The Taste of Ashes

by Sheila Peters

  “He told me a bit about his mother, back when we were together. She was killed in a big earthquake. But he didn’t talk about the rest of his family. Nothing about this sister you look so much like.”

  “I think it’s a sad story,” Janna said, “and not one he wants to tell, if that look on his face was anything to go by.”

  “I still don’t know what would have been the right time to tell you about him,” Isabel said. “I’ve always hated secrets and the way they have of getting out of hand.”

  “If he hadn’t found me, would you have told me?”

  “I like to think so.” Isabel shrugged. “But I honestly don’t know. Finding out about his own troubles made it complicated.”

  “He’s still cute,” Janna said. “He looks more French Canadian than Latino with that curl in his hair and he’s a bit battered. But I can see where you might have been interested.”

  “He was cute all right. He was so,” Isabel searched for the right word, “enthusiastic.”

  Janna leaned her head back, uncomfortable with the word. Isabel’s hand rested against her hair, and she forced herself not to pull away. “Do you still like him?”

  Isabel’s hand stroked her hair, lightly. “After I stopped wanting to kill him when he showed up out of the blue, I mostly felt sorry for him. I don’t want to go to bed with him, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Do you get them mixed up after a while?”

  Isabel’s hand lifted away and Janna wished she hadn’t asked.

  But Isabel was thinking of Lance. Only yesterday. The boy, Dustin, downstairs. Lance was leaning toward the bathroom mirror, shaving. The towel around his waist stretched tight across his butt and his back was pink from the shower. One hand holding the razor, the other tightening the skin on his face. The tuft of hair in his armpit had sent a spasm of desire in a vertical line from her diaphragm to her groin and she must have made a noise. His eyes met hers in the mirror. She had watched — Trevor and Soryada waiting outside in the truck for her to come down with the magazines she’d forgotten — as he finished shaving and turned toward her, pulling off the towel to wipe the remnant shaving cream from his face, his eyes never leaving her face. She looked down at the scar encircling one knee and the long purple welt curling up his thigh, disappearing in his pubic hair.

  The door had opened downstairs, Trevor and Dustin talking. Before she could turn away, Lance had pulled her to him, his penis hardening against her stomach, his hands on each side of her face. His lips barely touched her mouth, but his eyes held hers. Light grey eyes like a creek bed under clear water. When Dustin set foot on the bottom stair, Isabel pulled away and ran down, the magazines she’d held clutched to her chest wrinkled and damp.

  Isabel was lonely. Her body was lonely.

  “No, I don’t get them mixed up. I never have.” Her voice was sad. “I’ve done lots of stupid things, but I like men. I like being with them. That doesn’t make me some kind of...”

  Janna interrupted. “Were you ever scared?”

  Her mother picked up Janna’s hand and squeezed it. “Tell me what happened.”

  Janna did just that. She told her about David and her feeling of power, of vengeance after he’d spoken of her to his friends as if she was a piece of trash. And then the pain and fear. The shame.

  Isabel slipped down to squeeze into the chair beside her, to hold her while she cried.

  “I ran into a few bozos in my time but never a creep who’d bring his buddies to help him beat up a girl.” She fished a tissue out of her pocket and handed it to Janna. “You’ve got to pick them better than that.”

  Janna looked up at her. “Like you do?”

  Isabel blinked at the sudden anger. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “While I had my face down in the dirt there, I remembered something. I don’t know how old I was, maybe three or four? It must have been in April or May, this time of year. The garden was turned but there wasn’t anything growing in it. Something bad had happened and I’d been hiding. I just remember the dirt. Dirt in my hair, in my eyes, on my hands, and you passed out in the dirt. I was out there alone, trying to wake you up. I was so afraid.”

  Isabel’s face had lost all colour, the lines around her open mouth deep gashes. Janna popped out of the chair and started shoving clothes into one of the bags.

  “One of your expert choices? Some fun guy you had a good time with?”

  Isabel whispered. “He never hurt you. I know that.”

