The Stubborn Season

by Lauren B. Davis

  “What kind of clubs?”

  “You are one nosy woman.”

  “I guess. What kind?” Perhaps he was like Uncle Rory and she wanted to know about that.

  “Jewish Labour League. The Canadian League Against War and Fascism.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Irene, really.”

  “Communists?”

  “Some. Yeah. Communists. Anti-Fascists. Anti-goddamn-Hitlerites.”

  They had reached the corner of Homewood, and Irene made David turn back there, for she assumed her mother would be waiting and watching. It was after eleven, and she hadn’t been out this long or this late since the Harry days. There was no light on in the house, not even in her mother’s room. As she climbed the porch steps she listened for a sound from inside, something that would give her a clue as to what waited for her on the other side. She rooted in her purse to find her keys, dropped them, picked them up, fumbled with the lock.

  Margaret sat on the third step of the stairs, her hands wrapped around her knees. She wore no slippers and only a thin nightgown. Irene could see up her thighs. She held two handkerchiefs, one in each hand, and her head was raised as though it had been resting on her knees. Her face was puffy from crying.

  “Mum? Are you all right? I’m sorry I’m so late.”

  “Where have you been? Where have you been? I thought you were dead.”

  “I’m fine. What are you doing sitting there?” She went over to her mother and tried to lift her. “I only went out after work, Mum. I didn’t go to China.”

  Margaret began crying again, her head in her hands. She mumbled something.

  “What?” This quiet crying state was new.

  “I thought you’d left me. I can’t help myself. I try not to think, not to let go, but I can’t, I can’t.”

  “Stand up, Mum.” Irene pulled her to her feet and started to help her up the stairs. “Did you take your medication?”

  “Some.”

  “How much?” For she was frightened by this quietness.

  “I don’t think I can win. I thought I could.”

  Win what? “How much did you take?”

  “Not enough, not nearly enough.” She was still crying, and let herself be led to her room.

  “Do you have to go to the toilet?”

  “No. I just want to lie down now. My head hurts.”

  The bottle of sedative was on the nightstand. Some had gone, but not enough to do her harm, Irene thought.

  “I love you, Irene. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t love me. I can’t keep the crows away. Keep swatting at them. I can’t help it.”

  Irene sat on the side of the bed and took her mother’s hand. “Of course I love you. You’re my mum.” Irene felt like crying herself now.

  Margaret’s hand was suddenly tight on hers. “I don’t want it to be this way. I don’t want to be what I am. I don’t want to say things. I can’t help myself, Irene. Words fly out, they just fly. I can’t help myself!”

  Irene put her arms around her, her mother’s body like an armful of cutlery, sharp and thin.

  “It’s all right, Mum. It’s my fault. I should have come home on time.”

  “You’re a good girl, Irene. I always said that. You were always a good girl.”

  The next morning Margaret watched Irene walk away to work, then she turned back in to the living room and looked around. Her eyes fell on a photo of Irene, taken years ago. In it Irene wore a white frilly dress with bloomers. She was posed in front of the hydrangea bush that had once bloomed at the side of the house. Such a long time ago, when she was a different woman. That had been when—1927, 1926?

  A photographer had knocked on the door that day, so many summers ago, on a hot afternoon when Irene was down for a nap. Margaret had been in the cellar, running sheets through the wringer, and the knocking had annoyed her, for she was certain it would wake Irene up. She saw the top of a man’s hat through the screen door. She hesitated. A woman alone in a house with a child needed to be careful. She stood behind the screen door with a scowl on her face, intended to intimidate the scoundrel.

  A young man stood on the walkway, one foot on the first step. He touched the brim of his hat. He wore a vest and had taken off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, in deference to the sticky August heat. He leaned against a tripod, and a heavy, square camera was looped across his back on a thick strap. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and the golden hair on his arms sparkled in the sun.

  “Yes?” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. A breeze reached her and she was aware that her face was shiny with perspiration.

