Miss Elva

by Stephens Gerard Malone

  “Would John Solomon Purvis please step forward,” began the day’s affairs after a call to order and some official swearing of stuff on Bibles. Rilla had told her daughter that everyone has to tell the truth after swearing, but Elva wasn’t clear if the book made you do it or it was something you yourself had to come up with. Might be a bit of a flaw in the whole thing as far as Elva was concerned.

  When the elderly man came in, he glanced up and nodded to Rilla. Not like that Jeanine Barthélemy, sitting down there in the same row as the mayor and town council. She never looked at Elva or Rilla again. But Mr. Purvis did. Elva knew him now on account of him being such a kindly man when after the fire he said, Might as well bury them here, place is ruined for anything else. So they did. Elva was glad. Everything black and crunchy didn’t seem so hurtful surrounded by all that cool lake water.

  He was directed by one of the three men sitting at a long table on the stage, flanked by red-velvet curtains. They all wore dark suits, and the man in the middle, who appeared to be the leader but who never spoke except behind his hand when he leaned sideways to the others, had round glasses and a wooden hammer. It was only an inquiry and not a court with milords, but he’d hammer away just the same.

  Mr. Purvis stepped onto the stage aided by a cane more for show than support. He’d told Elva it was called a shillelagh, came all the way from Ireland and if anyone got out of sorts at the proceedings, he’d bop them on the head. She managed her first smile in weeks after that.

  His elegant, suited appearance silenced the theatre to hushed whispers. Well, take a good look. This was the crackpot who’d built that oversized playground on the island. The first witness of the day sat at the small table in the corner and folded his hands.

  Did he swear to tell the truth? the man on the left was asking.

  “Naturally.” He gave his name and said he was retired from the Bickford-Ensign Company. “Yes, sir, indeed they do make fuses.”

  Where was he from?

  “Connecticut, where I make my home, but I summer here. I came years ago on vacation. That’s how I purchased the land. A hobby of sorts.”

  So he was, in fact, the owner of the island in Ostrea Lake.

  Mr. Purvis nodded.

  What could he say of the damage?

  “Destroyed completely.”

  “Where you aware of any machinery stored on the island?”

  “From time to time, for the gardens, to build the structures.”

  “Any petrol?”

  “Yes, I believe so. In a shed, by a shed, maybe.” He looked around the theatre as if to add, I bet you sons-of-bitches will all come now to see the island.

  They thanked Mr. Purvis.

  And that was that.

  Rilla said, “Sit back, Elva, and pay attention.”

  Someone with a round silver microphone from the radio station in Halifax was explaining to “Hello out there in Radioland!” that Mr. Purvis had just left the stand. Very silkily he added that the sponsor for this hour was McCaffery’s Tooth Powder, for the happiest smiles of your life.

  The policeman was next.

  He appeared smaller down on the stage than in person. When he sat, he removed his hat and put it on the table beside him. Elva hadn’t noticed before that he was balding and he’d shaved off what was left. He looked very nervous.

  “You led the investigation of the island after the fire?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “What were your findings?”

  “The fire started on the island. We found two bodies, sir. On the shore farthest away from town.”

  There was a gasp in the theatre, although everyone already knew that.

  “Were you able to identify them?”

  The policeman’s head was sweating but he made no move to wipe if off, in case it was rude.

  “Yes, sir. Guillaume Barthélemy and the Indian girl, Jane Twohig.”

  No, it’s not Gil, said Elva.

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, sir.” The policeman swallowed like a big lemon jujube had gone down sideways. “She looked as if she’d … miscarried.”

  The official man in the middle had to hammer the table to bring order. Folks weren’t used to hearing about dead babies in public like that. The radio man was talking a mile a minute into his microphone.

  “All from Demerett Bridge,” the policeman added when he could.

  Elva wasn’t sure if you could say that about the baby considering it hadn’t been around long enough to be from anywhere.

  “What can you say about the deceased?”

  “Well, the Indian girl looked like she was dead before the fire.”

