Children of the Day

by Sandra Birdsell

  Ja, ja, a small voice chimed out of the darkness, startling Katy. She realized that she had barely missed stepping on Patsy Anne and the little rose, Sharon. The girls stared at her from their made-up bed on the floor, their eyes following her now as she went across the room. Their tuners were set to the tension of the house, which kept them awake yet afraid to venture beyond the perimeter of their mattress. Children gave off what they took in. At the end of the day, when her own children had been particularly cranky, Katy examined her behaviour to find the reason for it. Schlaft, Kinder, schlaft, she whispered.

  When Alvina had telephoned, Katy had set out for Union Plains thinking she was coming to tend to an illness, to comfort and reassure Sara that the hotel’s closing might prove to be a blessing. Not to witness the end of a marriage. Kornelius’s plan to build a new house was timely, and until it was finished the farmhouse would suffice to hold them all.

  She returned to Sara and the maroon easy chair on one side of the window, unsettled again by the clutter of her sister’s room. She’d needed to clear the chair of clothing before she was able to sit, to step over the pile of shoes at the end of the bed. No matter how clean and ordered the rest of the house, this dishevelled room revealed something about Sara that was a cause of unease. You’ve spoiled her, Kornelius once said, and perhaps there was some truth to it. But how could she not? Beyond the window she saw Emilie arranging wood on the bonfire. The girl’s expression was always shifting, sharp with impatience or dreamy or troubled. But so far she’d not seen in any of the children the kind of anger she sometimes saw in Sara.

  Following supper Romeo had left the house quickly, wanting to be away from Kornelius, and his own desire to bring out the land documents and lay them down in front of the man. Give it to him in black and white. He waved to Emilie, who for some reason had been exempted from cleaning-up chores to go outside and build the fire. She sat beside it, hugging herself.

  Hey, you there. We had a good time at camp, eh? You want to come with us again this year? Romeo called.

  Maybe, she said.

  He ambled over to Kornelius’s car and watched for a moment as Simon and Manny played games of tic-tac-toe in the dust on its doors. You boys sure are making a mess, he told them, in a way that suggested it was an achievement. Before leaving the yard he called again to Emilie, If you need someone to twist your arm, just say so. You’re always welcome to come with us. But you have to let me know in good time so I can pack extra beer.

  Despite what she was feeling, Emilie grinned. Okay, she said.

  Romeo went off down the road, whistling to cover his anxiety over his brother.

  Emilie watched him go, thinking that playing in the shells of rusted-out cars and in the sand dunes might not be as much fun the second time round. Or berry-picking, either. Remembering how the sand held the sun’s heat when she’d buried herself in it as protection against the evening mosquitoes, how darkness over the lake became complete. A fire crackled near the tent and the shadows of her older twin cousins playing cards inside it loomed against the white canvas. Beyond the beach, the high voices of her three younger cousins echoed among the trees as they went with Romeo to shine a flashlight on an owl. Claudette dipped fillets in flour at a picnic table, the fish Emilie and her cousins had caught in the early evening while casting from a dock. The fish could not wait, it had to be eaten immediately or why bother fishing? Romeo said. A week-long vacation at this camp on Lake Manitoba slowed Romeo down. It steadied his hands and cleared his eyes. Left him on an even keel to tackle going back to the killing floor.

  Emilie fell asleep buried in the sand that night to the sound of waves foaming up the beach, and awoke to the sound of wind buffing the sides of the tent. The fire had been extinguished; Claudette hadn’t awakened her to eat the midnight meal of fish but had let her sleep, covering her head with a towel to protect her from the no-see-ums. Emilie felt betrayed, as children sometimes do when they awaken and find themselves in an unexpected place. She felt a momentary flash of anxiety in the sudden awareness that she was alone in the dark. And then she grew calm in the velour darkness of the night. The covering of stars became brighter the more she looked at the sky. She was pleased to know that she wasn’t afraid. She freed herself from the blanket of sand and crawled inside the tent, feeling her way among the warm shapes of her sleeping cousins, whose bodies shifted beneath a quilt to make room for her.

