Devotion

by Howard Norman

  “Dead opera singers turning in their graves, I imagine.”

  “My father-in-law doesn’t have much of a voice. But considering that after the accident he wasn’t much more than a bullfrog with laryngitis—”

  “What a thing, that accident. What a thing.”

  “I won’t ask you, Dory, what you know of all that. Let’s just say I’m aware Naomi Bloor stops into the bakery on a regular basis.”

  “Did you conjoin with that Czechoslovak woman or not?”

  “God, you are a direct person, aren’t you?”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yes, before Maggie and I were married. No, after.”

  Dory reached over and took a sip of David’s coffee. “Before is before. After would’ve been entirely different, eh?”

  “Dory—”

  “Sandwich bad?”

  “No, it’s fine. Dory—William told me. About you and him.”

  “When?”

  “When I was in the hospital. We were looking at Field family photograph albums. There were photographs of you in them. One subject led to another. I was getting morphine.”

  “I’d’ve asked for morphine myself, hearing that news. So now you understand why I wasn’t invited to the wedding. At least I got to bake the cake. That meant the world to me.”

  “Anyway—”

  “I bet William didn’t tell you, when Maggie called him out and she and Janice left for Halifax, William shot six swans with his father’s shotgun from Scotland.”

  “That can’t be true, Dory, the way he regards those swans.”

  “True as we’re sitting here. I’d seen Maggie and Janice drive past about five-thirty that awful day. I locked up the bakery and drove right over to try and iron things out with William. Just when I arrived to the estate, I heard the blasts, got out of my car and set out for the pond. William walked right past me like I was a ghost. I went down to the pond and saw the swans floating dead. One, two, three, four, five, six. Counting them was the most convenient response, I guess, before the deeper truth of it set in.”

  Dory closed her eyes and shook her head, as if trying to clear it, then opened her eyes, brimmed with tears.

  “You want me to sit with you awhile?” David said.

  “No. No, I’ve got my paperback. Coffee and sandwich are on me, please. Water’s always gratis.”

  David left the bakery.

  Maggie made another visit on October 25. Midafternoon, David looked through the kitchen window and saw William drive off in the truck. Maggie appeared on the lawn shortly after. David had drunk several cups of coffee after eating a cheese sandwich, and his head was buzzing a little. He quickly got his lens adjusted and was about to photograph Maggie as she carried a towel to the pond, but he stopped and said to himself, “How many photographs of the same thing do I need?” Maggie swam at one end of the pond, with the unperturbed swans at the other. When she emerged, toweled off and walked up the slope, David was entirely unprepared for what happened next. Maggie stopped about twenty-five feet from the kitchen window. Bending with stilted gracefulness, she slipped out of her bathing suit and stood naked, looking directly at David. She placed her hands on her belly. Her breasts were fuller now; her face was fuller; her very spirit seemed fuller to David. His wife was an enthralling vision; he felt bereft of touch. He set the camera down and stared. He’s without a clue—still taking my directive, she thought, when he should come out of the house and hold me. Maggie stood for a moment longer and then, towel wrapped around her, holding the suit, walked to the main house.

  On October 27, late in the morning, David drove to Truro General Hospital for a final set of x-rays, which revealed that his jaw had completely healed. When he got back to the estate, he saw the postal service van just leaving. He parked the truck in front of the main house. “Hey, David,” William called from the porch. “I want to show yon something.” David walked over. “The mail brought you good news the other day. Now it’s brought me good news. How about that?”

  “You referring to the letter you’ve got in your hand?”

  “It’s from Mr. Reginald Aston.”

  “Ah, the Queen’s swankeeper.”

  “The fellow you broke my appointment with, correct. We’ve been back in correspondence for two months, give or take. But David, I need to ask you something. When I was half dead in the streets of London, what did I say? I remember saying something.”

  “‘Tell Mr. Aston I’ll be late.’”

  “I said that?”

  “Word for word.”

  “When I first wrote him, I made my excuses. His reply proved he isn’t a man above accepting an apology. He asked after my health. And now he’s confirmed a new appointment.”

