Once, in a Town Called Moth

by Trilby Kent

  Ana shook her head.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not leaving. Have you spoken to Mama about it?”

  “It’s not easy for us to speak at the moment. There’s been too much speaking, perhaps.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” She felt her eyes prickle, grow hot with tears. “What are you trying to do to us?”

  “I only want what’s best for you—”

  “And running away again is best?” Ana coughed a laugh. “That’s what she did, and so you think that’s what you can do? Twice?” She picked up the bag packed with her things. “Well, look, there’s another person in this family who can do it too. I’m finished with chasing after her and being pushed around by you!”

  “Ana, wait—listen to me…”

  “I’ve listened. Go and sit in church and tell it to God if it makes you feel better. You’ve always preferred Him to us, anyway.”

  She hauled the bag across the threshold and slammed the front door behind her. As she hurried down the flagstone path, bag banging against her hip, she waited for the sound of the opening door, his voice calling after her.

  She waited until she reached the street, and when still it didn’t come she continued on into the gathering dusk.

  Colony Felicidad

  When my mother left, I pretended not to hear the whispers.

  Not allowing myself to hear anything bad was all part of being good—and I had to be good, or else whatever was out there, beyond the forest, would come for me too.

  When I was little, I couldn’t understand why someone would choose to leave Colony Felicidad. We had everything we could want, and we lived according to God’s will. That only meant one thing: if my mother hadn’t left willingly, she must have been spirited away by the Devil.

  It had happened before, and it could well happen again—people left colonies from time to time, and there was no stopping them—but when it did, it made those of us who’d been left behind cling even closer together, like survivors on a storm-tossed ship.

  Toronto

  THERE WERE DIFFERENT SPIRITS living in the ravine, not like the pombéro. The First Nations people here had worshipped different gods, had different devils. In history, Ana’s class had been shown an early map of the city charting suspected tribal burial sites. There was one under the tennis courts near Thandi Rosen’s house, and several dotted at various points along the river.

  Ghosts can’t cross running water, Ana told herself. Then she hesitated, because that was all very well and good as long as you were on the right side of the stream. She edged down the bank, hoping that she had chosen wisely.

  As she picked her way along the shore, the sky turning pewter behind the black tree canopy, Ana thought about Mr. Peterson and his childhood friend floating their raft down this same stretch of water. How long had it taken them? Where had they camped?

  What good had it done them, in the end?

  “Howdy,” said a voice through the trees.

  Ana stopped. As the sun set, the shadows had begun to play tricks on her. Insects flitted and peeped in the brush, while the sound of the water seemed to echo the rustling of the branches.

  About ten yards from where she stood, a woman sat surrounded by plastic shopping bags. Although the air was still soft and muggy, she wore a puffy vest over what looked like layers of clothing—cardigans, a high-necked work shirt—and thick, woolly socks curled over the tops of mud-splattered hiking boots. Her gray hair was piled in a knot at the top of her head, and her face was lined and white as the moon. “Got a light?” she said.

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Want a brownie?” The woman held up a bag. “They’re not the wacky-tabaccy kind. Some guy was doing a promotion outside the grocery store this afternoon. Fancy.”

  Against her better instincts, Ana stepped closer and reached into the bag. For a while now, her stomach had felt as if it was gnawing on itself. The brownies looked real. Tasted delicious.

  “Take another one,” said the woman. “I don’t have anything to drink, but the water’s pretty clean here and you can use one of my cups…”

  “That’s OK.”

  “Suit yourself.” The woman took another brownie from the bag with quivering, nicotine-stained fingers. “ ‘Way down, way down by the stream…’ ” she sang in a voice that was husky but in tune. She caught Ana’s eye and smiled. “Do you know it? ‘How very very sweet it would seem, once more just to dream, by the silvery moonlight…’ ”

  “Vaguely.”

  “It’s an old song. Kind of cheesy, I know.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments, and then the woman cocked a thumb over her shoulder.

  “The viaduct’s up that way. There’s a guy on the corner with a hot dog stand. If you tell him Beth sent you, I bet he’ll do you a frank for free.”

  “Really?” Ana glanced up the hill in relief. She hadn’t realized civilization was so close by.

  “You’ll hear the cars from halfway up.”

  “Do you want anything? A hot dog?”

  “I’m watching my figure.” The woman winked. “You’d better hustle before it’s totally dark. Nice meeting you…?”

  “Ana. Anneli.”

  “Anneli. That’s pretty.” The woman nodded. “You take care now.”

  After ten minutes, she recognized a street. Then another.

  She was walking toward Mischa’s house.

  “What do you want to watch? We can download pretty much anything…” Mischa crossed his legs beneath him on his bed and began scrolling through options.

