Original Prin

by Randy Boyagoda

  “Prin, there’s something you need to tell me. What is it? Are you feeling sick? Did the doctor call? Did something happen at work?” Molly asked.

  “I’m not feeling sick and the doctor didn’t call but yes, something happened at work, and it’s not great news,” Prin said.

  “Bad committee work again?” she asked.

  “Actually, sort of, yes,” Prin said.

  And so Prin told her everything. At least, he told her everything that made sense to tell, at that point, in the sacramentally valid context of having had his lack of charity towards her forgiven a few hours earlier. Molly was worried by the news of UFU’s potential closing and didn’t know what to think about the options for keeping it going. She knew exactly what to think, however, when she found out about Prin’s having to work with Wende. She put her glass down on the coffee table so hard it toppled a nearby Lego crucifix.

  “So this is all guilt. The hug, the pizza, the picking up around the house, the wine, the commitment to helping Middle Eastern Christian orphans. All guilt. But what really upsets me is that you feel like there’s something to be guilty about. You mentioned this woman back when we first started dating, but you didn’t make it out to be a big thing,” she said.

  “Because it wasn’t! Molly, it’s not that at all,” Prin said.

  He waited, thinking she’d start crying, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked out their front window. He didn’t know what to say next either so he got down on his knees and began to piece back together the Lego crucifix. He gave Jesus a helmet of hard brown plastic hair and wondered if it would help to remind her why, post-operatively, he really had nothing to be guilty about, even if he wanted to be. But that could lead to a whole other set of speculations. And there was no need. He had felt felt nothing! The littlest red pieces, rose heads, plastic stigmata, fit into place in silence. No tapping. He was that close now. Was he that close now? Lord, am I that close?

  The bearded, yellow-faced Lego Jesus smiled at him but gave up no ghost.

  Molly stood up and said she understood he needed to be part of this committee to save the university, and that it wasn’t his fault his ex-girlfriend was involved. She only wanted to make sure it wasn’t Prin who had contacted her. He nearly pointed out that he hadn’t Googled her in ages, certainly not in months. Why had he been Googling in the first place? Never mind. We all do, right? His browser history had also long since been shriven.

  “Molly, what can I do to assure you there’s nothing to worry about?” he asked.

  “Whatever you think is best, dear,” Molly said.

  With a bit of a bite.

  One of the girls called Molly from upstairs. Prin offered to go. Molly ignored him and went, then called him to come quickly. He dashed up the stairs ready to do everything he could to show his love for her, for them, and reached the room just as Philomena began throwing up in her bed.

  They continued arguing about Wende the next night while washing and folding laundry. Meanwhile, Fr. Pat had asked Prin to begin his committee work by scheduling a Skype meeting with representatives from the school in Dragomans, and also to give a talk on later-life learning to a seniors’ group who might be potential residents of a future condo on the university’s grounds. It would be five more nights of washing and folding laundry before Prin and Molly could finish their own conversation—after Philomena came Chiara, then Maisie, then Pippa, on Molly, and finally Prin. It was either stomach flu or food poisoning from bad pizza.

  “I guess there’s one thing you can do, Prin, to make me feel better about this,” Molly said.

  “Name it,” Prin said.

  “Invite her over for dinner,” Molly said.

  13

  Wende didn’t come alone. She also didn’t bring a date. At least Prin presumed she had not brought a date.

  “I’m Rae,” said a short, business-dressed Chinese woman.

  Molly was still in the kitchen when the two of them pulled up in a Lexus. Their daughters—scrubbed, combed, and arranged oldest to youngest in pretty dresses—awaited the guests just inside the front door.

  “You have a big shiny car for just two people!” said Chiara.

  “Thank you. And you all look beautiful. You have a very charming home,” said Wende.

  How small their house was. It was a ninety-year-old semidetached with three bedrooms and a half-finished basement located at the top of a hill in the city’s east end. Looking south on clear winter days, you could see straight across Lake Ontario to the smoke and crumbling block of Buffalo.

