The CTR Anthology

by Alan Filewod

  Jennie: I allus braided it to keep myself tidy.

  Harry: But it allus gets away on you. It’s not in yer nature ta braid your hair so tight, (pause) Ah! There he is.

  (Harry goes easily and quietly out to the porch, carrying the rifle. He lifts the rifle to his shoulder, fires, and waits a moment. Then he goes out to fire another shot, offstage. As Harry fires, Jennie holds her hands to her ears. The interval between the first and second shots is terrible for her. Harry comes back up on the porch, scrapes his boots on the scraper, and comes in. He puts the rifle up on the wall, and takes off his jacket. He starts to close the door.)

  Harry: S’car comin’ down the road.

  Jennie: I never heard it. I never heard no car. (with wonder) I never heard no car comin’! Harry!

  Harry: They better be quick about it, whoever, snow’s comin’.

  Molly: (enters) Father’s car comin’ down the road. It’s th’ Father’s Dodge comin’ down coulee now.

  (Jennie turns and goes to the hallway and up to the bedroom. She does not take the lamp; she goes up in darkness.)

  Harry: Put th’ kettle on fer tea, Molly.

  Molly: You got that coyote then.

  Harry: Yeah, I’ll take care of him tomorra. Got the tail anyways, they pay quarter fer the tail. Bugger, I didn’t get him first time neither, and he just grinned at me. I hate it I don’t get them th’ first time. Had to shoot him twice ta finish it.

  (Molly bustles about the kitchen, gettings things ready. She goes to the door as the car pulls up.)

  Molly: Gee, he’s got Miz Delevault with him.

  (Father and Edna come onto the porch. Edna scrapes her overshoes against the scraper. Harry opens the storm door and lets them in. He helps Edna off with her coat, hat, gloves and scarf. She sits to take off her overshoes. She is carrying a parcel, wrapped in white tissue, which she places on the table)

  Father: Harry.

  Harry: Father.

  (Harry does not take the proffered hand to shake it.)

  Edna: I made him bring me, Harry, afore you was snowed in. It’s Christmas. I brought her a present. (pause) It can’t go on this way, Harry.

  Harry: She’s not feeling well. Molly, see if Miz McGrane kin come down fer visitors.

  Edna: Harry, I’m no visitor.

  Molly: (helping Edna off with her overshoes) Miz Delevault! The radio’s workin’! I got Paris last night.

  Harry: Go up and see if Miz McGrane’ll come down.

  Molly: ’N she makes me use lye in scrub water again!

  Edna: It looks real nice, Molly. That a tree you got fer Christmas?

  Molly: Yeah, ony Mister McGrane, he has ta find the thing ya stand it up in. (to Harry) I’m goin’, I’m goin’! (goes into hall and upstairs)

  (Father takes off his coat and hat. He bangs them on the back of a chair.)

  Edna: Harry, I can’t stay to Dora’s anymore. We had a terrible row. I’m not sayin’ it’s all Dora’s fault, I’m not sayin’ it’s all my fault, but we’re sisters in blood only, not by nature. Dora keeps a cold house.

  Molly: (knocks on bedroom door) Miz McGrane. (over the conversation downstairs) Miz McGrane? Mister McGrane says will you come down, it’s yer ma and the Father.

  Father: She’s got to see her mother.

  Harry: She’s not got to do nothin’.

  Father: An’ you’ve not been to Confession neither, Harry. Not you nor Jennie, and Christmas almost here.

  Edna: She burnt her hat. I knew what it was then. She’s never goin’ back to the Church, I said. I knew it right then, (pause) I brought her a present. (pause) That was the hat you bought her to Lethbridge at Mademoiselle Rose’s. Four dollars and fifty cents. And she put it in the fire right there.

  Harry: These things take time.

  Edna: All these months, Harry, ’n you never come to get me.

  Father: How will you take Communion Christmas night?

  Harry: We’ll be snowed in Christmas night. Can’t you smell it? You, a farmer’s son?

  Edna: I bin goin’ outa my mind, Harry. It’s not right she should hold such bitterness against her own mother.

  Molly: (knocks again) Miz McGrane?

  (Edna starts to cry.)

  Father: Jennie’s in danger of her immortal soul, Harry.

  Molly: Miz McGrane?

  Jennie: Tell them, yes, I’ll come down.

  Molly: O.K. (Turns, comes back downstairs, into hallway, and into kitchen)

  Father: In danger of her immortal soul, Harry.

