by Trilby Kent
There were no young men Maria’s age in the colony at that time. Frank Reimer was several years older, and promised to Trude Teichroeb. Everyone knew they were madly in love. There were a few widowers, and Dick Hiebert, who was a bit slow in the head and looked like a boy still, even though he was in his late twenties. I shook my head.
“If I tell you, you must swear not to tell anyone else.”
“Of course.”
Susanna glanced around to make sure no one was in range to hear. Her little brother, Isaac, had a habit of hiding himself close by to eavesdrop on us—more than once we’d been startled by muffled giggles and had looked up to see him perched at the top of the tipu tree, bare feet clenched around the branch like a monkey.
Susanna put her lips almost to my ear.
“Agustín.”
I looked at her. “She told you?” Susanna nodded. “Do your parents know?”
“I don’t know what she’s told Mother. Father may have guessed. He told José that he wanted Ray to help with loading the milk cans from now on, and to hold over Agustín’s pay. He daren’t say anything, though, or else everybody will know.”
“Surely it will be obvious, eventually?”
“Maria has brown hair, and Agustín doesn’t have such dark eyes. I think Father is hoping it can be kept a secret.”
“Until when?”
“Until he can find the baby another father, I suppose.”
Toronto
HIS DOOR WAS CLOSED by the time Ana came in. There was a light on in his room, but no sound.
The next morning, Ana studied her father’s hands as he sliced the bread, mixed honey into hot water, turned down the thermostat. They were red and callused, the nails thick and white, clipped so short that the skin puffed around them at the tips. Now, for the first time, she noticed how his right hand trembled when he held anything between forefinger and thumb: a slice of lemon, a switch on the wall. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there.
That was the hand that had held the gun, she thought. That pulled the trigger, that fired the bullet, that killed the officer.
She had never seen her father so much as swat a mosquito. He had a temper on him, all right, but he would shout and rage and then retreat into a solitary gloom. He did not break things. He certainly did not strike people.
“Your prayer meeting went on quite late,” he said, sitting down to consider a leaflet that had dropped through the letterbox that morning. Join Your Local Neighborhood Watch, it said at the top.
“We lost track of time.”
“I want you to come home straight after school today,” he said. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Colony Felicidad
It was not like Gerhard to visit Papa in our house. Perhaps that’s why I remember it.
I was sweeping by the back steps when I heard his voice. Papa stepped out to meet Gerhard on the porch, and after exchanging a few words, the two of them went inside. I could hear Papa pour water, the scrape of a chair.
It was wrong to knowingly spy, and so I continued sweeping, following a line down the side of the house past the kitchen window.
Because I had to sweep, I couldn’t hear everything. Just scattered words between brush strokes. Shish-sha, shish-sha. “Maria…” Shish-sha, shish-sha. “Delicate…” Shish-sha, shish-sha. “Time, now…” Shish-sha, shish-sha. “For you, for Ani…”
This went on for a little while before I heard my father stand up and say very clearly that he was not interested. And then, something about Gerhard tidying the mess in his own house rather than spreading it to others.
Gerhard became angry. I could tell by the silence, and then by the scrape of the chair and the sound of a glass hitting the sink. I scuttled back around the side of the house, sweeping furiously.
“You turn this down for your pride,” said Gerhard, as he emerged on the porch. “I’ve never known such foolishness.”
“I’m sorry that I can’t help.”
“The past has a way of finding us out. Maria has learned this. Perhaps you will too.”
The night Gerhard fired his rifle into the forest, no one was around to see the wolves scatter. By the time doors and windows clattered open and some of the men rushed outside, Gerhard was standing alone on the driveway. Maria was screaming, leaning from her window with hair loose about her shoulders, and it was some time before her mother was able to draw her indoors and her shouts gave way to sobs.
My father was the first to reach Gerhard, to wrestle the rifle from him. At the time it made no sense: the other men who came out were all carrying guns too, eager to help defend the livestock. Perhaps, also, to defend us.
“Enough!” Papa shouted. “Think about what you are doing.”
“Fine words,” Gerhard replied, “coming from you.”
By then the others had crowded around them, and it was difficult to hear what else was said. And by the time Papa returned to our house, cupping the back of my head in his hand and ushering me inside, several men had headed in to the forest to drive away any wolves that might have lingered on.
In the morning, the boys combed the driveway for wolf tracks, but none were found. Just as they were giving up the search, the first police car arrived.
Toronto
ANA SAW MR. PETERSON standing where he always stood a few minutes before the bell went: leaning against his car at the far end of the parking lot, smoking a cigarette and staring out over the playing fields.
She would tell him. He would understand. He’d read Papillon, so he knew about innocent convicts on the run, about the different degrees of sin and redemption. He would know what to do. She could trust him.
She had begun to drift toward him when she heard Mischa call after her. He’d emerged from the gym exit, sketchbook tucked under one arm, apparently unaware of the three boys following him. Before Ana could say anything, Sean had grabbed Mischa in a headlock while Fraser ripped the sketchbook from him and Jack threw his backpack to the ground.
