Leaving the World

by Douglas Kennedy

  Listening to the symphony, how I so wished I could be a believer at that moment. How I wanted to think that Emily was there in some soft-focus afterlife, forever three years old, forever playing with her dolls, humming the songs she so loved, not afraid of being on her own because heaven is a place where fear and loneliness never exist; where even those taken so early from this life are in the most celestial of crèches. And since time no longer matters, it’s just a flick of an eye to them before sixty years has passed and the parent who never got over their loss has suddenly succumbed to some horrible cancer, and there is this reunion with their ever-adored, ever-mourned child, and they all live happily ever after under God’s benign hand. But they’re not really living because this is not life, this is heaven: a place where nothing really happens . . .

  How can people buy into such pathetic nonsense? How can they try to convince you that such a fatuous construct exists, in the well-meaning but wretched hope that it will somehow ease the agony? You want to find a notion of the celestial – listen to Bruckner or a Bach cantata. Go take a hike on a high-altitude pass (if, that is, you can stand to look at all that beauty). Hop on a plane and walk around Chartres. But don’t . . . don’t . . . try to tell me that the next life is babysitting my beautiful daughter for me while I sit here in torment, knowing that I will never get over it.

  I had to drink myself to sleep that night – the first time I had done so since the doctor had upped my dose of Mirtazapine. The next morning I felt fogged in and low. Staring at myself in the mirror was not a pleasant experience. I looked like I’d been on a bender. At work Ruth asked me: ‘Rough night?’ To which I simply nodded, ending all further discussion on the matter. When I returned the disc to Vern I could see he too was disconcerted by my appearance, but said nothing.

  ‘Good recording,’ I said, handing it back to him.

  ‘Glad you liked it,’ he muttered, staring down at his shoes.

  ‘I’ll come back soon for another recommendation,’ I said, then left.

  But I didn’t return to his lair for a couple of weeks – because I was fearful about getting sideswiped by Vern’s next musical offering; because Vern sensed a sympathetic ear for his musicological monologues; and because I didn’t want to feel beholden to him to play nice and interested and . . .

  God, how hateful I sounded. But the Bruckner had seriously thrown me, opening up a new rich seam of grief. It was like a cancer that constantly metastasized. Every time you thought you could zap it and keep it in one specific locale, shazam, it attacked another part of your psyche. And it was so tricky, so ruthless, that – even if you were distracted away from it for several hours – suddenly there it was again, reasserting itself, letting you know that this sort of torment was ceaseless, terminal.

  I certainly couldn’t blame Vern for all that, but, even so, from that moment on I maintained a polite distance from him.

  ‘You know,’ Ruth told me one afternoon, ‘when I found out the truth about Vern Byrne . . . well, I vowed never to make presuppositions about other people – even though that resolution lasted about ten minutes. Vern Byrne. Here I was typecasting him as something out of a Southern Gothic. As it turned out I was so damn off-beam. The man was a music teacher back East. His wife ran off with some RCMP guy and hit him with a nasty divorce which wiped him clean. Meanwhile, their only daughter was diagnosed as severely schizophrenic in her early teens and has essentially been in institutions since the late eighties. That’s around the time poor Vern started to drink heavily – and lost his job because of it. Had no choice but to move back in with his widowed mom in Calgary. But you got to give the man credit. When he got back here, he completely sobered up – joined AA and all that – and got himself this job at the library. According to what I hear, he was kind of a quiet man before all this happened to him. Since then he’s become real quiet. And when he got hit with prostate cancer five years ago . . .’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘You can say that again. But that’s the thing about other people’s lives. You scratch the surface, you discover all this dark stuff. We’ve all got it. Anyway, since the cancer surgery, which was successful, I gather he’s started drinking again, but he seems to have it under control. And he is sitting on a nice piece of equity with his mom’s house. It isn’t much – one of those bungalows they put up here in the early sixties. But “isn’t much” in Calgary still means four to five hundred thousand these days. Anyway, that’s the Vern Byrne story. And now you know why they call me “The Stasi” around here. Because I know everything about everybody. But that’s the thing with a library – you’ve got to do something to make the hours go by. But hey, I may be a gossip, but I’m not a malignant one. I actually like most of my co-workers, even if I do talk about them all the time.’

  ‘You mean, you even like Marlene Tucker?’ I asked.

  ‘Nobody likes Marlene Tucker,’ she replied.

  Marlene Tucker. She was the Head of Acquisitions – which gave her a certain amount of power in our small world, and which she didn’t mind wielding to everybody’s annoyance.

  ‘The Decider’, Ruth called her, because Marlene was always telling you that she would, ‘in time’, make ‘an informed decision’ on whether a book you felt had to be in the library’s collection would, in fact, be approved by her.

  She was a very average-looking woman in her mid-forties who favored the sort of floral dresses that went out of fashion after Laura Ashley took that fatal dive down the stairs. She was always super-polite and super-formal – a hint of noblesse oblige always leaking out whenever she played ‘the Decider’ card.

  ‘It is a wonderful attribute for the library to have someone with your credentials on the staff,’ she told me just after I joined. ‘And perhaps you could advise me on our new literature additions.’

