by Miriam Toews
two
When Knute and Summer Feelin’ drove up to the house they could see Tom and Dory standing in the living room, staring out the picture window. Next to them were small bronze statues and clay busts that Tom had bought, and he and Dory seemed to blend in with these things. As soon as they saw Knute’s beater pull up in the driveway, though, they came to life. Dory zipped to the front door and Tom smiled and waved. These days he stayed away from the doors when they were being opened. He couldn’t afford to get a chill and get sick all over again. S.F. ran up to the picture window, flapping like crazy, and Tom gave her a high-five against the glass, smudging it up a bit. Dory came running out of the house saying, “Welcome, welcome, oh I’m sooooo glad you’re both here.” And she scooped up S.F. even though her heart wasn’t in much better shape than Tom’s and then, with her other free arm, wrapped herself around Knute. Tom beamed through the glass.
Dory had prepared a large meal. It consisted of boneless chicken breasts with a black bean sauce, steamed broccoli, slices of cucumbers, tomatoes, and carrots, brown rice, and a fruit salad. Knute could just barely pick out the grimace on Tom’s face when he sat down at the table, rather ashamed and annoyed that all this dull stuff constituted a celebratory meal. And that it was all made especially for him and his fragile heart. He would have preferred a big piece of red meat with lots of salt, some potatoes and thick gravy, cheese sauce to accompany his steamed broccoli, great slabs of bread with real butter to soak up the gravy and juice from the meat, a large wedge of apple pie and ice cream, and four cups of coffee to wash it down.
But, of course, Tom couldn’t eat steak every day, or maybe he could have and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Who knows? Anyway, Knute could tell that Dory felt very good about herself when she prepared the chicken and steamed vegetables, and the fact that they had hardly any taste made S.F., at least, happy.
After lunch Tom did a bit of walking up and down the hall, S.F. went down to the basement to play with the toys, and Dory and Knute had a cryptic conversation about Tom.
“So?” said Knute, and jerked her head in the direction of Tom and the hallway.
“Well,” said Dory, “you know …”
“Mmmmm …”
And then Dory said, “One day at a time …” and Knute nodded and said, “Yup …”
They sat there and stared at their coffee cups for a bit and Dory added in a very hushed tone, “A bit more,” she tapped at her chest, “these days.”
Knute tapped her own chest. “Pain?” she asked.
Dory nodded and pursed her lips.
“Hmmm … well, what does the doctor say?”
“OH TOM, YOU’RE DONE?” Tom had finished his walk and Dory had been timing him. He had walked for eight minutes. Dory was trying to be extremely upbeat about the eight minutes. “Well, Tom, yesterday it was only seven,” and that sort of thing. Tom went over to the picture window and stood with his back to Dory and Knute. He punched his fist into his palm once and then after about thirty seconds he did it again. He slowly walked back to the couch and lay down with a heavy sigh.
After supper (of leftovers), Dory and Knute played Scrabble. For weeks Dory had been playing with “Marie,” a phantom Scrabble opponent whom she had given her own middle name to. Knute asked Dory how she felt when “Marie” won, and she said, “Divided.” Summer Feelin’ had wandered over to the neighbours’ house to play with the little girl, Madison, who lived there. Dory could never remember Madison’s name. “Montana?” she’d say. “Manhattan?” Which got them onto the subject of names, and Dory wondered if Knute had, perhaps, considered calling S.F. just “Summer” instead of “Summer Feelin’”? Knute knew Dory wasn’t altogether enthusiastic about her granddaughter’s name and she told her she’d think about it, although she wondered if Dory was really any authority on girls’ names considering the choice she’d made when her own daughter was born.
“Summer,” Dory said over and over. “If you say it enough times, you know, Knutie, you get that summer feeling. You don’t have to actually say it. The Feelin’ part becomes rather redundant, don’t you think? Or maybe you could change the spelling of Feelin’ to something, oh, I don’t know, Irish, maybe, like Phaelan, or …”
Just then the doorbell rang. Tom woke up from his nap on the couch and Dory answered the door. A large man with a pale yellow golf cap tugged twice at the front of his coat before greeting Dory and stepping inside.
