Kalila (15 page)

Brodie steps in the door as I'm slipping into my black brocade pants, a dark blue silk blouse, my blue-black sapphire earrings. Shit! I snag a cuticle on my blouse. It's palpable: something in the air that disallows unhappiness. An energy zapping between us that we can't ignore. Brodie takes my face in his hands, entangles himself against me, says, Maggie, you're so pretty.

My pants are too big.

Last Christmas, pre-pregnancy, these were new; now they hang across my hips. Just to verify this, Brodie sticks his hand down the front, says, Good Lord! So they are! I laugh, wiggle away. It's our Before Life. The one we were nonchalantly living when this one came along and whammed us broadside, knocking us onto another track, heading god knows where. But our world has shifted: it's veering back in the right direction.

What are their names again? Brodie asks.

Brodie! For God's sake! Irvin and Virginia. Try to remember!

Grinning, Brodie splashes cologne on his face. I know what he's thinking: Maggie's old voice, her irritated voice. Her the-worst-thing-in-my-life-right-now-is-your-lack-of-memory voice. Brodie hasn't a care. Virginia and Irvin. Irvin and Virginia. The baby's coming home! Brodie practises conversation openers. So I hear you British like to conquer. I slap his hand.

Half an hour later we spin out the door under a sky of rolled-back blue. Gusts whirl what little snow there is, scoop leaves from shining streets and hurl them at the car. Brodie has to grab tight to the steering wheel so we don't fishtail into oncoming traffic. I roll down the window; frenzied wind attacks my hair. I punch an oldie-goldies station. Rock and roll.

So here it is. So here we are. The house on Mission Road. We blow up the walk. The night begins with olives.

What do you do? the woman called Pearl asks me sternly. This second guest-couple, Pearl and Carl, are twenty years our senior too. Pearl has one eye that weeps, causing everything she says to vibrate with melodrama.

Well, I've just had a ba —

And
you?
She stares in the direction of the armchair Brodie's perched upon.

Brodie glances surreptitiously about, leans forward. I'm a physics teac —

We clean jails, Pearl snaps. All eyes point to this pinch-faced friend of Virginia's who sits straight-backed beside her tiny husband. Outside the chinook wind moans crankily.

We had this couple working for us, Pearl pauses. At the
jail
. She is wearing maroon ankle socks over her nylons.

Virginia bites into an olive.

The man had no interest in sex.
Poor
thing. Everyone takes this in. It's not clear which member of the aforesaid couple deserves the adjective.

Drat it! Virginia says. These are the wrong olives. The pit appears at her lip and disappears again behind her napkin. I ordered spicy. Of all the —! They sneaked me pungent!

But the idea of sex in a
jail
turned him on, Pearl slides forward on the sofa. This woman invented italics. Now what he didn't
realize
—

Sod it! While the owner sidetracked me tasting his linguine, his assistant wrapped inferior olives and slipped them in my bag!

Pearl shoves her red-ankled feet together. Opens her mouth, pops it closed.

I look from Virginia in her severe nut-brown dress to Pearl, who wears a shimmering taffeta, high ruffled neck, her legs have fallen open at the knee. Not only are the ankle socks astonishing in their redness, but they are trimmed with frilly pearled edges that furl outward, daffodil-like, and her shoes look 1940s, laces and an open toe.

The thing
is
, Pearl zings a look at Virginia, but Virginia just keeps chewing, there's a television monitor in
every
washroom. Mmm-hmm. You get the picture. So while they went at it, she flaps a hand to each in turn, ex-
cuse
my language, on the newly scrubbed bathroom floor, still
wet
, the
only
time, let me tell you, the wife could
get
it, she cranks her head, looks meaningfully at Carl, who gulps more gin, the guards ordered pizza, stood around at the station monitor, and
watch —

Irvin clamps down Brodie's reaching hand and shrieks, Don't taste the olives!

Brodie shoots a fearful glance at Pearl. There is a lengthy silence after which Virginia asks Pearl's husband to mix the drinks.

What will you have? Carl asks me. Carl looks like a jockey masquerading as a World War One RAF pilot. He has the lack of height, the bomber jacket, which he keeps on in the house. His cigarettes are tucked inside its pocket, hair slicked back, a little moustache. Tiny hands. Perhaps a bit of wine?

Yes, wine is nice, Virginia says, distractedly carting off the shameful olives. We'll have wine for dinner.

Mmm, gin?

I sip my gin and tonic. Try the crackers with herbed cheese. Dare not a glance at Brodie.

Where's the baby? Carl says.

Actually she's in the hosp —

Jadwiga Chmelyk's
dying!
Pearl hollers toward the kitchen.

Virginia returns and Carl replenishes the drinks. An argument ensues, a heated conversation in which the four try to outdo one another naming how many people they know who have dropped dead in the last year. Pearl pronounces hors d'oeuvres,
horsie doov-res
, causing Brodie to swallow his purloined olive whole. The list stretches competitively to Irvin's grandmother's sister's friend, Pearl's church caretaker, a golf partner, a ticket agent who served Virginia at Bass Outlet. Died of a bee sting. One.

Brodie takes the offer of a second vodka.

Dinner is artichoke hearts. Leg of lamb. Potato broisettes.

Gold plates, Pearl's little husband murmurs, tapping his own. He's on my right. He leans so close our arm hairs brush. Four-hundred-and-fifty dollars per cup and saucer, this set. He takes a demure sip of his wine, looking pleased.

Our cleaning lady keeps scraping away surfaces, Virginia announces. Irvin is dishing up each plate, handing them down the table. Virginia pauses, frowning, to watch him lop off a chunk of fat. We've had to hide our plates, our saucers.