  “How can you know that? You were unconscious.”

  “Believe me, I knew. I told you it was a bad dream. That we all have bad dreams and not to worry. To just scoot across the hall and climb in with me if you had another one.”

  Janna squeezed Christmas girl. “And did I?”

  “Yes, for a while. And then they stopped.”

  Janna waited, the bulging shopping bag looped over her wrist.

  Isabel sighed. “I could give you the whole sad story, but I don’t really want to.” How she was so short of money she thought she’d lose the house. The loans manager, one of her father’s so-called friends, offering to help out. Dropping by the house, playing with the kids. Always bringing a bottle, the drinking getting harder and harder. When she finally figured out what he was trying, it was almost too late. Janna in her underpants standing on the toilet, him in there unbuckling his belt. Isabel had been so out of it, she could barely stand, but the rage jolted her upright and sent her after him, screaming, and telling Janna to run, run, run. He knocked her around pretty bad, but her hollering must have scared him off. She’d staggered outside after him, throwing stones at his car as it pulled away, calling Janna, Janna, until she passed out. The sight of her girl’s dirty face, hearing her calling her, shaking her awake, the worst and best thing.

  “Secrets,” Janna said.

  “I guess,” Isabel said, taking the bag from Janna and hugging it to her chest. “I’ll tell you another secret though. The creep who scared you was an upstanding member of the church. I went to Father Walter and told him that if he didn’t get that guy out of town, I was going to sue the church for child support. You should have seen his face. It confirmed everything he already thought about me.”

  “The creep?”

  “Oh, he left all right. But I found out where he went and sent an anonymous letter to the Catholic Women’s League there. I’d have turned him in if I thought there was any chance of getting him arrested, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen. It did straighten me out though. For quite a while.”

  “Not forever.”

  “No,” Isabel said. “Not forever. But I never brought any of them home after that.”

  “Not even after I left?”

  “Janna, I haven’t had a drink for three years now and I haven’t been with a man since you saw me that night. Not once. That look on your face. I think it’s called aversion therapy.”

  Janna was afraid to hope. There had been so many times when Isabel had straightened out. Even tonight, she’d wondered when Isabel would take the first sip. She’d seen the way she watched that wine pour into Alvaro’s glass.

  “What about the guy living there now?”

  “What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

  “It must be the Guatemalan in me,” Janna said.

  Isabel stared at her and burst into laughter. “I guess I’d better get used to it.”

  †

  The laughter died when Álvaro pushed open the door to Walter’s hospital room. George stood by the window, the provincial superior leaned his chair against the back wall, and two men Álvaro didn’t recognize at first sat up close to Walter, one at least as old as Walter, his head settled down low in between his shoulders. He’d been the one telling the joke. Two priests from the north, George said, introducing them, and he remembered Father John. Walter lay stripped to the waist, the grey hair c
urling on his chest, stippled with stains from swabs and tape. A bandage crossed the back of each hand, bruises seeping out around the edges. One hand lifted in greeting. Álvaro bent to kiss him and saw the oil glistening on his forehead and chest.

  “How’s the birthday party going?” he rasped out.

  The silence stretched as Álvaro looked around the room. John blinked and the younger man looked genuinely interested. The superior dropped the front legs of his chair to the floor.

  “Yes, tell us.” George seemed eager for gossip.

  “It’s very strange,” Álvaro finally said.

  Walter coughed as he laughed. “I’ll bet it is,” he wheezed.

  “Do you have a picture?” John asked.

  And the difficulty passed. He told them about her, asked their advice on how to proceed within the community. It is a hard thing, John said. So often the circumstances are painful, but surely the fact of the child is a joy. And it was. But he could not help wondering how they’d feel if she was standing in front of them. Not a child. Not such a simple joy.

  After a while, Walter dozed off. Or lapsed into unconsciousness. It was not clear. The others bent, one at a time, to kiss him, to give their blessings, and to leave. Álvaro wanted to stay.

  “You won’t be going back?” George asked.

