Now I felt bad for her. I had unfairly suspected her. She had, indeed, lost her job. Where would she find a new one? She didn’t seem to know anybody in the city. For no apparent reason, I remembered her bare feet suspended above the ground as she sat on the swing, and the way she covered her ears when the jay scolded us.
If I could, I wanted to help her.
7
Our city is usually protected from the cold continental climate by the Coast Mountains, but for two or three days around the middle of February, it snows heavily as warmer masses of air start to move inland. Then come winds that rampage all night long, leaving the backyard strewn with dead alder twigs and branches. Soon after that you begin to smell the ocean salt air again and hear the first birds of spring. And then, after another week or so, the cherry trees, still leafless, burst into bloom, adorning the city in a sublime pink. And then one morning you wake to find light-brown catkins dangling from the alder’s bare branches. From a distance you might take them for furry caterpillars.
“What are these for, Erin?” I asked as she held out to me her open palm filled with newly gathered “caterpillars.”
“The tree asked me to gather them,” she said, bending to pick up more of the fallen catkins. I gave her a puzzled look.
“Our alder won’t put out new leaves until I clear all the catkins from around its base. I’ll give some to the birds too.”
“You mean to say the tree cares what you do?”
“Yes, alders love order,” Erin replied. “First they rid themselves of dry twigs and branches. Then they let the catkins out. Once I remove them, new leaves will come.”
I chuckled.
“The tree has no hands,” she said, “so it asks the wind to help. An alder’s dead branches are brittle. Even a fledgling breeze, one that has only just barely learned to fly, can do a decent job.”
“I see . . . The wind is more like a bird, then, alive in some way?” I smiled at the whimsy of her new game.
“Yes, of course it’s alive.”
“So following your logic, the tree brings the wind into existence, then?” I said, adding more than a little irony to my voice.
“When the alder needs to clean itself, it calls the wind, and the wind comes,” she explained. Then she put the catkins she had gathered in a plastic bag and sat down on the grass under the alder. Her skirt flared around her, forming a bright sun-dappled disk. I caught a glimpse of her bare legs.
“Come over here, Mathew, come! Let me show you something!” I took a few steps toward her.
“No, we have to lie down to see it.” Without the slightest self-consciousness, she stretched out on her back under the alder.
Perplexed, I leaned over her. She waved her hand impatiently.
“No, you lie down on your back too, just like me, and look straight up.” She pointed to the tree above us. I obeyed.
We were now so close to each other that, if I had moved an inch or so, our hips would have touched. It was those few inches — that forbidden space — that now occupied my attention. My senses suddenly sharpened. I inhaled her body’s mild fragrance of lavender and damp moss.
“There!” she murmured.
Looking into the tree spread out above us, I marvelled at the skyward thrust of its trunk and the peculiar geometry of its branches. I had never seen the tree from that angle before, in the wholeness of its architecture, so to speak, and now located within it, it seemed for a moment that the tree was growing out of me, that the tree and I were one.
“The branches are like the arches of a Gothic cathedral,” I said, hoping somehow to match to the uniqueness of the moment.
“Or like arms raised in supplication,” Erin said, lifting up her arms. “Parallel to each other, but not exactly. Like a choir, with each branch a voice. They all pray, each its own prayer, without getting in each other’s way.”
“Pray?” I gently squeezed her hand. She didn’t remove it.
“Yes, they’re praying. I can hear them.”
“What are they praying for?”
“For us,” she whispered. “Every tree prays for us, even though each tree is different. This one has a sad, brooding intelligence.” I put my arm across her body and brought my face close to hers, that is, to her veil.
“You’re so sweet. Take this off, let me kiss you.”
She quickly moved her head away.
“Why don’t you at least remove your sunglasses? I want to see your eyes.” I tried to embrace her, but she wiggled out of my arms.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face,” she whispered, quoting St. Paul.
“Is she a Christian, then?” flashed through my mind. I took hold of her hand and gently stroked it.
“That tickles!” she said laughing, pulling her hand away and then putting it back.
“Here’s an experiment,” I said and lightly pinched her palm.
“Ouch!” she cried.
“See? The same thing happens in nature, in trees: a stimulus response, a chemical reaction, even if science can’t explain everything yet.” I drew her close to me. This time she didn’t resist. Her strange talk and behaviour both excited and annoyed me. But I desired her and sensed that I would stand a better chance if I didn’t contradict her.
“It looks like the tree has intelligence because it can do all kinds of things, such as lowering the temperature in its leaves, for instance, if it gets too hot outside,” I said, while stroking her hand. “But that’s just chemistry, not intelligence, you see.”
“Trees have organs, like us,” she said quietly without moving her hand away. “Leaves are their lungs.”
“Oh, sure! Dozens of tiny lungs hanging from each branch. What a sight!” I laughed to hide my frustration.
“Not dozens, hundreds,” she said quite seriously.
“Well, maybe. Nobody can know for sure how many leaves there are on a tree.”
“Last year, the alder had nine thousand, three hundred and thirty-two.”
“You didn’t count them, did you?”
