Deafening

by Frances Itani

  Occasionally, hotel guests left magazines behind. If these were British, they contained more photographs of the war. Men leaning into walls of sandbags; muddy holes in the ground labelled dugouts; rows of crates ready to be moved from one location to another. These and the machinery of war, added up to Grania’s picture of over there. There were horse-drawn wagons at a standstill in front of crumbled buildings, and mules with heavy loads slung across their backs. There were carts and canvassed wagons and motor ambulances—Grania’s attention was always attracted to the cross, painted on wood or canvas, or sewn to an arm band. In one magazine, two wounded men posed for the camera, each with an arm in a sling and a cigarette between his lips. The men were grinning widely, faces and uniforms covered with mud. Sometimes there were stretchers in the photographs and the men lying on these were bandaged—heads or arms or legs. She examined part of a neck, an eye, a darkened chin, a narrow line of face. Jim had told her in one of his letters that the first question the men asked when he carried them back was, “Is it good enough for a Blighty?” The ones who did get a good Blighty were returned to England. Some were sent home.

  But, always, headlines of promise and victory were lined up side by side with obituaries and photographs of uniformed men who had died. There were times when, after a battle, the lists of the dead occupied eight columns of a newspaper page. Casualty lists took up as many as three pages. This month she had cut out one clipping that declared that, since the beginning of the war, 331,578 men had left Canada to go overseas. She had stared at the number. Jim was one of those. If he hadn’t signed up, there would be 331,577.

  Grania hated the silent proclamations, hated the rows and rows of names of silenced young men. And the poems, the endless poems by patriotic citizens, many of them women. Occasionally, there was a poem by Rudyard Kipling. She had read Kipling when she was at school. But Kipling himself had lost his only son, at Loos, the September before Jim left Canada. Shortly after Grania finished her work at the school hospital, she had read about Kipling’s grief, and about his son John’s body, which had never been found after the battle. John Kipling had been with the Irish Guards.

  Maybe Kipling was sorry his son had gone to war. Maybe, like Grania, Kipling was angry, too.

  When she entered the dining room for the midday meal, the first thing she saw was that Tress’s chair had been pushed back from the family table in the corner. The second thing she noticed was that food had not yet been brought out from the kitchen. Mamo was not in her usual place but in Grania’s seat, beside Tress, an arm over Tress’s shoulder. The fingers of Mamo’s right hand were tapping against the table. Mother was standing behind both chairs, her lips tightly sealed. In that moment, Grania saw again how alike Tress and Mother were. The same high forehead, the same hairline. She saw, too, that Tress had pushed her hair back behind her ears.

  But her glance had also taken in the telegram stretched between Tress’s hands. Even from the doorway she could see the words in bold print across the top: TELEGRAPH COMPANY. Tress was crying; her chest was heaving up and down.

  Panic, sudden and terrible. This is how the news comes.

  Mother looked up. Seeing Grania, her lips formed the words, “Kenan, wounded.” Her right hand fluttered awkwardly in the air and she spelled A-L-I-V-E with her fingers. She wanted to be certain that Grania understood. Bernard came in, out of breath, his hand pressed to his chest. Patrick was at the high school and had not yet arrived for his dinner. Father had been sent for and came in from his office. They all sat down around the table, Grania with them, as if they were about to start the meal, but no one got up to get the food. Tress continued to heave and sob, and Grania, putting the picture together, felt a word pound like a heartbeat inside her, JIM, JIM, JIM.

  But it wasn’t Jim. It was Kenan, her childhood friend, her protector, her bully. Relief washed away in the guilt of knowing that it was Tress’s husband and not hers who had been named in the telegram.

  But Kenan had not been killed. Surely this would mean he would be coming home.

  How badly? How badly injured?

  All of this went through her thoughts within seconds. It was later, much later in the night, when she was lying wide awake in her bed across the room from Tress, that she was able to put fragments of the scene back together.