  Harry: Jennie is!

  Molly: She’s comin’.

  (Jennie appears behind Molly. She is wearing a new flannelette nightgown, buttoned to the neck, long sleeves. Her feet are bare, her hair is cropped off, and in her hands she holds a long fiery-red braid of hair.)

  Jennie: Merry Christmas, Mother.

  Edna: Oh Jennie.

  Jennie: ’N you’ve brought me somethin’! Let me see. (takes the tissue-wrapped package and rips it open) You don’t mind I don’t wait fer Christmas? Look, Harry, it’s a scarf set. Look, a pretty scarf set, in white angora, with little gloves, (puts the scarf around her neck so it hangs like a vestment) I allus wanted one a those scarf sets.

  Edna: I made it myself, from Dora’s Bob’s Angora rabbits, ’fore they died off. Took me ages. Spin it right.

  Jennie: ’N I got somethin’ fer you. Mother, (lays her braid of hair in Edna’j lap) Merry Christmas. I braided it first, nice ’n tight, so it’ll be easy ta carry.

  Molly: Miz McGrane, you cut off yer hair …

  Jennie: (going right up close) How are you, Father? (stares at him but speaks to Edna) Don’t mind, Mother, it’s ony what they do to nuns.

  Father: Jennie, you got to come back to the church. You got to forgive yer mother.

  Jennie: (bitter, ironic) I forgive my mother. There. All better now. I give her my hair, all braided neat and nice ’n tight, like she taught me, to be neat, to be tidy, to be clean.

  Father: Your heart is full a black hatred. Your mother cries all the time.

  Jennie: Do you cry all the time, Mother? Never mind. I’ll take it away then. (Jennie takes the braid of hair from Enda’s lap. Edna has not been able to touch it. Jennie takes the braid to the stove and lifts the lid. She throws the braid into the fire and watches it burn. She replaces the lid.) There. All gone now.

  Edna: Jennie, I swear I …

  Jennie: (turns and quells her with a look of pure fury) There’ll be no more swearin’ in this place. I know what you was goingta swear. You never knew what it was you signed. You never knew. That’s all right, then, isn’t it? If you’re not too bright, God can’t blame you. If you can’t read a piece of paper someone brings ya ta sign, God can’t blame you.

  Edna: Dear God, Jennie, I couldn’t let you have a baby by him!

  Jennie: I forgive you, Mother. I forgive you, Father, (makes the sign of the cross twice) Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. There. All better now.

  (Father crosses to Jennie, spins her around, holds her by the arms, and shakes her.)

  Father: What are you doing?

  Jennie: I’m forgiving you, Father.

  Father: You can’t do that!

  Harry: (moves in) Stop that. Take your hands off her.

  Jennie: (pulls away) Well, if I can’t forgive you, Harry will. Let Harry go to Confession and you forgive Harry and then Harry’ ll forgive you. Harry’s a good Catholic. I guess that’s men’s business. I was always too stupid.

  Father: It’s not Harry’s business to forgive. Nor yours.

  Jennie: But he does it all the same, don’t you, Harry? He forgives you ever’day, on his knees. Look, he burnt that hand to forgive you. On top of range. He burnt his right hand he couldn’t shoot you … on top of range. You kin still see burn scar. Go on, look.

  Father: (not looking at Harry) God forgives me.

  Jennie: Well, that’s God’s job, i’n’t it?

  Father: I will
not go down on my knees to you, Jennie Delevault!

  Jennie: Will you not.

  Harry: Jennie, for God’s sake …

  Jennie: No, Harry, not fer God’s sake nor fer yours. Didn’t you send Molly upstairs just now and get her to tell me, “Miz McGrane, yer mother’s here and the Father’s here and you should come downstairs?” Didn’t you send her up just now, just a moment ago? Didn’t you? Well, I’m downstairs now. It’s the dead a winter now. If we all went out to the Indian rings and built a fire in the centre, and we stayed up all night, we could turn to the east and there it’d be, the sun behind a stone, lined up, lined right up. We could look inta the heart a the sun, isn’t that right, Harry? We could all go out and worship when the sun comes up.

  Father: You are falling into despair. That’s the worst sin for a Catholic.

  Jennie: Despair? No. I thought it all out, Father. No, I’m not fallen into despair. No, it’s come to me. That’s why I cut off my hair. I got the answer now.

