Mary Cyr

by David Adams Richards

  She spoke of these things to people who would visit—when she got the chance to speak. But often if she didn’t care or approve of them, she would talk about astrology and the alignment of the stars, things that Nan was interested in. She could be self-interested, and frivolous, and turn against someone for no apparent reason. Some days she loved Nan; some days she didn’t. There was all of that too that John knew about her.

  But interjected into this, almost out of the blue, was:

  “What Aunt Nan will never admit, going on like a soothsayer about the cosmos, is one relevant fact: none in her family picked up a gun against the Germans. But in my family it was almost second nature. Even Garnet—yes, even he—was stationed in Britain during the Blitz. So now you know. But give it to the Germans they fought all the way, now the Soviet T-34 had a problem—it had to lower its gun to reload—so that was the only chance the Tigers had against it—but then—well, the Canadian boys in Italy had to fight against those Tigers with Shermans—still, they found out they could take them out by firing not at the armour-plated front—but at the tracks. Slow them down with smoke missiles and then fire at them when they appeared in the mist. The Canadians fought like bastards all the way to Rome, and then the Americans got the trip through the Eternal City first—not really fair, is it?”

  She told this to the former governor of Vermont. She just stood up and recited it. Then she left the room.

  “Elle est très perturbée,” Nan would explain, because French seemed always able to say it better, looking after her as she walked up the stairs dragging a beach towel. “Maladie d’esprit—maladie d’esprit.”

  “Ah,” the former governor said, confused at it all.

  But that was in a future time.

  Now she was just a girl who tormented Perley with notes, most of them untrue. And many things about the Dutch, Garnet, Nan and the business that were also untrue.

  When Perley approached her about these notes, Mary said she did not write them and knew nothing much about them. But they were written in pink ink and she had three pink-ink pens on her desk.

  PP, as she called him, tried to help her in family matters. He tried to include her. In fact, that day she was left in the outside room at Christmas, buttoning and unbuttoning her coat buttons, Perley was the one who said:

  “We have forgotten Mary,” and ran to open the door. There she was, sitting on the bench with her suitcase beside her and Plu folded on top of it.

  PART FIVE

  1.

  SHE HAD STUDIED ON HER OWN THE BATTLE FOR HONG KONG.

  After the fall of Hong Kong the Canadians were marched off to concentration camps. They witnessed beheadings on the side of the road.

  Men drank their own piss, ate their own shit. Thirteen million Chinese were slaughtered by the Japanese between 1937 and 1939. It was something never mentioned in a book she read called The English Patient.

  She read Vanderflutin’s book as well. Vanderflutin’s book, in the style of the day, in this post-colonial world, often mentioned the sins of the English against the First Nations—but, she discovered, didn’t much mention his Dutch, or how they left the Natives, which they themselves tyrannized in the Far East, to the Japanese when they fled en masse to Rotterdam.

  And of course in those two books racism was prevalent but prescribed as a condition of only certain English-speaking peoples. And certainly could not be prescribed to any Dutchman, or man of colour.

  Yes, bravery, that’s the ticket.

  * * *

  —

  In the little enclave that supported Pedro and the others, they passed around a jar of warm salty piss as well. Some of the men prayed; others swore at them for praying. Fights broke out in the blackness over whether to smash the Virgin against the wall. And sad as it was, on day six a boy of seventeen was killed because someone said he had tucked a pear away.

  He had a girlfriend named Gabriella. They were supposed to have gone to a dance that Saturday night—in fact, that is all he had talked about. He lay on the ground between them with his thin neck broken. They searched for five grim hours, accusing each other.

  No pear was found.

  2.

  BY THE TIME JOHN WAS ASKED TO CHAPERONE MARY CYR THE summer after her father died she had a very good knowledge of her uncle’s hold on the papers, her grandfather’s increasing departure from the reins of the day-to-day affairs and her other cousins becoming more and more important in the empire. By the time she was fourteen she continually inquired about things, and had whole lists of numbers and monies written down in scribblers and hidden in the closet of her room upstairs. She was doing it only for her mother and father—in a real way, in a truthful way, she never considered herself to be rich.

  Though to look at her, you would think she did not know any of this. She was fascinated by it all in a kind of eclectic way; she was a kind of person who has spontaneous inquiries about something, presses everyone about some issue, and then would let it go as if it wasn’t important. Then a year later she might say: “Well, what about the dredging—it was supposed to create three hundred new jobs. Or at least 297—that is what you maintained—but no one dared ask my opinion, so then what about that?”

  They did not know for the life of them what to do with her. They asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She told them she was a poet—and a good one, as opposed to being a poet and a bad one, and that she would soon have a poem published by Mr. Cruise himself, who was, she said, “A regular genius—of the Newfoundland variety.”

  That is, genus Newfoundlanous.

  “He told me it would be published in Tickle Lace as soon as they have space. He just has to tickle a few things here and there to make room.”

  For a month or more she did nothing but look distressed and read poetry. And quote it to them at the table.

  Then one day the Newfoundland captain of their ship, the Eeekum Seekum visited, and sat down to brunch with them.

