Our Jewish Heritage

There has always been great curiosity expressed with regard to origins; where did it all begin, and how? Geologists, paleontologists, historians, social anthropologists (long before modern science recognized these divisions in intellectual investigation and gave them their present nomenclature) assiduously sifted rock and sand, bones and crockery, deciphered hieroglyphs, pored over ancient writings and tried to make sense of it all. Logically, everything, every phenomenon, be it geologic, biological or cultural-sociographic had to begin somewhere. So where did that peculiar strain of people -- Jews -- originate, and how?

Somewhere in the Middle East, we know. They are grouped, not with Caucasians, but with the Armenids. This originally nomadic, pastoral group had been little documented in the ancient writings of other people, and it is assumed that reference to a group termed 'the Habiru' in casual and brief mention of a group of troublesome nomads is the first recognition of their existence as a distinct group by another and better-lettered early culture.

From that undistinguished beginning we have a people somehow bound together by a common destiny, a gradually enlightened culture, and a homophilic socialization. This group has ascended the heights of human endeavours, both singly and collectively; it has plumbed the depths of human despair and degradation, and somehow, survived intact. An achievement that no other ancient cultural-ethno-social group can claim. From the ranks of this people have come first and foremost, ideas which have revolutionized civilization, concepts which have paved the way to humanistic enlightenment, and moral and legal laws which have fathered those of the entire Western world. Jewish religion, philosophy, art, jurisprudence, medicine has had an impact on the world whose like has not been equalled by any other single group of people.

As humanists millennia ago, it was recognized that all life is sacred, and from that recognition was enacted moral and ethical laws to protect the very quality of life, and life itself. At a time when slavery was common (when it was sometimes a practical economic solution to survival for the chronically indigent) Jewish law proclaimed that every seventh year any person held in bondage should be deemed a free person.

Because of the respect with which the people termed 'the Habiru' viewed life they eschewed common practises seen in casual and brief early cultures that practised human sacrifice as an appeasement to their gods. Jews viewed this practise with repugnance and replaced such sacrifice with animal sacrifice. And to protect animals, strict laws ensuring humane slaughter were encoded.

And though, like most religions a great many prohibitions (meant to protect both the individual and the status of the religion) became ritual dogma, they could be suspended if under special circumstances life would be endangered by their enactment. Jewish law was not meant to be absolutely inflexible. The law-makers recognized human frailty and the need to be elastic in interpretation so that exigencies could be coped with.

Some very early and forward-thinking Jews wrote a wonderful series of literature embodying all possible human conditions, and at the same time they conceived of monotheism, a startling departure from the pantheism (worship of many gods) then customary throughout the early world of religion. Jews, in this context, were enjoined to regard themselves as 'the chosen'. Not particularly 'chosen' as being better or in some manner elevated above their fellow creatures, but as given the responsibility to present a moral example that others might follow and in this indirect way ennoble the world of humankind.

It was a bold decision indeed for a people to determine, even collectively, even involuntarily, to regard themselves as a shining example toward the rest of mankind. Some might term it, with justification, hubristic. But here is where the precept "Act Unto Others" evolves from. If no other guidelines existed for human behaviour, that one alone would suffice.

And the individual was never forgotten. Everyone's 'right' to quality of life was recognized. Welfare or charity then was not the pejorative it has since become. It was the community's responsibility to care for all of its members and this was a responsibility taken seriously, not grudgingly, nor condescendingly.

Children were regarded as a blessing, and they were universally loved, protected and cherished. Education was always held in awe, and avidly sought. Yet the work ethic also was finely ingrained and respected. Uncouth behaviour, which might encompass anything from rudeness to gambling, or a disregard for others, to drinking to excess, was looked upon with revulsion.

Well, it is true that Jews also looked upon themselves, privately, as being distinct, different - other and above. There were Jews, and there were the others - Gentiles. Gentiles could not be presumed to be as steeped in the values and virtues of life as Jews, and therefore, suspect. There was always this great apartness - us and they.

Because of this exclusivity of apprehension, there arose also an exclusivity of thought, and dogmatism crept into the culture, and the interpretation of the popular religion, and Jews often became inward-looking; intellectually and for practical purposes, immune to change. Yet there arose also those who chafed at the bonds imposed and from their ranks came our Thinkers, those who looked further - our two Moseses, our Spinoza, our Marx, our Sholem Aleichem, our Freud, our Herzl, our Einstein, our Chagall.

And there were others - our scientists, philosophers, musicians, artists, writers, philanthropists, jurists, economists, men of medicine, financiers, inventors, industrialists, teachers and yes, even politicians and soldiers. These outstanding and often brilliant people collectively enriched the world with their contribution to the great fund of knowledge being accumulated and utilized.

Although Jewry has produced paragons, it has also produced by far a larger number of quite ordinary folk, the great majority of whom are undistinguishable from those of other backgrounds and traditions. And within the groupings of Jews themselves lie great fractiousness and even bigotry. Social strata have always existed, creating cultural and social ghettos between Jews themselves.

When at one time Sephardim were considered the cultural aristocracy of Jewry, the Ashkenazim were considered the peasantry. With the passage of time that perception has reversed itself, and we see its results in present-day Israel. And Jewish politics is as diverse as the population it represents, further creating internal strife.

Jews, in the collective sense, were in the past imbued with a great vision. Those people have been the progressives, those who stimulate change and progress. Yet these progressives have always been shunned by the established order within the Jewish tradition until the inexorable change occurred and the passage of time softened and blurred their offence, and they were looked upon with pride.

We've produced, as a people, some excellence - and a great deal of dross. Where does the excellence come from, one wonders? As a great amorphous mass of humanity, we've expressed a collective desire to be greater than a mere human might aspire to; greater than the sum of our parts.

We've attempted to be close to a supreme being in our religion; we've tried to behave as the god would have us do. We have tried to better the lot of humankind. Have we succeeded to any great degree? Lamentably, no. The task seems too great. The obstacles placed in the way of fulfillment too overwhelming. Although we have committed ourselves to an ideal which is part way achievable, singly we have not tried to live the ideal nor cared enough for others to strive together to achieve that ideal.

Yet this singular group, with so much potential did return to its roots. A proud and representative number of Diaspora Jews, some by Zionist conviction and zeal, some Holocaust survivors, and others returnees from countries where Jews have not felt comfortable, or have been openly oppressed, live in a state founded in the original land of their forefathers. In that land the ideal was to be realized finally, the dream fulfilled.

For a time it appeared that the original social humanist precepts, the ethics and vision that the prophets of old exhorted; fundamental human values that would enrich the whole while permitting each and every citizen to live with individual grace, would come to pass. The forward thinkers, the socialists, the kibbutzniks, the Labourites, began to fashion the experimental state and the state blossomed, becoming a noble ideal actually fruiting.

Soon, though, the original concept and dedication to egalitarianism gave way gradually to creeping elitism as one social-cultural group disparaged the 'backwardness' of another. And religious fundamentalism with its insistence on strict observance began to force its opinions into state structure.

Hostile neighbours stimulated the siege-mentality which bred militarism, rightist nationalism and xenophobia. In a world that was increasingly perceived as being unsympathetic to Israel, Israel further isolated itself, this time deliberately, by carrying a big stick and using it, and aligning itself with other rightist, nationalist regimes. Once the Labour Party and its socialist precepts was ousted and that of the rightist Likud installed, it could be predicted in which direction Israel, the emotional fount of world Jewry, was headed.

Today an encircled country defies the rest of the world and bitterly denounces its most immediate neighbours. This is bitter gall for a people whose origins, whose roots are so far removed from anti-humanism, from the military ideal, and colonialism.

This situation cannot continue. World Jewry, so possessive and loving of Israel, for the first time begins to caution that country that its focus and mentality must undergo a change and direct itself more in keeping with its traditional view of itself, and its people.

Israelis, stricken by their own hapless direction, ambivalent about their feelings toward their neighbours, uncertain of their country's future, are beginning to re-assess national policy and their own place in the world structure.

There will be a turn-about to the spirit which underlies that elusive, little-understood element, the Jewish soul; sensitivity to one's fellow companions on the earth. And with that change in direction Jews will once more strive to fulfill an ancient precept, and to charge themselves again with the responsibility of the 'example' of the chosen.

This essay was written decades ago. The extent to which Israel finds itself currently in desolation in reflection of the aligned malevolence gathered against its existence dedicated to itself as a Jewish State while still accepting within its borders, its scope of acceptance of non-Jews and offering them citizenship and an equality seen nowhere else in the near geography does fulfill its obligation to itself and to the world at large. The government in power labelled as 'right wing' is an administration with few choices but to persevere and continue to prosecute Israel's case before a hostile world while forced to engage its deadly enemies in an existential battle for survival.

All Kinds of People

Chad stuck his head around the corner of Owen's divider, took in his lowered head, his preoccupation. "Leaving soon?" Without lifting his head Owen waved his hand in dismissal; he'd stay until he finished the job. That was the trouble with Chad, with Ted, with all of them; no sense of integrity.

A stream of personnel left the adjoining cubicles and the stenographic pool. Finally the switchboard girls left. But for the drone of the canned music everything was still.

Finally he stretched and patted a sheaf of papers into a neat pile. Looked his desk over. Pencils sharpened to the vanishing point, stacked in a cup. He reached over to rip a calendar page off - start the morning in a new month. Owen swivelled and rose, walked around the partition to the nearby windows and looked down on Bank Street.

Snow fell on the typical rush-hour arras. Below, people swarmed, running for buses, striding to their destination; deserting commerce.

Owen stood there, his thoughts a scramble of bitterness at his age, lost opportunities, the static figure. Staying late was an occasional treat that he indulged in, having the whole floor to himself when he dreamed himself in control. But not tonight. Things had come to a head.

How was she, he thought, qualified for the position? A degree in business management? Didn't working on the job for twenty years more than make up for an interrupted education? He was a victim of the diploma mystique. Of tokenism to feminism - not to mention influential friends. "Own!" He turned slowly. Again, "Ow-en!" Who the hell...? "Ow-en!" He realized that the voice was floating at him from the office. Blurred, husky, but he recognized it.

Moving in line with the door he saw the edge of the mahogany desk, but no one standing there. Again, his name was called. He walked toward the office.

There she sat, a tall brunette, heavy, with mismatched eyes. Out all afternoon. Lunch, liquid style, by the look of her. No wonder everything kept getting stalled. He wasn't the only one beginning to notice the back-up.

"Hi there Own!", slurred past her lips, a grin spreading pacific intent. Her eyes appeared unfocused. The oval one remained fixed on him, the round one seemed to have a life of its own, serving from side to side, as though trying to hide from him. She waved him closer, her motion uncertain.