Marishkya's also scrubbed off the surface of the ceramic tiles on the bathroom floor, more lamb? says Irvin.

No thanks, says Pearl. A bit tallowy for my liking.

Carl says, I shall.

A scathing stare from Pearl.

Marishkya rubbed the gold inlay off our antique chair. Virginia says in triumph, The woman can't stop cleaning!

We simply must get rid of her, says Irvin.

Eighty-six-point-five per cent silver, Carl whispers in my ear, brandishing a spoon, his breath a hot breeze across my neck. You have a good figure! He smells of stale smoke. Nineteen-twenties smoke. I look at the spoon in his hand. Check my fork. Ignore his comment. The silver collection is inscribed with a flourished
A
. Irvin's last name is Woolhouse. Did they steal the silver?

Electronic shutters, Irvin is saying with a wave of his hand. I have them fixed so they all close at one time. They're automatic. Virginia is jabbing buttons on the stereo.

I got quite a start when Irvin began courting me. Virginia, standing, planted in her shoes. The first time he swooped closed the shutters, I felt — her fingers flutter to her ample chest — seduced!

Brodie looks astonished, then very stern.

Darling, what's the name of that bridge in Vienna? Irvin asks. The one the groom carries the bride across for luck?

Some grooms have to carry their bride across
seven
bridges to get
any
luck, Pearl says. Women in Vienna can't afford scrawny husbands. She sniffs at Carl and turns away, tongue searching out a tooth.

Carl shoves a narrow thumb in Pearl's direction. She stepped out shopping for antiques in Vienna last summer, he murmurs, and showed up at the hotel three days later. He shrugs, reaches for a third helping of lamb.

I gingerly accept Virginia's offer of the four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar teacup.

Carl, ignoring the signal for dessert, and Pearl's pursed lips, saws off another chunk of meat with his eighty-six-point-five per cent silver knife. A clock strikes nine.

Irvin says, I've just repaired my clock. He lays down his knife and fork. Face wasn't there. Just the hands. They don't make things like they used to. It's a bloody nuisance. You expect the parts to work. I had to recut the gears. Hung weights on them finally, so the new gears would wear into each other. Ah, there go the blinds.

And sure enough, in one swoop, on all sides, the landscape disappears and we are enclosed with four strangers, tea, and a dry European cake. Irvin offers liqueurs.

After dinner, Irvin ushers Brodie into his study to show off his pocket watch collection. Carl isn't invited, but then Carl's fifth glass of vodka has pinned him to his chair. With the alternative of being crushed under Carl's longing gazes while examining the bunions on Pearl's feet — she's due for surgery — and the stitches behind her ears — she's had a facelift — I trail along. There, in the back room, trapped under the coffee table glass, lie Irvin's watches.

Watches that date back to the eighteenth century, Irvin says. They glint dull gold and silver.

History under glass, he raps the table. Without watchbands, the watches look disabled. Irvin says, I can give you the history of each one. This one? Belonged to a French count. This? Early nineteenth-century Britain. This, a Jewish moneychanger. That one's a pedometer. It measures how far a person goes. Came out of the Spanish Civil War.

I point to one swathed in a tiny bag of grey brocade like a bunting bag. Could I have a peek at that one?

Absolutely not, says Irvin. They must be kept sterile. He taps the glassed-in tabletop again. Museum pieces. These babes have walked through history. Did you know, he adds, at the turn of the eighteenth century, watchmakers got together to try to regulate the ticking of all clocks?

What for? I ask.

Irvin swings on me. Why, to control time! Have you not studied Umberto Eco? Did you not know a heartbeat sets its rhythm to the ticking of a bedside clock? Irvin looks disapprovingly at Brodie's digital watch. Now, your watch there. It's useless. It shows no circle of time. It just records a moment — look: ten-forty-three. It has no face to harbour where time's gone. Or where it comes from.

Well, time is relative, says Brodie.

Irvin waves Brodie's comment away, his gesture takes in all his watches, All keep perfect time, and he launches into an explanation of the perils of insurance for watch collections. I manouevre for the salon door. Brodie grins at me. Great timing! I am treated to a peek behind Pearl's stitched-up ears.

More rounds of cake and tea. Carl is gently snoring. Pearl appears set on staying until time itself runs out; she's onto traffic on German autobahns and doesn't even wave goodbye when at half past eleven, we slip back into the night, giggling, holding each other up on the thin-iced sidewalk. The wind has died. Air balmy with chinook. The roads shine blackly wet.

Whew! Brodie chortles as we climb into the car. To think we turned down previous invitations!

We gun down Crowchild Trail, light-headed. The story has shifted gears.

I breeze into Neonatal ICU on gusty winds of change. I want to hold her!

A nurse opens the glass lid that encloses Kalila. The baby's startled face against my breast.

A note taped to a nearby baby's isolette:
Allergy to soy. Attempts to pull out tube
.

Suicide Watch!

I picture babies flinging themselves in droves from their little bunks, babies stuffing squeaky rubber barbells down their throats, babies lying grimly on their food tubes. Not this baby. The bumpbump bumpbump of her heart. Kalila blinks cool air. I slip my hands beneath the baby's nightie, smooth hot skin.
Flesh of my flesh
. The baby shifts, stretches one foot. Ahhhhh.

We've tipped our toes into a fairy story; dreams do come true.

Five-seventeen. You head home. Exams to mark. A sudden stab of grief, a sudden wrench of joy. You set your books down on the counter, watch a lone winter ant labour through a honey-stickied patch of counter.