Transgression (28 page)

“You were with each other through the war?”

“Until the end.”

“Were you in Rouen?”

“No. Why?”

“Was Johnny?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I just heard there were a lot of Canadian soldiers there. That’s all. Nothing.”

“The thing you have to know about him, Adele,” Alex seemed to take a deep breath, “he lived through twenty-four hours of hell. Twenty-four hours under fire. Direct artillery bombardment.” He took another deep breath. “We both did. Do you know how we survived?”

“No.”

“By crawling under the corpses of our friends and staying there for twenty-four hours.”

Adele expected to see him begin to shake but he didn’t. She covered him up with the eiderdown. “I will never ask you again,” she said.

That Sunday night, despite the tobogganing fiasco, Alex decided it would be a good idea to try skating on the river. Adele just had to remember to dress more warmly this time. Most of his friends were there, including Johnny Watson and his girlfriend.

Adele waited until Johnny turned those dark eyes of his on her, and when he did she gave him a look that would split a stone. He turned away and stayed his distance.

Some of the men were busy building a roaring fire in an iron barrel. The women were already gliding around over the ice. They disappeared into the dark, came back into the firelight, disappeared again.

Alex tied on Adele’s skates and held her up and guided her around and around. It wasn’t as easy as tobogganing. Soon she could feel sweat running down her forehead from under her wool hat. Her ankles began to ache. Ray, who belonged to Nancy and who was a better skater than Alex, took her other arm. They picked up speed. All Adele had to do was keep her skates straight and be swept along through the dark.

“Now you’re officially a Canadian,” Ray said, laughing.

“She was officially a Canadian the first time I laid eyes on her,” Alex said.

“I am a good French woman,” Adele declared. She had no idea why that came out. The air was cold, her eyes were tearing up from the bite of it.

Ray and Alex laughed.

“I can attest to that,” Alex said.

After a while Adele’s feet began to feel numb. Alex took off her skates and rubbed her toes. He rubbed her hands. He rubbed her cheeks. She was sitting on a log by the barrel of fire. Sparks were flying everywhere.

Johnny Watson was still keeping his distance. His tall girlfriend was drunkenly practising pirouettes.

“Let’s go home,” Alex said.

“What will your friends think?”

Alex smiled. “Who cares?”

The wooden bed in their room made a ridiculous amount of noise. Alex had told her the first time they’d made love on it that his father had rigged it up that way to try to get them to move. Adele hadn’t been sure whether he was joking or not. The senior Wellses’ bedroom was at the other end of the hall but Adele knew they could hear every sound.

The Wellses had gone to bed by the time Alex and Adele had arrived back home, and Alex’s veins were bulging out on his forehead trying to make love and restraining himself at the same time. It made Adele want to laugh.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, “don’t worry.”

“All right, I won’t,” Alex said.

The bed began to bang and bang.

Adele woke up to discover Alex wasn’t there. She assumed he’d gone down the hall to the toilet. She lay there waiting for him to return. After a while she turned on the bedside lamp. The clock said three-thirty.

She sat up and listened for any kind of sound. She couldn’t hear anything.

She got up and moved as silently as she could along the hall past her in-laws’ bedroom. She pushed open the door to the toilet. He wasn’t there.

Adele went down to the kitchen. The refrigerator motor was whirring in a dark corner. She walked along the downstairs hall. Light from a street lamp was streaming in through a small window above the front door and casting shadows on the walls.

The front room was empty. So was the dining room. She went back into the kitchen and stared at the cellar door. It was firmly closed.

She looked out the window.

Alex was standing in the driveway in his pyjamas. Adele crossed the room and leaned against the window. He had one hand on the front of his father’s parked car and he was looking off toward the gazebo in the neighbour’s backyard. Random flakes of snow were drifting down. He was in his bare feet.

Adele slipped on her boots and pushed the side door open. She walked along the path to the driveway. When she got close, Alex turned to look at
her. His face was bright red and running with sweat. His eyes were bulging. His pyjama bottoms were soaking wet.

“Get down,” he said.

“Alex, come into the house.”

“Get down!”

“Please!”

Alex turned back to look at the neighbour’s yard. He turned to her. He looked like a man trying to wake up.

Adele began to shiver. “Please, Alex. Please.”

He walked past her and back into the house. Adele followed after him, afraid to touch him or say anything more.

Alex thumped slowly up the stairs, walked down the dark hall and crawled into bed. Adele tugged off his pyjama bottoms and began to dry him off with an extra blanket. She could hear her in-laws’ bedroom door open, she could hear someone creeping down the hall.

