Sonja & Carl

by Hillier, Suzanne;

  “Sorry to disappoint you. Maybe he was just speaking of my inner bow-wow?”

  Was this Carl’s choice in women? I had been right to reject his kiss.

  Candace crowed her appreciation. It was apparent she couldn’t wait to rejoin The Choir and relate the latest conversation.

  “Carl used to spend a lot of time with Sonja,” Candace added. “In fact, I used to get jealous ’cause Carl and me, we were close, really close.”

  Tula shrugged and made for the en suite bathroom, hips swaying, golden calf muscles taut as steel. “He never mentioned you,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Guess he grew up.”

  Candace uttered the c-word again, this time more audibly. Tula dismissed us both with a harsh stream of urine.

  MUTTI’S CHRISTMAS EVE spread was everything I’d anticipated: slices of ham and turkey on large platters, bowls of huge pink shrimp with pungent seafood sauce on the side, an assortment of salads and breads, and on the dessert table, apple strudel, custard, and bowls of fruits and berries.

  “Guess you heard about Carl’s concussion. It almost put him out of the game against the Wings, but he got right back on the ice, like always. Didn’t want anythin’ to fuck up that contract: three mil a year for three years, plus his signing bonus. Best rookie scorer in the league.” Jerry Henley, piling up his plate with turkey, ham, and potato salad, was still basking in Hel’s reflected glory.

  So it had been a concussion, not just the little bumps described by Mutti. I felt concern, lessened by the presence of the slithering Tula, whose flesh-pressing antics I attempted, but failed, to stop staring at.

  “What are you doing?” I had little interest but was trying to be polite.

  “Apprentice electrician, good money later on, nothin’ like Carl, but good money. And you’re at U of T, Carl said. He always talks about you, says you’re the smartest girl he ever knew. You’re lookin’ good too. Never even knew you when you walked through the door. Guess you gotta lotta guys hittin’ on you in Toronta?”

  I merely smiled. Jerry was no doubt gathering information for Carl. In the background, Eartha Kitt gasped “Santa Baby” and everyone was talking at once. I took a glass of wine from the buffet and sipped it—Riesling, Mutti’s favourite. I looked across the room. Tula had discontinued her leg massage and was rubbing Carl’s back and upper arms, but he was looking directly at me. I looked back and smiled. For a moment our eyes met. He did not smile back but just kept looking at me.

  At eleven I approached Mutti. The crowd was getting louder and I noticed Carl adding a bottle of rum to the bowl of eggnog. I had three glasses of wine, more than I was used to, and my head was aching, although I had enjoyed Mutti’s buffet. The Choir all urged me to stay. It was gratifying. I remembered the “you don’t do normal” remark from my new best friend, who now wanted me to “do lunch,” an invitation I avoided. I was not interested in a cat session concerning the toned and tanned Tula and Carl’s bad taste. Candace irritated me, although I appreciated my new acceptance from the rest of the crew.

  “I’ll drive you home.” It was Carl.

  “What is this!” squealed Tula.

  “She’s right,” said Mutti. “It your party ant a host can’t leave. You drink too much. I drive her, it like old times, Sonja, yah?”

  In spite of my protests, Jerry Henley’s offer, and that of a fellow Bruin who’d been hovering nearby, Mutti prevailed, as always.

  “What you think of my wunderbar Carl now, Sonja?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Helbig,” I said, knowing full well what was meant.

  “Sonja.” Mutti sighed, negotiating Carl Sr.’s Mercedes like a sea captain, her Santa cap flopping over one ear. “You so smart, you know what I say: my Carl bring home trash to his Mutti for Christmas. I cannot blame Carl; men are veek, so veek. Girls like that use their veggies to get their man, and the men, they give in. Last night, I give this trash her own room. I think she show respect under my roof, but no, I hear her going to Carl’s room and she stay there one hour, maybe two. A shameless huzzie, this Tula, why she not with her family at Christmas, tell me dat?”

  Bringing her “veggies” to Carl instead, I thought, stifling an urge to giggle.

  “Tell me, Sonja, you like Carl?”

  “Of course I like Carl.”

  “Sonja, I mean, really like Carl.”

  “I haven’t thought of him in that way.”

