Five Roses (12 page)

She felt more at ease now that the cabin was dark and no one could see in. While she and Kenny were eating at the table, she'd sensed how easily someone could be standing outside among the trees, spying through the window. Maman had never hung a curtain because she wanted as much light as possible in the cabin. It never occurred to her that a person might sneak through the trees and watch them.

Rose had been thirteen, alone in the cabin, examining her newly swelling nipples in the light from the window, when a furtive movement outside caught her attention. Armand, the neighbour who rented land from Maman, stood under the trees closest to the cabin. Legs braced. The bristle of his moustache. His mouth. He didn't move away, didn't hide that he stood there watching. The glass between them was no barrier. She hugged her arms to her chest and turned her back — but not before she'd felt the rove of his eyes on her skin and seen how the lines of his cheeks deepened.

After the first time, she watched for him watching from the shadows of the trees. Sometimes he was there. Sometimes he wasn't. Sometimes Maman was in the cabin. When Rose was alone, she stood in the window and unbuttoned her shirt. She let him look at what she could tell from his expression he craved to see. His hands hung loose at his sides as she touched her small breasts. He watched, then pivoted and strode off so quickly she worried she'd frightened him. She couldn't remember if she'd left the cabin to run after him, deeper into the woods, or if he'd coaxed her outside.

When Rose was younger, she sometimes saw Armand waiting in the car in the IGA parking lot while his wife did the shopping. She used to wonder if he was Maman's boyfriend, because he was the only man who ever came to their cabin. For a while she even thought he might be her father. But he never even glanced her way. He stood at the door to talk to Maman about wood and land and planting corn.

Later, when Rose began meeting him in the woods, she tortured herself imagining that he used to touch Maman the way he did her. That they'd lain on the same grey blanket. That Maman, too, had opened her legs or crouched beneath him — until she was pregnant
with Rose.
It couldn't be true! A man would betray his wife but he wouldn't desire his own daughter. Would he?
Would
he?

Maman had had a baby in Montreal. Rose's father must be there. Though Rose had also heard that Maman hadn't been in Montreal long enough to have had a baby. She must have been pregnant when she left Rivière-des-Pins.

Rose couldn't bear to think of Armand with Maman, or that she might be his daughter. Except that, if she were, then that was a bond that held him in a way nothing else could. Even if he'd done
this
and
this
and
this
with his wife or Maman, his pleasure wasn't as deep as with Rose because Rose was his very flesh.

Rose squirmed her head into Maman's thin pillow. Armand was so long ago. The last time she'd seen him he moved liked an old man with a sore back. Hard to imagine that he'd ever kneeled between her thighs. Still, after Maman died and Rose was alone, she'd thought he might return. In the silence of the cabin, grieving for Maman, she'd waited. When weeks passed and he didn't come, she decided to leave — as Maman had. To go to Montreal.

In the hush of the night Rose woke again. She lay, listening to detect any sounds from outside. Was that a mourning dove? Armand used to call with a mourning dove's long, yearning coo to let her know he was waiting. She sat up, convinced he stood outside in the dark, watching the window. She could feel his longing envelop the cabin, as commanding as ever.

The iron bedstead rasped and groaned as she eased her legs from under the blanket. She crept down the stairs and stepped softly to the window. She squinted, then widened her eyes, staring into the dark haze of trees. Their thick shadows.

Behind her, embers in the stove crumbled. A man breathed in sleep. Her foot touched his jeans on the floor. She turned to the sofa, stooped, and brushed her fingers down the ribbed weave of the blanket, down his stomach to his sex. Armand had shown her how to caress him, sliding his hand around hers on his penis.

Up and down, up and down. It worked even through the heavy blanket. She felt the animal thickening, and slid her hand under the blanket into his underpants.

His breathing changed. She jerked the blanket away and kicked off her pyjama bottoms to straddle him.

“Rose?” he croaked.

“Shh!” She batted his hand away, rocking into him hard when — already? — he gasped a light, feathery cry. She ground her teeth, her hunger still bottled, and fumbled off him.

