Indians on Vacation

by Thomas King

  “Doesn’t feel that way much of the time.”

  “Who wanted to come to Prague? Did I say no?”

  Kalea turns back to me. “Your wife is sick, and you go out to find her something to eat. That’s love.”

  I shrug.

  “And have you ever had an affair?”

  Bryce’s face turns red. “I told you I was sorry. Jesus, you don’t need to tell the world.”

  Kalea keeps her eyes on me. “Have you?”

  “No.”

  “When I asked Bryce,” says Kalea, “he said the same thing.”

  “We agreed to put that behind us.” Bryce slumps in the chair and crosses his arms on his chest. “It’s not going to work if you keep bringing it up.”

  The server comes by, and I order white rice to go. I ask for some soy sauce as well in case Mimi is feeling much better and wants something to brighten an otherwise bland meal.

  “And did your wife forgive you?”

  “Yes,” I say, “she did.”

  I MET NAOMI GALLANT when I was researching a fluff story on the resurgence of typewriters. A café on Toronto’s east side had organized a “Type-In.” Turned out the event was just a display of about thirty antique and vintage typewriters that you could look at and try.

  If you were so inclined.

  I didn’t see the allure.

  Sure, the machines from the mid-twentieth century were interesting to look at, but I couldn’t imagine any of them competing with the ease and convenience of a computer keyboard. I had sat down in front of a light-green machine that looked a little like a sea turtle and was playing with the keys when she walked over.

  “Naomi Gallant.” And she held out a hand. “You have good taste,” she said. “That’s a Hermes 3000. 1963. Swiss-made. Iconic shape. Excellent typing action. You a collector?”

  “No. Afraid not.”

  “You have a typewriter?”

  “Had one.”

  “But you work on a computer now.”

  As soon as I told her I was doing a story on typewriters, she insisted on taking me around to each machine.

  “This is an Olympia SM3. Beautiful machine. Great lines. Little heavy on the typing action because of the carriage shift. Olympia didn’t switch to a basket shift until the SM9.”

  I tried taking notes, but Naomi didn’t wait for me to catch up.

  “Here’s a Smith Corona Silent Super. It’s one of the better machines they made. Hard to find one in mint condition.”

  “And this one’s in mint condition?”

  “And here’s the one everyone wants.”

  The typewriter was a little on the squat side, as though it had been flattened by a press, and the keyboard stuck out like a mouthful of bad teeth. But it was the bright red colour that got your attention.

  “The Olivetti Valentine. Designed by Ettore Sottsass and Perry King. Launched in 1969. It was a commercial flop. Iconic design, but technically mediocre. Terrible typing action. It came in white, green, and blue, but everyone wants the lipstick red.”

  Naomi took me to every machine in the café. Remington, Royal, Underwood, Voss, Oliver, Adler.

  “L. Frank Baum, the guy who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, used a Smith Premier. Hemingway’s favourite was a Royal Quiet Deluxe. Orson Welles used an Underwood.”

  Naomi was from Barbados, a small community called Pie Corner. The family had moved to Toronto when she was eight.

  “Tom Hanks has a fine collection of typewriters,” Naomi told me. “Started with a Hermes 2000.”

  Naomi rolled a sheet of paper into a yellow Olivetti Lettera 10 and typed a couple of lines. The sound of the keys striking the paper was surprisingly satisfying.

  “I have a degree in business. Worked retail clothing for a while, but that didn’t stick. Tried banking, and that was worse.”

  “So now you sell typewriters?”

  “Buy them, fix them, sell them, collect them. I do it all. My business, my hours. The only downside is that I have to put up with a grumpy Black woman.”

  “I thought you worked alone.”

  Naomi had a great smile. “I do,” she said.

  Naomi invited me back to her workshop. I took notes, photographed the space, watched her remove the platen on a Halda.

  And then she invited me to her apartment.

  BRYCE ISN’T A patient man.

  “I’m going back to the hotel,” he says. “You can find me there.”

  I suspect that he’s hoping that Kalea will follow him. But she doesn’t. She sits at the table and waits, doesn’t even look up.

  “Is he gone?”

  I nod. “He is.”

  “That must have been unpleasant for you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Bryce can be an ass without even trying,” says Kalea. “He thinks because I love him that I’ll put up with his crap.”

  My rice order arrives. The server has insulated the container with newspaper and put everything into a plastic bag.

  Kalea pours the tea. “So, what’s the difference between an affair and a one-night stand?”

  I hold the cup in my hands, enjoying the warmth.

  “I mean, is an affair something that goes on for months? And a one-night stand is just that? One night? One time?”

  Mimi and I have had numerous discussions about sexual activity and contemporary mores. Is sex an “affair” if neither party is married or in a relationship at the time? If one of the parties is married, is the single person simply having sex, while the married person is having an affair? If you engage in a series of one-night stands, is this sexual freedom or promiscuity? Do such terms mean anything? Is it simply a matter of being committed or not, of being trustworthy or not, of being loyal or not? Where does polyamory fit into the conversation? Is sexual activity black and white or a decidedly foggy landscape?

  Keeping in mind that in all cases, the same body parts are involved in much the same activity.

