Ralph’s voice was a soft voice. It travelled with a lightness barely altered by the weight of the story he told. I often wanted to capture and examine and keep for myself the peculiar lightness of his voice. I hoped he would continue speaking so that I could listen longer to his voice, but I knew from the radio that the story he’d just told (which I’ve now told you) did not have another ending and stopped where it stopped, in a stairwell, though the sound of what had occurred in the stairwell must have carried through the air for quite some time, the acoustics of most stairwells being what they are.
While Ralph told me about the murder of the man with the hammer and I listened, the envelope intended for Clara Hodgkins dangled, undisturbed, taped to my door.
‘Do you think she’ll take it?’ Ralph asked, as he cleared away our soup bowls and salad plates, our cutlery and crumpled paper napkins.
‘I do,’ I told him.
He said he must leave, and he left, and I closed the door behind him. The door was made of wood except for its upper portion. Through this window I watched him unlock his bicycle from a metal post that was holding a red ‘stop’ sign in the air. When he had glided down the street and out of sight, I returned to my sofa.
Julia
My mother keeps asking, have I spoken with Clara? No, I tell her. Clara hasn’t got a telephone. But soon I’ll go knock on her door. If she doesn’t answer, I’ll leave a note, I promise. I promise Alice that I’ll visit Clara, and I want to visit Clara, and I am frightened.
I’ve been remembering The Day of the Mouse, the Needles, the Magic Show, and My Mother’s Imaginary Heart Attack. That would be the awkward title of the video I’d make, were I a videographer, and the opening image would be of a mouse dropped into the present by digital means, a very fat mouse snatched from twenty years earlier in my life. The Day of the Mouse, the Needles, the Magic Show, and My Mother’s Imaginary Heart Attack (a day so peculiar it deserves a title), as it unfolded a year ago, took on a weight of the sort impossible to explain. Elements of opaque significance converged. That day convinced me that my sister was more ill than I’d allowed myself to recognize until then. It also tempted me to believe in her visions.
First element uniting present and past: a round room, in a round building – Convocation Hall, University of Toronto. The mouse was obese. It stared down at us. We were over a thousand students. The mouse beseeched us from the screen at the front of the lecture hall. It did not know when to stop eating; a part of its brain had been removed. To make clear that the mouse was of monstrous size, the scientists had placed the swollen, furry animal on a metal tray, which held the creature aloft while its weight was measured and recorded. In its dark eyes I perceived perplexity. When I could no longer endure its gaze, I shifted mine. To know that the mouse’s suffering was wilfully imposed became unbearable. I felt I was about to faint and lowered my head between my knees. After a minute or two in this position, I got up and ran from the lecture hall.
Later, twenty years later, I returned to the same hall, not to attend a survey course in psychology, but to hear a pianist whose playing I adored. At every opportunity, I went to hear her. The pianist’s performance was listed as one of many diverse and brief offerings in a daylong program of entertainment that promised to include literary readings, talks on various subjects, musical acts, and even a magic show. Quite sure that I would not stay for more than a few presentations, I climbed to the balcony and selected a seat at the end of a row, one that I could leave from without causing a disturbance.
