The Case of Lena S.

by David Bergen

  Mr. Ferry nodded. He said, “I remember the first girl I liked. She was slightly older and took me to a play. After, she wanted to discuss the play but I had no knowledge of the play or the writer and by the end of the evening her voice was full of disappointment and disdain. I liked her and had failed miserably. She died the following spring. Appendicitis.”

  “Seeta won’t die.”

  The corner of Mr. Ferry’s mouth lifted. “Do you wish that she would?”

  “No,” Mason said. He looked at Mr. Ferry and perhaps it was the man’s blindness, the fact that he could not look at Mason’s face as he spoke, that allowed him to say, “I think my brother stole her.”

  “I see. How did he steal her?”

  “He’s very persuasive. He’s got a girlfriend. Maryann.”

  Mr. Ferry said, “It sounds like melodrama.” He held up his hand. “That doesn’t mean it’s not real or that you shouldn’t feel anything. You can feel whatever you feel. Is Seeta treacherous, do you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Does she go out of the way to harm you? Is she unreliable?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she just acts, does things and regrets them later.”

  They had turned to go back. The group of girls jogged by, a flicker of limbs. Mason wondered how it happened that someone could just act without considering the consequences. Then he said that his brother Danny was like an animal that would eat until it was sick. He liked to stuff himself with girls and the strangest thing was that the girls allowed this. He didn’t even love them and that didn’t seem to matter. “Everyone loves my brother,” he said.

  They did not talk after this and when they reached the house they entered and Mr. Ferry went to the kitchen to prepare something to drink and Mason sat in the reading room. When Mr. Ferry returned with coffee and a glass of water and had seated himself, he said, “The Danny you described is not the Danny I know.”

  “He’s good at fooling people.”

  “But I’m not easily fooled,” Mr. Ferry said. “Maybe it’s not true, about him and Seeta. Have you actually asked him?”

  “It’s true. He went after Seeta. Bought her things. Took her out to dinner. That sort of thing. That’s what her sister Sadia told me.”

  “I suppose her sister would know.” He paused, then said, “Perhaps in the case of Seeta, treachery loves company.”

  Mason did not respond to this statement and after a while Mr. Ferry said, “That’s fine, Mason. Do you feel bad for telling me what you did?”

  Mason shrugged. He looked at Mr. Ferry’s hands and said that no, he didn’t feel bad.

  They read then, Mr. Ferry’s head dropping almost immediately, snapping back up once in a while as if a thought had arrived, but it was simply the reaction of a man who is unconscious becoming briefly aware and then falling asleep again.

  It was Sunday afternoon and Danny was home. He and Mason were digging up the garden for their mother and Danny had taken off his shirt and the hair at his belly was dark and thick. They took turns with the one shovel. When it was Mason’s turn, Danny said, “Put more weight on it, cut through the shit and stuff.”

  “You’re so good, you do it,” Mason said.

  “I’m offering help here.”

  Mason stopped digging, leaned on his shovel, and looked at Danny. He said, “When you work, when you cook at those fancy places where all the fancy people eat, do you tell everybody what to do?”

  “I’m the head chef, that’s my job.”

  “So you like being the boss.”

  “I don’t know if I like it. I do it because I’m paid to do it.”

  “Must be lots of pretty women who eat there. All dressed up.”

  Danny sat down on the steps of the porch. “Some,” he said.

  “I was thinking,” Mason said, “that if we were sitting at a table and eating, you would want what was on my plate even though you had something pretty good on your own.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, wouldn’t you?”

  “Stop with the bullshit.”

  “Why do you want Seeta?” Mason asked. “You’ve got Maryann.” He said this as he turned to dig again, not looking at Danny.

  “Who says I want her? She say that?”

  “No, she said you were a piece of birdshit. Sadia told me.”

  “Seeta wouldn’t have said that.” He grinned.

  “You’re my brother,” Mason said.

