What Is Left the Daughter (20 page)

There was rain and more rain, and it was dark all afternoon, more a deepening of the morning's darkness, really. It felt like the Minas Basin had gotten an early start on summer storms, impatient for the turbulence. I put a pot of tea on to boil and listened to many gramophone records in a row. In prison, this was something I daydreamed of doing, and one time asked a guard, Mr. DeForge, "Who do you like more, Beethoven, Chopin or Vivaldi?"

"I'll personally drag you out of that cell and stuff you up your own asshole," he said, "you ever ask me that kind of question again."

I'd just put on Beethoven's Sonata in F Major when the telephone rang in the kitchen. I looked at the clock: 1:20
A.M.
I picked up the receiver and said hello, and Tilda said, "Wyatt, there's two crows somehow got into the library. They're in the library right now. Listen—"

She apparently held the telephone receiver in midair, because I heard a definite
cawwwrrrruuup
loud and clear. "Hear that?" she said. "I can't read with this going on. I can't concentrate. I'm going crazy. A drawer in the card catalogue was left open a crack, and a crow plucked a whole bunch of cards right out. The other crow watched from Mrs. Oleander's desk."

"Tilda, are you asking me to drive over?"

"I've told you about these crows —do what you want."

I got to the library in maybe ten minutes. Lightning over the Minas Basin. Opening the library's front door, I heard a crow's weird voice. I left the door open. By the light of a floor lamp next to the overstuffed chair, plus shadow-flickering light cast from the fireplace, I saw Tilda in stocking feet in the corner, dressed in dungarees, a pale blue shirt and a black button-down sweater. And she was wielding a mop.

"That one crow there just shat on Mrs. Oleander's desk," she said.

"How'd they get in, do you think?"

"I'm pretty sure the wind knocked out a window upstairs. This library's got an attic, you know."

"No, I didn't know that."

I saw the file cards all over the floor. One crow was still on Mrs. Oleander's desk, silent. The other was on the long reading table, producing coughs and clicks, tearing out the page of a book, holding the cover open with its claw. I took off my shoes and threw one at this crow, who dodged the shoe and fluttered up, page in its beak, landing on Mrs. Oleander's desk. Both crows hopped about. I threw my other shoe, this time striking one crow, and both flew right at Tilda, who waved her mop, redirecting them out the front door.

Tilda slammed shut the door, then slid to the floor, laughing as hard as I'd ever known her to laugh. I threw myself onto the overstuffed chair and said, "Some life you've got now, Tilda. I see you've given up on people altogether. It's just you and books at night and crows, huh?"

"I telephoned you, didn't I? Damsel in distress and all that."

"That's never been you and never will be."

"Think what you want."

We looked at each other a moment, then Tilda said, "Before those birds flew in, you know what I was reading, maybe for the tenth time?"

"I've never read anything for the tenth time. Which book?"

"
In a German Pension,
by Katherine Mansfield."

"How far along were you?"

"Page four. Then all hell broke loose."

"I should leave you to your reading, then."

"Want to hear it, Wyatt?"

"Want to hear what?"

"
In a German Pension.
"

"The whole thing?"

"I'm ready and willing."

Tilda sat in the overstuffed chair on the right side of the fireplace. I added a few logs to the fire and brought Mrs. Oleander's chair close to the left side of the fireplace. Both chairs now faced the fire at an inward slant. When the flames steadied, we could hear rain hissing in the grate.

Tilda opened the book and said, "The first story's called 'Germans at Meat.' Once I start reading, don't interrupt me, Wyatt. I never interrupt myself when I'm reading alone, and I prefer it that way."

"I always wanted to be read to."

"Then this is your big moment."

She moved the floor lamp closer, settled back into the chair and began to read: "Bread soup was placed upon the table. 'Ah,' said the Herr Rat, leaning upon the table as he peered into the tureen, 'that is what I need.'"

Why do I still remember those sentences, Marlais? For the next three hours—at least that long—Tilda read story after story. Besides "Germans at Meat," I remember the titles of two others, "The Child-who-was-tired" and "The Sister of the Baroness," but I think there were thirteen in all.

She read each one with the same dedication.

