by Jack Hodgins
Flustered, she answered “Yes.” She’d had no intention of going anywhere near the stupid reading. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
He still held her hand, and pumped it again, while he gave her a little bow. The hair on the top of his head — so white! And she could hardly believe that he wasn’t laughing at her for her faux pas with his decorations. A man with class. “I shall look for you there,” he said, and released her. God help her, she felt this urge to finger his medals again.
The man at the television monitors was still doing his job when she stopped outside his door for James to pick up a number of colourful travel pamphlets from a table. Somehow he seemed a little less sinister now. People who travelled in international circles surely were used to such things. When you lived in a capital city and attended embassy parties you took such things in your stride. They added colour to life.
So did the row of cars, lined up at the curb as far as the corner and half a block down Laurier, though most of them were black. All had red-and-white plates, however, and chauffeurs who stood out in the sunshine, talking. As she walked down the sidewalk with James, she pretended for a moment that one of those limousines — way down at the end — was waiting for her. One of the chauffeurs — that chubby black man in a cap — would recognize her and rush around to open the door. When she got home, the first thing she would tell friends was about this party. Ottawa, she would say, was the only place in the world to live! Surrounded by embassies, by people in foreign costumes, by limousines with chauffeurs and red-and-white licence plates waiting at the curb. Where else could a person meet a white-haired colonel from Leningrad in a beautiful blue uniform covered with decorations, and that lovely smile? Was it only coincidence that Bella Robson, walking back to her son’s apartment, saw a bank of rust chrysanthemums blooming in the garden of a Tudor house?
“So welcome back from exile, Comrade Robson,” Iris said, in the hallway outside James’s apartment. “I figured I’d meet you here in case you needed debriefing. Have they given you your party membership card?”
“Not yet,” James said, as he searched for his key in his pockets, “but a certain air-force gentleman can hardly wait to show her the sights of Leningrad.”
“You were listening to us!”
Well, had he been? Hadn’t he been in the other room the whole time after all? She couldn’t tell from the way he laughed. She could tell by the look on Iris’s face, however, that she must be blushing a little. Iris herself was the colour of plums.
“You flew three thousand miles to get yourself invited to there? You’re as bad as him.”
“She fell in love with about fifteen pounds of medals,” James said, beginning to giggle. “I hope you didn’t disturb the hidden camera when you fingered them.”
Iris clenched her fists and shoved her face up close to her mother’s. “If I was as wishy-washy as you two are I’d shoot myself.”
“But think of all the fun you’d miss,” James said, ushering them into his living room. “Your mother’s only beginning to find out just how exciting this city is. Travel, as they say, can broaden the mind.”
“That’s only when there’s a mind there in the first place.” Iris snatched a pamphlet from James’s hand, glanced furiously at a few of the pages, and flung it against the wall. “Don’t you two know anything? Don’t you ever read? Don’t you ever turn on a television set to watch the news? When I think of how they’re down there right now laughing at you I want to curl up and die.”
James suggested that instead of dying maybe she ought to come to the poetry reading this afternoon. “You and Vladimir,” he said, “are a perfect pair.” He winked at Bella Robson. “Don’t you think, Mother, that once Iris meets Vladimir she too will be seduced?”
Seduced? Is that what she’d been — seduced?
“I intend to,” Iris said. “It’s obvious I’d better stick close to you two from now on, in case an adult is needed.”
Seduced? Was James right — had that party only seduced her? Nothing else had changed, that was certain. Her son was still in love with a girl from behind the iron curtain. That was not as bad as it might have been a few years back, but still it was bad enough. She would lose him. If he didn’t disappear altogether, or get himself killed, he’d end up having trouble with the police, accused of spying, never being able to escape this part of his life. It would come back to haunt him in terrible ways some day. She’d read of such things, of lives ruined. Could she allow herself to be guilty of letting it happen? Suppose, after all, that Iris was right. She would never forgive herself. Fifteen pounds of medals indeed! How many villages had that smooth old white-haired killer bombed? Did he smile his crinkly smile as he pulled the lever to wipe out hundreds of lives? If he showed up at the reading she would snub him as surely as she’d already snubbed the poet.
Yet, when she came into that university room — already nearly full — and he stood up, smiling, to shake her hand again, how could she carry through with her threat? Bella Robson, above everything else, was polite. Even fighting mad as she was now, she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting the feelings of anyone who had been nice to her. Especially since he’d somehow managed to save three armchairs in the front row, and escorted her down the aisle at his side. Still, she made sure that Iris sat in the seat between them. If he thought she was so easily won over, it wouldn’t hurt him to look at her across the formidable expression on Iris’s clamped-shut face.
Beside her, a student in blue jeans and unlaced running shoes saw that James had been left without a seat and scrambled over the back of his chair to the row behind. “Sit down, Doctor Robson,” he said, with such deference that Bella Robson turned to see if he mocked. He didn’t. It was obvious the boy looked up to her son. Imagine! The first time she’d ever heard him talked to in that manner, and called Doctor too. She smiled at the boy, and nodded her gratitude. It was nice, amongst other things, to discover there were still some young people with manners.