Soon enough the pianist appeared onstage. Her performance ended too quickly. I could have listened to her all day. Next, a magician, nervous and wearing a black velvet evening jacket several sizes too small, was introduced. He explained that the act he’d chosen was rarely performed. It dated from the nineteenth century and involved several needles, which he displayed, each of them stuck in a small cushion resting on the palm of his hand. He held his arm outstretched so we might see the needles clearly. In response to his request for a volunteer, a woman in the audience waved her hand. She was asked to join him onstage. The magician shook her hand, then indicated where he wished her to stand. The magician turned to the audience. ‘In a moment,’ he announced, ‘I am going to ask this gracious volunteer to take one of these needles and stick it in my eye. This will not hurt me, I assure you.’ I covered my ears, got up from my seat in the balcony, and ran down the narrow stairs that led to the main foyer and to a tall door that released me onto the sidewalk. I was delivered into the cool air of an early October afternoon. As my feet carried me to the nearest café, my breathing quieted but my mind remained agitated. I entered the café, secured a window seat, and ordered a cup of tea. Several minutes passed. The tea tasted soothing. Why I reached into my shoulder bag and turned on my cellphone, I don’t know. It was and is a device I keep with me but turned off, as a rule, unless I’m expecting a pre-arranged call. Why I took it out, I can’t say. Within seconds it started ringing, its frantic insistence designed to leave me no choice but to answer. I lifted it to my ear. My mother’s voice, breathless, pleaded for me to come as quickly as I could. She believed she might be having a heart attack. I asked her to describe her symptoms. Often she suffered from indigestion, which caused pains in her chest. Most real pain Alice endured with stoic calm, whereas imaginary catastrophes caused her to panic. Therefore, the more alarmed she sounded, the less inclined I was to take her seriously. Her description of her present symptoms convinced me that, despite her fear that her heart might stop beating at any moment, in truth it could withstand her emotions and was not in danger of stopping. Clara, she explained, had just walked out on her, threatening never to speak to her again. ‘What happened?’ I asked, as I got up and left the café, abandoning my tea on the table. Phone pressed to my ear, I walked along the sidewalk, headed for the nearest subway station. I repeated my question: ‘What happened? Did you say something to upset her?’
‘Clara came and then she left. Yes, I must have said something, I don’t know, something that upset her, yes, I suppose I must have, I don’t understand.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I’m not sure what exactly. Perhaps I mentioned Kathleen’s operation. Yesterday, my friend Kathleen came to see me, and the whole time all she spoke about was her eyes, and her fear of going blind, should the operation be unsuccessful. I told this to Clara. Clara asked what I’d been doing all day, and what I’d been doing was listening to Kathleen describe her fears, so out they came. Clara stood up, furious. She shouted at me. She’d warned me not to speak about eyes, she yelled, she’d warned me not to do so, not in her presence, not under any circumstances, and that if I did, she’d turn her back on me. As she ran down the front path, Clara called over her shoulder, ‘I want nothing more to do with you. Your promises are worthless. You can’t be trusted.’’
Through the telephone, which I held pressed to my ear, I listened to my mother sobbing. ‘It will be all right,’ I promised her. ‘Clara will calm down. She’ll speak to you again. Maybe not tomorrow, but she will. I’m on my way to your place. Breathe slowly. You are not having a heart attack. Does your chest hurt?’
‘Not now.’
‘Good. Sit down, breathe slowly. Clara will visit you once she’s less upset, and when she does you must not mention eyes, no matter what. If you feel pain in your chest before I arrive, call 911.’
I descended the stairs into the subway station, descended further to the platform, the train pulled in, and I slipped inside its reassuring confinement and certainty of purpose.
As I was climbing Alice’s front steps, she opened the door. She’d been watching for me. She stood in front of me weeping. She did not often cry. I pulled her to me and felt her shake in my arms. We went indoors, sat down, and I asked her the same questions I’d put to her on the telephone, to which she gave her same answers. When I suggested that she do so, she stretched out on her sofa, and I covered her with a blanket, set a glass of water on the side table, and hoped she
might sleep for a while.
My next stop was Clara’s apartment. From the outside, little appeared to have changed since the last time I’d visited. As before, an expanse of thick fabric hung in the wide window to the left of the door, ensuring that no curious eyes peer in. The moment I knocked, she opened the door.
‘I’ve come from Mom’s,’ I told her. ‘What exactly happened?’
‘She asked for it. She decided to torment me the way she’s always done. She couldn’t resist the pleasure of seeing me fall apart. I told her I was no longer willing to submit to her designs, that I’d given her the opportunity to show me she could behave, but she’d blown it. She’d done her best to destabilize me, ignoring my requests and warnings, treating me exactly as I’d asked her to refrain from doing. To add insult to injury, she had the nerve to pretend to be confused, as if my anger were unprovoked, a random bolt of lightning striking her innocent self. She’s quite the comedian.’
‘She mentioned eyes, and her friend’s operation?’
‘Don’t you start!’
‘I won’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Come inside, come on in.’
I stepped into Clara’s hallway.
