Once inside, I lit a second lantern and placed the two at opposite ends of the worktable, and this made for adequate light. I started in on the toboggan long promised to a Mr. and Mrs. Kormiker, originally from Iceland but now living in Copenhagen. Mr. Kormiker was in banking. On a visit to Halifax they'd seen my uncle's brochure, probably in one of the hotels. It was very professionally done, that brochure, not inexpensively produced, either. Steven Parish had provided drawings of sleds and toboggans, as he had done for his own brochure of iron works—fireplace tongs, candelabra, stovepipes and such—that he forged on commission.
Now, Marlais, you might ask, why start up again with this particular toboggan?
Because while going through all the correspondence, I'd read the letters that Mrs. Kormiker had sent to Donald and Constance. Eleven letters in all, each cordial and filling no more than three-quarters of a single page of personal stationery. Her written English was excellent. In one letter she wrote, "Our granddaughter is now two years of age. Is it possible to have a toboggan made by your hand delivered for her sixth birthday?" This letter was dated April 11, 1941—the war had allowed it to cross the Atlantic. What most struck me was the faith that a simple transaction in life, with patience—because think how far in advance they were planning—could eventually take place between people an ocean apart. A bargain had been struck, and I'd inherited an obligation. I felt desperate to do some small dignified thing. What's more, I figured that if the granddaughter was two in 1941, that meant if I worked hard on the toboggan, I might not be all that late.
Mr. and Mrs. Kormiker wanted a 12-by-3-foot three-board called a dog toboggan, with an upright backboard. I had to hire Steven Parish to forge the triangular hitch with handle. I'd been concerned he wouldn't want to do the work for me. But as it turned out, he was noticeably only a little less friendly than he'd always been, which wasn't too friendly at all. He looked at my rough sketch of the toboggan and said, "Sure, I'll make the hitch. But I'll make it because Donald said you were a proper nephew to him, for the most part. But you have to pay me before I start."
Parish made the hitch with handle in two days. When I went to pick it up, he said, "Bring me any work you need done, Wyatt, and I'll do it. By the way, I've been up to Dorchester five or six times. Bleak place, eh? I made Donald a candle holder for Christmas last year. I never thought to ask if they allow him candles. Anyway, Donald's getting by."
Though the Kormikers' toboggan could be pulled by hand, it was really designed to be tied to a haul rope or reins. And they also wanted an attachable cargo box, so their granddaughter could fit snugly inside. There'd be plenty of room for quilts or blankets or overcoats in there, too, I learned from one of Mrs. Kormiker's letters: she and Mr. Kormiker had made their choice on the basis of sketches of five different types of toboggans my uncle had sent them.
And that's what I spent three full days and nights doing. Little sleep, no radio. My uncle had already fashioned the bow to three feet of curl. What was left for me to do was sand and attach the crosspieces, hinge the backboard behind the next-to-last crosspiece, and build the slush board my uncle had promised as an "extra." In addition, I had to build the cargo box from scratch, including gunwales, eyebolts and hinges. I had to fix the runners. Finally, I had to shellac the entire thing, curl to stern.
On my third morning of work, I completed the toboggan at about six A.M., but I hadn't been able to feel the tips of my fingers as I applied the shellac, because they were raw and numb from hours of sanding. My uncle had jars of salve for immediate relief after such long bouts. The salve was from Norway. I worked some into each of my fingertips but didn't feel that, either.
The toboggan weighed about thirty pounds. I set it across two sawhorses to allow the architecture to settle and plugged in an electric fan to help dry the shellac. It looked just fine. I recalled how when we finished a sled or toboggan, or the occasional horse-drawn sleigh, Donald would pour us each a shot of whiskey and we'd clink glasses and he'd say, "One down, and if we're blessed, ten thousand to go." I cleaned the tools, hung them in place, tidied up the shed and went in to wash up at the kitchen sink. Then I drove into town.
