The Singing Forest

by Judith McCormack

Stop it, says Sofija.

  She says this in a strange voice, one that he has never heard before. A voice like concrete, a voice that is completely and utterly final.

  Not the child, she says. Not the child.

  She picks up the crying boy, kisses him, shoos him towards his room.

  The man is still standing there, startled.

  ···

  Gradually this existence sinks into him, slowly he begins to accumulate the contents of a life. A small house, the brick darkened with age, the windowsills notched, foundations buried into the gravelly soil. A second-hand car, a Dodge, then after a while a newer car, a grey Nash, with others following. Behind the house, a yard where Sofija grows day lilies, rhubarb, beans, and onions around the grasping roots of a tree. Inside are slip-covered chairs, a bed with a feather comforter, bottles of beer in a refrigerator. Even the thought of these things is deeply satisfying.

  I own this bathtub, he thinks, lying back in it. I am surrounded by gallons of hot water that comes out with the twist of a tap. And if I pull out the plug, it will all disappear without any effort.

  If he nicks himself with the razor, he inspects the cut, surprised at how localized this pain is, how intact he is otherwise. When he rakes leaves off the lawn, he is gratified by the pointlessness of it, how far he has come that he can afford to do this.

  I am cleaning the outside ground, he thinks.

  When he noses his car into the small garage, he thinks: even my car has a house.

  Little by little, he becomes addicted to this life, to each small piece of it, each small ritual. He craves these things, he navigates between these points to get through his day. While he is swinging his pontil, while he is rolling the glass across the marver, he thinks: I am going home soon where dinner will be ready, a dinner with meat, as much bread as I want, a meal that is cooked for me, that is hot. When he eats his meal, he thinks: later I will go to sleep in my bed with white sheets, a thick mattress.

  They are not enough, these things, they are never enough. But they are something.

  ···

  And now this faithless country is turning its back on him, has betrayed him. A country hardly worthy of him even at the time, so young, a jumble of people from different places scattered over a massive stretch of land — but the only one that would accept him.

  He has made the best of it, though, these thousands of days wrapped around him. Now there is toast and blackberry jam for breakfast, a slow walk in the neighbourhood with the ancient terrier, sour cabbage soup for lunch, cards in the dim cafe in the afternoons. Sofija with her church groups — the choir, the rummage sales. His son, a carpenter, his daughter, empty-headed but married, her fidgety boy and girl.

  Naps on the old sofa, the glass of vodka after dinner, his pills, his clothes worn into comfortable bagginess. These routines hold him in place, hold him in their grip. But now they want to cut him away from all of it, sever him from it as if it had never existed, as if the decades of breathing this air, walking these streets were nothing. To send him back to a place he left when he was barely even a man — his life there only a rehearsal of a life, a dry run.

  And because of something so old, so natural at the time. He is being punished for doing his best to make his way, for doing his best to stay alive. He had only done the things that must be done, that had to be done. How can he be judged by the ridiculous standards of another time?

  Would you do it again? says Leah. Would you do it now?

  He says nothing.

  There is one tiny satisfaction, though, one small thing. He is being recognized for who he is — who he was — not merely a glassblower, more than a plant manager. Someone who was part of the NKVD, Stalin’s fist. After years of being treated as less than who he was, the stinging rebuffs, the contempt for his accent, this country is finally seeing him for the first time. If they want to expel him so badly, they understand who he is, his importance. No, his superiority.

  Still, this place is betraying him, going back on its word. A citizen — what does that mean if not something permanent? He had to swear an oath to get his status. Too late, he realizes that there was no oath in return.

  Doesn’t all that pity of yours extend to me? he says to Leah.

  No, she says.

  What about my wife? You will destroy her life as well. You will take her away from the grandchildren, the only thing she loves.

  Is this the first time you’ve thought of her?

  He says nothing.

  She can stay if she wants. No one is deporting her. Maybe she will welcome the chance to get away from you.

  She is no different from me.

  She never shot anyone, tortured anyone.

  I did what I had to do, what was necessary to survive. What anyone would do.

  What did you do?

  Silence.

  I knew you were lying, she says. I knew it.

  You knew it, he says mockingly. Then prove it.

  Thirteen

  The world rests on the tip of the tongue.

  Jewish proverb

  They are here. They are installed in a small hotel, the clerk at the front desk instructed to provide them with any help necessary. The doctor, gruff from the wearying trip, her ankles more swollen than before. The music teacher, tired but inquisitive, intrigued by everything in this new place — taxis, buskers, jackhammers. They are precious goods, these people, human containers of evidence. The possessors of rare facts, of vanishing truths.

  The investigator insisted on coming as well, and Louis agreed, with the idea that this would be useful for everyday translation, shuttling the witnesses around. He wants them carefully tended, shepherded and protected. The music teacher is interested in an art museum? Take him there. A concert? Find one for him. The man is in high spirits, delighted to be somewhere new, about this unexpected parole.

  The doctor is more subdued — she wants cocoa before bed, ice packs for her feet. But she is willing to be driven around, to see the Flatiron Building, the old university, the cube house — pleased in her own wintry way.

