by Linda Rogers
The next day, I brought a book to the cave and told Coon I was going to teach him to read.
Some kids are suckers for “happily ever after.” We believe it because it’s all we’ve got. Coon and I started with a fairy tale. We sat down on a moss-covered rock near the door to his cave and tucked in.
“Once upon a time, there dwelt near a large wood a poor woodcutter, his two children and their stepmother,” I began reading the story of Hansel and Gretel, because it fit us so well. As soon as I started reading, he put his thumb in his mouth. I had already noticed Coon’s nails were bitten down and his thumb was shrivelled, like it had been in water all day long. He was still a little baby, one who was badly in need of a bath. Coon’s hair was matted in dreads and he was filthy: in spite of plunges in the salt chuck and rudimentary washes in the rain barrel, he kept at a discreet distance from his cave. I didn’t ask where he went to the bathroom, but I guessed it was everywhere. “Don’t shit in your own well,” my daddy used to say. That is why I was so surprised when I realized that was what he had been doing all along.
When I finished reading the story of hapless children abandoned to their fate in the forest, Coon asked me to read it again. So I did. When he insisted I read it a third time, I realized it was going to be hard work getting him to settle down to his lessons, so I decided the story would be his dessert. We would start with letters and sounds, and if he played ball then we could have story time.
I started thinking about fairy tales and how all the bad guys were stepmothers. Somewhere out there Coon had a bad dad. His mother was dead. At that time I believed I was the vice versa reversa. Would my prescription for Stella’s loneliness backfire on me? Would the man of her dreams waltz into our life and step on my toes? That part had not occurred to me. I just thought I could find a dance man for her and a daddy man for me. If Coon’s dad hadn’t been a rat, all we would have had to do was find him and put him together with Stella. That would be a happy ending – me, Coon, Stella and what’s his name. We could live in our house and, if he didn’t have a car, we could peel the blackberries off the garage and get the old car going again. That would have been perfect.
One afternoon Stella interrupted my siesta, a nice daydream in which the four of us were posing for wedding pictures, Stella and me in matching dresses she’d made out of pale blue lace. She sent me to the store for lemons. It was too hot for gin. She had a hankering for iced tea. Since I thought there wouldn’t be any change, I stole a pack of Popeye candy cigarettes. Mr. Jung came up to me where I was resting my head on a box of Popsicles and asked if I wanted to buy a bag of peas in the shell, my play cooking game, cold peas stirred in cold water from the garden hose, from before I charged candy bars and got husky and he took it on himself to become the fat police.
When I was a little kid, my mum would give me a nickel and send me to the store for peas. I filled a pot with cold water and emptied the pods in it.
I told Coon about my daydreams and he smiled so I could see all his stumpy teeth at once. “You should go to the dentist,” I said, and he didn’t have the foggiest notion what I was talking about.
“All the lost teeth go in the pearly wall around heaven, right?”
“That’s baby teeth.”
“So it keeps getting bigger.”
“I guess that’s the idea, people getting born, losing their teeth and dying.”
“Making room on both sides.”
BEATIFIED
E-mail to the motherboard
At Passover Seders, Jews ask the question, “How is this night different from all others?” and then they tell one another the story of their flight from Egypt and discovery of the Promised Land.
Tonight I did something I have never done before.
It began on the seawall. I walked beside my client, smelling her hair, which she had washed in a jasmine-scented shampoo, and enjoying her pleasure at the fullmoon and the songs played by her Canadian friends and their Turkish bandmates at the café on the waterfront.
Mad was enchanted by the cumbus, our Turkish banjo-like fretless instrument whose metallic body makes the sound of light skipping on water. She stopped dancing to listen several times. I think she even ceased breathing.
I longed to speak with her, to tell her what I know about this particularly Turkish instrument that is a mix of Asia and Europe, just like this country, something the Father of Turkey recognized when he gave the cumbus its name, which means “joyful,” but conversation is not my job. Güzel speaks. He is her teacher. I am his master. It is my job to listen and give gentle guidance, a hand.
