She

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

chapter nineteen

  UNDER THE ICE IT LIES

  LAP.

  LAP.

  LAP.

  Waves brush up against the quay. They call to her, and she wants to go to them. The sun is dawning over to her left, noticeable only because of the lightening in the cloudy sky. It’s mild where she sits on the bench facing Toronto’s inner harbour, facing the far-off Toronto Islands with their bald trees and hidden homes. She doesn’t remember how she got here, or how she spent the dark hours. She only remembers leaving that meeting, that horrid meeting, that meeting where she got the message that she doesn’t deserve life, that she is such an awful human being that God had made a mistake in letting her live. “Akaesman,” she mouths the name. Maybe he doesn’t exist, maybe they’re right in that, maybe she’s such a loser, such a fucking failure, that she’d gone along with some made-up psychological stuff just so that she could avoid failing as a song writer. But her chest heaves as she remembers the joy of feeling the keys fall beneath her fingers, to her command, the notes lifting around her, the experience of words coming into her mind in tune with the notes, those words flowing onto the sheet through her hand, through her fingers. She had always written songs by hand. It was so tactile, like her inner self extended through her arm into her hand out her fingers and onto the paper. She hurts so much. She hiccups a sob. In all those days slogging to Haoma Therapy, with that elephant on her chest, she had never thought her heart could hurt this much.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  The sky grows lighter. Snowflakes from nowhere settle onto her hat, her cheeks, her shoulders. She leaves the flakes there as she stares at the dark water, rhythmically flowing forward, pushing up the concrete wall with a splash of foam, falling back, repeating over and over and over again. Melting ice sheets float on top, bumping up against each other, moving apart, and then bumping again.

  The meeting plays in her mind. They’d had their group fights, their moments of one-on-one conflict before all this had happened, but she hadn’t seen this kind of cruelty, this kind of wilful blindness to justify gathering together against her when she is down, suffering, and vulnerable, with no ability to defend herself. It was like they revenged themselves on her, but for what? She didn’t understand. She doesn’t understand. She can’t understand. She wouldn’t have done this to them. She’s sure she wouldn’t have. Is it too much to expect from her closest friends compassion and patience and support?

  Why? Why is she alive? She yearns to drown herself in the depths to which she belongs.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  Clearly, she’s an awful person. Change, they had said. But that’s all she is doing. Day after day, she changes. She changes from the self she liked into something she never wanted to be; she changes to try to reclaim her old self; she changes to accept that she can never be her old self again. Maybe because she hadn’t accepted this changing self, they could not and so were justified in demanding she change back. The weight of trying to suss all this out bows her head. The only thing she knows from this, is that she should not be alive. God has made a mistake.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  When did she start believing in God anyway? There are no atheists in foxholes, the old adage appears in her head. But she hadn’t thought of herself as being in a foxhole, of being the fox in the hunt. She’d known she could do this, get herself back to herself, if she worked hard enough. She had always been a hard worker, garnering straight As in school and university. Grandmother had expected nothing less. And what Grandmother wanted, Grandmother got. She had learnt through her older relative that only she controls her destiny. No one else does. Yet … yet does she really control her destiny? She hadn’t seen that meeting coming. She had felt the pain of their absence, of their few abrupt and brusque contacts, but she hadn’t expected that. It was her fault for asking for that meeting. Charlie had suggested seeing the shrink, no the therapist, and then after she’d refused, the meeting if she wanted answers. And she had gone along because she had so wanted answers. And they had only given her her answers when all together in that meeting, not individually, one-on-one over the phone or face-to-face. Safety in numbers. Is she really such a monster that the only way they felt safe to talk to her was when together against her?

  Lap.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  The wind picks up, pushes against her left shoulder, ruffles her hair that’s peeking out from under her hat. She shivers, although the temperature is climbing, and huddles over her purse, still watching the lake. A last few flakes of snow float down. The endless grey up above breaks apart, and the sun glows weakly through, changing the water to iron grey. It’s hard, so hard. Why is she alive? She sees no purpose in this, in what has happened to her, in not being able to write songs, in fighting the keyboard, in fighting herself — or maybe it is Akaesman she’s fighting. Well, whomever, it wearies her. She has no vitality, only weakness and weariness. Her arms lie heavy on her lap, around her purse. She moves not at all, not even a twitch, for lethargy has her in its grip. She senses a stygian stirring in her mind, the thought that life is not for her and that she needs to do more about it than stare at the water. She agrees.

  The wind puffs against her shoulder harder. A presence inside her, outside her, urges her up. This is not worth it. This life is not worth all the pain and suffering. Fear and anticipation grip her, yet inertia keeps her down. She doesn’t move. But she feels pulled. The water is so inviting; its coldness more friendly than the life in the city behind her. The wind is right. That is where she must be, where she must go, under the ice.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  Lap.

