Milosz

by Cordelia Strube

  ‘And breathing,’ Pablo emphasizes. ‘It must feel totally weird, being underwater then suddenly you have to, like, breathe polluted air. That must be why they cry. The polluted air must burn their little lungs.’

  ‘And they must be fucking freezing,’ Wallace adds. ‘I mean, the womb must be warm, right, then all of a sudden they’re out where it’s cold and bright and they have to breathe and their arms and legs are flopping all over the place.’

  ‘I’m surprised they don’t die of shock,’ Milo says.

  •••

  He attempts to dial the number several times before finally completing the call. Her voice mail sounds officious, which means she must be job hunting again. He doesn’t leave a message but tries again several times before muttering, ‘It’s me, Milo. Call me.’

  With the musketeers downstairs he watches the video repeatedly. The raw vulnerability of the creature causes an unexpected heaving and shifting in Milo’s intestines. ‘Don’t come out,’ he whispers to it. Between hiccups it holds up its hands as if to ask why? ‘Too complicated,’ Milo tells it. Its legs look cramped, as though it wants to bust out, and its big head is being forced downward in the tiny space capsule. Maybe it should come out – who wants to hiccup in a cramped swamp? But if it’s high-risk, what awaits it on the outside? Incubators, injections, tubes and wires leading in and out of every orifice? The phone rings.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Milo,’ she says. She always begins their phone conversations with ‘Milo.’ The other women in his life immediately held forth about their feelings or worries but Zosia just said, ‘Milo.’

  ‘I got the disk,’ he says.

  ‘Good.’

  He can’t even hear her breathing. ‘Why did you send it?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I think you want me to think it’s mine.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s yours?’

  ‘How could it be?’

  ‘I’m seven months’ pregnant. Do the math.’

  ‘But there’ve been other men.’

  ‘What other men?’

  ‘The bartender at the Copper Pipe, with the moustache.’

  She doesn’t respond, which is not unusual. Unlike the other women in his life, she is comfortable with silence. The alien creature hiccups and holds up its hands again, why?

  ‘He got shot,’ Zosia says.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The bartender. He was my friend, not my lover. The fact that you are questioning me tells me I made the wrong decision. I should not have contacted you. I’m sorry. Goodbye.’ And she’s gone, poof, just like that. He redials immediately but she doesn’t answer. What was he thinking? Shot dead? Was she kneeling by the fallen man’s side while his brains leaked onto the terracotta tiles?

  ‘Milo?’ Vera calls. ‘Come have a sanny. You haven’t eaten a scrap all day.’

  The creature holds up its hands again. ‘I’m sorry,’ Milo whispers to it while his guts heave and shift. The creature shrugs as if to say, it’s okay, and suddenly Milo is awash in an ocean of entitlement. It is his baby, is it not? She has no right to prevent him from having his baby. It needs his help, his protection in a violent world, and this gushing well of emotion that might be love. Seven months? No wonder the head is so big compared to the rest of it. Those little stick arms and legs will fill out, the tiny shoulders and chest will broaden against the onslaught of human ignorance. And Milo will be waiting for it, ready to do whatever it takes to protect his vital organ outside his body.

  He can’t sleep, of course, and calls her countless times between bouts of twisting himself into contortions on the couch. He managed to eat a peanut butter sandwich, understanding that Vera’s right: faced with new responsibility, he must keep his strength up. He has told the musketeers nothing. They think he hasn’t returned Zosia’s call, that he is experiencing typical my-­girlfriend-got-pregnant angst. Tawny has disappeared again, padding off soundlessly.

  The La-Z-Boy creaks. ‘Milo? Are you still awake?’

  He plays possum.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Maria’s cousin freaked when he found out his girlfriend was pregnant. She was working in a flower factory so he was scared the baby would be born with flippers from all those pesticides. He told her to abort it, said he’d pay for it, but getting safe abortions in Mexico is hard. Anyway, she didn’t want to.’

  Milo waits for the blabbermouth to finish the story but no, the muscle­head unwraps a stick of gum and chews on it. ‘What happened?’ he asks, finally.

