Between the Cracks She Fell
Page 1
PRAISE FOR BETWEEN THE CRACKS SHE FELL
Fast moving and compelling, Between the Cracks She Fell explores the complexities of relationships, religions, and the various selves within that help us survive when we “fall” between the cracks. Through the eyes of the likable and lively narrator Joscelyn, and her ever-growing web of new and past relationships, we discover that home is not confined to a physical place—it’s the landscape inside where you find yourself. Once again, de Nikolits exhibits her storytelling strengths by weaving various plot strands together, bringing her protagonist to a greater truth.
—CATHERINE GRAHAM, author of Her Red Hair Rises With the Wings of Insects
A lyrical and deeply moving examination of emotional pain and faith on a collision course with organized religion. Lisa de Nikolits’ highly believable and human characters are outsiders struggling to find meaning, and perhaps hope, in contemporary urban society. With a deft and confident clarity of style, she explores the complex interplay of faith, crime and social isolation. Highly recommended.
—M. H. CALLWAY, author of Windigo Fire
Jolted by where Joscelyn begins, then utterly surprised and in awe of where she goes, I found the journey of a buoyant, playful woman embracing her own experiment of living compelling and real. Joss’s attitude becomes evermore rich and grooves without destination. Hers has no absolutes! In spite of her returns to Tim Hortons, her dingy room in an abandoned school, and a rampant lust for her misguided lover, Joscelyn stubbornly derails relinquishing with her past in the attempt to keep a strait lid on her “almost 30” life. In her refusal to part with a home and roots she’s outgrown, she scraps to “plaster up” the walls of a romanticized self. Between The Cracks She Fell has a fierce and passionate Joss eroding false identity by choosing to live among abandoned ruins. In this place, a young woman becomes witness to ever thinning spaces among the divine secrets of others, now lost to insanity, and finds a comfortable inner language that translates her abundant wishes to hold her own style of love and longing.
—SONIA DI PLACIDO, author of Exultation in Cadmium Red
As usual from Lisa de Nikolits, a well-plotted story, grippingly told. I was impressed by the use of the Qur’an and The Satanic Verses; it’s as if Between The Cracks She Fell is a response to Salman Rushdie’s work. Between The Cracks She Fell is a great read. I wonder what Joss will do next?
—TERRI FAVRO, author of The Proxy Bride
Between The Cracks She Fell is a whirligig-ride into the dark recesses of “what-next?” Compelling, multi-layered, bold and engaging, a thought-provoking exploration of gender, genes, nurture, liberty, commitment, ideologies, and doctrines of faith and worship. This is fine story-telling.
—SHIRLEY MCDANIEL, artist, art-explorations.com
Utilizing Joycean techniques of dialogue and a relatable prose, de Nikolits manages to paint a visceral world of a lost, but determined soul. Joscelyn, like many people do, encounters a whole range of characters in her journeys. From her egotistically-minded friend Emma to her relationship with Ashley, a friend who is troubled, but is confident in his own admirable way, Joscelyn must fight adversity at every step. She finds consolation unexpectedly in the diary of Imran Ali, an Islamic fundamentalist whose religious conversion holds a key to her own search for meaning. Her fiery connection with a drug dealer, Lenny, is an example of her fight for identity in a world that continues to repress and oppress her individual will to power. Between The Cracks She Fell is an engaging novel that will have you questioning the stability of learned faith and in awe of the strength of pure human will.”
—JACQUELINE VALENCIA, author of The Octopus Complex
BETWEEN
THE
CRACKS
she fell
Copyright © 2015 Lisa de Nikolits
Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Collective Agency (Access Copyright).
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
Between the Cracks She Fell is a work of fiction. All the characters and situations portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Excerpts from THE SATANIC VERSES By Salman Rushdie, Published by Vintage, reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited. Also, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Copyright © 1988 by Salman Rushdie, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.
Cover design: Lisa de Nikolits
Original photography: Bradford Dunlop
De Nikolits, Lisa, 1966–, author
Between the cracks she fell : a novel / by Lisa de Nikolits.
(Inanna poetry & fiction series)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77133-225-5 (paperback). — ISBN 978-1-77133-226-2 (epub). —
ISBN 978-1-77133-228-6 (pdf)
I. Title. II. Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series
PS8607.E63B48 2015 C813’.6 C2015-904989-X
C2015-904990-3
Printed and bound in Canada
Inanna Publications and Education Inc.
210 Founders College, York University
4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3
Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax: (416) 736-5765
Email: inanna.publications@inanna.ca Website: www.inanna.ca
BETWEEN
THE
CRACKS
she fell
A NOVEL BY
Lisa de Nikolits
INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
TORONTO, CANADA
To Bradford Dunlop, as always.