“We’re confiscating your porno, freak!” said Sean, pressing Mischa’s head closer to the ground.
“Jesus! Look who it is.” Fraser had flipped open the sketchbook and brandished a page at Jack.
“Was he drawing me in math again? That’s freaking creepy, man—”
“It’s not you, butthead. Look…”
The three boys paused to consider the drawing more closely, Fraser pinning Mischa to the ground with his knee while Sean clutched the scruff of his neck with both hands. Then Sean ripped the page from the sketchbook and leaped across the parking lot, brandishing it in one hand.
“It’s Philip Bird. It’s freaking PHIL BIRD!”
By now clusters of students filtering out of the front and side entrances had stopped to watch as Mischa struggled beneath Jack and Fraser, and Sean raced from group to group holding up the picture for all to see.
“He’s obsessed. He’s been watching this guy, like, forever. Phil! Phil, come over here…”
Ana looked around for Suvi, then remembered that she had soccer practice. Across the parking lot, Mr. Peterson was watching the scene intently. Ana saw him register Mischa struggling in the dust and Sean brandishing the drawing at Philip Bird, who had turned bright red at the sight of his portrait. Then he saw Ana. And she could have sworn that he smiled.
Do something, she heard herself say. You’re the grown-up. Do something.
But Mr. Peterson was too far away to hear, and anyway, he was busy grinding the cigarette into the ground with his heel. Turning his back on the scene, opening the door, climbing into the car, revving the engine.
By the time she’d watched him go, Philip Bird had grabbed the picture from Sean and torn it into pieces.
“Look at me again and die, you pussy,” he shouted at Mischa, who was only now brushing himself off, Fraser and Jack having leaped to join the fray at the sight of the picture being shredded. Sean was pulling other pages from the book now, offering them to the crowd like precious signed artifacts.
“Give that back!” Ana heard herself shout, but Mischa’s voice cut her off—
“Let them have it.”
Seeing him like that, she had found herself stuck for breath.
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” he said to her once everyone had gone. “Don’t say anything.”
He went home ahead of Ana, having shrugged off her offer of a hand as he got to his feet. They’d silently gathered the pages scattered about the playground, and then Mischa had shoved them all in the garbage can at the corner before tramping off without another word. Ana waited until he had disappeared around the corner before shouldering her bag and slowly making her way toward the street.
She counted the purple ribbons tied along the school fence as she walked. It was now a habit: the more she wished she could shake it, the more impossible it had become. There had been nine before Christmas, but one had disappeared over the holidays.
…five…six…seven.
Ana stopped and turned. She counted them again.
Seven.
Ribbon by ribbon, Faith Watson was fading away.
“Ana,” said her father. “This is Sara Toews. She is a friend of your mother’s.”
The young woman sitting awkwardly on the sofa in the front room smiled warily as she stood to embrace Ana. Her gaze flitted from the girl to her father and back again. “It’s so good to meet you at last,” she said.
Ana placed her school bag on the floor and looked at her father.
“At last, my work has paid off,” he said. “Miss Toews here is going to put us in contact with your mother, and then at last we shall be a family again.”
Ana wondered if he realized how ridiculous he sounded. She turned to the young woman.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she said. “Some water?”
Does she know what he did? she wondered. Is that why she looks so nervous?
“I can’t stay,” replied the visitor, who hadn’t resumed her seat. She turned to Ana’s father. “I can’t promise anything. It was several years ago that we shared a room. I’ll have to speak to her first, of course…”
“Of course, of course! But you know where to find us.”
“I do. Good-bye, Ana. It was nice meeting you.”
She flipped her pillow, pressed her cheek onto its cool underbelly. There was nothing to be done about Sara Toews; Lena already knew that Papa was looking for her.
Let them figure it out, she told herself, kicking the sheets down to the edge of the bed only to impatiently pull them back up again. It’s their mess, not mine. I’m just a witness. Collateral.
And then she remembered what she had seen that afternoon, and heard again those awful words that now sounded less like a defence than a recrimination: “So long could I stand by, a looker on.”
When she closed her eyes, there was Mischa’s face as Philip Bird tore up his portrait and spat venom at his feet. Despair and humiliation, and something else. Something worse. Recognition? Resignation? As if Mischa wasn’t even surprised by his reaction.
She hadn’t denied her friend, not obviously—not like Peter denied Jesus—but she hadn’t helped him, either.
Ana lay awake until the blue hour, and fell asleep only as the birds began to sing.
“You were there. You saw what happened. You can give them all detentions—or worse.”
“Mischa hasn’t come to me, Ana,” said Mr Peterson. “If he wanted to register a complaint, that would be another thing.”
“Of course he doesn’t. He’s too embarrassed.”
“Perhaps he should have thought of that in advance. Modified his behavior a bit—in the interests of self-preservation.”
“His behavior?”
