The Tin Flute

by Gabrielle Roy

  She turned brusquely away from the window and went to sit at a corner of the table, leaning on it, tired to death. She wouldn't lack for chores to take her mind off her troubles. The little ones would be getting up soon; she would wash and dress them and get them ready for school. And she'd have to coax and wheedle Philippe to help her in some small way. No, she had preoccupations enough. But she preferred to think of the thing that caused her pain: Florentine's departure. She wanted to have a few more minutes alone with that pain, to give herself up to it just once more.

  Her dressing gown hung partway open, revealing her shapeless body. She saw her legs, swollen and with dark stains and bumps caused by dilation of her veins.

  Rose-Anna collapsed on the table, her head in her arms. It was so long since she had cried! It was a relief even to feel the tears begin. But a moment later there were light footsteps and Yvonne appeared in the doorway. She stayed there, fearful, looking at her mother. Then, in a rush, she ran to throw herself at Rose-Anna's feet.

  Her mother began mechanically rolling the child's hair around her fingers. Then, as if she had just realized that Yvonne was there, she pushed her back; embarrassed by the child's clear gaze, she covered herself more decently with her dressing gown.

  "What is it, Vonette?" she asked.

  It was a long time since she had used this pet name. On emerging from childhood Yvonne had grown silent and almost tiresomely serious, with fits of prayer and penitence that astonished her mother. She had even taken offence at this excess of piety, giving the girl small chores to do around the house when she was trying to get away to church. "You serve God best when you help your parents, you know." Rose-Anna would tell her the parable of Mary and Martha, but her memory would trick her and she would confuse the two. "You know, Jesus said it was Martha who chose the better part." To which Yvonne made no reply.

  Now she began weeping softly at her mother's knee. Rose-Anna wondered if she had not neglected and misunderstood the child. She lifted Yvonne's chin to look in her eyes, and what she saw moved her deeply. It was an expression of tender pity and protectiveness rather than the mute reproach of other times.

  For a moment Yvonne returned her mother's gaze, then put her thin arms around her heavy body.

  "Poor Mamma! Poor Mamma!" she murmured.

  Rose-Anna noticed for the first time the graceful, developing form of the child beneath her nightgown. Already! she thought, not knowing whether to rejoice or be sad at the discovery.

  After a silence, she said:

  "You know, you'll soon be as big as Florentine!" And she asked in a soft, trembling voice: "Are you going to get married too?"

  "No," Yvonne replied calmly.

  She was squatting at her mother's feet, staring rapturously at the grubby wall as if she saw it illuminated by the sun.

  "I'm going to be a nun," she said, her voice singing, soft and winged with sincerity.

  "You're going to be a nun," Rose-Anna repeated.

  "Unless God takes my life," Yvonne went on. "I offered my life if Daniel gets well." Rose-Anna's eyes blurred. She had almost forgotten Daniel in the intensity of her worries over Florentine. How could she! Each one of the family had been so preoccupied by his own troubles that no one had thought of the sick boy. Except Yvonne!

  She knew that her voice would not be firm. She tried to get up, then looked straight at Yvonne as though she didn't see her, saying quickly:

  "I'm pretty tired for going to the hospital today. And the streetcar makes me sick to my stomach, you know. Do you think you could find your way all alone?"

  The girl was on her feet with one bound, her eyes shining.

  "Oh, yes! I can ask the way. Let me go! And I have an orange left for Daniel. I'll bring him the chocolates Emmanuel gave us. Maybe Jenny will let him have some. His good Jenny! His beautiful Jenny!"

  Rose-Anna had told her about his affection for the young nurse, and Yvonne had taken Jenny to her heart, including her in her childish prayers. Now that she had her mother's permission to go to the hospital, so long desired, she hurried to get dressed before Rose-Anna could change her mind.

  She was singing snatches of hymns in the next room, something about the lovely month of May. Soon she appeared in her convent uniform, the long skirt flapping around her legs but the bust now too tight.

