“What have you been doing?” I asked.
“I was walking down Yonge Street,” she said, “and I thought of the people I knew who are dead. What have I done with my life?”
I didn’t know what to answer.
“You have a son,” I said.
“Yes,” she said gently. “That’s what I have done with my life.”
The two sisters continued to ask me to small parties that they arranged for people separated or divorced. But I met Helen in the supermarket. I could not find the roasted peanuts in their shells. She was standing nearby. I asked her. And she walked over to show me where they were.
She was tall. Light blue eyes, a small fine nose, a small mouth, colour in her cheeks, short blond hair with a fringe. She smiled easily and had a pleasant voice. Because I detected a trace of an English accent in it I said, “Where in England are you from?”
“Devon—from Exeter.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Thirty-four years.”
“I’ve not long come from England.”
The next time I saw her was in a small cemetery. I was coming from my publisher. She was arranging flowers by a stone. “I don’t come here often,” she said. “It’s my husband’s birthday.”
“Shall we go and have some coffee?”
“My car is here,” she said. “Why don’t we go home?”
There were oil paintings on the wall, books, and black and white photographs of a handsome-looking man.
“He was a very private person,” she said. “It’s almost four years. He had come back from a business trip when he had a heart attack.”
She made me a cheese and tomato sandwich.
“I met Jimmy during the war. He was with the RCAF. We got married when the war was over and he brought me to Toronto. Then Jimmy’s father died. And he had to run the family business. We had a very good marriage for almost thirty years.”
Then she told me about her early life in England. How she was brought up by two grandmothers. The one in the city ran a theatre. The other, in the country, was a farmer’s wife.
“Why don’t you write it down,” I said. “It would make a good book.”
“I wouldn’t know how to go about it.”
“Talk into a tape recorder.”
“I can talk to you,” she said. “Leave me a photograph. That will help.”
“No, I’ll come up.”
That’s how it started. Twice a week I would leave the apartment and go there in the late afternoon. She would give me a drink. And talk into the tape. And I would ask her questions and she would answer. Then she would give me dinner. And do another hour of talking into the tape.
One evening there was a thunderstorm.
“Why not stay the night,” she said. “There’s a bed in the spare room or you can sleep with me.”
As I got into bed she said, “I bruise easily.”
Later she said, “I wanted you to know that you had a choice.”
Did I have a choice, I wondered.
It was very pleasant having breakfast together. Then walking, in the early morning, down Yonge Street.
After two weeks Helen said, “Why don’t you move in here? One room could be your study and where you work.”
“I’ll have to go to England first and settle things. Then I’ll come back.”
“The sooner the better,” she said.
The two sisters decided to buy a small coffee and cake store for their children. But the children were hardly there. Only Edith and Miriam. And they seemed to be enjoying themselves. As I came in Edith said, “You must have a croissant. They are the best in Toronto . . .” “Did you know Nick will be leaving us?”
“No,” I said. “But why—”
“He takes too many days off. He doesn’t do his work.”
Miriam came in. “You’re just the person I want to see. We are having a small party on Saturday night. There will be some interesting people.
Henry will be there—”
“I have come to say goodbye.”
“I don’t like goodbyes,” said Edith.
“Ella Fitzgerald used to sing:” I said,
Every time we say goodbye
I die, a little.
Every time we say goodbye
I wonder why, a little.
“That’s Lamartine,” Edith said. “Chaque fois qu’on se dit au revoir, je meurs un peu. Imagine being in a store like this in Toronto and quoting Lamartine.”
“I’m sure that in small stores in Toronto—Czechs are quoting from Czech writers, Italians, Hungarians are doing the same. The Portuguese here are quoting from Portuguese poets—” I noticed grey airplanes in the sky. I could see them from the store window. They were coming in all directions. I counted a Dakota, six Mustangs with their clipped wings, two Bostons, a Lightning, a Tiger Moth, another Dakota.
“They’re airplanes from the Second World War,” I said.
“It must be from a museum,” Miriam said in her flat voice.
I watched the low-flying planes. They looked so slow. Then they began to circle as if they were going to land.
I went outside to watch the airplanes and saw Nick coming across the car park. He was carrying a loaded shopping bag from the supermarket. I wanted to tell him about the airplanes. But he had his face down. As he came closer I could see tears in his eyes. I thought it was because he had lost his job.
“Tito is dead,” he said. And walked by.
The airplanes had disappeared. There was not a trace of their presence. Only a seagull flew low between two high-rises.
I was walking by the store that showed the time in the capitals of Europe when I saw Mrs. Kronick on her way back to the apartment. She had on a smart black and white suit and a large black hat.
“I’m leaving, Mrs. Kronick.”
She looked at me for a while. Then said, ”When I leave a person, I don’t care if I never see them again.”
“But what about those you love?”
“Of course,” she said, “with those you love there’s always regret.”