“What do you expect? Gay as a garden party in grade nine. Worse things will happen when he’s older. I’m not saying it’s wrong—”
“Wait.” Ana dropped her bag to the floor. “You sound just like one of the ministers at Colony Felicidad. ‘It’s out of our hands.’ ‘The Lord’s will be done.’ Excuses. And meanwhile, people get hurt.”
“You’re conflating two totally different things, Ana—”
“Just because you can’t be happy doesn’t mean that other people deserve to be unhappy too.” She watched him hesitate. “Sometimes I think you like that they think I’m a freak, because it means I’ll want to hang out with you. And you like that they make fun of Mischa because you think it will just prove your theory about how he’ll turn into a messed-up adult.”
“OK. This conversation is over.” Papers shuffled, notebooks slipped into a satchel, keys shaken out of a pocket. “I don’t have time to argue with you. I’d suggest you go to the caf and cool down for a bit before your next class.”
“You see? That’s what’s called a double standard. Suvi taught me that. Girls are supposed to be helpless and weak, because in your eyes that makes us attractive; but if a boy is weak, if a boy like Mischa is vulnerable, you shrug and say he’s a failure or he has to toughen up, ‘modify his behavior.’ ”
“I’m sorry, Ana.” He held the door open. When she didn’t budge, he went through it himself. “We’re done here.”
“Sara Toews—do you really know her?”
The boardwalk was deserted. The sky over the lake promised a storm.
“We were roommates when I first arrived here.” Lena took her hand. “Ani, it’s OK. She called me this morning and told me what your father had to say.”
“She was in our living room. You’re going to have to decide pretty fast what you’re going to tell Papa.”
“I know that. Sara’s discreet, though. Let me worry about it, OK?” The first droplets of rain flicked against their cheeks. “Come on—there’s a bandstand in the park. Let’s not get struck by lightning like complete idiots in the meantime.”
They took cover as branches rustled darkly, rain spitting against the leaves like bullets. Ana dropped onto the bench in the bandstand, digging her fingernail into the grooves where someone had carved JA + MD 4 EVA.
“What did Sara tell you? About Papa, I mean. What does he want?”
“She says he needs to be sure I won’t come back.”
“To Colony Felicidad? Why?”
“Gerhard reacted badly to the news about Maria. According to your father, it drove him to a breaking point. He developed some crazy scheme to blame the pregnancy on your father and get him to accept responsibility for her and the baby. Papa had no wife and a secret that Gerhard was willing to exploit. Gerhard threatened him.” Lena breathed slowly. “He threatened both of us. You too. That’s why your father left in such a hurry. He didn’t want any of us to be hurt.”
“But…” It made sense—awful, cruel, cold-headed sense. A tumult of thoughts poured through Ana’s mind, but only one of them rang clear and true.
“Maria’s baby would have been born by now.”
Two days later: the first golden, barefoot-on-the-front-porch afternoon of the year. Little kids rode their scooters in circles around the cul-de-sac in front of Lena’s building. Dogs pranced, tongues lolling out of the sides of their mouths. For the rest of the city, today was a beginning.
“What are you thinking about all of this?”
Lena shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Ana dug her toes into the gravel path.
“What will happen next?” she asked. “With you and me and Papa.”
“How am I supposed to even begin to process that question?”
“You left him once before.”
“That was survival. That was escaping a community that I didn’t belong to anymore. A place that wasn’t just restricting me, but was becoming dangerous too—for both of us. Escaping what could have been the disgrace of a murder trial, exclusion…”
“If you’d really loved him, you would have stayed.”
“It wasn’t that simple. If he’d gone to prison we’d have been on our own and things would have been hard for you. I’d already decided that I didn’t belong there—but you were just a chil
d, and I knew Justina would look after you.”
“Papa loved you enough to come all the way out here to make sure you were safe.”
“He loved you enough to leave Bolivia. He was worried about you because of what Gerhard threatened.”
“You could move in with us now.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
They watched an elderly couple make way for a mother with a stroller. Greetings were exchanged; the old man fluttered his fingers at the baby.
“Obviously, you’re not going back there.”
“Obviously?” Ana rankled. “How do you know?”
“What a silly question. I’m your mother, Ani.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Oh, don’t give me that teenage baloney.” Lena blew air between pursed lips and batted her hand. “I know stuff about you that even you don’t know. I know that you spent the first night of your life throwing up black bile that made me wonder if I’d given birth to a demon. I know that you were born with a head of dark hair that fell out within a month and grew back blonde and fuzzy at the back where your head rubbed against your mattress. I know that when you were a toddler, in the summertime you liked nothing better than pulling off your clothes and running naked through Gerhard Buhler’s garden. Your father would go bright red, but secretly I’m pretty sure he enjoyed it—”
“Those are all things from long ago. You don’t know who I am now.”
“Is that so? Well, then.” She folded her arms. “Please. Enlighten me.”
“This is stupid.”
“I’m waiting, Ani.” A pause. “Or are you pushing back like this because really, if you’re honest, you don’t have the slightest idea, either?”
“Tell me this,” said Lena. “Which do you prefer? Ani in Colony Felicidad, or Ana in Toronto?”
“I’m the same person, though.”