“Of course I did. We always do.”
“We? Who is ‘we’?” I suddenly felt like grabbing her and shaking that mystical hooey out of her once and for all.
“On some leaves,” she went on, ignoring my question, “God’s writing comes through clearly. On others, you can barely make it out. You pick the ones where it’s clear and preserve them through the winter.”
“Is that why you’re stashing leaves in the basement?”
She took my palm and looked at it closely with real interest.
“Your hand is beautiful,” she said, stroking my palm with her fingers. “You knew a lot in the past but have now forgotten it. That’s what your palm is telling me. If you like, I can remind you.”
“Remind me of what?”
“Of the stories you’ve forgotten.” Was her strange talk meant to be seductive? With me playing along? “Every tree is a book, and every leaf, a page. All that has ever happened to the human race is written on the leaves of this alder.”
“I wouldn’t call that new, but I like it anyway,” I said. “Nobody can see us here. Why don’t you take off your veil and let me kiss you.”
In a single quick movement, she freed herself and jumped to her feet.
“What’s the matter, Erin? You don’t want me to touch you? Just say so, then. Don’t play these games!”
“I’m . . . I’m not playing . . . We’re not supposed to, you see?” She was sitting on her haunches like a squirrel, a short but safer distance away.
“Look,” I said, completely confused. “I’m a stranger. I understand there may be certain rules in your family, in your community. I know you don’t want to get into trouble because of me. And that’s just fine. Only say so, instead of . . .”
“I have no family or community. I like you v
ery much, Matthew, but I’m not allowed.”
She reached for my hand again and kissed it. A strange, pitiful gesture. Though her tone of voice had disarmed me, I drew my hand back. What did she want from me? How old was she? For all I knew, she might not even be 18. A teenage Muslim girl, taken advantage of by her landlord, who pretended to be somebody else for the purposes of . . . In my mind’s eye I saw the headlines. I got to my feet.
“You’re leaving? Just like that? Didn’t you want to hear my tree stories?” There was a childish plea in her voice. She got up and put her hands on my shoulders and pulled me back down beside her. I let her.
“Look, I’m not really interested in tree stories!” I said harshly to punish her.
“You should know that not everything dies,” she whispered, her covered face so close to mine I could smell that moist, mossy flowery odour even through her veil. Her hands were on my chest. “Humans do, books perish, but trees . . . When a tree’s cut down, it ceases to be a tree to ordinary human understanding. Yet it lives on.”
“As a ghost?”
“As a soul and keeper of all the secrets of the world. And as an agent.”
“What agent?”
“An agent of change . . . it can affect the life of one man, or many people, or the destiny of the city. . .”
Is she a member of some Celtic tree cult? I wondered. There’s nothing you won’t find in Vancouver. And a Muslim, too?
“Let me tell you a story, then. It’s my favourite. About Abraham and Isaac. I feel sorry for Abraham and always pray for him.”
Do Muslims venerate Abraham? The New Testament? The Old Testament? Who is she? — raced through my dazed mind.
“I know the story,” I said. “And the sacrifice part of it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. But if I have to take sides, then why would I want to feel sorry for a stupid father who’s ready to slaughter his own son because some stupid God said that’s what he should do?”
She recoiled as if I had struck her. “God did save Isaac in the end, but he gave Abraham no release. He was left to struggle with his guilt for the rest of his life. That’s why I pity him.”
She rested her head on my chest. “I love you, Matthew, even if that means . . .”
Almost in spite of myself, I put my arms around her, but she freed herself again, jumped to her feet, and was gone.
8
The next day I felt miserable, my whole body aching for some reason. I was deeply attracted to a girl whose face I had never seen, a loopy, babbling Muslim who was trying to break free of the ways of her people. Shouldn’t I put an end to all that nonsense and concentrate on my own project before it was too late?
When evening came and I saw that the window of her basement was dark and that she still hadn’t returned, I felt even more miserable. The whole day had passed without my seeing her. I could only hope that I would the next morning.
She was naïve and foolish, but her melancholy and childish notions and games were somehow endearing. I was enchanted by her. As if she knew something about life that no one else did — something that was the source of a gentler, softer, yet more vibrant, more genuine existence hidden deep within her that would now and then bubble to the surface in her wonderment and delight.
Where had she gone? How did she spend that day and the ones that followed? Was she out looking for a job? If so, her chances had to be slim. She said that she had made all her dresses herself. Would she be able to design costumes for my theatre? I wanted to talk to her about that. I imagined us walking along a jetty or the beach, and my explaining to her about my theatre and listening to her naïve questions and delighted exclamations. She would bend over to pick up a shell or something, and her sunglasses would fall in the sand and a sudden gust would blow off her veil and at last, at last I would see her face.
When I saw her innocently swinging on a swing next day, I was relieved but didn’t dare to ask her where she had spent the day before. I needed to talk to her, I said. She happily agreed.
On the beach we watched the gulls searching for crabs and shells in the puddles formed by the receding water of low tide, laying bare the ocean floor. At the pier, the Chinese were fishing for the crabs. Using a toothbrush, an old woman cleaned dirt out of the crab’s paw before dropping the creature into the bucket of water.
