A Year of Lesser

by Bergen, David

  “Get away from there,” Hank finally said, pulling at his arm, and it was that sharp tug that forced Johnny to stop. He stumbled back, realizing at that moment that he didn’t really want to find anything, certainly not pieces of Charlene. Turning, he looked up at the sky and then back at the ground.

  Hank kept holding his arm and they slogged back through the drifts, their breath steaming and the bright winter sun making the snow shine. They climbed into Johnny’s car, left the grader idling. And while Hank drove Johnny back to town, Johnny laid his head back and closed his eyes and listened to someone moan in a greedy and helpless voice.

  Johnny when he prays, gets down on his knees. He does this because he needs to appear abject and also his knees begin to hurt after a bit and this too he considers necessary, as if suffering a little is a sort of balm for his soul. That night, at his sister’s house, after everyone was sleeping, Johnny knelt on the cement floor of the basement and tried to pray. For an hour he struggled with short phrases of grief and supplication but his efforts seemed small and selfish. He climbed into bed, rubbed his cold knees, and thought about Charlene’s teeth gleaming past gold as she tipped her glass and her throat moved and the alcohol sank and her eyes lit up.

  He recalled just three hours before, calling Charlene’s mother. She howled into the phone. The father had to wrestle the receiver from her and say, voice shaking, that they would come by in the morning. “For what?” Johnny had the audacity to ask.

  There was no response. The old man hung up the phone.

  Johnny lay there that night, his mind numb; but not completely numb. Pieces of it were excited too, as if he were setting out on a new journey, like starting his life all over again, and guiltily he thrilled at the prospect. When he finally slept, Charlene came to him in a dream and offered him her mouth and eyes and ears and arms and legs and he woke up panicky, fighting off his dead wife and thinking about Loraine, that forbidden fruit, and he realized that he could finally have her. Forever and ever.

  Phil Barkman spoke at Charlene’s funeral. Watching him and listening to him, Johnny was sorry he’d asked the man to participate. Phil was too excited, too happy to have three hundred people staring up at him. He talked about heaven and hell. He spoke of Charlene’s goodness, her inner beauty. He mentioned grace and salvation and the mind of God. He spoke of all these things with an authority he didn’t really have. Still, he sounded convincing.

  He told a story about two men, one rich, one poor, and how the rich man went to hell and the poor man went to heaven and the man in hell wanted a drop of water to cool his lips. “Charlene will need no water,” he said. He raised his fist then, and shook it, calling out, “Because she is where the streams are cool and the water is fresh.”

  Johnny thought of fishing and standing in hip waders and drops of water hitting his cheeks as he let his line fly, and he was happy to be alive.

  Later, there was a gathering in the church basement. They ate buns and butter and pickles and cheese. No jam, no dessert. Older women served coffee and people brushed past Johnny and bent low to whisper in his ear. He nodded and murmured thanks.

  Many people got up to say something about Charlene. They spoke of her sense of humour, her poise, her tenacity. One woman said, “I think of Charlene and those things she wanted and those she didn’t get,” and she looked right at Johnny. Johnny bowed his head and thought he heard Charlene’s mom say yes.

  The women from the book club got up as a group and each read a poem or some prose they remembered Charlene liking. Johnny, listening, was surprised at the amount of love spilling out all around him. He had this sense of being misunderstood, of himself misunderstanding; he even thought at one point that of course these folks could be generous with Charlene: they never had to live with her.

  Johnny was sitting beside Charlene’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Rempel. Mrs. Rempel cried softly throughout the service and the small meal. Mr. Rempel held her hand. He had arthritis and his little fingers were bent like bows. His knuckles were chafed, their sharpness reminded him of Charlene’s. This moved Johnny.

  The following day he drove to their home in Winnipeg and shared with them how he’d found Charlene. He explained about the night before her death; he did not say she was drunk. He sensed from Mrs. Rempel an animosity, hatred even. Her eyes were fawn-like and drooping in grief and she focused on his face and wouldn’t let him go. He would try to stare her down, but found himself clearing his throat and turning away.

  Mrs. Rempel wanted to know about this other woman. Her eyes enlarged. Disdain appeared and then evaporated. She said, “You had another woman, didn’t you?”

