Sonja & Carl

by Hillier, Suzanne;

  Mrs. Gallo answers the phone, yells “Sophia” in a thick Italian accent, and orders me to “waita a minute.”

  “Sophie speaking.” She sounds almost prim after her mother.

  “Hi, it’s Sonja Helbig. I wonder if I could take you and Gwen to the Sinclair for lunch today? I apologize for the short notice.”

  A prolonged silence takes place, then a shocked but eager voice says, “That’d be really great, really awesome, really nice, Sonja. I’ll phone Gwen to save you the trouble—if you like—and we’ll meet you there.”

  I smile to myself. No hesitation here. So unlike me, reaching out.

  They are both smiling and waiting for me at the table when I arrive. Sophie is short, dark, and animated, her black hair pulled back in a curly ponytail, with some brief tendrils hanging around her forehead and heart-shaped face. She sports a holiday-red pantsuit, lipstick to match, and staggeringly high-heeled black patent boots that give her a strange, mincing, tiptoe-like walk.

  Gwen is my height but thinner and reminds me a little of Janet Murdock with her straight ash-blond hair, and taut, pale, almost makeup-free face. She is dressed more sedately, almost drably, in a tweed jacket, a round-necked beige sweater, and grey stretch pants. She’d been in the commercial stream at Davenport High but had attended my English classes, where she was noted for her silence. She’s a clerk in the office of Dare’s Machinery, while Sophie works the assembly line. I detect a slight air of superiority from Gwen toward Sophie, perhaps because of this, but they are friends nevertheless, or bantering companions, or really both.

  “Things hard on you?” asks Sophie sympathetically after we all order a first round of vodka coolers. “We talk about you and Carl all the time, don’t we, Gwen? We feel so bad, but we don’t want to phone and bother you. You always kept to yourself, and we respect your privacy, you being so smart and all.”

  The words are ironic: the “smart” Sonja Danychuk, disgraced plagiarist, scholarship loser, worst waitress in Canada, and now with a drug-addicted husband whose brain she couldn’t salvage, so clever she was not to be bothered by lesser lights, her potential friends, who she had viewed as a trudging army from her high, lofty—and lonely—perch.

  “How are things going?” asks Gwen, shutting up Sophie with a look. “Is Carl any better?”

  I will be honest. These are not future social workers but genuinely interested friends, and they deserve the truth.

  “He’s not good at all, takes too many pills for pain, both real or imagined. He remembers very little and can’t bear to be alone or leave home. It’s a never-ending nightmare. It would bother you both to see him like this. Jerry comes in and they watch mixed martial arts together—and drink. Jerry’s such a good friend.”

  “Yes,” says Sophie softly, “he was always into Carl, almost too much, almost lived through him, instead of living his own life. Pattie’s dumped him: he was only an interlude for her. She’s into sport professionals. She’s got herself a Blue Jay now. I’ll give her until the second inning, certainly not past the third, and no home run.”

  I pick up the ball, or bat. “Before the wedding, we went on a date with Pattie and Jerry and ended up at an out-of-town club. She forced Carl to dance with her and came on to him like you wouldn’t believe, gyrating into him like crazy, with Jerry and me just sitting there, watching. Carl didn’t mind—he was grinning away, insensitive clod—but I know Jerry didn’t like it, and I was furious, especially when Carl was refusing to have sex with me until after the wedding.”

  “Carl Helbig refused to have sex with you!” they chorus.

  All else is forgotten; both of them are obviously incensed and incredulous.

  “Apparently he had me on some sort of pedestal, ‘too much respect,’ Jerry said, and feared things would ‘go wrong,’ if that makes any sense. I felt he was rejecting me, and perhaps I didn’t stack up against the Tulas of this world.”

  “That makes me so mad, you’ll never know,” sputters Sophie. “I could tell you things—”

  “But you won’t,” says Gwen, throwing her a hard look.

  “If it makes you both feel better, we had the sexiest honeymoon on record, and the best sex in Canada until the latest hit. But I really appreciate your indignation—and support.”

  We all laugh and order a second round. I am, I realize, having my first cat-session.