  “I’m going to a hockey game with them tomorrow. I’ll stay here for now.”

  Soon after the door closed, Walter’s eyes flicked open. “Now come on, boy. Tell me.”

  After protesting that now was not the time, that Walter had his own passage to prepare for, Álvaro told Walter everything. About his mother, about Clara, about Vinicio. Álvaro bent his mouth to Walter’s ear. He murmured words about Ana Elisabeth and Lucía Madriela. About Janna.

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “No,” Álvaro agreed.

  “When she came to catechism, my struggle was not to blame her. The sins of the father…”

  “...who was busy saving himself?” Álvaro paced the room. “You said it, Walter. We are not sent here as fixers. If we do have faith, and I’m not sure I do, we have to give it room.”

  “It’s hard to give up that power. To lean back and let the water carry you. There’s always one more secret to keep, one more problem to manage.” Walter’s voice faded. “Forgive me.”

  Álvaro gathered the old bones in his arms.

  “I wish you could have baptized her,” Walter said.

  “Isabel brought her to you?”

  “The aunt did. You know that moment when the infant is so serious, so concentrated. When you touch the water to their heads, they startle up, disturbed at your temerity. Angry that you’re distracting them from their conversation with God.”

  All the babies Álvaro had blessed. All the springing bodies, the furious ones, the heat of the limp ones, the ones already gone. None of them his. The first never breathing, buried alone in the dark. The other, no matter how they grew to know each other, would never give her body up to his in the loving and unconscious way children do with the people they’ve grown up leaning against, they’ve grown up trusting.

  “She’ll be okay,” Walter said. “That mother of hers went pretty wild for a while, but she was fierce about her kids. Still is.”

  They both sat in silence, listening to the night sounds of the hospital. Quiet voices in the hall, a door opening, a telephone.

  Walter whispered, “When the salmon start running up the Nechako River — the Indians will tell you when that is — I want you to do me a favour. Before they bury my ashes, I want you to sneak a good handful.”

  Álvaro stared at him in surprise. Cremation? A handful of ashes?

  “I know, I know,” Walter said. “They balked at the cremation, let me tell you. That was as far as I got. They want me in the ground. But I want this too, Álvaro.” He paused and took a breath. “It’s an offering of sorts. Please?”

  Álvaro nodded.

  “Take them to the place where the river drains Fraser Lake. They call it the Nautley River there. A little nothing of a river, but beautiful. It drains some of the sorrow out of that big lake, all the things that happened to those children at the school there. LeJac. Do you know how far those big spring salmon have come? Hundreds of miles, fighting the current every fin stroke. Put my ashes there and let all of this float away with them, let it all float back down, past those big spruce and pine trees, past the little towns, and the aspens all nice and freshly green, past all the kids swimming in the back eddies of the river, down, down right to the river’s mouth. Let it go back to where the ocean is big enough to take it all in and make it part of the world again.”

  Álvaro nodded and the two of them rested together, Álvaro’s cheek on the old man’s chest, his ear cocked to hear the prayers coming like easy breath from Walter’s mouth, the weight of his head measuring the struggle as the old man’s chest rose and fell. When Álvaro woke up, the chest was still and the prayers came in turn to Álvaro, his thumb making the cross on the old forehead.

  It was only after everyone had been called and they’d come to get Álvaro that the others told him Walter wanted him to celebrate his funeral mass.

  Part IV

  22

  Spring came quickly to the Bulkley Valley and the bulbs in Alejandro’s garlic patch bloomed profusely. Isabel’s mother’s peony produced three luscious flowers for Lily Thomas’s windowsill. Her dahlias made a surprise appearance in a new bed dug at Pioneer Haven. In Isabel’s garden, Janna’s tulips survived the winter to bloom in May. In ten days, many more flowers will be cut and driven up to the hall in Kispiox for Trevor and Soryada’s wedding.