“Rose —”

“Quiet!” she cried harshly, snatching her pajamas from the floor and sprinting up the stairs.

Rose surfaced once from dreams when it was still dark. Already the birds were calling to each other about the kingdom of their nests, the fat insects they would snap from the air, the clouds the sun would send to decorate the sky for them. Strident, confident melodies.

She woke again to the round metal bars of the bedstead outlined by the angle of light from the stairway. She was immediately alert to danger, but didn't yet know why. Then she heard the rumble of voices outside. She recognized the cadence of Kenny's, but who was he talking to?

She pulled on her T-shirt and capris, and tiptoed to the stairs. The air in the cabin was chilly. Kenny hadn't made a fire, though he'd folded his sheet and blanket, and set the pillow on top. She pressed her forehead to the window but still couldn't see. She tugged the doorknob softly, but the wood squeaked and the voices stopped.

Jerome. Of course. Beside him stood Kenny, his hair even more like a woodpecker's. Didn't he ever touch it or pat it down? He lifted a mug toward her, though his glance slid away. “Jerome brought us coffee.”

“Mom sent it. We didn't know what you had out here since you weren't expecting to spend the night.”

We
. Did that include Armand? Husband and wife discussing Rose in the cabin. Rose and her supposed boyfriend from the city.

“There's bagels too.” Jerome nodded at the Thermos and bag propped on the fieldstones that bordered Maman's small flower bed. Greenery had snaked as best it could through last year's tangled stalks, which no one had cleared away. Jerome and Kenny, who still didn't look at her, turned back to the loom that blocked the doorway of the shed.

Jerome's mom had even included plastic camping mugs. Rose sipped the coffee, grateful for its milky warmth, though it was too sweet. The bagels were all in a row in a plastic bag. Grocery-store bagels.

Last winter she and Yushi were coming home from a walk on the mountain. It was cold and snowy, which Yushi said was perfect bagel weather. Rose had never had a bagel. They waited in line beside refrigerators packed with jars and large, flat packages. Lox, Yushi said. Rose recognized the smell of bread baking in a wood fire. A man in a turban slid a long paddle into the oven to scoop out hot rings of dough he flipped into a bin. Yushi asked for six black, and the woman tumbled fresh, seed-encrusted bagels into a paper bag.

“Rose,” Jerome called, “why don't we undo the bolts?”

“They won't. I tried.”

“Got any machine oil? Or just oil.”

She headed to the cabin, not sure if there was oil, then remembered the can Maman kept with the tools. “In the shed,” she said. “On the shelf on the right. By the hammer.”

Kenny rummaged about inside. “Found it!” He and Jerome bent over the loom.

“This'll do it. Just a question of …”

“Yeah. Give it a minute.”

“Grease up the works.”

Rose didn't want to remember what had happened in the night. Nor, from the way he was acting, did Kenny. She walked over to the chopping stump and sat with her coffee and grocery-store bagel. She wondered if Jerome knew that a real bagel tasted a lot better than this. She hoped he'd seen that Kenny had slept on the sofa. Alone.

“Hey, Rose, it's working!” Kenny sounded more like himself.

“Grab that part,” Jerome cautioned.

She watched the two men ease the wooden structure apart. Above her, pine branches swept the morning breeze gently. A chickadee flew to a branch and cocked its head at her. There were only a few polka-dot poppy seeds embedded in the shiny dough. She scraped a fingernail to pick loose the seeds, then crumbled a bit of bagel, and held out her palm.

The chickadee darted to another branch. Not wanting the men to overhear, Rose whispered the singsong call. “Chickadee-dee-dee-dee.” She lifted her arm higher toward the bird. “Chickadee-dee-dee-dee.”

The bird fluttered from the branch. The weightless pincer-grip of its skinny claws gripped the fleshy edge of her palm. The jab of its beak. She wondered if chickadees in Montreal would come if she called them. Here was something she could show Yushi.

