A Beauty (18 page)

Maria thought about Mr. Huhtala losing his wife – to the Spanish flu, she’d heard, or was it typhoid? She’d died in prison, it was said, after their civil war. So he had lost a great deal. But how handsome the man was, still, in his close-shaven, undernourished way. And in spite of the grey droop of his shoulders, so alive. She wanted him to look at her. She could tell, even when he wasn’t looking at her, that he had something for her, even for her, with her fat body packed into a housedress. She remembered the clips all over her hair and pulled out a few at her forehead. The waves fell, lank and heavy and still a bit damp, onto her cheeks. As for Henrik, sitting there avoiding her eyes, he could not hide forever behind that beard and moustache.

“Mr. Huhtala got home a few days ago to find his house empty. I told him you could tell him more than I could. About his girl,” Henrik said ponderously.

Exasperation hit her, like something from outside. Why should she do the explaining? Were there not a few things Mr. Huhtala could tell
them
? Such as why he’d gone off without telling his daughter where he was going, taking nothing but a rifle, leading everyone to think the worst. He’d upset the whole community and driven his daughter away. But you wouldn’t ask him. Not right out. Not like that. You’d get nowhere that way, battering him with questions. Instead, making herself quiet, she said, “We don’t know where she is, you know.” He nodded without looking at her and she turned to Henrik. “How long is it since she went, Henrik?”

“Not long,” Henrik said. He perked up. “Well, it was a Saturday night, of course, and what is this? Tuesday? Wednesday. So a week and a few days.”

They both turned to the man, the neighbour they didn’t know.

“I blame myself,” Maria said.

She did not really blame herself for the girl’s leaving, Henrik knew that; it was Matti Huhtala she blamed, but she went on as an incentive to him. “If we hadn’t stopped that Saturday night,” she said, “and persuaded her to come to the dance, she might have been in your house when you got home.”

“Your girl came with us to the dance at Trevna,” Henrik said.

Maria was wiping the backs of her fingers across her forehead the way she did when she was anxious. It made him impatient with Huhtala. Sitting there saying nothing, knowing full well she was itching to ask him where he’d been all this time and what the hell he’d thought he was doing, going off the way he did.

“I’ll never forget seeing her on that old swing that evening, as still as a picture,” she was saying, all the time watching for the man to lift his face. “She looked that forlorn, I said to Henrik, we have to stop and get her to come to the dance. A young girl like that, all by herself on a Saturday night. No one had seen her for weeks. I don’t know if she’d spoken to a soul for days. It isn’t good for a person, you know, especially a young person. They mope.” She waited to see if Matti Huhtala would raise his head at that and when he didn’t, she went on as if she hadn’t noticed. “She’d said no. I’d called on her the day before to say we’d pick her up and she said no, but when we stopped that evening, she seemed happy to see us. She jumped up right away. We had the wagon, not liking to take the car with the price of gas, and it was a lovely evening, wasn’t it, Henrik?”

She turned to him and he saw that she hadn’t for a moment forgotten what he’d done. He would have to face her once Huhtala had gone. He couldn’t imagine what he would say.

“The dance hall was packed,” she said, turning back to the man. She brushed at her forehead again and encountered the
hanks of hair that fell near her face. She held a strand out in front of her eyes and he remembered how she was as a girl, before they’d got married. He said, “She left with a young man, Mr. Huhtala.”

“No one knew who he was.”

“
She
might have known him before,” Henrik said.

“That’s true,” Maria said. “We said so afterwards. Just because he was a stranger to the rest of us doesn’t mean she hadn’t met him before. She danced with him a few times. He danced with some of the other girls, too. You can ask them about him, if you like. They seemed to think he was a gentleman.” A hush fell among the three of them; something about the way she’d said the word
gentleman
brought it down, until Maria went on. “Aggie Lindquist was one he danced with, I know.”

“Your likeliest lead will be his car,” Henrik said.

