If Clara

by Martha Baillie

  Daisy

  Skin must slide over bone and muscle, if muscle is to move freely. The leg requires that I massage its long red scar. I find touching the scar odious. I prefer the pain that comes from pushing the leg to bend at the knee, forcing it hard, using my good leg to apply steady pressure. Touching the scar makes the metal beneath it real and the damaged nerves real. If I do not massage the scar several times a day, an area of fixity will establish itself, a domain of epidermal resistance will impede the leg from bending. I force myself to massage the scar. In the coming weeks, should the leg refuse to bend further than it is now capable of doing, should it fail to make progress, and should this be the result of some error on my part, or lack of will on my part, or neglect on my part, I could not forgive myself, and anger would make me want to destroy an object close at hand, anything within my reach. But past experience warns me against small acts of destruction as a route to relief. The few times I’ve smashed an object, hoping to dull my fury, loneliness and grief have welled up. Better to curl under my covers, shutting out as much light as possible, better to reject the outside world. Should the leg fail to progress, and its failure be due to an error or lack of will on my part, better to hide. Therefore I must exercise. I must do as I’m told, not because I believe that my obedience will result in progress and healing, but to avoid the horror of irresponsibility, of being to blame, when the hoped-for recovery does not occur. When I explained this to Ralph, he laughed and looked at me with a tenderness that made me ache. If only Ralph desired me as I do him, but he does not. Other women, yes, and never the same one for long, and always a beauty, and most often an ocean separating him from her, that is the way Ralph approximates happiness. We are friends. ‘You,’ says Ralph. ‘There is no one like you.’

  I don't know either of them well, my neighbours on the other side of the wall. Bruce, who moved in shortly before my accident, is a smart dresser with two-tone shoes and the nervous energy of a racehorse. His lover’s name is Maurice. At first I resented them both. I considered selling my house, my home, despite my broken leg, to escape the noise of their orgasms. Moving from my front room to my back room proved useless. They moved with me, shrieking and moaning joyously. Morning, noon, middle of the night. But I didn’t telephone with my advice, nor did I pound on the wall. When I couldn’t bear it any longer, I shrieked and moaned as loudly as I could from my side of the wall. I’m quite sure they didn’t hear me. Then, without warning, they quieted. I hoped they were using the upstairs rooms. I didn’t want them to stop; I just didn’t want to have to listen. Their cries, and gasps, and laughter made me jealous. I considered banging a hole in the wall by swinging the fibreglass carapace and the leg inside it against the plaster wall. But behind the smooth plaster the leg would have encountered brick. They grew even quieter. Let their happiness continue out of earshot – that was my wish. Silence. Now the cast is gone and I keep sliding my foot down the wall, listening, forcing the leg to bend half a degree further. Breathe, breathe, release.

  The leg. Already I am dragging the leg with me from room to room; do I want to be shackled to Clara Hodgkins as well? Don’t Get Me Wrong will win an important award. I will drown in an ocean of argument. Pressure for F. H. Homsi to appear in public will mount. His non-existence discovered, I’ll be accused of fraud and of voice appropriation. Don’t Get Me Wrong will be loved by some readers who will feel less alone in their confusion, while others will declare that the work should never have been published. They will claim that a character like Kamar suggests that all Syrian refugees suffer from mental illness and burden the Canadian state. Such critics will insist: ‘Where is the virtue in creating a negative portrait of someone who has endured unimaginable hardship? This book further abuses the traumatized through stigmatization.’

  But if F. H. Homsi is not uncovered? When attacked, he will refuse to defend his novel. He will ask Oliver Bodinar to do the defending. Oliver will inform the media that one need not experience years of shelling and the collapse of society for trauma to be real, and that mental illness can blossom anywhere, any time, explosive as a minefield, and without apparent cause, and that Kamar is just Kamar. F. H. will thank Bodinar.

  The Girl and the Judge. This tale, dear reader, tears at Kamar.

