This Is All a Lie
Page 35
At the bar, she pours another shot of vodka and pounds it back. In an hour or so, she will wake Ray. She will not make him a press of coffee as she usually does on weekends, and he will notice but he will say nothing. She will tell him to sit down, she will tell him what happened and he will know she knows, and this makes her sad. She grieves for all of them – for the poor dead woman, for Ray and for herself.
Perhaps she will look at him and say, “Did you love her?”
“In my own stupid way,” he might say. “I cared about her in my own stupid way. What does it matter now?”
“You’re right,” Tulah will say. “It doesn’t matter now.”
But it will matter. She will stifle her anger, and in time, she might be okay with this answer. She knows she cannot judge. She cannot stand and point her finger at him and then look in the mirror with any honesty, or honour. There will be no screaming, and no hollering about this woman. Because Tulah still yearns for her lover. She yearns and yet she still feels betrayed by Ray. He snuck around. He lied. He lied, a lot. She knows the number of lies it takes to have an affair.
Perhaps, Tulah thinks, Ray will notice she is calmer than she ought to be, more accepting, less angry. This could be partly because the woman died and death has a funny way of lining up priorities. But perhaps, eventually, he will think she is not crazy angry about Nancy because she’s guilty of the same thing. He might see her behaviour as a puzzle. One day next month, or two years away, or eighty-four days in the future, or a half a year down the road, Ray will lean back in his chair and smile. “So, what was his name?” he’ll say. And Tulah will be relieved. She will exhale and she will tell him everything.
She thinks about cranes. She remembers seeing a television show about the Sandhill cranes and how they mate for life. They return year-after-year to the same breeding ground with the same mate. They do not define their connection and they certainly don’t question it. They nest and have baby cranes. She is unsure about what a baby crane is called. A chick? She and Ray have become cranes confined to a nest. They made this defective nest and now it was theirs.
Tulah hopes Ray will be able to come to an understanding of who he is and who they are and quietly step past this Petya woman – the dead woman. Tulah shivers. The woman killed herself. She cleaned for days and then killed herself. She took a bunch of pills, crossed her ankles and clutched her pearls, and went to sleep. She wonders if this woman knew – if she was aware that she was drifting off and not coming back. Never coming back. Was there a moment of doubt – a split second in which she suddenly did not want to die?
It would be like Ray to bear this weight himself – to carry the dead woman, and any guilt he felt about her, and not say anything about it. It would not occur to him to tell Tulah everything and beg forgiveness. He would think this was cruel and selfish, and purposely hurtful. Now, this quiet journey will not be possible. He will have to come up with a different way to move forward. There will be guilt but it won’t just be about having an affair with this woman – it will also be guilt about her death.
The rain is coming down steadily now. Perhaps it will turn to snow in the evening, but Tulah does not care. She no longer wants to write about snow, or even think about it. It has taken her forty years of living to arrive at a place beyond snow. She is done with winter. If it snows later on, she will have a drink and go to bed.
She would rather focus on rain. Rain is life. It makes things grow. It does not cover up. It amplifies colour and brings clarity. It makes the world more vibrant. Tulah slips out of her robe and steps out onto the veranda in her bra and panties. She shivers instantly, shocked by how cold it is. She breathes her way into it – she welcomes the rain on her skin. This morning, she needs to be exactly in this moment – dripping rain, cold and shivering, guilty, indignant, and sad.
She wants the enchantment of the rain, as if she lives in a world where it will be always raining – a world where the rain never stops. She imagines a place where the rain holds all the nutrients of sunlight. People in this world are in a state of constant renewal, a constant and steady baptism. Every time they are wet by rain, they are healed and forgiven. The rain is a salve that never ends. Nothing bad sticks to the people of this rainy world. No one will know they are innocent because everyone is innocent. There will be forbidden things, and taboos, and a list of sins, but these will be small things, and the rain will always wash away any transgressions.
She might watch a small child who is colouring a picture.
What colour is the sky? Tulah will say.
Grey, the child will say. The sky is grey.
And what about the stars at night?
The child will be confused. What are stars at night? There is only rain at night. It is dark at night.
The child will finish colouring and then start to draw thin, streaky lines across her picture.
What are you doing?
Finishing my picture, the child will say.
What are those lines? Tulah will ask.
Those lines are the rain.
What does the rain mean?
The child will look up at Tulah as if she is stupid. It means we are all forgiven, the child says. It means you are forgiven.
Tulah will step forward and lean in. What? What did you say?
But the child is engrossed in colouring, lost in the picture. Then the child will be inside the picture, sitting at a wooden table and colouring a picture of a child, who is colouring at a wooden table, and there is a half-naked woman leaned over the child asking questions about forgiveness and rain and the colour grey.
Tulah jerks her eyes open. A shiver tickles across her shoulder blades. The sky is so grey. She wants this rain to colour her. She wants to feel the pulsating aliveness; the violent happiness she knows is just beyond her grasp.
* * *
It’s tempting to keep going here – to stay true to the game, this conspiracy of words, this soft trickery. But that’s all done now. That about does ’er. This is not part of the narrative. Not really. There will be no sneaking in an extra scene or two with old Claude Garamond, or a heartbroken Viking. Enough. But maybe you need to know if they make it. Do Garamond and his lovely wife get away from the Church?