  Johnny did not respond at first. Finally, he said, “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it does. You were having sex with that other woman.”

  These particular words, erupting from Mrs. Rempel’s mouth, had a certain power. She punched out the syllables and it was obvious to Johnny she was not free with herself; just like Charlene, who could leap from bawdiness to modesty but was never really at ease with the fact of sex.

  “Yes,” Johnny said. “I was seeing another woman.”

  “Charlene told me, you see. Last year, already.”

  “Ahhh.” Johnny wanted the conversation to stop. The baby would be next.

  It was.

  “And there was going to be a child?”

  “Yes.” Johnny’s voice was small. He wanted to run. This woman was merciless.

  “She probably killed herself.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean she deliberately set fire to that house. Charlene never had the capacity for that kind of thing. She didn’t have a particularly strong backbone. Bit of a jellyfish, wasn’t she, Peter? If she’d had any kind of self-awareness, she would have walked out on you. She was too beautiful.”

  Johnny wanted to disagree. She wasn’t beautiful. Instead, he said, “It wasn’t all me. She had her own brain. Her own problems, that had little to do with me. And besides, you raised her.”

  “Stop it.” Mr. Rempel, in the background, leaned forward in his chair and almost tipped.

  Mrs. Rempel’s eyes were deep and stark as if she’d seen a vision. She turned to her husband and said, “This Johnny Fehr, he is a sick man. A very sick man.”

  But Johnny had his own vision: one of Charlene’s head nodding up and down, her teeth deep in his own flesh. He cleared his throat and said, “No, he’s not, Mrs. Rempel, he’s not.”

  After he’s left the Rempels’, Johnny goes to a drive-thru and orders a hamburger and a Coke. He parks, idles the car, and sits in the warmth watching the traffic on Henderson Highway. It’s a cold day and the exhaust billows and hangs. Pedestrians scuttle, huddling under their coats. Johnny wonders where Charlene is, if she’s looking down on him. “Charlene,” he says, and the sound of his voice startles him.

  The day before, at the internment, the weather had been so harsh that people had to stand, backs to the wind, and stomp their feet. The snow squeaked, Harvey Bergmann sang a song, his mouth a perfect black hole. Charlene’s coffin hung above the grave on black straps which were connected to a pulley system. It was an oak casket, lined with white satin.

  “What’s the point?” Johnny had asked the undertaker, a few days earlier. “Her body’s a mess.”

  The undertaker, a short, soft-voiced man with a black mustache, had said, “People like the idea of a casket, it lends a solidity to the mourning. I’d suggest standing a photograph of Charlene on it. Do you have one?”

  Mrs. Rempel had a picture of Charlene. It was taken just before her marriage to Johnny. She was standing in front of the summer cottage; her dress was knee-length and flowery. A breeze or a toss of her head had messed her hair slightly; she was smiling and looking away from the camera, off towards the lake or perhaps a person standing out of the picture. She looked expectant, happy. At the funeral, people said how lovely Charlene was in the photograph, and even Johnny found himself going back to sneak looks, as if he couldn’t
quite believe that this was the same woman he had married.

  The mounds of earth at the graveside were covered with a green outdoor carpet. It reminded Johnny of a cheaply finished patio deck or a mini golf course. Johnny had the urge to point at it and laugh, but he didn’t. He kicked at a loose clump of dirt. The diggers would have had to heat the ground, he knew that. They probably set up gas heaters and scraped the defrosted earth away with a backhoe. Frozen earth was like rock.

  After Harvey Bergmann had closed his mouth and his words were whipped away by the wind, Phil said the final prayer. Johnny heard Phil’s voice but the words made little sense, something about the dead in Christ rising incorruptible. Johnny’s toes were cold in his thin black boots. His lungs ached. He lifted his head at one point and saw in the bright sky a sparrow flit by and disappear. Johnny realized he was standing all alone. The rest of the people gathered by Charlene’s grave were holding each other, either out of grief or because of the chill. No one was holding him.