Tom was the first to speak. “Hosea Funk, c’mon in, c’mon in.” And he nodded his head once, in the traditional male greeting, got up from the couch, and stood there in his polo pajamas looking a bit like William Shatner in the Enterprise and smoothed down his hair, which had become mussed from lying down. Dory said she’d make a fresh pot of coffee and told Hosea to have a seat.
“Hose, do you remember our Knutie?” Dory asked him, putting her arm around Knute’s shoulder and grinning. Hosea’s thumb and index finger went for the front of his shirt, but then, through some act of will on his part, he adjusted his golf hat instead and replied, “Why sure, Dory, I remember Knutie.” Everybody smiled and nodded and finally Hosea broke the awkward silence. “So, are you here for a visit, Knutie, or …”
Knute was just about to answer when Dory said, “No, she and Summer Feelin’ have moved back, for the time being.”
“Oh, well,” said Hosea, “that’s great! Welcome back to Algren.”
“Tha—” Knute was cut off by Hosea, who had suddenly sprung to life. “You still barrel-racin’, Knute?”
Barrel-racing! thought Knute. The one time she had barrel-raced, badly, was in a 4-H rodeo and Hosea Funk had happened to be her timer. That was years ago, before he became the mayor. Back then he got involved in every event in town. If there was a parade, Hosea walked along throwing out candy to the kids. If there was a flood, Hosea organized a sandbag crew. If the hockey team made it to the playoffs in the city, Hosea offered to drive. Once, at a fall supper in a church basement, he was given a trophy by the main street businesses and it said, Hosea Funk, Algren’s Number One Booster.
“Nah, I’ve given it up,” said Knute. And she kind of buckled her knees to look bowlegged and horsey. Hosea Funk nodded and Knute could tell he was thinking of something else to say. She waited. A few seconds more. There. This time he couldn’t help it. His fingers went to his shirt and tugged, not twice but three times. He was ready to speak.
“But that palomino could turn on a dime, couldn’t he? He was something else. Now whose was he? Art Lemke, that’s right, he was Art’s. Wasn’t he, Tom? You know the one I’m talking about? The palomino?”
“Yup, yup, I think you’re right, Hose. Wait a minute, no, yeah, he would have had to have been Art’s. Well … hang on, I’m trying to remember. Nope, he would have been Lenny’s. Remember, Hose? Art sold the palomino to Lenny after his accident and Lenny couldn’t keep the palomino from jumping the fence and hightailing it back to Art’s barn. If I remember correctly … it’s hard to say. I don’t recall how it all turned out exactly, but I do know that horse loved Art all right. Never really took to Lenny …”
Hosea leaned back in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, his palms pushed against each other as if in prayer, his fingertips against puckered lips. He and Tom pondered the palomino while Dory and Knute slipped away into the kitchen to make the coffee.
Hosea and Tom were friends, in a way. Not like in the old days, when they were boys, but in the kind of way that you are in a small town with another man your age who has never done anything, really, to make you hate him or love him. They might as well be friendly, although Hosea visited Tom’s house more often than Tom visited his. And, since his heart attack, Tom didn’t go anywhere except to his doctor’s appointments and those visits exhausted him.
Tom had been a veterinarian and knew about animals and that might have been one of the reasons Hosea brought up the subject of the palomino. Hosea might have felt inferior to Tom, being a professional, having a wife and
a daughter and even a granddaughter, but Tom didn’t think enough about Hosea to feel much of anything towards him other than a simple affection and a certain type of sympathy and from time to time, especially these days, a pang of nostalgia when he remembered himself and Hosea as boys. During all those years while Tom was busy working as a vet and living with Dory and Knute, and while Hosea was living with his mother and looking after just about everything in Algren, their paths had kind of veered away from each other.
Of course, now, with Tom’s heart attack, the balance might have shifted. Tom was feeling fragile, while Hosea was still running around town taking care of business. Knute thought Tom was kind of uncomfortable with Hosea showing up like that, unannounced. He probably would have liked to have changed out of his polo pajamas at least and maybe shaved. But Hosea always just showed up. Making his rounds, enjoying a cup of coffee, passing the time. He liked to know what was going on in his town. People were used to Hosea dropping by for a visit.