But instead of stopping, I drove past the bakery and on to Parrsboro and, as I thought I might, saw Tilda out on the end of the dock. If anything, it was raining harder than during the night, and it had rained all night. Now rain blew fiercely in from the Minas Basin. Half a dozen trawlers pulled at their tie ropes and knocked against the pylons. It was quite the storm, and yet there was Tilda, dressed in a rain slicker, dungarees, galoshes and a fisherman's hat tied under her chin, right out in it. To me the remarkable thing was that three men—I recognized Todd Branch and his neighbors Ralph and Alvin Drakemore, all from Upper Economy—just went about their business. They weren't going to head out in this weather and were battening things down on the deck of their trawler, shouting words I couldn't make out. They completely ignored Tilda, or so it seemed at first. But then Todd Branch went below, emerging with, of all things, a steaming cup of molasses tea, or coffee or cocoa or whatnot, and brought it to Tilda, and cupped Tilda's hands in his as she lifted the drink to her lips, as if he was helping a person to recover her strength after a deathly illness. The other two men didn't even look up. Tilda took another sip, nodded to Todd Branch and turned away from him. She went back to tasting the rain in her cup and talking to Hans Mohring. Todd stepped onto the deck of his boat. It seemed to me he carried out all of this like it was matter-of-fact, no more than a recently added chore. How many mornings had he brought a hot drink to Tilda?
The moment I stepped into the bakery, Cornelia set a cup of coffee and a cranberry scone in front of me, without my having asked for either. She sat down opposite me at the table closest to the window. "Look at that, will you?" she said. "Wind blew mud all the way in and my perfectly clean window's not perfectly clean anymore." She took a bite of toast.
"I saw Tilda at the Parrsboro Wharf just now," I said.
"You know, I thought that was your car going by."
"There she was. Just like you said."
"I saw her out there three mornings ago, and guess what?" Cornelia said. "Some schoolboys were taking potshots at whichever birds — cormorants mostly. And all at once, Tilda reached over and grabbed that rifle and took a few potshots of her own. Of course she missed everything except the water, but the sight made me laugh so hard. I was on my way back from picking up cranberry preserves from Mrs. Gerard's in Parrsboro when I saw that."
"I think she might've seen me," I said. "I hope she didn't think I was spying on her or something."
"You just gave in to curiosity, Wyatt. That's pretty human of you, and besides, Constance Hillyer confided in me."
"Confided in you what?"
"Confided in me about your feelings for Tilda," Cornelia said. "Look, Tilda's been a widow for merely a couple years. And I suppose life's as bewildering to her as it would be for any war widow, of which there's recent thousands, eh? Do you know, she spends half the night in the library, due to Mrs. Oleander's tolerance and hospitality. That's her narrowed horizons. House, wharf, library. Know what else? I think Tilda forgot how to sleep. I hear her playing the gramophone upstairs."
"Anyway, my feelings for Tilda, as you call them?" I said. "They aren't in the least well met by her. How could they be? I put her husband out to sea, may he rest in peace, and I mean that. So my feelings are hardly the thing that'll solace her, if that's what you're saying."
"I'm saying what I just said, that's all."
"She must've been even more in love with Hans than I thought."
"No denying, Hans was allowed all her beloved places, village she grew up in to pillow talk, all so soon after they met, too. It fairly took your breath away."
"I thought about that night and day. In prison, I mean. Thought hard about that. And about other things, of course."
I tried lifting the cup of coffee Cornelia had brought to the table, but I dropped it and it smashed on the floor, coffee splatterin
g.
"My goodness," she said, "you're a clumsy oaf this morning."
"Sorry. I worked on a toboggan all night. All that sanding numbed my fingers."
"Want another cup?"
"No thanks."
I picked up the pieces of the cup and put them in the wastebasket. Cornelia handed me a sandwich wrapped in a napkin. "It's halibut, onion, tomato and mustard," she said. "You put that in the larder, eh? I doubt anyone's making you lunch these days."
"Thank you. I'm a bit short of money just now, though."
"Do I look like a debt collector to you, Wyatt?"
"No, you don't, Cornelia. Thank you for the sandwich."