“Is everything all right, dear?” Mrs. Wells’s voice sounded frightened on the other side of the door.

“Yes.” Adele turned off the light.

Mrs. Wells seemed to hesitate. Adele wondered if she’d come in to see for herself. After a moment she heard the sound of retreating footsteps and a door closing.

Adele got into bed and put her arm around Alex. She couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, she couldn’t tell whether they were closed or open. His body felt warm. Her body was freezing. Light was beginning to creep in through the window before she could fall asleep. An hour later Alex got up and started to dress for work.

He didn’t say anything about the night before. Adele didn’t know whether it was because he was too ashamed or he couldn’t remember. He pulled on his clothes, had his breakfast and climbed into the cab.

Adele didn’t mention anything to Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Wells didn’t ask her anything. They avoided looking at each other.

Adele went down into the basement and did a load of wash, including Alex’s pyjamas and the blanket. When she came back up the stairs, Mrs. Wells was kneeling on the kitchen counter wiping down the cupboard doors.

“Those pills,” Adele said.

“What pills, dear?”

“The pills you said Alex would not take. Where are they?”

Mrs. Wells stopped working. “He threw them out.”

“He needs them.”

“He won’t take them.”

That afternoon Adele sat in Dr. Jerrison’s small stuffy waiting room with three mothers, their numerous coughing children and several old ladies.

Dr. Jerrison, a very thin man whose glasses sat slightly cock-eyed on the end of his nose, finally ushered Adele into his inner office. She sat down in front of his desk and told him the purpose of her visit. Dr. Jerrison rested his chin on the tips of his fingers as he listened.

“It’s unusual to write a prescription for a patient, in absentia,” he said. “However, since I recall that I had the pleasure of whacking Alex’s bare bottom when he first came into this world, this must give me certain proprietary rights.”

He went to a cabinet, took down a large bottle, and began to measure out a quantity of small yellow pills. “I can name you ten young men in town who should have this prescription filled. I hope Alex doesn’t think he’s the only one this time. If things get worse, let me know.”

“Thank you,” Adele said.

Mrs. Wells was down on her hands and knees waxing the front hall when Adele returned. “Did you get them?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Mrs. Wells began to buff the floor furiously. “I’m not going to tell Gordon a thing.”

Alex was mostly silent at supper that evening. His father was completely silent, his florid face turned blotchy white from some kind of pent-up rage. Adele assumed it was because of Alex’s misadventure the night before. As soon as his parents left to go to a church meeting, Alex got up from the table, walked over to the closet and took out his overcoat.

It was Adele’s night to do the dishes. She was standing by the sink trying to think of something to say to stop him from going off to one of the town’s taverns when he pulled a glossy magazine from the inside pocket of his coat.

“Look at this,” he said, sitting back down at the table.

Adele dried off her hands and leaned over his shoulder.

“Dinnerware,” Alex announced, flipping through a catalogue full of brightly coloured photographs, “Melmac. This stuff’s unbreakable. It’s made of a new material called melamine–it’s the coming thing.”

Adele looked down at pictures of plates and cups and milk and sugar sets all deeply and richly coloured. Some of the larger bowls were asymmetrically shaped in graceful, swooping curves. They were really quite smart.

“Plastic is going to revolutionize the world. We could sell these things in the store. The old man says no, let the department stores sell them.” Alex sounded exasperated. He looked up at Adele. “I was talking to their traveller. Melmac’s already selling like wildfire all over the United States. It’s brand new here.”

Alex walked over to the sink and began to rattle some dishes together. “No more danger of cracked plates. Melmac dinnerware won’t break, chip or fade, it’s as modern as tomorrow and it will last forever.”

“I’ll buy one,” Adele said and wondered if this display of energy and spirit was meant for her benefit, if it was somehow to make up for the previous night.

“I could go out on the road, Adele. I could leave the store.”

“Yes, this is good,” Adele said.

They spent the night sequestered in their bedroom, Alex writing down columns of figures, Adele waiting for the right moment to talk about the pills.

He’d already had a conversation with the traveller about joining the company. The pay to start would be a weekly twenty-dollar draw against five percent of everything sold. They were looking for a representative west of Paris. Woodstock to Windsor, Alex said. He’d be getting in on the ground floor.

“The ground floor?”

“The ground floor of a sure thing,” Alex said.

He continued to work on his figures. “We don’t have a car but that’s not a huge obstacle. I can travel by train for now.”

Adele got up and took the pill bottle out of her sock drawer. She climbed on the bed and handed it to Alex. “You’ll need these,” she said.

Alex stared at the bottle. His muscles began to bunch along his jaw. “Where did you get them?

“Dr. Jerrison.”

