Looking back at the
sequestered bench on the narrow street overlooking the city below—a
space of quiet stillness sheltered between colourful houses—she
felt a version of herself had been sitting there for generations, a
version of herself asleep like Rip van Winkle. The windows looking
down upon her, welcome eyes filled with concern and sympathy. Rip van
Winkle? Jerome van Starke?
The cold rain had ceased as
abruptly as it had started. The remnant clouds scudding slowly
towards the mountain reminded her of recognisable appendages, the
caboose, the dinghy behind the yacht, the tail of a kite, the
sweepers after a parade, the last car in a funeral
procession—invariably an older model, striking in colour, windows
down, smoke trailing, in need of a wash.
She took a few steps feeling
as slow as a tortoise, and dizzy as the ripples in the large puddle
she had stepped in. Looking down, she captured a vague recollection
as the blue sky hovered above her dark reflection. Her image wavered
at once below and above her, bringing to mind a snow globe her Mother
had given her depicting a child looking up at a Christmas tree and a
snow covered house, a snow globe now residing on her Mother's mantle
piece beside a clear wedge of acrylic, an award from a Press Club, an
award she had passed on to her Mother for bragging rights, an award
metaphorically transparent before the mantle mirror. Snow globe?
Press Club award? Her Mother?
A veiled recognition swept
round her like a warm caftan. Profession, identity, name, location,
however, were still beyond her like the sums of difficult equations.
Press Club? A journalist?
The street names on the
sides of houses, Dragefjellsbakken. Sydneskleiven, oddly
stirred up startling memories of Winter Olympics in northern
Europe, down-hill skiers skidding and slipping at tremendous speeds,
waves of snow spray in vast arcs towards the spectators.
She stood on the
cobblestones before an old wooden house, its blue and white colours
making her think of Wedgwood china. It was as if she had shrunken and
was now walking around the streets of a toy village, the tawny roof
tiles predominating over the muted oranges, blues, yellows, greens
and brilliant whites. She advanced towards a smaller house. The
address number was 13. Unlucky number she thought, but the house
appeared to be so pleasant and inviting. The clapboard houses had
such cheerful pastel pigments. Smart as paint, her Father used to
say. Her Father? Paint, painter, Jerome . . paintings with her face
. . . powdered pigments, glair, egg tempera, linseed and lavender
oil, fresh free-range country eggs, gesso, cinnabar.
Behind her, a large puddle
captured a limpid reflection of the blue sky, the colourful houses, a
late season climbing rose bush, assorted empty clay pots and her own
figure in the scene.
An older couple coming
towards her, an inquisitive terrier leading them on, noticed that the
nicely dressed young woman's movements were eccentric, her hair wet
and mussed. Their first thought was drugs, but on approaching closer
they sensed something more disturbing. A psychological disorder
perhaps. They nodded a greeting as their dog strove to sniff her pant
legs.
“Hello,” she said.,
talking to the dog, “such a . . . beautiful—.” She bent down
and petted the dog while the couple exchanged glances.
“Are you needing help?”
the older woman asked with a heavy Norwegian accent. Her husband
stiffened his shoulders as the words passed her lips.
“I . . . I seem to be
lost,” she said looking up at them from her kneeling position with
a timid smile while the dog licked her hands.
The couple exchanged words
she didn't understand, and then the women withdrew a cell phone and
dialled a short number. The husband looked up, seemingly interested
in roof tiles.
Smart as paint, she thought.
Smart as paint.
*
Pavor Loveridge, his legs
almost weightless with fatigue, eyed an available chair and table at
the small hospital café, then leisurely made his way over with his
coffee and panini of roasted egg plant, cheese and pickle.
Readiness is all, someone
had said. That was either Gloria Child or Hamlet he thought. The
lines came back to him as he lay his cup and plate down, sweeping
aside remnant crumbs. 'If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be
not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the
readiness is all.'
His Father, known for his occasional thespian moments, favoured those
lines. How many occasions had he attentively listened while his
Father, the lawyer, the QC, had declaimed those singular syllabic
words? How many occasions had he waited for the dramatic emphasis of
that trisyllabic barb? There was often a gin and tonic involved. A
memory, impressionistic and vague, stirred within him: the nineteenth
hole—the eighteenth green a malachite kidney spread out before
them—clinking glasses of shandy, toasting a fine round of golf, the
savour of a win over the upstart son following in his footsteps. The
readiness is all. Ready for that gust of wind. Ready for the moment
of calm on the green. Readiness for that fox in the shrubbery.
Readiness. Waiting. Waiting for a verdict. Waiting for a decision.
Waiting for . . . news about Tullio.
