The Barclay Family Theatre

by Jack Hodgins

  At that, Conrad ran out of steam. Or lost interest. He dropped his gaze to the floor and seemed caught up in some other thought. Whatever it was it called for another drink.

  “And then?” Apparently Hiroshi considered part of his role as host was to keep things going. “And then what happened? When the boy woke up with this giant on top of him — what happened next?”

  Conrad narrowed his rosy eyes. At Hiroshi. At Weins. At Eleanor who looked away. “I don’t remember.” Wouldn’t remember was probably what he meant. The puzzlement on his face was part of his act, he thought he would punish everyone here by withholding the end of the story.

  Well he couldn’t. Who cared? “It doesn’t matter,” Weins said. “We can imagine the rest.”

  Naturally it would end like all of Conrad’s stories. The youthful snoozer was a city boy like Conrad, his first time in the bush. Whether he was beaten to a pulp by the boneheaded bully or turned the tables and broke the bastard’s neck, he would go home from his summer’s job having proved himself a man. That was the point. Conrad, on the other hand, would not. He’d go cringing home, more uncertain than ever before. For the rest of his life he’d wish that it had been himself the big logger had jumped on behind that tree. A black eye, a few broken bones — a small enough price to pay.

  “You knew I wanted to go, goddamit.” Conrad was back in his sulk.

  Before he had time to find something new to say, however, Mabel and dinner arrived, both at the very same moment. Naturally it was dinner that had to wait. Mabel was in a mood not only for talking about the play but acting it out as well. The rest of them could sit, they could look at the food, they could even sample a bit here and there, but nobody dared to dig in as long as she was in action.

  Oh, what they’d missed, she told Weins, she told everyone. They’d just never know! “It was wonderful. That poor murdered woman literally hounded her husband to death before the story was over — marvellous!” To show how marvellous it was she dug a number of sketches out of her purse and passed them around the table. When they’d come on without her she’d done more than just put her feet up and rest, she said. Here was that peacock husband terrified, the woman’s misshapen face floating bodiless in the air. Here was the husband again, dragging her corpse up out of the water. “Oh, she had a delicious revenge. Before the fellow was killed at the end she chased him with the flaming balls of fire into a monastery where he tried to hide. He couldn’t. She refused to leave him alone.”

  One of the sketches was of the woman herself, before her disfigurement and death. Down on her knees she raised that pitiful doll-like face as if looking for help. Weins shuddered, and passed it on. As if she weren’t already printed indelibly on his brain.

  “So you see,” she said, tossing the end of her long white scarf back over her shoulders, “I didn’t miss you at all.”

  “Bravo!” Eleanor clapped her hands. Just once, before a look from Mabel, who was the older sister after all, made her stop. “That’s not quite true, you had my stomach in knots when you left. My nerves were jumping. I saw you . . . I imagined you out there doing, well something foolish. Then after a while I got caught up in the play and I thought, why should I use up my energy feeling guilty? To hell with that.” She looked defiant, like someone who’d dared to utter an obscenity for the first time in her life, then bent to kiss Weins’s forehead. “You’re old enough to look after your own darn self. I wanted to enjoy that play and I did.”

  She nearly joined them at the table, ready to eat, then squealed — remembering something else. “Oh, you should have seen it . . . this one scene . . . the whole stage from one end to the other was a canal. Great long strips of blue paper were the water, waving and drifting like the current, you even saw stuffed paper fish. Then along comes the murderer husband, with a fishing pole.”

  “The food’s getting cold,” Conrad said.

  “So eat,” said Mabel, who refused to cater to any of Conrad’s moods. “Along comes the husband with his pole and stands on the edge of this high stone wall above the canal and throws in his line. Like this.” She imitated a pompous male, tossing his line in the water. Her face was flushed. “He catches a fish.” Anyone could tell Mabel had never caught a fish in her life. Anyone could tell that she’d never been trained for the stage; her idea of acting was to exaggerate as grossly as you might if you thought all your audience were dimwits. She was even worse than Eleanor. “Annoyed by some excitable old lady, he throws her into the canal, where big ugly water rats grab her and drag her down out of sight. A very nice man this is.”

