by David Bergen
When the sky began to lighten, Mason changed back into his clothes. He said goodbye to Brenda, and Sadia walked him out to the driveway. She had put on a dark bathrobe and as she tiptoed barefoot beside him she touched his arm and said that she’d had fun and that it might be nice to see each other again. She pushed her wet hair back with one hand and said too loudly, “We could even play tennis.”
Mason was standing beside his mother’s car. Sadia’s left foot was close to his runner. He looked at her small toes, the slim ankle. The bathrobe made her look older and more vulnerable. “Very funny,” Mason said.
Her head moved sideways and she stepped backwards. “I’m very serious. I’d like that. I could play on Tuesday.”
“Okay. It will have to be late, about seven o’clock. I still read to Mr. Ferry after school.”
“Good. Great. I’ll wait for you.” She lifted a hand and then let it drop and then said goodbye.
On Tuesday he picked her up at her house and when the door opened Seeta was standing there. She looked out into the evening shadows and she said, “Mason?” She was plainer, everything about her was less defined. Mason said, “Hi, Seeta,” and he held out his hand. She looked at it and leaned forward as she shook his hand lightly, limply. Her hand felt the same; a cool silkiness. Marriage hadn’t killed her completely.
“Who are you looking for?” Seeta asked. She seemed worried.
“Oh, oh,” Mason said. “I came here for Sadia. You thought I came to see you? God, no. I’m sorry. Sadia and I have plans.”
“Do you?” Seeta studied Mason’s head and his chest and his legs. She said, “You look the same.” She smiled slightly as she turned away and called out for Sadia and then she looked back at Mason and said, “Well,” and, “Nice to see you again.” Then she walked into the other room and Mason never saw her again.
He told Sadia later, as they crossed the railroad tracks and cut down the embankment towards the tennis courts, that Seeta had seemed different. He said that it was weird and depressing to think of her as married. “Is she happy?” he asked.
“I told you the other night that she was happy,” Sadia said. “Anyway, let’s not talk about her. C’mon,” and she pulled Mason out onto the court.
Though they played several more times over the following week, the ease of the previous Friday night at Brenda’s had disappeared. Sadia seemed awkward. Once, they talked about Brenda, and Mason tried to explain how he felt, the possibility of some other life, did she ever feel that, he asked, but she didn’t understand, thought that he might be saying he liked Brenda Darby. He said he didn’t. He liked her but not like that. And even if he did, she was rich and she outclassed him.
It was a humid day and some thunder in the distance threatened rain so they walked up Academy towards Mason’s house. A quick, hard downpour forced them to take shelter in a coffee shop. It was the same place Mason had sat and waited for Lena as she passed by on the way to voice lessons. They sat, Sadia and he, at the middle table.
Sadia prattled on about school and Brenda and how Brenda had thought Mason was great. That after Mason had left, they’d watched a Fellini film. “Brenda said Fellini was amazing. The film was called La Strada, and it was about a woman who joins a circus and falls in love with a tightrope walker who is murdered. The woman is very odd-looking. Not pretty at all. Almost stupid.” Mason listened to Sadia and thought that she could be describing herself. Not that he minded.
Mason was facing the window. The rain had stopped and he could see the sidewalk and the people passing by and then Lena Schellendal was standing there, on the outside looking in. She was reading a poster that had been pasted against the window. Was she perhaps coming from her singing lessons? Was she going to her singing lessons again? At first Mason didn’t recognize her and then he said, out loud, “Lena.” Sadia turned and looked and then she faced Mason again and smiled. Out on the sidewalk, Lena swung away from the window and disappeared. Later, he left Sadia at the corner, even promised to call and arrange some more tennis, but he knew he wouldn’t. Lena’s shadow still fell across his world.
And then one day at school, in the hallway, Rosemary gave Mason a note. It was from Lena. She wrote that she was better. She was going to be baptized in two weeks, on a Sunday morning, and she wanted him to come. She said that this was the last thing she would ask of him. Mason read the note and then asked Rosemary if she knew what the note said. Rosemary said she didn’t. “I’m just the go-between.”
Mason showed it to her and asked, “What would you do? I mean, several months ago she told me it was over and now she wants me to come to her baptism. Is she okay?”
“Maybe she’s worried you’re in love with someone else.”
They were standing in the hall between classes and there were kids flowing by on either side of them and Rosemary was looking up at Mason as if everything was absolutely clear.
“Did she tell you that?” Mason asked. “Because I’m not. I think about Lena all the time.”
Rosemary said, “She saw you with Sadia Chahal. She figured things out. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was wrong. Anyway, you don’t have to give the answer to me. Okay?” Rosemary said she had to go to class and she handed the note back to Mason and turned and walked away.