  Edna: Oh Blessed Jesus, oh Mary, Mother of God.

  Jennie: Shh, Ma, shh! I want you ta hear this. You see, Ma, I’ve got it all worked out. (pause) Harry can annul me. And I kin go be a nun. (pause) Harry can annul me, can’t he, Father? I mean, the marriage was blessed and it couldn’t be blessed, could it? I bin workin’ it out. It can’t be a true marriage the priest lies, can it.

  Father: It was a true marriage.

  Jennie: No, if the priest lies, it can’t be a true marriage.

  Father: If the wife lies or the husband lies, it’s not a true marriage. But a priest is a priest.

  Jennie: Ah … That’s the way it works, is it. That’s the way men work it out together. If I knew and I lied, then Harry could annul me. And if Harry lied, I could annul Harry. But if you know and you lie, and Harry finds out, he can’t do nothin’ ’cause you’re a priest and a priest is a priest.

  Father: I was not in mortal sin when I married you. I had bin absolved.

  Jennie: You’d bin absolved.

  Father: You must trust to God’s mercy.

  Jennie: I spit on God’s mercy.

  Edna: Jennie, yer talkin’ crazy!

  Jennie: (close to Father and speaking at him, though to Edna) I bin talkin’ crazy since Harvest. I was talkin’ crazy just a bit ago. With Harry. I was talkin’, Harry, go shoot him or shoot me, ’n all kinds a crazy talk, Ma, ’d bring Harry to eternal perdition and everlastin’ fire, but now I don’t feel crazy. Cuttin’ off my hair did it, I think. My head feels light now. I feel free ’η I can think, and what I think is, it was an untrue blessing, and Harry can annul me. You said (to Father) God ordained the increase of mankind, and you blessed our union and called it holy. But you knew. So Harry can annul me and marry Molly Dorval. (turns and goes to Molly) Molly Dorval, may your union be holy, (turns Molly to Edna) Molly Dorval, I give you to my mother who will have no more children and you kin be hers, reborn, in the fire ’n the spirit. Amen.

  Father: You must not speak in such a manner!

  Jennie: (turns to Father) It’s true, I’m just sayin’ what’s true.

  Father: I am not here to ask your forgiveness. This is between me and my blessed Lord.

  Jennie: (crosses him) No. This is between you and me, Father.

  Father: No. You must go to God.

  Jennie: Through you.

  Father: Yes. Through me.

  Jennie: Ah, but I allus did, Father. I thought you was God!

  Harry: … Jennie, let me take you up to bed.

  Jennie: No. Nobody’ll touch me. You said, “Come downstairs,” now I’m downstairs. (calmly to the Father)

  You came to my bed.

  I was fifteen.

  A man of God.

  And one day you took me to a place.

  A place called Ponoka.

  And they asked me questions there.

  Four people in a room, they asked me questions.

  Three men and a woman.

  But you swore me to silence, and I said nothing.

  And then they wrote you.

  And they sent you a letter.

  And a paper to sign.

  And you took that paper to my ma to sign.

  And then you come back, and you said, “Jennie, they’re goingta fix your appendix and when that’s fixed, you can come home. I’ll be here you wake up.” An’ then they put me to sleep.

  And you was, you was there I woke up.

  And then you went away again.

  And then you come to take me home.

  And you told me, Jennie, what we’ve bin doin’ is a moral sin, an’ we must confess to God, and we got to stop.

  Father: Yes.

  Jennie: I got it right then, what happened.

  Father: Yes.

  Jennie: Sometimes I think I can’t’ve got it right.

  Father: That is what happened.

  Jennie: An’ you lied to me.

  Father: Yes.

  Jennie: It wasn’t no appendix.

  Father: No.

  Jennie: I got to go to God through you.

  Father: Yes.

  Jennie: Ony here’s where I think what I remember can’t be true, Father. Here’s where I think what I think can’t be so, Father. When we got back home, to the rectory I mean. I did my confession and you gave me my penance, and you absolved me. (pause) Then you came to my bed again.

  That can’t be true, can it?

  That can not be true.

  Tell me I don’t remember it right, Father, ’cause I’m not too bright!

  Father: Yes. That happened.

  Jennie: Even when Harry come courtin’ me. Even after that. The week before you married us. After you’d called the banns twice!

  Edna: Jennie!

  Harry: Let her finish.