  Eleanor looked at Weins as if he were the man in question. Weins chose to contemplate the collection of little dishes laid out before him. Was there anything here that he knew? One was a bowl of rice. That much was safe. Another when he leaned closer smelled like seaweed. Probably soup. He could handle that as well. But the rest might easily have been dropped on the table from Mars. Bits and pieces of things in some kind of batter. Dark suspicious-looking sauces. Where were you supposed to begin? He watched Conrad drive the ends of his chopsticks into his bowl of rice, dig out a wad, and lift it up to his lips. It fell to his lap. “Shit.” He put down the sticks, looked into his cup, and filled it up from the bottle. Then he tossed it back. He stared at his collection of food dishes as if he thought they were plotting against him. He filled up his cup again.

  “And then,” Mabel said, “along came this wooden door that was floating on the water. My goodness, Hiroshi, I’ve never seen such imagination put to use in a theatre. How do they do it? And on the door was the decomposing body of his wife. If you thought she was in bad shape before she died,” she told Weins, “you ought to have seen her later. Yuk. What a mess. The door is caught on his fishing line but he certainly doesn’t want to reel it in. Oh, the look on his face!” If it was anything like the look on her face, he was worse than terrified, he was thrown into a convulsive fit. “But it floats right up to him anyway and — I can’t even begin to imagine how they do these things — just as he’s hauling it up the stone wall, all the flesh drops off the body and there he is faced with a skeleton!”

  Aieeeeeeeee! Mabel turned in circles, shaking her hands. As if she’d touched death and it had stuck to her fingers. Aieeeeeeeee! Sitting through five hours of melodrama had affected her mind. Maybe she’d snapped. Even Conrad looked mildly alarmed. Eleanor ducked her head. The smile that Hiroshi reserved for Mabel, the woman who disapproved of him, had died. Weins decided to devote his attention to seeing if he had any better control of his chopsticks than he’d had in the last restaurant they’d been in. He hadn’t.

  “I am happy that Mrs. Weins enjoyed the Kabuki so much,” Hiroshi said, perhaps to Eleanor, who was on his right. Perhaps to Weins, who was the next one down the table. He picked up a piece of the mystery food with chopsticks, dragged it through a dish of sauce, and popped it into his mouth. “Maybe when she is settled in Ottawa, she can persuade the people in charge of cultural events there to arrange for Kabuki to be performed at the — what is it? — National Centre of Arts?”

  “Ottawa?” Eleanor said. “Why would she want to live there?”

  Exactly the question that must have occurred to Mabel, who halted her spin in mid screech and nearly toppled. Weins suspected he knew what they were about to hear.

  “Well, Ottawa is surely where they will be making their home, once Mr. Weins has been elected to Parliament?”

  “Parliament?” Mabel said, and dropped into the chair where she could look Weins in the eye. He could read in her face what she thought: the minute he was out of her sight had he planned his whole future without her? What happened to the notion of consulting the woman you lived with? “Don’t look at me,” he said. “Down there is the man who suggested it. What do I know? I thought my days in politics were over.”

  “They are,” Mabel said, in a tone that declared the discussion closed. She picked up her chopsticks and, with the help of her other hand, arranged them between her fingers. She had not, h
owever, managed to engineer any food up as far as her mouth when Soseki-san re-entered the room. She lowered her chopsticks for the introduction.

  Some hasty conversation in Japanese, then Hiroshi said, “I explained to Soseki-san that you have returned from a performance at Kabuki-za and that you seem to have enjoyed the ghost story much more than Mr. Weins enjoyed the sumo this afternoon. Soseki-san says perhaps that is because Kabuki allows the defeated to seek a delicious revenge while in sumo the vanquished must bow politely and disappear.” Hiroshi looked at Weins and grinned. “Of course I told him that when you are an elected member of your government you will undoubtedly take whatever action is necessary to have Kabuki and sumo matches both make regular visits to your country.”

