Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  ‘We’re a clan,’ Jay told me one time. ‘People hate us. Want to exterminate us. If we don’t stick together, what do we have?’

  Doug and Jay, chatting away in the office, while I’m out here freezing my ass off.

  By choice, says some old sponsor voice, but it’s all rolling together now, how all my life I’ve been on the outside, me and my crazy fucking story and now this. Dad got it off his chest and now I’m the one with the crazy fucking secret. Well fuck you. I’m stomping faster, head down. Something comes around the corner. Jesus. I stop dead, heart pounding.

  Doug raises one hand. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to give you a shock. I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

  “Doing the perimeter walk.”

  He nods. “I always liked doing that.” If he heard me ranting he’s not showing it. He turns to walk with me. “Been working here long?”

  Clients mill about, waiting for ceremony. James is standing by the entrance to the chamber, same black t-shirt, the necklace of teeth. He’s watching the tall thin man walk toward the cafeteria. The new man’s wearing brand-new black hi-top sneakers. Black long-sleeved shirt, cuffs buttoned at the wrist. His perfectly faded jeans look as if they’ve been ironed. James catches my eye, lifts one hand and lets it droop from his wrist. I stare at him, confused.

  “What’s his name?” Doug murmurs. “The one with the teeth.”

  “James.”

  James looks from me to Doug, quivers his hand then straightens the wrist. Oh.

  “Well he is.” James sounds defensive.

  “He is or he isn’t. He’s got as much right to be here as you.”

  Jay must have been watching. She nods at Doug. “It’s good to have you here.”

  “Mind if I go in?” He points his lips at the chamber.

  “Go for it,” Jay says.

  He looks at me.

  “Sure.”

  Black sneakers joins the line at the last minute, behind Doug. He has to duck his head going into the dome.

  “Mr. Chatty,” Jay says.

  I want to ignore her. “You know him?” I ask.

  “He goes to the Starlight. Gay bar Annie and I go to sometimes. Sits in the corner, reads his book, gets quietly hammered. First time I’ve seen him here. Something must have shaken him loose. Easy target if little James wants to curry favour with the hard boys ...”

  “Like Warren?”

  “Frig that’s weird, that tattoo on his face. Frigging scorpion.” She shakes her head, glances at me. “Listen, when you told me earlier ... Annie says I carry the observer bit too far. Of course you’re not going to be running around going, ‘My father’s a lesbian, isn’t that cool.’”

  It catches me off guard. My eyes fill with tears again. “Sorry. I’m kind of a mess.”

  “You have someone you can talk to about this?”

  “Oh yeah. People in meetings. You know.”

  “So where did you leave things with your ...”

  “I can’t start calling him Mum.”

  “Does he want you to? Is that why he told you? Because he’s going back?”

  “To being a woman?” I stare at her. “I hadn’t even thought ... I don’t think so. Christ. Dad in a dress.”

  Chapter Nine

  THE ASPENS WHISPER. I knock again, louder, turn the handle, nudge open the door. “Dad, it’s Meg.”

  Silence.

  Two steps into the living room.

  He’s in his armchair, head tipped forward onto his chest. Weird angle.

  “Dad.”

  Nothing.

  “Dad.” Louder.

  His head jerks. “Wha?” Spittle in the corner of his mouth. Then he’s awake, looking up at me.

  “Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t have startled you. I ...”

  He knows what I thought.

  He looks different. Frayed shirt collar. The cuffs of his grey wool sweater are ragged. He’s usually so crisp. When he knows I’m coming. He gets dressed up for my visits. She. She gets dressed up. “Shall I put the kettle on?”

  “That would be nice.”

  While I’m filling it I hear him stand, shuffle-tap across the floor. He’s been using the ebony cane ever since Mum died. It hung in the back of the pantry, that cane, all the years I lived here. I pulled it out once. Mum found me playing with it. ‘Put that back.’ I remember the hiss of her voice, the weight of the cane in my hand, hard and black, more like rock than wood. Tarnished silver bands, one on the end of the handle, one on the tip. I am not thinking about Dad in the toilet.

