"Apprehensive," he said.
The composer-in-residence of the orchestra, a sinewy middle-aged woman in a shiny blue dress, stepped out. The loud clack of her heels on the stage seemed to embarra.s.s her, so she hurried.
At the podium, the composer introduced herself. Nancy Barislawski. From Philadelphia, originally. She looked to her right, to the box where Rajinder and Madison sat, and talked about being summoned to the thirty-eighth floor of Manulife Place. She talked about 10 Garneau and Rajinder Chana"s impossible request. To design a concerto that said everything there was to say about the mythic power of Edmonton. In a month!
Nancy shrank from Rajinder in mock-terror and went on to say how much she enjoyed the impossible project, and how she hoped it would help restore the neighbourhood to its true owners. The audience applauded politely and Nancy introduced Rajinder. She asked him to stand and then she asked his fiancee and Garneau Block neighbour Madison Weiss to stand as well.
Fiancee? The word, its French threat, hung before Madison like a flock of red bats. Rajinder turned and gripped her hand. "I am sorry."
"No. It"s..." Madison sat down, her cheeks on fire.
"A mistake. A mistake. I will fix it." Rajinder, still standing, waved at Nancy Barislawski. She stopped talking about the music everyone was about to hear and turned to Rajinder. "Excuse me," he said. "But Madison is not my fiancee."
Nancy Barislawski opened her mouth and squinted.
"She is only my girlfriend thus far."
"Oh, I apologize," said Nancy.
She seemed prepared to continue discussing the concerto of mythic power when someone below them, perhaps the woo-er, said, "Thus far? What does that mean?"
Rajinder didn"t seem to know if he should respond. "I mean she is my girlfriend currently. But someday, perhaps, if she feels like we can maybe..."
"Are you waiting for a full moon or something?"
Madison wanted to crawl under her seat. On stage, Nancy Barislawski shifted her weight from one high-heeled shoe to the other. Someone in the balcony yelled, "Go on, ask her, already."
"That girl looks ready to me," said a gentleman with a Slavic accent.
"Woo!" said the woo-er.
Rajinder shook his head. Madison pulled on his arm, wanting him to sit down and save himself from this, but he appeared to feel obliged. He addressed the crowd: "What if we would prefer to do it alone?"
A woman called out, "You got a ring, kid?"
"I do happen to have a ring, yes."
The audience erupted in applause. Several woo-ers joined in. Rajinder looked down at Madison again and shook his head. "This must be horribly awkward for you."
It was and wasn"t. Aside from the afternoon talk-show spectacle of the thing, Madison was comforted by members of the audience saying what she herself felt. Ask her, propose, woo. Rajinder went down on one knee, pulled out a small jewellery box and said, "Will you?"
"Will I what?" Madison bit her finger.
"Marry?"
The orchestra broke out in a quick, impromptu "Here Comes the Bride" as Madison nodded.
Once Madison and Rajinder were in their seats holding hands, their hearts unified in dangerous velocity, and everyone had stopped clapping and laughing, Nancy lifted the microphone again. "Upstage city. Sheesh. I only wrote a concerto here."
94.
the terletsky-wongs At four in the morning, Raymond Terletsky and Shirley Wong locked 10 Garneau. The winter storm was finally blowing in. Raymond"s lower back was so sore from bending and standing he leaned on his wife as they crossed the street.
"Get off."
Raymond took a step away and slipped on the new sidewalk ice. He landed hard on his tailbone and sat there as Shirley continued to the front door. She opened it and turned.
"You coming?"
Instead of rolling on to his hands and knees and standing, Raymond lay back to watch the snow fall in whorls above his head. From his spot on the sidewalk, Raymond heard a sigh. Shirley started back down the steps and through the snow. She held a hand out for Raymond and helped him up. "You look like h.e.l.l."
"I feel like h.e.l.l."
After almost two weeks of cataloguing and curating the rotating exhibit that would be the modified Great Spirit, Raymond felt as though he ought to sleep until Christmas. The president and the mayor would come by in just a few hours, at noon, and Raymond might have done moretouched up the paint, polished the wood floorsbut in his fatigue he was in danger of ruining something.
