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

by Norman Levine

I ran back to the bridge; Grandad was standing there breathing heavily. His coat, his scarf, his jacket, were on the ground, and his trousers were open at the top.

  “You’ve got another seven minutes,” I said. “Lots of time.”

  Gran came running back. We put his clothes back on and I took him under one arm and she under the other and we started to walk carefully down the slope. In between wheezes he said, “I stink.”

  “You couldn’t help it,’’ Gran said.

  “I did it in my trousers and I’ve got them back on.”

  There was still no sign of the train by the time we arrived at the platform. Grandad went into the dark lavatory. “He couldn’t help it,’’ Gran said to me. “He’s helpless. He couldn’t help it.”

  She had given him a suitcase and told him to take out a sheet.

  He came out of the lavatory, beads of sweat on his face, and puffing. Sounding as if a child was somewhere inside his chest, and crying. Gran kissed him.

  “You couldn’t help it.”

  “What a stinking grandfather I am,” he said.

  And we all laughed.

  When the train came they found an empty compartment. He had taken one sock off and threw it away in the lavatory.

  “Have I another sock, Susie?”

  “In the case, dear.”

  Gran said she loved him, and kissed him again. And they forgot that I was on the platform as the train began to move and disappeared quickly into the mist.

  Two weeks later, on a Wednesday afternoon, the postman rode up on his bicycle. On the carrier, over the back wheel, was strapped a badly wrapped brown-paper parcel. He brought it in, holding it well in front of him, and gave it to Father.

  “You better bury this soon,’’ he said in disgust.

  It was our goose. Wrongly addressed, it had gone to a village in Surrey instead of Sussex.

  Father and Mother and myself carefully inspected it. It was a large bird, quite blue and shrivelled, and it smelled up the kitchen.

  “What do you think?” Mother said.

  Father walked away without replying.

  We had an onion and some stale bread and jam for tea. Mother cut the onion in slices and fried it, and shared it out.

  LMF

  During the Second World War one way of leaving the Forces was to be discharged LMF. LMF stood for “Lack of Moral Fibre.”

  Awarm spring morning. From the glass wall of the apartment I watched two firemen in blue shirts outside the fire station rolling out water hoses until they lay flat. Then, carefully, rolling them up. And carrying them inside. On top of the fire station the four-sided clock said 9:26. I shaved, poured another coffee, lit another cigarillo. I still had a half-hour. The television station at Bloor and Yonge was only a few minutes away. My Canadian publisher had brought out two of my books and I was expected to promote them. The program, I was told, would be taped in front of a small audience at eleven in the morning and broadcast a few hours later.

  In the little waiting room a plump man in a dark blue wrinkled suit was sitting in a chair and looking through a flat attaché case. He looked to be in his thirties. A broad face, a wide mouth, prominent teeth, black wavy hair. As I came in he smiled.

  I sat down against the wall opposite him.

  He looked friendly and anxious to please.

  I asked him when he was going on.

  “I’m Bruce Grace’s secretary,” he said. And smiled again. “He’s here for a concert. It’s sold out. We’ve been to Ottawa, Hamilton, Windsor. They were all sold out.”

  I didn’t know who Bruce Grace was.

  Because he spoke with an accent I asked him where he was from.

  “New Zealand. Have you been there?”

  “No,” I said.

  A tall man came in carrying a book. He had a look of the outdoors about him. He was smiling.

  “Have you read this book?” he asked me.

  “What is it called?”

  “The Way to Happiness.”

  “No,” I said.

  “You must read it,” he said enthusiastically. “It will change your life. I feel a different person since I’ve read it.”

  He looked confident and at ease. A small face with glasses, straight, slightly reddish hair parted on a side, a short neat beard. He wore a light brown safari jacket and light brown boots with high heels.

  He sat in a chair against one wall. His secretary against another. And I against another. The small room seemed to be getting smaller.

  “Could you sign a record for the host?” the secretary said and brought out a record from the attaché case. Then handed him a pen after he removed the top. Bruce Grace signed the record that had his name and photograph on it.

  “You know,” he said to me and continued to smile, “when I go onto the stage—I can feel the love that is coming from the audience. And when I sing—I give it back to them.”

  “I have only heard bad politicians talk that way,” I said.

  Bruce Grace stopped smiling.

  His secretary began to look uneasy.

  “What do you do?” Bruce Grace asked.

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Then you must have had many disappointments.”

  After that we didn’t speak freely.

  A pretty woman came in, about five foot five. She walked slowly and looked around a bit suspiciously. She was middle-aged but well preserved. She had a slightly puzzled, slightly impish, expression in her face. Finally she sat down in the chair next to me.

  “Is this for the talk show?” she said in a quiet but distinct voice that had something of Europe in it.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Bruce Grace gave her a smile. So did the secretary.

  She looked around the room hardly turning her head. Her face was continually changing expression but the changes were barely noticeable.

  “Why are you all dressed in black?” I asked her.

  “Because I am in mourning for my life.”

  “Chekhov.”

  “Yes,” she said, “The Seagull. Act I.”

