I Don't Want to Know Anyone Too Well, and Other Stories

by Norman Levine

  In neat small writing: Bell Canada H. Q. Trinity Square Building. Business Hours.

  We went to find it.

  I don’t know about Henry but I didn’t expect too much. But there it was. Impressive. A tall piece of metal, with a gold coating, as a central column. And from it rods came out at right angles, as if from a spine. And these rods were close together. They went up and down the centre column. Not in a straight line but a gentle curve. And then back. The effect—when you looked at it or walked slowly around—was as if those rods were gently moving.

  “Breathing,” Henry said.

  It went up several floors.

  “It really works.” Henry was delighted.

  We both went to see where it had Gino’s name. And what he called it. But there was no plaque, no sign, nothing to say that Gino had done it.

  I asked a travel agent, on the first floor, whose door was open. She didn’t know who did it. “It’s just there.” I asked a commissionaire on the ground floor. He didn’t know.

  When we left the building to walk to Union Station, both of us were angry.

  I remembered the man in St. Ives who lived down the road. A widower, in his late seventies. It was a hot summer’s day. I was coming back from mailing some letters when he suggested I go for a drive in the country with him.

  “You could use a break.”

  He had a Riley. He drove up the Stennack, turned left at the blacksmith’s. And there was Rosewall Hill with the decaying engine-houses on the slope of moorland. He drove towards Towednack. Ahead were low outhouses painted white, a piggery. And near them, this tall brick chimney, neatly made, tapering as it went up. Then, at the very top, it became wider. As he drove near it, he turned his head and said, “I did that.”

  After Henry left I tried to get on with some work, but I couldn’t. I phoned the hospital. My mother was the same. As it was Sunday I decided to go for a walk. I walked north until I came to Roselawn. And saw fields on a residential street. They were Jewish cemeteries. On one side were the larger fields. Stones here had MDs and Ph.D.s after the names. There were several families called Kurtz. On one it had: “His name will live for ever.” But it was the two smaller cemeteries, on the other side of the street, that I was drawn to. On a wooden board, the paint fading, one had Poland. The other had Minsk.

  I sat, on the side opposite, on a green park bench. Looked at these two small cemeteries. And thought, this is where she belongs.

  I walked back from Roselawn. Down Forest Hill Road . . . down Oriole Parkway . . . to St. Clair. It had taken over an hour and as it was a warm day, I sat on a bench in a small park on the corner of Avenue Road.

  A few trees . . . green benches . . . I sat and smoked . . . when I noticed a sapling with a metal name-plate. I went over. In Memory of My Beloved Papa Joseph Podobitko. This was a good twenty-minute walk from the reservoir and the little park where I lived. What was Joseph Podobitko doing here?

  I phoned Sarah.

  “She has stopped talking,” Sarah said. “She just points with a finger. And I’m supposed to know what she wants. When I get the wrong thing, she just moves her head.”

  I talked to Selina.

  “She’s frightened of dying,” Selina said. “You can see it in her eyes.”

  Next day I packed a white shirt, a dark tie, a suit, in case I had to stay for the funeral.

  In her apartment. A feeling it’s all coming to an end. The money was gone. I asked Sarah if she had taken it. She said she had.

  After three days I had to return to Toronto. I went to the hospital to say goodbye. She looked thinner and smaller. But there was a youthful astonishment in her face. A luminous quality. The eyes looked very blue. She didn’t have her teeth in. And the dark opening of her small mouth was in a smile.

  This, I thought, is the way I want to remember her at the end. And I wanted it to end.

  Weeks went by.

  Selina phoned. “Why hold onto the apartment? It’s paying rent for nothing.”

  “She needs to know she still has a place to go back to.”

  “She’ll never go back there.”

  Two weeks later, Sarah phoned.

  “You’ll have to come and help me break it up.”

  “There’s not much there,” I said.

  “I can’t do it myself.”

  More weeks passed.

  My mother started to get better. She started to take some food. Every time I now came to Ottawa another plant had died, something else was missing: the samovar, the pestle and mortar, the silver candlesticks, the silver tray, the silver coins. But she was getting stronger.

  She was moved to a lower floor. They were going to try and build her up.

  I dialled her number at the hospital.

  “Hello,” I said.

  No answer.

  “Hello.”

  “Hullo,” she said, out of breath.

  “How are you, Mother?”

  “I’m fine.” Still out of breath. “Are you in Toronto?”

  “No, I’m in Ottawa.”

  “In Ottawa . . . I just fell out of bed . . . to get to the phone. I’ll have to call a nurse . . . I’m on the floor . . . We’ll talk later.”

  When I went to the hospital, I asked the staff nurse where her room was. She said she would take me.

  “All the nurses are fighting to look after your mother.”

  I wondered why.

  “Because she gets all the other patients involved. She includes them in whatever she says. And she doesn’t talk about herself. She doesn’t turn the talk to herself.”

  “A doctor came to see me,” my mother said, after I sat down at the end of her bed. “He was the only one who said I was not dying. That I had something. That I hadn’t given up.

