And Miles to Go Before I Sleep

by Jocelyne Saucier

  The only travellers that night at the ghost station were Janelle and the poor woman in the wheelchair. That was their stroke of luck. Because the controller, more embarrassed than sympathetic to the situation, glanced around to make sure there were no witnesses aside from the employee who was bringing up the rear with Janelle’s bags. The two men exchanged a look, and Janelle understood that they had reached an understanding that they would break the rule.

  That was how they were able to board the Sudbury–Toronto train and continue their journey.

  As if she knew she would be the sole repository for a night she would have to tell me about, Janelle committed to memory the conversation they had on the train with the reliability of a tape recorder.

  Lisana, it was all about Lisana.

  During the long night when the confidences poured out, Gladys described Lisana as a little girl, the light of her life, her joy, her devotion; the teenager who had boys mooning after her and who confided her fears, her dreams, her romantic conquests and disappointments; the nursing student in her first pool of blood, her eyes as hard as stone, who told her in a voice just as hard, Leave me; and the other Lisana, the one she became by calling death to herself so many times. It was that last Lisana who came up the most often in her rambling thoughts.

  There were long pauses, because speaking wore her out. Around them, everyone was sleeping, people who had made the trip from Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Vancouver, who were unable to afford a berth, and who slept however they could. The car was silent and comfortable, no swaying, no screeching metal; all that could be heard was the snoring of the sleepers and Gladys’s voice in the night, carried on a cushion of air.

  Janelle was offering her a level of attention ‘I never would have thought myself capable of.’ She plumped the pillow, pulled up the blanket that had slid down, swaddled Gladys, made sure the old woman was as comfortable as she could be, and waited for the voice to trail off into a long silence or, even better, into deep sleep, but sleep was ‘short, it never lasted long.’

  The voice perked up when it emerged from these pauses, but the brain didn’t follow. There were memories entwined with what remained of her dreams. There was Albert complaining about a migraine or a hammer he couldn’t find, Albert whom she called my sweet darling. There was her father or her mother or someone else on the school train who had just announced that the track had wound around a gigantic animal with a long neck that was swallowing clouds. There was one of her mother’s recipes that she recited, intoned. But as soon as she snapped out of it, it was all about Lisana again.

  Gladys didn’t try to give her daughter uncommon, gentle qualities revealed only to intimates – quite the contrary. She told stories of the seedy areas of Toronto she had dragged Lisana out of; she unceremoniously described her as she would find her then, her raving, her evil eye, the madness she hurled at her mother’s face, and, when her daughter moved home, the evil eye that came back and brought with it bad times. ‘Death was stalking my daughter, or she was summoning death, I never knew, but you have to be able to recognize the evil eye. Don’t worry, she doesn’t do it anymore. She’s not capable of it anymore.’ The don’t worry would repeat through the night.

  Janelle doesn’t understand how she managed to stay there, why she didn’t get up, take a seat at the other end of the car so as not to hear what she didn’t want to hear. Death, I think I have said, isn’t a subject she is fond of. Death is left to the dead, death doesn’t exist unless you talk about it, and she let herself listen for hours to death that was awaited, hoped for, desired, and ultimately didn’t come, because Lisana was no longer capable of it. But you have to act as though it will come, Gladys said.

  The brief periods when Gladys dozed off were the only moments when Janelle could set the darkness to one side. She would let her eyes wander around her and try to distract her thoughts by seizing on some traveller who was snoring not far from her. A young man caught her eye. He was sleeping peacefully, stretched over the two neighbouring seats, never waking up or moving to find a more comfortable position, as if he were in his own bed. The young man – no older than twenty, she thought – offered a pleasant diversion from her thoughts. But already Gladys was emerging from her slumber and in the scattered pieces of her mind came back to her daughter and the evil eye. When a bad turn was on the horizon, Gladys explained, she couldn’t handle any noise. They had to turn off the radio, turn off the television, and talk, talk, talk. These were exhausting days, she told Janelle in a single breath, herself exhausted from talking so much, but still continued as if the night were going to close in around her before she had said everything she had to say.