"Yes?"
"Own - why're you always so ... standoffish?" She giggled.
"Is there something you would like? I was just about to leave."
"What's the matter, Own? Don't like women?"
"Ms. Petersen, I am not accustomed to bothering with women who cannot control themselves. If there is nothing I can do for you as a civilized human being, I would like to leave."

His stiffness, his obvious censure seemed to sober her. She brought her teeth down on her upper lip and sighed. Her right eye stopping its erratic flight.

"Sorry", she mumbled. "You intimidate me."
"If that's all ... can I call a cab for you?"
"Yes, please. But wait ... I want to talk with you ..."
"I'm sure it can wait."
"No ... please! Look, I know you don't like me. Maybe in your place I'd feel the same way. But I know the department depends on you. You're practically irreplaceable." She smiled, trying to placate him.

And you, he thought grimly, are quite expendable. He felt nauseated by the wave of anger he felt, his antipathy to her. He turned to leave.

"No, wait ... let me continue", she said softly. "I...I'll be leaving for a .. leave-of-absence. About two months. Owen ... can I count on you? I mean, would you consider coming back as acting head for that time? Not for me, you understand ... for the department."

Bail her out? Look after things while she took a break? She had the prestige of the position and the salary. He had this acrid acknowledgement. He shook his shoulders diffidently. "I may consider it."

"I'll see you receive an acting head's salary for the time involved", she offered.
"I'll consider it."

When he got off the elevator at street level he nodded at the security guard, walked through the marble lobby and pushed open a set of oak doors. Cold air swept past him, eager to invade the lobby he had quit. He paused on the top steps to withdraw a scarf from his briefcase, wound it around his neck, then adjusted the collar of his coat around the scarf.

The wind whipped his pant legs as he plodded forward kicking clods of already melting snow before him.

He was the third person to arrive at the bus stop. As he'd expected the buses were running slow and before long a dozen people stood beside the stop, stamping their booted feet, drawing scarves around their heads. Several women sought shelter back from the stop, in the entrance of a travel bureau the window of which boasted a sun-tanned beauty under a southern sun.

Owen liked the weather. The cold cleared his head and the snow appeared beautiful swirling in the light of the street lamps. It was generally still light when he left the office - now it was quite dark and the traffic was visibly snarled and backing up.

Finally the bus arrived, number 85, and he embused. But not before the three women who'd been sheltered had pushed their way on before him.

The ride was slow and halting; traffic responding hysterically to a snowstorm. Owen found himself becoming overheated, looked with annoyance at the bus driver, sitting comfortably in his shirt sleeves. He loosened his scarf, took off his gloves and laid them on his briefcase He glanced across the aisle and recognized one of the counterwomen from the Woolworth's across from his building, and looked away.

A few stops away from where he regularly disembarked the bus stopped and couldn't continue. He decided not to wait.

He took to a side street, following a route he often took in good weather when he might spontaneously get off the bus before his stop. The wind had picked up again. Glancing up, he saw the naked branches of an elm frantically combing the sky, leaning with the wind.

Ahead of him he heard a commotion, saw people running out of nearby buildings. then he saw flames licking from the window of a building. He quickened his steps and walked across the street, stopping on the sidewalk in front of the building. Orange licks stretched out of windows, lifting with the wind. An acrid odour wafted on the air and sharp cracks broke as the fire gained momentum.

People ran back and forth. Someone shouted that the fire department had been called. Other people ran from the entrance of the building, some without outerwear, some carrying children, yelling about their possessions.

From above where Owen stood, a voice shouted, "Help!" Owen raised his head and looked, fascinated, at the face of a man, his mouth stretched impossibly. "Help me!" the man screamed. In his arms he held a child and beside him appeared the form of a woman. There seemed to ensue a hurried consultation. The man tried to push the child at the woman. Then the man turned his attention back down to the street. "Please!" the man shouted.

Owen glanced around him. Three women stood nearby, looking helpless and frightened. "Help us!" the man implored, "if you could form a ring ... "

Smoke rose languorously from the building, the wind picking it up and dissipating it. As quickly, new columns formed. The cracks, the roaring sound of the fire increased perceptibly. Now it seemed that all the windows were leaping flames on the second floor and some of the windows on the third floor, the top. The man appealed to them from the third floor. Owen heard himself shout to the man.

As he turned the street onto his own sidewalk, about three blocks from the fire, Owen heard the urgency of fire engines, sirens ululating. Snowflakes fell in clusters; they had turned him into a ghostly apparition.

He saw the living room drapes of his house move slightly; knew Evelyn had been watching for him at the window. He stamped his shoes on the porch, slapped the burden of snow from his shoulders with his gloves and smiled at his wife's face as she opened the door.

"What a storm, Owen! I thought you might be late. Poor dear, you must be chilled. and hungry." She helped him out of his coat, watched as he bent and pushed off his shoes.

The warmth of his house, the redolence of his evening meal, his wife's solicitude, enveloped him.

After dinner Owen sat in the living room, smoking his pipe. The radio was on in the kitchen and the sound of the news interfered with the record he was listening to. Owen left the strains of The Blue Danube, intending to shut off the radio.

In the kitchen he saw Evelyn leaning against the kitchen counter, absorbed in an interview that was part of the eight o'clock news.

""...I was holding the baby ... I wanted Tanya to jump first with Kenny ... she was afraid. I yelled down to the street, people there, for help. I wanted to have them form a net." The man's voice broke. "Someone down there shouted at me, "Stop whining - you're going to die'!" It became obvious that the man was incapable of continuing. The news commentator took over smoothly, his voice a groomed monotone as he described the fire, the casualties.

Evelyn turned to Owen, her face drained of colour. "Why would they interview the poor man? Why put him through another ordeal?"

"You know newspeople are ghouls", Owen said soothingly. "They exploit situations. Want to satisfy the public's curiosity."

"Owen! Did you hear what some man shouted at him?" Evelyn looked close to tears, her lips trembled. Owen felt a surge of emotion for her, wanted to protect her.

"It's all right dear." He encircled her with his arms, drew her out of the kitchen. "Don't feel so badly. After all, it's just another instance of what I've always told you. There are all kinds of people."

Michael Rowed His Dream Aboard

His English teacher, the final year of high school, encouraging him to write poetry, "Learn to express yourself. You'll find it's a good outlet for your emotions. Poetry is the only completely honest medium", Mr. Stevenson said.

Michael read Eliot, Pound, Frost and Wilde but he felt dissatisfied. Accidentally, he discovered the biography of Sir Richard Burton, felt a current of recognition, and went on to read Burton's translation of Sheikh Nefzawi's "The Perfumed Garden". His head reeled. And he unburdened himself.

In the school library, writing. The poem held everything he dreamed of, and it was honest. His name scribbled on the top.

Was it accidental that he left it there or had he forgotten? Did he really think someone might come across it, be struck by its tender pathos, the passion, the genius of it?

The school office was nicely appointed; the only part of the building that didn't resemble a jail, a barracks.

"We won't tolerate this kind of ... obscenity!" Mr. Pearce spat out the distasteful word, jowls trembling in outrage.

Michael almost panicked. They threatened to throw him out of school. It was two months before final exams. He was humble, explained it to Mr. Pearce as a temporary lapse. He was not himself. He didn't really think that way - maybe it was something he'd read somewhere. And no, it wasn't true that he'd written it for Gayle Pointer. He didn't know who'd picked it up, given it to her.

"You're on borrowed time, Brack, remember that! Henceforth, your behaviour will be the model of circumspection."

"Yes sir."

***********************************************************

His father looking at him with that grim expression. Michael forced himself to pick up his fork, lift a piece of potato, open his mouth to receive it, chew.

"I'm talking to you!"
"Yes sir, I can hear you."
"Where did you pick up that kind of thing - not here! Not from us!"
"No, sir."

His father, shoving back his chair, rising. "I won't sit here with him ... none of us have to, Rachel! From now on see he eats before we do."

Michael rummaged about in the accumulated debris of the night table in his parents' room until he found what he was looking for, knew they were there. He punctured them, every one, then carefully rolled them. They looked innocent, untouched.

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I'm sorry Mrs. Brack", the doctor had said when he was a year old, in the grip of a prolonged high fever. "Even if he pulls out of this you can't expect him to live long."

Later it was, "Even so, he'll be a vegetable. He'll never be able to communicate, to talk. I've heard of other cases like this one. He'll be a vegetable for however long he survives."

It was relatively easy to abort a foetus, withhold medical support from a newborn. Harder to do anything about low expectations for an infant. He was already an established fact, an entity to deal with.

He walked, he talked. Animated, like a hopeful robot, waiting for some response.

"Jesus Rachel! Can't he even act like a normal kid? What's he keep staring at me for, with those goggle eyes?"

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When he was nine, he had an Abyssinian Guinea Pig, kept it in a cardboard box with rumpled newspapers. Freddie. It dug into, under the newspapers, made itself a private little cave. The animal knew him, recognized his step, his voice, squeaked for attention when it heard him.

Michael fed it lettuce and apples. The animal dogged his footsteps, a bundle of brindle fur. Soft and warm, he let it snuggle under his shirt, next to his skin. It loved him, liked him for being warm, for caring for it.

Once, his hands stopped in their caressing motions over its back. Stopped and went back to check, again and again. The hump grew day by day and then there were other, smaller humps.

Freddie wound down, his squeals were faint and instead of following Michael, he sat there,squatted on the floor, still.

Michael buried it in the backyard, under his mother's rose bed. The roses grew bigger and brighter than ever that year. He hated the smell of them. They smelled corrupt.

************************************************************

At the university cafeteria, him sitting alone at a table for four. Seeing someone whom he recognized from one of his language classes come in. Michael rose, waved for attention, indicated the empty chairs beside him.

The searching face stopped, glanced at him, an annoyed expression fleeting across the face, then continued its search.

It wasn't just him, that he'd contaminate anyone. It was just society. Space was precious. No one wanted anyone else to intrude on their privacy. No one looked for unwanted intimacy, even the superficial kind his invitation represented.

It wasn't just him.

*********************************************************

Factory smoke hanging thick and pungent over Cornwall. Himself wandering along the bank of the St.Lawrence, watching ships pass. Seagulls swooping, riding the crest of the wind, shrilling.

There were Greek immigrants there, industrial workers. In his grade five class, one who took him home. A big warm family who saw nothing different about Michael. They fed him lamb and rice parcels rolled into grape leaves, taught him Greek words.

