The CTR Anthology

by Alan Filewod

  Edna: (calls after Harry) It’s real nice, Harry.

  Harry: (calling back) But you’ll never touch knobs, I know!

  Molly: I will! I can’t wait!

  Edna: (quietly) You take out chicken can, Molly.

  Molly: Yes, Miz Delevault.

  (Molly gets a pan from under the sink and goes out. On the porch, she looks back through the screen door, puzzled, and exits. Jennie lifts her teacup and drinks standing up.)

  Edna: Won’t you sit down, Jennie, and have yer tea proper? I made pie.

  Jennie: I’ll stand.

  Edna: Let me heat it up fer you then.

  Jennie: No. That was enough. I was dry.

  Edna: Let me take yer hat and coat.

  Jennie: No.

  (Edna sits down heavily at the table. She speaks downwards as Jennie stands before her. It is a confession. She cannot look at Jennie until just toward the end.)

  Edna: Jennie, you got to try to understand. It was a terrible year. A bad terrible year. First yer dad died. In the spring. But I bore up, because there was you and Ben. An’ had ta bear up. You kin bear up when you got to. But then we lost the farm. It broke Ben’s heart ta lose the farm. (pause) That’s the worst thing for a farmer, to lose the land. And Ben went inta the mines. Ben was a farmer, like Harry’s a farmer. Ben could stand on a piece of land, and Ben could know. What it was for. Oats or barley or wheat or time to summer fallow. Your dad used to say Ben could smell land through his feet. (pause) Like you kin hear things. My children were gifted! But then we lost the farm and Ben had ta go inta the ground. And then they come to tell me. He hated it so, down there in the dark (Edna looks up at Jennie, holding out her hand for Jennie to take. After a moment, Jennie takes the hand.) You and I, we waited it out then, you and I, Jennie. How long was he there, breathing and breathing and watching the light go out, then not using candles for fear a usin’ up the air. It was eight days and nights before they found him, but how long did he wait, Jennie, down there in the dark, (pause) I wasn’t in my right mind that year. And then come the winter an’ I couldn’t do for the Father. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

  Jennie: So you sent me in yer stead.

  Edna: So I sent you in my stead.

  Jennie: It was like the whole world froze that winter. The snow come and covered the church and the rectory so we had to dig a little tunnel to go back and forth. But I kept the stove goin’ in the church and the range goin’ in the rectory, and the Father kept the light on the altar goin’, but nobody came.

  Edna: I couldn’t come to you.

  Jennie: I liked the rectory first time you took me. I love Aunt Dora, but she keeps a cold house. But I liked the rectory. It was like livin’ in a cave. And sometimes, when my work was done, I’d go through the tunnel to the church and I’d pray to the little light, and it seemed like you was there,

  Ma.

  Edna: There was no way to get in or out, the whole world was buried.

  Jennie: (insistent) You was there, Ma.

  Edna: Well, I never wanted to live with Dora, we never got along. It’s true she keeps a cold house, (pause) Well, it’s past and done with now and no use cryin’. Jennie? Jennie? Maybe it’s too soon to say what I got to say, but, never leave off a job needs doin’, do it right away, you can’t suffer, and here it is, see, what I’ve thought out, like God answered a prayer. See, the Dorvals is good stock, Jennie, French way back like us, ’n Catholic, an’ the boy … Well, the truth is, the boy’s a Doukhobour. So see, what I was thinking, oh I forgot, you don’t know how it stands with Molly. She’s in the family way. (Edna waits, as if expecting an interruption. Jennie has gradually, with growing horror, pulled her hand away, and moved back into the centre of the room.) ’N you’ ’n Harry, you could adopt … Molly’s … baby, (pause) I was prayin’, prayin’ for an answer. And in comes Molly. I could see at a glance. Four months gone if she’s a day. Anybody with an eye could see. It’s a wonder her own mother never … but a mother never sees … so they don’t even know yet. The Dorvals.

  Jennie: (in horror) You knew all along. That’s why you never wanted me to go to the doctor. The doctor said you knew. The doctor said you signed the paper.

  Edna: (denying) I never knew what it was for!

  Jennie: It was a paper to have me cut. And you knew. I said to the doctor, “That’s a lie, my ma’d never!”

  Edna: I never!

  Jennie: You knew. ’N you got it all worked out, even ’fore I got home, how I kin adopt Molly Dorval’s bastard.