  The man began to speak quickly, his voice carrying the trace of an Irish accent. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but I’m here to offer you a photograph of your children. A moment captured in time forever, like a piece of amber. I’m bringing the art of photography right to your door, missus. No need to book into a fancy studio. No need to even leave your home. No need even to pay if you don’t like the photo. I’m in the neighbourhood for two days, ma’am. I only take a small deposit today and you pay the rest when I bring back your photograph tomorrow. If you don’t like it, I’ll gladly return your deposit.”

  “I don’t think so. My little girl’s asleep right now.”

  “Why, that’s the perfect time. You just wake her up and put her into something pretty and she’ll be as natural as can be. It’ll be a picture you’ll cherish forever. Like I said, if you don’t like it, you don’t pay.” He smiled at Margaret, and his teeth shone white against his tanned skin.

  “How much is it?”

  “Only twenty-five cents. Quarter of a dollar, just a dime down. Copies three cents apiece. No better deal in all Toronto.”

  Margaret found herself staring at the young man’s hands. He had the most beautiful hands she had ever seen. They looked like they could have been sculpted from marble, so fine yet strong looking.

  “How do I know you’ll come back if I give you ten cents now?”

  “Shrewd. That’s very shrewd. Tell you what, just for you, I won’t take a deposit. You let me take the picture and I’ll trust you for the money. That couldn’t be fairer, now, could it?”

  Did he think for a moment that he could talk her into doing anything she didn’t want to do? She had agreed to the photo because she didn’t want the young man to go. It was as simple as that. She wanted him to stay a while and she wanted him to come back the next day. She wanted to watch his hands on the camera.

  Irene had been uncooperative at first, slow and cranky with sleep. Irene had been a difficult child. She was shy and awkward, not at all the sparkling child Margaret herself had been. But once she was dressed in a starch-crisp crinoline and a comb run through her unruly hair, she had been presentable enough. They posed her against the hydrangea. When the man put his hands on Irene’s shoulders, turning her to face the mechanical lens, Margaret shivered as though he were touching her.

  The next day when she heard his knock at the door she had pinched her cheeks before answering it. But instead of the young man with the Michelangelo hands, a boy stood there, his face a mass of freckles, his cap on back to front and the knee torn out of his dungarees. He held out an envelope.

  “My brother said I was to deliver this picture to you, ma’am, and you was to give me what you owe. Says you owe him twenty-five cents.”

  Margaret was angry with herself when she realized how disappointed she was. She’d glared at the boy, then gave him an extra nickel to make up for it.

  What had she hoped would happen? Anything. Something.

  She now turned the photo face down. Then she stood it up again. She could see herself in Irene’s face, in the expression, happy, excited, faintly bewildered and trying so hard to please. She had been a girl like that once, eager to make people happy. Eager to be in the centre of things. The Laughing Girl with shiny hair and party dresses and a future full of possibility. Not a wife and certainly not someone’s mother. Well, she wasn’t anyone’s wife any l
onger. But she would stay a mother all her life. The world owed her that much, didn’t it? For years of nothing at all? Didn’t the world owe her one person who would stay and be with her and be for her and her alone?

  30

  August 1937

  David watched Irene closely over the next few weeks. She went about her work, smiled at her customers, tallied up the day’s receipts and ordered the necessary supplies like she always did. But he saw the pinched expression on her face when she thought no one was looking. When he asked her if she was all right, she simply said her mother was not doing very well and would say no more. In fact, she spoke to him only when necessary.

  It made him angry, this submissive attitude of hers. He wanted his anger to be contagious, wanted her to catch it like a brush fire and let it burn away the crust of resignation and get down to the hard shine of steel he was convinced lay just beneath the surface. He kept trying to draw her out, but she would have none of it.

  He went to a meeting of the Canadian League Against War and Fascism on Thursday night to put the finishing touches on Sunday’s plan. On Friday evening he said to Irene, “So, you going to church on Sunday?” He knew she’d started going to church again, as a way, he assumed, to have an hour away from her mother.