SOMETHING
HAPPENED HERE
I felt at home soon as I got out of the Paris train and waited for a taxi outside the railway station. I could hear the gulls but I couldn’t see them because of the mist. But I could smell the sea. The driver brought me to a hotel along the front. It was a residential hotel beside other residential hotels with the menu in a glass case by the sidewalk. It had four storeys. Its front tall windows, with wooden shutters and small iron balconies, faced the sea. On the ground level was the hotel’s dining room. The front wall was all glass. And there was a man sitting alone by a table.
It looked a comfortable family hotel. The large wooden staircase belonged to an earlier time when it had been a family house. The woman who now owned and ran it liked porcelain. She had cups and saucers on large sideboards, on every landing, as well as grandfather clocks and old clocks without hands. They struck the hour at different times. There were fresh and not so fresh flowers in porcelain vases. There were large mirrors, in wooden frames, tilted against the wall, like paintings. There were china plates, china cups, and china teapots on top of anything that could hold them.
My room on the third floor didn’t face the sea but a courtyard. I watched a short man in a chef’s hat cutting vegetables into a pot. The room was spacious enough but it seemed over-furnished. It had a large double bed with a carving of two birds on the headboard, a tall wooden closet, a heavy wooden sideboard, a solid table, several chairs, a colour television, and a small fridge fully stocked with wine, brandy, champagne, mineral water, and fruit juices. On the fridge was a pad and pencil to mark what one drank.
After I partly unpacked and washed I went down to the dining room and was shown to a table by the glass wall next to the man sittin
g alone. He was smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. He had on a fawn shirt with an open collar and a carefully tied black and white cravat at the neck. He also had fawn-coloured trousers. He looked like Erich von Stroheim.
The proprietress came to take my order. She wobbled, coquettishly, on high heels. Medium height, a little plump, in her late forties or early fifties perhaps. She had a sense of style. She wore a different tailored dress every day I was there. A striking person. She had a white complexion and black hair. And looked in fine health. Her teeth were very good. There was a liveliness in her dark eyes. Every time I walked by the desk and the lounge she never seemed far away: doing accounts, dealing with the staff, talking to guests.
I gave her my order in English. I ordered a salad, an omelette, and a glass of vin rosé.
When she had gone the man at the next table said in a loud voice, “Are you English or American?”
“Canadian.”
He began to talk in French.
Although I understood some of what he said I replied, “I can’t speak French well. I’m English Canadian.”
“I speak English,” he said. “I had lessons in Paris at the Berlitz school. My English teacher, she was a pretty woman, said I was very good because I could use the word ‘barbed wire’ in a sentence. My name is Georges.”
I told him mine. But for some reason he called me Roman.
“Roman, what do you do?”
“I am a writer.”
“Come, join me,” he said. “I like very much the work of Somerset Muffin and Heavelin Woof. Are you staying in this hotel?”
“Yes. I arrived a half-hour ago.”
“I live in the country. Since my wife is dead I come here once a week to eat. What do you write?”
“Short stories,” I said, “novels.”
“I read many books—but not novels. I read books of ideas. The conclusion I have come is that you can divide the people of the world. There are the sedentary. There are the nomads. The sedentary—they are registered. We know about them. The nomads—they leave no record.”
A young waiter, in a white double-breasted jacket, poured more coffee.
“Do you know Dieppe?”
“No, this is my first time here.”
“I will show you.”
And he did. When I finished eating he took me along the promenade. A brisk breeze was blowing but the sea remained hidden by mist. He brought me to narrow side streets, main streets, and squares. He walked with a sense of urgency. A short, stocky man, very compact and dapper, with lively brown eyes and a determined looking head. He had a bit of a belly and his trousers were hitched high up. He carried his valuables in a brown shoulder bag.
In a street for pedestrians only we were caught up in a crowd. It was market day. There were shops on both sides and stalls in the middle.
“Look, Roman, at the wonderful colours,” Georges said loudly of the gladioli, the asters, lilies, roses, geraniums. Then he admired the peaches, apricots, butter, tomatoes, carrots, the heaped strands of garlic and onions. He led me to a stand that had assorted cheese and large brown eggs, melons, leeks, and plums. And to another that had different sausages and salamis. On one side he showed me live brown and white rabbits in hutches. And laughed when, directly opposite, brown and white rabbit skins were for sale. The street fascinated him. He stopped often and talked loudly to anyone whose face happened to interest him.
We had a Pernod at a table outside a cafe that had a mustard and orange façade. He lit a French cigarette. I, a Canadian cigarillo. The pleasure of the first puffs made us both silent. Nearly all the tables were occupied, shoppers were passing, and music came loudly from a record store.
I asked Georges, “What do you think of Madame who runs the hotel?”
“Très intelligente,” he said, and moved his hands slowly to indicate a large bosom. “Et distinguée.” He moved his hands to his backside to indicate large buttocks. And smiled.
He had a way of speaking English which was a lot better, and more amusing, than my French.
He brought me inside an old church. He was relaxed until he faced the altar. He stiffened to attention, slid his left leg forward as if he was a fencer, and solemnly made the sign of the cross. He remained in that position for several seconds, looking like the figurehead at the prow of a ship. When he moved away he relaxed again. And pointed to a small statue of the Virgin with her arms open.