The shawled grandmother, brooding and immobile, dreaming of a lost blue sky, the balmy Aegean, olive trees as gnarled as she was, but productive in their venerability.

Michael discovered a facility for languages. And when he spoke the foreign words, remembering them from visit to visit, expanding a lean vocabulary, his tongue no longer faltered and tripped, extending the words impossibly.

*****************************************************

The first individualist who insisted on worshipping Aten when everyone else was dedicated to Amon-ra and the lesser gods. The narrow, aquiline face. Narrow shoulders and pendulous belly. But refusing to be idealized. No shapely waist and wide shoulders to depict him. Nothing but the reality would do.

Michael felt an affinity to the antique figure, a recognition of self. The face, proud and noble. No one could tell that that face, his frailty, his misshapen figure was not beautiful.

Of course, after his death, the jealous priests exhorted restless hordes to erase all evidence of his greatness, to chisel his name out of posterity.

The Brotherhood of Man is the safety of the masses, the sameness of physiognomy and predictable aspiration. There have been, and are, a handful of others and they suffer, Michael consoled himself.

*******************************************************

Studying at the university library late at night. The place almost deserted, huge and hollow sounding. He could hear his breathing almost, his heart beating like strange music filling the empty spaces of the chamber, bouncing off the books.

Michael let his mouth fondle the Chaucerian Middle-English, felt his fluid tongue quiver with the beauty of the sounds playing in his head.

The sound of something rasping. Over at the card catalogue, a lone figure pulling out a drawer, lifting it out, taking it over to a table, laying it down and bending over to riffle through the cards. A woman, small and dark, her backside rounded, pointing at him.

A warm flush suffused him and he felt himself, tumescent.

What would happen? If he silently approached, placed his hands on her hips and drew her toward him. He could feel her against him, the softness and warmth of her. He could lay his face against her hair and the freshly washed fragrance of it would cradle him ... but she turns around, angry and frightened, lifts her hand, palm open, to slap him. Calls him 'creep!'

He retreats, stumbling in his confusion, apologizing, his voice tripping over the words, agonizing.

But she's gone, doesn't hear his explanations. She's gone to the other end of the library and he watches, frozen, as she talks excitedly to a security guard. Sees as the guard turns to stare at the end of her wildly pointing finger, Michael standing there, exposed.

It hasn't happened, none of it. Michael is still sitting at the library table, still tracing the words with trembling finger on the book, and the girl has found what she was looking for, shoves the file drawer back in the cabinet. Her heels click businesslike and impatient on the floor, echoing through the silent chamber as she walks off.

******************************************************

"I'm the first one in my family to break away from the duenna-mold. I'm the oldest. It'll be easier for my sisters."

"But there's something nice about that, too. It means they care about you, doesn't it?"

"Yes, they do. But you've got to understand, it's all done to protect the girl's reputation. If they suspect she's done something wrong, she isn't worth anything on the marriage market."

"Oh."

He likes her, her casual acceptance of him. Her fragile height, and her black cap of hair. Her defiance of old-world custom while still maintaining about herself an old-fashioned rectitude. Ramona.

"Tell me something else, Michael - it's fascinating."
"Okay well ... marmalade! Know where that comes from?"
"No."

"When Elizabeth had Mary in the Tower, one of the warders felt sorry for Mary. He cooked up some slivered oranges and sugar and took them to her, saying 'for poor Mary-my-Lady'".

Michael reads to Ramona from his original Beowulfian text, his voice a Teutonic sing-song, masculine and controlled, the Old English mellifluous and soaring. He feels himself transported, exhilarated, as much by the perfection of his sly transpositions - Essex to Kent to the more common Wessex dialect - as by the rapt expression of respect on her face.

Next time, he promises, he'll render the original texts of Averroes, Avicenna and Halevi. She hangs on his words, sees him as he is meant to be seen, as he sees himself.

Of course she can't understand what the rare words mean, but she understands well enough what they are meant to convey. They are a consecration, a sacrament. Michael's love song to her.

At a Byward Market store, he found a shawm. Oh, not the real thing, but a folk instrument, made in mainland China. Only a few dollars, and he was delighted to have it. Taught himself, slowly and painstakingly, the fingering. Learned to soak the reed beforehand, and to blow up his cheeks to force wind through the narrow aperture.

The sound was harsh, demanding, like a wounded bird. It was perfect. He could play medieval music on it. He could read his Middle English and then play the appropriate music; recreate for himself a more admirable time in history.

He haunted the Medieval and Renaissance sections of Treble Clef, waiting for any new materials that came in. He learned the musical conventions of the time both by reading its literature and by listening to the recordings of early music groups.

He'd try, when he saw someone else looking for such esoteric music, to break ice.

"Let me know, will you, if you come across something by Musica Antiqua of Amsterdam?"
"I'm looking for the Academy of Ancient Music of London, myself."
"Play anything?"
"Yes, rauschpfiffe and recorder. You?'
"Ah ... shawm, and I'm looking for a krumhorn."
"Hey, great! You play with anyone?"

But he'd always spoil things, somehow. His enthusiasm, perhaps, and the accompanying physical signs. His bobbing head that withdrew into his neck sitting on his hunched shoulders; the twitching left eye, made him resemble a nervous turtle. If they were too well-bred to laugh outright, they'd walk away coldly.

In his desperation to redeem himself, he'd spout gratuitous information after them. That the sackbutt was the forerunner of the trombone, and the curtal was the forerunner of the bassoon, the shawm that of the rauschpfiffe. No one really cared. No one came back, impressed.

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"Michael, everyone has headaches!"
"Not like this, mother, surely not like this? I didn't always have them."
"There's always something the matter with you! If it isn't your back, your feet, your eyes, it's something else!"
"I can't help it, it's not my fault."
"Not my fault either, but it's time you learned to put up with your ... uneven health. And for god's sake, don't complain when your father's around, you know how mad he gets."

At last the headaches went. After suffering them eight long years and no one believing him. The Ottawa ophthalmologist discovered what was wrong, told him that what the other eye doctors had been doing was treating each eye individually, forgetting that they had to mesh for clear vision and the new lenses would correct the right eye that always seemed to be looking straight down at the ground.

With the new lenses, he had to learn distances and perspective all over again. Peoples' noses now leaped out at him, the ground was further away than it had always been. The result was that he seemed more awkward than ever during the period of adjustment. It was like discovering a new dimension and he thought he knew how the 14th-Century Florentine artists must have been stimulated, delighted and frustrated by their attempts to come to grips with the new reality.

Temporarily, he became again a figure of mild ridicule as he stumbled, learning to re-align images.

****************************************************

Mr. Seguin has worked for the Merchant Marine Branch of the Records Division of Transport Canada in Ottawa for thirty years. He's an ugly, fat little man, with an engaging manner, and he knows how to handle people. Mr. Seguin has recognized in Michael someone with whom he can discuss opera.

Every holiday Mr. Seguin and his son go to Rome or New York for the opera season and Mr. Seguin goes backstage to personally greet, like old friends, international opera stars with whom he has become acquainted over the years.

"Don't tell me, let me guess", Mr. Seguin says, sniffing the air, eyes shut, "that's a Cape Breton ... not a Lunenburg odour."

How does he do it? He's usually right, although one fish smell seems the same as another to Michael. The men step off the elevator, clothes reeking of their livelihood, to renew their merchant-marine licenses. They're sometimes pugnacious, shy, or resentful, and Mr. Seguin jokes with them, putting them at their ease in the cold atmosphere of the government office.

"You're doing fine, just fine Michael", Mr. Seguin encourages him. "There's a CR-3 in your future."

Michael nods his appreciation, doesn't tell Mr. Seguin that it isn't this kind of security he's looking for, but his Aten.

**********************************************************

The Maggiores are a big family, close-knit and volatile, Ramona tells him, warning him.

When Michael comes by to share their Christmas dinner by invitation, he's introduced and later can't remember - Vittorio, Vincente, Aldo, Mario, Anna, Rosa, Clarissa, Maria - which names belong to which faces. Ramona smiles empathy.

They're voluble and excitable, a throng of flailing arms and legs - rising voices - rushing over to hug each newcomer. And they're also sympatico and courtly in a now-forgotten way.

Dinner is seven courses of fish. Dinner takes four hours as each dish is savoured, wine is had with each, then a half-hour interval, while everyone talks, and the next course is served.

Michael ate the eel boiled in the eelskin, thought it was bland. And one other fish, whatever it was, a herring of some sort, that he couldn't eat for the bones. All the other courses were a blur of tastes and exhortations - "take - take!"

After, when everyone rose from the table, he made his way to the opposite end, where Ramona sat with all the other women.

"No", she whispered urgently, colouring. "You've got to stay with the men."

He experienced some difficulty following the Sicilian dialect. They spoke so rapidly - of soccer, cars and politics.

*******************************************************

"Isn't it hard?" Ramona asks him, "working all week and then coming out to evening classes?"
"Need is the mother of necessity", he quips, feeling strangely naked.
"I mean, what's the point if you've got a job anyway?"
"I've got a goal."
"What?"
"I want to teach speech therapy."
"Why? Why that?"
"Because ... because they said I'd never speak. Because everyone laughed at me when I stuttered and fumbled my speech."
"Michael ... you don't, anymore!"
"No, I don't. And it's because ..." He broke into a melange of tongues. Meaningless to her, the kaleidoscope of languages. She could see that he was teasing her, speaking musically, lightly, humorously.

"I've almost got my B.A. I need my M.A. and then I'm set", he tells her. She nods. She has an immense respect for his determination. His facility impresses her.

********************************************************

Michael's had two wisdom teeth surgically removed. They were impacted. Although they hadn't bothered him yet, his dentist said they should come out before they caused serious trouble.

He's in his new quarters. The room's larger than his old one, the bathroom not as far down the hall. Nice, except that the refrigerator doesn't work properly and isn't big enough to accommodate everyone on the floor.

He's sorry he left his old place with such bad feelings on both sides. But he hadn't made as much noise with his music as they said he had. Not nearly as much as the kids playing their damn rock.

His closest neighbour, the man next door, is from Nigeria, black as the Queen of Sheba. His name is Abo, and he grins whenever he sees Michael, and ducks his head from that great height, in acknowledgment.

Abo is always carrying books and keeps his portion of the refrigerator stocked with exotic-looking foods. Since the fridge doesn't work well, they quickly go bad and stink up all the other food, but Michael doesn't want to say anything. He likes the white-on-black greetings.

Once, Michael saw Abo hurrying along Market Street holding a live fowl under his arm, and wondered what the black man was intending to do with it.

