Once We Had a Country

by Robert Mcgill

  “Fine, you fucking prude!”

  Silence follows, then a muttering that grows closer. When Brid appears in the mud room, she’s talking to herself, unaware of Maggie’s presence. “A bitch,” she’s saying. “God, I’m such a bitch.”

  Maggie wants to hide under the table before Brid’s eyes fall on her. Once they do, she waits for the assault to begin, for all the woman’s spite to be heaped on her, but Brid looks through her as if she isn’t there.

  “Don’t worry,” says Brid in a wavering voice. “Everything’s going to be fine.” Maggie stands and moves toward her. “What about Pauline?” says Brid. “She didn’t wake up, did she?”

  Maggie tells her it’s all right, but she might as well not be speaking, because Brid rushes upstairs to her daughter’s room. A few minutes later, Maggie goes to peek in through the door and sees both of them asleep, sharing the bed peacefully with their two golden heads of hair dimly radiant across the pillows.

  After Maggie wakes up, she stays in bed awhile, listening to the silent house, wondering how long she could remain here before someone comes to check on her. All morning, probably. Brid and Pauline must have gone out; maybe they’ve left for good. Eventually she hears the telephone ring and makes her way downstairs to answer, thinking it could be Fletcher. It’s a woman’s voice on the other end, though, telling her in broken English that she has a collect call. The operator says it’s from Wale. With a sense of trepidation, Maggie accepts the charges and hears a click. The line gains an underlying flow of static.

  “Wale?” she says. “Where are you?”

  The voice through the static is murky and phantasmal, but it’s him.

  “Bangkok,” he replies.

  “Bangkok?” In the background is the sound of car traffic. Jesus. He really is going to Laos. “I can’t hear you very well. What time is it there?”

  “Dunno. Dark. Dark o’clock. Half past dark.”

  He sounds wholly drunk. Maggie glances toward the hall, worried that Brid will come in and find out who’s on the line.

  “You want me to get Brid?” she asks.

  “No, honey, it’s you I want.” The way he says it makes her flush. There’s a burst of crackling before the line clears. “I’ve been dreaming about you,” he says, but she doesn’t want to hear about his dreams. Nervously, she looks up again to see if anyone is there.

  “You aren’t really in Thailand. You’re putting me on, right?”

  With slurring words, he affirms he’s really and truly in that country, and she asks him what the hell he’s doing there.

  “Going to Laos to check on your dad.” At this response her stomach knots up further. It’s impossible. No, it’s not. Wale’s insane. He’s gone halfway around the world to prove it, and to make her crazy too. He waits on the line as if expecting more questions, but she refuses to play the game.

  “You ran out on us,” she says.

  “Ran out? I’m trying to show you I’m not so heartless after all.”

  She isn’t going to be made responsible for his lunacy. “You’re not over there to impress me.”

  “You think I’m a goon. A thug who shoots little kids.”

  “I don’t think that.” In fact she does, but only because he’s made himself out to be one.

  “You’re right, I’m a piece of shit. Some of the things I’ve done, I know I can’t make up for them.”

  “Wale—”

  “You have to believe me—your dad, if I’d seen anything coming …”

  “Wale, would you listen to me? There’s nothing wrong. If you’d stayed here, you’d know. I heard from my grandmother, he’s fine, he just went over to a village—”

  “You talked with him? You heard from him?”

  “I told you, I got a call from Gran—”

  “But you didn’t talk with him?” The way Wale says it makes all her relief fall away. She wants to hang up the phone and call Gran. “If I thought it was safe, I’d have asked you to come with me. I miss you, Maggie. It’s been a long time since I missed somebody.”

  He’s interrupted by a voice shouting what sounds like abuse in another language. She says his name, but he doesn’t answer. Then suddenly he’s back and speaking in her ear.

  “I’m off my face, aren’t I? The beer here is piss.” There’s the clonk of an empty bottle dropped onto pavement. “It’s so goddamn lonely. You know?” On the other end, a car passes playing a Simon and Garfunkel song. “Maggie, I wanted to tell you something. What was it—”

  “You were dreaming about me,” she says feebly.

