“That’s Gabriel’s bedroom.”
“He can sleep on the landing, it’s huge. Do you think toddlers care where they sleep for Christ’s sake? I’m trying to support my family here, and I have to fight to obtain the wherewithal to remain sane!”
Madelyn saw the danger signs and remained silent, but it was a reproachful silence. The injustice of kicking little Gabriel out into the landing, where he was sure to have more nightmares, astounded her. Why couldn’t Sam stay in his office at the university if he wanted some peace and quiet? How many rooms did he need?
Sam spent hours every evening ensconced in his sanctuary. He made it clear that he was not to be bothered. Madelyn found herself tiptoeing around the house, shushing Gabriel if he made too much noise close to the study door. She resented the pall that settled on the house when Sam came home from work.
Sometimes he emerged from the study, waving a paper in his hand.
“Listen to this student’s essay. ‘They fought with there flesh (spelt t-h-e-r-e) and there bodies to rid themselves of the darkness.’ Can you believe that this person is in university? I cannot get used to the ignorance and mediocrity of the average student here.” He sounded amazed and shocked, not pompous. Bewildered.
Madelyn tried to be positive and supportive at the same time. “A larger percentage of the population goes to university here than in England, where it’s so selective. You’re bound to get a variety of students.”
“They are all ignorant. They chew gum in class!”
“Now that’s unforgivable.”
Sometimes — more frequently in the beginning — people would drop by in the evenings to visit. Madelyn entertained them by herself, after a disastrous episode when she knocked on Sam’s door and he shouted, “I’ve been with these bloody people all day. Do you think I want them in my house all evening?”
The people hadn’t stayed very long on that occasion. Others would ask, “Is Sam in?”
“Yes, but he’s working in his study.”
“Left instructions not to be bothered, eh? I think he might like a drink if he knew it was me. Why don’t you go and ask him?”
“I think he’s under a bit of pressure today.”
“What’s he doing then? Trying to get something published?”
Madelyn winced. This was a sore point with Sam. All the professors were supposed to publish, and most of them published on a regular basis. A lot of it wasn’t very original, and Madelyn would read their publications angrily, noting the long words and empty content. Still, her perfectionist husband could not even find the time to write down the ideas he expounded to her during his more benevolent evenings — ideas that flourished in his fertile brain as he perused the great works of literature he loved so deeply. If he could not find the time even to jot these ideas down — how would he ever publish the high-quality work he demanded of himself? So he published nothing at all. It was almost too much for him to stay ahead of the papers and exams produced by his enormous classes.
“I think he’s still marking mid-term exams.”
“Still? What on earth is he doing, evaluating each line separately? We had the marking party weeks ago.”
Sam burst out of his study like a bull.
“Those bloody marking parties. Do you think I pay any attention to them?”
“Hello Sam. Have a drink. If you did pay attention you’d be finished marking by now.”
“It is demeaning, telling us how we should be marking and treating new profs like imbeciles.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. They just want to ensure that everybody marks by the same standards, so the same student doesn’t get A’s with one prof and D’s with another.”
“If they choose to give A’s to D students, why should they force me to do the same? Most of the work is deplorable, and you give ridiculous marks. I doubt whether you read more than the first page.”
Madelyn intervened. “By ‘you’ he means other profs. Of course Sam realizes that one can’t give D’s to everyone. In fact he invests an enormous amount of energy in his marking, agonizing over fairness, going back to the first paper when he reaches the last in order to ensure that his marking scale hasn’t wavered. He does this so carefully that it is difficult to bear anyone’s interference.”
“They want to make sure that marking conforms across the board, not just in Sam’s class.”
“And I don’t agree with their marking scales and resent being forced to tally my marks with theirs,” Sam snapped.
“Well, we do things a little differently here, Sam, and maybe you should try to adapt, seeing as you chose to come here.”
“I came for the job, not because I was under the illusion that anything was better here. I just didn’t realize the extent to which everything is worse.” And Sam turned on his heel and marched back into his office, to recoup once again the precious energies he had been forced to relinquish.
The visitor smiled at Madelyn’s anxious face. “I don’t take it personally, but others might. Sam won’t do too well here if he doesn’t get rid of that chip on his shoulder.”
“It’s not so much the chip, he’s just under huge pressure to do everything well. He spends hours upon hours marking. That’s the type of man he is. He puts himself under tremendous stress and pressure.”
“And we all recognize that he’s a brilliant teacher — his students love him. But he needs to relax, not worry so much. Read a couple of lines and give them an A if they’re good students. Or a D if they’re not. You don’t need to read the whole thing to grasp the general calibre.
Madelyn’s eyes widened. “That’s dishonest.”
“How you exaggerate. Just remember that this is a small place, and Sam’s got to get along with his colleagues as well.”
When the professors’ wives came to visit, Madelyn felt more comfortable, knowing they neither wanted nor expected to see Sam. Ironically, on these occasions he sometimes came and sat for a while, exchanging pleasantries or not, as the mood took him.