  I was lying. I not only thought of Carl “in that way” but felt a mixture of jealousy, anger, and guilt that my rejection of him may have propelled him into the hands of a crass hands-on masseuse like Tula.

  “Well,” ordered Mutti, “start thinking of him in that way. Carl really like you and you decent girl. Carl Helbig is for you. You think about it, Sonja.”

  I thought about it, and would think about it more that night.

  Of one thing, however, I was certain: in the Helbig household, Mutti ruled.

  Tula was toast.

  7

  CHRISTMAS DINNER WITH MA

  “THIS IS SO NICE,” WHISPERED Ma in Ukrainian as she started on the tossed salad and tomatoes, the first course of the four-course Christmas dinner at the Sinclair Hotel dining room.

  Looking at her, I thought she looked . . . presentable. On Christmas Eve she had purchased a soft velour tam, which matched her blue coat and covered her sparse hair, and small fake pearl clip-on earrings from Zellers. I decided I would purchase her new footwear at Easter, at which time I felt confident my bank account would be substantial. I was glad I had returned for Christmas as I felt a closeness to Ma never before realized.

  I smiled at her and gently pushed a strand of grey hair under the velour tam.

  Ma stopped eating and asked in English, “I all right?”

  “You look really good, Ma, really nice, in your hat, coat, and earrings. You could go anywhere.”

  Ma beamed her appreciation, showing her small, tobacco-stained teeth. “I make you proud, Sonja,” she said. “I learn English and stop smoking.” This was said in English with great effort, an erratic, accented effort obviously the result of some practice but worthy of praise.

  “That’s wonderful, Ma,” I said with sincere surprise, “just keep it up. I want you to be smoke-free and speaking English when I come home at Easter. Maybe we’ll take a little holiday together this summer.”

  Ma nodded seriously, wiping her mouth free of salad dressing with the linen serviette that carried the Sinclair crest. The Sinclairs, who had been Davenport’s first family, had owned the large brick building as their personal residence prior to its sale to the Holiday Inn hotel chain, which was making some effort to keep the Sinclair ambiance.

  “Last night, you enjoy yourself?”

  “It was great, Ma. Everyone made a big deal over me, kids I’d never bothered with before. Carl was there with a girl from Los Angeles. His mother didn’t like her, said she was using her ‘veggies’ to get Carl. She meant her vagina, I believe.”

  Ma shook with silent and appreciative laughter, so much so she choked on her tomato soup with rice.

  Nothing, I thought, like someone who struggles with English, making fun of someone who makes an occasional mistake—although this time a big one.

  “I believe Mrs. Helbig would like me to get together with Carl. She said I should think about it.”

  The laughter suddenly stopped. “You love Carl?”

  “Of course not, Ma, I was only his tutor. He’s making a lot of money now and has a lot of girls after him. He may like me, or I used to think so.”

  Ma nodded her head thoughtfully. “About love, Sonja, perhaps it’s not so important like you think. I loved your father when I married him, loved him so much I was crazy for him, but look what happen. In some countries, they arrange marriages, the parents. Sometimes you fall in love later, or just one person love. Other things matter—a nice life is important.”

  I sat stunned, my mouth open. The last thing I expected was a lecture on the limitations of love from Ma,
and an intelligent and personal lecture at that.

  “I’ll remember, Ma,” I finally said.

  Ma smiled. “I’ll really miss you, Sonja,” she said. “I never thought we’d talk like this.”

  CANDACE STEWART PHONED the day before I left for Toronto. Carl had left early with Tula.

  “I bet Mutti told them to leave,” she giggled. “You could tell she was really pissed off after she drove you home from the party. Everyone had a lot to drink after you guys left. She didn’t even speak to Carl or the wannabe star for the rest of the night.”

  “Can’t say I blame her,” I replied, “Tula’s a vacuous sleaze.”

  I surprised myself—this was not the way I usually talked. Candace hooted her appreciation, and we laughed, and even bonded briefly over Carl’s dubious choices in women, conveniently ignoring that in the past we had both been chosen—but for very different reasons.

  ON NEW YEAR’S Eve, I went with Ma to the local Greek Orthodox Church on the edge of town. I took her hand as we walked up the wet stone pathway cleared of the snow now lining it. I towered above her. There was a sign on the door: the church was closing in the New Year. The congregation had moved from Davenport to be nearer to Toronto, and there was no one left to support the church.