"Well, that's that, then," Tilda said when she'd finished. "I see you're still awake, Wyatt." She set the book down on the hassock. A silence fell between us, not just defined by being in a nighttime library, or noticeable because rain drumming on the roof drowned out most other sound. No, it was something else altogether. It was as if a fleeting chance was presented us by mute angels—to reference a hymn—who couldn't later report us to God even if they'd wanted to. Tilda and I seemed to have been, for a brief time, offered a secret life, sequestered, outside the scrutiny of our neighbors in Middle Economy, a safe haven from all recent ghosts. True, no dictionary definition of love might apply to what happened between us that night, but my choice is not to consult a dictionary. Whatever else, we didn't worry to near madness what was to be done with our bottled-up emotions. There we were, in a room without any history between us, a room we'd never been in together before. It took place only that once, ending with daylight, pale in the rain-streaked windows. Clothes scattered. Fingertips less numb. The desk lamp still lit.

Marlais, father-daughter decorum insists that I not describe any more. Besides, I'd be too embarrassed, even in a letter. However, I'll risk mentioning that when you were six months old, the three of us were in the kitchen, and Tilda looked across the table and said, "In the library that night, when we sat in the overstuffed chair, tucked together like we were, I knew the moment our daughter was conceived."

You were born six pounds eight ounces at Truro General Hospital, 11:58
P.M.
on March 27, 1946. Cornelia Tell and I were called in from the waiting room to see you, all of half an hour old, held in your mother's arms. You were named Marlais Constance-Hillyer. Marlais, after Marlais Winterhew, the author of
The Highland Book of Platitudes.
Tilda chose the name.

Your mother was the love of my life. I was not the love of hers. You became the love of both of ours.

M
ARLAIS, AT MY KITCHEN
table here at 58 Robie, I'm looking at the Monday church bulletin from Middle Economy dated October 25, 1948, and the heading reads:
DANISH CITIZENS VISIT MIDDLE ECONOMY.

Marcus and Uli Mohring, now officially Danish citizens, arrived to Middle Economy by bus on Friday, October 15. Since you were about two and a half years old at the time, you probably don't—do you?—remember meeting them at the bus in Great Village. It made all the sense in the world when Tilda requested, during the few days Mr. and Mrs. Mohring set up in the house, that I keep to the shed during the day and stay in the rooms above the bakery at night. As a result, I never so much as caught a glimpse of them. Best for everyone. Naturally, their presence caused a lot of local curiosity and astonishment. It resurrected much sadness, too.

Until the magistrate's hearing took place in the library back in 1942, Donald, Constance, Tilda, Cornelia and I were the only ones who knew much about Hans. Since then, two newspaper hacks had attempted to write about the murder in Middle Economy "during the war," but nobody in the village gave them enough time, information or opinions to support a feature story. One reporter, Abigail Montrose, said in a brief article in the
Mail,
"The citizens of that outport generally met my inquiries with cold politeness." Now and then somebody stopped into the bakery and asked Cornelia where "the house where the murder took place" could be found. Or words to that effect.

"Yep, once was too often for my taste," Cornelia said. "My attitude is, serve them something to eat, let them pay for it, and don't tell them a goddamn thing. If that goes smoothly, fine. But if they don't want anything to eat, I say the townspeople aren't here to provide a dog-and-pony show." One morning I was in the bakery, this was in August 1946, I think. A middle-aged couple —Cornelia said they were from Halifax—were just leaving. They had unfriendly expressions on their faces, no doubt because they'd dealt with unfriendly Cornelia. When I sat down at a table, Cornelia said, "I'd bet that in Halifax a tour of houses people got murdered in would take longer than the five minutes it'd take in our little village, don't you think?"

"I'd bet whatever you'd bet, Cornelia, and add ten dollars," I said.

"Besides which, that man and wife who just left didn't order as much as a scone to share between them. You know what I offered them gratis, though?"

"No, what?"

"Offered to show them the door."

You may wonder, Marlais, about the history behind Marcus and Uli Mohring's coming to visit. Well, in May of 1947 Tilda had received a letter from Uli Mohring, in which she wrote, "My husband and I would like to see Dalhousie University, where Hans was so happy, and the village of Middle Economy." Tilda wrote them back directly. When a second letter arrived stating their travel dates, Tilda told them to Reverend Witt, which, in terms of getting the news around, was like having their plans broadcast on the radio.