  ‘It was stillborn.’

  ‘Oh my god.’ The thought of the little trapped creature being born dead causes a crack in Milo’s foundation that expands with every breath, widening into a chasm. In seconds, everything he has ever cared about is sucked into cold, dark infinity. Only the little creature remains, teetering at the edge of the precipice, hiccupping and holding up its hands, why?

  ‘I think you should call her Valentina,’ Pablo says. ‘Then you can call her Tina or Val. Or Teeny. Teeny’s nice for, like, when she’s little.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Milo says.

  He sleeps fitfully, dreaming of rabbits spurting blood as Gus thwacks them with a stick. He hears noises in the kitchen and finds Tawny back at the books. ‘Did you call her?’ she asks.

  ‘I pissed her off. Now she won’t answer my calls.’

  ‘How did you piss her off?’

  ‘I questioned its paternity.’

  ‘Bad idea.’

  ‘I realize that.’

  ‘You want me to call her?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I could call her from a pay phone. She won’t know who it is.’

  Is he really so desperate that he will put his life in the hands of a fifteen-year-old? ‘Okay. When?’

  ‘Whenever you want.’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘You want me to call her at four in the morning?’

  ‘She’s an early riser.’

  As they plod to the pay phone, she asks about Gus, and Milo realizes that the old sadist has not screamed for dope. Is it possible that the patio project has calmed his core as it has Robertson’s? Not once in the past twenty-four hours has Milo heard screaming through the wall or head-banging.

  ‘What’s the number?’ Tawny asks. He points to the envelope, sweaty from his grip. She punches the numbers then shoves him out the sliding doors. ‘Don’t listen. I have to tell her honestly that you’re not listening. Go over there.’ She points to some newspaper boxes.

  ‘The whole point in you calling her was so I could talk to her.’

  ‘I have to talk to her first.’ With the receiver pressed against her ear, she shoos him with her free hand. He stands by the newspaper boxes, a man on a deserted island hoping for a passing ship. Tawny turns her back on him as she talks. He can deduce nothing from her body language. This child of alcoholics, possibly suffering from the lasting effects of fetal alcohol syndrome, is toying with his fate. What was he thinking? Should he snatch the phone and demand to be heard? It is his right, is it not, as the father of the child? Father of the child. The very words cause his ribs to jam. A child who might love him if he doesn’t screw up too much. Isn’t he screwing up too much already? But who will care for the child if not him? Liquid explodes behind Milo’s eyeballs, enabling the confusion inside him to spew out and pool around his feet. Like Christopher he will burn and drip until nothing remains but a puddle.

  Did she laugh? What’s so funny? Are they laughing at him? He takes a step towards the phone booth but shame and fear harness him. More rejection he cannot endure.

  She hangs up. Hangs up? And steps out of the booth.

  ‘You were supposed to let me talk to her,’ he protests.

  ‘She doesn’t want to talk to you right now. She has to think about it and wants you to stop calling her.’

  ‘But … but … ’

  ‘But nothing. Quit stalking her. She has to thi
nk.’

  And that’s it. Poker-faced, the fifteen-year-old pads back to base camp.

  ablo operates a squeezeball in his right hand to cope with the stress caused by his impending nuptials. His cell died so Maria has been calling him on Milo’s phone to make arrangements. Milo rushes to the phone each time it rings hoping, of course, that it is Zosia. But no, it is Maria.

  ‘You going to have some yah-jetch-nitsah nah botch-kuh with us, Milo?’

  ‘Jajecznica na boczku,’ Gus clarifies, nodding.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Scrambled eggs with bacon. Gussy makes it better than anybody.’

  The bacon does smell good, and Milo can’t be alone right now with cold winds howling in and out of him. He quit looking at the video in an attempt to stop forming an attachment to the trapped creature, and has begun conversations in his head re the impracticalities of having a child – financial and psychological – particularly if it’s high-risk.

  ‘Miłosz,’ Gus says, holding a plate of eggs out to Milo.

  ‘Coño,’ Pablo says, ‘did he just call you Mee-wosh?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Hey, Gussy, who’s that?’ Pablo points to Milo.