  I put the kettle on, go back to the sink, lean both hands on the rim, gaze out at peaks gleaming in the last low rays. None of it mattered when I thought ... But alive. In the flesh. Behind me I hear the toilet flush. No wonder he never left the seat up. A bubble of laughter rises in my chest.

  He’s back in his armchair, eyebrows damp. He washed his face, combed his hair. Her. Her hair.

  I get milk from the fridge, carry the tea in, sit down, make myself meet his eyes. “Look ... I don’t know how to begin. What to call you, even. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the way I spoke to you. The other day. I ... it was wrong. I was wrong.”

  He waits until he’s sure I’m done. “Thank you for coming back, Meg.”

  I can hardly bear to look in his eyes. “God, Dad. I wouldn’t do that to you again. I promised. Remember?”

  “Was I wrong to tell you?” His voice is light, uncertain. “Selfish?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I didn’t know. Or that I didn’t believe you. But I do. And I don’t want to attack you for telling me the truth. Now.” I can’t help adding that last word.

  “Meg, you have every right to be angry. It is an abuse of trust, to pretend to be what you are not.”

  “Is it that simple?”

  The melt-water eyes study me then he gives a tiny shake of his head.

  “Do you ... can you imagine ...?”

  “Going back?”

  I nod.

  “I haven’t. Imagined it. It’s so long ago.”

  I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. “Was it when you came to Canada?”

  “No.”

  “How old were you when ...?”

  “Thirty.”

  I try not to stare.

  “What?”

  “A third of your life, almost. That whole story. How you came here as a young man, with nothing but a fiddle and the complete Shakespeare.”

  “Your mother loved that story.”

  “And you sat there while she told it. Dad.” I stop. It’s like standing on ice, watching it crack, one crack running to another. “I thought I was finally going to get some ground to stand on. Instead.” I’m crying. “Shit.”

  “Meg.” He lifts his hand, drops it back on his thigh.

  “When you said you had something to tell me ...” Tears pour out of me. He’s holding something out. A large white handkerchief. I blink, swipe at my eyes with it. “I thought you were going to ... it was stupid. I was just so sure.”

  His face crinkles up as if he’s going to cry too which I never saw, even when Mum died.

  “Oh Meg, I didn’t think. That’s what you meant. I thought somehow you knew. When you said you wanted the truth. Of course you thought ... but.” He’s looking straight at me, waiting for my eyes to meet his. “I don’t know anything more about where you came from. Any more than I told you years back. I give you my word. For what that’s worth.”

  I’ve never, ever heard him sound like that. “It’s worth a lot, Dad.” The first part comes out right but my voice crunches up on ‘Dad’. I try repeating it. No go. He’s watching me.

  The last slant of sun reaches in, gilds his face. His skin which was always leathery and creased is translucent as onion skin. But what looks back at me from his eyes is a vein of ore that runs back into the mountain, further than I’ll ever reach.

  I take a deep breath. “When I look at you I see you. My father. The man who raised me. But then I do a double take. You were who
I trusted. What I trusted. I don’t know how to believe you now. I don’t even know what to call you. I don’t think I can call you Dad anymore.”

  He looks away, his eyes finding the mountains. A jagged line rimmed with flaming orange. After a minute he looks back at me. “How about Ben?”

  “But that’s not your name, is it?”

  “I think I can call myself Ben after using the name for seventy years.” His voice is chilly.

  “But what were you called?”

  “I haven’t ...”

  “Mum knew.”

  “Yes.”

  I wait.

  Finally he says, “Charlotte Hunt.”

  “Charlotte.” A girl on a lawn, a woman’s voice calling, ‘Charlotte,’ the girl running toward the voice. It has nothing to do with him. “Where did Ben come from? Ben Coopworth? Did you just make it up? But you have ... you must have papers.” Which is rich, coming from me.

  There’s a knock on the back door. A voice calls out, “Can I come in?”

  I look at Dad. Ben. He nods. I go and open the door.

  Victor Hetzl slips past me carrying a tray. He takes it through to the living room, nudges the teapot aside and sets it down. A covered casserole and a small bowl. Sour cream? “I made enough for you too, Meg.”

