One of the men, Ron, stood up across the room and came over and squeezed himself down into the edge of the couch next to Lena, which meant that our positions were suddenly altered. I was now higher than the other two, and it was Ron’s arm and thigh that were pressed into Lena’s—on her other side.
“I came over to talk to you,” Ron said, ignoring me, “since we’re neighbours now, more or less. I work at the sweatshop with those characters.” He gestured to the other men. He wore dark-rimmed glasses, and the lenses were so flecked with white specks or with food crumbs, I couldn’t understand how he could see. He probably can’t, I thought, unkindly. He probably uses his filthy glasses as an excuse to make blundering moves on other men’s wives. I disliked him instantly.
No one seemed to know how to talk to me; they behaved as if I were an exotic whom they couldn’t be expected to understand. It seemed a surprise to them that I spoke English. They were careful and polite, and spoke loudly when they addressed me, as if I were partially deaf. And then, a series of strange confessions began. Ron’s wife offered up the information that her mother used to eat Chinese food once in a while. She ordered it from a takeout, she said. I took this to be some sort of nod in my direction and did not dare to look sideways at Lena.
One of the other wives, after a pause, said that she liked fortune cookies the best. As no one else had any further Oriental offerings, she added that she ate three rosehips every day before breakfast, rain or shine. While thunder crashed and boomed overhead, Petra gave up the information that she was a Roman Catholic, and that during her childhood, her mother had kept inkwells filled with water blessed by their local priest. This holy water was sprayed around the house during electrical storms to prevent lightning strikes and fire. Between storms, Petra’s mother sent her back to church with the inkwells so they could be replenished and blessed again. There had been a “coloured” family in the congregation, she added, and they were very nice people.
At this point, a thin yellow dog appeared, and yipped down the steps. Petra, talking rapidly and with a nervous laugh, told us the dog had taken to chewing the basement stairs, and had already chewed part of the first and second steps. Lena and I exchanged looks without being caught. Petra went up to the kitchen and came back down with a small, clear bowl of salted pretzels. She passed the bowl around and the other men dug deep. The pretzels were gone in an instant, and Petra set the empty bowl on the bar without offering to fill it again. Everyone in the room was sipping at a half glass of wine. Ron pulled his weight up off the couch and clomped up the stairs and returned with a bottle of Scotch. I had noticed the bottle earlier, in a kitchen cabinet behind glass doors, when I’d first come in. Ron poured a stiff drink for himself and offered it around. Petra looked positively frightened by this raiding of the house liquor supply, and then relieved when she heard a shout from Pete, above, saying that he was ready, that she should bring on the plates.
She went upstairs and Lena followed, offering to help, and five minutes later the two women reappeared, carrying dinner.
Pete, the other three men and I had been apportioned three cubes of beef, one medium potato and four green beans. On the women’s plates were two cubes of beef, half a potato and three beans. I tried to imagine the conversation between Pete and Petra while they were doing the calculations, but I couldn’t come up with the words. Ron barrelled down the steps with a new bottle of wine and served it out among the men.
We all bent over our laps, and the plates were emptied in moments. Except for Pete, the other men stood in unison and began a silent, undeclared hunt for food. I followed. Up and down the steps, into the kitchen and back again. The word hunger was not mentioned. Nor were the words second helpings. Ron went over to the bar, licked his index finger and wiped it across the bottom of the empty pretzel bowl, gathering the last grains of salt. Another man and I went outside to the patio to tackle scrapings on the barbecue rack. No one had thought to ration or hide the remaining liquor, and all of us, finding no more food, settled down to drink. There was still wine—each couple had arrived with a bottle—and an almost full bottle of Scotch.
And then, as if on cue, a chain of events familiar to everyone but Lena and me began to unfold.
Petra announced, “Button-button time,” and the men tromped up the stairs and called out to me to join them while the women chose a hiding place for a large black button. The only rule, according to Petra, was that the button must stay in the basement.
