Etta and Otto and Russell and James (6 page)

T
here were fifteen girls in Etta’s class at the teachers’ college. They all wore the same burnt orange skirts, pleated like a Scotsman’s kilt. They could choose their own blouses, so long as they were white, and ironed. Some of the girls lived there, in dormitory rooms set above the lecture halls. When they were late, in the mornings, Etta could hear their hurried feet above her head, crescendoing down the stairs. Etta, though, continued to live at home with her parents. It was only a twenty-minute tram ride or a forty-five-minute walk in the mornings and evenings. It was cheaper, living at home, but that’s not why she did it. Etta knew her parents’ house would be too quiet, too still, with both daughters gone.

She was in her second year, of two years, when a junior called Caroline answered the door to a dusty, panting girl from one of the farms. Etta saw her while walking between classes; she looked terrified.

That afternoon, in Elements of Discipline, their lecturer read a notice from Gopherlands school aloud to all fifteen second-years. The sharp white noise of pencils taking down the details and of shortened breath around her prickled Etta’s ears like an itch. A job hadn’t opened up in the area for years. The vast majority of the college’s students graduated, got married, had a child or three, and stayed home kneading bread and singing lullabies for the rest of their lives. After reading the notice, the lecturer placed it on the front corner of his desk for students to examine, if they wished, after class, and continued with his lesson on Sticks and Stones. In her head, Etta counted up to one hundred, then back down again. When she got to
zero she raised her hand, even though no question had been asked. The lecturer noticed her at the end of his phrase, when he looked up from his notes. Yes, Miss Kinnick? he said. The class turned from various directions to look at her.

May I please be excused to go to the bathroom? asked Etta. Her voice was tight with anticipation.

Yes, yes, of course.

The other students, now uninterested, turned back to the front of the class, their books, their own thoughts.

Once the door to the classroom was closed behind her, Etta broke into a run; out of the college, down Creek Lane to Victoria, down Victoria to Main, and then along Main, counting up the numbers: 121, 123, 125, 127, 127A, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 141, and, finally, 143. She caught her breath. She repinned her hair. She wished she had thought to bring a hat. She counted to three and walked into the Civic And Meta-Civic Bureau Office.

I’m here about the position at Gopherlands. Her hands, held together behind her back, shaking. Her face composed, almost stern. Grown-up.

Oh, oh, yes, excellent. You’re from the college?

Yes.

You’re old enough?

Yes. Although Etta didn’t know how old was old enough. She felt old enough.

You can teach with the door closed?

Yes.

Okay, that’s fine then. Good. You’ll have to sign these papers. You’ll have a day to collect your things and move to the tutor house. You’ll start day after tomorrow.

Just like that. Etta signed the papers, shook Willard Godfree’s
hand, and walked out of the office, back onto Main Street. Then she blinked once, twice, and broke into a run back to the college.

After the day’s classes, each of the other fourteen girls went to 143 Main, and each found the same—

Thank you, Teachers, but:

The position has been filled.

Sorry.

W.G.

—note on the door. Some of the most eager also visited the third house on the left on the road into town, but there, on the yellow door, was another copy of the same,

Thank you, Teachers, but:

The position has been filled.

Sorry.

W.G.

6

J
ames liked singing; he was always singing. Coyotes have voices a bit like oboes; they are not unpleasant. Etta would sing along with him sometimes, and sometimes she would just listen. Mostly he sang cowboy songs. Sometimes he also sang hymns or radio songs that he’d learned from dogs, but mostly not, mostly it was cowboy songs:

O bury me not on the lone prairie

Where coyotes howl and the wind blows free

In a narrow grave just six by three—

O bury me not on the lone prairie

Etta was humming along, they were taking small steps, the kind of steps they took in the late afternoon, tired, but directed. The days were getting longer and hotter, the sun now up before five-thirty in the morning and out long past nine at night. Etta kicked a rock. There were more rocks now. They were pulling toward Ontario; James
recognized the smells each time he stopped singing momentarily for a breath. The next time he did, after
O!
, Etta interrupted his song,

Do you think Amos will mind if we don’t show up until morning? she said, stopping suddenly, I’m really tired.