  He flicks on the overhead light. The clock on top of the bookshelf in the living room chimes five.

  Victor asks, “Do you want to eat here or at the table?”

  “The table, I think,” Dad says. Ben says.

  Victor sets two places at the square turquoise Formica table with the chrome edge and the legs that go straight down from the outermost points of the corners. It would fetch a fortune in some vintage store in Kitsilano. Dad’s napkin is rolled up in the ring he carved out of a knot I found in the woods. The first thing I ever brought him.

  Victor lifts the cover off the casserole and the air fills with smoky sweetness: paprika, beef, onions. “Enjoy,” he says. A moment later the door clicks shut.

  I look across the table at Dad, how bony his shoulders are. Perfectly flat chest. I always thought it was his metabolism. “Did you stay so thin because ...?” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, don’t know how to end.

  His lips twitch. “Added years to my life”—he pauses—“watching my figure.”

  Wow, as Jay would say. I love it. I don’t. I ladle goulash. Then we both stop because Mum would have said grace and I don’t know about Dad but I can hear her voice so I look down at my bowl for as long as it would take. We pick up our spoons at the same moment. When I look at him, it’s as if one eye sees Dad while the other keeps finding the woman. Finding and losing her. Panic swells in my chest. My palms sweat. Stop. Breathe. Eat. Pay attention.

  The beef melts in the rich red sauce, sour cream a lush accent. What bread would go with this? Rye, with caraway.

  “All from the ranch,” Dad says, Ben says, resting his spoon, “all but the beef. Funny that. They’re farmers, not ranchers, Victor and Manfred.”

  “Is this a regular thing, a dinner like this?”

  “They like to eat. They say it’s no trouble to make extra.” He shrugs.

  Early on they volunteered to do his shopping for him. It was a relief not to drive out every week. But I didn’t know they’d taken over the cooking.

  “It’s good to have some life around the place. Someone to work the land. Even if it’s just a bit. Reminds me of the early days. We grew it all, your mother and me. Kept our money for taxes. Polly was a fierce one for saving. But you know that.”

  I put down my spoon, questions piling up in my brain.

  “Go on,” he says. “Ask.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever you want. Within reason.”

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “It’s why I decided to tell you. I didn’t want to leave you with more unanswerable questions. After I’m gone. Whenever that is. Might be years.”

  “So you’re not still planning ...?”

  “I wasn’t actually asking you to drop me off at the Cardinal Divide with a gun and a pocket full of garlic sausage, as I think you put it.” There’s a spark of laughter in his eyes. “That was for your mother. I don’t care who finds out when I die, if you don’t. If you do ...”

  “Then what? Back to the gun and the sausage? Dad. Ben. It’s not just after. What if you have to go to the hospital?”

  “They’ll get a surprise. It’s quite freeing, not to mind.”

  “It was all for Mum then, the great lie?” It snaps out of me.

  He leans back, eyes me. After a moment he says, “No, of course not. Living here. Neighbours. Friends. Maybe not close but people you could count on to help. Baler breaks down, they lend you theirs. Pull you out if you get stuck in a snow-bank. Kind, decent people, but narrow. Couldn’t see them accepting us, if they found out. We’d have had to move, start over. I wouldn’t have liked that.”

  Dad, so coiled into this place I can’t imagine him anywhere else.

  Mum and Dad, being driven out. Like something from the Bible. People throwing stones. Words and looks, more like. Except for Mum’s lot.

  “Why did she belong to that church? She didn’t have to spend her time with people who would have hated what you were. What she was.”

  “Your mother was a complicated person.” He stops. “I think I should start at the beginning.”

  I’m on my feet then. “I’ll clear away first, shall I? Tea?”

  “Meg, you don’t have to.”

  “Clear away? Because Victor will do it?”

  Dad pauses. “No, I meant you don’t have to hear the story. Until you’re ready. Or ever. You could decide you don’t want to know.”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  Silence.

  “Sorry. I want to be open. Accepting. There are moments. But then suddenly I feel. I don’t know. Ambushed. I can’t. The thing is I can’t look at you and see the person I saw a week ago.” I start to cry.

