Deafening (20 page)
But it was too late in the season for clouds of insects. And he was steady. She sat with her feet dangling over the edge of the platform and watched while he extended his arms to the side and walked back and forth, balancing, testing, as if he were a tightrope walker warming up before a performance. She thought of the strongmen in black slippered toes, the moustachioed men of the underwear page of Mr. Eaton’s catalogue, their narrow legs and agile pointed feet. Into and out of darkness, Jim vanished and reappeared. It was the way things had happened between them. He had come from away and had entered her life and now he was in uniform and he would have to leave. But he had promised to return.
He walked out of the dark again and dropped down beside her. A breeze was coming up and she received it against her skin. The moon was uncovered now. She inhaled softly, wondering if her breathing could be heard. She wondered if Jim had ever been so still that he made no noise outside of himself. As if to answer her unspoken thought, he circled her waist with his arm and they sat in perfect stillness. She rested her hand on his thigh, amazed at her own
behaviour, the ease of doing this. He lifted her hand and examined it under the moonlight.
She made no sign. She was aware of the water below, of weeds entwined in the beams, of the rotting wood scent of the timbers. Jim was close, fixed and solid beside her. This was the man who loved her. This was the man she loved.
His hair had been cut short and she reached up and rubbed the bristles at the back of his neck. He took her hand again but this time it was she who explored his palm and his long, slender fingers, each one pulsing beneath her own.
“Tell me,” she said.
Chim.
Her voice. The breeze was rippling the water below them and she wanted to know what he knew. “Tell me if there is sound when the waves move fast.”
His fist knocked forward at the wrist, into the air—the sign she’d taught him for
yes.
He shifted so that he could partly face her, and he moved closer so that she could see his lips in the moonlight. “But waves make a different sound when they roll into shore.”
“Tell.”
“Not loud. Not in the bay. More like lapping. The way a dog drinks from its dish. Like Carlow.”
She laughed, thinking of how she had shouted vowels at Carlow. Now he spent most of his hours in Father’s office, lying on an old rug made from rags that Mamo had contributed for his comfort.
“At the sea,” Jim said, and she watched for the words, “the waves are bigger.”
“Sound?”
“Big sound.”
“How big?”
“A steady under-roar.”
“Under—?” She thought she saw
underwear
and laughed to herself.
He heard the sound; it was like a sigh, and he laughed, too. “I made up the word. Roar. Under-roar. Second noise under the first.
When the white-tips roll in, they are never alone. They merge and cross”—Jim’s hands and arms were fluid, criss-crossing in the air—“and when you think they will crash, they slip up over the beach with no fuss at all.”
“No fuss.”
“In a north wind, it’s different.” He knew the sign for different and he made it now, separating his crossed index fingers out into the darkness. “Everything speeds up. And there is wind. Not dangerous—unless there’s a storm. If the wind is low, the ocean makes a flat sound, a slap.” He slapped one hand against the other. “The biggest noise is the roar. One day I stood on the dunes and the roar was so big I had to adjust to the sound before I could go down to walk on the beach. At first I thought it was from one of the new aeroplanes.” He pointed to the sky.
“I stood on dunes,” she said. She was straining to see his lips. “At the Sandbanks on Lake Ontario. The year we graduated, we had lunch there—a special school outing. We went in autos and drove through Picton on the way. Fry and I wanted to swim in the big lake but we were dressed up and no one brought bathing suits. If we had been alone we might have gone into the water without them.”
But they wouldn’t. Not in daytime. Maybe at night. But she and Fry would never have been there at night. Instead, they walked along the dune formations with the other girls, and followed the contours of the lake and the wide beach of sand.
She pulled into silence until Jim nudged her.
“I want to go to the ocean,” she said. “To see that big sound.”
His fist nodded forward again. His finger pointed to his lips. It was dark; she couldn’t keep up; it was impossible to see the words.
Time to go back.
