The Kissing Fence

by B. A. Thomas-Peter

  “Dmitri,” she said, “do you need help knocking at your mother’s door?”

  “No. It’s been so long, I didn’t know what I was going to say to you.”

  “Well, if you need help with that too, you’d better come in.” Nina reached out with both hands, pulling him over the threshold and lower until she held his face in two hands. She planted a solid kiss on each cheek before embracing him.

  Squeezed tightly by his mother, William felt overwhelmed, wondering how he could have forgotten this and at the same time squirming with the discomfort of doubt that he was worthy of it.

  Just as quickly Nina released him and beckoned him in. “Now come in. Sit down.”

  The small apartment was perfectly ordered, practical as much as comfortable. Solid furniture was draped in knitted blankets and crochet throws. Pictures stood on a sideboard. His father, Nina’s parents, aunties and uncles and the image of a Japanese man smiled from the top row. He knew from his mother’s stories that it was Mr. Nori, one of several Japanese security workers at New Denver, who had been cherished by his mother and all the children in the dormitory for his kindness. There were pictures of William—then, Dmitri—as a boy, reminding him of times he had abandoned. A radio played CBC in the kitchen. In front of the compact sofa was a coffee table with cups, saucers and biscuits.

  “I’m sorry. You’re expecting company.”

  “Only you.”

  “How did you know I was coming? I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “We still look out for each other,” she said. “A car was seen in the cemetery last night and someone checked early this morning. They called to say a few stones had been cleared, but the clearing stopped at your father’s grave. Only one person in the world would sweep the snow from your father’s gravestone, other than me. It had to be you.”

  “I’d forgotten which one it was. With the new graves, it confused me.”

  She said, “You were seen at the funeral too, after we had all gone.” He shrugged sheepishly. “You could have come by last night. I wouldn’t have minded.”

  “I thought you might not want to see me.”

  “Why ever not?”

  William shrugged a second time, to reveal his helplessness. “It’s been so long. I felt I might not be welcome.”

  “We’ve had lots of practice waiting for our people, haven’t we?” Nina smiled as if the twenty-plus years that had passed had done so in a blink and meant nothing. It was true that the hallmark of a Doukhobor was patience. They had waited for leaders to arrive from exile, for parents to come home, for children to be returned, for promises to be kept, for boats to come and for justice, with the same patience with which they waited for crops to grow. They had waited two centuries to be allowed to toil in the earth and live a peaceful life, and some were still waiting. She continued, “I hoped you would come and see me. Not all of the young ones come back, but we hope. We hope for all of you.”

  “I didn’t think of there being others. I should have known.”

  “Oh, sure. We hear of the young people who have left. Some are doing fine; others not so much. Will you have tea or coffee?”

  “Coffee, please.” William felt strange in his mother’s home. The greeting was warm enough but somehow, as Nina made coffee in the kitchen, there was something familiar and something missing. His mother was practical as always but nothing more, save for the first greeting.

  As if listening to his thoughts Nina said, raising her voice from the kitchen, “Don’t think I’m not full of joy for you being here. I am. I did my crying early this morning when I got the call and I’ll do the rest when you’ve gone. But now we can talk, for a while, until you feel you must go again.”

  William felt the push and pull of his mother’s words. At first it confused him but gradually he began to understand the reserve in the air. A ratio had been carefully calculated between welcoming him without creating an obligation to stay and a commitment to something more than he might tolerate. Only the effusive kisses at the door crossed the line, from which she quickly drew back. She had retreated into her plan of benevolent neutrality. He had walked into a scenario with trepidation, not knowing she had contemplated his arrival a thousand times with only him in mind. He had done no preparation and, to his discomfort, had not thought of how his mother would feel, just that her disdain of him might drive him away.

  The cutting of ties with his family and the Doukhobor people had unmoored him. He knew this now. He had floated alone, determined his own direction, and because of this, there would be no pursuit of him or pleading with him to stay. Nina would be as neutral as she could manage. He felt a sweep of the insignificance that had angered him as a young man unable to influence his father’s affection for him, and then fear of being alone, which lurked in the background ever since he left. Finally it came to him that she was holding her emotions in check; otherwise they would burst from her chest. He must be careful with her, he thought.

  Nina carried the mugs from kitchen counter to coffee table and instructed her son to sit. She took a chair and left the sofa for William. “How have you been?”

  “Lots has happened,” he began. “You have a granddaughter.”

  “Oh, how lovely. What’s her name?”

  “Kelly. She’s fourteen. A snowboarder. She’s funny, and sweet.” William could not remember having described Kelly in this way before. His thoughts had been uncharitable until recently, always finding her limitations, and now the pride in his voice surprised him. “She’s losing her sight, unfortunately. There’s not much that can be done to stop it.”

  “Oh dear. Well, fortunately you don’t have to see who loves you to know that they do.” Nina tilted her head as if to suggest it was unimportant to the love she could offer.