  At the door, before flying on her way, she said very seriously:

  "I haven't decided yet what kind of nun I'll be. Maybe for the poor. Or maybe a nursing sister. Either one would be good in God's eyes, wouldn't it, Mamma?"

  "Yes," said Rose-Anna, "but don't run when you cross the streets, and look up and down first. And take a few cents out of my purse in case you get too tired."

  352

  "I don't need any money," said Yvonne happily.

  Then, stiff in her ugly costume despite her graceful body, she ran off. Her arms were filled with packages. Rose-Anna guessed there was more than dainties in the big brown paper bag she was hugging. There'd be holy pictures too, and pious pamphlets, all the things the child hoarded.

  At the window, Rose-Anna saw another of her children leave. This trip up the mountain was a serious affair for a child who had never been farther than the church. And because of the conversation they had just had, this departure seemed marked by a special sign.

  When Yvonne had turned the corner her mother could barely remember her face. It seemed to her that the child had already withdrawn from this world, and that an impassable distance had been placed between the two of them. Of all the separations that had afflicted her recently, this one seemed the hardest, the most mysterious and irrevocable.

  Yvonne was taken from her. But Yvonne had never belonged to her.

  Daniel had been crying. His heavy eyelids barely opened on his reddened eyes. For more than a week now Jenny had been on duty in another ward and he saw her only when she passed by and came to tuck him in and leave a whiff of perfume from her blonde hair.

  He had demanded her with cries and fits of anger which left him weakened, chilled and sweating. Then he wanted his mother, who also failed to appear.

  His small, diaphanous face, the skin tightened over the bones, had taken on a curiously old expression. He was horribly thin. The bed covers lay flat over his weakened body, which seldom moved. In spite of the blood trans- fusions and ingestions of raw meat they had given him, his illness had made swift progress. Without pain, very gently, he was entering on the final phase of his disease.

  Yvonne, with the God-given comprehension of a child, knew as she bent over him that he was about to die. All the strength and willpower he possessed was concentrated in the boy's piercing glance.

  He pulled toward him the big package she had brought. His hand was impatient and the bag tore, and he saw all kinds of things tumble onto the bed. There were coloured pictures which fascinated him, and then he discovered a baby chick made of cardboard. It could stand up by itself. Yvonne explained that she had drawn it and cut it out at school before Easter, specially for him.

  At the word "school" he pricked up his ears and looked pensive. Then he was back to his exploration of the bag and its surprises. He found a row of little men cut out of white paper, holding each others' arms. This brought the shadow of a smile to his face. Then he left all the things he had gathered to catch an orange which started rolling down the folds in his covers.

  He held it up to the light in his cupped hands and looked at it with a puzzled frown. In the hospital they'd often given him a glass of juice that tasted like orange. But an orange wasn't juice, it was a fruit you got at Christmastime. You found it in your sock on Christmas morning, and you ate it, quarter by quarter, making it last. An orange was like a new coat, or a shining flute: you wanted it so much you kept asking for it, and when at last you held it in your hand you had no use for it.

  Funny that this Christmas fruit was now his! It wasn't winter, and his mother wasn't coming in with parcels which she'd hide before even taking off her coat. It wasn't winter and it wasn't Christ
mas, and there he was with a fine orange in his hand, round and soft and full. But he had no appetite. He let it fall and turned so he could peek at Yvonne. He had liked her before, in that world that was now so different, so far. In the evening she would help him with his lessons. While he was in school he had loved that serious face leaning over the book beside his own, their two voices spelling together, repeating the singing names of the letters. Now he wondered what it meant that she was here at his bedside.

  After a while he ventured a timid smile. And Daniel, who had never been demonstrative, reached out a hand and touched her cheek.

  His hand wandered over her cheek like a baby's, with its mysterious gestures of possession and curiosity.

  Close to tears, she asked him:

  "Do you still know your prayers, Danny?"

  He nodded faintly, then blushed and murmured:

  "Nothing but Our Father.