Monday morning, as Maddy coasted across the bridge to the market, she saw Yushi's green bike and Yushi sitting nearby on a bench, knees splayed. Was she waiting for
her
? Maddy felt a happy prick of surprise. She liked Yushi, but up until now hadn't been sure whether Yushi singled her out from the others who also worked at the patisserie.

Maddy swung off her bike. “Got your bike fixed already?”

“I wish. I worked this weekend, remember? I wheeled it over here yesterday because it's too far to get all the way home, but I don't know where to get it fixed around here.” Yushi sounded indifferent, but her expression, considering her bike, was glum.

“There's a great place.” Maddy waved east. “They're cheap and I trust them. I can take you.”

Yushi peered at the buildings that lined the canal, the trusses of the Charlevoix Bridge, the skyline of silos. The gel in her hair gleamed in the sunlight.

“I can take you,” Maddy repeated. And after they went to the bike shop, maybe she could invite Yushi back to her place for supper.

“Okay. But not today, I've got something after work. How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow's good.” Maddy tried to sound as casual as Yushi. She felt she'd scored a point — like taming a wild creature — and didn't want to scare her off.

“I'd better get in,” Yushi sighed. “I'll bet Pettypoo's waiting with a stopwatch in hand.”

That afternoon, before Maddy left the market, she bought eggplants, tomatoes, mushrooms, and zucchini to make ratatouille. That way, supper tomorrow would be ready if Yushi agreed to come. At Pierre-Paul's stall she saw his wife, a big-shouldered blonde, easing a basket of strawberries into a bag for a customer. Pierre-Paul gave Maddy a discreet nod she ignored. If he couldn't be friendly in front of his wife, forget it.

She cycled past her usual exit, heading toward Griffintown. She wanted to make sure her bike repair place hadn't closed. It wasn't a shop, only the open steel doors of an abandoned warehouse, staffed by a few ad hoc guys who were handy with a bike wrench.

The man with the bushy red ponytail who'd tuned her bike in the spring was leaning against the sunlit brick. She smelled the joint before she saw his cupped hand. She cruised to a stop. “Hi. Are you here tomorrow?”

His eyes pondered her wheels, brake pads, cables, handlebars.

“Not for my bike. My friend's broke — something with the pedals.”

“Pedals …” He shifted against the brick. “Gotta see it.”

“We'll come tomorrow.”

She pushed off from the curb and cycled home along Wellington, which was faster than heading back up to the canal. In the Pointe, A to E could be shorter than A to B. The streets spoked willy-nilly off each other. Maddy imagined that once upon a time they'd been farmers' paths skirting marshes, aimed at stables, pastures, home, the church. Now they were paved and had street signs. St-Patrick, Mullins, Sébastopol, Bourgeoys — which was pronounced
Bourgeois
in French and
Burgess
in English.

She turned down her alley and saw Frédéric on a ladder, reaching across his back fence. She slowed and swung off her bike. “Hi! How did the move go?”

“Fine, thanks. We're still upside-down in the house. I thought I'd try some yardwork for a change. Get some fresh air.”

Maddy couldn't tell what he was doing, with his arms poked deep into the vines that grew in profusion whether they were helped along or not.

The gate scraped open. “Fred —” Fara stopped when she saw Maddy. “Hi.”

“Congratulations,” Maddy said. “You moved in.”

“Trying to.” Fara rolled her eyes. And to Frédéric, “Can you bring some of those boxes that I marked ‘kitchen' into the kitchen? The movers left them in the front room.”

He climbed down the ladder and walked through the gate Fara let slap behind him. She explained, “I pulled my back. Talk about timing. Did Frédéric ask if your boyfriend has a —”

“No boyfriend,” Maddy said.

“Sorry. I saw two men going into your house.”

“They're tenants.”

“Do either of them have a drill? Frédéric's stopped working.”

“I doubt it, but I can ask.”

“The people here …”

Why did Fara say
here
as if she'd moved to a land overrun by troglodytes? “What about them?”

“Do they stand outside your fence and stare at your house? Is that normal? I'm used to living in an apartment four floors up. I like to know I'm alone at home when I'm alone at home.”

