by Rudy Wiebe
Oldman River/25 Years Later
He opened it. A sheaf of blank writing paper; the brooding grey image of “Duino, Castello: dev. Jan 12/85,” then fifteen, sixteen pages more, blank or dated erratically: “Feb 2/85 … Feb 4/85” … no date after “Mar 5/85.” Line quotes from Rilke:
… we don’t love like the flowers for a single season …
… the fathers who lie at rest in our depths
like ruined mountains
and the dry riverbeds
of earlier mothers …
And then again page-long lists of definitions: “tedious … felicity … dinge … bore … perversion … obsess … smug … things—bah not getting anywhere!!”
But between the last pages in the folder, a small, heavy Ziploc bag; half a page doubled inside, covered with Yo’s writing and folded around:
Ceramic Pottery, Oldman River Dueck Site
Taber, Alberta, July 6, 1971
Rim Shard: roughly triangular, slightly convex. Blocky, well-rounded rim
Colour: interior tan grey, exterior grey black. Compact textured clay
Size: roughly 8 cm × 4 cm × 6 cm Thickness: 3–11 mm
Period: AD 150–250
The tan and grey and black fragment lying in his hand: a prehistoric piece of prairie Aboriginal pottery. The memory of that day unfolded like an opening flower.
The ‘71 summer holiday trip home to Taber when Gabe was ten, and Hal’s old school friend Jake drove them in his jeep to his ranch along the river, wound down ravines and through coulees between his red cattle and showed them the eroded bends of the Oldman banks, the black blotch of ash in the face of one sheer cliff.
“See, it’s a very old campfire site,” Jake said. “Prairie Indians always camped in a valley in winter, where there’s lots of trees for firewood, and shelter from snowstorms.”
Gabriel said, “But it’s deep in the ground.”
“Right!” Jake said. “Because long ago the river flooded and hid it under mud, but now after hundreds of years the river has washed it away again—see, so we can find it.”
The two were ten feet below Hal in the eroded edges of the bank. Hal was peering down anxiously—ever Daredevil Jake!—he could see Jake’s left arm braced against the steep cliff and his right holding Gabe very tightly. The boy’s hands were scratching, poking at the cliff, black ash falling on the spikes of crumpled clay all around them and down to the swirling brown water.
“Hold it,” said Jake, “careful … there’s some big piece … wood … hold it …”
Not wood. Gabriel had exposed a shard, the broken rim of a clay pot almost as long as his small hand. He was so happy, they were all laughing and talking that evening, a future archeologist for sure! Jake said he would send the find to Calgary for analysis, but Gabe would get it back, there already were plenty of artifacts in the Dueck Aboriginal Site collection. A beautiful day at Grandma and Grandpa’s, two-year-old Denny was dancing with Miriam and—
This jagged clay shard. In his basement Hal was holding it. And suddenly he understood that this too would have been part of Gabriel’s Oldman River Quest: this childhood, discovery, happiness, family, laughter; this being held safe.
There was one more page in the red file folder. On it two lines written in blue:
Abandonment: to feel abandoned is essentially to feel forsaken
by the god within us—to lose sight of the eternal light
The piano was playing. On the blankness of Gabriel’s page Hal heard the syncopated words Yo loved, loved so completely the first time the church choir sang them. She borrowed a copy and played and played and played it until she played it by heart:
We are not alone we
are not alone we
are never alone God is with us we
DAILY PLANNER 1985: May Wednesday 1
We don’t know a thing. Walking streets footsteps sometimes a breeze touches you and you feel you are spirited away … Athens? Poor crippled beggars, crippled me. I run and run. Athens is such a waiting hole—why do I long for it here—my life is a Tedious Nowhere. But May in Alberta is shining spring
May Saturday 4
We planted blue spruce, Dad and I, dozens long as my hand along the bush road leading in to Aspen Creek cabin. Lovely. Also potatoes in the lower garden clearing seed it and the earth makes food every human is made of earth? That’s Genesis
party with whole NFT gang, at Beth’s, 115 St.
