Mercedes parked as far from the main entrance as she could, to lessen the chances of having to negotiate her way past other cars when she left. She saw Wish’s clunker on her way in. The back bumper uneven, the right side hung up with a length of yellow wire. Doors rusting out at the bottoms, plastic duct-taped over a missing passenger window. Rosary beads swinging from the rear-view mirror. She felt herself hesitate in the presence of the vehicle, as if it was parked there deliberately to warn her off.
But she fixed herself. Walked inside.
Wish had his back to her, sitting in front of Lilly, who was sound asleep in the wheelchair. Her head was almost level with her narrow shoulders, which were draped with towels for some reason. The television was off and she thought Wish was asleep as well. The overhead lights reflecting off the bald pate of his head. She stepped in quietly, leaned over him. The aftershave again. The smoky afterglow of coffee. She leaned closer, trying to suss out the smell of him beneath that cover.
Wish jumped in his chair. “Jesus,” he said. “Mercedes.”
“Sorry. Sorry. I thought you were asleep.”
“Jesus,” he whispered again, keeping his voice down so as not to wake Lilly.
She dragged a chair next to his, put her shoulder bag on the floor by her feet. Smiled across at him. He looked like a boy who’d been dressed for church by his mother. A white shirt, buttoned to the throat. It made him seem vulnerable, as if the adult world was something he was still being introduced to.
“I’m sorry to have set Bella on you the other day,” she said.
“You sent her?”
“I just wanted to see you were all right. After everything. She didn’t make a spectacle of herself, I hope.”
“No,” he said too quickly. “No, she was fine.”
“I should have known better.”
They sat for a long time then watching the old woman sleep. Ninety years in the ancient face and sometime soon all she’d been and done in the world would be put to rest for good. That fact was a kind of light emanating from her, a truth made obvious by her frailty, by the pale lacework of veins showing through the papery skin of her hands, by the delicate pitch of her head. Mercedes reached across to Wish and he held her hand while they sat there.
“I always wondered,” she said, “about how you found her. Stretched out on the floor of her little house.”
“She was having a fit,” he said.
“There was blood, they said. On the palms of her hands.”
“Tom Keating said there was.” He shrugged as if he was uncomfortable contradicting the man. “All I remember seeing was the face on her. All twisted out of shape and the eyes rolled back in her head.” He sat straighter in his chair and said, “The whole of that woman’s life has been nothing but a torment.”
It occurred to Mercedes that the same thing could probably be said of Wish, that he and the old woman mirrored each other in some way. She said, “It doesn’t matter, you know. That you didn’t come looking for me.”
“Mercedes.”
“I don’t blame you for it, I mean. Things being what they were.”
He glanced at her and nodded.
She said, “Johnny was good to me. He was a good husband. I had the girls.”
He nodded again, just once.
“And the money,” she said quickly, “the bet you had with Hiram, whatever that was about.”
“That’s enough now,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “None of it matters now.”
He said, “Shut up, Mercedes,” very slowly and without raising his voice.
She drew a little ways away from him in her chair, surprised by the man’s obstinance. His withdrawal from her was a kind of devotion, she could see. He’d nailed himself to the cross of that denial long ago and had been faithful to it all his life. The arrogance of the undertaking struck her suddenly, the sullen, pig-hearted stubbornness required to maintain it for so long. She pulled her hand from his. Said, “Oh fuck off, Wish.”
The old woman stirred in her chair at the commotion, looked around the room before she focused her attention on the people sitting before her. Lilly smiled at them both, as if she’d been expecting them. She spread her arms as wide as she was capable, a gesture of welcome or benediction. She said, “Dilectissimi nobis, in domum ecclesiae convenistis, ut voluntas vestra Matrimonium contrahendi coram Ecclesiae ministro —”
Wish said, “Give it up now, Lilly.”
The smile never left the old woman’s face. She went on speaking as if she was reading off a cue card. Mercedes heard Christus and Matrimonii and Sacramento and Baptismatet. Wish grinned awkwardly, staring down at his shoes. “She thinks she’s some kind of a priest,” he said.
Lilly said, “Aloysious et Mercedes,” and they both sat a little straighter at the mention of their names. “Venistisne hue sine coactione, sed libero et pleno corde ad Matrimonium contrahendum?” She paused a moment now and then as if waiting for a response to a particular question, moving on when she appeared to receive it. The rhythm and cadence of the phrases so familiar that, even in Latin, Mercedes managed to get the gist of what she was doing.
Wish tried to catch Lilly’s eye. “Capo perduto,” he said to her. “Do you understand me? You’re not a priest.”
Lilly leaned toward him and whispered in English. “Have you got the ring, Aloysious?”
“Sorry, Father,” he said. “I forgot the ring. Have to be another day for us.”
It was the phrase another day, the casual insincerity of it. Mercedes reached down to pick up her shoulder bag from the floor, lifted out the paper parcel. She said, “I have the ring.”
Wish glanced at her quickly. He said, “Lord Jesus, Mercedes.”
“Here,” she said and held the ring out so that Lilly could make the sign of the cross over the gold band and bless it.
Wish said, “For fuck sake, woman.” But he didn’t leave his seat.
She reached for his hand and placed the wedding band in the palm, closing his fingers over it. His eyes had welled up and he raised the fist holding the ring to cover his mouth. She didn’t know if there was a single strand of the boy she’d fallen in love with still in him. He said, “You stupid, stupid.” And it was impossible to know if he was speaking of Lilly or Mercedes or himself.
Lilly spoke another few words and then smiled at them both as if they had satisfied all the requirements of the ceremony. Mercedes was watching Wish as he tried to stifle the sobs and it took her a moment to notice Lilly had finished. The old woman was making little motions with her hands to indicate they should kiss one another. She said, “What God has joined,” with a delicate little bow of her head.
“Amen to that,” Mercedes said.
THANKS
Holly, Arielle, Robin and Ben.
Martha Kanya-Forstner. Anne McDermid. Janet Michael and Theresa (Michael) Rockwood. Degan Davis. Andy Jones for the knotted string. Didi Gillard-Rowling. Cate Cochran. Michelle Butler Hallett. Larry Dohey at the Archives of the Catholic Archdiocese in St. John’s. Shaun Oakey. Alison Pick. Stan Dragland. Marney McDiarmid. Eleanor MacDonald. Janice McAlpine. Lisa Moore. Mazie Crummey.
The following books helped shape people, places and events in the novel:
It’s like a dream to me: Paddy ‘Iron’ McCarthy of Renews relives his first hundred years, Bertha Thorne
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture, Ruth Benedict
Years of Sorrow, Years of Shame: The Story of Japanese Canadians in World War II, Barry Broadfoot
Testaments of Honour: Personal Histories of Canada’s War Veterans, Blake Heathcote
Runaway Horses and Confessions of a Mask, Yukio Mishima
The Wind-up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami
Tilting, Robert Mellin
Nagasaki #14 is fictional but the accounts of many POW survivors informed the novel’s depiction of camp rules, routines and conditions. Thanks to Reg Sherren for the transcript of Return to Nagasaki, a
CBC documentary on John Ford’s experiences in a camp near ground zero.
Nishino’s experiences at Guadalcanal are largely based on David H. Lippman’s account (World War II Plus 55 at www.usswashington.com).
COPYRIGHT © 2005 MICHAEL CRUMMEY INK
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Anchor Canada and colophon are trademarks.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Crummey, Michael
The wreckage: a novel / Michael Crummey.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37329-8
I. Title.
PS8555.R84W74 2006 C813.′54 C2006-901225-3
Published in Canada by
Anchor Canada, a division of
Random House of Canada Limited
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