The Company We Keep

by Frances Itani

  Gwen was thinking of the many hours she’d spent at a table right here at Cassie’s, reading the tales of King Arthur. Never looking up. A lone activity. An activity of aloneness.

  Hazzley had overheard Allam speak about storytelling cafés. “I hope the practice doesn’t come to a halt, Allam. I’m also thinking that this might be a good magazine topic. Especially as many Syrians have come here to live over the past few years. All cultures have traditions of sitting around the fire, the hearth, the table, the stone circle, passing stories from generation to generation. But the cafés you describe sound unique. Maybe I’ll suggest this to the managing editor I usually work with. As for standing for meals, I confess that I’m one of those who stands at the kitchen counter to eat breakfast while watching the birds in the backyard. These days, I seem to stand more than sit, though I don’t give either much thought. After Lew died, I guess I began to stand for meals while doing my daily puzzles. No one to talk to, you know?”

  Hazzley thought of breakfast that morning. How she had looked out and felt an enormous rush of gratitude for being alive. This had come on so suddenly: she was grateful for being able to open the window, breathe the November air, watch the sun’s rays sparkle on the remaining patches of snow. She followed the flight of chickadees as they darted back and forth, trees to feeder, feeder to trees. She resolved to keep a good supply of black oil sunflower seeds on hand for the feeder, right through to next spring.

  Addie spoke up. “I eat standing up while I look out over the city,” she said. “From my condo window on the fifth floor. But I sit when I drink tea. Most of the time. Not always. Sometimes.” She couldn’t seem to decide. Occasionally, she ate a can of tuna while facing the lone smoker who was always on the balcony of the building opposite. Addie didn’t tell that to the company.

  Tom said he ate standing up sometimes. He preferred to sit, though he could hold his plate in one hand, fork and serviette in the other, and still manage. He kept an eye on the neighbourhood from the side window of his kitchen, and the table allowed the view; that’s why he preferred to sit. He didn’t mention that he sat in what used to be Ida’s chair. As a matter of fact, he still considered it to be Ida’s chair.

  Chiyo never stood to drink or eat because she was always reviewing schedules, updating records, keeping track of her hours, replying to student queries, answering texts. She ate with her phone at hand. “Sitting is definitely my mother’s influence. She’d have had a fit if she saw me standing to eat.”

  Addie was wondering what her own mother would have made of standing for meals. If she’d been around to comment, she’d have had something to say about digestion, relaxation. Her mother had connected just about everything back to health, physiology, good body practices.

  Hazzley changed the subject and suggested that since she was in front of her computer much of the time anyway, maybe it would be a good idea to compile a list of people’s addresses and phone numbers or emails, whichever way they preferred to be contacted. She could distribute the list next week. Only if everyone agreed.

  Everyone agreed.

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll take the information home and give out a contact sheet next Tuesday.”

  Rice entered the backroom just then, and Cass was right behind him. This time, everyone sat and pushed back their chairs and fell silent while Rice played his jazz guitar. Something recognizably Django-like. Soft and mellow, but at the same time, plunky and fast. The melody was a favourite of Hazzley’s and had been a favourite of Cassie’s mom’s. Both Cass and Hazzley were thinking of that.

  Ways of Listening

  TOM

  In the afternoon, Tom carried the bronze sculpture of the geese into his store. He set it in a prominent place, with no plans to sell. He liked the piece and wanted to be around it during the workday. It reminded him of his early days with Ida in their first apartment. The surface was sleek and smooth, with an attractive brown patina. Tom positioned the sculpture to face the entrance, hoping to create the illusion that the pair were about to take flight, through the door and up into the sky.

  Allam arrived and expressed appreciation. “This is beautiful,” he told Tom. “For me, it is also symbolic of my new country.”

  The two men walked around to the shed behind Rigmarole and opened the double doors. Tom flattened the rear seats of the Jeep and they began to load: bedside table, desk lamp, chair, child’s dresser, storage baskets, radio, collapsible shelving unit, two cast-iron frying pans, a box of dishes and a hall runner. Everything crammed in tightly. The men had two stops to make.