He waited to see Lena again, outside his house or walking to school, but she didn’t appear. Her note, the sight of her handwriting, had left him hopeful. He was pleased that she might have suffered some pain when she saw him with Sadia. One afternoon he skipped out of school and went to her house and knocked and waited, aware of the silence in the neighbourhood and the sound of his knuckles against the door. There was no answer so he knocked again. Nobody came to the door. He walked away then, looking up at Lena’s bedroom window to see if she might be watching him. The house was empty.
He called her that night and Rosemary answered and when he asked for Lena, Rosemary said, “Sure,” and put the phone down. It took a long time for Lena to pick up. Mason could hear voices in the Schellendal house. Two girls and then a man and then it was quiet and then someone said, “Did he?” and a woman, Mrs. Schellendal perhaps, said, “That’s not the point.”
Then Lena picked up and said, “Hey.”
“Hi. It’s me,” Mason said.
“I know. Rosemary said.”
“Is this okay? That I phoned? I came by your house this afternoon but nobody answered so I thought I’d phone.”
“This afternoon?” she asked. “I don’t know. Really? Maybe I was out.”
Mason thought that she sounded different. The words floated away from her. He said, “So, you’re going to be baptized, too.”
There was silence until she said, “I wasn’t the best person before, was I? A change might be nice.”
“I don’t know,” Mason said. “I liked you. I still do. I love the sound of your voice. I’ve told you that, haven’t I? Your voice rolls and it’s low and husky.”
“You still do, eh?” she said. She paused, sighed, and finished, “That’s really nice, Mason. I mean it. That’s a terribly nice thing for you to say.” Then she said she hoped she’d see him on Sunday and she said goodbye and hung up.
When the day of her baptism arrived he walked down through Lena’s neighbourhood and past her house, which was quiet, and on towards the church which was on Portage Avenue, across from Rae and Jerry’s Steak House, at the edge of Omand’s Creek. It was a bright sunny day. Joggers and cyclists passed by. Dogs on leashes, dragging their owners. Mason entered the church and sat near the back. He saw Rosemary and Lena’s parents and the other sisters, sitting near the front. Margot had her hair up in a tight bun and she kept turning to look behind her. Lena was seated along the side, with three other solemn-looking girls. The service was long, with much rising and singing and praying, and Mason kept his eye on Lena, who never once turned to survey the crowd. Her profile was sharp. Then, between the singing of two songs, Lena and the three other girls stood and left the sanctuary. They passed down the side aisle towar
ds the back and Mason could see the shape of her head quite clearly and the outline of her jaw. She was chewing gum.
The baptism took place at the end of the service. There was a tank of water above the choir pews and a man in a black robe descended into it. The water lapped against the glass. The man turned and held out his hand and a young girl appeared from behind a curtain and stepped down into the water. It wasn’t Lena. The older man held the girl as if he were whispering into her ear. He put his hand against the back of the young girl’s head and asked her three questions, to all of which she said yes, and then he dunked her backwards into the water and pulled her back up and she rose, holding her nose, her hair falling behind her like a waterfall. Then it was Lena’s turn and the ritual was the same but this time Mason sat up. He saw Lena’s left ear, her long neck, the lack of her shape in the large gown she wore, her profile as she looked straight ahead and answered the questions, her blank face as she fell backwards and rose again, exiting the tank, the black robe clinging to her body, her ineffectual attempts to pull the wet cloth away from her body. A soloist, tall and beautiful, sang the baptismal song from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Mason thought it was quite humorous.
After the service, Lena caught Mason just outside the door as he was leaving. They stood at the edge of the parking lot, on the grass, and looked at each other. “You came,” she said.
“I said I would.” He wanted to reach up and touch her wet hair. The sun fell onto the side of her head. The sounds of normal life – a dog barking, a child crying out – drifted from across the creek.
“Still, I didn’t think you’d come. You didn’t have to. I wasn’t my best on the phone the other day.” She was wearing a dress that was too big; it made her look childish. She wore no makeup and the many earrings she usually wore had been reduced to a single pair. She clutched a white purse, one of those thin vinyl handbags with a snap. She looked right at him and said, “I’ve missed you. There were times when I thought that I should call you.” She pushed the heel of her left hand against Mason’s shoulder. “That’s why I sent that note with Rosemary. It seemed safe.”
“Are you saying you’d like to see me again?” Mason asked. He wanted to take Lena’s hand, but just then the door behind Lena opened and an old woman wobbled out on a walker. She paused, breathing hard, and studied Mason.
Lena looked down at her purse. “It’s possible.” Then she said, “You know what I wish? I wish you’d see the error of your ways. You could become a Christian, you know. It’s for everybody.” Lena looked around as if hoping someone might witness her speech. The blue-haired lady and the walker were approaching.