  In the morning sunlight of this particular July day, Isabel stands on her small back deck. She wears cut-offs and a T-shirt and has cut her hair so short she just scrubs her hands through it to comb it. Her feet are bare. Lance and Dustin are upstairs. Janna is asleep in the living room. Álvaro is across town in, he says, the same bed where they made love. At least the springs feel that old, he says. The window she broke has been replaced and the priest is careful to lower the blinds whenever he changes. About time, she told him. Lily Thomas knew about them all along. And she saw a lot more shenanigans after theirs, she said to Janna before snapping her mouth shut.

  Isabel watches Perro stalk the neighbour’s cat. Rump in the air, tail wagging, he crouches down, growling at the clump of dahlias where she’s hidden. They are all getting used to each other. Time together and time away. Janna has walked through the streets of Shaughnessy with Álvaro and swum in the pool at the provincial house where he now lives. The novice has gone back to school in Ottawa or they would be worried, but the rest of them are truly too old. They doze in the sun and wake up happy to the sound of her voice, wondering where they are. Álvaro has told her about how he became a priest and came to Canada. About meeting Isabel and even how they were found out. He has told her about his mother and Cesàr and the village he grew up in. He has told her about the planting and harvesting rituals, about his mother’s prayers. He has told stories in loops and circumlocutions that they both recognize for the evasions they are, and for the moment, she is not pushing him. They both have a sense of time stretching out ahead.

  Janna has moved into a basement suite near the university. She works long hours on her summer courses, one of which is Spanish. But she won’t practise with Álvaro. Not yet, she says. When she was a child, Isabel told him, she refused to say a word until she was ready to speak full sentences. She has taken a week off to help prepare for Trevor and Soryada’s wedding. Álvaro has agreed to perform the service. They are all getting used to each other.

  Lance moves easily now and brings his coffee out onto the porch where Isabel stands, her feet cold on the damp wood. He stands beside her, close, but not touching. His hands, warmed by the coffee cup, the fingers curious and agile, are waiting for her to close the gap. She bends to the dog that has come to wriggle a
gainst him. She squats and leans, very lightly, against his thigh. Against the scar that curves up into his groin. He shifts his weight to return the pressure and Janna rattles the cords of the blinds pulled shut over the window just behind them. Isabel stands and steps away. He smiles at her. She’s never known a man so unhurried. He sips his coffee. The neighbour opens his door to call for the cat.

  “You’re very patient,” she says.

  A lazy morning bee buzzes around his red hair and he stands still until it flies away. “When they were stitching up my leg, there was damage. They weren’t sure if everything would still work. It took a while. My friend, the one in Terrace, she got impatient. And now, every time I look at you and feel that feeling, I’m a happy boy. I was a bit anxious about taking it to the next step.”

  Perro flops at her feet. She puts one foot on his warm fur, pokes her toes in under a floppy ear to scratch. “Not anymore.”

  “No,” he says. “Not anymore. I’m not sure, now, what it is we’re waiting for.”

  “In ten days this will all be done.”

  He raises his coffee cup. “Ten days,” he says.

  †

  Janna is surprised how much she likes playing basketball with Dustin. He’s a funny kid. Pudgy in the way twelve-year-olds often are, but a good hoop thrower. He doesn’t mind sweating and Janna has to work to get the ball away from him. He still looks like a little boy but there’s a squawk in his voice and a couple of hairs sprouting on his upper lip. He claps a surprisingly big hand on her shoulder when they’re done and thanks her politely for the game. As they walk back from the basketball court, he tells her about his mom. She works for the railway. He tells her how he didn’t really like to visit his dad when he lived in the bush.

  “This is better,” he says. “Isabel’s nice. She’s friendly, but leaves you alone. Mom says they’re lovers, but I’m not sure.” It’s a question.

  Janna doesn’t think so. The men who came into the house back when she lived at home, the ones who opened cupboards looking for a bowl to dump the chips into, or sat on the back porch drinking a coffee, they were never her mother’s boyfriends. Old friends from high school. Uncles. Cousins. It was a place they were comfortable. Lance is probably one of these. Besides, he seems too young. Dustin says he’s forty.