“So, Hose, what are you up to these days?” asked Tom. Knute could hear him from the kitchen.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve got a lot on the go right now. I’ve, uh … well, you could say I’m working on a major project, Tom.”
“Good for you, good for you,” said Tom, and Knute imagined him grimacing, wishing he had a major project besides staying alive, and Hosea tugging, wishing he had something more to say and quickly, too, like a great conversationalist, a real charismatic public figure.
Tom had begun to say something else, though. “Are you ready to divulge the nature of your major project, Hose, or—” But just then, Summer Feelin’ came barrelling in through the front door, made a beeline for Tom’s lap, leapt, and landed square on her target, knocking off Tom’s glasses. Tom let out a big “oooph” and Dory came running from the kitchen thinking it was another heart attack, and Hosea stood there all nervous, tugging, tugging, tugging, until everyone realized what had happened and they began to laugh and S.F. tried on Tom’s glasses and coffee was served and the conversation turned to gossip and did you know that so-and-so was let go at the bank, after thirty years? No one’s saying why, and did you know that Sheila Whatsername has left her husband and is seeing a therapist in the city, but she looks great, she really does. And Hosea’s major project was forgotten.
At the end of the visit, they all stood clustered around the door for what seemed like hours. This was what Tom and Dory always did with their guests. Knute wondered why Dory didn’t serve another couple rounds of coffee or why they didn’t just sit down there on the floor in the front entrance area. Coats would be done up, then undone slightly, undone completely, sweat would form on the upper lip, the coats would be taken off and slung over their arms, then a hand on the doorknob, the coats would be on again, all the way, then undone an inch, mittens would be slapped together purposefully, then removed, bodies would stand erect, close to the door, then one leg would buckle and they would slouch against the wall. Well, the visitor would say like he or she meant it this time, “I’m outta here,” and then, “Oh! Did I tell you …?”
Summer Feelin’ fell asleep in the hallway on the floor between Dory’s legs.
“Excuse me,” said Knute, “I’m gonna take her to her bed.”
And with that, the three of them, Tom, Dory, and Hosea, began to flutter, and Hosea said, “Okay, yes, the poor kid, here I am keeping her up, keeping you all up, really, I should go.” This time Tom and Dory didn’t say, “Oh, Hosea, there’s no hurry.” Tom reached for the door and opened it, not caring at this point whether he got a chill and risked his life.
But just before Tom could close the door gently on him, Hosea turned around and said, “Say, Knutie, if you need any part-time work while you’re in town, let me know, I may be able to set you up with something.” And then he was gone. Tom and Dory went running for Tom’s evening medication, and Knute watched through the large picture window in the living room as Hosea walked away, into the night, through the few empty streets of his town, Canada’s smallest.
The baby. Naturally Euphemia had a plan. She had had nine months to figure out elaborate plots, twists and turns, casts of characters, acts of God, all to explain the sudden arrival of this baby. In the end, however, she didn’t use any of her fancy stories to explain the baby. Her family had always shrugged off any changes in their lives. If there was no explanation offered they couldn’t be bothered to hunt it down or make one up. Of course, the mysterious arrival of a baby in the household was not a small deal. But Euphemia decided to take a chance. A chance on simplicity. Instead of coming up with a thousand details, which could be forgotten or repeated in the wrong order and arouse suspicion, she decided to give her family only one.
The beauty of it, too, was that it wasn’t even really a lie.
“I went out late in the evening to use the outhouse and a mysterious man on a horse gave me his baby. All he said was ‘Thank-you.’ Then he was gone.”
Well, that was more or less the situation that had occurred nine months earlier at the harvest dance at the Algren Community Dance Hall.
Euphemia hadn’t planned to abandon herself to lust that evening. And it wasn’t really lust she had abandoned herself to, anyway, but curiosity and maybe a bit of hope that the mysterious stranger might be her ticket off the farm. It was with the same shrug that her family used in almost all situations calling for decision that she allowed herself to be taken by the hand to the edge of the canola field behind the dance hall.