  “I don’t mind. Anything.” Ana cupped the mug of tea in both hands, breathed in the soft lemon scent.

  “Hey, here’s that dude Sean was always going on about. Werner…”

  “Verner. Werner Herzog.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mischa clicked through to the summary. “Fitzcarraldo. About a guy obsessed with building an opera house in the jungle.” He shrugged. “I can do business with that.”

  “Are you sure it’s OK if I stay over tonight?”

  “Yeah, of course. I’ll take the futon. Just don’t be surprised if you go down to the bathroom and find Mrs. Calder sitting in the hallway—she does that sometimes. She’s waiting for her cat to come in.”

  “OK.” Ana leaned back against the headboard. “Thanks again. Really. I owe you.”

  “Stuff will work out. Don’t worry.”

  Where does the soul come home to rest?

  Who covereth it with protective wings?

  Alas, the world offers no refuge to me

  where sin cannot come, cannot contest.

  No, no, no, no, here it is not,

  The home of the soul is above in the light…

  “You have a good voice,” said Mischa, as they passed in the hallway outside the bathroom the next morning. He had a duvet and pillow bundled under one arm and had to crab-walk past her on the landing to squeeze by.

  “I didn’t know I was singing.”

  “Don’t worry, it wasn’t loud or anything. My parents are used to me practicing Don Giovanni in the shower.”

  “Opera,” nodded Ana. “Suvi said.”

  “Suvi doesn’t get it.” Mischa shifted the pillow to his other arm. “She likes stuff with all the bells and whistles—you know, distortion and effects and that kind of thing. If there isn’t a video to go with it, she’s not really interested.”

  “I don’t think she’d be into hymns,” said Ana.

  “You’re probably right. But hey, any time you want to come to see one of our concerts…”

  “That would be cool. Thanks.”

  “I was thinking…maybe one day I’ll design theaters. Combine drawing with opera, you know? I could be like Fitzcarraldo, only less insane.”

  “Insane’s OK. He got that ship over the mountain, didn’t he?”

  “Fair point. You have to dream big, I guess.” Mischa tugged her braid with a wink. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge, OK?”

  Her pho
ne buzzed in her pocket, and Ana gestured thanks. She waited until he’d gone downstairs to flip open the screen.

  Goo’ndach, read the text.

  Suvi gave me your number. I hope that’s OK.

  Jonathan

  She was pouring cereal into a bowl, still staring at his message, when the text came in from her mother.

  Just let me know you’re safe, it said. Your father is beside himself.

  “For days after it happened, I’d wake up in the night to feel him sobbing in bed next to me,” Lena said. “For all I know, that went on for weeks. Months.”

  They’d arranged to meet at the café at the far end of Mischa’s street. Despite Suvi’s talk about Mischa’s parents buying a house in a fancy neighborhood, the main drag here was still pretty shabby: dollar stores and secondhand shops dotted between greasy spoons and dive bars. Block by block, the street smells ebbed between Indian food and torn garbage bags, a plastic scent from the wig store and something bodily and stale outside the community housing. “You didn’t hang around to find out,” she said.

  Lena ignored the note of accusation in Ana’s voice and stirred her coffee with an unreadable expression. She hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup before coming out to meet Ana. Without the faintest slick of mascara, her eyelashes looked pale and brittle. Even the freckles that dotted her cheekbones looked faded, drained of life.

  “He spent the nights begging God to forgive him,” she said quietly. “The days were a different matter. He withdrew from everyone. Me and you, especially. It was as if he was afraid to be near us.”

  “You don’t have to believe me,” she continued. “You don’t have to care or try to understand. But someone has to say this for him. It nearly killed him, Ani. The guilt. He wasn’t afraid for himself, but for us. After the police came—”

  “So they did come? At the time?”

  Outside, an elderly woman in a pink nightgown and knee socks shuffled down the sidewalk, singing loudly. A plastic tiara had been stabbed into her riot of frizzy white hair, red circles drawn in lipstick on her sallow cheeks. Ana watched her go before fixing her gaze back on Lena.

  “A man came up the drive one day, claiming to be lost,” Lena said. “His car had broken down. He was Guaraní. I was hanging out some washing. I said I’d get one of the men to help, but he insisted he didn’t want to be any trouble. He just wanted to know if I knew the route to Moth, if I could confirm that there was a truck that came up to us once or twice a week for shipments, because if there was he was hoping he could hitch a ride home with them later in the day. I felt sorry for him. He didn’t look like a policeman. I didn’t think. I said yes…”

  “And he was a cop?”