Tonight, because she was ready, the moon and the music having worked their magic, was my time to make love to her. I followed her up the stairs to her room on the first floor and watched her hesitate outside the room she had reserved for Güzel, listening to see if he was awake. I slipped through the door after her and watched her step out of her dress and hang it up. While she was in the shower, humming one of the tunes she had heard during her promenade, I watched her slowly caress her body with soap and then rinse off the suds. Because the air conditioning affects her sinuses, she has left the system turned off.
Mad left her new cotton-lace nightgown hanging on the hook on her bathroom door and went to bed naked. Licking her fingers as she turned the pages, she read her Turkish Eye Witness until she heard him outside her door. Oh, she wanted him to come in. She wished she had put on her becoming nightgown and that she had the courage to ask him to join her. I watched her blow him a kiss.
In between the ordinary and the divine there are beatitudes that transcend taboos. All is mutable and every act is a prayer.
She took a long time to fall asleep. I waited, listening to the cuckoo coo of the doves on the roof and the sound of words on paper and thoughts of Güzel moving through her mind, until her eyes finally closed and the heavy book fell out of her hands onto the floor. I picked it up, marked the page with a hotel postcard, and turned out her light, then lay down beside her and touched her very gently, all over, the way she touches her old ladies and gentlemen.
She was having the dream where her father tickles her.
I have heard the delightful incoherent noises of Japanese girls when they are delighted by cherry blossoms or by the taste of green tea ice cream and American or English girls waiting at stage doors. Those are the chirping sounds Madeleine (I shall call my client Madeleine for the purposes of love-making because of the music, three syllables are music; and one is simply a note) makes when she is touched in her sleep. I would call those noises “joyful.”
This is as new to me as it is to her. Angels don’t normally make love to their clients, but I like the idea of awakening Madeleine to her own pleasure. She has only ever given. It is high time she received more than just a tickle, time she learned that pleasure can mutate from something as simple as laughter to the earth moving.
Madeleine’s angel in the snow may be ecstatic release, but she is no ordinary sex tourist. I am going to call this lovemaking “touch.” It is all in the hands. I swear I felt her spirit healing as I touched her flesh, every hair erect, every follicle shivering with pleasure. This is a private sacrament. My manual says that, just as she will wake up tomorrow morning unaware that her body has repaired and replaced cells during her sleep, she will not remember that she was loved, but she will look at herself in the mirror and see light passing through. I hope she will feel beatified.
BABA
While we enjoy our Turkish breakfast – tomatoes, olives, cucumber and eggs with simit – on the patio in front of the Otel Dinc, small finches clean up the crumbs around the tables. We have been given tiny bowls of butter drenched in honey. I swipe my bread through it.
“Did you know honey is bee vomit?” I ask, and Güzel shrugs.
He is very quiet. He filed his story last night, but says he couldn’t sleep afterward, so he sat on his balcony and drank rakı until the sun rose.
“Why did Ataturk legalize alcohol if he was a Muslim?” I ask.
“I ask the questions, Madeleine.”
“You said I would learn about Turkey. That was not a personal question.”
“Alcohol is a personal issue here. It is still uncomfortable, but we are practical. Tourists will want to drink on their holidays for one thing. I will tell you about a conversation I recently had with my father and an American journalist who visited our farm.”
“Your farm?”
“My family grows olives.”
He pushes the button on the recorder. I hear Güzel’s voice first. “Baba, my American friend wants you to tell him what Turkey means to you. What are the three things you would tell this American about Turks?”
There is a moment’s hesitation as his father clears his voice and considers his response.
“Everyone is our relation by heart. First, we expose ourselves, but not too much. Then, we offer hospitality. All Turks like to share what we eat, what we drink.
“And there are some more things.” Güzel’s father speaks as if he has pebbles in his mouth or congestion in his lungs. His breathing is louder than his voice.
