by David Bergen
Two days later a single rose arrived in a cut-glass vase. A note came with it that read, “Hope, thank you for the wonderful evening. With affection, Arthur.” She was startled by the word “affection,” and then pleased.
The following week, they took a taxi out to Assiniboine Park and walked slowly through the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, talking the whole time. Arthur was a conversationalist, much more so than Roy had ever been, and he was a very good listener as well. A week after that, in what she felt was their most intimate time together, she drove him out to Eden and showed him the house where she had lived with Roy and raised their children, the dealership that Roy had owned and then lost, the church she had been married in, the site where her first boyfriend had died in a plane crash, her parents’ grave. He was curious about Mennonites and she gave him a cook’s tour of her own experiences, of Roy’s background, of the enclave of Eden, making it clear that she herself no longer adhered to the Mennonite faith, though she still considered herself a Christian. “Absolutely,” she said. He told her that he was an atheist, the first she’d heard of this, and she refused to believe him. “It’s such an arrogant statement,” she said.
He laughed and suggested they find a bite to eat in town. “Take me to your hangout.”
“I don’t think so. Tongues will wag.”
“What fun,” he said. “Hope has a lover.”
She flushed and said nothing in response, aware that words were forceful and full of temptation. That afternoon, before they said goodbye, she told him that she didn’t like the word “lover.” “It sounds silly. We’re too old for that kind of talk. And the truth is, it wouldn’t work. You don’t believe in God.”
“I’m sorry, Hope. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I’m not frightened, I’m just being practical. I have had one lover. His name was Roy.”
“This is what I like about you, Hope. Your obstinacy.”
She lifted her head, suddenly alert. “And you? You have had others?”
“Bernice, my wife.”
She didn’t believe him. He was constantly flirting, with waitresses, with young women at the grocery store, with her. This was not so disturbing as it was amusing, and somewhat awkward, as if he still imagined himself as a young man. She was suddenly tired. She said goodbye.
And yet, she had, just the other morning, woken with a warm heart and an image of lying beside Arthur. Of course, she hadn’t been naked or anything so risqué, but she had pictured touching him, and he her, and this is what had produced the warmth and the confusion of feeling. Her imagination was passionate and full. “Stop it, Hope,” she said. But she didn’t stop, because these thoughts made her happy. Arthur made her happy. She went out and bought muted rose-coloured underwear with lace trim and a camisole with a tiny satin bow perched where her cleavage was supposed to be.
She had not mentioned Arthur to either Penny or Conner, though they might have suspected something. The last time Penny visited she ‘d noted how vibrant Hope seemed. “It’s like you’ve gotten younger, Mom. What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Arthur cooked a meal of curry and chickpeas and chicken, laid over a bed of rice, and he served her in his dining room, where the lights were turned down and candles flickered. He’d put on some music—Henry Purcell, he said, and Hope nodded, as if Purcell made perfect sense, though she’d never heard of him. She asked where he lived.
“He’s dead,” Arthur said. “Many years.”
That evening, she was very aware of Arthur’s mouth, of the sensuality of his lips, and though she tried to calm herself, she realized that she was growing quite fond of the man sitting across from her. She had come to realize that a relationship needn’t be symbiotic, that two people didn’t have to see eye to eye on everything. Arthur was more political than she was. Unlike Roy, he believed that unions were a good thing. He walked in marches. He served at a soup kitchen on Christmas Day. He taught her to play chess. He took her to hear chamber music. He had plans to travel to Egypt and the Middle East. About this plan he was rather wry, saying, “If I don’t die first.”
In September of that year, the day the towers fell, he knocked on her door in the morning, and when she answered he walked straight to the TV, turned it on, and sat down. She lowered herself beside him. At some point, she did not know when, they were holding hands. The images were truly horrific and if she had been alone she would have turned off the television. Yet she knew that as long as the television was on and Arthur remained sitting beside her, they would continue to hold hands, and this is what she wanted. A wall had come down—a wall that she had erected and fought so hard to maintain—but now that it had crumbled, she was awash in the wonder of the man beside her. His texture, the soft hand in hers, the bluish veins, the beautiful thin hair tucked back behind his ear, the neck, the shirt collar and the tie.