James, who was trotting ahead of Etta, slowed so he was at her side.
I’m sure he won’t mind
, he said.
Let’s stop now, continue in the morning
.

After Etta had fallen asleep but before he curled into a tight ball himself, James dug into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper, careful not to leave deep teeth marks.

You:

it said.

You:

Etta Gloria Kinnick of Deerdale farm. 83 years old in August.

Family:

Marta Gloria Kinnick. Mother. Housewife. (Deceased)

Raymond Peter Kinnick. Father. Editor. (Deceased)

Alma Gabrielle Kinnick. Sister. Nun. (Deceased)

James Peter Kinnick. Nephew. Child. (Never lived)

Otto Vogel. Husband. Soldier/Farmer. (Living)

James tucked the paper, as best he could, under Etta’s arm, for her to find when they woke up again, around five-thirty the next morning.

F
our months earlier, Otto woke up because he ran out of air. Dreaming of water. He sat up and pushed the blankets away like the tide, kicked his feet out. It was still dark, and cold. He felt his way to his robe—warm around him, it hung too long off his arms, too long over his feet, like a bridal gown—and slipped out to the kitchen. He took ginger cookies from a jar in the freezer and sat at the red and starry table pulling himself out of the drowning of his sleep. The huge water and moving sky.

O
tto woke when Etta left the bed. Without her the cold got in, almost immediately, as soon as he inhaled. He listened with eyes closed as she struggled with the fabric of his robe and opened and closed the door. He waited for the sound of water from the bathroom, for her return. He counted to two hundred and fifty, listened, and did it again. Then he got up too.

E
tta was at the kitchen table, in his robe. Etta, said Otto, Etta.

Etta? said Etta. She put down the cookie she had been lifting toward her mouth. She looked at her husband like a ghost, like a mirror.

S
o what shall we do? Otto said the next morning at breakfast, cinnamon buns, oranges.

Maybe I should go away, said Etta. A place for people who forget themselves.

But I remember, said Otto. If I remember and you forget, we can
balance, surely.

Maybe I should go away, said Etta, again. Her hair was white and undone. The piece of it that fell toward her mouth reminded Otto of baby geese. A return to down.

I could hurt someone, she said. The cinnamon bun on her plate a perfect spiral, tucking into itself, away and down. Perfect.

You won’t.

You know I won’t?

I know you won’t.

They ate, for a while, and then Etta said, What will you do today?

Go to Palmer’s, I think. Help out there a bit.

Wear a hat. The sun.

Of course. And you?

Etta had one hand on the table, her left, she spread the fingers flat. Pickles, she said, carrots and garlic and cucumber.

It’s a long time till winter.

But it never really is.

No, I guess it never really is.

R
ussell drove and drove. The dark roads were very quiet. He only saw three other vehicles before Last Mountain Lake, and he didn’t recognize any of them. The windows to his truck were rolled down and the wind made him feel awake and alive. He couldn’t stop smiling. He drove over the Manitoba border just after sunrise, the furthest east he had ever been.

W
hile Russell drove, Otto tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. So he went to the kitchen and closed his eyes and let his finger fall at random onto one of the recipe cards.

DATE SQUARES

(a.k.a. Matrimonial Cake)

He got out the flour, the sugar, the butter.

T
he day after Etta Kinnick’s appearance at Gopherlands, Otto went to meet Russell after school. He had finished giving the cows their drops. Without them their eyes got so dry with dust that the lids stuck together, shut, blinding them. When he put the drops in they cried brown, appreciative tears. They cried and cried, sometimes for hours. It was some time yet until Otto had to supervise dinner’s peeling and chopping, so he had time to walk with Russell. He waited, leaning against the overlapping wood of the school’s siding, along with all the dogs from the various farms that came to meet their masters. He stroked the head of an especially tall golden mixed breed. It was hot, and all the dogs’ tongues hung low and loose out of their dry mouths. Together they all listened to the scraping and gathering of students at the end of their day.

The first one out of the school was Owen. He navigated through the dogs to Otto. Hello, Otto, he said. Missed you today.

Russell was right behind. Otto! he said. This new teacher! This new teacher. . . . Come on, let’s head home now. I want to talk to you, now, away from here a bit. He put a hand on Otto’s shoulder, steered him away.

