Remembrance

WHEN DAVID MacDONALD
went out to stand by his woodpile, the sky was still dark, although the grey light of the approaching morning was beginning to make itself known. It would not be the kind of morning associated with the earlier summer when, if one waited long enough, the sun would gradually appear over the mountaintops to the east. Then the night’s dew would slowly evaporate, the petals of the flowers would begin to open, and the sounds of the approaching day would replace those of the departing night.

The raucous crows that nested in the trees above his house would begin their squabbling conversations, even as the yelping of the coyote pack, farther to the north, would gradually subside. The squirrels would begin to chatter, and the wasps would begin to tentatively appear from under the eaves of his shed. The deer that grazed in the field above his house would gradually fade into the surrounding forest; he could sense their quiet movements almost more than he could see them.

Because of his deteriorating eyesight, he sometimes mistook the standing spruce trees for deer, straining his eyes to see if the shapes would move. He knew he should visit an eye doctor to test his failing vision but feared that unwelcome results might lead to the cancellation of his driver’s licence. Now he rarely drove at night, and when he did, each light encountered seemed like a starburst or an elaborate Christmas decoration. Sometimes they reminded him of the artillery shells that had exploded over his head during World War II. He and his comrades had watched the bursting shells from what they hoped was the comparative safety of their filthy, water-soaked foxholes. Recently, he had been told that such starburst lights were common to those who could not see very well, but when he received such information he only nodded thoughtfully. As if such facts might apply to other distant people, but certainly not to him.

Now in the autumn coldness of November, the world was different. The sun would be slow in coming, if it came at all. Sometimes the grey light brought only freezing rain, or stinging sleet. On colder days, the windshield of his truck would be covered with frost and the troublesome muddy ruts of his driveway would be frozen into what seemed like imprecise permanence. Sometimes the tracks of his rubber-soled boots, made in mud and frozen in frost, became almost like works of art, or something akin to the initials that small boys might imprint on still-setting concrete. Created in softness and then stiffened into forms of rigidity.

The deer, when he saw them, had by now exchanged their golden coats of summer sheen for those of autumn
grey. Sometimes he saw them at the base of the leafless wild apple trees, nuzzling for the windfalls that had dropped from the bare branches. After heavy winds there would be an abundance of apples on the ground, and the deer would become more selective, taking explorative bites from some and then moving on to others. In later weeks they would eat those they had originally spurned, even those that had rotted or were permanently frozen in the glittering frost.

The rabbits’ coats were changing from brown to white, and they were presently in danger from the cruising white-tailed hawks and bald eagles that sometimes ventured inland from the now sullen grey-flecked sea. Field mice were trying to get into his house, where they hoped they might find warmth.

His grey cat purred and curled herself around his ankles. The buzzing of insects now was stilled, and only the hardy purple asters represented the flowers that had once been so prolific. It seemed like a fitting setting for the remembrance of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Thinking of the asters, he adjusted the plastic poppy pinned to the collar of his blazer. He moved some of the sticks of his woodpile with his toe, looking without urgency for some that might fit into the firebox of his kitchen stove. He knew there was no immediate need for these sticks, as he had a supply of well-measured dry ones neatly stacked behind his stove.

He could smell the smoke from his already lit fire as it wafted forth from his chimney. The smoke comforted him
in a way he could not fully understand, as if it had been part of him for as long as he could remember. He recalled that when he was still a small boy he would look at the smoke to make sure of the direction of the wind. If the smoke drifted toward the ocean, the wind would be from the east, and if it slanted a certain way, from the southeast, he knew that this was the direction of the most serious storms. If the smoke was directed inland, the wind would be off the ocean and the waves would be higher, and perhaps more dangerous.

He had heard that, in the suburbs of Montreal, there was a ban against the burning of wood because the odour of woodsmoke annoyed some of the residents. But Montreal was another, mysterious world.

He saw the headlights of the car, piercing the darkness and coming through the trees. He straightened himself into an almost military posture and remained standing, resolutely, near his woodpile.

When the car door opened, the dome light illuminated for a brief instant the elongated form of his grey-haired son who lived on a farm nearby. The man got out of the car with some difficulty. Instead of using his left foot to “set” himself and bear the weight of his body, he first shifted to the edge of the car seat and then stood up. His left foot was encased in an oversized boot, and when he stepped forward to shake his father’s hand he did so with a pronounced limp.

“How is your foot?” said his father, his question weighted with concern.

“Not bad,” came the answer. “I took some pills. I see you’re already dressed. You have your poppy on and everything. Where are your medals?”

“I laid them out on the table for the last time,” said his father. “We will wait for a while in the yard.”

“Yes,” said the younger man. “We’ll wait for a while. He’ll be along soon. We’ll see his headlights coming through the trees. All three of us are early. The ceremony is not until this afternoon.”

The grey cat moved toward him.

For some years, David MacDonald had been ambivalent about Remembrance Day. He had been attending the ceremonies for more than fifty years and had outlived all of his comrades. He had visited the schools and marched in the parades. He had ridden on the backs of trucks to the various cenotaphs and participated in the laying of wreaths. In the earlier years there had been some survivors from World War I and they had always been given the place of honour in the parades. But now they were all gone. Sometimes, he was told, their medals were for sale on eBay. Now there were sometimes younger men, veterans of Korea, or Vietnam, and even, recently, Afghanistan. David MacDonald felt that this would be his last appearance. He smiled at his son in appreciation of his company.

WHEN DAVID
MacDONALD
went to war, it was in 1942 and he was twenty-one years old. He had been married for a year and a half to a girl from a farm two miles away who was sexually precocious. He himself was reserved in that part of life. On their third date, she said, “I’d like to marry a man with a big one, let’s see what you’ve got.” He had not expected anything like this to happen at such an early stage in their relationship and was bothered by the fact that he had not changed into clean underwear.

She was the oldest in a family of six girls and it seemed that all of them spoke constantly of the opposite sex. As the oldest, she seemed to feel that it was her duty to marry first and more or less lead the way for her younger sisters. She spoke of “being married” as if it were a job or, perhaps, a place. Sometimes she mentioned Montreal, which was a city she had never visited but where two of her aunts resided. She seemed on a much faster track than he was. He was not opposed to marriage, but questions such as “Where will we live?” “Where will I get a job?” occupied a section of his mind.

After their wedding, they moved in with his austere, widowed father, which they all knew, from the start, was not a good idea. His father was one of those men who were constantly adding up the grocery bills aloud and, in the days before electricity, blowing out the lamps early to save money on kerosene. She thought of his father as a cheap old miser, and his father, in turn, disliked her coming down to breakfast without being fully clothed and revealing, what was, in his opinion, “too much of herself.” The couple retreated as often as possible to their bedroom at the head of the stairs.

After the birth of their daughter, the economics of the situation became more and more pronounced. He worked with his father on their small farm and in the woods and in their fishing boat. His father had always allowed him a few dollars when he was a single man but seemed more reluctant to do so now that he was married and a father himself. His wife began to spend more and more time at her parents’ loud and jovial house, taking their daughter with her.