When
he had arrived at the hospital, the overworked staff had informed him
that they were waiting for family to arrive, and therefore were
unable to provide him with information, him being an outsider, him
being a stranger, a stranger with a most tenuous connection, a
connection of words on numbered pages, fictions, imaginings, paper
and ink. A nurse, of Vietnamese heritage, in her blue outfit and
running shoes had suggested he have a meal and come back in an hour
or so. Smiling with tired eyes, she had provided him with directions
to the café. Running shoes. Nurses were always on their feet. How
many kilometres they must walk in a day he had wondered.
The
sandwich now but crumbs on a plate, he slowly stirred a spoon in his
coffee as the conversations with Carina and Umberto revolved in his
thoughts.
“I just talked to a
homeless young woman with a black cat named Dante who seems to be
using one of the old drainage conduits in the fortification wall as a
refuge.”
“Oh, Carina. Yes, yes,
she works with the youth centre here. She is not without a home. Not
now at least. Occasionally she revisits the fortification and the
fountain. We all need to revisit sometime no?To be alone. She walks
Dante on a leash and has a small apartment not far from mine. Carina,
yes, an interesting case. Smart, but . . . circumstances.”
Pavor
could almost hear Umberto's nuanced speech as he sipped his coffee.
The homeless are truly alone he had said. The rest of us, even though
we may try to stand out as individuals, or distance ourselves from
our roots, we are always seen as part of a group, like his own for
instance, white, male, Catholic, Italian, Triestine, photographer,
senior citizen, tribal units that define and confine us. But the
homeless, he had said, gesturing with his hands out before him as if
seeking alms, are truly alone. We see through them. It matters not
who or what they are, we see through them.
He had
asked Pavor to list his 'photogenics' he called them: white, male,
Protestant, Canadian, Montréalais, lawyer, author, and they had sat
there on the bench, their 'photogenics' before them like cards on a
table.
As his
fellow café patrons surrounded him with their 'photogenics,' he
recalled the visit to his Mother in Prague, Umberto's old-world ways
having stirred her up. They would get along, he thought. He could see
them strolling together on the path besides the gardens of the Prague
Castle, as they had, discussing this and that, the weather, health, neighbours, the Euro. It had been an unusually cool August day, and
their stroll had been effortless, additional discussions of the past
perhaps less so—Montreal, her ex-husband Mr. Loveridge, Pavor
leaving law for authorship, the reasons left unsaid. (Life had
shuffled the deck.) The discussions of the future—marriage with
Mélisande, “such a nice girl, why she needs iconography on her
arms, is there not enough all around us; but, a wedding dress with
long sleeves would do.” The unvoiced resignation at not having
grandchildren. They had stood at a viewing area, the old city roofs
below them, orange tawny like autumn colours. She was happy she
had said. She had a few good friends and neighbours, her health was
robust, and she felt at home. Among her tribe Pavor now thought.
And yet, she kept the surname Loveridge. It stood out among the other name
labels in the foyer of her apartment house, exotic, a curiosity. When
he had arrived at the corner of her street, Lesnicka, he had stood
gazing up at the Art Nouveau winged female holding up the corner
tower, and she, fixed in stone, gazed down upon him as she had upon
countless others through the years, unwavering, resolute. He had
never photographed her for she was timeless. Certainly unchanged
since he had last visited. Other things had changed somewhat. More construction of office space. More renovation of older buildings.
More graffiti. More people preoccupied with cell-phones and other
devices. More tourists.
He had
felt like a local as he recalled lining up to take the funicular from
Ujezd street to the top of Petrin Hill on one of his days alone
exploring the city for possible fictional locales. The goal was the
Petrin tower and the mirror maze. He could see his character Rex
Packard trying to locate the real villain in the mirror maze or
climbing up the 299 stairs of the Petrin tower—a small scale
replica of the Eiffel tower—in pursuit of said villain, only to
look out from the windows at the top to see his culprit waving up to
him as he sauntered towards the Baroque Cathedral of St. Lawrence
just below.
As the
dregs of his coffee cooled before him, he remembered he had put the
slim volume of Sir Richard Burton's book in his inner jacket pocket.
Bored, he withdrew it and began to read at random, the eye attracted
to certain words.
Truth is the shattered
mirror strewn in myriad bits
While each believes his
little bit the whole to own.
“Mi
scusi signore.”
Pavor
looked up to see the young nurse who had directed him there. He
smiled and asked her if there was any news.
“Si,
Mr. Friulli è stabile, ma . . . è in coma.”
A coma.
Pavor sighed a relief. He thanked her profusely for being so kind as
to let him know.
She told
him Tullio's family was with him and that he could always check back
tomorrow for more news. There was no point in waiting.
He
thanked her again before she left, and then looked down at the book
he was reading, flipping pages to read another passage:
The Gothic Moon, the
lesser light,
The lover's lamp, the
Swan's delight
A ruined world, a globe
burnt out,
A corpse upon the road of night.
A corpse upon the road of night.
© ralph patrick mackay
No comments:
Post a Comment