  In the morning she happened upon several Metis girls berry-picking in a thicket of saskatoon bushes, their mouths smeared with red juice, their voices like twittering birds that broke off instantly when one of them noticed her coming along the sandy road. Seeing the Vandal cousins behind her, they burst out of the bush like a flock of chickadees to greet them. Immediately Emilie found herself surrounded and petted, their fingers like suede as they plucked at her white hair and clothing.

  The children belonged to several families who lived in tarpaper shacks, Romeo explained. There was a name for them, Road Allowance People, half-breed squatters who camped along strips of land designated to become roads. It’s a hard life, he said. Emilie recalled the girls’ dusty hands patting her arms, their heartfelt confession that they loved her and wanted to be her friend. Oh Emilie, Emilie, I love you so much. Emilie, you’re so pretty.

  But they wouldn’t want to be friends with a slut. A slattern, the dictionary defined the word. A slovenly woman, a prostitute. Corrupted. These were new words to be added to the list of reasons why people didn’t appreciate Emilie Vandal. Everyone knows what goes on at your house, Charlie’s brother, Ross, had said. Everyone knows. You guys sleep all together like sardines in a can.

  Charlie’s brother wanted to go sightseeing in Winnipeg. Yeah, sure. What Ross really wanted was to sightsee her.

  The realization was a rude bolt of lightning parting the air and revealing a world carrying on behind the one Emilie had taken to be real. She was as astonished as she was chagrined to have been so clueless. But since then, she’d hauled out the dictionary. Chagrin and astonishment had made way for disquiet. Slut, slattern, prostitute?

  I just can’t take it, the sickening thought that Ross had intended to stick his thing into her. And now this, Oliver not coming home for supper. Who do you want to speak to? Madame Bouchard had asked, when Emilie called from the hotel. I am looking for my father. Is he there? Who? Who? she asked, sounding like an owl. Oliver Vandal. You know. We were there last night. I’m sorry, but you ’ave the wrong number, the woman replied, and hung up. Liar, Emilie thought.

  Oliver had never failed to show up for supper, or to put Cecil in charge if he wasn’t going to be around to open up the parlour. A snow of paper squares had jumped out at Emilie from the dusky light of the beer parlour. From the wall sconces, the walnut panels, the trays of tumblers stacked on shelves behind the bar, the bar itself. The cash register. The door of the broom-closet office was ajar and Emilie noted that the linens on the shelves had been disturbed and also ticketed. So had a box of toilet soap, Oliver’s commode and shaving mug. The buffalo robe that should have been hanging from hooks inside the door was gone.

  The pieces of paper had shouted at her, The End. The end of Oliver as she knew him. Today a door had opened a crack, and Emilie was now wiser about what might be going on across the river. She would leave. Run away, rather than live in the house without Oliver. She didn’t need to know he was home to feel his presence. There was a lightness, the walls expanded with his goodwill. She stabbed at a burning log with a stick and sparks flew up around her shoulders and went skittering across the yard in a confusion of air currents. The log fell apart, its embers exposed and roiling with an intense heat that she felt in her face and arms, and in the warts clustered beneath the Band-Aids on her hand.

  She knew that when Ross had come up alongside her in the car, she should not have got in. But she’d sent Charlie away, school had already begun, and she had thought, well, I know how to find Portage Avenue. She could show him that. And the zoo. But they hadn’t been on the hi
ghway longer than minutes when he turned off it and onto a country road. His sly smile, the word cutie, gave way to his real creepy self as he grabbed at the front of her shirt and wrenched at the buttons, his hands hurting the swell of flesh that was becoming her breasts. Tits, he called them. Show me your tits. Come on, cutie. You’ve done it before. If you can give it to little Charlie, then you can give it me. No, no and no, she said. He wouldn’t stop until she bit him. Slut, he shouted. But he didn’t follow when she took off running from the car, thinking, there’s that word.