  “No, something else.” There’s a noise like a long belch, then another voice in the background. “Shit, my ride’s here. I’m flying to Long Chieng in a couple of hours.”

  “Wait, let me get Brid—” she says, but once she finishes speaking, she realizes he’s already gone. Out of the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of movement: Brid and Pauline coming in through the mud room door.

  “Who was that?” asks Brid.

  “Wrong number,” Maggie says, and she hangs up the phone.

  No, honey, it’s you I want. That’s how real confession goes. Not in the church with the priest levying penance; not in the network studio with the cameras rolling. It happens in a phone booth by the roadside late at night when you’ve had a few too many, shouting down the line to someone on another continent. It’s a good thing Wale’s ride showed up. Whatever else he had to say, she’s pretty sure she didn’t want to hear it.

  She’s also sure she doesn’t want to call Gran. How would she explain her worries without sending the woman into a panic? The barest description of Wale would leave Gran thinking that Maggie has involved herself with degenerates and crooks. Returning to the telephone, she dials the number, unsure of what she’ll say. The phone rings and rings without an answer. At last, a little thankfully, she puts down the receiver and goes back to bed.

  It turns out Brid and Pauline are leaving too. There’s no explanation, just one stark sentence during lunch. Maggie nods as if the reasons are obvious. She doesn’t try to argue Brid out of it, only expresses concern about them making the trip to Boston in one day on their own. Even this statement she saves until they’re on the porch with the Toyota loaded and Pauline buckled into her safety seat, her uncombed hair standing up in a bright flaxen frizz. Brid says she’ll be all right, but she looks wan and keeps removing her sunglasses to rub at her eyes. From the car, Pauline’s wailing that she doesn’t want to go; she wants to stay with Auntie Maggs. This is a surprise. When did Pauline ever like her?

  “Just so you know,” says Brid, “I’m not clearing out because of the Jamaican. Last night was nothing, okay? I’m going because I’m a mess, and because I know you don’t care whether I stay.”

  “That isn’t true,” Maggie protests.

  “You’re sweet to say it. Anyhow, good for you, not needing me. You’re tougher than I thought.” She sounds hurt that this should be the case. “I’m sorry, I’m just fed up with it all.” Looking out over the front yard, she dwells on the place as if seeing it for the first time. “Maybe a few years ago we’d have stood a chance, but people got worn down by everything. I thought maybe up here we could relax and try something new. Oh well.”

  In her voice there’s at once a lassitude and a confidence, as if she’s been formulating this elegy for some time. Yet something doesn’t sit right. It couldn’t be that simple. There’s a vital element she’s missed, but there’s no time to figure it out: she seems ready to depart.

  “What will you do now?” Maggie asks.

  “Stay with my brother, I guess. God, I hate him. It’s going to be a train wreck.” She looks over at Maggie with concern. “What about you? You’ll be okay?”

  Maggie nods, pretty sure that Brid’s just asking to free herself from obligation. Still, there’s a compulsion to provide some kind of self-defence, to articulate the thoughts she’s been mulling over in her head.

  “I couldn’t go back now,” she says. “An
yhow, I prefer it on the farm. You know, working the land—”

  “You don’t prefer it, sweetie,” says Brid with an earnestness that surprises her. “You think you do, but you don’t. I’ve watched you. You’ve been so unhappy here.”

  The words strike Maggie to the quick. There’s such assurance in them. But if that’s what Brid has been thinking, why didn’t she say anything till now?

  “Will you look up Fletcher when you get there?” Maggie asks.

  Brid seems unprepared for the question. “You want me to?”

  “No.” She says it without hesitating. The idea of them together in Boston while Maggie waits for him here is unbearable.

  “Don’t worry,” replies Brid as if she has read her thoughts, “he was never interested in me, even before he met you. Not that I didn’t try.” The comment is made with such nonchalance that Maggie almost doesn’t register it. Before she has a chance to respond, Brid has already moved on. “Hell, forget it. Can’t let the past fuck up your perspective, right?”