Huhtala didn’t look up or move at all, let alone speak, and Henrik wondered if the man didn’t intend to pursue his daughter. But surely he couldn’t just accept what she’d done. “A late model Lincoln convertible roadster,” he went on. “Not too many of them around. People will remember it.”

“Painted gold. I didn’t see it myself,” Maria said. “And he had red hair. Goodness, we almost forgot to tell you that. He said his name was Bill. Longman, wasn’t it? Something like that.”

She talked and talked and Matti Huhtala just sat there, nodding once in a while. Henrik couldn’t tell if he was even listening.

Finally, Maria said, “Now, Mr. Huhtala. Why don’t you stay and have supper with us? I have a roast in the oven. I’m sure you have nothing at home.”

Mr. Huhtala only shook his head, but not rudely; if anything, politely, humbly.

“Won’t you stay? You have to eat sometime. If you don’t eat now, you’ll be hungry later and maybe have to pay for your meal.”

That polite head shake again. He’d joined the living again, she thought, but he wasn’t playing their rules, not any more than he could help. “If you won’t stop,” she said, “I’ll make you a lunch to take with you.” She was already at the oven, opening the door, releasing the roasted meat smell into the coffee and apple smells. “I can have a slice of beef between bread before you finish your coffee,” she said, heaving the roast to the top of the range. Then she was sharpening the carving knife. Perspiration ran down her temples. “Can you eat walnuts? Some people can’t. They just destroy the inside of Peter’s mouth. I always make a batch without them. Hermits, I’m putting some in your lunch.”

Mr. Huhtala looked up. He said, “Hermits. That’s the cookie for me, Mrs. Gustafson.”

“Well,” she said, the knife stilled, she was so surprised and pleased. He’d spoken so ruefully. He’d reached out to her. At the same time, she could feel Henrik’s embarrassment over the comment; he was always discomfited when people revealed themselves, even to such an extent. Oh, and look how
he’d
revealed himself! Anger welled up in her. At both of them. Asking her to understand them. And whatever did the man mean by calling himself a hermit? Did he mean to use that as an excuse? That he was too averse to meeting people to go after his daughter? “She thought you’d killed yourself,” she blurted. “We all did.”

Matti Huhtala had a face that knew how to be as blank as a face can be, but Maria did not mistake that blankness for a lack of pain, and as soon as she could muster herself, she rushed to cover her crime. “I expect she will have wanted to go to Edmonton,” she said. “To look for work, you know. Or Calgary. Or maybe Regina, I suppose, if he was headed that way.” She stopped, realizing they were in different directions. “She’s a good, sensible girl, Mr. Huhtala,” she said. “I’ve said so to everyone. If she went off with a
man, it was because he could give her a ride to the city. What good was her grade twelve to her here?”

As if he was speaking to her alone and for her, to relieve her, very quietly Mr. Huhtala said, “I will find her.” He rose from the table and shook Henrik’s hand. He came over to the counter, where Maria was tying string around the lunch package she’d made for him. He thanked her and shook her hand, too.

“Courtly,” she said afterwards, staring at the hand he’d shaken, the nails red-rimmed and all the wrinkles stained. “That’s the word for his manners.” They were standing together in the kitchen, just the two of them.

“I fear Thelma Svenson is right,” Maria said softly. “I should mind my own business, and then if tragedy happens, it’s at least not my fault.”

“No tragedy has happened.”

“A man has lost his daughter.”

“He should have looked after her better.”

Maria set her head to one side and gave him a long look and he knew she was wondering what she should say to him. He could deal with a man, as he had with Olie Knutson. He’d calmed Olie down soon enough; he’d made it clear to him that his daughter was hysterical and prone to fantasies. Convincing Maria would be a different matter. He went and sat down, feeling a bit weak in the knees.

She said, “Do you think the
RCMP
was after him and he was in hiding? That’s what some said when he disappeared, that he was afraid they were going to put him in jail. Or deport him. They’ve deported some of them.”