  “A woman needs her sex,” says Sophie firmly. “Not that I’m any example. Vince Fanelli comes around every few weeks for a little poke, and that’s what it is, a very quick little poke: a bump in the road. It happens on the back seat of his 1955 Jaguar, which he loves better than life, certainly better than me, and spends all his money on. He’s too cheap to go to the Sinclair, or to a motel, but it’s hardly worth it for two minutes of action anyway. Vince thinks foreplay is something that happens before the band starts playing. Don’t ever listen to anything good about Italian lovers—they spread that rumour themselves—they’ve all been coddled to death by their mamas.”

  We all laugh again.

  “My mother calls him ‘Sophia’s little male whore,’ but she says it in Italian. She’d say more, but his mother’s her best friend.”

  “Your mother knows?” I ask.

  “My mother knows everything. She listens to every conversation and overhears every phone call. She absorbs my life through her pores. I have zilch privacy, zilch.”

  “On that note,” says Gwen, “I think we should order.”

  “Let’s get a bottle of vino; you choose, Sophie. You know people are meeting up online now,” I say.

  “With my luck, he’d be a serial rapist—or killer. What would I say, ‘Italian-Canadian assembly line worker, located in small Northern Ontario town, short, dark, and fun-loving, seeks large, rich professional, with own home and big bank account, who can last for more than five minutes in any place that does not include the back seat of his new, fully paid for, Lamborghini.’ Can’t wait for the rush of replies I’d get on that.”

  We all laugh, but I think I detect a whiff of hopelessness, if not bitterness, in Sophie’s voice.

  “Gwen’s eyeing Harold Dare,” says Sophie in an obvious effort to change the subject. “He’s her office manager. Now that would be the wedding of the year.”

  “Oh shut up, Soph,” replies Gwen. “He doesn’t know I’m alive. He took me for coffee once, and said he’d call me, but he never did. I must have bored him to death or his Mother Superior, Mommy Dearest, warned him not to socialize with staff.”

  I have an inspiration. “Hanging in my closet, and depressing me all to hell, is a brand-new wardrobe from Paris, personally selected by Carl Helbig, who, though you’d never guess it, has the best taste in women’s clothes. I’ll never wear those clothes now, and you’ll have to adjust them a little, especially around the chest, but they’ll get Harold Dare’s attention. They’re way too much for Davenport, but Carl insisted.”

  Just thinking of it makes my throat fill and eyes burn: not even a year ago, but it seems like forever.

  “I couldn’t possibly do that,” says Gwen, “but very kind of you to offer.”

  “Are you fuckin’ nuts?” shrieks Sophie, her voice reflecting vodka and indignation. “Your mother’s a seamstress. If I wasn’t a dwarf, I’d beat you to it. That’s your problem, Gwen, always being such a tight-ass.”

  “I don’t have sex in the back seat of cars, if that’s what you mean,” retorts Gwen, “and I wouldn’t have Mom touch a Parisian wardrobe. She’ll recommend an excellent tailor; there’s quite a few in Toronto.”

  Sophie looks at me and winks. Gwen is obviously giving the offer serious consideration.

  “I don’t want Gwen to know this,” confides Sophie after Gwen goes for a bathroom break, “but while you’re into doing good, I want you to give a thought as to how I’m gonna escape from Dare’s assembly line into something more high-end. The pay’s good, I make as much as Gwen, though she looks down on me, I know she does. I got money stashed, but it’s a dead-end
job, and I’m goin’ deaf, in spite of the plugs. And my only prospect’s Vince; he’s in the line too, and he drives me crazy. The only thing we got in common, we’re both wops.”

  “I’ll really think about it,” I assure her. “I’ll pick up some brochures from Humber, George Brown, and even Ryerson—or, better yet, I’ll email you some links.”

  Sophie had never been a student, but she is lively and bright, even funny, and she deserves better than going deaf on the assembly line at Dare’s.

  When we finish our lunch and return to the parking lot, the girls become subdued, then Gwen speaks: “Let’s keep in touch. Next time’s on us, or separate bills, nothing wrong with that.”

  They both hug me before I get into the Challenger.