  Janelle tried to concentrate on the young man. His socks were what first intrigued her. Two big sturdy feet resting on the arm of the seat, revealing along the sides of the socks long grimy trails that suggested he had been travelling for days without being able to change. From Vancouver? from Winnipeg? she wondered.

  The young man’s socks were no match for Gladys who, between rambling and dozing, insisted on telling her about all of her daughter’s suicidal episodes.

  There is a dark joy that shines in her eyes, Gladys said, and agitation that terrorizes and delights her at the same time. You have to get her moving, walk her room to room, anything. You have to take care of her body so that the idea that is holding her captive lets go of her. It’s only once you see her eyes empty that you can breathe a little. And then you have to turn everything back on, the television, the radio, everything, full blast. There needs to be a lot of noise, otherwise it starts over again. They are exhausting days, Gladys repeated, but don’t worry, she won’t do it, she won’t do it again, she’s not capable of it anymore, but you have to pretend you believe she will.

  Day was breaking. They would arrive in Toronto in a few hours. A singsong voice announced the last call for breakfast in the dining car. Janelle took out what remained in her cooler: juice, yogourt, and fruit cups. Gladys refused, Janelle insisted, and Gladys half-heartedly accepted yogourt and juice. Seeing her swallow a handful of pills with her juice, Janelle knew that her travelling companion was a very sick woman.

  The young man woke up and was having breakfast, a can of tuna he pulled out of his backpack. An organized traveller who knew how to plan ahead, Janelle thought, as she watched him out of the corner of her eye. A musician, she thought, the shape of a large black case against the oversized backpack leaving no doubt. A guitar – unlikely a violin, what with the AC/DC T-shirt. She was glad he was there.

  The car was now filled with sunlight, day had broken, and the approach to Toronto had started, with its industrial parks and condo towers streaming by. Travellers were getting their bags. They were about to arrive at the station when Gladys asked, suggested, proposed (Janelle wasn’t sure which word to use): ‘If we arrive in time, we could take the Northlander to Swastika.’

  The Northlander wasn’t waiting for them when they arrived at the station in Toronto. The Northlander had made its last trip the night before. The Toronto–Cochrane passenger line was no more. The announcement of the disappearance of the Northlander had created an uproar in Northern Ontario. But there was too much nostalgia and not enough actual riders among the protesters to stop the march of time, and the Ontario Northland Railway stuck to its decision.

  Gladys knew the train schedule as well as she knew her times tables. The protests had started long before her departure from Swastika. So she knew the Northlander wouldn’t be there.

  The only thing that would explain her strange request of Janelle was her confused state. She had forgotten the day and the time; time was already slipping away from her.

  I was on that train. I was on the last Northlander, and it makes my head spin to think that, while I was in the midst of the noisy convoy that was there to greet the last Northlander, not far from me there were people who have become so dear to me and who were struggling with setbacks I am now labouring to write about.

  We have an endangered train in Senneterre to
o, and I was there as president of SOS Transcontinental. I had boarded the last Northlander with the feeling that one day I would be making a similar trip in what remained of the Transcontinental. Northern trains are disappearing, and I don’t think our little association will manage to save the last section of the Transcontinental. I was there in solidarity with the people of Northern Ontario.

  There was a sort of raw celebration on that train. Many people came, members of parliament, mayors, former railway workers, former conductors, former passengers, journalists, and even a train buff (a German man, whom I spotted right away, and with whom I exchanged a few words), all wanting to witness a historic moment. Many of them hadn’t seen each other in a long time. There were reunions, rage, impotence, nostalgia, and the desire to be able to say, ‘I was there.’ I wondered whether we would celebrate the end of our rail era the same way.