  Maggie thinks of the kinds of things one is allowed to say just before parting. She wants to share something in return, something to make Brid stay a bit longer. Not Wale’s phone call; she couldn’t bring herself to mention that. Her late period, perhaps. No, to tell Brid would make it too real.

  “Goodbye,” says Brid, giving her a squeeze. Into Maggie’s ear she says quietly, “There was a time, I think, when we might have …” But she seems not to know how to finish, and she laughs in a self-defeated way. “Oh, never mind.” She pulls back. “It’s no big deal. Goodbye!” She gives her a kiss on the cheek, then a surprising look of regret.

  Maggie didn’t know regret was something Brid could feel. Regret rests on hopes and dreams, an ideal you reach for and fail to find. Regret’s about living in the shadow of an inner gleaming you that Maggie’s never quite found in herself. Until now she hasn’t thought of Brid as someone with a self like that either. People are different from each other, though. It seems like some kind of breakthrough to apprehend this simple fact, but Maggie doesn’t feel much wiser than before. Why that look of regret on Brid’s face just now? It’s too late to ask. She’s ensconced with her daughter in the Toyota, and the two of them are disappearing down the drive.

  Monday morning, Maggie tries calling Gran again. Again she gets no answer. One more day, she thinks, and she’ll drive to Syracuse to see what’s going on. To distract herself from the thought, she begins to clean, compelled by the idea that at last everything in the house can go where she wants it. From now on, each speck of dirt will be her dirt, the mess no one’s but her own. She tries to focus on the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and the scum in the toilet bowl, even while she feels a building anger with Fletcher, with Brid, with all those who have left these tasks for her. Cleaning, always cleaning, since the first day she was here. Her body grows sticky with sweat and dust even as the house becomes pristine.

  Just before lunch, there’s a knock at the front door. By the time she gets downstairs, the mailman’s pickup truck is pulling out of the driveway and a parcel sits on the porch, the size of a shoebox and wrapped in brown paper. Even before she identifies her name above the address, she recognizes her father’s handwriting. The paper seems to take forever to remove.

  Inside is a cardboard box, and in the box is a letter along with a little statue made out of fired clay. Maggie turns the figure over in wonder. It’s a long-haired woman eight inches tall, muddy brown and unglazed, mounted on a short pedestal of rough cement. The limbs are stubby, the body shaped in such a way as to suggest the woman’s wearing a robe. Thick lips have been painted on her face, and there are black dots for eyes, while a hairline crack runs around her waist. The thing looks crudely made, and Maggie’s surprised that it survived the journey intact. Setting it down, she turns to the letter and begins to read.

  August 13, 1972

  Dear Maggie,

  Enclosed is a gift for you made by a friend of mine, Yia Pao the potter, whom I mentioned the last time I wrote (“Yia” is an honorific given to Hmong men when they become fathers, in keeping with the race’s respect for parenthood). I fear he is at risk of falling in with bad company, so I have taken him under my wing. I like to think it due to my influence that he has begun to fashion the likenesses of saints. I told him Saint Clare was your favorite when you were a girl, because she was the patron saint of television, so he made you a statue of her. I hope she brings you comfort.

  I know I was wrong to leave for Laos in anger as I did. I should have seen sooner that you’re no longer a girl but a woman leading her life, and that your life is not with me. Now I am trying to make amends through service. “By their fruits you shall know them,” we are told. We’re all His vessels, sealed up in ourselves and opaque to each other but transparent to Him.

  Some would take the happenings in Laos as proof there is no God. I’ve seen the little moments, though, the generosity of strangers, the love of families, and find recurrent proof that God exists. In America we put our faith in technology and progress, but there are things that modern life doesn’t apprehend, a beauty not created by human hands, beauty that persists even when it can no longer be perceived.

  So much has happened since I wrote in May. I’d like to tell you about it, but I don’t wish to impose. I received no response to my last letter, and I have given up hope of a reply, concluding that you were telling the truth when you said you wished no correspondence. Indeed, Gran has mentioned that you said the same to her. However, she did provide the address to which I’m mailing this parcel. I hope you will forgive both her and me.