“Kiss me, Arthur,” she whispered.
He had not heard. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He turned. She kissed his mouth, lightly, and then pulled back and smiled and said, “There.”
She had uncovered a small miracle within the larger catastrophe that was taking place out there in the world. Here you are, Hope, she told herself.
Autumn was glorious and they took to walking arm-in-arm through the fallen leaves up Wellington and through Munson Park and then back again towards Hope’s place, where she prepared a light lunch of salad and sandwiches while Arthur napped on the couch. They ate their noon meal out on the balcony, overlooking the river, and when the weather turned they sat at the dining room table, eating and talking. Arthur was fond of ideas, and Hope, not so happily sometimes, felt like his student. About his feelings, he said little, and this was disappointing, and so she tried to balance the conversation by talking about her own emotions. She did not know, for instance, if he loved her, and one day she asked him this directly.
“Do you love me, Arthur?”
“What a silly question, Hope. What do you think?”
“You’ve never told me.”
“Well. I love you.”
“But you might just be saying that because I asked you.”
“Can’t you tell?”
“I’m not sure. I wonder sometimes.”
“Do you love me, Hope?”
“I think so. I do. I think so, yes.”
“So you see. You’ve never said the words. And yet I believe you.”
“Even though I’m not sure?”
“But your actions are sure.”
“Are you happy?” she asked.
“Very.” He smiled and reached for her hand.
She had been teetering on the edge of a cliff the past few days, and so now, taking a deep breath, she jumped. “Do you ever imagine getting married? Again?”
Arthur laughed briefly and looked down at his plate. He looked up. “My goodness. That’s a thought, isn’t it? Never.”
Hope did not speak. She felt great shame and, oddly, some anger. She put down her fork and knife and she stood and walked to her bedroom and closed the door. She sat on the bed and said, “Oh my.”
When Arthur phoned the next day, she hung up on him. When he knocked at her door three days later, she stood on the inside, observed him through the peephole, and did not answer. He sent her flowers, cards, a letter. In the letter he tried to explain himself: she had asked if he “imagined” getting married again. He had not meant “never” as de facto never again getting married. He was quite able and willing to think about marriage, though he considered the institution flawed. He concluded by saying that he was old and used up, and that she was still sprightly and young and deserved a man who would be around for a while. She folded the letter carefully and placed it in the china cabinet. “De facto,” she muttered. “What bunkum.” When she had finally settled down, she parsed her thoughts and wondered if she had in fact mentioned marriage because she knew exactly what Arthur would say. He had, in past conversations, been rather cynical. Never about love. Just marriage.
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She had acted childishly. She was too old for childish things. On Thursday afternoon, two weeks after their disagreement as she had come to call it, she baked an apple crisp and carried it, along with a tub of ice cream, down to Arthur’s apartment. She knocked. And waited. Knocked again. She returned to her place and put the ice cream in the freezer, and then wrote a note to Arthur saying that she had a little dessert she would like to share with him. She descended to his floor and slipped the note under his door.
He did not call. She phoned the next day, but all she got was his voice mail. She left a message. “Hi, Arthur. It’s Hope Koop. I hope you got my note. Give me a call when you have a chance.”
Still no call. On the weekend, pretending simply to be curious and affable, she asked Ibram if he had seen Arthur Templeton.
“Well, Mrs. Koop, he’s gone to Kansas City to stay with his daughter.”
“For a visit?”
“Longer, I think. His condo’s up for sale.”
She was bereft. She had not felt this abandoned when Roy died, and she wondered how this could be. She was also very angry: with herself, but more so with Arthur, who had simply up and run away. Thank goodness she hadn’t married him. She called up Emily and spilled the whole story, taking the blame. “He was debonair and sweet and intelligent. When I think of it now, Emily, you would have been better suited for him. He was a Communist.”