  “What makes you say that, and remember, constable, there are ladies present.”

  He said there was no evidence that she’d fought the flames.

  “And young Barthélemy?”

  No evidence of that either.

  “Thank you, constable. Anything else?”

  “Well, sir, it appears Guillaume Barthélemy—”

  “Yes?”

  “We think he started the fire.”

  Jeanine was shaking her head, shouting at the men behind the table, but Elva couldn’t hear what because everyone else was shouting too.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Continue.”

  “By accident. There was a gun, sir.”

  “Had it been used?”

  “Yes, sir. On himself.”

  That caused another uproar, and Elva leaned back into Rilla’s arms. It’s not Gil.

  “The bullet, begging your pardon,” continued the policeman, finally having no choice but to wipe off his head, “after it passed through Barthélemy, must have hit the gas can nearby. That how the fire started.”

  Someone with a weak stomach ran up the aisle and out the door, letting in the sounds of the Preston choir and the growing crowd getting nearer my God to thee.

  “Were you able to determine who owned the gun?”

  “Yes, sir. Amos Stearns. Deceased. The Indian girl’s mother worked for him.”

  Worked, indeed. That brought laughter. Elva squeezed Rilla’s hand.

  The pause in the proceedings made the fairies and snow princesses restless, stamping their saddle shoes, making Elva pukey from their cigarettes.

  “Now they’re bringing in the next witness,” the radio man was saying in a church voice as the doors in back opened and people craned for a glimpse. “This, folks, is the man everyone is here to see. The very man who saved that young girl’s life!” Radio man’s last word came out kind of breathless.

  The witness was on a bed carried by four Franciscans in coarse robes and sandals, even though it was nigh December. Only his head stuck out from under the blankets and his face was completely bandaged. A nurse with a hat that curled at its edges carried a bottle, hooked to a pole, hooked to him. She smiled at the policeman who now stood off to the side. The nurse was part of the medical contingent that came from Halifax and as far away as Saint John, turning the monastery into a field hospital to deal with all the cases of smoke inhalation and burns.

  “They’re placing him centre stage.”

  There was no point in hammering the table until everyone had resumed sitting. They’d all ignore it anyhow.

  “Your name, sir? We must have your name for the proceedings.”

  He would not be able to be heard, so one of the Franciscans hovered over the mummy-man and acted as a megaphone.

  “He says, Domenique Barthélemy.”

  Liar!

  “This inquiry thanks you, Mr. Barthélemy, for being here. We offer condolences and we’ll be brief, under the circumstances. Now what can you tell us about the night of the fire?”

  Dom’s aide bent low and listened. Everyone in the movie theatre did likewise. Someone sniffled. Elva thought it sounded like a Jeanine Barthélemy sniffle. Father Cértain was beside her and offered a handkerchief.

  When Dom was finished the monk nodded, stood, folded his hands and addressed t
he panel.

  “Domenique Barthélemy, brother to the deceased, says the Indian Twohig asked him to take her to the island to hide the shame of her illegitimate child. They were met and challenged by Guillaume Barthélemy. Domenique Barthélemy says his brother was distraught over the Indian Twohig’s condition for which he claimed responsibility. Domenique Barthélemy says he tried to convince his brother to return home. He would not. During an altercation between the two men, the Indian Twohig succumbed to the effects of a miscarriage.”

  Rilla had Elva’s hand clutched in hers, slowly squeezing tightly until Elva was sure her mother was thinking, Why couldn’t it have been you?

  “Guillaume Barthélemy then shot himself with a gun the Indian Twohig had given to Domenique Barthélemy for her protection, the bullet continuing on into a can of gasoline. Domenique Barthélemy received these extensive injuries when he tried to contain the blaze.”

  Was that everything?

  “That is the evidence.”

  While everyone else debated what they’d heard, and the man with the microphone gave his listeners an idea of how many bandages wrapped Dom’s face, the three men at the table conferred behind the hands of the man in the middle.

  “Order, please! This inquiry thanks Domenique Barthélemy and wishes no further questions for this witness.”