  It had been Grania who’d stayed with Tress the rest of the day, and who took her upstairs in the evening, and made tea, and sat with her on the edge of the bed, and rubbed her sister’s shoulders to relax her, and covered her with blankets, and held her hand tightly until, finally, Tress was able to sleep. Only then, after Tress was settled and as Grania lay awake in the dark, only then did the picture of what Mother had done in the dining room explode in Grania’s mind.

  Mother had spelled the message about Kenan with her fingers. A-L-I-V-E. Not by air writing, not by printing. Mother, who had refused to acknowledge the sign language these many years, had used the single hand alphabet of the deaf and had finger spelled the word.

  Mother had sent a word to Grania in the language of hands.

  In the morning, after breakfast and after Tress had gone out, Grania went back up to the bedroom and closed the door and pulled down the biscuit tin from the closet shelf.

  She sat on the edge of her bed and set out her letters from Jim on the ribbed spread. Beside the letters, she laid the photograph of Jim leaning into the split-rail fence. The letters represented more than two years of separation and all of the communication she had received. There were three bundles, each tied with a shoelace.

  The first bundle, 1915, was from England, where Jim had completed his training. The second contained letters from Somewhere in France, written to the end of 1916. Letters in the third bundle had been written this year, 1917, and were also from Somewhere in France. But Grania knew that Jim was not always in France; he’d been in Belgium, too.

  Cedric had written about Belgium in the school paper, especially at the beginning of the war. In the fall of 1914, the students returned to school full of news and excitement about older brothers and fathers and uncles joining up, all to help poor brave Belgium, a country none of them had given a thought to before. In the first newspaper of the term, Cedric wrote: “The father of King Albert of Belgium, who has been leading his brave little army with conspicuous skill and gallantry, was a deaf man. He was known as the Deaf Duke of Flanders.”

  Older and younger students passed the news from class to class that day. They claimed the Deaf Duke as one of their own, as if he’d been a grand uncle to them all. Later, one of the children showed off a letter from home, relating the news that the factory in her town had held a bee and made a stack of blankets from overcoat cloth for the Belgian refugees. Grania often thought of the poor Belgian children, asleep under thick blankets made from Ontario cloth. And the Dominion Salt Company in Sarnia sent a thousand bags of salt. Cedric had written about that, and Grania had created a picture in her mind of salt being poured into the outstretched hands of Belgian refugees.

  She untied the third bundle of letters now, and spread them out and picked them up, one after the other. Jim’s handwriting, once broad and generous, had become smaller and smaller as the war progressed. She leafed through, reading a phrase here and there. It did not surprise her to find that she knew most of the contents by heart.

  Fritz’s long-range guns are aiming for our horse lines. The waste of horses, the loss, is truly terrible.

  Our helmets were inspected this morning before CENSORED. My clothes were soaked, covered in dew. There is a stream nearby, its waters swollen. Branches tip over the edge, and a few copper-coloured leaves hang on.

  One afternoon, we watched Fritz’s aeroplane do stunts at low altitude. We are safe where we are. We are out for a rest and will be, for some time. Evan found a turnip at the side of the road and picked it up and ate it, but complained of stomach pains an hour later. There are no men to be seen in the villages except the very old. Occasionally, a young man returns on leave, rolls up his sleeves
to help his family for a few days, and goes off again.

  I worked until midnight, and four hours after that. I have never seen mud as deep as in this place. On the way up the line, we walked single file, dodging shell holes, the fellow before me shouting, “Hole in front.” I shouted the same for Irish, who was behind, but I was the one who fell into the hole. The mud was runny and thin and I was up to my armpits. When we returned to our billets, Irish had another story to tell.

  Roll call was followed by bath parade in pouring rain. We stood for hours with no shelter. Every time we step, there is a squishing sound from below. We went up the line and carried for the next ten hours. That was yesterday. Today I am shovelling mud.

