Liar (2 page)

China had made her father accept many things that he had found unacceptable. He had expected her to be like her older sister, Patricia, who became a teacher first, married her high school sweetheart second, and then had three children in rapid succession. She lived in Northern Labrador with her engineer husband and was a pillar of the community.

Then came China, daughter number two, an energetic tomboy and troublemaker from the start. She was an indifferent student, artistic, pregnant at seventeen and had her child out of wedlock. She finally married, then divorced the father of her child, and no one had ever been divorced in the family before. Then to make matters worse, China lived in sin with a painter, then with a salesman, and seemingly mocked the sacred bonds of marriage. She sculpted the type of art her father couldn’t understand or even look at, and then the last straw - her daughter, Jane, fell in love with a black man. His great-grandchild, Tina, whom he wanted to be proud of had black blood, although to be technically accurate her blood was as red as his and her skin was a lovely caramel colour, and it was all China’s fault. It wasn’t Tina he was afraid of. It was his own prejudices he had to question and it was a painful exercise at his arthritic age.

As China swiftly sculpted the sweet smelling pine, she pondered her relationship with her parents.
Because I am his daughter and I forgive him for not being perfect. I'm allowed to come home at any time, as long as I park my life outside his front door. He admires my strength and my truth even though I often torture him with it. Dad likes tough people. He just wishes I wasn't also crazy. We obviously don't agree on this. I think I'm the sanest person I know.

I’m never exactly sure how Mom really feels. She often puts a gentle distance between the issue and true acceptance. However, I don't begrudge her this space. It is her method of survival.

An hour later China stopped her feverish carving and looked at the figure in her hand, which somehow closely resembled Sam.
Oh, help
, she thought
, I am really in trouble.

~ ~

One week later, China received a letter by express post, from Sam. Her hands shook as she read:

Dear China,

Letter writing thus far is only a little bit difficult. The weather is nice. Sunny, crisp, cold. My favourite character in literature is Heathcliffe. My other favourites include: strawberries & shortcake, salmon, white wine, Sunday papers, the company of friends, and... a lover from Newfoundland???

Personal information: I was born in Halifax. My mother left when I was five and lived in Edmonton for awhile. I was brought up by my grandparents in the summer and by my father in the winter. My father was white and he died of alcohol poisoning when I was twenty. I divorced my wife about three years ago. We were married for sixteen years. I have a son, Benjamin. He’s studying to be an engineer and we don’t get along. I articled with the firm of Joyce, Bigley & Weinstein in Toronto. I quit two years ago and started my own business.

If I increase the font of this letter I will soon achieve at least one page and the completion of this letter will be at hand. Rather like the cure for celibacy. ‘The solution is at hand.’ I look very much forward to seeing you again.

Love, Sam.”

How sparse,
thought China,
how spare. How very male of him not to reveal anything but a devastating childhood with uncompromising succinctness.

China now had a mission. To get to know Sam, to reveal all that was hidden in those few, powerful clues. She was off and running and wrote him back immediately.

Jan. 24/96

Dear Sam,

You seem to have led a troubled life. I had a very protected, normal childhood. My trouble began when the hormones took over. I got pregnant at seventeen and married at eighteen. My husband and I moved to Toronto for better opportunities. He was a construction worker and we had absolutely nothing in common. After a few years of misery we divorced. He’s now happily re-married (I think) and living in Vancouver.

I then lived briefly with a Russian painter who was, although legally separated from his wife, still desperately in love with her and would show me slides of her whilst drinking many glasses of vodka and eating dry roasted peanuts. I gained ten pounds and left him after four months of misery.

I almost married a Jewish salesman whose favourite reading material was the yellow pages. My daughter and I lived with him and his two crazy teenage sons for two years. His wife once thanked me for taking such good care of her sons. Jacob kept promising me marriage and by the time he was ready to tie the knot, I became undone.

All the above is the condensed version, the highlights (lowlights?) of my romantic life so to speak. I gave up dating two years ago. I’m still not dating you. You can’t call that strange evening with the drunken Bear, a date. We could start dating, although I prefer courting, when I return. One more week. Watch out!

I need a brave in shining feathers to rescue me from my mind. Perhaps you have become my muse. Do muses have to be women? Can a man amuse? I’m having a drink of rum to calm my nerves. I’m also munching on Purity Sweet Bread (a Newfoundland delicacy) with a Thunder Crunch Pickle by President’s Choice. I’m sorry, it’s an interesting name, but they’re too much like Bick’s. The best dills by far are Mrs. Whyte’s, but she’s never heard of Newfoundland.

