‘So how do you have a Canadian passport?’
‘My father was a Canadian.’
‘And what made you decide to suddenly move to Canada?’
‘Is that relevant to me receiving a social insurance number?’
‘I have to follow procedures here. I have to ensure that you are legitimately entitled to a SIN.’
‘You have my passport. You can, no doubt, check with Ottawa to ensure that it is valid. What else do you need from me?’
‘I have asked you a question. I now expect an answer. What made you leave the United States for Canada?’
Without a moment’s hesitation I blurted out: ‘My three-year-old daughter was knocked down and killed by a car. Happy now?’
My voice was so angry and loud that it silenced the room. All the other clerks, all the waiting citizens, seemed to freeze. In the shocked moment that followed, the clerk’s eyes filled with fear – as if she instinctually knew what was coming next.
I remember something David once told me when a waitress in a restaurant was rude to us for no apparent reason.
‘You never know what sort of day she was having before she got here – so don’t think it was about you.’
Behind where the clerks sat at their windows was an office, its door open, a besuited man working behind a desk. He too must have heard what I said, as he was instantly on his feet, hurrying towards us. The woman clerk nervously glanced in his direction. That’s when I realized this was not the first time she had seriously overstepped a boundary . . . though this observation was secondary to the anger I was still feeling after my outburst.
‘Mr Russell,’ the clerk said, ‘if I could just explain—’
‘That won’t be necessary – as you can go home now for the rest of the day.’
‘But I was only trying to carry out—’
‘I heard exactly what you were doing – and you’ve been darn well warned about this before.’
‘I just thought—’
‘Go home, Mildred. You will hear from us tomorrow.’
Mildred didn’t look like she wanted to move. But realizing she had no other option she quickly got up and left, running off and appearing to burst into tears at the same time. Mr Russell picked up my file off her desk and glanced at it.
‘She should have had the good grace to apologize, Ms Howard. But as I’m her supervisor I’ll do it for her – and for this department. I’m truly sorry about all that. I’m afraid it’s her style – and she’s been warned before to amend it. Now, if I have my way, she’ll be amending it in Medicine Hat.’
He opened my file and said: ‘I’ll have your SIN in five minutes.’
Which indeed he did – again apologizing as he handed me my passport and my new social insurance card.
‘I hope this experience won’t make you think all civil servants here are so graceless,’ he said before wishing me goodbye.
Graceless?
Passive-aggressive was the true Canadian style – and it didn’t just apply to the bureaucrats. Everyone up here was, by nature, polite. It was part of the social make-up – something that was expected of you. But the politeness was tinged with a testy petulance; civility through gritted teeth. Mildred was a case in point. She never raised her voice once when pressing me for an answer. But, in a fusty, school-marmish way, she played the passive-aggressive card firmly:
If you want what I can give you, you heed my command
. Until my very American outburst sabotaged her strategy.
In the aftermath of it all I was strangely grateful to Mildred. By angering me she had provoked me into doing something I had refused to do, even during all my sessions with Dr Ireland . . . actually spitting out the appalling but undeniable truth: my daughter is dead.
I articulated this verity a few days later when I showed up at the medical practice to which I had been assigned. My doctor was named Sally Goodchild; a woman in her forties, quiet, straightforward and, as I discovered, a quick diagnostician. As soon as I came into her consulting room I could see her sizing me up.
‘So, Jane,’ she said, reading through my health questionnaire, ‘you’re new to our practice. New to Calgary as well, I see. And you’re having trouble sleeping – even though you’re on 30 mgs of Mirtazapine per day. So, to cut to the chase, how bad is the depression?’
‘I just can’t sleep.’
‘If you can’t sleep while taking Mirtazapine, you are seriously depressed. And the doctor who first prescribed you the pills, she was in the States, yes?’
I nodded.
‘And was there something
causal
– as we medical types like to call it – which brought about your depression?’
Again I said it.
