by David Bergen
“You live with her?”
“I do.” He smiled. “She’s my wife.”
“I couldn’t intrude.”
“No intrusion.”
And then she asked him if he was safe.
He laughed. And then stopped. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s a strange question. Yeah, I’m safe. My wife is too. But it’s up to you.”
The moon was full. The fields were white. She saw a deer, and then it was gone.
“Are you running away?” he asked.
She did not answer.
“None of my business,” he said.
She saw a yard light in the distance and he aimed for it. He turned off the highway and onto a driveway that led to a farm. All was quiet. Dark, save for the yard light. He climbed from the pickup and she followed. And then there was a dog, and it ran at her and she stood unmoving and waited to be bitten or eaten. The dog jumped on her and licked at her face, for it was a big dog, and she said, “Hey sweetheart, aren’t you beautiful.”
Clive called out and the dog retreated. “Don’t be afraid,” Clive said. The dog howled some and ran circles as they advanced.
The house was quiet when they entered. The dog was kept outside. It was almost morning.
His full name was Clive Letkeman and he lived with his wife Joy. He looked to be Johan’s age, though he had more energy, and his eyes were sharper. Perhaps his wife kept him sharp. In the bright light of the kitchen he boiled water and steeped tea and he plugged in a space heater and pointed it at Lily, who was shivering. He brought her a blanket and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said.
And then she told him how she lived, and she told him about her husband, and her husband’s parents, and the sisters-in-law, and she said that they had layers, and as she talked she thought that anyone listening to her story would believe that her life was a fine one. Though of course Clive didn’t believe her. She didn’t believe herself. For what was she doing out on the highway hitchhiking if everything was fine and good?
“You’ll want to call your husband,” Clive said. “He must be worried.”
“Oh, no. I shouldn’t.”
Clive studied her. “Well,” he said, “It’s almost morning.”
She nodded and went silent.
He asked if she was hungry.
She said no.
Warmer now?
Yes.
And then his wife appeared and Clive introduced them and they sat together as if it were quite normal to have Lily sitting at the breakfast table. Joy made eggs and bacon and fried potatoes and toast and coffee, and when she finally sat she said that one of her best friends came from the Brethren. She said that she admired Lily’s people. Such peace and good will.
Lily nodded, as if this was the truth.
She discovered that she was hungry, and when she finished her food and Joy offered more potatoes she took some. It was warm in the kitchen now and she was sleepy and when Clive pushed back from the table and said, “Let’s get you home. Your husband will be worried,” she wanted to protest, but she said nothing.
The light was blue and then the sun was up and the sky grew clear and the light was whiter and the snow was blinding. Clive wanted to drive right onto the yard, but Lily insisted that he drop her off at the driveway. She took her suitcase and jumped down from the cab and thanked him.
“Nothing doing,” Gerald said. “You’d do the same for me if I was lost and stranded.”
Out in the yard, walking towards her house, she passed Mrs. Gerbrandt, who had just come out of the barn. They said nothing to each other, though she was aware of Mrs. Gerbrandt watching her enter the house with her bag. She went upstairs and unpacked and put the bag away and then she ran a hot bath and when she was clean and warm, she towelled dry and dressed. She went downstairs and she made lunch for Johan who, when he came in from the outside, saw her standing at the counter. He stopped when he saw her and he said her name, which was a surprise, and then he came to her and he put his arms around her and he held her. Then he sat down and ate, and as he ate she stood with her back to the window, facing him. She told him that a young man named Clive had picked her up and he and his wife had fed her breakfast. They had talked.
Johan looked up, surprised, and he spoke. “What did you say?”
She said that she had talked about her good life, and her good husband, and her good family. “You don’t have to worry,” she said.
She said that at night the moon was full. The fields were white as if a soft sunlight was falling onto them. She said that she had wondered how she might describe with words the light, and the fields, and the moon. She said that a deer was standing in the ditch. Its head went up and then it fled out into the field. The moon was so bright.
“The deer fled,” she said.
Copyright © David Bergen, 2020
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FIRST EDITION
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Here the dark : a novella and stories / David Bergen.
Names: Bergen, David, 1957– author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2019023539X | Canadiana (ebook) 20190235403 | ISBN 9781771963213 (softcover) |ISBN 9781771963220 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS8553.E665 H47 2020 | DDC C813/.54—dc23
Edited by Daniel Wells
Copy-edited by Allana Amlin
Text and cover designed by Ingrid Paulson
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the financial support of the Government of Canada. Biblioasis also acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,709 individual artists and 1,078 organizations in 204 communities across Ontario, for a total of $52.1 million, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates.
The author acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
