What Is Left the Daughter

by Howard Norman

  "Yep, once was too often for my taste," Cornelia said. "My attitude is, serve them something to eat, let them pay for it, and don't tell them a goddamn thing. If that goes smoothly, fine. But if they don't want anything to eat, I say the townspeople aren't here to provide a dog-and-pony show." One morning I was in the bakery, this was in August 1946, I think. A middle-aged couple —Cornelia said they were from Halifax—were just leaving. They had unfriendly expressions on their faces, no doubt because they'd dealt with unfriendly Cornelia. When I sat down at a table, Cornelia said, "I'd bet that in Halifax a tour of houses people got murdered in would take longer than the five minutes it'd take in our little village, don't you think?"

  "I'd bet whatever you'd bet, Cornelia, and add ten dollars," I said.

  "Besides which, that man and wife who just left didn't order as much as a scone to share between them. You know what I offered them gratis, though?"

  "No, what?"

  "Offered to show them the door."

  You may wonder, Marlais, about the history behind Marcus and Uli Mohring's coming to visit. Well, in May of 1947 Tilda had received a letter from Uli Mohring, in which she wrote, "My husband and I would like to see Dalhousie University, where Hans was so happy, and the village of Middle Economy." Tilda wrote them back directly. When a second letter arrived stating their travel dates, Tilda told them to Reverend Witt, which, in terms of getting the news around, was like having their plans broadcast on the radio.

  Mr. and Mrs. Mohring's visit fell on a weekend. They attended church. Reverend Witt acknowledged them from the pulpit but didn't refer to their son in his sermon. No need to, since Hans's murder was no doubt what all the parishioners had in their thoughts, no matter what the subject of the sermon was. "Certainly, seeing them in our church caused a once-in-a-lifetime bunch of emotions," Mrs. Oleander said to Cornelia the next morning in the bakery. "And I was shoulder to shoulder with Mrs. Uli Mohring, third pew from the front. That's not something I'm likely to forget."

  In the kitchen above the bakery late that Sunday afternoon, October 17, Tilda told me that Uli and Marcus Mohring had made an impression as nice people. "They're taking naps now," she said. "Mrs. Mohring is fifty-nine and Mr. Mohring's sixty-three. They have accents much thicker than Hans's was. Following the sermon and hymns, right there in the pews, they sat with twenty or so people, maybe more. They actually apologized—can you believe it?—if anyone was made ill at ease by them. Here's what else they said: 'It was very difficult traveling here. We had third-class steamer passage. But we only wanted to see where our son spent his last days. We wanted the opportunity to tell you what a good person he was. He was a good, serious student. We received a letter from Hans. It took a long time to reach us. It said he was married. That he married a Canadian young woman. We hoped to meet her.' And when they passed around photographs of Hans as a young boy, Mrs. Oleander got choked up. So did Reverend Witt. So did Charlotte Butler, from the sewing shop, and her husband, George, got choked up, too." Tilda stopped talking a moment in order to catch her breath. "And those aren't exactly sentimental types, the Butlers especially. Goodness, they were sobbing up to the rafters, the Butlers were."

  "You don't have to tell me any of this, Tilda," I said.

  "There is more to tell, but if it's all the same to you, I'll keep it to myself. One other thing, Wyatt. I read Uli and Marcus my obituary, and they helped me write it better."

  "Write it better how?"

  "Details from Hans's childhood. Some other facts, too. They want to see that their son is well served. Reverend Witt's going to finally put it in the church bulletin. Sunday next, he promised. Better late than never, I suppose."

  "Did they ask about—"

  "They already knew who'd done what, from my original letter, back from when you were in Rockhead. No, they only wanted to speak about their son and meet me." She stared out the window. "Hans looked a lot like his parents, my goodness. He had the same way of walking as his father, same eyes and eyebrows, but his mother's mouth and smile. And Hans was taller than his dad."

  "Difficult, I bet, for you to see Hans in them like that."

  "No. You have no idea how happy it made me."

  "How did they take to Marlais?"

