by Miriam Toews
Well, thought Hosea as he walked along kicking his piece of ice, she must have done more than handstands on kitchen chairs. He was just about home now and Lorna’s face came pushing and shoving into his thoughts and the picture of Euphemia upside down churning her long thin legs in the air was gone. Hello, Lorna, I’m sorry, Hosea said to the image of her face in his mind. His piece of ice had made it and just before he went into his house he gave it one last kick up and over his little fence into his neighbour’s yard.
“Hey, Hosea, didja hear?” He whirled around to face his other neighbour, Jeannie, who had appeared on her front steps from out of nowhere.
“What’s that, Jeannie?”
“Veronica Epp,” she said. “She’s had her triplets.”
“Oh?” said Hosea.
“That’s right, three,” said Jeannie. “And they’re all okay. All boys. The last one had to be delivered C-section, you know, but he’s okay, too. Can you imagine giving birth vaginally to not one but two babies, and then on top of all that having to be cut open to have the third?” Jeannie shook her head and stared at the ground.
“No. No, I can’t,” said Hosea.
“Who could?” muttered Jeannie, still staring at the ground and shaking her head. Hosea was about to say Well, can’t be easy or something like that and go inside but Jeannie wasn’t finished. “They were going to rush her to the city, but, you know, they didn’t. No time.”
“Ah,” said Hosea. “Well.”
“So Veronica says seeing as how she went to so much work to have these three babies, she should at least be able to name one of them. Makes sense to me, right, but you know Gord her husband always does the naming, he’s that kind of a guy. And he likes names like Ed and Chuck and Dirk and Todd, you know, names that sound like farts. So Gord says, Well, maybe one of them. I heard all this from Rita, you know Rita from the labour pool, she works with Dory, Tom’s wife?”
“Hmmmm,” said Hosea.
“So he says, Well, maybe one of them, right? And she says, Then again, maybe I should name them all, seeing as I’m the one who says their names the most, like all day every day and I like to say names I like, if I’m going to say them over and over again, she says to Gord, right, according to Rita. And Gord says, No way, you can name one, the one with the slow start because he’ll probably turn out to be a mama’s boy, anyway. Okay, so this makes Veronica really mad, right, and she says What do you mean by that? And he says Well, you know, kids with lung problems, wheezing and clinging and skinny, the slow starter had some lung problems, the doctor says. But that’s all taken care of, she says, and she’s really mad, right, and tells Gord to leave the hospital.”
“Right,” said Hosea.
“In the meantime, she names all three of the boys, fills out the forms for vital stats and gives them to the nurse to mail to the city and get this, Hosea, their names are … are you ready?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Hosea.
“Their names are, now let’s see if I remember, their names are Finbar, you know after that saint of lost souls or whatever he is, Callemachus, after I don’t know who, somebody Greek, and Indigo. Like the colour, you know, of jeans?”
Hosea was quiet for a moment. Jeannie was staring at him with her mouth open in one of those frozen poses of suspended laughter and shock where the one suspended waits for the other to twig and then they both collapse in hysterics. Hosea didn’t understand this type of gesture, however, and said, “Um, is there more?” His hand moved to his chest and he managed to tug at his jacket with his Thinsulate gloves.
“No, Hosea, that’s it. I thought it was funny. You know, Gord will freak when he hears their names, of course he’ll probably illegally rename them or something or refuse to call them by name at all, but Rita told me—”
“Wait,” said Hosea. “It is, you know? Now that I think of it, it’s very funny. Very funny.” Hosea tried to laugh. “Ih, ih. Boy, thanks for telling me, Jeannie, that’s rich, Finbar, Callesomething, and, uh … well, good-bye.”
“Say,” said Jeannie, “hold on, where’d you get that hat? Isn’t that whatsisname’s, the—”
Hosea let the door slam behind him.
Hosea hung up his jacket and laid his gloves and Leander’s old hat on the bench in the hallway. He heard the fridge heave and shudder. The kitchen lights flickered for a second while the fridge sucked every available bit of energy in the house. Hosea looked inside his fridge. Half an onion, dry and curled at the edges, a tub of expired sour cream, and the leftovers of the last meal he had shared with Lorna. There’s something wrong with my fridge, he thought. All this energy for a rotting onion and love’s leftovers. The phone rang. Lorna, thought Hosea. He picked up the phone and said hello.