“Finished marking yet, Sam?” they joked.
And to Madelyn when he was gone: “What does he do all evening, locked up in there?”
“He’s doing what he says he’s doing,” Madelyn answered, puzzled. “He’s marking.”
The wives tittered. “John marked all his papers in one evening. Are you sure he’s not got some porn hidden under those academic piles?”
Madelyn felt disgusted and changed the subject.
When they left Sam waxed sarcastic. “How can you spend so much time with those half-witted women?”
“Ruth is quite interesting. She’s got her MA, you know.”
“And what does that signify in this country? She’s not our type of person.”
“Is that a veiled command not to see Ruth anymore or just another incidence of your negative outlook?”
Sam leapt to his feet. “Why do you attack me? I’m not attacking you!”
Madelyn assumed her ‘yelling-again-tut-tut’ face, but inwardly she thought, ‘why do I find fault with Sam so often?’
Her silence, as always, enraged him. “This is my bloody house! I am beset on all sides by incompatible people. I cannot escape them! Where to go? Where to go?” And he grabbed his coat and rushed out of the house.
Madelyn sat down, tired. For a minute she identified with Sam’s isolation. They were two strangers in a foreign land. Sam had nobody to talk to. There were no Philips here.
Why do I feel so cross with Sam all the time? Just like when he renounced law. I can see he strives to do what he thinks is right, I know he reads every word of every paper, no matter how mediocre or boring, to ensure that his marking is fair. The other professors really do skip through the first page, finishing them all in one night. That is appalling. And yet … Sam’s way is always so hard.
Madelyn remained silent when
he came back, punishing him for yelling. She knew that he couldn’t help it, that he didn’t even see yelling as a negative thing. Still, she put on her disapproving face, just like her mother had done with her father before her. Was silent sulking the lot of women and drunken aggression the lot of men?
Sam curled spoon-like around her frigid back in bed and cupped her breasts in his hands.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Madelyn thought.
“You and Gabriel are the only two constants in a world of incomprehensible people. I have not changed, yet people have started to react to me in a negative way, as opposed to being amused as they were in the beginning.”
“Well, you’re so rude all the time,” Madelyn said, deciding to break her silence.
“This is a country where people seem determined to be superficially pleasant to one another, failing to utter one direct truth from one year to the next. It’s true that I’m sometimes rude at parties, but they liked that at first. It’s my directness that they hate, the fact that I say what I think.”
“That’s the way the world works, Sam. It might be true that the education of your average professor is dismal, but they don’t want to hear it!”
“I would not say it if they would grant me respect and recognition as a principled person. Instead, they try to break me, make me like them. I spend hours preparing my classes. My students tell me I am the best professor they have ever had. The others churn out the same material year after year, and their students are bored. Respect me for that — it is what I am here for. Say to me, you are doing a good job, and I wouldn’t have to point out the deficiencies of their jobs. I just want to be recognized for the things I am good at. God knows, I have enough faults, but my students tell me I am a great professor, and I know the work I put into everything I accomplish does not compare with their efforts. That is why it takes me so long to produce a publishable paper — it has to be perfect.”
“They do respect you in their hearts…”
“They do not! I want them to recognize that I am a person of high calibre and principles and respect me for my truthful outspokenness. And if I go too far on one or two occasions, why can’t they forgive me, weighing the indiscretion against my inspired teaching and unique contributions?”
“They are stupid!” cried Madelyn in anger.
“And they are against me, so don’t you turn against me also, my little fishwife.”
And this time when he hugged her, she hugged him back.
But they did not forgive him for his outspokenness. Instead, they began to clamour for him to publish.
“I’ll publish something, all right,” Sam said to her, and taped a poem to the billboard outside the main staff room.
The monarchs of the glen
Like Daniels in his den
Are truly mighty men.
We sing these giants’ praises
Hoping for salary raises
For them dance obsequious capers
And publish our piddling papers.
The monarchs of the glen
Like Daniels in his den
Are truly mighty men.
And I can point to some
And maybe a dozen and one
Who praise these master-minds
By crawling up their behinds
The monarchs of the glen
Like Daniels in his den
Are truly mighty men.
Good men who lack the wit
To lap up others’ shit
You’ll never get ahead
Till all the bastards are dead
The monarchs of the glen
Like Daniels in his den
Are truly mighty men.
“Did you get the reference to ‘a dozen and one” — a Baker’s dozen, Mummy?”
“Yes, it’s very good. But don’t post it.”
“I already have.”
Nobody congratulated him on his wit.
Madelyn could gauge his unhappiness by the frequency of their arguments. Petty, trivial arguments — maybe she wanted him to do something in the house and nagged once too often, maybe she snapped back at some unpleasantness of his, goaded beyond caring.
“Do you think there is the remotest possibility that you might try to understand and accommodate me?” he would scream at her.
“I do nothing but try to understand you! How about you understanding me? I’ve been trying to work around a leaky kitchen faucet for months now!”
