‘You’re in here every afternoon,’ she said.
‘I’m a person of routine.’
‘And a good customer. You wouldn’t happen to be a writer?’
‘Just a reader.’
‘You mind me asking you your name?’
We introduced ourselves.
‘Well, if you’re not a writer – and you’re in here every day – what do you do?’
‘I’m just taking a little time out from everything right now,’ I said.
‘And you chose Calgary to do that?’
‘I kind of fell into the place.’
‘Tell me about it. I was raised in Regina – a dump – and came here to the U. of C., and kind of never left. And, like, half of me thinks that the city is an ugly shithole – but one with these little pockets of cool which just about counterbalance the fact that the place looks like the set of one of those Kieslowski movies located in some Warsaw housing estate. You ever see The Decalogue?’
‘Yes, I know all ten full-filled episodes.’
‘Well, there are a bunch of us who get together every Thursday night in a room above here – and we show a couple of interesting movies and drink a bit too much and pretend we’re in Paris or Prague or Berlin. If you were interested . . .’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. My tone hinted that I wasn’t in a sociable place right now.
Jan seemed to understand as she said: ‘Anyway, if you’re ever up for hanging out with some like-minded souls, consider this an open invitation. We all think of ourselves as being in internal exile here.’
But I didn’t take Jan up on her offer. Because that would have meant actually talking with other people. Which, in turn, would lead to questions. And the questions would lead to . . .
Still, Jan seemed to grasp that I needed to play the solipsistic card right now, as she never pushed me for any further details about myself. I would drop in, browse, occasionally make a big purchase, and otherwise would pick up a book or two a week – and our talk would be limited to literature, something in the news, a new movie that just opened at the Uptown or the Globe or the Plaza: the three decent cinemas in town.
I had this sort of genial but distant relationship with every shopkeeper I got to know in my area. The guy at International News (where I could buy the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books), the woman at Reid’s stationers where I purchased ink and notebooks, the guy in the wine and cheese place on 11th Avenue where I dropped by twice a week to stock up on drink and comfort food . . . they all knew my name. They all exchanged pleasantries with me. They never tried to engage with me – because the signal I sent out to the world was: Please don’t come too close. This may have been a small city, but it was still a city. As such, if you chose a certain form of anonymity, people would accept it. Because that was the urban code . . . even in Calgary.
Time. I suddenly had a great deal of it on my hands. With no employment, no ties, no responsibilities, no clear need to do anything other than get through the day, I found myself still looking for ways to keep busy. The café. The bookshop. Home to read for three hours. A longish walk, during which I’d also buy groceries. Home again to do ninety minutes’ worth of French (I bought grammar books and some basic texts, determined to finally crack the language . . . but also knowing that it filled a gap during the day). Then I would force myself out most nights – to a movie, a concert, a talk at a bookshop, anything that could divert me.
Time. Time. Time. By the end of April the temperature was gradually heading north. I bought a second-hand bicycle with a decent set of panniers large enough to fit in several days’ worth of groceries. It also brought me around town. With the exception of events at the University of Calgary, the bike would get me pretty much everywhere I wanted to go: to the cinemas, to a coffee place in Kensington which roasted its own beans, to the bi-weekly literary readings at the McNally bookshop on 8th, to the occasional classical concert at the Jack Singer Hall . . .
Had I wanted to, I could have rented a car and headed out of town in the direction of Banff and the Rockies. But I knew I still couldn’t bear the idea of looking at anything scenic, dramatic, momentous. Best to stick to Calgary’s concrete mundanity. Its habitable bleakness perfectly reflected the inside of my head.
Time. Time. Time. I broke down and bought a small television and a DVD player. Though I never signed up for the cable television service in the building, I did start to make use of a very good film library a few streets away from me. It proved useful on those nights when the pills didn’t do their chemical magic and I jolted awake and had to read or watch something to keep the darkness at bay. I found that, in the middle of the night, I couldn’t handle anything life-affirming or consoling. No Frank Capra movies, no re-viewings of ET. I worked my way through Dickens’s Bleak House, fascinated by the way he could write a social novel that also grappled with melancholia. I watched Carl Theodore Dreyer’s Day of Wrath – about witch burning in seventeenth-century Denmark – and all of Bergman’s island films. When I found myself in the film-rental place reaching for Klimov’s Come and See (about the Nazi massacre of a Belarus village) I actually had a manic fit of the giggles and wondered: Will there ever come a moment when I can get through a night again without a medicinal dose of desolation?
The problem was compounded by the amount of booze I was putting away. I’d get home from a film or a concert. I’d down three glasses of wine and then take my pills. Sleep would hit. Four hours later I would be wide awake again. So I’d open Dickens or pop on Bergman’s The Passion of Anna and down another three glasses of something red – and maybe surrender to sleep sometime just before seven, staying in bed until noon. But after around three months of broken nights I woke up yet again with another hangover and thought: Maybe I do need to take this in hand.
This meant going to a doctor. In turn this also meant finally dealing with officialdom. After four months in Calgary I was finally informing Canada that I was residing in their country. So I went to the payphone I used outside the Shopper’s Drugstore, called Information and asked the woman on the line: ‘How do I register for social security?’