  “You know what I get from people—respect. Some people, whatever they have on their chest, they get it out. Dinka, if she had anything she tells it. I don’t. I don’t tell about my husband, my children, or any of my business. They tell all . . .

  “I wish I had done something in medicine. In research.”

  And I remember a visit. A knock on her door. A thin elderly woman stood with her arm in a makeshift sling. “I was told to come and see you. I fell. You would know what to do.” My mother examined the woman’s hand, tried to move the fingers. Then announced, “Call an ambulance.”

  “Look what she has to read.” She pointed to the books of the woman in the bed beside her who was out of the room. “Trash. You can tell she is common.

  “Sarah . . . doesn’t have a head. You and me we have heads.”

  I tried to interrupt.

  “I’m not finished,” she said.

  “There is a little Chinese lady. I take pity on her. She can’t talk English. If I go, she goes. She talks Chinese. I talk Yiddish. She has a bowl of noodles. She gets her a fork. And me a fork. And she wants us to eat out of the same bowl . . .

  “A doctor who went away, on holiday, came back to see me. When he saw me he was crying. He was so pleased I was still alive.

  “Where are you going? You don’t have to go out.

  “The Chinese lady. She is a little thing. Hardly eats. But I show her this pudding with raisins is good . . . by eating it. So then she eats. She doesn’t know a word of English . . . just Chinese. But she can’t walk well . . . something is wrong with her feet.

  “A Polish man came up to me and began to talk in Polish. So I answered him in Polish.”

  “How did he know?”

  “A nurse told him I came from Poland.

  “Afterwards she”—indicating the bed beside her—”said, ‘I see you have a boyfriend.’

  “She’s prost . . . common.

  “We walk with our walkers . . . First the little Chinese . . . then me . . . then the Polish man . . . The nurses look at us. I tell them, this is a
masquerade . . . a cabaret . . . They don’t know whether to laugh or not.”

  I looked at my watch.

  “What is it like outside?”

  “The leaves are falling. The sun is shining. I’m going back to Toronto.”

  “How is the apartment?”

  “Fine. I’ve taken my books that you have in the bedroom in the drawers.”

  “Good. I don’t want anyone to have them.”

  I got up to go.

  “You’ll phone me tomorrow?”

  “Yes. When do you finish lunch?”

  “About twelve, twelve thirty.”

  “I’ll phone you at one.”

  But it was she who phoned at nine.

  “I just finished breakfast.”

  “What did you have?”

  “Juice, an egg, toast. But I couldn’t eat it all. Did you have a nice time?”

  “Yes, now that you’re better I don’t mind being here.”

  “What will you do with the food left in the fridge?”

  “I’ll give it to Mrs. Tessier.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Your plants . . .”

  “My plans are to go back to the apartment. Will you go to the Château Laurier and get a bus to the airport?”

  “No, I’ll call a taxi and take a taxi to the airport.”

  “That’s better.”

  “I’ll write from Toronto.”

  Fred was the first to go. It was the end of October. A fine sunny morning. I was getting ready to take him out for what would be his last walk. He barked as he always did before he went outside. From his bark you couldn’t tell he had cancer that had spread. Fred looked up and wagged his tail whenever I pet him. He was twelve and a half. It was a fine sunny day. The leaves on the ground were some of the colours of Fred, the browns. He had also white on his neck and some black on the sides, but mostly a light brown. I was waiting for the taxi to take us to the vet. Fred was sniffing the air. His head is up. His tail up and curling . . .

  The next to go was Mrs. Tessier.

  She died in her sleep. I read her obituary in the Citizen. Sometimes I would see her sitting in the all-glass connecting lounge, between the buildings, with a few other ladies who lived there. They all spoke French. She always looked jolly. Her feet not touching the ground. Her husband died a few years ago. A tall nervous man with glasses. He was also quiet. They had no children. Whenever I saw her she asked, “How is your mother?”

  I would tell her.

  “Will she come back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And when I was to leave the apartment early next morning for Toronto, I would knock on her door the night before and give Mrs. Tessier anything perishable in the fridge. I would knock on the door and a tallish thin woman with grey hair, in a fringe, opened it apprehensively. She looked sullen. She must have been, like Mrs. Tessier, in her late seventies or early eighties. Then I saw Mrs. Tessier appear to the right, sideways, wrapping a dressing gown around her. She was naked underneath. And she was wrapping the dressing gown around as if she didn’t mind being seen like this. The other lady was fully dressed.

  After that, whenever I knocked, the thin sullen woman was always there, always apprehensive. Once I saw her going to Mrs. Tessier’s door carrying cut flowers. Sometimes when I arrived, or was leaving, I heard light laughter from behind Mrs. Tessier’s door. I didn’t know what was going on. But I hoped they were enjoying themselves.

  There was going to be a meeting with the doctor and the social worker. Sarah, Selina, and my mother would be there to decide where she would go from the hospital. I had to be in Halifax on business.

  When I got back to Toronto I phoned her.

  “You sound better.”

  “Of course,” she said, “I’m eating.”