“We are half Asians, half Arabs. We are half Balkanians, not a real Islam. We drink. We go to mosque. For some of us it is a great sin to drink, but in the Qur’an alcohol is forbidden, but no punishment. If you drink it is forbidden. It is a sin. That is all.
“During Ramadan, rural man meets with tourist having beer on the road, just resting. Man has been working hard and he is thirsty, but he cannot drink. He says to tourist, ‘You may drink and I cannot; but we both take care of our religion.’ That is the attitude in my country.
“In the Qur’an there is a great proverb. ‘There is no one between you and God.’ We are all responsible to God for what we do and do not do. The Arabs and the rest of the Islamic world hate us Turks. They say, ‘You are not Islam.’ They feel shame because of what we see on television. Everything is fear and they think of us as Christians.
“We are an oasis between Christianity and Islam. Turkey is place to rest and drink.”
“That is beautiful, Güzel, but is it practical?” One drink leads to another, I think, and when the drunk is asleep, the house burns down.
“You should ask your parents questions like this. It is important.”
“My parents are dead.”
“Oh, yes, I know. I am sorry.”
He is. I can tell. We’ve been wired to think community means continuity, and family is the first community. I try to think of something to comfort him, because I have embarrassed him by exposing my deficit. We are all supposed to have loved ones. Even Iman has a family that cares so much for her they will risk their lives to defend her honour.
“My father grew tomatoes and cucumbers. I am sure he would have had an olive tree if it could have been happy in our climate.”
The foraging birds fill the silence between us, and I feel fire. I can’t be having a hot flash, not yet. I pick up my napkin and fan myself.
“It is so warm, I can’t tell whether or not I am having a hot flash.”
“You are joking.”
“Why would I?” I think he wants to ask me how old I am, but I know that he will not. “It isn’t a power surge.”
Later, when we are lying in the beach cabana with its long sheer curtains blowing about us after swimming five hundred metres out to sea and back, I tell him about meeting Coon the summer I was twelve.
“You know,” I say, “he had a birthmark in exactly the same place as you, on his stomach.”
“Long ago, a fairy kissed me.”
“What is your father’s name, Güzel?”
“Sevmek.”
I close my eyes and listen for the sound of angels in my bottle tree. It sounds as if they are arguing. Is this the battle of the apocalypse, angels disagreeing? Will this ancient country survive the battle between apostates and fundamentalists? I wonder if the new regime, secularism, inclusivity, will impale itself, as did the caliphate, on compromise.
IF
Of course, I am the voice of Güzel’s father. We all have our parts to play.
Güzel knows that Mad’s parents are dead. He forgot to remember that she hasn’t yet learned the lesson about here and the sweet beyond; that life energy flows back and forth, conversations continue. She can still finish the business if she wishes. “If” is a strange word. Of course she wishes. Unfinished business is what her life is about. She may not believe in such things, but there are dying people who are willing to memorize messages for the dead. This service is a comfort to some, but unnecessary. The dead know what mortals are thinking. Of course they do. Mortals are predictable and their thoughts run in repetitious patterns. The trick is willing a negative pattern to change, re-programming.
Mad has noticed the birthmark. I think that is a lovely touch, reassurance of Güzel’s mortality. He told her my Turkish name. I wonder if she is connecting the dots? She is, after all, here to reboot her mind, although Iman, now flying from country to country in an airplane loaned to her by the American Secretary of State, is interfering with her thought patterns.
MOTHER SUPERIOR
I read on the Internet that a young female page in the House of Commons interrupted the throne speech after the Conservatives won their forty percent majority with a sign saying the Prime Minister must be stopped. STOP HARPER. In America that would mean “terminate with prejudice,” uzis blazing, the way bin Laden was “brought to justice.” But in Canada it implies “make accountable” or “keep honest,” a process involving plea, petition and peaceful protest. Not as effective as termination, not as clean, but just. Way to go, former page.