"Tilda should be back any minute."
"She'll come see me if and when she wants. I think that's best."
"I hope you try and make a go of your uncle's business, Wyatt."
"I got that toboggan finished, didn't I?"
Much of the rest of the day, not counting the time it took to eat the sandwich, wash some clothes in the sink, rinse and hang them to dry on a length of twine I'd rigged taut in the pantry, with three buckets side by side underneath to catch any drip, I drew up a rough design for a box in which to send the toboggan to the Kormikers in Denmark. Under a tarpaulin in back of the shed there was more than enough plywood to build it to adequate dimensions. The construction itself took about two hours. When I inspected the results, I thought, If I'm honest about it, this thing looks like a long coffin. A rueful, though not all that original, observation. And then your mind sometimes doesn't stop to charitable purpose: I thought, I'm sending this coffin to Denmark, a toboggan inside, whereas Hans didn't get even this much.
There was rain and more rain, and it was dark all afternoon, more a deepening of the morning's darkness, really. It felt like the Minas Basin had gotten an early start on summer storms, impatient for the turbulence. I put a pot of tea on to boil and listened to many gramophone records in a row. In prison, this was something I daydreamed of doing, and one time asked a guard, Mr. DeForge, "Who do you like more, Beethoven, Chopin or Vivaldi?"
"I'll personally drag you out of that cell and stuff you up your own asshole," he said, "you ever ask me that kind of question again."
I'd just put on Beethoven's Sonata in F Major when the telephone rang in the kitchen. I looked at the clock: 1:20 A.M. I picked up the receiver and said hello, and Tilda said, "Wyatt, there's two crows somehow got into the library. They're in the library right now. Listen—"
She apparently held the telephone receiver in midair, because I heard a definite cawwwrrrruuup loud and clear. "Hear that?" she said. "I can't read with this going on. I can't concentrate. I'm going crazy. A drawer in the card catalogue was left open a crack, and a crow plucked a whole bunch of cards right out. The other crow watched from Mrs. Oleander's desk."
"Tilda, are you asking me to drive over?"
"I've told you about these crows —do what you want."
I got to the library in maybe ten minutes. Lightning over the Minas Basin. Opening the library's front door, I heard a crow's weird voice. I left the door open. By the light of a floor lamp next to the overstuffed chair, plus shadow-flickering light cast from the fireplace, I saw Tilda in stocking feet in the corner, dressed in dungarees, a pale blue shirt and a black button-down sweater. And she was wielding a mop.
"That one crow there just shat on Mrs. Oleander's desk," she said.
"How'd they get in, do you think?"
"I'm pretty sure the wind knocked out a window upstairs. This library's got an attic, you know."
"No, I didn't know that."
I saw the file cards all over the floor. One crow was still on Mrs. Oleander's desk, silent. The other was on the long reading table, producing coughs and clicks, tearing out the page of a book, holding the cover open with its claw. I took off my shoes and threw one at this crow, who dodged the shoe and fluttered up, page in its beak, landing on Mrs. Oleander's desk. Both crows hopped about. I threw my other shoe, this time striking one crow, and both flew right at Tilda, who waved her mop, redirecting them out the front door.
Tilda slammed shut the door, then slid to the floor, laughing as hard as I'd ever known her to laugh. I threw myself onto the overstuffed chair and said, "Some life you've got now, Tilda. I see you've given up on people altogether. It's just you and books at night and crows, huh?"
"I telephoned you, didn't I? Damsel in distress and all that."
"That's never been you and never will be."
"Think what you want."
We looked at each other a moment, then Tilda said, "Before those birds flew in, you know what I was reading, maybe for the tenth time?"
"I've never read anything for the tenth time. Which book?"
"In a German Pension, by Katherine Mansfield."
"How far along were you?"
"Page four. Then all hell broke loose."
"I should leave you to your reading, then."
"Want to hear it, Wyatt?"
"Want to hear what?"
"In a German Pension."
"The whole thing?"
"I'm ready and willing."