  Keep them calm, keep them comfortable, says Leah to the investigator.

  Louis has been to see them, to get a feel for their ability to testify, to assess how well — or not — they will withstand cross-examination.

  As long as they don’t die until after examination-in-chief, he says.

  But she can hear the suppressed excitement in his voice, see it in his gestures. The case is attracting attention now, no longer unnoticed, brief clips on the news, opinion pieces, journalists calling for interviews, background material before the day of the hearing. All this seems to have uncovered hidden longing in him, a yearning for some sliver of legal glory. This is his moment, he seems to be thinking, the moment when he vaults to some vague heights, some overdue applause — a moment he had almost given up on, a moment all the sweeter because of that.

  In the midst of this, his grudge towards her seems to have almost evaporated. She is relieved, but acutely aware that her future rests on this case, and that the case rests on these witnesses. She drafts questions over and over to prepare them for testifying, hoping to find the perfect way to ask something, the perfect way to evoke the most persuasive — the most damning — answer. She wakes up in the middle of the night, simplifying, untangling, reframing sentences — aware all the while that most of this might be futile.

  You know what witnesses are like, says Nate.

  Yes.

  Unpredictable. Impulsive. Liable to depart from their previous answers without warning. She knows already the sinking feeling when a witness goes off on an unexpected tangent, or reveals something damaging, corkscrewing off into a different story while the case changes shape before her eyes.

  What possesses them? she thinks, as if they are actually possessed, in the grip of some malign spirit. Is it that the oath begins to weigh too he
avily on them? Is it a form of witness-like panic?

  Don’t prepare them too much, says Louis. I don’t want them to sound rehearsed.

  Not much danger of that.

  In the office, there is an undercurrent of expectation, the air almost bristling. Even Nate can feel it, but he is torn, she thinks, torn between regret that he let this case go, and summoning up some element of graciousness.

  But the deep-sea divers are back, their dark green helmets bobbing.

  Another threat. Another search.

  Isabel is more fearful as the court date draws closer, treating all incoming mail as if it were enemy fire. What does a suspicious parcel look like?

  A hoax, says Nate gently. That’s what they said.

  He is less comforting with Leah, as she waves her pages of questions in front of him.

  Litigation, he says, shrugging. Anything can happen.

  Her throat closes at the thought. Anything. Louis losing himself again, his face wandering, disorganized. Pushing his notes in front of her. Go on. No, impossible, this time she knows, she will ask for a recess, an adjournment. She wishes she could talk to Owen, to obtain some assurance in advance that an adjournment is possible, but the last thing she wants to do is remind him of the last time, the moment when his lawyer drifted off and a junior stumbled through the argument instead. It says something for Owen — although she is not sure what — that they are still on the case. But when Louis is good, he is very, very good.

  Or perhaps this is only to avoid the cost of briefing other lawyers, perhaps this is the last case they will have from him. Even so, an outstanding performance here, a resounding win might redeem them, might generate more work later on.

  But speaking to him is out of the question, she knows this. He will talk to Louis, of course, and she will be fired again, the fastest refiring in legal history. Perhaps she should speak directly to Louis instead. How are you feeling? Any more of those blank moments?

  No, no, says Nate. He’ll be furious. He’ll go off like a grenade.

  He will. She knows it. A man who sees himself as a small island of intelligence — increasingly beleaguered — in a sea of inanity. Someone who is enchanted by his own intellect, more than that, who thinks of it as the essence of his being. To raise, however delicately, however tactfully, that something might be flawed with his mind would be disastrous.

  He must know something is wrong, she says, more to herself than Nate.

  Then why say anything? says Nate.

  He needs a doctor, she says.

  He probably has one. And his wife is likely alert to this. Don’t let that effervescence fool you — she can be very perceptive.

  Despite everything, she feels a creeping sympathy for Louis. Of all possible afflictions, this is something that goes directly to the core of his being. No wonder he is so busy creating ongoing descriptions of himself, to himself, for himself. Perhaps he is urgently trying to remember who he is. Or discover who he is now, at this minute or the next one. Is it possible he is really looking for bulletins from his own depths?

  In fact, perhaps it is this fear that has made him so thin-skinned, so sensitive to any inability to control things. Maybe he has become more rigid as a way of staving off a certain slackness in his mind, a way of grappling with the possibility of disintegration. Clinging to absolutes, to straight lines, unable to stand too much uncertainty. Or anyone not following directions.

  A guess, but perhaps a good guess. And a glimmer of understanding.

  So no risky questions? says Nate.

  Not for now, she says.

  ···

  You may have a future here yet.

  But the person who needs a future is Gus.

  The procedure went as well as could be expected, says the cardiologist. That’s all I can say. He’s still not in great shape. But I prefer to be cautiously optimistic.

  Cautiously optimistic? No, this is not for her. She has decided to be wildly optimistic, madly optimistic. What does this phrase mean, after all? A way of hedging her bets on the possibility of death? She is incapable of measuring degrees of optimism when it comes to Gus, of gauging in small increments his chances of survival. Instead, she has only a sense of hope.

