Pulling the thread tightly, Mrs.
Shimoda poised the needle above the opalescent button on her
favourite teal coloured blouse like a Northern Gannet ready to plunge into the sea, when the doorbell rang. Not wanting to rush the final
steps, she set her blouse upon the dining room table and quietly
walked through to the living room's front window wondering who it
could be. Canada Post? A nervous salesman with a clip board? Resolute
religious pamphleteers from the far edge of reason? It was Amelia
from upstairs. A welcome sight.
“I'm sorry to bother you Mrs.
Shimoda.”
“No bother, please, come in.” She
closed he door behind her and invited Amelia into the living room.
“Would you like some tea?”
Wondering if she should accept or
refuse, she read the signs as quickly as she could, and noticing the
shimmering light upon a seemingly completed jigsaw puzzle on the
dining room table in the next room, and the open sewing box and a
blouse beside it, she decided Mrs. Shimoda was offering tea as a
necessary preamble, a courtesy. “No, thank you, very kind of you to
offer. Perhaps another time.”
“Please, sit down. Is everything all
right upstairs?”
“Thank you.” Amelia sat down on a
mossy yellow shot silk armchair. “Yes, yes, we're fine. It's about
your previous tenant, though, Thérèse Laflamme.”
Mrs. Shimoda lifted her chin slightly
half expecting bad news.
“She's all right,” Amelia added
quickly to dispel any possible inference of a violent end in a far
away country. “It's just that she's suffered a slight case of
amnesia, and her friends thought that by revisiting the apartment and
meeting you again, it might help her revive memories and reanimate
the past.”
Mrs. Shimoda nodded her head not at all
surprised by this revelation. To help her arouse memories, she could
lay the original lease forms upon the dining room table, place her
black fountain pen with its small images of koi beneath the layers of
lacquer—certainly a memorable device—and then replicate the
signing ceremony. “Yes, of course. How unfortunate for Thérèse.
When do they want to do this?”
“Well, today if possible. Only if
it's convenient for you. They're coming over at six o'clock for
dinner. ”
She breathed in deeply. “It would be
best if Thérèse came here first. I'll prepare for her visit. I'm
sure it will help.” She showed Amelia out with a smile waving away
her effusive thanks.
Returning to her sewing she looked out
of the dining room windows and thought that they could stand there
together, looking out at the garden lit by the porch light, and that
too might evoke memories. It's difficult enough, she thought, living
on the edge of tomorrow, without the past for consolation.
*
While the clouds dissembled and city
hummed, Duncan Strand, or his consciousness, tried to fend off the
fatigue of his body by creating little nervous spasms and fits to
keep it awake, but his body was weary and dragged his consciousness
into the depths of sleep. . . .
. . . he was walking a narrow wooden
hallway and coming to a door with a brass plate reading H. M. S.
Absolute, he entered and with hands clasped behind him like a
visitor at an art gallery, he carefully made his way between low
stacks of hardcover books distributed like a miniature maze upon the
polished floorboards of the what felt to be the great cabin of an old
ship. He stood for a moment looking out of one of the slanted rear
windows until, hearing a tingling bell he turned round to see the
approach of Søren Kierkegaard and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
“It's odd how these windows are on an
angle,” he said.
Søren sighed deeply. “The windows," he said, "being at the back of the ship, must allow for an angle of understanding for we're looking backwards, and looking backwards is always slightly askew.”
Ludwig, his arms crossed in his grey tweed sports coat, with a look of perplexing
simplicity stated, “The light reveals that even the dust has its
place."
At that moment, Yves, Tom, Jerome, Mélisande, Pavor, Amelia, and Thérèse entered the room, and then his long lost twin, Gavin.
They each took a shot glass of
shimmering clear liquid, and raised them as if to propose a toast.
The next thing he knew, it was night
time, and they were on a flank of waste land with piles of rubble and
gravel rising behind them, while before them, dark waters lapped a
shoreline, and lights in the distance spread upon the water like
leaking photons. They gathered round an oil barrel burning with
rubbish and old palette wood. Ludwig looked deeply
into the flames, and quietly mumbled a few sentences no one could
hear or understand. And with that utterance, he turned around and
climbed the gravel pile and disappeared from view between the crags
in the dark. They all looked at each other with profound confusion.
Then they heard laughter as a gust of wind roared down upon them.
Gavin then picked out a flaming piece of wood to act as a torch, and made his way up the rubble and gravel pile, and standing atop, he yelled
something, which was drowned out by the winds, and launched himself into the darkness. By the time he himself climbed to the top of the gravel pile using his hands to steady him, he could see no trace of Ludwig or Gavin. They
had quite vanished away. He then felt his feet slip in the loose gravel
and sensed he was falling . . .