I’ve got to tell you this. During a brief psychotic episode when I first moved to Toronto and missed Newfoundland terribly, I simply had to have Purity Sweet Bread or die, so I called Mom and asked her to send me a package. There used to be a Newfoundland store in Toronto but the proprietors retired early having amassed a fortune from poor displaced Newfoundlanders looking for hard tack and sweet bread. My God, that’s a fabulous title for a book! I digress.

Anyhoo, having previously sent a box of Christmas gifts to my sister in Labrador, having been told by my mother, with much vehemence, to insure it for $200.00 (you must understand that anything you tell my father must be told with great vehemence), my father also insured the package of Sweet Bread costing approximately $2.00 for $200.00. I agreed with my father. After all, how much is my sanity worth?

I feel a bit calmer now. I think the second drink of rum and the Thunder Crunch Pickle is working and so I come to a full stop.

I remain, yours truly, in breathless anticipation of seeing you again,

China.

~ ~

China arrived at Toronto airport one day after her second letter. Sam picked her up and wasted no time rapidly discovering the curving map of China. After a tortuous journey, Sam’s canoe had happily found a very snug harbour.

China awoke but couldn’t remember sleeping. She remembered a lot of Sam on top, below, on the side, head between her legs, from the back, on top again. Her hips ached from the unaccustomed gymnastics as she shuffled painfully to the bathroom. She ran the bath and sank gratefully into the warm water. She lay like a cloth in the bathtub and gently examined her swollen, and throbbing with overuse, nether regions.

Sam appeared at the bathroom door with his penis fully erect and waving at her.

“There’s no need for that when I’m around,” said Sam grinning lasciviously.

“I was merely examining my genitals in case I need a doctor’s attention,” smiled China.

Sam strutted over to the toilet, turned his back on China and peed rudely and noisily into the toilet.

Oh no,
groaned China inwardly,
why do they all have to be so rude?

Sam climbed into the bath and sat behind China. This wasn’t an easy maneuver considering Sam’s size, the width of China’s hips and the dimensions of the bathtub. He stroked her shoulders and kissed her neck.

“China,” said Sam between nuzzles. “Will you marry me?”

China sat up quickly sloshing water everywhere and leapt out of the bath like a scalded cat. She stood there, staring at Sam, the water dripping off her rosy, round body.

“Was it something I said?” asked Sam uncertainly.

China grabbed a towel and rushed out of the bathroom. Sam followed dripping water all over the floor. He found China sitting cross-legged on the bed. China looked at the dripping Sam, took off her towel and threw it at him.

“You can’t ask me that,” said China nervously.

“Why not?”

“Because you have to mean it,” said China, her eyes filling with tears.

“I do mean it,” said Sam kneeling by the bed. “I love you and I want to marry you.”

“But we don’t know each other well enough,” protested China weakly.

“I love you and you love me. Right?”

“Right. That’s what we said last night in the heat of passion and a bottle of champagne.”

“Are we sober now?”

“Yes,” said China.

“Are we still in love?” asked Sam patiently, kissing China’s toes.

“Yes,” said China dizzily. “I think we are.”

“I rest my case,” said Sam judiciously as he pushed China back onto the pillows.

“Sam,” pleaded China weakly. “Do you think we could take a break and maybe eat some breakfast? I’m really sore and a bit of food might perk me up.”

“On one condition.”

“What condition?”

“You say yes.”

“Yes,” said China softly.

“I love you China,” said Sam and kissed her mouth.

“And I love you Sam,” said China placing nibbling little kisses all over his black, bristling eyebrows, his big nose, and his sensual mouth. “And ...I’ll love you even more if you go out to the corner store and get some bagels while I make coffee.”

China put on her robe and gave Sam the key to her door. She started the coffee and then grabbed her journal to record the momentous event.

Feb. 5/96

Sam asked me to marry him! I can’t believe it. I thought I’d never hear those words again. We hardly know each other but it feels right. I think I finally found a man with a heart as big as mine. He’s an amazing lover! I’m so sore I can barely walk. This is crazy. Crazy and wonderful and scary.

China heard Sam’s key in the door and quickly hid her journal. She toasted the bagels, served the coffee, and she and Sam sat down to a feast of cream cheese and some lox she’d found in the freezer. As China sat down she grimaced.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sam.