“Jeannie here,” said Jeannie. “One more thing. Apparently the Epps aren’t thrilled with Dr. François. They say Veronica should have been transferred to the city and they’re just lucky all three boys survived. So, are you there?”
“Yes,” said Hosea.
“So anyway, Rita told me they might sue and Dr. François is getting riled by the whole thing, because the point is, of course, that the boys are all okay. He says even if he had transferred her, the problems she was having would have occurred in the city, too, and the procedure would have been exactly the same. So … anyway.”
“Okay, then, thanks,” said Hosea.
“Hey, by the way,” said Jeannie, “when do you find out about Baert’s visit? Is he coming?”
“Yes,” said Hosea, giving his middle finger to the receiver. “Well, maybe. I don’t know at this point. Good-bye.” And he hung up the phone. Well, he thought to himself. Hmmm … if Dr. François is getting riled he just might leave Algren. He’s always hated it here, after all. That would be one less, let’s see, that might work … and Hosea went through the numbers dance in his head. But how could the hospital function without a doctor? Well maybe it could, just until after the Prime Minister’s visit, thought Hosea. Obviously he had work to do. Tomorrow he would have to drive out to Johnny Dranger’s farm and tell him he was outside the town limits, again. He would call Lorna and beg her to forgive him for his stupid remarks and maybe he could even explain what it was he was trying to do. That he had a good reason for not asking her to move in with him, and that very soon, in the fall, after the Prime Minister’s visit, it would all be different. And he’d have to ask Knute to do something about that black dog. And check into renovating that old feed mill, and painting the water tower. And he’d have to ask her if she’d heard from Max. Fair enough. He could relax. He poured himself a glass of wine and put on his new Emmylou Harris tape. He sat down on the couch and looked around his house. He looked at his tapered fingers and then touched the faint scar tissue on his right palm, but this time he didn’t feel a thing. No tingling, no pain. He rubbed it harder and felt a small ping. Good. Hosea raised his glass and thought, To the babies, Indigo and whatever their names are. And he had a sip of the wine. He remembered his exercise bike, hidden behind the furnace. What was it that mattered most in a man’s life? He just didn’t know. And he didn’t know how to find out and he didn’t know if ever he did find out he would know what it was he was finding out. Hosea had another sip of wine from his glass. Now his hand was on his forehead. Okay, Hosea, he thought, time to pull your wagons in a circle, time to cut bait, time to, whatever, something, for Christ’s sake, the tears were streaming down his face now as Emmylou’s voice, pure and high, settled in around him, sweet as mother’s milk.
seven
The TV in Tom and Dory’s room droned on, accompanying Tom and Dory’s prodigious snoring routine. Summer Feelin’ creaked in her bed and sighed, dreaming of who knew what, and the moon outside was portentous. Knute opened her window for the first time that spring. The screens were still stored for the winter so she could stick her head right out into the darkness. Everything was wet and shiny. The snow fell like chunks of warm cake. She lay down on her narrow bed and fell asleep.
“Hey,” Max whispered, “
hey, Knute? Knutie? Are you there? It’s me.”
He had his head in her room, sticking through the open window like a bear trying to get his face into somebody’s tent. But Knute couldn’t see him in the dark, she could only hear him. Then she felt his hand kind of batting at her blanket down around her feet and he was saying quietly, “Oh God, I hope it’s you, Knutie, and not Tom. Knute. Knute. I am an asshole, I know it. Talk to me, please? Knutie, my ribs are breaking on this windowsill, say something to me. C’mon, Knutie, just say hello or something, or fuck off, Max, whatever you feel like. C’mon, Knutie. My ass is getting soaked out here, you know it’s raining, Knute? Spring is here. I’m here. What are you, dead? Talk to me …”
Knute hadn’t actually been conscious for most of that. She thought she was dreaming and she was finding the whole thing funny. Until he said, “Spring is here. I’m here,” and it dawned on her and she was awake. And then she didn’t know what to say. She lay perfectly still. “Hi,” she said.
And he said quietly, “Hey, Knutie, how are you?”
“All right, yourself?”
“Well,” he said, “I can’t see you and I’m kinda stuck … Where is she?”
“In the next room.”
“Really? In the next room?” was all Max said for a long time. And they listened to each other breathe for a minute or two.