  With love,

  Your “Yia” (Dad)

  The first time she reads it, she’s barely taking in the words. Then she checks the parcel and sees it’s postmarked August 14, a week before his missed phone call to Gran. So the letter proves nothing about whether he’s all right. There’s no hint of anything to come, no mention of trouble, unless she counts the reference to Yia Pao falling in with bad company.

  Carrying the letter and clay figure to the kitchen, she sets them on the counter and dials Gran’s number. A man picks up. It’s Uncle Morley, and he turns sarcastic when he realizes it’s her, calling her the prodigal granddaughter. Then he says Gran has been sick. Just a stomach bug, but she got dehydrated. She’ll be out of the hospital by tonight, and the family is taking good care of her; Maggie shouldn’t worry her little head about it. He asks if she wants to leave a message, and she says no, desperate to get off the line. She’ll try again tomorrow when Gran’s back home.

  With the phone returned to its hook, she picks up the statue and takes it to the living room. When she was a girl, she and her father had a ceramic likeness of Saint Clare atop their television set, because it was said that placing one there was supposed to improve reception. Now she tries perching the clay figure on top of the silver TV. It takes some time before she can get the balance right. If Brid were here, she’d make some remark about hopeless superstitions, or perhaps she’d simply say that whatever gets them PBS is fine with her.

  That evening, George Ray doesn’t come to dinner for the second night in a row. Looking out from the mud room door, she can see his silhouette pass back and forth across the barracks window. She should tell him that Brid has left, that it’s safe for him to enter the house, but she stays inside and eats cold cereal standing up, then returns to cleaning. When she goes to the bathroom, she begins to close the door behind her before realizing she doesn’t have to. Leaving it open, she keeps an ear out for the telephone or a car in the drive. Right now Fletcher might be with Cybil. They could be eating at some fancy restaurant. He might be sleeping with her. Maggie should go and make a pass at George Ray to get even. No, it’s a petty thought. Besides, why does she think she’d have any more luck than Brid?

  It’s midnight before she gets into bed. Her chest hurts, her skin’s clammy, and she needs a cigarette. Sleep comes not as a drop into oblivion but as a glass plate slipped over consciousness, distort
ing the world. Something left undone—she can’t remember what, and she’s panicked at forgetting. A voice in the attic, low and hostile. What did it say? A train about to leave, too many people, her baggage lost. Searching on a beach littered with stranded fish. The train disappearing across the sea.

  When she wakes, it doesn’t feel like waking because it hasn’t felt like sleep. Her forehead’s slick with sweat. She tries to stand and her stomach revolts, her legs buckle; she just makes it to the bathroom in time. Stumbling back to bed, she pulls the sheets around her and shivers. It’s hours before she floats to the fever’s surface, and this time she has only reached the hall when the sickness overtakes her. Somehow she has the energy to clean it up. Then she sits in the bathroom and shakes awhile, weeping for herself, for her reduction to the status of a suffering thing. She should call somebody, but whom? George Ray? No phone in the barracks, and she couldn’t make it out there on her own like this. Fletcher. What could he do? It’s the middle of the night. There’s no one.

  Twice more she tries to rise, and each time nausea sends her into heaves, trying to expel something that isn’t there or can’t be dislodged. Her throat burns, and there’s a film of bile on her teeth. This is what it means to be alone. No one nurses you. No one finds your body till they come to read the meter. Then Fletcher will have to return and deal with the aftermath.

  The first light of morning slices through the blinds. Someone knocking on the front door. A dream? There it is again, faintly penetrating the fever’s gauze. She tries to call out, but her voice fails her. Pray, Maggie, pray. All the nuts and oddballs turn to prayer as a last resort. She doesn’t need a miracle, just a bit of strength; it doesn’t seem too much to ask. Even God must lose patience, though, with those who call only in their hour of need, not to worship but to bargain, despite their bad credit, proffering devotion in return for His love. It’s her father she wants. Not the man from the last months, intimate only with God. She wants the father from her youth, who stayed home from work when she was ill and sang to her. He’s the one who should be next to her now.