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  “Why not skip it? I got a better idea.”

  It had taken some persuading, and some political educating, but David was pleased with himself. She had agreed to join him Sunday morning, even though it meant lying to her mother again.

  “What did you tell her?” David asked when she arrived at his room above the shop at ten o’clock that morning. She wore a blue dress he hadn’t seen before, with puffed sleeves and lace on the collar. On her head she wore a straw hat, with a sprig of silk lilacs on the brim. Quite suitable for going to church, but he wasn’t sure it was right for where they were going. She carried white gloves. He looked at her shoes. At least they were sturdy walking shoes.

  “I told her the church was having a tea after the service and I’d been asked to set up and serve. I hate lying to her. She can smell me out.” Her mother had stood at the window watching her as she left, a hurt expression on her face.

  “So, don’t lie to her, then,” said David. He pulled out his wallet, took a couple of bills and stuffed them in his pocket. He tossed the wallet on the table. “What do you have in your purse?”

  “Just the usual stuff. Why?”

  “You have any identification papers?”

  “An ID card in my address book, but why?”

  “Better maybe to leave it. I’m not expecting there to be any trouble, you understand, but just in case the cops do stop you, the less they can find out about you, the better. But, hey, there shouldn’t be any of that. It’s just a habit I have.”

  She paled, but took her address book out of her purse and put it down next to his wallet.

  “Let’s go,” he said, grinning. “Come on, don’t look so serious. You’re doing something good here. Something important. Nothing bad’s going to happen.”

  They stepped out into a fine August day, and walked quickly. The demonstration was to start at eleven in front of the German State Railway offices at York and Adelaide. David led her over to Yonge Street, and then south-west into the heart of the Ward.

  The streets here were narrow and badly paved. There was no grass in front of the houses, just dry earth. Wooden houses leaned every which way, and from alleys came the acrid smell of the privies. Several times Irene put her hand over her nose. It was darker on these streets. Even though the sun was shining, it didn’t seem strong enough to penetrate the gloom of deprivation. Behind an uneven, ill-mended and unpainted fence, five thin, dirty children played lethargically, one boy sifting dirt through his hands, a girl trying to bury her naked doll. Two men argued in an alleyway, their voices rough and filled with violence. Irene edged closer to David but didn’t take his arm. She didn’t want to let her discomfort show. A greasy gaggle of boys lounged, leaning on a wall, spitting on the street, leering at girls who passed. Here and there dull-eyed women in mended clothes stood on porches, staring at them. Whereas Kensington had had equal amounts of laughter mixed in with the tears, here the atmosphere was tense and edgy. They turned down Elizabeth Street, near the grim, grey structure called the House of Industry. A group of weary-looking men and women hung about, hoping to get a bowl of soup or a can of beans to take home.

  In some places boards had been put down to form makeshift walkways from the edge of the road up to some small, wobbly-looking house. Cats were everywhere, presumably, Irene thought, to keep the vermin population at bay.

  An old horse stood hitched up to a sagging wagon filled with a haphazard collection of bruised and mouldy vegetables, piles of rags, and several broken chairs. An old moth-eaten man with tobacco stains in his grey beard and a large mole on his face sat on the sidewalk next to the horse, who nuzzled him occasionally, but he seemed not to notice. The man smelled of wood smoke and mould. It rose off him like steam.

  “You all right, Pops?” said David.

  “Mind you own business, you own goddamn business,” said the man, waving them away with an arthritic hand.

  David shrugged. “So, suit yourself.”

  “The office is in this neighbourhood?” said Irene.

  “Not exactly, but not far. York and Adelaide. Isn’t much of a place, is it? Never been through here before, I’ll bet.”

  “No.” Her voice was small and she knew she sounded upset, which maybe was what he had been hoping for. “We didn’t have to come this way.”

  “No, but maybe it’s about time you saw the way really poor people have to live.”