“Why don’t you come out here?” he said, and he batted at the blanket again. Knute sighed heavily.
“I guess she’s sleeping?” whispered Max. Knute didn’t know what to say. “Knute?” said Max. “Will you come out and talk to me?”
“Okay, hang on,” said Knute. “It’s raining?”
“Yeah,” said Max.
“Okay, hang on.”
And then there they were, outside in the rain, standing and staring at each other, not really knowing what to say or how to act. Smiling, then frowning, then smiling again, looking off into the distance, looking at each other, wiping rain off their faces. Finally, Max asked, “What’s she like, Knutie?” and Knute started to cry, she couldn’t help it, and he, the favourite fuckster from afar, just stood and from time to time put his hand out towards her without touching her.
Finally he put his arm around her shoulder and she said something like “Don’t you fucking put your arm around me.”
And he said, “Fine,” and dropped it, lit a cigarette and stood there, looking off towards the neighbours’.
“Here,” he said. He gave her his lit cigarette and then lit another one for himself. Then they kind of blurted out at the same time, Knute with “You’re such a fuck-up,” and him with “I know, I know.” Then more staring off and smoking.
“Well, Knute, it’s been really nice chatting with you.”
“Fuck off.”
“Hey.”
“What.”
“Knute?”
“What.”
“You’re gonna let me see her, aren’t you?”
“Oh, well …” Knute said, and Max smiled. “Actually, no,” Knute continued, “no I’m not, never, well, maybe in four years, you kept her waiting, now it’s her turn to keep you waiting.”
“Hey, good one. I could wait longer, you know, five, six, twenty-five years, it’s up to you, I’ll just wait. Starting now. Okay. I’m waiting. You just let me know, give me a sign. I’m here. I’m waiting.” Max leaned up against the brick next to the front door and stood there, arms folded, looking down at his wet boots.
“Okay,” said Knute, “you wait right here. I’m going in to call the cops.”
“All right,” said Max, and he tipped an imaginary hat. “Buenas noches.” A few minutes later Knute came back outside.
“Well?” said Max.
“There aren’t any cops in Algren.”
“C’mon, Knutie, let me see her, just let me have one peek at her now and I’ll leave you alone, you can talk to her and call me at my mom’s when she’s ready, couple of days, tomorrow, four years, whatever. C’mon, Knutie, please?”
What was Knute supposed to do? She wasn’t Isak Dinesen armed and living alone in the savannah or wherever. Blow his head off and nobody would ever know. She wasn’t a member of Shining Path. She wasn’t Camille Paglia. She let him in and they tiptoed, in their huge combat boots, down the hall to Summer Feelin’s room. Max kneeled at S.F.’s bed and stared at her for about ten minutes, like he was at a viewing in a funeral home. The reverent Max. Knute sat at the kitchen table praying Tom and Dory wouldn’t wake up.
“I think you should go now,” Knute whispered to Max after the ten minutes or so were up. He stood up then but he didn’t leave. He swallowed. Knute didn’t want to look at him because she thought he might be crying. She hoped he was. Then he said, “So you think … you know you think she’s warm enough and …” He kept his eyes on S.F. and didn’t look at Knute.
“Yeah,” she said, “I think she’ll live through the night.” Max smiled.
Outside they shared another cigarette. “I quit for a while,” he said.
“Yeah?” said Knute. “That’s good.” Then Max was grinning, then laughing. “What are you laughing at?” Knute asked.
“Summer Feeling,” he said, and he was laughing and coughing, rain falling all over his face, “Oh excuse me, Feelin’. Fee-Lin. Oh God, Knute, you kill me,” he said.
Knute sat in the living room and stared out the window for a while after he had left. The rain had stopped. She watched the moon move towards the other end of Algren, somewhere over Hosea Funk’s house, probably, or it could have been the other side of the world for all she knew. “Summer Feelin’,” she said a few times. “Summer Feelin’, Summer Feelin’.” Pretty stupid, she thought, shaking her head. She couldn’t stop grinning.