  Was he making fun? God help him, his heart had been racing madly since the topic had come up, no kidding either. There must be something in what the boy was saying or why would he feel this way? No sooner had Ottawa been mentioned than he’d seen himself going into the tailor shop tomorrow. He even knew what he wanted. A business suit, or two. For formal occasions, or banquets and speeches in front of huge crowds, you needed a three-piece suit. When they made him minister in charge of — would it be Culture, or Industry, Trade and Commerce? — he would need a variety of first-class dressy suits for the meetings he’d have to chair, the big-shot businessmen and scholars he would need to meet, the functions he would be expected to open.

  “Soseki-san says he could have guessed you were a man who would be much in the public eye, an important official. Just like that gentleman who drew your picture.”

  Mabel wanted to know what picture they were talking about, an edge of indignation in her voice. As resident artist, did she think it an act of betrayal to turn to a stranger? He reached for the rolled-up paper he’d propped in the corner behind his chair and unrolled it for her. “They’ve got the ears right, anyway,” she said, and made it clear there was nothing else on the piece of paper which deserved a comment.

  Soseki-san leaned forward for a better look, and said something to Hiroshi. “Soseki-san says the retired man has very few choices, unfortunately. To die. To wallow in selfpity. To paralyse himself with fear. Or to live in the way his own life has prepared him to live. At sixty-one years of age, whatever talent has surfaced is surely meant to be used.”

  “But he has no talent for politics,” Mabel protested. She looked at the old man as if she would ask him to mind his own business. “He proved over and over again that he has no talent at all for politics.” She looked strained, her face looked drawn, would she soon be fishing around in her purse for pills? Perhaps she saw herself and Weins slipping back into patterns she thought they had left behind.

  Hiroshi translated Mabel’s observation for the old man, then hastily switched to English. “I did not say he had any talent for politics — how would I know such a thing? Jacob Weins appears to me to have the instincts of an actor.”

  Eleanor put her hands up over her face and groaned. Weins felt his own face burn — not just his ears this time, but everything from throat to forehead. Mabel, whose face expressed astonishment, looked at Weins as if he were some new curiosity just installed before her. “Well I could have told you that, I guess. Being a mayor was only an excuse to wear your closetful of costumes. And to organize performances. That wasn’t politics. You’d have been better off acting in that play I saw, for all the good you ever did as a politician.” She smiled, and squeezed his wrist. In case this was disturbing news.

  “Exactly my point,” Hiroshi said. Weins was beginning to feel invisible. They were talking as if he weren’t here. “In my country,” Hiroshi said, “the place for an actor to best make use of his talent is on the stage or the movie screen. But in your country. . .” He paused to watch Conrad concentrate on raising a piece of food to his mouth between the pinched ends of his chopsticks. It fell before he could nab it with his teeth, and dropped to the table.

  “In my country, as I said, an actor would just naturally go onto the stage, or into the movies, but after a few years living in your country I saw that things were quite different there. In your country the best way for an actor to make full use of his talents is not on the stage — who would bother to notice him there? — and certainly not on the screen, since that is reserved for foreigners, I understand — but as a politician. Who else has so many opportunities to command an audience? Who else is measured by the amount of success he has at playing a role, at wearing a mask? In a country of stuffy legislators a genuine actor would shine!”

  “You mean as entertainment,” Weins said. “Like the clown who dances around in the bullring?” He was thinking of that book again, and how the clowns distracted the bull while the matadors jabbed in their knives, or made their escape. Was Hiroshi suggesting he become a diversion, a public clown who distracted the voters while the crooked politicians robbed them blind?

  Hiroshi laughed. “No, no, no, not that at all. I mean as a colourful source of energy and life, which is something quite different. Is there a country in the world that can afford to turn that down?”

  A different outfit every day in the House of Commons. How could he stop these thoughts from crowding in? He saw himself as Sir John A. Macdonald, he saw himself as a coureur-de-bois, he saw himself marching down the stone hallways of the Parliament Buildings dressed in the impressive costume of a Viking. Surely there weren’t any rules against being colourful! Television cameramen, bored with dreary speeches and dull identical suits, would just naturally lavish most of their attention on him. No matter what topic had been discussed on the floor that day, newsmen would be sure to seek him out for a comment, confident that whatever outfit he’d chosen to wear, it would be something that would catch attention in homes across the country.