  He is home now, staples across his chest, equipped with blood thinners and a handful of other medications. The pain is gradually lessening, although he still moves very cautiously. She sits by his bed, wiggling her feet under the blanket — away from his, no danger of physical contact — and works on her cases, while he skims the sports pages, gardening magazines, his reading glasses making him look smaller, more bookish than he is. Or he watches television, he has become immersed in crime dramas. Hours of people dissecting bits of rotting organs, brain matter, insects, the microscopic details of decay and mortality.

  What is it you like about them? she almost says. But this is Gus, so she doesn’t.

  Perhaps they reduce death to its smallest possible parts, to tiny, knowable fractions.

  At the moment, she can hear Rudy walking in the hall downstairs. He is still slightly huffy, as if he had put an early claim on this ailment — a heart attack — for himself. But he is also frightened, she thinks — he needs Gus, Gus is a marker for him, a pin holding the map of his world in place. And the truth is that he is close to him in his own peculiar way — an austere form of affection.

  He is irritated as a result, something that has made his cooking deteriorate even further. The trays that he sends up for Gus — reluctantly — are increasingly inedible.

  And why he needs to be waited on hand and foot is beyond me, he says.

  Malcolm says nothing, for once he has bottled himself up. But she can almost read his thoughts: if anyone deserves this kind of care, it is him, the possessor of swollen knee, a tendency to migraines, bouts of sciatica. For all his peevishness, though, he has his own attachment to Gus — sloppy, self-centred, but real.

  When she is not sitting with Gus, she is thinking about sitting there, she is thinking about him, as if this alone could sustain him in some way. But her thoughts are repetitive, an ongoing roiling in her head. Has he taken his blood thinners? His beta blockers? His nitrates? Is the incision clean? Does he have an infection? Is the bypass — such a simple idea, such an intricate procedure — really working? Is there no way to entirely, completely fix this man?

  She runs her fingers through her hair, pressing on her scalp, as if this will push all this away.

  Gus looks up from the bed inquiringly.

  Tell me more about this drive from the cottage, she says, seizing on this. My mother. The fever. The trip to the hospital.

  I don’t know any more, he says.

  Unsedated, he is back to being taciturn.

  But Rudy and Malcolm have nothing to say about it either. There is a vacuum where the pieces that make up this accident should be. Only the night, the dripping trees, the overwhelming pain in her leg — a half-dream that edges into her days from time to time. But the rest of it is missing.

  She is struck by something now, though. This fact, this lost fact — that they were on their way to the hospital — has not yet sunk in. The idea that this fatal outing was not a joyride, the result of some half-drunk impulse, seems suddenly — startlingly — illuminating. There was a reason for this drive, this lethal trip, a spike in a tube of mercury. A reason that reshapes the picture of that night, rearranges it, something that turns it from a child’s dark hole — murky, frightening, bewildering — into something almost comprehensible. Almost.

  Comfort, a little frayed, begins to spread through her, the easing of an old ache.

  But there is still one primitive, childish thought lying there, a long, inconsolable wail that remains.

  Where are you come back come back come back.

  ···

  I’ll stay with him, says Val. Go to work, I’ll be here.

 
Leah is surprised to find she is almost grateful — an unwelcome thought. Val, she says to herself, trying to stir up her old indignation, but it seems to have seeped away, overtaken by events. She wants Gus to be under watchful eyes, regardless of whose they are, to be studied hourly for signs of changes, any traces of healing or decline. And Val herself is more restrained — she still slaps his pillows in a proprietorial way, produces vanilla cake, baked pears, lemon loaf — but there is something missing, an element of conviction. She is not fooling anyone, Leah thinks. Underneath this bustling is a more subdued version of herself, one who has been knocked off course by this change in circumstances. Someone who is beginning to realize that the filmy hopes she created are starting to dissolve. Whether some of them might be salvaged is uncertain, but there is a slight loosening of her attention, a shift in her focus.

  He’s too stubborn to die, says Malcolm almost regretfully.

  For once, Leah wants to agree with him.

  But he needs a future. Perhaps she can find one for him, find a better one — or at least a longer one. For example: The stockbrokers who trade in futures, in contracts for coming events. Do any of them cover human futures, life prospects? Perhaps this could be a new form of commodity, listed on the exchange — used to make up any shortfalls in the length of a particular existence.

  Another possibility: acquiring a second-hand future, a castoff from someone who died, who was unable to use it. Like new. Sad, of course, but there was no point in wasting the suddenly available future. Or perhaps it might be feasible to buy a future at a specialty store, something sold by the ounce. Expensive, naturally, as costly as saffron or a rare perfume. But worth it, worth every penny.

  ···

  They play gin rummy each week, a game with an old pack of cards, corners bent, surfaces worn.

  Ace is high, says her aunt. So ace, king, queen, jack.

  This is a serious business, there is no talking about other things, they are intent, studying their cards. They pick them up with deliberation, discard them with a sigh, as if they regret letting each one go.