And God, whoever that may be for you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Exodus
2. Those Who Tear Out
3. The Sure Reality
4. The Mutual Loss and Gain
5. Smoke or Mist
6. The Consultation
7. Time; or Man
8. The Rocky Tract
9. The Pilgrimage
10. The Abundance
11. The Rending Asunder
12. The Cave
13. The Star
14. The Spider
15. The Day of Noise and Clamour
16. The Scandal Monger
17. The Break of Day
18. The Sun
19. Those That Run
20. The Glorious Morning Light
21. The Tribe of Quraish
22. The Ants
23. Kingdom Hall
24. The Hippocrites
25. The Roman Empire
26. The Convulsion
27. The Battle Array
28. The Expansion
29. Mankind
30. The Believers
31. The Dealers in Fraud
32. The Inner Apartments
33. The Friday Prayer
34. The Night Visitant
35. The Neighbourly Needs
36. The Thunder
37. The Piling Up
38. The Dawn
39. The Spoils of War
40. The Divorce
41. The Resurrection
42. T
he Overwhelming Event
43. The Cleaving Asunder
44. The Ways of Ascent
45. The Fire-Dwellers
46. The Prophets
47. The Inevitable Event
48. The Folding Up
49. Genesis
Acknowledgements
Credits
Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.
—Salman Rushdie
1. EXODUS
I REACHED MY DESTINATION WITH NO great sense of joy, but at least I wasn’t crying.
A purple, red, and black wax pentagram, now a mess of melted wax, marked the path in front of me, while all around me, the sea of grass blew this way and that in big rolling waves.
My throat closed and my eyes stung, but there would be no crying, not anymore.
I tried to pretend I was Gibreel Farishta, a hero bigger than me; that tuneless soloist tumbling out of thin air. What an entrance, yaar.
First you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! … How to ever smile again, if first you won’t cry?
But there would be no more crying for me. My former life was dead. I needed to escape for a while, hide out and then, once I got my energy back, I would figure out what came next.
Right now all I could say was that I was alive, and that’s the point I guess, much like Gibreel, standing, with pigs falling out of his face and no God to help him.
I held my arms aloft and waded through the knotty field, as if paddling through an upward flowing river, pushing forward against the current.
The summer offered shoulder-high fragrant grasses laced with thistles and weeds. Despite the misfortunes of past events, I was not blind to the beauty of the tiny lilac flowers or the red roses that grew wild and free.
I spotted the buildings in the distance. It had been a while since I had seen them, but they sprawled low at the other end of the playing fields, just as I remembered.
I had packed carefully for the task at hand: knife, bottled water, flashlight, pillow. Kind of funny really, how natural this solution felt, like it was some kind of okay. It was not the first time I had left the grid; my first solo adventure had taken place when I was eleven. Tired of school, friends, my mother, swimming lessons, and tuck shop lunches, I hid out in a farmer’s shed, armed with books and apples and bars of chocolate. I stayed there for two nights and two days, sleeping in a hairy horse blanket that I shook free of cobwebs and drew close around me, breathing in that rich scent of dry sage, dust, leather, sweat, and all the other good things that horses smell of. I returned home when I ran out of food and books. Mum was furious, but I wasn’t sorry. I had done what I needed to do and it was the same this time, although there was less choice in a sense. I had, in fact, lost my house to the bank and my job to the recession and my boyfriend to a nervous breakdown.
I could think of no other way to heal, to regroup and to find the solo me that I could rely on. I had made a mistake, relying on Shayne but I would get over that. I would get over everything.
2. THOSE WHO TEAR OUT
SORRY JOSS, SHAYNE SAID BEFORE HE LEFT. Sorry. He said he was sorry and he left. The deal was, he was supposed to stick around through thick and thin and crap like that. But then he left, not even apologizing; more like taking it for granted that I should understand the intricacies of his own personal dilemma.
There’s no work, he said, and he looked at me, red-eyed and tired. He looked old, with bags under his eyes and the first sign of wrinkles creasing his forehead. I hated him for that too.
What else can I do? he asked, hands outstretched. It’s not like I want to do this, don’t you get it? But I can’t pay my half of the rent. I can’t pay half the bills. I’ve lost my truck. I’ve got nothing. It’s not like I’m any use to you anyway.
I wanted to scream at him. He was my guy, that was who he was, and who he was supposed to be. He was supposed to take a job at Tim Horton’s or deliver pizza or do whatever it took to make a go of it, but he was not supposed to leave.
I didn’t scream. I got vicious instead.
Didn’t see this coming, did I? I said. I could hear my voice, and it was ugly. Stupid bloody me, sucker punched. And how’m I supposed to carry myself and your load now? Not like you bloody well care.