  Edna: I wasn’t in my right mind! (Jennie continues to stare at her. Pause) I swear, Jennie, I never understood what I was signin’. (knows now that she cannot convince Jennie.) All right. All right. But you was in that place. I would’ve done anything to get you outa that place. (Jennie continues to stare at her. Pause) He said it was for yer own protection!

  Jennie: The doctor read it to me. He cut me to stop the transmission of evil. (terrible humour) You allus said God couldn’t blame me fer the way I was made. I’m not the way God made me, Ma. (small laugh) I still can’t take it in. Maybe it’s true I’m not bright. It must be true fer people ta sign papers ’n do that to me. Maybe I’m not bright. But I’m not the other … You were my mother!

  Edna: Oh dear God, blessed Jesus, he was the priest, Jennie!

  Jennie: ’N you knew that too.

  (Jennie takes off her hat, which is attached to her coiled hair with a hat pin. She goes to the range. She lifts a lid with the lid lifter. She puts the hat in the fire, and then stares into the fire as it burns. Then she throws the hat pin in as well. She replaces the lid. Harry comes back into the kitchen in work clothes. He has been sitting upstairs, waiting for the women to say whatever it is that has to be said.)

  Edna: (over his entrance) On Jennie, Jennie, you burnt your beautiful hat.

  Harry, Jennie’s just burnt her hat.

  Jennie: Harry, you kin take Ma back to Dora’s Bob’s place now.

  Harry: (pause) She ain’t heard the radio …

  Jennie: It’s time! She’s done too much.

  Edna: She burnt her new hat you bought her to Lethbridge.

  Harry: She has ta get her things together, Jennie.

  Jennie: Take her now, Harry. You kin take her things tomorra.

  Harry: (goes to screen door, opens it) Come on, then, Mother.

  Edna: (starts toward door, stops, looks back at Jennie) Jennie.

  Jennie: Go, Ma. Please. Go. Harry, get her outa here.

  (Harry and Edna go out screen door. He puts up his hand to help her off the porch, and they exit. Jennie stands stock still in her kitchen. Molly comes up on the porch carrying an empty chicken can, and goes into the kitchen.)

  Molly: Is yer ma goin’ already? Ain’t she goingta stay ’n hear radio? (pause) ’N she never tuk her things.

  Jennie: She says yer in the family way.

  Molly: Oh jeez, Miz McGrane, and she’s never let up on it since I got here.

  Jennie: What’s it like?

  (Molly doesn’t quite know what to do. She washes out the chicken can, then later starts to clear the tea things away. Jennie watches this girl taking over her kitchen.)

  Molly: Well, most a the time it’s not like anything. I don’t even think about it … I ony did it the once.

  Jennie: That easy.

  Molly: Well, it ain’t so easy fer me, I kin tell you. My da’ll kill me.

  Jennie: Stop doing that … I mean, stop rushing around. Sit down, (pause) Sit down, Molly. Here. You’ve been worked off yer feet last four days.

  Molly: (sits at the table) Ooof! Have I ever! Yer ma, she’s a slave driver.

  Jennie: Have yer tea. (Molly helps herself in her usual gluttonous way. Jennie sits down at the table, very carefully, as if she feels she will break.)

  What’s it like.

  Molly: Well, it’s sort a like … a little fish … in a underground river. Ever’ so often you can feel its little tail go flip flup! (laughs) But most a the time I don’t think about it
(adds more cream, sugar to her tea).

  Jennie: You don’t feel sick or nothin’?

  Molly: Me? Naw! I’m healthy’s a horse. See, if I don’t think about it, or I don’t get this little fish tail in the river feelin’, I don’t worry. It just seems like any other day.

  Jennie: Yes.

  Molly: On first night here, I thought about it. After I got inta bed. Then I thought about it. Oh jeez! Well, I said, it’s just the end a the world, that’s all. (laughs) Then Mister McGrane come in and turned on the light for me, and that made me feel better.

  Jennie: Harry came into your room?

  Molly: Yeah, come in, turned on the light, said, tell him a bedtime story, so I did, next thing I knew, I was dead ta the world, (laughs)

  Jennie: Where was my mother?

  Molly: Side me, in bed wore out, dead ta the world, (pause) I guess you think I’m a bad girl now though.

  Jennie: Maybe you couldn’t help yourself, ’cause yer not too bright!

  Molly: (defensively) I passed my junior matric! I got confirmed!

  Jennie: I got confirmed.

  Molly: I am too bright!