May Monday 13
Mom leaves for Miriam in Quito, Ecuador / till June 16. Dad, Denn, me with her to the everlasting airport. Then: room with a view! Move up, #1004 in Westview Towers / rent $495 and huge bend of North Saskatchewan River valley.
Last NFT day Friday 17/85, turn in keys, their grant finished. Fred completed semester studying business, rent’s up $10, and I have no job. Savings for 3 months rent, no food.
Out with Beth, Ross, John
May Thursday 16 down Friday 17
Finished Ada. To have such a mutual love, so responding
Paris, Texas again, invited Joan. After talked two hours over coffee. I said I get obsessive about things. She said, “Yes, I know.” What did she mean?
If it’s not tedious nowhere, it’s the distant unobtainable. Doesn’t end even with endless spring light
Obsessive - a persistent, disturbing preoccupation with an idea or feeling; intensely or abnormally (me all right)
Narcissus - no mature independence, but a dependence both greedy and desperate. He is always liable to identify himself with his object rather than differentiate the object from himself … The narcissist is not the self-lover, he is the self-hater.
CRAP! The birthday, I should have put together a print collage of my pictures of Ailsa Craig, Scotland—with a list of meanings of the name and the strange stories about/shapes of that startling rock in the sea: give her a gift—Sunday she’ll be 14. This would have been something to do, not just feel and hide … constructive—even imaginative?
TOO LATE IDIATE
Out with NFT gang Peter, Beth, Ross, Jim a laugh evening carried on blues
May Sunday 19
Ailsa Helen’s Birthday. Fourteen years ago. What was there I could dare give, after nine months of no answer hi
(Note written to myself Sept 14/84, last day of waiting in Athens: Where will I be on this sacred day? The day Joan brought lovely Ailsa into the world; and I cry because it will probably never be spent with the one I love—how prophetic of me)
Don’t dare church. The Bostonians Paris, Texas × 2 again
May Monday 20
Pickup to Aspen Creek eat tan on deck water every tiny spruce and walk in endless poplars, new leaves bright green turn over pale singing in the wind did Cree call poplar leaves lady fingers? Sap perfect, make whistles, blow 3 at once—almost make harmony alone
May Wednesday 22
Fly away. Vancouver, Uncle Joe lives near Jericho Beach. Sleep on his couch
May Monday 27
Visit Surrey cousin Elaine and husband / my age and already two little screamers.
May Friday 31
On the beach as daily walked around False Creek where are you A I feel your fingers—stop it. Huge rusty ships anchored on the horizon the world waits, poised to act Uncle Joe so good, talks but never pushes
June Thursday 6
Flight Van–Edm Dad says Mom called from Ecuador Miriam and Leo want WEDDING this fall so that’s it then
NFT for The War Game after with Jim, Ross, Beth to 9th St. bar money going fast
June Friday 7
Edm. same old same old. The one life one is given—ahhh Velcro trash, tear it open
June Saturday 8
Wrong Move: Nastas. Kinski film debut at 13! Lucky dogs Wenders, dad Klaus
June Sunday 9
After church go home with Dad and Denn for lunch, catch up with A’s parents’ car, see her shadow through tinted glass shadows only looking for work
June Thursday 13
Paris, Texas ends a
t Varscona 49 days/7 weeks talk to Jim/nothing. Visit Joan in her studio at UofA. Magn. colour everywhere, esp. blue talk, such a thoughtful, attractive woman. If only A had her heart perhaps she does, how would I know
June Saturday 15
Joan invites just Denn and me for supper, then we’ll go see A View to A Kill, James Bond (R Moore) chasing a microchip
SPIRAL NOTEBOOK (3): June 15, 1985
Joan’s for supper. Very lovely meal, eat, laugh, eat. Then talk openly with Ailsa while we two do dishes, alone together in the kitchen. She’ll go to Merryville High in September, basic courses, she’s poor in science, likes art, take one year of gym and that’s it, doesn’t like swimming—bad lessons, when she had long hair the instructor pulled her out of the pool by her ponytail, yuk! Films she likes: Ghostbusters (seen 6 times), Breakfast Club, she listens to Christian rock on tape, likes Fears for Tears—huh, their first song came from a Jesus story, “suffer little children”—loves clothes, has lots (her breasts have grown slightly, she walks with very straight back). In back seat of the car driving to movie déjà vu of Mainz, but Grant driving and Denn, Colin, A and Gabe are so tight all arms are crossed. No exploring hands. Thighs did touch several times but back off quickly. She does look me straight in the eyes, fearlessly. Skinny Joanne still her #1 friend. After film we drive back and sit in their living room, Grant in single chair, me on couch near window and Joan and Ailsa on couch opposite. Grant puts on quiet strings music, A lifts Joan’s hand and kisses it loudly, smiling. Full lips. She listens to our film talk but Gabe, of course, has to act superior, cut down spy-formula film—A loved it. She goes to the kitchen and brings us coffee, and then disappears to her room, to sleep? Denn and Colin play games in the basement.
