by Miriam Toews
He peered out the window of his office. He watched a couple getting out of their grey Subaru and going in to the Wagon Wheel. The woman glanced at Bill Quinn lying on the sidewalk and smiled. He thumped his fingers against the windowsill to a familiar tune. Waterloo, he thumped, my Waterloo. The couple took a table next to the large window in the front of the café. Hosea watched as the man removed the woman’s coat and then disappeared into the café, looking for a place to hang it. You’ll have to hang it over the back of a chair, it’s the Wagon Wheel you’re sitting in, not the Ritz, thought Hosea. He stared at the woman and wondered if she was married to the man or was she his sister, his daughter? He thought of Lorna. The woman sat at the table, her legs crossed and sticking out to the side, and picked up a menu. She looked up at Hosea. Hosea looked up at the sky, to the right and to the left as if he’d just heard an airplane, and then quickly moved away from his window. He noticed a note lying on his desk and picked it up.
Hi, Hosea, I let myself in with the key you gave me and I called the paint places in the city. It will cost, this is the cheapest, about $2,500 dollars to paint the water tower, without the horse. With the horse, about three grand. So … let me know what you think. Also, as you probably know, Bill Quinn is still in town, but I’m working on it. And I’ll be buying the flowers later today with the money from that account. That’s where I’m going now. Oh yeah, Lorna called. See ya, Knute.
P.S. Are you still interested in turning the old fred mill into a theatre because Jeannie, you know, your neighbour? said she’s thinking about buying it and turning it into an aerobics/laundromat kind of place. She said she’d talk to you.
I’m sure she did, thought Hosea. “When?” said Hosea out loud. When, Knute? When did Lorna call, what did she say, how did she sound? Was she at work, at home? Why hadn’t Knute just let the answering machine go? It would have been more helpful. At least he could have heard her voice. Hosea stood up and walked over to the window. He watched the couple for a while. The woman didn’t look up at him again. A warm wind touched him. Knute’s note fluttered off the desk and onto the floor. “You!” he shouted at Bill Quinn. The dog lifted one ear. “Get out of my town! Get the heck out of Algren!” Bill Quinn let his ear drop, yawned, and tried to get comfortable again. Combine Jo, who had been standing on the street with her back to Hosea, peering into the window of Willie Wiebe’s Western Wear, turned around and looked up at him.
“Who the hell are you yelling at, Hosea? It’s a little undignified, don’t you think?” She was grinning. “Have you lost your mind, Hosea? Why the hell don’t you come on out of your little tower and enjoy the sunshine. Summer’s just around the corner! Did I mention S.F. and me are gonna be riding our bikes over on the dike? Hey, Hosea, you gotta bike?”
Hosea shook his head. “I was, uh, talking to Bill Quinn, to the dog,” he said. “To that black dog there on the sidewalk.”
“Oh him,” shouted Combine Jo. “He looks harmless. Hey, wait a second, did you say his name is Bill Quinn? You mean from the original Bill Quinn? Is that one of his? Oh boy.” Combine Jo shook her head.
“What do you mean, ’oh boy?” shouted Hosea. “What’s the story with the Quinns?”
“Oh, they’re just wild, Hosea. They can’t be trained. They can’t be taught a thing. They do as they please. A few generations must have lived in Whithers or who knows where, ’cause you obviously missed out on it. Just ask Cherniski! She’ll tell you all about it!” Combine Jo shook her head. “Christ,” she said. She looked amused. “I guess they’re back. Yell all you want, Hosea, that dog ain’t gonna budge.” She turned back to the display window of Wiebe’s with a little wave over her shoulder. Hosea lifted his hand.
The phone rang.
“Lorna,” said Hosea as he picked up the phone.
“How’d you know it was me?” said Lorna, laughing.
“Well, you know, if you want something bad enough …” Hosea coughed. “How are you?” he said.
“I’m fine. How are you?” she said.
“I’m okay,” said Hosea, “I’ve …” Lorna interrupted.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she said.
Hosea had been about to say I’ve been better.
“Yeah,” he said. “How are you?” he asked again.