  At the first intersection, Tom paused for a red light. A man holding an empty Tim Hortons cup in his left hand, a sign in his right, ran into the road with determined agility and threaded his way between two lanes of cars, cup extended. He was wearing a white hoodie with a fifties peace symbol painted across his back. The hood, more grey than white, was pulled up, and a single brown antler jutted out horizontally above his forehead. The stuffed cloth antler was held in place by the hood itself, or perhaps by an out-of-sight headband. His printed sign read: Help a Dear in Your Headlights. Tom wondered what Allam thought of this, but Allam, though always observant, remained silent. As they drove on, he continued to point the way until Tom pulled up to a small warehouse, nothing on the outside to indicate that people were within.

  Tom was somewhat familiar with the area because he’d once purchased items stored in a locker along the same stretch. A woman in her nineties had hired a mover to store some of her furniture in the locker when she downsized, sold her house and moved to a retirement home. After a year and a half, she faced reality and admitted to herself that the extra furniture was never going to fit into her new quarters. She offered Tom first choice of the stored belongings. He purchased six or seven items: a lap desk she had used in her youth, a smoker table with a hinged door, an elegant nineteenth-century mirror. The woman had told him how difficult it was to part with these items, even though she hadn’t laid eyes on them for some time. She added, with sly humour, “But not one of my friends has towed a U-Haul behind their hearse, and I guess I won’t, either.” She and Tom had a great laugh over that. He remembered her well; he remembered her spirit, her energy, her dose of reality.

  He followed Allam now as they left the car. The entrance to the warehouse was in semi-darkness, but voices could be heard—the chattering voices of children. A bright light shone at the end of a long corridor. Allam continued on to double doors that opened into a gymnasium-sized room that had high windows covered in wire mesh. Long, low tables had been set up at one end. In the centre, tables of standard height were arranged irregularly. Seated at the low tables, some kneeling on their chairs, were about a dozen children between the ages of four and eight. A meagre supply of materials was stored on open shelves along one side of the room. Paper, paints, pastels, crayons and coloured pencils had already been carried to the tables. The children were eagerly and earnestly bent over their creations. Two adults, a young man and woman, circled the room, moving from table to table, offering encouragement. Everyone called out greetings to Allam and then settled again after Tom was introduced.

  Allam swept his hand toward the shelves. “We are always trying to raise funds for supplies for the children. Toys and games, also.” He guided Tom to the far end of the room, where there was a doorway that led to a galley kitchen. He poured hot sweet tea into small glasses, and Tom sat across from him at a corner table.

  “Is this where you come in the afternoons?”

  “I work here part of the week, not every day,” said Allam. “The place is sponsored by the city. These are the youngest children. They finish school early. Older children arrive later. The schools are near to this place. We have students in high school, middle school, and these young ones. All come to play and draw and paint and talk to one another—and to me and our workers and volunteers. We teach them about Syria because it was their country, which they had to leave. It is good that they learn stories of their first culture and
the history of their land, an old civilization in the world. The volunteers help them with English. Sometimes we play a trivia game. I prepare my questions about places and things in the world. Like the pangolin, its entire body covered in scales. Who has been hearing about that, Toe-mas? This mammal lives in Asia and Africa, south of Sahara. It is on the edge of extinct because of greed, illegal traffic, poachers. Why? Because foolish people want the scales for healing. These small animals wobble on their hind legs. When I show the children a photograph, they think it is an anteater.”

  Tom knew nothing of pangolins. He had never heard of pangolins.

  Allam continued. “The children come here because we are kind to them. This is one more place where they can belong. We are hoping, too, that they will let us know what is in their minds and their memories. But only if they reveal in a natural way. Some have lived sadness, sorrow, tragedy. Each has a different story. Some have seen violence, even extreme. Some have no parents and now live with uncles, aunties. Here at this place, they must feel safe. We want them to know they are safe. At first, when new children arrive, they don’t join in. But always they are looking around. They see smiles, they hear laughter. This is like watching baby birds learn to fly, Toe-mas. Flap and flap again, the bodies sink through the air, and then, before the final moment, a flutter and somehow they are saving themselves. Or they plunge to the ground and don’t get up again.”