  Jennie: People allus said I wasn’t too bright.

  Molly: You!

  (Molly laughs at the absurdity of this. Jennie tries to normalize this new reality, tries to make it seem possible.)

  Jennie: Well, I never even got my grade seven. My dad started to get sick and I was taken outa school and went ta work for Mrs Finlay up to Lumbreck. But I didn’t mind because my teacher? … Mrs Williston? … (Molly grimaces. She too has had Mrs Williston.) She said I wasn’t too bright anyways. My ma allus said that was the way God made me … and I wasn’t to blame. Even … even Harry jokes me sometimes. He says I got brains else. I kin hear things. When people die. Or a car comes ’cross the bridge. Or someone needs me. And Harry allus said it never made no mind ’cause I had brains else, but I never got my grade seven, (pause; with great pain) I shoulda got my grade seven. (Molly doesn’t understand what Jennie is saying, but she understands that something is terribly wrong,) I better go get changed now, the men’ll be in soon fer their supper.

  Molly: Oh jeez.

  (Molly jumps up, starts to clear the table. She starts to lay out the table with plates. She checks the range, checks the vegetables. In other words, she takes over. Jennie gets up and starts toward the door.)

  Molly: ’N it’s th’ last night too! Tomorra they’ll be done. Mister McGrane’s been lucky! He’s got his whole crop in and still not a cloud in the sky. Miz McGrane? Do you think Mister McGrane’s goingta fix up that radio tonight for sure? I’d sure like to hear that radio.

  Jennie: You ask him.

  Molly: Ony, he should never leave it in here, Miz McGrane. I mean, it’s more a front room lookin’ sort a piece of furniture, isn’t it?

  Jennie: Maybe.

  Molly: Oh yes, a radio’s more a front room sort a thing. Ony, winters, you’d hafta leave stove on in there.

  Jennie: (pause) I’m sorry I said that, Molly, about yer not bein’ bright. I’m just a little tired.

  Molly: Oh that’s all right, Miz McGrane. I guess I was a bit dumb, I mean, even if I did do it ony the once, (pause) Why don’t you go on up and lie down fer a bit. I can handle everything down here.

  (Jennie looks at Molly and acknowledges this truth. She goes out into the hallway and we see her go into the bedroom. She stands there, a woman with nothing to do.)

  ACT ONE, SCENE FIVE

  The next evening. Outside a heavy rain is falling. We can hear it, and we can see that the porch is wet. A real summer rain. Thunder. Lightning. From off, inside the house, we can faintly hear the sound of the radio in the front room, and, sometimes, Molly’s laughter. Jennie stands on the porch, looking out at the rain. Harry comes onto the porch, shakes off his hat and jacket, and hangs them on pegs outside the door. He wipes his head and neck with a kerchief.

  Harry: I put milk in separator shed, (pause) Poor ol’ Bailey, his whole quarter section got hailed out.

  Jennie: And you just done yestiddy.

  Harry: Yeah. Mine’s all in. All in yestiddy. I think it hit Waterson’s place too. I could see that big purple cloud movin’ over that way. Hunh. Molly sure likes that radio.

  Jennie: Maybe you should keep her.

  Harry: If you want. She’d be company fer you. (Awkward pause. They haven’t talked, so this is the moment for it.) Well, men’re happy anyways, all paid off, so that’s done. Take wheat inta town tomorror. Nice to have them gone though. Even when they’re out there in the bunkhouse, ya know they’re out there. Nice to be alone. (The radio is heard, faintly.)

  Jennie: Except for Molly, (pause) It’s clearin’.

  Harry: Yeah, them hard rains, they clear up quick. Do their damage and turn soft.

  Jennie: (doesn’t turn to look at Harry) I guess you want to ask me.

  Harry: Well, I guessed it wasn’t good news. I figured you’d tell me you was ready, (pause) I don’t see why you tuk against yer mother though.

  Jennie: You didn’t sleep much last night.

  Harry: No more’n you, seems.

  Jennie: It’s clearin’.

  (The rain stops. Music from the front room, faintly.)

  Harry: You don’t hafta tell me, you don’t want to. It comes to same thing.

  Jennie: No it doesn’t.

  Harry: Well, there’s things, Jen, I never told you.

  Jennie: It’s bin a whole day ’n a whole night ’n another whole day ’n another whole night and everythin’ seems just the same.

  Harry: When I was out at the Coast, I got inta trouble … I was in prison … That’s why I was away so long. Why I never come home my father died. For funeral.