  Once, a girl was happily doing her chores, happily sweeping under the bed, when she spotted a gleaming penny and snatched it up. She hurried to the store and bought a pot of molasses, which she brought home and hid. She pursued her domestic tasks until, feeling a pang of hunger, she straightened up, stretched her tired arms, took hold of the molasses, and ate. The moment the molasses touched her tongue it revived her. The molasses made her restless and eager. Full of youthful energy, she stepped outside and skipped down the road. As soon as the girl was gone, a crow flew into the house, grabbed the pot of molasses in her beak, and left for the forest. When the girl returned home, she saw that her molasses was gone. A red-hot fury took hold of her. She set off to catch and punish the thief. Soon she spotted the crow in the distance, and guessed the bird’s destination. She took a shortcut to the forest, where she ambushed the crow and cut off her tail. The crow, when she noticed that her tail was gone, attacked the girl, plucking out her eyes. Miserable and in terrible pain, the girl groped her way to the home of the village judge from whom she demanded justice.

  ‘Your Honour, I am but a small girl, nothing more.’

  ‘If this is what God made you, do not complain. On the contrary, be grateful for what you are.’

  ‘I was happily doing my chores, sweeping the floor with care.’

  ‘To do your chores may be considered an act of faith and is therefore commendable. I congratulate you.’

  ‘A gleaming coin lay under the bed, and it caught my eye.’

  ‘You took wise advantage of your good eyesight and luck.’

  ‘I bought a pot of molasses.’

  ‘You ate. You enjoyed. Good for you!’

  ‘The rest I hid.’

  ‘Looking forward to eating the rest later pleased you.’

  ‘Feeling tired from my chores, I ate a bit more of the molasses, which revived me.’

  ‘Your suffering was almost non-existent.’

  ‘A crow flew into my house, without invitation, and stole the rest of my molasses.’

  ‘If she’d not eaten, she might have died. The crow had been travelling, hungry to the point of exhaustion.’

  ‘I became furious and went looking for her. When I found her, I cut off her tail. In revenge, she plucked out my eyes.’

  The judge walked over to his window and looked out. When he turned to face the girl, he had an announcement to make.

  ‘No more discussion is needed. You and the crow are even. You both have suffered and owe each other nothing.’

  The judge’s verdict enraged the girl. She stopped in the doorway as she was leaving and told the judge that his verdict satisfied nobody. She called him an unjust dreamer, and declared that his true place was not inside a courtroom, wielding authority, but outside, lined up with all the ordinary people. Having spoken her judgment, she left.

  In both the tales that haunt Kamar, a girl is blinded. Though Kamar can’t bear hearing about eyes, neither can she stop thinking about them. Blindness repulses and fascinates her. The blindness of judges and the blindness of victims. The fate of the girl in this tale makes Kamar wonder if it is justice or revenge she dreams of. To find a good judge is difficult. Better to tell no one the truth – her truth.

  I have affection for crows, dear reader. Kamar feels differently. Their cawing and the beating of their wings opens trap doors in her mind. She runs across High Park, arms shielding her face. A crow can pick a person from a crowd. Scientists, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, are studying the ability of crows to recognize individuals and to pass this information along. Of the relationship between crows and the Pentagon, Kamar learns much on the internet. Once a crow singles you out, it will remember your features for two or more years, it will tell other crows
how to spot you.

  Clara

  Twice I’ve done it. Twice. I have now survived two meetings with Daisy Harding. The Daisy Harding of beautiful sentences and ingenuity. The under-recognized Daisy Harding of seven novels, two collections of poems, and a book of essays – volumes I’ve packed carefully and carted with me every time I’ve moved. The Daisy Harding much taller than I expected, with long bones, and feet buried in thick socks stuffed into sandals. Her swollen left foot won’t fit into any of her other shoes, she felt compelled to explain. She informed me that she wants to keep a close eye on her leg. Despite the increasingly cool weather, she therefore wears a pleated skirt made of fabric with eyelets, a skirt that ends above her knee and exposes the serpentine scar that reaches down.