  Tilda didn't respond right away. Instead, she got up and steeped a pot of tea. I went into the bedroom and found you sitting on the bed, Marlais. You had sheets of paper spread out, and you were drawing funny faces of people, though some had cat whiskers. I put Chopin on the phonograph and went to the kitchen. Tilda set a cup of tea in front of me. She poured her own cup, carried it to the table and sat across from me.

  "We four sat together in the kitchen of my house—me, Marlais, Mr. and Mrs. Mohring," she said. "And Mrs. Mohring held Marlais on her lap, and they were peas in a pod, let me tell you. I never heard Marlais so chatty. They drew with crayons on napkins, at first nothing but silly likenesses of each other. But then Uli asked Marlais to draw a picture of her family. And Wyatt, that picture turned out to include just me and Marlais."

  "And I was nowhere in sight—on that napkin."

  "Well, your car was there."

  "Maybe that meant I was in the shed working."

  "That's anyone's guess."

  Tilda sipped her tea slowly and we listened to the music. You walked into the kitchen then, Marlais, and showed us a drawing you'd done of some boats and a big sun overhead, with long sun rays sticking out, but only at the top like porcupine quills. You were in stocking feet and had on a button-up shirt and overalls.

  "That's wonderful," your mother said, and gave you a hundred kisses, you giggling the whole time. When you went back to the bedroom, Tilda said, "I wanted to talk with Uli Mohring alone, so Marcus took Marlais for a walk."

  "So you and Mrs. Mohring had a nice talk, did you?" I said.

  "Talked and talked, yes we did."

  "Well, good."

  "The thing is, Wyatt, at one point Uli Mohring smoothed out the napkin on the table—you know, the one with Marlais's family portrait on it. 'Tilda, dear,' she said. 'You have not once mentioned the father of this lovely child. Why not come live with us in Denmark?'"

  "That was direct."

  "Well, if something's to the point, a point's been made."

  "And you said, on my behalf?"

  "It's not what I said, Wyatt, it's what I thought. What I thought was, I'd be surprised if I couldn't fit everything Marlais and I would need in my mother's wardrobe trunk."

  You know, Marlais, so much is difficult to tell you, but it's the truth.

  I never believed in the phrase "it all comes back to me now," because not all of anything that happened in the past comes back whole cloth. But I do clearly remember that scarcely five minutes after we brought you home from hospital, you fell asleep in the crib I'd made. Tilda had done a splendid job of setting up her old room as your nursery. You'd wake, fall asleep again, wake. Your little lungs were like bagpipes. You cried loud and clear, wild forceful opinions without words. Tilda and I tried to resist holding you every time you cried, because Cornelia had warned us that if we did, from the start we'd come to see our child as a constant emergency. Still, not rushing to the nursery seemed against all natural instincts.

  All that first night, your mother and I stayed up. We played gramophone records and talked—kept the bottles of baby formula warm, sterilized the rubber nipples in boiling water before feeding you—probably about as intimate as we'd ever be without touching. Mainly, we talked about how difficult it might be to raise you in Middle Economy. We imagined we'd have to weather the coarse opinions and snipes of our neighbors. You know, maybe you'd suffer from being a child born out of wedlock, and from the incident of murder that was part of your inheritance. However, setting aside all such big concerns, we loved you beyond words, Marlais. Please never doubt you were a beloved child. Adored.

  Cornelia Tell became grandmother, nanny, advice giver, our one real friend in the village, a blessing, and she loved you. Because of her kindness, a few people p
layed out their godly judgments by no longer frequenting her bakery. "I get the picture," Cornelia said. "Pretty simple, though. They chose against me, and I chose against them right back." And it got peculiar with Leonard Marquette. At one point he actually paid good money for an attorney to try and take me to court to recoup his medical bills. But during their first meeting, when Leonard claimed he'd slipped on a pool of invisible blood, the lawyer, a Mr. Auchard—he'd thoroughly reviewed the stenographic report of the magistrate's hearing—quit the case on the spot.

  In those days, there were no nearby bed-and-breakfasts, and the closest inn was in Truro, so shortly after you were born, I moved into the rooms above the bakery. That brought gossip, of course. It couldn't be helped. One morning, Cornelia lamented from behind the counter, "My failing is that I never kept a guest book. I mean, in just the past five years, look who I've had stay upstairs! Look who could've signed a guest book! Do you know what was most unexpected, though?"

