Mercy (11 page)

“There you are.” Vera struggles to raise herself up on the pillow. “Come here.”

Mathilda balances her tray on one hand, drawing the door closed behind her. “Don’t try and talk, Aunt,” she says gently. “You need your strength.”

“What for? To die?”

“Hush.”

“I won’t hush, I’ll have plenty of quiet soon enough.” She hooks a finger into the pocket of Mathilda’s apron. “I made myself an old maid for him, is that what you think?”

“No. No, Aunt.”

“Well, it wasn’t like that. He was God’s territory, all right, but I set up house in a little corner of him all the same. Like a squatter,” she says giddily, then sinks back into her pillow, spent.

A squatter? Mathilda pictures her aunt sitting neatly, almost daintily, in her chair before the fire, Father Rock pacing close with a fistful of pages, pausing now and then to mumble a line aloud, or to shove a scribbled passage between Vera’s gaze and the lacework in her lap. If Vera was a squatter, what did that make Mathilda—kneeling at the edge of the rug with the dogs splayed out between her and the hearth, or bent over her schoolbooks at the kitchen table, or staring holes in the blue rose wallpaper of her tiny room?

“I knew it was in there.” Vera’s voice makes her jump. “I’ve been having the pains for more than a year.”

Mathilda sets down the tray. “You knew?” She feels for the chair back and sits down hard.

Vera nods. “At first I thought it was my sin. You know, loving him—impurely for all those years. Who knows, maybe it is.”

“No!” The protest leaps from Mathilda’s mouth, startling them both. “I mean, you’re not—you’re a good woman.”

“Maybe.” Vera smiles thinly. “Anyway, whatever I thought, I fought it. Gritted my teeth when it flared up and forgot it the moment it settled down.” She pauses, her voice hollow when she speaks again. “I gave in to it when he died.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said, I gave in. More than that, I egged it on. When the pain came, I opened the gates and let it run. I’d lie in bed at night stroking where I thought the tumour might be.” She lifts her eyes to meet Mathilda’s horrified gaze. “It’s true. I talked to it, still do.
Grow.”
She pats her distended belly. “Come on, you little bastard, grow.”

Morphine’s softened the housekeeper—she looks up without a trace of hostility as August utters the entrance blessing and steps awkwardly into her room. Mathilda turns on her chair, watching him steadily in the vanity mirror.

“Leave us alone now,” the housekeeper says mildly.

“Yes, Aunt.” Mathilda rises, passing close by August on her way out the door.

“That’s not necessary,” he blurts. “I mean, family are welcome.”

But the housekeeper waves her chicken-foot hand. “Go on.”

Repeated visits haven’t steeled him to the smell. The sound of the door closing fills him with an acute and irrational dread, as though he’s just been sealed into a crypt. After a moment’s ignoble hesitation, he pushes the feeling aside and takes a lunging step toward the bed. He hurriedly arranges the Blessed Sacrament and the oil of extreme unction on the night table, then mumbles his way around the little room, shaking droplets of holy water on the sick woman’s belongings while avoiding her gaze.

Though her face remains placid throughout the following series of prayers, he can’t help but feel she’s waiting him out, uttering her responses by rote. Sure enough, her head bobs eagerly when he pauses after the last amen. She looks up at him through glittery eyes and rushes headlong into the sacrament of penance.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned.” She hesitates, and August bows his head politely. “It’s been—well, decades since my last real confession—”

He looks up sharply in time to catch the tail end of a twitchy little smile.

“—and since that time I accuse myself of these sins.” She takes a long, sucking breath. “I loved,” she says finally, “and I didn’t do a thing about it.”

August nods, dumbfounded. “Continue, my child.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Only—” Her breath quickens. “Only there’s something I wanted to ask you, Father.”

“Yes?”

“After we die—in heaven, I mean—are we the same?”

“The same?” He gathers his wits. “Well, death is the beginning of our true life, a life infinitely richer than that which we know on this earth.” He shoots a glance at her expectant face. “In heaven,” he continues, “God shows Himself clearly to those who are blessed—”

“Yes, yes,” she interrupts, suddenly fretful, “but what about
us?
Are we changed? Will we know each other? Will we know our—loved ones when we meet?”