  She placed a contract on the table. I could not read it. I looked down at the mangled words. They twisted in and out of each other, every sentence a train wreck. ‘I’ll take this home,’ I told her. ‘I’ll read it at home.’ She didn’t attempt to dissuade me.

  Daisy

  Without my weight pounding through them these past months, my bones have been transforming into lace. Today, I tried walking to the kitchen, both feet on the floor for the first time. Every second step, the collective weight of my head, shoulders, hips, and inner organs descended through my pirate limb into my heel, shifted to the arch, rolled onto the ball, and I, terrified, lowered my good foot too fast and lurched forward. This does not pass for normal walking. I am to request of this feeble, amnesiac leg that it hold me upright. I am instructed, now, to welcome the vertical force I was told to spare my bones a few weeks ago. I am ordered to trust the leg. I am, today, to think of it as mine. This, then, is my leg. Mine to teach. Mine to trust. So I am told.

  Julia

  My father drove off the road. He stopped the car. It was intentional, his leaving the road and entering a field of tall grass. The field belonged to him and sloped down to a brook, then climbed again. On the far slope he’d planted a forest and built a wooden platform with a roof but no walls. He’d constructed a bridge that spanned the brook. He’d also erected, before he met our mother, a tarpaper shack large enough to shelter one narrow cot and a pot-bellied stove. For a wife and two children the shack was inadequate.

  As soon as he pulled off the road, he got out of the car to unlock the gate. Our names travelled through the warm air that smelled of earth and grass and blossoms. He was calling our names – mine and Clara’s. We climbed out of the back seat and lowered our feet into the tangled grass depths. ‘Who wants to fly?’ he asked. Up we went, grasping at the rungs of the gate, pulling with our arms. He tugged the gate along with him as he strolled backwards up the hill. He’d become what he wanted to be, pulling the gate as far as the hinge, the grass, and thistles, and the height of the ground allowed. He’d become what he’d always wanted to be: a husband, a father, a custodian of sixty acres, where already he’d planted hundreds of saplings in rows. He let go.

  We sailed, Clara and I, side by side, clinging to our metal wing. It swept us under the sky and down the slope, flattening the grass, disrupting insects, sending the fragrant air through my lungs in twists of delight and fear that my mouth shaped into high-pitched screams. Clara rode next to me, eyes wide open, hands and feet firm, smile exposing new, bigger-than-before teeth. In my memories of her as a child, Clara is mute. Either she spoke very little or I’ve erased her words. Her laughter and her radiant face, those I remember.

  Clara

  She wore a short, pleated skirt. It was oddly unimportant what she wore. I, who usually notice and care. Almost without fail, clothing tells me how to step around a person, the right tone, vocabulary, and speed of speech to use with that particular person dressed in that manner. Again, a short skirt despite the bite, the beautiful tiny teeth of October, the freeing from dampness. Ugly, mauve sandals over thick, striped socks – soon, she explained, she’ll try to borrow a pair of boots from a male friend with large feet. The day we met I was hiding inside layers of cloth, as always. My body, disgusting to begin with, has now begun to swell. Folds of fat are forming, for which these fucking medications are to blame. No, Kevin, you won’t convince me to stop taking my meds. I trick myself into believing I’ve concealed my belly quite cleverly, but then a window. The glassy truth: I resemble a collapsing tent. Daisy has not allowed herself to comment on my appearance, nor do her eyes linger. ‘Were you able to read the contract?’ she asked. ‘Did you find time?’ Yes, I found time! Yes, I made time! How fluidly Daisy shifts away from my oddity to time management, a common area of difficulty, hinting, in this way, that I may have something in common with other human beings. I grinned my approbation of her kindness.

  ‘I’ve signed it,’ I told her, and she looked pleased. More than pleased.

  ‘Oh. How wonderful,’ exclaimed Daisy.

  I slid a brown envelope to her across the table. The waiter heard it slide. I could see from the corner of my eye how intently he was listening. Daisy slipped out the contract and flipped to the back page, where she saw that my signature was waiting for her to admire it.