  A scuffle of voices rose up from across the yard now, and the interior light of Kornelius’s car came on and went off, illuminating for a brief moment the light and dark heads of Simon and Manny. They’d opened the car trunk and Ruby, like an inquisitive cat, had climbed inside it. She sat cross-legged, an impertinent silhouette whose thick braids seemed to be slats of wood bracing her head. Ruby believed that the opened trunk lid protected her from Alvina, the Grim Reaper, who would eventually come to hook them out of the corners of the yard and put an end to their day. She didn’t know that Alvina was sipping a rum-laced coffee and feeling that her arms had grown longer. Today Ruby had learned how the seconds ticked off the minutes, the minutes the hour, the hours a day. Alvina was learning how time could stand still.

  There was this little boy? Claudette said to Alvina. He lived two houses down from us? He was ice fishing, and his dad had no sooner turned his back when he fell into the hole. By the time they got him out, he was frozen stiff as a board and his heart had stopped beating. While others were planning his funeral, a nurse at the hospital where they took him thought to try and thaw the boy out with hot water bottles and enemas. It worked. His heart started beating. You never saw anything worse, but it turned out fine. He’s the same as he was before the accident. That’s the way things can sometimes go. Things can look terrible, but turn out fine. She reached across the table and squeezed Alvina’s hand. I’ve known your dad longer than you have. He’ll be okay.

  Yes, but will I be okay? Alvina wondered. And why was it that the frozen little boy hadn’t died, while others had? Sara’s four brothers, that child lying in the pit strewn with bodies. She had begun the day worrying that someone or something would put the kibosh on her dream of becoming a Girl Friday, not dreaming that it would turn out to be the hotel being closed. And now she was ending the day wondering why some people were chosen to be saved from harm, while others were not.

  Light from the kitchen window illuminated the car’s interior, where Manny and Simon investigated its workings. This here’s the brake pedal, Manny demonstrated to Simon. During their trips to and from church, Manny sometimes sat between Katy and Kornelius. He’d studied his uncle’s movements, his foot coming down on the clutch pedal, his hand shifting the gear on the wheel. Down, up, down, towards you and down. He knew that his uncle kept the key in the glove-box, and how necessary the key was to start the engine.

  This is the gas pedal, the shift stick. That there is the glove compartment he said, and inside it, not gloves but a bag of peppermints and the ring of keys. They helped themselves to the candy, crunched them quickly, one after another, until a sugary saliva dripped down their chins and their jaws ached.

  What’re you eating? Ruby called from the trunk, where she sat on a bag of seed near the spare tire, tools, a gasoline can.

  Nothing, Manny said.

  I can smell something.

  Shut up, you want Alvina to come?

  Dipstick, Simon added.

  Ruby remained silent. They were eating something that smelled like Chiclets. Just before she’d left the house, the kitchen clock had said 8:45. It was almost an hour past their bedtime.

  See this? This thing is for lighting cigarettes. Watch this, Manny said. Kornelius never used the cigarette lighter, or allowed anyone to smoke in his car. Using it drained the battery, he’d explained to Manny when he’d once caught him trying to light a twist of grass. Manny pressed the glowing coils to the dashboard, and the curl of smoke gave off the odour of a cow barn.

  The ceiling light in Sara’s bedroom obliterated the image of the windmill in the picture hanging beside the door. Sara had purchased the sombre and unattractive print because it reminded her of a windmill she’d seen on a hill overlooking the town of Rosenthal, where her grandparents had lived. Katy relished pointing out to Sara that the windmill in the print stood near to a lashing sea, and not on a green hill overlooking a valley of roses.

  No, we don’t hit people, Sara said, picking up where they’d left off when Katy had left the room. What we do is run away. You and I.

  The words hung between them for a moment, and then, with a bat of her hand, Katy said Phfft! Why bring that up? It’s over, finished. She wished now that she had thought to bring some mending.

  But not forgotten, Sara said softly. We ran to the greenhouse, and there was screaming. It seemed to go on forever, she thought, even after Katy had pulled the lid over the opening of the hole, and they’d held on to one another in the darkness. She must have fallen asleep, because when Kornelius came to free them, the greenhouse was filled with sunlight, the yard of the Big House beyond was quiet, shapes strewn about on the ground, not moving. A bird came flying across the glass roof. Sometimes when she would work compost into the garden, the odour of humous would start her heart racing, and she suspected that had been the odour of the hole where she and Katy had hidden.