Back we came. I looked at Lena, who was still on the sagging couch, and I reached down and squeezed her hand. If the game was meant to be fun, no one was laughing. The men were milling about, searching for the button. Ron was on hands and knees, his thick palm groping beneath an armchair. I stood like a statue. Others were crawling across the floor while Petra and another woman called out, “Warm! No. Cold. You’re freezing. Ice!” And then, in sing-song voices, “Someone in the room is boiling. You’re hot!”
Lena, expecting equal humiliation for the women’s round, sat stiffly while giant men peered into shadows like caged animals trying to escape. Fingers grazed upper ledges and shelves. Lena and I both understood that this was a continuation of the search for food. We watched helplessly.
And then, I decided to rescue us. I announced that we had to check in on Miss Carrie before it was too late in the evening. She had asked us to drop by, and we’d promised to do so on our way home.
“Miss Carrie,” Petra murmured. “We never see anything of her. She’s the old woman who lives at the opposite end of the street, isn’t she? A bit dotty, I think.”
Lena and I turned away, not daring to speak. The yellow dog yipped as we blew our goodbyes back to Petra and Pete, who saw us off at the side door. Lena tucked her arm in mine until we reached Miss Carrie’s house. The lights were off. Miss Carrie had not, of course, asked us to check on her at all.
“I feel like waking her up and telling her about the party,” Lena said. I could tell that she was upset. “Is that why we love her—because she doesn’t judge us?”
“She’s been around for a long time, since the beginning of the century,” I said. “She was born shortly after Queen Victoria died. She’s wiser than most people; she measures things differently.”
We continued on, to our own front door. The storm was over. Lena tilted her head back and took in a long, slow breath of damp air. “Curtains of blue, curtains of black,” she said. “Just look up there.”
I followed her gaze upwards. No stars were visible, but there was an eerie beauty to the chill and the darkness.
“It’s too much,” she said. “How long will it take before people will be used to having someone different in their midst? And how different? The same under the skin.”
“I’m used to it,” I said. But we knew that already.
“Ottawa is a small city,” Lena pronounced. “A white city, mostly.”
That was true, too. But we’d also seen graffiti scribbled across a subway wall during a recent visit to Toronto, which was not an entirely white city. DEATH TO MIXED RACES we read as our subway car rolled past. Random hate, it seemed, could be anywhere.
And in Montreal, hadn’t we kept our own marriage ceremony small, only five people present? The two of us, the minister, and Lena’s sister and husband as witnesses. Our world wasn’t ready for mixed marriages, but that hadn’t stopped us. And Lena had been protecting wounds of her own. Her sister, whom she loved, had drawn her aside just before the ceremony. “What about children?” her sister asked. “Have you given enough thought to that?”
As if any future child born to us would belong to a stigmatized breed. The question, Lena told me later, had come from love and she understood that, but the underlying message had been: You still have the chance to change your mind. Lena had fought her sister off on her own terms.
We walked around to the back entrance of the house so that we could prolong our time in the night air. We unlocked the door, headed for the kitchen, opened the fridge door and closed it ag
ain. We were past hunger, wobbly from drink. Lena began to laugh as we climbed the stairs. Once started, she couldn’t stop.
“You looked like hunters and gatherers on the prowl,” she said. “If you could have seen yourselves. All the big men trying to fill their bellies. And button-button was the last straw.” She was doubled over now, and I joined in. “The poor yellow dog,” she said. “No wonder it’s eating the basement steps. It’s starving.”
We went to bed and turned out the lights. Once more, Lena ran her finger over the scar on my forehead. And then, so lightly I scarcely knew her hand was there, she traced every feature of my face, ending with my lips.
“You’re going to have to tell me how the scar got there,” she said, through a yawn. “I need to know.” And she fell asleep.