‘My daughter Emily . . .’
I got through the sentence, staring down at my hands. Dr Goodchild was evidently unsettled by this revelation – and, to her credit, did not try to hide it.
‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised the dosage of Mirtazapine isn’t proving effective anymore.’
‘I need to sleep, Doctor.’
She asked if I would like to speak to a therapist.
‘Been there, done that,’ I said. ‘And it did no damn good.’
‘Are you working right now?’
I shook my head. She thought that over for a moment, then said: ‘All right, I’m going to up your intake of Mirtazapine by a further 15 mg – and I’m going to also ask you to consider the idea of finding a job. It would give some focus and shape to your day.’
‘I don’t want
focus
and
shape
.’
‘So what do you want, Jane? What would help you here?’
‘What would help me here? My daughter. Alive.’
‘But that can’t be.’
‘And as I can’t kill myself . . . as much as I want to every hour of every day . . .’
‘You think yourself a coward because of that?’
‘Actually, I do.’
‘Whereas I think choosing to live when you realize there is no solution . . . well, it’s almost heroic.’
‘No, it’s not heroic at all.’
‘Think what you like. You have chosen now to live. But with that choice comes a realization: there is no solution. There is only one antidote to this all – an antidote which won’t drain any or all of the poison away, but which might prove temporarily palliative.’
‘And what’s the antidote?’
‘Go back to work.’
Five
T
HERE WERE PLENTY
of jobs in Calgary. Every week there was a story in the
Herald
about the labor shortage – how Boomtown lacked enough workers to serve up fast food and mop offices and even teach their children.
I scanned the employment pages in the newspaper. I nosed around a few job agencies. It was true – there were job openings for teachers. With my qualifications I sensed it would be reasonably easy to land something. But then I’d have to get up in front of a group of kids and talk. That would mean having to be with children. Even if they were pre-college adolescents, they’d still be children. And that would be too much to bear.
Then, by accident, I discovered the city’s Central Public Library. I was heading on my bicycle to an afternoon movie at a multiplex located in the Eau Claire marketplace and decided to stop en route in Chinatown for a fast plate of dim sum. This meant taking a different route, turning left down the McLeod Trail (many thoroughfares in Calgary were called trails) and passing an ugly cluster of municipal buildings. I’d cycled this way many times before – but never really took much notice of these administrative edifices, all of which were straight out of the Stalinist School of Architecture. Today I happened to look up and see a sign which said: Central Public Library. I braked and pulled over. The library was all reinforced concrete and prison-style slitted windows. What were the municipal authorities thinking when they approved this monstrosity? Still, I locked up my cycle and went inside. There – on the bulletin board in the lobby – was a notice:
CALGARY CENTRAL PUBLIC LIBRARY SEEKS ASSISTANT LIBRARIANS
They were offering a forty-hour week at $12 per hour. Though they would prefer candidates with ‘some knowledge of library science’, it was not essential. There were three posts open right now and candidates should submit their résumés to . . .
And they gave the name of a Mrs Geraldine Woods, Chief Librarian.
I walked into the library and asked if they had a computer room.
‘Ground floor, turn left. But it costs $2 for an hour’s internet access.’
I didn’t want to go online. I just wanted to use a word processor and a printer. Over the course of the next hour I sat and wrote my résumé, along with a covering letter to Mrs Woods. When I finished and was about to hand it in, the thought struck me: How will she get back in touch with me if I don’t have a telephone? As much as I didn’t want this rather essential instrument of communication I knew that a résumé without a telephone number would raise suspicions – and probably make her wonder if I was living a life like the Unibomber. Best to bow to the inevitable and get a cellphone.
So I printed up the résumé and the letter, leaving a space blank for the phone number. Then I went outside and cycled over to Chinatown and found around eight different shops selling electronic goods. The one I chose was run by a nervy man in his thirties who was chain-smoking and simultaneously shouting down a cellphone that was so petite he had to hold it between his thumb and forefinger. He ignored me for around five minutes – not an easy trick in a shop that was nothing more than an eight-by-eight space. When I finally got fed up with waiting and turned to leave, he immediately ended his call.