Mr. and Mrs. Mohring's visit fell on a weekend. They attended church. Reverend Witt acknowledged them from the pulpit but didn't refer to their son in his sermon. No need to, since Hans's murder was no doubt what all the parishioners had in their thoughts, no matter what the subject of the sermon was. "Certainly, seeing them in our church caused a once-in-a-lifetime bunch of emotions," Mrs. Oleander said to Cornelia the next morning in the bakery. "And I was shoulder to shoulder with Mrs. Uli Mohring, third pew from the front. That's not something I'm likely to forget."

In the kitchen above the bakery late that Sunday afternoon, October 17, Tilda told me that Uli and Marcus Mohring had made an impression as nice people. "They're taking naps now," she said. "Mrs. Mohring is fifty-nine and Mr. Mohring's sixty-three. They have accents much thicker than Hans's was. Following the sermon and hymns, right there in the pews, they sat with twenty or so people, maybe more. They actually apologized—can you believe it?—if anyone was made ill at ease by them. Here's what else they said: 'It was very difficult traveling here. We had third-class steamer passage. But we only wanted to see where our son spent his last days. We wanted the opportunity to tell you what a good person he was. He was a good, serious student. We received a letter from Hans. It took a long time to reach us. It said he was married. That he married a Canadian young woman. We hoped to meet her.' And when they passed around photographs of Hans as a young boy, Mrs. Oleander got choked up. So did Reverend Witt. So did Charlotte Butler, from the sewing shop, and her husband, George, got choked up, too." Tilda stopped talking a moment in order to catch her breath. "And those aren't exactly sentimental types, the Butlers especially. Goodness, they were sobbing up to the rafters, the Butlers were."

"You don't have to tell me any of this, Tilda," I said.

"There
is
more to tell, but if it's all the same to you, I'll keep it to myself. One other thing, Wyatt. I read Uli and Marcus my obituary, and they helped me write it better."

"Write it better how?"

"Details from Hans's childhood. Some other facts, too. They want to see that their son is well served. Reverend Witt's going to finally put it in the church bulletin. Sunday next, he promised. Better late than never, I suppose."

"Did they ask about—"

"They already knew who'd done what, from my original letter, back from when you were in Rockhead. No, they only wanted to speak about their son and meet me." She stared out the window. "Hans looked a lot like his parents, my goodness. He had the same way of walking as his father, same eyes and eyebrows, but his mother's mouth and smile. And Hans was taller than his dad."

"Difficult, I bet, for you to see Hans in them like that."

"No. You have no idea how happy it made me."

"How did they take to Marlais?"

Tilda didn't respond right away. Instead, she got up and steeped a pot of tea. I went into the bedroom and found you sitting on the bed, Marlais. You had sheets of paper spread out, and you were drawing funny faces of people, though some had cat whiskers. I put Chopin on the phonograph and went to the kitchen. Tilda set a cup of tea in front of me. She poured her own cup, carried it to the table and sat across from me.

"We four sat together in the kitchen of my house—me, Marlais, Mr. and Mrs. Mohring," she said. "And Mrs. Mohring held Marlais on her lap, and they were peas in a pod, let me tell you. I never heard Marlais so chatty. They drew with crayons on napkins, at first nothing but silly likenesses of each other. But then Uli asked Marlais to draw a picture of her family. And Wyatt, that picture turned out to include just me and Marlais."

"And I was nowhere in sight—on that napkin."

"Well, your car was there."

"Maybe that meant I was in the shed working."

"That's anyone's guess."

Tilda sipped her tea slowly and we listened to the music. You walked into the kitchen then, Marlais, and showed us a drawing you'd done of some boats and a big sun overhead, with long sun rays sticking out, but only at the top like porcupine quills. You were in stocking feet and had on a button-up shirt and overalls.

"That's wonderful," your mother said, and gave you a hundred kisses, you giggling the whole time. When you went back to the bedroom, Tilda said, "I wanted to talk with Uli Mohring alone, so Marcus took Marlais for a walk."

"So you and Mrs. Mohring had a nice talk, did you?" I said.