Stone Woman

by Bianca Lakoseljac

  Liza gets off at the Yonge-Bloor station. Instead of continuing on the southbound train to College Street, she decides to walk to the office and clear her head.

  CHAPTER 8

  AT TORONTO ARTS College, David breezes through his lecture as if in a dream. The usual close interaction with his students is absent. He feels disengaged. Focussed on the back row where faces blur one into another, he delivers a sermon — instructions that do not elicit questions or debate — a presentation of facts. The echo of his own voice is disruptive, as if it belongs to someone else. He wishes he could skip the sterile facts and move on to his own approaches and works.

  But doubts linger. Have I proven myself as a sculptor? Have I created anything worthy of recognition? Anything that will live on after me? Or am I one of those, if-you-can’t-do-it-you-teach-it impostors who give themselves the right to lecture others without being able to put in practice what they profess?

  In his mind, he goes over the pieces he has sculpted. He had his own one-man exhibit in Boston. The exhibit sold out. But that was a long time ago.

  He had featured a number of experimental pieces — a few marble ones and some bronze figures he saw as reflective of a more rough-hewn period of his sculpting. One of the bronze pieces stood out from the rest. It began as an experiment of combining different mediums for creating the form before it was cast in bronze. When the sculpture was finished, it became his favourite piece. He had named it “Child Soldier.” It was of a young woman planting a daisy in the barrel of a gun held by a teenage soldier. It was only about a foot tall. At first he had planned to keep it as an example of his new approach until he further studied and developed the method. But his desire to share the success of the new process compelled him to include it in the exhibit. He had priced it high, secretly hoping no one would buy it. He never considered the possibility of it being stolen.

  Finding out it had disappeared during the exhibit made him furious. As if his essence had been pilfered.

  But soon he wondered who the thief could have been. Perhaps a student who could not afford to purchase it? An eccentric collector? Another sculptor? Was his art so inspiring, so irresistible? The notion was romantic, enticing. He imagines it hidden and admired secretly.

  The exhibit did well, and the gallery owner offered to hold another one when David was ready. But he had left, escaped to Canada. In Toronto, he took a few months to find a place to live and to get a job. After that, his work with organizing antiwar demonstrations and helping new draft-dodgers and deserters adjust to their new home —helping them to obtain legal status in Canada, especially difficult for deserters — has taken up most of his free time. The competition for the Centennial project renewed his enthusiasm for sculpting. It offered the chance to prove himself to his new county, to get back to the craft. The chance to dive in with all his zeal in the hope of easing the pain of losing the one who had inspired “Child Soldier” — the one who meant everything to him — the chance to soothe the ache he carries that cuts into him like shards of broken glass.

  Not winning the contract hit him hard. He sees it as a personal failure. Similar to losing a student he thought had an extraordinary talent, a rare capacity for sculpting — expressive use of line and shape, originality in composition, sensitivity to line and colour. It happened only a few weeks back. The student was in her second year when she quit the program. She reasoned that most instructors are not artists. If they can’t do it, how could they teach it? David’s efforts to keep her in the program had failed. She decided to move on and practice her craft rather than be taught by those who had no artwork to call their own — which, technically, includes him. And now he has fallen in love with a woman who coordinates the sculpt-in. And works in Anna’s office. Could things get any more complicated?

  Anna’s warning about his relationship with Liza plays out in his thoughts. In Anna’s words, why is he leading Liza on? He is not the settle-down type. Her reasons — his involvement with the antiwar movement, with the Socialist Party of Canada, and his lack of job security, not to mention his contentious relationship with Hells Angels. How could he convince Anna that her fears are unfounded?