  "That's enough," she said. "Our Father is the prayer Jesus taught us himself. Say it with me, Danny."

  He was watching her with anxious curiosity, but he began the prayer, stumbling a little, and recited it without her help until he came to Thy will he done, Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven. Then he seemed confused.

  "In Heaven, will there be Jenny?"

  "Yes, your good, pretty Jenny will be in Heaven some day," Yvonne replied gravely.

  "She's Jenny!" he said with a vehement, defiant tenderness. Then he sighed. "But she doesn't cross herself."

  Yvonne hesitated, wet her lips and said with an effort:

  "She'll go to Heaven anyway."

  "And Mamma?"

  "Mamma, you can be sure she will," said Yvonne with more conviction.

  He seemed to reflect for a long time, then murmured:

  "You too?" She was all he had left, and he suddenly loved her with all his heart.

  "Yes," said Yvonne, leaning down to kiss him.

  In that moment, she felt a flood of rapturous, almost frenzied affection. To reassure Daniel, she was ready to compromise her conscience with all its timorous and childish scruples.

  "There'll be everything you love in Heaven," she promised in her sweet, childish voice. "That's what Heaven is: everything you love. There'll be the good Holy Virgin, and she'll rock you to sleep in her arms. You'll be like a Christ-child in her arms."

  "But I'll have my new coat too!" he interrupted, trying to show his determination.

  "If you want it, you'll have your new coat, but you'll have lots nicer things than that. You'll never be hungry or cold in Heaven, Daniel. And nothing will ever hurt. You'll be singing with the angels."

  He closed his eyes, wearied with the visions she was calling up before him.

  So as not to burst into sobs in front of him, Yvonne quickly stood up, put the orange into his hands and fled, a puny figure in her skimpy dress which flapped about her slender legs as she ran.

  Daniel saw her going and tried to call her, but his cry failed to reach her.

  A few days later, the day nurse coming on duty found him dead. His life had gone out gently, without cries or suffering.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Rose-Anna dressed the children as soon as they had finished their midday meal. Astonished by her haste to get them outside, they dawdled and made her angry. They picked away at their food, and couldn't find their things for going out. Rose-Anna hustled them along to the door, sending Gisele with them, and told Yvonne to take good care of them all.

  The child remembered other hurried departures when she was small. Made anxious by these memories and by her mother's pain-distorted face, she hated to leave her.

  "Let me stay inside," she begged.

  "No, no, I don't need you today. Go and play before school. And stay and play afterwards."

  She watched them go, all holding hands, Gisele in the middle. She heard their voices fade away and wished she could call them back, kiss them again and hold them tight for a moment.

  During her pregnancy she had several times felt a presentiment of her own death, and had occasionally even welcomed this idea with longing for rest. But at the sight of her children pausing before the level crossing, then scurrying all at once, probably because of Gisele who was going with them for the first time — a great responsibility — she imagined all the dangers threatening them today, tomorrow, in the distant future, and put away as a sin her longing for rest and death.

  She went back in the house, and the sound of the door shutting behind her rang in her mind. She was alone now, as a woman always is at such times, she thought, encouraging herself. But she had to admit that never had she felt so alone as now. No one could be more alone, no one in all the world.

  The house appeared to her in all its frightful ugliness and indifference. Nothing around her was consoling. Everywhere there was disorder, signs of moving, disarray. She had come to this house, as to many in the past, only to clear a place for herself and have her child, before she even had time to put the house in order. Yet never before had she felt so deserted by the very appearance of stability. She was imprisoned between these four walls.

  She took a few uncertain steps, stumbling through the kitchen, and knocked on the partition to warn her neighbour, as they had agreed. All morning her pains had followed her, catching up intermittently. At times she had wished for a remittance of the pain; at other times, that it would take possession of her in order to have it over. She had put up with the first attacks without revealing it to her family, keeping busy as usual, with her pride in holding on as long as possible and an almost physical refusal of pity; and — at whatever cost to herself — with the conviction that she was thus helping nature along.