Now, he feels feverish, and turns in his bed, annoyed that he doesn't feel like studying. She'd said ....

*********************************************************

"I told them I'd be studying late at the university, she says, bringing the fragrance of an afternoon snowstorm with her, lightening his room.

"How do you feel?"
"Dreadful", he groans.
"Poor boy."
"Absolutely awful."
"Oh, Michael!"

How could she like him? Want to be with him? She's touchy about her height, thinks she's a dwarf, but she's perfect.

"Ramona ..."
"Michael?"
"Ramona, have you ever heard of Nefertiti?"
"The Egyptian queen?"
"Yes."
"That's all I know, that she was an Egyptian queen", she says, sliding out of her skirt, her slip, raising her sweater over her head.

 

War Criminal on Trial - The Rauca Case

War Criminal on Trial - The Rauca Case
by Sol Littman, Lster & Orpen Denys Limited,
Toronto, c.1983, 195 pp., $17.94

This book, by Toronto journalist and community affairs specialist for CBC's Newshour, Sol Littman, was born out of a collection of articles originally produced by the author for publication in Saturday Night magazine. The book is dedicated:

"To the courageous Jews of the Kaunas ghetto - the few who survived and the many who were slain."

In a sense, this book is their story; that of the Jews who lived throughout the Nazi years in all of the Nazi-occupied countries of Europe. Mr. Littman has documented his book thoroughly, travelling extensively to interview survivors of the Kaunas ghetto in Israel and elsewhere. This is a book well worth reading. What one reads here of the horrific impossibility of existence as a Jewish adult, child or octogenarian is a reflection of what occurred elsewhere in Europe from 1939 to 1945. Survival of a handful of Europe's Jewry, under the obscene conditions which existed for them, was nothing less than miraculous.

That such unbelievable conditions could occur anywhere on this Earth, singling out any specific group of people is the horror of our time. That the perpetrators and indeed the initiators of many of the atrocities described in this book, as in many others, would themselves survive - time and justice - and indeed, thrive in their newfound homelands, be they cities in Canada or somewhere in South America is just as unbelievable as the crimes they committed against humanity.

Mt. Littman points out at the conclusion of his book (chapter 17), that there are currently over one thousand Nazi collaborators living in Canada. Over the past decades there have been over one hundred requests for extradition of alleged war criminals from such democratic Western countries as France, Holland, Belgium, Norway and Germany received by Canadian authorities. Additional extradition requests have been received in Canada from Eastern Bloc countries, all of which wish to bring these criminals to justice. Canada has a policy of unwillingness to comply with such requests from Iron Curtain countries; there is a certain sensitivity toward these alleged war criminals - we would not, as civilized, democratic people, wish to return them to communist countries, would we? Heaven knows, they might be found guilty and punished for their imputed crimes.

Needless to say, Canada has not been diligent in responding to requests from the Western democratic countries, any more than she had to Iron Curtain countries. The Rauca case marked the first time Canada actually moved itself to accede to such a request.

Through this book we are taken on a journey. We are first introduced to Helmut Rauca, Canadian senior citizen and respected member of his suburban Toronto community, when three members of the RCMP politely arrest the then-73-year-old German-born man. Taken into custody at RCMP regional headquarters in downtown Toronto, Rauca is fingerprinted, photographed, and appears before Associate Chief Justice William Parker of the Supreme Court of Ontario, to be charged. He is taken then to the Toronto Don Jail after his arrest, charged with "aiding and abetting the murder of 10,500 persons on or about the 28th day of October, 1941, at Kaunas, Lithuania."

Albert Helmut Rauca was part of an SS security unit termed "Einsatzgruppe", stationed in Kaunas from July 1941 to July of 1944. He was an SS master sergeant and member of the command headquarters of the Security Police and the SS Security Service for the General District of Lithuania. Rauca was proud of his position with the SS. He was feared and despised by the inmates of the Kaunas ghetto; well known to them all for his predilection for unpredictable and violent action.

Much as was done in other large European cities under German occupation, the capital city of Kaunas, through its civil administration under the Nazis, collected its Jewish population in a small geographic area set aside for that purpose as a collection point; a place where the Jewish men, women and children could be held, apart from the general population, and the young and strong could be used for slave labour while gradually culling the old, the ill and the very young through Aktionen whereby firstly the young intellectual males were collected under the pretext of an offer of 'good jobs', and taken instead to a nearby fort and murdered.

This select group was culled initially because it was feared that insurrection or insubordination might be initiated from among their ranks. Next came a round-up of the children of the ghetto where stormtroopers and eagerly helpful Lithuanians rooted out children of all ages wherever they had been hidden so that they too might be taken to one of the forts surrounding the capital city and summarily executed.

The third (and near final) roundup, termed the 'Grosse Aktion', was one in which all the inhabitants of the ghetto were commanded to appear at a central meeting place and at that time, Rauca busied himself separating the people who appeared before him in turn; singly and in family groupings they were separated into groups of those who were still desirable as slave labour, and those who were more immediately expendable. An indication to join those grouped on the right was a death sentence, an order to join those assembled to the left meant a brief respite at least until weary, starved bodies could no longer be pushed to produce and they too would be eliminated.

This scenario was repeated in many other ghettos, with others, among them the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, playing the role of god, choosing those who would die more immediately than others.

The Judenrat in Kaunas was, however, quite different than that which existed in most other ghettos of the time. Its head, a highly respected elderly physician who spared no efforts at attempting to save his people, was Dr. Eichanan Elkes. Dr. Elkes' desperate attempts to persuade the Lithuanian civil authority (many of whom had been former colleagues and brother military officers) to relent in their acquiescent prosecution of Nazi directives, and his unflinching accusations, face-to-face, directed at the Nazi officers that they would one day 'pay' for their horrible crimes place him in a different sphere altogether.

Similarly, the other members of the Altestenrat (Council of Elders) conspired, not with the Nazis to save their own skins, but actively against them. Also in Kaunas the Jewish ghetto police, that group of Jewish men who in other ghettos acted more as Nazi collaborators than Jews, were vastly different under Dr. Elkes and his Council. Proud young Jewish men who had been responsible youth leaders, athletes and intellectuals were chosen and this group of ghetto policemen collaborated with their own, many of them also being active in the ghetto underground.

This book details their daily living conditions, their ferocious fears of their short-lived futures, and the gruelling work to which they were submitted, to survive. The horrors experienced by the ghetto during the various roundups, and in the final trial through the burning of the ghetto are unforgettably re-lived here.

If anyone, pacifist-forgiving Jew, or uncomprehendingly removed Gentile, might ever be assailed by a sense of misgiving about the rightfulness of pressing for prosecution of war criminals at however much a distance in time 1984 represents, this book should be required reading.

The performance of the government of Canada, aside from the honourable performance of a few of its servants like Corporal Fred Yetter of the RCMP, and Christopher Amerasinghe who acted as crown prosecutor for the Attorney-General of Canada, is appalling, dismal and totally uncreditworthy. With a little bit of diligence, Rauca's records in Germany might have been perused and his entry to Canada would have been denied initially, back in the 50s. But reality is that the Government of Canada was far more anxious throughout the 30s, 40s and 50s to keep European Jews out of Canada than it was any other European nationals.

Our country has much to answer for, but it continues to appear as though this represents simply another incident to be buried, and lip-service will continue to be paid to human rights while the actuality of actively pursuing those goals are but a dream.

An end-quote from Dr. Emil Fackenheim of the University of Toronto appears most apt at the conclusion of this book. When asked why Jews cannot 'forgive and forget' (an infuriatingly impossible question), Dr. Fackenheim replies: "It is not out of revenge that we demand the prosecution of war criminals, but out of a sense of universal justice. The Holocaust was a tragedy inflicted on the Jews, but it was also an act of pure evil that affects all mankind." No more need be said.

 

The Burning Bush: Poems and Other Writings (1940-1980) by Aaron Kramer, Cornwall Books, 1982

 

The Burning Bush: Poems and Other Writings (1940-1980)
by Aaron Kramer, Cornwall Books, 1982

This collection by the American academic, translator and poet, Aaron Kramer, The burning Bush, represents, as his long-time friend and publisher Thomas Yoseloff tells us in his introduction, a "highly subjective" group of poems, "to represent the essence of his forty years of literary output". And, as was the intent in this careful selection, the reader does "come away with a thorough understanding of the essence of the poet's oeuvre".

An understanding, moreover, which leads one to marvel at the sensitivity of Dr. Kramer's perceptions, his intense and burning interest in all which surrounds him, his ability to evoke, through a careful selection of impressions - Everyman. And yet, although he too is Everyman through his detailing of a life - his life - he is yet unique, not only in the way that we all are as distinct personalities shaped by genetic endowment and environment - but this is a scintillating soul which compels us, after reading one group of poems, to go on reading, discovering, and admiring the essence of this person whose legacy to the world is this special creative talent.

The Burning Bush is both reality and metaphor. Dr. Kramer's cultural/historical roots shape his sensitivities and his ability to discern, to cull the precious element from what might appear to be the pedestrian; dross of anyone's existence in a way that celebrates life, in a manner that, in the true creative mind, sings of the glory of life. He is aware of the dark side of life, of human nature, of history. Never forgetting that he still is able to gently move aside the curtain of despair, the cushion of apathy, and find that precious spark in every situation, in any person; surely we all have the potential to perceive, to appreciate as he does?

Many of these poems were published in his previous nine collections. these are poems of joy, of longing, of bitter regret, of fond memory and of despair too in the knowledge that time is such an inexorable and ineffable element; and too little of it is apportioned to each one of us. But there is also present in this collection humour and whimsy and a deep and abiding love. The love of a son for his father, his mother and later, as a motherless young boy, for the sister who would try to mother him.

In the segment titled Family: 1 - the poet speaks of a story his mother would tell him to encourage him to eat, as a child. In A Lunch Remembered, the mother croons a story: "Once, in a forest a mother bird/sang while her babies sat sleeping/Hushabye fledglings! At dawn you fly/over the deep wide waters./Alone I'll die,/but hushabye;/you'll live, sweet sons and daughters..." And the child then asks: "Did they live? The story's finished/Did she die? Eat up the spinach!/What's the matter. Ma? You're crying!"

So it's little wonder that the child grown to a man could write such poems as The Song of the Burning Bush. "It blazes wild, this bush of woe-/not water speaks to its need, nor wine;/only weeping and blood - there grow/such furious berries, that all who dine/go screaming and dreaming over the seas,/seeking an altar for their knees." And this man did, as he promised in that poem, "tear the testaments out of my soul". The poems are his testament. His avowal of a life realized, well lived.

