Reading by Lightning

by Joan Thomas

  What would happen if someone did turn you in? I ask. We’re lying near the loft opening, where I can see the road and the house.

  I’d be hauled off to a concentration camp in Alberta. To Kananaskis, where they’re keeping the German POWs. I’d be put in a cabin with a bunch of fucking Fascists, pardon my language. I’d have a bull’s eye sewn onto my back so I could be shot on sight if I left the camp.

  Are you serious?

  I’m serious. I’d be bunked with Nazis and they’d know why I was there and they’d beat the crap out of me every night while the guards played cards.

  But what would they say at your trial? I turn in his arms, observing by the way he holds my waist how slender it is.

  There wouldn’t be a trial.

  So I don’t understand how they could put you in prison.

  I’d be charged with belonging to an unlawful organization. Or I’d be charged with sedition, exciting ill will, creating discontent. Either way, they wouldn’t have to try me. We’re under the War Measures Act at the moment.

  What about the people who hide you? I ask.

  Oh, he says. They’d be shot. Summary execution. He pinches the soft skin of my upper arm. No, my gallant collaborator, a wholesome farm girl like yourself, you’d be below their regard. Though they might start a file on you. It could have been nasty for Esther, where I stayed in Montreal, because she and Martin have links with the Party.

  Russell casually pulls the blanket over himself, although he can’t be cold. But it’s not even that, he says. It’s more that you don’t want to give the bastards the satisfaction. When did the Germans invade the Soviet Union? June ’41. So for a year now it’s been Russia holding back the Fascists. And the feds are still chasing us down! Some people would rather see Germany win the war than have the Bolsheviks win it for us. At least the Germans believe in God.

  This is interesting, but I suddenly can’t listen, I come back to something.

  What does Esther do? I ask.

  She does typing.

  Do they have kids?

  Four, four boys.

  Were they in school?

  Three were. The smallest would be about five now. Esther works at home.

  Russell launches into a long story about the husband, Martin, how the police broke into Martin’s shop when he was out and waited for him to come back. He ran a press that was known to do printing jobs for the Party. While they were waiting the police pissed on the floor and started a fire in the stove with his antique printing blocks. Martin was taking his usual long lunch in a café somewhere. He was a big talker — that’s what saved him from being picked up, how long he talked at lunch. Someone went to the café and warned him, so Martin went into hiding too, in the cellar of someone else’s house.

  So when was this? I ask.

  I guess it was early in 1940.

  Just after you moved into their cellar? I ask.

  Yeah, I guess it must have been.

  If you were safe in Martin and Esther’s cellar, why couldn’t Martin just stay home?

  He couldn’t come home. They were watching the house. We could see them, two swells sitting in a car playing cards. Esther liked baiting them. She’d walk out and ask them if there was some problem. Something the neighbours should know about. She’d offer them coffee.

  So why did you leave? I ask.

  It was just time, he says. Time to move on.

  I feel hurt rise up in my chest and I sit up and start brushing the straw off my blouse.

  Hey, he says, pulling me back, pinning me down. Never mind that. Never mind getting all huffy. He knows right away what I’m on about; that tells me everything. I wriggle an arm free and cover my face with it. In the dark I can feel tears stinging in my eyes.

  Hey, Lily, he says.

  What about in Toronto? I ask. The woman who was selling her silverware? Were you sleeping with her too?

  She was seventy-six, he says. Mind you, she did have a bosom on her for an old bird.

  He pulls my arm off my face. Think about it, he says. He props himself up on one elbow beside me. Lily. Before you get all worked up, think about how I’ve been after you for years.

  Well, yes, I say, with a sob. What was that about? You didn’t have the slightest clue who I was. You met me once. it was just stupid.

  I liked what I saw, he says stubbornly. I had an impulse and I followed it. It’s not a bad way to live.

  He leans over me and toys with the hair on my temple. I watch him, I trace the lines around his mouth with my eyes. His face is blunt-featured, amused, kind. He is knowing and contained. He gazes back at me and I can’t look away. Remember this, I say to myself. Remember how he thinks.

