Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
Forever Dreaming
She had an older brother, Sammy was his name. Her father used to take her and Sammy on picnics when she was a little girl. Her mother disliked the country and went to the cinema instead. They would picnic, the three of them, happy to be without the nagging voice of mother, wife. The father's gentle hands and shaggy beard, a familiar solace at home, became a guiding mentor in the woods, on the riverbanks, traversing small streams. She was happy then, and laughed.
An accident with the brother, he died. She cried. Her robust father became drawn and pale, lost weight and he too died, though it had nothing to do with grief. Although there was that, too.
After, her mother used to say to her all the time: "Miss Longface, smile some time! It's not that I want to see you smile. I don't care for myself, but do you think any nice men will be attracted to such a sour face?" She was a dutiful daughter, did everything her mother wanted her to, but she winced at the order to look happy. Happiness was her lapsed childhood, the memory she had of a happy family. She knew though, it was illusory; there never had been a happy family. Or, if it had existed, she had laughed it out of existence. The Angelic Host had been made jealous by her happiness.
The travelling salesman hadn't been put off by her sad-faced exterior. Her dreamy, lost eyes, the bruised mouth, the long dark hair, unharnessed, enraptured him, captured him. Her mother was glad to see her go. "Go, I'm sick of seeing such a face around me all the time", her mother said.
And Clara too, was glad to sever her connection with the woman who was her mother. Finally, the tumult, the ever-present curses, would evaporate.
At night, Morris himself brushed her long hair. Gently, as he knew she would like it done. At night, when nothing moved but the shadow of memories; when there was no sound but their shallow breathing, he made love to her with gentle hands. He made her forget to be sad. But only at night. In the morning, she always regretted her lapses.
Morris was a good provider and delighted in bringing her little gifts, useless trinkets. Murmuring thank-you, she took them but he never saw her wear them.
Morris noted her grave silences becoming more prolonged. Particularly after he had been travelling on his job. Her withdrawals bothered him only slightly. He liked her sweet silence, her poignant solitudes. But he decided he would give up his travelling occupation. He apprenticed himself to a cobbler, an old man on Dundas Avenue.
They lived at that time in a little flat on Manning Avenue, across the street from the bottling works, and every morning he would kiss Clara good-bye and walk to work. In the evening when he returned, his dinner would be waiting and so would Clara be.
In a few years, the old cobbler decided to retire and Morris offered to buy him out. He moved Clara into the rooms behind the shop. Now he could see her throughout the day, moving wraithlike about the rooms, dreamily. Morris dug a little garden for her behind the shop, and in the spring he planted anemones, marigolds, so that their frail slender shapes, their golden colours, might cheer her, give her silent pleasure.
If they did, she gave no outward sign, but sometimes he saw her standing at the window, looking through at the garden, never herself going to work in it.
One winter morning, while it was still dark and snow was softly falling, he helped her deliver a baby. She had carried easily, a dreamy expression on her face, her body becoming ever more bulky, but seeming oddly, more graceful than ever. Promise me, she had said to him, promise that you will help me.
During the night, when the baby cried, he brought the tiny boy to her and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her suckling the child. He watched her, with her great hollow eyes, hungrily watching her baby grow.
A friendly, happy child, he toddled after her around the little rooms. As he grew older, he became incautiously curious and despite Clara's anxious hoverings, the child ventured out into the streets to explore. He wanted to be with other children.
He had a wide grin, an exuberant manner, and a happy, slurred 'hi' greeted everyone. The child loved people and no adult spurning of his overtures, no childish slurs arrested his friendly advances.
As he grew older, people began to mumble dark things. The butcher's wife, next door, came into the shop to tell Morris he should keep the boy at home. His happy moonface frightened her. The people from the laundry, on the other side, told their children to stop calling the little boy names, but also not to play with him. Morris shook his shoulders with regret, promising nothing, when the complaints flooded in.
Clara knew nothing about the peoples' fear and distrust of her shining boy. Morris observed her unexpressed love for their son, her constant state of anxiety. He tried to explain to the boy why it was necessary for him to stay home. The boy looked lovingly at this father and repeated, in his gutteral tones "Da-vid stay ho-ome!" He never did, of course, although it was evident how much he wanted to please.
As the boy grew older, he began exploring further afield. Sometimes, a policeman would bring him home, shaking his head as he watched the tired little shoemaker scold the hulking boy with the silly grin on his face. Soon, too, ugly rumours began making the rounds and Morris began to notice how much business was falling off.
Once, a knot of angry people assembled outside the shop. They shouted to Morris that he would have to keep Clara's boy, (an 'animal' they called him), inside. Or, they said, they would do something to have him put away. One neighbour, feeling Morris's anguish, came around later, to explain sympathetically that it wasn't that the boy had actually done anything, but that the mothers feared for their daughters, and you couldn't blame them, could you?
Of course, Morris told Clara nothing about what had happened. Again he tried to talk to his son. The boy listened with his mouth hanging agape, as he often did, when he was trying very hard to be good. Saliva ran from a corner of the boy's mouth and Morris gently wiped it away. The boy smiled his love and kissed his father's hand.
Clara never spoke any more during the day. Her eyes were frightened animals. Her eyes no longer looked dreamy; they expressed a frightened prescience. Only at night, she would speak, and then in whispers, when Morris touched her.
Even though the boy was now thirteen years old, she still helped him to dress and undress, tucked him into bed and sat for a while by his bed, Morris beside them, crooning a lullaby until the boy fell asleep, his hand in his mother's.
One evening, when they had just fallen asleep, Morris was brought back to wakefulness by a loud crash. Quietly, he insisted that Clara lie back down and go back to sleep. It had been nothing. When she fell asleep again he silently went to the front of the store and saw that his front window had been smashed. The body of a stray cat that his son sometimes played with, was strung inside the window,swaying with the wind that came through. On its body read a note: "The other animal will be next".
Morris sighed. He cut the cat down and looked for a box to put it in. Then he checked that the front door was locked. Then the back door. Then he wearily made his way back to the little rooms. He looked first in at his son, innocently dreaming, loving the world. He looked long at his wife, fearfully sighing, even in her dreams, fearing the world.
None of the neighbours ever had reason to complain again about the little family.
c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Mamashee
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