, Fletcher is lying on his back against the kitchen floor. The camera pulls away to reveal Pauline standing next to him in a pink swimsuit with a ruffle around the waist. At some unseen cue he lays his hands against his chest, palms up, and she steps onto them. His fingers curl around her little feet, her arms go out to balance, and slowly he lifts her until she’s suspended in the air, shrieking with pleasure at her ability to manage this feat. Brid sits at the table without her sunglasses, bleary-eyed, clapping duly, but afterward shifting her attention to an unseen place beyond the kitchen window. Finally she turns to confront the lens. A flash of irritation changes to something that could be taken for tenderness, before she resumes her vigil over the girl and man at play.
The letter is the sole piece of correspondence in the mailbox when Maggie checks. At the sight of her name on the envelope in the distinctive characters of her grandmother’s typewriter, a jangling current of anxiety starts through her. In the orchard, she lies down among the daisies and Queen Anne’s lace to read what’s inside.
June 2nd, 1972
Dear Maggie,
As I write this you have begun your life in the north country with that man of yours. Although you may not believe it, I worry about you by the hour. A woman can’t help but worry when her granddaughter departs for a foreign land.
I should tell you that recently your Uncle Morley spoke to a friend in Massachusetts familiar with your young man’s family. It seems Fletcher Morgan is the black sheep of his clan. Morley was made aware of a particularly distressing tale about certain relations with a wealthy Boston girl whose name you may recognize.
The last time we talked, before you hung up on me, you told me you wanted to help your young man achieve great things. I don’t know what great things
are possible for someone who has abandoned his country in wartime.
As a girl you were so well behaved, always studying your missal and keeping your father’s house. It pains me to think you have been led astray. Although you will think you’re grown up now, I must remind you that this is your first steady boyfriend, and it is easy to be swept up by certain feelings. I have told you before that your father made a bad match with your mother—certainly she didn’t merit his refusal to remarry after she passed on—and I fear you are your father’s child. I must ask you, are you abetting Fletcher’s salvation or his debasement? We should
put such questions to ourselves with regard to everyone in our acquaintance.
You and your father are missed here, Maggie. Each time I come home from Mass it breaks my heart to see the empty driveway next door. I was spoiled to have a son nearby all those years. Now he is gone, and in the month since he departed I have had only two letters. In both he mentions not hearing from you and asks how you are doing. Of course I have had to reply that you’re no more interested in contacting your grandmother than in writing him.
I hope you are willing to read this letter, given that you at least shared your address with me. Your father informed me that you didn’t do so with him. I wrote back straight away to provide it—I won’t abide such nonsense—but he replied that he is going to respect your wishes. In some ways he’s a foolish man. I’m proud, at least, that he is serving God. Whom are you serving, Maggie? I don’t wish to be harsh. I only wish for you to see some plain truths.
Sending love,
Gran
When Maggie has finished, she reads the letter once more and is astounded all over again by Gran’s flawless rectitude. Not a single typo. How many drafts did that take?
Until the envelope appeared in the mailbox, the outside world seemed on the brink of fading away. In their first week at the farm, the only people to turn up have been the man who installed the telephone and the locksmith who added deadbolts to the doors. Everyone else they expected has let them down. Fletcher’s old roommates Roman and Tony both got jobs in Washington at the last minute, while his cousin Dean called to say he was sorry but he was flying to India; he’d decided the girl in Uttar Pradesh was his soulmate after all. Dimitri and Rhea are still with their boys in Cambridge, claiming a flu outbreak, although Fletcher says it’s more likely cold feet. The draft dodgers in Toronto were scheduled to arrive tomorrow for a tree-planting bee, but it’s been postponed until the repairman turns up to deal with the gas smell. Fletcher doesn’t know the dodgers personally, only through a friend, and he wants to avoid giving them a bad first impression of the farm.
As for Wale, Brid last talked to him in the middle of May when he was in Thailand, running from the army. He said he’d meet them on the farm in three weeks, never mentioning how he’d get there. At meals they agree he must be lying low until it’s safe to travel, but Brid eats little and complains of an upset stomach.
Eventually people will come. They mustn’t lose their faith in that. In the meantime, they have thrown themselves into cleaning, painting, and ripping up carpets. Fletcher talks about orchard longevity, yields per acre, and B.F. Skinner’s theories of community planning, while Maggie teases him about his high hopes, which are also hers. This year they’ll harvest the cherries and plant trees for other fruits. In three years they’ll have a windmill and solar panels to produce their electricity. Maggie likes thinking about such things. It keeps her from dwelling on her father. It’s only at night, cocooned in the silence of the countryside, that her mind drifts to him and she finds herself listening for the presence of someone in the hallway.
Now there’s the swishing of feet through the grass. She looks up from the letter and sees Brid coming along the lane between the trees in flimsy sandals. She sits down beside Maggie and inquires about what she’s reading. When Maggie replies that it’s a letter from her grandmother, Brid asks to see it. Maggie can’t think of a good reason to say no, so she hands it over and sets about trying to interpret the expressions on Brid’s face as she reads. It’s hard to do, with those impenetrable sunglasses. There’s only the odd arched eyebrow and the quick passing of Brid’s tongue over her lips. Finally she passes the page back.