  A burst of light out on the water breaks the spell. The visitant is there, walking on the waves toward the dawning sun, walking in front of the islands. She sits up slightly to see better. The visitant’s head is a sun of soft rays that shine in and out. A gown hides yet curves to her form. From the back of her gown flows a train that coruscates, trailing diamonds of light across the water. Her sleeves billow out near her hands as if a gentle breeze flows through them, and sparkles drop from them, joining the diamonds. The front of her gown, for it must be a she, moves forward rhythmically in tune to her feet. The effulgent vision walks slowly, steadily, strongly forward. And she’s smiling. Not her face or lips or mouth are smiling, but her whole being. A smile of peace, of reassurance.

  She follows this visitant, first with her eyes, and then with her head, but doesn’t move. The visitant turns her head in her direction, and sunlight streaks toward her, expanding, expanding until it fills her vision. The golden light undulates in front of her, caressing her, embracing her. She weeps. Her crying eases, and the light flows back into the visitant, who turns her head back forward and recommences walking. She stands up and follows the visitant on a parallel course on land. She feels the angry presence trying to hold onto her, trying to turn her course toward the lake. But she is no longer prey to its pull. The visitant is too powerful. She walks east, past the empty Harbourfront skating rink as this visitant — this visitant, whose name appears to her faintly — walks north onto the land and disappears on the other side of York Quay. She hurries past the building with its sharp corners and flat, white outer walls and juts her head forward to see faster round the corner.

  There! Artashavanti is walking toward the street, toward Queens Quay. She can hear a Red Rocket grumbling up the tracks from the west. Artashavanti seems not to speed up yet is further ahead. She walks faster to catch up. She emerges out of the building’s presence onto the sidewalk. The Red Rocket, one of Toronto’s familiar streetcars, is squealing up to the stop. One person is standing there, waiting for it. Its interior lights glow faintly out of its windows into the new day. Artashavanti disappears into it behind the person. She runs to catch the car. The driver waits, and she leaps onto the bottom step, grabbing the centre pole, before climbing the steep steps up.

 
“Thank you,” she gasps. With numb, shaking fingers, she unzips her waist purse, opens her wallet inside it, feels for a token, and pulls it out, dropping it into the fare box with a tinny clatter. Her chest heaving, she turns left to look down the car. Artashavanti is nowhere to be seen, only bored, sleepy people greet her eyes as they sit on the sides of the car in single and double seats, staring glassily out the windows. She starts walking, and the car’s movements suddenly unbalance her. She grabs a pole, swings round it, and plonks down on a seat, fortunately an empty one. She joins the throngs staring glassily out the window at the brightening day and wonders: how did she suddenly know the visitant’s name, and who is she? Well, anyway, she’s not going to join the lake. The urge is gone, though not the want. She’s on a different track now. But what track? Grief extinguishes that brief spurt of life.

  This is not worth it.

  She sighs, not wanting to believe. She wasn’t hallucinating that visitant, that being, Artashavanti, though the plainness of the day makes her wonder. Maybe. Maybe he does exist. She is not alone in her body; the other with her is not her. She is right; they are wrong.

  The streetcar clatters down a ramp into the underground tunnel. Its shrieking wheels echo off the rocky tunnel sides. It passes into the empty underground stop and back into the charcoal tunnel, round a U-bend and into Union Station. She follows the others off, through a tiled tunnel, up the stairs, and into the noisy confusion of Union Station. She looks around and then sees most moving like sheep down a set of stairs. She follows and lands on the narrow subway platform to wait for whichever train comes in first, trying not to be pushed to the edge by the hushed crowd of people waiting. She faces one of the tracks that goes north. She’s not sure if it’s the Yonge line north or the University-Spadina line north. It’s quiet; no one talks. People hardly even move at this early hour. She’d always thought of rush hour as crushing, cacophonous. Suddenly a force runs up from behind her, grabs her hand, and using its momentum drags her to the tracks as she hears a train squealing and thundering toward the station from around the hidden bend to her right. Panic fills her. “No,” she screams silently, she doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t know why she’s alive. But they’re wrong. They’re all wrong. She, not her old self, but whoever this self is — she deserves life. She flings herself backwards, and the shadowy force flies across the platform, across the tracks, and is swallowed up by the wall. She jerks her back up against the platform wall as the train rushes into the station in front of her. She plants her hands against the wall’s cold tiles as the force of the train’s entrance blows past her, whipping hair across faces, coats against legs, and even some purses up. Fury erupts in her head. She can’t think through it. She’s afraid to get on the train, for then she’ll have to get off it again. But she can’t stay here. Her heart pulses in her neck as she stares at the train’s inviting open door. Something is glimmering inside, something brighter than the artificial light. She pushes herself off the wall and rushes onto the train as the chimes announce the doors closing. She tries to ignore the fury that’s escalated to caterwauling in her brain.

  She can’t see Artashavanti, but she senses her. She feels safe on the train. It jerks forward and speeds up through the tunnel.