  “And no one wants that.”

  “Correct. We want them to get up again, and they are learning. How to have new lives. Here, in this small city, in this big country.”

  Tom was thinking of the considerable effort his friend was making while trying to carve his own new life in a different—as he called it—system. The Canadian system. Always new things to figure out. Even the smallest things, Tom was realizing.

  He stood now, and followed Allam back to the main room.

  As they passed the tables where the children were drawing and painting, Tom looked over the shoulder of a boy of six or seven who was hunched over his art. With coloured pencils, he had drawn a woman lying on her back, her mouth open. Her dress, a Western dress, was torn, one leg awkwardly bent. Maroon-coloured blood was seeping from her head. Odd-shaped bombs were falling from the sky over the roof of a building. The boy was slashing strokes of grey rain over the entire scene.

  The young woman in charge was suddenly beside the child. She pulled up a chair, lifted him onto her lap. The boy closed his eyes and allowed himself to be rocked.

  Allam was frowning and gestured to Tom to follow. The young woman sang softly while she continued to rock the child.

  “Once in a while,” said Allam, “a certain kind of story comes from memory, what you see here. We hope the children will express what they must, but with no one forcing.” He shook his head in sadness. “After a time—short or long—maybe this same child will come someday here and draw a house, a big yellow sun, green grass, a bird. Like a normal child. It is what we hope for when the children are healing. We try to pass on hope.”

  Tom examined the paintings and drawings pinned to a board as they walked along the side of the room. What interested him was the way the children drew rooms, beds, private spaces of their own, damaged or not. Backgrounds depicted both Syria and Canada—it was easy to tell which was which. A jagged hole in a house showed a bed against the wall of a shattered room. A stuffed elephant lay on its side beside broken furniture. In another, the entrails of a house without a front were blatantly exposed. In the same drawing, a mattress hung over the edge of the floor in a child’s upstairs room. A stick child was holding a blanket and peering out. Tom could not help thinking of Will’s childhood and how privileged it had been. He wondered if Will realized this, too.

  AFTER LEAVING THE WAREHOUSE, he drove the Jeep to a different section of town. Again, Allam gave directions; he really did know Wilna Creek’s streets and turnoffs. The items they’d packed into the car were to be taken to a three-bedroom bungalow that was being prepared for a sponsored family scheduled to arrive the following week. Allam had a key to the front door, and he and Tom began to unload. Tom immediately saw that there was still a need for small items: coat hangers, bedside rugs, glasses, extra chairs. He had two TVs at home and would bring one with the next load.

  While he was unpacking the box of dishes, a Syrian couple arrived. Allam greeted the man and woman, and Tom was introduced. The community helped out when a new family arrived, Allam explained.

  “The family, when first in this country, is not familiar with any part of the system. Men and women will nod their heads as if understanding when a Canadian talks to them. I know, because I did this in the past. But much of the time, we don’t know what is said. Part of our job with new families arriving is to explain. My daughter, she is good at this because she speaks and understands both languages. Sometimes she has to explain words to me. But I signed up to be a student at a night class. Did I tell you? The class is about learning to listen.”

  Tom was intrigued, never having considered a course in learning to listen.

  Allam shrugged. For him, this was his usual state of affairs, a deficit he was addressing. The class was helping him deal with everyday life.

  While driving back to the store, Tom asked Allam to tell him about the class.

  “This takes place Wednesday only, every week. We talk about how to identify the topic when people speak fast. Try to separate words when sounds stick together. That is the hard part for me. Someone once asked me, ‘Izzeebizee?’ I could not reply. Another said, ‘Jeetyet?’ I did not understand the meaning. My teacher explained: ‘Is he busy?’ ‘Did you eat yet?’ No one has said the same things to me again, so I don’t know if I will recognize them next time. There are many sounds missing. People say ‘Wouldja?’ and I must think about this. Or ‘Couldja?’ Again I must think. For my ears, ‘ship’ sounds like ‘sheep.’ Sometimes I am slow to answer. In class, we learn how to focus, how to predict.”