  Betty comes. She steps into the kitchen, holding Billy and a plate of matrimonial cake for Mother. I offer to take Billy to see the cats to forestall her going out to the barn. Russell must have seen us cross the yard, because he climbs down the ladder and perches on it, watching us. Billy is fighting to get out of my arms. As soon as I put him down he sets off in a wide-legged run after the cats, who melt away before him. Blue nuzzles at Russell’s knees, his tail wagging.

  The kid’s not a talker? Russell asks, reaching out to pet Blue.

  Maybe under torture, I say. But normally all he says is No! No! No! And he barks. I crouch in front of Billy. What do doggies say, Billy? What do doggies say?

  The last cat disappears up into the rafters and Billy starts to wail. I pick him up. He may not be barking this afternoon, I say, but the boy can bark. I’m standing close to the ladder and Russell runs his fingers over the fine skin behind my knee, stroking my bare calf. Is your sister-in-law likely to stay long? he asks.

  A couple of hours, I guess.

  Let’s take off, he says. Think of an excuse.

  On my way back to the house I set Billy down in the yard and go back to the well and draw up the honey pail of lemonade we keep there. And also two bottles of Russell’s beer, which I carry over to the Ford and slide under the seat. The lemonade I take into the house.

  Just two, I say to Betty, when she reaches down glasses. I won’t have any. If you’re going to be here for a while, I thought I might go to town.

  Oh? she says, surprised, a little hurt. I had a nice long letter from Phil this morning. I was going to tell you all his news. She’s cut her hair to the middle of her back and it’s softer and wavier.

  I won’t be long, I say. I go back out into the sunlight, trying to shake off her disappointment, thinking, I should have told her how nice she looks.

  I drive the truck west up to the Lookout, and stop about where Russell slid off the road that afternoon eight years ago. Remember this spot? I ask.

  Too well, he says. This time he doesn’t bother with coy little games to get his arm around me — he’s behaving like a man too hungry to taste his food. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days because it’s such a nuisance to heat water, and his beard is rough against my face.

  Russell, I murmur. Let’s get out. I open the door and almost tumble out the side of the truck. I walk around to the front and lean back against the hood.

  This is what we call a major geological feature on the prairies, I say.

  Pretty impressive, he says, following me without once looking at the view. He’s wearing his plaid shirt, he’s looking at me with frank intention, and in this light I can see the glints of gold in his hazel irises.

  You know, that day when I was swimming in the river, I say. I thought you came especially to look for me.

  Well, I would have if I’d known what I’d be finding, he says gallantly. I used to spend a lot of time just driving around, whenever Dad would let me have the car. I was always trying to get away from Loretta.

  Loretta?

  Charlotte’s mom. My stepmother, I guess I should call her. So that day I guess I ended up at the river. And lo and behold, there was the beauteous Miss Lily Piper, her long legs sticking out of a fetching antique bathing costume.

  My legs, eh? I say, grasping his
hands that have gone straight for them. That’s what you remember? That’s why you were writing letters to me three years later!

  Largely, he says humorously.

  Men are so strange, I say.

  What do you remember from when we met?

  Outside the store?

  Yes.

  You weren’t wearing a hat and you didn’t have a tan line on your forehead.

  My freaking tan line. Well, I find that stranger. He presses me back against the hood of the Ford, his hands grasping my backside, up under my skirt, his mouth on my breast, leaving wet marks on my blouse. This is to be a different version of what we’ve had before. Caw, caw, caw, caw, a crow cries from somewhere above us. And another four quick calls: caw, caw, caw, caw.

  Hey, I say, pushing him away. Don’t be crazy.

  We get back into the truck and turn up the Parrots’ lane, to where the abandoned brick house sinks into the yard, almost invisible behind overgrown lilacs and caraganas and willows. Russell’s driving. He stops the truck behind the house where no one can see it from the road. The last time I was actually in this yard was for their sale, the Parrots’ sale, and Russell was there then too.