  “No no, dear, he and she are not Newfoundlanders at all—not even close; they come from Oregon.”

  “I don’t even know what that is—sounds like a spice. He is a great activist—everyone says.”

  “Mr. Cruise is an activist, and so is she. That may be true. But they only slay the dragons already mortally wounded, those dragons the hired beaters have already chased from the cover of the woods—at least from what I know about them, my girl.”

  But she didn’t believe that—never believed it, and did not listen. In fact she plugged both her ears with her fingers, and the captain gave a laugh.

  Garnet and Nan worried about her—for no matter what the world thought, no matter if they could show it or not, they did love her. But she felt she had no love.

  So she went back to Rothesay.

  She was at Rothesay Collegiate that November when someone arrived to speak to her.

  It was her cousin. He came one afternoon to tell her something—he was tall, fair-haired, with a smile. He took her hand and spoke to her. His name was Greg, and she had never seen him before—or she had, but she did not remember. He was twenty-four or twenty-five—much of the corporation was being handled by his father, the uncle she did not know—and Blair Cyr was leaning more toward them. They spent much of their time in Nova Scotia. But she did not talk to him about money—it seemed the mention of money would be shallow, even shameful. He spoke to her about duty—about doing something with her life, about how her father would want that, and insist upon it. He smiled and took a leaf from her windblown hair. It was November and all the lights were on in the great stone building with the tower. Did she know, he asked, that the stone building, the edifice towering over them, in the cold brilliant evening, was donated by the family? She felt small compared to that donation, to that building, and to him. He told her that it was important that the family remain together. That important tasks were there for her.

  “Will you do that for me?” he asked.

  She nodded without speaking she was so amazed to have him sta
nding beside her.

  She realized she inhabited a place on the wrong side of the family—like a small star at the tail end of a galaxy, just hanging on, and he, Greg, was part of the giant nebula in the centre, directing with his smile the unquestionable antics of the firmament and the music of the spheres. She looked at his long dark winter coat, with the collar turned upward against his strong Celtic jaw, his handsome face just exposed at twilight, his black tight-fitting gloves, his immaculate shoes and foot rubbers—and she smiled hopefully. This was the man who along with his older brother had been compared to the young Kennedys. She did not know that he had been sent down to Rothesay to give her a talking-to by the family—that he did so as a representative and not as a cousin. He spoke to her about why they needed woodlots, why they had dealings in steel and oil—why they had gas stations and papers. They had been a family on the fringe, and they simply refused to let that define them. She asked only one question. It was about the iron ore mine.

  Oh well, they had bought it just as they had bought a potash mine. It was a family decision. No one knew a tragic event would unfold. But they had to think of sinking another shaft, and flooding and closing off an old, unproductive, one. They had to see it up front and close, so an inspection was needed. Did she now understand why her father was on that trip?

  “Yes, I see,” she said. “But was it a mistake?”

  “No—I am sure it wasn’t,” he said. “But as you know I was still in university then.”

  Then he kissed her on the left cheek, close to her ear, got into his black sports car and drove away.

  But he forgot to tell her what he had been asked to tell. Of course he did not forget. He felt she would learn of it from someone else—her uncle Garnet later that evening. But she did not. That is, the terrible fact that her mother was dying. She had overdosed late the night before; people found her lying in the street. They wanted to keep it as quiet as possible, even from her—or more to the point, especially from her. Nan suddenly felt it might be their fault—guilt often follows the living through the quiet corridors where the dying are. And Nan loved this little girl, this enfant terrible, even if she could not say it. Nan could actually be filled with love, as long as you obeyed her.

  When she was pregnant, Nan had been promised a girl by a priest who took her aside, and his eyes fluttering in his sad, emasculated face declared:

  “Yes, you will have a girl—send her to the convent. She will have many trials, but she will be known as a saint.”

  But Nan’s sister-in-law got the girl, Nan had Perley and Nan was heart-broken.

  That night, the night her sister-in-law, the maudite anglaise, was dying, she said a decade of the beads, and suddenly thinking of that little English girl who had first come to the door on November 3, in a new grey hat, big scarf and big winter boots so that everyone laughed, saying, “Yes, everything is wonderful, don’t worry about me. I’ll get used to the cold.” Remembering that she looked just like the actress Vivien Leigh, she burst into tears.

  That same night as her mother lay dying, now and then opening her eyes and asking for her, Mary thought how nice it was for Greg Cyr to see her. How nice it was for him to say anything at all to her. She would follow his career for the rest of her life, vainly hoping in some childlike way that he would send her a greeting, mail her a card.

  She went to bed happy and sleepy. Someone from the family had actually come to see her!

  The next day she woke early. She took a shower and dressed, in her clean green plaid skirt with the pin at the front clasping it together, and looking like a little Scottish lass, ran to see Mr. C., who wanted to speak to her about her “tremendously powerful poem.” She hadn’t seen him in over a week. And in that week, unknown to her he was filled with deep anxiety, wondering what to do about her—Mary Cyr.