Maddy had seen Ben only once, but how often had he come? He didn't go into the yard, did he? She shook her head. “Must be one of the guys from the rooming house at the corner. They're harmless, don't worry — except sometimes they take a leak in the alley. I yell at them when I catch them.”

Fara grimaced.

“Yeah, I know.” If Maddy saw Ben again, she would talk to him.

The gate creaked and Frédéric stepped out. “There were only two boxes.”

“There should be more.”

“Not in the front room.” He climbed his ladder again.

Maddy wasn't sure if they were arguing and didn't want to get pulled in as a witness. “Bye then. Good luck!” She rolled her bike to her gate.

From her yard, she heard the stomp of Fara's feet on the deck. Frédéric's silence.

She unlocked her back door, set the vegetables on the counter, and trudged upstairs, unbuttoning her shirt to change into a tank top. She wondered why Ben — if it was him — was hanging around the house. She remembered what Fara said the other day when she'd told her about Xavier's suicide. She asked who'd found him.

What a horror story, coming home and kicking off your shoes, looking up, and … hullo? Was that a body hanging in the hallway? What had it felt like to cut him down? Grabbing scissors or a knife to saw the rope, holding the weight of his slack body close. Maddy shuddered.

Fara's question had shifted the focus. Maddy saw what she meant now. Once Xavier had killed himself, he was dead. Story over. Ben was the one who had to go on living with the memory of finding his brother — the kind of memory that crept like a festering disease through the gut. Maddy knew it wasn't ghosts that haunted people. It was memories.

Bronislav stood at the kitchen counter, eating a wedge of bread smeared with
cretons.
Among Québécois who'd grown up with it, the ground pork fat and onion spread was a favourite. Maddy's mother used to make a Polish version called
szmalec
— pork drippings mixed with chopped fat and crackling. From Bronislav's thoughtful chewing, Maddy guessed there was a Russian version, too.

“Hey, Bronislav. What's up?”

He scrunched his eyebrows. “Nothing is up.”

“What do you mean?”

He gestured at the empty plastic container on the counter. She hoped he would throw it in the recycling bin. She hoped he would rinse it first. She hoped … whatever was reasonable to hope when you allowed strangers to share your living space.

“No more
cretons
?” she guessed.

He shook his head. “I am living.”

“Living?”

“Living,” he confirmed. “In two weeks.”

“Ah, you're leaving. And Andrei?”

“Yes.” Bronislav's truncated English served the purpose.

“Are the two of you renting an apartment?” An apartment would be a step up from rooms. After that, a washing machine, a car, a house. Her parents had left their families and homes — all they'd ever known — to come to Canada to climb the rungs of Western opportunity.

Bronislav looked sour. “In Gatineau.”

“Why Gatineau?”

“Our job is moving.”

“You don't want to live in Gatineau?”

“We like Montreal.”

“Can you change jobs?”

He shook his head.

She wondered if he didn't want to look for a new job or if he was only allowed to stay in Canada as long as he worked at that particular job. Immigration was more complicated now than in the 1950s when her parents had come.

“But you …” He wrinkled his brow.

“It's okay. I'll get someone else. But I'll miss the two of you.” They'd been good tenants, mostly gone from the house, working double shifts, keeping to themselves.

“Yes.”

Was he agreeing that she would miss them or was he saying they would miss her, too? He set his knife in the sink and tossed the empty container in the recycling bin.

“Please rinse it or it smells.” And at his puzzled look, “Never mind.” She waited until he left and rinsed it herself. Dropped it back on a sheaf of flyers, a flattened box of rooibos tea.

She didn't actually need to rent out rooms. She'd long ago paid off the mortgage and didn't have expensive tastes, but the house was too large for one person. Space yawned around her. When she was alone too long, she began to hear feet on the stairs. The pluck of guitar strings. She remembered the kids who used to live here, sprawled on sleeping bags, lighting joints off candles, barefoot in long skirts … those hazy weeks when she'd let Stilt convince her that losing the baby was a solution. Hey, he'd crooned, you're only sixteen. What do you want with a baby?