Duncan awoke, The Hunting
of the Snark falling to the floor with a soft bump. His neck had
been lolling to one side, and dribble had rolled down his chin and
into his shirt pocket. Breathing slowly, he wiped his lips and face
and as he raised his head, the details of the dream began to recede from him like a wave rushing back to the sea, only fragments
lingered in the wet sand like polished stones. Kierkegaard and
Wittgenstein had been actors in his two-act drama. And Amelia, his
friends and others, plus his brother Gavin, aboard a ship . . . then
on a shore at night . . .but the details were fading rapidly,
ineluctably, frustratingly. He wondered which character in the Snark
they each represented: the Beaver, Butcher, Bellman, Baker, Bonnet-maker, Banker,
Barrister, Broker, Billiard-marker, and Boots. His profession also
began with a B: Bookseller.
He looked down and noticed a
lose piece of paper had slipped out of the fallen Snark, and
picking it up, discovered two stanzas written with the same fine
penmanship as the inscription on the flyleaf:
They sought it with
theories and a fine research chair,
They pursued it with
tenure and scope.
They postulated facts with
utmost care,
But failed with values and
hope.
That's why I am here, not
lounging back there
Seeking it with letters
and chalk.
And now if you'll excuse
my silent despair,
I think I will go for a
walk.
Letters and chalk. Silent
despair. Placing it back in the book to accompany the inscription “To
David, From one Snarkophile to another, warmest wishes, ............”
and the signature he couldn't make out, the thought occurred to him
that if he could trace the writer of the inscription and the stanzas,
he might discover an interesting provenance. The inscription lacked a
date, but the faded ink, and the fine penmanship suggested it could
be upwards of a hundred years old. He returned to his desk and
settled it on a pile of books for his personal collection. If he'd
known about the sale of the building before the weekend, he wouldn't
have been out buying books, wouldn't have found the Snark,
wouldn't have had the dream.
He looked over at the
painting. It already exuded an aura of bleak suggestiveness.
He clasped his hands behind
his head and leaned back in his chair, and imagined himself a few
years into the future, sitting on bench facing this very spot, now a
towering mass of glass and concrete blocking out the sun, and just as
he had come across Stuart Grange that day on McGill College Avenue
sitting on a bench facing the location of his old bookshop, and they
had sat there recreating images from the past, perhaps he too would
be joined by a friend and proceed to shuffle the deck of nostalgia
and deal each other cards of numbered reminiscences.
Opening his desk drawer to
look for a thin booklet with samples of famous author's handwriting,
he rummaged through the assemblage of bookmarks, pencils, paperclips,
happy-face tacks, screwdrivers, sticky notes, labels, Canada Post
custom forms, petrified glue sticks, an empty match box from
Davidoff's on Sherbrooke Street, his plastic pin depicting a rabbit
on cross-country skies over the number 110 for the Canadian Ski
Marathon his younger brother had dragged him into so far back he
couldn't remember the year, an old red and gold stiff cigarette pack
with Egyptian illustrations: Ramses II filter tip, casino dice with
his name on them, a limited edition ten dollar gaming token from the
Riviera in Las Vegas from 1996, three Rapier English darts in a black
leather case, broken cassette tape holders, and an assortment of CDs.
Eyeing David Sylvian's Secrets of the Beehive, he felt it was
just what he needed. Forgetting all
about his search for the booklet, he popped the DVD drive open
on his computer and selected the song Orpheus, then
walked over to his mini fridge with the kettle on top and decided to
make tea. One could never go wrong with a pot of tea, he
thought. Enjoyable when shared, but just as restorative when alone.
Better still, a long walk with the one you love, and then a pot of
tea. Life always came down to the simple things in he end.
*
Influenced by Thérèse's
condition, and having the afternoon to himself, Pavor had fallen into
the nostalgic mood of a flâneur, walking up and down the streets
between McGill College and Mackay, observing, absorbing, and seeking
the hidden and the obscure, such as the beautiful projecting bay window
on the side of a Victorian era home now looking down upon an alley
and across at a brick wall of a twenty floor apartment block like a vulnerable eye in the land of the blind, or the particular
symmetry of twelve window air conditioners—window shakers he'd
heard them called—across a span of three period buildings like
punctuation marks, or the unfortunate renovations stripping a
building of all sense of uniqueness, but also, on occasion, buoyed by
the preservation of a quality architectural specimen, inspired enough
to set his imagination off to visualize the street as it used to be
over a hundred years ago, a narrow residential avenue of fine
townhouses with cut stone facings—city residences of managers,
doctors, and widows—with cast iron fences around small front
gardens with bird baths, large shade trees, birdsong, horse drawn
carriages, busy squirrels, families walking dogs, aspidistras or
cats in windows, and tradesmen delivering staples, and then to
contemplate the passage of time, as the enlarging city began its
commercial encroachment, leading to the transformation of many of the homes into
rooming houses, the gradual loss of their Victorian gingerbread
details, the demolition of many due to neglect and developers
seeking to build apartment blocks or office towers, the survivors
succumbing to commercial establishments such as dental offices,
jewelry stores, fashion boutiques, restaurants, bars, and nightclubs.