“I’m okay. Pretty good. Hosea, there’s something we need to talk about.”
“Yeah,” he said. He wondered what it could be. “Yeah,” he said again. “We should talk.”
“Could I come out on the bus tonight?”
“Oh,” said Hosea. “Of course you can, of course you can. I’ll be there to pick you up. I love you. I’m sorry I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. Lorna, I’m just really sorry.”
She sighed. “You keep telling me that, Hosea, and nothing ever changes.”
Hosea whispered, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Will you quit saying you’re fucking sorry!” she said.
“Okay,” said Hosea. “Yes I will, I love you.”
“And stop saying that, too!” said Lorna.
“Why?” asked Hosea. “Why should I stop saying I love you when I do?”
“Because it makes me sad, Hosea, that’s why. Because I wonder.”
“Okay,” said Hosea.
“Is that all you can say? Okay? So what does that mean, Hosea, that your love for me is a sad thing, that you don’t even know if you mean it or not?”
Hosea put his hand on his forehead. “Tell me,” she said again, softly. Was she crying?
“I have a plan, Lorna,” he said. “It’s a, well, it’s just a plan. And if you’ll just come here tonight I’ll tell you everything and then you’ll understand. My love for you is not a sad thing, Lorna. Please don’t think it is.”
“Just pick me up at seven, Hosea,” she said. “And you know, whatever.” She hung up.
Hosea closed his eyes. He could feel the warm wind blowing through his open window. He could smell the dust left over from last fall and he could hear Combine Jo laughing down on the street. He thought how much happier Leander Hamm’s corpse would be now that the earth was drying up and the snow had gone. My blood, he thought. I’d sell my blood to buy her chocolate donuts. That had been the first line of a poem he’d written on a scrap of paper the day he had decided to become a poet. He’d changed it around a million times trying to get something to rhyme with donuts and then with blood. Nothing. Except flood, and that had seemed futile. Euphemia had found the scrap of paper in his pocket and had laughed out loud for twenty minutes, and then had broken her leg. Hosea had been in the basement and had seen a spider, and because he was frustrated with his poem had screamed at the top of his lungs, “SPIDER!” Euphemia had come running and falling down the stairs, saying, “Where where where’s the fire” and her leg made a snapping noise and her femur poked off in the wrong direction, and Hosea had been quite happy about it. Even while Euphemia lay writhing on the basement floor, he had muttered sullenly, “I said spider, not fire.” Later that day he had written in his notebook that Vincent van Gogh and a lot of other great artists in the world didn’t care what people thought of them, which was nothing.
Hosea opened his eyes. Everything was going to be all right. He and Lorna would work things out. He’d tell her the truth about his plan and she would understand. She would know why he wanted to see his father. She loved him and she would know. He would take the Prime Minister by the arm and they would stroll off a ways from the crowd, down Main Street towards where the sidewalk ends, and then up Town Line Road in the direction of the dike, and Hosea would smile and say, Mr. Prime Minister, do you remember meeting a girl named Euphemia Funk years ago right here in this town? Well, I’m her son. He would smile and look into the PM’s face. And yours, he’d say. He wanted to show the Prime Minister his town, Canada’s smallest, the place of his conception, his birth, and his whole life. He wanted the Prime Minister to see it and to like it and to think well of Euphemia and the place where she was from and the son that she had raised. Lorna
would understand. It was simple. Hosea nodded his head and smoothed the shiny surface of his desk with his hand. He reached for the top drawer and then decided against opening it. He would find Knute and the two of them would plant the flowers along Main Street. He would help her. And then he would go to the bus depot and pick up Lorna and show her the flowers and take her home.
ten
“He doesn’t go out at all?” Knute asked Dory.
“Nope,” she said.
“What about when I’m at work?”
Dory shook her head. “Mm-mm.”
“Does he get up to eat?” Knute asked.
“No. Not really, no,” said Dory. She and Knute were in the kitchen drinking coffee and watching the sun go down. Dory leaned towards the open window, over the sink, and the warm breeze blew the hair off her forehead. Beyond Tom and Dory’s big backyard was a field, plowed and ready for seeding, pitch-black and chunky, with a faint line of bushes towards the very end, and the giant orange sun was slipping down behind those bushes, round as a poker chip, and the purple sky covered everything. That was the view.