  “You must be an actress.”

  “Yes,” she said and whispered her name. All I heard was her first name, Lydia.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have been living in England for most of the last thirty years.”

  “I live some of the year in Paris,” she said. “Some of the year in New York, and in Hollywood. I am in Toronto for a short time doing a play. The director told me to go on this show. He said it will help make people come to see the play.”

  The last person to arrive walked in quickly and sat in the chair beside me on the other side. He was a tall distinguished-looking man in a dark pinstriped single-breasted suit with vest and a watch-chain . . . a red silk tie, a white shirt. He had blue eyes and glasses and brown curly hair. We got to talking. He said he was a psychic. I said nothing. “I earn two thousand dollars a week,” he went on. “No one knows where I live. I have a farm, a wife, and a daughter of fourteen. She likes horses. We have horses. But no one knows where I live. People come to see me from all over the world. They are screened first. Well-known people . . . actors . . . heads of government . . . only rich people.”

  “What do they come to see you for?”

  “About making money. Whether they should go ahead with some project. And when they are going to die.”

  Lydia interrupted timidly. “When will this program be shown?”

  “Today,” I said, “at 1:00 p.m.”

  She looked slightly surprised.

  “I thought it was next week,” she said slowly. “I must let someone know.”

  “Tell me the phone number,” the secretary said. “I’ll do it for you.”

  Lydia hesitated. “I don’t know the number.”

  “Where do they live?”
<
br />   Again she hesitated. Then, reluctantly, said,

  “In Willowdale.”

  “That isn’t enough,” the secretary said, raising his voice. “What’s the street?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Can you tell me the name of the person?”

  She hesitated and lowered her head.

  “It’s my husband.”

  The first to go on was Bruce Grace. A girl assistant came in and led him away. We all watched the small TV monitor in the room, tilted down from the ceiling. As Bruce Grace walked in there was applause from the audience. He smiled easily. He talked easily. He talked about his wife, his children, his home in Switzerland. How he loved them all. How he made these tours every two years. How he flew his airplane. And told a story of flying through a thunderstorm just before landing in Germany. He said he liked singing because it made people happy and he felt happy doing it. And he liked being in Canada . . . He came across as a likeable, open person. It was an excellent performance.

  I was next. And I don’t know whether it was the encounters with the others in the small room or my nervousness. Probably both. But while the commercial was on and before we began . . . I kept thinking . . . what am I doing here? This was show business. What did this have to do with writing? And though something in me wanted to do it well, there was also something in me that disliked the thought that I might be good at it.

  After the opening biographical questions it stopped being a conversation and became a monologue. “I notice,” I said, “that writers in the newspapers here write about how words are misused. But no one has pointed out something more damaging. The way people exaggerate when they use language.”

  “I went to a supermarket,” I continued, “to get some eggs. I went to the section that was marked extra large eggs. I opened a carton of a dozen eggs. They were a dull white and small. An elderly woman beside me, seeing my surprise, said, ‘If you go to those labelled large you would think sparrows have laid them.’

  “Then when I wanted to take a bus to Ottawa. ‘You can go super express or express,’ the person behind the counter told me. ‘What’s the difference?’ ‘Super express doesn’t stop.’

  “I heard kids coming back from school talking about their exams. They didn’t say ‘I passed’ or ‘I failed.’ But said ‘I aced,’ ‘I creamed,’ ‘I bombed.’ It was the language of show business. It’s fine in show business. But anywhere else exaggeration is a form of lying.”

  The host didn’t like the way the conversation was going. He looked worried. He had lines in his forehead. He was scowling.

  I knew I should be talking lightheartedly—not like this. He suddenly changed the subject and asked me something about fishing off the Pacific coast. What fish did I like?

  “Potatoes,” I said.

  The audience laughed. So did the host. And on this happy note he wound up my portion of the program by saying what fine books the two were and he repeated the titles and my name. And I walked off.

  I just wanted to get away. I knew I had done badly. As I approached Lydia, waiting in the wings to come on, she gave me a look. It was the kind of look a professional gives to an amateur.

  Instead of walking straight out of the building, I stopped in the next room where the program was being put out and saw Lydia on several monitors. Her face was in close-up. And, on the screen, she just seemed to grow. All those slight expressions, which I barely noticed when she was sitting beside me, were now registering strongly. She had presence. She had personality—as did Bruce Grace. They both looked much more substantial on the screen than the person I talked to.

  Outside the sun was shining. I walked along the street wondering why I go and do these things. Passing a delicatessen I went in to have a smoked meat sandwich. The large room was almost empty. A short man, in his fifties, in glasses and with neat grey waves in his hair, was standing by the cash register. He showed me to a table in the centre of the room.

  Halfway through the sandwich the man in the grey suit came over.

  “Last week Richard Burton sat in the chair you are sitting in,” he said. “The week before that, Sir Ralph Richardson.”

  I couldn’t get away from it.

  Back in the apartment, I took off my jacket and tie, undid the collar—made myself a cup of coffee. No, I thought, I’m not going to see the program.