  At that moment a wad of boiled rice which had got all the way to Conrad’s lips dropped off the chopsticks to his lap. He tossed the sticks to the table, dipped his hand into the bowl, and scooped up a lump which he shoved into his mouth. That much swallowed, he looked at his greasy hand. “Shee-it. I’ve had enough of this crap.” He pushed back his chair and gulped down one more cup. “Also enough about politics. Who gives a shit?” He seemed stricken, suddenly, by a brilliant idea. “Tell the old man I want him to show me some sumo moves. Tell him to show me some of those winning techniques.”

  Eleanor gritted her teeth and groaned his name. Hiroshi looked down at his hands. “It would not be very polite,” he said, “to ask such a thing in the middle of this meal he has prepared for us.”

  “I’m not in the middle of my meal,” Conrad said, standing up. “I’ve eaten all of that stuff I can stomach. Tell him to show me some of those ritual things.” He clapped his hands and raised one leg as high as he could to the side before slamming it down.

  “Please,” Hiroshi said. “Please sit down.”

  “You’re being a turd,” Eleanor said.

  Conrad seemed to think being a turd was funny. He stomped his foot again and laughed, his face a tomato red. He started to unbutton his shirt, then swayed and had to put one hand on the wall to steady himself. “There’s hundreds of grips, I know there’s hundreds, just tell him to show me a few. Tell him I want him to show me how that big fat pig in purple got thrown out of the ring.”

  The old man looked confused. You could tell he knew that all this talk had something to do with him, but no one was telling him what. Poor man, if Weins could speak his language he’d tell him Conrad was a worm that should be ignored. As it was, he was ashamed to be here himself. Ashamed to have the old man treated like this. Ashamed to see Hiroshi exposed to such horrible manners.

  With his shirt tossed over the chair, Conrad looked more ornery than ever, strutting about indignantly while he flexed the muscles in his arms and puffed out his chest. A salesman maybe, but he was one of those men who spent their spare time lifting weights. What did they like to call it, the jocks? Pumping iron. Naturally he never missed a chance to rip off his shirt. “Why the hell won’t you tell him, goddamit? Just
a couple of moves.” He came around the table towards the old man, and hunched forward into a crouch, as if he were ready to leap. “Come on, old grandpa-san, let’s see how this thing is done.”

  “Please leave him alone,” Hiroshi said, standing up and putting a hand on the nearer arm. “He may be old but still he could break you in pieces if he wanted to. You are insulting him. He is not stupid, he can guess what you want, you are trying to make him look foolish, he thinks, instead of respecting his position as owner of this restaurant where we are guests. If you do not sit down immediately I will call a taxi and send you home.”

  Conrad blinked. Was he so tight that he couldn’t recognize Hiroshi’s threat was real? He seemed to think it was funny. “I’m not trying to tangle with you, little man, I just want this old fellow to show me something. What’s the matter with you bunch of shits, staring? For crying out loud. If he was such a goddam big-shot champion in his day why shouldn’t he want to show a younger guy how it’s done?” He scowled at Hiroshi. “It’s you,” he said, pushing against the youth’s shoulder. “It’s you that won’t tell him. I bet he’d be glad to help if only you’d ask, but you’ve decided to be a goddam bastard about it.”

  When he gave the shoulder a second push Hiroshi looked down, as if to hide his embarrassment. It was Mabel who stood, “You sit,” she ordered, and brandished her chopsticks as if she intended to throw them. In front of outsiders, however, even her threats were issued in a strained pleasant voice. She would give you a chance to avoid unpleasantries.

  Weins saw that Conrad was not in a mood to appreciate such subtleties. Something had to be done. He stood up himself and started around the table.

  “What’s the matter, Jake — you think I don’t know how it’s done? I watched the whole thing, don’t forget. You think I don’t know how they do it?” He backed off and dropped into a crouch, his fists on the floor. “Come on, here’s the line. Come on.”