Okay, okay, said Otto. Let’s go. And then, three steps later, twisting his neck back toward the school, Bye, Owen. See you tomorrow.

Otto, she’s wonderful, said Russell. They were far enough away from the school now, a good hundred meters away. Why didn’t you tell me she was wonderful?

I told you we had a new teacher. I told you she was nice.

Nice isn’t the same as wonderful.

No, I guess not.

I asked so many questions. I’m going to be noticed, Otto. I’m going to read all of the books I can find. I’m going to be the best student she’s had. . . . Otto, don’t you think she’s wonderful?

Otto shrugged. He wasn’t sure, really. Miss Kinnick seemed to be a good teacher. And she had nice calves. But she was a teacher. Their teacher.

I think she’s wonderful, Otto, said Russell. Just that, wonderful.

Shut up, Russell, said Otto. But he was happy. Russell didn’t get excited very often. It was nice to see.

It wasn’t that Otto didn’t know about women, or didn’t like them. He did and he did, he definitely did. At night, trying to fall asleep, his body and mind pulled him between images he’d seen on grainy postcards, and the neighbor when she rode with no saddle, and sweat through printed cotton on women in town on the hottest days, between all that, and the sirens, stomping and shouting on the radio, at night, when his parents didn’t know they all were still awake, still listening. What the noise on the radio meant and where it could lead him, if he let it. Between these two things, he knew that he wanted things quite badly, but still wasn’t exactly sure what.

But, Otto, did you see how she—

Russell, said Otto, interrupting, Miss Kinnick is wonderful, it’s true, yes, and will continue to be, and we can talk about that lots and soon, but, right now, I need your help. I need to steal the radio.

Russell stopped, looked up.

Not for good, just for half an hour or so. I need you to distract Mother so she takes her eyes off of it for just long enough. Just long enough for me to take it and listen properly. Not midnight through floorboards. Really listen. Half an hour. Then I’ll put it right back.

It’s because you want to know about this thing.

Yes.

This thing she doesn’t want us to know.

Yes. But, don’t you? Want to know?

No. Maybe. No, probably not. I trust your mother, Otto.

. . . But, you’ll help me? Still?

Yes, yes of course.

Otto’s mother loved all her children ferociously, and Russell like one of her own, except that she loved Russell just a bit more softly. She knew what her children were made of, she knew they could be handled roughly and would live and learn through it, but Russell was made of something unknown; he could break, or, perhaps, was already a little bit broken. This was why Otto needed his help, specifically. His mother, if she was going to bend at all, would never do it for him, but she might do it for Russell.

The thing was, the radio, made as it was from scrap parts and just the little bits of time Otto’s father could fit between the duties of farm, father, husband, was impressively functional, but lacked certain refinements, such as volume control. If someone in the house was listening, the whole house was listening. It was quieter upstairs, but, still, it slid up through the ceiling, the floorboards, it could be heard. Especially by Otto’s mother, it could be heard. So, what Otto needed was to get his mother out of the house altogether, and, preferably, out of the yard too, for long enough that he could find and hear from the radio whatever it was he was trying to find and hear.

So, how do I do that? said Russell. They were almost home now; the other Vogel students, whom they’d let pass them, were already walking up the drive.

The chickens, said Otto.

The chickens?

Yes. I’ve got a plan.

They were going to put a chicken in a tree. One of the wind-break trees, one near the end of the row, away from the house. Pretend it escaped, flew up there, terrified, and could not get down.

Mother has a way with the chickens. She’s the only one. She’ll understand, she’ll come and help, if you ask her.

So you’re asking me to ask her?

Yes. Please.

Okay. Okay, Otto.

Thank you. But, first, now, we have to get the chicken up the tree.

Because of Russell’s leg, Otto did the climbing. Russell carried the chicken under his coat as nonchalantly as he could from its yard, past the house, down the line of wind-haggard trees to the second-last one, his arms clutching in such a way as to try to minimize, as much as possible, the scratching and pecking damage to his chest and stomach. Otto was already up in the tree.

This animal is not happy, Russell called out and up as he approached. This animal wants to kill me.