Tilda sat in the overstuffed chair on the right side of the fireplace. I added a few logs to the fire and brought Mrs. Oleander's chair close to the left side of the fireplace. Both chairs now faced the fire at an inward slant. When the flames steadied, we could hear rain hissing in the grate.
Tilda opened the book and said, "The first story's called 'Germans at Meat.' Once I start reading, don't interrupt me, Wyatt. I never interrupt myself when I'm reading alone, and I prefer it that way."
"I always wanted to be read to."
"Then this is your big moment."
She moved the floor lamp closer, settled back into the chair and began to read: "Bread soup was placed upon the table. 'Ah,' said the Herr Rat, leaning upon the table as he peered into the tureen, 'that is what I need.'"
Why do I still remember those sentences, Marlais? For the next three hours—at least that long—Tilda read story after story. Besides "Germans at Meat," I remember the titles of two others, "The Child-who-was-tired" and "The Sister of the Baroness," but I think there were thirteen in all.
She read each one with the same dedication.
"Well, that's that, then," Tilda said when she'd finished. "I see you're still awake, Wyatt." She set the book down on the hassock. A silence fell between us, not just defined by being in a nighttime library, or noticeable because rain drumming on the roof drowned out most other sound. No, it was something else altogether. It was as if a fleeting chance was presented us by mute angels—to reference a hymn—who couldn't later report us to God even if they'd wanted to. Tilda and I seemed to have been, for a brief time, offered a secret life, sequestered, outside the scrutiny of our neighbors in Middle Economy, a safe haven from all recent ghosts. True, no dictionary definition of love might apply to what happened between us that night, but my choice is not to consult a dictionary. Whatever else, we didn't worry to near madness what was to be done with our bottled-up emotions. There we were, in a room without any history between us, a room we'd never been in together before. It took place only that once, ending with daylight, pale in the rain-streaked windows. Clothes scattered. Fingertips less numb. The desk lamp still lit.
Marlais, father-daughter decorum insists that I not describe any more. Besides, I'd be too embarrassed, even in a letter. However, I'll risk mentioning that when you were six months old, the three of us were in the kitchen, and Tilda looked across the table and said, "In the library that night, when we sat in the overstuffed chair, tucked together like we were, I knew the moment our daughter was conceived."
You were born six pounds eight ounces at Truro General Hospital, 11:58 P.M. on March 27, 1946. Cornelia Tell and I were called in from the waiting room to see you, all of half an hour old, held in your mother's arms. You were named Marlais Constance-Hillyer. Marlais, after Marlais Winterhew, the author of The Highland Book of Platitudes. Tilda chose the name.
Your
mother was the love of my life. I was not the love of hers. You became the love of both of ours.
The Rooms above the Bakery
MARLAIS, AT MY KITCHEN table here at 58 Robie, I'm looking at the Monday church bulletin from Middle Economy dated October 25, 1948, and the heading reads: DANISH CITIZENS VISIT MIDDLE ECONOMY.
Marcus and Uli Mohring, now officially Danish citizens, arrived to Middle Economy by bus on Friday, October 15. Since you were about two and a half years old at the time, you probably don't—do you?—remember meeting them at the bus in Great Village. It made all the sense in the world when Tilda requested, during the few days Mr. and Mrs. Mohring set up in the house, that I keep to the shed during the day and stay in the rooms above the bakery at night. As a result, I never so much as caught a glimpse of them. Best for everyone. Naturally, their presence caused a lot of local curiosity and astonishment. It resurrected much sadness, too.
Until the magistrate's hearing took place in the library back in 1942, Donald, Constance, Tilda, Cornelia and I were the only ones who knew much about Hans. Since then, two newspaper hacks had attempted to write about the murder in Middle Economy "during the war," but nobody in the village gave them enough time, information or opinions to support a feature story. One reporter, Abigail Montrose, said in a brief article in the Mail, "The citizens of that outport generally met my inquiries with cold politeness." Now and then somebody stopped into the bakery and asked Cornelia where "the house where the murder took place" could be found. Or words to that effect.
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