  ‘Miłosz.’ Gus pulls a chair out for Milo and gestures for him to sit.

  ‘That must be your Polish name, Milo.’

  ‘I don’t have a Polish name.’

  ‘That’s so cool. Mee-wosh. I wonder what Pablo is in Polish. Hey, Gussy, what’s Pablo in Polski?’

  ‘Pablo,’ Gus says.

  Milo shoves Pablo’s naked feet off a chair. ‘I thought you were supposed to be the martyr. Get off your ass and make us some kah-vah.’

  ‘See, Mee-wosh, you’re learning Polish.’

  The phone rings again. Milo runs for it. ‘Is Pablo there?’ Maria asks.

  Vera comes downstairs waving a letter. ‘The dog ate Ettie’s false teeth. Imagine that. She was sleeping over for Freddie’s party and she left her teeth by the bed and the dog ate them. Must have thought they were a bone.

  Poor Ettie.’

  ‘Poor dog,’ Milo says.

  ‘Has anybody seen Wally? He’s taking me to look at flats this afternoon. Isn’t it grand?’

  ‘Very.’ She looks enviably spry.

  ‘How can I help?’ she asks Gus, and the two of them begin a breakfast dance, beating more eggs and buttering more toast. Milo leans back in his chair, tipping the front legs off the floor, a habit that irritated his father, but reborn Gussy doesn’t seem to mind. Tawny, newspaper in hand, pulls a chair up beside him. ‘That Chinese guy’s father had a brain injury. He was hit by a car and part of his brain got damaged. It totally altered his personality. That’s why he turned violent.’ She points to the headline Crossbow Victim’s Trauma Revealed.

  ‘So now the abuser becomes the victim,’ Milo says.

  ‘His lawyer says he had severe cognitive, language and functional ­impairments.’

  ‘You can always trust a lawyer.’

  ‘He says he was destitute and homeless. His clothes were dirty and he smelled terrible. He got on his knees and begged the lawyer to take his case. He said he had been thrown out of his matrimonial home without notice and was living in a shelter.’

  ‘Poor guy, no wonder he had to beat the crap out of his wife and son.’

  Vera spreads jam. ‘There are two sides to every story, Milo. Did we finish the marmalade?’

  But really, it’s not so bad sitting here with pig frying and the septuagenarians bustling around him. He could never sit idly like this with the old Gus. The old Gus would assign a task: laundry, floor washing, vacuuming. You don’t have Mrs. Cauldershot to clean up after you anymore.

  What was the story with Gus and the old witch anyway? Did he not realize she was enamoured of him, that she was the woman of his dreams, willing to sacrifice all to serve the great man? On her last day she left Milo a small dish of jelly beans. For nine years she had forbidden him candy in the house. At thirteen, jelly beans held considerably less value than when Milo was five. He sucked on a green one anyway as she traipsed down the walk. When she looked back with a wobbly smile, Gus said, ‘Look after yourself,’ then marched back to the basement. Only Milo stayed to see her off, waving limply. Once her back was turned, he flipped her the finger.

  Pablo returns a weakened man. ‘Maria wants to decorate the wedding chamber at city hall. We only get thirty minutes in there for a hundred bucks and she wants to decorate it.’

  Already Milo can smell irreconcilable differences. ‘That’s more than three bucks per minute,’ he warns. ‘I hope it’s an epic wedding chamber.’

  ‘And that don’t include tax,’ Pablo adds.

  ‘Well, a few cheery flowers will do the trick,’ Vera says.

  ‘You don’t understand, she wants to, like, decorate the walls. How do you put up decorations and get married in thirty minutes?’

  The phone rings. Milo lunges for it. ‘Hello … ?’

  ‘Milo.’

  His heart sticks to his jammed ribs.

  ‘Milo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine. I’m … I’m having bacon and scrambled eggs.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Can we … ? Are you … ?’

  ‘You wanted to talk.’

  ‘Yes. I’m really sorry I said what I said.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘Well, I … I was hoping we could meet and, you know, talk in person?’