  You didn’t hear any such thing, Katy said. She leaned across the chair arm to look out the window, vaguely realizing that her hands had grown cold.

  Oh, yes I did, Sara said. I heard people screaming, as clear as if it were going on inside the greenhouse and not across the yard where her parents, her sister and four brothers had met their end. I heard men, shouting.

  Katy saw Florence Dressler out on her back step, illuminated by a light above the doorway. Coming through her yard was that filthy ill-kept man who ran the ferry, Oliver’s uncle.

  You were Ruby’s age, she told Sara. You’re imagining things.

  Papa told us, if there was ever any trouble we were supposed to run and hide in the hole in the greenhouse floor, Sara said. But you wouldn’t run, Katy. I had to make you go. Isn’t that so?

  Throughout the years Sara had been careful about what she wanted to remember. She remembered the Taras Bulba cave, the windmill. A dressing table and a clock striking the hour. Now she remembered pulling at Katy’s hand, her father screaming at them to run.

  Yes, that’s so, Katy replied softly. I was too frightened to move. But you weren’t, because you didn’t know what was really happening. You were just doing what Father told us to do.

  I beg your pardon, Sara said. Don’t you go and say that my experience wasn’t as real as yours because I was the age of Ruby. Don’t you tell me anything. I was there.

  All right then, Katy said quietly. Why don’t you say what you think you remember?

  A saxophone began playing and Florence realized the music came from the Vandals’ kitchen. Someone had left the window open and tuned the radio to jazz. She saw Sara’s sister at the bedroom window above the porch, and then she went away. Now Sara went past the window and returned, again and again, pacing.

  There was no pretense that might account for Florence dropping in at the house without her needing to explain why she was still up and roaming about in the dark. There were no blooming flowers that required her compliments, reciprocated with an invitation for coffee, as it sometimes happened, and she would go inside the house and admire the children who came like cats from all corners, hanging over the back of her chair, crouched beneath the table, furtive smiles tugging at their mouths as they eavesdropped on what passed for conversation between her and Sara.

  Just then Emilie emerged from the house, carrying a pail. Of water, Florence guessed. The girl planned on dousing the flames. But the pail contained potatoes, not water, and Emilie began dropping the tubers into the hot coals of the fire. She went to the wood stack, returning with an armload of woo
d, and arranged several pieces teepee-fashion over the embers. Within moments the flames were licking skywards. The car’s headlights came on and went off, lighting for an instant the new crown of growth on the highbush cranberry, and Ulysse sitting on a kitchen chair near the fire, smoking his pipe.

  The bowl burned through the darkness as he inhaled and sucked back saliva. He had appeared before Emilie through a haze of smoke, his eyes slits in his raisin face as he took in the house and Kornelius’s car parked beside it. By golly, he muttered, and fell silent, staring into the embers flaring in a circle of stones.

  How’re people getting across the river? she asked.

  They don’t always need to get where they’re going, Ulysse replied. He studied her for a moment and said, What’re you keeping there under those bandages?

  Emilie resisted the impulse to cover her hand, tuck it in her armpit, sit on it. There were eight meaty-looking warts under the adhesive strips. The mother wart was surrounded by a colony of lesser warts of various sizes and colours. Some were pale white, while others were white with a yellowish tinge. The new ones were flesh-coloured. Several of the larger warts looked to be made up of segments that moved when she nudged them, revealing what appeared to be black threads at their cores. In the past she had painted them with nail polish, thinking to starve them of air. She’d soaked them in hot water and tried to pick them loose. Painted them with wart remover, which had burned off the tops, but they always grew back and spread.

  Warts, she told Ulysse.

  What’re you doing with those things? he asked.

  Living, she answered. Having a party.

  Ulysse sent her to the house to fetch a potato and she assumed that he intended to roast one and so she brought a pailful. If Sonny Boy and George ever returned, or Romeo and Oliver, they might appreciate something more than bread and jam before going to bed.