‘I don’t want to upset you. I’ve not wanted to tell you this, but now that Alice has behaved the way she has, I’ve got no choice. She’s made it so I have no choice. I want you to understand why I can’t bear it when she mentions eyes. You remember when I was little, four or five years old, and I was sent for an operation? You’d have been one or two, so you probably don’t remember. But you’ve heard the story, I’m sure.’
‘Yes, I think I know the story. I got to wear your apron while you were away, and, according to Alice, I felt important and happy, standing on a stool, helping to wash the dishes, or rather splashing my hands about in a tub of warm water full of soap bubbles, which Alice put next to the sink. I’d stolen your role as helper, and I didn’t miss you. Or so the story goes.’
Clara took a breath. ‘And why can’t Mom help herself from telling it over and over? Well, it’s a convenient cover-up. What really happened is this. I wouldn’t hold still while Alice was reading to me. Alice took her pincushion and threatened me. She told me she’d stick a pin in my eye if I didn’t hold still. I must have continued to wriggle about because she acted on her words, using a sewing needle. To hide what she’d done, she claimed I had a lazy eye and sent me to the hospital, where the surgeons fixed my eye as best they could.’
I stood in my sister’s hallway, picturing the scene she’d just inserted into my childhood, a vision of horror in which my mother behaved with unfathomable cruelty. I could think of nothing to say. A few hours earlier I’d fled a pincushion-wielding magician. My sister believed in her tale, in its every detail. So unwavering was her faith in her vision that I wanted to defend it as real, and to do so with a ferocity equal to hers. But to credit her scenario would have required that I see a sociopath hiding inside Alice, our mother, and this I could not do. I remained silent.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Clara in response to my silence. ‘I didn’t want to have to tell you. But this time, she’s given me no choice. There’s a lot more, best forgotten. I try to keep you safe from the rest of what she did, the other tortures she used on me. Things with insects you don’t need to know about. I do my best to spare you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Julia.’
‘You needn’t be sorry,’ I told her, but looked away.
‘I’ll talk to her again,’ Clara offered. ‘Not yet, but in a few weeks, if she can behave. Please tell her that if she can behave, I’ll talk to her, but if she pulls this sort of shit again, I’m done with her.’
‘I’d better get going.’
‘Thanks for coming over. I’m sorry you’re stuck in the middle of this.’
‘Yes, well. That’s how it is. I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll let Alice know that you may be willing to speak with her again, and that she must not mention subjects that you’ve asked her to avoid.’
I went down the steps to the sidewalk and turned left. I could have headed in the opposite direction, as I had no destination in mind. My sister is insane – this idea landed like a large magnet in the centre of my consciousness and drew everything toward it: the aged maple trees, the advancing clouds, the bus shelter, the shorn grass, the narrow houses pressed tight, and the passing cars. Why, I wondered, had I resisted recognizing her madness until this moment? What obstinacy had prevented me from seeing her clearly? No singular answer offered itself. I would have to pick at the multiple strands of my fears and loyalties in order to comprehend my failure to perceive the obvious. But nothing about Clara was obvious.
Daisy
F. H. Homsi’s manuscript waits for me on the sofa, and within the manuscript waits ‘The Tale of Our Lady Namlush.’ Also, ‘The Tale of the Girl and the Judge.’ Which of these two Syrian stories disturbs me more? I can’t decide.
The envelope for Clara Hodgkins was taken three days ago. I must have been in my kitchen, balancing on one foot with the help of my two crutches (I’ve exchanged the cumbersome security of my four-legged walker for the relative ease and speed of crutches), when Clara came up onto my porch, tore off the tape, and removed the envelope. Now, I am waiting for her answer.
This morning the surgeon and his assistants examined the leg. Aileen Baird drove me. At the hospital, a young man sliced lengthwise through my cast, using an electric tool that resembled a vibrating pizza-cutter. Next, he pried open the carapace using long-handled pliers, and there lay the larva leg, pale and bloated.
The cast is now gone and the limb wrapped in skin only, but because the limb cannot bend, my brain insists that the cast is present. The limb must not support my weight – about this the surgeon is adamant. No fraction of my weight must be permitted to press down through the left tibia.