  “So, Bryce had an affair?”

  “He said it didn’t mean anything.” Kalea’s eyes are dry. “If that’s true, you have to wonder how the other woman felt. And if it didn’t mean anything, why’d he do it? Men and women have to pee, but they don’t necessarily have to have sex. You see what I mean?”

  I touch the bag with the rice. It’s still warm.

  “So, he had an affair with one of my friends. I haven’t talked to her, so I don’t know the details. Were they in love? Was it just sport fucking? Are they still screwing around? Is there someone else I don’t know about?”

  “I really should be going.”

  “Your wife, right?”

  “Don’t want the rice to get cold.”

  “See. That’s the difference between you and Bryce.”

  Kalea pays the bill. I walk with her to the street.

  “Can I ask a favour?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you walk me back to my hotel? It’s not far from here.”

  I can’t say no, so I don’t.

  “Prague’s a safe city. It’s just that it’s dark, and I’d feel safer if I had someone to walk with.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You could give Bryce lessons.”

  It’s none of my business, but I ask anyway. “Why do you stay with him?”

  “He loves me. In his own way,” says Kalea. “Besides, I think I’m pregnant.”

  “Ah.”

  “He doesn’t know it yet. I was going to pick a romantic moment to tell him.”

  “As in dinner tonight?”

  “Yes.” Kalea starts laughing. “As in dinner tonight. That didn’t go so well, did it?”

  “Are you going to tell him when you get back?”

  There’s a trio of street musicians playing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Kalea stops to listen.

  “I love that song. Did you ever see West Side Story?”

  “That’s Leonard Bernstein. Cohen’s Canadian.”

  “Really? You’re sure?”

 
“Positive.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter.” Kalea takes my arm. “I still like the song.”

  We walk along a well-lit street that’s alive with tourists. I wonder what the people who pass us think of this young woman and this old man. I try to straighten up as much as possible.

  “Your back hurting you?” Kalea asks.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “I’m really sorry for knocking you down.”

  “Then we wouldn’t have met.”

  Kalea slows down and stops. “This is my hotel. Thank you.”

  “Good luck with Bryce.”

  Kalea reaches into her jacket pocket. “Here,” she says, “give this to your wife.”

  A purple tube with silver filigree.

  “Perfume,” says Kalea. “Bloomingdale’s was giving away free samples.”

  “Bloomingdale’s?”

  “Manhattan. Bryce took me there to look at china and place settings. Do you guys have china and place settings?”

  “No.”

  “It’s been a wonderful evening.” Kalea kisses me on the cheek. “Your wife is a lucky woman.”

  I find a small grocery and buy two bananas and a box of crackers that are supposed to be organic. I get a can of ginger ale as well. I look for canned peaches, but there’s none to be found.

  Eugene and the Other Demons are waiting for me when I come out of the store.

  Pathetic, says Eugene. Death and the Maiden. You look in the mirror lately?

  What if that Bryce had had a gun? says Kitty.

  So, is this what old feels like? says Didi.

  I don’t think I like it, says Desi.

  If that guy had made a move, says Chip, they’d have been picking up pieces for the next week.

  You were thinking about it, weren’t you? Eugene smiles and makes an obscene gesture.

  This is why you should always carry a condom, says Kitty.

  NAOMI AND I WERE together for the better part of a month. We’d meet at the St. Lawrence Market, wander yard sales and thrift stores looking for typewriters. Then we’d go back to her place.

  “You and your wife going to get back together?” Naomi asked me one afternoon.

  “Don’t know.”

  “You think she still loves you?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Then I suggest you ask her.” Naomi had gotten out of bed and made coffee. “’Cause there isn’t any ‘us.’”

  “Okay.”

  “You might try for a sentence of more than two words.”

  “You like your own space.”

  “Of course I like my own space. Everyone likes their own space.”

  That evening, Naomi walked me to the train station. When we got there, she handed me a black case.

  “Something to remember me by,” she said. “Talk to your wife. Give your little girl a hug.”

  I waited until I was on the train and it had pulled out of the station before I opened the case. An Olympia SM9 in mint condition. There was a note in the carriage. “Write Something Amazing,” it said.

  WHEN I GET TO the room, Mimi is sitting up in bed, watching television.

  “I can’t understand a word they’re saying, but you can tell from the action what’s happening.”

  I take the rice out of the bag and open the ginger ale.

  “It’s the Syrian refugees.” Mimi gestures at the screen. “They’ve left the train station in Budapest, and now they’re trying to walk to Germany.”

  I find a small towel and use it as a plate for the crackers and the banana.

  “Banana.” Mimi gives me a smile. “Yum.”

  “I had a mishap.”

  Mimi hits the mute on the remote.

  “No big deal. A woman knocked me down. By accident.”

  “Am I supposed to drag the story out of you, or are you just going to tell me?”

  “It’s a pretty good story,” I say. “You can’t tell a good story all at once.”

  “I’m sick,” says Mimi. “I could die. I may not have time for the seven-day, winter-tipi version.”

  So, Mimi eats the rice and the banana. I help her with the crackers and the ginger ale.