  “You’ll tell Maggie, I guess.”

  “Right away.”

  “She’ll be very happy for you.”

  “Of course, I’ll wait till the child’s born before flying to London.”

  William began to read the letter again. As David walked off, William said, “I’ve set a tape recorder on your kitchen table. Margaret asked me to. You’ll probably want to hear what’s on it.”

  David hurried to the guesthouse, pressed the Play button on the tape recorder, sat at the table and listened to Maggie’s voice:

  David: First off, apparently I didn’t mean enough to you that you would ever drive to my apartment here in Halifax and simply pound on my door until I answered or even wait out front of my building. Nor could you burden yourself to follow me to London or Amsterdam or anywhere else, once you’d found out which city the ensemble traveled to, which I know you did now and then because my faithful assistant Carol Emery told me. What sort of husband sorry for his actions would not do those things? What sort of husband? These are questions I’ve been asking myself. Have you asked them of yourself? Playing nursemaid to my father all these months—well, I’m sure it’s kept you busy. And I know he’s appreciated it, in his own way. In fact, I was glad you were there. But he’s been able to take care of himself for some time now, hasn’t he, and still you haven’t once been to Halifax exclusively to see me. You drove down to see a movie and a play with Naomi Bloor but not to see your own wife. Anyway, since you did whatever you did or didn’t do with whomever she was in your hotel room in London the very same day I departed our honeymoon for Halifax, I’ve gotten along. But I keep asking, lord in heaven, who is David Kozol to me now? My husband still on paper. Months back I actually listed the reasons I fell in love with you. One, I’d imagined you’d be capable of conversations always—you know, as we went through time together. Two, the bedroom was nice, got nicer in Islay, according to my lights, at least, so I imagined that into the future, too. Three, your understanding of how deep love could go, when you responded to that waitress on Islay. That was after our marriage, of course. But most important, I felt like myself. Comfortable with myself with you. None of this completed the whole picture, naturally, but that was my list, which I tossed out after writing it. Things like that are memorized in your heart anyway—you don’t need a piece of paper. Possibly we got married before we really knew each other well enough. But I never honestly felt that, and I still don’t. I certainly felt we knew each other very well on Islay on our honeymoon. Very well indeed. And I think now we have to begin a second marriage within the first one, which ended pretty fast thanks to you—but also, I admit, thanks to me not considering forgiveness. But I’ve been fuming. I simply refuse to hold my ignorance about you to blame. I read a Jewish proverb a few months ago, in Stefania and Izzy’s library, in a book of proverbs from all over the world. It said, “I’ll forgive and forget, but I’ll remember.” Maybe it originally pertained to some family grudge from biblical times, but I immediately applied it to us. Me toward you, I mean. Much just doesn’t matter anymore. Who what where when and why doesn’t matter so much anymore. I refer to the hotel room in London. What does matter is two decisions I’ve made. The first is, I’m naming the baby Stefania Field, and I am not soliciting your opinion. The n
ame is not meant to slight my mother, and I’ve told my decision to my father already and he approved. Secondly, if we decide to stay married, if that’s in the cards, we have to live separately. To put it bluntly, I’d like you nearby but not in the same house as Stefania Field and me for the three months I get off with pay from, the Dalhousie Ensemble. And I might ask for longer, though that’d be without pay. Plus, I’m not sure the DE could get along much longer than that without me. By the by, I asked Naomi Bloor in person if she ever slept with you. She’s an honest person. My father has invited me to stay in the main house. Stefania Field can have the same room I had as a child. You may stay in the guesthouse. I always find it peaceful at the estate. My mother, as you know, is buried by the stone wall. And naturally you should spend as much time with Stefania as possible, for her sake. It would be an accurate understanding of the situation to consider yourself a guest. My husband, a guest living in the guesthouse. Oddly enough, these last months I’ve had more or less a fairly normal time of it, nights crying myself to sleep included, I’m not ashamed to say. I’ve been to European capitals. You’ve been to Parrsboro and back umpteen times, I understand. What you did was so disappointing, there’s times it unnerves me. But I’m disappointing in all this too. But do you know what? We’re no more disappointing, I suppose, than life itself is sometimes. I realize just now that’s a sentiment I heard Stefania Tecosky express a long time ago. But no matter, I also believe it. When thinking of you causes me pain, I just think of Stefania Field about to be born. Just yesterday I wrote to Stefania and Izzy overseas and told them our daughter’s name. I’m going to the doctor today. Just a regular checkup. On my own, except not really, because no pregnant woman is really on her own, is she, if you take my meaning. Anyway, David, give a second marriage some thought. As will I.