* * *
Imagine this: Marie Isabelle and Garamond arrive at the retreat high above the Tarentaise Valley. It was a difficult journey in which Garamond did a lot of looking back to make sure they were not being followed. They have fallen into new patterns in their nineteen days on the mountain, and one of these is to linger a while in bed before venturing into the day.
It’s early. They are in bed, warm and cocooned under a heavy down quilt. They can see their breath in the room. Neither of them wants to get up and make a fire. The view from the bed is all mountain peaks with striations of snow, and lush fingers of pine rising up the slopes. Below them in the valley there are a few vineyards and the beginnings of a village. In the time they have been living in this hut they have not seen another human being. It’s a simple stone dwelling built into the side of the mountain, with a chicken coop, a nearby stream and a small vegetable plot. They’ve been living on chicken and wine since they arrived. The vintner said the place was called Planay.
Garamond regrets having to run, but when the warning came, he knew there were men asking pointed questions about them in the village, and they could not wait around to greet them. Even though Garamond would likely have been exonerated because his association with his former mentor was not substantial, there was a risk that the stench around the implication and execution of Antoine Augereau would taint a trial, if it came to that. These days when the ideas of Protestantism were challenging the doctrine and authority of the Roman Catholic Church, an implication could be a death sentence. And given Garamond’s Protestant predilection it was probably best to ride out this transitioning period in seclusion. Living in isolation above the Planay Valley was a fine thing.
Later on, Garamond will chop wood for the stove and perhaps explore a nearby lake for fish. He does not know how to fish but surely it can’t be too difficult. On his way to the lake, he will accidentally flush a covey of black grouse. Three of them will arc away to his right and then curve directly back overhead. They will be trying to steer him away from their nests. The sound of the wings frantically beating the air above his head will cause Garamond to duck. The wings sound closer than they are and that sound scares him. When Garamond stands up straight he will take note of where he is. He will not think the grouse are beautiful; he will think, we can eat those.
Eventually, he will start to work again. There is a spot with good light near the side door where he will set up a sturdy table and continue to refine his letterforms.
Marie Isabelle moans as she wriggles her behind into Garamond’s front. She grunts a little and he notices – moves his hand to the sweaty alcove between her breasts. She thinks about sex, just for a second – she thinks about all of it, all the possibilities of the morning with her husband, in bed, under the eider-down duvet. This is her home now, not houses or villas, or cities, or villages or towns, but this feeling of belonging she has with her husband. It is the only thing of value. It is home. A shiver twitches through the middle of her body, a tingling spasm of anticipation, and she grunts again. Garamond pulls her closer and she is happy.
Here’s the thing…it’s sad about Nancy, or Nensi, but how could you possibly predict that, or prevent it, as it happens? She checked out on her own terms, and while it’s kinda nice that she gets to do things her way, it’s heartbreaking. Too much loss. Sometimes a person can bounce back from any loss, and sometimes a solitary loss becomes too much to bear.
Listen, you should know this about old Claude Garamond and his sixteenth century world: Maurice Gauguin was no fool. The vintner could see his wife was attracted to Garamond, and that regardless of the fact she was a god-fearing woman, something might eventually happen between them. Hell, even he was drawn toward Garamond’s obsessive, artistic personality. Gauguin figured it was just a matter of time before Garamond and Natalii were humping like bunnies in the woods. So he sent the warning of the three bottles of Meursault, not because there were men from Paris in the village, but because he wanted to get rid of the threat of Garamond. Of course, Garamond wanted nothing to do with Natalii. He was fanatically in love with his wife. Would he tease, and push at the edges of flirtation? Yes. But to bed another women was out of the question for him. Point of honour to Claude Garamond.
Go back to near the beginning and read the “Epilogue.” It ought to make perfect sense now.
“The only kind of literature that is possible today: a literature that is both critical and creative.” – Italo Calvino (This is here because the author both understands it, and does not understand it.) And this quote from Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium: “Overambitious projects may be objectionable in many fields, but not in literature. Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement. Only if poets and writers set themselves tasks that no one else dares imagine will literature continue to have a function,” an idea the author embraces, but fears he may have embraced a little too wholeheartedly.
The line “I feel certain that I am going mad again,” the title of Chapter 3, is from Virginia Woolf’s handwritten suicide note.
Drink your eight cups of water per day. It’ll do you a world of good.
The author would, in all honesty, like to acknowledge the following people: Cindy-Lou T., and M. Mackenzie T., for steadying the ship, and for being delightful, and making me laugh. Paulette Dube for her perfect encouragement. Leah Fowler for her mind and heart. The support of Gail Sobat and Geoff McMaster, and all the talented artists at YouthWrite – Noel, Nick, Joe, Marla, Caleb, Spyder, Shelby, Robert Jahrig, Conni Massing et al. Amazing friends – Colin, Patty, Sue, Rob. The fine literary conversations with Harding. Extraordinary editor, Lara Hinchberger. Gregg Shilliday and all the fine folks at Great Plains Publications/Enfield & Wizenty. And finally, my Italian muses – Italo Calvino, Alessandro Baricco and Paolo Sorrentino.