“Wow. I feel for you, sweetheart. Your granny sounds uptight.”
This is a surprise. In the six months Maggie has known Brid, compassion isn’t something she has learned to associate with her.
“The letter’s nothing,” Maggie replies. “You should have heard the names she called me on the phone.”
“So you’re not going to write her back? Not your dad either?”
“No.” But she says it without the conviction she’d like. She lies down and waits to be soothed by the world. There’s birdsong, shadows flickering, and the traffic of ants who arrive at her arm like commuters at a closed road. Eventually a calm begins to overtake her. Hard to imagine any harm coming to them here, only never-ending summer sunshine. She turns her head and sees Brid at ease too, lying with one hand beneath her neck, fingers stroking the skin there as a lover might.
“So you want to help Fletcher do great things, huh?” says Brid. Maggie has been sufficiently lulled that she’s slow to recognize her own words being echoed back at her. “Hey, I just thought of something. By coming up here, you’re walking in your old man’s footsteps, right? It’s some kind of missionary work.”
“That’s ridiculous,” says Maggie.
“So you aren’t here to save Fletcher from his parents?”
Maggie grits her teeth. Brid sounds too much like Gran. “I don’t think Fletcher needs saving.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” says Brid. “Fletcher’s all right. He isn’t as bad as your granny thinks, anyhow. He’s good with Pauline. You want kids?”
Maggie feels a sudden light-headedness. “We’re not even engaged.”
“Let me tell you a secret,” Brid replies sweetly. “A wedding ring isn’t a prerequisite.” Maggie blushes, and Brid gives a dismissive wave. “Well, I’m glad he’s your type.”
Maggie doesn’t know what to say. She should be reassured by the implication that Fletcher isn’t Brid’s type, but it offers no comfort. Brid and Fletcher are close enough that Maggie’s tempted to ask her about Gran’s reference to the young woman in Boston. Maggie’s pretty sure it’s Cybil, his previous girlfriend; she knows that relationship was a disaster. What if it wasn’t Cybil, though? What if it was Brid? She isn’t wealthy, is she? After all, she seems happy enough for Morgan Sugar to pay her way. Maggie ponders Brid’s earrings, her perfume, her makeup. Fletcher claims not to like such things on women. No, it’s stupid even to think it. Still, sometimes Maggie gets a glimmer of something between them, a shared past to which neither has confessed. Maybe it was a fling, a boozy kiss, or only an advance and a rebuff. She’s pretty sure she could handle it if Brid was the one who did the advancing.
Sitting on the floor by her bedroom window with a pad of paper in her lap, Maggie stares at the empty sheet. She writes a sentence, looks off into space, writes another, then sets her pen aside to focus on pushing down her cuticles. Finally she crumples the page and begins afresh, this time with energetic strokes.
Dear Gran,
Think what you like about me, but don’t go dragging Fletcher’s name through the mud. Perhaps one day you’ll be able to accept that he and I have values too, even if they aren’t sanctioned by your version of God. Until then, please don’t write again unless you have something good to say. I’m past the age of needing to be lectured.
Peace and love,
Maggie
Sealing the page in an envelope, she tucks it into the waistline of her skirt. Then she grabs a sun hat from the post at the bottom of the staircase, tells Fletcher she’s going for a walk, and sets off for Virgil. It’s a couple of miles to the village, but the time outdoors might calm her down.
After a minute on the gravel road, she arrives at the gated driveway leading to the wrecking yard and takes in the dilap
idated mobile home in front of it, the hardscrabble lawn. The place looks so uncared for that it’s hard to say if anyone lives there. No neighbour has stopped by the farmhouse to welcome them, and neither Fletcher nor Brid has suggested going over to say hello. They have only agreed that it’s a shame the wrecking yard is there at all, and that at least it doesn’t seem to do much business.
Then she notices the girls at the far edge of the lawn, sitting under a maple tree. There’s a pair of them hidden there, each perched on a beach towel and wearing a swimsuit, each with skinny legs that look ghostly in the shade. Maggie’s on the verge of calling out to them when she sees what they’re doing. One of them, red-haired with broad shoulders, is smoking a joint. The other, thin with long black hair, holds a beer bottle. They can’t be more than sixteen.
Maggie thinks of carrying on, not saying anything, pretending not to see.
“Good afternoon!” she shouts instead.
The girls freeze. The thin one tries to hide the bottle behind her back. The other lets her hand drop casually to her side and puts on a toothy smile. Maggie walks up to the gate and leans on it, trying to affect an affable pose.
“My name’s Maggie,” she says, then points in the direction of the farmhouse. “I’m one of your new neighbours.”
“My dad’s not home,” says the thin girl.
“That’s all right. I just wanted to introduce myself.”
The girls look at each other. Without speaking, they seem to manage some communication between them, and they smile at one another before turning back to her.
“I’m Jane,” says the red-haired one.
“I’m June,” says the other. “We’re twins. But not identical. The other kind.”
Once We Had a Country Page 4