“Hope, Hope. You’re funny. Take some credit. I think it’s wonderful. That you felt love. At our age.”
“Do you think so?”
“Oh, yes. To be a trout gasping on the chopping block and then suddenly you are back in the water.”
“I pushed him away,” Hope said. “Intentionally. I gave myself a mammoth scare and then blamed him. I have always suffered from what Roy used to call a dangerous independence. You would think that by now I would have learned. Arthur winked. I’ve never trusted men who wink.”
She moped about, and in order to settle herself, she frequented a café where she read and drank coffee and nibbled at a warm cinnamon bun, all the while aware of the comings and goings of other customers. She felt less lonely in a public setting, even though she was alone. At Emily’s suggestion, she was reading Madame Bovary, and though the story was compelling, she found Emma to be insipid and weak and wanting. All this desire for things and love, running off with young men, ignoring her child.
Hope had settled on a version of her own affair that she felt comfortable with. She had been slightly overreaching, too aggressive, and she had taken everything too seriously. Were she to do it again—and she wouldn’t—she would be more lighthearted.
One evening over dinner, she told Penny of her travails with Arthur, portraying it as a comedy. Ted was present as well, but in his typical manner, he had little to say. Hope wondered if Ted had heard her tale of woe, or even believed in woe. Penny said, “Oh, Mom, we should have met him.”
“You would have, if he hadn’t run away.”
“Write to him.”
“Oh, I don’t know. That would be like begging.”
“Not at all. Until you settle this, you’ll fret and stew. A letter would be an olive branch.”
“I don’t want to marry him.”
“It’s not a proposal.” It was Ted who said this. He looked at Hope and lifted his shoulders. “Just a letter.”
And so she wrote him. She managed to acquire his forwarding address from Ibram and she wrote a short, light note in which she described the weather in Winnipeg, which had turned terrifically cold, though there was as of yet no snow, and that made the cold seem even harsher. She spoke briefly of their relationship, though she did not call it a relationship. It had been a friendship. She wrote, “I was a pickerel gasping on the kitchen table, and for a time you put me back in the water.” She signed off: “With affection and gratitude, Hope.”
Arthur’s daughter, Cheryl, wrote back. She said that her father was in the hospital. He was dying. “Perhaps Dad never told you he had cancer. He was very private about these things. He did speak of you fondly. I read him your letter, and I am sure he caught most of it. The pickerel made me chuckle. What a lovely image of late love. I’m sorry that we never met.”
Hope called Penny and left a message on her phone. “Penny? I got a letter. Arthur’s dying. I know you’re busy at work, so no need to call me back.”
Half an hour later, Penny phoned. “Are you okay, Mom? Do you want me to come over?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re working. I should have seen it. He was quite thin.”
“Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry.”
“I am too. He’s in the hospital. Just like that.”
“Are you sure you don’t need someone there? I could call Ted.”
“I’m fine. I was just going to make tea.”
“I’ll drop by tonight.”
“Only if it’s convenient. You have a life.”
She made tea and sat and looked out the balcony doors at the blowing snow. Rereading the letter, she marvelled that Cheryl should think Hope had been talking about late love. She tried to conjure up images of Roy, but she kept finding Arthur: his face, his long fingers, the manner in which he shuffled lightly away from the stereo after slipping Henry Purcell in the player. She had known him only six months and yet there he was, usurping her husband. For a time, she was quite hurt that Arthur hadn’t ever mentioned his sickness. And then she thought that perhaps he had been sparing her, he had been more selfless, less fearful.
She wrote Cheryl a brief note. She said she was very sorry to hear that Arthur was dying. “We did love each other. Such a surprise. And such great luck.”
She found, over the next while, that her thoughts flitted here and there. From rice pudding to the first car she had owned—a Fleetmaster, to Melanie at the age of five learning to tie her shoes, to Emily’s first apartment in Winnipeg, which had smelled of sausage and smoke. She wasn’t losing her mind, she just had difficulty holding a singular hard fact for any specific time. She recalled that this had also happened when Roy died.