  He walked toward her, his cowboy boots making a distinct clicking sound. He clumsily swept his blond hair back as he walked. His strides were confident and lengthy. They were alone, just the two of them in the long dark hallway. He smiled and stepped too close, so she felt his knee against the inside of her legs, parting them where the pin kept her skirt together. Her legs started to buckle and she felt weak. He held her up by gently placing his arm under her elbow and kept his knee where it was.

  She closed her eyes shyly, and then opened them.

  Try that on for size.

  * * *

  —

  When she went back to Rothesay after Christmas that year, Mr. Cruise, her favourite teacher in the whole wide world, had given his resignation and gone away with money from the athletic fund. He had left at night, after dark in a storm by train with one suitcase. She wrote him letters, letters addressed to Nigel Cruise Newfoundland, but could not get in touch with him. So she addressed another letter, Nigel Cruise somewhere in Newfoundland.

  He had gone back to his home. Sometimes she would look to see if her poem had actually been published like he promised in the dozen or so journals he promised he would send it to. But it never was.

  So she wrote in her diary:

  “Mr. Cruise took my virginity—should I tell Uncle Garnet?”

  In the end she did not tell anyone who it actually was. John would be the first one to know. The family could have easily discovered whom, but they needed to forgo a scandal, and in the end created one worse. In the end she was a child alone with her child. In the end, without Mr. Cruise knowing it she hired detectives from Halifax to watch him on her behalf.

  So he wouldn’t do it again.

  3.

  THEY WERE DANCING, OUT IN BACK OF THE JAIL—EIGHT OR TEN women and a few children. John watched them. They wanted her to hear and see them. Her cell, no more than three metres away. What were they singing? Whatever it was there was more of them arriving and believing her a demon of some kind. One of the women was Lucretia. Lucretia egged the men on—wanted them to drag the American bitch from her cell. But she was always stopped by her sister, Principia—who begged her to contain herself. Once, Lucretia peed herself she was so excited. In the many scenarios and more than a thousand press reports about what happened the last day, this would not be mentioned immediately. It would of course when the real book came out.

  Did they know the real book would someday come out? The real book that would never blame her for being British, being Catholic, having money, caring for a child she couldn’t cope with, being adopted, making mistakes she regretted with both lovers and friends? The book that would say in whispers that she was a great woman—ho de ho, ho, ho, a saint?

  That book?

  Perhaps, perhaps not.

  But you see, this was a time when people like Lucretia felt absolutely free in the ability to not contain themselves. So she laughed gaily, sauntered up to the bars and looked in, proclaiming:

  “¿Qué es una mujer como usted haciendo aquí?”

  What’s a woman like you doing here?

  And shaking her head sorrowfully.

  * * *

  —

  One night the German he had spoken to came and stood beside him. John asked what those women were saying.

  “Über einen Mord, oder Mörder, in Oathoa,” he said.

  About a murder, or a murderer, in Oathoa.

  The German handed him a litre of wine, and he took a drink. “Gut,” he said.

  Then the German said:

  “Things will turn about—it will just take time.”

  “Okay,” John said. “Thank you.”

  They were secretive, this German-Dutch couple—they looked like two conspirators. John wasn’t sure why. Some of the things John asked they shrugged at. At times they spoke together quietly. And discreetly.

  The Russians were pleasant but a little inscrutable. Two American women simply assumed, when John did speak to them, that she was guilty of something—anything at all. And that people like her should leave those poor Mexicans alone.

  One other thing the German mentioned. It was a long time ago, but this Mary Cyr was his wife’s
pen pal years ago—this Dutchwoman was once a Dutch girl named Norma van Haut.

  “So she will fight to the death for her,” he said, “and if she will, so will I.”

  Just like that, off the cuff. The German seemed happy and expansive, just like a vacationer should. But with his bull neck, heavy frame and delighted, fearless eyes, dangerous.

  “Does Mary know?”

  “No—and neither did my wife until late last night. Then she put two and two.”

  Here he smiled and stretched a bit, and they watched the setting sun.

  Then he said:

  “My grandfather unfortunately was quite a good SS officer who fought against the Canadian First Army. He was friends with Dug Vanderflutin.”

  4.

  MARY CALLED HIM IN HER VERY PLEASANT VOICE; SHE WANTED him to go home.

  “There is no use you being here—they want to fry me—well, at least the ones who throw shit in my face—the others are fairly nice—I keep giving them hand lotion—you know for when they carry shit around—o scathful harm, condition of poverte.”

  “Shakespeare?”

  “No, Chaucer.”

  “Well, I am staying for a while. And by the way, they have done away with the death penalty here.”

  “That’s nice of them—not just because of me, I hope.”

  But she wanted him to go home, because he was being threatened and followed each day. Though the last thing she would do is tell him she knew. There was also something else—which she was frightened he might discover:

  One of the things they had to fight was the fact that she had brought so much money with her.

  John did find it out.

  There was already all kinds of speculation in the papers about why she brought this money with her. John wanted to know how the papers got wind of this. But no one would tell him that.

  When her lawyer Xavier came to see him again, John inquired about the money because he wasn’t sure how much she had on her.