At sixteen, no, she hadn't wanted a baby. She'd had no idea what to do with her, why the baby mewled and cried when she'd just been fed, how to make her stop. She'd thought of leaving her under a tree in the park and hoping someone kind would take her. She'd squeezed a pillow between her fists, daring herself to stop the crying once and for all. She'd felt so overwhelmed by despair and helplessness. What was she to do with a bawling, stinking baby? Her parents spat words at her —
kurwa
,
dziwka
,
flejtuch
— words she'd never heard before but knew were ugly. Was this why they'd crossed the ocean? For this shame she'd brought upon them? Let her take her bastard child and go find the father.

But then, when the baby was stolen and she told her parents the most likely story she could think of — that she'd given her up for adoption — her father walloped her so hard across the head that he knocked her to the floor. Her mother wailed, How could you? How could you? Your own child! Your own blood! Her father made as if to kick her but kicked a cupboard instead. Her mother kept shouting, her voice strained and high. In the doorway, Maddy saw her brother's terrified face.

Her parents brought the priest to force her to say where she'd taken the baby, but he'd already damned her when he saw her big belly and she refused to go to confession. Let him damn her again. She clenched her teeth, feeling the pain of the bruise on her face. It was too late now to tell the truth.

For her parents, accustomed to hiding inside ignorance, the silence closed again. They acted as if nothing had happened. They never spoke of it. But they also didn't encourage their Polish friends to bring their sons to visit as they'd used to. Maddy was no longer a nice girl.

Only she herself — and the crazy woman with the braid — knew that Maddy had once had a baby. And perhaps her brother, though in all the years since, he'd never mentioned it.

Yushi gazed from the hallway into the double front room then up the broad stairway. She'd already had a tour of the backyard and the kitchen. “And this whole house is yours?”

“All mine.” Maddy waved for Yushi to precede her up the stairs, where there were more rooms and a skylight in the hallway to brighten the core of the house, even on gloomy days. In her bedroom, the large sash window looked onto the leafy branches of a beech tree, the brick house fronts across the street, and above the long, carved row of their cornices, the sky. She'd had the foresight to put away the clothes that were usually heaped on the settee.

Yushi walked to the window. “No offence, but how did you afford a house bagging croissants
?
Did you rob a bank?”

Maddy sat on the bed. “I inherited some money when my parents passed away.”

“Both of them?”

“Years ago. My father had pancreatic cancer. He went fast. And then my mother, four months later.”

Yushi picked up one of the mussel shells scattered along the window ledge. Mementos of a vacation in the Gaspé. “Your mum followed him.”

Maddy was surprised at such a romantic interpretation from Yushi. Nor did she believe it — her stodgy mother pining for her gloomy husband. “She had an aneurysm. She'd had it for a while. No one knew. It could have ruptured before he died.”

“But she let him go first.”

Again Maddy arched her eyebrows. “I think it just happened that way. I mean … okay, she didn't know what to do with herself once she didn't have him to take care of anymore. I tried to get her to go with the other Polish ladies to Goplana for a slice of poppyseed roll, but she wouldn't. She went to church and she prayed. Or she sat in her chair with her rosary.” Maddy mimed how her mother sat with her fist closed with the rosary wrapped around it. “My brother and I thought she was depressed. We assumed it would pass. It wasn't like our parents were happy together. Then her aneur-ysm burst.”

Yushi was stroking her thumb along the water-worn edge of the shell. She'd turned while Maddy talked, a slim figure in silhouette against the light from outside. “Do you feel guilty?”

“About them dying? Why should I feel guilty?” Maddy could have felt guilty about the fiasco of her pregnancy, but Yushi didn't know about that. And over the years, she'd grown to feel that her parents had failed her as much as she'd failed them.

Yushi tilted her head. “I don't know. Sometimes …” But she didn't continue. She set the shell on the ledge again. “So you got a big inheritance.”

“Hardly a big one — but enough to make a down payment. Houses in the Pointe were really cheap back then.”