  The first time he saw Liza, something in him broke —it broke the way one breaks a crystal glass, the way one throws the glass against a stone and it shatters into a million pieces. He had felt it that day at Nathan Phillips Square — that fracture that gives off a thin, musical note and lingers. He could hear it in his lonely nights the way one hears the lyrics of a song. He had to say something to her, make himself visible. So he’d turned into a wisecracking, donut-eating buffoon he never thought he’d pull off. But it worked. Someday, when they are old and grey, sitting on their favourite park bench and holding hands, he will tell her — you had me at “hello.” It won’t sound like a cliché because they will have lived a life together. It will be true. Someday, it will feel just right.

  This vortex of self-doubt trundles through his head on those late nights when he lies on his bed staring at the flashing red Parkdale Pizza sign across the street and plans the next demonstration, or the following day’s lecture, or a way to keep a fellow draft dodger or a deserter from being deported. His thoughts rattle like the wobbling wheels of a stolen shopping cart he would roll down the hill when he was a young boy. He imagined the cart to be his motorcycle, rumbling along the highway. Now, when he rides with the Hells Angels, disguised behind red shades, he is once more that boy.

  He never thought he would fall in love again. Since he lost the woman who gave meaning to his life, he had buried himself in a vault — a sarcophagus that kept him safe in its confinement. And now, Liza’s caresses have settled in the forefront of his thoughts, a screen through which his day is sifted — his morning coffee, the lecture he gave today at the college, his motorcycle ride home.

  Back at his apartment, the first task of the day going smoothly is the dinner preparation. He placed the Cornish hens in the oven and is about to take a shower when the phone rings. He lets the answering machine pick up. It’s Anna, asking if he would mind her dropping in on him later that evening to work out some details about the upcoming demonstration.

  He has already made the wild rice stuffing, one of his favourite dishes. He kept the recipe simple — sautéed onions and garlic with finely chopped celery and carrots mixed with partially boiled wild rice. He has stuffed the birds with the rice mixture, rubbed some olive oil with chopped rosemary and thyme over them, and placed them in the oven on a timer. The main course is pretty much ready. Even the salad is done — fresh spinach with olives and goat feta drizzled with roasted pine nut dressing. The fragrance of savoury herbs and garlic is mouth-watering. He and Liza could have a leisurely aperitif on the rooftop terrace without the worry of a burnt dinner.

  Should he have invited Anna to join them? She is Liza’s closest friend. Why hide his relationship with Liza? Here’s the opportunity to bring things out into the open.

  Then he reconsiders. Anna has been very clear on his relationship with Liza. He is to back off and not ruin Liza’s life. Or at least that’s what she told him. Is there more to this than Anna’s fear that her work with the antiwar movement will be revealed to her coworkers? Liza is not the type who would tell on people. And she is also strongly opposed to the war. From the first time he met Liza, he felt that he could trust her. There was an ease between them, not to mention the attraction. He is planning to let Liza in on all of his involvements. Perhaps she’ll join the movement. The sentiments against the war are growing in Canada and Anna’s fear of losing her job is unfounded. Should he tell Anna all this? No. It would turn into an argument and would lead to even more tension between them.

  But that is only a small part of the problem. Explaining to Liza why he has been hiding his friendship with Anna is a bigger one. At City Hall, why did he pretend not to know Anna? Would Liza understand that he did not mean to deceive her? Things evolved, somehow, without intention.

 
; He had hoped that Anna would tell Liza about her friendship with him. Anna and Liza are not only colleagues, but also friends. Anna could find the way to explain it — women are better at it. But Anna decided to, in her words, let him stew in his own mess. Let him solve his own problems.

  How did he get himself into all this? Having to hide his seeing Liza is juvenile. He will tell Liza everything. He rewinds the tape of the answering machine to make room for the recordings and heads to the shower, leaving the bathroom door open in case Liza rings the doorbell.

  CHAPTER 9

  SHADED BY A tall maple, Liza stands at the front door of a rooming house on Sorauren Avenue just north of Queen, where David lives. The acrid odour of asphalt from the newly patched up potholes along the street stings her nostrils. In the late afternoon sun, the neighbourhood cicadas are in full orchestra.