  The grass is almost to our knees and we leave a trail wading from the Ford to the house. The back door stands a few inches open. He pushes it farther and we step in. No one’s lived here since the Parrots. An inch of dirt from the dust storms lies over the floor like a rug, patterned with curls of bird droppings and the wavy tracks of snakes. Thistles poke up along the edge where a floorboard is missing. There’s still a stove there, with swallows’ nests plastered all around the chimney. Pretty spooky, he says. He presses me against the crooked door frame and kisses me, if this urgent business of tongue and teeth can be called a kiss.

  When we finally settle, it’s in the grass between the house and the shed, we sink into the lush grass under a tree, breaking the grass under us, him pressing on me, silent, relentless. Beyond his shoulder green branches sway. From the tree above I see my legs against the grass, my panties around one ankle, my body displayed to the startled sky, skin white in the sunlight. He’s pursued by something that hardly has to do with me — I can only retreat from it. It doesn’t matter, the fact of it is the same. In a moment it’s done, my body is marked inside and out. He rolls over and turns his face against the grass to look at me. He lies in his pleasure and I lie in mine, the pleasure of hearing his final cry. When we get up and pull our clothes on and wade back through the grass to the truck, we leave a nest behind us like deer do along the river.

  7

  The war shudders on. Headlines are printed, men in uniforms sprawl on the decks of ships, Russell and I lie in the loft with our legs entwined. We’re hidden away so it doesn’t matter. In a certain way you could say it’s not really happening — but it is, I’m finding: here in the afterlife it’s the hidden things that are real, the whispered secrets, my skin’s surprise at his touch, the trail his lips leave on my breast, like the phosphorescent wake of a darting fish. Deep in piles of hay we nestle while my eight-year-old self watches from the rafters. Church in the loft! Russell finds it so funny. Where did the priest stand? he asks.

  I gesture to the spot. Not a priest, though. Wrong religion. The pastor.

  Well, I knew it wasn’t a rabbi. He gets up and stands where Mr. Dalrymple’s crude wooden pulpit stood and recites a long phrase in syllables I’ve never heard before, sounds made high in the roof of his mouth. I’m lying on a quilt sewn from patches of our old coats, sweat gathered like dew between my breasts. You know Latin? I ask.

  Latin? Wrong religion, my dear. It’s Hebrew. Blessed be the Lord, the Lord is One. He walks across the loft to me. His naked body is a white surplice, his tanned hands like brown gloves. He drops down in the hay beside me and rests his cheek against my knees. That’s it, he says. That’s all the Hebrew I remember. My mother wanted me to be bar mitz-vahed, but it didn’t happen.

  Hebrew, Latin, Greek. I work my fingers through his damp hair. I wish I knew other, more cryptic words for all this, I wish I spoke in tongues.

  Early summer swells into fullness and the hollyhocks tip forward with their flowers hanging like crumpled handkerchiefs. You feel the heat when you step out of the house first thing in the morning. On a hot afternoon our prying apart of limbs is a damp and sticky business. Before I go back to the house, to my life, my other life. To Mother knitting, or cleaning out the cutlery drawer, or just sitting on the chesterfield with her eyes bright with anxiety. After a time I have to face the fact that there’s a new atmosphere in the house, Mother answering me in monosyllables and picking at her dinner, her face hard. Of course she’s caught on, although I don’t quite see how. All day she sits in the living room knitting her squares. The fighter planes haven’t been training since last fall and I can’t even get her out to the veranda. Sitting on the veranda you can be seen from the road. She doesn’t want to remind people she’s still here, so changed.

  I’m fine, she says when I ask. She doesn’t raise her eyes. My guilt makes me try harder. After supper I put two chairs in the front yard and try to get her to sit outside with me.

  No thanks, she says. She’s sitting on the chesterfield reading the Bible, a sure sign of trouble to be reading the Bible at that hour. At a glance I’d say she’s somewhere in the Epistles of Paul. I try to recall what the Apostle Paul had to say about deception, cunning, betrayal. About fornication. I bring two cups of tea and sit beside her.