  Jennie: Prison? You was in prison?

  Harry: I told you, you’d have married me?

  Jennie: I wish you’d told me.

  Harry: You’d’a married me, I told you?

  Jennie: Yes.

  Harry: (tries to make this a joke) Well, then, I didn’t hafta tell ya, did I?

  Jennie: Have you known about it all along?

  Harry: Jen, we don’t hafta talk about it.

  Jennie: We do, oh God, Harry, I wish we didn’t, but we do, we hafta talk about it. And I don’t know how. I don’t have words ta talk about it. You don’t know, you don’t know.

  Harry: I know some’v it. People said things. When I come back and you was workin’ there, at the rectory. ’N I started courtin’ you. People said things. Bill Jackson said something, down at Feed Store, so I just took him out back a Feed Store ’n talked to him a bit. I didn’t touch him, I ony talked to him. I said “Spew it out, Bill Jackson, ’cause the banns’re called two weeks now, and after next Sunday’s bann’s called, I am marryin’ me Jennie Delevault in the sight a’ God ’n Man, and I’ll hear nothin’ agin my wife that day forward.”

  Jennie: Then you knew. An’ Ma knew. Ony you don’t know. Not all’v it. An’ Ma, she had it all worked out, ta take Molly’s baby, (laughs)

  Harry: (not understanding) Take Molly’s baby?

  Jennie: Harry, (pause) That doctor cut me. All that time ago. When the Father tuk me to that place. It wasn’t no regular hospital. They sat me down and asked me questions, only I’d sworn not to say, ’n they said I wasn’t too bright. They said – they was four a them – they said I was feeble-minded. I never had no appendix.

  Harry: Were you in the family way?

  Jennie: (shocked) No! Oh no. No, he’d’v never done it then. No. Oh if I’d been late, it would’ve been a sign, it would’ve been a punishment, he’d’ve never gone against God like that. No. They just cut me.

  Harry: Where? What place? What hospital was it?

  Jennie: Ponoka. ’N it wasn’t just feeble-minded they said.

  Harry: (carefully, very quiet) Who took you.

  Jennie: See, I was sixteen, and so they had ta get … Ma had to sign the paper … See, Harry, when I wrote the letter to that doctor, the one who done it, he said he didn’t know wha
t to think. That’s why he wrote back so fast, come up to see him in Calgary. He’s in private practice now. He was just startin’ out then, ony job he could get. Anyways, he said, he said, he said … he didn’t have no idea I could write a word of English, (tries to laugh, numb with shock) See there’s this law, Harry. Against “the transmission of evil.” And they said I wasn’t too … No, they said I was feebleminded. ’N the other.

  Harry: What other?

  Jennie: I was evil.

  Harry: (almost laughs) Who said.

  Jennie: The people in that room. Who asked me the questions. There was four a them, three men an’ a lady. ’N they asked me questions. But see, I swore’n oath to say nothin, ’n I never, (pause) That’s funny. Everybody knew. That’s funny, Harry. But I never said. ’N the doctor, he’s in private practice now, oh I told you that already, the doctor said, “Mrs McGrane, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know you could write a word of English.” He said I wrote him, he was dumbfounded. See, if someone signs a paper, they can cut you out. And Ma, she signed it.

  Harry: Who took her the paper? (pause) Who took you to that place?

  Jennie: (in spite of everything, still feels she cannot betray her word.) The doctor said, he can’t fix me back again, Harry. I don’t seem to be able to take it in. I don’t feel anythin’. It’s like my body don’t belong to me no more. You got your whole crop in, Harry. Look how clear it is.

  Harry: Who took you there? Who took yer ma the paper to sign.

  Jennie: Ah. He did.

  Harry: I want you to say it. Say his name.

  Jennie: See, they didn’t even hafta tell me or nothin’ because I was a minor! See how clear it is, Harry! “Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! Oh look at all the fire-folk sittn’ in the air!” If I was feeble-minded, how could I remember the words you taught me?

  Harry: Say his name.

  Jennie: Father Edward Fabrizeau. (pause) There. Now I’ve told, and you can kill me. (pause) Only when I go, Harry don’t put me in the ground, I want to go like the fire-folk, burnin’, burnin’, like those old Fire People made the rings up on the butte, (laughs with the relief of it) Take me down ta the river and cut me some kindlin’, and let me go up inta the sky like fire-folk, (laughs)