  The entourage, and nurse, packed Dom up and carried him out of the theatre. Jeanine Barthélemy had to be restrained by Father Cértain.

  “Why doesn’t he want to see me, his own mother?” she kept saying. “Why?”

  Outside, the crowd broke off being nearer to God and silently cleared a swathe. Men removed their hats. Dom had refused to be sent to Halifax for treatment, and the monastery had become his hospital, then his home. He would rarely be seen again outside of its walls.

  John Ingram was the last witness to be called. It was getting close up in the balcony, feathers were falling out, and the projectionist was bitchin’ that he had The Road to Mandalay with Lon Chaney waiting in the wings.

  John made his way to the witness table, his hands clasped together as if in prayer, eyes lifted to the theatre ceiling, which would have to pass for heaven. He had no suit coat or Sunday tie, but his shirt was buttoned to the neck and he looked well scrubbed.

  Poomff! Poomff! The press loved him. The photographer from the Halifax paper missed John’s entrance and could he please walk across the stage again. The inquiry, and John, accommodated the request, and when he was finally seated John was asked what he knew about the fire.

  With his hands pressed together, shaking them skyward, he said, “We were saved by the tears of—”

  He couldn’t say, John being one of those folks who’s too Catholic to say Jesus unless they’ve accidentally whacked the crap out of a finger. Then it’s usually accompanied by fuckin’ or jumpin’ or both. So he just looked humble, knowing that everyone could tell he’d been touched by the nameless one. Hollywood’s flickering black-and-white images emoting on the movie screen had nothing on this guy.

  “It’s a miracle, I tell you! I saw it with my own eyes! A miracle! Domenique Barthélemy called on the Lord and it rained right then, and saved Demerett Bridge, I swear it before God!”

  The less than scientific in the crowd were on their feet shouting, waving, fainting, Liar! or Praise God! drowning out the hammering from the stage. John’s declaration was carried by commotion outside to the preacher, who pushed forward, insisting he be let inside and that no miracle was going to happen without his okay. The man chairing the inquiry from the long table finally took to his feet and, with outstretched arms, begged to be heard. John was not finished. Running to the edge of the stage, he insisted it was all true.

  “If you don’t believe me, ask her!”

  He pointed directly at Elva in the balcony.

  “Domenique Barthélemy saved her, us! She’s the girl, the girl in the fountain! She knows what happened! She saw him do it!”

  “We’re out of here,” Rilla said, glancing to the doorway.

  Wings began to flutter. The angels had other plans. People from outside, spurred on by the head of steam the choir had built up, poured into the theatre, clogging the stairwells to the balcony. Those seated below pushed backwards for a glimpse of Elva, trapping those in the balcony from any exit.

  “Bring her down. She must give evidence!”

  The angels were swarmed by folks from outside desperate to squeeze in for a seat, breaking their feathered appendages, shoving them out of the way. Rilla, hanging on to Elva, helplessly tried to break through the crowd to the stairs. On the stage, they were banging that stupid wooden mallet and calling for Elva. Some kindly sorts around Rilla said she couldn’t get down that way, too many people.

  “Then hand her over the balcony!”

  Over the balcony? Elva clung tightly to her mother. Rilla’s hat was knocked over her eye.

  “They want her down below, ma’am. Let’s go, little lady! Won’t hurt you a bit. We won’t drop you, ha ha.”

  They had to pry Elva’s fingers one by one off her mother.

  Stop them!

  Rilla said, “She can’t say anything” as they gently but forcefully took Elva and lifted her over the balcony to the outstretched arms below.

  There you go, they said, Didn’t hurt a bit, did it?

  One of the men on the stage yelled this was most irregular.

  They passed Elva over heads up to the stage. Whee!

  Poomff! Poomff!