On the whole a very pleasant evening, the parents obviously like me, try to be diplomatic. Ailsa comes across as an extremely typical very young teenager with childish traits. She is lovely, more rounded breasts and buttocks, her bare feet perfect and her lower lip so full. She has no driving loves except clothes and having fun—how can I get to know her mind. Please God, I don’t ask to hold her and kiss her—just let us meet again, open up more, I continuously say the wrong things—she seems a bit like me, we don’t know how to start saying things and keep them going. Please let me be more positive, find good points in bad art, so to be able to talk about something, anything.
JUST REMEMBER Gabe—don’t push it. She’s barely a month over 14 / what were you like then—innocent, mind unshaped—you have lots of time so don’t push and act stupid—as in past. Have to learn to look at her in company she is so lovely
June 16, 1985
Mom home from Quito. In evening already feeling lonely—when will I see A again. I suppose it was smart to take J to Paris, Texas—she caught on right away the film’s about loss of communication. Perhaps that was why I was invited over for supper, placed right beside A, was alone to wash dishes with her—And no guts! Not one word about Germany—too scared to spoil arrgggh
Lots of Miriam stories, and Leo. Wedding middle of September at Aspen Creek? Mom & Mir travelled jungle rivers, mountain passes by bus, saw volcanoes and equator / they like meeting the world together, and so curious everything becomes fun for them, even jungle diarrhea. What happened to one-track me?
Talk, good talk—but actually, already lonely right there with her in the kitchen! How dumb is—look her in the eyes boy, now! Red-striped dishcloth. God have mercy—please—let me get that job with the Provincial Film Censor, it would be perfect—I’d see every new film and have something to talk about. Please let J ask me to house-sit when they go on holidays in July it would be the perfect chance to dream walk through A’s house
Hnnnnn. What would be, for me, the perfect way to live?
June 17, 1985
Well. I look at (in my mind’s eye) A’s family and they are nothing special. Middle-class ordinary. And let’s face it, what I’ve observed is that A is physically beautiful but otherwise nothing at all special either—I’m being very cruel—lousy school marks, Christian (?) rock, clothes clothes—why have I created her (with those incredible green eyes) into this legend? All of us, me in particular, are nothing special / I love her, I love everything about her, the things she likes, does, wears, I love every part of her body I have ever seen
What does one do with love, emotions, tenderness what stops me
As the old joke goes: I refuse to worship a God who creates a pathetic lump like me. No way.
To Oleg’s for supper, 6:30
DAILY PLANNER 1985: June Thursday 20
No Prov. Film Censor Board job—should be 42 not 24.
Apply for unempl. insur.
Out with Beth, Ross, Kathy can’t handle wine any more
June Saturday 22
A, I dream of you beside me in my narrow bed. We are naked. We are both very tender, your arms bring me in, enclose me. Then we lie together, going to sleep. Oh Reality, Reality, where for art thou??
P.M.: At parents with job painting garage door when Grant phones, will I take care of their house while they’re on vacation July 4–10. In background A interjects comments several times—to let me know she’s there? Good—she cares enough to play the same games I do. And I have her parent’s approval to stay in their house, yes! Fun.