“When?”

“Today.”

“You went into Dr. Jerrison’s office, in broad daylight, and asked for some crazy pills?”

“They’re not crazy pills.”

“Jesus Christ, Adele!” He got up so quickly his pen and papers went flying off the bed. “How many people were in his office?”

“One or two.”

“I’m not crazy, Adele! Goddamn it!”

“No. I know you’re not. But to do this work you will have to feel better. That’s all. Those pills will help.”

“They won’t help. I’ll feel like an invalid if I take these pills. I won’t be able to do anything. Vets in hospitals take these things, not me!” Alex tossed the pill bottle back at her. It hit her in the chest and hurt.

Adele picked it up off the bed, opened the top and rolled a few pills into the palm of her hand. “You take two at night, two in the morning and you don’t drink alcohol any more.”

“Is that right?” Alex said, “And who the hell are you?”

Adele got off the bed. She stared at him for a moment. Alex’s eyes looked bloodshot.

“I am your wife.” She held out the pills. Alex didn’t budge. “I am your love,” Adele said.

Alex’s face seemed to break. He looked away.

Adele waited. She knew this was the moment of all moments. This was her life.

Alex held out his hand. She gave him two pills.

“Do you want water?”

Alex tossed the pills into his mouth and swallowed them. “I feel better now.”

Adele smiled. “You will.”

Adele felt transported. She felt like her heart was going to break. She felt grateful to God.

W
inter melted away.

Water trickled across the sidewalks, crows cawed from high up in pine trees and the sun actually felt warm on a person’s face.

It felt warm on Adele’s face, whether hanging up the wash in the backyard of her mother-in-law’s house or on one of her solitary walks through the town. She could feel its invisible fingers warming her blood, touching her heart. She felt extraordinarily happy.

Alex had written the Melmac company in Toronto and they had written back saying that they were very interested in his background in merchandising and that they would be interviewing applicants sometime in May. He should contact them again the first of May.

For Adele the most important thing was that Alex was feeling better. Though he’d had two more episodes of shaking he’d kept on with his pills and he hadn’t gone missing in the middle of the night. And though he still took a drink now and then, and still stopped off after work every once in a while with his friends, particularly Johnny Watson, he was careful not to drink too much. And he began to use condoms.

At first Adele had found it upsetting because his fumbling around with them and his boyish look of concentration putting them on had reminded her of Manfred, but she knew why he was doing it. He still didn’t feel well enough to have a child, but at least he was feeling well enough now to do something about it. All Alex had said the first time, sitting on the edge of the bed and not really looking at her, was “Just for the time being.”

In France and now in Canada Adele had thought it was a miracle that she hadn’t become pregnant. And then she’d begun to worry about it. And then she’d tried to put it out of her mind. It was a good thing not to bring life into this deranged world, not after what she’d seen, not after the children of Buchenwald. And Étienne.

But that was why she wanted children, too. One child, anyway. Because of Étienne.

Alex wrote the Melmac company at the end of April for an appointment. Three weeks later he received a reply. They weren’t taking on any additional representatives at this particular time. They’d hold his name on file, though.

The next Friday Alex wanted to go to a dance in Preston. They hadn’t gone to any of these popular out-of-town dances before because Alex had said he wasn’t that keen on them. Adele had danced with him in Le Havre the night of their wedding and so she knew why he wasn’t keen–he wasn’t a very good dancer.

“Why?” Adele asked.

“To celebrate.”

“Celebrate? Yes, what?”

“My lifelong career at Arthur Wells and Son.”

They went with Johnny Watson and his girlfriend in Johnny’s old car. Adele had thought they were going with Ray and Nancy-she was almost sure Alex had told her that.

Johnny was driving too fast, the car seemed to careen around every curve. Adele’s body shifted against Alex. She wished he’d say something to Johnny and she wished he’d put his arm around her, but he just sat there. Johnny’s girlfriend was leaning against her door, looking angry. Apparently she and Johnny had had an argument.

Johnny pulled a bottle out of his jacket and took the cap off. He seemed to be driving with one finger. Adele could see him watching her in the rear-view mirror. They hadn’t spoken since the night of the tobogganing, he hadn’t dared come close enough, but now there he was. Johnny Watson. Her husband’s blood brother.

Johnny took a drink and handed the bottle over the seat to Alex. “We’re going to have a good time tonight.” He looked over at his sour
girlfriend. “Whoopee.”

Alex took a drink.

“Pass it to Adele.”

His mirrored eyes were burrowing into hers. “I’ll wait. Thank you,” Adele said.

“You’re welcome,” Johnny said.