I was thinking about Ron squeezing himself onto the couch next to her, and I reclaimed her now and pulled her towards me. She was still asleep, but she turned to her side and slid her thigh over mine. And then she woke again.
The next day, Miss Carrie announced that she had decided to fly to Winnipeg to visit her antiquarian friend Lill, who was recovering from surgery. A few days later, Lena and I drove her to the airport, helped with the tan-coloured leather luggage that had belonged to her Mommy in another century, and promised to pick her up on her return. She intended to stay four weeks, because she wanted to be useful. Letters began to arrive soon after her departure, and we were entertained with a letter a week, for the next month.
Thank you for seeing me off, even though I had to travel without the items that refused to turn up, including extra spectacles and favourite garters. Lill has recovered from her operation, but yesterday she tripped and twisted her foot. She sprained her ankle and must walk with a stick. She insists on bending forward to pick up the many things she drops, even with her foot newly swollen.
An old aunt, age one hundred and two, lives in a room beyond the dining room, where I am not to go. An attendant comes and goes, unseen, through a side door. The aunt eats behind a heavy curtain; perhaps she splashes or has spills. Lill and I sit at an extended dining table, which I crawled under and latched from beneath because of its precarious state of balance. Lill pretends that every part of this is normal. The aunt belongs to the family of Lill’s late husband, Beau. I’m told she has thin hair, wears a “piece”—not her own. Since my arrival, she has been grinding her teeth behind the curtain. Lill says Beau’s side of the family all had good teeth in their day. I deduce that the strain of my visit is the cause of the grinding.
The second letter arrived soon afterwards:
The Reverend from Lill’s church announced that he was coming to visit, and I pondered what to wear. Fortunate that I climbed to Mommy’s cedar closet in the attic before departure and dropped a 1936 dress into the hellhole, where my open luggage awaited. It’s a good dress, hand-sewn, turquoise and gloriously fashionable again, with large sleeves. I wore it with great success. The Reverend made it clear that he’d be staying awhile, so Lill brought out her game of Scrabble. I had never played, though the game has been around for years. The three of us sat at a small table in the living room. Lill can’t see enough to play well but I did not bring this to her attention. The Reverend spelled O-V-A-R-Y. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Nothing was said. Lill peered at the tiles but did not seem to notice ovary. We carried on.
After the Reverend left, we talked about friends who have died during the past year. Then we talked about a talent party I once hosted when we were young. Everyone who attended was required to perform. A trifle party, too, in the same year. I chose a handsome young man to serve the wine. He arranged green and red cherries across the trifle, moments before it was served. The world was young and gay then. Now Lill and I are the only two left. The handsome young man disappeared into the next war. Most of the other young men we knew died in the first.
At night I lie in bed in the guest room with my eyes wide and think of the people I’ve known, dead and alive. My head fills with ghosts. The furnace clicks on and off as if it were January. I can feel gusts of air in the room around me. Lill keeps the house far too warm. Occasionally, the old aunt snorts, down below.
And the third:
The church we attended—Anglican—was hung in scarlet, for St. Simon and St. Jude. I took Lill’s arm to prevent her from falling up the steps. The Reverend recited the longest prayer he could concoct and Lill nodded off. She said she enjoyed the outing nonetheless.
On Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, a young maid arrives to clean and prepare dinner. When she is not here, we fend for ourselves. I sew and read the newspapers aloud to Lill. At the moment, I am relining a nice old dressing gown she found in a back closet—1920s or earlier.
Every morning I prepare breakfast, my chore and my pleasure. Lill manages tea. I made cookies one day when the coast was clear. And ironed scarves. I am Busy, capital B. Blind and partially blind people require attention, though Lill will not admit to either condition. Who are we if we aren’t here to help one another in life? And, I suppose, in death.
Weather is holding and I am due to depart in ten days. I shall be flattened by the time I am home and will not be lunatic enough to travel again. One trip every quarter century is enough.