All right, I’m up. I’m up. I’m up! I’ll fight Tyson. I’ll fight Ali, I’ll fight, that’s it, I’m fighting, thought Hosea. Cassius Clay. I could change my name, he thought. Hosea Ali. Mohammed Funk. Mo Funk. Hosea sighed. Lorna, he thought. Lorna Funk. Lorna Funk, Lorna Funk. He was alone. “Listen to me,” he said out loud. The telephone rang. “I got it,” said Hosea. The phone quit after one ring. Hosea sighed again. And got up to make some coffee.
First thing that morning, after exercising, he was off to see Johnny Dranger. He would just tell it like it was. Lay it on the table. Let Johnny know he was out again. I’m sorry, Johnny, he’d say. There’s been yet another mix-up at the top. They say your farm is outside the town limits of Algren. Johnny wouldn’t be happy about it, he knew. Johnny had one passion in life. Putting out fires. He had worked himself up to assistant chief of the Algren volunteer fire department, and was hankering after the number one position. It was his dream. But he couldn’t be a volunteer—let alone fire chief—with the Algren fire department if he didn’t live within the town limits. It was a provincial policy having to do with something called response time. A team of firefighters couldn’t be waiting around for volunteers to commute from all over the place. They had to be in the town. Besides, thought Hosea, there were too many men living right in Algren and a couple of women, including Jeannie, Hosea’s next-door neighbour, wanting to be put on the roster. I like to help out where I can, she’d told Hosea. Occasionally, there’d be a major house fire—once there was a tragedy involving some drunken teenagers—but mostly it was putting out burning outhouses, overheated cars, kitchen fires, and stubble fires. That was Johnny Dranger’s specialty. He had it in for stubble burners. But, thought Hosea, the farmers around here don’t start burning their stubble until harvest time, and by then he could be back in. I’ll make it up to him, thought Hosea, I’ll crown him fire chief of Algren after July first, and he’ll be in charge just in time to get those darn stubble burners.
Hosea drove down First Street, turned onto Main Street, crossed over the tracks, and began driving down the service road that ran alongside the dike that surrounded Algren. The dike was supposed to protect Algren from the raging flood-waters of the Rat River. The Rat River, thought Hosea. My ancestors landed in Halifax, hopped on
a train going west, then crept up the Rat River and settled in Algren, Manitoba. My mother’s dead, my father is the Prime Minister of the country, I think, and I am the mayor of Canada’s smallest town and the spurned lover of the bold and beautiful Lorna Garden.
Hosea peered around the countryside. Dirt everywhere and grey snow, dog shit, ugly cows, puffs of steam coming out of their snouts and their rear ends, the smell of wet hay, and the sky that brilliant blue, the colour of toilet bowl cleanser. Hosea heard a screech, a voice. “Hosea, stop, stop!” Mrs. Cherniski the café owner was running down her long driveway wearing what looked like Shaquille O’Neal’s basketball shoes and waving a rake around her head. “Get him, Hosea, get that motherfucking dog away from my Pat, goddamn it if he … that’s it, he’s mounting her, Hosea, get him, get him …”
Hosea scrambled out of his car and stood there for a minute, straightening his hat, trying to figure out what was going on. “Stop him, Hosea, for Christ’s sake!” Mrs. Cherniski had slowed down by now and had her hand on her chest. The last part of her command to Hosea seemed to be swallowed up by tears and rage. She threw her rake as far as she could, spluttering and moaning, “Stop him, oh God, please stop him,” and then crumpled into a heap on her driveway.
Hosea stood, frozen to the spot. Was she dead? A heart attack? For a split second he thought of his plan. Wouldn’t that be a stroke of luck, after all, if Mrs. Cherniski was dead? He glanced at the dogs and ran over to Mrs. Cherniski who, by this point, was sitting on the driveway cross-legged and catatonic, shaking her head and muttering, “Bill Quinn, his name is Bill Quinn.”
“What’s that, Mrs. Cherniski?” said Hosea. “Who’s Bill Quinn?”
“The dog,” said Mrs. Cherniski, “the dog screwing the living daylights outta my Pat right over there, that’s who Bill Quinn is. He may not be the original Bill Quinn, he may be Bill Quinn the Second or even the Third, but, mark my words, Hosea Funk, that dog’s got bad blood coursing through his veins. That dog’s the devil’s best friend, loyal to the end …” Mrs. Cherniski stared straight ahead and spoke in a monotone. “I should have known when I saw him hanging around my café, driving my customers away with his disgusting antics. I should have known he’d be after my Pat next.”