He followed Shirley toward his front door. On the porch Raymond turned and looked back at 10 Garneau. In the front yard, lit by the street lamps but obscured by the snow, stood the man with the buffalo head. Raymond had not seen Death since Halloween night, and had certainly wondered what had become of him. Unless the man with the buffalo head wasn"t Death at all. Raymond waved to the man with the buffalo head.
As he stepped inside, Shirley handed Raymond a snifter of cognac. He cradled it. "Thank you, darling."
"Get your shoes off and sit down. When"s the last time you really sat down?"
"In prison, I suppose." Raymond flopped on the couch.
Shirley turned out all the lights except those on the Christmas tree. She sat next to Raymond on the couch. "We"re going to have to figure out what to do when the kids show up."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the bedroom situation. The "no touching" rule."
Raymond sipped the cognac. It was difficult to form words. "Your choice, darling. I wait anxiously for permission to touch you again."
"I pushed all the houses off the model downstairs the other day when I was mad at you. It"s a ping-pong table. All it needs is a net."
"Ping-pong," said Raymond.
"It"s difficult for me to say this but I"m proud of you. The house really does look like a museum, or something. It speaks."
The man with the buffalo head stood in the living room now, next to the Christmas tree. The sight of him did not startle Raymond but he didn"t want Shirley to see the man with the buffalo head and get the wrong idea.
"You can go now," he said, barely above a whisper. "I don"t need you."
Shirley turned to Raymond. "What?"
"Talking to myself."
Raymond ignored the man with the buffalo head and, after a snort or two, the man turned and disappeared. Then Raymond reached down, took his wife"s feet, and lifted them on to his lap; he didn"t know why there were three bottles of peppermint foot rub underneath various coffee tables, and he didn"t think he wanted to know why. But he reached for one and opened the top.
"You"re breaking rule number one," said Shirley.
He removed his wife"s socks and warmed the cream in his hands. From his own ma.s.sages, Raymond knew a thing or two. He started with long strokes and gentle yet concentrated circles. He separated her toes and ma.s.saged between them. After a while he sneaked up her ankles, but not too far.
"What am I going to do with you, Raymond?" Shirley"s voice wasn"t much more than breath. She lay back on the couch with her eyes closed.
Raymond turned to see if the man with the buffalo head was gone for good, and he was. "Maybe we could go on dates once in a while. See a few more Oilers games, go watch A Christmas Carol."
"You"re bored at hockey games and you hate Charles d.i.c.kens."
"That was the old Raymond."
Shirley smiled. "That"s the way gamblers and addicts talk."
Even though he risked falling asleep on the floor, Raymond lowered himself on to his knees and crawled so he could rest his head on his wife"s chest. "How many times can I say I"m sorry? You have to let me prove myself. These rules...they"ll drive us both crazy."
"That foot ma.s.sage was nice. I like foot ma.s.sages."
"It"s a risk, right? If you trust me again and I"m good, the last thirty years of our lives together can be romantic and exciting. If you treat me like a mentally handicapped roommate, well, I don"t see much of a future for us."
His wife"s eyes were closed.
In a few days, their children would arrive at home and he would be Dad again, in his sweater and slippers. The man who carves the turkey and fills up everyone"s gla.s.s of wine and stuffs the stockings hanging on the fireplace. For hours he would sit with them and listen to their new stories of social triumph because his son and daughter were the sorts of people who were unembarra.s.sed to tell stories of social triumph. Maybe his children were boors. Maybe he was a boor and they were boors by default.
There was nothing he could do about it now but love them. Let them see their own ghosts. Of course, he could always take the boy aside and warn him about propositioning ma.s.sage therapists.
Shirley was asleep. With his head rising and falling with her chest he listened to the soft breaths of the fragile being that was his wife and hoped she would live forever. Then he carried her to bed.
95.
the last jog Rajinder was so adorable in his black tights Madison wanted to get down on her knees and take a bite out of his thigh. "Like this?" he said, as he stretched his calves against the mountain ash tree in front of her parents" house.
"Perfect."