In another hundred years, he couldn't possibly imagine what would be
found.
There almost seemed to be a
generational change taking place. The closing of the Mount Stephen
Club seemed to mark the passing of the old Anglo elite who had held
on to the past as long as they could, now to be revitalized by new
money and architectural vision into a boutique hotel for the nouveau
riche. Transformation. Change. It was inevitable.
He rested for a moment, his
shoulder against the black cast iron lamp post on Crescent Street,
the sign for Ruelle Nik-Auf Der Maur above him pointing towards the
Sir Winston Churchill Pub and not the damp shadowed alleyway along
the side of the building. He conjured up an image of Auf der Maur's
hard-drinking cronies with a ladder, screw drivers and a hammer,
providing that honorary shift to the sign, and then repairing to the
pub for a toast to their fallen journalist comrade, Boulevardier, and
raconteur. Then again, it may have been pointing at the pub from the
very start. He'd never met the man but had heard stories of his
smoking and drinking stamina, and his friendship with the author
Mordecai Richler, another man of the world, one likely to be found
with a decorative pack of Schimmelpennincks nearby.
One street over, on Mackay,
between St. Catherine Street and de Maisonneuve, he stood before the
two surviving houses on the block, attached twins in disrepair under
the shadows of the modern. It wasn't so much the deterioration and
neglect of the architecture that stirred deep emotions within him, as
the loss of the rich experience that had existed there in the quiet old
world charm of Café Toman, the Czech café on
the second floor of the turn of the century home. He remembered the
entrance with the large mirror to check your hair and scarf before
scaling the old creaking wood staircase to the landing with its round oak table spread with magazines and newspapers, the hall tree to hang
your coat, the gentle classical music coming from the modest
speakers, the old prints of Prague on the walls, the tall narrow
windows and their muted light, the laughter and greetings of the
charming Robert who managed to make everyone feel special and
remembered, the descent of his Father George from his nap on the
third floor and the overheard conversations in the kitchen in the old
language, the delicious borscht or goulash with a little plate of
subtle cheese bread fingers baked in special old world forms, the
delicate sandwiches, the coffees and cappuccinos, the cookies like
the vanilkove rohlicky—a favourite of his Mother's—little
vanilla crescent moons dusted with the fresh snow of confectioners
sugar, or the irresistible apple strudel with a dollop of fresh
whipped cream which would leave one feeling dinner wouldn't be
required that night. And of course the hand-made truffles to take
home to someone special. For many years it had been his escape, a writer's
refuge from the bustle, a place where he had felt completely at ease, he
could relax with a coffee and a pastry, think, read, and scribble
notes. A place to observe university professors, students, and
occasional groups of noisy first timers thrilled with the unusual.
But once Robert's Father passed away, he took the end as an opportunity for a new beginning, and closed the café. Freedom. More
time. A new life.
Turning around, he saw the
fairly new tea shop in the lower level of the still new Concordia
University building, and made his way over. He was impressed with Thé
Kiosque's offerings and ordered a small pot of Margaret's Hope
and a Chai tea scone, and then sat at the window counter seat, and
stared at the sad building directly across. There must be many like
him who missed the old café. The deterioration didn't bode well. It
looked as vulnerable as a wounded rabbit under a circling hawk. It
wouldn't surprise him to hear it had become a parking lot one day.
“Your tea, and your
scone,” the young woman said.
“That smells wonderful,
thank you.”
“Do you know the story of
Margaret's Hope tea?” she asked, seemingly eager to talk on this
quiet early afternoon.
“No, but my . . friend
introduced me to the tea and I recognized it on your list, so I
ordered it.”
The slim dark haired young
woman with numerous rings in her right ear, rested her hands on the
top of a nearby chair and began to tell him all about the tea. “It
was a small tea plantation owned by a man who lived in London who had
a younger daughter named Margaret. On one occasion she visited the
garden plantation and was charmed, but on her return to England, she
became ill and died. The Father named the tea garden Margaret's
Hope in her honour.”
“That's very sad,” Pavor
said, “but a lovely story.”
“Supposedly, visitors to
the old tea estate have felt or seen her ghostly presence in the old
home, on the verrandah, or watching over them while they try to
sleep.”
“A delicious tea, and a
ghost story. Thank you for telling me. A very interesting
background.”
She smiled and began to wipe
the table running the length of the window and told him to just ask
if he needed anything else.
© ralph patrick mackay
No comments:
Post a Comment