Lill has employed a boy to cut the grass for the last time before winter. I see him from the window, making careful rows. The aunt grinds on behind the curtain. When we enter the dining room, Lill calls out, throwing words ahead of her so as not to startle.
Now I stop. Said grass cutter will mail this as he departs.
P.S. There is art on the walls here. Good art that Bin would want to see.
The final letter of the trip arrived the same day Miss Carrie returned home. We met her at the airport.
Lill invited a friend to tea, a retired officer of some regiment or other, old and ill and sorry for himself. I had already met him, when he was a dozen years younger. He was better company then as retired officer than he is now in the role of dying man. He was once attractive and interesting; now he is bent on dying.
Fortunately, Lill’s young niece had also been invited, and this provided diversion for everyone. She brought her young man, to whom she is engaged. He was on display, but he was awkward and has not yet learned to be charming. He has a mother, like everyone else, but has not been instructed. He wore a three-piece suit, has a beard—urban, not prospector. He did not look like a provider. SHE carried the tray into the dining room, but he plunked down on the first chair he could see. The dying officer looked on, amused at last. I wrote a note to the niece this morning: “A young man is at a definite disadvantage if he is seated when a lady enters a room for her tea.” I sent it off by the afternoon post.
“This is how I want to get old,” said Lena. “With spirit like Miss Carrie’s. Connected. Engaged. With people of every age. Even the ones who are dead.”
We loved receiving Miss Carrie’s letters, and she had more stories to tell on her return.
And Lena and I had something of our own to tell: Lena was pregnant, due the following summer, 1976. Our first and only child, conceived the night of the barbecue. Our beautiful son, our beloved little worrier, Greg. Born old, in a daze of humidity and heat.
CHAPTER 15
1944
Auntie Aya’s baby was born in the early summer. It was a boy, and she and Uncle Aki named him Taro. He was delivered a few weeks before his due date, and he had black hair, a squarish sort of birthmark on his neck and dark eyes like Auntie Aya’s, eyes that stared up into mine when I went over to meet him. He was small, and his toes and fingertips were cold and dusky blue, but Uncle Aki held him up proudly in the doorway so he could be seen by callers who stood outside to congratulate the parents.
Ba was the one who assisted with deliveries because, for many years, she had helped the midwife in the Vancouver area where she’d lived during the time she and Ji had owned their store. She was the only one in camp with that kind of experience, and as there was no doctor among us, she was kept busy the th
ree and a half years she was in that place. She called for my mother to help with Auntie Aya’s delivery, and when Mother came home that night we heard her whispering to Father, behind the dividing sheet in the bedroom. Ba was worried, Mother said, when the afterbirth came, because she knew there would be difficulty ahead.
The birth was cause for celebration because Taro was a first son. Our father opened the small red book and read aloud the fate of a baby born in the year of the monkey. After I saw Taro, I drew a picture of a horse as a gift, and Uncle Aki tacked the picture to the wall in their bedroom and told me he would give it to the baby when he grew older. It was somewhat of a stick figure, but I was pleased with the drawing nonetheless, because the slope of the neck was better than my earlier attempts.
But Ba’s prediction bore out, and Auntie Aya began to bleed heavily within twenty-four hours of the delivery. She had to stay in her bed and did not seem to be getting better. Some said it was because of the extreme cold she had endured during the early months of the past winter. Others said she had breathed the terrible choking fumes from lime that had been dumped into the holes of the outhouses during the first hot spell. That was the problem, they said. It was not a good thing for a woman expecting a child to breathe such fumes. All of this we children overheard, even though the conversations were whispered.
Auntie Aya became more and more ill. The bleeding turned to haemorrhage. Mother came home one afternoon after helping Ba, and she sat on a chair and looked at the floor and we could see that she was crying. She told us that our aunt was weak and had lost a lot of blood. She had been lying on her back in bed and had told Uncle Aki that she was slipping away; she could feel herself leaving.
Requiem Page 14