  Canadian mail follows us wherever we are. If you only knew how your letters save me.

  I dream of being clean. I dream of coming home. I dream of standing in one spot and believing you are there.

  Grania tied the letters together again and replaced the biscuit tin on the shelf. Tress had not returned; she had gone to see Jack Conlin about renting a place before Kenan arrived home. Jack owned a small house at the far end of Main Street, the eastern end past Nay-lor’s, not more than a ten-minute walk from the hotel. He also owned a large house that was divided into two dwellings. He and his family lived on one side. All three places were occupied now, but Tress wanted to let him know that she was looking.

  Grania lay back on top of the bedspread and glanced around the room—at the oval mirror, at Mother’s sampler, at the framed daffodils, the zigzag tear in the blind. Nothing much had changed. But Tress’s life had changed. It had been altered suddenly. If Grania had been the one to receive the telegram, what would she be doing now?

  She got up and put on Jim’s brown jacket, the one he’d left with her before his departure. She went downstairs and out, heading for the shore and the woods.

  If Jim had made it this far through the war, he could manage to its end.

  But the war might never end. Three years ago, everyone had been certain that the boys would be home for Christmas. After that, the prediction was changed to the following Christmas. And then, predictions stopped. War churned on as the earth circled the sun. Reliable and grim, it continued to swallow hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of young men.

  She put one foot in front of the other and she walked and walked. Walking did not bring the men home but, for the moment, it made her feel better.

  Somewhere in France:

  My Love

  I have had word of Kenan. My friend Wullie from Number 1 General wrote to me after he learned that Kenan was from Deseronto. He remembered me mentioning Kenan’s name, and recalled that he was married to your sister. By chance, Kenan was admitted during an evening when Wullie was on orderly duty. He said that Kenan was sent to England some time ago, and that when he starts to speak, he’ll be first rate. It happens that the boys stop speaking for a time—I have seen that here, too. There are always CENSORED. And some of the boys stop hearing. They become deaf, even when there has been no injury. Kenan’s Blighty is bad enough, Wullie said, and one arm won’t be useful again. But the arm was not taken off. The injuries to his face are severe. But Tress will know this already. In the last letter you sent, you told me she had heard from the hospital. Tell her what you can from this letter.

  All my love, Chim

  For two weeks Grania helped Tress in her new place. They polished mirrors, mixed vinegar with water, scrubbed the inset windows of the parlour doors. She teased her sister. “You’re so grand, having drawing-room doors!” They mopped and swept, upstairs and down, sewed and ironed curtains, carried in two armloads of wood to place beside the small fireplace in the parlour, and stacked the rest under the overhang of the shed in the backyard. There had already been snow; the coal scuttle was full and set inside the back veranda. A late order of coal had been delivered to the shed and flew down the chute, its black dust rising in a cloud. Grania stood with Tress at the back of the house and watched and felt the shimmer through her body.

  Kenan was to sail to Halifax and there he would board a special train, but he would not be home by Christmas. He and other wounded soldiers were to be in the care of medical personnel during the journey. He would be with “walking cases,” accompanied as far as Belleville, where Tress was to meet him. No longer did he require daily medical care. A follow-up message would provide the exact date and time of arrival—possibly towards the end of January 1918, after the New Year.

  Ever since official notification had come, Tress’s every word, every glance, every bodily posture had been attuned to Kenan’s arrival. He was on his way. Grania, watching her sister, noticed that she often looked up from what she was doing and glanced eastward as if Kenan might appear at the end of Main Street. Or with his long-legged stride, emerge from the woods near the edge of town.

  After the first telegram was received, four letters had followed, each describing Kenan’s condition in a different way. The first was from Number 1 General Hospital, which had treated Kenan before he was evacuated from France.