  Are you in pain? I ask.

  No, it’s nothing physical, she says. Her mouth is a straight, lipless line.

  Well, what is it then?

  Tears drip down her cheeks. Oh, I feel so bad, she bursts out.

  Oh, Mother. Maybe you should try to see a doctor in Winnipeg.

  She shakes her head.

  I think you should. Maybe there’s something they can do. Some treatment Dr. Ross doesn’t know about.

  It’s not that, she says. We sit while the clock ticks off a long minute. Finally she lifts her eyes defiantly. I miss your dad. He wouldn’t always try to avoid me.

  What do you mean?

  You’d rather sit outside in the rain than be in the same house as your mother.

  I feel heat rise in my face. I’m restless, that’s all, I say. I’ve always been restless. I’ve always lived outside in the summer.

  You can’t look at me, you can’t bring yourself to speak to me. Every chance you get you take off outside, or to the barn.

  Oh, Mother, I say. It’s not that. It’s not you. I’m not avoiding you. We are in a new place, I think, that she’d complain about this. I put my arm around her shoulders. She doesn’t flinch away but sits very still like a frightened child and begins to cry in earnest.

  That night I don’t go to the barn, I go to bed when she does. I’ll take her somewhere, I think, curling up on my side and hugging a pillow to me. After Russell goes. I’ll take her with me when I go to see Joe. We’ll drive up and stay by the big lake for a day or two. There must be cabins there. Suddenly I think of the girl in the green travelling costume on my father’s ship. Was there ever any mention of a girl on the ship? I think now that there was not, that no one ever mentioned a girl at all. It was a nice bit of fancy, giving my father a different love, a love who looked, well, a little like me.

  The fugitive in the loft tells stories about his father. Mr. Bates was one of those enterprising men who thought there was enough of him for any two women. He lived with Russell’s mom until Russell was about eight and Stephen was ten, and he kept Charlotte’s mother on the side. Loretta, who had been (of course) his secretary before she got pregnant with Charlotte. Banker’s hours? Russell’s mom would yell when he tried to slip in at midnight. You call these banker’s hours? Russell gives his mother a Polish accent in these bits. They were living in Toronto then, and Mr. Bates was working at a bank on Spadina. Then he was offered the management of a branch in London, Ontario, and he had to choose which family he was going to take with him. And he picked
them, Loretta and Charlotte.

  That must have been awful, I say.

  Russell draws on his cigarette and smiles his half-smile. No, it was better. It woke her up — what’s the word . . . it has to do with science, with electricity? it galvanized her. Before she knew, before she really knew, she seemed half asleep all the time. It was like there was a slow leak somewhere and she couldn’t put her finger on it. After he left at least we had our mother.

  What’s your mother like? I ask.

  Oh, she’s a bit of a character. The pleasure of the story he’s going to tell creeps over his face. She likes excitement and she finally had a little drama in her life. She was actually the one who packed his stuff up when he left. She went over to Loretta’s and banged on the door while he was at work. She was dragging a case of his stuff, the most embarrassing things. He had this truss thing for a hernia, and she dragged the freaking thing out and tried to show Loretta how to wrap it and work the buckles.

  Did you see this?

  No, but my mother gave me a play-by-play. And Charlotte was there.

  I’ve brought beer up, and he gets up then and takes both bottles over to the narrow slot where the ladder is nailed to the loft floor. Our bottle opener. He cracks them open and comes back and hands me one.

  You knew Charlotte then?

  I got to know her that summer when I went down to London to see Dad. He tips his bottle back and takes a long drink and I watch his Adam’s apple pumping the beer down his throat. I’ll say this for Loretta, he says finally, wiping his mouth and dropping back down onto the blanket. Once the whole thing blew open she wanted Charlotte to know she had brothers. Dad would send train tickets, and she always made me welcome. Well, in her fashion.

  Which is?

  Well, how can I put it? If my mother is borscht, Loretta is consommé. He grins at his own joke, showing me his strong, even teeth.