“I understand you perfectly. Your mind is filled with trivial inconsequentialities, while I’m working like a black … like a knock-knock …” Sam interrupted his diatribe to run over to the wall and knock his head twice against it. He had been told that the phrase ‘working like a black’ was considered racist, and, delighted to discover an issue where Canada was so progressive, he determined to obliterate the phrase by banging his head against the wall every time it slipped out by mistake. “…to support this family! Fixing the fucking sink — I’m trying to write so I can keep this job so you can eat, all right?”
“Other men manage to hold their fucking jobs and fix fucking faucets as well!” Madelyn screamed back at him.
Sam leapt across the room and smacked her across the face.
She did not move for a second. As Sam grabbed his coat and charged out the door, she put her hand to her face and touched the place where he had slapped her.
Sam has struck me. It should be a momentous event that changes everything; our lives divided into the Before and After. But things go on as usual. It’s hard to know what I should do to ensure he never hits me again. I know the silent treatment drives him crazy; maybe I should have used that method less often Before. It doesn’t seem strong enough, now. It feels as if I should be doing something large, like bashing his head in, but I cannot hit him back. I cannot give him an eye for an eye, because he is so much bigger than me. Before, I felt I was giving him tit for tat. He yelled, and I ignored him. But After, you don’t have that choice; it has been taken from you. By violence. And the fury and frustration this helplessness breeds in me must influence my whole attitude towards him, forever more.
I could leave him, of course. Even if this were temporary, it would jerk him to his senses. He would be so alone without me. It is not pity for him that makes me hesitate, more that I am by myself in a strange land and I am afraid. I am not sure whether I can work as a nurse here, if my qualifications can be transferred across the ocean. They don’t seem to employ midwives in this country — I just assumed that I could re-assume that role here whenever I wanted to go back to work. My heart aches for that beloved work that I will never do again! Even as a nurse, I’m not sure how to go about looking for work, for a place to stay. It would take time. I’d have to do it before I actually left, because I don’t have any money to support myself while I look for work. And I have to think about whether this is what I want. So much of my life and my history is intertwined with Sam. There is so much I admire and respect in him. There is so much I love. I love the way he loves me. The knowledge that other women don’t exist for him. I love him physically, though we never talk about physical things. I love too that he is not vulgar, he is not coarse. He is a fine man in many ways. He is flawed, but he is struggling to be better. I do love him. If I left, it would just be to teach him a lesson for a while.
A woman and child alone. The first thing I thought about when he hit me was: Will it damage Gabriel, seeing such a thing?
The next day Sam informed Madelyn that as soon as spring rolled around he was going away camping for a few weeks on his own, “in order to retain my sanity.” She was beginning to understand that the bouts of alone-time did enable him to cope (marginally) with the demands and stresses of life. She also quite liked the idea of spending a few weeks alone with Gabriel, without Sam’s overwhelming presence. Still, she said nothing for or against the idea, to punish
him for his obscene violence.
He poured himself a drink and sat down. “I have tried hard to work for the past few months, you can see that I spend every free moment in my study. I have produced very little and that not good. It is possible that my intense efforts — against the grain, as it were — to write during these months will bear fruit eventually, but only if I spend some time in solitude.”
Madelyn recognized this confidence for a sort of apology. An explanation of the frustrations and efforts behind the closed door of his study, that resulted in his unhappy frame of mind and inexcusable behaviour. Still, she wanted him to apologize, not rabbit on yet again about his own problems, as though they somehow justified everything.
“On the whole, I think that if I had spent more time outdoors during the past few months — made that a priority even while I was preparing my classes — I would have ‘come to life’ weeks earlier and been for the whole period happier, healthier and more productive.”
Madelyn kept her back to him and began to wash the dishes. However, Gabriel approached his knee and looked up at him with every indication of concentration.
“I know that I have been behaving idiotically for the past few months, saying silly things to my colleagues, behaving either like a spoilt child or an hysterical one.”
This was more like it. Madelyn turned to him and nodded in agreement.
“What must I do to achieve justice and maturity? Or must I assume that after thirty years I am set in a mould and can never grow up?”
“We must always strive to better ourselves…”
“Be quiet,” Sam interrupted, “I am just expressing my thoughts and anxieties. I am not asking for your opinion. I would not want you to strain your brain beyond leaky faucets.”
Madelyn looked at him in silent hatred. Crushing retorts rushed to her head, but she could not summon the courage to utter them. The ability to retort without fear had been taken from her by force, as soon as he raised his hand. She turned back to the dishes in silence.
TWENTY-THREE
I feel something strange in my breast, a constriction and anxiety that I remember from my past. There had been violence in our household, and I had witnessed it. I feel immersed in the same atmosphere that once pervaded our interwoven lives. Fear and dislike of my father engulfs me. I look up at him, comparing this uncontrollable feeling of fear in my breast to the reality of the frail body. No fear now — only remembered fear.
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