  BEFORE I LEAVE for Toronto, I phone Sophie and tell her I hadn’t forgotten about the brochures unless she’d prefer the links. I’ll be getting brochures for both the summer and the next September’s courses, and that she should think of sales, or even becoming a dental hygienist. There are so many possibilities. She can stay at my Manulife apartment for the summer months.

  “Imagine you thinking of me when you got so much on your plate,” she sings. “You’re the greatest, Sonja. My cousin Dominic’s got an apartment on the Danforth, so I’m okay, but I’d love to have you go over the pamphlets with me some Saturday when you’re home. I’d rather not do the links on my own; it’ll be easier with you.” I think of Carl and the tutoring, and her familiar words ring painfully in my ear.

  “You can help me decide. I’ll drop in and see Carl, and bring him some of Mama’s lasagna—not that he wants to see me—and I’ll pray for your mama.”

  “He’d love to see you,” I lie, “and I appreciate the prayers,” which is true.

  “Love yuh,” she carols before she hangs up. People were into that now. I never had been, except with Carl, but it seemed like a good idea.

  “Love you back,” I say.

  IT’S AFTER BOXING Day and the lunch with the girls at the Sinclair. I’m sitting with Mutti in her immaculate living room, where a little tree packed with ornaments is a reminder that at least some members of the Helbig family attempted to celebrate the season.

  “I’ll be going to U of T from Monday to Friday starting January 9,” I tell her. “I’ll have to take Ma with me; she can’t help with Carl as I’d hoped. I suggest we get someone to come in the mornings to prepare his breakfast and then he can come here to your place each night for dinner.”

  “You are going away?” Her voice is heavy with surprise and disapproval.

  “Only during the week,” I explain. “Carl insists on it. He always wanted me to complete my degree. He was very upset last term when I withdrew.”

  This was the old Carl. The new Carl may not feel this way, but I don’t tell Mutti this. Why make things even more complicated?

  “It may be a gut thing, you baby him, Sonja. I make plans for him to start on assembly line at Dare’s. It will be gut for him to get out of the house and mix with others.”

  I am horrified and angry. She’s so high-handed and without a word of consultation with me or Carl. A typical Mutti move, unthinking yet well meaning.

  “I’ll ask him.”

  “Don’t ask him, Sonja, tell him.”

  It’s January 5 and Mutti picks Carl up at seven-thirty. He is used to sleeping in and is groggy, but he eats his breakfast and looks like himself, with his leather jacket and blue jeans.

  “Your phone is in your pocket. If anything goes wrong push 2.” I write “2” on his hand with a ballpoint pen. I kiss him firmly on his cheek, avoiding looking at his temples. Sometimes I think of the times when we were close and I long for them. I miss our sex that didn’t survive the last concussion. Looking back it was only for a short period, but what we had was wonderful.

  “He’s not fit to work,” hisses Ma in Ukrainian. “Gertie Helbig is a mad Nazi. The boy is an invalid. He will kill himself on the machinery. This is Gestapo stuff. In Stalingrad they were forced to eat cement. It killed people.”

  The last three comments bear no relation to the first three. Ma may have chemo brain, or perhaps her cancer has metastasized to that area. This saddens me. I look at her, and her sunken green eyes glitter back.

  “I thought you and Gertie were friends.”

  “What’s that to do with anything?”

  I shall be glad to leave, to hear lectures, and read the materials on the list of required reading. It’s time to find escape in literature again. I have managed to get into another modern poetry course, Poetry of the Nineteenth Century. And there is The Gothic Novel, with an emphasis on William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. This excites me. There is no reason Carl and I cannot keep in constant contact by phone and email, although Carl hates anything that reveals his woeful spelling.

  It is only ten to nine when the telephone rings.

  “Come. Now.”

  In the background I hear the roar of the machinery. What was Mutti thinking? She wasn’t—deluding herself as usual.

  He is outside waiting in the cold, looking into the distance as usual, scowling.

  “My head is coming apart.”

  “We’ll go home. You can have an Oxy and you can lie down in a nice quiet dark room.”

  Candace Stewart’s pre-Christmas words, “You didn’t sign up for this,” come back with a sickening thud—except I did sign up for it.