A clean new blanket of snow covered the block. It hung heavily on the trees and roofs, and hid gutter sand. It was two hours before the mayor and the university president were due to arrive and, in the sunshine, 10 Garneau looked like an advertis.e.m.e.nt for northern living. Madison had gone to bed early the night before so she hadn"t seen the finished project. But she didn"t want to spoil the new snow for a peek into the window.
"Remember, we must talk the whole time." Rajinder jogged on the spot and pointed at her. In the four days since their engagement, Madison had been moving everything important out of her parents" bas.e.m.e.nt and into his house across the street. Before they went to sleep every night, Rajinder flipped through her pregnancy books and one of his own: The Expectant Father. "If you cannot speak normally, you are exercising too hard."
"Yes, sir."
Madison was too far along to jog, really, so she planned to walk quickly while Rajinder ran. It was difficult to stretch. Her parents" front door opened and Jonas Pond and David Weiss walked out on to the porch in black suits. Garith was with them, in his white knitted jacket and hat.
Jonas hurried down to Madison and Rajinder and pulled one of his pamphlets out of the satchel. "You know where we"re going right now? Door-knocking."
"Best of luck to you, my friend." Rajinder shook his hand. "You have my vote."
"That"s one," said David Weiss.
"You look nice, Dad."
"I know. Not nearly as nice as my future son-in-law, though, in his superhero tights. The Stinking Rich Hornet."
A shudder went through Madison. Now that they were engaged, soon to be married, it was perfectly acceptable to mock Rajinder. Once in a while, she knew, her father would say something inappropriate. Later this afternoon, after the mayor and university president visited 10 Garneau, she vowed to take her father aside and talk to him about that.
Across the street, Raymond Terletsky appeared in a snow-mobile suit and a giant Russian fur hat. He held a shovel over his head. "If they say no today, one of these," he said, and swung the giant aluminum shovel through the air. "Just joking!"
It was not funny. It was so not funny that Madison started her quick-walk out of the block. Rajinder trailed behind, and turned to wish Jonas good luck.
The men of the Garneau Block cheered like football players. As she turned right toward Saskatchewan Drive, Madison amused herself by imagining them in a huddle.
At the top of the stairs leading down to the river valley trails, Madison paused. "What happens if they say no?"
Rajinder, already out of breath, shook his head. "We move somewhere else."
"They won"t say no, will they?"
"The business case for saying no is very strong."
Madison started down the stairs. The extra twenty-two pounds were most noticeable on stairs. "You should be very proud, for everything you did. Tried to do."
Fifteen or twenty stairs later, Rajinder whispered thanks. Then he stopped Madison and kissed her. "I am unconditionally happy. For the first time since my parents died."
"I"m happy too."
"Well. What else is there?"
Down the remainder of the stairs and on to the snowy path, Madison answered the question in silence. Money, air quality, Down syndrome, drinking and driving, nuclear proliferation, global poverty, new country music, climate change, semi-automatic weapons, fundamentalism, declining oil reserves, cancer, crime, crack cocaine, reality television, being forced out of your house, veterinary medicine.
Yet there was also the soft skin at the back of Rajinder"s neck. The way he ate breakfast and read the newspaper wearing slippers with his suit. Two mornings ago, on her birthday, her millionaire fiance did not buy her a present; instead, he sat at his piano and sang an Edith Piaf song. There was the modest altar to his parents upstairs, with photographs and his father"s turban, his mother"s favourite sari. How about the new pregnancy yoga DVD he bought and followed with her in his bas.e.m.e.nt? How about crisp winter days leading to the gush of spring? Abby and David and haiku, mythic power, hummingbirds, the promise of travel? A baby?
Twice Rajinder had to stop. He was not a jogger. On the east side of the Kinsmen Centre, he bent over to catch his breath.
As she watched him, Madison worried, for a moment, about losing all of this. She worried their happiness would not last. They would get old and their feelings for one another would change. The cool wind on a Sat.u.r.day in December would carry no pleasures, no simple mysteries.
Rajinder stood up straight and surveyed the path before them. Then he took her hand and kissed it. "What?"
Madison smiled. "Nothing," she said, and they walked deeper into the valley.
Acknowledgements Thank you to my extraordinarily smart editor, Jennifer Lambert. Thank you to Ellen Seligman and all the other fine people at McClelland and Stewart.