  “Another death,” Dad says. His voice is soft, sad. “For me too. I didn’t understand. I thought, well, I’m still myself. I didn’t see that telling you could change the past. Because I was never who you thought I was.”

  Something in me reaches out, gathers in those last words, folds them into my chest. I’m tired. Impossibly tired.

  He’s watching me. I’m too tired to look away. Too tired to think what is in his eyes. After a while he asks, “Do you have to go back tonight?”

  I shake my head.

  “Perhaps we should both go to bed.”

  I twist to look at the clock. Five to six. But it’s true, all I want is to lay my face down on cool cotton, close my eyes. I nod.

  “Go on then. I’ll put these away.” He heaves himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the cane.

  “Let me at least ...”

  He shakes his head. “Go to bed, Meg.”

  Chapter Ten

  IN THE REACHES of the night I wake. The silence is vast, rippling. I lie there, heart clattering. Breathe. Breathe into it. Metal taste in my mouth. Sharp, hard little breaths. Keep breathing. Come on, honey. Kind Dora. I’m here. I’m here. But I’m fraying. Dark between the stars. Limitless space. The wind. The interstellar wind. Breathe. Let it be. Let it. Taking me. Let it, honey. Dora, big knuckled hand stroking my hair. Don’t fight. Let it come. She’d know the moment the dark wave broke and I broke and the night took me into itself. Good girl. I floated, my breath the breath of the universe, universe breathing me. Nothing to break. Nothing to lose. Bliss to float on the waves of breath. Church of the Holy Peyote. Dora, strange angel, holding your head while you puked.

  Downtown East Side Dora, last of the ghost dancers. My Higher Power. Taught me to break so I didn’t break.

  First year sober, kicking at the God thing, sponsor saying, ‘Make it a door knob. Make it whatever the hell you want, long as you know you’re not it.’ I made it Dora. Six foot three Sioux spirit warrior. Angel of surrender. Purveyor of fine hallucinogens. />
  Panic’s gone. Haven’t had it come like this since the night after Mum died. It’s not the silence, or the dark. Feeling powerless, more like. A little problem I have. Oh, and loss. Lip-tooth was big on that. How well I don’t cope.

  And if Dad hadn’t told me? If I found out after. Christ.

  But he did. Easier not to. But he did.

  I wake to the hiss of water filling the kettle. Clink of china. The sky is brightening. The bolt on the door snags my eye. This room. The room they built to keep their secret. Their fortress. Only it’s more like a ship’s cabin, the mattress tucked between the chimney and the west wall. You have to clamber into bed from the foot end. I turn on my side, study the slant-wise view out of the two little windows.

  Downstairs, Dad will be sitting in his Morris chair, drinking tea, gazing at the mountains too. They stand tall. Declare themselves to the sky. Later they may brood in violet shadow but for now they are frank, simple fellows. I gave them names soon after I came here: Hook and Shell, Feather and Bone. Names you couldn’t guess. Nail, Hair, Tongue. Names I gave in my mind before I spoke again.

  Dad’s head swivels my way, a smile spreading across his face.

  “Good morning, Meg.”

  “Good morning.” It’s not hard, in the slanting early morning light, to see an old woman.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Mostly. What about you?”

  He tilts his head to one side. “Tea?” He lifts the pot. There’s a mug ready for me. “Might be a bit stewed.”

  “I’ll make some fresh.” Dad’s stewed tea could pave a driveway.

  There’s a pot of oatmeal bubbling slowly on the stove. I heft the kettle, click it on, go to pee and wash my face. My face looks back at me, same old mystery. I shake my head and the mirror gives me that. I try a smile and the smile in the face of the woman in the mirror reaches her eyes so the skin wrinkles at the corners, the wrinkles fanning out. I did that a lot when I was newly sober, to see if I recognized her, the smiling person.

  Chapter Eleven

  REACHING IN THE fridge for milk, my hand finds the little brown bottle with its glass handle. I uncork it and inhale. It smells of menthol cigarettes to me but I can see Mum holding it to her nose, a smile softening the lines between her eyebrows. ‘Wherever did you get this?’ She passed the bottle to Dad.