  “I don’t understand what this place has to do with the demonstration.” She was ashamed to find she felt superior to these people, and at the same time too inexperienced to be attending this demonstration. There was so much about the world and poverty and suffering that she didn’t know, could hardly imagine. And she was also slightly angered that David had chosen this route in order to manipulate her feelings.

  “Oppression’s the same wherever it is. Germany’s just in the spotlight now, but don’t for a moment think bad things don’t happen right here at home, Irene. Don’t ever think that. This squalor’s the result of laissez-faire capitalism.”

  “And you think the Soviets are going to change all this?” She thought he was being naïve now, simply parroting the words he had been taught.

  “Maybe I used to,” he said, surprising her. “Now I don’t know whether it’s the answer or not. We’re hearing bad things from there too. There was a time I maybe thought there’d be a real revolution. Now, I don’t see it. Maybe there’s some hope in socialism. There are some good guys in the Party, but no real leaders. They fight and fraction and push and shove and want power just like any other poor bastard. And, hell, I don’t think folks outside the Party ever got as riled up as we thought they did. So, how are you going to get people to risk something when all they got is this and even this takes all you’ve got just to hold on to?” He waved his arm, taking in the whole street. “When you’re bogged down in this sewer, how are you going to get the energy to fight?”

  “Well, you’re trying, aren’t you? I mean, we are, today, picketing like this, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, “I guess. It’s something, anyway.”

  At the corner of York and Adelaide, a group of people stood outside the nondescript offices of the German State Railway. They held signs, and Irene read, “Arrest the Nazi Werner Haag!” This is what they were here for. David had told her that Werner Haag was a Nazi representative living in Canada. Reports had been written in all the newspapers about what was going on in Germany, and the anti-Fascist movement believed he should be hauled into court and tried for crimes against Jews.

  “No Room for Nazis in Canada!” said one sign, and “No Canadian Nickel for German Bullets!” and “Spain a Base for Nazi Spies!”

  People marched in a circl
e on the sidewalk, shouting out the slogans written on their signs. Several greeted David as they passed, giving his hand a quick shake. Lenny was there, and Simon. A girl with long black hair waved at David. Off to one side two men stood in front of a pile of picket boards. David and Irene went over to them. David picked up an “Arrest Werner Haag!” sign. Irene chose one that said “Nazis Not Welcome in Canada!” They took their places in the circle, Irene following David, and they began to march.

  Irene felt bold and exhilarated and shouted “Arrest the Nazi!” with the rest of them. There were perhaps forty people, and although the majority were young, there were a few older faces. The men wore caps to shield their eyes from the sun, and some of the women wore straw hats. The men had their sleeves rolled up, but most wore ties.

  They began a chant. “Arr-est the Na-zi! Arr-est the Na-zi!” She marched in step with the rhythm. David turned around to smile at her. She grinned back. The sun felt good on her skin. The smell of roses drifted over from a bush planted by the door of the office building and mixed with the smell of warm asphalt under her feet. She felt a part of something important, larger than herself.

  There were not many people on the street today, not in this part of town, which was mostly offices, but the press was there. The Toronto Daily Star, the Globe and Mail, and Der Yiddisher Zhurnal. Sunday was a slow news day. A few pictures were snapped, which Irene made sure she was not in, for her mother would be sure to see it. A man from Der Yiddisher Zhurnal talked to one of the men handing out pickets.

  They had gone on for perhaps twenty minutes when a woman said, “They’re here,” and pointed south. Down the street came the police, with three horses, a paddy wagon and their billy clubs at the ready.

  “David?” said Irene, her palms suddenly slick against the handle of her sign. She felt a sliver enter her palm.

  “Yeah, well, that was to be expected,” he said.

  As though fully prepared for this turn of events, people quickly abandoned the circle and formed into a solid square, four or five deep. As the police approached they sat down on the ground and became silent. David took Irene’s sign away from her and laid it with his on the ground. He led her to the back of the group, but they did not sit down.