  CARL DOESN’T WANT anyone to come to our house and prepare breakfast; in fact, he wants no visitors at all.

  “If you won’t let anyone come, then I won’t leave, or if I do leave, you can go and live with Mutti all week.”

  On occasion Jerry Henley or one of the old Choir members drops in, and they drink rye and watch mixed martial arts on the sports channel. It is Carl’s only diversion. But he doesn’t want to stay with Mutti, not under any circumstances.

  “And you have to take a bath before I leave.”

  Carl now hates showers. They make his head hurt. But he will submerge himself in a prepared bath if I insist. I think wistfully back to the scoured quality that had endeared him to me early on. Now water has become his enemy. Then at two o’clock on Sunday afternoon, when I am packed and ready to leave, with Ma sitting in the car waiting, he does not want me to go.

  “I’ll be alone.”

  “The boys will drop in and you’ll see Mutti and your dad every night. I’ll email you every day, at least twice, and phone you every night, and I’ll be back Friday.”

  He stands by the doorway watching, abandoned and disconsolate.

  Ma sticks her head out of the opened window and yells, “She take me to hospital, Carl. Must die in comfort.”

  He remains in the doorway, making me feel guilty. As soon as we are out of sight I feel better. And then I feel guilty for feeling better.

  “No wonder I feel sick lately, stress will do it.” I think of Candace Stewart and shut up, but it is too late. The Davenport Philosopher makes her move.

  “How you mean?”

  “Nauseated, tired, even my boobs tingle.”

  “You pregnant?”

  “Of course not. I haven’t had sex since October 14, the day before my birthday, the day before Carl’s concussion. Sex is no longer in the realm of things Carl wants to do.”

  “In October. You on pill?”

  “No, I went off at the end of August when Carl went to training camp. I thought it was making me fat, and it would take months for me to start to ovulate again.”

  “Periods?”

  “No.”

  Could I have been this stupid? I glance at Ma, belted in like a wizened child: Ma and Carl, my two children, one dying and the other disabled. I don’t need a third.

  “When we came here,” says Ma, speaking in Ukrainian as we whiz by the frozen snow-covered fields on our way to the 400, “we had nothing—except each other. I was the only one working, a night job doing dishes in the kitchen of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, from eight to midnight every night. Then I get pregn
ant and your father, he go crazy. He make me drink a bottle of vodka and almost scald me to death in the landlady’s bathtub when she go out. But nothing happen. Then he set up a doctor, for me to say I was bleeding, a threatened miscarriage he call it, and that I need a D and a C, whatever that mean. By then I was two or three months and I see the doctor, but I tell him the truth. Then I lie to your father, tell him it too late and doctor refuse, and that he should drink the vodka himself.”

  I sit transfixed behind the wheel. I’d never realized how close I’d come to not being here, to being part of a small pile of clotted blood and membrane, ultimately disposed of and forgotten, and it was Ma who saved me.

  “He took you telling him to drink the vodka himself very seriously.”

  Ma hiccups a chuckle. “Yes, he never stop. But after you were born, he forget all about not wanting you and say you were the smartest little girl who ever lived, which you were, and he was your sole creator.”

  I stretch out my hand and hold Ma’s tiny rough one, now a bundle of bones encased in loose skin, and squeeze it. “Thanks for saving my life Ma, but I’m sure I’m not pregnant.”

  Ma looks out at the fields, her shrunken face pensive, a small fold of yellow jowl sagging over the fox collar of her long-ago Christmas gift.

  “Sometimes, Sonja, you can move too quickly to discard something precious, sometimes what you plan to discard can bring you joy.” She said the word joy in English, as if to give it special impact.

  I make the turnoff to the 400 and drive south, still holding Ma’s hand.

  AS SOON AS I get up, I email Carl on my new laptop. “Good morning, darling, are you OK?”

  Within five minutes the reply comes. “Not OK. Brekfust suks. Miss U.”

  I scramble some eggs for Ma, but she says she’s too nauseated to eat them and that the chemo, which is giving her herpes all over the inside of her mouth, is worse than the cancer. And that it is all a waste of time in any event.