  “That’s true. Whatever I did though, she did worse. She’s too much for you, Mason. She’s too much for me. I can’t figure out what she wants. She likes to talk about Nietzsche and Confucius and duty, but she’s not saving herself for that Ajit philosopher guy. I’d say she’s verging on being a slut. A very good-looking one, but still a slut.”

  Mason let the shovel fall. He could see his brother’s face where the sun fell onto it and he could see his own shadow that was foreshortened and his head looked small.

  “I went out with Maryann,” Mason said. “To a movie. Then we went for drinks and danced and I drove her home. She said you loved yourself too much.”

  Danny stood without saying anything and went into the house and then he came back with a beer and he sat down and opened it and drank a third, tipping his head back and closing his eyes, and when he’d pulled the bottle away he looked at Mason and said, “And you told her about Seeta.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Danny pointed his beer bottle at Mason and said, “The problem is you think you’re better than me. That might be true some of the time. But not all of the time. There’s nothing wrong with liking yourself. Maybe if you were more like me Seeta would still be playing tennis with you.” He paused, then said, “Pock, pock.”

  “What is that?” Mason asked.

  “A tennis ball. Maybe she wanted more than tennis and you were too slow.”

  “You think everything is fucking, Danny. I don’t. And that makes me better than you more than 50 per cent of the time. Mom’d agree with that. Sadia. Maryann. Seeta. Any girl who’s got some brains would think that.”

  “What makes you think I fucked her?”

  “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  Danny said, “Mason, Mason. The girls, they love you. Seeta does, she said so. ‘Sweet Mason,’ she said. I can’t figure it out. She said you were a watcher and that there was something curious about a watcher, that if you got close enough to a watcher certain things would be revealed. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. But there you go.” He lifted his empty bottle. “You wanna beer?”

  Mason picked up the shovel and said, “She’s leaving on Saturday. She’s going up to Vancouver to live with her uncle. To wait for Nietzsche.” Mason said Nietzsche with some emphasis, as if it were a word that required work.

  This surprised Danny. He pondered a bit and then he said, “I was looking back to see, if you were looking back to see, if I was looking back to see, if you were looking back at me.” He smiled at Mason.

  “You’re full of shit,” Mason said.

  “Things happen, decisions are made, you’ll find out,” he said, and he left and walked up the porch stairs. And before he went into the house Mason could see his broad back and the shape of him cut out against the light.

  Late Friday night Danny brought Seeta home. Mason knew it was her by the tinkle of bracelets. Danny said something and Seeta laughed. Mason was in his room but he came up and stood at the edge of the doorway where they could have seen him if they wanted. They didn’t. Seeta was sitting at the kitchen table and throwing popcorn into Danny’s mouth. “Oops,” she said, each time she missed. Whenever she got one in, Danny leaned across the table and kissed her. Seeta closed her eyes and one time Danny touched her breasts with his hands. He looked like a blind man feeling his way through a strange house. The bowl of popcorn spilled but they didn’t notice. Seeta placed her hands on Danny’s forehead as if
she were checking for fever. They pulled away and looked at each other.

  The telephone rang and Mason walked down the hall and lay down on his mother’s bed. He waited for Danny to answer but he didn’t. Mrs. Crowe had gone up to Rainy River with Mason’s dad so Danny and Mason were alone. It was one in the morning. The phone rang on, then stopped. Mason could hear what was going on in the kitchen. Danny was talking and Seeta was going, “Hmmm,” and one time she said, “No, no, no, no,” quite carefully as if she were refusing a generous but impossible offer.

  Mason suffered their voices a little longer and then the phone rang again and this time he picked it up. It was Seeta’s father.

  “Seeta,” he said, “I’m looking for Seeta Chahal. Who are you?”

  “Mason.”

  “Do you have her? Is she there?”

  “She’s here with my brother,” Mason said.

  Mr. Chahal covered the phone and there was some muffled yelling and then he came back and said, “What’s your address?”

  And Mason told him. He practically drew him a map. Academy, close to Stafford, and gave him the house number and told him to come over. “Do,” Mason said, “the door is open.”