  Some months later – when, on her directive, I ran up thirty hours of overtime compiling a lengthy list of gaps in the library’s fiction collection – she immediately stiffened when she saw the more than four hundred books I felt must be added to our shelves.

  ‘Four hundred books!’ she said, the tone suggesting that I had way overstepped my assigned undertaking.

  ‘Well, you did ask . . .’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but I certainly didn’t expect you to come up with such an impossibly long list of titles.’

  ‘Four hundred and eleven books is pretty modest.’

  ‘Not if you are trying to work them into a tight annual acquisition budget.’

  ‘Didn’t the provincial government allocate another four hundred thousand dollars to this library for new acquisitions? Isn’t that why you commissioned this list from me?’

  ‘I did think that you would be the best-equipped member of staff to deal with it. But honestly . . . the purchase of a complete first edition of Stephen Leacock. That must cost . . .’

  ‘There’s a rare-book dealer in Victoria who could get us a complete set for around nine thousand.’

  ‘Why would the Calgary Central Library want to spend nine thousand dollars on a first edition of Stephen Leacock?’

  ‘Two reasons. The first is: he’s the Canadian Mark Twain—’

  ‘I know who Stephen Leacock is.’

  ‘And the second reason is: your investment will probably double in five years.’

  That caught her unawares.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I did some research on the internet. I also found out that there are only four complete Stephen Leacocks in the original 1903 first edition on sale in Canada. Three of them are with Toronto dealers, which means they’re charging anywhere from seventeen to twenty-four for the same edition.’

  ‘Why is the one in Victoria so much cheaper?’

  ‘It’s an independent dealer. He operates from a garage next to his house, so the overheads are considerably lower. More to the point, he bought this first edition in an estate sale – and wants to shift it quickly.’

  ‘Have you checked out his bona fides as a dealer?’r />
  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, reaching into my desk and handing her a file. ‘It’s amazing what you can find on the net. I’ve also asked him for photocopies of the frontispieces of all the books and have even found a retired Leacock scholar who lives in Victoria and – for an agreed fee of two hundred and fifty dollars – is most happy to go over and vet our investment before we pay the nine thousand.’

  ‘Is that his best price?’

  ‘Considering that I got him down from thirteen, yes.’

  That also made her tense up.

  ‘How can you be sure that the edition will double in value in the next five years?’

  ‘Read the documents I’ve printed up for you – including one from the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Canada, which talks about the rarity of this set and how its value is going to exponentionally grow in the next decade. You’ll win Brownie points with the board for this purchase, believe me.’

  One thing I was learning about Marlene Tucker was that she distrusted the intelligence of other people – unless it could be used to flatter her own image. So when she told me that: ‘In time I’ll make an informed decision about this’ – and I countered that the dealer would only guarantee us this price for the next seven days – she smiled another tight smile and said: ‘I might just give Mr Henderson a ring tonight.’

  Stockton Henderson was the chairman of the library’s board – a big-deal corporate lawyer in town with a very high opinion of himself. He treated the library as if it was his own personal fiefdom and marched around the place like Charles Foster Kane on an inspection tour. When the Leacocks arrived seven days after my conversation with Marlene Tucker, he came by personally to inspect the merchandise. They were laid out on display in the boardroom – and I was summoned by Mrs Woods to personally meet the ‘great man’.

  Everyone had told me that Stockton Henderson was a latter-day Babbitt – bumptious, arrogant and lacking in social niceties. But nothing prepared me or Mrs Woods or Marlene Tucker for his first comment: ‘So you’re the Harvard woman with the dead child . . .’

  The silence that followed was immense. Stockton Henderson registered it.

  ‘Did I say the wrong thing?’ he asked Marlene Tucker.

  ‘Not at all,’ I said, deciding to play along. ‘You’re right on both counts: I do have a doctorate from Harvard and my daughter was knocked down and killed by a car.’

  Stockton Henderson didn’t even flinch when I addressed this directly to him. That’s when I realized the bastard hadn’t made the comment in an offhand, unthinking manner; that it was completely calculating and designed to get a rise out of me. The very fact that I answered it coolly impressed him.

  After acknowledging my answer with a quick nod of the head, he then said: ‘I read through both your research into and your report on the purchase of the Leacock. Your Harvard pedigree comes shining through – but also the fact that you have a nose for a good deal; that you are actually looking in a forward direction when it comes to increasing the value of the library’s collection. Wouldn’t you agree with that, Mrs Woods?’

  ‘No doubt about it. It was first-rate work on Jane’s part.’

  ‘And what would you say, Mrs Woods, if I were to negotiate with the legislator up in Edmonton about finding a fund of, say, half a million dollars to augment the library’s collection?’

  ‘You mean, in addition to the four hundred thousand that the legislator has already allocated to us?’ Marlene Tucker asked.

  ‘I don’t remember asking for your opinion on this, Mrs Tucker,’ Henderson said.

  Marlene Tucker stared at the floor, suddenly cowed and sensing what was coming next.

  ‘Mrs Woods . . . ?’ he prompted.

  ‘I believe that the half a million, if properly invested in rare and highly collectable books, could be the beginning of a small but genuine endowment for the library.’