‘You stay, you stay . . .’ he shouted. ‘I get you nice phone, nice price.’
Half an hour later, having been relieved of $75, I left with a pay-as-you-go phone, topped up with $20 worth of calls. More importantly I had my very own number – which I hand-wrote at the bottom of the covering letter. Then I cycled back to the library and handed in my application at the front desk, thinking to myself:
She’ll probably look at the résumé and think I’m a crank . . .
The next day, I received a phone call around nine-thirty from Mrs Woods. She sounded pleasant and brisk.
‘Any chance you could come by the library today for an interview?’
I showed up, as requested, at three p.m. I dressed soberly: a black corduroy skirt, black tights, sensible shoes, a V-neck sweater beneath which was a white T-shirt. Mrs Woods, on the other hand, wore a beige pantsuit with a floral blouse. She was large and, like just about every librarian I’d ever met, only semi-comfortable with other people. But as she was the head honcho here she obviously had more advanced social skills than her colleagues. (Something else I learned during all my years in academia – the chief librarian in any institution was usually chosen for that role not just because of their experience, but also because she could actually maintain eye contact with someone else.)
‘Now, to be honest with you, Ms Howard, when I read through your résumé I did think to myself: Are we dealing with an imposter here? Because, quite honestly, I’ve never had anyone with your credentials apply for a job with us. Then I did do a little background check . . . and discovered that you do have a doctorate from Harvard, and you really did publish that book on American Naturalism. And you really were a professor at New England State. So, my question to you is an obvious one: Why take a low-paying job with us in Calgary?’
‘How far did you research my background, Mrs Woods?’
‘I Googled you, of course.’
‘Then you must have read about my daughter.’
She met my gaze. ‘Yes, I did see that.’
‘Then you have your answer why I’m here.’
‘I have to level with you – I also saw an article online about an assault you committed in the wake of the . . . accident.’
‘Did you read the circumstances of the attack?’
‘Indeed . . . and part of me sympathized. But another part of me . . .’
‘Worried you might be hiring a sociopath?’
‘Hardly. I emailed your Professor Sanders at New England State. He wrote back a glowing recommendation – and asked you to get in touch with him.’
This was the double-edged sword of applying for this job: knowing full damn well that I would have to supply references. And knowing this meant revealing to my former colleagues back East where I was right now. In turn this could mean Christy finding out my whereabouts . . . though I gambled that she wouldn’t be in further touch with Sanders and I also had a plan of action to make certain he didn’t give out my new address.
Mrs Woods continued: ‘He also explained the events surrounding the incident. And he reassured me that it was a one-off, brought about due to the extraordinary circumstances you were coping with. I am so sorry. I can’t begin to imagine how—’
‘I am not in the habit of attacking people,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘But I do like books. And having spent so much of my life in libraries . . .’
Ten minutes later I had the job. $480 per week gross pay, with twenty-seven percent deducted for federal tax and an additional 10 percent to the provincial government of Alberta – which meant I’d be taking home $350 dollars per week. That was fine by me as my monthly out goings were around $1,300. Though my salary from New England State continued to be paid into my Boston account (Professor Sanders evidently ignoring my directive to stop it), I decided not to touch what cash reserves I had. Instead, I lived on a tight budget – but one which never left me feeling constrained or impoverished. On the contrary it became something of an interesting challenge bringing expenditure down to the essentials; deciding that, in exchange for the hour or so I spent in a café every day, I would forgo eating out a couple of nights a week. More importantly, the job meant there would now be eight hours a day when I would be preoccupied with something other than the inside of my head. With a little bit of strategizing I was certain I could be a model colleague to everyone else in the library, while also politely slamming the door on any contact outside polite staffroom chat.