  It makes my head spin a little to look back, to think I was there on that train, and that the next day Gladys and Janelle pulled into the station in Toronto, too late for the Northlander, and that I went back to my life without knowing that it would take another turn.

  I have always had competing desires to both be and not be somewhere else, so this suits me. In this moment, I am an abstraction. I am the observer of a story that will pull me in its wake, and I tell myself that a single day was all that stood between me and being there, near her, in the boisterous celebration that greeted the last Northlander. Who knows what we would have become? Janelle would have appeared long before I actually met her, and I would have been at her side, in the seams of time. Yes, I would have been at her side. This woman was not to be mine; I would have known it as soon as I laid eyes on her, and I would have wanted, painfully wanted, her to feel my eyes upon her, and our story would have started there, on the Northlander, in a crack in time. I have only ever loved women whose inner worlds were not mine and never would be.

  If she had been there, on the last Northlander, the little I had with Janelle would probably already be over, and I wouldn’t be here wanting to write a story that no longer concerns me.

  They were in the main concourse at Union Station, a bit dizzy from the comings and goings of the travellers and the noise that echoed in the massive dome. Janelle had picked up her luggage (I have not yet mentioned her luggage; it was incredible how much she could carry), and they were having a sandwich while watching the stream of travellers go by. Gladys was nibbling on hers. She had only managed to get through a third of it while Janelle had wolfed hers down completely and immediately got on her iPhone. She was trying to reach her sister in Montreal.

  No decision had been made. They knew the Northlander was no more, and they were there, lost in that crowd, waiting to see what lay ahead.

  Indecision is not typical of Janelle, any more than the contemplation of unfathomable questions is. She is wary of getting existentially bogged down. I often saw how she worked and was astonished each time to see how she found a shortcut when questions took a corner. I have a hard time imagining her sitting in the main concourse at Union Station, or anywhere else, waiting for a decision that wasn’t coming.

  She had never intended to take the Northlander ‘to keep death company, no thank you.’ Even before arriving in Toronto, she already had a plan. She was going to put Gladys on the train, ‘Enough is enough,’ she would send the mother back to her daughter, and then she would be alone and free, as she had always been, and would continue her journey to her job as a waitress and her internet beau.

  But there was no more Northlander, and Gladys was there, by her side, calm in the midst of the bustle of travel, with no destination and seemingly not worried about it.

  Janelle would learn that the woman has her own magnetic pole, and, come what may, they would both go where she decided.

  Gladys had something in mind, because as soon as Janelle had finished her calls to Montreal (she had finally reached her sister), Gladys asked her to dial her number in Swastika.

  ‘She had a big smile, the same smile as in Chapleau when she approached me.’

  She dialled the number and passed her the phone.

  ‘You can’t escape Gladys’s smile.’

  Janelle obviously didn’t hear any of what Lisana said to her mother, but it must have been plaintive, judging from Gladys’s tone. And repetitive because Gladys kept saying over and over, ‘It’s okay … it’s okay … you don’t have to … take your time … Lisana … no one is forcing you … take all the time you need … Lisana … just leave it for today … wait … Lisana … wait …’ Then, turning to Janelle with a smile that wouldn’t quit despite how obviously heavy the conversation was, Gladys said to her daughter: ‘I have someone with me, a friend. Her name is Janelle, and she is going to take the bus to Swastika with me.’

  And with no regard for Janelle, who was waving her arms in the air to indicate that there was no way she would be taking that bus (‘I was stunned! How could she?’), Gladys handed her the phone, repeating to her daughter that Janelle was a friend, that she would take the bus to Swastika, and that she would love her like a sister.

  The voice on the line was not what she expected. She had imagined something gritty, gravelly, ‘absolutely not the sweetness of a little girl.’ The voice grew fuller as Janelle carefully explained to her that she would not be taking the bus and, with even more tact – because she thought Lisana didn’t know – that her mother was sick. ‘I know,’ said the voice without faltering.