  The house itself had been renovated many times over the years, but never fully or especially well, which is why they had been able to afford it. The result was exposed brick here and there; hollow, fake-panelled doors set in original gumwood frames; thick, well-scored old oak floors running into click-in-place artificial oak whose surface was a reasonable facsimile of thick, well-scored old oak floors, at least where it wasn’t peeling. The bathroom looked like the Before shot in a home renovation show. Their furniture wasn’t all shabby and certainly not all chic, but a combination of interesting yard-sale finds, better IKEA, and random pieces of fine, nineteenth-century German craftsmanship—end tables and side chairs and such, all the colour of blackstrap molasses—which they’d brought home from Molly’s grandmother’s Milwaukee bungalow over the years.

  The walls were mostly—but not entirely!—covered in religious art and family photographs. Prin’s mother frequently gave Molly silver-plated trays from Sri Lanka meant for hanging, not serving, that featured images of monks, elephants, and monkeys, and ceremonial processions of monks, elephants, and monkeys. These were propped up in advance of Lizzie’s visits. More recently, Prin had also started propping up a Golden Rule poster, framed in a thick, filigreed oak, that Lizzie’s new Muslim husband had presented to the family on his first visit to their home.

  Kingsley had given them a framed picto-history series marking his life and exploits. Thanks to a clever German carpenter who also must have had a vain in-law, the pictures were affixed to the inner panel of a buffet top that could be quickly opened and prominently displayed at the sound of an impatient triple doorbell.

  Prin wasn’t embarrassed by any of this as he studied Wende taking in their home from the foyer. Did she notice the piles of New Yorkers set beside the piles of Saint’s Lives comic books? What exactly did she notice? She’d accepted the invitation to come to dinner with no comment. But she must have been nervous, because she brought someone who, so far as Prin could tell, was not her date.

  “So, how do you know Wende?” asked Prin.

  “Rae’s an agent,” said Wende.

  “ASIAN! It’s pronounced ASIAN!” said Philomena.

  Her sisters took her away.

  “A real estate agent?” Prin asked.

  “Correct,” said Rae.

  “Welcome!” Molly said.

  She was wearing a flowing, floral-print black dress that moved with vigour as she accepted the flowers and wine and brought everyone in to their little living room. Wende wore slate-grey slacks and a white cotton dress shirt that had maybe one more button undone than was necessary.

  The conversation right away focused on Rae. She had only come to Canada a few months ago, to help her uncle with his import-export business. She had left that and was now working with Wende and the developer who wanted to turn UFU into a retirement condo. Did she like Toronto? Yes. What did she like about it? It looked like a movie set for a big city and it was clean like a hospital. Did she miss home? Yes. A lot. She missed her husband and her own children. A lot. She had three daughters. Why had she come to Canada alone? Next question. Were you hoping your family would join you here? Stupid question.

  “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’m going to check on the kids,” Molly said.

  “Why don’t I?” Prin said.

  “You chat with Rae. Can I offer s
ome help, Molly?” Wende asked.

  The two women walked to the kitchen together. Prin heard a buzzing, high-pitched sound. He’d never strained his ears so much! But he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  “So, you’re at UFU, correct?” Rae asked.

  “Yes, I’m a professor there,” Prin said.

  “And do you pronounce the school ooo-foo, or do you say the letters like words, like You, Eff, You?”

  “That’s been a debate for years. People say it both ways,” Prin said.

  “I like You, Eff, You,” Rae said.

  “Me too. So, I think we’ll be working together. I’m curious, what’s your role in all of this?” Prin asked.

  She nodded heavily, twice.

  “Sorry, what’s your role?” Prin asked.

  “I am responsible for finding potential residents. Actually, I think we are going to do an event together, you and I, soon. Correct? That’s how you say it, yes? We are going to do some old people together?” Rae said.