  But at one o’clock I walked over and switched on the TV set. Instead of seeing Bruce Grace, the station was showing a debate from the House of Commons in Ottawa . . . A Member of Parliament was standing up and talking. I wondered what was going on. Then a voice said that because of the Quebec referendum the talk show would not be seen.

  I wanted to laugh. I felt relieved, lighthearted. I remember the psychic telling me about life. “Of course it’s meaningless, but if you have no money you’re in trouble.” Then he told me how he believed in destiny. Was this destiny?

  Quebec voted not to separate from Canada and I quickly forgot what happened on the talk show.

  Until two days later.

  The phone rang.

  And someone working on the program said a man in British Columbia saw me on the show and phoned up.

  “He would like you to call him back—collect.”

  And she gave me the number.

  “But it wasn’t shown,” I said.

  “It was blacked out in Ontario and Quebec because of the referendum. But it was shown everywhere else . . . He said he was with you and your wife in Minneapolis.”

  Now I knew this wasn’t right. For my wife had never been to North America.

  “Did he give his name?”

  “Orville,” she said.

  I didn’t know anyone called Orville.

  But for the rest of the week it bothered me. It was the part about Minneapolis. For I had been, for a brief visit, to Minneapolis—or was it St. Paul? It was during the war. While I was training to fly in the West. Disjointed bits and pieces kept coming back. Then I remembered. It could only be Bell—was his first name Orville? I had forgotten. In any case no one called him that. He was always called Bell.

  It was 1943, the late summer. I had just finished a course on a flying station in southern Alberta and along with the entire class was posted to an advanced flying station in Manitoba, near Winnipeg. We had five days’ leave before reporting to Winnipeg. Those who came from this part of the country went home. But there was Harris from Toronto, Bell from British Columbia, and I from Ottawa.

  I am remembering a time thirty-seven years ago, when Bell and Harris were in their mid-twenties and I was nineteen.

  Bell was around five foot ten, well built. He had a clean-cut look: a fine nose, grey eyes deep set, and lots of straight black hair that he combed back. But there was something awkward about him. I don’t mean it in any noticeable way. He smiled, he laughed, he talked well. But sometimes Bell just stared—not for long, but enough to tell me that there was something about Bell I didn’t know.

  Harris was a bit shorter than Bell. When he talked he nearly always seemed to get a laugh out of things. Though he was around twenty-five or twenty-six he looked older. His brown hair had started to recede. He was dapper. He always looked well groomed in the uniform and smelled of after-shave. He wore his forage cap tilted at more of an angle than regulations allowed. He had a pencil moustache above his top lip, kept very thin and neatly trimmed. And he chuckled a lot.

  Where Harris was bubbly, Bell was restrained. He was married less than a year. And though he didn’t talk much about his young wife, he wrote her a letter every day. Harris was married longer but he was on the lookout for girls.

  We came together because we were stuck for five days, far from home, without money, and we didn’t want to hang around the station.

  It was Bell who suggested we go to the States by riding a freight car. Harris and I had not done this before. Bell said he had. So ha
d his father before him. There were freight trains, he said, leaving Winnipeg regularly for Minneapolis. All we had to do was get on. Bell said it would be easy if we just followed him.

  At dusk he led us past the railway yards, a bit into the country. It would still be going slow here, he said. Then we waited for it to get dark. I could hear the lovely sound of a train whistle coming out of nowhere—those two deep notes—and somewhere else it was answered.

  The first freight train was going too fast. Bell said to let it go. But when he saw the second one he shouted, “This is it.” And he ran fast alongside the moving freight cars. So did Harris and I. Bell, on the run, got hold of the iron ladder on the side of a moving freight car and quickly climbed several rungs. I got on behind him. Harris followed. Then Bell climbed up to the end of the iron ladder and, half crouching, he walked along the top of the freight car. I walked after him, on the narrow plank of wood that was on top of the freight car. I saw Bell lie down on his back, fully stretched out. I did the same. He indicated to put my feet on either side of his head and body. He held onto my feet. I had Harris’s feet come down on either side of my head and body. And I held on to his. And in this way we travelled in the dark. There was a wind . . . the stars were out . . . the freight cars shook . . . and we didn’t stop.

  I don’t remember if I slept that night or not but some time in the early morning the freight train stopped. Bell told us to follow him. “We’ll find a nice-smelling empty grain car.” He climbed down the iron ladder. Then ran alongside the motionless freight train. Bell found one that was empty and clean. We pushed the heavy doors apart. Then hopped in.

  The train started to move again. Bell suggested we take our black issue boots and socks off. So we did. And there we were, the three of us . . . sitting at the open edge of the freight car . . . bare feet dangling over the side . . . and watching fields of wheat and buttercups go by.

  After that I don’t remember details. But we did get off when the train slowed down on the outskirts. We had a shower in the YMCA and something to eat. Then, feeling much better, we walked in the wide main streets of Minneapolis. Because of our uniform—blue with white flashes in our forage caps—we kept getting looks from passersby.