  His eye and facial wounds, severe as they are, are luckily confined to one half of the face. As there are no present signs of infection, closure of the wound will take place in due course. The left eye will never see again but our Doctors are thankful that the right is undamaged. The left arm, though not amputated, will no longer be useful. We have no reason to believe that a prosthesis will improve matters in his particular circumstance.

  The second letter was from a “special ward for facial wounds” and had been written by a nursing sister in England.

  Kenan has not yet spoken, but speech will come and he understands all that we say. We are greatly encouraged that he is sitting up. He dresses every day with only a little help, and walks as he would normally.

  A terse message after that, from the Canadian Red Cross in London.

  I beg to inform you that your husband was seen by our authorised visitor, who found him going on well and certainly improving in every way. A further report will be sent as regards his condition from this Society.

  But a further report had not been needed. The last letter Tress received was from another nursing sister.

  Our Kenan is making excellent progress all in all. It is with pleasure that I tell you he is a great favourite of the staff. We are hopeful that in another few weeks he will be permitted to start the long journey back to Canada. We are certain to miss him when he leaves, much as we know he is wanted home.

  Jack Conlin had kept his word about letting Tress know when he had a place and she had moved to the end of Main Street as soon as the house was ready. Tress had been saving every dollar she could from her pay assignment and separation allowance. Over Jack’s objections, she paid two months’ rent in advance. She had to be certain it was hers; she wanted a place of her own.

  Once the cleaning was done, the entire family helped to furnish the house. Father delivered several pieces of furniture from the hotel—an iron bed, a seagrass mattress, four chairs, a chest of drawers. Tress ordered a kitchen table from Mr. Eaton’s catalogue and, for the veranda, a small square-topped table and two wicker chairs. As soon as the roads were hard-packed with snow, Bompa Jack brought in a screen for the fireplace and two parlour chairs, delivered by sleigh from the farm on the Ninth.

  Mother sorted through linens and gave Tress the extras. Mamo stitched and crocheted. Bernard and Patrick arrived with Father’s tools and added pantry shelves, repaired window sashes and checked the fitting of the storm door, late in the season as it was. Even Kay sewed a mattress pad for Tress and took it to her as a gift.

  When Grania first walked with Tress through the narrow, two-storey house, what she saw were rooms that reminded her of their childish creations when they’d furnished rooms from pages of the catalogue. The kitchen was the only large room; it stretched across the entire width of the house at the back. Behind the kitchen, there was a windowed veranda with a rough-tiled floor. Flat stones outside led to a slope that tilted narrowly towards t
he bay. Everything else, inside and out, seemed to have been created in miniature.

  There were two rooms upstairs, one on each side of the peak of the house: the main bedroom, now furnished, and an empty room for a child. Grania knew of Tress’s disappointment both before and after Kenan’s departure, when she’d learned that she had not conceived. It was impossible not to remember the plans Tress had made for babies, the ones she would name Pritchett and Jane. Grania thought of the ledger in the school hospital, the Nurses’ Central Registration. At some time during the stay of every young girl at the Ontario School for the Deaf, a date was written beside her name, along with one other word: “Indisposed.” Indisposed meant that blood had appeared, blood in the underpants or on the sheets. Blood that was to be reported.

  Blood had appeared in Grania’s bed, too, after Jim had left. But that event was met with silence and went unreported, and she had kept her disappointment to herself.

  Tress has a house, Grania thought, and Kenan is safe. He is coming home and he will never have to go back to war. He may be damaged, but he is coming home. We have not lost Kenan.

  Chapter 15

  It was only yesterday, coming down the road to our billets, I happened to meet one of his sergeants who told me about his death. He was the best friend I ever had.

  Letter from the Front

  All day, the town had been preparing for the heavy March storm. The afternoon train arrived, even though the temperature was dropping and snow covered the tracks. Snow had begun to fall steadily, and swirled around the back of the hotel until drifts blocked the rear entrance and the stable doors. The family was locked in. Tress and Kenan were in their own house at the other end of Main.