The old woman paused beside Lena and said, “Lena Schellendal,” and she took Lena’s hand and patted it with her own mottled hand and said, “Good for you,” and then she looked at Mason and said, “What a good-looking boyfriend, Lena.”
Lena was still attached to the old woman’s hands, which were now sliding up and down her forearm. Mason saw the tendons of the old woman’s hands. He was looking down onto her thin hair. “What’s your name?” she asked.
Mason told her.
The woman looked at Lena and said, “Mason. That’s very nice,” and then she patted Lena’s hand one last time and stabbed at her walker until she’d grasped it and she shuffled onwards.
“She’s so sweet,” Lena said.
She bit her lower lip and took Mason’s hands. She said, “My problem was I was trying to forget myself. Before. So, I was defiant and desperate and lost myself in debauchery.”
Mason smiled slightly. She did not sound like Lena. He said, “Was it my fault then? The debauchery?”
A brief smile, then it disappeared. “Of course not.”
More people had begun to exit the church. Lena let go of Mason’s hands and stepped back slightly. “So,” she said.
Mason saw, just over Lena’s shoulder, the Schellendal family walking towards them. Mr. Schellendal stopped to talk to someone. Rosemary stood off to the side; she gave a slight wave. Emily was clutching her mother’s arm. Mr. Schellendal shook hands with the man he had been talking to, swung back towards Mason and Lena, and came up beside them. He put his arm around Lena and she looked up at him and said, “Daddy.” She said, “You remember Mason, don’t you?”
Mr. Schellendal nodded. Lena’s mother came up and said, “Hello, Mason,” and then she turned her back to him and hugged her daughter and said, “Lena, we’re so proud of you.” “Come,” Mr. Schellendal said, and he gathered up his family. As Lena walked away, her father’s arm around her, she looked back over her shoulder at Mason and it seemed, in that moment, that the baptism, the speech on debauchery and desperation, the religious bragging, all of this was Lena crying out.
16 That night had been tempestuous and full of disagreement. Earlier, Lena had filmed her and Mason having sex. “You can erase the tape,” she told Mason when he protested. “This is very important to me. I want to see what we look like.” She had acted. Fought for position and looked at the camera and called out more shrilly than necessary. It was comical, only she thought it was serious. When she watched it later she said, “Look at me, I’m fat. I should join a gym.” Still, she watched it twice and was surprised at how beautiful she appeared from the back. The slope of her buttocks and the curve of her back, Mason’s hand holding the back of her head. She looked like a monk. She convinced Mason to make love as they watched themselves on video. “Look at us,” she cried out.
One day, about three weeks after her baptism, Lena went to Mason’s house and she stood and looked for signs of life, movement, perhaps Mason leaving for school or returning, but she saw nothing. She went up the walk and knocked on the door and turned to look out at the street. When the door opened Danny was standing there. Lena said, “Oh,” and Danny said, “You’re Lena.”
Lena hesitated, and said, “How do you know?”
“I know. Mason’s talked about you.”
“Is he here?”
“At school,” Danny said. He was wearing jeans and he had no shirt on and Lena saw his mouth, his shoulders, and the hair at his belly. He stepped backwards and told her to come in.
She hesitated and said, “I can come back. I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Why shouldn’t you be here?” Danny asked. “Where else could you be?”
“Out looking for work. Doing something constructive. Certainly not visiting Mason’s brother.” She stepped into the house and followed Danny into the kitchen.
“You want something?” he asked. “Juice? Coffee?”
Lena said that she didn’t need anything, that she was just walking by and thought Mason might be there and she had to go right away, she was actually on her way to apply for a job. She paused and looked at Danny as he bent into the open fridge. He was barefoot. He reappeared holding a container of juice and poured himself a glass. He said, “I like to meet Mason’s friends. I’ve been gone for a while, in Montreal, and I’ve lost touch with people, so it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
He opened the patio door and stepped outside onto the deck and called back at her to follow. She did this, found herself standing beside him and stepped away and sat on a plastic chair, beside which there was a wrought-iron table with a glass top. She could see Danny’s feet through the glass.
He said, “I’m supposed to cut the lawn today. That’s my job. It’s shitty when you’re so aimless and broke that your father has to tell you what to do. I used to have a good job and a great car and now I don’t. Smoke?” He pulled out a Cellophane bag and some papers and rolled himself a joint and lit up, pulled on it, and then handed it to Lena. She looked at it and said that she shouldn’t really, she was working on this new life for herself. Danny grinned and said, “Up to you.” Lena raised her eyebrows. She reached out, took the joint, and said, “Here we go.” She took a drag and handed it back to Danny. They passed it back and forth in silence until Danny had stubbed it in the ashtray.