  There was about a thirty-second pause, during which David stared at the tape, still turning on its spool. Then Maggie continued:

  One more thing for now. Remember the strange woman on Islay, driving by with the swan in her back seat? She’s settled in my mind a certain way. I know full well that on Islay she might be considered some old crazy. What did our waitress say? “She thinks that swan’s her dear departed husband”—warn’t that it? But my own personal conclusion is that I envy that old woman. To love someone so deeply and with such devotion you obviously have no choice in the matter but to keep seeing him in one form or another. I would like that for myself. To be married to a man I’d eventually feel that way about.

  A Phrase Favored by Her Mother

  IT WAS 6 A.M. and David lay in bed listening to the radio: “...the possibility of showers late in the day, especially in Cape Breton and...”

  He dozed off, woke again around 8:15, to Around the Province, a show out of Truro whose host, Jeffrey Paine, took calls from listeners on this or that topic. “The words ‘November’ and ‘heat wave’ make for strange bedfellows here in Adantic Canada,” Paine said. “Yes, sir, we have children still in short sleeves lined up for the school bus. My air conditioner’s acting so cool toward me, I don’t even know what I did to hurt its feelings! This heat’s affecting everybody So let’s hear from you. Whether your garden’s still producing summer squash, or you fear it’s due to a hole in the ozone layer, or whatnot, ad infinitum. The lines are open. I’m Jeffrey Paine and this is Around the Province for November 6, 1986, from the very center—the epicenter—the center of the center of the province, Truh-oh!” Paine’s agenda was fairly staid, but he used to have a rock ’n’ roll show and on occasion still lapsed into deejay chatter, referred to himself as “Jeffrey P,” offered the odd pop-culture reference (“Well, allow me to quote one of the Canadian gods, Mr. Leonard Cohen”) and so on.

  Maggie had been living in the main house for nearly a week. David knew that all considerations were focused on Stefania Field, officially due in three days. William had left a letter from Stefania Tecosky on his kitchen table, which in part read, We will arrive on November 6, hoping to be on time for the birth of Margaret and David’s daughter.”

  William picked up Stefania and Isador at Halifax Airport at 7 A.M. David knew they’d be at the estate any moment now. He should rouse himself, get his camera ready on the porch to chronicle their arrival, and he did sit at the edge of the bed, rubbing his face, thinking of coffee so intensely he could almost smell it brewing, though he hadn’t even ground his usual morning’s three cups yet. But then a call came in to Around the Province that caught his attention, and he sat there listening to it.

  “Jeffrey,” the caller said, “this is Carter Dorson in Truro.”

  “What’s on your mind today, Carter?” Paine said.

  “Well, if you read your Scripture, you might interpret a drought like we’re having as a warning. We’ve got to change our ways. Course, no original Bible story took place in Atlantic Canada, you don’t have to tell me that, but if you simply replace the names Sodom and Gomorrah with the name Halifax—what I’m saying is, something’s put the temperature way out of whack, and how people live down there might be why we’re all being punished—”

  “Slow down, there, Carter,” Paine said. “The fair city of Halifax?”