‘You mean social insurance?’
‘Is that what they call it?’
‘Yes, that’s what they call it,’ she said, polite but just a little tetchy. ‘Here’s the number . . .’
That afternoon I presented myself at a government building. I filled out the requisite forms. I proffered my passport. I was interviewed by a courteous if chilly woman who asked me a lot of questions about why I had only now, at the age of thirty-three, registered for a social insurance number.
‘I’ve never lived in Canada.’
‘And why was that?’ she asked, her tone officious.
‘Because I was brought up in the United States.’
‘So how do you have a Canadian passport?’
‘My father was a Canadian.’
‘And what made you decide to suddenly move to Canada?’
‘Is that relevant to me receiving a social insurance number?’
‘I have to follow procedures here. I have to ensure that you are legitimately entitled to a SIN.’
‘You have my passport. You can, no doubt, check with Ottawa to ensure that it is valid. What else do you need from me?’
‘I have asked you a question. I now expect an answer. What made you leave the United States for Canada?’
Without a moment’s hesitation I blurted out: ‘My three-year-old daughter was knocked down and killed by a car. Happy now?’
My voice was so angry and loud that it silenced the room. All the other clerks, all the waiting citizens, seemed to freeze. In the shocked moment that followed, the clerk’s eyes filled with fear – as if she instinctually knew what was coming next.
I remember something David once told me when a waitress in a restaurant was rude to us for no apparent reason.
‘You never know what sort of day she was having before she got here – so don’t think it was about you.’
>
Behind where the clerks sat at their windows was an office, its door open, a besuited man working behind a desk. He too must have heard what I said, as he was instantly on his feet, hurrying towards us. The woman clerk nervously glanced in his direction. That’s when I realized this was not the first time she had seriously overstepped a boundary . . . though this observation was secondary to the anger I was still feeling after my outburst.
‘Mr Russell,’ the clerk said, ‘if I could just explain—’
‘That won’t be necessary – as you can go home now for the rest of the day.’
‘But I was only trying to carry out—’
‘I heard exactly what you were doing – and you’ve been darn well warned about this before.’
‘I just thought—’
‘Go home, Mildred. You will hear from us tomorrow.’
Mildred didn’t look like she wanted to move. But realizing she had no other option she quickly got up and left, running off and appearing to burst into tears at the same time. Mr Russell picked up my file off her desk and glanced at it.
‘She should have had the good grace to apologize, Ms Howard. But as I’m her supervisor I’ll do it for her – and for this department. I’m truly sorry about all that. I’m afraid it’s her style – and she’s been warned before to amend it. Now, if I have my way, she’ll be amending it in Medicine Hat.’
He opened my file and said: ‘I’ll have your SIN in five minutes.’
Which indeed he did – again apologizing as he handed me my passport and my new social insurance card.
‘I hope this experience won’t make you think all civil servants here are so graceless,’ he said before wishing me goodbye.
Graceless? Passive-aggressive was the true Canadian style – and it didn’t just apply to the bureaucrats. Everyone up here was, by nature, polite. It was part of the social make-up – something that was expected of you. But the politeness was tinged with a testy petulance; civility through gritted teeth. Mildred was a case in point. She never raised her voice once when pressing me for an answer. But, in a fusty, school-marmish way, she played the passive-aggressive card firmly: If you want what I can give you, you heed my command. Until my very American outburst sabotaged her strategy.
In the aftermath of it all I was strangely grateful to Mildred. By angering me she had provoked me into doing something I had refused to do, even during all my sessions with Dr Ireland . . . actually spitting out the appalling but undeniable truth: my daughter is dead.
I articulated this verity a few days later when I showed up at the medical practice to which I had been assigned. My doctor was named Sally Goodchild; a woman in her forties, quiet, straightforward and, as I discovered, a quick diagnostician. As soon as I came into her consulting room I could see her sizing me up.
‘So, Jane,’ she said, reading through my health questionnaire, ‘you’re new to our practice. New to Calgary as well, I see. And you’re having trouble sleeping – even though you’re on 30 mgs of Mirtazapine per day. So, to cut to the chase, how bad is the depression?’
‘I just can’t sleep.’
‘If you can’t sleep while taking Mirtazapine, you are seriously depressed. And the doctor who first prescribed you the pills, she was in the States, yes?’
I nodded.
‘And was there something causal – as we medical types like to call it – which brought about your depression?’
Again I said it.
‘My daughter Emily . . .’
I got through the sentence, staring down at my hands. Dr Goodchild was evidently unsettled by this revelation – and, to her credit, did not try to hide it.
‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised the dosage of Mirtazapine isn’t proving effective anymore.’
‘I need to sleep, Doctor.’
She asked if I would like to speak to a therapist.
‘Been there, done that,’ I said. ‘And it did no damn good.’
‘Are you working right now?’
I shook my head. She thought that over for a moment, then said: ‘All right, I’m going to up your intake of Mirtazapine by a further 15 mg – and I’m going to also ask you to consider the idea of finding a job. It would give some focus and shape to your day.’