“You can’t deny she’s beautiful,” James said, leaning across Bella Robson to address Iris. He tilted his head in the direction of the table at the front of the room, where the poet was already seated and the girl was taking off her fur hat and shedding that gorgeous coat. “I bet you’d give your right arm to look like that. Or own that stunning dress.”
Iris snorted. “Probably made from human skin.”
James reddened and looked at her as he might if she’d been a worm in his salad. “When your I. Q. hits fifty, sell!” He threw himself back in his chair with such force that he tilted back almost into the lap of the student, who gently pushed him ahead.
Iris’s eyes, narrowed to tiny slits, did not shift from the girl on the platform. “Human skin stripped from her own mother’s hide.”
Was Bella Robson about to take up her life’s role as referee again? Apparently not. The bearded young man from James’s apartment stood up at the front and started the introductions. He introduced someone from the embassy, a stumpy man in a striped suit standing at the back of the room. He introduced someone from the English department — the woman who’d been with him in James’s apartment all dressed up in a tailored suit, with that long hair pulled back in a bun. Was she wearing shoes? Whether she wore them or not, they learned that she was an expert on Russian literature, and had in fact been partly responsible for the great honour of today’s visit by this leading light of contemporary Soviet literature. Finally, he introduced the poet himself, in terms so glowing you could swear he was trying to wipe that terrible frown off the old grouch’s face. It didn’t work. And, of course, his translator for the occasion. Bella Robson was sure her son would have done a better job. He would know better, for one thing, than to pick at the seat of his pants while he talked. She liked to believe he would also have taken care to avoid catching his toe on the microphone cord as he stepped aside for the poet to begin.
Whether James stayed around long enough to have the opportunity to do such things would be up to her. When t
he poet stood up behind the table, she saw the phrase Bella Robson vs. the Soviet Bloc flash vividly across the front of her skull. She crossed her arms, settled back, and tried to control her breathing. She was afraid, of course, but she’d once sent a husband off to war, and worked in a factory while he was gone; she knew there were times when you couldn’t afford to listen to your timid little soul.
The poet (oh, he didn’t need to think he was fooling her, the phony) scrunched up his little pig eyes and peered at a book. For several minutes he read, making sounds that might have been describing the noise of a tractor breaking down. Though you couldn’t understand the words, you could have a good hard look at the man himself — the long bony face, the dandruff on his shoulders, the suit that looked as if it hadn’t been pressed since his wife put him on the plane in Russia weeks ago. Bella Robson had never been to a poetry reading before and tried to sneak a look at others around the room, to see how they were taking it. Did the glazed-over eyes mean they were entranced, or almost asleep? It was hot in here, she noticed, much too hot; and everyone was shoved so close together. People sat inside their own shed coats and steamed.
When the poet paused and loosed the phlegm in his throat, the girl read in English from a piece of paper. What had sounded like a dying tractor turned out to be children on a lazy summer day helping their father cut hay in the field. The poet watched her as if he hoped to catch her falsifying the translation. What he couldn’t see, the old fart, was that she read his poem more beautifully than it deserved. And looked more lovely doing it than he had any right to expect. If James had seen her like this before, no wonder he’d fallen in love. You’d have to be a stone not to feel attracted to her, no matter what you thought.
“That’s one down,” Iris said, out of the side of her mouth. “Three cheers for the proletariat.”
The poet and the girl alternated for the next hour. Every poem sounded the same to Bella Robson in the original language, but it turned out that while one was about a dying mother, the next was about a factory, and the following one about the birth of an idea. All of them sounded to her, even in the girl’s melodious voice, a little pushy. They forced themselves on you, as if you had no right to disagree.
About the time her bony behind was beginning to complain about sitting so long, the poet sat down and the woman professor stood up to ask if there were any questions. So dignified and professorial now, you’d never guess she had smelly feet. She’d decided to ask the first question herself, she said, and naturally it was in such high-falutin literary language that Bella Robson had no idea what she said. The girl, however, seemed willing to take a stab at it, and muttered something into the poet’s ear. Without looking up he muttered something back. No more than three staccato words. “He says,” the girl said, “that while your question is very, ah, interesting, it is basically irrelevant because, ah, the literary traditions in our country and, ah, your country are so different. To answer that question in the manner it deserves, he says, he would have to write an entire book.” Amazing how that man had been able to say so much in just a few little words.
Other questions were easier to understand. Questions of rhyme, of rhythm, of imagery. Was this what it was like to be a student? Bella Robson had a question of her own that she’d like to ask: was he his country’s leading poet or in fact a third-rate has-been they’d dragged out of retirement for the sake of a cultural exchange program? Of course she would never dare.
What someone else with more courage did ask seemed to be giving the girl some difficulty. Would the famous poet not have preferred doing his tour in the country just south of our border? Even after the poet had finished a long complicated answer full of arm-waving and snarls, she frowned over her hands, trying to find the right words. Her face was flushed. Eventually, she looked up. “He says, ah, he says the United States of America is not number one on his list of, ah, preferred places.”