  "I can't imagine," I said.

  "What was most unexpected was how complicated life got in the rooms above a simple bakery, that's what. I mean, I could write a book—if I could write a book."

  In time, though, to Tilda's and my great surprise and relief, all sorts of neighbors came around to look at you, like they would any newborn. They brought stuffed animals and other gifts. Mrs. Oleander knitted you mittens and a tiny hat with ear flaps, which you wore every time we left the house in cold weather. You were a beautiful child. It was frequently commented on that you had many of your mother's features—already at age one, for instance, you showed a mop of unruly black hair just like Tilda's! You were practically being raised in the bakery, we sat with you there so often. We showed you off like any new parents would. I'd purchased a second gramophone from Randall Webb and set it up in the shed, and you'd fall asleep to music, snug in your bassinet, while I worked on a toboggan.

  I arrived to the kitchen for breakfast every single morning without fail. But the truth was, we didn't add up to a family. We just could not have. It was, Cornelia said, more like a mother and father with their own addresses, unwed, permanently fixed in workable estrangement. Though we did share your beautiful life. Your beautiful life.

  One could say that it was more than many people had.

  Still, from the night Tilda and I had spent in the library, it was an uphill climb. One night, a little drunk and drowsy from two glasses of wine at supper, Tilda said, "To be honest—and I don't mean to be hurtful, Wyatt."

  "That probably means you will be," I said. "I'm ready."

  "Next morning, I was disgusted by what happened in the library. Add remorse. But as for our daughter, she's made me the happiest I could ever imagine being in my life. How's that for tricks?"

  Tilda's and my life together was the steepest uphill climb, is how it felt. During the very last conversation Tilda and I had, not more than three hours before you left Middle Economy for Denmark, we'd sat at the kitchen table, of course, above the bakery. Tilda said, "I don't ever want our daughter to think it was only because of her that you and I stayed together. Eventually, out of guilt or out of something, we'd probably have got married, just to sanction us being parents in the eyes of God. Like Reverend Witt already asked us to. Fate has it, our daughter has loving parents who don't love each other, not in the way they should, which she'd figure out sooner or later. I'll have to explain a lot while she's growing up. Where's her father? I know I'll need to tell her. But on the ship overseas Uli and Marcus will have time with Marlais. Then in Denmark they'll have us, and we'll have them. And let's just wait and see where life takes us, as Mom liked to say. Let's just wait and see."

  "Won't it be as if Marlais is half orphaned, what with you living in Denmark and me living here?" I asked.

  "I'd say come visit, but the thought of you stepping foot outside of Nova Scotia?" Tilda said. "If that actually happened I'd believe miracles never cease. On the other hand, Marlais is your daughter, too. Denmark is locatable, Wyatt. A train to Denmark arrives to Denmark. You wouldn't get lost.

  "Uli and Marcus say it's a beautiful country. You bring your saws and chisels over and learn to live there, maybe some nearby town from us. Learn to live there. Just like Marlais and I now have to learn to live there. To my mind, it's no more impossible a prospect than Hans faced when he wanted to live here in Canada. But, Wyatt, I simply can no longer raise Marlais by this part of the ocean. I cannot stay in Middle Economy. It took Uli's invitation for me to come to my senses about this. But I came to them."

  "Do they have professional mourners in Denmark, I wonder."

  "I don't know. But if they do, I'd need to learn the Danish language for that, don't you think, to do it properly? No, probably I'll find a different line of work. I'm resourceful, eh? The good thing, no matter what, is that Marlais will have, not exactly grandparents, but close as you can get."

  "So much conviction, Tilda, that your plans will work out for the best."

  "Less that, Wyatt, than I'm basing my decision on what I know of our past. Yours and mine."

  I parked my car just down from the Esso station, close enough to watch your mother and you, hand in hand, climb onto the bus to Halifax. Mr. and Mrs. Mohring had left on an earlier bus. They were to meet you at the Lord Nelson Hotel. Then you'd steam across to Europe. A few days later I received a postcard: Bon voyage to us, it read. It was signed Your cousin Tilda Mohring. The way she put her signature made for more distance between us than the Atlantic Ocean.