  “When I hear you talking about this,” said Tom, “I realize that maybe I speak too quickly. Maybe we all do.”

  “You I understand most of the time, Toe-mas. Because I am used to your way of speaking. In class, the teacher asks what we have been hearing the past week. She helps to separate meanings and words and how to pronounce. She teaches us not to listen word by word. We learn to listen for what she calls chunks of words. Better to understand. Sometimes, too, we talk about the idiom. Like raining cats and dogs. Like apple of my eye. Like burning bridges. These are amusing and we have the equivalent in our own language, but now I must learn in this country if I am to understand. In class, we also learn songs. Songs help us to understand words that clump together.”

  “But you do remarkably,” said Tom. “This must take enormous effort.”

  “I am always learning, Toe-mas. Every day. Last week, I heard someone on the bus saying ‘whole ’nother level’ and I did not understand. In evening class, I looked in the dictionary for ‘nother’ but was confused. I went to the teacher and she explained.”

  “That’s something I hear around me, for sure,” said Tom. “It might be very old, might have been around for a long time. Or maybe it’s just modern jargon.”

  “No matter,” said Allam. “I feel that now I am reaching for a whole ’nother level in this language.”

  “This is impressive, Allam. I don’t think I would do nearly as well as you are doing.”

  “Thank you, Toe-mas. But I think you would. If you found yourself in another country, you, too, would learn the language of that place.”

  Allam was grinning when Tom dropped him off.

  Keeping Vigil

  ADDIE

  Late Friday afternoon, Addie had a couple of hours to fill. Maybe she should play the Emperor Concerto and dust. Or wipe out the fridge. Carry out quotidian tasks that required no thought. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d lost touch with something vital, significant. Her present life had narrowed to a singular context. The way Sybil’s had, but without the
accompanying illness. Immediately, she regretted making the comparison, knowing what Sybil was facing. Or trying to face down.

  Even so, Addie’s life as it had existed only months ago could scarcely be imagined now. She was functioning at work, that was true, though she wondered what staff members said about her among themselves. Maybe they didn’t discuss her at all. She couldn’t remember if she’d told them about her friend’s illness. Five days a week, first thing in the morning, she showed up at her office. Five days a week, she disappeared when the day was done. She assumed, but wasn’t certain, that she was bumbling through the requirements of her job. Weekends, she was in Greenley. At least two evenings a week, she was back in Greenley again.

  She could take a leave of absence. She’d considered this before. But then what would happen? She’d sit in her apartment filling the hours until it was time to drive to Greenley. Sybil weighed less than ninety pounds, but she wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. She was still in her single room, and her mother, her brother and his wife were there most days. Occasionally someone pushed Sybil out to the sunroom in her narrow hospital bed or—if she could sit without pain and discomfort—in a wheelchair. That was something Addie could do, and did, when Sybil had the stamina to both contemplate and withstand being lifted, pushed, wheeled. Addie talked; Sybil preserved her strength and listened. Sometimes the two laughed quietly together, remembering a detail of Sybil’s earlier life—before cancer. Sometimes they told stories to each other about places they’d been.

  “Do you remember the thief in Geneva? He was gaunt and shabby. Baggy pants, old clothes. He’d have been fifty at most. Probably stealing for his family. He ran out of a corner pharmacy holding a shopping bag, a trail of people after him, and we were on the street gawking, trying to see what the hullabaloo was about. He dropped the bag and lost a shoe and kept running, but he was nabbed by a pair of policemen who pursued him on their bikes. They dragged him back and the pharmacy owner was shouting, and the crowd made a huge circle with the thief at the centre. Humiliation made public. You, Sybil, broke through the ring around the desperate man and handed him his missing shoe. He looked so downtrodden and pathetic with a shoe on one foot and a sock on the other.”