Alex handed the bottle back but Johnny’s girlfriend intercepted it.

“I thought you weren’t talking.”

“I’m not.” She put the bottle to her lips and took a long drink.

“It’s going to be some night,” Johnny said.

Alex danced with Adele for a while. He liked to dance the slow numbers and sit out the fast ones. Adele liked the fast numbers.

A very competent twelve-piece orchestra and a singer Alex called a crooner were providing the music. Multi-coloured balloons were strung across the ceiling and two spinning globes like impossibly huge diamonds sent refracted light whirling through the darkened hall. It seemed as if each man had brought a bottle in a plain paper bag and was busy mixing drinks under the long tables. This seemed very peculiar to Adele, that drinking at a dance should be made illegal.

They were sitting with all of Alex’s friends and a few people Adele hadn’t met before. Alex was drinking more than he usually did. At first she wanted to tell him to remember his pills, but then she thought of Melmac and decided not to.

She loved the brassy sound of the music, she loved the smooth sound of the crooner in his white tuxedo and the imploring way he held out his hands just for her, or so it seemed, she loved the whirl and the blur of it all. Some of the other men began to invite her to dance since Alex seemed increasingly disinterested. Alex didn’t mind. Every time she came back to the table, she kissed his cheek and he squeezed her hand.

“Dance with Johnny,” he said.

“That’s all right, I’m tired.” Adele smiled apologetically across the table at Johnny.

“Come on, Adele, Johnny’s the only one you haven’t danced with.”

It was almost midnight. Johnny got up out of his chair. His eyes seemed slightly glassy and just as intrusive and unblinking as always. He bowed.

“Come on, Adele,” Alex said.

Adele got up. Johnny came around the table and took her hand and led her out on to the dance floor. He put his other hand around her waist and smiled down at her. She’d been watching him dance with the other women. He was a good dancer.

Adele kept her eyes on his chest. She could feel him pulling her gently into the music. Her feet had to move. His feet moved with hers. She tried to keep her distance.

“It’s been a good night, hasn’t it?” Johnny said.

Adele didn’t reply.

“Good music, good friends, good cheer. Just enough to drink.”

Adele didn’t reply.

“You’ve worn Alex out.”

Adele didn’t reply.

“Hello down there,” Johnny said.

Adele looked up at him. He was still smiling. How could he be so ignorant, Adele wondered. How could he not know that she hated him?

“Adele?”

“Yes?”

“I remember now.”

Her body froze, his dark eyes were piercing into hers.

“In Lyon. Two candy bars and a package of cigarettes. For the privilege of fucking you up your sweet little asshole.” He was still smiling.

Adele stopped, not completely sure that she’d heard what she’d just heard, and then she pushed him away and walked off the dance floor. By the time she got back to the table her face looked like someone had broken it.

“What happened?” Alex said.

Adele shook her head. She was trembling.

“Did he say something? Did he do something?”

All Adele could manage was to stare dumbly back at Alex. She couldn’t sit down. She couldn’t move.

Johnny was sauntering back to the table as if nothing had happened. He had his hands in his pockets and a sleepy smile on his face. Alex got up. His chair clattered to the floor behind him.

“Did you say something to Adele?”

Johnny looked shocked. “What?” he said.

Alex reached out, grabbed him by his jacket, jerked him forward and hit him in the mouth all at the same time. Blood sprayed across his face. Alex hit him again. Women screamed. Men scrambled to hold on to Alex. Johnny grinned through the blood. Alex began to swing him around. Johnny clung to his arm, grinning and grinning. His mouth was full of blood. He smiled at Alex.

Alex dropped him on the floor and pushed through the crowd and banged out the door.

Adele followed him out into the parking lot. She found him in the dark, leaning over someone’s car fender. His white shirt and best suit were spotted with blood. His shoulders were heaving.

“Oh Jesus,” Alex moaned, “he didn’t fight back. He didn’t say anything.” He looked at Adele. He looked bewildered.

“He touched me,” Adele said.

“Where?”

“Between the legs.”

After someone took Johnny to the local hospital to get fixed up, and after some standing around, Ray and Nancy drove Alex and Adele home. “He’ll be all right,” Ray kept assuring Alex.

Alex was slouched in the back, his hand covering his eyes as if he were sick or ashamed. Adele was sitting on the other side of the car-there seemed to be a mile of seat between them. Nancy hadn’t asked her what had happened. No one had asked her. It was just as well. God only knew what Johnny would say in rebuttal.

Adele stared out the window and watched the night rush by.