“You know what, Knutie?” said Dory. “Tom and I have lived here all our lives. In this town, every single day of our lives.”
“Do you think that’s what’s making Dad so sad?” asked Knute. Dory looked at her and smiled.
“No, Knute,” she said. “It’s just the opposite. He loves this place, it’s all he’s known. He’s afraid to say good-bye. He’s afraid to leave it behind. He’s afraid, Knutie.”
“But he’s been given a second chance,” said Knute. “He’s still alive.”
“It’s more mysterious than that,” said Dory. “He wants his old life. He’s not a stupid man. For him to get up and cheerfully make the most of each day, at this point … he would feel like a fool.” Dory shook her head. Then she said, “He would be admitting to himself that life has suddenly become very short, very precious, that soon he’ll no longer exist, that it’ll be over. Of course he knew that, we know that, we say it, but to really, really know it, to be certain of it, is more than he can be right now. His bed is safe. Sleep is easy.” Then she said again, “He’s not a stupid man.”
The sun had gone down right before their eyes. “Did you notice it disappear?” Dory asked Knute.
“Well, I noticed it was gone,” said Knute. She put their coffee cups in the dishwasher and then stood with her hands on her hips and looked at Dory. “I’m going out,” she said. “Don’t worry about Summer Feelin’, she won’t wake up.” Dory reached out her arms and put her hands over Knute’s.
“I’m not worried,” she said. “I think I can take care of one little girl well enough on my own.”
“Yeah, well,” said Knute, smiling, “I suppose you’ve managed before, more or less.”
“What do you mean you suppose? What do you mean more or less?” Dory said, grabbing the tea towel from the fridge door and swatting Knute with it. “More or less,” she growled. “My foot, more or less. Ingrate! Get out of here!” She snapped Knute with the towel. “Hey,” she said, “where are you off to?”
“Oh,” said Knute, grinning. “A little paperwork at the office.”
“Really? I’m impressed.”
“Nah,” Knute said, “I’m going to check out my flowers. Hosea and I planted millions of them today, all along Main Street. And they’re all red and white. We planted them so they’d look like Canadian flags. It was his idea.”
Dory began to laugh. “Really?” she said again.
“That’s right,” Knute said, lowering her voice and tugging at the front of her sweatshirt, “that’s right. We can all be proud of Algren, Canada’s smallest town. Well, Dory, I, uh, I, uh, I, uh, really better get going. You know how it is, places to go, people to see.”
“Yes yes, Mayor Funk,” said Dory. “Onward and upward. Don’t let me stand in the way of progress. Carpe diem.”
“Okey, dokey,” said Knute. “And give my regards to Tom. And, uh, thanks for the coffee, Dory, you always did make a fine cup of coffee.”
Dory shook her head. “Oh you,” she said. “Go already.” She was looking at the wall where the mirror used to be, before Combine Jo broke it. Hosea Funk, she sighed. Lord love him, what a funny man.
Knute walked out of the house and down the driveway. The night was warm and very dark. She felt like crying. She hadn’t done a good job of helping Dory with Tom, and it was already June. She hadn’t helped him get better or lightened Dory’s load. He’d taken to his bed and Knute was concerned that Dory might be thinking of joining him. How much longer could she renovate one medium-sized house? Knute cut behind the feed mill and around by the bank and the post office and walked towards the flowers. She could smell them, they were beautiful, and they shone under the only streetlight. Something small and black jumped out from the middle of the flower bed and disappeared. Then another followed, and another. She bent over to see what they were and was almost hit in the face with another one. The Algren cockroach! The bastards were eating her flowers! She stood up and frowned at the flower bed and then picked up a few pebbles from the road and threw them into the flowers. About twenty of the cockroaches flew up and took off in different directions. She picked up another handful of gravel and threw it in the flowers and was about to do it again when she heard a voice say “Hey!” and she nearly fell over from fright.
“You’re gonna kill them if you do that.” She turned around and saw Max coming toward her, stepping into the white glow of the streetlight.