  ‘That’s exactly the answer I was hoping to hear,’ he said. ‘Now I understand you’re a published author, Miss Howard.’

  ‘I just wrote one book, sir.’

  ‘It’s still a book. And we certainly have no one on the staff of the library with your literary credentials, let alone your degrees. So say I was to offer you the job of Head of Acquisitions – with simultaneous responsibility for creating a rare-books department in the library?’

  The pause that followed only lasted around three seconds. Any longer and Henderson would have written me off as weak. If my time in finance had taught me anything it was that men like Stockton Henderson took comfort in decisiveness. It allowed them to believe that people saw the world in the same Manichean, free-of-doubt way they chose to perceive things . . . doubt being a sign of spinelessness in their eyes.

  ‘I’d say yes,’ I answered.

  ‘Excellent. Then that’s how it will be. You have no objections to that, Mrs Woods?’

  Geraldine Woods – who always considered Marlene Tucker to be a liability (and someone who was not-so-secretly gunning for her job) – fought hard to suppress a very large grin.

  ‘None whatsoever, sir.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’

  ‘But Mr Henderson . . .’ Marlene Tucker said. ‘It was agreed between us that I would remain Head of Acquisitions until—’

  ‘That agreement, Mrs Tucker, was made on the basis that you would succeed at the job. But what have you achieved to date, except the maintenance of a certain bureaucratic status quo?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a fair assessment—’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ Henderson countered. ‘But the truth is often unpalatable. Any further questions, Miss Howard?’

  ‘Would you like me to draw up a list of possible “investments” we could make in the rare-book field in advance of your discussion with the powers that be in the legislature? I could completely research how best to allocate the half a million dollars and what the return on this investment could be.’

  ‘Now this is the sort of forward thinking I like. Yes, I would very much appreciate such a document. Might you have it to me within seven days?’

  ‘No problem, sir.’

  ‘Then we’re all on the same page – pun intended!’

  And we all laughed at this lame joke.

  As soon as Henderson left the room, Marlene Tucker turned to Geraldine Woods and said: ‘I will not be accepting this decision. I will be contesting it – and if that means having to take legal action or go to the board . . .’

  ‘You are more than welcome to do that, Marlene,’ Geraldine Woods said. ‘But that will mean coming up against our chairman – a man who hates to be contradicted. But if you want to do that, be my guest. I can promise you he will insist you be demoted down to the sorting division, rather than the nice comfortable job in cataloging . . .’

  ‘Cataloging! I started in cataloging twenty-three years ago.’

  ‘Then there’s something rather elegant about your returning to your professional roots.’

  ‘You haven’t heard the end of this,’ Marlene said, then stormed out.

  As soon as she had left the room, Geraldine Woods let out a long exhalation.

  ‘Well, bless you for coming into our lives and ridding us of that woman.’

  ‘That wasn’t my intention.’

  ‘Believe me, I know that. And Stockton Henderson knows that too. You were darn impressive when it came to fielding that snarky comment by our chairman. It’s his style, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You forget, I spent a little time in the business world.’

  ‘Oh, I’m well aware that you are a woman of many parts, Jane. I also know that you will do this job wonderfully. You’ll be on a salary of thirty-eight thousand thanks to this promotion. Once we get that half a million from the legislature, I will want to go public with the job you’re doing, building up our collection.’

  ‘Count me out of that,’ I said.

  ‘But it would be incredibly important for us to have you – a published author, a serious academic – be t
he public face of this new project.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t . . . won’t . . . do it.’

  ‘Would you, at least, sleep on it for a couple of days?’

  ‘I’m happy to do all the research, all the negotiations, all the buying . . . and to take on the duties of Head of Acquisitions. Just don’t make me do anything in public. I’m certain you can find someone else to be the front man for all this.’

  Stockton Henderson wasn’t too pleased when Mrs Woods informed him I wouldn’t do any press in my role as the Head of Acquisitions, until she suggested that Henderson himself announce this ‘new initiative’ and simply say that the library was working with several rare-books experts who were personally advising him on the best investments to be made . . . but that the final decision was made by himself.

  Being both pompous and massively self-important, Stockton Henderson relished this idea. Within two months he had convinced the provincial legislature to part with a further $500,000 to start this new collection.

  ‘They’re largely such a bunch of philistines,’ Ruth Fowler noted after the money came through, ‘that it takes a fellow oaf like Henderson to muscle the extra funding through.’

  ‘I’m not complaining,’ I said, knowing that between the two grants I now had close to $1 million to spend on books. And spend I did. On the general-collection side I took on board every recommendation made to me by all the heads of divisions when it came to where their collections were lacking. We had a part-time graduate student from the University of Calgary working in the fiction section – a smart guy named Ron, who seemed to be something of a whizz when it came to identifying our deficits. I commissioned him to see how he could bump up our literature holding – and gave him a budget of $50,000 to work with. He was like a kid in a candy store. Within two weeks he came back with all sorts of ideas – an entire section devoted to the Beats, to Québécois writers (in French and in translation), to forgotten Albertan novelists, to the French nouveau roman.