“Oh nothing. It’s a normal reaction to years of celibacy, followed by a night of ravishment by a Grimshaw beast.”

“Got some honey?”

“You like honey in your coffee? I think it alters the flavour, but hey, it’s your coffee.”

China went to the kitchen and returned with the honey. Sam grabbed her around the waist and buried his head in her stomach. She pressed him to her and felt tears of relief and gratitude rush to her eyes. It felt so good to be hugged by a man after years of empty arms. The next thing she felt was Sam’s fingers and something cool and sticky stroking her clitoris and labia.

“What are you doing?” protested China.

“Honey is very healing,” explained Sam.

Sam stood up and pushed China down onto her chair. Then he knelt in front of her, opened her robe and her legs and lowered his head to the honey.

“Saliva is also very healing,” said Sam as he flicked his tongue, delicately licking at the honey.

China thought she’d go mad with desire. The honey really did feel good, but Sam’s flicking tongue made her feel even better. Her intense pleasure kept mounting and Sam pulled her down to sit on his erect penis. China gasped with pain and desire and surprised herself by having another orgasm. One night with Sam Eagle and China was starting to think that maybe multiple orgasms would be an everyday occurrence in her life. She would try, with great determination, to get used to it.

Sam left the next day to meet with his partner, Larry, who was working on a child custody case in Northern Quebec. China felt empty, as though he taken most of her with him. She went to the studio co-op in the mornings and accomplished very little. She sleep-walked through her part-time job at the art gallery in the afternoons. In the evenings she went to see Jane and Tina, or had dinner with Sarah and everyone complained that she wasn’t there.

Feb. 8/96

I lie here and dream of his warm, hard penis in my hands, against my belly, waking me, needing me. I feel his hands stroking my legs, my back, shoulders, breasts, loving all of me. His fingers inside the wet, silky me, searching for heat as my hips pump, driving him deeper. I grab his penis and slide him in my cunt and my hips start rocking and Sam thrusts deeper, choking me and the orgasm starts, a tickle, a wave, a terrible urgent need. I cry and call his name and lose my mind and body to his love. And then we slide down, relax, come together back into each other’s arms, kiss, tenderness, whispers, gentle holding, teasing thrustings, and then I feel another wave starting deep, this time faster, almost hurting, it’s too much, it’s total loss and I sob with the pleasure of losing myself to him.

~.~

When Sam returned to Toronto a week later, he and China locked themselves in and only went out for food. Sam more or less moved into China’s apartment when he was in town. He only returned to the apartment he shared with Larry to get more clothing. So began the pattern of passionate reunions, lonely yearnings when they were apart, and countless phone calls.

Sam met Sarah again and they got along like polite oil and water. Their unspoken agreement was to simply tolerate each other for China’s sake. He also met Jane and Tina and charmed them shamelessly with expensive dinners and gifts for Tina. Jane liked Sam and was happy that her mother was in love for the first time in a long time.

~ ~

Sarah tried to talk some sense into China.

“China, you can’t be serious,” Sarah protested. “How can you go and live on a remote island you’ve never even seen?”

“Why not? I can sculpt anywhere. Sam has family responsibilities. His grandmother named him as the next chief of the clan. They’ve been preparing for something called a Thunder Ceremony for a year.”

“What about Jane and Tina?”

“They have their own lives to live. I rarely see them more than once a week. Besides, how many offers of marriage do you think I’ll get at my venerable old age?”

“Well, I’m sure it’s all very romantic and fascinating but I hardly think you’re going to like life on an Indian reserve, especially if Sam travels a lot.”

“I can travel with him, or come back and visit you and the kids if I get lonely. It’s only one hour by plane to Halifax you know.”

“Sounds like a pretty expensive lifestyle to me. Is Sam made of money?”

“I guess he makes a pretty good salary. There aren’t too many aboriginal lawyers around.”

“Well, sweetie, I wish you luck. You’re obviously head over heels in love and it looks good on you. I guess I’m just being an old married cynic. Speaking of marriage, when is it? Where is it?”

“Well, I thought you and I and Jane could get together and work out a small wedding. I think Mom and Dad will come and probably Sam’s mother and maybe his sister, and a few friends. Small and simple. You can be my maid of honour and Tina will be flower girl. How about the first of June?”

~ ~