“Good,” she said. “Damn it, I just planted these things this afternoon.”
“And now you want to kill them?” asked Max.
“I don’t want to kill the flowers, I want to kill the cockroaches. Look at them. They’re eating the flowers.”
“They’re not eating the flowers, they’re copulating in the fresh dirt you used for planting. They don’t eat flowers. The Algren cockroach is conceived in dirt. They love dirt.”
She picked up another handful of gravel and threw it at the flowers.
“And stop doing that, you’ll just hurt the flowers.”
Knute sighed.
“So this is your work, eh?” said Max.
“Part of it,” said Knute.
“Do you enjoy it?” he said. He leaned against the streetlight and folded his arms.
She looked at him and smiled. “Max,” she said, “were you with a lot of other women in Europe?”
He cleared his throat and took out a cigarette and lit it. He had a drag and exhaled dramatically and said, “I stopped counting.” Knute threw a handful of gravel at him and he laughed.
“What do you mean other women, Knute?” he said. “Other than who?” They grinned at each other. Two little shapes moved towards them in the dark, making clicking noises on the pavement.
“Hey,” said Knute, as the shapes came closer, “it’s Bill Quinn.”
“And a friend,” said Max. He moved his foot out of the way so the dogs could pass.
“I’m supposed to get rid of him,” said Knute. “He gave Mrs. Cherniski a heart attack.”
“You’re doing a great job,” said Max.
“Yeah, well, you would know.” Knute looked at her flowers and up at the sky. It would be nice if it rained. She knew Max was looking at her watching the sky. She knew he was leaning against the streetlight smoking a cigarette with nothing to do and nowhere to do it. She picked up another handful of gravel to throw at the cockroaches in her flower bed, and Max said softly, “Is there a place we can go?”
“Um …” she said quietly, “there’s …”
“You know what I mean,” he said, looking at his big boots, blowing smoke at them, and waiting for Knute to rescue him.
She still had Hosea’s office key in her back pocket. She could feel the outline of it through her jeans. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know.” Max looked up and opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. He put his hands up in front of him, palms outward, as if to ward off an assault. He sm
iled.
“I can ask,” he whispered. Knute reached out and took his hand. He closed his eyes for a second or two and put his arms around her. They stood that way for a while in the dark, on the deserted main street of their hometown. He smelled like hay and cigarette smoke and the back of his neck was as soft as Summer Feelin’s. He pulled his T-shirt out of his jeans and put Knute’s hands on his bare back.
She moved his hand to her back pocket and he took out the key and said, “Where’s the door for this thing?”
“Right here,” said Knute. “We’re leaning against it. It’s my office.” She smiled.
“Your office,” Max breathed. “You have an office?”
“It’s Hosea’s office.” Max had already opened the door and was pulling Knute up the stairs.
They made love on the top of Hosea’s shiny desk, and on the floor, and when they were finished they lay there naked, smoking cigarettes and talking. “I love you,” said Max. And she said, “You don’t really know me anymore.” And he said, “Well, there’s that.” And they laughed and acted casual about everything and tried not to make any promises or plans. They could never go back to where they’d been. And nothing seemed to be waiting for them down the road. So they were free. It was a sad kind of freedom but at least they knew it. They didn’t say it but they both knew Summer Feelin’ was the best thing either of them would ever have. They got dressed and stood beside each other, leaning on the windowsill and looking out at the purple sky. “Eggplant,” said Knute.
And Max said, “Just what I was gonna say.” Every few minutes he stuck out his lower lip and blew the hair away from his eyes.
“Remember that time you cut my hair outside that bar?” he said. “Remember that grey sweater dress you had on?” They took turns kissing each other gently and touching each other and then they went back to leaning on the windowsill and looking out. Neither of them wanted to go home.
“So, let’s see, what’s new … hmmmm,” said Hosea. He had picked Lorna up from the bus depot and now they were sitting at his kitchen table drinking herbal tea and trying to get to a spot in their conversation where they could feel natural with each other. “Well,” Hosea cleared his throat, “Max is back in town.”