They climbed down and worked their way along the path to Main Street. This time, Jim led the way, one hand behind him so that she could follow by grasping his wrist. They were silent as they crossed the empty street. Naylor’s doors were closed now; the theatre was dark. They walked quickly, the rest of the way to the post office. Neither tried to speak or sign. Grania kept her head down.
Jim did not look at her, all the way back to the tower. They went round to the side door and climbed the stairs. When they reached the landing at the top, they let themselves into the apartment, and they stood there, and clung to each other.
In the hour before his train departed from Belleville, after the men marched to the station and answered the roll and joined their families to say goodbye, Grania’s body began to clench, a knot working its way inside. The band that had marched to the station platform continued to play and she felt the beat of the drums inside her. She looked around at the crowd, at the forced smiles, and felt the excitement of many people pressed together.
Her glance took in the glimmering rails, the string of boxcars diverted to the siding, waiting for the troop train to pass through. Water was dripping through the floor of one of the freight cars as if a block of ice was melting inside, and the dirt below was spotted and dark. Bits of coal were strewn along the edge of the tracks. The troop train seemed unusually large, threateningly close. Grania gave Jim the lunch she had made and he somehow managed to tuck the cloth bag that held it under a strap at the top of his bulging kit. Neither of them spoke. He took her hand and held it firmly inside his own and she felt only the pressure of his skin on hers.
Don’t let go. The war is close. The war is closing in.
Against her will, a part of her was shutting down. It was happening to him, too.
He is leaving before it’s time to go.
And though she hated what was happening to both of them, she knew that in the same way he was pulling away, she was pulling back, searching for the safe place inside herself. If she could find it, she would stay there until he returned.
But the thrill of being part of this moment could not be denied. Jim and all of these men were leaving to serve their country. Many of the soldiers were laughing, and Grania saw them calling out to one another. Jim was grinning now, and made his way through bodies
that were pushing forward. Before he stepped up to the coach, he half-turned on the platform and searched until he saw her in the crowd. Hands and arms were waving all around. People clutched small Union Jacks. Parcels changed hands; photographs were pressed to palms; food was passed through the open windows—box lunches and containers of tea. So many men were leaning from the framed arches of the coach windows, it appeared that they would be squeezed back outside again. Hands and elbows were propped against sills and holding tight. A large number 5 was chalked on the vertical boards of the coach directly in front of Grania, the one into which Jim had disappeared.
He was heading east for more training and was to be attached to a field ambulance unit as a reinforcement. After that he would head for the coast where he would sail. He did not know his destination, the name of his ship, the date it would sail or when it would land.
She was unaware of her fingers tapping against the side of her coat. The crowd was pushing again, and once more she was forced to edge forward. Jim made his way down the aisle to the right; she watched his profile appear and disappear from window to window until he found a seat for himself near the end, on the far side of the coach. He dropped his bag and came back to a centre window, leaning from behind. The men were three and four deep, hanging over the sill. Jim searched the crowd again until he was certain they had eye contact. His right hand reached to the left side of his chest and he made her name-sign, the private
G
between finger and thumb, plucking at the tunic that covered his heart. He grinned, and dropped his arms to his sides. She thought of the way he had looked when she’d first seen him in the bandage room at school, his arms hanging down as if they were loose in their sockets. She could see the soldiers on both sides of him shouting and calling out. Someone said something to Jim and he looked to the right before replying, but she did not see his words. He looked back to her and this time he did not turn away. The train began to pull out slowly, heading east, and then it picked up speed.
Grania made the
C
, his own name-sign the last thing he saw. She let the
C
fall forward to
H
—
Chim.
Her body stilled.
She stood in the crowd for a long time after the train was out of sight. The band marched away. The sky was pale, subdued in a meagre sun. Winter was about to begin. Small clouds were stuck to the sky like thin balls of cotton, barely stretched or puffed. Children played around the platform. Wives and mothers and fathers and grandparents and friends looked as if they did not know what to do or where to go. The train’s departure seemed to signal permission for the release of tears, and women were sobbing outright as the older men beside them held their shoulders tightly and looked away into nothingness.