  Inside, the air was thick with incense, and the last remaining light of the declining day pushed through the stained-glass windows. There was only a handful of parishioners, all women with covered heads, kneeling in the weathered pews. The priest was saying Mass and in front candles flickered, each one sending a prayer upward. Ma bowed, went to the front, and lit a candle, her blurred green eyes fixed on the orange flame, her rough hands clasped.

  I sat awkwardly, looking at a statue of a benevolent Christ, and then at the priest in his ornate gown, cream with broad strips of gold, and strange bulky headgear. I took no sense of comfort as it lacked familiarity, but I loved any sort of dramatic pageantry—the flickering candles, stained-glass windows, and perfumed incense. I even formed an inconsequential prayer in my mind: Please God, make things all right. Nothing specific or demanding. God could make of it what he wished, but he would know, if he were there at all, that I was not badgering him unduly.

  All day long, while Ma was gone, I studied for my future exams. Then, in the late evening, I prepared dinner for us both or we went out together, usually to Swiss Chalet.

  When it was time for me to leave for Toronto, Ma sat, tears trekking down her mottled, puffy cheeks, looking as beaten as after Pops’ death.

  “C’mon, Ma, I’ll be home for Easter, and then again in May, and we’ll go on a little trip. I’ll rent a car and we’ll go to Kingston, and then to the Thousand Islands by boat. Wouldn’t you like that? You’ll get some nice sun and good food. Take a week off from your cleaning—tell them you’re taking a trip with your daughter. Two things: I’ve got you some English tapes and a transcriber; you’ll play them every night. And the smokes have to go. I know you’ve got filters, but they’re still killers.”

  Ma did not reply, but the crying stopped, leaving only rivers of tears drying on her full but shrivelled cheeks.

  “I get lonely,” she said in halting but definite English.

  “It won’t be for long. I’ll phone you. Watch the television. Good for your English too.”

  I hugged her briefly, marvelling at the fragility of her arms and shoulders—a scrap, yet a scrap that could clean yards of house and office floors each day. There was a new closeness, based on much more than clothes and food: perhaps Ma was merely waiting for me to show her little kindness, and I was waiting for some praise, or it was Pops’ death, but for whatever reason, our relationship was transformed.

  “ENJOY YOUR CHRISTMAS?” asked the same bus driver I’d had many days earlier.

  “Very much, and you?”

  “Not bad, but the kids were all sick. I had to take Virginia to Sick Kids on Christmas Eve for croup, but aside from that it passed okay. We had a good dinner, the wife had her mother and her third husband over, the one with the bucks, so it was top of the line. She’d never cook like that for me, not in a million years.”

  I gave a light laugh of commiseration. Strange how relationships change: I thought of Ma and our meals out and what had become shared confidences. Soon the bus would start to fill up and he would be forced to keep quiet. I opened my textbook on medieval literature, but my mind kept wandering. I was ready for my midterms, the ten-day hiatus was just what I needed, and after that I would push my business into high gear. There was no reason I couldn’t do four essays a week, which would come to between $800 and $1,200 in total, depending on their length and complexity. Next year I’d get a computer and do my research by accessing search engines and databases. It would cut down on some of my time-consuming library visits. If things went as planned, I could look forward to five thousand a month, even this year. And next year I’d have a car to drive to and from Davenport. The possibilities were endless.

  Janet Murdock had spent Christmas in the Caribbean with her family, and Jo, the future mining engineer, had gone to Palm Springs, alone, right after Christmas—a romantic liaison perhaps? They both looked at me with some sympathy after my Davenport Christmas, but it didn’t last.

  “There was a great Christmas party for Carl,” I said, “but he’s getting much too serious. I have to get my degree before even thinking of marriage. He’s signed a three-mil, three-year contract with the Bruins, not surprising for the top rookie scorer.”

  “Plus signing bonus,” said Jo, who was up on all the sports.

  “Yes, I didn’t mention that, you’d think I was bragging.”

  They laughed in unison, thinking exactly that.

  “He took quite a hit against the Wings in the last game. Everyone thought he was concussed, but he got up after a minute as if nothing happened,” said Jo.