“Oh. Well—”

“The thing is, Father, we never kissed.” She kneads a loose fistful of flannel sheet. “Do you think maybe, in heaven, I could kiss him?”

“Kiss him?” August draws back. “I shouldn’t think so,” he stammers. “Love is
—different
in heaven.”

“Different?”

“More spiritual, selfless. You won’t have the same—desires.”

“I won’t want to kiss him?” she asks, her voice forlorn.

“Well, yes,” August replies feebly. “I mean, no, you won’t.”

The housekeeper closes her eyes. “No,” she says quietly. “That can’t be right.”

T
homas takes to watching his wife leave. He feigns sleep when she rises, listens to her move about the kitchen beneath him, then hurries to the window in time to watch her emerge from the back door. She walks slowly down the lane, her gait languorous, a maddening lilt and sway.
Waltzing Mathilda
, one of the packers at the slaughterhouse used to sing. Thomas’s eyes follow her fine heels like dogs.

It’s not normal. She’s his wife, dammit, and every night she turns rubbery and cold, like a white length of tripe in their bed.

Take her
. The thought speaks aloud.
It’s your right
.

Suddenly he feels warm, a little feverish. Then clammy. He steps back shakily from the pane.

If only she’d eat a little meat. Flesh feeds flesh, fires up the blood, gives the body its mortal heat. Just think of those Eskimos—nothing but seal and whale and bear, and look at them, the buggers live in snow houses, they’re little furnaces, every one.

He’ll have to work on it, keep at her—nothing forceful, just a gentle, relentless push. After all, it’s nearly three months now, and he’s had nothing but a dry kiss on the cheek.

Three months makes an anniversary of sorts, their first quarter-year. He could make dinner, insist on doing everything himself—close the shop early, lay out candles and wine. He flushes warmly at the thought of serving her. She’s relaxed, maybe even a little tipsy.
You’re spoiling me
, she purrs, smiling like a huntress and digging in.

He’ll make something really special, impossible to resist. Crown roast. Lamb? No, even better—veal. He grins wildly. He’ll make a real show of it. Pile up the potatoes and call her his queen.

Castor’s vision of the housekeeper’s niece is fleeting, his eye resting only briefly in a green-swirl aggie lost in the grass. It’s night, and she’s down on her knees in the lane behind her husband’s shop, arranging sticks and dried leaves in a little pyre. She sets a match to it, making herself lovely in its sudden licking glow. Castor’s pulse quickens at the light on her throat. He feels a terrible urge to gather her red hair in his hands and preserve it from the threat of the flame.

He returns unwillingly to his body, sprawled in its armchair beside a badly smoking lamp. It’s eerie, the way his eye so often seeks a fire. As though it too remembers, and is determined he should never forget.

The Roseville house was an old clapboard tower half a mile outside town, far from his daddy’s white family on the hill. John Wylie had lost both legs from the knees down out East on the ships before coming home to Manitoba to
marry the girl he’d always loved. The fact that Mary Lariviere was the finest looking woman in Roseville did nothing to change the purity of her blood.
Squawfucker
. Some said it to Wylie’s face, others behind his back out of respect to his stumps.

The bedrooms in that old house were on the second floor, Wylie having insisted that was where bedrooms belonged. As soon as he was big enough, Castor helped his mother carry her crippled husband up the narrow stairs.

Castor was fifteen the night it happened, old enough to have hauled Wylie up to bed on his own. The engine was what woke him. By the time he’d shaken the sleep from his head and stumbled to the open window, three men were dragging a large wooden box from the bed of a truck. They hunkered down around it and there came a flickering, as though all three were lighting cigarettes at once. As Castor turned to go wake his parents, a terrible squealing arose from below. He spun back to the casement, saw the men stagger backwards as the crate burst open in flames.

Fire shot in all directions, running crazy zigzags through the grass. At first Castor thought they were gas trails, but then one of the burning strips leapt into the air, showing itself to be alive. Several of the flaming creatures—
weasels
?—tore into the dead lilacs that were crumpled like newspaper around the house. Castor’s feet took root. He covered his eyes. Heard drunken laughter and spinning tires, the growl of the truck’s escape.