My thumbs inch along the red line where the surgeon, twelve weeks ago, made his sinuous cut. I press the no-man’sland of numbness flanking the incision. I’ve been instructed to work the scar free of the tissue beneath. I put on my glasses, lower my head, examine the dark remnants of scab, which mark the prior progress of staples that clutched and held. My head is a space capsule hovering above a lunar surface made of epidermis. More disturbing than the leg’s visible cutaneous devastation is the dull sensation where damaged nerves fail to convey the presence of my exploring fingers.
This morning, I went out into the world. It was necessary. Had I refused to venture out, they could not have removed my cast. Carried at great speed in Aileen Baird’s car, I slowed my breathing while the leg stretched the length of the back seat. Perhaps we were not travelling fast. Having lived three months in immobile solitude, how am I to judge the speed of a car? Measurements of velocity, meaningful to others and generally agreed upon, now strike me as arbitrary. Soon, I told myself, you’ll be home again and safe; the street life that you are witnessing through the windows of this car does not concern you. The injured needn’t join in. For now, you are exempt. Breathe slowly: you are allowed to hide, as long as your extraordinary friends are willing to attend to your needs. When you’ve consumed their willingness, you will have to cope on your own. You’d be wise to start learning. Begin by teaching the leg to bend. Gentle, the surgeon insisted, gentle motion. Let the leg, newly freed from its fibreglass cocoon, hang over the edge of the sofa. Trust in gravity to pull the foot slowly in the direction of the floor. After a few minutes, or when the discomfort becomes intense, stop. Rest the leg. Begin again. Allow it to hang. Trust. Every few weeks it will bend an inch more. The force of gravity will work for you.
While I rest between rounds of exercises, let us listen, dear reader, to ‘The Tale of Our Lady Namlush,’ as told by F. H. Homsi.
One evening, long, long ago, Namlush was adjusting her spinning wheel when her needle fell into the fire. She burst into tears and cried out, ‘Oh, what a dull, interminable night this will be, now that my needle is lost and I cannot spin! Not only must I sit here with nothing to occupy me, but nobody is here t
o witness my sorrow!’ Soon afterwards, her wise and gentle husband, Baghuth al-Baraghut, came home. Sensing his wife’s distress, he asked, ‘What makes you so sad, my beautiful one?’ Namlush explained what had befallen her. ‘But that is simple to fix,’ her husband said, and he threw himself into the fire to retrieve her needle. The flames consumed him in seconds. Of Baghuth al-Baraghut nothing remained but ashes. Overcome by sadness, and anger, Namlush yanked out a fistful of her hair. Then she sat on her doorstep, her eyes red, and she waited. A crow, swooping low, asked, ‘Namlush, why is your hair all tangled?’
She looked up and answered, ‘Namlush has not combed her hair because Prince Zikri has burned to death while attempting to retrieve a needle.’
Hearing this, Crow, weighed down with regret, landed on a branch of a tree and said nothing. The tree, surprised by Crow’s silence, asked, ‘Crow, why have you gone mute?’ To which Crow answered, ‘I am mute, and Namlush neglecting her hair, because Prince Zikri has died in a fire, searching for a needle.’ The tree, shocked and saddened, shed its leaves. River, seeing Tree naked, enquired, ‘From what are you suffering, Tree?’ Tree responded, ‘Crow is silent, Namlush unkempt, and Prince Zikri has been gobbled by flames because of a lost needle.’ River, much distressed, became murky. Goat, bending her head to drink, asked, ‘River, what is troubling you?’ River replied, ‘I am made murky by seeing Tree bare, hearing Crow silent, knowing Namlush unkempt, and Prince Zikri dead in the arms of a fire for attempting to recover a needle.’
The goat, infuriated, knocked her horns against a rock until they broke. ‘Goat, why have you broken your horns?’ asked the goatherd, arriving too late to stop her. Goat replied, ‘My horns are broken, River murky, Tree bare, Crow silent, and Namlush unkempt, because Prince Zikri has been burned to a crisp while retrieving a needle.’
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