  “Yes, I’m delivering a talk to a seniors’ group. Father Pat asked me to share my research with them,” Prin said.

  “And if they become interested, that’s great. If we can do it before that Muslim man finds you, then we get it,” Rae said.

  “Sorry, finds me?” Prin said.

  “Students. From his country. But we will go faster and get it,” Rae said.

  “The contract?” Prin said.

  “The contract,” Rae said.

  “Well, best of luck, and happy to help,” Prin said.

  What were they discussing in the kitchen?

  “Do you mean that, really?” Rae asked.

  “Pardon?” Prin said.

  The children were eating early. Afterwards, they would watch another hour of Ten Commandments in the basement while the adults ate. Prin could hear nothing but their calls for more butterbread and less fish, less beans, and why aren’t we allowed to have dessert during Lent?

  “Do you really mean it, ‘Best of luck and happy to help?’ Canadians say things like this a lot but I don’t know if you mean them. How can so many of you people really have ‘No worries’?” Rae asked.

  “Well, yes, I do wish you the best of luck and, as you know, my own job and those of my colleagues depend on something working out here so I am indeed happy to help,” Prin said.

  “So you will help me, more than you will help the Muslims?” Rae asked.

  “I’m not sure I’d phrase it that way, and probably Wende should be part of this conversation, don’t you think?” Prin said.

  She pulled up closer to him on the couch. Prin leaned back a little, and she leaned forward.

  “But she has no children. You have children. You have daughters! You understand. You must understand. You also have daughters. Please help me. If we get the contract, I will get enough money to bring the whole family here. Otherwise, I think he will fire me definitely, and then I will have to go back to selling kidneys. Do you know anyone who needs one?” Rae said.

  “What? What are you talking about? Kidneys! Is this what your uncle’s import business is about?” Prin said.

  “Sorry? Must be problem with my English. So sorry, I no understand,” Rae said.

  She smiled a lot of teeth, sipped her wine, and stared out the front window. She kept nodding. She also kept checking to see if he was watching her. Rae said nothing more until Wende and Molly returned to the living room, at which point she got up and went into the kitchen to watch the children finish their dinner. Prin didn’t know whether to stay with Wende and Molly and figure out what-kind-of-what was happening there, or to follow Rae. If he did, would he find her sobbing at these other people’s daughters or sizing them for potential donations?

  But instead she came back quickly, and still smiling, if with more effort. Molly invited everyone to the table, where she’d placed a pan of white beans, trout, and rosemary, beside which was a loaf of fresh-baked bread, a green salad, and the white wine that Wende had brought. They gave up alcohol during Lent. So now ought they to acknowledge the guest’s gift by drinking it, or acknowledge Christ’s forty days in the desert by not?

  “Prin?” Molly said.

  “Yes?” Prin said.

  “We’re waiting,” Molly said.

  “You want me to open the wine?” Prin asked.

  “Would you like to lead us in grace?” Molly asked.

  “Oh. Yes, of course. Then… wine?” Prin said.

  Molly smiled.

  “Whatever you think is best, dear,” she said.

  She smiled, but not at him. She smiled at Wende! Who was smiling back.

  Just what kind of conversation did they have in the kitchen?

  14

  “Just what kind of conversation did you have in the kitchen?” Prin asked after the dishes were done.

  Molly smiled and said she wasn’t worried about his working with Wende on a committee. Then she went upstairs to bed.

  The next day, their daughters called Wende the fancy-car bone lady and Rae the real-estate Asian. Molly had had little else to say beyond reassuring Prin that Wende posed no threat. She found her nicer, and not as pretty, as she’d been expecting. And because she could tell he was going to ask something else, Molly had pointed out to Prin that it might be a good idea to spend more time on whatever he had to do through this committee to keep the university open, to keep his job, to keep them in this house, and less time wondering what his wife and long-ago ex-girlfriend had chatted about in the kitchen.

  So they had chatted!