The door flew open behind him. His mother was wearing one of Wylie’s undershirts and nothing else. Already Castor could see smoke curling up behind her, hear a devouring rush from below.

“Jump!” she yelled. “Jump for the tree!” And she disappeared into the thickening smoke. He stood motionless, whimpering. She was back in a heartbeat, the baby in her arms. “Jump, Castor!” She rushed at him.

“But what about—”

“Jump!” she screamed. “NOW!”

He scrambled up onto the sill, felt her palm at the small of his back, and sprang. The elm was like a giant leaf pile laced with sticks. It cut and battered him as it broke his fall.

“Castor!” His mother stood above him at the window, backlit by the terrible blaze. Her face was savage. She held the baby out like a gift, and Castor struggled to his feet, extending his bloodied arms. He braced himself. And then she did it—shut her eyes and let her month-old baby fall.

He took the shock of it into his body, staggering forward on impact, twisting violently to put himself between little Renny and the ground. He hit hard, his head bouncing so the world around him wavered and went dark.

When he came to, Renny was squalling on his chest amid a shower of sparks. Behind them, the house let out a deafening roar. Stunned as he was, Castor knew what he had to do. Keep hold of his baby brother, get up on his feet, and run.

Mathilda’s inky eyes have sunk deep into her skull in search of sleep. She’s been up all night, trying everything she could think of to rid herself of the little red book. After endless aborted attempts at ripping it page from page, she stole out to drown it in the back ditch. Unable to bring herself to
submerge it, she built a small fire and let the book dangle, crying out at the last second and snatching it back.

It nestles in its customary corner of her bosom now, as once again she brings up the rear of the confession line. She shuffles forward like a sleepwalker, sinking heavily to the kneeler when it’s finally her turn. Bowing her head, she remains silent for as long as it takes the last few penitents to leave, then unearths the book, rattles her matchbox like a fetish and begins slowly to read.

“ ‘Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun—’ “She pauses for as long as the flame will allow. “ ‘—and terrible as an army with banners?’ ”

She moves quickly in the sudden gloom. Pries out the moulding, finds the two screw heads with her fingers and twists. Vera had it right—in moments the screws bounce off the kneeler and roll away. Mathilda lifts out the screen. She can just make him out, drawn back in terror to the corner of his box. Her fingers move methodically, slipping buttons from holes, reaching back to release hooks from their eyes. She scratches a match to life and gives him a good long look. When the light dies, she lifts her bare breast and holds it to the open frame. At first nothing but the faintest of scrambling sounds. Then his mouth. It fumbles for a moment, discovers her budding nipple, and latches on.

It never occurs to Thomas, not once, not even a knock on the back door of his brain. The thin-lipped, high-stepping priest? A stick man. An old man really, too
intent, too particular for his years. Thomas feels sorry for him—another faggot rolled up in the cloth.

No, if anything it’s the Church. Moderation is best in all things, and in religion most of all. It gives him the willies, truth be told, all that smoke and mirrors, and the poor sap rambling on in some old girl’s nightie. The building, too. Those gory windows, the way it hulks over its dead end, looking down on all the sinners of the town.

St. Mary
Immaculate
. Mathilda turned woman there, with nobody to guide her but a spinster aunt. Before that a gaggle of nuns. Thomas shakes his head. No wonder she doesn’t know what she’s about.

He has the table laid out fine—a snowy cloth, the good dishes, even a fistful of flowers from the back lane. The wine is icy. He’s read how you can get away with white when it’s veal—not that either of them would know the difference. Still, he’d flinched at the thought of serving red.

She’s late getting home. “How dirty can the place get?” he mutters, then turns to the oven to fret over his masterpiece. It’s looking a little dry. He lowers the dial to
warm
and turns again to the window, debating whether he should baste it again.

She’s coming. Even dragging her heels in the dust, Mathilda manages a slim-hipped sway. Thomas runs to the stove, transfers serving dishes to the table, lifts the dripping crown roast onto its white and waiting plate. Her hard shoes on the back stairs. His heart pounds. He sits. Then stands. She walks in to find him somewhere in between.