  Before buzzing David’s flat, Liza checks her reflection in the door glass pane, hoping the halter top with a plunging neckline she slipped on when she changed in the ladies’ room after work is not too revealing. She rushed out without checking herself in the mirror for fear of being seen by coworkers. And this whole braless feel, combined with free buffing — she accidentally dropped her lace underwear into the toilet bowl while trying to change into them, and the cotton ones she removed she’d already discarded into the sanitary napkin disposal unit — is suddenly making her feel as if she were a star in a porn film. Queen Street is only minutes away. She could find a lingerie shop and buy a pair of underwear, and with luck, a liquor store as well — for a bottle of wine she forgot to bring — unless this is a dry-area where store sales of alcohol are forbidden.

  She turns and walks back down the three steps and along the short pathway toward the street. In spite of the missing undergarments, the daisy-printed skirt, white patent leather sandals, and wide, matching belt that accentuates her slim waist and shapes the silk top make her feel elegant. Her steps quicken. Behind her, the front door opens and David calls out: “Liza, my wild thing, where’re you off to?”

  She stops, face burning. And the next moment he is kissing her and leading her back to the entrance. The oak-panel slab groans as he opens it.

  * * *

  . . . The worn wood stairway leading to the third floor . . . an open door freshly stripped of paint . . . a large bouquet of pink peonies on the marble coffee table in front of a brown leather sofa . . . a humongous bed with white linen crinkled from drying in the sun . . . red hummingbirds among the green leaves and orange blossoms of the Dutchman’s pipe vine painted on the ceiling of an airy room with white walls . . . a black wrought-iron headboard that begins to squeak — an incorrigible violin being tuned, each resonance a different string.

  After they make love, they sip the Queen Mothers —the QMs — on the rooftop deck.

  With bare feet and cut-off jean shorts, David looks carefree. His indigo tie-die shirt makes his eyes appear bluer. He disappears through the patio door saying: “Chef David is needed in the kitchen.”

  Curled up in the rattan basket hanging by a chain from the rafter above the deck, Liza tugs at the bottom of David’s oversized shirt she’d slipped on after they’d made love. The magentas of the tie-dye pattern over her breasts morph into a heart-shaped swirl. A sunray streaming across her hair falls over her shoulders. Swaying gently, she is warm and dreamy and illuminated from within, as if the sun had penetrated her body and made her fluorescent.

  She does not mind David’s insistence on making dinner on his own; does not mind him leading her to this swaying basket each time she gets up to help; she certainly does not mind his kisses. If she could only keep those kisses planted all over her, keep them thriving like orchids on wood. She gazes at the refilled glass in her hand and swishes the ice, round and round. Those helpless ice cubes, melting in the burnt orange liqueur the way she melts in David’s arms. She closes her eyes and descends into the warmth of the sun and the taste of David’s lips that lingers on hers, and the scent of his nakedness.

  The fragrance of rosemary and thyme mingles with the roaster and wafts through the open kitchen door and Liza realizes that her last real meal had been the evening before — before she and David had first made love, before this gripping want of him — when she was her old self. Kind of my last supper . . . before . . . before . . . David is back on the patio, balancing the flow blue china platter with hors d’oeuvres. He sets the plate on the bench and pulls the table across the patio toward her. The rattan legs dragged along the wooden deck cause the round glass table top to quiver in its frame and the blue ceramic jug with pink peonies to rumble, and she fears the jug could topple and shatter. She jumps out of the basket and grabs the other side of the table.

  After they set the table back in its place, she inhales the fragrance of the peonies. “Gorgeous. I thought they’d be finished by now.”

  He leads her to the porch railing and points to a secluded nook in the backyard. “They’re a bit later in the shade.”

  “And that pile of signs next to the peony-patch?” She reads the signs face up: “End the Vietnam War, Now! Until Americans Stop Killing and Being Killed in Vietnam . . .”