Grania had no tears. She stayed on with several others after the main crowd drifted away. She took in a long breath and held it, and stared hard at the empty tracks as if hopeful that, unreasonably, a second train would pull in and bring the departed men right back. She turned away and, not knowing where she was going, she began to walk.
Approximately 20,000,000 men are under arms in Europe. Allowing three yards for each man’s uniform, the clothing for these men would represent 60,000,000 yards of cloth. Sewed end to end together, this strip of cloth would cover a distance of 34,000 miles or one and one half times the circumference of the earth. The buttons for these uniforms would weigh about 2000 tons and would require 1000 horses to draw them comfortably.
The Canadian
The first man Jim met after he was attached to Number 9 Field Ambulance was named Irish and had been with Number 9 since its formation. He had a long thin face, sandy-coloured hair that was thick and unruly, and a gap between his front teeth. A cigarette dangled between his lips. As they moved forward in the breakfast line, he crushed the lit end between his fingers, flicked the ash and tucked the cigarette into his pocket. Jim, watching, could not believe the size of the man’s hands. His wrists and fingers were so large and thick, Jim felt his own hand disappear inside the other when they shook hands.
Within minutes of introducing themselves, they had figured out that Jim’s Uncle Alex and Aunt Jean had their farm only four miles from where Irish’s family had lived for generations, back home near Read, Ontario. Most of Irish’s friends who’d joined up were with the 21st Battalion.
“I’ve met your Uncle Alex,” said Irish. “It’s hard to believe that you and I haven’t come across each other before.”
“I only moved there from the east a little over a year ago. I still don’t know that many people.”
“Your parents?” said Irish.
“Both dead. My grandparents raised me, but they’re gone now, too. My grandmother died just before the war began. I lived with her on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. After she died, I moved to Ontario and helped Uncle Alex on the farm—you’ll know that his children are young. After a while, I stayed in Belleville—had a room there, and a job going the rounds with Dr. Whalen. I looked after his horse, loaded supplies, delivered messages, that sort of thing. When the doctor bought an automobile, I learned to drive. Then,” he added, “I went back to help my uncle with the fall sawing. I married Grania after that.” He said her name softly as if talking to himself, as if he were not sure whether to say her name aloud.
Irish nodded. “I’m not married. But I will be, as soon as I get home. She said she’d wait.”
He pulled a photograph from his pocket. It wasn’t more than an inch square and had been cut from a larger one. He held it out for inspection, and Jim saw a handsome young woman with pinned-up hair and a look of wariness, as if she hadn’t trusted the camera. She was wearing a high collar, and an oval brooch at her throat. The photo was unprotected, creased across the lower corner. Irish smoothed his large thumb over the surface before he put it back in his pocket.
“Clare,” he said, and Jim nodded as if he’d been introduced.
Jim offered his own photo of Grania. He had shown it to no one until now. He had taken it himself, with Grania’s box camera, shortly after they had made up their minds to be married. They had been on an early-summer picnic with Fry and Colin in Jones Woods, near the bay. The women had brought boiled-egg sandwiches with lettuce, and a marmalade cake. After they ate, Jim and Grania went for a walk and he surprised her by stopping, facing her
and making a sign with his hands. He clasped one palm firmly into the other, and then pointed to himself.
“Marry me?” He raised his eyebrows, a question.
“What?” she said. “How did you…?”
“Colin. He made me practise until I got it right.” He made the sign again.
She burst out laughing. Her inward laugh. But she had already nodded,
Yes, Yes.
He had taken the photo after that. Grania’s face had a quiet, determined look, her skin pale, even in the photo. She was not used to being in front of her own camera. She had removed her hat, and her long red hair covered her ears and was pinned loosely at the back. He remembered how she had stared unblinking while he’d looked down into the window of the black box.