  “How did the meeting go?”

  “You should see how mad Selina was when the doctor said if I want to go home I can try it. Oh boy, was Selina mad. She wanted me to go to some nursing home, an old age home, to an institution. Anything but to live in my home again.”

  “How about Sarah?”

  “She said nothing.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I’d like to try and see if I can look after myself.”

  “I’ll come and take you back. When will that be?”

  “Next Wednesday.”

  “I’ll come on Tuesday.”

  That night I spoke to Sarah on the phone. I asked about the meeting. “To get back to her place she put on some performance.”

  On Tuesday when I went to see her she was standing by the window with her walker watching a blizzard.

  “I’ll need my boots. Put on the light in the hall. I have no light in the cupboard. But you will be able to feel, at the bottom, the boots. Take a scarf from inside a sleeve from one of my coats.”

  When I came back next day, after lunch, she was dressed ready to go in a wheelchair.

  I gave her the green and brown silk scarf. Then the boots. She put one on with difficulty. Then tried the other. It wouldn’t go. She tried again. Then I tried. It only went so far.

  “You brought me two right feet,” she said. “How can I go like this?”

  “It’s not far to walk,” I said. “From the taxi, over a bit of snow, to the front door of your building. You have your walker. There will be the taxi driver and me to hold you.”

  “Two right feet.”

  She thought that was very droll.

  Without the samovar, or the plants, the apartment looked empty.

  “It’s so nice,” she said. “It lights my eyes up. I feel so good. It’s home.”

  “The plants . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter. This one is the healthiest. And this cutting from the rubber plant I think I can save.”

  She sat by the window looking at the snow-covered park. “Oh boy, Selina was mad. She wanted me to go to a nursing home. If I go to a nursing home I don’t get any money from the government. This way I’ll be able to leave some money to all the children.

  “The sun is strong.” She turned her head away from the window.

  I phoned Selina at her office.

  “She should be in a nursing home. I want my grandmother to live a few more years. And she will in a nursing home where they can look after her.”

  “She wants to be in her apartment.”

  “But what happens if anything goes wrong? Mummy is in Carleton Place. You are in Toronto. I’m the one who will have to look after her.”

  “She also said she wants to be back because of the monthly cheques.”

  “That’s a cop-out. She doesn’t want to lose her independence. That’s what it’s all about.”

  I phoned Sarah and asked if she would come and stay with Mother for a while.

  “I’m too tired. The place is too small. Why? Did she want me to be there?”

  “No. I just wondered if you thought of it.”

  I asked Mother, “What about having Sarah come and stay with you?”

  “I don’t think so. I feel better by myself.”

  It had rained during the night. Then it froze. On the train back to Toronto the smaller trees were bent over. Some were broken by the weight of the ice. But it all looked pretty. Mile after mile. I thought of a friend, a professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto. He has devoted his life to mathematics and to logic. I asked him, what did he make of it all.

  He said. “Nothing lasts. Everything changes.”

  Was this why we keep making connections? Why do I connect Gino’s sculpture, to that tall brick chimney, to those saplings with Joseph Podobitko, to Mr. Thomas Sachs on the door of the hospital room, to those little Jewish cemeteries on Roselawn?

  But then, whenever I go to a new place and walk around to get to know it, I inevitably end up
in a cemetery.

  My mother had been in her apartment a half-year when I phoned to tell her I was going to England to see my daughters. I would be away several months.

  “The children have to know they have a father,” she said.

  I told her I would come tomorrow. “I’ll see you around one-fifteen.”

  “Any time. You will be a good guest.”

  She had put on weight, and now could walk without a walker. But she still looked frail.

  The place looked clean. The two surviving plants looked healthy. But without the samovar it seemed empty.

  “Selina has it in the basement,” she said. “What is a samovar doing in a basement?”

  She wanted to make tea. And did, taking her time. I brought in the cups and saucers. She brought in the teapot.

  “When I came home . . . everything was dirty—the dishes.

  “Not any more the people who used to be—the apartments are empty.”

  She talked about Mrs. Tessier.

  “People in the building told me because I wasn’t in my apartment, Mrs. Tessier couldn’t go to sleep.”

  “How often do you go to the hospital?”

  “Once every two weeks. When the doctor looks at me—the big smile. He is so happy.

  “If I was in a nursing home I would be dead.”

  She left the table and disappeared into the bedroom. Came back with several twenty-dollar bills. Put them in my hands.

  “For the children.”

  She sat down, slowly, by the table. “You know the money I was saving for a trip to England.”

  We were silent.

  “Only another seven years and you will get the old age pension. That’s wonderful,” she said. And began to take out her hearing aid. Then put it back in. “It should make a noise if it is working.” I tried a new battery. It still wasn’t working. She finally gave up and said she would get the nurse tomorrow to find out about it.

  After that it was difficult to have a conversation. There were silences.

  “Did you watch Shoah on television?”

  She didn’t answer. I didn’t know if she heard.

  “It’s about European Jews being taken to concentration camps in Poland.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “I watch Guiding Light and The Young and the Restless.”