Euphemia was the last, well, maybe not the very last, girl in the area anyone would have called immoral. She did her chores, obeyed her parents, had lots of friends, and was pretty, a good runner, and playful. She won spelling bees and quilting bees, and had never even had a boyfriend in her life. In the forties girls like Euphemia Funk did not allow themselves to be led by the hand to dark fields behind dance halls.
She had stepped outside to use the outhouse. The little building was a ways from the dance hall, down a dirt path, towards the canola field. The stranger had been leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette, and before she could even get to the outhouse, he had wandered over to her and put out his hand. She knew he had been at the dance. She and her friends had seen him and wondered who he was. Probably a relative of someone around there or a farm hand. He had nice eyes and a beautifully shaped back, they thought. “It tapers, it really does,” said Euphemia’s friend Lou. And he obviously bought his shoes in the city. No, he couldn’t have been a farm hand. Not with shoes like that. Euphemia had seen him talking to Leander Hamm, so maybe he was a horse breeder or a horse buyer or maybe he owned racehorses in America. But he looked so young, just a few years older than she was. Euphemia liked the way his thighs filled out the tops of his pants and the way his legs were shaped, vaguely, like parentheses. There was a bit of a curl to his hair at the bottom and it was longer than the hair of any of the boys from around there. Euphemia liked those curls, at the bottom, the ones that rested against his neck.
She just hadn’t said no. Nobody had come along to discover them. The night was very dark and warm. The stranger was handsome and sure of himself. Euphemia couldn’t think of any reason not to take his hand. She had tried to come up with a reason, but couldn’t. Afterwards, he retied the bow in Euphemia’s hair and wiped the grass and leaves off of her skirt. It had hurt, but she hadn’t cried. She hadn’t made a sound. And neither had he. She had kept one hand cupped firmly around the curls on his neck and her other hand beside her, on the ground. Afterwards they sat together, and Euphemia said, “well,” and turned and smiled at him. And the stranger smiled back and squeezed her hand and said, “Thank-you.” Then he walked over to where his horse was tied up, just on the other side of the dance hall, and rode away.
Euphemia hadn’t told a soul about what happened. She hadn’t felt a second of guilt. She was thrilled with herself.
“He said ‘Thank-you,’ and that’s all, that was it?” asked Euphemia’s mother, as she and Euphemia and Euphemia’s brother
s and sisters peered down at the baby, now resting in the Funks’ old cradle.
“Yes, and then he rode away on his horse.” Euphemia couldn’t stop herself from smiling, but as she did so she widened her eyes for effect.
“Hmmmm, very odd. What a peculiar man. The boy is barely a day old, Phemie, are you sure he didn’t say who he was or why he was giving you this child?”
“Yes, Mother.”
Euphemia had successfully been delivered of the baby’s placenta and had taken it and the clothes that had blood on them and buried them behind the machine shed. With trembling fingers she had tied a knot in the baby’s umbilical cord and wrapped him in one of the sweaters she had been wearing just before he was born. The baby hadn’t cried, not really. He had made a few creaking sounds, but nothing that could be called a real wail. By the light of the barn lantern, Euphemia saw the baby open one eye. The other wouldn’t open for a few hours. The fingers on his hands moved almost constantly and his head, too, swivelled from left to right, back and forth, towards the lantern’s light and away again.
Euphemia put her face to his. She breathed on him and felt his tiny puff of breath in return. She put her index finger against his lips and he tried for a moment to get it into his mouth. She moved her lips and her cheek against his damp head and prayed to God to keep him from all harm. Still, she was not afraid. She would protect him. At the time Euphemia hadn’t noticed the baby’s black hair curl on his neck and hadn’t thought for a second about the stranger, the baby’s father, at the dance hall. For the second time in a year she was thrilled with herself.
Euphemia knew that she could not breastfeed the baby. She would have to find a way to wrap her breasts and get rid of her milk. The postpartum bleeding could be explained as normal menstrual blood, if it was explained at all. Bleeding, women’s bleeding, was another thing the Funk family shrugged off as one of those things, which it was.