  The tips of his boots just touched the green rug. The hard powder of snow sifted onto the shoulders of his black coat, covered his arms, his hair, fell in behind his collar. After the prayer and a short song the mourners left. Johnny stayed on, watching the casket sway slightly in the wind. Then he turned and walked back to the hearse and climbed in beside Phil Barkman who was waiting for him.

  For Christmas dinner Johnny dresses in a black suit. No tie though. He’s wearing Roy’s clothes because his own were destroyed in the fire. The jacket’s a little tight, the pant legs short; the image is of a man not finished growing. He brings gifts, a cassette for Chris, perfume for Loraine, and he carries a bottle of white wine.

  He has not spent much time with other people since Charlene’s death and so is uncertain about his behaviour. The few times he entered Chuck’s for coffee he felt an obligation to exhibit grief, and usually he failed. Even in the earliest days, when his sorrow was immense and carved up his insides, he seemed not to deliver what was expected. He laughed when in fact he shouldn’t have laughed at all. He talked about hockey and curling, inconsequential events. He drank coffee with other men and saw what they saw: Johnny Fehr, a hollow, flawed man. A sinner thick with desire. The unfortunate instrument of his wife’s death. But, a fortunate man too, and how, to be led so easily into another woman’s bed.

  And Johnny too, standing at Loraine’s door the day after Christmas, tapping lightly on the knocker, sees he is a lucky man. There is the knowledge that he has in some way been snatched from a downward spiral.

  Melody answers the door, her braces gleaming, saying, “Hi, Johnny,” and in turn, Johnny leans down and kisses her on the cheek, this girl he barely knows, brushes past her lips actually and he breathes in peanuts and sage; her cheek is downy, the eyes long and narrow in the light. She accepts his kiss, doesn’t flinch.

  “Merry Christmas,” he says.

  “You too, Johnny,” she says, careful with him, as if he were precious. She stretches out a hand and takes the wine. He sheds his coat and boots and follows Melody. She’s wearing jeans with holes in her bum; he can see paisley boxers. Her top is a sleeveless knit, her arms are white and thin. Johnny’s brief contact just now with Melody has made her more accessible, worth studying, and he wonders for a moment how brave Chris is with her.

  Loraine is in the kitchen fiddling with the dressing. She looks up and smiles. Her face is reddened from hovering over a turkey all day. She licks a finger and says, “I hate this part, too hectic.”

  Johnny kisses her on the cheek. She is heavier, even though he saw her two days earlier. The damp brow, the belly pushing against her light top, her lips blowing out exhaustion, all this makes her sloppy and maternal. Johnny wants to stagger and fall, he is so happy. Loraine, however, does not have time to dwell on the state of his mind and her body. She shoos him off to the living room where he finds Avi and Michael buried in a couch, sipping wine and muttering in each other’s ears.

  The TV is on, a football game, but no one’s watching. Michael stands and shakes Johnny’s hand and then they make small talk and nobody says anything important, though they seem to want to. Avi gets more wine from the server and Johnny watches her. She’s tall and sort of awkward as if she were a large baby bird learning to fly. Johnny thinks she may have had too much to drink but realizes quickly enough that this is her walk. She’s wearing dark blue culottes and dark stockings. Her calves are thick down to the ankle. Her hair is short, offering a lot of neck, and her eyes are big and steady. When Johnny focuses on her face she looks right back at him and says, finally, “I knew Charlene, we were in the book club together. I’m sorry.”

  Johnny can’t get away from her eyes. He nods. That’s all; he’s learned not to attempt more.

  “How are you doing?” Avi asks.

  Johnny draws a knee up and plays with a hole in his sock. “Fine,” he says. “Now. For a while there I was angry and full of revenge and guilt.”

  Avi lifts her chin. “I see,” she says.

  Johnny can see that this woman doesn’t like him. Her face and body are hostile. This does not surprise him. He can tell she has a modern touch; university-bred, hawkish, predator, out to devour men like him. Still, he finds her greedy mouth, her sharp nose, exhilarating. Behind every woman like this, Johnny thinks, is a needy woman who wants to be coaxed. She is a challenge. Bed me, her body says.