  What Lisana said next got lost in a steady stream that Janelle couldn’t follow or report coherently, it was so messed up and, she believed, out of touch with reality. There was an obsession with karma, the forces of the universe, light from the phone, neighbours jostling at her door, the neighbours who were against her karma and who were pushing her toward forces that were hostile to her. ‘Everyone has their own karma,’ Lisana said a number of times, ‘and my mother’s karma …’ ‘And your mother’s karma is to take the bus to Swastika,’ Janelle interrupted her, unable to take any more of the gibberish.

  Now it was Gladys’s turn to wave her arms in the air. She would not be taking the bus to Swastika. And it was in that moment, when nothing further was possible, when all ways out were closed, that Janelle felt Gladys’s will weave its way to where she didn’t expect it. ‘Tell her we’re taking the train to Montreal,’ Gladys whispered in her ear. And Janelle, to her own surprise, heard herself announcing to Lisana: ‘Your mother and I are taking the next train to Montreal.’ (She heard Lisana’s silence on the line as she was thinking.) ‘My sister Marie-Luce is in Montreal. She’s a nurse, and she will take of your mother’s karma.’

  ‘And what then?’ Lisana demanded. (‘I was furious: this woman wasn’t completely insane, she wanted to know my plan!’)

  Janelle didn’t know what then.

  But at her side, Gladys’s insistent smile grew tense.

  ‘Then you wait for me to phone you.’

  Gladys broke into a wide smile. Janelle had said what she was supposed to. (‘I felt as though I slipped from my body. I had just obeyed a wish that wasn’t my own.’)

  It was the decision made at Union Station that resulted in Gladys being called a monster. In Toronto, everything was still possible. She could take the bus home to her daughter in Swastika and let Janelle carry on with her trip. Rather than doing that, she abandoned her daughter to her suicidal compulsions to traipse around on trains with a stranger. It was outrageous, vile, absolutely shameful in a mother.

  While many judged and criticized, Janelle refused to be outraged. It was in Toronto that she understood that Gladys was not on the run.

  ‘She had a goal, she was after something, and I was her companion without knowing what to expect. She was at the helm, and I was rowing. It wasn’t like me to let myself be carried off somewhere in a boat without knowing where I was going. I hardly recognized myself.’

  In Toronto, no need to wait for a ghost train for hours; there are nine daily departures for Montreal. They took the 3:15 p.m. t
rain, which would get them to Montreal in the evening.

  In Swastika and in Metagama, everyone was in the dark; they had no idea what had become of Gladys and her young friend since the Budd Car. Frank Smarz was manning the phone, calling pretty much everywhere, trying to find out whether they had taken the Sudbury–Toronto train, whether from Toronto – and it was what they desperately hoped – they had taken the bus to Swastika, whether this, whether that, a haze of suppositions because they could find no trace of an old woman on the Sudbury–Toronto train, because the ticket controller would not admit that he had allowed a passenger to board without a ticket.

  They didn’t know what was going on with Lisana either. She had barricaded herself in the house, door closed, curtains drawn, phone off the hook; she would no longer answer the door or Frank Smarz. That was what he explained in an exasperated voice. ‘That woman is a curse for everyone.’

  Suzan had called Frank Smarz at first light. He was the one who told her the Northlander was no longer running. She had a moment of panic when she realized Gladys would not be going back to Swastika. But she quickly pulled herself together: ‘In that case, you’d better go over to Gladys’s and stay with Lisana. Don’t leave her on her own, otherwise she’s going to do it. I’m telling you she’s going to do it.’ And Frank Smarz said nothing, not a word, a glum silence.

  This conversation and the others that followed – because there were many during the course of the day – convinced her that Frank Smarz would not rush to Lisana’s rescue.

  Suzan fears the dark instinct she has always had in her that allows her to glimpse what is hidden under intentions that won’t rise to the surface. As the calls mounted, she slowly realized that no one in Swastika would run to Lisana’s side. Deliberately, united, in tacit agreement.