  Jo didn’t miss a game. I bet she wished she were a defenceman; God knows what hits she’d inflict.

  “He had two band-aids on his temple,” I said, “but he didn’t talk about it. His mother told me he’d gotten ‘a little bump.’”

  “Hell-oo, little bump,” crowed Jo. “He was flat on his back for two minutes, got up and sat on the bench for another two, and then went back to the game. Bad stuff. Bet he had a concussion.”

  I nodded, remembering my conversation with Jerry Henley: Carl had been hurt and Mutti was underplaying the problem, as she had before. My concern came back, but then I remembered Tula. My Christmas plans for us had been unfulfilled, partly because of my earlier rejection. But it was obvious that Carl had gotten on with his life, and I would do the same.

  8

  COMEUPPANCE

  THERE WERE FOUR EXAMS, TWO of which were finals. I did well, probably as a result of my Christmas studying. Not even a challenge, I thought. Then there were four new requests for essays. “Certainly,” I told them, taking the hundred and fifty each down payment, “but you’ll have to wait until I finish my exams.”

  Then at one o’clock, after I finished my last exam, a note came. It was placed on my desk by the presiding monitor. Professor Latham, dean of English and special lecturer on Shakespearean studies, for whose class essay I’d received an A+ and one of the “original thought” comments, wished to see me in his study at two o’clock. Professor Latham had written a three-book series on Shakespeare’s tragedies. They had, for academic works of non-fiction, been enthusiastically received; in fact, you could not even profess to critique a Shakespearean tragedy without referring to the Latham trilogy.

  Did he, I wondered, want me as the only student with an A+ to apply for the special Shakespearean student award of $1,500? But then I reconsidered. No application would be required; such an award would be at the discretion of the English Department, with definitive input from Professor Latham.

  In the cafeteria I saw one of my buyers, a plump blond girl from Vancouver. I threw her a smile. It was good to have a friendly relationship with your customers; nothing better than repeat business. We had a fr
iendly chat when I had produced her term paper and she’d seemed pleased, chirping a “really appreciate this.” Now she turned away. Strange, I thought. Was she now embarrassed by the whole thing?

  Professor Latham was in his late fifties, tall and stooped, with thinning light-brown hair and small gold-rimmed glasses pulled so far down on his aquiline nose that they were obviously just used for reading. So much for bifocals, I thought. When he looked up from his chair behind his large walnut desk, his eyes were a cold enamelled blue, the sea on a frigid day, contrasting with his hair and pallor.

  I wished I looked better, although I had squished tap water through my teeth, combed my hair, and applied lipstick. My black jeans, pullover, and down-stuffed duffle were so ordinary. Better not to smile with teeth full of tomato sandwich and anemic lips. But as it turned out, there was nothing to smile about.

  “So this,” said Professor Latham, not even getting up, “is the famous, or should I say infamous, Sonja Danychuk.” He had an upper-class British accent, either authentic or adopted from a few years at Oxford.

  No one, I thought, depending on my well-read list of British authors, could do nasty better than the Brits, especially Brits of a certain class.

  “You don’t know why you’re here, do you, Miss Danychuk? You probably think you’re here for me to render congratulations on your term paper or recent exam, which I retrieved from my associate and read prior to this visit—an excellent analysis of Macbeth and a second-to-none analysis of King Lear. My, it appears you could recite Lear from beginning to end. But I’m sure you must expect this is not the reason for your visit. In fact, in spite of your considerable gifts, and they are considerable, Miss Danychuk, I’ve been pondering whether I should be recommending to the dean that you be expelled forthwith from this university.”

  I felt myself choking.

  “But why?” I gasped, already knowing the answer.

  “It’s your sideline, your plagiarism business. Surely you didn’t think those little dolts you’ve been producing for—and who’ve been paying you handsomely, I understand—would show you any loyalty when they were fingered for submitting your work as their own? Most of them didn’t change a word, and they confessed as readily as most shoplifters caught in the act, pointing directly at you and placing the blame directly on you, as if any one of them were capable of these erudite essays in your unmistakable style. I must confess, I’m surprised you made no effort to simplify matters. The work done was absolutely yours, the only addition the name of the false author.