  “It doesn’t hold her back. She goes to parties and even plays soccer.” William did not want to tell his mother he had not watched her play.

  “And does snowboarding, you say. She sounds lovely. Do you have a picture of her?”

  “Maybe.” William pulled out his iPhone and began searching. Before starting he knew there were no pictures, except those taken of Kelly as an infant. “I guess not. Sorry, I should have thought to bring some.”

  “Never mind,” Nina continued, unable to hide the smallest purse of her lips. “Are you still with the mother?”

  There was something knowing in the question. “Yes. Her name’s Julie. It’s amazing, but we are still together.”

  “But she doesn’t know you’re here.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You said you didn’t tell anyone about coming.” She paused. “Has something happened for you to travel all this way so suddenly?”

  “So much has happened.”

  Nina allowed the pause to linger only a few seconds before changing tack. “There’s a recent scar under your eyebrow.”

  William put his hand to his forehead and stroked the livid line there. “I fell off my bike, and when I went to the hospital they discovered I had a little tumour near the brain. It wasn’t very serious, but it needed an operation.”

  “Your father had a scar a bit longer than that one. Are you okay now?”

  “Yes, I think I’m fine now, but I haven’t felt the same since.” William was about to say something about the operation being the start of the turmoil—how he had changed and how the things he had done all came back to that. “There’s no end of problems. It’s difficult running a business on your own.”

  “It must be.”

  “Maybe the operation explains why I’m not concentrating, and why I seemed to be losing it.” He paused. “I was fine, then I had the operation and now I’m not so fine. It makes sense to me, but sometimes I’m not sure.”

  “It sounds like it would help you make sense of things, if it was that simple. Or maybe you weren’t as fine as you thought you were. It’s hard to see ours
elves, I know.” She smiled. “You didn’t come all this way to talk about your operation. Or maybe you did; that’s fine too.”

  “I’m not sure why I came.” He paused, then admitted, “That’s not true. I’ve come to say I’m sorry.”

  “For what, exactly?” asked Nina, locking him squarely in her gaze. “It’s enough that you have come.” She watched him. “Ah, you haven’t come to say sorry to me. That’s what you were doing last night in the cemetery.”

  Everything he did, William thought, revealed his inability to consider how it affected someone else. It had become a habit that only now had become embarrassing. His fumbling explanation to his father at the grave was nothing but self-justifying, and he had missed what was in front of him. “I owe you an apology. It’s been too long. I shouldn’t have just left and I should have come to see you.”

  “I’ve missed you, all right. Every day, especially since he died, but I know you have a journey to finish and I have to wait. But you’ve come about your father this time.”

  There was no point in hiding it. “I’ve spent most of my life angry with him and trying not to be like him. I never understood why he wouldn’t stay with us. Then I hated him because he was gone. I guess I was ashamed of him.”

  Nina asked, “All of this anger and still you visited him in Riverview Hospital?”

  “How did you know I visited him in Riverview?”

  “Because I did too. The nurses told me you had been.”

  “You visited him in Riverview?”

  “Sure I did, every month or so.”

  “They didn’t tell me.”

  “I asked them not to. I didn’t want you to stop coming. They said you once brought a little girl with you. I thought it might be your daughter.” Nina smiled. “How did you know he was there?”

  “There was something in the paper about a man arrested for arson and his name was mentioned,” William explained. “It was easy to find him with that. I just felt someone should visit. You’re right. If I’d known you were visiting, I might not have. I don’t know why.”

  “It was kind of you.”

  “How did he get so … lost?”

  “It’s a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  “I’ve come a long way.”

  Nina began, “I knew Pavel as a boy and a young man, when he was strong, full of courage. You didn’t know him then. The things he did for others in New Denver would have made you proud. Even after that he was so strong for everyone. But our people, well, they were always divided. My parents were in prison, and I lived with Auntie and Uncle. They had broken away from the Sons of Freedom and moved here from Krestova, but not everyone accepted them in Grand Forks. Even though they took me out of New Denver and put me into English school they were still part of the trouble.

  “My parents, when they were released, went back to Krestova and left me with my auntie and uncle, who took your father in too. They had looked after me for the years I was hiding from the police. We all felt cut off from someone in those days.

  “When Pavel was released from Agassiz Mountain Prison I brought him to Grand Forks, but it was difficult. He was shunned, and because of that the Orthodox Doukhobors would have nothing to do with me. Auntie and Uncle couldn’t have me in their house, so your father and I lived together. We weren’t married but it didn’t bother us. We were happy for a while.

  “Pavel would go back to Krestova sometimes, which Uncle hated, but I couldn’t go there with him. I was a leaver. It didn’t matter that I was in New Denver. My aunt and uncle were leavers, and when I went to them, I was a leaver. That was it.”

  William asked, “Father went with you, but he was not a leaver?”