This may have been why she rear-ended the young man in his Porsche, an accident that happened at the corner of Osborne and Pembina on a very cold November day. Clouds billowed from the exhausts, the roads were icy. She was trying to make it across the intersection on an amber, and she had gunned the engine slightly when a tiny black car cut in front of her. She had no time to find her brake pedal, and she rear-ended the black car, drove up the corner of its small back and crossed the sidewalk and ran directly into a hydro pole. Her airbags deployed, though she wouldn’t have been able to say that she noticed. All she felt was a crushing of her chest and for a time the world disappeared, and when she opened her eyes, a swarthy man with dark hair and big lips was screaming at her and hitting the driver’s-side window with his cellphone. Fortunately her doors were locked. The man, whose car she must have hit, reminded her of a boyfriend she had had long ago, before she met Roy, and this boy had wanted to touch her in the darkness of his car. She had not let him, thank goodness. And then, a fireman in a fireman’s hat replaced the swarthy man. She tried to lift her arms in gratitude, but they were useless. Her throat bubbled. “Be careful,” she said. “And thank you.”
She had three broken ribs and a bruised heart. The firemen, she learned later, had used the Jaws of Life to extract her from her car. It all seemed so grand and unnecessary. She had been placed in a private room in the Health Sciences Centre, where Penny, as a physician, had some clout. Hope noticed that the nurses treated her with special care. Perhaps this was typical. In any case, she was both chagrined and grateful. She didn’t want to be a bother. She loved the attention.
Other than her two stays in Winkler, which had been all about her mind, and the birth of her children, Hope had not spent much time in a hospital before. She had never been sick. In fact her own GP, a younger woman with a very sweet face and a fresh spirit, marvelled every year at Hope’s vigour. “Mrs. Koop,” she would announce, “you’re a wonder. I wi
sh all my patients were so healthy.” But now, here she was, with cracked bones and a battered heart. Visitors arrived. Frida, of all people, motored in from Altona. George had driven her. He was waiting in the car. Frida held her hand while Hope regaled her with the story of the mad swarthy man, the Porsche, and the Jaws of Life. When she was done, she said, “How are you, Frida?”
“I’m happy, Hope. What I did, almost leaving George? Well, it was like a shot across the bow.”
Hope wondered where Frida had discovered that expression. She didn’t usually speak in metaphors and certainly not military metaphors. Frida had coloured her hair and it was pulled back behind her small ears with two gold clips. She was wearing lipstick. She carried a nifty purse. She seemed well, though she still had the habit of turning her head to look behind her, like a small wary animal.
Penny dropped in three or four times a day. In the early mornings, before she prepped for surgery, she arrived breathless, carrying a cup of coffee. She bent to kiss her mother and asked about her night. And then she asked about pain and she inevitably found Hope’s chart and checked on her medication. She returned at lunch, whistled through wearing a slim-fitting dress underneath her white lab coat, and again in the evening she appeared, less peppy, perhaps a little short with Hope, who might simply have asked for a glass of water.
Melanie sent flowers. She was not yet pregnant, and there had been talk of perhaps Ariel having the baby, and for some reason this did not disappoint Hope or even surprise her. She might have been more surprised if everything had worked out as planned. Would she ever have grandchildren?
And then Judith flew in alone from Paris. When Hope heard of her imminent arrival, she said, “I’m not dead yet.” It turned out that Judith had been planning a trip. She was considering staying in Canada for a time, to give herself a break from Jean-Philippe. There were murmurings of Judith perhaps living with Hope until she could get back on her feet. Hope was wary about this, especially when Judith entered the hospital ward wearing her old fur coat. Her face was red from the cold and her long hair flowed down over the collar, and all Hope could think was “What a beautiful daughter,” and “I did not look that good at forty-nine,” and “Where did she find that coat?” In the end, Judith, unpredictable as usual, quickly grew tired of the hospital, and the cold climate, and she returned to France to sort out her affairs.