  Mason waited a bit and then he walked out of the bedroom and went into the kitchen where Seeta was sitting on Danny’s lap and said, “Your father’s coming to pick you up. He phoned.”

  Seeta got up off of Danny and started to pull her hair up into a bun.

  Danny said. “You told him she was here.”

  “He asked.”

  “He’ll kill me,” Seeta said. She was fumbling with a bobby pin. Her arms were like wings, the smooth underside, the elbows sticking out.

  “He won’t,” Danny said.

  “Or you,” she said, “He’ll kill you.” She turned and asked, “Could you take me home, Mason?”

  “I can’t,” Mason said, though he badly wanted to say Yes, yes.

  Seeta walked past him, her shoulder touching his. He could smell the popcorn and he saw the pins in her hair and her ears and the back of her neck. Her arms were bare and thin. She went to the door and opened it and looked out at the night. She came back and said, “Okay,” as if seeking solace or resolve, and then she said, “The Crowe boys,” and she stood with her bum against the counter and waited.

  When Mr. Chahal arrived he banged and entered and Seeta went, “Who, who, who?” and Mr. Chahal called out, “What for?” and Danny swung his big feet off the table.

  Mr. Chahal was in the foyer, holding a rake.

  “Daddy-jee,” Seeta said.

  “Birdshit,” Mr. Chahal said. “You are birdshit.” He said this to Danny, who was standing by the table, behind Seeta. Then he saw Mason and he said it again, “Birdshit.” He looked frightened. “Come here,” he said to Seeta. She stepped towards him and he reached out with his free hand and slapped her. The glint of a silver watch, the snap of the palm, the bounce of Seeta’s hair as her head was pushed sideways and her bun fell apart.

  “Hey,” Danny called out.

  Mr. Chahal lifted the rake like a baseball bat and aimed it at Danny’s head.

  “Daddy-jee,” Seeta said, and stepped up beside her father and hugged his one arm. “Let’s go,” she said. Her voice was shaky. She wouldn’t look at Mason or Danny.

  Mr. Chahal took her chin in his hand and asked, “Have they hurt you?”

  Seeta shook her head.

  “Do you love these boys? Do you want to marry one? Which one? Him?” He pointed at Danny. “Or him?” The tines of the rake swung towards Mason. “They are nothing. They have nothing. Hah!” He shook a finger at Danny. “You know nothing. You think everything is sex, sex, sex. It isn’t. There is more to this world than sex.”

  “I don’t think that,” Danny said.

  “Don’t speak while I am speaking,” Mr. Chahal cried out. “Of course you do. You both do. You want to rape my daughter.”

  “I didn’t,” Danny said.

  “He didn’t say you did. He said you wanted to.” This was Seeta, suddenly and calmly, a translator. She shrugged her small shoulders. She was still holding her father’s arm and now she pulled and said, “Come,” and then they were gone, too quickly, and Mason wanted to call out that they should stay, should threaten them some more, make them ask for forgiveness, anything to prolong her presence.

  Danny left. He said, “Unbelievable,” and then he said, “Fuck it,” and then he walked outside, got in his car, and drove away.

  Mason went into the kitchen and saw the popcorn bowl and the kernels on the floor and the chairs askew. Seeta’s sweater was folded on the kitchen counter. It was dark green with bone-coloured buttons. He smelled it and then searched it. In the pockets he found matches, cigarettes, a bus ticket, a tube of lipstick, and a note written in the characters of a foreign language. He threw out the matches and ticket. He put the note on his dresser and hung the sweater in his closet. Months later it would disappear.

  1 He sometimes eats breakfast at The Nook, where Lena works, and he has noticed her polishing the counter or has overheard her taking orders: “Would you like rye, brown, or white toast with that?” He likes her voice.

  2 Lena has been aware of Mason for a long time. She is interested in the erotic, in Mason Crowe as a possibility. Sometimes they eat lunch together and once they had coffee at the Bagel Shop, where Lena said that she both loved and hated her father. If Mason weren’t so infatuated by Seeta, an impossible goal, he would concentrate on Lena, whom he finds mystical and odd. Perhaps Lena knows this and is simply waiting. She is single-minded and patient. Last night she wrote in her journal, “It is either him or no one at all.”