  “He had sacrificed himself to their cause and had a place among them. He had spent all that time in New Denver, got himself blown up on a mission and went to prison. For some it drove them away from the Sons of Freedom, but not your father. It bound him to those people. I tried to pull him away from all of that, but once it’s done you can’t undo it. They’re stuck together. It took me years to understand that.”

  “But you were in New Denver too,” said William.

  “Not for very long. I wanted to be with my friends in New Denver. I can’t tell you how lonely it was hiding for those years. But when I was finally taken, they were already together, like a gang. I could speak good English and the other children thought I was a spy at first. They wouldn’t tell me things or let me in, in case I told the matrons. Pavel never believed that. He’d speak to me.”

  Nina continued, “All my friends had changed. They were tough—streetwise, you’d call it. New Denver made them cruel. I was just a little girl when I got there and had to toughen up pretty quick. It didn’t help that Auntie was the leader of the group who took us out of New Denver. So, Pavel couldn’t stay away from his friends.”

  William said, “He couldn’t be with us, but he could be with his friends in Krestova or Brilliant. It doesn’t say much about us.”

  “Don’t be too harsh with him. He was only a child when all this happened. I thought I could fix it, but it was too late. He was lost when he came out of prison, maybe before that. I just thought I could love him better, but I couldn’t. All of those children and all those families have scars.”

  “Krestova wasn’t a happy place, was it?” asked William. “He was always upset when he came from there to stay with us.”

  “Krestova had been through so much. They just needed someone to lead them out of their anger, but there were divisions. It got so complicated. There were Sons of Freedom, mostly the elders or older people, and Reformed Doukhobors, who were mostly young people who followed Stefan Sorokin. Your father believed in Sorokin. He wanted to lead them away from violence. Pavel was part of the group of Reformed Doukhobors. Do you remember any of this?”

  “I remember,” said William. “I was about ten or eleven when Sorokin died. Father was upset. There were stories he told me about miracles Sorokin had performed. People about to die in hospital and getting better, that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, there were stories like that. People, like your father, loved him, believed in him. When he died, your father was one of those who tried to keep things going, and he was there all the time. You were about thirteen when he said he couldn’t come back, but he was already gone—had been for a few years.”

  “He wasn’t always in Krestova, was he?”

  “No. Something was happening in Krestova and he ended up leaving. I didn’t understand it all then and I’m not sure I do now, but something terrible happened that upset everyone.”

  “What was it?”

  “Well, I’ve had to piece it together because Pavel wouldn’t talk to me about it. Even when I visited him in Riverview he couldn’t talk about it.”

  “Did something happen to him?”

  “Not directly. The story is that some young men went to your father, I don’t know how many, and said that Sorokin had been touching them—their privates—and doing other things. Pavel couldn’t believe it at first, but then when so many others spoke about it, he came to think it must be true. Then he tried to get others to believe it and help these young men, but they wouldn’t accept it. They just couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have to understand the people in Krestova had suffered for their beliefs and felt righteous in their cause. They were proud of keeping true to what they believed but were struggling to be a community again. Undermining the reputation of Sorokin, especially like that, was the same as undermining their community. So, they were angry with your father for trying to destroy the progress they’d made. I guess that’s why so many people couldn’t bring themselves to believe it. All that suffering and commitment to their cause would mean nothing if it were true. Even the young men were accused of lying. It was terrible. Many of them left. The community was in pieces. Hardly anyone came to wo
rship, congregations dropped off.” Nina lifted her eyebrows and shrugged in exasperation. “How can you worship together or even say God’s in your heart when the leader of your community has done that and the victims are called liars and cast out? Well, you can’t. In the end, Krestova was broken and no one was strong enough to help them heal from it all.”

  “What did Father do?”

  “He felt betrayed by what had happened and couldn’t stay. Pavel wanted the community to face what had happened. When they turned on him, it was a betrayal and against all he believed. He had heard that a few of the young people had moved to Vancouver and were in trouble. He went to help them. He shouldn’t have gone. He wasn’t up to it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was broken too. He went to Krestova to hold himself together with a dream of the community being whole again. When that went bad, it was the end. It wasn’t long before he was nearly destitute, sometimes living on the streets.”

  William streamed the image of the wild-eyed man in the dumpster, the musty young man in Tim Hortons who had woken him up, the aimless army of dispossessed middle-aged men who walked the streets of Vancouver.

  “I went to find him several times, but he wouldn’t speak to me, or come back to Grand Forks. He became preoccupied with the idea that everything would be settled if the government would apologize for what happened in New Denver, as if it would make everything right again. It didn’t happen. BC wanted to avoid paying compensation, so a statement of regret was made. It was another betrayal and it drove him mad. Eventually he was diagnosed.”

  “What with?”

  “At first it was schizophrenia, then it was depression and then it was something else. It was always changing so they could give him electric shocks or more drugs. It didn’t matter. Anyone who knew what had happened to him understood why he was lost. For Pavel, who had given so much to the cause of the Doukhobors, ‘they’ had taken everything, even his childhood.”