  Then David heard William’s truck. He switched off the radio, threw on his trousers, grabbed his camera, stepped onto the porch, quickly adjusted the lens and started to take photographs. William got out of the truck, reached in back and took down two suitcases, which he carried toward the house. Maggie came out smiling and embraced Stefania, then Isador, then stepped back and let them look at her recent shapeliness. Stefania kissed Maggie again. To David, Stefania and Isador looked a bit the worse for wear: it was a long journey for people their age, and according to what he’d observed on his honeymoon, the Tecoskys were already in declining health. Isador especially moved slowly. Yet they both looked tremendously pleased to be at the estate.

  Through the telephoto from his porch, David photographed Isador as he kissed his own fingers, reached up and touched the mezuzah, the ancient talisman nailed to the doorframe. Then Stefania touched it, and everyone went into the house.

  David sat on a porch swing for an hour or so, facing the main house, hoping for a glimpse of someone or something going on, an observer. Now I understand John Pallismore, he thought. But this was more: how would he get back into a life he never learned to fully occupy to begin with?

  Inside the main house, Maggie prepared a lunch of roasted chicken and garlic green beans, light on the garlic. When Maggie complained that the kitchen was too stuffy, William brought in a fan. “If I feel faint,” she said, “I’ll drink some water and lie down. But just now I’m fine, Dad. And I’m so happy. I can hardly believe Stefania and Izzy are here!”

  “Want to ask David over yet?”

  “No, I do not, thank you.”

  This was said while Stefania and Isador were freshening up in the downstairs guest bathroom. William had brought both of their suitcases to the master bedroom upstairs.

  “I never thought I’d be saying this in November,” William said at lunch, “but it’s warm enough to take a swim before dinner.”

  “That would be nice,” Maggie said. “The baby’s kicking up a storm. When I’m in the water, I can almost feel her relax.”

  Maggie on the living room sofa, Stefania and Isador upstairs, William in the guest room, each took a nap after lunch. David slept on the porch swing. At 5:30 William put on swim trunks and stepped out onto the lawn, where he found Stefania and Isador waiting, wearing their own swim outfits retrieved from a bureau drawer. Stefania’s was dark blue with a frilly skirt, which William recognized as prewar vintage. Her wrinkled, small body, white hair bobby-pinned without design. Isador had on a black suit that looked at least two sizes too big. The shoulder straps loose on his bony shoulders. Maggie then appeared, stepping down from the porch in her one-piece. “A fine afternoon for a swim,” she said, and the four of them set out for the pond.

  “Where’s David?” Isador said.

  “He’ll be back soon,”
Maggie said.

  David heard voices, woke with a start, went inside and photographed Isador, Stefania, Maggie and William through the kitchen window as they passed by. Mist had begun rising in wispy, wavering columns from the water. “The bank is slippery, so be careful now,” Maggie said.

  “Margaret says the bank is slippery,” Isador said into Stefania’s better ear. Then, speechlessly, they all held hands in a daisy chain and slowly entered the water, keeping each other in balance. Observing all of this, David thought, I’ll have to invite myself. He went into his bedroom, put on his Dalhousie University gym shorts. Everyone of importance to him was already in the pond.

  Yet invited or not, David hesitated at the screen door. He listened to their drifting voices. On no evening did the entire pond mist over evenly, and now he saw the cattails at the north end had almost completely disappeared. He waited another fifteen minutes or so, then walked down. He couldn’t see anyone. “Fog registered its ghostly imprimatur over the mortal life.” That, a sentence from Anatole France—he knew that much, yet couldn’t recall from which novel. The swans were silent, wherever they were.

  David made his way into the water. Through thickening mist he heard William’s voice: “...Naomi Bloor telephoned. Someone’s brought in a gun-shot swan. She’s got it eating, but one wing is useless. Naturally she wanted to know if we’d take it in.”

  “How can we not?” Isador said. “Of course. Yes.”

  “I’ll let her know, then,” William said.

  Silence, light splashing, then Isador said, “Stefania, I confess, on the hottest days, when you were off in Parrsboro, I’d swim in this pond without you. I hope you can forgive me.”

  “But Isador, certainly you kept your suit on,” Stefania said. “You’ve always been too modest that way.”

  “And when I went into Parrsboro?” Isador said. “On the hottest days?”