  3 Lena heard him. She ignored it. She wrote in her journal later, “Mason Crowe read me a poem today. He has the lightest loveliest lisp and a twisted mind. He thinks he likes Seeta Chahal. Patience!”

  4 And very aware of Mason watching her. She was dancing with Callum Thom, a boy she had no interest in but had chosen because he was in Mason’s vicinity. He was talking to her about hockey and she was nodding and thinking, “You stupid boy, I could crush you.” She saw, beyond Callum’s small head, Mason exit the room with Sadia Chahal in his wake. Much later in the evening she saw Seeta dancing with an older boy, not Mason, and this pleased her. She did not look for Mason again. She saw no need to pursue a phantom.

  5 This was not Mason’s favourite book. In fact, it was an indifferent choice. What he most liked about it was Ms. Abendschade’s relation to the book; more specifically, the movement of Abendschade’s mouth as she spoke, the fervour of her love for Turgenev, the passion, him dreaming of lifting up Abendschade’s skirt. About all of this, of course, Mr. Ferry had no inkling.

  6 What he doesn’t tell Mason is that his wife left him for another man. Later, during their readings, he will describe this in greater detail.

  7 This is absolutely true. In the last while Mason has been sitting in the Bagel Shop on Academy and waiting for Lena to pass by on her way to music lessons. A few weeks earlier, in a brief conversation, she had mentioned that she took voice lessons and he had asked her where, and she had told him. When? he asked. Every Monday, she said. So, now he watches her walk by and then waits to observe her on her return. He does this once a week. He doesn’t speak to Lena and he believes she doesn’t know he’s watching her, though she does. She wrote in her journal, the night before, “He watches me as I walk by on my way to voice lessons. There is something both sweet and sick about it. Though if he wasn’t watching I would be disappointed. Last week I stood and waited outside the café window, just long enough for him to look me up and down, and then I moved on. How amazing.”

  Once a week she went to her singing lessons. He knew her route and liked to seat himself in a coffee shop in order to see her as she walked by. He sat and watched and waited for her to come back. One time she stopped before the shop to speak to an older man and she held her books to her chest and shifted from foot to foot. She was wearing a red turtleneck sweater and her hair was dar
k and long. Inside, he leaned back in his chair, worried that he would be seen. She knew him from school and parties and hanging out. They had taken a class together and they had talked of Turgenev and Ms. Abendschade, and once she had asked, “Are you going to the dance?” and he said he wasn’t. In the last days of the school year they had eaten lunch together, sitting on the stands that looked out onto the football field. There had always been other people in their group and so it was never clear if they were sitting by themselves or with a crowd. He had no reason to hide from her; the pleasure was in the waiting and the longing, in seeing her without being seen.

  The summer passed and one Friday, in fall, he arranged it so that he met her on the street just outside her house. She said his name, Mason, and then said that there was no one at home. He took this as an invitation and went in with her. They stood in the front room. The piano was by the window and he asked if she could play something. “A little concert then?” she asked, and said she would play one of her favourite pieces. She sat and played “Adoration,” by Borowski, her right foot depressing the pedal. The music was simple and sombre. When she was finished she turned to him and said that she’d quit school, he must have noticed, and was working as a waitress at The Nook. “I’m throwing my life away,” she said. “My father worries that I am preoccupied with sad things. He’s making me take correspondence. I read textbooks, write the tests, and send them away in the mail, and then they come back. I imagine some little old lady bending over and correcting my work.” She got up and walked into the kitchen. He followed her. She opened the fridge and took out two pears and gave him one. They sat in the room where the piano was and she folded her feet under her thighs. It was like they were husband and wife and were sitting down to discuss the day. It was that easy. She said, “I remember that English course we took together. You were in love with Abendschade. I saw you watching me this summer. Every time I went to voice lessons you were in the Bagel Shop. Am I embarrassing you?”