  ‘I am so pleased, and a bit frightened.’

  ‘Frightened?’

  ‘Well. I am to become F. H. Homsi and report back to you. You’re fine with the percentages?’

  ‘I’ve signed.’

  ‘Yes. I just hope.’

  ‘What is frightening you?’

  ‘Your possible disappointment.’

  ‘In you?’

  ‘In me, in the book’s reception.’

  ‘It’s not published yet.’

  ‘But it will be. Oliver wants to get to work right away. He’s pushing it to the top of his list. It feels a bit rushed but I think we should go with his timing. Your book is to come out as soon as possible. Within a year, stores will be carrying it.’

  ‘You’re F. H. Homsi. You decide.’

  ‘And you’ll go along.’

  ‘I won’t. I don’t go along. But I do let things go by. I’ll look the other way, so I’m not tempted to stop you.’

  ‘Now is your chance to back out. We can tear up the contract.’

  ‘I’d better go. I’m leaving now. Thank you, Daisy. I’ve paid for my coffee. Good luck.’

  It was gliding upwards, the voice elevator in its dark shaft. I felt Bridgette and Kevin and the others ascending. When they reached my head, they’d all get off. My head was their favourite floor. They’d pour out of their glass tube. I’d try to confine them. They’d shove their way out, shouting over one another, testing to see who could convince me the fastest to slit my wrists.

  I made it out of the stuffy café into the cold air and started walking. Quickly a rhythm asserted itself and carried me along. In the voice elevator, jammed between floors, Kevin and the others continued abusing each other. I plunged deeper into the cold air, felt the wonder of it against my skin. Bridgette, of course, was crying and moaning. Thanks to the cold air and the brisk pace imposed by my legs, her distress arrived muffled, and Kevin’s threats translated into nothing more than a persistent pain in the arch of my right foot. Oh, glorious, cold air.

  Maurice

  Trust him? I do.

  Julia

  Clara has responded to my note about Alice. A visit to Alice from Clara may soon be possible. All depends on how Clara, on what Clara. All depends on Clara’s ability to hold Clara in one piece.

  I am once more looking through the box of books I saved from her basement apartment when she moved. She asked me to deliver it, and a dozen like it, to the dump, and I agreed. ‘Please dispose of all the boxes, thank you. Get rid of them whatever way you like, so long as I never have to see them again!’ On the very top lay a picture book I recognized. I lifted it out. The price of looking is that once you’ve seen, you’ve seen. For thousands of years we’ve warned each other not to look.

  Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle. 1918 edition. Slender volume, broken spine, coloured plates.

  Our mother’s name is inscribed in pencil, followed by h
er childhood address. The illustration on the front cover shows Raggedy Ann, a cloth doll. She is wearing a flowered dress, a white apron, and she sits propped against a blackboard. Unquestioning happiness is stitched on her round face. Two big black buttons are her marvelling eyes. On the back cover, she’s turned her back to the reader. Right arm raised, rag in hand, she has just erased the blackboard, and perhaps the words of her own story?

  Next comes a gutted book. No legible title. This is one of Clara’s creations. On the front, a face: abject suffering sculpted from shiny layers of black and brown pigment, nose protruding and lips contorted. On the back, rough strokes produce another face: blurred rush of anger and fear. Down the book’s spine the white rungs of a ladder.

  The day I first looked through this box and decided to keep it, I couldn’t stop myself. Untrue. I could have stopped but chose not to. I reached in, pulled out the next volume. Pinocchio: The Story of a Puppet by Collodi. (Carlo Lorenzini.) Edited and illustrated by Violet Moore Higgins. A Just Right Book. Albert Whitman & Company Publishers, Chicago, U.S.A. 1927.

  Cover: dark green with gold lettering. A picture in red and white presents the hero. Balancing on his right foot, he attempts to free his left leg from a hole in a heavy door, a hole he’s created by thrusting his left foot through the wood. Now, grasping his shin with both hands, he leans backwards and tugs, determined to release his imprisoned limb, an expression of dismay spreading across his face.