  “Just what kind of conversation did you have in my kitchen? With my wife?” Prin asked when he met Wende on campus, a week later.

  She said he should be more worried about the talk he was about to give. She checked her phone and went to the far side of the room, where Rae, who had set up at a folding table, was registering the old people shuffling into the UFU chapel-and-wellness space, and maybe making discreet queries about any organ-transplant needs they might have. The old people had come to campus to learn more about the condominium development and to attend Prin’s lecture on Later-Life Learning about Marine Life in Canadian Literature.

  He really did need to stop worrying about Molly and Wende talking. But God, even the phrase itself worried him! Not counting the girls he wrote acrostic poems for in high school—who were many, and regarded him as a wonderful friend without really appreciating the effort of the poetry, even M.A.R.Y.F.R.

  A.N.C.I.S.X.A.V.I.E.R. didn’t!—Prin had only had one girlfriend before marrying Molly. But Wende had been, for years, no big deal beyond an occasional Google search, usually after an especially long evening of picking up baby-carrots and Lego body parts. Only now was he giving her any real thought, and that wasn’t his fault. Fr. Pat had hired her. Molly had invited her to dinner. Molly had chatted and smiled with her. Molly had told him there was nothing to tell.

  He arranged his notes on the lectern and surveyed the room. Decades earlier it had been a chapel. Its pews now featured thick cushions and back supports—courtesy of the Class of ’52 and the Class of ’57, respectively—and a series of broad, high windows overlooking the altar had been blocked off on both sides. There had once been two convent schools on the campus whose dining halls flanked the chapel. There had been legendary bun fights waged across the altar over the years, and at least one scholarly article had been published on the theological implications of a butter-roll passing over the priest’s outstretched hands at the moment of consecration. The convent schools had been closed for decades, and the two dining halls were now a scent-free study space and prayer room for Muslim students.

  What remained in the chapel itself were its stained-glass windows depicting scenes from the life of Christ had He had lived, died, and risen among Irish immigrants in 1920s Toronto—but it was otherwise decommissioned and used only for wellness seminars,
liturgical yoga, and, as of now, academically themed real-estate presentations.

  The still-great doors to the chapel suddenly banged shut, jolting everyone. The old peoples’ general muttering intensified but then quieted back down when Rae distributed cookies that she announced, reading from a card, were “gluten- and allergen-free, provide twice your daily serving of vegetables, and are deliciously made according to traditional methods by a Syrian women’s baking collective!”

  The room was abuzz at all of this and stayed that way until Rae pulled a screen on wheels in front of the lectern and played an information video about the condominium development. Set to upbeat, nondescript music, it featured images of fit and happy old white people moving around a gleaming glass-box building built on top of a grey-stone Gothic college. The original building, in this future rendering, had been hollowed out and turned into a massive atrium lined with Apple computers and defibrillator boxes.

  A soothing Asian voice, sort of male, extolled the virtues of life at The New U, where residents spent their days rolling sushi, playing pickleball, taking ballroom and hip-hop lessons, enjoying aromatherapy, learning how to code and deejay, shooting rapids and big game in virtual-reality suites, free Wi-Fi, and writing in thick leather journals embossed with REACH and DREAM and MY STORY and MY TURN and BE TODAY while bespectacled professors moved about classrooms, gesticulating and empowering inspiration. Every scene featured well-dressed groups of smiling young Arab men and women in the background, all waiting to be of assistance.

  The video ended to great applause. Rae then fielded questions concerning pet policy, proximity to hospitals and to veterinary hospitals, whether walk-in tubs were standard or an upgrade, how many dog-washing stations were planned and was it first-come, first-served or by appointment, could grandchildren visits be limited to certain days and parts of the building, would there be any Indigenous values involved, was there guest parking, whether, given the affiliation of the university, the building was going to require you to be Catholic and attend Mass in order to live there, where to get more of those delicious and inspiring cookies, and then, finally, what kind of learning would take place?