  It’s the half-breed Indian girl some claim witnessed the miracle, the man behind the microphone was saying after reminding them for the umpteenth time to brush their teeth as a terrified Elva sailed overhead. Flashes and hot bulbs were bouncing from cameras everywhere. They put Elva in the witness chair and thrust a Bible at her. The lights were blinding and she held it with the wrong hand. The man in the middle raised his arms and the theatre finally went silent. Elva looked like a wee bird up there and even her mother in the balcony could see her trembling. Outside, whistles were blowing from the police trying to control the restive crowd from spilling into the street. Someone coughed and Rilla said, “She can’t speak.”

  Almost six weeks to the day after the fire, Major came back. Rilla had just left in the truck to make laundry rounds. She no longer went to Raven River. Elva was at the sink washing dishes when she glanced out the window and there he was, sitting pretty-as-you-please in the middle of the driveway.

  Elva almost sailed through the screen door and headfirst into the gravel getting to him, and Gil’s dog was just as excited to see her. He was limping from a burn that had begun to scab and pus over on his back leg and he was dreadfully thin, but otherwise happy to be back where he considered home.

  “Sweet Jesus!” Rilla said when she came back and found Elva sketching the dog on the front porch. After all that had happened, she’d given up on the not swearing thing and hoped the good Lord wouldn’t hold it against her on Judgment Day.

  Of course he has to stay, Rilla conceded, after what that poor animal had endured, and they could only imagine! She helped Elva put salve on the dog’s wound and they fed him in turns until he’d eaten his fill. Elva wanted Major to sleep in her bed that night, but there was no way he’d leave that spot outside Gil and Oak’s old room.

  Several days later Rilla told Elva the dog needed air and she thought his leg was up to it. No doubt he missed his walks with, well, you know. Elva was glad to get away from Kirchoffer Place. Sometimes it was crowded. Foundry workers were back and Jane and Oak were there when they were not there. Strike over, there was no fear waiting in the fields, only memories, but maybe the dragonflies would scare those off by next summer.

  She’d wanted to go to the beach, remembering that Major liked to swim and drink scoopfuls of seawater. How he never got sick, Elva didn’t know. Instead he darted across the road and chose a path around the tar ponds. She still had trouble keeping up. Every morning, they took the same route, to the same place.

  PART TWO
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br />   1970

  STUPID FUCKIN’ CHRIST, said little Harry Winters—except Harry wasn’t little any more. The water he threw at Elva dripped off her face onto the breadbox she was painting.

  Another rumour of a miracle in the tabloids had sent Winters to the cathedral for more holy water from the fountain. Surely if the tears of the Lord quelled seizures in some Dartmouth kid whose parents had more than enough to pay for a good doctor, they could make Winters a woman he might bear to touch, eh? Well, no miracle today. Just a disappointed Harry putting an old honey jar in the shape of a teddy bear on the shelf by the window, in case the water did work later on warts.

  Elva’s husband disappeared for the rest of the day, returning late with a gal he’d sat across from at the bingo hall in Duplak’s former emporium. The king of the five-and-dime was long gone, didn’t even see out the end of the war, but his store still smelled of pine shavings and overripe fruit. Mrs. La-de-da tried to make a go of it, but after a few years she sold up and vanished into a mysterious place called New Jersey. Lion’s Bingo was on the nameplate over the door now and, as everyone including Winters knew, legions or bingo halls were better than a bar for hooking up with women, if you weren’t too particular about hair like cotton candy or a mouth full of Juicy Fruit.

  His bingo marker had run out and that cheap bastard would never buy a new one, not when there was a smiling woman with pink lip gloss and emerald lids who’d lend you one. Not that she was any great shakes. But his old dad used to say, Harry, you’ve got the dick, they’ve got the slit. So when she offered Winters her orange marking stick, he winked and she grinned back and he knew he had this one bagged.

  “That her?” Her face flushed as Winters pushed her in through the door. They both stank of draft beer, somehow managing to hold each other up. “Poor dear. Don’t look like much.”

  Then she saw the paintings. Wild, vibrant, raw, brilliantly coloured, everywhere, on everything, a maze, a map, astounding.

  Winters licked the back of the woman’s neck and laughed. “I’ll have to charge you two bucks likes I get from the tourists if you look any longer.”