James put a hand over his mouth. His body was shaking. Was he about to get the giggles again — a respected professor making a spectacle of himself in this room? The next question, unfortunately, was not the kind to sober him up. Someone wanted to know if the poet had any observations to make about his visit to Ottawa. Would he like to comment on the capital of our country?
This time the girl’s discomfort was obvious. Even before the poet had finished grumbling into her ear she looked alarmed. What was he telling her? Whatever it was, apparently, was not to be shared with them. “He says,” she said, and paused for a long time — were there tears in her eyes? “He says, ah, he prefers the more how-do-you-say lively cities like Paris or Rome, but that, yes, it’s very pretty, he likes the leaves, he likes the park.”
“Is that what he really said?” Bella Robson asked. She’d intended it for James alone, but everyone looked at her. Some laughed. Was it really her own voice she had heard?
James tugged at her sleeve. “Mother, what are you doing?” He was in no danger of giggling now. Iris on the other side had slid down to sit on her neck. The colonel leaned forward to look at Bella Robson, his blue eyes puzzled. But Bella Robson, now that her chance had come, pretended she wasn’t scared to death. “Are you telling us what he said?”
The girl looked down, looked away. “Another question, please?” There seemed to be someone at the opposite end of the room that she wished to encourage.
“Yes,” that someone said, from behind a dozen heads. “I was wondering if Mr., uh, Mr., uh, I was wondering if our guest had any opinions he’d like to express about the culture he’s encountered during his visit to this country. In other words, now that we’ve admired his poetry I’d like to ask him what he thinks of our poets?”
Again the girl muttered to the poet and again he shrugged and grumbled something back. He laced his hands together and looked at his lap while she answered. “He says, ah, thank you very much, yes, he enjoyed his visit to this country.” The poet spluttered something into his lap that could have been a reprimand. Had she overstated his case? “He says, ah, that he enjoyed the poetry of your, ah, mountains, and the ah, music of your, ah, plains.”
“Why doesn’t she tell us what he really said?” Bella Robson asked James, in a voice that everyone else seemed to hear. Someone behind told her to be quiet, so she turned and said, “Well, do you think she’s telling the truth?” The polite young student looked mortified.
“Shut up, Mother,” James said, between his teeth. He was sweating. His face was red. “You’ll be asked to leave.”
Bella Robson tightened her lips. “Well, I just think if she’s going to go to the bother of translating she could at least tell us what he said.”
The poet let rip with another long string of growls and snarls, spit flying as far as the front row, where one fleck landed on the toe of James’s shoe. Light winked in it and went out.
“Now he is saying,” the girl said, looking straight at Bella Robson. She faltered, looked down, looked up again at Bella Robson and tried again. “Now he is calling me a cretinous bitch.”
Bella Robson closed her eyes. What had she done? The room had fallen silent. James’s hand squeezed her arm. “You,” he said. “You.” It was hot in here. She could barely stand the feel of her own clothes against her skin.
The poet had more to say. Did he know the girl was translating him accurately now? He seemed to be smiling. If he really understood English, as Bella Robson suspected, this must have been what he’d been working towards throughout his entire tour. From one end of the country to the other he’d hounded her, tried to see how far she could be pushed. Now, thanks to Bella Robson, she had finally broken down.
“Now he says,” the girl said, “that I am a no-talent stupid Armenian whore.” This time she spoke it to the whole room, in a clear, determined voice. “He says I couldn’t write a decent line of poetry if I tried for a hundred years and that my hairy Armenian armpits smell of fear. He would like to, he says, he would like to breed me to his horse.”
The colonel was standing up, protesting. O
ne of his hands messed up his white hair. His face was angry, but at whom? The stumpy man in a striped business suit hurried up the aisle and turned, right in front of the girl, to address the audience. Apologies, apologies, he said. The translator had unfortunately been under a great deal of strain recently and was not to be held responsible for her indelicate remarks. Fortunately, the poetry reading had already come to an end, anyway, and if their kind and generous hosts at the university would permit, perhaps they could adjourn now for some coffee and refreshments.
“You,” James said. “You.” He leapt out of his chair and rushed up to the girl, who had remained sitting behind the table staring at the pieces of paper in her hands. When she looked up at him, it was with the expression of one looking at a total stranger. Bella Robson saw him reach out, as if to touch her, then pull back. Whatever she was saying to him she said softly enough that only he could hear, but it was the stumpy man in the suit and not James who escorted her from the room. Was he her father? James, left standing at the opposite end of the table from where the poet was surrounded now by a half-dozen people with books to sign, picked up her pieces of paper and put them into his pocket.
Bella Robson remained seated. If she had done what she believed she had done, then why didn’t she feel elated? How was she going to force herself to look into her own son’s face?
It wasn’t necessary, however. He refused to look at her. He walked them back to Iris’s car and refused to get in. Iris offered him supper (her husband’s favourite meat pies, a treat) but he said he would eat alone.
“Are you all right?” Bella Robson said.
“Don’t baby him,” Iris said, and started her engine. “Of course he’s all right. The Scholar Learns a Lesson in Real Life. Let him eat alone.”
“I’m all right,” he said, and turned to walk away.