Ray and Nancy dropped them off in front of the Wellses’ house. The lights were on in the kitchen even though it was late. Alex stood in the driveway staring at the side door, swaying a little in the dark. Adele hadn’t realized how drunk he was. “I can’t go back in there,” he said. He started off down the sidewalk.

Adele followed him, past the neighbour’s house, past the next house. “Where are we going, Alex?”

Alex didn’t reply.

It was near the end of May and the night was pleasant enough. They walked through pools of lamp light and under rows of dark maple trees for three blocks. Alex turned into a playground, weaved around swings and teeter-totters and a sand box, and collapsed down on a bench.

Adele sat down on a bench opposite. There was one lamppost inside the playground. A swarm of insects with translucent wings were flapping around it and throwing huge shadows across the grass. Adele had noticed these same insects clinging to the screens in her in-laws’ house a few nights before. Mayflies, Alex had called them.

Alex stretched out on his bench and rested his head on his arm. A full moon sailed over the rooftops. A car went by.

Adele looked up at the light again and at the flapping swarm going around and around. The air was beginning to feel chilly. She thought of Johnny Watson. He didn’t know who she was or anything about her. And yet how he must hate her, loathe her, to say such a thing. But why? Because she had come between him and Alex? Because he had been driven half-mad by the war?

The night cooled off and the mayflies disappeared. Adele felt frozen.

It seemed to Adele that she’d just fallen asleep when Alex touched her on her shoulder. It was dawn but the sun was still screened behind the tops of the trees.

“I’m going home to change. And to tell the old man I’ve quit my job.”

Adele pushed herself up. Droplets of dew covered her bench. Her light jacket and party dress felt damp. “What are we going to do?”

Alex sat down beside her. “I won’t have any trouble finding another job.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. In one of the factories, I guess. And I know a fellow who has a house to rent. I was talking to him about renting it once I got the Melmac job. I’ll talk to him again.”

“I’ll get a job, too.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes. In one of the factories.”

Alex looked away. He looked in pain. “I’m sorry, Adele.”

“Why?”

“For Johnny. What he did. I’m sorry.”

Adele wrapped her arms around him and held him with all her might. His face felt warm against hers. After a while he disengaged himself and got back up. “Maybe I can rent that house today.”

“I’ll stay here,” Adele said. “I’ll talk to your parents later. You hurry, your mother will be worried.”

Alex started off across the playground.

The sun began to climb above the trees. The air felt warmer. Eventually she left the bench and sat on a swing. She didn’t feel hungry, she felt empty. Johnny Watson had emptied her out. She was light as a shadow, swinging softly. Her hopes and dreams, all light as a shadow. She tried to fight off a familiar feeling, the falling away into despair, the endless falling.

The dew disappeared. The sun climbed higher. A woman came into the playground pulling a little girl in a wagon.

“Good morning,” Adele said.

The woman seemed surprised to see her there, and a little uncertain. Adele thought she must make quite the sight. Her satin dancing shoes. Dangling earrings. Hair standing up on end.

The woman lifted the little girl out of the wagon. “Morning,” she said. She helped the child climb up the ladder on the slide. Adele had an impulse to walk over and stand at the bottom of the slide to help catch her, but she thought better of it.

Two boys rode across the grass on battered-looking bicycles. They hopped off, jumped on a teeter-totter and began to bounce up and down, keeping their bright, curious eyes on Adele all the while.

Adele wondered if they’d seen her from a distance and had come across to investigate. They didn’t seem particularly interested in playing on a teeter-totter. Up and down. Up and down. They seemed too old. Perhaps they’d been talking to Johnny Watson and were exciting themselves. Up and down. Up and down. Perhaps they could smell her Boche cunt.

Two young mothers were pushing baby carriages along the sidewalk. They turned into the playground.

Adele got off the swing and walked the other way.

“Adele!”

Alex was hurrying across the grass toward her. He’d changed his clothes and combed his hair. “So much for Arthur Wells and Son,” he said, coming up to her, “let’s go get some breakfast.”

They went to a tiny restaurant near the railway crossing where Alex ordered ham and eggs with toast and Adele ordered a coffee. Alex had already talked to the man about the house to rent, he had the key in his pocket. Adele could hardly believe it.

“Hurry, Alex, finish eating,” she said.

Apparently Mr. Wells had shouted at Alex for some time and then he’d left for work. Mrs. Wells had cried. Adele could only imagine what they’d thought of the blood all over his shirt and suit jacket. And what they thought of her.

She watched Alex munch his food down. He seemed happier than he’d looked in days. She was determined to feel happy, too. She’d gotten to know most of the town from her walks. This area they were sitting in was called the Junction and was a bit run down. They were within a few blocks of their new house.