In the group of poems included in The Holocaust selection he writes in The rising in the Warsaw Ghetto: "If a word from Warsaw came,/unsurprised we took the news;/April's sun had set aflame/fifty thousand ashlike Jews". Briefly holding aloft the flame of life, those ashlike Jews affirmed their right and although might briefly triumphed leaving them in a funeral pyre of immense proportions, their actions, their affirmation still lives through the burning lines of a poet.

In the poem Tour, he tells us:
In four languages, the guide
explains as she has twice a day for years,
that we are entering
one of the quaintest sections of the city,
formerly the Jewish quarter.
Inside the synagogue she points out oddities.
'Notice the walls!'
Perfectly arrayed, as if being marched
are names -
seventy thousand Czechoslovak Jews,
their dates of birth and deportation.

"A touch on the shoulder/'Must you always be the last one/back on the bus?" he is asked, when he feels immersed in the memory of his immense black experience which he feels in his very marrow, as though it had happened to him; a brother Jew, knowing it had happened to him, and will continue to be a part of a Jew's experience, his life.

This man, this poet, this son, father, lover, husband, considers himself a fortunate man. Fortunate in the love lavished upon him by a father and mother who cherished their children; fortunate in his memories of them, in his memories of his own children growing up, thriving, in his companionship with his wife. He calls himself, in poems, Mr. Lucky, Mr. Glucklich. In the poem Mr. Glucklich Takes a Shower, we are given an instant history of the fondness of the human memory, as, under the shower which becomes "a world that has only water":

He is thirty-four, circling Lake Garde,
guzzling in his thirst its Giorno blue;
he is twenty-four, wheeling his baby
up to the fountain in Washington Square;
he is fourteen, repaying spray with madrigals
the length of Gravesend Bay;
he is four, above the shadowy Hudson,
on a mountainside across from Newburgh,
joining his mouth to the nipple of a spring;
he is the first breather ever cradled by the sea;
he is the sea god.

Dr. Kramer writes a universal experience, in an exquisite language of understanding. Hindsight is something we are all gifted with, but more, so many of us have experiences which, although we perceive them as being unique to ourselves are but repetitions of limitless human experience; they repeat themselves generation after generation. In Hindsight we are thusly informed:

You kept us safe, you kept us soft,
you trembled when we sneezed or coughed;
you gave your life for our life's sake -
no doubt it was a grave mistake:
but it was a mistake of love
which we are also guilty of.
Our children also figure out
what we are whispering about.
To keep them soft, we too grow hard;
to keep them safe, we too are scarred.
And through our love for them, we see
your love's true shape and quality.

To have been able to read this collection represents an experience of recognition. There is a sublime beauty in the strength of so many of these poems. No man could wish a finer epitaph to leave as a reminder of his own life and experience, and the richness of both. To evoke in the reader the sense of kinship, of empathetic recollection is no mean feat.

Some poems, such as those comprising the first half of Minotaur, although certainly not lacking in conviction, do not, however, quite manage to persuade this reader; there's almost a lack of intensity of experience itself ... a perception which is lifted in the second half of Minotaur when one no longer feels a distanced onlooker, but is once more taken by the poet into the inner circle of experience.

This is a diversified group of poems, to which the reader can only respond with a sense approaching love for a stranger, the writer of these poems, who happens in the end to be no stranger at all.

 

 

The Blue Pools of Paradise

by Mick Burrs, Coteau Books, c.1983
Thunder Creek Publishing co-Operative Limited

The author, a transplanted American draft-evader now living in Regina, is a poet and a teacher of creative writing. Mr. Burrs, beside being the founder of a reading series, is also a vocal advocate of books written by Saskatchewan writers.

In this collection Mr. Burrs has turned to exploration as a way of mining his inner feelings, as a way to attempt to understand his beginnings and perhaps by so doing, understand also the endings of all things. For the human experience is a universal one; understand what brought us to the shore of sentience and the universe is unravelled before us. This search is a long and weary one, the road a well-traversed one, well-worn by many who have gone before - and the exploration is doubtless destined to be repeated by those many who will surely come after. The answers are elusive, the way is shrouded in mystery, a mystery as arcane and little-fathomed as the human mind and the emotions which experience evoke. The search for sources, the search to unravel mysteries beckons many, and some who search discover truth. But truth is a troublesome word and what is truth or 'answer' to some is merely baffling and veiled mystique to others.

Perhaps real truth lies in the satisfaction of having attempted the journey; to finally understand is not given to many, and many realize that behind one truth or one answer is simply another question beckoning, another exploration to be undertaken and its mystery unravelled.

Mick Burrs begins his exploration through his family's unrecorded history, back to the tracery of Czarist Russia, pogroms, the differences of Yiddishkeit, the ostracism of the 'different folk'. Aptly enough, the photograph fore and aft of this collection does speak a thousand words, silently and eloquently, as it is a photograph of Russian military officers sitting around a table hosting a Samovar and the lead poem, titled 'Samovar', sets the exclusionary stage at which the story told through the collected poems, unfolds.

Mr. Burrs dangles exploratory fingers into the pudding of his birth, to his early development, when in a poem with that title he "...would laugh and swing/ eight years old/ a pilot taking wing/ in our garden/ shout BOMBS OVER TOKYO!' on a swinging crescent/ a boy/ too young to know/ bombs/ are appalling things/ tokyo a human place/ i only now remember/ our japanese gardener/ hoeing, turn away his face/".

The poet lingers over 'names and numbers', tracing his connection to father, grandfather and name change from "B ... is for Burrs, from Berzinsky/ (son of one who lives near Birches),/ his family name/ ...the family name changed/ by the father, in the New World,/ to fit in with the Smiths,/ to be more acceptable to the Browns/" ... with the poet's avowal of the value of the Berzinsky, yet his devotion to the Burr, now long-familiar and self-owned.

From the purges and the pogroms, from the Czarist officers and their samovars - escape - to the Goldene Medina. Transition to the golden world of Encino, California, where the neighbourhood has changed, and the samovar transformed to swimming pools; the fabled blue pools of paradise. Surrounded by movie stars, palatial homes and the obligatory pool, the neighbours are felt, but never seen; forever diving into their pools, celebrating, bringing in New Years' fetes. The separatedness, the apartness of the Burrs family is as complete in this new world as it was in the old.

Finally, an act of separation, the decision of the misunderstood, unappreciated and sensitive son to leave the country of his family's succour, that country which has oppressed another, alien people. His refusal to fight, his flight to another, war-uninvolved country which brings him to the following poem, after an evening in a Vancouver hotel room with his father and mother, where their two disparate sensibilities and worlds still fail to touch one another; neither father nor son saying the things that matter, to bridge the gap of misunderstanding, and soon afterward, on his return to Encino, the father dies:

"And none of us realized that last night
in the motel room in Vancouver
how one year later
these two Als
my father the sign painter and real estate broker
Jolson the movie star and popular singer
would share
the same consecrated hillside
of the City of Angels
each with his place under the grass
(though they had never met
on the palm tree boulevards of Encino)
or how their gray hair
would slowly intertwine
with the holy roots in the dark
soil of Hollywood
(Near the oil derricks and bright roar
of the city's snarling freeways)
or how the audience of their bones
would only hear the stillness
of talk / the silence of song
from a million flickering stars
light years removed from all those fabled blue pools
of paradise."

Mr. Burrs returns, briefly, to Russia/California to bid farewell to his dying grandfather... "I had not seen you for fourteen years./ Now at the gray border separating our lives/ the bus driver turned the motor off -/ and I watched an officer step aboard." He is taken off the bus, interrogated, and is relieved to be permitted his journey. He tries to explain ...

"You could not understand why your grandson
had fled the country that was your refuge,
had left the land of freedom; to be free,
not to struggle in someone else's war,
not to kill or be killed, but to find

the gift of poetry
along paths in northern woods,
songs waiting to drop like red berries
from the arms of snow-clad trees."

Finally, he recalls himself as a nature-struck child, collecting fireflies, wondering at the effervescent, evanescent firefly in a jar ... and it is this wonderment that we shall all, perhaps, return to finally... "Discovered among songless shadows/ plucking my notes of fire/ on invisible strings/ I became/ your small captured moon/ composed of throbbing light/ the one bright song/ in your dark universe/ now I resonate with echoing faintly against glass."

In the final analysis, we are all but transient flashes, fireflies burning brightly, then extinguished. But while we burn, beating our wings against adversity, striving to live out our ephemeral spans with dignity and honour we search for direction and meaning. Sometimes we discover these in our personal histories.

This collection does justice to the never-ending search.

c. 1985 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Canadian Jew

The Whistler

 
Mrs. Frankel trudged down the stairs carefully as she always did. The staircase was steep and dark and she had no intention of misstepping. When she got to the bottom, she vigorously drew open the door and stepped into the clamour and colour of Bloor Street. Turning left, she drew abreast of her window and stopped to inspect.

Nachman, her husband, saw to it that the window was 'dressed' to denote the passing of the seasons. Now that the children were a little older, they were sometimes pressed into the family workforce, the oldest being expected occasionally to turn his hand to window dressing. She sighed with satisfaction. It looked pretty good. Nice and neat. Everything in its place. It would not long so remain. Whenever new stock came in, or articles that Nachman wanted to advertise, or that he was particularly proud of having brought into the store for sale, they would be added to the window display and before long, order would be turned into chaos.

And then there were the signs. Nachman could never refuse when someone came to him to display a sign in the window. Always, he forgot to take them out when they no longer advertised a matter of current interest. But for now, the window looked good. She nodded her approval to her short, dark-haired reflection and continued on until she stood before the door of their store.

Such a small place. Blink as you passed the corner of Bloor and Brunswick and you would have overshot the mark. The little business was stuck almost inconspicuously between a large-windowed furniture store and a tiny dry-cleaning store, which itself had been crushed next to the Brunswick Hotel. Still, their customers knew where they were. They had managed to build up over the years a pretty reliable clientele.

She pushed open the door with its Coca-Cola 'welcome' sign and entered. The interior was long and narrow; just enough room for two skinny people or one fat person walking carefully, to traverse its length between the shelving. to the right was a public pay telephone, uncubicled, and rows and racks of newspapers and magazines. Not to speak of a multitude of comic books which continually brought them a harvest of eager young residents of the nearby apartments - always to browse and riffle through the pages, seldom, too seldom, to buy. Across the aisle was the glass-encased showcase wherein lay such diverse articles as made-in-Japan three-tiered cake plates, small green-and-grey made-in-Germany figurines, inexpensive Swiss watches, Timex watches, paste jewellery and a few cheap cameras. On top of the case lay stacks of cigarettes, a large bowl of free paper match books, racing forms and T.V. guides. Next to the cigarettes were the segmented containers of chocolate bars, and beside them racks of potato chips, pretzels and corn chips.