  “I don’t know. He was working for them, anyway. They turned up the next day, asking questions. They insisted on interrogating me, but before I went in Gerhard Buhler had something to say. Years before, before he married Rachael, before Maria and Susanna were born, Gerhard had…he’d been interested in me, shall we say.” Lena avoided meeting Ana’s eye. “There were threats. I could see the writing on the wall: Gerhard was going to punish me for spurning him all those years ago by turning my husband over to the police. He was going to ruin Miloh and make pariahs of you and me. So I fled. At first, with you—but I’ve told you that already…”

  Her mother pressed her fists to her eyes, rubbed hard. When she looked up again, the skin was white and startled.

  “He doesn’t want your pity, Ana,” she said in a small voice. “He’s punished himself enough already. He knows he has to let you go. But don’t do what I did. He doesn’t deserve that all over again.”

  He was sitting on her bed when she came in, an enormous book open on his lap. The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

  “Will you take it with you?” he said, without looking up. “Back to her? I never was able to make head or tail of it.”

  All that way, Ana thought. They traveled all that way, to the very edge of the continent, to escape from the rest of the world. To make a better life, to live with dignity, in peace. And still, all that way from the rest of civilization, trouble found him. It didn’t seem fair.

  Ana closed the book and set it on the bed. Climbed onto her father’s lap and circled her arms around his neck. Tight, tight, to still the shuddering shoulders, to silence the sobs of a little boy stuck, alone, at the farthest branch in the tipu tree.

  I’d like to be able to say that I eventually got a letter from Susanna that answered all my questions, tied up the loose ends. I’ve written a letter to her, not saying too much about Mama and Papa for fear of getting Papa into trouble, just letting her know that I’m safe and happy and that I miss her and Justina and I hope that Maria and the baby are doing OK. I told her how it took coming here for me to see what had been in front of me all along in Colony Felicidad, to see all the things that had been kept from me as a child. I suppose, sometimes, you only get to properly understand a place by leaving it.

  That’s what Lena said the evening I moved in with her for good, as we poured over atlases borrowed from the library. She loved the pictures: the mountain ranges, lakes, seas, islands and arbitrary manmade borders. But I was awed by the index: so many places, most of them so small and never to be imagined, let alone visited. Neatly ordered by alphabetical standing, stripped of history and context, the mundane listed side by side with the unpronounceable.

  Every one of them was home to someone. A place left behind, and returned to.

  So, here we are: sitting at the airport with a stack of magazines on the seat between us, breaking a bar of Cadbury Fruit & Nut and waiting for our gate to be called. Lena is using her teeth to snap the tag off the sunglasses she bought in Duty Free, and I’m looking out the big glass wall at the expanse of concrete hangars and landing strips, and the distant cluster of buildings beyond them that is downtown.

  I’ve promised to bring back an alpaca wool scarf for Suvi. Mischa just wants a postcard from Machu Picchu. I told him I didn’t know if there was a post office actually in Machu Picchu, but that I’d do my best. I’ve told Jonathan that it’s fine that Suvi gave him my phone number. I pretended to be annoyed with her for about three minutes, but she could clearly tell I didn’t mean it. She even suggested that I send him a postcard too. I told her to mind her own business for once.

  I’ll send one to Papa, though. He’s staying with Johan and Katherina in Aylmer for the time being. Apparently Elizabeth’s cat is expecting another litter in a few weeks. She’s promised me one of the kittens when I get back. I’ve already decided to call it Papillon.

  The screen above our heads flickers into life, and a voice over the intercom announces our gate. We shove the magazines into a plastic bag and steer our suitcases around the ankles of people still waiting for their flights. My stomach does a weird fluttery thing, and then Lena stops and turns to look at me.

  “Did you just get that?” she said. “That starting a journey feeling? Kind of excited, but also kind of scared?”

  “Yeah.”

  She slings her handbag over her shoulder and takes my hand.

  “Inca Trail, here we come,” she says.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Damaris Schmucker, Kerry Fast and Anna Wall for their generosity and honesty in advising on the Mennonite experience in Canada and abroad; to Leila Rasheed for her perceptive and instrumental feedback on an early draft; and to Tara Walker, Samantha Swenson and all the team at Tundra Books for helping to bring this story to fruition with unfailing enthusiasm, patience and humour.

  The author would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council for providing funding support during the completion of this work.

  Other People’s Words

  The epigraph on this page and lyrics on this page are from “Tonight You Belong to Me.” Words and Music by Billy Wayne Rose and Lee David. © Copyright 1926 (renewed 1954) CHAPPELL & CO., INC. and C & J David Music Company/ASCAP/Anne Rachel Music Corp./ASCAP. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  The
lyrics on this page–this page are from “Devil’s Got a Gun.” Words and music by Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland. © 2012 Whitehorse and Six Shooter Records. All rights reserved. Used by permission.