Come Back (20 page)
Authors: Rudy Wiebe
Not wood. Gabriel had exposed a shard, the broken rim of a clay pot almost as long as his small hand. He was so happy, they were all laughing and talking that evening, a future archeologist for sure! Jake said he would send the find to Calgary for analysis, but Gabe would get it back, there already were plenty of artifacts in the Dueck Aboriginal Site collection. A beautiful day at Grandma and Grandpa’s, two-year-old Denny was dancing with Miriam and—
This jagged clay shard. In his basement Hal was holding it. And suddenly he understood that this too would have been part of Gabriel’s Oldman River Quest: this childhood, discovery, happiness, family, laughter; this being held safe.
There was one more page in the red file folder. On it two lines written in blue:
Abandonment
: to feel abandoned is essentially to feel forsaken
by the god within us—to lose sight of the eternal light
The piano was playing. On the blankness of Gabriel’s page Hal heard the syncopated words Yo loved, loved so completely the first time the church choir sang them. She borrowed a copy and played and played and played it until she played it by heart:
We are not alone we
are not alone we
are never alone God is with us we
DAILY PLANNER
1985:
May Wednesday 1
We don’t know a thing. Walking streets footsteps sometimes a breeze touches you and you feel you are spirited away … Athens? Poor crippled beggars, crippled me. I run and run. Athens is such a waiting hole—why do I long for it here—my life is a Tedious Nowhere. But May in Alberta is shining spring
May Saturday 4
We planted blue spruce, Dad and I, dozens long as my hand along the bush road leading in to Aspen Creek cabin. Lovely. Also potatoes in the lower garden clearing
seed it and the earth makes food every human is made of earth? That’s Genesis
party with whole NFT gang, at Beth’s, 115 St.
May Monday 13
Mom leaves for Miriam in Quito, Ecuador / till June 16. Dad, Denn, me with her to the everlasting airport. Then: room with a view! Move up, #1004 in Westview Towers / rent $495 and huge bend of North Saskatchewan River valley.
Last NFT day Friday 17/85, turn in keys, their grant finished. Fred completed semester studying business, rent’s up $10, and I have no job. Savings for 3 months rent, no food.
Out with Beth, Ross, John
May Thursday 16 down Friday 17
Finished
Ada
. To have such a mutual love, so responding
Paris, Texas
again, invited Joan. After talked two hours over coffee. I said I get obsessive about things. She said, “Yes, I know.” What did she mean?
If it’s not tedious nowhere, it’s the distant unobtainable. Doesn’t end even with endless spring light
| Obsessive | - | a persistent, disturbing preoccupation with an idea or feeling; intensely or abnormally (me all right) |
| Narcissus | - | no mature independence, but a dependence both greedy and desperate. He is always liable to identify himself with his object rather than differentiate the object from himself … The narcissist is not the self-lover, he is the self-hater. |
CRAP! The birthday, I should have put together a print collage of my pictures of Ailsa Craig, Scotland—with a list of meanings of the name and the strange stories about/shapes of that startling rock in the sea: give her a gift—Sunday she’ll be 14. This would have been something to
do
, not just feel and hide … constructive—even imaginative?
TOO LATE IDIATE
Out with NFT gang Peter, Beth, Ross, Jim a laugh evening carried on blues
May Sunday 19
Ailsa Helen’s Birthday. Fourteen years ago. What was there I could dare give, after nine months of no answer hi
(Note written to myself Sept 14/84, last day of waiting in Athens: Where will I be on this sacred day? The day Joan brought lovely Ailsa into the world; and I cry because it will probably never be spent with the one I love—how prophetic of me)
Don’t dare church.
The Bostonians Paris, Texas
× 2 again
May Monday 20
Pickup to Aspen Creek eat tan on deck water every tiny spruce and walk in endless poplars, new leaves bright green turn over pale singing in the wind did Cree call poplar leaves lady fingers? Sap perfect, make whistles, blow 3 at once—almost make harmony alone
May Wednesday 22
Fly away.
Vancouver
, Uncle Joe lives near Jericho Beach. Sleep on his couch
May Monday 27
Visit Surrey cousin Elaine and husband / my age and already two little screamers.