Everything was stacked so high at the counter that when either she or Nachman stood behind it, their disembodied heads were all that could be seen floating between the decrepit old cash register and a display of imported pipes. But then, that was because they were such an unorthodox height; he five feet and she four feet ten inches tall. What they lacked in size, they more than made up in thinking power, she was fond of telling herself. At least she was sure about her own abilities; sometimes Nachman's predilections toward generosity when they could ill afford it, made her wonder about him.

Nachman was busy down at the pop coolers. A little neighbourhood girl had been sent by her mother to bring home a quart of milk and a bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale. Nachman was wiping the bottoms of the bottles and the paper milk container and carefully placing them in a large paper bag. (She saved all the paper bags she could from her own shopping expeditions - every little bit helped, she asserted virtuously.) He walked with the child to the counter, where he inserted in the bag a filter Player's. Then he added up the total. "Mr. Frankel, please, my mother says to put it on the bill." He stopped his figuring on the bag and regarded the skinny child over the top of his glasses. "I'll give you this time on the bill. But I want you to tell your mother it's getting too high. Tell her she has to come in and settle up, okay?" The girl nodded assent, he finished writing the total on the bag, then reached over and dropped a light-coloured Kraft caramel into the bag and handed it to the girl. She thanked him and left.

Nachman reached under the counter and brought out his big black account book, muttering to himself, "Nelson, Nelson, where is Nelson?" found the account he was looking for, added the new charge and totalled again.

"How much is it" asked his wife.
"How much? They owe $40.56. They'll pay. They always do."

"Sure. And they take their time. There is always other things to do first with the money when they get it. How do they expect us to be able to pay for the things we owe? Do they think we can stock the store on their credit? Don't give Nelsons anything more until they pay, Nachman."

"No - No, you heard I said to the little girl, her mother should come in and pay."

"She'll send in the little girl for everything she needs. She knows you won't say to the little girl no. She won't come in, Mrs Nelson, while she owes."

"We'll see, we'll see."
"Go up now, Nachman, have your lunch. I'm sorry I'm a little late today. I had a big wash. I wanted to finish, not to come back up later to finish."

"Don't be sorry. I'm not very hungry. I'll go up in a minute. I want to finish unwrapping the magazines," and he continued unwinding the wire from stacks of German magazines preparatory to placing them on the shelves. They had a large ethnic population nearby in whose service they stocked ethnic-language papers and magazines.

"Go up already, I'll finish. The water is boiled, you can pour for instant coffee. On the table is a chopped egg sandwich. I just mixed up a salad with sour cream for you, it's in the refrigerator. Go, go."

"You didn't put in tomato?" he enquired absent-mindedly. Although after twenty years of marriage she was well aware of his distaste for tomatoes, he invariably asked whether she had omitted the fruit from his salad.

"No, no tomato. go already."
"Why no salami sandwich? I had egg already this week."
"The last time I made you salami, you said you got heartburn. That kind of meat is too spicy for you. You don't need it, to be sick."
"I won't be sick, I like it. Maybe tomorrow you'll make some fried salami and eggs for a change."
"Fine, we'll see tomorrow. Are you going or not?"

And his work done with the magazines, he raised himself slowly from his one-kneed kneeling position, stretched and went out the door to retrace in reverse the window, to inspect it. It would do, he thought. He stepped back several paces to survey the whole storefront, as he often did. The large Coca-Cola sign proclaimed that it was the crowning diadem of "King's Confectionery and Tobacconist". Who king was he mused, he didn't know, but he, Nachman, was surely king of his little establishment. And he made his way upstairs to the family's apartment squatting over the stores below.

Such an apartment! They fought a running battle with trap-wise mice and insecticide-proof cockroaches of a truly impressive size and determination. Even when they fumigated, the pests would inevitably return from the temporary refuge sought in other nearby apartments. Still, the rooms were generous and living over the business simplified running the store, and the element of time.

In the store, Sylvia edged her way sideways behind the counter, until she reached the middle portion where enough room had been left to permit some comfort. There, a high stool was kept for lax times, when whoever was in charge of the store could sit and read. That is, if a thousand and one other priorities didn't need attending to. She glanced briefly at the new copy of the Vochenblatt open on the stool, then stooped beneath the counter and withdrew an old pair of cotton underpants, minus the elastic waistband. It was lunch time. Usually a very quiet time in the store. She would take advantage of the lull to do some much-needed dusting. She slid open the glass doors behind the counter and started flicking the white cloth across the articles arranged there.

From time to time, a customer would wander in, mostly for cigarettes and she quickly served all comers; those whose faces were familiar and those just passing by. One of the most enjoyable aspects of being in the store was the stimulation of meeting people and initiating conversations. Sometimes little of value was said, but at other times, the talk could become involved and immensely interesting. Home remedies were passed from store-owner to customer and vice versa; information regarding local sales, and some pretty good recipes changed hands too. Best of all, however, was the opportunity for gossip. Because they had been in the store for a goodly number of years, they knew a large number of nearby residents and greater numbers of habitues of the nearby Brunswick Hotel.

Often, advice or commiseration was sought, and sometimes given or withheld, depending on the situation or the need. Too often for Sylvia's taste, a long-time customer would approach Nachman surreptitiously for a loan and invariably, Nachman would lend a required amount of money. (Hoping she wouldn't find out.) He felt that he knew who was being sincere and really needed the money and would pay him back as soon as possible. He saw such loans as no real risk, but as a means by which he could extend goodwill.

Sylvia wasn't so certain. It had happened often enough that those to whom money had been lent, ostensibly to pay for a prescription at nearby Starkman's Chemists, would then stealthily round the corner to the hotel for a quickie that would extend the length of the afternoon. The Frankels didn't themselves drink and although they weren't able to feel too much sympathy for the desperate need of many of their customers for the ameliorating and supportive effects of alcohol, still, they didn't condemn any habits taken in moderation.

They were hard-working people. It was no easy business to run the store. To make ends meet they had to keep long hours between the two of them. There was a good deal of manual labour involved, too, in moving about heavy piles of papers, magazines, boxes of edible goods and crates of toys and other saleable commodities. They stocked knitting wool, breads and cookies, paper-back books, cereals, canned comestibles, plastic toys of various descriptions, clock-work trains, model kits, a full range of tobacco products, ornamental china, jewellery, cameras, film and just about anything else that Nachman thought might sell. It all needed handling and storage.

Sometimes, when Sylvia saw an advertisement at a nearby Dominion store of canned goods that were selling for less than what they paid wholesale themselves for the store, she would bundle out her wire buggy and trek over to the supermarket to stock up their store shelves. Similarly, when Honest Ed's advertised early morning specials on toilet paper, tissues or cleanser, Sylvia would be out bright and early hoping to purchase enough to beef up the store shelves. Their customers came to them for goods when the regular markets were closed. Then too, their customers knew they could run up a reasonable bill when they were short of cash. Sylvia often reflected bitterly how their 'good customers' would go to the supermarket with cash and come to them with promises. Still, it was a living, albeit a hard one.

Nachman liked to read books on just about anything, but particularly world politics and the dynamics of economics. Their ideological outlook on life was decidedly socialist-oriented, always had been. Many of their regular customers would come in as much to purchase something as to hold  philisophical discourse with Nachman. He was in his element defending the socialist doctrine as opposed to the capitalist system of government.

It was Nachman's habit to lie down for a short snooze on the chesterfield in the apartment after his lunch. Sylvia would stay alone in the store until he came down, or one of the children would come home from school. From time to time, a customer would wander into the store for groceries or magazines. Pre-schoolers, unkempt and wild-haired would proffer their nickels for a Rollo ice-cream cone.

As the afternoon wore on, Bloor Street became more alive with children returning early from school, and mothers out walking their young children in strollers, doing the daily shopping. Often when Sylvia found herself with a few spare moments, she enjoyed standing before the window where she had a grandstand view of the passing scene. When occasionally, she might spot a regular customer stagger by arms loaded with groceries from the Dominion store, eyes studiously avoiding the store front, she would mutter about fair-weather customers.

Absent-mindedly returning a tall well-dressed stranger change for a package of cigarettes, her eyes followed his figure out the door and then were arrested by the sight of a familiar figure crossing the stranger's path, preparing to turn into the store.

Hah! She clicked in recognition, the Whistler comes! Nachman's favourite talking companion had at first elicited her admiration at his impeccably neat although shabby attire and his courteous manner. Her husband, of course, was unimpressed with manners, it was the knowledge freely exchanged by the frequent visitor that he looked forward to. Karl was a well-read man and enjoyed as much as the little storekeeper did, their frequent heated but good-natured exchanges, as one attempted to dissuade the other, from long and strongly-held opinions. She had thoroughly approved of the tall, painfully thin man until she had beheld in shocked dismay his woman-wandering eye and heard him whistle approvingly at women passing in the street.

Nachman had noted her changed reaction to Karl's frequent visits and he had asked her to account for her change in attitude.

"Nachman", she said, "Karl has a wife and two lovely little children, no?"
"Sure. What has that to do with anything?"
"With his family, it isn't enough? I saw him twice whistle at women!"
"So is what? Men like to look at women. What harm does it do? It makes him feel good. It makes a woman feel good. Karl is a good boy."
"A boy he isn't. By you anyone under forty is a boy; anyone who reads books can't be bad. By me, a man is married, he doesn't make eyes at other women."

Her face tightening in disapproval, she watched him hesitate before turning into the store, then turn to watch a woman strolling by pushing a baby in a carriage, with two others, graduating neatly in size dragging along beside her. Through the door, pulled slightly open by Karl's hand, she heard him whistle and comment approvingly.

Then his cheerful thatch-haired face confronted her smilingly, enquiring as usual after her health. Humph! She wasn't ready yet for the grave, Mr. Whistler. But she was perplexed and decided to take the bull by the ears, uh horns, and ask the Whistler to clear up her confusion.

"Karl?" she asked his back as he stood beside the revolving stand of paperbacks.

He turned obligingly, his attention on the printed matter of a new book opened in his hands, and reluctantly lifted his steady blue gaze to her enquiring and slightly accusatory brown eyes. "Yes, Mrs. Frankel?"

"Karl, you wouldn't mind if I ask you something?"
"Of course not, Mrs. Frankel. You know we don't stand on ceremony. Ask away."
"I saw, Karl, outside you whistled at a woman. Who did you whistle to? I saw only a woman with three children."