I slammed the washroom door as hard as I could, wrapped myself in a towel and climbed into the empty tub. I wanted to howl and cry and pound my fists, as the dam inside me welled high up in my throat but it would not break. I was waiting for him to knock, to tell me he was sorry, that we would make a plan together, and that it would all be okay.
But all I heard were his quick footsteps trotting up and down the stairs as he packed and carried and sorted, as if he couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. He was nearly running up and down, up and down.
You just can’t wait to leave this all behind, can you? I shouted at the closed door, my knees hugged up to my chest.
The little bulldog alarm clock on the glass shelf told me it was just after eight p.m. I would have said it was at least three hours later than that. The clock had been a gift from Shayne. We had talked about getting a dog. I had insisted it be a bulldog who snuffled and waddled and couldn’t breathe.
So what, you can be like a thousand other ex-pats and call him Winston? Shayne asked.
I’d call him Fireball, I said. After a dog in a book I read. I can’t remember which one.
No wonder you can’t remember, you read so many, he teased me. But it was true. You should have been a librarian, he added, not for the first time.
He was right. Books were my one true love. The best friend ever. Books did not leave or have nervous breakdowns or fire you or take away your house. No, books were always there to offer homes, love, friends, understanding, and all the places you ever wanted to go.
Books make me happy, I said. Gran wanted me to be a librarian. A good stable job, Jossie, she had said.
Sounds like the the kiss of death for me, Gran, I had replied.
Shayne had laughed. She’d be proud of you now, he said. Look at you, rising star in the world of accounting geniuses.
Shayne, I had said for the thousandth time. I fill out Excel spreadsheets for petty cash and salaries.
Same difference, Shayne had insisted. He would not be told.
I looked at the bulldog clock, bought in lieu of the dog, bought as a promise thereof, of a future that now would not be.
I looked up at Shayne’s Old Spice body wash, his fruity girly shampoo, and his razor.
I jumped out the bath and emptied an ornamental basket I kept for spare toilet paper. I piled his junk into it. I marched downstairs and held it out to him. Take this, and the basket too. I don’t care, I said.
But looking at his funny, dear, sad face broke my gut, and tears could not be held back any longer. There were rivers flowing down my face. Next thing I was begging him not to leave, please don’t leave, but he was staring fixedly away.
Thanks for this, he said, studying his toiletries. I’ll bring the basket back.
I don’t give a flying fuck about the basket, I said, drying my face on my towel.
I really am very sorry, you know, he said again. I never wanted it to work out like this. I also thought we were in it for the long haul, but the recession knocked the socks off all my plans. And me moving in with Caroline, well, you’ve got to know that’s a last resort.
Caroline was his sister. Countless retorts filled my mind but I held them in.
Anyway, he said, as he moved into the kitchen to carefully put spices into a box, it’s better I’m not a burden on you. I always worried about that you know. You’re so clever and destined for much bigger things than I could ever give you.
I did not say anything. I felt like I was watching a bad reality TV show.
He finished with the spices and started with cookbooks. He had mor
e stuff than I had realized.
And I’ll be freeing up space for you, he said. He was almost jocular. Now you won’t have to worry about all my pots and pans and the mess I make when I cook.
I nodded and blew my nose on a dishtowel.
Ah JJ, he said. You’re a survivor, you’ll make it. He looked at me warily. I was still crying hot tears that burnt my skin. I could not seem to stop, and I could hardly breathe. My ribs felt snapped from the inside.
Stay, I said again. You’ll find work. Things will pick up again. I knew it was futile, but I said it anyway.
He shrugged. I’m not in a good way to work right now.
Shayne was a house painter, and he had been triumphant in the first few months of the recession.
What recession? he had asked with a happy grin as he sunk into the sofa, kicking off his paint-spattered boots. No recession for me; people still want their houses painted.
But his jobs had eased off and were not replaced. He had tried his hand at landscaping and odd-jobbing, but suddenly it seemed that the husbands out there could take care of things — or maybe the once-so-necessary just was not that necessary anymore.
And Shayne, never having to work to get work, had been at a loss. His response to his empty roster had been to sit at home waiting for his cellphone to ring, perplexed by the silence. It was soon clear that nothing in Shayne’s world had prepared him for hardship.
Don’t know how to manage so well, do you, I asked him one day, without your silver spoon in your mouth?
He was defensive. I just need a couple of good jobs to come my way, he said. I don’t want to be a burden to you.
Well then, get off your arse and do something about it. I was abrupt. That’s what I would do. Get a job bagging groceries, or drive a taxi. Do something. Anything.
Panic made me brusque, and Shayne, like a threatened turtle, withdrew into his shell.
I thought, unkindly, that he even looked like a turtle, with his neck all wrinkled and tucked in like that, his eyes all bulgy. I felt a certain distaste for him just then, and I wanted to hit him, slap him around a bit. I left the room instead, my anger an aura that could not be missed.