  Father: Yes. (turns to Harry) I thought it would stop. I thought I wouldn’t want to any more. After they did that, (to Edna and Harry) But at first, when I took her to Ponoka, I never meant that. It was just, to get her away! (pause) And then, they wrote me and they said she was feebleminded and they did domestics often, and she was promiscuous, and if they did the operation, she could come back home, back to me, and be safe. And it seemed like an answer to a prayer. I though it would stop the occasion of my sin.

  Harry: You did that to stop … the occasion … of your sin?

  Father: She was like an animal! Rubbing up against me. Singin’. Allus singin’. She gave off… an odour. I couldn’t get away from it, even in church! I’ve confessed. I’ve done penance. God is merciful. I confessed to Father Ogilvie before I wed you, Harry.

  Harry: They asked you, was she promiscuous?

  Father: Yes.

  Harry: And what did you tell them?

  Father: Well, she was!

  Harry: (turns from Father in disgust) Ah, get out of my sight.

  Father: (to Edna) I prayed to our dear Lord Jesus Christ for a miracle.

  The day I married them. I went into retreat, and I prayed for a miracle. (Edna turns away.) God is merciful.

  Jennie: But I am not.

  Father: (tries to avoid looking at Jennie) I trust to God’s Infinite Mercy. I do not despair.

  Jennie: They spayed me.

  Father: I will not despair.

  Jennie: He does not turn His face from you.

  Father: No. no.

  Jennie: ’N there is nothin’ I could do to your God to make Him turn His face from you. ’N you do not despair.

  Father: (frantically, to Harry) I despaired that winter. That black winter. I did terrible things. Terrible things. (Harry refuses to look at Father.) Sometimes, not very often, someone’d manage to get in, and I would say Mass. I gave Communion. I heard Confession. In mortal sin. I despaired then.

  Jennie: That was the worst?

  Father: For a priest it’s the worst! It’s not what I did to you, Jennie Delevault, it’s what I did to God! Can’t you understand?

  (Father is speaking directly to Jennie now, and she has him.)

  Jennie: Cuttin’ me out and mak
in’ me say it was sin, that wasn’t the worst?

  Father: They were terrible sins, but not the worst, no.

  Jennie: (close to Father) Why have you come for me?

  Father: (kneels before her) I have come to struggle for your soul, (tries to pray)

  Jennie: Get up, Father. I won’t have you kneel down for my soul, (furiously) No, I won’t have you kneel down to me, Father, not for my soul. Kneel down for my body! (presses his face against her belly) There, there come to me, poor Eddie. Come to me and I will give you peace. Come to me, poor little Eddie Fabrizeau, never could learn to shut a cattle gate. Come to me. Come to me. Come to me. (Father’s arms come up and he clasps her to him. Jennie shoots a glance of fiery triumph at Harry. Now she turns to the Father, and pulls his head back by the hair, so that she is speaking to him face to face.) Damn you to Hell, Edward Fabrizeau, damn you and damn your god too, and may your soul freeze in everlastin’ zero at the centre of the world. There’s nothin’ terrible enough I can do, is there? Except that. Not to let you have my soul. I smell, do I? Yes. Smell me now. (pulls his head against her, and moves against him violently) Smell me now, Edward Fabrizeau. Dead flesh. Dead woman flesh. Dead fish in a dead river. Smell me now, Edward Fabrizeau, bad man and bad priest. (Jennie pushes him away from her, not violently but almost gently, and he falls sobbing to the floor.) That’s enough now. (Jennie goes to the sink. She pumps water, washes her face. She picks up the water she has used before, takes a can of lye and goes into the pantry.)

  Harry: (to Father) Get up. Get up an’ go. Don’t make me touch you. I touch you I’ll kill you this time. (Father continues to sob) Make him stop, Mother.

  Edna: (goes to Father but cannot touch him) Hush, Father, hush.

  Father: But what can I do, what can I do! (Edna helps him to his feet. To Harry) What can I do.

  Harry: You can live and do yer job an’ make the best of it. Molly will have her baby and we’ll take it. An’ you’ll do the christenin’ and you’ll give the baby my name an’ anoint it. You’re a priest. You’re a bad priest but you’re our priest. So, bless this place and go.

  Father: I can’t.

  Harry: Damn you, Eddie, be a priest!

  (Father straightens and raises his hand. Harry kneels. Molly kneels. Edna turns her back and does not kneel until almost the end of the prayer.)