  “Aren’t you the knight errant,” Mimi says when I’ve finished the telling.

  “Kalea reminded me a little of you.”

  “Which makes you Bryce?”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but now that Mimi says it out loud, I realize that Bryce and I have more in common than I’d like to admit. I try to remember what I was like at his age, and I don’t like what I find.

  “So, you met a young woman in a shaky relationship with a guy who’s full of himself, and she’s pregnant?”

  “Maybe she’s pregnant.”

  “Still, it doesn’t sound good.”

  “We got through it.”

  “By then, we had already had a child,” says Mimi. “That probably helped.”

  “What would you have told her?”

  Mimi motions for me to lie down on the bed. I move the towel with the food and put my head on her lap.

  “Too heavy?”

  “No,” she says. “So, what’s really on your mind?”

  I close my eyes. It’s comfortable here. All things considered, I might just stay.

  “Are you wondering how we got from there to here? From this Calley to me?”

  “Kalea.”

  Mimi smiles and strokes my head. “And from this Bryce to you?”

  Sometimes jokes cut deeper than the truth.

  “Is this about that woman in Toronto? The one with the typewriters?”

  MIMI AND I DIDN’T get back together all at once. It took the better part of a year to sort everything out and put the past behind us. She had spent the “lost time,” as we called it, with family and friends. So far as I knew, she had not taken up with anyone, no affairs, no one-night stands, whatever the difference might be.

  If there was a difference.

  The typewriter I had in those early days had been an old Remington portable that I had dragged around the country with me. And then I had switched to a word processor, a computer with a keyboard that beat the typewriter hands down for efficiency but had all the charm of a sock.

  Mimi had complimented me on my flexibility, had supported the technological move. She had even made a joke about the change. A dinosaur, she would begin, walks into the twentieth century.

  But now that we were back together, here was another typewriter, a nicer typewriter than the Remington. A strange and unexpected typewriter. A typewriter that had appeared out of nowhere.

  Mimi didn’t take it head-on. She’d come into my office, ask me how the writing was going. She’d run a hand over the machine and wait for me to offer up an explanation. At first, I kept my mouth shut, pretended that the typewriter had been there all along.

  I’m not sure why I thought the matter would end there. One day, she caught me over espresso.

  That’s not your old typewriter, is it?

  No, I told her, it isn’t.

  So, you bought a new one?

  To this point, I hadn’t been lying. I was careful not to fall into that trap. But each time I sidestepped the question, it felt as though I was.

  It was a gift, I told her. That was the truth. Not the whole truth. And she knew it.

  A friend?

  Yes.

  Do I know him?

  Shit.

  And that had been that. That was as far as I could carry the story without the weight of it crushing me.

  A woman, I told Mimi. Naomi Gallant. She fixes typewriters.

  MIMI AND I LIE on the bed together. The spiders are gone. I figure that they’re just out foraging and that they’ll be back.

  Mimi shifts her weight. “You want to do anything?”

  “For instance?”

  “A walk,” she says. “I’m feeling better. The rice helped. So did the banana.”

  “You want to go for a walk? Now?”

  “I’ve been in the room al
l day. Fresh air might be good for me.”

  “Or we could stay here.”

  Mimi plays with my ear. “You like it here, don’t you.”

  I make the same sound that I make when Mimi bakes an apple pie and cuts me a large piece while it’s still warm.

  “Unfortunately,” she says, “my bladder is full, and you’re pressing on it.”

  I sit up and run a hand through my hair.

  “Oh, Bird, your left eye is starting to swell again.” Mimi touches my face. “Come on,” she says, “let’s get a cold compress on that.”

  The eye has not only swollen up, but now the white of the eye is red, as though I’ve suffered a hemorrhage when I wasn’t looking. I stand in front of the mirror and pull the lid to one side.

  Red everywhere.

  “It’s not eye cancer,” says Mimi. “So don’t go there.”

  I work on the eye with a cold towel. I’d prefer that the towel was warm, but Mimi insists that anything hot could encourage the swelling.

  “Have you ever thought what your life would be like if you had made different choices?”

  “Like what?”

  “Everybody wonders about that. What if I had gone into law instead of fine art? What if I had stayed on the reserve? What if I had married Martin?”

  “Martin?”

  “Or Guido?”

  “Guido?”

  “They’re just examples, Bird,” says Mimi. “They’re not real people. And I would have shot myself before I became a lawyer. But what if I had? How would my life be different?”

  “Okay.”

  “What if your father hadn’t deserted the family? What if he had stayed and moved everyone back to the reserve in Oklahoma?”

  “In the States, it’s reservations, and the Cherokee don’t have one.”

  “Or if your grandfather had moved your grandmother and your mother back to that little village in Greece. Where would you be today?”

  “In Greece, I guess.”

  “Come on, Bird, don’t tell me you’ve never thought about the possibilities.”

  “I guess.”

  “That woman tonight. Kalea. When you were with her, did you wonder what might have happened if you were single?”

  “I wasn’t with her.”

  “Did she really remind you of me?” Mimi gets a piece of toilet paper and dabs the corner of my eye. “Or did she remind you of the typewriter woman in Toronto?”