  You and Tilda were gone. And one final thing that convinced me that Tilda was genuinely starting a new life: she left behind The Highland Book of Platitudes, in clear view on her bedside table. I'd moved back into the house.

  The day the church bulletin printed Hans's obituary was the day I began to let the sled-and-toboggan concern fall apart. Early the next morning, a Monday, I tacked the obituary to the shed wall near the door. I didn't hit a nail, sand a crossboard, fix a runner to a frame or paint a stripe—didn't attempt to do any work at all. I put on a gramophone record, cannot recall which one. Yet when the needle bobbed in the last groove, when the static began, I could hardly lift myself from my uncle's cot. Instead, I threw a hammer, which struck the tone arm, making the needle screech off the record.

  Soup for supper, and afterward, all evening, no gramophone music in the house, no child's voice. Sitting at the kitchen table, I got the picture, as Cornelia might say. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, I got the bleak picture: this is how my days and nights in the house would be. And though it took a full two months to dismantle the business my uncle had built up over thirty years, it was just four days after you'd gone that I sat at the long table in the library and consulted the Halifax telephone directory, jotting down the names, addresses and telephone numbers of hotels. I composed letters to twelve hotels, asking about availability and rates. I enclosed a return postcard and stamp in each envelope. In a sense, I was already gone from Middle Economy.

  I did manage to take an inventory, but it was an inventory of sleds and toboggans I'd never make. Sleds owed and promised, toboggans owed and promised. The shed was full of half-mades, slush boards not yet shellacked, cargo boxes not yet fitted. I brainstormed about selling the business, but after posting notices in the church bulletin, the Halifax Mail and the Truro newspaper, there were no takers. Not a single telephone call or postcard of inquiry. But what should I have expected? As Cornelia put it, "You know, Wyatt, when you think about it, who'd be interested? Probably have to be somebody who already makes sleds and toboggans and wants to move to Middle Economy. The only persons I think actually ever could fit that bill are Donald Hillyer and you." Eventually I sold off the surplus wood to Todd Branch.

  In the bakery, on the morning of November 27, 1948, I said, "Cornelia, I'm moving back to Halifax."

  "To your childhood house?"

  "No, I need the money from rent."

  "How much is it to rent a house in the city? I always wondered."

  "Generally, I can't say. But mine
costs fifty per month."

  "It'll cost you nearly that much in petrol, since now you'll have to drive so many hours to sit here with me and eat my scones. And since my scones are sold out by nine A.M., think how early in the morning you'll have to leave Halifax."

  "Rumor has it there's scones served in Halifax."

  "Not mine, though."

  "No, not yours."

  "And as for a roof over your head?"

  "I have enough savings to live on for I'd guess three months."

  "Rooming house or hotel or whatnot, right?"

  "Just yesterday I secured a hotel room."

  "Write down the address, okay?"

  I copied it out on a napkin from the return postcard I'd received. Cornelia cut off a piece of masking tape from its roll and stuck the napkin on the first page of a ledger. "My goodness," she said, "will you look at that? I've started an address book!"

  We sat drinking coffee and looking out the window. It was a dreary overcast day, and if I remember correctly, one car and one pickup truck went by, and Mrs. Oleander stopped in for a sandwich. She joined our conversation, then went back to the library.

  "I've kept this private," Cornelia said, "but before the war I used to take a bus into Halifax. I'd get a hotel room and I'd go to the cinema. Sometimes I'd go three nights in a row. Sometimes I'd see the same picture twice. Lately I'm considering starting up again."

  "Your money's hard-earned, Cornelia. Why shouldn't you enjoy it?"

  "And since you'll be in Halifax, you could escort me. Of course, that'd be like escorting someone your mother's age — may your mother rest in peace. And I'd understand if that'd be an embarrassment."

  "It so happens, I did escort my mother to the cinema, on more than one occasion, in fact. Sometimes my father tagged along, sometimes he didn't. But I'd be honored, Cornelia. You were the kindest to us. Me, Tilda and Marlais. Always and by far the kindest, never a thought about yourself. You let me know when you're next visiting Halifax, and I'll expect to go to the cinema with you."