“Roman, the Virgin has opened her legs in welcome.”
I was feeling tired when we came out of the church. The train journey, the sightseeing, the conversation . . . but Georges walked on. He was heading for the docks. I said I would go back to the hotel, as I had some letters to write.
“Of course,” he said, “forgive me. You must be exhausted. Tomorrow, would you like to see where I live in the country? I will come for you after breakfast.”
And he was there, as I came out of the hotel, at eight thirty, sitting in a light blue Citroën, dressed in the same clothes.
“Did you sleep, Roman?”
“For eight hours.”
I could not see the sun because of the mist. But the surf, breaking on the pebbles, glistened. As he drove inland it began to brighten up. He drove fast and well. And he talked continually. Perhaps because he needed someone he could talk English to.
He said he had been an officer in the French navy. That in the last war he had been a naval architect in charge of submarines at their trials.
“I was at Brest, Cherbourg, Toulon, Marseille. My daughter was born when I was stuck in submarine in the mud. My wife told me the nurse came to say, “‘The baby she is lovely. But the father—it is dead.’” “And he laughed.
On a low hill, ahead, a large institution-like building with many windows and fire escapes.
“Lunatic asylum,” Georges said. “Full of patriots.”
The government, he said, had a publicity campaign for the French to drink more of their wine and appealed to their patriotism. After this whenever he mentioned anyone who liked to drink, Georges called him “a patriot.” And if anyone looked more than that, “Very patriotic.”
The asylum was beside us. A cross on top. And all the top windows barred.
“When I was a boy . . . this place made big impression. Before a storm . . . the wind is blowing . . . and the people in lunatic asylum scream. I will never forget.”
He drove through empty villages, small towns. He stopped, walked me around, and did some shopping. I noticed that the elaborate war memorials, by the churches, were for the 1914–18 war. The only acknowledgement of the Second World War was the occasional stone, suddenly appearing in the countryside, at the side of the road, that said three or four members of the Resistance had been shot at this spot.
“I have been to America,” Georges said. “I like the Americans. But sometimes they are infantile. Nixon—dustbin. Carter—dustbin.”
He drove up a turning road by a small, broken, stone bridge that had rocks and uprooted trees on either side. “There is a plateau,” he said, “high up. It has many meadows. The water gathers there for many rivers. Once in a hundred years the water very quickly goes down from the plateau to the valley and turns over houses, bridges, trees. Last September a priest on the plateau telephone the Mayor and say the water looks dangerous. But the Mayor, a young man, say it is only an old man talking. Half-hour later the water come down and drown thirty people and took many houses. It was Sunday so many people were away from the houses otherwise more drown. All happen last September. In a half-hour. But it will not happen for another hundred years. And no one will be here who knows it. The young won’t listen. They will, after some years, build houses in the same place. And it will happen all over again.”
In one of the large towns he stopped and showed me the cemetery where his family is buried. It was a vault, all stone, no grass around. Nor did any of the others
have grass anywhere. On the stone was a vertical tablet with two rows of de Rostaings. The first was born in 1799. “He was town architect.” A few names down, “He had lace factory . . . He build roads . . . See how the names become larger as we come nearer today.”
“Will you be buried here?”
“No. My wife is Parisian. She is buried in Paris. I will lie with her.”
He continued on the main road, then turned off and drove on a dirt road. Then went slowly up a rough slope until he stopped, on the level, by the side of a converted farmhouse.
“We are here,” he said.
We were on a height. Below were trees and small fields—different shades of green, yellow, and brown. Instead of fences or hedgerows, the fields had their borders in trees. And from this height the trees gave the landscape a 3-D look.
Georges introduced me to Marie-Jo, a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl from the next farm who did the cooking and cleaning during the summer. Short blond hair, blue eyes, an easy smile. She was shy and tall for her age and walked with a slightly rounded back. While Marie-Jo barbecued salmon steaks at the far end of the porch, under an overhanging chimney, Georges walked me around. In front of the house, under a large elm, was a white table and white chairs. It was quiet. A light wind on the small leaves of the two near poplars. “They say it will rain,” he said. And beside them a border of roses, geraniums, and lobelia.
We ate outside on a white tablecloth. I could hear people talking from the farm below. Further away someone was burning wood. The white smoke rose and thinned as it drifted slowly up. On top of the house was a small stone cross. A larger metal cross was embedded in the concrete of the front fence.
“I am Catholic,” Georges said. “There are Protestants here too. My sister married a Jew. A Pole. From Bialystok.”
Marie-Jo brought a round wooden board with cow and goat cheeses on it. And Georges filled my glass with more red wine.
“When I was young boy of seven we had great distilleries in my country. We hear the Russians are coming. We wait in the street. It is beginning to snow. But I do not want to go home. Many people wait for the Russians.
I Don't Want to Know Anyone Too Well, and Other Stories Page 26