May Friday 31
On the beach as daily walked around False Creek where are you A I feel your fingers—stop it. Huge rusty ships anchored on the horizon the world waits, poised to act Uncle Joe so good, talks but never pushes
June Thursday 6
Flight Van–Edm Dad says Mom called from Ecuador Miriam and Leo want WEDDING this fall so that’s it then
NFT for
The War Game
after with Jim, Ross, Beth to 9th St. bar money going fast
June Friday 7
Edm. same old same old. The one life one is given—ahhh Velcro trash, tear it open
June Saturday 8
Wrong Move
: Nastas. Kinski film debut at 13! Lucky dogs Wenders, dad Klaus
June Sunday 9
After church go home with Dad and Denn for lunch, catch up with A’s parents’ car, see her shadow through tinted glass shadows only looking for work
June Thursday 13
Paris, Texas
ends at Varscona 49 days/7 weeks talk to Jim/nothing. Visit Joan in her studio at UofA. Magn. colour everywhere, esp. blue talk, such a thoughtful, attractive woman. If only A had her heart perhaps she does, how would I know
June Saturday 15
Joan invites just Denn and me for supper, then we’ll go see A
View to A Kill
, James Bond (R Moore) chasing a microchip
SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
(
3
):
June 15, 1985
Joan’s for supper. Very lovely meal, eat, laugh, eat. Then talk openly with Ailsa while we two do dishes, alone together in the kitchen. She’ll go to Merryville High in September, basic courses, she’s poor in science, likes art,
take one year of gym and that’s it, doesn’t like swimming—bad lessons, when she had long hair the instructor pulled her out of the pool by her ponytail, yuk! Films she likes:
Ghostbusters
(seen 6 times),
Breakfast Club
, she listens to Christian rock on tape, likes Fears for Tears—huh, their first song came from a Jesus story, “suffer little children”—loves clothes, has lots (her breasts have grown slightly, she walks with very straight back). In back seat of the car driving to movie déjà vu of Mainz, but Grant driving and Denn, Colin, A and Gabe are so tight all arms are crossed. No exploring hands. Thighs did touch several times but back off quickly. She does look me straight in the eyes, fearlessly. Skinny Joanne still her #1 friend. After film we drive back and sit in their living room, Grant in single chair, me on couch near window and Joan and Ailsa on couch opposite. Grant puts on quiet strings music, A lifts Joan’s hand and kisses it loudly, smiling. Full lips. She listens to our film talk but Gabe, of course, has to act superior, cut down spy-formula film—A loved it. She goes to the kitchen and brings us coffee, and then disappears to her room, to sleep? Denn and Colin play games in the basement.
On the whole a very pleasant evening, the parents obviously like me, try to be diplomatic. Ailsa comes across as an extremely typical very young teenager with childish traits. She is lovely, more rounded breasts and buttocks, her bare feet perfect and her lower lip so full. She has no driving loves except clothes and having fun—how can I get to know her mind. Please God, I don’t ask to hold her and kiss her—just let us meet again, open
up more, I continuously say the wrong things—she seems a bit like me, we don’t know how to start saying things and keep them going. Please let me be more positive, find good points in bad art, so to be able to talk about something, anything.
JUST REMEMBER Gabe—don’t push it. She’s barely a month over 14 / what were you like then—innocent, mind unshaped—you have lots of time so don’t push and act stupid—as in past. Have to learn to look at her in company she is so lovely
June 16, 1985
Mom home from Quito. In evening already feeling lonely—when will I see A again. I suppose it was smart to take J to
Paris, Texas
—she caught on right away the film’s about loss of communication. Perhaps that was why I was invited over for supper, placed right beside A, was alone to wash dishes with her—And no guts! Not one word about Germany—too scared to spoil arrgggh
Lots of Miriam stories, and Leo. Wedding middle of September at Aspen Creek? Mom & Mir travelled jungle rivers, mountain passes by bus, saw volcanoes and equator / they like meeting the world together, and so curious everything becomes fun for them, even jungle diarrhea. What happened to one-track me?
Talk, good talk—but actually, already lonely right there with her in the kitchen! How dumb is—look her in the eyes boy, now! Red-striped dishcloth. God have mercy—please—let me get that job with the Provincial Film Censor, it would be perfect—I’d see every new film and
have something to talk about. Please let J ask me to house-sit when they go on holidays in July it would be the perfect chance to dream walk through A’s house
Hnnnnn. What would be, for me, the perfect way to live?
June 17, 1985
Well. I look at (in my mind’s eye) A’s family and they are nothing special. Middle-class ordinary. And let’s face it, what I’ve observed is that A is physically beautiful but otherwise nothing at all special either—I’m being very cruel—lousy school marks, Christian (?) rock, clothes clothes—why have I created her (with those incredible green eyes) into this legend? All of us, me in particular, are nothing special / I love her, I love everything about her, the things she likes, does, wears, I love every part of her body I have ever seen
What does one do with love, emotions, tenderness what stops me
As the old joke goes: I refuse to worship a God who creates a pathetic lump like me.
No way
.
To Oleg’s for supper, 6:30
DAILY PLANNER
1985:
June Thursday 20
No Prov. Film Censor Board job—should be 42 not 24.
Apply for unempl. insur.
Out with Beth, Ross, Kathy can’t handle wine any more
June Saturday 22
A, I dream of you beside me in my narrow bed. We are naked. We are both very tender, your arms bring me in, enclose me. Then we lie together, going to sleep. Oh Reality, Reality, where for art thou??
P.M.: At parents with job painting garage door when Grant phones, will I take care of their house while they’re on vacation July 4–10. In background A interjects comments several times—to let me know she’s there? Good—she cares enough to play the same games I do. And I have her parent’s approval to stay in their house, yes! Fun.
Was it? During that last summer, what could Gabriel experience as “fun”? Hal knew he would never know. Personally he remembered nothing—though he sometimes tried—of that July. Was that the hot month he dragged out building the stone retaining walls overlooking the cliff at the cabin? The rocks in his hands such concentrated, heavy, absolute exactly-what-they-are and nothing less. Fitting them together, round granite, flat and breaking sandstone he hauled up from the creek in the pickup or from farm rock piles along the road allowances, selected and fit so carefully leaning against the sheered clay wall of the patio deck ending on the cliff high above the trees and twisted creek water shining between flickering aspen. Lift the rocks with your two hands, place them and they lay, a declaration of solid, unchangeable earth; like Canadian Shield bedrock billions of years … and Gabriel wrote not a word in his diary about that week of “taking care of their house,” July 4–10 1985.
Indeed, not one diary or journal mention of Ailsa from June 22 to August 12: seven weeks and a day.