  At last the time had come to recognize this pain which she denied the moment it passed, but of which all her life she had been terrified, with a child's terror, well-hidden, well-stifled.

  She went in her room, still almost empty and spacious. At the back — the bed. Rose-Anna lay down. Staring at the grey ceiling, she called Azarius, called him with a low groan. Even alone she was ashamed to confess her body's suffering. Where was Azarius? Why wasn't he with her now? Then she remembered, with a painful effort, as if the most recent events were blurred like the oldest memories. This morning, when news of Daniel's death had come to them, Azarius had rushed to the hospital. Later, as he had not returned, she had agreed with the neighbour's wife on a signal for fetching the midwife. Daniel. . . Azarius. . . Her thoughts revolved around the two of them. Who had died? Daniel, the child? But it seemed to her that her pains came from him, that it was he who was tearing at her body. Poor child! She imagined a small coffin, white and narrow, carried under Azarius' arm. But she mustn't dwell on such things; people said they were bad for a pregnant woman. Yet what could she think about but that shallow coffin, scarcely bigger than a cradle! A burial, a baptism, all the great events of life took on for her the same tragic, fathomless, bitter character.

  And were the baby things ready? Yes, the same ones she had used for Florentine. Florentine! Where was she now? Good Lord, she was married! And one day she too would be delivered up to suffering and the humiliation of the body. She'd been glad when Florentine was born. She had always wanted girls. Yet each time at the last moment she had wanted to give birth to a boy who would have less to suffer. Always when the dark and solitude set in, through the body's distress she had dreaded giving birth to a girl.

  Her mind cleared and she was back in the present. The clock counted its minutes so slowly that with each stroke of the pendulum Rose-Anna felt herself sink into an infinite abyss, then rise, then sink again. She had heard women say that only the first lying-in was hard. She knew otherwise. She knew that each time the body dreaded a little more this fresh submission to suffering, and that the mind remained more apprehensive there beside the chasm, seeing more distantly each time, farther every time, its lovely years of pure and careless youth, so far, ever farther, deep within the past, farther, farther every time. . . .

  She raised herself, wiping her wet forehead. No
w she was sure that no one had heard her rap on the partition. The neighbour might have been out for a few minutes when she knocked. She had to get up, get help. At first she thought she had already done so, then she understood she had the task before her. She succeeded in sitting on the edge of the bed. Using the chairs and the wall for support, she managed to cross the immense space between her room and the kitchen. Just a few steps more. . . She touched the wall with her outstretched hands, and began to knock with all her strength.

  Was it a human voice that answered through the wall? Were those steps she heard at the front door? A train passed. Its wailing whistle deafened her. With a great effort she straightened up, made her way back to her room and fell on the bed. Now it was herself she imagined in a coffin, with a rosary in her clasped hands. She felt such a need to go gently to her death and escape her suffering that she folded her hands on her breast to resemble the vision.

  Slowly it seemed to her that she was a distant spectator of her own last moments, that she was supervising all its stages and would later have to busy herself, when all was over, with arrangements for her own funeral. How would they dress her? The panic of realizing she possessed not a single dress for a decent burial brought her to the surface. She saw the confusion that would reign in her household — the children with no one to dress them and feed them, Azarius, himself like a child, unable to find his collar buttons or his Sunday suit. A thousand worries erupted in her mind. She should have mended Philippe's pants, and she should ask him where he was spending his days, leaving so early in the morning. She murmured, "Jesus, Maria, later, when the children are grown up! ... " And she decided: "I'm going to the hospital." She searched for her shoes under the bed. She reached the dresser where her hat was. She didn't know what she'd done with her coat. Where could it be? She looked around the room, and looked again. Her poor things. . . . She was ashamed of them, ashamed to go like this among strangers. Yet a stronger instinct, intent only on defying the frightful power of her pain, ordered her to leave as she was, half dressed. At last she found her coat and went, tottering, not clear as to how she would reach the hospital, half hoping she would never reach it. At the door she ran into the neighbour woman with the midwife.