I am proud of that young woman and reminded that in Canada we still have the luxury of complaint. The audacious page lost her job, but in many parts of the world she would have lost her head. The people I meet in Turkey whisper about fundamentalism. They fear change, the very thing their experiment with secularism has inspired in their Arab neighbours, but many feel powerless to protect the freedoms they have inherited. There is more in the newspapers about soccer than the Arab Spring, the murder of Osama bin Laden or the rape of Iman.
My mother used to call me a squeaky wheel, but how else are you going to get oil? Squeak and ye shall find. Petitions, not pistols is so Canadian.
Who should I write to to complain about the eels in the Gorge? That was my big concern the summer of Coon and me, before he vanished in the crack between summer and fall. Since I was used to sending whining letters to companies with imperfect products and getting freebies – some of them rip-ons and some of them treats like candy bars – and getting abject apologies in return, I thought there should be someone who would listen to me. I immediately thought of God. Coon had even less of a relationship with God than I did and neither of us had any idea how to address a letter to him.
Then there was the matter of what it would say. How does one address God? Do we start with Dear God or Our Father, or do we take a firmer tone? “God, this is not permissible. Clean up your act, or else.” Maybe a venal pitch is necessary. How about this offer of a bribe, and I admit I would not have had a clue back then, “God, I’m willing to give you a hand release if you’ll just make sure the Gorge is safe to swim in.” Would he or she have heard that? There are many people addressing the higher power every day, something I have learned since I joined Al-Anon. So what is the best approach: prayer, song, or angry letters?
The people I know who have let Jesus into their hearts say God is everywhere and knows everything and everyone. I have absolutely no reason to believe this person or thing has ever noticed me. If it had, then my father and mother would have been left alone in their semi-happy domestic life until the four score and ten were used up, and then allowed to wither away like the leaves on the chestnut tree on our boulevard. That would have been natural. Instead, I got stuck with a big mess no kid should have to clean up. There is not much I could do about a dead dad and an alcoholic mum without help from somewhere. I was not about to become a team person. No one pi
cked me for teams, not even God.
Around the middle of August, just when I had Coon feeling confident in the water, the eels moved in. At first I only saw one or two, but then they came in schools, thousands of them. One hot day I woke up at noon from a horrible deep sleep and my bed was just teeming with eels. They were in my mouth and ears and even got inside my pajamas.
I wrote to the mayor. My mother referred to the mayor as the boss of the city and I thought he would be flattered. She told me that whenever a policeman stopped me I should address him as “Sergeant” because ordinary cops were not sergeants. Most policemen were corporals who wanted to be sergeants and would be chuffed by the promotion.
Dear Boss,
Eels have invaded the Selkirk Gorge. Now eels can’t vote, so you shouldn’t be on their side. Prisoners can’t vote either. Since you’re a law and order guy and criminals would never vote for you, prison is the best place for them. I suggest you find a way of putting the eels in jail, or I won’t be voting for you either.
Yours Truly,
Mother Turka.
I hoped the mayor followed my logic. In case he didn’t, I sent carbon copies to all the aldermen, but this time I left off sending my letter to the newspaper. My letter was signed “Mother” and not “Madeleine” because I had the bright idea he might think I was a Mother Superior with God on my side. That, I told myself, while I licked and sealed the envelope, was a stroke of brilliance.
Coon and I stayed awake until morning many times, but the night I’ll never forget is the evening of the first aurora borealis. We were sitting outside the cave, choking on a couple of cigarettes I had stolen from the box beside Stella’s bed when the northern sky lit up. Inside the shimmering arc, spumes of green florescence flared and faded. Coon and I were mesmerized by this great living stage with its faint radio noises. I wondered if my daddy lived inside that huge green scrim and wondered if he was trying to send me a message. My chest ached and I circled the feeling with both arms. It didn’t matter. I knew he was there. I understood and was comforted.