"That's the one."
"That's the one? You mean you made approval of a fat woman with messy hair schlepping three little kids? To this you whistle?"

Carefully, Karl returned the book to its former resting place and turning back once more, patiently explained.

"Mrs. Frankel, I don't whistle at good-looking women. The pretty ones have plenty of men to express their appreciation of their good looks. I focus my attention on women like the one you saw pass before. I recognize what she looks like; dowdy, obese and unkempt. No one thinks to make a woman like that feel she's valued. It bothers me. It isn't right. It makes me feel good to think that such a woman might feel flattered that a man admires her. Everyone should have a good opinion of themselves. Everyone needs a lift sometimes. Okay?"

"Okay, okay, Karl. You didn't mind I asked?"
"Not at all, Mrs. Frankel, not at all."

Thereafter, no one was permitted to say a bad word about Karl, Mrs. Frankel's hero.

 

Moving With The Times

 
When Dr. Trumble came over they said it was killer gas. He'd heard about it, but never come across it before. The dome, the dome they said, caused it. Not enough ventilation. Nitrous oxides, they said. Never heard of that before. Never heard of anything like that happening before. Hadn't wanted that goddamn dome in the first place.

He felt himself hot all over. Again. Hot, then cold. Like what shock was supposed to be. Those tranquilizers were useless.

And by God, he couldn't sit there anymore. He looked again at his wife. Oblivious to his presence. She didn't need him. There was nothing he could do for her anyway, now.

He wandered aimlessly, tracing, re-tracing his steps; a courtly dance around the farmyard. Quiet now, the poultry in their roosts for the night. The occasional sound from a bird in the trees. The last swallow had long since swooped in under the barn eaves; the pigeons in the loft long since settled.

Getting dark early. Shortening the working day. Farmers don't like short work days. The way things were going here, it soon wouldn't matter. Dark or not. No farms left.

When he'd been a young man, just taken over the farm from his father, everyone called him 'Big John'. He was still tall, his shoulders wide, but hiding their width now, the blades contracted. His hair still thick, a shock of unruly grey.

He ambled down the worn path, past the barn in the direction of the river. The river swollen now, the old bridge long washed out in the last big storm. At the other end of the farm the smaller bridge was still up. Odd how the waters had taken the larger structure and spared the flimsier one. A moral there?

He wondered if it was true, that when death is near, a lifetime is recalled. Relived in the space left between recalling and the last breath. Death had ignored him, flimsy as his life had become and taken instead healthy specimens.

What could he have done to alter the final outcome? They say, people who say they know, that one thing naturally falls on another. That if you disturb one iota of how things are meant to be, the future, then everything else changes. The direction of life.

Rubbish.

But he hadn't meant to have Clara. What if it had been Harriett, what then?

Clara. she used to complain to her dad, old Martin, about how this nervy kid, John Markham, pulled her hair at school. He hadn't done it because he was interested in her, but because he disliked her. He thought he was annoying her. The thought made him feel good. She, it later transpired, felt it was his way of expressing his interest.

When they were older he ignored her totally. So she began running after him. Run after him even when it was obvious to everyone it was Harriet he wanted. He used to go by the Olsen place as often as he could, running errands for his mother. Harriet with her long blond hair, soft as fleece. Her wide smile, the crooked front teeth that made him catch his breath. Something about her. Harriet long gone. Not dead, but living somewhere out West.

No one was surprised of course when little Emily was born a scant five months after their wedding. Not much of a scandal then, anyhow. It happened, happened to most of the young people. Only thing was, it was love or at least a mutual dependence that brought most of them together to begin with.

With him, it had been raw need. His flesh searing him with the savagery of his need. And she was there. Always hanging around. Pretty, yes. And smart too. But a biting tongue and her eyes were cunning, not soft, the way he thought a woman's eyes should be.

Only women were popularly supposed to be endowed with intuition. To hear his mother talk, anyway. But he'd always had a nagging thought of his mistake in succumbing to her. And the years had been scarred by her nagging tongue.

But, he thought, sitting stiffly beside the river; the water taking on a dark blue cast, rippling darkly, nudging the banked sides with gentle slapping slurps of sound soothing his aching head; they'd had Emily, and then the boys.

"Daddy, Daddy! make them stop, Daddy!" Emily upset the first time she'd seen the field cleared to the stand in the middle, heard the terrified squeals of gophers, rabbits, caught.

"Emily, that's life on a farm", he'd said, cradling the damp child in his arms. "They get into the grain. The groundhog holes cripple the cattle, the horses."

She'd tried to understand, lifted her sweet face to his, kissed him wetly.

The next year she'd beaten the stalks, refusing to let them move in with the binder until she was sure all the animals had escaped.

It was all Tim Barker could do, to keep the others from going after the little buggers, they were so used to it. Harvest-time sport. They wouldn't though, with her standing there. Amazon queen. Determined to save the animals. The pests.

Now Emily older than her own mother had been back then. Living with her husband, her boys, in Toronto. When they come in the summer, in the fall, to visit, they're city boys. Don't know any better than to walk behind the binder, spitting out sheaves of wheat, oats, unshirted. Then complain about getting scratched. Hands stung raw from the binder twine, stooking the sheaves. Chests all scratched and red. Then pitching hay the same way. Chaff sticking all over them, and they'd be scratching in a frenzy. Never learn, city kids. But game. Don't complain all that much. And laugh a lot.

Excited, he liked that. Excited about being in the country.

"A dark brown animal, not too big, Gran'pa. Sleek, dripping wet!"
"That'd be a muskrat, Brian."
"Yeah? Hey! A muskrat?"

"Yep. They live in a burrow or a mess of sticks in the bank of a river. You be quiet, lay there on your stomach by the bank, you'll see him dive in the water, swim around. Busy little creatures."

"Hey, cool"

"Turtles too. And snakes ... garter, for the most part." Saying that quickly, because of the reaction. Agitated. He wanting to impress the boys. Have them like the farm. Want to have them come back.

"Snakes, ugh!" Coldly, revulsed. "I like the muskrat better."

Clara muttering at him. Nattering at them to keep their city clothes neat and clean. To stay off the field. Hell, they learned quick enough to sidestep cowpies. Even learned to get up early and gather eggs for their grandmother. Not that she wanted them to. She thought they should act the little gentlemen. Country farmers. Her ideal was to sit around in nice clothes, hire people to do the work.

Tried to persuade him too, years ago. Wanted a place like the Mortons, two farms over. Registered Holsteins. An electrical set-up. That house they had really got her going. She hated theirs. Said it was clumsy. She hated the wood trim, the second-story doors leading outside, leading nowhere. He'd offered to build her a balcony so she could use the doors. She'd snarled, said he didn't understand. True, he hadn't. It was nice, all that stuff she liked. Nice, but you had to have the money.

"We could get a loan!"
"I won't borrow what I don't need! Time enough when I really need the money!"
"God! You're stubborn. With that attitude we'll never get ahead!"

"We're doing fine." His voice calm. Deliberately calm. Hers high-pitched, hysterical. His quiet replies infuriated her. He knew it.

"You're doing just what your father before you did. He learned it from his father. It's called marginal farming!" She spat the words out like a curse.

"Nope, it isn't. We're getting on well."

She snorting. Incoherent with frustration.
"We've got money to spare. Some, anyway, Clara. What is it you're lacking?

No use of course. It was city life she lacked. Second best would be the genteel kind of farming operation she envied. Which he wouldn't be part of. Even if he could. He wouldn't give up the feel of the earth crumbling under his fingers. Why had she pursued him if she'd wanted the city anyhow? A question she never addressed a reply to. But that was all long gone, past. Just that everything was coming back now. Bile in his throat.

For his thirteenth birthday Little John wanted a .22 rifle. Got it for him. Taught him the safety and use of the thing though he'd never had any use for guns himself. Had enough trouble with the nuisance of hunters in the fall.

Lost a good cow once, mistaken for God-knew-what. Found her in the hardwood bush. Stinking, bloated, rump cut through. The hunter, he'd supposed, had wanted something for his trouble.

Hunting on his land. Once, he'd thrown a couple of hunters off and they'd left, mad. But he'd known they would double back and come in again the other side of his bush. A seasonal nuisance. Posting signs was no help. They were there, at it again. Just yesterday heard the crack of a rifle. Trying maybe, for the ducks. Good thing his Pekins stayed around home.

But there was Little John with that rifle. Excited and full of plans for getting rid of all the gophers and a fox that had been into the chickens.

Turned out his first bag had been a robin. The bird just sitting on a fence and Johnny trained the sight on it.

Probably didn't think he'd hit it. Just fooling around. When he'd come out of the drive-shed, there he was. Sitting vacant-eyed, looking down at the pathetic shape in his lap. Just looking at it, fascinated with the power he'd wielded. The gun, discarded, thrown on the dirt and left there. Later, he'd picked it up himself, taken it back up to the house, cleaned and oiled it, put it away. Johnny wouldn't even look at it.

"How about I take it, Dad?"
"Soon enough, Robert. You're too young yet."
"Next year?"
"We'll see, Son. Now, how about you go down and mix up the mash for the pigs, eh?"
"Next year, Dad! Next year I'll get the gun and I'm gonna be a great shot! I'll practise on tin cans, eh Dad?"

Tin cans, sure. And groundhogs. A porcupine once. Then later, graduated to game birds. Johnny was the only one who refused to eat them. Emily, by then older, was more practical and she displayed a gourmand's tastes; enjoyed the quail, the partridge.

Even when the kitchen was all fixed up. Professionally. She wouldn't let him do it. Oak cupboards. The old ones ripped out. A double sink. New tile floor. New stove and refrigerator. He still disliked them. But even then she wasn't happy. The idea struck her to spend winter in Toronto, when the kids were older. Said the schools in the area weren't good enough for her kids.

They were his kids too. But he let them go. Robert and Emily adjusted well, even though Emily and Clara always argued. Johnny left one day, hitchhiked back to the farm.

"You need me here, Dad!" Face concentrated in its earnestness, trying to persuade him. He hadn't needed persuading.

"I'll do the cooking, okay, Dad?"

Caught him out, the kid had. Betty Swimmings, he'd hired her on to look after the house, do the cooking for him and Tim Barker. Tim had taken one of the boys' rooms, Betty the other. He'd had to let her go. Felt guilty anyway, about Tim and him taking turns, visiting that bedroom. After all. The room belonged to one of his boys. It seemed somehow wrong.

So Johnny cooked for them. At first nothing but fried chips and pork. But he learned well, and quickly. Turned out a better cook than his mother. Except for the bread. Bread and pastries, he couldn't manage them. But that was all right.