  Johnny slides deeper into the chair he has chosen. “I’m still low,” he says. “Some days I feel I may slither around in muck for the rest of my life. But,” he brightens, “these are the necessary stages, aren’t they. I have to leap from rock to rock across the pond of grief.”

  Johnny wonders where this line came from, he is not usually poetic. His phrase seems to have surprised Avi as well. She half-lifts her glass and says, “I liked Charlene.”

  Johnny smiles and says, “So did I.”

  Michael, saving his woman, interrupts at this moment and asks Johnny if he likes to hunt.

  “For what?” Johnny asks, wary of this new man from the city who should ideally be worrying about forests, not killing animals. He is a burly, hairy man. Big jawed. Thick chested. He could crack Johnny.

  “Small game, birds, geese, ducks. Or big. Bear, deer, moose.”

  Johnny slides even lower. “I do a little,” he says. “Every fall I do the goose thing. I’ve never hunted bear.” He does not admit that he dislikes hunting. He goes for the drinking, the time out with the men.

  “I’ll take you sometime,” Michael says. He is leaning forward, his teeth shine. Johnny wants to rub his finger along them.

  Avi’s head appears at Michael’s shoulder. Her nostrils go in and out. She says, “Michael’s one vice is hunting. His house is full of pelts and stuffed animals. It’s eerie, especially the little birds. Of course, I’m against hunting.”

  What are you for? Johnny wants to say, but he doesn’t. He’s watching Avi’s tongue appear and then disappear as she savours her wine. Her mouth is close to Michael’s ear, she’s leaning into him and Johnny understands at that moment that these two are lovers—not that he doubted it before. But now it’s so obvious, the quickness of breath, even the scent of them together. Johnny wonders if Avi likes to lie naked on one of those hoary bears, if she cradles that fanged mouth as Michael climbs her.

  His thoughts, both perverse and creative, are interrupted by the appearance of Loraine. She’s removed her apron and she’s pushing back her hair. Her arms are bare, the undersides white. She is exhausted and content. Johnny rises and offers her his hand and then the chair, but she refuses both.

  “We’re ready,” she says, and bends slightly towards Michael and Avi, the strange guests Johnny finds he does not like, one for her impertinence, the other for his love of dead animals, something Johnny, the country boy, is expected to share. But he doesn’t. The thump of a big bird hitting the ground has always managed to sicken him.

  Melody, picking up a slice of white meat, wants to know what a physicist does. The word, hissin
g through her braces, makes the occupation sound tired and deflated. However, Michael seems not to notice her difficulty and, armed with an answer, wants to illuminate the group. His fork points at the ceiling, his eyes lift in thought. Johnny wonders what Avi sees in a man like this, though he does consider that they deserve each other.

  “We look for ways to explain the world,” Michael says.

  Johnny looks over at Loraine but she is intent on watching Michael whose whole physical self has changed. The snarly aggressive hunter is replaced by a glowing fanatic. His head is lit up in a way that suggests photons travelling at the speed of light, his eyes are bright with weightlessness, as if drifting through space.

  “Illumination,” he says. “Everyone lives for that moment, for those three minutes or three days, where we break through the mundane and experience bliss.”

  Loraine says, “Sounds religious,” and she looks at Johnny, who, with that last statement, is scratching his head. This does sound like a spiritual event, something that Johnny can understand.

  Michael confirms this. He says, “It is religious in a way. Rather like Paul on the road to Damascus being blinded by a light. A form of salvation.”

  Melody interrupts. This confuses her. “But,” she says, “you don’t believe in God, do you?”

  Michael laughs. Avi is quiet. She doesn’t like Michael controlling the conversation. “It may seem odd,” Michael continues, “for a scientist to believe in God. Some physicists do. There is a particle physicist, John Polkinghorne, who took up the priesthood.”

  Johnny is impatient. He wants to make jokes, to laugh at this man who is tarnishing Johnny’s domain. He is making light of religion, of faith. The man is all brain, a sort of walking grey matter, who obviously has no sense of pleasure other than killing animals. Johnny holds up his hand as if in school and says, “So, when you look for this God of yours, you and your colleagues, you ignore happiness and fear, joy and pain. Your God is a mathematician and that’s that?”