  A Titanic of a pause sinks between them.

  ‘Where would you like to meet?’ she asks.

  He has already planned to suggest the Magic Bean where they held hands and played footsy while drinking five-dollar coffees. ‘How ’bout the Magic Bean?’ His voice jumps an octave on bean.

  ‘Whatever,’ she says. ‘Two o’clock?’

  ‘Two o’clock would be excellent. I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘Okay.’ She hangs up. They’re all staring at him, except Gussy who is busy scrambling and humming a Polish folk tune.

  •••

  Still three hours to go. To stop himself from thinking he resumes scraping the Muskoka chairs while Gussy and the boy lay patio stones. Why does time drag its ass when you want it to move, and travel at the speed of light when you want it to loiter? Gussy interrupts his masonry briefly to inspect Milo’s handiwork. The son waits for the father’s criticism but all Gussy says is ‘Goot,’ nodding and smiling.

  And then Tanis is there hanging laundry and, to Milo’s amazement, he has no desire to lick her legs. He watches her as though through a telescope. What an interesting specimen. Her system of holding pegs in her mouth, thereby freeing her hands, and then clasping the edges of two garments with one peg impresses him. Why use two pegs when one will do? How could he have failed to notice this demonstration of human ingenuity before? Does lust blind you? Of course it does.

  He can’t imagine touching Zosia again, so undeserving is he of her trust. He could tell from the way she said ‘whatever’ that it is over. She is agreeing to meet with him because she wants to end it. One of her favourite North American phrases is ‘no loose ends.’ When you’re seven months’ pregnant, single, on a temporary visa, unemployed and your mother is sick in Latvia, can there be looser ends? Could not Milo take her in his arms and offer comfort at least? Maybe he should try this, skip the dialogue and cut to the action.

  ‘Are you ignoring me now?’ Tanis asks.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Just preoccupied.’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Christopher’s been calling. We’re talking.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘It’s because of you. Thank you.’

  Her sincere gratitude as she stands gripping wet socks punches the breath out of him and once again liquid explodes behind his eyeballs. He keeps his head down and scrapes at chipped paint while what feels like his innards dribbles onto the grass.

  �
�••

  Milo changes tables again, scoring a window seat. This way he’ll spot her before she sees him. He has refrained from rehearsing in his mind how he will act, intending to be completely spontaneous. He distracts himself with crossword puzzles and horoscopes, checking the door only about every ten seconds. She has been known to arrive early, although usually exactly on time.

  Virgo: Be decisive and dynamic and take full advantage of the new opportunities coming your way. Everything will work out for the best if you believe in yourself and if you believe that the Universe wants you to succeed.

  Tanis told him one of Christopher’s legs is healing half an inch shorter than the other. They might have to refracture it, the doctor said, or he could try wearing a lift.

  ‘Is he upset?’ Milo asked.

  ‘He’s beyond upset. He’s in another zone.’

  ‘Are you going to go see him?’

  ‘It’s not like we’re getting together again, Milo.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting you were.’

  ‘You want that, you want things like they were. You know what my father says?’

  Her father is a businessman who uses terms Milo doesn’t understand like securitization, de-leveraging and structured investment vehicles.

  ‘He says long-term results are usually determined by short-term decisions.’

  ‘I have no idea what that means,’ Milo said and walked away, yes, walked away from Tanis to get on with his life, his life.

  When he sees Zosia he feels emotions gurgling again and tries to appear preoccupied with the newspaper, although really, to maintain an even keel, he would prefer to lie on the floor.

  ‘What can I get you?’ he asks, hoping she’ll request one of the decadent creamy coffees they used to share.

  ‘A small decaf. Black. Thank you.’

  He orders at the bar, assuring himself that all is not lost, even though she looks pale and worn and without hope. He sets the cup before her and tries to smile, cheese, but he is so jittery he spills some coffee. ‘Sorry,’ he says, grabbing napkins and mopping it up. She says nothing, only sits, waiting patiently while he disposes of the soaked napkins. ‘Is there enough left?’ he asks. ‘Do you want me to get you another one?’