Henrik was more than content to follow her lead. “Huhtala’s not a socialist,” he said. “He doesn’t care that much for his Fellow Man.”

“But they must think he is. Even a Communist. Being Finnish.”

“I guess after all we don’t know much about him. Or about anyone,” he added, in spite of himself.
It was a time for truth, however inconvenient, and he had to speak it, even if as a consequence he betrayed himself. At the thought, his entire chest deflated and he looked up at Maria with naked eyes.

She set the knife down on the counter top. She’d forgotten she was holding it. She raised her hands to the remaining wave clamps and one by one released their grip on her head. “Henrik,” she said. “The beard. The moustache, too. Why don’t you shave? You’re still young, you know.”

Doris said she was taking off. “I’ve had enough,” she said to Aggie one day not long after her father had thrown all her makeup away and made her visit the Gustafsons to face Henrik with her accusation. “You won’t see me again,” she said.

Aggie asked her how she thought she’d pay her way if she was going to light out on her own; there’d be train fare and rent and food to pay for, and that was just to start. “You won’t be crying over makeup and such, if you run out of money,” Aggie said. “I suppose you think you’ll pick up a man at the next dance.”

Doris got a look on her face, her gaze sliding away to the corner of the room, and Aggie said, “It was you took my
Photoplay
, wasn’t it? At the dance at Liberty Hall.”

Doris got so mad she forgot herself. “I don’t give a damn about your old
Photoplay
for God’s sake!” she yelled.

“What’s that guilty look on your face for, then?” Aggie said.

Doris said there wasn’t any kind of look at all on her face. But there was. Oh, there definitely was. It wasn’t guilt anymore, though. It was a sharp look, cool and slitty-eyed; those green eyes had a glint in them, and Aggie knew Doris was busting to tell her what it was for. She waited, didn’t say a thing, just waited, observing Doris as if from afar, as if she was getting a bit bored, and might walk off if Doris didn’t get it over with pretty soon, and Doris threw back her head and said, “I have money.”

Aggie rolled her eyes. She knew about how much money Doris could have scraped up, even if she’d stolen from her parents. The eye roll was enough. She didn’t have to ask.

“I found it one day on a kitchen table.”

Aggie could tell Doris was getting scared by this time and chickening out of telling her the whole story, but at the same time still wanting her to know.

“Left behind,” Doris said, “by somebody who didn’t need it anymore.”

And Aggie knew. The look on Doris’s face told her. Only one person caused Doris that particular kind of anguish. “Elena’s father left her some money. When he took off. Didn’t he? And you took it.”

Doris tossed her head in her haughtiest manner. “What if I did? You don’t need to look at me like that. I went there one day to be nice to her and she was out walking. I could see her a ways away, coming towards me on the road. As soon as she caught sight of me, do you know what she did? She turned around and walked back the way she’d come. So I went to the house. Walked inside to wait for her. It was the day her dad walked out on her, but how was I to know that? I’d seen him leave the house before I saw her on the road. He took off the other way, over the pasture behind his barn. I told the Mounties about it afterwards. He had his rifle with him; I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I was just glad the house was empty so I could wait for her, see what she’d say, see if
she’d admit to seeing me and turning her back on me, or what kind of story she’d make up to excuse herself, and there it was on the kitchen table with a note saying she could look after herself now. And I said to myself: ‘We’ll see about that.’ ”

Aggie didn’t tell anyone about Doris stealing the money. Before she left the district, Doris made her promise not to tell, but Aggie didn’t keep quiet because of that. It would only have upset Mr. Huhtala to find out. He must have sold something precious like his wedding ring or a family heirloom, the last thing he had of any value, to get the money. (Aggie envisioned a wad of worn bills, tightly rolled, that could be carried, hidden, in a man’s hand, although Doris hadn’t told her that.) And it was nobody else’s business. Elena was the only person the information would have helped. It would have made a difference to her to know her dad hadn’t taken off and left her with nothing to keep her. But Elena was gone and it didn’t look as if she would ever return.