  David shrugs. “Oh, that. From the last demonstration. Getting them ready for the next one. Some got smashed when a fight broke out.”

  “You not worried? About being ostracized. In my office, demonstrators and socialists — all the same.”

  David rubs his beard. “People need to stand up against this war. Against babies getting napalmed in Vietnam. Women, men, children. Dying as we speak! And for what?” He begins to pace the deck. “The fear of socialists. That burns me. If I can do something to stop the killing of innocent people, you bet I will.”

  Liza takes his hand. “I said in my office. Not me.”

  She reads another sign leaning against the fence: “Is it Better to Burn a Draft Card or a Child?”

  She places her palm against his cheek. “I’m glad you’re not in Vietnam. I wish the war would stop. I feel bad for the American soldiers. They’re just following orders. Ordered to kill and be killed. What irony!”

  He wraps his arm around her shoulder. “Glad you think so, Babe. Let’s keep the war out for the evening.”

  He leads her to the table and lays a small flow blue plate, a different pattern than the large one, and a slightly tarnished, mismatched silver spoon and fork in front of her. He arranges the same for himself, his plate in yet another flow blue pattern.

  “The most charming table setting I could imagine,” Liza says.

  David grins. “My thrift-shop finds. It’s amazing what you can get in Parkdale for a few bucks. Love it here.” He flips a white linen napkin and spreads it on her lap. “For you, Mademoiselle.”

  They sample from an assortment of cheese and crackers; a glazed pâté log with a tiny ceramic duck next to it; a cluster of white grapes; and two barbecued shrimp skewers.

  Her right leg is crossed over the left one, and the right foot is hooked under the left calf, when her elbow knocks down the glass and spills the liquor on her shirt — David’s shirt — and her bare legs. Her face scalds in embarrassment. David laughs. “Can’t waste the liqueur,” he says and kisses her where the liquid had tinted her skin. “And you’ll need a clean shirt.”

  They are back on his bed still rumpled up from their lovemaking. David pulls out a peony from the vase on the night table, plucks the petals, and scatters them over the bed, over Liza. “I love you, Liza,” he says. His eyes are the blue of winter clouds and he looks sombre. She saw this frosty look not long ago, when he talked of death and the Vietnam War.

  “Don’t say it,” she whispers.

  “It’s been many years since I’d said it.”

  A dreadful sense of foreboding lurks somewhere deep in her. David’s words are at once exhilarating and frightening. The ideology of the period rushes through her mind — people living in times of emotional conflict. Coexisting, a drive for
justice and peace and the pursuit of immediate pleasure. As if the accomplishment of the former could somehow diminish the latter — sap the joy of everyday life. Or does the war give context to the drive to live in the moment? For no one knows what the future could bring?

  He loves her? Why does it seem so surreal? Is it because she thought that she’d never fall in love, and if she did, it would not last or it would not be with the right person, or simply it would not be, whatever that meant, whatever that little insecure voice contrived it to mean? Or is it because death seems to be everywhere — every news station reporting the gory scenes from Vietnam, burned and mutilated bodies of women and children and old farmers?

  And now he is kissing her and he is part of her, and if she could only wave that magic wand and dispel the fear.

  She pats him on the shoulder. “I can’t, David. I can’t get the war out of my head.”

  They are back on the patio when the stove timer buzzes and David announces that dinner is ready. They arrange the plates — Cornish hen, a dollop of wild rice, and a few sprigs of asparagus. The aroma is appetizing, yet she hardly murmurs a few words of praise. Her taste buds, though, are heightened, every bite superb. She lifts her wine glass and suddenly realizes she has drunk too much. Even lifting the fork takes effort. She asks David for a glass of water. When he returns she says: “No more wine for me, please David.” Are the words rolling out slurred? As he brings a jug of water with slices of lemon, her first impulse is to gulp it down as if she has just been rescued from a desert. But she sips slowly, and is instantly refreshed.