Was it? During that last summer, what could Gabriel experience as “fun”? Hal knew he would never know. Personally he remembered nothing—though he sometimes tried—of that July. Was that the hot month he dragged out building the stone retaining walls overlooking the cliff at the cabin? The rocks in his hands such concentrated, heavy, absolute exactly-what-they-are and nothing less. Fitting them together, round granite, flat and breaking sandstone he hauled up from the creek in the pickup or from farm rock piles along the road allowances, selected and fit so carefully leaning against the sheered clay wall of the patio deck ending on the cliff high above the trees and twisted creek water shining between flickering aspen. Lift the rocks with your two hands, place them and they lay, a declaration of solid, unchangeable earth; like Canadian Shield bedrock billions of years … and Gabriel wrote not a word in his diary about that week of “taking care of their house,” July 4–10 1985. Indeed, not one diary or journal mention of Ailsa from June 22 to August 12: seven weeks and a day.
Though he named twenty-eight different movies.
And there were three loose pages; torn out of something. No dates.
Page 1: lists birth information, including “6 lbs 10 oz May 19, 1971” and the names, addresses of “Jordon from Brooks, Lee from Bow Island, met at the Roy Salmon Praise and Worship May ’85 weekend. Favourite saying: Right on!”
Page 2: an outline sketch of the bedroom with full page list of items and rectangles of drawers labelled with contents: “make-up,” “letters Lee, Jordon,” “underwear,” “socks,” “in bank: $76.00 babysitting,” “sweaters,” “bedclothes,” “skirts/shirts” …
No “letter Gabriel”?
Page 3:
Petals, petals falling
It’s just a flower
She’s barely a teenager
The flower doesn’t even have the sense to
completely denude itself
Oh, I feel soooooooo bad!! (I’m writing like a little kid)
She is so common as to be banal. Her dreams—huge Michael Jackson poster, Ghostbusters, Fears for Tears, handwritten recipe for lemon sherbet—nothing more, nothing less. A Bible—ever opened? not noticeably. But, then, after the day or two of hate, after thinking that the rose is finally, absolutely, dead, you realize suddenly (like a breeze washing over you) that you still love her. After you noticed that she is not quite as beautiful as you thought, you find you still love those full lips, those eyes, yes more than ever. The feelings are human. The family album pictures, the ones that captured her off guard, looking right, staring over her shoulder, at what? I listen to her tapes, tapes she has gone to the trouble of making, she has held how often in her slim hands
It’s a sad affair
He calls out in the night
And it’s so …
Suffer suffer the children
And beyond the three written pages there are pictures.
Seven prints. Hal could not believe it possible these were all Gabriel with his unending demand of camera took the long week he stayed in that house—if he did stay. More likely he could not endure even one complete day in a place so haunted, especially at night—in what bed could he dare sleep?—especially the kitchen sink over which they once talked, side-by-side, handing each other dishes (though surely Joan heard them, and Grant, from wherever they were in the spacy bungalow with all those wide archways opening to kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway to three bedrooms). He could not have endured that smallest bedroom nearest the hall telephone—five of the seven pictures he kept were of Ailsa’s bedroom. The tightening order of black and white obsession; no colour, nothing touched:
Picture 1. The unfocussed backyard seen through the curtains above the kitchen sink: one of the curtain folds could be a pale slender thigh with knee bent, leg and ankle slanted forward as if running;
Picture 2. The pale telephone: hung up beside the closed hallway cupboard; the cord dangled in coils to the baseboard;
Picture 3. The bedroom, clothes closet: twenty-nine black wire hangers, thirteen with clothes hanging unrecognizably together; long dresses, perhaps a robe, jackets, shirts, skirts or slacks;
Picture 4. The bedroom, bed: brilliant light on the shadowed bedspread like a massive, winged creature; between its jagged upper leg and wing lay one small pillow, and on it the embroidered word “HOME”;
Picture 5. The bedroom, vanity and corner of large mirror: a reflection of the bed with ribbed throw and cushions, sunlight shone through lace window curtains, end table with radio, writing desk with lamp; the edge of the mirror lined with head-shots of teenage girls;