‘I don’t want focus and shape.’
‘So what do you want, Jane? What would help you here?’
‘What would help me here? My daughter. Alive.’
‘But that can’t be.’
‘And as I can’t kill myself . . . as much as I want to every hour of every day . . .’
‘You think yourself a coward because of that?’
‘Actually, I do.’
‘Whereas I think choosing to live when you realize there is no solution . . . well, it’s almost heroic.’
‘No, it’s not heroic at all.’
‘Think what you like. You have chosen now to live. But with that choice comes a realization: there is no solution. There is only one antidote to this all – an antidote which won’t drain any or all of the poison away, but which might prove temporarily palliative.’
‘And what’s the antidote?’
‘Go back to work.’
Five
THERE WERE PLENTY of jobs in Calgary. Every week there was a story in the Herald about the labor shortage – how Boomtown lacked enough workers to serve up fast food and mop offices and even teach their children.
I scanned the employment pages in the newspaper. I nosed around a few job agencies. It was true – there were job openings for teachers. With my qualifications I sensed it would be reasonably easy to land something. But then I’d have to get up in front of a group of kids and talk. That would mean having to be with children. Even if they were pre-college adolescents, they’d still be children. And that would be too much to bear.
Then, by accident, I discovered the city’s Central Public Library. I was heading on my bicycle to an afternoon movie at a multiplex located in the Eau Claire marketplace and decided to stop en route in Chinatown for a fast plate of dim sum. This meant taking a different route, turning left down the McLeod Trail (many thoroughfares in Calgary were called trails) and passing an ugly cluster of municipal buildings. I’d cycled this way many times before – but never really took much notice of these administrative edifices, all of which were straight out of the Stalinist School of Architecture. Today I happened to look up and see a sign which said: Central Public Library. I braked and pulled over. The library was all reinforced concrete and prison-style slitted windows. What were the municipal authorities thinking when they approved this monstrosity? Still, I locked up my cycle and went inside. There – on the bulletin board in the lobby – was a notice:
CALGARY CENTRAL PUBLIC LIBRARY SEEKS ASSISTANT LIBRARIANS
They were offering a forty-hour week at $12 per hour. Though they would prefer candidates with ‘some knowledge of library science’, it was not essential. There were three posts open right now and candidates should submit their résumés to . . .
And they gave the name of a Mrs Geraldine Woods, Chief Librarian.
I walked into the library and asked if they had a computer room.
‘Ground floor, turn left. But it costs $2 for an hour’s internet access.’
I didn’t want to go online. I just wanted to use a word processor and a printer. Over the course of the next hour I sat and wrote my résumé, along with a covering letter to Mrs Woods. When I finished and was about to hand it in, the thought struck me: How will she get back in touch with me if I don’t have a telephone? As much as I didn’t want this rather essential instrument of communication I knew that a résumé without a telephone number would raise suspicions – and probably make her wonder if I was living a life like the Unibomber. Best to bow to the inevitable and get a cellphone.
So I printed up the résumé and the letter, leaving a space blank for the phone number. Then I went outside and cycled over to Chinatown and found around eight different shops selling electronic goods. The on
e I chose was run by a nervy man in his thirties who was chain-smoking and simultaneously shouting down a cellphone that was so petite he had to hold it between his thumb and forefinger. He ignored me for around five minutes – not an easy trick in a shop that was nothing more than an eight-by-eight space. When I finally got fed up with waiting and turned to leave, he immediately ended his call.
‘You stay, you stay . . .’ he shouted. ‘I get you nice phone, nice price.’
Half an hour later, having been relieved of $75, I left with a pay-as-you-go phone, topped up with $20 worth of calls. More importantly I had my very own number – which I hand-wrote at the bottom of the covering letter. Then I cycled back to the library and handed in my application at the front desk, thinking to myself: She’ll probably look at the résumé and think I’m a crank . . .
The next day, I received a phone call around nine-thirty from Mrs Woods. She sounded pleasant and brisk.
‘Any chance you could come by the library today for an interview?’
I showed up, as requested, at three p.m. I dressed soberly: a black corduroy skirt, black tights, sensible shoes, a V-neck sweater beneath which was a white T-shirt. Mrs Woods, on the other hand, wore a beige pantsuit with a floral blouse. She was large and, like just about every librarian I’d ever met, only semi-comfortable with other people. But as she was the head honcho here she obviously had more advanced social skills than her colleagues. (Something else I learned during all my years in academia – the chief librarian in any institution was usually chosen for that role not just because of their experience, but also because she could actually maintain eye contact with someone else.)
‘Now, to be honest with you, Ms Howard, when I read through your résumé I did think to myself: Are we dealing with an imposter here? Because, quite honestly, I’ve never had anyone with your credentials apply for a job with us. Then I did do a little background check . . . and discovered that you do have a doctorate from Harvard, and you really did publish that book on American Naturalism. And you really were a professor at New England State. So, my question to you is an obvious one: Why take a low-paying job with us in Calgary?’
Leaving the World Page 37