  At King Station, one stop up, the ceiling lights in the station appear to glow. She gets off. The glow detaches itself from the ceiling and floats up the stairs. She follows it up to the street level and waits for another streetcar. She has to find another token — she doesn’t have a transfer — and to her surprise, she does have another one. She doesn’t remember putting so many tokens in her wallet when she’d left for the meeting yesterday. The streetcar carrying her arrives at Parliament, and suddenly she knows. She stands up, pulls the cord way above her head, gets off in front of Little Trinity Church, and freezes. Will anyone be there at this hour? Artashavanti, who is now a glimmering orb, bobs forward on the air currents and disappears through the main double doors. She hesitates still, chewing her lip. Should she follow? She’s not sure. She stands and stares. Light streaks out from between the doors and around their edges, calling to her. She climbs the few front steps, grabs hold of the handle, and pulls. The door opens. The fury in her head shuts up.

  A voice greets her. A tenor voice, rich, swelling with joy, fills the church.

  O Wisdom,

  She stands transfixed, listening. The door bangs closed behind her.

  you came forth from the mouth of the Most High

  She walks forward and climbs the stairs up to the main centre aisle, to find the source of that voice. She stops at the top, underneath the balcony overhang, and listens.

  and, reaching from beginning to end, you ordered all things mightily and sweetly.

  She moves forward and emerges from underneath the balcony. The ceiling soars overhead. Like a giant flickering candle, sun illuminates the coloured square panes in the side windows and shines through the enormous arched window behind the altar, filling the church with joyous colour before dimming again.

  Come, and teach us the way of prudence.

  She turns, arches her neck, and sees a young man standing at the front of the balcony, singing to the sun that’s burst forth through that enormous window, lighting up the creamy white-painted balcony and the wall behind it with its rectangular organ baffles. She hears the slap of a door as it closes. She swivels around to the sound. The church’s Reverend is coming toward her, wearing a dove-grey, long-sleeved shirt with dog collar and navy blue pants. His hair is white. A memory stirs. What was his name?

  “Hello, may I help you?” he asks as he approaches her in the middle of the church. She finds herself further into the church than she’d thought she was.

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “Come, sit.” He moves into a pew, beckons her in, and turns sideways toward her, his left arm along the back of the pew in front of them. She sits down near him but keeps her eyes firmly on that window. The peace of the church fills her; it leaves no room for fear, for fury.

  They sit quietly.

  “Would you like me to pray for you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It is hard to know what we want. Speaking to God may not make us any wiser in that, but it can calm the soul, make us feel less alone.”

  She thinks about this. “Alright.” He prays, and as his quiet words issue forth, she closes her eyes, bows her head, and asks fervently, silently for help to whom she does not know. She’s not sure whom she’s asking; she just wants help.

  “Amen,” he finishes.

  She lifts her head and thanks him.

  “Prayer is only the beginning for you, as it is for anyone. I don’t know your story, I don’t know your need. But like all lost sheep, you are not alone. You are wanted. You’re loved.”

  She looks away.

  “You are God’s beloved, know this.”

  They sit for a bit.

  He clears his throat, “Perhaps I’m being forward in offering this to you, but I’d like to suggest a retreat. There’s a convent in the north end of the city. You donate what you can, and you can spend a day there in quiet contemplation with the nuns. They’ll assign you a mentor for the day; you can meet with the minister for anointing; and take communion with the nuns. It’s a day of healing and meditation. It’s a day when you will learn that you are beloved.”

  They sit quietly for a bit more.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I’ll take perhaps,” he smiles at her until she stretches the corners of her mouth a little in reply. “Let me make this call for you. I know how difficult it can be approaching the church, even a convent. What do you think?”

  She nods.

  He pulls out of his pocket his Blackberry and makes the call. After some exchanges, he holds the Blackberry away from his mouth and asks her, “It being Christmas, they don’t have any day available until January 1. Does that work for you?”

  “Yes,” she whispers. She has no idea what she’s supposed to do now, but a retreat s
ounds as good as anything else. Maybe she’ll understand then. Maybe.

  He finishes up, shoves his Blackberry back into his pocket, and says, “Today is the first day of the second half of Advent, the time before Christmas, a time when we wait in joyful anticipation of Christ’s first coming. Let this time be a time of joyful anticipation for you as well. There is no need to make decisions now. Only give yourself the blessing of waiting.”

  She nods, tears threatening suddenly. She’s tired of crying. Yet a vision of a tortuous murky mountainous path appears before her eyes, hiding the church from her sight. Darkness closes in as she steps onto that path, hiding the sky, camouflaging that lurking creature with iron-bar limbs and teeth of terror who raises her hackles. The vision evolves into reality, and fear tears at her throat. The Reverend’s voice breaks through, crashing apart the vision. She blinks and sees the church once more. He’s suggesting more prayer, and as she listens to his requests for her, the tears flow back from whence they had come, and relief floods her. She’s not alone.

  ~~~*~~~