They made out fine, the three of them. It was easier than when he'd been a kid. Everything done by hand, then.

Everything done the hard way. The worst thing was shovelling manure out of the barn, sweat runnelling down his face, his clothing reeking. He and his brother riding the big Clydesdale bareback. Old Emma. Her habit of backfiring.

He fingered the scar running a patch of white skin through his left cheek. He and Gary fighting. Himself getting the better of it until Gary got mean, swung a pitchfork. Hot, searing, the flash of pain lightning across his cheek.

Once, he reflected, he'd known the name of every farmer in the area. Half of them had sold out now. Parcelled off the land. Country houses on decent acreage springing up over the countryside. Fewer fields being tilled every year. And the Conservation Authority buying up land. Developing it for the Province. Recreational facilities taking the place of good farmland. A damn sorry sight. Clara thought they had an offer he couldn't refuse, had nagged him the past month on it.

"You're crazy! You goddamn idiot!"
"It's my land."
"We could have the money! Live in the city!"
"You do live in the city, half the year. What more do you want?"
"You're getting old. Your heart's bad. How long do you think you're going to keep the farm?"
"Until Johnny's ready to take it."
"He won't!"
"Sure he will. He just has to make up his mind."
"Open your eyes, for godsake! None of the young people are staying anymore. Where's the money, the future, in it?

Money was always the big thing with her. Not just to have enough to keep going, be comfortable. Money though, to spend, bank.

For a while he'd tried. thought of developing some of the wooded land behind the back pasturage himself, right in a stand of cedar. Himself and a friend, working spare hours constructing tight little cabins. To rent out to city people. Right beside the turn in the river, where the land was prettiest. Good fishing too. Speckled trout. Cedar shingles. Plenty of white paint and green trim. They weren't fancy, but nice, nice and solid. Advertising had brought a few families out. But after the first few years he'd found them a damn nuisance, decided to stop renting.

Strange how buildings just sort of melted back into the landscape when they weren't used. The kids used them for a while, to play in. Then the birds took over, and the insects, and he didn't see any point using a lot of time and labour, not to mention materials, to keep them in shape. The underbrush drew right up to them, the trees overgrowing the cottages and now, if you didn't know just where to look for them, you could walk right by. Like the places in South America that he'd read about in National Geographic. Abandoned cities built of stone by ancient civilizations. The jungle growing right over everything. Tree roots standing straight in the middle of a building.

God, it was a wonderful farm, his. Three hundred and fifty acres. A fine hardwood bush, rolling fields. Sturdy old buildings and an arm of the Little Humber intersecting the farm. What more could any man ask?

A crow flew overhead harshly cawing, bringing him closer to the present. He pushed himself up off the bank. Then walked slowly back up the hill, his rolling farmland gentling the landscape in deep shadows.

He stopped at the railroad tracks, smelled the creosote on the ties. Some of them just recently replaced by work crews. Used to worry about the kids, with that train coming through regularly twice a day, every day. Never had enough pennies around to satisfy them, either. Those elongated pennies made them the most popular kids in the school. Giving them out to all their friends. They'd pick them up still hot, vie to see whose were flattest.

Past the tracks, and there was his barn. Huge. Old, even when his Granddad worked the farm. Stone foundation banked on one side. On the other the large drive shed. To the left the hen house, where during the day his chickens wandered aimlessly about, scratching the dirt. Banties too. He'd thought once to breed them for show. Never had the time, but they were nice little things, brightened the yard. His layers, Rhode Island Reds and Longhorns; Barred Rock Capons for meat. Remembered how, as a kid, he'd arm himself with a stick when he carried the empty baskets down in the mornings.

Wicked, his mother called it, when she found out. "Johnny" her voice echoed, "don't you know, you fool child, hens won't lay if you abuse them!"

"What about me?" he whined. "They peck hard, Ma!" Snuffling. "They don't like me, is all!"

Off in the distance he could see his cattle. Dark smudges on a shadowy background. Smaller herd than he used to keep. Mixed breeds. Steers.

There was a sharp nip in the air. Clouds scuttled the sky; stars not yet pricking the sky. The deciduous trees now past their colour. Most of the leaves gone.

Not just the leaves gone, though, Purpose too, was gone. What comes of changing things without knowing what you're doing. Progress. Hand in hand with ignorance. Fool around long enough, upset the balance, things go wrong. Johnny himself, he was the one that thought the big silo should be covered.

"A dome, Dad, that's what we need!"
"Never needed one before. Why now?"
"Gotta move with the times, Dad. You've always complained about the corn getting drenched. This'll solve the problem."
"I don't know. It's expensive too, eh?"

Couldn't refuse that boy anything. Boy! A man, thirty-two. So they'd contracted to get that metal dome top put on. Looked good, a shining gunmetal blue. Sileage, Johnny said, would be high and dry.

Blowing the sileage in the big one, the one with the dome, just as usual. A little later than usual getting the corn in. They'd had a lot of rain. Couldn't get the tractor out to the fields. Thought maybe they'd lose half the corn to rot. But then the weather turned and there they were, filling the silo. Robert coming out to help, taking time off from his job.

Robert gone up the ladder, into the silo. Levelling the sileage at the forty-foot height. Tim Barker, on top the ladder, directing the flow from the chute. First indication something was wrong, when Tim shouted something down at them, the wind taking the words away, scattering them so they only heard - "Robert ... down ..."

Then, nothing. He and Johnny were at the diesel tractor. It had slowed down, the fan stopped venting. Fooled around with it, discovered it was out of fuel. Careless. Still didn't realize there was anything wrong. Wondered suddenly about the quiet, up there.

Johnny climbing the ladder. Yelling something from up top, then going over into the silo. Then nothing. Himself left there, shouting. Couldn't manage the ladder himself, anymore. Yelled for Blair Barker, working over in the barn. He wouldn't go up.

"You bastard! You little bastard! Your father's up there, too! If I could myself, I wouldn't ask you!"

And then, soon after, Clara's eyes like lethal weapons. At first. Later, hollow. Empty.

They sat unspeaking in the parlour, three covered mounds keeping company with them in its immaculate, company-ready state. No one could ever say Clara wasn't house proud. Clever with her hands. Fingers always flying, crocheting those little doily things that covered the surface of every piece of furniture in the room.

It seemed the thing to do somehow, sit there. He'd realized in an abstract way that they were both not quite there, but they'd turned away offers from the Coopers next door to stay with them. Clara had refused to let Millie Cooper comfort her, had pushed the other woman's intent, her encircling compassionate arms away with a flare of passion that had taken the other by surprise. Embarrassed him; the woman meant well.

She sat for once, aphasic. This one time not embroidering his air with mean observations. With her translation of his attempts to foil her wants. How long, he'd wondered, would the catatonia last?

He looked straight at her, observed her sunken flesh, the melting curves that had once enraptured him long vanished into hidden pockets of bone and gristle, evaporating it seemed, in direct proportion to the growth of her spite. And it surprised him somewhat to look this way directly at her. To see how heavily the years sat on her. He wondered when he'd last really looked, for it had long become habit to slide his eyes past her, to fix them on a spot directly above and beyond her own, the void distancing him from her presence, giving him the illusion that she was a nightmare he had to endure, would soon awake from.

A miserable way to live a long life, he now thought sadly. Sad because, instead of the implacable rage he expected to find on her face, there was instead a vulnerable puzzlement and her weakness in their lifelong battle sent a stab of regret through him.

Fault, if it could be designated fairly, he finally admitted, probably existed on both sides.

And he recalled the unexpected heat of her passion, taking him aback at first, rendering him impotent for fear of not living up to her expectations. Then delighting him as he wallowed in it. But that was before their marriage. When she continued to meet his passion with her own after their marriage, even after the kids were born, even while during the day she battled him, he found it repugnant, began to withdraw precipitously, imperative shrivelled in distaste at the thought of her. Gradually a pattern emerged of his own hasty entrance and quick exit. And he knew she was frustrated, took his pleasure in that. Now how long had it been since they'd shared a bed? He'd fought her on a battlefield of lust and won each battle. And the war raged on and this was the culmination; a stalemate of bitterness. And now this emptiness depriving them both of the compassion they needed, to give each other succour in this time of direst need.

"Clara?" he ventured, leaned forward, shifted, lay his hand on the plaided material of her dress. No response. Nothing flickered in those eyes that blazed so readily. It was the sedation. The doctor had tried to get her upstairs, put her to bed, but she'd resisted, insisted on sitting there. He'd finally shooed them all out, said he'd stay with her, was fine himself.

Last week, wasn't it? she'd laughed at him, said contemptuously - what had brought it on he couldn't remember - "he's just going along with you for the time being. It's temporary. He won't spend his life on the farm, like you think."

"Who?" Momentarily confused. wondering later why he'd let himself fall into her trap, given her the satisfaction. "Who, Robert?"

"John!" she said triumphantly. "You know you haven't got Robert anyway. John, that's who!" She brushed aside his snort of derision at her conviction, went on: "You've burdened them both with a lifetime of guilt; sensitive to your enthusiasms, your crazy determination to keep the farm when it's not worth the dirt you stand on. With your dependence on them. And they're afraid to tell you they won't stay, aren't even interested. Afraid to hurt you. Though God knows, I don't know why!"

He'd waved aside her words, irked. Made to leave the kitchen but her words followed him out to the summer kitchen, out the shed door, down the path. "You think Kathleen'll be willing to be a farm wife? Soon as the wedding's over he'll bow out. He's just staying around long enough to try to get you on your feet. Introduce you to modern farming techniques. Once he pays off that new silo installation ... "

Expecting her voice to fade, but she'd followed him, stood in the doorway, shouting at him descending the hill to the barn. "You'll never live to see him take over the farm! Might as well sell it to Tim Barker like he's been asking you. It's his sons who're farmers. Not yours!"

All in the past. Yesterday and yesterday and yesterday. He'd been ready to give up the farm. Same age as his father before him, when he took over. Ready to sign the farm over to Johnny.

Nothing now. Clara sitting up there, alone. With her sons. His sons, too. With the past and all the mistakes they both had made.

Now it was time, almost time. He re-traced his steps, shuffling leaves, their acrid odour bringing back other autumns, his own boyhood. What a pity, what a waste. But still, it was time for him to retire. Nothing would change that, now.

It was the first time since the tracks were laid, since the run began, that No.5251 stopped in its evening run inside the confines of the Markham farm. It had taken about a quarter of a mile for the engineer to finally effect a shuddering, anguished stop at 7:10, right on the dot.