Across the bay, the skyscrapers of downtown huddled together on a narrow strip of land. The setting sun hit their glass surfaces turning them into a phantasmagorical growth of cubes and parallelepipeds, now set on fire by some extraterrestrial flame. “See that tall building over there?” I pointed across the Bay. “Called Shangri-la. By the way, I know somebody . . .” I quickly checked myself. “Some friends of mine live there.” Of course, I didn’t want her to know my parents could afford a place like that. Erin turned her goggled face to me.
“Tell your friends they should move out as soon as possible.”
When she said that, my old fears came to life again: is she connected to some Muslim extremists involved in something nasty? To camouflage my discomfort, I said, rather nonchalantly: “Why should my friends move out when they have just moved in?”
“The soil is giving. The tower is tilting.”
“Erin, this toy cost $350 million to build. Seven thousand tones of reinforced steel. It’s going to withstand the earthquake, if that’s what you mean.”
“Tell you friends to move out as soon as possible,” she repeated pressing her left hand to her chest. She was visibly suffocating, painfully struggling for air.
“What’s the matter, Erin? What is it I said? You want to sit a minute?” I hustled her to the bench.
“Erin, stop it! Stop your stupid games!” I shook her listless body. Her head was on my shoulder and I was just about to remove the cloth covering her mouth to see if she breathed, when she came to.
“Forgive me. It’ll go away. A dizzy spell.”
“Do you know what caused it?”
“A sudden glimpse of the future. It’s called erythania.”
When ten minutes later we were returning to the car, I realized I hadn’t even mentioned my theatre project. But now I didn’t have the slightest desire to.
9
It sometimes happens to me after I’ve thought long and hard about somebody that my thoughts will seem to come to life, taking a material shape. I imagined seeing her in various places. Usually those projections or images (rather than visions or hallucinations) occurred at night, but sometimes they happened in broad daylight. One Saturday morning, for example, as I was driving down Oak Street, I thought I saw Erin on the steps of a synagogue. Startled, I turned into a side street and parked the car to get a better look at that “apparition.” But then after I got out of the car, I realized that this time it really was Erin. She was wearing a dark cardigan and a black kerchief. But what was she doing at a synagogue? Two men in yarmulkes intercepted her at the entrance and blocked her path. I saw her open her bag, obviously at their request. They must have asked her to remove her scarf and uncover her face too, since she did so. I didn’t see her face, only her back, and was shocked by the straight blond hair that fell down almost to her waist after she took off her scarf. Finally they let her in. I quickly followed. It was a Reform synagogue and packed, with the men and women all sitting together. The only unoccupied seat was some ten rows behind Erin. When I got to my feet with the rest of the congregation during the prayers, I would lose sight of her. But then after we sat down, I would see her again. She was leafing through a prayer book. A Muslim praying in a synagogue? It didn’t make any sense.
Another incident added to the mystery. On Sundays, Erin usually left home early, but I had no idea where she went. This time, after she had been back for a while and I heard the basement door being locked, I got in my car and followed her at a distance. I saw her get on a bus at 10th Avenue. She got off again at Broadway and Ash, where up the street I saw the
bulky, thick-set dome of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. She opened its heavy front door and went inside, without anybody stopping her this time. I followed. The church was almost empty, since it was still too early for the service. Erin was wearing her sunglasses, as usual, but the white scarf she had on matched those of the two or three other women present. They didn’t pay her any heed. She prayed ardently, kneeling in front of an icon of some dark-faced saint. Then she took a candle from her bag, lit it from another, and added it to those already burning in the stand in front of the icon. I left at once, afraid she might see me. Who was my tenant? A Muslim, a Jew, a Ukrainian Catholic?
10
I had finally found a location for my theatre: an abandoned industrial building downtown that could easily be converted. Now I had to find money for the lease. I made a list of potential investors, about eight, all of them connected to my parents. The first person I spoke to listened amicably (my name had at least got me that). Yes, a very interesting idea. Vancouver certainly could use more culture. But did I have a business plan? For my second meeting with him, I came armed with documents and a prospectus that had cost me a few hundred dollars to produce. He said that he would look at the material and get back to me. Instead, a couple of days later, my father called me. “Do you need cash? I’ll give it to you, only stop bothering serious people with silly ideas.”
After trying all the others on my list, I reached Monsieur Leblanc, my last hope. I had known him since I was a child and he had believed in my artistic talent when I was five. I suspected that he had been my mother’s lover. As I mentioned before, he had once owned a small theatre in Paris, but now he was retired on Salt Spring Island in the Georgia Strait, a place mostly occupied by potters, writers, and sculptors, along with various llama breeders, green enthusiasts, yoga practitioners, and lesbian tangoists. Twice a month Mr. Leblanc would fly over to Vancouver for a première, a vernissage, an opera, or one of my mother’s soirées. It would take me, however, two long ferry rides to get to his island. He kindly offered to let me stay overnight. I told Erin that I would be gone for two or three days.
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