It won’t. Just don’t kill it. Don’t squeeze too hard. Don’t suffocate.

I’m not.

Okay.

By this point Russell was standing under the tree, under Otto, whose legs dangled down just above his head.

Okay, said Otto. Pop her out and pass her here.

I
t wasn’t difficult at all for Russell to convince Otto’s mother to leave the house, to come and help the stranded chicken in the tree.

I call it, ma’am, he said, and it just hops up, to a higher branch. But I reckon you could call it down. I reckon it would listen to you.

Of course, Russell, it will. Chickens, children, they’re all the same. Give me one minute and I’ll be out with you.

Russell waited just outside the front door. One minute later, Otto’s mother appeared. She was carrying two bundled blankets. In case we need to catch it, or wrap it up for stress, she said, and strode past him, toward the trees. Once they were ten steps away, Otto, quiet as a fox, slipped into the house and closed the front door behind him.

The radio was a beautiful thing. It was hodgepodge and patched up on the outside, but on the inside it was filled with voices, filled with people and music and ideas from away, from far away. Otto took a breath and turned it on.

And it did nothing.

Otto twisted the dial-in knob all the way around and back again. He turned the whole thing off and back on again.

And it did nothing. Otto looked at the radio and it looked back at him, silent, stony. He didn’t have much time to begin with, and now he had less. He ran his hands over the sides of the radio, but there were no new or unexpected knobs or switches or panels. He carefully pushed his body weight into it, pivoting the machine around, to expose its back. There, on the back, was the compartment his father had fashioned to fit the True-Tone battery. And there, in the compartment, was nothing.

Over by the wind-break trees, Otto’s mother and Russell wrapped an irritated and exhausted chicken in one blanket. In the other, still bundled and held firmly under Otto’s mother’s arm, against her side, was the battery.

D
ammit, said Otto. Dammit dammit dammit.

She’s smart, your mother, said Russell. I told you, she’s smart.

I know she’s smart. Dammit.

You’re lucky the chicken didn’t jump down and kill itself.

Chickens aren’t stupid either, Russell.

They can be.

Not like that. Dammit. Damn! Now what? Nobody else round here has a radio. Only in town. And they lock their doors in town.

Well, said Russell. Some people do.

Lock their doors?

No, have radios.

Which people?

Some people. My aunt and uncle. They have a radio. We have a radio.

Otto stopped walking. They weren’t walking anywhere, just walking. What? he said.
What?
His face got hot, like it had been in the sun too long. Russell! he said. Goddammit. Why didn’t you say?

I trust your mother. She knows how to keep things, kids, alive.

Goddammit, Russell. No one’s gonna die from radio-listening. We’re going to your aunt and uncle’s. Right now.

R
ussell’s aunt and uncle’s place was very different from the Vogels’. Everything was very quiet and breakable, decorated in blue and white. Otto had only been inside once before, when Russell was recovering. It felt then as it did now, like a hospital. Or, the way Otto imagined a hospital would feel, at least. They sat on the floor, in the middle of the living room, and listened to the low, steady voice of the CBC overseas report, looking straight ahead, not at each other, Russell growing colder and colder with each image the radio voice threw out at them, Otto growing hotter and hotter, while Russell’s uncle made them coffee in the next room.

You’re not old enough. They were hurrying back across the field. They were late for dinner help, the sun was setting.

We almost are. We soon will be.

No point thinking about it until then, though.

Planning, Russell, we’ll need to plan. How to tell the family, your aunt and uncle, what we’ll pack.

What you’ll pack.

What we’ll pack. Russell, I’m seventeen in two months, then five more and you are too. I can wait the five months.

You can wait forever, they won’t take me.

Of course they will, Russell, you’re smart. You’re smarter than me.

They won’t. It’s not about smart. You know they won’t.

Otto stopped because Russell had stopped, and was now three steps behind him. But, Russell, he said, if they don’t take you, what will you do?

I’ll stay here, I’ll wait. I’ll go to school. I wouldn’t be worried about me.

Russell, I’d go crazy, staying here.

But I won’t.

Well, we’ll see. What they say.

They’ll say no.

We’ll see. In seven months we’ll see.